Sceptics and the Buddha, a thread for everyone else :)

[Dancing David]

So that people like myself will know what you don't believe in when you do write to the credit of or in defense of or to explain Buddhism, here is a list of items you can check as not believing in, in any way you understand them to mean and don't believe in them:

[ ] 1. Sentient beings have always existed and should head for Nirvana, the definitively final kind.
​

I have seen no evidence that sentient beings exist anywhere other than on our very limted speck of codmic debris. Nibbanna is a state of freedom where attachment does not lead to further suffering, it is attained by sentient beings and ends when they die. That which does not exist can not be 'liberated', death is the end of life. That is all she wrote, there ain't no more. So the belief in parinirvana is very outrageous.

[ ] 2. Non-self, not-self, no-self

The self that does not exist is the one that you called the 'moral' self in another self. The self that does not exists is the transcendant self of the immaterialists and many religions. There is no soul, there is no spirit. there are only bodies, within those bodies are thoughts, eomtions, perceptions and habits.
That is all there is there ain't no more.

[ ] 3. Karma

Karma/kamma is the consequence of our thoughts and actions, there is no soul to rebirth, there is no spirit to rebirth. When we diee, we are gone. All that remains are the consequences of our actions. AS ye sow, sp shall ye reap, that is karma.

[ ] 4. Rebirth

No rebirth, no reincarnation, no life after death. No transmogrification, we are not eben the same person moment to moment, the illusion of continuity is comforting but still an illusion. That is annicca, impermanace.
There is nothing to be reboren, when our bodies die, they can become worm food or feul for a fire. But that is the body, there is enetity of the living that passes on.
Dead is dead.

[ ] 5. Nirvana

If Nirvana is a place like heaven then it makes about as much sense. My understanding, and I am most likel;y to never attain nirvana , is that nirvana is a state where the person lives life in freedom, dealing with things as they arise, and not suffering from attachment to desire or fear of the undesired.

But when it comes the the Tushits, or Pure Land or any sort of rebirth, I just kind of laugh and go on.

Living free is nirvana.

[ ] 6. Anything else you don't believe in, which Buddhists with intelligence and literacy propound in Tibet, Burma, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam, China, Japan, and other lands in the Far East where Buddhism is the or a traditional religion. [Please add to the list.]

I have mentioned many such before, the belief that prayer to the buddha does more than any other prayer, the belief that acts can do more than create consequences. Given the age of the buddhist paths and the eighteen differnet paths it took, there are many different and varied beliefs to wonder at and be sceptical of.

Recently I was reading Thich Naht Hahn, he stated 'trees love you' I respect him as a teacher , but I am sceptical of trees loving me.
​

In this manner I will not be thinking that you harbor notions which I can't accept in you for being Westerners with a sound education in science and in critical clear thinking.

Is that a strawman? No, just so that I will know what you do believe in or more properly not believe in re Buddhism, and what I should think about you insofar as every thinker thinks also about another thinking person, without emotional downgrading but just academically -- namely as a subject of interest.

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Anyway, everyone and together:

Om Mani Padme Hum -- Om Mani Padme Hum -- Om Mani Padme Hum​

​

Yrreg

Owata loo naim!

Anyone who believes that buddhism is a religion that advances by faith rather than practise is well, foolish. I am sure that there are many who look at buddhism and see a magic genie that makes all there wishes come tue, oh well
May they be blessed.

 

[nosho]

This might lead one to conclude prima facie that skepticism would be welcome, but a casual observation of these threads shows a degree of foofaraw that is inconsistent with the idea.



Even before we can even approach the notion that these are true, let alone noble, we have to be able to understand what suffering is, and when we try to do that, it rolls around on the table like a glob of mercury.

I'll bring up what I did before. I was hospitalized for acute pancreatitis. It involved a great deal of what I think is appropriately called "suffering." I assert that Buddhism is pretty much useless for this, unless the Buddhists are planting opium poppies, a derivative of which at least took the edge off.

