I don't get Buddhism

FELIX:
notice what he does below. First he dismisses your entire response as an intellectual contraption. Rather than, for example, respecting what you communicated with and asking for clarification or concrete examples OF WHAT YOU WROTE already. IOW what you chose to respond to in his post
he
doesn’t
give a
shit about.

Now, I think his questions are potentially reasonable. IOW he isn’t just rude. He’s rude and dismissive, then asks for you to write about something else. I don’t think asking someone with some experience those latter questions is rude. The context, however, gives the lie. It is rude in the frame of dismissing how you want to communicate. Presumably your knowledge of Buddhism informed how you responded to his post. You chose to focus on consciousness and what it seemed like he was assuming. Your knowledge informed your response. Instead of treating your response as potentially useful, he dismisses it.

Now he is acting as if you can now respond as an expert on the entire system of Buddhism regarding some very tough issues,

directly after

treating your response as worthless.

Why would someone dismiss what a person actually chooses to focus on as worthless and not let whatever expertise they have guide the discussion? It doesn’t make any sense. He obviously doesn’t think you know how to introduce some of the relevent ideas. And any confusions he has are not subject to discussion. He has nothing to learn from you…then he throws huge questions at you as if the context was that he could learn from you.

And he gives you a big assignment. He simply cannot be expecting to get any answers he respects since he cannot show minimal respect for what your expertise led you to focus on in relation to him and his issues.

So, he is trolling, not that I think he knows it.

That’s because, in these matters, he sees expertise and non-expertise as just different contraptions. Expertise is no better than lack of expertise.

Buddha himself would be dismissed as having contraptions.

Then he should NOT be then asking them for answers as experts. He dismisses the line the Felix choses in reaction to his post - bringing up what Felix sees, from Felix’s background which includes Buddhism - related to consciousness. Oh, that’s all worthless, tell me about something else.

The person I am treating as an expert - OK, so you have knowledge about X - I am rude to and dismiss how they want to and decide to approach the issue as worthless, but
directly afterward as for answers to incredibly complicated and to some degree very abstract questions.

It makes no sense. If he thinks Felix might have knowledge, then he should be interested in why the consciousness issue arose. If he has trouble with Felix’s answer because it is too abstract, then he can ask for concrete examples related to consciousness and/or further clarification. But he does not.

It’s a bit like negging…

You make an offhand slightly negative comment, and the woman is placed on lower status while sending the message that you aren’t out after her. The aim is to get her to move toward you and unfortunately this is often successful.

And all this is in relation to a tradition that prioritizes practices over intellectual conversation. It is core component to try to calm the mind, meditate and not get wrapped up in questions and ideas one is not in a position to understand being a beginner, and also in general part of tradition that believes this is all a lot of mental wanking that adds to suffering and confusion.

He asks for answers in order to show that the answers are the product of dasein. Therefore, there are no good, bad, better, worse answers … there are only different answers.

Undermining self-confidence is part of the point. It’s at the heart of his struggle against objectivists.

What’s wrong with objectivists? They are confident that they know and understand something. They need to be taken down a notch.

How Does a Buddhist Monk Face Death?
An e-mail interview in the New York Times between George Yancy and Geshe Dadul Namgyal, a Tibetan Buddhist monk

Again, how is this not just another “general description intellectual/spiritual contraption”? One in which the relationship between life and death is broadly explored only as a factor embedded in the “human condition” as a whole.

In fact, each of us as individuals may well have very different reactions to these words insofar as they seem applicable to our own lives. After all, what does it mean to speak of loving life, “a little too much”? Of looking at “just the preferred side of it”? Of “cling[ing] to a fantasized life, seeing it with colors brighter than it has”?

Will it mean the same thing to you as it does to me?

Instead, each of us as individuals are ensconced in a particular set of circumstances, with more or less to lose in tumbling over into the abyss. And with a greater or lesser capacity to convince ourselves that immortality and salvation await us on the other side.

Sure, if a particular Buddhist is able to think herself into confronting death from a more serene perspective, only a fool would just shrug that off. But, from my frame of mind, they are able to do this only to the extent that “in their head” they have accepted certain assumptions about the existence of karma, enlightenment, reincarnation and Nirvana.

