Everything Changes / the Buddist notion of Anatta

[annem]

Contarini

You aren’t doing a good job of representing Christianity in this discussion. Psychoanalyzing people you don’t know on the Internet just because they have different ideas from yours is a real no-no.

Hi, Contarini, you are right, and I apologize for this. I ask Rossum and everyone to forgive me.

Actually, what’s anti-rational is stating big explanations of complex historical processes with great confidence without sufficient evidence.

Christianity may have been one important factor in the West’s development of science. Not everyone agrees with that.

Sorry, but I disagree. It isn’t my thesis at all. it’s one of the most basic arguments about the growth in science for thel ast hundred years. Today, in fact, I know that a great many of the scientists and leaders in China place the reason for western development solely onto Christianity.

Some of this is because so many past leading western intellectuals (no, not in the last 10 years or so, during the rise of the likes of Dawkins) have argued the point as well. here is a quote from Alfred North Whitehead (yes, the one who wrote that book with the egregious Bertrand Russell.

Whitehead placed the reason the west developed science on Christian theology. This is what he stated: “There seems but one source…It must come from the medieval insistence on the rationality of God…Every detail was supervised and ordered; the search in to nature could only result in the vindication of the faith in rationality”.

Here are some basic books on the subject:

Christianity and Politics: A Brief Guide to the History
Argued that the idea of time as a circle prevailed, not only in the west, but throughout all of India and China. Simply put, the belief was that every golden age was followed by collapse and darkness until, once again, the same golden age would appear. All ideas and civilizations had existed before, and would reappear again. This belief crippled civilizations for thousands of years in China and India.

The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution
how science was invented in the west

The Book that Made Your World: How the Bible Created the Soul of Western Civilization
Chinese, Muslim, and Indian scholars all valued education. Yet the university system only begin in the Catholic churches and monasteries and so did science.

Science in Traditional China by Needham
argues that in China belief in cycles and reincarnation kept the country most likely to develop (their educational system and value of learning) irreparably harmed

One of my favorite books on the subject is by…Jaki? I don’t have time to look it up. Anybody out there know what I’m talking about?

God bless you, Annem

 

[annem]

Slartibartfast

Buddha says things like the number of tears we have shed over our numerous lifetimes would create an ocean!

Hi, I’ve been meaning to ask you if you took your name from the Douglas Adams book, which was so funny.

About your quote - doesn’t it bother you that there is no valid explanation for how reincarnation is accomplished? I mean none.

How do you explain reincarnation with the universe beginning in the big bang, with the tiny number of humans at first now turning into 7 billion, and most of all, oh, most of all, with the complete lack of an explanation for how reincarnation is accomplished?

Unless you can explain it logically to me,

God bless you, Annem

 

[annem]

rossum

We need to escape from this ocean of tears. Other questions can wait, especially if they are not relevant to our escape. Buddhism is very focused on the practical.

Hi. First I need to ask your forgiveness for being rude. I hope you will forgive me.

Next, I am still baffled by your insistence that this world is an “ocean of tears”. What about children’s laughter, love, and chocolate? What about sex? Ocean of tears? If there is a problem, why aren’t you interested in changing this world to make it better? Why wouldn’t that be much more practical?

Which brings me to another question. Many philosophers and historians and scholars here and in China have placed the blame for the Chinese lack of initiative to change society on a the belief in cycles. Do you agree?

In general, the trajectory of science has greatly improved the world (modern dentistry!). And the Christian belief in the sanctity and dignity of human life has given us human rights. Do you agree?

The one thing that has not been getting better over the last two thousand years is the fact of evil. Just in the last century, atheist communists murdered well over one hundred million people. Hitler killed 6 million Jews. And Pol Pot and various other dictators have murdered and murdered and murdered.

No, this does not make me think this world is an ocean of tears. It does make it clear that evil exists now, even as science improves our lives. Science can’t cure evil.

I believe Buddhism has no explanation for evil, and no solution for it. Do you agree?

God bless you, Annem

 

[Contarini]

Sorry, but I disagree. It isn’t my thesis at all.

No, it’s Fr. Stanley Jaki’s. May he rest in peace. It’s a very serious one and I don’t dismiss it, but it’s not without controversy. Jared Diamond, for instance, has a completely different, entirely materialistic set of explanations for European dominance.

it’s one of the most basic arguments about the growth in science for thel ast hundred years.

