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I'm not sure what I think about it. My experience over the last few days has certainly taught me that directly trying to enlighten them is not the path. I guess to me the best way is to help guide them to their own plain and simple truth. Not complicate them with concepts they don't understand. Just help them find their own truth, which they can be happy with and which they can understand at a very simple level.
I'm not sure what I think about it. My experience over the last few days has certainly taught me that directly trying to enlighten them is not the path. I guess to me the best way is to help guide them to their own plain and simple truth. Not complicate them with concepts they don't understand. Just help them find their own truth, which they can be happy with and which they can understand at a very simple level.
Well sometimes "great things are seen from the valleys, only small things from the peaks"....
In the Pure Land there are those for whom Amida is "up there", or perhaps "out west", for others "he/she" is a personification of Reality-as-is, and maybe everything in-between and even beyond..... :buck:
Hello! New to the forum here, please let me know if I do anything which offends.
I invite everyone to pick holes in the following, which I cobbled together this morning during a conflict with my desire to believe in the aspects of buddhism which seem to require a leap of faith (they are quite beautiful ideas), and a sense of moral obligation to avoid unquestioning faith, and the bigotry and suffering it has often resulted in (buddhism not being immune to this, see Japanese Zen during ww2, and the wars between Zen samurai and the indigenous Shinto religion, during which blood was spilled in the name of dharma).
Ill has been done in the name of religion. Ill has been done in the name of logic and reason.
We can argue that it was flawed logic, flawed religion, flawed reason.
But how do we prevent it from happening again? Hindsight often fails to prevent future error.
Meditation requires no chain of logic, no blind faith, merely an empty mind. After the point of logical conclusion that it is beneficial, (which is quite easy to arrive at by scientific logic) no further logical discourse is necessary. And with a simple and agreeable logical conclusion, resulting in an action to take (to meditate) one need make no leaps of faith.
P.S, I would like to add that a don't think Zen is bad budhism, but that budhism as a whole should not be considered immune to the same mistakes made by other religions.
.... but that budhism as a whole should not be considered immune to the same mistakes made by other religions.
Absolutely, to think otherwise is without sense or reason; All religions that survive have evolved.
Let us also be mindful there was no buddhism in the buddha's life, there was just buddha, dharma and sanga. No schools, no scriptures, no lineages, no doctrines; just the triple gems in all their realisations.
"I guess to me the best way is to help guide them to their own plain and simple truth. Not complicate them with concepts they don't understand."
TheJourney i think the issue is that your so sure that you are right about everything that when your point loses any sense you just think that we don't get it. maybe you don't get it
like life existed forever and can never end or if a substance existed forever it is a concept
maybe your right, but those seem pretty obviously wrong and not too complicated at all.
Maybe I don't get it. I don't care. Why do you keep trying to argue with me? lol. It's so funny. I'm not trying to make you believe anything. Obviously I believe what I believe. Everyone does. Do you want me to say i'm wrong? Then why would I believe it? lol. Seriously.
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federicaSeeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubtModerator
Because as an enlightened being - You WOULD get it. And the fact that you don't care doesn't make you enlightened - it makes you uncaring. Enlightened beings care a lot. Skilfully.
Because as an enlightened being - You WOULD get it. And the fact that you don't care doesn't make you enlightened - it makes you uncaring. Enlightened beings care a lot. Skilfully.
ok. lol. I'm not trying to prove anything. I'm trying to fade into the background, because I have called attention to myself in my thread I made because I thought I could be of the most help if I did so but now I can't say anything without being attacked and tried to prove wrong. So, I am trying to fade into a point where you either accept what I say or you don't, but you don't antagonize me with everything I say. Obviously I care or I wouldn't post, but obviously some of you don't agree with me and who am I to tell you you are wrong? So you can say i'm wrong. I don't care. I won't say you're wrong, but obviously you'll say i'm wrong. But that's fine.
TheJourney, why don't you address the various 'criticisms'? Quite often those who came to Buddha came to argue or even insult him. He answered almost all questions and brought many people to enlightenment that way. If Buddha simply said "I don't care what you think" to everyone who came to him for help, we wouldn't have Buddhism.
There's a buddha within us, but in most people he goes unrealized. Therefore we can't presume to say, exactly, that "we are the Buddha". That's my understanding.
