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This discussion is great food for thought. Thank you for this great source of information. It would seem logical that the progression from hearing to contemplating to practice is the natural way of learning. Especially if it involves body/ mind interaction. We first hear of a practice, think about it and decide if it is appropriate for us, and then dive in. The complications seem to arise when in the contemplation phase very airy theories are sought to be understood. Many of which can only be understood by practice and then not needed at all. Observe the phenomenon of the spouting of terminology as if it were part of a lived experience, when it's only in the imagination. And sure, at any step of the process wisdom can be reached. It's ours from birth.
Yes, that's an important insight: we can get too caught up in contemplation and simply stay thinking about the practice, or harboring doubts, without ever actually putting in effort. Understanding is important but as you say sometimes that simply comes by doing.
I very much appreciate your academic and theoretical frames. As a Zen student and practitioner, practice (Zazen in all its forms) is front and center, and I understand everything else (study, texts, etc) as informing, supporting and enriching practice. This fits well with my beliefs about theory and practice in general too. 🙏🏽
I think that practice and study inform one another. I could not meditate properly without knowing how and why from study and by the same token rereading passages after meditation I find I discover a deeper meaning to the texts. This is true for good books outside the canon as well.
It takes two wings to fly. While I meditate daily, my knowledge wing is quite weak. There is a real and high-quality education in this channel and I benefit from it.
As I listened to your video, the thought arose that wisdom is the merging of theory and practice. Reflection and listening are two parts of theoretical development. The dialectical relationship of reflection and listening builds the basis for understanding, and the practice refines that understanding. It is like a wheel, constantly turning Thank you for your posts!
Hi Doug. I'm delighted to have discovered your channel. Thank you for sharing your work with us. I'm finding it a very lucid resource as a 'beginner', and I'm sure it is valuable to those more experienced and knowledgeable as well. My background is also in philosophy, predominantly in the analytic tradition. My previous exposure to Buddhism came predominantly through reading Schopenhauer and Nietzsche; it was, therefore, comparatively superficial and gave a rather pessimistic impression of Buddhism. I recently stumbled across Walpola Rahula's book "What the Buddha taught", and I feel it has opened my eyes. I had encountered Hindu philosophy before, and I was always impressed by its depth and sophistication, but I tended to find it too metaphysical. I feel that Buddhism combines sober pragmatism with an impressive degree of conceptual clarity and rigour. And I feel a little ripped off that all my formal philosophical education, supposedly to encounter the best thoughts of the human mind, has allowed me to remain largely ignorant of Buddhism for so long! I can see parallels to thinkers in the Western philosophical tradition - the Epicureans (surprisingly), the Phyrronians, the Stoics, Spinoza, Schopenhauer. Since I imagine that your formal philosophical training was also primarily in the Western tradition, I have a couple of questions. What should someone with my sort of background be wary of in making comparisons to parallels in western philosophy, in order to avoid overlooking what is distinctive about the Buddhist tradition? And are there any good resources or reading you would recommend (other than to study the standard Buddhist texts, and to generally explore the area) for someone more used to the analytic style of philosophy who is interested in exploring Buddhism?
Yes my background also is in the western tradition, analytic philosophy in particular. For reading, right I would be wary of making quick comparisons, because you may miss the forest for the trees by trying to find parallels. That said, I think the closest parallels in the western tradition are with Hume's and Parfit's notion of the self. I did a video on non-self awhile back where I mention a bit of this: th-cam.com/video/gSZjKKuvHEQ/w-d-xo.html . There are indeed also parallels with Stoicism and Epicureanism in particular as regards practice, though Buddhist practice was significantly more advanced and rigorous than any found in western philosophy. You may also want to check out my video on the Buddha's being a philosopher: th-cam.com/video/PUr-X8Q-HcY/w-d-xo.html , and read the paper linked in the notes that I wrote with my friend philosopher Justin Whitaker, where we used some ideas of Pierre Hadot to expand on how philosophy and practice went together in the classical western tradition. Buddhism is a very different language of philosophy than found in the west so it does take a bit of learning, but I think it's worth the effort.
