Buddhism, the religion that failed us or did we fail it?
- Thread starter Bluecrux
- Start date
Aware of your thoughts.
The complete and continuous awareness of who you are, what you are, your reactions, thoughts and feelings and relationship with the nature of things with whom you interact. Becoming conscious of every moment and movement within and without.
It's just a label. It cannot be adequately described. It's a shift in consciousness, in our patterns of thinking. It's awareness, but also detachment, because we aren't our personalities. Our self is illusory. Elightenment is not so much awareness of self as awareness of the lack of self. In this state there is freedom.
I don't think it's a supernatural concept.
Yazata
Valued Senior Member
Bluecrux said:
Of dukkha. 'Dukkha' is usually translated as 'suffering' and that's what the word apparently meant in everday Pali. But the word has kind of a technical usage in Buddhism. It might be better to think of it as 'unsatisfactoriness', since Buddhism certainly doesn't deny the existence of pleasure, but argues that when you get down to it, pleasure is ultimately dukkha too. So the way to avoid suffering, dissatisfaction and existential angst isn't just to drown it out in sensory or intellectual stimulation.
Of the arising of dukkha. In Buddhism that's called dependent origination, kind of a process of psychological causation. A great deal of Buddhist meditation consists simply of inner observation, to learn how various psychological states arise and subside in response to conditions.
Of the subsiding of dukkha. The obvious next step is to intervene in the processes through which suffering arises and to facilitate those through which it subsides.
And finally, of the path to the subsiding of dukkha. That's Buddhist practice itself, originally laid out in the eightfold path and then tremendously elaborated. To some extent, the whole subsequent Buddhist tradition is that elaboration.
Buddhists call the four things that I just mentioned, dukkha, it's arising, its subsiding and the path to its subsiding, the 'Four Noble Truths'. This formulation takes the form of an ancient Indian medical diagnosis: a disease condition is identified, its cause is determined, it's determined whether or not the condition has a cure, and if so the cure is specified.
In modern terms, Buddhism almost looks like an ancient form of spiritual psychology and psychotherapy. And that in turn addresses this --
Snakelord said:
It could probably be argued that apart from its religiously salvific side, Buddhism has filled many of the same kind of roles in traditional Asian societies that psychologists and counselors fulfill here in the modern West. That's service of a sort, I guess.
I should add that the monks performed other services as well. They traditionally (and in many cases still do) run schools and serve as a village's schoolteachers. Some Asian countries boasted relatively high levels of literacy compared to other preindustrial societies, largely for that reason. The monks also had important social roles in caring for the indigent and the aged.
Reincarnation is a supernatural concept. I know for a long time, maybe a few thousand years, this was really the main factor in Buddhism. Now the problem here, of course, is going from a few hundred...or lets even say a few thousand to multiple billions of people and it really sweeps the concept aside. This does not mean that somehow, someway and by liberal doctoring of the original that someone should not believe in reincarnation if they want to.
Feeling generous, i would say 'anything is possible'.
Whatever works for you.
And it induces people towards drama?
Yazata, thats all well and good, i suppose. I am not good with things that require formalities or if they come with an instruction book and really many other reasons that i would just as soon not get into because this would be a rant of monumental proportions but an across the board rant and it wouldnt be fair to unleash it in this thread. Though admittedly, i have been in a particularly cynical mood today so dont want to come off as overly critical of Buddhism per se/
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Buddhism in a Nutshell
Is it a religion?
It is neither a religion in the sense in which that word is commonly understood, for it is not "a system of faith and worship owing any allegiance to a supernatural being."
Buddhism does not demand blind faith from its adherents. Here mere belief is dethroned and is substituted by confidence based on knowledge, which, in Pali, is known as saddha. The confidence placed by a follower on the Buddha is like that of a sick person in a noted physician, or a student in his teacher. A Buddhist seeks refuge in the Buddha because it was he who discovered the path of deliverance.
http://www.buddhanet.net/nutshell03.htm
Is it a religion?
It is neither a religion in the sense in which that word is commonly understood, for it is not "a system of faith and worship owing any allegiance to a supernatural being."
Buddhism does not demand blind faith from its adherents. Here mere belief is dethroned and is substituted by confidence based on knowledge, which, in Pali, is known as saddha. The confidence placed by a follower on the Buddha is like that of a sick person in a noted physician, or a student in his teacher. A Buddhist seeks refuge in the Buddha because it was he who discovered the path of deliverance.
http://www.buddhanet.net/nutshell03.htm
Reincarnation is Supernatural, you have "Buddha", its posted in the religion Forum...it's a religion.
