Buddhism

[Porpoise of Life]

I thought his idea was "You ARE a soul; you HAVE a body"?

I think that might be Oprah. Or maybe Chopra.
Well, actually, it has been attributed to C.S. Lewis, but be apparently never wrote it.

 

[PartSkeptic]

Well, I still use Zen-inspired breath control meditation as a stress-coping mechanism, but I do not believe there is anything special, or supernatural, about that. I have participated in any number of religious rituals, but to be candid, I haven't believed in gods since I was a teenager.

I don't think you understand why I am interested in religion, religious beliefs, philosophy, or ritualistic behavior. I firmly do not believe that religion, or even philosophy, can teach us anything about the universe in which we find ourselves. At all.

I do believe that they can teach us an amazing amount about people. How they think (or fail to think), what they desire, what they fear, how they believe they should treat others, and how they will behave in ways antithetical to what they believe. It really is fascinating how religion can expose a person's deepest insecurities, and their noblest aspirations. Religious study can offer more insights into how people will react and respond to others, and new situations, than one would expect.

So you have used your readings as a psychological text. Which is what a number of Westerners have done. Nothing wrong with that, but it seems you reject the spiritual teachings as bunkum.

So although there are little things I have taken from many religions and incorporated into my own ethical stance, I can't say I have learned any truths regarding the universe, those I have learned through science.

Neither science nor religion have a "Truth" about the origin of the Universe, nor a biological explanation of how the mind forms from a strand of DNA.

Science takes the position that it will one day find out, or never find out. The various religions take the position that their beliefs are informed by sages and prophets who have had direct experience of something beyond the physical.

Is this comment based on personal experience, or what others have written about those sacred texts? Quite a number of them aren't as fuzzy and misleading as many claim, when you read them yourself. Boring, sure. And yes, many scriptures contain contradictions, but that applies to any human endeavor. Read any law code, recently?

When the sacred texts discuss the spirit world, or the "Creating Force" from where all things come, do you still think that the texts are definitive?

Buddhists cannot agree or define the atman, self or soul in terms that scholars can agree on. How is Brahman defined?

People will always tack on their own hopes and beliefs to any sort of teaching. Supernatural explanations are easy to fall back on, as they require very little effort, and absolutely no personal responsibility. This is the same reason why fad diets and pills will always have a market, when the sure way to lose weight is to eat less and exercise more.

You miss the point. Buddha was a Hindu. So were his followers. It is Buddhas teachings that were "tacked on" to Hinduism in the early days. The Pali Canon reflects that.

In my opinion, Buddhism as a religion would have failed miserably if it rejected the religious beliefs of the masses.

Christianity was "tacked on" to Judaism, and Islam was "tacked on" to both.

Everywhere you assumed these are truths about the nature of the universe, rather than the nature of the people writing them.

Nowhere do I assume these are truths. I have stated a summary of my readings about Buddhism. Nowhere have you given specifics that I have misstated or wrongly stated accepted scholarly understandings about Buddhism.

The "truths" you talk about are unproven beliefs about the universe, although they appear to be supported by inspirational "insights" into the underlying substance of the Universe.

Here is a personal opinion - one could even say that Brahman is not unlike the quantum field where matter pops in and out. I do not believe the quantum field to be "intelligent", whereas atman/soul matter/Brahman (according to Buddhist beliefs) seems to have the qualities of character/intelligence.

 

[Chanakya]

Well, allegedly, he's the author of one of my favorite quotes:

“There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth: not going all the way, and not starting.”

I remind myself of it often.

That’s a lovely quote, DragonLady, and a lovely sentiment. I can empathize, I think, in general I mean.

Except, when it comes to the particulars : What “truth”? And which “way”?

 

[Chanakya]

It might have been after the snails covered their head to protect him from the sun.

Snails? Perhaps you meant snake?

But snails or snake, I’m not sure I follow. Are you perhaps trying to suggest, indirectly and humorously, that the Buddha’s discovery/proclamation of “no self” might itself be fictitious, that that core itself is no more true than the many fantastic embellishments that grew all around the basic idea? If that’s what you’re trying to hint at, then I agree fully, that may well have been the case for all we know. But still, that only pushes the question a mere five hundred years into the future (and still a whole two millennia ago), and doesn’t really explain anything. How did whoever first wrote down the Canon know, not merely as random speculation but with the certitude necessary to devise and conduct a whole way of life around that thought, what neuro-scientific advances are beginning to show us only now : that our “self” is no more than a fictitious construct, a wholly fictitious superstructure built over our sensory inputs and thoughts?

