Christian Mindfulness & Emptiness

[Sarpedon]

It has been replaced by the desire to continue and strengthen this particular marriage. Like everything else desire is impermanent and changing.

All of these maritial examples are merely manifestations of the same desire. People always have a desire for intimacy that does not change, even if the individual manifestation of that desire changes over time.

You are correct that Buddhism rejects all concept of a permanent nature for anything. That does not mean that Buddhism rejects the concept of humanity, it is just that the Buddhist idea is changing and impermanent rather than the Platonic-style permanent and unchanging Ideal.

And since it changes, then it cannot form a strong basis for law, social order, family ties, the moral order, or anything else for that manner. What if certain human groups change and become subhuman? What if certain humans change and become superhuman? When a universal and unchanging human nature is rejected in favor of an undefined and changing generality, you open the door to a lot of things.

To desire nothing is as bad as to desire something and leads to suffering as well.

By “desire nothing” I mean “have no desire.”

The four Buddhist virtues (brahmavihara) are love, compassion, sympathetic joy and detachment. This love is ideally detached from desire. When a Bodhisattva helps innumerable beings to enlightenment he has no attachment or desire for those beings because he can see no real beings to desire.

I know, which is why Buddhism is not conducive to love, friendship, marriage, family, and the social order. By rejecting the concept of real individual people, Buddhism rejects the concept of real human interaction.

All questions about the state of the Buddha after death are unanswerable. During his lifetime he helped many others through love and with detachment.

Totally aside from the Buddha, is the method of elightenment the elimination of all desire? If so, how can an elightened person desire to love?

We do not lose our identity, we come to realise that what we, incorrectly, thought was our identity actually was no such thing. We cannot lose what we never really had in the first place. We were mistaken when we thought we had it.

Which is not any better. Realizing that you aren’t actually here is kind of depressing. Realizing that your wife is not real is kind of depressing too. Same goes for your children and your friends. While Catholicism upholds individual human dignity be upholding the concept of individual people, Buddhism rejects this.

We can eliminate the desire for X without eliminating X. I can eliminate the desire for cookies, that does not mean that all cookies are also eliminated. Love, compassion etc. will continue to exist after the desire for love, the desire for compassion etc. are eliminated. The desire for an object is not the object. The object will remain after the desire has been eliminated.

Yes, but a chasm now exists between us the object of desire. Love as some temporary non-human thing which is totally independent of us and totally disconnected from us is a strange kind of love, and it certainly does not affect us. Since Buddhism rejects universals, this doesn’t even have a fixed nature. It’s just some changing generality that is stripped of all its potency.

We need to realise that our perceptions are deceptive and to treat them appropriately. That is not to ignore them but to treat them correctly. We may perceive a mountain as permanent; we can still perceive the mountain but we need to treat it as impermanent rather than permanent.

What practical steps does this entail?

Buddhists can appreciate beauty as much as anyone, witness the numbers of beautiful artworks produced by Buddhists. It is just that the appreciation should not include desire. It is not the beauty, transient though it is, that is a problem. It is the attachment to the beauty that is the problem. Because the beauty is transient then any attachment to it will result in suffering when the beauty is gone.

Can you describe what “appreciation” means in the total absence of attachment and desire?

We can all appreciate a beautiful sunset. If we desire the sunset to last forever then we will be disappointed when the sunset ends. Without that desire we can appreciate the sunset for its transient beauty and move forward without looking back once it is over.

Sure, but we are still fulfilling our desire to temporarily appreciate the passing sunset. You are replacing “desire for an eternal sunset” with “desire to appreciate a beautiful sunset as temporary.” While this might be a boat, you are still steering towards a point where you don’t even desire to appreciate a temporary sunset for what it is.

Merry Christmas!

 

[fhansen]

Correct, accidents do happen. In the case of the accidental burn, the desire was the desire in previous lives that caused the birth at the start of this life. Without birth all the rest of suffering cannot happen. The point of enlightenment is that you are not born again after dying.

That is yet another desire we need to get rid of:[The Buddha said:] “And this, monks is the noble truth of the origination of suffering: the craving that makes for further becoming — accompanied by passion and delight, relishing now here and now there — i.e., desire for sensual pleasure, desire for existence, desire for non-existence.”

