The burning sensation qua burning sensation is not a contingent "bad', for there is no way to contextualize it that would diminish its badness. — Constance

There are all sorts of ways to contextualize it that would diminish its badness. Neurospsychologically speaking, the sensation itself always emerges as what it is out of a contextual field. Any alteration in that field changes the perceived nature of the sensation. This is how accupuncture , phantom limb pain and biofeedback work, and why the concept of qualia is incoherent. There is no such thing as an intrinsic sensation

There are all sorts of ways to contextual our it that would finish its badness Neurospsychologically speaking, the sensation itself always emerges as what it is out of a contextual field. Any alteration in that field
changes the perceived nature of the sensation. This is how accupuncture and biofeedback work. — Joshs

But this is about badness "as such". The phenomenon of badness, the touching the flame and the ouuuccchhh!
Clearly, anything can be contextualized. Language itself is auto-contextualizing, you might say: no context, no meaning. I recall Dennett writing about qualia, showing that such a pure phenomenon" is simply not defensible, and I agreed. Qualia is already rendered contingent the moment it comes to mind at all. But then, there is that match burning my flesh: this is not "being appeared to redly"; no even close. this is something radically different. The badness of the pain is not language bound, even though I must have language to give it transmittable meaning. No, there is something else: the world apart from my systems of understanding DOES this. Ontologically equivalent to Moses' tablets, without the anthropomorphic baggage.
This makes me a kind of meta-moral realist.

there is something else: the world apart from my systems of understanding DOES this. — Constance

The question is what exactly it is doing. Or , from my vantage, how consequential is its effect. That leads back to how much we are trying pack into the idea of irreducible quality, value, feeling, substance. The more formidable we make the content of this black box , the more we are forced to found the world on forces of
evil and violence. This polarization of the world is a direct result of failing to reduce the basis of quality-value thoroughly enough. I believe we can reduce it to the point where we discover that good and bad are derivations of simple presence and absence. What it is that is present or absent is irrelevant to the meaning of good and bad. One would then say that the direction of the good is the world coming to know itself more and and more intimately, in a kind of condensation or invagination. Goodness is then a correlate of the ‘density’ of the presenting of presence in the flow of time.

This view explains concepts like evil, violence, god and polarization as derivatives of a more originary dynamic that is not itself any of these.

This polarization of the world is a direct result of failing to reduce the basis of quality-value thoroughly enough. I believe we can reduce it to the point where we discover that good and bad are derivations of simple presence and absence. What it is that is present or absent is irrelevant to the meaning of good and bad. One would then say that the direction of the good is the world coming to know itself more and and more intimately, in a kind of condensation or invagination. Goodness is then a correlate of the ‘density’ of the presenting of presence in the flow of time.

This view explains concepts like evil, violence, god and polarization as derivatives of a more originary dynamic that is not itself any of these. — Joshs

I think you are right say it polarizes the world.

But hmmmmm: failing to reduce the basis of quality-value enough. This is puzzling. Value as a derivation of presence? As you say, presence or absence is irrelevant to the meaning of (ethical) good and bad. Then how does this reduction work??
And: not evil, violence, god. This is, by my thinking, categorically confusing. God is an anthropomorphism, violence implies evil, but then, is more complex, putting an eye to what causes evil. And indeed, all terms are laden with connotative superfluities. The term I would use is meta-good, meta-evil, meta-value. With these, the incidentals can be tossed.
There is nothing more originary than presence, granted. But as such, vacuous. It is the content that gives us existence.

As you say, presence or absence is irrelevant to the meaning of (ethical) good and bad. — Constance

Not irrelevant to it. On the contrary, presence and absence are the basis of ethical good and evil.

There is nothing more originary than presence, granted. But as such, vacuous. It is the content that gives us existence. — Constance

What I see you doing (and religious metaphysics in general) is stuffing into the category of ‘content’ everything that gives ethical good and evil its force. What I am doing is taking what you have stuffed into the pigeonholed of content and rethinking f it as process.
As an example of turning content-based ethics into presence-absence based process, think of behavior by another that causes us harm due to a misunderstanding at their end.

In this case we use a process-based approach. Because of an absence of knowledge on the other’s part, we were hurt.Greater insight ( a process of learning) would prevent the problem in future. We dont need to blame wrongful intent ( content-based explanation) to explain the cause of the situation. Instead we can rely on an explanation that depends on organizational features of interpersonal understanding. What I am suggesting is that every instance of human conflict that we blame on wrongful intent can instead be understood more effectively in terms of the organizational dynamics of interpersonal cognition. Our greatest struggle is finding a way to integrate alien worldviews without our own without falling into the trap of attributing the rift to ‘wrongful motives’.