Incidentally, I’m no Buddhist myself, never have been. But I’m fascinated by some elements of his teachings. The concept of Anatta, for instance : “no self”, which our contemporary science seems now to be leaning towards, is a rather radical idea (for me), in and of itself ; and for a man to have “taught” this, not casually but as his entire life-work, 2500 years ago and in a vacuum as it were, that I can myself find no way to explain.

(Over-analyzing that joke, amn't I? I tend to do that. But seriously, as someone who's studied this at some depth without getting mired in the fiction, care to hazard a guess?)

Hi,
I was cutting partsceptic off at the pass, to characterize daoism as a cultural practice is an easy although often a strange journey.

However the blanket statements that partsceptic was making about the dao and daoism itself were my target. The writings on the dao are interesting in that dao is discussed but never defined. At least in tehe arlier texts.

I did not mean to put you off, more just challenge partsceptic

Right, I get it. Thanks for clarifying, Dancing David.

And hey, I did not mean to convey, not for a minute, that it was you personally who’d “put me off”. After all it was I who’d cut in there, unasked, into a conversation I hadn’t originally been part of. That earlier comment of mine was merely the airing of a pet peeve against obscurantism in general and the obscurantism around the Dao in particular, and I suppose a fishing expedition to see if I couldn’t take a shortcut to that particular flavor of wisdom, by teasing out a straightforward explication of this mysterious Dao.

 

[DragonLady]

That’s a lovely quote, DragonLady, and a lovely sentiment. I can empathize, I think, in general I mean.

Except, when it comes to the particulars : What “truth”? And which “way”?

I think that's two of the things YOU have to decide for yourself.

For me, I guess the truth is that which I feel the evidence bears out. The way is the way that makes me feel happy and comfortable without causing more harm than necessary to anyone or anything else.

But everyone has to decide for themselves what will give their life meaning, what will leave them satisfied, and what consequences they are willing to risk along the way.

 

[Chanakya]

As usual, I strongly recommend reading the Tao de Ching (it really is an easy read, regardless of the mystique around it), and I recommend even more strongly reading the collected works of Chuang Tzu. He is one of the few religious/philosophical writers who approach things from a humorous slant. Most of his teachings are in parable form, and poke fun at his co-philosophers. Many of the things he says are meant to be parody or satire of religion, rather than beliefs.

For example, this line occurs in a passage describing a carpenter who walked by an enormous tree, considering its wood to be useless for anything practical.




One thing you have to realize, is that understanding that life is full of contradictions, and even embracing those contradictions, is part of the heart of Taoism. In the previous quote, the tree is useless to the woodcutter, but because of this, it is the largest tree in the district, so its useless provides a benefit to itself. The last sentence is an awareness of the benefit of uselessness as well as a poke at the people who spend their entire life being, well, useless!

You can think of Taoism as a system of accepting, not necessarily understanding, life as it is, and how to essentially "go with the flow". It is about learning what battles to pick, how to accept what can't be changed, and how to work with the circumstances you are given. For example, from the Tao de Ching, "The sage has no interest of his own, but takes the interests of the people as his own. He is kind to the kind; he is also kind to the unkind: for Virtue is kind. He is faithful to the faithful; he is also faithful to the unfaithful: for Virtue is faithful."

Probably my very favorite parable from Taoism is again from Chuang Tzu:

Thank you, Hokulele. I enjoyed reading your post.

Those stories/parables are interesting, and this idea of Wu Wei, flow, that they point at, it’s great food for thought. That at least (We Wei I mean) is something one can wrap one’s head around as well as appreciate.

And yet, I can’t help wondering, generally speaking, how much of this apparent profundity (of and around the Tao) is attributable to no more than poetic flourishes and obscurantism, to form rather than content. All of the other religious/philosophical thoughts I’ve encountered I can, I think, reduce to a few brief and clearly formulated positions about what they represent and why they ask us to do (or not do) certain things. (After understanding which we can either take them or leave them. The latter, most often. Leave them, I mean, while still appreciating their mythology, their depth and subtlety of thought, and any underlying philosophical ideas they throw up that subjectively appear worthwhile.) But with this particular philosophy/religion, the very core itself remains unclear (to me at any rate).

