Tag Archives: nondualism

No opposite for the ultimate

28 Sunday Mar 2021

Posted by in Christianity, Daoism, God, Indigenous American Thought, Metaphysics, Truth, Vedānta

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I have considerable sympathies for nondualism and have started in recent years to think that it might be true. But there is an important qualifier to any such view. Namely: I do not think that there could possibly be an omnipotent omnibenevolent God. The problem of suffering is just too intractable.

Many nondualists, especially Sufis, would identify the nondual ultimate with that God. And I cannot accept that view. For similar reasons I am skeptical of a Vedānta view where the ultimate is sat: both being and goodness. There is too much being that is not good.

For this reason I have been inspired by a wonderful passage in Nishida Kitarō’s “The logic of nothingness and the religious worldview”:

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The reasons for nondualism

21 Sunday Mar 2021

Posted by in Epistemology, Metaphilosophy, Metaphysics, Psychology, Reading and Recitation, Sufism, Vedānta

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I said previously of nondualism, “I’m not sure I can think of any other major philosophical idea that flowered so much in so many different places, more or less independently. I think that gives us prima facie reason to think the nondualists were on to something important.” Nathan reasonably took me to task for this claim in a comment: “Amod seems to overlook that ideas can be successful without being true.”

I don’t think it’s fair to say I overlooked that point: I said the pervasiveness gave us reason prima facie – at first glance – to say think the nondualists were on to something. That doesn’t mean nondualism is true, and I didn’t say that it was. Second glances might reveal something different. And where I think Nathan is right is in asking us to take those second glances. Is nondualism widespread for a reason other than its being true?

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The need for subjectivity

25 Sunday Oct 2020

Posted by in Buddhism, Death, Epistemology, Metaphysics, Natural Science, Self

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I first read Quentin Meillassoux in a local reading group in summer 2016, and thought at first that I was largely in agreement with him. That changed in 2019 when the same group read the Kyoto School‘s Nishida Kitarō.

Nishida reminded me of the importance of subjectivity in our thought about the world – something which Meillassoux is at pains to deny. It was particularly striking to hear this from Nishida since he was a self-proclaimed Buddhist – a tradition so often thought to deny subjectivity. Nishida says:

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A god for the real world

04 Sunday Oct 2020

Posted by in Aesthetics, Epics, Faith, God, Metaphysics

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I don’t believe in God. But if I did, that God might need to be Krishna.

I have come to believe that the problem of suffering is effectively insurmountable. That is, the vast suffering in the world clearly implies that there cannot be an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God, as the God of the Abrahamic traditions is generally supposed to be.

But what about a god who isn’t omnipotent or omnibenevolent?

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Perennial nondualism

30 Sunday Aug 2020

Posted by in East Asia, God, Mahāyāna, Metaphysics, Neoplatonism, Self, Sufism, Vedānta

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I have spent a good deal of time criticizing the idea of a “perennial philosophy”, the idea (expressed by Ken Wilber and others before him) that the great sages of the world have always basically agreed on the really important things. In the past I had said there were perennial questions but with different answers; now I’m not even sure whether that is the case.

And yet I am struck by a particular phenomenon from which the perennialists draw a great deal of inspiration – and that is the pervasive influence of nondualism. “Nondual” is a literal English translation of the Sanskrit a-dvaita, the name of Śaṅkara’s school of Vedānta philosophy. But the core idea of nondualism has been asserted by a very wide range of philosophers around the world – from people who could never have heard of Śaṅkara, to Śaṅkara’s enemies.

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Classical and nondual mindfulness

14 Sunday Jun 2020

Posted by in Early and Theravāda, Hermeneutics, Mahāyāna, Meditation, Mindfulness, Modernized Buddhism, Monasticism

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Ron Purser’s critique of modern mindfulness is thoroughgoing, and extends beyond chastising its skepticism of political engagement. Purser also criticizes modern mindfulness on other grounds, grounds that I think are considerably closer to the views of classical (early) Buddhist texts.

