Is Buddhism a methodological solipsism?

Casual conversation between friends. Anything goes (almost).
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tkp67
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Re: Is Buddhism a methodological solipsism?

Post by tkp67 »

jake wrote: Mon Feb 15, 2021 5:17 pm
tkp67 wrote: Mon Feb 15, 2021 2:51 pm
jake wrote: Mon Feb 15, 2021 2:28 pm

Yes, but I don't recall Jesus saying "Methodological solipsism" either. Though my reading of the bible is rusty.

That seems a bit biased by atheism/theism perspective as Christ was not born until a few hundred years after and solipsism is philosophy and by nature non-religious. In other words how did it even enter the arena? I cannot perceive the association I would be open to understanding it if I am missing something.
Why am I biased by atheism because of what I wrote above? Explain.

You write that "philosophy by nature is non-religious." How do you justify this position? Or is it just a kind of gut instinct? Further, does this mean religion is non-philosophical? If not, why not? Taken this position, how do you categorize Buddhadharma?
I define philosophy by the most commonly held descriptive is questioning
Philosophy (from Greek: φιλοσοφία, philosophia, 'love of wisdom'[1][2][3]) is the study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about reason, existence, knowledge, values, mind, and language.[4][5] Such questions are often posed as problems[6][7] to be studied or resolved. The term was probably coined by Pythagoras (c. 570 – c. 495 BCE). Philosophical methods include questioning, critical discussion, rational argument, and systematic presentation.[8][9]

Historically, philosophy encompassed all bodies of knowledge and a practitioner was known as a philosopher.[10] From the time of Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle to the 19th century, "natural philosophy" encompassed astronomy, medicine, and physics.[11] For example, Newton's 1687 Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy later became classified as a book of physics.

In the 19th century, the growth of modern research universities led academic philosophy and other disciplines to professionalize and specialize.[12][13] Since then, various areas of investigation that were traditionally part of philosophy have become separate academic disciplines, such as psychology, sociology, linguistics, and economics.

Today, major subfields of academic philosophy include metaphysics, which is concerned with the fundamental nature of existence and reality; epistemology, which studies the nature of knowledge and belief; ethics, which is concerned with moral value; and logic, which studies the rules of inference that allow one to derive conclusions from true premises.[14][15] Other notable subfields include philosophy of science, political philosophy, aesthetics, philosophy of language, and philosophy of mind.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy

Buddhadharma ultimately resolves to a place beyond distinction so the best i have is the lotus flower of the wonderful law or myoho renge kyo.

Jake wrote:
tkp67 wrote: Mon Feb 15, 2021 2:51 pm I just wanted to validate timeline on the advent of buddhism to make sure there was no difference because it would change the scope of the conversation.


When you write the timeline of the advent of "buddhism" it is unclear what you mean. The birth of the Buddha? Buddhadharma? Or institutional buddhist traditions that have a tangible history (e.g. physical remnants). Not sure what you mean by the word "Buddhism."

Further, what bearing, if any, does the start of Buddhism in northern India/Nepal have on this particular discussion, or the contemporary classifications of western philosophy?

tkp67 wrote: Mon Feb 15, 2021 2:51 pm
Solipsism was first recorded by the Greek presocratic sophist, Gorgias (c. 483–375 BC)


However there is a more interesting phenomenon that occurs during based on the timing of solipsism and the appearance of the buddha. I has everything to do with human cultural development. If the timelines fall as I presume. Appears they do.

:anjali:


Same word, difference in the details. The OP wasn't discussing Greek sophist, Gorgias.

What is the "more interesting phenomenon" that you mention above? More interesting to whom?
What does the appearance of the buddha (which Buddha?) have to do with Greek philosophy?

Is human cultural development different than religion and Philosophy? If religion and philosophy are part of human cultural development then how is philosophy, by its nature, not religious?


Timeline of buddhism for me is understood through the ordinary or historically accepted of the life of Siddhartha Gautama.

Buddhahood transcends the ordinary and from that perspective so oridanry words reveal a part of it but also tether a part of the state because these words are distinctions in and of themselves.

