About Batchelor's Confession of a Buddhist Atheist (Loy)

Most versions of Buddhism, including Shakyamuni's teachings as presented in the Pali canon, understand the spiritual goal as release from samsara - the round of death and continued rebirth into the world of suffering and craving - into a realm beyond samsara, namely nirvana. No modern scholar questions that this was the goal of the path as articulated in the earliest texts, which remains the main problem for any attempt to derive a more secular and empiricist Buddha from those same texts.

One might see some support for Stephen Batchelor's position in later Mahayana emphasis on the nonduality of samsara and nirvana. According to Nagarjuna, the bounds (koti) of samsara are not other than the bounds of nirvana, in which case the goal of the Buddhist path is simply to realize the true nature of the world, "beyond deluded thought" yet nonetheless right here and now. But there is still an all-important epistemological distinction between the way deluded beings experience this world and the way an awakened person does.

So perhaps we do not need to choose between a transcendental release from samsara or the secular world as generally understood today. Contemplative practices open us up to different ways of experiencing the relationship between ourselves and the world. The challenge today is to bring those alternative modes into conversation with Western modernity.

Almost every religious reformer tries to return to the original teachings of the founder, only to end up projecting his or her own understanding back onto those origins. Batchelor's Buddha too seems too modern: humanistic and agnostic, skeptical and empirical - by no coincidence, a superior version of us, or at least of Stephen Batchelor. Instead of constructing the Buddha one wants by trying to extract him from his cultural context, I think we should accept that even Shakyamuni Buddha was largely and inevitably a product of his time (just as conditioned arising implies), and undertake the more difficult project of determining for ourselves what aspects of his teaching remain valid for us today. (from "Secular Buddhism?", by David R. Loy, in Tricycle, Fall 2010)

Advayavada Study Plan - week 39 (samyak-samadhi)

Friends,

In Advayavada Buddhism, the Noble Eightfold Path is interpreted dynamically as an ongoing and autonomous, non-prescriptive, investigative and creative process of progressive insight reflecting in human terms overall existence advancing over time.

The Noble Eightfold Path in Advayavada Buddhism is fully personalized: it is firmly based on what we increasingly know about ourselves and our world, and trusting our own intentions, feelings and conscience.

Adherence to the familiar Five Precepts (not to kill, not to steal, sexual restraint, not to lie, and avoidance of alcohol and drugs) and a well-considered understanding of the Four Signs of Being and the Four Noble Truths as explained in this recurring study plan suffice to start off on the Path at any time.

Enlightenment and Nirvana mean, in Advayavada Buddhism, the total extinction of existential suffering (duhkha, dukkha) by becoming one with the universal process of change and progress.

The Path or Middle Way we follow to this end is (1) that of our very best (samyak, samma) comprehension or insight followed by (2) our very best resolution or determination, (3) our very best enunciation or definition of our intention, (4) our very best disposition or attitude, (5) our very best implementation or realization, (6) our very best effort or commitment, (7) our very best observation, reflection or evaluation and self-correction, and (8) our very best meditation or concentration towards an increasingly real experience of samadhi, which brings us to (1) a yet better comprehension or insight, and so forth.

By following the Noble Eightfold Path in this way you get in tune with wondrous overall existence advancing over time; old mistakes are left behind; sorrow, doubt and remorse immediately start disappearing; and your life at once gathers new impetus.

(week 38) Last week's ASP subject was the Seventh Step on the Noble Eightfold Path: our very best (samyak, samma) observation or evaluation and self-correction of our efforts in carrying out our plan or intention.

(week 39) This week's ASP subject is therefore the all-important Eighth Step on the Noble Eighfold Path: our very best (samyak, samma) meditation or concentration towards an increasingly real experience of samadhi.

samadhi = total concentration (of the mind, cf. enstasy); non-dualistic state of consciousness in which the experiencing subject becomes one with the experienced object; total absortion in the object of meditation; transcendence of the relationship between mind and object; merging of subject and object; to contemplate the world without any perception of objects; suspension of judgement; turiyatita; satori; bodhi; rigpa; realization of the sameness of the part and the whole, of the identity of form and emptiness, of samsara and nirvana, of the immediate and the ultimate; mystic oneness; perfect attunement with wondrous overall existence; oceanic feeling; wonder, awe, rapture; essential purity; deep love and compassion; awareness of our common ground.

The purpose of the ASP is that during the week we study (and debate in the group, family circle and/or with good friends) the meaning and implications of the recurring weekly subject, particularly in the context of whatever we ourselves are presently doing or are concerned with, or about, such as our health, relationships, work, study, and our place and responsibilities in the family, group, sangha, society at large, etc.

Tip: Write down this week's subject ("meditate towards samadhi!") in your pocket diary!

