The role of good, erh, right deeds in Buddism.

[yrreg]

.
Here is what it might be rightfully (pun not intended) considered to be the gist of Buddhism:


The Four Noble Truths

1. Life means suffering.
2. The origin of suffering is attachment.
3. The cessation of suffering is attainable.
4. The Eightfold Path is the way to the cessation of suffering.


The Eightfold Path

1. Right View
2. Right Intention
3. Right Speech
4. Right Action
5. Right Livelihood
6. Right Effort
7. Right Mindfulness
8. Right Concentration


See: http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/8foldpath.htm

.
The Four Noble Truths then make up the statement of the problem afflicting mankind, and the Eightfold Path holds forth the solution.


What I cannot make out is how the solution as prescribed in the Eightfold Path will fix the problem stated in the Four Noble Truths.

Let us imagine that a human works out all the right behavioral actuations of the Eightfold Path (here-after abbreviated as EP), does he thereby come to immunity from suffering described in the Four Noble Truths (FNT)?


What is the modality of efficacy involved, meaning, like if you are suffering from being stuck in the traffic because the engine of the car you are riding in conked out, then you perform all the right procedures in troubleshooting in such a situation, mechanically it is ascertained that you will get out of your suffering. This is what I want to call physical modality.

Is that modality of the EP for the remedy of the problem of suffering premised in the FNT physical, as in getting through with your suffering in a traffic stranded car?

If not, perhaps the Buddhists here can enlighten me.


Yrreg

[Ryokan]

I believe it was Muhammed who said that no one is as blind as he who does not wish to see. Meaning, I don't think there's any point in discussing this with you whatsoever.

However, you may start your studies here:

http://4truths.com/

[nosho]

perhaps the Buddhists here can enlighten me

Not if you don't want to listen.

It appears you have abandoned your other thread, in which you were discussing the dumb Westerners who are now taking up with Buddhism (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2832410#post2832410).

If you're not going to respond to the discussions that you initiated in your earlier thread, why would anyone want to invest time and effort in trying to engage you in discussion in this new thread?

I don't think you're interested in hearing what others have to say. Your threads seem to be more about baiting people to provoke an emotional reaction.

[Mojo]

It appears you have abandoned your other thread, in which you were discussing the dumb Westerners who are now taking up with Buddhism (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2832410#post2832410).


He tends to do that if he runs into too much flak. See, for example, his acupuncture thread, which had at least three other threads he started merged into it. He seems to imagine that if people can't scroll back up the thread to see it they won't remember what he's already posted.

[yrreg]

I usually get tired of a thread when I have already come to realize that my fellow discussants of the opposite or different opinions have reached the end of their tether, they are now just going around and around like a puppy chasing its own tail.

Then I start a new one, or go back to a past topic because for the first to get more fun from the new topic, and for the second when I think that my fellow discussants might have come to new insights.

But such is the catastrophe of minds already beclouded in a thick fog of some worldview to which they even without knowing it have sworn fealty to keep faithfully to, even though at the expense of repeating the words of their mentors which words say nothing but are so many attempts to sound deep and weighty but when examined carefully are so much emptiness –- emptiness after all is the forte of Buddhism and Buddhists.


It's okay, if you guys don't care to exchange views with me because of your personal hang-ups in my regard.

I can always bring up some materials from the web representing Buddhist teachings, published with fervid devotion by Buddhists to explain how their newly espoused worldview makes them so very happy.

I will just look for the modality of efficacy in their explanation of how the right deeds are going to do away with suffering.


So far I honestly can't see any connection from the standpoint of modality between relief of suffering and the performance of good, erh, right deeds.


The writers on Buddhist right deeds just go on and on and on, but never ever seem to ask themselves the question, how these good, erh, right deeds effect their relief from suffering.

That is one question which they might tell you or me or everyone to be pointless?

Do you guys hand over your preciously earned money without ever asking what you are paying for whether and how what gimmick you are buying work, and for how long and what are the hassles of maintenance and repairs?


If that is your mental habit, then you are most qualified to take up with Buddhism and its promise of relief from suffering.


About acupuncture, the discussion had reached the point where it was useless to continue, the point namely when the adversarial discussants go into the motivation of acupuncture practitioners and beneficiaries of acupuncture to label them as deluded or scammers, when even strictly impartial laboratories are ascertained of the benefits obtained which however they are trying to locate the modality of.

You see, many a member here cannot imagine anything that is the goal of rational skepticism except to detect chicanery and charlatanry in anything they have already branded as chicanery and charlatanry.

And that is a great disservice to the advancement of knowledge and technology and medicine in present history as in the past.

But let us always maintain a humorous mood, because in humor there is truth, as one Pes Oir Amsus is never tired of telling us.



Yrreg

[Miss Anthrope]

Yrreg, this looks like a treatise on trolling.

[yrreg]

Yrreg, this looks like a treatise on trolling.

Where I come from, the Internet Infidels Discussion Board, any so much as a hint of an accusation of trolling is a capital offense and on repeated recidivism will earn for the impenitent offender the penalty of perpetual exile.

But a prophet is never accepted in his own country; that is why they banned me in perpetuity with the most incredible of offense, namely, for not observing the agreement signed up on registering, incredible for being overly vague and broad, it seemed they threw the whole book at me.

If you asked me, I would hazard the educated opinion that the Buddhists there did not find me comfortable and by an avalanche of continuous recriminations against me compelled the powers that be there to ban me.


Hahahaha.


The last time I noticed you, Miss Anthropoid, you were not a moderator, or did I miss something then, some a month ago?


Well, that is a new activity to keep you busy and not be wondering whether to sign up with Buddhism to dwell on emptiness and in the process feeling so profitably occupied.


Hehehehe.


Yours most laughingly,



Yrreg

[yrreg]

in using the word anthropoid.

Just the same, if it's up to me, I think humans also belong to the group called collectively as anthropoids -- because for all man's intelligence he behaves most of the time like the lower anthropoids.


Profuse apologies just the same.



Yrreg

[Tsukasa Buddha]

Only three of them pertain to "good deeds".

Go here (http://www.midwesterndhamma.org/articles/basics/eightfold.html), learn proper translations.

[qayak]

Yrreg, this looks like a treatise on trolling.

More like a treatise on retardation.

[parrotslave]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v432/parrotslave/buddhacat6.jpg

[nosho]

I usually get tired of a thread when I have already come to realize that my fellow discussants of the opposite or different opinions have reached the end of their tether, they are now just going around and around like a puppy chasing its own tail.

No. You left a whole bunch of questions unanswered and failed to respond to many informative and meaningful insights. You asked for citations from the Pali canon so that you could read them, then you refused to look at a single one of them.

Then you offered gross misrepresentations of basic Buddhist concepts, as if you had not paid any attention to anything anyone else had said. Then you started calling people "dumb." And then you fled the thread, Fred.

Now here you are again, egging people on.

So far I honestly can't see any connection from the standpoint of modality between relief of suffering and the performance of good, erh, right deeds.

One reason is probably that you don't understand the terms you are using. You don't seem to understand what is meant by "suffering." You don't understand what is meant by the word "right" in the context of the 8-fold path. You assume that the path is a collection of "deeds" when it isn't.

If you want to offer a critique of some form of Buddhism, that's fine, but that's not what you're doing. You're offering a critique of some bizarre misinterpretation you have constructed. Nothing you say reflects any understanding of Buddhist traditions. Without that understanding, your critiques are nonsensical.

[yrreg]

Please, if you still want to interact with me in any of my threads or any thread not from me where I had participated, just notify me in my latest board sojourn and I will attend to you.


Thanks for your reactions here, everyone who is interested in this topic.

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

I have been trying to figure out what is in Buddhism and for Buddhists the difference between a good deed and a right deed.



Please correct me if I am mistaken, for what I am going to say below.

From the universal experience of mankind we have arrived at certain notions which are universally valid for everyone who is not deficient in thinking and not unacquainted with concrete experiences in life.

For examples, the notions of goodness and the notion of rightness.

From the face of it, they are almost identical notions but for some differences.


Now, I have noticed and it could be a wrong observation, namely, that English speaking and writing people when they want to write about Buddhist notions and practices, they adopt words for notions which notions are already universal with mankind, but they use English words which are not customary in their own English speaking and writing world.

Like the word right, they use it to describe deeds prescribed in the Eightfold Path, but the word good to my knowledge, in a religion and morality context, is the more customary word to use in regard to the acts described in the Eightfold Path.

Like also the word compassion which is a big deal in Buddhism, but why the use that word when the more customary word in English in the context of religion and morality is mercy.

What are English Buddhism writers trying to prove?



Of course the reason could be because the words right and compassion are the best translation in English for the Buddhist texts in whatever language a writer is trying to translate the source words into English words.

However, and this is what I am curious about, we are concerned with the notions and not the material terms.


Yrreg
http://img108.imageshack.us/img108/2889/user22071174288457qf4.jpg

[yrreg]

[...]

...you don't understand the terms you are using. You don't seem to understand what is meant by "suffering." You don't understand what is meant by the word "right" in the context of the 8-fold path. You assume that the path is a collection of "deeds" when it isn't.

[...]



Bowing to your presumedly greater acquaintance with Buddhist notions and terms, nosho, perhaps you care to tell me what is suffering in Buddhism which is the end goal to be achieved by the escaping from [that should be some Zen koan for you, hahaha]?

And what is the Eightfold Path if not a list of deeds to be performed rightly in order to effect for a person his acquittal from suffering?


Give me then some concrete instances of suffering in anyone and everyone who has ever lived outside any comatose state in the world of conscious existence that is an enduring of suffering.

And give me some concrete acts and non-acts (in another domain of discourse that is absolutely connected with the present one, we call them commissions and omission) which are resultant consequences of following the Eightfold Path, and thereby contributive to the attainment of liberation from suffering.


If you don't care to exchange views with me, at least for your own enlightenment, think about my questions and for your compassion toward your fellow Buddhists and also mankind in general, display your Buddhist learning and ruminations here, thereby you will advance the cause of Buddhism which in the heart of the Gautama and his adoring followers is the Dharma to bring all mankind and the universe to Nirvana as the end stage and permanent at that of man and all existence.




http://img108.imageshack.us/img108/2889/user22071174288457qf4.jpg
Yrreg

[Miss Anthrope]

in using the word anthropoid.

Just the same, if it's up to me, I think humans also belong to the group called collectively as anthropoids -- because for all man's intelligence he behaves most of the time like the lower anthropoids.


Profuse apologies just the same.



Yrreg

Mod mode completely off:

This was not an apology given, it was further mockery.

Yrreg, it seems quite obvious that you are baiting and mocking people here. I have also seen in the past you have pushed buttons and provoked people.

I will not be helping you amuse yourself any longer. I strongly urge fellow members to put Yrreg on ignore. As a mod, I do not have this luxury, but I do have self control.

[nosho]

Bowing to your presumedly greater acquaintance with Buddhist notions and terms, nosho, perhaps you care to tell me what is suffering in Buddhism which is the end goal to be achieved by the escaping from [that should be some Zen koan for you, hahaha]?

I wish I could help you, yyreg. I wish I could spoon-feed you a simple definition of "dukkha."

My advice is that you read the materials that others here have recommended. Some excellent links and references have been offered to you.

I will say, though, that it is not the goal of practice to escape suffering, as you imply in your question. Escape is not an option. You can't run away from it. You have to deal with it head-on.

And what is the Eightfold Path if not a list of deeds to be performed rightly in order to effect for a person his acquittal from suffering?

Tsukasa Buddha offered this (http://www.midwesterndhamma.org/articles/basics/eightfold.html) excellent link. Please read it first and let me know what you think of it.

Give me then some concrete instances of suffering in anyone and everyone who has ever lived outside any comatose state in the world of conscious existence that is an enduring of suffering.

I don't understand what you are asking here.

And give me some concrete acts and non-acts (in another domain of discourse that is absolutely connected with the present one, we call them commissions and omission) which are resultant consequences of following the Eightfold Path, and thereby contributive to the attainment of liberation from suffering.

It doesn't work like that. This isn't about "right" and "wrong" in the moralistic sense you are thinking of from a Catholic perspective. This has nothing to do with sins of omission or sins of commission.

The word "right" in this context is a translation of "samma," which means something more along the lines of straight, or not crooked, or "in the right way." Think of it from the perspective of baking a cake. There's a "right" way to bake a cake, but if you bake a cake the wrong way, it's not immoral. It just means you won't have a very good cake.

The 8-fold path is about a way of living. It is about right living. It covers much more than just deeds.

Best wishes in your studies.

[yrreg]

Mod mode completely off:

This was not an apology given, it was further mockery.

Yrreg, it seems quite obvious that you are baiting and mocking people here. I have also seen in the past you have pushed buttons and provoked people.

I will not be helping you amuse yourself any longer. I strongly urge fellow members to put Yrreg on ignore. As a mod, I do not have this luxury, but I do have self control.
.

And the Boston Tea Party was a terrific baiting of the British monarchy, see what it has accomplished.


Please do not inhibit exchange of views of all kinds even of the baiting kinds by over moderation or misguided moderation.



http://img108.imageshack.us/img108/2889/user22071174288457qf4.jpg
Yrreg

[yrreg]

Posted by yrreg
Bowing to your presumedly greater acquaintance with Buddhist notions and terms, nosho, perhaps you care to tell me what is suffering in Buddhism which is the end goal to be achieved by the escaping from [that should be some Zen koan for you, hahaha]?

I wish I could help you, yyreg. I wish I could spoon-feed you a simple definition of "dukkha."

My advice is that you read the materials that others here have recommended. Some excellent links and references have been offered to you.

[...]

Tsukasa Buddha offered this excellent link. Please read it first and let me know what you think of it.




.
I am disappointed because you are not enthusiastic to share with me what you understand to be suffering in Buddhism; it’s like if you be an American citizen for you to tell people asking from you what you know to be life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for Americans, instead of telling them yourself, you direct them look up the answers in literature.

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

Let us just be systematic by taking up one thing at a time.

Tell me then what is that suffering that is stated in the first noble truth: Life means suffering or There is suffering [ -- Tsukasa Buddha ]?

It is for an example a toothache, or the loneliness of being left alone in the house on Christmas eve, or helpless old age, a death in the family, or what?



http://img108.imageshack.us/img108/2889/user22071174288457qf4.jpg
Yrreg

...the Laughing Buddha, is an interpretation of the Bodhisattva Maitreya, the predicted Buddha to succeed Gautama Buddha in the future.

[qayak]

I am disappointed because you are not enthusiastic to share with me what you understand to be suffering in Buddhism; it’s like if you be an American citizen for you to tell people asking from you what you know to be life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for Americans, instead of telling them yourself, you direct them look up the answers in literature.

No one can enlighten you, you have to figure it out for yourself.


It is for an example a toothache, or the loneliness of being left alone in the house on Christmas eve, or helpless old age, a death in the family, or what?

Yes.

[nosho]

I am disappointed because you are not enthusiastic to share with me what you understand to be suffering in Buddhism; it’s like if you be an American citizen for you to tell people asking from you what you know to be life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for Americans, instead of telling them yourself, you direct them look up the answers in literature.

Disappointment is a form of suffering.

Let us just be systematic by taking up one thing at a time.

Tell me then what is that suffering that is stated in the first noble truth: Life means suffering or There is suffering [ -- Tsukasa Buddha ]?

It is for an example a toothache, or the loneliness of being left alone in the house on Christmas eve, or helpless old age, a death in the family, or what?

It's all of those things and more. It's the result of our habitual patterns of reaction when things don't go as we expect, or when we don't get what we want, or when something happens that we don't think we deserve. Or when we're lonely. Or when a loved-one dies. Or when people don't live up to our expectations. Or when we witness injustice. Or when we're stuck in traffic.

Horrible things happen, and we suffer. Rape. Child abuse. Genocide. Suffering is nothing to be ashamed of.

Ordinary things happen, and we suffer. Can't find a parking space. Missed deadlines. Bad hair day.

You know what suffering is from your own experience. Why are you asking me what suffering is? Why are you asking anyone? Suffering is just life.

But when you wrote the following paragraph, you displayed what appears to be a misunderstanding of suffering:

What is the modality of efficacy involved, meaning, like if you are suffering from being stuck in the traffic because the engine of the car you are riding in conked out, then you perform all the right procedures in troubleshooting in such a situation, mechanically it is ascertained that you will get out of your suffering.

If you're stuck in traffic and suffering, and if you troubleshoot the situation so that you no longer are stuck in traffic, you have not gotten out of your suffering. You've only gotten out of traffic. Unless you are a child, it's foolish to say, "I'm suffering because I'm stuck in traffic."

The adult way of looking at it is this: "I'm suffering because I don't know how to be stuck in traffic without being miserable."

The trick is to be in that kind of difficult situation without the habitual pattern of suffering. You don't have to suffer just because you're stuck in traffic. Some people get stuck in traffic and still smile.

[Mojo]

.

And the Boston Tea Party was a terrific baiting of the British monarchy, see what it has accomplished.


If you want to secede from the forum, you're welcome to.

[Dancing David]

"Every day our thoughts words and deeds plant new seeds in the field of our consciousness and what these seeds generate becomes the substance of our life"

Thich Naht Hahn

[Piscivore]

When I switched to Discordianism I vowed to do only left deeds, but I discovered somebody took all of chores from the job jar, so now I just try to look busy if someone is watching.

[Hokulele]

And if no one is watching?

[Piscivore]

And if no one is watching?

He better not be. I want him stealing my stuff, eating my food, molesting my children, and forgetting to feed my cats.

[Hokulele]

What if he forgets to feed your food, molests your stuff, eats your cats, and steals your children?

[Piscivore]

What if he forgets to feed your food, molests your stuff, eats your cats, and steals your children?

Feeding the food isn't usually a problem- you've seen me, it doesn't last that long anyway. His cousin Some is always molesting my stuff already. He has a particular fascination with my keys. I usually let it go, because I pity Some. He tried to eat the cats once- they are feisty, and are in training to take on the raccoons should I convince my wife we should move to Texas. Titus still has a scar on his ear from that.

If he forgets to steal the children, his daddy Any might try, and I've taught the Spawn not to take any crap from him.

[yrreg]

Posted by yrreg
I am disappointed because you are not enthusiastic to share with me what you understand to be suffering in Buddhism; it’s like if you be an American citizen for you to tell people asking from you what you know to be life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for Americans, instead of telling them yourself, you direct them look up the answers in literature.
No one can enlighten you, you have to figure it out for yourself.


Thanks, qayak, for your input. I don't seem to remember you from before, anyway it is always good to meet someone 'new' and hear from him about my critique of Buddhism.

Are you a Buddhist because you call yourself one whatever the scarce quantity or the peculiar quality of your acceptance of Buddhist teachings and practices? Or are you an admirer of Buddhism like someone I know here who appeared to be a Buddhist to me but on his own words turned out to be not at all, except that he admires Buddhism for being the most peaceful of religions -- according to himself.

You say, "No one can enlighten you, you have to figure it out for yourself."

In reference to enlightenment the Buddhist way, do you mean that each Buddhist is to figure out for himself that he has or has not reached enlightenment?

Is that the general principle in Buddhists of whatever school, each one just figure out for himself whether he is enlightened or not?

I once had a very long discussion with a Buddhist in the Internet Infidels forum; no, he is not a 5% Buddhist like Dancing David here, but he had even taken up the whole initiation of assuming before ordained Buddhists the three refuges: in the Buddha, in the Dharma, and in the Sangha.

He told me repeatedly that he had experienced nirvana but won't tell me ever how he could be certain about it.

