04 Sunday Aug 2019
Posted in Biology, Death, Early and Theravāda, Epicureanism, Hope, Modernized Buddhism, Psychology, Self, Supernatural
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Epicurus, Jan Westerhoff, Lucretius, Pali suttas, Siddhattha Gotama (Buddha), Sigmund Freud, Wilhelm Halbfass
I am not entirely sure that I agree with the argument I am about to make. However, I do find it at least plausible and I have not seen it made before. I think this argument is worth somebody making, and I think it is worth doing here.
That is: I would like to make a Buddhist argument against rebirth. An argument against rebirth on Buddhist grounds. Continue reading
21 Sunday Jul 2019
Posted in Anger, Grief, Mahāyāna, Patient Endurance, Stoicism
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Elie Wiesel, justice, Martha Nussbaum, Nazism, Śāntideva, Seneca
It has taken me far too long to read Martha Nussbaum’s Anger and Forgiveness: Resentment, Generosity, Justice – long enough that, in characteristic Nussbaum fashion, she has already authored or coauthored at least three more books since it came out. I say this is too long because Nussbaum’s views on anger were a topic important to my dissertation, which Nussbaum read and thought highly of while she was at Harvard. (The footnotes of Anger and Forgiveness make a couple offhand references to Śāntideva’s Bodhicaryāvatāra, and I strongly suspect that it was through my diss that she learned about the text.) And what is most striking to me when I read the book now is that Nussbaum’s views on anger have taken a startling turn in this book – one that brings them much closer to Śāntideva’s. Continue reading
07 Sunday Jul 2019
Posted in Death, External Goods, Happiness, Mahāyāna, Meditation, Patient Endurance, Prayer, Serenity
≈ Comments Off on The importance of being Thich Quang Duc
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Charles Goodman, David Halberstam, Malcolm Browne, Matthieu Ricard, Ngo Dinh Diem, Śāntideva, Siddhattha Gotama (Buddha), Thich Quang Duc, Tibet, Vietnam
In the Śikṣā Samuccaya‘s chapter on patient endurance, Śāntideva urges aspiring bodhisattvas to attain a meditative state (samādhi) called the Sarvadharmasukhākrānta, which Charles Goodman translates as “Everything is Covered with Happiness.” Śāntideva makes truly extraordinary claims about what is possible for a bodhisattva who has attained this state. In Goodman’s translation:
Bodhisattvas who attain this feel only happy feelings toward all objects they are aware of, with no feelings of suffering or unhappiness. Even while feeling the pains of the torments of hell, they think only happy thoughts. Even while suffering all the harms of the human condition, such as having their hands, feet, or noses cut off, they think only happy thoughts. Even while being beaten with canes, half-canes, or whips, they have only happy thoughts. Even when thrown into prison… or while being cooked in oil, or pounded like sugarcane, or flattened like reeds, or set on fire like an oil lamp, a butter lamp, or a yogurt lamp, they think only happy thoughts. (ŚS 181-2)
The passage is surprising, and modern readers often approach it with deep skepticism. We cannot imagine someone feeling this way; we think it must be impossible. Surely these are exaggerations? Surely it is psychologically unrealistic for anyone to attain such a state?
I think there is at least one significant empirical reason to believe that these claims are not exaggerated, and his name is Thich Quang Duc. Continue reading
24 Sunday Feb 2019
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AAR, Candrakīrti, conferences, Disengaged Buddhism, Madhyamaka, Matthieu Ricard, Śāntideva, Stephen Harris, Thomas Kuhn, William Edelglass
A while ago William Edelglass put up a paper for discussion on academia.edu about Śāntideva and happiness. I made some suggestions for changes in a way that turned out to be unhelpful, since William informed me that the paper was already on its way to publication and he had only put it up by accident! Now, though, the paper has been published, as a chapter in David McMahan and Erik Braun’s valuable and readable volume on meditation, Buddhism and science. So perhaps now is the time to take my old suggestions and reframe them here as part of an ongoing public discussion.
William’s purpose in the chapter is to critique what he calls the “happiness turn” in Western Buddhism, in which Buddhist advocates cite Buddhism’s ability to make its practitioners happy. The most prominent such case is Matthieu Ricard, the Tibetan monk whose fMRI scans showed record levels of activity in the parts of the brain associated with happiness. William thinks this emphasis on happiness misrepresents significant elements of Buddhism, and cites Śāntideva at length to prove his case.