If by “basic” you mean “uncontested” then you are certainly wrong.

Today, in fact, I know that a great many of the scientists and leaders in China place the reason for western development solely onto Christianity.

That may be true, although you don’t actually provide evidence for this.

Why introduce this into the discussion? Is it really relevant? If you think it is, then you need to do more than assert. You need to back it up. And that includes noting the strongest alternative explanations and why they fail. You can’t just point to a few scholars who say what you want them to say. It’s quite a job. No reason to take it on. But it’s your business if you insist.

Generally, it’s just a bad idea to insist on a proposition of the form “X is the sole cause of Y.” Even proving that X is one of the causes of Y, historically speaking, is hard enough.

Thanks for the bibliography, though, especially Needham and Pecknold. But from the brief look at Needham I was able to take on Google Books, I’m puzzled by why you think he supports your argument. He actually insists that the Chinese did recognize progress (p. 116), valued empiricism (119), and throughout their history held “a conception of science as a cumulative, disinterested, cooperative enterprise in time” (120). On p. 122 he says, “The simple fact is that scientific and technological progress in China went on at a slow and steady rate which was totally overtaken by the exponential rise in the West after the birth of modern science at the Renaissance.” That is quite different from what you have been saying, and seems much more reasonable to me. Now I admit that I only looked at one section of the book, which seemed the most relevant and was available online. Perhaps I am getting the wrong impression of his thesis, and I welcome correction.

Pecknold I know on Facebook (one of my former students went to CUA for grad school and studied with him) but haven’t read any of his work. It looks as if this might be a good place to start. And if I disagree, I can argue with the author! C. S. Lewis’ essay “Historicism” made me suspicious of these kinds of arguments in general, but I want to keep an open mind.

Edwin

 

[annem]

Edwin

No, it’s Fr. Stanley Jaki’s. May he rest in peace. It’s a very serious one and I don’t dismiss it, but it’s not without controversy. Jared Diamond, for instance, has a completely different, entirely materialistic set of explanations for European dominance.

Edwin, Yes!!! Jaki’s book was by far the best. Science and Creation. That was it. Wow, I am thrilled to be able to talk to someone who knows some of this stuff.

However, really, it was not Jaki that was the first to write about theory. Various Victorians, etc., and early English historians on China argued the same thing. Needham’s book does have various strands of the argument, but in the end, in the last chapter as I recall (I can try to look it up if you want) he comes out strong for China being hampered by their beliefs.

And it is baffling, otherwise, as to why China didn’t develop science. Gunpowder, paper, you name it, invented by various Chinese and a country whose two thousand years and more history had vast stretches of peace and prosperity, a country that valued education, and yet…languished. Never really progressed.

Yes, there are scientists and the like in China that are arguing that the reason the west became the west was due to Christianity. Do I really have to look up all their names? Sigh, it will take forever and I’ve already had to look up the books. Anyway, it’s quite real.

And yes, of course!!! it’s no longer a popular argument. Are you surprised?? The west despises Christianity, and God, and all the possible strictures on their sex life God requires. Western historians hate, hate, hate, everything to do with the west and with Christianity. They cry for diversity but what they mean in practice is to denigrate every single thing western civilization, and most of all, Christianity, has accomplished while praising to the heavens every other civilization.’’

Oh well. Western civilization is ended. But it’s so exciting to think of the new growth in Christianity elsewhere.

Why introduce this into the discussion? Is it really relevant? If you think it is, then you need to do more than assert. You need to back it up. And that includes noting the strongest alternative explanations and why they fail. You can’t just point to a few scholars who say what you want them to say. It’s quite a job. No reason to take it on. But it’s your business if you insist.

Well, if you think it’s a bad idea, maybe it is. I’lll give it up if you think I should. However, I really do believe that Buddhism and Hinduism have ideas in them that are so dangerous they have crippled their societies. Whereas, of course, Christianity has given us all a cascade of good - which most people don’t even know about.

Ii have a sister who is a Buddhist/atheist. People in the west know so little about Buddhism that they don’t know about the wars, or all the abuse, or the long, bloody history of Buddhist infighting in places like Tibet. In the early 20th century, one of the Dalai Lamas in Tibet (there are 4 brands of Buddhism in Tibet) had a Catholic missionary to dinner and poisoned him to death. No kidding.

