Well, I still see it as kind of having won the religion race, just for having made perhaps the least number of outlandish claims compared to the other faiths. But yes, the science contradictions are frustrating. At the same time, it works in terms of moderating the body, the mind. The challenge is looking past the lore and fanaticism to the actual practioners, who, if they're practiced and serious, live as hermits. These guys live in the woods for years and they're still lucid, sharp - the practice works, but the goal is to become a recluse, or an "island unto oneself" as the Buddha is quoted. It's become too political, and fanatical in most sects though so that's all we see in the media.

Just to be clear, when I'm talking about the Buddha's apparent dishonesty I'm saying it may be a little more complicated than that - if he actually "put an end to suffering," if we follow that premise, it may follow that some weird stuff was going on along with that. The premise I'm making I guess is that he did something really interesting to his brain and this "ignorance" he got rid of may have included becoming unable to admit ignorance on anything, even to himself, so it wasn't a lie, but some crazy neurological thing....

Think about it this way, if everyone in the world mastered their desires and practiced Buddhist asceticism, then we wouldn't have made it very far as a species. — Wallows

A Buddhist would ask you, why would it matter for the species to be successful? For humanity to thrive means that the other denizens of earth (among them, also other humans) to suffer, and since all is one, why is that preferable?

And what exactly is success? A Buddhist would value spiritual and mental well-being far above material well-being, and how healthy is humanity spiritually?

so it wasn't a lie, but some crazy neurological thing.... — hillsofgold

Megalomania?

Well, in essence, I think he was a true master of the mind, enlightened, and the works, but just surmising that there were of necessity some side effects for a human to tinker with the natural, evolution-driven "settings" of their own minds like that. I'm also thinking he was perhaps the biggest megalomaniac in human history. Tell me how you'd respond if you complimented some one you were passing by on the street and he responded like this:

"Upaka the Ajivaka saw me on the road between Gaya and the (place of) Awakening, and on seeing me said to me, 'Clear, my friend, are your faculties. Pure your complexion, and bright. On whose account have you gone forth? Who is your teacher? In whose Dhamma do you delight?'

"When this was said, I replied to Upaka the Ajivaka in verses:

'All-vanquishing,
all-knowing am I,
with regard to all things,
unadhering.
All-abandoning,
released in the ending of craving:
having fully known on my own,
to whom should I point as my teacher?

I have no teacher,
and one like me can't be found.
In the world with its devas,
I have no counterpart.

For I am an arahant in the world;
I, the unexcelled teacher.
I, alone, am rightly self-awakened.
Cooled am I, unbound.

To set rolling the wheel of Dhamma
I go to the city of Kasi.
In a world become blind,
I beat the drum of the Deathless.'

[...]

"When this was said, Upaka said, 'May it be so, my friend,' and — shaking his head, taking a side-road — he left.

xxxx

I have to hope that story is true because it strikes me as perhaps among the funniest moments in human history.

I replied to your post and it was deleted or removed by glitch or something — hillsofgold

Spam filter false positive. Now released.

Perhaps the buddha understood his own mind so well, so perfectly, he thought to extend that confidence to the natural world at large. Or again, maybe he couldn't help it? — hillsofgold

You might have to allow for the fact that science is not all-knowing, either.

Spam filter false positive. Now released. — Baden

As was my now-edited-out tirade-against-the-man a false positive. Some posts vanish and I mistakenly assumed I knew why...again, the problem with being a know-it-all.

You might have to allow for the fact that science is not all-knowing, either. — Wayfarer

Tell me about it. It's 2019 and I've yet to buy a non-malfunctioning printer.

But yeah, we've been at a roadblock for decades in most of physics, both large and small scale, minus some gravitational wave detections here and there of late. Still, it's progressing and when people talk about it not explaining everything I always have to wonder how much of that is about its failure to penetrate the mysteries of us - life, the mind, consciousness. It's true, we're stuck, but progress is being made there too. I look at it like Buddhists being minors trying to drill out of a cave while science is trying to drill in....or something like that. I expect there to be a merger at some point in the probably-distant future.