P.S, I would like to add that a don't think Zen is bad budhism, but that budhism as a whole should not be considered immune to the same mistakes made by other religions.
Hear, hear! Not immune to the same mistakes made by other human beings in general.
You chose them from photographs. It is their good kamma that they were born good looking enough for you to choose them. Do not presume to guess the machinations of kamma because only a fully awakened Buddha has complete understanding of kamma and how it affects are particular being.
The only presumption is your post.
You presume I chose them cause they were good looking.
You chose them because of your preferences. That is their kamma and yours. I did presume, however, that you did not choose the ugly ones... I apologise if I am wrong.
You presume to understand a Buddha.
The mind of one thus gone is unfathomable. I would never presume that.
Your post is just superstition, that is, speculative unverified views.
Youir opinion.
History has been well documented. The causes of social ills have been well documented. For example, the history of African-Americans.
Recent history is documented. The causes of tragedies is not documented by historians. It is documented by the Buddha. The cause of social ills is ignorance.
I can only suggest you educate yourself.
Why? Because your views align evil with good.
I have obviously hit a raw nerve here and possibly been misunderstood.
For example, people who once developed the best weapons enslaved African people in America. These African-Americans have suffered social persecution and often live poorly economically.
Yet you appear to be asserting those who developed better weapons and enslaved people to earn their wealth are recipients of good karma.
Not good kamma, just kamma. The "powerful" have their kamma as do the "meek". You can call it good, bad, evil, whatever you want. They are value labels.
Your views make no sense at all because the Buddha taught weapons are evil and trading in human beings (slavery) is evil.
No, he did not. He taught that refraining from wielding weapons, trading in weapons and killing is conducive to the path wheras killing etc is not conducive to the path. The Buddha doesn't use value judgements like good and evil to describe thoughts, words and actions.
The children I sponsor live in regions that have been inflicted by war for many years. Their poverty is unrelated to any past life karma.
You can't be certain of that. Why weren't they born in a "safer" country? How about babies that die soon after they are born from congenital or viral complications? No government did that to them. Kamma is very complicated and sometimes suffering arises because of the mere fact that we live in a physical plane of existence but sometimes it can be the ripening of kamma. The Buddha talks about this in the suttas and Buddhist monks talk about this in their dhamma talks.
Their poverty is directly attributable to corrupt evil governments. Their good fortune is directly attributable to the Christian groups that help them and those who sponsor them.
Well, I'm not a big fan of these xtian groups because many of them do not have compassion as their primary motive. Their primary motive is to spread their form of blindness and wrong-view throughout the world and the vehicle through which they do that is their aid groups. They take money from the poor unsuspecting "rich world" people and use it to spread religion in many cases setting up schools and refusing to teach those that don't participate in their xtian religion teachings and ceremonies. That's why I don't support them. I donate through Oxfam - a secular charity.
The reason why I not into rebirth is because I am not sure on the concept.
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federicaSeeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubtModerator
ok. lol. I'm not trying to prove anything. I'm trying to fade into the background, because I have called attention to myself in my thread I made because I thought I could be of the most help if I did so but now I can't say anything without being attacked and tried to prove wrong. So, I am trying to fade into a point where you either accept what I say or you don't, but you don't antagonize me with everything I say. Obviously I care or I wouldn't post, but obviously some of you don't agree with me and who am I to tell you you are wrong? So you can say i'm wrong. I don't care. I won't say you're wrong, but obviously you'll say i'm wrong. But that's fine.
I suppose I too take a rather different approach to reincarnation/karma debate. I do not consider myself a wholesale Buddhist per se. I consider myself a kind of Dharmic philosopher, which is obviously Buddhistic—but, and again, not religiously Buddhist. So I do not feel nearly as confined as many here do to defend, expound or simply explore the traditional teachings of Buddhism within some context of official Buddhist tradition. My view does require some explanation as to why I would deviate from the more traditional routes.