I told him time and again to get together fellow Buddhists who like him have ascertained for themselves that they have reached nirvana or more precisely parinirvana, the kind available on this side of the grave; but the man would never collaborate with me on such a project which I told him would be most instructive to people outside Buddhism, and for themselves also, in that then it would be possible and feasible to at least set up any so much as a very informal board of certification for people professing to be enlightened by the modality of Buddhism.

Well, that is one research task I have always been keenly interested in, but no Buddhists ever want to go into notwithstanding that they have found out for themselves that they have actually reached nirvana this side of the grave.


Posted by Yrreg: It is for an example a toothache, or the loneliness of being left alone in the house on Christmas eve, or helpless old age, a death in the family, or what? Yes.



Thanks for your affirmative answer to my examples of suffering. That is one answer that should be a kind of verifying criterion to know what is suffering for Buddhists as for non-Buddhists, which should dispense non-Buddhists from always trying to figure out what is suffering in Buddhism and among Buddhists.



http://img108.imageshack.us/img108/2889/user22071174288457qf4.jpg
Yrreg

...the Laughing Buddha, is an interpretation of the Bodhisattva Maitreya, the predicted Buddha to succeed Gautama Buddha in the future.

[yrreg]

Posted by yrreg
I am disappointed because you are not enthusiastic to share with me what you understand to be suffering in Buddhism; it’s like if you be an American citizen for you to tell people asking from you what you know to be life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for Americans, instead of telling them yourself, you direct them look up the answers in literature.

Disappointment is a form of suffering.

Posted by yrreg
Let us just be systematic by taking up one thing at a time.

Tell me then what is that suffering that is stated in the first noble truth: Life means suffering or There is suffering [ -- Tsukasa Buddha ]?

It is for an example a toothache, or the loneliness of being left alone in the house on Christmas eve, or helpless old age, a death in the family, or what?

It's all of those things and more. It's the result of our habitual patterns of reaction when things don't go as we expect, or when we don't get what we want, or when something happens that we don't think we deserve. Or when we're lonely. Or when a loved-one dies. Or when people don't live up to our expectations. Or when we witness injustice. Or when we're stuck in traffic.

Horrible things happen, and we suffer. Rape. Child abuse. Genocide. Suffering is nothing to be ashamed of.

Ordinary things happen, and we suffer. Can't find a parking space. Missed deadlines. Bad hair day.

You know what suffering is from your own experience. Why are you asking me what suffering is? Why are you asking anyone? Suffering is just life.

But when you wrote the following paragraph, you displayed what appears to be a misunderstanding of suffering:


Posted by yrreg
What is the modality of efficacy involved, meaning, like if you are suffering from being stuck in the traffic because the engine of the car you are riding in conked out, then you perform all the right procedures in troubleshooting in such a situation, mechanically it is ascertained that you will get out of your suffering.

If you're stuck in traffic and suffering, and if you troubleshoot the situation so that you no longer are stuck in traffic, you have not gotten out of your suffering. You've only gotten out of traffic. Unless you are a child, it's foolish to say, "I'm suffering because I'm stuck in traffic."

The adult way of looking at it is this: "I'm suffering because I don't know how to be stuck in traffic without being miserable."

The trick is to be in that kind of difficult situation without the habitual pattern of suffering. You don't have to suffer just because you're stuck in traffic. Some people get stuck in traffic and still smile.



I am glad that for Buddhists and with Buddhism the same samples of suffering obtain as with non-Buddhists; otherwise it would be impossible for them to communicate between themselves about suffering.


.
The trick is to be in that kind of difficult situation without the habitual pattern of suffering. You don't have to suffer just because you're stuck in traffic. Some people get stuck in traffic and still smile.

You don't accept that being stuck in the traffic is suffering pure and simple? Many questions are settled by surveys. Suppose we ask a hundred people whether they would consider it suffering to be stuck in the traffic, what do you say will they all of them answer yes?

I am aware that you are into some subtle understanding of suffering, perhaps you want to be more explicit and specific about your peculiarly contrived understanding of suffering or an aspect of which you want to bring out and insist on, by which it is not suffering?

Let us take time to arrive at an exact understanding of suffering acceptable to both non-Buddhists as for Buddhists.



http://img108.imageshack.us/img108/2889/user22071174288457qf4.jpg
Yrreg

...the Laughing Buddha, is an interpretation of the Bodhisattva Maitreya, the predicted Buddha to succeed Gautama Buddha in the future.

[Dancing David]

Thanks, qayak, for your input. I don't seem to remember you from before, anyway it is always good to meet someone 'new' and hear from him about my critique of Buddhism.

Are you a Buddhist because you call yourself one whatever the scarce quantity or the peculiar quality of your acceptance of Buddhist teachings and practices? Or are you an admirer of Buddhism like someone I know here who appeared to be a Buddhist to me but on his own words turned out to be not at all, except that he admires Buddhism for being the most peaceful of religions -- according to himself.

You say, "No one can enlighten you, you have to figure it out for yourself."

In reference to enlightenment the Buddhist way, do you mean that each Buddhist is to figure out for himself that he has or has not reached enlightenment?

Is that the general principle in Buddhists of whatever school, each one just figure out for himself whether he is enlightened or not?

I once had a very long discussion with a Buddhist in the Internet Infidels forum; no, he is not a 5% Buddhist like Dancing David here, but he had even taken up the whole initiation of assuming before ordained Buddhists the three refuges: in the Buddha, in the Dharma, and in the Sangha.

He told me repeatedly that he had experienced nirvana but won't tell me ever how he could be certain about it.

I told him time and again to get together fellow Buddhists who like him have ascertained for themselves that they have reached nirvana or more precisely parinirvana, the kind available on this side of the grave; but the man would never collaborate with me on such a project which I told him would be most instructive to people outside Buddhism, and for themselves also, in that then it would be possible and feasible to at least set up any so much as a very informal board of certification for people professing to be enlightened by the modality of Buddhism.

Well, that is one research task I have always been keenly interested in, but no Buddhists ever want to go into notwithstanding that they have found out for themselves that they have actually reached nirvana this side of the grave.



Thanks for your affirmative answer to my examples of suffering. That is one answer that should be a kind of verifying criterion to know what is suffering for Buddhists as for non-Buddhists, which should dispense non-Buddhists from always trying to figure out what is suffering in Buddhism and among Buddhists.



http://img108.imageshack.us/img108/2889/user22071174288457qf4.jpg
Yrreg

...the Laughing Buddha, is an interpretation of the Bodhisattva Maitreya, the predicted Buddha to succeed Gautama Buddha in the future.


http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.140.than.html


“Yes, monk, a transgression overcame you in that you were so foolish, so muddle-headed, and so unskilled as to assume that it was proper to address me as 'friend.' But because you see your transgression as such and make amends in accordance with the Dhamma, we accept your confession. For it is a cause of growth in the Dhamma & Discipline of the noble ones when, seeing a transgression as such, one makes amends in accordance with the Dhamma and achieves restraint in the future."

"Lord, may I receive full acceptance (ordination as a monk) from the Blessed One?"

"And are your robes & bowl complete?"

"No, lord, my robes & bowl are not complete."

"Tathagatas do not give full acceptance to one whose robes & bowl are not complete."

Then Ven. Pukkusati, delighting & rejoicing in the Blessed One's words, got up from his seat, bowed down to the Blessed One and, keeping him on his right, left in search of robes and a bowl. And while he was searching for robes & a bowl, a runaway cow killed him.

Then a large number of monks approached the Blessed One and, on arrival, having bowed down to him, sat to one side. As they were sitting there, they said to the Blessed One, "Lord, the clansman Pukkusati, whom the Blessed One instructed with a brief instruction, has died. What is his destination? What is his future state?"

"Monks, the clansman Pukkusati was wise. He practiced the Dhamma in accordance with the Dhamma and did not pester me with issues related to the Dhamma. With the destruction of the first five fetters, he has arisen spontaneously [in the Pure Abodes], there to be totally unbound, never again to return from that world."

That is what the Blessed One said. Gratified, the monks delighted in the Blessed One's words.

[Dancing David]

I am glad that for Buddhists and with Buddhism the same samples of suffering obtain as with non-Buddhists; otherwise it would be impossible for them to communicate between themselves about suffering.


.
The trick is to be in that kind of difficult situation without the habitual pattern of suffering. You don't have to suffer just because you're stuck in traffic. Some people get stuck in traffic and still smile.

You don't accept that being stuck in the traffic is suffering pure and simple? Many questions are settled by surveys. Suppose we ask a hundred people whether they would consider it suffering to be stuck in the traffic, what do you say will they all of them answer yes?

I am aware that you are into some subtle understanding of suffering, perhaps you want to be more explicit and specific about your peculiarly contrived understanding of suffering or an aspect of which you want to bring out and insist on, by which it is not suffering?

Let us take time to arrive at an exact understanding of suffering acceptable to both non-Buddhists as for Buddhists.



http://img108.imageshack.us/img108/2889/user22071174288457qf4.jpg
Yrreg

...the Laughing Buddha, is an interpretation of the Bodhisattva Maitreya, the predicted Buddha to succeed Gautama Buddha in the future.



http://www.saigon.com/~hoasen/glossa-e.htm

Eight Sufferings
(1) Suffering of Birth
(2) Suffering of Old Age
(3) Suffering of Sickness
(4) Suffering of Death
(5) Suffering of being apart from the loved ones
(6) Suffering being together with the despised ones
(7) Suffering of not getting what one wants
(8) Suffering of the flourishing of the Five Skandhas

[nosho]

You don't accept that being stuck in the traffic is suffering pure and simple?

I don't accept that it's inevitable that being stuck in traffic forces a person to have no choice but to suffer.

Many questions are settled by surveys.

No they're not. I'm certainly not going to leave it to surveys to determine what I should think.

Suppose we ask a hundred people whether they would consider it suffering to be stuck in the traffic, what do you say will they all of them answer yes?

Probably not, but even if they did, it would be irrelevant.

I am aware that you are into some subtle understanding of suffering, perhaps you want to be more explicit and specific about your peculiarly contrived understanding of suffering or an aspect of which you want to bring out and insist on, by which it is not suffering?

I don't agree that my understanding is peculiar or contrived, or even that I insist on it. Sorry, won't take the bait.

Let us take time to arrive at an exact understanding of suffering acceptable to both non-Buddhists as for Buddhists.

Why? We all know from direct experience what it means to suffer. Obviously, you feel you already have an understanding of suffering, and I won't deny that for you, that's what's most relevant.

Regardless of how you define "dukkha" or whether you can arrive at a definition that someone else agrees with, you have to start with what you understand suffering to be. Start where you are.

In my opinion, you have an incorrect view of suffering if you think it is inevitable that being stuck in traffic means you have no choice but to suffer.

In my opinion, you play a key role in the degree and nature of suffering that you experience. You can't blame all your suffering on external circumstances. If you don't take responsibility for some of it, then you're not facing up to reality.

[Dancing David]

I don't accept that it's inevitable that being stuck in traffic forces a person to have no choice but to suffer.
.....
Regardless of how you define "dukkha" or whether you can arrive at a definition that someone else agrees with, you have to start with what you understand suffering to be. Start where you are.

In my opinion, you have an incorrect view of suffering if you think it is inevitable that being stuck in traffic means you have no choice but to suffer.

In my opinion, you play a key role in the degree and nature of suffering that you experience. You can't blame all your suffering on external circumstances. If you don't take responsibility for some of it, then you're not facing up to reality.
:)



Cognitive behavioral therapy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_behavioral_therapy

CBT is based on the idea that how we think (cognition), how we feel (emotion), and how we act (behavior) all interact together. Specifically, our thoughts influence our feelings and our behavior. Therefore, negative and unrealistic thoughts can cause us distress and result in problems.
An example will illustrate this process. Someone who, after making a mistake, thinks "I'm useless and can't do anything right." This impacts negatively on mood, making the person feel depressed; the problem may be worsened if the individual reacts by avoiding activities. As a result, a successful experience becomes more unlikely, which reinforces the original thought of being "useless." In therapy, the latter example could be identified as a self-fulfilling prophecy or "problem cycle," and the efforts of the therapist and client would be directed at working together to change this. This is done by addressing the way the client thinks in response to similar situations and by developing more flexible ways to think and respond, including reducing the avoidance of activities. If, as a result, the client escapes the negative thought pattern, the feelings of depression may be relieved. The client may then become more active, succeed more often, and further reduce feelings of depression.

[yrreg]

I seem to be getting the idea that suffering for the Buddhists here in this thread like nosho, according to their own understood version of Buddhism, consists in what they consider to be the wrong way of looking at whatever is causing suffering in a human whether Buddhist or non-Buddhist.

Consider these two motorists stranded in the traffic in a community that is totally unacquainted with Buddhism and its construct of suffering, one a non-Buddhist like everyone else in the community and the other a Buddhist visitor from outside the community.

As far as the community of non-Buddhists is concerned everyone stranded in the traffic is suffering; but the Buddhist visitor tells everyone that he is not suffering; why? because he has a Buddhist way of looking at suffering whereby what is suffering to non-Buddhists is not suffering to himself, owing to his special way of looking at it.

I can imagine also for myself stranded in a traffic that I am not suffering even though I know that I am suffering, by looking at my suffering situation as an opportunity to do something else agreeable, with the time on hand otherwise wasted with futile waiting for the traffic to clear up, like for example calling up my folks with whom I had not been in touch for weeks.

Or at the most stoic self-posturing stance I could elicit and maintain an emotional condition of indifference in the traffic.

Let us try to see whether my attempt to make sense of what is suffering is not suffering with our Buddhist confrere here, nosho.

And please, nosho, don't harbor in your heart and mind that I am here to bait you and to get you hooked-up uncomfortably hoisted in the air. If you think that way, then you should point out what is not in accordance with right thinking and right speaking in my words, on the basis of what everyone would accept as the universal filters to screen right thinking and right speaking, like for example, the established fallacies of inference.



Posted by yrreg
You don't accept that being stuck in the traffic is suffering pure and simple?

I don't accept that it's inevitable that being stuck in traffic forces a person to have no choice but to suffer.



You mean you have a choice to suffer or to not suffer.


Posted by yrreg
Many questions are settled by surveys. No they're not. I'm certainly not going to leave it to surveys to determine what I should think.



In modern democracies laws are in effect based on surveys by elected legislators; and outside legislated laws moral norms are founded also in effect on surveys informally conducted by each individual on the rest of the community as to arrive at a consensus; and when it comes to what is acceptable standards of modesty and propriety, it is also in effect based on surveys.


Posted by yrreg
Suppose we ask a hundred people whether they would consider it suffering to be stuck in the traffic, what do you say will they all of them answer yes? Probably not, but even if they did, it would be irrelevant.



You mean irrelevant to yourself owing to your adopted Buddhist concept of suffering -- I see that immediately to be a case of contrivance or artificial posturing.


Posted by yrreg
I am aware that you are into some subtle understanding of suffering, perhaps you want to be more explicit and specific about your peculiarly contrived understanding of suffering or an aspect of which you want to bring out and insist on, by which it is not suffering? I don't agree that my understanding is peculiar or contrived, or even that I insist on it. Sorry, won't take the bait.



I mentioned earlier that there are universal experiences of mankind and universally accepted notions based on these experiences, like liberty, equality, fraternity, altruism, greed, envy, yes -- suffering, happiness, pleasure, injustice, love, generosity, charity, compassion, mercy, cruelty, hatred, discrimination, religion, law, education, government.

What I see to be your notion of suffering which you identify to be in accordance with your Buddhism or derived from your Buddhism, is in the first instance based on also the universal experience of mankind to be suffering, but additionally for yourself in the what I would like to call the second instance, it is founded upon your revision of the notion, in order to enable you to annealize the experience of suffering, which everyone including yourself know to be suffering in the first instance.

In more concrete language, you do have the universal notion of suffering based on the universal experience of suffering, but you put a spin on the notion to make it appear to yourself as not suffering; perhaps you might want to call every encounter with suffering as a learning experience or a cleansing experience or in line with karma as a karmaic rebound?

Posted by yrreg
Let us take time to arrive at an exact understanding of suffering acceptable to both non-Buddhists as for Buddhists. Why? We all know from direct experience what it means to suffer. Obviously, you feel you already have an understanding of suffering, and I won't deny that for you, that's what's most relevant.
Most relevant to our attempts to find out what in Buddhism and for Buddhist is suffering, is to -- I agree completely with you -- to derive the notion from direct experience. So we must make a list of experiences which we both can concur on to be directly a sensation, a feeling, a mood of suffering; perhaps we can use the word pain, in place of suffering?

Regardless of how you define "dukkha" or whether you can arrive at a definition that someone else agrees with, you have to start with what you understand suffering to be. Start where you are.

Let us use then the word pain, instead of suffering; can we now concur that there is the experience and notion of pain that is universal for all mankind even the Buddhists?

In my opinion, you have an incorrect view of suffering if you think it is inevitable that being stuck in traffic means you have no choice but to suffer.

In my opinion, you play a key role in the degree and nature of suffering that you experience. You can't blame all your suffering on external circumstances. If you don't take responsibility for some of it, then you're not facing up to reality.

I am not blaming anyone or anything for my suffering or the suffering in life with mankind; what I want to find out is how Buddhism and Buddhists understand suffering which is stated in the first truth of the Four Noble Truths: "There is suffering in life," and which the fourth truth holds forth the relief of, "The Eightfold Path is the way to the cessation of suffering."

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


Summing up, I see that in Buddhism and with Buddhists they want to put a spin on the simple and plain and universal experience and notion of suffering with mankind, namely, pain; so as to keep to some kind of self-conditioning that they are immune to, or more tangibly, annealized from suffering -- but they are suffering just the same. Their spin on suffering is what I would like to call a mental discipline for a consuelo de bobo* -- calling a spade a spade.

I cannot otherwise than see in all the words about suffering in Buddhism to be in the larger picture nothing but the administration of what I would call a pseudo-philosophical opium in place of the real efficaciously pain-relieving botanical opium discovered and used by mankind from since before Buddhism; the pseudo-philosophical opium in Buddhism is similarly present in all other worldviews that promise to anesthetize man's suffering by working on his mind with words, instead of on his body and brain by surgical and chemical interventions -- most encouraging is current research on genetic medicine.



http://img108.imageshack.us/img108/2889/user22071174288457qf4.jpg
Yrreg

...the Laughing Buddha, is an interpretation of the Bodhisattva Maitreya, the predicted Buddha to succeed Gautama Buddha in the future.


*Consuelo de bobo, Spanish = consolation of the dunce.

[yrreg]

First, suffering or pain is any experience of the body or mind which is not welcome, from whatever source, within or without the human entity.

Secondly, there are two kinds of suffering or pain: the beneficial kind and the useless and even harmful kind.

The beneficial kind does not damage you irreparably, it makes you a better person in any way you can be improved; it keeps you alive and healthy, at least from learning how to avoid any source of suffering or pain from anywhere.

The harmful kind is that which does not make you better in any way better can be understood, or does not teach you anything to enable you to live more comfortably, more productively, and longer -- more happily.

Whether you want it or not, suffering or pain is here to stay with us until we master the laws of nature or evolution to engineer our genes so that we will only tolerate at least the beneficial kind of sufferings or pains, but do away totally with the harmful kinds of suffering.

In the meantime we can distract ourselves from suffering that is still unrelievable by engaging ourselves in enjoyable activities any way we can do so, like if you feel bad go and take a shower then have a walk in the park afterward have a good ice cream cone.