Is there no supreme being pulling the strings in it? Wouldnt surprise me if there is either.
BUT...if you are just meditating (for whatever reason) then i would agree with you.
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I should first mention that the doctrine of reincarnation is not necessary to Buddhism.
Secondly, only some concepts of it are supernatural. The particles in the body do go into the Earth and are incorporated into plants and such and are eaten again to make new bodies. Additionally, our patterns of thought are passed on to our children through culture.
Buddhism doesn't intend to make someone morally superior or something that will earn you a place in heaven.
It intends to make you aware. If all people want to do is spend their life swinging golf, having tea parties and working hard for money. Then fine. If they are happy and content , if they do not want change, fine. No problem.
We have to focus at individuals and not compare people.
Monks may have their own idea of living their life and so would any other common man.
If they both are content, at peace, why the hell do we have to keep jumping in and interfere?[/QUOTE]
What is wrong with golf? LOL logical fallacy. How are you going to make someone more aware and focus on individuals if you are not to compare people? Perhaps you should reassess you values on these people. (AKA. who you calling people and why is it important to realize individual circumstances from your point of view.) Would you not be comparing them to yourself just by focusing on them? People have focus their opinions on this subject have you not judged them yourself? If so explain to them why you have judged them in this manner.
Like the actual part that comes from Buddhism.
Not really. I dont know of too many cultures where dead humans are thrown out into the world to be eaten by animals or used for fertilizer. And even if that were the case, do you think it owuld even matter? I am not convinced of that. For the past few years i take more of an 'is what it is' perspective.
:bugeye:
Throwing things against a wall to see what sticks? Its true that memories live on but and that is nice.
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Good point, but Neitzsche as well was an open believer in reincarnation and borrowed the concept from Buddha himself. Maybe he was Buddah in a different life time although he believed he was too insane to admit it to un-understanding individuals of his time. Possibly because of all the anti-Semitic type that was running around including his sister. Who is to say that the great ideas of the dead are not floating in the atmosphere waiting to imbed themselves in understanding individuals. Tis only thought.
Yazata
Valued Senior Member
It certainly doesn't seem to be consistent with the modern scientific worldview. A number of Buddhist modernists have questioned or reinterpreted the idea of reincarnation in order to render it more scientific. An example of that tendency is Buddhadasa, whose ideas are very influential (and rather controversial) in Thailand.
Belief in souls that reincarnate wasn't unknown among the ancient Greeks. Orphism taught a doctrine interestingly similar to that of the Indian Jains and a number of famous Greek philosophers including Pythagoras and Plato were influenced by it and stoutly championed the idea of reincarnation.
In Buddhism, reincarnation has always had kind of an uncomfortable relationship with the anatman (no-self) doctrine that basically denies the existence of a human soul. The philosophically astute Indo-Greek king Menander is depicted as inquiring into that point in the ancient 'Milindapanha', a famous Buddhist dialogue. If there's no soul, transcendental-self or jiva that takes on a new body upon rebirth, then what is it that reincarnates? The Buddhist monk Nagasena explains that nothing substantial passes from one life to the next, but nevertheless there's dependent origination, or as we might say causal connection, between them. His analogy was lighting one flame from another.
Our Western idea of 'religion' is a product of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic environment in which Western civilization developed, and it doesn't apply precisely to Asian traditions like Buddhism and Confucianism. These Asian traditions kind of overlap with our Western idea of religion, sharing many characteristics with it. There's salvation, heavens, temples, monks, scriptures, incense and pilgrimage. But at the same time, they manage to differ in ways that Westerners would probably consider essential. In Buddhism there's no God, little emphasis on faith, and there's no divine law or supernatural revelation.
As Bluecrux said in the first post, the Buddha told his inquirers not to believe blindly in anything (even him), but to go and experience things for themselves. Historically, human nature being what it is, Buddhists haven't always lived up to that and there's lots of adhering to tradition simply because it's tradition and to scriptures just because they are scriptures.
Nope. There's no creator-god or monotheist king-of-the-sky. Traditional Buddhists in ancient times didn't deny the existence of gods exactly. But whatever gods might exist were simply conceived as natural beings, residents of higher and more refined but still natural planes of being. When it comes to Buddhism's purpose of eliminating dukkha, the gods are kind of irrelevant. They need enlightenment too, just like humans do. And since gods in their lush heavens are more tempted by pleasure and by power than we are, they might actually find enlightenment more difficult to achieve. There's an extraordinary humanistic idea in Buddhism that in some ways it's better to be a human being than to be a god.
