The Monk and the Philosopher by Jean-François Revel & Matthieu Ricard
Lachlan Dale explores some of the philosophical implications of Tibetan Buddhism. From Philosophy Now magazine
For me of course it’s always back again to the gap between what one believes about karma and how one is actually able to demonstrate that karma does in fact exist. How theologically, philosophically, scientifically – experimentally, empirically – would one go about determining it?
As for reincarnation, that doesn’t suprise me. This is one of the fundamental beliefs embedded in almost all religions: “I” somehow continues on after death.
And to demonstrate this you merely have to believe it in turn. And, if you live a “good life”, you come back as something desirable. What constitutes living the good life? Well, that too, revolves basically around whatever you have managed to think yourself into believing is a good behavior to choose. The part I ascribe to dasein. Dasein embedded in a world of conflicting goods. That doesn’t change just because you are a Buddhist.
Come on, how does the universe itself ensure this? Simple enough. You believe that it does. In this respect, Buddhism is just another rendition of more traditional religious narratives. It just seems more “exotic” to many in the West. Though again, as noted above, there are clearly aspects of the pursuit here that do benefit many well beyond merely in believing that it does.
To get the best of Buddhism one should side step the religious elements associated with it. I don’t think Guatama intended for his philosophy to be straight-jacketed into any religious doctrines and and beliefs.
‘To get Buddhism’, one need to cut through its forms to understand its fundamentals, i.e. Buddha’s 4NT-8FP -A Life Problem Solving Technique
The fundamental of Buddhism is basic like a doctor’s approach in diagnosing a patient’s medical problems.
In the case of Buddhism, it a self-diagnostic technique to deal with one’s existential issues and its related sufferings.
Unfortunately for you, when you have passed age 55-60 the above technique will not be effective if one start after that age barrier. This is because effective Buddhism proper require flexible neurons that can be rewired for efficiency.
After 55-60 the normal person’s there the active neurons has atrophized too far and the majority of whatever active neurons remaining are naturally weakened.
But unlike most doctor’s diagnoses, it consider normal, healthy processes - like desires, the expression of emotion and the free movement of the body - pathological. You can see this directly in the texts, but also in the practices of even those buddhist groups that have no religious overtones. Emotional expression, desire and passionate movement are all pathologized.
Well, who knows what the vague ‘effective Buddhism proper’ means to Prismatic, but meditation, for example, has all sorts of effects regardless of age, and in people much older than 60. So even if P believes that whatever older people experience with meditation is not the full monty, it is both misleading and actually showing a lack of Buddhist compassion to say the above.
Further, many modern people, especially in the West, think that Buddhism is not a value-laden culturally toned belief system. But it is. It has judgments about how one should live, what healthy is, what the roots of problems are, which parts of the brain should be in charge and which suppressed, what is wrong with being a social mammal, how expressive one should be. And while its view on desire are not like the moral judgments in Abrahamic religions, it is still a cultural bias, and one that contains old biases against, one could say, the limbic system.
That was my point. Strip Buddhism of karma and reincarnation and other basically religious elements and it clearly benefits many – allowing them to attain and then sustain what for them is a greater sense of mental and emotional equilibrium and equanimity.
And more power to those who use it to accomplish such things. My own interest in religion however revolves more around the relationship between the behaviors that one chooses on this side of the grave [given their religious beliefs] and how this is connected in their head to what they imagine their fate to be on the other side.
In other words, the part where one religious narrative comes into contact with another in a world teeming with conflicting goods. And the part where one by one all of us die.
Also, the way in which one’s religious beliefs are embedded more in the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein in my signature threads. Rather than in one sitting down, examining all of the religious/spiritual narratives out there and, using the tools of philosophy, choosing the one that seems most rational. Or in rejecting religion altogether.
Nope! you got is wrong.
Buddhism-proper do not regard desires and emotions as pathological.
Yes, there are many Buddhists and monks who are ascetics and escapists from modern living, but the Buddha did not advocate such practices. The Buddha was an ascetic for many years and discovered that asceticism is the wrong path when he achieved “enlightenment.”
One point is there are many variations in the texts and practices of Buddhism since 2500 years ago but the majority do not get to what is the intended Buddhism-proper.
In practice, it was impossible for Buddhism-proper to be implemented during Buddha’s time and even thereafter. This is the reason why Buddhism-proper had been compromised to adapt to whatever he current conditions were.
Buddhism-proper do not advocate the praying to statues with joss-sticks and offering in big temples, but it has to compromise what suit the lay-believers in their current state.
Thus to understand Buddhism-proper one has to research in all the texts and practices done to date to extract the essence of Buddhism. I have done that and abstracted one aspect of it it as a diagnostic technique.
