Sceptics and the Buddha, a thread for everyone else :) [Archive]

epepke

9th January 2006, 10:35 AM

On my local NPR station there was a great story yesterday on a show that explores faith and spirituality. They had a guy who had gone to Nippon to learn buddhism and is now the head of a misdwest temple.

He said something that I totaly disagree with, he sated that he felt that buddhism is about something 'deeper' than just 'everyday suffering', that it addresses 'the existential sufferin' and he totaly ignored the practical aspect of buddhism.

I was very un-enlightened and almost crashed my car from laughing so hard.

----
I am also sceptical of the practise of asking the buddha for favors and circumnabulation of stupas.

Frankly, "existential suffering" went out the window for me the first time I was admitted to a hospital for pancreatitis. Something like that really puts things into perspective.

I also notice that Buddhism seems to have a different meaning for every word. It's not suffering; it's Suffering. It's not being awake, it's Being Awake. It's not mind; it's Mind. It's not nothing; it's Nothing, unless it's Nothingness, which is Nothing with a plus sign. And so on and so on, unless it's some other word that can't be translated into English.

I've asked questions about Buddhism here and elsewhere, and it's looking more and more to me like a bunch of people who adopt a common vocabulary and feel smug about how they get it.

I mean, Christianity has it's stupidities. The idea that there is a universe-spanning entity that somehow cares terribly much what I do with my penis is stupid. Or that such an entity acts like a complete jerk until he turns himself into a human. But at least the basic ideas are clear. A nine-inch nail going through a wrist and into a piece of wood is easily understood.

username

9th January 2006, 11:52 AM

I've asked questions about Buddhism here and elsewhere, and it's looking more and more to me like a bunch of people who adopt a common vocabulary and feel smug about how they get it.

By reading a book? I mean if I walked from here to Tibet and then spent 20 years in a monastary then perhaps I would have expended sufficient effort to have something to feel smug about. All I did was read a book, not much to feel smug about there.

Melendwyr

9th January 2006, 11:57 AM

But at least the basic ideas are clear. A nine-inch nail going through a wrist and into a piece of wood is easily understood. If you think the traditional Christian explanations of the Crucifixion are simple and clear, you're out of your frakking mind.

epepke

9th January 2006, 01:26 PM

By reading a book? I mean if I walked from here to Tibet and then spent 20 years in a monastary then perhaps I would have expended sufficient effort to have something to feel smug about. All I did was read a book, not much to feel smug about there.

And so you take a general comment personally?

yrreg

9th January 2006, 03:02 PM

On my local NPR station there was a great story yesterday on a show that explores faith and spirituality. They had a guy who had gone to Nippon to learn buddhism and is now the head of a misdwest temple.

I know a guy who was a habitué of bars, he ended up opening a chain of bars and makes a lot of money -- saving also a lot in the process.

When I was a kid there was a neighbor who frequented the local bordello much more often than the rest of guys in the neighborhood known to visit the place also. He ended up with his own bordello, making a lot of money and getting all the fun with his girls, withal saving a lot of money.

Right now there is a woman in the neighborhood who used to hang around in what we call home casinos or private gambling dens, operated by ordinary folks in their homes or in rented places as joint ventures. She ended up also running a private gambling den, making a lot of money and saving a lot herself.

Have you noticed that a lot of Buddhist enthusiasts also operate retreat places or give seminars on Buddhist meditation, Buddhist spirituality?

Now, D David, if you are smart you should go and do as that guy returning from Japan has achieved; that's the best combination: an enthusiastic life philosophy/religion and a good financial return from it, and important also social and academic prestige to boot.

Yrreg

yrreg

9th January 2006, 03:08 PM

epepke

9th January 2006, 03:15 PM

Dear Epepke: please tell me where I have read about dense and abstruse philosophy writers who also have this habit of drawing special attention to their ordinary words by enclosing them within quotation marks or something like that, indicating that the reader should know what they mean in a special most telling manner by those ordinary words -- but they will never come out to just simply define them.

I haven't the foggiest.

However, I do have a copy of The Cynic's Lexicon in the toilet. If I ever come across something like that, I'll let you know.

Pae

9th January 2006, 04:05 PM

but I have found it rather interesting in terms of it's presentation of cause and effect.

As in if I do something ''bad'' to you, something bad will happen to me?

username

9th January 2006, 05:36 PM

And so you take a general comment personally?

No, not at all. You said that both here and elsewhere you found buddhists (of which I am not one even though I am studying and practicing it as of this moment) to show smugness concerning their 'private' language.

I have no idea what places 'elsewhere' includes, but I know what 'here' refers to.

You further said they showed smugness regarding 'how' they attained their understanding of the words.

My comment 'by reading a book' was meant to convey that I understand the meaning of the words simply by reading an inexpensive book.

If *I* can understand the meaning of the words from having read a single book then anyone can. If anyone can then there is nothing to be smug about.

I haven't perceived anyone to be smug concerning their knowledge of buddhism 'here'.

You have your opinions based upon your experiences and your interpretations of them. My own experiences and interpretations lead me to a different conclusion, but such is life.

I am sorry if my post came over as insulting in any way. For all I know I may have somewhat intended it to be a bit insulting and that would have been/was wrong of me.

username

9th January 2006, 05:46 PM

As in if I do something ''bad'' to you, something bad will happen to me?

No, this would be a 1 for 1 cause and effect relationship and this isn't the sense in which I find karma to be 'true'. That is to say it isn't true according to my experience. Of course if anyone intentionally and knowingly does a bad thing, they do experience a bad thing in terms of what happens to their conscience. It either experiences guilt or it is further deadened.

The sense in which I find karma to be true is that when we do good things, other good things often occur. Sometimes these good things reward us in that the good comes back to us directly or we witness something good happening to someone else that wouldn't have happened had we not done a good thing. Othertimes we don't see the good effects that our goodness has had, but that doesn't mean it doesn't occur.

On another forum there is a guy who seems really kind and giving. He has volunteered his time to assist the university he is at and now he is seeking a teaching position at a university on the other side of the country. A University is interested in him and requested an interview. Problem is the guy is flat broke and can't afford to go to the interview. Staff at the university are taking care of it for him. This would be an example of direct karma where the good we do rewards us personally or directly.

An indirect example would be our paying a sincere compliment to a stranger we encounter and this results in their feeling good, better than they did before. They then respond with greater patience or compassion than they normally would to someone else because of their improved mood.

This is the way in which I find karma to be true. Unfortunately it is just as true with bad actions as good ones.

I like to relate it to the idea of going back in the past with a time machine and considering how even the most harmless, insignificant actions we take while in the past could, by the ripple effect, alter the present dramatically.

In the same way our present actions have just as much influence over the future, but we (I) generally don't appreciate this truth enough.

Dancing David

10th January 2006, 06:12 AM

Frankly, "existential suffering" went out the window for me the first time I was admitted to a hospital for pancreatitis. Something like that really puts things into perspective.

I also notice that Buddhism seems to have a different meaning for every word. It's not suffering; it's Suffering. It's not being awake, it's Being Awake. It's not mind; it's Mind. It's not nothing; it's Nothing, unless it's Nothingness, which is Nothing with a plus sign. And so on and so on, unless it's some other word that can't be translated into English.

I've asked questions about Buddhism here and elsewhere, and it's looking more and more to me like a bunch of people who adopt a common vocabulary and feel smug about how they get it.

I am sorry to read that, there are the woos in buddhism as they are evenly distributed throughout the universe.

But about the common vocabulary and smugness, I am very saddened. Buddhism does not have simple answers for any questions and this leads to some confusion, but those who use the capital letters most leikely don't get it.
The buddha never spoke in such terms and limited himself to human experiences and human examples.

There is no Nothing, there is no Being Awake, such concepts are just further crap to delude the mind and prevent mindful living.

I mean, Christianity has it's stupidities. The idea that there is a universe-spanning entity that somehow cares terribly much what I do with my penis is stupid. Or that such an entity acts like a complete jerk until he turns himself into a human. But at least the basic ideas are clear. A nine-inch nail going through a wrist and into a piece of wood is easily understood.

The concepts of buddhism are also very clear, but some delight in elaboration and would gild the lily.

The basic premise of the buddha is that our thoughts and acts can lead to us feeling worse. If we engage in a harm reduction model and reduce the thoughts and acts that that lead to suffering, then we will suffer less.

I think that the greatest struggle for modern reductionsits, like myself, is that the buddha beleieved in the interdependance of all things and therefore there are no simple answers. The buddha also taught that each thing is unique and therefore comparisons are misleading. Two very radical concepts to the current scientific model.

Dancing David

10th January 2006, 06:18 AM

Now, D David, if you are smart you should go and do as that guy returning from Japan has achieved; that's the best combination: an enthusiastic life philosophy/religion and a good financial return from it, and important also social and academic prestige to boot.

Yrreg

Funny Gerado, how you think you can just tell me what is happening in my life.

I suggest that you mount your hobbie horse and apply for the challenge and taut your psychic powers.

How pompus and smug you appear, I have more life than you imagine. I am content and have no need to aquire social, economic or academic prestige.

Blessings to you in your trolldom, I plonk thee in this thread!
PLONK.

Dancing David

10th January 2006, 06:31 AM

As in if I do something ''bad'' to you, something bad will happen to me?

Bad is so subjective.

If you do something that leads to suffering, that suffering creates other suffering. Sort of like when the office gossip creates more unhappiness than happiness.
I shall discuss my most recent challenge in life, beside the trials of crisis counseling.

I have a house that we rent and I like to feed birds, if there was more of a yard I would also plant things that attract butterflies. I like to foster life when I can.

I have a bird feeder and there are many squirrels in my neighborhood, they like to eat any thing and they like to chew on every thing.

In the last three years I have had some sucsess in keeping the squirells from eating the biord feeer, mainly by feeding solely millet and thistle seed. But I like this budget food from Farm and Fleet, it really attracts the birds but it has cracked sunflower seeds in it, even though it is not listed as an ingerdient.

Last year the squirells jusy hovered it off the ground and were content. This year they, or one perhaps, found that by chewing the plactic retainer on the feeder ports the bird seed would be liberally deistributed.
So they have chewed on the rope, they have eaten all the plastic that they can, in short they have destroyed the feeder and reduced it's capacity to hold the seed.

In the past I would have added to my own suffering by becoming aggravated and cursing the squirrels, obsessing about them doing what they do.

This year I have just bought a new feeder and used super glue to affix the baffle into the ports where the squirel can not chew it off. This process has taken about a month. They have caused damage to the feeder on an almost daily basis, until the equilibrium was reachede the seed is retained and the chewing is ineffective.

But this is just an example.

If somone is rude and mean to you, it usualy means that you will be mean and rude to others, thereby creating more suffering.

That is my interpretation of karma.

epepke

10th January 2006, 06:32 AM

My comment 'by reading a book' was meant to convey that I understand the meaning of the words simply by reading an inexpensive book.

If *I* can understand the meaning of the words from having read a single book then anyone can. If anyone can then there is nothing to be smug about.

Well, humor me. I don't have much interest in pissing contests about who can understand what, nor am I interested in "more humble than thou." So you can understand it. Great. I can't.

So explain it to me.

Let's start with suffering. Dancing David has presented us with a nice, succinct OP that displays some kind of disagreement or at least cognitive dissonance about what "suffering" refers to. Specifically, it refers to "existential suffering" relative to other suffering.

I'll lay my cards on the table. I think "existential suffering" is a disease of extended adolescents, people who have never had a job that got their hands calloused in their life, who wear too much black and listen to too much Mahler. The woman in Educating Rita is a pretty good archetype.

On the other hand, I have some small experience with real suffering. I've experienced depressions from Bipolar II disorder, which psychiatrists generally agree are the worst depressions that humans can experience. I've also had acute pancreatitis three times. Now, I don't have Bipolar II any more, and my necrotic gall bladder is gone, but that's for a different thread. And it's probably pretty small beer; I conjecture that fowlsound has experienced more suffering than I. But still, I do have some experience.

So, how can I understand the Buddhist concept of suffering?

I am sorry if my post came over as insulting in any way. For all I know I may have somewhat intended it to be a bit insulting and that would have been/was wrong of me.

No; I just thought it was unnecessarily defensive.

FWIW, I am not trying to be insulting either. Confrontational, yes.

epepke

10th January 2006, 06:47 AM

But about the common vocabulary and smugness, I am very saddened. Buddhism does not have simple answers for any questions and this leads to some confusion, but those who use the capital letters most leikely don't get it.

Well, if Buddhism doesn't have simple answers for any questions, how come people keep lecturing me about how it's so ****** simple and clear?

Morphine is simple. Morphine is clear. And it provides a simple answer for an important class of questions having to do with suffering.

There is no Nothing, there is no Being Awake, such concepts are just further crap to delude the mind and prevent mindful living.

Except I've heard that "crap" from the majority of Buddhists I've run into.

How can I tell the difference between statements like this and statements by liberal Christians?

On the IIDB forum, a sort of do-it-yourself Quaker, who is also a moderator there, told me that Christians believed in love. Well, nice words, but does that mean that all the Christians who say otherwise do not exist, and how does this kind of argument play out except de facto as running interference for the Jerry Falwells and Pat Robertsons of the world?

What reason is there to think that Buddhism as a whole is any more related to the essays and aphorisms of Gautama Buddha than Christianity is related to the statements attributed to Jesus (namely, not much at all)?

I think that the greatest struggle for modern reductionsits, like myself, is that the buddha beleieved in the interdependance of all things and therefore there are no simple answers. The buddha also taught that each thing is unique and therefore comparisons are misleading. Two very radical concepts to the current scientific model.

There's a thin line between radical and meaningless, you know.

jjramsey

10th January 2006, 07:07 AM

How can I tell the difference between statements like this and statements by liberal Christians?

The biggest difference that I see is that liberal Christianity is a diluted Christianity, while the kind of Buddhism I see Dancing David and Ryokan talking about is arguably purer, with the accretions stripped away, and this stripping away is even encouraged by things like the Kalama Sutra.

epepke

10th January 2006, 07:13 AM

The biggest difference that I see is that liberal Christianity is a diluted Christianity, while the kind of Buddhism I see Dancing David and Ryokan talking about is arguably purer, with the accretions stripped away, and this stripping away is even encouraged by things like the Kalama Sutra.

That's an interesting comment, but I don't agree. Liberal Christianity seem to me more based on what Jesus is supposed to have said and less on what Paul or Constantine said.

jjramsey

10th January 2006, 07:21 AM

That's an interesting comment, but I don't agree. Liberal Christianity seem to me more based on what Jesus is supposed to have said and less on what Paul or Constantine said.

Jesus, though, supposedly said plenty about hell, which not all liberal Christians believe in. Jesus supposedly predicted his resurrection, and many liberal Christians don't believe he rose from the dead.

epepke

10th January 2006, 08:17 AM

Jesus, though, supposedly said plenty about hell, which not all liberal Christians believe in. Jesus supposedly predicted his resurrection, and many liberal Christians don't believe he rose from the dead.

That's fair comment, and you're right. Some liberal Christians don't accept these, but I think that the majority of liberal Christians do.

username

10th January 2006, 08:32 AM

Well, humor me. I don't have much interest in pissing contests about who can understand what, nor am I interested in "more humble than thou." So you can understand it. Great. I can't.

So explain it to me.

I will do my best.

Let's start with suffering. Dancing David has presented us with a nice, succinct OP that displays some kind of disagreement or at least cognitive dissonance about what "suffering" refers to. Specifically, it refers to "existential suffering" relative to other suffering.

I'll lay my cards on the table. I think "existential suffering" is a disease of extended adolescents

<snip>

So, how can I understand the Buddhist concept of suffering?

Well, for the first of the 4 noble truths sometimes translated as 'life is suffering' I find it helpful to toss this unfortunate translation. Pretty much no source of information I have read on buddhism uses this translation except to explain why it misses the mark in conveying the concept.

Steve Hagen, author of "Buddhism Plain and Simple" says life is like a wheel out of kilter. Something basic and important doesn't seem quite right.

I have also seen this expressed as existential suffering, it is a suffering everyone who exists experiences. We long for something more, but don't know exactly what it is. We have our lives and they seem pretty good for most of us, most of the time, but there is always, particularly in our quiet moments, a basic dissatisfaction with our lives. At times we only sense this dissatisfaction vaguely, other times much more acutely. We are ignorant of much and this causes us stress and suffering. Who are we, why are we here, where are we going? These are questions germane to existence and religions and philosophies have wrestled with these questions since forever and none of them really have any answers that end our ignorance. We have desires we are attached to, desires we act upon to be happy, yet nothing satisfies forever. As soon as we obtain the object of our desire, another desire is there. We have aversions to things and these cause us to feel uneasy. We do not want to lose our friends and loved ones to illness or death. We do not wish to die, to cease to exist. We don't want the delicious meal to end, the ectasy of a particularly intimate moment to fade, but they do.

This is how I understand the buddhist's first noble truth.

I believe, upon understanding the first noble truth, it is appropriate to say "Well, no duh." It really is a self evident truth and as such it doesn't really say anything we didn't already know. But, it defines the problem before describing the cure.

epepke

10th January 2006, 08:53 AM

I believe, upon understanding the first noble truth, it is appropriate to say "Well, no duh." It really is a self evident truth and as such it doesn't really say anything we didn't already know. But, it defines the problem before describing the cure.

OK, that at least is understandable, though I can't vouch for its accuracy. It is, as you have admitted, pretty much completely banal. On the other hand, good structure includes telling people what they already know first.

Do go on.

Jekyll

10th January 2006, 08:55 AM

I have also seen this expressed as existential suffering, it is a suffering everyone who exists experiences. We long for something more, but don't know exactly what it is. We have our lives and they seem pretty good for most of us, most of the time, but there is always, particularly in our quiet moments, a basic dissatisfaction with our lives. At times we only sense this dissatisfaction vaguely, other times much more acutely. We are ignorant of much and this causes us stress and suffering. Who are we, why are we here, where are we going? These are questions germane to existence and religions and philosophies have wrestled with these questions since forever and none of them really have any answers that end our ignorance. We have desires we are attached to, desires we act upon to be happy, yet nothing satisfies forever. As soon as we obtain the object of our desire, another desire is there. We have aversions to things and these cause us to feel uneasy. We do not want to lose our friends and loved ones to illness or death. We do not wish to die, to cease to exist. We don't want the delicious meal to end, the ectasy of a particularly intimate moment to fade, but they do.
Wouldn't taking yourself less seriously be a better option?
I mean, everyone knows life has its good bits and its bad. You've just got to roll with the punches and acknowledge that its more good then bad. That's why all the athiests haven't killed themselves yet, because life is a pleasent, precious thing.
Seeking to disassociate yourself from the world, in order to avoid suffering seems like a much less preferable option.

Ryokan

10th January 2006, 09:01 AM

Seeking to disassociate yourself from the world, in order to avoid suffering seems like a much less preferable option.

But that's not what Buddhism teaches.

Let me use an example.

Let's say you loooooove chocolate, but your doctor tells you that for medical reasons you can never eat as much as a single bite of chocolate for the rest of your life. You could either pine over it and feel grief, or you could just accept it as it is and move on. Buddhism teaches the latter.

Jekyll

10th January 2006, 09:06 AM

But that's not what Buddhism teaches.

Let me use an example.

Let's say you loooooove chocolate, but your doctor tells you that for medical reasons you can never eat as much as a single bite of chocolate for the rest of your life. You could either pine over it and feel grief, or you could just accept it as it is and move on. Buddhism teaches the latter.
Really? I thought Buddhism taught the transending all attachments, as a way to pre-empt the suffering caused by later loss.

i.e. Loose the desire for chocolate now, in case your doctor forbids it tomorrow.

Ryokan

10th January 2006, 09:08 AM

Really? I thought Buddhism taught the transending all attachments, as a way to pre-empt the suffering caused by later loss.

That's not the same as disassociating yourself from the world.

But your sentence there describes Buddhism pretty well, yes.

Ryokan

10th January 2006, 09:10 AM

i.e. Loose the desire for chocolate now, in case your doctor forbids it tomorrow.

Yes, lose the desire, but not the enjoyment.

Jekyll

10th January 2006, 09:11 AM

Yes, lose the desire, but not the enjoyment.
Aren't they inextricably linked?

epepke

10th January 2006, 09:15 AM

But that's not what Buddhism teaches.

Well, OK, but you've demonstrated that you have a better sense of humor than a lot of people who call themselves Buddhists anyway.

Let's say you loooooove chocolate, but your doctor tells you that for medical reasons you can never eat as much as a single bite of chocolate for the rest of your life. You could either pine over it and feel grief, or you could just accept it as it is and move on. Buddhism teaches the latter.

"Grant me the power to change what I can, the willingness to accept what I can't, and the wisdom to know the difference."

But this brings up something that kind of bugs me about Buddhism. Gautama Buddha, or Siddharta, or whatever his name was, wasn't about to go hungry, no matter what he did. No way. There was plenty of money in his family. So going around telling people who were struggling to get enough calories to feed themselves that their suffering was caused by their desires was cheap and easy. I can think of a lot of other adjectives, but I don't think "noble" would be on the list.

And many of the societies where Buddhism really took hold were very hierarchical, with a clear distinction between the haves and have-nots, and a great deal of real suffering, not all of which was necessary due to primitive technology.

Ryokan

10th January 2006, 09:24 AM

Aren't they inextricably linked?

Not at all, and sometimes quite the opposite.

I'll use an example from my own life.

One of the things that have caused me most suffering in life is broken heart. For some reason, I experienced it much worse than most other people I know, and could suffer badly for 2-3 years after ending a relationship that only lasted months. And I'm talking pretty deep depressions here, depressions that lost me an education, several jobs and many friends. Also, when I was in a relationship with a girl, I would worry over when it would end and how I would deal with it when it happened. This made it impossible for me to actually enjoy having a relationship with a girl, and probably made many of those relationships end much sooner than they could have.

So you see how attachments and desire can actually cause unhappiness where there should be happiness.

After I started studying the four noble truths, and learning the cause of suffering, things have changed. Now I no longer fear the end of a relationship, and I'm able to enjoy the moment. Not only have I had better relationships, I've also become much better at accepting it when it ends. I'm not claiming I feel nothing, but the deep depressions are gone.

As another example, late last year there was a survey of Norwegian lotto millionaires that showed that a huge majority of winners were less happy after winning than they were before. Why? Because they thought that with all that money, surely their life from now on would be rosy red. Then reality hit them.

username

10th January 2006, 09:30 AM

But this brings up something that kind of bugs me about Buddhism. Gautama Buddha, or Siddharta, or whatever his name was, wasn't about to go hungry, no matter what he did. No way. There was plenty of money in his family.

These were the circumstances of his birth yes, he lived a very sheltered life for a time. He walked away from it all, put on a peasants robe, shaved his head and set out into the boondocks alone to come to terms with his existence and find the answers to life's out of kilterness. However, I don't regard any of this as really important in terms of what he ended up teaching. What he taught stands or falls on it's own.

Jekyll

10th January 2006, 09:39 AM

Not at all, and sometimes quite the opposite.

I'll use an example from my own life.

One of the things that have caused me most suffering in life is broken heart. For some reason, I experienced it much worse than most other people I know, and could suffer badly for 2-3 years after ending a relationship that only lasted months. And I'm talking pretty deep depressions here, depressions that lost me an education, several jobs and many friends. Also, when I was in a relationship with a girl, I would worry over when it would end and how I would deal with it when it happened. This made it impossible for me to actually enjoy having a relationship with a girl, and probably made many of those relationships end much sooner than they could have.

So you see how attachments and desire can actually cause unhappiness where there should be happiness.

After I started studying the four noble truths, and learning the cause of suffering, things have changed. Now I no longer fear the end of a relationship, and I'm able to enjoy the moment. Not only have I had better relationships, I've also become much better at accepting it when it ends. I'm not claiming I feel nothing, but the deep depressions are gone.

Yes, perspective/some moderation in all things is good, but would you really enjoy being in a relationship that you didn't desire to be in?

I know I haven't really, certainly no more than being single.

username

10th January 2006, 09:40 AM

And many of the societies where Buddhism really took hold were very hierarchical, with a clear distinction between the haves and have-nots, and a great deal of real suffering, not all of which was necessary due to primitive technology.

Sorry, I meant to address this in my previous post, but forgot.

I have seen buddhism likened to tofu and I thought it was an apt analogy. Tofu, it was explained, goes with pretty much any dish, but it doesn't ever overwhelm any dish.

Like tofu, buddhism fits into pretty much any culture and the culture is changed as a result, but not overwhelmed by it. When you say that many societies where Buddhism took hold were very heirarchial this really doesn't say anything about Buddhism, it says something about the culture of the place at that time.

