The Philosophy of Buddhism

Introduction

Remarkably the Buddha’s Philosophy dating back 2400 years bears a striking resemblance to those sages that were soon to follow. The ancient Greeks represented by the Stoics, Plato and Aristotle all adopted similiar ideas independently or through interaction- for noone knows. That amalgam of ideas as to how to live the good life, a happier and more virtuous one, to deal with and overcome suffering, speaks to us today just as it did then.

Buddhism embraces science in modernity as the Dali Lamar reaches out to the scientific world in asserting its relevance to the in underpinning a happier existence, to quell a troubled world. 

Buddhism in terms of mindfulness and its wisdom stream has been demonstrated to reap healthy outcomes. The Dalai Lama has emphasised the need for a Universal Responsibility to be adopted by all major religious- traditions – to affirm a message of love, compassion and forgiveness.

Upon any form of sickness the Buddhist ideal is for the patient to seek medical treatment but to show compassion and mindfulness leading to calm and inner peace.    

Well known celebrities such as Richard Gear, Arthur C Clarke and in the more modern philosophical era both Wittgenstein and Russell endorse its philosophy.  

An overview of Buddhism and its evolution as spread out into the world

Buddhism first arose from the teachings of the Buddha Gautama who lived in the 6th century BC as an alternate response to its roots in Hinduism in India. His charismatic teaching was to take hold during a period of great social change and intense religious activity where many were no longer content with the external formalities of Brahmanic (Hindu high-caste) sacrifice and ritual.

As Buddhism took hold it spread out to Southeast Asia, China, Korea and Japan to play a pivotal role in the spiritual, cultural, and social life of the Eastern world.

More recently in its modernised mindful aspect it has taken hold during the 20th century as it spread to the West. 

Key Concepts and interpretation of his teaching

Buddhist councils for centuries following the Buddha's death attempted to establish his true and original teachings. After 18 councils of deliberation over many centuries principally two schools of thought survived.    

Theravāda is considered foundational in line with traditional Buddha's teachings. It posits the supremacy of the Buddha and his teachings to attain ‘enlightenment’ where one reaches a state where all suffering ceases referenced as ‘Nirvana’: that which is only attainable by Monks. But by following Buddhist principles lay people can be reborn into more positive circumstances. 

Mahāyāna is where Buddhists believe enlightenment can be attained in a single lifetime, and this can be accomplished even by a layperson. 

The Mahāyāna tradition is by fare the largest major tradition of Buddhism today, with 53% of practitioners, compared to 36% for Theravāda. 

Buddhism has become modified as it spread out to encompass further schools of thought that broadly assert:

·       Within each of us is a Buddha nature.

·       Attained by emptying the mind of preconceptions to allow for intuitive and meditative thinking or awareness. 

·       Accessibility through all sincere spiritual practices- meditation, mantra m praying, physical exercise, songs of realisation and so forth. 

·       The true self is nondual. 

·       Possible to reach enlightenment in a single lifetime, 

·       Can be part or complementary to any religion including Christianity. 

The Fundamental message is about suffering, impermanence, and no-self. Existence is painful and individuality implies limitation which gives rise to desire; and inevitably then causes suffering. 

What is desired is transitory and perishing- leading to disappointment and sorrow. The “path” taught by the Buddha, dispels the “ignorance” that perpetuates this suffering.

Hence, life is a stream of becoming, a series of manifestations and extinctions. The concept of the individual ego is a delusion; the objects with which people identify themselves—fortune, social, position, family, body, and even mind—are not their true selves. There is nothing permanent, and, if only the permanent deserved to be called the self, or atman, then nothing is self. There can be no individuality without a putting together of components. This is becoming different, and there can be no way of becoming different without a dissolution, a passing away.

Existence in terms of the Five aggregates

Buddhists set forth the theory of the five aggregates or constituents of human existence: (1) corporeality or physical forms (2) feelings or sensations (3) ideations i.e. perceptions or cognition/thinking (4) mental formations or dispositions i.e. intentions and (5) consciousness i.e. self-awareness.

According to Buddhists a person is in a process of continuous change, with no fixed underlying entity.

Rebirth, is potentially an endless series of worldly existences in which every being is caught up was already associated with the doctrine of karma - in pre-Buddhist India under Hinduism this concept was generally accepted by both the Theravāda and the Mahāyāna traditions.

Karma in the form of good conduct brings a pleasant and happy result to engender similar good acts, while bad conduct brings an evil result to create repeated evil actions. This furnishes the basic context for the moral life of the individual. Some karmas bear fruit in the same life in which they are committed, others in the immediately succeeding one, and others in future lives that are more remote.

