I don't get Buddhism

Come on, how is this not just “intellectual gibberish”?

And, if there is nothing to attain, then what the hell is the point of reincarnation and Nirvana?

And of course the “self” – at least from the cradle to the grave – is on a never ending quest to attain, among other things, something to eat, something to drink, something to wear, someplace to live.

Not to mention the endless task of sustaining all of the very real things that we – actual flesh and blood human beings – come to want.

In other words, in so many clearly delineated ways, the self is anything but a semblance.

The paths are there alright. But what may not be is the capacity to distinguish between enlightened and unenlightened journeys on them from the cradle to the grave.

Why yours and not another’s? Why yours then, but now another one altogether?

It’s not for nothing that some Buddhists prefer to live in enclaves…as far removed from the lives that most of us live as they can.

As for the “gateless gate”, there is clearly one that separates life from death. And there is being on one side of the gate here and now and the other side there and then.

Only no one has ever actually demonstrated the latter. So is it really a surprise that any number of religious traditions have to concoct that part in their heads?

Right, like the Buddhists among us can speak of enlightened behavior on this side the grave precipitating karma precipitating a favorable reincarnation, precipitating whatever it is they think that Nirvana is, while I get to embody the consolation of construing myself in an essentially meaningless human existence tumbling over into the abyss that is oblivion.

Sure, there are atheists who wallow in the sort of smugness that comes from thinking that they embody both intellectual honesty and integrity in shunning religion. And, as well, if it brings you some measure of satisfaction to think that I am one of them, so be it.

But this suggests far more about you than it does me.

Well, whatever that means.

The assumption here is that a depressing philosophy cannot be appealing due to various kinds of secondary gains that are in fact comforting. If all human interactions are meaningless, then one can ‘justifiably’ avoid them. And while this is depressing, that habit - of avoiding human contact - can protect one from the sharper, on a felt-level more catastrophic feelings that arise when one loses love or friends, for example.

And note, I am not saying that iambiguous has his depressing philosophy because of this particular desire to avoid. What I am saying is he presumes that because his ideas make him feel bad they cannot also be a comfort and self-protective. At least he will never be fooled/hurt/dumped/intimately judged again. For example.

Cynicism (and there are many varieties of this) despite it being in many instances paintful can also be soothing around greater pains. Various nihilisms also. Even pure clinical depression can be protective. The person in question, for example, may be avoiding anger. And the pain of ‘being like dad’ keeps them from expressing or even feeling anger when treated poorly at work or in relationships, because the pain of depressions seems or even is less acute then the guilts and fear about being a bad person.

And again, just to be doubly clear. None of these are my beliefs about what is really going on in Iambiguous. Who knows? My point is that his binary assumption that if some idea or set of ideas carries with it unpleasant emotions, it cannot also be comforting, is confused about human nature.

He is telling himself a story and now felix. It might even be comforting one.

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

Nothing new here. Asking someone what they believe will follow after death rather than how they would go about demonstrating that what they believe is actually true. Especially in regard to that which is of vital interest to all of us: the posthumous “I”.

So, let’s see what “in his head” he believes about it:

What could possibly be less ambiguous? Now all we need is for someone at the “Vajrayana level” to connect the dots between that and enlightened behaviors on this side of the grave.

Anyone here willing to note the distinction that they make between “virtuous and non-virtuous actions”…given their own past?

[-o<

How can things like this be believed other than as a component of human psychology? Religion basically becoming the mother of all psychological defense mechanisms. You “think” the after life into existence.

Though, in fact, most don’t even do that. They simply “rethink” what others have taught them given the paths invented by any number of religious denominations.

That’s how it all unfolded for me back when I was able to believe in immortality and salvation. Now I’m left only with slimmest of hopes that somehow someone in places like this might manage to rekindle a spark of promise that this is not just an essentially meaningless existence that ends in oblivion.

No, the assumption is that however appealing any philosophy an atheist subscribes to might be, how on earth does it stack up against the comfort and the consolation embedded in the belief that one can be Enlightened here and now and attain Immortality there and end?

I mean, come on, you would have to be a fucking idiot not to grasp how enormous that gap is.

More intellectual gibberish. Human interactions are anything but meaningless. It’s just that sometimes the meaning is derived objectively from the either/or world, and other times subjectively from the is/ought world.

Besides, does life have to be meaningful to enjoy good food, good music, good art, good sex, good careers, good friendships, good accomplishments?

As for avoiding or not avoiding human interactions, that can sometimes come down to actual options.

You know, whatever that means. But don’t ask me what I think it means, ask him to tell you what I think it means.