Anyway, isn’t this all fascinating? I love talking about things like this, or anything at all about Catholicism.

Thanks so much for remembering about Father Jaki. That was such an interesting book.

God bless you, Annem

 

[Slartibartfast]

Slartibartfast

Hi, I’ve been meaning to ask you if you took your name from the Douglas Adams book, which was so funny.

Aha! I have been rumbled! It’s a fair cop! Yes, indeed it is. I love those books I bet you would see Buddhists as Marvin, the paranoid robot ;D

Slartibartfast About your quote - doesn’t it bother you that there is no valid explanation for how reincarnation is accomplished? I mean none.

Well, naturally, we all like to have the answers to everything. It is the nature of our minds to seek rational causes. However, I don’t think that you can always apply logic and reasoning to religion. After a while, when I was a Buddhist, I just accepted the fact that it was beyond my ability to understand it. Do you understand transubstantiation? I can’t explain it logically and consequently, if I feel so inclined, I have to just accept it because it a matter of faith and not logic.

My recommendation would be to keep an open mind about the wealth that exists in other religions and how they might complement your practice as a Christian

 

[rossum]

First I need to ask your forgiveness for being rude. I hope you will forgive me.

Done. It is all too easy to say things we didn’t really mean on the Internet.

Next, I am still baffled by your insistence that this world is an “ocean of tears”.

It isn’t. The Buddha was talking about the amount of tears we cry over many lifetimes. Of course, there are gaps between the tears, but there are tears between the gaps as well. Over 1,000 lifetimes you might have seen your mother die 1,000 times, your father die 1,000 times and you have died 1,000 times. Every life involves some tears. Those tears add up.

Which brings me to another question. Many philosophers and historians and scholars here and in China have placed the blame for the Chinese lack of initiative to change society on a the belief in cycles. Do you agree?

Different scholars have different ideas. I have seen European innovation traced to the fact that Europe has many separate competing kingdoms, while China was one single large empire, controlled from the centre. With less competition between countries, there was less incentive for innovation in China.

As a side point, I do not think that the political or scientific impact is a good way to judge a religion. Roman paganism had a big cultural and scientific impact on Spain, France and Britain for example.

The one thing that has not been getting better over the last two thousand years is the fact of evil. Just in the last century, atheist communists murdered well over one hundred million people. Hitler killed 6 million Jews. And Pol Pot and various other dictators have murdered and murdered and murdered.

Hitler was brought up Catholic, and claimed to be a Christian. It is certain that most of the staff of the concentration camps were Christians, given the religious composition of Germany at the time. All religions have their bad people, such as the Wirathu, the Buddhist monk in Myanmar/Burma.

I believe Buddhism has no explanation for evil, and no solution for it. Do you agree?

Evil is a result of wrong actions. Basically the same as Christianity, where the fallen world is a result of Adam’s wrong action. The difference is that in Christianity, everyone is being punished for something they didn’t actually do. In Buddhism, you get the results of your own actions, not somebody else’s.

rossum

 

[annem]

Slartibartfast

I don’t think that you can always apply logic and reasoning to religion.

Well, I must say this is a very different viewpoint than that of Christianity. The opposite view actually. For Christians, rationality is an intrinsic part of God, and he created the universe in a rational way, and there are laws as to how the universe works that can be discerned using reason, science, and mathematics.

Using our minds, we can, first of all, reason our way to God. But more; our minds were made to always be restless as we seek to understand, and God wants us to use our minds to expand our knowledge.

As soon as the barbarians were no longer attacking, Medieval monks began beavering away at all sorts of applied science, making the west the global technological leader. The west created the university (the church paid for priests to attend) which created an explosion of knowledge, scientific, but also theological and societal (human rights, arguments that condemned slavery, for example).

That is not to day that there aren’t a few examples of Catholic belief that can’t be understood by our minds - the Eucharist and the Trinity, for example. But these instances are small in number. They do not form the plank our religion is built on, as with Buddhism. In general, the overall belief in Christianity is that God is rational and we are rational and that we are supposed to use our minds to understand.

Ever read P G Wodehouse? He is so funny≥

God bless, Annem

 

[annem]

rossum

 Hitler was brought up Catholic, and claimed to be a Christian. It is certain that most of the staff of the concentration camps were Christians, given the religious composition of Germany at the time.

