How do we know (Truth)?
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Steve Hagen:
Chapter 34 from 'Buddhism Is Not What You Think' (great book!)
How Do We Know?
When we first approach Buddhist teachings, they often seem very complicated. To many people, they may also seem arcane, foreign, and confusing.
But what the Buddha taught is actually quite simple and immediate if we stick to the original teachings. It's just that we are complicated. We think too much.
The essential point of the Buddhadharma is simply to wake up to reality.
I've been told that Buddhism teaches three ways by which we can know Truth: one, from authority; two, by logical deduction; and three, through direct experience. I've never, however, seen such a statement in any Buddhist text. And whether this is a Buddhist teaching or not, it's fundamentally flawed.
If we look carefully, we'll notice that the first two approaches will quickly unravel and crumble into dust. Direct experience also unravels, but instead of crumbling to dust, it completely disappears, leaving no trace whatsoever.
If this seems complicated, arcane, foreign, or confusing, please keep reading. Soon you'll see the simplicity in it.
Let's first look at the idea of arriving at Knowledge by way of authority. This approach is easily dismantled. In fact, the British philosopher Bertrand Russell dismissed it in a single sentence when he noted that the problem with authority is that you can always find another authority to oppose it.
The foremost authority in Buddhism is supposedly the Buddha himself. Yet the Buddha explicitly encouraged people not to rely on the authority of others, including him. The Buddha often made remarks like, "Don't believe me just because others do or because you see me as your teacher." He continually admonished people to look carefully in order to see and know for themselves. This means neither blindly accepting the words of some external authority nor rejecting them out of hand but listening to them and testing them against actual experience.
As the Dalai Lama once put it, "There are many things we Buddhists should learn from the latest scientific findings. And scientists can learn from Buddhist explanations. We must conduct research and then accept the results. If they don't stand up to experimentation, Buddha's own words must be rejected."
This is very much in keeping with what the Buddha taught as well as with the modern scientific method.
We sometimes have the mistaken notion that enlightened people, once they see Reality, are able to speak of the Absolute with words that are Absolute as well. Then we can write down their utterances and preserve, study, and revere them for all time. But we humans - enlightened or not - never experience absolutes. We experience change. This is what the Buddha taught, and it applies to his teaching as well.
This is why some Buddhist groups get together periodically to examine what they're doing, what works, what still fits, and what does not. Because times change, what might have been appropriate in a different time and place may no longer work here and now. We need not - and should not - lock ourselves in a frame that made sense twenty-five hundred years ago in some foreign culture (or even twenty years ago here). Some of it might not apply to us today or might even be downright harmful.
We must continuously reexamine what we teach. We need to ask, "Is this effective? Is this conducive to helping people open their eyes?"
In short, as the Buddha taught, while everything is to be viewed and handled with utmost respect, nothing is - or can be - sacred. This is why the Buddha likened his teaching to a raft, which should be left behind once the river has been crossed.
One other point about authority: no human being or institution ever has more authority than that granted by other human beings. This means that you are the final authority in terms of when you give credence to and how you live your life.
Turning over this authority to anyone else is a kind of spiritual laziness. You'll be disinclined to pay careful and critical attention to what's actually going on, and you'll be left wide open to being manipulated, misled, and scammed.
The Buddha recognized this and warned against it. For instance, he told people not to make any images of him. (And people didn't at first.)
You need to realize that you are Buddha. Yet the more we glorify and deify the man we call the Buddha, the more difficult it is for us to wake up. After all, if you make your teachers into gods, how can you realize the Truth that you are fundamentally no different from them?
In the end, it comes down to this: authority, which is yours already, rests only with direct experience. Ultimately, there is no other place for you to look.
The second means by which we can supposedly know Truth is through logical deduction. Certainly this is a more valuable and useful tool than blind obedience. It can keep us on tract so that we don't come to conclusions that don't follow from our original assumptions. But logical deduction can tell us nothing about the validity of our original premises. Thus, in and of itself, logical deduction can't be relied upon to bring us to Truth.
Here's an example of a perfectly legitimate logical form called a syllogism:
All birds are green.
The King of Spain is a bird.
Therefore, the King of Spain is green.
The logic here is flawless. Since, however, both of the initial premises are false (not to mention absurd), we arrive at a conclusion that's perfectly consistent with the premises but false (not to mention ridiculous). The tool of logic functioned perfectly, but we need something else to ensure that the basic premises are valid.
Actually, in Buddhist teachings we do use logic. We use it to show that our commonly accepted premises about Reality are false or flawed. Buddhist logic, such as the logic employed by Nagarjuna, brings us to a point of seeing that all our concepts leave us dangling in space at the end of ropes, we see that when we rely on our thoughts and concepts, all we'll ever be led to are freefloating tethers. We see that this method will never get us to Truth.