Perhaps better we turn ourselves into absolutely intelligent and just the same emotive but computerized robots.


Hahaha.


Yrreg

[Dancing David]

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


Summing up, I see that in Buddhism and with Buddhists they want to put a spin on the simple and plain and universal experience and notion of suffering with mankind, namely, pain; so as to keep to some kind of self-conditioning that they are immune to, or more tangibly, annealized from suffering -- but they are suffering just the same. Their spin on suffering is what I would like to call a mental discipline for a consuelo de bobo* -- calling a spade a spade.

I cannot otherwise than see in all the words about suffering in Buddhism to be in the larger picture nothing but the administration of what I would call a pseudo-philosophical opium in place of the real efficaciously pain-relieving botanical opium discovered and used by mankind from since before Buddhism; the pseudo-philosophical opium in Buddhism is similarly present in all other worldviews that promise to anesthetize man's suffering by working on his mind with words, instead of on his body and brain by surgical and chemical interventions -- most encouraging is current research on genetic medicine.




Cognitive behavioral therapy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogniti...vioral_therapy


CBT is based on the idea that how we think (cognition), how we feel (emotion), and how we act (behavior) all interact together. Specifically, our thoughts influence our feelings and our behavior. Therefore, negative and unrealistic thoughts can cause us distress and result in problems.
An example will illustrate this process. Someone who, after making a mistake, thinks "I'm useless and can't do anything right." This impacts negatively on mood, making the person feel depressed; the problem may be worsened if the individual reacts by avoiding activities. As a result, a successful experience becomes more unlikely, which reinforces the original thought of being "useless." In therapy, the latter example could be identified as a self-fulfilling prophecy or "problem cycle," and the efforts of the therapist and client would be directed at working together to change this. This is done by addressing the way the client thinks in response to similar situations and by developing more flexible ways to think and respond, including reducing the avoidance of activities. If, as a result, the client escapes the negative thought pattern, the feelings of depression may be relieved. The client may then become more active, succeed more often, and further reduce feelings of depression.



posted by nosho
In my opinion, you have an incorrect view of suffering if you think it is inevitable that being stuck in traffic means you have no choice but to suffer.

In my opinion, you play a key role in the degree and nature of suffering that you experience. You can't blame all your suffering on external circumstances. If you don't take responsibility for some of it, then you're not facing up to reality.

[Dancing David]

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

Dukkha
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dukkha (Pāli ; according to grammatical tradition from Sanskrit dus-kha "uneasy", but according to Monier-Williams more likely a Prakritized form of dus-stha "unsteady, disquieted") is a central concept in Buddhism, the word roughly corresponding to a number of terms in English including sorrow, suffering (or pain), affliction, anxiety, dissatisfaction, discomfort, anguish, stress, misery, aversion and frustration. The term is probably derived from duḥstha, "standing badly," "unsteady," "uneasy."

In classic Sanskrit, the term dukkha was often compared to a large potter's wheel that would screech as it was spun around, and did not turn smoothly. The opposite of dukkha was the term sukkha, which brought to mind a potter's wheel that turned smoothly and noiselessly. In other Buddhist-influenced cultures, similar imagery was used to describe dukkha. An example from China is the cart with one wheel that is slightly broken, so that the rider is jolted each time the wheel rolls over the broken spot.

Although dukkha is often translated as "suffering", its philosophical meaning is more complex. It also contains such deeper ideas as "imperfection", "impermanence", "emptiness", "insubstantiality", and "unsatisfactoriness". "Suffering" is too narrow a translation and it is sometimes best to leave dukkha untranslated . The translation into "suffering" gives the impression that the Buddhist view is one of pessimism, but Buddhism is neither pessimistic nor optimistic.

[nosho]

Thank you, Dancing David.

[nosho]

Where to begin?

Yyreg, there is a difference between pain and suffering. "Pain" and "suffering" are not interchangeable terms.

Consider these two motorists stranded in the traffic in a community that is totally unacquainted with Buddhism and its construct of suffering, one a non-Buddhist like everyone else in the community and the other a Buddhist visitor from outside the community.

As far as the community of non-Buddhists is concerned everyone stranded in the traffic is suffering;

I really don't see why that would be true. I've spent a lot of time stuck in traffic during commutes, and very honestly I can tell you sometimes I just don't mind. Sure, there are times when I become impatient (usually if there is some compounding factor besides the traffic, like if I'm running late), but there also are times when it's not a problem at all, and I would never think of myself as "suffering" as I sit there happily waiting until traffic moves again. It just depends.

And I'm quite sure that other people have had the same experience. When I look around at other people stuck in traffic, some of them appear to be angry, but some of them appear to be content, relaxed, even happy. I really don't see how you can in all seriousness believe that every single person, regardless of their circumstances, will suffer the moment they are stuck in traffic.

And that's the point: Different people may face the same external circumstance and either suffer or not suffer. What is the difference between the people who suffer and the people who don't suffer? It's probably not Buddhism. Most likely, there are many different factors, a myriad of unpredictible and wholly personal factors, that lead some people to suffer and others not to suffer when they are stuck in traffic.

I'm not posturing when I tell you that there have been times when I've been stuck in traffic and not "suffered." It's the truth. And I'm sure there are countless other people -- Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike -- who will say they've had the experience of being stuck in traffic and, frankly, just not being at all bothered by that.

I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree on this point. You believe it's inevitable that people must suffer when they are stuck in traffic, and I don't. That's fine. I think we can acknowledge that this is a topic on which we will not agree.

but the Buddhist visitor tells everyone that he is not suffering; why? because he has a Buddhist way of looking at suffering whereby what is suffering to non-Buddhists is not suffering to himself, owing to his special way of looking at it.

No, that's really not the reason. It's not about the way you look at suffering. It's the way you react to external circumstances. Over time, we all change, we all mature, and of course the way we react to circumstances also can change. As children, perhaps we would suffer when someone else won a game of checkers. As adults, we really don't mind losing once in a while, because it's all fun. So we don't suffer when we lose a game of checkers.

The reason we don't suffer isn't because of some Buddhist way of looking at things. It's because our habitual patterns of reaction have changed over time as we've grown more mature.

I can imagine also for myself stranded in a traffic that I am not suffering even though I know that I am suffering, by looking at my suffering situation as an opportunity to do something else agreeable, with the time on hand otherwise wasted with futile waiting for the traffic to clear up, like for example calling up my folks with whom I had not been in touch for weeks.

Or at the most stoic self-posturing stance I could elicit and maintain an emotional condition of indifference in the traffic.

These are all ways of distracting yourself. Once you are in a situation of suffering, you pretty much have to ride it out in my opinion. If you try to push away your suffering or ignore it, that might work temporarily, but usually the underlying cause of your suffering is still there.

Let us try to see whether my attempt to make sense of what is suffering is not suffering with our Buddhist confrere here, nosho.

And please, nosho, don't harbor in your heart and mind that I am here to bait you and to get you hooked-up uncomfortably hoisted in the air. If you think that way, then you should point out what is not in accordance with right thinking and right speaking in my words, on the basis of what everyone would accept as the universal filters to screen right thinking and right speaking, like for example, the established fallacies of inference.

Don't worry. I'm a big boy.

I mentioned earlier that there are universal experiences of mankind and universally accepted notions based on these experiences, like liberty, equality, fraternity, altruism, greed, envy, yes -- suffering, happiness, pleasure, injustice, love, generosity, charity, compassion, mercy, cruelty, hatred, discrimination, religion, law, education, government.

What I see to be your notion of suffering which you identify to be in accordance with your Buddhism or derived from your Buddhism, is in the first instance based on also the universal experience of mankind to be suffering, but additionally for yourself in the what I would like to call the second instance, it is founded upon your revision of the notion, in order to enable you to annealize the experience of suffering, which everyone including yourself know to be suffering in the first instance.

No. It's just that from a purely practical standpoint, I don't think it makes any sense to say that "stuck in traffic" = "suffering."

I don't think it makes any sense to take an internal experience (suffering), and equate it with an external circumstance (stuck in traffic). Different people can have different experiences when confronted with the same apparent external circumstance. Why insist that everyone must have the same reaction that you do?

In more concrete language, you do have the universal notion of suffering based on the universal experience of suffering, but you put a spin on the notion to make it appear to yourself as not suffering; perhaps you might want to call every encounter with suffering as a learning experience or a cleansing experience or in line with karma as a karmaic rebound?

Perhaps not.

I don't think you understand the term "karma." (Oh, jeez, here we go again.)

... Let us use then the word pain, instead of suffering; can we now concur that there is the experience and notion of pain that is universal for all mankind even the Buddhists?

I'm afraid not. Pain is not the same as suffering.

Look, it's very simple. For some people, it might be true that every little bit of pain is suffering. Perhaps that's the case for you. If so, that's fine. Go with it. The important thing is, for you personally, you know what suffering means.

That's where you start. That's all the understanding you need of suffering to have a grasp of the basics of most Buddhist traditions.

The idea is that, yes, there is suffering. Suffering has a beginning. Suffering has and end. And there's a way out of suffering. The whole concept is based on your personal experience of suffering, nobody else's.

That means, for you, if "stuck in traffic" is suffering, if every little experience of pain is suffering, fine. You are right about that. For you, that is suffering. You won't get any argument from me. You understand your own experience of suffering infinitely better than anyone else possibly can.

Don't assume everyone else in the world has exactly the same experience, though. And don't assume that your experience of suffering can never change. It can, and it probably will.

I am not blaming anyone or anything for my suffering

Well, sure you are. You're blaming external circumstances, like being stuck in traffic. You said yourself that when you're stuck in traffic, you have no choice but to suffer.

... what I want to find out is how Buddhism and Buddhists understand suffering which is stated in the first truth of the Four Noble Truths: "There is suffering in life," and which the fourth truth holds forth the relief of, "The Eightfold Path is the way to the cessation of suffering."

Everyone understands suffering based on his or her own personal experiences.

Summing up, I see that in Buddhism and with Buddhists they want to put a spin on the simple and plain and universal experience and notion of suffering with mankind, namely, pain; so as to keep to some kind of self-conditioning that they are immune to, or more tangibly, annealized from suffering -- but they are suffering just the same.

You don't know that. These are the kinds of assumptions, yyreg, that are getting in the way of your ability to understand what you're trying to critique.

Try harder.

[qayak]

Where to begin?

Does it matter? The problem with yyreg is:

>>>>>>>>EAR EAR>>>>>>>

[EeneyMinnieMoe]

Let us imagine that a human works out all the right behavioral actuations of the Eightfold Path (here-after abbreviated as EP), does he thereby come to immunity from suffering described in the Four Noble Truths (FNT)?


"What is the modality of efficacy involved, meaning, like if you are suffering from being stuck in the traffic because the engine of the car you are riding in conked out, then you perform all the right procedures in troubleshooting in such a situation, mechanically it is ascertained that you will get out of your suffering. This is what I want to call physical modality.

Is that modality of the EP for the remedy of the problem of suffering premised in the FNT physical, as in getting through with your suffering in a traffic stranded car?

If not, perhaps the Buddhists here can enlighten me."

I'm not a Buddhist but it seems to me you're missing the bigger picture here. Forget about the conked engine- you shouldn't be angry about being stuck in traffic in the first place. Or be ticked about not getting where you're going. Cause that's what's causing all your suffering in the first place, that you let the traffic upset you. That's what Buddhism is all about.

[yrreg]

I have been looking for some brief but to the point set of guidelines in any online glossary or dictionary of Buddhist Pali terms translated to English.

Sad to say I have not found any.

Glossaries and dictionaries are not wanting online and free; but equipped with even just as I said a brief but to the point set of guidelines adopted by the translators for their direction in defining Buddhist Pali terms into English equivalents or descriptions in English, I have not found one.

If the Buddhists here can refer me to any such set of guidelines found in any preliminary pages of any online available Buddhist glossary or dictionary, please let me know.

Take for example the attempts at translating dukkha by the authors-translators in the Accesstoinsight Buddhist website, they write so many words but ne'er one word telling the reader how they come to this or that English word to denote the meaning of the Pali word, dukkha.

Look up their website and tell me if you can find any brief but to the point treatment of what guidelines they are following in their Pali to English translation works.

Here, enter this phrase in Google search box, thus:

dukkha site: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/

Read all the hits and tell me if you have come across any brief but to the point treatment of why and how they translate dukkha from Pali to English and also all other Pali terms.


In my opinion any set of guidelines for translating from one language to another must observe the primacy of universal human experience.

Experience is the only thing we have of any conscious existence known to ourselves as self-aware entities, and words are the only means by which we can convey experience among ourselves –- unless we want to resort to bodily touching and manipulating each other to communicate our common experiences, which however is a very inconveniently messy way of communicating (I guess earthworms do that and it is most convenient for them because they are in continuous contactual proximity among themselves).


If I were to translate Buddhist Pali terms to English, there is first one very important guideline before any other particular methodological directives to follow and adhere to faithfully.

Again: if I were conversant with the Pali used in the Pali Canon, and as I am conversant (modesty aside, hehehe) with English that is intelligible everywhere in the world today where people read with uniform comprehension some English text intended for an international English literate readership, first and above all I must figure out exactly what experience or complex of experiences a Pali term is representing; then look for the similar experiences in English literate people and the word they use to convey these experiences to fellow English literate people.

Otherwise all translations of one language to another is an exercise in futility without any anchoring on the real substance of communication: universal common experience of mankind.

Yrreg

[nosho]

So I guess this means we're all done talking about suffering now? Time to move on to a different topic?

Your latest post baffles me, yyreg. Earlier in this thread, Dancing David posted an insightful explanation of the term "dukkha." Perhaps you didn't see it. But if you did see it, then I can't understand your confusion. It's as if you're just not trying very hard to understand.

Experience is the only thing we have of any conscious existence known to ourselves as self-aware entities, and words are the only means by which we can convey experience among ourselves

No, words are not the only means of conveying experience. We also have gestures, facial expressions, calculated silence. Among other means.

In this forum, however, words typed on a computer screen are all we have (along with emoticons :boggled:). Your problem, yyreg, appears to be that you don't pay attention to the words of others.

You don't seem to be trying to understand what others have to say. Instead, it seems you just poke around and look for some seemingly loose thread to tug at, ignoring the overall tapestry, ignoring the big picture. As I said in another thread, it looks to me as though you intentionally desire NOT to understand any tradition of Buddhism.

And just when topics get interesting, you drop them and change the subject.

[Hokulele]

... It's as if you're just not trying very hard to understand...

... As I said in another thread, it looks to me as though you intentionally desire NOT to understand any tradition of Buddhism ...


Bingo.

[yrreg]

Dear nosho, I really appreciate your participation in this thread, because you keep me entertained.

That sounds very rude I fear but honestly that is the truth; I think moderator Anthrope is right to advise Buddhists here to just ignore me because to all appearances I am just into baiting people... but baiting for what ends?

Honestly again: for a good entertaining discussion, exchange of views, information even about facts, in the cognitive domain of Buddhism.


I am at present faced with a very minor problem at home trying to figure out a way to keep a bat from using our front yard, which I had converted into a covered court with an overhanging roof of translucent fiber-glass corrugated sheets, from using this covered court as his dining hall.

I don't mind our fellow sentient beings like the birds and the frogs from lingering in my covered court but they should not mess up the place with food scraps and droppings and fluid refuse.

It's that bat which leaves his food scraps strewn in one or two particular spots in the covered court that gets to my mild annoyance, because I have to sweep them up and dispose of them in the garden garbage bin.

I wished I could have communication with him about how to use my covered court for a dining hall and leave me still happy and he also happy with the use of the space.

The good news is that this bat does not leave his food scraps on top of the three modest cars I park in this covered court; he drops his food scraps away from car tops; just the same I have to attend to his littering to clean up after him every morning for over a week now.

If I could have a dialogue with this bat, that would be terrific to keep us both entertained and learn from each other what life is all about and what to do with the problems of life.

I fear he might tell me that he and the rest of what man calls the animal kingdom outside of man don't have problems: they just keep alive by eating and keep their species extant by reproducing their own kind and they don't even know they will die; unlike humans who know too much for their own indifference to socalled problems of being and living.


When animals are secure in food and free from danger and can go about with their periodic sex binge, what do they occupy themselves with in their long hours of otherwise restful quiet?

With humans owing to their intelligence they attend to the socalled problems of suffering or stressfulness or dissatisfactoriness, or what comes after death which is the big picture question.


So, I have to thank you that your participation in this thread which keeps me entertained and I am sure you are also: both of us if we be honest are amusingly entertained.

Thanks to this online forum and the JREF website and its founder/owner, James Randi, erstwhile professional and I assume commercial magician now full time debunker on skeptical principles and skills of paranormal and pseudo-science phenomena.

[ More, next post.]
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Yrreg

...the Laughing Buddha, is an interpretation of the Bodhisattva Maitreya, the predicted Buddha to succeed Gautama Buddha in the future.

[yrreg]

If you are still with me, nosho, Buddha bless you for your compassion to keep company with me.


So I guess this means we're all done talking about suffering now? Time to move on to a different topic?

No, I am not through with suffering as the problem Gautama set himself forth to solve for mankind, or whatever he wanted to conquer out of compassion for mankind.

I am just into a facet of the topic, determining if there is any method that can be described as reasonable in how Buddhist enthusiasts translate Buddhism of one language to English for English literate folks who are into Buddhism, and be faithful to the text from where instead of deviously by translation molding Buddhism of that earlier language text to their own kind of Buddhism to suit their own stress, or angst, or whatever psychotherapeutic interest whatever, or any old fashioned ennui.



[...]
Your latest post baffles me, yyreg. Earlier in this thread, Dancing David posted an insightful explanation of the term "dukkha." Perhaps you didn't see it. But if you did see it, then I can't understand your confusion. It's as if you're just not trying very hard to understand.

Posted by yrreg
Experience is the only thing we have of any conscious existence known to ourselves as self-aware entities, and words are the only means by which we can convey experience among ourselves

No, words are not the only means of conveying experience. We also have gestures, facial expressions, calculated silence. Among other means.

In this forum, however, words typed on a computer screen are all we have (along with emoticons :boggled:). Your problem, yyreg, appears to be that you don't pay attention to the words of others.

You don't seem to be trying to understand what others have to say. Instead, it seems you just poke around and look for some seemingly loose thread to tug at, ignoring the overall tapestry, ignoring the big picture. As I said in another thread, it looks to me as though you intentionally desire NOT to understand any tradition of Buddhism.

And just when topics get interesting, you drop them and change the subject.

I have to rush out now, but I will be back. I am off to another curious entertainment outside the house.

Wink, wink, hehehehe....



http://img108.imageshack.us/img108/2889/user22071174288457qf4.jpg
Yrreg

...the Laughing Buddha, is an interpretation of the Bodhisattva Maitreya, the predicted Buddha to succeed Gautama Buddha in the future.

[yrreg]

Your latest post baffles me, yyreg. Earlier in this thread, Dancing David posted an insightful explanation of the term "dukkha." Perhaps you didn't see it. But if you did see it, then I can't understand your confusion. It's as if you're just not trying very hard to understand.

I am sorry I didn't give attention to that insightful explanation, more correctly I don't think I am sure which one you are referring to of David's long quotations. I wished the man would write his thoughts with his own understanding and words.

Please refer me to that text by just reproducing it here.


Posted by yrreg
Experience is the only thing we have of any conscious existence known to ourselves as self-aware entities, and words are the only means by which we can convey experience among ourselves

No, words are not the only means of conveying experience. We also have gestures, facial expressions, calculated silence. Among other means.

