Hart arrives there via philosophical arguments — Tom Storm

Can you post them here?

Ever heard of Parkinson’s Law? — praxis

Lol.

A similar view is sometimes held by some Buddhists who believe that belief in rebirth makes people lazy and complacent, thinking, "If I don't make it this time around, there's always the next, so I can just relax".
But this takes a dim view of human nature, assuming that unless people are pushed by external constraints and rewards, they are lazy and unmotivated. And while this is certanly true for some people, it's not true for everyone.

But back to Parkinson's Law and Buddhist practice: Buddhist practice rests on the premise that there first must be causes and conditions in place before any next rung on the scale of progress can be reached. Without the right causes and conditions, progress can't be made. Causes and conditions, however, take time, for some people a little time, for others, more, depending on how much work one was able to do up to that point in a previous life (!).

This brings me to a thought I have often had regarding Buddhist conceptions of nirvana. If the self etc is annihilated in the realisation of nirvana. Whom is experiencing the exalted state?
I know this might sound like a simplistic question, but there is a deeper issue in it. Or rather if there is total annihilation, such that all is left is a state of non-existence, whom, is, present, in it? Who, or what remains? — Punshhh

It's not about annihilation, that would be wrong view.

I find Thanissaro Bhikkhu's approach here the easiest to understand: not-self(ing) is a strategy. We already use it anyway every day when we disidentify with things we don't want or don't like. He explains it that the Buddhist practice takes this strategy further, though.

He writes and talks about this a lot, see here, for example.

I’m interested in the same thing. I don’t think it’s correct for you to suggest that because I disagree, I’m interested in a wrong aspect of this discussion, or in some ‘objective’ and erroneous analysis. We’re just having a conversation, and what I said would apply to both an insider and an outsider. I simply resisted the idea you put forward that my argument would not be understood by an insider. But let's move on since this is a minor part of the overall discussion. — Tom Storm

Not understood by, but relevant to. Things that are relevant to outsiders might not be the same as the things relevant to insiders, and vice versa.

I think that to you, as to an outsider, it makes perfect sense to think relatively highly of doubters. But to an insider, it doesn't.

And many times, for insiders, the reasons are entirely practical. From an insider's perspective, a doubter (who attends a religious venue along with the insiders and tries to participate in their community) is simply "high maintenance", more work than they are worth. It's tedious for the insiders to deal with a doubter, to try to accomodate the doubter, to explain things over and over again. I've seen this all too often myself: People just got tired of me, the doubter. Sometimes, quite aggressively tired. Some things I've been told:
"Lead, follow, or get out of the way."
"By now you should have figured out what you want and what to do next."
"If you don't like something, leave."
"I've offered you a finger but you want the whole arm."

The point I made was that it would be okay for a pope to have doubts, and that this would not make him a bad pope.

Perhaps from your perspective as an outsider.

You took us to stake burning for reasons that are still unclear to me. You introduced the notion of an abuse of power, but to my knowledge the discussion was not about this.

You introduced the concept of "abuse of power". I'm saying it still needs to be established whether the Crusades etc. were an abuse of power, or actually proper use of power. (See also my reply to Boundless above, about "skillful means".)

As for stake burnings: The RCC still considers itself entitled to rule over all the people on this planet, just like it did five hundred years ago. How it goes about ruling or attempting to rule the planet is changing with the times, but its belief that it has the right to rule over everyone has not. If circumstances change sufficiently, we could be faced with more crusades and inquisitions -- and stake burnings. (Notice how when popes apologized for things done by the RCC in the past, they apologized for the methods, but not for the motivations.)

It was about whether a follower of a religion, or a pope, can have doubts about their faith and still be a productive member of that faith. I say yes. You seem to say no. I have heard no good reason why.

When you formulate it that way --
If a nominally religious person has doubts about their religion, then the motivation for their actions will be problematic, even if their actions externally match the expectations for said religion. Because of their doubts, their actions cannot be properly motivated in accordance with the religion. Eventually, this lack of proper motivatedness shows up somewhere, usually in the form of inconsistently performing the expected actions. Due to this inconsistency, they cannot be a productive member of that faith.

The more common form of punishment is to slowly push the doubting person out of the group, without this ever being made explicit and instead made to look like the person's own choice and fault.
— baker

Yes, this happens especially in fundamentalist groups. But so what?

So what? A lot of time and resources get wasted, a lot of grief is caused, for many of the involved. Some even commit suicide.

This could have been prevented, simply by people being more straightforward about things, and sooner, both the insiders as well as the doubter.

Humans often shun people they disagree with or do not understand. This seems to occur when there is dogma and a kind of certainty that brooks no diversity.

See my point earlier about doubters being more work than they are worth.

It would be nice, wouldn’t it, to expect religious followers or theists more specifically to behave in superior ways to the rest of the community, but they don’t. It seems we can’t expect people in a religion to behave differently from people in a family, a sporting club, or a corporate management group. Does this tell us that religions are just ordinary beliefs in fancy dress, or does it say we strive imperfectly to reach God?

Actually, my basic thesis is that a religion is supposed to be practiced exactly the way the people who claim to be its members practice it. I'm now in my "Take things at face value" phase. I'm done helping religious/spiritual people look for excuses and keeping up pretenses. I'm done with "Oh, but they didn't mean it" and "They are just imperfect followers of God." No. They've had more than enough time to get their act together.