If I may ask you what I’d tried to ask Dancing David earlier on : Basis your understanding of what you’ve read, could you tell me two things?
(1) What, in your understanding, is the Dao, exactly?
(2) Why exactly is one expected (within that system) to bother about the Dao at all, towards what end?

I’m not trying to challenge you here, and I’m not asking for citations and sources. Just trying to share in your understanding of the core of this religion, this system of thought. A shortcut, if you will, towards understanding what I've thus far not been able to. I’d appreciate your straightforward answer, in your words and per your understanding, to those two questions, shorn of the jargon and the poetic flourishes. (And “I’ve no clue!” is a perfectly valid answer, should that happen to be the case. That would certainly be my personal answer, at this point, to both those questions.)

 

[Chanakya]

I think that's two of the things YOU have to decide for yourself.

For me, I guess the truth is that which I feel the evidence bears out. The way is the way that makes me feel happy and comfortable without causing more harm than necessary to anyone or anything else.

But everyone has to decide for themselves what will give their life meaning, what will leave them satisfied, and what consequences they are willing to risk along the way.

Fair enough. The Buddha would probably have approved of that approach!

For me, I guess the truth is that which I feel the evidence bears out. The way is the way that makes me feel happy and comfortable without causing more harm than necessary to anyone or anything else.

Bit of a detour, this, but care to talk about how that works for you, subjectively? The evidence part, specifically? By which I suppose you mean some personal, subjective evidence ... or not? (This is personal, I know. So only if you want to get into all this. How the skeptic deals with spirituality, that's something that interests me. For obvious reasons, seeing that I'm part of this forum, and participating in this thread within this particular subforum.)

 

[Chanakya]

Well, I still use Zen-inspired breath control meditation as a stress-coping mechanism, but I do not believe there is anything special, or supernatural, about that. I have participated in any number of religious rituals, but to be candid, I haven't believed in gods since I was a teenager.

I don't think you understand why I am interested in religion, religious beliefs, philosophy, or ritualistic behavior. I firmly do not believe that religion, or even philosophy, can teach us anything about the universe in which we find ourselves. At all.

I do believe that they can teach us an amazing amount about people. How they think (or fail to think), what they desire, what they fear, how they believe they should treat others, and how they will behave in ways antithetical to what they believe. It really is fascinating how religion can expose a person's deepest insecurities, and their noblest aspirations. Religious study can offer more insights into how people will react and respond to others, and new situations, than one would expect.

So although there are little things I have taken from many religions and incorporated into my own ethical stance, I can't say I have learned any truths regarding the universe, those I have learned through science.




Is this comment based on personal experience, or what others have written about those sacred texts? Quite a number of them aren't as fuzzy and misleading as many claim, when you read them yourself. Boring, sure. And yes, many scriptures contain contradictions, but that applies to any human endeavor. Read any law code, recently?




People will always tack on their own hopes and beliefs to any sort of teaching. Supernatural explanations are easy to fall back on, as they require very little effort, and absolutely no personal responsibility. This is the same reason why fad diets and pills will always have a market, when the sure way to lose weight is to eat less and exercise more.




Everywhere you assumed these are truths about the nature of the universe, rather than the nature of the people writing them.

Although this post of yours wasn’t addressed to me, I can’t help cutting in to applaud it, all of it. I don’t think PartSkeptic’s questions, which are typical enough I suppose, could have been answered any more clearly and comprehensively.

I especially enjoyed how you correlate people’s reliance on supernatural explanations with “fad diets and pills”. Perfect analogy, both in terms of the psychology involved and in terms of the fleecing of the gullible.

 

[Chanakya]

So you have used your readings as a psychological text. Which is what a number of Westerners have done. Nothing wrong with that, but it seems you reject the spiritual teachings as bunkum.


Neither science nor religion have a "Truth" about the origin of the Universe, nor a biological explanation of how the mind forms from a strand of DNA.

Science takes the position that it will one day find out, or never find out. The various religions take the position that their beliefs are informed by sages and prophets who have had direct experience of something beyond the physical.



When the sacred texts discuss the spirit world, or the "Creating Force" from where all things come, do you still think that the texts are definitive?