You have an intriguing jumble of ideas, some of them might be fruitful. As a working, practicing, Western-secular practitioner of Buddhist meditation, I can attest to the benefits of the practice and the attitudes it helps to engender. There’s a lot of myth-making about it, but at the end of the day an old Buddhist folk story puts it pretty well:

Q: What is the meaning of Buddhism?
A: Cease from doing evil, learn to do good, purify the mind. That is the teaching of the Buddhas.
Q: harrumph. A child of seven knows that.
A: How many men of 70 can do it?

Re Buddhism and science, see https://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/13/opinion/13brooks.html?

I don't mind if they're a jumble so long as I'm communicating individual ideas clearly. Buddhism is deep and profound and I've always held way for the possibility that it's the only route to enlightenment that takes you all the way there...For all of the Buddha's megalomania (and if you read the sutras he was undeniably megalomaniacal), he seems like the most harmless, altruistic megalomaniac who ever lived.

It's just good to remember that he was real, and make sure that the Buddhism you've been taught is the same Buddhism in the sutras. Depending on the sects, there's almost universally a good deal of divergence. The Buddha was pretty no-gray-area hardlined about the need to go into seclusion, to separate men and women, to follow the teachings to the T and not waste time delaying your extinction and reaching enlightenment. Give up everything and no dallying! A lot of sects second-guess all that and that's fine, but then it's a play off the Buddha's teaching, so we may not be talking about the same Buddhism.

For all of the Buddha's megalomania — hillsofgold

The point of the classical 'story of the Buddha' was that he was a prince that renounced his kingdom. From that time forward, he possessed nothing but his begging bowl and robe - same as all of the other members of his order. He had no military or political power whatsoever. As 'megalomania' is 'obsession with the exercise of power' then it's not plainly not applicable to the Buddha. He had absolutely zero power, other than the power of persuasion.

The passage you quoted about the Buddha declaring his enlightenment is a doctrinal statement of the faith. The Buddha is not speaking there as 'the individual, Gotama'; this statement is similar to other such doctrinal statements in Indian religious mythology indicating the 'triumph over ignorance' and have to be interpreted accordingly.

*

Buddhism is deep and profound and I've always held way for the possibility that it's the only route to enlightenment that takes you all the way there... — hillsofgold

No one can effectively practice towards a goal if they don’t know what the goal is. No one knows what “enlightenment” is.

Well to be frank, it sounds like you haven't read many of the sutras or at least like you haven't read a lot on your own. There are plenty available here:

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/

The megalomania is pretty hard to ignore - it's in almost every one. Again, he never admits to not knowing the answer to a question as far as I've read. There are ten thousand sutras and I've only read a good 100 or so but that's more than an adequate sample size in math. Admitting he didn't know wasn't part of what he did but rather he would often mansplain the heck out of questions like declaring there was a sky under the crust of the earth. Did I mention as he was dying he yelled at a monk to get out from in front of him because the gods were crying that he was blocking their view of the Buddha?

If you're worried about what you'd find don't be. I still love the guy and think he may have discovered what's necessary in all of us to achieve the state of non-suffering he achieved. I'm coming off more critical of him than I mean to be. But read the sutras. Know your faith. The buddha says in a sutra that Buddhism will become corrupted and fade when disciples pay attention to the words of other disciples but stop reading or paying attention to the words of the Buddha in the sutras. He says his words are directly connected to emptiness. Check out the Ani Sutta:

"In the course of the future there will be
monks who won't listen when discourses that are words of
the Tathágata -- deep, deep in their meaning, transcendent,
connected with emptiness -- are being recited. They won't
lend ear, won't set their hearts on knowing them, won't
regard these teachings as worth grasping or mastering. But
they will listen when discourses that are literary works -- the
works of poets, elegant in sound, elegant in rhetoric, the
work of outsiders, words of disciples -- are recited. They will
lend ear and set their hearts on knowing them. They will
regard these teachings as worth grasping and mastering.