As a means of opening the mind to see from such an unburdened perspective the fantastic is sometimes used as a means to expand conceptual boundaries. This can be misinterpreted. People think fantastic isn't real. Conceptual limits are real. Thinking in fantastic terms pushes those boundaries. However the state the buddha's teachings lead to are beyond this. It is displayed in the ordinary aspect. If all belief systems are of the mind then we experience a multiverse of belief systems in one world system. That is our collective experiential reality. Who is the buddha of each world system? The ordinary aspect is the gateway to the profound.
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Re: Is Buddhism a methodological solipsism?

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So many times people ask "Is Buddhism actually x" when they could just, you know, study Buddhism itself and gain something more substantial out of their efforts.

Instead, there's this constant intellectual game to say "see, see it's just like this". It's usually the mark of someone looking to dismiss Buddhadharma rather than understand it, though not always. Some people learn by being contrary and that has to be kept in mind.

Understanding the foundations of Buddhadharma takes an investment of time and effort, so often people approach it as if they can speed read a couple pdfs, compare it to this or that, then be done. I don't think it's intentionally malicious or anything, but it's a little insulting (and likely a complete waste of time) to approach it like that.

Pointed public questioning sessions about a subject one does not understand are pointless in general, but they happen regularly because: the internet. People think you can actually learn about a subject like Buddhism now in some abbreviated fashion, without the kind of longer term study and contemplation necessary, so what you end up with is major misunderstandings via shortcut being presented as valid arguments.

So, I completely understand why PeterC thinks it's tedious, it is.
Meditate upon Bodhicitta when afflicted by disease

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when sad

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when suffering occurs

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when you are scared

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Re: Is Buddhism a methodological solipsism?

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I don't blame PeterC for feeling that way. I empathize. I really do. I spent years doing tech support when computers first came out. I really had no clue about the vast differences in perceptive and cognitive qualities people have. I am not being critical of the internal dynamic. That is real and I am an emotional freaks show (esp 30 + years ago). I have many emotions but I temper them with questions to myself like is it boundless, pure, compassionate and representative of equanimity? Of course I don't do this obsessively. It started with serious issues where I knew my emotional response would not lead to a benefit regardless of validity. Methodology to proof my own feelings and the words that arise from them I suppose.

To this end I often wonder why there isn't sticky for some of the commonly asked questions giving answers and links to resources as a means to direct people to what will be referenced.

What is emptiness >

Etc & so forth.

Maybe it would help.
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Re: Is Buddhism a methodological solipsism?

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Johnny Dangerous wrote: Mon Feb 15, 2021 8:13 pm So many times people ask "Is Buddhism actually x" when they could just, you know, study Buddhism itself and gain something more substantial out of their efforts.

Instead, there's this constant intellectual game to say "see, see it's just like this". It's usually the mark of someone looking to dismiss Buddhadharma rather than understand it, though not always. Some people learn by being contrary and that has to be kept in mind.

Understanding the foundations of Buddhadharma takes an investment of time and effort, so often people approach it as if they can speed read a couple pdfs, compare it to this or that, then be done. I don't think it's intentionally malicious or anything, but it's a little insulting (and likely a complete waste of time) to approach it like that.

Pointed public questioning sessions about a subject one does not understand are pointless in general, but they happen regularly because: the internet. People think you can actually learn about a subject like Buddhism now in some abbreviated fashion, without the kind of longer term study and contemplation necessary, so what you end up with is major misunderstandings via shortcut being presented as valid arguments.

So, I completely understand why PeterC thinks it's tedious, it is.
I'm probably a bit of a misanthrope.

I think most human beings are profoundly silly things, obsessed with silly things, doing silly things with airs of importance; many of these silly things are tragedies, have tragic outcomes, the greatest of which we could say is a life, that might have all the conventional trappings of a good, honorable life, but in the end was frivolous from beginning to end. I read Malcolm describe such a life, and I'm paraphrasing, as significant as a bubble in a pot of boiling water. Blup.

