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June 20, 2007 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
40:41
802 Buddhism

Buddhist to hot dog vendor: make me one with everything...

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Good afternoon, everybody.
It's Steph. It is just before 3 p.m.
Someday in June 18th, I do believe it is.
And sorry, I did not post or podcast too, too much over the last few days.
Some personal matters came up that I needed to pay some attention to, so...
I'm just on my way to the gym, and I wanted to talk about...
We've had some fine Buddhist friends join us on the Freedom Aid Radio board, which has sparked some interest in Buddhism as a philosophy, as an approach, as an idea, as an ideology, as a religion, as a who knows what.
Perhaps we can unravel it a little bit.
And I did a podcast several moons ago, many moons ago, in fact, on...
Buddhism called unnatural spiritualism, and the great thing about Buddhism, of course, is that I can't really exactly figure out how it's not whatever you want it to be, but we shall see.
It's the free market. Whatever you want shall be provided.
And in that sense, it does seem to be religious, but again, I could be wrong, so I will do my best.
And the reason that I sort of wanted to start off with something to begin with, just to sort of frame the discussion with regards to Buddhism...
I do find that Buddhists lecture.
Now, I know, I know, me lecturing, complaining, but let me sort of explain what it is that I mean, and then you can turn me off in disgust.
But Buddhists are terrible lecturers.
Whatever you're doing, you should be doing something just a little bit differently.
And again, it's just my experience in a couple of dozen Buddhists that I've debated with over the years.
But I'll sort of give you an example, and I'm sorry I couldn't find the actual quote.
This will sound a little easier with the sound when we get out of the rain, which shall be shortly.
But there's a complaint, I guess, or a question or a criticism of the site leerockwell.com, wherein I've been published before.
And the complaint is that it has some pretty specific Christian or religious content, which is a problem, of course, for we happy atheists.
And... The Buddhist...
I'll just call him the Buddhist.
That's his name anyway, so it seems totally fair.
The Buddhist was saying...
Actually, let's call him...
Let's call him John. I don't know what his name is.
We'll call him John.
So John was saying that we should approach this issue with humility, with gentleness, asking about the other person's history, trying to figure out where they're coming from, what their perspective is, this, that, and the other, right?
And I'm always a little bit baffled when I get instructions from people who aren't following their own instructions.
Which is not to say that that is not...
I mean, everybody does it. I do.
Everybody does it. But it should be something that you can call someone on, right?
So... If I say to you in a post, you should never use all caps when replying to someone's post because it's offensive, and I type it in all caps, I think it's fair for you to say, but I don't understand.
If this is a rule, why aren't you following it?
If this is the best way to do things, then why aren't you doing these things this way as well?
And sort of like, you know, you get cancer, you go to some...
Specialist. And he says, oh, you need to eat lots of walnuts.
My son has cancer, exactly the same cancer.
And it's like, oh, did the walnuts cure him?
Oh, God, no. I'd never let him go near walnuts.
It's like, uh, wait.
I don't mean to understand.
So... When somebody...
So when somebody's evaluating a negative statement that someone has, right?
So let's just say it's me criticizing LewRockwell.com.
It wasn't me, but, you know, let's say it was.
And somebody says to me, well, you need to approach Lou with gentleness and humility and figure out his history and do this, that, and the other, right?
Then I don't understand the debate.
Like, I don't understand the argument.
Because if I should approach Lou that way, then shouldn't the Buddhist approach me that way?
This is the fundamental, and I'm not having any luck getting this across to the Buddhists.
At least I've tried at least four or five different ways pretty nicely, I think, on the board, and also in emails previously.
But it's baffling to me.
Like, genuinely and totally.
It's baffling. And the only reason that I say it's baffling is because if it's not baffling, then they're just pompous know-it-all jerks.
And I'm not going to say that they are.
I'm just saying that this aspect of things is baffling.
And this is something I find very common among our Buddhist friends, which is that they will come up and lecture you about gentleness and humility and empathizing and understanding and so on.
But they don't apply that in telling you this, right?
So there was a question and our good old moral boogeyman Hitler came up.
There was a question on the board and somebody responded, well, you know, Hitler was evil.
And the Buddhist responded and said, well, but you need to understand Hitler's history.
You need to understand his origins.
You need to understand his psychology.
