Buddhist "Nihilism"

[Taeguk]

Consider this thread an open letter/dialogue to scameter, although anybody who wants to can participate.

Obviously, scameter, you seem to have certain "issues" or at any rate problems with, anything you perceive to be "Buddhist". Comments like the following have become more or less routine for you:

....According to most Buddhist and Hindus, thinking that life matters, alongside thinking at all, isn't the best way to go.

This comment either demonstrates a misunderstanding of Buddhism (and Hinduism as well), or else it is simply a matter of sarcasm. In any case, I would like to ask you:

Why do you think Buddhism is nihilistic?

[scameter]

I don't have any problem with Buddhism or any other Asian religion. I don't agree with most of them philosophically, but I do find them interesting. It is their practitioners that I generally dislike, due to their arrogance and assumption that what they believe is absolutely correct and anyone who disagree is simply ignorant. But, on a more philosophical level, I think that Buddhism is nihilistic because of what it teaches. There is no you; life is an illusion; you are an illusion; thought is an illusion; emotion is an illusion; karma is essentially illusion itself. Everything is an illusion, and unless I'm mistaken, illusions are things that we only think are real, and are only real themselves in that they are illusory. If everything is an illusion, then nothing is real, and importance also doesn't matter, because ourselves and life are not real. But, unlike most people, I don't think nihilism is evil inherently; I just think of it as a philosophical position.

[scameter]

As I said, I don't think of nihilism as good, bad, positive, negative, optimistic or any other qualification other than it being simply a philosophical viewpoint.

[Thomas Knierim]

Wow scameter!

I don't want to add to the notion that Buddhists are know-it-alls, but almost everything you just said about Buddhism is wrong. :(

Don't take it personally, though.

The notion that Buddhism is nihilistic is quite adamantine. It is mistaken, not merely because Buddhism and nihilism are hardly comparable, but because almost every tenet or conclusion of nihilism, the denial of existence, the idea that values are meaningless, the rejection of ethics, the idea that human existence is purposeless, the concept that there isn't any truth, and so forth, is squarely opposed by Buddhism.

Furthermore, what you mentioned in your post, that there is no you, that life is an illusion, that thought and emotions are illusions, doesn't apply either. Sure, an-atman means no-self, but it does not mean that you don't exist. And why would Buddhism rely on the notion of karma if it taught simultaneously that karma is an illusion?

Cheers, Thomas

[scameter]

:P I didn't say it thinks karma is an illusion. But, how could it not be? Alright, everything we experience right now is karma. Everything we experience is an illusion. Thus, karma is an illusion. And only by clearing ourselves of karma, or the cycle of birth and death, can we become enlightened. And yet, there is no you. Hrm. You simply said that what I think isn't true. Why is it not true? I addressed why I think it is true.

[Thomas Knierim]

Scameter: I didn't say it thinks karma is an illusion.

Well, you said: "karma is essentially illusion itself" in your previous post and you just repreated the same claim. Could it be that you mean "samsara is an illusion in itself"? Although I would even disagree with the latter, it is somewhat more consistent than the former. Karma simply means action, and actions are no illusions in Buddhism. On the contrary, they are taken to be quite real and important.

Scameter: Alright, everything we experience right now is karma.

Not quite. What we experience right now is what has been conditioned by karma. In turn, our re-action to that experience conditions future experiences.

Scameter: Everything we experience is an illusion.

Not everything. Many things we experience are tainted by delusion and the mind produces a seemingly endless stream of tainted experiences, but 1. delusion is gradual, and 2. the proliferation of delusional thought can be stopped. Don't forget that we also participate in the Buddha nature, hence, it is certainly possible to have non-deluded experience and thoughts. If this wasn't so, the situation would be pretty hopeless for us. In this case, the Buddha would have just enjoyed his enlightenment under the Bodhi tree without bothering to teach an unteachable race. But the very attempt of teaching how to counter delusion (by an enlightened mind) shows that delusion can be overcome.

Scameter: And yet, there is no you. Hrm.

What concerns the question of "no you": for the time being, just assume that there is a mental continuum which does exist and which is mistakenly identified by you as the self. Or even better: think about it as habitual naming and identification, i.e. processes that occur iteratively in your mind, instead of an entity. Perhaps then you get closer to what is meant by that.

Cheers, Thomas

[scameter]

I'll just stick with my science and mythology.

[vicente]

Nihilism implies the denial of existence. To me, that sounds like the Abrahamic religions. Some paths of Buddhism are about enlightenment, and none that I'm aware of are about nihilism.

To not call a dream a dream, is ignorance, not nihilism.

Although I have some reservations regarding the lotus sutra, Buddha purportedly said:

pain is an effect of ignorance
from ignorance proceeds conceptions
from conceptions proceeds understanding
from understanding name and form
name and form the six senses
from the six senses proceeds contact
from contact sensation
from sensation longing
from longing striving
from striving the pains and sorrows of existence

The enlightenment paths of Buddhism (Vajrayana) are about uncovering the transcendental senses, that is, moving beyond the five aggregates (as implied in Buddha's remarks). Christians, Muslems and Jews are stuck in nihilistic or existence denying beliefs.