@@DougsDharma Thanks for your reply. I appreciated the paper you co-authored. It gave me a good flavour of what to expect from further study of the Buddha himself. I'm not familiar first-hand with Hadot's work. If his thesis is primarily that modern academic philosophy is something of an entirely different character from what being a "lover of wisdom" originally implied in the Western tradition, then it seems to be simply an unassailable historical fact. The latter included a serious concern with askesis ('training'), phronesis ('practical wisdom'), techne ('skill'?), whereas the former confines itself largely to what the ancient greeks would have considered episteme ('theoretical knowledge'). And Hadot is clearly right to identify a practical therapeutic orientation within the foundational wisdom traditions of the West. Certainly, as you argued, Gautama Buddha's teachings have a similar orientation. And if, in addition to this, we consider criteria such as comprehensiveness, thoroughness, and robust argumentation then there doesn't seem to be any coherent way of distinguishing between, say, the Buddha and Socrates. I am a little wary, however, of any attempt to specify a set of criteria which will enable us to determine who is or isn't a "philosopher". Marx, Freud, Jung, Tolstoy, etc. were all wide-ranging and robust thinkers with practical and therapeutic aims in mind. Should we consider them all "philosophers"? Perhaps; perhaps not. Our problem here is that "philosophy" itself cannot be defined in philosophically neutral terms. Sellars, with admirable generality, described the aim of philosophy as "to understand how things in the broadest possible sense of the term hang together in the broadest possible sense of the term". But, as is evient here, that definition tilts things unfairly in favour of purely theoretical and reflective philosophers, rather than those who aim at, say, practical wisdom or the eradication of suffering. Perhaps Rorty is closer to the mark - there is nothing, in principle, to distinguish a "philosopher" from a good reflective specialist. Whilst I think this helps to highlight that "philosopher" functions more as an honorific title than anything else, the danger, if everything is philosophy, is that nothing is philosophy. But perhaps this isn't quite as danngerous a conclusion as it seems: after all, what makes philosophy so inevitable is that everyone *has* a philosophy whether they realise it or not. The problem is that it is mostly *bad* philosophy, philosophy which is ill thought-through because it has not been properly examined. What we are left with, then, is to distinguish not between philosophers and non-philosophers, but between *good* philosophy and *bad* philosophy. Intellectually I think we inevitably end up making the sorts of distinctions G. H. Hardy made about mathematical ideas concerning their "depth" and "importance" in relation to other ideas. But there is no entirely value-neutral way of sorting the good from the bad; even the intellectual values of, for example, "clarity" and "rigour" are somewhat contested. And things are even more inevitably partisan where questions of ultimate values are at stake. But I think it must nevertheless command widespread agreement to say that the problem of suffering is not only inherently quite deep, but is of of great, if not the greatest, importance to human beings. It follows that any thinker who deals with this problem in a serious way will be an important one, worthy of our attention. All that remains is to *show* people the Buddha's contributions to this problem, and it becomes clear that they are serious contributions. This, I think, is the strength of your paper - it gives a taste of why the Buddha is not just a "philosopher", in accordance with certain stipulated conditions, but why he is a *good* and an important philosopher. It's a shame 'Buddhologists' can't just outright say: "study Buddhist thought because it's good". But that, in the final analysis, is ultimately why we study Wittgenstein, Hume, Kant, etc. - because, at least as far as questions of linguistic meaning, epistemology, and the nature of mind are concerned, we tend to think that they are *good* philosophers. Especially now that philosophy in the anglosphere has broadened its horizons to encompass political philosophy, applied ethics, abstruse metaphysics in the form of mereology, etc. there is no excuse for neglecting Buddhist thought on the grounds that it falls outside the narrow set of concerns which formerly characterised it. Fortunately, in my own experience, there are signs that this might be beginning to change. I've not read Parfit's Reasons and Persons. The problem of personal identity never much interested me before - the last time I thought seriously about it I was heavily under the influence of Wittgenstein, and thought it was one of those philosophers' confusions over what was probably an ordinary language concept without necessary and sufficient conditions. I did re-read Parfit's paper 'Personal Identity' and found it a convincing formalisation of quite intuitive notions about psychological connectedness. What was particularly interesting, re-reading it with Buddhism in mind, was how Parfit explicitly related the abstract problem of "personal identity" to the traditional therapeutic concerns of philosophy: assuaging fear of death, egoism, regret, etc. This is rather 'against the grain' within analytic philosophy! He notes that emotions or attitudes can be criticised "for resting on a false belief, or for being in consistent", and concludes by hoping that "more of what is bad [than good] depends upon false belief". There is an obvious parallel here to avidya giving rise to dukkha. Usually, the "analytic" tradition, from British Empiricism onwards, tends rather towards dogmatism on behalf of our "common sense" attitudes and reactions. Hume himself, despite his 'bundle' conception of the Self bearing a striking resemblance to the doctrine of anatta, famously defends the sovereignty of the "passions". Parfit even quotes Hume's remark that the "refined reflections which philosophy suggests ... cannot diminish ... our vicious passions ... without diminishing ... such as are virtuous". Someone who exemplifies the general spirit of this tradition perfectly is P. F. Strawson, who denied even that it was an objection to an attitude that it rests upon false belief: "A sustained objectivity of interpersonal attitude, and the human isolation which that would entail, does not seeem to be something of which human beings would be capable, even if some general truth were a theoretical ground for it" (from 'Freedom and Resentment'). For Strawson, as for Hume, our natural dispositions are not only inescapable givens, but they are even beyond the criticism of reason, being themselves the ultimate grounds on which alone criticism of any kind can be based: if something is "part of the general framework of human life" then it is "not something that can come up for review as particular cases can come up for review within this general framework", any more than than the legal system put itself on trial. I don't know what Buddhist views on meta-ethics, if such exist, tend to be. Not wanting to suffer seems to me as much a "part of the general framework of human life" as our clinging to our attachments - here we have one court at odds with another. And I think, from practical experience, that Strawson is unduly pessimistic: greater tranquility is an option for us if we make the effort. I am sure these thoughts are of interest to very few, but I wish I'd had them sooner. But - who knows? - perhaps someone reading this was caught in the same tangles as I was. I'm still enjoying going through your videos! Your contributions are appreciated. Sorry for the delayed reply.