You need to understand so you can have empathy and compassion for him, however hard that might be, and so on, right?
So, the principle there would seem to be that don't judge someone, but learn his or her history.
So, let's just say Bob was the guy making the post that Hitler was evil, and John, I don't remember if it was the same guy or not, but John is the Buddhist who then responds and says, but you need to learn compassion and understand people's history and so on.
But John wasn't asking Bob about his history as to why he ended up feeling so hostile or negative for judging Hitler in such a moral manner.
And that's the part that I genuinely find confusing.
And again, confusing is the nicest thing that I could say about it.
But that's what I genuinely find confusing about Buddhists.
So, I posted on the board, I think it was this morning, and I haven't had any response yet.
It seems to have been lost in the shuffle, or perhaps ignored.
I don't know, but...
I made this point a couple of times.
Like, if you're going to say to people that they should know something about someone's history before they judge him or her, and they should show compassion and understand and blah, blah, blah.
Well, I think that's fine as a theory, but it does baffle me that you're not just doing that.
Right? I mean, as I posted earlier on the board, I would absolutely love it.
I would love it if this ever happened with a Buddhist or with a religious person or whatever, right?
So, you say, oh, Hitler was, you know, Mr.
Evil and we hate the guy and this and that and the other.
And then someone comes along and we'll call him John.
You don't even know he's a Buddhist. You don't even know he's a Buddhist.
And John starts saying, well, tell me a little bit more about your history.
Help me understand your background.
Help me understand where you're coming from.
When did you first think this?
How does it make you feel when you think this?
You know, all of this kind of stuff, right?
And slowly, over the course of many posts, right, over the course of many posts, John begins to sway.
Again, not mentioning Buddhism, not mentioning anything about what somebody should do or shouldn't do, or how they should be compassionate or should be empathetic, but just keeps asking questions, keeps asking questions in the Socratic tradition, or perhaps then we would start to call it the Buddhist tradition or whatever.
And... To then say that the way to move forward is to continue in this conversation and keeps asking questions and really empathizes and works with that person's history and so on.
And again, no idea about the person's history or what they believe in, but everyone is like, wow, this is great.
Look at how this guy is asking questions and being compassionate and empathizing.
Empathizing with the person's lack of empathy, right?
Not just saying, you should be empathetic, which is not being empathetic, right?
And then when the person feels understood and they understand their own history and so on, then they say, you know, almost without any particular...
Stress or effort, they say, wow, you know, I guess the empathy that you've shown towards me...
And it only turns out at the very end that having taught the person curiosity and compassion, by being curious and compassionate in action with the person that you're debating with, rather than just lecturing that person to be compassionate and empathetic, that would be a Buddhist that I could get behind, right? That would be a Buddhist that I could be really impressed with.
But that's never happened to me before, and maybe it happens in some way.
But they're just not lecturing you.
I would rather somebody teach me how to be ethical by showing me ethics in action rather than just lecturing me about ethics.
But that's just me.
I'm sure that the popularity of Buddhism is partly because they want to...
Some people love that, right?
Some people love that. So we'll get to Buddhism a little bit, but let's just have a look at some of the...
And again, everybody says Buddhism is something different, and I can understand and sympathize with that, of course, because we say that capitalism is different, or the free market is different, for what most people think, and so on, but...
So, this is from a Buddhist, right?
It seems to be pretty well read, so maybe this is true, maybe this is not, and he pointed me towards the site, which I'll read from a little bit.
Buddhism doesn't, like most religions, claim to have total knowledge or dominion over reality.
Reality exists subjectively, Buddhism just helps one to navigate through it.
Therefore, no Buddhist methodology is required for determining a true statement from a false statement.
Generally, it is understood among Buddhists that the scientific method is pretty much the standard for determining truth from falsehood.
Buddhism is specifically opposed to any kind of spiritual hierarchy.
Tibetan Buddhism seems to be caught in some of the more illogical or mystical aspects of Buddhism.
Perhaps the spread of the scientific method should take precedence over the spread of Buddhism, then Buddhism could be correctly understood.
You have to remember that Buddhist ideas are thousands of years old, and anything that old is subject to a great amount of distortion.
The important thing is to understand the core concepts.
Many of the more mystical aspects of the Buddhist philosophy, such as reincarnation or dabbas, Buddhist angels, are simply cultural additions that distract from the true message.