Today Buddhism has made inroads into western, democratic nations. In those nations it looks, outwardly, quite different than it did in Tibet many moons ago. The core teaching is the same and that is about it.

Buddhism is going to look like whatever culture it is in, just as tofu is going to taste, more or less, like whatever dish it is part of.

When Buddhism first came to the west it came with the cultural and religious trappings of the culture it came from. Now that it is here individual practictioners freely choose to adopt some of those eastern cultural and religious trappings or to discard them in favor of a more western flavored dish.

Tofu, no matter how it is seasoned or what other ingredients are in the dish with it, remains tofu. If you like the tofu, but not the dish then pull the tofu out, rinse it off and eat it however you like. It's all good.

Ryokan

10th January 2006, 09:46 AM

Well, OK, but you've demonstrated that you have a better sense of humor than a lot of people who call themselves Buddhists anyway.

Thank you :)

"Grant me the power to change what I can, the willingness to accept what I can't, and the wisdom to know the difference."

Those are words to live by, for sure. Another good saying is "Your wants are many, your needs are few. Learn the difference."

But this brings up something that kind of bugs me about Buddhism. Gautama Buddha, or Siddharta, or whatever his name was, wasn't about to go hungry, no matter what he did. No way. There was plenty of money in his family. So going around telling people who were struggling to get enough calories to feed themselves that their suffering was caused by their desires was cheap and easy. I can think of a lot of other adjectives, but I don't think "noble" would be on the list.

This is valid criticism. But do remember that Gautama lived as an ascetic for many years, and knew well what hunger was (although his hunger was absolutely voluntary). Also, Buddhism does not cure physical suffering at all, including hunger.

Yes, Gautama Buddha wasn't a poor man, and, as a nobleman, had good connections in society. The scriptures say he became a great philanthropist and used his influence to help those worse off than himself. Gautama had no intentions of forming a religion, and did not see himself as a religious leader (nor did his contemporaries).

Charity is a thing that is very much valued in Buddhist societies, especially towards monks (it's what they live on).

I'm not happy about my answer one this one, but it's what I've got :)

And many of the societies where Buddhism really took hold were very hierarchical, with a clear distinction between the haves and have-nots, and a great deal of real suffering, not all of which was necessary due to primitive technology.

Absolutely, but that's not the fault of Gautama Buddha, is it?

username

10th January 2006, 10:04 AM

Yes, perspective/some moderation in all things is good, but would you really enjoy being in a relationship that you didn't desire to be in?

I know, I haven't really; certainly no more than being single.

Just as the first noble truth is unfortunately sometimes expressed as "Life is suffering", the idea of having no desires is another pervasive myth that just confuses people.

Buddhists, even the most enlightened ones still have preferences, they like tacos and dislike broccoli (as a silly example).

It isn't about having no desires, it is about losing our attachment to those desires. It is fine, if single, to desire a life partner. It is fine, if poor, to desire a decent paying job. It is our attachment to these desires that causes problems, not the desire itself.

Our attachment to our desires is what causes us to either want this present moment to end (because we don't have what we desire) or to want it to last forever (because we just obtained a desire). Both of these attachments rob us of being happy, right now, in this moment, whatever it is.

Nothing lasts. When we feel the bitter agony of a powerful desire thwarted, it is here for a time and it passes. When we experience the pure joy of obtaining a long sought after desire it also is here for a time and then passes.

It is becoming attached to this desire for the present moment to end or last forever that causes suffering for us. We want something that is not possible and we spend our present moment, the only place/time we can be happy in, wanting the moment to be that which it never can be.

We expend much energy avoiding what we do not desire and much energy trying to attain what we do desire. This is fine, except when this results in our being dissatisfied with the present moment.

Ryokan

10th January 2006, 10:14 AM

Yes, perspective/some moderation in all things is good, but would you really enjoy being in a relationship that you didn't desire to be in?

I know I haven't really, certainly no more than being single.

username replied much better than I would've, so I refer you to his post above me :)

epepke

10th January 2006, 10:23 AM

These were the circumstances of his birth yes, he lived a very sheltered life for a time. He walked away from it all, put on a peasants robe, shaved his head and set out into the boondocks alone to come to terms with his existence and find the answers to life's out of kilterness. However, I don't regard any of this as really important in terms of what he ended up teaching. What he taught stands or falls on it's own.

I think it can be important, if it means that Buddhism doesn't apply to the majority of lives. So far, I haven't seen much evidence that it does. No chocolate? Broken hearts? Adolescent angst, basically, far removed from the lives of the majority of people.

Ryokan

10th January 2006, 10:35 AM

I think it can be important, if it means that Buddhism doesn't apply to the majority of lives. So far, I haven't seen much evidence that it does. No chocolate? Broken hearts? Adolescent angst, basically, far removed from the lives of the majority of people.

As I said, the four noble truths do not claim to heal physical suffering, but mental suffering.

Emotional suffering is far removed from the majority of people? I'm sorry, I don't believe that.

You also seem to imply (indirectly) that I may not know what real suffering is. Earlier you've also implied that I am like the kid of a rich liberal.

Neither is true. My parents weren't rich (although my father became quite affluent after I became an adult), and the way you use the term liberal has no meaning in my country. I've had long periods of depression, and long periods of unemployment. I've been to war and experienced terrible things.

Neither has Buddhism claimed to be of help to all and everyone. Buddhism says to test it for yourself. If it works, keep it. If it doesn't, discard it.

username

10th January 2006, 10:39 AM

I think it can be important, if it means that Buddhism doesn't apply to the majority of lives. So far, I haven't seen much evidence that it does. No chocolate? Broken hearts? Adolescent angst, basically, far removed from the lives of the majority of people.

If the teaching of the first noble truth (the problem) doesn't resonate with you and if the promise of the 3rd noble truth, (there is a cure for it), doesn't arouse any interest in you then buddhism is of no use or value to you.

You aren't affected by the problem buddhism defines and therefore have no need for the cure it prescribes.

You are a very fortunate person. If, however, you should ever find the problem applies to you in the future it is always your option to investigate the cure then.

epepke

10th January 2006, 10:40 AM

This is valid criticism. But do remember that Gautama lived as an ascetic for many years, and knew well what hunger was (although his hunger was absolutely voluntary). Also, Buddhism does not cure physical suffering at all, including hunger.

Yes, Gautama Buddha wasn't a poor man, and, as a nobleman, had good connections in society. The scriptures say he became a great philanthropist and used his influence to help those worse off than himself. Gautama had no intentions of forming a religion, and did not see himself as a religious leader (nor did his contemporaries).

Charity is a thing that is very much valued in Buddhist societies, especially towards monks (it's what they live on).

I'm not happy about my answer one this one, but it's what I've got :)

I appreciate the effort. I'm not too happy about it either.

I don't want to lose this idea, and I want to be as clear as I can. History is replete with slummers (Marie Antoinette was one), and it's replete with Champagne Socialists and privileged do-gooders. And, while Gautama Buddha may possibly have been well meaning, the road to hell is paved with those flagstones.

Not saying that it's bad, mind you, but it's not prima facie a good sign, either.

Absolutely, but that's not the fault of Gautama Buddha, is it?

Well, are we talking about Gautama Buddha the person, or are we talking about Buddhism and Gautama Buddha the myth?

I think I would have enjoyed spending an evening with Gautama Buddha, and I will go so far as I think that he was sufficiently detached that he might have enjoyed some pork rinds.

I also think I might have gotten along reasonably well with Jesus, if he existed, though he seems to have had a bit of an anger problem.

But they're, you know, kinda dead and therefore not much fun any more.

If we're talking about the religions, then they are what they are, and what matters is not the real person so much as the myth. And if the myth has been used in a certain way, then that's part of it.

Ryokan

10th January 2006, 10:46 AM

Well, are we talking about Gautama Buddha the person, or are we talking about Buddhism and Gautama Buddha the myth?

That's hard to say, I don't think anyone really knows exactly who the historical Siddharta Gautama was. And the first texts were written down around 500 years after his death, so there's no way to know how much truth there is in them, if any.

epepke

10th January 2006, 11:15 AM

That's hard to say, I don't think anyone really knows exactly who the historical Siddharta Gautama was. And the first texts were written down around 500 years after his death, so there's no way to know how much truth there is in them, if any.

So, basically, we have to deal with the myth.

But mostly I responded here because I thought of something. I must admit that I am not impressed with broken hearts, etc. as being suffering. However, I thought of something. I'd really like to be a father, and I think I would make a very good father, but it looks like that can never possibly happen. Which means that I am an evolutionary dead-end. This has caused a certain amount of unpleasantness for me.

So what I do is, I just don't think about it. No Buddhism is necessary. I only think about it at times when something else brings it to mind. Now happens to be such a time.

username

10th January 2006, 11:47 AM

So, basically, we have to deal with the myth.

Only if who the man actually was seems of interest or importance to you. The way I look at it is the teachings are to be evaluated by each person for themselves. As such, it isn't relevant to the truth of the teachings who the man was. These teachings could be attributed to a magical elf and it wouldn't affect their truth value.

So what I do is, I just don't think about it. No Buddhism is necessary. I only think about it at times when something else brings it to mind. Now happens to be such a time.

Ah, I see. This is what pretty much all of us do. We bury our unpleasant thoughts, those that result in our experiencing suffering, and busy ourselves with other, more pleasant tasks. It works too, for awhile, but then when we are quiet or reflective or simply off guard, there it is again.

Directing the mind away from unpleasant thoughts is one way to deal with the suffering. Buddhism teaches a different method.

The method buddhism teaches is the 8 fold path. If you are so inclined, look into that and see if it looks to you like a better way of dealing with the attachment. There is no pat set of words I can say that would miraculously enlighten you here. The 4 noble truths can be explained so they are comprehended intellectually, but they can not be experienced for you. If you are so inclined then you have to step out onto the path and see for yourself it if leads where buddhism says it does or not.

epepke

10th January 2006, 12:18 PM

Only if who the man actually was seems of interest or importance to you.

I'm not sure what you're saying. I'm saying that the myth of Buddha is, rather than the man, of importance in Buddhism, because he's just dead, whoever he ways, or if he existed at all.

So the myth is the only thing we really have access to.

Directing the mind away from unpleasant thoughts is one way to deal with the suffering. Buddhism teaches a different method.

The method buddhism teaches is the 8 fold path. If you are so inclined, look into that and see if it looks to you like a better way of dealing with the attachment. There is no pat set of words I can say that would miraculously enlighten you here. The 4 noble truths can be explained so they are comprehended intellectually, but they can not be experienced for you. If you are so inclined then you have to step out onto the path and see for yourself it if leads where buddhism says it does or not.

I'm going to press you for an explanation anyway. You can deal with this as you like. You can try to explain to me how and why it's different, for starters. Or you can point me to Buddhists that actually evince something that would be desirable.

Again, I want to be very clear about this. This is just something that happens to bug me occasionally now. It's maybe in the third percentile of things I worry about. But the broken hearts thing doesn't but me at all, and I think it's vapid. I can't really state the title of the Frank Zappa song here, but it's something like "Broken Hearts are for **********.."

And on the other hand, I could spend 40 more years of my life (should I live so long) being a Buddhist and then realize that it was a waste of time.

Q-Source

10th January 2006, 12:23 PM

Just as the first noble truth is unfortunately sometimes expressed as "Life is suffering", the idea of having no desires is another pervasive myth that just confuses people.

Buddhists, even the most enlightened ones still have preferences, they like tacos and dislike broccoli (as a silly example).

The goal of buddhism is to eliminate all human desires, even those preferences for tacos or broccoli.
why would a true buddhist prefer one food rather than another?.

It isn't about having no desires, it is about losing our attachment to those desires. It is fine, if single, to desire a life partner. It is fine, if poor, to desire a decent paying job. It is our attachment to these desires that causes problems, not the desire itself.

You are correct in some way. You are describing how buddhism does work for western people like us, who still have to find a job. You are adapting this philosophy to our societies. However, the purpose of buddhism is to end all desires because -if you think about them- they are meaningless. Why would you desire to have a partner?. Are you implying that a buddhist would expect to receive love and happiness from another person?. The truth is that nobody can provide anything to you and this is well known by buddhists.

Our attachment to our desires is what causes us to either want this present moment to end (because we don't have what we desire) or to want it to last forever (because we just obtained a desire). Both of these attachments rob us of being happy, right now, in this moment, whatever it is.

Yes, you are right. But I would also say that not only the attachment causes problems, but also the desire in itself. They go together, you cannot separate them.

The ultimate goal of buddhism is to reach enlightenment and this means to end with all human desires, even the slightest. It means death as a human being. In the mean time, we are trapped in these bodies and true freedom can never happen while we are alive.

I like buddhim and practice as much as I can its philosophy, but much of the mental states that it promises are unrealistic. It fails to see that there is no way out of the suffering.

Belem

Ryokan

10th January 2006, 12:29 PM

The goal of buddhism is to eliminate all human desires, even those preferences for tacos or broccoli.

Evidence?

username

10th January 2006, 12:53 PM

And on the other hand, I could spend 40 more years of my life (should I live so long) being a Buddhist and then realize that it was a waste of time.

I don't believe this is possible. The 8 fold path is something to be experienced for oneself rather than intellectually discussed (not that discussion is bad).

First, we start with the 1st noble truth, in life there is suffering, we have a sense that something is out of kilter.

Next we learn the cause, our cravings and attachments.

Next we hear that this afflication has a cure.

Lastly we are presented with the cure.

How do we know if the cure works? Same way we know if the pill the doctor prescribes for us works or not. We try it and see what happens. I am not knowledgable enough to explain why taking aspirin usually rids me of a headache, but I know from experience that it does so when I have a headache I take aspirin.

If you were to tell me you don't have a headache, I wouldn't have any reason to tell you about aspirin. If you tell me you have a headache, then I would tell you about aspirin. How can you know if it works before trying it? You really can't. You would have to try it and see for yourself what happens.

Now, if you took an aspirin and it did nothing for your headache would you spend the next 40 years of your life taking aspirin? Of course not.

The 8 fold path is the buddhist prescription for what ails us. Try it and see. If it works for you then terrific. If it doesn't then move on. Why continue for 40 years with something that isn't providing you with any benefit?

So, is the first noble truth true in your experience or not? If it isn't, you don't need the cure.

If it is, why not 'pop an aspirin' and see how your head feels in the morning?

By pop an aspirin I mean find a teacher to provide you with some instruction, even something as simple as a well reviewed book on the subject, and then practice some buddhist meditation.

It doesn't take 40 years, just the time it takes to read a decent book or two and then sit in meditation for a couple times, 15-20 minutes each.

After this you don't have to wonder if the prescription works or not, you will know whether or not it does. No, you aren't likely to attain "enlightenment" in a day (maybe not even in your lifetime), but you will know where the path leads.

epepke

10th January 2006, 12:58 PM

The ultimate goal of buddhism is to reach enlightenment and this means to end with all human desires, even the slightest. It means death as a human being. In the mean time, we are trapped in these bodies and true freedom can never happen while we are alive.

Well, you've put your finger on another reason that Buddhism rubs me the wrong way.

I can remember a scene from some movie, but I don't remember the movie. It went something like this:

A: Being high is like having no worries, no desires. Everything is fine. That's life, man.
B: Sounds more like death to me.

username

10th January 2006, 01:07 PM

The goal of buddhism is to eliminate all human desires, even those preferences for tacos or broccoli.
why would a true buddhist prefer one food rather than another?.

Well, I am no expert, I am just learning about buddhism and trying it out for myself, but I have not encountered any teaching that desires are bad or that it is possible (or desireable (pun intended) to not have desires.

This simply isn't true to my experience either so I can't accept it. If I had no desires why would I ever eat again? With no desires or preferences I would just waste away and die. With no preferences I would just as soon drink cyanide as water. It just seems like an absurdity to believe desires and preferences are anything other than normal and acceptable, even healthy.

I wonder if perhaps you haven't been exposed to some rigid self denial type system that contained elements of buddhism? I am not really knowledgable here, but I have heard that such 'sects' do exist. If that is the case I would consider that particular expression of buddhism to be worthy of rejection. If some fundy islamic individual were to be exposed to buddhism and come away believing we should respect all life except for the infidel scum I would reject that too.

I think you should as well. Never accept that which contradicts your plain experience regardless of it's source.

Q-Source

10th January 2006, 02:27 PM

Well, I am no expert, I am just learning about buddhism and trying it out for myself, but I have not encountered any teaching that desires are bad or that it is possible (or desireable (pun intended) to not have desires.

Desires, cravings and attachments are the root of suffering. I don´t know if those sensations are bad or not, I just know that they cause suffering when they are not satisfied.

If I had no desires why would I ever eat again? With no desires or preferences I would just waste away and die. With no preferences I would just as soon drink cyanide as water. It just seems like an absurdity to believe desires and preferences are anything other than normal and acceptable, even healthy.

Your interpretation of the four noble truths makes no sense. I don´t mean to offend you. Hunger and thirst are human needs, they are not bad, but they become a trouble when you crave food, when you have a special preference for certain food or when you work for it. Stop thinking of the western version of buddhism, I am referring to the teachings of the Buddha.

I don´t belong to any sect. I have been practicing meditation for a long time and I am still trying to understand the basics. The four noble truths explain the cause of suffering (desire and attachment) and provides the solution to the problem (freedom from desire). What I say is that there is really no solution to the problem for the same reason that you mentioned before. We can´t never free ourselves of dellusion, attachment and desire. Buddhist monks living in the mountains are the closest to what the Buddha said, but even them cannot free themselves from the needs that their bodies demand, and most important, they cannot free themselves from the constant struggle to reach enlightenment. Because struggling to reach a state also causes suffering.

I don´t want to sound like I am attacking Buddhism. In reality it provides the best way of life to decrease suffering and to understand better ourselves and reality. But the ultimate goal that it promises is just another illusion that they fail to see.

belem

Ryokan

10th January 2006, 02:32 PM

Hunger and thist are human needs, they are not bad, but they become a trouble when you crave food, when you have a special preference for certain food or when you work for it. Stop thinking of the western version of buddhism, I am referring to the teachings of the Buddha.

I assume you can point out the specific teachings, then? Or at least a source with your interpretation.

I have studied Thai Buddhism, and have several Burmese friends who have been monks. Username's interpretations are the same as my interpretations, which are the same interpretations I've read in Thai Buddhism and the same interpretations my Burmese friends have.

Q-Source

10th January 2006, 02:38 PM

I assume you can point out the specific teachings, then? Or at least a source with your interpretation.

I have studied Thai Buddhism, and have several Burmese friends who have been monks. Username's interpretations are the same as my interpretations, which are the same interpretations I've read in Thai Buddhism and the same interpretations my Burmese friends have.

The only source that I have are the four noble truths:
Dukkha: There is suffering in life for all beings.

Samudaya: There is a cause of suffering, which is attachment and desire (tanha).

Nirodha: There is a way out of suffering, which is to eliminate attachment and desire.

Magga: The path that leads out of suffering is called the Noble Eightfold Path.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Noble_Truths

what part of my post do you disagree with?

username

10th January 2006, 02:48 PM

Desires, cravings and attachments are the root of suffering. I don´t know if those sensations are bad or not, I just know that they cause suffering when they are not satisfied.

This isn't true in my experience. It is my desire and my preference that I have pizza for dinner tonite. The wife said she prefered tacos. This doesn't cause me any suffering. If I desire a promotion at work and I am attached to this, if I crave this, if I tell myself that I deserve it more than the other guy, that I will be happier, more fulfilled if I get this and then I don't get it I will experience suffering. More likely than not I will feel slighted, disrespected, have bad feelings toward the guy who got the promotion, think my boss is an idiot etc. If I simply desired the promotion in the same way I desired pizza I wouldn't be any more upset about not getting the promotion than I was in not getting pizza. It would still be my desire/preference for a promotion though.

Your interpretation of the four noble truths make no sense. I don´t mean to offend you. Hunger and thist are human needs, they are not bad, but they become a trouble when you crave food, when you have a special preference for certain food or when you work for it. Stop thinking of the western version of buddhism, I am referring to the teachings of the Buddha.

Well I am refering to the teachings of Steve Hagen, a Zen priest and author of "Buddhism Plain and Simple", the teachings of Stephen Bachelor a former monk in the Zen and Tibetan traditions and author of "Buddhism Without Beliefs" who is also behind the Tricycle Buddhist Review website (http://www.tricycle.com/) and the teachings of Lama Surya Das who is a lama in the Tibetan tradition and author of "Awakening the Buddha Within" and endorsed by Thich Nhat Hanh so I think that what I understand of the 4 noble truths is coming from a reputible source.

I am not sure where you arrived at your understanding from.

What I say is that there is really no solution to the problem for the same reason that you mentioned before. We can´t never free ourselves of dellusion, attachment and desire. Buddhist monks living in the mountains are the closest to what the Buddha said, but even them cannot free themselves from the needs that their bodies demand, and most important, they cannot free themselves from the constant struggle to reach enlightenment. Because struggling to reach a state also causes suffering.

I understand what you are saying, but what you are describing is the impossibility of having no desires or preferences. This is addressed in the works of the authors I mentioned above. Having no desires isn't a goal. Not clinging, craving is. Not being attached to our desires is.

I can only go with what I have learned and what doesn't contradict my experience or plain logic. You and I both agree that it isn't possible to have no desires whatsoever. Where we disagree is that is what buddha dharma teaches. I showed you where I am getting my understanding from, may I ask where you are getting yours from?

I don´t want to sound like I am attacking Buddhism. In reality it provides the best way of life to decrease suffering and to understand better ourselves and reality. But the ultimate goal that it promises is just another illusion that they fail to see.

Again, I would like to see the source of your understanding that buddha dharma teaches this.

username

10th January 2006, 02:54 PM

The only source that I have are the four noble truths:
Dukkha: There is suffering in life for all beings.

Samudaya: There is a cause of suffering, which is attachment and desire (tanha).

Nirodha: There is a way out of suffering, which is to eliminate attachment and desire.

Magga: The path that leads out of suffering is called the Noble Eightfold Path.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Noble_Truths

what part of my post do you disagree with?

I don't disagree with anything, I would encourage you to read what wiki says about tanha, which is the word being translated as "attachment and desire"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanha

This is why it can be a real bitch to understand the concepts without a teacher or at least a well written book from a respected teacher. Many of these terms, such as dukkha and tanha have no English equivalent and the attempts at 'the short statement and the big picture' lead to frustration and confusion.

username

10th January 2006, 02:59 PM

Here is something you may find helpful:

1. The Term Tanhaa

Ta.nhaa is literally 'drought' or 'thirst' and, as the Pali-English Dictionary informs us, 'is found mainly in poetry, or in prose passages charged with emotion. It is rarely used in the philosophy or the psychology'. Figuratively, it means 'craving, hunger for, excitement, the fever of unsatisfied longing'. Given its poetic pedigree, ta.nha can be said to be a term that appeals more to the imagination than reason, and this may be why it is hardly mentioned in the lists and abstract permutations of the later technical, not to say arid, literature of the Abhidhamma. To those who heard the word from the mouth of the Buddha or one of his disciples, ta.nhaa no doubt evoked an acute pathos which the translation 'craving' miserably fails to do. To understand ta.nhaa as simply one affect among other affects would be a mistake. For example ta.nhaa, as we shall see, is a term that has cosmic significance, and is a notion that is best understood metaphorically, as a metaphor that evokes the general condition that all unenlightened beings find themselves in in the world: a state of being characterized by a 'thirst' that compels a pursuit for appeasement, the urge to seek out some form of gratification. In other words, ta.nhaa is a metaphor for the existential and affective ground underlying the whole of sa.msaaric existence,[4] the ground out of which spring the various strivings for satisfaction, fulfilment, and meaning. It can therefore be understood as an attempt to characterize, in a single metaphor, the general condition of unenlightened existence, as well as providing the primary reason why sa.msaara is deemed ultimately to be dukkha or 'unsatisfactory': as sa.msaara cannot fully quench our 'thirst', it must appear to one who fully understands this (i.e. an ariya) as dukkha.[5]

source: http://www.westernbuddhistreview.com/vol2/tanha.html

Q-Source

10th January 2006, 03:05 PM

I don't disagree with anything, I would encourage you to read what wiki says about tanha, which is the word being translated as "attachment and desire"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanha

From the exact same source:

"The meaning of Tanha (craving, desire, want, thirst), extends beyond the desire for material objects or sense pleasures. Its also includes the desire for life (or death, in the case of someone wishing to commit suicide), desire for fame (or infamy, its opposite), desire for sleep, desire for mental or emotional states (happiness, joy, rapture, love) if they are not present and would like them to be. If we experience, say depression or sorrow, we can desire its opposite. The meaning of Tanha is far-reaching and covers ALL desire, ALL wanting, ALL craving, irrespective of its intensity. "

What part of the definition don´t you understand?. This is what I am saying all along.