Buddhists cannot agree or define the atman, self or soul in terms that scholars can agree on. How is Brahman defined?



You miss the point. Buddha was a Hindu. So were his followers. It is Buddhas teachings that were "tacked on" to Hinduism in the early days. The Pali Canon reflects that.

In my opinion, Buddhism as a religion would have failed miserably if it rejected the religious beliefs of the masses.

Christianity was "tacked on" to Judaism, and Islam was "tacked on" to both.



Nowhere do I assume these are truths. I have stated a summary of my readings about Buddhism. Nowhere have you given specifics that I have misstated or wrongly stated accepted scholarly understandings about Buddhism.

The "truths" you talk about are unproven beliefs about the universe, although they appear to be supported by inspirational "insights" into the underlying substance of the Universe.

Here is a personal opinion - one could even say that Brahman is not unlike the quantum field where matter pops in and out. I do not believe the quantum field to be "intelligent", whereas atman/soul matter/Brahman (according to Buddhist beliefs) seems to have the qualities of character/intelligence.

You evidently don't. Nothing wrong with that either. But as someone who self-describes as skeptic, if only in part, how does that play out for you personally?



ETA : On re-reading your comment, perhaps what you meant was merely that that (the highlighted portion towards the end of your post) was your personal opinion about what the authors might have meant when they wrote whatever it is that you've happened to read? If that's the case, there's nothing to discuss, really, not unless one is particularly interested in the specific text(s) you've read, and that would be a whole separate discussion in any case. But sure, if that's the case, then everyone is entitled to their personal interpretation of what they read, why not?

 

[Dancing David]

Snails? Perhaps you meant snake?

Allegedly the AHB sat under the bodhi tree for 7 days, 47 days or something. At the end gazing upon the morning star they were enlightened. And anatta was proclaimed. During the heat of the day while sitting in meditation a group of snails covered the AHB's head to protect them from the sun.

 

[Hokulele]

Nowhere do I assume these are truths. I have stated a summary of my readings about Buddhism. Nowhere have you given specifics that I have misstated or wrongly stated accepted scholarly understandings about Buddhism.

The "truths" you talk about are unproven beliefs about the universe, although they appear to be supported by inspirational "insights" into the underlying substance of the Universe.

Here is a personal opinion - one could even say that Brahman is not unlike the quantum field where matter pops in and out. I do not believe the quantum field to be "intelligent", whereas atman/soul matter/Brahman (according to Buddhist beliefs) seems to have the qualities of character/intelligence.

This is exactly what I meant about you assuming that the texts are conveying truths about the universe. You leap immediately from talking about understanding Buddhism to equating Brahman (a Hindu concept) to quantum foam. Brahman has nothing at all to do with the physical universe. Nothing. Nada. Rien.

Brahman is as much alike fractional reserve banking as it is quantum mechanics.

 

[Hokulele]

If I may ask you what I’d tried to ask Dancing David earlier on : Basis your understanding of what you’ve read, could you tell me two things?
(1) What, in your understanding, is the Dao, exactly?
(2) Why exactly is one expected (within that system) to bother about the Dao at all, towards what end?

I’m not trying to challenge you here, and I’m not asking for citations and sources. Just trying to share in your understanding of the core of this religion, this system of thought. A shortcut, if you will, towards understanding what I've thus far not been able to. I’d appreciate your straightforward answer, in your words and per your understanding, to those two questions, shorn of the jargon and the poetic flourishes. (And “I’ve no clue!” is a perfectly valid answer, should that happen to be the case. That would certainly be my personal answer, at this point, to both those questions.)

Be careful what you ask for!

*Drags out soapbox*

To me, Buddhism and Taoism mark an interesting turning point in how people viewed the observable, and attempted to understand it. Even though the two are not linked in any meaningful way, they both attempt to understand a concept that is a key part of modern science, that of emergent processes.

Up until only fairly recently, everything that could be observed was considered an object or a thing, and our languages clearly reflect this. We talk about "the fire" or "the wind", even though we now know that there really isn't a thing called "fire", but a complex chemical process. Similarly, we are coming to the conclusion that "life" and "self" aren't things in and of themselves, but properties or processes of a collection or system of things.

Buddhism addresses this in part with the concept of "no-self" or "deathlessness". In modern terms, if the self is just a process of the brain, it isn't a thing that can die, or return to life. One has to let go of the notion of a discrete self in order to break free from the suffering of fear of death.

