(no subject)
The products of this 'habit of believing', for both Buddha and Nietzsche, include substance, self, universals, and duration. Both philosophers radically deny the reality of these things in favor of a dynamic, interdependent stream of phenomenon that lacks any objective basis whatsoever. Instead, underneath our perceptions there is only what the Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna called sunyata, and what Nietzsche referred to as the 'abyss', a void beyond the categories of being and nothing, true and false
The Buddha is said to have become aware of the fleeting, temporal nature of reality through his first encounters with a sick man, an old man, and a dead man
The Buddha, according to Nietzsche, saw in his own age, just like Nietzsche, that 'God is Dead'. But, rather than create a new avenue by which human potential could unfold, thereby passing beyond nihilism, the Buddha failed by creating a new religion that simply helped man adjust to nihilism. The Buddha's response to the possible 'awe inspiring catastrophe' 21 of his own time was to found a religion which, rather than help people overcome the newly felt meaninglessness of existence and create a new more meaningful vision of existence, simply helped them adjust to nihilism with a certain degree of cheerful acceptance
he nevertheless failed to understand nihilism for what it actually is-a world-view expressive of a psychological reaction of despair that comes from seeing through the illusion we were living under, seeing that 'the world does not have the value we thought it had'
The Buddha gives us nirvaa.na, the ultimate panacea, a state of cheerfulness and desirelessness wherein all terrestrial troubles and existential Angste are extinguished, and death will be met with nothing more than a cheerful sigh of ultimate relief. Nietzsche therefore sees Buddhism as 'a religion for the end and fatigue of civilisation'
Yet, although the Buddha ultimately failed to transcend nihilism, Nietzsche does regard the Buddha as being a real physician of the psyche who offers a real cure. Unlike other religions, Buddhism does not offer man fictitious goals, but only real ones: the Buddhist path does lead 'to an actual and not merely promised happiness on earth'
What we are therefore left with is simply 'the world' or, more correctly, the world and life as encountered and interpreted by its own latest prodigy, man. And when the man, Nietzsche, contemplates life and the world, he eventually concludes that 'the world described and defined according to its 'intelligible character'-it would be 'will to power' and nothing else'. 28 This notion of the 'will to power' becomes Nietzsche's replacement for 'God', and it is a notion derived from contemplating this world. It is through this notion of 'will to power' that the world and life become, once again, intelligible, and a new, more truly meaningful vision of existence can be created, taking us beyond nihilism. So how did Nietzsche arrive at this view?
Briefly stated, the Greeks Nietzsche so admired, whilst acknowledging the blind destructiveness that human nature is capable of, did not, like Plato and Christianity, alienate man from nature: they did not seek to explain what is best and most worthy in man by appealing to some fictitious, higher non-natural source but, instead, saw what is most worthy and best in man as a continuation of nature, as having its roots solely in this natural world:
AS WE SAW earlier, Nietzsche viewed the person as a constellation of various fluctuating forces whose individual and collective nisus was expressed in terms of a striving to overcome all resistance and accumulate more power, i.e., the will to power
As Sangharakshita tells us, Buddhism regards man ...
'... as one manifestation of a current of psycho-physical energy manifesting now as a god, now as an animal, revenant, tortured spirit or titan, and now as a man, according to whether its constituent volitions are healthy, unhealthy or mixed. Thus Buddhism does not think of sentient beings in terms of separate forms of life, one absolutely discrete from another, so much as in terms of separate currents of psychic energy each of which can associate itself with any form. Energy is primary, form secondary. It is not that man wills, but rather will 'mans'. 58
The first thing that the Buddhist has to do is to look at their various drives, passions and emotions-one could even say, 'look at their souls', using that term in a strictly poetic sense-and learn to discriminate between the weeds and the flowers
The general guideline that Buddhism gives us is that any activity, whether of body, speech or mind, that is, to some degree, motivated by unconditional generosity, unconditional friendliness and mental clarity, is to be cultivated and developed as that is where one's spiritual future lies
And any action, whether of body, speech or mind, that is motivated by acquisitive greed, animosity and ill-will, or mental muddle and confusion, is deemed detrimental to one's development as a human being
