I don't get Buddhism

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

If somehow you can take these words and make them useful…make them meaningful and relevant insofar as you react to your own death…then he has been successful in delivering his message.

But from my frame of mind, reading this sort of thing is the equivalent of encountering a Hallmark greeting card…or interpreting a numbingly vague horoscope in the newspaper. In terms of both life and death, it really tells me nothing at all.

Virtually anyone can read it and fit it snuggly into lives that from day to day span the entire moral and political spectrum. Almost any behaviors can be rationalized because who is to say what it means to be connected to reality. It doesn’t even make the attempt to deal with the consequences of conflicting goods attached to one or another religious narrative that, down through the ages have precipiated all manner of ghastly human deaths.

It is just another “world of words” that some feel compelled to create and then sustain in their head because in there it really doesn’t matter the extent to which the dots can be connected between the words and the world that we live in. Only that in believing them it makes you feel less disturbed and perturbed about all the terrible things that can unfold on this side of the grave by feeling so much better about all the wonderful things that will unfold on the other side of it.

And I suspect my own inflection here encompasses some measure of the bitterness I feel at having lost the capacity to think myself into believing it as well.

You’re obsessed by tropes that you want others to believe that you don’t believe and you’re too complex to understand yourself.

You forgot this: :wink:

Right? :laughing:

So, we have a Buddhist ‘wall of words’, which is associated with practices that have scientfic support that they help people

and we have your wall of words here, your practice, that has no backing behind it at all, scientific of otherwise. Yet you continue to produce your wall of words and will not try something that has more evidence behind it than your current behavior.

From here you ‘make them the issue’ which you just as not good when aimed at you, but par for your behavior aimed at others. That’s a context, and one in which you engage in at least two types of hypocrisy in a single post.

That’s a context relevant to your pain and bitterness. It’s your context.

Maybe if you can convince others that you don’t believe, it will help you overcome your fear that there may be an afterlife. ( Shrug.)

Sigh…

World of words, not wall. If you can even grasp the distinction.

I have noted on a number of posts above that Buddhism has helped many people to attain and then to sustain a disciplined, constructive frame of mind in their interactions with others from day to day.

My “thing” with religion however revolves far more around the existential relationship between morality on this side of the grave and immortality on the other side of it. As that relates to the extent to which any religious denomination is able to demonstrate [to me] that what they believe about this relationship is in fact true. True for all men and women who wish to be thought of as rational, as enlightened, as virtuous human beings.

Out in a particular set of circumstances where moral and political conflicts are rife. As a result of either God or No God moral narratives and political agendas.

The “issue” for me is always moral and political objectivism. And it’s inherent danger when either God or No God objectivists have been able to gain access to the power necessary to act on their conviction that those who are not “one of us” are the enemy. Cue human history for example.

At the same time, I am more than willing to concede that moral nihilism, whether embodied by the “show me the money” folks who own and operate the global economy, or by those individuals – sociopaths among others – who act on the moral dictum that “in the absence of God all things are permitted”, can be equally if not even more dangerous given particular sets of circumstances.

Yep, that’s what I think alright. You know, here and now.

Once again, Huh?!

My whole point is that my own argument here is just another existential contraption rooted in dasein. I can’t even convince myself that it reflects the optimal manner in which to grasp human interactions and “I” going back to whatever the explanation is for existence itself. Let alone that it reflects the most rational manner in which to think about the afterlife.

And where on earth did you pick up on the idea that I fear there is an afterlife?

Hell, I can’t even think myself into believing that beyond all doubt I have free will in regard to anything at all.

I merely speculate that your own peace of mind here is predicated not on what you yourself can demonstrate is true but only on that which you have managed to think up in your own head is true.

But, fuck that, right? As long as you can keep it up. All the way to the grave if possible.

Only I have to say that in discussing these things with me, you are rolling the dice.

After all, what if my points start to actually sink in? [-o<

Are you joking? Do you really imagine you’re bringing something new to me? Do you suppose that your caricature of a religion is a threat to me? I’ve stared into the abyss. You’ve said nothing new to me. My image of you is a lonely man walking backwards like a crab crying for others to join him in his absurd retreat from betterment. Why? I’m thinking cowardice. Courage isn’t a theme that I’ve seen you address.

Of course you’re only paraphrasing Karpel Tunnel, right?

