Nonbelievers and Buddhism

[Trent Wray]

That doesn't quite explain a rational thinker following a religion which incorporates a lot of magical thinking and that rational thinker claiming the religion does not contain said magical beliefs.

How did you get I was saying this from the following interaction:

Why can't a person just adopt a human moral code without having to follow some group movement?

from Trent:

"Because we live in groups?"

No one can make any decisions about how to lead their lives, or what philosophical or relligous systems to follow, except ourselves.

But we can influence each other and lead each other to "new waters," so to speak. But ultimately, I agree with what you say in this sense: no one can make us "drink" from waters, new or old. Forcing someone to drink from a pond they aren't ready to drink from or want to drink from can cause drowning

That others in good will try to influence us this way or that has to be recognized as well meant but probably futile.

Maybe, maybe not. I think it all depends on the situation and the moment, and reading people correctly. Maybe.

In the end, being a Buddhist may or may not be helpful to you. One thing is sure--it has only slight effect positive or negative on your post-death status, if there is one, and clearly none if there is not.

How can you be sure of the effect living a Buddhist lifestyle will have on the afterlife if you are seemingly unsure there is not an afterlife? Are you assuming that if there is an afterlife, then it "must be like X," so to speak?

 

[Meadmaker]

What I'm looking for here is not the literal, 'why', but rather, what is the rationale.

I think the rationale is that it seems to work in people's lives. It seems to offer something. Of course, you could contemplate the meaning of life and the right way to live a good and moral life, and you could do it all on your own, but other people have spent a lot of time thinking about this stuff, and they wrote down some of their answers, and you might save some time reading their stuff. That community of belief may have come up with something.

But when you move from that to, "I practice Buddhism", or, "I believe in Buddhism..."

One of the things I find is that people who grew up in a Christian dominated culture tend to see things through a sort of Christian prism. I find it difficult to explain certain things about Judaism to some people, because they insist on trying to make analogies with Christianity. One of the biggest differences between Christianity and other religions is the role of "belief". It's a big deal in Christianity (and Islam, I think), but it isn't nearly as big of a deal in Judaism, and it is almost totally absent in Buddhism. I can't recall anyone ever saying "I believe in Buddhism". Maybe it happens, but I just have never encountered it.

but the religion does not include a god belief therefore it is a rational religion", then you've gone into the territory of magical thinking.

I don't see how this is magical thinking. The religion (and we really should say "religions") isn't really based on believing in anything in particular. I suppose we could try and figure out the range of beliefs among Buddhists and which beliefs were dominant, and then come up with some sort of "average Buddhist", but I don't know what we would then do with those Buddhists who insist that they are Buddhist, but aren't very close to the norm.

Where that comes into play in trying to determine if it is a "rational religion" or not is that you cannot look at the beliefs of a typical Buddhist, declare that those beliefs are irrational or rational, and therefore declare that the religion is rational or irrational. What I would say is that Buddhism can be practiced rationally, and if you do so, then your personal brand of Buddhism is rational. That guy over on the next mat might be practicing irrationally.

 

[Meadmaker]

The thing is, if he sees others start to act based on ignorance, or show the slightest bit of irrational weakness ... he pounces on it.

Are you sure he isn't influenced by JREF? I think he would fit right in.

In all seriousness, I didn't understand your question. The "No True Scotsman" fallacy occurs when someone substitutes a non-definitive or non-universal characteristic for a definitive characteristic when assigning group membership. e.g. in the original formulation, the definitive characteristic of Scotsmen is that they are frin Scotland, but the speaker exhibiting the fallacious thinking claims that being a criminal disqualifies someone from membership in the Scottish category.

I'm not sure how that applies to Buddhism, unless you are saying that your friend has somehow introduced the non-definitive characteristic of rationalism, and acted as if that somehow is a Buddhist trait, which would imply that irrational people aren't true Buddhists.

Clearly, that is not the case. There are plenty of irrational Buddhists in the world.

 

[Trent Wray]

Are you sure he isn't influenced by JREF? I think he would fit right in.

