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.
Since the Sixties counterculture, Buddhism has had a continuous influence on mainstream Western culture; sometimes directly, but more often in a diffuse and subliminal way.
“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”:
Generally, it has helped to foster a more reflexive disposition towards experience, a non-violent politics, and a compassionate relationship towards all sentient life. Its impact on education, therapy and medicine, is dramatic and overt. But there have also been changes inside Western Buddhism. For, as the Eastern religion has slowly adapted to the West, it has imbibed some of the ethical values which have characterised Western democratic and liberal societies since the French Revolution. There has, for instance, been the notion of liberty in relation to gender and sexuality. Some Buddhist groups now offer specific programmes for gays and lesbians. Would this have happened in Tibet before the exile of the Dalai Lama?
Here one begins to sense a broad mutation. If the first stage of Buddhism in the West mostly concerned Theravada Buddhism, and the second Mahayana Buddhism, then the third stage might be identified as Secular Buddhism. Each stage includes the one that went before and is more encompassing.
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.
The Present & Future Path of Buddhism
The current Buddhist secular reformation can certainly be seen as both more inclusive and more eclectic, putting its emphasis not on doctrine or hierarchy but on the exploration of the immediate moment and the place of being. Not reincarnation or karma, but presence and attention. Perhaps at the gleaming edge of the creative change Buddhism is now dissolving as specifically a formal religion (a category it never fitted very neatly) and instead incorporating daily therapy and an existential way of life: a path rather than a religion.
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.
One of the most incisive writers currently proposing a comparable conception is Stephen Bachelor, a scholar and ex-Buddhist monk. Over four decades he has published a stream of pellucid books examining the origin and development of Buddhism. His most recent volume is called After Buddhism (2017). Even the title has a postmodern resonance. It aims to deconstruct Buddhism by repositioning it inside our contemporary world. Towards the end, before codifying what he calls ‘The ten theses of secular Dharma’ [coming from a Sanskrit word difficult to translate, Dharma refers to the inexorable truth of things and our best way to meet them], Bachelor writes: “Only taking Buddhism off its romantic pedestal and bringing it down to earth gives us a chance to imagine what kind of culture the dharma might be capable of engendering in a secular world grown wary of charismatic priests and inflexible dogmas.” So, after the deconstruction of Christianity comes the deconstruction of Buddhism – or should we say, the birth of Secular Buddhism? Or perhaps a new form of philosophical humanism?
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:
What matters most for Bachelor is the search for personal meaning. He links this to the historical Buddha, who always demoted large metaphysical questions and their dogmatic answers and promoted an open quest for understanding based on the mindful examination of experience, on meditation, and on work within the sangha – the community. What may be perennially significant in Buddhism is precisely this pilgrimage for wisdom within and solidarity without – a search which in the West has been darkly overshadowed by the blinkered pursuit of objective knowledge and technological mastery. We now need to place alongside science and technology the counterpart of wisdom and the courage to be. Or to express it more politically, we need to marry the political triad of liberty, equality and fraternity with the spiritual triad of being, reflecting and caring. For in our bewildered global age the marriage of two forms of enlightenment is now possible: of the rational and the spiritual. This is an awakening which Schopenhauer envisaged two hundred years ago. The two statues on his desk, of Kant and the Buddha, may strangely prefigure the union of our broken consciousness. And our very survival may well depend upon it.
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?
Faith without God ― a Buddhist Perspective
Posted by Judie Sigdel
at the buddha groove blog
If you ask a random sampling of people to define faith, chances are that they will mention God (or another deity/ies) in their reply. Jews will say “God,” Muslims will say “Allah,” Wiccans and other Neo-Pagans may reply “God” and/or “Goddess,” and Christians will answer “God” and/or “Jesus.”
So, what, exactly, do Buddhists have faith in since Buddhism is a non-theistic religion?
In fact, this is surely one of the most perplexing reactions I have to Buddhism. How on earth can any religion not come back to a God/the God.