By silly I mean a life of diversion from the ultimate fate of all: death. With death we have a definitive value to measure life. Without it, value is indeterminate, which is functionally nothing.

The story of the Buddha doesn't open with Sid debating philosophy with his brahmin instructors like Alexander and Aristotle. It starts with his mother dying in child birth. If he had followed the dharma of his ksatriya upbringing, maybe we would have heard of Gautama the Great - the man who first united the Indian sub-continent. Instead, we have the story of a sensitive young man who encounters old-age, illness and death, and has an emo-kid freak out. "How can all of you people walk around like everything is OK when we're all going to DIE?!!!!" He gets so obsessed with the inevitability of death, he walks out on all of his responsibilities, walks out on his wife, on his kid, and becomes a drop out. He doesn't just go loaf in the town square and debate theoretical problems like his contemporary Plato. He skips all that and goes down the yogic path, holding his breath until his ear drums pop and breaths through his ear holes, pulling all the hairs out of his skin at the root, starving himself to the point of death, and then resolving to sit under a tree until he figures it all out or dies trying.

As practitioners, one of the first lessons we are counseled to confront is our mortality. We are going to die. Sophistry will not save us. An elegant philosophy will not save us. We are urged to practice without rest because we don't know when death will come.

If a person comes to Buddhism as though its just another philosophy or another diversion to take the edge off of life and death, then of course they're going to ask silly questions with the attention span of a puppy. They've hardly scratched the surface of what is happening. Silly diversions, silly questions, silly lives.

Look into death's face, know that it comes for you with relentless certainty. Then we can start talking about emptiness, anatma, dependent origination, nirvana. Until the subject carries that severity, though, its just another parlor game to pass the evening.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
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Re: Is Buddhism a methodological solipsism?

Post by MagnetSoulSP »

Queequeg wrote: Mon Feb 15, 2021 9:48 pm
Johnny Dangerous wrote: Mon Feb 15, 2021 8:13 pm So many times people ask "Is Buddhism actually x" when they could just, you know, study Buddhism itself and gain something more substantial out of their efforts.

Instead, there's this constant intellectual game to say "see, see it's just like this". It's usually the mark of someone looking to dismiss Buddhadharma rather than understand it, though not always. Some people learn by being contrary and that has to be kept in mind.

Understanding the foundations of Buddhadharma takes an investment of time and effort, so often people approach it as if they can speed read a couple pdfs, compare it to this or that, then be done. I don't think it's intentionally malicious or anything, but it's a little insulting (and likely a complete waste of time) to approach it like that.

Pointed public questioning sessions about a subject one does not understand are pointless in general, but they happen regularly because: the internet. People think you can actually learn about a subject like Buddhism now in some abbreviated fashion, without the kind of longer term study and contemplation necessary, so what you end up with is major misunderstandings via shortcut being presented as valid arguments.

So, I completely understand why PeterC thinks it's tedious, it is.
I'm probably a bit of a misanthrope.

I think most human beings are profoundly silly things, obsessed with silly things, doing silly things with airs of importance; many of these silly things are tragedies, have tragic outcomes, the greatest of which we could say is a life, that might have all the conventional trappings of a good, honorable life, but in the end was frivolous from beginning to end. I read Malcolm describe such a life, and I'm paraphrasing, as significant as a bubble in a pot of boiling water. Blup.

By silly I mean a life of diversion from the ultimate fate of all: death. With death we have a definitive value to measure life. Without it, value is indeterminate, which is functionally nothing.

The story of the Buddha doesn't open with Sid debating philosophy with his brahmin instructors like Alexander and Aristotle. It starts with his mother dying in child birth. If he had followed the dharma of his ksatriya upbringing, maybe we would have heard of Gautama the Great - the man who first united the Indian sub-continent. Instead, we have the story of a sensitive young man who encounters old-age, illness and death, and has an emo-kid freak out. "How can all of you people walk around like everything is OK when we're all going to DIE?!!!!" He gets so obsessed with the inevitability of death, he walks out on all of his responsibilities, walks out on his wife, on his kid, and becomes a drop out. He doesn't just go loaf in the town square and debate theoretical problems like his contemporary Plato. He skips all that and goes down the yogic path, holding his breath until his ear drums pop and breaths through his ear holes, pulling all the hairs out of his skin at the root, starving himself to the point of death, and then resolving to sit under a tree until he figures it all out or dies trying.