Here we find a clear example of Nietzsche's 'sublimation' proper, i.e., the transference of an affect from one object to another, so as to sublimate it into a 'higher' or, in Nietzsche's language, more 'powerful' state. The first step of this practice is to 'cultivate' (bhaavanaa) maitrii or 'loving-kindness' towards one's own self, in other words, to develop a healthy attitude towards oneself. To this end one can recollect happy and contented moments in one's life and desire that one's life will become more satisfying and fulfilling, thereby giving one's mind room for appropriate affects to arise. Then, from that state of healthy self-regard one calls to mind a friend and, on the basis of being in that state of healthy 'self-regard', a feeling of friendliness towards the friend can arise naturally
existential incompleteness due to spiritual ignorance. This incompleteness arises from being limited to one's own contingent and unenlightened perspective
Not only are birth, death, and disease painful, they are products of spiritual ignorance. To say that they are 'dukkha'implies that they are, as co-dependently arising oppositions, ultimately unreal. It is not, therefore, merely pain that the Buddhist wants to overcome, but the perspective within which these illusions (as well as their happy counterparts) are taken to be real
Kamma-niradha is the Sanskrit word for 'cessation of action'. This state is achieved through adherence to the eight-fold path, which guides the Buddhist into kusula, or 'skillful action'. Therefore, it is not simply ceasing to perform actions that the Buddhist believes will eventually lead one to his or her goal. Rather, the type of actions that are performed is the deciding factor. Likewise, it is wrong to conclude that just because one has attained Nirvana that one ceases to act
Obviously, Schopenhauer, after being so influenced by Hindu and Buddhist ideas about the effect that desire and will has on binding us to continued existence, completely dismissed the perplexing descriptions of Nirvana as 'meaningless words'. Unable to conceive of a state beyond the categories of being and non-being, he concluded that the final state that is entered into after dissolution of the will is complete non-existence. Hence, his diagnosis that the philosophers who postulated inconceivable states were merely 'evading'the nothingness that they feared. Diagnoses of 'psychological dishonesty'such as this became, in some form or other, staples of later existentialist thinkers. Nietzsche, of course, made similar attacks against Christianity as well as Buddhism.
For Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, nothingness is what is left when these illusions are removed. This explains their sharply opposed responses to the human condition as they understand it. Schopenhauer and, according to Nietzsche, Buddhism, prescribe a surrender into nothingness that can only be actualized by extinction of the will. Nietzsche, on the other hand, asserts an affirmation of the illusion by becoming the creator of it. His überman, by accepting the groundlessness of his own 'truths'and yet maintaining them and continually creating them - wanting to create them over and over again (as opposed to wanting to escape the cycle) - represents an ideal response to existence.
So both Nietzsche and Schopenhauer greatly misunderstood Buddhism,by interpreting Nirvana as non-existence. The Buddhist response to them both would be that they failed to understand the system fully because they failed to adopt Buddhist practices aimed at enlightenment - at which point they would have developed the capacity to conceive of Nirvana
suffering develop after pulling back the illusion of life (he nevertheless failed to understand nihilism for what it actually is-a world-view expressive of a psychological reaction of despair that comes from seeing through the illusion we were living under, seeing that 'the world does not have the value we thought it had'
)...buddhism in N view just said to accept it (The Buddha gives us nirvaa.na, the ultimate panacea, a state of cheerfulness and desirelessness wherein all terrestrial troubles and existential Angste are extinguished, and death will be met with nothing more than a cheerful sigh of ultimate relief. Nietzsche therefore sees Buddhism as 'a religion for the end and fatigue of civilisation'), buddhism says
666
The products of this 'habit of believing', for both Buddha and Nietzsche, include substance, self, universals, and duration. Both philosophers radically deny the reality of these things in favor of a dynamic, interdependent stream of phenomenon that lacks any objective basis whatsoever. Instead, underneath our perceptions there is only what the Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna called sunyata, and what Nietzsche referred to as the 'abyss', a void beyond the categories of being and nothing, true and false
For Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, nothingness is what is left when these illusions are removed.
What we are therefore left with is simply 'the world' or, more correctly, the world and life as encountered and interpreted by its own latest prodigy, man. And when the man, Nietzsche, contemplates life and the world, he eventually concludes that 'the world described and defined according to its 'intelligible character'-it would be 'will to power' and nothing else'. 28 This notion of the 'will to power' becomes Nietzsche's replacement for 'God', and it is a notion derived from contemplating this world. It is through this notion of 'will to power' that the world and life become, once again, intelligible, and a new, more truly meaningful vision of existence can be created, taking us beyond nihilism.
