Just a comment on this quote–another one of the bones I have with Buddhism, or at least modern day interpretations of it–particularly this part here:
“Our lives are interconnected with the lives of all beings. And it is this sense of interconnection,coupled with an appreciation of cause and effect, that is the true core of Buddhist morality.”
^ Is this what the Buddha meant when he said all is one? (Did he say this? I’m assuming all the core tenets of Buddhism came, in one way or another, from the teachings of the Buddha.)
I hear this interpretation often–that what “all is one” means is that we are all “interconnected”, that everything we do affects other people. Or this: “all is one” means cause and effect pertains to everything in the universe, that there is no action that doesn’t invoke some reaction in some (or all) other things in the universe (think Newton’s universal gravitation, or quantum entanglement). Did the Buddha have advanced scientific knowledge? Was he 2000 years ahead of Newton? Did he somehow have insight into the reality of quantum entanglement?
If this were all there is to “all is one”, why aren’t we all enlightened today? These aren’t hard concepts to grasp today. Scientists today understand cause and effect, universal gravitation, quantum entanglement, and so on, and it just seems common sense that we are all interconnected in the sense that everything we do will have some affect to one degree or another on others. Yet I don’t think this makes us any more enlightened than we would be if we weren’t aware of these things, at least not in the original Buddhist sense.
I think “all is one” means something a little deeper than this, something not nearly as obvious. I think we’re grasping at straws when we interpret it in cause/effect terms, or as “interconnection” with each other–these are just the closest things we have in the modern day to the idea that “all is one”; the part that annoys me is when people take these shoddy approximations and talk about them as if they truly grasp the ultimate meaning of the Buddha’s original insight. ← Yeah, right. You have no idea what “all is one” means.
I have a theory of consciousness that offers another interpretation which has nothing to do with cause/effect or the interconnections we share with others. My theory is that consciousness is a facet of all physicality–everything experiences, not just brains–and therefore the universe has consciousness–it is its own being; it gets even more abstract than this: the consciousness of the universe is experienced as a single thing–“uniform and homogeneous” as I say–not a complex multitude of things–it is one; furthermore, this consciousness is the core of its being, just as all consciousnesses, those of individual beings, is the core of our being, and physical reality is a projection of the experiences that come out of consciousness; in other words, consciousness is the true reality and the things experienced–physical reality, the material world–is only a by-product of this true reality. And just to take it one step further–I have this concept I call “equivalence” which is to be contrasted with “identity”–so whereas we could say a rock is identical to the collection of atoms that make it up, we wouldn’t say this about the average test score of a class in relation to each student’s individual test score, or the color orange we see on a screen in relation to the red, green, and blue we would see if we zoomed in on the individual pixels (physical pixels, not digital); orange is a different color than red, green, or blue–even the group of red, green, and blue. Not one student may have gotten the average test score. So identity doesn’t work here; but equivalence does. We can say the average test score is equivalent to the students’ test scores taken collectively. Orange is equivalent to mostly red, some green, and a tiny bit of blue. The concept of equivalence, at least my rendition of it as it applies to my theory of consciousness, says that while it doesn’t connote identity, it still shares the function of interchangeability with identity–a rock can be interchanged, at least in words, at least conceptually, with the atoms that make it up. And so can the average test score with the whole collection of individual student test scores (in fact, that’s the whole point of deriving an average). This works to connect the singular experience of the universe as a whole to the multitudinous experiences–non-uniform and heterogeneous–that individual beings experience. I don’t think the oneness that the universe experiences itself to be (and is) can be said to be just the collection of individual experiences we and everything else in the universe have–I think the whole is more than the sum of its parts–but it is equivalent–and it can be interchanged with it in the sense that there is no fact of the matter whether we are really this one thing the universe ultimately is or we are really these individual beings we experience ourselves to be. We are part of a collective of beings, and this collective is equivalent to, and therefore is interchangeable with, the universe as a singular thing.
^ That’s kind of a ramble, but I present it to show there are other–not-so-obvious, not-so-common-sense–ways to interpret “all is one”. I have no idea if this idea is what the Buddha had in mind–I derived it through a completely independent process of thinking than whatever the Buddha underwent (or maybe not; I have no idea what the Buddha underwent); the point is, we have no way of knowing what “all is one” really means, and I have serious doubts it’s as simple as universal gravitation or our emotional connections to other people.
Fine. But given my own interest in religion, the fact that the overwhelming preponderance of religious adherents around the globe clearly are intent on connecting these dots existentially…? This [to me] speaks volumes regarding the nature of religion itself. It’s not a game to them and the manner in which you presume this is all a game to me encompasses only the gap between us.
I’m not suggesting I’m closer to the truth than you are, only that our motivation and intention seem to be trekking down different paths. And that, for any particular one of us, truth itself here is always subject to change given new experiences, new relationships and access to new information, knowledge and ideas.
Again, fine. But the bottom line [mine] is that, to the extent we choose to interact with others, rules of behaviors are a necessity. Call them morality, call them something else. And millions of us do connect the dots between them and the fate of “I” the other side. So there is certainly a gap between the word games that philosophers might play on threads like this and the manner in which religions out in the world precipitate very real conflicts, precipitating very real consequences, that often have a profound impact on the lives of millions.
Introduce the intellectual construct of “games” to these folks.
