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Philosophy: Religion / Eastern Start‑class

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Transcendental section

Thanks Kukku - that is better than my earlier hash. The transcendental section doesn't actually fit underneath the madhyamaka section very well, and though the facts may well be good, I am concerned about the interpretations- things like 'quanta' really seem out of place, even in metaphoric terms. (20040302 09:49, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC))

Edits to the last para. were made just to attempt to make it a bit more easy to read. I also replaced the elements of causality as rather than - please revert, edit, destroy as you see fit, Kukku. (20040302 11:49, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC))

Also, the Dualism article pertaining to 'eastern mysticism' needs to be edited! I had a quick hash of it, but it is still pretty dodgy. (20040302 11:52, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC))

I am concerned about the very western term: Transcendental, to me it reduces Buddhist philosophy to Platonic/Cartesian/Kantian ontologies and would bring all the baggage that rests with Transcendentalism onto the Buddhist doorstep. Is there no better term? Or can we cite the school/translation school who uses it? (20040302 22:50, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC))

Hmm. Fair point. Actually, do you know what the hell that whole section is about? I've never heard of it, so I don't know how to fix it. -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽

Okay, Google helped me out a bit on this front and I made some adjustments accordingly. See what you think. -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 23:11, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Big cheesy grin. Great. (20040302 23:46, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC))

is it a "contribution to metaphysic" ? at least, the bramajala suta should be mentionned
what about the time : past-present-future in the dependant origination ? i think this interpretation is quite "modern" , i mean not at the beginning. Per exemple, the Buddhagosa 's Visuddhimagga does not mentions this version.
-buddho

Upadana

Hi, I've redirected Upadana here, because I think it is related. We're trying to take care of every article in Misplaced Pages:2004 Encyclopedia topics, and that was one. Can someone familiar, create a sentence or so in this article on Upadana? Thanks - Taxman 15:39, July 16, 2005 (UTC)

OK I take that back, there are more facets to upadana than just Buddhism. But if someone can help with it that would be great. - Taxman 15:45, July 16, 2005 (UTC)

I have made some additions to the page adding formula tables, additional formula references and some notes. There is more to be done before the article is balanced. I will add some further text soon.

First time I've added notes to a talk page. Don't know if I have done it correctly. We will see. stray 16:08:00, 2005-08-05 (UTC)

Also added some content to Upadana page. This needs more work before its acceptable. It's just a stub at the moment. Will work on that too in the next few days. stray 16:10:52, 2005-08-05 (UTC)

Pali expression for paticca-samuppada

I think right Pali expression for paticca-samuppada is paţicca samuppāda. Isn't it?

lt.wikipedia.user.Gyvas (jonvit@gmail.com) 2006-March-09

Metaphysics?

Hi all, thank you for the great work you are doing on these Buddhist articles.

The term "metaphysics" makes me pause and I'd like to hear your thoughts:

It is fundamental to any Buddhist outlook ... that one of the root delusions that afflicts all non-buddhas is the innate tendency to reify. But that tendency is raised to high art by metaphysics. Nagarjuna intends his attack to strike both at the prereflective delusion and at its more sophisticated philosophical counterpart. But in doing so, he is not denying, and is in fact explaining, the nonmetaphysical part of our commonsense framework -- that part that enables us to act and to communicate and, especially for Nagarjuna, to practice the Buddhist path." - Jay Garfield, "The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way," page 314.

Kalupahana (difficult read, more scholastic!) also stresses Nagarjuna's empirical approach -- "essence is nowhere evident, cannot be located, etc." -- and I don't think we would call empiricism metaphysical, would we?

Maybe the problem is that "metaphysical" has multiple meanings,

http://www.websyte.com/alan/metamul.htm

and I am reacting from the more common interpretation which makes your sentence suggest that Buddhism is new-agey or magical. But everything I read in these Nagarjuna studies emphasizes that dependent co-origination (aka emptiness) was the primary tool in undoing existing metaphysical notions of inherent existence -- reification -- in all its myriad forms.