Taoism addresses this notion of "not things, but processes" in the concept of the Tao (or, the Way). The first thing one should do when reading Taoist texts is to relinquish the notion that they are talking about a specific thing or goal, which is why they use phrases that indicate that trying to grasp Tao in any sort of physical terms is impossible. In a fundamental sense, Tao is the universe as a process, rather than a thing. Taoism is about coming to terms with this notion, and adjusting your lifestyle accordingly.

So, with that preface, to answer your questions:

1) Tao isn't a thing, it is the very process of existence. It is the interactions between opposites (Yin and Yang) that result in all we experience. Because of this, it is misleading to refer to it in physical terms, and since language is built on physicality, this leads to obscure and poetical ways to convey this concept.

2) One should realize that attempting to force your notions of what should and should not be on the universe is futile, and will only lead to frustration. By relinquishing these notions, and learning to view the world as an ongoing process, not a static object, one will live more harmoniously, and more contentedly.

I hope this helps.

 

[PartSkeptic]

This is exactly what I meant about you assuming that the texts are conveying truths about the universe. You leap immediately from talking about understanding Buddhism to equating Brahman (a Hindu concept) to quantum foam. Brahman has nothing at all to do with the physical universe. Nothing. Nada. Rien.

Brahman is as much alike fractional reserve banking as it is quantum mechanics.

Kindly explain what you understand Brahman to be.

I gave you a possibility (not something I actually believe) about Brahman to try and elicit an response. Your response is not to clarify but to simply tell me I have no idea. So, educate me.

 

[Hokulele]

Kindly explain what you understand Brahman to be.

I gave you a possibility (not something I actually believe) about Brahman to try and elicit an response. Your response is not to clarify but to simply tell me I have no idea. So, educate me.

Brahman is non-existent. It is a religious concept that has no bearing on the real world.

 

[Dancing David]

I thought his idea was "You ARE a soul; you HAVE a body"?

Weeelll, my take was that you have body and the rest is just stuff hanging around.

 

[Dancing David]

Could you point to some authority/sacred text to support your statement?

Here is an example:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn22/sn22.059.nymo.html

Atman = soul/self/ego?

atta is Pali for Sanskrit atman

There are many branches of buddhism

 

[Apathia]

Be careful what you ask for!

*Drags out soapbox*

To me, Buddhism and Taoism mark an interesting turning point in how people viewed the observable, and attempted to understand it. Even though the two are not linked in any meaningful way, they both attempt to understand a concept that is a key part of modern science, that of emergent processes.

Up until only fairly recently, everything that could be observed was considered an object or a thing, and our languages clearly reflect this. We talk about "the fire" or "the wind", even though we now know that there really isn't a thing called "fire", but a complex chemical process. Similarly, we are coming to the conclusion that "life" and "self" aren't things in and of themselves, but properties or processes of a collection or system of things.

Buddhism addresses this in part with the concept of "no-self" or "deathlessness". In modern terms, if the self is just a process of the brain, it isn't a thing that can die, or return to life. One has to let go of the notion of a discrete self in order to break free from the suffering of fear of death.

Taoism addresses this notion of "not things, but processes" in the concept of the Tao (or, the Way). The first thing one should do when reading Taoist texts is to relinquish the notion that they are talking about a specific thing or goal, which is why they use phrases that indicate that trying to grasp Tao in any sort of physical terms is impossible. In a fundamental sense, Tao is the universe as a process, rather than a thing. Taoism is about coming to terms with this notion, and adjusting your lifestyle accordingly.

So, with that preface, to answer your questions:

1) Tao isn't a thing, it is the very process of existence. It is the interactions between opposites (Yin and Yang) that result in all we experience. Because of this, it is misleading to refer to it in physical terms, and since language is built on physicality, this leads to obscure and poetical ways to convey this concept.

2) One should realize that attempting to force your notions of what should and should not be on the universe is futile, and will only lead to frustration. By relinquishing these notions, and learning to view the world as an ongoing process, not a static object, one will live more harmoniously, and more contentedly.

I hope this helps.

LOL!

Your answer perfectly satisfies me. Alas! I see that some prominent in this discussion will not be satisfied. They want something metaphysical, to either believe in, declare their disbelief in, or set about to debunk.

