Buddha & The West

Published on February 23, 2004 By stevendedalus In Philosophy

There is a fascinating lure about Buddha. A man gifted with health and material splendor from noble birth, nevertheless, grasped the essential tragedy of existence, becoming sensitized to the millions of his countrymen suffering under the power structure of caste. Buddha walked among them, loving them, instructing them, giving them hope and courage—most important, courage. Here he promised them literally nothing but the strength of themselves within:

One man on the battlefield conquers an army of a thousand men. Another conquers himself—and he is greater.

(The Dhammapada, translated from The Pali by P. Lal)

Notwithstanding his spiritual heroics, the popular belief — in the western matrix anyway — seems to be that he, together with Nirvana, is an embodiment of spiritual pessimism if not nihilism. Is it Buddha's hang-up with Nirvana or ours that gets in the way of his positive accomplishments? A more accurate western view on Nirvana would be transcendence. That is, though Karma itself by natural causes of disease and catastrophe inflicts sorrow, the humanistic trend of Buddha is missed if there is no acknowledgment that desires invoked from self-importance are self-willed, together with a deliberately conscious effort through which sorrow is self-inflicted or inflicted upon others.

Transcendence might be better defined by Wordsworth through the inverse: “The world is too much...getting and spending we lay waste our powers.”

Buddha requires Four Noble Truths to explain the path to Nirvana:

1) Accepting the life as pain and suffering.

2) Suffering is conditioned by the matrices of nature, culture, society and ancestry.

3) Therefore obliterate pain and suffering by suppressing lust for happiness.

4) The mind concludes that the entire province of pedestrian existence is unworthy.

Obviously Western culture laughs at this. The thrill of life is in the attempt at the impossible in temporal existence; certainly one does not aid the Furies into hurling the will to life into the abyss! Out-fox them, dammit! — for as long as you can. If the brand of futility is on your ass, let them find it. Yet Western culture be advised — the drive of individuality notwithstanding — that self-motives tend to crowd out moderation, which tends to transcend the pedestrian and find refuge in the betterment of all humankind.

Comments (Page 2)

Randy Spire

on Feb 24, 2004

again, there is much misunderstanding of Buddhism in general as well as it's treory and practice in particular. Buddhism does not suggest anything regarding the suppression of happiness. and your comment on desire begetting suffereing and worth the investment only reveals your lack of understanding in how the notion of desire is used in Buddhism. Please refrain from criticism or opinion if you haven't gone deep enough into it to understand the basic tenets.

messybuu

on Feb 24, 2004

I'm sorry. I thought the "Four Noble Truths" had something to do with Buddhism.

bakerstreet

on Feb 24, 2004

jeff allison : "Please refrain from criticism or opinion if you haven't gone deep enough into it" ...to explain in detail? It isn't a secret society, so instead of suppressing other people's ideas about it, why not show them how they are in error in a way they will understand? I don't know a lot about Buddhism, but I am aware that their are numerous flavors and sub-beliefs.

There were 5 well-defined schools of belief a hundred years ago, who knows how many there are now. Clear it up for us?

Randy Spire

on Feb 24, 2004

yes, the four noble truths, and yes, my mistake of not being more informative. frankly this is not the forum for this due to nuance and subtlety, but i can try my best and simplicity.

First it is true that there are several schools and flavors, one element of Buddhism which I think makes it somewhat unique is it's nature to change it's own form in relation to a new culture it moves into. B in Japan is different than in Thailand, for example.

As for suffering and desire, they are very much related. The Pali term is 'dukka' and it has a wide range of meanings though generally translated as suffering. It may more clearly be understood as craving, hunger, thirst, etc., more along these lines. So yes, desire is wrapped in that as well, longing. So to say craving or desire causes suffering, yes, but the important thing to recognise here is 'what' is being craved and 'who' is doing the craving? Suggesting that desire is worth it missess the point because if I crave pizza, say, then i get it and everything is good (worth it). But it's not, the craving is still there, though it may not be on pizza anymore.

So the question then becomes one of trying to identify thie nature of this craving and then how to work with it. It is not one of repressing it or repressing happiness or anything else. This is where meditation comes in, because through this practice one can begin to look for and identify dukka, and thereby learn about its nature and how it operates. When one begins to come into contact and familiarity with it operating within oneself, you can then begin to see it active in your everyday activities.

Primarily this gets focused around the concept of no-self (many terms for this). This is often another point of misunderstanding. No-self does not mean that one does not exist or is invisible or has no soul or anything like that. It is a recognition that the way we think we exist and the way we actually are, are different. This misapprehensiono is what leads to dukka, suffering, because we think we are a certain way and this causes us to act, react, and behave a certain way based on the initial assumption and/or frame of reference. Through the realization of no-self, one doesn't disappear, they merely have a new frame of reference to operate from, and in fact your life becomes more 'real' than it ever was, God included. Very generally, suffering is a mental phenomenon that we create for ourselves, and the four noble truths and more specifically the 8-fold path, show us a means by which to stop doing this to ourselves.