So - would it be real were there no humans to be non-attached? Is it just an artefact of pyschology, do you think? — Wayfarer

I don't understand the question;can you elaborate.

That saying 'show me your original face' is a Zen koan, I believe. As others have commented, it's easy to repeat popular Zen sayings, but it's another matter to walk the talk. — Wayfarer

I just used it to symbolize original nature, what we are before the socialization process has worked its magic.

Because of an absence of knowledge on the other’s part, we were hurt.Greater insight ( a process of learning) would prevent the problem in future. — Joshs

Hurt? Problem? What is it about these that make the matter an issue at all? I am looking not at these contingencies. One can, in this line of thinking, construct multiple contexts of ethical entanglements, and I certainly agree that clearing the way for greater mutual understanding reduces problematic entanglements. Organizational features of interpersonal understanding are, I find myself agreeing, a good way to lay out a general sense of what needs to be done. But I have, in this matter, no use for this, any more than I have use for Kant or Mill. My one fascination is non contingent good and evil that emerges in the analysis of the value present in all of our affairs. Extreme examples are the most poignant, hence that match to the finger: what is that horrible experience? What IS it in the "present at hand" sense of IS, if you will? Heidegger misses this, or, talks around it. Even Levinas misses this.

Frankly, I find it a little bewildering, this move toward what is NOT pain at all, to provide an explanatory context for what it is. Others make the move toward evolutionary accounts, neurophysiological reductionism, relativism in the inconsistencies of ethical systems and aesthetic taste, and so on. I don't take issue with these.

I look plainly at the phenomenon before me. Phenomenological reduction is the only way to even approach ontology, for here, entanglements suspended, incidentals dismissed, and core features of ethics are revealed.

:death: :flower:

If the Tathagata (“One who has arrived”) “understands everything that is perceived and pondered over by the mind”, “sees the disappearance of consciousness”, etc., this seems to suggest the presence of some form of consciousness or awareness that the Tathagata has. — Apollodorus

I think you're right. Won't quibble with that. It's not as if 'the Tathagatha' is not conscious. There is a stream in Buddhist philosophy about buddha-nature, Tathāgatagarbha, which bears some similarity to the idea of a higher self, more evident in East Asian schools than in Theravada. It distinguished itself from Vedanta but it's still a higher self.

Buddha-nature has a wide range of (sometimes conflicting) meanings in Indian and later East Asian and Tibetan Buddhist literature, and the idea of Buddha-nature may refer to, among others, the luminous nature of mind,[7][8][9] the pure (visuddhi), undefiled mind,[7] "the natural and true state of the mind";[10] sunyata, an emptiness that is a nonimplicative negation (as emptiness is seen in madhyamaka);[8] the alaya-vijñana ("store-consciousness", a yogacara concept);[8] the interpenetration of all dharmas; and the potential for all sentient beings to attain liberation. — Wiki

there's a lot of arguments over such matters in Buddhism itsellf.

I also acknowledge there is a confusing proliferation of schools in Buddhism, although part of that is a consequence of the 'knowledge explosion' of modern times, where knowledge about everything is so freely available. When the British colonised India, it took a century or more for them to realise that there had once been a religion called 'Buddhism' in that land. In traditional Buddhist cultures, one only ever had exposure to the dominant school or schools.

For me, the most interesting word being done is in French post modern theology/phenomenology: Michel Henri, Jean luc Marion, Jean luc Nancy and others. Why are they so interesting? Because they pursue a line of thinking that goes to the experiential "presence" itself. It is in presence qua presence of the ordinary world we live in wherein lies the clue to enlightenment. — Constance

They do sound interesting but I don't know if I'll ever read them, life is short and books are many. (But glancing at Marion's wiki entry, I read something that immediately resonates, "We live with love as if we knew what it was about. But as soon as we try to define it, or at least approach it with concepts, it draws away from us." :ok: I've also encountered Michel Henri's critique on barbarism which is applicable to a lot of what passes as 'philosophy' in modern culture: 'This negation of life (associated with technocratic society) results, according to Michel Henry, from the "disease of life", from its secret dissatisfaction with the self which leads it to deny itself, to flee itself in order to escape its anguish and its own suffering'. I think that is an exact diagnosis of "eliminative materialism".)

Reading a preface to the Tibetan Book of the Dead, I came across the remark that it was common for monks to talk freely about their most intimate meditative experiences. — Constance

But then that is within a domain of discourse where such expressions are meaningful, there's a shared understanding of what these experiences are.