Well... Buddhism doesn't claim to have total knowledge or dominion over reality.
I'm sure that's fine. Reality exists, and objectively, Buddhism just helps one to navigate through it.
Therefore, no Buddhist methodology is required for determining a true statement from a false statement.
See, that to me is kind of confusing.
I mean, frankly, this is quite confusing, because this was a response to my question, which is, okay, so you're into Buddhism.
How does Buddhism know when something is true and when something is false?
It says, no Buddhist methodology is required for determining a true statement from a false statement.
Generally, it is understood among Buddhists that the scientific method is pretty much the standard for determining truth from falsehood.
So, I don't understand, right?
How do you know if something's true and false?
There's no way to know it, but it's a scientific method.
Now, the challenge, of course, is that Buddhist ideas are thousands of years old, but the scientific method, which was explicitly created or discovered or invented or So,
if Buddhist ideas are thousands of years old, but the way to determine truth from falsehood is through using the scientific method, which is only a few hundred years old, Then we have a problem, right?
In that we have thousands of years of development with Buddhist ideas without the scientific method, which is the way that apparently this guy says most Buddhists determine truth from falsehood.
So, that doesn't make any sense, right?
So, he said here, reincarnation and divinity need not be taken as a fact.
Right? So, he says, this guy is saying, well, you don't have to believe in reincarnation and divinity.
And I said, well, is it just a choice then?
Can you just choose whether or not you want to believe in these things?
And he said, the mind comes to believe one or the other.
Changing such a mindset is not easy.
I'm not sure what you mean.
Right? So, this is the kind of fog that I often get into with mystics and Buddhists and so on.
Actually, I don't really get into it anymore because I just recognize it for what it is.
This is part of experience in the realm of philosophy and debating.
Right? So... This guy says that scientific method is used to determine truth from falsehood.
Now, the scientific method does not support reincarnation and divinity, naturally.
And so...
When I say, can you just choose whether or not you want to believe in reincarnation and divinity, and he says, the mind comes to believe one or the other, changing such a mindset is not easy, I'm not sure what you mean, then he's telling me that he doesn't know what he means, right?
I mean, again, it's not just sort of pointing out, right?
This is the soup or the fog that you get into when you debate with people who don't have consistent epistemology, right?
Or any kind of real epistemology at all.
So, the mind comes to believe one or the other.
Well, that's not a... That's not how you objectively determine truth or falsehood, right?
Reality exists subjectively, he says.
And the scientific method is used to determine truth from falsehood, which, of course, means that you don't need to be a Buddhist.
You just need to believe in science, right?
Logic. The Buddhist ideas wildly predate, like, by millennia, predate.
The scientific method. And you can choose to believe in divinity or not.
It's absolutely up to you. It just happens one way or the other.
So this is somebody who doesn't yet know how to think rigorously in the scientific or philosophical tradition.
There's nothing wrong with that. I mean, I've just never been exposed to it.
I mean, I couldn't when I was younger either, right?
It's just a matter of exposure to and learning of these sorts of things.
And he said... Buddhist ideas are thousands of years old, and anything that old is subject to a great amount of distortion.
And that's just not true at all.
Euclidean geometry is as clear now as it was thousands of years ago when it was first written down.
Aristotle's three laws of logic are as clear now.
So old ideas are not subject to distortion.
Old mystical ideas are.
By distortion, it doesn't matter what the mystical ideas are distortions of reality to begin with.
So, there's no particular way to even begin unraveling this kind of stuff, right?
I mean, if somebody doesn't accept that logic and empiricism, science and philosophy, are the ways that you determine truth from falsehood, then, you know, you can make up any answers you want, completely and consistently, and that seems to be a concept of Buddhism.
And he says that the concepts that are used, divinity, reincarnation, or as in Christian mythology, judgment day, resurrection, etc., may be more properly viewed as poetic than as scientific truths.
They either do something to you or they don't.
They are outside the realm of facts and logic and proof.
They are trying to express that which is not expressible.
They are more like gestures than like theories.
People who think of them as theories can be either theists, accept them as true theories, which is superstition, or atheists, rightly rejecting them as demonstrably false or unsubstantiated theories, or agnostics, can't make up their minds either way, which seems kind of silly.
