Those whom seek nirvana, will not find it and those whom do not seek nirvana will also not find it and yet nirvana may still be found, nevertheless! — Present awareness

*sigh*
Are you enlightened?

If it is, it may explain many of the problems associated with civilization as well as philosophy. The belief the world isn't truly real or important as something else, like heaven, is; the belief that nature and our fellow creatures are ours to do with as we please; the prevalence of self-conceit; the indifference to the state of the planet; all can be seen as resulting from an assumption we aren't parts of the world or somehow superior to it. — Ciceronianus the White

This too, but I was thinking the other way around: "The world is real and important, but the individual is not. The individual is an intruder, an impostor, and it would be best if he didn't exist in the first place, and failing that, he should at least see to it that he makes himself as invisible as possible."

Sometimes, this is modified to "a specific individual" or "a specific group/category of individuals".

The facet of my philosophical views that has perhaps gotten the most push-back on these forums is my view on the relationship between the parts of philosophy like metaphysics and epistemology, which I broadly call the descriptive side of philosophy, the side concerned with reality, truth, facts, etc; and the parts of philosophy like ethics and political philosophy, which I broadly call the prescriptive side of philosophy, the side concerned with morality, goodness, norms, etc.

I'm curious if it's just a few vocal people here who disagree so vehemently, rather than the dominant opinion, and also more generally where people fall in their views on the relationship between these two domains. — Pfhorrest

I don't see how it is possible to separate between ethics and metaphysics -- thinking that they are unrelated.
I think metaphysics dictates ethics; ethics must have a metaphysical foundation. What one believes that should be done must have a foundation in how things really are.

The difficulty I have with much of this is its de facto assumption of the world as something apart from us. I think that conception is embedded in any claim of being thrown into the world without choice, as if we're from one place and have come unwilling into another. I think it's also assumed whenever we speak of the world being suspended for our viewing and understanding, and perhaps most clearly when we complain of alienation. — Ciceronianus the White

(You say this so nicely.)

Yes, the assumption of separation between self and the world. It seems to me that an essential part of being "civilized" is to hold this assumption.

I completely agree with this. But there is a certain inevitability. There is the nature of language itself which is inherently mediatory, standing "between" actualities like the feeling of happiness or dread, or deliciousness or disgust; I am referring to the actuality of these events that are qualitatively distinct from the thoughts we have of them. We call a thing by its name and its concept subsumes all particulars, but this is NOT the feeling of being abandoned by a a loved one, e.g. We don't "know" what this is, but in the calling it something, we reduce it to a manageable form that can be discussed and fit into pragmatic contexts. The point is, and this is straight out of Kierkegaard's Concept of Anxiety, reason and actuality, understanding and the "real" events of the world are ontologically different. — Constance

I would think that everyone thinks so, at least intuitively. It's not like people actually confuse words for reality.

Confusion emerges when people say things they don't mean, or when the parties involved have irreconcilably different understandings of the matter at hand -- and this in plain terms, not in some fancy, abstract sense.
"Yes, I told you that loved you, but that doesn't mean I want to be with you, so bugger off."

What is fascinating to me, off the charts fascinating,is that we can "understand" this, making, as Wittgenstein put it, for ( I know this is rather esoteric; apologies) the "other side" of the requirement for posting something. Consider when he says, "in order to draw a limit of thought, we should have the limits of both sides thinkable."

Yes. That's why a line "drawn" in the air isn't a meaningful demarcation.

THIS is his line: Metaphysical "talk" is talk about something the "other side" of which is completely unknown; no, not unknown, but just nonsense, because such an "other side", is not conceivable, for in the conceiving, one deploys "this side's" language, logic, ideas, and so forth.

I'm not sure I understand what he meant here ... He may be saying something that is strongly influenced by Christian and anti-Christian thought. Metaphysics have such a bad reputation ... and I'm not sure I can redeem it in one forum post.

So, one cannot "say" the color yellow. And this makes references to the color AS color impossible.

Still, language is good enough. It serves a purpose.

Why I say this is so fascinating is this: It is my palpable, intuitive grasp that there is someting "other" there that is not language that affirms my own metaphysical Being, for the intuitive grasp of the thing, or the color, or the pain or bliss, does not issue from the thing out there, but from me. The nonconceptual Being of the world is my own Being affirmed in the relationship.
I am aware this likely sounds far flung, but this is the way it is, and I am quite willing to defend it.

