French philosopher René Descartes is famous for saying "*Je pense, donc je suis.*" (I think, therefore I am.). Is this in fact the exact opposite of the concept of the Buddha nature, with something like "I am. But unfortunately I can think." being the more appropriate idea? --- Descartes seems to be saying that because he can think he is aware that he exists. My (possibly mistaken) impression of Buddha nature is that everything exists, but thinking about one's own existence can disrupt or interfere with that existence.

AFAIK, reasonableness is more often linked to theist natural law based ethics, but I would be surprised if people that cannot be reasoned (do you not see what will happen if you keep acting this way?) with have good karma, because karma is often interpreted as habit energy, and many philosophers say that reason frees us from the nicities of our emotional passions, so why not think that *reason* in some sense undercuts bad karma/habits.

How closely aligned are Buddhist ethics and Nietzschean values? I know a little about both, and may even have read a comparative study (some time ago). Was hoping to harmonise them via 'karma': the agent experiences the result. But there seems no linguistic or rational reason which is strong enough to believe in rebirth, so it seems to me that Nietzsche's analysis (only the success of the superman matters) cannot be reconciled with Buddhism. If so, I'll probably side with Buddhist ethics (I think we need art, not individuals, and Buddhism doesn't make only for worthless aesthetics), but it's a blow, because in the process we may have to sacrifice what is - it is sometimes claimed - is the very highest type of well being possible. This question is just from someone who has read a small bit of Nietzsche studies (I'm not philosopher), but I take claims about morality quite seriously, that's all.

In western philosophy the distinction primarily goes like this: Philosophy - The rational investigation of human reason. Religion - Similar but has its basis in faith rather than 'rationality'. What I was primarily wondering was, does Buddhism make the same kind of explicit distinctions like in western philosophy? Do they view philosophy and religion as the same thing? And, if so what do both Buddhist texts and contemporary scholars say about it. **Not asking whether Buddhism is a religion or a philosophy**

What would Buddhists say in response to the statement by Plato in The Republic Book IV : > And are there not many other cases in which we observe that when a > man's desires violently prevail over his reason, he reviles himself, > and is angry at the violence within him, and that in this struggle, > which is like the struggle of factions in a State, his spirit is on > the side of his reason; > You remember that passion or spirit appeared at first sight to be a > kind of desire, but now we should say quite the contrary; for in the > conflict of the soul, spirit (passion) is arrayed on the side of the > rational principle (reason). I have some ideas but I would like some other opinions. I'm primarily interested in the second paragraph, and not so much regarding the concept of soul. Just to clear up my assumption, I equate reason to be the same as Buddhist concept of intellect. It seems true, but is it just morality? Even morality is reason no?

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/other-minds/#AnotHist Buddhism is sometimes compared to solipsism. Discussions on this topic can be found on the Internet. I do not understand why Buddhism is sometimes compared to solipsism. As far as I know, in all schools and sects of Buddhism Theravada, Mahayana and Vajrayana there is a doctrine of anatman (no-self), and in all schools and sects of Buddhism a special role is played by compassion (in the Mahayana there are Bodhisattvas who swear to deprive all people of suffering). Also, all schools of Buddhism say that each person consists of skandhas. How then can this be solipsism? As far as I understand, Buddhism cannot teach solipsism at all. Do Theravada, Mahayana and Vajrayana teach any form of solipsism? Or is it just that someone doesn't understand what they are talking about?

I lost my father when I was a kid. Can I be reborn with the same father? I didn't know him well, as I was very young, but from people's words, he was a great man, and I'm dying to know him, to love and to feel him, and I'm dying that he can't take me down the aisle and watch me grow. Can I be with him again and fulfill my dream? Growing up and not having a father has caused me to have tons of troubles and complexes. What was this punishment for? Sometimes I think God didn't like me and I was too cruel in my life.