When you view these concepts and remarks not as factual but as poetic, then these three positions do not apply, and the only thing you can say is whether they do something to you or not.
And he says, outside the realm of facts and logic is itself also a confusing phrase, necessarily so perhaps.
And I don't know what that means.
I mean, yeah, of course, there are metaphors, but...
I could say, as one Buddhist did, that love is when you are struck by an arrow from the god of love.
That's a metaphor, but what does it mean in terms of reality?
Does the god of love exist, yes or no?
No. Does it exist as a metaphor?
Yeah, sure, absolutely, the same way that god exists as an idea in people's heads.
Is it true that you fall in love because you are struck by an arrow?
No. Is it true that if you believe that some external force...
If love attacks you or that love is wounding or whatever, if you believe that you have no power over love, that adjusting your values, that love just strikes you like a thunderbolt, then yeah, it is an accurate description of that.
Is it true that love strikes you like a thunderbolt and you have no control over it?
No. Love responds to clarification of values, just as health responds to exercising and eating well.
So, I just don't find that it's particularly true.
And, of course, the interesting thing is that this guy asked me if I knew anything about metaphors, if I could think of an example of a metaphor as a poet and a writer.
I find that funny.
I mean, it's not insulting, right?
I mean, the guy just didn't choose to figure out whether or not I knew anything about these things.
It's right there on my website, right?
I mean, it's right there on the homepage.
Here's my novel, right?
I've got poems in the podcast, poems on YouTube, and poems on my webpage, and so on.
So, you know, this is the guy who's saying, well, you need to really understand where people are coming from.
He doesn't even try and figure out whether I know anything about metaphors.
Just kind of ask me, right? But it's all right.
And so somebody was saying, I think this was Greg, he said, but if, because the Buddhist said that everything in Buddhism bows to logic and the science, like logic, right?
If it's not logical, it's not Buddhist, right?
And it's like, well, then why do you need the word Buddhism, right?
Just say logic, science, whatever, right?
Philosophy. And then he said...
He said, why do you need this hero worship of the Buddhist or whatever, right?
And he said, well, not all Buddhism is hero worship.
Not all Buddhism approaches myth contrary to logic.
I can use Buddhist mythologies just as I can use Christian mythology.
These things bring tremendous enrichment to my life.
The idea that they should be abandoned because they are against reason and empiricism is laughable.
You do not know what you were talking about.
You have become so bitter through your experience with symbols and mythology that you cannot be vulnerable and open to something good with them anymore.
If you can, then I'd like to ask you how.
Give me an example, and then we can see how these sets of symbols are different from Buddhist or Christian mythology or any other.
As I wrote on the board, stand back, the Buddhist is being compassionate, right?
Laughable! You do not know what you're talking about.
Well, you know, this is not exactly the kind of stuff that Indians want to put us, right?
But of course, this is very core to dealing with mystics, right?
That when you begin to sort of wrap them with the gentle, or sometimes not so gentle, arms of logic, that it becomes...
Hostility, right? Hostility or a kind of passive-aggressive superiority comes in.
So what is Buddhism? And this is a link sent by the Buddhists.
What is Buddhism? Buddhism is a religion to about 300 million people around the world.
The world comes from buddhi to awaken.
It has its origins about 2,500 years ago when Siddhartha Gautama, known as the Buddha, was himself awakened or enlightened at the age of 35.
Is Buddhism a religion? To many, Buddhism goes beyond religion and is more of a philosophy or way of life.
It is a philosophy because philosophy means love of wisdom, and the Buddhist path can be summed up as, one, to lead a moral life, two, to be mindful and aware of thoughts and actions, and three, to develop wisdom and understanding.
How can Buddhism help me?
Buddhism explains a purpose to life.
It explains apparent injustice and inequality around the world, and it provides a code of practice or a way of life that leads to true happiness.
Why is Buddhism becoming popular?
Buddhism is becoming popular in Western countries for a number of reasons.
The first good reason is Buddhism has answers to many of the problems in modern materialistic societies.
It also includes, for those interested in deep understanding of the human need and natural therapies, which prominent psychologists around the world are now discovering to be both very advanced and effective.
Who was the Buddha?
Siddhartha Gautama was born into a royal family in Lumbini, now located in Nepal, in 563 BC. At 29, he realized that wealth and luxury do not guarantee happiness, so he explored the different teachings, religions, and philosophies of the day to find the key to human happiness.