In this forum, however, words typed on a computer screen are all we have (along with emoticons ). Your problem, yyreg, appears to be that you don't pay attention to the words of others.

You don't seem to be trying to understand what others have to say. Instead, it seems you just poke around and look for some seemingly loose thread to tug at, ignoring the overall tapestry, ignoring the big picture. As I said in another thread, it looks to me as though you intentionally desire NOT to understand any tradition of Buddhism.


We are trying to find out what is suffering in Buddhism which is the key word in the first of the Four Noble Truths, and I am of the understanding that you want people to read into suffering a spin that is not immediately visible except upon some channeling of selective attention.

And I believe that is not what the men who wrote the first truth of the Four Noble Truths would want people to do, focus on an artificially introduced slant -- a spin, in order to know what is suffering.

Gautama and his collectivity of talents who before anything else must have in mind and for an audience people who must know right away from the words what they mean in the ordinary everyday meaning people who do use them take them to mean, like for example peasants and housewives and laborers, because these are the masses in all ages who are in need of deliverance from suffering or whatever Gautama and company wanted to deliver them from, out of compassion for them.

So, Gautama and company I am certain could not be playing verbal games on these simple people, unless they (Gautama and company) only had for their concern men who could detect a spin and could read the spun intended message beyond the ordinary common everyday meaning of a routine word like dukkha or suffering.


That word in Pali dukkha I believe if it has anything of connection with stressfulness or dissatisfaction, etc., it is best understood in English as suffering, the very big basket word that contains everything as I said that is not welcome by mankind.


What I read in the Accesstoinsight website about their attempts to find the best English words to translate dukkha into English appear to me to be purely a search for spin and spin weaving; the best word to represent dukkha is still that used by the earlier English translators of the Pali Canon, namely, suffering.



http://img108.imageshack.us/img108/2889/user22071174288457qf4.jpg
Yrreg

...the Laughing Buddha, is an interpretation of the Bodhisattva Maitreya, the predicted Buddha to succeed Gautama Buddha in the future.

[Dancing David]

I am sorry I didn't give attention to that insightful explanation, more correctly I don't think I am sure which one you are referring to of David's long quotations. I wished the man would write his thoughts with his own understanding and words.

Please refer me to that text by just reproducing it here.



We are trying to find out what is suffering in Buddhism which is the key word in the first of the Four Noble Truths, and I am of the understanding that you want people to read into suffering a spin that is not immediately visible except upon some channeling of selective attention.

And I believe that is not what the men who wrote the first truth of the Four Noble Truths would want people to do, focus on an artificially introduced slant -- a spin, in order to know what is suffering.

Gautama and his collectivity of talents who before anything else must have in mind and for an audience people who must know right away from the words what they mean in the ordinary everyday meaning people who do use them take them to mean, like for example peasants and housewives and laborers, because these are the masses in all ages who are in need of deliverance from suffering or whatever Gautama and company wanted to deliver them from, out of compassion for them.

So, Gautama and company I am certain could not be playing verbal games on these simple people, unless they (Gautama and company) only had for their concern men who could detect a spin and could read the spun intended message beyond the ordinary common everyday meaning of a routine word like dukkha or suffering.


That word in Pali dukkha I believe if it has anything of connection with stressfulness or dissatisfaction, etc., it is best understood in English as suffering, the very big basket word that contains everything as I said that is not welcome by mankind.


What I read in the Accesstoinsight website about their attempts to find the best English words to translate dukkha into English appear to me to be purely a search for spin and spin weaving; the best word to represent dukkha is still that used by the earlier English translators of the Pali Canon, namely, suffering.



http://img108.imageshack.us/img108/2889/user22071174288457qf4.jpg
Yrreg

...the Laughing Buddha, is an interpretation of the Bodhisattva Maitreya, the predicted Buddha to succeed Gautama Buddha in the future.


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

Dukkha
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dukkha (Pāli ; according to grammatical tradition from Sanskrit dus-kha "uneasy", but according to Monier-Williams more likely a Prakritized form of dus-stha "unsteady, disquieted") is a central concept in Buddhism, the word roughly corresponding to a number of terms in English including sorrow, suffering (or pain), affliction, anxiety, dissatisfaction, discomfort, anguish, stress, misery, aversion and frustration. The term is probably derived from duḥstha, "standing badly," "unsteady," "uneasy."

In classic Sanskrit, the term dukkha was often compared to a large potter's wheel that would screech as it was spun around, and did not turn smoothly. The opposite of dukkha was the term sukkha, which brought to mind a potter's wheel that turned smoothly and noiselessly. In other Buddhist-influenced cultures, similar imagery was used to describe dukkha. An example from China is the cart with one wheel that is slightly broken, so that the rider is jolted each time the wheel rolls over the broken spot.

Although dukkha is often translated as "suffering", its philosophical meaning is more complex. It also contains such deeper ideas as "imperfection", "impermanence", "emptiness", "insubstantiality", and "unsatisfactoriness". "Suffering" is too narrow a translation and it is sometimes best to leave dukkha untranslated . The translation into "suffering" gives the impression that the Buddhist view is one of pessimism, but Buddhism is neither pessimistic nor optimistic.

[Dancing David]

I am sorry I didn't give attention to that insightful explanation, more correctly I don't think I am sure which one you are referring to of David's long quotations. I wished the man would write his thoughts with his own understanding and words.


And you ignored me then too! Care to critique the eightfold path yet or just more excuses for why you can't/ I even gave my own thoughts and words and then you asked for a sacred oath.

:P

Yrreg:Total=3593 Average=293.333

DD: Total=605 Average=121





Yrreg
http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=2835406&postcount=1
270 words
http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=2838721&postcount=5
513 words
http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=2838905&postcount=7
186 words
http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=2838920&postcount=8
46 words
http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=2842480&postcount=13
348
http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=2842891&postcount=14
232
http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=2847042&postcount=17
39
http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=2847672&postcount=18
136
http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=2851263&postcount=28
468
http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=2851448&postcount=29
184
http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=2855731&postcount=34
927
http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=2855769&postcount=35
243

Total=3593 Average=293.333

Dancing David

http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=2848727&postcount=22
31 words
http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=2851724&postcount=30
320
http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=2851797&postcount=31
54
http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=2853059&postcount=33
206
http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=2856047&postcount=36
282

Total=605 Average=121

[linusrichard]

Disclaimer: I'm not a Buddhist.


First, yrreg, I think you'll gain the most understanding right now by focusing on the second of the Noble Truths. The word you translate as "attachment" I've also seen translated as "desire," or (maybe my favorite) "craving." I'll try to explain to you the way I think of it - maybe it will help you. The cause of suffering is craving/desire/attachment. No event inherently is painful or causes suffering by itself. Take the example of being stuck in traffic. Most people would find that frustrating or unpleasant. For the purposes of this discussion, I think it's fair to classify that as "suffering." To you, it might seem obvious that being stuck in traffic is somehow inherently frustrating/unpleasant/suffering-causing. But you're leaving out a step - a step that is so obvious you don't realize it's there. That is - people don't want to be stuck in traffic. People want to be at their destination, or at least moving swiftly towards it. The gist of the Second Noble Truth, as I understand it, is that it is this desire that is the root of suffering. Eliminate the desire, and you eliminate the suffering. If you don't have the attachment to getting to your destination, you won't suffer when your progress is slowed or stopped.

Harsh as it might seem, this can be applied to all things. It's not easy. I'm not saying that just anybody can drop their attachments to this world, eliminate their cravings, and thus eliminate their suffering. I'm not sure it's even desirable (maybe one reason I'm not a Buddhist). If my family is murdered, I can somehow eliminate my desire for my family to be alive, and thus eliminate my suffering. Or I can suffer from it. I think I'd rather suffer. But basically, if you can eliminate your desires/wants/cravings/attachments/expectations/etc., then nothing can disappoint/frustrate/upset/anger/etc. you.

I do find that, to the extent that I try to apply this in my life, I find myself able to, and I find that I am happier for it.

I'm new here, so I don't know what to make of the accusations against you of trolling, baiting, etc. No comment there. But I will say that some of your posts in this thread seem like a long, roundabout way of saying that you aren't a Buddhist. That's okay. I don't think anybody needs you to be.

[nosho]

I am sorry I didn't give attention to that insightful explanation, more correctly I don't think I am sure which one you are referring to of David's long quotations. I wished the man would write his thoughts with his own understanding and words.

Please refer me to that text by just reproducing it here.

It's the one about dukkha. Dancing David has reproduced it here on this page, right in front of your face. In addition, if you flip back to the first page of this thread and look near the bottom, you will find it easily. Please try harder.

This is what I'm talking about when I say you don't pay attention to what others have to offer. I understand you're doing this all for fun, but why do you think it's fun to just ignore what others bring to the table? If you ask for something, and someone gives it to you, and then you turn your nose up at it and don't even look at it, the only way that can be fun for you is if you enjoy frustrating people.

Is that what you mean by having fun? In other words, having fun at the expense of others.

We are trying to find out what is suffering in Buddhism which is the key word in the first of the Four Noble Truths, and I am of the understanding that you want people to read into suffering a spin that is not immediately visible except upon some channeling of selective attention.

Why do you think so? I told you that suffering is subjective, and that you know better than anyone else what suffering is for you personally. How is that some kind of spin?

I think the main difference between how you and I view suffering is this: I think suffering results from our habitual patterns of reaction. You believe our habitual patterns of reaction have nothing to do with suffering, but rather that suffering is an inevitable consequence of external circumstances.

Put more plainly, I believe a person can influence how much suffering he or she experiences. You believe that's impossible.

Our disagreement does not appear to be over what suffering is. Our disagreement appears to be over the path out of suffering. We're not debating the first noble truth. We're debating the fourth, namely, how to approach suffering in our lives in a healthy, beneficial way.

Your way appears to be one of resignation and avoidance. My way involves working with suffering in a manner that enables one to grow and mature. I won't tell you your way is wrong. Through trial and error, you have to decide what works best for you.

Buddhist traditions essentially offer you more options for trial and error. You get a few more tools to use when you are confronted with personal suffering. You see what works and what doesn't. If something works, great. If it doesn't, let it go.

What you fail to understand about Buddhist traditions is that nobody really cares if you agree or disagree with the philosophical or cosmological constructs of any particular branch. It's just not important. The only thing that really matters is if somehow there's something anywhere in it that can help you, so that you in turn can be more effective in helping others.

If after examining Buddhists traditions you feel there's just nothing in any of them that could possibly help you, that's ok. Nobody condemns you. Nobody's feelings are hurt. Everybody understands. It's not your path. No big deal.

So when you go on and on about how Buddhists are "insisting" on certain viewpoints, trying to "spin" things to convince you of something, it's all a lot of hooey. It's all bunk. Buddhist teachings do not require you to accept any viewpoint, any article of faith, any philosophical premise that you cannot test for yourself.

Yet here's a surprise: You have, in this thread, very clearly stated that you agree with the First Noble Truth of the Buddhist traditions. You agree that there is suffering.

Congratulations. Yrreg the critic of Buddhism has provided personal affirmation for a core teaching of the Buddhist traditions.

[yrreg]

And you ignored me then too! Care to critique the eightfold path yet or just more excuses for why you can't/ I even gave my own thoughts and words and then you asked for a sacred oath.


[...]



Here are the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path.


The Four Noble Truths

1. Life means suffering.
2. The origin of suffering is attachment.
3. The cessation of suffering is attainable.
4. The Eightfold Path is the way to the cessation of suffering.


The Eightfold Path

1. Right View
2. Right Intention
3. Right Speech
4. Right Action
5. Right Livelihood
6. Right Effort
7. Right Mindfulness
8. Right Concentration

.
My critique as I told you time and again is that they are not original with Gautama and Buddhism, meaning those enumerated eight human behavioral instances described as right and therefore to be adopted by mankind, as opposed to their corresponding wrong antithetical behavioral instances, for example, to right view you have wrong view, those right behavioral instances are nothing new in civilization and in society with mankind.

You want me to prove my opinion that they are not new with Gautama and Buddhism; it is going to take a lot of time and trouble which I am loathe to go into, at the end of which I don't think you will be convinced that my opinion is acceptable for being what I would call an educated opinion.

And that is our impasse, you insisting that the right behavioral instances of the Eightfold Path are new with mankind brought to mankind by Gautama and his colleagues, and I of the educated opinion that they are not.

You see, if you consider the dogs and cats and monkeys, there was a time when man was like them, without any notion of and attachment to any kind of right as opposed to wrong behavioral instances like right view, etc.; then at a certain transition in the development of his behavioral repertory he came to the notion of rightness and wrongness, and that arrived with society and civilization, which society and civilization was already old, very old before Gautama and associates started preaching the eight right behavioral instances.


Well, I won't any further dwell on this critique of the Eightfold Path in regard to their being original with Gautama or already ancient with mankind from the rise of society and civilization. You can go forth satisfied that I have not and still not taken the trouble to prove to your satisfaction that my opinion is not acceptable to people and yours is.

And that is the impasse.

Just in humor, at least that is one item of unsatisfactoriness in your life that is no longer any kind of annoyance and hence suffering for you, and you are closer to total emancipation from dukkha.


Later however I like you to join me in determining what is the basis of rightness in Buddhism.


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Yrreg

...the Laughing Buddha, is an interpretation of the Bodhisattva Maitreya, the predicted Buddha to succeed Gautama Buddha in the future.

[yrreg]

Yet here's a surprise: You have, in this thread, very clearly stated that you agree with the First Noble Truth of the Buddhist traditions. You agree that there is suffering.

Congratulations. Yrreg the critic of Buddhism has provided personal affirmation for a core teaching of the Buddhist traditions.

.
There is no need to agree, it is obvious that there is suffering in life.

What I want to find out from Buddhists is the kinds of suffering they include in their concept of suffering in that term dukkha; then also very importantly, how the Eightfold Path effects the abolition from or liberation from or immunity from dukkha or anything at all which Gautama and colleagues consider to be unwelcome in human existence and they hold forth the remedy to.


Being stuck in the traffic can be reacted to by a contrived emotional mood of indifference, that is possible; but it is still a situation where a Buddhist who thinks that he is freed of suffering have to acquire the habit of indifference to this particular situation and similar situations -- a contrived emotional mood of equanimity and imperturbability.

By the way, honestly, I am doing this critique here for entertainment, meaning it is not something I have to do for any purpose I have to pursue like making a living, but something that takes time and exertion but essentially engrossing as to be enjoyable, like those guys who climb mountains just for fun to fill up otherwise ennui time.

Back to dukkha, unless I am mistaken the Gautama is portrayed in the Pali Canon as having given some examples of dukkha which his teachings and observance of his prescriptions in the Eightfold Path will rid a person of, like birth...

"Now this, monks, is the Noble Truth of dukkha: Birth is dukkha, aging is dukkha, death is dukkha; sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, & despair are dukkha; association with the unbeloved is dukkha; separation from the loved is dukkha; not getting what is wanted is dukkha. In short, the five clinging-aggregates are dukkha."

-— SN 56.11

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dhamma/sacca/sacca1/index.html





Those are good examples of dukkha which will indicate to the curious what is dukkha all about.

My question is how the Eightfold Path is going to liberate a person from the dukkha of birth, aging, death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, despair, association with the unbeloved, separation from the loved, not getting what is wanted.


Just in humor, if Gautama were here today he would agree with me that being stuck in the traffic is dukkha.


All of us here, I propose that we admit that we are into this activity of the forum here for entertainment, but it is one good and wholesome entertainment, and educational for all of us.

Now, for the Buddhists here they have the bonus of exercising steadfastness in their faith, and also as important getting to know better their faith -- but in the process they also I am certain get wholesomely entertained -- if they do put their Buddhism in the right [pun not intended] perspective: that it is one among several worldviews claiming to be the true one or one of the 'truer' ones, or at least susceptible to rational criticism and coming out with flying colors... -- hehehehe.




http://img108.imageshack.us/img108/2889/user22071174288457qf4.jpg
Yrreg

...the Laughing Buddha, is an interpretation of the Bodhisattva Maitreya, the predicted Buddha to succeed Gautama Buddha in the future.

[nosho]

There is no need to agree, it is obvious that there is suffering in life.

What I want to find out from Buddhists is the kinds of suffering they include in their concept of suffering in that term dukkha; then also very importantly, how the Eightfold Path effects the abolition from or liberation from or immunity from dukkha or anything at all which Gautama and colleagues consider to be unwelcome in human existence and they hold forth the remedy to.


Being stuck in the traffic can be reacted to by a contrived emotional mood of indifference, that is possible; but it is still a situation where a Buddhist who thinks that he is freed of suffering have to acquire the habit of indifference to this particular situation and similar situations -- a contrived emotional mood of equanimity and imperturbability.

This strikes me as a good criticism. It appears to be built on at least a cursory understanding of Buddhist traditions. It demonstrates some degree of thought.

You miss the mark, though, in my opinion, by thinking of this change in habit patterns as a form of "indifference." It is not indifference. It is not apathy. Rather, it is a form of engagement in what is happening. You are with the experience. You care about what is happening. You are aware.

Also, there is the experience of equanimity. This is no mere emotional mood. It is more like a condition. It is the result of a different habitual pattern of reaction than what most of us experience most of the time.

You may see equanimity as "contrived," but I think it is more accurate to see our everyday habit patterns of reaction as being contrived. We react out of our contrived way of dealing with our experiences. We get stuck in traffic, and we act as if it's some enormous drama. We get frustrated. We get angry. All of that is what I consider to be contrived. We take the straight-forward experience of being delayed, and we add all kinds of baggage onto it to turn it into something much worse than it needs to be.

I would argue that our customary habitual patterns of reaction are incredibly contrived. When we have a true experience of awareness coupled with equanimity, then we see how contrived it is, and we can act with greater insight. When we act from wisdom, our actions are less contrived.

By the way, honestly, I am doing this critique here for entertainment, meaning it is not something I have to do for any purpose I have to pursue like making a living, but something that takes time and exertion but essentially engrossing as to be enjoyable, like those guys who climb mountains just for fun to fill up otherwise ennui time.

If you say so. Sometimes I get the impression that you're trying to disprove Buddhism because you feel it threatens Catholicism. (It doesn't, of course. Many Catholics have adopted practices based in Buddhist traditions, with no conflict of faith.)

Back to dukkha, unless I am mistaken the Gautama is portrayed in the Pali Canon as having given some examples of dukkha which his teachings and observance of his prescriptions in the Eightfold Path will rid a person of, like birth...

"Now this, monks, is the Noble Truth of dukkha: Birth is dukkha, aging is dukkha, death is dukkha; sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, & despair are dukkha; association with the unbeloved is dukkha; separation from the loved is dukkha; not getting what is wanted is dukkha. In short, the five clinging-aggregates are dukkha."

-— SN 56.11

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dhamma/sacca/sacca1/index.html




Those are good examples of dukkha which will indicate to the curious what is dukkha all about.

It's good to see that you actually do read some of this stuff. When you have time, I'd still like to hear your thoughts about the mangala sutta (something you left unresolved in your last thread).

My question is how the Eightfold Path is going to liberate a person from the dukkha of birth, aging, death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, despair, association with the unbeloved, separation from the loved, not getting what is wanted.

That's the key. You cannot escape aging. You cannot escape death. Sorrow, separation, lack of fullfillment, all of these things are part of the life we are born into. We have to live that life. We have to play the cards we were dealt.

And yet, somehow, there is a way out of suffering. What can that possibly mean, if we cannot escape aging, if we cannot escape death? It means that, within those very same experiences there is the possibility of a transformation of dukkha as we know it.