Overall, I do not find myself convinced. Continue reading
30 Sunday Sep 2018
Posted in Faith, God, Islam, Metaphysics, Natural Science, Prayer, Supernatural
Several commenters had concerns about my post on not believing in God. This is understandable, since there I take a concept that a large chunk of the world’s population has oriented their lives around for over a thousand years, dismiss it in a couple short paragraphs and spend more than half the post instead discussing why I avoid calling myself an atheist.
That is to say that the topic of disbelief in God deserves more attention than I gave it there. And as most commenters pointed out, it does depend heavily on how you define God. Continue reading
16 Sunday Sep 2018
Posted in Early and Theravāda, Emotion, Foundations of Ethics, M.T.S.R., Mahāyāna, Metaphilosophy, Metaphysics
≈ Comments Off on “Indian philosophy” vs. “Buddhist ethics”
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Bimal Krishna Matilal, Damien Keown, Dan Arnold, David Chapman, Dharmakīrti, Dignāga, Engaged Buddhism, Śāntideva
It is not especially controversial to say that ethics is a branch of philosophy. I’ve occasionally heard people dispute that claim, but mostly on the grounds that ethics extends beyond philosophy per se, to narrative and the like; few would say that ethical reflection is in general not a philosophical activity. Likewise it is not controversial at all to say that Buddhism began in India, or that Buddhism played a central role in the development of Indian philosphy.
So why is there so little overlap between “Indian philosophy” and “Buddhist ethics”? Continue reading
05 Sunday Aug 2018
Posted in Anger, Early and Theravāda, External Goods, Fear, Happiness, Health, Mahāyāna, Politics, Psychology
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Aśvaghoṣa, Boston University, Candrakīrti, Disengaged Buddhism, Donald Trump, Nick (Nattavudh) Powdthavee, Pali suttas, Philip Brickman, Richard Easterlin, Śāntideva, Steven Collins
My project on disengaged Buddhism has now been submitted to a journal. It’s undergone several revisions by this point. One of the most important such revisions was suggested unanimously by BU’s magnificent CURA seminar. In an earlier draft I had attempted to emphasize the contemporary constructive significance of disengaged Buddhism by noting how its ideas were corroborated by some contemporary psychological research. The seminar participants thought that discussion of psychology did not strengthen the paper because I didn’t have the space to defend them fully; the paper would stand best discussing disengaged Buddhists’ claims in their historical context and letting those claims stand on their own.
I think they were right, and I removed the psychology discussion from the paper – a little sadly, as I thought the psychological case for disengaged Buddhism was worth making. Fortunately, I have another place to make it: here. Continue reading
10 Sunday Dec 2017
Posted in Death, External Goods, Flourishing, Foundations of Ethics, Happiness, Karma, Mahāyāna, Patient Endurance, Stoicism, Supernatural
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Barbra Clayton, Charles Goodman, hell, Jan Westerhoff, Jim Wilton, Martha Nussbaum, Śāntideva, suicide, Thich Quang Duc
My disagreements with Charles Goodman continue with his contribution to Jake Davis’s thought-provoking volume A Mirror Is For Reflection. (I’ve previously written about Jan Westerhoff’s chapter in the same book.) Just like Westerhoff, Charles is exploring the important question of naturalizing karma. He does so with particular reference to Śāntideva. He opens with a beautiful reading of Śikṣā Samuccaya chapter 4’s graphic descriptions of the punishments a wrongdoer will face in the hells, reading them in terms of the actions’ psychological effects on the wrongdoer.
The problem with this reading is that it doesn’t go far enough. Continue reading
29 Sunday Oct 2017
Posted in Anger, Early and Theravāda, Gentleness, Mahāyāna, Politics, Serenity
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Aśvaghoṣa, conferences, Dalai Lama XIV, Disengaged Buddhism, Engaged Buddhism, Frédéric Richard, IABS, Stephen Jenkins, Tibet, Tibetan Youth Congress
I presented about Disengaged Buddhism at the International Association of Buddhist Studies conference in August. My talk was paired with a presentation by Frédéric Richard on a topic that did not initially appear to be related: the Tibetan government in exile. As it turned out, the papers proved fascinating mirror images of each other. Continue reading
01 Sunday Oct 2017
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Alasdair MacIntyre, Four Noble Truths, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jan Westerhoff, John Stuart Mill, Pali suttas, Rāmāyana, Śāntideva, suicide, Thailand
Last time I discussed Jan Westerhoff’s potent objection to naturalized Buddhism: if there is no rebirth then we can end our suffering simply by committing suicide. Westerhoff takes this objection as a reason to accept rebirth. I do not. Rather, I take it as pointing to a deeper problem with some core Buddhist teachings as they are usually understood. Continue reading