None of this would mean slavery would be made illegal. It would just start to become an ineffective farming strategy. — khaled

Which could make it illegal.

That would be the outcome if people never got angry at slavery and went to war over it.

I'm not convinced about this anger angle. It could be anger, or it could be disgust, revulsion, righteous indignation, strategizing, or just plain disagreement.

It's also not clear what anger can actually accomplish. Sure, if those at the top get angry at those below, this can accomplish things. But not the other way around. Getting angry with your boss and letting him know it will probably get you fired.


There is a popular idea, usually only implied, that in order to stand up for oneself, one needs to get angry. Do you believe this, if yes, why?


(As for the US Civil War, it seems that the abolition of slavery was just a "nominal theme", and that the war was actually about a number of other things.)

One of the most perilous strategies is to think that if in a democracy some actors use dubious methods, to protect democracy you have to use similar dubious methods. — ssu

What other options are there? Defeat them with your kindness?

Right and what were we disagreeing over earlier regarding interpretation? — Janus

I didn't read it as a disagreement.

I told you already, there is an old dispute about the two truths doctrine in Buddhism
— baker
So what? I haven't said that Batchelor's position is entirely novel or original.

You were approaching the conversation from the perspective that we're disagreeing. I wasn't.

If the most reliable testament we have as to what Gotama actually said is the Pali Canon, and translator's interpret that freely, according to their own prejudices, then the only way you could possibly assess the accuracy of Batchelor's translations would be to be able to read Pali (and even then how would you free yourself from your own prejudices)?

You might get a sense of where he's coming from from "a few words" but you won't know anything of his arguments for holding the position he's coming from.

Even if, due to your own entrenched commitments, you are bound to disagree with someone's position, and you know that from "a few words" it pays to familiarize yourself with the arguments of those whose positions do not agree with yours, even if only to have a coherent understanding of just why you disagree with them.

I'm not interested in a scholarly analysis of an author's work, nor in painting an objective picture of Buddhism.

What drives me is the question whether the Buddha of the Pali Canon as I know him was in fact not trying hard enough to find satisfaction in "life as it is usually lived" (and that such satisfaction can indeed be found, by everyone) and that his teaching on dependent co-arising is wrong. This is a matter of great importance to me. I address it with people who say or imply that he didn't try hard enough and that he was wrong. Batchelor is an author who quickly proved himself irrelevant to my quest. This is all that matters to me as far as he is concerned.

I can't take him seriously. He fidgets too much, his surname spelled properly means a type of bug that lives in beans, and spelled with z's means 'titty', his English pronounciation is poor, he's been married to too many pretty women. And he fidgets too much.

But some (many) don't want to be eusocial with others, they don't want to eusocially build eachother's faith in humanity with them.
For example, just look at the upper class: they don't want to eusocialize with the lower class.

I think it is sad. With the scriptures talking so much about gradual training, then, in practice, I expect gradual training, not a need for "love at first sight and forever".

Of course, the Buddhists also like to say that their teachings are only for those with "little dust in their eyes". I suppose I just have too much dust in my eyes, and they see me as too much of a liability to invest in me. I kind of can't hold that against them. But I'm still sad about it. I used to think that the Buddhists would teach me how to have faith, but I was wrong to expect that.

I think placebos typically are part of trials. — jorndoe

Ideally, they should be, yes, provided enough test subjects and time.

Don't think they capture "their psychological state and philosophical outlook" though.

Surely a person's psychological state and philosophical outlook factors in how strong the placebo or nocebo effects will be for said person.

Given that this covid situation has become so drawn out and cannot be termed an emergency anymore, I think a new, more long-term approach is needed. It would be really helpful if it would be possible to induce and even increase the placebo effect deliberately.

*sigh*

Without a comprehensive big picture view, it's not possible to come up with meaningful and viable solutions to a problem.

It seems to me that without atman we would be transcendent — Gregory

Who would be transcendent?