Does Mahabrahma create the lives of those that join him in a new world? From wikipedia > During the Vivartakalpa, a deity from Abhassara plane is reborned in > the Mahabrahma plane, as many living beings forget about their past > life, this too happens with the Mahabrahma, and being unaware of the > above planes of existence, he felt alone. He longs for the presence of > others. After some times many other deities from the above planes were > also reborn in those brahma planes, as his ministers and > companions. Seeing this happens, he falsely believes himself to be > their creator and other deities believed the same. This belief, state > the Buddhist texts, is then shared by other deities. Eventually, > however one of the deity dies and is reborn as human, practicing > meditation,he got the power to remember his previous life. He > teaches what he remembers from his previous life in lower heaven, that > Mahabrahma is the Creator. It is this that leads to the human belief > in Creator, according to the Pali Canon. So, mahabrahamd does not create their sentience (which existed prior to this world cycle): but does he create their presence with him or their life? I'm asking because I'm unsure whether there is truly no omnipotence in Buddism.

The term "non-emptiness" appears in the literature. For example from Chi-tsang (madhyamaka): > When the sutras speak of "the emptiness of visible form" this refers to its emptiness and lack of a true substantive nature; therefore it is called empty. It does not mean that conventional visible reality is empty (nothingness?). Since the substantive nature is an empty nothingness, therefore it is called empty. This is the real truth. The non-emptiness of conventional reality is called the worldly truth. I just mean the opposite of emptiness. Is non-emptiness empty, and in what way?

I've often heard the Yogacara school of Buddhism being described as 'Mind Only'. To my untutored mind this seems reminiscent of the western philosophy of Idealism. So there is a description of Yogacara which goes > the reality we think we perceive does not exist except as as a process > of knowing. Phenomena, anything that can be experienced, have no > reality in themselves. And a description from Idealism which goes > [..] reality as we can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally > constructed, or otherwise immaterial. To me they seem similar but actually my feeling is in reality the two philosophies are very different. Can someone help me understand how they are different? **Note:** I know the two quotes are from sources that have been identified as potentially unreliable (Barbara O'Brien and Wikipedia) but really I'm just want to use them as an illustration of how similar the two philosophies appear to me. I'm not claiming accuracy - in fact they could well lack it.

Recent exchange here got me thinking. Nagarjuna's karika, 1.3 (Batchelor) > Na hi svabhāvo bhāvānāṃ pratyayādiṣu vidyate > > Avidyamāne svabhāve parabhāvo na vidyate > > The essence of things does not exist in conditions and so on. > >If an own thing does not exist, an other thing does not exist. There is a venerable tradition of different interpretations of Nagarjuna, based on "the two truths". ***Can that phrase be read to mean*** **emptiness does not exist in non-emptiness: if and only if an own thing does not exist in non-emptiness then an other thing does not exist in emptiness** So the first phrase says that emptiness is empty in the sense that the absence of svabhava does not exist in things. After that, that whenever a self caused thing cannot be found, then there is no other empty thing. I don't think it's a normal interpretation? ---------- For the purposes of my philosophical question elsewhere (a neat argument for karma and rebirth) I have rendered 'empty' to mean 'analytic' and 'non-empty' to mean empirical. > *Definition of analytic. Of or relating to analysis or analytics > especially : separating something into component parts or constituent > elements.* >*Definition of empirical. Based on, concerned with, or verifiable by observation or experience rather than theory or pure logic.*

After long time and back to BSE. My question is; according to science all the existence are sequenced as matter made of alchemy (chemistry) , molecules , atoms, sub particles then energy. I think base of science is depend on this sequencing and it is considered as a reality. However science possesses its own controversies as unable to provide proper explanations as result of limitations of five senses and their extensions.(e.g...eye and hi tech microscopes) i think science stuck at "energy" in sequencing the subtle level of existence. but it is so clear what have found up this level of scientific finding.science came across massive breakthroughs such as finding of atom, artificial memory, artificial intelligence , MRI etc...and science based on proofs. at the subtle level science manipulate energy at best level becomes it can do everything as "energy is everything" including our mind. Think I've made concise explanation of what science can do if i am not mistaken. Now we turn towards the Buddhism as a great philosophy. Can Buddhism provide concrete explanations on above questions? what is the absolute, final, subtle level of existence? how is energy defined in Buddhism? Is there anything beyond energy? If there are, what is the proof?

