Bases for Skillful Action?

Buddhist ethical conduct including the Five Precepts (Pañcasikkhāpada), and Eightfold Ethical Conduct (Aṭṭhasīla).
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acinteyyo
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Re: Bases for Skillful Action?

Post by acinteyyo »

contemplans wrote:How can any ethical system be worthy of practice that is not absolute on its key teachings?
Because it works and the results of the path can be seen by anyone who is willing to practice for a while. No believing, no doubts, liberating insight knowledge because you have seen for yourself...

best wishes, acinteyyo
Thag 1.20. Ajita - I do not fear death; nor do I long for life. I’ll lay down this body, aware and mindful.
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contemplans
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Re: Bases for Skillful Action?

Post by contemplans »

You need the absolute. Otherwise the path is worth about as much as a Dr Phil program. And the absolute does not arise, IT IS. That's the theistic argument. You can't get universal moral principles from impermanent changing phenomena. Dependent co-arising as a teaching points to relative nature of created things. So what was Buddha going for then than the absolute? But as displayed here, so many deny this reality in his teachings. That always seemed odd to me. I wonder what the Buddha would have thought, after having examined cause and effect, of Thomas Aquinas five proofs of an absolute being, i.e., 1) things subject to impermanence and change cannot have ever come into reality without a first permanent unchanged thing to give rise to the impermanence and change. 2) That we know of no thing that is the efficient cause of itself, because it would be prior to itself, which is impossible. 3) That all impermanent things have the potential to not be, and that being the case, then nothing would actually exist, so there has to be something that is pure being/pure actuality that exists -- a necessary being. 4)That there are degrees of perfection (moral and otherwise). In all genuses there is a maximum (an absolute), by which we can form judgements of more or less. So there is something that is truest, best, noblest, and consequently, something that is most being. 5) And that all things tend to act toward an end, that there is order to the universe. This includes the order of action by which we can formulate what is skillful and what is unskillful. Without the underlying order, then things would be arbitrary, and there would be no way to lead a skillful life. There must exist some being that governs this order.

This is just giving you a little background to this notion that action is not arbitrary, that logic indicates that there is a being that is goodness itself, and by which we can judge what is skillful, and what is not, what is good and what is not. And it seems many teachers admit the absolute in their teachings without seeing the conclusion which is logically necessary.

(My emphasis.)
If the desire aimed at a happiness based on things that can age, grow ill, die, or leave you, notice how that fact sets you up for a fall. Then notice how the distress that comes from acting on this sort of desire is universal. It's not just you. Everyone who has acted, is acting, or will act on that desire has suffered in the past, is suffering right now, and will suffer in the future. There's no way around it.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/auth ... imits.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
In contrast to the relative, often false values of our age, the Buddha's teaching is a revelation of true and absolute values.
...
Thereby we preserve the well-being of our whole personality, both here and in the hereafter, by living in harmony with the universal laws governing our mental and moral life.
...
But regardless of one's personal inclinations, the universal moral laws operate objectively — action being followed by due reaction, deeds by their fruits. The Buddha merely reveals the laws of life, and the more faithfully we follow them, the better it is for us, for then we act according to the Dhamma.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/auth ... bl139.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
But the Buddha applies the characteristic of suffering to all conditioned things, in the sense that, for living beings, everything conditioned is a potential cause of experienced suffering and is at any rate incapable of giving lasting satisfaction. Thus the three are truly universal marks pertaining even to what is below or beyond our normal range of perception.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/auth ... hings.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
One might gain the impression from this account, that it needed Ananda's intense and clever arguments to change the Buddha's mind. But an awakened one's mind cannot be changed, because he is always in touch with absolute reality.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/auth ... el273.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
In terms of Absolute Truth, there is no "immortal soul" that manifests in a succession of bodies, but in terms of the relative truth by which we are normally guided, there is a "being" that is reborn.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/auth ... el261.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

(Notice how he just said we have no individual soul, entering the thicket of views, for sure, positing that we do not have anything truly unique about us. What he just stated indirectly is called monism -- that we are all one being. He says we don't have unique being, even though it is plainly evident that we are unique.)
The Buddha was an extremely demanding person, unwilling to bend to this supposed wisdom or to rest with anything less than absolute happiness.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/study/truths.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
This Dhamma, or universal moral law discovered by the Buddha, is summed up in the Four Noble Truths
...
That which we call a being, an individual, a person does not in itself, as such, possess any independent abiding reality. In the absolute sense (paramattha) no individual, no person, is there to be found, but merely perpetually changing combinations of physical states, of feelings, volitions and states of consciousness.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/auth ... el394.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

