And yet you have a retirement fund, don't you?

Also, some people feel burdened by ambition. Some don't. — baker

You are misunderstanding. I'm not saying there won't be anything in the future, but that when there is something it will be the present. Those who don't feel burdened by ambition must enjoy their striving for its own sake. Nothing wrong with that.

There are worthy people and unworthy people inside and outside all those traditions. — Wayfarer

Are you claiming there is a totally reliable objective standard of worthiness? If not, then what do you make of the fact that one's spiritual master is another's charlatan?

I'm not saying there won't be anything in the future, but that when there is something it will be the present. — Janus

According to the phenomenologists, the very structure of the present itself is such that it intends, anticipates beyond itself. And the present is the fulfillment of a previous moment’s anticipating beyond itself. So one could say that to be in the moment is to experience a particular degree of intimacy with respect to one’s past and future. For the depressed person the present moment will appear as a disappointment of prior expectations as well as an anticipating of further disappointment.

If not, then what do you make of the fact that one's spiritual master is another's charlatan? — Janus

I have been dissillusioned at times by things that have been discovered about various spiritual teachers, but they're not all tarred with that brush.

As for 'objectivity' as we've discussed there are criteria beyond the objective. Or put another way, what is truly excellent is more than what is just objectively the case. Objectivity is always conditional, if there is a true good, then its goodness is more than simply objective, it's transcendent (i.e. transcends conditions.)

That reality is intelligible is the presupposition of all scientific endeavours: that the intelligibility science proposes is always subject to empirical verification means that science never actually explains existence itself but must submit itself to a reality check against the empirical data. This existential gap between scientific hypotheses and empirical verified judgment points to, in philosophical terms, the contingency of existence. There is no automatic leap from hypothesis to reality that can bypass a "reality check." — Neil Ormerod, The Metaphysical Muddle of Lawrence Krauss

Earlier on I referred to a book by Evan Thompson, 'Why I am not a Buddhist'. — Wayfarer

I read that book recently and one of the main reasons he is not a Buddhist seems to be because he dislikes modern Buddhist "exceptionalism"; the idea that Buddhism is superior to other religions insofar as it is believed to not be based on faith, but personal experience and "direct knowing". He rejects these ideas, and says that Buddhism is every bit as much based on faith as other religions.

He also rejects the absolutist notion of enlightenment, and says that it is very much a culturally mediated phenomenon. It seemed to me that his only argument with so-called "secular Buddhism" is that, without those traditional beliefs in karma and rebirth and the the ritual practices that attend those beliefs it cannot be rightly called Buddhism. I don't agree with this attitude, because Buddhism, if nothing else, has been one of the most syncretistic religions. It has adapted to the new cultures it has found itself in, and incorporated the foundational beliefs of those cultures.

As for 'objectivity' as we've discussed there are criteria beyond the objective. Or put another way, what is truly excellent is more than what is just objectively the case. Objectivity is always conditional, if there is a true good, then its goodness is more than simply objective, it's transcendent (i.e. transcends conditions.) — Wayfarer

You're going off on a tangent it seems. What I mean is whether there are criteria whereby it could be determined that it is in fact the case that a spiritual teacher is worthy or not worthy, or whether it remains a matter of opinion, or faith if you prefer. The "transcendent" tells us nothing.

According to the phenomenologists, the very structure of the present itself is such that it intends, anticipates beyond itself. And the present is the fulfillment of a previous moment’s anticipating beyond itself. So one could say that to be in the moment is to experience a particular degree of intimacy with respect to one’s past and future. For the depressed person the present moment will appear as a disappointment of prior expectations as well as an anticipating of further disappointment. — Joshs

I agree with that view. The future and the past have no existence (for us at least) except in the present. That is pretty much just what I was trying to say.

I asked you whether Platonism teaches dependent co-arising. — baker

And I gave you my answer. But let me put it slightly differently, though the gist of it is the same.

Paṭiccasamuppāda or pratītyasamutpāda refers to the Buddhist Theory of Origination (or Cause and Effect). Basically, it states that ignorance (avijjā) results in craving (taṇhā), craving results in attachment (upādāna), attachment in “being” (bhava), and “being” in decay and death (jarāmaraṇa).

In other words, a chain of cause and effect arising from ignorance and resulting in suffering, that can be broken through knowledge.

In fact, you can collapse it even further and say that ignorance leads to wrong action or “sin” (in the form of wrong acts of volition, cognition, etc.), and wrong action leads to suffering.

