Buddhism

[Hokulele]

Thanks for a direct answer.

However, that is your opinion. What I was looking for is what were the Hindu scriptures saying about Brahman. They invented the word, and it was key part of the religion.

That will depend on what part of which Veda you read. The biggest issue with Brahman isn't that the definition is confusing, it is that there are too many definitions, as people used it to basically say, "I dunno, but here is an answer!" Where did the universe come from? Brahman! How does life originate? Brahman! Why do I think my thoughts, and not yours? Brahman! They invented the word to cover up the fact that, well, metaphysics is just a pantsload.

Coincidentally, I found this article, and there is a piece that I think it relevant to atheists discussing Eastern religions.

Waffle. The main reason I don't bother arguing against "gods" is that the whole concept is undefined. Much like Brahman. It is a useless placeholder for things that are non-existent, or unknowable by definition. It is a meaningless answer to a pointless question, and as such generally doesn't deserve a considered answer. See "ignosticism" for my take on whether or not gods exist.

 

[PartSkeptic]

LOL!

Your answer perfectly satisfies me. Alas! I see that some prominent in this discussion will not be satisfied. They want something metaphysical, to either believe in, declare their disbelief in, or set about to debunk.

For me the lovely thing in Buddhism is freedom from the weight of metaphysical baggage, including my own metaphysical self identity.

When I first contemplated this "Emptiness" back in the '70s, I didn't want to give up my precious. But now I laugh at it, as I do any good cartoon show.

First, see my previous post.

Second, emptiness applies to a vessel or container. Like a glass or a bucket.

Empty containers are good for nothing. If they are filled with sand or rocks or rubble they are equally useless. Clean them out so they are empty and then fill them with water or wine.

As is the human. Empty out the useless ego, accept the divine and fill with pure spirit.

Just my interpretation. You have the free will to reject it. After all, some of the Eastern teachings are just that. The Gods may help but do not command and steer.

 

[Hokulele]

Empty containers are good for nothing. If they are filled with sand or rocks or rubble they are equally useless. Clean them out so they are empty and then fill them with water or wine.

As is the human. Empty out the useless ego, accept the divine and fill with pure spirit.

Master Tung-kuo asked Chuang Tzu, "This thing called the Way-where does it exist?"

Chuang Tzu said, "There's no place it doesn't exist."

"Come," said Master Tung-kuo, "you must be more specific!"

"It is in the ant."

"As low a thing as that?"

"It is in the panic grass."

"But that's lower still!"

"It is in the tiles and shards."

"How can it be so low?"

"It is in the piss and ****."

 

[PartSkeptic]

Master Tung-kuo asked Chuang Tzu, "This thing called the Way-where does it exist?"

Chuang Tzu said, "There's no place it doesn't exist."

(snip)

"It is in the piss and ****."

So achieving enlightenment and being one with Way means...

 

[Hokulele]

So achieving enlightenment and being one with Way means...

Well, yeah. Why wouldn't it be?

 

[Kid Eager]

Thanks for a direct answer.

However, that is your opinion. What I was looking for is what were the Hindu scriptures saying about Brahman. They invented the word, and it was key part of the religion.

Coincidentally, I found this article, and there is a piece that I think it relevant to atheists discussing Eastern religions.

Whoa! Just read the entire article and wonder how much spittle the intern author had to remove from the keyboard during the writing process. He spends an awful lot of time constructing an atheist strawman so as to demolish it with vicious glee.

Having said that, I don't see the relevance of the article to the argument in this thread.

 

[PartSkeptic]

Whoa! Just read the entire article and wonder how much spittle the intern author had to remove from the keyboard during the writing process. He spends an awful lot of time constructing an atheist strawman so as to demolish it with vicious glee.

Having said that, I don't see the relevance of the article to the argument in this thread.

What I see is the admiration of some atheists for Eastern "religions" for their "insight" into the human condition after they strip them of their gods, talismans, shrines, priests, prayer and supernatural elements - rather than attacking those religions as taking advantage of delusional simpletons.

The OP was trying to debunk some of the concepts of Buddhism, and he had few takers.

Double standards. Christianity and Islam gets trashed whereas other religions are tolerated. And that was part of the article.

BTW - do you think that he has a point - that the gurus of atheism are losing popularity? I saw some figures somewhere that atheism was declining in some country or other.