You're not an alien. You're part of this universe. :)

"You're an intruder, you don't belong here" is an assumption that seems to be tacitly held in so much of our culturally specific discourse.
This assumption could be inherited from Christianity, or from European classism, or from reductive materialism, or a combination thereof. Be that as it may, it's a culturally specific discourse that is making us alien to our own lived experience.

I came across this picture the other day, I love it: https://fakebuddhaquotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Image-from-iOS-26-1024x976-1-e1611927131807-660x559.jpg

/.../ Samvega was what the young Prince Siddhartha felt on his first exposure to aging, illness, and death. /.../

The term sought for here is Existential Anxiety. Again, and especially the reference to childhood, see Kierkegaard's Concept of Anxiety, this above plays into existential thought in a central way, not merely a sideline issue. It is THE issue, for this deathbed realization is a withdrawal from from the grand "narrative" we all live in, going work, raising a family, outings with friends, all "blindly" priveleged and hermeneutically sealed.

There is an important difference here, though: the early Buddhist samvega narrative and the existential anxiety narrative are different.

The narrative of existential anxiety is conceived within a framework of one lifetime.
The early Buddhist one is conceived of in the framework of rebirth.

The person who conceives of life in the framework of one lifetime experiences the threat of loss of everything that is meaningful and dear to him as unique, ultimate, and fatal.

The person who conceives of life in the framework of many lifetimes experiences the threat of loss of everything that is meaningful and dear to him as serial, cyclical: they get it and then they lose it, and then they get it again, and lose it again, and so on.

That's how such a person sees those things as inherently unsatisfactory, whereas the person who thinks in terms of one lifetime, doesn't.

This is how the existential anxiety of a Western secular existentialist is qualitatively different from the existential anxiety as experienced by a rebirthist.

hermeneutically sealed

Heh.

I know you would like thinking more controlled in this way. Tell you what, I'll call what I do with Buddhist thinking, "philosophical Buddhism". Just thought of it, and it seems there should be no objections.

The Buddhism of philosophers, a la the God of philosophers ...

So the questioner is applying the Socratic method to themselves?

My point is this: regardless of word accuracy, does what was said resonate within you as being true? — Present awareness

Do you mean the things you ascribed to the Buddha? No.

The strength of the US is that the US means so many different things to different people. — ssu

The perfect Humpty Dumpty land, then!

Do you mean that when it comes to things intellectual, asking questions is always a matter of the Socratic method?

It does”t really matter whom said what or if anyone said anything, what matters most is does any of what was reported as being said, make any sense to you? — Present awareness

One cannot just ascribe to someone some words just because they "make sense to one". That's bestial.

"This makes sense to me, therefore, [insert name of favorite religious/spiritual figure] said it" --?????

The US is a free country and everyone is responsible for themselves.
— baker

...and there's your problem. — Banno

I was being cynical.

It seems that the only way to live up to the American ideals of freedom and responsibility would be to abolish the United States of America altogether.

Like they say, The greatest trick that the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he doesn't exist.

Growing up, it was my family constantly reminding me that the world outside is a 'bad place'. — OneTwoMany

The opposite: I was expected to believe, on pain of physical punishment, that the world is a good place.

So he was acquitted, as expected. Now what?

The OP was not asking about the veracity of Buddhist doctrine, but only if any human mind can achieve an altered state in which the sufferings of life, and the fear of death are of no consequence. — Gnomon

Such states are trivially possible. Just ask any meth addict.

The salient point is, and this is where veracity issues come into play, 1. whether such an altered state can be brought about deliberately, and 2. whether the person can be in such a state and still go about their daily life in a productive way.

"Deep meditation" and trance states are fine, but of entirely no use, if you can't handle being stuck in traffic for three hours with three crying children in the backseat.

The US is a free country and everyone is responsible for themselves.

Faith is not an valid argument. — Gus Lamarch

But it _is_ _their_ argument.

Most religious people have come to believe their religious doctrine before they were even old enough for their capacities for critical thinking to develop. This is the norm in religions, not just monotheistic ones. These religious people simply don't know any other way. Epistemically, they are in a situation that is impossible to deliberately replicate for an adult person. They cannot empathize with non-believers, and non-believers cannot empathize with them. This is why any attempt to discuss the justification for a person's religious belief is bound to be fruitless.

There is no such thing as an enlightened person, there is only an enlightened moment. All religions are based on someone else’s words.

If you google Buddhism, the text will be there. — Present awareness

At 27 posts, you should be able to already post links.


There are all kinds of things circulated around as being "the teachings of the Buddha".
One would hope that the people who are making those claims would have enough respect for the Buddha not to ascribe to him words he didn't say, or words for which there is good reason to believe or suspect he did not say them.