Buddhism is like any other religion in terms of being misunderstood or misrepresented. like in Christianity, there are many people who call themselves Buddhist and either have no idea what they're talking about or practice it very poorly or even wrong. Buddhism is not anti God, it simply does not address the notions of theology or cosmology, it is simple concerned with the suffering of individuals and stops there. I understand that in the Tibetan version there are dieties, etc., and all that, but these are simply for means and methods of creating realizations in practitioners and are not a reflection of some Reality. That's about as short and simple as I can be.

bakerstreet

on Feb 25, 2004

"this is not the forum..."

Sadly I think it is the current political climate that makes it so. If there were more posts like this maybe there'd be other stuff to talk about.

If no-self isn't an end, where does re-incarnation end? That, the vegetarianism, and a few other things have always made me dubious of Buddhism. I have always been told that Buddhism can happily co-exist with other religions, but it seemed to conflict in many ways to me.

Is the Dali Lama Tibetan Buddhist? Are there 'authorities' in other schools of Buddhism? Organizations i guess? I dunno what I am trying to say. I suppose I was wondering how formal the "worship" of most schools of Buddhism is ( if "worship" it can be called ).

P.S. I'm usually snide, but I am not being so this time, I am genuinely curious.

Randy Spire

on Feb 25, 2004

"this is not the forum..." -- I only meant it would be better face to face in an actual conversation, because as you can see already it usually leads to an endless Q&A.

"If no-self isn't an end, where does re-incarnation end?" -- Rebirth is understoood differently in different traditions and even by different practitioners. Some take it quite literally, others not so. A key idea to keep in mind and I offer this very loosely, is that all teachings in Buddhism are merely what are called 'skillful means', which means they serve a funtion of method and are not a commentary on reality. Certainly there are many 'faithful' followers who believe in rebirth, as there are many Christians who believe in, say Armageddon or some other tenet of the faith. But in B, these are meant only to be teachings for the purpose of changing the mind and one's frame of refence and once done so, it is to be dropped. also, in Tibetan for example, rebirth is understood more in the sense of a rebirth from this life to a next and on ad infinitum. In the Thai, it is more understood as a momentary birth of one's ego again and again from moment to moment, and thus related directly to dukka. there is also the matter of rebirth in terms of taking new form as the composting dirt you're buried in and the flower it supports the roots of and on and on. B doesn't see distict entities, it sees form changing to new form. So the seed becomes the flower becomes the compost becomes the dirt , etc. so rebirth can be undestood in many ways, but it's primary function is how it effect the mind of a person, it aids in the development of great patience.

As for vegetarianism, this is not so cut and dry either. Yes, generally it is practiced this way, but mostly so in the US. historically, most B cultures are not vege, and even still not. A more proper way to understand vege in B, is related to the notion of sentient beings, anything with sentience, consciousness. And so it is that one should not kill or cause harm to sentient beings, but it's not specific about eating meat. If I came to your house as a guest, it would be rude of me to not accept what was offered. So I would not kill an animal myself or ask another to do it for me, but if I found roadkill, there is no problem and maybe even benefit in my consuming it. So again, it's not black and white and often depends on the context of the situation and my role in it. Also there is the matter of the numbers of being involved, so from a B perspective, a cow is more acceptable than shrimp may be because one cow, one being, would feed 25 people, whereas if we were eating shrimp, I may have 15 all by myself.

One central theme of B has to do with intent or motivation. So the same act may have different weight, karma, depending on the motivation behind it. Then the value of the motivation is generally determined by the extent it is motivated out of self interest. And yes, I think B is highly compatable with other religions. But to do so, one need to get beyond the 'religious' aspects and get to the core root of the philosophy as a means of self discovery and actual practice, so not to think of it as something quite so solid.

Dalai Lama is Tibetan, and there are other seniors in other traditions. He is the most famous, you may also know Tich Naht Hahn, he is Vietnamese Zen, though the structure in Buddhism is not so formal like in Christianity. The different traditions, schools, and lineages have their own heads, though not much formal network among them. There is some worship by lay people, these would be the same as the regulars at Sunday service. However B is not generally based on worship, in fact it is heavily discouraged. Practitioners are encourage to look for themselves, discover the truth on thier own and make their own determinations; there is nothing to worship, especially Buddha. B is about practice, about actually doing the work yourself.

bakerstreet

on Feb 25, 2004

hmm, thanks for all the info. Is fruit for thought. Buddhism is a lot more open than I thought. I have some reading up to do

Thanks again.

Randy Spire

on Feb 25, 2004

yea, sorry i couldn't keep it more precise. ~j

stevendedalus

on Feb 27, 2004

Eight: Yes, it's no mistake that Jesus said Do unto others as you would have others do unto you, while Buddha says Do not do unto others as you would have others not do unto you. B sounds negative but actually he is negating the possibility for others to do wrong unto others.

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