The Secular Buddhist

A discussion on all aspects of Theravāda Buddhism
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Spiny O'Norman
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Re: The Secular Buddhist

Post by Spiny O'Norman »

Sanghamitta wrote:We have to make our own meaning. We have no choice. We have the tools but no blueprint.
I think we're presented with a number of different blueprints, some of which appear contradictory.

Spiny
nowheat
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Re: The Secular Buddhist

Post by nowheat »

Buckwheat wrote:
nowheat wrote:Are they following a-moral Wrong Views and do they need to be encouraged to take up a foreign belief system they will need to relinquish before they can reach liberation? In the Buddha's day, taking a step towards the views common in the day might have made sense -- but it seems to me that in our day and age it would make more sense to encourage Christian beliefs.
The line in bold made me think you felt belief in kamma would need to be relinquished prior to enlightenment. Apparently I misunderstood it.
Might the confusion come from karma and rebirth being so intertwined in your understanding that when I argue against using rebirth you hear me also arguing against karma? Whereas in my understanding, the Buddha redefined karma as something we can see for ourselves -- and free ourselves of by the methods he teaches -- right here and now in this life. For me this was his point, that his method liberated the ardent, energetic, and insightful follower before death, no waiting for things that would happen in the next life.
Another point in this paragraph is that you seem to assume all westerners are wonderful ethical people.
I don't believe that at all. But I haven't found any newcomers to Buddhism actively endorsing the view that they can walk up this side of the Ganges slicing and dicing people, and come back down the other doing the same, and it makes no difference. The prisoners you mention who might be "doing it to look good" aren't actually newcomers to Buddhism (they're gamers gaming the system). The people you mention who "seem genuinely enthusiastic to learn about the working of kamma" are, as you say, "not evil people". That was my point: That we are not teaching the Buddha's method to the slicers-and-dicers and gamers; we are teaching the Buddha's method to people who are seeking the path because they already have some access to some innate sense of morality that lets them even worry that they might be evil people.
I can assure you that I do not fit that description myself...
Which of us does? It's a fairy tale. We Buddhists come to this practice because we need help getting life straightened up, not because we're wonderful to begin with.
... so there is a necessity to emphasize the Buddhist ethical framework. To take that point further, many prisoners who can not accept Christianity at this point in their lives are turning to Buddhism.
But the whole of the dhamma is about ethics, and recognizing that we are not evil people, just people who make mistakes, and literal rebirth is not only not the only part that can teach that, it is not even integral to the dhamma's ethics or to recognizing that we are not evil. Karma, just by itself, teaches ethics just fine. The Safe Bet (shorn of its emendation) is saying precisely that -- good deeds reap good ends even if retributional rebirth is not part of the cosmic system; bad deeds reap bad ends, ditto.

It is really only when *we* are afraid that the way things work -- the way we can see for ourselves that things work -- isn't enough to motivate people (ourselves included) that we need to bring rebirth into it. If we believe, actually believe, what the Buddha is telling us about us not being evil people, about having a selfless nature if only we get the obscuring longing-for-self out of our way, then retributive, right-and-wrong balancing rebirth isn't at all necessary to believe in. Rebirth actually obscures the truth: that if we follow this path long enough and far enough we will see that we do have naturally generous and caring natures, and no carrot-and-stick is needed for us to behave that way. We need to clearly see that no belief in unknowable rebirth is needed to motivate anyone, and we can see that if we can just help each other notice where the greed and ill will and delusion comes from, see how it is those things (not a cosmic order) that bring about the effects of karma, and stop the process that generates them. Concentrating on an order *outside ourselves* that does the balancing for us obscures the point that the source generating the karma is the same source that delivers the results -- it is that human sense of self acting to preserve itself, not a cosmic order.
This paragraph seems to start with the assumption that there was something fundamentally different from the Buddhas day to now. However, both societies had some loose sexual habits, both have a problem with crime and violence, greed, lying, cheating, etc. From the framework of Buddhist ethics, most of modern society is fairly hedonistic. I see my friends and family pursuing things that only further suffering every day. It is fairly painful to watch, but I don't feel like preaching as I have a lot to learn about life myself.
Yes, there was something fundamentally different from the Buddha's (place and) day to now (in the West). In his day, the predominant belief was in rebirth, in our day and place, it is not. People are still the same.

