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Love of All Wisdom

~ Philosophy through multiple traditions

Love of All Wisdom

Tag Archives: Jan Westerhoff

Grappling with impermanence

21 Thursday May 2020

Posted by Amod Lele in Death, External Goods, Flourishing, Foundations of Ethics, Karma, Modernized Buddhism, Supernatural

≈ 8 Comments

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Amber Carpenter, Aśvaghoṣa, Evan Thompson, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jan Westerhoff, Martha Nussbaum, Melford Spiro, rebirth, T.R. (Thill) Raghunath

The Buddhist propositions that Evan Thompson articulates go deep. They proclaim three flaws of all the things around us, in ways that (Buddhist tradition has typically claimed) make them unworthy of our seeking. On such a view, the only thing truly worthy of our seeking is dukkhanirodha, the cessation of suffering, through a nirvana identified with “unconditioned peace”. The ethical implication is that the finest human life is that of a monk, who devotes his or her entire life to the pursuit of dukkhanirodha. It is granted that most people won’t pursue such a life, but that is because they are too weak to do so; their lives will be worse for their seeking external goods, like familial relationships and material possessions.

Aśvaghoṣa dramatizes these points in the Buddhacarita, his famous story of the Buddha’s journey to monkhood. After a contented life of luxury the Buddha-to-be sees an old man, a sick man and a dead man, he realizes that that is the fate of everyone and everything, and can take no more pleasure in the objects (viṣayas) of the world: “I do not despise objects. I know them to be at the heart of human affairs. / But seeing the world to be impermanent, my mind does not delight in them.” (BC IV.85) It is specifically the impermanence of things that leads the Buddha to become a monk and reject them.

Continue reading →

Naturalized kammatic Buddhism

01 Sunday Mar 2020

Posted by Amod Lele in Death, Early and Theravāda, External Goods, Faith, Flourishing, Generosity, Humility, Karma, Modernized Buddhism, Supernatural

≈ 23 Comments

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Aristotle, Dale S. Wright, Jan Westerhoff, Maria Heim, Paul Woodruff, rebirth, Śāntideva

I think I’ve shown that the kammatic-nibbanic distinction should matter to the historian, textual scholar, or anthropologist trying to figure out what Buddhism has meant in other times and places. Contra Damien Keown, it is a helpful ideal type to understand how Buddhists have thought about their tradition to date. But should it matter constructively, to us, now?

Yes, it should – at least to us Buddhists, and to anyone trying to think philosophically with Buddhism today. Because, I would argue, there are things valuable about worldly life – and it turns out that there have always been Buddhists who agreed that there are, in practice if not in theory. At least some forms of the dichotomy turn out to reprise the key constructive problem of my dissertation – the role of external goods in a good human life – from an intra-Buddhist perspective. The Buddhism of the suttas, of Buddhaghosa and Śāntideva, turns out to be single-minded: only liberation is important. Buddhists will often identify that austere Buddhism as normative, the ideal to aspire to – and yet live a life remarkably different from that ideal. And I think that they are, at least to some extent, right to live such a life. Continue reading →

A Buddhist argument against rebirth

04 Sunday Aug 2019

Posted by Amod Lele in Attachment and Craving, Biology, Death, Early and Theravāda, Epicureanism, Hope, Modernized Buddhism, Psychology, Self, Supernatural

≈ 67 Comments

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Epicurus, Jan Westerhoff, Lucretius, Pali suttas, rebirth, 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 →

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

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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

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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 →

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