Author Sam Harris on Buddhism

[JustARandomPanda]

Found an interesting essay by Sam Harris and his take on Buddhism and Buddhist meditation.

 

Killing the Buddha

[johndoe2012]

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Edited August 18, 2013 by chris d

[yiming]

I would say that the Hardcore/Pragmatic Dharma scene is exactly what he is talking about, namely a bunch of individuals using a modern approach to free themselves of bondage...

 

 

Found an interesting essay by Sam Harris and his take on Buddhism and Buddhist meditation.

 

Killing the Buddha

 

You obviously feel Sam is pretty well spot on. He is persuasive and I can't find a flaw in his argument. What I find suspect is his motive. Where is he going with this? Pointing out to us that hugging Teddy Bear is a neurosis is his schtick. Does he think that giving up Teddy is the cure? Sam may not be hugging any soft toy. His neurosis is trying to get us to drop ours.

[doc benway]

Great link, SB.

Sam Harris is a very clear thinker and persuasive writer.

[Jetsun]

I agree a lot with what he says, personally I love and study Tibetan Buddhism but I can't relate to the cultural trappings or even the deities really, the problem is that do you risk diluting the transmission of wisdom if you take the teaching out of the cultural framework it has lived in and proved successful in for many generations? A real genuine high master could probably do this effectively but I doubt your average Dharma teacher could.

[Apech]

I agree a lot with what he says, personally I love and study Tibetan Buddhism but I can't relate to the cultural trappings or even the deities really, the problem is that do you risk diluting the transmission of wisdom if you take the teaching out of the cultural framework it has lived in and proved successful in for many generations? A real genuine high master could probably do this effectively but I doubt your average Dharma teacher could.

 

I think there may be more to it than that. The product of a long period of Buddhist contemplation is what we have ... the nature of the Buddhist traditions are as a result of their insights into the nature of mind and reality. So it is not an accident that we end up with the form of practice that exists today. Sam Harris as a committed atheist obviously hates anything that looks like religion. So he is almost bound to end up with the conclusions he has. Because he is starting with the assumption that anything that remotely reminds him of islam, Judaism or Christianity is bad. He is also dismissing the possibility that if we were to scientifically contemplate consciousness then we would find that there is no rebirth, siddhis, karma and so on. And yet these are are part of the Tibetan tradition as a result of contemplative insight ... so in a sense he is dissing the practice too.

[Birch]

I was under the impression that for liberated beings there was in fact no 'karma', no 'rebirth' etc. The 'siddhis' I'm not sure.

Sam Harris is a hottie:-)

[konchog uma]

If the methodology of Buddhism (ethical precepts and meditation) uncovers genuine truths about the mind and the phenomenal world—truths like emptiness, selflessness, and impermanence—these truths are not in the least “Buddhist.”

 

thanks SereneBlue, i found that article particularly refreshing. I have long believed that if there is really one truth, or one reality, that we all share, then no religion can lay claim to that, but that the truth instead lies in the overlap or the points in which all the religions moreorless agree on. Generosity, humility, kindness, etc. Its so ironic that religion causes so much emotion, blindness, and bloodshed. Yuck.

 

I think that the world is less than 500 years into its renaissance of scientific rationality, so in time, people will probably embrace a spiritual philosophy that is seperate from the trappings of religion. Seeing the teachings of the buddha in this light is no different from seeing the teachings of jeshua ben joseph as non-christian in nature. I think that all the progenators of what-later-became-religions would rather that people didn't get caught up in its attendant, well, passion ignorance and aggression, to put it in buddhist terms. They all seem in touch with the divine, the spiritual, the oneness of things, and then got followed by a lot of people who weren't. Such is the way of things i guess.

 

thanks for sharing that article

[yiming]

I agree a lot with what he says, personally I love and study Tibetan Buddhism but I can't relate to the cultural trappings or even the deities really, the problem is that do you risk diluting the transmission of wisdom if you take the teaching out of the cultural framework it has lived in and proved successful in for many generations? A real genuine high master could probably do this effectively but I doubt your average Dharma teacher could.

 

Well, then the average Dharma teacher will just have to go to hell. Next life, he gets another shot.

[yiming]

thanks SereneBlue, i found that article particularly refreshing. I have long believed that if there is really one truth, or one reality, that we all share, then no religion can lay claim to that, but that the truth instead lies in the overlap or the points in which all the religions moreorless agree on. Generosity, humility, kindness, etc. Its so ironic that religion causes so much emotion, blindness, and bloodshed. Yuck.

