26 replies to this topic

[susmariosep]

I said here somewhere, that I would like to study Buddha to find out what's in it for him in getting people to follow him with his teaching on desire as the root of suffering, how to overcome desire, thereby ending rebirth and arriving at Nirvana.

For me the answer is very simple, looking into myself and everyman in the street or that has ever lived long enough to use his reflective intelligence for honest self-introspection, he was into influencing people, exactly like that guy, Carnegie, isn't it? who also himself wrote the book, which everyone in charge of people or ambitious therein should read (No, I have never read it, but I know about its popularity), How to Make Friends and Influence People.*

Buddha was into influencing people. Why? Because it's so satisfying to a person, to you, to me, to everyone. That's why we also are here, trying to influence people. And for what, what else but recognition. That is the ultimate high. So, congratulations to Buddha, he has achieved his most human drive, recognition. And he died well-contented for having left a legacy to his name. Isn't that what all of us here are also keen on, if we do possess some ambition that is of any value in the last analysis to oneself that is, briefly: recognition and perpetuation of one's name.

When we can live much longer as is the dream of the ImmInst people here, then we can work on that aspiration longer and be more certain of achieving it, for ourselves, for you, for me, and for everyone who does not find satisfaction like the cow or sheep munching grass.

So I have decided instead to study Buddha from another angle, namely, where did he get his ideas, from his own thinking or from as with Jesus and Mohammad, from a transcendental source like with Jesus and Buddha, God. But Buddha does not believe in God, except the ones which are also into rebirths.

As a man in the street and with just my treasury of stock knowledge, I can speculate that a lot of his ideas are typical hand-me-down ones, from his own people and ethnic culture of learning. Is there anything original with the man? Who is that guy who talked about the medium being the message, Marshall McLuhan? (No, never read him, but only about his ideas and some say to be old hats even during his days.)

Perhaps Buddha was himself the message of himself, he happened to be an inspiring figure to people who choose to follow him. For people who choose not to follow him, he does not mean anything but a lot of hot air ideas. And that is exactly another study why people choose to follow Buddha, like a lot of Westerners who are tired and disappointed and even disgusted with their traditional Jesus.

I can however see a few things which in a way might be considered original with Buddha for his people during his days. One of them is his egalitarian attitude toward all men. No more for him all those castes higher and lower like priests, princes, merchants, generals, artists, craftmen, garbage collectors, bathroom cleaners. Then also insistence on the common wisdom that desire leads to frustration which is suffering. What else? What about Nirvana, which he himself is not very clear about and his disciples, except that it is extinction of everything that you are in regard to the world.

Susma

*In my case, the book which I might be able to write easily might be called, "How to Make Enemies and Antagonize People" --- Hehehe and Hahaha.

[susmariosep]

When I say that Jesus and Mohammad got their ideas from God or by divine revelation, I mean that's what their disciples claim to be the source of Jesus' or Mohammad's teachings. And the claim is very logically convenient; for Jesus and Mohammad and their disciples and followers are into the advocacy or propagation of a one supreme God.

So what more logical and sensible but that this God Himself is the one authoring all the ideas about Himself and his expectations of mankind, but relayed to Jesus or to Mohammad, His chosen spokesmen, and through them to the rest of mankind.

So also with Buddha, I mean in a contrary mode: his disciples do not claim that he got his teachings from some source above or beyond humanity. What do they claim then? I got it: Buddha arrived at his ideas by meditation. By meditating and meditating and meditating, that's how he learned first the very right productive meditation, the procedure itself of meditation, that is: meaning the right one: the how and the what and the how long and the how posture of meditation.

With having found the right meditation, Buddha arrived at the enlightenment which he knew for a certainty to be the real true genuine authentic one and only way to the puzzle of life and its end or purpose or destiny.

That is why folowers of Buddha are all into meditation. You don't have to go to school and do homework, writing papers, making field trips, working in the laboratories, discussing with others about ideas, methods, objectives, materials to use, procedures to observe meticulously, storing up figures and making graphs, doing statistical analysis, and all the highly concentrated labor of cerebral focus and surgical probing of issues, principles, and theories.

All Buddhists have to do is meditate the Buddhist way, and from the depths of their mind, the enlightenment seed will take up form and appearance, then after everyday of eight to ten hours meditation, sitting on your haunches, with controlled breathing, you suddenly notice that you have arrived at what? Enlightenment.

Of or about what? What else? but that all existence is suffering due to desire, conquer desire and you will liberate yourself from suffering, then you will arrive at extinction. Period for you then, and no more illusion or delusion of existence. It's all in the mind, and with extinction also your mind goes off the metaphysical stage, or joins some indeterminate lump of the cosmos.

I will say this about Buddha and the source of his teachings of which he was most certainly sure to be the truth, namely, it's from his own mind by his own meditation.

Whereas Christians and Muslims claim their beliefs are from God; Buddha claims his teachings, or his disciples and followers claim they are from himself, from his own mind through meditation.

What do I say? There is a lot of hubris on both sides, I mean on the side of Christians and Muslims claiming that their ideas about God and His will for man are from God Himself; and Buddha or Buddhists claiming that the knowledge of man's sorrow and his liberation, its how, is from Buddha all from and by himself alone.


Susma

[stranger]

Susma,

What's your point?

stranger

[stranger]

Susma,

If making enemies and antagonizing people is your goal in life, you're doing quite well. I can imagine the first publisher you approach giving you the boot.

That's what you're aiming for, anyway.

Will you ever learn?

You have been lectured enough on the subject of Buddhism, can't you change the subject for a while?

You have criticized him and his teachings long enough.

Give it a rest.

stranger

[susmariosep]

Dear Stranger:

Humor now.

I have not reached surfeit yet with Buddha and Buddhism.

When it comes to Buddhism I am a sybarite. I just feel so insecure and so such a glutton with Buddhism that I have to probe deep and wide, in order that I would come to the same mastery of it on my own terms, as I have with my heirloom of Catholicism. Take that with a grain of humor salt.

Let's work on this project together, I think it has validity, legitimacy, and rightly deserves our intelligent attention.

I am inviting Buddhist enthusiasts here to join me in this quest.

Sad indeed, I have come across almost nil in the web in the search for a razor sharp criticism of Buddhism. You have pages and pages and pages lauding it to the heavens of Nirvana, if such there be a region beyond our earthly dimensions.