 

[PartSkeptic]

Well, yeah. Why wouldn't it be?

Because you imply that the "Way" does not exist as an underlying spiritual entity?

 

[Chanakya]

Be careful what you ask for!

*Drags out soapbox*

To me, Buddhism and Taoism mark an interesting turning point in how people viewed the observable, and attempted to understand it. Even though the two are not linked in any meaningful way, they both attempt to understand a concept that is a key part of modern science, that of emergent processes.

Up until only fairly recently, everything that could be observed was considered an object or a thing, and our languages clearly reflect this. We talk about "the fire" or "the wind", even though we now know that there really isn't a thing called "fire", but a complex chemical process. Similarly, we are coming to the conclusion that "life" and "self" aren't things in and of themselves, but properties or processes of a collection or system of things.

Buddhism addresses this in part with the concept of "no-self" or "deathlessness". In modern terms, if the self is just a process of the brain, it isn't a thing that can die, or return to life. One has to let go of the notion of a discrete self in order to break free from the suffering of fear of death.

Taoism addresses this notion of "not things, but processes" in the concept of the Tao (or, the Way). The first thing one should do when reading Taoist texts is to relinquish the notion that they are talking about a specific thing or goal, which is why they use phrases that indicate that trying to grasp Tao in any sort of physical terms is impossible. In a fundamental sense, Tao is the universe as a process, rather than a thing. Taoism is about coming to terms with this notion, and adjusting your lifestyle accordingly.

So, with that preface, to answer your questions:

1) Tao isn't a thing, it is the very process of existence. It is the interactions between opposites (Yin and Yang) that result in all we experience. Because of this, it is misleading to refer to it in physical terms, and since language is built on physicality, this leads to obscure and poetical ways to convey this concept.

2) One should realize that attempting to force your notions of what should and should not be on the universe is futile, and will only lead to frustration. By relinquishing these notions, and learning to view the world as an ongoing process, not a static object, one will live more harmoniously, and more contentedly.

I hope this helps.

Hokulele, thank you! I could not have a asked for a clearer, more lucid explanation than what you’ve presented here. And you’ve not only explained the inscrutable Tao clearly and entirely to my satisfaction, you’ve also put forward a very plausible explanation for the exceptional obscurity (exceptional even by the standards of mystical texts) that surrounds that this particular system of thought.


Apparently, then, the core of Taoism isn’t religious at all, nor even mystical. The same, I suppose, can be said about the core teachings of the Buddha as well.

Which brings me to yet another question that I had, half in jest, asked earlier on in this thread. How did these gentlemen, the Buddha on the one hand, and the author of the Tao Te Ching (Lau Tzu, right?), happen to arrive at their remarkable insights? More than two whole millennia ago, in a total vacuum as regards actual scientific discoveries about this sort of thing (and even, arguably, in a vacuum as regards the concept of science itself, science as wholly independent of mystical fairy tales), HOW did these two men suddenly arrive at these concepts that science is beginning to explain to us only now? It’s almost as if these two (and especially the Buddha) were time travelers who’d got stranded in a past time, and spent their lives explaining to the (temporal) natives facts and ideas and philosophies that were far in advance of those primitive times.

[Perhaps I should clarify, at this point, given the nature of interweb forums : I’m not literally making claims about time-traveling prophets! Just a bit of rhetorical flourish to emphasize my point.]

I suppose the Tao Te Ching may still, perhaps, be explained away as the culmination of decades, perhaps centuries, of rambling philosophy, that were merely recorded (and brought into focus) by Lao Tzu. But in the Buddha’s case, past accounts seem to suggest that the man single-handedly thought up this remarkable idea. (I’m referring specifically to Anatta, but I suppose this could also apply, more generally and to a lesser extent, to the larger process-based thinking that you discuss, as it applies to ‘everything’.) And thought it up not merely as the idle speculation of an idle rich boy dawdling away and playing at philosopher in his father’s basement, but “taught” it with single-minded emphasis and even dedicated his entire life to it.

How in the world might he have thought this up? Might there be something to his methods after all?

[Clarification : Rhetorical question! Not really expecting a definitive answer, not unless you’re a time traveler yourself, or someone who’s followed the Buddha’s footsteps into Nirvana. Nevertheless, should you happen to have some theory about this or should you care to hazard a guess, I’ll be happy to listen.]