Buddhism-proper do not suppress desires and emotions but rather pinned and focus on the ignorance of what are the main purpose of desires and emotions to facilitate survival. This is why ‘Right-View’ of the Noble 8 fold path need to be invoked.
When one is ignorant of what desires are for and how dangerous they can be when reiterated, the person become a slave to his desires which lead to clingingness, attachments where non-fulfillment of them lead to sufferings.
Greek Philosophy was influenced by Buddhism, thus like the Stoic and this is reflected in Aristotle on Anger [an example to desires and emotions];
Anybody can become angry - that is easy, but
to be angry with the right person and
to the right degree and
at the right time and
for the right purpose, and
in the right way
that is not within everybody’s power and is not easy.
-Aristotle.
The above same is expected by Buddhism-proper which does not suppress “anger” but a Buddhist need to develop skillful actions to be able to perform the above.
There are two main types of meditation in Buddhism-proper, i.e. Samartha [concentration] and Vispassana [mindfulness].
It may be possible for the older person to benefit in some ways from Samartha but they are unlikely to be efficient with mindfulness exercises that need to rewire the neuron appropriately, i.e. not easy to teach old dogs new tricks.
Re to get to Buddhism-proper it is necessary to get rid of the cultural bias.
Initially a new Buddhist will be exposed to its unavoidable cultural elements, but by continuing to apply the diagnostic technique effectively one will be able to wean off the cultural elements and stick to pure Buddhism-proper.
If one were to adopt Buddhism-proper as a diagnostic tool to understand one’s own issues and resolves them according, then all the problems you listed above will be minimized.
Unfortunately for you, due to age, will be difficult for you to start now.
Thus you have to do the best you can by whatever means or be stuck in that deep hole you have dug for yourself.
I didn’t say anything about asceticism and escapism. Please don’t just assume you know more about Buddhism than anyone you disagree with. The issue I am talking about are not part of the formats and cultures of some Buddhist groups, they are endemic.
So, you know not only what was possible then, but what the real message of Buddhism is, despite being further way from the source then they were back then.
I didn’t say anything about the praying to statues.
Buddhism proper. Seriously, who are you to say what Buddhism proper is. I am going by both the texts we have and the practices in both the East and the West in a wide variety of contexts.
Of course that will end up suppressing anger. You just gave anger a gauntlet of criteria to get through before it gets expressed. And by the time we are adults we have learned to suppress emotions, so of course they will be clunky and not perfect and disconnected sometimes from the rational parts of our brains/knowledge. But that heuristic or the heuristics that would come out of Aristotles little ditty, will add layers to suppression already present and reinforce judgments of emotions. And what he says is pretty much current folk psychology held, for example, by most middle class academics, amongst others.
Yeah, again, please stop assuming you know more about Buddhism. Second, no, you are just simply wrong. Mindfulness has been shown via scientific reseach to have all sorts of positive effects on people older than 60. You don’t know what you are talking about and it was not a kind thing to say the Iamb. And on some level I think that was part of the point of telling him. I mean, what other point would there be?
Buddhism has, in its core form, judgments of desires and emotions. It is in the texts and it is not a coincidence that every single manifestation of the practices in communities leads to subcultures where emotions and desires are judged and expression of emotions with any passion is judged negatively. It is also not a coincidence that the temperments of Buddhists in the West has as its signature people who present themselves, as much as they can, as rational, logical, even-keel, in-control personalities and have values that include low expression of emotion, judgments of passion and ‘indulging’ in desires.
I mean, seriously, Prismatic, you started a thread elsewhere hoping for a future where we could suppress the neurons in the brain that cause anxiety - as if there weren’t good reasons for us, we social mammals - to evolve emotional patterns via neuronal structures. The judgments of emotions, and ones that fit well with Buddhism, run through your posts from the beginning. That you look forward to the elimination of certain emotions via technological intervention is just the tip of the iceberg, but a telling tip. Your prioritization of equanimity, your admiration for the Stoics, and also admiration for Buddhism, all fit together with particular cultural and psychological values.
IOW responding with the emotional reactions we do have and allowing them to express would be wrong. Modulate does sound a lot nicer than suppress, but it is a form of suppression.
Now these judgments of emotion are widely held in most cultures and subcultures, so it is not just you and yours. But it is cultural, it is based on values and tempermental comforts and discomforts. It is hardly pure science.
It has to do with some people’s tastes, and fears and judgments.
The 2nd Noble Truth is the ‘Truth of the Cause of Sufferings.’
In this we have to be very careful with the translated terms ‘truth’, cause and sufferings in relation to its original intended meaning.
