The thing about sanghas is that they are an investment to society. They are spiritual think tanks.
To be in a spiritual think tank is an extremely difficult job. Sure, just like in every think tank, there are slackers, quacks etc…
But to dismiss spiritual patronage is one of our largest possible mistakes. We need to know this shit.
Buddha Travels West
Peter Abbs follows Buddhism’s path towards becoming a Western humanism.
Too bad they are no longer around to address the points that I raise about religion [East or West] here. Still, if there are any proponents of the ideas these folks embraced please feel free to discuss them with me given the arguments I subscribe to “here and now”.
Theosophy: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theosophy
The part where “spirituality” meets the reasoning mind? And the “occult”? And the “cosmos” itself?
As for my main interest in religion…connecting the dots existentially between spiritual values and morality? Not much:
Theosophy does not express any formal ethical teaching, a situation that generated ambiguity. However, it has expressed and promoted certain values, such as brotherhood and social improvement.
Just vague enough to cover everything. Brotherhood in regard to what? Social improvement…when and where and how and why? Theosophy and…vaccinations? Abortion? Human sexuality?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theosophy … and_ethics
Or, again, in regard to the points I raise about Buddhism has anything really changed at all? How could we derive our happiness and enlightenment other than through our interactions with others? The alternative would be to isolate yourself from “society” and derive your sense of self solely through interacting with nature or alone on the spiritual path itself.
In other words, how does thinking, like this…“You are all depending for your spirituality on someone else, for your happiness on someone else, for your enlightenment on someone else”…not manage in turn to be just vague enough to encompass everything.
And it certainly would “for all practical purposes” not have much relevance in regard to, say, the covid-19 vaccination wars. More like something someone would embody in a community that consisted solely of other likeminded religious adherents.
Buddha Travels West
Peter Abbs follows Buddhism’s path towards becoming a Western humanism.
There is also the irony built into our increasingly secular post-modern world. Given a world in which Communism has been on the wane since the Berlin Wall came tumbling down. Religion as a whole often has to compete with the new Gods: pop culture, mass consumption and the worship of all things celebrity. The quest for our 15 minutes of fame. And in the sense that there are so many more outlets in which to achieve it. Call this the Youtube Syndrome. So many, many more can become “famous”. Also, 15 minutes because our attention spans shrink year in and year out. Given this where on earth does a serious religious commitment fit in at all.
And yet, paradoxically, for some, the more fractured and fragmented our “lifestyle” world becomes, the greater the longing for one or another “spiritual path” to anchor all the pieces to. And here over the decades the religions of the East wax and wane in our part of the world.
Though clearly to the extent that secular, ideological regimes are still around – brandishing doctrinaire narratives that become for all practical purposes religions in and of themselves – the faithful can be pared down considerably.
As for the “diaspora” engendering a more global spiritual “energy”, we’re still dealing with this: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schools_of_Buddhism
And this:
Buddhism given the “Western experience” that has deep roots in, among other things, “show me the money”. And the three new Gods above.
Consider Buddhism in the United States: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_ … ted_States
Is there anything even remotely resembling a common path that all Buddhists agree on in regard to any number issues that religions in general concern themselves with. Like, for instance “morality here and now and immortality there and then”?
Instead there are various ethnic and national traditions which may or not overlap with, say, the 14th Dalai Lama.
It all seems to become a kind of cafeteria smorgasbord, where everyone gets to pick out the practices that cause them the least disruption in their lives.
Buddha Travels West
Peter Abbs follows Buddhism’s path towards becoming a Western humanism.
In other words, had there been no Communist Revolution and no growing internationalism, the original Theravada and not the later Mahayana tradition of Buddhism might have entered the West.
But that doesn’t change my own reaction to Buddhism above. Whatever the “school of thought” on whatever “the spiritual path”, those on it either will or will not take it to the arguments I make in regard to God and religion: how do they connect the dots existentially between morality/enlightenment/karma on this side of the grave and immortality/salvation/nirvana on the other side of of it.
Instead, based on my own experiences with religionists, including many on this thread, that is precisely the direction they refuse to pursue.
And here is yet another “historical” variable:
Same thing:
This “ubiquitous Zen”: given what particular context relating to what particular narrative/discipline bridging human behaviors here and now and the fate of “I” there and then. Go there, I tell them, or merely sustain your comfort and consolation in a “world of words”. In meditation. In all of the earthly benefits of a more disciplined mind.