John Willemsens,
Advayavada Foundation.
<http://www.euronet.nl/~advaya/index.htm#plan>
<http://www.euronet.nl/~advaya/patipada.htm>

Advayavada Study Plan - week 38 (samyak-smriti)

Friends,

In Advayavada Buddhism, the Noble Eightfold Path is interpreted dynamically as an ongoing and autonomous, non-prescriptive, investigative and creative process of progressive insight reflecting in human terms overall existence advancing over time.

The Noble Eightfold Path in Advayavada Buddhism is fully personalized: it is firmly based on what we increasingly know about ourselves and our world, and trusting our own intentions, feelings and conscience.

Adherence to the familiar Five Precepts (not to kill, not to steal, sexual restraint, not to lie, and avoidance of alcohol and drugs) and a well-considered understanding of the Four Signs of Being and the Four Noble Truths as explained in this recurring study plan suffice to start off on the Path at any time.

Nirvana means, in Advayavada Buddhism, the total extinction of existential suffering (duhkha, dukkha) by becoming one with the universal process of change and progress.

The Path or Middle Way we follow to this end is (1) that of our very best (samyak, samma) comprehension or insight followed by (2) our very best resolution or determination, (3) our very best enunciation or definition of our intention, (4) our very best disposition or attitude, (5) our very best implementation or realization, (6) our very best effort or commitment, (7) our very best observation, reflection or evaluation and self-correction, and (8) our very best meditation or concentration towards an increasingly real experience of samadhi, which brings us to (1) a yet better comprehension or insight, and so forth.

By following the Noble Eightfold Path in this way you get in tune with wondrous overall existence advancing over time; old mistakes are left behind; sorrow, doubt and remorse immediately start disappearing; and your life at once gathers new impetus.

(week 37) Last week's ASP subject was the Sixth Step on the Noble Eightfold Path: our very best (samyak, samma) effort or commitment in carrying out our plan or intention.

(week 38) This week's ASP subject is therefore the Seventh Step on the Noble Eightfold Path: our very best (samyak, samma) observation or evaluation and self-correction of our efforts in carrying out our plan or intention.

The purpose of the ASP is that during the week we study (and debate in the group, family circle and/or with good friends) the meaning and implications of the recurring weekly subject, particularly in the context of whatever we ourselves are presently doing or are concerned with, or about, such as our health, relationships, work, study, and our place and responsibilities in the family, group, sangha, society at large, etc.

Tip: Write down this week's subject ("check what I'm doing!") in your pocket diary!

John Willemsens,
Advayavada Foundation.
<http://www.euronet.nl/~advaya/index.htm#plan>
<http://www.euronet.nl/~advaya/patipada.htm>

About the first chapter of the Daodejing (Ariel and Raz)

In this essay we argue that the first chapter was consciously composed as an introduction to the Daojing, and that the author or redactor of the chapter in fact responded to the very deep questions concerning the possibility of discussing the Dao. This response is encoded in the first chapter.

The authorship and redaction of the Laozi is complex and beyond the scope of this essay. The early history of the Laozi remains unclear. The complexities have become even more evident since the discovery of the Guodian manuscripts. Nevertheless, D.C. Lau's early assessment that the Laozi was compiled from a diversity of ancient sources still stands, and his description of the Laozi as an anthology, which is "no more than a collection of passages with only a common tendency in thought', remains apposite. While Lau is certainly correct regarding the early compilation of the text, Liu Xiaogan's explorations of redaction strategies and patterns of editorial work beginning with the earliest recensions reveal distinct editorial intentionality, in the formation of the text, from the Guodian bamboo slips to the Mawangdui silk manuscripts, and through the various recensions that appeared in the following centuries. Whether a "complete" Laozi text circulated prior to the Guodian texts is still debated. There is, however, a general consensus that a complete Laozi that was a source of the Mawangdui versions as well as of the Heshang Gong and Wang Bi recensions took form during the late fourth century B.C.E. We argue that it was at this stage that the first chapter was composed or edited by the redactor of the text to serve as an introduction to the Daojing, and was maintained at that position in later recensions when the Daojing was placed at the head of the Dejing.

In the following pages we argue that the common understanding of this chapter as referring solely to the Dao is misleading. We demonstrate that this opening chapter should be read simultaneously as an introduction to the Daodejing, one which provides the initiated reader with a coded reading guide. We suggest that the redactor of this chapter consciously composed it to be read in two distinct ways. Thus, while on one level the chapter is a metaphysical exposition of the Dao, it simultaneously serves to explicate the problems inherent to talking, or writing, about the Dao (lines 1-4). The chapter then introduces two cognitive approaches to grasping the Dao as well as to reading the text (lines 5-6) and signals that the literary, esthetic, symbolic, and metaphoric depictions of the Dao are in fact simultaneously depictions of the text itself (lines 7-8). This chapter is thus an esoteric introduction to the entire book, providing a guide to reading and understanding the paradoxes inherent to linguistic discussion of the Dao that are reiterated throughout the Daodejing. (from "Anaphors or Cataphors? A discussion of the two Qi graphs in the first chapter of the Daodejing", by Yoav Ariel and Gil Razo, in Philosophy East and West, July 2010)