I think I start to understanding a little bit what the Buddha said all along, "the eightfold path" : sila (right speech, right action, right livelihood), samadhi (right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration), panna (right view, right resolve). They go together. One ought to keep up with or maintain the sila to have a "clearer" mind to go to samadhi and panna. I think.
From the Zen perspective, it's really all about the practice. Having an intellectual understanding can actually be seen as an impediment to realization/enlightenment. The simpler the mind, the better . . .
Indeed a Breathtaking explanation.Gives me a lot of knowledge ! Its true, those who study (after hearing wisdom )dhamma theory wise,of course they also doing some kind of practice.(reflective wisdom), that simultaneously leads for gaining cultivating wisdom.( they are indirectly doing Dhammanupassana mindfulness here) Because when one deals with theories, his mind is at a kind of mindfulness status.(during that time temporary mind is away from unwholesome thoughts or activities).That eventually brings him the cultivation of wisdom. To further proving of the fact, there is a sutta called ' Pancha Vimukthayathana' (Five institutes of freeing mind from defilements = becoming enlightened)' It would be helpful ! May you be free from suffering sir ! Triple gem blessing for you and all !
I read it some where that Bahiya thought he was enlightened and a friend asked him to check with Buddha. He is well prepared to understand the pithy instructions from Buddha. His case is indeed an exception.
I'm always believed that without the right study it's to go on the right path. (Hard but not impossible) I also believe that study is the base of practice, the more you know the better you can deal with states in meditation. (Not to attack but)For some small school of local Buddhists in Thai forest Buddhism tradition, some may mistaken some jhaña states in mind for enlightenment Such as pīti or upekkhā, Because they don't study.
We know a little about Bāhiya's previous practice. He was also known as Bāhiya of the Bark-cloth, so he probably practiced wearing uncomfortable garments made of bark.
That's right, he seems at least from the description to have practiced austerities, as did many renunciants of his day like Ajita Kesakambali (Ajita of the Hair Blanket).
This is a topic that I have thought a lot about in the last couple years. When I first began Buddhism I was under the impression that study had a secondary if not minor importance and that everything that was to be accomplished was to be done through meditation. When I came to first experience and then later learn is that there is a small percentage of people with him meditation does not react well with and that was the case in my situation. I found that it made me feel worse rather than better. After realizing this I came to the conclusion that all I had left was study which at the time was disappointing to me because I thought of it as a lesser thing. Since that time though I feel like I have made a great deal of progress through study and contemplation maybe even more than I did in meditation considering how I was reacting to meditation. Since that time I come to realize that the Buddha didn't just show up and say hey everybody just meditate that's all there is but that he taught a very extensive and complex Dharma and didn't just tell people only meditate.
Well yes, though meditation is important, if at this stage of your practice you don't feel it's helping you then there certainly are plenty of other avenues open in studying and getting to know the dharma.
@@DougsDharma hey Doug thank you for the reply. One type of meditation that I do now is mantra meditation. Have you ever made a video about that? And if not do you think you would ever consider doing so?
From my understanding, what Buddha taught to Bahiya was the core teaching. That is, to pay wise attention to experiences coming from the six senses. It is the critical factor towards stream entry. Contemplating the Dhamma can come in two forms. First is to understand the rationale and benefits after hearing it. Many suttas, especially those between disciples illustrate this. Second is to make use of contemplation to suppress, abandon or eradicate craving. For eg, contemplating corpse to counter lust; contemplating metta to counter hatred; contemplating impermanence to counter conceit. I'm wary of theorizing Dhamma further. Throughout history, scholars had created too many suttas to theorize Dhamma. Dhamma is like the finger pointing to the moon. Instead of looking up to see the moon, one analyze, postulate and create thesis around the finger. Would one be able to see the moon if one only keep examining the finger?
nothing sacred - i asked a friend for more information about this phrase and got this reply - And regards the "nothing sacred " it was Bodhidharma, Indian Buddhist guru meeting Chinese emperor for first time . Here s the full exchange and its a humdinger Emperor Wu: "I have built many temples, copied innumerable Sutras and ordained many monks since becoming Emperor. Therefore, I ask you, what is my merit?" Bodhidharma: "None whatsoever!" answered Bodhidharma. Emperor Wu: "Why no merit?" Bodhidharma:: "Doing things for merit has an impure motive and will only bare the puny fruit of rebirth." Emperor Wu, a little put out: "What then is the most important principle of Buddhism?" Bodhidharma: "Vast emptiness. Nothing sacred." Emperor Wu, by now bewildered, and not a little indignant: "Who is this that stands before me?" Bodhidharma: "I do not know." Concerningn vast emptiness “In the stillness by the empty window I sit in formal meditation wearing my monk’s surplice, Navel and nose in alignment Ears parallel with shoulders. Moonlight floods the room; The rain stops, but the eaves drip and drip. Perfect this moment In the vast emptiness, my understanding deepens.” (Ryokan Taigu, 1758-1831)
Yeah it's important to study the Pali Cannon/Tripitika..as a Buddhist I truly believe. Many people have not read the whole Tripitika at least once, I still haven't. Working towards it.. So why is it important? Because if one does not know the True words of the Buddha they would end up being misguided by bad or foolish people, unwise monks, and rumours. Or even starting to follow ideas and views that are not alligned with the goal of Nibbana/Enlightenment. Studying the theory is one part, yet one also needs to apply and practice them..through mediation, wise reflection (yoniso manasikara), keeping the precepts, being generous, associating with Noble Friends (monks/nuns and lay devotees of Buddhism) Yeah in the past people were able to attain enlightenment stages from just hearing a verse of Dhamma from the Buddha. This is possible because, they have practiced and cultivated mediation states/faculties in past lives, hence for those that became enlightened that way. Was due to the 5 spiritual faculties still developed and being mature enough to attain those enlightenment stages 🙏
Yes I think studying the Tripitaka is important. Or if we're lucky enough to have a very accomplished teacher, they can teach us the same material in their words, and we can spend time studying and considering that too.
