The Logic In Buddhism

My friend, I thank you for thinking of me... lol. I still love ya, Pickled.
 
But, as I have stated over and over, brethren, imo, Buddhism is not deep, rather, it lacks both cognitive tenacity and philosophical coherence. But, that's just my opinion. And yet, oddly enough, let's have a look at the very first comment of this same article you have linked. It's something similar to what I wrote in that other thread about Buddhism, but a lot more in-depth, as I don't care to save or shrewdly diagnose a problem, philosophically, that I already understood to be a problem.
 
"The idea that Nāgārjuna is profound is moot, but if I may I'd like to take you back to one of his source texts - in fact the only source text mentioned by name in his Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. In the Kaccānagotta Sutta is a discussion of "right view" - the correct orientation to Buddhism. It begins by denying two extremes: existence (astitā) {T} and non-existence (nāstitā) {F}. Neither of these apply because the "objects" under discussion (mental events) arise in the mind and pass away without ever really existing. So with respect to ontology, not T not F, or { }. But only with respect to ontology. From the start we ought to be aware that Buddhist teachings were never meant to be an ontological theory - they primarily describe the arising and passing away of mental events. Buddhists only became interested in ontology some centuries after the death of the Buddha.
 
Nāgārjuna however was writing at a much later time. His world was highly influenced by ontological Realism. This came about through two pressures. Firstly Buddhists had a problem of conditions continuing to function as conditions long after they had ceased (a requirement of the karma doctrine), and a number of suggestions to fix this were put forward. One of the most prominent was that the mental events (cetanā) most closely associated with actions always exist (sarva-asti). Secondly Buddhists used encyclopaedic categorisation of mental events to deconstruct appearances and this led first to fixed categories (defined by an essential quality or svabhāva) and then to the idea that mental events themselves were real and defined by an essence {T}. See particularly the work of Collett Cox on Sarvāstivāda approaches to dharma theory, but also work by David Barstow.
 
So Nāgārjuna was writing against a background of Realism and he adopted a rhetorical strategy that first appeared in texts that pre-date him by a century or two, which we might call anti-Realism. Where some Buddhists declared {T}, anti-Realists countered by arguing {not-T} which looks quite similar to {F} but was in fact intended to nudge everyone towards { } *wrt ontology*.
 
This is not mere sophistry but has important soteriological consequences for Buddhists. With respect to mental events it's important because our relationship to them determines our experience of life. Most of us see "happiness = pleasure" as the meaning of life and thus pursue pleasure as a means to happiness. This need not be gross hedonism - it might entail all kinds of mundane things like family, career, wealth (anything that makes us feel good). Mental events (such as a pleasant feeling) arise when the conditions are present and quickly cease again when the conditions are not. Since one of the important conditions is *attention* and our attention wanders around rather randomly, the thing we think will make us happy is constantly slipping away from us. Hence experience is equated with disappointment and dissatisfaction (duḥkha). Thus these mental events that are essential to our happiness are {not T not F}: {not F} because we have experiences, but {not T} because experiences are ontologically indeterminate. Experiential insight into just this is what Buddhists believe to be liberating (from the experience of suffering).
 
It's not that contradictions end up being true, though that is certainly a popular reading of Nāgārjuna and the Prajñāpāramitā tradition. It's that applied to ontology the Buddhist ideas that describe how the mind works produce contradictions. If we stay in the intended domain (viṣaya), the contradictions don't arise.
 
Mental events cannot be described with simple existent/non-existent dualities. The celebrated "Middle Way" is to describe mental events in terms of arising and passing away in dependence on conditions, particularly on the presence of sense objects and sense faculties which between them are said to constitute everything (sarvam), by which we mean, everything of importance to Buddhist soteriology.
 
What arises in the mind does not exist in the way that objects of the physical senses exist (we cannot have shared experiences of mental events for example). Nor do they not exist. Nor are the neither existence nor non-existent - we do actually have experiences! Nor can we say that they both exist and not exist. However this last is adopted by Buddhists who couldn't help themselves and strayed into ontology - mapping descriptions of the mind onto descriptions of the world. We call this the Two Truths: something is conventionally true (I am a person) but ultimately untrue (because what I call a person is a momentary collocation of mental events that is constantly changing). But this double-speak is only necessary because we step outside the domain of application of the ideas about mental events.
 
As I say once one sorts out which domain ought to be under discussion by Buddhists most of the apparent paradoxes and the need for double-speak like the Two Truths evaporate. But it so happens that religious people like paradoxes and they want to believe that their explanation of mental states is a Theory of Everything. So they keep applying dependent arising to ontology (despite warnings not to) and the paradoxes persist. This train of thought received a considerable boost in the early 20th Century from two translators and commentators that were profoundly influenced by Romanticism: D T Suzuki and Edward Conze (refer to David McMahan's book, The Making of Buddhist Modernism and the chapter on Romanticism as a key influence). They embraced the irrational for various reasons, though with Conze one suspects it was at least partly to piss off the Oxford Dons who insisted on calling him "Mr Conze" as they refused to recognise his German DPhil equivalent.
 
