Astrology and Buddhism
Mutley
Somerset UK Explorer
I thought I would revive this thread as I have a strong interest in Astrology, in fact I am studying for the Diploma of the Faculty of Astrological Studies.
My view is this: Astrology may impel but it does not compel. We all find drives within us to do one thing or another, some we follow, some we resist; in each case on moral, ethical or aesthetic grounds. Or even legal grounds (you may feel like murdering somebody but you don't do it unless you're prepared for a whole load of legal doodoo).
A good analogy is this: the signs of the zodiac can be likened to colours in an artist's palette and his brushes to the planets. Astrology ordains which brush is dipped into each paint (which planet is in what sign) but it is up to the artist where he puts his paint on the support.
Astrology does not respond well to scientific or statistical analysis. It is an art and therefore not fathomable in the highly excisory environment of science. A number of very useful "babies" got thrown out with the bath water when the intellectual scientific revolution began
I think that astrology is of value in Buddhism because it can bring understanding both of the individual and also of mankind at large. It must be approached with an analytical mind and an open heart.
Comments
but what truths are the art of astrology based on?
Just my opinion, but astrology and the like, I think, are fun entertainment but I'd never base my life choices on it. I just don't see the logic of refusing to sign a contract for a house or car I really want because Mercury is retrograde. Do the planets and such influence us? To some degree I think they do. It's well documented the changes that happen during full moons. Ask any cop or ER doctor. But I don't think they are any sort of guide to tell me whether I should buy a car or not because of the exact moment I was born.
I realize that art doesn't always make logical sense. And there are things I subscribe to that don't have much or any logical proof associated with them (such as rebirth and Ayurveda) but I don't let them over ride logic or common sense, either. I'm not going to stop eating fresh raspberries with my yogurt because Ayurveda says it's bad. I use it as a general guideline.
I'm also not going to make a decision based on my astrological sign or even my personality. Sometimes it's too easy to excuse our behaviors because of our personality. It's so easy to natal charts and think "ah, see? This is just who I am" and use it as an excuse. "I'm not coming to your birthday party, it's just who I am, I don't like them" is not ok just because your chart gives your personality permission to hate parties. Sometimes you do things you find uncomfortable to support those in your life.
Anyhow, I enjoy those types of things for fun. I love personality tests and tarot cards and all sorts of things. But for fun. Not for serious decision making in my life. I enjoy learning about myself. But the true learning about myself comes from inner work,not tarot cards, tests or the planets.
I could be wrong, and I don't have time to look, but I thought I had read more than once that Buddha was not a fan of such things simply because they cannot be investigated and proven.
I think you'll find modern science has debunked any theory around human behaviour being affected by the full moon.
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2012/03/27/3464601.htm
Astrology is merely one more attachment we either really don't need in the first place, or just something else we're going to have to let go of, eventually.
If one follows the Buddha's teachings, one does not need to rely on an unsubstantiated 'Art'.
I really cannot conceive it as credible that a piece of advice in a newspaper or magazine, can be anything like a good fit for an estimated entire 12th of the population....
@Bunks, yes, thanks for the link. Except people I know in all walks of life claim otherwise. Perhaps it is a psychological thing and not a biological thing, but it extends to pets as well. Multiple people I know who work in vet fields have the same stories as ER doctors do. That the cases are multiplied in the days surrounding a full moon and that the animals are much harder to control via normal methods. I doubt in this day that it has to do with more light at night, because it's not like people are partying at the bar more because the moon is out. Maybe they do it unconsiously somehow? But maybe our feelings about it lead animals to act out when they normally do. I guess I'm not saying the moon directly has an impact on our biology that leads us to act crazy. I really couldn't say if it does or not, but I can't imagine it does. But beliefs many generations in the making about full moons, positive or negative, are very strong and belief plays a huge part in people's expectations and experiences.
