If only 'self-existence' was seen as a problem, why would the Buddha say that one shouldn't think in terms of 'I', 'mine' and 'myself'? To me it means...
Yes, in order to be absolutely sure one should 'walk through' the path in a very serious way and see for oneself. However, our lifetime is limited and...
I'll reply only to this. Energy cannot be the efficient cause because it is a property of something. Given that, in Aristotelian philosophy, propertie...
I think I understand your point but I'm not sure it is helpful for the discussion we were having about energy, matter and so on. BTW, Spinoza held tha...
I can see that but I'm not sure how it is related with the discussions about energy and other physical quantities we were having. You are free to use ...
Yes, Einstein's wasn't the 'regular materialist atheist' but quite close to Spinoza. But this has nothing to do with what we were discussing. Note tha...
The denial is apparent when you consider that the text clearly asserts that the aggregates, sense bases etc and Nirvana are 'known' whereas the 'self'...
If we restrict ourselves only to the Theravada, what about the very long first chapter of the Kathavatthu, a commentarial text included in the Pali Ca...
Right. I can even attribute them some kinds of rudimental responsibility/accountability but not to the type of enough mature human beings. I can see w...
Again, one should be careful to not attribute quotes to Einstein or other figures. This too appears to be a 'new-agey' commentatry of sorts. You can f...
This is an extremely interesting question. I think that it is something like 'maturity'. The aim of education IMO should be the perfecting of characte...
I wasn't denying that Buddhism accepts moral agency and moral responsibility. I was questioning how the latter concept can be consistent with a denial...
I saw that quote as part of a larger quote attributed to Einstein that clearly doesn't seem to be genuine. Even if that part was genuine, however, one...
Just wanted to comment on this. I think this is wrong. Consider for instance the potency of an infant to grow up in an adult or the potency of a perso...
I get that, but to me seeing a link between the physical concept of energy and the meaning you are giving to that word is like using the concept of fo...
I more or less agree with you. But I'm not sure that you can 'explain' anything without positing intelligibility. Rather, intelligibility seems to be ...
I wouldn't use QM to argue for a particular interpretation of 'energy' as being a 'potential' in an Aristotelian sense. In probabilistic interpertatio...
Yes, I hope and tend to think this is the case. Interestingly, I believe that it is a somewhat classical teaching in Christianity that the 'spiritual ...
:up: Also, if 'understranding' collapses to 'pragmatic success', then we would have no reason to trust our most successful models. Why our conceptual ...
I have never been able to make sense of how one can build a coherent moral philosophy about this (Disclaimer: I'm not saying that one cannot live a vi...
The reason why I objected to your use of the physical concept of 'energy' in this discussion is because I believe that, by doing so, there is a danger...
I think the best way to see 'moral teachings' of religions is to try to see them as a way to cultivate our own nature. While a 'legalistic' way of see...
:up: I would add that if intelligibility is merely 'pragmatic', then our beleif in our capacity to understand reality would be an illusion. It would s...
I see your point. I think that a more 'modern' analogy would be something like a movie. There is 'nothing' that passes from a snapshot to another but ...
To be clear, I wasn't saying that 'essential goodness' is an initial state and spiritual practice aims to 'go back to that' but rather to an intrinsic...
Yeah, I agree. Despite their vast doctrinal differences, most forms of Christianity and most forms of Buddhism agree on two points: (1) The 'ordinary'...
Not sure why you did raise this objection. Let's say that, as you say, 'enlightenment' can be reached outside the dispensation of Buddhist traditions....
Yes, I think I can more or less agree. If 'evil' is a corruption of the good, we are at the deepest level good. Hence, the 'spiritual life' doesn't 't...
That's a good way to summarize things, altough I believe that if one really wants to be 'pedantic', one would say: "Samsara has no beginning but it ca...
This isn't necessarily the case. Traditional buddhists would reply that the ultimate cause of the cycle is ignorance. If ignorance is removed, samsara...
Excellently put! I would also add another implicit conclusion: if intelligibility is real, then necessarily it follows that there must be at least the...
As @"baker" remarked, the idea is quite explicit in some strands of Mahayana with the concept of 'Buddha nature'. However, it can be said that it is i...
Ok, thanks. I think I can agree with that. In many religions/philosophies there is the idea that we have an innermost desire/implicit knowledge of the...
I agree... of course each school claims to teach the 'true version' of Buddhism and see others as detective or corruptions. Over time, differences hav...
Well, I don't :sweat: indeed, given the variety of opinions Buddhists seem to have hold about the 'ontology' of Nirvana, it is difficult to say that t...
Note that in Buddhist thought rebirth is sustained by desire of either continued existence or annihilation. So, in order to avoid that, one shouldn't ...
In the Mahayana, there is an aspiration to liberate all sentient beings without, however, the guarantee that it will happen. In the Theravada, there i...
ok, so you seem closer to 'Theravadin' reading. BTW, you find both views espoused by supporters of both traditions. So perhaps calling Theravadin and ...
Yes, that's a possible way to interpret the three forms of suffering and, indeed, this seems to have been the interpretation that is taken up by the M...
Also: intelligibility is the property of being understandable, at least in principle, by an intellect. So, arguably, anything in order to be 'intellig...
I believe it is also about the problem of explaining reason from purely naturalistic terms. How can, for instance, logic necessity be explained in ter...
I see. Sorry for the misinterpretation. However, this presupposes a very strong 'discontinuity' between the 'perfected state' and the 'imperfect state...
It's hard to know what that text meant for 'paramattha'. In the developed abhidharmic/abhidhammic thought, 'paramattha sacca' was the 'ultimate truth'...
Honestly, I'm not sure. I compiled that list in 2018 but even at the time I wasn't sure about that. Notice that Harvey mentions that in some instances...
For those interested on this peculiar view of Nirvana, I compiled some textual evidence on this post: https://ancientafterlifebelifs.blogspot.com/2026...
And yet, you find different interpretations of it. The third type of dukkha is most often interpreted as a form of suffering/unsatisfactoriness/ill-be...
Comments