do the five realms really exist?

Do the five (sometimes six) realms really exist? It's an interesting question. One reason is that the Buddhist idea of 'worlds' or 'realms' (loka) can be taken both literally (i.e., as external realms of existence) and metaphorically (i.e., as mental states).

They're definitely real in the sense of various pleasant and unpleasant mental states that we mentally take birth into, which is something we can easily observe for ourselves. For example, BuddhaNet's introductory essay, "Introduction to Buddhism," gives a good explanation of the realms in this way:

If ego decides it likes the situation, it begins to churn up all sorts of ways to possess it. A craving to consume the situation arises and we long to satisfy that craving. Once we do, a ghost of that craving carries over and we look around for something else to consume. We get into the habitual pattern of becoming consumer oriented. Perhaps we order a piece of software for our computer. We play with it for awhile, until the novelty wears out, and then we look around for the next piece of software that has the magic glow of not being possessed yet. Soon we haven't even got the shrink wrap off the current package when we start looking for the next one. Owning the software and using it doesn't seem to be as important as wanting it, looking forward to its arrival. This is known as the hungry ghost realm where we have made an occupation out of craving. We can never find satisfaction, it is like drinking salt water to quench our thirst.

Another realm is the animal realm, or having the mind like that of an animal. Here we find security by making certain that everything is totally predictable. We only buy blue chip stock, never take a chance and never look at new possibilities. The thought of new possibilities frightens us and we look with scorn at anyone who suggests anything innovative. This realm is characterised by ignorance. We put on blinders and only look straight ahead, never to the right or left.

The hell realm is characterised by acute aggression. We build a wall of anger between ourselves and our experience. Everything irritates us, even the most innocuous, and innocent statement drives us mad with anger. The heat of our anger is reflected back on us and sends us into a frenzy to escape from our torture, which in turn causes us to fight even harder and get even angrier. The whole thing builds on itself until we don't even know if we're fighting with someone else or ourselves. We are so busy fighting that we can't find an alternative to fighting; the possibility of alternative never even occurs to us.

These are the three lower realms. One of the three higher realms is called the jealous god realm. This pattern of existence is characterised by acute paranoia. We are always concerned with "making it". Everything is seen from a competitive point of view. We are always trying to score points, and trying to prevent others from scoring on us. If someone achieves something special we become determined to out do them. We never trust anyone; we "know" they're trying to slip one past us. If someone tries to help us, we try to figure out their angle. If someone doesn't try to help us, they are being uncooperative, and we make a note to ourselves that we will get even later. "Don't get mad, get even," that's our motto.

At some point we might hear about spirituality. We might hear about the possibility of meditation techniques, imported from some eastern religion, or mystical western one, that will make our minds peaceful and absorb us into a universal harmony. We begin to meditate and perform certain rituals and we find ourselves absorbed into infinite space and blissful states of existence. Everything sparkles with love and light; we become godlike beings. We become proud of our godlike powers of meditative absorption. We might even dwell in the realm of infinite space where thoughts seldom arise to bother us. We ignore everything that doesn't confirm our godhood. We have manufactured the god realm, the highest of the six realms of existence. The problem is, that we have manufactured it. We begin to relax and no longer feel the need to maintain our exalted state. Eventually a small sliver of doubt occurs. Have we really made it? At first we are able to smooth over the question, but eventually the doubt begins to occur more and more frequently and soon we begin to struggle to regain our supreme confidence. As soon as we begin to struggle, we fall back into the lower realms and begin the whole process over and over; from god realm to jealous god realm to animal realm to hungry ghost realm to hell realm. At some point we begin to wonder if there isn't some sort of alternative to our habitual way of dealing with the world. This is the human realm.

The human realm is the only one in which liberation from the six states of existence is possible. The human realm is characterised by doubt and inquisitiveness and the longing for something better. We are not as absorbed by the all consuming preoccupations of the other states of being. We begin to wonder whether it is possible to relate to the world as simple, dignified human beings.

And this psychological interpretation is supported by the suttas themselves. For example, we find passages like these in AN 4.235 (notice the qualifier 'like'):

And what is kamma that is dark with dark result? There is the case where a certain person fabricates an injurious bodily fabrication, fabricates an injurious verbal fabrication, fabricates an injurious mental fabrication. Having fabricated an injurious bodily fabrication, having fabricated an injurious verbal fabrication, having fabricated an injurious mental fabrication, he rearises in an injurious world. On rearising in an injurious world, he is there touched by injurious contacts. Touched by injurious contacts, he experiences feelings that are exclusively painful, like those of the beings in hell. This is called kamma that is dark with dark result.

And what is kamma that is bright with bright result? There is the case where a certain person fabricates a non-injurious bodily fabrication ... a non-injurious verbal fabrication ... a non-injurious mental fabrication ... He rearises in a non-injurious world ... There he is touched by non-injurious contacts ... He experiences feelings that are exclusively pleasant, like those of the Beautiful Black Devas. This is called kamma that is bright with bright result.

As for the literal existence of these realms, I can't say. It's certainly possible, and it's often fun to speculate about them (I've even heard stories of people who could see beings from these others realms); but I think it's more useful to focus on what we can experience for ourselves in the here and now, and use our practice to try and transcend these mental realms in order to find a true and lasting happiness inside.

self vs. volition: the illusion of free will

It's often asked how volition/intention/will/etc. is possible without a self, especially, they argue, when there must be some kind active agency for free will to exist. This, of course, conflicts with the Theravadin Abhidhamma, which labels volition (cetana) as one of the 52 mental factors that are "common to all classes of consciousness," but rejects the existence of any kind of self or independent agency.

It seems like a paradox, but only from the Western philosophical idea of 'free will.' Classical Theravada, on the other hand, views free will more or less as an illusion, and instead takes a more casually determined view of volition.

Conventionally speaking, we appear to have functional choice via intention operating within a broader framework of causality that conditions the choices available to us at any given time. However, on a deeper level, intention itself is a product of the aggregate of mental formations (sankharakhandha). Therefore, being a product or process within one of the aggregates, which themselves are types of processes and not-self (anatta), this type of internal decision maker or will-to-do, if you will, has its own requisite conditions and is also not-self, since whatever is conditioned and subject to change can't be said to have an unchanging essence or being.

In essence, volition itself isn't an illusion, it's simply not the result of an independent agent or self; and it, like everything else in the world, is ultimately the result causally determined processes. True free will requires an independent agent, and Buddhism effectively rejects such an agency. And while I tend to take a more moderate position myself, Buddhism is entirely compatible with causal determinism.

For example, Dhammanando Bhikkhu once gave me the example of a mosquito biting you on the nose: first you feel annoyed and want to squash it, but then you recall that you're a precept-observing Buddhist and so restrain yourself.

He explained that when this event is described in conventional terms, or according to the Sutta method, it might be said that you had a choice to kill the mosquito or to refrain, and that you chose the latter. But when it's described according to the Abhidhamma method, your abstention from killing wasn't due to choice but to the arising of kusala cetasikas (wholesome mental factors) such as moral shame and fear of wrong-doing (hiri & ottappa), and abstinence (virati), i.e., it was causally determined.

And then there are passages like this from the Dhammasangani (pp. 7-8):

What on that occasion is volition (cetana)? The volition, purpose, purposefulness, which is born of contact with the appropriate element of representative intellection - that is the volition that there then is.

And the Atthasalini, pp.147-148:

Volition is that which co-ordinates, that is, it binds closely (abhisandahati) to itself associated states as objects. This is its characteristic; its function is conation. There is no such thing as volition in the four planes of existence without the characteristic of co-ordinating; all volition has it. But the function of conation is only in moral and immoral states; as regards activity in moral and immoral acts, the remaining associated states play only a restricted part. But volition is exceedingly energetic. It makes double effort, double exertion. Hence the Ancients said: 'Volition is like the nature of a landowner, a cultivator who, taking fifty-five strong men, went down to the fields to reap. He was exceedingly energetic and exceedingly strenuous; he doubled his strength, he doubled his effort, and said, "Take your sickles," and so forth, pointed out the portion to be reaped, offered them drink, food, scent, flowers, etc., and took an equal share of the work.' Volition is like the cultivator; the fifty-five moral states which arise as factors of consciousness are like the fifty-five strong men; like the time of doubling strength, doubling effort by the cultivator is the doubled strength, double effort of volition as regards activity in moral and immoral acts. Thus should conation as its function be understood.

It has directing as manifestation. It arises directing associated states, like the chief disciple, the chief carpenter, etc., who fulfil their own and others' duties... even so, when volition starts work on its object, it sets associated states to do each its own work. For when it puts forth energy, they also put forth energy... It is also evident that it arises by causing associated states to be energetic in such things as recollecting an urgent work and so forth.

Incidentally, I think the Abhidhammic position accords well with what neuroscientist Sam Harris writes about the illusion of free will here, here and here.

buddhism: ontology or process philosophy?