(Another absolute statement, which defies logic -- we are all one, but we only perceive multiplicity. A mark of Hinduism as well, for sure.)
The Eightfold Path stands at the very heart of the Buddha's teaching. It was the discovery of the path that gave the Buddha's own enlightenment a universal significance and elevated him from the status of a wise and benevolent sage to that of a world teacher.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/auth ... toend.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

No absolutes?
chownah
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Re: Bases for Skillful Action?

Post by chownah »

There are absolutely no absolutes in the Buddha's teachings.
In the Buddha's teachings everything you think of as beign absolute (absolutely everything you think of as being absolute) are to be taken as being absolutely relative. For example The All and The World are defined as being made entirely up of fabrications and of course fabrications arise due to conditions so they are absolutely not absolute in that they are relatively relative to the conditions that they arose from.
Is this absolutely clear or is it relatively confusing?
chownah
P.S. Every time a word is used its meaning is dependent on its context and since context is constantly changing every time you use a word it means something slightly different. I think your use of the words "absolute" and "relatiave" shows a lack of appreciation for the nuances of meaning imparted by context...in other words....there is no absolute meaning for any word and all words have only relative meaning which arises from context.....I guessssssss....
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santa100
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Re: Bases for Skillful Action?

Post by santa100 »

And right within our conversations on this topic, you can see that the "absolute" only has a dependent existence as long as the "relative" exists. It's impossible to have an "absolute" that inherently exists by itself. Contemplans, you mentioned "You need the absolute", and that might be true...as long as there still exists the "in-absolute". Same thing for the rest: something that is truest, best, noblest, most being only exists relative to that which is false-est, worst, ignoble-est, least being, etc..If you look at things from this perspective, it might help answering your main question: "What was the Buddha going for then than the absolute?". No, the Buddha wasn't going for the "absolute", He was going for Nibbana, the "un-binding", that which is free from all duality: good/bad, noble/ignoble, true/false, and also...absolute/relative..
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Re: Bases for Skillful Action?

Post by beeblebrox »

santa100 wrote:And right within our conversations on this topic, you can see that the "absolute" only has a dependent existence as long as the "relative" exists. It's impossible to have an "absolute" that inherently exists by itself. Contemplans, you mentioned "You need the absolute", and that might be true...as long as there still exists the "in-absolute". Same thing for the rest: something that is truest, best, noblest, most being only exists relative to that which is false-est, worst, ignoble-est, least being, etc..If you look at things from this perspective, it might help answering your main question: "What was the Buddha going for then than the absolute?". No, the Buddha wasn't going for the "absolute", He was going for Nibbana, the "un-binding", that which is free from all duality: good/bad, noble/ignoble, true/false, and also...absolute/relative..
Excellent post... if an absolute can exist only in relative with the non-absolutes... then why call it an "absolute"? Or to put it in a different way... if there ever was an absolute, then why would that be divided into the non-absolutes, in the first place? It's nothing but an illusion.

:anjali:
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Re: Bases for Skillful Action?

Post by tiltbillings »

santa100 wrote:And right within our conversations on this topic, you can see that the "absolute" only has a dependent existence as long as the "relative" exists. It's impossible to have an "absolute" that inherently exists by itself. Contemplans, you mentioned "You need the absolute", and that might be true...as long as there still exists the "in-absolute". Same thing for the rest: something that is truest, best, noblest, most being only exists relative to that which is false-est, worst, ignoble-est, least being, etc..If you look at things from this perspective, it might help answering your main question: "What was the Buddha going for then than the absolute?". No, the Buddha wasn't going for the "absolute", He was going for Nibbana, the "un-binding", that which is free from all duality: good/bad, noble/ignoble, true/false, and also...absolute/relative..
If the absolute were really absolute, it could have no meaningful relationship to the relative. The solution, of course, is that it does and it is a mystery as to how.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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Sam Vara
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Re: Bases for Skillful Action?

Post by Sam Vara »

contemplans

Is this what you are after?

