I don't get Buddhism

Note: you shift to atheism. My post was talking about your belief in the meaninglessness of life. This is a very common habit you have.

You shift the topic.

Now,yes, your atheism is part of why you think things are meaningless, but here we are in a Buddhism thread. Buddhism is actually more severe (in many of its forms) than mere Western atheism. The Western Atheist may or may not be afraid of the loss of self at death, but generally thinks they get this time. Their self lasts throughout their lifetime. Buddhism generally asserts that there is no self that persists through time. In fact the comfort comes in So you don’t even get that basic facet of Buddhism. One stops worrying about death because one realizes that there is no self to lose. That actually in much of buddhism what comes back via rebirth, not via reincarnation, is not you, but a pattern that is similar to the pattern that was there before. Not only will the ‘you’ that is now nto experience this next life, but ‘you’ won’t be around next week. There is no you. It’s dasein-based non-essentialism on steroids, Buddhism. And Buddhism is generally also atheist, so you’re raising atheism is, well, just silly, here, apart from the way it is a strawman, since I was focused on something else. And many atheists are fairly ok with dying, in the end, including Western ones. Unlike you. In fact scientific materialism also goes against a self that persists through a lifetime, since the matter in the body is being replaced all the time. YOu think you are facing uncomfortable truths and others comfort themselves, but that is hardly the case.

Many atheists are ok with dying. But not you. Some of them may have spent some time contemplating eternal existence. Some may simply be engaged in life in ways you are not. There are likely all sorts of reasons. But you assume that

your
ideas
must
lead
to
your despressed life hating state.

But notice also that you don’t actually deal with my argument.

People choose death, resignation, avoidance of life all the time to get away from social shame, embarrassment, guilt, loss of love.

You may think this is illogical, but then this presumes that people make all their choices based on logic. Or that people even know what they are doing. We know from cognitive science that people make poor choices all the times, make choices that are not based on logic all the time and so.

Further are you really going to tell me that people who kill themselves when it is found out that they have photos of them on the internet giving blow jobs to someone (say a high school girl) or have committed crimes or not longer have the wealth they had or the job they had and can’t face their families

all

think

they are going to heaven or will be reincarnated?

People actively choose actual death to avoid all sorts of social feelings, all the time.

Read that again: you think people would not choose a despressing belief to comfort themselves. Not only will they choose comforting beliefs to comfort themselves, they will actually end their own existences to avoid all sorts of social pains. And they are not assuming they are coming back. And these suicides are often well planned, not just impulsive.

You could certainly find comfort in holding onto beliefs that mean there is no point in trying to find love or intimacy ever again and going through pain you have gone through before. Humans do shit like that all the time.

People will avoid getting angry even if this leads to depression and suicide, because anger is so ego-dystonic for them.

You don’t realize it, but basically what you have just asserted is there is no chance you are confused about your own motives and further that you make choices based on logic.

Good luck with that type of blanket self-assessment.

And you can label things you do not understand as babble, but the truth it’s obvious you don’t know much about cognitive science, psychology in general, how people make decisions, contradictions in the self, secondary gain around beliefs and behavioral patterns and more. Just because you have lacked an interest and any study of a subject (either formal or self-guided) does not make it babble.

It must be gibberish, because you don’t like the door it opens.

And jesus, you don’t know basic shit about Buddhism. Notice your assumption that Buddhism offers comfort via beliefs. WEll, some manage that I’m sure, but actually Buddhisms beliefs are extremely disturbing, not only will you not go on experiencing after death, but tomorrow morning it will nto be you, there is no permanence at all. The comfort Buddhism offers is via practice not beliefs. That there is nothing to lose, rather than what you keep assuming that one comes to believe in reincarnation. But you’d know this kind of shit if you actually spent time trying to understand it and interacting with practitioners face to face and participating.

But you are not interested. So your posts just reveal idiotic Western assumptions and then your own particular idiotic twists on these. And if the conclusion is problematic, you pretend that your ignorance means you are a good judge of the coherence of anything presented to you.

You may think some gallery you are playing to will agree with you, but there’s only a few people interacting with you. And to a large degree the three of us notice the exact same things about you. Over and over.

You’re a troll here - faux interest - and a liar elsewhere.

You missed the one essential word that he uses.