Let's pause for a moment and take stock of where we are. We can't rely on authority, and we can't rely on merely logical deduction. Neither is sufficient to direct us to Truth. Thus we can only rely on direct experience.
After authority and logic have both unravelled and crumbled to dust, and even after all our concepts - of self, of other, of wisdom, of Emptiness, of Buddhism - have all faded and blown away, direct experience is still operating. it doesn't go away. And careful observation of actual experience reveals something else: direct experience does not supply an experiencer.
Hui-Neng, the sixth ancestor of Zen, asked another monk, Huai-jang, "Where do you come from?"
"I come from Tung-shan," said Huai-jang.
"What is it that thus comes?" asked Hui Neng.
Huai-jang was speechless. For eight long years he pondered the question; then one day it dawned upon him, and he exclaimed, "Even to say it is something doesn't hit the mark."
We need to see this for ourselves, directly. On close examination, whatever we claim as our self immediately disintegrates. And yet direct experience keeps rolling on.
We never actually experience things "out there." And we never actually experience an experiencer "in here." We only think we do.
We're all born into this world naked and innocent. We have nothing to go on but what's happening - direct experience. Just this.
The problem is that most of us don't really know how to attend to actual experience very well. The reason is simple: we think too much.
Yet attending to actual experience is simple. We only need to start looking and note how what we see differs from what we think. We need to confront paradox and confusion.
I'm not talking about vague, mystical notions here. Start looking carefully at trees, rocks, birds, people, mind, thought, feeling, even imaginary things like angels and hungry ghosts. Look at them all as experience rather than as substantive things "out there," removed from "you." Calmly and quietly (that is, with no mental dialogue), just watch what's going on. This is a simple, straightforward activity. It's not arcane, foreign, complicated, or confusing.
Continuously examine what you're doing, what you're thinking, what you're saying. Observe what you believe, what you say. Do this over and over again, without supposing that a time will ever come when this activity will stop. Let logic and authority drop away under their own weight.
What remains is what has been right here all along: Reality, before we try to make something of it.
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"The problem is that most of us don't really know how to attend to actual experience very well. The reason is simple: we think too much." (extracted from the article)
Very inspiring article. Thank you for sharing!
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still v complicated
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Originally posted by disappear:
still v complicated
If any part you don't understand you can point out... we can discuss :)
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The author posits an interesting twist on the concept of validity of statements. He states, “I've been told that Buddhism teaches three ways by which we can know Truth: one, from authority; two, by logical deduction; and three, through direct experience. I've never, however, seen such a statement in any Buddhist text. And whether this is a Buddhist teaching or not, it's fundamentally flawed.”
According to Buddhist precept, three criteria allow a statement to be considered valid: verification by direct experience, irrefutable deduction, and testimony worthy of confidence. This precept is bore from direct existential Buddhadharma study and serves as a strategy for handling intra, inter and external information, providing modes of conceptualization for describing and explaining various Buddhist ideologies, models and theories.
Consider the following, presented outside of canonical deference, if you please:
From a scientific point of view, an experiment is said to be valid if it can be reproduced by other experiments. It’s presumed that the same means of investigation are available to all concerned. In sports, everyone would agree that athletes can develop exceptional capacities after intensive training. If you said to someone who had never heard of the Olympic Games that a human being can jump a height of two meters forty, he would say straight away that you were just joking. Nowadays, everyone, even the most ignorant person – including those of you who can only jump one meter ten – can see, on television or in the flesh, a champion athlete capable of jumping two meters forty. It is acknowledged as being possible thanks to assiduous physical training. But when it is a question of training the mind, it is much more difficult to recognize any result and to acknowledge that it might be possible to attain a degree of mastery over the mind just as exceptional as the physical mastery of an athlete.
A statement can be accepted as valid when there are substantial reasons for believing the person making it. In certain cases, someone can be taken at their word without that being an act of blindness, because their integrity can be examined. If you really want to be sure, then the only way would be to commit oneself to the path of inner transformation. Besides personal experience, what other means are available to evaluate knowledge of the subtle aspects of consciousness? Consciousness has, by nature, no form, no substance, no color, and is not quantifiable. Not to rely on personal experience would be equivalent to denying a priori the possibility of training the mind to engender qualities beyond the average, and to limiting the domain of knowledge to the visible and measurable material world. Additionally, it would mean that, to exist, a phenomenon must necessarily be within everyone’s reach, at any time, in any place, and exclusively in the material domain.