Authors of such pages can be pictured as two sections of a Buddhist choir, chanting uniformly but responsorially, all in commendation to the wisdom of Buddha and Buddhism, even showing how modern science can learn from Buddhism.

And wonder of wonders, even telling us with -- for me -- a rather questionable citation about Einstein saying that Buddhism is the religion for men of science. I will look up that text and post it in the following message after the present one.

And you tell me where I can find a true account of its origin, aside from some people's imaginative attribution to Einstein from their fertile Buddhistic flights of fancy.

Humor only, please.

Susma

[susmariosep]

Here are two quotations supposedly from the lips of Einstein himself in praise of Buddhism:

“If there is any religion that would cope with modern scientific needs it would be Buddhism.” Albert Einstein

"Buddhism has the characteristics of what would be expected in a cosmic religion for the future: it transcends a personal God, avoids dogmas and theology; it covers both the natural & spiritual, and it is based on a religious sense aspiring from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual, as a meaningful unity." Albert Einstein

I have been looking for some authentication proofs that the lines above come from Einstein himself, but so far futilely.

I even wrote to a a group in Germany in charge of some Einstein study shrine-center, to help me with my inquiry. No, they have not honored me with even just some leads as to where I might find people who could help me. Maybe they are also Buddhist enthusiasts.

What about you, Stranger, and also the Buddhist enthusiasts here, can you give me a hand?

I think it is with such questionable texts from Einstein that a number of Westerners, who take on the profile of not being religious and much less theistic, feel a warm glow in embracing Buddhism -- to be in the company of Einstein.

Susma

[susmariosep]

How do we get to know the original ideas of Buddha? for there are spokesmen of Buddhism who tell us that not everything purportedly of the doctrinal corpus of Buddhism today, and even going back to the most primitive days of this religion, are to be taken as coming from Buddha himself. They maintain that not a few are actually speculations from later thinkers parading as belonging to the master's teachings.

What we are certain of is that Buddha himself never put down anything in writing, at least not that we have report of, much less surviving manuscript remnants of. The man did not write down his thoughts. Why? Maybe he did not know how to write and could not entrust his thoughts for putting down in written records, to others who could write for him; for the man perhaps could not imagine that his thoughts could be redacted by others into writing to faithfully convey his lofty doctrines.

Or the man was never certain, crystal clear about his own thoughts. Didn't he tell his disciples, and which today's Buddhists like to remind us to show us that there is no dogmatism with Buddha and Buddhism, that the master himself enjoined his followers not to take seriously for truths anyone's teachings, not even his own ideas, he being their teacher and leader no less.

If you ask me, Buddha was just indulging in rhetorical modesty; being human like you and me, he surely was without the least doubts pleased with his own brain child or children, his enlightened views about life, suffering, liberation, and human destiny.

Then there is the difficulty with the fact that there are numerous sects to Buddhism, big ones and small ones, well-known ones and altogether hidden ones, unexplored by Westerners who long for some wisdom more gratifying from the East in Buddhism, than their traditional and stale Christian faith, made even more unacceptable from their fascination with contemporary science and technology. and philosophical discourses which challenge ancient Greek pundits and then the Medieval schoolmen. Someone says maybe quite true to statistics and facts that there are more sects in Buddhism than in Christianity, for having a longer history.

So, when we talk about the ideas of Buddha or the teachings of Buddhism, in order to find out where they come from, or how original or different they be compared to religious concepts and systems in the territorial and cultural domains of Buddha's homeland and times, for the purpose of a web forum thread and within its restricted boundaries, we can just limit ourselves to the common beliefs, observances, and practices of today's Buddhists; for there are unanimously held maybe quite broad tenets and behavioral directives among the diverse major and minor factions in Buddhism.

I think it is safe to say that all Buddhists today hold to the Four Noble Truths and Eight Noble Paths of Buddhism which seem to be their universally shared thoughts and endeavors, like the Apostles' Creed and the Ten Commandments are to Christians.

Susma

[treonsverdery]

where did Buddha get his ideas
Let's work on this project together

well Im thinking that life is a vast tesselation that buddha like a few other well known "divines" Buddha basically was just an entity that was perhaps forced to place its tile on the "star" or triple word score area on the scrabble board billions of people might be happier right now if he held out to be white figure rather than than a gray one

You Z

If I think it is possible to emulate buddha while doing the right thing Id think on it better to change the genome so that these stellar R creatures are kinder to people than to gaze overlong on their forced upon them wisdoms

new choices annie susan or the tinfoil hat

I said here somewhere, that I would like to study Buddha to find out what's in it for him in getting people to follow him with his teaching

Buddha like me as well as perhpas the reader was subject to operant conditioning from a form rather like madeline L'engle's IT IT I have been tutored was originally a perfect divine creation I urge the reader to talk about [the form rather like madeline L'engle's IT] new ways to happy n dwell with white light I urge humans to makes wishes n publish those wishes

Treon

[susmariosep]

I think it is a valid point of departure in the quest for the original in Buddhism to make a distinction between the mundane and the arcane in its teachings.

By the mundane I refer to such things as desire and its consequence in suffering; by arcane I think we can assign to it such concepts as Nirvana, and other matters which are evidently not within the mundane sphere.

So all the teachings of a pragmatic moralistic slant belong to the mundane domain, like right speech, right thought, and all others which from daily experience of reflective people are obviously intended to make life livable, specially in concert with fellow humans, for an acceptably constructive co-existence among men, and likewise to make life tolerable and even pleasant for oneself.

Arcane matters are more into the imaginative and speculative worlds of the founders of religion. My purpose is to detect these arcane teachings, first by removing all the mundane ones, and then to analyze the remaining which can be considered to be arcane, to find out what they are really into.

For as one observer of life tells us, and I adopt his figure of speech, many an idea is like a flower with so many petals, that when you start removing the petals one by one, at the end you come to nothing. I can't recall the author of this observation, but I just apply it to my purpose here.

Will we find anything after removing the petals covering the arcane teachings of Buddhism? Maybe yes and maybe no; but I am curious about India once upon a time for some centuries was into Buddhism, then it as a skyline disappeared from the horizon of India, the homeland of Buddhism.