“ESSENTIALLY meaningless”

He’s not saying that people don’t find things or actions to be meaningful. He’s not saying that he personally doesn’t find things or actions to be meaningful.

The ‘real problem’ is that he has not found something which all rational people are obligated to consider meaningful.

Notice also that he is not saying that there is no such thing. He’s only saying that he has not found it.

And this mirrors the other ‘problems’ :

He has not found the objective morality that all rational people are obligated to accept.

He has not found a god, the true god, THE God that all rational people are obligated to believe in.

He has not found the one religion …

He has not found the one philosophy …

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Since this is all about iambiguous not Buddhism, I responded to it on iambiguous’ thread “on discussing god and religion”.

No, I note that given the manner in which, in many important respects, I construe the self here as an existential fabrication/contraption rooted in dasein, “I” have come to conclude certain things – here and now – about certain aspects of human interactions in a particular subjective, subjunctive fashion.

That it does not appear to “me” that philosophers are able to pin “meaning” down definitively.

And that of greater importance is one’s capacity to close the gap between what one claims to believe [about anything] and an actual demonstration that all rational people are obligated to believe the same.

And then for, among others, the Kantians to note their capacity to link rationality with virtue given their reaction to human behaviors in conflict over value judgments in a particular context.

What’s your point? How, in the absence of a God, the God, my God, or demonstrable proof that there is in fact an essentially meaningful link between enlightenment/karma and reincarnation/Nirvana, are religious value expressed here not instead the embodiment of existential meaning rooted in dasein?

I’m not claiming that essential meaning doesn’t exist between life and death, between “I” here and now and “I” there and then, only that “I” myself [here and now] don’t believe it. Though I never I argue that I can actually demonstrate this!

Again: Huh?!!!

Over and over and over again, I make this distinction between 1] things construed as meaningful to us in regard to objective realities embedded in the either/or world and 2] moral and political value judgments that revolve around assessments of what constitutes a rational understanding of the world around us. That which “I” construe to be more the intersubjective/intersubjunctive embodiment of dasein.

How, in this regard, am “I” a liar? Well, it could be shown that in fact God does exist. Or that in a No God world mere mortals can in fact define or deduce rational and moral behavior into existence. Or science is able to demonstrate empirically why a particular behavior in a particular context either is or is not inherently/necessarily rational/virtuous.

So, sure, I could be a liar in that what I think is true here and now turns out not to be true at all.

So, okay, Mr. Religious objectivist or Mr. No God moral objectivist, come up with the demonstrable argument and settle it.

This, however, is not the most important point in my view. That revolves instead around the God and the No God objectivists who insist that not only are there essential religious and moral and political truths, but that there must be because they have, in fact, already found them.

Then down through the ages they have acquired the necessary political power to, among other things, weed out the infidels.

And, no, not just the Communists.

And to the extent that conclusions of this sort become either solutions or problems is in turn embedded existentially in dasein.

Then, in grappling with this aspect of one’s “self”, it can devolve further into the assumption that “I” is fractured and fragmented.

That, all the more grimly, some think, it appears entirely reasonable that this be the case.

‘Essentially’ doesn’t personalize what it modifies. It means…

It is an objective adverb. IOW it means that those are the qualities of the thing not merely his experience of them. Though maybe I misunderstood your point. Something might seem meaningful, but essentially, it is not that. It’s real nature is meaningless.

Notice here, he denies that he is saying that their values are ‘inherently’ meaningless.

My emphasis.

He denies it but uses a synonym elsewhere to describe values in general, and here in the Buddhist thread.

And that’s a valid philosophical viewpoint. It’s not that he makes the claim, it’s that he denies making the claim.

And there is a big difference between saying that one is not convinced something is X and stating that something is not X. Since he denied the latter, I quoted him saying the latter. That life was in essence meaningless. That’s its real nature is meaningless.

I really don’t know how to get more smoking gun than this. I never said X. Quote of person saying X.

Sure. I mean, I’ve seen the ‘all rational people criterion’ aimed at morals and then also at processes that might make one feel better. I hadn’t seen it aimed at meaning, but it wouldn’t surprise me.

He asserts that they are essentially meaningless. He doesn’t say that he hasn’t found it himself. He may say that elsewhere.