Ryokan

10th January 2006, 03:12 PM

I've found this interpretation of the four noble truths to be of much use in my studies.

http://www.buddhanet.net/4noble.htm

Q-Source

10th January 2006, 03:15 PM

Well I am refering to the teachings of Steve Hagen, a Zen priest and author of "Buddhism Plain and Simple", the teachings of Stephen Bachelor a former monk in the Zen and Tibetan traditions and author of "Buddhism Without Beliefs" who is also behind the Tricycle Buddhist Review website (http://www.tricycle.com/) and the teachings of Lama Surya Das who is a lama in the Tibetan tradition and author of "Awakening the Buddha Within" and endorsed by Thich Nhat Hanh so I think that what I understand of the 4 noble truths is coming from a reputible source.

I don´t need a "reputable source" to interpret the four noble truths to me. They are incredibly simple, clear and plain.

I understand what you are saying, but what you are describing is the impossibility of having no desires or preferences. This is addressed in the works of the authors I mentioned above. Having no desires isn't a goal. Not clinging, craving is. Not being attached to our desires is.

You need to go back to basics. The four noble truths say otherwise.
Meditation practice is the best way to understand how you can eliminate desire, thoughts and feelings. I was very fortunate to have a Thai Buddhist as a teacher and something that I learnt is that the Buddhas teachings are very simple but very difficult to understand.

Belem

Ryokan

10th January 2006, 03:16 PM

I don´t need a "reputable source" to interpret the four noble truths to me. They are incredibly simple, clear and plain.

You speak Pali, then?

Oh, and Q-Source, thank you for joining the thread, it's refreshing to hear criticism from someone who knows what he's talking about.

username

10th January 2006, 03:23 PM

From the exact same source:

" The meaning of Tanha is far-reaching and covers ALL desire, ALL wanting, ALL craving, irrespective of its intensity. "

What part of the definition don´t you understand?. This is what I am saying all along.

Yes, I saw that and it troubled me as well. That is why I followed up with a different source. I didn't notice the part you are focusing on until after I posted wiki's explanation of it. I don't know what to tell you, I am not a teacher and I have no teaching authority from any recognized authority.

All I can tell you is my understanding and aparently Ryokan's as well is in agreement with the explanation I pasted in my post and not with this bolded sentence from wiki. (for the record, I edited the wiki page and it now reads "The meaning of Tanha is far-reaching and covers ALL desire, ALL wanting, ALL craving, irrespective of its intensity, but this isn't how it is normally used in buddhist understanding." bwahahaha ;-0

Linguistically wiki might be correct for all I know, but contextually I doubt it applies.

In any event if I understand the 2nd noble truth to be talking not just about what the westernbuddhistreview explains, but to include every type of desire or preference then the 2nd noble truth becomes an absurdity to me and I have to reject it. It is pure nonsense as such.

If I understand it as the westernbuddhistreview explains it then it isn't an absurdity, in fact is becomes pretty close to being self-evidently true.

Why would I choose an explanation that is an absurdity over an explanation which is self-evidently true?

Anyway, I generally like wikipedia, but when I want accuracy I go for sources with credentials I know over some public conglomeration from contributors who may or may not know what they are talking about. Heck, I just changed what wiki says about it, so that tells you how accurate one should regard wiki stuff. It is a good place to begin, but the need to fact check is high.

Q-Source

10th January 2006, 03:38 PM

All I can tell you is my understanding and aparently Ryokan's as well is in agreement with the explanation I pasted in my post and not with this bolded sentence from wiki. (for the record, I edited the wiki page and it now reads "The meaning of Tanha is far-reaching and covers ALL desire, ALL wanting, ALL craving, irrespective of its intensity, but this isn't how it is normally used in buddhist understanding." bwahahaha ;-0

Speaking of intellectual honesty :D

You can modify wiki all you want, I am not here to convince anybody. What the Buddha said and taugh is there and noone can change it.

At the end, we are just agreeing from different point of views. My point in this thread was there are some aspects of Buddhism that deny the very nature of human beings. We can never be free from attachment or desire. We try but this is exactly what makes us human beings.

Belem

username

10th January 2006, 04:06 PM

Speaking of intellectual honesty :D

You can modify wiki all you want, I am not here to convince anybody. What the Buddha said and taugh is there and noone can change it.

I agree that the buddha taught whatever he taught. If he taught abject nonsense then it ought to be rejected. The teaching that all desires and preferences lead to dukkha is simply absurd on it's face. You agree that it is absurd when you rightly remark that it is impossible to be free from simple desire and preference.

However, the word used has a definition. Yes, we both tripped over a single line in wiki. However, I provided another definition and gave the source of the definition and it doesn't convey normal desires and preferences as leading to dukkha.

Ultimately we have to ask ourselves what does the word tanha mean? What we understand the word to mean in the context of the 2nd noble truth is important. Other than the single line in the wiki entry (which no longer exists) what reason do you have to understand tanha differently than the source I provided?

You understand tanha, in context of the 2nd noble truth to mean every kind of desire including preferences that we have no real attachment to. You say that this puts buddhists in an impossible position. I agree. So, why understand it that way when respected sources of teaching don't explain it that way? Why choose an obvious absurdity over something that is self evidently true?

At the end, we are just agreeing from different point of views. My point in this thread was there are some aspects of Buddhism that deny the very nature of human beings. We can never be free from attachment or desire. We try but this is exactly what makes us human beings.

If there are any aspects of buddhism which deny the very nature of human beings then they should be immediately rejected. I agree with you that the notion that all desires lead to dukkha should be rejected. Fortunately none of the 3 teachers whom I have learned from via their books explained the 2nd noble truth to me that way or I would have likely just walked away shaking my head at what nonsense this stuff was.

I understand you believe this is what the buddha taught, but regardless of whether it is or not, it isn't something I can accept as true, because it is absurd.

I do believe that if you consult reputable sources of knowledge you will find that they do not explain the 2nd noble truth the way you and I both agree is wrong/impossible.

However, we need not go round and round indefinitely on this matter. The mere fact that someone put that sentence into the wiki article means there are people who believe this is what the buddha taught. As such I would encourage those people to do as the buddha said and examine the teachings for themselves and discard that which contradicts our own experience.

To have no desires is to never get out of bed, drink or eat again. We would simply urinate and deficate on ourselves as we dehydrated and starved to death and somehow I don't think that course of action would lead to awakening. Such understandings need to be discarded as the rubbish they are.

jjramsey

10th January 2006, 04:38 PM

jjramsey

10th January 2006, 04:55 PM

A couple questions for the amusement of the local Buddhists here:

What do you think the Buddha might have thought of Epicureanism (http://www.skepticwiki.org/wiki/index.php/Epicureanism)?
What do you think the Buddha might have thought of the book of Ecclesiastes?

username

10th January 2006, 05:10 PM

One catch that I see is that the word "desire" in English can range in intensity from "merely liking to have something but not being too attached to it" to something more akin to lust, which confuses the whole discussion about desire. Usually the word "desire" is stronger in intensity than the word "want".

I quite agree. Many of the key words in buddhism have no direct English translation and I don't speak Pali so I am kind of screwed.

In fact when we speak of things like desires they mean something to us in the western cultures that they don't mean in the eastern. There is an almost impossible gulf between worldviews. Thankfully there have been many westerners who have travelled to the east, studied under respected teachers in the various traditions and then returned to the west with teaching credentials who do bridge the gap between east and west. This is why I like reading folks like Stephen Bachelor, Steve Hagen, Lama Surya Das etc. They are westerners who went to the east and have come back to put the eastern teachings into a context westerners can understand in a native way.

Without these individuals I would be hopelessly lost.

yrreg

10th January 2006, 08:29 PM

username

10th January 2006, 09:00 PM

There is talk here about not having a child, and also liking tacos and broccoli or not liking.

First, about not being able to have a child, I know a ship captain who could not have a child either. He told me that he has hope with cloning, when he feels some gloom about being childless; on the other hand he does not seem to miss having children, as a rule.

He is a ladies man, and he tells me that being captain opens the gate to women in the passenger ship to his access. I told him that if one day he should feel lonely for a child, then adopt one, there are so many babies for the asking.

Neat.

There is infinitely more to being a father than biology.

Profound.

-------------

About suffering in Buddhism, I think it is agreed that Buddhism is concerned with sufferings in all its species and its degrees; it is certainly not only focused on so-called existential suffering -- is that angst or what the Germans call Weltschmerz?

There is no need to think or believe regarding this topic when one can know. Buddhist teaching on suffering is sometimes known as the 3 fires or 3 poisons.

Poison 1 is ignorance: Delusion and confusion. We insist on seeing things as we would like them to be, not as they are.

Poison 2 is Attachment: What are you attached to? What do you equate with your self satisfaction? Money? Sex? A relationship? Social status? Do you engage in patterned behavior which drowns out your awareness such as alcohol or drugs? Do you want the respect of another so much that you pretend to be what you are not?

Buddha taught that attachment has 2 subsets: pride and jealousy. Who am I? I am the president of my company. I am a senior this or that. Do you define yourself by your occupation? Do we define ourselves by our education? I have a Ph.D! Do we define ourselves by our accomplishments? I climbed Mt. Everest. I ran a 5 minute mile. If we did run a 5 minute mile, what happens to us when we can no longer do so? Are we less? What about the kid in the wheelchair? Is he less because he can't run a 5 minute mile?

Pride.

My friend has a 72" HDTV and I really want one. I wish I had one. I would be happier if I had one. Did you see that rock on her finger? OMG it was huge, I wish my fiance got me a rock like that!

Jealousy.

Poison 3 is aversion: Dislike. My landlord keeps raising my rent, I really dislike him. I am alone, I hate being alone. I have no children, I hate not being a parent.

Contrary to some earlier posts, desires/preferences such as what I prefer for dinner are not wrong nor do they necessarily lead to dukkha. It is attachment to desires that causes dukkha. It is defining our happiness according to obtaining a desire that is dukkha.

Because we are ignorant of reality (the first poison) we believe we can be happy by obtaining some desire we are attached to (the second poison). When we obtain that goal and are left unfulfilled we are disappointed (poison #3 - aversion).

This cycle repeats endlessly.

This is suffering in buddhist terms.

I like to ask Buddhists who have experienced enlightenment and even Nirvana, if they can last longer in torture chambers of the kinds stationed in foreign countries supposedly enlisted by the USA military-intelligence establishment to make terrorist suspects talk.

What does it mean to 'last longer'? Is 'lasting longer' in a torture chamber your aspiration?

That will certainly be much more convincing, absolutely convincing about the efficacy of Buddhism as a way out of suffering, even just the purely physical one of pain -- if it works.

How many times and different ways do you need to be told buddhism doesn't deal with physical pain before you understand that physical pain is not what buddhism deals with?

Another experiment is the ingestion of some feel good pill or some give no damn pill by a non-Buddhist and observe how he fares in the midst of very horribly bad news compared to a Buddhist master with certified experience of enlightenment/Nirvana by some reputable accrediting Buddhist review board.

It would take about 4 hours to read a book with comprehension and about 20 minutes to sit in buddhist meditation. You have already spent more time than this criticising what you repeatedly demonstrate you don't understand. Why?

Given how little time it takes to understand the 4 noble truths and put the 8fold path into practice, why do you continue to be an outsider looking in, taking ignorant potshots? Why not try it for yourself and know?

What is your aversion?

cajela

10th January 2006, 10:53 PM

It's a little odd how hostile some people can be to Buddhism. Maybe it comes from the use of the word "suffering" - a word that seems extreme and perhaps even loaded with some Xian ideas?

Here's a couple of clues from a quite clueless person who's done a little reading:
1. It does not matter in the slightest whether Gautama Buddha existed or not. It's the teachings that count, not the person. Totally unlike Xians.
2. Buddhist practice is a mental practice, not a belief. You are not required to believe in anything mystical at all. You may if you wish - and some traditions do because it was melded with other cultural practices.
3. There have been neurological studies on Buddhist practitioners that definitely show them as happier and less stressed than other people.
4. Buddhist meditation practices have been clinically shown to be helpful to people suffering from stress, anxiety & depression.

Now, I find the Dalai Lama a bit too woo for me, as he seems to beleive in literal physical reincarnation. But if you stop trying to equate it to Xianity, that doesn't matter. He's not the sole authority, he's not the Pope or Jesus. As the Buddhists here can probably guess, the Zen tradition appeals to me most.

I see meditation as being rather like exercise. It's something you can do to help sustain a healthy mind - exercising a different bit of the mind than crosswords, programming and scepticism, which are also good things. It's not terribly far removed from cognitive therapy.

epepke

11th January 2006, 03:53 AM

I don't believe this is possible. The 8 fold path is something to be experienced for oneself rather than intellectually discussed (not that discussion is bad).

OK, now we're getting somewhere. This sounds an awful lot like an unfalsifiable claim to me, and so I think clearly frames Buddhism in terms amenable to skepticism.

First, we start with the 1st noble truth, in life there is suffering, we have a sense that something is out of kilter.

Next we learn the cause, our cravings and attachments.

Next we hear that this afflication has a cure.

Lastly we are presented with the cure.

How do we know if the cure works? Same way we know if the pill the doctor prescribes for us works or not. We try it and see what happens. I am not knowledgable enough to explain why taking aspirin usually rids me of a headache, but I know from experience that it does so when I have a headache I take aspirin.

Again, now we're getting somewhere. We don't try pills at random. For every pill, there's a large amount of literature specifically testing its effectiveness.

If someone swore up and down that a certain homeopathic remedy worked for them, I wouldn't be inclined to try it. Furthermore, if they claimed that it was guaranteed to work, but I would have to take it for a period of time that was long compared to a human life or, even worse, unspecified, then I would call pseudoscience on it.

That's how it comes across to me that you are presenting Buddhism. Much the same way that Freudian psychoanalysis was presented for many years, but of course, psychoanalysis is widely considered pseudoscience precisely because of this.

It doesn't take 40 years, just the time it takes to read a decent book or two and then sit in meditation for a couple times, 15-20 minutes each.

This type of advice is perfectly reasonable for any self-help technique. Self-help techniques usually aren't supported by science, but they sometimes help, and they can be worth a try. However, they often don't work, either.

The problem comes when one makes a stronger claim, such as you did in the first quote in this posting. It is incumbent upon the claimant to provide evidence with strength proportional to the strength of the claim. (This is what is meant by "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.")

If the claim basically amounts to "try it; you might like it," then that doesn't require much evidence. However, the claims of Buddhism go much further than that, for the most part.

Jekyll

11th January 2006, 04:06 AM

Just as the first noble truth is unfortunately sometimes expressed as "Life is suffering", the idea of having no desires is another pervasive myth that just confuses people.

It isn't about having no desires, it is about losing our attachment to those desires. It is fine, if single, to desire a life partner. It is fine, if poor, to desire a decent paying job. It is our attachment to these desires that causes problems, not the desire itself.
Ok.
"Love loves to love love."~Joyce
I can see how this can cause problems, but is it only attachment to our desires that budhism intends to remove or also attachment through our desires?
Again, a fundimental part of being in a good relationship is our attachment to the other person. This will undoubtably lead to some suffering for at least one person in the relationship (unless they both die simultaniously, before splitting up).
And I still believe that it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

epepke

11th January 2006, 04:10 AM

It's a little odd how hostile some people can be to Buddhism. Maybe it comes from the use of the word "suffering" - a word that seems extreme and perhaps even loaded with some Xian ideas?

Well, this is a skeptics' group. Personally, I see no reason why Buddhism should get a free ride, when Freudian psychoanalysis, Neuro-Linguistic Programming, the Kabbalah, etc. don't get free rides.

This thread is historically part of a series of threads which are, basically, a critical examination of Buddhism to determine whether it is pseudoscientific. The main people doing this are yyreg and myself, and yyreg seems to be widely dismissed as a troll. Though recently a couple of other people have started to do it.

If you interpret it as hostile, well, welcome to skepticism!

3. There have been neurological studies on Buddhist practitioners that definitely show them as happier and less stressed than other people.
4. Buddhist meditation practices have been clinically shown to be helpful to people suffering from stress, anxiety & depression.

These are claims. Show us the evidence.

Practicioners of homeopathy, therapeutic touch, and accupuncture also claim that studies exist. They're even better at providing evidence. Seriously, I doubt that a discussion about homeopathy could have progressed so far without some homeopath at least attempting to provide a link to a reputable study. There have been plenty of links to books about Buddhism, explanations of Buddhism, etc, but I have yet to see any link to something that even purports to be a decent independent study of the effects of Buddhism.

You mentioned cognitive therapy. It doesn't get a free ride, either.

Dancing David

11th January 2006, 04:39 AM

Really? I thought Buddhism taught the transending all attachments, as a way to pre-empt the suffering caused by later loss.

i.e. Loose the desire for chocolate now, in case your doctor forbids it tomorrow.

That is certainly a case presented by some, but most teachers take it the other way.

If our thoughts about the future loss of a lover prevent us from enjoying our love, that is a hinderance.
If our craving for the support of others leads us to choices that harm us, that is a hinderance.

In recent buddhism the goal is to engage in life willingly and mindfully. Accept that life is good and bad, try to live it directly and simply.

THere is no prescription from enjoying life.

Dancing David

11th January 2006, 04:47 AM

Well, if Buddhism doesn't have simple answers for any questions, how come people keep lecturing me about how it's so ****** simple and clear?

As the Tao De Ching says, 'the path is wide and straight, people are easily distracted", the methods are simple, but the explanations can be wordy.

I think that because of iterdependance and uniqueness, the simple becomes lost in the analogies used to convey the potential sense of meaning.

Morphine is simple. Morphine is clear. And it provides a simple answer for an important class of questions having to do with suffering.

I doubt the buddha would have eschewed the use of morphine to treat pain. Yet the causes of substance addiction are very complex and varied with interdependance and unique aspects. The answer is simple, quit using , the expression of the goal is complex.

Except I've heard that "crap" from the majority of Buddhists I've run into.

Well, I have met many a scientist who believes in god and the sanctity of science.

How can I tell the difference between statements like this and statements by liberal Christians?

Is it a needfull distinction, both have merit and both have detriment.
[/quote]

On the IIDB forum, a sort of do-it-yourself Quaker, who is also a moderator there, told me that Christians believed in love. Well, nice words, but does that mean that all the Christians who say otherwise do not exist, and how does this kind of argument play out except de facto as running interference for the Jerry Falwells and Pat Robertsons of the world?

What reason is there to think that Buddhism as a whole is any more related to the essays and aphorisms of Gautama Buddha than Christianity is related to the statements attributed to Jesus (namely, not much at all)?

There's a thin line between radical and meaningless, you know.[/QUOTE]

Most likely.

Dancing David

11th January 2006, 04:57 AM

Let's start with suffering. Dancing David has presented us with a nice, succinct OP that displays some kind of disagreement or at least cognitive dissonance about what "suffering" refers to. Specifically, it refers to "existential suffering" relative to other suffering.

I'll lay my cards on the table. I think "existential suffering" is a disease of extended adolescents, people who have never had a job that got their hands calloused in their life, who wear too much black and listen to too much Mahler. The woman in Educating Rita is a pretty good archetype.

Which is why I regret the thinking of a much schooled fellow buddhist.
Yet there under educated and working class people who suffer from similar disorders.

"this would be a better country if all the rag heads, mexicans and jews would leave."

"the death of 40 million unborn children is a curse upon our nation that will not soon be lifted"

"the teching of evolution is a black eye for god"

I think of these as existential suffering in the non-Kirkegardian sense, they are based in mistaken beliefs about what existance is.

On the other hand, I have some small experience with real suffering. I've experienced depressions from Bipolar II disorder, which psychiatrists generally agree are the worst depressions that humans can experience. I've also had acute pancreatitis three times. Now, I don't have Bipolar II any more, and my necrotic gall bladder is gone, but that's for a different thread. And it's probably pretty small beer; I conjecture that fowlsound has experienced more suffering than I. But still, I do have some experience.

And again the approach of buddhism is similar to cognitive behavioral therapy, it can reduce the thought and emotional component of suffering. It can not cyre heart disease.

So, how can I understand the Buddhist concept of suffering?

By defining it in terms that make sense to you.

No; I just thought it was unnecessarily defensive.

FWIW, I am not trying to be insulting either. Confrontational, yes.

I wouldn't agree to confrontational.

Jekyll

11th January 2006, 05:17 AM

That is certainly a case presented by some, but most teachers take it the other way.

If our thoughts about the future loss of a lover prevent us from enjoying our love, that is a hinderance.
If our craving for the support of others leads us to choices that harm us, that is a hinderance.

In recent buddhism the goal is to engage in life willingly and mindfully. Accept that life is good and bad, try to live it directly and simply.

Well this contradicts what some of the others are saying so here's a few questions for you :D :

When you say "recent buddhism" what exactly are you refering to?

Why do you try to live simply? Does this contradict engaging in life mindfully?

epepke

11th January 2006, 06:09 AM

And again the approach of buddhism is similar to cognitive behavioral therapy, it can reduce the thought and emotional component of suffering. It can not cyre heart disease.

OK, here's another comparison of Buddhism to psychology.

So, is it like CBT in that practicioners of CBT do longitudinal studies and get them published in peer-reviewed journals?

Or is it only like CBT in the sense that CBT is like Freudian psychoanalysis?

Or is it like CBT in the same way that homeopaths say what they do is like vaccination?

Roboramma

11th January 2006, 07:09 AM

Epepke, you rock.

The question, "Does Buddhist philosophy offer happiness or a release from suffering to most people who practice it?" Has an answer. That answer can be given even to those who have never practiced Buddhism.
But the only way to do so is with evidence. Rather than expecting us all to accept Buddhism's claims, why don't we take a look at the evidence.

In fact, even for an individual who has practiced Buddhism for 20 years, the answer to that question is difficult without more evidence. It may seem to have increased his happiness, or decreased suffering, but we are all very prone to self-deception. As Epepke points out, look at homeopathy. There is no evidence for its efficacy, yet many people buy into it. The fact that Buddhism seems to have worked for you as an individual doesn't mean it's effective, either for you or for anyone else.

On the other hand, maybe it is. I like a lot of Buddhist philosophy. I like it's outlook. And I don't know that much about it. I'm certainly not fit to pass judgment. But I don't like that attitude (that is present in this thread), that the only way to know if it is effective is to try it yourself. There are other ways. If we had to try things at random without access to prior evidence of their effectiveness I would probably have died at an early age for lack of adequate antibiotics.

username

11th January 2006, 11:13 AM

But I don't like that attitude (that is present in this thread), that the only way to know if it is effective is to try it yourself. There are other ways. If we had to try things at random without access to prior evidence of their effectiveness I would probably have died at an early age for lack of adequate antibiotics.

What type of evidence would you want? If the claim is that practitioners of buddhism experience less suffering and more happiness, what sort of test/evidence would you expect would exist?

Are you looking for stuff like the following links or something different?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1847442.stm
http://www.webmd.com/content/Article/115/111633.htm
http://www.fifo.org/abstracts_of_psychological_lit.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3047291.stm

epepke

11th January 2006, 01:06 PM

On the other hand, maybe it is. I like a lot of Buddhist philosophy. I like it's outlook. And I don't know that much about it. I'm certainly not fit to pass judgment. But I don't like that attitude (that is present in this thread), that the only way to know if it is effective is to try it yourself.

Well, if truth be told, I like a lot of Buddhist philosophy as well, though I prefer the Zen variants. I like a lot of self-help techniques that I personally like, and I even recommend them from time to time. I like bits of Nietzsche. I like to wear cotton and eat spicy food. I like a lot of things that aren't science.

On the other hand, I also like science. Physics, in particular, I find a lot of fun. But it has to be real science.

I also don't have a problem with Buddhists qua Buddhists. I know a few in what I laughingly call real life, and they've seemed like jolly folk to me.

But the original question, posted by yyreg at the beginning of this cycle of threads, is whether Buddhism is pseudoscientific, even in part. Pseudoscience I don't like, and it's one of the things that skepticism is appropriately applied to.

username

11th January 2006, 05:37 PM

But the original question, posted by yyreg at the beginning of this cycle of threads, is whether Buddhism is pseudoscientific, even in part. Pseudoscience I don't like, and it's one of the things that skepticism is appropriately applied to.

How can something that doesn't claim to be science be a pseudoscience?

I have heard buddhism refered to as religion, psychology and philosophy, but never science.

It seems like a subjective thing in that each person evaluates it themselves, just as everyone does with religion, psychology and philosophy.

When it was suggested that we apply skeptical criticism to buddhism (a big topic) I was thinking past lives, karma and that sort of thing would be the focus. I don't really see any way to apply criticism to the personal practice which promises an inward transformation rather than some outward, testable manifestation.