In all seriousness, I didn't understand your question. The "No True Scotsman" fallacy occurs when someone substitutes a non-definitive or non-universal characteristic for a definitive characteristic when assigning group membership. e.g. in the original formulation, the definitive characteristic of Scotsmen is that they are frin Scotland, but the speaker exhibiting the fallacious thinking claims that being a criminal disqualifies someone from membership in the Scottish category.

I'm not sure how that applies to Buddhism, unless you are saying that your friend has somehow introduced the non-definitive characteristic of rationalism, and acted as if that somehow is a Buddhist trait, which would imply that irrational people aren't true Buddhists.

Clearly, that is not the case. There are plenty of irrational Buddhists in the world.

Putting it this way sort of makes sense. I think he is actually equating rational thought with moral superiority and "a true human" perhaps. The more rational a person is, the more morally superior they are, and the more "human" he is. The less rational, the less morally superior they are, and the less human they are.

For him, being "pure human" is the epitome of his state of being. Being as real as he can be in the moment, seeing the flow of things for just what they are and nothing more. A chip he eats is a chip. A wall is a wall. Etc and so forth. Not pondering the past, not focussing on the future, just enjoying whatever the moment brings him and he to it ... etc. And he doesn't want to cause suffering, and he steers clear of it if he can as well. BUT .... he takes these insights of his, and tries to "elevate himself" to the level of pure human that he thinks he can achieve. And he views this as morally superior and increasingly rational and all this rolls into one to make him "an ultimate, true human." In his worst moments, he crashes from that peak and views the crash as weakness and pathetic initially ... but then he justifies the crash by giving himself the freedom to be human ... claiming that the ups and downs are human. And I agree with this ... going up and down in life emotionally, mentally, etc, is human. But he doesn't give others that right. He gives them that right by distancing himself from them in order to remain his lofty status he projects .... which is almost like having no friend at all in him at times. I understand it in some ways, but at the same time there is something disappointing about it and impossible to speak into with him. And he links some of these ideas he has to Buddhism. So perhaps it's the ideas themselves he is not separating correctly somehow ... perhaps he is associating things in a way that doesn't benefit him. Or maybe they do. IDK. It's kind of confusing, and not something I am able to easily put my finger on. Obviously

 

[CKava]

Thank you for your input on this subject. Having been exposed to Buddhism mostly through western authors, it is good to get this perspective.
I've read from a couple of sources (can't recall which) that Mahayana Buddhists perform their meditation through "mindful living". Kind of like an active meditation where they are mindful and "in the moment" while performing their daily tasks/jobs, etc. What is your opinion on this matter?

I think it's pretty common in Buddhist sects for them to advocate mindfulness in daily life and to emphasis the need to focus on 'the moment' rather than get caught up in daydreaming or reminiscing. As for my opinion on it, well as a practice I think it is an interesting idea and could give you a greater awareness of how your thought processes are behaving in daily life. Greater self awareness is generally a good thing in my book so I'm quite in favour of the general idea. Whether everyday Buddhists in Buddhist countries actually pay much attention to such teachings is debatable however.

You might also be referring to the Ch'an/Zen teachings, which are very popular in Western countries, that focus on using everyday activities as a means of 'practice'. This was occasionally emphasised as a technique to increase awareness in some earlier scriptures but it really came to prominence in China with the flourishing of the Ch'an tradition. In this case, I'd say that it is more of a monastic/priestly practice but you will still find many traditional arts in Japan/China that promote 'everyday' activities (making tea, arranging flowers, etc.) as potentially spiritual experiences.

Hope that helps.

 

[NordaVinci]

Being in the moment is not only Buddhist,e.g. "Be Here Now" by Babba Ram Das, or the concept of "bracketing" as in the Husserl, Heidegger phenomenology.

Rev. Moon's son, Hyung Jin Moon, lived for a year at Harvard with a Buddhist Lama from Tibet. He shaved his head and wore Buddhist attire. His area of study was Buddhist Christian relations. He also studied marital arts extensively and wrote a book about the strawberry and the tiger etc., and created a website devoted to The Moment.

and the following is primary source stuff from the Matreya Buddha himself.....except that we are reading it in English, not the Korean in which it was spoken. Korean is a very spiritual language compared to English...

