Buddhism and Hegel

[Vic_Taltrees_UK]

“The brain” is part of the conceptual framwork we use to understand and describe our physical nature.
We are persons - a unity of matter and spirit.
Persons are evil. Matter is matter, having no moral properties.

1 - first sentence - is what underlies part of; alternatively omit after “part of” and before “our”
2 - third sentence - never have been per se. All that He has created is good - see Gen 1
3 - fourth sentence - depends what you call “moral” properties. All that He has created is good - see Gen 1

Unless my browser is mixing the display up, what is in this post of yours doesn’t appear to be your beliefs.

 

[Vic_Taltrees_UK]

“The brain” is part of the conceptual framwork we use to understand and describe our physical nature.
We are persons - a unity of matter and spirit.
Persons are evil. Matter is matter, having no moral properties.

Did you mean something like “persons’ acts can sometimes be evil”? If so you were no way clear at all.

 

[rossum]

Does your variety of Buddhism say what is real isn’t real when convenient, and is real when convenient, and how does that help you live?

What is real is real is real, however we can never really know it. Can you see as well as an eagle? Can you detect polarized light like a bee? Can you see in the ultra-violet like many birds? Can you see in the infra-red like some snakes? Your senses are imperfect and can only give you an imperfect version of whatever actual reality is out there.

As a general rule of thumb, our senses are reasonably accurate and give us a reasonably accurate version of reality. However, it is not a perfectly accurate version of reality, for example we can be fooled by a mirage or an optical illusion.

For day-to-day living we can accept the accuracy of our senses as good enough. For philosophical discussion, our senses are imperfect and wrongly treated can lead to delusion. There is no real water in a mirage, despite what we see.

rossum

 

[Aloysium]

Did you mean something like “persons’ acts can sometimes be evil”? If so you were no way clear at all.

Oops, Yeah. Evil is something persons do, not brains.
When I communicate with you, I can conceive of the various physical events happening in the electronics, between the monitor and the eye and in the brain. I have a pretty developed understanding of how it all works. None of that physical activity has a moral dimension. Morality has to do with us as persons. We have brains which enable us to participate and interact within the physical universe. We are moral beings because we have a spiritual soul. Short story made long for clarity’s sake.
On my phone, sorry for typos and other forms of incoherence.

 

[thinkandmull]

“The brain” is part of the conceptual framwork we use to understand and describe our physical nature.
We are persons - a unity of matter and spirit.
Persons are evil. Matter is matter, having no moral properties.

Matter still has a should and should not. The bad is sustained by the devil. God only touches the good

 

[Thomas_White]

Over the years I’ve come across some witty and penetrating sayings attribued to Buddha or Buddhists.

When they are talking about what they are talking about, they often make sense.

But when they try to generalise or theorise they show weak ability to do so. Does this have any connection with why Hegel’s “framework” does harm when people attempt to apply it to human situations?

Very likely it does. Hegel’s philosophy is generally abstract and has been applied variously from the dialectical materialism of Karl Marx to Catholic theology (Romano Guardini and others). Philosophy is of course an academic discipline; Buddhism decidedly is not. While there are in instances theoretical similarities, philosophy fundamentally differs from religious practice. Buddhist practices are great in number.

Schopenhauer was perhaps the major German philosopher most influenced by Buddhism, particularly his doctrine of will where he noted there is a correspondence with three of the Four Noble Truths. The fourth he modifies.

 

[Bahman]

Indians say they were once human and will be human again

That I understand but it is problematic because of two reasons: 1) How they become human in the first place?, 2) what happen for all other conscious being?

 

[thinkandmull]

That I understand but it is problematic because of two reasons: 1) How they become human in the first place?, 2) what happen for all other conscious being?

I think Buddhist might believe that there were only humans to begin with, or gods, and that they through time have become animals or new people. I don’t see it as internally inconsistent. Who started the whole process? Buddha himself famously ignored such questions

 

[thinkandmull]

On the back of my copy of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, it says “based on J. Hoffmeister’s German text”. Does anyone have any idea what this means? Hegel wrote in German, so how could there be different German texts??