Psychobabble anyone?

Then this ridiculous “full disclosure”:

I dare challenge someone to translate this into “ordinary language philosophy”.

As “comforting” as possible.

Iambiguous said “Besides, does life have to be meaningful to enjoy good food, good music, good art, good sex, good careers, good friendships, good accomplishments?”

Oh okay. So it seems that you acknowledge certain imminent values even if you are agnostic about transcendent ones. How are all those goods not meaningful?

Who says they are not meaningful?

Do you imagine my point here is to suggest the beliefs that Buddhists hold dear are not meaningful?

Do you imagine my points is to debunk religious values as, what, inherently meaningless?

No, I am interested in exploring how Buddhists intertwine what they construe the meaning of enlightenment and karma to be here and now as that impacts on what they construe the meaning of reincarnation and Nirvana to be there and then. Insofar as they choose particular behaviors.

And, of far greater importance, the extent to which what they believe is able to be reconfigured into an actual demonstration such that I might be inclined to believe the same thing.

Iamb says there is only the tiniest chance they are not meaningful…

Here it is stated as simply the case…

Who said it? He said it.

Note: his reaction to what is simply stated as a meaningless world.

These quotes are all fairly recent, but they actually go back years, in slightly different formulations, where he states that existence is meaningless.

He’s a liar.

Note: you shift to atheism. My post was talking about your belief in the meaninglessness of life. This is a very common habit you have.

You shift the topic.

Now,yes, your atheism is part of why you think things are meaningless, but here we are in a Buddhism thread. Buddhism is actually more severe (in many of its forms) than mere Western atheism. The Western Atheist may or may not be afraid of the loss of self at death, but generally thinks they get this time. Their self lasts throughout their lifetime. Buddhism generally asserts that there is no self that persists through time. In fact the comfort comes in So you don’t even get that basic facet of Buddhism. One stops worrying about death because one realizes that there is no self to lose. That actually in much of buddhism what comes back via rebirth, not via reincarnation, is not you, but a pattern that is similar to the pattern that was there before. Not only will the ‘you’ that is now nto experience this next life, but ‘you’ won’t be around next week. There is no you. It’s dasein-based non-essentialism on steroids, Buddhism. And Buddhism is generally also atheist, so you’re raising atheism is, well, just silly, here, apart from the way it is a strawman, since I was focused on something else. And many atheists are fairly ok with dying, in the end, including Western ones. Unlike you. In fact scientific materialism also goes against a self that persists through a lifetime, since the matter in the body is being replaced all the time. YOu think you are facing uncomfortable truths and others comfort themselves, but that is hardly the case.

Many atheists are ok with dying. But not you. Some of them may have spent some time contemplating eternal existence. Some may simply be engaged in life in ways you are not. There are likely all sorts of reasons. But you assume that

your
ideas
must
lead
to
your despressed life hating state.

But notice also that you don’t actually deal with my argument.

People choose death, resignation, avoidance of life all the time to get away from social shame, embarrassment, guilt, loss of love.

You may think this is illogical, but then this presumes that people make all their choices based on logic. Or that people even know what they are doing. We know from cognitive science that people make poor choices all the times, make choices that are not based on logic all the time and so.

Further are you really going to tell me that people who kill themselves when it is found out that they have photos of them on the internet giving blow jobs to someone (say a high school girl) or have committed crimes or not longer have the wealth they had or the job they had and can’t face their families

all

think

they are going to heaven or will be reincarnated?

People actively choose actual death to avoid all sorts of social feelings, all the time.

Read that again: you think people would not choose a despressing belief to comfort themselves. Not only will they choose comforting beliefs to comfort themselves, they will actually end their own existences to avoid all sorts of social pains. And they are not assuming they are coming back. And these suicides are often well planned, not just impulsive.

You could certainly find comfort in holding onto beliefs that mean there is no point in trying to find love or intimacy ever again and going through pain you have gone through before. Humans do shit like that all the time.

People will avoid getting angry even if this leads to depression and suicide, because anger is so ego-dystonic for them.

You don’t realize it, but basically what you have just asserted is there is no chance you are confused about your own motives and further that you make choices based on logic.

Good luck with that type of blanket self-assessment.

And you can label things you do not understand as babble, but the truth it’s obvious you don’t know much about cognitive science, psychology in general, how people make decisions, contradictions in the self, secondary gain around beliefs and behavioral patterns and more. Just because you have lacked an interest and any study of a subject (either formal or self-guided) does not make it babble.

It must be gibberish, because you don’t like the door it opens.