In particular, Purser’s article “The myth of the present moment” (from the journal Mindfulness 6:680–686) points to a central element of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and other modern mindfulness practices which is not present in the classical texts. Namely: Jon Kabat-Zinn, the founder of MBSR and modern medical mindfulness generally, defines mindfulness as “awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgementally”. So a key goal of modern mindfulness practice is “reducing thoughts and ruminations of the past and future, which keeps us from being in the present moment.” (Purser 682) Purser notes that this focus on the present moment is exemplified in the common introductory practice (included in BU’s mindfulness workshop) of mindfully paying attention to the experience of slowly eating a raisin.

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Two gods

20 Sunday Oct 2013

Posted by in Early Factions, Foundations of Ethics, God, Metaphysics, Vedānta

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Last week I examined the theology of Marcion of Sinope, who believed – as did many other early Christians – that there existed two gods, one good and one evil. I argued that Marcion’s theology is an ingenious way for a Christian to make sense of the atrocities in the Hebrew Bible. But this week I want to argue that the appeal of such a theology goes well beyond the interpretation of scripture in the West. Rather, it is also a way to help us understand the world, if we are to take theism seriously. Continue reading →

Mou Zongsan’s theories across cultures

05 Sunday Jun 2011

Posted by in Confucianism, East Asia, God, Judaism, Mahāyāna, Metaphysics, Sufism, Vedānta

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I have recently taken on a position as interviewer for the New Books Network, an exciting new project to hold podcast interviews with the authors of recently published scholarly books. I will be interviewing for New Books in Buddhist Studies, a position I share with Scott Mitchell. I’ve completed a first podcast which is not yet available online, but I’ll let you know when it is.

I mention this now because that first podcast is with Jason Clower on his The Unlikely Buddhologist, the study I recently mentioned of 20th-century Confucian Mou Zongsan. The podcast is there to explore Clower’s ideas; here I’d like to add my own.

The book asks why Mou, a committed Confucian, spent a great deal of time thinking and writing about Buddhism. Its answer is that Mou found East Asian Buddhists expressing metaphysical distinctions with a clarity that the Confucians had not. Mou is deeply concerned with the metaphysics of value – specifically, the relationship between ultimate value and existing things. One might refer to this as the relationship between goodness and truth, or between God and world, even creator and creation. Continue reading →

The inadequacy of primary theory

14 Sunday Nov 2010

Posted by in Greek and Roman Tradition, Mahāyāna, Metaphilosophy, Metaphysics, Prejudices and "Intuitions", Social Science, Vedānta

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Last time, I accepted that there were two reasonable ways to define “common sense.” One can identify it with prejudices, as I did the first time around, so that common sense is what is held to be common and taken for granted by a given group of people (usually one’s own). Alternately, one can identify common sense with Robin Horton’s “primary theory”: the kind of description or explanation of human experience that is basic enough to be mostly universal, such as plants requiring water to grow. Primary theory is opposed to more complex “secondary theory” like witchcraft or subatomic physics, referring to unseen phenomena, which explains events anomalous to primary theory and is not at all universal.

Now if common sense is defined as primary theory, what then is its philosophical significance? Far less, I would argue, than is often claimed for “common sense.” The problems with primary theory are twofold: first, it is relatively limited in scope; and second, it is often wrong. Continue reading →

Two concepts of altruism

08 Sunday Aug 2010

Posted by in Analytic Tradition, Early and Theravāda, Epicureanism, Foundations of Ethics, French Tradition, Judaism, Mahāyāna, Modern Hinduism, Morality, Roman Catholicism, Self, Vedānta

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The Catholic Pauls, it seems clear to me, oppose ethical egoism in strong terms. Interestingly, however, they do not spend much time attacking it; instead, they attack a kind of altruism that is very different from their own. And their positions interest me greatly because of the way it highlights differences among philosophical concepts of altruism.

Ethical egoism of some description – say, as advocated by Epicurus – is a perfectly respectable philosophical position. One can say that one’s reasons to benefit others are all ultimately based on benefit to oneself, if one’s own self-interest is rightly understood. Neither Paul has a great deal of sympathy for this position, as far as I can tell, but it is not what they take as a target for their attack.

Rather, they reserve their greatest ire for a position that derives other-orientation from ātmanism – or at least from nondualism. Continue reading →