— Samyutta Nikaya 56.11
To get rid of it we do the same as for all other desires, we follow the Eightfold Path:To avoid all evil,
to cultivate good,
and to cleanse one’s mind -
this is the teaching of the Buddhas.

Dhammapada 14:5

rossum

It seems there’re some parallels-but not without differences. Christians would seek detachment from the desire for anything which would come between them and the Ultimate Good-the only thing truly worthy of desire- whereas Buddhists would seek detachment as the means, itself, to end suffering. Christians see desire for finite things as misplaced desire, choosing the lesser good above the only True Good. This causes suffering only because it cuts one off from the true source of permanent peace and happiness while Buddhists see any desire as a direct obstruction to their peace and happiness?

It must be the case, in any event, that suffering is undesirable-that one is driven by suffering to strive to avoid it. Is that a sort of tacit admission of the reality of evil? I mean, one should desire to end that which causes strife and discord within themselves and the world-and it would seem that all “rafts” are oriented towards that purpose-born, if by nothing else, of an innate desire for happiness. Just thinking out loud here.

 

[rossum]

It seems there’re some parallels-but not without differences. Christians would seek detachment from the desire for anything which would come between them and the Ultimate Good-the only thing truly worthy of desire- whereas Buddhists would seek detachment as the means, itself, to end suffering.

Since Buddhists do not see anything unchanging then there is no object that is ultimately worthy of desire. There are intermediate targets that may, temporarily, be useful but these are not to be clung to once their usefulness is over - the Parable of the Raft again.

Christians see desire for finite things as misplaced desire, choosing the lesser good above the only True Good. This causes suffering only because it cuts one off from the true source of permanent peace and happiness while Buddhists see any desire as a direct obstruction to their peace and happiness?

Not so much a direct obstruction, more of a misplaced effort. Actions motivated by wrong desire will bring suffering, even if those actions were intended to avoid suffering. Actions motivated by right desire can bring temporary happiness, but must not be clung to otherwise they too will bring suffering.

It must be the case, in any event, that suffering is undesirable-that one is driven by suffering to strive to avoid it. Is that a sort of tacit admission of the reality of evil? I mean, one should desire to end that which causes strife and discord within themselves and the world-and it would seem that all “rafts” are oriented towards that purpose-born, if by nothing else, of an innate desire for happiness. Just thinking out loud here.

Evil exists, just as much as anything else. There is no ultimate unchanging Evil out there - if there was then it could never be overcome. Like everything else, evil is contingent and temporary. It is real, but only as real as everything else.

rossum

 

[rossum]

All of these maritial examples are merely manifestations of the same desire.

They are not “the same desire” in Buddhism, they are a series of temporary desires that give the appearance of being a single desire. As the situation changes so the desire changes to adapt to the new situation; the old desire dies away and a new desire takes its place.

And since it changes, then it cannot form a strong basis for law, social order, family ties, the moral order, or anything else for that manner.

And a good thing too, because all of those things change. It used to be moral to keep slaves, that is now no longer the case. It used to be lawful to beat your wife and to have forced sex with her - rape in marriage was legally impossible. All of those things change over time.

What if certain human groups change and become subhuman? What if certain humans change and become superhuman? When a universal and unchanging human nature is rejected in favor of an undefined and changing generality, you open the door to a lot of things.

A Buddhist may have been an animal in the past or in the future. A Buddhist may have lived on a different planet in the past or in the future. There is nothing particularly special about humans. You may have noticed that a lot of Buddhist moral advice applies as much to animals as it does to humans. The equivalent of “you shall not kill” is “to avoid injury to living beings”. In Buddhism there is no great gulf between humans and other living things.

I know, which is why Buddhism is not conducive to love, friendship, marriage, family, and the social order. By rejecting the concept of real individual people, Buddhism rejects the concept of real human interaction.

It is only by allowing a changing person that these things can happen. If I cannot change then I cannot make new friends. If I cannot change then I can never marry if I am not already married. It is only because we can change that any of these things you praise are possible. People do exist, it is just that they are not as permanent as they like to think that they are. They are “real”, but not “Real”.

