Okay. Go talk to people who are uninterested in your posts.
Meditating with Descartes
Karen Parham asks how close Western philosophy gets to Buddhism.
Well, the koan I am most interested in exploring is this, “what is it like to be dead?” And, “what does it mean to behave in an enlightened manner”?
And, where, given a particular context, does one draw the line between one’s “reasoning faculties” and one’s “intuition”?
And what can that possibly mean in regard to death itself?
Again, in regard to my own interest in religion – morality and mortality – what “appropriate responses” has anyone here come to? And what specifically is the distinction that is made between not solving something but still being enlightened about it? Cite some examples please.
Yes, but what religion does for many is to subsume the answers to questions of this sort in the religion itself. For most this means God and His mysterious ways, but what does it mean for Buddhists? If no God, what actually brings one to Nirvana – the universe itself?
On the contrary, with respect to the “solutions” that Western Philosophers have arrived at in regard to the questions/koans that most interest me, their “euphoria” and “enlightenment” is, in my view, predicated only on what they have managed to convince themselves is true “in their head”. And that can be almost anything. Whereas for me, in regard to identity, value judgments and political power intertwined at a particular existential juncture, it is not what one believes is true but what one can demonstrate as the obligation of all rational people to believe is true in turn.
Meditating with Descartes
Karen Parham asks how close Western philosophy gets to Buddhism.
Here, of course, my own interest pertains almost entirely to that which either Western or Eastern religions/philosophies are able note as “clear and distinct ideas not to be doubted” because they can in turn demonstrate why this is the case in regard to morality on this side of the grave and to the fate of “I” on the other side of it.
Thus in regard to the existence of God, I must have missed that part with Descartes. Is there any one here who can link me to it?
Same with Buddhists in regard reincarnation and Nirvana.
And neither the Eastern nor the Western folks have managed yet to convince me that in the absense of God, a morality can be concocted by mere mortals enabling them to differentiate good from bad behavior.
Yes, I was once able to think myself into believing something similar to this. Just not anymore. But if there are koans “out there” that do focus in on own interest in religion [morality and immortality] I would truly be interested in discussing them.
Aren’t there in fact circles to be found everywhere in regard to either religious faith or religious dogma? How are the conclusions that Buddhists reach any less circuitous? Why are they true? Because they come from Gautama Buddha. That is basically what makes them true. Had Buddha been able to demonstrate that his own behaviors [back then] were the embodiment of Enlightenment? Had he demonstrated that life after death was in fact an actual thing?
Not to my knowledge.
So, basically, just as, say, Christians believe in God because it says to in the Bible and it says to in the Bible because it’s the word of God, for Buddhists everything flows back to what they believe about Buddha. Now, Buddha is not seen as a God but as a “monk, mendicant, sage, philosopher, teacher and religious leader on whose teachings Buddhism was founded.”
But for all practical purposes what’s the difference?
I suggest you listen to these two videos to get a better idea of the main elements of Buddhism;
Ep. 8 - Awakening from the Meaning Crisis - The Buddha and “Mindfulness”
youtube.com/watch?v=EWumJSB … WJ&index=8
Ep. 9 - Awakening from the Meaning Crisis - Insight
youtube.com/watch?v=jkWNBdB … WJ&index=9
They may direct you to a ladder to get out of that shit_hole you have created for yourself.
Why should I? You don’t respond to any of the actual points I raised above but you have the gall to come in here to “set me straight” with a couple of videos?
Instead, why don’t you reconfigure the points raised in the videos into an argument that addresses my own interest in religion: the relationship between the behaviors we choose on this side of the grave and what we anticipate the fate of “I” to be on the other side of the grave.
And, please, don’t tell me what you believe-proper. Note for me how you are able to actually demonstrate to others what is in fact true about this crucial relationship embedded at the very heart of the human condition.
You’re like others here who just can’t imagine thinking about the world as I do. How ghastly! And that becomes enough to make it wrong.
