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Secular Buddhism? Religious Buddhism? Why not both? Or neither?
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So if they are not beliefs that must mean you have ceased to suffer?
Nevermind said:
The Four Nobel Truths, for instance, are religious beliefs
^^this is a belief.
It's all just talk, until you take some action. Then it's something else.
Call it whatever you want.
If we combine the experience of samsara and nirvana or transcend notions of secular and religious we perhaps have no static posturing . . .
Is there a need for bickering? Clearly, most demonstrably and meaninglessly there is . . .
. . . and now back to the mean, which I believe is sometimes a middle way . . .
The mean is the arithmetic average of a set of values
Wikipedia
I think the four noble truths are religious because right view is transcendental.
This is your belief.
As you have said you also don't believe that an awakened human is possible.
Others believe what they will. Pretty simple isn't it?
What is the point of arguing whether a belief is religious or not?
Then, you did say that your hobby is correcting people on the Internet.
Where have I said that?
"This is your belief."
The difference is that it's a belief which doesn't contradict observable evidence.
So I ask you a third time, have you ceased to suffer?
"Let me help you think this trough, Robot.
Do you know any "enlightened" human beings? Of course you don't, no one does. There are legends of enlightened human beings, but no living ones. So it could be that in fact humans cannot practice the Dharma. Indeed, having no living examples indicates that a wiser and more compassionate species is required to practice the Dharma."
From "Avoid all sexual abuse"
And now, it's time for a reading from the Lankavatara Sutra.
Open your books to Chapter XIII, Verse 1
Let's begin:
1." There is no form inside the mind / form is nourished by the mind /
body, possessions, the world, and beings / from repository consciousness all appear
2. The mind, will, and consciousness / the five dharmas and modes of reality /
The purifications of two kinds of no-self / these are taught by those who teach
3. Long and short, is and isn't / from each in turn the other arises /
because one isn't the other is / because one is the other isn't
4. Analyzing something into dust / doesn't yield the idea of its form /
but saying it is nothing but mind / doesn't please deluded people
5. This isn't a realm for philosophers / nor is it for shravakas / the teaching of those who would save the world / is the realm of self realization"
As for secular Buddhism being around since the Buddha's time, it's an interesting idea - but where's the evidence? An in depth study of the suttas might be a way to examine this theory, but then secular types don't regard the sutta's as authoritative, so...?
1. there is dukkha...well thats kind of evident no? at least on the more gross scale of basic human suffering, you'd have to practice to see the more fine elements.
2. The cause of dukkha is craving.. again I think this is something that can be seen with observation of our mind, I'm not seeing anything too metaphysical or needing belief, although I suppose it could be argued.
3. There is a way out of Dukkha, and samsara, that being Nibbana(Nirvana)... Ok now depending on how you view Nibbana, this can enter into the "religious" realms for sure. I like the Buddha's definition of nibbana simply being the cessation of attachment, aversion, and ignorance.. and I do think (I guess believe, since I don't know myself yet) that it is possible for a human being to get there.
4. there is a method to get the hell out of samara and dukkha, that being the noble 8 fold path.... Now this one , the noble 8 fold path itself, I think is fairly common sense and understandable, not metaphysical, for the major part of it. The only "belief" part I guess I could see is that in some places in the pali suttas when speaking of "right view" this does involve knowing and understanding rebirth and kamma, so at least that small part of it could be considered belief. The general concept of right view however is understanding and seeing the 4 noble truths themselves with your own experiential knowledge.. that is also the destruction of ignorance, and therefore the main part of right view. I don't give a Flying Fig what the baby looks like, so long as the baby's teachings are beneficial to my life and others.
Ahhh, but they very well can be.
Skepticism is the reason I AM a secular Buddhist.
Let the word games begin! :coffee:
Have a look at this passage from SN56.11, which describes the second Noble Truth:
"The origin of suffering, as a noble truth, is this: It is the craving that produces renewal of being accompanied by enjoyment and lust, and enjoying this and that; in other words, craving for sensual desires, craving for being, craving for non-being."
Being ( bhava ) is one of the nidanas in dependent origination, in dependence on which arise birth, then ageing and death ( and note that birth, ageing and death are clearly described as physical events ).
Also, the 4NT are the basis for a religion, so it can be viewed as "religious".
And, the actuall realization of the 4NT (not intellectual acceptance) could most likely be a religious experience, as in Saul of Tarsus' so-called "Road To Damascus Experience".
You can make religion out of anything, even something "secular". If you fight dragons long enough.....
Words need to work along the lines of colloquial usage or one just isn't being a cooperative collocutor, like the Humpty Dumpty in Alice in Wonderland where words mean what ever you want them to mean.
Religious is a fuzzy set, like all words used colloquially, that sort of includes, things that entail unfalsifiable claims, truth statements that appeal to authority for evidence, involves an institution, strong opinions about superhuman entities, consciousness after death etc. But it's a fuzzy definition, like every word in every language. Some religious don't have an institution, some religions don't have superhuman entities.
If we focus on if someone holds a belief (to believe that puppies exist, that water boils at 100 degrees, that I exist, and so on) to say these are religious, is to move outside of it's colloquial usage. Great fun for a dada-ist joke, but not especially helpful.