If the goal is to avoid pain or make pain go away, I think you're absolutely right in saying that Buddhism is useless.

Some experienced meditators are said to reach states where you can whack them with a plank and they don't react, but when the meditation session is over, you can bet they feel pain just like the rest of us.

Physical pain can certainly be viewed as a kind of suffering. But Buddhism as I understand it is not anesthesia. The path out of suffering does not mean running away from suffering; it means embracing suffering, and transforming it and yourself.

What does that mean with regard to physical pain? It means if you slap the Buddha, it'll still sting.

My point to Yrreg was that if he wants to kick away a cornerstone of Buddhism, he should start with the "4 noble truths."

Epepke, you nailed the issue when you asked for a definition of suffering. Because suffering is always going to be subjective, isn't it? There's never going to be a scientific measurement. There is physical suffering, emotional suffering, and lots of other kinds of suffering. How to make sense of it all?

Yet the fact remains that the 1st so-called "noble truth" seems to be true: There is suffering. We see it all around us. We experience it ourselves. Especially if we've had acute pancreatitis.

At this point, we could toss out the cornerstone "4 noble truths" of Buddhism by arguing that since there is no scientific way to measure suffering with precision, it's impossible to quantify and test the 1st "noble truth," and therefore it's impossible to envision a scenario in which evidence could surface to refute the assertion that "There is suffering," and therefore, ala Anthony Flew, it is not an assertion at all. Or something like that.

Problem is, even though we can't measure it precisely, we know that suffering exists.

What is suffering? If we can't answer that question in a concrete, scientific way, does that mean the only rational thing to do is to toss out Buddhist practice? The answer is right there on the table, rolling around like a glob of mercury ...

 

[epepke]

If the goal is to avoid pain or make pain go away, I think you're absolutely right in saying that Buddhism is useless.

Some experienced meditators are said to reach states where you can whack them with a plank and they don't react, but when the meditation session is over, you can bet they feel pain just like the rest of us.

Well, even a mere mortal such as I can control the sensation of pain while under "self-hypnosis" or "deep relaxation," and even when awake I have some control over endorphine production, but it is of limited utility. It works for being whacked with a plank, headaches, and minor surgery. Having one's pancreas digest itself is one of the cases where it isn't of much use.

Of course, it's much, much easier to control whether one reacts. I once saw an Army Ranger take a full kick in the testicles and not react.

My point to Yrreg was that if he wants to kick away a cornerstone of Buddhism, he should start with the "4 noble truths."

Well, I'm not interested in kicking away a cornerstone of Buddhism, whatever that means. What I'm interesting is encouraging skeptical thought even amongst Buddhists and certainly about Buddhism.

To me, one of the major good things that has happened through these threads, one which I didn't really expect, is that a few Buddhists or Buddhism enthusiasts admitted that they had not before considered applying skepticism to the more "mundane" (as opposed to "woo") aspects of Buddhism, heretofore considering such an application inappropriate. This has changed. Ryokan, in particular, is looking up some stuff that sounds like it could be really cool, and I hope we'll see it.

Epepke, you nailed the issue when you asked for a definition of suffering. Because suffering is always going to be subjective, isn't it? There's never going to be a scientific measurement. There is physical suffering, emotional suffering, and lots of other kinds of suffering. How to make sense of it all?

Well, I think that we can do a lot better than just giving up because it's subjective.

What is suffering? If we can't answer that question in a concrete, scientific way, does that mean the only rational thing to do is to toss out Buddhist practice? The answer is right there on the table, rolling around like a glob of mercury ...

See above. What we can do is examine the supposed "reason" for suffering, and the "cure" for suffering (to use the explanations that some Buddhists have given here). In order to do that, we have to have some reasonable esitmation of the domain of the problem.

To see how this works in other field, let's take chirporactic.

Some chiropractors claim that all disease is caused by subluxations of the nerves through the spine, and that manipulation is the cure. This is not a straw man; I know personally a living chiropractor who rejects the germ theory of disease and never had any of his children vaccinated against anything. (Ironically, he also discovered a mass in an X-ray which he reported to my father-out-law, a radiologist, who managed to get the patient proper treatment.) So that's one kind of claim.