From my reading of the Pali Canon, it seems to me that the Buddha's teachings generally tend to avoid metaphysics, including ontology, in favour of a pragmatic approach to understanding mental stress and suffering (dukkha) and removing its causes (e.g., see MN 63). If anything, I'd say Buddhism is closer to something like process philosophy in Western philosophical terminology, where the focus is on processes or becoming rather than unchanging being or essence, e.g., Heraclitus vs. Plato; anicca + anatta vs. atman; or anything else that looks at change vs. essence.

Essentially (for those less familiar with these concepts), if something is impermanent, it means that it's subject to change, whereas that which has a permanent being or essence isn't. In other words, becoming (or any process of change) is only possible within the context of impermanence. In the examples I gave above, the former are examples of things dealing with processes or becoming, while the latter are things dealing with unchanging being or essence.

For example, Heraclitus, if we're to believe Plato, is famous for his idea that "everything flows," whereas Plato is famous for his idea of eternal forms. In the second example, the Buddha taught that what we mistakenly cling to as 'self' is really only impermanent phenomena subject to arising, changing, and passing away, whereas the Vedas and Upanishads are general understood to teach that our self is something real and eternal, something that is.

So strict ontology deals more with what inherently is or exists from its own side (i.e., being or essence), whereas the basic idea behind process philosophy is that what 'exists' is best understood in terms of processes rather than things or substances, and that change — whether physical, organic or psychological — "is the pervasive and predominant feature of the real." As such, it's sometimes called 'ontology of becoming.'

Of course, in Buddhism, becoming (bhava) refers more to the sense of identity that arises when there's clinging to one or more of the aggregates, but the basic idea is that our sense of self is a process of 'I-making' and 'my-making,' which I think can be classified as a type of process philosophy. The only area of metaphysics the Buddha does engage in is causality; but even here, he doesn't offer proofs so much as suggests that adopting these views in a pragmatic, common sense manner is empirically useful in the quest to end suffering. Hence, Buddhism avoids many of the metaphysical quandaries, including questions of ontology, that seem to plague other philosophical/religious traditions.

a new perspective on the middle way?

Most people know Buddhism as the middle way between the two extremes of self-mortification and self-indulgence, but I think David Kalupahana offers an interesting perspective when he concludes in A History of Buddhist Philosophy that:

"Whereas Sanjaya [a skeptic and original teacher of Sariputta and Maha-Mogallana] was reluctant to make any positive pronouncements through fear of falling into error, the Buddha was willing to recognize the limitations of human knowledge and provide a reasonable description of truth and reality without reaching out for ultimate objectivity. This approach allowed him to avoid any ontological or metaphysical commitments and deal with language in a more meaningful way. For these reasons, he refrained from either raising or answering questions relating to ultimate origins or destinies, questions that had haunted Indian philosophers for centuries...
"If Absolutism is the result of reaching out for ultimate objectivity in philosophical discourse, and if extreme skepticism is the reason for the failure of such an enterprise, the Buddha, in his explanation of human experience, seems to have renounced the search for such objectivity and confined himself to a middle way, thereby renouncing both Absolutism and extreme skepticism." (21)

This idea is explained in more detail later on when he discusses (1) sense experiences and (2) yogic experiences:

"Fourth, his realization that ultimate regarding the object itself cannot be achieved and that the human perspective is unavoidable is underscored by his statement regarding the initial stage of sense experience, that is to say, "depending upon the visual organ and the visible object arises visual consciousness." Where can a philosopher go to determine the nature of the object while avoiding the consciousness of the object? If consciousness is not a tabula rasa but part of the psychophysical personality and hence conditioned by previous experiences, there are many other elements that will enter the scene when a decision is made regarding the object. It is to explain the complex nature of consciousness, while at the same time allowing for the retention of some measure of objectivity of the object, that the Buddha underscores the dependence of consciousness on the sense organ and the object. Furthermore, there is no suggestion of epi-phenomenalism, that is, that consciousness is a byproduct of matter, and therefore generated at each moment as a result of the contact between the sense and the object." (33)

"This is an extremely important reflection [referring to the passage in DN 2 concerning "insight knowledge"], following immediately after the fourth preliminary stage of contemplation (jhana), which, as mentioned earlier, has been wrongly interpreted as a state where all discursive and initial thought are abandoned. It is an unequivocal statement that some of the so-called higher forms of knowledge pertain to the nature of the physical body, the inalienable part of the human personality. It refers not only to the source and nature of the physical personality but also to the fact that there is consciousness associated with it, which makes it a complete person.
"Against the background of the theories of the six heterodox teachers referred to in Chapter 1, this description of the human person is significant. While the heterodox teachers attempted to provide an objective explanation of the human personality by focusing on either the physical body or physical actions, which they felt to be easily and objectively identifiable, the Buddha here introduced consciousness as an inalienable part of the human personality, even though it is not so objectively identified and analyzed. Thus he rejected the purely physical explanation of human personality as well as human behavior." (39)

And regarding the five higher knowledges (psychokinesis, clairaudience, telepathy, retrocognition and clairvoyance):

"The fifth higher knowledge is clairvoyance (dibbacakkhu). As defined by the Buddha, it does not involve knowledge of the future. While clairvoyance is sometimes used in the sense of perceiving events taking place at a distance, and is comparable to clairaudience, more often it refers to knowledge of the evolution of other human beings as they are conditioned by their karma. The recognition of such a form of knowledge appears to be extremely arbitrary on the par of anyone claiming to be an empiricist. The question is often raised as to how an empiricist can explain knowledge of other-minds, let alone their evolution through several existences. It seems that doubts about the existence of other-minds are generated more by philosophers who attempt to reach ultimate objectivity in their explanations. In the Indian context, the Materialists, the Ajivikas, and even the Jainas seem to have been confronted with such problems. In the case of the Buddha, the issue was to a great extent dissolved by his adoption of a philosophical standpoint the simply avoids generating such problems. When subsequent Buddhist philosophers adopted such objective standpoints, they were compelled to compile treatises justifying the existence of other-minds, as exemplified by Vinitadeva's Santanantarasiddhi (Establishment of Other-minds).
"It is possible to adopt two extreme attitudes about the five forms of knowledge referred to above. The skeptic who looks for an objective explanation can insist on the meaninglessness of such knowledge-claims, for they are not compatible with his notion of verifiability, which is confined mostly to the physical. The spiritualist, in contrast, believes that such knowledge is mystical and has nothing to do with ordinary experiences. The middle path adopted by the Buddha avoids both these extremes. Without being unduly skeptical or excessively enamored with them, he was willing to accept whatever information was available through such means as long as it possessed any pragmatic value. Karma and rebirth, two doctrines that the Buddha came to accept on the basis of some of these experiences, were justified not only on empirical grounds but also on pragmatic ones, the latter being highlighted for the benefit of the skeptic." (41-2)

In essence, Kalupahana seems to be making an interesting case for Buddhism being a middle way between Absolutism and extreme skepticism, as well as between the more well-known extremes of sever asceticism/self-mortification and excessive self-indulgence.

some rambling thoughts on nietzsche's ego and will to power, part 2

There was an interesting discussion on freeratio.org about culturally conditioned morality, particularly religiously influenced ideas such as the Buddhist concept of kamma, and being completely free of their oppressive weight. The OP commented, "Imagine how freeing it would be to know that we could intentionally harm another without any interpretations of right and wrong at all, just because we felt like it." They qualified this statement with, "I'm not saying that I want to do that, but I have seen those that do, and who seem to feel no restraints of a metaphysical nature, or indeed any nature, upon them. Indeed it can be a somewhat joyous process to witness," and then invoked the name of Nietzsche.

Personally, I've always found the concept of kamma (literally 'action') to be quite pragmatic, and not terribly heavy at all. The way I see it, we simply experience the results of our intentional actions in ways that are interpreted to be right or wrong based upon a myriad of factors, some of which may be unique to our species (i.e., kamma is psychological in nature); and we become free of kamma once we get ourselves to the point where we'll never intentional harm another, nor ourselves, and free our mind of clinging (to sensual pleasures, views, rites and rituals, and doctrines of self).

The way they described this freedom from moral conventions, however, immediately reminded me of a psychopath, and I found the thought of purposefully wanting to become like that quite frightening. While I agree that it sounds freeing to a certain extent, even if all psychological restraints are removed from the individual, there are still societal consequences involved in harming others that aren't what I'd describe as 'freeing' or 'joyous.' Moreover, this kind of freedom sounds more appropriate in the Wild West than a modern, civilized society. I suppose this is one of the reasons I've never been a big fan of Nietzsche or Rand, whose philosophies I find somewhat similar in that they seem to exhibit strong psychopathic elements/influences.

In fact, as I've said before, I'd even go so far as to say that Nietzsche's philosophy and type of ego-development leads to an unhealthy type of individual who 'transcends' the world in order to lord over it (a hero who's the antithesis of Buddhism's spiritual egalitarianism). For example, in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, he calls the 'lust to rule' a "gift-giving virtue"; proclaims that selfishness is blessed, wholesome and healthy; and suggests suffering can be drowned out by continuously creating and overcoming oneself; in The Dawn, he writes, "The striving for excellence is the striving to overwhelm one's neighbor, even if only very indirectly or only in one's own feelings or even dreams"; etc. (Compare the last line to this entry from one of Rand's personal journals: "One puts oneself above all and crushes everything in one's way to get the best for oneself. Fine!")

