Like pain, one does not know one is enlightened, one is just enlightened. — Banno

And you know this, like, firsthand?

But perhaps enlightenmemt is a pain in the arse!

The rest of us are left to decide if someone is enlightened based on the behavioural evidence.

If your guru says so ...

When a doctor asks you to describe your level of pain they are asking for a description of your injury. — Harry Hindu

Then why don't they clarify it like that?

Moreover, it is sometimes (often) not possible to describe the level of one's injury because one simply doesn't know it. For example, you may have sharp pains in your abdomen on the right side. You don't know what is causing those pains. You could have gallstones, intestinal spasms, a number of things. That's why you went to the doctor so that they can examine you and find out what it is.

Fair enough, but if you look back I think you'll find that it has been predominantly you initiating these conversations by responding to posts I've made responding to others. — Janus

Sure. I try this and that. I have a personal guideline that I can't cry foul until I have given something at least 100 good tries.

For example, I mow the law for my parents. They have an old lawn mower that doesn't want to start easily, one usually has to pull the engine many times before it starts. I once counted and it took me 53 pulls to start it. (Although since then, my father fixed it a bit and it now usually takes less than 10 pulls.)
So 100, that's my scope for patience.

It's not that I don't have regard for them. I hold them in the highest regard. What I said was, outside the social context in which they are lived, it is difficult to know how to relate to them. — Wayfarer

To me, the suttas seem relatable enough, it's the socio-cultural context in which they are provided (by this I mean various Buddhist venues, such as temples, books, websites) and the people who provide them that I don't know how to relate to (and around whom I generally feel out of place).

There is a relatively new development in Buddhism, called "Suttavada", 'the Path of the suttas'. Suttavadis focus primarily on the suttas. I had the opportunity to interact a little bit with some of them, but mostly listen to their Dhamma talks.

I got the sense that there is a whole world of endavor on the Path that is not defined by the more superficial aspects of Buddhism (those being Buddhist school/lineage/teacher, one's nationality/race/cultural heritage etc.). That there is a whole world of things one can do (by following the instructions in the suttas) which are not bound to being a member of a particular Buddhist school/group.

Suttavadis are generally few and far inbetween, not exactly sociable folks, quite independent, although some of them are formally members of a particular Buddhist school/lineage. It's not easy to get an opportunity to talk to them.

Pali Buddhism is strongly bound to a cultural setting which is remote from my real circumstances.

How can that be? It seems to me that Pali Buddhism is the most neutral form of Buddhism there is.

Not sure how to take this ...
— baker

I like your posts a lot, but sometimes they can be didactic.

intended to teach, particularly in having moral instruction as an ulterior motive

I'm sorry my posts come across unfavorably. I've shared some hard-won insights that finally begin to make sense of my position in relation to Buddhism. I've been under the impression you've been dealing with a similar problem, so told you about those insights.

Why should enlightenment be the same for each of us? — Banno

If such is the case, if enlightenment is something different for every person, then all efforts to attain it are idiosyncratic. Then no path to enlightenment can be taught, nor learned.

And if such, enlightenment becomes irrelevant, or, at best, magic.

So this thread can go on indefinitely, as the various opinions of the participants vie for prominence. It's not that nothing can be decided so much as that whatever one decides will be right. — Banno

Only if one insists on being Humpty Dumpty.

A sure sign that someone has not achieved enlightenment is their claim that they have achieved enlightenment.
Enlightenment is attributed to someone by others. — Banno

No. At least in some schools of Buddhism, enlightenment is something one knows as such.

The standard phrasing is as follows:

He discerns that 'Birth is ended, the holy life fulfilled, the task done. There is nothing further for this world.

Reminds me of Varela and Thompson’s account of the zen buddhist Nishitani’s critique of Nietzsche.