Is it because finally peoples came to the conclusion for themselves that aside from the mundane teachings, all the arcane teachings of Buddhism are nothing.


In every religion we can see the mundane aspects; and these mundane teachings are not anything original with the founder of a religion. It is the arcane sphere where a founder can exercise his originality. But I tend to feel that even in such a sphere there is not much originality from him.

More later.

Susma

[susmariosep]

The most conspicuous fact of the mundane sphere 'discovered' by Buddha is the existence of suffering with mankind. Suffering we know however is not only with mankind, but also with animals, like my pet dog and cat at home.

Even though my pet dog and cat can be presumed to not have a conceptual knowledge of suffering, they do have the experiential knowledge or experience of suffering.

Suffering is such a mundane matter that even without conscious reflection everyone even the crude backward unschooled and uncouth peasant in the most remote of countrysides knows suffering.

Next is the connection between desire and suffering, which Buddha or Buddhism is supposed to have discovered. Such a discovery says more about the lack of mundane acquaintance with human existence and even animal life, than anything of exceptional insight on the part of the discovering parties, Buddha and his disciples and their modern day Western enthusiasts.

Even my pet dog and cat at home understand the connection between desire and suffering. They have desires but from experience they know that if they so much as try to satisfy certain desires like the ones they have known to be rewarded with pain, and even without actual experience, they know also, namely, that certain desires upon weighing the scale of pain and pleasure had better be left unsatisfied.

The same also with peasants bereft of all civilization and culture and religious philosophy like the Christian faith or for my purpose here, Buddhism.

Besides, desire is not the only root of suffering. There are other causes, innumerable ones, that are not occasioned by desire. For example, tsunamis as we know from actual history are the cause of suffering and death. Who desires to have tsunamis?

Of course Buddhists will tell us that it is the desire to be freed of tsunamis that causes suffering. So if you don't desire to be freed of tsunamis when tsunamis engulf your home, your family, and yourself, leaving you half dead, you with no desire to be freed of the ravages of tsunamis will not suffer? Or your mind and heart will not have to bear with the emotional pain of loss and despair? In which case what they mean is that if you are non-human like a piece of stone, then you will not desire and thereby no suffering for you. Therein lies a very crude fallacy which some people here can spot right away.

More later.

Susma

[susmariosep]

Nirvana, original with Buddhism?


I am still trying to find out what is original with Buddha or more correctly with Buddhism.

The more I read about Buddhism the more I get lost.

Buddhist spokesmen tell you that the destiny of man is Nirvana, then they explain that Nirvana is extinction of the self and the consciousness itself; but they are very particular about being understood as favoring pessimism and nihilism. And what is pessimism and what nihilism?

Pessimism means life is not worth living and nihilism means nothing is real. Buddhists insist that they are not pessimists and not nihilists. But they tell us that Nirvana is man's destiny and it consists in extinction of consciousness itself; and life is all illusion and delusion, unless and until you reach Nirvana which is total extinction, even illusions and delusions are gone.

Finally they insist that you cannot understand Nirvana and enlightenment, you can only experience it. Like they do? or have done? Or are still aspiring after. So, it is the same old refuge in the inadequacy of words: Words cannot describe what Enlightenment or Nirvana is all about.

Buddhists generally don't claim to have experienced Nirvana, maybe from modesty; and they tell you in the last analysis that Nirvana can't be explained with words. As a matter of fact, and correct me if I am wrong, even Buddha the enlightened one, is not completely in Nirvana, he is still around in the form of Maitreya, for he chose to not be in complete Nirvana, in order to be with mankind to help mankind reach Nirvana.*

So, they have not experienced Nirvana, and they can't describe it if they had; but they are aspiring and working towards it, practicing for those elitist Buddhists, counting on support from simple followers in the sustenance of biological life, a career existence of self-deprivations, namely as with Catholic monks and nuns, poverty, chastity, and obedience. But unlike Catholic monks and nuns who generally take up some useful and revenue-generating activities like running a school or operating a bakery, I don't seem to see Buddhist monks and nuns doing some honest, useful, revenue-generating works, to support themselves -- because they are so busy with meditation.

Okay, let's agree that Nirvana is an original teaching of Buddhism, even though that can be challenged, and we will talk about that sometime later, where did Buddha and Buddhists come to that idea, or how?

If he got it from a teacher or the religious people of his times, then it is not original with him. Therefore it has to have come from himself, from his own thinking. How did that happen, the occurrence of the idea of Nirvana in his mind?

How else but by meditation, his own kind.

Brilliant ideas come to people on very mundane circumstances. Who is that guy wondering how to arrive at the volume of an irregularly shaped object, say a rock? He was going to take a bath, and on getting into the bath tub filled with water, enough water was pushed out over the rim of the bath tub as to give way to his body. "Eureka!", he shouted to himself, (meaning, "I have found!").

Once I was wondering how to get the height of the water tank tower put up by guys I had hired for the purpose. I could not find any solution except having to climb up to the top and dropping a length of string tied to one end with a pebble to the ground below, then measuring the segment of the string from the pebble to the point where I would be holding the string. Too much work, I said to myself.

But I kept that problem in mind. Then the following morning as I got in the car to go to work, the idea suddenly came to me, why not tie a balloon to the string, and let it rise to the bottom of the tank. "Eureka", I shouted.

So also with Buddha, but he had to put in so many years of meditation which is not being in mundane circumstances. If he had only just stayed at home with his wife and kid, and kept busy with his work of making a living or being useful to his family, but entertained in his mind the quest for a solution to life's destiny, then he could have come to Nirvana much faster, then going into solitude and meditating on his haunches.

Or did he have spirits talking to him which others did not. That is the standard source of doctrines with founders of religion like Moses, Jesus, Mohammad, John Smith, and practically all others. We are lucky in this ImmInst forum to have a member, Stranger, who has contacts with spirits which are his guides. (See this thread for my exchange of views with Stranger on communings with spirits.

But I seem to get the impression from my readings that Buddhists generally don't appear to tell us that Buddha got his ideas from some spirit like God with monotheistic religions, or the similar spirit messengers of God. My impression is that Buddha got his ideas from himself. If we imagine the mind as a stomach, then Buddha's stomach produces from itself the food that Buddha is digesting and regurgitating for his disciples.