After six years of study and meditation, he finally found the middle path and was enlightened.
After enlightenment, the Buddha spent the rest of his life teaching the principles of Buddhism, called the Dhamma, or truth, until his death at the age of 80.
Was the Buddha a god?
He was not, nor did he claim to be.
He was a man who taught a path to enlightenment from his own experience.
Do Buddhists worship idols?
No. Why are so many Buddhist countries poor?
One of the Buddhist teachings is that wealth does not guarantee happiness, and also wealth is impermanent.
The people of every country suffer, whether rich or poor, but those who understand Buddhist teachings can find true happiness.
That's not an answer, right?
The reason the Buddhist countries are poor is because they are dictatorships and they have no property rights.
I mean, I don't even need to look that up, right?
That's just natural, right?
Are there different types of Buddhism?
There are many different types of Buddhism because the emphasis changes from country to country due to customs and culture.
What does not vary is the essence of the teaching, the Dhamma of truth.
Are other religions wrong?
Buddhism is also a belief system which is tolerant of all other beliefs or religions.
Buddhism agrees with the moral teachings of other religions, but Buddhism goes further by providing a long-term purpose within our existence, through wisdom and true understanding.
Real Buddhism is very tolerant and not concerned with labels like Christian, Muslim, Hindu, or Buddhist, or perhaps Nazi.
This is why there have never been any wars fought in the name of Buddhism.
That's not true.
This is why Buddhists do not preach and try to convert, only explain if an explanation is sought.
That is not true, at least according to the people on the board, right?
Is Buddhism scientific?
Science is knowledge which can be made into a system, which depends upon seeing and testing facts and stating general natural laws.
The core of Buddhism fits into this description because the four noble truths you see below can be tested and proven by anyone.
In fact, the Buddha himself asked his followers to test the teachings rather than accept his word as true.
Buddhism depends more on understanding than faith.
Buddhism is knowledge which can be found in the world.
It's not true, but it's not true.
It's not true.
It's not true.
The first noble truth. The first truth is that life is suffering, i.e.
life includes pain, getting old, disease and untimely death.
We also endure psychological suffering like loneliness, frustration, fear, embarrassment, disappointment and anger.
This is an irrefutable fact that cannot be denied.
It is realistic rather than pessimistic because pessimism is expecting things to be bad.
Instead, Buddhism explains how suffering can be avoided and how we can be truly happy.
Well, I certainly do agree that there's suffering in life, no question.
I'm not sure why...
Well, I guess they would say that we want to make you happy, which is why we're focusing on suffering rather than on happiness.
What is the second noble truth?
The second noble truth Is that suffering is caused by craving and aversion.
We will suffer if we expect other people to conform to our expectations, if we want others to like us, if we do not get something we want, etc.
In other words, getting what you want does not guarantee happiness.
Rather than constantly struggling to get what you want, try to modify your wanting.
Wanting deprives us of contentment and happiness.
A lifetime of wanting and craving, and especially the craving to continue to exist, creates a powerful energy which causes the individual to be born.
Such craving leads to physical suffering because it causes us to be reborn.
Okay, I don't know what that means.
Let me just back up a little here.
A lifetime of wanting and craving, and especially the craving to continue to exist, creates a powerful energy which causes the individual to be born.
So craving leads to physical suffering because it causes us to be reborn.
Oh, so I guess if you give up on your desire for things, then you won't get reborn?
Well, I don't know what that means.
But I will certainly say that life includes pain, getting old, disease, and untimely death.
But it's not true that suffering is caused by craving and aversion.
Alone. I mean, certainly there are some kinds of false cravings that will make us unhappy.
The craving for fame or power or whatever will certainly make us unhappy, but...
When I had a toothache, the suffering was caused by my nerve endings, not by my desire for fame or power or sex or money or whatever, right?
You know, there are nerve endings, which is that suffering is not always...
Right, so pain, getting old, disease, and untimely death...
Ultimately death. Pain, getting old, disease, and ultimately death...
That is, disease makes you feel unwell, right, and getting old makes you creaky and so on, and this is not caused by, the suffering is not caused by the desire, right?
If I have a toothache, I don't suffer because I want to not have a toothache.
I want to not have a toothache because I'm suffering.