Nietzsche, on the other hand, asserts an affirmation of the illusion by becoming the creator of it. His überman, by accepting the groundlessness of his own 'truths'and yet maintaining them and continually creating them - wanting to create them over and over again (as opposed to wanting to escape the cycle) - represents an ideal response to existence.
[ shopenhauer] Unable to conceive of a state beyond the categories of being and non-being, he concluded that the final state that is entered into after dissolution of the will is complete non-existence. Hence, his diagnosis that the philosophers who postulated inconceivable states were merely 'evading'the nothingness that they feared. Diagnoses of 'psychological dishonesty'such as this became, in some form or other, staples of later existentialist thinkers. Nietzsche, of course, made similar attacks against Christianity as well as Buddhism.
Schopenhauer and, according to Nietzsche, Buddhism, prescribe a surrender into nothingness that can only be actualized by extinction of the will X.
existential incompleteness due to spiritual ignorance. This incompleteness arises from being limited to one's own contingent and unenlightened perspective
It is not, therefore, merely pain that the Buddhist wants to overcome, but the perspective within which these illusions (as well as their happy counterparts) are taken to be real
The first thing that the Buddhist has to do is to look at their various drives, passions and emotions-one could even say, 'look at their souls', using that term in a strictly poetic sense-and learn to discriminate between the weeds and the flowers
And any action, whether of body, speech or mind, that is motivated by acquisitive greed, animosity and ill-will, or mental muddle and confusion, is deemed detrimental to one's development as a human being
Not only are birth, death, and disease painful, they are products of spiritual ignorance. To say that they are 'dukkha'implies that they are, as co-dependently arising oppositions, ultimately unreal. It is not, therefore, merely pain that the Buddhist wants to overcome, but the perspective within which these illusions (as well as their happy counterparts) are taken to be real
Nirvana, however, cannot be described as existing, not existing, both existing and not, or neither existing nor not. For Buddhism, even nothingness is constituted by the relative contingencies that arise co-dependently as samsara.
SAME
Briefly stated, the Greeks Nietzsche so admired, whilst acknowledging the blind destructiveness that human nature is capable of, did not, like Plato and Christianity, alienate man from nature: they did not seek to explain what is best and most worthy in man by appealing to some fictitious, higher non-natural source but, instead, saw what is most worthy and best in man as a continuation of nature, as having its roots solely in this natural world
The first thing that the Buddhist has to do is to look at their various drives, passions and emotions-one could even say, 'look at their souls', using that term in a strictly poetic sense-and learn to discriminate between the weeds and the flowers
The Buddha is said to have become aware of the fleeting, temporal nature of reality through his first encounters with a sick man, an old man, and a dead man
The Buddha, according to Nietzsche, saw in his own age, just like Nietzsche, that 'God is Dead'. But, rather than create a new avenue by which human potential could unfold, thereby passing beyond nihilism, the Buddha failed by creating a new religion that simply helped man adjust to nihilism. The Buddha's response to the possible 'awe inspiring catastrophe' 21 of his own time was to found a religion which, rather than help people overcome the newly felt meaninglessness of existence and create a new more meaningful vision of existence, simply helped them adjust to nihilism with a certain degree of cheerful acceptance
he nevertheless failed to understand nihilism for what it actually is-a world-view expressive of a psychological reaction of despair that comes from seeing through the illusion we were living under, seeing that 'the world does not have the value we thought it had'
The Buddha gives us nirvaa.na, the ultimate panacea, a state of cheerfulness and desirelessness wherein all terrestrial troubles and existential Angste are extinguished, and death will be met with nothing more than a cheerful sigh of ultimate relief. Nietzsche therefore sees Buddhism as 'a religion for the end and fatigue of civilisation'
Yet, although the Buddha ultimately failed to transcend nihilism, Nietzsche does regard the Buddha as being a real physician of the psyche who offers a real cure. Unlike other religions, Buddhism does not offer man fictitious goals, but only real ones: the Buddhist path does lead 'to an actual and not merely promised happiness on earth'
What we are therefore left with is simply 'the world' or, more correctly, the world and life as encountered and interpreted by its own latest prodigy, man. And when the man, Nietzsche, contemplates life and the world, he eventually concludes that 'the world described and defined according to its 'intelligible character'-it would be 'will to power' and nothing else'. 28 This notion of the 'will to power' becomes Nietzsche's replacement for 'God', and it is a notion derived from contemplating this world. It is through this notion of 'will to power' that the world and life become, once again, intelligible, and a new, more truly meaningful vision of existence can be created, taking us beyond nihilism. So how did Nietzsche arrive at this view?
