A comparative study of any two things

A comparative study of any two things aims to understand one side in terms of the other, find the merits and demerits in each side, and ultimately produce a new thing through a critical synthesis of the two. This comparative study is possible if and only if the two things being studied have both similarities and differences. The reason is as follows: if they are completely similar, there is no need for a comparison; if they are completely different, no significant comparison can be made. In a comparative study, accordingly, both differences without similarities and similarities without differences are meaningless. The similarities are the medium that make the meeting (communication) of the two possible and narrow or overcome their differences; the differences help to identify each side's merits and demerits. These are the requisites for a critical synthesis of the two; in this way, they interact and can ultimately produce something new. (Jong-Hyun Yeo, in Philosophy East and West, Honolulu, April 2013)

Advayavada Study Plan - week 28

Dear friends,

 

This week (28) we again study the selflessness (anatmata, nisvabhava) of all things as thoroughly as possible.

 

anatman (Skt.) without a self or self-nature, selfless; therefore finite; denial of the atman; the Buddhist anatmata doctrine teaches that ‘no self exists in the sense of a permanent, eternal, integral, and independent substance within an individual existent’; a fundamental tenet in Buddhism that ‘since there is no subsistent reality to be found in or underlying appearances, there cannot be a subsistent self or soul in the human appearance’; everything arises, abides, changes, and extinguishes according to pratityasamutpada; one of the three (in Advayavada Buddhism, four) signs or marks or basic facts of being (anitya, anatman, duhkha, and pratipada or progress).

 

Kind regards,

John Willemsens,

Advayavada Foundation.

@advayavada

Advayavada Study Plan - week 27

Dear friends,

 

The purpose of the autonomous Advayavada Study Plan ASP is that we study (and debate in a local group, the family circle or with good friends) the meaning and implications of the weekly subject, not as a formal and impersonal intellectual exercise, but in the context of whatever we ourselves are presently doing or are concerned with, or about, such as our health, relationships, work, study, our place in society, etc. Advayavada Buddhism does not tell you what to do or believe, but how to make the very best of our own lives by becoming as wondrous overall existence advancing over time now in its manifest direction.

 

This week (27) we again study the impermanence (aniccata/anityata) of all things as thoroughly as possible.

 

anitya (Skt.) impermanent, changeable, unstable; one of the three (in Advayavada Buddhism, four) signs or marks or basic facts of being; the Buddhist anityata doctrine teaches that impermanence or changeability is one of the fundamental properties of everything existing, without which existence (and liberation) would not be possible.

 

Kind regards,

John Willemsens

Advayavada Foundation

@advayavada

Advayavada Study Plan - week 26

Dear friends,

 

This week (26) we continue to practice our very best meditation towards samadhi.

 

The 8th Step on the Noble 8fold Path: samma-samadhi (samyak-samadhi); in Advayavada: our very best meditation or concentration towards samadhi; right rapture (Arnold, Eliot, Malalasekera), right samadhi (Bahm, Dharmapala), right concentration (Bodhi, Burt, Ch’en, Conze, Dhammananda, Fernando, Gethin, Grimm, Guenther, Harvey, Horner, Khemo, Narada, Nyanatiloka, Rahula, Saddhatissa, St Ruth, Takakusu, Warder), appropriate concentration (Batchelor), right meditation (David-Neel, Humphreys, Keown, Stroup), right meditating (Melamed), right illumination (Dharmapala), right awareness (Kornfield), right tranquility (Narasu), right contemplation (Rhys Davids, Watts); absolute concentration of purpose (Edwardes); correct concentration (Kloppenborg, Scheepers)

 

samadhi (Skt.): total or perfect 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 dynamic attunement with wondrous overall existence; oceanic feeling; wonder, awe, rapture; essential purity; deep love and compassion; awareness of our common ground and the innocence of sex.

