Wordly detachment and relativism

[Qoeleth]

Radical detachment from the things of the world and relativism are not things which are normally considered to go hand in hand, so I was interested to read the following:
Buddha said: “I consider the positions of kings and rulers as that of dust motes.
I observe treasures of gold and gems as so many bricks and pebbles…
I perceive the teachings of the world to be the illusion of magicians.
I look upon the judgment of right and wrong as the serpentine dance of a dragon, and the rise and fall of beliefs as but traces left by the four seasons.”

This seems to justify relativism- that what passes for truth is just an illusion. Does radical detachment from the world necessarily include an overcoming of the teachings of this world, of all doctrines, ideas, theologies, etc., and hence a radical relativism?

 

[ASimon]

Radical detachment from the things of the world and relativism are not things which are normally considered to go hand in hand, so I was interested to read the following:
Buddha said: “I consider the positions of kings and rulers as that of dust motes.
I observe treasures of gold and gems as so many bricks and pebbles…
I perceive the teachings of the world to be the illusion of magicians.
I look upon the judgment of right and wrong as the serpentine dance of a dragon, and the rise and fall of beliefs as but traces left by the four seasons.”

This seems to justify relativism- that what passes for truth is just an illusion. Does radical detachment from the world necessarily include an overcoming of the teachings of this world, of all doctrines, ideas, theologies, etc., and hence a radical relativism?

Sounds about right to me. True detachment would mean removing all the principles that typically act as guideposts for decision-making.

 

[King_Lazy]

Radical detachment from the things of the world and relativism are not things which are normally considered to go hand in hand, so I was interested to read the following:
Buddha said: “I consider the positions of kings and rulers as that of dust motes.
I observe treasures of gold and gems as so many bricks and pebbles…
I perceive the teachings of the world to be the illusion of magicians.
I look upon the judgment of right and wrong as the serpentine dance of a dragon, and the rise and fall of beliefs as but traces left by the four seasons.”

I don’t know if Buddha was a relativist, but I can see truth in what he said, although the part about “judgement of right and wrong” does smack of relativism.

Christianity also advocates a sort of detachment from the world. Chesterton wrote that the Church can save a man from “the degrading slavery of being a child of his age.” In Scripture, we see, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind,” and “As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world.” We also see radical detachment being practised by some Christian ascetics, cloistered monks and nuns.

But the detachment of Christianity isn’t centred on the self like in Buddhism. Instead, it is centred on God and affirms but one Truth.

So indeed, a Catholic can see that great empires rise and fall - the Roman Empire, and in modern days, the USSR, but the Church remains unchanged.

We can see the fashionable teachings and beliefs of liberalism, capitalism, communism that the world gets so passionately caught up in are so often filled with falsehood and gain popularity and then lose it, while the teachings of God remain the same. And so we too overcome the ideologies and philosophies of this world to conform them to the revealed truth of God.

We too see that wealth is gained and lost but never possessed by anyone for more than the few decades.

This seems to justify relativism- that what passes for truth is just an illusion. Does radical detachment from the world necessarily include an overcoming of the teachings of this world, of all doctrines, ideas, theologies, etc., and hence a radical relativism?

I think detachment based on truth and detachment based on no truth can both be radical forms of detachment. Christian detachment, which focuses on God, also includes overcoming the teachings, doctrines, ideas and ideologies of this world in favour of the Truth revealed by God. Buddhist detachment, which focuses on the self, overcomes the teachings of the world in favour of no truth.

 

[LJH_80]

You also have to get into the essence of the Eastern ideal of non-being.

The most famous quote about this is actually Bruce Lee’s monologue from Enter the Dragon.
Bruce Lee:

A good martial artist does not become tense, but ready. Not thinking, yet not dreaming. Ready for whatever may come. When the opponent expands, I contract; and when he contracts, I expand. And when there is an opportunity, “I” do not hit, “it” hits all by itself.

The idea here is that a novice would think about openings and what the best tactic is to fight, but the true master has the flow of the situation coursing through him to the degree that no conscious thought or deliberation is required. The optimal course of action occurs because that is the only thing this master CAN do.

Applying it to morality, the idea of deciding whether an action is “good” or “bad” is a novice’ game. A truly enlightened person cannot take a wrong action, and the goal is to reach the state where one no longer has to deliberate about “good” or “evil” but simply takes the best course because that is the way the universe is flowing.

