What is the point in living, if it’s mostly used to think about dieing? perhaps that is why we are in two different discussions…
Now that I have clarified my Behavior, in the manner in which I choose to live my life, perhaps your future inquiries will be less broad…
Haha!
From my own perspective:
The extent to which someone does or does not think about death a lot or a little is no less an existential contraption rooted in dasein. That’s true of you, that’s true of me, that’s true of others. Then it comes down to how wide the gap is between my understanding of “I” as “an existential contraption rooted in dasein” and yours and theirs. There is no right understanding though. There is only each individual’s point of view. More or less rooted in the life they have lived and more or less rooted in a philosophical examination of that life.
Or are there those here able to argue not only what all rational men and women are obligated to think about death, but how much time each day should be allotted to the task?
Like they say, few things will narrow your thinking like a cancer diagnosis. Obviously, the closer you are to a set of circumstances which includes imminent death, the more likely you are to become preoccupied with it.
Then, of course, that other aspect of dasein here: God and religion. Thinking about death given the belief in an afterlife and salvation can be very different from thinking about it in the shadow of oblivion.
This clarification is, from my point of view, no less a subjective/subjunctive predisposition given the particular set of experiences that you have had, given the particular world that brought them about.
The point of philosophy then [in my view] revolves around exploring this:
Existentially, these words have come to mean what they do to me “here and now”. But, “here and now”, your own life might have been such that they mean something…or almost nothing at all.
That’s why I always suggest they be examined out in the world of actual human interactions.
Vygotsky was an innovator in education whose ideas are now mainly accepted. One of his basic ideas is that there are two ways to look at a student level. What problems they can solve on their own, and what problems they can solve with support from their teachers. The region in between these two ability levels is the Zone of Proximal Development.
To help the learner get from the independent level to the supported level there is scaffolding…
Note that the support is in activities. Children dissect a pithed frog while studying anatomy and physiology in vertebrates. They go out in nature and study a parasitic vine on a tree. Younger children manipulate blocks to understand subtraction. Specialized professional adults first watch then use on animals a surgical robot or study the effects of partical impacts they created in cloud chamber images. They interact and control processes and experience stuff. And then they do it again. This can be for physical skills training but also to even understand abstruse concepts. Children and adults alike scaffolded by experiences organized by mentors.
Learning.
In Buddhism the scaffolding is primarily meditation. Very simple heuristics are given to aid and scaffold meditation (and a few other activities). One is also scaffolded by simple heuristics that can look like Western morality, but is actually practical rules for behavior that reduces suffering and also aids the meditation.
There is generaly very little intellectual discussion of terms like karma and nirvana. For several reasons. The terms are out of reach. They are
NOT
in the Zone of Proximal Development.
The student lacks the experiences to understand these concepts, just as nearly all third graders cannot be scaffolded to understanding Einstein’s theory of relativity. No supportive activites can do this.
And let’s remember that we, like in the Einstein example, dealing with paradigmatic challenges. Even at the level of thought you need to go through anxiety and tremendous resistance. Other ‘things’ to be learned have much more experiential support processes. 3rd graders using the words, without years of both experiential and conceptual slow building up, will not be able to use those words competently. No matter how much they banter those words about even with an MKO (more knowledgable other - another V term). The talking does not help. The difference is too great. Conclusions and understanding of the words are outside the ZPD.
And oversimplified version of Vygotsky’s ideas here…
simplypsychology.org/Zone-o … pment.html
A buddhist would recognize that their practices and MKO student relationship is an example of Zone of Proximal development and would also notice that Buddhism generally notes that introduction of concepts too early and CERTAINLY focus and intellectualizing them inhibits development.
But those without experience and little knowledge can lecture their MKOs that they are wrong and the best way to learn is intellectualling things with no experience.
The scaffolding in Buddhism is mainly meditation. That’s thousands of hours this kind of experiential scaffolding for every minute of discussing buddhist ideas.
If the question is; why should I bother investing so much effort and time into something I do not understand? First off, notice that that is a different issue. If it is correct that one needs primarily experiential scaffolding AND mental blathering over concepts is not only not scaffolding but actually damaging, the this objection is not compelling in the least for changes in mentor practice. Second, if you are not interested, don’t bother. If your motivation is low, don’t bother. If the attraction is low, don’t bother.