 

Kind regards,

John Willemsens

Advayavada Foundation

@advayavada

Bayle on the rights of erroneous conscience (Curley)

Pierre Bayle (1647-1706) on the rights of erroneous conscience (from Bayle vs. Spinoza on Toleration, by Edwin M. Curley, Mededelingen vanwege het Spinoza Huis #95, Voorschoten 2009)

 

[P]erhaps his most distinctive and interesting argument occurs quite late in the Commentaire [philosophique sur ces paroles de Jésus-Christ, constrains-les d'entrer], where he contends, in replying to an objection, that an erroneous conscience has the same rights as an enlightened conscience. Here’s a summary of this argument:

 

I. To say that your conscience judges an action to be good or evil is the same as saying that your conscience judges it to be pleasing or displeasing to God. (Volume II of Pierre Bayle, Ouvres diverses, ed. Elisabeth Labrousse [OD II], p.422b; Pierre Bayle, Ouvres diverses, ed. John Kilcullen and Chandran Kukathas [KK], p.220)

 

II. If a man’s conscience tells him that an action is evil and displeasing to God, and he nevertheless does it anyway, he acts with the intent of offending and disobeying God. (OD II, 422b-423a; KK, 220)

 

III.Whoever acts with the intent of offending and disobeying God necessarily sins.

 

IV. So, if a man’s conscience tells him that an action is evil and displeasing to God, and he nevertheless does it anyway, he necessarily sins. Or more succinctly: whatever is done against the dictates of conscience is a sin. (OD II, 422b; KK, 220)

 

Bayle recognizes that this argument will not be persuasive to an atheist, but that may not be a problem for his purposes. His primary opponents are Christians, who may not be troubled by the theistic aspects of his assumptions. I presume most Christians – and most theists in general – would readily grant that if you act with the intent of offending and disobeying God, you sin. The first premise of Bayle’s argument will be more controversial. As he formulates it, it requires a commitment to what we might call ‘analytic theological voluntarism’, the theory that the meaning of ethical terms is to be analyzed by using the concepts of what is or is not pleasing to God. Many Christian philosophers would grant that Plato’s Euthyphro showed that analysis of ethical language to be faulty. But perhaps there is a way of reformulating I [the first premise] which would avoid the commitment to voluntarism.

 

[Note: According to Advayavada Buddhism, what human beings experience and identify as good, right or beneficial, indeed as progress, is, in fact, that which takes place in the otherwise indifferent direction that wondrous overall existence flows in of its own accord.]

 

………..

John Willemsens

Advayavada Foundation

http://www.advayavada.com

http://www.facebook.com/advayavadafoundation

http://twitter.com/advayavada

advaya@euronet.nl

 

Advayavada Study Plan - week 25

Dear friends,

 

This week (25) we again make our best possible evaluation of our efforts to date.

 

The 7th Step on the Noble 8fold Path: samma-sati (samyak-smriti); in Advayavada: our very best observation or reflection and self-correction; right loneliness (Arnold), right alertness (Burt), right mindfulness (Bahm, Bodhi, Ch’en, Conze, Dhammananda, Dharmapala, Eliot, Fernando, Gethin, Harvey, Horner, Keown, Malalasekera, Narada, Rahula, Rhys Davids, Saddhatissa, St Ruth, Takakusu), appropriate mindfulness (Batchelor), right attention (David-Neel), right recollectedness (Grimm, Watts), right inspection (Guenther), right recollection (Humphreys, Stroup), right attentiveness (Khemo, Nyanatiloka), right concentration (Kornfield), right thought (Narasu), right remembering (Melamed), right remembrance, right memory, right awareness; full understanding of action and thought (Edwardes); correct attention (Kloppenborg, Scheepers), right self-possession (Warder).

 

Kind regards,

John Willemsens

Advayavada Foundation

@advayavada

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; 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 and the innocence of sex.

 

………..

John Willemsens

Advayavada Foundation

http://www.advayavada.com

http://www.facebook.com/advayavadafoundation

http://twitter.com/advayavada

advaya@euronet.nl