St. Robert

True inner peace is a gift. Gifts cannot be earned or merited. Gifts can only be accepted and received.

There is no authentic end-point of achievement to the eight-fold path to peace, because it's based on a continual doing without a done. There is no absolute victory over the lack of peace.

I would contend that true inner peace is not based on doing right, but rather admitting wrong.

If a person doesn't believe that true peace is being offered to them as a gift, how can they received it?

boneyard bill

Victorialis writes:

You don't manifest in order to disappear. You don't individuate in order to dissolve. The self never has manifested and autonomous individuality is an impossibility. The "self" of our self-concept, the ego, is an abstraction which has never had concrete reality. Our identification with this abstraction is the cause of our illusions about the true nature of reality. Our true nature is that of a composite of faculties and an ever-changing panorama of experiences. We are enmeshed in the world. We don't stand outside of it an observe it. Everything that exists, exists in a unity and everything exists because it shines from the reflected light of each other.

Eudaimonist

Can you back this up by examining Buddhist practice and reporting on their results?

Perhaps "doing" can lead to an experienced "doing" that is simultaneously a "done". For instance, the beginner engaging in the eightfold path is inexperienced, and therefore not skilled at those practices. However with time great skill may be gained, and thus the doing might reach its goal -- not a static end state, but a successful doing.

Admitting wrong isn't a doing? It seems to me that purging guilt can take work.

The Buddhists specify other sources of inner turmoil than guilt. What about those?

If inner peace doesn't have to be a gift, they create it in some other way.

[ May 09, 2002: Message edited by: Eudaimonist ]</p>

boneyard bill

Adam Who asks:

First of all, you seem to be juxtaposing reason and faith. I'm not aware that faith is a significant concept in Buddhism. Buddhism juxtaposes reason and empiricism. It rejects reason or inference as a guide to ultimate truth. It doesn't reject it altogether.

Experience is the only source of ultimate truth in Buddhism, but it includes, and indeed stresses, a radically empirical approach to self-knowledge as the grounds for ultimate truth. An accurate knowledge of self is essential for an accurate knowledge of the world.

Let me give you an example from physics. The Michaelson-Morley experiment led to the most profound changes in our understanding of physics because it showed that the velocity of light is the same regardless of the motion of the observer. This completely violates Newton's physics. An object coming towards me should have a greater velocity, relative to me, than an object moving away from me. But this is not true of light. It was this problem that paved the way for Einstein's theory of relatvity. But suppose the velocity of light were a function of human vision? Then the Michael-Morley experiment would be explicable in terms of Newtonian physics.

I'm not claiming that the velocity of light is a function of human vision. I'm just trying to point out how self-knowledge relates and interacts with our understanding of the physical world.

I'm not sure that "best practices" for living and religion are mutually contradictory. I thought that what religion is all about. But, as far as I can see, all the major religions teach self-surrender in one way or another while secularism teaches self-aggrandizement. What I find appealing about Buddhism is that it puts the focus on understanding self-nature while other religions focus on ritual and mytho-poetic language to achieve this end.

Regarding your last three questions. The answers are 1. no 2. both, and 3. yes.

Let me emphasize, however, that I am not a practicing Buddhist. I have studied Buddhism as a philosophy in much the same way that you study Plato or Aristotle. So I'm only trying to explain Buddhist teaching. I don't claim any personal enlightenment.

boneyard bill

Eudaimonist writes:

The question here isn't whether or not reason has practical value. It is readily agreed that reason is useful. The question is whether it can lead to ultimate truths. It was Kant who first raised the question in the West about whether or not we can gain new knowledge through reason. Consider the following syllogism:

God is the creator of the universe.
The universe was created.
Therefore, God exists.

It is a perfectly valid argument which would appear to "prove" the existence of God. But what have we really proven? We've only "proven" the second premise. We've gained no new knowledge from this logical demonstration. We've simply unpacked what we mean by the terms we're using.

boneyard bill

Eudaimonist writes:

Engaging life and success in life are two different things. It is fairly clear what you mean by engaging life and Buddhism endorses that. Though it is probably stressed more in Zen than in other forms of Buddhism. Success in life is quite a different matter. What constitutes success is extremely subjective. Many people who we regard as highly successful considered their lives a failure. "Success" is a relative term that pits you against others as is defined in terms of ranking yourself against others. This is not a productive way to approach life.

boneyard bill

Eudaimonist writes:

I don't think our values are necessarily that far apart. Anyway, I'm not necessarily giving personal opinions here. I'm trying to represent the Buddhist position as I understand it. And don't worry, my serenity doesn't need to be restored because it was lost. I was particularly blunt on that post just to drive home the point.

I don't take offense when someone disagrees on a question of opinion. Only when they resort to name calling. Then I quit the discussion altogether.

boneyard bill

Eudaimonist writes:

These are often referred to as the Buddhist ethics, but I think this is misleading. I would call it the Buddhist therapy. I would getting beyond my competence to try to expound on each one of these. They are generally divided into three groups: action, morality, and meditation. I'm not quite sure which steps fall into which groups. For example, right mindfulness and right concentration obviously fall into the meditation category, but I'm not sure where right understanding falls. Their purpose is stated in the Four Noble Truths. The object is to eliminate desire (or obsession, as I think the term should be translated). This is how one obtains nirvana.

The action and morality steps are to keep one from focusing on "self" in one's daily life. The meditative steps are aimed at self-discovery.

Zen means "meditation." It began as a "greater vehicle" (mahayana) school. This means it was an attempt to simplify the route to attaining nirvana by focusing on just this part of the eightfold path. The point of the mahayana schools was to find less demanding ways to achieve nirvana than the eightfold path which seemed possible only for monks. The mahayana schools wanted to make nirvana available for everyone.

boneyard bill

St Robert asks:

For Buddhism this begins with a proper self-understanding. When you realize that he ego is an abstraction, then you realize that you should not function from a self-centered point of view. So the ought arises from the is. The point is to gain a correct understanding one's own self-nature. I could go into this more, but most of it is already stated on this thread. If you haven't read the entire thread, please do so. Then I think you'll get a better idea of where we're coming from.

boneyard bill

St. Robert writes:

There is a faith-based school of Buddhism, the Pure Land School, all you need to do is call on the Lord Amida Buddha three times and you are assured of joining him in the Pure Land when you die.

Of course, there are also denominations of Christianity that emphasize works over faith. (That certainly was the view of C.S. Lewis, for example.)

But getting back to Buddhism. It is certainly true that the "self" cannot achieve nirvana. Since nirvana means the extinction of the self. It doesn't come about by trying. That is the basic dilemma. That's why Rinzai Zen uses the paradox, the koan. Enlightenment comes when the acolyte gives up trying to understand the koan an everyday, logical sense.