The STRUCTURE of the sangiti sutta has the same structure by the Anguttara Nikaya. I wonder if that was the initial prototype to the collection of the AN…
Study is surely better than ignorance. On the other hand, after having read/heard from many monks, one must accept that intellectual understanding can only get you so far - it is a personal experience and analytical thinking can't grasp the experience as it is. Practice (as in establishing the context of your experience) is a necessary condition for real progress. Also, one should be careful about studying the sutta commentaries - they are often wrong. One should try to establish a view/understanding which corresponds to the actual sutta's descriptions, some of which will be closer (easier to find in oneself) and others further from one's own experiences.
Yes, good points saxy1player. The commentaries can be useful, but they can also at times be misleading. They have to be taken with a grain of salt or two. 😄
Heh... I went through a whole period where I felt totally betrayed by my books. The word currently really sticking out for me from your vids is "skill" and the idea of "having skills" and "being skillful" in these matters.
Studying the Dharma without meditation practice is like reading the instructions for putting together a piece of Ikea furniture without actually building it
Hi Doug@! Hearing Doug is happy. Bahiya? He was ready to enlighten. Unnavha? He was also ready to enlighten. 5 bikkus? They were ready to enlighten by blistening Dharmachakkappavattana sutta. Ananda? He was ready by that Nirvana song. Doug also is almost ready to enlighten. So this one say Try to correct Dharmachakkappavattana sutta of Doug. Today's that sutta is so polluted one. That sutta must contain whole. Try Tathagatha I of Doug. Today's Bahiya sutta is also polluted one. Right Dharmachakkappavattana sutta contains whole Buddha's sutta in it so Bahiya sutta also is in it. Doug you really hope world to be nice don't you? Start and goal is one.
Whence comes Right View? After pariyatti alone, or after pattipati and pativedha? I suspect one can be too clever for this practice and so get lost in pariyatti.
Only Westerners seem to be discussing these things. They think too much, which is good, but can also be a hindrance. The way we practice in Asia - everything is practice. The moment you wake you should practice mindfulness, you cook food, you offer it to monks begging food. Listening to Dharma, meditating in temple... it's more of a way of life rather than an academic inquiry, nor is it a meditation practice detached from society (like something esoteric). Practice is always with Sangha, whether intellectual inquiry or meditative cultivation. Anyway, I guess it's with upbringing, education, and culture.
Sure, but to be fair, very, very few people even in the west are interested in an academic inquiry into Buddhism, and many of those are not practitioners. Most Buddhist practitioners in the west aren't interested in the academic stuff either.
Yes I think they can help, particularly with milder versions, along with things like social involvement and regular exercise. Deeper forms of depression though should be treated by a professional first.
Studying art, or mathematics, or the stock market, or Buddhism, or anything at all, could be a kind of Buddhist practice. Studying "Buddhism" in and of itself is not Buddhist practice, however.
@Doug's Dharma Hi Doug, I see it as a question of the amount of awareness brought to the activity. It might be more accurate to say that studying things can be *part* of buddhist practice if done with the proper awareness. But studying any topic from the usual standpoint of discursive thinking and mental activity doesn't strictly speaking constitute the essence of buddhist practice and is not likely of and by itself to be liberative. Hope that helps clarify the distinction I was trying to make.
Sure, you can't be an auto mechanic just by reading repair manuals. By the same token, you will have a lot of difficulty being an auto mechanic without reading repair manuals.
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This discussion is great food for thought. Thank you for this great source of information.
It would seem logical that the progression from hearing to contemplating to practice is the natural way of learning. Especially if it involves body/ mind interaction. We first hear of a practice, think about it and decide if it is appropriate for us, and then dive in. The complications seem to arise when in the contemplation phase very airy theories are sought to be understood. Many of which can only be understood by practice and then not needed at all. Observe the phenomenon of the spouting of terminology as if it were part of a lived experience, when it's only in the imagination.
And sure, at any step of the process wisdom can be reached. It's ours from birth.
Yes, that's an important insight: we can get too caught up in contemplation and simply stay thinking about the practice, or harboring doubts, without ever actually putting in effort. Understanding is important but as you say sometimes that simply comes by doing.
I very much appreciate your academic and theoretical frames. As a Zen student and practitioner, practice (Zazen in all its forms) is front and center, and I understand everything else (study, texts, etc) as informing, supporting and enriching practice. This fits well with my beliefs about theory and practice in general too. 🙏🏽
🙏😊
I think that practice and study inform one another. I could not meditate properly without knowing how and why from study and by the same token rereading passages after meditation I find I discover a deeper meaning to the texts. This is true for good books outside the canon as well.
