I don't get Buddhism

[Ecmandu]

It’s all visceral. Even the simplest of beings comprehend “no!”

Okay, but what do cats and microbes know -- viscerally or otherwise -- about comprehending consent violations and Buddhism? What can they communicate to us about them on this thread that confirms it?

For example, in the way in which you are insisting that all the rest of us must understand them too. Ever and always as you do.

On the other hand, if all that any of us understand about consent violations and Buddhism is a manifestation of a wholly determined universe, then in a way that we still do not fully understand, you and I and cats and microbes are all merely manifestations of the only possible reality there could ever be.

You know, going back to how this can be understood given an explanation for the existence of existence itself.

Perhaps phyllo's God? Or is His consent no less violated in turn?

I’m not a Buddhist. I’m a gritty realist (with tons of experience with the spirit world - which to others makes look quite the fool).

I don’t know what they know about Buddhism. I do know that cats and microbes understand “no!”.

What’s my take on Buddhism? Bullshit!

Nirvana is the realization (the bliss in knowing that everything is perfect)! Everyone’s trying to get to heaven. Bullshit! There is no fucking heaven for me if even one being in existence is having its consent violated.

[iambiguous]

I don’t know what they know about Buddhism. I do know that cats and microbes understand “no!”.

Okay, but what about this part:

On the other hand, if all that any of us understand about consent violations and Buddhism is a manifestation of a wholly determined universe, then in a way that we still do not fully understand, you and I and cats and microbes are all merely manifestations of the only possible reality there could ever be.

You know, going back to how this can be understood given an explanation for the existence of existence itself.

What are you absolutely certain about here that all of the rest of us are obligated to agree with or be regarded as postmodern fools?

Look, depending on the nature of your "condition", I may be able to help you. How? By liberating you from a frame of mind in which everything is always construed to be either this or that. To others, my way or the highway. That will afford you more options in how you think and feel, and in what you say and do about many things.

Of course there's a cost to be paid as well. Depending on just how fractured and fragmented your own particular "I" becomes. Somewhere perhaps between phyllo and karpel tunnel and me. Little here can be pinned down definitively.

[phyllo]

Look, depending on the nature of your "condition", I may be able to help you. How? By liberating you from a frame of mind in which everything is always construed to be either this or that. To others, my way or the highway. That will afford you more options in how you think and feel, and in what you say and do about many things.

Take him up on the offer, Ecmandu.

I would love to see a Doctor Biggus advice/therapy session. ( And I bet that I'm not the only one.)

[iambiguous]

Look, depending on the nature of your "condition", I may be able to help you. How? By liberating you from a frame of mind in which everything is always construed to be either this or that. To others, my way or the highway. That will afford you more options in how you think and feel, and in what you say and do about many things.

Take him up on the offer, Ecmandu.

I would love to see a Doctor Biggus advice/therapy session. ( And I bet that I'm not the only one.)

Come on, you know better.

Or, perhaps, sadder, more pathetic still, you don't.

Doctor Biggus not only does not dispense advice and/or therapy in regard to Buddhism, consent violation, God, abortion, Communism and the visceral reactions of cats and microbes, he suggests instead that his own arguments about them are no less embedded as "I" in an existential contraption rooted in dasein embodied out in a particular world historically, culturally and circumstantially.

Ever embedded in turn in contingency, chance and change...given new experiences, new relationships and access to new information, knowledge and ideas.

But not you, right? Not with your God and your objective morality. And all of the comfort and consolation that, psychologically, will sustain you [I suspect] all the way to the grave.

Same as Ecmandu. But, for him, with No God.

Me? I can only envy you both in that regard.

In other words, you left out this part:

Of course there's a cost to be paid as well. Depending on just how fractured and fragmented your own particular "I" becomes. Somewhere perhaps between phyllo and karpel tunnel and me. Little here can be pinned down definitively.

[Ecmandu]

My condition is extremely simple:

If any beings consent in all of existence is having their consent violated, so is mine.

That’s the definition of a good person.

By denying consent violation occurs, you speak moronically!