From the twenties until the late sixties, psychology was largely dominated by the idea that to study the workings of the mind it was necessary to observe outward behavior, certainly not to look at the mind itself. The mind, it was said, cannot know itself in any objective way. This, of course, excludes any contemplative approach. Study was confined to outward manifestations of mental events that are not translated into behavior. Most experiments were, moreover, carried out in animals. That approach has gradually been replaced by the cognitive sciences (neuroscience, cognitive psychology, linguistics, artificial intelligence, and so on) which accord much more importance to mental states, in terms either of cognitive activity that processes information from the outer world (perception, communication, movement), or of autonomous cognitive activity (dream, memory, mental imagery, language development, and so on). But even today, introspection – the mind looking at itself – is still not accepted as a valid method of investigation, because for the moment we cannot convert the results of introspection into physical detectable phenomena.
By its very nature, consciousness escapes the methods of investigation used by physical scientists. But not to be able to find something is no proof of its nonexistence. Buddhism’s choice is based on experience acquired through contemplation. So finally, the only way to settle the debate is to investigate any indirect indications there might be that a consciousness separate from the body could exist. In Buddhist terminology, the subtle or nonmaterial consciousness is ‘without form’, but it is not ‘nonexistent’ because it is capable of fulfilling a function. Consciousness carries within it the capacity to interact with the body, which itself has no ultimate reality.
As such, I think that the differing points of view reflect what, in essence, are metaphysical choices. Science rejects the idea of a nonmaterial consciousness, which by definition cannot be detected by any physical means of measurement. That reflects the tendency to reify everything, to bring everything down to the material level, consciousness as well as phenomena. But Buddhists add that what guides the workings of the brain and its decisions is the nonmaterial consciousness. To deny that is a metaphysical choice made by neurobiologists, just as asserting it is a metaphysical choice made by Buddhists.
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Concept of Truth in the Buddhism perspective.
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Originally posted by BadzMaro:
Concept of Truth in the Buddhism perspective.
It is because of humans' ignorance that people think it is concept of truth in the Buddhism perspective, in fact it is universal truth. Be patient, science will prove it. Just like scientists are trying to prove there are aliens. 2500 years ago, Buddha said there are other intelligence beings besides human beings out there.
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Originally posted by Dawnfirstlight:
It is because of humans' ignorance that people think it is concept of truth in the Buddhism perspective, in fact it is universal truth. Be patient, science will prove it. Just like scientists are trying to prove there are aliens. 2500 years ago, Buddha said there are other intelligence beings besides human beings out there.
Well, irregardless of our understandings and perspective ,the TRUTH is out there. After years of trying to understand meaning of truh, I can only come to accept it as absolute existence. I agree in some parts but not all in the article above.
One can argue about the metaphysics, and the empirical logic and its due process of deduction, but...
I am just interested in perspectives thats all.
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just a few cents worth, feel free to correct :)
will just use a jigsaw as an analogy, hopefully its clear.
right since birth, the majority of us had been conditioned that learning is by 'adding' knowledge and experience, and so we acquire pieces of knowledge (jigsaw pieces) and fit them into a big jigsaw picture of our life.
while doing this, we learn that everyone has a different jigsaw picture to create, but at the same time we believe also that our picture is the true picture.
this assumption is carried forward when we start to embark on a spiritual journey as well. we believe that the truth is also to be found by acquiring and adding new pieces of spiritual knowledge to complete the jigsaw picture. and this creates the existing conflicts of spirituality as everyone with this stand will believe their own version of Truth is correct.
this approach will continue and continue, and will come to a point when the last piece will not be able to fit in and complete the jigsaw picture.
at this stage, one will then start to dismantle the jigsaw picture, initially with the intention to refit the pieces and attempt to complete the puzzle. we may change some pieces of knowledge along the way, and try to use these new jigsaw pieces to complete the picture of Truth. but nontheless its still not possible to complete.
then in this process, we also sense that the whole big jigsaw picture is in a mess! and it will continue to become messier and messier until one fine day, we give up!
in giving up, some of us may be hit with some initial realization that the Truth may be found when we remove all the pieces instead. so we start to take away pieces and pieces and pieces from the jigsaw picture.
and ultimately some finally removed the last piece and found that the Truth is in nothing! and they see that this 'nothingness' is the same for all, once everyone removes all their jigsaw pieces.
and then there is freedom :)
anyway, this is just a rough analogy, if anyone can help to smoothen it pls do so :) heh
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Originally posted by geis:
just a few cents worth, feel free to correct :)
will just use a jigsaw as an analogy, hopefully its clear.
right since birth, the majority of us had been conditioned that learning is by 'adding' knowledge and experience, and so we acquire pieces of knowledge (jigsaw pieces) and fit them into a big jigsaw picture of our life.
while doing this, we learn that everyone has a different jigsaw picture to create, but at the same time we believe also that our picture is the true picture.
this assumption is carried forward when we start to embark on a spiritual journey as well. we believe that the truth is also to be found by acquiring and adding new pieces of spiritual knowledge to complete the jigsaw picture. and this creates the existing conflicts of spirituality as everyone with this stand will believe their own version of Truth is correct.