Yes exactly Dread, we need both; and paradoxically therefore study is a kind of practice.
It takes two wings to fly. While I meditate daily, my knowledge wing is quite weak. There is a real and high-quality education in this channel and I benefit from it.
Glad to hear it, Archie. 🙏
As I listened to your video, the thought arose that wisdom is the merging of theory and practice. Reflection and listening are two parts of theoretical development. The dialectical relationship of reflection and listening builds the basis for understanding, and the practice refines that understanding. It is like a wheel, constantly turning
Thank you for your posts!
You're very welcome! 🙏
Hi Doug. I'm delighted to have discovered your channel. Thank you for sharing your work with us. I'm finding it a very lucid resource as a 'beginner', and I'm sure it is valuable to those more experienced and knowledgeable as well. My background is also in philosophy, predominantly in the analytic tradition. My previous exposure to Buddhism came predominantly through reading Schopenhauer and Nietzsche; it was, therefore, comparatively superficial and gave a rather pessimistic impression of Buddhism. I recently stumbled across Walpola Rahula's book "What the Buddha taught", and I feel it has opened my eyes. I had encountered Hindu philosophy before, and I was always impressed by its depth and sophistication, but I tended to find it too metaphysical. I feel that Buddhism combines sober pragmatism with an impressive degree of conceptual clarity and rigour. And I feel a little ripped off that all my formal philosophical education, supposedly to encounter the best thoughts of the human mind, has allowed me to remain largely ignorant of Buddhism for so long! I can see parallels to thinkers in the Western philosophical tradition - the Epicureans (surprisingly), the Phyrronians, the Stoics, Spinoza, Schopenhauer.
Since I imagine that your formal philosophical training was also primarily in the Western tradition, I have a couple of questions. What should someone with my sort of background be wary of in making comparisons to parallels in western philosophy, in order to avoid overlooking what is distinctive about the Buddhist tradition? And are there any good resources or reading you would recommend (other than to study the standard Buddhist texts, and to generally explore the area) for someone more used to the analytic style of philosophy who is interested in exploring Buddhism?
Yes my background also is in the western tradition, analytic philosophy in particular. For reading, right I would be wary of making quick comparisons, because you may miss the forest for the trees by trying to find parallels. That said, I think the closest parallels in the western tradition are with Hume's and Parfit's notion of the self. I did a video on non-self awhile back where I mention a bit of this: th-cam.com/video/gSZjKKuvHEQ/w-d-xo.html . There are indeed also parallels with Stoicism and Epicureanism in particular as regards practice, though Buddhist practice was significantly more advanced and rigorous than any found in western philosophy. You may also want to check out my video on the Buddha's being a philosopher: th-cam.com/video/PUr-X8Q-HcY/w-d-xo.html , and read the paper linked in the notes that I wrote with my friend philosopher Justin Whitaker, where we used some ideas of Pierre Hadot to expand on how philosophy and practice went together in the classical western tradition. Buddhism is a very different language of philosophy than found in the west so it does take a bit of learning, but I think it's worth the effort.
@@DougsDharma
Thanks for your reply.
I appreciated the paper you co-authored. It gave me a good flavour of what to expect from further study of the Buddha himself.
I'm not familiar first-hand with Hadot's work. If his thesis is primarily that modern academic philosophy is something of an entirely different character from what being a "lover of wisdom" originally implied in the Western tradition, then it seems to be simply an unassailable historical fact. The latter included a serious concern with askesis ('training'), phronesis ('practical wisdom'), techne ('skill'?), whereas the former confines itself largely to what the ancient greeks would have considered episteme ('theoretical knowledge'). And Hadot is clearly right to identify a practical therapeutic orientation within the foundational wisdom traditions of the West. Certainly, as you argued, Gautama Buddha's teachings have a similar orientation. And if, in addition to this, we consider criteria such as comprehensiveness, thoroughness, and robust argumentation then there doesn't seem to be any coherent way of distinguishing between, say, the Buddha and Socrates.
I am a little wary, however, of any attempt to specify a set of criteria which will enable us to determine who is or isn't a "philosopher". Marx, Freud, Jung, Tolstoy, etc. were all wide-ranging and robust thinkers with practical and therapeutic aims in mind. Should we consider them all "philosophers"? Perhaps; perhaps not. Our problem here is that "philosophy" itself cannot be defined in philosophically neutral terms. Sellars, with admirable generality, described the aim of philosophy as "to understand how things in the broadest possible sense of the term hang together in the broadest possible sense of the term". But, as is evient here, that definition tilts things unfairly in favour of purely theoretical and reflective philosophers, rather than those who aim at, say, practical wisdom or the eradication of suffering. Perhaps Rorty is closer to the mark - there is nothing, in principle, to distinguish a "philosopher" from a good reflective specialist. Whilst I think this helps to highlight that "philosopher" functions more as an honorific title than anything else, the danger, if everything is philosophy, is that nothing is philosophy. But perhaps this isn't quite as danngerous a conclusion as it seems: after all, what makes philosophy so inevitable is that everyone *has* a philosophy whether they realise it or not. The problem is that it is mostly *bad* philosophy, philosophy which is ill thought-through because it has not been properly examined. What we are left with, then, is to distinguish not between philosophers and non-philosophers, but between *good* philosophy and *bad* philosophy. Intellectually I think we inevitably end up making the sorts of distinctions G. H. Hardy made about mathematical ideas concerning their "depth" and "importance" in relation to other ideas. But there is no entirely value-neutral way of sorting the good from the bad; even the intellectual values of, for example, "clarity" and "rigour" are somewhat contested. And things are even more inevitably partisan where questions of ultimate values are at stake. But I think it must nevertheless command widespread agreement to say that the problem of suffering is not only inherently quite deep, but is of of great, if not the greatest, importance to human beings. It follows that any thinker who deals with this problem in a serious way will be an important one, worthy of our attention. All that remains is to *show* people the Buddha's contributions to this problem, and it becomes clear that they are serious contributions. This, I think, is the strength of your paper - it gives a taste of why the Buddha is not just a "philosopher", in accordance with certain stipulated conditions, but why he is a *good* and an important philosopher.