Briefly stated, the Greeks Nietzsche so admired, whilst acknowledging the blind destructiveness that human nature is capable of, did not, like Plato and Christianity, alienate man from nature: they did not seek to explain what is best and most worthy in man by appealing to some fictitious, higher non-natural source but, instead, saw what is most worthy and best in man as a continuation of nature, as having its roots solely in this natural world:
AS WE SAW earlier, Nietzsche viewed the person as a constellation of various fluctuating forces whose individual and collective nisus was expressed in terms of a striving to overcome all resistance and accumulate more power, i.e., the will to power
As Sangharakshita tells us, Buddhism regards man ...
'... as one manifestation of a current of psycho-physical energy manifesting now as a god, now as an animal, revenant, tortured spirit or titan, and now as a man, according to whether its constituent volitions are healthy, unhealthy or mixed. Thus Buddhism does not think of sentient beings in terms of separate forms of life, one absolutely discrete from another, so much as in terms of separate currents of psychic energy each of which can associate itself with any form. Energy is primary, form secondary. It is not that man wills, but rather will 'mans'. 58
The first thing that the Buddhist has to do is to look at their various drives, passions and emotions-one could even say, 'look at their souls', using that term in a strictly poetic sense-and learn to discriminate between the weeds and the flowers
The general guideline that Buddhism gives us is that any activity, whether of body, speech or mind, that is, to some degree, motivated by unconditional generosity, unconditional friendliness and mental clarity, is to be cultivated and developed as that is where one's spiritual future lies
And any action, whether of body, speech or mind, that is motivated by acquisitive greed, animosity and ill-will, or mental muddle and confusion, is deemed detrimental to one's development as a human being
Here we find a clear example of Nietzsche's 'sublimation' proper, i.e., the transference of an affect from one object to another, so as to sublimate it into a 'higher' or, in Nietzsche's language, more 'powerful' state. The first step of this practice is to 'cultivate' (bhaavanaa) maitrii or 'loving-kindness' towards one's own self, in other words, to develop a healthy attitude towards oneself. To this end one can recollect happy and contented moments in one's life and desire that one's life will become more satisfying and fulfilling, thereby giving one's mind room for appropriate affects to arise. Then, from that state of healthy self-regard one calls to mind a friend and, on the basis of being in that state of healthy 'self-regard', a feeling of friendliness towards the friend can arise naturally
existential incompleteness due to spiritual ignorance. This incompleteness arises from being limited to one's own contingent and unenlightened perspective
Not only are birth, death, and disease painful, they are products of spiritual ignorance. To say that they are 'dukkha'implies that they are, as co-dependently arising oppositions, ultimately unreal. It is not, therefore, merely pain that the Buddhist wants to overcome, but the perspective within which these illusions (as well as their happy counterparts) are taken to be real
Kamma-niradha is the Sanskrit word for 'cessation of action'. This state is achieved through adherence to the eight-fold path, which guides the Buddhist into kusula, or 'skillful action'. Therefore, it is not simply ceasing to perform actions that the Buddhist believes will eventually lead one to his or her goal. Rather, the type of actions that are performed is the deciding factor. Likewise, it is wrong to conclude that just because one has attained Nirvana that one ceases to act
Obviously, Schopenhauer, after being so influenced by Hindu and Buddhist ideas about the effect that desire and will has on binding us to continued existence, completely dismissed the perplexing descriptions of Nirvana as 'meaningless words'. Unable to conceive of a state beyond the categories of being and non-being, he concluded that the final state that is entered into after dissolution of the will is complete non-existence. Hence, his diagnosis that the philosophers who postulated inconceivable states were merely 'evading'the nothingness that they feared. Diagnoses of 'psychological dishonesty'such as this became, in some form or other, staples of later existentialist thinkers. Nietzsche, of course, made similar attacks against Christianity as well as Buddhism.
For Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, nothingness is what is left when these illusions are removed. This explains their sharply opposed responses to the human condition as they understand it. Schopenhauer and, according to Nietzsche, Buddhism, prescribe a surrender into nothingness that can only be actualized by extinction of the will. Nietzsche, on the other hand, asserts an affirmation of the illusion by becoming the creator of it. His überman, by accepting the groundlessness of his own 'truths'and yet maintaining them and continually creating them - wanting to create them over and over again (as opposed to wanting to escape the cycle) - represents an ideal response to existence.
