Is there really a point in practicing Buddhism?
Posted: Sat Mar 29, 2014 5:28 pm
Dear brothers and sisters. I am sure that the title of this post has already gotten some of you flustered. But trust me when I say that this is not meant to offend you or deride your long and arduous practice. Admitedly, as you will see, the way of expressing myself and my thoughts tends to be a tad on the raw side. However I believe that when important matters that pertain to the human condition are addressed they need to be expressed in the daily 'vulgar' language of the people and their time, not in an ellitist, exclussive and overly cultivated manner. Every man and quite possibly his dog should be able to process what's being discussed. I have read countless threads that descend into a specialists-only discussion of the oblique cases of Pali instead of the matter that was originally to be discussed, leaving the layman and the more experienced practitioner often scratching their heads. So pardon my direct manner, and my lack of lengthy quotations from the sutras. Or the seemingly offensive nature of my questions. I am more interested in addressing your own personal wisdom, I seek your own light. I am not here to regurgitate what I have read and then bathe in your own regurgitated parchment and ink soup. So after my lengthy introduction that's hopefully clarified where I'm coming from, let's get down to business with your permission.
As Buddhists, there are certain premises that are fundamental to the practice of all of us. For the sake of a clearer exegesis leading to the points I'm about to make and the blasphemous questions I'm about to ask, please bear with me while I recount the basics of our practice.
1. Anatta: There is no self in any conditioned, dependently originated thing. Only a conventional, facilitating name tied to a form with its ever changing constituent parts that are also devoid of any absolute substantial self.
2. Clinging to this self as something substantial and real, whether enduring after death or perishing along with the body breeds stress.
3. Life is fraught with stress because we are trapped in this illusory world where we think we exist and we are caught up in a process of trying to satisfy it, protect it and perpetuate it.
4. There is a way out. The Eightfold Path. Destination: Nirvana.
5. Nirvana: A liberated state (?) of mind. Described as light, free, joyous, wholesome, ultimately so true that any description we attempt to asign to it will not do it justice and derail us from the path. Our ultimate goal. Why? Because it ensures we are no longer going to return to the world of becoming. When the body dies, our karma will not attach to another being, nobody else will savour the bitter fruits of our actions.
So far so good? Any objections on a fundamental, general level? I am not dumbing the dharma down, I'm trying to condence it for the sake of convenience. I swear down....
Now we come to my rant...
We are not really here in the absolute sense, right? My cherished little self is an illusion. There is no eternal John in this body. He's the sum total of his parts but even those are in flux. So he will not be here tomorrow, in ten years, in 50 years. Then one day this body will die, the skandhas will scatter, gone is John not only as a mental subjective illusion, but also in actual, biological terms. The brain will stop firing, the perception of the world by John will cease, the perception of John as John will cease, the body will be cremated, John's consciousness and its film reel will vanish. Yah?
Now depending on the sutra, the teaching or your own experience, whether it's relevant to you or not, we have three options. John's karmic stream will attach itself to another being, John's karmic stream will cease to flow as really there couldnot have been any stream without a source, or John having attained Nirvana in life, will enter his Parinirvana, not as John but as a liberated something/someone/nothing/no one all rolled into one. He will be unreachable and inaccessible, beyond words, truly liberated. But we can't say that John will be or that he won't be. Confusing stuff, but I guess I'll take Siddh's word for it.
And here we come to the point of this post.
If there is literally nobody at home to set free, then who is it I am trying to liberate? And who am I anyway? I am not really here so how can an illusion liberate itself by discerning the fact that it's unreal? What am I trying to liberate me from? Life? Why? Because it's stressful? Because it's bittersweet and ultimately unsatisfactory? So what if? I am not really here, but unless I'm beset by some ultimate mega misfortune, it feels quite an alright place to be. Yes it's stressful. A plate of vindaloo is nothing more than handfuls of stuff that burn your mouth but despite the sweating and puffing, it's still pretty tasty and you still come back for seconds, unless you are of a weaker disposition and you seriously can't take the spice. Life is what I've come into, one way or another, why is it such a bad thing to enjoy? Do I need to be liberated from myself? Do I need an eightfold path, or do I simply need to man up, accept the bad with the good and make peace with the fact that one day the show will be over? Do I need the dharma, or just a thicker skin? Selfish, egotistic you might think. Agreed, but since I'm not here really, does it matter? To whom? Me? I'm an illusion, who cares? If I die and that's it then I surely won't care when I'm gone, if I continue, then sweet, I get a second ride. And a third, and a fourth....and so does anyone I screw over during my life time. Where does morality come in? Why should it?
Yeah but my skandhas might resurface and attach to another being, why would I want to condemn this new being that's come from me, kinda, into this tearful torture of becoming? I should know better than that as I'm already suffering, shouldn't I sympathise?