Another chiropractor may claim that chiropractic is only good for some kinds of chronic lower-back pain. That's another kind of claim.

 

[epepke]

I thought that had been discussed endlessly, but to recap: there are desires and there are fears. The goal of the eightfold path is to reduce the clinging to desire and the attachment to the fears. They still exist but thier impact can be lessened.

Well, this goes a little way toward refining the problem, but only a little.

I quite agree but I felt that I have read many places in these threads that you felt biddhism is only for those who come from affluent lifes, I am often mistaken.

In the process of a skeptical examination, I bring up many, many possibilities. One of them is the possibility that it may be designed from a privileged position and may also be designed to ameliorate the kinds of things that privileged people consider important. Another is that it may therefore be useful for population control.

However, what I'm doing is simply trying to cover all the bases that I can think of, because any one of them might be fruitful in a discussion.

Again you have made repeated assertions that led to me making the statement you are responding to, it was my impression(perhaps a mistaken one) that you were asserting that buddhism applies only to those who come from affluent society.

The repeatedness of those assertions is primarily a direct response to the repeadtedness of (primarily) your responses to those assertions in what I consider an evasionary manner. I repeat them because I have learned in the past that when I do so, often it results in a case where the responses become more refined.

My hypothesis to explain this is that it involves cutting through layers of social and ideological envelopment to get to the core.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but you or others may decide that yyreg is a troll, and the functional payoff for that is that the conclusion lets you dismiss a challenge as an irritation.

To me, that kind of challenge is important to skepticism, and as I mentioned in my previous response to another poster, it has already borne fruit. The cheif difference between me and yyreg is that, as I have mentioned, I have 29 years of experience doing this sort of thing, and I've learned a thing or two. So the knobs in my head have a lot more settings, and when I turn them to write a post, I can do a lot of different things.

Also, functionally, I percieve that there's a kind of "good cop, bad cop" thing going on. I assure you, and I am telling the truth, that this is purely accidental; there is no design to it. However, I'll take advantage of whatever I can.

And again, you may be very different from other people, I have met many who suffer from thier attachment to desire and are in an unending quest to fill thier voids. Of those who are dominated by thier fears.

I am pretty certain that I am very different from other people. This is not a bad thing; I would be superfluous if I weren't.

As far as suffering from desire, though, I'll tell you something about myself. I suffered from a desire for a very long time. I worked very hard at this for a number of years. Eventually I completely succeded in altering a portion of the universe such that I achieved my desires, and how. This is chronicled exhorbitantly on the Google archives, so there is no need to go into it further here.

Now, this has nothing to do with the practice of skepticism on Buddhism, but if you have a need to caricature me, you might as well do it on the basis of facts.

 

[nosho]

What we can do is examine the supposed "reason" for suffering, and the "cure" for suffering (to use the explanations that some Buddhists have given here). In order to do that, we have to have some reasonable esitmation of the domain of the problem.

From a Buddhist perspective, I think what you're describing here is the process of taking a few steps down the so-called "eightfold path."

 

[epepke]

Very interesting! I would love to read more about it. Tangled amplitudes. I even like the term. Tell me whats in your mind.

Well, I meant to say "entangled amplitudes," but I agree. "Tangled amplitudes" is a better name, even though it was a typographical error.

It's really quite simple and easily explained. It's just experiencing the Cosmos in terms of amplitudes. These are easy to understand, and if you don't, I recommend the QED in NZ tapes available from tuvatrader.com. Of course, they're a bit simplified, because they don't deal with polarization, but if you understand what are sometimes called the Hamiltonian and post-Hamiltonian numbers, it's easy to extrapolate.

Now, I say "Cosmos" because "universe" isn't big enough a word; the Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be or ever could be or could have been.

