Comments on: The aesthetics of neural Buddhism http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2008/07/08/the-aesthetics-of-neural-buddhism/ Secularism, religion, and the public sphere Sun, 07 Mar 2010 17:54:22 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: Sherab Dorje http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2008/07/08/the-aesthetics-of-neural-buddhism/comment-page-1/#comment-5446 Sherab Dorje Tue, 20 Jan 2009 00:28:09 +0000 http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/?p=283#comment-5446 Traditionally, it's said there are 84,000 different Buddhist paths due to the differing needs of beings. Some are dogmatic; some renunciate; some very ritualistic; some containing no ritual at all. Even for the schools which have produced (quite literally) thousands of volumes of philosophy and esoteric explication, all philosophy, ideology, and even ideas are beside the point. Or rather, they are methods, alongside every other method: bodily exercises for working with the body's energetic system, meditation practices, and a host of others. Methods, starting from a specific base, traveling along a specific path, and arriving at a specific fruit. Divergent and sometimes contradictory philosophies and ideas within the same religion (and even different religions!) are then no problem; they are merely different highways leading to different places. If only science could learn this lesson. We've been conditioned in a rigidly right/wrong good/bad dualistic culture. I hope it is not long before scientists can begin to see that the stories they tell, the metaphors and beautiful mathematical prose, are not absolute descriptions of truth in an absolute universe; they are methods for arousing comprehension in an intricate dance of co-creation where observer and observed do not and can not exist as they are separately, but are so deeply interconnected that they are, in the final analysis, truly one. Traditionally, it’s said there are 84,000 different Buddhist paths due to the differing needs of beings. Some are dogmatic; some renunciate; some very ritualistic; some containing no ritual at all. Even for the schools which have produced (quite literally) thousands of volumes of philosophy and esoteric explication, all philosophy, ideology, and even ideas are beside the point. Or rather, they are methods, alongside every other method: bodily exercises for working with the body’s energetic system, meditation practices, and a host of others. Methods, starting from a specific base, traveling along a specific path, and arriving at a specific fruit. Divergent and sometimes contradictory philosophies and ideas within the same religion (and even different religions!) are then no problem; they are merely different highways leading to different places.

If only science could learn this lesson. We’ve been conditioned in a rigidly right/wrong good/bad dualistic culture. I hope it is not long before scientists can begin to see that the stories they tell, the metaphors and beautiful mathematical prose, are not absolute descriptions of truth in an absolute universe; they are methods for arousing comprehension in an intricate dance of co-creation where observer and observed do not and can not exist as they are separately, but are so deeply interconnected that they are, in the final analysis, truly one.

]]> By: Matthew Stokeley http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2008/07/08/the-aesthetics-of-neural-buddhism/comment-page-1/#comment-3635 Matthew Stokeley Sun, 13 Jul 2008 17:07:50 +0000 http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/?p=283#comment-3635 There is an older, conceptual similarity between Buddhism and the West, namely in the philosophy of Kant, expounded upon by the great Indologist Fyodor Stcherbatsky and later by Foucault, which perhaps underlie the aesthetic connection. Buddhism itself is also quite malleable to existing religious/scientific ideology---the result of this can be seen in various ways Buddhism spread throughout Asia, by pragmatically co-opting and incorporating the native religion (Shamanism, forms of Hinduism, Taoism, Islam) into vehicles for the message of Buddhism. There is an older, conceptual similarity between Buddhism and the West, namely in the philosophy of Kant, expounded upon by the great Indologist Fyodor Stcherbatsky and later by Foucault, which perhaps underlie the aesthetic connection. Buddhism itself is also quite malleable to existing religious/scientific ideology—the result of this can be seen in various ways Buddhism spread throughout Asia, by pragmatically co-opting and incorporating the native religion (Shamanism, forms of Hinduism, Taoism, Islam) into vehicles for the message of Buddhism.

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