 

[thinkandmull]

Anyway, Hegel gets so idealistic that he writes in the section called *Perception * that “So in point of fact, the Thing is white only to our eyes, also tart to our tongue, also cubical to our touch and so on. We get the entire diversity of these aspects, not from the Thing, but from ourselves; and they fall asunder in this way for us, because the eye is quite distinct from the tongue, and so on. We are thus the universal medium in which such moments are kept apart and exist each on its own.” In the next paragraph he asserts that properties are, actually, in the Thing. But the distinction between a thing and you is totally blurred by Hegel. Yet he says these all, the One, have being. Buddhist, as I am coming to understand, believe everything is empty-nothing. Or is that just their phenomenological way of having a breakthrough? Do Buddhists deep in thought say one thing but experience another (being)?? Do they believe they can experience Being and its love only by verbally denying it to others???

 

[Thomas_White]

Anyway, Hegel gets so idealistic that he writes in the section called *Perception * that “So in point of fact, the Thing is white only to our eyes, also tart to our tongue, also cubical to our touch and so on. We get the entire diversity of these aspects, not from the Thing, but from ourselves; and they fall asunder in this way for us, because the eye is quite distinct from the tongue, and so on. We are thus the universal medium in which such moments are kept apart and exist each on its own.” In the next paragraph he asserts that properties are, actually, in the Thing. But the distinction between a thing and you is totally blurred by Hegel. Yet he says these all, the One, have being. Buddhist, as I am coming to understand, believe everything is empty-nothing. Or is that just their phenomenological way of having a breakthrough? Do Buddhists deep in thought say one thing but experience another (being)?? Do they believe they can experience Being and its love only by verbally denying it to others???

Anyway, Hegel gets so idealistic that he writes in the section called *Perception * that “So in point of fact, the Thing is white only to our eyes, also tart to our tongue, also cubical to our touch and so on. We get the entire diversity of these aspects, not from the Thing, but from ourselves; and they fall asunder in this way for us, because the eye is quite distinct from the tongue, and so on. We are thus the universal medium in which such moments are kept apart and exist each on its own.” In the next paragraph he asserts that properties are, actually, in the Thing. But the distinction between a thing and you is totally blurred by Hegel. Yet he says these all, the One, have being. Buddhist, as I am coming to understand, believe everything is empty-nothing. Or is that just their phenomenological way of having a breakthrough? Do Buddhists deep in thought say one thing but experience another (being)?? Do they believe they can experience Being and its love only by verbally denying it to others???

‘Everything is empty-nothing’ would be one way to express it, I think, if it means the absence of any-thing and what simply IS. It is more that Buddhits become deep in meditation rather than deep in thought. This is the absence of thought. Verbal denial would mean nothing at all since ‘being’ is ineffable. I would say there is not really a denial but a transcending. It is not 'nothing, so to speak, but no-thing. This is no thing other than what IS and this too is not a thing. Sorry, it is hard to express. It is an experience, a consciousness, and it is the absence or transcendence even of self. In my experience, an awareness of self is what brings one back into space-time.

 

[Thomas_White]

Anyway, Hegel gets so idealistic that he writes in the section called *Perception * that “So in point of fact, the Thing is white only to our eyes, also tart to our tongue, also cubical to our touch and so on. We get the entire diversity of these aspects, not from the Thing, but from ourselves; and they fall asunder in this way for us, because the eye is quite distinct from the tongue, and so on. We are thus the universal medium in which such moments are kept apart and exist each on its own.” In the next paragraph he asserts that properties are, actually, in the Thing. But the distinction between a thing and you is totally blurred by Hegel. Yet he says these all, the One, have being. Buddhist, as I am coming to understand, believe everything is empty-nothing. Or is that just their phenomenological way of having a breakthrough? Do Buddhists deep in thought say one thing but experience another (being)?? Do they believe they can experience Being and its love only by verbally denying it to others???

‘Everything is empty-nothing’ would be one way to express it, I think, if it means the absence of any-thing and simply what IS. It is more that Buddhits become deep in meditation rather than deep in thought. This is the absence of thought. Verbal denial would mean nothing at all since ‘being’ is ineffable. I would say there is not really a denial but a transcending. It is not ‘nothing’, so to speak, but no-thing. This is no thing other than what IS and this too is not a thing. Sorry, it is hard to express. It is an experience, a consciousness, not a thought, and it is the absence or transcendence even of self. In my experience, an awareness of self is what brings one back into space-time.