And I would note my own speculations in regard to all of this with those who embrace the thinking of Gary Synder and John Cage…or Karen Horney and Erich Fromm. In other words, art and/or psychoanalysis given whatever manner one feels “shipwrecked”.
What particular “beacon” in bridging the gap between morality and immortality?
Buddha Travels West
Peter Abbs follows Buddhism’s path towards becoming a Western humanism.
Formidable.
In other words, for whatever reasons rooted in the historical trek of Buddhism to the West, he has come out on top. Here and now. As, say, the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi once was back in the Sixties when the four mop tops paid him a visit. He was all the “spiritual rage” back then.
So, the Dalai Lama has come to particular conclusions about Buddha that revolve around the my own interest in religion. Or around your interest in religion. But my interest in religion focuses almost entirely on the existential relationships between morality and immortality. And around the extent to which what the Dalai Lama believes, he is able to demonstrate as in fact a rational belief.
Anyone here a greater admirer of him? Let’s discuss his frame of mind.
As though compassion, like all other mental, emotional and psychological “states of mind” doesn’t need a context in order to explore it more fully. After all, one can feel compassion [or empathy] for anyone in any set of circumstances. One can feel compassion for a pregnant woman choosing an abortion or for the unborn baby about to be shredded. One can feel compassion for a fascist or for a Communist.
We can start a thread that examines attempts to pin down who one ought to feel compassion for and who does not deserve it.
As for the Bodhisattva, this sounds [to me] like something that ecmandu is ever and always coming back to. One cannot be free of all pain and suffering [and “saved”] until everyone is free of all pain and suffering.
Okay, but what does that have to do with actual human reality?
Buddha Travels West
Peter Abbs follows Buddhism’s path towards becoming a Western humanism.
Whether “flirted” with in the “moment of sudden illumination”, or sustained over the long haul, compassion remains largely an intellectual contraption until those who choose to embody it describe the situation in which they feel that compassion is warranted. Compassion for whom in what situation construed from what set of moral and political prejudices. Compassion for the woman choosing an abortion or compassion for the shredded baby? Compassion for your fellow Nazi storm troopers or compassion for your fellow Communist comrades? Compassion for men and women of all colors or compassion for the white race only?
Only in regard to Buddhism and other religious paths this compassion is somehow connected in turn to the fate of “I” beyond the grave. Making one’s understanding of it all the more fundamental.
Okay, let’s try this…
For those here who think they understand what the author is getting at in regard to the Dalai Lama’s emphasis on “transformation and training”, cite examples from your own life in order to flesh out the meaning here. What set of circumstances triggered what behaviors on your part that you construed to be examples of this?
And how on earth might his understanding of “transformation and training” be related to my own interest in them: connecting the dots between morality here and now and immortality there and then. How do you connect the dots here?
Yo, Gib. Haven’t heard from you in a while. And this is your thread. Give it a go. 
Buddha Travels West
Peter Abbs follows Buddhism’s path towards becoming a Western humanism.
What I would ask him of course is this: In regard to “morality here and now and immortality there and then”, where does science end and philosophy begin.
And then in regard to what he argues here, where does that end and Buddhism begin?
Given a particular context of his own choosing.
Right, like here there is not a profound distinction to be made between engineering material, scientific, phenomenological relationships in the either/or world, and guiding spiritual relationships in regard to the discussion I would prefer to sustain with him. What empirical evidence enables him to establish his own leaps of faith to enlightenment, karma, reincarnation and Nirvana?
So, is there anyone here [or anyone that anyone here knows] who can note particular examples of how science has failed to demonstrate claims of his about Buddhism? Has anyone in the scientific community taken him up on this?
What exactly is he talking about here? What sets of circumstances? And do these situations focus on my own reservations regarding this particular No God religious path?
Buddha Travels West
Peter Abbs follows Buddhism’s path towards becoming a Western humanism.
Here I am less “confrontational” in regard Buddhism. To the extent that meditation and other practices/disciplines used by those who embrace Buddhism do in fact have a constructive, positive, therapeutic effect/impact in/on a person’s life, more power to them. I have not myself attempted to engage them but for those who suggest that this is to my own disadvantage, I have no rebuttal. Let alone an effective rebuttal.
No, it is far more in regard to “changes” relating to “morality here and now, immortality there and then”, that attracts me to discussions of religion. In other words, enlightenment, karma, reincarnation and Nirvana with respect to the manner in which I examine “conflicting goods” and “the abyss” given the components of my own philosophy — identity, value judgments and political economy. That’s the exchange I am drawn to.