The big problem with 20th century physics is that it works great, but it takes some finagling to bring it into accord with the "evolved perception." Namely, that events either did or did not happen, that there is an electron here and not there, and so on and so forth. Many people have tried to come up with "interpretations" that make things seem congruous. So, for one, there is an event called the "collapse of the wavefunction" that has something to do with measurement, unless it has to do with thermodynamics. Or, for another, all possible things do happen, but they happen in different worlds. None of these interpretations is distinguishable from another in any meanignful scientific sense, and all of them violate at least one assumption of evolved perception.

The "tangled amplitudes" perception simply delegates this as a non-problem. Everything in the Cosmos consists of tangled amplitudes. There is no you, and there is no I, and there are no objects. There's just a dance of entangled amplitudes that sometimes decohere.

Also, nothing definitely happened. Schroedinger's cat is still both alive and dead, even after the box is opened. Only after the box was opened, the amplitudes of the cat entangled with the amplitudes of the observers in such a way that they agreed according to decoherence.

Similarly, I am both alive and dead, presuming that we're using "I" as a simple convention that means nothing real. Part of "me" died on the table a few months ago. Indeed, probably many parts of "me," an infinite number in fact, are dead now. But part of "me" is alive, and it interacts with a part of "you" that is alive, and because of decoherence, we can have discussions like this.

Now, I challenge anyone to come up with a "woo" idea that is anywhere near as bizarre as this. Yet it is consistent with science, or at least by interpretation and filtering with the parts of "us" that can do and understand science.

And yet it's perfectly trivial for me to experience, and it's also easy to discuss.

My first guess is that you dont live close to "common humans". Maybe you live in the dorm of a physics university? ;-) Seriously. I dont know how much you have traveled, but AFAIK, I have seen people seriously believing that the world is what they see, and worst, many of them are still lost in some kind of religious imaginery, with demons, ghosts, reencarnations and gods everywhere.

Back to "evolved perception" now; I haven't lived in a dorm for about a quarter century. I live in a townhouse between a golf course and a crack neighborhood, with a fiancee and two dogs. I try to talk to all sorts of people, usually in bars. I don't go to bars much these days, because I don't want to risk inflaming my pancreas, but I used to. This past weekend, I hung out with a bunch of WASPs in a private club, and they were making snide comments about Martin Luther King day. And I've gone to MLK day fish fries, been the only white face there, and felt perfectly comfortable.

I haven't traveled as much as I've liked. I've been a lot of places in the US and Canada. I've been to Britain many times and to Germany, France, Belguim, the Netherlands, Austria, and probably some countries I can't remember. I lived for a couple of months in Mexico when I was studying how to teach English. The only major use of that skill so far has been to teach English to residents of a psychiatric facility.

I was able to do some cool inter-cultural things, though. For instance, I, along with my ex-wife, solved the problem of invitations in Hispanic cultures, which many anthropologists consider a significant problem.

However, I do kind-of see what you're saying. I lived in Atlanta a few years ago, making a lot of money, and I managed to acquire a girlfriend from Peachtree City.

After a while, I managed to appreciate her world view. To her, bologna was simply bologna. A table was simply a table. A bologna sandwich on a plate on a table was simply that. She had no desire to go beyond that in her understanding. It boggled me for a couple of days, but I got over it. I've studied a lot of anthropology, and it helped.

For those individuals, specially the ones who suffer from depression or stress, or those who simply hate their lifes, Buddhism is a path, and it can lead them to forget their previous problems.

For depression, I think the recent article in Science about the p11 protein is probably more to the point.

 

[epepke]

Owata loo naim!

Personally, I've always preferred "ohm millihenry picofarad ohm."

 

[yrreg]

A confession and about words with Buddhists

Before anything else, thanks everyone here for reacting to my messages.

I am sure that readers, both posters here and guests, can appreciate and draw their own conclusions or impressions about the merits of our messages, and find useful ideas and directives in life and in their thinking.

Epepke and some Buddhists here are into detailed discussion about suffering in the micro sphere, and the worth of Buddhism generally in the macro sphere. I wished I had their patience to go into the nitty and gritty of an issue on and on; but will they succeed in convincing each other?

