Is postmodernism "a product of sheer stupidity" according to Buddhism ?

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SDC
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Re: Is postmodernism "a product of sheer stupidity" according to Buddhism ?

Post by SDC »

Circle5 wrote:
SDC wrote: - Ven. Nanananda’s approach to the Dhamma is drastically different than Ven. Nanavira’s. This is well known.
In what way is it different ? If it's in the way Heidegger is different from Satre, that's not really "drastically different". That's why they are generally grouped together as the existentialist school of buddhism.
Yes, generally they are. Even on this forum there used to be the "Phenomenological Dhamma" section where a bunch of these writers were grouped together. But that does not mean they are the same.

Ven. Nanananda's writings and those of his disciples make it very clear where he sees his departure from the thinking of Ven. Nanavira. I do not know how familiar you are with "phenomenalism", but that has been loosely used to describe Ven. Nanananda's views, and from what I have read, that is fairly accurate. What Ven. Nanavira wrote about could not be describe as phenomenalism. The difference is major.
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Re: Is postmodernism "a product of sheer stupidity" according to Buddhism ?

Post by Dhammarakkhito »

binocular wrote: Tue Jun 13, 2017 9:07 am Postmodernism is probably one of the most misunderstood and under-appreciated approaches.
In summary, postmodernism summarized the problems and the doubts or critical points that have appeared in philosophy and science over the centuries. It showed that the certainties of old were not certainties at all.

If anything, postmodernism, with its questioning of the nature of human experience, is a door to Buddhism par excellence. Many people walk past that door.

Postmodernism is inaccessible to those who think that this
Image
is an image based on facts, instead of based on a theory.
i came to this thread looking for good buddhist memes, but this post in particular struck me because i identified as a postmodernist right before i became a buddhist.
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Re: Is postmodernism "a product of sheer stupidity" according to Buddhism ?

Post by davidbrainerd »

Post-modernism lies by its name, because it is in fact modern, or perhaps pre-modern modernism that was post-modern to another modernism. Now there is a post-post-modernism too, because liars can't stop making up lying titles. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-postmodernism The fact that whatever nonsense one labels post-modern will then just become modern if it gains popularity demonstrates the principle of impermanence.
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Re: Is postmodernism "a product of sheer stupidity" according to Buddhism ?

Post by Circle5 »

Post-modernism lies by its name, because it is in fact modern, or perhaps pre-modern modernism that was post-modern to another modernism. Now there is a post-post-modernism too, because liars can't stop making up lying titles.
I never liked the label they chose for themselves, "postmodernism" is misleading, it makes it sound like it's not a specific ideology which it is. They want to sound vague and diverse when it's a very precise set of beliefs and view of the world, same as materialism, christianity, etc. Not to mention the political component of it. It's more than a religion, it's a political religion similar to Islam. Yet it tries to sound vague and diverse. The proper term for it would be "primitivism" because it wants to abandon the cause and effect method of the modern world and return to medieval times and to ideas like "the world is flat because that's what my intuition tells me. If I look beneath me, it looks flat" or to "the world is flat because I say so and if you say it's round that's just your opinon and I have a different opinion. That is only your subjective opinion with no truth value".

"Primitivism" would be the name most suited for this ideology. It is a return to cave-man times in terms of thinking. It's an insult to anything having to do with intellectualism. Yet, such writers consider themselves intellectuals. This is how they got called "IYIs" - intellectual yet idiot

If some are gona jump and say "that's not true, I am a postmodernism but don't believe in X idea" - that's like saying "I am a christian but don't believe that sex before marriage is a super-serious crime". Well, that only means you're not that much of a fundamentalist as others, it says nothing about the religion itself. Postmodernism is not something vague, it's a very rigid and very precise set of beliefs.
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Re: Is postmodernism "a product of sheer stupidity" according to Buddhism ?

Post by Modus.Ponens »

Hello.

Postmodernism is also , if not primarily, a product of lies. The Sokal Affair exposed the pretentious lies of that particular group of pseudointellectuals. Better yet, his book "Fashionable Nonsense" (aka "Intellectual Impostures"), denounces the incredible level of lies those people propagated.