Buddhism can be stripped of the elements that a colloquial speaker calls religion. And there will be something left. What is left is colloquially called secular Buddhism. This trick can't be done with Abrahamic religions, although people try (in my opinion, secular Christianity is... nothing left of interest, like praying to an Aristotelian un-moved mover, who isn't necessarily conscious to care about what you pray).
Yes, @Matthewmartin , the intentional Alice in Wonderland word games and feigned perplexities about common words often turns threads/OPs that start off fairly straightforward and precise into a long, loooong tedious hike up bullshit mountain....
I prefer to stay at base camp... where the food is hot, the tent is warm and the outhouse is only 10 yards away.
Does a scientist's "belief" constitute religion? No. It can't. Belief alone can't constitute a religion.
If someone holds something as sacred, such as holding science to be the final arbiter of Truth, and there are those that do, then science approaches religion.
If science is allowed to supplant the cultural role of religion, then it essentially becomes religion, because to replace part of the structure of a culture, the replacement must satisfy the same need.
If you want to remove certain "undesireable" elements from a religion, such as Buddhism, and carry on with the rest, you still have a religion. Kind of like the Lutheran Church dismissing transubstantiation doctrines of Roman Catholicism.
Practice does what practice does and I think there’s some amount of beauty in that.
It can move me to tears at times.
So the good stuff isn’t stripped. Secular Buddhism doesn’t have to be dry or without heart.
Just thought I should mention this.
and all of the core teachings of the buddha DO intertwine with the 4NT...
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.028.than.html
Ven. Sariputta said: "Friends, just as the footprints of all legged animals are encompassed by the footprint of the elephant, and the elephant's footprint is reckoned the foremost among them in terms of size; in the same way, all skillful qualities are gathered under the four noble truths. Under which four? Under the noble truth of stress, under the noble truth of the origination of stress, under the noble truth of the cessation of stress, and under the noble truth of the path of practice leading to the cessation of stress.
Can you see how it is circular reasoning?
right view is part off the N8FP, so technically, yeah. I'm a bit confused myself to be honest.
The 8fp is the answer to the question, what is the path?
Then the question, what is right view, intent, and so on.
You don't need right view to realize the 4nt. Each one is a response to the previous one.
And so on through the teachings
You still haven't defended your position that the 4NT are articles of faith, not fact.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dhamma/sacca/sacca4/samma-ditthi/
The definition
"And what is right view? Knowledge with regard to stress, knowledge with regard to the origination of stress, knowledge with regard to the cessation of stress, knowledge with regard to the way of practice leading to the cessation of stress: This is called right view."
— DN 22
and further regarding right view ...
A thicket of wrong views
"There is the case where an uninstructed, run-of-the-mill person... does not discern what ideas are fit for attention, or what ideas are unfit for attention. This being so, he does not attend to ideas fit for attention, and attends instead to ideas unfit for attention... This is how he attends inappropriately: 'Was I in the past? Was I not in the past? What was I in the past? How was I in the past? Having been what, what was I in the past? Shall I be in the future? Shall I not be in the future? What shall I be in the future? How shall I be in the future? Having been what, what shall I be in the future?' Or else he is inwardly perplexed about the immediate present: 'Am I? Am I not? What am I? How am I? Where has this being come from? Where is it bound?'
"As he attends inappropriately in this way, one of six kinds of view arises in him: The view I have a self arises in him as true & established, or the view I have no self... or the view It is precisely by means of self that I perceive self... or the view It is precisely by means of self that I perceive not-self... or the view It is precisely by means of not-self that I perceive self arises in him as true & established, or else he has a view like this: This very self of mine — the knower that is sensitive here & there to the ripening of good & bad actions — is the self of mine that is constant, everlasting, eternal, not subject to change, and will endure as long as eternity. This is called a thicket of views, a wilderness of views, a contortion of views, a writhing of views, a fetter of views. Bound by a fetter of views, the uninstructed run-of-the-mill person is not freed from birth, aging, & death, from sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair. He is not freed, I tell you, from suffering & stress.
"The well-instructed disciple of the noble ones... discerns what ideas are fit for attention, and what ideas are unfit for attention. This being so, he does not attend to ideas unfit for attention, and attends [instead] to ideas fit for attention... He attends appropriately, This is stress... This is the origination of stress... This is the cessation of stress... This is the way leading to the cessation of stress. As he attends appropriately in this way, three fetters are abandoned in him: identity-view, doubt, and grasping at precepts & practices."
— MN 2
I love how the buddha is basically saying, yeah don't waste your time with all of these views that get you nowhere.. just these 4NT
How, if something is true, can it be true only in a religious sense?
If it is a religious truth, it must also be true to the non-religious, or it would not be true.
If a "secular" Buddhist were actually non-religious it should be no problem for them to accept Buddhist beliefs like the FNTs as religious truths, right?
Is there suffering in life? Sure, but there's also a lot of satisfaction. Does Buddhist practice result in the cessation of suffering? Apparently not for anyone currently alive. That's not so hot a track record for something that's practiced by millions. But, as I've said many times, religion doesn't need to be true, it only needs to be meaningful. It fulfills a desire for meaning, essentially. That's all that is required of it, and that's the most it offers.
Interestingly this sutta includes detailed descriptions of the nidanas of dependent origination, which seem to support literal rebirth. So again, it's not that easy to get away from "religious" content.