How would you counter this hypothesis to the ‘Enlightenment’ idea?

[Mark Foote]

On 8/15/2023 at 7:52 AM, Daniel said:

 

is there an online source for this in english?  ( lacking commentary, ideally )
 

https://obo.genaud.net/dhamma-vinaya/pts/sn/02_nv/sn02.12.002.rhyc.pts.htm

[Mark Foote]

20 hours ago, galen_burnett said:

... Do you not practise your spiritual-practice because you believe doing so will give you more experiences and insights and life-adjustments and transformations that you like? Surely you only practice because you have experienced benefits—got good things—with it before, and so you continue with it as you reckon more of those good things await you further along. So is that not a pursuit, a ‘grasping’, an ‘attachment’, a ‘hankering’. Could you actually be happy without your spiritual-practice? And if not, then surely you are attached to it! 
 

 

But usually in counting breathing or following breathing, you feel as if you are doing something, you know-- you are following breathing, and you are counting breathing. This is, you know, why counting breathing or following breathing practice is, you know, for us it is some preparation-- preparatory practice for shikantaza because for most people it is rather difficult to sit, you know, just to sit.

(“The Background of Shikantaza”; Shunryu Suzuki Transcript, Sunday, February 22, 1970; San Francisco; shunryusuzuki2 dot com/detail1?ID=335)

 

 

I would say that you are talking about "preparatory practice".  

My description of something other than preparatory practice:

 

The presence of mind can utilize the location of attention to maintain the balance of the body and coordinate activity in the movement of breath, without a particularly conscious effort to do so. There can also come a moment when the movement of breath necessitates the placement of attention at a certain location in the body, or at a series of locations, with the ability to remain awake as the location of attention shifts retained through the exercise of presence. 
 

Note the word "necessitates".  Different from what a person wants to do, or doesn't want to do--just the necessity to breathe.

Gautama taught that happiness apart from equanimity ceases in the fourth concentration.  Try it some time, you'll neither like nor dislike it!

 

Edited August 16, 2023 by Mark Foote

[Nungali]

20 hours ago, galen_burnett said:

Well yes that’s basically what my argument concludes too: that joy and pain cancel each other with a net-zero outcome. But there is nothing that “comes after it”; that’s just how it goes on forever, the interplay of joy and pain and the forever unfolding drama and adventure of life that they weave together. So if your Nirvana is annihilated with Samsara then it makes no sense to make Nirvana a goal, right? You may as well seek Samasara if you’ve just equated them.

 

if this is the case , then they are not 'end goals' . . . not for me anyway . They are possible future development states from where further choices can be made and realized  OR , in this life / current incarnation ;  'trances'   ( ie. various states that consciousness can arrive at ).

[Nungali]

20 hours ago, galen_burnett said:

@liminal_luke I don’t understand how you can at once accept that the ordinary pleasures in life are valid and yet deny that you are happy when you have them. Like, when you laugh, you are happy! Simple as that. When you finish a good book or film or game—you are satisfied, and you are happy! When you eat a nice thing after being hungry—you are happy. To idolise ‘happiness’ as this grand attainment and treasure that you can only attain by much work and diligence and application—Nirvana, Sahasraha, Satori, etc—is just deluded in my opinion and is a mind-prison, just like the Kingdom of Heaven construct is for the Christians and Muslims. Happiness is not a permanent state! Buddhism itself says that all things are impermanent! Including happiness! It is transitory, and you are experiencing it every day, more-or-less, whenever you feel good, and in-between the annoying times, without acknowledging it. Happiness is not a kingdom that can be conquered, it is what the dictionary says it is—as simple as that. 
 

Life is enormously deep and complex. It doesn’t matter if the stimuli that satisfy the average human don’t do it for one’s self; if one just carries on one will find that greater and greater, more refined, pleasures and joys and satisfactions will present themselves to one’s self—just never anything that is a ‘forever ocean of liquid ecstasy’ for example. 

 

The forever ocean of liquid ecstasy is death / heaven / the after world / the happy hunting ground stripped of 'what causes it ' and leaves 'just the emotion generated '  .... like life begins when floating in the 'forever'  ocean of liquid ecstasy  in the womb .

 

But eventually , that ends and the next stage comes .   Do fetuses in the womb imagine the new coming life accurately ?

 

Also we know the one constant is change     .

 

Considering our possible future evolution through the Universes  .... 'forever' and even 'eternity' might not  be as we imagine now .

 

But hey ..... if you need a long 'rest'    ....  or something else  ......  do what thou wilt  ;

 

"  Unto them from whose eyes the veil of life hath fallen may there be granted the accomplishment of their true Wills; whether they will absorption in the Infinite, or to be united with their chosen and preferred, or to be in contemplation, or to be at peace, or to achieve the labour and heroism of incarnation on this planet or another, or in any Star, or aught else, unto them may there be granted the accomplishment of their wills. "

[Nungali]

10 hours ago, liminal_luke said:

 

If you like that one, stick around.  You'll be amazed at the heights of self-contradiction I can reach!  

 

But seriously.  Happiness is just a word.  If you'd like to define it as including the positive states induced by simple pleasures, fine by me.  Alternatively, we could break things down into more granular categories to come up with a more nuanced taxonomy of good feelings.  There's bliss, there's ecstasy, there's contentment.  In particular, there's a species of happiness that derives from awareness of existence itself rather than any given specific aspect.  None of these states are permanent -- or at least that hasn't been my experience.  None of them need be regarded as great spiritual accomplishments or thought of as requiring loads of "work."