The eightfold path is a way of living that helps one become able to embrace suffering and change, to really live our lives, to really feel our emotions. To be fully aware.

The way the path works is that, little by litte, your habitual patterns change. Each part of the 8-fold path feeds every other part. Right action strengthens right intention, which in turn strengthens right action. Every little bit supports every other little bit. When you build up awareness in this process, then you begin to notice changes.

In the developmental model of Buddhism, it happens little by little, slowly over time.

How does it work? By giving us powerful tools to change our habitual patterns of reaction, for one thing.

Just in humor, if Gautama were here today he would agree with me that being stuck in the traffic is dukkha.

I think you're right. But I don't think he'd say you have no choice but to suffer. The Buddhist tradition is much more optimistic than that.

[yrreg]

Thanks, nosho, for your participation in this thread. Allow me to commend you for being civil and contributive instead of being hostile and nitpicky.

But tell me, don't you have better things to do with your free time than taking the trouble or whatever to react to my opinions?

If I had something better to do with my free time but also as engrossing or even more, I would not be here doing socalled critique of Buddhism.

There are a good number of things I should be doing with my free time (for example, cleaning out the bodega*) but they are not as engrossingly entertaining as doing critique of Buddhism here in this online forum or another online forum that has an at least appearance of tolerance for critique of Buddhism; if I don't do critique of Buddhism I have to look for something to do like critique of Buddhism in an online forum.

I have thought of doing critique of dense philosophical writing, but it is much more difficult because philosophy is not like religion: in religion whatever logic or reason it pretends to be founded upon, it is essentially credulity.

According to my favorite street savant, one Pes Oir Amsus:**

You know a religion when it talks about incredulous things but claim you don't have the capacity to understand them, besides those incredulous things are beyond concepts and words, they can only be experienced, each human of course in his own way -- whence the multiplicity of religions (they don't admit that however, because each founder is sure he has the only true or in contrived modesty the best among true religious systems).


We bring in so many issues in this thread, I like to always come back to the real question of the thread, which is what is the role of good or right deeds in Buddhism.

But I will just clarify some matters you bring up in your last message.

.
Posted by yrreg
There is no need to agree, it is obvious that there is suffering in life.

What I want to find out from Buddhists is the kinds of suffering they include in their concept of suffering in that term dukkha; then also very importantly, how the Eightfold Path effects the abolition from or liberation from or immunity from dukkha or anything at all which Gautama and colleagues consider to be unwelcome in human existence and they hold forth the remedy to.

Being stuck in the traffic can be reacted to by a contrived emotional mood of indifference, that is possible; but it is still a situation where a Buddhist who thinks that he is freed of suffering have to acquire the habit of indifference to this particular situation and similar situations -- a contrived emotional mood of equanimity and imperturbability.


This strikes me as a good criticism. It appears to be built on at least a cursory understanding of Buddhist traditions. It demonstrates some degree of thought.

You miss the mark, though, in my opinion...



I suggest we leave for the present the question of contrived or non-contrived equanimity, indifference.

.
Posted by yrreg
By the way, honestly, I am doing this critique here for entertainment, meaning it is not something I have to do for any purpose I have to pursue like making a living, but something that takes time and exertion but essentially engrossing as to be enjoyable, like those guys who climb mountains just for fun to fill up otherwise ennui time.


If you say so. Sometimes I get the impression that you're trying to disprove Buddhism because you feel it threatens Catholicism. (It doesn't, of course. Many Catholics have adopted practices based in Buddhist traditions, with no conflict of faith.)



I called myself a postgraduate Catholic in the IIDB, in another forum I call myself a defector Catholic -- but first an apostate Catholic, then a defector Catholic because I think the second designation is more correct.

You see we can criticize any religion and show it to be absolutely incredulous and therefore not worth our time and trouble, except to examine it as a fun hobby for the mental exercise of critical thinking and the quest for empirical evidence, but there will always be people many who will embrace the religion whichever they happen to land into from all kinds of in effect fortuitous influences and circumstances.

Catholicism will survive and flourish just as Buddhism and also Scientology any attacks from any person from critical thinking and the quest for empirical evidence to topple it.

There is no incentive from me to cultivate a fun hobby for a mental exercise in critical thinking and the quest for empirical evidence with Catholicism, because the number of critics with the most keen mind and fervid heart are attending to this activity, that it would not be fun anymore for me because for me what is fun must also be something others are not into doing.

And that is what I notice about Buddhism in the West, practically no one is criticizing it compared to Catholicism and Christianity in general. Buddhism therefore is a good avenue for critical thinking and the quest for empirical evidence, but not from personal hostility as I said many times over and over, for a fun hobby as a mental exercise in critical thinking and the quest for empirical evidence.

As my favorite street philosopher continuously tells me:


People would rather search for hidden agenda instead of examining the issue brought forward by a curious mind -- because that is the easiest thing to do instead of thinking on the issue.

.
Posted by yrreg
Back to dukkha, unless I am mistaken the Gautama is portrayed in the Pali Canon as having given some examples of dukkha which his teachings and observance of his prescriptions in the Eightfold Path will rid a person of, like birth...

"Now this, monks, is the Noble Truth of dukkha: Birth is dukkha, aging is dukkha, death is dukkha; sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, & despair are dukkha; association with the unbeloved is dukkha; separation from the loved is dukkha; not getting what is wanted is dukkha. In short, the five clinging-aggregates are dukkha."

-— SN 56.11

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/d...ca1/index.html



Those are good examples of dukkha which will indicate to the curious what is dukkha all about.

It's good to see that you actually do read some of this stuff. When you have time, I'd still like to hear your thoughts about the mangala sutta (something you left unresolved in your last thread).


I do read Buddhist canonical writings but it is not necessary to read them, because you can get their ideas from their exponents in more concise and direct to the point treatises; that is the big fallacy with whoever wrote the materials which eventually got accepted as canonical writings, they thought that by excess of words as like torrential waves of tsunami towering walls of water, people could be convinced that they are saying something genuinely factual and not their own inventions which they are so infatuated with for being their own brain children.

.
Posted by yrreg
My question is how the Eightfold Path is going to liberate a person from the dukkha of birth, aging, death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, despair, association with the unbeloved, separation from the loved, not getting what is wanted.


[..]

The way the path works is that, little by litte, your habitual patterns change. Each part of the 8-fold path feeds every other part. Right action strengthens right intention, which in turn strengthens right action. Every little bit supports every other little bit. When you build up awareness in this process, then you begin to notice changes.

In the developmental model of Buddhism, it happens little by little, slowly over time.

How does it work? By giving us powerful tools to change our habitual patterns of reaction, for one thing.



Well, that is good news in principle as they say among policy makers in society.

Now, all Buddhists have to do is spell out the specific instructions on the concrete how's.

I gave the example of dukkha in being stuck in the traffic which is one dukkha from outside the person.

Suppose we take up the case of a dukkha from inside the person, like a stomachache? How would a Buddhist remedy this kind of a dukkha with the Eightfold Path?




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Yrreg

...the Laughing Buddha, is an interpretation of the Bodhisattva Maitreya, the predicted Buddha to succeed Gautama Buddha in the future.

*Bodega = Spanish, a place used for a warehouse also at home.

**Pes Oir Amsus = aka Yrreg -- hahaha!

[nosho]

... don't you have better things to do with your free time than taking the trouble or whatever to react to my opinions?

Probably. But this is a topic I like to discuss. It seems to me that "Buddhism" is widely misunderstood by those who are not familiar with it, and even by some who are.

Suppose we take up the case of a dukkha from inside the person, like a stomachache? How would a Buddhist remedy this kind of a dukkha with the Eightfold Path?

You wouldn't.

If you have a stomach ache and it's so uncomfortable that you would like to do something about it, then see a doctor.

If, however, it's a normal stomach ache that doesn't require medical attention, then you just have to live with it until it goes away. That's common sense.

But different people react in different ways to having a stomach ache. Some people might become irritable and lash out at others, because that's what they do when they are in physical discomfort. Other people might take the stomach ache in stride, understanding that it's a minor discomfort that's bound to go away, so they don't let it bother them.

The way some people react to having a stomach ache can add to their suffering.

The next time you have a normal, everyday stomach ache that doesn't require medical attention, you could use it as an opportunity to pay attention to what's happening. First focus your attention on the pain itself. What does it really feel like? Is it a constant pain, or does it come and go? Is it located in one area of your abdomen, or does it move around? Is it a feeling of tightness, or pressure, or heat, or what? Get to know the sensations you are encountering.

Then, consider whether your stomach ache has prompted you to alter your behavior. Are you behaving in a way that makes it obvious to others that you are in discomfort? Or are you trying to hide it? Become aware of what you are doing.

All of that might seem like a complete waste of time to you, and if so, then you don't have to do it. But if you want to know the nature of the suffering you experience when you have a stomach ache, this type of observation might be useful.

You can't make the stomach ache go away. But you might be able to work with it.

[SirPhilip]

If not, perhaps the Buddhists here can enlighten me. Well, I disagree. Here's the metaphysical justification: I will gain infinite merit, avoiding all that, simply by taking advantage of the infinite amount of time for you it would take to recognize what "right speech" might not have to do with your excess by informing you about it, and thus preventing unending suffering. Thus through your utterly boring, nauseating, annoying, irritating, badly composed and pointless garbage - and because realization is spontaneous and takes eons, completely depressing, I have attained the status of supreme Adi Buddha from reading this.

[yrreg]

Probably. But this is a topic I like to discuss. It seems to me that "Buddhism" is widely misunderstood by those who are not familiar with it, and even by some who are.



That is interesting, that even among Buddhists Buddhism is misunderstood.



[...]

The next time you have a normal, everyday stomach ache that doesn't require medical attention, you could use it as an opportunity to pay attention to what's happening. First focus your attention on the pain itself. What does it really feel like? Is it a constant pain, or does it come and go? Is it located in one area of your abdomen, or does it move around? Is it a feeling of tightness, or pressure, or heat, or what? Get to know the sensations you are encountering.

Then, consider whether your stomach ache has prompted you to alter your behavior. Are you behaving in a way that makes it obvious to others that you are in discomfort? Or are you trying to hide it? Become aware of what you are doing.

All of that might seem like a complete waste of time to you, and if so, then you don't have to do it. But if you want to know the nature of the suffering you experience when you have a stomach ache, this type of observation might be useful.

You can't make the stomach ache go away. But you might be able to work with it.

What about hunger?

And also consider the instances of dukkha in the text quoted below from the Accesstoinsight website:

A contemporary definition:
Dukkha is:

Disturbance, irritation, dejection, worry, despair, fear, dread, anguish, anxiety; vulnerability, injury, inability, inferiority; sickness, aging, decay of body and faculties, senility; pain/pleasure; excitement/boredom; deprivation/excess; desire/frustration, suppression; longing/aimlessness; hope/hopelessness; effort, activity, striving/repression; loss, want, insufficiency/satiety; love/lovelessness, friendlessness; dislike, aversion/attraction; parenthood/childlessness; submission/rebellion; decision/indecisiveness, vacillation, uncertainty.

— Francis Story in Suffering, in Vol. II of The Three Basic Facts of Existence (Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society, 1983)

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dhamma/sacca/sacca1/dukkha.html


There is plenty of dukkha to go about with the kind of regard you have to engender to make dukkha not as dukkha as to qualify as cessation of dukkha.


But if the people are hungry and starving, which is dukkha isn't it? and you tell them to do as per your prescription, do you think that is helping them to stop their pangs of hunger?




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Yrreg

...the Laughing Buddha, is an interpretation of the Bodhisattva Maitreya, the predicted Buddha to succeed Gautama Buddha in the future.

[Ryokan]

That is interesting, that even among Buddhists Buddhism is misunderstood.

This is very much so, especially amongst Western Buddhists. You see, not every Western Buddhist is an elitist intellectual, as you seem to believe. I believe that is quite far from the truth, and that most Western Buddhists are mostly New Age freaks into reincarnation, tantric spells and other 'spiritual'/supernatural aspects of Buddhism.

But if the people are hungry and starving, which is dukkha isn't it? and you tell them to do as per your prescription, do you think that is helping them to stop their pangs of hunger?

If someone is starving, you'd better give them food before you give them the dharma. Likewise, if your house is on fire, you'd better get the hell out instead of meditating over your current situation. I don't believe any Buddhist has ever said otherwise, but you're welcome to show evidence of the contrary.

Of course, the dharma might help people cope through periods of starvation, make the experience easier - but this does not mean you should stop trying to acquire food. In fact, it should be priority one. I don't think anyone has said otherwise.


..the Laughing Buddha, is an interpretation of the Bodhisattva Maitreya, the predicted Buddha to succeed Gautama Buddha in the future.

Didn't we have this discussion before? That doesn't look like a Maitreya figure, it looks more like a Hotei figure.

[SirPhilip]

..the Laughing Buddha But you aren't listening to the Adi Buddha.

[yrreg]

This is very much so, especially amongst Western Buddhists. You see, not every Western Buddhist is an elitist intellectual, as you seem to believe. I believe that is quite far from the truth, and that most Western Buddhists are mostly New Age freaks into reincarnation, tantric spells and other 'spiritual'/supernatural aspects of Buddhism.



Perhaps you consider yourself not a woo Buddhist or New Age Buddhist but a rational Buddhist?

Do you believe that Gautama attained enlightenment which is also spelled nirvana this side of the grave and you will also do likewise?

Posted by yrreg
But if the people are hungry and starving, which is dukkha isn't it? and you tell them to do as per your prescription, do you think that is helping them to stop their pangs of hunger? If someone is starving, you'd better give them food before you give them the dharma. Likewise, if your house is on fire, you'd better get the hell out instead of meditating over your current situation. I don't believe any Buddhist has ever said otherwise, but you're welcome to show evidence of the contrary.

Of course, the dharma might help people cope through periods of starvation, make the experience easier - but this does not mean you should stop trying to acquire food. In fact, it should be priority one. I don't think anyone has said otherwise.



That is enlightening; but don't you think that is what without Buddhism the humanistic democratic world of today is doing, all in the name of humanism without invoking dharma, but purely because man owes it to himself to love mankind?


I seem to get the impression from nosho that Buddhism seeks to kick dukkha with words instead of deeds, words addressed to the mind instead of deeds done to fellow men and in quest for the control of what is called nature in Western philosophies.



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Yrreg

...the Laughing Buddha, is an interpretation of the Bodhisattva Maitreya, the predicted Buddha to succeed Gautama Buddha in the future.[/indent]

[nosho]

But if the people are hungry and starving, which is dukkha isn't it? and you tell them to do as per your prescription, do you think that is helping them to stop their pangs of hunger?

Of course not.

Look again at what I wrote about the stomach ache. First suggestion: Get help if you need it. Same applies for the hungry. You gotta feed the hungry.

The story of Gotama includes his ultimate rejection of the path of strict austerity. He starved himself and almost died, the story goes. As the Buddha, he ate when he was hungry.

I seem to get the impression from nosho that Buddhism seeks to kick dukkha with words instead of deeds, words addressed to the mind instead of deeds done to fellow men and in quest for the control of what is called nature in Western philosophies.

I'm not sure where you got the idea that I'm talking about a method of "words addressed to the mind." I'm not. This is not an intellectual game.

And this is not about "kicking dukkha" in any way. You might say it's about the opposite: embracing dukkha. Getting closer to it. Knowing it for what it is.

Also, yyreg, the eightfold path has plenty to do with actions. Once again I'd encourage you to peek at the mangala sutta (http://www.buddhistinformation.com/ida_b_wells_memorial_sutra_library/maha_mangala_suttas.htm). I know you're loathe to read suttas, but seriously, this one will take you all of 60 seconds to read. It talks about the social responsibility implicit in the path.

You seem to have the impression that "Buddhism" doesn't teach social responsibility. You're mistaken. In this moment, you have an opportunity to get a better understanding. Don't you want to have a better understanding?

[lupus_in_fabula]

Do you believe that Gautama attained enlightenment which is also spelled nirvana this side of the grave and you will also do likewise?


Could it not also be possible that nirvana isn’t a place but a description of a state of being – just like the Christian metaphor about heaven and hell? Of course, we are somewhat conditioned to see the world as an artefact, so we seem to look at these things as distinct places. But maybe enlightenment is simply the realization of the presence of such state?

[SirPhilip]

Could it not also be possible that nirvana isn’t a place but a description of a state of being – just like the Christian metaphor about heaven and hell? Of course, we are somewhat conditioned to see the world as an artefact, so we seem to look at these things as distinct places. But maybe enlightenment is simply the realization of the presence of such state? Nirvana is the Buddhist description of drawing near to eternal death. At the time, the concept of the seven vices (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_deadly_sins) weren't popularized (later however made so in more rather balanced, life-affirming form by Catholics). In any case, they effect everyone to various degrees and are generated by the body's functions. The point of strict asceticism was to bring these under complete control at all costs (they were strict atheists with a privileged understanding of nature), the mind becoming later absolutely still in the process.

It has the connotation of security, simplicity and bliss and that sort of thing you see popularized in Eastern cultural art and stereotypes alongside images of flowers, statues, and greenery. Conversely, flowers, statues, and greenery became a huge hit at Christian graveyards.

[lolurigeller]

I called myself a postgraduate Catholic in the IIDB, in another forum I call myself a defector Catholic -- but first an apostate Catholic, then a defector Catholic because I think the second designation is more correct.



You might not be aware of this but there is a huge difference between you and some of your fellow catholics:

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

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

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

If you are a catholic maybe you should try spending your energy, I dunno... becoming a praciticing catholic?

Seriously what gives you the right to criticize another religion, if you can't even understand and practise the most basic of virtues in Christianity?

oh and I have another link for you in case you didn't know or forgot about the seven virtues of christianity.

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

[Ryokan]

If you are a catholic maybe you should try spending your energy, I dunno... becoming a praciticing catholic?

I understand his 'postgraduate', 'apostate' and 'defector' Catholic as someone who has been raised Catholic, but then left it, i.e. a cultural Catholic. Whether Yrreg still believes in a god or is and atheist or an agnostic, I don't know. But it's pretty clear to me, after reading his posts from the beginning, that he does not really consider himself a Catholic anymore, except culturally.

I might be wrong, Yrreg hasn't been very willing to tell us much about his own beliefs. Nor should they really matter when it comes to his criticism on Buddhism.

[yrreg]

I have just read the Mangala Sutta and I am asking myself what is Buddhistic in the Mangala Sutta?


You don't have to be or call yourself a Buddhist to know and to practice the Mangala Sutta.

You don't have to be enlightened in the time of the Gautama and in his clime to come to acquaintance with the teachings of your society that are typical prescriptions mentioned in the Mangala sutta, but antedating Gautama and the Mangala Sutta, necessary to lead a good, ethical existence for yourself, and to productively contribute to the welfare of fellowmen.

You don't believe that and you are demanding from me evidence, because you maintain that Gautama discovered or invented the prescriptive norms mentioned in the Mangala Sutta which, according to you, followers of Gautama, until his enlightenment his fellowmen did not know about, for living viably with oneself and harmoniously with and beneficially to fellowmen?

As I said time and again, with the development of civilization and society which antedates millennia before Gautama's time even in his local community, the prescriptions for a good, ethical life and desirable communality among fellowmen had already been formulated by mankind and observed by men.

If you cannot accept that, and you demand evidence -- as I have noticed innumerable times this kind of an abuse of evidence, because you want to insist that the moralistic teachings in Buddhism were discovered or invented by Gautama, then you don't know what is civilization and society: how and why it has been founded and on what it is built upon.