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Re: Bases for Skillful Action?

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Re: Bases for Skillful Action?

Post by contemplans »

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Re: Bases for Skillful Action?

Post by contemplans »

And right within our conversations on this topic, you can see that the "absolute" only has a dependent existence as long as the "relative" exists. It's impossible to have an "absolute" that inherently exists by itself. Contemplans, you mentioned "You need the absolute", and that might be true...as long as there still exists the "in-absolute". Same thing for the rest: something that is truest, best, noblest, most being only exists relative to that which is false-est, worst, ignoble-est, least being, etc..If you look at things from this perspective, it might help answering your main question: "What was the Buddha going for then than the absolute?". No, the Buddha wasn't going for the "absolute", He was going for Nibbana, the "un-binding", that which is free from all duality: good/bad, noble/ignoble, true/false, and also...absolute/relative..
Thomas Aquinas didn't teach duality in the sense you are using. So there is no duality of absolute/relative, etc., as though they were both independent entities. Evil is a privation of good. Evil does not have true being. So even Satan in the Christian tradition is not pure evil, since such a thing does not exist. The false is a privation of the true. Etc. In the case of absolute reality, it is pure actuality. It has no potentiality in it. It lacks nothing, nor needs to be anything else. The need for absolute is not my mental wishing for it, but a logical necessity. There is no change, no impermanence, no motion in existence ifs there is not a being that is pure actuality. If the Buddha attained to ultimate reality, then this is where he attained. Now if he saw this true state as so ineffable that it is beyond categories, etc., that is reflective of his purely apophetic path -- you strip away conditioned reality until Nibbana. But also he seems to favor pure monism, and pure idealism. But ultimately everything that is conditioned is unskillful. Ultimately every karmic act is negative. Ultimately you relinquish the path. And so the absolute then is really that quietistic repose. And from this viewpoint, having a path at all seems to be utterly without foundation. Many others of the quietists come to the natural conclusion, which I think some Buddhists do, that any exterior behavioral code is utterly unnecessary to the enlightened. He only acts in a ""skillful" way for other people. He doesn't need it himself. Then we may ask if the next conclusion is necessary. Is he God? Some later Buddhists got there. Maybe Buddhism is really not all that different from the Hindu traditions. But my point is, do we see how the rabbit hole goes when you take out the absolute basis of moral action?

And right within our conversations on this topic, you can see that the "absolute" only has a dependent existence as long as the Excellent post... if an absolute can exist only in relative with the non-absolutes... then why call it an "absolute"? Or to put it in a different way... if there ever was an absolute, then why would that be divided into the non-absolutes, in the first place? It's nothing but an illusion.
The absolute is self-existent, and that existence is never divided. We would never have the relative without it, but it doesn't get our existence from it. The relative is mixed actuality and potentiality. It is impossible to have pure actuality arise out of a mixed being.
If the absolute were really absolute, it could have no meaningful relationship to the relative. The solution, of course, is that it does and it is a mystery as to how.
It depends on how you approach that knowledge. There are some who come by analogy (catephatic). Other by negative (apophetic), which is the Buddhist way. I prefer a balance. So mystery doesn't mean impossible. The Buddha certain supported this view, since he told everyone that the absolute was possible.
contemplans

Is this what you are after?

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
It certainly is getting there. Looks like a description of God, and a description of . Was the Buddha denying God, the soul, etc., or was he trying to cut the tethers to created existence that we create based on our concepts of God, the soul, etc.?
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Sam Vara
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Re: Bases for Skillful Action?

Post by Sam Vara »

contemplans

"Looks like a description of God, and a description of the Thomistic teaching on actuality/potentiality."

You can call it God if you want to, but doing so might lead you astray. You ought to look at

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

as well. It is a relentlessly astringent commentary on speculative ontology, regardless of any experiential basis.
santa100
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Re: Bases for Skillful Action?

Post by santa100 »

Contemplans wrote:
Thomas Aquinas didn't teach duality in the sense you are using. So there is no duality of absolute/relative, etc., as though they were both independent entities
.

