Buddhism and Hegel

[thinkandmull]

I was out today, and I stopped by the library, one of my favorite places to study about many things. However, they only allow a certain amount of time of the internet, so I will have to complete this post latter on. I wanted to give some quotes that I got from Huston Smith’s book The World’s Religions, and I will connect them to Hegel when I get the chance

Dr. Smith first said that Buddha “condemned all forms of divination, soothsaying, and forecasting as low arts, and, though he concluded from his own experience that the human mind was capable of powers now referred to as paranormal, he refused to allow his monks to play around with those powers.”

Quoting Buddha:
“Oh monks, remember that passion and SIN are more than filthy mire, and that you can escape misery only by earnestly and steadily thinking of the Way.”

So Buddha did at least believe in sin. Interesting. He also said:

“Work out your salvation with diligence”

Is it possible that St. Paul knew of this phrase from Buddha, and changed it to “fear and trembling” for his own Christian audience?

I will return to these themes soon…

 

[Bahman]

I was out today, and I stopped by the library, one of my favorite places to study about many things. However, they only allow a certain amount of time of the internet, so I will have to complete this post latter on. I wanted to give some quotes that I got from Huston Smith’s book The World’s Religions, and I will connect them to Hegel when I get the chance

Dr. Smith first said that Buddha “condemned all forms of divination, soothsaying, and forecasting as low arts, and, though he concluded from his own experience that the human mind was capable of powers now referred to as paranormal, he refused to allow his monks to play around with those powers.”

Quoting Buddha:
“Oh monks, remember that passion and SIN are more than filthy mire, and that you can escape misery only by earnestly and steadily thinking of the Way.”

So Buddha did at least believe in sin. Interesting. He also said:

“Work out your salvation with diligence”

Is it possible that St. Paul knew of this phrase from Buddha, and changed it to “fear and trembling” for his own Christian audience?

I will return to these themes soon…

Yeah salvation can only be achieved in permanent death so I would say that Buddha misunderstood the truth.

 

[GodMadeMe]

I was out today, and I stopped by the library, one of my favorite places to study about many things. However, they only allow a certain amount of time of the internet, so I will have to complete this post latter on. I wanted to give some quotes that I got from Huston Smith’s book The World’s Religions, and I will connect them to Hegel when I get the chance

Dr. Smith first said that Buddha “condemned all forms of divination, soothsaying, and forecasting as low arts, and, though he concluded from his own experience that the human mind was capable of powers now referred to as paranormal, he refused to allow his monks to play around with those powers.”

Quoting Buddha:
“Oh monks, remember that passion and SIN are more than filthy mire, and that you can escape misery only by earnestly and steadily thinking of the Way.”

So Buddha did at least believe in sin. Interesting. He also said:

“Work out your salvation with diligence”

Is it possible that St. Paul knew of this phrase from Buddha, and changed it to “fear and trembling” for his own Christian audience?

I will return to these themes soon…

I think it has always been a practice of Christianity and Judaism to adopt powerful ideas found in other belief systems so long as it was consistent with the revelation of God.

The golden rule for example. I am sure many people had that idea before Christ used it.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. I don’t think it makes Christianity any less true. The truth is the truth no-matter where it comes from. When you are concerned with truth copyright becomes irrelevant.

 

[Rhubarb]

Buddhism was known in the West centuries before Christ was born. So it’s possible?

 

[myway]

Buddhism was known in the West centuries before Christ was born. So it’s possible?

St. Paul would never compare anything he wrote with Buddha.

Unfortunately Buddha’s followers did not write down his teachings. It was not until 500 years after his death that what he taught was wrote down. We have know way of knowing how much they added are took away from Buddha’s teachings.

Jesus’s life and teachings was wrote by eye witness and his disciples. Luke was the only New Testament writer who didn’t know Jesus. He was just like a modern Journalist who listened to people and wrote down what happen.

In know way do I plan to debate with anyone on this forum. I would appreciate any responses to my post.-]-]/-]/-]

 

[Rhubarb]

St. Paul would never compare anything he wrote with Buddha.

Unfortunately Buddha’s followers did not write down his teachings. It was not until 500 years after his death that what he taught was wrote down. We have know way of knowing how much they added are took away from Buddha’s teachings.

Jesus’s life and teachings was wrote by eye witness and his disciples. Luke was the only New Testament writer who didn’t know Jesus. He was just like a modern Journalist who listened to people and wrote down what happen.

In know way do I plan to debate with anyone on this forum. I would appreciate any responses to my post.-]-]/-]/-]

Well, it’s reckoned that Siddhartha Gautama died sometime between about 500 and 400 BCE. There was also cultural exchange between Buddhist India and Classical Greece - oral tradition can be a powerful method of spreading stories and such. I can’t say for sure if the Apostles or Paul were aware of Buddhism, but, it is a possibility.