this approach will continue and continue, and will come to a point when the last piece will not be able to fit in and complete the jigsaw picture.
at this stage, one will then start to dismantle the jigsaw picture, initially with the intention to refit the pieces and attempt to complete the puzzle. we may change some pieces of knowledge along the way, and try to use these new jigsaw pieces to complete the picture of Truth. but nontheless its still not possible to complete.
then in this process, we also sense that the whole big jigsaw picture is in a mess! and it will continue to become messier and messier until one fine day, we give up!
in giving up, some of us may be hit with some initial realization that the Truth may be found when we remove all the pieces instead. so we start to take away pieces and pieces and pieces from the jigsaw picture.
and ultimately some finally removed the last piece and found that the Truth is in nothing! and they see that this 'nothingness' is the same for all, once everyone removes all their jigsaw pieces.
and then there is freedom :)
anyway, this is just a rough analogy, if anyone can help to smoothen it pls do so :) heh
Due to time constraint, I can only share a very brief bit of my views.Depending on how someone wishes to view it, but actually, there's only 1 huge complete Jigsaw puzzle of Life that eventually, everyone will see, after countless lifetimes. This 1 picture can also be described as the 'nothingness' that you mentioned, though I personally would describe it as the opposite, ie. it actually is the complete Truth of Earth and Life, as it'll explain everything in Life.
The reason why everyone thinks differently about Life is that they are piecing up different parts of the jigsaw on their own, and few people have the chance to see the full picture yet. So everyone feels that everyone else is wrong, as they are not seeing the same picture in their minds. Only when everyone has finally found the rest of the missing pieces, or at least the pieces that allows them to link up their own picture with their fellow men's pictures will there be peace and common understanding. This will get easier within the next few years and decade. Now is not the time yet.
Rainbow Jigsaw of Life
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Originally posted by Rainbow Jigsaw:
Due to time constraint, I can only share a very brief bit of my views.Depending on how someone wishes to view it, but actually, there's only 1 huge complete Jigsaw puzzle of Life that eventually, everyone will see, after countless lifetimes. This 1 picture can also be described as the 'nothingness' that you mentioned, though I personally would describe it as the opposite, ie. it actually is the complete Truth of Earth and Life, as it'll explain everything in Life.
The reason why everyone thinks differently about Life is that they are piecing up different parts of the jigsaw on their own, and few people have the chance to see the full picture yet. So everyone feels that everyone else is wrong, as they are not seeing the same picture in their minds. Only when everyone has finally found the rest of the missing pieces, or at least the pieces that allows them to link up their own picture with their fellow men's pictures will there be peace and common understanding. This will get easier within the next few years and decade. Now is not the time yet.
Rainbow Jigsaw of Life
agree also, just different ways of putting forth the same thing. but different people may again read and understand differently.
removing the jigsaw is analogous to the unlearning of the conditioned view of life through the practice of meditation. similar to the peeling of the layers of the lotus flowers til one reaches the core of enlightenment described by many teachers. some may also take this and read it as destroying or removing everything in their lives which is wrong.
most people will read 'adding' pieces of jigsaw as searching outwards for more external knowledge, which is just adding more conditional views and moving further away. it will take someone who already has some experience of radical change to see this picture.
so actually both are same, but people will read differently.
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Originally posted by geis:
agree also, just different ways of putting forth the same thing. but different people may again read and understand differently.
removing the jigsaw is analogous to the unlearning of the conditioned view of life through the practice of meditation. similar to the peeling of the layers of the lotus flowers til one reaches the core of enlightenment described by many teachers. some may also take this and read it as destroying or removing everything in their lives which is wrong.
most people will read 'adding' pieces of jigsaw as searching outwards for more external knowledge, which is just adding more conditional views and moving further away. it will take someone who already has some experience of radical change to see this picture.
so actually both are same, but people will read differently.
Everyone needs guidance on how to understand what they need to understand on their own, as no one retains full spiritual memory upon reincarnation here. As for how to get guidance, one way is from truly more experienced and hopefully not misguided teachers. The other way, I shall not mention here. Human teachers are helpful for the masses, who don't really need to understand everything yet. Some knowledge is better than none, especially if it helps them to be better people.
All of us have the answers to Life within us, if we know how to obtain and understand them. But few people will understand or even recognise them even if they are already holding the answers, without proper guidance.
Rainbow Jigsaw of Life
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personal issues pls discuss through PM thanks - AEN
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Originally posted by BadzMaro:
Concept of Truth in the Buddhism perspective.
Actually it is Truth. It is not Concept of Truth, because Truth in Buddhism is only realised directly through one's experience, it is not theory or concepts but what is clearly seen in every moment of experience.