To flip it the other way, why is the full moon consider auspicious in Buddhism? Even my teacher, who is a pretty logical type of guy who loves how science based the HHDL tends to be, believes we need to do certain chants at full moon because the full moon enhances the results. The full moon is a celebration in many traditions, including Pagan ones as well. And I'm betting the people for whom it is a positive tradition don't experience the same craziness as others do. I don't know where that stems from but I wonder if it has to do with the Church doing all they can to crush Pagan beliefs back in the day and perhaps they flipped the moon to be scary and crazy rather than just a time to celebrate. And perhaps that has carried forward so far that the belief about it is so extensive that it becomes self-fulfilling. I really don't know. It's interesting to consider, lol.
Obviously it makes sense the moon doesn't have a direct physical or biological impact on it. But the stories of people who work in rescue, protective and medical fields have all said otherwise. So I don't know how that comes to fulfill so frequently.
Insightful as always @karasti
AGREED. I work in a specialist clinic and we are the only providers of this particular specialization in the area. Many of my coworkers feel the full moon lunacy is a real thing, but I can say from my own empirical evidence that we are just that nutty and busy all the time. It has nothing to do with the moon, (though she is crazy beautiful
) and everything to do with the population density per provider. Folks in my office will often ask if the full moon is out when we are having a "bad" day... but usually it's just a waxin' or a wanin'.
So then do things like astrology, tarot etc, do they also become self-fullfilling? Because you read that Mercury was retrograde, will you now make your new car contract a disaster because you expect it to be that way? Would it turn out the same had you never known about Mercury? If Tarot or your horoscope tells you you are going to have a bad day, are you really destined for a bad day, or did you create it yourself? Seems the latter is far more likely than whether the sun is in your house of Jupiter influencing your decisions and giving you no choice in the matter.
I had a natal chart done by a friend that was very detailed. It was actually really interesting and seemed so like me! But then I read my sister's, and hers was a lot like me, too. I just happened to latch onto those things like me and dismiss those unlike me. I went through each print out, and highlighted the portions like and unlike me in different colors and the results were almost the same as far as how much was correct or incorrect. I'd bet most other reading would work out the same. I find all the personality tests more accurate, at least they are looking at factors of how you answered questions. But they do little to make my life better, so I do them for fun but not much more than that. Still gotta work with my monkey mind either way!
This little Buddhist "snippet" might be of interest to the lunatics amongst us (self included )
I have an interest in science and astronomy, and the ideas behind astrology simply don't make any sense to me.
Science and astronomy are based on actual, verifiable observations - this does not appear to be true of astrology, which in my view makes it a basically metaphysical system. One can fiddle around with metaphysical systems and ideas endlessly - they can even be useful sometimes ( not saying that that is true in this case ) but when a metaphysical idea becomes a belief, I think there is a serious problem there, and I think this is doubly true of systematic collections of such ideas.
What qualification will this earn you?
Is this an accredited body? What public standing do the accreditations have?
What benefit will (presumably) your 'Graduation' afford you?
What kind of work will you be able to garner with such a qualification?
What are the fees?
How long is the course?
Where do you study, and with whom?
Have you met and interacted with other students?
What literature or tuition do they give you?
I'm seriously asking....
ETA I looked them up.
They're very verbose, aren't they....?
IMHO, They use a lot of words to actually say very little...
And they charge. A lot.
Let me put it this way: I think the qualification and skill-sets you already have, have a lot more credibility and respect, than this one.
"An' dat's all I haveta say about dat."
I have a slightly different take on this, somewhat inline with @Fosdick. Basically the root cause of suffering is ignorance, or delusion, along with the other Three Poisons. I find a non-proveable metaphysical system such as astrology to be a form of delusion - it can be fun to play with, but most of these things obscure direct experience of the truth.
In the case of astrology it instills a certain belief in a kind of predeterminism. If the stars know so much about your character and future actions, well, they are just giant balls of gas orbiting in space according to the principles of physics, so doesn't that mean the universe is largely a clockwork? And that - predeterminism - is something the Buddha was staunchly against.
Further predictions from astrology play with your mind and perceptions if you believe them - your astrological prediction says today you will meet a tall, dark stranger and suddenly every over-average-height dark-haired or skinned or dressed stranger is looking like a prospective romantic partner. This too is a form of delusion, distorting your normal sense of the world.