Daoists are ethical thinkers of an unusual sort (Ivanhoe)

Like most traditional Chinese thinkers, Daoists are ethical realists, though of an unusual sort. They believe that true and correct value judgments reflect objective features about the world, and they do not hesitate to criticize those who fails to accord with what is proper and fitting. Though they insist that spoken ways - that is, ways of life that can be decribed and codified - are incomplete and flawed, this does not entail and should not be taken as implying that they reject the idea that there is a normative dao for the world. The Daodejing goes to considerable lengths describing how elusive and indistinct the true dao is. Among other things, it is ineffable, but this does not mean either that it does not exist or that we cannot understand it.

The Daodejing describes a mystical ideal in the sense that those who realize the Way lose a strong sense of themselves as distinct, autonomous agents and to some extent are thought to merge into the dao's underlying patters and processes. In such a state, one does not conceive of oneself as apart from and independent of the rest of the world. While aware of himself and the things around him, such a person does not stand back to view and analyze the dao. Since he sees himself as inextricably intertwined with the overall harmony of the dao, he never assumes the perpective of a narrowly self-interested agent seeking to maximize his individual well-being. Any such higher-order perpective is alien to the Daoist ideal. The Daoist sage is guided by prereflective intuitions and tendencies rather than by preestablished or self-conscious policies or principles.

Chapter 38 describes the history of the decline of the Way from an earlier golden age to its present debased state. This decline is characterized by an increasingly rational and self-conscious picture of the world - an explicit and consistent account of the world - the antithesis of the ideal described above. The dao declined as civilization and high culture arose. On the level of individuals, this means that as one becomes more self-conscious of one's actions, as one reflects upon the things one does and seeks to understand why one does them, one becomes increasingly alienated from one's own true nature and world. More and more, one comes to see oneself as cut off from and independent of the greater patterns and processes of the dao. And through a course of increasingly complex and abstract intellectualization, one loses touch with one's most basic sensibilities and deepest promptings. At this stage, the various virtues that are heralded as the highest achievements of civilized society become vehicles for hypocrisy, deceit, and fraud. Society represents this same phenomenon writ large. (Adapted from the Introduction of The Daodejing of Laozi, by Philip J. Ivanhoe, 2002, Indianapolis 2003)

The Identity and Difference of the Two Truths (Garfield)

One of the Buddha's deepest insights was that there are two truths, and that they are very different from one another. They are the objects of different kinds of cognition, and they reflect different aspects of reality. They are apprehended at different stages of practice. Despite the importance of the apprehension of ultimate truth, one can't skip the conventional. Despite the soteriological efficacy of ultimate truth, even after Buddhahood, omniscience and compassion require the apprehension of the conventional.

Nagarjuna's deepest insight was that despite the vast difference between the two truths in one sense, they are in an equally important sense identical. We can now make better sense of that identity, and of why the fact of their identity is the same fact as that of their difference. The ultimate truth is, as we know, emptiness. Emptiness is the emptiness not of existence but of inherent existence. To be empty of inherent existence is to exist only conventionally, only as the object of conventional truth. The ultimate truth about any phenomenon, according to the analysis I have defended [in this essay], is hence that it is merely [even so] a conventional truth. Ontologically, therefore, the two truths are absolutely identical. This is the content of the idea that the two truths have a single basis, which is empty phenomena. Their emptiness is their conventional reality; their conventional reality is their emptiness.

But to know phenomena conventionally is not to know them ultimately. As objects of knowledge (that is, as intentional contents of thought, as opposed to as mere phenomena; that is, as external objects considered independently of their mode of apprehension) they are objects of different kinds of knowledge, despite the identity at a deeper level of these objects. Thus the difference. But the respect in which they are different and that in which they are identical are, despite their difference, also identical. A mirage is deceptive because it is a refraction pattern, and it is the nature of a refraction pattern to be visually deceptive. The conventional truth is merely deceptive and conventional because, upon ultimate analysis, it fails to exist as it appears - that is, because it is ultimately empty. It is the nature of the conventional to deceive. Ultimately, since all phenomena, even ultimate truth, exist only conventionally, conventional truth is all the truth there is, and that is an ultimate, and therefore a conventional, truth. To fail to take conventional truth seriously as truth is therefore not only to deprecate the conventional in favor of the ultimate, but to deprecate truth per se. In that way lies suffering. (from "Taking Conventional Truth Seriously: Authority Regarding Deceptive Reality", by Jay L. Garfield, in Philosophy East and West, July 2010)

Advayavada Study Plan - week 37 (samyag-vyayana)

Friends,

In Advayavada Buddhism, the Noble Eightfold Path is interpreted dynamically as an ongoing and autonomous, non-prescriptive, investigative and creative process of progressive insight reflecting in human terms overall existence advancing over time.