Totally aside from the Buddha, is the method of elightenment the elimination of all desire? If so, how can an elightened person desire to love?

The enlightened person loves, but without the desire to love. At that stage certain actions have become automatic, like a reflex, and no longer have to be thought about. The actions are performed without attachment.Two monks, Tanzan and Ekido, were walking down a muddy street in the city. They came on a lovely young girl dressed in fine silks, who was afraid to cross because of all the mud.

“Come on, girl,” said Tanzan. And he picked her up in his arms, and carried her across.

The two monks did not speak again till nightfall. Then, when they had returned to the monastery, Ekido couldn’t keep quiet any
longer. "Monks shouldn’t go near girls,’ he said, “certainly not beautiful ones like that one! Why did you do it?”

“My dear fellow,” said Tanzan. “I put that girl down, way back in the city. It’s you who are still carrying her!”

Realizing that you aren’t actually here is kind of depressing.

Of course you are still here, it is just that you know know the true way in which you are here, rather than believing in a false illusion of the way you thought you were here. Why would that be depressing?

Yes, but a chasm now exists between us the object of desire. Love as some temporary non-human thing which is totally independent of us and totally disconnected from us is a strange kind of love, and it certainly does not affect us. Since Buddhism rejects universals, this doesn’t even have a fixed nature. It’s just some changing generality that is stripped of all its potency.

How can you have love without change? Were you born with the complete knowledge of all those you are going to love throughout your entire life? Both you and those you love have changed because of that love - love can change people. If a person cannot change then that person cannot love. It is change that allows these things to happen.

What practical steps does this entail?

Not to expect permanence, to expect change. To work with good changes and against bad changes as far as possible. To do good, to cease to do evil, to meditate.

Can you describe what “appreciation” means in the total absence of attachment and desire?

No, I still have both attachment and desire. If you wish to know then just follow the path and you will see for yourself.

rossum

 

[Fran65]

I understand Sarpedon’s point about the idea of ‘no-self’ being depressing. It speaks to a kind of nihilism - nothing matters, there is no Real point to anything, and you might just as well lie down and die now as carry on. I might be projecting of course as I have been diagnosed for many years with serious, chronic depressive disorder; so it is a battle for me to retain meaning even without following a path that seems to strip meaning from everything.

This is also partly why I find emptiness terrifying. I still have real, terrible nightmares about the ‘void’ that I was introduced to via Buddhism. Or maybe Buddhism enabled me to articulate a deep terror of my own. My years practicing Buddhism were a tension between terror of the void and it’s siren call to suicide and a teaching that told me that my feelings and everything else were an illusion and therefore not painful. I learned some useful techniques for managing acute anxiety, pain and other unpleasant feelings, but I found its philosophy to be one of despair - no end to suffering unless enlightenment is achieved and that is all but impossible for the majority in their present circumstances.

I was comforted by the Dalai Lama telling people to follow their own religion. My culture is Christian and that is where I belong.

 

[fhansen]

Buddhists can appreciate beauty as much as anyone, witness the numbers of beautiful artworks produced by Buddhists. It is just that the appreciation should not include desire. It is not the beauty, transient though it is, that is a problem. It is the attachment to the beauty that is the problem. Because the beauty is transient then any attachment to it will result in suffering when the beauty is gone.

We can all appreciate a beautiful sunset. If we desire the sunset to last forever then we will be disappointed when the sunset ends. Without that desire we can appreciate the sunset for its transient beauty and move forward without looking back once it is over.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

rossum

I don’t think Christianity would disagree with this. Concupiscence is simply disordered desire. I can appreciate the experience of a tangerine without becoming so attached to it that I depend on tangerines for my happiness. I can call this kind of desire evil or whatever without calling my appreciation evil.

Merry Christmas

 

[Sarpedon]

And a good thing too, because all of those things change. It used to be moral to keep slaves, that is now no longer the case. It used to be lawful to beat your wife and to have forced sex with her - rape in marriage was legally impossible. All of those things change over time.