Okay, this will take a while to respond to, so I’m going to answer this and then later answer your other comments.

In the election that swept Hitler to power, the two Catholic areas of the country, Bavaria and the Rhineland, were the two areas that voted against, not for, Hitler. Which should surely not surprise anyone. Christianity, especially Catholicism, was being branded by the Nazis as the inheritor of the ‘slave’ religion Judaism.

On Palm Sunday, 1937, a secret encyclical “Mit Brennender Sorge” by the pope was smuggled to every Catholic church in Germany, an encyclical to be read aloud that Sunday at Mass. It was a thunderous denunciation of the Nazis. “There is but one alternative left, that of heroism” ended the pope sadly. After the encyclical Hitler began actively persecuting Catholics in education and by imprisoning priests. The pope sent 50 protests to the government.

Three years before Hitler was elected chancellor, Catholics were told from the pulpits that anyone who became a Nazi or who wore the Nazi uniform or flew the swastika would not be given the Eucharist. So anyone who became a Nazi could no longer practice as a Catholic,. Documents in the Vatican show that the Nazis later pleaded for this excommunication to be removed. And the request was denied.

So if any Nazi guards at concentration camps claimed to be Catholics, I can assure you, they weren’t, nor were they allowed to take the sacraments. But of course there are always politicians, etc., who ignore what the Catholic church and the pope say. Today, in the US, there are any number of famous politicians who proclaim themselves Catholics and then vote for abortion.

Now, as to what Hitler believed about Christianity. Hitler wrote in July 1941 “National Socialism and religion cannot exist together. The heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity”. Sounds like Nietzsche doesn’t he? And here is another quote from Adolf that explains just what Hitler thought: “Christianity is an invention of sick brains” (p 110). He was not a practicing Christian and he actually planned at one point to try and kidnap the pope.

The Nazis not only hated Catholicism, they actively promoted the occult and paganism. Nazis proclaimed the triumph of the strong, the Nietzschean superman, over the weak – the exact opposite of Christianity. They proclaimed the morality of eugenics. They legalized abortion and sterilized the mentally impaired. And yes, of course the Catholic church protested these clear evils vigorously then as she does today.

Dachau had a entire cell block of Catholic priests, most of whom would not survive. (A good book on this subject is ‘Priestblock 25487, A Memoir of Dachau’.) Indeed, the Nazis murdered nearly every priest in Poland. The future Pope John Paul, then secretly, and illegally, in a seminary, would only escape by what some would call a miracle.

God bless yo9u, Annem

 

[annem]

rossum

Christianity, where the fallen world is a result of Adam’s wrong action. The difference is that in Christianity, everyone is being punished for something they didn’t actually do. In Buddhism, you get the results of your own actions, not somebody else’s.

Well, no not really. In Buddhism, you are given a world you are condemned to live in, through cycle after cycle. Sounds a lot like a very fallen world.

I wrote that Buddhism has no explanation for evil, and I believe this to be true. I would further argue there is no way to decide what is evil and no passion for changing evil in Buddhism. I would argue that I could prove this clearly by Buddhist history.

Christians railed against slavery even while being persecuted by the Romans. The vast numbers of slaves that the western world inherited from ancient Rome were soon turned from slaves into serfs, with many rights, much to the fury of the rich. When Muslims started kidnapping enormous numbers of Christians, orders of monks and nuns were formed to buy them back. By 1434 Pope Eugene IV declared a Catholic who owned a slave excommunicated…

Protestants here in the US organized against slavery, and then fought a civil war to end the institution. You have to have a passion for justice for a change like this. You have to have a clear idea of right and wrong.

But of course slavery is still very much with us. According to the Global Slavery Index published in 2014, the nation with the greatest number of slaves today is India. India tops the ranking by far with a total of 14 million slaves.

Okay, think of that. Fourteen million human beings captive in India as slaves. Any Buddhist activity to stop it? Any in the last two thousand years?

God bless, Annem

 

[annem]

rossum:

Different scholars have different ideas. I have seen European innovation traced to the fact that Europe has many separate competing kingdoms, while China was one single large empire, controlled from the centre. With less competition between countries, there was less incentive for innovation in China.