Not much different from what other systems teach.

In Platonism, the root ignorance is ignorance of one’s true identity as pure, unconditioned and free intelligence. So it is a matter of correct self-identity.

If, as a result of ignorance, you self-identify with the body-mind compound, you generate mental states and a whole inner world that limits and conditions your intelligence, leading you further and further away from your true self.

You are creating what Plato calls a “clever prison” (Phaedo 82e) made of sense-perceptions, imagination, cravings, attachments, passions, thoughts, etc. In contrast, philosophy (i.e., the quest after true knowledge) sees that the prisoner himself is “the chief assistant in his own imprisonment”:

Philosophy, taking possession of the soul when it is in this state, encourages it gently and tries to set it free, pointing out that the eyes and the ears and the other senses are full of deceit, and urging it to withdraw from these, except in so far as their use is unavoidable, and exhorting it to collect and concentrate itself within itself, and to trust nothing except itself … (83a).
The soul of the true philosopher believes that it must not resist this deliverance, and therefore it stands aloof from pleasures and lusts and griefs and fears, so far as it can, considering that when anyone has violent pleasures or fears or griefs or lusts he suffers from them not merely what one might think—for example, illness or loss of money spent on his lusts … (83b).
Each pleasure or pain nails it [the soul] as with a nail to the body and rivets it on and makes it corporeal, so that it fancies the things are true which the body says are true. For because it has the same beliefs and pleasures as the body it is compelled to adopt also the same habits and mode of life, and can never depart in purity to the other world, but must always go away contaminated with the body; and so it sinks quickly into another body again and grows into it, like seed that is sown. Therefore it has no part in the communion with the divine and pure and absolute ... (83d).

So I for one see nothing special, unique, or "superior" about Buddhism, though I wouldn't reject it wholesale, either.

However, if we are serious about philosophy in the original Greek sense of "love of, and quest after, truth", then I think we will get there in the end, with or without Buddhism.

If there is no living tradition with unbroken continuation, then your Platonism faces the same type of problem as, say, Celtic revivalism (which we already discussed). — baker

That's a very big "if", though, isn't it? Very little is known about Celtic religion and even less about Celtic spirituality.

By the time any records of it appeared, Celtic religion was largely Romanized and later Christianized.

Platonism is a totally different story. We have the original writings of Plato and many other Platonists (Plotinus, Proclus, etc.) from Ancient Greece into the Middle Ages - in the original language.

We also have an abundance of knowledge about the Hellenistic religion on the background of which Platonism thrived for many centuries.

There is Christian, Islamic, and (possibly) Hindu Platonism, again, with an extensive literature.

Last but not least, Platonism has been taught without interruption down to the present. In Greece, for example, it has never "died out".

Moreover, as I said, you don't need a "Church" to follow the teachings of Plato if you so choose. The point is that Platonism is available where there is an interest in it.

What reason do you have to think that Plato would think you have the right understanding of his teaching? — baker

What reason do you have to think that Buddha would think you, a 21st-century Westerner, have the right understanding of his teaching?

In light of the fact that Buddha never wrote anything, you can't even know beyond reasonable doubt what his exact teachings were or, for that matter, that he existed in the first place.

Also, there is no evidence that he was "enlightened". And even if he was, as no one can explain exactly what "Nirvana" is, it's all just speculation if you analyze it objectively.

The "transcendent" tells us nothing. — Janus

You were asking as to what criteria to judge a spiritual teacher. I said the criteria are not objective, because what is objective is contingent, and the 'true good' is not contingent.

That made me think of that article I linked to. It provides an analysis of why scientific realism can only ever deal in contingent facts, and the 'anxiety' sorrounding this (c.f. the 'cartesian anxiety'). He brings in Lonergan's analysis:

In terms theologian Bernard Lonergan develops in his major work Insight, Krauss is caught in a notion of reality as "already-out-there-now," a reality conditioned by space and time. Lonergan refers to this conception of reality as based on an "animal" knowing, on extroverted biologically dominated consciousness. He distinguishes it from a fully human knowing based on intelligence and reason, arguing that many philosophical difficulties arise because of a failure to distinguish between these two forms of knowing.