Now, of course, if I believe that I am somehow above getting a toothache or above it raining when I want to run from the car to the gym or whatever, then sure, I'm going to add some additional suffering, right?
Then I'm going to be like, well, A, I have a toothache, and B, I shouldn't have a toothache.
So I'm going to chafe even more against the things that are occurring to me without a doubt, absolutely.
But that's not to say that suffering is caused by craving and aversion.
Unless you're going to go down to the root of the body and say that the body doesn't want a toothache and therefore makes you hurt or whatever, right?
But anyway, so I don't know that that makes a lot of sense.
What is the third noble truth?
The third truth is that suffering can be overcome and happiness can be attained, that true happiness and contentment are possible.
If we give up useless craving and learn to live each day at a time, not dwelling in the past or the imagined future, then we can become happy and free.
We then have more time and energy to help others.
This is nirvana.
Well, I mean, I think there's some excellent advice in that.
Right, I mean, it's sort of like there's a...
A religion that says that if you don't brush your teeth when you go to bed, that little sugar fairies will dance on your teeth and turn your enamel to mush and make your teeth rot or whatever.
And so the message of the religion is don't eat candy and not brush your teeth right before you go to bed.
That's good advice. But it's not rational.
It's accidentally good advice, and the advice could as easily be, take your virgins and throw them into a volcano.
The methodology is exactly the same.
So, Christians will proudly point at the Ten Commandments and say, well, see, these are moral.
And even if we accept that they are, which, you know, they're not.
But even if we accept, not all of them anyway, but even if we accept that they're moral, the problem is not that there are ten of them and not that there are moral rules.
The problem is the word commandments.
So, yeah, for sure, let go of false desires, let go of illusory things that will make you happy, and you will be a happier person, for sure.
But the fact that it's a noble truth that's simply stated rather than something that's tested in a methodology...
I always have problems with that word.
I should just stop trying to use it.
That there's not a methodology that is clear and consistent about how to approach it.
Not particularly important, right?
What is the fourth noble truth?
The fourth truth is that the Noble Eightfold Path is the path which leads to the end of suffering.
What is the Noble Eightfold Path?
In summary, the Noble Eightfold Path is being moral through what we say, do in our livelihood, focusing the mind on being fully aware of our thoughts and actions, and developing wisdom by understanding the Four Noble Truths and by developing compassion for others.
What are the Five Precepts?
The moral code within Buddhism is the precepts, of which the main five are.
Not to take the life of anything living, not to take anything not freely given, to abstain from sexual misconduct and sensual overindulgence, to refrain from untrue speech, and to avoid intoxication, that is, losing mindfulness.
So, let's have a look at these.
Not to take the life of anything living.
Well, when you scratch your nose, you're killing cells, right?
When you, I don't know, when you eat.
You are causing some bacteria, well, just by being alive.
Bacteria is dying in your stomach all the time, right?
Which wouldn't... So, this is something that's just kind of an absolute that doesn't really...
Right, not to take anything not freely given.
Well, that's fine, of course. That is property rights.
To abstain from sexual misconduct, sexual overindulgence seems sensible.
To refrain from untrue speech, don't tell lies.
And to avoid intoxication, that is losing mindfulness.
And again, right? Well, sure.
Well, sure. But what's the proof?
Right? What's the proof?
This is the great challenge of ethics, which I'm going to get into more when I start delving into the logical challenges within the world of objectivism.
But... This is the great challenge of ethics, right?
Which is that people who are good don't really need ethics as a statement or a commandment.
People who are naturally not interested in stealing don't need ethics as a commandment.
And people who are interested in stealing will not respond to ethics as a commandment, right?
So that is the real great challenge with ethics.
And that's what UPB is.
One of the things that UPB is designed to solve, but I don't see that this...
Right? This is not going to turn a sociopath into a nice guy.
Now, I'm not sure that UPB is either, but at least it's going to avoid Having governments and sociopaths can take over, right?
Which is the best that you can hope for in the realm of...
If you can't eliminate the disease, you can at least prevent it from spreading.
At least prevent the infection.
That's what UPP is designed to do.
Given that there are sociopaths in the world who will never listen to moral arguments, we can't have a government.
If everybody was perfectly good, we wouldn't need ethics.
And if you could convert people to good from evil, then you would need ethics and...