I think this issue arises mainly from his unbalanced view of morality, i.e., his focus on the 'strong-willed individual' and his rejection of what he calls 'slave morality,' which values actions according to their good or evil (i.e., skillful or unskillful) intentions, for 'master-morality,' which values actions according to their good or bad (i.e., pleasant or painful) consequences. This view is unbalanced in that it either overlooks, or completely denies, the efficacy of the intentions underlying our actions (not to mention its blatant disregard for others) (whereas Buddhist concept of kamma recognizes both actions and their intentions as contributing to the experience of mental well-being and/or suffering, for ourselves as well as others).

Nietzsche was undoubtedly a great and original thinker, Rand a little bit less so, in my opinion; nevertheless, I find in his writings evidence that he was also somewhat of a self-absorbed individual with little-to-no conscience or empathy for others, and for whom social rules and conventions had little-to-no meaning, which may have been one of the reasons he seemed so keen on subverting them. At least, that's the impression I get from what little of Nietzsche I've read. The same applies to Rand; maybe even more so since she seems to have admired a likely psychopath named William Hickman, going so far as to model a character named Danny Renahan on him for a novel that was never finished. In one journal entry, for example, she writes of Renahan (emphasis hers):

He is born with a wonderful, free, light consciousness—[resulting from] the absolute lack of social instinct or herd feeling. He does not understand, because he has no organ for understanding, the necessity, meaning, or importance of other people. (One instance when it is blessed not to have an organ of understanding. Other people do not exist for him and he does not understand why they should. He knows himself—and that is enough. Other people have no right, no hold, no interest or influence on him. And this is not affect or chosen—it's inborn, absolute, it can't be changed, he has "no organ" to be otherwise. In this respect, he has the true, innate psychology of a Superman. He can never realize and feel "other people."

Of course, some might say that this is a crude misunderstanding of Nietzsche's Ubermensch, and that he most certainly doesn't advocate psychopathy—that he simply acknowledges the 'will-to-power' is inherently sadistic, and his program is to turn that inward in an effort to transcend and overcome various social conditionings, becoming as one wills and not otherwise. And while I'm sympathetic to that view, I believe that his ideas are essentially the perfect ethical foundation/justification for a psychopath when taken to their logical conclusion, and Rand's more explicitly so. At the very least, I find them to be self-indulgent in the extreme as they seem to completely neglect others except as stepping stones. If their idea of joy is reveling in one's power and freedom to the exclusion, even detriment, of others, then it's a kind of joy and freedom I can live without.

sam harris: a neo-buddhist after my own heart

Sam Harris is by far my favourite of the so-called 'New Atheists.' I especially like his approach to trying to bring things like science, spirituality and reason together, and I think he's more or less on the right track when it comes to these kinds of things, i.e., having no problem being a vocal atheist and critic of religion while at the same time being open to the fact that people have 'spiritual' experiences. As he wrote in "10 Myths - And 10 Truths - About Atheism":

There is nothing that prevents an atheist from experiencing love, ecstasy, rapture and awe; atheists can value these experiences and seek them regularly. What atheists don’t tend to do is make unjustified (and unjustifiable) claims about the nature of reality on the basis of such experiences. There is no question that some Christians have transformed their lives for the better by reading the Bible and praying to Jesus. What does this prove? It proves that certain disciplines of attention and codes of conduct can have a profound effect upon the human mind. Do the positive experiences of Christians suggest that Jesus is the sole savior of humanity? Not even remotely — because Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims and even atheists regularly have similar experiences.

Being a 'Buddhist' myself, I also like the fact that he's actually practiced meditation, and comes at things like vipasana meditation from the standpoint of neuroscience, de-emphasising their strictly religious roots in an attempt to move more towards developing "a scientific account of the contemplative path" (A Contemplative Science).

I think that if there were more people like Sam Harris who were interested in what Buddhism and other contemplative paths have to offer from a scientific standpoint, we could easily create a contemplative science of our own utilizing the latest in modern technology and knowledge of how the brain functions. For example, I think his latest blog post does a great job of pointing out the importance and usefulness of meditation and transcendent experiences:

My friend Jerry Coyne has posted a response to my recent video Q&A where he raises a few points in need of clarification about meditation, transcendence, spiritual experience, etc.:

This discussion continues at 21:25, when Sam criticizes atheists, scientists and secularists for failing to “connect to the character of those experiences” and for failing to “give some alternate explanation for them that is not entirely deflationary and demeaning and gives some warrant to the legitimacy of those experiences.” He implies that these experiences are somehow beyond the purview of science. I find that strange given Sam’s repeated emphasis on the value of science in studying mental states.

I’m not quite sure what he’s getting at here, and he doesn’t elaborate, but I don’t see why giving credence to these über-transcendent experiences as experiences says anything about a reality behind them. Yes, they might indeed change one’s personality and view of the world, but do any of us deny that?

I had similar experiences on various psychoactive substances when I was in college, and some of them were even transformative. The problem is not with us realizing that people can feel at one with the universe or, especially, at one with God; the problem comes with us taking this as evidence for some supernatural reality. What does it mean to say that an experience is legitimate? If someone thinks that he saw Jesus, I am prepared to believe that he thought that he saw Jesus, but I am not prepared to say that he really did see Jesus, nor that that constitutes any evidence for the existence of Jesus.

So my question for Sam would be this: “So if we accept that people do have these seriously transcendent experiences, what follows from that—beyond our simple desire to study the neurobiology behind them?”

These are all good points. I certainly didn’t mean to suggest that transcendent experiences are “beyond the purview of science.” On the contrary, I think they should be studied scientifically. And I don’t believe that these experiences tell us anything about the cosmos (I called Deepak Chopra a “charlatan” for making unfounded claims of this sort). Nor do they tell us anything about history, or about the veracity of scripture. However, these experiences do have a lot to say about the nature of the human mind—not about its neurobiology, per se, but about its qualitative character (both actual and potential).

So, to answer Jerry’s question: yes, many things follow from these transcendent experiences. Here’s a short list:

1. It is possible to feel much better (in every sense of “better”) than one tends to feel. It is, in fact, possible to be utterly at ease in the world—and such ease is synonymous with relaxing, or fully transcending, the apparent boundaries of the “self.” Those who have never experienced such peace of mind will view the preceding sentences as yet another eruption of “mumbo jumbo” on my part. And yet it is phenomenologically true to say that such states of well-being are there to be discovered. I am not claiming to have experienced all relevant states of this kind. But there are people who appear to have experienced none of them—and many of these people are atheists.

This is not surprising. After all, experiences of self-transcendence are generally only sought and interpreted in a religious or “spiritual” context—and these are precisely the phenomena that tend to increase a person’s faith. How many Christians who have felt self-transcending love for their neighbors in church, or body-dissolving bliss in prayer, decide to ditch Christianity? Not many, I would guess. How many people who never have experiences of this kind (no matter how hard they try) become atheists? I don’t know, but there is no question that these states of mind act as a kind of filter: they get counted in support of ancient dogma by the faithful; and their absence seems to give my fellow atheists yet another reason to doubt religion.

Reading the comments on Jerry’s blog exposes the problem in full. There are several people there who have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about—and they take this to mean that I am not making sense. Of course, religious people often present the opposite problem: they tend to think they know exactly what I’m talking about, in so far as it can seem to support one religious doctrine or another. Both these orientations present impressive obstacles to understanding.

2. There is a connection between feeling transcendently good and being good. Not all good feelings have an ethical valence, of course. And there are surely pathological forms of ecstasy. I have no doubt, for instance, that many suicide bombers feel extraordinarily good just before detonating themselves in a crowd. But there are forms of mental pleasure that seem intrinsically ethical. In fact, there are states of mind for which phrases like “boundless love and compassion” do not seem overblown. Of course, it is possible for a person not to know that this is a potential of the human mind, or to imagine that such experiences must be signs of psychopathology. Again, people who think this way seem to gravitate toward atheism. And it is decidedly inconvenient for the forces of Reason that if a person wakes up tomorrow feeling “boundless love and compassion” the only people likely to acknowledge the legitimacy of his experience will be representatives of one or another religion (or New Age cult).

3. Certain patterns of thought and attention prevent us from accessing deeper (and wiser) states of well-being. Transcendent experiences, in so far as they are usually temporary, are often surrounded by a penumbra of other states and insights. Just as one can glimpse deeper strata of well-being, and briefly see the world by their logic, one can notice the impediments to feeling this way in each subsequent moment. There is no question that all of these mental states have neurophysiological correlates—but the neurophysiology often has subjective correlates. Understanding the first-person side of the equation is essential for understanding the phenomenon. Everything worth knowing about the human mind, good and bad, is taking place inside the brain. But that doesn’t mean that there is nothing to know about the qualitative character of these events. Yes, qualitative character can be misleading, and certain ways of talking about it can manufacture fresh misunderstandings about the mind. But this doesn’t mean that we can stop talking about the nature of conscious experience. At one level, there is nothing else to talk about.