 

YES!   I morph into that some days .... from awareness of and appreciation for  'being alive' .  I marveled about  a rock, that ' existed' and didnt 'not exist ' .    But then again ... maybe everything that 'exists'   is 'alive'   ?  

 

Then again, maybe  I been looking into sub atomic physics and the 'original conceptual framework' pre 'big bang' too much ? 

[Nungali]

7 hours ago, liminal_luke said:

 

Whoa, galen_burnett...can we take a beat?  Sometimes my approach to these threads is to find something that hooks my attention and go on about it a bit.  It's fun for me to develop my thinking and see if I can communicate what I want to say clearly.  I hope that my posts stimulate the minds of my fellow Bums, or, failing that, provide a moment of entertainment.  I'm generally not trying to "win" any arguments -- unless you catch me on a bad day.  I don't take it all that seriously.  

 

If you're not impressed by my "cool dude" persona, that's fine.  Feel free to ignore me.  I'm just bumming around.

 

 

Dang !   I missed that  . 

 

 

 

[galen_burnett]

@Shadow_self 

“tangled up in mental knots”? lol whatever dude. It’s not tangled at all, it’s coherent; you can’t point out any of said knots because they’re not there. you’ve given a quote that suggests Buddhists do not actually think Nirvana is Bliss (and i don’t know whom you think you’re scoring points with for funky spellings btw); but otherwise literally the only tiny distance you’ve gone to try to refute any of my “mental knots” is to say “let’s start with the black and white fallacy”—and proceed to say nothing at all on that matter whatsoever lmao! you see intelligence and sophistication, can’t be bothered to engage with it, and so write it off as “over-intellectualised” and “mentally knotted” without presenting any argument whatsoever to support that allegation!! clown!

 

“not sure logic is on your side”—not sure because you’re too lazy and vain to try to follow it and so have just jumped to that conclusion anyway. bruh—opposites cancel! don’t make me take you back to pre-school to show you that! Nirvana’s a scam according to my own ontology; my ontology is coherent enough; i won’t post it because it would be long and tedious for everyone else and also even if you said you wanted to hear it i wouldn’t waste my time writing it out for you as you’ve demonstrated quite clearly already that you don’t read anything i write properly. suffice it to say: yin-yang are fundamental to existence; as is consciousness; consciousness is subject to perpetual oscillation between pain and joy forever under the rule of yin-yang; therefore there is no Kingdom of Heaven nor Nirvana; therefore anyone proselytising such a state is trying to sell something that doesn’t exist; therefore they are scamming people. I don’t need to have spent loads of time studying Buddhism to realise that it presents the goal of the attainment of perfect Bliss, nor do i need to have done that in order to deny that assertion from my own world-view! clown! I don’t need to have been a Catholic monk for 30 years in order to say that Catholicism is bs!

 

“You dont understand the concepts begind the argument you are attempting to make”. i guess you mean cause-and-effect? i mean, what, i say one thing leads to another—what’s the matter with that? 

 

“dependant origination” is a term exclusive to a particular philosophy. in case you haven’t noticed, i’m arguing from outside of that philosophy, and so your exclusive terms don’t exist in my vocabulary! clown! you are obliged to explain any exclusive terms you use such as “dependant causality” or “abra-kadabra” or “open sesame” or “taking the jewel from beneath the bucket”. whatever “dependant causality” is, no doubt it is missing from my hypothesis, and that does not invalidate it in the slightest, in the same way as i don’t need to include all the esoteric terms of Christian Orthodoxy inside an argument that refutes the Kingdom of Heaven and the divinity of Jesus Christ! If you have the philosophy that spiderman is real, and i give an argument why he’s not which focuses on the improbability of such a genetic-mutation taking place, it doesn’t invalidate my argument if i haven’t included in it takes on the military effectiveness of the green goblin’s arsenal nor a philosophical discourse on “with great power comes great responsibility”; it’s not my job to cover all the esoteric things included in your philosophy—it’s your job to use those things to counter me if they are able to!

 

“Alrght then...

 

I guess you wont mind me pointing out the logical fallacies and bias

 

ill do one of each per post if you like...otherwise this would be a bit long winded

 

Lets start with the Black or white fallacy - Suggesting there is a zero sum between polarities (pleasure and pain as example)

 

Your problem is one of your understanding. As per your own words”

 

except you proceed to stop right there, without illustrating in any way how my argument is a logical fallacy nor how i have bias!

 

The quote you’ve given seemingly suggests that these philosophies don’t in fact believe in ultimate bliss; but really you’ve just cherry-picked something to make it look like that while forgetting that i do actually have  eyes to see with and ears to hear with and so can very easily see all the other literature and pictures and hear everyone else talking about “the bliss of ultimate attainment”; how incredibly vain and dim of you to think anyone could be fooled like that! you clown!

 

again, you are trying to sneakily redefine the words “joy, happiness, bliss” which childish strategy i’ve refuted elsewhere in this thread: you can’t say “it is like bliss” to an impressionable person you think you have on the hook, then say to someone who challenges you “i never said it was like bliss!”. how slimy.

 

“That aspect of your argument is refuted, and redundant.” lmao

 

“Unless of course you want to move the goalposts (engaging in another logical fallacy) to redefine the word feelings, or Nirvana” right, so now you’re just blindly throwing back at me a criticism i made against your camp like a petulant child—“no you’re smelly!” 

 

oh most divine sage! please lead me to healing with your great omniscience into my health condition! get out of here you absolute loser.

 

your final sentences are just embarrassing. you’re like an edgy 14 year old. you must live a funny life. well done on impressing literally no-one, you complete fool.