Mainly, I would argue that Buddhist thought is unique in the sense that it focuses on the concept of change and how change is part of the very fabric of reality—impermanence. This can include notions of an ever-evolving understanding of our universe and dharma’s exposition of that change and how it is subject to that very change itself. This is to say that if Dharma—as a spiritual/philosophical approach—had grand insights at point X, those insights at points Y and Z will likely be altered in the light of new knowledge profound and sacred. It is oftentimes difficult for me to understand stringent allegiance to a body of thought that itself encourages an empirical, personal, and an ever-evolving understanding of itself and the world. For me, the heart of the key teachings of Buddhism is to free ourselves of certitude of our conceptual frameworks, become free from a enslaving past, regardless of what was involved in that past, and let go of those things that we would falsely treasure in the face of impermanence. So, the Buddha and the traditions that grew up around Buddhism over the centuries are interesting and necessary for understanding of Dharma; however, they are not at all the end point of that journey. One must also factor in what we as a species have learned over the centuries, what insights philosophy and theological expositions have—and do-- give us, and what we have gained through rigorous self-examination and critical thought. Given this position, we are not required by any inner logic of Buddhism or in general to demand that dharmic teaching be unified or dogmatically immutable. We are free to examine for ourselves and debate and revise and explore the options we discover to be the case. Such a teaching cannot be hamstrung by traditional theological soteric requirements. At the core of dharma, I would argue, lie change, interconnectivity, and conceptual finiteness. Whatever salvific assertions one wishes to advance they must be critically examined, and it matters little if the Buddha or Jesus or the Pope made the claim. If these characteristics of impermanence, interconnectivity, and conceptual finiteness are the necessary elements in dharmic thought, then by any logical standard we need not adhere to any who asserts that there is only one way to see and apply the concepts of karma and reincarnation unless it can be shown otherwise. In my dharmic view, the Buddha had amazing insights that revolutionized our world. Yet, he was confined to his times and all the consequences that go with such confinements. As such, the Buddha and any associated teachings of his must be rigorously examined. I find that much is useful, liberating, and key to our understanding of ourselves, our world, and each other. But, the Buddha was a man and could have been wrong.
Herein lies my objection to some of the traditional teachings of Buddhism in its notions of karma and reincarnation. It is possible that the Buddha had teachings within one cultural context that may have been metaphysically absurd and yet be quite applicable in other contexts. For example, reincarnation and karma may be used as shorthand means to explicate how our psychology interacts within the larger world and leaves our future “self” in a variety of situations. These insights can be innovative and even scientifically interesting. By understanding that our world formed our genetic makeup and guides it and that we have a direct effect upon it because we are intertwined with it reveals our eternality and our many manifestations in the world we’ve always belonged! We may right well have a structured theory about this scenario well within a material-like context. How we live now will have an effect on our children and our future in several ways. We will move to earth and decompose and the many parts of ourselves will move into a world that we as individuals and collectively have left better for ourselves or worse. Yes, we may not like to think of ourselves in these kinds of future states but that’s merely ego subtly asserting itself. Our being means we are a part of it all and in whatever state we’re in. In other words, karma may not have the salvifically attractive qualities that it possesses in traditional teachings but its significance can still be seen here.
Now, one may say that I have not really set forth an argument or explained my position very well and that is all quite true. However, my position happens to be in the rather favorable circumstance of not having to do so. In my view, we may well explore the concept of karma and different physical-like views of reincarnation without ‘adding’ to our ontological inventory of processes and deities etc in order to explain and assert the value of such concepts in a naturalist context. Your question only requires that I show how it is possible that one can be Buddhist or Buddhistic without maintaining a traditional approach to these teachings. It’s easy…one can imagine it as I’ve briefly outlined above without logical contradiction or having committed some act of heresy. I may argue that it takes little effort to explain these concepts within a naturalistic worldview because reason seems to lead us there by way of parsimony—it is the simplest of all available options-or appears to be, and we have no reason to think it otherwise. Understand my point carefully here. I’m not saying that your position is wrong or mine may not be one of opinion. What I’m arguing is that if you assert something fantastic like living beings exist through multiple means carrying with them some sort of karmic debt etc., then you are the one with the burden of proof and must show either that my view cannot be in any way the case (showing that its somehow logically impossible) or that one is prohibited from making any sense of karma and reincarnation in any other context than the one you advocate. Such a position requires you to make the argument and to make it stick through critical inquiry. I’m not saying this cannot be done, I could be wholly wrong here, but I’m rightfully skeptical. One, I do not see any logical principle or formula that would force my hand here-making it somehow impossible to conceive any other way. It is obviously possible. Secondly, since I, and others here, have applied these concepts within a naturalistic-like or empirical context making these concepts useful and helpful, it seems that you need to supply us reasons why it ought not be viewed that way. In other words, the whole Buddhist corpus of thought must ought to rise or fall based solely on some traditional acceptance of these concepts. I do not think such a challenge can be met. In fact, I think it’s far more complicated to prove the narrow view that these concepts can only- or even mainly- have currency within the recommended traditional viewpoint.
