Buddha lecture

[Birdjaguar]

I have been interested in Buddhism since I was a kid but I can't accept reincarnation. How easy is it to separate that doctrine from the daily practice of Buddhism? Are there any varieties which do not deal extensively with reincarnation?

You don't have to accept the reincarnation context to practice Buddhist principles. Buddhism can be helpful/useful even if you don't want to become a Buddhist.

The Four Truths express the basic orientation of Buddhism: 1. we crave and cling to impermanent states and things, which is dukkha, "incapable of satisfying" and painful. 2. This keeps us caught in saṃsāra, the endless cycle of repeated rebirth, dukkha and dying again. 3. But there is a way to liberation from this endless cycle to the state of nirvana, and 4. following the Noble Eightfold Path is how you get there.

The first Truth is the most basic and for many the easiest to accept: craving and desire lead to attachment and suffering. Whether you believe in one lifetime or many doesn't change dukkha. Nivana is just a goal, an end point one can strive for. The eight fold path is how one can reduce the effects of dukkha and be more content. To be a real Buddhist you might have to jump fully into the soup pot and figure out what kind of Buddhist you are/want to be. You have many choices, just like in Christianity. The value of Buddhism lies in its understanding of the human condition and its ways to improve one's life.

"The Way of Zen" by Alan Watts is a nice intro into Zen (Japanese) Buddhism. "Siddhartha" by Herman Hesse is excellent for basic Buddhist principles.

I'm pretty sure that the modern complexity of Buddhism is not a match for whatever the original Buddha taught. Buddhists have had 2,500 years to change it.

 

[Birdjaguar]

According to the lecturer, most buddhist schools (including the text attributed by tradition to students of the buddha) do not speak at all of gods or existence after death. Some later ones do.

I still am not identifying the logic behind reincarnation or tieing it to karma etc. But the lecturer/academic did make special focus on presenting why/how buddhism is not a philosophy but a religion.

Like Christianity today, Buddhism today is not what was taught by eight Jesus or Gautama. Organized religious structure add to and amend the basics. In Buddhism gods and demons of many and varied natures are part of the cycle of birth and death and rebirth. All life can cycle through the great wheel and rise and fall on it. Ants can become gods and then demons; as can people. I think much of that context was carried over from Hinduism.

Karma is a very complicated concept and is interpreted differently by people. In the west it often gets simplified into: getting what you give.

If you're really a mean person you're going to come back as a fly and eat poop. Kurt Cobain

In Buddhism it is more complicated and begins with: intentional actions have consequences over time. Karma and reincarnation, when linked, create a context that encourages people to think about their actions in a larger context and over a longer time period. Makes for good religion.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

"Siddhartha" by Herman Hesse is excellent for basic Buddhist principles.

I was made to read this in high school. Coincidentally, I was living through the nadir of my entire life up until this point. I devoured this book and it has a lasting, immediate and positive impact on my life. I think I need to read it again, actually.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Go for it @hobbsyoyo !

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I have always wanted to get involve with Buddhism formally but I worry my strong atheistic beliefs will clash too much with the temple. What kind of services do they have - are they heavy on chanting and prayer or do they have lectures or what? Do they even have congregations that meet every week?

 

[Thorgalaeg]

for you, maybe. for me the idea of heaven or hell is inherently depressing.

So, "existence is only suffering, it would be nice to stop existing ASAP" is not depressing for you? Maybe you have a problem then.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I don't think the takeaway of 'existence is only suffering' is to commit suicide in Buddhist teachings. Also, I don't believe the teachings are that existence is only suffering either.

 

[Birdjaguar]

So, "existence is only suffering, it would be nice to stop existing ASAP" is not depressing for you? Maybe you have a problem then.

It's more like: attachments cause suffering and if you follow the eight fold path you will suffer less.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I have always wanted to get involve with Buddhism formally but I worry my strong atheistic beliefs will clash too much with the temple. What kind of services do they have - are they heavy on chanting and prayer or do they have lectures or what? Do they even have congregations that meet every week?