What can I say: let’s focus the exchange here on a set of circumstances relating to morality/immortality in which you can point out specifically the suggestions of others. And the manner in which I refuse their help.
Also, over and again, I aim my arguments here at those religious objectivists who insist that others can only be helped in connecting the morality/immortality dots by embracing their own dogmatic/denominational agenda.
I’ve already acknowledged the embodied complexities here:
Tell me this isn’t the embodiment of dasein. Given the life that you have lived and the circumstances in which you now find yourself, this is how you have become predisposed to think about the world around you. Here and now. And, like you say, “[t]his is why I described your earlier statement on this front as hyperbolic–though I know for many others it’s not”.
That’s basically how it works all right. At least until you become a religious objectivist/zealot. Then it’s also how it ought to work for everyone else too. I’m mainly curious as to how Buddhists connect these dots given a No God religion.
As for the meaning of “conflicted goods”, well, I took that from the manner in which William Barrett described “rival goods” here:
I merely deconstruct the “self” here more radically still: as a “fractured and fragmented” frame of mind.
No, I would just prefer that when we discuss “aligning our interests” or “making progress”, it be in regard to an actual set of circumstances involving morality/enlightenment on this side of the grave and immortality/reincarnation of the other side of it. How are these words fleshed out given a situation that most here would be familiar with.
This part:
Okay, you “alleviate” suffering. But how is alleviating the suffering on one side not probably going to aggravate it on the other side? And if you are a Buddhist confronting a context of this sort, how is enlightenment, karma, reincarnation and Nirvana understood given the very, very real intertwining of “I” here and now and “I” there and then. Once we move beyond Buddhism’s capacity to offer up the sort of stuff that Karpel Tunnel and others here focus on.
Again, the stuff – morality —> immortality – that most interest me about religion. The stuff that, if not the most important thing to others, would/should/could incline them to ignore my posts.
And I’m certainly not arguing that they ought to be interested in my own propensities here, only that these are the things that do interest me about religion most of all.
But my point in regard to the Buddhists among us is to focus in on sets of circumstances in order to illustrate texts of this sort. I have made any number of attempts involving any number of moral and political conflicts to describe why “I” am fractured and fragmented in regard to both morality and immortality. In fact, I created a whole thread of my own in order to explore this very thing: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=186929
And then to everyone I always request that they choose a context involving behaviors that are of particular importance to them.
Instead, the “question” you want answered here…
…pertains to no particular context at all.
Again, my own interest here in regard to Buddhism revolves around individual Buddhists who find their own lives becoming embedded in actual contexts that do involve race relations…how is their understanding of enlightenment and karma on this side of the grave factored into the behaviors they choose in regard to what they believe regarding the fate of “I” on the other side of it.
The role that religion plays in their day to day lives. My “thing” here.
This part:
No, my focus revolves around the extent to which the moral, political and religious convictions of any particular individual are derived more from the manner in I construe the “self” here as an existential construction/deconstruction/reconstruction rooted in dasein from the cradle to the grave; or, instead essentially in a scientific or philosophical or theological assessment able to be demonstrated as obligatory for all rational/virtuous human beings.
Again and again and again: we need a context here. What particular conflict in this particular world [our own] construed in what particular way?
You choose it. And, then, when you do in regard to an issue like capital punishment above, I react insofar as my own interest here revolves around how individual Buddhists address it in terms of the main components of their own religious denomination.
I’m sorry, but my reaction to this post is but one kind:
[s]1]
[b]"I have told you repeatedly that I am of the opinion – and that is all it is, my own personal opinion – that you are afflicted with a “condition” that prompts you to post things here at ILP that make absolutely no sense at all. Surreal, bizarre things. You pummel us with all of these assumptions about everything under the sun but you fail to convince me that you are actually able to demonstrate that they are true much beyond you believing that they are.
Something is proven only in the fact of you having posted it."[/b][/s]
Now is a concept of past and future. Even if there is only now… without past and future or even more extended concept of past and future, now = 0. (Which truly means you can’t exist!)
A mind cannot be sentient without stimulus. Past and ideas of future are that stimulus. You’ve been reading eckart tolle too much. Zero point doesn’t allow for sentience to occur.
But: How is it relevant to this particular thread?
Buddhists, like all the rest of us, only embody a present because they once embodied a past. And to the extent they are still around as the clock keeps ticking, they continue to embody a future.
What I then focus on given this is the extent to which the past, the present and the future embodied in any particular “I” becomes intertwined in the behaviors that “I” choose here and now as that becomes intertwined further in what I would like the fate of “I” to be when the future unfolds beyond the grave.
Over and again: There is what “I” believe is true and there is what “I” can demonstrate to others is in fact true for them too.
After all, here there is so much at stake: enlightenment on this side of the grave reconfiguring into chosen behaviors reconfiguring into the future as karma reconfiguring into the future as…a soul?
It’s actually impossible to prove that we weren’t born in the instant of any point with all our memories there. (All of them lies) - but I will guarantee that you trust most of them, like not jumping off cliffs!!! Thinking it’s an illusion that can harm you!!
Phyllo, I need to be honest with you. I’ve always found you an absurd poster. Sure you say interesting things sometimes… but you have an absurd big picture… as I just demonstrated.
You believe in zero point solipsism but never act like it… hmmmmmm…
No thanks. I’ll just go with the idea I’m more than a nanosecond old and behave accordingly!