Hello Eric D, and thank you for your comments you make a lot of interesting points. You are right I cannot prove beyond doubt that the concepts of rebirth or indeed kamma are valid. Furthermore, I don't believe any concept can be proved 100% hence I don't intend or wish to waste time trying to prove the unprovable. But at the same time they cannot be disproved either, not by you or anyone else. You see I do not just believe everything that is written in the Pāli Canon or any other text blindly, it has to make sense to me. Hence, It is my choice to believe in these concepts because for me the concepts are theoretically logical and make sense to me, sure a leap of faith is required to believe in them, but its a leap I willingly take after thorough analysis of the concepts for my own sake. The fact that this is the same view as what is traditionally taught is irelevant to my acceptance of these concepts, moreover, there are many things I do not agree with that are taught by traditional Buddhist schools.
The reason I ask the question is to understand the logic behind why other Buddhists came to their conclusion that they do/don't believe in these concepts as they are concepts which are taught in most Buddhist schools, and hence the majority of Buddhists would have been exposed to these teachings. My own personal opinion is that a lot of Buddhists in the west who have converted from religions such as Christianity, find it hard to accept concepts such as rebirth because they do not want to make any kind of leap of faith into something that cannot be scientifically proved as it feels to dogmatic. Which is a fair enough viewpoint, and again a view I respect. So sorry if it sounded like I was challenging people to prove me wrong but I was not challenging anyone to prove me right or wrong. I just thought it would be interesting to hear the logic behind their beliefs.
“I myself find it hard to believe in the concept of Nirvana without the concept of rebirth, they kind of depend on each other as all things do.”
Perhaps I misunderstood you here. However, the comment at least appears straightforward enough. I do see that you were asking questions and curious as to why and/or how one believes in the tenets of Buddhism without a literal belief in these things. It seems for you difficult to believe in Buddhism without a kind of traditional outlook on these two fundamental ideals. I do believe I addressed these issues in that your inquiry assumes that belief in Buddhism, as you see it, cannot or somehow lacks cogency without some literal belief in these two related ideas. I was merely explaining that those of us who do not accept such a position do so for a number of reasons. Yet, logically guided critical inquiry means that one need not have to accept a traditional understanding of those concepts. I laid out possible ways in which these concepts can work within a more empirical oriented dharmic thought system.
It is the case that many here in the West do in fact have strong leanings towards science and skepticism having left their Christian roots and thus refuse to adopt a system on faith or mere belief without first attempting to see what feasible connections can be made between one’s views of the world and how science describes that world. I think for many of us this is a quite attractive approach. So, for us, the view is how one could believe in unsubstantiated claims of any kind. It is a point of caution for us while still respecting other people’s belief. I was showing my approach to this subject in which I’m sure has resonance with others here. I think I, and others, would agree with you that we tend more towards a scientific worldview and that Buddhism, or some aspects of it, can be workable with such a view.
As to not being able to disprove the view of literal belief in reincarnation and karma: I think in the last post I was careful to point out that it wasn’t my desire or responsibility to “disprove” the legitimacy of these concepts. If I doubt, and I have excellent reason to doubt, that the world works in this fashion, and I can work out these concepts in a more parsimonious manner, then I would not have to disprove what I think is unreal. It would be attempting to disprove a negative. Since I would argue that we have good reason to doubt these traditional views, then I need not attempt to disprove anything. It is incumbent on those who do believe, i.e., affirm that the world functions this way, to convince us that it does. The onus probandi lies in your court-not mine or those that take up our position. If I asserted that the world is governed by giant pink elephants that are invisible (and I’m not saying your beliefs are analogous to this-just a point is being made), it would not be up to you to disprove anything! Rather, it would be my intellectual and moral responsibility to demonstrate such belief to you. The goal here is not that I need or require a 100%--estimates I do not understand in any philosophical sense lol—all I need is fine reasons to doubt or require the necessary proof of such belief. If I find problems with such belief or a gross absence of evidence, then I need not have certainty in order to argue that such belief is rightly to be doubted. If one wishes to believe, that’s fine! However, no convincing argument can likely be made that would require that I, or others, ought to believe in such views. The point is that I could be wrong and that this is how the world does work! The problem is one of justification, a point that Buddhists have emphasized throughout history-as I’m sure you know.