The acceptance by Buddhists of the belief in karma and rebirth while holding to the doctrine of no- self gave rise to a difficult problem: how can rebirth take place without a permanent subject to be reborn? Indian non-Buddhist philosophers attacked this vulnerable point in Buddhist thought, and many modern scholars have also considered it to be an insoluble question.

However, the relation between existences in rebirth has been explained by the analogy of fire, which maintains itself unchanged in appearance and yet is different in every moment—what may be called the continuity of an ever- changing identity.

The Four Noble Truths

·       The truth of misery, the truth that misery originates within us from the craving for pleasure that can be eliminated in a methodical way or path.

·       Hence, the Buddha formulated the law of dependent origination whereby one condition arises out of another, which in turn arises out of prior conditions.

·       Every mode of being presupposes another immediately preceding mode from which the subsequent mode derives, in a chain of causes.

·       The misery that is bound up with all sensate existence is accounted for by a methodical chain of causation.

The Eightfold Path

The Noble Eightfold Path is constituted by right views, right aspirations, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right meditational attainment. The term right (true or correct) is used to distinguish sharply between the precepts of the Buddha and other teachings. In effect what we might refer to today as virtue ethics. 

Nirvana

The aim of religious practice is to be rid of the delusion of ego, thus freeing oneself from the fetters of a mundane world. One who is successful in doing so, is said to have overcome the round of rebirths and to have achieved enlightenment. This is the final goal—not a paradise or a heavenly world.

Though nirvana is often presented negatively as “release from suffering,” it is more accurate to describe it in a more positive fashion: As an ultimate goal, to be sought and cherished. Though it is true the Buddha avoided discussion of the ultimate condition that lay beyond the categories of the phenomenal world. What the Buddha said when questioned on such matters is in effect it is enough knowing how to get there rather than to ponder such unknowns.

Conclusion  

Budda was an empiricist who observed the reality of suffering in the word to link such suffering to desires and unhealthy attachments that can never be satisfied. The way out of this reality where we are stuck in an endless cycle of suffering was to first acknowledge these noble truths and then to lay open the pathway to enlightenment. Buddhist philosophy accepts the cycle of birth and death and disease but puts forward the means by way of rebirth can end the cycle of attaining the state of nirvana in this life or the next. The question arises as to what happens next when one attains such an enlightened state is never answered by the Buddha. He contends it is enough to know how to get there by adopting the virtuous 8 fold steps.            

Hence this can be seen very much as a workmanlike approach that involves a continuing process that can be undertaken invoking references to meditative and intuitive mediums that vary across different schools. Suffice to say the answers to our questions along that path is for each individual to experience. It is not prescriptive in that sense of following rigid doctrines although these are integral to its philosophy.

Rather they underpin the way forward which can only be experienced and talked about in gradual steps to its ultimate aim of Nirvana – beyond the ceiling imposed by language.                    

Q & A

What aspects of Buddhism do you think seem reasonable as accounts of human reality?

The search for meaning to overcome suffering by following the enlightened pathway to happiness is both a reasonable and appealing aim to “being in the world”. So it’s hardly surprising we see elements elsewhere in western philosophy just as Buddhist schools have been influenced by alternate philosophises throughout the world.    

Buddhist thinking is evident within the home of western philosophy in ancient Greece where rational, abstract logical considerations took precedent. Here we see the desirability of striving to attain the “golden mean” by Aristotle as analogous to Buddhism’s ‘middle way" in common with the pursuit of happiness.

Aristotle’s ideal of attaining happiness echoes Buddhism as both articulate a gradual cumulative process of human development aimed at attaining an enlightened state.

Mindfulness attributable to Buddhism has been demonstrated to yield improved health and wellbeing and particularly in psychology.    

https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/buddhist-psychology-east-meets-west/202009/buddhisms-place-in-psychology

https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/the-cube/202203/when-the-buddha-gave-psychology-lesson

 

What aspects of Buddhism speak most clearly to your own personal experience?

In 'Philosophy Now' Brian Morris describes four varieties of Buddhist metaphysics, and questions whether they can form one coherent system of thought.

I mostly agree with the writer as I see their continued relevance today.    

Buddhism and Stoicism Are Closer Linked than You'd Think –

Both offer real life hope and resilience to the inevitable trials and tribulation inherent in existence.  

https://bigthink.com/personal-growth/would-marcus-aurelius-be-a-buddhist-today/

What aspects of Buddhism resemble ideas in western philosophy?

The ancient Greeks inclusive of Stoicism and Aristotelians have similar ideas as summarised above.

The Scottish philosopher David Hume wrote: "When I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe anything but the perception” which some feel has a Buddhist flavour to it.

But how would one even know that if that's all there is to human beings? How would you determine what one perception is as distinct from another? Rather I think the Buddhist idea of a non self rests on the idea of impermanence and a more rational analogy is evident in Process philosophy. 

Process philosophy embraces the novelty of experienced reality to rely on intuition and reject permanence, uniformity and materialism. 