 

p.s. it is possible to include more than one sentence in a paragraph—may be a helpful life-hack for you.

Edited August 17, 2023 by galen_burnett

[galen_burnett]

@Mark Foote 

Well no matter our particular definitions of the varying degrees of good and bad feeling, the crux of the matter is the candy in the pinata, which after all we seem to agree on…

 

And well i only included the things i said about Duality in order to refute the Bliss thing. If we agree on that, then we can disagree on the nature of Duality, because we are both in the end arriving at the same conclusion regarding the crux of the argument.

 

So if you agree with me that the ‘ultimate attainment’ is a fallacy, then why do you follow Buddhism? [i could actually presume good reasons for doing so, regarding general constructive principles to live life by, but i’d rather you explain]

 

the piñata on the rope is a very good analogy 

[galen_burnett]

@Daniel give me a minute to process all that and i’ll get back to you

[galen_burnett]

@Mark Foote your second message.

 

It’s kinda difficult to work out what you’re trying to say here. I guess you’re talking about how practice leads to ‘non-practice’; how with enough time a practice is subsumed into our body and psyche, into our autonomic-nervous-system, such that we no longer even need to think about it and the practice and the benefits of the practice all happen automatically? like how with enough time spent belly-breathing eventually the body will belly-breath on its own. 

 

But I still don’t really see how that relates to the section you quoted… 

 

the only thing i can think of to say further on that, without knowing more clearly how you’re trying to link all this together, is about how practices are just tools for us to get from A to B and can be discarded once arrived at B. but beyond B there is no such place where no more practice in needed: beyond B there will be new situations to contend with that require new practices, and so the cycle repeats.

[galen_burnett]

@Daniel 

[‘§’ references are to those of your previous message]

 

§1 

 

Yes, I agree. And this is i guess an introduction for what you are about to say in the following paragraphs.

 

§2

 

Yes, I agree. But I think the concept of ‘good feeling’ and ‘bad feeling’ are simple enough to not warrant a complex definition; not vague—i don’t think there’s anything vague about a good nor a bad feeling (except in the edge-case of the bitter-sweet, but i think that’s a tangent)—just simple. I don’t think trying to give them complex definitions has any merit in the context of this argument, beyond trying to validate the Ultimate Bliss concept through semantic discord, which matter i’ve already addressed many times elsewhere. The dictionary definitions for words of ‘good feeling’ and ‘ bad feeling’ are enough to support my hypothesis, and I have yet to see any good argument that suggests otherwise.

 

§3

 

“The material conditional is a fickle beast, as such, most logical proofs employ the contra-positive, what I think you're observing as "contrarian", in order to interact with a logical proposal.”

 

I thought liminalluke contrarian because he was at once saying “pleasure is not happiness” and then going on to say how we can be happy just through experiencing daily “pleasures”. I don’t think liminalluke was employing the Contrapositive (‘A is false therefore B is false’, in argument against ‘A is true therefore B is true’), i really don’t see any connection there at all, he was just being self-contradictory, which is just flat-out incoherent. Don’t really see why you’ve brought a discussion of the Material Conditional and the Contrapositive into the matter.

 

“This is natural” it’s not too clear what you are referring to by the demonstrative pronoun ‘that’. I guess, by your following sentences, you mean by it ‘the application of logic’.

 

I don’t think I’ve generated any Paradoxes of Material Conditional, where an example of such a Paradox would be thus (quoted from Google): “it is definitely raining (1st premise; true); it is not raining (2nd premise; false); George Washington is made of rakes (Conclusion); as there is no possible situation where both premises could be true, then there is certainly no possible situation in which the premises could be true while the conclusion was false.” [As an aside, Wiki tells me that despite what you say at the start of §3, Material Conditional and Material Implication are the same, and I don’t really care to get into semantic discord on this as it seems to be besides the point]. I think my logic works fine: it is based on my collective life-experience, intuition and intellectual knowledge: my hypothesis runs through that collective body logically, with the joints that are most vulnerable to refute being where it must be taken on trust by others that I have experienced certain unusual things, and also the parts where I make some necessary leaps of deduction in the absence of concrete knowledge. I disagree that I’ve over-intellectualised anything, as, like I said, a large part of my hypothesis is based on tangible experience; the intellect of the hypothesis is just a natural connecting of everything i can see, and that i know, together into a string.

 

§4

 

 

You’re talking about what it means for an argument to be defeated. It kinda just sounds like you’re getting your camp ready for ‘defeat’… like “defeat is not so bad—think about it this way…”.

 

All ontologies break eventually, including my own—I understand and admit this—; therefore any attempt at figuring out life is ultimately futile—but it’s still fun and supportive and comforting to try nonetheless, as you can still figure out a lot of it with respect to one’s own point of view, through developing an ontology (or in the case of Buddhists etc. assuming another person’s ontology). But I repeat, no-one has  been able to meaningfully refute anything I’ve said so far. 