If they can't convince each other; at least, and I am sure, readers here get to see an issue examined carefully, and realize for themselves how the issue should be settled, and learn something useful to life and to their thinking mind.

I confess I have no patience for going into an issue on and on, bringing in more words and concepts, hoping to score points. I just say my piece and I listen to the piece of other posters here, concurring with me or disagreeing with me, and just let the readers here and guests dropping in see, for themselves as I said, what can be useful to them.

If I may flatter myself, I always take things here from the angle of the big picture and with an attitude of saying it in a short statement, just like the pilot and the navigator of a passenger airplane are concerned with the big picture of getting the plane to reach destiny safely, and making the flight as short and as simple as possible, while the passengers might be discussing how the water in the toilet bowl aboard swirls around going down.

I have read a lot of expositions and explanations on Buddhism here, but I am still not excited about it; I still have not seen any reasons why I should take up any of its beliefs and consequential observances or practices, like their kind of meditation.

And that is why I think the more absorbing study should be why Westerners with a good education in science and skillful with crtical and clear thinking should be, and a conspicuous number are, excited about it, as to learn to speak in Buddhist language and in Buddhist concepts.

I had a good laugh just earlier when I came across this excerpt from an authoritative text on Buddhism accepted in the USA:

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5) We hold, as central to the spirit and goals of Buddhism:

a. The Four Noble Truths: Suffering (dukkha), cause of suffering
(samudaya), cessation of suffering (nirodha) and the Path to the cessation of suffering (dukkhanirodhagaminipatipada) Buddhism is neither pessimistic nor "escapist", nor does it deny the existence of God or soul, though it places its own meaning on these.​

​

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I have said time and again that I am here for the fun, and when I read that text I really had a good laugh and am still laughing.*

One of the reasons why I don't give reference to sources is because there are as many sources to bring up in support of any contention as there are reasons to bring them up; and people should know that, and not keep asking for citations.

Next time people here ask themselves or me where I have come across this or that idea about Buddhism; tell you what, you look it up yourself and you will find all the citations you need or for your purpose from the web.

Now, where did I find that text above? Sometimes I purposely omit citing my source, in order that experienced reader will -- and it is very easy to do so -- look it up in the web, and tell me that I have been mistaken in my reproduction of the text, or mis-understood its meaning.


I should divide this message into shorter ones, but for the fear that I might be acting trollishly. However, I will go back to my habit of posting several short messages in the same span of time, because I believe that short messages are easier to read and to refer to than one long one.


So as to make this message relevant to the subject of the thread, I will just say here, again, that I have been trying to find out continually how or why Western intellectuals would embrace Buddhism in any degree as to identify themselves as Buddhists, and the conclusion keeps coming up in my evaluation, that it's all fascination with the findings unearthed by the Buddha, one Sakyamuni or Siddhartha Gautama or whatever name he is known aside from being called the Buddha, the most distinguished one and the final and most authoritative ever Buddha.

It's all the authority of the Buddha.

Keep reading about why Buddhists believe and practice what they do believe and practice, and you will always come up with the answer: Because Buddha says so, because he has come to the final and definitive enlightenment about life and the universe and where we are all supposed to be heading for.

And how do they come to that conviction? by meditation, the Buddhist kind, preferably under a Buddhist master.

Well, that is the big picture in a short statement.


Yrreg

*If you don't see any laughing matter in that excerpt, then in a comic vein I will say you have no Buddha-mind nor Buddha-nature, or more prosaically no expertise in skeptical criticism.

 

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

huh, yrreg, you can review again. You missed it!

 

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

The big problem with 20th century physics is that it works great, but it takes some finagling to bring it into accord with the "evolved perception."

Cant agree more. Again, you are thinking what I wrote in that paper. Nice to see Im not the only one ;-)

Similarly, I am both alive and dead, presuming that we're using "I" as a simple convention that means nothing real.

