Basic buddhist concepts analysed in a Christian website

last SG · 2012-12-12T09:15:01+00:00

Re the flag and the wind, I believe the answer has got to do with the mind, but this is not the proper answer to give at all. It is again more like playing m...

2009novice SG

Buddhism is about deconstruction

An Eternal Now SG

1. I suppose it won't be wrong to say that Buddhism's worldview is monism since there is apparently a rejection of dualism?

No, Buddhist view is not monism. Non-duality (of subject and object) does not need to imply that everything is one substance.

18th Vow SG

Nowadays Vatican had built bigger and more modern facilities for vatican astronomers to advance their works. I am not suprise if they are already awared of foreign vistors from other planets. I believe they already knew that there are really other forms of life outside earth but for fear of disclosing it out as followers from all over the world might start to disbelieve their church teachings.

I am sure when time is riped, and we are comfortable with these humunoid visitors, they will be ready to show out in mass. It will be a joyful event. However, there are other forms of aliens other than humunoid forms. I do really look forward to meet them too! :) I am not trying to purrrrrr Buddha's teaching, I think he is really a great great scientist/teacher who knows everything. Oh ya, he did mentioned about aliens and solar systems too.

Below link to youtube is the Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.
interviewed by a journalist recently. He admitted that our Earth has been all along visited by extraterrestrials and they are among us as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=to6Qxq_XjeE

What I have written here may not be relevent to the topic, paisei.

Aik TC SG

I suppose it won't be wrong to say that Buddhism's worldview is monism since there is apparently a rejection of dualism?

Some Schools, not all. (See AEN posting of 14 Dec '12 12:10 AM for correct answer)

In what way is the distinction between truth and error a conventional truth i.e. a delusion?

It is still based on dualistic thoughts.

Got your point re the analogy's message. The existence of suffering (and death) will lead one to question the cause of suffering. It shouldn't be considered speculation.

It is an experience.

I understand that Buddhism believes in rebirth. I am sharing why in Christianity moral perfection is impossible.

Noted

Monism asserts the existence of a single reality. It is Absolutism (advaitism) that expressly denies the reality of duality.

BroInChrist SG

Some schools of thought reject dualism. But what is the ultimate truth on this, dualism or monism?

There will always be debates and arguments between different schools of thoughts in the same religion. Some feels that their interpretation of the teachings of the founder is more correct and representative of the founder. It is up to individual to decide for themselves which school they are more comfortable and at home with. Buddhism grows from a pluralistic form of teaching, then on to Absolutism, than Idealism and at the end stage in its history in India to Logic in its defense of the religion. In all these development, the core teachings of the Blessed One the Buddha is still there, except interpreted differently. It is a natural progression in the growth of the religion itself. If it has stay static in its original form, it would have attract only certain type of believers and the population of Buddhists in the world would certainly be smaller than it is now. As far as I am concern, there is no ultimate truth as to who is more correct. Pick the chose that one is comfortable with.

Are you saying that there is no distinction between truth and error? Basically monism would imply that, since all is one reality.

As pointed out in an earlier posting above, there is, in the conventional sense. Our thinking process is riddle with contradictions which is the way it works, it is dualistic in nature. Buddhist Absolutism implies that to know what reality is, one have to go beyond concepts and thoughts to intuitive experience and realization. That is where the Buddhist teaching of Emptiness comes in.

Experience being an experience, I am sure there is a place of rational thought in all religions.

Certainly, that is where all of us first started out from.

My apology, change made from wording 'Monism' to 'Absolutism' in red above.

1. I agree that for any text, religious or not, there can be differing interpretations. But surely it cannot be the case that all interpretations are equally valid or true? It is the intended meaning of the author that is true, not the reader's. And to the extent that the reader has correctly discerned the intention of the author, the reader's interpretation is correct. If we get to pick and choose what beliefs we are comfortable with, or if we think that all views, no matter how different or even contradictory and mutually exclusive, are true, then it becomes relativism which is a self-refuting worldview.

