You said that you are somehow bothered by thoughts of a meaningless life that ends in oblivion.And you are somehow bothered by thoughts of being fractured and fragmented.
People suggested that you try Buddhism or mediation to help with those issues.
If you don’t want to try it, then don’t. Look for some other solution. Talk to other people who may have different ideas. Or don’t.
Nobody is forcing you to do anything. It doesn’t matter to us whether you solve your problems or not.
You said that you are interested in Buddhism.
KT has both practical and theoretical knowledge of Buddhism. Yet you mostly ignore what he has to say about it.
You said that you want to discuss Buddhism with real Buddhists. Yet you don’t seem to be going to Buddhist internet sites to talk to them. You can Google it. And I already provided links in this thread.
It really looks like you’re not very interested in Buddhism.
And in case you are tempted to suggest that I should research the hundreds of religions and spiritual paths that you keep linking … don’t bother.
I’m perfectly content to live a meaningless life that ends in oblivion.
And this then is clearly the bottom line. If you have come to conclude that you are living a meaningless life that will end some day in oblivion…and that you are perfectly content with it? Well, in this case, you only have to contend with that part of my own frame of mind suggesting that, given new experiences in your life, out in a world teeming with contingency, chance and change, you may well come to think and to feel otherwise. You may come [as some do] to dread it.
Right?
My point is only that this sort of thinking seems more the embodiment of an existential contraption rooted in dasein than an objective truth rooted in a philosophical assessment able to establish how one ought to feel about life and death as a rational human being.
Then the religious objectivists among us attach that to one or another God or denomination, and insist their own path is the one true path.
To write a meaningful post like the one above contradicts its own conclusion that life is meaningless. It’s a kind of extended self negating tautology.
Buddhist Retreat
Why I gave up on finding my religion.
By JOHN HORGAN at Slate Magazine
Conclusion
That’s number three for me. The first two revolve around morality and immortality. Only God or a No God religious path can provide us with a sanctioned way “from on high” in which to differentiate our behaviors as right or wrong when confronted with conflicting goods. And only God or a No God religious path can provide us with a sanctioned way “from on high” in which to believe that death is only the beginning of our sojourn into eternity itself.
On the other hand, it is also far-fetched in my view to suppose that science has pinned down that in fact we are “incidental, accidental”. There may not be much in the way of evidence that our souls are intertwined in a spiritual quest for the final explanation, but who is kidding whom in regard to the gap between, say, what science knows now about that and what it will know even just a hundred years from now. The very existence of existence itself is a profound mystery. And I challenge any scientist to demonstrate otherwise.
So to conclude that…
…is to presume considerably more than we can given the gap between “I” and “all there is”. On the other hand, look at all that I presume here in regard to human interactions in the is/ought world. Dasein, conflicting goods, political economy. But I would never be foolish enough to presume that I actually am closer to whatever that “final explanation” might possibly be than others here.
On the contrary, that is only one of many “remaining questions” in regard to “I” in the vastness of what may well be a multi-verse. What always astonishes me is how men and women can latch on fervently to actual denominations like Buddhism and convince themselves that they really are on the One True Path. Until I remind myself that I once did so myself. And more than once.
And, again, the reason for this isn’t hard to come up with: What. Is. At. Stake.
I is conceivable that the post cyborg man will be able to relinquish his dual machine/ human autominous nature and become the superman on way to even exceeding that ad infinitum.
If so, the Buddha will be able to transcend the differential temporal relative and here and now from the static eternal
In fact, it is conceivable that some day I might even understand what this…
…means.
How about, to the best of your ability, you imagine yourself trying to explain it to a Buddhist insofar as it might possibly relate to reincarnation and Nirvana.
As that relates to the behaviors you choose on this side of the grave given a particular situation.
“Science tells us” says John Horgan. Horgan’s Science talks to him! It’s his God. It tells him that he’s incidental – an accident. And unlike Iambiguous, who acknowledges that he may be wrong, Horgan knows what his God, Science, is telling him applies universally to everyone. Nihilism and Promethean shame are on the shadow side of the God of modern scientism.
Yes, some approach science without taking into account the gap that does still exist between “the scientific method” and a definitive understanding of existence itself. We don’t even know for sure whether science has the capability of closing that gap. Anymore than we know for sure that philosophy does.
But at least science does employ a “scientific method” in order to grapple with nature in as rigorous and as objective a manner as possible.
It doesn’t throw around words like enlightenment and karma and reincarnation and Nirvana with but a minimal of hard evidence to sustain a belief in them. It doesn’t create a spiritual “scripture” that the faithful are obliged to follow all the way to the grave.
And I’ve yet to hear from Buddhists able to explain how a No God religion can bring about any of what they profess to believe about the universe after we are all dead and gone as but “mere mortals”.
It’s a category error to draw the conclusion from science that we are incidental, since that contains a value judgment.
It’s tucked into that word ‘minor’ and being used inside the judging mind of a creature.
Science’s epistemology (or really ‘…gies’) include detachment (which Buddhism does also). That often leads to metaphysical and social conclusions as assumptions in any methodology will. Great tools need not be great attitudes.
I suppose this, in part, is why my epistemology (or, REALLY, ‘…gies’) is eclectic. Of course I think EVERYONE has a bunch of epistemologies, but few seem to admit this, at least in philosophy forums.