Buddhist enlightenment, ot to put too fine a point on it, is. I think, exactly where all of this inquiry should be moving toward: toward the intuited apprehension of the world that yields....but then, there is the rub: SAYING what it is. — Constance

That is the area of hermenuetics, the interpretation of texts. It's a topic within Buddhism itself, because of doctrinal disputes that arose in the early part of the tradition. Some of the Mahāyāna Sutras (e.g. Ārya-saṃdhi-nirmocana-sūtra) purport to present the 'definitive interpretation' concerning various difficult or disputed points of the earlier tradition. In any case, the central concern of all the schools is with realising that state of enlightenment.

I’ve always thought of Zen Buddhism as a joke — T Clark

Careful, the joke may be on you. (Although on second reading, maybe I didn't pick up your intentional irony.)

On the other hand, as I noted in an earlier post, I am closer to enlightenment than any of you are.
— T Clark

No, no. I am, heh, heh, "far closer". — Constance

Perhaps enlightenment is a pissing competition recast as a meta-narative... :razz:

Enlightenment is concerned with truth, and therefore, to address the begged question we are forced to affirm that value is an essential part of this.

The matter then turns to value: what is it? An argument over the nature of value is THE philosophical discussion to have. Until the nature of value is revealed, talk about enlightenment is just question begging. This makes ethics/aesthetics the first order of affair. All that talk about Buddhists, theologians and Gods, rationalists and their quest for axiomatic assurance, all of these "narratives" come down to an analysis of value and its meaning. — Constance

What is an argument over the nature of value? Step it out if you have time.

I am sympathetic to the view that there is no capital T truth out there to be found. Humans make truth. Utility seems to me to determine the traction or value of any given narrative. How well does it work for us to meet our goals.

They do sound interesting but I don't know if I'll ever read them, life is short and books are many. (But glancing at Marion's wiki entry, I read something that immediately resonates, "We live with love as if we knew what it was about. But as soon as we try to define it, or at least approach it with concepts, it draws away from us. — Wayfarer

They are working outward from Husserl's phenomenology. Husserl, for me, made a profound discovery. Of course, this is something that had been in place for centuries in the east, but Husserl revealed how this could be broached in the otherwise prohibitive tradition dominated by Christian metaphysics, rationalism, empiricism, positivism, and other isms.

But then that is within a domain of discourse where such expressions are meaningful, there's a shared understanding of what these experiences are. — Wayfarer

Certainly. Shared experiences is what makes language possible. I only want to say that it is not right to say something is beyond language. The only thing beyond language is the ability to explain language, which would require language to do so. But so what. Language as a possible vehicle to explain things is open and free. It always has been.

That is the area of hermenuetics, the interpretation of texts. It's a topic within Buddhism itself, because of doctrinal disputes that arose in the early part of the tradition. Some of the Mahāyāna Sutras (e.g. Ārya-saṃdhi-nirmocana-sūtra) purport to present the 'definitive interpretation' concerning various difficult or disputed points of the earlier tradition. In any case, the central concern of all the schools is with realising that state of enlightenment. — Wayfarer

I observe a blade of grass. Now where is the basis for interpretative disagreement? It lies within the language that was there prior to the observation. One does not enter into observation and inquiry without already having been enculturated. It is those pesky extraneous affairs and "traditions" that obtrude into the saying what something IS that undoes the purity of the event. In this, Hegel was right, I suppose: it will take time and dialectical struggle to work this out; but then, this IS the conversation humanity has to be having with itself.

What is an argument over the nature of value? Step it out if you have time.

I take the view that there is no capital T truth out there to be found. Humans make truth. Utility seems to me to determine the traction or value of any given narrative. How well does it work for us to meet our goals. — Tom Storm

If I have time? Sorry, but yes, I do have time. I like writing about this because it reminds me of what I actually think. Hope it's not too long.

Any analysis imaginable, if taken to the very end of its logical output, turns to value, for in the end, once all concepts have been exhaustively examined there will remain the question that all along has attended the entire enterprise: what was the point of all this analysis? The question of what good the whole affair is hovrs over all that is done. If it were finally and definitively determined that God does exist, what good would this proposition be? God, after all, is not about the successful positing of a creator Being of infinte power; no, all along it has been about us, our desire for something wonderful beyond all reckoning, and a deliverance from suffering. Bring on all of this, and God just disappears as pointless.

