Buddhism and Hegel

[Thomas_White]

I don’t believe anyone remembers past lives, else it would be the only thing we ever hear people speak about.

There are those who insist they can remember past lives. It has been suggested this could involve genetic memory. This is just something I read, okay?

 

[rossum]

Then where is the reality of a chair, if my idea of a chair is an illusion?

Light strikes the chair and is reflected into your eye, where is is focused onto your retina. The cells in your retina convert the light into electrical impulses in your optic nerves, and those impulses travel to your brain. All that you actually “see” are those electrical impulses. Similarly for all your other senses, all you can actually sense are electrical impulses in your sensory nerves.

The brain is good at pattern-matching. When it sees a certain pattern of incoming impulses it matches that pattern to a similar pattern it has stored in its memory. That internal pattern has the label “chair” assigned to it.

The actual chair is an external object. What we have inside our brains is a pattern of electrical impulses and an attached label: “chair”. The two things, external and internal are different.

The illusion is to think that those two very different things are actually the same. Just as the water you ‘see’ in a mirage is not water, so the ‘chair-pattern’ inside your head is not a chair.

Why am I better off for rejecting reality?

You are better off accepting the reality that the pattern inside your head is not actually reality.

Here is a Zen story:

On a cold winter night, a big snow storm hit the city and the temple where Dharma Master Dan Xia served as a Monk got snowed in. Cut off from outside traffic, the fuel delivery man could not get to the Zen Monastery. Soon it ran out of heating fuel after a few days and everybody was shivering in the cold. The monks could not even cook their meals.

Dan Xia began to remove the wooden Buddha Statues from the display and put them into the fireplace.

“What are you doing?” the monks were shocked to see that the holy Buddha Statues were being burnt inside the fire place. “You are burning our holy religious artefacts! You are insulting the Buddha!”

“Are these statues alive and do they have any Buddha nature?” asked Master Dan Xia.

“Of course not,” replied the monks. “They are made of wood. They cannot have Buddha Nature.”

“OK. Then they are just pieces of firewood and therefore can be used as heating fuel,” said Master Dan Xia. “Can you pass me another piece of firewood please? I need some warmth.”

The next day, the snow storm had gone and Dan Xia went into town and brought back some replacement Buddha Statues. After putting them on the displays, he began to kneel down and burn incense sticks to them.

“Are you worshipping firewood?” asked the monks who were confused about what he was doing.

“No. I am treating these statues as holy artefacts and am honouring the Buddha,” replied Dan Xia.

Do those statues match the “holy Buddha Statues” pattern or do they match the “firewood” pattern? It is important not to confuse internal patterns with external objects. Thinking that the two are the same can lead to suffering.

rossum

 

[Thomas_White]

Then where is the reality of a chair, if my idea of a chair is an illusion?

God bless Annem

The idea of a chair is an illusion. An infant sees a collage, an undifferentiated mass, but learns to distinguish what human perceive as objects. The spectrum of light that humans perceive is limited and so is the ability to perceive what is really there. A “chair” would look quite different when viewed through an electron microscope. It would be a swirling mass of energy visible as sub-atomic particles in great dynamic flux. It is in this way that a “chair” as an object and perceived as such by humans is an illusion. This illusion is an idea or concept and not reality.

 

[utunumsint]

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 would think not.

But I find it interesting that Buddhism has this kind of faith/works dichotomy in different sects. For example, there was a mini-protestant reformation in Mahayana Buddhism towards a more faith only approach to attaining Nirvana. The Japanese pure land sect focuses on calling on the name of the Buddha Amitabha and that is pretty much all there is too it. It even leads to some pretty antinomean outlooks where some even claim that the more sinful you are the closer you are to going to the pureland “salvation”. There is also a hell reserved for those who reject the name of Amitabha.

I am probably getting many facts wrong about the sect since I have only recently heard about them. Also, if anything, pureland is probably influenced by Christianity rather than the other way around. But, as the wiki states,

Upon encountering Japanese Pure Land traditions which emphasize faith, many westerners saw outward parallels between these traditions and Protestant Christianity. This has led many western authors to speculate about possible connections between these traditions.[41] However, the cosmology, internal assumptions, and underlying doctrines and practices are now known to have many differences.[41]

God bless,
Ut

 

[Thomas_White]

But I find it interesting that Buddhism has this kind of faith/works dichotomy in different sects. For example, there was a mini-protestant reformation in Mahayana Buddhism towards a more faith only approach to attaining Nirvana. The Japanese pure land sect focuses on calling on the name of the Buddha Amitabha and that is pretty much all there is too it.