Great heavens, the Middle Ages did not invent science, human rights, and vast numbers of technological inventions because Spain was in competition with France. It was monks and priests in universities and monasteries that did that. It was believing that God had given us the laws of nature and that we needed to study nature to learn them.

You really don’t think that Chinese monks trying to empty themselves of all desire would be something of a hindrance to intellectual growth? Or believing that the world was maya might have encouraged them not to be too interested in the world?

God bless you, Annem

 

[Contarini]

rossum:

Great heavens, the Middle Ages did not invent science, human rights, and vast numbers of technological inventions because Spain was in competition with France. It was monks and priests in universities and monasteries that did that. It was believing that God had given us the laws of nature and that we needed to study nature to learn them.

You really don’t think that Chinese monks trying to empty themselves of all desire would be something of a hindrance to intellectual growth? Or believing that the world was maya might have encouraged them not to be too interested in the world?

God bless you, Annem

Confucians criticized Buddhists precisely for this. Buddhist values never entirely dominated Chinese culture. The high point was about the eighth century, I think.

And it’s just a bad idea to make sweeping statements about what effects ideas might have. It’s much harder to document that they really do have these effects.

The decentralization of the West in the Middle Ages did play a role, I think. Of course, in other ways it “held it back.”

Again, it’s complicated.

Edwin

 

[Slartibartfast]

Slartibartfast

That is not to day that there aren’t a few examples of Catholic belief that can’t be understood by our minds - the Eucharist and the Trinity, for example. But these instances are small in number. They do not form the plank our religion is built on, as with Buddhism.

Aren’t these rather central to Christian beliefs? In any case, maybe you are correct. Maybe logic is not the correct word to use in relation to such mysteries. I suppose one has to accept that our own logic brings us to a conclusion, regardless of whether or not we can understand the subject matter. I also agree that these things are difficult, if not impossible, to understand with our human minds. That is the same for transubstantiation as it is for an apparently pointless creation of Samsara.

Slartibartfast

Ever read P G Wodehouse? He is so funny≥

Yes, I love his books too!

 

[Contarini]

That is not to day that there aren’t a few examples of Catholic belief that can’t be understood by our minds - the Eucharist and the Trinity, for example. But these instances are small in number. They do not form the plank our religion is built on, as with Buddhism.

That’s not an orthodox opinion. The Trinity and the Incarnation are the foundation of Christianity. The Eucharist is the source and summit of the Christian life.

What in seven heavens do you think the Christian faith is based on, if not these things?

No Christian doctrine is contrary to reason. But the central Christian doctrines are above reason.

And I don’t find Buddhism to be irrational, for the most part. I do think it skates over questions about where the basic rationality of the universe comes from, but I think you are not describing it fairly.

Edwin

 

[annem]

Contarini

it’s just a bad idea to make sweeping statements about what effects ideas might have. It’s much harder to document that they really do have these effects.

Oh Edwin, so great to hear from you. But you are sending back to the mines and digging up references, aren’t you? Sigh.

Although in this case, I don’t think it’s all that hard to prove that science and technology grew in Europe because of Christianity, and not in Asia because of some of their fundamental ideas, such as reincarnation. And cycles. If every golden age was to be followed by a dark age, and then yet another golden age, with the same people doing the same things over and over again, how was progress possible? And what would be the point?

Look, there is a very clear pattern in China and India and every single other smaller Asian civilization, from Tibet to Japan. All the same result.

In “The Book That Made Your World” by Mangalwad (I believe born in India, raised Hindu, now Christian) he discusses the windmill, in existence since before Christ. It was known in Tibet but used as a prayer wheel. It was certainly known in Afghanistan but never really used there. And it was never used in India or Asia, whereas monks in Europe developed it even further and windmills became widespread and caused a true revolution in Europe.

He asks, why did Christian monks develop all sorts of technologies? Spectacles (needed by the monks to read), the crank, hundreds of farm improvement, horseshoes, and the clock. Why didn’t Buddhist monks? Because Buddhist monks were trying to silence their minds. Because Buddhist monks did not believe their minds were given by God to reason our way to truth. Because Buddhist monks did not believe in a logical universe created by a loving God.

Historian Ernst Benz had studied Buddhism in Japan and blamed Zen for a lack of growth of science in Japan.