And, in my view, it is not unreasonable for those who are not Buddhists to ask those who are to demonstrate why these things are believable beyond just being thoughts and feeling in their head. Again, with so much at stake.

Exactly. So, obviously, to the extent that one is able to think oneself [or are indoctrinated] into embracing one or another religious antidote, how could they/would they not have come to embody a greater sense of comfort and consolation than those who cannot?

That’s not the point. The point is how each of us as individuals come to make that distinction given an intertwining of their circumstances and their philosophy of life.

And then the extent to which this is derived more or less from dasein than from an attempt to actually “think it through” to the most rational point of view.

Assuming of course that human autonomy here is an actual factor.

Hey man, the clock is ticking, Go for your best happy, however you construe it.

Okay, I’ll go for that if you’ll go for this:

I’m not claiming that I have a profound understanding of Buddhism’s relation to the unconscious psyche. I have some insights into it based on my experience. What we know about our own unconsciousness comes to us internally in the form of images and externally through the observations of others.

To me, and to many others, Buddhism is a matter of practice not objective beliefs. So, regarding the coronavirus, mindfulness meditation is relevant as way of coping with panic, hysteria and fear by getting into a peaceful mindset from which to act calmly, and rationally toward myself and others around me as the situation demands.

Enlightenment, karma, reincarnation and Nirvana are images “in [my] head” like images in a dream. I am agnostic at best about their objective reality. Completely rational men and women don’t exist. Buddhism promotes the values of empathy and compassion. In so far as people are rational, they should seek to live empathically and compassionately.

Yes, and in two ways. First, that it is a set of practices that lead to understandings and attitudes which may not be intelligible without long term practice. This is true about many disciplines: that you cannot possibly understand certain things without having engaged in long term practice. This is true in math and physics and dance and acting and psychology…and then Second: Buddhism is concerned about papancha - the proliferation of thought - and considers this part of what causes suffering. The combination of the two is a very strong criticism of trying to figure out stuff one has very little knowledge of, both because it is cart before the horse and more or less impossible, but also because it leads to repetitive thinking with an underlying anxeity that is nto simply not resolved but exacerbated by this looping thinking.

Enlightenment must be an objectively real state of being - a better state of being with identifiable characteristics.

If not, then what are the monks striving for? And what did the masters attain?

What does the Zen master tell you? You are the Buddha.

You’re a sleeping Buddha.

The master helps you wake up.

Buddha either way.

Okay, by practice, this still seems to suggest that in regard to the behaviors Buddhists choose either alone or in interacting with others, they must draw on what they have come to believe about karma and enlightenment on this side of the grave and how they connect these dots to reincarnation and Nirvana on the other side of it.

I merely suggest that in regard to either coming into contact with Buddhism, or in how one comes to interpret it as a spiritual or religious path, “I” is no less the embodiment of dasein out in a particular world historically, culturally and experientially.

Think of the millions upon millions of human beings going all the back to the caves that existed before Buddhism was even around. Or the millions more today who have had no contact with it at all. How did/does karma and enlightenment become a factor in their lives? And how, given whatever is “behind” the part embedded in reincarnation and Nirvana, will their souls fare?

And however much “mindfulness” is sustained in the face of the coronavirus pandemic [or any other calamitous context], each and every individual is still faced with connecting the dots between “doing the right thing” here and now and achieving the fate they are shooting for there and then.

Instead, from my frame of mind, your frame of mind…

Okay, this works for you up to a point and that’s a good thing.

But if the coronavirus were to mutate into a particular vicious strain and stampede around the globe, empathy and compassion could very well be stretched to the limits. One or another rendition of survival of the fittest may prevail instead.

And in regard to issues like abortion or animal rights or social, political and economic justice or gun ownership, compassion and empathy tend to be reflected far more in being either “one of us” or “one of them”. Compassion and empathy for the woman with the unwanted pregnancy or compassion and empathy for the unborn baby inside her?

