Did the Buddha miss the mark?
genie
Explorer
A long time ago my friend used to say the following (I am paraphrasing): Buddha was a sensitive dude and couldn't handle the stress and turmoil of the material world. He gave it up and started introducing spiritual stuff like metta, nibbana etc. as substitutes. So basically the material world alone is real, but since it's a harsh reality the mind would rather give it up and seek refuge in feel-good concepts like nibbana etc., whether or not they're real.
So maybe buddha was right about dukkha but wrong about the ending of it? THat's my friend's argument. He is saying, Most people, having experienced dukkha at some point, would acknowledge it as part of this world (and would also seek an end to it). So buddha simply capitalized on it and promised a system to end it. Demand and supply thing.
Agree or not? The reason I am asking is, anytime someone promises something does it become suspicious?
Comments
I haven't transcended Dukka, but the Buddha's teachings have GREATLY reduced it, so I trust that there could be a final ending, but even if there's not, I immensely appreciate the reduction.
The Buddha's focus on the problem of suffering does look quite pragmatic.
@genie Has your friend read the Kalama Sutta
"Now, Kalamas, don't go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, 'This contemplative is our teacher.' When you know for yourselves that, 'These qualities are skillful; these qualities are blameless; these qualities are praised by the wise; these qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to welfare & to happiness' — then you should enter & remain in them."
I see the ending of Dukkha as an evolution. I experience the material world really stressful, but maybe it will be a peaceful place long after my body is decayed.
"A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in."
Addition: Maybe "reducing" is a more exact word than "ending"?
Buddha was a sensitive dude and couldn't handle the stress and turmoil of the material world.
Buddha was a prince who was pampered beyond belief and who had the mental discipline to leave a life of luxury for starvation in a forest. This is the opposite of what he's describing.
He gave it up and started introducing spiritual stuff like metta, nibbana etc. as substitutes.
Gautama didn't invent any of that. The Arahant tradition and teaching existed in that culture before his ministry. All he did was transform the existing teaching into something called the "Middle Way" of neither clinging to nor rejecting the material world.
So basically the material world alone is real, but since it's a harsh reality the mind would rather give it up and seek refuge in feel-good concepts like nibbana etc., whether or not they're real.
Have some tea.
@genie -- Absolutely! But just because something is suspect does not mean it is wrong or deserves an easy dismissal.
Carry your thought forward: 1. is there anything you can name in your life that is NOT suspect, about which you do not feel suspicious? 2. something that is suspect is only suspect to the extent you are unwilling to investigate it. Intellectual suspicion is fun and self-affirming, perhaps, but it cannot touch the truth of the matter.
If you have an interest in Buddhism, then I think it is sensible to be suspicious AND find out how/why/whether those suspicions are or are not warranted. Never mind the snarky skepticisms that anyone else may offer. Find out for yourself.
I never saw Buddha's teachings as a promise. More so a "Hey, I figured out this worked for me. You can try it too, if you want." Different things work for different people. Another path to the top of the mountain, so to speak. Nothing wrong with being suspicious. Seems Buddha thought that was ok, too. Investigate for yourself.
I always find it interesting, no matter whether the topic is nutrition or religion or whatever, when people reduce useful information to "yeah, but isn't it just a way to fool yourself?" basically. Does it matter? If I eat a food, and I experience results from it, why does it matter if something else can prove it? Or if they don't experience it? If someone else doesn't experience it, does it make my experience false? Do what works for you. Whether it works for someone else or not, whether someone else can prove it or not, just do what works for you to make life easier, to make you a better person, to make your interaction with your world more positive for everyone in it.
It's good to question and investigate, indeed. But I'd be pretty cautious in throwing out a major part of a system that has been used and proven for quite a long time just over the pondering of someone who probably doesn't understand it fully. Even the most learned teachers will tell you they don't fully understand. There are plenty of things I don't get, I might set them aside due to my lack of understanding, but I don't throw them away.
The best way to avoid spreading other people's half truths and partial understanding of something, @genie, is to sit down and study oneself.
To understand something as complex as Buddhadharma entails some heavy-duty homework, and to attain a bird's eye-view, you have to be ready to walk the walk, not put stock in a friend's misunderstanding of the subject.
Of course, you'll only be able to discern truth from untruth when you learn yourself.
Thanks, everyone.
According to my friend, Epicurus makes more sense and is more practical without all the religious trappings:
When we say . . . that pleasure is the end and aim, we do not mean the pleasures of the prodigal or the pleasures of sensuality, as we are understood to do by some through ignorance, prejudice or wilful misrepresentation. By pleasure we mean the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul. It is not by an unbroken succession of drinking bouts and of revelry, not by sexual lust, nor the enjoyment of fish and other delicacies of a luxurious table, which produce a pleasant life; it is sober reasoning, searching out the grounds of every choice and avoidance, and banishing those beliefs through which the greatest tumults take possession of the soul.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicureanism#Philosophy
If there is no end to suffering then what do we lose by trying? And what if there is an end?
Sure, he said that rather well...but then lots of lesser knowns say things that are just as wise. Fwiw, the Buddha did not consider The Way to be some sort of religion at all.
To each their own, whatever works for him. Religion only has to be a trap if one jumps in after smelling the cheese and doesn't investigate. I personally never enjoyed philosophy, though I enjoy the writings of some philosophers. It's a lot of mental masturbation (IMO), a lot of thinking in circles but with interesting quotes and soundbites.