This may well be the case if the religion is misogynist, classist, and elitist. In such cases, it seems we have a religion where more followers need to doubt those doctrines and work to reform beliefs.

But why should they reform themselves??
Their religion is what it is; anyone who doesn't like it should stay away from it.

It's not clear whence this desire to reform a religion.

The religious dogma has been ripe in this discussion. — unimportant

Lol.
It would help the discussion if you'd stop shooting from the hip like that.

This is my view too but the majority voice in this thread has been the usual pushback I expected from 'devouts' that any attempt to question the teachings or go outside the box will be met with failure, and maybe derision. — unimportant

For someone so critical of "dogma", you know remarkably little of it.

I guess they will say neither of us are enlightened so we have no place to try and change the tried and true method of the prophets. I have had the same arguments from most things I have learned in life, which have nothing to do with Buddhism. Most often ridiculed for 'going against the grain' and outside of the box but I have found it easy to separate the wheat from the chaff of what is good information vs. bad and irrational stuff in other areas and the proof is in the pudding when I achieve my goals in whatever thing I set out, so I don't see this as being any different.

For someone who is supposedly interested in "enlightenment", you sure spend an awful lot of time _not_ pursuing it.

Were the Inquisition and the Crusades an abuse of power, or a mere use of power? What if the popes in the past did what they did because they were "further along than you"?
— baker

Sorry, but I don't understand your point here. Are you claiming that if a behaviour that is blatantly in contradiction with a religion's 'code of conduct' is done by a large number of those who hold a authority position in that religion it is evidence that the religion in question is false (or it is at least a reason to be skeptical of it)? — boundless

I can't retrace how you arrived at this ...

I'm plainly asking what I'm asking.

You can see a lot of this in various religious and esp. "spiritual" traditions where it's sometimes called "crazy wisdom" and where actions, if done by an ordinary person, are deemed inappropriate, but when done by a "spiritually advanced person", are deemed appropriate and "above the understanding of ordinary people". So, for example, if a sadhu gets drunk or high, that's exalted and spiritual somehow, but if an ordinary person gets drunk or high, it's just ordinary intoxication which is frowned upon.

Then in Mahayana, with the Secondary Bodhisattva vows, they've even found a way to excuse killing, raping, and pillaging, all in the name of "compassion" and "spiritual advancement".

Then there is the issue of "skillful means". Again, doing things that are ordinarily considered immoral or wrong, but when done for some "higher purpose" and/or by a "spiritually advanced person", considered perfectly right.

So in the light of this, I'm wondering whether the Crusades and the Holy Inquisition (with the stake burnings and all that) were actually examples of such "spiritual advancement" that we ordinary folks simply cannot even begin to comprehend.

Can you sketch out the argument being suggested that naturalism can't explain intelligibility and intentionality?

How are they (Hart) arriving there? — Tom Storm

By being theists.

By default, a theist starts off with:
There is God.
God created man.
Man has the characteristics and abilities as given to him by God.
Naturalism is wrong because God exists and man is created in the image of God.



Nicely put here:

Hart is a metaphysical realist of a classical persuasion. That means that he thinks reality is objectively real, intrinsically intelligible, value-laden, purposive, and metaphysically grounded in God.

Human reason isn’t a matter of trial and error representations we place over things, reason is formed by the world’s own intelligible structures acting directly on the mind.

In other words, the mind is inclined naturally to grasp the truth of the world. — Joshs

Mahayanis and their fans keep saying that. It's not true, though. It's that Theravada doesn't believe that one can save another, and this goes back to the workings of kamma. Not some kind of "selfishness" or "small-mindedness" or some such as Mahayana likes to accuse Theravada of.
— baker

I believe that Wayfarer meant that the end goal for Theravada is a state in which the 'enlightened' can't help other sentient beings. Buddhas and arhats can help sentient beings while alive but they can't keep help after 'Nirvana without reminder'. — boundless

Surely @Wayfarer will answer for himself. But this was about a pretty standard theme: According to Theravada, one person cannot save another, ever, one person cannot do the work for another, ever. And this goes back to intention being kamma, and kamma being what matters; and one person cannot intend for another, instead of another.

Personally, I consider Mahayana and Theravada separate religions. They of course share a lot in common but they have radically different beliefs.

Absolutely.

Yes, that's a good source. However, I don't see how a disagreement about rebirth would disqualify one to try and see for himself or herself.

Not disqualify, but certainly demotivate. From what I've seen, people who believe this one lifetime is all there is just don't explore much Buddhism; they just don't. Apparently they're so put off by any mention of rebirth that they lose their ability to pay attention or something.

Personally, I think that if rebirth isn't real, then also the Buddhist (of all schools) conceptions of Nibbana/Nirvana, anatta/anatman and so on become incoherent.

I've seen some Buddhists who hold a view that rebirth applies on a moment-to-moment basis (and not to multiple, serial births); and the proponents of the "momentariness" view have put in considerable effort to interpret all teachings in line with that (recasting some of those that don't seem to fit as "metaphorical", others as "later additions", and yet others as "corruptions").

However, I can understand why someone who can't accept the traditional belief of rebirth might still want to achieve 'the mind at peace' that Buddhist traditions promise (a mind that is freed from all hatred, anxiety etc is certainly a desirable goal not just for Buddhist). At the end of the day, despite what I have said before, I do believe that the 'only way to know' is actually try to practice and see for oneself. Philosophical and exegetical arguments can get us up to a point.