For example, Lacan (a human god in these circles), is exposed in a way that only people with mathematical training can fully understand. He uses "mathematics" to give analogies for his psychoanalytic theories (psychoanalytic topology...). The level of his BS is on par with TV Shop late night comercials for the "quantum hologram" bracelets that can cure all your illnesses. I was so shocked by the audicity of his BS that I almost admired him. As far as fraud goes, the man is a genius!

The solution to this problem, and to all the problems that plague our society, is rather simple, actually: make lying illegal for members of the three branches of government, and for those whose job deals primarily with facts. We would have no Trump, no Hillary, no alt right, no antifa, no postmodernist teachers, no lying journalists, no jihad in the West, no 2008 financial crisis, etc. The consequences of lying are laid bare in the situation we find ourselves in. If we could implement a reasonable and sensible law punishing lies, the world would be a much better place.

-^-
'This is peace, this is exquisite — the resolution of all fabrications; the relinquishment of all acquisitions; the ending of craving; dispassion; cessation; Unbinding.' - Jhana Sutta
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Re: Is postmodernism "a product of sheer stupidity" according to Buddhism ?

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings Circle5,

I know I’ve tried explaining this to you before, but in the past you were too blinkered and adamant in your presuppositions to listen properly to what was said. I’ll try once more here, but cannot promise to stick around to defend any straw-man arguments you try pinning on me.

In the Dhamma, the term “loka” is used to signify two different modes of regarding the world. You can see the difference between these two play out in the Rohitassa Sutta (AN 4.45).

There is the conventional world of three dimensional space and the objects therein. Also, there is the experiential world of the six-senses and the objects therein. One does not negate the other! For the purposes of transcending "the world", the Buddha recommended regarding “the world” in experiential terms, rather than conventially as a geo-spatial analysis of the existence or non-existence of matter. On these lines, in the Kaccayanagotta Sutta (SN 12.15), the Buddha states…
SN 12.15 wrote:"By & large, Kaccayana, this world is supported by (takes as its object) a polarity, that of existence & non-existence. But when one sees the origination of the world as it actually is with right discernment, 'non-existence' with reference to the world does not occur to one. When one sees the cessation of the world as it actually is with right discernment, 'existence' with reference to the world does not occur to one.”

As per the sutta, this ‘right discernment’ is to see in accordance with paticcasamuppada, which is to recognise that all fabrications are the product of ignorance, and as such, are empty. When we lapse away from the experiential view of the world and defer to the conventional understanding of the world, we lapse away from the transcendental right view, and we lapse back into thinking in terms of materiality, and of “existence” and “non-existence”, which are not helpful ways of regarding phenomena if there is the intent to transcend "the world".

To repeat what I said earlier, one mode does not negate the other! To say it is better in the Dhamma to see things through the lens of paticcasamuppada, rather than the worldly geo-spatial sense is just to say that this is the path to enlightenment, whereas the other one is not.

Transcendental right view is certainly not a case of affirming or denying the conventional world, and it is certainly not a “post-modernist" doctrine. Bhikkhus like ven. Nanananda are not teaching "post-modernism" - they are simply encouraging practitioners to regard "loka" in the way in which the Buddha of the Sutta Pitaka recommended.

Unfortunately, the commentarial tradition has abandoned the original sutta classification of nama-rupa as "name and form" (see MN 9: Sammaditthi Sutta), and replaced it with an alternative notion of "mentality and materiality". In doing so, it has inadvertently blurred the Buddha's clear delineation of the two lokas, and contaminated the higher experiential loka with lower notions of materiality, existence and non-existence. All of which makes the naming of the Abhidhmma as the Abhidhamma (lit. "higher dhamma") rather ironic and misleading.

Metta,
Paul. :)
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Re: Is postmodernism "a product of sheer stupidity" according to Buddhism ?