God created us to be born in love, raised in love, live our lives in the midst of love, and then die in the arms of love. So everything—our birth, our life, and our death— should give rise to gratitude.

From birth we find ourselves sharing in the lives of our parents. We become participants in their lives. Our parents conceived us in love; in us they planted the flag of their love. We live our entire lives in accordance with the banner of our parents’ love. We should wave this banner each moment of our lives by loving our parents and our siblings.

The person who ignores the value of each and every moment to love will lose what is truly precious. Whether we win or lose is determined in a single moment. Every historical victory and every heavenly victory was determined in a moment. Therefore, a great person lives his or her life constantly aware of the precious value of each moment, for every particular moment is uniquely special. Such a person can be included in the ranks of the saints, and even become a divine son or daughter in Heaven and on earth.

From this perspective, it is vital to understand how to live in relationship with God’s will, in the contexts both of daily personal life and of historical time. Before we talk about our hope that God’s will be done and His Kingdom come, we need to assess the degree to which we are living in oneness with His Will.

The Bible records a 4,000-year Providence of Restoration that includes Noah’s family, Abraham’s family, Moses’ family and Jesus’ family. We see that the mistakes the members of those families committed were not events extending over a decade or several decades. Those who erred did so in a single moment, and the error of that one moment fated them and their descendants to a path of indemnity extending over a thousand years of history, and caused peoples and nations to fall into a bottomless pit of destruction.

That reveals the seriousness and importance of each moment of our lives. Even the eternal Kingdom of Heaven cannot exist apart from the single moment. Eternity does not begin when a person dies; it begins when a person comes to know Heaven’s will. If even a single moment should ever be skipped, or if there should be even the smallest hole in time, eternity will cease to exist.

As people of faith, it is good for us to dream of the eternal, but it is even more important that we understand how to eradicate evil and advance goodness in the context of our own life in today’s reality. In other words, what you should fear most is not the judgment that will come in the Last Days, but whether you are living each moment of your daily life in oneness with God’s Will. You should be concerned about how your life intersects with the course of God’s Will. The truth is that the circumstances of our families, societies, nations and world do not align with our will. Therefore, we find ourselves dealing with all manners of difficulties, and we struggle back and forth across the turning point between good and evil.

Every single day we prepare and struggle to triumph over our circumstances. Even in terms of our daily schedules, we often experience that we cannot do all the things that we planned to do in the morning. This is all the more the case as we take on a greater public role. We find that we need proportionally greater determination and driving force in order to conclude each day of our lives with victory. The days add up to become months, then years. Ultimately, they add up to form our entire life.

Neither we nor anyone in history can escape the confines of time. Individuals, families, tribes, peoples, nations and the world move within one realm of time. Each person has a certain purpose to fulfill during the course of his or her life. A person will strive for ten years, twenty years, or an entire lifetime in pursuit of this purpose. The larger the purpose, the stronger must be the person’s internal resolution and dedication. To accomplish his or her purpose, a person must possess an internal determination strong enough to overcome any adversity.



While living on earth, your every action and movement is recorded on your spirit self, without exception and with the public laws of Heaven as the standard. Accordingly, you will enter the spirit world in the form of your spirit self, which has recorded your life on earth with 100 percent accuracy. Your spirit will show plainly whether you have led a ripe life of goodness, or a wormy, rotten life of sinfulness. What this means is that God will not judge you; you will be your own judge. If a person is aware of this astonishing rule from Heaven, would the latter days of that person's life on earth be spent in selfishness and immorality, succumbing to all the temptations of Satan in pursuit of nothing but pleasure? No, rather you should abstain form injuring and scarring your spirit, even at the risk of your earthly life. Please bear this in mind: Whether you are bound for Heaven or Hell is determined by your thoughts, speech and behavior in each moment.



This does not imply, though, that the spirit leads its own life or that it can express true love through actions on its own. Your spirit self grows, matures and finally becomes perfected only within your physical body, through an earthly lifetime of having actualized true love, bringing your mind and body into a smooth unified relationship of give and take.