A philosopher said to the Buddha, “ I have heard that Buddhism is a doctrine of enlightenment. What is your method? What do you practice everyday?

The Buddha answered, "We walk, we eat, we wash ourselves, we sit down…”

The Philosopher replied, "what is so special about that? Everyone walks, eats washes, sits down…”

The Buddha answered, "Sir, when we walk, we are aware that we are walking; when we eat we are aware that we are eating…. When others walk, eat, wash, or sit down, they are generally not aware of what they are doing.”

In Buddhism mindfulness is the key.

Okay, but in regard to the points I raised above, after a Buddhist replies, “I’ve got the coronavirus and the doctors say the prognosis is bleak and I’m aware that I have got coronavirus and that the doctors tell me the prognosis is bleak”, how might that be applicable to her understanding of karma and enlightenment on this side of the grave and the fate of her “soul” or “spirit” or “self” on the other side of the grave?

Or, “I am pregnant and I am going to get an abortion, and I am aware that I am pregnant and that I am going to get an abortion”. How might a Buddhist noting this in a community where abortion is against the law factor this mindfulness into her understanding of the most fundamental components of Buddhism?

Especially, given interactions with others who do not share her own moral and political and religious values?

Again, from my frame of mind, there is always the gap between what you believe in your head and how what you believe in your head fares “for all practical purposes” with what others believe instead.

If [here] it doesn’t come down ultimately to what we can demonstrate to others is in fact true objectively for all of us, then it has to come down to one or another combination of might makes right [autocracy], right makes might [a wholly Buddhist community] or moderation, negotiation and compromise [democracy and the rule of law].

But that is only in regard to interactions on this side of the grave. As for the other side, Buddhists are much like all the other religious denominations: it all comes down to more or less blind faith.

Or so it seems to me.

It seems like you are missing his point. His point is that Buddhism as a system, and especially his version of it, which you were asking about, is focused on practice - mindfullness, for example - and not centered in the beliefs, especially about things he does not feel he knows the answers to. Chrisitianity is often centered on beliefs - it needn’t be and there are versions and individuals whose focused on practices - but Buddhism is much more about practices. In fact you will find pressues by teachers and masters in many of the versions of Buddhism to get people to stop trying to resolve things they are not in a position to, to stop mulling over everything and/or to disidentify with that portion of themselves. It is an approach to suffering less or, to put it a bit paradoxically, to suffer one’s suffering less. Yes, there may be Karma and reincarnation and enlightenment, but it is considered for the most part problematic to even fuss of this stuff, first of all because one cannot understand it. It’s like a child trying to understand what a loving sex act is like and what the clues are that a sex act might be problematic. They are just not in any position to understand any of that, if they haven’t been abused. It’s bizzarre to ask how a diagnosis of fatal corona is applicable to karman and enlightmentment. It’s more like how might the practices of Buddhism be applicable to finding out one might be dying. Or how might the idea of Karma be helpful in that situation. In Felix’s case much more the former question.

You say ‘this mindfullness’ being factored somehow into an understanding in the context of an abortion. It’s more like even this very charged situation can be aided directly by mindfulness. And truly, it is something that is ridiculous to even talk about since the word mindfullness is not one you understand. You understand it only as an abstraction. For Felix it is presumably a description of something he has experienced for years. You are trying to talk about something you don’t understand and cannot come to understand via words on a screen.

Right, you are centered on beliefs. Buddhism is about relieving suffering and also about experiencing life in a more focused and potentially joyful way. Your questions and demands are a consistant category error. And that’s because you have no interest in Buddhism. You’ve even acknowledge that there is a great deal of evidence people benefit from the practices. You’ve been told by people with much more experience than you that it is about practices. Yet you demand that it’s beliefs be objective and solve things like the abortion issue, and you show no interest in Buddhist practice. Fine, skip to some other religion or path or therapeutic process. This one’s not for you. You have no interest in it and you don’t listen to the people who have more knowledge and experience than you. For example, that you are basically making category errors.