 

[Aloysium]

. . . Buddhist, as I am coming to understand, believe everything is empty-nothing. Or is that just their phenomenological way of having a breakthrough? Do Buddhists deep in thought say one thing but experience another (being)?? Do they believe they can experience Being and its love only by verbally denying it to others???

You are asking this on a Catholic Forum where most people have difficulty getting Catholicism right.
Obviously truth is not the goal.
But then to ask and ruminate about a set of ideas and beliefs, is there actually any truth in any of it?
We’re just juggling, as best we can, understandings.
The bottleneck of course is always our capacity to understand.
Anyway, the questions are intriguing, so from one random internet idiot to someone who mulls, too much perhaps, here goes:

We,
all mankind,
sons and daughters of Adam
are following God’s call to join Him in joyous holy union,
all creation through the incarnated Christ within us,
to share in the eternal Love that is the Trinity.
Everyone is called and Jesus is the Way.

It is important to believe in Jesus;
it is not important to believe in the cosmology of Eastern thought, which is symbolic and is more interested in ontological rather than historical truths.
There the entire focus is on Enlightenment, Realization and the attainment of Nirvana,
as should be ours, to love God and each other.
All philosophical systems except for those related to God are distractions at worse,
road maps of where one is and where one is going spiritually, at best.

What helps with one’s meditation, the surrender of oneself to the Transcendent is not tossing about ideas,
but praying, chanting, just being and not caught up in the the transient - this 24/7, as best we can.
With respect to others, this surrender involves a giving - charity.

Ultimately, it is all right here and now,
the entire cosmos and we who participate in this life,
united with God, the eternal Mind, who sits outside time, reaching into time, unfathomable Mystery,
surrounded in glory and songs of praise as the gods. angels, and saints eternally gaze in wonder into His countenance . . . Holy, holy, holy, holy.

 

[Thomas_White]

A major difference between Buddhism and Christiany is of course the nature of Christ. Or is it? The Catholic teaching that there are three ‘persons’ in one God is exegesis, an attempt to convey a message where another example is the trefoil, the three-leaf clover of Ireland (obviously not a person). The question then becomes whether Christ, considered as devine, is also a human being or any being with substance. Or is Christ, as God, pure Being? If so, what then is the eternal separation of God from those humans who ultimately attain salvation? Perhaps this separation is also a concept, and in this way what is ultimate for Buddhism and CatholicIsm is not so different after all. I believe this is properly a major question that does not necessarily require an answer.

In eternity, which is outside of time and space, there is only the eternal present. It is not even a moment or a tiny period of time. Past, present (as a moment of time) and future do not exist. All of what IS in eternity IS in the same eternal present. I do not think this can possibly be intellectually understood and must be experienced to be known.

But…the self cannot know it. It too is non-existent. In this way what could be experienced becomes again a concept in one’s mind in the temporal world, and as such cannot be conveyed to another person in the sense of an actual experience by that person. It is ineffable and fades in memory. But this too is not necessarily so if we are to accept as reality the Enlightment and Nirvana of Buddhas in the human realm.

 

[Vic_Taltrees_UK]

Interesting that Aloysium should mention history. Hegel is reputed to have had something to say about history.

Did any of the earlier Buddhas, the last Buddha or subsequent Buddhists have a viewpoint on specific episodes in history e.g the drying river Saraswati, tribal wars, the rising sea, famous individuals (irrespective of whether a section of society had meantime declared them gods or not)? Was there a History Department at Naalanda University?

 

[Vic_Taltrees_UK]

On the back of my copy of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, it says “based on J. Hoffmeister’s German text”. Does anyone have any idea what this means? Hegel wrote in German, so how could there be different German texts??

Dating from before word processing there may be various manuscripts and fragments available to subsequent scholars, containing variations.

Without knowing about the specific printing history, authors often negotiated alterations to text between reprints.

