Sometimes it’s the logic they use,since philosophy isn’t my best subject I tend to take it as true because I can’t see what or how it is wrong. By there being no self there was the link I mentioned about how we don’t control feelings or thoughts so how can they be us, calling feelings JUST weather that responds to circumstances. How can these transient things lead to an enduring self? Especially when they don’t last. Or how all these things come from outside of us and are not inherently within us, so how can they be us if we get them from outside?
So many things to unpack… maybe for starters, who says there is such a thing as an enduring self? Because while the notion of an enduring self may be a problem for religions with an afterlife, I don’t see it as inherent in the definition of the self that it must be believed to endure forever in order to exist at all. It smacks of a kind of straw man fallacy (weakens the opposing view, that there is such a thing as “the self”, at least as a useful concept, by saddling it with the more rigid concept of something like an everlasting soul).
And I would agree. The idea of Christian heaven in which an eternal and everlasting soul goes to a land of bliss creates all sort of problems for the concept of self. Such as… When I die and go to heaven, what if I’m an old man suffering from dementia? Is the “self” that goes on forever the version of me with dementia, or do I revert to some earlier state of the self? In which case, how is that determined? What about babies? What about the mentally handicapped? What about the effect that having my every wish fulfilled and the threat of death eliminated would have on ‘me’? Would I be incapable of change once I get to heaven?
But all of those dilemmas that may be associated with notions of the self are only specific to certain religions that posit the existence of an everlasting soul and an afterlife. They are not a problem with notions of the self in general. An atheist with no belief in an eternal soul, for instance, need not concern himself with such questions. The answer is simply “the self does not endure, there is no afterlife.”
As for the rest, the fact that we respond to external stimuli—sometimes not of our own volition—and our feelings may change, even how we respond to the same stimuli over time may change… I don’t see how it follows that such a state of affairs refutes the notion of a “self”, particularly if you don’t assume that the “self” must last forever or be unchanging.
People change and the world around us is transient. So what?
Okay, but: that, right there, could be the key to everything for you.
Earlier this year — I’m not a big fan of bringing stuff up from another thread, but this bit strikes me as directly relevant — I asked you the following:
And your response was: “I’m guessing it’s true that plenty of people are just fine without whatever Buddhism posits. I just don’t know how some read and research it and just ignore or don’t bother with it.”
So, correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems you believed there were three types of folks: some suffer without Buddhism, and some (“plenty of people”) are just fine without whatever Buddhism posits, and some — uh, are Buddhists.
I don’t see why that’s not enough for you to try Option #2 rather than Option #3, but this suggests an Option #4: in which a guy looks into Buddhism — contemplates it, and reads and researches it, and considers its points one by one — and then (a) doesn’t truly follow it, but (b) tries their own approach, which, sure, involves some of what Buddhism posits, but also discards a healthy amount of it.
You’re already on board in figuring plenty of people are just fine without whatever Buddhism posits; can you take it a step further, and figure that some people take to heart the parts that make sense to them, and have no use for the parts that don’t, and are likewise doing just fine in their lives?
“Sects, sects, sects! Is that all monks ever think of?”
Compare knowledge systems to belief systems. Self-correcting knowledge systems aka sciences tend to align their models. Evolution, the survival of change over time, spread from geology to biology, astrophysics, and many other fields. Belief systems, which won’t or can’t self-correct because revelation, tend to splinter their models. Theisms fragment into zillions of competing factions - sects, sects, sects!
Every sect possesses The Truth and all others are Wrong or Evil. You ain’t a good Xian / Buddhist / Smartologist / Baha’i / Cargo Fetishist unless you believe MY version.
My beliefs (and guts) are strong. I believe I’ll have a strong beer now.
Ah, yes, the sacramental beer-drinking, by which we imbibe of the life force, the very spirit, of our destroyer.
Because, seriously, who would drink their savior? That’s ludicrous!
I guess you are right, its just that at the time of reading I didn’t know how to respond to any of it all (did you read the link by the way, the Tricycle one? It captures what I was trying to get at.)
It’s just that part of me repeats that line over and over and I’m scared that maybe I’ll never get over this and it will haunt me to the end of my days and not let me move on. Like any time I try something new the OP will flash into my mind and remind me that “if buddhism wasn’t true then the option I want to do would work”.
Again, your stated position is “I’m guessing it’s true that plenty of people are just fine without whatever Buddhism posits.” Don’t you already think that plenty of people try new stuff, without whatever Buddhism posits, and it — works?
Yes, on a logical level I think that and want to believe it so I can just move on,but Buddhism seems to find a way to drag me down time and again.
Essentially telling me no. In addition to telling me no, also saying that I suffer because I don’t know who I really am. Again I am just stunned in response to all of this. I wish I had the knowledge to counter act or the willpower to just drop it, but in some part of me it feels like anything else is inferior to Buddhism because they are free of suffering.
Also everything is not really knowable? How am I supposed to respond to that?
Don’t. It’s not worthy of a response. I mean, I’d say ask anyone advancing such an argument to explain what it is to “know” something, but then if you find yourself doing that, arguing over semantics, that should already be a read flag that they’re full of shit. It is impossible to "know " anything only to the extent one twists the definition of “know” into something it has not generally been understood to mean.
I get that, and part of my objection was how could they say all that like they know then?