Nevertheless, undeniably, your outer self and your inner self are in a constant relationship of conflict and struggle. How much longer will you allow this fighting to continue? Ten years? A hundred years? In contrast, there is undeniably a proper order for all forms of existence in the universe. This indicates that God did not create human beings in this state of conflicted disorder. You need to know that it is your duty and responsibility as a human being to dispel all temptations directed at your outer self, your physical body, perfect absolute sexual morality and be victorious in life by following the way of your inner self--your conscience. Heavenly fortune will be with those who lead their lives in such a way. They will attain the perfection of their spirit selves.



The conscience takes precedence before God, teacher and parents. God raised the human body centering on original conscience. The conscience existed before birth, your teacher and before learning things. You have to do as your conscience tells you to do. We have disunity and struggle between our conscience and our body and because of this we are unable to be God's children. Before you wish to control the universe you should be able to control yourself. Your body is the enemy of the cosmos.

You should form families that God will miss and yearn to return to after He has been away. You should raise families to which He can come freely as a parent visiting His children. This is what it means to live in service to God. In such a family, God is the subject over your conscience, acting vertically. Following God as your vertical subject, your mind stands in the position of vertical subject over your body, bringing your mind and body into unity. That is where parental love, conjugal love, children’s love, and siblings’ love—in short, the four realms of love or the four realms of heart—are perfected. Only in such a family can the upper and lower, front and behind, left and right be connected as one and spherical motion ensue. This leads to God’s everlasting, model ideal families and nations, and His peace kingdom. If only the entire world were filled with such true families! It would be an orderly world where people govern themselves by the heavenly way and heavenly laws, with no need for lawyers, prosecutors or even judges.

- Rev. Dr. Sun Myung Moon

 

[CKava]

Does anyone else think this? Or have any input? Again ... I'm isolating him as a case to examine the flip side. It's not my overall impression. But I can't stand this behavior in him, because it's as though he is trying to value life by devaluing it or something. It is an odd irony.

Thoughts?

Trent I think your experience will be common to most people who have spent any time studying martial arts or Buddhism. My own experience certainly supports this and I would say that people adopting a superior attitude when learning about Buddhism is unfortunately a widespread affliction in Western Buddhist communities. I'd include myself as a victim of this at various points too. This is not meant as some sort of essentialist slur on 'Westerners' but purely because Buddhism is still, to a large, extent viewed as an exotic and foreign religion in Western cultures. As such practicing it does give you the feeling of developing a somewhat unique perspective. With that said, Buddhist traditions are replete with teachings which specifically address the problem of developing spiritual pride and having a superior attitude so I don't think it is a problem only amongst Western practitioners.

 

[CKava]

Being in the moment is not only Buddhist,e.g. "Be Here Now" by Babba Ram Das, or the concept of "bracketing" as in the Husserl, Heidegger phenomenology.

Rev. Moon's son, Hyung Jin Moon, lived for a year at Harvard with a Buddhist Lama from Tibet. He shaved his head and wore Buddhist attire. His area of study was Buddhist Christian relations. He also studied marital arts extensively and wrote a book about the strawberry and the tiger etc., and created a website devoted to The Moment.

and the following is primary source stuff from the Matreya Buddha himself.....except that we are reading it in English, not the Korean in which it was spoken. Korean is a very spiritual language compared to English...

(snip)

- Rev. Dr. Sun Myung Moon

This is the JREF right? Why would you bother reproducing a sermon by Rev. Moon as if it should hold any special significance? As far as the Korean language being more spiritual than English or Moon being a Buddha... I seriously recommend that you engage your critical facilities a bit better and reconsider.

One of the things I find is that people who grew up in a Christian dominated culture tend to see things through a sort of Christian prism. I find it difficult to explain certain things about Judaism to some people, because they insist on trying to make analogies with Christianity. One of the biggest differences between Christianity and other religions is the role of "belief". It's a big deal in Christianity (and Islam, I think), but it isn't nearly as big of a deal in Judaism, and it is almost totally absent in Buddhism. I can't recall anyone ever saying "I believe in Buddhism". Maybe it happens, but I just have never encountered it.