That is why I suggested reading a book and sitting in meditation. I can't think of any other way to test the results.

epepke

11th January 2006, 06:17 PM

How can something that doesn't claim to be science be a pseudoscience?

I have heard buddhism refered to as religion, psychology and philosophy, but never science.

If it involves claims about reality, then it involves scientific claims.

Please note that I am not declaring clearly that it does. However, a lot of things that I have heard about Buddhism and/or from Buddhists seem quite like this.

In one of these threads, for example, I have heard the claim that it is like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. I don't necessarily endorse or condemn that claim. However, the claim puts it fairly obviously into the arena of scientific claims.

It seems like a subjective thing in that each person evaluates it themselves, just as everyone does with religion, psychology and philosophy.

Except that everyone does not do this with psychology. Scientific inquiry has happened, quite a lot, and it was the undoing of Freudian psychoanalysis.

As far as I'm concerned at this point, it's still a fairly open question as to whether Buddhism can be classified as making scientific claims. Some of the things people have said lead to this conclusion. Others do not. Ryokan, for example, seems to have picked up the gauntlet of trying to provide scientific evidence.

There's also the impression I get that there is a kind of dance associated with Buddhism, which for want of a better word I will call "political." It can be defined or specified as a lot of different things, and I get the impression that this is done in an ad hoc manner. I could be wrong, but the only way I know to settle the question is to do more investigation.

There's a precedent for this. The founder of chiropractic wrote a letter giving the opinion that it be sold as a religion, in order to take advantage of the separation clause. I don't know if I still have a link to this, but I did see it at one point.

When it was suggested that we apply skeptical criticism to buddhism (a big topic) I was thinking past lives, karma and that sort of thing would be the focus. I don't really see any way to apply criticism to the personal practice which promises an inward transformation rather than some outward, testable manifestation.

I can, and I've described it.

That is why I suggested reading a book and sitting in meditation. I can't think of any other way to test the results.

Well, that's fair enough. You can do what you are willing and able to do, and I can't reasonably expect you to do something different. But we're not just talking about you here, nor me, for that matter.

cajela

11th January 2006, 08:32 PM

If it involves claims about reality, then it involves scientific claims.

Please note that I am not declaring clearly that it does. However, a lot of things that I have heard about Buddhism and/or from Buddhists seem quite like this.

In one of these threads, for example, I have heard the claim that it is like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. I don't necessarily endorse or condemn that claim. However, the claim puts it fairly obviously into the arena of scientific claims.

Yeah, that was me. It wasn't put as a scientific claim in the thread, rather as an experiential one. From a person having some experience of CBT and a little superficial knowledge of some bits of Buddhism.

Depression & anxiety can involve distorted thought patterns, which are cause/symptoms(?) of distress. Attachment of one's personal worth to achieving some goal is a real problem. I may think that I am nothing & completely worthless & a failure as a human being because I'm overweight, or because I do not have so much as a PhD, let alone a Nobel prize. (Yes, this seriously was one of my personal ones.) Either I've failed to reach some goal or I imagine I will always fail... Now in CBT you sit down and gather evidence to show yourself that your thinking is distorted. Some of that means letting go of some of your desires - realising that they do not define you, and that in fact having them can cause you suffering. Not that there is anything wrong with the specific desire (it's good to be fit, well-educated etc), just with your pathological attachment to it. Desire, attachment, suffering - you see the analogy.

And I'd say yes, that does put it firmly in the scientific claims area. But "it" is quite limited - it's a part of Buddhist practice that is claimed to have some real effects, not every bit of every sect of Buddhism ever invented.

Some of it *is* currently being scientifically investigated. You'll find a lot about meditation on PubMed. I'm aware that there are neuroscientists looking at meditation brainwave patterns, for instance; that meditation has been shown to be of use in by medical professionals in managing depression & anxiety disorders.

I think that (some) Buddhists have hit on some very smart mental health management techniques, which well repay study.

Dancing David

12th January 2006, 05:25 AM

The goal of buddhism is to eliminate all human desires, even those preferences for tacos or broccoli.
why would a true buddhist prefer one food rather than another?.

Natural variation and predisposition.
The buddha never taught that more was required than to reduce attachment.
One must accept desire and learn to live with it, not eliminate it.

You are correct in some way. You are describing how buddhism does work for western people like us, who still have to find a job. You are adapting this philosophy to our societies. However, the purpose of buddhism is to end all desires because -if you think about them- they are meaningless.

That is not a teaching of the buddha, one does not have to retire from life even as a monk?
The end of desire is not a goal because it is apriori un-attainable.
You can learn to ignore your hunger but it still exists. And in doing so you damage the body. This is the lesson of the six year fast.

Why would you desire to have a partner?. Are you implying that a buddhist would expect to receive love and happiness from another person?. The truth is that nobody can provide anything to you and this is well known by buddhists.

If a person choses to engage in life that is thier choice, the buddha did not condem those who did not enter the monastery. Love is encouraged and spoken of by many teachers.
I think that you may have confused buddhism with aesteicism.
But there are many streams in buddhism so there are those that are life denying, although that is not a teaching of the buddha.

Yes, you are right. But I would also say that not only the attachment causes problems, but also the desire in itself. They go together, you cannot separate them.

Desire can be lived with and is related to attachment, the goal is to live with both and reduce attachment. You still have the needs and desires, perhaps an arhat can overcome desire but that is a subject of some controversy.

The ultimate goal of buddhism is to reach enlightenment and this means to end with all human desires, even the slightest. It means death as a human being. In the mean time, we are trapped in these bodies and true freedom can never happen while we are alive.

I beg to differ, the end of desire is an unattainable goal and therefore not a goal. The buddha never taught these things that you speak of. The goal is to be a human being free of attachment and suffering as much as possible. Buddhism is the middle path and very pragmatic, the end of desire is not a middle path.

I like buddhim and practice as much as I can its philosophy, but much of the mental states that it promises are unrealistic. It fails to see that there is no way out of the suffering.

Belem

That is your teaching, are you a buddha?

Dancing David

12th January 2006, 05:32 AM

Dancing David

12th January 2006, 05:35 AM

Again, I want to be very clear about this. This is just something that happens to bug me occasionally now. It's maybe in the third percentile of things I worry about. But the broken hearts thing doesn't but me at all, and I think it's vapid. I can't really state the title of the Frank Zappa song here, but it's something like "Broken Hearts are for **********.."

And on the other hand, I could spend 40 more years of my life (should I live so long) being a Buddhist and then realize that it was a waste of time.

If you and Frank Zappa feel that way then that is the way you are, other people are different.

If you live and engaged and mindfull life , how is that a waste of time?

Dancing David

12th January 2006, 05:37 AM

Well, you've put your finger on another reason that Buddhism rubs me the wrong way.

I can remember a scene from some movie, but I don't remember the movie. It went something like this:

A: Being high is like having no worries, no desires. Everything is fine. That's life, man.
B: Sounds more like death to me.

But that is not from the Life Of Brian or the Life of Buddha, if q-source is looking at buddha through the filter of a culture and society then that is not the teaching of the buddha.

The goal is to enjoy life, reduce suffering, it would be off the middle path to try to end desire.

Dancing David

12th January 2006, 05:46 AM

Well this contradicts what some of the others are saying so here's a few questions for you :D :

When you say "recent buddhism" what exactly are you refering to?

The non-tradtional recreation of buddhism, there is a very long historical track of buddhist beliefs and practises that are like hood ornaments. I could not begin to call this traditional or pure oractual buddhism, I call it recent because this version of buddhism is very modern although very linked to theravda.

Why do you try to live simply? Does this contradict engaging in life mindfully?
A simple lief is one lacking in complications, I use the term in the sense of 'elegance' in mathematics. If I try to do too many things in one day, or try to acomplish what is beyond my limits, I have real difficulty being mindfull. So when I say simple I mean the consequences of being mindfull, I do one thing at a time, I try to gauge my limits and not engage in 'multi-tasking'. I have many material goods and enjoy many technologies.

Dancing David

12th January 2006, 05:50 AM

OK, here's another comparison of Buddhism to psychology.

So, is it like CBT in that practicioners of CBT do longitudinal studies and get them published in peer-reviewed journals?

It is like buddhism in that the skills of CBT are similar to the skills of buddhism, the tasks are very similar.
But as to longitudinal studies, I am not aware of them.

Or is it only like CBT in the sense that CBT is like Freudian psychoanalysis?

I hope not, the skills of CBT and buddhism do not recomend that you relive your life from the beggining. Also both buddhism and CBT advocate doing what works, no 'therapy' for years and years and years and years.

These are my beliefs, they may not be demonstrable.

Or is it like CBT in the same way that homeopaths say what they do is like vaccination?

I hope not.

yrreg

12th January 2006, 04:11 PM

How many times and different ways do you need to be told buddhism doesn't deal with physical pain before you understand that physical pain is not what buddhism deals with? –- Username #68

First, are you sure you understand correctly the first sermon of Buddha on life and suffering. Please read that sermon again, report back here, and reproduce the lines in that sermon dealing with suffering, here in this thread.

You really mean that the genuine historically authentic teaching from Buddha is not about physical pain from whatever causes or situations in the human entity -- and I maintain that all suffering that is not physical in the human entity eventually in the shorter and longer term comes to physical pain, then you are doing an awful disservice to Buddha; because you are making of Buddhism a religion that is of no appeal to the infinite hordes of mankind agonizing from physical pain, in particular among the poorest and most ill-fated peoples on earth, discriminated against, by nature and by the iniquity of ambitious greedy fellow humans.

And I thought that Buddha sought to extinguish the caste system of his times, which is still prevailing today in India notwithstanding its being the world's biggest democracy.

So, the Buddhist teachers and leaders in traditional Buddhist lands like Thailand, Burma, Tibet keep the vast masses of their ignorant populaces hookwinked into thinking and living on the expectation of help from Buddha to relieve their physical pain, while they know all along that Buddhism is not at all about relief of physical pain.

No wonder I have this very serious suspicion that Buddhism appeals to the so-called intellectuals of the West, who are liberated mostly from the physical pain of keeping one step ahead of life's agony, hardship, and drudgery, intellectuals with nothing else to wait for except the reality of life's extinction, which extinction Buddhism paints in a positive outlook -- but they forget or choose not to realize that it's all a painting, the quest for Nirvana.

Yrreg

yrreg

12th January 2006, 04:36 PM

This thread is historically part of a series of threads which are, basically, a critical examination of Buddhism to determine whether it is pseudoscientific. The main people doing this are yrreg and myself, and yrreg seems to be widely dismissed as a troll. Though recently a couple of other people have started to do it. Epepke -- #72

Thanks for the compliment, Epepke; appreciate it.

The way I see it, troll is a title of distinction. In recent history of intellectual discourse or what passes for intellectual discourse the original trolls are those guys in CSICOP and in JREF*, and their predecessors.

Read the websites of the CSICOP (http://www.csicop.org/) and the JREF (http://www.randi.org/), and you will see how trollish the people there are.

When someone resorts to calling a person a troll, it is a confession of moral incapacity to see the big picture, and to grasp the short statement, in the critical point the latter is making about common claims, which can be of the stuffs of the paranormal, the pseudoscientific, and the supernatural.

You can call me a troll, that is a distinction I choose to welcome; but I am sure you cannot call me an iconoclast.

Yrreg

*
CSICOP = Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal

JREF = James Randi Educational Foundation

yrreg

12th January 2006, 04:48 PM

Depression & anxiety can involve distorted thought patterns, which are cause/symptoms(?) of distress. Attachment of one's personal worth to achieving some goal is a real problem. I may think that I am nothing & completely worthless & a failure as a human being because I'm overweight, or because I do not have so much as a PhD, let alone a Nobel prize. (Yes, this seriously was one of my personal ones.) Either I've failed to reach some goal or I imagine I will always fail... Now in CBT you sit down and gather evidence to show yourself that your thinking is distorted. Some of that means letting go of some of your desires - realising that they do not define you, and that in fact having them can cause you suffering. Not that there is anything wrong with the specific desire (it's good to be fit, well-educated etc), just with your pathological attachment to it. Desire, attachment, suffering - you see the analogy. – Cajela #83

No need for CBT and Buddhism for the problems above.

If the problems are due to neuro-chemistry and organism idiosyncrasy, then you should repair to pharmaceutics and surgery, or seek asylum in a mental safehouse.

If they are due to or appear in the normal course of growing up and adjusting to the realities of life, then consult your parents who are emotionally stable and have come from well-adjusted folks themselves, if not your parents then parents of people who are well-adjusted in life and in society and who give the credit to their parents.

If you have no parents, then try the school guidance counselors who are successful parents themselves, as evidenced by their children well-adjusted to life and society.

Yrreg

yrreg

12th January 2006, 05:27 PM

From levity only...

The goal is to enjoy life, reduce suffering, it would be off the middle path to try to end desire. – D David #87

Now, that is some lifestyle! it beats being a Rotarian or a Mason even, sounds more like what we might imagine a hedonist or a libidinist to be, and you get to wear the Buddhist badge of distinction.

Anyway, I am curious, D David; give me ten acts you do everyday as a Buddhist -- and I presume you are one, at least since you call yourself a Buddhist, and Ryokan says if you call yourself a Buddhist most probably you are one.

Well, maybe ten acts of commission and omission, like how many hours of meditation you do everyday, how many acts of patience or silence in the midst of annoyance, how many acts of compassion like helping people with goods and service and even money.

No, you don't have to live on begging, even though the Buddha expects his solid disciples to so, while in the USA everyone is supposed to live on work -- unless you want to count begging as work which in fact it is sort of. Well, maybe the better phrase should be live on earnings, i.e., in the US, and begging can fit in perfectly as living on earnings.

Yrreg

username

12th January 2006, 06:00 PM

Anyway, I am curious, D David; give me ten acts you do everyday...

Given your history do you really expect anyone to do anything for you anymore?

May as well make it 1,000 acts done daily. Or one billion.

Dancing David

13th January 2006, 05:11 AM

Dancing David

13th January 2006, 05:13 AM

Jekyll

13th January 2006, 05:52 AM

The non-tradtional recreation of buddhism, there is a very long historical track of buddhist beliefs and practises that are like hood ornaments. I could not begin to call this traditional or pure oractual buddhism, I call it recent because this version of buddhism is very modern although very linked to theravda.
I'm still confused. You seemed to use the term "recent budhism" to define your beliefs in contrast to the other budhists.
Are they not recent budhists? Can you spell it out a bit more clearly?

Feel free to stop using the word recent if you think it's clouding the issues.

A simple lief is one lacking in complications, I use the term in the sense of 'elegance' in mathematics. If I try to do too many things in one day, or try to acomplish what is beyond my limits, I have real difficulty being mindfull. So when I say simple I mean the consequences of being mindfull, I do one thing at a time, I try to gauge my limits and not engage in 'multi-tasking'. I have many material goods and enjoy many technologies.
Cool.

epepke

13th January 2006, 06:13 AM

Just a though and a question,

Can you truely speak for other people, is your experience similar to thiers or the same as thiers.

It's a difficult question.

I think there may be somewhat of a time lag here, as after I wrote what you are responding to, I wrote something else about another kind of existential grief that I thought might provide better common ground. IOW, I'm trying my best to show good faith.

Ultimately, though, if there are problems with my being able to speak for other people, then by the same token, there are problems with Gautama Buddha's being able to speak for other people.

epepke

13th January 2006, 06:21 AM

The way I see it, troll is a title of distinction. In recent history of intellectual discourse or what passes for intellectual discourse the original trolls are those guys in CSICOP and in JREF*, and their predecessors.

I think the term "troll" is being misapplied here. To me, a troll is someone who is only interested in getting an emotional reaction and is not intereted in engaging in followup. I don't think this really applies to either of us. I'm sticking to the balls-nailed-to-the-wall definitions of "troll" and "skepticism."

However, since you have accepted something as a compliment, perhaps you will think about a criticism as well. Posting multiple, multi-page responses in sequence is likely to give the impression of trollish behavior.

Dancing David

13th January 2006, 06:00 PM

I'm still confused. You seemed to use the term "recent budhism" to define your beliefs in contrast to the other budhists.
Are they not recent budhists? Can you spell it out a bit more clearly?

Feel free to stop using the word recent if you think it's clouding the issues.

Cool.

You can stop using the word if it deisturbs you.
I use recent because the form of buddhism that I follow is very recent in historical terms, the re-re-introduction of buddhism in the US by Thich Naht hahn, and other's of the era of the Viet Nam war.
I use recent because it is recent that a non ritual, non magic, non cultiral buddhism has arisen in the US.

I don't mean to confuse, but I aknowledge that the forms of buddhism I study may be old , but in expression they are very recent.

Dancing David

13th January 2006, 06:04 PM

It's a difficult question.

I think there may be somewhat of a time lag here, as after I wrote what you are responding to, I wrote something else about another kind of existential grief that I thought might provide better common ground. IOW, I'm trying my best to show good faith.

Ultimately, though, if there are problems with my being able to speak for other people, then by the same token, there are problems with Gautama Buddha's being able to speak for other people.

The buddha never claimed to speak for other people, his tools can be used or not, at the will of each person.

My question was more your apparent condemnation of something as being adolescent angst.
I pointed out that
a. many people experience deep grief in those situations.
b. Asked you if you can say that your process is similar or the same as someone elses?

Different people grief for different things, some grieved Bill Clinton, other Pat Robetson.

Interdependant and unique.

yrreg

13th January 2006, 06:10 PM

However, since you have accepted something as a compliment, perhaps you will think about a criticism as well. Posting multiple, multi-page responses in sequence is likely to give the impression of trollish behavior. -- Epepke

Thanks, Epepke, for that tip.

Actually I am experimenting, that word again, to see which among the threads I have started is the best for my purpose. So far Facts and Fictions in Buddhism seems to be the most versatile for my purpose.

But I also visit threads of others like the present one and that you started or I think more correctly Ryokan on Evidence of Buddhism, and give my views.

Since you are a good adviser and I count you a teacher -- of course I take care not to fall into infatuation with teachers as I see Buddhists here infatuated with a teacher from the times when society was bereft of science, technology, and the laws of critical and clear thinking, tell me for my vanity -- hehehe softly, what do you think of my equanimity? And my humor?

Best regards, and I am very glad you are around.

Yrreg

RandFan

14th January 2006, 11:32 AM

A quick asside. I don't find yrreg a troll. I don't agree with everything he (she?) says but the poster seems sincere enough.

I have thoroughly enjoyed the thread. My thanks to those who have participated. I simply don't have enough information yet to come to a conclusion as to the merits of Buddhism. I know a few Buddhists and I am very impressed with them. However I have met people who have made similar statements about Mormons and having grown up a Mormon I know it is not always what it appears to be. Anecdotal evidence must be viewed with skepticism (not to be construed to mean anyone here is simply relying on anecdotal evidence)

Carry on.

username

15th January 2006, 01:16 AM

[i]

Thanks, Epepke, for that tip.

Actually I am experimenting, that word again, to see which among the threads I have started is the best for my purpose. So far Facts and Fictions in Buddhism seems to be the most versatile for my purpose.

I didn't start this thread so I can't say for certain, but the phrase "for everyone else" in the title of this thread seems to be directed at you.

It isn't to be mean, rather it is that you have 3 or more threads of your own on buddhism where you are the lecturer at large. You repeatedly create strawmen and demonstrate a refusal to listen to buddhists as to what buddhism actually says.

You seem fond of the expression "short statement and big picture" even though you have been told repeatedly this will get you nowhere.

You do not appear to care.

Hence, several have deemed you a troll (myself included).

I would thank you kindly to go away and stick to the threads you have started and those threads which don't exclude you by saying "for everyone else" which is a euphemism for everyone other than you.

But I also visit threads of others like the present one and that you started or I think more correctly Ryokan on Evidence of Buddhism, and give my views.

There is only one person who cares what your views are and it is you. Epepke wishes to engage in skeptical criticism of buddhism and the resident buddhists are more than happy to answer his questions. He may not accept all answers, but at least he shows evidence of having read them which is more than you show.

Since you are a good adviser and I count you a teacher -- of course I take care not to fall into infatuation with teachers as I see Buddhists here infatuated with a teacher from the times when society was bereft of science, technology, and the laws of critical and clear thinking, tell me for my vanity -- hehehe softly, what do you think of my equanimity? And my humor?

I think you might be mentally ill.

Dancing David

15th January 2006, 07:20 AM

I didn't start this thread so I can't say for certain, but the phrase "for everyone else" in the title of this thread seems to be directed at you.

It was meant as humor, hence the smily face.

I think you might be mentally ill.

I would not make that assesment, yrreg seems to be very healthy.

epepke

15th January 2006, 02:53 PM

The buddha never claimed to speak for other people, his tools can be used or not, at the will of each person.

No, I don't think that one can get off that easily.

My question was more your apparent condemnation of something as being adolescent angst.
I pointed out that
a. many people experience deep grief in those situations.
b. Asked you if you can say that your process is similar or the same as someone elses?

Did you even read what I wrote? I was showing good faith by coming up with something else that I could call existential angst. I pointed attention to that. I am trying to find common ground, in good faith.

As far as true uniqueness goes, I suppose that there is someone so privileged that he can have a hangnail and be in the worst possible agony of his life.

Philip K. Dick wrote a book once and talked about the American Express commercial that had someone losing $200 during a vacation and saying that it was the worst thing that ever happened to him. Dick's response was that if that is the worst thing that has ever happened to you, then you've led a pretty sheltered life. I do not think this is an unreasonable thing to say, nor do I think it must be trumped by some vague statement about "uniqueness."

This brings up two questions.

One is the possibility that Buddhism, or specifically its ability to reduce suffering, may only be valuable for those with sheltered lives. It may be the functional equivalent of two aspirin or a hit of dope. Useful for mild symptoms.

Another is that, well, people just naturally grow a thicker skin as they get older. Time does not heal wounds; that is a myth. But it does cause one to incorporate scar tissue, which is less sensitive. How is one to distinguish the effects of a lifetime living as a Buddhist from a lifetime just living?

Nota bene, I don't have a particular answer to these questions, but I consider it valid to bring them up.

Dancing David

16th January 2006, 05:32 AM

No, I don't think that one can get off that easily.

Okay, the buddha also tailored his speech to his audience, or the oral history was edited to his audience.
When a follower of Beamha asked how to get to Bramha the buddha is alleged to have answered in termso fo Bramaha. So he may not have tried to speak for everyone but he did try to answer those who asked him questions.

Did you even read what I wrote? I was showing good faith by coming up with something else that I could call existential angst. I pointed attention to that. I am trying to find common ground, in good faith.

Given the fact that your comment followed Ryokan's disclosure about his depression, I misinterpreted your response in that context.

As far as true uniqueness goes, I suppose that there is someone so privileged that he can have a hangnail and be in the worst possible agony of his life.

No uniqueness means that while that is possible, there are no hard fast solutions in life, we all different histories, different strenths and vulnerabilities.

Philip K. Dick wrote a book once and talked about the American Express commercial that had someone losing $200 during a vacation and saying that it was the worst thing that ever happened to him. Dick's response was that if that is the worst thing that has ever happened to you, then you've led a pretty sheltered life. I do not think this is an unreasonable thing to say, nor do I think it must be trumped by some vague statement about "uniqueness."

I am glad you enjoy yourself, I agree with P.K. Dick, again I thought you had characterized someone's grief related depression as adolescent angst.

This brings up two questions.

One is the possibility that Buddhism, or specifically its ability to reduce suffering, may only be valuable for those with sheltered lives. It may be the functional equivalent of two aspirin or a hit of dope. Useful for mild symptoms.

Those who practise buddhism that are not from sheltered life would be fairly common.
I think you also have not seen the suffering of people who did not lead sheltered lives.
They suffer from the same unattainable desires and frustrations of the affluent.
I have hospitalized many a farm raised and hard working person for suicidal risk.
Living the 'hard life' may make you more resiliant, but there is more to it than that. I have met many a hard worker who has persistantlt done the unhealthy thing over and over and over.

Another is that, well, people just naturally grow a thicker skin as they get older. Time does not heal wounds; that is a myth. But it does cause one to incorporate scar tissue, which is less sensitive. How is one to distinguish the effects of a lifetime living as a Buddhist from a lifetime just living?

A very good question, and one I have thought upon, the only counter is that I have met plenty of suffering people in thier latter years, who suffer because of fear of the undesirable or attachment to the desirable.

Nota bene, I don't have a particular answer to these questions, but I consider it valid to bring them up.
All questions are valid and should always be considered.

yrreg

16th January 2006, 05:31 PM

I didn't start this thread so I can't say for certain, but the phrase "for everyone else" in the title of this thread seems to be directed at you.

It isn't to be mean, rather it is that you have 3 or more threads of your own on buddhism where you are the lecturer at large. You repeatedly create strawmen and demonstrate a refusal to listen to buddhists as to what buddhism actually says.