On the other hand, does he know that? :wink:

Those were my thoughts. They had nothing to do with Karpal Tunnel. If our observations sound similar perhaps it’s because they’re converging on the same object i.e. you.

Buddha declined every request for a positive description of Nirvana, the unconditioned, insisting that it was “incomprehensible, indescribable, inconceivable, and unutterable”.

Yes, I typed the wrong word, but, wow. World of words is even better. It perfectly encapsulates your modus operandi, which you occasionally defend as the only one left to you because of your lack of mobility, even though that excuse is patently false. They would come to you. Practices can be engaged in, often, where you are with phone call or other guidance. You could check off many items on that list. You could start to go through them. You could ADD other approaches, a little bit, to what you have now, without stopping your so far failing approach that has no scientific backing.

Yet you keep using a method that has not worked, based only on words, rather than try things that have some scientific backing, that involve encounters with others, physical practices, participation without words, or with both words and action.

You expect to learn and change via and only via words on a screen. Learning not by doing, not via engagement, not by practices, but through a world of words only, in a process that that has not made any changes in a decade in, for example, your F&F.

Perfect, even better, thank you for the term. It fits you to a T.

You do understand that integrity includes being able to admit specific errors.

Tossing in, occasionally, that you might be wrong, in the abstract, is facile compared to actually being able to own up to your own specific BS in an interaction.

But you keep using that solely word-based modus for learning and change, while at the same time accusing others of being in a world of words, Mr Only Words On A Screen.

(and yes, duh, we are only words on a screen here, but the world of words is not the limit to how we learn and change)

Your criticisms fit your posts and approach much better than anyone else’s posts and approach.

And you tell people with actual experience of the things you only know through words on a screen (or in judgements people you met once thirty years ago) about THEIR world of words. Sink calling the bathtub white. Wait. Sink calling the multicolored tiles white.

(your summation of the benefits of Buddhism is, by the way, a very poor one)

How convenient. On the other hand, as long as it existed for him “in his head”, he could go on taking comfort in the fact that even though, like everyone else, he would tumble over into the abyss that is death, there it was – Nirvana! – waiting for him on the other side.

Indeed, that’s the part I do get about Buddhism. All a Buddhist has to do is to believe in Nirvana. That is what makes it real. Much like those who embrace Western faiths believe in Heaven. Much like those of all the other religious denominations who wallow blissfully in their own equivalent of salvation.

It’s just that when it comes to the part where I ask Buddhists to connect the dots existentially between morality on this side of the grave and immortality on the other side, they fall back only on what they believe about karma, enlightenment, reincarnation and Nirvana.

Then all they need but do is to ask me about my own fractured and fragmented reaction to an essentially meaningless world that ends in the obliteration of “I” for all of eternity.

Right?

And all I can note here is that, just like them, this is merely something that, as a particular dasein, “I” have come to believe in turn. Like them, I have no capacity to actually demonstrate that what I believe is true.

It’s just that I happen to believe it is far more incumbent upon those who claim the existence of something to prove that in fact it does exist. Rather than for others to prove that it doesn’t exist instead.

But, no doubt about it, you are comforted and consoled here and I am not. And, yes, I wish I could think myself into believing in something that would comfort and console me too.

So, sure, revel in your “for all practical purposes” victory. However much it is manufactured only in your head.

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” When you stop believing your caricature of religion, reality will be there.

And, after all, you are a janitor.

You know, like Will Hunting. :wink:

You just ascribed motive. You get that, right? You, as usual, implicitly claimed to know why he said that. Of course you know nothing about Buddhism so you have no context for his assertion. But you’re not interested. Which is convenient, because when you don’t something about a subject you are not interested in, that puts a lot of emphasis on practice to aid undertanding, you can always mind read dead people. It’s their fault you’re ignorant or they are scamming.

This just shows, again, that you know nothing about the subject. Wake up in Nirvana when he dies, duh. More mind reading here, also, as if you know things.

Actually no, that’s more than slightly confused.

Nope.

Some may do this, sure. But most probably find someone who is not interested in Buddhism, acting like he not only does know things know specific things about Buddhism which he does not, like the dumb quotes above, who tells why they believe what they believe, and what is going on in their minds.

I don’t think many would consider that a need.

Which ironically serves as a basis for insulting people, ‘reading’ their minds and misrepresenting their religion.

