That’s correct. Mindfulness is what matters, not technique.
One eighth of what matters, anyways.
Seriously, this is akin to saying “All we know for sure is that Jesus said ‘Blessed are the meek’”. Yeah, why is that again?
Not commenting specifically on Dio’s take, the more general question would be analogous to whether Jesus meant “No man comes to the father but through me” or “Take and eat; This is my body” as a metaphor or literally, and if literally just what the heck those words actually mean.
Thanks for the correction. That would be, what, any level above stream-entry then? PED online just has it as “(m.) one who has attained higher wisdom.”
So then you would have no one say a word about Buddhism (teach, in any form) unless they are at whatever you’re defining as Ariyapuggala? That would slow the reduction of dukkha in the world considerably, I think. Where would you draw the line in what those learning about Buddhism can tell others?
Except, of course, the stated purposes of the whole path is to end suffering, and any stopping of continued existence is going to be incidental to that/part of the process (rather than its end product). Or perhaps you can quote a sutta in which the Buddha says that relieving suffering is for the purpose of stopping rebirth? I’d be glad to read such a sutta.
He does talk about ending aging and death, but just as when he talks about how stopping “contact” doesn’t mean that nirvana involves climbing into a sensory deprivation tank – he’s talking about a very specific definition of contact, he’s talking about a particular way we approach contact – he doesn’t mean literal aging and death either, but how we approach aging and death. All the descriptions of what needs to come to an end to end suffering are descriptions of things we do “voluntarily” (although often unknowingly – every bit beyond ignorance is sankhara) – things we do that it is not necessary for us to do or take part in. When he says ending ignorance breaks the cycle, that’s an ignorance we don’t need (obviously); and when he says ending consciousness breaks the cycle, it’s a particular consciousness that’s voluntary and unnecessary – not all consciousness; same for every step in the process in Dependent Origination, up to and including “aging and death” which, in its literal form, is not something we created – we don’t create aging, for example. Aging is not something that is optional in our lives, that we can just stop – though our attitude toward it is something we apply voluntarily, and can stop.
My intent was to offer the proposition that Theravada Buddhism meaningfully requires a belief in the supernatural, although acknolwedging the possibility that one might craft a system of following Theravada disciplines without admitting that notion, in the same way one might follow the teachings of Christ without admitting His divinity.
The answer is no. Theravada does not meaningfully require a belief in the supernatural, and non-supernatural practice is not analogous to non-Trinitarian (or even non-supernatural) Christianity. Belief in the supernatural is irrelevant to all forms of Theravada.
Well, there really is two questions: what do you accept as being straight(as possible) from the Buddha and which lessons are related through metaphor. Personally, since similes are used so heavily throughout Buddhist writing, I don’t see why they’d couch so much of the rest in metaphor. Diogenes was specifically saying “We only know he related the 4+8”, which seems arbitrary to me.
BTW, Diogenes, in the intro to the Four Noble Truths the Buddha describes his method:
Note that he doesn’t say it “leads to the cessation of dhukka”. IMHO, you are simply wrong that it is the end goal and bizarre to me that you would disregard a line like that that comes the paragraph before the “important” part.
Are we in some kind of a rush? 
When choosing a teacher my suggestion would be to look over the different school and if you find one you trust, then trust them to point to a qualified teacher, through their own merit system. I’m sure that’s not the only way, but as I said, that’s what I would suggest. ISTM, I recall reading that there is a tradition in many Korean sanghas to have more of a fraternal approach to learning rather than top down. That might interest you - though I can’t find the specific post that made me think that.
I didn’t say that’s all he related, I said that’s all that matters to Buddhism. The 4+8 is Buddhism. The rest is commentary.
“Awakening” IS the cessation of dukkha. They are the same thing. The First Noble Truth is “Life is dukkha.” The Eightfold Path is a method to escape dukkha. Literal notions of samsara have fuck all to do with it.
Well, it always seemed to me that the Awakening was a result. Once you cease grasping you are then awakened, you then having perfect insight, you then are unbound from the cycle of suffering. Cessation of suffering is the act of putting on a pair of glasses, metaphorically speaking. Maybe this is merely semantics, but I don’t think so.
CarnalK and Malthus: I had planned to backtrack a little today, in order to distinguish between Theravada Buddhism as traditionally practiced (definitely contains supernatural elements) and requirements of Theravada Buddhism. But I see you did a lot of the work for me. CarnalK makes a reasonable point about some of the challenges that secular Buddhists face. I might note though that Theravada is a convenient place to situate a secular Buddhist practice, as it has less supernatural trappings than that which immediately succeeded it. Zen is another option (see later).
(Parenthetically, one of my links was to one of Gunasekara’s papers).
I perceive from my limited readings that this a very common view.
There is a fair amount of discussion in the Western Buddhist community about whether one should believe in rebirth (as conceived by the Buddha). But I frankly don’t see any Buddhists arguing that it should be a requirement of the faith. The only people who argue that aren’t Buddhists themselves. Let’s start with Zen: with apologies to Malthus I’m going to present a hearsay report:
http://buddhism.about.com/od/beginnerbuddhistbooks/a/batchelor-confession_4.htm I could provide a secular take of what reincarnation really is at this point. But as Malthus pointed out, that’s really a distortion of the original texts. (All that said, I of course can’t say for certain what this possibly apocryphal zen master was getting at.)
