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. — baker
Few things are as common as people making claims about what "true identity" is. — baker
Buddhism concerns itself with suffering. — baker
This doesn't follow. What is true about Buddhists has no bearing on what is true about Christians, Platonists, and so on. — baker
The bottomline is that it doesn't seem like a viable religious option. — baker
Besides in traditional Buddhism there are voluminous descriptions of hell realms, in fact in Buddhism there are a number of them. — Wayfarer
Of course, most Platonists today are Christians, especially Greek Orthodox. A Platonist may be officially a Christian, privately a Christian Platonist, and inwardly a Platonist. Some may follow the example of Pletho and openly subscribe to Classical Greek religion. There are many Hellenic groups, in Greece, in any case. Others may follow other traditions, or no tradition at all.
This is entirely consistent with traditional Platonism which prescribes three different, though related, paths to liberation or levels of practice: (1) religious or ritual (theourgia) with emphasis on action, (2) contemplative (theoria) with emphasis on knowledge, and (3) esoteric or initiatory (ta mysteria) with emphasis on will-power.
Moreover, Platonists do not normally call their system "Platonism". The correct designation is "Philosophy in the tradition of Plato" or simply, "Philosophy". "Platonism" has always been taught as "Philosophy" and "Platonist schools" also included other philosophers like Aristotle. When someone studied Philosophy, they studied Plato (and others). In general, Platonism was Philosophy and Philosophy was Platonism.
The same applies even now. There are many philosophy circles or groups all over the world that study the teachings of Plato. But they would typically call it "Classical Philosophy" or just "Philosophy".
In any case, from a Platonic perspective Philosophy transcends religion. If it is religion you are after, then that's what you have to look for .... — Apollodorus
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
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
There are worthy people and unworthy people inside and outside all those traditions. — Wayfarer
There are worthy people and unworthy people inside and outside all those traditions. — Wayfarer
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.
— baker
This applies to any other system. — Apollodorus
Few things are as common as people making claims about what "true identity" is.
— baker
People, including Buddha, make many claims about many things. Are you going to place a ban on language? Or do you have a problem with identity as you seem to have with spirituality?
Buddhism concerns itself with suffering.
— baker
So do other systems.
You keep mentioning religion. This thread is about enlightenment. There is no evidence that enlightenment requires a religion.
And you obviously don’t understand Platonism. Platonism is a fundamentally spiritual system aiming to elevate human consciousness to an experience of unity with Ultimate Reality a.k.a. “the One” (called henosis) - or at any rate to the highest possible level of experience.
Of course, most Platonists today are Christians, especially Greek Orthodox. A Platonist may be officially a Christian, privately a Christian Platonist, and inwardly a Platonist.
In any case, from a Platonic perspective Philosophy transcends religion.
Such social memberships are based on shared understandings underlying shared practices. — Joshs
I might generalize from this and suggest that enlightenment is nothing other than the endless progression in which one moves being encased within a worldview to seeing it as a mere step ion the path to a richer perspective.
The "endless progression"? Do you believe in rebirth/reincarnation?
— baker
No more so than the scientist who supports Popper’s view of scientific inquiry as oriented teleologically toward an asymptotic approach of truth.
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). — Apollodorus
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.
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.
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.
Now assuming you meant something with those words and that they aren't just a routine phrasing, how do _you_ know who is who, namely, who is worthy and who isn't?
If you say there are "worthy people" and "unworthy people", how do _you_ distinguish them? — baker
Giving priority to matter renders reality as fundamentally unintelligible. — Metaphysician Undercover
Yes, I know and was being ironic. I was not patronizing you I was questioning the validity of your statements and asking for arguments to back them up. — Janus
is your projection, entirely of your doing.That you believe the small subset you are familiar with must be the only authentic one says more about you than anything else. — Janus
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. — Janus
Milinda: This Nāgasena says there is no permanent individuality (no soul) implied in his name. Is it now even possible to approve him in that?
Nagasena: Then if you came, Sire, in a carriage, explain to me what that is. Is it the pole that is the chariot?
Milinda: I did not say that.
Nagasena: Is it the axle that is the chariot?
Milinda: Certainly not.
Nagasena: Is it the wheels, or the framework, or the ropes, or the yoke, or the spokes of the wheels, or the goad, that are the chariot?
And to all these he still answered no.
Nagasena: Then is it all these parts of it that are the chariot?
Milinda: No, Sir.
Nagasena: But is there anything outside them that is the chariot?
And still he answered no.
Nagasena: Then thus, ask as I may, I can discover no chariot. Chariot is a mere empty sound.
The introduction of the horse as a draft animal in about 2000 BC was the final step in the development of the chariot into a military arm that revolutionized warfare in the ancient world by providing armies with unprecedented mobility. Chariotry contributed to the victories, in the 2nd millennium BC, of the Hyksos in Egypt, the Hittites in Anatolia, the Aryans in northern India, and the Mycenaeans in Greece. — Encyc. Brittanica
Do provide some reference for this, because I've never seen anything like that anywhere outside of Buddhism. — baker
Pretending to be obtuse does not suit you. — baker
Why would a Platonist do such a thing? It's subversive, to say the least. — baker
I see no reason to think that they can actually facilitate the end of suffering. On the contrary, they're very good at causing more of it. — baker
But it looks like you didn't read the list with the twelve items. — baker
Does any of them teach that "from the remainderless fading & cessation of that very ignorance comes the cessation of fabrications"; and that "from the cessation of fabrications comes the cessation of consciousness"? — baker
If we are "pure, unconditioned and free intelligence", then why are we here in an embodied state, suffering, and not being sure who we are? — baker
Do you mean that enlightenment is inevitable and that everyone is destined for it? — baker
Another thing common among religious/spiritual people: to claim that theirs is not a religion, but a philosophy, the Truth, the "how things really are" and so on. — baker
Having all these numerous claims as to what one's "true identity" is is like having a thousand different answers to "How much is 2 + 2 ?" — baker
I know a Hare Krishna brahmacari who utters sentences like
"Krishna Consciousness is a fundamentally spiritual system aiming to elevate human consciousness to an experience of Ultimate Reality"and he also uses terms like "henosis" and "henology". — baker
It seems to me a lot of early Buddhist polemics about non-self are likewise undermined by a simplistic notion of what constitutes agency and identity, although I think this is one of the shortcomings that was later overcome by a more sophisticated understanding of śūnyatā. — Wayfarer
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.