As Buddha said:
The Perfect One is free from any theory, for the Perfect One has understood what the body is, and how it arises, and passes away. He has understood what feeling is, and how it arises, and passes away. He has understood what perception is, and how it arises, and passes away. He has understood what the mental formations are, and how they arise, and pass away. He has understood what consciousness is, and how it arises, and passes away.
Therefore, I say, the Perfect One has won complete deliverance through the extinction, fading away, disappearance, rejection, and getting rid of all opinions and conjectures, of all inclination to the vainglory of I and mine.
- Majjhima Nikaya, 72 -
We never actually experience things "out there." And we never actually experience an experiencer "in here." We only think we do.
My favourite line.
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Originally posted by AtlasWept:
The author posits an interesting twist on the concept of validity of statements. He states, “I've been told that Buddhism teaches three ways by which we can know Truth: one, from authority; two, by logical deduction; and three, through direct experience. I've never, however, seen such a statement in any Buddhist text. And whether this is a Buddhist teaching or not, it's fundamentally flawed.”
According to Buddhist precept, three criteria allow a statement to be considered valid: verification by direct experience, irrefutable deduction, and testimony worthy of confidence. This precept is bore from direct existential Buddhadharma study and serves as a strategy for handling intra, inter and external information, providing modes of conceptualization for describing and explaining various Buddhist ideologies, models and theories.
Consider the following, presented outside of canonical deference, if you please:
From a scientific point of view, an experiment is said to be valid if it can be reproduced by other experiments. It’s presumed that the same means of investigation are available to all concerned. In sports, everyone would agree that athletes can develop exceptional capacities after intensive training. If you said to someone who had never heard of the Olympic Games that a human being can jump a height of two meters forty, he would say straight away that you were just joking. Nowadays, everyone, even the most ignorant person – including those of you who can only jump one meter ten – can see, on television or in the flesh, a champion athlete capable of jumping two meters forty. It is acknowledged as being possible thanks to assiduous physical training. But when it is a question of training the mind, it is much more difficult to recognize any result and to acknowledge that it might be possible to attain a degree of mastery over the mind just as exceptional as the physical mastery of an athlete.
A statement can be accepted as valid when there are substantial reasons for believing the person making it. In certain cases, someone can be taken at their word without that being an act of blindness, because their integrity can be examined. If you really want to be sure, then the only way would be to commit oneself to the path of inner transformation. Besides personal experience, what other means are available to evaluate knowledge of the subtle aspects of consciousness? Consciousness has, by nature, no form, no substance, no color, and is not quantifiable. Not to rely on personal experience would be equivalent to denying a priori the possibility of training the mind to engender qualities beyond the average, and to limiting the domain of knowledge to the visible and measurable material world. Additionally, it would mean that, to exist, a phenomenon must necessarily be within everyone’s reach, at any time, in any place, and exclusively in the material domain.
From the twenties until the late sixties, psychology was largely dominated by the idea that to study the workings of the mind it was necessary to observe outward behavior, certainly not to look at the mind itself. The mind, it was said, cannot know itself in any objective way. This, of course, excludes any contemplative approach. Study was confined to outward manifestations of mental events that are not translated into behavior. Most experiments were, moreover, carried out in animals. That approach has gradually been replaced by the cognitive sciences (neuroscience, cognitive psychology, linguistics, artificial intelligence, and so on) which accord much more importance to mental states, in terms either of cognitive activity that processes information from the outer world (perception, communication, movement), or of autonomous cognitive activity (dream, memory, mental imagery, language development, and so on). But even today, introspection – the mind looking at itself – is still not accepted as a valid method of investigation, because for the moment we cannot convert the results of introspection into physical detectable phenomena.
By its very nature, consciousness escapes the methods of investigation used by physical scientists. But not to be able to find something is no proof of its nonexistence. Buddhism’s choice is based on experience acquired through contemplation. So finally, the only way to settle the debate is to investigate any indirect indications there might be that a consciousness separate from the body could exist. In Buddhist terminology, the subtle or nonmaterial consciousness is ‘without form’, but it is not ‘nonexistent’ because it is capable of fulfilling a function. Consciousness carries within it the capacity to interact with the body, which itself has no ultimate reality.
As such, I think that the differing points of view reflect what, in essence, are metaphysical choices. Science rejects the idea of a nonmaterial consciousness, which by definition cannot be detected by any physical means of measurement. That reflects the tendency to reify everything, to bring everything down to the material level, consciousness as well as phenomena. But Buddhists add that what guides the workings of the brain and its decisions is the nonmaterial consciousness. To deny that is a metaphysical choice made by neurobiologists, just as asserting it is a metaphysical choice made by Buddhists.
Thanks for the post, I think it hits the nail on how science and spirituality differs.
Both are approaches to truths, yet different approaches.
