Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Buddhism

  • Minimal Metaphysics for Meditation

    There is a certain minimal metaphysics one needs to assume if one is to pursue meditation as a spiritual practice, as opposed to, say, a relaxation technique.  You have to assume that mind is not exhausted by 'surface mind,' that there are depths below the surface and that they are accessible here and now.  You…

  • Double Cultural Appropriation!

    Before this morning's session on the black mat, I read from the Dhammapada. I own two copies. The copy I read from this morning has the Pali on the left and an English translation by Harischandra Kaviratna on the right. I don't know Pali grammar but I have swotted up plenty of Pali vocabulary over…

  • No Total Clarity in Philosophy

    To demand total clarity in philosophy is like demanding that one's visual field be all focus and no fringe.  It is a demand  that cannot be satisfied.  But the situation in philosophy is worse than the metaphor suggests. The visual fringe can be brought into focus if one is willing to allow the focus to…

  • The Scariest Passage in the Critique of Pure Reason

    With Halloween upon us, it is appropriate that I should present to my esteemed readers for their delectation if not horror the scariest passage in Kant's magnum opus: Unconditioned necessity, which we so indispensably require as the last bearer of all things, is for human reason the veritable abyss . . . . We cannot put…

  • Reading Now: Julius Evola, The Doctrine of Awakening

    Excellent introduction to Pali Buddhism. Will blog portions later. You say Evola was a fascist? Well, Sartre was a Stalinist; Frege was an anti-Semite (according to Michael Dummett); and Heidegger and Carl Schmitt were members of the Nazi Party. Are those affiliations good reasons to not read those great authors? Not to a sane person.…

  • Spiritual Practices and Metaphysical Dogmas

    It would be foolish to let the dubiousness of metaphysical dogmas dissuade you from spiritual exercises and the good achievable by their implementation. Don't let the weakness of the three pillars supporting the Buddhist edifice, anatta, anicca, dukkha, keep you from a long and salutary session on the black mat. Related: A 'No' to 'No…

  • Meditation as Inner Listening

    Our friend Vlastimil V. worries that his meditation practice might lead him in a Buddhist direction, in particular toward an acceptance of the three marks of phenomenal existence: anicca, anatta, dukkha.  He shouldn't worry. Those doctrines in their full-strength Pali  form are dubious if not demonstrably untenable.  For example, the doctrine of anicca, impermanence, is…

  • A Similar Pattern of Argument in Buddhism and Benatar

    On Buddhism the human (indeed the animalic/sentient) condition is a profoundly unsatisfactory predicament from which we need extrication.  The First Noble Truth is that fundamentally all is ill, suffering, unsatisfactory, dukkha. That there is some sukha (joy, happiness) along with the dukkha is undeniable, but the little sukha is fleeting and unsatisfying and leads to…

  • Buddhism

    We are told not to become attached to the usual objects of desire such as name and fame, pleasure and pelf, land and stand. Why not? Because they are impermanent (anicca), insubstantial (anatta), and do not ultimately satisfy (dukkha). So there is something permanent, substantial, and finally satisfying? No!  Nothing is! Well then, you have…

  • Pratityasamutpada

    Claude Boissons writes to express puzzlement over the following quotation pulled from a Buddhism site: Everything exists dependently upon everything else. Nothing exists independently in and of itself. Therefore, everything is empty of inherent existence. Every phenomenon is empty of true existence, therefore emptiness is the ultimate nature of everything that exists. Professor Boisson remarks:  …

  • More on the Question: Is Christianity Vain if not Historically True?

    Just over the transom from Jacques: Enjoying your posts as always!  Thanks for writing so regularly, at such a high level.  Reading your posts on Wittgenstein on religion I have a few quick thoughts about religion (or Christianity specifically).  When I first started reading Wittgenstein, I initially thought that he had in mind some very…

  • Nietzsche on Pyrrho: Sagacious Weariness, a Buddhist for Greece

    Will to Power #437 contains a marvellous discussion of Pyrrho of Elis.  A taste: A Buddhist for Greece, grown up amid the tumult of the schools; a latecomer; weary; the protest of weariness against the zeal of the dialecticians; the unbelief of weariness in the importance of all things. (tr. Kaufmann) Years ago I noted…

  • Is Islam a Religion? Buddhism?

    Claude Boisson writes, Given your criterion 3 for an ideology to be a religious doctrine, it is doubtful that Islam could be viewed as a religion (it is also a socio-political system with a supremacist agenda, but that is another matter).   In Islam, man can err, has to be obedient to Allah, but man…

  • Pyrrhonism and Buddhism

    Anyone familiar with both will have noticed the similarities between Pyrrhonism and Buddhism. The theme is explored in an on-line book I just discovered but haven't read: Adrian Kuzminski, Pyrrhonism: How the Ancient Greeks Reinvented Buddhism.  Related articles The Competency of Desire Can Philosophy be Debated? Just Say 'No' to 'No Self'

  • Sunday Morning Sermon: Awareness of Death as Cure for Existential Drift

    Our tendency is to drift through life. If life is a sea, too many of us are rudderless vessels, at the mercy of the prevailing winds of social suggestion. Death in its impending brings us up short: it forces us to confront the whole of one's life and the question of its meaning. Death is…