I think equating spirituality with awe and wonder makes perfect sense.“Spirituality” is just a place holder some people use for feelings of awe, wonder, etc., and for heightened or altered states of consciousness. They can call it whatever they want, I suppose. — Noah Te Stroete
I think equating spirituality with awe and wonder makes perfect sense. — Pantagruel
Answers to these kinds of "transcendental" questions remain as articles of faith, and what people in the various traditions believe regarding those kinds of questions is predominately culturally determined. — Janus
a Zen practitioner might be certified as enlightened or awakened according to some institutionalized criteria, but that enlightenment doesn't involve knowing anything such as whether there is a God or an afterlife. — Janus
It requires the williningness to commit, to take the question seriously enough to dedicate yourself to it. And that is what 'belief' really comes down to. It's not propositional - it's dispositional. (And it's immaterial to Buddhists whether you believe them or not; unlike Christians, they're not inclined to try and save you in spite of yourself.). When you can give me an example of how that could be done, I'll believe you. — Janus
At the 'heart of Zen' is a breakthrough generally designated Prajñā. Prajñā is definitely 'knowing' and knowing a particular way. — Wayfarer
It requires the willingness to commit, to take the question seriously enough to dedicate yourself to it. — Wayfarer
Beliefs can be justified by other beliefs and by sense data (coherency). A set of coherent beliefs are also consistent (they don’t contradict one another). That doesn’t mean that one couldn’t have another set of consistent beliefs that aren’t justified by sense data but are also consistent with the coherent beliefs (they don’t contradict the coherent beliefs). Make sense? — Noah Te Stroete
Yes, it requires faith, just like any other religion, in other words — Janus
In any case, in answer to the question in the OP, there are very rigorous epistemological criteria in Buddhism, so it can be rightfully referred to as an 'inner science'. — Wayfarer
Except that the word 'science' suggests inter-subjective corroborability which is not possible in Buddhism, since we are talking about "inner states" and not about anything publicly available — Janus
Or one could just take acid as a shortcut to get a glimpse of the subject-object dissolution. The effects are temporary, though. It would be much cooler to go there by willing it at any given time. — Noah Te Stroete
Hence my first remark in this thread about 'domains of discourse and practice'. Western culture defines that in a particular way. and then we 'map' against that. You often critique 'scientism' and 'reductionism', but the only alternative you see is 'personal' and a matter of 'feeling'. So what I'm trying to do here is provide some alternatives, although you seem very determined to roadblock them. :wink: — Wayfarer
Check out the paisley gate. — Wayfarer
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