I will have to make a more thorough search in this direction, namely, whether Buddha had spirit guides giving him ideas and one of them the most original in a way, is Nirvana.

More later.

Susma

*I am keeping to the broad skylines of Buddhism; because when you get to their nitty-gritty details and controversies you will get the impression, that these guys are using a text-generator where they input very dense, abstruse, and subtle terms, from which the machine spews forth equally dense, abstruse, and subtle long sentences, even a genius will throw into the dustbin as nonsense.

[susmariosep]

Epilogue.


Dear Friend:

If you have come to this thread in search of something for your religious life, it might be relevant to you to ask whether you can go instead into some sense of religion you prefer to make up for yourself.

You see, your search if that be it, for a religion that is already extant at present to satisfy your religious hunger whatever that be -- see how skeptical I am proceeding myself here, I invite you to ponder on the fact that all these religions are made by fellow men, and headed by men like you and me, perhaps of good intentions, even sincere conviction that theirs is the true religion, but indeed frail humans themselves, and very often into reproachable lust and greed and very materialistic and luxurious lifestyles.

What am I trying to say here in this thread on Buddhism and divine revelation and whether the man had started anything original with his movement? What in the last analysis is my shall we call it, beef?


Okay, as I have very recently been advocating the policy of BEQ in message writing, namely, B for brief, E for easy, and Q for quick, I will then be brief, easy, and quick.


There is nothing original with Buddha and Buddhism, nothing original if we understand original as something previously not already discovered or speculated on or invented by some other people before him; because when you come to religion and philosophy there can be nothing new that man in the dawn of his conscious intelligence has not thought up inside his cranium, without going out into the world of life in flesh and in blood and with fellowmen to find out, and concerned with matters which in no way can be verified or validated or detected with the eye, ear, nose, tongue, and touch of your physiological organic being.

And that often or almost always is the realm of religion and pure speculative philosophy.

And so conveniently Buddha as with other founders of religions or mystical or esoteric philosophies always refers to the life if any after death or beyond biological life, and concerns himself with this hypothetical condition or realm, to preach about with self-certainty -- but no one not even himself can produce any evidence about that domain of assumptuous or presumptuous existence for man.


Buddha like the typical founder of a religion had come across a problem with human existence, which for him is suffering and which he traced to desire. So for him getting rid of desire will attain release from suffering.

Now, since he inherited the belief in rebirth from his traditional religion of Hinduism, he accordingly met this trouble with coming back to life for more suffering from more desire, by teaching his disciples that if and when they come to enlightenment, which is the way I see it, the conviction that all life is suffering from desire and the best solution is to come to extinction of one's existence. See? it is so in a way frighteningly logical.

It's like that other founder of religion, telling his disciples that if thine eye scandalizes thee, pluck it out. Do you then wonder why among unthinking folks we have seen and will see again and again those who commit suicide or take the ultimate step to get to the realm beyond this biological existence of which we are essentially heirs to?


No, you won't miss anything by not studying further about Buddhism, even though a good number of intelligent, but mark my word, and of a leisurely lifestyle, people of the West have taken up Buddhism, with faddish enthusiasm.

All the promises of Buddhism that have to do with an equanimity in life and in society, you can arrive at them with pure self-knowledge, reading and thinking on the text of a good psychology of personality and social adjustment.


More later, but I will truly be brief, easy, and quick when I return. Hahahaha and hehehehe.

Susma

[susmariosep]

Buddhism's wrong solution to the problem of man's existence.


I said there is nothing original with Buddhism, as with every religion and with esoteric or mystagogic philosophies. The reason is because they are not into the world outside the mind but into the world of the mind, unlike science and technology.

For example there is always something new of knowledge in science and technology, as in the discovery of the theory of relativity by Einstein and the invention of say, that so common machine today, the computer which we are all using, as we write and communicate all across the lengths and breaths of the world.

So while the East is hurrying up to catch up with genuine knowledge from science and technology cultivated richly and enrichingly to mankind in the West, some Westerners in leisurely circumstances take to the luxury trend of receding into the un-mappable terrains of their inner mind, to discuss the extinction of the self in Nirvana, and yet to congratulate themselves that at Nirvana they won't come back anymore by rebirth for more of suffering from more of desire.


Buddhism as with every religion is founded upon a misunderstanding of what is the solution to a problem.

Now, a problem for me is something that is an obstacle to what we want to do, to go to, to acquire, to understand in order to get a consistent picture of a scene. For example, traffic congestion is a problem to the motorist who has to get to office on time.

The problem in Buddhism as with every religion is the reality of pain and death, the barrier if not itself the contradiction to pleasure, joy, happiness and everlasting life, which we all children of biology aspire after against our innate flesh and blood existence.

Why is the solution to the problem to be tackled by Buddhism the wrong one or the wrong way to arrive at a solution?

Consider the problem of traffic congestion, the smart motorist for a solution against traffic congestion so as to get to office on time, is to set off for office earlier, say leaving house one hour or even two hours earlier; better still, stay in the office the night before; or best, live in the office.

Then also he can always take out his road map before setting off from the house, and pick out other routes to office, that bypass the congestion. And certainly he can get the government, his institutional paid-for servant, to build more roads and impose more traffic clearing disciplines on motorists.

The solution of Buddhism to pain and death and the suffering due to desire, is to deny even the existence of the self, everything is illusion and delusion; and as soon and as quick as you can get to self-extinction, so much faster and earlier will you have the solution to pain and suffering and desire.

So, what do you do? Overcome desire, deny desire, and even convince yourself it does not exist, and you yourself don't either. Then when you die you would not come back anymore for more of pain and death and the root of such banes, desire. This solution is genuinely like suicide as a way out of bankruptcy and penury.

Is there a solution to pain, suffering from desire, and death? aside from the pseudo solution of denial and/or escape and procrastination to the so-called realm beyond physiology or existence after death?

Yes, there is: for pain, take an aspirin; for desire, satisfy it up to surfeit, that's your solution to desire; but better live with it and know that desire is only enjoyable in its satisfaction provided you keep it alive or keep a measure of it extant.

I always tell my wife that I will not eat until I am hungry, but she is always after dinner on time. And I have to comply with her schedule, else I don't get dinner when I want to at the onset of hunger -- and that is worse than eating without the appetite of hunger.

