Comments on Prose practice: Living a monastic life for 10 days

Ben, good to hear! I had enough material for 10 po...

2010-11-09T12:04:38.500+02:00

Ben, good to hear! I had enough material for 10 posts like this one in my head but no time to write it all up properly, so I was not very satisfied with this post, but it looks like it has served a purpose well. It will sure be interesting to hear your take on this when you get back.

Thanks very much for detailing your skeptical conc...

2010-11-07T03:41:38.247+02:00

Thanks very much for detailing your skeptical concerns with the ideology behind the course. It's very useful to see someone who is open to the possibility of consciousness-altering meditation, without entangling it with superstition.

I have been looking for a meditation course that could be satisfactory without swallowing the unreasonable dogma, and your description convinces me that Vipassana could be what I'm looking for.

I've found a Vipassana retreat in my state and will look into trying to arrange the time to do it.

Thank you for your encouragement!

I had the same quesion and as an answer, I can onl...

2010-11-05T15:51:28.775+02:00

I had the same quesion and as an answer, I can only quote from the Visudimagga:

Mere suffering exists, no sufferer is found.
The deeds are, but no doer of the deeds is there.

No first beginning of existence can be seen.
No doer can be found, nor one that reaps the fruits.
And twelve fold empty is the cycle of rebirth,
And steadily the wheel of life rolls on and on.

And please don't view my posts as rabid evangelization of Buddhism. The last thing that I would want is someone to force his view on me. :)

I know very well the claim that Buddhism supposedl...

2010-11-05T15:37:50.917+02:00

I know very well the claim that Buddhism supposedly has no concept of soul - but in fact it does have such a concept implicitly, because the concept of rebirth depends on it: if there is no soul, what is the entity which reincarnates?

Buddhism has no concept of soul - this is the prim...

2010-11-05T15:19:29.580+02:00

Buddhism has no concept of soul - this is the primary differentiating idea with Hinduism and Abrahamic religions. To search for a 'soul' or a 'self' - be it eternal or non-eternal, is a fundamental delusion in the Buddhist doctrine.

Science can explain the 'how', but can it explain the 'why' ? Can it explain why people make the decisions they do ? Apparently not, and this is where philisophy comes in. Schopenhauer's Will to Live, Nietzsche's Will to Power and all the other myriad systems that have been concocted have one purpose - to explain ethics/morality. And in my opinion, morality is beyond science.

As regards rebirth, am still ambivalent.
I don't subscribe to the concept yet.
It does seem like ancient dogma - but if people can suspend their reasoning capacity to believe in heaven, hell, The Apocalypse ... Well. :)

The problem with rebirth is that it assumes a soul...

2010-11-05T14:44:32.958+02:00

The problem with rebirth is that it assumes a soul, something that is has an identity, but is not physical. Identity of a mind is decided by its memories; but it is a basic fact that all memories are stored in the physical structure of neurons in the brain. Therefore, when the brain disintegrates, the mind is lost together with it.

Hi, Rebirth is a touchy subject - I happened to b...

2010-11-05T14:25:19.016+02:00

Hi,

Rebirth is a touchy subject - I happened to be reflecting on this a couple of days ago. My ramblings on this (admittedly, a tad confused) are here:
http://sites.google.com/site/msujith/more

Now, before blindly rejecting anything, I always ask myself - What do I know ? Do I know the 'Cosmic Plan' ? Can Evil and God be ever reconciled somehow without descending into a maze of speculations (Adi Sankara ...) ? I wouldn't go so far as to call myself a Buddhist though I do have a certain amount of bias for the non-speculative clarity that his doctrine has. For that matter, when Nietzsche asks 'Have I have been understood ?', I nod and say, 'Yep'. And he died insane. :)

Anyway, I found it interesting to read about your experience. Funny enough, I came across this post when I was trawling through planet debian. :)

Sujith