All possible endeavor vanishes into the air if there is no value in what is done, and thus, value deserves first place in our philosophical priorities, for all that would compete for this position beg the value question. I see no way around this: the human enterprise, call it, is not one that seeks truth, for truth is propositional-- only sentences bear truth and we are certainly not struggling to achieve the greatest sentence possible. Rather we are looking for the greatest experiences possible, that is, the greatest joy, bliss, rapture, the deepest and most profound, with all the superlatives one can think of thrown in. Find this, and then construct the true proposition: this is just fantastic! and you have found yourself in greater proximity to what is sought after.

So this love affair with truth has to end: truth, in the end, is contingent on value. Trivial truths, like the bath water being too cold or there being 12 inches to a foot, are facts, and facts have no value as facts. (Of course, the pragmatists are right: talk about facts qua facts is just an abstraction, for such things do not exist. A fact is "of a piece" with the structure of experience itself, and value is there in the fact-value event).

Value needs to be given its due: what IS it? This piano sonata is beautiful, a splinter is painful, this study is interesting, and so on. It first has to be understood that this kind of thing is utterly pervasive. We don't have valueless experiences (Heidegger does an extraordinary examination of this kind of thing in his "deficient modes of Being with" in his Being and Time. This guy is an amazing philosopher.). So when we speak of value, we are not referring to this experience ot that, but to the entire stream of experience itself.

As to what it is, this needs analysis. Value is the existential core of ethics. No value, no ethics, or aesthetics. If no one cares about anything, then no one can be harmed or delighted, hence, no prohibitions or rules that would govern these. Then, value itself: Take a radical example: being scalded by boiling water. This has two dimensions, the incidentals: the hot water, the sensate vulnerabilities, the anatomical experience making systems, etc.; and the pure phenomenon of pain, which is evident and irreducible. The incidentals are variable. It could have been that a couch fell on your head or your were stabbed in the liver and the ethical dimension would still be there, so the incidentals are dismissed as nonessential to a determination of the nature of value. Something certainly caused the pain, but the pain is the essential feature, not the couch.

Finally: consider that there are two kinds of good and bad. there are contingent goods and bads and these are very common. This is a good coffee cup because it's easy to hold, has good thermal qualities, etc. The "goodness" is contingent several things. But note how this goodness works: this is a good knife because it's sharp and balanced and so on; but then, if it is going to be used for Macbeth, you don't want a sharp knife at all! Someone could get hurt, and now what was good is now bad, just like that. That is contingency.

The other kind of good and bad is non contingent, or, absolute, and this is where value finds its analysis. Take the pain mentioned above of being scalded. There is a "bad" in this pure phenomenon of pain that cannot be diminished in any possible way. To illustrate this, consider a scalding and other lovely tortures of someone for an entire weekend. Then consider any possible way you might ethically choose to inflict such torture on someone. Perhaps a solid utilitarian choice sits before you: do this or thousands of others, children, in fact, will suffer not for a week, but for a thousand years! Now, I think there is a very good argument here to choose against the thousand year alternative, but note: unlike the sharpness of the knife, the contingent nature of its goodness easy undone by circumstances changing, the torture for the weekend is not at all diminished in its "badness", as dumb and awkward as that term sounds.

One has to look, I hold, long and hard at this claim. thik about the difference between being tortured and its badness, and the sharp knife and its badness for the use in Macbeth. These are very different meanings of BAD. There is nothing even imaginable that can diminish the pain's ethical dimension, its badness; therefore, this badness is an absolute, (notwithstanding the problematic of explaining absolutes. There is more argument to this, but I have given the essentials) .

To be enlightened is to be free from suffering but life is suffering (one of the Noble Truths) and so...

I think what tends to happen is that when people don’t know about something but they know (or are told) that it exists, the mind will compensate for the lack of information by imagining things and this can be equivalent to getting “tangled in theories”.

In any case, no one expects a full-blown theory. But a better explanation might help people to understand. If not, it amounts to saying that Buddhists have nothing to say on the topic, which doesn't seem to be the case. — Apollodorus

There is the idea that Buddhism isn't about metaphysics, that it eschews metaphysics. Many people take this to mean that it doesn't concern itself with abstract cosmologies/cosmogonies, ontology, or pretty much any idea that seems "out there" (so such people cast away the notions of karma and rebirth on account that they "are metaphysical").

The way I understand things is that "metaphysics" is what one does when the views/theories/doctrines that one holds far exceed one's attainment.

A simile is instructive:

The Blessed One said: "Suppose an elephant hunter were to enter an elephant forest and were to see there a large elephant footprint, long in extent and broad in width. A skilled elephant hunter would not yet come to the conclusion, 'What a big bull elephant!' Why is that? Because in an elephant forest there are dwarf female elephants with big feet. The footprint might be one of theirs.

