I don't get Buddhism

Gloominary · November 1, 2019, 9:02pm

Buddhism isn’t that hard.
It’s more about the metaphysical than the supernatural and the moral.

The idea is that because everything is impermanent, continuously changing, interdependent and inter-generative, there’s no identity, no me, us, here or there apart from you, them, there and that, or no me-you, us-them, here-there or this-that at all.
When we believe in identity, we get disappointed, because things perish, or didn’t really exist to begin with in a hard, or in any sense.
But if we loosen, or nullify our sense of self, we don’t get disappointed.

Buddhist, ethics, rather than morals, are supposed to be a natural outgrowth of its metaphysics, instead of something you, try to do.
You don’t try to be good, you either is or you isn’t.
If I believe there’s no me, or everyone’s an extension of me and I them, then I might be inclined to treat everyone more equally, but there’s no commandment or moral absolute.

A Buddhist would perhaps live like a monk, or bohemian, with few-no attachments, wandering wherever the wind blew, without striving, clinging, even to non-clinging/striving, rather than trying to build a better, more stable world, the way a square would.

Buddhism isn’t left, right or libertarian, because these’re all identities, fixed ideas, viewpoints or modes of behavior.
The Buddhist feels things out intuitively.
He can have ideas, but he doesn’t get hung up on them, he’s flexible, ever ready to relinquish them when need be.
The ever present moment is his creed.

Prismatic567 · November 2, 2019, 7:40am

Karpel Tunnel:

Prismatic567:

2. The subconscious ‘fear of death’
P1 To desire to live one has avoid death.

To continue to live one has to avoid death. One does not need to ‘desire to live’ if one is alive. In fact it is both essentially and phenomenologically confused to say that. There are situations where one, under gunpoint say, desires not to die. Desires not to die. In the face of possible death desires not to die. But we do not need to walk around desiring to live. We are alive. And while alive I feel a desire for sex, then some chocolate, then to tackle an interesting problem and my desire leads me to do something or at least lie around yearning. Yes, we can fear a future death and desire to not die then. But that is not the same as desiring to live, especially i the context of avoiding death.

I missed out the primary premise and to be more precise I will remove the term ‘desire’ rather it is the will-to-live.

[list]A1. DNA wise all human beings are programmed to survive at all cost, i.e. to live till the inevitable [mortality].
Therefore to live one has to avoid premature death.

Note the will-to-live is programmed via the inherited DNA code as an instinctual impulse.
Thus whether one like it or not, the will-to-live is spontaneous and instinctual.
However this universal coded instinctual will-to-live may vary with different individual due to various reason due to nature or nurture reasons.
In the extreme, those who are mentally ill may have a weakened will-to-live may commit suicide and these are the exceptions.

Because the will-to-live is DNA coded and instinctual its associated impulse of to avoid and fear death is also instinctual. Note both these operate on the level of the subconscious.

Again I need to refine the above premise.

“P2 DNA wise, To avoid death, the human being is programmed to fear death.”

Again since this is DNA coded, the program to fear death is inherent with the subconscious mind.
This is in contrast to the conscious fear of death.
In the case of the conscious fear of death, one is naturally prevented to delve on it persistently so that one’s ordinary life is not disturbed. If there is a persistent conscious fear of death, then one can psycho-analyze it or seek professional help.

But re P2, the human being is not even conscious of it since it operate as an instinct within the subconscious mind.
The problem is this instinct of subconscious fear of death P2 manifest consciously not as conscious fear of death but rather as various unease, anxieties, despairs, hopelessness, Angst with unknown roots to the normal person.

While the conscious mind [10% powerful]

This is just a random number. Now, I have sympathy for that number and even the urge to use a number like one has a complete handle on the issue. I think the unconscious is much more powerful than people realize and it is, I think, a larger chunk of us at any given moment than the conscious mind, but to present a number may look like you have some scientific basis, but you don’t. Further it’s a kind of category error. The conscious mind is not a thing. We can be conscious of what is often unconscious. Contents move between these realms. And the conscious mind can have total control pretty much at any given time. It cannot sustain it, but you can make a choice to go against unconscious fears and urges or habits and do a parachute jump or eat salty licorice candy to not offend a foreign date.

