| | Since this is my first post I’ll include a concise preface: college student, don’t consider myself an objectivist or anything other than just a thinker, like to argue, despise the “sex and beer” mentality of the world around me.
Now to my post. I was discussing personal philosophies with a friend a while ago and he commented that I was very Buddhist. In the past I’ve only given Buddhism a once over and it didn’t seem to resonate with me so after hearing his comment I decided to look deeper. After searching this site a bit I found some mention of Buddhism in relation to objectivism (Buddhists and Objectivists), but the types of Buddhism that were discussed were from a religious Buddhism perspective so I’d like to talk a bit about Buddhism from a philosophical perspective.
An in depth discussion is obviously beyond the scope of a single post (or even a single thread) so I’ll try to just hit the highlights. I don’t know how to approach this without introducing Buddhism a bit so I’ll spend a little space on that before I start discussing. Also, my understanding of Buddhism is extremely elementary so if any gross errors are made you have my apologies in advance.
Firstly, a bit about Buddhism. I think it should known that the types of Buddhism prevalent today are what the Buddha explicitly wanted to avoid. The core of what has become Buddhism is nothing more than a man’s observations about the world, and for as long as the Buddha lived that is how the core was presented. Only after his death did his thoughts become formalized and religious-ized, although definitely more loosely than some other religions. The core, what he called dharma, is what I want to discuss.
A bit about dharma. The primary aspect of dharma is the unhealthy attachment to fleeting pleasures. The recognition and solution to this unhealthy attachment are called the Four Noble Truths. The best way I’ve heard this described is this: Suppose your lover is giving you a massage. While this is happening you realize that this massage feels great and you don’t want it to end, so you start thinking of ways to prolong the massage. The longer the massage goes on the more frantically you try to find a way to keep it from ending, but it must end sometime. When it does you realize that you’ve completely missed the pleasure that comes from the massage and you’re left with nothing (except maybe what comes after the massage). The (crudely expressed) idea here is: shut up and enjoy it while it lasts. Also, recognize that there is more to life than fleeting pleasures (not to imply that you should shun them) and seek more meaningful pleasures (e.g., enjoying the company of your lover).
To embrace this enjoy-it-while-it-lasts mindset the Buddha suggested the Eightfold Path. Briefly, this path is marked by (1) right views, (2) right intent, (3) right speech, (4) right conduct, (5) right livelihood, (6) right effort, (7) right mindfulness, and (8) right concentration. A little less briefly: (1) reason is your guide, use it; (2) the only way progress will be made is if life is approached honestly and because you want to; (3) don’t be a hypocrite in speech; (4) don’t be a hypocrite in action; (5) don’t be a hypocrite in occupation; (6) persevere; (7) “Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think.”; (8) focus, avoid wasteful thinking.
Now for what I wanted to talk about. There is a great deal of semantic confusion that has come about from multiple translations over the millennia and this confusion is main reason Buddhism didn’t appeal to me when I first looked at it, particularly the view of the self and interactions with others.
The self. A common concept present in Buddhism is the idea of “no-self.” For a long time this made no sense to me, until I found out what was meant by “self.” This self being referred to is the idea of an eternal, unchanging part of a person. Instead, people are constantly changing because we are constantly being bombarded by stimuli which we react to and therefore change in some way. This idea of a fluid personality I agree with. It is not a question of if the individual exists, but a question of is the individual stagnant or not.
Another common idea in modern Buddhism is altruism. However, I believe this to be a misinterpretation of the ideas presented. Benevolence is clearly encouraged by the dharma; altruism is not. The idea is to be aware of how your actions affect the world around you, and to avoid doing harm to yourself and others. Altruism clearly is harmful to the self, but also to others in that it effectively weakens everyone it touches. A man living off of another’s labor gains nothing of meaning, value, or understanding and thereby only harms himself.
The idea of interdependence in Buddhism can lead some (like my friend) to support socialistic/communistic systems. Just that you must buy crops from someone to eat doesn’t imply that you can forcibly take those crops. Again, this is a misinterpretation, or at least an ill-thought out view, of the concepts. I don’t have to tell you folks the benefits of capitalism (if properly implemented) and, going back to interactions, for any good intentions of the socialistic/communistic views they are harmful to all on a fundamental level. Contrary to popular belief, capitalism recognizes interdependence (why else would we need a system of interaction?) and simply sets down rules to prevent harm for anyone (very important in dharma).
There is much more to talk about but after trying to summarize Buddhism I’ve forgotten a lot, and writing this at 1 a.m. probably doesn’t help. Until I remember something this is all. Why did I write this? I thought it was interesting the number of connections I saw between objectivism and rationally interpreted dharma, so I thought I’d share it with someone. And sorry about the length, I didn’t plan on it being this long.
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