"So he follows along and sees in the elephant forest a large elephant footprint, long in extent and broad in width, and some scratch marks high up. A skilled elephant hunter would not yet come to the conclusion, 'What a big bull elephant!' Why is that? Because in an elephant forest there are tall female elephants with prominent teeth & big feet. The footprint might be one of theirs.

"So he follows along and sees in the elephant forest a large elephant footprint, long in extent and broad in width, with some scratch marks and tusk slashes high up. A skilled elephant hunter would not yet come to the conclusion, 'What a big bull elephant!' Why is that? Because in an elephant forest there are tall female elephants with tusks & big feet. The footprint might be one of theirs.

"So he follows along and sees in the elephant forest a large elephant footprint, long in extent and broad in width, with some scratch marks and tusk slashes high up and some broken-off branches. And he sees that bull elephant at the foot of the tree or in an open clearing, walking, standing, sitting, or lying down. He comes to the conclusion, 'That's the big bull elephant.'

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.027.than.html

To do metaphysics would be to see a large elephant footprint and to conclude "there is a bull elephant here" and look no further (or, at best, spend a lot of time, even the rest of one's life examining that one footprint and trying to establish from that and that alone that it is the footprint of a bull elephant (and that the bull elephant is still in the forest)).

Most organized religion/spirituality works like this, it's metaphysics: You're shown something (or you see something), and then you take this as evidence of something much much bigger, more complex, you commit yourself to that view (as a matter of your honor), and then you leave it at that.
Buddhism, too, can be approached this way: one perhaps has a few insights or experiences that draw one to Buddhism, and then one learns and internalizes a vast theory, a vast doctrine, sets up a meditation or other practice, but all this without having the personal attainment to back it up.

But Buddhism can be done another way as well: as walking a path, a combination of theory and practice. The practice being the foot on the ground, and the theory being the one off ground and looking for a place to put it. This is a "minimalist" approach. It's on principle incompatible with organized religion/spirituality. But it is realistic, in the sense that one only works with whatever one currently has and knows, and however far one currently sees.

For a person approaching Buddhism this way, the multiplicity of Buddhist traditions and/or interpretations, in addition to apparent contradictions in the texts, are not a problem.

Of course, actually living this minimalism can be very difficult, esp. if one takes it up after first having approached Buddhism the usual, metaphysical way. Because a move toward such minimalism will likely mean that one will be faced with accusations (from other people, as well as from oneself) of lacking faith, "having commitment issues", being stupid, worthless, one will probably lose one's Buddhist friends and not make any new ones, one will not fit into any Buddhist group/school/lineage. One will probably have trouble making sense of much of the Buddhist literature. At the same time, one is likely going to feel alienated from the ordinary, non-Buddhist folks and society at large as well.

By minimalism I'm here refering to working on things one knows, one is sure of, those areas of one's experience where the Dhamma currently seems to apply. Chances are that this isn't going to be much, hence minimalism. This could include some elements or portions of the Four Noble Truths or the Noble Eightfold Path, or not. It could be inspired just by some small statements in a sutta or in a Dhamma talk. Something that one currently sees as right and true and is able to act accordingly.

This way, one will probably not be a good Buddhist, but at least one will be true to one's experience, and preserve some measure of sanity.

Thank you.

If the Tathagata (“One who has arrived”) “understands everything that is perceived and pondered over by the mind”, “sees the disappearance of consciousness”, etc., this seems to suggest the presence of some form of consciousness or awareness that the Tathagata has.

This may not be the ordinary consciousness (viññāṇa) associated with everyday experience, as the Tathagata is said to “see the disappearance” of that. But it may still be a higher form of consciousness, otherwise we couldn’t speak of “seeing” and “understanding”. — Apollodorus

I think the salient point here is that the Tathagata doesn't "make any new karma". He understands, sees things in a way that doesn't lead to suffering, to rebirth.

An arahant still has functioning eyes, ears, nose, tongue, skin, intellect, he still has volition. But the way he sees, hears, smells, tastes, touches, thinks, and wills is such that it doesn't give rise to suffering, it doesn't give rise to rebirth.

(We, as ordinary unenlightened people, cannot see things the way an arahant does, we cannot see things from his perspective, so we cannot describe the way things look from his perspective. Yes, from our unenligtened position, we cannot but think that an arahant sees things from a particular perspective.)

(We could perhaps also take up minimalism and not get into discussing topics that by far exceed our attainment.)