Other than thinking that the "infinite number of probabilities" is a futile excercise, I like the way you see the world. Without noticing it, you have achieved what some buddhists learn (far from a mayority of them). You know that the world is not what it appears to be, and you know that there are no objects nor observers. Everything is change.

Welcome fellow Buddhist, wheter you use the name or not ;-)

ETA: The only real difference is that you have reached your knowledge via logic, while a Zen Buddhist, for example, can EXPERIMENT your "Entangled Amplitudes", outside the normal "evolved cognition".

 

[epepke]

Other than thinking that the "infinite number of probabilities" is a futile excercise, I like the way you see the world.

Well, the concept of an "infinite number of probabilities" is also an artifact of trying to impose a classical view, but if you don't do that, it's all rather elementary. Which does not mean easy to calculate, but the basic ideas are rather simple, only seemingly strange.

Without noticing it, you have achieved what some buddhists learn (far from a mayority of them). You know that the world is not what it appears to be, and you know that there are no objects nor observers. Everything is change.

Welcome fellow Buddhist, wheter you use the name or not ;-)

Honestly, it's not my intention. But please note if so (or even if not) that I was only boggled for a couple of hours, and I can explain it rather easily, I think.

So it conflicts with your statement earlier that I can't see the world as I did before. Because I can. That's just another skill. And to demonstrate it, I'll say the following:

As far as I can tell, this either means that this really has little or nothing to do with what you're talking about, or your statement was a bit naive and needs revising, or perhaps enlightenment?

 

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

epepke! not at all! I have said well. You have think about it, others have actually lived it. Big difference. ;-)

 

[epepke]

epepke! not at all! I have said well. You have think about it, others have actually lived it. Big difference. ;-)

I'm not sure what this is supposed to mean. If it means that thinking about it is less disabling than living it, then I think that thinking about it is better. But that's because I don't like losing skills. Maybe Buddhists like losing skills? Just a guess.

And, for me, thinking is a big part of living. So living for me consists of a lot of thinking. I like it, in the same way that some people like doing whatever they do. Besides, the brain is fun to use, and the price is right.

 

[Dancing David]

Well, this goes a little way toward refining the problem, but only a little.

Well that is too bad because that is the defintion of the suffering that buddhism is suppose to reduce.

In the process of a skeptical examination, I bring up many, many possibilities. One of them is the possibility that it may be designed from a privileged position and may also be designed to ameliorate the kinds of things that privileged people consider important. Another is that it may therefore be useful for population control.

That is a very important consideration, in fact buddhism like many non-tribal mystic traditions was a rather limited practise in the begining. Just like many forms of monastic mysticism, it was open to all but practised mainly by the upper classes. Allegedly during the reign of the Emperor Ashoka, buddhism was brought to a much wider population.
My point merely was that there are people who do not come from affluent backgrounds who do practise buddhism and find benefit from it.

However, what I'm doing is simply trying to cover all the bases that I can think of, because any one of them might be fruitful in a discussion.



The repeatedness of those assertions is primarily a direct response to the repeadtedness of (primarily) your responses to those assertions in what I consider an evasionary manner. I repeat them because I have learned in the past that when I do so, often it results in a case where the responses become more refined.

My answers are not meant to be evasive, I did not perceive a direct question to answer. I learned a long time ago, while a student of the social sciences to be very careful in my speach. If I use a phrase like, 'perhaps' or 'allegedly', it is meant to convey what doubt may exist.
In the social sciences it is needed to be very careful in satements because of the subjective nature of experience, factual hard eveidence is varied and dependant upon the unique history of the object described. And so perhaps I couch my phrases too carefully, if you ask direct questions, I will anwer them directly.

My hypothesis to explain this is that it involves cutting through layers of social and ideological envelopment to get to the core.

A very good idea, the core is in the practise of buddhism, not the trappings which are very prevalent, and I am very scpetical of. The stupas alleged to have been created to hold the relics of the buddha, I am very sceptical of.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but you or others may decide that yyreg is a troll, and the functional payoff for that is that the conclusion lets you dismiss a challenge as an irritation.

