The "whole" — Benj96

As opposed to the not whole?

The matter, like any matter, can be approached from various angles, including scientific or “materialist.”

Can you explain why you believe it has to be approached phenomenologcally? — praxis

Of course, it can be approached in many different ways. Historically, physiologically, contextually, even politically. But the business of understanding Buddhism simply does not lie with any of these. Consider phenomenonlogy as an interpretative stand that allows what appears to one to be determined as it is in this appearance, and not how it is taken up in other thematic context. E.g., Buddhism is certainly a historically grounded body of thought, but this history really has no place in the radical meditative process of liberation, which is an attempt achieve apophatically (think neti, neti, the Eastern notion of what we call apophatic theology/philosophy) a profound departure from the everydayness of living, a departure from its "historicity."

have often pondered Buddhism and emptiness and how this sits with nihilism - perhaps passive nihilism. Nietzsche (admittedly with an inadequate understanding) thought Buddhism expressed nihility. But might there not a connection between Nietzsche's goal of self-overcoming and citta-bhavana the Buddhist concept of (mind-cultivation). In used to read Suzuki on Buddhism in the 1980's. This quote resonated and I have often adapted it (perhaps controversially) for some expressions of nihilism.

Emptiness which is conceptually liable to be mistaken for sheer nothingness is in fact the reservoir of infinite possibilities.
D.T. Suzuki — Tom Storm

But this seems to bypass the essential idea, which is really quite simple. The meditative act is very simple; the interpretation brings in the complexity, for people have questions that are extraneous to this one simple notion: liberation. But, one has to ask, liberated from what. This IS the extraneous question. Liberation itself answers this question, but does so do not by issuing text after text of dialectic superfluity. The abhidhamma was written for instruction and understanding, but the assumptions about what this understanding is are really quite foreign to general thinking. This is because liberation is about something wholly Other than general thinking, and to talk about it, one has to step away from it and enter into the historical and cultural mentality, where everything is entangled with everything else.

Liberation does not "speak" and it is not anything that can be spoken; but then, this is true, really, of all things, isn't it? Look around the room and there are chairs, and rugs and walls, etc. But these are interpretative events, the seeing and understanding that things are such and such this or that. These are contextualized knowledge claims played out in the understanding. Liberation in the profound Eastern sense puts these events on hold, thereby terminating world determining events.

one has to ask, liberated from what. — Constance

I think the word one is looking for is *suffering*.

I think the word one is looking for is *suffering*. — praxis

Sure, but consider that the world IS suffering, Any time your mind wanders into any of the various institutions that comprise this world, from breakfast to geopolitical conflicts, you are in suffering. So the practical matter before you is a resistance to, or a permitting a falling away from, these concerns, each of which is inherently a kind of suffering.

The world is what makes suffering because it is complicated; that is, suffering is so entangled in our affairs and we not think of these as suffering at all. Value is an entangled concept. Buddhists say retract from these essentially social and pragmatic constructs, and this gets down to the, call it the pure meditative act: No discrimination here, for every thought is equally occlusive to the purpose. In the end, one do not give these institutions time or energy. They become irrelevant. All that remains is nirvana.

Incidentally, this is very close to what Kierkegaard had in mind in his Concept of Anxiety. What is sin? It is an immersion in the distractions of culture, the money, the relationships, the egoic endeavors, all inherently sinful (NOT, he is quick to point out, in the Lutheran sense of offending God with some primordial original sin. Kierkegaard was pretty enlightened for a Christian).

The world is what makes suffering — Constance

Buddha blames life, claiming that it is all disatisfactory. That is, of course, a lie. There is both satisfaction and dissatisfaction. Life requires both to achieve homeostasis (the middle way).

Buddha blames life, claiming that it is all disatisfactory. That is, of course, a lie. There is both satisfaction and dissatisfaction. Life requires both to achieve homeostasis (the middle way). — praxis

Not do much a lie if you consider what suffering is. Not that, say, requited love, is just miserable. But Buddhists claim this is far short of what nirvana is: a sustained being in love (only more than this) without the instabilities of an actual life, the latter being the entanglements I mentioned earlier. And being in love is invariable an entangled affair, isn't it?

The balance you speak is a rationalized compromise of something foundationally pure, a Buddhist would say.

Taking responsibility is not the business of the so called so-self. the logic goes more like this: If there is no self, then there is no one to take responsibility. The act of taking responsibility can be understood as the illusory self, which is a construct (a personality constituted by language and cultural institutions), which is a necessary condition for the self effacing finality of nirvana. — Constance

Are you saying we accept responsibility before we abdicate ourselves?