“Nishitami deeply admires Nietzsche's attempt but claims that it actually perpetuates the nihilistic predicament by not letting go of the grasping mind that lies at the souce of both objectivism and nihlism. Nishitani's argument is that nihilism cannot be overcome by assimilating groundlessness to a notion of the will-no matter how decentered and impersonal. Nishitani's diagnosis is even more radical than Nietzsche's, for he claims that the real problem with Western nihilism is that it is halfhearted: it does not consistently follow through its own inner logic and motivation and so stops short of transforming its partial realization of groundlessness into the philosophical and experiential possiblities of sunyata.”

I think what Nishitami failed to grasp was that will to
nothingness is still willing. Self for Nietzsche isnt an entity but a vector of change. — Joshs

I haven't read the above sources, so I'm just going by your quote.

I think what Nishitami failed to grasp was that will to
nothingness is still willing.

This shouldn't be the case for a Buddhist, though. "The will to nothingness" is roughly equivalent to the Buddhist concept of vibhava-tanha, craving for non-existence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ta%E1%B9%87h%C4%81

Self for Nietzsche isnt an entity but a vector of change.

Sure, we can find a similar conception of self in Buddhism as well, by some Buddhist teachers, although this isn't mainstream.
For example, Thanissaro Bhikkhu: Selves & Not-self
He talks about the self as a strategy, as something one does (identifies with some things, disidentifies with others).

I don't think it's uncommon for notions like unattachment and detachment and apathy to merge into a maelstrom of studied indifference in mainstream Western eyes. — Tom Storm

You can think about it like this: For most people (not just Westerners), their feelings or emotions for something or someone are conditional. People typically like someone or something as long as said person or thing is in a particular way that is pleasing to them. And the opposite for disliking someone or something. Neutral feelings are typically interpreted as dislike (if an ordinary person doesn't feel anything particular about someone or something, they eventually interpret this as dislike -- that's that meh feeling).

An ordinary person doesn't imagine what an unconditional love (or an unconditional hatred) would be like, so in their minds detachment (not relying on persons or things to supply one with pleasures) feels like apathy.

---

a young person at a Buddhist group I attended started with, "Hi I'm Andy; I'm here tonight to attain enlightenment." Giggles and groans. I was immediately struck by that 'attain'. Pretty sure the monks have heard it all. — Tom Storm

As if it is more noble or more realistic to think that enlightenment is impossible to attain.

I think also for some people, and I'm not thinking of anyone particular here, there's an emotional, almost visceral reaction to certain words. Before the person even considers the idea, the response is there already, dismissive and pugnacious - almost like a 'lizard brain', flight or fight response. You say Christianity, they immediately blurt out 'deception and pedophilia..'. That kind of thing. Maybe attachment can be added to the list of provocative trigger words. — Tom Storm

Except that "attachment" can do all that provoking and tirggering on its own, no specific bias or prejudice needed. Because attachment is powerful like that.

We explain mental illness, to the extent we can, as we explain other illnesses to which living organisms are subject. To the extent they are aberrations, they are in the same sense as any other disease. Illness, disease, are present in the world with everything else. Being part of the world doesn't imply normality. Extraordinary and unusual things happen all the time. If we must, we can ascertain what is normal statistically. Morality is something we learn as we learn other things; by interaction with others and the environment in which we live. There are no illnesses or morality which are "outside" of the world. — Ciceronianus

Aberrations and diseases are things we want to get rid of, eliminate them. We see them as things that shouldn't exist.
It's in this desire and effort to destroy or eliminate certain objects, events, or people that shows that we think they shouldn't be part of our world.

So it's not clear how a person who believes there is just this world can be consistent when they believe there are things that shouldn't exist.

We can (or should) acknowledge that we live in a world we're a part of, and understand that we necessarily are dependent on it, but don't merely receive impressions caused by it because we're participants, not observers. — Ciceronianus

I think this idea that we're observers and that there exists a world "out there" is a reflection of seeking satisfaction out there and feeling that the out there is sometimes the source of our suffering. It's your child or that piece of cake that makes you happy, it's that bad weather or obnoxious person who makes you miserable.