A No God religion seems beyond intelligible to me. With God you have a transcending font able to provide the faithful with a Scripture. And it covers both the here and the now and the there and the then. Live according to the will of God on this side of the grave and you gain both eternal life and salvation on the other side of it.
But No God? Buddha the mere mortal “thinking up” a spiritual path that intertwines enlightenment, karma, reincarnation and Nirvana with…the universe?
Buddhism is, indeed, non-theistic in that Buddha said that there is no creator deity, which is what most people are referring to when they say “God.” However, he confirmed that devas (gods and goddesses) do exist, though he said that they are subject to the same cycle of samsara (life, death and rebirth) as humans and other sentient beings.
Okay, so how did he go about demonstrating that they do exist? And how did he differentiate them from a God/the God in regard to judgments that must be made in regard to human souls on either side of the grave?
This part: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_deities
How does it work “for all practical purposes”? Do all of the gods and goddesses get together to pass judgments on the souls of mere mortals? Is there a vote? How are these deities different from “the Gods” appealed to by the ancient Greeks and Romans?
Where do they all reside? Is there the equivalent here of Heaven?
And how on earth would they react to, say, someone like me? Someone who has often approached life and death from a deeply introspective frame of mind and has honestly come to a conclusion “here and now” that is not in sync with with either a God or a No God religion.
Edit:
More about the part where a God/the God or the gods and the goddesses take into account the intellectual honesty and integrity of those who make a genuine and sincere effort to think though the life that they lived. And, given the reality of actual free will, they are simply not able to think themselves into believing in either a God or a No God spiritual part?
Does that count in Buddhism?
Iambiguous,
Buddhism is a logical theology.
I make my sentences very clear most of the time, and I am enlightened.
I’ll tell you this:
1.) it takes 2 seconds to become enlightened. All you have to do is realize that win/lose and lose/lose realities don’t work
2.) sin is simply consent violation; some worse than others
3.) existence is sin itself because everyone is having their consent violated
4.) the purpose of our current state of being is to send everyone to their private heavens forever
5.) some enlightened beings have strong empowerments (this is what the Buddha called gods and devas). It’s not necessary to have strong empowerments to be enlightened
6.) I just made the new plan for every being in existence (forever). I actually teach gods and the Buddha’s at this point in my life —. Though I must admit, there’s TONS of shit they know that I don’t. It’s a reciprocal relationship of mastery and intellect between them and me
Faith without God ― a Buddhist Perspective
Posted by Judie Sigdel
at the buddha groove blog
Buddha instructed his followers not to worship him ― “Don’t follow the [pointing] finger, follow the way (path).” But it would be easy to believe that Buddhists do exactly that. After all, statues of the Buddha, complete with elaborate offerings, are the focal point of any Buddhist temple. The fact of the matter, however, is that Buddhists venerate the Buddha (and a host of other buddhas and bodhisattvas, beings aspiring to become enlightened for the benefit of others).
Come on, the path would not exist without the mind behind the finger that pointed to it.
Also: Did Buddha invent it? Did Buddha discover it? How is that distinction made?
Also, there will always be the part where somehow the dots have to be connected between Buddha and the path…and then to the places that the path can or can’t, will or won’t, do or don’t take you “up there” or “out there” in the universe. Otherwise we are basically back to the Western path: the “mysterious ways” behind the whole truth.
Or, again, is it all more about my own unwillingness or inability to grasp the path “in good faith”?
St. Thomas Aquinas explained that worship “…[i]s the manifestation of submission, and acknowledgement of dependence, appropriately shown towards the excellence of an uncreated divine person and to his absolute Lordship.” Veneration, on the other hand, “…is the honor and reverence appropriately due to the excellence of a created person.” While St. Thomas Aquinas was a Christian, the distinction drawn in these definitions clearly explains how Buddhists venerate the Buddha: as a human who reached enlightenment and taught his followers how they could do the same.