Wittgensteinian objection that logic cannot be known, for this would require logic to make it so. — Constance

That's a neat logical trick. Interesting, it's like a supertask. And yet can one escape the mind in Buddhism? Appeals to intuition seems to me to be appeals to faith

Derrida is in the background on this issue. If there is anyone who makes this case, it is Derrida. See his Structures, Signs and Play (and certainly Not his "Difference" which will simply irritate. Think of illusion as, not simply words as tags on things; rather, it is experience, the past/present/future construction is the very foundation of the world. No wonder serious meditation is so hard to achieve. Daunting at best, for one is not just trying to calm the mind. One is quite literally attempting to erase/nullify/annihilate the world. — Constance

I do need to read one of his books. When I do i'll start with that one. It was my point that emptiness means not nonexistence, but the opposite, that there would be a world as it is, without additions from the mind. Maya would be what we place outside ourselves from within. The Buddhism don't seem to have a Western concept of subject and object like we do (somehow)

I also wanted to add that it everything is perception, that everything we see is alive, being in the mind as it is. Sounds and sights would be as alive as your mind. That makes me see the world a little differently

Jeeez, ya blokes from daunundda are lazy:

Meditation has been associated with relatively reduced activity in the default mode network, a brain network implicated in self-related thinking and mind wandering. However, previous imaging studies have typically compared meditation to rest despite other studies reporting differences in brain activation patterns between meditators and controls at rest. Moreover, rest is associated with a range of brain activation patterns across individuals that has only recently begun to be better characterized. Therefore, this study compared meditation to another active cognitive task, both to replicate findings that meditation is associated with relatively reduced default mode network activity, and to extend these findings by testing whether default mode activity was reduced during meditation beyond the typical reductions observed during effortful tasks. In addition, prior studies have used small groups, whereas the current study tested these hypotheses in a larger group. Results indicate that meditation is associated with reduced activations in the default mode network relative to an active task in meditators compared to controls. Regions of the default mode showing a group by task interaction include the posterior cingulate/precuneus and anterior cingulate cortex. These findings replicate and extend prior work indicating that suppression of default mode processing may represent a central neural process in long-term meditation, and suggest that meditation leads to relatively reduced default mode processing beyond that observed during another active cognitive task.

Full article: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4529365/ — praxis

Is this called qietism in the West? The dichonomy between resting and acting (internally) is not clear to me

The balance you speak is a rationalized compromise of something foundationally pure, a Buddhist would say. — Constance

It is rational certainly, though it is not a rationalization or compromise of any sort. Earlier, you were claiming this must be approached phenomenologically. Do you not personally experience the phenomenon of satisfaction?

Everything changes and therefore everything is empty. — praxis

Is Nirvana empty and does it change?

What is meant by "self". As in, what are the limits of the self? Is it the physical body? Because if not, if the self is as fundamental as the energy and matter that makes up one's self as we exist in human form, then self extends to all matter and energy in the universe. In essence, in this case self is equivalent to the universe. — Benj96

I see self as identity, as identity as personhood. The personhood is spread out through the the body. And separation of bodies is part of scientific theory, right? How can you have physical causality without at least 2 objects? Are you saying we are part of the world physically or spiritually?

Is this called qietism in the West? — Gregory

No, meditation is... I don't think I need to explain.

I think that Buddhism might be a system of antimonies. Is it that we cannot be everything without being nothing? But how can we be one with the world while feeling like nothing on the other hand (anatman)? And where does Western objectivity and correspondence theory fit in with this. The 4 Noble Truths are supposedly TRUTHS, and yet the two truths doctrine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_truths_doctrine#:~:text=The%20Buddhist%20doctrine%20of%20the,ultimate%22%20(param%C4%81rtha)%20truth.)? Some truths change in life and yet there seems to be an ultimate (absolute). If all truths collapse into each other, it is turtles all the way down and where is resting in Nirvana at that point?Dependent origination tends to conflict with ultimate truth. Or am I thinking like a Westerner still? Breathing with concentration seems to be to physical like picking up a weight? The mind, however, is spiritual and I feel like thinking itself is spiritual. I'm struggling to understand what happens when thoughts cease

It seems to me that Nirvana or Heaven (either word) would be a state of great mental activity

The 'metaphysical concept' at the heart of Buddhism (and other dharmic traditions) is "reincarnation" which when interpreted literally makes no sense (re: if "no self", then "rebirth" of "no self") but can be interpreted figuratively as suggested in this old post:

"Reincarnation" represents merely waking up again each day – but religiously(?) generalized into a metaphor about 'birth-awareness-death' – the arc of daily living from sleep to sleep again (Sisyphus-like "wheel") with each yesterday (like) a different "past life" ... — 180 Proof

... an attempt at a pragmatic deflation of 'the supernatural' to the existential.