"Official morality" tells us to be honest, friendly, not to kill, rape, and pillage, to care about other people and other beings, and such. Yet people who behave that way never make it far in life.

All of this is to say that there is an "out there," which I don't take to be another world, but the same world, just different objects within it. The "out there" affects me, a conglomerate of parts in many different ways. The cold affects different parts of me in different ways and there's no reason to speak only in the singular "me" as if cold makes me shiver. It does, but it also makes my nose run and my eyes burn.

My nose allows me to smell, which is me doing something to me, which is a thing, and which is not complicated or unusual. — Hanover

But what are blacks doing to you, or a book?

Because this is where the matter of perceptions/affectings gains special relevance.

You say there are things the cold, for example, does to you, to different parts of you.

How about books or blacks?

Now you're just being stupidly perverse. You know that was not what I was talking about. Go troll somewhere else. — Janus

Oh god. Showing your true colors.

think the OP is working on the premise that "facts of the world" are also such conventions
— baker

Why would the OP, writing in defense of Naive Realism. believe this? — hypericin

As was made clearer further down the thread, the OP isn't actually defending naive realism.

No. I'd say the scoutmaster is a creep. In essence the scoutmaster is fixated on life lessons and his power to implement them and forgets that this is a process, part of which is actually attaining an outcome, even if the process is slightly flawed. — Tom Storm

No. Membership in the scout organization is not mandatory.

If patience is a necessary virtue for the Eagle Scouts, and the system of climbing the hierarchical ladder is such that the local scout master decides who is fit to be advanced and who isn't, then it's fair to demand patience.

Being a member of the scouts isn't an equal opportunity endeavor, it is competitive and elitist, and all involved know this, or at least should know this.

Does absolute power corrupt absolutely? — TiredThinker

Would it be possible to obtain the position of absolute power without being absolutely corrupt?

One cannot gain any position of power unless one is at least to some extent corrupt by the principles of official morality.

We do not impose those properties; they are imposed upon us, like it or not. — Janus

So the blacks impose on other people that blacks are an inferior race?

LOTR imposes on you that it is a good book?

It's quite ironic, because the people because of whom one loses one's faith in humanity can sometimes be the same people who demand one to have faith in humanity and who maintain that one is solely responsible for one's faith in humanity.

What possible stake could anyone have in something completely unknowable? — Janus

For example, religious peple have been arguing about who has the right idea of God or The Truth. They even went to war with eachother for precisely this reason (such as the 30 year war). They have killed "heretics", maimed children, tortured women, burned towns and villages, and so on.

And all this on account of their belief as to what the right properties are of an entity that is ultimately unknowable. Clearly, these people have something at stake here.

The gullible? — Banno

Sure, but mostly those who want to rule, condemn. Also, those looking for salvation (one believes one will be saved by some entity that one doesn't really know and ultimately cannot know, but the belief is based on the belief that said entity has the property of being willing and able to save one).

Psycho-socially, it's very important to have the right beliefs about things that are simultaneously believed to be ultimately uknowable. Sure, we don't know God, but we believe that God is such that he is on our side and not on the side of our enemies.

Because I don't accept that our "minds" are separate from us, and think we're not separate from the rest of the world. I don't think it can be doubted on any reasonable basis that all we do is the result of our interaction as living organisms with the rest of the world.

How do you explain mental illness?
— baker

As a particular kind of illness, or disorder, we suffer from.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean, though. — Ciceronianus

If you hold that everything and everyone is part of this world and belongs in it, then how do you explain what are considered aberrations and evil (such as mental illness)? And how do you justify morality, a sense of right and wrong?

If you accept aberrations and evil as somehow normal, as part of this world, then on the grounds of what can they be called "aberrations", "evil" to begin with?

