• About me
  • About this blog
  • Comment rules
  • Other writings

Love of All Wisdom

~ Philosophy through multiple traditions

Love of All Wisdom

Tag Archives: suicide

Śāntideva’s passages on enemies and their context

30 Thursday Jul 2020

Posted by Amod Lele in Anger, Death, Karma, M.T.S.R., Mahāyāna, Metaphysics, Patient Endurance, Supernatural

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Evan Thompson, Madhyamaka, rebirth, Śāntideva, suicide, Tibet

Having discussed the broader context of Śāntideva’s work, I think it is instructive to turn now to the two passages that Evan Thompson quotes from Śāntideva’s Bodhicaryāvatāra as supposed examples of the way that Śāntideva’s “philosophical arguments fall apart” without rebirth. These respectively say (in the Wallace and Wallace translation he cites), first, “In the past, I too have inflicted such pain on sentient beings; therefore, I, who have caused harm to sentient beings, deserve that in return./Both his weapon and my body are causes of suffering. He has obtained a weapon, and I have obtained a body. With what should I be angry?” (BCA VI.42-43) And second, “since my adversary assists me in my Bodhisattva way of life, I should long for him like a treasure discovered in the house and acquired without effort.” (VI.107)

Continue reading →

Naturalizing Śāntideva’s eudaimonism

10 Sunday Dec 2017

Posted by Amod Lele in Death, External Goods, Flourishing, Foundations of Ethics, Happiness, Karma, Mahāyāna, Patient Endurance, Stoicism, Supernatural

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Barbra Clayton, Charles Goodman, hell, Jan Westerhoff, Jim Wilton, Martha Nussbaum, rebirth, 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 →

Beyond the removal of suffering

01 Sunday Oct 2017

Posted by Amod Lele in Death, Early and Theravāda, Flourishing, Happiness, Karma, Modernized Buddhism, Monasticism, Natural Science, Supernatural

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

Alasdair MacIntyre, Four Noble Truths, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jan Westerhoff, John Stuart Mill, Pali suttas, Rāmāyana, rebirth, 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 →

In defence of Buddhism without rebirth

17 Sunday Sep 2017

Posted by Amod Lele in Death, Karma, Modernized Buddhism, Natural Science, Protestantism, Supernatural

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Gananath Obeyesekere, Ian Stevenson, Imre Lakatos, intelligent design, Jan Westerhoff, rebirth, suicide

A few years ago I wondered how a naturalized Buddhism could avoid advocating suicide. If our goal is the cessation of suffering, and death is not the beginning of a new birth but a simple ending, shouldn’t death itself be our goal? I didn’t go very far with this argument, in part because I didn’t identify as a Buddhist at the time – there was a certain way in which not being a Buddhist made it not my problem. But now I am a Buddhist. And an excellent recent chapter by Jan Westerhoff, in Jake Davis’s fine new edited volume on Buddhist ethics, brings the point back into uncomfortable focus. Continue reading →

Without rebirth, suicide?

10 Sunday Jan 2010

Posted by Amod Lele in Buddhism, Death, Flourishing, Greek and Roman Tradition, Hope, Karma, Serenity, South Asia, Supernatural

≈ 26 Comments

Tags

Aristotle, Dale S. Wright, Four Noble Truths, Nāgārjuna, Omar Moad, Pali suttas, rebirth, Saṃsāramocaka, suicide, Wilhelm Halbfass

I’ve often heard it said, rightly I think, that Buddhism cannot do without a concept of karma; it is too central to Buddhist thought. I don’t see this as a big problem in itself, even for those (like myself) who would wish to do without the supernatural elements in Buddhism. For karma, as Dale Wright has proposed, can be naturalized on Aristotelian grounds: virtue makes our lives better, because it makes us happier on the inside. In that sense, our good and bad actions come back to us as good and bad results, without any supernatural causation being involved. Buddhism may require karma, but we can have karma without rebirth.

The question troubling me now is: can we have Buddhism without rebirth? There’s a basic problem posed here by the First Noble Truth, the classic Buddhist idea that all is dukkha: all is suffering, painful, unsatisfactory, sorrowful, bad. If this is so, why not commit suicide? For a classical Buddhist, rebirth is the answer to this question, and the obvious answer. Suicide makes your dukkha even worse; as a bad, un-dharmic activity, it will trap you in a far worse rebirth, leave you far more sorrowful and suffering than you are.

But if there is no rebirth? Then death starts to look disturbingly like nirvana. Continue reading →

Welcome to Love of All Wisdom.

I invite you to leave comments on my blog, even - or especially - if I have no idea who you are. Philosophy is a conversation, and I invite you to join it with me; I welcome all comers (provided they follow a few basic rules). I typically make a new post every other Sunday. If you'd like to be notified when a new post is posted, you can get email notifications whenever I add something new via the link further down in this sidebar. You can also follow this blog on Facebook or Twitter. Or if you use RSS, you can get updates through the RSS feed.