Coming from outside any Buddhist tradition and not bothering with due diligence before "joining", then no doubt "initiation" can be a shitshow. — 180 Proof

Oh, you think I joined, got initiated? Nothing of that kind. I read up on things first, and since that alone was inconclusive for me, not enough to make a firm decision one way or another, I approached some religions/spiritualities a bit closer, such as by visiting their groups or discussing things with individual practitioners, and further reading and listening to lectures. I thought I would visit for a while, "see how it goes", familiarize myself enough to figure out what next. But it turned out that was wrong. A few kind enough people there actually told me that my having a "bookish" background significantly contributed to my problems. Nothing in the books prepared me for the culture shock I experienced there -- namely, that those religious/spiritual people were so ordinary, just like ordinary people. The psycho-social dynamics were like highschool all over again. I was bewildered by that -- why bother with all doctrine and all those practices, if the real aim is to be exactly like the people who don't have such doctrines and practices.

In hindsight, my conclusion is that as far as religion/spirituality is concerned, if there is no "love at first sight" -- if after the first brief exposure I don't feel that this is the religion/spirituality/group/teacher I want to join for the rest of my life, then there's no point in pursuing it further. If that initial spark is not there, it's not going to happen later, no matter how much I try.

Those who possess very high IQ's are also more likely to be socially isolated and experience certain types of mental illness.
— Nicholas Mihaila
I don't think so. — Alkis Piskas

Superior IQs are associated with mental and physical disorders, research suggests
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/bad-news-for-the-highly-intelligent/

High intelligence: A risk factor for psychological and physiological overexcitabilities
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289616303324

Why highly intelligent people suffer from more mental and physical disorders
Your brain's heightened sensitivity can make you perceptive and creative. But it's a double-edged sword, researchers find.
https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/why-highly-intelligent-people-suffer-more-mental-and-physical-disorders/

And so on.

Rationality can never lead to mental illness.

If you have to function among people who are less rational than you, you will probably run into a lot of problems.

An unethical person can never be happy. Criminals are certainly not.

Do you have any research that supports that?

Legal slavery would've continued to modern times if people never got angry at it. — khaled

Not necessarily. Slavery is instrumental to a type of argiculture or industry that is aimed at producing a lot of the same thing or completing large projects. Such as massive plantations of cotton or sugar cane, or building pyramids. Where, for geographical, climate, or other environmental reasons such monocultures are impossible or are made impossible (such as by long droughts, floods, or pests), the agriculture and the industry need to downsize and diversify in order to survive at all, but by then, are not conducive to slavery anymore, at least not mass slavery.

The Reason for Expressing Opinions — I like sushi

Entitlement. "I simply have the right to express my opinions, and other must listen to them."

Duty. "I simply must express my opinions, it's what a person is supposed to do."

Compassion and teaching. "Oh, look at those poor sods, how wrong they are. It's high time I tell them how things really are, for their own betterment."

Bewilderment. "I must talk, no matter what, where, to whom."

Boredom. "Meh, I've got nothing better to do, so I'll talk."

Delusions of grandeur. "Look at me, I'm so great, I have such fancy opinions!"

Pugilism. "I'll show those motherfuckers what it means to disagree with my thoughts!!"

I genuinely don't understand why an antinatalist would care about any worldly cause. If life as such is so bad that it would be better to never have lived at all, then why care about anything?

For a relatively wealthy and healthy person who doesn't have a problem with getting their work done, earning a living, and their regular practical and social obligations, such severing as you speak of surely feels unnatural, perverse even.
— baker
I actually don't think this is true. — Bylaw

Actually, I was thinking of the French people who live in the fancy homes pictured in magazines about interior design.

I see parallels in the corporate world, where Buddhism fits nicely with a kind of stoicism. The popularity of mindfullness (don't worry I am not confusing this with a dedicated Buddhist practice in most cases) shows that people from all walks of life are craving, to varying degrees, more detachment and disidentification from emotions, something corporations are often happy to support.

Such corporate mindfulness is practiced with entirely different intentions than in a Buddhist setting, or at least some of them. Some Buddhists are very critical of corporate mindfulness.

But someone fighting a chronic illness, living in relative poverty or under social stigma, or facing such prospects, can be inclined to find ways not to be ruled by emotions. For such a person, developing equanimity can be a matter of necessity. When one is ill, poor, or has fallen from grace, or is facing such prospects, indulging in emotions in simply counterpoductive.
— baker
I highlighted the perjorative terms. And I think this has been scene as the dichotomy, both in the West and East. Indulge and be ruled by emotions or disidentify, control, suppress and/or keep from expression emotions. I think it is a false dichotomy. That accepting emotions including their expression leads to being ruled by them, etc.