My second example comes from a 1997 roundtable with Stephen Batchelor the agnostic (now atheist) Buddhist and Robert Thurman. Both are Buddhist scholars; both “…are longtime Buddhist practitioners and former monks in the Gelugpa order of Tibetan Buddhism.” They debated about whether a Buddhist should believe in rebirth (Batchelor said “Not necessarily”; Thurman took the traditional affirmative position.) But Thurman noted twice that, “Anyone has the right to be a Buddhist, no matter what they believe.” He didn’t see it as a requirement: and indeed I frankly couldn’t find any serious case for that on the internet, other than here of course. (To be complete, I’ll provide Thurman’s followup sentence: “Still, I would maintain that in order to make the kind of evolutionary progress that the Buddha wanted people to make, you would have to be responsible for the sequence of former and future lives.”) Tricycle: The Buddhist Review
I don’t see any evidence that Stephen Batchelor is treated with suspicion or that anyone knowledgeable accuses him of not being a real Buddhist. This is unsurprising: a tradition where monks of vastly different approaches (Mahayana vs. Theravada) share the same physical temples simply isn’t going to get upset about something like this. As they say, “Many paths, one mountain.” There are practices that Gunasekara believed were seriously at odds with the Theravada tradition. A secular take on reincarnation wasn’t one of them.
…and another link was what I later realized was probably a domain squatter, or so I suspect. :smack:
I’m sorry, I should have included you when I posted above:
It seems obvious to me that vision, knowledge, calm, self-awakening and Unbinding are the actual fruits of the 8fold path and cessation of suffering. I have seen “unbinding” being defined as an unbinding from suffering but the Maha-parinibbana Sutta: The Great Discourse on the Total Unbinding makes it clear that the Unbinding is coming with the Buddha’s death. Since we all die without training, from a totally secular world view it would seem like a lot of effort just to die peacefully. From that sutta:
eta: though I still accept that one could take all this as mere metaphorical commentary, but I can’t really believe that was the original intent.
Again, the question was whether the supernatural is required to practice Buddhism or to call oneself a Buddhist. Picking out texts in the Pali Canon is not a good way to make that case because one could pick out as many texts that show that the Buddha didn’t want to focus on issues like rebirth. Only people who are actively practicing and listening to teachers, going to sanghas, etc. will get a feel for the priorities in Buddhism.
I agree with Dio, Measure for Measure and Zeriel on this. Any Westerner who has extensively practiced Buddhism (which, BTW, also involves intensive study) knows that the 4 Noble Truths are absolutely what is stressed and what is common. Everyone agrees that there is an 8 fold path but try to get someone to narrow down what each of those mean. There will be arguments. However, there’s never arguments about the 4 Noble Truths. Every teacher from different sects, either secular or not, describes dukka, attachment and kleshas in the same way, AFAIK.
This is important for Westerners. Many Westerners who have an interest in Buddhism have discarded their own religions because of problems with inconsistencies and a loss in belief in the supernatural. That’s why there are many Buddhist sects in the West that are secular. Few skeptics are going to simply pick up a new set of supernatural beliefs. Only the people who become unhappy with Christianity do to some disgruntlement will be willing to accept a new set of superstition. Even those people have a hard time with any concept of rebirth because it has not been shoved into their psyche from an early age like concepts such as Heaven and Hell was. I think that’s why some people are having a hard time with rebirth in this thread. They are expecting a linear and chronological progression of a cycle and they are insisting on taking things literally even though the passages in this very thread can be metaphorical particularly when read in context and when trying to take home a message. When you pick out a paragraph or two in a passage, you miss the take home message.
The only thing that may have some supernatural elements is Nirvana. Nirvana is the point of Buddhism. However, as Dio points out, the key aspect of Nirvana is a cessation of suffering. This is explicitly stated in the 3rd Noble Truth. Nirvana in Buddhism is also an awakened or enlightened state. This does NOT necessarily mean that you know quantum mechanics. You are awakened to the facts of the impermanence and emptiness of life. That is not supernatural. Fundamentalist Buddhists think that the Buddha became omniscientt when he was awakened. Obviously this was not true or you’d have read about him suddenly knowing things from the present.
While Nirvana is a state of enlightenment and cessation of suffering, it is also a release from samsara. This is where secular Buddhists break from Buddhist fundamentalists. For fundamentalists this is the end of their birth-sickness-aging-death cycles. For secularists samsara can be the constant cycle of suffering in this life due to delusions, cravings, aversions and the dissatisfaction they cause. So Nirvana is simply being enlightened on the true nature of existence (impermanent and empty). So they can see birth-sickness-aging-death as transient conditions of transient but not really separate beings. You can tell yourself that this is true right now. You know it rationally. But you’ll still act as though everything is permanent if you don’t train yourself to know it intuitively. You do this by practice and actually remodeling certain parts of your brain by consciously following the 8 fold path. There are studies that show that people can make permanent or at least semi-permanent changes in their brains if they consciously change their behavior and use practices to remind them of the behavior changes.