And you do not know what is evidence in critical thinking; perhaps you might be interested to know that evidence has always to do with a specific concrete object or phenomenon of nature or action of an individual human agent.

However, when we speak about such things as that before Gautama the prescriptive norms mentioned in the Mangala Sutta were already present in human civilization and society with any group of humans living together and getting along peaceably among themselves and to their communal advantages, what we need and is sufficient, is not the evidence you have in mind but the common experience and knowledge of mankind down the ages of human existence, like we know for sure that women love the babies they give birth to, from common experience and knowledge of mankind, or that envy is a prevalent sentiment of human nature.


Here, if you are rationally functional, this is how you must ascertain how those prescriptive norms mentioned in the Mangala Sutta antedate Gautama and the Mangala Sutta by millennia:

First, you know that society and civilization has existed millennia before recorded history and before Gautama;

Second, you know that society and civilization could not have developed, unless and until mankind had formulated the norms to impose upon themselves individually and collectively, conducive to the founding of society and civilization;

Third, these prescriptive norms are what we call moral, ethical rules, and then later the most crucially important ones for the maintenance of peace and order, laws.

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



I want to find out how the Eightfold Path will free mankind from dukkha, in terms of concrete mediation of physical actions and material concoctions, like this:


dukkha of "sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair,"

plus one or several of the lanes in the Eightfold Path,

plus mediation of concrete human actions and/or concoctions,

equals liberation from and/or immunity to dukkha,

like for example: "sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair."

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


I like to ask the Buddhists here to give me a definition or description of dukkha in less than ten words.

Think about that and spell your definition or description of dukkha in ten words.




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Yrreg

...the Laughing Buddha, is an interpretation of the Bodhisattva Maitreya, the predicted Buddha to succeed Gautama Buddha in the future.

[Dancing David]

If you find merit in the teachings of the buddha it does not matter is they are all original or not. They are gathered together in a nice form.

there are plenty of dying man gods prior to jesus, yet his followers like his teachings.

If you find merit in the teachings of the alleged historical buddha then follow them, if you don't then don't.


Why does it matter?

[nosho]

Your post is really bizarre, yyreg. I'm glad you read the mangala sutta, but what in blazes are you talking about?

I have just read the Mangala Sutta and I am asking myself what is Buddhistic in the Mangala Sutta?

Everything, from top to bottom.

You don't have to be or call yourself a Buddhist to know and to practice the Mangala Sutta.

Of course you don't. Who ever said you did?

You don't have to be enlightened in the time of the Gautama and in his clime to come to acquaintance with the teachings of your society that are typical prescriptions mentioned in the Mangala sutta, but antedating Gautama and the Mangala Sutta, necessary to lead a good, ethical existence for yourself, and to productively contribute to the welfare of fellowmen.

Of course you don't. Who ever said you did?

You don't believe that and you are demanding from me evidence, because you maintain that Gautama discovered or invented the prescriptive norms mentioned in the Mangala Sutta which, according to you, followers of Gautama, until his enlightenment his fellowmen did not know about, for living viably with oneself and harmoniously with and beneficially to fellowmen?

I never said any such thing. What are you talking about?

As I said time and again, with the development of civilization and society which antedates millennia before Gautama's time even in his local community, the prescriptions for a good, ethical life and desirable communality among fellowmen had already been formulated by mankind and observed by men.

By some people at some times, sure. So what?

If you cannot accept that, and you demand evidence -- as I have noticed innumerable times this kind of an abuse of evidence, because you want to insist that the moralistic teachings in Buddhism were discovered or invented by Gautama, then you don't know what is civilization and society: how and why it has been founded and on what it is built upon.

I have no idea what you're talking about. I never insisted on any such thing.

And you do not know what is evidence in critical thinking; perhaps you might be interested to know that evidence has always to do with a specific concrete object or phenomenon of nature or action of an individual human agent.

I think the mangala sutta constitutes evidence that "Buddhism" taught social responsibility from its beginning.

You seem to have been under the impression that "Buddhism" doesn't teach social responsibility. Now you have read the mangala sutta and you know better. Are you upset because you have learned that you were wrong?

However, when we speak about such things as that before Gautama the prescriptive norms mentioned in the Mangala Sutta were already present in human civilization and society with any group of humans living together and getting along peaceably among themselves and to their communal advantages, what we need and is sufficient, is not the evidence you have in mind but the common experience and knowledge of mankind down the ages of human existence, like we know for sure that women love the babies they give birth to, from common experience and knowledge of mankind, or that envy is a prevalent sentiment of human nature.

You've completely lost me. What are you trying to say?

Here, if you are rationally functional, this is how you must ascertain how those prescriptive norms mentioned in the Mangala Sutta antedate Gautama and the Mangala Sutta by millennia:

First, you know that society and civilization has existed millennia before recorded history and before Gautama;

Second, you know that society and civilization could not have developed, unless and until mankind had formulated the norms to impose upon themselves individually and collectively, conducive to the founding of society and civilization;

Third, these prescriptive norms are what we call moral, ethical rules, and then later the most crucially important ones for the maintenance of peace and order, laws.

I'm not in the least bit concerned with whether "those prescriptive norms mentioned in the Mangala Sutta antedate Gautama." Why are you going on and on about this completely irrelevant point?

I want to find out how the Eightfold Path will free mankind from dukkha, in terms of concrete mediation of physical actions and material concoctions, like this:


dukkha of "sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair,"

plus one or several of the lanes in the Eightfold Path,

plus mediation of concrete human actions and/or concoctions,

equals liberation from and/or immunity to dukkha,

like for example: "sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair."

None of this is about "how the eightfold path will free mankind from dukkha," as you put it.

You are asking the wrong question. You're looking in the wrong direction.

I like to ask the Buddhists here to give me a definition or description of dukkha in less than ten words. Think about that and spell your definition or description of dukkha in ten words.

Why? I thought we had established already that you know what dukkha is for yourself from personal experience. Earlier, you yammered on and on about how you suffer in traffic, how you can't help but suffer, etc. Why are you asking anyone to define dukkha for you?

It's pointless. It's obvious you're just not paying attention. This whole discussion just took 10 steps backward.

Thank you for reading the mangala sutta. Since you have dismissed it as not "Buddhistic," however, I guess that means you feel it does not represent "Buddhism," whatever you think that is.

As I said earlier, if you were offering a critique of any branch of Buddhism, that would be fine, but that's not what you're doing. You are offering a critique of your own outlandish misinterpretation of "Buddhism."

So most of what you say doesn't make any sense.

[yrreg]

If you find merit in the teachings of the buddha it does not matter is they are all original or not. They are gathered together in a nice form.

there are plenty of dying man gods prior to jesus, yet his followers like his teachings.

If you find merit in the teachings of the alleged historical buddha then follow them, if you don't then don't.


Why does it matter?

You are right of course. However. that is not what Gautama adoring Buddhists remonstrate unremittingly, that the teachings of the Gautama were exceptionally radical with himself; on the contrary I am of the firm opinion that they are not original, but in particular with the moralistic norms in society old in his days and locale.

What indeed is original with the man? tell me.



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Yrreg

...the Laughing Buddha, is an interpretation of the Bodhisattva Maitreya, the predicted Buddha to succeed Gautama Buddha in the future.

[Ryokan]

You are right of course. However. that is not what Gautama adoring Buddhists remonstrate unremittingly, that the teachings of the Gautama were exceptionally radical with himself; on the contrary I am of the firm opinion that they are not original, but in particular with the moralistic norms in society old in his days and locale.

What indeed is original with the man? tell me.

Everyone has an opinion, that's why you shouldn't take much stock in them. Instead of opinions, why not facts? I like facts.

Besides, why should it matter? You keep describing Buddhists as 'Gautama adoring Buddhists', but what evidence do you offer? Purely your opinions? As for me, I don't care one horse's spittle whether the teachings of the Buddha are original to Gautama Buddha or not. Why should it matter? If it were proven that the theory of evolution were not original to Darwin, would that debunk evolution? On the contrary, it wouldn't matter. At all.

You keep harping on this as if any Buddhist in here has claimed that the teachings of Gautama Buddha are original to him. Both me and Dancing David have told you time and time again that we have no idea, and that it isn't important. Contrary to what your opinion is, we're not Buddha-worshippers, and very few Buddhists are. I have issued this challenge once before, but it was ignored: If you can show anywhere in the posts on this forum where any one has claimed that the teachings of Gautama Buddha are original to him, I will renounce my Buddhism - right here and right then.

At least we have the ability to say 'we don't know'. You offer your opinions as facts, and refuse to listen to anyone who says anything contrary to your preconceived notions about what Buddhism is and what Buddhists should think and act.

You've built yourself a straw-Buddhism that you keep knocking down in glee, and you're obviously having fun doing so. But is it constructive? Not at all. You're just showing the world what a sad little man you are.

[Z]

I'm not a Buddhist, but I have read several texts on Buddhism. What I took away from Buddhism was that a majority of suffering - and I'm not talking about pain or physical discomfort such as hunger or illness - is caused by ourselves. Like being stuck in traffic, the situation does not itself cause suffering, but our expectations and desires and wills cause suffering when situations go against them.

One of the things that I've internalized over the years is that suffering and stress - very similar, actually - are unnecessary and destructive, in most situations. The teachings allow one to recognize when stress and suffering serve no purpose, and allow one to find their source and eliminate them. Stuck in traffic? Accept what you cannot change, change what you can, and learn the difference between the two.

I don't suffer from road rage any more. I don't suffer from the hurts of social barbs launched at me because I elect to be different from the norm. Those who criticize my modes of dress or the style of my hair or my choice of lifestyle elicit no particular reaction from me. I remain emotionally detached from their words and ideas, and find that I suffer not at all for it.

One instance in particular, that seems to disturb many people, is that I do not fear death, either my own or anyone else's. I don't fear the loss of loved ones or my own loss of life. If death comes for me, I shall do all I can to avoid it, of course, but if death is inevitable, I shall embrace it with joy. I feel the same for family members, friends, etc. I don't mourn the death of others, either. To suffer for the death of another seems to me illogical.

Now, I don't know, in particular, if any of this is a reflection of Buddhist thought; but it does seem to me that Buddhism focuses on digging out the true sources of our suffering, shining a light on them for us to see them clearly, and allowing us to shed them as unnecessary and unfulfilling.

Take the reactions we have to posters we do not care for. I, for one, don't care for your obsession with Buddhism. I recall quite clearly how you once claimed that Buddhism was downright destructive and oriented for the sole purpose of causing harm. Other religions exist which might more clearly be claimed to be like this, yet you focus single-mindedly on Buddhism. Yet my dislike of you personally is a source of suffering, if I choose to read one of your threads. So I can choose to ignore your threads entirely, of course, or even place you on ignore.

Yet I also have some thoughts on the issue of suffering, and I feel that I will derive a certain pleasure from sharing those thoughts to others on this forum. Your thread has opened an opportunity for me to share those thoughts, so on the whole, I balance my dislike of you with my desire to share these thoughts. Then, of course, there is the simple fact that, at times, I choose to enjoy an amount of suffering - one of those sticky little situations that many do not understand - and that I might well read or respond to one of your threads in order to experience that small amount of personal stress that can be enjoyed but quickly passes.

Yes, I said that stress and suffering can be enjoyed. Hard to believe?

Nonetheless, I feel that nothing I have said will in any way benefit you, yyreg. I feel you are beyond such beneficience. Yet I do feel that having had my say, I have benefited, and I only hope others might benefit from reading my words. Even if only in gaining a bit of curiosity or in having a new thought or two. Yet if you do get something from these words of mine, that would please me as well.

But if you don't, I certainly shan't suffer for it.

[Dancing David]

You are right of course. However. that is not what Gautama adoring Buddhists remonstrate unremittingly, that the teachings of the Gautama were exceptionally radical with himself; on the contrary I am of the firm opinion that they are not original, but in particular with the moralistic norms in society old in his days and locale.

What indeed is original with the man? tell me.



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Yrreg

...the Laughing Buddha, is an interpretation of the Bodhisattva Maitreya, the predicted Buddha to succeed Gautama Buddha in the future.


So?

It doesn't matter.

You forget that many people on this forum have said that there is a lot of nonsense that passes as buddhism.

You also said you would critique the eightfold path if it was genuine buddhism, not "original to the buddha".

Funny things words.

there is a lot of nonsense that passes as science as well.

Big whoop.

[yrreg]

You mean, people here who call yourselves Buddhists, there is nothing radically original or original in some aspect from the Buddha; in which case why do you call yourselves Buddhists, why not just call yourselves practical people or something else but not after the name of a person.

Yes, you will say that Buddhist means somebody after enlightenment; that is being specious. because the name Buddhist stands for someone recognizing Gautama as the enlightened one (after his own fashion of course -- Gautama's fashion that is, hahaha); you call yourselves Buddhists certainly because you are after enlightenment, the kind attained by Gautama and according to his teachings and observances.

Anyway, you do look up to Gautama the Buddha as some kind of leader-master of some sort of philosophico-religious system; please then tell me what you find so terrific with what teachings and observances from Gautama Buddha.

Here we go again, you will say that the Four Noble Truths are original with Gautama, or the Eightfold Path, or some method of meditation.

Perhaps meditation the Buddhist way, but I don't see it being efficacious for anything at all that is not also available by other ways and means like a good walk in the park and quiet reflection.

I remember someone here who tells people he is proud to call himself a Buddhist and he is sure that Buddhist meditation is efficacious; but when he was asked to produce studies published in peers-reviewed journals, up to the present he has been evasively silent.



http://img108.imageshack.us/img108/2889/user22071174288457qf4.jpg
Yrreg

...the Laughing Buddha, is an interpretation of the Bodhisattva Maitreya, the predicted Buddha to succeed Gautama Buddha in the future.

[yrreg]

I'm not a Buddhist, but I have read several texts on Buddhism. What I took away from Buddhism was that a majority of suffering - and I'm not talking about pain or physical discomfort such as hunger or illness - is caused by ourselves. Like being stuck in traffic, the situation does not itself cause suffering, but our expectations and desires and wills cause suffering when situations go against them.

[...]



.
There is a lot of suffering, erh, dukkha that Buddhism promises to relieve mankind from and even immunize mankind.

"Now this, monks, is the Noble Truth of dukkha: Birth is dukkha, aging is dukkha, death is dukkha; sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, & despair are dukkha; association with the unbeloved is dukkha; separation from the loved is dukkha; not getting what is wanted is dukkha. In short, the five clinging-aggregates are dukkha."

-— SN 56.11

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/d...ca1/index.html


A contemporary definition:
Dukkha is:

Disturbance, irritation, dejection, worry, despair, fear, dread, anguish, anxiety; vulnerability, injury, inability, inferiority; sickness, aging, decay of body and faculties, senility; pain/pleasure; excitement/boredom; deprivation/excess; desire/frustration, suppression; longing/aimlessness; hope/hopelessness; effort, activity, striving/repression; loss, want, insufficiency/satiety; love/lovelessness, friendlessness; dislike, aversion/attraction; parenthood/childlessness; submission/rebellion; decision/indecisiveness, vacillation, uncertainty.

— Francis Story in Suffering, in Vol. II of The Three Basic Facts of Existence (Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society, 1983)

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/d...a1/dukkha.html




.
This thread is concerned with how the Eightfold Path relieves suffering or dukkha from a person.

In your case you are talking not about being relieved of suffering but enduring suffering; there are sufferings that are more endurable than others, but they are still all sufferings.

I was asking the Buddhists here how they are going to relieve the suffering arising from hunger, they started talking about Buddhism not being indifferent to such concerns of mankind even to the present days.

Now I am still waiting for their answer how to relieve the suffering from hunger, by teaching people to endure it in accordance to the Eightfold Path? which one or ones among the lanes of the Eightfold Path? and how is the Eightfold Path going to put food into the stomachs of starving people?

When you have appedicitis, which is certainly one of the dukkhas in that big large wide ample extensive definition and enumeration of dukkhas, tell me that you will use your mental discipline to endure it? or go for surgical intervention; and then you will endure the surgical operation without anaesthesia? or what, by self-hypnosis? Hahahaha!

The fact that you might have trained yourself to endure some sufferings, that very thing itself, the endurance of sufferings which you think and maybe actually can endure and do endure, that is the proof itself that you are suffering, you are not free and have not freed yourself of suffering by the endurance of suffering, endurance is not the relief from nor the immunity to suffering; if anything, endurance is suffering.


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Yrreg

...the Laughing Buddha, is an interpretation of the Bodhisattva Maitreya, the predicted Buddha to succeed Gautama Buddha in the future.

[Ryokan]

You mean, people here who call yourselves Buddhists, there is nothing radically original or original in some aspect from the Buddha; in which case why do you call yourselves Buddhists, why not just call yourselves practical people or something else but not after the name of a person.

No one has said this either, Yrreg. Is there evidence that the Dharma is original to the historical Siddharta Gautama? No. Do you have evidence to show that it isn't? No. Either way, it doesn't count for squat, it's the teachings and the philosophy that matters, not who first thought of it.

You've erected a strawman, Yrreg. Once again.

I've also told you time and time again that Buddhism isn't named after Gautama Buddha, it's named after the experience of buddhahood. Witness all the Buddhist schools that don't have Gautama Buddha as a central figure.

[Dancing David]

You mean, people here who call yourselves Buddhists, there is nothing radically original or original in some aspect from the Buddha; in which case why do you call yourselves Buddhists, why not just call yourselves practical people or something else but not after the name of a person.

Yes, you will say that Buddhist means somebody after enlightenment; that is being specious. because the name Buddhist stands for someone recognizing Gautama as the enlightened one (after his own fashion of course -- Gautama's fashion that is, hahaha); you call yourselves Buddhists certainly because you are after enlightenment, the kind attained by Gautama and according to his teachings and observances.

Anyway, you do look up to Gautama the Buddha as some kind of leader-master of some sort of philosophico-religious system; please then tell me what you find so terrific with what teachings and observances from Gautama Buddha.

Here we go again, you will say that the Four Noble Truths are original with Gautama, or the Eightfold Path, or some method of meditation.

Perhaps meditation the Buddhist way, but I don't see it being efficacious for anything at all that is not also available by other ways and means like a good walk in the park and quiet reflection.

I remember someone here who tells people he is proud to call himself a Buddhist and he is sure that Buddhist meditation is efficacious; but when he was asked to produce studies published in peers-reviewed journals, up to the present he has been evasively silent.



http://img108.imageshack.us/img108/2889/user22071174288457qf4.jpg
Yrreg

...the Laughing Buddha, is an interpretation of the Bodhisattva Maitreya, the predicted Buddha to succeed Gautama Buddha in the future.


Whops , you missed something.

the alleged historical buddha is not the only one who found the buddh (it was under chair), much of the Pali Canon is attributed to Sariputta. The buddh can be found many ways, some are those of the allged historical buddha (and his friends), some are not.


Those studies were linked to, which is more than i can say for our favorite troll.

[Dancing David]

.
There is a lot of suffering, erh, dukkha that Buddhism promises to relieve mankind from and even immunize mankind.



.
This thread is concerned with how the Eightfold Path relieves suffering or dukkha from a person.

In your case you are talking not about being relieved of suffering but enduring suffering; there are sufferings that are more endurable than others, but they are still all sufferings.

I was asking the Buddhists here how they are going to relieve the suffering arising from hunger, they started talking about Buddhism not being indifferent to such concerns of mankind even to the present days.