4. Certain “spiritual” experiences can help us understand science. There are insights that one can have through meditation (that is, very close observation of first-person data) that line up rather well with what we know must be true at the level of the brain. I’ll mention just two, which I have written about before and will return to in subsequent posts: (1) the ego/self is a construct and a cognitive illusion; (2) there is no such thing as free will. There is simply no question that these statements are well grounded scientifically (in fact, it is very difficult to even imagine a physical account of the human mind that would suggest their falsity at this point). So, here are two facts which science gives us good reason to believe, and which I believe we can know through introspection, but which seem quite paradoxical and troubling to most people.

As for the “various psychoactive substances” Jerry mentions, I’ll address the risks and rewards of these in my next post.

At this point, I should probably make it explicitly clear that my admiration for Sam Harris isn't due to his vocal support of atheism nor to his vocal criticism of religion; but because of his scientific approach to contemplative issues. I think he finds a good balance between his atheistic/materialistic worldview and the fact that people have and can benefit from these kinds of spiritual experiences, something that's definitely missing from other 'New Atheist' writers such as Richard Dawkins.

pali vs. sanskrit: what's the deal?

People new to Buddhism sometimes ask how it came to be that the teachings of Theravada were transmitted in Pali, but the teachings of Mahayana were primarily transmitted in Sanskrit. I'm certainly not an expert on the subject, so take whatever I say with a grain of salt; but from what I understand, it's mainly due to the combination of when and where each set of texts were initially composed, and when and where they were eventually transmitted.

Pali, an early form of Prakrit related to Hindi and Sanskrit, is thought to be a composite of several dialectal forms and expressions most likely based on the language the Buddha himself taught in, which is generally held to be a dialect of Magadhi Prakrit; although there's still a great deal of debate among scholars as to the exact dates and place of origin of Pali itself.

The commentarial tradition of Theravada holds that Pali is identical to Magadhi; but as the introduction to A New Course in Reading Pali: Entering the Word of the Buddha notes, it doesn't share many of the distinctive characteristics found in Magadhan inscriptions, primarily from the time of Asoka (approximately 300–232 BCE). Nevertheless, it's considered by many scholars, such as Wilhelm Geiger and Walpola Rahula, to at least be closely related to Magadhi, especially in the sense of being a type of popular speech.

Whatever the case, it's believe that at the time of the Buddha (approximately 400 BCE), many of the great wandering ascetics (samana) in the northern area of India known as Magadha, like the Buddha and his contemporary Mahavira (Nigantha Nataputta), taught in the popular vernacular of the people used for general communication and commerce, as opposed to Vedic Sanskrit, the sacred language of Vedas used by brahmins. This was not only done because they rejected the authority of the Vedas, but because they wanted to make their teachings more widely available. The use of Vedic Sanskrit also appears to be in decline by this time.

Not long afterwards, however, Sanskrit seems to have made a serious comeback as a literary and religious language thanks to the great Indian scholar and grammarian, Panini (scholarly dates vary from 500 to 300 BCE), and texts were starting to be written down as well as passed on orally. By the time the early Mahayana sutras were being composed, mostly in the south but also the north, Panini's Sanskrit had already become the standard, most likely starting in Gandhara, his home, and spreading south and east throughout the rest of India.

Early Buddhist texts underwent various degrees of Sanskritization, while newer texts were being composed in what's now termed Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit or even classical Sanskrit itself. Much of the former, making the scriptural basis of Theravada, were transmitted via Asoka to places like Sri Lanka, where they survived the decline of Buddhism in India and Central Asia, while much of the latter, making the scriptural basis of Mahayana, found a safe home in places like China.

some rambling thoughts on nietzsche's ego and will to power

A recent thread on newbuddhist.com reminded me of something I wrote a while back about what Nietzsche might have meant when he wrote:

Let’s position ourselves, by contrast, at the end of this immense process, in the place where the tree at last yields its fruit, where society and the morality of custom finally bring to light the end for which they were simply the means: then we find, as the ripest fruit on that tree, the sovereign individual, something which resembles only itself, which has broken loose again from the morality of custom, the autonomous individual beyond morality (for ‘autonomous’ and ‘moral’ are mutually exclusive terms), in short, the human being who possesses his own independent and enduring will, who is entitled to make promises—and in him a consciousness quivering in every muscle, proud of what has finally been achieved and has become a living embodiment in him, a real consciousness of power and freedom, a feeling of completion for human beings generally.

First, what does the word 'will' really mean? Is it independent of external factors? Is it influenced by them? Both? Neither? Is it possible that the human will isn't immutable, but frequently prone to change? If so, what are the causes and conditions that facilitate such changes? And what does this mean in regard to the individual?

Sometimes I tend to think that I'm little more than the product of my environment and the culmination of ideas and experiences that my senses have taken in during my lifetime. That's part of the reason I sometimes think that the 'individual' is nothing more than a useful fiction we utilize in order to communicate and make sense of the world in a relative sense, but one that ultimately falls apart on further analysis.

It may all just be a matter of perspective, but having been influenced by social, cultural and other omnipresent conditionings, can the 'individual' really be said to be individual in the first place? Or put another way: Does a closed-system, biological entity truly exist?

In a certain sense, we have what appears to be a certain amount of autonomy. Will, volition or the creative spark in humankind expresses itself in a myriad of ways, and it's difficult to deny the products of that expression. Nevertheless, can an individual ever be considered a closed-system when they continually interact with their surroundings and vice versa? I fail to see how. And what of will? Can we, with any degree of certainty, say that it's truly independent? Again, I fail to see how.

If, on the other hand, we are open-systems with, arguably, a number of biological and psychological filters, is there any way to truly pull out the 'individual' as being something separate? I tend to think not. Why? Because trying to do so neglects much of what makes the 'individual' an individual by rejecting the inherent interdependence of their existence. The same also applies to the will of said individual.

Then again, perhaps not. But this line of reasoning has helped me to see that what happens in the world around me does matter to me as an individual, that trying to be active and change things is useful, even important. I quite like how Dr. Anil Rajvanshi puts it, albeit in a different context, when he says that "... each one of us lead our own separate lives which 'dart' randomly depending on the forces acting upon us yet collectively we go forward in a band which is called human evolution" (Free Will, Evolution and Chaos Theory).

What does this all mean? I'm not sure if it means anything; but when I try to piece it all together, here's what I get:

Metaphysics aside, my philosophy has always been that it's up to each individual, as far as they're able, to live their own lives and make their own choices. Nevertheless, as a good friend of mine once said to me, it's not the gods who make the world the way it is; we make the world this way. And we can make it into whatever we desire.

Perhaps Nietzsche was right about the human being who "possesses his own independent and enduring will." Perhaps that's the metaphorical godhead of human evolution, to perfect the skill of consciously creating our reality to the point that we eventually transcend our limitations and experience the world in an entirely new way. Perhaps, then, the problem lies not in the world, but within us, with our desires, our will; self-mastery being the key as well as the goal. But here's were I think Nietzsche goes wrong, at least from a Buddhist point of view.

In my opinion, Nietzsche's type of ego-development leads to an unhealthy type of individual who 'transcends' the world in order to lord over it, a hero who's the antithesis of Buddhism's spiritual egalitarianism, e.g., In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, he calls the 'lust to rule' a "gift-giving virtue"; proclaims that selfishness is blessed, wholesome and healthy; and suggests suffering can be drowned out by continuously creating and overcoming oneself.

I think this issue arises mainly from his unbalanced view of morality, i.e., his focus on the 'strong-willed individual'; and his rejection of what he calls 'slave morality,' which values actions according to their good or evil (i.e., skillful or unskillful) intentions, for 'master-morality,' which values actions according to their good or bad (i.e., pleasant or painful) consequences. This view is unbalanced in that it either overlooks, or completely denies, the efficacy of the intentions underlying our actions (not to mention its blatant disregard for others); whereas Buddhism recognizes both actions and their intentions as contributing to the experience of mental well-being and/or suffering, for ourselves as well as others.

I find that the Buddha's teachings and techniques for developing a healthy ego, on the other hand, ultimately take the opposite approach, switching self-grasping (fueling the fire) for letting-go (removing the fire's fuel), with Buddha's teachings on not-self being a "useful way of disentangling oneself from the attachments & clingings which lead to suffering" (The Not-self Strategy). As Thanissaro Bhikkhu puts it:

[The Buddha] would have you drop unhealthy and unskillful ways of self-identification in favor of ways that were more skillful and refined. Only on the highest levels of practice, where even the most skillful concepts of self get in the way of the ultimate happiness, did the Buddha advocate totally abandoning them. But even then he didn’t advocate abandoning the basic principle of ego functioning. You drop the best happiness that can come from a sense of self because an even greater happiness—nirvana, totally timeless, limitless, and unconditioned—appears when you do.

morality sans a belief in god?