The Noble Eightfold Path in Advayavada Buddhism is fully personalized: it is firmly based on what we increasingly know about ourselves and our world, and trusting our own intentions, feelings and conscience.

Adherence to the familiar Five Precepts (not to kill, not to steal, sexual restraint, not to lie, and avoidance of alcohol and drugs) and a well-considered understanding of the Four Signs of Being and the Four Noble Truths as explained in this recurring plan suffice to start off on the Path at any time.

Nirvana means, in Advayavada Buddhism, the total extinction of existential suffering (duhkha, dukkha) by becoming one with the universal process of change and progress.

The Path or Middle Way we follow to this end is (1) that of our very best (samyak, samma) comprehension or insight followed by (2) our very best resolution or determination, (3) our very best enunciation or definition of our intention, (4) our very best disposition or attitude, (5) our very best implementation or realization, (6) our very best effort or commitment, (7) our very best observation, reflection or evaluation and self-correction, and (8) our very best meditation or concentration towards an increasingly real experience of samadhi, which brings us to (1) a yet better comprehension or insight, and so forth.

By following the Noble Eightfold Path in this way you get in tune with wondrous overall existence advancing over time; old mistakes are left behind; sorrow, doubt and remorse immediately start disappearing; and your life at once gathers new impetus.

(week 36) Last week's ASP subject was the Fifth Step on the Noble Eightfold Path: our very best (samyak, samma) implementation, realization or putting into practice of our intention.

(week 37) This week's ASP subject is therefore the Sixth Step on the Noble Eightfold Path: our very best (samyak, samma) effort or commitment in carrying out our plan or intention.

The purpose of the ASP is that during the week we study (and debate in the group, family circle and/or with good friends) the meaning and implications of the recurring weekly subject, particularly in the context of whatever we ourselves are presently doing or are concerned with, or about, such as our health, relationships, work, study, and our place and responsibilities in the family, group, sangha, society at large, etc.

Tip: Write down this week's subject ("do my very best!") in your pocket diary!

John Willemsens,
Advayavada Foundation.
<http://www.euronet.nl/~advaya/index.htm#plan>
<http://www.euronet.nl/~advaya/patipada.htm>

Advayavada Study Plan - week 36 (samyag-ajiva)

Friends,

In Advayavada Buddhism, the Noble Eightfold Path is interpreted dynamically as an ongoing and autonomous, non-prescriptive, investigative and creative process of progressive insight reflecting in human terms overall existence advancing over time.

The Noble Eightfold Path in Advayavada Buddhism is fully personalized: it is firmly based on what we increasingly know about ourselves and our world, and trusting our own intentions, feelings and conscience.

Adherence to the familiar Five Precepts and a well-considered understanding of the Four Signs of Being and the Four Noble Truths as explained in this recurring plan suffice to start off on the Path at any time.

Nirvana means, in Advayavada Buddhism, the total extinction of existential suffering (duhkha, dukkha) by becoming one with the universal process of change and progress.

The Path or Middle Way we follow to this end is (1) that of our very best (samyak, samma) comprehension or insight followed by (2) our very best resolution or determination, (3) our very best enunciation or definition of our intention, (4) our very best disposition or attitude, (5) our very best implementation or realization, (6) our very best effort or commitment, (7) our very best observation, reflection or evaluation and self-correction, and (8) our very best meditation or concentration towards an increasingly real experience of samadhi, which brings us to (1) a yet better comprehension or insight, and so forth.

By following the Noble Eightfold Path in this way you get in tune with wondrous overall existence advancing over time; old mistakes are left behind; sorrow, doubt and remorse immediately start disappearing; and your life at once gathers new impetus.

(week 35) Last week's ASP was the Fourth Step on the Noble Eightfold Path: to muster our very best (samyak, samma) disposition, frame of mind or attitude and demeanour to carry out our intention to the very best of our ability.

(week 36) This week's ASP subject is therefore the Fifth Step on the Noble Eightfold Path: our very best (samyak, samma) implementation, realization or putting into practice of our intention.

The purpose of the ASP is that during the week we study (and debate in the group, family circle and/or with good friends) the meaning and implications of the recurring weekly subject, particularly in the context of whatever we ourselves are presently doing or are concerned with, or about, such as our health, relationships, work, study, and our place and responsibilities in the family, group, sangha, society at large, etc.

Tip: Write down this week's subject ("start carrying out plan!") in your pocket diary!

John Willemsens,
Advayavada Foundation.
<http://www.euronet.nl/~advaya/index.htm#plan>
<http://www.euronet.nl/~advaya/patipada.htm>