Not necessarily. Saying that the perception of morality changes does not mean that morality itself changes. Catholicism takes an objective (but not absolute, by any means) view of morality is being determined by the unchanging nature of God. As such, moral actions are by nature good or bad, regardless of whether anyone follows them.
Since there is no such unchanging foundation in Buddhism, everything is plastic. Morality changes as people change. The consequence of this is that anything can become moral or immoral. It was once deemed moral to rape your wife, while Americans now take a different view. Germans used to think that Jews were subhuman, but they take a different view now. Since nothing is permament, we have no unchanging reference point to judge the Nazis wrong about the Jews and the Allies right. A consequence of the fully plastic system in Buddhism is that everything becomes relative, which blurs the distinctions between right and wrong.

A Buddhist may have been an animal in the past or in the future. A Buddhist may have lived on a different planet in the past or in the future. There is nothing particularly special about humans. You may have noticed that a lot of Buddhist moral advice applies as much to animals as it does to humans. The equivalent of “you shall not kill” is “to avoid injury to living beings”. In Buddhism there is no great gulf between humans and other living things.

I know, and that is why Buddhism ultimately devalues humanity. You seem to be making an implicit assumption that we should treat animals as humans. If there is no clear distinction between human and animal, then why not treat humans like animals?

It is only by allowing a changing person that these things can happen. If I cannot change then I cannot make new friends. If I cannot change then I can never marry if I am not already married. It is only because we can change that any of these things you praise are possible. People do exist, it is just that they are not as permanent as they like to think that they are. They are “real”, but not “Real”.

People change in some respects but not others. You are assuming that it’s an either/or situation. Yes, my interests change. The interests of my friends change. Nevertheless, the fact of our common human nature does not change. This allows my friend and I to treat each other with a dignity that is rooted in something permanent.

The enlightened person loves, but without the desire to love. At that stage certain actions have become automatic, like a reflex, and no longer have to be thought about.

That would make the ideal human society a society of robots. Love is far richer than a simple gag reflex.

Of course you are still here, it is just that you know know the true way in which you are here, rather than believing in a false illusion of the way you thought you were here. Why would that be depressing?

Because that means that I don’t know myself. I have interests, passions, loves, and inclinations. Other people have the same things, and those shared attributes bring us together in friendship. If I’m just an illusion and my friend is an illusion, and all of our shared interests are an illusion, then there isn’t much of a basis for a friendship.

How can you have love without change? Were you born with the complete knowledge of all those you are going to love throughout your entire life? Both you and those you love have changed because of that love - love can change people. If a person cannot change then that person cannot love. It is change that allows these things to happen.

There is nothing wrong with change in of itself, as long as it has some standard to guide its course.

For example, consider a cell that changes without any direction or control. We call these cells cancer.

Now consider a cell that changes in relation to a set standard (DNA). These cells give rise to tissues and organs that make life possible.

There is nothing wrong with change, but simply changing isn’t enough. We need to be changing toward something. In Buddhism, there is no objective “thing” to direct change. Thus, things change without direction, which makes them akin to cancer. In Catholicism, the unchanging nature of God provides an objective standard that we can use to guide change. Just as properly formed DNA guides a cell in the production of good organs, the nature of God guides our will in directing change towards the production of a good life.

 

[Sarpedon]

In reference to the last point, it should be pretty clear why Buddhism is depressing. To the Buddhist, everything in the whole world, as well as ourselves, is just cancerous change. Naturally this is not going anywhere, so Buddha concludes that suicide is the best escape from this unwinnable reality.

In contrast, the Catholic measures the changing world in accordance with a permanent and perfect standard of health. Although many parts of the world are infected with illness, we can still fight to bring those parts back in line with the standard of health. Because we have the standard of health, we can determine how to best do this. This is a cause for concern, certainly, but there is still no reason to give up hope and commit suicide.

Spiritual euthanasia is the only cure and the only hope for the Buddhist, while spiritual healing is the hope of the Catholic. Buddhism is the loss of suffering without a gain in anything. Catholicism is a loss of suffering and a gain in love. Buddhism is just euthanasia to escape pain, while Catholicism is healing to appreciate life.

