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Metaphysics / Abhidhamma VS Life Improvement
Dear All,
As defined in the dictionary, ''metaphysics'' is the part of philosophy that is concerned with trying to understand and describe the nature of truth, life, and reality. So, let me ask you how the metaphysics / Abhidhamma can improve our life?
This question is actually not mine, but of a business-minded friend (MBA Graduate) of mine who asked me recently following our discussion of Buddhism and reasons to believe.
Yours in Dhamma,
Roath
As defined in the dictionary, ''metaphysics'' is the part of philosophy that is concerned with trying to understand and describe the nature of truth, life, and reality. So, let me ask you how the metaphysics / Abhidhamma can improve our life?
This question is actually not mine, but of a business-minded friend (MBA Graduate) of mine who asked me recently following our discussion of Buddhism and reasons to believe.
Yours in Dhamma,
Roath
0
Comments
dennis60 : I agree with your idea that my friend has UNFORTUNATELY not gotten to a place yet to pursue the answers to these LIFE LESSON-related questions... just a matter of time until he does.
Thank you all for your responses.
i've said it before, i believe that anything beyond the four noble truths and direct experience are flights of metaphysical fancy. i like what the buddha said in "a handful of leaves".
http://www.buddhanet.net/4noble1.htm
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How about telling your businesslike friend that metaphysics allows us to logically prove the truth of the Buddha's description of the universe. Nagarjuna and Bradley show us that every other metaphysical position is logically indefensible. Their proofs should get more attention in metaphysics imho.
perhaps maybe more "to see" and "experience" the thruth which will allow us to see how things really are, which allow us to be completely free from suffering.
very best wishes,
armando
here's one of the more intelligible passages: http://www.abhidhamma.com/txt_Compendium_of_matter.pdf
But abhidhamma will be required, at least later on, to understand things like impermanence. To understand of kalapa's, that arise and pass that all things are supposedly made out of.
Those understandings are mere speculation, at least to most of us. This is where faith comes in, or rather some axiomatic understanding of how such notions might fit in the bigger picture.
They say faith is like your eyes, you can see what it MIGHT be all about, but Buddhism isn't about faith, just faith is useless. If faith are your eyes, then in Buddhism, legs would be determination to be free from suffering (to sit and gain insight). Without your eyes, you won't see where you're going, you'll go on so many paths, and without legs you might see your path, but you won't get there. Both are required, at least later on.
Once upon a time ...
Eh, what's that supposed to mean? :rolleyes:
Everything you ever need to know, learn, understand, absorb, accept and realise, is in the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold path.
It's all in there.
Truly.
Thanks for the link; but you're right! This is heavy stuff! Ouch. Perhaps this is evidence of his Omniscience!
From that same sight, I found another one called Kalapas - Groups of Matter. I thought I was reading a Calculus textbook!
http://www.abhidhamma.com/txt_Kalapas.pdf
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Trans, this will allay a lot of your confusion.....
Uptight me?
Haha, thanks. Nice Sutta there. I have come to realize that I was wrongly separating the Four Noble Truths from his philosophy and nature of reality teachings. Instead, these teachings are an aspect of the Four Noble Truths, and more specifically the division of the Eightfold Path which is Right View.
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Every teaching the Buddha ever taught, comes back to these.
As two, completely separate and unconnected ordained people told me, at different times, The four, the Eight and the Five, can be condensed into one teaching.
Simplify, and be Mindful.
Nah, I'm sure you're right....
What I mean is that sometimes, we get so intent on getting down to the really deep nitty-gritty, that the actual simplicity of everything seems invisible...
When something is simple, it's incredible how many people insist it really cannot be this 'simple' and actively seek complexities, because surely to goodness, it HAS to be more complicated than this, doesn't it?
nope.
This is all true, however, for me it took learning all the complexities, engaging in philosophical discourses, deep knowledge seeking, to finally reach and realize the simplistic philosophy. Had I not gone through all that, I would have never been able to see the truth of Buddhist wisdom and would have rejected it due to ignorance.
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"Over time, the Buddhists transformed what was originally a straightforward and largely descriptive psychology into a highly complex, systematic, and self-conscious meta-psychology - still with the explicit aim of eliminating the afflictive, karma-creating energies that perpetuate cyclic existence."
He goes on to say "Thus, two main factors that were indispensable to the Buddhist view of samsaric continuity across multiple lifetimes - the persistence of the latent afflictions and the accumualtion of karmic potential - were not easily ascertained in an analysis which focused exclusively on present and active processes of mind. The existence of these subsisting factors, their patterns of arising, and their possible influences on all one's mental processes until attaining liberation - all these became problematic within the Abhidharmic analytic.
And they became problematic, we shall argue, because of the inherent tension between Abhidharma's ultimate aim and its immediate method; between the overriding religious aim of stopping the inertial energies of samsaric life altogether, and the means to that end - the systematic description of the momentary and present processes of mind. The unavoidable distinction between the persisting influences from the past and the active processes in the present would eventually bring about an explicit recognition of the kinds of influences that underlie and enable every action yet which remain inaccessible to analyses limited to immediate mental processes - it brought about, in short, a recognition of unconscious mind."
The book goes on to explain that the Yogacara school developed the theory of the Buddhist unconscious, a theory very close to that of Freud.
acariya
Ok Federica... by this you mean:
-The Four Noble Truths,
-The Eightfold Path (which is actually redundant as it is the 4rth Noble Truth so thusly already mentioned
- The Five (Are you referring to the 5 Aggrigates, the 5 Precepts, the 5 hindrances... I assume you are refering to the Precepts).
and what about the Three (Three Refuges) or are they truly not as important as those you mention, as they can be practiced and experienced without the refuges?
Hi .... look please at http://www.abhidhamma.org/sitagu sayadaw.htm ... thnks Leonardo
what made you revive it, instead of just posting a new one?
Just curious.....