In this way the disappearance of the discourses that are
words of the Tathágata -- deep, deep in their meaning,
transcendent, connected with emptiness -- will come about. " - Buddha

I suppose I understand where you're coming from in that presentations with too many qualifiers are distracting, if that's what you mean — hillsofgold

Not just distracting, but I find I really consider something if it is presented as simply the case. In contrast with another type of presentatino where the person introduces other possible interpretations and explantions. It becomes more of an encounter. I am really hit by this view, test it out. I suppose this could be merely personal.

I agree there does seem to be a psychology to how we tend to pay more attention if some one sounds confident or presents something as indisputable, as fact. I just try to be careful not to let that psychology kind of carry me off such that I get lost in some one else's imperfect world view. My own is imperfect enough as is. Like you said, those kind of presentations can be good some times but if you had to regularly spend time around some one like that, it would seem more like a character flaw. Frankly I think the Buddha had a character flaw, but I'm not sure he could have gotten rid of it and still retained the state of mind, or non-state-of-mind or what-have-you, that he was in.

it sounds like you haven't read many of the sutras — hillsofgold

Sure I have. I think your interpretation is mistaken. It’s got nothing to do with ‘meglomania’. The name ‘Buddha’ means ‘knowing’ or ‘awakened’, which you seem to have trouble comprehending.

What's this talk about megalomania and Buddhism? Are you high?

Try reading them in bulk, like a dozen or more in a day, not hyper analyzing any one or treating it like an academic project and remember this person was real and natural laws applied to him. A picture of the real human being, not the statue, should start to form pretty quickly. I have a very positive picture of him. I also have yet to see him admit he didn't know. He knew his mind, better than anyone I'm betting, so he deduced he knew everything else. It's a fair deduction in an age before the scientific method. A modern buddha would have to know some science, I'd wager.

If you can't see the man for his flaws and still love him I'd question your comprehension. Even the Dalai Lama's admitted the buddha was wrong about some statements he made that science proved wrong. He said he was the buddha, not a geologist or an astronomer.

Aren’t you the big risk taker. :grin: — praxis

Well, I was hoping I was right in thinking it is not a great risk. :halo:

Perhaps Buddha recognized the same thing, and then relaxed. — tim wood

Yes, enlightenment is merely relaxation, losing neurotic self-concerns and becoming totally yourself so as to live this life as well as possible. That's a coherent view; anything to do with afterlives, rebirth and so on is incoherent fantasy and dogma.

So it's a difficult issue to interpret, but I'm inclined to think that most 'common-sense' analyses are going to miss the mark. — Wayfarer

So, commonsense analyses "miss the mark" and obfuscation doesn't? Where would that leave us, philosophically speaking?

I agree there does seem to be a psychology to how we tend to pay more attention if some one sounds confident or presents something as indisputable, as fact. I just try to be careful not to let that psychology kind of carry me off such that I get lost in some one else's imperfect world view. — hillsofgold

No, me neither. In fact, I would say that part of the reason I appreciate it is because I will in the longer run be critical and I know this. I trust myself. I say, longer run, meaning that I think I 'try on' ideas, while I am hearing them. Of course, I will notice things I am resistant to, for all sorts of reasons, some negative some positive, and small critical voices in my head are going to pipe up. But there is a trying on which I in fact appreciate. This is easier for me if the idea is put forward clearly and without qualification. I get a real feel for it. I am not going to convert, but I want to see the world through that idea.

Like you said, those kind of presentations can be good some times but if you had to regularly spend time around some one like that, it would seem more like a character flaw — hillsofgold

Yes, and there is a difference, I think, between a lecture and a one on one discussion, especially one carried out over time.

Frankly I think the Buddha had a character flaw, but I'm not sure he could have gotten rid of it and still retained the state of mind, or non-state-of-mind or what-have-you, that he was in. — hillsofgold

That's certainly possible. In the case of Buddhism, I think the Buddha came up with an answer. It may or may not have led to a perfect unwavering state without suffering, but still was complete, for humans. The problem I have with it could be summed up concisely as 'he severed off parts of being human, he made himself less, and I find people who have repeated what he did to be unpleasant to be around, because on some level they hate the emotional body.'