 

[Fran65]

Just to clarify, I don’t think that Sarpedon means here that Buddha advocates literal suicide - according to Buddhism that is a sure way to end up in either a hell realm or incarnated as some form of animal. I read the suicide that Sarpedon refers to in his last post as being that of withdrawal from the world and the destruction of all attachment. This is the killing of those things that make us fully human - those desires that draw towards the good and ultimately God.

I also agree that Buddhism’s morality is plastic - the only restraints on action are the consequences for the person who carries out the action. Buddhism stands on sand in this respect.

 

[rossum]

Not necessarily. Saying that the perception of morality changes does not mean that morality itself changes. Catholicism takes an objective (but not absolute, by any means) view of morality is being determined by the unchanging nature of God. As such, moral actions are by nature good or bad, regardless of whether anyone follows them.

In the very early days of the Catholic Church, before Constantine, slavery was allowed. Was the Church preaching morality or immorality? As with everything else, morality changes, slavery is just an obvious example.

Since there is no such unchanging foundation in Buddhism, everything is plastic. Morality changes as people change. The consequence of this is that anything can become moral or immoral.

You have a faulty understanding of Buddhism. Everything changes, but some changes are extremely slow. A mountain changes, but that mountain is still going to be there for a good many years. The morality preached by the Buddha is good for many years yet: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 1:1-2

Since nothing is permanent, we have no unchanging reference point to judge the Nazis wrong about the Jews and the Allies right.

Why do we need an unchanging reference point? All that we need is a currently valid reference point. I need a morality that will work for my lifetime. In a few thousand lifetimes I will need a morality that works for that lifetime. I do not require that the two moralities be identical. Remember, in that future lifetime I may not be human.

I know, and that is why Buddhism ultimately devalues humanity. You seem to be making an implicit assumption that we should treat animals as humans. If there is no clear distinction between human and animal, then why not treat humans like animals?

I follow Buddhist morality, which treats animals mostly as it treats humans. You are not allowed to eat humans while most, but not all, animals can be eaten provided you do not see, hear or suspect that they were killed specifically for you.

People change in some respects but not others.

Then the total assembly has changed. Remember there is no soul or core in Buddhism, just assemblies of parts. What we see as a “soul” is more correctly described as an emergent property of the assembly of parts, and has no existence separate from the assembly of parts.

The interests of my friends change. Nevertheless, the fact of our common human nature does not change. This allows my friend and I to treat each other with a dignity that is rooted in something permanent.

Human nature is not permanent. After you die you may or may not have human nature. In millions of years it is possible that our entire species will be extinct. Of course human nature changes.

If I’m just an illusion and my friend is an illusion, and all of our shared interests are an illusion, then there isn’t much of a basis for a friendship.

You are not an illusion and nor is you friend. The illusion is to mistake your mental models of yourself and your friend for the realities. You are real, but all you can know of reality is the electrical impulses coming down your sensory nerves into your brain. Your brain builds a model from those electrical impulses. That model is not reality, it is only a model of reality and in some aspects that model is incorrect. It is the model that is a deceptive illusion because we mistake it for the reality. It isn’t, it is only a model.

There is nothing wrong with change, but simply changing isn’t enough. We need to be changing toward something.

Change happens, there is not a great deal we can do about it. What we can affect are our own actions. We attain enlightenment through our own actions; right actions lead us towards enlightenment while wrong actions lead us away from enlightenment. The fact of change allows us to move; our choice of actions determine the direction of that movement. See the quote from the Dhammapada above.

rossum

 

[Detales]

Two people are looking at what is called a “magic picture.” You have likely seen one. It looks either like “noise” on a non-broacast TV channel, or it looks flat, like watching Avatar, the movie, without the 3-D glasses on.

So, one of these two people is looking at the magic picture without the information, either intellectual or experiential, that the picture can be seen in a completely different way. The other one habitually sees the picture by looking through it at the precise point of focus where the image is three dimensional. That person is describing to the “ignorant” viewer what that picture really is about. The one who doesn’t see the 3-D flatly (haha, that is a good one!) denies that there is any more to the picture than the “noise” or the 2-D aspect of the image, or “faith.” But what happens when the flatlander sees “through” the picture? They wake up to two things. One is the actual dimensionality of the picture, and the other is that they are experientially aware that they themselves choose to see the picture in the way they wish to. They now have a degree of freedom, and an advantage of perspective that the flatlander doesn’t.