I can see very good reasons for keeping these concepts as part and parcel of one’s dharmic thought system in some sense. Moreover, I find interesting traditional views that attempt to take a kind of Idealist approach of rebirth and karma. At the end of the day, however, those I’ve encountered have had numerous assertions and assumptions employed in the making of these arguments that were not as carefully checked as one might have hoped for.
Here nor there, I do appreciate all forms of such Buddhist thought and much enjoy the exploration, refinement, and application of this diversity in my life and I know in the lives of many of you wonderful people here!
Comments
In the Pure Land there are those for whom Amida is "up there", or perhaps "out west", for others "he/she" is a personification of Reality-as-is, and maybe everything in-between and even beyond..... :buck:
Yet very egalitarian..... :clap:
"Them" don't really exist in any real sense.
I invite everyone to pick holes in the following,
which I cobbled together this morning during a conflict with my desire to believe in the aspects of buddhism which seem to require a leap of faith (they are quite beautiful ideas), and a sense of moral obligation to avoid unquestioning faith, and the bigotry and suffering it has often resulted in (buddhism not being immune to this, see Japanese Zen during ww2, and the wars between Zen samurai and the indigenous Shinto religion, during which blood was spilled in the name of dharma).
Ill has been done in the name of religion.
Ill has been done in the name of logic and reason.
We can argue that it was flawed logic,
flawed religion,
flawed reason.
But how do we prevent it from happening again?
Hindsight often fails to prevent future error.
Meditation requires no chain of logic, no blind faith, merely an empty mind.
After the point of logical conclusion that it is beneficial, (which is quite easy to arrive at by scientific logic)
no further logical discourse is necessary.
And with a simple and agreeable logical conclusion, resulting in an action to take (to meditate)
one need make no leaps of faith.
P.S, I would like to add that a don't think Zen is bad budhism, but that budhism as a whole should not be considered immune to the same mistakes made by other religions.
Best wishes to all of you and a happy new year!
Let us also be mindful there was no buddhism in the buddha's life, there was just buddha, dharma and sanga. No schools, no scriptures, no lineages, no doctrines; just the triple gems in all their realisations.
reincarnation is wrong view.
It is merely a different view to one you have formulated.
TheJourney i think the issue is that your so sure that you are right about everything that when your point loses any sense you just think that we don't get it. maybe you don't get it
like life existed forever and can never end or if a substance existed forever it is a concept
maybe your right, but those seem pretty obviously wrong and not too complicated at all.
And the fact that you don't care doesn't make you enlightened - it makes you uncaring.
Enlightened beings care a lot.
Skilfully.
Metta,
Vangelis
:rolleyes: :whatever:
lol.
I suppose I too take a rather different approach to reincarnation/karma debate. I do not consider myself a wholesale Buddhist per se. I consider myself a kind of Dharmic philosopher, which is obviously Buddhistic—but, and again, not religiously Buddhist. So I do not feel nearly as confined as many here do to defend, expound or simply explore the traditional teachings of Buddhism within some context of official Buddhist tradition. My view does require some explanation as to why I would deviate from the more traditional routes.