Whether one worships Buddha or venerates him is largely irrelevant to me. At least given my own interest in religion. How does choosing one rather than another have any substantive impact on the behaviors that one embodies on this side of the grave in order to attain that which one would like their fate to be on the other side of it.
And how does this demonstrate that in fact Buddha did reach enlightenment? Here I go back to this: we’ll need a context of course.
The whole thing of Buddha consciousness means getting to know you are it. That takes a lot of work principally because society keeps telling you you are not it.
Faith without God ― a Buddhist Perspective
Posted by Judie Sigdel
at the buddha groove blog
By venerating the Buddha, Buddhists place their faith in the path to enlightenment. By extension, they also place their faith in the dharma, Buddha’s teachings. Finally, they place their faith in the sangha, the Buddhist community of ordained and laypeople, both past and present, who carry and support the dharma.
But this path of enlightenment seems to emanate from but one more mere mortal who was “thrown” at birth into a particular historical and cultural context. And somehow he was able to “divine” this spiritual path that is then somehow connected to the universe that is then somehow flung back into the life of this mere mortal who “thinks up” components of this path said to revolve around enlightenment, karma, reincarnation and Nirvana. Placing his faith in all of this in the sangha inhabited by those who embody and sustain the dharma.
And then if someone like me shakes his head and says “huh?”, those of this faith will be more or less successful in fleshing it all out?
In other words, it’s not unlike narratives revolving around all of the hundreds of other religious paths down here. Except No God.
Buddhists “seek refuge” in these three tenets of faith, which are known as the Three Jewels. Seeking refuge simply means turning to the Three Jewels for protection from delusion, attachment and samsara. They “go for refuge” by saying some variation of the lines below, either during a ceremony at a temple or meditation center or in their own home as part of their daily meditation practice.
I take refuge in the Buddha.
I take refuge in the dharma.
I take refuge in the sangha.
Okay, but what if the Three Jewels themselves are the delusion? After all, since there are the equivalent of “Jewels” in all of the other denominations as well aren’t we then back to pinning down which path is the One True Path?
And need I remind you of what is at stake here if you choose the wrong path?
What if the whole point of attaching yourself to these Jewels is but one more manifestation of what I call the “psychology of objectivism”? How does the true believer go about establishing that, while this may be the case for all those on other religious paths, it’s not the case for him. His really is the One True Path.
As for samsara – “the indefinitely repeated cycles of birth, misery, and death caused by karma” – how is this to be understood more definitively in regard to enlightenment, reincarnation and Nirvana?
Though the part about taking refuge in the Three Jewels seems readily understood by me. Refuge being the day to day embodiment of “comfort and consolation” that all such religious paths provide.
Faith without God ― a Buddhist Perspective
Posted by Judie Sigdel
at the buddha groove blog
The real test of faith, of course, is whether it works. Does Buddhism cause practitioners to speak and behave more compassionately towards all sentient beings? Does it give them the strength to deal with daily life as well as with inevitable crises? Does it provide comfort when they or a loved one are ill or dying?
Yes, for some that is the real test of their faith. But then are there not hundreds of religious and spiritual paths out there in which many will claim to have passed it. After all, as long as you believe that you have passed it, isn’t that as far as you need go? And that can be as far as it need go in regard to human interactions of this side of the grave. Are you able “to speak and behave more compassionately towards all sentient beings?” Does it “give [you] the strength to deal with daily life as well as with inevitable crises?” And to “provide comfort when [you] or a loved one are ill or dying?”
Yes? Then, no doubt about it, stick with it.
But then comes the part where your faith is linked in turn with immortality. Or with one or another rendition of salvation. Or the part where your own chosen behaviors come to clash with the behaviors of those on a conflicting spiritual path. Then how is it determined that you pass the text? Again, in particular, with Buddhism where there is no God around to bring it all down to Judgment Day.