Recent Comments

  • Freedom and the good life | Love of All Wisdom on This Life: The work of a lover of wisdom 
  • Freedom and the good life | Love of All Wisdom on A dream of democratic socialism
  • Seth Zuiho Segall on A dream of democratic socialism
  • A dream of democratic socialism | Love of All Wisdom on This Life: The work of a lover of wisdom 
  • skholiast on This Life: The work of a lover of wisdom 

Post Tags

20th century academia Alasdair MacIntyre Aristotle ascent/descent Augustine autobiography Buddhaghosa Canada conferences Confucius conservatism Disengaged Buddhism Engaged Buddhism Evan Thompson Friedrich Nietzsche G.W.F. Hegel gender identity Immanuel Kant intimacy/integrity justice Karl Marx Ken Wilber law Martha Nussbaum Mencius modernity Pali suttas pedagogy Plato rebirth religion René Descartes Siddhattha Gotama (Buddha) T.R. (Thill) Raghunath technology theodicy Thomas Aquinas Thomas Kuhn Thomas P. Kasulis United States utilitarianism Śaṅkara Śāntideva

Categories

  • African Thought (11)
  • Applied Phil (234)
    • Death (35)
    • Family (33)
    • Food (16)
    • Friends (12)
    • Health (20)
    • Place (20)
    • Play (6)
    • Politics (131)
    • Sex (18)
    • Work (31)
  • Asian Thought (364)
    • Buddhism (263)
      • Early and Theravāda (102)
      • Mahāyāna (110)
      • Modernized Buddhism (78)
    • East Asia (80)
      • Confucianism (51)
      • Daoism (12)
      • Shinto (1)
    • South Asia (124)
      • Bhakti Poets (3)
      • Cārvāka-Lokāyata (5)
      • Epics (15)
      • Jainism (23)
      • Modern Hinduism (35)
      • Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika (6)
      • Sāṃkhya-Yoga (13)
      • Vedānta (33)
      • Vedas and Mīmāṃsā (7)
  • Blog Admin (24)
  • Method (220)
    • M.T.S.R. (128)
    • Metaphilosophy (146)
  • Practical Philosophy (316)
    • Action (10)
    • Aesthetics (36)
    • Emotion (131)
      • Anger (28)
      • Attachment and Craving (19)
      • Compassion (5)
      • Despair (3)
      • Disgust (3)
      • Faith (17)
      • Fear (5)
      • Grief (5)
      • Happiness (44)
      • Hope (14)
      • Pleasure (23)
      • Shame and Guilt (6)
    • External Goods (42)
    • Flourishing (72)
    • Foundations of Ethics (98)
    • Karma (42)
    • Morality (58)
    • Virtue (132)
      • Courage (2)
      • Generosity (10)
      • Gentleness (5)
      • Gratitude (9)
      • Honesty (13)
      • Humility (22)
      • Leadership (4)
      • Mindfulness (11)
      • Patient Endurance (25)
      • Self-Discipline (6)
      • Serenity (22)
      • Zest (4)
  • Practice (100)
    • Karmic Redirection (5)
    • Meditation (28)
    • Monasticism (36)
    • Physical Exercise (2)
    • Prayer (13)
    • Reading and Recitation (9)
    • Rites (19)
    • Therapy (9)
  • Theoretical Philosophy (308)
    • Consciousness (14)
    • Epistemology (102)
      • Certainty and Doubt (14)
      • Prejudices and "Intuitions" (25)
    • Free Will (17)
    • God (61)
    • Hermeneutics (46)
    • Human Nature (25)
    • Logic (27)
      • Dialectic (15)
    • Metaphysics (84)
    • Philosophy of Language (17)
    • Self (60)
    • Supernatural (48)
    • Truth (57)
    • Unconscious Mind (13)
  • Uncategorized (1)
  • Western Thought (387)
    • Analytic Tradition (87)
    • Christianity (134)
      • Early Factions (8)
      • Protestantism (20)
      • Roman Catholicism (45)
    • French Tradition (46)
    • German Tradition (81)
    • Greek and Roman Tradition (102)
      • Epicureanism (22)
      • Neoplatonism (2)
      • Pre-Socratics (5)
      • Skepticism (1)
      • Sophists (6)
      • Stoicism (16)
    • Islam (34)
      • Mu'tazila (2)
      • Salafi (3)
      • Sufism (8)
    • Judaism (33)
    • Natural Science (81)
      • Biology (18)
      • Philosophy of Science (46)
    • Social Science (130)
      • Economics (23)
      • Psychology (51)

Recent Posts

  • Freedom and the good life
  • A dream of democratic socialism
  • This Life: The work of a lover of wisdom 
  • A very brief survey of African philosophy
  • How the Grinch found eudaimonism

Popular posts

  • One and a half noble truths?
  • Wishing George W. Bush well
  • Do Speculative Realists want us to be Chinese?
  • Why I am not a right-winger
  • On faith in tooth relics

Basic concepts

  • Ascent and Descent
  • Intimacy and integrity
  • Ascent-descent and intimacy-integrity together
  • Perennial questions?
  • Virtuous and vicious means
  • Dialectical and demonstrative argument
  • Chastened intellectualism and practice
  • Yavanayāna Buddhism: what it is
  • Why worry about contradictions?
  • The first philosophy blogger

Personal favourites

  • Can philosophy be a way of life? Pierre Hadot (1922-2010)
  • James Doull and the history of ethical motivation
  • Praying to something you don't believe in
  • What does postmodernism perform?
  • Why I'm getting married

Archives

Search this site

All posts, pages and metadata copyright 2020 Amod Lele. Comments copyright 2020 their comment authors. Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (BY-NC-SA) licence.

Proudly powered by WordPress Theme: Chateau by Ignacio Ricci.