Again, why should I care really? I'm not here now, I won't be here then, s/he won't really be here either so does it really matter? To me it seems as if compassion, this quintessential Buddhist virtue that made Gautama himself tread the path is pointless and meaningless as per his own exegesis. It only makes sense if indeed there is a knower, and a feeler and a thinker and a sympathiser and an experiencer in actual terms who may either continue or cease after physical dissolution for there to be an actual motive to practice in the first place.
Maybe this someone is not my presently perceived John Adams who will one day be Chantelle De Vaughn, and then Xing Zheng Chiu. Maybe this someone is in flux, and unconditioned but in ontological terms always present and on the receiving end of all experience including liberation. But that someone must exist for any practice to make sense, including Buddhism. Otherwise, motive, goes bye bye. How can an illusion liberate itself from illusion and why or how would it want to? How would it know it has? How would it be sure that it's simply not deluding itself again?
I know, speculation you'll say. But perhaps speculation is necessary.
The Buddha speculated that he had experienced past lifetimes, he speculated that he liberated himself, that his path leads to salvation. What if himself was deluded? A victim of his own logical argumentation? Like the logical conundrum of Achiles and the turtle? Empirical logic needs but to miss one tiny parameter or variable amd end up being tremendously wrong. What if, the task of looking for yourself was doomed to failure in the first place? A knife won't cut itself, water will not wet itself and fire won't burn itself. Why and how would the self manage to pinpoint and know itself? Wouldn't it be too busy trying to look for itself in itself? The Buddha could have been calling his own number but as the phone wouldnt ring he assumed he wasn't really there. Couldn't that have happened? Could it be that we are all stuck in the loop that one man some of us love to call the perfect guru created for himself 2500 years ago?? Could it be that either the nihilists or the eternalists make more sense?
Before you cry "blasphemy!" please note that these are just questions but not necessarily assertions of dogma or actual crystalised opinions that I hold to be true. I'm simply playing devil's advocate to challenge my my own thought as well as yours.
And for those who say that all this rant is pointless as the buddha never bothered with ontological irrelevant questions as the point of his teaching is just the alleviation of stress rather than to discover whether there is a concrete or fluctuating actual "something doing I don't know what' behind all of this, then why do we have monks, ceremonies, sit down and chant sessions, funerals, weddings, blessings exorcisms and all other religious paraphernalia? Why isn't the dharma then genuinely taught as a no-self yogic strategy for stressed out people without any debate or implication regarding death and what happens beyond such as whether there is something that passes on and reincarnates or not?
So brothers and sisters, is buddhism in need of a 'soul' with all its scriptures, monks, monasteries, ceremonies, morality and holy men? Or does it need a makeover simply as a method for relaxation even at the face of our ultimate doom?
As it stands today, in my humble and quite possibly deluded opinion, I am beginning to suspect that it has no point to make, no purpose to serve and we could all possibly be wasting our time when we could be far better off being stoics, nihilists, hedonists or eternalists. Ultimately, none of these labels and their beliefs matter as we are all going to die (again) and find out (??) for ourselves, right??
What do you think? And I mean 'you' ....not the sutras.
Namaste
The annoying rebel child of the Dharma.
As Buddhists, there are certain premises that are fundamental to the practice of all of us. For the sake of a clearer exegesis leading to the points I'm about to make and the blasphemous questions I'm about to ask, please bear with me while I recount the basics of our practice.
1. Anatta: There is no self in any conditioned, dependently originated thing. Only a conventional, facilitating name tied to a form with its ever changing constituent parts that are also devoid of any absolute substantial self.
2. Clinging to this self as something substantial and real, whether enduring after death or perishing along with the body breeds stress.
3. Life is fraught with stress because we are trapped in this illusory world where we think we exist and we are caught up in a process of trying to satisfy it, protect it and perpetuate it.
4. There is a way out. The Eightfold Path. Destination: Nirvana.
5. Nirvana: A liberated state (?) of mind. Described as light, free, joyous, wholesome, ultimately so true that any description we attempt to asign to it will not do it justice and derail us from the path. Our ultimate goal. Why? Because it ensures we are no longer going to return to the world of becoming. When the body dies, our karma will not attach to another being, nobody else will savour the bitter fruits of our actions.
So far so good? Any objections on a fundamental, general level? I am not dumbing the dharma down, I'm trying to condence it for the sake of convenience. I swear down....
Now we come to my rant...
We are not really here in the absolute sense, right? My cherished little self is an illusion. There is no eternal John in this body. He's the sum total of his parts but even those are in flux. So he will not be here tomorrow, in ten years, in 50 years. Then one day this body will die, the skandhas will scatter, gone is John not only as a mental subjective illusion, but also in actual, biological terms. The brain will stop firing, the perception of the world by John will cease, the perception of John as John will cease, the body will be cremated, John's consciousness and its film reel will vanish. Yah?