That 'animal extroversion' refers to what naive and perhaps scientific realism operate in terms of. But, he says,

In the present context, if we think of the real as an "already-out-there-now" real of extroverted consciousness, then God is not real. God becomes just a figment of the imagination, a fairy at the bottom of the garden, an invisible friend. However, if the Real is constituted by intelligent grasp and reasonable affirmation, then reality suddenly becomes much richer, and the God-question takes on a different hue.

But it is not just the God-question that we can now begin to address more coherently. There are a whole range of other realities whose reality we can now affirm: interest rates, mortgages, contracts, vows, national constitutions, penal codes and so on. Where do interest rates "exist"? Not in banks, or financial institutions. Are they real when we cannot touch them or see them? We all spend so much time worrying about them - are we worrying about nothing? In fact, I'm sure we all worry much more about interest rates than about the existence or non-existence of the Higgs boson! Similarly, a contract is not just the piece of paper, but the meaning the paper embodies; likewise a national constitution or a penal code. [It is here you can see the lingering trace of Platonism in the reality of intelligible objects.)

Once we break the stranglehold on our thinking by our animal extroversion, we can affirm the reality of our whole world of human meanings and values, of institutions, nations, finance and law, of human relationships and so on, without the necessity of seeing them as "just" something else lower down the chain of being yet to be determined.

Affirming the real as intelligible and reasonable allows us to resist the overpowering reductionism of many scientific claims.

Thought it might be of interest as you have previously mentioned Lonergan.

In light of the fact that Buddha never wrote anything, you can't even know beyond reasonable doubt what his exact teachings were or, for that matter, that he existed in the first place.

Also, there is no evidence that he was "enlightened". And even if he was, as no one can explain exactly what "Nirvana" is, it's all just speculation if you analyze it objectively. — Apollodorus

There is considerable archeological evidence of the Buddha's life recorded in many languages and scripts, dating back to within a couple of centuries of his death. The oral tradition of course dates back his lifetime. And if you have no understanding of what is meant by 'Nirvāṇa', then surely it is just a word. The Buddha explained very clearly what Nirvāṇa/Nibbana is, and many of those around him and his successors realised it. For example there is a voluminous collection of texts, Theragata and Therigata, 'Verses of Elder Bhikkhus' (male and female, respectively) attesting to the reality of nibbana. So the lack of understanding of that is not evidence for anything other than the lack of understanding of it. Surely it is not an objective matter, but as I have been discussing in the post above this one, such matters are not amenable to purely objective analysis.

Correct. It seems that Buddhism threatens its followers not only with the suffering of hell but also with the horrors of heaven. The message is "Forget everything and attain Nirvana right now, or else!" :smile: — Apollodorus

Pleasure, addiction, what's the difference? Addiction is bad say psychologists, shrinks, and doctors.

There is considerable archeological evidence of the Buddha's life recorded in many languages and scripts, dating back to within a couple of centuries of his death. The oral tradition of course dates back his lifetime — Wayfarer

It may be argued that a "couple of centuries" is a long time and "oral tradition" is not infallible record.

And if you have no understanding of what is meant by 'Nirvāṇa', then surely it is just a word. — Wayfarer

I think that's exactly what Nirvana is to most people.

The Buddha explained very clearly what Nirvāṇa/Nibbana is, and many of those around him and his successors realised it. — Wayfarer

1. I think there is a difference between claiming to have realized something and actually realizing it.

2. By what criteria can we determine that what was "realized" by others is exactly identical to what was realized by Buddha?

3. My point was that there is no evidence that Buddha would think @baker has the right understanding of his teaching any more than that Plato would think Platonists have the right understanding of his teaching.

Otherwise said, if Buddhists can have the "right understanding" of Buddha's teachings, then Platonists can equally have the right understanding of Plato's teachings, Christians can have the right understanding of Jesus' teachings, etc., etc.

There is no logical reason to believe that Buddhists have an exclusive monopoly on the "right understanding" of their founder's teachings.

No, what I said was that I thought your remark about the 'rolling of the dice' in respect of Christianity was arrant nonsense.

Are you an actual member of an actual Christian congregation? Are you? Have you ever tried to be?
How have you conducted your choice?
— baker

I was born into a Christian culture, — Wayfarer

Exactly, you were born into a Christian culture, and as such, the decision as to which church to prefer was made for you by external circumstances (however little commitment you or your parents might have had).

Other people who contemplate religious conversion are not in such a situation. To someone like me, all Christian denominations seem equally plausible. Choosing among them would be no different than rolling the dice. After that, I can see nothing more than Pascal's Wager.
And like it or not, most of them threaten with eternal damnation.