Anyone who makes a claim gathers some onus to demonstrate their claim, positive, negative, whatever.

Well, you may be suffering more, but you console yourself all the time here that you are the brave one, probably, facing the harsh epistemological situations we are in and the upcoming death. You also, with regularly, console yourself that, when criticized, you have never done anything anyone points out.

Shit, I was just about to say that to you.

You’re like a five year old who finds an adult book on, you pick the subject, and starts telling the adults the psychology of the people who wrote the books on subjects the kid has never studied nor has he ever participated in the activities necessary to understand the subject.

Great. A new world of words allowing us to grapple with his old world of words.

Then, what else, another world of words to make absolutely certain that you understand that I and I alone am the problem here.

[size=50]We’ll need a context of course[/size]

Note to others:

What is it about me that reconfigures him into this sniveling caricature of a philosopher? Then reducing me down to much the same.

Again, I think it’s a personal problem. And, he’ll either get to that or he won’t.

Until then it’s “Fish: like shooting Karpel Tunnels in a barrel”.

Philosophically as it were.

:banana-linedance: :banana-dance: :banana-guitar: :banana-jumprope: :banana-ninja: :banana-rainbow: :banana-rock: :banana-stoner: :banana-wrench: :banana-tux: :banana-skier: :banana-parachute: :banana-fingers: :banana-explosion: :banana-dreads: :banana-blonde: :banana-angel:

He earned that, right? :wink:

Suppose Buddha was nothing but a man who saw the suffering of the world and and tried to eliminate the unnecessary suffering that he saw. Suppose that people who follow his teachings are happier than they would be if they didn’t. What other than sheer malevolence would cause someone to attack Buddha or those who follow his teachings? Only someone who thought she had a better way would be justified in criticizing Buddhism. A miserable person who thought that Buddhism didn’t help would be motivated by evil if they sought to bring those who thought they were benefiting from it down to his level of misery. Iambiguous?

Look, if it gives you a smug satisfaction to portray me in this manner, fine. If it gives you a comforting and consoling contentment in portraying Buddha as you do, fine too.

On the other hand, other religious denominations will still go on insisting that until Buddhists accept their own faith, they will attain neither immortality nor salvation.

They will be left behind.

Why? Because what is religion if not something that was invented in order to connect the dots existentially between morality on this side of the grave and immortality on the other side. Cue, for example, human history to date.

The stakes here could not possibly be more substantial. Right?

And then there are those folks who insist that much of human suffering is embedded in political economy. That the rich and the powerful rig the system so that the biggest swaths of society suffer considerably more than others. That religion is just an “opiate” preventing these folks from rising up politically and changing the way things are.

But: No little fluffy clouds here, right?

Besides, what I ask of Buddhists is what I ask of all religionists: Where’s the beef?

Where is the demonstration that what they believe in their head is in fact in sync with that which all rational and virtuous men and women are obligated to believe in turn.

Again, with so much at stake!

For a fractured and fragmented guy, you sure have no trouble making ridiculous generalizations about things you know little about without qualifying your speculation. Here you batch religions around a very narrow idea of what religion does and one that doesn’t fit some religions well at all - many versions of Hinduism and even objective forms of Buddhism do not fit this. Or that there is anything remotely like heaven in other traditions or immortality in any sense that wouldn’t scare the shit out of most Westerners since you don’t continue to exist. Your obsession with morality as a way to earn something - a very Western and really rather immoral attitude in most systems of morality - is being projected onto areas of life you are ignorant about. Your summation here also assumes you beliefs not only about the religions themselves, what they are for, but the motives of people lot dead. It’s just an amazing bunch of implicit claims from someone who expects others to demonstrate stuff so every rational person on earth must agree.

Why do you allow yourself to spread a bunch of bullshit, when you expect others to create arguments with magical universal force?

This is generally called hypocrisy. And with good reason-

If you actually believed so much was at stake you’d try some stuff.

And where’s the beef that your approach is a good one?

One is always faced with choosing between approaches and choosing not to try/add on other approaches.

You, however, want to be convinced, through the work of others, how you should behavior to earn immortality. Even many Christian moralities would consider this an unlikely way to get into Heaven.

In any case:You are whining here as if others are responsible for your trying things. They’re not. You’re not interested.