The “melting away of I and mine”, etc., seems fairly clear. But this doesn’t answer the question of what remains in the end. In Western traditions like Platonism and Hindu ones like Advaita Vedanta, the answer would be “consciousness”.

The Buddhist answer seems less clear. — Apollodorus

It's easy to lose sight that the center point of Buddhism is suffering and the end of suffering. The Buddha said that he teaches only one thing: suffering and the end of suffering.

Glossing over this, and instead trying to chart Buddhist doctrine in ontological and epistemological terms characteristic for some other philosophies/religions, is to miss the whole point of Buddhism.

Right, but only those who are really fuckwits won't let go once they see that the alternative is unacceptable, or else cannot see the alternative is unacceptable when its unacceptability is staring them right in the face. — Janus

The question is how far you can go with this letting go.

So far, we've mentioned gross examples of people refusing to abandon their cars which are stuck on collision course with trains, refusal to stop smoking despite severe health damage from smoking, and such.
Perhaps you'll go so far to accept that there may be situations in which one has to sacrifice a part of one's body in order to save the rest, such as cutting off an arm that got stuck stuck under a rock in a mountaineering accident.

But how about letting go of your body altogether, once keeping it seems unacceptable?

But one can give up a greater unhappiness when one sees that will deliver them to a lesser unhappiness.

Not in my experience. Unhappiness is unhappines, one cannot make deals with it.

With such prospects, what can possibly motivate a person to give up their attachments, when they've got nothing higher to live for?
— baker

Being run over by a bus is not a prospect but merely an unlikely possibility. People of course will not be motivated to give up their attachments until they see that their attachments are causing them to suffer, and that if they were less attached they would suffer less.

I'm talking about the inevitability and unpredictability of death.

Your life and your project of giving up your attachments could be cut short by a disease, a vehicular collision, a robbery, any number of things. People die every day, at all ages, for a number of reasons. Why couldn't you?

This is your prospect: an inevitable and unpredictable death. And since you don't believe in karma and rebirth, the death of this body of yours is the end of you.

In the face of this prospect, with a view such as yours, what can possibly motivate a person to give up their attachments, when they've got nothing higher to live for?

No, we can enjoy non-attachment to some things, it is just questionable as to whether we could realize non-attachment to all things, and in any case that is not what is being claimed for the enlightened ones, since they are acknowledged to be attached to their practice if nothing else.

Also, you keep ignoring my suggestions that you might see it more favorably if you think in terms of 'reactivity' instead of attachment. Anyway if it's not for you it's not for you. It's not entirely for me: I have no intention of becoming a Buddhist monk or even an avowed lay practitioner, but I think the idea has practical merit. It is found in the Epicureans, the Pyrrhonian Skeptics, the Stoics and Spinoza, as well. — Janus

Sure, and the Epicureans and the others that you mention have whole systems of metaphysics into which they embed their notions of letting go. Those systems make sense of the letting go, and so they also make it meaningful and easier.
But what do you have? You're against metaphysics to begin with!

Batchelor equates the unconditoned with the state of non-attachment, which makes sense to me since our reactivity is based on concepts of what should be the case, how people and relationships should be, how I should be, what I am entitled to and so on, that have been socially inculcated (conditioned). "Your original face before you were born".

So, his interpretation (which he backs up with quotations from the Pali canon) is an non-metaphysical one — Janus

If one is creative enough, one can "back up" all kinds of things with the suttas. The difference is that the suttas say a great number of things that Batchelor doesn't say, or where he and the suttas are in conflict.

I just used it to symbolize original nature, what we are before the socialization process has worked its magic. — Janus

We can be something before/outside/despite socialization?

This kind of succintness is what makes Zen so easy to exploit and pervert, and to assume more familiarity with it than one actually has.
— baker

You're right, but what a westerner might call vagueness, mysticism, contrariness, or irony is a real part of eastern philosophies. — T Clark

As mentioned by some others, those pithy Zen sayings are part of a vast and complex system of doctrine and practice. Once considered that way, they cease to seem vague, or mystical, contrary, or ironic.


- - -

In my OP, I was wondering if enlightenment means the same thing in different cultures. I guess I was asking if it is the case that enlightenment (if and when it takes place) transcends culture and religion. — Tom Storm

Look at what people say that enlightenment means to them. Do they all mean the same thing by it?

Enlightenment is no different to other things people believe. It isn't something outside of people to be found in some particular way. It's just a story, like so many others we tell. — Tom Storm

But what you're saying above about stories isn't itself a story?

Perhaps enlightenment is a pissing competition recast as a meta-narative... — Tom Storm

Enlightenment, regardless of what in particular is meant by it, appears to be such that people tend to generate hostility or envy around it.