Notice that in my previous message, I mentioned the duality pairs of good/evil, absolute/relative,...as "dependent" entities, not independent, such that one exists because the other exists. From this "dependent" angle, Evil and Good dependently exist, True and False dependently exist, etc. This explains why Buddhists don't see the Buddha's enlightenment as an attainment of "God-hood" because like any pairs of duality, God/Satan is just another nominally-labeled, conditioned, and dependently existing pair.
Then we may ask if the next conclusion is necessary. Is he God? Some later Buddhists got there. Maybe Buddhism is really not all that different from the Hindu traditions
Just curious about who those "later Buddhists" are...Also, what's the exact definition of God? just so that we could accurately address your inquiry about whether the Buddha is one or not..
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Re: Bases for Skillful Action?

Post by DarwidHalim »

contemplans wrote:I am just trying to see if anyone sees an absolute basis for any Buddhist teaching, including the Four Noble Truths, and if so, then where do they think such an absolute comes from. This is worthy of inquiry, since later Buddhists often took up theistic teachings and beliefs, and in our time many take up atheistic teachings and beliefs. How can any ethical system be worthy of practice that is not absolute on its key teachings? I am truly wondering how some reconcile this with the wider Buddhist teaching. Or maybe some just haven't asked themselves what is the basis for the ethical teachings.
You won't be able to find one answer which is accepted by all Buddhist school.

Some Buddhist schools accept the notion of discreteness. Some Buddhist school totally reject it.

Some Buddhist schools accept a sense of absolute. Some Buddhist school totally reject the notion of absolute.

Take an example of suffering.

Let's say someone gets a cancer.
One Buddhist school will say cancer is absolutely suffering.
Other Buddhist school will completely reject it. They will say that cancer is just a phenomena. The value that you put on top of it as a suffering is just a label which is accepted by general consensus that cancer is suffering.

Simply because by general consensus that cancer is suffering, doesn't mean cancer is suffering.

Killing is absolutly bad action.
This is accepted by a particular Buddhist school
But other Buddhist schools completely reject it.

What I want to deliver is in Buddhism we cannot make a general consensus. The final answer depends on you, how wide is your exposure to the different interpretations between Buddhist school

Some people think this kind of study is not necessary.

But some people think this is absolutely necessary. What we want to ask are actually already asked by Buddhist scholars long long time ago in their debate. Their reasons why this is not accepted, why this is not rejected become the valuable tool of learning.
I am not here nor there.
I am not right nor wrong.
I do not exist neither non-exist.
I am not I nor non-I.
I am not in samsara nor nirvana.
To All Buddhas, I bow down for the teaching of emptiness. Thank You!
danieLion
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Re: Bases for Skillful Action?

Post by danieLion »

If "absolute" does not allude to Plato's forms, or Kant's categorical imperative, or Anselm's proof for the ontological existence of God, or Descartes cogito ergo sum, or Christian Scholastic arguments, or some such nonsense as that , then I guess I'd be okay with calling the Buddha's teachings absolute.
Daniel :heart:
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contemplans
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Re: Bases for Skillful Action?

Post by contemplans »

santa100 wrote:Contemplans wrote:
Notice that in my previous message, I mentioned the duality pairs of good/evil, absolute/relative,...as "dependent" entities, not independent, such that one exists because the other exists. From this "dependent" angle, Evil and Good dependently exist, True and False dependently exist, etc. This explains why Buddhists don't see the Buddha's enlightenment as an attainment of "God-hood" because like any pairs of duality, God/Satan is just another nominally-labeled, conditioned, and dependently existing pair.
There are the contraries in dependent, created existence. Satan as well in the Christian tradition fits under this process. But Christians hold that God does not, which bring him out of the contraries you cite. He is pure actuality, pure being. He doesn't depend on anything to exist. He would still exist if the concept of evil, or atheism did not exist. This is what you are not addressing. I am pointing to something that is singular, not dual, which is outside of dependent conditioning.
danieLion wrote:If "absolute" does not allude to Plato's forms, or Kant's categorical imperative, or Anselm's proof for the ontological existence of God, or Descartes cogito ergo sum, or Christian Scholastic arguments, or some such nonsense as that , then I guess I'd be okay with calling the Buddha's teachings absolute.
Daniel :heart:
Why? Reality is reality. Who cares who discovers and explains it. If the scholastics have a better explanation of the absolute basis of moral action in a holy life, then why reject it? What from within the Buddhist system provides such a basis? Is Buddhism utterly subjective?
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