[Buddha-l] life force vis a vis Buddhism

[jkirk]

Hilarious conclusion.

Yes, you have exposed my ignorance on matters metaphysical.
I always thought that metaphysics was the study or "science" (?) of
something referred to as ultimate reality......final principles and all 
that.
Now that you've told me it's about a lot of other things as well--existence,
absence, causal theories, possibility, necessity and theory of truth --which
I had somehow learned (?) were other fields in philosophy, I reject
my statement on Buddhism and metaphysics. But is it not the case
that the Buddha refused to discuss final principles or ultimate reality?
His reasons as you stated them I agree with.
But somehow it seems to me that some later Buddhist schools
smuggled ultimate reality back in. Not?

Ok, I don't wish to belabor this failing of mine as I can see it
could open cans of small penguins...so I will just go with my mystification
at the life force and leave it at that. In any case, maybe the Zoroastrians
were right---the evil force is trying to devour the life force. They
believe that the evil force will not win, but I am as dubious on that 
account
as you are.

"How on earth can
> anyone honestly think that penguins and their two-footed cousins, human
> beings, are the work of an intelligent creator?"
       You got me!!
"Indeed, some of the
> vinaya rules are testimony to his having a remarkable amount of concern
> for how people affect the world of animals, insects and plants."
Hmmmm....I must read the vinaya--------keep putting it off, so I should shut 
my trap about the Buddha and our natural world until I read it.

Joanna


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Richard P. Hayes" <Richard.P.Hayes at comcast.net>
To: "Buddhist discussion forum" <buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com>
Sent: Saturday, August 20, 2005 4:19 PM
Subject: Re: [Buddha-l] life force vis a vis Buddhism


> On Sat, 2005-08-20 at 12:44 -0600, jkirk wrote:
>
>> Has anyone seen the film, _March of the Penguins_ or _la Marche des
>> Empereurs_, a French documentary that is having a big fling in the USA?
>
> Judy and I loved that movie, not only because we saw it on a really hot
> day. The main question I had while seeing it was "How on earth can
> anyone honestly think that penguins and their two-footed cousins, human
> beings, are the work of an intelligent creator?"
>
>> I'm usually not into metaphysics, I resist it in Buddhist literature. But
>> where both paticca-samuppada or the three poisons could almost stand as
>> metaphysical principles
>
> The word "metaphysics" has been used in so many ways by so many people
> that I never know what people mean when they say they are not into it.
> As most philosophers use the word, metaphysics is the study of
> existence, absence, causal theories, possibility, necessity and theory
> of truth. I can't imagine being at all interested in Buddhism without
> also being interested in those issues, and therefore in metaphysics.
> Assuming you do not resist thinking about existence and causality and so
> forth, what is it that you do resist when you resist things in Buddhist
> literature?
>
>> How long can those penguins survive on an Antarctic that is melting off?
>
> I'd give them about thirty years, probably less.
>
>> According to the Pali texts the Buddha refused to speculate on such 
>> matters,
>> he had more sense than I do at the moment, but he was not faced with 
>> rapidly
>> and universally disappearing trees, land, species, water, soil, clean 
>> air.
>
> I don't think the Buddha refused to think about such questions as what
> we human beings may be doing to the biosphere. Indeed, some of the
> vinaya rules are testimony to his having a remarkable amount of concern
> for how people affect the world of animals, insects and plants. The
> questions the Buddha did not answer were those that, if answered, would
> make no difference at all to how we act. Reflecting on how human beings
> are destroying the very possibility of many kinds of life on the planet
> is not in that category at all. Questions of the well-being of living
> things are of utmost importance to Buddhists. And that is why some of us
> insist on drawing attention to barely sentient beings, such as George W.
> Bush and his cohort of greed-driven, hate-filled and delusion-saturated
> advisers, and to the contribution they are making to the suffering of
> sentient beings everywhere in the present and in the future.
>
>> Any ideas, folks?
>
> For starters, I would recommend that we impeach George W. Bush, exile
> him to the south pole and leave him there with nothing but one loaf of
> French bread and one German sausage encased in a condom.
>
> -- 
> Richard Hayes
>
>
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