We do not spend hours arguing about how many centimetres are in a metre or which city is the capital of Russia
— Banno

These are conventions, not facts of the world. Truths because they are defined to be so. About these certainty is possible. — hypericin

I think the OP is working on the premise that "facts of the world" are also such conventions (but the OP can't say that, because that would require a metalevel description that would be incoherent in his view).

I think the question in this thread is how we know what the external world is (which was the part of the survey I referred to) and to a lesser extent as to whether there is an external world to begin with (which is the part of the survey you referred to). — Hanover

Because we are accultured to believing that there is an external world, the overwhelming agreement that there is an external world being an indication for that.

We don't discover that there is an external world. Other people present to us something that they present as an "external world", and we internalize this. And all this happens from early on in life, so that our cognitive abilities are shaped by it and we generally become unable to think in any other way.
Thus we live in a conflation of metaphysics and natural science, unable to tell them apart (other than by imposing new conflations suggesting what the difference between the two are).

(Yes, I am painfully aware of the reflexive nature of what I just said.)


Back to the Two Dogmas of Empiricism:

Modern empiricism has been conditioned in large part by two dogmas. One is a belief in some fundamental cleavage between truths which are analytic, or grounded in meanings independently of matters of fact and truths which are synthetic, or grounded in fact. The other dogma is reductionism: the belief that each meaningful statement is equivalent to some logical construct upon terms which refer to immediate experience. Both dogmas, I shall argue, are ill founded. One effect of abandoning them is, as we shall see, a blurring of the supposed boundary between speculative metaphysics and natural science. Another effect is a shift toward pragmatism.
/.../
The totality of our so-called knowledge or beliefs, from the most casual matters of geography and history to the profoundest laws of atomic physics or even of pure mathematics and logic, is a manmade fabric which impinges on experience only along the edges. Or, to change the figure, total science is like a field of force whose boundary conditions are experience. A conflict with experience at the periphery occasions readjustments in the interior of the field. Truth values have to be redistributed over some of our statements. Re-evaluation of some statements entails re-evaluation of others, because of their logical interconnections -- the logical laws being in turn simply certain further statements of the system, certain further elements of the field. Having re-evaluated one statement we must re-evaluate some others, whether they be statements logically connected with the first or whether they be the statements of logical connections themselves. But the total field is so undetermined by its boundary conditions, experience, that there is much latitude of choice as to what statements to re-evaluate in the light of any single contrary experience. No particular experiences are linked with any particular statements in the interior of the field, except indirectly through considerations of equilibrium affecting the field as a whole.

There's a flower. We interact with it the way humans do. The bee interacts with it the way bees do. There's no reason to think it becomes something different depending on whether a human or bee is involved in the interaction. There's no reason to think it is something different than what we interact with and what a bee interacts with. There's not one flower for us, another for the bee. — Ciceronianus

Is this an epistemological or a metaphysical/ideological/ethical consideration?
(Or do you believe that there cannot be one without the other?)

We began to insert (as it were) something between us and the "external world" some centuries ago, for reasons I find difficult to understand. — Ciceronianus

I think what happened is that there developed a belief that epistemology and metaphysics/ideology/ethics could be and should be separate fields of endeavor.

It seems that in the past, the what are now two (or more), used to be one and the same, indistinguishable.


A good example for this is the etymological meaning of the word "believe", which originally meant 'to hold dear' and only later began to refer to something abstractly cognitive.

believe (v.)
Old English belyfan "to have faith or confidence" (in a person), earlier geleafa (Mercian), gelefa (Northumbrian), gelyfan (West Saxon), from Proto-Germanic *ga-laubjan "to believe," perhaps literally "hold dear (or valuable, or satisfactory), to love" (source also of Old Saxon gilobian "believe," Dutch geloven, Old High German gilouben, German glauben), ultimately a compound based on PIE root *leubh- "to care, desire, love" (see belief).