It does seem that I have caused my fellow Buddhists some degree of dukkha by resurrecting this thread so as I hold with the principle of Ahimsa I will leave it at that. My OP on this topic will still be there (at least for some time) if anyone wants to view it again.
There is no dukkha here that I can see. We're simply pointing out to you that such practice is not really in accordance with Buddhist philosophy, is ultimately immaterial, and for my part, I think the Institution you have committed to, is taking an awful lot of your hard-earned money for frankly what seems to me to be very little lucrative return.
Brian, there is no dukkha here, people are just saying what they think, and as usual the comments are direct and insightful. That is one of the things I like about this forum.
)
I hope you will stick around, I have learned a lot here.
( gawd, first I come out as a secular Buddhist and then I admit I have learned a lot on a forum, what the hell is going on?!
In answer to Federica's post: yes it does cost money but it amounts to only about £20 p.w. over 3 years if you want to look at it like that, which is not a lot compared to OU courses nowadays which it somewhat resembles. Some posters seem to have confused the astrology that I do, which is horoscopes made for the exact time, date and place of the person's birth with Sun sign astrology in newspapers which of course has to be tripe.
Quite a few notable people in recent times have sympathized with astrology, the most notable being Jung. Elisabeth Vreede, Dutch astronomer and mathematician was also a devotee and did work for it for the anthroposophical movement.
Astrology in my opinion is at a transition point at the moment but it could be made into a very useful tool for the alleviation of human suffering.
But I would never force my opinion on others (well, hardly ever) so perhaps this thread should have been left dormant!
Parrot astrology is a science.
http://opcoa.st/0Vd0H
[ahem]
I wonder how the astrologers giving their forecasts in newspapers would feel about your comments, because in all probability they have studied and qualified in much the same way as you are currently doing.
A Google search reveals that Jonathan Cainer, possibly the most famous newspaper horoscope writer the UK knew, studied at the same faculty as you. His nephew Oscar has taken over his column, having studied at the same Faculty.
So it seems there is in fact very little difference between what you believe you are studying, and what you think is tripe (your word, not mine).
I think that perhaps a few leading astrologers have sun sign columns in newspapers and it can be extremely lucrative, especially if you have the personalized telephone forecast system linked to it. This gives them income and they then do individual horoscope consultations privately. I did hear of one well known woman astrologer who was married to a QC. No prizes for guessing who had the greater income.
Frankly, if they do work this way, I don't think that it is very ethical. The majority of astrologers seem to do it as a "serious" hobby or have other professions.
Astrology has at the least one eminently practical use : Anyone wishing to be excused from jury service has only to profess a fervent belief in astrology and they will be bounced off the list. Saw this happen 5 times in a single jury selection, but was too dense to attempt the ploy myself.
@Mutley How will you use it to reduce suffering? Also just FYI I was talking about the more direct astrology as you speak of and not newspaper paragraphs. The natal chart I had done by my friend is 26 pages long. It was interesting, yes. Just like the 20 page report I got about my personality from the Enneagram Institute. But I can't say they've done anything to reduce my suffering. In fact, they quite possibly for a time increased it, because I used them as a way to point out to family "See, this is just who I am and you'll have to learn to deal with it." Not that it is the fault of either of those reports, it was my fault of course. But it made it easier for me to dig in with my ego into my all-important self and identify with it further. Which isn't exactly the goal of my practice.
Occult 'science' could have predicted that ... unless one is an astrologer ...
The Nakkatta Jataka
The Nakkatta Jataka (Jataka 46) is another occasion where astrology is portrayed in its true counterproductive nature. It describes the story of villainous astrologer who gets enraged that he was not consulted regarding fixing a date for a wedding. He then stops the wedding from taking place by telling the groom’s family that the wedding day is unlucky. As a consequence however, the groom is denied his true blessing, a good wife.