You seem fond of the expression "short statement and big picture" even though you have been told repeatedly this will get you nowhere.

You do not appear to care.

Hence, several have deemed you a troll (myself included).

I would thank you kindly to go away and stick to the threads you have started and those threads which don't exclude you by saying "for everyone else" which is a euphemism for everyone other than you.

There is only one person who cares what your views are and it is you. Epepke wishes to engage in skeptical criticism of buddhism and the resident buddhists are more than happy to answer his questions. He may not accept all answers, but at least he shows evidence of having read them which is more than you show.

I think you might be mentally ill.

I don't need the crutch of Buddhism like you; and there be very many like me who don't need Buddhism for a crutch in life, and they are like me finding life on their own most satisfactory and meaningful, and I am like them being productive to self and neighbors in a most positive manner I can manage, again without Buddhism like you -- which crutch of Buddhism is a pseudo crutch.

Anyway, Om Mani Padme Hum -- okay?

Or you can recite the mantra of D David: "Yrreg is a troll," that should make you feel better. [Hahaha.]

Yrreg

Dancing David

17th January 2006, 05:47 AM

I don't need the crutch of Buddhism like you; and there be very many like me who don't need Buddhism for a crutch in life, and they are like me finding life on their own most satisfactory and meaningful, and I am like them being productive to self and neighbors in a most positive manner I can manage, again without Buddhism like you -- which crutch of Buddhism is a pseudo crutch.

Anyway, Om Mani Padme Hum -- okay?

Or you can recite the mantra of D David: "Yrreg is a troll," that should make you feel better. [Hahaha.]

Yrreg

I meant no harm to you, and my responses are certainly not those advised by the buddha, I have stated that I believe you are a troll because you act like a troll. I have recnetly begun to wonder about that judgement.

Yet these are the behaviors that seem to be trollish:
1. The constrction of strawman arguments without citation of evidence.
2. Repeated assertions about your percieved beliefs concerning buddhism without citation.
3. Repeated refusal to defend prior statements through the debate process of response and rebuttal to questions.
4. Similar refusal to address the logical falws and mis-statements in your posts.
5. You say that you want your answers short and sweet but your posts appear at times to dwell on extended essays concerning your beliefs without reference to any citations or evidence.
6. Repeated rationalizations and excuses for your inability or unwillingness to answer any questions directed to you.

Because of these behaviors it appears at times that you are simply here to trumpet your own beliefs with no intrest in actual communication, in short a troll. A rather pleasant troll of the care bear variety.

It is not a mantra Yrreg, it is a response to the continued patterns stated above. When I state that you are ignorant it is not meant as an insult but a frank statement that you ignore the facts and make some really outlandish statements that appear out of the blue and are often dangerous. Such as your statements that those with a mental illness should seek out a school counselor of surgery. Do you know that school counselors use CBT if they are trained therapists?

Your motives and beliefs are still opaque.

Not that I expect you to respond this or any other pointed post that I make, be blessed in yourself. If you don't like, need or want buddhism, then more power to you.

Dancing David

17th January 2006, 05:58 AM

epepke

17th January 2006, 08:22 AM

Those who practise buddhism that are not from sheltered life would be fairly common.

This is probably true, but it comes across to me as a bit evasive. The question on the table, or at least one of them, is what exactly does the claim that Buddhist practice is good for eliminating suffering (it's usually stated that way, but I'll accept "reducing" rather than "eliminating" provisionally) actually means. So we have to ask the question of what "suffering" means in the context of Buddhism.

That many people without sheltered lives practice Buddhism is, on the face of it, no more telling than the fact that a lot of people with cancer use homeopathy, eat wheat grass shakes, or inject laetrille.

I think you also have not seen the suffering of people who did not lead sheltered lives.

This is presumptuous of you and also, I think, wrong. I, for one, have not led a sheltered life, and for only about two years of my life could have been considered affluent. Right now, I'm poor, but at least I can afford refrigeration, which has not always been true. As I've pointed out before, I've also taught residents of a mental hospital.

They suffer from the same unattainable desires and frustrations of the affluent.

Well, now, just my personal experience would lead me to agree with you. First of all, I found that my adolescent angst, at least, turned out to involve desires that actually were attainable. Also, I have to say that any unattainable desires are the least of my worries.

Bodhi Dharma Zen

17th January 2006, 12:30 PM

epepke

17th January 2006, 01:57 PM

Being awake is not about beliefs. You cant discuss it, you cant understand it if you are not "there", and you cant pretend it.

Thats why Buddhism is so different from beliefs. Its just a reminder, if anything, about such state. Not at all a body of beliefs.

Well, now I'm getting confused again.

Earlier in this set of threads, someone said that there is no awakeness.

So what is it?

And if "being awake" means something, what does it mean?

I think that the existence of your first statement disproves your second. The statement "being awake is not about beliefs" is a statement about being awake, and it is therefore part of a discussion. (This paragraph, so far, also is part of a discussion.)

It causes other problems. If it cannot be discussed, of what value is it to say that you can't understand it if not "there"? Prima facie, there would seem to be no way of communicating if you're "there" to another person who was "there." So it would be completely ideosyncratic. And, if so, how could it be said to be part of Buddhism?

yrreg

17th January 2006, 04:25 PM

This thread is entitled, "Sceptics and the Buddha, a thread for everyone else :);" so I guess there can be no deviation from the topic, or the present dicscussion at this point in time.

-------------------

I keep on thinking just what is the most fundamental notion of Buddhism like the first cornerstone, so that if you remove that stone the whole building of Buddhism crumbles down.

And I believe I have found it, it is the proposition that sentient beings have always existed from eternity but are in a process to arrive at Nirvana; when they all have arrived at Nirvana, then what? or it is of no profit to ask that question -- just you keep working for Nirvana and help others also?

I find that kind of a cornerstone to be unacceptable, on an emotional level, silly.

What I know from science is that human life and consciousness together comes about from the blind universe of matter and energy through the process of what I might call terrestrial chemistry as distinct from what I might call astro or cosmic chemistry -- which of course is the same chemistry in the big picture.

Now, what I have been reading on the ultimate premises of Buddhism, human life and consciousness is just a specimen of sentient beings; for with Buddhists, there are also gods which are what people in the West call spirits, demons, or even fairies, [softly, hahaha]; now, this is one aspect of Buddhism that Western Buddhists would rather now talk about, even though their pristine and much adored teacher Buddha also took most seriously, because these gods have to arrive at Nirvana one day.

For Buddhists, sentient beings antedate the big bang of scientific cosmology, and all sentient beings will in the end scenario of the universe arrive at Nirvana.

But what is Nirvana? Very fuzzy from Buddhists, unlike the insurance people who can at least spell out to you what their policies can get for you or your beneficiaries in terms of money or shelter or health care or replacement of material things lost or destroyed, and we have seen these insurance people make good on their promises.

Yrreg

epepke

17th January 2006, 04:51 PM

I keep on thinking just what is the most fundamental notion of Buddhism like the first cornerstone, so that if you remove that stone the whole building of Buddhism crumbles down.

And I believe I have found it, it is the proposition that sentient beings have always existed from eternity but are in a process to arrive at Nirvana; when they all have arrived at Nirvana, then what? or it is of no profit to ask that question -- just you keep working for Nirvana and help others also?

Well, that is a cornerstone of Buddhism. And as far as I can understand it, if all beings arrived ar Nirvana, then we'd all be comfortably dead.

I also think it's an absurd and rather stupid and puerile, not to mention supernatural and probably false idea.

However, concluding something about Buddhist practice from this would be an example of the fallacist's fallacy. If Buddhism somehow led to the conclusion that sauteed mushrooms tasted good, I wouldn't stop enjoying them because it was based on fallacious premises.

yrreg

17th January 2006, 05:25 PM

I meant no harm to you, and my responses are certainly not those advised by the buddha, I have stated that I believe you are a troll because you act like a troll. I have recnetly begun to wonder about that judgement.

Yet these are the behaviors that seem to be trollish:
1. The constrction of strawman arguments without citation of evidence.
2. Repeated assertions about your percieved beliefs concerning buddhism without citation.
3. Repeated refusal to defend prior statements through the debate process of response and rebuttal to questions.
4. Similar refusal to address the logical falws and mis-statements in your posts.
5. You say that you want your answers short and sweet but your posts appear at times to dwell on extended essays concerning your beliefs without reference to any citations or evidence.
6. Repeated rationalizations and excuses for your inability or unwillingness to answer any questions directed to you.

Because of these behaviors it appears at times that you are simply here to trumpet your own beliefs with no intrest in actual communication, in short a troll. A rather pleasant troll of the care bear variety.

It is not a mantra Yrreg, it is a response to the continued patterns stated above. When I state that you are ignorant it is not meant as an insult but a frank statement that you ignore the facts and make some really outlandish statements that appear out of the blue and are often dangerous. Such as your statements that those with a mental illness should seek out a school counselor of surgery. Do you know that school counselors use CBT if they are trained therapists?

Your motives and beliefs are still opaque.

Not that I expect you to respond this or any other pointed post that I make, be blessed in yourself. If you don't like, need or want buddhism, then more power to you.

I am certain, D David, that if you were mindful of your right thought and right speech, you would not accuse me of that repertory of gripes against me.

Citing is not necessary unless you are of the mind like that of newly literate folks, who think that if it's in the papers it must be true and serious.

Where citation really serves a useful pertinent and decisive purpose I do give references to the web. See my messages on two quotes allegedly from Einstein endorsing Buddhism, in that thread on Facts and Fictions on Buddhism.

You think that I don't attend to your answers; but I do, only I don't accept them. Just because you have the true believers syndrome does not mean that I have to take your answers hook, line, and sinker. When I don't accept an answer usually I prefer to keep a polite silence.

Besides, I notice that you are prone to selective reading. Go over that message of mine here mentioning pharmaceutics and surgery, and in your right mind and right speech you will have to admit that you are purposely engaging in selective reading.

I think even Epepke here observes that his messages or thoughts are not read or attended to as he would want them to be -- and he used to help folks in the mental asylum.

Tell you what, D David, go over all my messages here in JREF forum, and see if any one of your charges is based on genuine factually justifiable grounds.

But remember, we are here to also have fun, not to get all worked up as to lose our equanimity.

So, Om Mani Padme Hum.

One more thing, if it is any consolation to you, I look up my warning link here to find out whether any has been issued to me from the authorities here. So far none. Do you see any?

But I have seen three warnings issued to a poster here who is also seemingly engaged in the work of moderator of sorts. Here, see this image upload below.

http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/9858/upchurch8ks.gif (http://imageshack.us)

I am having fun here; and as soon as it's no longer fun, I will have to bid adieu to all you Buddhists here, and remove that descriptive label of Resident Buddhist Critic, that is when I am truly proven to be very wrong in everything I nurse in critical skepticism about Buddhism and its Western enthusiasts.

Yrreg

nosho

17th January 2006, 10:04 PM

Hi Yrreg,
Buddhism is a very strange religion, because it invites followers to discard any notions at all if those notions do not stand up to personal observation. This includes notions like nirvana. In fact, I'd wager that Buddhists would encourage followers to discard any notion of nirvana as being a wrong perception. Particularly the notion of nirvana as a separate destination where we do not presently find ourselves.
So if you're looking for a cornerstone to kick away, I don't think your proposition does it. Have sentient beings always existed from eternity? Who knows, and who cares? Why is that important to the path? That's what I think most Buddhists would say about this "cornerstone." It's just not an important element of the practice.
If you are looking for the "most fundamental notion of Buddhism," here it is:
The 4 noble truths:
1) There is suffering.
2) Suffering has a beginning.
3) Suffering has an end.
4) There is a path out of suffering.
There it is. I have not encountered a single tradition in Buddhism that rejects this cornerstone. This is where to start if you want to kick away a cornerstone and watch the whole structure of Buddhism collapse.

fruit_loup

18th January 2006, 06:31 AM

Buddhism can be called a suggested notion of the human condition. The Four Noble Truths give us a possible means to an end.

1.There is suffering.

This suggests that we suffer. That at least sometimes in life things will not go as planned, we will have sadnesses, we will get sick, we will grow old, and we will die.

2.There is a cause to suffering.

This suggests that we suffer because of our attachments. We cling to our ideas and in the process refuse to understand everything eventually ends. If I lose a large some of money, and refuse to let go of the desire for and attatchment to that money, then I will suffer. Sometimes this clinging is to what we have had and lost, sometimes it is for what we never have had. In the latter case we become a preta, or hungry ghost. We live to satisfy our desires and can never have our feel. When we obtain what it is we want, we are already longing for something else. To take my earlier money example. If I were the sort for which money is never enough and spent considerable time longing for more and thinking of ways to get more, then I am a preta who is desireous of money. Then, even if I obtained millions of dollars, it would not be enough.

3.There is an end to suffering.

This suggests that there is a possible way which we as sentient beings are capable of ending that suffering through our knowledge of it. And that in the freedom from suffering we are capable of experiencing life with true joy from moment to moment without suffering or even the fear of suffering. In other words, we would be enlightened, illuminated, a Buddha or whatever other term you wish to use. In short, we obtain Nirvana.

4.The end to suffering is through understanding what and why we suffer and thus practicing self-discipline to master our unhealthy attachments.

This suggests, that to end our suffering, we must first understand our suffering, and then exercise our control over our own mind so as to control our desires and impulses. If I lose a great sum of money, cannot let it go, and am therefore suffering because of it, the way to end that suffering is to realise that I would never have had it forever to begin with. I would then apply myself to letting it go. This is where meditation comes in. Meditation is simply training your mind so that it does what you wish it to as opposed to being turbulent and over emotional. Doing away with this attachment does not mean doing away with any attachment. I would still use money, still use goods, and would not go live in the wilderness and become an ascetic. I would just see it for what it is and not let it have any more influence over me than I choose. To give a comparrison, if you are overweight you do not give up food altogether, but limit the amount of food which you allow yourself. You find the pather between the two extremes, and seek to find the "just enough" point between too much and too little. This is the essence of Buddhism and why it has been called the middle way. Through this not clinging to suffering, you can experience each moment as the moment. You appreciate it more for what it is and you take more joy from that.

These Four Noble Truths are the means Siddhartha suggested to us to understand and better our situation. If you read them, it does not matter whether you agree with all of it, part of it, or none of it. What does matter, and is most relevant, is that you draw that conclusion for yourself. This means seeking all the facts to it, listening to any criticism for the good or bad which may occur, and not stubbornly walling yourself against any arguement for or against. If you wish to believe or disbelieve in a deity concept, that is your decission to make. Not mine, not a scholar's, not a mystic's, and not a Buddha's. In Buddhism everything outside of making up your own mind, is a mere suggestion.

So to you opposing Buddhism, listen to what the supporters have to say. To you supporting, listen to what the opposers have to say. We all have the ability and right to form our own conclusions. We can only hope to form these conclusions with the most knowledge available to us.

Bodhi Dharma Zen

18th January 2006, 07:10 AM

Well, now I'm getting confused again.

Excellent!

And if "being awake" means something, what does it mean?

Lets say that its simply a different perspective from where what we call "the world" is presented to what appears to be "the observer". Nothing "magical" nor "mystical" here.

I think that the existence of your first statement disproves your second. The statement "being awake is not about beliefs" is a statement about being awake, and it is therefore part of a discussion. (This paragraph, so far, also is part of a discussion.)

Do you care to explain a bit better what you are saying? Being awake, in the sense Buddhism talks about it, is to make available to the ego a different point of view regarding the world. We are talking about something like the sensation of eating "enchiladas" in a Mexican restaurant (in Mexico City). You can certainly talk about it with someone who has not tasted them. But all you can say about it is wrong, its not something you can explain with words. Not something you can share the knowledge about. He have to eat them in order to know what is their taste.

It causes other problems. If it cannot be discussed, of what value is it to say that you can't understand it if not "there"? Prima facie, there would seem to be no way of communicating if you're "there" to another person who was "there." So it would be completely ideosyncratic. And, if so, how could it be said to be part of Buddhism?

Epepke, you are a rational being. We most share a common frame of reference in order to talk about it. Have you tasted Mexican enchiladas in Mexico City? Because, if you have not, how can you discuss about them?

Bodhi Dharma Zen

18th January 2006, 07:14 AM

It is the proposition that sentient beings have always existed from eternity but are in a process to arrive at Nirvana

What a pile of nonsense! ;-)

epepke

18th January 2006, 11:35 AM

Buddhism is a very strange religion, because it invites followers to discard any notions at all if those notions do not stand up to personal observation.

This might lead one to conclude prima facie that skepticism would be welcome, but a casual observation of these threads shows a degree of foofaraw that is inconsistent with the idea.

The 4 noble truths:
1) There is suffering.
2) Suffering has a beginning.
3) Suffering has an end.
4) There is a path out of suffering.

Even before we can even approach the notion that these are true, let alone noble, we have to be able to understand what suffering is, and when we try to do that, it rolls around on the table like a glob of mercury.

I'll bring up what I did before. I was hospitalized for acute pancreatitis. It involved a great deal of what I think is appropriately called "suffering." I assert that Buddhism is pretty much useless for this, unless the Buddhists are planting opium poppies, a derivative of which at least took the edge off.

Bodhi Dharma Zen

18th January 2006, 11:57 AM

epepke

18th January 2006, 12:21 PM

Lets say that its simply a different perspective from where what we call "the world" is presented to what appears to be "the observer".

I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. I have a number of fundamentally different perspectives on the universe.

To say that something is different, however, tells me nothing. If you ask me what I'm eating, and I say "something different from an apple," all that it tells you is that it isn't an apple.

Nothing "magical" nor "mystical" here.

You know, I really which people would stop saying this as if it meant something. Skepticism is a way of dealing with claims. Just because a claim isn't mystical doesn't mean that it is not amenable to skepticism. The claim that ulcer patients should adopt bland, cream-based diets was not mystical either, but it turned out to be wrong.

I do see some magic here, but it's on the order of conjuring and consists largely of verbal misdirection to give a false sense of profundity.

Do you care to explain a bit better what you are saying? Being awake, in the sense Buddhism talks about it, is to make available to the ego a different point of view regarding the world. We are talking about something like the sensation of eating "enchiladas" in a Mexican restaurant (in Mexico City). You can certainly talk about it with someone who has not tasted them. But all you can say about it is wrong, its not something you can explain with words. Not something you can share the knowledge about. He have to eat them in order to know what is their taste.

Again with the metaphors. This falls flat for a number of reasons. First of all, we can agree what an enchilada is. Second, we can study the behavior of someone who eats an enchilada. He might, for instance, say "Ow!" and reach for a drink. Third, we can study the physiological effects of the chemicals in an enchilada, noting for instance that oleoresin capsicum when applied to tissues stimulates mucus production and also stimulates the production of substance P.

This is all a lot better than anything anyone has ever told me about "awakeness."

Epepke, you are a rational being.

Not particularly, though reason is a skill that I have.

We most share a common frame of reference in order to talk about it. Have you tasted Mexican enchiladas in Mexico City? Because, if you have not, how can you discuss about them?

Well, as I did above, for starters.

But you're still missing a terribly important point. How can you possibly know that the experience is common? Maybe I can say that I have tasted enchiladas in a restaurant in Mexico City. But maybe you went to the place with the "gringo" menu, and I went to a food stand run by someone from Jalisco? (Which is more likely, anyway, because enchiladas in Mexico are considered snacks and aren't common in sit-down restaurants).

You're just assuming that Buddhism brings one to this poorly specified state, and that it's substantially similar from person to person. But that's a bald claim. You're also assuming that no non-Buddhist (such as, for instance, me) can possibly talk about it. That's another bald claim. There's no way that you can know these things without attempting to talk about it.

From where I stand, you haven't even tried. It seems to me a lot as if you are just dancing around the question in order avoid talking about it. That's behavior that I've seen a lot from Buddhists.

I've also seen it in other places. The Emperor's subjects' talking about how beautiful his clothes are, or people in a restaurant talking as conossieurs of the subtle flavors in different waters (which Penn and Teller filled from the same garden hose just minutes before), or how alien abductees get together to share their experiences, or Breatharians. The name of the game is if you play the game and I play the game, then everything's OK, but if you don't play the game, then all hell breaks loose.

How can I know that it's more than that?

epepke

18th January 2006, 12:43 PM

Huh, it depends who you talk to, like everything else.

Well, if someone (such as a Catholic) tells me that thier religion has dogma that may not be questioned, and I question it, and they get bent out of shape, then it's at least consistent with their advertising.

Dont you think?

Yes, I do, and I do it rather well, thank you.

Bodhi Dharma Zen

18th January 2006, 12:55 PM

Its nice to talk in a purely rational way about this. Still, if I say that "Awakeness" is a non-logical subject, why do you diminish the answer? It is an answer, even if it is certainly not what you are looking for (or think you are looking for).

If I perceive you correctly, you are a man of theories. So, let me try this:

Suppose we humans share a common frame of reference, called "human consciousness" that depicts certain universe. In order to keep this simple lets say that that universe is composed by objects and watched by observers (an implicit dualist vision of some sort).

Now, suppose that someone discovered that there is another perspective, one that shows a universe that its completely different from the "objects and observers" model.

This is really what is all about. You can reach a "state of mind" (called with the terms you like the more) that is different from your current one. And no, sorry, you cant talk about it if you have not been "there".

Now, I see that you get carried away with words very soon. I share your feeling. Language have limitations you know. So, if you are looking for reasons then sorry, I cant help you.

(Ironically, the end of logical reasoning leads directly to this "awakened state", but I guess just for some individuals).

Ryokan

18th January 2006, 01:05 PM

How can I know that it's more than that?

You could try it ;)

epepke

18th January 2006, 01:26 PM

Its nice to talk in a purely rational way about this. Still, if I say that "Awakeness" is a non-logical subject, why do you diminish the answer? It is an answer, even if it is certainly not what you are looking for (or think you are looking for).

Well, I think it's because the time/answer ratio has been pretty high.

And I'm not "diminishing" the answer, depending on what you mean by "diminishing." I'm trying to noodge people into refining their answers. It seems to be working pretty well, so I'm not going to stop.

Suppose we humans share a common frame of reference, called "human consciousness" that depicts certain universe. In order to keep this simple lets say that that universe is composed by objects and watched by observers (an implicit dualist vision of some sort).

Sure. I'll even go further. I'll say that it's a model that evolution has provided us with, that seems to work well enough in the environment that humans normally occupy. So let's call this the "evolved perception." "Human consciousness" is a bit of a poorly defined term.

Now, suppose that someone discovered that there is another perspective, one that shows a universe that its completely different from the "objects and observers" model.

Sure, but I've pointed out that I personally have access not only to such a perspective, but more than one of them.

This is really what is all about. You can reach a "state of mind" (called with the terms you like the more) that is different from your current one. And no, sorry, you cant talk about it if you have not been "there".

Since I already have more than one such states of mind, readily available to me, how can I interpret your "there"? It could correspond with one of mine, in which case I'd have to be able to figure out which one. Or it could be none of them. Or it could be either a more primitive or even a more sophisticated version of one of them.

The only way I know of to settle the matter it to discuss it.

epepke

18th January 2006, 01:29 PM

You could try it ;)

How would that help?

If I tried it, then either something would happen or nothing would happen. If nothing happened, I'm pretty sure that people would just tell me that I somehow did it wrong, although in a sufficiently unspecified way that it wouldn't tell me anything. If something happened, then I would still face the problem of determining whether what happened was the same as or different from what people claim happened.

And in any event, it's just plain good skeptical sense to describe the protocol before performing the experiment, because otherwise you just get mush.

Bodhi Dharma Zen

18th January 2006, 01:57 PM

Sure. I'll even go further. I'll say that it's a model that evolution has provided us with, that seems to work well enough in the environment that humans normally occupy. So let's call this the "evolved perception." "Human consciousness" is a bit of a poorly defined term.

Agreed, yours is way better. I have lost "the touch", I abandoned rational discussions some time ago. But in fact, it is interesting that you selected that terminology. I wrote a paper on the subject, its in spanish, but I might translate it to english. It talks about perception and how it is related to language. It addresses some of the things we are discussing in here and concludes, exactly like you, that our "evolved perception" works just fine.

Sure, but I've pointed out that I personally have access not only to such a perspective, but more than one of them.

Please illustrate me. Which perspectives are you talking about?

Since I already have more than one such states of mind, readily available to me, how can I interpret your "there"?

Ah, easy. First of all, I can tell you that you have not been "there". How can I know that? Because I can tell, by the way they talk, who has been "there". Sorry for the crude metaphor, but just a sighted person knows if someone else can also see, or its just a blind person pretending.

It could correspond with one of mine, in which case I'd have to be able to figure out which one. Or it could be none of them. Or it could be either a more primitive or even a more sophisticated version of one of them.