Edit: the suggestion after ‘Second’ is my suggestion, not an official stance of Buddhism, if there are such things.
…a touch of ‘the solipsisms’ perhaps, in the unsureness… on certain aspects of existence, that are as yet unknown.
Iam said: What of enlightenment, karma, reincarnation and Nirvana for them when there wasn’t even a Buddhist religion around to turn to?
Perhaps they had each other.
Iam asked: Now, given examples from your own life, what does it mean to have a “fluid, like water” kind of mind?
…to attain a constant stream of consciousness, that takes one through one’s day… with ease, that helps with attaining and actioning thoughts during awake time. This would aid in stringing two or more helpful thoughts/actions together, and action them simultaneously… multi-tasking, if you will.
Iam asked: And, in particular, how would you describe that in regard to your moral and political and spiritual convictions.
In choosing, doing, and being, that which my stream of conscious thoughts think is the best thing to do… and don’t even get me started on my subconscious ones. 
And what is the best thing to do? I hear you ask… Well! why that would be whatever brings peace to my mind, I would say… Blocking out all else… until only ‘I’ remain… as the thoughts, in my head.
…in constantly being there… in never deserting, and always alerting… although it almost did try to desert me, a few times now, through the Medium… of death. The mind becomes different, after that… as I’m sure others who have found themselves in a similar situation, can attest to, and what I can only describe as a hard reset followed by a very slow and constantly buffering re-upload of my former self.
I think… that it is only when one feels one is dieing, then when thinks about death, but otherwise no. You can beg to differ though… from your perspective, that is.
Sein-zum-Tode, or… being-toward-death …a process of growing through the world where a certain foresight guides the Dasein towards gaining an authentic perspective.
In Dasein’s individuation, it is open to hearing the “call of conscience” (German Gewissensruf), which comes from Dasein’s own Self when it wants to be its Self. This Self is then open to truth, understood as unconcealment (Greek aletheia). In this moment of vision, Dasein understands what is hidden as well as hiddenness itself, indicating Heidegger’s regular uniting of opposites; in this case, truth and untruth.[7]
One person’s dasein, is another’s ontological nightmare… so Unheimlich, which hinders Gewissensruf… but who, and for whom, respectively?
I can relate to your first statement… but it didn’t pertain to me, but to someone else.
With regard to your second statement… it may depend on where one’s at in life, on the grand scale of being and becoming, that would suppress or trigger thoughts, on the preponderance of death.
Quite… the experiencer choosing that which they wish to experience, within the boundaries that they choose to exist within… the parameters of the individual’s existence, if you will.
That’s learning Buddhism.
But one can see Buddhism as entertainment and distraction.
Buddhism provides an opportunity to watch and react. It’s discussed in the same way as movies, books or music.
A forum is a sort of book or movie club. Other people have different and perhaps interesting reactions but that’s as far as it goes.
Buddhist Retreat
Why I gave up on finding my religion.
By JOHN HORGAN at Slate Magazine
Here we get closer to the part that some here want to focus on: the Buddhist “I” and my “I”.
Sure, to the extent that someone does not view the self wholly as the embodiment of the “real me”, they are able to distance themselves from the consequences that unfold in the course of living their life. But I focus in instead on the many, many factors embedded in the either/or world in which the consequences of human interactions are anything but illusory. And those Buddhists who choose the behaviors that bring about those consequences, just like all the rest of us, confront situations in which they find themselves thinking and feeling more or less inclined to associate certain behaviors with enlightenment that over time configures into karma that at the moment of death configures into…what exactly? And how exactly?
As for Buddhism and nihilism, Google it: google.com/search?source=hp … ent=psy-ab
Take your pick of assessments here and get back to us.
Or consider a particular cinematic portrayal of this intertwined frame of mind: youtu.be/UuVDrpl1tIY
On the other hand, what would be the reaction of Buddha himself to this sort of amoral behavior? Or the 14th Dalai Lama. And how do those who choose it advance their own point of view regarding enlightenment, karma, reincarnation and Nirvana.