We think science goes beyond theories and beliefs, but in actuality Science requires a theory, a belief, a hypothesis, a conceptualized model of the world, which it then goes to great lengths to test its validity which requires physical means of measurement. Science however can reveal nothing about ultimate Truth which is the sole province of religion. Scientific results are derived from theorizing, analyzing, validating... they help us understand relative, practical, everyday truths about the world like how they function and interact. But they do not tell bring us to a direct and immediate understanding of what's actually going on in direct experience.
Religion however asks us to look into our direct experience without concepts to discover the truth first hand. As you said, Consciousness though having no form, no substance, no color, and is not quantifiable, is directly experiencable. The insights gained through direct experinece goes beyond concepts, theories, and that is why "The Perfect One is free from any theory, for the Perfect One has understood what the body is, and how it arises, and passes away... etc"
I really like what Shunryu Suzuki said:
I have discovered that it is necessary, absolutely necessary, to believe in nothing. That is, we have to believe in something which has no form and no color—something which exists before all forms and colors appear.
What this means of course, is that we have to trust our direct immediate experience, rather than just fully 'believing' in the 'forms and colors', analyzing away the 'forms and colors' that we perceive, and disregard the domain of consciousness and direct experience which has no form and substance.
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Steve Hagen
4
We’ ve Got It All Backward
Many people put religion and science in separate, hermetically sealed boxes. Most of us, however, don’t realize that many aspects of religion and science were conjoined for many centuries before we put them into these boxes. In fact, at one time, before science really came into its own, science and religion were one and the same. This isn’t really so strange when we note that their common origin lies in our deep desire to know, to realize Truth. Consider, for example, what religion is actually about. The word religion came from religio, which meant “to bind back or very strongly to Truth.” Thus the heart of religion is about seeing or experiencing Truth—not about holding a set of beliefs. Religio comes out of our deeply felt desire to get back to Truth. We don’t want to be deceived. Like religion, science is also about getting to Truth. The term science comes from the Latin scire, “to know.” Science, as I’ve often heard it said by scientists themselves, is about knowing, not about believing. But the place we tend not to look—the place we really get it backward, the place we really go wrong—is this area of belief. Indeed, as we commonly think of science and religion, each claims an attribute that more naturally (and properly) belongs to the other. While religion is commonly thought to be about belief, its natural concern is actually with Knowledge, with knowing. And while science is thought to be about actual Knowledge, and fancies itself to be independent of belief, it is in fact inherently quite dependent upon it.
An article appeared not too long ago in the New York Times entitled “Crossing Flaming Swords over God and Physics.” It was about a debate between Steven Weinberg, the Nobel laureate in physics, and John Polkinghorne, a knighted physicist and Anglican priest. It was presented as a match between the “believer” (Polkinghorne) and the “nonbeliever” (Weinberg). But, in fact, that’s not what it was at all. Their interaction, as described in the article, almost “deteriorate[d] into a physical ï¬�ght.” If Dr. Weinberg had been genuinely a nonbeliever, there would have been no problem. In fact, this event was not a debate between a nonbeliever and a believer but a confrontation between two ardent believers. It was a standoff between two men who believed two very different views. The real issue is not science versus religion or even belief versus nonbelief. The most angry and virulent debates in the world (and the worst violent clashes) are inevitably between one believer and another. Once two headstrong believers spar off, the odds of coming to any amicable resolution are nil.The fact is that science needs belief. It can’t function without it. Science requires that we construct conceptualized versions of the world. It needs us to break the world apart so that we can examine it. This isn’t wrong; indeed, there’s great value in it. In this sense, then, science makes greater use of belief and is more dependent upon it than is religion. In contrast, for religion to function properly—that is, for it to help us open our eyes to Truth—it shouldn’t require belief. After all, religion is fundamentally about direct Knowledge of Truth. Thus, all religion needs to require of people is an earnest desire to know, to see, to wake up. This is enough. Unfortunately, in practice, religion makes wide use of beliefs—beliefs about how we got here, what our purpose is, where we ’re going, and so forth—all in a desperate attempt to make sense of the world and our experience in it. As Joseph Campbell put it, religion short-circuits the religious experience by putting it into concepts. But for religion to continue to function at its best, it would do well to get out of this business of belief entirely, to stop forming inevitably inaccurate conceptual models of Reality. This has become more properly the territory of science, not religion. In short, science is well positioned to properly handle belief. Religion is not.