Which one says it's all an illusion? — frank

That would be more Mahayan-ish.
It's ironic, to say the least, that the one Buddhist religion that maintains that the world needs saving and which is willing to go to tremendous lengths to save others, also maintains, for all practical intents and purposes, that it's "all an illusion".


Early Buddhism and Theravada hold that one person cannot save another person, and so there can be no question of "the world needing to be saved".

Who is President now?

So, you have nothing. — Benkei

That's a nifty princple!

If a person does something that would normally be prosecuted, but they do it close to the end of their term, in a time-window too short for the legal proceedings of prosecution to take place, then said person must be allowed to get away with what they've done.

Yay!

They say a picture is worth a thousand words -- here's one, with a few words to it:

https://fakebuddhaquotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Image-from-iOS-26-1024x976-1-e1611927131807-660x559.jpg

The words attributed to the Buddha have formed the basis of the Buddhist religion. After achieving enlightenment, the Buddha taught that “desire is the root cause of all suffering” and

that “everything is impermanent, so avoid attachment and cultivate appreciation for all that IS, here and now. — Present awareness

Again, what is your canonical support for this claim?

My understanding of Nirvana is that it is not a goal of meditation but rather a resulting state of mind, once all mental disturbances cease.

Are you enlightened? Have you attained at least stream-entry?
If not, you have to base your understanding on someone else's words, on some text. It's this text I'm asking about.

The world doesn't need to be saved. /.../ Is that Buddhist? — frank

I think it's consistent with early Buddhism and Theravada, but not with Mahayana/Vayrajana.

It is something not needed by the truly noble — Tobias

What does Nietzsche say about nobility: Is it something that one either has or doesn't have, or is it something that can be learned, developed?

In Buddhism, desire of any kind leads to suffering. Nirvana is the absence of desire, a presence of mind which is neither for or against whatever IS in the present moment. — Present awareness

What is your canonical support for this claim?

I don't know if the monk achieved Nirvana, but if "good works" count for anything in Buddhist tradition, he should go down in history as a saint — Gnomon

That's the official party line, yes -- that he was a saint. But if you stick around Buddhism -- different schools of Buddhism -- long enough, you'll see that not all Buddhist opinions view those self-immolations so favorably.

It's just that it's not likely that those different opinions will ever become mainstream, given that Buddhist monks aren't supposed to publicly criticize other monks.

What these are is unspeakable, which is Wittgenstein's point. The world "shows " us this, but this will not be contained in language. — Constance

The limits of my language are the limits of my world. If I widen my linguistic abilities, I will be able to talk about things that previously seemed ineffable.

The wonder turns to shocking revelation that there is no foundation to our existence, and nihilism asserts itself. Nihilism is very disturbing only if one thinks about it. Ethical nihilism is, by my thinking, impossible. Call this dread: the meeting of deep suffering and no foundational redemptive recourse. — Constance

and

It's a good point. Dread has always been a poor concept to describe the "feeling" of that penetrating understanding that we are thrown into a world, not of digital realities, but actuality, where reason is undone. To me, this is an extraordinary thing, but the dread of it issues from the, I dare call it, objective need for redemption. Redemption is a moral term, and the world is morally impossible as it stands before us. This is not a psychological matter, an emotional deficit or deformity on my part: it is at the very core of our actuality — Constance

It seems that what you're talking about is called samvega in early Buddhism, here as defined by Thanissaro Bhikkhu:

/.../ Samvega was what the young Prince Siddhartha felt on his first exposure to aging, illness, and death. It's a hard word to translate because it covers such a complex range — at least three clusters of feelings at once: the oppressive sense of shock, dismay, and alienation that come with realizing the futility and meaninglessness of life as it's normally lived; a chastening sense of our own complacency and foolishness in having let ourselves live so blindly; and an anxious sense of urgency in trying to find a way out of the meaningless cycle. This is a cluster of feelings we've all experienced at one time or another in the process of growing up, but I don't know of a single English term that adequately covers all three.

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/affirming.html

The joy? Absolutely! This, I think, is what Buddhism is about.

I'd like you to be more careful/specific when using the word "Buddhism". I'm not sure you appreciate the vast and unbridgeable differences between some Buddhist schools.

where a certain class of people were filled with resentment about their bad predicament — Ross Campbell

List three examples of people who were faced wtith a bad predicament and who were not filled with resentment.

That would be specifically a Mahayana/Vajrayana perspective, but not generally a Buddhist one.

