Re: phil215 Re: Buddhism - Permanence issue
JOHN ROBINSON
your permance of rules, but there is a BIG difference between the
endurance and unshakability of rules versus the endurance of a
permanent thing. You could identify Atman with the rules of the
game but that would essentially be changing the subject as far as
both the Buddhists and the Hindus are concerned. The Hindu
concept of Atman is something that is eternal, it is a thing and not
only is it a thing, that thing is you. So even if the Buddhists grant
that there are immutable and eternal laws of physics, if that's all
they grant then they've already won all they wanted to win against
the orthodox Hindu schools.
----- Original Message -----
From: Nathan Van Allen <drug...@gmail.com>
Date: Tuesday, January 30, 2007 11:07 pm
Subject: phil215 Re: Buddhism - Permanence issue
>
> As far as the pain/pleasure scale I think it is important to
consider
> that pleasure could be related to different amounts of pleasure
and
> therefore itself in a way. Another thing is, there is a black and a
> white, but we could relate red to either, without needing the
other.
> I think that relations are just a quick way for our brain to
> understand the world and is either a trick we have to use or use
so
> often that it would not be normal to think of something without
> relating it to other things.
>
> As far as consistent change, I sort of agree and I have an
example
> that I'd like to try to communicate. Imagine existence as a game
of
> blackjack. Different players win each hand, maybe some leave
the
> table or come over to it, things change. What if Atman is like the
> rules of the game? The rules don't change, no one can see them,
they
> aren't really tangible... how would Buddhists respond to that?
>
> On Jan 30, 10:07 pm, "Charles Reichheld" <reichhel...@osu.edu>
wrote:
> > So Buddhism stresses that there is no permanence. Our names
are
> > falsities, in that they are simply words we try to use to refer
> to a
> > permanent idea of ourselves and others. I understand the
> breakdown of
> > processes, and I wonder if it is correct with this analogy:
> >
> > Nothing exists independently, so everything must depend on
other
> > things. So how about with pain and pleasure. Under these
> > circumstances, it seems to work when considering what
pleasure would
> > really be if there were no pain. Pleasure would be
pleasure...except
> > without pain to distinguish it by, pleasure really wouldn't be
> > anything at all. It would just be some thing, or really just this
> > "absence" of any meaning at all. This kind of puts me on the
same
> page> with what the mahayana buddhists mean when they say
that
> nothing has
> > independent existance.
> >
> > But as I was thinking about this, I considered this notion of
> > continuos fluctuations, and the absence of any permanence. It
struck
> > me that there is permanence in the very definition of their
reality.
> > Change - continuous change is permanent. And according to
them there
> > has to be these continuous fluctuations in order to dispute
> > permanence. Would they say that change flucuates from
potential
> > permanence back to more fluctuations? This is contradictory
because
> > there isn't supposed to be any permanence at all...what would
the
> > buddhists say to this?
> >
> > -Charles Reichheld
>
>
> >
>