Post by davidbrainerd »

Circle5 wrote: Wed Oct 04, 2017 11:58 pm I never liked the label they chose for themselves, "postmodernism" is misleading, it makes it sound like it's not a specific ideology which it is. They want to sound vague and diverse when it's a very precise set of beliefs and view of the world, same as materialism, christianity, etc. Not to mention the political component of it. It's more than a religion, it's a political religion similar to Islam. Yet it tries to sound vague and diverse. The proper term for it would be "primitivism" because it wants to abandon the cause and effect method of the modern world and return to medieval times and to ideas like "the world is flat because that's what my intuition tells me. If I look beneath me, it looks flat" or to "the world is flat because I say so and if you say it's round that's just your opinon and I have a different opinion. That is only your subjective opinion with no truth value".
Well, I say the earth IS flat. But not just because if you look down it looks flat, or because I just say so. Rather, because every proof the ballers offer falls apart under logical scrutiny. (1) Those ships that disappear at the horizon with the naked eye reappear with binoculars or a telescope, so they didn't go over a curve. (2) Galileo's expirement to show the earth is spinning (riding a horse, pulling the reins, and dropping a ball at the same time, and the ball goes a little ahead of the horse) doesn't prove the earth is spinning but only that an object not nailed down to a vehicle keeps going at the speed the vehicle was going before the brakes were put on (try it in your car with a book or box of kleenexes in the passenger seat). (3) The old footage of the moon landings is so fake its hilarious, which means the image of the earth supposedly taken from there is fake. And no, satellites are not high enough to take a picture of the while earth and prove its shape. You've got to be half way to the moon for that, and they didn't really go. Where'd the money go then? Into a black ops budget, obviously. And satellites would work just as well spinning over a flat pizza disc earth too. (4) Neil DeGrasse Tyson says the earth is the shape of a pear (and he's a top scientist) but NASA shows us inconsistent paintings of the earth as a perfect sphere. Duh. Obvious problem there. By inconsistent I mean the size of the continents changes from one NASA image of the ball earth to another, as do their colors. Oh, and in supposed video, the clouds don't move. (6) They say their rockets go like 1000 mph, but watch the footage of any launch, its sooooooo sooooo sooooo ridiculous slow going up. (7) For more information, visit Jeranism's channel on youtube.
Circle5 wrote: Wed Oct 04, 2017 11:58 pm "Primitivism" would be the name most suited for this ideology. It is a return to cave-man times in terms of thinking.
No it isn't. There never was such a thing as a cave man. Men are basically as they always were. Its the same kind of wooly headed thinking of people who just don't watch to face facts. Your top scientists, not the flat earthers, are the postmodernists, because the top scientists reject the scientific method to teach regurgitated dogma. Its never been proven that the earth is a ball. And they've never proven the moon landing. And the two stand or fall together.

And now I shall get :focus:
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Re: Is postmodernism "a product of sheer stupidity" according to Buddhism ?

Post by Dhammarakkhito »

i thought there might be postmodern themes with regard to language in the suttas. proper word order limits confusion, but there's nothing ultimate being said, is there? the dhamma is a guide to liberation but there's no inherent meaning in the terms used. they have a material effect tho.
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Re: Is postmodernism "a product of sheer stupidity" according to Buddhism ?

Post by Circle5 »

Why aren't we seen the moon every hour of the day if the world is flat ? :juggling:
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Re: Is postmodernism "a product of sheer stupidity" according to Buddhism ?

Post by Dhammarakkhito »

lack of divine eye, worldly perception
"Just as the ocean has a single taste — that of salt — in the same way, this Dhamma-Vinaya has a single taste: that of release."
— Ud 5.5

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Re: Is postmodernism "a product of sheer stupidity" according to Buddhism ?

Post by Circle5 »

retrofuturist wrote: Thu Oct 05, 2017 1:17 am Greetings Circle5,

I know I’ve tried explaining this to you before, but in the past you were too blinkered and adamant in your presuppositions to listen properly to what was said. I’ll try once more here, but cannot promise to stick around to defend any straw-man arguments you try pinning on me.

In the Dhamma, the term “loka” is used to signify two different modes of regarding the world. You can see the difference between these two play out in the Rohitassa Sutta (AN 4.45).