But this seems to bypass the essential idea, which is really quite simple. The meditative act is very simple; the interpretation brings in the complexity, for people have questions that are extraneous to this one simple notion: liberation. But, one has to ask, liberated from what. This IS the extraneous question. Liberation itself answers this question, but does so do not by issuing text after text of dialectic superfluity. The abhidhamma was written for instruction and understanding, but the assumptions about what this understanding is are really quite foreign to general thinking. This is because liberation is about something wholly Other than general thinking, and to talk about it, one has to step away from it and enter into the historical and cultural mentality, where everything is entangled with everything else.

Liberation does not "speak" and it is not anything that can be spoken; but then, this is true, really, of all things, isn't it? Look around the room and there are chairs, and rugs and walls, etc. But these are interpretative events, the seeing and understanding that things are such and such this or that. These are contextualized knowledge claims played out in the understanding. Liberation in the profound Eastern sense puts these events on hold, thereby terminating world determining events. — Constance

This seems to be a lengthy way of stating 'you can't put this into words' - which is one of the standard message of ineffability inherent in most religious traditions. Sure. As someone outside of Buddhism (or phenomenology) this construction of 'liberation' sounds much like an appeal to faith.

The world is what makes suffering because it is complicated; that is, suffering is so entangled in our affairs and we not think of these as suffering at all. Value is an entangled concept. Buddhists say retract from these essentially social and pragmatic constructs, and this gets down to the, call it the pure meditative act: — Constance

Are you suggesting that liberation is not a value or an entangled concept? Incidentally, are you a Buddhist, or are you working to 'connect' Buddhist principles to phenomenology or both, like Michel Bitbol?

It is rational certainly, though it is not a rationalization or compromise of any sort. Earlier, you were claiming this must be approached phenomenologically. Do you not personally experience the phenomenon of satisfaction? — praxis

I certainly do. Häagen-Dazs coffee ice cream is squarely there. But this enjoyment is, you might call it, a hedonic fetish. A fetish is something that draws on some original energy for its appreciation, but it itself does not have this as a native feature. It is a parasitic gratification, you might say. now Buddhists say that one does not become the Buddha; rather, one always already is this, but has become entangled in desires and attachments. To realize who one "really is," one has to be liberated from these attachments. So what energy is there that is so fond of Haagen-Dazs? It is one's original energy misaligned in such affections. I think it is very important to see that attachments are value driven, and what it is to be attached is to have your original nature, which is the source of value in the world (Wittgenstein affirmed this: we bring value into the world, and apart from this value, the world is mere states of affairs), confer value in other things. So what is a mere fact of the world, to refer again to Witt., is elevated to a value saturated possibility.
And again, btw, Kierkegaard called this attachment original, or hereditary sin, this yielding to the world's cultural institutions, what he calls the aesthetic stage of our existence. Of course, K uses terms like God and the soul, but he does talk in ways that correspond to eastern thinking.

The 'metaphysical concept' at the heart of Buddhism (and other dharmic traditions) is "reincarnation" which when interpreted literally makes no sense (re: if "no self", then "rebirth" of "no self") but can be interpreted figuratively as suggested in this old post:
"Reincarnation" represents merely waking up again each day – but religiously(?) generalized into a metaphor about 'birth-awareness-death' – the arc of daily living from sleep to sleep again (Sisyphus-like "wheel") with each yesterday (like) a different "past life" ...
— 180 Proof
... an attempt at a pragmatic deflation of 'the supernatural' to the existential. — 180 Proof

My take is rather simple, perhaps simplistic, too simplistic: It's not the self (re anatta) that reincarnates, it's something else that does! What that something else is is anybody's guess.

A lot to unpack there is. — Master Yoda

That sounds gnostic, as if the physical self is reincarnated bodies while this false self has not awaken to its true relation to reality

That sounds gnostic, as if the physical self is reincarnated bodies while this false self has not awaken to its true relation to reality — Gregory

The so-called self may not be what we think it is. It may just be a temporary entity, there only to, well, complicate our already miserable lives.