The flatlander is a either a christianist or a Buddhist who is intellectually convinced of their “way” and rightfully uses it as a raft. The one who perceives the dimensionality of the picture as an experience and is thereby informed, is a christianist or Buddhist, or whatever, who has seen through the subject/object presentation of the world as we are trained to experience it. To someone who has experienced and integrated the Beatific Vision or Niravana as an anchor of interpretation inclusive of “normal” perception of the subject/object field of experience, the world is not the world as it seems to “normal” people. Such individuals are rare, though extant, yet there are many who have a solid glimpse of that reality.

However, because christianism is an ascending/exoteric form of devotion, and Buddhism is a descending/esoteric form, there are linguistic differences in describing these states. Christianism has the added disadvantage of having a dualistic premise, whereas Buddhism doesn’t. In the higher forms so that, at least, it can be said that “This is always already the other world.” That is not clear to a flatlander, yet it is a given to the one who see through the picture.

Part of it being a “given” is even a glimpse of Nirvanic or Beatific awareness. As a rudimentary primer of how this might be explained or experienced on a physiological level, please view a short video at youtube.com/watch?v=UyyjU8fzEYU&feature=related Despite the title, you might see why this is recommended.

There are, as well, other analogies, but fundamentally the Buddhist view is originally based on a knowing of what might be called the “ALL containing Space,” a term equatable in realized christianism with “God.” The rest is a matter of shift in identity.

 

[Fran65]

rossum,

The objective moral truths of the Catholic Church have always and will always be the same. It is the way that they are applied that change and this change occurs as a result of increasing knowledge. Slavery is a case in point, once it was understood what terrible harm was done and what Jesus’ commandment to love one’s neighbour as one loves onself truly meant, then the great fight to end slavery began. That battle was begun and won by Christians. The Bible has to be read in its sociopolitical and historical context, so any argument that starts with ‘The Bible says its okay to own slaves’ is naive and doomed to failure.

The same is not true of Buddhism - there are no objective moral truths in Buddhism. There are instead four noble truths to alleviate the suffering of the individual. Actions are not judged in terms of harm to others, but only in terms of the harm to oneself. The only reason to abstain from harm is to avoid the consequences to oneself. Buddhism which teaches ‘no-self’ is in reality breathtakingly egocentric. All that counts is your progress towards enlightenment and *your *kamma. Now that is ironic!

My experience of Buddhism was that it is profoundly nihilistic and self centred. I also got terrible back pain from all that sitting too. But hey, what do I know? I’ll probably be reincarnated as a female cockroach…if I’m lucky enough to avoid the hell realms.

 

[fhansen]

In the very early days of the Catholic Church, before Constantine, slavery was allowed. Was the Church preaching morality or immorality? As with everything else, morality changes, slavery is just an obvious example.

The Church couldn’t allow slavery prior to Constantine-she had no political power at that time-she was a persecuted church, in fact. Slavery was an institution already existing and the few early writings on it simply addressed around how a Christian was to deal with it.

I follow Buddhist morality, which treats animals mostly as it treats humans. You are not allowed to eat humans while most, but not all, animals can be eaten provided you do not see, hear or suspect that they were killed specifically for you.

Is this true for Buddhism? It just seems intellectually dishonest to have an out of sight, out of mind approach on this matter.

 

[Siddhartha]

If you no longer desire anything…

The Buddha did not condemn “desire”. He never said “desire causes suffering”. That is a misleading English translation. What he said was that “the origination of dukkha is tanha”.

Tanha is not “desire”. Tanha is a desperate thirsting and craving. It is this craving that causes us to feel dissatisfaction with life; or, to be more precise, it is this craving that is a result of feeling dissatisfaction.