Exactly, as I've been trying to tell the OP.

Yes, I tend to agree with you that without the belief in rebirth long-term practice is difficult to maintain and one might become convinced of one or all these things. However, since we are in a philosophical forum, I would point out that this outcome is not logically necessary.

Of course. There are also those who just stick around, go through the motions with the "practice", and who don't seem to be all that concerned about the doctrinal stuff one way or another.

It is arguable that without a strong motivator, one can't sustain the practice (such was my case, just to make an example) but that doesn't imply it is the necessary outcome.

Or else, one may realize that motivation is not enough and that one also needs the right external conditions. In my case, I realized there was a limit as to what I can attain, spiritually/religiously, given my current physical, social, and economic status, and that persisting longer and trying to push further would just be a case of diminishing returns.

To an outsider, this makes sense. To an insider or a prospective insider, it doesn't.
— baker
That sounds like a kind of argument from authority. The authority in this instance is the insider, whose world the outsider could not possibly understand. I'm not convinced. — Tom Storm

Again, I'm interested in looking at things from the perspective of a (prospective) insider, and specifically, "What would it be like and what would it take to become a practitioner and to obtain the promised results?"

You seem to be interested in some objective, external analysis of the situation and people. It's not clear why.

How did we suddenly arrive at stake burning?

A seeker has to know the history and the formal power that the leaders have in the religion he's approaching, even if there are at first unpalatable aspects to this.

Whether a given pope had doubts or not, in history he could make whatever decision he wanted, which shows the abuse of power is inherent in the authority, not the doubting.

Were the Inquisition and the Crusades an abuse of power, or a mere use of power? What if the popes in the past did what they did because they were "further along than you"?

A seeker needs to come to terms with such things if he wants to explore a religion, or else he's up for some very rude awakenings.

Well, this doesn’t really address the issue of whether holding doubts within a belief system is good or bad.

For me, this has never been the issue in this discussion. I think it's inevitable at least for a seeker or a beginner to have doubts. The question is what to do about them, how to make sense of them and of one's prospective membership in a religion.

What you describe just seems to be common human behavior. But what do you mean by a 'double standard'? Are you referencing a hypocrisy,

or a bifurcated belief system with different practices for each stream? An elitist stream and an ordinary or folk stream?

Yes.

Who is punished for not holding a particular belief today, except by faiths with narrow, intolerant, and fundamentalist belief systems?

The punishment doesn't have to be in the form of whipping or hanging. The more common form of punishment is to slowly push the doubting person out of the group, without this ever being made explicit and instead made to look like the person's own choice and fault.

As an aside, isn't it the case that in hierarchies there is often a large gulf between the top and lower levels in terms of belief? Sometimes this is simply a question of education and sophistication. Beliefs about the nature of God, built from classical theism and held by an educated Jesuit, will be completely different from the God beliefs built from the theistic personalism of a common believer.

Of course. The thing is that if you're a person of a particular category, then in a religion, a level of the spiritual attaiment possible for you will be ascribed to you and you will be treated accordingly, regardless of what you want or know or do. For example, if you're poor and female and new to the religion, you'll be considered as something of a spiritual retard and treated like this (at least metaphorically, but possibly physically, too). And this is by people you are supposed to depend on for your spiritual guidance. So what do you do? Do you accept that they are "further along than you" and that you need to accept their treatment (however abusive you find it)?

We're talking here about people who go up to the pulpit, who sit in front of others, and who tell others that the teachings of their religion are true, and who hold it against others and judge them and even expell them for not professing such belief. And yet these same people in positions of power, in other situations, go ahead and admit to having doubts.
— baker

I’m at somewhat of a loss here—if you’re pearl clutching over that, all I can think is you haven’t been around much in Buddhist circles. — praxis

Well, I don't deny that I am "overly sensitive" and a "weakling" ...

Although my main issue is that the kind of group dynamics sketched out above and which I witnessed in various religious/spiritual settings are a waste of time, at the very least. It's like willingly entering a dysfunctional relationship.

Have a read of the suttas contained in SN 15. Belief in literal rebirth was indeed seen as a motivator.
— boundless

You haven’t read the chapters and can’t point out where it says that?
— praxis

Ok, I'll quote some of those suttas. I leave the judgment for the reader. It seems to me evident that these suttas treat the belief of literal rebirth in samsara as a strong motivator for practice but I'll let the reader to judge for himself/herself (again, in order to avoid misunderstanding, I don't think that this proves that rebirth is logically necessary to get enlightnened). — boundless

Or just read Thanissaro Bhikkhu's The Truth of Rebirth And Why It Matters for Buddhist Practice.
He conveniently compiled a great number of arguments and sources.


One thing I would point out, if we're talking about taking belief in rebirth as a motivator for practice is this: The practice to make an end to suffering as worked out in the Nible Eightfold Path is something that requires a lot of work, a lot of time; and as such, for many people, probably more than one lifetime. It's a multi-lifetime project.

If, however, one limits oneself to just this one current lifetime, then enlightenment is an extremely uncertain possibility, since death can happen at any time and all of one's efforts can be cut short without coming to fruition. The belief that there is only this one lifetime is actually demotivating as far as practice for enlightenment goes.

So what tends to happen in Western Buddhist circles where people believe there is only this one lifetime is this:

1. People believe nibbana (a complete cessation of suffering) is impossible.
2. People believe nibbana is a matter of luck.
3. People believe nibbana requires very little work and can be attained easily.
4. People believe they are already enlightened.
5. People believe they will certainly become enlightened, at the very least at the moment of death.