 

We’re all human beings living in society in 2023 on the surface of planet Earth, right? So a lot of our experiences are common between us. The differences in opinion in philosophy arise when we come to try and deduce the deeper things which we can’t know concretely due to the  limitations on our scientific understanding of life. I assert that all things can, in the end, be understood scientifically by the highest intelligence imaginable (by God, say); all matters of life and death and the soul and the material and immaterial can with omniscience be understood logically, just like mathematics in a book (the exceptions to this being the small handful of ultimately unanswerable questions of “why and how does anything exist?” and “what is consciousness?”, and also, in my opinion “why is it that all things necessarily balance?”). So our disagreements come when we deduce different things about these deeper more elusive matters, such as the exact procedure of reincarnation for example, the finer details of which our beyond our current ken. But what can happen when two parties engage in philosophical debate is that one party presents a world-view that does indeed relate to the experience and knowledge of the other party and does so in such a way as to join it all together more coherently for that second party than the world-view previously held by that second party did: someone subscribing to Buddhism recognises that the ontology of Buddhism makes more sense to them than that which they previously held (I guess usually people don’t have much of an ontology at all before subscribing to published philosophy, and that’s fine, we all start somewhere, and I myself was like that once). What am I doing here? I’m trying to ‘defeat’ the philosophy of Ultimate Bliss by placing in opposition to it what I think would be recognised by an open mind as a more coherent ontology; i don’t necessarily want anyone to assume for themselves my own ontology, rather i just want to shake people up enough so that they can realise that Ultimate Bliss is a fallacy—it would be cool if they thereafter developed their own ontology which was impressive enough for me to need to make changes to my own, and so forth. Yes, hostility can easily arise in this sort of thing, we’re touching on very sensitive stuff, but c’est la vie. Regarding what one should think upon being defeated (“agnosticism; trivialism”), I already touched on that in my previous sentence; and really that’s a ‘post-game’ matter, I think, additional to the main discussion (which is the matter of the existence of Ultimate Bliss). No, I agree, defeat does not mean you have to throw out absolutely everything you used to know; my own ontology is in fact informed greatly by Eastern philosophies—as in, I once subscribed to those philosophies, was ‘defeated’ by my current ontology, yet I have retained a lot of what I used to think in my new world-view. I’m not going for a nuclear-attack here on Eastern philosophy; I’m just targeting something very specific about it.

 

§5 

 

Yes I agree a purely intellectual understanding of life is an ignorant one; and though it may perhaps seem like my own is of that nature, due to the relative complexity of my writing when compared to the average post on the world-wide-web, I must assure you, as I mentioned above in one of my paragraphs in response to your ‘§3’, my world-view has developed out of a mix of experience, intuition and intellectual knowledge. As it happens, I get very flustered and annoyed with these obtuse atheists who deny all notions of anything existing beyond what they can see using computers and microscopes. “Slow is smooth and smooth is fast”; while I understand why you’re using it to illustrate the closed-mindedness of ‘logicians’, it’s not a great example with which to demonstrate the failings of logic: this maxim also goes by ‘festina lente’ (‘hasten slowly’ in Latin), and can be expanded to ‘start slowly and carefully, and over time the efficiency that that you will develop through that careful attention will yield great speed’—and in that expanded form it is completely logical, there’s no contradiction there; it just seems contradictory (and is not really that hard to see through) when you condense it verbally to ‘festina lente’; and I’m sure logical philosophers of antiquity such as Plato or maybe Cicero would not have got confused by this.

 

“But when I say defeat, I only mean that it is not true in this case, but might be true in others depending on the connections and relevance between the phenomena.” 

 

Are you saying that while Ultimate Bliss may well be refuted and deduced to be non-existent here, it can still exist elsewhere? If so, I don’t follow your reasoning there…

 

I don’t think you can ever ‘prove’ the law of Non-Contradiction to be non-universal: a ‘proof’ requires in itself the law of Non-Contradiction to hold fast. Ultimately, I think the law of Non-Contradiction does indeed break at some point when trying to grasp the nature of reality; but it does so at a point beyond the considerations of suffering and bliss; and in any case, the breaking of logic does not in any way validate the existence of  Ultimate Bliss, just like it doesn’t necessarily validate the real-life existence of Super Mario—absurd, no? You seem to be throughout this message trying to validate contradiction, which is the ultimate way one could think of to sabotage my hypothesis: if logic is defeated, there can be no arguing, no theses nor hypotheses, so no-one is right and no-one is wrong and so Ultimate Bliss is real if i say it is real, as is Pinocchio…

 

I made a brief search for Modal Logic but couldn’t see how it relates at all to our discussion. As an aside, please know that I have not studied Western philosophy much at all, so any esoteric terms you use of that field will be unfamiliar to me and I will need to research them if you do not explain them.

 

Well, no, the law of Non-Contradiction, the existence and power and use of logic is not rare at all; it is absolutely everywhere you look and the whole world as we know it collapses without it: without it there is no day and night, no living creatures, no machines nor technology, no words, no nothing.

 

[Also, what do you mean by “classical logic has no hierarchy”?]

 

 

§6

 

“Further, almost any internal process cannot be modeled using classical logic because it is better modeled as quantum phenomena.  Particles in a quantum domain are known to occupy two distinct "places" at the same time violating the law of non-contradiction.” 

 

Well, the whole discussion so far has been about trying to validate liminalluke’s contradictory statements; but you seem to now be trying  extend a justification of contradiction to “internal processes” and thence, I guess, to the validation of Ultimate Bliss. And yes, of course you can model an internal-process on logic: we practice A and B and C in yoga and then we get to state Z—logic! it’s not “we bounce around randomly and somehow end up in desired state Z through some quantum glitch”. Yes there is apparent contradiction in quantum physics, but I’d bet my life that those contradictions will be resolved with a greater knowledge of the science and it is naive to try and use our current limited understanding of that science to validate contradictions in logic.

 

“In this way, internal processes are, somewhat, isolated systems.”. No, I don’t follow you there, I don’t see how you’ve arrived there from a consideration of quantum-physics. Isolated systems don’t exist. And it’s trivial to say the internal is isolated because we can’t see it with our eyes: it can be ‘seen’ with all our other senses! And so your logic in

 

“Because of this, I think it's good to retain a bit of caution applying rigid external logic systems to internal human dynamics like happiness and suffering.” 