God bless,
Ut

This is a misconception and there is a lot more than that to Pure Land Buddhism. It began in China and was known as Chan around 600-500 B.C. and later was known as dzien. It is a sect of Mahayana Buddhism and spread to Tibet and to Souteast Asia and to Korea and Japan. It Japan it is known as Zen, and Zen is perhaps the best known branch of Buddhism in the U.S. All these words are Latinized transliterations to English.

 

[thinkandmull]

Hi. About the word mechanism: I meant, what the heck is it that decides whether a worm becomes a dog or a Dalit peasant is reincarnated as a rajah? Who, or what force, makes the decision?
It might be possible to imagine a super computer so vast it can decide the fate of each and every worm, of each and every cow, and of each and every human being that has been born.
But that is not what rossum is arguing. Instead, he believes that reincarnation is simply part of the universe, a kind of force in itself, and that we are condemned to live again as a starving African due to vague and unspecified rules known only to the …whatever…that decides reincarnation. But whatever it is, it is not a god. Of that he is clear.

Have I answered your question?

Anyway, God bless, Annem

Buddhists don’t believe there is a person deciding what you become after death. You become what your actions deserves. I don’t know what else you expect them to off you by way of explanation on that point

 

[thinkandmull]

There are those who insist they can remember past lives. It has been suggested this could involve genetic memory. This is just something I read, okay?

Are there scientist who talk of this from science? Not that I believe it, but I am always interested in reading what scientists say

 

[utunumsint]

This is a misconception and there is a lot more than that to Pure Land Buddhism. It began in China and was known as Chan around 600-500 B.C. and later was known as dzien. It is a sect of Mahayana Buddhism and spread to Tibet and to Souteast Asia and to Korea and Japan. It Japan it is known as Zen, and Zen is perhaps the best known branch of Buddhism in the U.S. All these words are Latinized transliterations to English.

There are many forms of Buddhism in Japan. Zen is just one of them. They tend to be fairly non-exclusive and even complementary. There is also temple worship, although since WWII that is very much in decline. Pureland in Japan has is derived from China, but has its own very distinct history. Much of Buddhism is fused with Shinto.

And I totally agree that the concepts are very different from Christianity. Here is a good overview of all the different flavors of Buddhism in Japan.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_in_Japan#Japanese_Buddhist_schools

Still, there is an interesting parallel (that may only be a sociological phenomenon), between tendai Buddhism and Jodo-Shu (a very early form of pure land) and the Catholic/Protestant split.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C5%8Ddo-sh%C5%AB

God bless,
Ut

 

[thinkandmull]

Buddhism seems to have the advantage of saying that everything lacks substance. For Hindus everything is God, is Substance. So evil is substance?? Christianity has a little bit of a problem here too since for many of them God is needed to sustain everything. So he sustains the rage of a murderer, and the sick feelings of the envious.

 

[Thomas_White]

Are there scientist who talk of this from science? Not that I believe it, but I am always interested in reading what scientists say

It was something I read some time ago and don’t even recall where, but it was probably in a magazine article. I think it was mostly speculation and more like an hypothesis that might explain the experiences of people who claim they remember past lives. The theory was that perhaps they inherited these memories as part of their DNA. If so, they really could have memories of past lives, not that they themselves actually lived those lives.

 

[thinkandmull]

Psychology says our memories of our childhood are not even exact, that our mind adds and colors them in ways. How much more of past lives!

 

[rossum]

This is a misconception and there is a lot more than that to Pure Land Buddhism. It began in China and was known as Chan around 600-500 B.C. and later was known as dzien. It is a sect of Mahayana Buddhism and spread to Tibet and to Souteast Asia and to Korea and Japan. It Japan it is known as Zen, and Zen is perhaps the best known branch of Buddhism in the U.S. All these words are Latinized transliterations to English.