None of this is, of course, in line with the traditional Buddhist teachings, nor is it motivating for practice.

The 'framework of understanding' is that of 'depedendent origination' (Pratītyasamutpāda) - the sequence of stages which culminate in birth (and hence sickness, old age and death). — Wayfarer

But this holds only within Buddhism and in regard to Buddhism. Of course, Buddhists will possibly say it applies to everyone, but outsiders to Buddhism aren't likely to think so.

I'm sensing @Joshs is looking for something that requires neither insider knowledge nor insider status
in order to make sense.

The aim of Theravada Buddhism is cessation tout courte, with no mind to the suffering of others. — Wayfarer

Mahayanis and their fans keep saying that. It's not true, though. It's that Theravada doesn't believe that one can save another, and this goes back to the workings of kamma. Not some kind of "selfishness" or "small-mindedness" or some such as Mahayana likes to accuse Theravada of.

Hence the centrality of compassion in Mahāyāna Buddhism.

Oddly enough, religions that focus heavily on compassion also like to balance this out with cruelty otherwise...

The intention of 'secular Buddhism' aims to retain the therapeutic and emotionally remedial aspects of Buddhism, without the soteriological framework within which it was originally posed. Which is all well and good, as far as it goes, but from the Buddhist perspective, that is not necessarily very far!

Yes.

I am confident Buddhism is exactly what it takes itself to be, a way to end suffering. The issue for me is what framework of understanding it uses to define suffering and its alleviation. There are those who see suffering through a very different lens, such that ending it is not only not desirable but also an incoherent notion. — Joshs

Yes. And?

It's not clear what you want in all this.
Are you just doing research for your writing work?
Do you actually, personally, want to relieve your suffering?
Do you want to "know how things really are"?


If you want the traditional Buddhist framework of understanding it uses to define suffering and its alleviation, then I can tell you that as beings who are not Buddhas (not "rightfully self-enlightened") we cannot know that for ourselves. The traditional image is that of a handful of leaves; ie. what the Buddha teaches is like a mere handful of leaves, compared to all the leaves that are in the forest, which is the image of the extent of the Buddha's full knowledge. As we are born within a current Buddha's dispensation, we are bound to have limited knowledge and we are bound to have to follow in the Buddha's footsteps, in the sense that we cannot blaze our own trail to enlightenment. We are unable to know and do what a "rightfully self-enlightened" being is able to know and do. -- Thus says the tradition.

For a modern Westerner, a basic assumption is that knowledge is in some essential way liberal and democratic and that everyone can potentially attain to it, regardless of socio-economic status. But traditional cultures don't make this assumption, and ordinary people are actually expected not to wonder why and not to make reply (and just give money and do favors and die, to be a bit cynical). The metaphysical framework in which understanding in traditional cultures works has hierarchy and authoritarianism as essential components.


Also, for a framework of understanding Buddhism uses to define suffering and its alleviation you could look to the grand Buddhist meta-text, the Abhidhamma, which goes into details about such things in a systematic way.

But, again, I sense that this is not what you're looking for. You seem to be looking for some kind of neutral, objective, impersonal, depersonalized, suprareligious account of things. I'll contend that no such account exists.

This is exactly what the 'you must completely adhere to the teachings or you are going to get nowhere' folks in the thread, and the usual mindset I see when I have asked similar questions elsewhere in the past, are like imo. Fundamental uncritical faith or you are not practising at all. — unimportant

You misunderstand.

It's a case of simple causality: In order to get A, you need to do B.

You, on the other hand, seem like someone who, say, wants to make an egg omelette, but refuses to use eggs. Or like someone who claims he wants to know the taste of an apple, but refuses to actually taste an apple.

Nobody is telling you you must do B, this isn't Christianity or Islam.
You are perfectly free not to do B.
All they are saying is that if you want to get to A, you need to do B.

I just realised this is actually really ironic and the opposite of what the Buddha himself suggested. In his sutras he would talk about how you should not believe him, but practice and see for yourself through experience.

People keep saying this. You'll need to provide an actual quote from the Canon for this.

Also didn't he become enlightened by refuting all the myriad systems he tried before and looking for his own way?

That's your Western take on it.
He didn't "refute them", he later realized where they went wrong.

How far would he have gotten if he followed these 'total faith in one school or nothing' folks?

By following the other teachers, he got to the doorstep of nibbana.

The problem is that you refer to the Buddha as some kind of authority or a worthy role model -- when it pleases you. But other times, and regarding other traditional aspects of the Buddha, you dismiss.
This Humpty Dumpty attitude is tiresome, at the very least.

Well then, whatcha waiting for?!

People who promise to know the way to enlightenment are a dime a dozen, including those who believe one doesn't need the "supernatural elements". It's on you to take the next step, though, which is actually what seems to be at issue here.
— baker

Making the post, and studying religions and the common threads does not count as a step? — unimportant

No. It's procrastination.
You clearly say you want "enlightenment", but all you do is putter around, spinning your wheels.

Not sure why baker has derailed the thread into some back and forth about how leaders should act in positions of power? I don't see how it is related to the OP, which is asking how a lay seeker should find their own path. If so please 'enlighten' me. — unimportant

See my reply to Tom Storm above. My posts are not about how leaders should act, but about how a seeker can understand the actions of those leaders when they preach one thing and expect it from the lowly others, but they themselves don't adhere to what they preach. Which is exactly about the problem of how a seeker can find their own path.