 

doesn’t follow for me. Neither do I see a connection between your reference to “closed systems” in your fifth paragraph and this reference to “isolated systems” here; in the fifth paragraph you seem to say “logic only works in closed systems” yet here you’re saying both that people are “isolated systems” yet somehow logic should not be applied to them, despite what you stated in the fifth paragraph…

 

Happiness and suffering are bound to logic due to them being a pair of opposites, like any other in Duality, and thus are bound to the ‘law of balance’ in Yin-Yang.

Edited August 17, 2023 by galen_burnett

[Shadow_self]

5 hours ago, galen_burnett said:

@Shadow_self 

“tangled up in mental knots”? lol whatever dude. It’s not tangled at all, it’s coherent; you can’t point out any of said knots because they’re not there. you’ve given a quote that suggests Buddhists do not actually think Nirvana is Bliss (and i don’t know whom you think you’re scoring points with for funky spellings btw); but otherwise literally the only tiny distance you’ve gone to try to refute any of my “mental knots” is to say “let’s start with the black and white fallacy”—and proceed to say nothing at all on that matter whatsoever lmao! you see intelligence and sophistication, can’t be bothered to engage with it, and so write it off as “over-intellectualised” and “mentally knotted” without presenting any argument whatsoever to support that allegation!! clown!

 

Well actually I did.

 

Ill explain again below

 

Also, well done on beginning the ad hominems, so much for logic...

 

You're giving others a masterclass in how to demonstrate a complete lack of it

 

Quote

“not sure logic is on your side”—not sure because you’re too lazy and vain to try to follow it and so have just jumped to that conclusion anyway. bruh—opposites cancel! don’t make me take you back to pre-school to show you that! Nirvana’s a scam according to my own ontology; my ontology is coherent enough; i won’t post it because it would be long and tedious for everyone else and also even if you said you wanted to hear it i wouldn’t waste my time writing it out for you as you’ve demonstrated quite clearly already that you don’t read anything i write properly.

 

Conclusions dont need to be jumped to

 

Your words demonstrate you havent a notion of what you are talking about

 

Your ontology needs revision, badly

 

Quote

suffice it to say: yin-yang are fundamental to existence; as is consciousness; consciousness is subject to perpetual oscillation between pain and joy forever under the rule of yin-yang; therefore there is no Kingdom of Heaven nor Nirvana; therefore anyone proselytising such a state is trying to sell something that doesn’t exist; therefore they are scamming people. I don’t need to have spent loads of time studying Buddhism to realise that it presents the goal of the attainment of perfect Bliss, nor do i need to have done that in order to deny that assertion from my own world-view! clown! I don’t need to have been a Catholic monk for 30 years in order to say that Catholicism is bs!

 

So now we are on to Yin Yang...sigh.

 

That ontology you think is so strong, isnt only misaligned with Buddism, its misaligned with Daoism too.

 

Funny how you try to  appropriate certain aspects of them in that "ontology" and yet exclude the most basic principles

 

 

 

You only need to have a rudimentary understanding of Buddhism  to know nobody is chasing perpetual bliss

 

But again you lack that, so you are forgiven

 

 

Quote

“You dont understand the concepts begind the argument you are attempting to make”. i guess you mean cause-and-effect? i mean, what, i say one thing leads to another—what’s the matter with that?“

 

Allow me to prove my point

 

What gives rise to pleasure and pain?

 

Quote

dependant origination” is a term exclusive to a particular philosophy. in case you haven’t noticed, i’m arguing from outside of that philosophy, and so your exclusive terms don’t exist in my vocabulary! clown! you are obliged to explain any exclusive terms you use such as “dependant causality” or “abra-kadabra” or “open sesame” or “taking the jewel from beneath the bucket”. whatever “dependant causality” is, no doubt it is missing from my hypothesis, and that does not invalidate it in the slightest, in the same way as i don’t need to include all the esoteric terms of Christian Orthodoxy inside an argument that refutes the Kingdom of Heaven and the divinity of Jesus Christ! If you have the philosophy that spiderman is real, and i give an argument why he’s not which focuses on the improbability of such a genetic-mutation taking place, it doesn’t invalidate my argument if i haven’t included in it takes on the military effectiveness of the green goblin’s arsenal nor a philosophical discourse on “with great power comes great responsibility”; it’s not my job to cover all the esoteric things included in your philosophy—it’s your job to use those things to counter me if they are able to!

 

So are things like Nirvana, Yin Yang etc. Somehow they magically do exist in your vocabulary?

 

More ad hominems

 

Before you try to argue against something, you need to understand it

 

You've demonstrated nothing except a lack of even the most basic understanding of Buddhism

 

Quote

“Alrght then...

 

I guess you wont mind me pointing out the logical fallacies and bias

 

ill do one of each per post if you like...otherwise this would be a bit long winded

 

Lets start with the Black or white fallacy - Suggesting there is a zero sum between polarities (pleasure and pain as example)

 

Your problem is one of your understanding. As per your own words”

 

except you proceed to stop right there, without illustrating in any way how my argument is a logical fallacy nor how i have bias!