It is objectively true that many people benefit from Buddhist practices. Since people are different not all modalities are going to work for all people. You are not interested in the practices, or seeing if by any chance you are one of the people who benefits. Perhaps if you practiced for a long time then you would find out something about some of the ultimate metaphysical issues you want answers to now. Perhaps not. If you participated and felt better, according to your own evaluation, then there is no loss. Right now you want answers that you can’t possible understand and in fact are considered blocks to what is considered growth away from suffering in Buddhism. A car mechanic is not going to fix you teeth.

Total category error.

Yes, because you have blind faith that you can make evaluations of things you have no experience of via words on a screen from your bedroom. The Buddhists who decided certain kinds of metaphysical conclusions spent vast periods of time doing things you have no experience of. You haven’t the slightly basis for saying it is faith, which is precisely not what Buddhism is about.

You are essentially so far from making any sense when you encounter Buddhism and show no interest in learning about Buddhism in any practical experiential sense that I find myself pointing out things about a system I do not like.

You always talk about bringing the debate down to concrete things. In this the Buddhist is with you. Shut the fuck up and meditate. Get some help with it if you need it. That’s concrete. You’re just throwing words and abstractions at a tradition you know nothing about, and making that clear in the way you talk about it and expect it to work for you on your verbal abstract issues. You’re not interested.

What you present is a lie here. And you were just rude to Felix by not really reading or even trying to understand what he said to you. The guy spent some time to answer your questions. The least you could do is notice his answers, consider it possible that in some way he is representing a Buddhist response. A tiny step, not the final answer to all these metaphysical ideas and to resolving all the problems of the world. That a quasi-Buddhist in good faith offered you something you might be able to use as a step in a direction. You evaluate everything as ‘did it just solve all moral conflicts’ or’ did it prove to me I will never truly die’. That’s the attitude of a child. Fine we all have those child yearnings in us, to understand the ultimate answers without doing anything and right now, thanks Mom. But an adult that turns to the keyboard and the screen, and actually considers that perhaps tiny steps are necessary to get to knowledge and solutions to the world’s problems. Would you want to make that first step? Would you want to try what this person respectfully suggesting suggests? No is a fine answer. It hopefully shows you read and deciding that isn’t a step you want to take. Not even giving a shit about what the person wrote is rude. It’s also a terrible way to use experts ro people with more knowledge and experience than you in a specific area. You call the expert and then ignore them. No, you know how they should teach you and what you need to understand their area of expertise. Not them, you. If you’re real purpose was to learn, then you’re not only being rude to them, but to yourself.

Attachment to his way of thinking and his way of doing philosophy.

What else is there to say?

We can’t make him do something that he doesn’t want to do.

Yeah, and it’s not really the right thread. To get Buddhism is to practice it. I think this is actually much more true in general in all sorts of fields, but it is openly acknowledged and stressed in Buddhism. He doesn’t want to get Buddhism, he wants to test it at such an abstract, disengaged and all or nothing level that it’s really an entirely different topic.

The irony is very strong for those who have experienced Buddhism because it so clearly is not, according to Buddhism, a good way to learn about it, and then further it’s busy mind stuff that Buddhism strives to undermine.

It’s bizarre to you. So, it must be bizarre to others as well?

My interest in Buddhism, as with my interest in religion as a whole, revolves almost entirely around how someone’s beliefs/faith precipitate particular sets of behaviors in their interactions with others from day to day…behaviors thought to be in alignment with that which someone imagines or wishes his or her fate to be on the other side.

Who here, besides new members, doesn’t know that by now?

In regard to the coronavirus, either karma and enlightenment factor into the behaviors chosen here and now by Buddhists or they don’t. As that is factored into their thinking about “I” on the other side.

That is where I wish to take the exchange. If others do not, they should clearly move on to others. No hard feelings.

Huh? He seemed to clearly be making a distinction between going about the business of walking, eating, washing and sitting down more or less mindlessly and, then, as a more enlightened sort, doing these things more “mindfully”.

Okay, how is this distinction made by him in regard to human interactions swirling around coronavirus and abortion? Given his present understanding of Buddhism.

The rest is just you further explaining me – pinning me down – in a manner in which I don’t recognize at all.

And how bizarre is that, right?