There is the conventional word of three dimensional space and the objects therein. Also, there is the experiential world of the six-senses and the objects therein. One does not negate the other! For the purposes of transcending "the world", the Buddha recommended regarding “the world” in experiential terms, rather than conventially as a geo-spatial analysis of the existence or non-existence of matter. On these lines, in the Kaccayanagotta Sutta (SN 12.15), the Buddha states…
SN 12.15 wrote:"By & large, Kaccayana, this world is supported by (takes as its object) a polarity, that of existence & non-existence. But when one sees the origination of the world as it actually is with right discernment, 'non-existence' with reference to the world does not occur to one. When one sees the cessation of the world as it actually is with right discernment, 'existence' with reference to the world does not occur to one.”
Again taking that sutta and spinning it to make a case for solipsism ? What that sutta is trying to say is: "There is a banana. Those that see the existence of the banana can not say it does not exist. It would be a huge stupidity to say the banana does not exist since it has originated and all of us can see that.

But this banana is impermanent. It will one day disappear without reminder. Not even the memory of it will survive. It would be like it never existed. Therefore it is not proper to say it exists."

What this sutta is trying to say is that things exist but are impermanent. You can't really say about this world that it exists since it's chaning all the time, all that exists disappearing at one point. And neither can you say it doesn't exist since it would take an IQ below room temperature to observe how it has originated but still claim it doesn't exist.

This position is of course identical with what Buddha said in the sutta your most hated sutta, SN 22:94:
https://suttacentral.net/en/sn22.94
Unfortunately, the commentarial tradition has abandoned the original sutta classification of nama-rupa as "name and form" (see MN 9: Sammaditthi Sutta), and replaced it with an alternative notion of "mentality and materiality". In doing so, it has inadvertently blurred the Buddha's clear delineation of the two lokas, and contaminated the higher experiential loka with lower notions of materiality, existence and non-existence. All of which makes the naming of the Abhidhmma as the Abhidhamma (lit. "higher dhamma") rather ironic and misleading.

Metta,
Paul. :)
Out of curiosity where have you seen this used ? In translations from the 70s ? The translation most people are using today is the one by B.Bodhi.
There is the conventional word of three dimensional space and the objects therein. Also, there is the experiential world of the six-senses and the objects therein. One does not negate the other! For the purposes of transcending "the world", the Buddha recommended regarding “the world” in experiential terms, rather than conventially as a geo-spatial analysis of the existence or non-existence of matter. On these lines, in the Kaccayanagotta Sutta (SN 12.15), the Buddha states…
Why are you separating them into "material" and "existential" worlds ? Have you ever seen such things done in the suttas ? The material world out there is a field of possibilities, of conditions and posibilities. Just like a virtual computer world is made out of posibilities, of algorithms governing behavior, of certain conditionalities, etc. The same is true for the form aggregate, the same is true for consciousness, peception, volition or feeling aggregate. They all behave according to specific rules and conditionalities.

These rules and conditionalities that exist among them can be known by humans. For example a change in the form aggregate (a brick hitting you) might give rise to a specific feeling arising. Or for example wishing to levitate will not make you levitate, so there is no conditionality, no rule, no algorhitm working like that between those 2 elements.

We already know quite a lot about conditionalities going on between the 5 aggregates, about the algorithms governing the behaviour of them, etc. And the idea that the form aggregate is created by the perception aggregate is wrong. What postmodenism (which includes solipsism) and postmoden buddhist such as Nanananda say is that form is a product of perception. This is simply not so. If you lose half your brain, your perception will change. If a person has a brain tumous, that person can snap and become a mass murderer despite being a normal guy all his life. Form also conditions perception not only perception conditions form. Claiming there is no form aggregate or that form is a product of the perception aggregate is not only contrary to everything Buddha teached in the 600 pag chapter called "Book of aggregates" from SN, but it is also contradicted by what "any wise man in the world would agree upon".

More than this, solipsism was simply refuted by recent findings in quantum physics. As for nothing really existing and stuff like that, maybe you have never noticed the origination of things. For one who has noticed the origination of things, the notion of non-existence in regards to the world can not appear.


And why are you claiming it is me or "normal folk" who keep thinking about existence and non-existence ? I have the same position about this as Buddha had in SN 22:94 and, as he also says in that very sutta, the same position as "any wise man in the world" would have. . The position that: Things do exist but they are impermanent. Pretty simple stuff, no need to write long books about existence and non-existence like existentialist buddhist do. Buddha only had like 3 suttas out of 10.000 pages about it. It is existentialist that keep thinking about this day and night, why acuse me of doing it ? This is why they are called "existentialist" to begin with, they just can't figure out if things exist or not and some had even given up trying. This was simply not a problem for the Buddha or for any "wise man in the world" as the Buddha said. I am a wise man in the world too. So stop with with the projecting. It's only a problem for existentialist. I wish them all the luck in the world to one day found out if things exist or not.
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Re: Is postmodernism "a product of sheer stupidity" according to Buddhism ?