The only time I have been in a Buddhist temple not as a foreign tourist was to see relics of the Buddha as part of a traveling exhibit among temples. Not much to see, but an opportunity not to be missed.

Here is a link to a local temple so you can see what they offer;

https://www.diamondway.org/albuquerque/

I'm sure your local temples have similar web links and programs. Since Buddhist temples are run by Buddhists, I'm pretty sure they will be welcoming and kind and helpful.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

It's more like: attachments cause suffering and if you follow the eight fold path you will suffer less.

But if the final objective is to get out of the reincarnation cycle and cease existing, then life is supposed to be a bad thing, maybe not suffering only, but mostly, a bad thing in any case, or even a very bad since it is worse than nothingness.

 

[Birdjaguar]

But if the final objective is to get out of the reincarnation cycle and cease existing, then life is supposed to be a bad thing, maybe not suffering only, but mostly, a bad thing in any case, or even a very bad since it is worse than nothingness.

Life is not a bad thing, it is just what we experience. Reaching nirvana can be long and difficult and depending upon which school of Buddhism you are talking about, the process changes. There is no single perspective on getting to the end of reincarnation. It is similar to the many paths Christians have available to get to heaven and what Heaven actually means or is like. The biggest difference is that Christians limit themselves to a single lifetime and Eastern religions don't.

 

[Kyriakos]

Philosophically i am having trouble with all soterological (meaning stuff about salvation) claims. Some exist, in their own way, in platonicism too, although there the focus is on a (metaphysical and not possible to prove or disprove) idea about existing higher/actual reality.
But such cannot be accounted for, and one can logically assume that all human notions come from the rather vast abyss of the human mental world.
That said, very rarely does one see soteriological elements in philosophy (and it has to be philosophy of ethics or an ethics/ metaphysics hybrid as in socrates).
For me the schematic of circles of reincarnation seems rather baseless, in that even if it was so we wouldnt know it. Most religions "deal" with this by having apocryphal texts like revelations by saints or spirits. The difference with philosophy is vast re this. Eg parmenides, who claimed a higher/real plane existed, already introduced it by saying it simply can never be known at all by hunans.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

So Parmenides claimed a higher plane exist but it can never be known at all by humans. Did he consider himself human?

 

[Kyriakos]

So Parmenides claimed a higher plane exist but it can never be known at all by humans. Did he consider himself human?

Possibly. He composed his work -it had the usual title for philo works at the time: peri physeos, ie 'about nature'- as a large poem. Roughly 100 verses (iirc one third of the full work) survive. In those parmenides is visited by a deity, and she tells him that humans can never identify that what she will tell him is the truth, but at least they can read of it etc.
Parmenides and his student zeno are major influences of plato. Eg socrates often says that parmenidian philosophy not only enchants but scares him. An account of it can be read in platos dialogue, "parmenides or on dialectics".

 

[Birdjaguar]

Philosophically i am having trouble with all soterological (meaning stuff about salvation) claims. Some exist, in their own way, in platonicism too, although there the focus is on a (metaphysical and not possible to prove or disprove) idea about existing higher/actual reality.
But such cannot be accounted for, and one can logically assume that all human notions come from the rather vast abyss of the human mental world.
That said, very rarely does one see soteriological elements in philosophy (and it has to be philosophy of ethics or an ethics/ metaphysics hybrid as in socrates).
For me the schematic of circles of reincarnation seems rather baseless, in that even if it was so we wouldnt know it. Most religions "deal" with this by having apocryphal texts like revelations by saints or spirits. The difference with philosophy is vast re this. Eg parmenides, who claimed a higher/real plane existed, already introduced it by saying it simply can never be known at all by hunans.

Call it a religion then. The Buddhist won't care. Does it really matter except in philosophical circles?

Doesn't the bolded part ring true only if you begin with particular axioms in mind? If you change your fundamental axioms, you get a different result.

 

[Kyriakos]

Call it a religion then. The Buddhist won't care. Does it really matter except in philosophical circles?