The number is not a theory but merely to represent the relativeness that there is a distinct difference between the power of the conscious mind and the subconscious mind.

Yes, the conscious mind can have control over certain impulses of the subconscious mind but not total control and it is not easy. This is where the techniques of impulse-controls come in.

Being aware of the above should be a reservations for theists who normally insist God exists as real with 100% certainty in their convictions. Theists should provide reservations that their belief could be due to what the more powerful subconscious mind is driving them to be theists.
Therefrom theists should do further research to explore the above hypothesis. However in general at the present, the majority of theists would not provide any of such reservations, else their subconscious mind fear of death will torture them.

is normally inhibited to avoid the conscious fear of death, the subconscious [90% powerful] is programmed with the “fear of death” to ensure the person survive at least till the inevitable.

If it were programmed to ensure this we would all live very differently. There are all sorts of risk we would not take. And all the examples I have given in other posts of places where we choose other values over the value of continued living. 90 would trump 10 and we would not risk our lives to save our children, or strangers or pets. We would not march for civil rights or otherwise protest. We would not serve our country in the military. Drive, smoke, drink, hang glide, and all sorts of other not mentally ill behavior. 90% would trump 10 and we would be agoraphobes, all using public transport and never going out in the evenings in cities. We’d all have kevlar on which the middle class can certainly afford. No sports cars, just Volvos. No scuba diving lessons. And on and on and on.

It is that all humans are programmed with the subconscious fear of death [not conscious fear of death] that the majority of people are theists, i.e. believe and viola one is saved and given eternal life in heaven or paradise.

But note the Bell Curve which show there are variations between any large group of human beings. As such there would a small percentile of risk takers who seem to counter the subliminal fear of death.

There will be other variations to the subconscious fear of death.

However that 90% [or 80%] of humans are theists is proof the subliminal fear of death at the subconscious level is active.

For example, the majority of people has a sense of terrible unease when they standing on the edge of a 1000 foot cliff, or the extreme Acrophobia - the fear of height. This instinctual program is adapted by the majority of our ancestors who had noted falling from tall cliffs and places means instant death most of the time.
Thus whenever the majority of people stand on the edge of tall places, they will CONSCIOUSLY feel very uneasy and thus driven to avoid such places but they would not rationalize what is going on inside their SUBCONSCIOUS mind.
What they are unaware as the real reason for the unease they feel, is the subliminal fear of death that ensure they live and survive - see the syllogism above.

I was aware of why I felt unease at ledges when I was a child. I knew I was afraid I would fall and die. There was no need to rationalize what was going on in my unconscious mind - whatever that means - it seemed obvious to my conscious mind. Not that I thought in those terms. But even very, very young, I associated heights and my anxiety over them with fear of death. I was not especially afraid. I was a big tree climber. But put me near a ledge and I felt that feeling and knew what it was about.

While one is up a tree, there is the trunk and many branches to hold on to but not near an open ledge.

If you are ever conscious you could fall and die while standing near a ledge, that conscious deliberation is an after thought, i.e. after the natural instinct of subliminal fear has been triggered.
There are cases so strong, no conscious rationalization can prevent the subliminal fear of death triggering various unease.
For example re “Free Solo” even when I know Alex Honnold is alive after the climb, my hands still sweat every time [must be > 30 times] I watch the previews.

There is no way I can rationalize immediately to prevent my palms from sweating due to the instinctual fear of death within my subconscious mind. I may be able to prevent sweating of my palms while watching ‘Free Solo’ by practicing mindfulness but that will take time.

My point here is to highlight the subconscious fear of death is inherent within the subconscious mind and this instinct is unavoidable but perhaps can be modulated after practice.

As with the above examples, there are thousands of situations in life where a person feel unease, anxieties, worries, etc. which the person will attribute to what is observed consciously but failed to realize the ultimate root cause, i.e. the subliminal fear of death bubbling within the subconscious mind.

The above are the various fear factors attributed to the subliminal fears of potential death [e.g. height, poisonous animals, dark places, etc.] which can be avoided.