I didn’t mean to suggest that there was any syncratic exchanges going on.

 

[annem]

Rhubarb

Well, it’s reckoned that Siddhartha Gautama died sometime between about 500 and 400 BCE. There was also cultural exchange between Buddhist India and Classical Greece - oral tradition can be a powerful method of spreading stories and such. I can’t say for sure if the Apostles or Paul were aware of Buddhism, but, it is a possibility.

Many people, even Buddhists, have suggested Buddha never existed.

As far as cultural exchanges between Greece and India, there is evidence that ancient Greeks had absorbed some Hindu tenets, especially dealing with the idea of time not running in a linear way, but instead as a cycle.

I would be willing to bet the house that Paul and the apostles had never heard of Hinduism, let alone Buddhism.

God bless, Annem

 

[thinkandmull]

Some people say that Paul went to India to “get away from it all” and contemplate after his revelation by Jesus. My Huston Smith book says that Buddha’s sayings were written down 150 years after his death, not 500. This shows how little we can know about these things; even with the New Testament the earliest text we have are over a hundred years after Jesus. Anyway, looking at religion nowadays, there is a clear difference between traditional Christianity and Zen Buddhism and the “holy men” of India. The latter think mental illness is enlightenment. With regard to time being circular, I think such ideas are misleading, and actually lead to nonsense ideas made in movies about time travel. If you go back in time and talk to yourself, your consciousness would experience you talking to it, and thusly either in your future or maybe you already experienced it. Anyway, it doesn’t matter if you imagine the stream of consciousness as linear or going in circles. Its a stream unbroken. Modern movies totally ignore this basic human truth when they display time travel. Such thinking can lead to mental illness as well. Hegel’s writings btw are a barrage of mental problems. I personally know someone who said he started having mental problems after reading several of Hegel’s books with enthusiasm

 

[Rhubarb]

Rhubarb

Many people, even Buddhists, have suggested Buddha never existed.

As far as cultural exchanges between Greece and India, there is evidence that ancient Greeks had absorbed some Hindu tenets, especially dealing with the idea of time not running in a linear way, but instead as a cycle.

I would be willing to bet the house that Paul and the apostles had never heard of Hinduism, let alone Buddhism.

God bless, Annem

There are people that dispute Jesus’ existence too. I mean, I don’t think the historicity of these figures are the rub. Whether or not Siddhartha Gautama existed or not, there was a robust exchange between classical Greece and Buddhist India.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Buddhism

 

[thinkandmull]

Huston Smith continued on Buddha "For all appeal to the supernatural and reliance on it amounted, he felt, to looking for shortcuts, easy, answers, and simple solutions that could only divert attention from the hard, practical task of self-advance. “It is because I perceive danger in the practice of mystic wonders that I strongly discourage it.’” Now I try to be charitable to Buddha and his followers; if he had been in contact with true supernatural power like the apostles had, he may have seen it as good and different from the natural or demonic powers he opposed.

He allow opposed philosophical reasoning on the eternity of the world, the word’s size what is the soul, life after death, ect. He said that “greed for views… tends not to edification”. So maybe he opposed the EXCESS of rationalism. Huston Smith quotes Buddha as saying “]It is not on the view that the world is eternal, that it is finite, that body and soul, are distinct, or that the Buddha exists after death, that a religious life depends… I have not spoken to these views because they do not conduce to absence of passion, or to tranquility and Nirvana.” Now clearly this charism, if you will, is not for everyone. Philosophy can bring one’s character into balance.

Some Zen Buddhists however find a “nirvana” that I don’t see as healthy:

“I lost the boundary of my physical body. I had my skin, of course, but Ifelt I was standing in the center of the cosmos. I saw people coming toward me, but all were the same man. All were myself. I had never known this world before. I had believed that I was created, but now I must chance my opinion: I was never created; I was the cosmos. No individual existed.” *Zen Notes *(New York: from The First Zen Institute of America, 1947)

 

[thinkandmull]

“two moments which in their appearing merely occur, also come into being: one being the movement of pointing-out or the act of perceiving, the other being the same movement as a simple event or object perceived. In essence the object is the same as the movement: the movement is the unfolding and differentiation of the two movements.” Hegel

I don’t know how his Phenomenology of Spirit ends, but as least at this section called Perception, he is being very Zen.