Why isn’t there a bunch of people in Nirvana. Because, unlike other religions, Buddhism is NOT simply a set of beliefs. It is difficult, difficult practice. Just like losing weight or quitting drugs.
Yes, well, that question was pretty quickly answered I thought. There are secular groups/sanghas widely and academically considered Buddhist. So logically, belief in the supernatural is not required to be defined as Buddhist. There are other groups where the supernatural is integral to the goals/belief structure, so you can’t be a secular Buddhist in those traditions. I thought the conversation had moved on to what kind of interpretations of the Canon were required to arrive at either of those positions.
You can be secular in any Buddhist tradition. There are no schools where supernatural beliefs are required. Buddhism doesn’t work that way. It’s not a credal religion. It doesn’t matter what you believe. It’s all just practice, and the practice is all cognitive.
OK, just for Diogenes, I’ll recant. No school is going to physically throw you out if you don’t believe in the supernatural. But if you didn’t, I feel certain that a Pure Land monk would suggest you try another school. IMHO, not following that suggestion would require you being an idiot.
It isn’t a case of “picking out texts in the Pali Canon”, but of reading it as a whole. Doing so, it is obvious that the supernatural (the cycle of rebirth) played an important role in the philosophy. This is reinforced by centuries of religious practice.
Naturally, Western branches of Buddhism de-emphasize this, and for the very good reasons you discuss: it isn’t as attractive to Westerners.
I myself don’t have a hard time with it. I’m simply viewing the matter more as an amateur interested in history and comparative religions and philosophies, than a practitioner of the faith/philosophy.
Naturally, the texts can be read metaphorically, and interpreted in such a manner as to exclude reference to the irrational or supernatural. But this can be done, and has been done, in many faiths/philosophies. Even as hard-core theists as found in Islam have their rationalist sects, approaching naturalism either through reason (the Mu’tazilites) or through mysticism (some Sufi sects).
The Mu’tazilites are an interesting example of this phenominon - from first principles (that Allah created reason, and so to know God one must use reason) they create the tools that would lead, inevitably, to discarding of supersition (including, in the end, Allah) - this is exactly what their opponents claimed, and the charge had a certain amount of sting (in the Muslim world, it was not good to be called an atheist).
Similarly, from the mystic side, some Sufis posed a mystic and intuitive direct merging with the godhead that clearly drifted in the direction of pantheism of the Spinoza variety, and by way of that, atheism (if everything is “God”, that is functionally similar to nothing being “god”).
There is, however, nothing inevitable about this process - within Islam, the Mu’tazilites failed to gain traction, and pantheist Sufis are far outnumbered by clearly-theist Sufis. Similarly, in the Buddhist world, rationalist interpreations of Buddhism are the minority - except, of course, among Western practitioners.
One can imagine a world in which the Mu’tazilites had caught on, their philosophy taken to its logical ends, and gained recognition; or, more likely, where Sufi’ism became popular in the West (and to a certain extent, that has actually happened). If so, one could well end up arguing with Western Sufis that belief in the supernatural isn’t necessary to Islam …
I have no argument with the fact that many Western Buddhists have a fully secular and rationalistic understanding of Buddhism, or that this understanding is totally legitimate.
I’m merely pointing out that this is a development, a re-interpretation, of what for want of better terms could be called the ‘original’ version of Theravada, derived from reading the Pali suttas as a whole. It is no more and no less legitimate than the varieties of Mahayana that essentially worship Buddhas as gods and Bodisattvas as saints, and hope to be reborn into paradise … with this difference: I myself am of the opinion that all religious traditions can converge on common points of reason and intuitive knowledge - and the Western, rationalistic version of Buddhism you describe is closer to what I happen to think is the essential nature of reality, than the “Pure Land” variety is.
It’s not a development or a re-interprtation. The first Buddhist to say that supernatural beliefs were irrelevant was the Buddha himself.
Which is ultimately the source of most of the confusion.
It’s easy to read the Buddha’s teachings as describing supernatural phenomena in places–and contrasting with that is the teaching that says all of that is superstructure, and all that is necessary and sufficient is in the Four Noble Truths and in mindfulness.
Again with the Christian analogies–it’s both valid to hang onto the multitudes of Leviticus-based law and rules, and to quote Matthew 22:34-40*. While the Matthew passage argues that the founder’s view was that the additional superstructure was not strictly necessary compared to his succinct statement, the existence of the remainder of the books lends a view that A) there was a benefit to describing more for those who wanted or needed it, in the view of the founder and B) the initial followers and those who compiled the important writings of the founder thought those statements and superstructure to be useful/necessary.
One CAN argue that the founder’s opinions on what is the minimum necessary are not necessarily equivalent to what the religion that grew from that founder’s teachings sees as necessary.
Heh. Seems Christianity doesn’t ‘require’ belief in the supernatural, either. 
Though I suppose one could well argue that the Buddha was Buddhist more than Christ was Christian.