So it's a difficult issue to interpret, but I'm inclined to think that most 'common-sense' analyses are going to miss the mark.
— Wayfarer

So, commonsense analyses "miss the mark" and obfuscation doesn't? Where would that leave us, philosophically speaking? — Janus

If it were commonsense we wouldn’t need a religious authority to obfuscate it for us. In other words, religious authority is based on access to uncommon knowledge, therefore there must always be uncommon knowledge. It seems to be an essential aspect of religiosity.

I see what you mean with trying on ideas; but I think you're a step away from answering just why ascetic buddhists can be so unpleasant to be around. There's a documentary on youtube, really the only one of its kind on Buddhist hermits living in a remote mountainous region of China. They're revered within their sect for going further in the Buddha's teachings than most are willing to and have isolated themselves in forest shacks while studying the sutras and living the disciplined recluse's life. One of them says that living in society is like being in a cloth dying vat and that if you stay in too long you'll never come out clean. Isn't that essentially what happens every time we "try on" some one else's ideas? Whether we decide to accept them or reject them, they're in us now, we've been dyed by them. Neurological studies support this, showing identical brain patterns appearing in both the speaker and listener during communication - a literal transfer of ideas.

There's a different lifestyle choice being made between those who spend time around other people, and those who choose to be hermits, or who choose to learn the buddhist way which if followed through leads towards being a hermit. Devout buddhists have enough on their plate observing and letting go of their own ideas. So I really can't say how compatible the two groups are.

There's a different lifestyle choice being made between those who spend time around other people, and those who choose to be hermits, or who choose to learn the buddhist way which if followed through leads towards being a hermit — hillsofgold

One could be a Buddhist and not end up as a hermit. Most don't.

One of them says that living in society is like being in a cloth dying vat and that if you stay in too long you'll never come out clean. Isn't that essentially what happens every time we "try on" some one else's ideas? — hillsofgold

I don't think so. And further if you are in contact with a lot of media and read, you've probably come in contact with a great many ideas, and they also run underground in anything from Star Wars, to mindfulness workshops as team building, to novels...and so on. It might be better for those of us already exposed to actually face head on consciously what is in the muck of everyday semi-conscious modern life and see if we actually want it. And no I don't think that a discussion or a lecture stains us. We can process ideas. Consciously we can do this and we do this in dreams. Further, there is no untainted life, unless you want to make yourself a hermit. All your social relations and professional relations, especially ongoing ones, are dipping you repeatedly in paradigm and judgments and beliefs and attitudes (about morals, ontology, epistemology, what the self is and more) so trying to stay clean really would require the hermit option.

But, then, you be dragging, in your own already tainted mind, a billion of these things anyway. And it is often easier to chew on these things when they show up on the outside.

One could be a Buddhist and not end up as a hermit. Most don't. — Coben

Very true. True hermits in buddhism are very few and far between and more often than not their hermitages are only "retreats" of a few weeks, months, at most a year. It's just important to remember that traditionally, as far as the Buddha's teachings in the sutras are concerned, seclusion is the goal, a vital part of the journey, and should be done by monks more and more often until the final retreat during which one attains enlightenment. One who can remain secluded in pursuit of enlightenment and no longer needs a master is known in the sutras as having "stood on his own in the Teaching." -Advice to Venerable Punna Sutra

This advice isn't for laypeople though - it's for monks, and requires lengthy training and immersion in the Buddhist forest tradition. Generally speaking, I can't imagine total seclusion as a healthy option for laypeople.

It might be better for those of us already exposed to actually face head on consciously what is in the muck of everyday semi-conscious modern life and see if we actually want it. — Coben

Good point. I'd surmise that (see there's my qualifier) pretending we're thinking only our own thoughts at the same time as we're reading, attending lectures, speaking with friends etc is an exercise in arrogance. So long as that stuff is getting in, better to keep letting more stuff in and grow that way. I would also say that some people need outside information coming in slower, and in smaller doses. They shouldn't be recluses, but they might not be ready to be full on socialites.