Thus, this part…
…is something that I would encourage anyone to pursue if “for all practical purposes” it allows them to make useful, productive, beneficial changes in their mental and emotional outlook on life.
The evidence certainly seems to confirm some rather extraordinary states of mind that can be achieved when one is more focused in on training the mind to go in a more disciplined direction. Reacting to the world based on whatever the unschooled mind misses.
I’m all for the practice of Buddhism in that regard.
But, again, that’s not the “regard” that is of most interest to me.
In the first instance, Buddhism was established by Siddhartha Gautama, someone who had very little experience of life. He was a rich, pampered young man who, when he ran away from home, almost immediately attached himself to ascetics. After only a few years, sitting under a banyan tree one day, he experienced some sort of epiphany or “enlightenment”. I can’t remember all the details but one outcome was a decision to not live life at the extremes of either wealth or denial (asceticism) but to chose the middle way. (Again, I have forgotten much of Buddhist nomenclature.) When under the banyan tree meditating, he saw visions. This is hardly surprising. Living as an ascetic, his mind and body had been put through extremes of stress, he was near to death. Under such circumstances anyone is liable to experience psychosis i.e. “visions” (many Christian saints did too). Gautama’s story should, of itself, make one suspicious of his claims. For example, he had never lived moderately, had never experienced moderation, so how then, at the age of around 32, had he managed to acquire the wisdom that his insight to live moderately would require?
More fundamentally, however, all religions are based on belief, not Truth. None of the religions know what a human being is, nor what a mind is. Neither, for that matter, does philosophy or science. Therefore on what basis can the Buddhist way be said to be the way we should live?
One of the main aspects of Buddhism is meditation. One meditates to quieten the mind and eventually to attain enlightenment. This is not dealing with life. This practice is running away from life. It is escapism. Instead of dealing with the horrors of life, Buddhism preaches burying one’s head in the sand. Its practices ensure death, the ultimate escape. (I used meditation as relaxation therapy. It does not teach one how to deal with life. The way to deal with life is to face up to it and change oneself. One changes oneself by letting go of one’s past and being, as it were, reborn. this is a long and arduous process, but it works.)
Buddha Travels West
Peter Abbs follows Buddhism’s path towards becoming a Western humanism.
Yes, that’s how it works. You are a Buddhist given particular historical, cultural and circumstantial contexts. Then that shifts. You have new experiences in a community that in some respects is different from the one you left. What else is there but to continue on as the Buddhist you once were or, instead, to configure your beliefs and practices in order to accommodate the new situations that you encounter.
From my own perspective, however, that is less important than the fact that as “the old Buddhist” or the “new Buddhist”, you are still confronted with connecting the dots existentially between morality here and now and immortality there and then. Thus, from my own vantage point as a moral nihilist, all religious paths – old or new, orthodox or revisionist – are interchangeable.
Here the only alternative is to become part of a religious community that makes every effort to distance itself from the larger “society”. For Buddhists, the Sangha. Ethics can more readily revolve around that which the Buddha himself prescribed. Or, rather, in interpreting that which the Buddha himself prescribed.
All I can note here again is how ludicrous this seems to me given what is at stake for “I” on the other side of the grave. Secular ethics? Spiritual growth? Okay, are there not countless moral narratives – secular and spiritual – swirling around any number of conflicting goods that bring about all those ominous headlines in the media day after day after day?
After all, clearly, one way or another, with immortality and salvation on the line, there has to be a distinction made between behaviors that do get you over to the other side as you want the other side to be and behaviors that don’t.
Buddhism just muddles it all the more by taking God and Judgment Day out of the picture.
pink lady dragon… if that is your real name…
I was with you up until this point. And my appreciation doesn’t go unmentioned. It’s a breath of fresh air to hear that the Buddha’s images might have been fasting induced–anything that brings the mystical back down to earth is appreciated. But then you said:
And I sensed some deep resentments about Buddhism–perhaps the kind that I feel, perhaps not–but lets try to be honest about Buddhism. I agree with what you say when it comes to monastic Buddhism–you know, hiding yourself away from society and being among people who all agree with you and have the same goal, and want to cooperate with each other to make the journey harmonious–but this is like a soldier boasting about his service even though he’s never seen any action–on this, I am in total agreement with you.