So both Nietzsche and Schopenhauer greatly misunderstood Buddhism,by interpreting Nirvana as non-existence. The Buddhist response to them both would be that they failed to understand the system fully because they failed to adopt Buddhist practices aimed at enlightenment - at which point they would have developed the capacity to conceive of Nirvana
suffering develop after pulling back the illusion of life (he nevertheless failed to understand nihilism for what it actually is-a world-view expressive of a psychological reaction of despair that comes from seeing through the illusion we were living under, seeing that 'the world does not have the value we thought it had'
)...buddhism in N view just said to accept it (The Buddha gives us nirvaa.na, the ultimate panacea, a state of cheerfulness and desirelessness wherein all terrestrial troubles and existential Angste are extinguished, and death will be met with nothing more than a cheerful sigh of ultimate relief. Nietzsche therefore sees Buddhism as 'a religion for the end and fatigue of civilisation'), buddhism says
666
The products of this 'habit of believing', for both Buddha and Nietzsche, include substance, self, universals, and duration. Both philosophers radically deny the reality of these things in favor of a dynamic, interdependent stream of phenomenon that lacks any objective basis whatsoever. Instead, underneath our perceptions there is only what the Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna called sunyata, and what Nietzsche referred to as the 'abyss', a void beyond the categories of being and nothing, true and false
For Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, nothingness is what is left when these illusions are removed.
What we are therefore left with is simply 'the world' or, more correctly, the world and life as encountered and interpreted by its own latest prodigy, man. And when the man, Nietzsche, contemplates life and the world, he eventually concludes that 'the world described and defined according to its 'intelligible character'-it would be 'will to power' and nothing else'. 28 This notion of the 'will to power' becomes Nietzsche's replacement for 'God', and it is a notion derived from contemplating this world. It is through this notion of 'will to power' that the world and life become, once again, intelligible, and a new, more truly meaningful vision of existence can be created, taking us beyond nihilism.
Nietzsche, on the other hand, asserts an affirmation of the illusion by becoming the creator of it. His überman, by accepting the groundlessness of his own 'truths'and yet maintaining them and continually creating them - wanting to create them over and over again (as opposed to wanting to escape the cycle) - represents an ideal response to existence.
[ shopenhauer] Unable to conceive of a state beyond the categories of being and non-being, he concluded that the final state that is entered into after dissolution of the will is complete non-existence. Hence, his diagnosis that the philosophers who postulated inconceivable states were merely 'evading'the nothingness that they feared. Diagnoses of 'psychological dishonesty'such as this became, in some form or other, staples of later existentialist thinkers. Nietzsche, of course, made similar attacks against Christianity as well as Buddhism.
Schopenhauer and, according to Nietzsche, Buddhism, prescribe a surrender into nothingness that can only be actualized by extinction of the will X.
existential incompleteness due to spiritual ignorance. This incompleteness arises from being limited to one's own contingent and unenlightened perspective
It is not, therefore, merely pain that the Buddhist wants to overcome, but the perspective within which these illusions (as well as their happy counterparts) are taken to be real
The first thing that the Buddhist has to do is to look at their various drives, passions and emotions-one could even say, 'look at their souls', using that term in a strictly poetic sense-and learn to discriminate between the weeds and the flowers
And any action, whether of body, speech or mind, that is motivated by acquisitive greed, animosity and ill-will, or mental muddle and confusion, is deemed detrimental to one's development as a human being
Not only are birth, death, and disease painful, they are products of spiritual ignorance. To say that they are 'dukkha'implies that they are, as co-dependently arising oppositions, ultimately unreal. It is not, therefore, merely pain that the Buddhist wants to overcome, but the perspective within which these illusions (as well as their happy counterparts) are taken to be real
Nirvana, however, cannot be described as existing, not existing, both existing and not, or neither existing nor not. For Buddhism, even nothingness is constituted by the relative contingencies that arise co-dependently as samsara.
SAME
Briefly stated, the Greeks Nietzsche so admired, whilst acknowledging the blind destructiveness that human nature is capable of, did not, like Plato and Christianity, alienate man from nature: they did not seek to explain what is best and most worthy in man by appealing to some fictitious, higher non-natural source but, instead, saw what is most worthy and best in man as a continuation of nature, as having its roots solely in this natural world
The first thing that the Buddhist has to do is to look at their various drives, passions and emotions-one could even say, 'look at their souls', using that term in a strictly poetic sense-and learn to discriminate between the weeds and the flowers