> You see, there is only one constant, one universal, it is the only > real truth: causality. Action. Reaction. Cause and effect. (...) Choice is an illusion, created between those with power, and those without. (...) Beneath our poised appearance, the truth is we are completely out of control. Causality. There is no escape from it, we are forever slaves to it. > > -- The Merovingian, The Matrix Reloaded I've read/listened somewhere that the illusion of control and choice is a source of suffering. Does the Buddhist see it in a unyielding manner as the Merovingian? Does different groups of Buddhism view this point differently? **EDIT:** Please complement your answers. Beyond the views on causality (deterministic or stochastic perception) how these views relate to suffering? Is there relation between suffering and how someone perceives choice? The misunderstanding of causality and control can produce suffering?

Context: I'm considered a skeptic of rebirth in my tradition which is the Gelug branch of Tibetan Buddhism. I'm asking this question to help me understand what other traditions think. In my tradition it is believed that rebirth is a semi-obscure phenomena the truth of which can be fully known through reasoning alone. I have a hard time understanding how and do not find any line of reasoning I've heard to be particularly convincing. The strongest reasoning I've seen others in my tradition give for rebirth is that each instance of consciousness must have a substantial cause. And that brain/matter cannot be that substantial cause because brain and consciousness are fundamentally of two different natures. Therefore, each instance must have been proceeded by a previous instance as its substantial cause leading to an infinite regress/progress back/forward in time. Here is an excerpt from His Holiness the Dalai Lama's book - Kindness, Clarity and Insight - where he briefly summarizes this reasoning: > "... the nature of > the mind is mere luminosity and knowing. Mind is something that has > the capacity of appearing in the aspect of whatsoever object through > the force of the object’s casting its aspect to it and is an entity of > mere clarity and cognition, with a nature of experience. It > disintegrates moment by moment. However, among its many > causes—classified into substantial cause and cooperative conditions—it > must, as an entity of conscious experience, have as its substantial > cause an immediately preceding cause which is a former moment of consciousness. It is not > possible for an entity with the character of luminosity and knowing to > be produced from external material elements as its substantial cause. > Similarly, an internal mind cannot act as the substantial cause of > external elements. Since each moment of consciousness requires a > former moment of consciousness as its substantial cause, there is no > way but to posit that the basic continuum of mind is beginningless. > Some specific types of minds [such as desire for an automobile] have a > beginning and end, whereas other types [such as the ignorance > conceiving inherent existence] have, in terms of their continuum, no > beginning but an end. However, neither a beginning nor an end can be > posited to the mind of luminosity and knowing. Therefore, although > mind disintegrates moment by moment, its continuum is beginningless." > I believe this reasoning is basically equivalent to Chalmer's Hard Problem of Consciousness. To be clear, I think it is a hard problem for scientific reductionists who believe that consciousness can be reduced to physical matter and energy arranged in a specific way. On the other hand, it is also equivalent in a different formulation to another famously **hard** problem: Descarte's famous mind/body problem which assumes the dichotomy of mind/body above and then asks if these are of such fundamentally different natures, then *how* do they interact? It would seem that positing any mechanism of interaction would betray the original assumption: that they are so fundamentally different that one could never give rise to the other... that they could never *touch* if you will. Which leads to the question: what *is* the substantial cause of an instance of consciousness? 1. Mind 2. Matter 3. Both 4. Neither 5. Pineal gland did it! Would prefer answers with reasoning to help me understand.

