[Buddha-l] Belief and metaphysics (was Pali Sutta)

[Jayarava]

--- On Thu, 12/3/09, Robert Ellis <robertupeksa at talktalk.net> wrote:

> I think what you're saying here involves a false
> dichotomy between the "rational" and the
> non-rational.

OK

> Nor is it pragmatic (except in a very narrow sense) to
> adopt what we can appreciate as a falsehood on the
> assumption that it will be useful and motivating.

Well hang on. You can't appreciate karma as a falsehood, you can only appreciate it as metaphysical!  And, therefore, you can't know it to be true or false. The view that metaphysics are false is itself metaphysical. The fact is that the vast majority of Buddhists in the world *are* motivated by karma, and that it is therefore useful.

You are as contrary as ever.

> To educated, Westernised populations it will not
> be useful at all. Who is actually motivated by belief in
> karma and rebirth, amongst the highly-educated readers of
> this list for example,?to do anything better than they would
> have done it otherwise anyway?

Buddha-L is a very unrepresentative cross section of people interested in Buddhism, many of whom are not Buddhists but only Buddhologists and therefore we would not expect them to be motivated by a Buddhist belief in the first place.

You've problematised the whole situation based on your own reaction to it. I just don't believe you can show that it is, and must be a problem for everyone.

> I challenge you to give me a single specific example of an
> educated Western person who has been made more ethical by
> the law of karma specifically, as distinct from merely
> considering the consequences of actions!

Saddharaja. The King of Faith totally believes in karma in an uncritical way, and is one of the most ethical people I know! One example. 

Remind me why we're limiting this to educated Westerners? 

> My assumption is much more subtle than this: that a?belief
> which cannot conceivably?be tested,?whether in terms
> of?individual or shared experience, whether the test is one
> of verification or falsification or even fruitful
> application, leads us away from conditions and towards dogma
> and attachment. It is only those kinds of belief that are
> not good for us: provisional beliefs, on the other?hand,?are
> positively required. This is not a metaphysic but a physic,
> a?provisional means of curing us of metaphysics.

You define the problem in terms of metaphysics on the basis that a metaphysical belief can have no fruitful application (since we must accept that by definition it can't be verified or falsified). You do seem to have adopted a belief that metaphysics = false.

If we are simply being critical of unthinking dogma as opposed to provisional beliefs then I don't see what the big deal is. 


> The only alternative to this, that I can see, is the belief
> you appear to hold that metaphysics is inevitable, which
> implies that?the Middle Way does not exist, and therefore
> that spiritual progress is impossible. If we can only
> formulate our beliefs in terms of the delusions that we
> think are useful, we can do nothing better than migrate
> between delusions.

No, this is not quite what I believe. My view is that if believing something leads to ethical behaviour and an investigation of the processes of consciousness, then it doesn't matter if that belief involves metaphysics (or outright falsehood for that matter) or not. The follow on from this is a belief, based on my experience, that practice of ethics and meditation will sort any anomalies along the way. 

I've never understood your definition of the Middle Way and so I can't comment on what happens to it under these conditions. If indeed you think it does disappear, then I would have to say that I'm not much concerned because we are better off behaving ethically and examining our mental processes than any other combination of behaviours. And this was the point of the Kālāma Sutta wasn't it?

It is axiomatic in Buddhism that our beliefs are founded on delusion until such point as we have 'knowledge and vision of things as become'. Hence all beliefs are provisional. Your position sounds similar to Shinran - being deluded at all there is no way out of our delusion. Fortunately we are not entirely limited by our beliefs because we have the ability to examine and understand our experience. You are saying that belief condemns us to ignorance, and I am saying that the whole point of Buddhism is that of course we are deluded, but through practice we can be less deluded, and finally understand the arising of dhammas (which I take to be mental phenomena and therefore not ontological).

> I think you are interpreting my "program" in
> unduly narrow terms which make it appear dualistically
> opposed to the complexity of human motivation. 

I'm so sorry. 

> It is not their metaphysics which enables me to admire the
> Buddha, St Francis or whoever else, but the ways they went
> beyond it.

Is that really how you think? 

> On the contrary, the whole world furnishes us with
> examplars: <snip> We could start with the Buddha himself in his
> discovery of the Middle Way. 

But Robert this is just you defining the Buddha's victory in your own idiosyncratic way and celebrating your own view. There's no sense in which the reported words of the Buddha support your contention that he saw his program as overcoming metaphysics. The Buddha in the Pāli texts (let alone in later sūtras!) accepts any number of metaphysical ideas: causation, karma, rebirth, good and evil, the list goes on! What can you be thinking of? 

> Nor does it intrinsically lack
> heart, given that it attempts to address all conditions
> including emotional conditions. Whether or not I have
> succeeded in addressing emotional conditions myself is
> another matter, which those who know me better should judge.

Well I don't know you better, but I have read your presentation of your ideas... 

Best wishes
Jayarava