Nirvana or Heaven — Gregory

Nirvana is not heaven! Or so they tell me!

I certainly do [experience satisfaction]. — Constance

There you have it.

This seems to be a lengthy way of stating 'you can't put this into words' - which is one of the standard message of ineffability inherent in most religious traditions. Sure. As someone outside of Buddhism (or phenomenology) this construction of 'liberation' sounds much like an appeal to faith. — Tom Storm

I think you can talk about anything. there is nothing in language that stops this. Ineffability is about there being no shared experiences, not about the failure of a concept to grasp an experience, for concepts don't do this. Concepts are social constructs, vocabularies invented in the process of evolvement by groups to share experiences, but they never impose limitations on experiences, that is, as Hume said, human kind could be eradicated altogether, and reason wouldn't bat an eye. It is the formal limitation of judgment, but has no limitations in experience, and if God were to actually appear before me in all her depth and grandeur, and the same happened to you, we could talk about it, refer to it, develop new vocabulary, and so on. Ineffability refers to something alien to a people's familiarity.

Liberation I don't think is about faith. It is an experience, but something nobody talks about because it is alien to our culture.

Are you suggesting that liberation is not a value or an entangled concept? Incidentally, are you a Buddhist, or are you working to 'connect' Buddhist principles to phenomenology or both, like Michel Bitbol? — Tom Storm

It is not a reference to quantum physics, no. Entanglement here is a descriptive feature of being attached to things in the world, like sex and ice cream. But the French do have my attention, only here is Jean luc Marion, Michel Henry, Emanuel Levinas, and others.

I don't think Buddhism has anything at all to do with physics. Not that one cannot make a connection, but that connection would be extraneous to the discipline.

There you have it. — praxis

Oh. Well, thank you very much!

Entanglement here is a descriptive feature of being attached to things in the world, like sex and ice cream. — Constance

Yes, that's what I was referring to. Not QM. Also I was thinking about Bitbol's connection with phenomenology, not his QM work. But I hear you. I probably should have referenced Evan Thompson rather than Bitbol.

I think you can talk about anything. there is nothing in language that stops this. Ineffability is about there being no shared experiences, not about the failure of a concept to grasp an experience, for concepts don't do this. — Constance

Hmmm. Don't disagree but I'm not sure I follow why you say this. You originally said this.

Liberation does not "speak" and it is not anything that can be spoken; but then, this is true, really, of all things, isn't it? Look around the room and there are chairs, and rugs and walls, etc. — Constance

I'm afraid your arguments are passing me by - perhaps it's my lack of philosophy.

My understanding of ineffability is that for all the talking we do, the truth about some things is beyond words.

But perhaps we can stop here, I'm not sure any of this matters. Nice talking to you. :smile:

Nirvana is not heaven! Or so they tell me! — Agent Smith

They told you right. :up:

Oh. Well, thank you very much! — Constance

It’s not a complement. I merely point out that you subjectively experience the phenomena of both satisfaction and dissatisfaction, and this is evidence that life is not dissatisfaction but both satisfaction and dissatisfaction. If your body is dehydrated you will suffer the dissatisfaction of thirst and should you be fortunate enough to find water and drink your thirst will be satisfied. This isn’t “materialist” science. It is phenomena that you subjectivity experience.

It’s not a complement. I merely point out that you subjectively experience the phenomena of both satisfaction and dissatisfaction, and this is evidence that life is not dissatisfaction but both satisfaction and dissatisfaction. If your body is dehydrated you will suffer the dissatisfaction of thirst and should you be fortunate enough to find water and drink your thirst will be satisfied. This isn’t “materialist” science. It is phenomena that you subjectivity experience. — praxis

But it shows none of the nuance of the brief review of the matter I provided above. Yours is a manichean pov, a reduction to a two sided simplicity of something that is not really simple. I took t that you didn't really read what I wrote and so, oh well.

But it shows none of the nuance of the brief review of the matter I provided above. Yours is a manichean pov, a reduction to a two sided simplicity of something that is not really simple. I took t that you didn't really read what I wrote and so, oh well. — Constance

At the start you wrote “the matter has to be approached phenomenologically” so that’s what I’m doing. You are entirely free to confer whatever meaning you like to the phenomenon of your subjective experiences of satisfaction. I’ve not made any judgment of it, simplified it, or polarized your meaning.