Put another way, God has a plan for you and guides you, the only thing in the way of God’s plan for you is you. The essence of enlightenment (to Christian-ize a Buddhist idea) is to eradicate the “you” from the equation. If you remove your “self” from the equation and let the will of God flow through you, there is no more need to evaluate “right” or “wrong” actions.

It’s not a seamless fit, but it works well enough.

 

[fhansen]

Radical detachment from the things of the world and relativism are not things which are normally considered to go hand in hand, so I was interested to read the following:
Buddha said: “I consider the positions of kings and rulers as that of dust motes.
I observe treasures of gold and gems as so many bricks and pebbles…
I perceive the teachings of the world to be the illusion of magicians.
I look upon the judgment of right and wrong as the serpentine dance of a dragon, and the rise and fall of beliefs as but traces left by the four seasons.”

This seems to justify relativism- that what passes for truth is just an illusion. Does radical detachment from the world necessarily include an overcoming of the teachings of this world, of all doctrines, ideas, theologies, etc., and hence a radical relativism?

Anyone who endeavors to speak anything about truth has to draw the line somewhere, and at that point, he believes that what he says is not relative, but absolute, or else he’d have nothing to say. Do you imagine that Buddha thought his concepts were illusory? Or did he think they were true?

 

[katesmom]

Ive been pondering this topic
I will follow & subscribe

 

[Qoeleth]

Anyone who endeavors to speak anything about truth has to draw the line somewhere, and at that point, he believes that what he says is not relative, but absolute, or else he’d have nothing to say. Do you imagine that Buddha thought his concepts were illusory? Or did he think they were true?

In fact, he does say even the Buddha teachings must be put aside. For example, in the Diamond Sutra, it says:
My teaching of the Good Law is to be likened unto a
raft. Does a man who has safely crossed a flood upon a raft
continue his journey carrying that raft upon his head? The
Buddha-teaching must be relinquished;

Elsewhere, he says what ever can be expressed or concieved is not really true teaching. This seems to connect with the Christian mystical tradition of going beyond God, in Angelus Silesius e.g.:
Where is my dewelling place? Where I can never stand.
Where is my final goal, toward which I should ascend?
It is beyond all place. What should my quest then be?
I must, transcending God, into the desert flee.

Another case is Eckhart, speaks of emptying ourselves even of God, even of a place for God, to be find true spiritual poverty:
A man should be so poor he is not and has not a place for God to act in. To reserve a place would be to maintain distinctions. If it is the case that man is emptied of all things, creatures, himself and god, and if god could still find a place in him to act … this man is not poor with the most intimate poverty. For God does not intend that man should have a place reserved for him to work since true poverty of spirit requires that man be emptied of god and all his works ….

So, would radical detachment involved even detachment from words, creeds, ideas- so a Bhuddist who “relinquishes the Buddha teaching” could be much like a Christian who “empties himself of God”?

In the end, is attachment to creeds not simply another attachment, even a kind of pride?

 

[Spyral]

The only problem with realising that the world is under the spell of relativism and materialism is that I find some Christians tend to go ‘oh well this world sucks lets just cope until we get to heaven’ which I find annoying. I think we should be trying to make this world as good as we can while we can.

Also those quotes seem to be getting away from free will -I.E ‘I let go and try to exist outside of the world ergo whatever happens happens’

 

[Micorhizea]

Radical detachment from the things of the world and relativism are not things which are normally considered to go hand in hand, so I was interested to read the following:
Buddha said: “I consider the positions of kings and rulers as that of dust motes.
I observe treasures of gold and gems as so many bricks and pebbles…
I perceive the teachings of the world to be the illusion of magicians.
I look upon the judgment of right and wrong as the serpentine dance of a dragon, and the rise and fall of beliefs as but traces left by the four seasons.”

This seems to justify relativism- that what passes for truth is just an illusion. Does radical detachment from the world necessarily include an overcoming of the teachings of this world, of all doctrines, ideas, theologies, etc., and hence a radical relativism?

Jesus was pretty clear in distinguishing what was Caesar’s and what was God’s. It seems to me that the Buddha is doing exactly that. You make the leap of calling “teaching” “truth,” if I got your reference correctly. Please tell me if not. Buddha didn’t say “truth;” he said “teaching.”

