Love of All Wisdom

A comment from Thill on a recent post makes me reconsider the category of the supernatural, which I’ve employed many times on this blog. It’s been an important category in my reflection because I acknowledge the normative weight of natural science, and am suspicious of claims that contradict its findings. When Śāntideva tells us that advanced bodhisattvas can fire rays from their pores that make the blind see and make malodorous people smell better, I have reason to disbelieve him. The idea of rebirth – at least in the straightforward way Śāntideva portrays it, with bad people getting reborn in hells – makes me similarly suspicious, which is one reason I’ve been so sympathetic to Dale Wright’s project of naturalizing karma.
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A couple of my recent posts have explored the idea of anti-politics – the idea that concern with affairs of the state is typically detrimental to a good human life. The anti-political view is one for which I have great sympathy. Now, as the previous post might have suggested, I also reject the supernatural; I believe that natural science is our best guide to the causality of the physical world, and that we would do well to look with skepticism on belief in celestial bodhisattvas, the multiplication of tooth relics, or an afterlife.

But if one takes up the resulting position – neither supernatural nor political – then one has relatively little company in the history of philosophy. From Yavanayāna Buddhists to Unitarian Universalists, those who have sought to move beyond the supernatural have typically also believed in political engagement. The vast majority of political quietists like Śāntideva believed in a vast panoply of unseen worlds far beyond those supported by empirically tested evidence.

I continue to wonder: is there something I’m missing? Is there some reason why so many in the end tend to supernaturalism, politics, or both? (continue reading…)

Few phenomena lead people to philosophy (as the love of or search for wisdom, not necessarily as an academic discipline) like the fact of our own deaths. Most of the things we might seek in life – especially happiness – we will cease to have when we die, or so it seems. This fact is sobering; our choice is to be aware of it (and therefore be in some sense philosophical) or to be caught unawares, die unprepared and miserable. For that reason Plato said that philosophy is the practice of death; today, we don’t have enough of a culture of death, enough to prepare us for this fact.

What then should we do about our impending death? The most common answers typically involve the supernatural, with belief in an afterlife. Christians will speak of an afterlife in heaven, Buddhists of rebirth. So all we have to do is be good in this lifetime (or ask forgiveness for our sins), and we’ll be able to continue “living” well after death. Such a view is comforting. Unfortunately, I don’t have any reason to believe it true. I’ve heard it argued that we really don’t know enough about consciousness to say that it ends with death. That may well be so. But we also don’t know enough to say that anything else happens to it, either – certainly nothing like the graphic hells that, according to Śāntideva, await those with sufficiently bad karma. In terms of any sort of survival of the self after death, it seems to me, the very best we can do is agnosticism, and perhaps not even that.

But if death really is – or might be – the end of each individual, then what? (continue reading…)

In almost any contemporary introduction to Buddhism, one of the first things one learns is the Four Noble Truths:

1. Everything is suffering (dukkha).
2. Suffering is caused by craving.
3. There is an end to suffering.
4. One can reach this end by following the Buddhist Noble Eightfold Path.

The Four Truths are central to the teaching of the early Pali suttas, so something like them was probably central to the teaching of the historical Buddha. There’s been a recent trend in Buddhist studies to disparage the Four Truths, on the ground that they were far removed from the practice of most Buddhists in history, whose lives (especially but not only in East Asia) focused much more on devotion and magic. But never mind. I’m far less concerned with learning about the historical structure of past Buddhist societies, and more with the question of whether these truths – undeniably revered and treated as truths by many Buddhists throughout history – are indeed true.

I noted before that the Second Noble Truth was of great importance in my own spiritual development. I would still count it as the most important thing I’ve learned from Buddhism. Maybe not all suffering comes from craving, but a huge chunk of it does.

But what about the other three? (continue reading…)

In my post on marriage I wrote about Lucretius as offering something of an alternative to Buddhist views on death. There is a contrast in emphases: where Buddhists warn us of the terrible losses that come with death, Lucretius tells us death isn’t so bad and we should stop fearing it. But I think there is a way in which the two can go together.

The biggest problem with Lucretius’s advice is that it’s so hard to follow. Often those who don’t fear death simply don’t treat it as a real possibility. (The young, I think, are especially prone to this.) Once you really contemplate the possibility of your own death, the fear becomes much more real. You think you don’t fear death, but you really do.

The thing is, as long as your worldview focuses on yourself, your death is inevitably going to be a problem for you. You can live to improve the remaining moments of your life, but eventually those get fewer and fewer. Egoistic consequentialism, at least, seems to end in futility. This would seem a logical reason to fear death, against Lucretius – maybe not death itself, but the last moments that precede it, where everything you do means nothing.

Here, I think, a Buddhist view can help – especially Śāntideva’s. He takes the basic Buddhist doctrine of non-self and runs with it: claims that because the concept of a self makes no sense, we need to live for everyone and not just ourselves. I’m not sure I buy the metaphysical arguments, but there’s a lot to be said for their practical consequences. One of Śāntideva’s verses that has really stuck with me is BCA VIII.129: “All who are suffering in the world are suffering because of their desire for their own happiness. All who are happy in the world are happy because of their desire for others’ happiness.” Śāntideva doesn’t explain what he means by this, but I think this may be a part of it: getting over ourselves helps us to be happy, partially because it lets us live for things that extend beyond our deaths. (I’m reminded of this passage when I read of Jesus saying “Whoever tries to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it.”) On this score, it seems to me, Śāntideva helps us to be better Lucretians.

I’ll begin with happy news: I’m engaged! This weekend I proposed to my beloved Caitlin, and I’m delighted to say she accepted.

Now, I’ve tried to be explicit that this is a philosophy blog, not a personal blog – while a great deal here is autobiographical, the purpose of even those entries is to point to bigger questions, questions that I hope my life story can help illuminate in some way. So I’m going to talk today a little bit about my reasons for deciding to marry. The particular reasons, of course, are all about my sweetheart herself, a beautiful, smart, funny, playful, charming, sexy, adventurous, responsible, virtuous woman. But there are more general reasons that tie to the blog’s bigger concerns.

Above all, my action this weekend is not one that Śāntideva, or the Buddha of the Pali suttas, would view as a part of the highest, best, most fully virtuous life. They speak at length of the disadvantages of the household life, the life spent among family with a paid job in the everyday world. The life of a monk is a higher and better one to pursue. Eros keeps us mired in the suffering of everyday life, enslaved to the desires and craving that only cause us yet more suffering. The monk, by contrast, devotes himself or herself fully to the development of virtue, much more able to rise above craving and suffering.
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