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Buddhism and intellectualism
overthecuckoosnest
Explorer
In Buddhism we see a lot of quite valuable insights about the impermanent, jabbering, illusory nature of the mind. In my short and limited experience with meditation, I have found quieting the mind to be immensely peaceful and insightful. But here's the thing: What about intellectualism? Isn't feeding into thoughts for the purpose of enrichment and knowledge important and quite useful? I have yet to see much discussion on the subject of intellectualism in Buddhist circles and would love to start one here. Take care, all 
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There's nothing wrong with learning. It'd be hard to practice Buddhist without knowledge! Many monasteries have debates among students/monks/nuns in order to increase their knowledge of various subjects. It's just that most of the time, our egos are tied up in our intellectual selves and we use knowledge against others. Learning is another way of following a path. You don't have to allow yourself to get derailed by all the nonsense just because you are thinking or learning about certain topics.
Interesting. Approaching learning from a less egotistical perspective could enhance one's clarity in understanding the subject, I'm sure
Kia Ora @overthecuckoosnest,
"Beware of unhappy Buddhists, they are not really practicing just being intellectual!"
I agree it can be an important tool, but I've found too much thinking/ philosophising can do more harm than good...I see this a lot with intellectuals who struggle with simple Buddhist concepts, because they try to make mountains out of mole hills just for the sake of it, ie getting lost in thought...
When Priest Yaoshan was sitting in meditation a monk asked, ”What do you think about, sitting in steadfast composure?”
Yaoshan said, “I think not thinking.”
The monk said, “How do you think not thinking?”
Yaoshan said, “Non-thinking”
Metta Shoshin
@Shoshin, so you are saying that we need balance between conceptualizing/learning and relaxing into being?
Kia Ora,
Yes an healthy balance, (the middle wade way) but finding this balance can be quite difficult... Knowing when to "let go" and just "go with the flow!"
Metta Shoshin
@Shoshin, very interesting
This is one of the things that I love so much about buddhism. It does not glorify extremism, but rather a quiet, rational, balanced approach to existence.
I think study of philosophy and religion in general to be enriching and insightful. These people, whatever their background, are seekers just like me. If I can learn from another's insight, all the better I am for it. Currently I am listening to an audiobook on The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, insightful into the ideas of stoicism and in many ways compliment my Buddhist leanings. This is but one example of all the different schools of thought and religions I have learned from. I think the Buddha was spot on in so many ways but it does not mean we cannot learn from others.
Haven't read it but the Dalai Lama wrote
"The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality"
A review-
http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/books/books.php?id=10100
The test is if you flounder during change or loss etc. You might have so much knowledge but you still suffer because your knowledge has not become transformative.
@Theswingisyellow. I am happy that you have discovered The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. Having read and reread it many times I keep on finding something new. How wonderful it would be to travel back in time to hear Zeno speak from the stoa.
Yes. Very useful. Essential. Many of us, perhaps the majority of Western Buddhists start from an intellectual scrutiny of dharma. We analyse and use intellectual appraisal but then often continue this into areas that are inappropriate.
It is a bit like dancing.
Sometimes the intellect is an unnecessary gyration and we are better going with the music.
The intellect dances too and we can apply our dance technique or meditative skills such as focus and non attachment (to ideas) as part of our intellectual efforts.
Anyway suffice to say there are many deep thinkers contributing to dukkha and many skimming the surface of dharma. There is a middle way, quite a few books on that . . .
:wave: .
This. So this. :bowdown: ...
To be honest I feel I don't meditate enough. I think truly you only need a basic understanding of Buddhism and the rest is all direct experience.
However all the books I've acquired and listening to you guys definitely strengthens my resolve.
No amount of describing water will EVER amount to the experience of it. You can not ever even say you know water till your in it
I am an anti intellectual because of how seldom I've seen the intellect be more of a help than a hindrance on the path towards sufferings cessation.
