The Secular Buddhist

A discussion on all aspects of Theravāda Buddhism
User avatar
Kim OHara
Posts: 5584
Joined: Wed Dec 09, 2009 5:47 am
Location: North Queensland, Australia

Re: The Secular Buddhist

Post by Kim OHara »

Secular Buddhism? Almost the same as Skeptical Buddhism - see http://www.sasana.org/sangha_background.shtml

:popcorn:
Kim

P.S. Here's another modern Western take: http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/bear.htm

:thinking:
- Kim
Sanghamitta
Posts: 1614
Joined: Wed Jul 29, 2009 9:21 am
Location: By the River Thames near London.

Re: The Secular Buddhist

Post by Sanghamitta »

Spiny O'Norman wrote:
Moggalana wrote: So what's Secular Buddhism about?
I think it's just another thicket of views, where the problem is not belief but disbelief. ;)

Spiny
Disbelief is dependent on belief. Both are part of the thicket of views.
The opposite if belief is not disbelief..its knowledge.
In the absence of personal direct knowledge we have belief masquerading as saddha.
The going for refuge is the door of entrance to the teachings of the Buddha.

Bhikku Bodhi.
User avatar
tiltbillings
Posts: 23046
Joined: Wed Dec 31, 2008 9:25 am

Re: The Secular Buddhist

Post by tiltbillings »

Sanghamitta wrote: In the absence of personal direct knowledge we have belief masquerading as saddha.
But fortunately that can, with insight, change to real saddha.
>> 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
Sanghamitta
Posts: 1614
Joined: Wed Jul 29, 2009 9:21 am
Location: By the River Thames near London.

Re: The Secular Buddhist

Post by Sanghamitta »

tiltbillings wrote:
Sanghamitta wrote: In the absence of personal direct knowledge we have belief masquerading as saddha.
But fortunately that can, with insight, change to real saddha.
Absolutely...with Insight. In the meantime it is provisional.
The going for refuge is the door of entrance to the teachings of the Buddha.

Bhikku Bodhi.
User avatar
tiltbillings
Posts: 23046
Joined: Wed Dec 31, 2008 9:25 am

Re: The Secular Buddhist

Post by tiltbillings »

Sanghamitta wrote:
tiltbillings wrote:
Sanghamitta wrote: In the absence of personal direct knowledge we have belief masquerading as saddha.
But fortunately that can, with insight, change to real saddha.
Absolutely...with Insight. In the meantime it is provisional.
And a lot of fighting over the provisional, it seems.
>> 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
Sanghamitta
Posts: 1614
Joined: Wed Jul 29, 2009 9:21 am
Location: By the River Thames near London.

Re: The Secular Buddhist

Post by Sanghamitta »

Apparently so.
The going for refuge is the door of entrance to the teachings of the Buddha.

Bhikku Bodhi.
User avatar
Spiny O'Norman
Posts: 851
Joined: Sat May 23, 2009 8:46 am
Location: Suffolk, England

Re: The Secular Buddhist

Post by Spiny O'Norman »

Sanghamitta wrote:
Spiny O'Norman wrote:
Moggalana wrote: So what's Secular Buddhism about?
I think it's just another thicket of views, where the problem is not belief but disbelief. ;)

Spiny
Disbelief is dependent on belief. Both are part of the thicket of views.
The opposite if belief is not disbelief..its knowledge.
In the absence of personal direct knowledge we have belief masquerading as saddha.
My point was that disbelief can be as much a hindrance as belief - it's all a thicket of views and opinions.

Spiny
Ted Meissner
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri Feb 17, 2012 8:09 pm

Re: The Secular Buddhist

Post by Ted Meissner »

Spiny O'Norman wrote:My point was that disbelief can be as much a hindrance as belief - it's all a thicket of views and opinions.
That's one reason SB tends to focus on practice based on what can actually be demonstrated in the natural world -- the conjecturing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, or what literal rebirth one might take, that's the thicket of views, not the reasonable inquiry into what can be shown as cause and effect.

It is also very similar to Secular Humanism, and I'm editing this weekend's episode with a Secular Humanist, Rick Heller. Secular Humanism is, to me, lacking in a practice which is what SB brings in the form of the Eightfold Path.
Ron Stillman
Posts: 1
Joined: Sat Feb 18, 2012 8:04 pm

Re: The Secular Buddhist

Post by Ron Stillman »

Justsit wrote:So does SB consider the teachings on rebirth as a cultural manifestation?
You might like to listen to a series of talks entitled "Buddhism Before the Theravada" by John Peacock; a discussion of the history of the time in which the Buddha lived and the importance of that history as context of how and what he taught.
http://www.audiodharma.org/series/207/talk/2602/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Nyana
Posts: 2233
Joined: Tue Apr 27, 2010 11:56 am

Re: The Secular Buddhist

Post by Nyana »

Ted Meissner wrote:SB tends to focus on practice based on what can actually be demonstrated in the natural world....
It seems that many of you folks have more in common with ancient Indian materialists than you do with any form of Buddhism. Why not just say that you are materialists who practice meditation?
nowheat
Posts: 543
Joined: Thu Oct 15, 2009 3:42 am
Location: Texas
Contact:

Re: The Secular Buddhist

Post by nowheat »

Ñāṇa wrote:It seems that many of you folks have more in common with ancient Indian materialists than you do with any form of Buddhism. Why not just say that you are materialists who practice meditation?
Maybe because we aren't simply "materialists who practice meditation"? The Buddha's dhamma isn't just about meditation. It's about direct insight into *what is* and while meditation is one of the great tools that serves that end, meditation is not in itself THE end; the insight is, along with the wisdom and compassion that the insight generates, for the welfare of all beings.