If the self is an illusion what – who – exactly is being “morally infallible”? And how on earth are we to understand an illusory self expressing its nature “intrinsic to its transcendent experiences”. Can anyone here take a crack at it in terms of their own experiences interacting with others in a conflicting goods world? Also, your best shot at fathoming the unenlightened and their failure to embody “crazy wisdom”.
Cite particular examples of this from your own life.
Yes, from my perspective when we speculate about the perspectives of others in regard to things like the meaning/purpose of life and death, it tells us more about ourselves than it does them. Unless, of course, there are facts and figures available to us able to demonstrate not only what others do think about them but what, if, as rational men and women, they ought to think as well.
Now, I’m not arguing this has not been done, only that if it has been done, I am not aware of either the conclusions or the proof.
Until then, in my view, in the world of conflicted value judgments, we don’t take out of others what or who they are but what or who we think they are. We take ourselves out of them.
This, in my view, is just another general description intellectual contraption about either life or death. Then the points I make above kick in in reagard to how each individual might react to those words given my own understanding of dasein here: ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 1&t=176529
My point however does not revolve around what you believe but around the fact that where [existentially] anyone “is at in life” is of crucial importance in regard to his or her reaction to death. In other words, when the “grand scale” for them is a belief in God or a No God spiritual path convincing them that one way or another immortality is at hand paving the way to one or another rendition of Heaven or Nirvana.
Okay, let’s assume that all of the above offer us important insights into Buddhism.
How then are these insights applicable to the preponderance of us. In other words, to flesh and blood human beings interacting with other flesh and blood human beings in any number of contexts in which spiritual and moral and political value judgments come into conflict among the hundreds and hundreds of spiritual/religious paths to choose from such that we are confronted with choosing in turn between moral/enlightened behaviors or immoral/benighted behaviors, believing that this is connected [either “in our head” or “in reality”] to the fate of “I” when we die.
Given descriptions/depictions of particular sets of circumstances.
You know, just in case some here want to go there in discussing what there is to get about Buddhism.
Though also learning about Buddhism. Perhaps with some adverb like ‘really’ before ‘learning’.
Sure, of course, I am not saying that discussion of Buddhism can’t be interesting or useful, let alone can’t be entertaining. It’s just not going to lead to any well justified conclusions about abstract terms within Buddhism, for example. It won’t resolve what one would or would not get out of it. It won’t resolve whether it is true to its claims. And things like this. But one can certainly get smatterings of outlooks and struggle to understand, at least in part, something that views ‘things’ quite differently from everyday folk theories of selves and minds and ‘reality’ and what causes problems and so on. And yes, one can be entertained. Been mulling a way to talk about the problem of just talking about Buddhism rather than engaging in it, and I wanted to find a way to describe the problem using an explanation both outside Buddhism and also outside the usual way of talking about learning (about) something.
Maybe truth, resolution and understanding are not the goals of every participant in the discussion.
I’m not suggesting that those must be THE goals. It can be discussed on many levels. But there is going to be confusion and frustration if the goals are not similar.
This is certainly a reasonable point of view to me.
The point of the thread being that what Gib doesn’t “get” about Buddhism is based on what motivated him to want to “get” it enough to create the thread.
He has his own particular goals here and they may or may not overlap with the goals that others interested in Buddhism might be inclined to pursue.
I merely suggest this inclination itself is rooted existentially in dasein.
As for my own goals, I couldn’t possibly make them any clearer. Buddhism is just another spiritual/religious path from my vantage point. It involves a spiritual/religious narrative that either is or is not made applicable to the behaviors that Buddhists choose in interacting with others in a world of conflicting goods. And their assessment of the behaviors they choose in sustaining these interactions either is or is not relevant to that which they imagine [or want] the fate of “I” to be on the other side of the grave.
And they are or are not able to link me to things that in their view take a belief in Buddhism beyond merely a leap of faith and into experiential/experimental proof that what is believed is in fact true.
Given their reaction to particular sets of circumstances.
Sure, and they don’t need to be. It’s fine if those aren’t the goals. I mean, fine with me.