It is here where the Buddha preaches the timeless verse “Nakkantha pathimanethan atthabalan upacchaga - atththo atththassa nakkanthan kin karrisanthi tharaka.” (The fool who procrastinates waiting for an auspicious time will never achieve ones objective. The true auspicious thing is achieving your objective. What could stars in the sky do?)
http://opcoa.st/0VPwx
I see no harm in Mutley paying beacoup bucks for astrology training. After all, plenty of people pay absurd money for tennis lessons, and people into astrology don't seem noticeably less interesting than people into tennis, or golf, or bagpipes, or anything else you can pay to get training in.
On the other hand, I don't see much in parallel between astrology and Buddhism. Opposites in some ways, actually.
Astrology can be fun if one is extremely bored. It's nothing to be taken seriously; the constellations have moved so much over, what is it? 2,200 years.
It annoys me when people say "X chakra is connected to Y sign". Even though the science of chakras is a contentious topic, it's kind of insulting to compare it to astrology.
Hmmm, We are part of the natural world, we are made up mostly of water. The moon effect the tides world over, some places more than others. To say that there is NO effect on us from the planets is sort of silly as we are part of the natural world. Does not Buddhism teach non-duality? we are part of everything? Having said that, just how much influence the moon or other planets have on us is the debatable point...just saying :-)
Welcome BrownB. Hope you spend some time reading through the collection of topics. We are richly blessed with a very wide diversity of people and viewpoints, and fortunately for us a good number of our members have the writing talent to share their views with great eloquence. I have read a great many posts of amazing thoughtfulness here, because people express their viewpoints quite openly. As a result, I've learned quite a lot. But if I would tell people that their views are sort of silly, it might be an indicator that I'm not in the right mindset to absorb, ponder, and learn.
I hope you express your views here. I hope nobody calls them silly. (No promises though.)
I'll leave this here regarding what the Buddha said was "wrong livelihood" for monastics. It seems fitting for the topic and I think hints at how he felt about such things -
... reading marks on the limbs [e.g., palmistry]; reading omens and signs; interpreting celestial events [falling stars, comets]; interpreting dreams; reading marks on the body [e.g., phrenology]; reading marks on cloth gnawed by mice; offering fire oblations, oblations from a ladle, oblations of husks, rice powder, rice grains, ghee, and oil; offering oblations from the mouth; offering blood-sacrifices; making predictions based on the fingertips; geomancy; laying demons in a cemetery; placing spells on spirits; reciting house-protection charms; snake charming, poison-lore, scorpion-lore, rat-lore, bird-lore, crow-lore; fortune-telling based on visions; giving protective charms; interpreting the calls of birds and animals ... [The list goes on and on]
@ Steve_B: Thank you Steve. I will have to be more thoughtful in my choice of words. I did not mean "silly" in a attacking sort of way. Perhaps limited view point would have been better.
A bit too zestful in jumping aboard. My bad. I will work on my keyboarding thought transferring skills. Seems I am off to a rocky start, My apologizes to the offended. I dislike those Zen boards where there is a know it all who talks down to everyone. From my brief readings I noticed a lack of that here, well until I spoke. silly me :-(
No, not rocky at all -- read the old threads! We can be pretty aggressive and I'm confident you have offended zero people (but there's still time).
I'm just pointing out the value of diverse views, and what a treasury we have here.
@Brownbuddha don't worry. You're not offending anyone, there's no need to apologise.
I have no doubt that everyone, myself included (maybe even first and foremost!) hits the keys and clicks on 'post comment' without always double-checking. The posts I've edited after submitting.... heck, the posts I've deleted even before posting!
You're welcome.
it would be extremely nice if you wanted to, to tell us about your existence and experience as a "Monk". (I use inverted commas, because you did. But am not sure why you did....)
@Jayantha is in the process of completing his journey to ordination as a Theravada Bikkhu, and is our resident 'port of call' for information and wisdom. My description, not his. Do check his threads out, and see his videos.
we operate a very open-door policy here, and we're all friendly....
As per my experience astrology is true, particularly the Indian kundali astrology. But I refrain from taking money for reading birth chart to be along with advice of right livelihood and no astrologer can be 100% right in advice to layman. Although I feel astrologer can accept daxina or donation as per layman's wish.