You focused on what you consider the pejorative terms, but did you read the paragraph I wrote?

This is a huge subject, but even if you are correct, that maintaining the natural identification with and expression of emotions is being ruled by them and indulging
it is still Buddhism going against a natural process.

Is being poor a "natural process"?
Is being chronically ill a "natural process"?
Is falling from grace a "natural process"?

We live in societies that suppress and judge emotional expression.

Not universally, though.
Emotional expression is regulated by socioeconomic class membership, by the power differential between the persons involved, by consdieration of prospective abuse, endangerment.

There are times when you are supposed to express (certain) emotions, and times you're not.

Express your emotions to the wrong people, at the wrong time, and chances are, you will find yourself in trouble. As a victim of ridicule, bullying, or helping create an image of yourself as a weak or otherwise inappropriate person. Again, the issue isn't the expressing of emotions per se, it's that you do it in front of the wrong people, at the wrong time.

Again, if someone wants to have this as a goal, they I am all for them pursuing it. But it is not objective and it's not for me.

If you think it's so wrong, so not objective, then how can you support pursuing it?

But it is not objective

And we have to believe you're the arbiter of what is objective and what isn't?

That is not even recognizable as the same text and nor is it titled "Chapter of Eights". — Janus

Look it up yourself then. It's from the Sn.
And welcome to the wonderful world of free translations.

Batchelor's translation is suspicious from the onset. The Buddha of the Pali Canon has no qualms about praising himself or the Dhamma he discovered.
— baker

The issue was not about whther the Gotama of the Pali Canon praises himself or the Dhamma.

The point is that the Buddha would not say the sort of politically correct things that Batchelor and so many other modernists ascribe to the Buddha.

Try to focus: perhpos provide me with some quotations which contradict Batchelo'rs claim that

Yet nowhere, not even once, will we find a mention of either sammuti-sacca or paramattha-sacca in any of the hundreds of discourses attributed to Gotama in the Pali Canon.
— Janus

I told you already, there is an old dispute about the two truths doctrine in Buddhism:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_truths_doctrine

Different Buddhists, depending on their school/lineage, will take a different approach to this matter. Where the difference becomes relevant is in the practical implications that holding a particular view on this will have for oneself, for one's own approach to the teachings, and the way one relates to others.

(So that, for example, those who do believe in the two truths will expect that newcomers should take a lot more on faith.)

Says a lot about your open-mindedness, and nothing about Batchelor. I doubt you have even read his works.

Sometimes, a few words from someone are enough to get a pretty good picture of where he's coming from.

No, I'm asking you why do you, as an antinatalist, want to discuss it.

I mean, if you're not going to procreate and are not young anymore either, then why does it matter to you what happens to other people (such as whether they have a manageable work week and enough money)?

And the effects on one's relation to emotions would take many years. But that is the goal. The practices sever the natural flow of emotion to expression. — Bylaw

I think it depends on the context in which one sees this practice.

For a relatively wealthy and healthy person who doesn't have a problem with getting their work done, earning a living, and their regular practical and social obligations, such severing as you speak of surely feels unnatural, perverse even.

But someone fighting a chronic illness, living in relative poverty or under social stigma, or facing such prospects, can be inclined to find ways not to be ruled by emotions. For such a person, developing equanimity can be a matter of necessity. When one is ill, poor, or has fallen from grace, or is facing such prospects, indulging in emotions in simply counterpoductive.

Getting SARS-CoV-2 stomped down would be great. — jorndoe

I want to know the role of the placebo effect in all this.

Also, I want to know inhowfar people end up with more severe symptoms, depending on their psychological state and philosophical outlook on life.

What's the significance of putting this thread in General Philosophy?

I think there should be more radical change. Income and employment should be severed. — schopenhauer1

How does this synchronize with antinatalism?

The trick to dealing with the little man who wasn't there in Antigonish is to understand that he makes no difference to your ability to walk up the stair.

The trick in dealing with the noumenal is to understand that it makes no difference to anything you might choose to do. — Banno

To whom is the noumenal important? To those who believe in a kind of transcendence, ie. the religious, the spiritual, the theists. Those who have a stake is some unknowable thing out there being one way and not another.

Unlike you, who doesn't care whether that man upon the stair is there or not, even as you met him while he wasn't there.