So while this is certainly an interesting take on logic and paradox in Buddhism I think that it really only repeats popular misconceptions (popular amongst Buddhists that is). I don't find apologetics for nonsense very helpful and have been writing about the problem for a number of years now (though my publications are so far in other areas). The mainstream of Indian logic is also intolerant of paradox and nonsense. Buddhists were not doing sophisticated plurivalent logic, they were simply confused. It was never profound. And Buddhists never really considered bodhi to be ineffable to start with, indeed the early Buddhist texts have a great deal to say about it - "effing the ineffable" my fellow blogger David Chapman calls it. Even those Buddhists who these days embrace paradox for religious reasons go on incessantly about what enlightenment is like - people might say in principle that enlightenment is ineffable but that doesn't stop them effing away ad nauseum (*AS YOU DO PICKLED! LOL). Now that is a contradiction. The fundamental work on unravelling of this misconception was done by Sue Hamilton - see especially "Early Buddhism: A New Approach". It was she who really demonstrated the problems caused by ontology and highlighted the domain of knowledge in which Buddhist thought is both sensible and helpful. In her words "the Buddha was always talking about experience". The message of the Buddha was that if you treat mental objects like objects of the physical senses then you will become confused. And this is exactly what happened. Repeatedly. I've been discussing these issues on my blog for a few years now, and most recently exploring the Sarvāstivāda Realism which forms the backdrop to Nāgārjuna's anti-Realism."

 

 
Good article, but a slight error at the beginning of the piece which continues to colour it throughout. It says that Nagarjuna's 'no-nature' means non-existence, and that the emptiness he wrote about was a contradiction. It doesn't, and isn't, it means 'lacking self-nature'. He also bases much of the article on two basic schools, ignoring the much more advanced thought of the higher traditions.
 
MelT

 

 
you say, Melt, that Buddha did in fact deny both eternalism and nihilism, but, in reality, he did not,
 
You are in a world of your own. Not reading a word of what I or anyone else posts.
 
But you still have to tell me why I should care about your opinions? We still haven't moved beyond the basic problem between us, that you don't know your stuff and are just here to listen to yourself speak. So, can you tell me what profit there is in me having a discussion with you? Any ideas?
 
 
MelT

 

lol you guyz why don't you just makeout already?

 

 
LOL
 
Okay, Melt.

 

Obviously you too have very strong feelings for each other. Your little lovers quarrels seem to spill over from thread to thread.

 

 
And yet, oddly enough, you always seem to appear right on time.

 

 
Yeah I'm stalking you BandH you are special. God choose you 
 
Your like a holy warrior for allah

 

 
 
No?!?! Really? After me saying this to you continually over the weeks, you finally understand?  You know I may just change my mind about there being a god, only he could cause such a miracle.
 
MelT

 

naa the show must go on. these debates are both funny and interesting 

 

^ Yes


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It's all pretentious shit-housing with no applications in the real world in my opinion

 

 
I understand your frustration reading this from the outside, but let me briefly explain how important this all is to people like me. I think I gather from your posts that you don't believe in enlightenment and the like, but just ignore that for a second, I understand:
 
 Meditation at an entry level - and for a good many ordinary practitioners - is just about learning how your mind and body work, getting them back under control. It isn't really a method for reaching enlightenment, it's the warm up phase that the Buddha said would take 'many lifetimes' to reach realisation using.
 
Then we have the higher traditions, used explicitly as a path to realisation. The first stages of these schools use more advanced forms of traditional meditation at first, but then let these go entirely in favor of 'mind-only' methods. This is where the path truly begins. At this point you use an understanding of the nature of reality to reach far deeper states than ordinary meditation offer. Sometimes this understanding will give you a 'glimpse' of enlightenment in a direct experience, or even something much larger. Using these methods, again as the Buddhas said, realisation could take place in this lifetime and are immensely powerful. But, they will only work if you have a correct understanding of reality. One error and nothing works, you are 'blocked'. I was blocked twice through misunderstandings; once holding me back for three years.
 
There are experiences called 'bliss states', which are not our goal, but a marker that practice is going well, which you can enter into instantly as you think about reality in the right way. These can be anything from a pleasant feeling that makes you smile, or which is so overwhelming it freezes you on the spot in deep pleasure, and can last some time. If you think about reality in the right way this effect is instant, wrong way, nothing. The effect becomes so strong that you can get into a position - if you don't use further techniques to quell the bliss - that it comes about when you aren't meditating, but just thinking about reality or writing about it, like I am now. A very small experience compared to others that can happen, but an interesting demonstration of the power of 'mind-only' work, as opposed to traditional meditation.
 
(Just a thought: If anyone in the UK has the means to do so and would like to scientifically test the instant effects of this kind of method, I am happy to oblige under controlled circumstances, using EEG etc.. at any time.)
 
So, one wrong word or belief propagated here may be taken on by people who are sincerely trying to reach enlightenment, and will actually prevent them from reaching it. My job as a Buddhist is to try and make sure that that doesn't happen when I can, and it's important to me that I do so.
 
Hope this helps,
 
MelT

 

 
I believe meditation is a good way to calm your mind and when you have calmed your mind you can contemplate things more clearly, less colored by your experiences and day to day life and more in the moment, and you capture somehow what the essence of a moment is. I know the feeling and totally agree with that.