2. Please clarify again: are you saying that truth/error exists in terms of conventional sense but not in terms of ultimate sense i.e. the ultimate truth is that truth and error does not exist? Our thinking process should follow the rules or laws of logic, fundamental being the law of non-contradiction. It is because we are finite and fallible that many times we contradict ourselves or make contradictory claims, which we may or may not even be aware until someone points it out. Pardon me, but I thought Buddhism rejects absolutism? See http://newbuddhist.com/discussion/3070/buddhism-the-middle-way-between-absolutism-and-extreme-skepticism

3. What I was trying to say that every religion has teachings, and these teachings contain truth claims. Such truth claims should be evaluated for logical consistency where possible. Experiences are personal to holder and cannot be evaluated in a similar manner.

BroInChrist SG

My understanding is in Christianity, it is believed that every human is born sinful because of the sin committed by Adam and Eve. They disobeyed the command of God, passes on to all human making them sinner by birth. So; “For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners". It is not so much of the sins committed due to being immoral but the original sin or ancestral sin from Adam and Eve, the inheritance of sin. Jesus was crucified to save us from our original sin.

The doctrine of original sin is that through the disobedience of Adam, corruption entered the perfect world God created. And because we are descendants of Adam, we are "in Adam" and thus inherit his guilt and corrupt nature. This explains why humans have the propensity to do evil. The Bible does not teach that Jesus died to save us from Adam's sin, but from our sins. We all have sinned, we are all sinners, and that's because we are all dead in Adam since we are his descendants. But we can be made alive in Christ.

BroInChrist SG

“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want”. Each time when someone accept Christ, an repent his sins he/she is said to be reborn as, by Divine Grace all their sins, including the Original Sin is washed away! Yet despite accepting Christ, how many are still found wanting and be reborn to be a unsinner? So accepting Christ does’nt mean a person able stop temptations or stop commiting sins. When the pious succumbs and repents and succumbs, one develops a guilt complex. Suffering to others and oneself(inner torment) do not end until truly able to repent! Kinda make the reborn thing redundant!

The Bible does not teach that being a Christian means that after that you are unable to sin. It teaches that sin no longer has the power over believers i.e. we are free from the penalty and power of sin. We are no longer cut off from God but reconciled to God. The Bible says that if we claim to have no sin then we are liars. But that if we sin, we have Jesus as an Advocate. In a fallen world, believers can still fall into sin. But a time is coming when sin will be no more, corruption is no more.

BroInChrist SG

i am against the use of animal sacrifices or human sacrifices because it is too cruel.

Can the christians call themselves righteous by pushing the blame on an innocent being and then profiteering from the death of others?

i would rather follow buddhism and avoid sinning rather than to follow christianity and use other people as sacrifice.

Get it?

You have misunderstood. It is not about pushing the blame on some animal or on Jesus. It is about atonement for sin to escape the wrath of a holy God who must judge sin. Animal sacrifices in the OT was a temporary provision for atoning for sins. Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins. That blood must be shed reflects the seriousness of sin. But Christ, being the perfect sinless Son of God, died once and for all. He laid down His life willingly for us. You may not like this but I would argue that one's likes or dislikes does not negate a truth. Christians are to avoid sinning but when they do fall into sin, they can seek forgiveness in Christ's finished work on the cross. No more animal sacrifices, and neither does Christ need to die again.

BroInChrist SG

No.. you are misunderstanding what I said.

By the 'feeling' - actually feeling isn't a good term - I mean the experience. The experience is that of no subject-object division and no sense of self. There is no sense of a perceiver behind a perception. There is just a perception, and there is no sense of a center, no sense of separation, no sense of division, no sense of distance. Perception is being experienced where it is without any sense of a vantage point [an example of a commonly experienced vantage point would be to experience 'things' as a person inside the head that is the looker, looking outwards, just like in the standard diagram of cartesian dualism]. This is the experience.

However, the experience is not the realization. Even athletes or ordinary people can have certain similar peak experiences where self-consciousness is temporarily suspended or transcended in an act of seeing something wonderful or doing something intense and concentrative.

What I'm talking about is the realization of Anatta, the realization of no-self. It is about realizing the nature of reality as having always already been the case. Because of this act of realization [not experience], the false view or delusion fabricating the sense of self pretty much stops arising. Therefore, after this realization, the 'experience' as described above becomes almost perpetual and after full actualization of view and realization, the experience does become perpetual. A perpetual state of direct, gapless and self-releasing experience from moment to moment.