I think you are correct that viewing religion as requiring faith is misleading but at the same time you are much more likely to run across 'faith' as an important part of Buddhism if you look outside Western communities. Pure Land Buddhism is all about faith and most of the popular practices of Mahayana Buddhism throughout history have involved placing faith in a sutra, a particular Bodhisattva/Buddha or the recitation of a particular chant. There is also a lot of discussion in Tibetan Buddhist traditions, for instance, regarding the value of placing complete 'faith' in an enlightened teacher. Faith may not occupy the central role it has in Christian doctrine but it is certainly there in Buddhism.

 

[bit_pattern]

Curious, but it just struck me.... For an atheist, what would be the attraction of a system like Buddhism? To provide a moral framework for life? To provide a set of "rules"? (The eightfold path, the Noble truths...)
Seems to me that a moral framework and an ethical system of life would be pretty simple to figure out without the framework of even as non-religious a religion as Buddhism...

The essential principals of Humanism for one.

Personally (WARNING: Woo Ahead!), for me, Buddhism is a science of the mind. I'm certainly not convinced of concepts like reincarnation but I think through putting the hard practice of Buddhism, ie. meditation, into effect it is possible to delve into aspects of the mind that would otherwise be obscured by the thoughts racing through our heads. Now, I've never done it myself, but then again I've never tested the theory of relativity, but I am happy to put a certain amount of faith into the scientific method and will accept the conclusions of those who have tested it. In the same sense, to a degree, I am happy to accept that there are concepts in Buddhism that can't be understood intellectually (because the whole point of meditation is to silence the thoughts of which intellectual thought is fundamentally based) and that there is a possibility that by practicing meditation and seeing the mind without the obscuration of constant thought processes, then it might well be possible to gain insights into concepts like reincarnation that intellectual thought simply cannot achieve. Of course, I could never prove that one way or the other unless I practiced meditation and saw for myself, so I'm not a "believer" but I am open to idea that it could be possible.

Now, call it woo if you will, I certainly have no great attachment to the idea but I do find the concept intriguing. And, from what I have read, Buddhist teaching wouldn't ask anyone to accept it on good faith, but to engage in the practice and see for themselves. That, to me, is admirable and worthy of investigation, had I the time of motivation.

 

[jadey]

For him, being "pure human" is the epitome of his state of being. Being as real as he can be in the moment, seeing the flow of things for just what they are and nothing more. A chip he eats is a chip. A wall is a wall. Etc and so forth. Not pondering the past, not focussing on the future, just enjoying whatever the moment brings him and he to it ... etc. And he doesn't want to cause suffering, and he steers clear of it if he can as well.

The above sounds like someone trying to fully experience each moment for what they are ... without judgement.

BUT .... he takes these insights of his, and tries to "elevate himself" to the level of pure human that he thinks he can achieve. And he views this as morally superior and increasingly rational and all this rolls into one to make him "an ultimate, true human."

And this sounds like someone judging himself and his actions as better than other people and their actions. Which kind of seems like a failure of the above. I guess it is a hard balance to believe that acting a certain way is better, but not feel that acting a certain way makes the person better.

In his worst moments, he crashes from that peak and views the crash as weakness and pathetic initially ... but then he justifies the crash by giving himself the freedom to be human ... claiming that the ups and downs are human. And I agree with this ... going up and down in life emotionally, mentally, etc, is human. But he doesn't give others that right. He gives them that right by distancing himself from them in order to remain his lofty status he projects .... which is almost like having no friend at all in him at times. I understand it in some ways, but at the same time there is something disappointing about it and impossible to speak into with him. And he links some of these ideas he has to Buddhism. So perhaps it's the ideas themselves he is not separating correctly somehow ... perhaps he is associating things in a way that doesn't benefit him. Or maybe they do. IDK. It's kind of confusing, and not something I am able to easily put my finger on. Obviously

Agreed. Certainly difficult from a friendship perspective.

 

[Dancing David]

It is because the religion is open-minded about what you think are magical ideas. You don't have to accept them, but you can, and either way you are respected.