Now depending on the sutra, the teaching or your own experience, whether it's relevant to you or not, we have three options. John's karmic stream will attach itself to another being, John's karmic stream will cease to flow as really there couldnot have been any stream without a source, or John having attained Nirvana in life, will enter his Parinirvana, not as John but as a liberated something/someone/nothing/no one all rolled into one. He will be unreachable and inaccessible, beyond words, truly liberated. But we can't say that John will be or that he won't be. Confusing stuff, but I guess I'll take Siddh's word for it.
And here we come to the point of this post.
If there is literally nobody at home to set free, then who is it I am trying to liberate? And who am I anyway? I am not really here so how can an illusion liberate itself by discerning the fact that it's unreal? What am I trying to liberate me from? Life? Why? Because it's stressful? Because it's bittersweet and ultimately unsatisfactory? So what if? I am not really here, but unless I'm beset by some ultimate mega misfortune, it feels quite an alright place to be. Yes it's stressful. A plate of vindaloo is nothing more than handfuls of stuff that burn your mouth but despite the sweating and puffing, it's still pretty tasty and you still come back for seconds, unless you are of a weaker disposition and you seriously can't take the spice. Life is what I've come into, one way or another, why is it such a bad thing to enjoy? Do I need to be liberated from myself? Do I need an eightfold path, or do I simply need to man up, accept the bad with the good and make peace with the fact that one day the show will be over? Do I need the dharma, or just a thicker skin? Selfish, egotistic you might think. Agreed, but since I'm not here really, does it matter? To whom? Me? I'm an illusion, who cares? If I die and that's it then I surely won't care when I'm gone, if I continue, then sweet, I get a second ride. And a third, and a fourth....and so does anyone I screw over during my life time. Where does morality come in? Why should it?
Yeah but my skandhas might resurface and attach to another being, why would I want to condemn this new being that's come from me, kinda, into this tearful torture of becoming? I should know better than that as I'm already suffering, shouldn't I sympathise?
Again, why should I care really? I'm not here now, I won't be here then, s/he won't really be here either so does it really matter? To me it seems as if compassion, this quintessential Buddhist virtue that made Gautama himself tread the path is pointless and meaningless as per his own exegesis. It only makes sense if indeed there is a knower, and a feeler and a thinker and a sympathiser and an experiencer in actual terms who may either continue or cease after physical dissolution for there to be an actual motive to practice in the first place.
Maybe this someone is not my presently perceived John Adams who will one day be Chantelle De Vaughn, and then Xing Zheng Chiu. Maybe this someone is in flux, and unconditioned but in ontological terms always present and on the receiving end of all experience including liberation. But that someone must exist for any practice to make sense, including Buddhism. Otherwise, motive, goes bye bye. How can an illusion liberate itself from illusion and why or how would it want to? How would it know it has? How would it be sure that it's simply not deluding itself again?
I know, speculation you'll say. But perhaps speculation is necessary.
The Buddha speculated that he had experienced past lifetimes, he speculated that he liberated himself, that his path leads to salvation. What if himself was deluded? A victim of his own logical argumentation? Like the logical conundrum of Achiles and the turtle? Empirical logic needs but to miss one tiny parameter or variable amd end up being tremendously wrong. What if, the task of looking for yourself was doomed to failure in the first place? A knife won't cut itself, water will not wet itself and fire won't burn itself. Why and how would the self manage to pinpoint and know itself? Wouldn't it be too busy trying to look for itself in itself? The Buddha could have been calling his own number but as the phone wouldnt ring he assumed he wasn't really there. Couldn't that have happened? Could it be that we are all stuck in the loop that one man some of us love to call the perfect guru created for himself 2500 years ago?? Could it be that either the nihilists or the eternalists make more sense?
Before you cry "blasphemy!" please note that these are just questions but not necessarily assertions of dogma or actual crystalised opinions that I hold to be true. I'm simply playing devil's advocate to challenge my my own thought as well as yours.
And for those who say that all this rant is pointless as the buddha never bothered with ontological irrelevant questions as the point of his teaching is just the alleviation of stress rather than to discover whether there is a concrete or fluctuating actual "something doing I don't know what' behind all of this, then why do we have monks, ceremonies, sit down and chant sessions, funerals, weddings, blessings exorcisms and all other religious paraphernalia? Why isn't the dharma then genuinely taught as a no-self yogic strategy for stressed out people without any debate or implication regarding death and what happens beyond such as whether there is something that passes on and reincarnates or not?
So brothers and sisters, is buddhism in need of a 'soul' with all its scriptures, monks, monasteries, ceremonies, morality and holy men? Or does it need a makeover simply as a method for relaxation even at the face of our ultimate doom?
As it stands today, in my humble and quite possibly deluded opinion, I am beginning to suspect that it has no point to make, no purpose to serve and we could all possibly be wasting our time when we could be far better off being stoics, nihilists, hedonists or eternalists. Ultimately, none of these labels and their beliefs matter as we are all going to die (again) and find out (??) for ourselves, right??
What do you think? And I mean 'you' ....not the sutras.
Namaste
The annoying rebel child of the Dharma.