Doesn't the bolded part ring true only if you begin with particular axioms in mind? If you change your fundamental axioms, you get a different result.

You cannot have a notion without having it, and a notion is sensed in the mind- how could this be not so? In theory you might get stuff sent by a deity/other, but still you sense them in your mind. In philosophy those who wanted to speak of a god tried to circumvent this, in various ways, some less subtle than others. An example is the so called ''innate notions" theory, ie that supposedly some notions existed from the start. Descartes (who was not really a philosopher, and didnt see himself as one either) argued rather poorly on this. Plato tries to link a higher plane with the archetypes which are infinitesimally picked up by thought etc. Parmenides claims a higher plain exists but is not picked up at all.

 

[Birdjaguar]

You cannot have a notion without having it, and a notion is sensed in the mind- how could this be not so? In theory you might get stuff sent by a deity/other, but still you sense them in your mind. In philosophy those who wanted to speak of a god tried to circumvent this, in various ways, some less subtle than others. An example is the so called ''innate notions" theory, ie that supposedly some notions existed from the start. Descartes (who was not really a philosopher, and didnt see himself as one either) argued rather poorly on this. Plato tries to link a higher plane with the archetypes which are infinitesimally picked up by thought etc. Parmenides claims a higher plain exists but is not picked up at all.

Religion doesn't care if the logic is sound or not. You only need to jump through the logic hoops if you want to enshrine Buddhism as a Philosophy. Is that your goal?

 

[Kyriakos]

Religion doesn't care if the logic is sound or not. You only need to jump through the logic hoops if you want to enshrine Buddhism as a Philosophy. Is that your goal?

I am not critical of what others like. Just saying why i am not viewing this as logical. Philosophy is about logic, as nietzche said: "those thinkers want to claim anything and not accept anyone as wrong in their claims; ie what they want is not philosophy but religion".

 

[Birdjaguar]

Are wanting Buddhism to be a philosophy or a religion? Or are you just critiquing the thought process behind it being a philosophy?

 

[timtofly]

Life is not a bad thing, it is just what we experience. Reaching nirvana can be long and difficult and depending upon which school of Buddhism you are talking about, the process changes. There is no single perspective on getting to the end of reincarnation. It is similar to the many paths Christians have available to get to heaven and what Heaven actually means or is like. The biggest difference is that Christians limit themselves to a single lifetime and Eastern religions don't.

How many humans can claim they were in 3 different forms of bodies within a 24 hour period? The only difference I can see, is there is no need to keep finding the perfect existence, cause it will never happen in the physical any ways. If you have to create your own perfection, what do you compare it with?

Western thought lies mainly on the aspect there is nothing else than the physical and even your particles will be recycled over and over again, but there will never be another you, because the you never existed outside of the physical makeup of one life cycle. You cease to be and more than likely all the particles that were you will never ever get back together. Much less evolve into another you. Eastern thought says you exist and can be "attached" to a multitude of different physical items as long as a physical universe exist. Not sure why this is limited to just the nearby universe, but one should not be limited to one certain area of the universe if the physical existence has no bounds to the non-physical you.

The Jews passed down the concept there was an eternal half physical part of existence where a ghost of the former you existed after the physical you died. Whether or not this was the Greek influence of a "physical" after life, may be hard to determine. There are examples of humans returning from this after life, and they were identifiable.

The Hindu concept does not seem to be one of experience, but is a philosophical view of what may happen. But genetics as we now know can bring back traits over and over again. Our genetic makeup does have an influence on who we are, and human memories throughout human existence may seem to be re-incarnation at play. Since humans are not the generators of their own thoughts, and it has been proven they do not always originate in one's own physical brain, but can come from any source, even thinking we once may have had 100's of former lives, is not proof of re-incarnation. It is just proof we can receive random thoughts.

Are there human like beings who have lived since time began? Yes there are. Have they existed in many different forms? From a genetic standpoint highly unlikely. It would be their word only as proof.