My main point is that we do not need to tell people the Buddha teaches us to see clearly the distinction between what we know and what we only think we know -- we don't need to tell people this path is about sorting out delusion -- and then teach them to look for something they have no evidence for, and encourage them to bend experiences to shape them into supporting evidence. In the Buddha's day people believed in rebirth and he started by meeting people where they were -- assuring them that their belief system was more moral than many others out there -- and then he worked at moving them towards a less selfish way of looking at things, at redefining what's behind karma and what could be done with it.

We need to do the same thing, not introduce a whole new cosmology that is not in evidence for them to take up, believe in, and then need to give up in order to be liberated.

This is *why* it's Secular Buddhism: because it is focused on what we can see here and now, in this very life, and getting as far along the path as possible, in this very life.
Philo
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Re: The Secular Buddhist

Post by Philo »

Quite a fast-paced thread! As a self-identifying secular Buddhist, I saw a couple of specific questions a few pages back that I am capable of addressing, so I thought I'd put my two cents in:
retrofuturist wrote:It's good to call out the hierarchial distinctions in the interests of clarity, and of anyone who identifies themselves as a "secular Buddhist", I'd be interested to know their systematic hierarchies too... it seems that some have a (secondary) interest in making the Dhamma fit their (primary) vision of the physical sciences, which is something that they're entirely welcome to do, but I cannot endorse.
My hierarchy depends primarily on having a reliable epistemology, whatever that may be. I'd like to know that the processes through which I come to believe things increase my chances of believing true things. So my primary interest isn't so much a set of propositions (e.g. "E=mc^2", "rebirth is false", etc.) as a set of processes (e.g. deductive logic, inductive logic, psychological heuristics & biases, etc.).
buckwheat wrote:I have a question for the secular Buddhists in the room. Do you believe that it is possible to attain Nirvana, the deathless state devoid of suffering, unshakable and pure in conduct?
I'm agnostic about it. It sounds plausible, but I don't know much more than that. I use it as a "working hypothesis", however. And, like other secular Buddhists have mentioned here, I've found the practice to be beneficial enough so that it's worth practicing. A "deathless state devoid of suffering, unshakable and pure in conduct" may or may not be possible to reach, but I know that it's useful as an ideal toward which to strive.
Sanghamitta
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Re: The Secular Buddhist

Post by Sanghamitta »

I think whatever label we apply to ourselves, secular, traditional, it is vital to support each others efforts.
Not to make anyone feel that they are excluded if they feel unable to sign a particular pledge of allegiance.
:anjali:
The going for refuge is the door of entrance to the teachings of the Buddha.

Bhikku Bodhi.
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Kim OHara
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Re: The Secular Buddhist

Post by Kim OHara »

:goodpost:
Agreed - especially as each of us (as I said before) superimposes her/her own personal variation on whichever school or approach they may most closely identify with.
Think of us as leaves on a tree - we are all different and some of us are on different branches from others, but we are all still attached to the one tree and nourished by it.

:namaste:
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ancientbuddhism
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Re: The Secular Buddhist

Post by ancientbuddhism »

I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854

Secure your own mask before assisting others. – NORTHWEST AIRLINES (Pre-Flight Instruction)

A Handful of Leaves
Nyana
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Re: The Secular Buddhist

Post by Nyana »

nowheat
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Re: The Secular Buddhist

Post by nowheat »

Meaty article. The thing that always fascinates me is the way scientific materialists are accused of brushing off spiritual claims and refusing to give them the really good, open-minded investigation they deserve -- and at the same time, when Buddhists with a new view of what the Buddha taught try to show that the common understanding of what that was might just be different from what the suttas seem to show -- and invite open-minded investigation into this -- their ideas are brushed off. While calling for "more open-minded investigation" (of the speaker's ideas) we hear explanations of why open-minded investigation (of someone else's ideas) is ased on bogus assumptions? "Because those asking for it have preconceived ideas about what's being said"? Please, sir, hold up that mirror and give it another polish, and then look into it yourself, if you will.

"Batchelor's Buddha seems too modern"? Let me call attention to the word 'seems' in that sentence, it's a word about the speaker's perceptions and preconceptions.