As practitioners, one of the first lessons we are counseled to confront is our mortality. We are going to die. Sophistry will not save us. An elegant philosophy will not save us. We are urged to practice without rest because we don't know when death will come.

If a person comes to Buddhism as though its just another philosophy or another diversion to take the edge off of life and death, then of course they're going to ask silly questions with the attention span of a puppy. They've hardly scratched the surface of what is happening. Silly diversions, silly questions, silly lives.

Look into death's face, know that it comes for you with relentless certainty. Then we can start talking about emptiness, anatma, dependent origination, nirvana. Until the subject carries that severity, though, its just another parlor game to pass the evening.
I think that's just your opinion.

Death isn't something to worry about, I don't. I find it funny that you call such things a diversion from death when they really aren't. I think most people know they will die but so what? It doesn't change anything at all. Some even seek it out. I know I will die some day but that is just another mundane fact of life.

I have no reason to hurry to do anything because any regret dies with me. Same with anything else.

Also your subjects don't really carry much severity and seem to be parlor games as much as anything else. I think the "diversions" as you put it are the only real reason to live for, not such abstract concepts like emptiness or nirvana.

But this is getting off track. According to the wiki link it does deny the existence of individual mindstreams from ultimate truth.
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Re: Is Buddhism a methodological solipsism?

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By silly I mean a life of diversion from the ultimate fate of all: death. With death we have a definitive value to measure life. Without it, value is indeterminate, which is functionally nothing.
Perhaps, just perhaps value is boundless. Not indeterminate. There is a continuity to life that our temporal existence lends to. Even under ordinary evaluation there are proofs of this in nature. There is also a tangible sum is greater than the whole of the parts value here.

Doesn't lack of intrinsic self mean that there is nothing truly separate from this continuity? I see it as a opportunity to realize there is no real me worth being attached to because it just gets in the way of realizing this connection.

Based on his dedication I believe the connection is real, which is why this teaching is empty yet compassionate. He understood something so powerful he gave his ordinary life to understand and share it.
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Re: Is Buddhism a methodological solipsism?

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Ardha wrote: Mon Feb 15, 2021 11:27 pm
Also your subjects don't really carry much severity and seem to be parlor games as much as anything else. I think the "diversions" as you put it are the only real reason to live for, not such abstract concepts like emptiness or nirvana.

But this is getting off track. According to the wiki link it does deny the existence of individual mindstreams from ultimate truth.
Shall we live for sex and facebook then?
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Re: Is Buddhism a methodological solipsism?

Post by Johnny Dangerous »

Ardha wrote: Mon Feb 15, 2021 11:27 pm

I think that's just your opinion.

Death isn't something to worry about, I don't. I find it funny that you call such things a diversion from death when they really aren't. I think most people know they will die but so what? It doesn't change anything at all. Some even seek it out. I know I will die some day but that is just another mundane fact of life.

I have no reason to hurry to do anything because any regret dies with me. Same with anything else.

Also your subjects don't really carry much severity and seem to be parlor games as much as anything else. I think the "diversions" as you put it are the only real reason to live for, not such abstract concepts like emptiness or nirvana.
If you have this big issue with Buddhism, why are you here? Do you have any actual interest in Buddhadharma?

I mean seriously, what is point of your naysaying and posting in this way?
But this is getting off track. According to the wiki link it does deny the existence of individual mindstreams from ultimate truth.
Don't know which wiki you're referring to here, and I'm almost willing to bet you wouldn't even be able to explain what this means. Can you?
Also your subjects don't really carry much severity and seem to be parlor games as much as anything else. I think the "diversions" as you put it are the only real reason to live for, not such abstract concepts like emptiness or nirvana.
Then why are you on a Buddhist forum asking questions about Buddhism? It's not a rhetorical question. If the above is true, why are you even here contemplating this stuff, just for the lulz?
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Meditate upon Bodhicitta when sad

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when suffering occurs

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when you are scared

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Re: Is Buddhism a methodological solipsism?