And jesus, you don’t know basic shit about Buddhism. Notice your assumption that Buddhism offers comfort via beliefs. WEll, some manage that I’m sure, but actually Buddhisms beliefs are extremely disturbing, not only will you not go on experiencing after death, but tomorrow morning it will nto be you, there is no permanence at all. The comfort Buddhism offers is via practice not beliefs. That there is nothing to lose, rather than what you keep assuming that one comes to believe in reincarnation. But you’d know this kind of shit if you actually spent time trying to understand it and interacting with practitioners face to face and participating.

But you are not interested. So your posts just reveal idiotic Western assumptions and then your own particular idiotic twists on these. And if the conclusion is problematic, you pretend that your ignorance means you are a good judge of the coherence of anything presented to you.

You may think some gallery you are playing to will agree with you, but there’s only a few people interacting with you. And to a large degree the three of us notice the exact same things about you. Over and over.

You’re a troll here - faux interest - and a liar elsewhere.

You missed the one essential word that he uses.

“ESSENTIALLY meaningless”

He’s not saying that people don’t find things or actions to be meaningful. He’s not saying that he personally doesn’t find things or actions to be meaningful.

The ‘real problem’ is that he has not found something which all rational people are obligated to consider meaningful.

Notice also that he is not saying that there is no such thing. He’s only saying that he has not found it.

And this mirrors the other ‘problems’ :

He has not found the objective morality that all rational people are obligated to accept.

He has not found a god, the true god, THE God that all rational people are obligated to believe in.

He has not found the one religion …

He has not found the one philosophy …

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Since this is all about iambiguous not Buddhism, I responded to it on iambiguous’ thread “on discussing god and religion”.

No, I note that given the manner in which, in many important respects, I construe the self here as an existential fabrication/contraption rooted in dasein, “I” have come to conclude certain things – here and now – about certain aspects of human interactions in a particular subjective, subjunctive fashion.

That it does not appear to “me” that philosophers are able to pin “meaning” down definitively.

And that of greater importance is one’s capacity to close the gap between what one claims to believe [about anything] and an actual demonstration that all rational people are obligated to believe the same.

And then for, among others, the Kantians to note their capacity to link rationality with virtue given their reaction to human behaviors in conflict over value judgments in a particular context.

What’s your point? How, in the absence of a God, the God, my God, or demonstrable proof that there is in fact an essentially meaningful link between enlightenment/karma and reincarnation/Nirvana, are religious value expressed here not instead the embodiment of existential meaning rooted in dasein?

I’m not claiming that essential meaning doesn’t exist between life and death, between “I” here and now and “I” there and then, only that “I” myself [here and now] don’t believe it. Though I never I argue that I can actually demonstrate this!

Again: Huh?!!!

Over and over and over again, I make this distinction between 1] things construed as meaningful to us in regard to objective realities embedded in the either/or world and 2] moral and political value judgments that revolve around assessments of what constitutes a rational understanding of the world around us. That which “I” construe to be more the intersubjective/intersubjunctive embodiment of dasein.

How, in this regard, am “I” a liar? Well, it could be shown that in fact God does exist. Or that in a No God world mere mortals can in fact define or deduce rational and moral behavior into existence. Or science is able to demonstrate empirically why a particular behavior in a particular context either is or is not inherently/necessarily rational/virtuous.

So, sure, I could be a liar in that what I think is true here and now turns out not to be true at all.

So, okay, Mr. Religious objectivist or Mr. No God moral objectivist, come up with the demonstrable argument and settle it.

This, however, is not the most important point in my view. That revolves instead around the God and the No God objectivists who insist that not only are there essential religious and moral and political truths, but that there must be because they have, in fact, already found them.

Then down through the ages they have acquired the necessary political power to, among other things, weed out the infidels.

And, no, not just the Communists.

And to the extent that conclusions of this sort become either solutions or problems is in turn embedded existentially in dasein.

Then, in grappling with this aspect of one’s “self”, it can devolve further into the assumption that “I” is fractured and fragmented.

That, all the more grimly, some think, it appears entirely reasonable that this be the case.

‘Essentially’ doesn’t personalize what it modifies. It means…

It is an objective adverb. IOW it means that those are the qualities of the thing not merely his experience of them. Though maybe I misunderstood your point. Something might seem meaningful, but essentially, it is not that. It’s real nature is meaningless.

Notice here, he denies that he is saying that their values are ‘inherently’ meaningless.

My emphasis.

He denies it but uses a synonym elsewhere to describe values in general, and here in the Buddhist thread.

And that’s a valid philosophical viewpoint. It’s not that he makes the claim, it’s that he denies making the claim.