But these aren’t the only Buddhists. I’ve heard from many, and seen many, who practice meditation and Buddhism in general, to do things like run a business, heal their relationships with people, perfect their fighting skills in some martial art (this is how martial arts in general began–the ideas of bringing the focus, tranquility, and discipline of mind to the battle field in order to become a better soldier). So I don’t think your charge can be leveled against all Buddhists, but certainly those who hide away from hardship in order to attain what Buddhists call “enlightenment” (whatever that means).
Of course, Buddhism became Easternised when it went into China, Tibet, Japan, etc.
So the ‘authentic’ Buddhism only really existed when Buddha was teaching it.
The same is true any religion or philosophy which has a specific founder.
As soon as Jesus dies, his teachings are Judeised, Greekised, Romanised, etc.
Thank you for your positive comment. (Apologies for taking so long to reply, but my Reply Notifications were not going where anticipated in my email account and I only came across them today.)
First, my charge is against Buddhism, not Buddhists.
Buddhism does not, as I think I said, know what a mind is. (The Dalai Lama himself admits that the mind is complex.) Nor does Buddhism know what a human being is. Yet Buddhism offers advice on how to live or, perhaps more pertinently, on how to die. In effect, one escapes suffering by committing suicide many times over i.e. birth, death, rebirth, until one achieves enlightenment. At that point, one can stay on earth as a teacher (bodhisattva?) or one goes off to - where? – not an afterlife. But what if there is a soul? What happens to that? What if the soul is immortal?
Next, please imagine this potential, if rather sketchy, scenario about how life might work:
Suppose a human consists of soul, spirit, mind, thoughts and ideas and senses and emotions. Suppose that every experience a person has, good or bad, is an opportunity to learn. For example, one learns communication abilities, dexterity, reading ability, patience, stamina etc, etc. With sufficient experience, these abilities grow and develop. In other words, life experience provides the necessary nutrition which feeds the mind and allows the mind to grow and develop. Deny the mind life experience, then it becomes severely malnourished, weakens and dies. In death, the soul is “repaired” over time before the human is reborn, but in a weaker state than before. If, in each subsequent life, the mind becomes weaker and weaker, then the soul eventually slips into a profound depression from which it cannot be roused and it remains in this state for all eternity i.e. it does not die.
With specific respect to life experience. All religions advise their adherents to live according to certain rules. These rules limit life experience which, in my hypothetical account of how life works, will severely damage the mind and will lead to the soul descending into a profound depression followed by eternal “coma”. Thus it would be irrelevant whether the Buddhist is a monk or a private citizen since most, if not all, of the advise offered to adherents is ring-fenced by the need for caution in one respect or another. This is not living. A healthy human being must be a free agent to experience life and learn from life and to thrive.
As an aside, I know from personal experience, this damages one’s mental health. To advise that one be dependent for one’s self-esteem on what others think, is extremely naïve. For example, younger women especially are suffering low self-esteem from using the internet and being exposed to other women advertising their “perfect” bodies, boyfriends and lifestyles. People play similar games all the time, games which are highly competitive and designed to put others down. Had I taken seriously what others thought of me, I would have not learned to stand up for myself. In a nutshell, Buddhism advises behaviours which are damaging. Buddhism does not live in the real world, in other words.
To conclude, Buddhism does not know what a mind is. It has no grounds for offering the advice it offers. The aim of Buddhism, if the above scenario were true, would be to place the soul into some sort of irrecoverable coma. And with goodness knows what consequence…….
Buddhism is a doctrine of salvation according to which everything in the world is impermanent, without self (persistent substance) and therefore suffering (unsatisfactory). Each individual being is a transient combination of factors of existence that spring up and disappear again according to eternal laws in functional dependence on each other (cf. Dharma). Since no good or bad action remains without effect, every stream of individual life finds its continuation according to the Kharma after death in a new existence. Moral action leads to gradual purification; realization and annihilation of thirst (will to live) to liberation, to nirvana.
Nirvana already played an important role for the Brahmins. It is the state that can already be reached during one’s lifetime through the disappearance of the life drive, which makes rebirth impossible after dying. Nirvana is understood by the Brahmins as the absorption of the individual soul (Atman) into the absolute (Brahman), by the Buddhists as an incomprehensible state of bliss, in which all factors of existence that condition an individual existence are finally annulled, so that being in Nirvana is equivalent to nothingness.
Is that something to strive for?
“May all beings have happy minds.” - Buddha
Buddha Travels West
Peter Abbs follows Buddhism’s path towards becoming a Western humanism.