Look, I have everything to gain and almost nothing left to lose in being able abandon the points I raise in my signature threads.
So, give it your best shot, Mr. Objectivist.
That “Mr. Objectivist” is another of your straw-man [besides intellectual contraption, this side or other side of the grave, etc.] that you throw at others as a defense mechanism.
That I am able to reduce objectivists down to what I construe to be lamebrain retorts of this sort now only gives me a grim satisfaction. On the other hand, he will almost certainly take his rabid convictions all the way to the grave. So, in that respect…that very, very important respect…he wins. He is clearly among the least fractured and fragmented folks that I have come across.
Since you have a personal psychological problem you should seek psychiatric help rather than be a psychological-parasite around here.
Man, we’re really stuck!!! 
Uh, see you in the next life? 
Meditating with Descartes
Karen Parham asks how close Western philosophy gets to Buddhism.
Over and again, the problem with suggesting the “self” is an illusion is this: that there are far, far too many facets of one’s identity that go about the business of living an actual substantive life from day to day to day. The biological components. The circumstantial components. The experiential components. The perceptions that come from a particular mind out in a particular world able to communicate to others actual facts about one’s existence.
Instead, it gets increasingly more problematic only when the communication begins to break down in regard to our reactions to the things that others say and do. We may all agree on what in fact they are doing, but not on whether they should stop doing it. Yet even here the “illusory” part is alleged only in conjunction with the assumptions that I make about “I” as the embodiment of dasein in the is/ought world.
And in regard to the fate of “I” after death.
As for assertions that are made in regard to dualism, how are Buddhists not in the same boat with all the rest of us? In other words, there’s what they think they know about it and all that can be known about it. Here we are all just more or less sophisticated given our background and our education and our training.
What empiricists and rationalists all share in common however is the extent to which they cannot actually demonstrate that their own value judgments and speculations about the afterlife are the most sophisticated of all. Same with both Western and Eastern philosophers.
Your above views reflect how ignorantly and foolishly you are stuck in that deep_shit hole you have dug for yourself and got stuck in there for good.
With hindsight, it would be stupid to try to pull you out of that deep_shit hole.
The irony is that a self created and recreated as a result of dasein is similar to what Buddhist see as no-self - a constant flow and change which means that there is no permanent self. Buddhists take it to another level by saying that the change is happening at every instant.
Either Master Biggus can’t see the similarities, or he doesn’t believe his own philosophy, or he just indiscriminately blasts away at anything and everything.
I thought of this a while back also. It doesn’t mean, of course, that he should be a Buddhist, or do anything on a smaller scale in that direction as an exploration, however instead of thowring up his hands in helpless, hopeless incomprehension and bemoaning the confusing state of things, he could have taken in the similarities. perhaps learned something new to say or how to say it in a new way. And, of course, if they have the same view of what he considers to be a problem but they do not consider to be a problem, then perhaps they might have something to offer him. Something other than another philosophy to ask the gallery over and over what one is to make of it.
My interest in Buddhism [as in all other religious/spiritual/enlightenment narratives] revolves around exploring the day to day relationship between human behaviors chosen in the course of interacting with others in a world teeming with conflicting goods on this side of the grave, what one imagines their fate to be on the other side of the grave, and how their views about religion [and, for many, God] play a part in connecting these fundamentally important dots.
Existentially.
In other words, out in a particular world, relating to a particular context understood in a particular way.
How difficult is it to understand this?
Instead, time and again, I get bombarded with “retorts” of this sort. Anything relating to an intelligent discussion gives way to personal attacks. I become the problem. My frame of mind is disturbing so [apparently] that in and of itself makes it wrong.
All I can say is that I make my argument in my signature threads. One can read them or not. If they do, they will either concur with much of my assessment regarding “I” here or they won’t. If they don’t, they can either try to explain why or not.
Some years ago Tom Wolfe wrote a piece called “My Three Stooges”.
Well, on a much less sophisticated level, I have apparently acquired my own three stooges too!