I would think so. It need not be a problem, as long as people are clear. At least, I think so. I think a philosophy forum allows for speculation, also, which can be playful or serious or both. I suppose if someone is just entertaining themselves and others think that person is making what he or she thinks are well thought out arguments, then you’ll get a problem. It could seem like disrespect. And I suppose that works the other way also.
But if your goals are to really arrive at conclusions in serious way and what you are demanding or putting out are supposed to be strong arguments, then with something like Buddhism, there may be a problem if you have no experience with it. I would think this holds for other topics also. Many things that are discussed in a philosophy forum we all experience - one can weigh in on the topics just for having been alive. Doesn’t mean you’ll be right or argue well, but you have the experience to potentially use terms to relate to them and also potentially like others would use them.
…and I stated my perspective, above …others here will have to speak for themselves, but you might have the monopoly on that existential contraption.
What society, religion, or peoples, do you know that does that? The ancients were supposed to have done so, but the reasons behind it back then would have dictated such a ritual be followed, that would not be deemed necessary now.
In conclusions or proof, you mean data?
If I have experienced an experience… say, an outing or exhibition… with a group, then part of the experience would be experienced… as a group, so not solipsistic some of the time, but empiric more of the time than not.
You totally bypassed my reply and went straight to one of your threads, instead of posting an excerpt from it or creating a new reply here and now, rather than from there and then.
Sounds like personal choices to me… what do you always have against that? like people can’t think for themselves… most can. Probably what I read in the bible is ingrained on my subconscious somewhere, but that is unavoidable… due to the nature of reading.
Perhaps. But I’m far more curious regarding those who are willing to consider whether or not it is applicable to their own frame of mind pertaining to morality here and now and immortality there and then.
As that relates to a set of circumstances around which to build an exchange.
Again, what interest me is why there are so many different and conflicting assessments of death down through the ages, cross culturally and given individual experiences. To what extent is that related to the manner in which I construe the “self” here as the embodiment of dasein. Or, instead, are philosophers able to provide us with the most reasonable explanation.
Or, for the religious folks, are they able to demonstrate why their own spiritual path is not only the best option, but the only true option available to mere mortals in connecting the dots between the behaviors we choose here and now and the fate of “I” there and then.
In what particular context though?
The example I sometimes use here is the one that revolves the conclusions we come to in regard to whether Donald Trump is now president of the United States vs. the conclusions we come to in regard to whether he is a good or a bad president. Proof/data for the one vs. proof/data for the other.
And then in regard to this thread, how do Buddhists react to Trump’s policies given their own understanding of enlightenment, karma, reincarnation, Nirvana, the Four Noble Truths, the Eight Precepts/Fold Paths etc.
And you totally bypassed my own reply in regard to taking intellectual contraptions like this and situating them in a discussion of an actual situation involving human interactions in which God and religion would come into play. Relating to either life or death or how the two become intertwined in the mind of any one particular “I”.
Thus when you argue…
…I go in one direction with “I” here and you go in another.
I engage any particular “self” and the choices he or she makes by introducing them to the arguments I make in my signature threads.
Sure, you can argue that your views on vaccines or on Trump are just “personal choices” confronting the “personal choices” of those who disagree.
But my point is to focus instead in on the extent to which these choices are either political prejudices rooted subjectively/subjunctively in dasein or are instead viewed by the objectivists among us as reflections of their own “real me” in sync with “the right thing to do”.
Then “political prejudices” reconfigure into deontological, ideological, theological etc., Good and Evil and the world comes to be divided up self-righteously into those who are either “one of us” or “one of them”.
Your inquiries lack clarity… and therefore direction, as I’m the only one giving our replies ‘a direction’ here, and you, are obviously not …existential contraptions rooted in dasein, not withstanding or allowed, in your next reply. See if you can achieve that… it would be much appreciated, if you do.
I’m willing to bet a fiver, you can’t. 
So… care to re-answer my initial question?
Iambiguous… “the paternoster, still found across Europe, is the most existential of contraptions. You hop on and off at just the right moment to avoid death or dismemberment.
In theory, you could stay on it forever.” --I bet Iam could ; ) Oh yea, he does.