Most Westerners who come to think of themselves as Buddhists tend to take figuritively the ideas of Enlightenment, karma, Samsara, rebirth, and so on. What they take up is meditation, Buddhist ethics (compassion and moderation) and the Buddhist prescription for happiness (understand that suffering comes from desires you can't fulfill). Of course it is more involved than I can possibly hope to express in a few sentences.

Strangely agian my interpretation of rebirth and karma comes down to the principle of anatta as taught by the AHB (alleged historic buddha), which is that there is no atman no transcedant self, therefore rebirth must not be reincarnation.

BTW :Welcome, I can't rememeber if I said that before.

 

[Dancing David]

After reading this thread now and pondering mainly just the posts within it (IOW, not googling the subject, etc) .... does Buddhism have within it a "True Scotsman" aspect that is harder to pinpoint than in other religions / philosophies?

I REALLY AM NOT trying to start ANYTHING .... I promise. I just want to describe what seems to be a sort of "snobbishness" to some of the people I know who claim to have a form of buddhism. And I'm not trying to form sides ... I'm just trying to nail down if this "feeling I have" regarding it has any validity to it.

Let me give an example. I have an atheist friend who is heavily into martial arts and although he doesn't claim to be Buddhist, he does often joke about "perhaps one day the Buddhist monkhood will be within my future." He frequently mentions ideas about suffering mirrored in this thread, and one of his big things is "being in the moment." If I ever get upset about something that happened in the past, or worry about the future, he is patient and will listen, but ultimately he describes them all as "illusions". I understand WHY he can say that .... but practically speaking I will still have to deal with them on some level.

yes, that is true, you deal with the emotions, memories and the physical sensations they have.

they are not illsuions, they are emotions, memories and the physical sensations. they are not illusions, they can be very strong.

The thing is, if he sees others start to act based on ignorance, or show the slightest bit of irrational weakness ... he pounces on it. You can even watch him physically walk different and hold his head up a littler higher. He won't say anything to the person whom he is viewing this way ... instead he will show utmost politeness to them. But later, with me, he will describe those people as ignorant monkeys, or hippocritical ethic whores, and a variety of other names.

Well that is certainly harmful speech and therefore not healthy speech.

"Why won't people just take responsibility for their actions and not show such contempt for those who are different then them?" And he will eventually leave them alone .... holding his head high around them and watching his every word and step, while in private he speaks about them as though he is the wise sage and they are ignorant heathen.

And I can understand his reactions. Afterall, they are human. But in his focus to be "more than human," it's as though he starts to become his own hippocrite. He "rises up" into his state of serene "flowing with the moment" attitude, usually by comparing himself to others to stand tall. That is how it seems. He feels morally superior to those who aren't like him, although he'd never say it or show it to their face. That would take away from his righteous view of his "path."

And with me .... when I start to get too emotional or opinionated , he doesn't give me the same luxury he gives himself or even that I give him. I allow him the freedom to be opinionated, etc and whatever. But he will distance himself from me if I show the same, and "grow weary" of my attitudes, claiming they are dragging me down while he is "staying in his moment."

To me ... he's not becoming superior or even bettering himself all that much. He's hiding from reality and the practical nature of being a human being. There is a "True Scotsman" without saying it type of attitude. Or perhaps it's a "no true scotsman" type of thing.

Now, I'm not claiming that Buddhism is like this, since I don't have a lot to compare it to. But as with anything, I think people can use ideas and philosophies to feed their ego as opposed to bettering their life, etc and so forth.

Does anyone else think this? Or have any input? Again ... I'm isolating him as a case to examine the flip side. It's not my overall impression. But I can't stand this behavior in him, because it's as though he is trying to value life by devaluing it or something. It is an odd irony.

One of the practices is compassion, view all beings as though they were your mother or your child.
One of the further concepts is that each 'object', 'being' has a 'dependant history', often referred to as 'interdependent'.

One can not truly understandsomething until one knows the history of that object.

So instead of a reductionist 'this is this and that is that' it is more of a 'net theory' where we are connected by strings of history to all other things.

So a 'dog' is more than just the object one sees at a given moment, it is the result of its interrelatedness and personal history.