As I wrote long time ago:

First I do not see Anatta as merely a freeing from personality sort of experience as you mentioned; I see it as that a self/agent, a doer, a thinker, a watcher, etc, cannot be found apart from the moment to moment flow of manifestation or as its commonly expressed as ‘the observer is the observed’; there is no self apart from arising and passing. A very important point here is that Anatta/No-Self is a Dharma Seal, it is the nature of Reality all the time -- and not merely as a state free from personality, ego or the ‘small self’ or a stage to attain. This means that it does not depend on the level of achievement of a practitioner to experience anatta but Reality has always been Anatta and what is important here is the intuitive insight into it as the nature, characteristic, of phenomenon (dharma seal).

To put further emphasis on the importance of this point, I would like to borrow from the Bahiya Sutta (http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/ud/ud.1.10.irel.html) that ‘in the seeing, there is just the seen, no seer’, ‘in the hearing, there is just the heard, no hearer’ as an illustration. When a person says that I have gone beyond the experiences from ‘I hear sound’ to a stage of ‘becoming sound’, he is mistaken. When it is taken to be a stage, it is illusory. For in actual case, there is and always is only sound when hearing; never was there a hearer to begin with. Nothing attained for it is always so. This is the seal of no-self. Therefore to a non dualist, the practice is in understanding the illusionary views of the sense of self and the split. Before the awakening of prajna wisdom, there will always be an unknowing attempt to maintain a purest state of 'presence'. This purest presence is the 'how' of a dualistic mind -- its dualistic attempt to provide a solution due to its lack of clarity of the spontaneous nature of the unconditioned. It is critical to note here that both the doubts/confusions/searches and the solutions that are created for these doubts/confusions/searches actually derive from the same cause -- our karmic propensities of ever seeing things dualistically.

Usually I don't talk about subjects like anatta/no-self, or emptiness, to people who are new to Buddhism, and I apologise if any of these sounds too deep or confusing due to my inability to express very clearly or simply. It is one of the more profound topics in Buddhism, though it is certainly a subject that is understandable and experiencable and realizable as your understanding and practice of the dharma matures.

Realization and experience should be delineated. Realization does not arise out of mere feelings/experience but by penetrating the nature of experience in wisdom-awareness. However the experience [of having no sense of self] does become effortless after realization.

In summary:

1) realization of anatta (no self) is not the same as a mere [peak] experience of transcending the sense of self, rather it is discovering that anatta is always already the case as the nature of reality

2) however, the experience of transcending the sense of self becomes effortless and later perpetual after the realization. Why? Sense of self is constructed/fabricated due to ignorance, so it is the arising of wisdom/realization --> removal of ignorance --> no more fabricating of sense of self in daily life

Is it possible to have an experience without an "experiencer"? Sorry I am still trying to better grasp your views about no-self. It does seems to go against the grain of common day experience. Note though that I am not asking for a description or a justification of the experience or realisation. I am trying to evaluate the idea or belief in no-self.

BroInChrist SG

It is true in the sense that 'the weather is cool today'.

It is false in the sense that there is no truly existing 'weather' to be 'cool' apart from an imputed convention.

But the ultimate nature of weather as empty does not deny the appearance or experience of hotness, etc. It never denies appearance or experience. It just means an inherent, independent existence cannot be found or established.

You can say that conventional truths are [ultimately] false, yet it is still a useful way to communicate things. So we do not need to reject them when dealing on the level of conventions. Weather is cool, I am fine, etc, are conventional statements. If you ask me 'are you ok?' I do not need to say 'there is no me to be fine'. I simply say I am fine.

On a lighter note.

If I ask "Are you OK?"

You answer, "Who is asking?"

If conventional truths are ultimately false, then by direct inference such conventional truths are false. Perhaps it is a bad choice of words to call it conventional truth and ultimate truth. Language is a tool of communication, and it can communicate truth. Otherwise all communication would fail. I subscribe to the correspondence theory of truth. Reality is what is. Truth is that which corresponds to reality, what is. So if the weather is cool, and I say "the weather is cool", then that is a true statement.

BroInChrist SG

'Reductionist' is not exactly correct. 'Deconstructive' is correct when you are talking about the view of emptiness. Our delusional ideas of self and solidity are being deconstructed, and this leads to the release of mental grasping at 'self' and 'things'.

Having said that, the deconstructive view of 'Emptiness' or 'Dependent Origination' is also a raft (like a boat that carries you to the other shore), but when you reach the other shore ("realization") you put the boat aside. Likewise when it is realized and actualized there is simply the full actualization of experience - vivid aliveness in every moment - without needing to mentally deconstruct things.