And let’s just note that in earlier threads you have looked forward to the day we could remove anxiety neurons. Here you are explaining their evolutionary use. They also have social uses. One of our great strengths as a species, like other social mammals, is that we matter to each other, a lot. Take away the anxieties and fears around threats and also social issues and you have taken away our humanness, our primateness, our social mammalness. And it is a form of self-hatred to yearn to do this. Just as there is a form of self-hatred in Buddhism.

Nope I have never propose that we remove anxiety neurons.
What I have always propose is to develop inhibitors to modulate the impulse of these anxieties neurons [from subconscious fear of death] to optimize the individual’s well being.
It is like we cannot remove the Yangtze River to remove flooding that killed 100s of thousands but we build DAMs to regulate/modulate its flow according to the seasons to optimize the situation.

The ultimate of Buddhism proper is to modulate the inherent impulses of the subliminal fears of death to optimize the well being of the individual[s] thus to humanity.

Note:
“P2. DNA wise, To avoid death, the human being is programmed to fear death.”

The above programmed drove the majority to respond as if there is an eternal self that will die, thus the subliminal fear of death is triggered strongly, which then drive theists to cling to a God for salvation and gain security and comfort like a security blanket.
When this security blanket is threaten by various threats theists will be triggered by a instinctual defense mechanism into defensive actions to the extreme of killing non-believers who are perceived as a threat to their security blanket.

This where Buddhism-proper introduce the concept of ‘anatta’ i.e. non-self, i.e. there is no eternal self that dies and the Buddhist is trained to modulate the subconscious fear of death. In this case, the subconscious fear of death is modulated so that it does not get triggered blindly as what theists are doing.

But there is the two-truth theory where there is also the empirical self interacting in the real empirical world [you disagree on this point] which the person must optimize its well being. To do so one must recognize the empirical self is empirically exists as real, so that one has an objective empirical self to work on to achieve optimality.
For example if one is a CEO of an organization, there is an empirical self that is a CEO and this empirical self must be developed to be optimal within empirical reality.

It is not optimal to deny one has a real empirical self and the danger of such denial is one could turn toward asceticism, escapism, & suicide.

phyllo · November 2, 2019, 1:55pm

The main problem that I see with the argument is that it equates “avoiding A” with “fear of A” and also “desire for A not to happen” with “fear of A”. Fear is not necessarily a factor although it may be in some cases.

It comes down to … What is fear? … When should we say that avoidance or desire is based on fear?

I’m not afraid of losing a game of chess although it is not the desirable outcome. I avoid dying in a fiery crash on the highway but I’m not afraid. If I was afraid, then I would not drive. My daughter is afraid to drive because she doesn’t have confidence in her abilities.

One can think of countless other examples.

One should also note that the fight-or-flight response is not an indication of fear.

Fanman · November 2, 2019, 3:00pm

Prismatic,

How does one both acknowledge an “empirical-self” and reject the “I” self, what is the difference between the two? Its like reasoning “I am” and “I am not” simultaneously. It seems to me like that would cause cognitive dissonance. To avoid suffering, wouldn’t it be more practical to remove (If we have the ability to) the aspects of life which are causing us suffering, rather than removing the whole concept of self?

phyllo · November 2, 2019, 4:32pm

Everything in life causes suffering … that’s why the ultimate goal in Buddhism, is to end rebirth.

Fanman · November 2, 2019, 4:58pm

Phyllo,

Everything in life causes suffering? Isn’t that the perspective of a pessimist? Please elaborate on what you mean? There are aspects of life that cause suffering, but I don’t think that everything in life does, not at least in my experience. I don’t understand why you would say that?

phyllo · November 2, 2019, 6:13pm

Just stating one of the fundamental concepts in Buddhism.

Contemporary translators of Buddhist texts use a variety of English words to convey the aspects of dukkha. Early Western translators of Buddhist texts (before the 1970s) typically translated the Pali term dukkha as “suffering.” Later translators have emphasized that “suffering” is too limited a translation for the term dukkha, and have preferred to either leave the term untranslated or to clarify that translation with terms such as anxiety, distress, frustration, unease, unsatisfactoriness, etc.[13][14][15] Many contemporary teachers, scholars, and translators have used the term “unsatisfactoriness” to emphasize the subtlest aspects of dukkha.[16][17][18][19][20] Contemporary translators have used a variety of English words to translate the term dukkha,[note 1] and many translators prefer to leave the term untranslated.[9]

Within the Buddhist sutras, dukkha is divided in three categories:
Dukkha-dukkha, the dukkha of painful experiences. This includes the physical and mental sufferings of birth, aging, illness, dying; distress from what is not desirable.