Have you ever met anyone who would be happy about another's claims of enlightenment?

Enlightenment, regardless of what in particular is meant by it, appears to be such that people tend to generate hostility or envy around it.

Have you ever met anyone who would be happy about another's claims of enlightenment? — baker

I've always assumed spiritual practices and beliefs generated just as much acrimony and division as anything else constructed by human beings. You have done way more work in this area - what do you think enlightenment looks like?

Spiritual systems all seem to coalesce around an etherial endgame - a blissful realm that humans can achieve with the right attitudes or practices. Enlightenment seems to be one of these stories. The endless quest for perfection and arrival.

Buddha-nature has a wide range of (sometimes conflicting) meanings in Indian and later East Asian and Tibetan Buddhist literature, and the idea of Buddha-nature may refer to, among others, the luminous nature of mind,[7][8][9] the pure (visuddhi), undefiled mind,[7] "the natural and true state of the mind";[10] sunyata, an emptiness that is a nonimplicative negation (as emptiness is seen in madhyamaka);[8] the alaya-vijñana ("store-consciousness", a yogacara concept);[8] the interpenetration of all dharmas; and the potential for all sentient beings to attain liberation. — Wayfarer

In The Shape of Ancient Thought, McEvilley makes some rather interesting observations on the close parallels between Greek and Indian thought:

Most modern commentators have emphasized the ontological aspect of Neoplatonism, which brings Plotinus into line with Plato (and behind him Parmenides). When this emphasis is in place, the parallels between Plotinus and the Upaniṣadic-Vedāntic tradition come to the foreground. But if, on the other hand, the mentalist-idealist aspect is emphasized, then quite a different set of parallels emerges – parallels which are in fact more striking and detailed – those between Plotinus and the consciousness-only (vijñānavāda) schools of Buddhism (p.571).

McEvilley points out that the problem identified by some Buddhist schools was how to explain karmic consequence when the only reality was momentary states of mind:

In the fourth century A.D., a century or a century and a half after Plotinus, the philosopher Vasubandhu sought to remedy this apparent contradiction through the concept of the Storehouse Consciousness (ālayavijñāna). The Storehouse is a level underlying all human mental activity and providing a bed in which the seeds of present thoughts can grow to fruition as future states of mind.
The Storehouse is pure subjectivity, yet the appearance of objectivity arises out of it as its dream, or aura, or emanation, or fume. It is the dynamic source of everything. Vasubandhu describes it as “flowing like a torrent” (Trimsikakārikā 4) … Plotinus describes Mind as “boiling with life” (Enn. VI.7.12) … In the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra the conception of the highest realm is brought even closer to Plotinus’ One … (pp. 571-2).

The problem posed by the Buddhist doctrine of momentariness or impermanence (kṣaṇikavāda) is very similar to the problem posed by the impermanence of the material world in Greek philosophy, and the solution to it is also similar, with Plato and others positing a permanent, immaterial reality on which material reality depends.

If the objects of sensory consciousness (pravṛttivijñāna) are momentary, a higher, more permanent form of consciousness (ālayavijñāna) is needed, and if that is also not permanent, a final, absolutely permanent consciousness is required. Otherwise, enlightenment itself would be impermanent.

This is why three basic levels of consciousness and being are common to Buddhism and Platonism alike - each level of reality being superseded by the next higher one that generates it, until the Ultimate Source of all is reached.

The “obliteration of consciousness” that is supposed to take place in enlightenment may well be only the obliteration of lower forms of consciousness. This would make the real Buddhist position compatible with that of other systems like Platonism and Advaita Vedanta, as McEvilley suggests.

the center point of Buddhism is suffering and the end of suffering. The Buddha said that he teaches only one thing: suffering and the end of suffering. — baker

That’s why I don’t think there is much difference between Buddhism and other systems.

Glossing over this, and instead trying to chart Buddhist doctrine in ontological and epistemological terms characteristic for some other philosophies/religions, is to miss the whole point of Buddhism. — baker

Well, when you have a number of competing systems, I think it is legitimate for people to want to learn more about each of them. After all, anyone can claim that they can show you "the way to Nirvana”, only to take you for a ride.

The general view in the old days was that Western systems (especially those based on Christianity) were superior to anything the East had to offer. These days the attitude has been reversed. It has become customary to belittle all things Western and to idealize and idolize everything Eastern (or non-Western).

The way I see it, this new trend is mostly rooted in ignorance of Western traditions, which is part of the general cultural decline in the West.