 

I did, I was just brief. I was pointing to out faulty notion of everything being perpetually moving between Yin and Yang

 

But allow me  to again according to the models you invoked, seeing as you are crying about concepts not existing when they refute your illogical statements

 

You brought up things moving between Yin and Yang, and used pleasure and pain as examples

 

The diagram above shows that Taiji is the movement that stirs potential in Dao which gives birth to both Yin and Yang within the canvas of Wuji

 

In other words, there is something which sits beyond Yin and Yang

 

If you are going to make some deranged Frankenstein of an ontology, better to understand the things you are including (and excluding)

 

Quote

The quote you’ve given seemingly suggests that these philosophies don’t in fact believe in ultimate bliss; but really you’ve just cherry-picked something to make it look like that while forgetting that i do actually have  eyes to see with and ears to hear with and so can very easily see all the other literature and pictures and hear everyone else talking about “the bliss of ultimate attainment”; how incredibly vain and dim of you to think anyone could be fooled like that! you clown!

 

Im not trying to fool anyone. Im telling you that your understanding of what is meant by that is useless

 

Buddhists do not seek pleasure, that is an entrapment, and nonsense

 

There are several parts of the journey that involve monumentous bliss arising

 

If your mind latches onto it, not only do you get booted out of state you enter into, you lose a lot of certain substances...

 

It is temporary and to be ignored as one progresses

 

Piti and Sukha both have their own meaning...and are hallmarks of first jhana

 

They both cease, and this is well documented in the literature you claim to have read, and yet have demonstrated nothing except a complete lack of understanding of it

 

Quote

again, you are trying to sneakily redefine the words “joy, happiness, bliss” which childish strategy i’ve refuted elsewhere in this thread: you can’t say “it is like bliss” to an impressionable person you think you have on the hook, then say to someone who challenges you “i never said it was like bliss!”. how slimy.

 

No I am not trying to redefine anything

 

https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/joy

 

Quote

a feeling of great happiness

 

Is is a feeling

 

Feelings cease on the road to the endpoint

 

Keep going, and we will keep arriving back here. 

 

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“That aspec, and tt of your argument is refuted, and redundant.” lmao

 

Yep,

 

Quote

“Unless of course you want to move the goalposts (engaging in another logical fallacy) to redefine the word feelings, or Nirvana” right, so now you’re just blindly throwing back at me a criticism i made against your camp like a petulant child—“no you’re smelly!” 

 

Well iif feelings cease long before said point is reached, then it makes no sense to categorise the endpoint as the one extreme perpetually

 

Again this is a gross misunderstanding of the concept

 

So please educate yourself on the most basic fundamentals of reaching said state before you try to refute it

 

Quote

oh most divine sage! please lead me to healing with your great omniscience into my health condition! get out of here you absolute loser.

 

Please lets not go there.

 

At this point, Id rather let you continue to believe some kundalini experience is going to kill you (your own words) that correct you on the matter

 

No point in challenging another shaky mental model. Im sure this will be enough for one day

 

Quote

your final sentences are just embarrassing. you’re like an edgy 14 year old. you must live a funny life. well done on impressing literally no-one, you complete fool.

 

Ah the ad hominems, it is always a fun time when someone claims to be logical, and then goes down this road

 

You do realise this demonstrates just how illogical you are? 

 

Also, Im sure the mods are going to love you...

 

Quote

p.s. it is possible to include more than one sentence in a paragraph—may be a helpful life-hack for you.

 

Oh dont worry, I dont do this for just anyone.

 

This is especially for you, as I can see you are struggling and I dont want to overwhelm you...

 

You clearly have enough going on without me burdening you with long drawn out discussion, so I'm being brief for a reason

Edited August 17, 2023 by Shadow_self

[galen_burnett]

@Shadow_self you clearly got lost on your way to reddit.com you absolute edge-lord. good job wasting both mine and your own time with your complete nonsense. my argument is there for whomever wants to read it; as is your regurgitated dribble; but i guess only until you go and screech to mommy mod and daddy mod, good thing i’ve got screenshots for another time. you’re an ass, and you probably smell like one too. have fun, Shadow Lord

[Shadow_self]

8 minutes ago, galen_burnett said:

@Shadow_self you clearly got lost on your way to reddit.com you absolute edge-lord. good job wasting both mine and your own time with your complete nonsense. my argument is there for whomever wants to read it; as is your regurgitated dribble; but i guess only until you go and screech to mommy mod and daddy mod, good thing i’ve got screenshots for another time. you’re an ass, and you probably smell like one too. have fun, Shadow Lord

 

Well i did read it, and pointed out the most glaring holes available for all to see

 

You've effectively thrown a rather large tantrum because of it.

 

How logical and coherent 

 

Should you be so certain and well versed, your reaction would be different

 

Is your belief in your "ontology" so insecure that the you need turn to behaving like that? . 

 

I suggest the anapanasati again. It will help

[C T]

Fragile ego. So much for logic & dry rationality, the very stuff that keeps one bound to an insistence that bliss means great happiness. Because the dictionary said so. 

[galen_burnett]

@C T ok pal. that’s cute.

[whocoulditbe?]

The final outcome of all semantic debates: both sides fail to think dialectically, the argument goes nowhere, then people become frustrated with the lack of development and begin accuse each other of sophistry. Sigh.

[Shadow_self]

1 hour ago, whocoulditbe? said:

The final outcome of all semantic debates: both sides fail to think dialectically, the argument goes nowhere, then people become frustrated with the lack of development and begin accuse each other of sophistry. Sigh.

 

The problem here is assuming there is an argument to begin with.

 

You mistake the words of a person of claimed "logic and coherence" with that of someone with a clear fallacious, biased perspective. Put another way, a (decent) argument/debate requires a logical basis from which to proceed.