Desire is “chanda”. Desire can be good, if applied in the right way. “Dhamma chanda” is the desire, the zeal, the effort to realize Truth, or Dhamma. We need Dhamma chanda if we want to start any type of spiritual practice at all, including the spiritual practice of raising a family. Siddhartha possessed Dhamma chanda, which caused him to forsake luxury and wealth in order to seek Truth. Most of us perhaps don’t have that level of Dhamma chanda, but we can do what we can, in terms of helping the poor, feeding the hungry, and looking critically at our own desires.

Dhamma chanda, or zeal and effort, is a basic part of Buddhism’s Noble Eightfold Path. Right Effort is the 6th part of the Path:

*"And what, monks, is right effort?

1. "There is the case where a monk generates desire, endeavors, activates persistence, upholds & exerts his intent for the sake of the non-arising of evil, unskillful qualities that have not yet arisen.
2. "He generates desire, endeavors, activates persistence, upholds & exerts his intent for the sake of the abandonment of evil, unskillful qualities that have arisen.
3. "He generates desire, endeavors, activates persistence, upholds & exerts his intent for the sake of the arising of skillful qualities that have not yet arisen.
4. “He generates desire, endeavors, activates persistence, upholds & exerts his intent for the maintenance, non-confusion, increase, plenitude, development, & culmination of skillful qualities that have arisen: This, monks, is called right effort.”*

 

[rossum]

The objective moral truths of the Catholic Church have always and will always be the same. It is the way that they are applied that change and this change occurs as a result of increasing knowledge.

I think that here we are back into the discussion of Platonic Ideal. As a Buddhist I do not recognise the “objective moral truths”, all I can see is the “way that they are applied”. There is no hidden ‘more real’ reality behind the surface.

Slavery is a case in point, once it was understood what terrible harm was done and what Jesus’ commandment to love one’s neighbour as one loves onself truly meant, then the great fight to end slavery began. That battle was begun and won by Christians.

The fifth stage of the Eightfold Path is Right Livelihood:[The Buddha said:] “A lay follower should not engage in five types of trade. Which five? trade in weapons, trade in human beings, trade in meat, trade in intoxicants, and trade in poison.” (Emphasis added)

— Anguttara Nikaya 5.177
Buddhism has been against slavery from the start, and long before Christianity. I will agree that Christianity had more influence on the abolition of slavery in Europe and America.

The Bible has to be read in its sociopolitical and historical context, so any argument that starts with ‘The Bible says its okay to own slaves’ is naive and doomed to failure.

My point is that the interpretation of what the Bible says has changed, and so that the effective morality has changed.

The same is not true of Buddhism - there are no objective moral truths in Buddhism. There are instead four noble truths to alleviate the suffering of the individual. Actions are not judged in terms of harm to others, but only in terms of the harm to oneself. The only reason to abstain from harm is to avoid the consequences to oneself. Buddhism which teaches ‘no-self’ is in reality breathtakingly egocentric. All that counts is your progress towards enlightenment and *your *kamma. Now that is ironic!

The Bodhisattva sees no difference between your progress towardsd nirvana and his/her own progress. Since there is no real fundamental difference between self and other progess for one is progess for the other.

My experience of Buddhism was that it is profoundly nihilistic and self centred.

I am sorry that your experience was so negative. There are many techniques available for different types of people; not all techniques are suitable for everybody. Hopefully you will be able to try it again in another lifetime and find a technique more suited to you.

I also got terrible back pain from all that sitting too.

Tell me about it …

rossum

 

[Sarpedon]

In the very early days of the Catholic Church, before Constantine, slavery was allowed. Was the Church preaching morality or immorality? As with everything else, morality changes, slavery is just an obvious example.

No, the Church (as the mouth of God on earth) was not teaching that slavery was acceptable, even if individual Church leaders fell into error on this point. The Bible passage that talks about slaves being content only means that we should not pointless mope about a situation we cannot change. It does not mean we should not aim to right the wrongs that we can.

For a full explanation of the infallibility of the Church and the role of the Magisterium, see:
newadvent.org/cathen/07790a.htm

You have a faulty understanding of Buddhism. Everything changes, but some changes are extremely slow. The morality preached by the Buddha is good for many years yet​

Why do we need an unchanging reference point?