The way I see it, this new trend is mostly rooted in ignorance of Western traditions, which is part of the general cultural decline in the West. — Apollodorus

Yes. The West has an energetic tradition of self-loathing too it seems to me. Much of this an understandable by-product of reactions to the horrors of imperialism and Western expressions of colonization.

I recall Buddhist groups and yoga groups I attended in the 1980's where much time was spent bemoaning the crassness of Western spiritual traditions (only half-understood) and celebrating the group's genius in moving away from the superficial West to embrace Eastern orientations - sometimes right up to wearing fancy dress (Eastern robes and decorative elements).

The “obliteration of consciousness” that is supposed to take place in enlightenment may well be only the obliteration of lower forms of consciousness. This would make the real Buddhist position compatible with that of other systems like Platonism and Advaita Vedanta, as McEvilley suggests. — Apollodorus

Can't help but agree, even though I know those kinds of suggestions are fiercely rejected by many Buddhists on dogmatic grounds. (It appeals to the theosophist in me.) You could say that they're commensurable even if they differ - they agree and disagree about something that they all hold to be real, even if what they say about it and how they approach it is very different (whereas none of them are commensurable with materialism).

But we still have to be extremely wary about positing 'higher states' and the like on the basis of conjecture. It easily devolves into 'mere belief'. I think where Buddhism really excels is its insistence on 'knowing for oneself' through the mental discipline of mindful awareness (which of course very few truly actualise to high degree.)

(Another interesting and relatively brief essay on this with cogent comparisons to Western philosophy is What Is and Isn't Yogācāra , Dan Lusthaus.)

Have you ever met anyone who would be happy about another's claims of enlightenment? — baker

Well, for starters, there aren't many who actually make that claim.

Second, you would want to first see some evidence in support of that claim.

Third, you would need to know (a) what enlightenment is and (b) what enlightenment means in the case of the person making the claim.

So I think that, statistically, the chance of anyone being in a position to congratulate others for being enlightened is pretty small .... :smile:

Careful, the joke may be on you. (Although on second reading, maybe I didn't pick up your intentional irony.) — Wayfarer

Sorry it took so long for me to respond. I was out of town all this weekend. Yes, sure, there was irony in what I said. I always say that "The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao" is a joke. It's an intentionally and knowingly absurd statement. Absurd and profound. I see other eastern philosophies the same way.

I know from personal experience and watching other people that one way of gaining wisdom is through frustration. If you beat your head against a wall long enough, eventually you may say "Wait a minute, this doesn't make any sense." Then there is a flash of recognition, surrender. This is especially true of adults, perhaps especially people of accomplishment and ambition. It seems to me that a large part of Zen Buddhism is intended to frustrate expectations and desires for accomplishment, advancement, and approval to the point that people surrender to the futility of trying not to try, desiring not to desire, working to accomplish a rejection of accomplishment. That's the joke I was talking about.

As mentioned by some others, those pithy Zen sayings are part of a vast and complex system of doctrine and practice. Once considered that way, they cease to seem vague, or mystical, contrary, or ironic. — baker

I have been out of town, so it took me a while to respond. There is no reason that something that is part of a vast complex system of doctrine and practice might not seem vague, mystical, contrary, or ironic. It seems to me that the two contrary ways of seeing things is part of the plan. That's why I called it a joke. I always fall back on Lao Tzu's "The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao." You can be aware of what might be called the absurdity of a statement like that and still see that it represents a profound understanding.

It seems to me that a large part of Zen Buddhism is intended to frustrate expectations and desires for accomplishment, advancement, and approval to the point that people surrender to the futility of trying not to try, desiring not to desire, working to accomplish a rejection of accomplishment. That's the joke I was talking about. — T Clark

I think that's pretty true although it risks makes light of 'the great matter' (as it is referred to in the literature).

The general view in the old days was that Western systems (especially those based on Christianity) were superior to anything the East had to offer. These days the attitude has been reversed. It has become customary to belittle all things Western and to idealize and idolize everything Eastern (or non-Western).

The way I see it, this new trend is mostly rooted in ignorance of Western traditions, which is part of the general cultural decline in the West. — Apollodorus

I would have argued vehemently against that 30 years ago but I'm now starting to see some truth in it. But the Church was in a lot of ways the author of its own misfortune in this regard. When you study the role of religion in European history it was often incredibly bloody and vicious. Sure there were episodes of comparative enlightenment and calm, but the religious wars, inquisitions and crusades were phenomenally bloody. And the inner meaning of the philosophy was hardly self-evident.

If my views have changed, it's because studying other such traditions has made me re-assess the one I was born into, although I can't see myself returning to it.