And there is a big difference between saying that one is not convinced something is X and stating that something is not X. Since he denied the latter, I quoted him saying the latter. That life was in essence meaningless. That’s its real nature is meaningless.

I really don’t know how to get more smoking gun than this. I never said X. Quote of person saying X.

Sure. I mean, I’ve seen the ‘all rational people criterion’ aimed at morals and then also at processes that might make one feel better. I hadn’t seen it aimed at meaning, but it wouldn’t surprise me.

He asserts that they are essentially meaningless. He doesn’t say that he hasn’t found it himself. He may say that elsewhere.

I would not be surprised at all if on other occasions he personalizes it and frame things in skeptical terms and/or in terms of what he has not found. But then he also allows himself to dismiss things in objective terms as if they do not exist. He said he never said something, yet, in the very thread he denies saying such things, he said precisely that a number of times.

I mean, if we had a man in a relationship who made it clear on many occasions that he thought women and men were equal, but every now and then said to his wife something like ‘Well, of course you’d say that, all women are C____s’ , I don’t think one has to believe he isn’t sexist or, in this case, making objective claims. One can have contradictory beliefs. One can also be confused about what one believes.

We are not monolithic creatures and I think it’s a disservice to everyone to pretend he doesn’t act like an objectivist, for example, when at other times he denies it.

In this instance he clearly made statements that SHOULD lead someone to believe what Felix said he believed. I mean, even a tiny bit of integrity would have led him to concede that he made a lot of statements that would give any human being the impression he meant that, but he communicated poorly.

But no, he responded with ‘I never said that.’

Well, sorry, he did. And not just once. And I stopped looking, just in this thread, after I had a number of examples.

Notice how he responds to you…

So, as quoted he claimed several times that it is absolutely necessary that human interactions/human existence/the world is meaningless.

And then he tries to shift the onus.

I didn’t say X.
What I meant was X (again).
If you think that’s wrong, demonstrate it to all rational people.

Notice where he skips demonstrating his position, one he also denies he has, to all rational people.

I do understand he believes people may think something is meaningful.

Essential meaning is objective meaning.

Biggus doesn’t say that it doesn’t exist. He says that he has not found it and nobody has demonstrated it to him.

Biggus doesn’t deny subjective meaning. But it’s the product of dasein. An existential contraption.

Is he lying? Technically no.
Is he confusing? Yes.

LOL That he is.

Perhaps, he is himself confused about what he believes and this shows through in what he writes. He is confusing because he si confused, even about himself. Or cagey: he might also realize that consciously or not, that making the strong claim that there is no meaning means HE would bear the burden of proof.

And I think we both know he wants the burden of proof always to be something only other people bear.

In any case, it seems to me in his quotes, for example the one describing me, he is saying that meaning doesn’t exist. I know on other occasions he will say he hasn’t found it. But it seems to me he allows himself to make objective claims that it does not exist, then is surprised and sometimes outraged that anyone could think he meant that claim.

Like here again…

This sentence even includes his reaction AND the essentially meaningless world. Not his interpretation, not his experience of, not what seems to be…

but is reaction to an essentially meaningless world. Not qualification. And there were other quotes and I quite looking early.

I do believe that when called out on this he will return to his ‘official position’ which is that he does not know. But people can have official positions they identify with and not take responsibility for what they also believe. And sometimes these unofficial opinions are more real for them.

But I’ll drop this here. Just to be clear again, I think you are correct about his official position and that you could probably find a number of quotes to support that, just as I did for mine.

On the contrary, in regard to human interactions in the either/or world, there are any number of variables, factors, relationships etc., that we seem able to demonstrate to others as essentially/objectively true.

For example, Donald Trump is now president of the United States. Unless, of course, unbeknownst to me, Trump just died of a heart attack.

Now, assuming he is still alive and well, there is a mountain of objective/essential facts that we can accumulate about the man. Dasein here revolves only around what as an individual I think I know about him. Can what I think I know about him be demonstrated to others?

Or, on this thread, what can I demonstrate is true about Donald Trump in regard to what he gets about Buddhism?

So, I can Google Donald Trump and Buddhism: google.com/search?source=hp … ent=psy-ab

I can wade through all of this and decide for myself what is in fact essentially/objectively true.

Instead, on threads like this, my interest revolves around what others think they “get” about Buddhism as this is pertinent to the manner in which I construe subjective points of view here as the embodiment of dasein. And then in what they might be able to demonstrate that all rational and enlightened people are obligated to “get” about it in turn.

In regard to “morality here and now” and “immortality there and then”. My own “thing” here in regard to God and religion.