ETA : Not sure how this works, but NOMINATED! An insightful and beautifully lucid explanation of something that generally ends up looking impossibly convoluted and obscure.

Edited again : Oops! Seems to have gone into a nomination thread titled "language award", whatever that might mean. Not what I'd intended, at all. Anyway, scratch that. Online brownie points are rather infantile anyway, right?

 

[Apathia]

Indeed!

The religious bedmates I find most fascinating is how Buddhism and Shinto coexist in modern Japan. Shinto is the ultimate religion of "things", and Buddhism, especially Zen, is the religion of "no things"!

An even more amusing juxtaposition I saw one day:

Outside of Fukuoka City, near the small town of Sasaguri, there's a complex of temples of the Shingon sect. On the main temple grounds (Nanzoin) there's a three meter statue of the Wisdom King and Buddhist Dharma Protector, Fudo-Myo-Ou (aka Acalanatha) He's a demonic looking figure with blue skin, sharp teeth, and flaming red hair.

Bowing before him was a woman fingering her prayer beads. But I noticed the beads weren't ojuzu (Buddhist prayer beads), but it was actually a rosary.

Now back in the days when Japan drove Christianity underground, a Kannon (Kwan Yin) could secretly be a St. Mary. But Old Fudo, Jesus?

Whatever was going on, I smiled at the syncretism.

Shingon is especially big on syncretism between Buddhism and Shinto, going as far as to identify the Shinto Sun goddess with the Cosmic Sun Buddha.

 

[Apathia]

First, see my previous post.

Second, emptiness applies to a vessel or container. Like a glass or a bucket.

Empty containers are good for nothing. If they are filled with sand or rocks or rubble they are equally useless. Clean them out so they are empty and then fill them with water or wine.

As is the human. Empty out the useless ego, accept the divine and fill with pure spirit.

Just my interpretation. You have the free will to reject it. After all, some of the Eastern teachings are just that. The Gods may help but do not command and steer.

I put "emptiness" in quotes, because there's an incompleteness to the term in respect to where Buddhism goes with it. It signifies the void of a metaphysical Being. But when all metaphysical talk has been dismissed, the void has no significance because there was never anything to not be there. Emptiness is emptied.

Then Being which is thoroughly empirical is the sacred Fullness, the Tao, in a manner of speaking. But to try to box in Being itself as a theological object or get philosophical about Being as an object of philosophical discourse, loses the Divine Liberation.

Nothing is in here, but we are all in here. But that's best lived by not carrying about an empty bowl.

Your position that the Divine is not an Individual being but Being itself in which we all find transcendence and participate is appreciated. I'm just more empirical in how I relate to that than metaphysical. I'd rather sit just listening to the birds than trying to extend my Human conceptions beyond their kin.

 

[Apathia]

I've seen people say that, but it's not what he said. (Disclaimer: I have not read the Pali canon. I've only read selected excerpts.)

The Buddha talked about the "Five aggregates" which were four mental things sensations, perceptions, thoughts, and consciousness, plus one physical thing, the body.

None of them were permanent. None of them were identifiable as "you". None of them carried on. All were temporary.

In one of his discourses about reincarnation he noted that none of them carried on after death, so what is it that is supposed to be reincarnated? And I've heard Buddhists respond that, obviously, he meant that those things were not really "you", so there must be something else that is really "you". The "real you" isn't any of those.

As best I could tell, they are saying exactly the opposite of what the Buddha said. I've read that passage before, and I'll probably google it after I write this, and I'm sure that he is saying, "There is no reincarnation", and yet, I have heard people cite it as proof that the Buddha taught reincarnation.

Yes it's a mess trying to reconcile the Hindu traditional teaching of reincarnation with the Buddha's basic teaching of no metaphysical self.

Popular/folk Buddhism doesn't sweat it. But the academic fudge is that it's an inheritance of karma. Karma creates patterns, something akin to genes that another life inherits. technically speaking that new life is not you but an inheritor of your karmic stuff.

Depending upon the school of Buddhism, these patterns can include some elements of memory and personality. This is the case with Tibetan Buddhism and reincarnations of the Dalai Lama.

There's still the assertion that these configurations are just that. There is no object or even collection of objects handed on to the next recipient. It's just a process.