About death, ImmInst Org is working on that, so also Kurzweil Institute: the one on the biology of life extension, the other on artificial life and intelligence; so sign up with them.

I will be back later. And I will be really brief, easy, and quick when I am back.

Susma

[ocsrazor]

Susma,

The quotes from Einstein on Buddhism above come from his book "Albert Einstein, The Human Side" http://www.amazon.co...il/-/0691023689

Here are two quotations supposedly from the lips of Einstein himself in praise of Buddhism:

“If there is any religion that would cope with modern scientific needs it would be Buddhism.” Albert Einstein

"Buddhism has the characteristics of what would be expected in a cosmic religion for the future: it transcends a personal God, avoids dogmas and theology; it covers both the natural & spiritual, and it is based on a religious sense aspiring from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual, as a meaningful unity." Albert Einstein

I have been looking for some authentication proofs that the lines above come from Einstein himself, but so far futilely.

I even wrote to a a group in Germany in charge of some Einstein study shrine-center, to help me with my inquiry. No, they have not honored me with even just some leads as to where I might find people who could help me. Maybe they are also Buddhist enthusiasts.

What about you, Stranger, and also the Buddhist enthusiasts here, can you give me a hand?

I think it is with such questionable texts from Einstein that a number of Westerners, who take on the profile of not being religious and much less theistic, feel a warm glow in embracing Buddhism -- to be in the company of Einstein.

Susma

[fueki]

Susma, I dont think that buddhism teaches that "everything is illusion and delusion". That seems like tibetian dream yoga. I think the essence is that u have to completely accept the world the way it is. And u dont have to deny yourself, just dont attach to anything, be not with individual will, but with the cosmic will.

Edited by ImmortalPhilosopher, 15 February 2005 - 04:22 PM.

[susmariosep]

No one knows Buddhism... hehehehe.

Susma, I dont think that buddhism teaches that "everything is illusion and delusion". That seems like tibetian dream yoga. I think the essence is that u have to completely accept the world the way it is. And u dont have to deny yourself, just dont attach to anything, be not with individual wills, but with the cosmic will

I wished some really very high IQ guys will go into Buddhism and give us the genuine lode or bunk about Buddhism. But they are all into science, for being with high IQ.

At least there are core teachings and practices in Buddhism's vast and 2.4 millennia of existence and expatiations and obfuscations and controversies and schisms among Buddhists themselves, what more now its Western enthusiasts plus spokesmen and apologists and polemicists.

Okay, here are the core teachings and practices of Buddhism, which no self-respecting well-instructed and honest Buddhist can deny:

1. Rebirth -- man will come back again and again after death until he reaches Nirvana.

2. Suffering from desire -- all life is suffering owing to desire.

3. Meditation and self-deprivations -- the way to Nirvana is by meditation and a life of self-deprivations to deaden desire; but for ordinary folks, satisfying the calls of the flesh and the ego in moderation is allowed.

4. Nirvana -- that's where you don't come back to existence anymore, existence as we know it who are biological and rational beings.

5. Know nothing -- Don't ask about what or how or when or where is Nirvana, except that it is beyond words; but essentially it is being extinguished, your existence that is, as you know existence from your rational intelligence. If you ask, then you will never reach Nirvana and you can't be in Nirvana if you so imagine yourself to have arrived there.

6. For the non-elitist Buddhists -- men and women in the street can and do pray to Buddha for all kinds of assistance to get on with this life. And my opinion is that this is what they are after and know Buddhism to be: "Buddha, give this and give me that, and help, help, help". No, they are not after Nirvana; if anything they want to come back to earthly life again and again and again.

Read my next post for my last Epilogue on Buddhism.

Susma

[susmariosep]

Last Epilogue:
Buddhism as coiffure, couture, cuisine.


I have so many reflections about Buddhism, and I would like to do a thread on The Merits of Buddhism, to do justice to Buddhism, instead of always seemingly doing nothing but bashing Buddhism.

But I have this scrupulous conscience that I should be occupied with more profitable things than trying to see reason in Buddhism, and trying to justify myself before an audience about my not being excited with Buddhism, in the face of a good number of professional people in the West who are enthusiastic about it.

This reminds me of a funny incident* my teacher in grade school told us about a field trip to an insane asylum she had once when also a pupil.

In the insane asylum the director and #1 boss man there gave the kids a tour, visiting the patients there among the most representative of insane subjects.

The director explained to the children why a guy is insane, basically for missing the facts of life and the world, reality that is, and behaving in that lost condition.


"This patient is crazy", he explained to the kids, pointing to a man howling like a wolf, "because he thinks he's a werewolf".

"Here is another crazy guy", referring to a man on his feet and his eyes gazing as into a landscape before him in the horizon, with his right hand tucked inside his shirt on his chest, "he thinks he is Napoleon Bonaparte, atop a hill surveying the advance of his troops against the Russians".

Then he brought the kids before a patient sitting on the floor on his haunches, with folded arms and hands together upward on his chest below his chin.

"This guy is really nuts, he tells me he is Buddha and wants to teach me meditation to arrive at Nirvana; but he's all drivels and absolutely loony, because I am Buddha and he is an impostor or deluded, in illusion or hallucination. Tell you what, children, you stay behind after this tour, I and my staff who are my faithful disciples here will give you more knowledge about rebirth, suffering from desire, and Nirvana, and we will answer all your questions."

At this point, my teacher told us, her own teacher accompanying the kids on that field trip, in all courtesy but firmly informed the director they had to leave right way because they were behind schedule for other destinations on that day.

So, if you join the Buddhists, you will end up thinking and talking like them, as those staff members accepted the director for Buddha and started to talk like Buddhists themselves, what with Buddha himself for a teacher.

Hahahahaha and hehehehehe.


But why am I delving into Buddhism, and at the same time not willing to master its so-called categories and ways of thinking and feeling and acting, as with meditation posture of sitting on the floor on your haunches.

Well, it's like this: I have this habit of opening up things like toys when I come across a new one, to see what's inside, what's it made of and how it works.

I am myself a Catholic but called myself now a postgraduate Catholic; post for past, and graduate for as on graduation day in the commencement rites we literally march off the campus into the wide wide world outside.