Science goes to great lengths to test its beliefs (which it calls hypotheses), to verify or disprove their validity. Science tests its hypotheses, and if they’re in error they’re thrown out or reformulated and tested again. Tests must then be replicated many times by others. It’s an impeccable method for arriving at truth—that is, relative, practical, everyday truth. Science, however, can reveal to us nothing at all about ultimate Truth. This is, instead, the legitimate province—and responsibility—of religion. Using the scientiï¬�c method, we can clear up a lot of misconceptions about the nature of the relative world—the world of this and that—and about how things function and interact. But there ’s nothing about this method that ï¬�nally brings us to understand, directly and immediately, what’s actually going on. This belongs to religion—but only so long as religion doesn’t wallow in belief. Religion is not equipped to test and verify hypotheses. Nor should it be. It doesn’t need the scientiï¬�c method because it needn’t and shouldn’t make use of hypotheses or rely on beliefs of any kind. Unfortunately, because all religions, including Buddhism, do indulge in beliefs, everyone goes running off in different directions, carrying their separate banners of belief, signifying nothing but human delusion and folly. As a result, we have religions ï¬�ghting each other and religions ï¬�ghting science. As my teacher, Jikai Dainin Katagiri, used to say, “Under the beautiful flag of religion, we ï¬�ght.”
But it’s not religion that creates this situation. It’s the fact that we ’re constantly reaching for something we can grab hold of. We want to say, “Ah, this is it. This is how it is. This is the Truth; believe it!” But to the extent that we do this, we do not (and cannot) arrive at Truth because Truth—ultimate Reality—is not something we can believe. That is, it isn’t something we can formulate in a concept of any kind.
At some point we have to settle into realizing what the deep need of the human heart really is: we want to get back to Truth. This feeling is often innocently yet eloquently expressed in religion. It’s pure heart and mind, yet with no speciï¬�c point or agenda. And when we quiet our busy minds, this purity of heart and mind can be immediately felt. But, instead, we habitually look to something outside ourselves, something “out there” in the world—or even “out there” beyond the world—that will save us, something that will serve as a go-between. This all comes out of our confusion and out of the fear that we ’re somehow removed from Truth, that there’s some innate separation in the ï¬�rst place. But there isn’t. And what we most need to do as human beings—and what religion, in its purest form, can help us do— is quiet down and realize this. ...
Shunryu Suzuki wrote in his ï¬�rst book, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, I have discovered that it is necessary, absolutely necessary, to believe in nothing. That is, we have to believe in something which has no form and no color—something which exists before all forms and colors appear. This is a very important point. Or, as the ninth-century Chinese Zen teacher Huang Po put it, “The foolish reject what they see, not what they think; the wise reject what they think, not what they see.” Instead of putting faith in what we believe, think, explain, justify, or otherwise construct in our minds, we can learn to put our trust and conï¬�dence in immediate, direct experience, before all forms and colors appear. Religion, in its most essential expression, can help us do this. This is faith in its purest form: trust in actual experience before we make anything of it—before beliefs, thoughts, signs, explanations, justiï¬�cations, and other constructions of our minds take form. This is the great sanity, the great compassion, the great wisdom that religion holds for us. This sanity, compassion, and wisdom all come out of simply learning to trust that Truth is right at hand. There’s no go-between. You don’t get it from a teacher, from an institution, or from a belief system of any sort. You don’t get it from a book, either. Indeed, you can’t.In fact, you don’t get it from anything. You don’t need to get it. You already have it. You’re inseparable from it. You only need to just see. Whether we’re religious or not, in holding to beliefs and identifying with them, in shutting down and closing ourselves off from others, in this and so many other ways we create the most urgent and penetrating problems for ourselves. We ’re all human. We all have the desire to awaken, though we may not all be so aware. And we can all be moved by the human condition. But without taking hold of any thought or thing, just realize what’s seen directly, before you make anything of it. This is to know Truth. It has nothing to do with belief.
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personal issues pls discuss through PM thanks - AEN
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Originally posted by geis:
just a few cents worth, feel free to correct :)
will just use a jigsaw as an analogy, hopefully its clear.
right since birth, the majority of us had been conditioned that learning is by 'adding' knowledge and experience, and so we acquire pieces of knowledge (jigsaw pieces) and fit them into a big jigsaw picture of our life.
while doing this, we learn that everyone has a different jigsaw picture to create, but at the same time we believe also that our picture is the true picture.
this assumption is carried forward when we start to embark on a spiritual journey as well. we believe that the truth is also to be found by acquiring and adding new pieces of spiritual knowledge to complete the jigsaw picture. and this creates the existing conflicts of spirituality as everyone with this stand will believe their own version of Truth is correct.
this approach will continue and continue, and will come to a point when the last piece will not be able to fit in and complete the jigsaw picture.
at this stage, one will then start to dismantle the jigsaw picture, initially with the intention to refit the pieces and attempt to complete the puzzle. we may change some pieces of knowledge along the way, and try to use these new jigsaw pieces to complete the picture of Truth. but nontheless its still not possible to complete.
then in this process, we also sense that the whole big jigsaw picture is in a mess! and it will continue to become messier and messier until one fine day, we give up!
in giving up, some of us may be hit with some initial realization that the Truth may be found when we remove all the pieces instead. so we start to take away pieces and pieces and pieces from the jigsaw picture.
and ultimately some finally removed the last piece and found that the Truth is in nothing! and they see that this 'nothingness' is the same for all, once everyone removes all their jigsaw pieces.
and then there is freedom :)
anyway, this is just a rough analogy, if anyone can help to smoothen it pls do so :) heh
I always remember something Thusness told me years ago.