Here are some more books on the subject: Foundations of Modern Science in the Middle Ages; by Edward Grant; The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution by James Hannam; How the West Won: The Neglected Story of the Triumph of Modernity by Rodney Stark; Inventions of the Middle Ages by Chiara Frugoni; How The Catholic Church Built Western Civilization by Thomas E. Woods.

Why is it that you don’t want to place the success of western civilization on Christianity?

Anyway, God bless you, Annem

 

[annem]

Slartibartfast

Aren’t these rather central to Christian beliefs

Hi, no. In fact, Protestants usually deny the Eucharist, and there are various denominations of Protestants that deny the Trinity, which they claim is not in the Bible.

Reincarnation, on the other hand, is the one major plank for most Buddhists and all Hindus. And yet it is utterly inexplicable. No one can suggest any way it is accomplished. What computer or mind is doing it. Or why.

God bless, Annem

 

[annem]

Contarini:

That’s not an orthodox opinion. The Trinity and the Incarnation are the foundation of Christianity. The Eucharist is the source and summit of the Christian life.

Great heavens, Edwin, you certainly manage to catch every mistake I make, don’t you? (And alas, I really do make a lot). You are quite right, too. I meant to type Christians instead of Catholics. Obviously, the Eucharist can hardly be central to the Protestants who deny the Eucharist, just as the Trinity is not central to those denominations who deny the Trinity.

,

And I don’t find Buddhism to be irrational, for the most part. I do think it skates over questions about where the basic rationality of the universe comes from, but I think you are not describing it fairly.

Well, think about the major planks of Buddhism: 1) life is suffering (Yes, yes, i know a lot of modern western Buddhists want to change the suffering part to passing and changing, but come on. Two thousand years of every single document repeating the word suffering. Two thousand years of proof that Buddha, should he have existed, was talking about suffering, period. And let’s not forget the ‘changing’ part is based on reincarnation),. and 2 ) reincarnation, which was based on Hindusim and a belief in cycles.

I find the first major plank to be incorrect, and the second major plank to be irrational and unprovable.

Of course maybe I am wrong. I admit to making many mistakes, and being a mere housewife. So please feel free to discuss the issues. Maybe you can change my mind.

God bless you, Annem

 

[Contarini]

Contarini:

Great heavens, Edwin, you certainly manage to catch every mistake I make, don’t you? (And alas, I really do make a lot). You are quite right, too. I meant to type Christians instead of Catholics. Obviously, the Eucharist can hardly be central to the Protestants who deny the Eucharist, just as the Trinity is not central to those denominations who deny the Trinity.

Those denominations that deny the Trinity are not, in the theological sense of the word, genuinely Christian. At least not fully so. Almost all Protestants accept the Eucharist, though most if not all have defective theologies about it, and of course Catholics don’t think Protestant Eucharists are valid. But a Christianity without Trinity and Eucharist isn’t remotely recognizable as historic, orthodox Christianity. I don’t know what you are trying to argue for here. I’m not trying to catch you out–I’m just trying to witness to Christian orthodoxy instead of Western cultural superiority. With all due respect, it seems to me that you are identifying the two, and I think that’s a terrible mistake.

,

Well, think about the major planks of Buddhism: 1) life is suffering (Yes, yes, i know a lot of modern western Buddhists want to change the suffering part to passing and changing, but come on. Two thousand years of every single document repeating the word suffering. Two thousand years of proof that Buddha, should he have existed, was talking about suffering, period. And let’s not forget the ‘changing’ part is based on reincarnation),.

j and 2 ) reincarnation, which was based on Hindusim and a belief in cycles.

I find the first major plank to be incorrect, and the second major plank to be irrational and unprovable.

Of course maybe I am wrong. I admit to making many mistakes, and being a mere housewife. So please feel free to discuss the issues. Maybe you can change my mind.

God bless you, Annem

Well, I am a"mere house-husband" (stay-at-home homeschooling parent)

But yes, I think you are wrong, along with a good many people. I’m glad that your life has been so happy that you don’t feel the power of what Buddhism has to say on this point. I for one feel it very deeply, and I think the Christian tradition as a whole is fundamentally in agreement with Buddhism on this point, although the big difference is Jesus

But first let’s get back to the question of the word “suffering.” You say that Buddhists have been using it for thousands of years, but that’s impossible, because the English language hasn’t existed that long. The word they have used is, in Pali, “dukkha.” Clearly that word does have the connotation of suffering–I’ve even seen a Buddhist picture that depicted dukkha as a big vat that ground people up like sausage. But I’m disposed to trust people who know the language, as I do not, when they say that “suffering” isn’t an exact equivalent (after all, few words beyond very basic ones have anything like an exact equivalent in another language). As I understand it, dukkha is fundamentally the dissatisfaction that results from the impermanence of things.