I understand how the human species works. You need to contradict yourself so a female will appreciate and/or fuck you... that’s how human females are wired. It actually provides massive spiritual protection. Problem is, once people start to realize the magnitude of the consent violating perpetual motion machine, they’ll start coming to my side. This level about contradiction isn’t even the highest level. The highest level is knowing zero sum realities don’t work at all. Even if it were not the case that only asshole males get sex (in this species that’s a law) the latter problem still rears it’s ugly head.

[phyllo]

Doctor Biggus not only does not dispense advice and/or therapy in regard to Buddhism, consent violation, God, abortion, Communism and the visceral reactions of cats and microbes, he suggests instead that his own arguments about them are no less embedded as "I" in an existential contraption rooted in dasein embodied out in a particular world historically, culturally and circumstantially.

Let's see what "I may be able to help you" actually looks like in this particular context.

[iambiguous]

My condition is extremely simple:

If any beings consent in all of existence is having their consent violated, so is mine.

That’s the definition of a good person.

By denying consent violation occurs, you speak moronically!

I understand how the human species works. You need to contradict yourself so a female will appreciate and/or fuck you... that’s how human females are wired. It actually provides massive spiritual protection. Problem is, once people start to realize the magnitude of the consent violating perpetual motion machine, they’ll start coming to my side. This level about contradiction isn’t even the highest level. The highest level is knowing zero sum realities don’t work at all. Even if it were not the case that only asshole males get sex (in this species that’s a law) the latter problem still rears it’s ugly head.

Next up: Ecmandu's definition of a definition.

Hint: It's now yours too.

[Ecmandu]

My condition is extremely simple:

If any beings consent in all of existence is having their consent violated, so is mine.

That’s the definition of a good person.

By denying consent violation occurs, you speak moronically!

I understand how the human species works. You need to contradict yourself so a female will appreciate and/or fuck you... that’s how human females are wired. It actually provides massive spiritual protection. Problem is, once people start to realize the magnitude of the consent violating perpetual motion machine, they’ll start coming to my side. This level about contradiction isn’t even the highest level. The highest level is knowing zero sum realities don’t work at all. Even if it were not the case that only asshole males get sex (in this species that’s a law) the latter problem still rears it’s ugly head.

Next up: Ecmandu's definition of a definition.

Hint: It's now yours too.

Again, logic, meaning, purpose is visceral.

Obviously you can’t define definition. What you can do is state that the human mind contains levels of intelligence greater than syllogisms... inferential logic.

This is both a curse and a blessing.

The curse: people can always argue against you
The blessing: ultimately experience matters more than words and eventually no being will argue against you.

It’s more of a blessing than a curse, no matter how annoying people are when they debate the higher functioning of mind, brain, spirit.

[phyllo]

... he suggests instead that his own arguments about them are no less embedded as "I" in an existential contraption rooted in dasein embodied out in a particular world historically, culturally and circumstantially.

I wonder how many people really think that history, culture, circumstances play no role in forming their opinions.

Ever embedded in turn in contingency, chance and change...given new experiences, new relationships and access to new information, knowledge and ideas.

I wonder how many people really think that they would not change their minds.

IOW, who is Biggus constantly wrestling with?

[iambiguous]

... he suggests instead that his own arguments about them are no less embedded as "I" in an existential contraption rooted in dasein embodied out in a particular world historically, culturally and circumstantially.

I wonder how many people really think that history, culture, circumstances play no role in forming their opinions.

That's not my point though. At least not in regard to moral, political and spiritual objectivists. For them, history and culture and circumstances would still seem to be embedded in their belief that they are in touch with the "real me" in sync with "the right thing to do".

So, is this the case with Buddhists? What do they mean by "enlightened" that is not but another rendition of objectivism? Same with the Four Noble Truths. And this: "The steps of the Noble Eightfold Path are Right Understanding, Right Thought, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration".

I merely ask them to take these things out into their own particular world in regard to the behaviors that they choose in regard to connecting the dots between that and "I" beyond the grave. What do they believe and how do they demonstrate those beliefs to others.

Ever embedded in turn in contingency, chance and change...given new experiences, new relationships and access to new information, knowledge and ideas.