Meaning "be persuaded of the truth of" (a doctrine, system, religion, etc.) is from mid-13c.; meaning "credit upon the grounds of authority or testimony without complete demonstration, accept as true" is from early 14c. General sense "be of the opinion, think" is from c. 1300. Related: Believed (formerly occasionally beleft); believing.

https://www.etymonline.com/word/believe

in a position of power.
— baker
:roll: — 180 Proof

What good are one's high morals and one's high principles, if one is otherwise a loser, a slave, defeated and downtrodden by others?

Are your virtues really so much of a reward in and of themselves so as to outweigh the misery and the hardships you need to endure, misery and hardship that can also be due to your holding on to those very virtues and acting according to them?

And how is complete cessation of suffering achieved? By letting go of all attachment? So, you haven't answered the question which was on what basis would you claim that complete cessation of suffering is impossible (assuming for the sake of argument that it is possible at all) without believing in karma and rebirth. I am not asking why it would not be possible for those who have been enculturated into believing in karma and rebirth, to become enlightened without those beliefs, but why it would be impossible per se without those beliefs.

If westerners are not capable of really believing in karma and rebirth; are you saying that that would preclude them from ever being able to realize complete cessation of suffering, assuming that is possible at all for anyone?

Since you persist in talking around my questions without providing any counterarguments, and since the above is the salient point I am interested in, I am not going to respond to the rest of what you wrote, until I am satisfied that you have responded to the above. I'm not here to waste my time. — Janus

All I can say is that we're worlds apart, and I'm not interested in bridging the chasm. It's too much work, and whatever reward might come of it doesn't justify it. Like I already said more than once, I'm engaged in these discussions for my own reasons and my own understanding of meta-Buddhist topics that would be impossible or inappropriate to bring up in a Buddhist setting.

Stanford Encyclopedia suggests that “Nietzsche’s psychology treats the self as something that has to be achieved or constructed, rather than as something fundamentally given as part of the basic metaphysical equipment with which a person enters the world.” — Joshs

But not as something to be permanently deconstructed, overcome.
It seems that in Nietzsche's view, there should exist a series of selves; one overcoming the other.
Whereas in some ideologies, enlightenment has to do with stopping the process of selfing altogether.

Wrong. — praxis

I love to watch when people argue about enlightenment.

Spock — TiredThinker

I've always been puzzled as to whence the idea that Spock is "without emotion". Just because he isn't a drama queen like Kirk doesn't make him "without emotion".

So than why isn't emotion considered apart of thoughts? — TiredThinker

Perhaps separating the two is an attempt to control one with the help of the other.

When thinking dark thoughts, cheer yourself up in order to think optimistically.
Think optimistically to cheer yourself up when feeling down.

Meaning that chicken are enlightened.
— baker

And...? — Janus

Apparently you're not familiar with the pun ... A famous Buddhist teacher once said that if being able to sit for long periods of time would be any guarantee of enlightenment, then chickens would be enlightened.

Another highly didactic post. — Wayfarer

Not sure how to take this ...

Do you still find yourself thinking like this when you try to think this in the context of the Pali Suttas, ie. with the Suttas as your background?
— baker

I've studied them to some extent, and even passed Pali 101. But I'm at a loss as to how to relate to Theravada Buddhism, when not in a Buddhist cultural setting.

The suttas are not the same as Theravada Buddhism, though. They are part of Theravada Buddhism, but TB is a lot more than just the suttas.

I can't get my head around how someone can be interested in Buddhism, but have not much regard for the suttas.

The point I made about bowing - and I really didn't want to start an argument about that - is simply that it's an acknowledgement of

the idea of there being a higher truth, which is, generally speaking, something which has been practically obliterated in Western culture.

I can't relate to that, because I've always operated with the idea that there is such a thing as "the highest truth" (only that for me, the problem has always been how to find out what that is).

What writers have you found that have kept you going, and you believe might help others? — Joshua Jones

Think about this idea.
In a Mad Max scenario, would you freely share knowledge and resources with others who might use them against you?


