But have you read anything from the primary Buddhist text, the Pali Canon?

Is Buddhism even concerned about philosophical truth? — Gregory

It doesn't seem to, as the analogy with the handful of leaves illustrates.

https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/SN/SN56_31.html

(Okay, let's be serious.)

I agree with Un. It's not to say that anyone will 'attain Nirvāṇa' just like so, but there's a practical side to Buddhism. Speculating about whether Nirvāṇa is simply non-existence is an exercise in tail-chasing. — Wayfarer

There are dozens of purported pathways of practice to Nirvana. How do you know which one to choose?

Speculating about whether Nirvāṇa is simply non-existence is an exercise in tail-chasing.

Assuming that one means something by the words one uses, how can one practice toward Nirvana, if one has no idea what it is? (Or at best, only has an Oxford English Dictionary kind of definition of it.)

Really? "Do something", and then, once you attain nirvana, you'll know it.

Sounds as much like a plan as deciding to go to Katowice, and then just "going until you get there", without consulting any maps.

Try it, and find out. — unenlightened

Try what, find out what?

What the term "nirvana" means?

I ask these questions, because they lie at the very heart of the misgivings that I have long had regarding Buddhism. — Michael Zwingli

What is the source for your understanding of Buddhist doctrine?

A consideration like this is only relevant if a person sees themselves as a worthy member of society, and if society sees one as a worthy member.
— baker
I'm not sure what you mean. — Cabbage Farmer

Disenfranchized people and those on the verge of disenfranchizement are less likely to cooperate with the government's agenda and with society at large.

You can't convince outsiders and outcasts with such arguments, especially not if you yourself have cast them out.
— baker
I haven't cast anyone out. If someone is strongly disposed to flee from people who disagree with them in conversation, I might not try very hard to stop them. Depends on the circumstances.

I'm talking about people who are disenfranchized by the government or by society at large, and people who are on the verge of such disenfranchizement.

I'm not sure what this means either. I agree, however, that the urgency of present circumstances makes a strong case in favor of democratic socialism as an alternative to complacent liberal incrementalism. As if the suffering and exploitation of generations of oppressed and marginalized people for centuries to come were not sufficient to jog the liberals from their self-satisfied delusion.

We're now beginning to pay the price of centuries of suffering and exploitation of generations of oppressed and marginalized people by capitalism and liberalism.

Time's up.

So you think it makes perfect sense to expect the disenfranchized to play along as if all was well??

There should be a forum section for the philosophy of productivity and the philosophy of personal organization. Seriously. Doing (academic) philosophy is one thing, but if it doesn't translate into how one lives one's daily life, then either isn't worth much.

Normally, self-help books tend to gloss over the philosophical underpinnings of productivity and personal organization, but there are some that don't, or at least not so much. For example:

https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Things-Done-Stress-Free-Productivity/dp/0142000280
https://www.amazon.com/Ready-Anything-Productivity-Principles-Getting/dp/0143034545/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

(The second one is a bite size rewrite of the first -- and interesting approach in its own right.)


https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Work-Focused-Success-Distracted/dp/0349411905/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1635600450&sr=1-1

“There is the case where a disciple of the noble ones notices:

“When this is, that is.

“From the arising of this comes the arising of that.

“When this isn’t, that isn’t.

“From the cessation of this comes the cessation of that.

“In other words:

“From ignorance as a requisite condition come fabrications.

“From fabrications as a requisite condition comes consciousness.

“From consciousness as a requisite condition comes name-&-form.

“From name-&-form as a requisite condition come the six sense media.

“From the six sense media as a requisite condition comes contact.

“From contact as a requisite condition comes feeling.

“From feeling as a requisite condition comes craving.

“From craving as a requisite condition comes clinging/sustenance.

“From clinging/sustenance as a requisite condition comes becoming.

“From becoming as a requisite condition comes birth.

“From birth as a requisite condition, then aging & death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair come into play. Such is the origination of this entire mass of stress & suffering.

“Now from the remainderless fading & cessation of that very ignorance comes the cessation of fabrications.

From the cessation of fabrications comes the cessation of consciousness.

From the cessation of consciousness comes the cessation of name-&-form.

From the cessation of name-&-form comes the cessation of the six sense media.

From the cessation of the six sense media comes the cessation of contact.

From the cessation of contact comes the cessation of feeling.

From the cessation of feeling comes the cessation of craving.

From the cessation of craving comes the cessation of clinging/sustenance.

From the cessation of clinging/sustenance comes the cessation of becoming.

From the cessation of becoming comes the cessation of birth.

From the cessation of birth, then aging & death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair all cease.

Such is the cessation of this entire mass of stress & suffering.

“This is the noble method that he has rightly seen & rightly ferreted out through discernment.

https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/AN/AN10_92.html

plus i’m in Australia. Much less class oriented than many places. — Wayfarer

Indeed.