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Ardha wrote: Mon Feb 15, 2021 11:27 pm ...
Blup.

:smile:
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
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Re: Is Buddhism a methodological solipsism?

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tkp67 wrote: Tue Feb 16, 2021 1:16 am
By silly I mean a life of diversion from the ultimate fate of all: death. With death we have a definitive value to measure life. Without it, value is indeterminate, which is functionally nothing.
Perhaps, just perhaps value is boundless. Not indeterminate. There is a continuity to life that our temporal existence lends to. Even under ordinary evaluation there are proofs of this in nature. There is also a tangible sum is greater than the whole of the parts value here.

Doesn't lack of intrinsic self mean that there is nothing truly separate from this continuity? I see it as a opportunity to realize there is no real me worth being attached to because it just gets in the way of realizing this connection.

Based on his dedication I believe the connection is real, which is why this teaching is empty yet compassionate. He understood something so powerful he gave his ordinary life to understand and share it.
I'm sorry. I don't get it.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
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Re: Is Buddhism a methodological solipsism?

Post by PeterC »

Ardha wrote: Mon Feb 15, 2021 11:27 pm I think that's just your opinion.

Death isn't something to worry about, I don't.
:rolling:

There speaks someone who hasn't come close to, or thought hard about the ending of life.

It bears repeating again: Buddhism is not a proselytizing religion. We don't try to convert people (aside from, perhaps, some of the Nichirenistas). We're like a pharmacy offering medicine. Nobody's going to diagnose you and force you to take the medicine. You have to decide for yourself that you're sick and try it: that's the point of the first noble truth. Or...don't try it. Entirely up to you. But if you want to have a philosophical debate about the validity of a religion, I'd suggest you go find a christian, they're much more into that than we are. Just don't do it in certain parts of the US, though, it might not be good for your health.
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Re: Is Buddhism a methodological solipsism?

Post by PeterC »

narhwal90 wrote: Tue Feb 16, 2021 1:30 am Shall we live for sex and facebook then?
Even if you're not trying to achieve liberation from samsara, I cannot imagine that anyone would want to live for facebook. That truly would be a life not worth living.
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Re: Is Buddhism a methodological solipsism?

Post by Queequeg »

I don't think having a deep awareness of mortality necessarily leads to the Buddhist path. However, to properly contextualize Dharma and understand it, the specter of death is a requisite. I also think its hard to keep up a long term Buddhist practice without it.

That said, there are other paths that also integrate an awareness of death, removing the sense of silliness from activities.

Humanism takes the full scope of life and death into account. From a Buddhist perspective, it suffers from materialist assumptions and so does not help beyond this life.

Christianity at its core is about a guy who was crucified. They've constructed a whole architecture of meaning around that covers you through the next bardo.

And on.

Silliness in my view is just the naive avoidance of anything serious that requires one to look beyond their immediate self and surroundings.

I wonder how many retweets and likes I would get if I tweeted my opinions? That has potential to make my day!
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
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Re: Solipsism and Buddhism

Post by Matt J »

I can actually see why some people, raised in or influenced by Western culture, would want to draw bridges from the familiar to the unfamiliar. However, I think a better starting point is not modern philosophy, but ancient, especially the vein that may have be traceable to Buddhism: Pyrrhonism. Now only will one get a thorough grounding the critique of Western philosophy (which surfaces in other philosophers, such as Hume, Berkeley, and many moderns), but one will get a good (although incomplete) introduction to Madhyamaka using Western concepts.

Solipsism is largely incoherent. To even formulate solipsism as a notion, one has to learn language, logics, etc. from others. It is also absurd to posit philosophical zombies who act as if they aren't. From a solispistic perspective, there is no more reason to deny other minds than to affirm them. Such being the case, it actually makes sense to affirm other minds, because seems quite evident.

