Why buddhism?

[Jeremy Bong]

Originally Posted by Ground

That's really the peak of irrationality!

The bible is an authentic christian text as the suttas are authentic buddhist texts.

In saying this it is neither asserted that the bible is the word of God nor that the figure Gautama ever existed and if he existed it is not asserted that he said exactly what is ascribed to him in the suttas.
Why? Because the objects of authenticity are the texts of the corresponding tradition, not more and not less. What are texts? Texts are concatenations of linguistic signs.

You're wrong! Bible are written by the spoken words through human mouths through centuries, not one days or two. Most of them are through prophets of that time. So your understanding is a bit backwards.

It's easy for God to speak through human mouths or transmitted to his followers , that's using mind power or telepathy or to transmit words in one's mind. But you never have such experience then it's hard to tell you for you don't know.

And most of the time, when God speaks in the Bible, God will stress that these are words from God. Then it's a directly spoken words through human mouths by or from God.

But sutras of Buddhism has a different way of handling down by the followers.

[Ground]

Originally Posted by BlueSky

I see that you used the word "considers" but really the word "believes" is more true to the meaning.
Am I right? If not then why.

I don't think that to say 'believe' in the context of a school or tradition of thought is appropriate. A school or tradition has many individuals and not all of them will be believers although they consider their texts to be authoritative. If one follows rationality then belief is excluded from the outset. Why? Because rationality entails valid knowledge.
Again there is a difference between validly knowing the authentic texts that are authoritative for one's school or tradition and validly knowing what is correct or false in these authentic texts. One may affirm the authentic texts as authentic texts although validly knowling that some of their contents are false.

[Ground]

Originally Posted by Ground

What are aims that are worthwhile to pursue?

They must be directly perceptible in order to be existents.

There must be an immediate benefit realizing these aims which must be directly perceptible too.

Their realization must neither cause unease nor add to pre-existent unease but must either reduce or eliminate pre-existent unease.

If there is the slightest uncertainty whether the realization of an aim may be beneficial then it is not worthwhile to pursue because it is not based on valid knowledge.

Therefore only an aim which is the cessation of what is already validly known and which is validly known to be or to cause or to add to unease can be based on valid knowledge of the benefit of its realization. Why? Because it is the current presence of that which is or causes or adds to unease so that the cessation of its presence and the resulting reduction or cessation of unease necessarily is beneficial.

In contrast to these aims that are worthwhile to pursue aims that are the realization of what is not validly known necessarily are a case of doubt because the realization strived for is based on speculative thought and belief in benefits which are merely objects of hope. Such aims are not worthwhile to pursue.

This shows that the buddhist approach to strive for the realization of cessations (negative phenomena) necessarily is a valid approach provided unease and its causes are validly known.

Originally Posted by Ground

From that it follows that enlightenment and buddhahood are not aims that are worthwhile to pursue. Why? Because both cannot be directly perceived and thus there is no basis that would support their existence.

So again, only cessations are aims that are worthwile to pursue because that which shall cease can be directly perceived, i.e. validly known, and thus its cessation, i.e. its absence, can be validly known too.

That of course does not answer the question what does make one validly know that a specific cessation is possible.

One can know that temporal cessation is possible because that what one wants to get rid of is not continually present. E.g. if one's aim is to get rid of fear of death one validly knows that fear but one can also validly know times when that fear is absent.

But how does one validly know that permanent cessation is possible?

Through investigating 'to the very heart of things' as the buddha recommended: Validly knowing the cause of that what one wants to get rid of one can validly know that if the cause is absent then the effect necessarily is absent too.

However this actually amounts to cessation of the cause and we end up in an infinite regress because the cause is the effect of another cause.

OR ...

... regardless of what it is that one wants to get rid of one arrrives at dependent origination which has the obscure 'not knowing' or 'ignorance' as its source.

"And what is dependent co-arising? From ignorance as a requisite condition come fabrications. From fabrications as a requisite condition comes consciousness. From consciousness as a requisite condition comes name-&-form. From name-&-form as a requisite condition come the six sense media. From the six sense media as a requisite condition comes contact. From contact as a requisite condition comes feeling. From feeling as a requisite condition comes craving. From craving as a requisite condition comes clinging/sustenance. From clinging/sustenance as a requisite condition comes becoming. From becoming as a requisite condition comes birth. From birth as a requisite condition, then [unease] ... come[s] into play.

...

"Now from the remainderless fading & cessation of that very ignorance comes the cessation of fabrications. From the cessation of fabrications comes the cessation of consciousness. From the cessation of consciousness comes the cessation of name-&-form. From the cessation of name-&-form comes the cessation of the six sense media. From the cessation of the six sense media comes the cessation of contact. From the cessation of contact comes the cessation of feeling. From the cessation of feeling comes the cessation of craving. From the cessation of craving comes the cessation of clinging/sustenance. From the cessation of clinging/sustenance comes the cessation of becoming. From the cessation of becoming comes the cessation of birth. From the cessation of birth, then [unease] ... cease[s]. ..."

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipit....002.than.html

However one still does not validly know the correctness of this dependent origination! And one still does not know whether permanent cessation is possible.


The only way out is either to investigate into the infinite regress ...

OR ...

... to take dependent origination as a hypothesis that has to be validated by means of experiments: any member of the chain is a potential point of interruption.

And since one still does not know whether permanent cessation is possible one has to take a pragmatic approach: Does that what one wants to get rid of occur less often and with less intensity as an outcome of one's experiments? If yes that would be a beneficial result and the approach is at least valid in terms of attenuation, if no then the approach is not valid at all.

[Jeremy Bong]

Quote from Ground:

[.. to take dependent origination as a hypothesis that has to be validated by means of experiments: any member of the chain is a potential point of interruption.