I would not be surprised at all if on other occasions he personalizes it and frame things in skeptical terms and/or in terms of what he has not found. But then he also allows himself to dismiss things in objective terms as if they do not exist. He said he never said something, yet, in the very thread he denies saying such things, he said precisely that a number of times.

I mean, if we had a man in a relationship who made it clear on many occasions that he thought women and men were equal, but every now and then said to his wife something like ‘Well, of course you’d say that, all women are C____s’ , I don’t think one has to believe he isn’t sexist or, in this case, making objective claims. One can have contradictory beliefs. One can also be confused about what one believes.

We are not monolithic creatures and I think it’s a disservice to everyone to pretend he doesn’t act like an objectivist, for example, when at other times he denies it.

In this instance he clearly made statements that SHOULD lead someone to believe what Felix said he believed. I mean, even a tiny bit of integrity would have led him to concede that he made a lot of statements that would give any human being the impression he meant that, but he communicated poorly.

But no, he responded with ‘I never said that.’

Well, sorry, he did. And not just once. And I stopped looking, just in this thread, after I had a number of examples.

Notice how he responds to you…

So, as quoted he claimed several times that it is absolutely necessary that human interactions/human existence/the world is meaningless.

And then he tries to shift the onus.

I didn’t say X.
What I meant was X (again).
If you think that’s wrong, demonstrate it to all rational people.

Notice where he skips demonstrating his position, one he also denies he has, to all rational people.

I do understand he believes people may think something is meaningful.

Essential meaning is objective meaning.

Biggus doesn’t say that it doesn’t exist. He says that he has not found it and nobody has demonstrated it to him.

Biggus doesn’t deny subjective meaning. But it’s the product of dasein. An existential contraption.

Is he lying? Technically no.
Is he confusing? Yes.

LOL That he is.

Perhaps, he is himself confused about what he believes and this shows through in what he writes. He is confusing because he si confused, even about himself. Or cagey: he might also realize that consciously or not, that making the strong claim that there is no meaning means HE would bear the burden of proof.

And I think we both know he wants the burden of proof always to be something only other people bear.

In any case, it seems to me in his quotes, for example the one describing me, he is saying that meaning doesn’t exist. I know on other occasions he will say he hasn’t found it. But it seems to me he allows himself to make objective claims that it does not exist, then is surprised and sometimes outraged that anyone could think he meant that claim.

Like here again…

This sentence even includes his reaction AND the essentially meaningless world. Not his interpretation, not his experience of, not what seems to be…

but is reaction to an essentially meaningless world. Not qualification. And there were other quotes and I quite looking early.

I do believe that when called out on this he will return to his ‘official position’ which is that he does not know. But people can have official positions they identify with and not take responsibility for what they also believe. And sometimes these unofficial opinions are more real for them.

But I’ll drop this here. Just to be clear again, I think you are correct about his official position and that you could probably find a number of quotes to support that, just as I did for mine.

On the contrary, in regard to human interactions in the either/or world, there are any number of variables, factors, relationships etc., that we seem able to demonstrate to others as essentially/objectively true.

For example, Donald Trump is now president of the United States. Unless, of course, unbeknownst to me, Trump just died of a heart attack.

Now, assuming he is still alive and well, there is a mountain of objective/essential facts that we can accumulate about the man. Dasein here revolves only around what as an individual I think I know about him. Can what I think I know about him be demonstrated to others?

Or, on this thread, what can I demonstrate is true about Donald Trump in regard to what he gets about Buddhism?

So, I can Google Donald Trump and Buddhism: google.com/search?source=hp … ent=psy-ab

I can wade through all of this and decide for myself what is in fact essentially/objectively true.

Instead, on threads like this, my interest revolves around what others think they “get” about Buddhism as this is pertinent to the manner in which I construe subjective points of view here as the embodiment of dasein. And then in what they might be able to demonstrate that all rational and enlightened people are obligated to “get” about it in turn.

In regard to “morality here and now” and “immortality there and then”. My own “thing” here in regard to God and religion.

But this is always a tricky thing even in regard to the either/or world. For example, meaning is pouring in around the country regarding the death of George Floyd. Individuals impart different meaning to it. And that meaning is subject to what they think they know about the death itself, the circumstances surrounding it, the role that race and police brutality plays in it…and on and on.