I assume that developing the intellect can be a worthy path for transcending ones ego in the same way that bar tending can be a worthy test for an alcoholic but I think there are safer methods for working with sufferings cause.
The Zen smell has now passed.
We now return you to your regular broadcast.
@overthecuckoosnest: If you want to witness the devastating effects of intellectualism in Buddhist circles, log into other Buddhist forums.
Some of them have like 300 comments for every thread, with 10,000 words each, without including suttas copied and pasted in its entirety.
I don't think anybody listens to the other anymore above that din of egos.
In order to develop right view, in order to aim for a makeshift sort of wisdom that enables you to make better decisions about your life, you do need to continue learning and reading, get the theory down pat.
But for all that body of knowledge to be of any use, you have to flesh it out into your everyday life, internalize it, put it into practice, let it become second nature.
You won't live much of a functional life if at a given afflictive situation, you're unable to make the connection between the head and reality.
Both theory and practice go hand in hand.
Also, we don't meditate just for the peaceful feeling, but actually to sharpen our mind to think correctly, to focus on what really matters, to learn what deserves our undivided attention and what not. To take responsibility for our life in the present, and not drift pointlessly backwards (rumination) nor forwards (anxiety).
So intellect yes, but don't stumble upon your own ideas. Remember the simile of the finger pointing at the moon. Don't get stuck in the finger. It's the moon that matters.
My problem, with the word 'intellectual' is that I automatically follow it (mentally) with the word 'snobbery'.
My wonderful father was the worst kind. And he knew it, and admitted it.
Maybe that's where I developed my OCD with regard to being a pedant and 'Grammar Nerd'.
But, whereas I love grammar, and getting it right, and actually see nothing wrong with that, intellectual snobbery is like nails on a blackboard to me... and the very worst of it was, that, in spite of it being 'snobbery', my father actually often had a point.
It wasn't so much his opinion that grated; it was his way of putting it across....
I think science when I hear intellectual ( the -ism part connotes ,perhaps a fakeness to me for some reason). . Anyhow human intelligence and our innate curiosity loves to probe, inquire. Interestingly people tend to think of science and "spiritual" exploration as polar opposites, perhaps because of the term "spirituality's" connotations, yet I see wonder and deep connection in fields like cosmology and quantum physics - like staring into the mind of another word I seldom use-"god", the infinite, the unknowable that surrounds us. To inquire deeply to what we are immersed in is profound and ,for me, essential. Bob
The Vedanta teacher Swami Vivekananda once observed, "The mind [he meant intellect] is a good servant and a poor master." Setting aside any intellectual gyrations about who or what the good master might be, I think he was on target.
There is no direct equivalent in Buddhism to what we call ' mind '.
There is 'feeling' and there is ' perception ' and there are ' mental formations ' . What we call the intellect is actually an overlap of several of these faculties.
The intellect is not seen as a separate or superior function. But neither is it seen as a problem.
In fact potentially it is very useful.
The universe most clearly reveals it's nature when my own mentality is let loose from my identity agenda.
I am obviously not preaching for ignorance over insight here but am stating that there is an innate intelligence that is the natural inheritance of any who free themselves from identifying with their mental formations.
No phenomena that is intentionally directed will offer a more direct path towards sufferings cessation than the phenomena that isn't.
I think intellectual study goes hand in hand with other parts of study. Traditionally in Tibetan Buddhism there are three ways to practice dharma. You practice as a hearer who hears those teachings. You practice as reflecting on the dharma you have heard to see how it is true. And third having become somewhat convinced of a teaching you then meditate which will remove all stains of doubt.
As far as intellectualism say someone read the teaching that all of the 3 poisons are essenceless. If you are at only intellectual understandment you might say "ok got that...what's next" whereas if you see that at a level of it shaking your foundations it is quite amazing to know the kleshas are essenceless. My lama calls overintellectualization "the big 'so what'" So from the standpoint of 'so what' we haven't realized other than an intellectual response.
