Quote:
Originally Posted by Zalister
(Post 501334)
? Being Buddhist myself and having studied it in college for a few years now...
Of course, the one thing you can always say about Buddhism as a religion is that it depends on the particular flavor of Buddhism you believe. In the ones I'm familiar with there really is no such thing as non-existence, just a non-existence of permanence of being. Meaning, things cannot stay the same for any amount of time, they will always change. This is often also referred to as emptiness of being.
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The way I was taught it, is that we are not violent because we are all are part of the same existence (or the same reality), thus we are all basically one being. And it is pointless to fight against oneself. We love everyone because we want good for all, including our own ego. Put in a more esoteric form, we always want was is best for ourselves (meaning everyone.)
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Ah, the Mahayana path, such a beautiful thing... :)
I'm not really Buddhist in the proper sense of the word (there isn't really a word for what I am - I keep trying to hold to that enigmatic thing that lies behind the faith of most every religion), but if you go down to the roots of buddhist philosophy I'm not sure that the 'we are all one' argument quite holds. Buddhism was steeped in Vedic (or maybe proto-Vedic) philosophy, which spent a lot of time arguing over the developmental relationship between the personal soul (atman), the 'universal' soul (brahman), and various intermediary things such as the devas (god-like manifestations of aspects of brahman). the great insight of buddhism was to point out that the
arguments themselves are conflicts that arise out of attachments. Even the belief in a universal soul, or in a personal soul, can lead to attachments that can draw you into conflict and away from peace. At core, buddhism has to say 'no way to know', except to rid yourself of attachment after attachment after attachment and see what's left when all attachments are gone. The 'we are all one' idea (which, note, is almost entirely absent from Theraveda) came later, due to a number of factors (Hindu influences in Vajrayana buddhism, Taoist influences in Zen/Chan, one of the later buddha's observation that the quest for
personal liberation can easily become an attachment in its own right...). Not that it's a wrong idea, of course; but the fact that it
is an idea rather than an experienced reality places it among the things that can give rise to dukkha.
of course, you have to place things in the context of what people can understand. the notion that 'we always want was is best for ourselves (where ourselves means everyone)' is easier to grasp than the idea that neither the self nor anyone else exists in the way we mean the term, and it places things in a moral light that is useful for those (99.999%) of us who are still attached to the concept of a self. it goes a long way towards ameliorating the conflicts that arise from that attachment (e.g. 'I have a self, and that self wants things, and that wanting would naturally bring me into conflict with others,
except the others I would conflict with are really me, so...'). but eventually (on the path) that schism between the self and the other would disappear as meaningless, and when it disappears there would no longer be a need for the binding thought that we are all one.
this is reminding me of an old joke. Rene DesCartes was sitting in his study when he suddenly came to the realization 'I think therefore I am'. a moment later, his butler came in and asked him if he wanted a cup of tea. DesCartes, still glowing from his insight, smiled and said 'Oh, no, I think not...', and promptly disappeared in a puff of smoke. :D
@fazstp - man, didn't you ever watch 'Kung Fu'? that show did more to promote (and obfuscate) buddhism in America than anything else I can think of.
