Posts by Scott

"Of the ancient Indian philosophies of..."

I know a bit about the ancient Indian traditions prior to Buddhism, but I'm no expert in those. I'm about at the Wikipedia level on that stuff But I can say a few things about Buddhism at any rate.

HOWEVER... I just completed a quick romp through the forum and it seems to me most every significant topic surrounding a comparison of Buddhism and EP has been kicked around in this forum multiple times. There are discussions on this stuff starting several years ago. The dead horse is hardly recognizable now. And it seemed to me a lot of the threads didn't really lead to any definitive answers or useful information. I think Nate was right when he said "I don't think that comparisons between Buddhism and Epicurean philosophy are helpful. They are dissimilar and historically unrelated." I would add to that that Buddhism became so variegated through time that today we would need to specify very particular Buddhist lineages/schools in order to attempt a sensible comparison. Even the most commonly shared teachings like the "Four Noble Truths" and so forth have RADICALLY different meanings between schools.

So let's take just one example here - the GOAL of the Buddhist life. The stated goal(s) of the different traditions do NOT match! There are fundamental differences. Even though many Buddhists would refer to the ultimate goal as "Nirvana", in modern "Secular Buddhism", we have the currently popular Stephen Batchelor who says based on the earliest Pali writings of Buddhism that the goal of life (aka Nirvana) may be identified as "human flourishing". Batchelor presents a modern, engaged-with-the-world idea. It is certainly not about suppressing desire, but involves working with desires so they don't become problems. But the Theravada tradition (one of the largest and oldest branches of Buddhism - also steeped in the early Pali scriptures) goes in a different direction and says the ultimate goal is "cessation of all suffering", which they also call Nirvana but this is understood as being obtained by training the mind in silent meditation (basically for years and years) with minimal contact with the outside "world". This is to produce the (frequently criticized) result of someone who is totally "unfettered" by desires (desires being the cause of suffering, in this view). Mahayana Buddhists OTOH (like Tibetan, Zen, etc.) consider the Theravada tradition of spending all your time in self-absorption trying to liberate yourself as being involved in a kind of selfishness (which is a big no-no), and so they go in yet a different direction. They hold forth the ideal of the "Bodhisattva" which is a kind of infinitely compassionate person everyone tries to become in order to go around saving everyone else from suffering. Then we have the goal for Pure Land Buddhists - to chant and pray to Amida Buddha (an incarnation of the Buddha) hoping to be delivered to the Pure Land (a kind of heaven) after death. Resembles Christianity. This rambling of mine (sorry for the length) is only a tiny fraction of understanding only 4 schools regarding just one idea - the "goal" of the Buddhist life, and believe me I have only scratched the surface!

Now Epicurus had to defend his philosophy against competitors. And if I understand it correctly (and I might not - I'm not a scholar in Classical/Hellenistic Greece!) this competition was not just for recognition - money and resources were also on the line. A successful philosophical school won patrons and students and thrived. But here today in EF we don't have that situation of course. Still sometimes it feels like a battle is going on. EP against X, EP against Y, EP against Buddhism, etc. For me I just find studying various philosophies fun and interesting and - more importantly - helpful in living a good life. Differences between philosophical perspectives help clarify ideas, through contrast and comparison. This seems worthwhile. But if we're going to do comparisons of EP to Buddhism, I think it would be more productive to narrow down to particular branches of Buddhism or I think even better, just specific concepts. This approach may not help so much with the project of making EP "triumph" over other perspectives, but I think it works better to help gain useful insights.

First, the disclaimer:

I have great hesitation even posting in this thread. This should probably be 12 different threads. There is so much here to take on. Let me start with - like it or not - there are very many understandings of Buddhism, many of which directly contradict each other, and we have NO written version of what the Buddha said. We all know how difficult it is to make sense of a philosophy that has been written down, especially over years by different authors, passing through translations by different peeps in history, through various languages old and modern - now just imagine that with no certain starting point. At all. They started writing the Buddha's words down probably around 3-400 years after the Buddha had died and one could argue they are essentially still adding to the canon - there is no "revealed" or "authentic" truth / version by a god or an Epicurus or other religious leader or philosopher (of course various sects claim various parts of the canon as authoritative).

Now I'm sure some or many concepts actually presented by the Buddha managed to be maintained with some degree of correctness, and still exist in the writings we have. But it's impossible to nail this down. Again - like it or not, this is what we got.

The Buddhist common disclaimer is "oh, people at that time had great memory capabilities and they were verbally able to pass down the teachings reliably". Really? I'm calling baloney on that. Some Buddhists will also often say that this flexibility is by design of the Buddha and this is valuable, that there is no determinate path. Each person can fashion a "raft" to get to the other side of the proverbial river, and the Buddha's teachings can help, but you have to fashion your own raft. In Zen they would say the Buddha was like pointing a finger at the moon. Don't get hung up on the finger and keep looking at it - the point is the moon (and of course what the "goal" is suggested by this moon is itself another long topic).

Quote from Cassius

Don't people who are attracted to it have "some" idea of the basic teachings before they dive into the details? What are those basic attractions that get people started down that path in the first place?

Generally, modern converts to some form of Buddhism encounter one or another flavor of Buddhism (either one of the traditional/regional versions or a more modern variant, or some combination) and they learn their "basics" there.

