Meditating with Descartes
Karen Parham asks how close Western philosophy gets to Buddhism.
Yep, you know what’s coming: “We’ll need a context of course”.
And yet I still get reactions from those who seem to suggest that in going out into the world and exploring particular aims in order to acquire and then sustain a grasp on that which embodies peace of mind, somehow misses the point of encompassing all this…philosophically.
First we must pin down the precise definition and the meaning of words like “aim” or “peace of mind” or “shift in consciousness”.
Apparently not counting the questions that I raise regarding the existential parameters of enlightenment and karma on this side of the grave, or the manner in which they are able to describe in detail how reincarnation comes about, or what it means to have reached Nirvana. Here they seem no different [to me] than any other religionists I have come upon down through the years.
No, first the philosopher needs to take one or another more rather than less reasoned leap of faith to those questions in which answers are there to be demonstrated to others who either do not understand them or have come up with entirely different answers. In fact, some answers are “the final say on the matter”. It just depends on the context. There are any number of empirical truths that philosophers can accumulate in regard to Buddhism.
For example, facts about the religion that can be easily confirmed. But once the questions are aimed instead at probing the capacity of Buddhists to embody enlightenment in a particular set of circumstances what of those answers?
Both the philosophers and the religionists are tasked with closing the gap between what is believed to be true and what is shown to be true.
And this is pertinent to what exactly? Some questions and answers [and thoughts] are clearly more sound than others. As for the realm beyond thought, certainty is no less shown to be either within reach or not.
Again, unless we go all the way out on the metaphysical limb. Out where reality itself is linked beyond all doubt to an understanding of existence itself.