In the west, when we talk about wisdom we tend to mean knowing the value of things. As far as I tell, prajna is about emptiness, at least in its perfected aspect. So does it also allow us knowledge of what is valuable, or is that something that the path is founded on - good karma nd liberation from suffering - so that really all the sages have very little to say about it?

Is there a scientific consensus on meditation? I've seen it said that different parts of the brain are activated during meditation. Is that true for all experienced meditators, all forms of meditation, etc.? It has to do *something*, was originally my take on Buddhism -- at the time merely because it has historically *thrived*: it being pretty obvious that whatever it did was a 'good' thing.

Buddhists talk about abstract and concrete things, particulars, parts and wholes, etc., and Theravada Buddhism is often I think thought of in terms of an analysis of parts, breaking things down into smaller components and the Buddhist 'dharma'. But do they talk about "insides" at all? I'm asking because surely everything with a beginning has an inside, but death, which must occur and so begin, can't have an inside in at least some senses, at least supposing that there is no after-life.

The path of Dhamma is a journey towards the end of all suffering through the attainment of Nibbana. The Buddha set out to find the cure for human suffering, but there are so many people around us today, suffering in so many ways. Most of the people end up still finding a cure in the material world. There are very few people who are suffering might end up starting to think about life itself as suffering for e.g. philosophers like Schopenhauer. But even these intellectuals don't seem to have come to the conclusion of the need to transcend the mind. As against there are those might not be in a lot of suffering but in an, existential crisis seem to arrive at the path of Dhamma. I am asking, is existential-crisis a pre-requisite and more fundamental human need than wanting to end suffering to start the journey towards Nibbana?

I think I've noticed some conceptual overlaps between Buddhism and Western Philosophy and Science. What are good sources for comparing and contrasting Western ideas and Buddhism? What are suspected sources of eastern ideas appearing in Western works? I list some speculated commonalities below by my admittedly incomplete understanding. What knowledge I have of Buddhism primarily comes from books by Thich Nhat Hanh and Alan Watts. I also attended Pure Land services for a while. **PSYCHOLOGY** For example, Mindfulness has a bit in common with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Meta-Cognition. Mindfulness is, in part, awareness of ones thoughts. Meta-cognition is awareness and control of one's cognitive processes. One's thinking isn't dominated by random firing to which the thinker is oblivious. The Second Nobel truth relates suffering to delusion, CBT relates emotional suffering to "Cognitive Distortions". These distortions are typically lack of present-mindedness, obsessing over past and future. They also involve a general failure to consider events in their full context. **LITERATURE** 'When Hamlet asks Rosencrantz and Guildenstern why they would volunteer to come to a prison, they respond that they don't think of Denmark as a prison. Hamlet explains, “[T]here is / nothing good or bad but thinking makes it / so.” '. Here the 'good' and 'bad' are pleasure and pain and the degree to which they are experienced. CBT says something similar- one has emotional suffering because of thinking one way about them as opposed to alternatives. Buddhism says suffering is due to various delusions. CBT faults "Cognitive Distortions". In his The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde says, "To become a spectator of one's own life is to escape the suffering of life.” One can be self-aware, aware of oneself in a third person sense, and one can be aware of one self in the first person, as an 'I'. Here Wilde seems to be relating reduction of suffering with reducing ego. Just prior to writing this book, he wrote the forward to a friend's book on The Tao Te Ching. His line might also might touch upon a mindful self-awareness as well as a capacity to be amidst unfortunate events and yet not suffer, at least emotionally. William Blake speaks of The Human Form Divine which seems to overlap with Blessed Human Existence. "To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour" speaks to a element of timelessness. Apparently Blake was familiar with Vedic works- Awakenings: Blake and the Buddha **PHILOSOPHY/EPISTEMOLOGY** More significantly, Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics approaches ethics with an emphasis on character development as opposed to focusing on only individual acts. One is less ethical than ideal if one does the right things for the wrong reason, if they have the wrong motivation. Western philosophy categorizes ethical theories which emphasize character as Virtue Ethics. So both Aristotle and the Buddha would fall into this category. Also, Aristotle is notorious for advocating Moderation in All Things, similar to The Middle Way, very similar to the Dharma Seal - Nirvana is Beyond Extremes. Buddhism also seems to have a lot in common with Stoicism which teaches something very similar to "All Emotions Are Pain"- The Second Seal of Dharma as discussed here by Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche on Four Seals of Dharma . Science strives to be objective and not subjective. A subjective experience is very personal, ego-centered. Personal stake in an experiment's outcome one tries to avoid. Go where the evidence leads and don't shoe horn it into a pet theory, which admittedly may be going on here. There are some elements of experience which are more or less universalizable. There's a distancing of ones understanding from the self or personal stakes. Data is assessed by means of an impersonal method of evaluation. One doesn't have a gut feeling that there is a correspondence in the data, one has methods for proving a correspondence with statistical significance, e.g. Statistical Hypothesis Testing. Are these all just a coincidences? Superficial linguistic commonalities? Are humans in touch with something that speaks to them about Buddhism regardless of their background? I've read that the Dharma is everywhere. Emerson speaks of The Oversoul like some speak of dharma.