Post by Saengnapha »

retrofuturist wrote: Thu Oct 05, 2017 1:17 am Greetings Circle5,

I know I’ve tried explaining this to you before, but in the past you were too blinkered and adamant in your presuppositions to listen properly to what was said. I’ll try once more here, but cannot promise to stick around to defend any straw-man arguments you try pinning on me.

In the Dhamma, the term “loka” is used to signify two different modes of regarding the world. You can see the difference between these two play out in the Rohitassa Sutta (AN 4.45).

There is the conventional world of three dimensional space and the objects therein. Also, there is the experiential world of the six-senses and the objects therein. One does not negate the other! For the purposes of transcending "the world", the Buddha recommended regarding “the world” in experiential terms, rather than conventially as a geo-spatial analysis of the existence or non-existence of matter. On these lines, in the Kaccayanagotta Sutta (SN 12.15), the Buddha states…
SN 12.15 wrote:"By & large, Kaccayana, this world is supported by (takes as its object) a polarity, that of existence & non-existence. But when one sees the origination of the world as it actually is with right discernment, 'non-existence' with reference to the world does not occur to one. When one sees the cessation of the world as it actually is with right discernment, 'existence' with reference to the world does not occur to one.”

As per the sutta, this ‘right discernment’ is to see in accordance with paticcasamuppada, which is to recognise that all fabrications are the product of ignorance, and as such, are empty. When we lapse away from the experiential view of the world and defer to the conventional understanding of the world, we lapse away from the transcendental right view, and we lapse back into thinking in terms of materiality, and of “existence” and “non-existence”, which are not helpful ways of regarding phenomena if there is the intent to transcend "the world".

To repeat what I said earlier, one mode does not negate the other! To say it is better in the Dhamma to see things through the lens of paticcasamuppada, rather than the worldly geo-spatial sense is just to say that this is the path to enlightenment, whereas the other one is not.

Transcendental right view is certainly not a case of affirming or denying the conventional world, and it is certainly not a “post-modernist" doctrine. Bhikkhus like ven. Nanananda are not teaching "post-modernism" - they are simply encouraging practitioners to regard "loka" in the way in which the Buddha of the Sutta Pitaka recommended.

Unfortunately, the commentarial tradition has abandoned the original sutta classification of nama-rupa as "name and form" (see MN 9: Sammaditthi Sutta), and replaced it with an alternative notion of "mentality and materiality". In doing so, it has inadvertently blurred the Buddha's clear delineation of the two lokas, and contaminated the higher experiential loka with lower notions of materiality, existence and non-existence. All of which makes the naming of the Abhidhmma as the Abhidhamma (lit. "higher dhamma") rather ironic and misleading.

Metta,
Paul. :)
Retro, it does seem clear that there are two ways of viewing the world, (the world includes the viewer), but I wouldn't describe this 2nd view as 'transcendental'. The conventional view is what we've been taught to believe, all the ideas and assumptions about who, what, where, when, and how. The 2nd view begins to question our ideas and knowledge about everything we've learned and believed. This cannot be 'transcendental'. As with the Buddha's explanation of how he 're-discovered' this ancient way, dependent origination, he went through a process of his own logic and reasoning discovering cause and effect and the logical progression that he used to see all of this directly, not through the lens of a teaching(ideas and knowledge). He had tried everything before this and gave up as it was all unsatisfactory. Perhaps what remained for him was transcendental, but the process that he rediscovered was not. He called it 'path'.

