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The God Delusion and The Self Delusion in Buddhism
Marx said religion is opium, Dawkins ("The God Delusion (TGD)" )argued that God is a delusion.
The debate on TGD has been very heated, to get some idea, read The Huffington Post for a summary of Dawkins' position and about 580 comments running across 24 pages.
Most discussions are related to Christianity, what about Buddhism?
Buddhism is regarded as Pantheistic, and sometimes agnostic, so the clash with Dawkins is not expected to be as sharp.
First thing to note, however, is that there are many schools of Buddhism, with very different views about God.
Theravada (or doctrine of the Elders) is definitely agnostic, and refuses to go into intellectual arguments about things not here and now. It focuses on the purification of the mind, which if achieved, could provide answers to the difficult questions.
Discussing it now when our minds are full of mind viruses is futile.
It is told that the historical Buddha, an ordinary person, said that he can only point the way, everybody needs to tread their own paths.
This is different from Stephen Jay Gould's 'NOMA' - 'non-overlapping magisteria'.
Gould claimed that science and true religion never come into conflict because they exist in completely separate dimensions of discourse.
Other schools of Buddhism believe in certain Gods and Goddesses, such as bodhisattvas, who have vowed to help all sentient being to be liberated. Such boddhisattvas are worshipped for their superpowers.
These schools would be at loggerheads with Dawkins.
Other schools believe in Buddha-nature, or in Sunyata (Emptiness), which is some kind of Pantheism, similar to what Spinoza and Einstein believed.
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Is Buddhism a meme?
Going further to Dawkins earlier work "The Selfish Gene", where he introduced the term meme as a unit
of cultural transmission, we may ask if Buddhism is a meme.
Dawkins said that religions or religious practices and rituals are complexes of memes or memplexes.
Some of the Buddhist rituals are definitely memes, but it is interesting to hear Susan Blackmore,
the author of "The Meme Machine" about meditation:
"if a meditational system such as Buddhism is a meme, |
Meditation is a tool to be aware of the viruses in our mind, including religions.
The self delusion
Finally, the central tenet of Buddhism is the no self doctrine: no self, no soul, no reincarnation.
It regards the Self Delusion as a much serious problem than the God delusion.
I wonder if Dawkins would regard self as a delusion.
3 komentar:
Good start but you seem to omit Engaged Buddhism which is committed to social justice.
Also there is much more variation in Buddhism especially in the West, where progressives are at home with the emphasis on "Rightful Living" but reject elements which they regard as superstition.
For many of us, Buddhism = agnosticism + meditation + solid commitment to social justice + a dash of non-superstitious appeals to altruism.
Tom
Sorry for the omission, and thank you for reminding. To make amends, I will devote the next post to discuss Engaged Buddhism. Actually, there are many other streams of Buddhism I did not mention, either because I am not familiar with them or I think they have been included in the general but brief discussion connected to Dawkins TGD
I am grateful that I have a separate sense of Self when I am crossing the highway or driving in my car. I am grateful for the unique essence of a Pine Tree after a snow storm. I am grateful for my deep individuality and how my soul is indeed engaged in a process of Individuation throughout many lifetimes. I am glad I can differentiate between my Self and Your Self. The Denial and Minimizing of Self is a tragic fallacy. The Self must be Individuated before it can transcend. A more accurate description of the process of Enlightenment is that I am simultaneously becoming my own, totally unique Individual Self, fully embodied and present while I am also realizing Transcendence and my Radiant Existence as a Non-Separate Self. That is...my Individual Soul or Self is connected to everyone else and the Radiant Creator of the Kosmos. In Fact I discover that I am made of the same stuff as Radiant Spirit. In our tendency as humans to black and white thinking, while our consciousness is not yet evolved beyond egoic structures and our Being unintegrated, the ignorant among us put forth unearthly visions of Spirituality devoid of Self/Soul. Many taste Radiant Spirit before they have done the excruciating hard work of Individuation. In their Spiritual Narcissism, they then formulate a partial Vision of Reality devoid of Soul. This leads many astray. The Spirituality of the West is Incomplete with its primary emphasis on Self. The Spirituality of the East is equally incomplete with its primary emphasis on Transcendence and the bogus lie of "Non-Self". The two have evolved together on opposite sides of the planet. The Opposites must be brought together for wholeness and integration.
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