The trick in dealing with the noumenal is to understand that it makes no difference to anything you might choose to do. — Banno

On the condition one is an atheist/non-spiritual/non-religious.

My point is not that the local religious accretions or sectarian schisms are not important to those involved; simply, rather, that they are, so to speak, merely dry leaves and thin branches scattered by fall & winter winds and dead tree trunks fallen by storms or forest fires, and, therefore, not the deep, wide roots of early Buddhism which persist through the seasons. — 180 Proof

Two things:

One, on the ground level, when one is actually involved in Buddhism and Buddhist life, esp. when one approaches Buddhism as an outsider who yet has to decide which Buddhist school to look into, it is virtually impossible to not get burnt by the intersectarian fights (and pulled into them, with the expectation to take sides). It can make for a deeply unsettling experience that takes a long time to recover from.

Two, it's not always easy to tell what those "local religious accretions" are and what is probably the teaching of the Buddha. (The teachings on kamma and rebirth are often dismissed as such "local religious accretions" and "historical trappings".)

Moreover, in order to establish some kind of functional relationship with Buddhists for the purpose of receiving instruction, those "local religious accretions" must sometimes be taken up, accepted, considered as relevant enough.

They accept some claims (without ever thinking to question them) and these are often spectacular claims, like a God — Tom Storm

When people are raised into God belief from early on, the issue of questioning the acceptance of the religious claims of their parents becomes moot. Those claims are so fundamental to their identity and outlook on life that they cannot question them. It would be like pulling the rug from under yourself, by yourself.

Regarding the idea that sages can directly see the ultimate truth, consider the following from Stephen Batchelor. After Buddhism Yale University Press. Kindle Edition, where he is discussing the "two truths" idea: — Janus

In Buddhism, there is fierce intersectarian fighting going on about this issue.

As for what Gotama thinks of those who talk about the “supreme” (parama), we only have to turn to the Chapter of Eights, the text cited earlier as an example of a skeptical voice in the early canon:

The priest without borders doesn’t seize on what he’s known or beheld. Not passionate, not dispassionate, he doesn’t posit anything as supreme. One who dwells in “supreme” views and presents them as final will declare all other views “inferior”— he has not overcome disputes.

Read another translation of this:
https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/KN/StNp/StNp4_11.html


Batchelor's translation is suspicious from the onset. The Buddha of the Pali Canon has no qualms about praising himself or the Dhamma he discovered.

You mentioned you are unfamiliar with secular Buddhism; Batchelor is one of its chief proponents.

He lost me at hello.

If you can give me a link to a searchable Pali Canon — Bylaw

Most complete available online:
https://suttacentral.net/pitaka/sutta

A selection:
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/
https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/index.html

I am going by Buddhist practice in any of the major traditions. What that practice is doing. Coupling that with the statements of masters in several traditions, both in the East and West and what the social pressures are like in temples both East and West, modern and traditional. From my memory what i am talking about is often not explicit. No one says emotions are bad, though some are view as per se destructive. But the practice cut off the natural feeling to expression. Emotions are passing phenomena to be observed. Officially they are not judged. They are passing forms. But the practice itself judges the flow from feeling to expression. Desire is often more openly blamed.

I know. But when it's formulated like that, it's like being thrown in at the deep end.
There is quite a bit that is supposed to happen for a person and that a person must decide on before they even go near a temple or meditation hall where they could hear such instructions as you mention. And those things that are supposed to happen before then adequately contextualize the instructions the person is given there.

No, objects have properties. — Hanover

And if there is disagreement about what those properties are?

Some indeed may think so, but that in no way means that what they believe is consistent with the early practices and the Pali canon. Fidelity to philosophical first principles are more substantive, or central to Buddhist practice, than parochial cultural variations of expression.
/.../
Maybe I'm too biased by my (Western, nonpracticing) affinity for secular Buddhism to take serious as integral to the Noble Eightfold Path (etc) the admixture of local superstitions that have accumulated over millennia. — 180 Proof

I think it's more or also that you have not experienced sectarianism among Buddhists first hand.
Witnessing this sectarian fierceness, the sheer wrath of it! That's a crossfire you don't want to find yourself in. And it can make you rethink everything you have believed thus far.

No, there's nothing particularly Stoic about that (as far as I know, in any case). — Ciceronianus

It very much is. Most ideologies/philosophies/religions propose that there are things which should not be, beings which should not exist, which must or will be destroyed, eliminated, or at least changed or punished.