I don’t claim to know the most, but I know more than the average Buddhist and researchers in Buddhism.
‘Suppress’ I meant total elimination.
Modulation is like putting a dam across a forceful river when the flow of the river can be controlled to the expected results.
It is possible for those above 60 to do the acts of samartha and vispassana but the results for vispassana will not be efficient. I have read this from Buddhist scholars. However the phrase ‘cannot teach old dogs new tricks’ is very realistic in terms of the state of neurons i.e. reduced elasticity in older people.
Okay, but how is this applicable to my own interest in religion? How [among the young] would “adopting Buddhism-proper as a diagnostic tool” have any significant use value or exchange value in confronting conflicting goods on this side of the grave? However one construes their fate on the other side of it.
With regard to any particular individual, I can see where Buddhism might be beneficial. Or in a small cloistered community. But the more an individual Buddhist interacts with others in the manner in which most of us do in this modern world, the more likely that wants and needs will come into conflict. And, to the extent that they do, claiming to be “enlightened” will only go so far among those who are not Buddhists.
And sooner of later the interactions will get around to the part where we are dead and gone. And here the Buddhists are in the same boat with all the rest of us: filling the gap between what they believe about the afterlife and what they are able to actually demonstrate is true.
The part where, in my view, it is the believing itself that counts most of all. Religion as either a political opiate of the people for some or a comforting and consoling psychological defense mechanism for others.
So, to effectively dehumanise human-beings is the right path to making them better human-beings? Emotional castration? In my experience, people are like water in a jug, we move in whichever direction the jug is moved by the forces around it. If we can maintain a good, sturdy disposition when forces are pulling and pushing us in different directions then brilliant I guess, but I don’t believe, as a human-being, that that should be the expectation or perhaps even the goal? Is it right to always act like everything is okay? Or if I’m happy emotionally, to not show it?
Managing our emotions and instincts is a good thing which people are generally capable of, but complete suppression of our nature (emotions) seems wrong to me on so many levels. Like feeding a predatory animal vegetables for half of it’s life, then releasing it into the wild - expecting it to hunt, kill prey and chill with the other predators – after hacking it’s nature.
In life, no matter how “modulated” we perceive ourselves to be, if something hits us hard enough, were going to react with an emotional response. To do so is not wrong, its human. There have been times in all of our lives when we’ve suffered, and times when things have been great. If the aim of buddhism is to eliminate suffering, what’s the point if the emotions you need to enjoy that suffering free life are completely suppressed?
The original intended meaning has to do with desire/thirst (literal translation)/clinging to anything. That this causes suffering and we must eliminate it.
You just threw a social mammal out the window. The practices of Buddhism include the disidentification with emotions (and yes, also thoughts) and the severing of emotion to expression process. You ‘accept’ them, but must witness them. The flow to expression is dammed as you say. Though it is even more than this. You keep still and silent, in the practices, regardless of pain or emotion. You are training to not express emotions. Yes, outside of meditation, you may express emotions, but the training includes precisely the severing of feeling of emotion to expression processes. That is what you are learning to do, training yourself to do. And this is why anywhere the doctrines of Buddhism go, you will find suppression of emotions and judgments of emotions.
People think of texts as true in and of themselves. But texts do things. And what those texts do to humans, is to train them to suppress emotions. And those who are drawn to it want to do that. And if they want to do it, they should. However it should be presented as a value-free scientific process. It is a value laden one, one with heavy judgments of the limbic system and its expression physically. What a text does, tells what a text is. And then the text itself contains these judgments as do the practices.
Could be true. But your responses have relayed some fairly basic stuff as if I and others need the small lectures.
That is not what suppress means in relation to emotions.
And yet nevertheless scientific research shows that significant changes can take place pretty much regardless of age.
There have been people over 60 who have had stokes and damaged large portions of their brains and from their used other portions of their brains to learn, again, in new neural pathways, how to speak, eat, walk and other incredibly complicated skills. Yes, it is harder to learn new things when one is older, but the brains still show incredible neuroplasticity. It’s not all or nothing, as that old cliche about dogs would lead one (or Iamb if he took it seriously) to believe.
The enlightened Buddhist will be better able to deal with not getting what he wants or needs, better able to deal with getting it, better able to judge when to continue a conflict, better able to judge when to disengage, better able to judge when to surrender … etc.
That’s wisdom. That’s what philosophies and religions are about.
Precisely and accurately summing up the judgments in Buddhism (and of course many other belief systems)
Buddhism tends not to judge happiness as much as sadness, anger and fear, but if you were expressive, and/or desired the things that made you happy, that’s a problem in Buddhism.
