37
votes
Accepted
Hypocrisy of Buddhism
Buddhist master, Ajahn Brahm, answered a similar question as follows in an interview with Rachael Kohn:
Rachael Kohn: I know that your message is often about happiness, and how the point of life......
- 2,534
12
votes
Is there evidence of a Buddhist influence on Greek Stoicism?
It's hard to answer these kind of things with a negative but I'm going to be bold and do that with caveats. I haven't heard of Stoicism itself being directly influenced by Buddhism but.....
There is ...
- 20.8k
11
votes
Hypocrisy of Buddhism
Buddhist not trying to accumulate money/power and use it to help people and change world, is hypocritical?
Hypocrisy is defined as:
1. a pretense of having a virtuous character, moral or religious ...
- 23.8k
9
votes
What's Buddhism view on choice, choicelesness and causality?
causality. Action. Reaction. Cause and effect
This is agreeable with Theravada Buddhism. This is dealt in dependent origination
Choice is an illusion, created between those with power, and those ...
8
votes
Accepted
What does Nonduality correspond to in Buddhism?
There's an article on that subject Dhamma and Non-duality by
Bhikkhu Bodhi.
The following is basically all direct quotes from that article, except very summarized (I'm extracting sentences and ...
- 43.1k
7
votes
Accepted
What's Buddhism view on choice, choicelesness and causality?
If I could be as bold as to identify the viewpoint of Buddhism in terms of western philosophy, I would say Buddhist position on free will is close to that of Compatibilism (see the Wikipedia entry).
...
- 55.2k
7
votes
Accepted
Karma instead of God's plan
God's plan implies a working towards some goal, or a rhyme or reason at least. Karma implies no such thing; it simply describes an orderliness to the mental aspect of reality, in the same way that ...
- 23.8k
6
votes
Is "nāma" an equivalent of the Western concept of "mind"? Is it used alone?
In the Theravada (mostly in the abhidhamma and commentaries), "nāma" is used to describe those dhammas that are mental, i.e. the last four aggregates. Also, three of the four ultimate ...
- 23.8k
6
votes
Difference between Buddhism and Aristotelian "middle-way"?
However, this is exactly what Aristotle said in his definition of virtue.
Yes the ancient Greeks did have "nothing in excess" as part of their cultural heritage.
Buddhists might agree with some of ...
- 43.1k
6
votes
Accepted
When and why did monks stop meditating?
A long time ago in Sri Lanka the Sangha began to divide itself into two sort of specialties of Monks. There were city Monks who lived in monasteries inside the cities and villages, and they ...
- 7,356
6
votes
Accepted
What is the difference between Yogacara Buddhism and Idealism?
Some scholars, notably Dan Lusthaus, have argued that Yogācāra is not a form of Idealism. Lusthaus is one of the leading living authorities on Yogācāra and author of the authoritative analysis, ...
- 4,247
6
votes
Is the experience of suffering or enjoyment completely reducible to physics e.g. such as in materialist views i.e. materialism?
Your question is quite interesting because it starts out with an openness regarding identity view. Awesome! You ask about what is and are puzzled at the rise of feelings pleasant, painful or neutral. ...
- 8,654
5
votes
Accepted
Does the Buddha speak of the nature of time, vis-à-vis "past," "future," and "present?"
Lord Buddha definitely does talk about Past, Present and Future; but I guess your questions is mainly about, "Do we have something called time?" or "What is time?"
With regards to Abidhamma, there is ...
- 256
5
votes
Apparently stream-entrants are destined to attain Nibbana but what about non-stream-entrants?
Say, you wanted to lose weight and stay healthy. If you have no idea about Calories, Carbs, Fat, and Exercise - you may spend years randomly trying all types of foods, fasting, etc. - your weight ...
- 55.2k
4
votes
Accepted
Buddhism ideals in the West before the 20th century
Apparently Pascal is aware of the same thing that the Buddha was aware of before he became enlightened: i.e. a view of reality which was the actual incentive for Gautama to look for enlightenment, ...
- 43.1k
4
votes
Hypocrisy of Buddhism
This is a very complex question. You start by positing an "ideal Buddhist", which cannot really exist by virtue of all Buddhists generally being human, thus flawed.
You are asking about how a ...
- 301
4
votes
Accepted
What word is the closest to qualia
I don't think there is any single word that's cleanly equivalent to qualia, but there are some that approach the idea from different angles.
sabhāva-dhamma: Condition of nature; any phenomenon, ...
- 1,099
4
votes
Is Buddhism Free will or Determinism
In my opinion, the Dhamma is in-between those two extremes. The Dhamma teaches us Dependent Co-arising.
One's mind is not free from the influence of past conditions. What affects the aggregates in ...
- 2,094
4
votes
Accepted
Does Western Philosophy Have Conceptual Overlaps with Buddhism?
If there are overlaps, what are possible explanations?
It's natural that when you learn something new, you compare it with what you know already.
Not just "compare", but "see parallels" and "see ...
- 43.1k
3
votes
Unique particulars
The problem as I understand it.
This is a question is ultimately about substantiation.
In using the term unique particular, you seem to be referring to the notion that there may be some sort of ...
- 378
3
votes
Is "nāma" an equivalent of the Western concept of "mind"? Is it used alone?
The word nāma is never used by itself to mean mind, but the reason for this is the word literally means name, so it would be very hard to tell when it is being used to mean mind and when it is being ...
- 7,356
3
votes
How is the new intelligence equation practically (freedom) related to Buddhism?
"something that takes control of the present to enable greater control of future possibilities". This is Mindfulness. By being Mindful of the present moment.One has greater control of the action that ...
- 3,042
3
votes
Buddhism and the so called "hard" problem of consciousness
A good question. But hampered, as are many such discussions by mismatched terminology. There is no Buddhist concept that quite matches the idea of "consciousness". We don't really notice this because ...
- 4,247
3
votes
Difference between Buddhism and Aristotelian "middle-way"?
Archie Bahm's Philosophy of the Buddha takes a different approach. Here's a blog article that covers this.
A key paragraph from the article (itself a quote from Bahm):
His historical [...] ...
- 2,231
3
votes
What's Buddhism view on choice, choicelesness and causality?
In my opinion, determinism is a feature that appears in all conditioned phenomena (at the very least, in all phenomena of our subjective experience), which makes those phenomena follow inconditionally ...
- 2,094
3
votes
Is there evidence of a Buddhist influence on Greek Stoicism?
The presence of Greek kingdoms in (what are now) Afganistan, Pakistan and India after the time of Alexander, implies that the evolution of (some schools of) Buddhism was to some extent (small or large ...
- 31
3
votes
Accepted
Were there earlier western monks before Bhikkhu Ananda Metteyya (Charles Henry Allan Bennett)
Gordon Douglas (monk),
Gordon Douglas has traditionally been seen as the first European to become ordained as a Bhikkhu in Southeast Asia although Laurence Carroll (U Dhammaloka) and others are now ...
- 43.1k
3
votes
Buddhist philosophy and "events"
Buddhist philosophy of anatta challenges the notion of "entities" - objects with identity, independent of the rest of the world and observer.
Instead, here is an alternative: try and see the world as ...
- 55.2k
3
votes
Accepted
Does Buddhism have a model of practical rationality?
the belief-desire-intention model of action
Are the "four noble truths" an example of that?
I "believe" the first three truths
I "desire" the end of suffering
Therefore I "intend" the fourth noble ...
- 43.1k
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