I see these guys, Westerners, who are professional people and also intelligent, even possessed of scientific knowledge, going bonkers over Buddhism.

The way I see it, this must be some new toy for them. So I want to open this toy, find out what's inside, how it's put together, and how it works.

No, it's nothing to be excited about; the more I try to find out, the more I realize that there is nothing there of sound reason and logic and the facts of the world and of my self as I know with my two feet on the ground.

Why then are some Westerners so taken up with it?

I call that the phenomenon of faddish enthusiasm, which fad can be a purely one person's own.

For example, right at this very moment, there are many very intelligent and learned people converting to Catholicism, while I have postgraduated from it as from an old hat. Same also with some Americans at this very moment converting to Islam.

And what about those adopting Scientology, and Wicca, and whatever. Yes, Satanism, and Moonism, and what's that, the Heaven's Gate folks, and so on and on. All of them so many examples of faddish enthusiasm of the species religion.

Buddhism is just one religion out of many favored by mankind.

Now, I submit the sense of religion is endemic in human nature, and we could be more emotionally healthy with a sense of religion. But when it comes to this or that religion, we must be on guard so that we don't land into an obsession of fanatical attachment to a particular one religion or one version of a religion.

Summing up: if you have to go into Buddhism, then let your enthusiasm not overwhelm you as to forget that Buddhism like all other religions having some apparently systematic teachings and observances, are like so many coiffures, coutures, and cuisines.

Hair care is all right, so even more important is clothing, and of the utmost necessity is nutrition or food; but let you not quarrel with anyone about coiffure, couture, and cuisine.

Susma

*Truth is stranger than fiction; and the narrative I made up is tame compared to real life occurrences in I imagine insane asylum among the personnel running it.

[Infernity]

As for the topic question (where did Buddha get his ideas?), I think that it is one person's belief which he had courage to tell about it to a close people. Because of the relationship, they assumed it is all true. Everyone told it to their close people, with few changes, and so did they, and so on... till it became a quite big religion.
I don't believe it has a base of true (well maybe only the base- since I didn't research about it), I believe it is someone's imagination that was shared with others and imbibed few changes with time and people who received that notion.

Yours
~Infernity

[susmariosep]

The influence of celebrity status.

As for the topic question (where did Buddha get his ideas?), I think that it is one person's belief which he had courage to tell about it to a close people. Because of the relationship, they assumed it is all true. Everyone told it to their close people, with few changes, and so did they, and so on... till it became a quite big religion.
I don't believe it has a base of true (well maybe only the base- since I didn't research about it), I believe it is someone's imagination that was shared with others and imbibed few changes with time and people who received that notion.

Yours
~Infernity

I agree with you, Infern.

You will recall that Buddha was the son of a local chieftain; he himself was slated to become one day a prince in his own right. So it would not have been difficult to get ordinary peasants to follow him, and become his disciples, read that: colleagues, associates, partners, partymates, henchmen, sidekicks, buddies, chums, best pals, sycophants, freeloaders, adulators.

Buddhism got its big break with King Ashoka, who in order to nurse his guilt-stricken conscience for having slaughtered so much of humanity in some massive war he waged, decided to go Buddhist and opt for the path of non-violence.

But don't get the idea that Buddhism in real life is pacifist. You should see the infighting and killing among the followers of one dalai against another; and you can read in the net of Japanese Zen samurai warriors in WWII glorying in their blood thirst, on a Zen platform.

After Ashoka it was all the way down for Buddhism in India, up to the present day.

Now, peoples in the East are for science and technology and Mcdo and Hollywood, forsaking their Buddhism, among the elites, and even going for Christianity.

But as faddish enthusiasm goes, Buddhism todays finds some kind of a welcome among some Westerners who are suffering the withdrawal syndrome of having denied themselves their traditional religion of Christianity.

I am looking for statistics of converts to Buddhism in the West; but I suspect there are as many giving up Buddhism after the initial excitement and with the dawn of boredom, as there appear to be growing numbers of new converts.

You think that Buddhism is making inroads into the West, you should see Christian churches making giant and well organized and feverishly active big headways into the heartlands of the East.


Susma

[susmariosep]

Hearsay and apocryphal accounts.

Dear Ocs:

Do we have any critical collections of the auhenticated writings of Einstein, like his diaries, his letters, his class lecture notes, his laboratory entries, and of course critical editions of his published works?

The excerpts you refer to are I am afraid of the nature of hearsay and apocryphal narratives recounted or produced by people with an agenda pro their own pet supposedly intellectual leanings, or contra their emotional bugaboos or academic rivals; or even new found but misguided fervor for Buddhism in quest of a substitute to their traditional Judaism and Christianity.

Susma

The quotes from Einstein on Buddhism above come from his book "Albert Einstein, The Human Side" http://www.amazon.co...il/-/0691023689

QUOTE (susmariosep)
Here are two quotations supposedly from the lips of Einstein himself in praise of Buddhism:

“If there is any religion that would cope with modern scientific needs it would be Buddhism.” Albert Einstein

"Buddhism has the characteristics of what would be expected in a cosmic religion for the future: it transcends a personal God, avoids dogmas and theology; it covers both the natural & spiritual, and it is based on a religious sense aspiring from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual, as a meaningful unity." Albert Einstein


I have been looking for some authentication proofs that the lines above come from Einstein himself, but so far futilely.

I even wrote to a a group in Germany in charge of some Einstein study shrine-center, to help me with my inquiry. No, they have not honored me with even just some leads as to where I might find people who could help me. Maybe they are also Buddhist enthusiasts.

What about you, Stranger, and also the Buddhist enthusiasts here, can you give me a hand?

I think it is with such questionable texts from Einstein that a number of Westerners, who take on the profile of not being religious and much less theistic, feel a warm glow in embracing Buddhism -- to be in the company of Einstein.

Susma Unquote

[ocsrazor]

Susma,

Those quotes are directly from his own published notes, they appear in multiple books with his name as the author. You would have to be a wacked out conspiracy theorist to think someone would slip quotes into an authors book without him noticing. Both quotes are extremely well documented.

[ocsrazor]

Susma

Okay, here are the core teachings and practices of Buddhism, which no self-respecting well-instructed and honest Buddhist can deny:

No.