"Be the big question mark and ride on the cloud of unknowing, without arbitary thought, experience the immediate! At that moment whatever it is, it is entire.
"This is so important.
The moment we try to grasp conceptually, we have fragmented the Whole, the Entire, into our limited conceptual view of a separate self 'in here', a world 'out there', and numberless separate 'entities'.
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Originally posted by An Eternal Now:
Actually it is Truth. It is not Concept of Truth, because Truth in Buddhism is only realised directly through one's experience, it is not theory or concepts but what is clearly seen in every moment of experience.
As Buddha said:
The Perfect One is free from any theory, for the Perfect One has understood what the body is, and how it arises, and passes away. He has understood what feeling is, and how it arises, and passes away. He has understood what perception is, and how it arises, and passes away. He has understood what the mental formations are, and how they arise, and pass away. He has understood what consciousness is, and how it arises, and passes away.
Therefore, I say, the Perfect One has won complete deliverance through the extinction, fading away, disappearance, rejection, and getting rid of all opinions and conjectures, of all inclination to the vainglory of I and mine.
- Majjhima Nikaya, 72Fair enough. I categorise it as Buddhist's Truth not because I am trying to argue whether its THE truth or not, just for me to conceptualise and understand your truth. I got no problem with you thinking its THE truth also.
But for my understanding, I cant except it as THE truth.. as in its absoluteness, unless its truth in all context.
So I will just read and understand and stand in your shoes.
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Originally posted by BadzMaro:
Fair enough. I categorise it as Buddhist's Truth not because I am trying to argue whether its THE truth or not, just for me to conceptualise and understand your truth. I got no problem with you thinking its THE truth also.
But for my understanding, I cant except it as THE truth.. as in its absoluteness, unless its truth in all context.
So I will just read and understand and stand in your shoes.
is old age a truth or is a buddhist truth? is death a truth or is it a buddhist truth?
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Originally posted by Rooney9:
is old age a truth or is a buddhist truth? is death a truth or is it a buddhist truth?
Is 1 + 1 = 2 an absolute truth or a mathematical truth ?
Is Nirvana the truth ? Or its the truth in a buddhist perspective and a budhist truth ?
That is all I am asking and saying.
Old age, is a truth. old age.. and reincarnation is a buddhist truth.
death is truth. death and reincarnation is a buddhist truth.
Unless I am a buddhist, I will say its THe truth.
So speaking in a neutral oblique point of view you HAVE to categorise them. Or else ... people like you, which in this case, assumes that truth, means only 1 truth. And that is YOUR truth. And it will then revolve around the definition of the word TRUTH. Instead of actually looking at the point BEHIND the truth. Kapish ?Comprende ?
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Originally posted by BadzMaro:
Is 1 + 1 = 2 an absolute truth or a mathematical truth ?
Is Nirvana the truth ? Or its the truth in a buddhist perspective and a budhist truth ?
oh you mean god is the truth eh, so tell me about it? or is it a christian or catholic truth or perspective? -
Originally posted by BadzMaro:
Is 1 + 1 = 2 an absolute truth or a mathematical truth ?
Is Nirvana the truth ? Or its the truth in a buddhist perspective and a budhist truth ?
That is all I am asking and saying.
Old age, is a truth. old age.. and reincarnation is a buddhist truth.
death is truth. death and reincarnation is a buddhist truth.
Unless I am a buddhist, I will say its THe truth.
So speaking in a neutral oblique point of view you HAVE to categorise them. Or else ... people like you, which in this case, assumes that truth, means only 1 truth. And that is YOUR truth. And it will then revolve around the definition of the word TRUTH. Instead of actually looking at the point BEHIND the truth. Kapish ?Comprende ?
Nirvana is experiencable - it just means the end of suffering, ignorance, through realisation. There are people even in this forum who have become enlightened and experienced Nirvana.
Reincarnation too is verifiable through direct experience, again, there are forummers who remember past lives.
Hence all these are not concepts, but truth realised in direct experience.
But I do agree that these truths are not accepted throughout all religions.
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Originally posted by Rooney9:
oh you mean god is the truth eh, so tell me about it? or is it a christian or catholic truth or perspective?Why dont u tell me ?
Because u seem to be pretty dense. Like a rock. Do I even need to tell u about it ? I am wasting my time yes ? Your propensity in wriggling in and out serves me no purpose in answering u,in regards to God and religion.