The problem I have with 'path' is that it easily becomes the conventional view of ideas and knowledge and the practice of ideas and knowledge doesn't lead to freedom or 'cessation'. This process of coming to directly discern dependent origination seems to have nothing to do with meditation or any thing else that we can practice in order to be 'ready' to understand. The abandonment that the Buddha displayed with every kind of attempt to enlighten himself seems like the real precursor of direct experience of paticcasamupadda (dependent origination) and the 3 qualities of impermanence, suffering, not-self that is its nature. That renunciation of all becoming, and the direct experience that the Buddha talks of may very well lead to the transcendental, but transcendental is never mentioned by him. The 8 fold path was his description of his state after enlightenment. Right this and right that are all the qualities of Buddhahood. You can only ever exhibit all these, it seems, in that summary of his direct experience. Otherwise, you are left with the conventional view which is circular and you know what that means!

In many ways, I see Nanananda's break with the conventional view as a shift to more of what the Chan masters and radical Buddhist sages have proclaimed throughout the ages that this is a transmission outside of the scriptures and the conventional ways of gradual paths that seem to me to be ways of 'becoming' in time and space.

I know many here will not agree with this. :D
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Re: Is postmodernism "a product of sheer stupidity" according to Buddhism ?

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings Circle5,
Circle5 wrote: Thu Oct 05, 2017 2:45 am Again taking that sutta and spinning it to make a case for solipsism ? ....
... and you couldn't even get one sentence down without getting into the straw-men!

:strawman:

As mentioned above, I won't be addressing any straw man arguments you create.
retrofuturist wrote:Unfortunately, the commentarial tradition has abandoned the original sutta classification of nama-rupa as "name and form" (see MN 9: Sammaditthi Sutta), and replaced it with an alternative notion of "mentality and materiality". In doing so, it has inadvertently blurred the Buddha's clear delineation of the two lokas, and contaminated the higher experiential loka with lower notions of materiality, existence and non-existence. All of which makes the naming of the Abhidhmma as the Abhidhamma (lit. "higher dhamma") rather ironic and misleading.
circle5 wrote:Out of curiosity where have you seen this used ? In translations from the 70s ? The translation most people are using today is the one by B.Bodhi.
It's not just the translation which is significant, but the name-and-form nama-rupa of the suttas is a totally different classification scheme to the mentality-materiality nama-rupa of the Abhidhamma and the commentaries... specifically in relation to its treatment of vinnana. As you may know, the Abhidhamma splits all dhammas into namas (mental dhammas) and rupas (physical dhammas), whereas in the suttas nama and rupa are two sides of the same coin, hence their conjoinment as name-and-form or name-form. This footnote from Nanavira's entry on "nāma" explains the matter rather comprehensively...
Nanavira Thera wrote:When nāma is understood as 'mind' or 'mentality' it will inevitably include viññāna or consciousness—as, for example, in the Visuddhimagga (Ch. XVIII passim). This is entirely without justification in the Suttas; and it is clear enough that any mode of thinking that proposes to make a fundamental division between 'mind' and 'matter' will soon find itself among insuperable difficulties. 'Mind' (i.e. mano [q.v.] in one of its senses) already means 'imagination' as opposed to 'reality', and it cannot also be opposed to 'matter'. 'Reality' and 'matter' are not by any means the same thing—is real pain (as opposed to imaginary pain) also material pain? There are, to be sure, various distinctions between body and mind (in different senses); and we may speak of bodily (kāyika) pain as opposed to mental or volitional (cetasika) pain—see Majjhima v,4 <M.i,302>; Vedanā Samy. iii,2 <S.iv,231>—, but these are distinctions of quite a different kind. Bodily pain may be real or imaginary, and so may volitional pain (grief), but material pain—painful feeling composed of matter—is a contradiction in terms. (Observe that there are two discrepant senses of the word cetasika on two successive pages of the same Sutta [Majjhima v,4]: (i) on one page <M.i,301> we find that saññā and vedanā are cittasankhāra because they are cetasikā [see A NOTE ON PATICCASAMUPPĀDA §5] and (ii) on the next <302> we find that vedanā may be either kāyikā or cetasikā [see above]. Citta and cetasika are not fixed terms in the Suttas, and, as well as different shades, have two principal [and incompatible] meanings according to context, like their nearest English equivalent, 'mind, mental' [which, however, has to do duty also for mano—see Glossary]. In (i), evidently, cetasika is 'mental' as opposed to 'material' [see also A NOTE ON PATICCASAMUPPĀDA [g]], and in (ii) it is 'mental' as opposed to 'sensual'. In the Suttas the contexts are distinct, and confusion between these two senses does not arise; but a passage from Russell will provide a striking example of failure to distinguish between them: 'I do not know how to give a sharp definition of the word "mental", but something may be done by enumerating occurrences which are indubitably mental: believing, doubting, wishing, willing, being pleased or pained, are certainly mental occurrences; so are what we may call experiences, seeing, hearing, smelling, perceiving generally.' [Op. cit., VIIth Essay.] 'Mind', whether in English or Pali [mano, citta], represents an intersection of mutually incompatible concepts. Confusion is often worse confounded by the misunderstanding discussed in PHASSA [e], where matter is conceded only an inferred existence in a supposed 'external world' beyond my experience.)
Why are you separating them into "material" and "existential" worlds ? Have you ever seen such things done in the suttas ?
They're two different ways of regarding the world. I have already shown you the Rohitassa Sutta. That is enough.
And why are you claiming it is me or "normal folk" who keep thinking about existence and non-existence ?
I'm not saying YOU do... I'm saying that is the standard worldly way of regarding things, and it is reinforced by the object-orientation of language.