Anyway, that's what struck me on an initial read. Dav1d 20:24, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Dictionary.com defines metaphysics as follows:

1. the branch of philosophy that treats of first principles, includes ontology and cosmology, and is intimately connected with epistemology.

2. philosophy, esp. in its more abstruse branches.

3. the underlying theoretical principles of a subject or field of inquiry.

The quote from Garfield indicates that Nagarjuna has issues with metaphysics that indulges the tendency to reify. Garfield also states:

"We are now in a position to characterize explicitly the emptiness of causation, and the way this doctrine is identical with the doctrine of dependent origination from conditions adumbrated in this chapter. It is best to offer this characterization using the via media formulation most consonant with Nagarjuna's philosophical school. We will locate the doctrine as a midpoint between two extreme philosophical views. That midpoint is achieved by taking conventions as the foundation of ontology. . . . And so the claim that dependent arising itself is empty will turn out to be the claim that the emptiness of phenomena is itself empty - the central and deepest claim of Madhyamika ontology." Ontology is one of the principle concerns of metaphysics by definition. It need not be positivist. Sylvain1972 (talk) 14:23, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I also believe that the word is incorrect, but it is sourced. Mitsube (talk) 19:01, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Anything can be sourced on Misplaced Pages. The question then shifts to whether the material is relevant, accurate, timely, and reliable/authoritative. Sylvain1972 has not explained this addition to the lead section or how it is supposed to summarize the currrent article. I have asked this user to do so multiple times, and I see nothing but quotes and personal interpretations and observations. If I may ask again, Sylvain1972, could you please explain, using your own words, why you added this material to the lead section, and what part of the article it summarizes? Thank you. Viriditas (talk) 11:44, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Just by chance today I was reading "Buddhists, Brahmans, and Belief," by Dan Arnold, a Buddhologist at Columbia University, and discovered the book has a subchapter called "MMK 24.18 and Chandrakirti's Metaphysical Claim: 'Relative Indication' as an Example of Dependent Origination." Sylvain1972 (talk) 19:51, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Great. Now can you, in your own words, explain why you added it to the lead? What part of the article does it summarize? I think you know very well that what you are doing is extremely controversial, and I have questioned your motivations for doing it. What are you trying to achieve with your addition? The source does not even say the doctrine is metaphysical; It proposes the idea that it could be depending on how one defines the term, metaphysics. Why is this in the article? From where I stand, it appears you are engaging in a subtle form of POV pushing. Viriditas (talk) 11:55, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I have removed the material again. At least three editors in this section have expressed legitimate concerns. Please do not add it back into the article without obtaining consensus first. Thank you. Viriditas (talk) 12:16, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Since the material was added back in again without discussion, I have now tagged the article. To recap:

1. The lead section is a summary of the main points of the article. It is not the place to introduce new information.

2. The sources used to support the addition of "metaphysics" to the lead section do not actually support this material, and appear to be the opinion and the interpretation of the editor who is adding them. If they were to appear in the lead section, they would have to reflect some kind of treatment in the body of the article.

3. Sylvain1972's interpretation of the Garfield material is just that, an interpretation, and that is essentially original research. Viriditas (talk) 13:27, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Suffering

A thought on Suffering: Reading these articles on Buddhism, I am abhored by the assumption that suffering is the default state of life and that it is caused by desires and attachments. Wouldn't anyone favor a more egocentric model? According to the line of thinking of individualism and objectivism, suffering is a state resulting from the failure of an individual to develop the ego through expression of the individual's own passions. Hence birth and living are not suffering themselves, but humans enter the world operating without suffering and begin to experience it only if they are unable to develope their egos and manifest their identities. Look at an infant baby: they are the manifestation of happiness, curiosity and creativity - anything but suffering. I appreciate any responses to these thoughts. Simiam Ghan