While I accept that one can make a rational argument logically demonstrating the independence of God and morality (e.g., Euthyphro), I'm a little surprised by theists who attempt to argue that it's only through a belief in a creator God that one can be a 'moral' person.

Why? For one thing, we can empirically observe the fact that there are many seemingly moral people who are atheist and completely non-religious, so we can conclude that simply believing in a creator God isn't a requirement to being a moral person, i.e., someone who lives by a particular standard of what's right and wrong.

Moreover, we can empirically observe the fact that there are many religions and philosophies, including Buddhism, that have strong ethical and moral principles without being based on the idea of a creator God, many of their adherents being, at least superficially, moral people. From this, we can conclude that theism isn't necessarily the only theological/philosophical basis for morality.

Whether or not a theist accepts the validity of these systems is irrelevant.

As for the basis of Buddhist ethics and morality, which I'd say is ultimately empirical and pragmatic in nature rather than 'revealed,' the underlying principles are kamma — the idea that certain actions produce pleasant, painful or neutral feelings/results — and the principle of ahimsa or harmlessness. (For more of my thoughts about Buddhist morality, see this.)

I've also noticed that there's also some confusion when it comes to Buddhist morality in that some people ask, If Buddhism says everything is an illusion, what's the point of trying to be a moral person? Wouldn't just be a futile effort?

To begin with, as far as I'm aware, the Buddha never said that everything is an illusion (i.e., unreal or empty of substance), especially when it comes to actions and their results. In my opinion, this is most likely a misunderstanding of what the Buddha says in place like SN 22.95, which people sometimes try to apply to everything, including the principle of causality.

And since Buddhist morality is centred on the efficacy of actions and the intentions underlying them, a Buddhist can be a moral person even without a belief in God simply by constantly reflecting upon their actions of body, speech and mind, and whether they lead to self-affliction, to the affliction of others or to both (MN 61).

is lying ever ok?

When it comes to the precept against lying, it's often asked (1) whether it's OK to lie in a particular circumstance, and (2) if we have to undo and/or atone for our past, unskillful deeds. One of the most common questions being, Is it OK to lie if the Gestapo comes knocking on your door and you have a family of Jews hiding in your basement?

It's an interesting questions. I don't know if it's ever OK to lie, but I do think it can be easier to deal with certain situations by lying than not. The question is, how much effort do we want to put into observing the fourth precept? At times, I've put forth a lot, but others, not so much. Looking back at my own life, I don't think I've ever really had a good reason to lie when I did so much as I simply found it to be more expedient. And since becoming interested in Buddhism, I've found myself lying less and immediately correcting myself when I do catch myself telling a fib or exaggerating the truth.

That said, the Buddha seems to take the position that lying is never really 'OK.' Thanissaro Bhikkhu, for example, notes that throughout the 550 birth stories contained in the Jakata, the precept against lying is the only one the Buddha doesn't break. Moreover, the Buddha appears to hold truthfulness in pretty high regard (e.g., see examples of his words on truthfulness here).

Personally, I tend to agree with Aristotle that lying isn't legitimate unless overridden by some higher virtue (i.e., anything leading to the highest good), such as lying to save someone's life (which is probably a position more in line with Mahayana than Theravada). In most circumstances, if I'm forced into a position where I have to either lie or watch someone die because I tell the truth, I'm going to lie my ass off. The only issue I have with the Gestapo scenario, however, is that it (like most hypotheticals of this nature) seems to be based on the assumption that lying is the only way to protect a family of Jews hiding in your basement.

For example, one could preemptively befriend local Nazis, having a few drinks with them or whatnot, so that they wouldn't even be suspected of harbouring Jews in the first place. Or, if confronted unexpectedly, one could simply invite them in (assuming the people were fairly well hidden), offer them a drink and say, "Have a look if you want." It'd be the equivalent of saying "I've got nothing to hide" without actually having to lie.

Either way, there's not much one could do to prevent them from searching one's home if that's what they had in mind to do; although, they probably wouldn't look as hard if they didn't feel suspicious. And having an open and friendly attitude would probably help. But, like I said, I'd have no qualms about lying in this situation if I had to or couldn't think of anything better.

As for rest, there's nothing wrong with trying to correct your past indiscretions (although, it should be noted that mistakes and misunderstandings ≠ lies), but it's my opinion that you don't need to correct every lie you've ever told as long as you make a serious effort to renounce lying and do your best to cultivate the truth in the future, e.g., in AN 10.176, the Buddha says:

And how is one made pure in four ways by verbal action? There is the case where a certain person, abandoning false speech, abstains from false speech. When he has been called to a town meeting, a group meeting, a gathering of his relatives, his guild, or of the royalty, if he is asked as a witness, 'Come & tell, good man, what you know': If he doesn't know, he says, 'I don't know.' If he does know, he says, 'I know.' If he hasn't seen, he says, 'I haven't seen.' If he has seen, he says, 'I have seen.' Thus he doesn't consciously tell a lie for his own sake, for the sake of another, or for the sake of any reward. Abandoning false speech, he abstains from false speech. He speaks the truth, holds to the truth, is firm, reliable, no deceiver of the world.

Notice that he doesn't say you have to go back and un-tell each and every lie or half-truth you've ever told in the past, which would most likely be a never-ending task, but simply to make a firm effort to abstain from lying in the present. The basic idea is that, genuine self-purification comes from a combination of constant reflection and the cultivation of skillfulness in one's actions of body, speech and mind (MN 61). And the more one develops wholesome motivations, the more one becomes purified.

anatta (not-self) vs. attakara (self-agency)

Someone raised an interesting question yesterday about an apparent contradiction between two suttas, AN 6.38 and SN 22.59. The former seeming to affirm the existence of a self-doer (atta-kara), while the latter stating that the five aggregates are not-self (anatta), which raises the question, How can there be a self-doer if all of the aggregates are not-self?

To begin with, I tend to translate attakara as 'individual effort,' which I think helps avoid some of these linguistic dilemmas. Moreover, I understand this self-doing or self agency or individual effort that's mentioned in AN 6.38 to be analogous to kamma, the intentional actions done via body, speech and mind (AN 6.63).

Kamma is intention (cetana), and intention is a product of the aggregate of mental formations (sankhara-khandha). Therefore, being a product or process within one of the aggregates, which themselves are types of processes and not-self, this type of internal decision maker or will-to-do, if you will, has its own requisite conditions and is also not-self, since whatever is conditioned and subject to change can't be said to have an unchanging being or essence.

In other words, SN 22.59 is refuting the idea of a permanent and unchanging self or soul (i.e., an agent free from conditionality, and consequently, aging, illness and death) within and controlling the aggregates, whereas AN 6.38 is refuting the idea that there's no volitional choice available to us whatsoever. They're two extremes the Buddha rejects. As one erudite poster from dhammawheel.com put it:

Desire and attention and volitional choice can all be concomitant causes or effects. Freedom of choice isn't independent of other causes and conditions -- it operates within the same conditioned mind-stream. But it does operate, and it does so in consort with desire and attention, and so on. Hence there is no need for Cartesian notions of free will or Upaniṣadic notions of a permanent, unchanging Self for there to be freedom to choose. In fact, these non-Buddhist systems are not sustainable precisely because of the interdependence of phenomena: i.e. an unchanging agent cannot engage in actions, etc.

As for where the line between volitional and involuntary actions begins, I'd say it's consciousness (vinnana); although, given the complexities of this/that conditionality and the inherent interconnectedness of all these internal and external processes, I don't think there's anyway to pinpoint precisely what or where this element of intention is. For one, it's not a thing as much as a process, and this focus on processes over substances is one reason I view Buddhism as a type of process philosophy.

Basically, I think this apparent contradiction can be easily resolved by taking the context of the two suttas into consideration, as well as surmising that the Buddha essentially took the position that we, as sentient beings, have functional choice via intention operating within a broader framework of causality that conditions the choices available to us at any given time—thus avoiding the extremes of an unchanging agent (eternalism) and no agency at all (nihilism). Others in the Buddhist community see it this way, as well, e.g., Karin Meyers' paper "Freedom and self-control: Free will in South Asian Buddhism" notes:

Both Karunaratna and Nanayakkara claim that Buddhism accepts the freedom to choose between alternative courses of action as an "empirical truth," by which they mean a truth that is observed and accepted in the context of moral action. This claim is consistent with the fact that the Buddha offers copious advice as to what actions persons should take or avoid so as to reduce suffering for themselves and others and also arguably consistent with Buddhist accounts of moral responsibility, but Nanayakkara makes the further claim that freedom of choice is essential to the Buddhist concept of karma (Pali: kamma). He explains that cetana, which he describes as “the (free) will," is "equated with moral action (kamma)" in order to account for the fact that one is only responsible for conscious, deliberate actions. A number of other interpreters have made similar claims. For example, K.N. Jayatilleke explains: By 'free will' in a Buddhist context, it is not meant that there is a will, choice or decision which is unaffected by causal factors that affect it, but that our volitional factor or will, choices or decision, while being conditioned by such factors, are not wholly shaped or strictly determined by them, since there is in man 'an element of initiative ' (arabbha-dhatu) or 'personal action' (purisa-kara) or 'individual action' (atta-kara), which within limits can resist the factors that affect it. If not for this factor of human personality, 'moral responsibility' would be a farce and the forces that impel us to act would be responsible for our actions.