When I was younger, I had decided to be free from astrology kind of thing and to live life based on proper management and have fun to face life as it come. But I learned because my siblings had interest and I just ended up learning it due to curiosity.
Astrology comes handy when person get stuck to unexpected delays or hardships. At least person comes to know certainty in future whether it is good or bad.
There are only 2 certain things in Life: Death and taxes. And as @Jayantha pointed out, consideration of astrological phenomena is not skiilful, and a 'wrong livelihood'......
Well exactly. From a scientific point of view the effects are negligible, as has been shown by many studies on practical effects in the field. This article may be a useful exploration. It examines only the effects of the moon, but the gravitational effects of the other planets on things here on earth are considerably smaller.
Ah...I can't help this brings to mind when the Emperor of China (Mulan animated movie) tells his General that a single grain of rice could tip the scales in their favor: (I love this movie):
Sorry but I still think astrology is a load of woo. The distances are literally astronomical.
I don't plan my days around it, but I find it interesting.
My theory is, there's always something to it (whatev) that we're not able to observe up front.
According to some, the moon has miniscule effect but we know it's got enough pull to create the rhythm of the ocean (hi/lo tides).
I don't believe in Astrology. We Aries folk are extremely cynical (apparently).
Being a Libran I usually have a balanced view on things...oh, wait a minute...
I'm a Cancerian... I wonder if that makes me @lobster's distant cousin...
distant. He walks backwards (nutter) you walk sideways (drunk).
Anything's possible, 's'pose....
for monastics just to clarify. But obviously in an age where there was all kinds of rites, rituals and ways of going about things, the Buddha was fairly no holds barred about these kinds of activities.
The Irony of course being that today in Buddhist countries, Monks get paid to do many of the things on this very list, lol.
Yes, I recently came across some cases of monks who made protective amulets during ww2. It made me a little sad.
I have never really been a subscriber to any of these things outside of fun and entertainment. But why worry about anyone else? If someone wears a necklace and it helps them feel safe, why pity them? Why not be happy they found something that makes them feel better instead? Having anxiety, I have found a variety of ways to manage it without taking meds. Some of my routines other people would probably pity me over. Not necessary. They give me comfort and make difficult things, easier.
Belief is actually a very strong force in our lives, and while an amulet (for example) might not magically protect anyone, the belief that it does can have a huge impact on a person. But unless their belief is having a direct, negative impact on someone else, I see no reason to judge them over it. Just because they carry a coin or wear a necklace of protection doesn't mean that it does anything more than give them comfort. We all need that sometimes.
In a sense, yes, it is an attachment to an object. But, I'd hazard a guess we are all attached to various things that we are then worthy of being judged over the same way we judge others. I'm pretty sure there are a lot of people who find prostrating to Buddha statues to be fairly ridiculous, yet those here who practice it get something out of it, so that is why they do it. How are either of them any different? What about wearing malas? Setting up altars/shrines? We all have reasons for doing similar things that we justify and are equally attached to.
Ooh, aah, but what about cluttering one's views with all kinds of backwards superstition and ideas of magic? Personally I find a world free of such things to be pleasantly clean and straightforward, simpler without having to account for those kinds of cause-and-effect.
But then, I see nothing wrong with altars or amulets as long as it's done in the knowledge that it's for psychological support, and doesn't have any metaphysical meaning.
But how to know what the people really think is happening? Other cultures learn different things. There's a lot of Bon within Tibetan Buddhism, which is why it takes on a bit more of superstitious stuff than other traditions do. To them, it's not cluttering their lives any more than the stuff we clutter our lives with. I feel much more cluttered by other areas of my life than malas. It's just up to each of us to determine what place, if any, those things have in our lives. But not to use our reasoning to apply to others who might reach other conclusions.
Dumbo and his feather.... eventually, he learnt it wasn't necessary, but until that point, it was vital....
One of the things I like about Buddhism is that it can be practised free of woo.