The fact is really this: intellectualised buddhism can only take you so far, and that is to the edge of what can be known, in so far as what can be intellectually described with distracting words. When you have gone as far as you can with these words, and realise that everything you are is, and can only be, experienced, you have 3 options:
Geez I'm always on a tangent. Is cosmology intellectual? I dig the scientific study of natural phenomenon not philosophy. What are we talking about here?
nothing
and everything
Most of the folks here, nice as they are, want to over-intellectualize practically everything about Buddhism. Until you disagree with their viewpoint, however, and then so much becomes so un-understandable that if you even think about you'll go mad.
The world -- and Buddhism -- needs men and women in the ivory tower. Just not too many of them.
Cosmology is an intellectual subject. The study of natural phenomena is an entire philosophy in itself @MeisterBob, and what science is discovering today was thought out and understood thousands of years ago by those wily Eastern Philosophers... Buddhism is a philosophical debate to be had as well, if you are happy to talk to your self.
Don't worry - your not mad either, I am happy to wear that crown.
I don't know about the world in general, but Buddhism in particular, needs more men who live up to the word and practise what they preach, rather than up in the ivory tower.
Can you be a little more specific in your general assertion @dharmamom ?
Do I really have to be more specific, @anataman?
Not if you don't want to @dharmamom. Just trying to see things from different points of view. And your statement appeared a bit sexist if you don't mind me saying, but I'll revisit the thread to see if I can gain better sense of your comment, or if I missed something.
No, @anataman. There's nothing sexist about my statement. When I wrote "men," it also applies to women practitioners.
My Victorian English is no longer in keeping with the sexist language of our times, I guess...
Edit: When I was pregnant and reading books on babies, I got fed up with the footnote referring that the baby will alteratively be referred to as "she" or "he" or whatever.
@dharmamom -- A lot of Europeans solve this problem by referring to babies as "it."
Being the age I am, I am in sympathy with your annoyance at the verbal gyrations that insist on including men, women, mugwumps and whomever all else. If the issue is important, the sex takes a back seat from where I sit ... but as I say, I am of a certain age. .
.
I've had difficulties not over-intellectualizing my practice and emotional experience in the past-and hell, let's be honest, in the present as well. For me, psychoanalyzing my problems was a means of escaping them. Ironically, it was my therapist who told me to stop escaping into the realms of psychoanalysis. It's a strange journey, isn't it?
Intellect has its place, but that place is not in understanding emotional experiences.
As @shoshin pointed out, it's a matter of balance. Some yin, some yang; some intellect against the clear blue sky
A friend of mine was always attracted to men who made her suffer.
She did not like the "nice" guys, always men who were emotionally unavailable and, in my opinion, who reflected the poor image she had of herself.
Everytime I pointed this out to her, she shrugged "You know, my father walked out on our family when I was four, never had a father figure..." (that's what her shrink told her, of course)
She was very good at intellectualizing her problem but totally incapable of making the connection on how to use that information to make better choices about her life.
I bought her the book "Women who love too much."
When we met the following day, she was beaming and she said to me "I got more out of twenty pages of this book than in seven years of analysis!"
Somehow the book made the "click." Or maybe she was ripe for that click.
What probably happened when she read some of the book, is it hopefully activated her logical neutral thinking mind into a moment of clarity..Your friend was tricked by her emotional mind to think she is a girl, that's always attracted to men that make her suffer..It's not actually possible to be attracted to a man by how he's going to make her suffer in the future, so she manifests her own idea about it all with her own emotional mind.
Kia Ora,
I came across this analogy a while back which I found quite useful, it went something like this:
"Knowledge without practical experience (ie purely academic) can be liken to collecting an abundance of dry fire wood to build a fire on a very cold winter's night, then finding that you have no means to light it to stay warm !"