Right, like this discussion does not unfold out in a particular historical, cultural and circumstantial context in which, existentially, social, political and economic folkways, mores and laws don’t gravitate around a set of memes that make “private language” talks all but impossible.
Again, back to each particular “generation, age and world” in which various No God moral and political agendas compete in much the same manner as the God world agendas. They clash. In other words, sooner or later all ethical proposals must come down to who has the actual power to enforce one rather than another set of behavioral prescriptions and proscriptions. And, here, Buddhism – East or West – is just one more spiritual path.
To me in particular. Okay, I suggest, bring on your ethical docket and let’s see how it might unfold “for all practical purposes” given a “situation” in which goods come into conflict.
Instead, it’s just more of this:
A moment to moment awareness of what in particular? Our “flourishing” or theirs? This “general description spiritual contraption” approach to religion is precisely the sort of comforting and consoling frame of mind that those here like Ierrellus cling to.
You know, if I do say so myself.
Not wanting to impress a point on anyone, I neutrally (outcome-independently) offer these fragments from one of Nietzsche’s most insightful books.
Ive copied the text wholesale and not re-added the emphases, click the link for proper format. Note: this does not perfectly reflect my own views of Buddhism but it does set it nicely in contrast to Christianity, which may offer the OP an additional way of approaching the doctrine.
Great, another “general description intellectual contraption”. This one attempting to intertwine Buddhism, Christianity and nihilism?
And, coming from Fixed Jacob, it is all filtered through his own understanding of value-ontology, astrology and the old gods.
Okay, given my own interest in and understanding of religion and nihilism as revolving around moral and political value judgments in a No God world, perhaps Fixed Jacob would like to focus in here on a particular set of circumstances. Bringing his “own views of Buddhism” and Nietzsche into an exchange that examines the behaviors he chooses on this side of the grave as they have relevance for his own assumptions regarding the fate of “I” on the other side of the grave.
Morality here and now, immortality there and then.
Which, from my own frame of mind, is the heart and the soul of any truly fundamental discussion of God and religion and philosophy: how ought one to live?
Buddha Travels West
Peter Abbs follows Buddhism’s path towards becoming a Western humanism.
“Diffuse and subliminal”. That is precisely the opposite direction I would like advocates of Buddhism to go. If your behaviors result in consequences that are spread out or below the surface of consciousness itself, struggle instead to focus the beam in on why you choose one set of behaviors rather than another. Given the manner in which Buddha described one’s spiritual path as enlightened engendering karma engendering a particular reincarnation engendering over time Nirvana itself.
What on earth does that mean to you when faced with that which we all come to deal with throughout our lifetimes: conflicting goods.
In other words, provided that you have not chosen the path that takes you beyond interactions with those who might challenge your behaviors. Sure, to the extent that you join, say, a Sangha, where everyone is “disciplined” to think exactly the same way about most aspects of human interaction, how hard can it be to “live your faith”.
Then back up into the “spiritual clouds”:
Got that?
Let me encompass it for you:
Eastern Buddhism travels West. As a result it encounters “new experiences, new relationships and access to new information, knowledge and ideas”. Brand spanking new assortments of “contingency, chance and change”. So, in some particular contexts, it is reconfigured so as to intertwine the East and the West into one or another hybrid Buddhism.
But…
The part that I am most interested in in regard to religion – connecting the dots existentially between morality here and now and immortality there and than – seems no less “diffuse and subliminal” for the Buddhists here in the West as in the East.
At least if my own personal experiences and this thread are any indication.
Buddha Travels West
Peter Abbs follows Buddhism’s path towards becoming a Western humanism.
In other words, given my own interest in religion – morality here and now, immortality there and then – nothing really changes.
“Not reincarnation or karma, but presence and attention.” Another general description intellectual/spiritual contraption that is still no less embedded in dasein, conflicting goods and political economy.
At least when you step outside the front door and start interacting with others.
Again: call it whatever you want. With or without reincarnation and Nirvana. Only, in “bringing it down to Earth”, note how you are able to become less fractured and fragmented than “I” am…given the components of my own moral philosophy.
Instead, it’s just more of the same:
If anyone here thinks that they understand what is being conveyed here…and is able to incorporate it into their own life…please, my all means, note how.
Note particular sets of circumstances and explain how all of the above allowed you to shift your frame of mind to a more constructive attitude when confronted precisely with the question that most preoccupies me: How ought one to live?