As a longtime Buddhist practitioner, I can attest that it does. My Buddhist practice taught me to be mindful that my words and actions have an impact on others. As a result, my interactions with people are kinder. I became a vegetarian over a year ago so my actions would be more closely aligned with my belief system. When my elderly father became seriously ill about six months ago, I turned to my faith ― in the Buddha, his teachings and in my teacher and friends who comprise my sangha― for support. And when he passed away, I drew strength and profound comfort from these keystones of my faith and from participating in a Powa puja (Transference of Consciousness at the Time of Death) at the temple to request that my father be reborn in the Pure Land.
Yes, this is more or less how I imagine any number of those who choose any number of religious paths, constructing a narrative in their head to make it all fit nicely into a foundation that they can embody comfort and consolation it. I was once one of them myself. And, sure, to the extent it prompts you to be more tolerant of others and to make this a kinder world…who can object to that?
But it really does not address the objections that I raise above in regard to conflicting goods among the various denominations and the part where the death of a loved one [and your own death] is not just subsumed in assumptions that can only be experienced in leaps of faith.
Nor does it address the questions raised on my Theodicy thread.
Nirvana, Buddhism, and the Path Explained
at the One Mind Dharma website
The Cycle of Samsara
Samsara in Buddhism is the cycle of suffering and rebirth that we all experience. The cycle, at its most basic, consists of birth, living, death, and new life. The word is Sanskrit, and roughly means “wandering through.”
This is the sort of explanation that one would expect if it is derived solely from a world of words. You are interested in Samara and someone in the Buddhist community tells you what it is as a concept. If you were to probe further by noting a set of circumstances in your life that was deeply troubling you, and you wanted a more detailed understanding of your suffering and rebirth, you are not likely to get it.
And, in my view, that is because, as with all other religious denomominations, the “for all practical purpores” parts almost always involve only leaps of faith.
The Buddha taught that we wander through our cycles of life and death with ignorance. We don’t see this cycle clearly, and just continue to be subjected the living, suffering and rebirth brought about by samsara.
Here, of course, I have my own rendition of this. I believe that many who embrace one or another rendition of what I call “objectivism” are largely ignorant of the points I raise in my signature threads. They prefer to think of their own cycles of life and death as entirely comprehendible within the bounds of their own moral and political dogmas.
The Buddha taught that we wander through our cycles of life and death with ignorance. We don’t see this cycle clearly, and just continue to be subjected the living, suffering and rebirth brought about by samsara.
Of course the problem here is that this is the default frame of mind for all objectivists…God or No God. In other words, if you want to avoid being ignorant think like we do.
Samsara, like nirvana, is caused by karma. Karma is the Buddhist law of cause and effect, and teaches us that we reap what we sow. As we cultivate wholesome qualities, we move out of this cycle of suffering over lifetimes.
This prompts me to explore the question of free will itself: webpages.uidaho.edu/ngier/budfree.htm
“While the issue of free-will does not arise in Buddhism, it is indisputable that it embraces a universal determinism: every effect, without exception, has a cause. The idea that the will is uncaused or is self-caused violates the Buddhist principle of interdependent coorigination (prattiyasumutpada): nothing in the universe can originate itself as substances allegedly do or the will is said to do. Buddhist causality, however, is seen as a cosmic web of causal conditions rather than linear and mechanical notions of push-pull causation. Furthermore, the Buddha claimed that we are morally responsible only for those actions that we intend. He took strong exception to the Jain theory that we suffer from accidental karma, such as stepping on a bug that we do not see. The Jains, another Indian religion contemporary with Buddhism, charged that the Buddha’s qualified determinism would lead to antinomianism and ethical subjectivism. Only their strict determinism, they claimed, would maintain objective ethical standards.”
Anyone here willing to bring this down to earth by focusing in on particular sets of circumstances? Again, back to abortion. Given karma, who reaps and sows what given the conflicting goods embedded at both ends of the moral and political spectrum?
Nirvana, Buddhism, and the Path Explained
at the One Mind Dharma website
What is Nirvana?
