C Elegans, I choose to only respond to part of your response at this time. At a later time hopefuly I will feel 'up to' responding to the whole text.
Thank you for your PM Claudius. Since I prefer to discuss this kind of broad topics in threads rather than by PM, I will not reply to the PM but instead hope that you are willing to post some of all of what you wrote in the PM here in the thread instead.
I'm willing to have a go. I know I am not the only one who gets frustrated sometimes.
I am glad that you were not upset by response and I am happy that I PMed you to clarify.
Regarding buddhist moral systems, thank you for the link. I read the page you linked to, and more. I am quite well read into buddhism for both personal and professional reasons, and I did not like that website. What I read on the "buddhist philosophy" pages partly sounded like a simplified and vulgarised version of Buddhism.
It doesn't matter what type of buddhism it was. It matters what you thought about it. I didn't find it to be vulgar. Pema Chodrons says that the Buddhas teachings are like the finger tracing designs on the surface of water. What do I mean by saying that?
Edit: Perhaps the Zen version is better: "buddhas teachings are **** on a stick" First I will apologize for not being a great scholar. I am more of an essence practitioner. Essence practice means that you pay attention to your own experience. That means that some of the beliefs practice or intellectual foundation of buddhism is missed. But nonetheless it is believed that nothing is missing from your own experience. The heart sutra says that there is no attainment. This is not to discourage someone from living their life or practicing but it does mean there is nothing to attain outside of your direct experience. In other words "put on your robe and eat your food" Whether it is meat or vegetables this is true
So I started looking for what type of buddhism the website was meant to represent, and on the "temple" page it said it's a Shin buddhism temple in Anchorage, founded in 1998. Now, this may at least partly explain why what I read was not fully consistent with my prior knowledge about Japanese Shin buddhism, or any other form of buddhism. Western buddhism differ quite a lot from most forms of Asian buddhism. Which, in turn, may explain why a lot of what you post and refer to as consequential to your being a buddhist, does not sound to me like it's related to buddhism at all.
That could be true. Western buddhism is designed as skillful means to liberate the western audience. Eastern buddhism is designed as skillful means for the eastern audience. Nonetheless as the diamond sutra says, "the buddhadharma is not the buddhadharma....that is how it is the buddhadharma" This means that there is no set in stone way. Each heart must find its own way.
I will not critisise your posts in this thread based on my prior knowledge of Japanese Shin buddhism,
Ok that is reassuring because I was just linking you to this site because it dealt with the middle way philosophy of Buddhism. I do not know if it is Hinayana or Mahayana. I do not know if it is Shentong or Rangtong. But I do know that it did address your line of questioning regarding whether I thought there was a difference between false things and true things. Any interested parties can follow the link.
but let me say that in no way does it follow from Japanese Shin buddhism that eating meat is an analogue to nazi concentration camps.
It depends how willing you are to stretch things. Surely nothing can be an analogue of another if you are unwilling to stretch things. Klaus is a Nazi. He wants (his family) to have shoes. He does not want to be strung up as a political prisoner. So he goes along with the regime. Bob wants to eat tasty things. He does not want to go to his favorite store McDonald's and eat something that tastes not good to him. Like the veggie burger. So he goes along with it.
Similarity? Maybe not.
Neither does it follow that an insect suffers as much as a human being from being killed. I don't know what kind of buddhist you are, but in your posts you either fail to understand the distinction between the metaphysical and the objective world, or your school of buddhism does not acknowledge it.
Edit: I think my school would be more likely to acknowledge a difference between the conceptual (metaphysical and objective being categories) and nonconceptual. I think that would just be mental masturbation to call something 'metaphysical'. Of course thats just if "I" said it. If someone else said it it might really touch their heart. You would be able to tell from their face and voice.
Source
http://www.kagyu.org/kagyulineage/buddh ... /int04.php
Whoever has a body and feelings of pleasure and pain experiences suffering. Beings may enjoy varying degrees of happiness, but no happiness is everlasting, and the loss of happiness itself is suffering. The reason it is called the truth of suffering is that it is inescapable.
Those who suffer are the beings of the six realms, which are the six possible ways of experiencing samsara (the cycle of rebirth, existence unliberated from suffering).
Beings experiencing the hell realms suffer from intense and unremitting heat or cold, and beings experiencing the hungry ghost realm are constantly deprived of food and drink; these beings of the most unfortunate realms must endure their extreme torment for unimaginable lengths of time without actually dying, until the negative karma that brought about such existences is exhausted.
In the animal realm, beings suffer particularly from ignorance or stupidity and are unable to relate their suffering to others. Beings existing in the human realm experience a mixture of happiness and sorrow as a result of having accumulated both positive and negative karma.
The sufferings of human beings include: birth, sickness, old age, and death; the suffering of being separated from that which one loves, and of not being separated from that which one hates; and the suffering of not getting what one wants and of getting what one does not want.
Beings of the demigod realm are more fortunate, but they suffer because of quarreling, fighting, and warfare. The most pleasant existence is that of the gods, who do not experience suffering until the last seven days of their lives. Then they see signs that the end of their life of ease is approaching; they are abandoned by their attendants, their magnificent bodies deteriorate and their beautiful complexions fade. Finally, they foresee the pain of their next rebirth in the lower realms, which they are bound to experience because their positive karma has been used up.
Aside: sometimes people are in the god realm
I hope that substantiates my claim that animals suffer as seen from the context of Buddhism. This is from the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism. One of the four main schools.
Japanese Shin buddhism does not deny that an insect has a different nervous system than a human. This is a competely different level than the buddhist view that the insect and the human has the same value at a metaphyscial level. The human and the insect have the same value from a scientific standpoint as well, for instance from an evolutionary perspective and an ecological perspective they are equal. Same thing if you are an existentialist value nihilist. However, whereas the striving of some may be to detach themselves from the objectively sensory perceived world, it does not mean being indifferent to suffering in this world. Note that Japanese Shin buddhism allows for eating meat but not for killing others. Meat eating and nazi concentration camps are not analogous.
I never said Buddhism was against eating meat. I said that I was against it. And I don't care if you eat meat. Its YOUR karma. I want you to think about it. The karmapa (a high lama) has urged people not to eat meat. This is a recent developement since only recently Tibet had enough vegetables to make this sensible. Also Buddhists acknowledge that killing insects is also negative karma (to harvest vegetables). Is it a bad thing to think about what you are doing?
Whichever school of buddhism you belong to, neither Japanese Shin buddhism nor the Western Shin buddhist website you linked to, contributed to clarify the questions I previously posted to you. Furthermore, you post above contains a couple of misunderstandings or a couple strawman arguments:
Misread your text. Sorry you did not like the website.
I'm glad it helped clarify. I didn't intend to make you a strawman.
a) I have no problem with non-absolute moral. On the contrary, my own moral system is closes to objective realism. I strongly dislike both absolute moral systems and moral relativism.
Interesting. I think I reacted squeemishly in part because I feel the same way. And I felt I was being pigeonholed as an extreme moral relativist. Which isn't the whole story.
b) Animals can suffer. I have not questioned that. I opposed your statements that animals and humans have the same potential for physical suffering and that insects have a consciousness that makes them experience suffering when they are killed by pesticides.
I think I have addressed this and the tail of the argument could be wrapped up by investigating what buddhism means by suffering (which is a VERY good question...didn't I say that if something is not in your direct experience then it is not too important). Physical pain is not equal to suffering.
why should you believe in anything that there is no evidence that it does exist?
Do you see how this supports the central theory of Tibet (emptiness)?