The different and conflicting assessments of death are based on circumstance or belief, of what a Peoples thought was the best or intended thing to do… for whatever reason that may have been. That reason could have been due to ritual, scientific knowledge, spiritual belief, and any other number of other reasons.
I wouldn’t say that others think that their own spiritual path is the best option for All, but that maybe it is, for Them… the Messiahs and Buddhas that did, probably wanted to share the pain of their existential crisis, and so shared their experiences on that which not to do, that led them to those thoughts and that place, in time.
That, is an individual thing, for the Practitioner to decide… their physiology, dictating their own personal thoughts on the matter. What Buddhist countries choose to do, is reliant on something else… survival.
The matter, on a method of processing thoughts optimally, doesn’t necessarily mean controlling those thoughts into group-think… but we know that that’s happened before, through propaganda, dogma, dictatorial, and other regimes.
I think you keep inferring to a fanaticism of sorts, and so I cannot comment on the above, in that my own religious experience/indoctrination wasn’t a fanatical one… like Christianity, and a spiritual path to take instead… a personal choice. They are tools, to those that understand that that is what they initially were… a means to an end… that end being a more civil society, for all.
One person’s dasein, is now definitely another person’s ontological nightmare… you want everyone to think about death as/as much as, you do… isn’t that called a ‘religion’ or a death cult?
If you want to introduce the arguments that you make in your signature threads, then by all means share those excerpts, here… so that a more complete exchange can take place, and not a guessing-game of what you are actually eluding to.
I don’t know why you think about death in the way that you do and interpolate it with everything, to arrive at your never-ending thoughts on the matter… that most don’t have, but you do. That is why you are going in one direction, and I… in another. Iambiguous… now forever known as Thanatos.
I think you have a touch of da ‘intrusive thoughts‘ thing goin on, of which is why that perhaps you interpolate religion, politics, science etc., into the mix… to drown them out. I heard that mindfulness helps, with that. ; )
And then they might want to know HOW to get what there is to get about Buddhism and why, for example, demanding non-Buddhists explain randomly chosen online buddhist blogs and articles when you have no understanding of the terms and no experiences of the practices might not a good method of learning about Buddhism or a whole host of other things. IOW if one was interested in getting what Iamb wants to get about Buddhism (which is actually not what most people want to get and other posts in this thread deal with their interests), my post was pointing out what a terrible methodology it is. But since he regularly doesn’t read or interact with other people’s ideas, he didn’t notice any of this, and criticized my post and phyllo’s on point response, for not doing something they were not trying to do. Not listening or reading is a great foundation for smugness and not learning. But are these worthwhile goals for him? I have no idea.
He’s a troll. A non-troll would have simply posted his interests in their own post. Not as a faux response to other posts. Faux responses have, however, a better chance of being responded to, since they seem to be, well, responses. They seem to be engaging in dialogue. But his post is not a response.
He quoted two posts and then wrote something that had nothing to do with those posts and what they were doing.
Maybe he thinks the quote function, when used, means it’s like he read what he quoted. He could simply have repeated his demand, but he showed once again that he is not a discussion partner. It is as if he is responding but he is not.
And let’s not forget the irony that the person supposedly interested in concrete examples has no interest in actually experiencing Buddhism. IOW there is supposed to be this value in concrete examples - which actually are just abstract discussions of things IN GENERAL like abortion - but no interest in concrete experience. He just wants to move the discussion from the clouds to a specfic cloud. He has no interest in actually learning, which, as my post pointed out, often, not just with Buddhism, requires active concrete learning as scaffolding before a lot of abstract terms can have any useful meaning to the learner. It has also been explained to him that Buddhism is not a monolithic moral postion and even is a batching term for an array of quite different spiritual systems. Further it has been explained that it is not a moral system in the way Western systems are.
But bet the house or car on his continuing to think he is making sense.
Buddhist Retreat
Why I gave up on finding my religion.
By JOHN HORGAN at Slate Magazine
Think of this from the perspective of those who suggest that much of the pain and suffering embedded in the human condition revolves around political economy. Very real flesh and blood human beings sustain a global economy that benefit the rich and the powerful far more than the “the masses”. And they are all for any and all religious narratives that keep the masses from organizing socially, politically and economically to change that. Buddhism here becomes just one more rendition of the “opiate” that folks like Marx spoke of. Everything comes to revolve around one’s “spiritual” growth. And that is perfectly fine with those getting richer and more powerful all the time out in the real world.