But on something else I heard one mention something like “be neither pleased or displeased by what you want or don’t want and realize these feelings are created only in the mind”. It makes it sound like my wants and likes are fake because my brain makes them.
Well, some people lie, and some people are mistaken. (Oh, and, strictly speaking, there’s something to be said for people who make no mistake and tell no lies when repeating what someone else said, which isn’t much help if the guy that’s getting quoted was, y’know, lying or mistaken.)
True. I mean I know there is a logical part of me that says how I’m stuck, but the fear of being wrong or deluded is great as well as living a lie (which is pretty much what Buddhism is saying).
I’m trying my best to move on, but I can’t shake the OP (what I said about “if buddhism isn’t true then”). Part of it is not being able to find the article I found it on, but it’s mostly thinking about how I’m doing something wrong if I don’t choose Buddhism, that I’m choosing something that has been shown to “not work” and that I am choosing delusion and suffering instead of “liberation”.
You said: “I’m guessing it’s true that plenty of people are just fine without whatever Buddhism posits.” If that’s still your position, then as far as I can tell you’re talking about choosing something that has been shown to work.
I know that, but then the doubting part of me wonders how the rest of some people’s lives are. Like I compare them to monks and other Buddhist practitioners who seem to be happier because the don’t "need’ the other stuff that the people who claim to be better of without buddhism do.
So while I might say that, I know that it’s not something I truly believe (sorry to say). The OP still buzzes in my head and I can’t help but feel that those who practice BUddhism are better off than those who don’t and looking at the results from those who do just makes that reality seem more solid to me.
“They seem happy” is a fine recruiting tactic. Which probably goes a way towards explaining why they seem so happy. The ones you see in the pamphlets, anyway.
So, there’s your running start: talk to some Buddhists who seem pretty happy, and talk to some folks who don’t really have much use for Buddhism but who also seem pretty danged happy; see if you’re on to something, or if you should reconsider.
Maybe you’ll turn out to be right; maybe you’ll learn that, for those Buddhists, the rest of their lives are going great — and the non-Buddhists are each just putting on a brave face while quiet-desperation-ing. But maybe some of the *non-*Buddhists who seem to be doing great will turn out to be doing great across the board — and maybe some of the Buddhists, who at first seem to be doing great, are just soldiering away on the strength of promises about contentment but have to admit they don’t yet have it and maybe never will.
You’re raising a question about stuff that seems vitally important to you. Okay; work on answering that question. If you feel something is missing in your life, and you see folks who seem to be upbeat and thoughtful and pretty much at peace or whatever, and you want that, then you should look into it; you should see if things are as they seem — for Buddhists and non-Buddhists — so you can react accordingly.
Unfortunately I don’t get much in the way of talking to BUddhists. I have read some say they were Buddhist but no longer and were happier without it, other’s say they tried it and it wasn’t for them. Others seem fine without any of it. But that OP still whispers in my mind about how if it wasn’t true then the opposite would work and so I end up assuming the people who don’t follow BUddhism are lying.
Then it spirals in the the stuff about the self that I linked earlier, how our emotions are like the weather and only come in response to certain conditions: No Self or True Self? — Identity and Selflessness in Buddhism
But why assume that?
First: if you’re going to assume that one group or the other is lying, then why not assume it’s the Buddhists who are lying? But, second: why not assume, for the sake of argument, that Buddhism works just fine for some people (but not others, who should try something else ), and that different stuff works just fine for some people (but not others, who should maybe try Buddhism)?
Imagine a guy who has a drinking problem: he starts showing up for work drunk or hung over, or late or not at all; and eventually he gets fired, but he keeps spending too much money on the alcohol that (a) is slowly ruining his health, and that (b) he keeps driving under the influence of, which causes him legal problems when he winds up causing harm in an easily-avoidable crash.
Imagine that guy meets a guy who preaches Never Drink Any Alcohol. Imagine that preacher says, correctly, that he was in the same situation and swore off alcohol and now he’s doing great. Imagine the guy with a drinking problem likewise swears off alcohol and starts doing great too. Okay. Sure. Let’s go with that. Let’s even say that, in his zeal, the happy teetotaler declares to the world: if this strategy didn’t work, if it wasn’t true, then one could drink alcohol and be happy!
But let’s also imagine there’s a guy who, uh, drinks responsibly: he doesn’t drink to excess, or when he’ll be driving or when it’ll interfere with his work; and he doesn’t spend more than he can afford, and so on. And: he’s happy, too!
As far as I can tell, that’s the case: some people really do enjoy alcohol and have pretty terrific lives, and some problem drinkers make the right choice by swearing off the stuff and leading pretty terrific lives without it. If so, then what would be the ramifications for the like of that half-remembered line of yours?
“You have to swear off alcohol to be happy and have a great life; if that weren’t true, you could be happy and have a great life as someone who drinks alcohol.” Okay: for some people, that resonates and leads them to swear off alcohol. But for others, who drink alcohol but really are doing great — what?
I get what you’re trying to say with the alcohol story, but I don’t think it’s the same here. Because in this case there is a claim to the truth of how reality really is: Transcending the Illusion of Separateness | Creative by Nature
Like in the link it talks about how separateness is an illusion. That what we take to be me and “mine” is really just things that are from outside us and not inherent. That’s just one part but you get it. In a sense it’s not like the alcohol because it’s arguing against their being differences.