Prior to the covid situation, I could walk through the city on any given day and in the course of a month be approached by Christian proselytizers of various denominations: Catholics, Protestants, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, and some others whose names escape me. The essence of their message was always the same: Join our church, do as we say, or burn in hell forever. I would sometimes point out to them that their competitors say the exact same thing, except that they of course advertise their own church to the exclusion of all others. To this, they don't reply, or make some dismissive remark about me, or claim that the others are wrong.
So how am I supposed to know which one to choose??


I asked about being an actual member of an actual Christian congregation and how have you conducted your religious choice because I think you and @Apollodorus are underplaying the importance of actual religious membership, underplaying what it means to actually function as a person of a particular religious denomination.

What reason do you have to think that Buddha would think you, a 21st-century Westerner, have the right understanding of his teaching? — Apollodorus

That's one of the perks of Buddhism: what you're talking about isn't a problem, as long as one is humble enough.

Of course I strive to have the correct understanding of what the Buddha taught, but, as per Buddhist doctrine, one can only know whether one has the correct understanding once one reaches what is called "stream entry". This can be described as a cognitive event at which one realizes that one has the correct understanding. As I have no such realization yet, I know that I don't know.

In light of the fact that Buddha never wrote anything, you can't even know beyond reasonable doubt what his exact teachings were or, for that matter, that he existed in the first place.

Also, there is no evidence that he was "enlightened". And even if he was, as no one can explain exactly what "Nirvana" is,

it's all just speculation if you analyze it objectively.

Sure. But such things are a problem only if one wishes to go to war over religion, or pick fights, or some such.

Buddhism as I understand it is first and foremost discoursive, and as such, tentative; it's not about claims that one is supposed to internalize. This is how it differs from most religions and ideologies.

It's comparable to crossing a frozen lake on ice plates: one accepts the prospect that the ice might not hold one's weight, but one begins walking anyway; one steps on what seems like a strong enough ice plate and from it, leaps onto another one, and so on. If one were to stand still, the plate might not hold and one might sink.

Most religions and ideologies are not like that, and even many, if not most Buddhists, don't approach Buddhism that way either.


From the Kalama Sutta:

"So, as I said, Kalamas: 'Don't go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, "This contemplative is our teacher." When you know for yourselves that, "These qualities are unskillful; these qualities are blameworthy; these qualities are criticized by the wise; these qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to harm & to suffering" — then you should abandon them.' Thus was it said. And in reference to this was it said.

"Now, Kalamas, don't go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, 'This contemplative is our teacher.' When you know for yourselves that, 'These qualities are skillful; these qualities are blameless; these qualities are praised by the wise; these qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to welfare & to happiness' — then you should enter & remain in them.

3. My point was that there is no evidence that Buddha would think baker has the right understanding of his teaching any more than that Plato would think Platonists have the right understanding of his teaching. — Apollodorus

Does Platonism have the type of "stream entry clause" mentioned above?
Does it teach that all of one's knowledge (of Platonism) is merely tentative, provisional, until it reaches a critical point from whence on one has realization?

Otherwise said, if Buddhists can have the "right understanding" of Buddha's teachings, then Platonists can equally have the right understanding of Plato's teachings, Christians can have the right understanding of Jesus' teachings, etc., etc.

This doesn't follow. What is true about Buddhists has no bearing on what is true about Christians, Platonists, and so on. Unless you think Buddhists are setting the stage for everyone else ...

There is no logical reason to believe that Buddhists have an exclusive monopoly on the "right understanding" of their founder's teachings.

By this, do you also mean that non-Buddhists can have the right understanding of the Buddha's teachings?

You were asking as to what criteria to judge a spiritual teacher. I said the criteria are not objective, because what is objective is contingent, and the 'true good' is not contingent. — Wayfarer

So the "true good" is subjective, meaning it is a matter of opinion? I agree that science can only deal in contingent facts, but I can't see what that fact has to do with what we are discussing. Unless you are wanting to say that there is no fact of the matter as to whether someone is enlightened or not? If that is so, then it would just come down to a matter of opinion, wouldn't it?

The other possibility is that you are saying there is an absolute (non-contingent) fact of the matter as to whether someone is enlightened or not, in which case we are left with the problem as to how that absolute fact, granting that it might be such, could ever be determined by anyone.