So this brings us to nirvana, or nibbana in Pali. As Thanissaro Bhikkhu points out, nirvana comes from the Pali word meaning “to be extinguished,” as we may do with a fire. Specifically, we are extinguishing the fire of suffering and samsara.
Come on, it’s not what is extinguished in regard to “I” on this side of the grave that preoccupies most of us in regard to the reality of, among other things, Heaven and Nirvana. Instead, it is in anticipating what awaits whatever “I” becomes on the “other side”. In other words, something, anything that allows us to imagine here and now that there is a there and then. Otherwise, from my frame of mind, religions exist in order to allow us to invent – think up – things like Heaven and Nirvana here and and in in order to attain and then sustain the psychologically comforting and consoling belief in immortality and paradise.
With Buddhism however it gets all the more ineffable:
It’s important to start by understanding that nirvana is not a place. Like freedom, it is a state. There was once a verb in Pali, nibbuti, to describe the act of extinguishing. This is just pointed out to help us understand that achieving nirvana is a process.
Not a place…a state. A process. So, is Heaven understood by most Western religionists to be a state as well? A process? Or a place “up there” where souls are intertwined in God for all of eternity?
And then of course this part:
The Buddha mentioned that nirvana is impossible to describe to somebody who has not achieved awakening themselves, but also pointed toward nirvana as freedom from suffering. This suggests we need not ponder what it feels like, but rather the way it is achieved.
On the other hand, is it even possible to be less intelligible about nirvana than this? And isn’t the way that it is achieved embodied solely in the manner in which any particular individuals are able to convince themselves that they have achieved it? Without some demonstrable description or evidence of its actual existence how is it to be pinned down whether one has achieved it?
Nirvana, Buddhism, and the Path Explained
at the One Mind Dharma website
Freedom from suffering is the purpose of the path. When we’re practicing meditation as beginners, this may seem overwhelming or confusing. But, it is helpful to keep this in the back of our minds.
Reaching this state of liberation does not mean we don’t experience unpleasant phenomena. Instead, we no longer create suffering in our lives. The Buddha himself experience unpleasant things after his awakening, but did not suffer. As such, nirvana is a state of non-clinging, non-aversion, and clarity into the nature of reality.
What else can this be but another language game? What particular unpleasant phenomena did the Buddha experience? Anyone here know?
Exactly how excruciating were these…ordeals? I suspect that were you and I to experience the same we would eventually get around to calling it suffering. And, as well, the extent to which we are able avoid creating this suffering ourselves is always going to be embedded in situations where we may well only have so much power to not choose options that lead to what we no longer call suffering…but is still suffering all the same.
And, again, when your own understanding of nirvana revolves entirely around a frame of mind that you have thought yourself into believing is true, well, that can be practically anything, right?
The author does not capitalize nirvana here. So, is he making a distinction between nirvana on this side of the grave and Nirvana on the other side?
As for achieving clarity, since there is no way to demonstrate that you have accomplished this much beyond thinking yourself into believing that you have, it’s not really much different from your belief in Nirvana itself. Or, for others, their belief in God.
10 Misconceptions about Buddhism
Two Buddhist scholars expand on popular misconceptions about Buddhism.
By Robert E. Buswell, Jr. and Donald S. Lopez Jr.
at the Buddhist Review Tricycle website
- All Buddhists meditate.
Meditation is often identified as the central practice of Buddhism. However, the majority of Buddhists throughout history have not meditated. Meditation has traditionally been considered a monastic practice, and even then as a specialty only of certain monks. It is only since the 20th century that the practice of meditation has begun to be widely practiced by laypeople.
Which immediately makes me think: what is required of Buddhists if they are to reach Nivana? And, most importantly of all, how is that translated into actual behaviors chosen on this side of the grave. When does meditation become a kind of prayer? Or when is it more just a technique to calm and discipline mind, rather than a spiritual/religious tool?
- The primary form of Buddhist meditation is mindfulness.