It's a shame 'Buddhologists' can't just outright say: "study Buddhist thought because it's good". But that, in the final analysis, is ultimately why we study Wittgenstein, Hume, Kant, etc. - because, at least as far as questions of linguistic meaning, epistemology, and the nature of mind are concerned, we tend to think that they are *good* philosophers. Especially now that philosophy in the anglosphere has broadened its horizons to encompass political philosophy, applied ethics, abstruse metaphysics in the form of mereology, etc. there is no excuse for neglecting Buddhist thought on the grounds that it falls outside the narrow set of concerns which formerly characterised it. Fortunately, in my own experience, there are signs that this might be beginning to change.
I've not read Parfit's Reasons and Persons. The problem of personal identity never much interested me before - the last time I thought seriously about it I was heavily under the influence of Wittgenstein, and thought it was one of those philosophers' confusions over what was probably an ordinary language concept without necessary and sufficient conditions. I did re-read Parfit's paper 'Personal Identity' and found it a convincing formalisation of quite intuitive notions about psychological connectedness. What was particularly interesting, re-reading it with Buddhism in mind, was how Parfit explicitly related the abstract problem of "personal identity" to the traditional therapeutic concerns of philosophy: assuaging fear of death, egoism, regret, etc. This is rather 'against the grain' within analytic philosophy! He notes that emotions or attitudes can be criticised "for resting on a false belief, or for being in consistent", and concludes by hoping that "more of what is bad [than good] depends upon false belief". There is an obvious parallel here to avidya giving rise to dukkha.
Usually, the "analytic" tradition, from British Empiricism onwards, tends rather towards dogmatism on behalf of our "common sense" attitudes and reactions. Hume himself, despite his 'bundle' conception of the Self bearing a striking resemblance to the doctrine of anatta, famously defends the sovereignty of the "passions". Parfit even quotes Hume's remark that the "refined reflections which philosophy suggests ... cannot diminish ... our vicious passions ... without diminishing ... such as are virtuous". Someone who exemplifies the general spirit of this tradition perfectly is P. F. Strawson, who denied even that it was an objection to an attitude that it rests upon false belief: "A sustained objectivity of interpersonal attitude, and the human isolation which that would entail, does not seeem to be something of which human beings would be capable, even if some general truth were a theoretical ground for it" (from 'Freedom and Resentment'). For Strawson, as for Hume, our natural dispositions are not only inescapable givens, but they are even beyond the criticism of reason, being themselves the ultimate grounds on which alone criticism of any kind can be based: if something is "part of the general framework of human life" then it is "not something that can come up for review as particular cases can come up for review within this general framework", any more than than the legal system put itself on trial.
I don't know what Buddhist views on meta-ethics, if such exist, tend to be. Not wanting to suffer seems to me as much a "part of the general framework of human life" as our clinging to our attachments - here we have one court at odds with another. And I think, from practical experience, that Strawson is unduly pessimistic: greater tranquility is an option for us if we make the effort.
I am sure these thoughts are of interest to very few, but I wish I'd had them sooner. But - who knows? - perhaps someone reading this was caught in the same tangles as I was.
I'm still enjoying going through your videos! Your contributions are appreciated. Sorry for the delayed reply.
I think I start to understanding a little bit what the Buddha said all along, "the eightfold path" : sila (right speech, right action, right livelihood), samadhi (right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration), panna (right view, right resolve). They go together. One ought to keep up with or maintain the sila to have a "clearer" mind to go to samadhi and panna. I think.
That’s right, acting kindly and ethically towards others leads to a clearer, calmer mind.
From the Zen perspective, it's really all about the practice. Having an intellectual understanding can actually be seen as an impediment to realization/enlightenment. The simpler the mind, the better . . .
Yes, some do see it that way. Thanks, Stone.
Indeed a Breathtaking explanation.Gives me a lot of knowledge !
Its true, those who study (after hearing wisdom )dhamma theory wise,of course they also doing some kind of practice.(reflective wisdom), that simultaneously leads for gaining cultivating wisdom.( they are indirectly doing Dhammanupassana mindfulness here)
Because when one deals with theories, his mind is at a kind of mindfulness status.(during that time temporary mind is away from unwholesome thoughts or activities).That eventually brings him the cultivation of wisdom.