Now I am still waiting for their answer how to relieve the suffering from hunger, by teaching people to endure it in accordance to the Eightfold Path? which one or ones among the lanes of the Eightfold Path? and how is the Eightfold Path going to put food into the stomachs of starving people?

When you have appedicitis, which is certainly one of the dukkhas in that big large wide ample extensive definition and enumeration of dukkhas, tell me that you will use your mental discipline to endure it? or go for surgical intervention; and then you will endure the surgical operation without anaesthesia? or what, by self-hypnosis? Hahahaha!

The fact that you might have trained yourself to endure some sufferings, that very thing itself, the endurance of sufferings which you think and maybe actually can endure and do endure, that is the proof itself that you are suffering, you are not free and have not freed yourself of suffering by the endurance of suffering, endurance is not the relief from nor the immunity to suffering; if anything, endurance is suffering.


http://img108.imageshack.us/img108/2889/user22071174288457qf4.jpg
Yrreg

...the Laughing Buddha, is an interpretation of the Bodhisattva Maitreya, the predicted Buddha to succeed Gautama Buddha in the future.

Here is an answer, you didn't care then, I doubt you will care now.

http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=1370069&postcount=13


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.


From January 2006

[nosho]

This thread is concerned with how the Eightfold Path relieves suffering or dukkha from a person.

In that case, this thread is about nothing at all. Because the eightfold path has nothing to do with relief. It has nothing to do with somehow removing dukkha from a person. You seem to think the path is supposed to be some kind of cure-all that, if done correctly, will be a grand anesthesia. That's just silly.

The concept of the Buddha represents our true, pure nature, the underlying reality of who we are, the luminous potential that is already fully present in each one of us, right here, right now. A notion of Buddhist traditions in general is that, through our own sincere but unskillful attempts to grasp onto a sense of self-security, we obscure that reality. We do this because we want to avoid suffering. That's a big mistake. Ultimately, you can't avoid suffering. It's part of life.

The eightfold path is a practical way, step by step, to engage in life so that gently, carefully, you come to terms with suffering. You get closer to suffering, because you begin to understand its nature.

At those moments when you don't avoid suffering, but when you face it head-on, you get a little closer to that luminous, underlying reality that has been hidden so long. You might even get a glimpse of it, a little taste. Slowly, the obscurations fall away.

The historical Buddha represents an ordinary man who demonstrated the possibility of letting all the obscurations fall away, of allowing that luminous reality to shine unobscured. The historical Buddha represents what it is possible for you or me or anyone else to do.

I don't understand your questions about "Buddhism," because most of what you ask seems to be unrelated to any reasonable understanding of this optimistic, compassionate approach to living. You ask what is special about the teachings of the Buddha. The answer should be obvious: For you, there is nothing special about them. And that answer is perfectly ok. For you.

For many others, however, these very practical instructions are special, because they work. They work like nothing else I've ever encountered.

And when they stop working for me, I will very happily let them go.

[yrreg]

It all depends on what you understand by Buddhism and what you take Gautama for -- with the greatest of liberties.

But if we just look up what the standard reference work tells us about Buddhism and Gautama, you will see that they are joined together like the chick and the mother hen.

Here is what I can read from my instant free WordWeb dictionary with just clicking on its icon in my taskbar:

Buddhism

A religion represented by the many groups (especially in Asia) that profess various forms of the Buddhist doctrine and that venerate Buddha.

The teaching of Buddha that life is permeated with suffering caused by desire, that suffering ceases when desire ceases, and that enlightenment obtained through right conduct and wisdom and meditation releases one from desire and suffering and rebirth.

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

Buddha, Gautama, Siddhartha

Founder of Buddhism; worshipped as a god (c 563-483 BC).
One who has achieved a state of perfect enlightenment.


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

Get free WordWeb instant click on dictionary from:
http://wordweb.info/



.
Are you gentlemen now into revisionism whereby Gautama is no longer the founder of Buddhism and Buddhism isn't anything started by a 'historical' figure called Gautama Siddhartha.

I suggest you write a short treatise describing what you believe and practice, which you call Buddhism or for which you call yourselves Buddhists; and tell that to the sangha guys in Thailand, Burma, Cambodia, Taiwan, Nepal, Singapore, China, Tibet, Sri Lanka, etc., and also sanghas in the West like in England, Australia, the U.S., and other Western countries now witnessing the phenomenon of a budding what I would call sangha-ism.

Hahahaha!

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



[...]

I don't understand your questions about "Buddhism," because most of what you ask seems to be unrelated to any reasonable understanding of this optimistic, compassionate approach to living. You ask what is special about the teachings of the Buddha. The answer should be obvious: For you, there is nothing special about them. And that answer is perfectly ok. For you.

For many others, however, these very practical instructions are special, because they work. They work like nothing else I've ever encountered.

And when they stop working for me, I will very happily let them go.

.
Okay, tell me how they work for you when you suffer a death in the family, when your child is bullied in school, when your wife runs away with your best friend, when you come home to see your house burned down to a cinder, and when you board a plane, it gets hijacked by Muslim terrorists.


It's clear to everyone who can see a spade and call it a spade:

Buddhism gives you guys some concepts to work on in your mind, by which you are motivated to endure the unwelcome things that come your way in the course of staying alive, keeping busy, and trying to get along happily as much as you can, notwithstanding that life is what the old saw tells us: not a bed of roses. -- Pes Oir Amsus*

However, you don't really need that spade of a Buddhism to know that you have to bear with a lot of unwelcome things in life, and master your own ways of enduring them as not to get overwhelmed and do yourself a self-termination passage.

By the way, that is what happened to a Buddhist group in Japan some centuries back who commit ritual suicide as the logical conclusion from Buddhism -- why? because there is suffering or it's all suffering in life, and soonest you get to the extinction in Nirvana so soonest the better for yourself. Hahahaha.

See, http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-PHIL/becker.htm



http://img108.imageshack.us/img108/2889/user22071174288457qf4.jpg
Yrreg

...the Laughing Buddha, is an interpretation of the Bodhisattva Maitreya, the predicted Buddha to succeed Gautama Buddha in the future.


*Pseudonym for Yrreg -- hahaha.

[linusrichard]

By the way, that is what happened to a Buddhist group in Japan some centuries back who commit ritual suicide as the logical conclusion from Buddhism -- why? because there is suffering or it's all suffering in life, and soonest you get to the extinction in Nirvana so soonest the better for yourself. Hahahaha.

See, (link)


I didn't see what in the article you linked supported the paragraph you wrote. The role of suicide in Japanese culture is complex, and I would argue that it has little or nothing to do with Buddhism, although that article does make some good points (if not the point you said it made).

For interest, compare the mass suicide of Japanese Christians at Shimabara (those few Christians who weren't slaughtered there). Would it make sense to describe this suicide as "the logical conclusion of Christianity"? Of course not.

[yrreg]

Posted by Yrreg
By the way, that is what happened to a Buddhist group in Japan some centuries back who commit ritual suicide as the logical conclusion from Buddhism -- why? because there is suffering or it's all suffering in life, and soonest you get to the extinction in Nirvana so soonest the better for yourself.
Hahahaha.

See, http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-PHIL/becker.htm

.
I didn't see what in the article you linked supported the paragraph you wrote.

[...]



.
What about this excerpt from that article:

Buddhism sees death as not the end of life, but simply a transition; suicide is therefore no escape from anything. Thus, in the early sangha (community of followers of the Buddha), suicide was in principle condemned as an inappropriate action.[16] But the early Buddhist texts include many cases of suicide which the Buddha himself accepted or condoned. For example, the suicides of Vakkali[17] and of Channa[18] were committed in the face of painful and irreversible sickness. It is significant, however, that the Buddha's praise of the suicides is not based on the fact that they were in terminal states, but rather that their minds were selfless, desireless, and enlightened at the moments of their passing.

This theme is more dramatically visible in the example of Godhika. This disciple repeatedly achieved an advanced level of samadhi, bordering on parinirvana, and then slipped out of the state of enlightenment into normal consciousness again. After this happened six times, Godhika at last vowed to pass on to the next realm while enlightened, and quietly committed suicide during his next period of enlightenment. While cautioning his other disciples against suicide, the Buddha nonetheless blessed and praised Godhika's steadiness of mind and purpose, and declared that he had passed on to nirvana. In short, the acceptability of suicide, even in the early Buddhist community, depended not on terminal illness alone, but upon the state of selfless equanimity with which one was able to pass away. It is interesting in passing that all these suicides were committed by the subject knifing himself, a technique which came to be standardized in later Japanese ritual suicide.



.
Glad to know you, inusrichard; hope you and I will have a good time entertaining ourselves with this thread. My purpose here is to find out how the Eightfold Path can liberate or immunize a person from dukkha or suffering.

Just for a fun hobby of critical thinking as a mental exercise.



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Yrreg

...the Laughing Buddha, is an interpretation of the Bodhisattva Maitreya, the predicted Buddha to succeed Gautama Buddha in the future.

[nosho]

Okay, tell me how they work for you when you suffer a death in the family, when your child is bullied in school, when your wife runs away with your best friend, when you come home to see your house burned down to a cinder, and when you board a plane, it gets hijacked by Muslim terrorists.

As a result of engaging in practices that cultivate equanimity, wisdom, tolerance, determination, effort and other virtues, one's reactions in those types of difficult situations begin to change.

It's clear to everyone who can see a spade and call it a spade:

Buddhism gives you guys some concepts to work on in your mind, by which you are motivated to endure the unwelcome things that come your way in the course of staying alive, keeping busy, and trying to get along happily as much as you can, notwithstanding that life is what the old saw tells us: not a bed of roses. -- Pes Oir Amsus*

No, it's more than that. It's not just working with your mind, and it's not just working with concepts.

In some respects it might be compared with practicing the piano. You practice, and you learn to play, but it's certainly not just an excerise in working with concepts. It involves your body, your reflexes, a whole range of mental functions that go well beyond straightforward thoughts.

However, you don't really need that spade of a Buddhism to know that you have to bear with a lot of unwelcome things in life, and master your own ways of enduring them as not to get overwhelmed and do yourself a self-termination passage.

Of course you don't. Who ever said you did?

By the way, that is what happened to a Buddhist group in Japan some centuries back who commit ritual suicide as the logical conclusion from Buddhism -- why? because there is suffering or it's all suffering in life, and soonest you get to the extinction in Nirvana so soonest the better for yourself. Hahahaha.

This is a sick comment. The Buddha taught clearly against suicide. At the most basic level, it is a violation of the precept not to kill.

To suggest that Buddhism somehow promotes or encourages suicide is a gross misrepresentation. And to laugh about it demonstrates an inhuman callousness.

[Scott Haley]

The Four Noble Truths

1. Life means suffering.
2. The origin of suffering is attachment.
3. The cessation of suffering is attainable.
4. The Eightfold Path is the way to the cessation of suffering.

It's been stated in this thread that someone with a bad stomach ache should see a doctor. If a disciplined Buddhist has diligently followed the Eightfold Path, what's his motive in going to the doctor? It can't be that the pain makes him suffer, if the Four Noble Truths are correct. Someone also posted that if the house is on fire, you should get out. I know why I would do that, I would suffer a lot if I was horribly burned, and I don't want to die. Why would an advanced Buddhist do it?

--Scott

[lolurigeller]

But it's pretty clear to me, after reading his posts from the beginning, that he does not really consider himself a Catholic anymore, except culturally.

I might be wrong, Yrreg hasn't been very willing to tell us much about his own beliefs. Nor should they really matter when it comes to his criticism on Buddhism.

Yeah that sounds like a great idea, in the same way you could gleam endless amounts of wisdom from Hitler's criticism of the Torah in Judaism.

[linusrichard]

What about this excerpt from that article:


Buddhism sees death as not the end of life, but simply a transition; suicide is therefore no escape from anything. Thus, in the early sangha (community of followers of the Buddha), suicide was in principle condemned as an inappropriate action.[16] But the early Buddhist texts include many cases of suicide which the Buddha himself accepted or condoned. For example, the suicides of Vakkali[17] and of Channa[18] were committed in the face of painful and irreversible sickness. It is significant, however, that the Buddha's praise of the suicides is not based on the fact that they were in terminal states, but rather that their minds were selfless, desireless, and enlightened at the moments of their passing.

This theme is more dramatically visible in the example of Godhika. This disciple repeatedly achieved an advanced level of samadhi, bordering on parinirvana, and then slipped out of the state of enlightenment into normal consciousness again. After this happened six times, Godhika at last vowed to pass on to the next realm while enlightened, and quietly committed suicide during his next period of enlightenment. While cautioning his other disciples against suicide, the Buddha nonetheless blessed and praised Godhika's steadiness of mind and purpose, and declared that he had passed on to nirvana. In short, the acceptability of suicide, even in the early Buddhist community, depended not on terminal illness alone, but upon the state of selfless equanimity with which one was able to pass away. It is interesting in passing that all these suicides were committed by the subject knifing himself, a technique which came to be standardized in later Japanese ritual suicide.
Wow. No, that doesn't support your point at all. It has nothing to do with a Buddhist group in Japan. It's talking about three individual suicides, none of whom were Japanese. Then, in the second half of the last sentence, it mentions that the technique used by Japanese suicides resembled the technique used in these three individual suicides. So, no, nothing about "a Buddhist group in Japan some centuries back who commit ritual suicide as the logical conclusion from Buddhism."

If you wanted to quote something from that article to support your paragraph, your best bet would have been
Japanese Buddhists demonstrated an unconcern with death even more than their neighbors. Japanese valued peace of mind and honor of life over length of life. While the samurai often committed suicide on the battlefield or in court to preserve their dignity in death, countless commoners chose to commit suicide in order to obtain a better future life in the Pure Land. On some occasions, whole masses of people committed suicide at the same time.
But even that doesn't really support your statement.

At the risk of repeating myself, the fact that a Japanese Buddhist person commits suicide has little or nothing to do with the fact that the person is Buddhist, and a lot to do with the fact that that person is Japanese.

Glad to know you, inusrichard; hope you and I will have a good time entertaining ourselves with this thread. My purpose here is to find out how the Eightfold Path can liberate or immunize a person from dukkha or suffering.
A little hard to believe, but I guess it could be true.

[nosho]

It's been stated in this thread that someone with a bad stomach ache should see a doctor. If a disciplined Buddhist has diligently followed the Eightfold Path, what's his motive in going to the doctor?

Anyone who needs medical attention ought to see a doctor. Serious medical problems do not just magically go away.

The motivation is the same for anyone: to do what is reasonable in order to be healthy, and not to neglect that responsibility to oneself and society. (Yes, if you neglect your own health, you may become a burden to others.)

It can't be that the pain makes him suffer, if the Four Noble Truths are correct.

Why would you say that? Are you also under the impression, like yyreg, that Buddhist practice is supposed to be some kind of anesthetic?

The 4th noble truth is that there is a way to the cessation of suffering, NOT that there is an INSTANT way to end suffering.

Regardless, if pain is the only issue, then certainly there will be times when you don't necessarily need to see the doctor. But if you think you have a potentially serious medical problem, then there's much more at stake than merely relieving pain.

If you have a medical problem and you refuse to get medical attention, but instead allow the medical condition to worsen (possibly to the point of death), how is that going to help you or anyone else in the world? In what respect would that course of action be beneficial to anyone at all?

Someone also posted that if the house is on fire, you should get out. I know why I would do that, I would suffer a lot if I was horribly burned, and I don't want to die. Why would an advanced Buddhist do it?

Because otherwise you're pretty much committing suicide.

[Scott Haley]

Why would you say that? Are you also under the impression, like yyreg, that Buddhist practice is supposed to be some kind of anesthetic?

The 4th noble truth is that there is a way to the cessation of suffering, NOT that there is an INSTANT way to end suffering.



Yes, I did think that it was comparable to some kind of anesthetic. I seem to be missing the point. I didn't think that it was instant, though. I understand that years of work are required.

--Scott

[yrreg]

You miss the beef by going into an obiter. -– Yrreg (http://www.google.com/custom?q=going+for+an+obiter&sa=Google+Search&cof=S%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fforums.randi.org%3BAH%3Acente r%3BLH%3A75%3BL%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fforums.randi.org%2F images%2Fmisc%2Fsearchlogo.gif%3BLW%3A849%3BAWFID% 3A31746880203d5407%3B&domains=forums.randi.org&sitesearch=forums.randi.org)

Wow. No, that doesn't support your point at all. It has nothing to do with a Buddhist group in Japan. It's talking about three individual suicides, none of whom were Japanese. Then, in the second half of the last sentence, it mentions that the technique used by Japanese suicides resembled the technique used in these three individual suicides. So, no, nothing about "a Buddhist group in Japan some centuries back who commit ritual suicide as the logical conclusion from Buddhism."

[...]




Wow, you make me laugh, sorry I take that back; instead let us laugh together.

Okay, you want to make your point that in that article there is no support for my mention of a Buddhist group in Japan committing ritual suicide -- that is your privilege.

My opinion that there is... forget about it or let's not engage in nitpicking.


From reading about Buddhism I have come to know that there is such a group in Japan some centuries back. You want to make a point that such a group is not referred to in the cited article -- you are welcome.


Hahahaha.


Gautama was a great guy for telling his followers not to go into pointless questions, hahahaha; this is an example of a not pointless question but nitpicking.

Please go to the thrust of the thread, how good, erh, right deeds in Buddhism frees a person or even immunizes a person from suffering or from dukkha; I am sincerely very keen on knowing how Buddhism can do it (though also entertained thereby in another respect), so that we can relieve the suffering of people who are caught in ethnic fratricidal feuding like some black peoples in Africa, or like those groups in Afghanistan and in Iraq, among which are the US lead coalition forces on one side and various Muslim groups on the other and among themselves -- hahahaha!


Let us laugh together again: Hahahahahahaaaaaaa!




http://img108.imageshack.us/img108/2889/user22071174288457qf4.jpg
Yrreg

...the Laughing Buddha, is an interpretation of the Bodhisattva Maitreya, the predicted Buddha to succeed Gautama Buddha in the future.



Postscript:

That is why I find this hobby of the critique of Buddhism so deliciously entertaining, when I meet all kinds of people who go for all kinds of verbal acrobatics just to defend or to explain or to relevantize or to deodorize their flavor of the month of a religio-philosophical system like Buddhism, when today we are talking about how to live indefinitely or to restore a person back to life from his demise, like for example, one Yrreg when he should have died.

Hint: clone Yrreg, then upload into his brain all the data of his genetically endowed personality and his acquired personality, and presto! when his cloned self grows up he will write messages like the ones he does now, in this JREF forum -- hahahaha!

[yrreg]

First, you don't believe that Buddhism is the only way to get rid of suffering -- yes? no?

Second, but Buddhism is the best way to get rid of suffering -- yes? no?

Third, Buddhism gets rid of suffering by teaching a person how to work on his mind, even though he still has to see a medical professional to remedy his bodily suffering -- yes? no?

Fourth, so the merit of Buddhism consists in helping a person to not feel bad in his mind with his bodily suffering -- yes? no?

Fifth, it's like when you are suffering from a stomachache then you meet a wonderful person of the opposite sex and you fall in love with that person and that person with you, you won't feel bad in your mind notwithstanding your stomachache, which you still have to see a doctor for, to relieve yourself of the bodily suffering -- yes? no?

Sixth, also it's like when you are suffering some abysmal depression from an emotionally tragic encounter that is also bodily painful, like when you lost your job, your wife with the kids left you, your home got repossessed by the bank, you learned that you are in the terminal stage of cancer, Buddhism will enable you to maintain equanimity or indifference, and that is the relief from suffering or dukkha that Buddhism can do for you -- yes? no?

