Author: Warren Tang

I write about linguistics and philosophy. I also write poetry and take photographs.

What the Buddha taught

Warren Tang4 Comments

Upon discovering the way to liberation from suffering the Buddha went to his former companions who had abandoned him. Noticing his changed disposition they listened and realized that he had reached their common goal.

He taught them that everything without exception is impermanent, that to understand otherwise is the cause of suffering, and that the most expedient way to liberation is to accept the impermanence of the self (non-self).

The Buddha summarised it (The Four Noble Truths) in this way:

      1. life is suffering,
      2. it is cause by our desires (thirst),
      3. to cease suffering one must detach from desires, and
      4. the way to do it (The Eightfold Path) is by having correct
        1. understanding
        2. thought
        3. speech
        4. action
        5. livelihood
        6. effort
        7. mindfulness
        8. concentration

He also taught the nature our personality (skandha) and explained what the chain of rebirth (paticca-samuppada) is in detail so that we can deal with it practically. He taught that we must end rebirth (samsara) and not to perpetuate it by sowing the seeds (karma) that bring about further becoming, and he showed that a careful moderate lifestyle will quell future becoming.

He taught this one teaching (Dharma) for forty-five years until he died from accidental food poisoning.

Today, as a religion, Buddhism is practiced by venerating the Three Jewels of the Buddha (the founder), the Dharma (teachings) and the Sangha (community).

The Buddha

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The historical Buddha was born 2,500 years ago near the border of Nepal and India. He was a prince. His father, Suddhodana, was the ruler of a small kingdom. His mother, Maya, gave birth to Siddhartha Gautama, his real name, in Lumbini, a forest en route to her family home. Without any more reason to go she turned back and returned to Kapilavastu, the capital.

Soothsayers had predicted that he would become either a great king or a great spiritual leader. King Suddhodana, worried that his son would not ascend the throne, gave Siddhartha every comfort possible to ensure he would be groomed to become the next king.

At the age of 28, having married and awaiting the birth of his child, Siddhartha had decided to venture outside into the world to see his kingdom. There, he saw for the first time sickness, old age, and death. He also saw the serenity of an ascetic among this reality.

Deciding to search for this happiness he left his family and duties. Now known as Shakyamuni, The Sage of the Shakya Clan, he sought the best teachers of the time, mastered their teachings. But he did not find the happiness he had seen in that ascetic he had met on that fateful trip. Deciding that that extreme asceticism is no better than decadence he changed his approach and followed a more moderate practice – The Middle Way. After intense meditation, he became fully enlightened and found the happiness that he had sought.

At age 35 now known as Buddha, The Enlightened One, he spent the next forty-five years teaching the way which brings about liberation from suffering (enlightenment).

Id, ego, superego

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Life is complicated. There are so many things we need to tend to. And Sigmund Freud understood this in simpler (or more complex) terms.

In talking of the psyche of people used the terms id, ego and superego. Basically, the id is what you want (your desires, wants and needs). The superego is what is expected and demanded of you from society. And the ego is what you do when taking into consideration of the superego (pressures from society and culture) and the id (your personal urges). These three need to be balanced for a person’s well-being.

Where idealism fails

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If the mind (ideal world) supervenes the body (physical world) then there would be no need for the physical world whatsoever. That is, at any moment we can forego the physical and continue to exist in ideas.

The fact that we loathe to “let go” of this world must mean that we do not fully believe that such a world exists. And if we do it is has nothing to do this world, for no effect (paranormal or otherwise) upon it has ever been observed without questions being asked. There is nothing certain about the ideal world.

one, forty-two

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everything real
has a positive
equal value
called existence

un-equivalence
is our choice
our preference
our bias
our privileging
of a thing
over others

be it god
the self
the soul
or whatnot

that
is the nature
of me
a human being

E=mc²

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think about it –

energy
is matter
is space
is time

while god
maybe 0
the world
is an integer

and nietzsche
may have
proclaimed
“god is dead”

but to me
“god is ‘nothing’
& the world is
everything”

from the world
came god and gods,
not the other way
as we might believe

Physicalism, not atheism

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I don’t like atheism.

I don’t like atheism because it drags God, god or gods in the conversation as if they exist. It assumes first that there is a god or gods then proceeds with the argument to deny it. Atheism is the trap that theists have set for the unsuspecting.

The better approach is physicalism. Conclude that everything is physical, then to proceed to see what is a god or gods means we can deal with it like the fiction that it is. The concept of god is then seen as ordinary like Harry Potter and purple unicorns. The verbalisation or iteration of these do not make them real. Physicalism allows us the possibility to deal with concepts.

The editorial error that became “metaphysics”

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Did you know that the term “metaphysics” came about through an error by an editor? Not only that, but the entire project of trying to find the nature and origin of being and the universe is based upon this error.

The “meta” in metaphysical had meant “after” or “beyond”, which led it to be interpreted as meaning “beyond the physical world”. No such meaning was there, however, because the editor had only wanted to denote use the term to mean the chapter after the chapter on ‘physics’. So Western Civilisation has been chasing after God and the soul for over two-thousand years because of an error.

Consciousness is mundane

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There is nothing special about consciousness. It is only the consciousness which wants to think so. In this sense I agree with Object-Oriented Ontologists.

But what I do not agree with OOO is that to think it is necessary (read: special) to be free (like a rock is) from subjectivity and objectivity.

I have found it gratifying to come to terms with my humanness and celebrate existence – without being anthropologically arrogant – as only a human being can.

The equality of objectivity

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In objectivity everything has a value of 1. The problem is that it has a value. Choosing an equal value for everything is in itself a value-ladened choice, no different to choice unequal values.