I don't think we even call that shadenfreude, because we don't see it as the perpetrators misfortune, but as something that the perpetrator deserves. I think the example that ↪baker gave can be viewed similarly. — ssu

So how about the perpetrator? What about his feelings? They don't matter? The other person -- oh, the perpetrator -- is, thinks, intends, and feels whatever those accusing him of a wrongdoing claim that he is, thinks, intends, and feels?

the point being made is it is a sadistic life to imagine everyone that's different from you will burn eternally while your group floats amongst angels. There is no evidence either will happen but it is sadistic to subscribe to such a thought. — OneTwoMany

It's religiously justified narcissism to the extreme.

If, as a homeowner, someone breaks into your house while your family is home, and kills someone, then gets caught, would you not be glad the man who murdered a member of your family is in jail? What about as a neighbor or just someone reading about it in the paper. Should they too not be glad a dangerous person can no longer bring harm and misery to others? — Outlander

By all means, non-Christians are dangerous persons who deserve to burn in hell for all eternity!! So that they can no longer bring harm and misery to the righteous Christians who have the most powerful being in the universe on their side!!

But in this case, the monk sacrificed his own life for the betterment of his society. — Gnomon

Please explain how his suicide contributed to the betterment of his society.

So this dramatic demonstration of love for others

Where is the "love for others" in his killing himself?

may have contributed to the eventual downfall of the Deim regime, which was being supported by the US military.

How?? By shocking them into having mercy for the Vietnamese Buddhists?

As a Buddhist monk, he was not likely in favor of Communism specifically, but of regime-change in general.

He was a Mahayana monk, not a Theravada one, so different rules apply.
Still, as far as Buddhist monks go, it's strange for a monk to get involved into social and political issues, given that a Buddhist monk is said to have renounced the world.


(Too bad you have to quote a Christian scripture to defend the acts of a Buddhist.)

To me this is a world where no one is justified to claim they know anything — Anopheles

Most people disagree. So you're in the minority.

Some historical background for the practice of auto-cremation in Chinese Buddhism:

/.../
In Chinese Buddhism, for example, self-immolation has a long and well-documented history. From written records, we know of several hundred Chinese Buddhist monks, nuns, and laypeople who offered up their bodies for a variety of reasons—though not usually in protest against the state—from the late 4th century to the present. The majority burned themselves to death, often in staged public spectacles. (Scholars use the term auto-cremation for this rather than the more common self-immolation, which means “self-sacrifice.”) The numerous accounts and discussions of self-immolation in Chinese records make it clear that many Buddhist authors did not condemn it as an aberrant or deviant practice but understood it as a bodily path to awakening. For Chinese Buddhists, in fact, auto-cremation belonged to a set of practices collectively known as “abandoning the body.”
/.../
The mass of data that we have about self-immolation in Chinese history shows that self-immolation was not considered a marginal or deviant act. On the contrary, it was relatively common and largely respected within the tradition. In fact, the Chinese example has motivated Buddhist practitioners well into modern times. It is known, for example, that Thich Quang Duc, the scholarly Vietnamese monk who burned himself to death in 1963 to protest the South Vietnamese government’s treatment of Buddhists, was conversant not only with the scriptural sources for auto-cremation—he chanted the Lotus Sutra every day—but also with the history of Chinese auto-cremators who had gone before him.
/.../
https://tricycle.org/magazine/self-immolation/

However, his sacrifice may also have been a supreme example of altruism. — Gnomon

How is immolating oneself an example of altruism??

seeing as suicide and suffering vs non suffering is a continuum common to all cultures ways of life and doctrines — Benj96

In dharmic religions, suicide is not seen as an end to suffering. In those religions, killing oneself in an effort to end suffering only leads to another rebirth/reincarnation, and generally not a good one.

I think this is a generally accepted human ideal no? Egalitarianism — Benj96

Not at all.

For further discussion, you need to be more specific which religion or culture you want to talk about.

In summary, a neither x nor not-x denial stance can arise from either knowledge or ignorance. In the case of Buddhism, which is it? — TheMadFool

Self-realized masters are said to have first-hand knowledge, while aspirants don't.

For an aspirant, Buddhist doctrinal claims are epistemically, dogmas, things he takes for granted, on faith.

However, the neither x nor not-x is not just a rejection of dualistic weltanschauungs is it? — TheMadFool

I suggest you look up neti neti and ex negativo.

It's a way to define something by pointing out what it saliently is not.

How does one resolve to treat everyone equally (love thy neighbour) without being chastised for not putting family first? — Benj96

Who is commanding you, and where, to "treat everyone equally"??