Seventh, and that is what you are now into -- yes? no?

Eighth, or not yet because you have still not mastered that skill from Buddhism (no wonder, Buddhist converts in the West are now into talking about skillful acts and non-skillful acts) -- yes?no?



Hahahaha! Addressing nosho: So, Buddhism is all about acquiring mental skills to not feel bad for all the downsides of being alive and staying alive -- but it is not the only way, however it is the best way for mankind.

When everyone does Buddhism, like what Maharishi Mahesh Yogi of Transcendental Meditation fame tells us about his kind of meditation, the world and mankind will all be rosy.



http://img108.imageshack.us/img108/2889/user22071174288457qf4.jpg
Yrreg

...the Laughing Buddha, is an interpretation of the Bodhisattva Maitreya, the predicted Buddha to succeed Gautama Buddha in the future.

[nosho]

Yes, I did think that it was comparable to some kind of anesthetic. I seem to be missing the point. I didn't think that it was instant, though. I understand that years of work are required.

Hi Scott,

Other people might disagree, but my understanding is that Buddhist practice involves an engagement with what we experience, not a disengagement from it. So there is still physical pain, you still care about people, etc. It's just that slowly, the way you react to things changes.

[nosho]

First, you don't believe that Buddhism is the only way to get rid of suffering -- yes? no?

Have you stopped beating your wife?

This first question is impossible to answer with yes or no. I don't believe Buddhism has anything to do with getting rid of suffering.

As I wrote earlier, the eightfold path is a practical way, step by step, to engage in life so that gently, carefully, you come to terms with suffering.

I think you are trying to ask whether I believe "Buddhism," whatever you mean by that term, is the only tradition that teaches the path to the cessation of suffering. To which my answer would be, I don't know. But I do know that the practices in some of the traditions of Buddhism with which I am familiar seem to be very effective for me personally. As for everyone else in the world, I think each person has to judge based on his or her own personal experience.

Second, but Buddhism is the best way to get rid of suffering -- yes? no?

Again, impossible to answer yes or no, because I don't think Buddhism has anything to do with getting rid of suffering.

If you are asking whether "Buddhism," whatever you mean by that term, offers the most effective path to the cessation of suffering, my answer would be: For me at this moment, yes. I can't speak for others.

Third, Buddhism gets rid of suffering by teaching a person how to work on his mind, even though he still has to see a medical professional to remedy his bodily suffering -- yes? no?

Same problem as before. I don't think Buddhism gets rid of suffering at all.

If you are asking whether "Buddhism," whatever you think that is, teaches only how to work on the mind, my answer would be: No.

Fourth, so the merit of Buddhism consists in helping a person to not feel bad in his mind with his bodily suffering -- yes? no?

No.

Fifth, it's like when you are suffering from a stomachache then you meet a wonderful person of the opposite sex and you fall in love with that person and that person with you, you won't feel bad in your mind notwithstanding your stomachache, which you still have to see a doctor for, to relieve yourself of the bodily suffering -- yes? no?

No. I don't believe Buddhism has anything to do with distracting a person from his or her suffering. In my experience, the opposite is true: Buddhist practices sometimes tend to draw one's attention to suffering.

Sixth, also it's like when you are suffering some abysmal depression from an emotionally tragic encounter that is also bodily painful, like when you lost your job, your wife with the kids left you, your home got repossessed by the bank, you learned that you are in the terminal stage of cancer, Buddhism will enable you to maintain equanimity or indifference, and that is the relief from suffering or dukkha that Buddhism can do for you -- yes? no?

No. Equanimity and indifference are not the same thing. And, as I wrote earlier, I don't think Buddhism has anything to do with relief.

Seventh, and that is what you are now into -- yes? no?

What? I don't understand the question.

Eighth, or not yet because you have still not mastered that skill from Buddhism (no wonder, Buddhist converts in the West are now into talking about skillful acts and non-skillful acts) -- yes?no?

Umm ... what are you talking about? This doesn't seem to be a yes or no question.

Hahahaha! Addressing nosho: So, Buddhism is all about acquiring mental skills to not feel bad for all the downsides of being alive and staying alive -- but it is not the only way, however it is the best way for mankind.

This seems like another strange misinterpretation. I'll take it from your maniacal laughter that you're not serious.

When everyone does Buddhism, like what Maharishi Mahesh Yogi of Transcendental Meditation fame tells us about his kind of meditation, the world and mankind will all be rosy.

What does TM have to do with any of this? What are you talking about now? I'm having trouble making any sense of what you're trying to say.

[lolurigeller]

When everyone does Buddhism, like what Maharishi Mahesh Yogi of Transcendental Meditation fame tells us about his kind of meditation, the world and mankind will all be rosy.


Maharishi isn't buddhist, he's egotistical maniac dressed up as a spiritual teacher in the same sense you are, though the two of you share alot more common than that as a basis.

[Dancing David]

First, you don't believe that Buddhism is the only way to get rid of suffering -- yes? no?

No. There are many paths.


Second, but Buddhism is the best way to get rid of suffering -- yes? no?

No. it is an error of thinking to think better than, worse than , same as.


Third, Buddhism gets rid of suffering by teaching a person how to work on his mind, even though he still has to see a medical professional to remedy his bodily suffering -- yes? no?

yes. But you also have to change other behaviors as well, not just thoughts.


Fourth, so the merit of Buddhism consists in helping a person to not feel bad in his mind with his bodily suffering -- yes? no?

Sort of yes, sort of no.
There are many ways that the practice of the eightfold path can decrease the dukka. For example one might worry about ill health when one is well. By changing patterns of behavior one can decrease the over all discomfort.


Fifth, it's like when you are suffering from a stomachache then you meet a wonderful person of the opposite sex and you fall in love with that person and that person with you, you won't feel bad in your mind notwithstanding your stomachache, which you still have to see a doctor for, to relieve yourself of the bodily suffering -- yes? no?

It depends, the key is in the practice, you can be a buddhist and still engage is all sorts of dukka.

You also don't want your attraction to the other person to lead to thoughts of loss and suffering. Or if they are already married, you want to avoid an intimate relationship because that will lead to more dukka.


Sixth, also it's like when you are suffering some abysmal depression from an emotionally tragic encounter that is also bodily painful, like when you lost your job, your wife with the kids left you, your home got repossessed by the bank, you learned that you are in the terminal stage of cancer, Buddhism will enable you to maintain equanimity or indifference, and that is the relief from suffering or dukkha that Buddhism can do for you -- yes? no?

Again some will say indifference, others will not. You will have the pain, and to deny the pain will not be helpful, but to do what is healthy and to take care of yourself will help.

You also mixed some types of pain there. If you obsess about the losses and don't make your feet do the walking, then you will continue to suffer more than the bare minimum.

Again attachment to the pleasant ( you can enjoy it without attachment) and fear of the unpleasant can be reduced. The truth of the fourth noble truth may never be known by an individual. The ones who follow the path claim that they have reached that point or they claim that that point can be reached.

However it is in the practice, if you follow the path of attachment and fear then your level of dukka will not decrease.

I would say that there will be an inherent level beyond which you can't decrease.


Seventh, and that is what you are now into -- yes? no?

it depends, first comes awareness, and then comes the practice of changing habits and building new habits.

If one looses mindfulness, the rest is harder.


Eighth, or not yet because you have still not mastered that skill from Buddhism (no wonder, Buddhist converts in the West are now into talking about skillful acts and non-skillful acts) -- yes?no?

The practice is essential, one might attain freedom and then loose it. It is a means to the end, but the end is not a fixed state. One continues the practice. Only those who have attained the state of nibbanna know if it lasts or is transitory like all else.




Hahahaha! Addressing nosho: So, Buddhism is all about acquiring mental skills to not feel bad for all the downsides of being alive and staying alive -- but it is not the only way, however it is the best way for mankind.

No not the best, there are many paths and they all might or might not have merit for an individual. we al have independent histories and we are all unique and still connected. there is no best for all, there is no one solution.


When everyone does Buddhism, like what Maharishi Mahesh Yogi of Transcendental Meditation fame tells us about his kind of meditation, the world and mankind will all be rosy.

It is the practice not the name that makes the difference. there are many ways to the practice and different ways will have different merit for different individuals.




http://img108.imageshack.us/img108/2889/user22071174288457qf4.jpg
Yrreg

...the Laughing Buddha, is an interpretation of the Bodhisattva Maitreya, the predicted Buddha to succeed Gautama Buddha in the future.

[Dancing David]

Please go to the thrust of the thread, how good, erh, right deeds in Buddhism frees a person or even immunizes a person from suffering or from dukkha; I am sincerely very keen on knowing how Buddhism can do it (though also entertained thereby in another respect), so that we can relieve the suffering of people who are caught in ethnic fratricidal feuding like some black peoples in Africa, or like those groups in Afghanistan and in Iraq, among which are the US lead coalition forces on one side and various Muslim groups on the other and among themselves -- hahahaha!




I wouldn't laugh at other suffering. Individual or industrial.

Attachment to the pain of the past, attachment to prejudice and hatred, fear of the unpleasant, killing, maiming, hiding from the truth, vengance, oppresion of others, dominance of others, persuit of wealth, clinging to foolishness and thionking that one ways is the best way. These all lead to suffering. Some will benefit from the path of the buddha some will not. But the practise of harm reduction by all would create less suffering.

[linusrichard]

What an odd, odd post. Okay...
You miss the beef by going into an obiter. -– Yrreg

I have to say that I don't know what this comment means. Your "link" basically linked to a bunch of other examples of you saying this. So, whatever. I'm going to assume that you're using "obiter" as a sort of shorthand for "obiter dictum," and you're criticizing me for making a post that doesn't directly relate to the OP. But you're the one who started off on this alleged Japanese Buddhist suicide group, not me. So is the rule of the thread that you can "go into an obiter," but if anyone else attempts to follow up, they get the "you miss the beef" criticism? Your claims are proof from scrutiny if that scrutiny would diverge at all from the subject of the OP? Whatever.

Wow, you make me laugh, sorry I take that back; instead let us laugh together.

Okay, you want to make your point that in that article there is no support for my mention of a Buddhist group in Japan committing ritual suicide -- that is your privilege.

My opinion that there is... forget about it or let's not engage in nitpicking.
Fantastic. I'm going to claim that the earth is flat, 2+2=80, and you owe me $1000. My source is here (www.canspidersfart.com). You might think that that source doesn't support my claim -- that is your privilege. My opinion is that it does... forget about it or let's not engage in nitpicking.

From reading about Buddhism I have come to know that there is such a group in Japan some centuries back. You want to make a point that such a group is not referred to in the cited article -- you are welcome.
Okay, well, it's sort of customary for people who are making claims to back them up with some sort of evidence. I don't mean incontrovertible proof, I just mean something. If you had a source that talked about it, then we could discuss it. But as it is, we just have to accept on faith based on your account, that there was some Japanese Buddhist group who committed mass suicide "as the logical extension from Buddhism." And I'm not going to. I just don't believe you. I think it would be interesting to discuss what it would mean if your claim were true, how and why it supports your point, and how and why it does not. But that feels like a waste of time when I don't have any reason to believe what you're saying in the first place.


Gautama was a great guy for telling his followers not to go into pointless questions, hahahaha; this is an example of a not pointless question but nitpicking.
Are you asking me to obey the commands of Gautama? Why?

Please go to the thrust of the thread,
Right - the diversions - the obiter dicta - are reserved for you.
how good, erh, right deeds in Buddhism frees a person or even immunizes a person from suffering or from dukkha; I am sincerely very keen on knowing how Buddhism can do it
The evidence suggests otherwise, but okay.
(though also entertained thereby in another respect), so that we can relieve the suffering of people who are caught in ethnic fratricidal feuding like some black peoples in Africa, or like those groups in Afghanistan and in Iraq, among which are the US lead coalition forces on one side and various Muslim groups on the other and among themselves -- hahahaha!
Well, this is admittedly kind of a facile argument, but also true - if everyone in Africa and Iraq and Afghanistan were to follow the Eightfold Path, suffering in those places would be drastically reduced or eliminated. Is that helpful to you somehow?

Better points are being made by others on this thread, not that I expect you to really digest them.

[Scott Haley]

Hi Scott,

Other people might disagree, but my understanding is that Buddhist practice involves an engagement with what we experience, not a disengagement from it. So there is still physical pain, you still care about people, etc. It's just that slowly, the way you react to things changes.

What are these changes in the way a person reacts to things?

--Scott

[Z]

Clearly, in spite of his fascination, yrreg does not understand Buddhism. Nor does he understand the nature of suffering, the point of enlightenment, or the reason to follow such a path.

In fact, one wonders what he actually does understand.

However, as I, myself, understand little about Buddhism, having never walked the path personally, I shall simply sit back and watch the show.

[Dancing David]

What are these changes in the way a person reacts to things?

--Scott


Hi Scott! Welcome to the playpen of the current darling troll of the R&P forum!


As you will see there is a real strange conversation occurring here. But there is much to be learned through talking.

The alleged historical buddha taught three things dukka (suffering or imbalance), impermanence and the not self.

If we cling to the pleasant we can grow to be dependent upon it and feel loss when it is gone. It is better to have joy in the moment and not cling.

If we fear the unpleasant than we can spend much of out time dwelling on the unpleasant when it is not actually present. When things are unpleasant it is best to be with them in the moment and take rational concrete steps to change them, some things can be changed and some can not.

All things change that is the fact. If you work with change and accept it, it is easier to take rational and concrete action to be content with changes. If your house is burning down you can put out the fire, you can flee or you can run around screaming. Sometimes you can do the first and sometimes the second. Life is a burning house, enjoy your family and friends, try to care for the house.

All the things that make up a self are changing and impermanent, accepting this is important. Take care of the things that make up the human person to the best of your abilities. Change the things you can, accept the things you can't and always try to be pleasant to all.

Life can become unbalanced.
Desire and fear often create more unbalance.
There are ways to create more balance.
Strive for balance.


Much of what passes for buddhism is about 90% foolishness. Be your own guide to your path to balance.

[SirPhilip]

As you will see there is a real strange conversation occurring here. But there is much to be learned through talking. In contrast to lurking and reading, which you won't learn anything about having your time wasted on a world stage by.

If we cling to the pleasant we can grow to be dependent upon it and feel loss when it is gone. It is better to have joy in the moment and not cling. Sometimes it's for the better - this is why if you know nothing but pleasant discourse, and think yourself intellectually infallible because you are met half way all the time like Richard Dawkins in his youth, bringing up something nebulous around David is an important part of personal growth. It's best to take personal growth one step at a time though, so I recommend bringing up the right to bear arms to Clause first.

If we fear the unpleasant than we can spend much of out time dwelling on the unpleasant when it is not actually present. When things are unpleasant it is best to be with them in the moment and take rational concrete steps to change them, some things can be changed and some can not. Nancy Grace's revolving harem of smuggled and basement chained sexual offenders and young women constantly changing, as opposed to her scowl, which never changes, for example.

All things change that is the fact. If you work with change and accept it, it is easier to take rational and concrete action to be content with changes. You know, I realized this week that I have to deal with cashiers giving me back pennies forever, pennies that cause needless wallet bulge. Not too hip. But I had a credit card and live in a blue state now, and my social status is enhanced by using it, so I was glad about that unpleasant type of constant change. Otherwise I would still be asking "no pennies please..", instead it's constant use, while a bored cashier has to work even harder. I might even fumble with change. Even less hip.

If your house is burning down you can put out the fire, you can flee or you can run around screaming. Sometimes you can do the first and sometimes the second. Life is a burning house, enjoy your family and friends, try to care for the house. Alternatively, you could have an aseptic penthouse on the upper west side of Manhattan, listen to "Burning Down The House" by the Talking Heads at 'work', and when the nightlife isn't in order to close the day's events, make bums and prostitutes scream on your terms.

All the things that make up a self are changing and impermanent, accepting this is important. Unless you actually are a monk from the Buddhist or other occult tradition, that is.

Take care of the things that make up the human person to the best of your abilities. Change the things you can, accept the things you can't and always try to be pleasant to all. Conversely, a pessimistic disregard for personal identity is the same out those who shoot up in flats and under bridges have too. The Buddhists just know how to, they hope, permanently accomplish that.

Life can become unbalanced. Oh yeah (http://media.nasaexplores.com/lessons/04-035/images/orbit_x15.jpg).

Desire and fear often create more unbalance.Yes (http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=f05_1188282828).

There are ways to create more balance. Strive for balance. While strapped into something (most definite emphasis on "thing") with 500bhp on tap, or if fortunate, something that can eject 70,000lbs a minute. Then only will you understand what it means to live, and by live, I mean almost die.

Note: This life-affirming catharsis is slightly different for women. See my post about Rebecca, Sun Myung Moon's criminal organization, and the summer dress. David's posts are unbalanced without my comments by the way, most definitely to his irritation.

Much of what passes for buddhism is about 90% foolishness. Be your own guide to your path to balance. Idolatry, lacking any foundation in sex appeal (http://www.courier-journal.com/blogs/popvulture/uploaded_images/paris-hilton-drunk-driving-737785.jpg), is just foolish by itself. Buddhists, Hindus and Jains early on realized this and put large pecs and ear rings on Gautama and Mahavira, while other deities became multi-armed killing machines with braids - an obvious appeal to miserable, starving peasants whose only thrill in life was the sound and skin breaking rush of the whip.

[Dancing David]

Sometimes it's for the better - this is why if you know nothing but pleasant discourse, and think yourself intellectually infallible because you are met half way all the time like Richard Dawkins in his youth, bringing up something nebulous around David is an important part of personal growth. It's best to take personal growth one step at a time though, so I recommend bringing up the right to bear arms to Clause first.

It wasn't nebulous at all, It was "anti-depressants are addictive" and "the brain is alert but asleep"

But please tell us all how you know more about meditation than Morehei ueshiba and how you are a marathon runner and he is a sprinter.

Unless you actually are a monk from the Buddhist or other occult tradition, that is.

More vauhe assertion, change is one of the three things the allegd historical buddha taught. What is the beef this time?


Conversely, a pessimistic disregard for personal identity is the same out those who shoot up in flats and under bridges have too. The Buddhists just know how to, they hope, permanently accomplish that.

Blatant disregard for personal identity? Annatta is more than that, one should care for the heaps, not disregard them, they are the garden of the eightfold path.

I know little of what your saying here but I like the funny parts.

[SirPhilip]

Doublepost.

[SirPhilip]

It wasn't nebulous at all, It was "anti-depressants are addictive" and "the brain is alert but asleep"
See below on frutarianism about how the body can wake itself up when asleep, provided a flame nearby.

But please tell us all how you know more about meditation than Morehei ueshiba and how you are a marathon runner and he is a sprinter. Given the stories about him, Ueshiba likely was taught and was able to practice the 'real thing'.

More vauhe assertion, change is one of the three things the allegd historical buddha taught. What is the beef this time?Mostly strict vegetarianism and frutarianism. Seriously, not only do I you fall on your face every six hours, you become a natural gas hazard. I can see how the half dead demon with flames underneath superstitions started.

Blatant disregard for personal identity? Annatta is more than that, one should care for the heaps, not disregard them, they are the garden of the eightfold path. The eightfold path are simply guidelines to gradually eliminate what causes you to naturally live in the first place. The final goal is it's complete annihilation, at which point you cease to exist except as Atman, as a droplet falling into an ocean after a point can't be defined anymore..

[Dancing David]

Interesting and different POV, no atman.