You mentioned the laughter of children in an earlier post. That is indeed one of the greatest joys of life. But I hear my two-year-old laugh, and I know that this carefree stage of her life is pitifully short. I know that all too soon she’s going to know disappointment and anxiety, that she’s going to be hurt and betrayed by people she trusts, that her curiosity and creativity are not always going to be welcomed (as her older sister found out when she went to kindergarten and was told she was “weird”). I know that some day she will die. That’s what Buddhists mean–not that there is no joy in life, but that it always rides on a deep, dark, bitter ocean of sorrow. Life, as Oswald Chambers put it, is “wild and tragic.” Christians have always known it. How did some of us manage to forget it?

I don’t know you. Perhaps you have known far greater suffering than I and just have greater faith and a stronger spirit. I really do admire the evident joy you take in life. And I’m not denying for a minute that there is great joy in life. What Buddhism denies is not joy but settled happiness rooted in a justified confidence that things are permanent. That, as C. S. Lewis points out in the Problem of Pain, is always denied us. That should be a point of common ground between us and Buddhists, not a point of difference. Christians have referred to this life as a “vale of tears” over and over again. The Salve Regina was not written, or sung every night after Compline, by people who denied that suffering is the constant undercurrent of life in the world as we know it. Jesus was the “Man of Sorrows,” and we are called to follow in his footsteps. And in doing so we find joy. In turning from selfish craving and taking up our cross to follow Jesus, we experience true happiness. But that happiness comes from a recognition of the fundamental suffering of the world, not a denial of it.

What are we Christians, after all? Are we froth on the wave of Western civilization, or are we the people of the Crucified?

Edwin

 

[Slartibartfast]

Contarini:
Well, think about the major planks of Buddhism: 1) life is suffering (Yes, yes, i know a lot of modern western Buddhists want to change the suffering part to passing and changing, but come on… etc.

You persist in adhering doggedly to your perception of the Four Noble Truths when it has been pointed out on a number of occasions that you are misinterpreting them.

The Buddha did not say that all life is suffering. he said that there was suffering. He went on to say that the cause of suffering is not accepting that everything must change i.e. that all conditions are subject to impermanence.

I believe Edwin has recently responded with a good account of what this means in more detail so there is no need for me to do the same.

I have provided a link which I hope will clarify this once and for all.

accesstoinsight.org/lib/study/truths.html

 

[Slartibartfast]

But first let’s get back to the question of the word “suffering.” You say that Buddhists have been using it for thousands of years, but that’s impossible, because the English language hasn’t existed that long. The word they have used is, in Pali, “dukkha.” Clearly that word does have the connotation of suffering–I’ve even seen a Buddhist picture that depicted dukkha as a big vat that ground people up like sausage. But I’m disposed to trust people who know the language, as I do not, when they say that “suffering” isn’t an exact equivalent (after all, few words beyond very basic ones have anything like an exact equivalent in another language). As I understand it, dukkha is fundamentally the dissatisfaction that results from the impermanence of things.

Yes, quite right. It is commonly accepted, at least at the Theravadan Monastery near where I live, that Dukkha cannot be accurately translated. A common interpretation is (a word which I don’t like but is now often used) ‘dis-ease’ ( I would say unease; I am not sure why ‘dis’ is required!)

You mentioned the laughter of children in an earlier post. That is indeed one of the greatest joys of life. But I hear my two-year-old laugh, and I know that this carefree stage of her life is pitifully short. I know that all too soon she’s going to know disappointment and anxiety, that she’s going to be hurt and betrayed by people she trusts, that her curiosity and creativity are not always going to be welcomed (as her older sister found out when she went to kindergarten and was told she was “weird”). I know that some day she will die. That’s what Buddhists mean–not that there is no joy in life, but that it always rides on a deep, dark, bitter ocean of sorrow. Life, as Oswald Chambers put it, is “wild and tragic.” Christians have always known it. How did some of us manage to forget it? Edwin

Exactly. There is suffering.