Viparinama-dukkha, the dukkha of pleasant or happy experiences changing to unpleasant when the causes and conditions that produced the pleasant experiences cease.

Sankhara-dukkha, the dukkha of conditioned experience. This includes "a basic unsatisfactoriness pervading all existence, all forms of life, because all forms of life are changing, impermanent and without any inner core or substance."[web 1] On this level, the term indicates a lack of satisfaction, a sense that things never measure up to our expectations or standards.
Various sutras sum up how life in this “mundane world” is regarded to be dukkha, starting with samsara, the ongoing process of death and rebirth itself:[note 2]
Birth is dukkha, aging is dukkha, illness is dukkha, death is dukkha;

Sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair are dukkha;

Association with the unbeloved is dukkha; separation from the loved is dukkha;

Not getting what is wanted is dukkha.

In conclusion, the five clinging-aggregates are dukkha.
Dukkha is one of the three marks of existence, namely dukkha (“suffering”), anatta (not-self), anicca (“impermanence”).

The Buddhist tradition emphasizes the importance of developing insight into the nature of dukkha, the conditions that cause it, and how it can be overcome. This process is formulated in the teachings on the Four Noble Truths.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dukkha#Buddhism

In Buddhism, the Four Noble Truths (Sanskrit: catvāri āryasatyāni; Pali: cattāri ariyasaccāni) are “the truths of the Noble Ones”, the truths or realities for the “spiritually worthy ones”.[1][web 1][2] The truths are:
dukkha (suffering, incapable of satisfying, painful) is an innate characteristic of existence with each rebirth;[web 2][3][4]

samudaya (origin, cause) of this dukkha is the "craving, desire or attachment";[web 3][5][6]

nirodha (cessation, ending) of this dukkha can be attained by eliminating all "craving, desire, and attachment";[7][8]

magga (path, Noble Eightfold Path) is the means to end this dukkha.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Noble_Truths

Karpel_Tunnel · November 2, 2019, 6:29pm

There is an aggregate, according to Buddhism, that exists and interacts and has a name. It should be treated with compassion and it should treat others with compassion. But it does not have a self. Ulitmately, there is no self, just a shifting experiencing. The one who will have that name (and likely the same ID forms) next year, is not the same self as you are now, for example. It will have a number of qualities in common, but there is no self that persists through time in Buddhism. The self is considered illusory.

But this doesn’t mean one shouldn’t take care of ‘the experiencing body’, yours or others. That experiencing should be as suffering-free as possible so we are to be kind to ‘each other’, even though we and these others have no duration.

Fanman · November 2, 2019, 6:43pm

Phyllo,

Oh okay, I thought that was your opinion… I don’t think that a human-being can ever be satisfied. No matter what we have, there will always be something else that we want, which can lead to suffering - that is human nature. So Buddhism’s take on this (albeit from a much wider perspective) is that to eliminate this “suffering”, we must eliminate the source, which the self.

Rather than engaging in Buddhism to resolve aspects of ourselves that are inextricably linked to what we are, or our very nature. Why not just accept them and learn to live with them? Negation of the self is an extreme coping mechanism - which I think would lead to cognitive dissonance as one continually suppresses their natural state of being.

Fanman · November 2, 2019, 6:47pm

KT,

It sounds like a way of life that some kind of binary alien race would engage in. Gives me the creeps personally.

Karpel_Tunnel · November 2, 2019, 6:58pm

Well, you don’t have to walk around thinking about these two selves, in fact Prismatic’s emphasis strikes me as idiosyncratic. Heavy Western thinky mind version of Buddhism. But that’s what the practices will lead you to realize or ‘realize’ depending you what a person believes from the inside or outside.

phyllo · November 2, 2019, 7:05pm

I think that there is a lot of truth in it.