Metta Shoshin
Personally I had an intellectual understanding of dharma before wishing or inclined to practice. I was not brought up in the Buddhist faith. I applied intellectual understanding to Christianity and found it lacking any credibility. After studying Buddhism I found my understanding of aspects of Christianity in terms of mystical and gnostic approaches enabled a reappraisal . . .
So the intellect can bring us to the head temple but we have to go in . . .
. . . as the Bishop said to the Rabbi . . .
I love nourishing my intellect with good reading, but what I particularly enjoy is knowledge that can be translated into practice. Knowledge that can actually impact on our outlook on life.
Though it's not always easy to make the connection between what we know and what we do, knowledge which only serves to embellish our small talk at cocktail parties is to me utterly useless.
It is particularly sadder in Buddhist circles, where you hear people bandying quips by Buddha and Shantideva left to right, and yet being so miserable deep inside because they fail to bring their lives up to the written word.
I'm not judging anyone, just an observation I made. And since I've been through what is probably the saddest test a human being can experience in life and found my way out through Buddhist means and my own positive thinking, I think I'm entitled to this opinion.
Amen to that, @dharmamom....
Intellectual understanding is virtually useless without practice.
That it be
Part of the reason I never delved into Western Philosophy too deeply is it pontificated widely and resolved nothing pragmatically . . .
Theory, practice, results = dharma
We haz plan . . .
@lobster, I can totally relate. The dharma has a directness on the level of immediate experience that is lacking in much of the intellectualized prattle of western philosophy. Of course, there's useful things in western thought, like modern scientific medicine, for instance, and there are certainly gems, like these:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=4PN5JJDh78I
https://youtube.com/watch?v=WibmcsEGLKo
Yes.
However I only have a short lifetime. Have to deal with my problems, dukkha attachment tendencies etc and break free . . .
Then I have countless beings to save. It's my Mahayana plan . . . :wave: .
Sounds like a busy schedule, @Lobster
Your mahayana plan has a subtle flaw @lobster - you can't break free until everyone is liberated. Go directly to jail, and do not pass go and do not collect £200. Modern buddhist monopoly don't haz a lobster piece yet - but we can make it happen: MONOPOLY -NB EDITION - can I be the can opener
Why did I have to interfere here? I don't know?
Mirror Mirror on the wall
Sometimes you make awful calls
When black is white
and wrong is right
How does one stop feeling so ridiculous and small...
@anatman kind of. But in the mahayana there are Buddhas that can help you in this world. Buddhas manifest.
The wide path is also followed because it is fastest to Buddhahood. And also mahayanists believe the fundamental yana (I avoid hinayana) only takes a person to 'peaceful Nirvana'. In peaceful Nirvana the seed of poisons is destroyed but the knowledge 'veils' are still not lifted. So mahayana the goal is a Buddha whereas in that other yana the goal is arhat. The motivation to leave peaceful Nirvana is love and that is why the wider vehicle is needed.
The wide narrows yet feels wider. In other words as we progress, we focus on the essential. The heart gets bigger, the mind sharper, the tongue wiser and quieter/more skilful . . .
Mr Cushion ends up as the driving seat . . .
Well, @lobster, I agree I find the Dharma more rounded up than Western philosophy.
But there are pragmatic ways to apply Socrates (well, what we know about him through Plato), Epictet and the stoicism, the existentialists, Nietzsche, Simone Weil, Bergson, Habermas...
Just with Epictet, Marcus Aurelius and Sartre you could create yourself a beautiful life if you grew up in the West and never had any contact with Eastern philosophy.
It is not coincidence that the greatest French philosophy analysts of our time have found a way to approach Dharma and Western philosophy. I talk about Jean-Luc Ferry, Roger-Pol Droit and Christophe André. I know England has its own set of philosophy writers that has done the same.
About ten years ago, some writers have tried to make a sort of self-help system out of philosophy ("More Plato, and less Prozac)