Because it’s not enough to simply want to “fit in” and practice the commonly accepted morality of our culture. Under your logic, a slave owner in Biblical times could say “well, it looks like slavery is going to be part of our culture for thousands of years to come. I guess I have nothing to worry about.”

What happens in many, many years when the morality of Buddhism fails?

All that we need is a currently valid reference point. I need a morality that will work for my lifetime. In a few thousand lifetimes I will need a morality that works for that lifetime. I do not require that the two moralities be identical. Remember, in that future lifetime I may not be human.

What if, say, you lived your entire lifetime in Soviet Russia and grew up in the family of a KGB operative? The USSR was certainly around long enough for this.

I follow Buddhist morality, which treats animals mostly as it treats humans. You are not allowed to eat humans while most, but not all, animals can be eaten provided you do not see, hear or suspect that they were killed specifically for you.

But that’s changing. What if it totally changes with time to where we treat everything, including ourselves, as we treat animals now? What’s to stop that? Would it be wrong if it happened?

Human nature is not permanent. After you die you may or may not have human nature. In millions of years it is possible that our entire species will be extinct. Of course human nature changes.

What if all the Jews are really just cockroaches reincarnated as humans?

Your brain builds a model from those electrical impulses.QUOTE]

The Catholic acknowledges that even though your statement is correct, we nevertheless still have the assurance that God formed our human minds to be able to accurately apprehend truth. That’s why we can know truth, and why the pursuit of knowledge forms a central part of Catholic culture. There is a reason a Catholic culture invented the university and invented formal science. Catholicism leads to the intellectual life, while Buddhism leads to intellectual suicide.

We attain enlightenment through our own actions; right actions lead us towards enlightenment while wrong actions lead us away from enlightenment. The fact of change allows us to move; our choice of actions determine the direction of that movement.

Under Buddhism, “right actions” and “wrong actions” are plastic terms. “Enlightenment” is a plastic term. The “fact” of change is a plastic fact. Buddhism has plastic means moving towards a plastic end. Neither the means nor the end is objective and permanent, and therefore Buddhism is not working in any concrete direction. It’s just changing, like a cell changing without adherence to a set plan laid out in its DNA. Mere cell growth is not enough, for we need directed cell growth. In Buddhism, there is no plan contained in DNA, because the DNA is just as changeable as the cell.

 

[Sarpedon]

Dhamma chanda, or zeal and effort, is a basic part of Buddhism’s Noble Eightfold Path. Right Effort is the 6th part of the Path:

Does the fully enlightened being, having gone “as far as he can go,” so to speak, experience this chanda?

 

[rossum]

Is this true for Buddhism? It just seems intellectually dishonest to have an out of sight, out of mind approach on this matter.

It is a difficult question. Many Buddhists are vegetarian, others are not. See Are Buddhists Vegetarian? for a discussion.

rossum

 

[Sarpedon]

As my link explains, the Magisterium of the Church acts as the voice of the unchanging God, whose nature acts as the unchanging standard for all morality. While the general interpretation of the Bible changes all the time, such changes are irrelevant. The Church speaks on matters of interpretation, which permanently and infallible defines what each passage means. These collected, permanent judgements on both the Bible and Tradition form the unchanging guide for a moral life that is lived in accordance witht the unchanging nature of God. The 1999 Catechism is the most recent general compilation. This provides the objective plan, the “DNA” so to speak, which we need to direct change in a positive direction.

 

[Sarpedon]

Just to clarify, I don’t think that Sarpedon means here that Buddha advocates literal suicide - according to Buddhism that is a sure way to end up in either a hell realm or incarnated as some form of animal. I read the suicide that Sarpedon refers to in his last post as being that of withdrawal from the world and the destruction of all attachment. This is the killing of those things that make us fully human - those desires that draw towards the good and ultimately God.

Correct. Buddhism takes a completely nihilistic view of the world because it denies that our intellect can know the true nature of things. Since nothing is permanent, it proposes spiritual euthanasia as the only release from suffering. Catholicism takes the totally opposite view that we can know truth and that not only can we escape suffering, but also that we can also grow in love. Buddhism is all about eliminating suffering and leaving nothing in its place, while Catholicism is about transforming suffering (by directing change through the will and human action) into something positively good.