1. Rebirth -- man will come back again and again after death until he reaches Nirvana.

False. The historical Buddha said it was impossible to know whether reincarnation happened.

2. Suffering from desire -- all life is suffering owing to desire.

True, but often taken out of context. The meaning is not that you must not want anything, but to answer (and awaken) to your deepest conscious desires, not your base physical instincts.

3. Meditation and self-deprivations -- the way to Nirvana is by meditation and a life of self-deprivations to deaden desire; but for ordinary folks, satisfying the calls of the flesh and the ego in moderation is allowed.

False, self-moderation is a natural evolution of the process of self-discovery. The histroical Buddha tried self-deprivation, he was an ascetic for a time. He said it didn't get him anywhere. Meditation is a sharpening of the mind not a deadening of it and makes one exquisitely aware of the physical senses.

4. Nirvana -- that's where you don't come back to existence anymore, existence as we know it who are biological and rational beings.

False. Completely the opposite. Nirvana is when you become all of existence and become all rational and biological beings.

5. Know nothing -- Don't ask about what or how or when or where is Nirvana, except that it is beyond words; but essentially it is being extinguished, your existence that is, as you know existence from your rational intelligence. If you ask, then you will never reach Nirvana and you can't be in Nirvana if you so imagine yourself to have arrived there.

False. To know everything is to know nothing. This is the same old maxim we know in the West as that the more you know the more you realize that you know very little. The reverse is also true, people who know very little often think they know a lot.

6. For the non-elitist Buddhists -- men and women in the street can and do pray to Buddha for all kinds of assistance to get on with this life. And my opinion is that this is what they are after and know Buddhism to be: "Buddha, give this and give me that, and help, help, help". No, they are not after Nirvana; if anything they want to come back to earthly life again and again and again.

Absolutely False. Buddha told his disciples they had to find their own way, that he could only tell them his path, and that he was not a god.

It is apparent that you have not actually read any original Buddhist writing at all, why is it you feel you have any authority to talk on these subjects? There are many fine critical analyses of Buddhism, but you have hit on none of the meaningful criticisms. This thread has negative information content, because nearly everything you have written here is untrue. If you really want to have a discussion on these matters, go educate yourself. If you are, as you claim, a postgraduate catholic, this should not be very difficult.

Edited by ocsrazor, 16 February 2005 - 03:26 PM.

[susmariosep]

Fake words attributed to Einstein on Buddhism


Apropos of two quotations often ascribed to Einstein in commendation of Buddhism:

--------------------

From: Pachomius2000 [mailto:pachomius2000@yahoo.com.sg]
Sent: Wednesday, March 16, 2005 1:33 AM
To: aearequests@savion.huji.ac.il
Subject: Einstein on Buddhism


Here are two quotations supposedly from the lips of Einstein himself in
praise of Buddhism:

QUOTE

1. "If there is any religion that would cope with modern scientific needs it
would be Buddhism." Albert Einstein

2. "Buddhism has the characteristics of what would be expected in a cosmic
religion for the future: it transcends a personal God, avoids dogmas and
theology; it covers both the natural & spiritual, and it is based on a
religious sense aspiring from the experience of all things, natural and
spiritual, as a meaningful unity." Albert Einstein

UNQUOTE

I have been looking for some authentication proofs that the lines above come
from Einstein himself, but so far futilely.

I even wrote to a a group in Germany in charge of some Einstein study
shrine-center, to help me with my inquiry. No, they have not honored me with
even just some leads as to where I might find people who could help me.
Maybe they are also Buddhist enthusiasts.

One thing for sure, it would not take the genius of an Einstein to
investigate the authenticity of those two quotes and arrive at a conclusion,
as to their genuinity or fakery, and the motivations of their genuine
authors, not necesarily by examining the preserved brain of the deceased
Einstein, but by delving into outside records and people still living today
who really knew Einstein.

Pachomius2000

------------------

Barbara Wolff

Albert Einstein Archives
Jewish National & University Library
P.O.B. 39105 Jerusalem 91390 Israel
Tel. + 972 2 658 6768


Here is my answer :

Both quotes could not be authenticated by means of the reference resources
at our disposal.

While the first quote in no way sounds "Einsteinish", the second one may be
an imaginative variant of some much simpler statement Einstein once put out.
More likely it is a paraphrase of something Einstein expressed in one ore
more essays written around 1930.

Einstein, as is known, mentioned Buddha and Buddhism a few times in his
writings.

However, since he had only a rather cursory idea, he did not speak out on it
at length, but just dropped some commonplace.

We know that a huge amount of fake, twisted, wrongly translated and absurd
quotes has been 'decorated' with Einstein's name which seems to lend
profoundness to even the shallowest uttering.

That might be the case with the first quote.

As for the second one, I assume it was copied from a secondary source.

With regards,
Barbara Wolff

Albert Einstein Archives
Jewish National & University Library
P.O.B. 39105 Jerusalem 91390 Israel
Tel. + 972 2 658 6768

barbaraw@savion.huji.ac.il
http://www.alberteinstein.info
http://www.albert-einstein.org

-------------------

As I thought so.

Pachomius2000

[stranger]

Susma,

You're being evasive--again.

In the thread,''Grabbing the bull by the horns''( our dialogue) you talk about wrestling with bulls. You say,''this bull can be taken down,and it will be taken down,'' or something to that effect--meaning, my words will be taken down.

Here, I see you running from another bull. Answer to Ocsrazor to what he's saying. Why do you come out with some other Bull S---.

You gotta face the bull,otherwise you'll be relegated to the post of a stabler.

I know Ocsrazor's pretty indifferent to the practice of Buddhism , but he's got a few points that are fairly close to the mark.

It'd be better if you were more inquisitive of Buddhism, than trying to point out fallacies within it. Otherwise, you just might be taken down by the Buddhist bulls, here. Me included. You have angered this bull before in these grazelands,before.

This last post of yours. I don't understand your point.

It doesn't connect to what Ocsrazor was saying,and you don't clarify what you're trying to say. Was Einstein as much a fluke as Buddhism is to you? You don't seem to make a point. Or, are you saying that Buddhists want to identify with him?

Please pardon me ,Susma, for being scalding with my opinion, even though you have been a loyal listener in other threads,but you're not facing the bull.