For example in the total exertion of experience without a sense of 'self', there is just the full experience of action, of the cool breeze, of boundless energy and aliveness, without a sense of a self. Experience is vivid but there is no reification or grasping. At that level of realization, there is no need to deconstruct anymore.

One thing is important: the Buddhist truth of 'emptiness' is not a 'dead' emptiness akin to 'nothingness', but an emptiness that is none other than form, none other than vivid awareness and aliveness of each unique moment of experiencing. Instead of perceiving 'solid things as a separate self', there is simply the pure experiencing as a flux, a flow, of relativity. This itself is freeing and releasing.

Thanks for sharing again. It certainly is difficult to comprehend that you would call it a delusion to see the distinction between the self and things, because again that's how things are in common experience. It would seem that you would say that in reality there is no self, even though we experience it, but I would say that there is a self precisely because we experience it.

BroInChrist SG

This is interesting. Actually the 'I AM' realization that Thusness was talking about is a pretty common realization. In Hinduism it is called the realization of Atman-Brahman (Self = Brahman). That is the goal of that entire religion and countless yogis have also achieved that realization since ages ago even way before Buddha or Christ. The Hindu text Mundaka Upanishad asserts that by realizing "that you are the Self, / Supreme source of light, supreme source of love, / You transcend the duality of life / And enter into the unitive state." .... A lump of salt thrown in water dissolves and cannot be taken out again, though wherever we taste the water it is salty, even so, beloved, the separate self dissolves in the sea of pure consciousness, infinite and immortal. Separateness arises from identifying the Self with the body, which is made up of the elements; when this physical identification dissolves, there can be no more separate self.

Of course not only Hinduism, but mystical religions from all over the world talks about the same kind of realization. All the mystical traditions lead to certain realizations that are quite similar (though I would add that Buddhist emptiness and no-self is quite perculiar). The Taoist text 'The Secret of the Golden Flower', the Hindus, the Islamic Sufis, the Christian Mystics, the Judaist Kabbalah and so on.

Here the Christian mystic, Bernadette Roberts tells us that it is an "bottomless experience of "being", "consciousness", and "bliss" that articulates the state of oneness"

.......

Roberts concludes this chapter by declaring that her Christian life, her
entire journey, both revealed here and in her book previous to this in
which the fulfillment of the first comtemplative movement is described,
has been an "on-going quest for an honest, absolutely truthful, final
identification with Christ." This journey is complete once we see. Once
we see that Christ is everywhere. Relative to that is the Holy Spirit or
God-imminent or the I AM, and the Father or God-Transcendent or The
Absolute. There is nowhere and no thing that Christ is not.

She also tells us it is not her final realization: http://www.spiritualteachers.org/b_roberts_interview.htm

It seems to me that it becomes the person who is deified, or rather "realises" that he is actually God.

BroInChrist SG

No, Buddhist view is not monism. Non-duality (of subject and object) does not need to imply that everything is one substance.

So what does it imply? It would seem that there would be either a subject or an object, but not both.

BroInChrist SG

Monism asserts the existence of a single reality. It is Absolutism (advaitism) that expressly denies the reality of duality.

Read this http://www.advaitism.com/nutshell.html

Very cheem. Though my initial critique of it is still that it simply goes against the grain of common day experience. Perhaps my view is generally this: if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, it is a duck."

Of course you may then reply, "There is no duck to speak of"

And that's where I think communication breaks down.

Jui SG

Hello BroInChrist,

It does seem like it's impossible to have an experience without having someone "there" to have an experience isn't it. But upon closer inspection, you'll find that it does appear that everything we consider to be the "self", is just mis-attributing the contents of experience to some (non-existing) core of existence. If you deconstruct this self, you'll find that your sensations are just a result of having senses. This stream of thought which most people will equate to our "self" really is just thought. Nothing in experience actually carries over to the next moment and all this is right now is just momentum. For example, experience b can't be what it is without what already happened (experience a), but neither is what is happening now experience a; it's an entirely new event called experience b.

So, if we really have to express buddhism's view in term of self, then what is actually happening is at every moment, a new self is born, so we're all probably at self^130^439^83289383 or something by the time we get to the end of this sentence.