But as for fudge, they can have all the pieces on the plate. The divinity too. I prefer the peanut butter bars.

 

[Hokulele]

Because you imply that the "Way" does not exist as an underlying spiritual entity?

I didn't imply that, I outright stated it. You can scroll up and read the argument that the Way isn't any sort of entity at all, spiritual or otherwise.

To the bizarre rant you linked, there are several reasons why the Abrahamic religions come under fire more often than others. These include: the evangelical nature of those religions, the various attempts to use them as the foundations of government, and the absolute lack of tolerance for dissent built into their core teachings. Mind you, there are certainly things that can be criticized in the core teachings of Buddhism (such as the rampant homophobia), but they do not intrude on the personal lives of those living in Western nations the way the adherents of other religions do.

 

[Hokulele]

Hokulele, thank you! I could not have a asked for a clearer, more lucid explanation than what you’ve presented here. And you’ve not only explained the inscrutable Tao clearly and entirely to my satisfaction, you’ve also put forward a very plausible explanation for the exceptional obscurity (exceptional even by the standards of mystical texts) that surrounds that this particular system of thought.

I am glad you found it useful.

Apparently, then, the core of Taoism isn’t religious at all, nor even mystical. The same, I suppose, can be said about the core teachings of the Buddha as well.

Pretty much. Although both did originate in cultures with strong folk religions and assumptions based on those beliefs can be seen in their writings. They just didn't hold them to be all that important.

Which brings me to yet another question that I had, half in jest, asked earlier on in this thread. How did these gentlemen, the Buddha on the one hand, and the author of the Tao Te Ching (Lau Tzu, right?), happen to arrive at their remarkable insights? More than two whole millennia ago, in a total vacuum as regards actual scientific discoveries about this sort of thing (and even, arguably, in a vacuum as regards the concept of science itself, science as wholly independent of mystical fairy tales), HOW did these two men suddenly arrive at these concepts that science is beginning to explain to us only now? It’s almost as if these two (and especially the Buddha) were time travelers who’d got stranded in a past time, and spent their lives explaining to the (temporal) natives facts and ideas and philosophies that were far in advance of those primitive times.

<snippage for brevity>

Well, you do have to remember that their ideas of emergent properties aren't exactly the same as what we know now, so it would be misleading to say that they knew it before we did. They had the underlying concept that what can be observed may not be what it appears to be, but they didn't necessarily have the mechanics for why that would be. It is sort of like how we can see the underlying concept of the elemental table in Aristotle, but we can't say he was a pioneer of modern chemistry.

ETA : Not sure how this works, but NOMINATED! An insightful and beautifully lucid explanation of something that generally ends up looking impossibly convoluted and obscure.

Edited again : Oops! Seems to have gone into a nomination thread titled "language award", whatever that might mean. Not what I'd intended, at all. Anyway, scratch that. Online brownie points are rather infantile anyway, right?

Thank you. Intentional or not, it is appreciated!

 

[PartSkeptic]

I have been doing a lot of research on the internet, trying to cut through the jargon and the opposing points of view and/or opinions. This article appears to give a good summary of what most Buddhists believe about the soul.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soul

Buddhism teaches that all things are in a constant state of flux: all is changing, and no permanent state exists by itself. This applies to human beings as much as to anything else in the cosmos. Thus, a human being has no permanent self.

According to this doctrine of anatta/anātman – "no-self" or "no soul" – the words "I" or "me" do not refer to any fixed thing. They are simply convenient terms that allow us to refer to an ever-changing entity…

The anatta doctrine is not a kind of materialism. Buddhism does not deny the existence of "immaterial" entities, and it (at least traditionally) distinguishes bodily states from mental states. Thus, the conventional translation of anatta as "no-soul" can be confusing.

If the word "soul" simply refers to an incorporeal component in living things that can continue after death, then Buddhism does not deny the existence of the soul. Instead, Buddhism denies the existence of a permanent entity that remains constant behind the changing corporeal and incorporeal components of a living being...

Conscious mental states simply arise and perish with no "thinker" behind them. When the body dies, Buddhists believe the incorporeal mental processes continue and are reborn in a new body.