Buddhism says that you can do something about it.

No. There is no self … there never was … you need to realize it. Then you need to get rid of “craving, desire or attachment”.

That means being trapped in an eternal cycle of rebirth and suffering. The point is to end the cycle.

The Noble Eightfold Path (Pali: ariya aṭṭhaṅgika magga; Sanskrit: āryāṣṭāṅgamārga)[1] is an early summary of the path of Buddhist practices leading to liberation from samsara, the painful cycle of rebirth.[2][3]

The Eightfold Path consists of eight practices: right view, right resolve, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right samadhi (‘meditative absorption or union’).[4] In early Buddhism, these practices started with understanding that the body-mind works in a corrupted way (right view), followed by entering the Buddhist path of self-observance, self-restraint, and cultivating kindness and compassion; and culminating in dhyana or samadhi, which re-inforces these practices for the development of the body-mind.[5][6][7][8] In later Buddhism, insight (Prajñā) became the central soteriological instrument, leading to a different concept and structure of the path,[5][9] in which the “goal” of the Buddhist path came to be specified as ending ignorance and rebirth

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_Eightfold_Path

phyllo · November 2, 2019, 7:10pm

There is much truth in this concept of self.

Karpel_Tunnel · November 2, 2019, 7:14pm

Well, if you believe that, and like the practices, then it might be a good fit.

phyllo · November 2, 2019, 8:20pm

I’m an amalgam of various philosophies and religions and practices.

Karpel_Tunnel · November 2, 2019, 8:29pm

Who isn’t?

Karpel_Tunnel · November 2, 2019, 9:37pm

And of course if you were controlled by your DNA’s desire to live as long as possible, as Prismatic frames it, you wouldn’t drive at all.

iambiguous · November 3, 2019, 12:47am

As we all know, there are those billions of years before any particular one of us come into existence. And then all those billions of years that will follow after each of us one by one dies.

And while some believe we lived before and/or will continue to live after, we can believe anything.

In the interim is the sense of self that goes about the business of subsisting from day to day for, on average, 70 odd years.

And while there may well be no essential self that embodies the sum of all parts in everything that we think, feel, say and do, there are clearly parts that are considerably less illusory than others.

The self that feels hunger, the self that feels thirst. The self that must have any number of things in order just to survive. Things that any community must produce in social, political and economic interactions that for the preponderance of us are in turn anything but illusory.

Sure, particular religious communities can separate themselves from the larger community. They can go about the business of providing for themselves. But each individual self here is still no less composed of any number of factors that are clearly not illusory.

Squabble all you want about what [philosophically] constitutes an identity here but any number of components that comprise your own are not just thought into and out of existence. Real is everywhere here.

But then the parts that some insist are real that, instead, are, if not illusory, comprised of a self that is ever and always evolving over time given new experiences. The self that, over the years, accumulates any number of value judgments that shift and change in a world bursting at the seams with contingency.

Of course, the folks who own and operate the means of production, are often quite content to have a citizenry that preoccupies itself with enlightening the soul. With personal salvation. That way they won’t be meddling politically in who owns what and who gets what.

And who doesn’t.

phyllo · November 3, 2019, 1:18am

Not only is the self an illusion but “any number of things” is also an illusion.

All these “things” are a product of the mind.

Fanman · November 3, 2019, 4:01am

Phyllo,

I certainly don’t dispute that there is, or that it works. I just don’t find it appealing. There are negative aspects of the sense of self, but if we lose it entirely, we also lose the positive aspects.

As do many other religions, self-help philosophies and practices. I’m quite sure that there are elements of truth in all of them, because they are all derived from the human experience and created by knowledgeable people. They juxtapose our hopes, fears and dreams.

They all claim to improve the human condition, so I suppose the ones we draw from are those which appeal to us the most.

Which just seems wrong to me on a fundamental level. Like training oneself to believe that when you close your eyes, the world disappears! Craving, desire and attachment can all lead to suffering, but they can also be the cause of positive experiences. I think it depends on how we balance things up.

If you take the Buddhist’s view then yes, but from my humble perspective many of the things that Buddhism perceives as suffering are not sufferings in and of themselves, but how we perceive and interact with them.