The only way I know of to settle the matter it to discuss it.

Fair enough. Lets see how far we can go.

epepke

18th January 2006, 02:19 PM

Please illustrate me. Which perspectives are you talking about?

I'll show you mine if you show me yours.

But, of course, we have to communicate in language. What do you know about the language of modern physics? If I used the words "amplitude" or "entanglement" or "event" or "realism," what would they mean to you? That's the language that I'm most comfortable with.

Or we could do it in the language that you're most comfortable with, but I think that you'd have to start by asking questions, just as I've been asking questions of Buddhists.

Ah, easy. First of all, I can tell you that you have not been "there". How can I know that? Because I can tell, by the way they talk, who has been "there". Sorry for the crude metaphor, but just a sighted person knows if someone else can also see, or its just a blind person pretending.

Well, at least you're getting the idea that it is possible to conclude something from their behavior.

But if you don't explain it, then it remains a totally ideosyncratic perception, only available to you.

So what about how I talk leads you to that conclusion? As far as I can tell, I have been exercising a specific skill. Would I somehow lose that skill if I had been "there"?

Nota bene: I don't have any ego invested in this. I don't particually want to prove that I am a Buddha or something. I say this now in order to forestall some of the nastier things that Buddhists have said to me. I'm just exploring the territory.

Bodhi Dharma Zen

18th January 2006, 03:03 PM

I'll show you mine if you show me yours.

That would be fantastic. Sadly, unless someone discover a way to "transfer" sensations, we are stuck in language.

But, of course, we have to communicate in language. What do you know about the language of modern physics? If I used the words "amplitude" or "entanglement" or "event" or "realism," what would they mean to you? That's the language that I'm most comfortable with.

Ah, exactly. Well, I like it, in fact I like it very much because, in a way, theoretical physics is one of those fields in which our current "evolved language" becomes useless. New concepts and ways of thinking have emerged from it. Still, I doubt we can use the entaglement, gauge symmetries or the up and down quarks to discuss this subject. ;-)

Or we could do it in the language that you're most comfortable with, but I think that you'd have to start by asking questions, just as I've been asking questions of Buddhists.

Well, I dislike metaphysics, and I certainly do not use any kind of religious words, so we can use just "normal" language if you want.

Well, at least you're getting the idea that it is possible to conclude something from their behavior.

But if you don't explain it, then it remains a totally ideosyncratic perception, only available to you.

Ok, agreed. Yes. I believe there is an objective way to determine if someone has seen or not. Some Zen teachers are really good at it. I dont know how to explain it, so I will attempt it and see what happens.

Suppose I tell you about this "place" in which you cease to see a world of objects. In fact, the very ego that was seeing that world dissapears. Do you believe this is possible? You can call it a delusion, its fine. We are just pretending that such mental state can exist.

Now, how can I know if somebody has being aware of that state and not merely saying that he has been there? Here is the tricky part. But its not tricky at all. You see. When you are "there", you see things in a way so crude, so intense that you cant even believe that you were discussing the subject in the first place.

Its like if all your previous experiences were like a pianissimo and now you are seeing everything for the very first time, a fortissimo so strong that all your logical doubts are imediately destroyed.

After such a powerful experience you cant see the world the way you did before. Everything you believed in was demolished by this raw experience.

So, answering. How can I know if someone has been there? well, because he cant discuss anymore.

I know, I know, a very weak argument. Still I would like to know what do you think about it.

So what about how I talk leads you to that conclusion? As far as I can tell, I have been exercising a specific skill. Would I somehow lose that skill if I had been "there"?

Yes. You would see how futile is it. Oh, but that doesnt make it less fun, at least after sometime ;-)

Nota bene: I don't have any ego invested in this. I don't particually want to prove that I am a Buddha or something. I say this now in order to forestall some of the nastier things that Buddhists have said to me. I'm just exploring the territory.

Good. Im not interested in making a Buddha from you. So we can be all in peace.

yrreg

18th January 2006, 04:06 PM

Bodhi Dharma Zen

18th January 2006, 04:46 PM

There are many types of Buddhism, and even if you find two individuals that follow the same type, I dont see they would need to agree (just a personal idea, I really dont know).

Do you feel the need to attack a special kind of Buddhism? or just the whole bunch, in a general sense? If the last is true then you are in trouble. If you are planning to critique some branch then I might be able to help. Theravada? Tibetan?

Oh, btw, If anything, I would be considered as an outsider of Zen tradition, but in reality I couldnt care less about titles or denominations ;-)

epepke

18th January 2006, 05:06 PM

Ah, exactly. Well, I like it, in fact I like it very much because, in a way, theoretical physics is one of those fields in which our current "evolved language" becomes useless. New concepts and ways of thinking have emerged from it. Still, I doubt we can use the entaglement, gauge symmetries or the up and down quarks to discuss this subject. ;-)

I bring it up because one of the ways that I can perceive the universe is in terms of tangled amplitudes.

Of course, this might be totally different from your "there." But it doesn't have any "objects" in it, or any "self."

Suppose I tell you about this "place" in which you cease to see a world of objects. In fact, the very ego that was seeing that world dissapears. Do you believe this is possible? You can call it a delusion, its fine. We are just pretending that such mental state can exist.

Oh, I don't think it's impossible; I just think it's kind of trivial. Objects and the self are fairly naive concepts anyway, but I think most reasonably intelligent people figure this out around 6th grade or so.

Its like if all your previous experiences were like a pianissimo and now you are seeing everything for the very first time, a fortissimo so strong that all your logical doubts are imediately destroyed.

After such a powerful experience you cant see the world the way you did before. Everything you believed in was demolished by this raw experience.

So, basically, it's like an ice pick in the forehead? I can see staggering around for a couple of hours, but I don't see the value in diminishing one's capabilities, unless someone somehow wants to do that.

So, answering. How can I know if someone has been there? well, because he cant discuss anymore.

I know, I know, a very weak argument. Still I would like to know what do you think about it.

Not much, really.

ETA: We could probably get further quicker if you told me exactly what I believe in that would be "demolished."

yrreg

18th January 2006, 05:12 PM

Bodhi Dharma Zen

18th January 2006, 05:30 PM

I bring it up because one of the ways that I can perceive the universe is in terms of tangled amplitudes. Of course, this might be totally different from your "there." But it doesn't have any "objects" in it, or any "self."

Very interesting! I would love to read more about it. Tangled amplitudes. I even like the term. Tell me whats in your mind.

Oh, I don't think it's impossible; I just think it's kind of trivial. Objects and the self are fairly naive concepts anyway, but I think most reasonably intelligent people figure this out around 6th grade or so.

My first guess is that you dont live close to "common humans". Maybe you live in the dorm of a physics university? ;-) Seriously. I dont know how much you have traveled, but AFAIK, I have seen people seriously believing that the world is what they see, and worst, many of them are still lost in some kind of religious imaginery, with demons, ghosts, reencarnations and gods everywhere.

For those individuals, specially the ones who suffer from depression or stress, or those who simply hate their lifes, Buddhism is a path, and it can lead them to forget their previous problems. Nope, it doesnt work always, in fact, I have seen several "buddhists" (zen students for example) that simply cant leave their demons behind.

So, basically, it's like an ice pick in the forehead? I can see staggering around for a couple of hours, but I don't see the value in diminishing one's capabilities, unless someone somehow wants to do that.

Yes! Oh, and maybe I was not clear about this. Reaching "that" is not at all important, or necessary. It is interesting, and it can give you an astonishingly different perspective regarding what we are and what we believe, but thats about it.

ETA: We could probably get further quicker if you told me exactly what I believe in that would be "demolished."

Well, I dont think Buddhism has anything to say about your Tangled Amplitudes. But Im still very interested to read something about them

Dancing David

18th January 2006, 05:37 PM

This is probably true, but it comes across to me as a bit evasive. The question on the table, or at least one of them, is what exactly does the claim that Buddhist practice is good for eliminating suffering (it's usually stated that way, but I'll accept "reducing" rather than "eliminating" provisionally) actually means. So we have to ask the question of what "suffering" means in the context of Buddhism.

I thought that had been discussed endlessly, but to recap: there are desires and there are fears. The goal of the eightfold path is to reduce the clinging to desire and the attachment to the fears. They still exist but thier impact can be lessened.

That many people without sheltered lives practice Buddhism is, on the face of it, no more telling than the fact that a lot of people with cancer use homeopathy, eat wheat grass shakes, or inject laetrille.

I quite agree but I felt that I have read many places in these threads that you felt biddhism is only for those who come from affluent lifes, I am often mistaken.

This is presumptuous of you and also, I think, wrong. I, for one, have not led a sheltered life, and for only about two years of my life could have been considered affluent. Right now, I'm poor, but at least I can afford refrigeration, which has not always been true. As I've pointed out before, I've also taught residents of a mental hospital.

Again you have made repeated assertions that led to me making the statement you are responding to, it was my impression(perhaps a mistaken one) that you were asserting that buddhism applies only to those who come from affluent society.

Well, now, just my personal experience would lead me to agree with you. First of all, I found that my adolescent angst, at least, turned out to involve desires that actually were attainable. Also, I have to say that any unattainable desires are the least of my worries.

And again, you may be very different from other people, I have met many who suffer from thier attachment to desire and are in an unending quest to fill thier voids. Of those who are dominated by thier fears.

Bodhi Dharma Zen

18th January 2006, 05:38 PM

Thanks for your reaction, good friend.

But please don't forget to tell me what you don't believe in, in Buddhism, in the list I have deviced, and add to the list. Just what you yourself personally don't believe in.

I just love to know how many things in Buddhism people who do believe in Buddhism don't believe in.

Certainly that is a possible task of self-inquiry.

Or is that too personal a curiosity to address from yours truly?

All in the name of academic curiosity and also in view of everything lawful and informative in the name of skeptical criticism.

Thanks again for your reaction.

Yrreg

Well, you didnt address this to me, so Im not sure if it was for me. Please excuse me if this is not the case. That said, I can resume my "buddhism" very easily:

What can I say aboth the Buddha that he would have liked?

You Are The Buddha

Yes, you yrreg (or anyone else)

How is that he knew about this things?

Well, because being awakened to its own nature he couldnt do anything but SEE.

Buddha means "AWAKENED"

Nothing about gods, nothing about pretended knowledge nor traditions. Nothing about tryint to answer with deep truths to impossible questions.

This is "my" Buddhism

Bodhi Dharma Zen

18th January 2006, 05:43 PM

To say it in another way: Buddhism is about seeing our own nature before our thinking clouds it. Its a revealing experience, pretty interesting, but certainly not for everyone. If you are curious to try, good. If you are not, good!

Dancing David

18th January 2006, 06:05 PM

I am certain, D David, that if you were mindful of your right thought and right speech, you would not accuse me of that repertory of gripes against me.

If you disagree with my perspective of your behaviors that is fine. I never said that I behaved as a buddhist at all times, I am not always goaling for perfection. I am often trying to explore where people are by pushing and pulling.

As I stated , against the advice of the buddha.

They are not a list of gripes, as I undersatnd the word, they are a list of [ercieved behavior. Which as in all perception might and often is mistaken.

Citing is not necessary unless you are of the mind like that of newly literate folks, who think that if it's in the papers it must be true and serious.

It is the custom of this forum, when stating that 'xi usualy acccompanies the quality of bloog' that one may be asked to provide some evidence that xi does in fact accompany bloog. The lack of citation would seem to promote the idea that perhaps you make things up based upon very brief encounters or wholly from the imagination. It is a common part of debate upon this forum, to try to substantiate ones beliefs, it should not be a blind appeal to authority.

Where citation really serves a useful pertinent and decisive purpose I do give references to the web. See my messages on two quotes allegedly from Einstein endorsing Buddhism, in that thread on Facts and Fictions on Buddhism.

My meaning is that ypou have ascribed mant things to buddhism without stating where you recieved that impression, the first rule of a sceptic is to not blindly accept the statements of another but to examine the evidence and draw personal conclusions.
It has been very hard to derive the core of many of your statements because you do not state where and how you base your statements.

You think that I don't attend to your answers; but I do, only I don't accept them. Just because you have the true believers syndrome does not mean that I have to take your answers hook, line, and sinker. When I don't accept an answer usually I prefer to keep a polite silence.

If you feel that I am a true believer than you have understood nothing, which is inevitable since your opinion is based upon the same limited information that my beliefs about you are based upon. I believe nothing , dear one, I doubt everything, I trust my senses no farther than the limits of my perception. I especialy question my own beliefs on a regualr basis. Someday we should perhaps discuss how my beliefs have changed regards political conservatism and Xianity. They both used to make me foam at the mouth and shout invectives.

In general of this forum, if you feel that there is an error in logic and reasoning then it is gleefully pointed out. And I appreciate it myself, I like to learn about how other people think and reason, I usualy learn a lot that way. So can you point out the errors in my logic , or are you just here to debate yourself?

Besides, I notice that you are prone to selective reading. Go over that message of mine here mentioning pharmaceutics and surgery, and in your right mind and right speech you will have to admit that you are purposely engaging in selective reading.

I could do so and have done so, you are the one who suggested that those with amantal illness should seek surgery. Does that mean that you believe that those who live with schizpphrenia should have lobotomies?

I think even Epepke here observes that his messages or thoughts are not read or attended to as he would want them to be -- and he used to help folks in the mental asylum.

Unlike you Epepke answers questions and responds to post, something I have not seen you do. I do read and attend to his posts and we engage is discussion and debate.

Tell you what, D David, go over all my messages here in JREF forum, and see if any one of your charges is based on genuine factually justifiable grounds.

What purpose would it serve?
If I list every question that I have posed to you, and that you have not answered, then shall I just ask them again so you can ignore them again. I will gladly ask you them again if you will repond, as I said I truely enjoy learning how other people think, I learn from the debate. So If I ask the questions again, shall you answer them.

But remember, we are here to also have fun, not to get all worked up as to lose our equanimity.

If you read on the buddhist teaching of equanimity then you would now that it also means trying to understand the perspective of other and being open to discussion. Have you sjown that? :)

So, Om Mani Padme Hum.

One of the reasons I feel you don't read or consider my posts, I have already stated I am very sceptical of many of the ritual/magic beliefs of buddhism, I feel mantras are empty, one could recite any phrase to attain the effect of the chanting. I am very sceptical of the purported power of phrases. My preference is for 'Owata loo niam'. :)

One more thing, if it is any consolation to you, I look up my warning link here to find out whether any has been issued to me from the authorities here. So far none. Do you see any?

Did I say you has?

HMM< overactive imagination?
;)

But I have seen three warnings issued to a poster here who is also seemingly engaged in the work of moderator of sorts. Here, see this image upload below.

http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/9858/upchurch8ks.gif (http://imageshack.us)

I am having fun here; and as soon as it's no longer fun, I will have to bid adieu to all you Buddhists here, and remove that descriptive label of Resident Buddhist Critic, that is when I am truly proven to be very wrong in everything I nurse in critical skepticism about Buddhism and its Western enthusiasts.

Yrreg

I am also very sceptical of many buddhist beliefs and practices, and have stated so very often.

I shall have to detach from my joy that you have actualy started to communicate with me, I would like to learn from your thoughts and reasoning, but they often are hard to follow as you don't defend or explain them.

QUOTE BY YRREG:
[quoute]
If the problems are due to neuro-chemistry and organism idiosyncrasy, then you should repair to pharmaceutics and surgery, or seek asylum in a mental safehouse.
[/quote]
Enlightenment and remove my ignorance Yrreg, what 'surgery' are you suggesting here?
Surely not the abusive and barbaric lobotomy?
Please allow me to know that you don't advocate surgery for the treatment of major depression, bipolar direder, schizophrenia and or anxiety. I am not sure what you meant by surgery.

And you should know that in the USA there are no 'mental safe house', there is no asylum anymore, if there was my job would be very easy because very one could go to the hospital or get drug rehab.

Dancing David

18th January 2006, 06:24 PM

So that people like myself will know what you don't believe in when you do write to the credit of or in defense of or to explain Buddhism, here is a list of items you can check as not believing in, in any way you understand them to mean and don't believe in them:

[ ] 1. Sentient beings have always existed and should head for Nirvana, the definitively final kind.

I have seen no evidence that sentient beings exist anywhere other than on our very limted speck of codmic debris. Nibbanna is a state of freedom where attachment does not lead to further suffering, it is attained by sentient beings and ends when they die. That which does not exist can not be 'liberated', death is the end of life. That is all she wrote, there ain't no more. So the belief in parinirvana is very outrageous.

[ ] 2. Non-self, not-self, no-self

The self that does not exist is the one that you called the 'moral' self in another self. The self that does not exists is the transcendant self of the immaterialists and many religions. There is no soul, there is no spirit. there are only bodies, within those bodies are thoughts, eomtions, perceptions and habits.
That is all there is there ain't no more.

[ ] 3. Karma

Karma/kamma is the consequence of our thoughts and actions, there is no soul to rebirth, there is no spirit to rebirth. When we diee, we are gone. All that remains are the consequences of our actions. AS ye sow, sp shall ye reap, that is karma.

[ ] 4. Rebirth

No rebirth, no reincarnation, no life after death. No transmogrification, we are not eben the same person moment to moment, the illusion of continuity is comforting but still an illusion. That is annicca, impermanace.
There is nothing to be reboren, when our bodies die, they can become worm food or feul for a fire. But that is the body, there is enetity of the living that passes on.
Dead is dead.

[ ] 5. Nirvana

If Nirvana is a place like heaven then it makes about as much sense. My understanding, and I am most likel;y to never attain nirvana , is that nirvana is a state where the person lives life in freedom, dealing with things as they arise, and not suffering from attachment to desire or fear of the undesired.

But when it comes the the Tushits, or Pure Land or any sort of rebirth, I just kind of laugh and go on.

Living free is nirvana.

[ ] 6. Anything else you don't believe in, which Buddhists with intelligence and literacy propound in Tibet, Burma, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam, China, Japan, and other lands in the Far East where Buddhism is the or a traditional religion. [Please add to the list.]

I have mentioned many such before, the belief that prayer to the buddha does more than any other prayer, the belief that acts can do more than create consequences. Given the age of the buddhist paths and the eighteen differnet paths it took, there are many different and varied beliefs to wonder at and be sceptical of.

Recently I was reading Thich Naht Hahn, he stated 'trees love you' I respect him as a teacher , but I am sceptical of trees loving me.

In this manner I will not be thinking that you harbor notions which I can't accept in you for being Westerners with a sound education in science and in critical clear thinking.

Is that a strawman? No, just so that I will know what you do believe in or more properly not believe in re Buddhism, and what I should think about you insofar as every thinker thinks also about another thinking person, without emotional downgrading but just academically -- namely as a subject of interest.

---------------

Anyway, everyone and together:

Om Mani Padme Hum -- Om Mani Padme Hum -- Om Mani Padme Hum

Yrreg

Owata loo naim!

Anyone who believes that buddhism is a religion that advances by faith rather than practise is well, foolish. I am sure that there are many who look at buddhism and see a magic genie that makes all there wishes come tue, oh well
May they be blessed.

nosho

18th January 2006, 10:04 PM

This might lead one to conclude prima facie that skepticism would be welcome, but a casual observation of these threads shows a degree of foofaraw that is inconsistent with the idea.

Even before we can even approach the notion that these are true, let alone noble, we have to be able to understand what suffering is, and when we try to do that, it rolls around on the table like a glob of mercury.

I'll bring up what I did before. I was hospitalized for acute pancreatitis. It involved a great deal of what I think is appropriately called "suffering." I assert that Buddhism is pretty much useless for this, unless the Buddhists are planting opium poppies, a derivative of which at least took the edge off.

If the goal is to avoid pain or make pain go away, I think you're absolutely right in saying that Buddhism is useless.

Some experienced meditators are said to reach states where you can whack them with a plank and they don't react, but when the meditation session is over, you can bet they feel pain just like the rest of us.

Physical pain can certainly be viewed as a kind of suffering. But Buddhism as I understand it is not anesthesia. The path out of suffering does not mean running away from suffering; it means embracing suffering, and transforming it and yourself.

What does that mean with regard to physical pain? It means if you slap the Buddha, it'll still sting.

My point to Yrreg was that if he wants to kick away a cornerstone of Buddhism, he should start with the "4 noble truths."

Epepke, you nailed the issue when you asked for a definition of suffering. Because suffering is always going to be subjective, isn't it? There's never going to be a scientific measurement. There is physical suffering, emotional suffering, and lots of other kinds of suffering. How to make sense of it all?

Yet the fact remains that the 1st so-called "noble truth" seems to be true: There is suffering. We see it all around us. We experience it ourselves. Especially if we've had acute pancreatitis.

At this point, we could toss out the cornerstone "4 noble truths" of Buddhism by arguing that since there is no scientific way to measure suffering with precision, it's impossible to quantify and test the 1st "noble truth," and therefore it's impossible to envision a scenario in which evidence could surface to refute the assertion that "There is suffering," and therefore, ala Anthony Flew, it is not an assertion at all. Or something like that.

Problem is, even though we can't measure it precisely, we know that suffering exists.

What is suffering? If we can't answer that question in a concrete, scientific way, does that mean the only rational thing to do is to toss out Buddhist practice? The answer is right there on the table, rolling around like a glob of mercury ...

epepke

19th January 2006, 11:09 AM

If the goal is to avoid pain or make pain go away, I think you're absolutely right in saying that Buddhism is useless.

Some experienced meditators are said to reach states where you can whack them with a plank and they don't react, but when the meditation session is over, you can bet they feel pain just like the rest of us.

Well, even a mere mortal such as I can control the sensation of pain while under "self-hypnosis" or "deep relaxation," and even when awake I have some control over endorphine production, but it is of limited utility. It works for being whacked with a plank, headaches, and minor surgery. Having one's pancreas digest itself is one of the cases where it isn't of much use.

Of course, it's much, much easier to control whether one reacts. I once saw an Army Ranger take a full kick in the testicles and not react.

My point to Yrreg was that if he wants to kick away a cornerstone of Buddhism, he should start with the "4 noble truths."

Well, I'm not interested in kicking away a cornerstone of Buddhism, whatever that means. What I'm interesting is encouraging skeptical thought even amongst Buddhists and certainly about Buddhism.

To me, one of the major good things that has happened through these threads, one which I didn't really expect, is that a few Buddhists or Buddhism enthusiasts admitted that they had not before considered applying skepticism to the more "mundane" (as opposed to "woo") aspects of Buddhism, heretofore considering such an application inappropriate. This has changed. Ryokan, in particular, is looking up some stuff that sounds like it could be really cool, and I hope we'll see it.

Epepke, you nailed the issue when you asked for a definition of suffering. Because suffering is always going to be subjective, isn't it? There's never going to be a scientific measurement. There is physical suffering, emotional suffering, and lots of other kinds of suffering. How to make sense of it all?

Well, I think that we can do a lot better than just giving up because it's subjective.

What is suffering? If we can't answer that question in a concrete, scientific way, does that mean the only rational thing to do is to toss out Buddhist practice? The answer is right there on the table, rolling around like a glob of mercury ...

See above. What we can do is examine the supposed "reason" for suffering, and the "cure" for suffering (to use the explanations that some Buddhists have given here). In order to do that, we have to have some reasonable esitmation of the domain of the problem.

To see how this works in other field, let's take chirporactic.

Some chiropractors claim that all disease is caused by subluxations of the nerves through the spine, and that manipulation is the cure. This is not a straw man; I know personally a living chiropractor who rejects the germ theory of disease and never had any of his children vaccinated against anything. (Ironically, he also discovered a mass in an X-ray which he reported to my father-out-law, a radiologist, who managed to get the patient proper treatment.) So that's one kind of claim.

Another chiropractor may claim that chiropractic is only good for some kinds of chronic lower-back pain. That's another kind of claim.

epepke

19th January 2006, 11:41 AM

I thought that had been discussed endlessly, but to recap: there are desires and there are fears. The goal of the eightfold path is to reduce the clinging to desire and the attachment to the fears. They still exist but thier impact can be lessened.

Well, this goes a little way toward refining the problem, but only a little.

I quite agree but I felt that I have read many places in these threads that you felt biddhism is only for those who come from affluent lifes, I am often mistaken.

In the process of a skeptical examination, I bring up many, many possibilities. One of them is the possibility that it may be designed from a privileged position and may also be designed to ameliorate the kinds of things that privileged people consider important. Another is that it may therefore be useful for population control.

However, what I'm doing is simply trying to cover all the bases that I can think of, because any one of them might be fruitful in a discussion.

Again you have made repeated assertions that led to me making the statement you are responding to, it was my impression(perhaps a mistaken one) that you were asserting that buddhism applies only to those who come from affluent society.

The repeatedness of those assertions is primarily a direct response to the repeadtedness of (primarily) your responses to those assertions in what I consider an evasionary manner. I repeat them because I have learned in the past that when I do so, often it results in a case where the responses become more refined.