I always find it a bit odd that people asking questions of other people about solipsism, thereby contradicting the very basis of it! :lol:
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Re: Is Buddhism a methodological solipsism?

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Queequeg wrote: Tue Feb 16, 2021 3:15 am
I'm sorry. I don't get it.
I know my friend, I know. I am not patronizing here. While I seem frivolous with belief that isn't a projection of my own mind. Do you realize I had to challenge the same distinctions. For me I could only do this through the lowest common denominator of empirical evidence.

Let me see if I can't unpack it.

At some point I realized that no where does any teaching promise an expansion of this life outside of "adding" some years for good behavior.

That all of those positions are manufactured by the mind. Tools to keep the mind from letting death get in the way of life. Now if this was all there was, I wouldn't be here.

That is the whole point of Shakyamuni's supreme enlightenment.

Putting a definite value to life is to put bounds on the potential even a temporal experience can facilitate. In one moment of life one can access the storehouse of buddha wisdom that is boundless. I exceeds any promise in any teaching that has been articulated because this state of Shakyamuni's was beyond the capacity to articulate.

At some point the very actions he took speaks of an experience that transcends even the distinguishable factors of life and death as they are natural facets of a every evolving continuum. It didn't bother him to dedicate his life because there was nothing he was losing out on. He had already won it all. Liberation from the mind that sees these things as separate such as life and death.

Individual existence is like notes and the moment the concert and the resulting harmony or discord of the sound a reflection of desire. Thus the boundless nature of our existence is a reflection of our desire to manifest it as such. The music played before we were born and will play thereafter,the music never stops and it is one incalculable composition. In the end we choose how that placement lends to takes away from the larger phenomenon.

Samara is like a fish trap for the mind that keeps it from seeing this is the pure land. One's own mind manifests the impure land which is the cause of all suffering. The buddha's life is an example of this very dynamic in motion. Why would he offer salvation that led to less freedom than delusion? Or to quote an old cliche "Ignorance is bliss".

This is why I keep pound the drum, "without distinction, without distinction"
Once again the Lotus Sutra reveals that its revolutionary doctrines operate in a realm transcending all petty distinctions of sex or species, instant or eon.
https://www.nichirenlibrary.org/en/lsoc ... us%20Sutra

It is the from which everything else arises, EVERYTHING. The good, the bad and the ugly. Empty isn't devoid of those things. Empty doesn't manifest those things while maintaining pure, boundless, compassion. Why? Because none of what rises from that place is separate from it. Thus mutual possession of the ten realms is to know the nature of all these things without creating/attenuating them while still seeing them manifest in others. This is the state the buddha expressed after he achieved supreme enlightenment.

I would argue that even from a conceptual perspective this unbridled view, the state of awareness, exponentially more grand than any promise in any preparatory or provisional teaching. That is to say don't judge the treasure by the map or by any one thing you see along the way. This is what one should not doubt. This is the gateway to faith that is critical. Not belief in the fantastic but the very real place that it comes from has more potential in its "primordial" state.


:anjali:
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Re: Is Buddhism a methodological solipsism?

Post by Natan »

Cool-team wrote: Mon Feb 08, 2021 3:12 pm Methodological solipsism is an agnostic variant of solipsism. It exists in opposition to the strict epistemological requirements for "knowledge" (e.g. the requirement that knowledge must be certain). It still entertains the points that any induction is fallible. Methodological solipsism sometimes goes even further to say that even what we perceive as the brain is actually part of the external world, for it is only through our senses that we can see or feel the mind. Only the existence of thoughts is known for certain.

Methodological solipsists do not intend to conclude that the stronger forms of solipsism are actually true. They simply emphasize that justifications of an external world must be founded on indisputable facts about their own consciousness. The methodological solipsist believes that subjective impressions (empiricism) or innate knowledge (rationalism) are the sole possible or proper starting point for philosophical construction.[3] Often methodological solipsism is not held as a belief system, but rather used as a thought experiment to assist skepticism (e.g. Descartes' Cartesian skepticism).[citation needed]
I thought solipsism was one's own point of view. Buddha has no point of view.
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Re: Is Buddhism a methodological solipsism?