Because the mental processes are constantly changing, the being that is reborn is neither entirely different from, nor exactly the same as, the being that died. However, the new being is continuous with the being that died – in the same way that the "you" of this moment is continuous with the "you" of a moment before, despite the fact that you are constantly changing.

...Buddhist teaching holds that a notion of a permanent, abiding self is a delusion that is one of the causes of human conflict on the emotional, social, and political levels. They add that an understanding of anatta provides an accurate description of the human condition, and that this understanding allows us to pacify our mundane desires.

…Certain modern Buddhists, particularly in Western countries, reject—or at least take an agnostic stance toward—the concept of rebirth or reincarnation, which they view as incompatible with the concept of anatta. Stephen Batchelor discusses this issue in his book Buddhism Without Beliefs. Others point to research that has been conducted at the University of Virginia as proof that some people are reborn.

Hokulele: Are you using the scholarly articles for your viewpoint, or do you consider you are sufficiently expert in hermeneutics to allow you accurately interpret religious scriptures?

If the former, could you please provide links?


Interestingly, the Greek philosophers believed in reincarnation it seems.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soul

Drawing on the words of his teacher Socrates, Plato considered the psyche to be the essence of a person, being that which decides how we behave. He considered this essence to be an incorporeal, eternal occupant of our being. Socrates says that even after death, the soul exists and is able to think.

He believed that as bodies die, the soul is continually reborn in subsequent bodies and Plato believed this as well…

 

[Hokulele]

Wikipedia is a scholarly source?

Good grief...

 

[Meadmaker]

Yes it's a mess trying to reconcile the Hindu traditional teaching of reincarnation with the Buddha's basic teaching of no metaphysical self.

Popular/folk Buddhism doesn't sweat it. But the academic fudge is that it's an inheritance of karma. Karma creates patterns, something akin to genes that another life inherits. technically speaking that new life is not you but an inheritor of your karmic stuff.

Depending upon the school of Buddhism, these patterns can include some elements of memory and personality. This is the case with Tibetan Buddhism and reincarnations of the Dalai Lama.

There's still the assertion that these configurations are just that. There is no object or even collection of objects handed on to the next recipient. It's just a process.

But as for fudge, they can have all the pieces on the plate. The divinity too. I prefer the peanut butter bars.

So, even among the Tibetans, they wouldn't say that anyone, lamas included, had a spirit that passed from one incarnation to another? Just that the pattern of one person's life was so strong that it would certainly reappear in someone else's body?

 

[Apathia]

So, even among the Tibetans, they wouldn't say that anyone, lamas included, had a spirit that passed from one incarnation to another? Just that the pattern of one person's life was so strong that it would certainly reappear in someone else's body?

Yes. Though making a dynasty of reincarnated lamas, Tibetan Buddhism does not abandon the signature teaching of the Buddha that there is no "soul" or "spirit" with a inherent, substantial, essential being of its own.

Only karma passes on. Now as a convenience of speech, of the same sort as when we say the sun rises or a shadow passes, Buddhists will say a person will be incarnated in a new life in some realm of existence be it Human, Animal, or whatever.

This includes the kind of talk that says Gopal was born blind because in a previous life he accumulated bad karma. Technically speaking Gopal never had a past life.

So in the minds of the Buddhist masses, this becomes no more than classic reincarnation. Typically the greater majority of any religion doesn't know that religion's teachings very well. But if you ask the Dali Lama himself, he'll tell you it's a matter of karma.

For this play of karma to work, there has to be some metaphysical underpinnings to shape empirical events. That's what's so messy and betrays the spirit of the Buddha's simple dismissal of souls and an ultimate soul.

When disciples wanted to discuss the afterlife and gods, it's said that the Historical Buddha would change the subject to something empirical: a flower held in his hand, his palm on the ground. He'd say that gods and reincarnation were irrelevant to his teaching.

 

[PartSkeptic]

Wikipedia is a scholarly source?

Good grief...

I said I was posting a summary. And I thought I would get an answer from you.

Your side-step - is that a Buddhist or Taoist philosophy?

 

[Hokulele]

I said I was posting a summary. And I thought I would get an answer from you.

Your side-step - is that a Buddhist or Taoist philosophy?

That wasn't even a summary. Did you see the sources used for the bits you quoted? I and others with direct experience with Buddhism have provided many answers in this thread, and it is not my problem you didn't accept them.