nirvana vs non existance

[gloggawogga]

The drop of water is an old Buddhist metaphor, I believe. But like ebola says, you have to experience it, either in meditation of some sort of other altered state where your ego peacefully dissolves but spirit remains aware.

The reincarnation thing is really a paradox to me. It would seem to me than any new ego that is born would have little to with any older ego that died, and even more absurd that the new ego would pay some price for the "sins" of some prior ego. I'm more inclined to believe each ego pays its own price and receives its own reward for its own coming into being and its own grasping onto that sense of being, and is done with all of that when it has finally died. Perhaps though there is something about an old ego dying that leaves a seed behind for a new ego to form, but I'm not sure I see it. Perhaps it was something created in eastern societies to appease the masses and get them to follow rules, like ebola says, a holdover of human pettiness.

 

[Void]

There is no western spiritualistic view. Materialism is an economic practice, not so much a lifestyle or belief system. Its just a giant market place where social structure is designed around the economic class systems and price structure. You cannot really compare the two, especially as they are often at the opposite end of the scales or in a different set of scales altogether.

Reincaration would be about the self going through various environments and mentalities to learn, then stretched over many lifetimes. Though its not just eastern views that believe in this, also mant native cultures, and like the english druids and other societies. I think its actually quiet common in history.

 

[Molybdenum]

Materialism is an economic practice, not so much a lifestyle or belief system.

What if we reframed it as "atheistic materialism"? Working in science I see it around me all the time. It's based on a deterministic, billiard ball view of the universe in which we are all isolated loops of consciousness, which itself is an epiphenomenon (non-causative side product) of billions of neurons firing in a particular pattern. When people aren't aware that there is something to see looking inward, that change is possible, that they are more than a bunch of habits shaped by evolution, then they cling and crave, they chase after the hot job, the hot car, the hot fuck. And they are perpetually dissatisfied, if only as a faint background feeling. What I have gradually come to realize is that everyone who hasn't taken the time to think about things generally has an implicit belief system about the universe, that guides their actions as clearly as that of any theist. It takes real insight and self-acceptance to let go of that belief system.

If so how does that fit into reincarnation where that doesn't seem to continue from one life to the next.

This gets a little tricky. Basically almost everything that we habitually think of as "me" doesn't reincarnate. However, there is some level of identity, deeper than most people will ever look but several steps more individuated that the infinite, which gives rise to many human lives across time. This is not to say that this component is like a soul, or the ultimate "me," as even this level of identity is not eternal, and is perpetually changing as it gives rise to multiple lower selves. There is nowhere that is perpetually unchanging, just as there is nowhere that is perfectly eternal, much as our brains would like to go find it.

The central insight of buddhism, if you want to call it that, doesn't necessarily require that this intermediate level of individuation exists. However as I've gradually worked through the layers of identity in prolonged meditative practice I've encountered several things, emotional memories, that have nothing to do with anything I've experienced since birth, so I've come to accept this perspective as practical and beneficial in meditation.


Lao tzu, anyone can pick up taoist & buddhist koan-speak and spit it back out, and indeed it is a major breakthrough when you begin to see that reality is beyond logic. But eventually you have to move beyond this cerebral realization and make it real in every second of your life. What's your life like offline? What's your orientation towards the universe?

 

[Void]

I always felt that the materialistic atheist loves the logical games with Ockhams razor so much they tend to use that razor on their own self, cutting away to fit into the materialistic world. Or at least thats a very basic generalisation of it, and you also get religious focuses that point a finger at the horizon and proclaim there be evil. Eastern or more spiritual views on the other hand dont cut out anything but rather embrace it all as part of the whole. The notion that its all connected, has a place and a purpose.

The ego isnt who you are, its more like the waste product, all the shit you havent dealth with from the past or the stuff you carry around that prevents you from facing reality. The true self is a much deeper thing, that tends to come into play during egoless states.

Though the religious church believes in life after death, life in heaven, etc. Not non-existance. I doubt there would be many in the west who truly believe after life there is nothing. The truth though is probably so complex that it may just include all these beliefs, you go where you want to go.

 

[scottahit]

exellent posts one of the best threads for a while (not because I started it, promise)

 

[ebola?]

>>There is no western spiritualistic view. Materialism is an economic practice, not so much a lifestyle or belief system. Its just a giant market place where social structure is designed around the economic class systems and price structure. >>

Molybdenum may have covered this, but I think you may be equivocating, to a certain degree. There is a metaphysical materialist view distinct from socio-economic materialism, although the two views are very often congruent.

>>I always felt that the materialistic atheist loves the logical games with Ockhams razor so much they tend to use that razor on their own self, cutting away to fit into the materialistic world. >>

This, of course, would be a misapplication of science. While it is often useful to keep theoretical inferences simple, cutting out the empirically evident is unjustifiable. It should also be noted that there is no reason, a priori, that Ockham's razor is "true". Rather, it just seems to work.

ebola

 

[unsp0]

non existance isn't that big of a deal to me, you won't know about it while your not existing anyhow.
Reincarnation along with any other form of afterlife is wishful thinking in my opinion , though i may be wrong. Did anyone care about non existance the countless years before you were human? rhetorical question of course.

 

[ebola?]

>>Did anyone care about non existance the countless years before you were human? rhetorical question of course.>>

Not so much.
Time appears not to move in reverse.
You present a logical game whereas death presents an involuntary plumet into the unknown (and unknowable).

ebola