To further proving of the fact, there is a sutta called ' Pancha Vimukthayathana' (Five institutes of freeing mind from defilements = becoming enlightened)' It would be helpful !
May you be free from suffering sir !
Triple gem blessing for you and all !
Thank you, and the same to you as well! 🙏😊
I read it some where that Bahiya thought he was enlightened and a friend asked him to check with Buddha. He is well prepared to understand the pithy instructions from Buddha. His case is indeed an exception.
Right, apparently he thought he was enlightened but wasn't.
Always great to hear from you Doug 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰
Thank you kindly Andre! 🙏
I'm always believed that without the right study it's to go on the right path.
(Hard but not impossible)
I also believe that study is the base of practice, the more you know the better you can deal with states in meditation.
(Not to attack but)For some small school of local Buddhists in Thai forest Buddhism tradition, some may mistaken some jhaña states in mind for enlightenment
Such as pīti or upekkhā,
Because they don't study.
We know a little about Bāhiya's previous practice. He was also known as Bāhiya of the Bark-cloth, so he probably practiced wearing uncomfortable garments made of bark.
That's right, he seems at least from the description to have practiced austerities, as did many renunciants of his day like Ajita Kesakambali (Ajita of the Hair Blanket).
This is a topic that I have thought a lot about in the last couple years. When I first began Buddhism I was under the impression that study had a secondary if not minor importance and that everything that was to be accomplished was to be done through meditation. When I came to first experience and then later learn is that there is a small percentage of people with him meditation does not react well with and that was the case in my situation. I found that it made me feel worse rather than better. After realizing this I came to the conclusion that all I had left was study which at the time was disappointing to me because I thought of it as a lesser thing. Since that time though I feel like I have made a great deal of progress through study and contemplation maybe even more than I did in meditation considering how I was reacting to meditation. Since that time I come to realize that the Buddha didn't just show up and say hey everybody just meditate that's all there is but that he taught a very extensive and complex Dharma and didn't just tell people only meditate.
Well yes, though meditation is important, if at this stage of your practice you don't feel it's helping you then there certainly are plenty of other avenues open in studying and getting to know the dharma.
@@DougsDharma hey Doug thank you for the reply. One type of meditation that I do now is mantra meditation. Have you ever made a video about that? And if not do you think you would ever consider doing so?
Yesterday was Abhidhamma day. Happy Abhidhamma day !!!
I had no idea there was an abhidhamma day, that's fun! 😄
@@DougsDharma PM Modi of India celebrated Abhidhamma day at Kushinagar(the place where Buddha attained Mahaparinirvana ). Thanks for replying❤️
From my understanding, what Buddha taught to Bahiya was the core teaching. That is, to pay wise attention to experiences coming from the six senses. It is the critical factor towards stream entry.
Contemplating the Dhamma can come in two forms. First is to understand the rationale and benefits after hearing it. Many suttas, especially those between disciples illustrate this. Second is to make use of contemplation to suppress, abandon or eradicate craving. For eg, contemplating corpse to counter lust; contemplating metta to counter hatred; contemplating impermanence to counter conceit.
I'm wary of theorizing Dhamma further. Throughout history, scholars had created too many suttas to theorize Dhamma. Dhamma is like the finger pointing to the moon. Instead of looking up to see the moon, one analyze, postulate and create thesis around the finger. Would one be able to see the moon if one only keep examining the finger?
True, contemplation can be taken too far. But it is as you say important to understand.
In many schools of Hinduism (yoga, Vedanta), there is a similar triad: sravana-manana-nididyasana which means listening, contemplation, practice.
Interesting! I wouldn't be surprised if the triad is pre-Buddhist.
This is edifying. I have better understood a number of things because of your teaching.
So happy to hear it, Michael! 🙏😊
Thank you very much. Your clear explanation is so helpful and reflecting to own practices.
Glad it was helpful!
nothing sacred - i asked a friend for more information about this phrase and got this reply -
And regards the "nothing sacred " it was Bodhidharma, Indian Buddhist guru meeting Chinese emperor for first time . Here s the full exchange and its a humdinger
Emperor Wu: "I have built many temples, copied innumerable Sutras and ordained many monks since becoming Emperor. Therefore, I ask you, what is my merit?"
Bodhidharma: "None whatsoever!" answered Bodhidharma.
Emperor Wu: "Why no merit?"
Bodhidharma:: "Doing things for merit has an impure motive and will only bare the puny fruit of rebirth."
Emperor Wu, a little put out: "What then is the most important principle of Buddhism?"
Bodhidharma: "Vast emptiness. Nothing sacred."
Emperor Wu, by now bewildered, and not a little indignant: "Who is this that stands before me?"
Bodhidharma: "I do not know."
Concerningn vast emptiness
“In the stillness by the empty window
I sit in formal meditation wearing my monk’s surplice,
Navel and nose in alignment
Ears parallel with shoulders.
Moonlight floods the room;
The rain stops, but the eaves drip and drip.
Perfect this moment
In the vast emptiness, my understanding deepens.”
(Ryokan Taigu, 1758-1831)
Thanks Ken!
Yeah it's important to study the Pali Cannon/Tripitika..as a Buddhist I truly believe. Many people have not read the whole Tripitika at least once, I still haven't. Working towards it..