If understood correcty, does such concern really matter at the level of intension, whether or not it is minor or major significance, since it may be real or unreal as far as it’s value is concerned?
Buddhism is an overt sharing after all whether singularly - autonomiously achieved or dogmatically by way of the real effect of Buddha.
Epistomology will not prejoritively decide that.?
The inner conscious sanctum must de-differentiate from it’s counterpart , the practice of it, the moment of realization.
This is purely on hunch, even if in the right direction., but anyhow, some concern this as suspect, even dangerous terrain.( as far as attitudes go)
General observation, not addressing anyone in particular …
I think that the major problem with John Horgan’s quote is that he draws conclusions which are not in the science.
Let’s say that humans are “incidental,accidental”. That does not mean that enlightenment, Nirvana, rebirth (and other aspects of Buddhism and religion) do not happen/exist. Science does not say that these things can’t exist. They may also be “an accident”. The “spiritual quest” may not have been created for us … The “spirit quest” is simply here just as we are simply here.
I’m gonna be guessing what you mean and responding, so shot in the dark. I think it depends, yes, on the person, scientist or layperson. Obviously many scientists and pretty much all the great ones were theists, that is, up until the 20th century and some theist still can be found even in Nobel Prizes winners. For example. IOW even theism is not necessarily incompatible with being expert in scientific methodology and epistemology.
Epistemology and methodology do give rise to how one experiences the world and feels about it. And the latter also givers rise to the former. They are intercausal. This means that certain attitudes are more likely to be found in people who, at least claim to, have a certain epistemology. Within science this can be exacerbated by particular models or meta-models, like see all matter as essentiall chemical machines. Note: that is not the only way to view stuff from a scientific perspective.
I posted this in rant on impulse and realized it should be here…
I can answer Buddhist questions.
There is no one path in Buddhism. It is not monolithic. Buddhism descended from Hinduism… in Hinduism there are tens of thousands of paths (to god). In Tibet there are 5 schools, VASTLY different from each other. They are a culture of spiritual specializations.
Some people in Tibet study to gain favor with the wrathful deities (to protect their tribe from harm), other schools study Shambala (the eternal sensual realm), others study non-self (emptiness), non-attachment.
I’m only listing these to show how diverse Buddhism is just in Tibet alone.
In the non attachment sector, they (some practitioners) are not attached to the idea of reincarnation or anything beyond death.
The Buddha’s own analogy for reincarnation was “lighting a new candle with the flame of another candle already lit”
In Buddhism (just like the Bible) they say the equivalent of “test all things, don’t just take my word for it”.
Buddha simply means: awakened one
Tathagata simply means: one who will not return (as a birth or a death)
That’s not what tathagata means. But you bring up an interesting point. Buddha’s and non-Buddha’s alike either have empowerments or they don’t. Omniscience is an empowerment (nothing else to learn)… not every Buddha is omniscient.
A good example of a Buddha with empowerments is Milarepa… the most sacred saint in Tibet.
His family was murdered… and the equivalent of our devil came to him and told Milarepa that he could give him the power to seek revenge upon the murderers of his family. Milarepa accepted and he gained to power to control weather, and struck them down with lightning. Later he felt guilty about his revenge and looked to atone for his sin and found a sage named Marpa the Translator…
Anyways, long story short, Milarepa achieved enlightenment (an awakened one), but when he became enlightened, he still had his old empowerments of controlling the weather among other empowerments.
Reincarnation: What do modern research and traditional Buddhist teachings say?
BY SAM LITTLEFAIR
MAY 11, 2018
at Lion’s Roar website
Lion’s Roar describes itself as “BUDDHIST WISDOM for OUR TIME”
So, see what you come up with that might be described as perhaps the most optimistic conclusions. I’ll try to include an account of this on my death thread.
The maybe-unanswerable part certainly works for me. But if there are attempts to answer how “the universe” functions in a No God religion to reconfigure mere mortals on this side of the grave into re-incarnations on the other side, anything that comes close to an intelligible explanation would be much appreciated by me.
Now, I suspect that any “fierce debate” about a subject such as this is going to revolve first and foremost around the simple fact that there is no substantive evidence able to be evinced from any particular Buddhist school of thought so as to finally settle it once and for all.
And if some argue that going back to what the Buddha himself spoke of at length about rebirth, what then constitutes the “right view”?
And how is this substantiated beyond leaps of faith to one or another “school of thought”?
This part seems particularly unrealistic to me. Here someone is living his/her life from day to day. And for many that life is filled with all manner rewarding, fulfilling, satisfying experiences. They have accumulated many loving relationships with family and friends. But there it is…death. And for what would certainly appear to be for all the rest of eternity. So how reasonable is it not to dwell on a possible future life when oblivion itself is the alternative?
And, to the extent that there are Buddhists who acknowledge that mere mortals “almost certainly can’t know anything about rebirth”, they are just admitting that there is no substantial evidence available from which one can be certain of it.
So, they are basically taking their own leap of faith as would any religious person in the West in regard to God and Heaven.
Then I am back to the fact that there are hundreds and hundreds of spiritual paths out there to choose from. And Buddhists owning up to fact that the odds that they are on the one true path, is really rather remote. And that’s just on this planet.