In net theory one pulls a knot in the net and all the other knots respond. So there are no ‘cut and dried’ solutions , ‘one size does not fit all’.

Now you can only truly live in one moment but compassion requires patience.

Thoughts?

It is up to each individual to follow their own path, he seems to be attached to the suffering of others.

And it is frustrating to some, but it seems all you have to do to be a buddhist is call yourself one.

 

[Dancing David]

I think it's pretty common in Buddhist sects for them to advocate mindfulness in daily life and to emphasis the need to focus on 'the moment' rather than get caught up in daydreaming or reminiscing. As for my opinion on it, well as a practice I think it is an interesting idea and could give you a greater awareness of how your thought processes are behaving in daily life.

And in that sense mindfullness is very similar to cognitive behavioral therapy.

 

[Dancing David]

Trent I think your experience will be common to most people who have spent any time studying martial arts or Buddhism. My own experience certainly supports this and I would say that people adopting a superior attitude when learning about Buddhism is unfortunately a widespread affliction in Western Buddhist communities. I'd include myself as a victim of this at various points too. This is not meant as some sort of essentialist slur on 'Westerners' but purely because Buddhism is still, to a large, extent viewed as an exotic and foreign religion in Western cultures. As such practicing it does give you the feeling of developing a somewhat unique perspective. With that said, Buddhist traditions are replete with teachings which specifically address the problem of developing spiritual pride and having a superior attitude so I don't think it is a problem only amongst Western practitioners.

Sad yet true, and the tradition is not to discuss it unless someone asks three times. The internet is one of the few places I discuss it at all. It is part of my life but I rarely talk about it.

 

[Dancing David]

Personally (WARNING: Woo Ahead!), for me, Buddhism is a science of the mind. I'm certainly not convinced of concepts like reincarnation but I think through putting the hard practice of Buddhism, ie. meditation, into effect it is possible to delve into aspects of the mind that would otherwise be obscured by the thoughts racing through our heads. Now, I've never done it myself, but then again I've never tested the theory of relativity, but I am happy to put a certain amount of faith into the scientific method and will accept the conclusions of those who have tested it. In the same sense, to a degree, I am happy to accept that there are concepts in Buddhism that can't be understood intellectually (because the whole point of meditation is to silence the thoughts of which intellectual thought is fundamentally based) and that there is a possibility that by practicing meditation and seeing the mind without the obscuration of constant thought processes, then it might well be possible to gain insights into concepts like reincarnation that intellectual thought simply cannot achieve. Of course, I could never prove that one way or the other unless I practiced meditation and saw for myself, so I'm not a "believer" but I am open to idea that it could be possible.

Now, call it woo if you will, I certainly have no great attachment to the idea but I do find the concept intriguing. And, from what I have read, Buddhist teaching wouldn't ask anyone to accept it on good faith, but to engage in the practice and see for themselves. That, to me, is admirable and worthy of investigation, had I the time of motivation.

Similar to science but not quite. There are such varieties of meditation, it is amazing.

Two big bunches and lots of others:
Samatha^WP
Vipassanā^WP

 

[the_bunkologist]

. Now, I've never done it myself, but then again I've never tested the theory of relativity, but I am happy to put a certain amount of faith into the scientific method and will accept the conclusions of those who have tested it. In the same sense, to a degree, I am happy to accept that there are concepts in Buddhism that can't be understood intellectually (because the whole point of meditation is to silence the thoughts of which intellectual thought is fundamentally based) and that there is a possibility that by practicing meditation and seeing the mind without the obscuration of constant thought processes, then it might well be possible to gain insights into concepts like reincarnation that intellectual thought simply cannot achieve. Of course, I could never prove that one way or the other unless I practiced meditation and saw for myself, so I'm not a "believer" but I am open to idea that it could be possible.

There are a couple of things here...

First, most Buddhist meditation practices (and there is quite a variety) don't take as their goal "to silence the thoughts". Cessation of the inner monologue is a side effect of a lot of them, but it is not the point of practice. The point, generally, is to cultivate some mental or moral virtue: mindfulness, the ability to concentrate, sensitivity to this or that, the ability to observe without reaction, etc.