To construe “I” in the is/ought and not often feel confused, uncertain, ambiguous, ambivalent etc., is basically/precisely the point I make about the objectivists. All of that is subsumed for them in whatever they anchor “I” to in order to sustain that feeling of being in sync with the “real me” in sync with the “right thing to do”.

Like somehow you do?

How about this:

Why don’t you and KT get into a discussion about these two factors in regards to God and religion? And, sure, by all means, completely avoid contact with anything resembling “a particular context”.

Is Karma a Law of Nature?
It seems Matthew Gindin is destined to ask, and answer, this question.

Sure, it’s one thing to speculate that “overall” karma has a role to play in our lives. Clearly there are behaviors that we can choose that precipitate consequences that come back to impact our lives in either a constructive or destructive manner. And, up to a point, this can be calculated in a reasonable manner. Cause and effect here is calibrated day in and day out by many of us. Given the gap between what we think we know about any particular situation and all that can be known. But then to reconfigure this into a religious narrative where karma becomes linked to either enlightened or unenlightened choices leading to an afterlife where one is better or worse off…?

How is that brought down to earth?

Here of course the “absolute law” is ever and always encompassed in the religious narrative itself. Subscribe to Buddhism and you have one set of moral parameters, subscribe to Catholicism and you have another, subscribe to Scientology and you have another still. Some with a God, the God, others with altogether different fonts.

But, for me, it always comes down to this: that while karma “exerts an influence over all things”, what does it mean to speak of “Cosmic Justice” here and now in this set of circumstances given all that is at stake?

Either this or that denomination can, demonstrably, encompass the optimal choices that one can make, or, instead, it’s the way it actually seems to be: leaps of faith taken to any number of denominations that are ever evolving and changing over time historically or across space culturally.

Then coming down experientially to the actual experiences that any individual has predisposing him or her to this rather than that leap of faith.

But just how “absolute” are the paths here? And what happens when they come into conflict? It’s no wonder then that any number of “ecumenical” pathways are forged through the dogmatic thickets. That way religion becomes a kind of cafeteria. You pick and choose only those behaviors that provide you with the least possible restrictions. You bet on a more progressive or liberal God to judge your soul.

Sure, if you’re after a “workable theory of morality”, almost any “world of words” can suffice. But either enlightened behavior and karma are better suited to, say, giving birth to unborn babies or it’s okay to abort them. Well-being may revolve for any particular pregnant woman around giving birth or in killing the unborn baby. Same with suffering. And given the manner in which someone “gets” Buddhism that will translate into a better afterlife or a worse one.

But which? And how can that actually be demonstrated?

From the Secular Buddhism Podcast

“What Is Secular Buddhism”

First, of course, secular Buddhism? Is that even possible in the minds of those who call themselves religious Buddhists? Here for example?

Buddhism in which the benefits of the practice – a way to constructively discipline the mind and body – are not attached to an understanding of enlightenment and karma as a means to an end. The end being reincarnation and Nirvana.

Indeed, to what extent does secular Buddhism delve at all into the actual existential relationship between morality here and now and immortality there and then.

After all, if the aim is to focus in on a Buddhism that “speaks to me”, where does that frame of mind end and my own frame of mind – dasein – begin? One can choose to be a secular Buddhist in any particular historical and cultural and experiential context? How then do the variables attached to a “particular world” impact one’s understanding/embodiment of Buddhism?

Yes, up in the stratosphere of psychologisms – “a tendency to interpret events or arguments in subjective terms” – this “general description intellectual contraption” can do wonders [for some] in attaining and then sustaining some semblance of mental and emotional equanimity.

But: it ever and always depends on what you “see”. On the actual experiences and sets of circumstances you must endure; and on the options available to you in dealing with them.

Everyone has a different line to draw/cross here.

Thus when someone speaks of “the way we see things”, the implication is that there are better ways in which to see them instead. And sometimes there are. And if a secular Buddhist provides you with a pathway that does in fact make your life more tranquil and productive and worthwhile…?

On the other hand, anyone who suggests the focus should be more on changing the way you see the world rather than changing the world itself has never read, among others, Marx and Engels.

Or take the reality of racism and police violence. The headlines screaming at us here. Does secular Buddhism focus in on things like that?

Without Dharma there would be no Buddhism, no… anything.