Anyway, and I don't mean this to belittle you, my point is that you work yourself up over very little. So you realized that your sila is lacking. It's very common. It's no reason to give up on the practice or to drastically change one's religious inclinations or affiliations. The idea that it is better to be a fallen brahmana than a good sudra speaks to one's pride, one's ego, it's easy on the ego. Admitting that one is a beginner can be extremely difficult to come to terms with because it can be perceived as so offensive. But it's where things begin. And one has to start somewhere, if one is to move from the spot.

The system for reporting side effects of vaccination varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. In some countries, there is an official webpage on which they can be reported -- but only a doctor can enter the data. Whether doctors actually enter the data is questionable, as they are already overburdened with the regular administrative tasks. There is anecdotal evidence suggesting that doctors often don't report side effects of covid vaccination.

So it's impossible to properly calculate the risks of vaccination.

Running the risk of side effects is low and less dangerous compared to infection chance, possibility of death is also lower by taking the vaccine. — SpaceDweller

Based on what statistics?

It made me most uncomfortable to do so. I gave casual talks, to small audiences, several times over the years. Is that 'a position of status'? I did an MA in the subject, from which nothing material ever eventuated. — Wayfarer

Sure, it's a position of status. You could have picked up from there and move up the hierarchical ladder.

There's a saying -- Better to be a fallen brahmana than a good sudra.

I never had any kind of experience of being discriminated against or patronised by any organisation, was never really part of one.

I suppose things are easier for men, esp. men with advanced degrees.

I'm nearing fifty and in my entire life, there has not been a single occasion, IRL or online, where I felt I could speak "freely".

There is no such thing as "free speech", there are always repercussions for what one says. Some are not so grave (such as being told off), some result in imprisonment and death, and then everything inbetween.

Things may be better for the rich and the powerful. But even they have their own power games and competition going on, so even they cannot just afford to speak "freely".

Well, it does seem to offer a different way of seeing the world and that in itself may be beneficial possibly exhilarating given how often we seem to get suck using the familiar approaches. But it seems to me you need to be an academic, a theorist or serious student of philosophy to acquire a robust understanding of phenomenology. — Tom Storm

I think that, for practical intents and purposes, a major downside of phenomenology is that taking it up as the way to view the world, it has an alienating effect on one's interpersonal relationships and it makes daily work hard to the point of impossible to do. Because in order to meaningfully pursue relationships with others and meaningfully do work, one, generally, has to think as an objectivist, one has to take for granted that there are other people who really exist out there, and that there are real objects out there with which one can do things. In contrast, seeing everything as somehow being a matter of one's own experience is downright debilitating.

Phenomenology is actually incorporated into some Dharmic religions. But where the Western phenomenologists leave off, the Dharmic religions pick up. But from here on, the discussion would necessarily need to get very techincal in and on Dharmic terms.

And I ask again, — schopenhauer1

And I say again,

This "preventing suffering of future people by not creating them at all" business is all just the antinatalist's ego indulgence, nothing more. — baker

Glad to see you're getting something useful out of this.
In philosophy, there's no way around reading, and reading a lot.

I have read a lot of books but I only remember some impressions and the odd idea. — Tom Storm

I don't want to read books or any other texts that way. I've always struggled to "read for pleasure", but in the last years, moreso than ever. By now, I want to read studiously, or not at all. If after reading, I don't have something relevant to show for (primarily this means important insights that I have implemented in life, and secondarily, systematically knowing at least the main themes of the text), then I don't want to read at all. I'm not a perfectionist. It simply seems like a waste of time to do something (in this case, read), and then have nothing to show for one's time.

The reason I ended up here was to see what I may have missed and also to participate in some discussions - I was going to give it 4 weeks.

And you let yourself be taught to drink and to put off your departure!

Which books do you recommend?

Heh. Nice of you to ask. Books that help one not waste time, but instead to do things effectively and efficiently.

And it's arguably inhumane as well as irrational, if the total risk they would take on by receiving the vaccine is significantly less than the total risk they would add to the rest of the world by their refusal. — Cabbage Farmer

A consideration like this is only relevant if a person sees themselves as a worthy member of society, and if society sees one as a worthy member.

You can't convince outsiders and outcasts with such arguments, especially not if you yourself have cast them out.


The vocal pro-vaccers don't seem to understand that they cannot simultaneously push for a liberal agenda as well as a socialist agenda, as the two are mutually exclusive.

I'm tempted to say it's an exercise of power. For some reason they don't understand that they're only hurting themselves and their loved ones. — frank

There's a theme that the vocal pro-vaccers don't seem to understand, and which is also strongly tabooed in our society. I've brought up this theme several times in these discussions, with little, and mostly no reply. The theme is: Is life worth living?

There are some people who flat out have a death wish, but who don't commit suicide. Such people welcome dangerous situations in which they could die.

Then there are those who wish death upon others and who less or more actively act in accordance with that desire.

Then there are those who are bored of life, or sick of life. They don't actively want to die, but they don't want to live either. These are the resignated types who don't seek death, but who don't mind if it comes.