Of course. But you overstate this. They might take issue with some or several things, not all things. I would have serious concerns with someone who is 100% accepting of any philosophy or religion. — Tom Storm

To an outsider, this makes sense. To an insider or a prospective insider, it doesn't.

You pick an unlikely one. But a Pope who doubts aspects of doctrine and practice is natural.

Really? And you don't mind submitting to such a doubting pope? You don't mind if such a pope, being the Grand Inquisitor, orders people like you (including you) to be burnt at the stakes for heresy?

People without doubt tend toward fundamentalism or zealotry. Certainty, and deference to power, are seductive for certain people: acolytes and followers, most notably. Certainty is also the perfect mindset if you wish to practice a little mass murder. — Tom Storm

You (and @praxis) keep taking this in the direction I don't want it to go, and you keep ignoring my direction.

What I want is to put yourself in the shoes of a seeker, an outsider even, or at most a beginner, who shows up in a religious organization and witnesses there are double standards: those higher up in the hierarchy don't have to act in line with the tenets of the religious organization, but those lower in the hierarchy do, and are punished if they don't. Now what do you make of it?

This is the kind of dynamics that tends to crop up in various human communities, not just religious ones. It happens in society in general where aristocrats can routinely get away with murder (somehow, noblesse doesn't oblige, it absolves). In big businesses, the higher-ups can do all kinds of shit and get away with it, while the ordinary employees pay the price. Parents get to do things that children are punished for -- such as lying or using physical force.

How is it that morality is so amoebic, so status-dependent? How does one make sense of it? Specifically in the context of a spiritual search?

An honorable person will simply not take on positions of power in a religious organization whose tenets they doubt.
— baker

That’s obviously your strong opinion. — Tom Storm

Really? You believe than an honorable person will take on positions of power in a religious organization whose tenets they doubt?

A lack of doubt is a red flag for me. — Tom Storm

You like a pope who doubts God exists, for example?

@Tom Storm

Why not, or what makes it dishonorable? — praxis

Like I said: Remember, we're talking here not about an ordinary seeker, but about people who attain positions of power within religious organizations.

We're talking here about people who go up to the pulpit, who sit in front of others, and who tell others that the teachings of their religion are true, and who hold it against others and judge them and even expell them for not professing such belief. And yet these same people in positions of power, in other situations, go ahead and admit to having doubts.

In other words, it's a case of double standards: Those in positions of power don't have to take the religion seriously, but those lower in the hierarchy do.

You don't have a problem with that?

I don’t see how hiding their doubts would indicate a greater seriousness. If they’re serious about preserving the religion then yeah, I suppose hiding one’s doubts about it could show a serious effort to towards the conservation of it. For a serious spiritual seeker, on the other hand, questioning and doubt may come with the territory. — praxis

Who said anything about "hiding" one's doubts?

An honorable person will simply not take on positions of power in a religious organization whose tenets they doubt.

Remember, we're talking here not about an ordinary seeker, but about people who attain positions of power within religious organizations.

Honestly I think the salvation is found in the limitations or order that religion provides. The grand narratives and moral codes offer a sense security and meaning. And of course comfort is found in a unified community. — praxis

I actually don't doubt that Buddhist practice (as defined and described in traditional Buddhism) leads to the complete cessation of suffering. It's just that nobody in their right mind could want that. For all practical intents and purposes, Buddhism is basically saying, "No man, no problem," ie. "conceptually annihilate yourself and you will not suffer, for there will be no one to suffer". One cannot, in one's currently unenlightened position, intelligibly and consistently want such a thing.

Can enlightenment be achieved without appeal to any supernatural elements?
/.../
I suppose a definition of enlightenment in the current discussion would be appropriate. I would just put it as finding inner peace in this life to get rid of the usual gnawing existential anxiety of 'birth, old age, sickness and death'. Nothing more or less. — unimportant

Well then, whatcha waiting for?!

People who promise to know the way to enlightenment are a dime a dozen, including those who believe one doesn't need the "supernatural elements". It's on you to take the next step, though, which is actually what seems to be at issue here.

All of which is premised on the assumption that Buddhism cannot be what it describes itself to be, which is, a way to the total ending of suffering. Not amelioration or adjustment. — Wayfarer

@Joshs What do you have to say to this?
Do you agree with Wayfarer's assessment of your stance?

They sound like honest people to me. — praxis

To me, they sound like people who are not serious about their religion.

I’ve always thought that modern Western readers supplement ancient Eastern wisdom with ideas that are strictly modern,

and in so doing are taking what I call a nostalgic position. — Joshs

Yes, to the first part, but it's not clear what you mean by the second part.

The nostalgic position asserts that some individual or culture in our distant past ‘got it right' by arriving at a way of understanding the nature of things that we drifted away from for many centuries and are just now coming back to. So the latest and most advanced philosophical thinking of the West today is just a belated return to what was already discovered long ago.

Yes.

I dont buy the nostalgic position. I think it is only when we interpret ancient thought in a superficial way that it appears their ideas were consonant with modern phenomenology and related approaches. Why are we so prone to misreading the ancients this way? I believe this comes from emphasizing only the aspect of their thought which appears familiar to we postmoderns (recursive becoming) and ignoring the crucial hidden dimension (a pre-Platonic , pre-Christian universalism).

