The Theosophists’ agenda was to create a new religion based on elements of Platonism, Hinduism, and Buddhism and pass it off as “the true spirituality of mankind”. — Apollodorus
Nothing can exist without identity. Buddhism may affirm that there is no self, but even if there is no self in the sense of a conscious soul, there is still a living entity with a personality and a physical and mental identity. — Apollodorus
And if you admit a "store-consciousness" for memory, you might as well admit a Universal Consciousness as Advaita Vedanta and Platonism do. — Apollodorus
The situation is not entirely clear. What is the source of this story? Did Buddha himself relate this to his followers? — Apollodorus
Did Buddha himself relate this to his followers? Do enlightened people have visions of beautiful women trying to seduce them? Are beautiful women (or women in general) a problem? — Apollodorus
For several decades after his death, this episode was not widely known. Popular accounts of Gandhi’s life, including Richard Attenborough’s biopic, never mentioned it. The facts are that after his wife, Kasturba, died in 1944, Gandhi began the habit of sharing his bed with naked young women: his personal doctor, Sushila Nayar, and his grandnieces Abha and Manu, who were then in their late teens and about 60 years younger than him ...
Gandhi would have women in his bed, engaging in his "experiments" which seem to have been, from a reading of his letters, an exercise in strip-tease or other non-contact sexual activity. Much explicit material has been destroyed but tantalising remarks in Gandhi's letters remain such as: "Vina's sleeping with me might be called an accident. All that can be said is that she slept close to me." One might assume, then, that getting into the spirit of the Gandhian experiment meant something more than just sleeping close to him ...
I agree that Blavatsky might have been a charlatan, but I don't know if that is all she was. The Adyar Bookshop was an indispensable resource in my younger days (before the Internet) and I always had a soft spot for Theosophy even knowing they were dotty Victorians. — Wayfarer
I think the doctrinal foundation is clear. What the Buddha is being 'tempted' by here is non-existence, oblivion. Knowing he is to die a painful death, Mara ('the Devil') whispers to Him saying, 'come on now, we can this over with very easily'. — Wayfarer
This only makes sense if (a) the cessation is of a lower form of consciousness, and if (b) a higher form of consciousness persists after enlightenment. — Apollodorus
Anyway, the texts assert that the enlightened person sees that his/her consciousness has ceased, etc.
Who sees that? How do they see it? Who reports what they have seen and how? — Apollodorus
Freed from the classification of consciousness, Vaccha, the Tathagata is deep, boundless, hard to fathom, like the sea. 'Reappears' doesn't apply. 'Does not reappear' doesn't apply. 'Both does & does not reappear' doesn't apply. 'Neither reappears nor does not reappear' doesn't apply." — Aggi-Vacchagotta Sutta
Suffice to say they put too much emphasis on believing and not enough on insight. (See Karen Armstrong's Metaphysical Mistake.) — Wayfarer
Compassion has been advocated by all the great faiths because it has been found to be the safest and surest means of attaining enlightenment. It dethrones the ego from the center of our lives and puts others there, breaking down the carapace of selfishness that holds us back from an experience of the sacred. And it gives us ecstasy, broadening our perspectives and giving us a larger, enhanced vision. As a very early Buddhist poem puts it: 'May our loving thoughts fill the whole world; above, below, across — without limit; a boundless goodwill toward the whole world, unrestricted, free of hatred and enmity.' We are liberated from personal likes and dislikes that limit our vision, and are able to go beyond ourselves." — Karen Armstrong
I think the ecclesiastical religions, as I said already, had failed in crucial ways — Wayfarer
The development of Advaita Vedanta was strongly influenced by Buddhism — Wayfarer
I think the Buddha recognised a unique path and way of liberation. — Wayfarer
Economic, political and cultural movements that made the promotion of materialism part of their program must have played a role. — Apollodorus
What secular reason is missing is self-awareness. It is “unenlightened about itself” in the sense that it has within itself no mechanism for questioning the products and conclusions of its formal, procedural entailments and experiments. “Postmetaphysical thinking,” Habermas contends, “cannot cope on its own with the defeatism concerning reason which we encounter today both in the postmodern radicalization of the ‘dialectic of the Enlightenment’ and in the naturalism founded on a naïve faith in science.”
Postmodernism announces (loudly and often) that a supposedly neutral, objective rationality is always a construct informed by interests it neither acknowledges nor knows nor can know. Meanwhile science goes its merry way endlessly inventing and proliferating technological marvels without having the slightest idea of why. The “naive faith” Habermas criticizes is not a faith in what science can do — it can do anything — but a faith in science’s ability to provide reasons, aside from the reason of its own keeping on going, for doing it and for declining to do it in a particular direction because to do so would be wrong.