I wonder how many people really think that they would not change their minds.

IOW, who is Biggus constantly wrestling with?

Again, my own understanding of dasein -- which is no less a subjective existential contraption -- revolves around the assumption that objectivists might change their mind but only insofar as they see this as coming closer to the "real me" in sync with "the right thing to do".

And since you profess still to be a moral objectivist how is this not applicable to you? Again, your font here being God. But in such a way that I still have no clear idea as to how you connect the dots between morality here and now and immortality there and then.

It's like your defense of religion and moral objectivism is still embedded in your own uncertainties and ambiguities. That basically they are embodied in your own Kierkegaardian "leap of faith".

But I can only understand this to the extent to which you make further attempts to integrate what you believe is true into the behaviors that you choose and your thinking about beyond the grave.

[phyllo]

the "real me" in sync with "the right thing to do".

Who thinks in this way? Who knows what this means?

How could it be applicable to me when I already stated that there is only the present?

If there is only the present, then there is only one "I" ... the one that exists now.

What would a "real me" be? It must be the "now me".

And how many times have I said that I give no thought to immortality. Not on the map at all.

[iambiguous]

the "real me" in sync with "the right thing to do".

Who thinks in this way? Who knows what this means?

How could it be applicable to me when I already stated that there is only the present?

If there is only the present, then there is only one "I" ... the one that exists now.

What would a "real me" be? It must be the "now me".

And how many times have I said that I give no thought to immortality. Not on the map at all.

We'll need a context of course.

You know, this coming from one of the Stooges. And, of late, Curly no less!!



Note to Moreno, von rivers and IPLers of old:

What the hell happened to phyllo? Or is it just my imagination that something did happen to him?

By the way, what the hell happened to you?!

I sure hope it wasn't something that "I" said?

[phyllo]

the "real me" in sync with "the right thing to do".

Who thinks in this way? Who knows what this means?

How could it be applicable to me when I already stated that there is only the present?

If there is only the present, then there is only one "I" ... the one that exists now.

What would a "real me" be? It must be the "now me".

And how many times have I said that I give no thought to immortality. Not on the map at all.

We'll need a context of course.

You know, this coming from one of the Stooges. And, of late, Curly no less!!



Note to Moreno, von rivers and IPLers of old:

What the hell happened to phyllo? Or is it just my imagination that something did happen to him?

By the way, what the hell happened to you?!

I sure hope it wasn't something that "I" said?

Just insults and pointless jabber.

[iambiguous]

Just insults and pointless jabber.

And right back at you in retort mode!

Note to Buddhists:

Fit this into the quest for Nirvana!!

No, seriously.

[iambiguous]

The Role of Karma in Buddhist Morality
Barbara O’Brien

In conclusion...

This is an ideal, and human beings often fall short of ideals. You can find news stories about Buddhist monks and teachers involved in sex scandals and even encouraging violence — both of which violate the Precepts, big time. No moral system ever enjoys perfect compliance.

And it is in regard to "ideals" that I am most likely to react as I do. Ideals derived from ideas derived from words defining and defending other words in general description intellectual/spiritual contraptions that define and defend still more general description intellectual/spiritual contraptions.

You wouldn't think these "worlds of words" have anything to do at all with actual human interactions.

But long-time practitioners often say that an appreciation of karma, and an appreciation of how our actions affect everyone in the great web of being, has genuinely changed their behavior.

And is it or is it not appropriate to ask of these long time practitioners that their "spiritual" understanding of karma be reconfigured in a philosophy venue into a description of these changes that encompasses the behaviors deemed enlightened on this side of the grave reconfigured further into an attempt to describe the fate of their own particular "I" on the other side of the grave.

In other words, what am I really missing here about Buddhism that sets it apart from Western "there is a God" religions?

[phyllo]

This is an ideal, and human beings often fall short of ideals. You can find news stories about Buddhist monks and teachers involved in sex scandals and even encouraging violence — both of which violate the Precepts, big time. No moral system ever enjoys perfect compliance.

Warrior monks exist in a number of religions.

Which suggests that non-violence is not always workable even if it is preferable.