Further, as the saying goes, A tree with firm roots can hope to withstand a harsh storm, but it can scarcely hope to grow them once the storm is already on the horizon.

In other words, you're too late. The optimism, the positivity, the hopefulness, or the glibly adhered to nihilism that we can nowadays see and take them as a lack of criticial understanding of our dire situation, are actually a symptom of this lateness and an ad hoc attempt to deal with it.

Does anyone have comments on Nietzsche's ideas of self-overcoming? — Tom Storm

Someone once told me that it has to do with "being better than you were before". E.g. if yesterday, it took you 15 sec to run 100 yards, aim to run the distance in 14 sec next time around. And so on; it's about improving one's results in reference to one's previous results.

I remember a remark made by a maverick guru I used to read in regard to Westeners pursuing Eastern spiritual disciplines: 'you don't have the archetypes'.

By this I think he meant that we are configured certain ways - by the culture we're born into, the habits we inherit and develop, our habituated ways of being in the world. They're very difficult things to change. And the effort we make to change them can itself become a hindrance, if it's too self-conscious. — Wayfarer

Do you still find yourself thinking like this when you try to think this in the context of the Pali Suttas, ie. with the Suttas as your background?

But I also found that I learned from Buddhism the importance of actually bowing. This is not something Western individualists will generally do. Nothing is above their own ego.

There are many kinds of "Westerners", though. There still are cultures in the West that are intensely classist and with what is for all intents and purposes a state religion with a strong emphasis on piety (such as the traditionally Catholic countries in Europe). This is actually a fairly similar psycho-socio-economic context as in traditionally Buddhist Asian countries.

Bowing is a way of recognising that the Buddha's wisdom is something above your grasp.

That's a "Western" way to put it. I don't see it that way. I think that if one feels uncomfortable with bowing to the Buddha, this probably has to do with not being certain enough whether the Buddha was right or not and whether to follow the Buddha or not. It's not necessarily an ego issue.

If you don't go to a mosque and don't bow to Allah, does this mean you're indulging in your individualism, letting your ego rule? No. (Although there probably are Muslims who claim just that. )
You could actually be in a similar situation in regard to Buddhism.

My point being that Westerners sometimes overcriticize themselves and for things they aren't even guilty of, and thereby miss out on important insights about themselves.

If one has serious doubts about whether the Buddha is worth following or not, then forcing oneself to bow to him isn't going to make those doubts go away. But it can result in superstition, blind faith, and eventually falling away from Buddhism altogether.

Soto Zen conceives of enlightenment or nirvana precisely in this way as practicing zazen; that is transcending the body and mind in maintaining perfect sitting posture. Dogen equates this with enlightenment because it is impossible to sit this way while being attached to the body and mind. — Janus

Meaning that chicken are enlightened.

Hence Jesus as being described by some as a bodhisattva. — Tom Storm

Bodhisattva means 'a buddha-to-be', ie. a person on the path to buddhahood, but not yet a buddha.

Now that we seem to have quite definitely arrived at “the end of the world as we know it”, engines stopped, steam wafting through the air, conductors absent, and doors open, I’m not feeling fine. — Joshua Jones

That's what one gets for uncritically internalizing pop songs. :razz:

The request is that you provide some textual evidence which is not equivocal, if you are arguing that there is such. — Janus

Like I said in another current thread:

The various claims being contested by so many people were/are originally part of a system of practice and a system of social relationships. Those claims don't just somehow "hang in the air", as arguments or premises, or words "with magic power". They are part of a system of virtue epistemology, where it is assumed that by doing certain practices and developing certain virtues, one will come to realize that a particular claim is true.