In fact, there are hundreds of forms of Buddhist meditation, some for developing deep states of concentration and mental bliss, some for analyzing the constituents of mind and body to find that there is no self, some for meeting the Buddha face-to-face. The practice of mindfulness as it is taught in America today began in Burma in the early 20th century.
Meeting the Buddha face to face? Tell me more. And, sure, to the extent that one attains mental bliss only a fool would question that. But to find that there is no self? In what sense? I mean, come on, there is a particular mind and body living out in a particular world bursting at the seams with actual demonstrable facts about any particular individual. Their gender, the color of their skin, their sexual orientation, their upbringing, the experiences they have, the people they interact with, the hundreds and hundreds of variables that constitute how they see themselves out in the world.
Instead, my interest is in examining how close to or far from this No Self self is insofar as it might overlap with my own “fractured and fragmented” “I”. Which revolves almost entirely around value judgments rooted in dasein. And with no spiritual or religious narrative to tie it all together so as to be, among other things, “at one with the universe”.
I’ll just make a couple comments to iambiguous here…
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trailokya
My second comment is that the Buddhists see emptiness as the ultimate truth (no self). This can be understood as that there is more space in existence than form. If we become the space instead of the form, we have pushed through samsara, the illusion.
The distance between two protons is vaster than the distance between two galaxies!!
We’re ultimately just space, not form. Form is the illusion. If we become the space, controlling form is easy, if we become the form, controlling space is impossible.
10 Misconceptions about Buddhism
Two Buddhist scholars expand on popular misconceptions about Buddhism.
By Robert E. Buswell, Jr. and Donald S. Lopez Jr.
at the Buddhist Review Tricycle website
- All Buddhists are vegetarians.
Bhikshu, the Sanskrit term translated as “monk,” literally means “beggar.” Buddhist monks and nuns originally begged for their daily meal (some still do) and therefore were supposed to eat whatever was offered to them, including meat. According to some sources, the bout of dysentery that the Buddha suffered before he entered nirvana occurred after he ate pork. In the centuries after the Buddha’s death, vegetarianism began to be promoted in some Buddhist texts. However, even today not all Buddhist monks and nuns are vegetarians. For example, in China they are; in Tibet they are not.
Of course this completely misses my point. It’s not what foods we consume but the relationship between the foods we choose to eat on this side of the grave and how that is judged by the Buddhist equivalent of God insofar as it effects the fate of “I” on the other side of the grave. After all, if it all comes down to personal choice or sect preference then why have a religion at all? Either eating meat does have an actual impact on your chances of being reincarnated to a “higher” lifeform or in reaching Nirvana or it doesn’t. Otherwise the religion becomes a cafeteria. Pick and choose whatever behavior suits you.
It’s not for nothing that most religious denominations have orthodox – “the true doctrine and its adherents as opposed to heterodox or heretical doctrines and their adherents” – communities. Either God or the Gods expect you to choose the righteous path with respect to all behaviors or, well, what does become the ticket to immortality and salvation?
- All Buddhists are pacifists.
It is often said that a war has never been fought in the name of Buddhism. It is unclear what “in the name of” might mean, but there have been many battles between Buddhists (with some Buddhist monasteries having their own armies). There have also been wars of Buddhists against non-Buddhists. Tibetan Buddhists fought bravely against British forces that invaded Tibet. During World War II, many Japanese priests supported the military expansion of the Japanese empire.
Same thing. Which war is just…and in which set of historical circumstances? Only, with Buddhists and their wars with their armies, how exactly does it work with no one God around able to bring it all down to Judgment Day?
Surely Buddhists are permitted to defend themselves against those who seek to subjugate or to annihilate them. But what actual lines are to be drawn in what actual contexts when things get more, say, ambiguous? And then the inevitable distinction between ends and means.
I suspect that here Buddhists are not all that different from the rest of us. In particular the parts rooted in dasein.
10 Misconceptions about Buddhism
Two Buddhist scholars expand on popular misconceptions about Buddhism.