And some of us -- myself, at any rate -- aren't materialists in any way at all. I follow the Buddha in taking an agnostic stance.

:namaste:
User avatar
Cittasanto
Posts: 6646
Joined: Tue Dec 30, 2008 10:31 pm
Location: Ellan Vannin
Contact:

Re: The Secular Buddhist

Post by Cittasanto »

Ron Stillman wrote:
Justsit wrote:So does SB consider the teachings on rebirth as a cultural manifestation?
You might like to listen to a series of talks entitled "Buddhism Before the Theravada" by John Peacock; a discussion of the history of the time in which the Buddha lived and the importance of that history as context of how and what he taught.
http://www.audiodharma.org/series/207/talk/2602/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Hi Ron,
Thanks for the link I will listen to these at some point.
Unfortunately there have been many attempts to rationalise rebirth, anatta, and a host of other teachings away, but the teachings are actually allot fuller than some would have people believe, or are as an example it is common for people to say that the buddha was responding to the Upanishads view, missing that there is quite often not one view represented within them, and there are arguments against views which are not part of the Upanishads. The Buddha argued against wrong views found within the Samana & Bramana circles, not one or the other, or one group within them.

and from what I have heard so far talks about the classes being closed to one another, which according to the Pali canon was not the case, one of the queens (I can not remember which one from memory) was from a low class, yet was married to the king.
Blog, Suttas, Aj Chah, Facebook.

He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them.
But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion …
...
He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them … he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.
John Stuart Mill
User avatar
Cittasanto
Posts: 6646
Joined: Tue Dec 30, 2008 10:31 pm
Location: Ellan Vannin
Contact:

Re: The Secular Buddhist

Post by Cittasanto »

nowheat wrote:
Ñāṇa wrote:It seems that many of you folks have more in common with ancient Indian materialists than you do with any form of Buddhism. Why not just say that you are materialists who practice meditation?
Maybe because we aren't simply "materialists who practice meditation"? The Buddha's dhamma isn't just about meditation. It's about direct insight into *what is* and while meditation is one of the great tools that serves that end, meditation is not in itself THE end; the insight is, along with the wisdom and compassion that the insight generates, for the welfare of all beings.

And some of us -- myself, at any rate -- aren't materialists in any way at all. I follow the Buddha in taking an agnostic stance.

:namaste:
[quote =" —Udana, 5.5"] Just as the ocean has a gradual shelf, a gradual slope, a gradual inclination, with a sudden drop-off only after a long stretch, in the same way this discipline of Dhamma (dhamma-vinaya) has a gradual training (anupubbasikkhā), a gradual performance (anupubbakiriyā) , a gradual progression (anupubbapatipadā), with a penetration to gnosis only after a long stretch.[/quote]
Saddha - faith; conviction; trust - is a part of the path also. I do not know anywhere the buddha talks about being agnostic as a default position. The Buddha does say to leave aside questions of a certain kind as they are not useful to the path, but with things that are these require faith, at times an acceptance that one does not know but not a idea that it is therefore not able to be known or irrelevant.
Blog, Suttas, Aj Chah, Facebook.

He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them.
But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion …
...
He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them … he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.
John Stuart Mill
Philo
Posts: 6
Joined: Sun Feb 19, 2012 1:29 am

Re: The Secular Buddhist

Post by Philo »

Ñāṇa wrote:It seems that many of you folks have more in common with ancient Indian materialists than you do with any form of Buddhism. Why not just say that you are materialists who practice meditation?
As a self-identified secular Buddhist, I'd answer this in a few ways.

Firstly, the place I know in the Suttas where the materialist view is discussed is in the talk by Ajita Kesakambalin in the Samaññaphala Sutta, and there's plenty of things with which to disagree, even as a physicalist. Thus, I'd dispute the claim that at least I have more in common with ancient Indian materialists.

Secondly, I'm strictly speaking a nonreductive physicalist, not a materialist. But I don't personally think that matters for practice, although I would be happy to discuss it further should you find it relevant. One thing my study and practice has told me is that many intellectual pursuits (such as metaphysics) yields little fruit.

Finally, if I think that calling myself "a [physicalist] who practice[s] meditation" would be somewhat misleading. I came to Buddhist practice through a convergence of intellectually studying Buddhism simply to round out my Western philosophical knowledge and also taking a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course, and was content with MBSR for a while. To make a long story short, however, I came to realize that mindfulness outside of the Buddhist context was of limited value, and so I started practicing the Eightfold Path.

So, if you'd like to call me "a physicalist who practices the Eightfold Path as primarily laid out in the Pali Suttas and some later Theravadin tradition while not also ignoring the insights of some later Buddhist practioners of Mahayana and Vajrayana as well as some insights of modern science while also valuing strongly the skeptical and philosophical truth-tracking methods of inquiry that the West has developed", then I'd be fine with that. But that seems a bit of a mouthful! :smile: I find "secular Buddhist" to be short enough and get the gist across well enough. But I'm not particularly attached to labels.
Nyana
Posts: 2233
Joined: Tue Apr 27, 2010 11:56 am

Re: The Secular Buddhist

Post by Nyana »

Philo wrote:Firstly, the place I know in the Suttas where the materialist view is discussed is in the talk by Ajita Kesakambalin in the Samaññaphala Sutta, and there's plenty of things with which to disagree, even as a physicalist. Thus, I'd dispute the claim that at least I have more in common with ancient Indian materialists.
Buddhist suttas aren't the best source of information on Indian materialist views....
Post Reply