Here of all places!!
Prismatic
Phyllo
Karpel Tunnel.
Over and again, they feel compelled to expose me to you for what they insist I really am.
It’s just that, as usual, KT at least attempts to express his own contribution above the level of a “retort”.
But: it’s still just another “general description” assessment. Nothing in the way of probing our respective arguments regarding Buddhism and religion in regard to an actual set of circumstances where he can in much greater detail explore his accusations above.
Comparing the Buddhist concept of no-self and changeable/changing self produced by dasein, would be on topic.
Is the fractured “I” compatible with the Buddhist point of view?
One could also compare nihilism to Buddhism.
Okay, but over and over and over again, I note that my interest here revolves around discussing these relationships in regard to an actual set of circumstances whereby different people with different religious values come into conflict over what is deemed to be ethical behavior as that relates to their belief in one or another religious narrative.
Here Buddhists speak of things like karma and enlightenment and reincarnation and Nirvana. Whereas, as a nihilist, as someone who has thought himself into believing that human interactions are essentially meaningless and that death equals the obliteration of “I”, how could our respective “sense of reality” be much different?
My “I” is not fractured and fragmented in the either/or world. Only in regard to morality on this side of the grave and my fate on the other side of it.
Thus if I and someone who embraced Buddhism or another religious faith were to get into a discussion about the “real me” in sync with “the right thing to do” and the subject was, say, capital punishment, I’d raise the points I do in my signature threads.
I’d argue that from my frame of mind there do not appear to be any scientific or philosophical or ethical or theological or natural conclusions that one can come to in order to pin down how all rational and virtuous people ought to think and feel about it. Instead, I’d suggest that, by and large, people come to think about it the way they do based on the experiences they have in their lives. And, that, given new experiences, they could change their mind.
And that ultimately what really counts is not the conflicting goods themselves but who has the actual political power to enforce a particular set of behaviors in any given community. The part where everything revolves around actual consequences.
Not much in the way of those here, right?
Hell, in regard to the death penalty, if you want to see how this all unfolds “in reality” just watch the film Dead Man Walking. If you can’t grasp how my own rendition of “I” [as an existential contraption rooted in dasein] plays out in these characters we’re almost certainly beyond communicating coherently to each other.
At least here and now.
Absolutely it would be part of ‘getting Buddhism’ re the title of the thread.
I think it could be argued that it is an early stage of noticing the aggregates in the mind, the impermanence of dispositions, conditioning and Sankhara. All googlable. IOW what he is calling fractured is an early awareness, from the Buddhist point of view, of their not being any essential self.
Should ahve mentioned it above, but there are many Buddhisms, but nihilism absolutely fits with Buddhism. In fact a strong case can be made that while Buddhism encourages compassion - when it does - this is actually because it makes the process easier. Not because it is Good, capital ‘G’ as in Christianity, but rather that compassion makes it easier and faster to go through the various stages of noticing. One can achieve less suffering that way and faster. It is a practical not a moral heuristic.
But Buddhism is not content, it is set of processes. They view, further, content as eliciting experiences and viewpoints not as containers for truth. It’s not something you can come to understand from the sidelines.
But there is an irony that he does not seem to notice that there are many similarities between his positions and Buddhist ones. Of course, it is hard to learn about something like this, or in general, by reading wikipedia.
But: it’s still just another “general description” assessment. Nothing in the way of probing our respective arguments regarding Buddhism and religion in regard to an actual set of circumstances where he can in much greater detail explore his accusations above.
Agreed.
In terms of nihilism, I’m thinking of interpretations of Buddhism without supernatural beings and realms. End of rebirth is just that … the end. That’s basically a no God universe with oblivion.
If there are realms, then one could interpret higher realms are a reward for “good” behavior meted out by some unknown force.
One could also interpret higher realms as objectively good states of existence for which to strive.
Or one could interpret higher realms as attempts to control people or fabrications used for “comfort and consolation”.