It is on account of this problem that I see the question of someone's purported enlightenment to be a matter of faith, even for the one purportedly enlightened, because I think it is fantasy that any mere human could ever be infallible. That is why I deflate the notion of enlightenment from the idea of absolute knowledge to the more modest (and I believe realistic) idea of a liberated disposition. And liberated dispositions comes in degrees.

as per Buddhist doctrine, one can only know whether one has the correct understanding once one reaches what is called "stream entry". This can be described as a cognitive event at which one realizes that one has the correct understanding. — baker

And what if you believed with all your heart that you had reached "stream entry", but were deluding yourself? The possibility of that cannot be ruled out; which undermines the very notion that anyone could ever be infallibly correct, as opposed to merely subjectively certain, about that. Of course I don't deny that a feeling of absolute certainty might be gratifying enough to satisfy those who possess it; maybe that's all they are looking for.

Last but not least, Platonism has been taught without interruption down to the present. In Greece, for example, it has never "died out". — Apollodorus

I actually went to the official phone directory for the country I live in, looked up Platonism, and got no hits. Then I went to the official government website for religious communities here, checked whether it contained any entry that could be associated with Platonism -- none. Like it doesn't exist here. I suppose I could try searching other countries in Europe.
The bottomline is that it doesn't seem like a viable religious option.

Moreover, as I said, you don't need a "Church" to follow the teachings of Plato if you so choose. The point is that Platonism is available where there is an interest in it.

This is strange in so many ways. The idea that there can be religiosity without a religious community is problematic in many ways, it deserves its own thread.

This is strange in so many ways. The idea that there can be religiosity without a religious community is problematic in many ways, it deserves its own thread. — baker

Why would religiosity not be possible without a religious community? Religious communities are founded on religiosity that exists prior to their foundation, no? Or?

Also there is philosophy as a transformative practice; which necessitates no formal community, but involves an informal community of inquirers.

And what if you believed with all your heart that you had reached "stream entry", but were deluding yourself? — Janus

I believe that such delusion is not possible.

The possibility of that cannot be ruled out; which undermines the very notion that anyone could ever be infallibly correct, as opposed to merely subjectively certain, about that.

Of course I don't deny that a feeling of absolute certainty might be gratifying enough to satisfy those who possess it; maybe that's all they are looking for.

Eh. For one, the number of people interested in this approach is, I think, very small. I am confident that those who actually do take that route, given how ardous it is, would not make the kind of mistake you talk about. And they would not seek the kind of lowly gratifications you suggest. I know such people, so I know what I'm talking about.



And I suppose you find satisfaction in doubting others the way you do, assuming very bad things about people.

Why would religiosity not be possible without a religious community? — Janus

In short, it's like studying a textbook for a foreign language, and then claiming you have mastered the language.

Prior to the covid situation, I could walk through the city on any given day and in the course of a month be approached by Christian proselytizers of various denominations: Catholics, Protestants, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, and some others whose names escape me. The essence of their message was always the same: Join our church, do as we say, or burn in hell forever. — baker

So that's 'the real Christianity' in your mind? A problem with religion (and a lot of other cultural forms), is that it has been packaged and repeated in various formulae for thousands of years, often by proponents with very peculiar ideas of their own, it's been corrupted and perverted and strayed far from its origins. But to me that is not representative. I agree with @Apollodorus, that strictly speaking the admonitions by Christians about hell are warnings more than threats. Besides in traditional Buddhism there are voluminous descriptions of hell realms, in fact in Buddhism there are a number of them.

What I'm trying to do in that analysis is to sketch out the issue in a philosophically consistent way. If everything is merely contingent, then you're sailing pretty close to all-out relativism or nihilism. The question is, what is the ground of values? As you know, Wittgenstein had something to say about that

The sense of the world must lie outside the world. In the world everything is as it is and happens as it does happen. In it there is no value—and if there were, it would be of no value.

If there is a value which is of value, it must lie outside all happening and being-so. For all happening and being-so is accidental.

What makes it non-accidental cannot lie in the world, for otherwise this would again be accidental.

It must lie outside the world. — TLP, 6.41

This is a clear reference to the transcendent source of values. Getting clear about that is what I have in mind. Arriving at a point where you can understand what it means is a large part of philosophy.

We are not talking about some body of codified knowledge, but about transforming ourselves. The fact that there are a few traditions of transformative practice does not entail that there are not (perhaps very many) other possibilities. The possibilities are not limited to what Baker can imagine.

I believe that such delusion is not possible. — baker

Good for you. I think that in itself is a deluded belief.