 

Dipping in and out of frameworks and cherry picking that which suits ones own mental distortions is not a good way to form an argument. Its complete nonsense

 

Case in point

 

Nirvana = A central concept derived from a specific framework (Buddhism)

 

9 hours ago, galen_burnett said:

opposites cancel! don’t make me take you back to pre-school to show you that! Nirvana’s a scam

 

 

 

Dependant Origination = The underlying basis of the ENTIRE framework

 

Quote

“dependant origination” is a term exclusive to a particular philosophy. in case you haven’t noticed, i’m arguing from outside of that philosophy, and so your exclusive terms don’t exist in my vocabulary! clown!

 

 

Yes, why anyone entertained this is beyond me

 

This is the argument of someone who's biases, fallacies and mental distortions  are obscuring even the most basic understanding of what these things actually mean. In other words, someones just looking for an argument to try and reinforce their own false ideas, probably due to some deep unhappiness

 

The ad hominems are just a representation of the insecurities attached to the shaky belief system

Edited August 17, 2023 by Shadow_self

[whocoulditbe?]

42 minutes ago, Shadow_self said:

This is the argument of someone who's biases, fallacies and mental distortions  are obscuring even the most basic understanding of what these things actually mean. In other words, someones just looking for an argument to try and reinforce their own false ideas, probably due to some deep unhappiness

You haven't had enough of this already?

[Shadow_self]

1 minute ago, whocoulditbe? said:

You haven't had enough of this already?

 

Your comment signalled an oversight of sorts

 

The issue isnt   entirely one of a lack of dialectical thought per se.

 

Rather, it is due to a clear demonstratable lack of intellectual honesty

[thelerner]

On 8/15/2023 at 10:11 PM, galen_burnett said:

@thelerner Regardless of that we disagree on the interdependence of pain and joy, I think you’ve yet to state or imply what your position is regarding Enlightenment? Is there such a state in which you can be perfectly at ease with everything? [Obviously, I say there isn’t and that there will always be things that make you flee from them—always will be things you try to escape and other things you chase.]

On enlightenment I think there's a psychological enlightenment where one is at peace with almost everything.  A Oneness, everything is cool.  It's intensified during a satori experience and for the enlightened it keeps going.  The 'Me' thinking disappears and perspective is greatly broadened.  Peace all the time with everything, might not be possible while living in society.  There are extremes where even the enlightened are disturbed and call out cruelty, but the norm is peace.  

 

I also think there's a physical 'enlightenment' where the body's subtle energies are aligned and circulating.  It gives greater energy and vitality and changes one's perspective.  Being psychological enlightened doesn't necessary bring this physical enlightenment and vice versa.  Though sometimes they are aligned.

 

I hope we all have tastes of enlightenment.  That it's not too foreign to our personal experience.  We don't live there.  Paradoxically thinking now I'm enlightened can remove the state but hopefully we all taste it now and again.  Isn't that the purpose of cultivation?

 

 

[zerostao]

7 hours ago, galen_burnett said:

@Shadow_self you clearly got lost on your way to reddit.com you absolute edge-lord. good job wasting both mine and your own time with your complete nonsense. my argument is there for whomever wants to read it; as is your regurgitated dribble; but i guess only until you go and screech to mommy mod and daddy mod, good thing i’ve got screenshots for another time. you’re an ass, and you probably smell like one too. have fun, Shadow Lord

 
 

Moderator notice.

I ask that you edit or hide this post. This forum has a strict no insult policy. I understand that you brushed off Shadow_self’s first couple of volleys. In the future, I advise, to use the report option here rather than return an insult for an insult.

[Mark Foote]

23 hours ago, galen_burnett said:

@Mark Foote 

Well no matter our particular definitions of the varying degrees of good and bad feeling, the crux of the matter is the candy in the pinata, which after all we seem to agree on…

 

And well i only included the things i said about Duality in order to refute the Bliss thing. If we agree on that, then we can disagree on the nature of Duality, because we are both in the end arriving at the same conclusion regarding the crux of the argument.

 

So if you agree with me that the ‘ultimate attainment’ is a fallacy, then why do you follow Buddhism? [i could actually presume good reasons for doing so, regarding general constructive principles to live life by, but i’d rather you explain]

 

the piñata on the rope is a very good analogy 

 

 

I wasn't happy with my mind, my use of my mind, as a teenager.  

In 1975, I got up one day determined to be mindful of each inhalation, and each exhalation, all day long.  Sometime in the early afternoon, my body got up out of the chair I was sitting in, and walked to the door..

 

In the 80's, I went to hear Zen teacher Kobun Chino Otogawa speak at S. F. Zen Center.  He closed his lecture by saying, "you know, sometimes zazen gets up and walks around".  

Buddhists aren't usually familiar with what's in the original sermons of the Gautama the Shakyan, and I can't blame them.  The sermons make no coherent sense, unless fragments of the teaching across different volumes in the four original collections are pieced together.

Suffice it to say, that although Gautama attained "the cessation of (determinate thought in) feeling and perceiving" and his enlightenment was associated with that, in daily life the more important concentration to him was "the cessation of (determinate thought in) inbreathing and outbreathing".  That's the cessation of volition in action of the body, rather than in action of the mind. 

 

I can say that with certainty because he frequently concluded his description of the first four concentrations (the fourth being "the cessation of inbreathing and outbreathing") with a description of what he called "the fifth limb of concentration", the survey-sign of the body that allowed the recall of the fourth concentration as necessary.