Mainly, I would argue that Buddhist thought is unique in the sense that it focuses on the concept of change and how change is part of the very fabric of reality—impermanence. This can include notions of an ever-evolving understanding of our universe and dharma’s exposition of that change and how it is subject to that very change itself. This is to say that if Dharma—as a spiritual/philosophical approach—had grand insights at point X, those insights at points Y and Z will likely be altered in the light of new knowledge profound and sacred. It is oftentimes difficult for me to understand stringent allegiance to a body of thought that itself encourages an empirical, personal, and an ever-evolving understanding of itself and the world. For me, the heart of the key teachings of Buddhism is to free ourselves of certitude of our conceptual frameworks, become free from a enslaving past, regardless of what was involved in that past, and let go of those things that we would falsely treasure in the face of impermanence. So, the Buddha and the traditions that grew up around Buddhism over the centuries are interesting and necessary for understanding of Dharma; however, they are not at all the end point of that journey. One must also factor in what we as a species have learned over the centuries, what insights philosophy and theological expositions have—and do-- give us, and what we have gained through rigorous self-examination and critical thought. Given this position, we are not required by any inner logic of Buddhism or in general to demand that dharmic teaching be unified or dogmatically immutable. We are free to examine for ourselves and debate and revise and explore the options we discover to be the case. Such a teaching cannot be hamstrung by traditional theological soteric requirements. At the core of dharma, I would argue, lie change, interconnectivity, and conceptual finiteness. Whatever salvific assertions one wishes to advance they must be critically examined, and it matters little if the Buddha or Jesus or the Pope made the claim. If these characteristics of impermanence, interconnectivity, and conceptual finiteness are the necessary elements in dharmic thought, then by any logical standard we need not adhere to any who asserts that there is only one way to see and apply the concepts of karma and reincarnation unless it can be shown otherwise. In my dharmic view, the Buddha had amazing insights that revolutionized our world. Yet, he was confined to his times and all the consequences that go with such confinements. As such, the Buddha and any associated teachings of his must be rigorously examined. I find that much is useful, liberating, and key to our understanding of ourselves, our world, and each other. But, the Buddha was a man and could have been wrong.
Herein lies my objection to some of the traditional teachings of Buddhism in its notions of karma and reincarnation. It is possible that the Buddha had teachings within one cultural context that may have been metaphysically absurd and yet be quite applicable in other contexts. For example, reincarnation and karma may be used as shorthand means to explicate how our psychology interacts within the larger world and leaves our future “self” in a variety of situations. These insights can be innovative and even scientifically interesting. By understanding that our world formed our genetic makeup and guides it and that we have a direct effect upon it because we are intertwined with it reveals our eternality and our many manifestations in the world we’ve always belonged! We may right well have a structured theory about this scenario well within a material-like context. How we live now will have an effect on our children and our future in several ways. We will move to earth and decompose and the many parts of ourselves will move into a world that we as individuals and collectively have left better for ourselves or worse. Yes, we may not like to think of ourselves in these kinds of future states but that’s merely ego subtly asserting itself. Our being means we are a part of it all and in whatever state we’re in. In other words, karma may not have the salvifically attractive qualities that it possesses in traditional teachings but its significance can still be seen here.
Now, one may say that I have not really set forth an argument or explained my position very well and that is all quite true. However, my position happens to be in the rather favorable circumstance of not having to do so. In my view, we may well explore the concept of karma and different physical-like views of reincarnation without ‘adding’ to our ontological inventory of processes and deities etc in order to explain and assert the value of such concepts in a naturalist context. Your question only requires that I show how it is possible that one can be Buddhist or Buddhistic without maintaining a traditional approach to these teachings. It’s easy…one can imagine it as I’ve briefly outlined above without logical contradiction or having committed some act of heresy. I may argue that it takes little effort to explain these concepts within a naturalistic worldview because reason seems to lead us there by way of parsimony—it is the simplest of all available options-or appears to be, and we have no reason to think it otherwise. Understand my point carefully here. I’m not saying that your position is wrong or mine may not be one of opinion. What I’m arguing is that if you assert something fantastic like living beings exist through multiple means carrying with them some sort of karmic debt etc., then you are the one with the burden of proof and must show either that my view cannot be in any way the case (showing that its somehow logically impossible) or that one is prohibited from making any sense of karma and reincarnation in any other context than the one you advocate. Such a position requires you to make the argument and to make it stick through critical inquiry. I’m not saying this cannot be done, I could be wholly wrong here, but I’m rightfully skeptical. One, I do not see any logical principle or formula that would force my hand here-making it somehow impossible to conceive any other way. It is obviously possible. Secondly, since I, and others here, have applied these concepts within a naturalistic-like or empirical context making these concepts useful and helpful, it seems that you need to supply us reasons why it ought not be viewed that way. In other words, the whole Buddhist corpus of thought must ought to rise or fall based solely on some traditional acceptance of these concepts. I do not think such a challenge can be met. In fact, I think it’s far more complicated to prove the narrow view that these concepts can only- or even mainly- have currency within the recommended traditional viewpoint.