Yes.

/.../
The metaphysics behind Indra's web, the Tao Te Ching and related teachings as they were intended two thousand years ago are so profoundly alien to contemporary Western philosophical thinking that they run the risk of being mistaken as profoundly similar and compatible.

Agreed.

Whereas Postmodern views of change and becoming originate from a radically self-subverting groundless ground, Buddhist becoming rests on a cosmology of universalistic , sovereign normative grounds (what it is that unifies the infinite relational changes within Indra's web). Unlike Platonic and Christian metaphysics, this sovereign ground is not made explicit. The ancients were not able to articulate this ground in the universalistic language of a philosophy.

I'm not sure they were "unable"; in terms of the Pali Canon, the operating concept is "an inconceivable beginning, "a beginning point is not discernible".
A standard formulation goes like this:
“From an inconceivable beginning comes the wandering-on. A beginning point is not discernible, though beings hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving are transmigrating & wandering on."
E.g. here in SN 15:13.

I have heard several explanations as to why the teachings don't say explicitly "why and where did it all start", and some of those explanations amount to "it's not necessary to know this in order to practice".

But it authorizes and justifies conformist, repressive social ethics and political practices which have persisted for two millennia in Buddhist cultures.

They are "conformist, repressive" only from a particular modern perspective. The Asians themselves traditionally don't think those ethics and practices are repressive or conformist; on the contrary, they believe that people are just "getting what they deserve".
There are, for example, ethics and practices in traditionally Buddhist cultures that a Westerner would call misogynistic, but the Asians don't think so.

So what do you make of that?

Postmodernism emerges from a self-undermining, groundless critique of Western metaphysics, whereas Buddhism often presupposes a cosmic order (e.g., karma, Dharma, Indra's net) that is anything but contingent. Many ancient philosophies, including Buddhism, Taoism, and Vedic thought, operate within a framework of normative cosmology: an ordered, purposeful universe with implicit or explicit ethical imperatives. This is starkly different from postmodernism's rejection of fixed foundations.

Buddhist metaphysics (e.g., dependent origination, Indra's net) was not a proto-deconstruction but a cosmological model of interdependence, often tied to hierarchical, tradition-bound societies. The ethical and political dimensions of Buddhism (e.g., monastic conformity, merit-based hierarchies) reflect this embedded universalism, which contrasts sharply with postmodernism's anti-foundationalism.

The Taoist wu-wei or Buddhist anatta (no-self) are not mere parallels to postmodern fluidity but are situated within teleological or soteriological frameworks that postmodernism explicitly rejects. Buddhist societies, like all traditional cultures, have often enforced conformity, hierarchy, and static social orders, precisely because their metaphysics assumes a normative cosmic blueprint. This is a far cry from the emancipatory aims of much postmodern thought, even if both might critique the "ego" or "fixed identity.

To get back to the beginning of your post and my reply to it: I have found that the most radical thing one can do, as far as Buddhism is concerned, is to be a Westerner and explicitly approach (or at least attempt to approach it) the Asian way. Show up in some Buddhist venue, whether a Western or Asian one, and show that you take for granted that the Buddhist tradition is correct, and, if you're lucky, you'll be ridiculed. If not so lucky, you'll be considered disrespectful, "spreading lies about Buddhism" and such.

It's bizarre, really. In my experience, the most rebellious, radical thing you can do is to openly have no qualms about kamma and rebirth -- and Buddhists East and West will at least dislike you.
This is what I would call the nostalgic position: to take the Buddhist tradition at face value, along with all the things that are utterly unpalatable to modern Western consumers (!) of Buddhism, but, oddly enough, to Easterners too.

You said "modern Western readers supplement ancient Eastern wisdom with ideas that are strictly modern". Next to the ones you mentioned already, I'll add democratic and liberal ideas. Which are just not there in the tradition, yet esp. Western Buddhists tend to read them into the teachings, and get offended if you point this out. In so doing, they are actually enacting that very authoritarian, hierarchial mentality that they nominally so vehemently oppose.

And even after all that time, they didn't move one bit, they had the same doubts and questions after all that time as they had when they first got involved.
— baker
There are things in religion that no one knows and there are no answers to. — praxis

Perhaps. But when people make a point of considering themselves members and representatives of a religion and even attain positions of power in said religion's organizations, and yet openly declare their doubts about the basic tenets of said religion -- then one has to wonder what is going on and what kind of people they are.

"What makes many applications of artificial intelligence so disturbing is that they don’t expand our mind’s capacity to think, but outsource it…" — Questioner

This is that cultist aspect to the use of AI.

Just like many people like to outsource their thinking to cults, so many people like to outsource their thinking to AI.

This speaks to the fairly common human desire to escape responsibility for one's own life and actions. That desire to be comfortably numb, and to approach life as a matter of going through the motions.

I am grateful that I don't have to do my laundry by hand, beating it on rocks in the river. — BC

Wait until you piss and shit your pants on a regular, or at least a semi-regular basis. Those things need to be washed first manually, and in cold water, at that. That is, if you want to keep the clothes for a while and prevent your washing machine from going all foul (despite using special detergents).

Which brings me to my point: with the ever wider implementation of AI, it looks like humans will be left with doing the dirty jobs, literally.

It’s more like, ‘don’t let ideas about reincarnation stop you from understanding Buddhism better’. — Wayfarer

And how exactly would a person go about doing that -- ie. not letting "ideas about reincarnation stop you from understanding Buddhism better"?
Can you actually sketch out the thought processes involved in this, along with the practical steps?