 

My post A Way of Living, on my own site, concludes:

 

I’ve written about my approach (to the mindfulness that constituted Gautama's way of living):

 

I begin with making the surrender of volition in activity related to the movement of breath the object of thought.  For me, that necessitates thought applied and sustained with regard to relaxation of the activity of the body, with regard to the exercise of calm in the stretch of ligaments, with regard to the detachment of mind, and with regard to the presence of mind.  I find that a presence of mind from one breath to the next can precipitate “one-pointedness of mind”, but laying hold of “one-pointedness of mind” requires a surrender of willful activity in the body much like falling asleep.

 

(Response to "Not the Wind, Not the Flag")

 

Gautama said that the mindfulness he recommended was his way of living, when he was “as yet the bodhisattva” (before his enlightenment).  He identified the same mindfulness as “the Tathagatha’s way of living” (his way of living after enlightenment).  Such a mindfulness was, he said, something “peaceful and choice, something perfect in itself, and a pleasant way of living too” (Sanyutta Nikaya V Pali Text Society p 285).

 

Many people in the Buddhist community take enlightenment to be the goal of Buddhist practice.  I would say that when a person consciously experiences automatic movement in the activity of the body in inhalation and exhalation, finding a way of life that allows for such experience in the natural course of things becomes the more pressing concern.  Gautama taught such a way of living, although I don’t believe that such a way of living is unique to Buddhism.

 

 

Even though Gautama taught his own way of living, and described it as "something perfect in itself", folks think they have to attain enlightenment, they want to magically turn a corner and find themselves transformed.  

When my body got up and walked around, my life was transformed in that I could recall how that experience felt, but I didn't understand the place of that experience in daily life, at all.  

I believe this, from Kodo Sawaki:

 

Gain is delusion, loss is enlightenment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 18, 2023 by Mark Foote

[Mark Foote]

16 hours ago, galen_burnett said:

 

It’s kinda difficult to work out what you’re trying to say here. I guess you’re talking about how practice leads to ‘non-practice’; how with enough time a practice is subsumed into our body and psyche, into our autonomic-nervous-system, such that we no longer even need to think about it and the practice and the benefits of the practice all happen automatically? like how with enough time spent belly-breathing eventually the body will belly-breath on its own. 

 

But I still don’t really see how that relates to the section you quoted… 

 

the only thing i can think of to say further on that, without knowing more clearly how you’re trying to link all this together, is about how practices are just tools for us to get from A to B and can be discarded once arrived at B. but beyond B there is no such place where no more practice in needed: beyond B there will be new situations to contend with that require new practices, and so the cycle repeats.

 

 

Here's something from koan Franz's website:

 

Okay… So, have your hands in the cosmic mudra, palms up, thumbs touching, and there’s this common instruction: place your mind here. Different people interpret this differently. Some people will say this means to place your attention here, meaning to keep your attention on your hands. It’s a way of turning the lens to where you are in space so that you’re not looking out here and out here and out here. It’s the positive version, perhaps, of ‘navel gazing’. 

The other way to understand this is to literally place your mind where your hands are–to relocate mind (let’s not say your mind) to your centre of gravity, so that mind is operating from a place other than your brain. Some traditions take this very seriously, this idea of moving your consciousness around the body. I wouldn’t recommend dedicating your life to it, but as an experiment, I recommend trying it, sitting in this posture and trying to feel what it’s like to let your mind, to let the base of your consciousness, move away from your head. One thing you’ll find, or that I have found, at least, is that you can’t will it to happen, because you’re willing it from your head. To the extent that you can do it, it’s an act of letting go–and a fascinating one.

(“No Struggle [Zazen Yojinki, Part 6]”, by Koun Franz, from the “Nyoho Zen” site
https://nyoho.com/2018/09/15/no-struggle-zazen-yojinki-part-6/)

 

 

The mind that shifts and moves is "one-pointed", in Gautama's words.

 

... making self-surrender the object of thought, one lays hold of concentration, one lays hold of one-pointedness of mind.

 

 

Suzuki said:

 

So, when you practice zazen, your mind should be concentrated in your breathing and this kind of activity is the fundamental activity of the universal being. If so, how you should use your mind is quite clear. Without this experience, or this practice, it is impossible to attain the absolute freedom.
 

(“Thursday Morning Lectures”, November 4th 1965, Los Altos; emphasis added)

 

 

“Your mind should be concentrated in your breathing”—the presence of mind that allows the placement of attention by the breath to shift and move involves concentration.  If the presence of mind continues the placement of attention by the movement of breath, then the role of the mind is clear--nevertheless, the freedom of attention to shift and move as a function of breath is not absolute until the location of attention can move as though in open space, an experience that marks the induction of the fourth concentration.

 

In the fourth concentration, the location of attention generates automatic activity of the body in inhalation and exhalation.  That's the meaning of "the cessation of ("determinate thought" in) inbreathing and outbreathing".  And sometimes zazen gets up and walks around, that's the automatic activity that's generated, but usually it's just:

 

... automatic activity of the body in inhalation and exhalation follows from "one-pointedness" that moves as though in open space.  The effortlessness of the generation of automatic activity, even if the activity is strenuous, is a natural draw. 

 

 

There's always something different in making self-surrender the object of thought.  Not that concentration becomes second nature, but that the well-being draws a person on, and everyday the pieces have to be allowed to fall together anew. 
 

 

 

   

 

 

Edited August 17, 2023 by Mark Foote

[Nungali]

9 hours ago, whocoulditbe? said:

The final outcome of all semantic debates: both sides fail to think dialectically, the argument goes nowhere, then people become frustrated with the lack of development and begin accuse each other of sophistry. Sigh.

 

I forgot the great similar quote from Plato in Gorgias .... but it ends with  " and the audience wondered why they stopped to listen  in the first place ."