And what if the Buddha's understanding of the world -- while couched in ancient terms -- was so clear and accurate that it is not inconsistent with modern science? What if what he was saying turns out to be 'modern'? What if it's not about 'modern' but about 'valid'? Why couldn't the Buddha have had an insight into human nature, all those years ago, that is still valid now (and will be until human nature changes -- don't hold your breath) and is, therefore, well-supported by current science? Is the reason Batchelor's Buddha "seems too modern" because he had such a crisp and accurate insight that it holds up over time -- rather than that Batchelor is bending what he taught to match modern thinking?

In discussing the relationship between karma, rebirth, and one's next life, the author says, "Not even the Buddha ever suggested that one could find such a simplistic, tit-for-tat relationship between karmic causes and effects. " Did he not? What about:
"He sees ... beings passing away and re-appearing, and he discerns how they are inferior and superior, beautiful and ugly, fortunate and unfortunate in accordance with their kamma" (DN 11).
What's amusing is that in his next sentence, he says: "However, because the Western, analytic mind thinks in linear terms, it wants to concretize karma and rebirth as a series of events each of which is conditioned by the one adjacent to it..." I find that funny because when I read the Buddha's quote above, I don't apply anything like "linear" thinking or logic to parsing what is being said (I find it to be part of a large and complex conversation the Buddha has with us, not simple or linear in the least) and yet I have heard those who are certain the Buddha saw and experienced literal rebirth use that quote in defense of that understanding, taking it in a very simple and linear way, and interpreting it as a description of the the visibly linear effects of karma.

"But there is also good reason to feel ill-at-ease about the agenda behind this movement. It’s hard to escape the feeling that the whole movement is founded upon the prevailing materialist assumptions of Western scientism ..." Note that word 'feel' -- it's an alarm the Buddha teaches us to look at, because it is often a marker of a process of liking and disliking what we are hearing on the basis of whether it matches what we are certain of or goes against it. One can accuse Batchelor of being disengenuous when he called himself an agnostic and then came out as an atheist, or one could, perhaps, recognize that the two are separated in time, and are part of an evolution -- and that the subject of the earlier book was really the Buddha's agnosticism, and he was exploring what it would mean to follow that agnosticism himself. That he then moved on to atheism and tells us about it is not dishonest, not "putting lipstick on a pig" -- it's being honest about his life and changes. But being so busily looking for "the agenda behind this movement" might obscure the pattern.

“One of the problems we human beings have is that when we have certain beliefs, we usually won’t bother to look at any evidence that might contradict them, and that keeps our beliefs very strong, but keeps our knowledge less than it should be,” the author says (by quoting Charles Tart) meanwhile, himself blinded to the way his own beliefs about agendas may cause him to attribute motives to Batchelor's behavior that aren't a good match for the evidence of Batchelor's words and actions.

I had forgotten to talk about my "hierarchical distinctions" -- the draft I wrote was too long (when I say that, you know it's *really* long) and autobiographical. Suffice it to say I thought I was an agnostic most of my life but only discovered, after understanding what the Buddha was saying about being clear on the difference between what we can and do know, and what we only think we know, that while I had thought I was an agnostic, unsure about life-after-death, it was not until I understood that I really needed to look closely at what I, personally, can know, that I realized that I don't have any way of knowing that I get another life -- I do know that I have this one, and I know very little beyond just that. It was not until I suddenly realized that this could be my only opportunity to live, that I realized, simultaneously, the treasure that this life is, and how upsetting it was to be confronted by the possibility that when I die I might not get another chance. So it was not until I accepted the Buddha's teaching on knowledge and clarity that I had enough clarity to recognize that I had not, actually, been an agnostic all along, though I had thought I was -- I had still been clinging to an underlying conviction that rebirth would "save me" from death, that there was a logic to letting us carry forward so we could evolve (among many complex assumptions I was making).

This tells me I was a believer-in-rebirth first, a Buddhist next, and that Buddhism brought me to agnosticism. I am letting what I find the Buddha teaching in the suttas lead me, because I have faith/confidence in the accuracy of his insights, and his understanding of how to apply them, and his skill as a teacher.