By Robert E. Buswell, Jr. and Donald S. Lopez Jr.
at the Buddhist Review Tricycle website
- Buddhism is a philosophy and not a religion.
Buddhism has many philosophical schools, with a sophistication equal to that of any philosophical school that developed in Europe. However, Buddhism is a religion by any definition of that indefinable term, unless one defines religion as belief in a creator God. The great majority of Buddhist practice over history, for both monks and laypeople, has been focused on a good rebirth in the next lifetime, whether for oneself, for one’s family, or for all beings in the universe.
And this distinction makes all the difference in the world to me. Philosophy revolves around examining what we think or believe is true given such tools as logic and epistemology. Is it rational to say this rather than that? What is the extent to which we can know this or that about one thing and not another?
Indeed, what makes religion “indefinable” is that in focusing in on connecting the dots between morality on this side of the grave and immortality on the other side, how can there be but one definition given that there are hundreds and hundreds of hopelessly conflicting religious/spiritual paths out there all claiming that only their own narrative is the One True Path.
It’s not for nothing that so many denominations emphasize leaps of faith instead. And, until Buddhists are able to demonstrate why their own path is in fact the One True Path, aren’t their adherents basically just taking an existential leap all their own?
Where are the Buddhists here who are willing to explore this aspect of their faith with me? Why their path and not all the others? And, with immortality and salvation themselves at stake, how can this not become their number one concern?
Am I on the right path? How can I possibly know this? And what of the tools that philosophers use to examine their own beliefs about things said to comprise wisdom? What here can be pinned down much beyond the intellectual contraptions that the objectivists subscribe to?
10 Misconceptions about Buddhism
Two Buddhist scholars expand on popular misconceptions about Buddhism.
By Robert E. Buswell, Jr. and Donald S. Lopez Jr.
at the Buddhist Review Tricycle website
- The Buddha was a human being, not a god, and the religion he founded has no place for the worship of gods.
Buddhism has an elaborate pantheon of celestial beings (devas; the name is etymologically related to the English word divinity) and advanced spiritual beings (bodhisattvas and buddhas), who occupy various heavens and pure lands and who respond to the prayers of the devout.
Got that?
Okay, in regard to the philosophical/spiritual dots that I aim to connect – morality here and now, immortality there and then – what on earth is that actually supposed to mean? When does a spiritual path aimed mostly at disciplining the mind and providing a more calm framework become intertwined in the divine…in an “advanced” spiritual state? Given examples from your own life.
What exactly was the Buddha as that pertains to your own understanding of the similarities and differences between a mere moral and a “celestial being”?
As for bodhisattvas, what to make of Bodhi from the film Point Break? A real “searcher”. Or is that taking it all too far?
- Zen rejects conventional Buddhism.
Zen masters burn statues of the Buddha, scorn the sutras, and regularly frequent bars and brothels. Zen monks follow a strict set of regulations, called “pure rules,” which are based on the monastic discipline imported from India. Most Zen monks have engaged in extensive study of Buddhist scriptures before beginning their training in the meditation hall. And although a celebrated verse in Zen speaks of “not relying on words and letters,” Zen has the largest body of written literature of any tradition of East Asian Buddhism.
Here I am in way over my head. There are so many different schools of thought to choose from. On the other hand, with so much at stake on both sides of the grave, how many actually stop to think: am I on the right path?
No, they will almost always either not think about that at all or come up with a way to make their own particular “cognitive dissonance” just go away by rationalizing it all through one or another self-deception. Why should it be any different here?
Here is one take on it: bbc.co.uk/religion/religion … en_1.shtml
So, given my own preoccupation with “morality here and now, immortality there and then”, which path makes the most sense?
10 Misconceptions about Buddhism
Two Buddhist scholars expand on popular misconceptions about Buddhism.