Metta,
Paul. :)
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
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Re: Is postmodernism "a product of sheer stupidity" according to Buddhism ?

Post by Circle5 »

retrofuturist wrote: Thu Oct 05, 2017 5:35 am
They're two different ways of regarding the world. I have already shown you the Rohitassa Sutta. That is enough.
You might not be familiar with what "world" mean in the Buddha teaching. The way the word "world" is used in Buddha teaching has a different meaning than the ordinary use of the world "world". There is a sutta at the beginning of SN where he says that very clear: "the world -world- has this meaning in my teaching, it is in this way that I use it in my teaching." He says that a couple of times so he makes sure people will not get confused and misunderstand him.

What you are tying to do is claim Buddha said this is how the world (in a normal use of the world) should be seen and therefore justify solipsism. What he did was use the word in a different meaning in his teaching. So you are confused and think he is speaking about the normal use of the word. You do not know what the word "world" meaning is in Buddha teaching and are therefore confused, thinking he is using the normal use of the word.

And speaking of solipsism, now with the addition of my last message, all the classical arguments for solipsism had been addressed in this topic: viewtopic.php?f=45&p=439888#p439888
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Re: Is postmodernism "a product of sheer stupidity" according to Buddhism ?

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings Circle5,
Circle5 wrote: Fri Oct 06, 2017 1:40 am You might not be familiar with what "world" mean in the Buddha teaching. The way the word "world" is used in Buddha teaching has a different meaning than the ordinary use of the world "world". There is a sutta at the beginning of SN where he says that very clear: "the world -world- has this meaning in my teaching, it is in this way that I use it in my teaching." He says that a couple of times so he makes sure people will not get confused and misunderstand him.
Well, of course I'm aware of that... otherwise I wouldn't be having this discussion. Nonetheless, despite the way in which the world ought to be regarded, practitioners are still prone to viewing it in the more conventional sense. Hence, suttas like MN 1 that say what a worldling sees, how a sekha should try to see, and how an arahant does see.
Circle5 wrote: Fri Oct 06, 2017 1:40 am What you are tying to do is claim Buddha said this is how the world (in a normal use of the world) should be seen and therefore justify solipsism.
No, I'm not. I have no interest in such philosophies. My interest is in what the Buddha taught, and in understanding and practicing that well. If that happens to share some superficial resemblance to some other external theory, then so be it, but it is not the external theory I am interested in, and it is certainly not that external theory which I'm aiming to "prove".
Circle5 wrote: Fri Oct 06, 2017 1:40 am What he did was use the word in a different meaning in his teaching. So you are confused and think he is speaking about the normal use of the word. You do not know what the word "world" meaning is in Buddha teaching and are therefore confused, thinking he is using the normal use of the word.
....all of which is why these conversations never go far, because as I said when I first responded to you, "I’ve tried explaining this to you before, but in the past you were too blinkered and adamant in your presuppositions to listen properly to what was said". Evidently nothing much has changed.

Nonetheless, I enjoyed explaining matters as I see them, and if anyone found anything beneficial in that, then all the better.

Metta,
Paul. :)
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
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