For me the lovely thing in Buddhism is freedom from the weight of metaphysical baggage, including my own metaphysical self identity.

When I first contemplated this "Emptiness" back in the '70s, I didn't want to give up my precious. But now I laugh at it, as I do any good cartoon show.

 

[Hokulele]

LOL!

Your answer perfectly satisfies me. Alas! I see that some prominent in this discussion will not be satisfied. They want something metaphysical, to either believe in, declare their disbelief in, or set about to debunk.

For me the lovely thing in Buddhism is freedom from the weight of metaphysical baggage, including my own metaphysical self identity.

When I first contemplated this "Emptiness" back in the '70s, I didn't want to give up my precious. But now I laugh at it, as I do any good cartoon show.

Indeed!

The religious bedmates I find most fascinating is how Buddhism and Shinto coexist in modern Japan. Shinto is the ultimate religion of "things", and Buddhism, especially Zen, is the religion of "no things"!

 

[Meadmaker]

I thought his idea was "You ARE a soul; you HAVE a body"?

I've seen people say that, but it's not what he said. (Disclaimer: I have not read the Pali canon. I've only read selected excerpts.)

The Buddha talked about the "Five aggregates" which were four mental things sensations, perceptions, thoughts, and consciousness, plus one physical thing, the body.

None of them were permanent. None of them were identifiable as "you". None of them carried on. All were temporary.

In one of his discourses about reincarnation he noted that none of them carried on after death, so what is it that is supposed to be reincarnated? And I've heard Buddhists respond that, obviously, he meant that those things were not really "you", so there must be something else that is really "you". The "real you" isn't any of those.

As best I could tell, they are saying exactly the opposite of what the Buddha said. I've read that passage before, and I'll probably google it after I write this, and I'm sure that he is saying, "There is no reincarnation", and yet, I have heard people cite it as proof that the Buddha taught reincarnation.

 

[PartSkeptic]

Brahman is non-existent. It is a religious concept that has no bearing on the real world.

Thanks for a direct answer.

However, that is your opinion. What I was looking for is what were the Hindu scriptures saying about Brahman. They invented the word, and it was key part of the religion.

Coincidentally, I found this article, and there is a piece that I think it relevant to atheists discussing Eastern religions.

http://www.nationalreview.com/artic...can-left-wing-schism-islam-organized-religion

Truth be told, New Atheism was always fundamentally unserious. It does not even try to address the theistic arguments for the existence of God. Indeed, philosopher A.C. Grayling insists that atheists should not even bother with theology because they “reject the premise.” Our new “rationalists,” it turns out, will not even evaluate arguments that do not conform to their prejudices.

Battering a fundamentalist straw-man with an equally fundamentalist materialism, New Atheism is one big category error. Over and over, its progenitors demand material proof for the existence of God, as if He were just another type of thing — a teacup, or perhaps an especially powerful computer.

This confusion leads the New Atheists to favor the rather elementary infinite-regress argument: If God created everything, then who created God?

But as the theologian David Bentley Hart replies: [God is] not a ‘supreme being,’ not another thing within or alongside the universe, but the infinite act of being itself, the one eternal and transcendent source of all existence and knowledge, in which all finite being participates. . . . Only a complete failure to grasp the most basic philosophical terms of the conversation could prompt this strange inversion of logic, by which the argument from infinite regress—traditionally and correctly regarded as the most powerful objection to pure materialism—is now treated as an irrefutable argument against belief in God.

The rest of the New Atheists’ arguments can be handled even more quickly.

Dawkins sees God as a complex superbeing subject to natural evolution and then deems him to be statistically improbable. He may be right, but why he thinks he has in the process critiqued anything resembling “religion” is beyond me.

Dennett, who endeavors mainly to show that religion is a natural phenomenon, seems to confuse his validation of a religious claim with its refutation.

Hitchens offers no real argument and plenty of historical inaccuracies. He is generally content to list the bad deeds of believers, explain away or ignore the good deeds of other believers, and then pretend that he has somehow disproven Christianity.

Harris, to quote David Bentley Hart once more, “declares all dogma pernicious, except his own thoroughly dogmatic attachment to nondualistic contemplative mysticism, of a sort which he mistakenly imagines he has discovered in one school of Tibetan Buddhism, and which (naturally) he characterizes as purely rational and scientific.”