But many people just don't do those practices, don't develop those virtues, but instead believe that all it takes and all it should take is a syllogism, or the right mantra, regardless of what one otherwise does, how one behaves, or what else one knows. — baker

Moreover, it's not a text that is equivocal or unequivocal. If F = ma seems unequivocal to you, that's because you have a certain knowledge that contextualizes it and makes sense of it. Someone who lacks such knowledge cannot make sense of F = ma, or at least not in the way those who do have that knowledge can. Its' the same with other things, including those in religion.

If the goal is non-attachment then on what basis would you claim that a practice to realize that is dependent upon certain beliefs (other than that the practice itself is a sound method for achieving non-attachment)?

If there is some other goal, then what would you say that other goal is?

Complete cessation of suffering.

and it would also include the need for you to do some practical things (like engaging in renounciation, behaving in line with the precepts).
— baker

You're begging the question; if it cannot be argued for, then why are you here purporting to be arguing for it?

No, I'm saying that you need to do certain things, and that this your doing is what supplies some of the necessary premises. Again, see the quote above.

There are different views of what enlightenment consists in in different traditions.

Yes.

Do you deny that there are, or at least can be, enlightened individuals within the different traditions?

Yes, I deny thusly. Already because I'm not Humpty Dumpty and I don't even attempt to just make words mean whatever I want them to mean.

Are you arguing for "Buddhist exceptionalism" as Thompson calls it?

No.

If so, how do you think Buddhist enlightenment differs from other conceptions of enlightenment, on what basis do you think it does differ and on what basis do you think it could be clear that Buddhist enlightenment is "higher" or more true or authentic or whatever?

That would take a book to reply.

What reasons do you see to think that anyone is enlightened?

For one, a purely epistemistcally trivial linguistic one: the same word can't mean all kinds of things.

There are equivalent ideas taken by adherents in the various traditions to define the state of those who have "seen the truth" in all the religious traditions I mentioned. How do you define enlightenment?

Complete cessation of suffering (among other things, for now, I'll go with this).

What reason would you give to support a claim that those in other traditions who are purported to be enlightened or seers of the truth are not?

They still suffer. By this I don't mean that they get crossed or stoned, but that they still see their happiness as dependent on their sights, smells, sounds, tastes, tactile sensations, and ideas being in a particular way, and their sights, smells, sounds, tastes, tactile sensations, and ideas not being that way.

It's you who seems to be arguing for Buddhist exceptionalism when it comes to enlightenment, and who seems to think you know what it consists in. I'm asking you to state your case and provide an argument for it. which you have so far failed to even attempt. I'm not claiming that secular Buddhism definitely measures up to traditional forms, I just haven't seen any reason to think it doesn't or couldn't; if you want to argue that it doesn't or couldn't then you need to provide some argument for your claim.

But when you're not listening, and not remembering.

I also have no desire to defend Buddhism, I'm chasing an altogether different ghost.

But this shouldn't be the case. There is, to the best of my knowledge, nothing in the Buddha's teachings that would preclude one from practicing according to them, even as one is a "middle-class modern westerner".

There are, of course, many things in some relation to Buddhism that a middle-class modern westerner can't be and can't do, or at least not without feeling somehow fake. For example, a middle-class modern westerner cannot have the type of faith that people born and raised in traditionally Buddhist countries have; a middle-class modern westerner cannot bow and kneel and venerate Buddha stupas with the ease and naturalness as those born and raised in traditionally Buddhist countries can. Giving alms to monks. Chanting. Sitting cross-legged. Sitting on one's heels. Taking refuge in the Three Jewels. Every day.
— baker

In the above two passages you seem to be contradicting yourself.

Where is the contradiction??

Are you saying that secular Buddhism cannot provide the means to realize enlightenment (however you define it) or not?

What makes you think I'm talking about secular Buddhism above??

Someone familiar with the Buddhist doctrine of the Pali Canon (such as @Wayfarer to whom the post you quote was a reply) will know immediately what I'm talking about.

To be honest, Baker, you just seem confused, or to be arguing for the sake of it.