My hypothesis to explain this is that it involves cutting through layers of social and ideological envelopment to get to the core.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but you or others may decide that yyreg is a troll, and the functional payoff for that is that the conclusion lets you dismiss a challenge as an irritation.

To me, that kind of challenge is important to skepticism, and as I mentioned in my previous response to another poster, it has already borne fruit. The cheif difference between me and yyreg is that, as I have mentioned, I have 29 years of experience doing this sort of thing, and I've learned a thing or two. So the knobs in my head have a lot more settings, and when I turn them to write a post, I can do a lot of different things.

Also, functionally, I percieve that there's a kind of "good cop, bad cop" thing going on. I assure you, and I am telling the truth, that this is purely accidental; there is no design to it. However, I'll take advantage of whatever I can.

And again, you may be very different from other people, I have met many who suffer from thier attachment to desire and are in an unending quest to fill thier voids. Of those who are dominated by thier fears.

I am pretty certain that I am very different from other people. This is not a bad thing; I would be superfluous if I weren't.

As far as suffering from desire, though, I'll tell you something about myself. I suffered from a desire for a very long time. I worked very hard at this for a number of years. Eventually I completely succeded in altering a portion of the universe such that I achieved my desires, and how. This is chronicled exhorbitantly on the Google archives, so there is no need to go into it further here.

Now, this has nothing to do with the practice of skepticism on Buddhism, but if you have a need to caricature me, you might as well do it on the basis of facts.

nosho

19th January 2006, 12:07 PM

What we can do is examine the supposed "reason" for suffering, and the "cure" for suffering (to use the explanations that some Buddhists have given here). In order to do that, we have to have some reasonable esitmation of the domain of the problem.

From a Buddhist perspective, I think what you're describing here is the process of taking a few steps down the so-called "eightfold path."

epepke

19th January 2006, 12:32 PM

Very interesting! I would love to read more about it. Tangled amplitudes. I even like the term. Tell me whats in your mind.

Well, I meant to say "entangled amplitudes," but I agree. "Tangled amplitudes" is a better name, even though it was a typographical error.

It's really quite simple and easily explained. It's just experiencing the Cosmos in terms of amplitudes. These are easy to understand, and if you don't, I recommend the QED in NZ tapes available from tuvatrader.com. Of course, they're a bit simplified, because they don't deal with polarization, but if you understand what are sometimes called the Hamiltonian and post-Hamiltonian numbers, it's easy to extrapolate.

Now, I say "Cosmos" because "universe" isn't big enough a word; the Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be or ever could be or could have been.

The big problem with 20th century physics is that it works great, but it takes some finagling to bring it into accord with the "evolved perception." Namely, that events either did or did not happen, that there is an electron here and not there, and so on and so forth. Many people have tried to come up with "interpretations" that make things seem congruous. So, for one, there is an event called the "collapse of the wavefunction" that has something to do with measurement, unless it has to do with thermodynamics. Or, for another, all possible things do happen, but they happen in different worlds. None of these interpretations is distinguishable from another in any meanignful scientific sense, and all of them violate at least one assumption of evolved perception.

The "tangled amplitudes" perception simply delegates this as a non-problem. Everything in the Cosmos consists of tangled amplitudes. There is no you, and there is no I, and there are no objects. There's just a dance of entangled amplitudes that sometimes decohere.

Also, nothing definitely happened. Schroedinger's cat is still both alive and dead, even after the box is opened. Only after the box was opened, the amplitudes of the cat entangled with the amplitudes of the observers in such a way that they agreed according to decoherence.

Similarly, I am both alive and dead, presuming that we're using "I" as a simple convention that means nothing real. Part of "me" died on the table a few months ago. Indeed, probably many parts of "me," an infinite number in fact, are dead now. But part of "me" is alive, and it interacts with a part of "you" that is alive, and because of decoherence, we can have discussions like this.

Now, I challenge anyone to come up with a "woo" idea that is anywhere near as bizarre as this. Yet it is consistent with science, or at least by interpretation and filtering with the parts of "us" that can do and understand science.

And yet it's perfectly trivial for me to experience, and it's also easy to discuss.

My first guess is that you dont live close to "common humans". Maybe you live in the dorm of a physics university? ;-) Seriously. I dont know how much you have traveled, but AFAIK, I have seen people seriously believing that the world is what they see, and worst, many of them are still lost in some kind of religious imaginery, with demons, ghosts, reencarnations and gods everywhere.

Back to "evolved perception" now; I haven't lived in a dorm for about a quarter century. I live in a townhouse between a golf course and a crack neighborhood, with a fiancee and two dogs. I try to talk to all sorts of people, usually in bars. I don't go to bars much these days, because I don't want to risk inflaming my pancreas, but I used to. This past weekend, I hung out with a bunch of WASPs in a private club, and they were making snide comments about Martin Luther King day. And I've gone to MLK day fish fries, been the only white face there, and felt perfectly comfortable.

I haven't traveled as much as I've liked. I've been a lot of places in the US and Canada. I've been to Britain many times and to Germany, France, Belguim, the Netherlands, Austria, and probably some countries I can't remember. I lived for a couple of months in Mexico when I was studying how to teach English. The only major use of that skill so far has been to teach English to residents of a psychiatric facility.

I was able to do some cool inter-cultural things, though. For instance, I, along with my ex-wife, solved the problem of invitations in Hispanic cultures, which many anthropologists consider a significant problem.

However, I do kind-of see what you're saying. I lived in Atlanta a few years ago, making a lot of money, and I managed to acquire a girlfriend from Peachtree City.

After a while, I managed to appreciate her world view. To her, bologna was simply bologna. A table was simply a table. A bologna sandwich on a plate on a table was simply that. She had no desire to go beyond that in her understanding. It boggled me for a couple of days, but I got over it. I've studied a lot of anthropology, and it helped.

For those individuals, specially the ones who suffer from depression or stress, or those who simply hate their lifes, Buddhism is a path, and it can lead them to forget their previous problems.

For depression, I think the recent article in Science about the p11 protein is probably more to the point.

epepke

19th January 2006, 12:34 PM

Owata loo naim!

Personally, I've always preferred "ohm millihenry picofarad ohm."

yrreg

19th January 2006, 03:39 PM

Before anything else, thanks everyone here for reacting to my messages.

I am sure that readers, both posters here and guests, can appreciate and draw their own conclusions or impressions about the merits of our messages, and find useful ideas and directives in life and in their thinking.

Epepke and some Buddhists here are into detailed discussion about suffering in the micro sphere, and the worth of Buddhism generally in the macro sphere. I wished I had their patience to go into the nitty and gritty of an issue on and on; but will they succeed in convincing each other?

If they can't convince each other; at least, and I am sure, readers here get to see an issue examined carefully, and realize for themselves how the issue should be settled, and learn something useful to life and to their thinking mind.

I confess I have no patience for going into an issue on and on, bringing in more words and concepts, hoping to score points. I just say my piece and I listen to the piece of other posters here, concurring with me or disagreeing with me, and just let the readers here and guests dropping in see, for themselves as I said, what can be useful to them.

If I may flatter myself, I always take things here from the angle of the big picture and with an attitude of saying it in a short statement, just like the pilot and the navigator of a passenger airplane are concerned with the big picture of getting the plane to reach destiny safely, and making the flight as short and as simple as possible, while the passengers might be discussing how the water in the toilet bowl aboard swirls around going down.

I have read a lot of expositions and explanations on Buddhism here, but I am still not excited about it; I still have not seen any reasons why I should take up any of its beliefs and consequential observances or practices, like their kind of meditation.

And that is why I think the more absorbing study should be why Westerners with a good education in science and skillful with crtical and clear thinking should be, and a conspicuous number are, excited about it, as to learn to speak in Buddhist language and in Buddhist concepts.

I had a good laugh just earlier when I came across this excerpt from an authoritative text on Buddhism accepted in the USA:

--------------
5) We hold, as central to the spirit and goals of Buddhism:

a. The Four Noble Truths: Suffering (dukkha), cause of suffering
(samudaya), cessation of suffering (nirodha) and the Path to the cessation of suffering (dukkhanirodhagaminipatipada) Buddhism is neither pessimistic nor "escapist", nor does it deny the existence of God or soul, though it places its own meaning on these.
---------------

I have said time and again that I am here for the fun, and when I read that text I really had a good laugh and am still laughing.*

One of the reasons why I don't give reference to sources is because there are as many sources to bring up in support of any contention as there are reasons to bring them up; and people should know that, and not keep asking for citations.

Next time people here ask themselves or me where I have come across this or that idea about Buddhism; tell you what, you look it up yourself and you will find all the citations you need or for your purpose from the web.

Now, where did I find that text above? Sometimes I purposely omit citing my source, in order that experienced reader will -- and it is very easy to do so -- look it up in the web, and tell me that I have been mistaken in my reproduction of the text, or mis-understood its meaning.

I should divide this message into shorter ones, but for the fear that I might be acting trollishly. However, I will go back to my habit of posting several short messages in the same span of time, because I believe that short messages are easier to read and to refer to than one long one.

So as to make this message relevant to the subject of the thread, I will just say here, again, that I have been trying to find out continually how or why Western intellectuals would embrace Buddhism in any degree as to identify themselves as Buddhists, and the conclusion keeps coming up in my evaluation, that it's all fascination with the findings unearthed by the Buddha, one Sakyamuni or Siddhartha Gautama or whatever name he is known aside from being called the Buddha, the most distinguished one and the final and most authoritative ever Buddha.

It's all the authority of the Buddha.

Keep reading about why Buddhists believe and practice what they do believe and practice, and you will always come up with the answer: Because Buddha says so, because he has come to the final and definitive enlightenment about life and the universe and where we are all supposed to be heading for.

And how do they come to that conviction? by meditation, the Buddhist kind, preferably under a Buddhist master.

Well, that is the big picture in a short statement.

Yrreg

*If you don't see any laughing matter in that excerpt, then in a comic vein I will say you have no Buddha-mind nor Buddha-nature, or more prosaically no expertise in skeptical criticism.

Bodhi Dharma Zen

19th January 2006, 03:50 PM

huh, yrreg, you can review again. You missed it!

Bodhi Dharma Zen

19th January 2006, 03:58 PM

The big problem with 20th century physics is that it works great, but it takes some finagling to bring it into accord with the "evolved perception."

Cant agree more. Again, you are thinking what I wrote in that paper. Nice to see Im not the only one ;-)

Similarly, I am both alive and dead, presuming that we're using "I" as a simple convention that means nothing real.

Other than thinking that the "infinite number of probabilities" is a futile excercise, I like the way you see the world. Without noticing it, you have achieved what some buddhists learn (far from a mayority of them). You know that the world is not what it appears to be, and you know that there are no objects nor observers. Everything is change.

Welcome fellow Buddhist, wheter you use the name or not ;-)

ETA: The only real difference is that you have reached your knowledge via logic, while a Zen Buddhist, for example, can EXPERIMENT your "Entangled Amplitudes", outside the normal "evolved cognition".

epepke

19th January 2006, 04:33 PM

Other than thinking that the "infinite number of probabilities" is a futile excercise, I like the way you see the world.

Well, the concept of an "infinite number of probabilities" is also an artifact of trying to impose a classical view, but if you don't do that, it's all rather elementary. Which does not mean easy to calculate, but the basic ideas are rather simple, only seemingly strange.

Without noticing it, you have achieved what some buddhists learn (far from a mayority of them). You know that the world is not what it appears to be, and you know that there are no objects nor observers. Everything is change.

Welcome fellow Buddhist, wheter you use the name or not ;-)

Honestly, it's not my intention. But please note if so (or even if not) that I was only boggled for a couple of hours, and I can explain it rather easily, I think.

So it conflicts with your statement earlier that I can't see the world as I did before. Because I can. That's just another skill. And to demonstrate it, I'll say the following:

As far as I can tell, this either means that this really has little or nothing to do with what you're talking about, or your statement was a bit naive and needs revising, or perhaps enlightenment?

Bodhi Dharma Zen

19th January 2006, 05:06 PM

epepke! not at all! I have said well. You have think about it, others have actually lived it. Big difference. ;-)

epepke

19th January 2006, 05:56 PM

epepke! not at all! I have said well. You have think about it, others have actually lived it. Big difference. ;-)

I'm not sure what this is supposed to mean. If it means that thinking about it is less disabling than living it, then I think that thinking about it is better. But that's because I don't like losing skills. Maybe Buddhists like losing skills? Just a guess.

And, for me, thinking is a big part of living. So living for me consists of a lot of thinking. I like it, in the same way that some people like doing whatever they do. Besides, the brain is fun to use, and the price is right.

Dancing David

19th January 2006, 06:21 PM

Well, this goes a little way toward refining the problem, but only a little.

Well that is too bad because that is the defintion of the suffering that buddhism is suppose to reduce.

In the process of a skeptical examination, I bring up many, many possibilities. One of them is the possibility that it may be designed from a privileged position and may also be designed to ameliorate the kinds of things that privileged people consider important. Another is that it may therefore be useful for population control.

That is a very important consideration, in fact buddhism like many non-tribal mystic traditions was a rather limited practise in the begining. Just like many forms of monastic mysticism, it was open to all but practised mainly by the upper classes. Allegedly during the reign of the Emperor Ashoka, buddhism was brought to a much wider population.
My point merely was that there are people who do not come from affluent backgrounds who do practise buddhism and find benefit from it.

However, what I'm doing is simply trying to cover all the bases that I can think of, because any one of them might be fruitful in a discussion.

The repeatedness of those assertions is primarily a direct response to the repeadtedness of (primarily) your responses to those assertions in what I consider an evasionary manner. I repeat them because I have learned in the past that when I do so, often it results in a case where the responses become more refined.

My answers are not meant to be evasive, I did not perceive a direct question to answer. I learned a long time ago, while a student of the social sciences to be very careful in my speach. If I use a phrase like, 'perhaps' or 'allegedly', it is meant to convey what doubt may exist.
In the social sciences it is needed to be very careful in satements because of the subjective nature of experience, factual hard eveidence is varied and dependant upon the unique history of the object described. And so perhaps I couch my phrases too carefully, if you ask direct questions, I will anwer them directly.

My hypothesis to explain this is that it involves cutting through layers of social and ideological envelopment to get to the core.

A very good idea, the core is in the practise of buddhism, not the trappings which are very prevalent, and I am very scpetical of. The stupas alleged to have been created to hold the relics of the buddha, I am very sceptical of.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but you or others may decide that yyreg is a troll, and the functional payoff for that is that the conclusion lets you dismiss a challenge as an irritation.

My calling him that is actualy a ploy to draw him out, he has only engaged in debate with me once, on the not-self assertions of the buddha, the rest has been a monlouge we have both engaged in.

To me, that kind of challenge is important to skepticism, and as I mentioned in my previous response to another poster, it has already borne fruit. The cheif difference between me and yyreg is that, as I have mentioned, I have 29 years of experience doing this sort of thing, and I've learned a thing or two. So the knobs in my head have a lot more settings, and when I turn them to write a post, I can do a lot of different things.

I have not a whit of problem with the challenge, but at times it is a rather broad based straw attack, I should consider patience.

Also, functionally, I percieve that there's a kind of "good cop, bad cop" thing going on. I assure you, and I am telling the truth, that this is purely accidental; there is no design to it. However, I'll take advantage of whatever I can.

I have seen better versions of it, I see you both asserting scepticism, which is agood thing, I shall consider the level of practise at sceptical debate.
(Us social workers often use a fine tuned version of god/bad cop. I see you two as very different and did not consider there to be any co-ordination.)

I am pretty certain that I am very different from other people. This is not a bad thing; I would be superfluous if I weren't.

As far as suffering from desire, though, I'll tell you something about myself. I suffered from a desire for a very long time. I worked very hard at this for a number of years. Eventually I completely succeded in altering a portion of the universe such that I achieved my desires, and how. This is chronicled exhorbitantly on the Google archives, so there is no need to go into it further here.

Now, this has nothing to do with the practice of skepticism on Buddhism, but if you have a need to caricature me, you might as well do it on the basis of facts.

I don't believe I have carictured you, but I apologise deeply if I gave that impression. I thought I had nuetralized my statements much more than that and offered no offense. My statements were more that your coping skills may not be available to other people.

Dancing David

19th January 2006, 06:36 PM

It's all the authority of the Buddha.

Keep reading about why Buddhists believe and practice what they do believe and practice, and you will always come up with the answer: Because Buddha says so, because he has come to the final and definitive enlightenment about life and the universe and where we are all supposed to be heading for.

And how do they come to that conviction? by meditation, the Buddhist kind, preferably under a Buddhist master.

Well, that is the big picture in a short statement.

Yrreg

*If you don't see any laughing matter in that excerpt, then in a comic vein I will say you have no Buddha-mind nor Buddha-nature, or more prosaically no expertise in skeptical criticism.

I apreciate your spirit, if not your broad generalizations.

But I will rejoin to you, I am tremendously sceptical of about 85% of wehat passes as buddhism. Which is why I refer to the teachings of the buddha.
When I first encountered the concepts of buddhism, I dismissed them out of hand as bizzare and impractical philosophy, especialy the more ludicrous beliefs about reincarnation and the Tushita Heaven(which is like the waiting room for the spirit of the buddha.)

But when I encountered the teachings of the buddha, as opposed to the teachings of his followers I became intrigued.

1. The buddha never proclaimed them as truth, merely as the path he had found.
2. The buddha encourages scepticism of his teachings, and encouraged discussion of them.
3. The buddha stated that it is up to each individual to decide to follow the path, it is not for every one.
4. The buddha says that the path is the means to an end, once the end is attained that path and vehicle are discarded.

I often had to ponder upon the concepts of the buddha, annicca or impermanence I already had thought of myself, But annatta, the teaching that there is no self or soul was quite a challenge to me. But as I examined it I found that I agreed with the reasoning.

So those who profess to follow the buddha s an authority are deluding themeselves.

Futher clarification, I see nothing scientific in buddhism , although this is often asserted by my favorite teachers, except for the buddha.

I alos doubt very highly that the 'teachings of the buddha' are directley attributable to a single human, the story is that the buddha taught his students and that after his death his greatest students met to recite the teachings of the buddha, and had five hundred witnesses to debate the veracity of the teaching, while a nice story I don't think any one has done a gramatical analysis of the teachings to determine the number of sources.

epepke

19th January 2006, 06:54 PM

Well that is too bad because that is the defintion of the suffering that buddhism is suppose to reduce.

Then perhaps you could rephrase it for me, because I still don't see it as very precise.

My answers are not meant to be evasive, I did not perceive a direct question to answer.

The question at issue, as I see it, is how one exactly defines suffering with respect to Buddhism and how one delineates it from other things that are normally called "suffering."

My calling him that is actualy a ploy to draw him out, he has only engaged in debate with me once, on the not-self assertions of the buddha, the rest has been a monlouge we have both engaged in.

Well, in that case, your heart is in the right place. Whether it works or not is yet to be seen.

Us social workers often use a fine tuned version of god/bad cop. I see you two as very different and did not consider there to be any co-ordination.

That's good, because there isn't.

I don't believe I have carictured you, but I apologise deeply if I gave that impression. I thought I had nuetralized my statements much more than that and offered no offense.

I didn't think that you were particularly doing that, but in my experience, the vast majority of people engage in caricature to some extent. I find that this is annoying. I do feel that you have been trying to reduce what I have been saying to a single criticism, but if you're willing to give that up, I am willing to speak no more of it.

My statements were more that your coping skills may not be available to other people.

That might be an interesting discussion, because I think that they are available to other people, and I also think that I've communicated some of them, even to schizophrenics.

However, I think it would properly belong in another thread.

Bodhi Dharma Zen

19th January 2006, 09:59 PM

I'm not sure what this is supposed to mean. If it means that thinking about it is less disabling than living it, then I think that thinking about it is better. But that's because I don't like losing skills. Maybe Buddhists like losing skills? Just a guess.

And, for me, thinking is a big part of living. So living for me consists of a lot of thinking. I like it, in the same way that some people like doing whatever they do. Besides, the brain is fun to use, and the price is right.

All I can say is that you have a distorted image of a buddhist. Maybe you know that little about them. In the other hand, we have those zillions (ok, a bit less) of buddhists, like myself, who live perfectly normal lifes (lots of scientists, btw) and that are not oscure, and who dont live reciting mantras nor trying to "convert" others.

I guess everyone can see just what they can. ;-)

Now, of course thinking is fun. Look at me, intrigued by your theories (yes Im a buddhist). In any case, what I wanted to say, is that is very different to know "everything" you need to know about light (wavelenghts, etc) and actually SEE. Yes, see the world from a perspective so different that you cant but laught at what you have thought about.

But hey, dont feel bad, its not for everyone. You can still call me an hallucinated individual, or a person without skills ;-)

Bodhi Dharma Zen

19th January 2006, 10:01 PM

So those who profess to follow the buddha s an authority are deluding themeselves.

Very well said. Buddha was a man. Nothing more. Nothing else. A man who made a discovery, and that invite the ones who are interested to discover it as well.

NeilC

20th January 2006, 01:14 AM

This all seems a bit disperate.

What are the central claims of buddhism that are contestable and perhaps testable?

Seems we are having trouble even agreeing what it is and what it claims.

Dancing David

20th January 2006, 05:44 AM

Then perhaps you could rephrase it for me, because I still don't see it as very precise.

There is suffering and there is suffering.
In my estimation there are two kinds of suffering:
a. that which is unavoidable(although some buddhists disagree)
b. that which is created by attachment

in a. there are things like the toothache, death, loss and the painful consequences of life.

in b. there are the things that are caused by clinging to desire and avaoiding the undesired, such as pining for a better car, wanting an unattainable love object, freaking out over your neighbors skin color, or suffering over an exam.

(a fine point can also be drawn that some of b. will partake of a.)

This is why I have staed that buddhism is similiar to CBT: negative thoughts and behaviors are identified and there impact is lessened in the role of creating suffering.

I disagree with the buddhists who claim that the path of the buddha can actualy reduce physical pain, it can reduce the unhealthy coping skills used to deal with pain, but not the pain.

That might be an interesting discussion, because I think that they are available to other people, and I also think that I've communicated some of them, even to schizophrenics.

However, I think it would properly belong in another thread.

Having done case management for ten years and worked in a domestic violence shelter or three, I have done the same. I feel this falls into the gap of communication on subjects that touch on all aspects of life.

Jekyll

20th January 2006, 06:37 AM

There is suffering and there is suffering.
In my estimation there are two kinds of suffering:
a. that which is unavoidable(although some buddhists disagree)
b. that which is created by attachment

Earlier in the discussion you also acknowledged a c. Suffering caused by lack of attachment and failure to engage properly with the world.

And quite often some attached suffering (as in the exams example) is good for you in moderation.

Moochie

20th January 2006, 08:31 AM

I met a guy on highway 61 claimed he was the Buddha. I kicked him in the balls and now he's a soprano lead singer in a gay band.

Go figure.

Oh yeah, the b*gger's making heaps of moolah.

M.

Ryokan

20th January 2006, 09:12 AM

Earlier in the discussion you also acknowledged a c. Suffering caused by lack of attachment and failure to engage properly with the world.

Well, we're talking about attachments to desires and cravings here. No doubt some attachments are good for you, such as attachment to your principles and to life itself.

And quite often some attached suffering (as in the exams example) is good for you in moderation.

The Buddha's path is the middle path, so he would probably agree with you. Moderation is the key. Your wants are many, your needs are few. Learn the difference.

epepke

20th January 2006, 11:57 AM

All I can say is that you have a distorted image of a buddhist. Maybe you know that little about them. In the other hand, we have those zillions (ok, a bit less) of buddhists, like myself, who live perfectly normal lifes (lots of scientists, btw) and that are not oscure, and who dont live reciting mantras nor trying to "convert" others.

That seems to me a very silly thing to say. It's like a game. What do you gain by saying "I have a distorted image of a Buddhist?" What's the payoff? What do you win?

As I explained to Dancing David, I am going through an exercise, which is called skepticism, and it consists of exploration, in as many ways as I can think of, of a topic.

You were the one who asserted that someone who had been "there" could not go back to a prior paradigm or model. This seems to me like the loss of a skill. If you can't do X any more, whatever X is, it's the loss of a skill by definition.

So I'm responding to what you said in the hopes that more information will be forthcoming. And if that ticks you off, well, maybe you should have said something different in the first place.

Bodhi Dharma Zen

20th January 2006, 12:05 PM

wow

epepke

20th January 2006, 12:05 PM

There is suffering and there is suffering.
In my estimation there are two kinds of suffering:
a. that which is unavoidable(although some buddhists disagree)
b. that which is created by attachment

in a. there are things like the toothache, death, loss and the painful consequences of life.

in b. there are the things that are caused by clinging to desire and avaoiding the undesired, such as pining for a better car, wanting an unattainable love object, freaking out over your neighbors skin color, or suffering over an exam.