Post by PeterC »

tkp67 wrote: Tue Feb 16, 2021 4:13 pm
Queequeg wrote: Tue Feb 16, 2021 3:15 am
I'm sorry. I don't get it.
I know my friend, I know. I am not patronizing here. While I seem frivolous with belief that isn't a projection of my own mind. Do you realize I had to challenge the same distinctions. For me I could only do this through the lowest common denominator of empirical evidence.
No, that’s not it. It’s not that we don’t understand you because your ideas are profound. It’s that we simply can’t understand what you’re saying because your posts are very confusingly written, and seem not to address the questions being discussed. Sorry.
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Re: Is Buddhism a methodological solipsism?

Post by tkp67 »

PeterC wrote: Tue Feb 16, 2021 4:41 pm
tkp67 wrote: Tue Feb 16, 2021 4:13 pm
Queequeg wrote: Tue Feb 16, 2021 3:15 am
I'm sorry. I don't get it.
I know my friend, I know. I am not patronizing here. While I seem frivolous with belief that isn't a projection of my own mind. Do you realize I had to challenge the same distinctions. For me I could only do this through the lowest common denominator of empirical evidence.
No, that’s not it. It’s not that we don’t understand you because your ideas are profound. It’s that we simply can’t understand what you’re saying because your posts are very confusingly written, and seem not to address the questions being discussed. Sorry.
What I am saying isn't profound.

I simply don't let my mind adhere to paradigms that serve 0 purpose.

That is why I say where is the benefit to your statements.

Remember friend one's mind determines the aspect of phenomenon one chooses to recognize (or not).

:anjali:
PeterC
Posts: 5191
Joined: Tue May 20, 2014 12:38 pm

Re: Is Buddhism a methodological solipsism?

Post by PeterC »

tkp67 wrote: Tue Feb 16, 2021 4:44 pm
PeterC wrote: Tue Feb 16, 2021 4:41 pm
tkp67 wrote: Tue Feb 16, 2021 4:13 pm

I know my friend, I know. I am not patronizing here. While I seem frivolous with belief that isn't a projection of my own mind. Do you realize I had to challenge the same distinctions. For me I could only do this through the lowest common denominator of empirical evidence.
No, that’s not it. It’s not that we don’t understand you because your ideas are profound. It’s that we simply can’t understand what you’re saying because your posts are very confusingly written, and seem not to address the questions being discussed. Sorry.
What I am saying isn't profound.

I simply don't let my mind adhere to paradigms that serve 0 purpose.

That is why I say where is the benefit to your statements.

Remember friend one's mind determines the aspect of phenomenon one chooses to recognize (or not).

:anjali:
Did I mention the part about you not addressing what people are saying?
Malcolm
Posts: 42974
Joined: Thu Nov 11, 2010 2:19 am

Re: Is Buddhism a methodological solipsism?

Post by Malcolm »

tkp67 wrote: Tue Feb 16, 2021 4:44 pm
PeterC wrote: Tue Feb 16, 2021 4:41 pm
tkp67 wrote: Tue Feb 16, 2021 4:13 pm

I know my friend, I know. I am not patronizing here. While I seem frivolous with belief that isn't a projection of my own mind. Do you realize I had to challenge the same distinctions. For me I could only do this through the lowest common denominator of empirical evidence.
No, that’s not it. It’s not that we don’t understand you because your ideas are profound. It’s that we simply can’t understand what you’re saying because your posts are very confusingly written, and seem not to address the questions being discussed. Sorry.
What I am saying isn't profound.

I simply don't let my mind adhere to paradigms that serve 0 purpose.

That is why I say where is the benefit to your statements.

Remember friend one's mind determines the aspect of phenomenon one chooses to recognize (or not).

:anjali:
Apparently your mind is incapable of stringing together coherent sentences much of the time.
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