Often people then dabble in other versions they hear about, though some folks stick with their original.

Many peeps discover "Mindfulness", then find out it came from Buddhism and other ancient Indian traditions and they look up local Buddhist groups in their town and off they go to meditate there.

It's a smorgasbord out there, and one can pick and choose. Today of course we have broad access to all different types of Buddhism in a way that was never even possible a couple of hundred years ago. While there are many shared ideas among different versions and some that certain groups argue are "core" to all Buddhism or most, in reality the ideas criss-cross in complicated ways, and there are also basic, fundamental, radical differences between many of the "Buddhisms".

Quote from Cassius

So if possible I'd like us to work on a thread for "the rest of us" - Epicureans in particular, of course, who want to get an initial grasp of what is fairly referrable to as generic Buddhism from a Western perspective. That way we can hopefully get a grasp on at least a couple of core concepts.

I think going after some core concepts is a good idea. My today is really busy, so I apologize I'm going to step away now, after having dumped this out here. I'll try to post some more of my thoughts soon regarding specific concepts, but I just wanted to first throw out this well worn wet blanket in an attempt to maybe cool the flames just a tidge and encourage more focus. "Buddhism" is a bugger to pin down. It's like one of the agents in the Matrix movie. They move fast and they morph. Hard to land a bullet on them.

Welcome, @SimonTrepanier ! Enjoy learning about Epicureanism. It's fascinating!

Welcome, stevia81

You will do well to tarry here. Here pleasure is the highest good. Glad to have you with us!

Welcome, ayraj!

Quote from smoothiekiwi

I can't even find an example when mindfulness is bad or has harmful effects

I agree @smoothiekiwi, Mindfulness is used for what most folks would consider "positive" purposes - generally. I have it as a technique I keep in my back pocket & I employ it often. It can be a positive tool And being "mindless" all the time is not a great option, IMHO. But, just to make a point ...Mindfulness as a technique can and has been used for about anything. On the extreme end, there is no reason a serial killer or assassin couldn't use it to better focus, control tension and anxiety when attempting a kill, etc. As a concrete example along these lines, Mindfulness is being used for training elite US (and other countries) military personnel - and not just for things like recovery from PTSD, but even for them to be better able to perform in high tension combat situations.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mindfu…-special-forces

Mindfulness training as cognitive training in high-demand cohorts: An initial study in elite military servicemembers

Cognitive ability is a key selection criterion for entry into many elite professions. Herein, we investigate whether mindfulness training (MT) can enh…

www.sciencedirect.com

https://www.army.mod.uk/people/join-well/managing-stress/mindfulness-course/

Happy Birthday EricR and congrats on being the FIRST birthday entry in the forum! That's prestigious enough, but even better is to find out what birthday gift Cassius is planning to give you!

How far north are you anyway, Eric? Beyond Grand Marais Minnesota? That's where my little sister lives.

Peace,

Scott

That's 2-5pm start time for those of us in AZ. I should be able to make that.

"food participation"?

I am interested in attending.

Haha! Wow! That's good stuff. So easy even *I* might be able to do it. (I'm the one of the world's WORST small talkers. I've never been comfortable with it.)

Quote from Don

Is that a *Philadelphia* Eagles reference?

Actually, Don, no. I'm afraid I know nothing about that sports team (or any sports team, basically). I was just giving the VS# that I thought related to the Eagles song - where Cassius was asking:

Quote from Cassius

what Vatican Saying needs a particular type of song that fits Already Gone?

Quote from Cassius

Of Course!

Awesome! How do I collect my prize?

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...oh wait. I got PLEASURE from that! 🙂🙃🙂

47?

Quote from Cassius

"Epicurean calculus"

OMG that's the first I've heard this term. Perfect! I'm using that instead of hedonic calculus from now on! "Hedonic calculus" is sooo loaded with baggage which is not in line with what we know of Epicurean thinking! It is a term that will just continually cause misunderstanding. Thanks for that one Cassius!

Welcome, nixmercury!

It was great chatting with you. Nice to have an informal, relaxed opportunity to discuss ideas and questions. I hope this continues.

I plan to attend. Discussing personal outlines is a fine topic IMO. We could also have "Q&A" time, in which anyone can pose a question on their minds about EP and everyone can discuss. I'm pretty sure everyone has questions they could ask, and there would be plenty of discussion, and hopefully some answers to questions posed. Cassius, I have no doubts you would be able to gracefully facilitate and keep things within the EF forum guidelines if things strayed off course. (If no one really knows the answer to a posed question or there is no consensus on the "answer", someone could be assigned to try to go after finding out more and bring that back to the group next week?)

I haven't looked into the discussions on KBs on these applications so I can't speak to that, but I have used tools similar to the Geo mapping and those can sometimes be helpful in brainstorming and information/knowledge design.

And hyperlinking between documents is a great feature. Outlines like Epicurus employed are good, but he of course didn't have hyperlinking capability - like what we have built-in to this forum, allowing jumps between relevant material that would otherwise either not be known about, or when it was, be cumbersome to locate and travel to.

*Obsidian and Logseq also provide other capabilities beyond what Markdown does. They help organize and structure the files that are created in Markdown. Think like outlines and hyperlinks and creating knowledge bases