But this raises some difficult questions about the nature of volition and the choices we make, and I'm reminded of the causal determinism found in the Abhidhamma. True free will would seem to require an independent agent, and Buddhism effectively denies such an agency. And if our volition is itself conditioned by other factors, then it, too, must ultimately be the result of causally determined processes, meaning that it's not so much an agent as it has the appearance of being an agent. For example, Dhammanando Bhikkhu once gave me the example of a mosquito biting you on the nose: first you feel annoyed and want to squash it, but then you recall that you're a precept-observing Buddhist and so restrain yourself.

He explained that when this event is described in conventional terms, or according to the Sutta method, it might be said that you had a choice to kill the mosquito or to refrain, and that you chose the latter. But when it's described according to the Abhidhamma method, your abstention from killing wasn't due to choice but to the arising of kusala cetasikas (wholesome mental factors) such as moral shame and fear of wrong-doing (hiri & ottappa), and abstinence (virati), i.e., it was causally determined.

And there are supporting passages like this from the Dhammasangani (pp. 7-8):

What on that occasion is volition (cetana)? The volition, purpose, purposefulness, which is born of contact with the appropriate element of representative intellection - that is the volition that there then is.

And the Atthasalini (pp.147-148):

Volition is that which co-ordinates, that is, it binds closely (abhisandahati) to itself associated states as objects. This is its characteristic; its function is conation. There is no such thing as volition in the four planes of existence without the characteristic of co-ordinating; all volition has it. But the function of conation is only in moral and immoral states; as regards activity in moral and immoral acts, the remaining associated states play only a restricted part. But volition is exceedingly energetic. It makes double effort, double exertion. Hence the Ancients said: 'Volition is like the nature of a landowner, a cultivator who, taking fifty-five strong men, went down to the fields to reap. He was exceedingly energetic and exceedingly strenuous; he doubled his strength, he doubled his effort, and said, "Take your sickles," and so forth, pointed out the portion to be reaped, offered them drink, food, scent, flowers, etc., and took an equal share of the work.' Volition is like the cultivator; the fifty-five moral states which arise as factors of consciousness are like the fifty-five strong men; like the time of doubling strength, doubling effort by the cultivator is the doubled strength, double effort of volition as regards activity in moral and immoral acts. Thus should conation as its function be understood.

It has directing as manifestation. It arises directing associated states, like the chief disciple, the chief carpenter, etc., who fulfil their own and others' duties... even so, when volition starts work on its object, it sets associated states to do each its own work. For when it puts forth energy, they also put forth energy... It is also evident that it arises by causing associated states to be energetic in such things as recollecting an urgent work and so forth.

Moreover, I think this Abhidhammic position accords well with what Sam Harris writes about the illusion of free will in his book, Free Will, and I find myself being swayed from any sort of belief in free will by many of the arguments made by Harris and others who consider Buddhism to be entirely compatible with causal determinism.

However, I wonder whether an agent or self is absolutely necessary for decision making in the first place. A computer can essentially make choices and 'act' based upon imputed information and various algorithms, for example, without a soul or self in the Western philosophical conception. Having a component of our physiology/psychology that does more or less the same isn't all that far fetched. We have the mental capacity to observe, remember, make distinctions, etc., and the part of us responsible for our actions doesn't have to be an independently existing, eternal entity for decisions to be made and their effects/consequences to be analyzed within a moral framework.

And if the answer is indeed no, then the entire debate seems to be moot, at least from a practical point of view.

best dhammapada translations online

The Dhammapada, a small collection of verses attributed to the Buddha, is one of the most popular and well-known Buddhist texts. It's short, readable and full of great examples of the Buddha's wisdom.

Personally, given the inherent limitations of translation itself (which I view as more of an art form than an exact science), I don't think there's one definitive translation, especially since each translation has its own pros and cons. That said, I do think that there are a lot of good translations out there, many of which can be found online.

If someone is looking for a more poetic rendition, for example, I'd suggest Thanissaro Bhikkhu's version. If they're looking for something that represents the commentarial tradition of Theravada, on the other hand, I'd suggest Daw Mya Tin's translation, which includes the Pali text along with a summary of the background stories to each verse as related by the ancient commentator, Buddhaghosa. Narada Thera's translation and Acharya Buddharakkhita's translation are also highly regarded in the Theravadin community.

And if one wants to go really old school, they can check out Max Muller's 1881 translation; which isn't without its flaws, but still quite popular and respected despite its age.

does buddhism deny evolution?

Today, on two of the Buddhist discussion forums that I regularly frequent, someone asked about some of the seeming contradictions between Buddhism and the theory of evolution, and I thought it'd be worth reproducing my answers here.

The first question was whether Buddhism and/or Buddhists deny evolution. I answered that, although it's possible there are some who do, as far as I'm aware the answer is no to both.

For example, while I see Buddhism as dealing exclusively with mental stress and its cessation (i.e., psychology), and not biology, physics, etc., the Buddha does tell a story about the beginning of life on this world to two brahmins which, in the end, was used to illustrate how the way to liberation is beyond caste and lineage (DN 27). So, in this regard, the Buddha does give what can be interpreted as a rough theory of evolution to the pair of brahmins in that the physical characteristics of the mythological beings in question change due to environmental changes and interactions.

I think that, when taken literally, the creation myth in DN 27 can be seen as an attempt to give a naturalistic explanation of the origins of life and the universe, and Darwin's fairly well-proven theory of evolution certainly isn't inconsistent with this. That being said, I agree with Prof. Gombrich that, taking the context of DN 27 into account, this sutta is a lively and ingenious parody that's actually meant to make fun of the very need for a cosmology as a foundation for religious development (How Buddhism Began: The Conditioned Genesis of the Early Teachings, pg. 81-82). Either way, Buddhism and the theory of evolution aren't mutually exclusive, and there's nothing in the former that contradicts the latter.

Another question was whether the Buddhist concept of rebirth denies evolution when it says that "evolution or life-cycles follow kamma rather than genes." To this I also answered no, since even if you take the teachings on rebirth literally, they don't say that evolution follows kamma.

In the Suttas, the Buddha defines kamma as intentional actions of body, speech and mind (AN 6.63) that have the potential to produce certain results, which, in turn, have the potential to produce pleasant, painful or neutral feelings (vedana) in the mind (AN 4.235). The word itself simply means 'action.' The basic premise behind kamma is that there's a cause and effect relationship between our actions and how they're experienced, and the teachings themselves deal specifically with the intentional action of individuals and how the results of those actions are then experienced by said individuals.

Intention (cetana) is a product of the aggregate of mental formations (sankharakhandha). The cause by which kamma comes into play is sensory contact (phassa). Furthermore, according to Nyanatiloka's Manual of Buddhist Terms and Doctrines, vipaka, 'fruit' or 'result,' is limited to "any ... mental phenomenon (e.g. bodily agreeable or painful feeling, sense-consciousness, etc.), which is the result of wholesome or unwholesome volitional action (karma, q.v.) through body, speech or mind, done either in this or some previous life."

In other words, kamma is primarily psychological in nature and has nothing to do with the physical evolution of species over time. In fact, later commentaries, stressing the fact that not everything we experience in life is caused by kamma, lists five distinct causal laws or processes (panca-niyamas) that operate in the physical and mental worlds: seasonal laws (utu-niyama), biological laws (bija-niyama), psychological laws (citta-niyama), kammic laws (kamma-niyama) and natural laws (dhamma-niyama). If anything, I'd say that evolution would fall under the category of biological laws, and that both kamma and evolution can be seen as two distinct processes working in tandem when it comes to a sentient being's experience of the present moment.

It was then asked if Buddhism denies that there are 'mental dispositions' in genes. I answered that I don't think so; but I also don't think it promotes this idea, either.

Nothing was known about genes in the Buddha's time, so it's no surprise that this question isn't explicitly addressed. But what I do know is that the Buddha didn't seem to reject that specific mental events are contingent upon corresponding physical events in the brain, which is the prevailing view of modern science, but he didn't explicitly promote it, either. In The Buddha and His Teachings, for example, Narada Thera notes that:

In the Patthana, the Book of Relations, the Buddha refers to the seat of consciousness, in such indirect terms as 'yam rupam nissaya—depending on that material thing', without positively asserting whether that rupa was either the heart (hadaya) or the brain. But, according to the view of commentators like Venerable Buddhaghosa and Anuruddha, the seat of consciousness is definitely the heart. It should be understood that the Buddha neither accepted nor rejected the popular cardiac theory.