My calling him that is actualy a ploy to draw him out, he has only engaged in debate with me once, on the not-self assertions of the buddha, the rest has been a monlouge we have both engaged in.

To me, that kind of challenge is important to skepticism, and as I mentioned in my previous response to another poster, it has already borne fruit. The cheif difference between me and yyreg is that, as I have mentioned, I have 29 years of experience doing this sort of thing, and I've learned a thing or two. So the knobs in my head have a lot more settings, and when I turn them to write a post, I can do a lot of different things.

I have not a whit of problem with the challenge, but at times it is a rather broad based straw attack, I should consider patience.

Also, functionally, I percieve that there's a kind of "good cop, bad cop" thing going on. I assure you, and I am telling the truth, that this is purely accidental; there is no design to it. However, I'll take advantage of whatever I can.

I have seen better versions of it, I see you both asserting scepticism, which is agood thing, I shall consider the level of practise at sceptical debate.
(Us social workers often use a fine tuned version of god/bad cop. I see you two as very different and did not consider there to be any co-ordination.)

I am pretty certain that I am very different from other people. This is not a bad thing; I would be superfluous if I weren't.

As far as suffering from desire, though, I'll tell you something about myself. I suffered from a desire for a very long time. I worked very hard at this for a number of years. Eventually I completely succeded in altering a portion of the universe such that I achieved my desires, and how. This is chronicled exhorbitantly on the Google archives, so there is no need to go into it further here.

Now, this has nothing to do with the practice of skepticism on Buddhism, but if you have a need to caricature me, you might as well do it on the basis of facts.

I don't believe I have carictured you, but I apologise deeply if I gave that impression. I thought I had nuetralized my statements much more than that and offered no offense. My statements were more that your coping skills may not be available to other people.

 

[Dancing David]

It's all the authority of the Buddha.

Keep reading about why Buddhists believe and practice what they do believe and practice, and you will always come up with the answer: Because Buddha says so, because he has come to the final and definitive enlightenment about life and the universe and where we are all supposed to be heading for.

And how do they come to that conviction? by meditation, the Buddhist kind, preferably under a Buddhist master.

Well, that is the big picture in a short statement.


Yrreg

*If you don't see any laughing matter in that excerpt, then in a comic vein I will say you have no Buddha-mind nor Buddha-nature, or more prosaically no expertise in skeptical criticism.

I apreciate your spirit, if not your broad generalizations.

But I will rejoin to you, I am tremendously sceptical of about 85% of wehat passes as buddhism. Which is why I refer to the teachings of the buddha.
When I first encountered the concepts of buddhism, I dismissed them out of hand as bizzare and impractical philosophy, especialy the more ludicrous beliefs about reincarnation and the Tushita Heaven(which is like the waiting room for the spirit of the buddha.)

But when I encountered the teachings of the buddha, as opposed to the teachings of his followers I became intrigued.

1. The buddha never proclaimed them as truth, merely as the path he had found.
2. The buddha encourages scepticism of his teachings, and encouraged discussion of them.
3. The buddha stated that it is up to each individual to decide to follow the path, it is not for every one.
4. The buddha says that the path is the means to an end, once the end is attained that path and vehicle are discarded.

I often had to ponder upon the concepts of the buddha, annicca or impermanence I already had thought of myself, But annatta, the teaching that there is no self or soul was quite a challenge to me. But as I examined it I found that I agreed with the reasoning.

So those who profess to follow the buddha s an authority are deluding themeselves.

Futher clarification, I see nothing scientific in buddhism , although this is often asserted by my favorite teachers, except for the buddha.

I alos doubt very highly that the 'teachings of the buddha' are directley attributable to a single human, the story is that the buddha taught his students and that after his death his greatest students met to recite the teachings of the buddha, and had five hundred witnesses to debate the veracity of the teaching, while a nice story I don't think any one has done a gramatical analysis of the teachings to determine the number of sources.