By Robert E. Buswell, Jr. and Donald S. Lopez Jr.
at the Buddhist Review Tricycle website
- The four noble truths are noble
The famous phrase “four noble truths” is a mistranslation. The term “noble” in Sanskrit is aryan, a perfectly good word meaning “noble “ or “superior” that was ruined by the Nazis. Aryan is a technical term in Buddhism, referring to someone who has had direct experience of the truth and will never again be reborn as an animal, ghost, or hell being. The four truths of suffering, origin, cessation, and path are true for such enlightened beings. They are not true for us; we don’t understand that life is suffering. So the term means the “four truths for the [spiritually] noble.”
Okay, given a particular situation most will be familiar with…a situation in which we can opt for behaviors that out in the real world often result in physical conflicts derived from opposing moral and political and spiritual values…how would you make a distinction between “noble” and “enlightened”?
Is there a way for mere mortals to make such a distinction in lives that do come to clash over conflicting goods?
Exactly: your “direct experience of the truth” or theirs?
In other words, for those here who construe themselves as noble, describe how these four truths play themselves out in your own interactions with others involving value judgments that have come into conflict.
- Zen is dedicated to the experience of “sudden enlightenment”
The notion that “sudden enlightenment” frees its followers from the extended regimens of training in ethics, meditation, and wisdom found in conventional forms of Buddhism. Zen monks routinely expect to spend decades in full-time practice before they will be able to make real progress in their meditation.
Well, be that as it may, if anyone here has in fact had the experience of “sudden enlightenment”, please attempt to convey that experience in some detail to us here.
- All spiritual traditions, Buddhism included, are different paths to the same mountaintop.
Many great Buddhist figures state unequivocally that enlightenment is accessible only to those who follow the Buddhist path. One can get only so far (generally, rebirth in heaven) by following other religions; only Buddhism has the path to liberation from suffering. All roads may lead to the base camp, but only Buddhism leads to the summit.
Okay, if many great Buddhist figures insist that enlightenment is only possible for those who choose their own path, then they play right into my own argument regarding how those on the hundreds and hundreds of other spiritual/religious paths – en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r … traditions – say the same thing. And the fact that since only one of them can be right [if any of them are] then the odds are very long indeed that it is your own path.
So, I suggest further, what almost certainly motivates them to insist that it is only their own One True Path must be one or another rendition of what I call the “psychology of objectivism”:
1] For one reason or another [rooted largely in dasein], you are taught or come into contact with [through your upbringing, a friend, a book, an experience etc.] a worldview, a philosophy of life regarding the religious path.
2] Over time, you become convinced that this perspective about the religious path expresses and encompasses the most rational and objective truth. This truth then becomes increasingly more vital, more essential to you as a foundation, a justification, a celebration of all that is moral as opposed to immoral, rational as opposed to irrational.
3] Eventually, for some, they begin to bump into others who feel the same way about the religious path; they may even begin to actively seek out folks similarly inclined to view the world in a particular way.
4] Some begin to share this assessment of the religious path with family, friends, colleagues, associates, Internet users; increasingly it becomes more and more a part of their life. It becomes, in other words, more intertwined in their personal relationships with others…it begins to bind them emotionally and psychologically.
5] As yet more time passes, they start to feel increasingly compelled not only to share their Truth about the religious path with others but, in turn, to vigorously defend it against any and all detractors as well.
6] For some, it can reach the point where they are no longer able to realistically construe an argument that disputes their own about the religious path as merely a difference of opinion; they see it instead as, for all intents and purposes, an attack on their intellectual integrity…on their very Self.
7] Finally, a stage is reached [again for some] where the original quest for truth about the religious path has become so profoundly integrated into their self-identity [professionally, socially, psychologically, emotionally] defending it has less and less to do with a quest for truth at all. But just a way to anchor their Self to a comforting and consoling font.
Iambiguous,
We live in a program (not computer) that we (an infinite number of beings) made trillions of years ago.
Enlightenment is not freedom from suffering.
It’s knowing how the program works and working to make it perfect.