You could maybe even then have a government, because you could make sure that all the people in government were perfectly moral, but...
There are going to be bad people in the world who are never going to listen to ethics, so you can't give them the tool of government through which to inflict their will on others.
So, five precepts?
Well, let's just... Why?
Right, why? Why should I obey these?
And again, people say, well, the UPB is like, why should I obey them?
It's like, well, because they're logical, they're consistent, universal.
You don't have to obey them, of course, right?
But then you're just being illogical, right?
Because the moral theories are logical.
So these are just commandments, right?
What is karma? Karma is the law that every cause has an effect, i.e.
our actions have results. The simple law explains a number of things.
Inequality in the world, why some are born handicapped and some gifted, why some live only a short life.
Karma underlies the importance of all individuals being responsible for their past and present actions.
How can we test the karmic effects of our actions?
The answer is summed up by looking at 1.
the intention behind the action, 2.
effects of the action on oneself, and 3.
the effects on others. Well, I'm not sure how it explains that some people are born handicapped and some are gifted.
Maybe it's the punishment for crimes in a past life, right, in which case...
A, it's a religion. B, it's evil.
C, it's insane. Right?
So, perhaps somebody can explain a little bit more about that.
I certainly believe, and this is also in the secret as well, right?
The nonsense. But I certainly do believe that if you treat people well, the odds or the likelihood of you being treated well in return tend to be higher, for sure.
Actually, if you come at storming at people and come at them in a really angry manner, really hostile or destructive manner, then, you know, guess what?
You're going to... You're going to get what you give, right?
But to me, there's nothing mystical about it, and it certainly does not explain inequalities like handicaps, intelligence, and so on.
So, what is wisdom?
Buddhism teaches that wisdom should be developed with compassion.
At one extreme, you could be a good-hearted fool, and at the other extreme, you could attain knowledge without any emotion.
Buddhism uses the middle path to develop both.
The highest wisdom is seeing that, in reality, all phenomena are incomplete, impermanent, and do not constitute a fixed entity.
True wisdom is not simply believing what we are told, but instead experiencing and understanding truth and reality.
Wisdom requires an open, objective, unbigoted mind.
The Buddhist path requires courage, patience, flexibility, and intelligence.
Well, but that's just a description, right?
If you follow the teachings of FDR, you will become wise, objective, unbigoted, open.
It's the middle path. You could say this about any belief system.
No proof, it's just a description of good things.
It's like saying, this car is fast.
Well, how fast does it go? Don't worry, this car is fast.
But fast what? Relative to a tortoise?
Relative to the speed of thought?
Relative to a jumbo jet? Fast relative to what?
But if somebody just says, well, it's fast, but without giving you anything quantifiable, then it's just an adjective.
It's just a description. It doesn't mean anything.
Compassion. What is compassion? Compassion includes qualities of sharing, readiness to give comfort, sympathy, concern, caring.
In Buddhism, we can really understand others.
When we can really understand ourselves...
Through wisdom. Well, that's great, right?
I mean, who would say no to this kind of stuff, right?
Who would say that that is a bad thing overall?
But these are just descriptions.
Now, of course, the Buddhists are then going to say, well, yes, but you can't get the essence of a philosophy in three pages.
Well, that's not true at all.
You can absolutely get the essence of a philosophy in three pages.
I could do the essence of a free domain radio in a paragraph.
And everything would be objective and testable and so on.
You can't do mysticism in three pages because all the statements are nonsense, right?
If you want to go down those rabbit holes, then you can go down those rabbit holes.
But there's no particular objective answer that you can ever get a hold of in these kinds of spheres.
So, I mean, it's just mysticism, right?
And one of the ways that you know that it's mysticism is that it was developed a couple of thousand years ago.
Right? Some guy. And, you know, it's not bad, right?
These are all steps on the journey, just as what we're doing here is a step on the journey.
But I hope that in a couple of thousand years, medical science has advanced a little further than it has now.
And I also would hope that philosophy has as well.
I mean, it would be great to see the effects of mysticism on the human mind over time.
It would be great to see the effects of, you know, integrity and virtue on peace of mind, a lack of stimulation and anxiety, areas of the brain, and so on, right?
So there will probably be some better biofeedback mechanisms available for philosophy and its capacity to generate peace of mind and happiness.