So even though the Buddha detailed the mutual dependency of mental and physical activity and consciousness (DN 15), he wasn't a strict materialist. In regard to name-and-form (nama-rupa), for example, he didn't see consciousness as merely the byproduct of matter; he saw mentality and materiality as mutually sustaining immaterial and material phenomena, using the analogy of two sheaves of reeds leaning against one another to illustrate their relationship (SN 12.67). The extent of this connection, however, is debatable.

Nevertheless, I think questions like these, as well as any about evolution itself, lie outside the scope of Buddhism proper, which deals exclusively with one subject, the subjective experience of human mental suffering. The Buddha himself made it clear that:

Both formerly and now, monks, I declare only stress and the cessation of stress.

In essence, Buddhism doesn't seek to explore or explain the objective world, which is the realm of science, but to explore and the inner world of the mind, the microcosm, in order to achieve an inner peace and happiness.

The Buddha approached the problem of mental stress and suffering like a doctor, formulating the four noble truths in the same way that ancient Indian physicians formulated medical diagnoses, i.e., disease (stress), cause (craving), prognosis (a cure/cessation of craving is possible) and treatment (the noble eightfold path). And while it may sound overly simplistic, the basic premise of the path can be summed up by this short passage from the Dhammapada:

The non-doing of any evil, the performance of what's skillful, the cleansing of one's own mind: this is the teaching of the Awakened.

The Buddha's teachings are nothing if not pragmatic in nature. I think this is made especially clear in MN 22, where the Buddha likens his teachings to a raft:

"Monks, I will teach you the Dhamma compared to a raft, for the purpose of crossing over, not for the purpose of holding onto. Listen & pay close attention. I will speak."

"As you say, lord," the monks responded to the Blessed One.

The Blessed One said: "Suppose a man were traveling along a path. He would see a great expanse of water, with the near shore dubious & risky, the further shore secure & free from risk, but with neither a ferryboat nor a bridge going from this shore to the other. The thought would occur to him, 'Here is this great expanse of water, with the near shore dubious & risky, the further shore secure & free from risk, but with neither a ferryboat nor a bridge going from this shore to the other. What if I were to gather grass, twigs, branches, & leaves and, having bound them together to make a raft, were to cross over to safety on the other shore in dependence on the raft, making an effort with my hands & feet?' Then the man, having gathered grass, twigs, branches, & leaves, having bound them together to make a raft, would cross over to safety on the other shore in dependence on the raft, making an effort with his hands & feet. Having crossed over to the further shore, he might think, 'How useful this raft has been to me! For it was in dependence on this raft that, making an effort with my hands & feet, I have crossed over to safety on the further shore. Why don't I, having hoisted it on my head or carrying on my back, go wherever I like?' What do you think, monks: Would the man, in doing that, be doing what should be done with the raft?"

"No, lord."

"And what should the man do in order to be doing what should be done with the raft? There is the case where the man, having crossed over, would think, 'How useful this raft has been to me! For it was in dependence on this raft that, making an effort with my hands & feet, I have crossed over to safety on the further shore. Why don't I, having dragged it on dry land or sinking it in the water, go wherever I like?' In doing this, he would be doing what should be done with the raft. In the same way, monks, I have taught the Dhamma compared to a raft, for the purpose of crossing over, not for the purpose of holding onto. Understanding the Dhamma as taught compared to a raft, you should let go even of Dhammas, to say nothing of non-Dhammas."

The final question dealt with rebirth and whether Buddhists believe that characteristics like beauty, intelligence, health and longevity, etc. come from past life kamma and not from genes; and if not, how this apparent relationship between past life kamma and genetics is reconciled.

I suppose that some might seeing as how there are suttas which seem to suggest that one will enjoy things like beauty, intelligence, health and longevity, etc. in a future lifetime due to actions done in this life, but there's debate as to what they mean. Some, for example, suggest that these mundane teachings on morality (those dealing with what's regarded as 'me' and 'mine') were given to people who (1) already believed in rebirth and (2) weren't spiritually ready for more advanced, supramundane teachings (those dealing with emptiness and not-self) (e.g., MN 117, MN 143, etc.).

Others, however, take these literally, and suggest that our actions in this life can affect our experiences in the next. But even then, the basic idea is that skillful actions lead to pleasant results/feelings, and unskillful actions lead to unpleasant results/painful feelings, not that actions in and of themselves are responsible for things like changes in inherited traits. It's quite possible, for example, that evolution takes place, and species physical change over time, while another process is at work in the mental realm, influencing the growth and development of consciousness.

Now, this may be misconstrued as suggesting that psychology and genetics are completely unrelated, but that's not what I'm saying, nor what I believe. Of course our genetic makeup influences our psychology and behaviour to a certain extent (as will external factors such as upbringing), but that doesn't mean our psychology and behaviour is responsible for the evolutionary changes in inherited traits of species over time. In this way, genetics can affect kamma, but not vice versa, as in I do x and y trait will develop as a direct result.

It may also be asked whether the various nimayas imply a type of ontology, which is an interesting question in that the Buddha's teachings generally seem to avoid such metaphysics in favour of a pragmatic approach to suffering and its causes (e.g., see MN 63). I don't think it necessarily does, but if so, I'd say it's closer to something like process philosophy, where the focus is on processes or becoming rather than unchanging being or essence, e.g., Heraclitus vs. Plato; anicca + anatta vs. atman; or anything else that looks at change vs. essence.

If something is impermanent, it means that it's subject to change, whereas that which has a permanent being or essence isn't. In other words, becoming (or any process of change) is only possible within the context of impermanence. In the examples I gave above, the former are examples of things dealing with processes or becoming, while the latter are things dealing with unchanging being or essence. For example, Heraclitus, if we're to believe Plato, is famous for his idea that "everything flows," whereas Plato is famous for his idea of eternal forms. In the second example, the Buddha taught that what we mistakenly cling to as 'self' is really only impermanent phenomena subject to arising, changing and passing away, whereas the Vedas and Upanishads taught that our self is something real and eternal, something that is.

Strict ontology deals more with what is (i.e., being or essence), whereas the basic idea behind process philosophy is that what 'exists' is best understood in terms of processes rather than things or substances, and that change — whether physical, organic or psychological — "is the pervasive and predominant feature of the real." As such, it's sometimes called 'ontology of becoming.'

Of course, in Buddhism, becoming (bhava) refers more to the sense of identity that arises when there's clinging to one or more of the aggregates, but the basic idea is that our sense of self is a process of 'I-making' and 'my-making,' which I think can be classified as a type of process philosophy. And the reason I mention this is because I think that the niyamas are simply an extension of this idea, only applied by later commentators to external phenomena like the growth cycles of plants, weather, etc. in an effort to stress that not everything we experience in life is caused by kamma.

And I think all of this is worth pointing out in order to illustrate that the theory of evolution is entirely compatible with Buddhism—that Buddhism acknowledges change, and doesn't hold the belief (as some mistakenly assume) that everything, including the changes in inherited traits of species through successive generations, is caused by kamma.

(For further reference, more of my thoughts on the Buddhist concept of rebirth can be found here, and some of my rambling thoughts on consciousness can be found here.)

the futility of violence

My first response to the news that Osama bin Laden had been killed by the US was: "Ten years, thousands of lives and billions of dollars later, and the US has finally succeeded in making Osama bin Laden a martyr. Good job?"

All sarcasm aside, I realize that many see bin Laden's death as a cause for celebration, but I think it's worth reflecting on Lao-Tzu's words on war, especially the part about treating victory in war as a funeral:

Where the princely man abides, the weak left hand is in honour. But he who uses weapons honours the stronger right. Weapons are instruments of ill omen; they are not the instruments of the princely man, who uses them only when he needs must. Peace and tranquillity are what he prizes. When he conquers, he is not elate. To be elate were to rejoice in the slaughter of human beings. And he who rejoices in the slaughter of human beings is not fit to work his will in the Empire.

On happy occasions, the left is favoured; on sad occasions, the right. The second in command has his place on the left, the general in chief on the right. That is to say, they are placed in the order observed at funeral rites. And, indeed, he who has exterminated a great multitude of men should bewail them with tears and lamentation. It is well that those who are victorious in battle should be placed in the order of funeral rites.

A similar sentiment can even be found in the Old Testament of the Bible:

Do not gloat when your enemy falls; when they stumble, do not let your heart rejoice, or the LORD will see and disapprove and turn his wrath away from them. (Pro 24:17-18)

Personally, it saddens me to see so many people celebrating the death of another human being, even a not-so-nice one like bin Laden. It reminds me of Gandhi's saying: "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." In fact, one of the main things that originally attracted me to Buddhism was its attitude towards violence, e.g.:

"He abused me, he struck me, he overpowered me, he robbed me." Those who harbor such thoughts do not still their hatred.

"He abused me, he struck me, he overpowered me, he robbed me." Those who do not harbor such thoughts still their hatred.

Hatred is never appeased by hatred in this world. By non-hatred alone is hatred appeased. This is a law eternal.

There are those who do not realize that one day we all must die. But those who do realize this settle their quarrels. (Dhp 1.3-6).