It's one thing to grasp it intellectually though, and another to have it as a consistent experience. Incidentally there's a part of the brain that has been identified to do "selfing". People who have a stroke sometimes have this part of their brain shut down and they report experience like master meditators who have made progress in insight.

Anyway, the thing about conventional truth is that it still effects us. Just because you realize what people refer to as "two truths" doesn't mean that what is conventional doesn't affect you anymore. I sincerely hope that nobody thinks that being enlightened suddenly prevents them from getting killed by the very conventionally existing in-coming truck speeding directly at their very conventionally existing body. But perhaps we're being a little morbid here.

What is useful in understanding and realizing "ultimate and conventional" truth is that we see beyond what is presented as our experience. We can engage the world on a more balanced way without basing our actions on false ideas of self and other.

Hope it helps.

An Eternal Now SG

Monism asserts the existence of a single reality. It is Absolutism (advaitism) that expressly denies the reality of duality.

I think this is a little confusing for him.

Buddhism is not the same as Advaita Vedanta because we teach no-self and emptiness. Emptiness of inherent existence means we don't establish an ultimately existing brahman. Advata Vedanta is a Hindu teaching, not a Buddhist one.

Therefore Buddhism is neither monism or absolutism or advaita. Related article: http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.sg/2009/02/madhyamika-buddhism-vis-vis-hindu.html

BroInChrist SG

Hello BroInChrist,

Hope it helps.

Thanks for sharing.

Honestly speaking, and I'm not trying to be facetious or intentionally difficult, I can't wrap my finger around the notion that there is no-self. It's like negating the very notion of "I think, therefore I am". If there are senses, then it presupposes a sensor. If there are thoughts, then it presupposes a thinker. To say that there is no self seems to me more than just deconstruction, but self-destruction and perhaps even the destruction of meaningful communication.

I understand that there are different ways to communicating truths. You can call water water or call it scientifically as H2O, but then the law of identity in logic applies in both instances and people knows what is being referred to.

Every experience we are having now is due to the passage of time. And because time past is past, you can rightly say that my experience at T1 is different from T-1 and so on. But then again we are still talking about my experience or your experience. I hold the view that the existence of persons (and self) is actual reality. We really do exist, so does self, which is why communication can take place between people. Sometimes it is helpful to deconstruct things to simplify things for further examination, but when taken as a worldview I think deconstruction ends up in self-destruction.

Perhaps you can help to clarify how does one judge between conventional truths and ultimate truths without the criteria itself being subject to these categories? When does conventional truths become ultimate truths, or are conventional truths false in an ultimate truth sense?

Thank you for your time.

Weychin SG

BroInChrist, thank you for patient and earnest replies to all questioners. So the question now is with Jesus as an advocate, is the sins committed after acceptance of Christ absolved or mitigated, especially those committed in name of God, causing much sufferings. Or sufferings don't matter?

Dawnfirstlight SG

If we are all Adam's descendants and inherit his guilt and corrupt nature, we should be all committing the same kind of sins. However, not all of us are murderers or robbers, there are still many kind souls around. This got to show that moral perfection is not impossible, it is possible through individual effort.

Aik TC SG

It seems this dialogue is getting us nowhere. Until and unless you have some knowledge of the different interpretations of the Buddhist teachings and understand where each of these teaching leads to, we will always be on different wavelength and it will be a fruitless never ending conversation.

Does God exist? To a Christian, it is a ‘Yes’, a ‘truth’. To a Buddhist, the ‘Yes’ would be an ‘error’. It is ultimately true in a conventional sense to either party. That is term 'Conventional Truth' to the Buddhist.

Can I assert that ‘truth and ‘error’ does or does not exist is an ‘Ultimate Truth’? This statement is not relevant when we speak of ‘Ultimate Truth’ in Buddhism. When the Buddhist talks about ‘Ultimate Truth’ it is in reference to the subjects of non duality, Emptiness, the ultimate nature of phenomena. Of course we use conventional terms to explain, describe what it is, but ultimately, it has to be experience, realized by each individual concerned.

By the way, the posted link to the article by one author does not in any way represent that IT IS the accepted interpretation for all Buddhists.

Not all teaching by every religion can be evaluated for logical consistency. To us Buddhists, experiences and realization is an absolutely essential part of our life and it does not need to be evaluated logically.

Have a nice weekend I will not be on the net anyway.

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