Hence Hoffmeister appears to have compiled an attempt at a “standard text” which has been accepted as a basis by this particular translator/editor.

Sometimes footnotes inside a translation or edition give background to any nuances involved.

 

[Vic_Taltrees_UK]

A major difference between Buddhism and Christiany is of course the nature of Christ. Or is it? …

During the week I prayed to Jesus Christ for three men, two from a disadvantaged background, the third who teaches the young.

On Sunday the two told me that during the week they had escaped danger, the third that a boy had reported that what he had taught him had helped him to help another boy.

An unseen hand, but seen events.

 

[Thomas_White]

During the week I prayed to Jesus Christ for three men, two from a disadvantaged background, the third who teaches the young.

On Sunday the two told me that during the week they had escaped danger, the third that a boy had reported that what he had taught him had helped him to help another boy.

An unseen hand, but seen events.

Yes. Concerning the incarnation of Christ as the historical Jesus, this is but one instance and one ‘aspect’ his presence in the world. There is also the Holy Spirit, for centuries and until recent times known as the Holy Ghost. The Holy Spirit is also God. The Son proceeds from the Father and the Holy Spirit proceeds (not quite correctly stated–I cannot recall the correct wording at the moment) from the Son.

The point is that this could all be understood in Buddhist teaching.

 

[Aloysium]

. . . Did any of the earlier Buddhas, the last Buddha or subsequent Buddhists have a viewpoint on specific episodes in history e.g the drying river Saraswati, tribal wars, the rising sea, famous individuals (irrespective of whether a section of society had meantime declared them gods or not)? Was there a History Department at Naalanda University?

Scripture, I understand as the dialogue between man and God, through which we reach out to Him with our intellect and heart as He reveals, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, the presence of the Word who does His will, from the creation of the cosmos, to His incarnation, death and resurrection in Jesus Christ. It describes the history of His relationship with mankind, through His laying the foundations for the Son’s eventual coming. It tells of of what happened in time, while it also reveals His nature, who we are and the relationship that exists between us. Buddhism appears to me is less interested in historical matters because the focus is more on individual transcendence and not on the historical causes of our spiritual ailment and its cure.

 

[thinkandmull]

You are asking this on a Catholic Forum where most people have difficulty getting Catholicism right.
Obviously truth is not the goal.
But then to ask and ruminate about a set of ideas and beliefs, is there actually any truth in any of it?
We’re just juggling, as best we can, understandings.
The bottleneck of course is always our capacity to understand.
Anyway, the questions are intriguing, so from one random internet idiot to someone who mulls, too much perhaps, here goes:

We,
all mankind,
sons and daughters of Adam
are following God’s call to join Him in joyous holy union,
all creation through the incarnated Christ within us,
to share in the eternal Love that is the Trinity.
Everyone is called and Jesus is the Way.

It is important to believe in Jesus;
it is not important to believe in the cosmology of Eastern thought, which is symbolic and is more interested in ontological rather than historical truths.
There the entire focus is on Enlightenment, Realization and the attainment of Nirvana,
as should be ours, to love God and each other.
All philosophical systems except for those related to God are distractions at worse,
road maps of where one is and where one is going spiritually, at best.

What helps with one’s meditation, the surrender of oneself to the Transcendent is not tossing about ideas,
but praying, chanting, just being and not caught up in the the transient - this 24/7, as best we can.
With respect to others, this surrender involves a giving - charity.

Ultimately, it is all right here and now,
the entire cosmos and we who participate in this life,
united with God, the eternal Mind, who sits outside time, reaching into time, unfathomable Mystery,
surrounded in glory and songs of praise as the gods. angels, and saints eternally gaze in wonder into His countenance . . . Holy, holy, holy, holy.

In searching for the truth, it is part of the journey to see and balance other religions since Vatican II say they have a “ray of truth”. I wonder whether Buddhism is more a method than a philosophy, a pardoxical way of finding the Being of goodness by denying everything to everything (nothingness). After all, they do believe in striving morally.

As for Hegel, he flips back and forth like a fish out of water. Who knows were he will
finally rest in thought?? He seems to be more a literary writer than a straight philosopher