Today, I received an email with a quote in the signature attributed to Blaise Pascal reading > All of human evil comes from a single cause, man's inability to sit still in a room. A [more accurate quote](http://fr.wikiquote.org/wiki/Blaise_Pascal) is, > tout le malheur des hommes vient d'une seule chose, qui est de ne pas savoir demeurer en repos dans une chambre > > All the **unhappiness** of men comes from only one thing, which is not knowing how to **stay** at rest (or 'remain peacefully') in a room. [Here is the whole passage in context](http://www.etudes-litteraires.com/pascal.php) (I translate), > When I put myself sometimes to considering the diverse agitations of > men and the dangers and trouble which they expose themselves to, in > the court, in war, from where are born so many troubles, passions, > endeavours that are hardy (or fool-hardy) and often bad, etc., I > discovered that all the unhappiness of man comes from just one cause, > which is not knowing how to stay peacefully in a room. A man who has > enough goods to live, if he knew how to live with pleasure in his > home, wouldn't leave it to go on the sea or to the seat of a place. > One buys such an expensive warrant for the army, only because one > finds it intolerable to not move from the town; and one looks for > conversations and the distraction of games only because one can't stay > at one's own home with pleasure. > > But when I thought about it more closely and after finding the cause > of all our unhappiness, I wanted to discover the reason for that, I > found there is one very effective (reason), which consists in the > natural unhappiness of our feeble and mortal condition, and so > miserable, that nothing can console us, when we think of it closely. > > Whatever condition one figures oneself to be in, if one assembles all > the goods which can belong to us, royalty is the most beautiful > position in the world, and nevertheless if one imagines oneself (in > that position), accompanied by all the satisfactions associated with > it. If it's without distraction, and if one lets oneself consider and > reflect on what is, that langorous happiness wouldn't sustain itself, > it necessarily falls among the sights which menace it, the revolts > which could happen, and finally the death and sickness which are > inevitable; such that, if it is without what one calls 'distractions' > (literally 'detours', figuratively 'games'), there he (the king) is > unhappy and more unhappy than the least of his subjects, who play and > distract (or entertain) themselves. How would a Buddhist respond to such a statement ? I have a feeling he or she would agree at least on some levels. Even though it seemed Buddhism was introduced to the west beginning mainly in the 20th century, this quote seems to echo that the West was not totally unawares. If I remember correctly, "Lines Composed a Few Mile Above Tintern Abbey" also seemed to reiterate some principles found in Buddhism. There were probably missionaries who came in contact with it after the birth of Christ. Reverand Kusala mentions Zen Buddhism was actual a reaction of missionaries coming in contact with the existing Therevadan tradition.