Sometimes, I think that when we fully adopt someone else's ponderings as our own, it turns into a trap right then. What I like about my Buddhist practice is that Buddha, and my teachers, point things out, but they don't tell me "this is how it is." Sometimes I read something and I think, "Yes!! This is what I have thought/experienced, I'm glad someone could put it into words." but most often it is like reading a book, then watching the movie, then reading the book again. I can't remember what I thought Harry Potter and his friends looked like when I read the books. Because they have been replaced with the movies characters-with someone else's perception, description and vision. And for me, the same happens with other experiences. The words might ring true...but it takes away something from my experience if I assign them the same attributes (if that makes any sense at all, lol).
That's why I say, for example, the precepts are guidelines. Not because they are meant to be taken lightly, but because they are the perception of someone (even a great someone) from a time and place and culture I did not live in. They are still valuable today, but we also have much more information and understanding about certain things today (sorry, not giving up garlic, it doesn't increase my libido) that I think we have to take both into account and not simply say that we can apply "rules" from 2000 years ago, precisely to our lives today.
Doubts creep in. There's nothing wrong with that. Investigate them, see what they are about. But don't automatically accept someone else's doubts as your own.
Nice enough but ask your friend how much good this philosophy of living a pleasant life was to the slaves that the Greeks owned. How about the grieving mothers of the sons killed in their constant warfare between city states?
The libraries are full of philosophies and guides to living. They're not worth the paper they're printed on, including Buddhist philosophy, because they're nothing but intellectual distractions from the suffering of life. People read them, say "Hey, that sounds right!" and then go out and behave the same way they always have. Philosophies don't change people. That requires rolling up your sleeves, putting down the books, and getting your hands dirty doing the hard work of living the 8-fold path.
Oh! [lobster stamps his foot]
I'm off to Catholic confession, then I will be forgiven. The rest of the week I am free. The cool bit is I can confess that I lied about going to confession as part of my confession. Heaven here I come!
So what are you suspecting, my friend?
"Bless me father, for I have sinned, it has been 45 years since my last confession and we might be here for some time...."
Try it and see.
It seems a healthy philosophy. I was unaware of anything but the modern usage. So many thanks to you and your friend @genie.
I can find many parallels to Buddhism, possibly influences as there is a long history of influence from Greek ideas.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Buddhism
For me the important thing is pragmatism. How to implement? I would suggest epicureans contemplate and think. Buddhists meditate and practice mindfulness.
On the contrary, The Buddha handles the turmoil of the world better than anyone else because the turmoil does not cause him to suffer.
With regard to promises one could say the Buddha, in his own mind, didn't make any promises. He just told it like it is. For example, if I promised you that this glass will fall to the ground if I push it off the table, you could call that a "promise" in a manner of speaking. If you don't believe in gravity, or have no knowledge of gravity, then there might be a cause for suspicion. But from the Buddha's point of view, there isn't any promise. It's just a description of how gravity functions. But that isn't an accurate analogy because everyone already knows how gravity functions. But, not very many people know how suffering functions.
Buddhism is very practical when it comes to the day to day practice. But, if all you do is philosophically theorize and don't actually practice anything, then you could say it's not practical. But that's only because you removed all the parts that are practical by not practicing any of it. Buddhism is intended to be practiced, not just theorized about.
And the New Testament was written in Greek by Hellens.
Philosophies create concepts and ideas for thinking and debates, like should slaves be free. Lot of wisdom and rhetoric.
"A society grows great when old men..." is a Greek proverb.
Disagree.
Based on my own personal experience of long-term Buddhist practices and qualified personal guidance.
Buddha knew exactly what he was talking about, and it is the practices that produce the insight and inner change.
Be careful of intellectualization .. that occurs in a different brain hemisphere than the hemisphere that meditation "lights up". Buddhism realities are not understood through intellectualization.
As for the claims of Buddhism, is up to each individual to try them out and see for themselves if it is so, or not.
(The catch is that it takes years and it needs to be done properly, but the pianists face the same obstacles in developing their skills don't they?)
I like Buddhism as a philosophy, but I don't care about it as a religion. I'm not a religious man at all. Religions are clinging into the power structures, hierarchies, societies, beliefs, habits. I have my personal experiences of "spirituality" I cannot explain to you. And it's not important are them Buddhists at all.
You seem to be very attached to your friend's seemingly very narrow choice of philosophical orientations, @genie.
The worst thing anyone can do is to voice other people's opinions without duly questioning them with one's own critical faculties, take them for granted unchecked, and pass them on as cheap currency.
I would sit down with a good Buddhadharma book, and hefty Philosophy book if I were you, and start doing my homework from the Prologue till the last index page.
Much metta to you
I'm always very suspicious of people who begin narratives with 'my friend said....' but then fail to offer their own responses.
If ever I enter into dialogue with anyone I would recount the whole discussion, (not just one side) and give both views aired, and then submit them for perusal and cogitation by others, in order to glean a wide range of perspectives.
But coming in and saying 'my friend said * this * and offer no clue as to personal response, smacks of "this is me really, I'm just using a 'friend' as a front"...
Besides, I find it difficult to believe that given his somewhat erratic and outspoken views, genie wouldn't have come up with some type of riposte to his friend, to recount to us...
This! ^^
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The modern form of epicurean philosophy is probably voluntary simplicity
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntary_Simplicity
There is merit in that. However the epicurean philosophy is linked and lends itself to hedonism. Not as skilfull and pragmatic as dharma which naturally leads to independence from circumstance.
As pointed out by others, dharma works. It targets the nature of our being, the cause of our difficulties and provides community, tools and continuos means towards an improved life. You don't have to be religious to be involved with Buddhism.