Buddhism does not say that suffering is the "default state of life", but it does say that we tend to suffer and that it is caused by desire, or trishna (to thirst, to crave. someone needs to update and disambiguate the wiki page...). This in turn, if satisfied, causes one to clutch and hang on to something, this clutching is called Upadana. But you must analyze it further and ask, "Clutching to what?" Well, to anything, when you say for example, "I *must* survive", that is an example of clutching, or "I *must* win this race". The idea is that if you live life in earnest, trying to make something permanent out of an impermanent and constantly changing world (Buddhist doctrine of Anicca), life will be a drag and you will be bound to be disappointed. Then Buddhism goes further and says that trishna is caused by Avidya, or ignorance. In other words, we clutch to thinks because we do not realize the truth, that everything in the world is impermanent, that the world isn't "serious", that you are not an ego isolated in a bag of skin, trapped in an alien world, and finally that the ego is ultimately unreal. Hope that helps! Itistoday 15:27, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

But listen to an infant baby and the first thing heard is protest at what must be suffering. -- cuddlyable3

AS OF 7-12-2006: the link "Digital Dictionary of Buddhism (log in with userID "guest")" takes the reader to a 404 error page.

I think what really needs to be clarifed is the distinction between legitimate, healthy pain that needs to be attended to as much as we would attend joy, and senseless pain or suffering; neurosis.

dukka is basically existencial suffering, pain is sensory stimuli, dukka is how we react to all sensory stimuli (in Buddhism, "senses" includes "thoughts"). You're refering to hedonism as ideal, which honestly doesn't stand to even basic argumentations. You want "unsatiable thirst" (tr.s.n.a) as ideal, good luck with that!--Esteban Barahona (talk) 20:32, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 16:22, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Vasubandhu

Sylvain, could you give the quotes you are using in these edits: ? In the work cited Vasubandhu is not speaking for any currently extant Buddhist school, and I'm also concerned that the understanding of the twelve nidana cycle happening on short time scales should be properly represented. Mitsube (talk) 20:22, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Vasubandhu is still the authoritative voice on Abhidharma for all but the Theravadin tradition, and their views are also in accord with his on this matter. The Theravadin tradition relies on the the Visuddhimagga for an explanation, and the Visuddhimagga provides the 3 lives model in chapter XVII. As Bhikkhu Bodhi writes, “The Nikayas themselves do not give any systematic explanation of dependent origination the way one might expect a college textbook to do. Thus, for a clear explanation, we must rely on the commentaries and expository treatises that have come down from the Early Buddhist schools. Despite minor differences in details, these concur on the general meaning of this ancient formula . . . From the above, we can see that the commentarial interpretation treats the twelve factors as spread out over a span of three lives” (In the Buddhas Words, pgs 313-314)

The Abhidharmakosha remains the authoritative work studied by all non-Theravadin who still study abhidharma.

The Kosha passage I cited, in part:

"The series of skandhas develops in three existences, 20a. Pratityasamutpada or dependent origination has twelve parts in three sections or time periods.152 The twelve parts of dependent origination are ignorance (avidya), the samskaras, the consciousness, namarupa, the six ayatanas, contact, sensation, desire, attachment, existence, birth, and old age and death. 20b. Two for the first, two for the third, and eight for the middle. Ignorance and the samskdras existed in a past existence, birth and old age and death will exist in a future existence, and the eight other parts exist in the present existence."

After discussing this normative interpretation at length, he mentions the momentary interpretation and describes it briefly over the course of a paragraph at the end of the section. As Bhikku Bodhi states, the commentarial traditions of all schools have always considered the three lifetime model definitive. Sylvain1972 (talk) 14:59, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much! Mitsube (talk) 21:15, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

No problem! It's common for teachers nowadays to teach the momentary version, and there is some basis for it in the commentarial tradition (the Kosha, at least, I'm not sure about the Visuddhimagga). But it was never traditionally seen as an alternative, more like a supplement.Sylvain1972 (talk) 13:42, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

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