Perhaps you're just being nice. I've been around Buddhism for quite some time. I've seen many people who "didn't let ideas about reincarnation stop them from understanding Buddhism". They were involved in Buddhism for five, ten, twenty, thirty, even forty years. And even after all that time, they didn't move one bit, they had the same doubts and questions after all that time as they had when they first got involved. They didn't "believe in rebirth" when they were new to Buddhism, and they didn't "believe in rebirth" forty years later -- even though some have even attained positions of much power and prestige in their respective Buddhist organizations.

So I'm skeptical it's even possible to "understand Buddhism better" without looking into the issue of (kamma and) rebirth, if this is something that one finds particularly stumbling.

The other odd part is that even those who claim to kill themselves out of some expectation to right a wrong still don't solve anything. The people who claim it does often are lying to themselves, because they still regret the loss of someone taking their life. — Darkneos

Take, for example, the practice of sati in Hinduism.

This is suicide. Are the other people happy that the newly widowed woman killed herself? Apparently so. Do they regret she did it? Apparently not. It was the social norm, it still is to some extent, even if officially illegal.

I guess I'm just not familiar with the scenario you're describing. Whereby person A commits suicide because person B "expects" person A should do so. Specifically because B reaps a benefit from the event.

Please enlighten me about this situation. I'd think such cases would be all over the media. Perhaps I missed them. — LuckyR

*sigh*
Your tone is duly noted.


You keep saying that sometimes, "killing oneself is the answer to the problem". Would you apply that to the suicides of teenagers who kill themselves after being bullied? Or to situations where a person kills themselves after being mobbed at work or losing their job?

I don't have the stomach right now to wade through the exchanges on social media where after their victim committed suicide, the bullies said "Good riddance" and such. But these things happen. Some people do feel satisfaction when someone kills themselves.


Of course, there is something to be said about the political correctness usually inherent in discussing suicide and everything related to it ...

But my original point didn’t rely on this. The observation is that on line we don’t really know who we are talking to, or where they are coming from. — Tom Storm

I, perhaps foolishly, imagine that a discussion forum is for ... well, discussion. Especially a _philosophy_ discussion forum. The "where they are coming from" (regarding the background of one's views) is something to make clear in discussion anyway.

Insofar should it matter that we know who we're talking to, online? Because the other person could be, for example, a government official in an undercover operation, seeking to catch illegal immigrants, drug dealers, etc.?
Or is it that for the purposes of social hierarchy one "needs to know one's place"?

Some people, yes, but it is not miraculous. If people are not responsible or identifiable for what they say, they may behave differently; they may be disinhibited.

Sure, there is something to be said about the online disinhibition effect.
It is my belief though that online, people are not that different than IRL, it's just that online, they may more readily show particular characteristics than IRL. More readily "show their true selves", if you will.

I also believe that online behaviour can promote aggressive discussion and tribalism, which might reduce a person’s capacity to be reasonable and to accept different views.

Those are possible natural consequences of discussion anyway. But one would think that _philosophy_ forum function differently than other views, precisely because they have philosophy as a theme.

But even in instances of the most belligerent replies here, we can really make no substantive claims about people’s real world commitments to ideals. How do we know if people are liberal or charitable in real life? I think it’s far from clear what people practice and from their words alone we have to be wary of interpretations. Do you hold a view that if someone appears irritable and intermittently vicious on a chat forum they must be nasty and hypocritical in life? Or are you just referring to more constrained, on line hypocritical behaviours? — Tom Storm

Whence this idea that there is a clear demarcation line between online and real life?

If someone on an internet forum treats people like shit, then they treat people like shit.
If someone on an internet forum jumps to conclusions, then they jump to conclusions.

Or do you think that people somehow miraculously totally change the way they talk to people when the conversation is face to face?
That online, they, for example, jump to conclusions, but IRL, they dont??

You need to understand that the search for meaning is far more open today than it has been in the past. — Janus

How so??

Realistically, how many paths to meaning can a particular person explore? I think the openness you speak of is illusory at best, for most people. Because most people, even in first-world countries, simply don't have the social and economic means to explore different paths to meaning without this having an adverse effect on their ability to earn a living.

You say we cannot return to a traditional mindset, and of course I would agree that we cannot, but would add that even if we could it would not be desirable. — Janus

But we'll have to, or we'll be miserable.

The "predicament of modernity", the "modern crisis of meaning" is, in my view, the consequence of too many people too readily embracing socialist, liberal, humanist, democratic views, and then realizing the hard way that they can't live holding those views without also becoming miserable, and, more importabntly, without failing in life. It's a case of cruel optimism. It's not necessarily that socialist, liberal, etc. views are wrong per se; it's that if a person doesn't have a sufficiently comfortable socio-economic status, holding those views and trying to act in accordance with them will become a source of said person's misery and downfall.

In the spirit of normalizing social and economic austerity, we'll have to go back to the type of mentality people (probably) had in feudalist times, and see ourselves as fully defined by our current socio-economic status and the precarity that comes with it.