This has been a tedious conversation because you're not familiar enough with the Pali Canon.

Well, no. I think that artificial and also, not natural in the sense I mean with emotional expression. We have physiological structures and neurological processes that go from stimulas to emotional reactions to expression. — Bylaw

That's skipping a lot of Buddhist doctrine and enshrining Western science as the highest ...

But generally thenatural response in humans to being poor is to try to improve the situation,

And in order to improve the situation, one has to get one's emotions under control. For example, children are taught early on not to indulge in their anger, hostility, dislike, feeling down, in order to do their homework and studies.

And if you haven't judged your fear, then you stand a better chance of picking up the cues that now is not a good time to express rage, for example. But we have been trained to think we must choose between the two.

I haven't been "trained" to think this way, so I cannot really relate.
I think that that which is usually called "emotions" is inseparable from one's thoughts. I think a person's emotions are this person's condensed ethical and ideological stances or attitudes. (I think the dichotomy head vs. heart is misleading.)

So emotions can protect one. We don't have to implicitly consider the limbic something one indulges in or disidentifies with (he dichotomy implicit in those pejorative words I highlighted, given the context of the paragraph they were in that I did read. Did you read about the dichotomy I read or did you just check to see if I focused on what you wanted me to focus on?) We don't have to view the limbic system as at odds with the prefrontal cortex and side with one. Our images of what would happen if we allowed our emotions to express much more as the rule is tainted by the situation we are in having been trained to view emotions from the eit

Like I said, I'm not "trained" that way, and it has nothing to do with my exposure to Buddhism, I was like that long before. I also don't subscribe to the current mainstream scientific theories about emotions.

I have been in catastrophic situations recently

I'm sorry to hear about that.
I think times of personal crisis are the worst time to get involved in "meaning of life questions", even though it is precisely at those times that those questions seem most pressing. Duress or hardship don't guarantee the right answer.

We are taught there is a need to choose emotions or reason.

I was never taught that. I know people often talk that way, but I don't. If anything, to me, it's all one. I don't differentiate between "head" and "heart".

Support someone else pursuing trying to reach the state they want to achieve? As long as they are not hurting me or someone else or something I value, I do this sort of thing all the time. I don't want those horrible ear rings or nose rings in my face. But if that is what someone else wants, go for it.

I'm not like that. I wouldn't openly oppose them, but I wouldn't be supportive either.

If someone wants to disidentify with their emotions, well, then fine. I object to them saying or implying that it is objctively better to do this or it is simply being realisitic. Or that, really, deep down is what would be best for me - which most Buddhists do seem to believe. I think they are incorrect. And I do think they are judging and not accepting. What is outside them is accepted, but certain natural flows are not accepted. That is their free choice to make. If it becomes the state religion, than I am a rebel. But that's unlikely in the extreme where I am.

There certainly are preachy and bossy Buddhist types who will go out of their way to tell you how wrong you are. But unless you make a point of talking to them, seeking them out even, then what does it matter to you what they believe about this or that?

How do you even know what Buddhists (of whichever kind) believe, unless you actually go out of your own way to find out, going into their territory?

Our current justice system sometimes allows for the guilty to go free and sometimes convicts the innocent. These are simply unavoidable evils, and in lieu of a more practical alternative, is something we just have to accept. And the same is true of our COVID regulations. — Michael

Sure, but then the government rhetoric should reflect this harsh reality. Although it's not actually harsh, it's the reality of living on this planet.

And the public discourse should reflect this as well.

The government is a repressive institution that is at least nominally interested in the wellbeing of the state, and for this it is willing, ready, and able to sacrifice the lives of some of its citizens, and citizens need to be aware of this, rather than thinking of the government as some kind of friend, older brother, or parent.

and it appears now that a lot of vaxed people still get sick. — Cartuna

Yes. The current numbers for Slovenia are:
40 % of those hospitalized for covid are vaccinated
20 % of those needing intensive care are vaccinated