Most of us, by the time we have reached adulthood, have already been trained to suppress emotions and judge them and their expression. Then people are told that Buddhism is a scientific, value free approach to healing themselves. So, the new types of suppressive practices get lopped on top of suppressive practices and cognitive processes people have already learned in school, from parents, from societal judgments, from films and so on.
Why does Buddhism require the suppression of emotion? From what I’ve been told, the care-free, light-hearted, at-peace state of mind of the enlightened practitioner comes from realizing that life is illusory. They say it’s like realizing that you’re in a dream, and that nothing that happens therein matters because it’s not real. In that case, if one were having a nightmare, for example, and then realized it was just a dream, one would no longer experience any fear; one would sigh a breath of relief and maybe even laugh at the nightmare. ← That’s very different from trying to suppress the fear… the fear simply vanishes.
Generally when one adopt Buddhism-proper one will have the diagnostic tool and strategies to modulate to minimize [not eliminate] whatever the problem that arises. It is a case of having some control over one’s self [e.g. with a rudder and steering wheel] is better than none [rudderless].
In my post above, I did not mention complete suppression.
DNA wise, human instincts, emotions and other impulses are inherent and are useful for survival. Since they are embedded within the DNA, there is no possibility of ‘castration’ and will not be advocated even if it is possible.
I had mentioned ‘modulation’ so that those inherent impulses are managed to achieve optimal result to the best of one’s ability.
True, if an emotion or instinct hit hard enough, one could loose control of one self. Example if a person is hit with tremendous sadness and stress, one could free fall into severe depression and never be able to recover and possibly committing suicide.
But with Buddhism proper, adopting and practicing some kind of control is better than no control. With some kind of control, one will be able to withstand any surge of the basic impulses to some degree and if one person is knocked down for some reason, they will be able to get up more easily.
The aim of Buddhism is not to eliminate mental pains and sufferings which are inherent to human nature, but merely to modulate them towards optimal results. Buddhism for example cannot eliminate grief which is very natural and the only solution is to ride it out in time efficiently.
You have to look at the practice and the judgments in texts. The practices are literally severing your experession of emotional states. Your body is fixed and unmoving, you are silent, you disidentify with emotions, they are not expressed. You are training to not express emotions, regardless of how much physical or emotional pain comes up in meditation, and to disrupt the natural flow of emotion to expression through silently holding your body in place and cutting off emotion to body/voice. Of course you are learning other things as well, but that is a core facet of the training. The texts talk about not clinging, judge desire as causal to pain. This directly goes after the emotions, because they are powerfully involved in desires and what gets judged as clinging in Buddhism.
Buddhism-proper never advocate total elimination of desires because desires are inherent in humans as human nature.
However Buddhism-proper advocate the control of desires to eliminate attachment and clingingness. It is the latter that contribute to sufferings.
What is critical in Buddhism-proper is to eliminate the clingingness to an eternal soul that survives physical death [note the Buddha Story].
I agreed those above 60 can benefit in some ways from mindfulness and concentration but in general the saying ‘one cannot teach old dogs new tricks’ is still prevail because that is human nature.
As Fanman stated which I agree to some degree;
In life, no matter how “modulated” we perceive ourselves to be, if something hits us hard enough, were going to react with an emotional response. To do so is not wrong, its human. There have been times in all of our lives when we’ve suffered, and times when things have been great.
What I meant is, when something hit hard enough, those starting Buddhism-proper above 60 may not have the ability [neuro-plasticity] to develop and deal with whatever ‘hit hard enough’.
As I had mentioned is it not a question of ‘suppression’ as in elimination but rather modulating of emotions to achieve optimal well being.
When the fear emotion is triggered, what is to be invoked is ‘Right View’, then Right Action.
If the fear was from a dream, one could rationalize it away.
If the fear is from seeing a tiger nearby, one must acknowledge the fear and run to safety.
However what is most critical with Buddhism-proper is the subliminal unconscious fear of inevitable mortality. The main purpose of Buddhism-proper [as reflected in the Buddha Story and 4NT] is the modulation of the subconscious fear of mortality which is primary.
The conscious fear of mortality is secondary since humans are evolved with a natural mechanism to deal with it. [A] This is why the majority of people will claim they do not have a fear of death at least most of the time except in rare moments.
What is critical is the subliminal subconscious fear of mortality that is inhibited by the above [A] but there are leakages which exude and manifest as a cognitive dissonance which generate all sorts of psychosis, like severe anxieties, despairs, Angst and the likes. The main purpose of Buddhism-proper is to modulate [not get rid] these mental sufferings.