Hindu say we are all Perusa. But this idea becomes crazy when you ask them if Perusa has consciousness. If we are all one Person, the God Perusa, then I will experience or has experienced you reading this post, and every other humans life. Such is crazy, but acting as if such a question has no meaning is even more bizarre

 

[annem]

thinkandmull

Hegel’s writings btw are a barrage of mental problems

Great comment! Couldn’t agree more

Hindu say we are all Perusa. But this idea becomes crazy when you ask them if Perusa has consciousness. If we are all one Person, the God Perusa, then I will experience or has experienced you reading this post, and every other humans life. Such is crazy, but acting as if such a question has no meaning is even more bizarre

Loved this comment too,

God bless Annem

 

[abucs]

I would expect that humans all over the planet would perceive similar truths regarding the divine. I would also expect that there would be much interest in new insights into the divine and that means Buddhists being interested in Judaism and vice versa.

That being said, the idea that Paul was influenced by Buddhism because a sentenced he wrote was 1/2 the same as a Buddhist sentence when both are translated into modern day English is lacking sufficient evidence.

Do you have anything more substantial?

 

[Bradski]

Well, it’s reckoned that Siddhartha Gautama died sometime between about 500 and 400 BCE. There was also cultural exchange between Buddhist India and Classical Greece - oral tradition can be a powerful method of spreading stories and such. I can’t say for sure if the Apostles or Paul were aware of Buddhism, but, it is a possibility.

Civilisation had been around for quite a while before Jesus’s time. A few thousand years in fact. Is it credible that at some point he said: ‘Hey, here’s an idea…love thy neighbour’ and everyone went: ‘Wow, where did THAT come from! Awesome!’

 

[rossum]

Quoting Buddha:
“Oh monks, remember that passion and SIN are more than filthy mire, and that you can escape misery only by earnestly and steadily thinking of the Way.”

It is not always wise to rely on an English translation of a Buddhist text. There are no exact equivalents of many Buddhist concepts in standard English, hence the use of words like “nirvana” and “karma” to express some concepts. The use of “sin” above is one such case. Buddhism does not have the concept of sin, the closest it has is “unskilful action”.

Your quote is taken from the Sutra of 42 Sections, and is from Section 41:

1. The Buddha said: “Those who follow the Way are like an ox bearing a heavy load and walking through deep mud. It feels so weary that it does not dare to look to left or right and, only on emerging from the mud, can it revive itself by resting. A Sramana [monk] should regard feelings and desires more seriously than (the ox regards) the mud. Only by controlling his mind and thinking of the Way can he avoid sorrow.”

– Sutra of 42 Sections: 41

So Buddha did at least believe in sin.

No he did not; karma (actions and consequences) is not related to any God. If you throw a stone in the air and it comes down, hitting you on the head, then it is your own fault.

Mind precedes all conditions,
mind is their chief, they are mind-made.
If you speak or act with an evil mind then suffering will follow you,
as the wheel follows the draught ox.

Mind precedes all conditions,
mind is their chief, they are mind-made.
If you speak or act with a pure mind then happiness will follow you,
as a shadow that never leaves.

– Dhammapada 1-2

Interesting. He also said:

“Work out your salvation with diligence”

Again this is a problem with the English translation, a better version is, “Work out your liberation with diligence”. There is no saviour God in Buddhism. The Buddha achieved enlightenment by himself; we are told to do the same.

rossum

 

[rossum]

Yeah salvation can only be achieved in permanent death so I would say that Buddha misunderstood the truth.

The point of Buddhism is to avoid suffering. With reincarnation, dying does not always avoid suffering – you get born again and die again and again and again. Only by attaining nirvana during your current life can future lives (and deaths) be avoided.

The Buddha said: “What do you think, monks: Which is greater, the tears you have shed while transmigrating and wandering this long, long time – crying and weeping from being joined with what is displeasing, being separated from what is pleasing – or the water in the four great oceans?”

“As we understand the Dhamma taught to us by the Blessed One, this is the greater: the tears we have shed while transmigrating and wandering this long, long time – crying and weeping from being joined with what is displeasing, being separated from what is pleasing – not the water in the four great oceans.”

"Excellent, monks. Excellent. It is excellent that you thus understand the Dhamma taught by me.

“This is the greater: the tears you have shed while transmigrating and wandering this long, long time – crying and weeping from being joined with what is displeasing, being separated from what is pleasing – not the water in the four great oceans.”

– Assu sutta, Samyutta Nikaya 15.3

Eternal life is eternal suffering.

rossum

 

[rossum]

Unfortunately Buddha’s followers did not write down his teachings. It was not until 500 years after his death that what he taught was wrote down. We have know way of knowing how much they added are took away from Buddha’s teachings.