And since one still does not know whether permanent cessation is possible one has to take a pragmatic approach: Does that what one wants to get rid of occur less often and with less intensity as an outcome of one's experiments? If yes that would be a beneficial result and the approach is at least valid in terms of attenuation, if no then the approach is not valid at all].

%%%%%%%%%%

What you said, is about feeling . So can you know and feel about the arrangement of your future life or your next life that's the real meaning of karma arrangement. Again, how can you do experiments to test whether it's still there or not. To me that's a hypothesis or joke. What you said is equally to not saying anything at all. That's why I said , you or any religion has no knowledge where and how karma is staying?

Attachmentin the body and records in the body are two different things. You can't erase the record even you've suffering of amnesia. Or you can't rearrange the arrangement of your next life. Can you? If you can then you're the creator, are you?

[Ground]

Originally Posted by Jeremy Bong

Quote from Ground:

[.. to take dependent origination as a hypothesis that has to be validated by means of experiments: any member of the chain is a potential point of interruption.

And since one still does not know whether permanent cessation is possible one has to take a pragmatic approach: Does that what one wants to get rid of occur less often and with less intensity as an outcome of one's experiments? If yes that would be a beneficial result and the approach is at least valid in terms of attenuation, if no then the approach is not valid at all].

%%%%%%%%%%

What you said, is about feeling . So can you know and feel about the arrangement of your future life or your next life that's the real meaning of karma arrangement. Again, how can you do experiments to test whether it's still there or not. To me that's a hypothesis or joke. What you said is equally to not saying anything at all. That's why I said , you or any religion has no knowledge where and how karma is staying?

Attachmentin the body and records in the body are two different things. You can't erase the record even you've suffering of amnesia. Or you can't rearrange the arrangement of your next life. Can you? If you can then you're the creator, are you?

Obviously - since you believe in non-metaphorical rebirth - you are applying dependent origination to more than this life. But I don't. Dependent origination applies to one life only and that is the present one which is the one and only.

We have already clarified this hundreds of times. So why do you still aproach me with your belief in non-metaphorical rebirth?

[Jeremy Bong]

Originally Posted by Ground

Obviously - since you believe in non-metaphorical rebirth - you are applying dependent origination to more than this life. But I don't. Dependent origination applies to one life only and that is the present one which is the one and only.

We have already clarified this hundreds of times. So why do you still aproach me with your belief in non-metaphorical rebirth?

Your future life is tomorrow and day after tomorrow and other days.... That's you present life this life. And you can't understand about what I say? Karma can be arrangement of the people that you meet or do things with them or the results of certain life but you don't know it and the karma is building up through living.

I'm approaching to your post is because I don't believe karma can be erased by any means or your ways. So whatever you said is against the law of creation and karma life. That's you misleading people in the forum who view your posts and your quotes but you may or may not believe it.

[Ground]

Originally Posted by Jeremy Bong

I'm approaching to your post is because I don't believe karma can be erased by any means or your ways. So whatever you said is against the law of creation and karma life. That's you misleading people in the forum who view your posts and your quotes but you may or may not believe it.

That has nothing to do with buddhism but is merely your private belief.

"And what is the path of practice leading to the cessation of kamma? Just this noble eightfold path: right view, right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration. This is called the path of practice leading to the cessation of kamma.

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipit....145.than.html

[Jeremy Bong]

Originally Posted by Ground

That has nothing to do with buddhism but is merely your private belief.

You've to know "the noble eightfold path" is only way but that's before you do "evil" and you follow this path. Even Buddha didn't know about karma. What he advised others is avoiding and hoping to cessation of karma by the nirvana , the ending of Samara. So it's obvious, noble eightfold path is only wanted who to follow and not to create bad karma. That cessation is equal to become a good person but he really don't know exactly where and how the karma stay. He never mentioned about that.

Cessation of karma means you've stopped doing of evildoings. So you're not continue to doing bad thing again that's "cessation of karma". But it doesn't mean you can erase the former bad karma. That's a misunderstanding of that sentence. There's a Chinese idiom: 回头是岸turn from one's evil ways or repent and be saved. Or the Buddhist admonition: the sea of bitterness is boundless, repent and the shore is at hand --- it's never too late to mend one's ways 苦海无边，回头是岸.

[After Buddha Sakyamuni is enlightened then he feels:

During the first week after enlightenment, the Buddha sat under the bodhi tree experiencing the happiness of freedom and peace. He was free from disturbing thoughts, calm and blissful].

So you can see , how "disturbing thought" in this case is only the feeling but not the cessation of karma. As Buddha said, only by the process of Nirvana then karma can be ceased. That's God has no karma or less effective but when he's incarnation as human then the karma effect is returned. That's human can't do as God.

[Ground]

Originally Posted by Jeremy Bong

Cessation of karma means you've stopped doing of evildoings. So you're not continue to doing bad thing again that's "cessation of karma".

"And what is the cessation of kamma? From the cessation of contact is the cessation of kamma;

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipit...an.html#part-5

[Jeremy Bong]

Originally Posted by Ground

"And what is the cessation of kamma? From the cessation of contact is the cessation of kamma;

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipit...an.html#part-5

That's the same thing. "Cessation of contact" is you don't contact the evildoings then you're free from it. That means, "never do it" or "never touch it" is the cessation of karma or "away from evildoings" is the truth for cessation of karma.

There's a Chinese proverb: 若要人不知，除非己莫为if you don't want people to know something, don't do it. That's the same as "not to do it" then it's the same as the "cessation of karma". And that's the only way. That's the "cessation contact".

So using discrenment is the best way to understand this type of saying. Otherwise a wrong meaning will pop up .