There would be no anything without Dharma, no… Buddhism.

Suffering, you know, as like, more than just a concept.

Why do many think we need to suffer though?

What is this suffering thing about, that many speak of? Don’t stray far from Dharma, and you’ll redeem your karma… a question of checks and balances, weights and measures, is all it is.

Sure, it’s possible. Those can be taken as metaphors. Someone does the practices, notes benefits, presumably (since they are calling themselves a secular buddhist), for example less suffering.

That would depend on the secular buddhist in question.

This seems up in the clouds and abstract. ‘The aim’…? Whose aim?

Actually it seems like it is not mere semblence, but mental and emotional equanity as measure during scientific research of people who have meditated a long time. But this has been pointed out before.

What depends on this?

Sure. Same with studying to be a chef.

And if that’s what you want, then you probably are glad that you followed that path. If it isn’t what you want or you didn’t seem to get it or fit the path or changed your mind, then not.

I dont think that’s true. I think people could read Engels and Marx and…disagree. Or do you mean here that Marx and Engels were just plain right, so if they have read them they should be convinced. That seems to be the implicit claim.

Secular buddhist certainly could, and I would guess some do.

It seems like you are making some unsupported assumptions in this post. Quite a number.

Hm. I’ve presented my thoughts in particular contexts a number of times. Could you demonstrate that you claim above that we are avoiding contact with particular contexts such that all rational people will agree.

I still haven’t quite gotten why your claims never seem to need any justification at all but others should produce utterly convinging arguments.

it’s remarkably like solving little chess problems responding to you. Find the implicit or explicit fallacy or objectivist claim on your part.

Of course with chess problems, if you find the solution, at least online, you get a response that says you found the solution.

Nothing new here.

Unless, of course, I missed it.

The Role of Karma in Buddhist Morality
Barbara O’Brien

Isn’t that basically my aim here as well?

What can Buddhism teach us about morality here and now? But: only insofar as this is explored in connecting the dots existentially between the behaviors that individual Buddhists choose on this side of the grave and that which they anticipate the fate of “I” to be on the other side of it.

In other words, the nitty gritty reality of practicing Buddhism from day to day in their own actual lives.

Actually, depending on the context, adherence to “external rules” can be anything but superficial. They can literally revolve around life and death, around immense personal satisfaction and fulfilment…or an even greater plunge into misery and travail.

And either individual Buddhists are willing to explore the uncertainties and the ambiguities embedded in “conflicting goods” with me here or they aren’t. After all, my own attempts to grapple with them have resulted in a fractured and fragmented “I”. How have they avoided this?

Okay, true enough. But there has to be some measure of reward and punishment able to be calculated by particular individuals in order to invest all of the time and the effort required to master a discipline like Buddhism. And sooner or later this disciplined mind is confronted with existential contexts in which conflicting goods run rampant and one’s reactions to them are connected – somehow – to one’s fate on the other side of the grave.

All I’m interested in pursuing on this thread is an exploration of it all in depth. You live your life as a Buddhist. You are confronted with the same world as I am. A world inundated with human pain and suffering. Pain and suffering often derived from conflicting assessments of morality here and now and immortality there and then.

How specifically in terms of the behaviors that you choose do you intertwine that choice in enlightenment, karma, reincarnation and Nirvana?

“The world is illusion. Brahman alone Is. The world is Brahman.” Shankaracharya

Brahman?

“Brahman connotes the highest Universal Principle, the Ultimate Reality in the universe. In major schools of Hindu philosophy, it is the material, efficient, formal and final cause of all that exists. It is the pervasive, infinite, eternal truth and bliss which does not change, yet is the cause of all changes.” Wikipedia

Come on, realistically, how could this be true in any other but a wholly determined universe?

Once you factor in human autonomy, you factor in the subjective point of view that has never been able to pin down the ‘Ultimate Reality’. Instead we have perspectives on things which very, very often engender conflicts that afflict us time and again with all manner of human pain and suffering.

So of course in the world that we live in such things as Brahman are invented in order to subsume all the harrowing aspects on human interactions in that which one only has to believe is true “in one’s mind”.

What about an indetermined universe? Why wouldn’t it be true in that universe?

And that is exactly what’s in question in this thread. My main question is: how can anybody know this?