Thanks for the discussion everyone!
The reason I ask the question is to understand the logic behind why other Buddhists came to their conclusion that they do/don't believe in these concepts as they are concepts which are taught in most Buddhist schools, and hence the majority of Buddhists would have been exposed to these teachings. My own personal opinion is that a lot of Buddhists in the west who have converted from religions such as Christianity, find it hard to accept concepts such as rebirth because they do not want to make any kind of leap of faith into something that cannot be scientifically proved as it feels to dogmatic. Which is a fair enough viewpoint, and again a view I respect. So sorry if it sounded like I was challenging people to prove me wrong but I was not challenging anyone to prove me right or wrong. I just thought it would be interesting to hear the logic behind their beliefs.
Metta to all sentient beings
You wrote:
“I myself find it hard to believe in the concept of Nirvana without the concept of rebirth, they kind of depend on each other as all things do.”
Perhaps I misunderstood you here. However, the comment at least appears straightforward enough. I do see that you were asking questions and curious as to why and/or how one believes in the tenets of Buddhism without a literal belief in these things. It seems for you difficult to believe in Buddhism without a kind of traditional outlook on these two fundamental ideals. I do believe I addressed these issues in that your inquiry assumes that belief in Buddhism, as you see it, cannot or somehow lacks cogency without some literal belief in these two related ideas. I was merely explaining that those of us who do not accept such a position do so for a number of reasons. Yet, logically guided critical inquiry means that one need not have to accept a traditional understanding of those concepts. I laid out possible ways in which these concepts can work within a more empirical oriented dharmic thought system.
It is the case that many here in the West do in fact have strong leanings towards science and skepticism having left their Christian roots and thus refuse to adopt a system on faith or mere belief without first attempting to see what feasible connections can be made between one’s views of the world and how science describes that world. I think for many of us this is a quite attractive approach. So, for us, the view is how one could believe in unsubstantiated claims of any kind. It is a point of caution for us while still respecting other people’s belief. I was showing my approach to this subject in which I’m sure has resonance with others here. I think I, and others, would agree with you that we tend more towards a scientific worldview and that Buddhism, or some aspects of it, can be workable with such a view.
As to not being able to disprove the view of literal belief in reincarnation and karma: I think in the last post I was careful to point out that it wasn’t my desire or responsibility to “disprove” the legitimacy of these concepts. If I doubt, and I have excellent reason to doubt, that the world works in this fashion, and I can work out these concepts in a more parsimonious manner, then I would not have to disprove what I think is unreal. It would be attempting to disprove a negative. Since I would argue that we have good reason to doubt these traditional views, then I need not attempt to disprove anything. It is incumbent on those who do believe, i.e., affirm that the world functions this way, to convince us that it does. The onus probandi lies in your court-not mine or those that take up our position. If I asserted that the world is governed by giant pink elephants that are invisible (and I’m not saying your beliefs are analogous to this-just a point is being made), it would not be up to you to disprove anything! Rather, it would be my intellectual and moral responsibility to demonstrate such belief to you. The goal here is not that I need or require a 100%--estimates I do not understand in any philosophical sense lol—all I need is fine reasons to doubt or require the necessary proof of such belief. If I find problems with such belief or a gross absence of evidence, then I need not have certainty in order to argue that such belief is rightly to be doubted. If one wishes to believe, that’s fine! However, no convincing argument can likely be made that would require that I, or others, ought to believe in such views. The point is that I could be wrong and that this is how the world does work! The problem is one of justification, a point that Buddhists have emphasized throughout history-as I’m sure you know.
I can see very good reasons for keeping these concepts as part and parcel of one’s dharmic thought system in some sense. Moreover, I find interesting traditional views that attempt to take a kind of Idealist approach of rebirth and karma. At the end of the day, however, those I’ve encountered have had numerous assertions and assumptions employed in the making of these arguments that were not as carefully checked as one might have hoped for.
Here nor there, I do appreciate all forms of such Buddhist thought and much enjoy the exploration, refinement, and application of this diversity in my life and I know in the lives of many of you wonderful people here!
Thank you for the discussion,
Eric D.