Buddhism is about waking up. One does not awaken to nothing, but everything. The Abrahamic beliefs are about maintaining a belief that sleep or the dream is real.

Osho said, “Start knowing what you really know, and stop believing what you really don’t know. Somebody asks you. “Is there a God?” and you say, “Yes, God is.” Remember: Do you really know? If you don’t know, please don’t say that you do. Say, “I don’t know.”. . . False knowing is the enemy of true knowledge. All beliefs are false knowledge.”

Vicente
:)

[scameter]

Vicente, you seem just as preoccupied as most people here with saying that the Abrahamic religions are wrong, or else are right only because they are similar to the completely-right Asian religions. I've always found it funny how much white people enjoy following religions other than their own: Abrahamic ones, Asian ones. We've completely forgotten the Greek, Celtic, Roman, Norse and other native European religions, and now have to cling to other peoples' religions to make ourselves feel settled. And just to think the Norse converted to Christianity so that places of trade would accept them more, so they could make more money. :D

[vicente]

Personally I'm quite knowledgable in Celtic, Greek, Egyptian, Gnostic, Tuatha Dé Danann, Sarapis, and Phrygian religions. I don't see the point.

Although some Buddhism may be considered a religion (set of beliefs), Vajrayana Buddhism is not a religion, but an anti-religion. Vajrayana does not step between people and their direct experiences.

Most Christians come from ancestors who were forced into Christianity through atrocities such as the Justinian laws.

[scameter]

Knowledgable. :D

[bgiordmaina]

Vicente, you seem just as preoccupied as most people here with saying that the Abrahamic religions are wrong, or else are right only because they are similar to the completely-right Asian religions. I've always found it funny how much white people enjoy following religions other than their own: Abrahamic ones, Asian ones. We've completely forgotten the Greek, Celtic, Roman, Norse and other native European religions, and now have to cling to other peoples' religions to make ourselves feel settled. And just to think the Norse converted to Christianity so that places of trade would accept them more, so they could make more money. :D

First of all this is a completely subjective statement. Beliefs are just that beliefs and it is not for one person to say whether another is wrong for "abandoning" their native religion. Further more, the celtic religion clearly stems from the hindu philosophies. While, Christianity originated in the middle east and can be traced to Eqypt. A person has not simply forgotten these religions you state to be "white" in nature because they chose to practice other philosophies. This statement is clearly biased and has no rational founding. Let's leave racism out of philosophical discussions. It only degrades the reasoning behind this discussion.

[Flux]

I used to think that Buddhist philosophy was merely interesting in an amusing albiet contradictory way until I took a philosophy class last semester called "Death." While discussing ethical and metaphysical issues related with death, a major issue that was discussed was how to define when the personal self begins to exist, and when it ends. And you know, out of all of the articles and essays we read, from Hume, Kant, and Locke to more contemporary philosophers, I'll be darned if the best argument that was formulated for the definite objective existance for the self wasn't the dubious justification of "it's just intuitively correct." It seemed that it would be infinitely more practical to see the self as a conceptualization of a continuum, with more solid definitions being formulated as is practical.

scameter--I don't pretend to know much about Buddhism philosophy yet, but an analogy that makes sense to me is that of clouds. Clouds definitely exist, and can definitely interact, and but it isn't always clear where one cloud ends and another begins, or even how many clouds there are. I think the self may be a bit like that.

And as for Buddhism being "nihilistic" or even pessimistic, anything can be morbid if thought of in a certain light. For instance, in Christianity, one could say salvation came to humanity by means of a violent human sacrifice. But i think that you'd agree that there's more to the story, and that what happened was night and day different to an Aztec ritual. In the same way, Buddhism talks about illusion, suffering, and selflessness, but by itself, that doesn't even begin to give you an idea about what it's about, or what it means.

Although some Buddhism may be considered a religion (set of beliefs), Vajrayana Buddhism is not a religion, but an anti-religion.

You just defined religion as a set of beliefs, and then asserted that Vajrayana Buddhism is not a religion. Vajrayana isn't a set of beliefs? What about the four truths?

[scameter]

Flux:And as for Buddhism being "nihilistic" or even pessimistic, anything can be morbid if thought of in a certain light. For instance, in Christianity, one could say salvation came to humanity by means of a violent human sacrifice. But i think that you'd agree that there's more to the story, and that what happened was night and day different to an Aztec ritual.

Well, actually the sacrifice of Jesus was somewhat akin to an Aztec ritual, or rather, a Jewish sacrificial ritual, and was quite violent, this being necessary because Jesus's sacrifice was like that of the innocent lamb of pre-Jesus Jewish sacrifice, but Jesus's sacrifice for one actually meant something, and for two, it was the last necessary sacrifice. But, my view of Buddhism has changed slightly, though not entirely, from when this post was made. Though I still think Buddhism is negating of physical existence and the self, which is accurate, I don't think it is nihilistic or pessimistic in the usual definitions of the words/philosophies.