:namaste:
Philo
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Re: The Secular Buddhist

Post by Philo »

The article seems to make similar mistakes concerning epistemology and the philosophy of science that I see most Christian apologists make: it somehow takes for granted that a scientific worldview is necessarily materialistic, that all claims need to be examined anew without appealing to background evidence, and thinking that science is defined by its content instead of its process, all while not understanding that high subjective confidence does not equal dogma if it's well-reasoned (as long as the person's still open to evidence, of course).
Nyana
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Re: The Secular Buddhist

Post by Nyana »

nowheat wrote:The thing that always fascinates me is the way scientific materialists are accused of brushing off spiritual claims and refusing to give them the really good, open-minded investigation they deserve -- and at the same time, when Buddhists with a new view of what the Buddha taught try to show that the common understanding of what that was might just be different from what the suttas seem to show -- and invite open-minded investigation into this -- their ideas are brushed off.
Some of us have been contemplating these ideas for as long as Batchelor, et al.

Skepticism cuts both ways.
Buckwheat
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Re: The Secular Buddhist

Post by Buckwheat »

Nowheat,
I misunderstood several of your earlier comments assigning uncertainty to rebirth. I thought you were talking about kamma. As long as your cool with kamma being central and real, then I can respect your position. I don't really care about rebith that much from a doctrinal perspective. It is very important for me personally, but I see suttas that say if you believe rebirth or not, the middle way is still applicable.

The only significant critique I would still have about your earlier posts is well beyond my knowledge: your analysis of the distortions caused by history (which I think you overemphasize IMHO) and your method of seeing through those distortions. I worry that you emphasize distortions so that you can insert your own philosophy. However, this is all well beyond my capabilities to argue one way or the other.

OK - another question: do Secular Buddhists (collectively or individually) tend to believe in powers such as the ability to read minds?
Sotthī hontu nirantaraṃ - May you forever be well.
Philo
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Re: The Secular Buddhist

Post by Philo »

Buckwheat wrote:OK - another question: do Secular Buddhists (collectively or individually) tend to believe in powers such as the ability to read minds?
I don't, as the evidence for it is fairly poor so far.
Buckwheat
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Re: The Secular Buddhist

Post by Buckwheat »

Philo wrote:
Buckwheat wrote:OK - another question: do Secular Buddhists (collectively or individually) tend to believe in powers such as the ability to read minds?
I don't, as the evidence for it is fairly poor so far.
I can agree with that, but my recent understanding is that it is a subtle but powerful effect. I am almost certain that a particular monk could sense my thinking. He was able to answer things that I hadn't even asked yet, and to frame things so personally... I don't know. It was almost like an intense understanding of body language that went beyond body language. Is this objective evidence? No. But it was enough for a 28 year laugh-at-you-if-you-tell-me-you-can-read-minds kind of skeptic to think it's not such a wild idea.
Sotthī hontu nirantaraṃ - May you forever be well.
Buckwheat
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Re: The Secular Buddhist

Post by Buckwheat »

Philo wrote:
Buckwheat wrote:OK - another question: do Secular Buddhists (collectively or individually) tend to believe in powers such as the ability to read minds?
I don't, as the evidence for it is fairly poor so far.
I can agree with that, but my recent understanding is that it is a subtle but powerful effect. I am almost certain that a particular monk could sense my thinking. He was able to answer things that I hadn't even asked yet, and to frame things so personally... I don't know. It was almost like an intense understanding of body language that went beyond body language. Is this objective evidence? No. But it was enough for a 28 year laugh-at-you-if-you-tell-me-you-can-read-minds kind of skeptic to think it's not such a wild idea.
Sotthī hontu nirantaraṃ - May you forever be well.
Philo
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Re: The Secular Buddhist

Post by Philo »

Buckwheat wrote:
Philo wrote:
Buckwheat wrote:OK - another question: do Secular Buddhists (collectively or individually) tend to believe in powers such as the ability to read minds?
I don't, as the evidence for it is fairly poor so far.
I can agree with that, but my recent understanding is that it is a subtle but powerful effect.
Yeah - there was a meta-analysis done by a psi proponent recently that concluded an effect of 35% or so above an expected 25% if the results were only due to chance. Thus, even taking this meta-analysis at face value, this kind of psi isn't really worth me worrying that much about.

I'm not sure if this is what you mean by "subtle but powerful", though.
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