But this is always a tricky thing even in regard to the either/or world. For example, meaning is pouring in around the country regarding the death of George Floyd. Individuals impart different meaning to it. And that meaning is subject to what they think they know about the death itself, the circumstances surrounding it, the role that race and police brutality plays in it…and on and on.

To construe “I” in the is/ought and not often feel confused, uncertain, ambiguous, ambivalent etc., is basically/precisely the point I make about the objectivists. All of that is subsumed for them in whatever they anchor “I” to in order to sustain that feeling of being in sync with the “real me” in sync with the “right thing to do”.

Like somehow you do?

How about this:

Why don’t you and KT get into a discussion about these two factors in regards to God and religion? And, sure, by all means, completely avoid contact with anything resembling “a particular context”. :wink:

Is Karma a Law of Nature?
It seems Matthew Gindin is destined to ask, and answer, this question.

Sure, it’s one thing to speculate that “overall” karma has a role to play in our lives. Clearly there are behaviors that we can choose that precipitate consequences that come back to impact our lives in either a constructive or destructive manner. And, up to a point, this can be calculated in a reasonable manner. Cause and effect here is calibrated day in and day out by many of us. Given the gap between what we think we know about any particular situation and all that can be known. But then to reconfigure this into a religious narrative where karma becomes linked to either enlightened or unenlightened choices leading to an afterlife where one is better or worse off…?

How is that brought down to earth?

Here of course the “absolute law” is ever and always encompassed in the religious narrative itself. Subscribe to Buddhism and you have one set of moral parameters, subscribe to Catholicism and you have another, subscribe to Scientology and you have another still. Some with a God, the God, others with altogether different fonts.

But, for me, it always comes down to this: that while karma “exerts an influence over all things”, what does it mean to speak of “Cosmic Justice” here and now in this set of circumstances given all that is at stake?

Either this or that denomination can, demonstrably, encompass the optimal choices that one can make, or, instead, it’s the way it actually seems to be: leaps of faith taken to any number of denominations that are ever evolving and changing over time historically or across space culturally.

Then coming down experientially to the actual experiences that any individual has predisposing him or her to this rather than that leap of faith.

But just how “absolute” are the paths here? And what happens when they come into conflict? It’s no wonder then that any number of “ecumenical” pathways are forged through the dogmatic thickets. That way religion becomes a kind of cafeteria. You pick and choose only those behaviors that provide you with the least possible restrictions. You bet on a more progressive or liberal God to judge your soul.

Sure, if you’re after a “workable theory of morality”, almost any “world of words” can suffice. But either enlightened behavior and karma are better suited to, say, giving birth to unborn babies or it’s okay to abort them. Well-being may revolve for any particular pregnant woman around giving birth or in killing the unborn baby. Same with suffering. And given the manner in which someone “gets” Buddhism that will translate into a better afterlife or a worse one.

But which? And how can that actually be demonstrated?

From the Secular Buddhism Podcast

“What Is Secular Buddhism”

First, of course, secular Buddhism? Is that even possible in the minds of those who call themselves religious Buddhists? Here for example?

Buddhism in which the benefits of the practice – a way to constructively discipline the mind and body – are not attached to an understanding of enlightenment and karma as a means to an end. The end being reincarnation and Nirvana.

Indeed, to what extent does secular Buddhism delve at all into the actual existential relationship between morality here and now and immortality there and then.

After all, if the aim is to focus in on a Buddhism that “speaks to me”, where does that frame of mind end and my own frame of mind – dasein – begin? One can choose to be a secular Buddhist in any particular historical and cultural and experiential context? How then do the variables attached to a “particular world” impact one’s understanding/embodiment of Buddhism?

Yes, up in the stratosphere of psychologisms – “a tendency to interpret events or arguments in subjective terms” – this “general description intellectual contraption” can do wonders [for some] in attaining and then sustaining some semblance of mental and emotional equanimity.

But: it ever and always depends on what you “see”. On the actual experiences and sets of circumstances you must endure; and on the options available to you in dealing with them.

Everyone has a different line to draw/cross here.

Thus when someone speaks of “the way we see things”, the implication is that there are better ways in which to see them instead. And sometimes there are. And if a secular Buddhist provides you with a pathway that does in fact make your life more tranquil and productive and worthwhile…?

On the other hand, anyone who suggests the focus should be more on changing the way you see the world rather than changing the world itself has never read, among others, Marx and Engels.

Or take the reality of racism and police violence. The headlines screaming at us here. Does secular Buddhism focus in on things like that?

Without Dharma there would be no Buddhism, no… anything.

There would be no anything without Dharma, no… Buddhism.