[Ecmandu]

This is an ideal, and human beings often fall short of ideals. You can find news stories about Buddhist monks and teachers involved in sex scandals and even encouraging violence — both of which violate the Precepts, big time. No moral system ever enjoys perfect compliance.

Warrior monks exist in a number of religions.

Which suggests that non-violence is not always workable even if it is preferable.

Let’s take the Dalai Lama as an example ...

Let’s say a woman makes a pilgrimage to visit him and a man walks in the room and starts raping her right in front of him .... his training teaches him that’s her karma and that he should be unattached. That’s some evil fucking shit!

What he should do is stand up and beat the shit out of the rapist!

[zinnat]

This is an ideal, and human beings often fall short of ideals. You can find news stories about Buddhist monks and teachers involved in sex scandals and even encouraging violence — both of which violate the Precepts, big time. No moral system ever enjoys perfect compliance.

Warrior monks exist in a number of religions.

Which suggests that non-violence is not always workable even if it is preferable.

Let’s take the Dalai Lama as an example ...

Let’s say a woman makes a pilgrimage to visit him and a man walks in the room and starts raping her right in front of him .... his training teaches him that’s her karma and that he should be unattached. That’s some evil fucking shit!

What he should do is stand up and beat the shit out of the rapist!

No my friend,
That is not how the concept of the karma should be implemented. Karma is not supposed to work in isolation but implies that karma shouldnot be seperated from Dharma. In Hinduism( including Buddhism and Jainism) the term Dharma stands very close to duty. The concept is that one is supposed to react to all kind of cercumstances how he or she ought to be.

Means, do the karma with Dharma, and then leave the results to the destiny.

With love,
Sanjay

[MagsJ]

@Zinnat.. it seems that it’s not only Gib that doesn’t get Buddhism.

Buddhism, Hinduism, Vedism Brahminism etc. are the vehicle, in which rta/Dharma are delivered through.. it is beyond religion.. it is irreligious. The second that a person realises that, is the second they will start to understand.

Rta, is a state of mind, borne from original thought, disseminated through South/SE/E Asian Canons and Religions.. either you’ll get it or you won’t, but it ain’t fucking rocket science. How is knowing what the right thing to do, so difficult and complicated.. like rocket science is?

We.. as a peoples and planet are truly doomed, if we cannot simply differentiate right action from wrong.. the difference between maturity and immaturity/adult and children. Ffs!

[Karpel Tunnel]

Note to Moreno, von rivers and IPLers of old:

What the hell happened to phyllo? Or is it just my imagination that something did happen to him?

By the way, what the hell happened to you?!

I sure hope it wasn't something that "I" said?

Phyllo responded: Just insults and pointless jabber.

Phyllo: Speaking for Moreno, as I very well can, what I notice is you not getting as stuck, as we all have been at some time or other, in the goop of his not responding or his not being clear or his attacking or his not making sense or his repeating himself for no reason or here, as you point out, merely insulting you (and not bothering to respond at all with any substance). So nice catch simply pointing out what is doing and not doing, rather than getting entangled in the muck.

Not getting entangled in the muck might be one way to describe Buddhism.

[phyllo]

If something isn't working, then I will try something else.

Although at this point, there may be nothing left to try.

[Ecmandu]

Zinnat,
I am an extremely spiritual atheist.

If Vishnu or anyone else held in high esteem came to this world and taught “zero sum realities are shit”, this species would be a billion times better. These are all false gods! I know all the eastern religions (except Shintoism) came from India.

The dharma should have been, “zero sum worlds are shit, but while you’re here, reduce consent violation as much as possible”

Now wouldn’t that have started a REAL conversation in this species!!!!!!!!!

Nobody said that before me! I don’t claim to be the king or queen. I’d never in forever sit on a fucking throne. I’d never forever decide it’s a good thing to be eternally the ‘best’. I want everyone on my level, not simply to be better than. This is a hard task in this species.

I always tell people that their concept of god is what they’d be if they were god!

Never an equal, always prayer and worship. I’m trying to wake this species up and you’re not letting me!