And it is often easier to chew on these things when they show up on the outside. — Coben

Agreed - any encounters with the world, be it with people, with nature, let us work with our problems in a tangible, real way. But they also carry us away from wherever we were and it's good to recognize that. That going with the flow in life and doing your best to manage it CAN work, but it's not your flow, it's not necessarily going to take you right where you need to go, and if you need to go somewhere different from most people, it'll be hard to find a flow that works, however diligently you try to navigate it. You might wind up more lost than you started out.

If it were commonsense we wouldn’t need a religious authority to obfuscate it for us. In other words, religious authority is based on access to uncommon knowledge, therefore there must always be uncommon knowledge. It seems to be an essential aspect of religiosity. — praxis

Right, so given that religion is obfuscation, what you are saying really seems to amount to saying that for there to be religion, there must be an illusion of uncommon knowledge. This illusion would seem to be promulgated in the form of lies told to the masses. Such acts of deceit are excusable on the grounds of something like Plato's notion of the "noble lie", perhaps?

there must be an illusion of uncommon knowledge. — Janus

If you google how many religions there are, the first result listed, from Wikipedia, says there are 4,200. We know of course that there are several standouts, Buddhism being one of them, but even so, that’s a hell of a lot of uncommon knowledge variants. Such knowledge must be illusory.

Culturally, we live with all sorts of shares fictions. I don’t think that we can characterize any of them as being generally noble or ignoble. They all serve a purpose of some sort, with the common feature of allowing cooperation within large groups of individuals. A very successful survival strategy, it is theorized.

The thought I’ve recently arrived at and found disturbing is that spiritual tradition may have an implicit, and explicit in some cases, disposition to obfuscate. Unfortunately, the true spiritual teacher is almost vanishingly rare.

*

The thought I’ve recently arrived at and found disturbing is that spiritual tradition may have an implicit, and explicit in some cases, disposition to obfuscate. Unfortunately, the true spiritual teacher is almost vanishingly rare. — praxis

I think the problem is that what is metaphor or parable is often (probably most often) taken as literal. Religions cannot offer any literal knowledge; they cannot tell us whether there is an afterlife and if there is an afterlife, what form that would take. There are all kinds of myths about what the "enlightened ones" "knew". Gautama is said to have remembered 5000 of his past lives on becoming enlightened. Of course I think this is just myth-making nonsense; even if it weren't how could you ever know?.

I don't know how you could ever tell if a spiritual teacher is authentic (really enlightened?) or even how you could tell whether you are. The best I can offer is that an enlightened person would be 100 percent themselves and imperturbable by the judgement of others. I see it as being all about living this life to the fullest without superfluous superstitious belief crutches like rebirth or resurrection, which only becomes possible insofar as, and to the degree which, you are able to let go of self-concern. Those kinds of things are believed because we are all afraid to die, and simply cannot accept our true situation; which is one of ignorance; so we cling to the idea that there is some "special" esoteric knowledge to be had.

I have come to think that is all imagination and dogma. I don't condemn people for believing any of that stuff; some people cannot help themselves and/or need to believe something or life just seems too empty and/or they feel insecure, and I can sympathize with that. That goes for atheists as much as theists. I would never criticize anyone's beliefs unless they ask for it by arguing as though there could be some inter-subjectively corroborable fact of the matter regarding the so-called "truths" of religions.

So, if people bring their beliefs to be critiqued on a philosophy forum; then they are fair game, though. What really bugs me is when they claim that they do not believe anything and that it is all "really" a matter of actual experience; I think that is delusory nonsense if it claims anything beyond the ability to know whether one is in a relaxed and happy state of mind or the opposite.

Personally, I have tried at various times in my life to practice religion, but I am incapable of seriously believing, as opposed to merely entertaining, anything for which there is no evidence or logical argument, and the thing with religious or spiritual practice is that you have to believe something or there is no incentive or direction to your practice. If people want or need to be religious, then they should stay away from philosophy forums, or at least refrain from trying to use philosophical argument to support their religious beliefs. They just end up looking like fools and are in danger of undermining their own religious life.