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Non-Self Versus Loving Self?


BillM

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7 hours ago, PaulS said:

He probably would've been buggered then (Australian slang for 'up the creek') if he had existed before certain persons had developed tradition, scripture and authority.  These didn't exist in a vacuum before the human species dropped from the trees but rather were developed over time when people started philosophizing and theologizing.  So somebody used their own thoughts at some point (or rather a number of thoughts of others that then started to form cultural agreements).

But I'm not sure what you suggest could be said to be the true position of Buddhism - I always understood the meditation bit in Buddhism to be more about the opportunity to come to one's own personal understanding of things and basically experience one's own thoughts as a basis for personal revelation of what's true to them and sensible to self.

In what I have read on Buddhist meditation it is about silencing the self.  Thinking is to be ignored. It both confirms the realty of self and deems self, thought and reason to be obstacles to enlightenment.  Enlightenment is ineffable, and personal revelation is illusion.

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15 hours ago, Burl said:

In what I have read on Buddhist meditation it is about silencing the self.  Thinking is to be ignored. It both confirms the realty of self and deems self, thought and reason to be obstacles to enlightenment.  Enlightenment is ineffable, and personal revelation is illusion.

I'm better off to leave it to the Buddhists I guess (I'm neither a Buddhist or very good at meditating) but I thought it was a little more nuanced than just silencing 'self'.  I understand it more to be about silencing the 'noise' that ego/self produces and in mindfulness allow the opportunity for one to observe their thoughts, recognize the noise, and allow one's own potential to provide insight/revelation.  Rather than 'ignore' thinking I think Buddhism suggests recognizing it for what it is - just thoughts.

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In Buddhism what one  endeavors to stop is not thinking itself but the obsessive energy that gets caught up in the content of the thoughts. We practice to recognize thoughts as just another phenomenon arising. We practice to stop our belief in the solidity of our interpretation of our thoughts—our “story”—and the emotional patterns and judgments that often come with it.

Another Buddhist teacher  says .....In meditation, we can transcend thinking—not all at once and not by willpower, but by skillfully and repeatedly redirecting the mind. So, paradoxically, in order to arrive at that open, relaxed state of mind, one must engage in skillful application of mind rather than a passive open awareness, at least until all negative mental states, including restlessness, have been set aside.

Doyeon Park says .... As we gain insight from our dharma practice, we begin to see that mountains are no longer mountains and waters are no longer waters. That is, we start to understand that nothing exists on its own; all things exist in relation to all other things. In addition, all things are changing and transient. Without proper reflection and guidance, we can easily fall into the trap of thinking mountains and waters don’t even exist, a grave misunderstanding that can lead us to a point where we don’t care about anything at all. This stage, then, is still an incomplete view. Buddhist practice is about bringing more wisdom and compassion into the world, not about denying or neglecting the world we are living in.
It is during the third stage, when mountains are once again mountains and waters are once again waters, that we truly see things as they are. Though the words are the same, these mountains and waters are worlds apart from those of the first stage. The difference is in the way we see them. We can see the mountains from the first stage as a reference to conventional truth, while the mountains of the second are a reference to ultimate truth. The third mountains are a reference to the middle way, which means not getting caught in either conventional truth or ultimate truth.

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Still, there is a clear distinction between the self-referential (and therefore irrational) mysticism of Buddhist meditation and the Christian practice of denying self by performing service to others.

 

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3 hours ago, Burl said:

Still, there is a clear distinction between the self-referential (and therefore irrational) mysticism of Buddhist meditation and the Christian practice of denying self by performing service to others.

 

I don't know if it is as clear as you seem to portray it. In Buddhism, there are 4 Noble Truths and an eightfold path. The 8 fold path includes more than meditation . It includes action, effort, speech, concentration, thought and mindfulness as listed below

Image result for paths in Buddhism

 

 

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I can’t read the low res cards on righteousness.  Are they based on self-revelation or constellations of scripture, tradition, experience and reason?

Righteousness is home base for all spiritual systems.  The 8 Fold path itself is a creed, and is not individual inspiration or revelation.

Righteousness never originates in the self.

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Skimmed it, but It seems I am largely correct.

Buddhism is an ascetic minimization of self and separation from others.  Christianity is a maximization of the self and inclusion of others.

An oversimplification, but that is the forum format.

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11 hours ago, Burl said:

Skimmed it, but It seems I am largely correct.

Buddhism is an ascetic minimization of self and separation from others.  Christianity is a maximization of the self and inclusion of others.

An oversimplification, but that is the forum format.

I agree it is an oversimplification. When you meet someone in Buddhism you greet them with a slight bow and hands placed together in front of your heart.

The palms of the hands are united to express contact between (union of) the Buddha in myself and the Buddha in you. It is similar to the greeting in Hinduism where the word "Namaste" is spoken which basically acknowledges the divine in the other. 

I think you may need to dig a little deeper to understand Buddhism and that it includes recognizing the Awakened Being (Buddha) in all and compassion for not only other humans but all living things. It is not self centered but on the contrary looks beyond the "self" which is the conditioned self for the Self (the Unconditioned) which is in all and transcends conditioning (your story).

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  • 3 years later...