[iambiguous]

This is an ideal, and human beings often fall short of ideals. You can find news stories about Buddhist monks and teachers involved in sex scandals and even encouraging violence — both of which violate the Precepts, big time. No moral system ever enjoys perfect compliance.

Warrior monks exist in a number of religions.

Which suggests that non-violence is not always workable even if it is preferable.

Note to warrior monks of any and all denominations:

Describe examples of violence in your own life. Describe in turn how you intertwine violence on this side of the grave with that which you imagine as the fate of "I" to be on the other side of the grave.

As, finally, all of this might be understood by the hundreds and hundreds of religious warriors in other denominations. As it all might be encompassed in a philosophy venue with respect to the existential relationship between morality and immortality.

My own fascination of choice here and now given that I possess some measure of autonomy and accepting that what any of us think about all of this can only be wild ass guesses going back to an explanation for existence itself.

Oh, and link us to arguments and evidence that will serve to demonstrate that what you believe in your head is in fact true for all rational men and women.

Note to others:

Know any religious warriors? Persuade them to join us here as, to the best of our ability, we connect the dots being beingness and nothingness. As but infinitesimally tiny specks of existence in the context of all there is.

[iambiguous]

Note to Moreno, von rivers and IPLers of old:

What the hell happened to phyllo? Or is it just my imagination that something did happen to him?

By the way, what the hell happened to you?!

I sure hope it wasn't something that "I" said?

Phyllo responded: Just insults and pointless jabber.

Phyllo: Speaking for Moreno, as I very well can, what I notice is you not getting as stuck, as we all have been at some time or other, in the goop of his not responding or his not being clear or his attacking or his not making sense or his repeating himself for no reason or here, as you point out, merely insulting you (and not bothering to respond at all with any substance). So nice catch simply pointing out what is doing and not doing, rather than getting entangled in the muck.

Not getting entangled in the muck might be one way to describe Buddhism.

We'll need a context of course. Stooge or not.

[zinnat]

@Zinnat.. it seems that it’s not only Gib that doesn’t get Buddhism.

Buddhism, Hinduism, Vedism Brahminism etc. are the vehicle, in which rta/Dharma are delivered through.. it is beyond religion.. it is irreligious. The second that a person realises that, is the second they will start to understand.

Rta, is a state of mind, borne from original thought, disseminated through South/SE/E Asian Canons and Religions.. either you’ll get it or you won’t, but it ain’t fucking rocket science. How is knowing what the right thing to do, so difficult and complicated.. like rocket science is?

We.. as a peoples and planet are truly doomed, if we cannot simply differentiate right action from wrong.. the difference between maturity and immaturity/adult and children. Ffs!

MagsJ,

It looks to me that it is not me but you who needs a bit more clarity about karma and religions.

Let me take the intellectual issue first.
People often get it wrong but prophets are the most important parts of the religions, even more than respective Gods itself. That begs a question. Why so?

The answer is that it is not the gods but prophets who bring these religions in this world. It were Jesus and Mohammad who founded Christianity and Islam, neither God nor Allah by themselves. So, you have to believe the prophets first before believing the Gods and religions. It cannot be the other way around. There cannot be any Islam without Mohammad and neither any Christianity without Jesus. And, that applies to all religions. You have to believe the massanger first before believing in the dilevered massage. It would be illogical to claim that I believe only in the massage, not in the massanger.

The important thing to remember here is that if you follow this route and believe in the prophets first, you become religious by default. In the same way, if you are believing in karma and Dharma, you are accepting that what Buddha and Mahavira said about Karma is true. That makes you a religious person, whether you like it or not. Because, the concept of Karma has no place in pure western intellectual philosophy, it is an out and out eastern religious doctrine.

Secondly, other than Buddhism but in all other Indian religions, the concept of Karma goes beyond one life but spreads its jurisdiction to all previous and future incarnations. Now again, how one is supposed to be a irreligious and believing in incarnations?

MagsJ, unlike west, there is no pure intellectual philosophy or philosophers in the east, especially in india. All philosophers were religious scholars first, though they covered all non religious verticals also. Both of Kamsutra and Ayurveda were written by religious sages, not any medical professional.

With love,
Sanjay