All that said, I believe there is a higher consciousness - that there is a vertical scale as per this well-known diagram: — Wayfarer
Such is discrimination, which is not only the "light of the body," but also called the sun by the Apostle ... It is also called the guidance of our life: as it said "Those who have no guidance, fall like leaves."(Cassian.Conf.2.4)
Bear in mind, all of the '64 wrong views' listed in the voluminous Brahmajala Sutta ('Net of Views') come down to one or another version of, either: 'I will be' (eternalism) or 'I will not be' (nihilism.) And at the root of that is always self-concern, even if in very subtle form. — Wayfarer
Yes, and it also reminds me of Pyrrhonism, because we, absent one or another set of groundless assumptions, have no good reason to believe either that there is an afterlife or that there is not an afterlife. — Janus
It is axiomatic in Buddhism that regardless of your beliefs, actions will reap consequences either in this life or some other. Belief that at death the body returns to the elements and that there are no further consequences of actions is classified as nihilism. — Wayfarer
It is not axiomatic to secular Buddhism, and I think the judgement that secular Buddhism is not "really" Buddhism is an example of the 'no true Scotsman" fallacy. — Janus
If you want to learn a practice, any practice: art, music, literature and so on, guidance from those more experienced is, if not essential, at least an advantage. I see no reason why it should be any different with practices designed to transform consciousness and the self. — Janus
As an old man Gandhi used to lie in bed with naked young women who were decades younger than him. — Tom Storm
This, apparently was a celibacy test and an attempt to prove he was beyond temptation. Wanker...
Overcoming sensual desire (which includes the desire for sex) is very important in Dharmic religions. It's a matter of manly pride, it's proof that one has overcome lowly desires. — baker
Now, it occurs to me that this interchange, which is taken as conclusive proof of the doctrine on anatta, overlooks something important. At that time in history, a few centuries either side of C.E., the invention of the chariot was a deciding factor in the rise and fall of empires.
/.../
So, whilst it is trivially true to observe that none of the component parts of a chariot are actually a chariot in themselves, nevertheless the 'idea of a chariot' is something real, and its construction and possession is a real good from the perspective of nation-building. So, 'the idea of a chariot' is what really constitutes 'the chariot', not this or that particular piece of the chariot. Furthermore, even if the particular chariot on which the King arrived was to be destroyed or stolen, then another could be constructed, but only by those who had knowledge of the principles of chariot building. — Wayfarer
Ratha Kalpana (from Sanskrit ratha 'chariot', and kalpana 'image')[1] is a metaphor used in Hindu scriptures to describe the relationship between the senses, mind, intellect and the Self.[2][3] The metaphor was first used in the Katha Upanishad and is thought to have inspired similar descriptions in the Bhagavad Gita, the Dhammapada and Plato's Phaedrus.[4][5][6][7]
/.../
Verses 1.3.3–11 of Katha Upanishad deal with the allegoric expression of human body as a chariot.[5] The body is equated to a chariot where the horses are the senses, the mind is the reins, and the driver or charioteer is the intellect.[2] The passenger of the chariot is the Self (Atman). Through this analogy, it is explained that the Atman is separate from the physical body, just as the passenger of a chariot is separate from the chariot. The verses conclude by describing control of the chariot and contemplation on the Self as ways by which the intellect acquires Self Knowledge.[11]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratha_Kalpana
It seems to me a lot of early Buddhist polemics about non-self are likewise undermined by a naive understanding 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.
Manly pride? Interesting. I note that celibacy is often used throughout religious and mystical traditions as evidence of serious spiritual devotion. — Tom Storm
I also note that the great Catholic mystic and putative hermit, Thomas Merton had a girlfriend - is this evidence of hypocrisy, or a man leaving the church and seeking union with the female principle?
Just read over these two suttas:
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an05/an05.075.than.html
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an05/an05.076.than.html — baker
If you yourself don't taste a mango, you'll never have the first-hand knowledge that the epistemic community of mango tasters have.
— baker
Hey, leave qualia out of this... — Tom Storm
I remember I minor epiphany in my youth, crossing the Harbour Bridge on a bus. I suddenly saw that a lot of what bothered me was only me; that everyone else on that bus had exactly the same concerns. And that it really didn’t matter. It was just fleeting, not a big deal, but I remember it being a very liberating moment. — Wayfarer
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