Long time since anyone posted on this thread. Just thought I would add this for any passers by who might enjoy a trip down the alley of my self concept: :)

Any and every soul’s developmental ‘journey’ merits ongoing introspective review and reevaluation and, when and where appropriate, the refine­ment this is what conscious evolution is all about! not just of the ‘content’ of what one personally thinks, feels, believes and does in relation to others and Life- at-Large, but also of the ‘significance’ one places on and so ‘ascribes’ to one’s self  and other selves, in your case the very ‘self  ’ that thinks, feels, believes and does so. To possibly help expedite such process, here’s a discussion of some often overlooked (because of ‘innocent’ ignorance) but just about as often (for personal expediency) swept under the rug details and issues which, when and as overlooked and/or ignored, often result in folks who don’t yet fully grok what actually happens when a soul transcends self hood by whole-mind-n-heart-edly acknowledging and embracing the fact that it and others are integral aspects of The Entity of Life’s (i.e. of Christ’s) Being-n-Doing being bamboozled by as well as bamboozling others.

For one thing, one’s self hood doesn’t then just evaporate into insubstantial­ ity or dissolve into inconsequentiality as many have historically, apparently self-effacingly and seemingly humbly, for supposedly unself ish reasons, self-deludingly imagined and other-misleadingly proclaimed. Take the words of anyone who speaks, preaches, or acts in ways which imply that he or she (or his or her ‘kind’) is so self-abnegating as to therefore be especially holy and (so) especially worthy of devotion, reverence, obedience, generosity, etc. with a grain of salt. A posture of personal insignificance may indeed be adopted as a result of a person’s genuinely loving and enjoying and so wishing not to in any way detract from the glorious Magnificence and mind-boggling Grandeur of Life-at-Large, in contrast to which the gestalt of his or her present self  as well as the gestalts of other selves may indeed appear to him or her, that is to be relatively unimportant. But obsequious, Cosmic Presence (or Persona) ‘adoring’ stances and corollary behaviors may also be consciously or unconsciously coat-tail rider ‘gain’ motivated, and sometimes even downright wolves-in-sheep’s-clothing predatory in relation to unwitting others!

To put any self   or other generated razzle-dazzle that may presently be interfering with your clearly seeing what’s really what in this regard into perspective, let me point to and emphasize the implications of the obvious fact that genuinely devoted husbands and wives ‘lovers’ of all kinds, really! recognize that their lives are far from being insignificant in relation to those they love and ‘espouse’. They live and act with consummate awareness of the fact, as well as experience and evince a certain degree of self-appreciation as a result of knowing, that their personal presence and relational engagement functionally complements and enriches their spouse’s lives in ways which they could not and would not be otherwise. This, even as they acknowledge and are deeply grateful for the fact that their own lives are also complemented and enriched in ways that they otherwise would not be by virtue of their having been ‘espoused’ (as a self ) themselves. Similarly, Cosmically ‘awakened’ souls continue to live and make choices as personally response-able, choice-implementing selves who are well worth every ‘bit’ of their 'salt’, albeit they do so so ‘sacrally’, without putting themselves on any kind of 'pedestal', knowing that they are vital components of Life’s Grand Being-n- Doing, in other words knowing that they are Love and Joy experiencing and expressing ‘buds’, ‘leaves  ’, ‘flowers’ and potentially ‘seed’ bearing ‘fruit’ on ‘the Tree’ of Life Itself  !

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Sadly, looking back here, many seem totally unaware of the via negativa, the way of negation. A time honoured tradition/way/path in most mystical traditions, and certainly the platform on which many of the various Buddhist paths are built. 

I'll leave it there. 

 

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16 hours ago, tariki said:

Sadly, looking back here, many seem totally unaware of the via negativa, the way of negation. A time honoured tradition/way/path in most mystical traditions, and certainly the platform on which many of the various Buddhist paths are built. 

I'll leave it there. 

 

While nothing wrong with this line of thought, it does seem in contradiction with Joseph's post above about the "right way" 18 Aug 2019.

Apophatic theology anyone? What god isn't? Could take a long time to get there.

 

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Here, from the Wiki page on Apophatic theology. (Please note that all "ways" have their pitfalls, which is why I often get lost, or even prefer to get lost......as per St John of the Cross:- "If you wish to be sure of the road you tread on then you must close your eyes and walk in the dark." )

 

Buddhist philosophy has also strongly advocated the way of negation, beginning with the Buddha's own theory of anatta (not-atman, not-self) which denies any truly existent and unchanging essence of a person. Madhyamaka is a Buddhist philosophical school founded by Nagarjuna (2nd-3rd century AD), which is based on a fourfold negation of all assertions and concepts and promotes the theory of emptiness (shunyata). Apophatic assertions are also an important feature of Mahayana sutras, especially the prajñaparamita genre. These currents of negative theology are visible in all forms of Buddhism.

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More, from the poet John Keats....

 

Keats finds truth and beauty as two aspects, which are inseparable. Beauty for him is the source of knowledge, which is beyond the reach of consecutive reasoning.

 

This is negative capability, but has much that relates to the Madhyamaka.

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I think science has a similar concept to apophatic theology.  Science proposes a hypothesis and tests it to death. If it survives, then we call it a law or a fact. Over time the law might fray at the edges and more study is necessary.

Apophatic theology seems to say we can't know God, science might say we can't know the ultimate truth. 

To me, it seems reasonable to assume there is a truth, ultimate or otherwise. God less so.

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