The Buddha’s words were remembered, though not written down. The style of the earlier scriptures is very repetitive to help with the memorisation. We have copies if the written scriptures from different Buddhist schools: Theravada, Sarvastivada, Sautrantika and Dharmagupta. Though the sections are usually in a different order, the contents are basically the same. That takes us back to about 200 years after the Buddha’s death when those schools separated. One school, the Mahasangika, separated about 100 years earlier, though we only have the Rules for Monks (vinaya) from that school, not the scriptures (suttas/sutras). The Rules are the same for all early schools and show very little difference.

rossum

 

[Aloysium]

. . . Eternal life is eternal suffering. . .

I understand there is no Buddhist magisterium and that you follow a specific school.

To clarify my view of the Christian perspective:
In Christ, we are promised eternal life. I would say that this is pretty much the truth of Nirvana.
Eternal life would have been eternal suffering perhaps if we had eaten the fruit of eternal life in the Garden of Eden.
The true fruit of eternal life is Christ Himself, present here in the Eucharist.
With regards to the Four Noble Truths, Christianity understands the source of suffering (dukkha) as sin.
This is very similar to the idea that its origin lies in craving and ignorance.
The true nature our ignorance in Christian terms has to do with our damaged relationship with God, the loving Foundation from whom all things come.
The cravings that emerge within our state of alienation, when followed, lead us to the suffering associated with death.
In contrast with Buddhist teachings, I see it is self-evident that persons exist.
At the same time, I would acknowledge that the One True Reality is God.
However, you and I do exist in relation to Him.
And ultimately, we are called to be with God in joyous, eternal union through the giving of ourselves to Him.

 

[thinkandmull]

It is not always wise to rely on an English translation of a Buddhist text. There are no exact equivalents of many Buddhist concepts in standard English, hence the use of words like “nirvana” and “karma” to express some concepts. The use of “sin” above is one such case. Buddhism does not have the concept of sin, the closest it has is “unskilful action”.

Your quote is taken from the Sutra of 42 Sections, and is from Section 41:

1. The Buddha said: “Those who follow the Way are like an ox bearing a heavy load and walking through deep mud. It feels so weary that it does not dare to look to left or right and, only on emerging from the mud, can it revive itself by resting. A Sramana [monk] should regard feelings and desires more seriously than (the ox regards) the mud. Only by controlling his mind and thinking of the Way can he avoid sorrow.”

– Sutra of 42 Sections: 41

No he did not; karma (actions and consequences) is not related to any God. If you throw a stone in the air and it comes down, hitting you on the head, then it is your own fault.

Mind precedes all conditions,
mind is their chief, they are mind-made.
If you speak or act with an evil mind then suffering will follow you,
as the wheel follows the draught ox.

Mind precedes all conditions,
mind is their chief, they are mind-made.
If you speak or act with a pure mind then happiness will follow you,
as a shadow that never leaves.

– Dhammapada 1-2

Again this is a problem with the English translation, a better version is, “Work out your liberation with diligence”. There is no saviour God in Buddhism. The Buddha achieved enlightenment by himself; we are told to do the same.

rossum

Well their is no explicit recognition or turning to God, but I remember when John Paul II called Buddhism atheistic a lot of Buddhists objected that they didn’t say there definitely was NOT a God. Anyway, people say that Islam does not believe in sin either. However I think if we understand sin as a free will offense against conscience, then Islam and Buddhism believe in sin.

 

[rossum]

I understand there is no Buddhist magisterium and that you follow a specific school.

You are correct about the lack of a central authority. My practice is a mixture of Theravada and Zen, my theory is Prasangika-Madhyamika.

To clarify my view of the Christian perspective:
In Christ, we are promised eternal life. I would say that this is pretty much the truth of Nirvana.

The Buddha attained nirvana at age 35; he died age 80. Nirvana is not eternal life. All descriptions of nirvana are incorrect. The parable of the blind men and the elephant applies.

Eternal life would have been eternal suffering perhaps if we had eaten the fruit of eternal life in the Garden of Eden.

The Buddha defines suffering as:

The Buddha said: “Now this, monks, is the Noble Truth of suffering: Birth is suffering, ageing is suffering, death is suffering; sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair are suffering; association with the unbeloved is suffering; separation from the loved is suffering; not getting what is wanted is suffering. In short, the five clinging-aggregates are suffering.” (emphasis added)

– Samyutta Nikaya 56.11

Both Christians and Buddhists are instructed to love others as we love ourselves. In an eternal heaven we are separated from those in hell, and yet we love those who are in hell just as we love ourselves. Separation from those we love is suffering. An eternal heaven is eternal suffering. You are in a luxury five-star hotel. The staff are serving you delicious food and everything you could wish for is provided. In the next room your family is being tortured horribly, and you know that they are being tortured. You may even be able to hear their screams and watch as they suffer horrible pain. There is nothing you can do to stop those you love suffering. Forever. Are you happy?

Eternal life, even in heaven, is eternal suffering. All the Buddhist heavens are temporary, as are the hells.

rossum