It's interesting that you put toothache, because I recently underwent oral surgery for a broken wisdom tooth, which I did before it developed and abcess. So the suffering from an abcess was definitely avoidable, and I avoided it, although it cost a fair amount.

In any event, this distinction is begging the question. If I were to say "Homeophathy is good for those and only those ailments that homeopathy is good for," it would be tautologically true. It would tell me nothing about the set of such ailments.

yrreg

20th January 2006, 03:58 PM

But the original question, posted by yrreg at the beginning of this cycle of threads, is whether Buddhism is pseudoscientific, even in part. Pseudoscience I don't like, and it's one of the things that skepticism is appropriately applied to.
How can something that doesn't claim to be science be a pseudoscience?

I have heard buddhism refered to as religion, psychology and philosophy, but never science.

Dear Username:

You claim that Buddhism is not touted as a science or as scientific, even that you don't know about it's being touted as such, whereas it is the common observation of reading people that in fact it is; that is why I think you are feigning ignorance for the purpose of being argumentative for whatever end you are driving at.

"I have heard buddhism refered to as religion, psychology and philosophy, but never science." -- Username

That is very disingenuous from your part, because you could have -- as you keep on insisting and unnecessarily in most or almost all instances in my case, that I should bring up citations from the web; for you should have checked from the web first whether in fact Buddhism is being touted as a science.

Here, I entered the sentence "Buddhism is a science" into Google and obtained the following finding, below; try it yourself.

http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/7371/buddhismisascience4fw.gif (http://imageshack.us)

Read all the 495 exact hits of "Buddhism is a science" mined by Google, and you will realize that indeed Buddhism is being touted as a science, not only religion, not only philosophy, and not only psychology (in the sense of a soft science, therefore not science like physics and chemistry).

I am sure that being of the type to always insist on having the last word, typical of true believers in religions, you will nitpick this message, read it selectively for your purpose of being argumentative, and exaggerate whatever you can find which you can blow up as to distort the big picture and the short statement that I am trying to say here.

Yrreg

yrreg

20th January 2006, 06:58 PM

Warning: Don't read this message, it's for Dancing David; but if you want to, I will not stop you, it might also make you a better poster.

Dear Dancing David:

As we write messages here for the big audience aside from you and me, we are also judging each other. You have called me a troll countless times, and I really don't mind except as an annoyance from what I might consider a mosquito buzzing outside the screen window but can't get to me.

However, the more I read of your messages directed toward me, the more I seem to see a kind of poster's personality that might serve you to know yourself better, and arrive sooner at enlightenment or Nirvana if you believe in enlightenment and Nirvana, if not then it will be good just the same for the improvement of your poster's conduct here.

First, I think you are overly defensive of Buddhism withal claiming to be skeptical of many beliefs and observances in Buddhism, that are common knowledge to people who do take the time and attention to investigate Buddhism, but who don't have any concern for it except an academic curiosity about it.

Second, I think you do engage in unproductive argumentative practices which are not conducive toward the attainment of truths in regard to the theories and practices of Buddhism.

In respect of the two above statements I have the impression specifically that you are habituated to nitpicking, selective reading, and exaggeration, just to win points, but does not bring people who are sincerely trying to find out, what exactly Buddhism is all about and why Westerners of intellectual leanings should be excited about it.

I think your posting custom is very counteractive to right thought in Buddhism which is counteractive to right speech in Buddhism, as you have learned it from your Vietnamese master, Thich Naht Hahn.

By the way, if you have to choose between Thich and Randi for a teacher for the meaning of life, tell me which one of the two you will choose, and why.

Back to nitpicking, selective reading, and exaggeration, in order that you will have the last word -- and I seem to be engaging in last words here myself apparently -- apparently only because I am pursuing my idealism to help a brother in skeptical criticism -- you object to my statement,

"If the problems are due to neuro-chemistry and organism idiosyncrasy, then you should repair to pharmaceutics and surgery, or seek asylum in a mental safehouse." -- #92

You certainly know about neuro-pharmaceuticals and neuro-surgery, and you should consider the whole message in my post #92 (see Annex), instead of nitpicking, selective reading, and exaggeration, to score an overly argumentative point.

Try this experiment, read the whole message of #92, and rewrite it to produce the big picture in a short statement in fifty words or less, to say the same message as intended by the author. See then if it justifies your nitpicking, selective reading, and exaggerating account of my thoughts.

Anyway, let all recite:

Om Mani Padme Hum (from Yrreg) -- Owata loo niam (from Dancing David)-- ohm millihenry picofarad ohm (from Epepke)

And hahaha softly.

Yrreg

Annex
Depression & anxiety can involve distorted thought patterns, which are cause/symptoms(?) of distress. Attachment of one's personal worth to achieving some goal is a real problem. I may think that I am nothing & completely worthless & a failure as a human being because I'm overweight, or because I do not have so much as a PhD, let alone a Nobel prize. (Yes, this seriously was one of my personal ones.) Either I've failed to reach some goal or I imagine I will always fail... Now in CBT you sit down and gather evidence to show yourself that your thinking is distorted. Some of that means letting go of some of your desires - realising that they do not define you, and that in fact having them can cause you suffering. Not that there is anything wrong with the specific desire (it's good to be fit, well-educated etc), just with your pathological attachment to it. Desire, attachment, suffering - you see the analogy. –- Cajela #83

-----------

No need for CBT and Buddhism for the problems above.

If the problems are due to neuro-chemistry and organism idiosyncrasy, then you should repair to pharmaceutics and surgery, or seek asylum in a mental safehouse.

If they are due to or appear in the normal course of growing up and adjusting to the realities of life, then consult your parents who are emotionally stable and have come from well-adjusted folks themselves, if not your parents then parents of people who are well-adjusted in life and in society and who give the credit to their parents.

If you have no parents, then try the school guidance counselors who are successful parents themselves, as evidenced by their children well-adjusted to life and society.

Yrreg

Bodhi Dharma Zen

21st January 2006, 06:27 AM

Dear Dancing David,

How come a chat on a very simple subject becomes a discussion? How come the very essence of buddhism result in two angry individuals? Your efforts are nice, still, they are empty.

Words have limitations. They are trapped in them. Are you?

fruit_loup

21st January 2006, 06:29 AM

http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/7371/buddhismisascience4fw.gif (http://imageshack.us)

Read all the 495 exact hits of "Buddhism is a science" mined by Google, and you will realize that indeed Buddhism is being touted as a science, not only religion, not only philosophy, and not only psychology (in the sense of a soft science, therefore not science like physics and chemistry).

Yrreg

I am wondering if you read any of them beyond the bold displayed to indicate the exact words you were searching for. A quick glance at the text accompanying them shows me that you most likely have not.

For example, the first link said, "That is why it is said sometimes that Buddhism is a "science of the mind".

To me, that is not saying Buddhism is a science but that sometimes (for whatever reason had been explained before this) is has been called a science of the mind. If I say from time to time that I am a demon-spawn. Am I implying that I believe myself to be a nephillim or that I am at that moment displaying some qualities of the thing or concept? Would you take me at the words face value and decide that I literally and actually claimed to be the mortal offspring an angelic male and human female as opposed to someone who is simply rude, crude, and generally misanthropic?

Ryokan

21st January 2006, 07:04 AM

yrreg

21st January 2006, 08:05 AM

Argument by Google search again?

Allright, I'll use Google to prove sceptics are idiots. They're not as idiot as Buddhism is a science, but here's the proof :

http://www.google.no/search?hl=no&q=%22skeptics+are+idiots%22&btnG=S%C3%B8k&meta=

I am still waiting for any news of your word that you will search for the scientific paper that is peer reviewed on the scientific character of Buddhist meditation, as you gave that word to Epepke back in your thread on Evidence in Buddhism.

That is the most crucially important thread on Buddhism from a resident Buddhist that will make of Buddhism a science as you claim it by implication with your conviction that Buddhist meditation is scientific; but you are not attending to that thread of yours, on Evidence in Buddhism; so also are your fellow Buddhists in this JREF forum.

That was January 12, Thursday, around 9:00 a.m., and it's now in my place January 21, Saturday, around midnight, of Common Era 2007, more than a week ago.

Wait, I will check on that thread, Evidence in Buddhism, to see whether there is a new post from you, dear Ryokan, to refer us all, specially Epepke, to that peer reviewed paper on the scientific character of Buddhist meditation.

-------------

I am back. I checked on that thread, page 2, and clicked on the refresh button; no, there is still no new post from you of any reference to any peer reviewed paper on the scientific character of Buddhism, in particular Buddhist meditation.

Please go back to your thread, on Evidence in Buddhism. It is the single most important piece of writing from you that will mean the difference for Buddhism between science and pseudoscience.

Yrreg

yrreg

21st January 2006, 08:37 AM

I wrote in my preceding post:

That was January 12, Thursday, around 9:00 a.m., and it's now in my place January 21, Saturday, around midnight, of Common Era 2007, more than a week ago.

The corrected text is as follows:

That was January 12, Thursday, around 9:00 a.m., and it's now in my place January 21, Saturday, around midnight, of Common Era 2006, more than a week ago.

--------------

Dear Ryokan:

You gave me the impression earlier in my first thread here on Skeptical Criticism on Buddhist Beliefs and Observances, that you don't accept that Buddhism is scientific; but in your thread on Evidence in Buddhism, I seem to get the opposite impression, namely, that Buddhism is scientific, because you brought up supposedly scientific studies on Buddhism, to try to convince Epepke that Buddhism is scientific.

Suppose you tell us categorically whether Buddhism is scientific or not, at least in what areas Buddhism is scientific and in what areas it is not scientific; and when it is not scientific, what is it? pseudoscientific? supernaturalistic? a faith-based religion, namely based on faith in the authority of the Buddha? who himself believed in gods which however are in need of enlightenment to get to final and definitive Nirvana.

I know, you have experienced enough of Buddhist beliefs and observances to come to self-conviction that it is real, sure -- whatever adjective applicable -- certain, indubitable, as factual as water is H2O; and that's why it's so bizarre the way I see it in you, who to all indications should be above all such speculations, personal experience notwithstanding.

Who is that opinion maker who says that Buddhists telling us that they are happy should not be taken seriously, just as we don't take seriously the drunken slob telling people he is happy. Correct me if I don't recall that view as faithfully as I should; I read it somewhere maybe in this forum recently, two or three days ago.

So, what is Buddhism for you in regard to science as science is known and appreciated by guys operating the JREF Educational Foundation and those behind the CSICOP? Is it scientific or not? or are you for being a Buddhist just have to speak in riddles?

Yrreg

Ryokan

21st January 2006, 09:37 AM

I am still waiting for any news of your word that you will search for the scientific paper that is peer reviewed on the scientific character of Buddhist meditation, as you gave that word to Epepke back in your thread on Evidence in Buddhism.

I've updated epeple via PM, as I didn't want to bump the thread before I had something definite on-topic material to report. I've e-mailed some of the scientists involved in the projects, but have gotten no answer so far. When I have something to report, either an answer from the scientists or that I give up, I will say so in that thread.

Ryokan

21st January 2006, 09:38 AM

You gave me the impression earlier in my first thread here on Skeptical Criticism on Buddhist Beliefs and Observances, that you don't accept that Buddhism is scientific; but in your thread on Evidence in Buddhism, I seem to get the opposite impression, namely, that Buddhism is scientific, because you brought up supposedly scientific studies on Buddhism, to try to convince Epepke that Buddhism is scientific.

Just because there might be scientific evidence that Buddhism works, does not make Buddhism a scientific religion.

who himself believed in gods which however are in need of enlightenment to get to final and definitive Nirvana.

Any evidence that Gautama Buddha believed in any gods?

epepke

21st January 2006, 11:17 AM

I've updated epeple via PM, as I didn't want to bump the thread before I had something definite on-topic material to report. I've e-mailed some of the scientists involved in the projects, but have gotten no answer so far. When I have something to report, either an answer from the scientists or that I give up, I will say so in that thread.

I eagerly await it. This is fun! Just the fact that it's happening and you're taking the effort, which I appreciate, to find things out.

yrreg

21st January 2006, 02:28 PM

Just because there might be scientific evidence that Buddhism works, does not make Buddhism a scientific religion.

------------

Originally Posted by yrreg :
who himself believed in gods which however are in need of enlightenment to get to final and definitive Nirvana.

------------

Any evidence that Gautama Buddha believed in any gods?

We have or I have gone that route before.

You will ask to see evidence and I will produce the evidence; then you will deny that the evidence, in this case a person praising Buddhism to the sky for being scientific, is not a real Buddhist.

Will you now also ask me to show evidence for the preceding paragraph? I will if you tell me that you can't remember our exchange and with Epepke also on what or who is a real Buddhist.

Epepke already even earlier before that issue of Buddhism being scientific or not came up, gave the premonition that any discussions of what Buddhists believe in will end up with Buddhists claiming the defense of NARP (not a real Buddhist), namely, people with such or such beliefs or observances are not real Buddhists.

Anyway, I am getting more and more alarmed that Buddhists might really indeed indulge in the habit of double-talk as a routine.

5) We hold, as central to the spirit and goals of Buddhism:
a. The Four Noble Truths: Suffering (dukkha), cause of suffering (samudaya), cessation of suffering (nirodha) and the Path to the cessation of suffering (dukkhanirodhagaminipatipada) Buddhism is neither pessimistic nor "escapist", nor does it deny the existence of God or soul, though it places its own meaning on these.

And I had a good laugh when I read that excerpt from some kind of statement of common articles of beliefs and practices agreed upon by various sects of US Buddhists. Now I am afraid it is no laughing matter; it's true, Buddhists do have the policy of double-talk.

For the record, you say that Buddhism is not a scientific religion; tell me then what is Buddhism? a pseudoscientific, a supernaturalistic, a paranormalistic, a naturalistic, a faith-based, an irrationalistic, an esoteric, or what other adjective you think should apply, religion?

Please, don't tell me that Buddhism is an ineffable and imponderable system. If so, how did it ever get into your understanding and how do you Buddhist people get to communicate intelligently among yourselves.

Hahaha softly, I don't seem to be having fun anymore.

--- Om Mani Padme Hum --- Om Mani Padme Hum --- Om Mani Padme Hum ---

Yrreg

Ryokan

21st January 2006, 05:06 PM

We have or I have gone that route before.

You will ask to see evidence and I will produce the evidence; then you will deny that the evidence, in this case a person praising Buddhism to the sky for being scientific, is not a real Buddhist.

I remember the episode well, yrreg. The man who claimed Buddhism was a scientific religion in your source was not a Buddhist. That's not me claiming he's not a Buddhist, that was your source! I can't, and won't, defend any statement about Buddhism made by people who are not Buddhists. I'm in effect all-including when it comes to Buddhism, saying that anyone who calls himself a Buddhist is a Buddhist in my book. Any person not claiming to be a Buddhist, however, I will take their word for it and not call them a Buddhist.

If I made a blog where I said I loved Christianity because Jesus Christ was really a space alien, I don't expect any Christians to defend that statement.

Isn't this fair, yrreg?

Will you now also ask me to show evidence for the preceding paragraph? I will if you tell me that you can't remember our exchange and with Epepke also on what or who is a real Buddhist.

Epepke already even earlier before that issue of Buddhism being scientific or not came up, gave the premonition that any discussions of what Buddhists believe in will end up with Buddhists claiming the defense of NARP (not a real Buddhist), namely, people with such or such beliefs or observances are not real Buddhists.

Anyway, I am getting more and more alarmed that Buddhists might really indeed indulge in the habit of double-talk as a routine.

Yes, when I say that someone who doesn't claim to be a Buddhist is not a Buddhist, that's double talk.

If you can point me to anywhere on this board where I've resorted to what you call NARB, I will renounce my Buddhism right here and now.

5) We hold, as central to the spirit and goals of Buddhism:
a. The Four Noble Truths: Suffering (dukkha), cause of suffering (samudaya), cessation of suffering (nirodha) and the Path to the cessation of suffering (dukkhanirodhagaminipatipada) Buddhism is neither pessimistic nor "escapist", nor does it deny the existence of God or soul, though it places its own meaning on these.

And I had a good laugh when I read that excerpt from some kind of statement of common articles of beliefs and practices agreed upon by various sects of US Buddhists. Now I am afraid it is no laughing matter; it's true, Buddhists do have the policy of double-talk.

How is that double-talk?

For the record, you say that Buddhism is not a scientific religion; tell me then what is Buddhism? a pseudoscientific, a supernaturalistic, a paranormalistic, a naturalistic, a faith-based, an irrationalistic, an esoteric, or what other adjective you think should apply, religion?

Buddhism is as Buddhism does. If you really need a label, I would call the core of Buddhism a philosophical religion.

Some (I'll even say many) denominations could be labeled most, or all, of your labels.

Please, don't tell me that Buddhism is an ineffable and imponderable system. If so, how did it ever get into your understanding and how do you Buddhist people get to communicate intelligently among yourselves.

I won't tell you that, and I've never told you that.

SirPhilip

22nd January 2006, 05:47 AM

How come a chat on a very simple subject becomes a discussion? How come the very essence of buddhism result in two angry individuals? Your efforts are nice, still, they are empty. Words have limitations. They are trapped in them. Are you? People will forever be trying to find mundane validation for their own inner voice. They fail to realize that while the sublime resides in the mundame, they are opposite qualities of nature, and only by not looking for mundame validation, they'll eventually find it.

Bodhi Dharma Zen

22nd January 2006, 08:02 AM

Guess its how we are wired, we need to confirm, constantly, that our world view is correct (some people also need to confirm that everyone's else is incorrect). ;-)

Dancing David

22nd January 2006, 12:01 PM

Dancing David

22nd January 2006, 12:05 PM

"If the problems are due to neuro-chemistry and organism idiosyncrasy, then you should repair to pharmaceutics and surgery, or seek asylum in a mental safehouse." -- #92[/indent]

You certainly know about neuro-pharmaceuticals and neuro-surgery, and you should consider the whole message in my post #92 (see Annex), instead of nitpicking, selective reading, and exaggeration, to score an overly argumentative point.

Yrreg

Annex

You still havent answered my questions, which of the mental illnesses benefit from surgery, it is your claim and I am asking you to support it. If you dispell my ignorance, then I shall have knowledge. Nowhere in my fiveteen years have I encountered a surgical procedure for treating a mental illness. This could be an obvious deficit of my experience and knowledge.
So again , please explain to me which mental illness is treated with surgery?

Dancing David

22nd January 2006, 12:11 PM

People will forever be trying to find mundane validation for their own inner voice. They fail to realize that while the sublime resides in the mundame, they are opposite qualities of nature, and only by not looking for mundame validation, they'll eventually find it.

As stated by myself to Epepke, I am also trying to draw out yrreg, whose motives are opaque. If I show a loss of patience, that is who I am, I also am often very tired when I post which can cause me to loose balance. (I worked sixteen hours of call from 5pm this friday to 6pm on Staurday after a forty hour week.) So I am often not rational, but then I do not seek to hide my human self behind a venner of false pretense, I make no claim to be a model buddhist.

I often find the divine in the mundane, as existance exits only in the mundane.

Blessings on you Sir Phillip.

yrreg

22nd January 2006, 02:55 PM

Dear Dancing David:

I wished we could move on to what I now consider to be what most interests me in Ryokan, you yourself, and Username, in respect of your being Buddhists because of experiences, whereby you have become convinced of the benefit and even the objective efficacy, and above all the factual objectivity of Buddhism, of the kind and degree of Buddhism you each now profess.

But you keep on bringing up my post #92 (reproduced below), to pursue the purpose you set your mind to pursue whatever that be I can imagine but I won't say it here because that will trigger another endless recrimination from you on a nitpick matter.

So, you want to have the last word, that is irresistibly important to you as a Buddhist in defense of Buddhism, and to what end toward guarding the integrity of Buddhism, Buddhists who are secure in their Buddhism are not concerned at all, like Amish secure in their faith.

If you will resolve not to nitpick, not to selectively read, not to exaggerate, and now not to put words in horse's mouth, I will consider the next lines of this message after the dashes not to have been written by yours truly.

-----------

Here is again my message #92 which I had reproduced in my message #168 above:

Originally Posted by Cajela:
Depression & anxiety can involve distorted thought patterns, which are cause/symptoms(?) of distress. Attachment of one's personal worth to achieving some goal is a real problem. I may think that I am nothing & completely worthless & a failure as a human being because I'm overweight, or because I do not have so much as a PhD, let alone a Nobel prize. (Yes, this seriously was one of my personal ones.) Either I've failed to reach some goal or I imagine I will always fail... Now in CBT you sit down and gather evidence to show yourself that your thinking is distorted. Some of that means letting go of some of your desires - realising that they do not define you, and that in fact having them can cause you suffering. Not that there is anything wrong with the specific desire (it's good to be fit, well-educated etc), just with your pathological attachment to it. Desire, attachment, suffering - you see the analogy. –- Cajela #83

-----------

No need for CBT and Buddhism for the problems above.

If the problems are due to neuro-chemistry and organism idiosyncrasy, then you should repair to pharmaceutics and surgery, or seek asylum in a mental safehouse.

If they are due to or appear in the normal course of growing up and adjusting to the realities of life, then consult your parents who are emotionally stable and have come from well-adjusted folks themselves, if not your parents then parents of people who are well-adjusted in life and in society and who give the credit to their parents.

If you have no parents, then try the school guidance counselors who are successful parents themselves, as evidenced by their children well-adjusted to life and society.

Yrreg

Now, tell me, where do you find that phrase, "mental illness(es)," in the message reproduced above?

Let's all recite:

Om Mani Padme Hum (from Yrreg) -- Owata loo niam (from Dancing David) -- ohm millihenry picofarad ohm (from Epepke)

And hahaha softly.

Yrreg

====== annex ======

Originally Posted by yrreg:
"If the problems are due to neuro-chemistry and organism idiosyncrasy, then you should repair to pharmaceutics and surgery, or seek asylum in a mental safehouse." -- #92

You certainly know about neuro-pharmaceuticals and neuro-surgery, and you should consider the whole message in my post #92 (see Annex), instead of nitpicking, selective reading, and exaggeration, to score an overly argumentative point.

Yrreg

------------

You still havent answered my questions, which of the mental illnesses benefit from surgery, it is your claim and I am asking you to support it. If you dispell my ignorance, then I shall have knowledge. Nowhere in my fiveteen years have I encountered a surgical procedure for treating a mental illness. This could be an obvious deficit of my experience and knowledge.
So again , please explain to me which mental illness is treated with surgery?

yrreg

22nd January 2006, 03:09 PM

SirPhilip

23rd January 2006, 04:39 AM

I make no claim to be a model buddhist. But you'll be a model Buddhist then.

I often find the divine in the mundane, as existance exits only in the mundane. When you quit that job, this will pass.

Blessings on you Sir Phillip. Ah thanks. I'll probably need them the way I'm driving that goped around town...

Dancing David

23rd January 2006, 05:21 PM

Dancing David

23rd January 2006, 05:28 PM

So again , please explain to me which mental illness is treated with surgery? -- Dancing David

Dear Dancing David:

It's always been stock knowledge with me that there are surgeons who do operations to treat what you call mental illnesses.

Please look up several neurosurgeons in a big hospital or go to the yellow pages and call several, to ask them about surgical procedures being used to treat so-called mental illnesses -- your term, not mine.

Don't ask me which mental illnesses are treated or have been treated successfully with surgery. I am not a surgeon. However, I do know from reading and it has become stock knowledge with me, namely, that surgery is also used to deal with so-called mental illnesses.

-----------

I will now concentrate my curiosity in re Buddhism on the lifestyle or conduct changing effect of Buddhism on people, who claim to have experienced beneficial shifts in their life owing to engagement in Buddhism. I will inquire respectfully from Ryokan, Username, you yourself, Dancing David, and others who are or call themselves Buddhists here in this JREF forum.

Yrreg

Well yrreg, that is perhaps the danger of stock knowledge , there are no mental illnesses treated by surgery, which is why I asked. I work with mentaly ill individuals every day, I work with psyciatrists every day, I work with the hospitals and the groups homes. No where do I see those be treated with surgery which is why I asked. Perhaps you are not aware of the difference between epilepsy and mental illness? Epilepsy is a physical illness that effects the brain, and so you may consider it a mental illness, but in my experience that is not the usage of the term.

So again I have asked what surgical treatments are there for depression and anxiety. If there are any, it seems that I and the large treatment community I am involved in are not aware of them.

The truely ironic part Yrreg is that you have spent over two thousand words before answering the question. Perhaps a more direct answer would have provided less entertainment factot to you.