Arthur Schopenhauer was influenced by Indian religious texts and later claimed that Buddhism was the "best of all possible religions. Schopenhauer's view that "suffering is the direct and immediate object of life and that this is driven by a restless will and striving" are similar to the Four Noble Truths of the Buddha.  Schopenhauer promoted the saintly ascetic life of the Indian sramanas as a way to renounce the Will. His view that a single world-essence (The Will) comes to manifest itself as a multiplicity of individual things (principium individuationis) has been compared to the Buddhist doctrine as developed in Yogacara Buddhism. Finally, Schopenhauer's ethics which are based on universal compassion for the suffering of others can be compared to the Buddhist ethics of Karuṇā.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_and_Western_philosophy#:~:text=Arthur%20Schopenhauer%20was%20influenced%20by,Four%20Noble%20Truths%20of%20the

Immanuel Kant's Transcendental Idealism has also been compared with the Indian philosophical approach of the Madhyamaka school by scholars such as T. R. V. Murti. Both posit that the world of experience is in one sense a mere fabrication of our senses and mental faculties. For Kant and the Madhyamikas, we do not have access to 'things in themselves' because they are always filtered by our mind's 'interpretative framework'. Thus both worldviews posit that there is an ultimate reality and that reason is unable to reach it. Buddhologists like Edward Conze have also seen similarities between Kant's antinomies and the unanswerable questions of the Buddha in that "they are both concerned with whether the world is finite or infinite, etc., and in that they are both left undecided."

Bertrand Russell’s affinity is noted as he regarded Buddhism as the only religion compatible with science. But it must be remembered that Russell was part of a generation which looked on metaphysics with disdain. Bertrand Russell is my view became unnecessarily wedded to a purely scientific philosophical underpinning.       

A ‘Philosophy Now’ article talks about the meditations of Descartes (1596-1650) to ascertain any similarities in his approach compared to traditional Zen Buddhism.

At first glance one might conclude there are fundamental differences since western philosophy seeks to ask profound questions with responses usually guided by logic to form a narrative about such things as what is the meaning of life, the nature of the mind and what language is. Buddhism on the other hand draws its strength from inward meditative practices manifested in the eightfold paths to enlightenment. 

However, the author suggests there is a correlation in the approaches of both in what might be reasonably construed as their use of Koans.     
Koans used during meditative practices in Buddhism.   

Koans are used during meditative practices and are paradoxical statements or parables or questions that need not have a logical answer. The idea is for the student to abandon any preconceived ideas and instead rely on intuitive responses from meditating about the question, paradox or parable to achieve an enlightened response. 

The Buddhist is schooled on the idea that one cannot solve the Koan, for its value is in the response and the enlightenment realized. The Buddhist might spend a lifetime finding appropriate responses, the determinate to enlightenment. 

Does Buddhism seem consistent with a modern ‘scientific’ world view?

Some modern figures argue Buddhism is both rational and uniquely compatible with science.

Buddhism’s mindfulness and the designated pathway to enlightenment presents a wisdom stream that might be considered a modern “scientific” world view.

However, what might seem remarkable that such views arose

Buddhism’s evolutionary journey from its Hindu roots, less the priestly traditions, rituals and caste systems has been modified to accommodate its expansion into the world. This is evident more recently into western culture and previously Asia and along the Silk Road.

One of its central elements is a style of mindfulness meditation practice that derives largely from the modern Theravāda Buddhist meditation revival in Burma, Thailand, and Sri Lanka. 19^th and 20^th centuries. Robert Sharf     

 https://philosophyofbrains.com/2017/01/23/the-embodied-mind-in-hindsight.aspx

Robert Sharf, who is a scholar of Buddhist studies at UC Berkeley and he has, apparently, heard this kind of question before, is specific in terms of the challenge he thinks Buddhism presents the sciences' presumed philosophical basis.

"In order to make Buddhism compatible with science," Sharf says, "Buddhist Modernism ... accepts a Cartesian dualistic understanding of the world." This Cartesian separation would, he claims, be pretty weird to most Buddhist teachers throughout its history. As he puts it:

"Traditional Buddhist epistemology, for example, simply does not accept the Cartesian notion of an insurmountable gap between mind and matter. Most Buddhist philosophies hold that mind and object arise interdependently, so there is no easy way to separate one's understanding of the world from the world itself."

Scholars have deduced from the Buddhist writers what they consider are the foundational aspects which however don’t necessarily encompass the current “mindfulness” ideas that are attributed to Buddhism.

The scholar here presents a view about its early roots increasingly becoming repositioned into mindfulness in its evolutionary journey and particularly in the last few centuries.    

https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2017/05/11/527533776/buddhism-and-science

References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_and_Western_philosophy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Buddhist_schools