Eh. For one, the number of people interested in this approach is, I think, very small. I am confident that those who actually do take that route, given how ardous it is, would not make the kind of mistake you talk about. And they would not seek the kind of lowly gratifications you suggest. I know such people, so I know what I'm talking about.



And I suppose you find satisfaction in doubting others the way you do, assuming very bad things about people. — baker

There are people who devote their lives to all kinds of gurus and religious leaders and arduous practices. That you believe the small subset you are familiar with must be the only authentic one says more about you than anything else.

What I mean is whether there are criteria whereby it could be determined that it is in fact the case that a spiritual teacher is worthy or not worthy, or whether it remains a matter of opinion, or faith if you prefer. — Janus

Any such criteria would be liable to the same criticsm you put forth to begin with, because they would be set by a person.
You solve nothing by focusing on the external like that.

Good for you. I think that in itself is a deluded belief. — Janus

And it makes you feel all giddy inside to say this, doesn't it.

There are people who devote their lives to all kinds of gurus and religious leaders and arduous practices. That you believe the small subset you are familiar with must be the only authentic one says more about you than anything else.

Dude, this is a philosophy forum, even if this is a religion thread. Get your thinking straight.

I don't agree with Wittgenstein's idea that value is not in the world. I think the later Wuttgenstein would disagree with that idea as well. His later philosophy is more in line with Heidegger's, which rejects the abstracted, dualistic 'fact/ value' distinction. For Heidegger the fundamental element of dasein is 'Sorge; which translates as 'care'. The human world is suffused with value through and through; it is only an attenuated, 'display cabinet' view of the world that allows us to say that value must come from somewhere else.

And it makes you feel all giddy inside to say this, doesn't it. — baker

So, you have nothing to say but to speculate about how I, someone you know very little about, feel?

Dude, this is a philosophy forum, even if this is a religion thread. Get your thinking straight. — baker

Now that's a powerful rebuttal! :roll:

Any such criteria would be liable to the same criticsm you put forth to begin with, because they would be set by a person.
You solve nothing by focusing on the external like that. — baker

That was exactly my point; that there is nothing "external'; nothing publicly shareable, to go by other than the internal, subjective feeling; which cannot be argued for because it is not inter-subjectively assessable.

That's the difference with philosophy; there things can be argued for on the basis of common experience, even if it is not as determinable as empirical science.

So that's 'the real Christianity' in your mind? — Wayfarer

*sigh*

It's Christianity as it is real for me. I've always been clear about that.

A problem with religion (and a lot of other cultural forms), is that it has been packaged and repeated in various formulae for thousands of years, often by proponents with very peculiar ideas of their own, it's been corrupted and perverted and strayed far from its origins. But to me that is not representative. I agree with Apollodorus, that strictly speaking the admonitions by Christians about hell are warnings more than threats.

A problem with religion (and a lot of other cultural forms) is that people tend to invent a lot of politically correct narratives about it, narratives that stray very far from the actual doctrines of religions and from how religions are actually being practiced, on the ground level, as opposed to what things look like in books.

One of the consequences of this political correctness is that such people cannot meet others in their religious quest or help them make sense of it, thus making an often a traumatic experience even worse. It's like when women are told they are "hysterical".

Besides in traditional Buddhism there are voluminous descriptions of hell realms, in fact in Buddhism there are a number of them.

But one isn't promised an eternal stay in them (except in one case, the Mahayana doctrine on inchantikas).

And it makes you feel all giddy inside to say this, doesn't it.
— baker

So, you have nothing to say but to speculate about how I, someone you know very little about, feel?

Dude, this is a philosophy forum, even if this is a religion thread. Get your thinking straight.
— baker

Now that's a powerful rebuttal! — Janus

Yes, massa.

In Platonism, the root ignorance is ignorance of one’s true identity as pure, unconditioned and free intelligence. So it is a matter of correct self-identity. — Apollodorus

If I were to put aside a Euro for every time someone told me or every time I heard or read who I supposedly "really am", I could easily pay for a luxurious dinner.
Few things are as common as people making claims about what "true identity" is.

So I for one see nothing special, unique, or "superior" about Buddhism, though I wouldn't reject it wholesale, either.

*shrug*

However, if we are serious about philosophy in the original Greek sense of "love of, and quest after, truth", then I think we will get there in the end, with or without Buddhism.

Buddhism concerns itself with suffering.