I hope that that all moves forward, but, you know, there's not going to be a better methodology for understanding reality that It's after the scientific method, just as there's no better way of passing out knowledge statements than to use the theories of logic, the procedure of empirical or Aristotelian logic.
So I find, and this last bit is just personal opinion, again, just based on a couple of dozen Buddhists that I've had fairly lengthy conversations with over the years.
They're just kind of annoying nodals, frankly.
I mean, there may be a whole bunch of stuff that's out there that's different, but they just seem to say, well, you have to give up desire, and it is preferable that you give up desire.
In other words, I have a desire for you to give up desire.
I have a desire for myself to give up desire, which is as simple as a paradox as saying to somebody you should change your mind about free will, everything is absolute, everything is relative, all of these self-detonating logical statements or illogical statements.
I mean, we just have to outgrow them as a species, right?
There's nothing behind this contradiction.
There's no hidden gems of wisdom.
There's no treasure trove of self-knowledge.
There's no richness of compassion and knowledge and understanding.
It's just sort of mind-detonating self-contradictory statements.
There's nothing behind these doors but a brick wall.
And people keep trying these brick walls, trying to find something sweet and wonderful and deep and meaningful behind these, but when you have a self-contradictory statement at the root of your philosophy, everything else is just avoidance.
Everything else is just a defense mechanism, which is why you can't get a straight answer out of people.
Which is why people have to invent higher truths and lecture, right?
I mean, if you want to be a...
I'm just telling you this, right?
Telling you this straight on. As a guy who's had some success in talking about virtue and ethics with people, you want to show it.
You don't want to just tell people what to do.
You want to show it in action.
There's no point just telling somebody to be empathetic.
You have to show them what empathy looks like, right?
Because if they have the capacity to be empathetic, then you're just telling them to do something they already know how to do, which is kind of annoying.
If they don't have the capacity to be empathetic yet, then just telling them to be empathetic is like me saying to someone, just learn Chinese.
Speak Chinese. Not even learn Chinese.
Speak Chinese. What you need to do, you see, when you go to China, is just speak Chinese.
Well, if the person speaks Chinese, they already know that.
And if they don't speak Chinese, I'm just like, either way, I'm annoying.
Everything is my freedom in radio.
Peace of mind situation. But either way, I'm annoying, right?
I'm annoying. If I think people should speak Chinese, then I should set up a...
I should, you know, teach people how to speak Chinese.
I shouldn't just tell them to speak Chinese.
If I think that people should be more compassionate, then I think I need to show them compassion in action.
I don't think that I should just tell people to be compassionate.
Either they can do it, in which case it's redundant, or they can't do it, in which case it's never going to help them, right?
And that's the fundamental problem, of course, that I have with these kinds of things, is that they're irrational.
And the irrationality at the root of these beliefs ends up showing up in these kinds of nonsensical ways.
The contradictions at the heart of these kinds of belief end up showing in these really annoying ways where you just get lectured to.
People don't show you how they've achieved enlightenment.
They don't awaken you by showing you wonderful ways of dealing with things, right?
Because they can't go that deep, right?
They can't go that deep because of this and many contradictions at the root of Of their philosophy, right?
Myth is true and false at the same time.
Buddhism is about the scientific method and logic, though.
Buddhism was created long before either of these things and has not changed itself to scientific.
Buddhism has a methodology called the scientific method.
But it's up to you to believe whether or not you think that reincarnation is true or false.
Right? So, I mean, all of this nonsense, contradiction is not depth.
Right? Everything that You look at in your life that is shallow?
It's shallow because it is fundamentally self-contradictory.
Religion is incredibly shallow because it is self-contradictory.
Buddhism is incredibly shallow because it is self-contradictory.
I think that we're building something that's different here, or at least I hope that we are.
But this is the part that is annoying.
And this is the part that is something that...
I do have compassion for it, but the problem is you can't talk to Buddhists, right?
Because if you oppose them, then you...
It's the psychological thing, right?
If you agree with them, that's great.
If you oppose them, it's because you have a problem.
So, it's not logic and so on that is used to determine these things and separate these things.
Anyway, I hope that this helps.
I certainly look forward to hearing people's response to this, but I'm not going to particularly engage in any more Buddhist debates, as I haven't in many years, because of these fundamental issues.
Thank you so much for listening. I look forward to your donations at www.freedomainradio.com.
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