Of course you know that “radical” means “root.” So “radical detachment” from the world is detachment from the sense that the material world as presented or projected by one’s mortal senses is real, as distinct from the reality of God. In other words, one who is radically detached from the world has severed the sense of attachment to the notion that their private encounter with existence is actual. They have severed it in favor of a discovered understanding that the Reality of God is the only actual reality. That, of course, includes Creation, so such a person who has made that distinction is said to be “in the world, but not of it.” We have all heard that one. And that is the reason that can be said.

We also know that when we handle an object, say a coin, it has two sides. One side doesn’t exist without the other. In Eastern thought this is, simplistically, denoted by the idea of yin/yang. It is sort of the idea that while it is good to have a steak, that was bad for the cow. It is another way of saying that only the totality of things is in balance while our individual perceptions of it are illusory due to being vastly incomplete and pitifully limited. It takes a bit of maturity and humility to arrive at that understanding, I would say.

So in that sense everything is relative to the whole. Even we Catholics are relativists in that we are always judging ourselves relative to an ideal. And if you know as many Catholics as I do, that’s a relative matter off the top, lol!

So “relativism” is a kind of buzz word, like “socialism.” It gets a lot of people very emotional who only think they’ve thought about it. In the same way that the anti-socialists would scream if they were asked to pay tolls on every road because they were privatized, or for the police or fire services as corporate ventures as prisons now are increasingly becoming, we would see some real examples of relativism spring out.

There is nothing that is not relative to something else, and if you think that morality is not relative, go to a court of law and watch what differences are read into the same words, or get into a forum on here about some unclear issue. So, does anything exist in a vacuum? If it doesn’t then it has numerous forces acting on it, even if those are within your own mind, no? Only God is absolute and relative to nothing, and that is what I understand the Buddha to be pointing out.

 

[Trevor_Stamm]

In fact, he does say even the Buddha teachings must be put aside. For example, in the Diamond Sutra, it says:
My teaching of the Good Law is to be likened unto a
raft. Does a man who has safely crossed a flood upon a raft
continue his journey carrying that raft upon his head? The
Buddha-teaching must be relinquished;

Elsewhere, he says what ever can be expressed or concieved is not really true teaching. This seems to connect with the Christian mystical tradition of going beyond God, in Angelus Silesius e.g.:
Where is my dewelling place? Where I can never stand.
Where is my final goal, toward which I should ascend?
It is beyond all place. What should my quest then be?
I must, transcending God, into the desert flee.

Another case is Eckhart, speaks of emptying ourselves even of God, even of a place for God, to be find true spiritual poverty:
A man should be so poor he is not and has not a place for God to act in. To reserve a place would be to maintain distinctions. If it is the case that man is emptied of all things, creatures, himself and god, and if god could still find a place in him to act … this man is not poor with the most intimate poverty. For God does not intend that man should have a place reserved for him to work since true poverty of spirit requires that man be emptied of god and all his works ….

So, would radical detachment involved even detachment from words, creeds, ideas- so a Bhuddist who “relinquishes the Buddha teaching” could be much like a Christian who “empties himself of God”?

In the end, is attachment to creeds not simply another attachment, even a kind of pride?

To your last part, I wouldn’t go that far. I think Eckhart would say the creeds are necessary to keep us from deviating from the truth. Following them though does lead to that disinterest he was speaking of.

What I gather from his quote is basically he is asking Christians to participate in the Kenosis. I need to do more digging about that spirituality, at first it sounds a bit heretical but he was constantly being accused based on misinterpretations.

 

[Micorhizea]

To your last part, I wouldn’t go that far. I think Eckhart would say the creeds are necessary to keep us from deviating from the truth. Following them though does lead to that disinterest he was speaking of.

What I gather from his quote is basically he is asking Christians to participate in the Kenosis. I need to do more digging about that spirituality, at first it sounds a bit heretical but he was constantly being accused based on misinterpretations.

Yes, as was St. Teresa accused and St. John of the Cross. A very thorough analytically look by a contemporary contemplative, given from experience, starting from her days as a Carmelite nun, can be had in the books and works of one Bernadette Roberts, A similar, but quasi secular/Buddhist one can be found from another contemporary, Franklin Merrell-Wolff. They are remarkable, both, in the minutia of detail involved in their interior considerations, BR particularly for those wishing to remain in the scope of Catholic tradition.

I agree with you about Ekhart. That is why I find the two others, and a few more from the Catholic tradition other than the “usuals” so fascinating.