 

[epepke]

Well that is too bad because that is the defintion of the suffering that buddhism is suppose to reduce.

Then perhaps you could rephrase it for me, because I still don't see it as very precise.

My answers are not meant to be evasive, I did not perceive a direct question to answer.

The question at issue, as I see it, is how one exactly defines suffering with respect to Buddhism and how one delineates it from other things that are normally called "suffering."

My calling him that is actualy a ploy to draw him out, he has only engaged in debate with me once, on the not-self assertions of the buddha, the rest has been a monlouge we have both engaged in.

Well, in that case, your heart is in the right place. Whether it works or not is yet to be seen.

Us social workers often use a fine tuned version of god/bad cop. I see you two as very different and did not consider there to be any co-ordination.

That's good, because there isn't.

I don't believe I have carictured you, but I apologise deeply if I gave that impression. I thought I had nuetralized my statements much more than that and offered no offense.

I didn't think that you were particularly doing that, but in my experience, the vast majority of people engage in caricature to some extent. I find that this is annoying. I do feel that you have been trying to reduce what I have been saying to a single criticism, but if you're willing to give that up, I am willing to speak no more of it.

My statements were more that your coping skills may not be available to other people.

That might be an interesting discussion, because I think that they are available to other people, and I also think that I've communicated some of them, even to schizophrenics.

However, I think it would properly belong in another thread.

 

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

I'm not sure what this is supposed to mean. If it means that thinking about it is less disabling than living it, then I think that thinking about it is better. But that's because I don't like losing skills. Maybe Buddhists like losing skills? Just a guess.

And, for me, thinking is a big part of living. So living for me consists of a lot of thinking. I like it, in the same way that some people like doing whatever they do. Besides, the brain is fun to use, and the price is right.

All I can say is that you have a distorted image of a buddhist. Maybe you know that little about them. In the other hand, we have those zillions (ok, a bit less) of buddhists, like myself, who live perfectly normal lifes (lots of scientists, btw) and that are not oscure, and who dont live reciting mantras nor trying to "convert" others.

I guess everyone can see just what they can. ;-)

Now, of course thinking is fun. Look at me, intrigued by your theories (yes Im a buddhist). In any case, what I wanted to say, is that is very different to know "everything" you need to know about light (wavelenghts, etc) and actually SEE. Yes, see the world from a perspective so different that you cant but laught at what you have thought about.

But hey, dont feel bad, its not for everyone. You can still call me an hallucinated individual, or a person without skills ;-)

 

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

So those who profess to follow the buddha s an authority are deluding themeselves.

Very well said. Buddha was a man. Nothing more. Nothing else. A man who made a discovery, and that invite the ones who are interested to discover it as well.

 

[NeilC]

This all seems a bit disperate.

What are the central claims of buddhism that are contestable and perhaps testable?

Seems we are having trouble even agreeing what it is and what it claims.

 

[Dancing David]

Then perhaps you could rephrase it for me, because I still don't see it as very precise.

There is suffering and there is suffering.
In my estimation there are two kinds of suffering:
a. that which is unavoidable(although some buddhists disagree)
b. that which is created by attachment

in a. there are things like the toothache, death, loss and the painful consequences of life.

in b. there are the things that are caused by clinging to desire and avaoiding the undesired, such as pining for a better car, wanting an unattainable love object, freaking out over your neighbors skin color, or suffering over an exam.

(a fine point can also be drawn that some of b. will partake of a.)

This is why I have staed that buddhism is similiar to CBT: negative thoughts and behaviors are identified and there impact is lessened in the role of creating suffering.

I disagree with the buddhists who claim that the path of the buddha can actualy reduce physical pain, it can reduce the unhealthy coping skills used to deal with pain, but not the pain.

That might be an interesting discussion, because I think that they are available to other people, and I also think that I've communicated some of them, even to schizophrenics.

However, I think it would properly belong in another thread.

Having done case management for ten years and worked in a domestic violence shelter or three, I have done the same. I feel this falls into the gap of communication on subjects that touch on all aspects of life.