Many copies of the Tractatus.
here is an amusing nested version: https://www.tractatuslogico-philosophicus.com/
This gives a brief overview of Buddhist logic = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_logico-epistemology
The whole business of perceptions, inferences and correct knowledge has a long history.
"a dialogical experiential method" - in practice, yes. And this is where we come to those questions that have no answers, either because they are not really questions (eg much of theology) or because the answers are experiential.
I found the Tractatus strangely helpful in the esoteric sciences as a method of mental hygiene to clear out pointless questions.
Buddhism makes no references to any "gods", but rather seeks to establish why such questions would create dis-ease. the question isn't, "is there a God?" but rather, "why care?"
Thank you very much for the Tractatus link. I happily receive it.
That applies just fine when I feel I have difficulties understanding the theory. So practice helps out.
When I first learned that Buddhism does not work from the story of creation, all my unease went away in one fell swoop. I thought, "Oh!", which resulted in the very thing you say: it's not relevant. If it's not relevant, then I don't need to struggle with it any further. As an educated Christian, I can take that as a revelation, especially because Christians ask for a beginning and a creator. The surprise it caused me laughed in my face.
I wonder, if this also happens vice versa, where asian raised people get the same surprises when they study Christian theology. I am though most certain that it does.
Having lived in SE Asia, I have to say that most people here have no idea about their alleged Buddhism - it looks like much of the Khmer Hinduism is still here, plus animism. It is an interesting study in syncretism. lol. And within that is this abiding desire (flaw) to believe stuff.
One example is that they recite the Pali canon - in Pali, which nobody understands! So, what are they learning? Is like going to a mass in Latin knowing no Latin.
Again from one of my teachers, I recall him having a dig at some of the people, paraphrasing:"This is not faith; believing is a low level experience. If you have swapped one belief (Christianity) for another, then is best you go back to your own religion!"
Hinduism is not a unitary system, so has some creation myths while some schools don't. You get the sense of Brahma as similar to the Godhead, so an eternal abstraction. At which point, one can get trapped in such illusions of thought, and that is the one thing Buddhism seeks to avoid.
This is amusing...
;-)
That is funny, and interesting. I had experiences when very young that showed me a different universe, hence had zero faith in either priests or Christianity. However, it took some years to articulate the concept, so when I came across some of the earliest writings, in both Hinduism and Buddhism, was more a sense of recognition than something new.
The starting point was to explain the experiences, not to create yet another cosmogeny.
Just the other days I had a dialogue about what can be called a surprise and why it is helpful. The way I see it, is that the sense of recognition, in the moment it sets in, gives me the element of delightful surprise, for I obviously have forgotten about what I once cognized.
"Recognition" for me does not contradict "surprise", I perceive it as one and the same thing the moment I realize that some thing I have forgotten re-emerges into my sight. The logic it provides me with is that I go through life and pick up realizations and then, during every day routine, I forget them. Forgetting can be either judged as "damn you!" or "naive you!" but it does not eliminate the very fact that it happens nevertheless.
Speaking of early experiences, I can recall that whenever my mom told me about god I sensed something incoherent about her concept of sin. I was, of course, not able to articulate it to her. So I either lied to her or ignored her efforts to teach me. It's a pity in one way, for it caused some blockades for a long time to dive deeper into Christianity and findig its treasures. Both, Occident and Orient, can provide me with re-cognitions, if I let them.
I would subscribe to that.
Thank you for those lines. Highly appreciated.
To the rest:
I would think that the same applies to Christianity. The knowledge of what theological writings or their authors had to say is more than superficial.
On the other hand, staying with practical congregational experience, I would not necessarily assume that the language in which prayer or song is recited necessarily needs to be understood by the word. It is not very relevant in moments of congregational singing in a church or chapel to be carried through an event, I am speaking here of funeral ceremonies or the important holidays, for example. We adults are quick to forget the children, who only exert their intellect long after they have already had the mystical experience of what it feels like to hear a congregation chanting.
Chantings, monastic choirs, folklore (lullabies, for example, that stir something deep within you), are of an artistic musical nature, they allow intuitive access and I would even say they are suitable for wanting to engage with an understanding of the world in a theoretical spiritual way. If the singing was there first (without the words being understood), there is the possibility of also becoming interested in the scholastic background. If only scholasticism dominates, it is bad for practice.
The Buddhists who have the Buddha Dharma Sangha have understood, in my view, that not everyone can have an academic, intellectual and scholastic background, and that the "common people" can be quite content with what the monasteries or spiritual centres offer them in terms of a spiritual experience through chanting or reciting, without seeing themselves as knowing in a docile but just in an unscholarly existence.
However, I would immediately agree if it is not the un-worded spirit that flows through one when reciting or chanting Latin or Pali, but the whole affair becomes a dull and automatic one without experiencing the depth in it.
When I was a kid, I came in touch with it and the singing spoke a lot more to me than any command my mother gave me. So I admired her when she was singing, and I detested her when she was preaching.
Just on one point, this is where what one may perceive as "chanting" is not prayers at all - much of the time they are recitations of the visualisations they are doing as part of a meditation. Hence, not understanding the words is a huge handicap!
I have seen English translations tried, but somehow they need more work to make the tones, rhythms and words align. No doubt similar experiences took place in going from Sanskrit to Pali to Tibetan etc - even more so into Chinese and Japanese. There is also a visual aspect to this whereby traditional representations of "deities" (archetypes) do not elicit the same emotional states for Westerners. All of this takes time and an assimilation so that something like Buddhism is no longer seen as purely Asian.
BTW this iconographic syncretism already took place many centuries ago in Gandhara.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gandharan_Buddhism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Buddhism
Sadly, the texts tended to travel eastwards rather than to the west - then again, the entrenched western monotheisms would prove hard to destroy. This is what happens when rampant fideism prevails = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhas_of_Bamiyan.
Please, explain. Not sure how to interpret it. I read the wiki entry but as there is much content, I don't know to what specifically you are referring to.
I agree with this to the extent that if no one from the community of those gathered knows the meaning of what is recited or the words and mantras chanted, the rest of the people gathered cannot be grasped by the spirit behind it. It always takes a few to sustain that spirit. Where those who are unlearned in the theological or scholastic contemplations, though, want to be learners and get the meaning, the whole congregational affair can continue at a high level. Where there is no scholar and practitioner of the doctrine within that group, whatever depth of meaning there is is lost. This is clearly noticeable when one goes to services where such things have been lost. In contrast to the congregations, where it is not. All it takes is ten people out of a hundred who are able to hit the tune, to bring the rest of those gathered together into an authentic mood. Instead of developing into an automatic and meaningless repetition of terms.
Agree. Also, assimilation of what is seen as purely Christian could take place.
The tractatus website, says the browser, is not safe. Is it Wittgenstein?
all browsers seem to now enjoy scaring people - not all sites are https, many old sites never bothered buying a certificate, that's all.
Good, I needed some technical explanation in that. Because I have no clue whatsoever if a site is https and bought a certificate or not. If you are saying that the link has no certificate but can otherwise be visited, I rely on your word.