 

I think that the world is less than 500 years into its renaissance of scientific rationality, so in time, people will probably embrace a spiritual philosophy that is seperate from the trappings of religion. Seeing the teachings of the buddha in this light is no different from seeing the teachings of jeshua ben joseph as non-christian in nature. I think that all the progenators of what-later-became-religions would rather that people didn't get caught up in its attendant, well, passion ignorance and aggression, to put it in buddhist terms. They all seem in touch with the divine, the spiritual, the oneness of things, and then got followed by a lot of people who weren't. Such is the way of things i guess.

 

thanks for sharing that article

 

and thanks for sharing your views.

[Apech]

I was under the impression that for liberated beings there was in fact no 'karma', no 'rebirth' etc. The 'siddhis' I'm not sure.

Sam Harris is a hottie:-)

 

These are things taught by Tibetan Buddhists ... presumably as a result of their insights into the nature of reality. Unless they are having a laugh I suppose

[Birch]

These are things taught by Tibetan Buddhists ... presumably as a result of their insights into the nature of reality. Unless they are having a laugh I suppose

 

Yes, it's all very serious I was thinking about them (the Tibetan Buddhists) today and about how I reckon they spend so much mental power in very specific ways. Or maybe it might be more about what they don't use it for. Not using it to make weapons that could reduce us all to toast for example, or messing up our living area (planet). Which is in fact, relatively serious. They also haven't used it to reduce poverty in their country, apparently. Nor have they used it to avoid annexation by China.

 

Anyway, what I meant was that liberated beings aren't subject to karma nor rebirth - the latter two being, as far as I have understood so far, being stated goals of their practices. By Buddhist standards I'm still very much un-liberated, and apparently still subject to some kind of remaining 'karmic' whatnot, otherwise, apparently, "I" wouldn't be here (which of course 'technically' in the buddhist terminology of 'reification' (there, I said the r-word) I am not anyway but whatever).

 

Off to find a nice picture of Sam Harris:-)

[Lord Suchnsuch esquire.]

 

Sam Harris is a hottie:-)

 

 

 

 

These are things taught by Tibetan Buddhists.

 

 

Sir! Do you mean to imply that these Tibetan Buddhist you speak of have the heat of the elixir? Or that they can define the life force of peasants and nobility alike?

[doc benway]

...the problem is that do you risk diluting the transmission of wisdom if you take the teaching out of the cultural framework it has lived in and proved successful in for many generations? A real genuine high master could probably do this effectively but I doubt your average Dharma teacher could.

 

Perhaps, but Buddhism did just that to a large degree. It took central Hindu concepts out of the the Hindu cultural framework and delivered those concepts to distant cultures where they mixed with local culture and blossomed into the Tibetan, Thai, Chinese, and Japanese (....) variations. The central core of the human experience is the substance and the cultural milieu adds the unique flavor. Some would argue that Buddhism even "improved" the core teachings by stripping it of some of the cultural baggage and boiling it down to more of a spiritual "science."

Edited September 1, 2012 by steve

[Apech]

Sir! Do you mean to imply that these Tibetan Buddhist you speak of have the heat of the elixir? Or that they can define the life force of peasants and nobility alike?

 

1381 The peasants are revolting.

1649 Nobility lost its head.

 

No coincidence you get 268 if you subtract one date from the other. 2+6+8 = 16 and 1+6 = 7

 

Lord Buddha walked seven steps at birth ... aha! see ....

[konchog uma]

its clearly a conspiracy

 

no coincidences here

[Jetsun]

 

 

Perhaps, but Buddhism did just that to a large degree. It took central Hindu concepts out of the the Hindu cultural framework and delivered those concepts to distant cultures where they mixed with local culture and blossomed into the Tibetan, Thai, Chinese, and Japanese (....) variations. The central core of the human experience is the substance and the cultural milieu adds the unique flavor. Some would argue that Buddhism even "improved" the core teachings by stripping it of some of the cultural baggage and boiling it down to more of a spiritual "science."

 

This is true but the foundations for bringing the Dharma to a foreign culture are usually done by extraordinary masters who have the capacity and skillful understanding to adapt the Dharma to the native culture and know what level of teaching the population require, for example padmasambhava had to do a great deal of groundwork to prepare Tibet for Buddhism then there are others like Boddhidharma who went to China. The current Dalai Lama is actually trying to do this to a certain extent for the West at the moment.