Universal acceptance or the idea that the universe is perfect, flawless as it is are not the norm. Stoicism is one such exception. In some ways, Hinduism. Native American beliefs also come to mind (although I'm not sure how they integrate the arrival of colonizers, if at all).

I suppose it's the result of the dualism that induces us to think of ourselves as separate from the "external world." — Ciceronianus

Were you not taught this way? It seems to be a given in Western cultures to think there is oneself, and then there's the external world.

(For example, many religious people think of themselves as being "in this world, but not of this world".)

I don't think so, no. When I say there's no "external world" I'm simply saying there's a single world, and that we're a part of it, not apart from it. I think referring to an "external world" is confusing as it implies there's some world outside of us in which we don't participate, and perhaps even in which we don't exist, but simply observe. — Ciceronianus

Of course. It's safe to say that most people think this way, including Hindus and Indians.

I think when we refer to an "external world" which "exists independently of the mind" we've already accepted a dualism I reject.

But why do you reject it? Based on what?

We assume the existence of a mind separate from the world. I don't think our minds are separate from the world; I think they're parts of the world just as we are (necessarily so, of course).

How do you explain mental illness?

No, baker, that statement doesn't make sense. Cultural "venerations" and "gods" in countries wherever Buddhism has taken root are not – could not be – central to Buddhist practice as taught by Buddha. — 180 Proof

I replied to your post saying

I think nontheistic (i.e. "devotion (attachment) to deities" is irrelevant for – perhaps even hinders – 'moksha') best describes Buddhism. — 180 Proof

Indeed, in some Buddhist schools/lineages, "devotion (attachment) to deities" is considered relevant for liberation.

Such devas are neither "eternal" nor "karma-free" and, like all other living beings, "gods" are also working out their own salvations in Buddhist terms. Religious accretions of "gods" merely reflect, IMO, karmic attachments (re: samsāra) of local adherents. — 180 Proof

Like I said:

In Buddhism, a deva is not a permanent identity, it's a type of body that one can be born into if one has the merit. — baker

and a passage on Buddhist cosmology quoted in the post.


As for whether deity worship is "central to Buddhist practice as taught by Buddha" -- ha ha, I dare you to take this up with a Vajrayani!

Sure, all cultures have limits and taboos and encourage suppression of emotions. But in Buddhism you have a complete disidentification with them. — Bylaw

Could you reference a Buddhist source that teaches this? What you're describing sounds like what could be found in some modern secular Buddhist teachings (my knowledge of them is not very good), but I think it would be too much of a stretch to read the Pali canon that way. And I'm not saying this out of sympathy with the Pali canon or trying to defend it or present it as "normal". At best, the practice you're describing is skipping several important steps.

It's how we use it in my native language, to denote something shapeless or which changes shape, something undefined, non-specific. I've noticed English dictionaries don't point out this meaning. I thought it was an international word that has the same meaning everywhere.

But look what they're doing to us!!!!!!

An amoeba (/əˈmiːbə/; less commonly spelled ameba or amœba; plural am(o)ebas or am(o)ebae /əˈmiːbi/),[1] often called an amoeboid, is a type of cell or unicellular organism which has the ability to alter its shape, primarily by extending and retracting pseudopods.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amoeba

Well, Buddhism does separate emotion from expression Instead of a natural feeling----> expression with sound, facial expression, posture we have a witnessing process. A disidentification. Expression of emotion is a part of life. Now, of course, Buddhists do express emotions, but in practical terms it is frowned upon more than in many other subcultures (judgements of emotions and their expression is pretty common) and at the practice level one is disconnection emotion from expression. So, there's a facet of life that is cut off. — Bylaw

Not sure what you're talking about. Controlling the expression of one's emotions is common in traditional cultures, as well as in modern times ("emotional intelligence").

Well, that's the issue - the West doesn't know enough about them. — The Opposite

While the West is too amoebic to be known.

Maybe you should try living in both? Compare and contrast?

Too small a sample for analysis.

My question is, is it necessary to postulate intuition as a mental faculty that allows us to obtain metaphysical knowledge? — Wheatley

Doing so appears to be specifically religiously motivated, as a retrospective (presumably, retroactive) justification for holding a particular religious belief.

Make no mistake: I resent China. I just resent the West more.