Then there are those who believe that if their "time has come", then "that's it", and they will die. People who have accepted the inevitability of (their own) death.

It's not clear what percentage of the population is in these categories or how consistently, but they exist.
These people are not likely to get vaccinated or seek much other medical treatment.


These above categories and topics are not something society at large would want to openly talk about, and the people in them themselves aren't likely to be open about their motivations with just anyone. They just seem like regular anti-vaccers or the vaccination-hesitant.

To change them (and to get them vaccinated or follow other epidemiological measures), one would need to convince them that life is worth living -- more: that _every_ life is worth living.

But nobody is really interested in that, right?

Some of the people in the above categories are the detritus of capitalism and liberalism. Capitalists and liberals certainly don't clean up after themselves.

Yes. Some do actually hold out (against vaccination) even after their bodies have been ravaged by the disease.

You keep forgetting the issue of social trust. Capitalism and liberalism encourage the destruction of social trust. It usually takes social trust to agree to a medical treatment, even more so after one has been negatively affected by what other people did.

Some archetype on the scene, maybe. Jung said to ask yourself what myth you're in. We can try to understand that about others.

This is offensive.

No. Why do you ask?

Now tell me: How would you go about teaching [insert name of American reality tv celebrity] how to feel shame?

Although I do love the forests and the mountains and the rivers and the lakes here in this country.

I don't love "my" country, and "my" country was an underling to monarchies for centuries, and, if anything, on the receiving end of genocide or colonialism or continuing exploitation which remains unaddressed.

Bah. Emoting is not a given, it's culturally conditioned. Yes, we learn how to feel about something, we can be taught how to feel about something. Advertisers know this well.

Mkay. Another idea: In some (older) cultures, the socially expected response to shame is humility, and with it, minimalism.

Can you sketch out your idea of how a person under capitalism can feel shame?

In other words, can personally revealed wisdom be considered truthful and authoritative?

For the purposes of this discussion, wisdom is defined as "useful and sound insight(s)".

Is personal Gnosis legitimate wisdom? — Bret Bernhoft

Where's the catch in this OP?

Why ask such a question? Out of fear of being duped? Or is it based on the concern that personal gnosis is, essentially, a case of epistemic luck?

But shame fuels consumerism, thus fueling capitalism.

I don't remember ever hearing the term "bare attention" before. Beyond that, I don't see how anything written here contradicts what I've written. All of the posts in this discussion have been painted with a pretty broad brush. There's plenty of room for dotting "t"s and crossing "i"s and working out the details. — T Clark

It is sometimes said that learning how to pay attention appropriately is central to the Buddhist practice. The key term is "appropriately". There is a lot written on how to do that; and it's certainly not the kind of minimalist approach as sketched out above by your Kafka quote.
You'll need to read the whole essay I linked to to get a better sense of what I'm talking about.

Then why do you think that you can believe that, and still successfully practice Stoicism??

This. And not reading from the cannon. — Tom Storm

Darling, there's isn't much to read from the cannon.

Buy hey, I may well be wrong. After all, I'm not a philosopher.

How do you function without texts? By ignoring the fact that you read them in the past?

It's impossible to have "no texts". Leaving aside the special case of those who were born blind and/or deaf, everyone works with some texts, either by having them physically present (such as a book, or an audio) or by retrieving them from memory. — baker

That's because you don't actually believe the Stoic tenets.

Can you honestly say that you believe that "the divine logos is guiding us all, men and women"?

My cat is clever, but her EQ is piss poor. — Hanover

How do you figure? Because she's not obedient?

but, I don't perform it well in manner, yes? — Shawn

That's putting it mildly.

During the entire covid situation, I have bought/ordered exactly one single thing online, and that was car insurance, which is time sensitive. Even though I live in a country that had more than 90 straight days of strong lockdown. In that time, I simply didn't buy any clothes, shoes, technology, books, and knickknacs. Just the most necessary groceries and cosmetics at the local grocery store; and I even gave up eating commercial bread (so as to minimize trips to the store, as well as over fear of contamination, since the bread isn't pre-packaged).

Of course, if more people did that, the economy would collapse. Minimalism is not economically viable.

So, what 'position of relevance' in which organisation do you think I attained? — Wayfarer

The one that afforded you this:

/.../ in late 2017 when I gave some talks at a couple of Buddhist centres. — Wayfarer

You sat on a podium and all that, no?

The only appropriate patriotic attitude under capitalism is extreme and unabiding shame. — StreetlightX

To what end?

You're not practicing Stoicism anyway. You might as well ditch the pretense.

In this case you are preventing what could happen. — schopenhauer1

And one thing that could happen is that that future person might live a more dignified life than you, and certainly a more dignified life than you imagine they could have. And this is a possibility that you're not only willing to cast away, no, you think it's a must to do so.


This "preventing suffering of future people by not creating them at all" business is all just the antinatalist's ego indulgence, nothing more.