So why is it important? Because if one does not know the True words of the Buddha they would end up being misguided by bad or foolish people, unwise monks, and rumours. Or even starting to follow ideas and views that are not alligned with the goal of Nibbana/Enlightenment.
Studying the theory is one part, yet one also needs to apply and practice them..through mediation, wise reflection (yoniso manasikara), keeping the precepts, being generous, associating with Noble Friends (monks/nuns and lay devotees of Buddhism)
Yeah in the past people were able to attain enlightenment stages from just hearing a verse of Dhamma from the Buddha. This is possible because, they have practiced and cultivated mediation states/faculties in past lives, hence for those that became enlightened that way. Was due to the 5 spiritual faculties still developed and being mature enough to attain those enlightenment stages 🙏
Yes I think studying the Tripitaka is important. Or if we're lucky enough to have a very accomplished teacher, they can teach us the same material in their words, and we can spend time studying and considering that too.
Thank you so much 😊
You're very welcome, Ramthian!
The STRUCTURE of the sangiti sutta has the same structure by the Anguttara Nikaya. I wonder if that was the initial prototype to the collection of the AN…
Yes, the structure of counting up numerically does seem a particularly basic way to organize the dharma by themes.
Study is surely better than ignorance. On the other hand, after having read/heard from many monks, one must accept that intellectual understanding can only get you so far - it is a personal experience and analytical thinking can't grasp the experience as it is. Practice (as in establishing the context of your experience) is a necessary condition for real progress.
Also, one should be careful about studying the sutta commentaries - they are often wrong. One should try to establish a view/understanding which corresponds to the actual sutta's descriptions, some of which will be closer (easier to find in oneself) and others further from one's own experiences.
Yes, good points saxy1player. The commentaries can be useful, but they can also at times be misleading. They have to be taken with a grain of salt or two. 😄
Heh... I went through a whole period where I felt totally betrayed by my books. The word currently really sticking out for me from your vids is "skill" and the idea of "having skills" and "being skillful" in these matters.
Yes, very important!
Studying the Dharma without meditation practice is like reading the instructions for putting together a piece of Ikea furniture without actually building it
True. Both are important.
Yes. Similarly, I've heard a teacher compare study and practice with reading the menu and eating the meal.
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Hi Doug@!
Hearing Doug is happy.
Bahiya? He was ready to enlighten.
Unnavha? He was also ready to enlighten.
5 bikkus? They were ready to enlighten by blistening Dharmachakkappavattana sutta.
Ananda? He was ready by that Nirvana song.
Doug also is almost ready to enlighten.
So this one say
Try to correct Dharmachakkappavattana sutta of Doug.
Today's that sutta is so polluted one.
That sutta must contain whole.
Try Tathagatha I of Doug.
Today's Bahiya sutta is also polluted one.
Right Dharmachakkappavattana sutta contains whole Buddha's sutta in it so Bahiya sutta also is in it.
Doug you really hope world to be nice don't you?
Start and goal is one.
Whence comes Right View? After pariyatti alone, or after pattipati and pativedha? I suspect one can be too clever for this practice and so get lost in pariyatti.
True, cleverness can itself become a trap, just as undirected practice can also veer off course and do the same. We need a balance.
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Sir , want to share my learnings regarding spirituality in some magazines, can you guide.
Unfortunately I don't have any very useful suggestions. Best of luck with it though!
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Only Westerners seem to be discussing these things. They think too much, which is good, but can also be a hindrance.
The way we practice in Asia - everything is practice. The moment you wake you should practice mindfulness, you cook food, you offer it to monks begging food. Listening to Dharma, meditating in temple... it's more of a way of life rather than an academic inquiry, nor is it a meditation practice detached from society (like something esoteric). Practice is always with Sangha, whether intellectual inquiry or meditative cultivation.
Anyway, I guess it's with upbringing, education, and culture.
Sure, but to be fair, very, very few people even in the west are interested in an academic inquiry into Buddhism, and many of those are not practitioners. Most Buddhist practitioners in the west aren't interested in the academic stuff either.
Can buddhism help someone struggling with depression?
Yes I think they can help, particularly with milder versions, along with things like social involvement and regular exercise. Deeper forms of depression though should be treated by a professional first.
@@DougsDharma can you tell me if there are some video focused on that, or maybe some course or Private sessions with you? Thank you very much
🙏🙏🙏 👍🌅🌧️🌎🌌💖😊
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Studying art, or mathematics, or the stock market, or Buddhism, or anything at all, could be a kind of Buddhist practice. Studying "Buddhism" in and of itself is not Buddhist practice, however.
How do you see the distinction?
@Doug's Dharma Hi Doug, I see it as a question of the amount of awareness brought to the activity. It might be more accurate to say that studying things can be *part* of buddhist practice if done with the proper awareness. But studying any topic from the usual standpoint of discursive thinking and mental activity doesn't strictly speaking constitute the essence of buddhist practice and is not likely of and by itself to be liberative. Hope that helps clarify the distinction I was trying to make.
Can you be an auto mechanic by reading repair manuals?
Sure, you can't be an auto mechanic just by reading repair manuals. By the same token, you will have a lot of difficulty being an auto mechanic without reading repair manuals.
Tibetin Buddhist is fake and mixed with hindu Original Buddhist book is tripitak Pali language You can translate pali to English