And:

Killing, you gain
your killer.
Conquering, you gain one
who will conquer you;
insulting, insult;
harassing, harassment.

And so, through the cycle of action,
he who has plundered
gets plundered in turn. (SN 3.15)

I think Howard Zinn, a WWII vet and political activist, came to a similar understanding — that war can't end war, that violence can't end violence — from his experiences in WWII; an idea which he expressed in part of a speech he gave in 2006:

I was talking to my barber the other day, because we always discuss world politics. And he's totally politically unpredictable, as most barbers are, you see. He said, "Howard," he said, "you know, you and I disagree on many things, but on one thing we agree: war solves nothing." And I thought, "Yeah." It's not hard for people to grasp that.

And there again, history is useful. We've had a history of war after war after war after war. What have they solved? What have they done? Even World War II, the "good war," the war in which I volunteered, the war in which I dropped bombs, the war after which, you know, I received a letter from General Marshall, general of generals, a letter addressed personally to me, and to 16 million others, in which he said, "We've won the war. It will be a new world." Well, of course, it wasn't a new world. It hasn't been a new world. War after war after war.

There are certain -- I came out of that war, the war in which I had volunteered, the war in which I was an enthusiastic bombardier, I came out of that war with certain ideas, which just developed gradually at the end of the war, ideas about war. One, that war corrupts everybody who engages in it. War poisons everybody who engages in it. You start off as the good guys, as we did in World War II. They're the bad guys. They're the fascists. What could be worse? So, they're the bad guys, we're the good guys. And as the war goes on, the good guys begin behaving like the bad guys. You can trace this back to the Peloponnesian War. You can trace it back to the good guy, the Athenians, and the bad guys, the Spartans. And after a while, the Athenians become ruthless and cruel, like the Spartans.

And we did that in World War II. We, after Hitler committed his atrocities, we committed our atrocities. You know, our killing of 600,000 civilians in Japan, our killing of probably an equal number of civilians in Germany. These, they weren't Hitler, they weren't Tojo. They weren't -- no, they were just ordinary people, like we are ordinary people living in a country that is a marauding country, and they were living in countries that were marauding countries, and they were caught up in whatever it was and afraid to speak up. And I don't know, I came to the conclusion, yes, war poisons everybody.

I know that we're not a nonviolent species by nature; but as naive as it might sound, it's my hope that we'll eventually see the futility of violence in the long run.

the place of god in buddhism

People new to Buddhism, especially those who come from a Judeo-Christian background, often ask about the place of God in Buddhism. Many are surprised to learn that most Buddhist traditions and texts don't posit an omnipotent, omniscient, creator god analogous to the Judeo-Christian God, and it seems to me that there are three main reasons why the question of God is basically a non-issue in Buddhism.

Reason #1: According to the texts, a beginning point to samsara (literally 'wandering on') isn't evident (SN 15.3). This can be interpreted two ways — that a beginning point to the continual cycle of death and rebirth of beings isn't evident, or that a beginning point to the continual cycle of death and rebirth of the conceit 'I am,' the self-identification that designates a being (satta), isn't evident — and they're not mutually exclusive. Either way, the point is the same: all that really matters in the here and now is whether suffering is present, and if so, how it can be overcome.

Reason #2: I think it's safe to say that Buddhism is essentially non-theistic in view. However, I also happen to be of the opinion that, if we dig a bit deeper, the idea of a creator God is incompatible with certain aspects and teachings that, if taken to their logical conclusion, seem to reject the idea of, or a need for, a creator God. For one thing, the logic of dependent co-arising, while primarily concerned with the psychological process by which suffering arises in the mind, negates the idea of a creator God in that it precludes a first cause or a causeless cause when applied to cosmology.

Then there's this famous problem of evil passage from the Bhuridatta Jataka (although, to be fair, this is most likely a later addition that some date to the 13th century):

We see those rules enforced before our eyes,
None but the Brahmans offer sacrifice,
None but the Khattiya exercises sway,
The Vessas plough, the Suddas must obey.
These greedy liars propagate deceit,
And fools believe the fictions they repeat;
He who has eyes can see the sickening sight;
Why does not Brahma set his creatures right?
If his wide power no limits can restrain,
Why is his hand so rarely spread to bless?
Why are his creatures all condemned to pain?
Why does he not to all give happiness?

Why do fraud, lies, and ignorance prevail?
Why triumphs falsehood, truth and justice fail?
I count your Brahma one of the unjust among,
Who made a world in which to shelter wrong.
Those men are counted pure who only kill
Frogs, worms, bees, snakes or insects as they will,
These are your savage customs which I hate,
Such as Kamboja hordes might emulate.
If he who kills is counted innocent
And if the victim safe to heaven is sent,
Let Brahmans Brahmans kill so all were well
And those who listen to the words they tell.

At best, God would have be more like the impassive and impersonal God of Aristotle, existing outside of time and space, to find a place within Buddhist cosmology; and anything existing outside of time and space would logically be completely static, meaning that God would be an undynamic being if God exists at all. Since everything within the range of our experience (i.e., within space and time) is subject to change, however, it's more logical to conclude that everything within our realm of experience is impermanent, meaning that for God to able to interact with our universe, God would also be temporal and subject to illness, aging and death just like every other being, hence not God.

Nevertheless, even in the earliest parts of the Pali Canon, there are references to devas or what we might call 'heavenly beings.' However, devas (literally 'radiant ones'), which are often seen as gods when taken literally, are simply non-human beings who are more powerful and long-lived than ordinary humans, and are by no means eternal, omnipresent, omnipotent, etc. (e.g., see DN 1). But more importantly, they can also be viewed metaphorically as the indulgent and hedonistic aspects of our psychology (i.e., the parts that are addicted to sensual pleasures).

In addition, according to AN 3.61, the belief in a supreme being can be unskillful and interfere with Dhamma practice if it leads to the belief that everything a person experiences is due to such a supreme being, a denial of the efficacy of kamma (literally 'action') and a life of inaction:

Having approached the priests & contemplatives who hold that... 'Whatever a person experiences... is all caused by a supreme being's act of creation,' I said to them: 'Is it true that you hold that... "Whatever a person experiences... is all caused by a supreme being's act of creation?"' Thus asked by me, they admitted, 'Yes.' Then I said to them, 'Then in that case, a person is a killer of living beings because of a supreme being's act of creation. A person is a thief... unchaste... a liar... a divisive speaker... a harsh speaker... an idle chatterer... greedy... malicious... a holder of wrong views because of a supreme being's act of creation.' When one falls back on creation by a supreme being as being essential, monks, there is no desire, no effort [at the thought], 'This should be done. This shouldn't be done.' When one can't pin down as a truth or reality what should & shouldn't be done, one dwells bewildered & unprotected. One cannot righteously refer to oneself as a contemplative. This was my second righteous refutation of those priests & contemplatives who hold to such teachings, such views.

Reason #3: In relation to the four noble truths and the practice of the noble eightfold path, the matter of the existence of God is, soteriologically speaking, unnecessary. The impetus of the practice is a strong conviction in the efficacy of actions and the intentions underlying them, not the existence of a supreme being (e.g., see MN 61).

Of course, this doesn't mean that people can't believe in God and still practice the Dhamma, especially some of its more contemplative aspects; but it does mean that, at the very least, such views can negatively impact the practice when held inappropriately. In addition, I understand that a belief in God can provide comfort in difficult times, as well as serve as the basis for a beneficial ethical-spiritual practice. I also accept that certain people may have had some kind of profound spiritual experience that has led them to adopt such beliefs, and I don't have any issues with that myself. (I mean, who am I to argue with someone's personal experiences?)

Moreover, I think one can certainly present Judeo-Christian ideas, or those from any other predominately monotheistic tradition, in a more or less Buddhistic way, and vice versa. As I've often mentioned before, my dear friend Simon shared with me some of his ideas regarding the "excellence of the synthesis of the messages and practices" of Buddhism and Christianity, for example; and people like David Cooper (God is a Verb) and Thomas Merton (Mystics and Zen Masters) seem to continually find harmony between these spiritual disciplines.

And one can't help but notice the similarities between certain Buddhist ideas and those found in Sankara's version of Advaita Vedanta. So much so, in fact, that many of his critics actually accused him of being a Buddhist in disguise. For example, it should be noted that the concept of anatman in Sankara's version of Advaita Vedanta is similar to the Buddhist anatta, quite possibly being derived from it. In one of his commentaries, Sankara writes, "Whenever we deny something unreal, we do so with reference to something real; the unreal snake, e.g. is negatived with reference to the real rope." Sankara essentially used the notion of anatman to deny the reality of the individual self (atman) in favour of Brahman.

But attempting to insert a Judeo-Christian type of God into Buddhism, or interpreting Buddhism proper through the lense of theism, would do violence to the entire spiritual and philosophical tradition, in my opinion. It'd be like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, and would do a serious disservice to the Buddha's teachings, which are geared towards reshaping our experience of the present in ways that limit and even eliminate suffering.