tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9223684.post1317277779589612365..comments2023-10-22T12:12:04.100+01:00Comments on American Buddhist in England: Buddhist ethics and metaphysicsBuddhist_philosopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14246929532585980356noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9223684.post-10136087472431134992008-01-07T03:41:00.000+00:002008-01-07T03:41:00.000+00:00Re: Buddha and women... It's a tricky one maybe. I...Re: Buddha and women... It's a tricky one maybe. I, being a good Buddhist, say that he knew full well that beings born as women have every bit as much potential as beings born as men. Difference of potential is not at issue.<BR/><BR/>As you mentioned, it was more of a cultural problem... yet perhaps also a biological problem - in his day.<BR/><BR/>In his culture (and indeed the world at the time), creating an order of nuns was unheard of. He risked everything, including the well-being of his monks, by potentially turning the society against him.<BR/><BR/>On the biological level, I recall some texts saying it's a bad deal to be born a woman because of the difficulties of menstruation (and childbearing/rearing). It doesn't take much imagination to think of the difficulty that must have come with simply being female back then.<BR/><BR/>But again I would reiterate that the Buddha DID after all create the order of nuns - social radical that he was - and he DID have female disciples reach the same exalted states of arahatship - enlightenment - as his monks. So, external differences (cultural/biological) aside, we can say that the Buddha recognized a deeper equality between genders.Buddhist_philosopherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14246929532585980356noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9223684.post-14816558775378951972008-01-06T23:41:00.000+00:002008-01-06T23:41:00.000+00:00Very good, Justin. I will need to ponder some of t...Very good, Justin. I will need to ponder some of this, but what you write sounds right.<BR/><BR/>But a final question: To what do you attribute Buddha's lack of appreciation for women's capabilities? And what does it say about Buddha's knowledge of the good? [Feel free to write what you think; There's no chance Kelly'll ever read this. None at all. Nope.]Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13718601770472939313noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9223684.post-19453512353514830872008-01-06T22:18:00.000+00:002008-01-06T22:18:00.000+00:00Tom, as the Buddha stated in the Bahiya sutta: Whe...Tom, as the Buddha stated in the Bahiya sutta: <BR/><BR/>Where neither water nor yet earth<BR/>Nor fire nor air gain a foothold,<BR/>There gleam no stars, no sun sheds light,<BR/>There shines no moon, yet there no darkness reigns.<BR/><BR/>When a sage, a brahman, has come to know this<BR/>For himself through his own wisdom,<BR/>Then he is freed from form and formless.<BR/>Freed from pleasure and from pain.<BR/><BR/>Socrates and the Buddha would be in agreement, I believe, regarding the ability to ascertain perfect knowledge and goodness. Kant, interestingly, agrees with you... that we cannot really know what hides in the dark recesses of our minds. We can never really know that we aren't just deceiving ourselves. Here I agree with Buddha and Socrates though.<BR/><BR/>The crowd may help us, yes. But ultimately the hard work is for us to undertake. I do think the Good is again primarily internal, and the external manifestations are variable, situational, and (to the unenlightened) paradoxical.Buddhist_philosopherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14246929532585980356noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9223684.post-88607079392844573322008-01-06T21:49:00.000+00:002008-01-06T21:49:00.000+00:00Very good, wise Buddhist philosopher. I see immed...Very good, wise Buddhist philosopher. I see immediately the wisdom of your comment, overriding the weakness in mine that precedes it.<BR/><BR/>A question though is Is Socates necessarily right? Would a person who knows The Good necessarily know he knows The Good, completely? Would a person who thinks he knows The Good make errors due to his lack of understanding?<BR/><BR/>I think today, we moderns would be correct in assessing Buddha as having failed to appreciate that women were fully as capable as men. These capabilities were veiled because of the culture of the time and thus we must forgive Buddha for his lack of understanding.<BR/><BR/>We can never know what we don't understand. Does that mean that we may never achieve perfect virtue? Should we all rely, then, on "the crowd" to help us with virtue, since others may have a greater understanding than we have?<BR/><BR/>Contrariwise, if virtue -- The Good -- is primarily insight, is the idea of virtue and understanding washing each other limited? Then might we each have the 'ability' to fully know The Good with its nature of being paradoxical, situational and open to a range of behaviors?Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13718601770472939313noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9223684.post-3997741813909014262008-01-06T19:34:00.000+00:002008-01-06T19:34:00.000+00:00Tom - yup, the Good is beyond Buddha; sure as day....Tom - yup, the Good is beyond Buddha; sure as day. It's a tricky balance, though, 'leaving others to find it' and realizing interconnectedness. I'm not going to pummel my foot for getting too close to a thorn, but I'm not wise to just 'let it' step on a cactus to learn for itself that particular sort of suffering. <BR/><BR/>Knowing that the suffering of others is my own, I need to find ways to best guide them away from cacti - as much as I can - all the while keeping my own self (this particular body called Justin) out of thorny situations.Buddhist_philosopherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14246929532585980356noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9223684.post-5783591049066899282008-01-06T18:14:00.000+00:002008-01-06T18:14:00.000+00:00The Good is beyond Buddhism, right? Buddha only f...The Good is beyond Buddhism, right? Buddha only found it and didn't mold it.<BR/><BR/>Surely, there is a libertarian streak in The Good such that leaving it to others to find it is necessarily good. I'm sure you would agree, being a famously libertarian Montanan.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13718601770472939313noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9223684.post-60646882401040584972008-01-06T16:15:00.000+00:002008-01-06T16:15:00.000+00:00hia Tom - I'm probably a bit of a 'clobberer' as w...hia Tom - I'm probably a bit of a 'clobberer' as well, with my strong sense (or mere idea) of what is right and what is simply <I>not</I>. I think in Buddhism we can do a good job of holding to a big-G Goodness without fascism or forced imposition onto others. That is because the Buddha made very clear that it is a Good (and Truth) that each must come to on their own; and it is an internal state; not any kind of external obedience to rules of state, religion, or society.Buddhist_philosopherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14246929532585980356noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9223684.post-64085690451672040502008-01-05T16:56:00.000+00:002008-01-05T16:56:00.000+00:00"The point is that ethics, or morality – doing the...<B>"The point is that ethics, or morality – doing the right thing – is tied in with wisdom, insight, or philosophy. As Socrates stated, “To know the good is to do the good.”"</B><BR/><BR/>It would seem to me that insight is the vital member of the trio you cite. But looking at human misadventures, from the Bush administration, to Enron, to the junta in Burma, and to rather recent 'enlightened' Buddhist masters with drinking, sexual gambling and thieving problems, it becomes hard to understand why so many people who seem to have it all throw it all away for the rush of being bad.<BR/><BR/>And then, too, there seem to be people who harbor this sanctimonious sense of what 'good is' and use it mostly to clobber other people.<BR/><BR/>I'm a bit of a clobberer myself.<BR/><BR/>An 'idea' that comes from Integral theory, and probably somewhere else before that, is that varieties of human behaviors/sensitivities are best, in the aggregate. It's a 'wisdom of crowds' kind of thing.<BR/><BR/>It seems like Buddha, tho, has this absolutist concept of The Good that one would come to know from Big Kahuna Enlightenment. I also tend to think that, like the fixed relationships of forces in physics seem to be, The Good is unwavering, timeless and the same for all of us. But that puts things a bit at odds with welcoming life in all its messiness as being of great value.<BR/><BR/>Surely, if The Good is good, then we must want it forcibly imposed on everyone. [Er, I mean, '... we would want everyone to find it.']Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13718601770472939313noreply@blogger.com