I think learning to accept and live with the elusive nature of the self/subject/'I' is a fundamental life lesson.
— Wayfarer

That's a bit pf a tantalising idea. Are there 2 or 3 aspects of this particularly you can dot point? — Tom Storm

E.g. reflecting on which things are you or yours. We do this casually every day. For example, when you eat food, when it's inside of your digestive system, you call it yours (and call it your body when the particles in the food become parts of your bones, muscles, etc.), and then you disown it by excreting it. Your car is yours, and you feel bound to it (legally, emotionally), it's a type of extension of yourself, but once it breaks down beyond repair, your disown it. Looking at old photos of yourself, you can also characteristically distance yourself from "the person you were back then".

Invoking the name of Darwin as if anything intelligent, is what you call "Social Darwinism."

We can tell your Christian sentiments from your response to LuckyR. Doubling down on the notion above are we?

Why must people take seriously the brain affliction of dead web spinners...? — DifferentiatingEgg

Eh?
I, a Christian??
A disenchanted socialist, yes. A Christian, never.

It is interesting that I am again read as seemingly having an 'agenda' behind my posts. In fact, I am not even a Buddhist — boundless

Same here.

To be fair, however, I genuinely find curious the efforts of trying to 'purify' Buddhism of its 'supernatural' elements and still call what remains 'Buddhism'.

Absolutely. This puzzles me the most as well. Why do some people go to such great lengths to invent their own paths and practices, and then still call them "Buddhist"??

But anyway, apparently I am also coming across as arrogant or something like that even if I have no intention of being that. I take this as an occasion for reflection on how I am engaging these kinds of debate. For this reason, I step down from this discussion and this is my last post on this thread. — boundless

I hope you'll be back, in this thread or another one. I've been involved with Buddhism for over twenty years, but have since distanced myself and am still trying to make sense of it all.

I tried to study Buddhism in earnest several times but as an atheist have come upon this stumbling block each time that sooner or later the supernatural elements become pervasive and I got deeper into the reading and it 'ruined immersion' as they say for films and made me not be able to really get behind the practice any more making me put it down again. — unimportant

Why do you call them "supernatural"? Can you explain?

It is a question of - should you 'submit' and accept all these fantastical ideas in order to reach higher levels of attainment or can they be cut out while still getting to the destination.

That's a strange formulation. It's a bit like asking, "Do I need to do something that I find repugnant in order to live a good life?"

I would hazard a guess that it is the rituals of whatever religion not the actual content of the mythologies that allow the transcendent experiences.
The question then is how to recreate that roadmap of the path to attainment as one who does not believe in any particular one? Can the same states still be achieved if one only takes them as allegories rather than realities? — unimportant

Why on earth would anyone want that??

Do you want to be like these guys? Why?

Engaging in some kind of religious or spiritual practice in order to become (better) able to endure physical hardship is still a form of "spiritual materialism," as well as pride.

Secondly, wanting to do it all on one's own terms points at possible trust issues.


I think your approach to "spiritual development" is backwards. You're basically asking, "How can I get the promised results without giving what I'm told to give?"

Why would you want the results that someone else is promising, but you don't want to do what they're telling you to do in order to get those results?

So rebirth is a stumbling block for many Westerners approaching Buddhism. My advice is, put it aside. It's not necessary to 'believe in reincarnation' in order to engage with Buddhism. — Wayfarer

Wrong. It's absolutely central. Buddhism stands and falls with kamma and rebirth.

The order of understanding is crucial: Kamma, therefore, rebirth.

If one understands kamma, one will understand rebirth. In that order.

So it's not about starting out with "believing in rebirth".


Perhaps what makes the most difference in comparison to the way Westerners are used to approach religion/spirituality (as typified by Christianity) is that in terms of Dhammic culture, one is expected to be willing to devote decades to studying kamma (or any other Dhammic topic). This doesn't mean that it will or should take that long; but it's about the willingness to think in the long term -- really long term. Typically, Westerners aren't used to think in such long-term time-frames.

The flip side of the question is 'what makes life worth living'. My problem I have had throughout my life is that society in general I find so vapid and disgusting. For most people in western society consumerism and binge drinking are the highest ideals.

If there was something worth fighting for that gives one reason to live but why does one want to fight for the above soulless nonsense? It seems that is satisfactory for the majority of society and I have never been able to get it or see how that can bring them satisfaction. — unimportant

I doubt they hold consumerism as the highest ideal per se, or that it brings them much satisfaction per se. But it certainly looks like it is the best available relief from existential anxiety for them.

Okay, but what about the situation when killing oneself is the answer to the problem? — LuckyR

The answer to the problem according to whom?

Perhaps the Palestinians should all kill themselves to solve Israel's problem, the Russians should kill themselves to solve EU's problem, the Greenlandians should kill themselves to solve America's problem ...?

Historically, in many societies, a sexually abused woman or a widow was expected to kill herself in order to solve her and her family's problem. For a member of the nobility, suicide was the proper answer if he or she fell from grace. And the list goes on.

What I'm getting at (and which you and several posters repeatedly refuse to address) is how much a particular person's suicide solves _other_ people's problems. And how, in some cases, it is expected that someone would take their own life, even when said person does not experience any particular pain or profound suffering.

What do you believe the most significant difference is between people who love life and those who seek suicide? — Martijn

The feeling that one's material wellbeing is guaranteed. The former have it, the latter lack it.

Regardless, life will always be a beautiful mystery — Martijn

Mysteries stop being beautiful once one is hungry, sick, and cold.

There is no case... do it if you can't handle life. Better for those of us who can. Definitely don't try passing on such hereditary exhaustion. — DifferentiatingEgg

Social Darwinism in action! Yay!