Second, there are certainly some Buddhists who claim that what they are doing is outside rationality and transcends any possibility of dialog with science. I tend to think they should be treated like any other religious group (tolerate, ignore, debunk, whatever your preference is).

But there are more and more buddhists engaged in serious dialog with rationality and the scientific method. The Dali Lama has been pretty good on that front, though he obviously still holds some metaphysical beliefs that I take exception to (e.g. literal reincarnation). More generally, there is good empirical work being done on things like mindfulness meditation in therapeutic contexts, physiological responses (even brain changes) due to meditation, and so on.

There are some things that can't be put into words properly in the experience of meditation, but only in a very limited sense - the same sense that I can't teach you to ride a bicycle by telling you what to do. You just have to try it for yourself. Obviously, nobody thinks there is anything spooky or magical about bicycle riding, even if it is the kind of thing that has to be "experienced to be understood". Just like we could measure the brain-states of bicycle riders and get some knowledge about what goes on, we can also measure the brain-states of meditators and learn important and interesting things about the practice - even if having the declarative knowledge that 'zen meditation produces strong, focused alpha brain-waves' doesn't help you to meditate.

 

[the_bunkologist]

Similar to science but not quite. There are such varieties of meditation, it is amazing.

It does bother me when people like S.N. Goenka claim to have 'scientifically studied the mind'. What he means, of course, is that they have tried things out and watched how they worked. They have empirical data, of that I'm sure. But that's hugely different than doing science. Science is observation done in tightly constrained ways, with careful checks against things like confirmation bias, experimental confounds, and so on.

I could be wrong of course: maybe Goenka has peer-reviewed studies with careful, quantitative measurements and tight experimental design. But I really doubt it. I rather suspect he is just borrowing some of the cultural cache of science.

 

[NordaVinci]

The conscience takes precedence before God, teacher and parents. God raised the human body centering on original conscience. The conscience existed before birth, your teacher and before learning things. You have to do as your conscience tells you to do. We have disunity and struggle between our conscience and our body and because of this we are unable to be God's children. Before you wish to control the universe you should be able to control yourself. Your body is the enemy of the cosmos.
Rev. Moon (said)

This has special significance in any discussion about Buddhism...especially since Rev. Moon says that Buddha united his Conscience and his body.

 

[Trent Wray]

To those who responded to my last post about my friend .... great responses, thank you all. I really appreciate it. Puts some things in perspective.

 

[MikeSun5]

Since this is wildly subject to personal interpretation, almost anyone can truthfully say they are a Bhuddist, regardless of the details of their religous opinions.

This is a unique characteristic of Buddhism that I'm glad you pointed out. It would seem that one doesn't have to do much at all to adopt the title of "Buddhist." You don't have to do the rituals, believe in any of the woo, or strive for enlightenment, but you can still take on that title and add it to whatever belief system you currently have. And nobody finds this weird...?

Apparently all you need to do is like some of the stuff you've read from Buddhist texts -- and not even a lot of the material, because (as it's been pointed out) Buddhism actually promotes cherry picking. So you can agree with a few things, and then you can be called Buddhist and will be respected as such?

It is because the religion is open-minded about what you think are magical ideas. You don't have to accept them, but you can, and either way you are respected.

See, now this I wonder about... Are they really respected by other more "devout" Buddhists? Does the Dalai Lama respect the college sophomore atheist/Buddhist (whose meditation "rituals" smell like weed and nag champa) as a fellow human being, or as a fellow practicing Buddhist simply because they call themselves one?

Also, Trent mentioned:

I just want to describe what seems to be a sort of "snobbishness" to some of the people I know who claim to have a form of buddhism.

Every religion and philosophical teaching in history has it's own levels of "holier than thou," which is why I'm skeptical about the whole respect thing. In America, we do have quite a bit people who like to think they know something that the rest of us don't, and enjoy feeling superior because of that. In my experience, religions do tend to be the blame for most of the feelings of superiority. Why would Buddhism be any different? It's not a bad thing for a Buddhist to look down on someone who is not on the (correct) path towards enlightenment, it's simply human nature.