What little you have heard,or read, about Buddhism, doesn't qualify you as neither a mentor,nor a degrader. You cannot attack it relentlessly, otherwise the bull is gonna throw you off,and quick.

You don't wanna join the rodeo clowns. Or do you?


stranger

[susmariosep]

Be practical and realistic and philosophical.


Dear Stranger:

I have not yet looked up my thread about your spirits; you have been absent there in terms of message time for centuries -- and perhaps also elsewhere in this ImmInst Org forum?

About Ocs, I will interact with him when he comes by and attend to my latest post here about fake words attributed to Einstein commending Buddhism.

Ocs and I are academicians, we expound what we know and want to inform others about what we know of Buddhism; it is up to readers to judge for themselves the merits of our words, on their own intelligence and on their own researches or readings.

We can discuss forever about Buddhism and the teachings of Buddha, but unless and until he comes in person here, we will not be able to divine his mind. So I submit it is the burden of people claiming that Buddha is now possessed of powers whatever enabling him to achieve feats like appearing in person before us here, the burden namely of presenting him here before us.

About the Dalai Lama, he is supposed to be the reincarnation or the rebirthed of some Buddha-type, correct me if I am wrong; but there are others like him who claim also the same distinction. So better that they first settle among themselves who is the genuine article.

What about you Stranger, you believe that the Dalai Lama is some kind of rebirthed Buddha-type? In which case I will accord you the privilege of belief, in what I call the credal world as distinct and opposed to the real world.

Go to my thread on grabbing the spirits of Stranger for my explanation about the privilege of the credal world, which privilege ends where the nose of another person begins.


As you remind me that I want to grab the bull by its horns, and I have tried also in many instances to do so; but in all modesty and honesty, many a dream of mine has ended in frustration because of my limited cerebral gifts.

So, if you have the impression that I am letting go of the bull, or even running away from the bull, that is again a matter of your privileged credal world.

You could be right, of course; but as I think it was Hippocrates who tells us in one of his medical axioms that ars longa vita brevis, in many instance I had adopted the resolution to let go or to avoid even the bull, for I want to do and to examine many other things and issues.

For example, I wanted to look more into Ayn Rand, in that thread on Ayn Rand, not from my authorship. I am going to proceed there after this post to bid good-bye there, because I think I have read enough about her and can congratulate her that she had achieved her own picture of the hero she wants in very human being, except that she never had a child from her womb, which she brought up in person to be an autonomous member of society. Which for me is a tragedy, not having a child from one's womb to have brought up to self-autonomy.


Back to Buddhism, I have reached the conclusion that I had given enough time to Buddhism, and I like to spend my limited remaining years in other things than try to reach conviction about any worth it has for me.

Susma

Susma,

You're being evasive--again.

In the thread,''Grabbing the bull by the horns''( our dialogue) you talk about wrestling with bulls.  You say,''this bull can be taken down,and it will be taken down,'' or something to that effect--meaning, my words will be taken down.

Here, I see you running from another bull.  Answer to Ocsrazor to what he's saying. Why do you come out with some other Bull S---. 

You gotta face the bull,otherwise you'll be relegated to the post of a stabler.

I know Ocsrazor's pretty indifferent to the practice of Buddhism , but he's got a few points that are fairly close to the mark. 

It'd be better if you were more inquisitive of Buddhism, than trying to point out fallacies within it.  Otherwise, you just might be taken down by the Buddhist bulls, here.  Me included.  You have angered this bull before in these grazelands,before.

This last post of yours.  I don't understand your point.

It doesn't connect to what Ocsrazor was saying,and you don't clarify what you're trying to say.  Was Einstein as much a fluke as Buddhism is to you? You don't seem to make a point.  Or, are you saying that Buddhists want to identify with him?

Please pardon me ,Susma, for being scalding with my opinion, even though you have been a loyal listener in other threads,but you're not facing the bull.

What little you have heard,or read, about Buddhism, doesn't qualify you as neither a mentor,nor a degrader.  You cannot attack it relentlessly, otherwise the bull is gonna throw you off,and quick.

You don't wanna join the rodeo clowns. Or do you?


stranger

[susmariosep]

Your posting style.


One of my troubles at Infidels Forum with moderators and administrators there is that they would not tolerate my going into the posting styles of people there I happen to be exchanging views with. I hope the powers here have no exceptions to this interest of mine, which I sincerely believe is of the core of discussion among people with something to say.

In several posts addressed to you, Stranger, I congratulate you for not being anymore inclined to explode, then also I commend you on not resorting to threats of dire doings by the spirits on people like yours truly for, the way you see it, not taking them seriously. I will add two more traits of your posting style, so that you can examine yourself on them all, whether you are indulging in them when you write your reactions to other people's views in this ImmInst Org Forum.

There are so far four I have time and again come across, the first two are already well known to me, but the third and the fourth have always been in the background of my mind but now I am sure they are really your standard ways of discourse.


Stranger's ways of employing words:

1. Use of shouting, i.e., loud volume and shrill pitch of expletives, in place of calm reasoning.

2. Use of threats of dire doings from the spirits, in place of calmly explaining, showing how they are or why they should be offended.

3. Recourse to non-sequiturs.

4. Nitpicking.


You have asked me to exchange views with you by private messages, and I told you that I don't have that kind of a policy, quite the opposite: I want all messages to be presented in public forums; because for me it is very good to have an audience, then at least the audience can see for what benefit and how our respective positions and our ways of discourse can command their attention.

Susma

[stranger]

Susma,

A recourse to non-sequiturs? Look who's talking.

I answer to you in metaphors,because you yourself initiate such posting tactics.
You don't think I took it as an offense when you said that you would take my bull down. What do you expect me to do. Grant you permission ,or leeway,to do it. You're not too kind yourself sometimes. You call me all kinds of names( Mr. Hyde, Tarzan, etc.) and you don't want me to notice it.

Nitpicking?

I am sorry, if I appear cold and mean sometimes. You cannot expect me to pat you on the back when you say silly things. I cannot agree with you on everything.
As a person I respect you,but you cannot expect me back you up on everything you say or write. So far, you have not yet conceded to anyone on the topic of Buddhism. Why won't you accept anyone's ideas? There have been several besides mine. If you had searched for the book that I recommended(which is under 10 bucks) you would have already had a concrete idea on Buddhism.

stranger