I’m afraid not. Chinese Ch’an turned into Japanese Zen (both words mean, “meditation”).

Pure Land Buddhism is different, called Shin in Japan. In China many monasteries practised both Ch’an and Pure Land, reciting the name of the Amida Buddha was seen as one among many possible forms of meditation.

In Japan the two tended to separate into different schools, and that is the way they came from Japan to the West.

rossum

 

[rossum]

Buddhists don’t believe there is a person deciding what you become after death. You become what your actions deserves. I don’t know what else you expect them to off you by way of explanation on that point

I often use the example of gravity. If you throw a stone straight up in the air, then who caused the stone to later fall on you head?

Actions have consequences, and since you are the one taking the actions then you are the one who suffers the consequences. Like gravity, it is built into the universe and we can understand the rules and work with them. Working against the rules only brings suffering.

rossum

 

[rossum]

Buddhism seems to have the advantage of saying that everything lacks substance. For Hindus everything is God, is Substance. So evil is substance?? Christianity has a little bit of a problem here too since for many of them God is needed to sustain everything. So he sustains the rage of a murderer, and the sick feelings of the envious.

Isaiah 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. (emphasis added)

rossum

 

[thinkandmull]

Isaiah 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. (emphasis added)

rossum

As you have your interpretation of your Scriptures, so have we with ours.

All it means is that God caused punishment to fall on the wicked. “Evil” mean in the will **or **just meaning pain and death

 

[thinkandmull]

So what is Dzien? Is it a sect of Mahayana Buddhism?

 

[utunumsint]

I’m afraid not. Chinese Ch’an turned into Japanese Zen (both words mean, “meditation”).

Pure Land Buddhism is different, called Shin in Japan. In China many monasteries practised both Ch’an and Pure Land, reciting the name of the Amida Buddha was seen as one among many possible forms of meditation.

In Japan the two tended to separate into different schools, and that is the way they came from Japan to the West.

rossum

I love how Zen and Japanese poetry seem to develop hand in hand.

The Buddhist concept of impermanence, transience, and changeability are interesting when looked at in terms of, for example, Christian metaphysics and earlier classical Greek reflections on permanence and change. Yet where Buddha look into nothingness for his escape from this realm of flux and change, the Greeks and the Christians see it in terms of absolute being, goodness, and truth.

I don’t mean to impose some later post enlightenment Shopenhaur style nihilism and pessimism on the Buddha. I find Japanese forms of Buddhism, like Zen, as a constant reminder of that insight that pushes us outside of ourselves towards transcendence.

I also love the Japanese blend of Shinto pantheism and their way of making art that mimics nature… sort of making nature more beautiful in many ways than nature itself. So very different from our post-enlightenment mechanistic desire to control and coral nature.

God bless,
Ut

 

[Thomas_White]

So what is Dzien? Is it a sect of Mahayana Buddhism?

It is only a later name for Ch’an (or Chan). These are transliterations to English where the sound of the word was probably rendered first into Latin, or Latinized, which has an entirely different kind of alphabet. It is like the way Peking became Beijing–a different and maybe closer pronunciation of the same Chinese word. There is similarly the words Tao and Dao, which is only a different pronunciation of the same word since the original dialect did not quite have a ‘T’ sound.

The transliteration from Japanese of Ch’an became Zen. It is the same word.

 

[Thomas_White]

I’m afraid not. Chinese Ch’an turned into Japanese Zen (both words mean, “meditation”).

Pure Land Buddhism is different, called Shin in Japan. In China many monasteries practised both Ch’an and Pure Land, reciting the name of the Amida Buddha was seen as one among many possible forms of meditation.

In Japan the two tended to separate into different schools, and that is the way they came from Japan to the West.

rossum

Ah, I knew that and forgot.

 

[annem]

rossum Light strikes the chair and is reflected into your eye, where is is focused onto your retina. The cells in your retina convert the light into electrical impulses in your optic nerves, and those impulses travel to your brain. All that you actually “see” are those electrical impulses. Similarly for all your other senses, all you can actually sense are electrical impulses in your sensory nerves.

Hi rossum. However, Buddha lived long before knowledge about electrical impulses.

Perhaps you can try again with a more logical explanation.

God bless Annem