Bingo. The further you can take the “soul” from the interactions that make us the species that we are going back now all the way to the caves, the further you can take your own life itself from it. Live in a community of those who think exactly like you do and it never even has to be confronted and questioned at all. Besides, their sense of identity is no less an illusion than your own.
Sure, I can understand why this sort of existence might appeal to some. A life that is completely ordered by all things spiritual. But we could hardly go about the business of subsisting from day to day if everyone took it up. Those who grow our food, build our homes, manufacture all the things we need just to survive from day to day. How illusory are their lives?
Okay, but these more “secular” renditions of Buddhism…how do they reflect on the relationship between morality here and now and immortality there and then. For example, confronting dasein, conflicting value judgments and political economy in what way? In what context relating to what actual behaviors chosen?
But I repeat myself.
I would eliminate the word ‘ordinary’ from that sentence, since it is detachment in general, from anything, Buddhism suggests one needs. And this I also find problematic with Buddhism. I don’t know what the author is contrasting with ‘ordinany life’ but Buddhism absolutely encourages detachment from everything else also, including visions and insights and experiences of oneness and even any psychic phenomena or supernatural experiences one might have. Detachment is a rule. So while I am, with provisos, with this guy, I immediately wonder if he knows much about Buddhism.
Well, to some extent I agree. But wouldn’t this hold for a nihilist with the priviledge of spending his days online on his computer trying to find a reason not to be so afraid of death by posting in philosophy forums? I mean, that’s not helping people out there is it? And promotiing the idea that one cannot, it seems, determine what is good or not is not exactly supporting say, poor people’s movements and organizing socially. Nihilism could function like another opiate. What difference do my actions make? And if they make any difference, we’ll all die anyway, there is no meaning, and the differences my actions make may even be bad differences for all I know? That seems like a negative opiate. Negative in the sense that the positive opiates - like some personal growth rich hippie - might make at least that person feel better. Negative opiate, postive opiate. I don’t see either helping the single black mother with two jobs and a kid with a severe learning disability. Sink calling the toilet white and all that.
And I am generally sympathetic here also. I think there is something anti-life in Buddhism. I think it judges the limbic system, and even mammalian social needs, desires and drives. It seems to promote accepting everything, but in fact does not accept a lot of things. Or better put it promotes the not accepting of a lot of things.
I’m not sure where he got that from what he quoted. Most Western Buddhists unless they have moved into a temple or community are dealing with unlike minded people all the time. And the quoted author above is mistaken if he thinks in the West male monasticism is still the epitome of Buddhism.
Well, Iamb would need to demonstrate that.
There have been self-sufficient monastaries that farm. Further many monastic orders in many different religions produce something (food, pots, music, woodwork…) to support their monastary.
I don’t think it makes sense to call yourself a Buddhism if you just take certain practices. If you take a Yoga class you are not a Hindu automotically, so I agree witht he author here.
And as said before, in a wide variety of ways. One could go to a specific group and ask them what they do, though even within that group you may find a variety of answers, because Buddhism is not presented as a solution to all problems. It is not a morality. It is not trying to solve political issues. But one can challenge a horse by asking how it flies.
Here’s some good advise about labels:
Reminds me of the current controversy surrounding identity politics. What does it mean when people identify themselves with a group? How deep does that go? What can we say about the “brand” of our inner experiences and the extent which they conform to the inner experiences of others who identify with our tribe? It’s one thing to go to a “church” or “sangha” it’s another to feel oneself a part of it. My own experience these days leads me to question whether I could ever do that again. I feel like I’m “post” the ability to see myself as literally belonging to a neat religious category and that even includes “agnostic”, “atheist”, “nihilist”, “Jungian” or whatever. The more one individuates the less one fits in pre-conceived religious, or ideological boxes. The boxes are empty facades. Ironically, that seems like an idea compatible with Zen as I understand it. Also, with iambiguous’ notion of “Dasein”.