Particles: I was thinking in the long term, everything gets recycled and that's a fact.
Thoughts: This is literally true, culture limits and controls the way we think. Language is particularly powerful in this regard. A newborn human is a blank slate, but culture imprints them with previous patterns. This is how rebirth works, the self, the personality is not maintained since it is an illusion in the first place. This is reincarnation without individual souls.
Long term or short term doesn't matter. What does matter is that you are wrong and really in entirety so lets just take this off the table and chalk it up to fantasy (your fantasy\delusion). Even in circumstances of cremation there is nothing in those ashes that would have even the slightest effect on future organisms because as you know the ashes are entirely inert. The other poster here said things were changed (from being entirely supernatural), if things were changed or if this concept changed because it was proven to be impossible then we would just say it was wrong from the beginning and leave it at that. Even still if you are going to say eventually particles...blah, blah, blah then if you need to learn this from some imaginary Buddha, who was a myth to begin with, then it really doesnt matter to me in the slightest. And then with have the enlightenment bull shit but i have not seen evidence of this but i see some fairly naive concepts.
Thats nice.
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What is wrong with golf? LOL logical fallacy. How are you going to make someone more aware and focus on individuals if you are not to compare people? Perhaps you should reassess you values on these people. (AKA. who you calling people and why is it important to realize individual circumstances from your point of view.) Would you not be comparing them to yourself just by focusing on them? People have focus their opinions on this subject have you not judged them yourself? If so explain to them why you have judged them in this manner.[/QUOTE]
I know what you mean by 'fallacy' here.
I am not comparing to them. I don't have any problem with the monk or the golf swinger. I would have compared to them if I would have made a subjective remark on any of them.
I, or anyone cannot make anyone aware. At the most, I can only inspire that person to be aware.
Only an individual him/herself can assess his situation of life and decide what he wants to do with it. I mean, he might look at the world around, but he cannot deduce that if 'x' has some 'y' which makes him/her content then he has to have that 'y' in order to feel content too. He would have like a catalogue of a lot of such values 'y1', 'y2', 'y3' but he has to try them and decide for himself.
Do you think this would be comparing or focusing on other people?
Yazata
Valued Senior Member
Nothing is a creation ex-nihilo, from out of nothing.
That's how the Buddhist modernists sometimes reinterpret the traditional idea of reincarnation.
The thing is, in Buddhism there isn't any substantial temporally-extended self that somehow corresponds to and supports our name and identity throughout our lives. Buddhism conceives of human beings as being processes, not substances. The process of our lives is kind of a causal chain, each moment conditioning the next, bringing it into being, but without anything substantial persisting unchanged from one moment to the next. Everything is constantly in flux. In effect, we are dying and being reborn each instant. (That's why Buddhist meditation often emphasizes being fully in the moment and not concentrating so much on the future and the past.)
In the discourses, the Buddha criticizes two kinds of views that he considers mistaken. The first was 'eternalism', the idea that there's an unchanging self or soul that survives death. The second was 'annihilationism', the idea that the self perishes at death. The Buddha proceeds to argue if there isn't any temporally-extended substantial entity corresponding to the word 'me' even during life, then there isn't anything there that survives death or is annihilated at death.
That leaves the idea of reincarnation kind of hanging. The Buddha didn't want to flatly deny reincarnation, since it formed the basis of Indian ethics. It kind of took the place that divine judgement occupies in Western religions, representing the inevitability of moral accountability. When the Buddha criticizes those who denied reincarnation, he seems to always do it from an ethical perspective, equating the denial of reincarnation with the denial of ethical principle.
But if there isn't any self that survives death, reincarnation becomes problematic. So we have the idea that the moral character of one life process kind of conditions the circumstances of a succeeding life process.
Unfortunately, modern science hasn't detected any kind of causal connection between individual lives that would correspond to this. But that doesn't mean that the conditions of our lives aren't conditioned by events that happened previous to us. Everything that we are is associated with preceeding causal conditions. It just isn't personal in the way that the Indian doctrine of reincarnation supposes.
The Buddhist modernists who are skeptical about reincarnation point out that the Buddha subjected the idea of a personal self during a person's lifetime to pretty devastating criticism. So it isn't really a stretch to suggest that the idea of a personal connection between one lifetime and another is somewhat illusory as well. There are obviously connections between our lives and what went before and what will come after, but it doesn't seem to be one-to-one and personal in the way that the traditional idea of reincarnation supposes.
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