Is nirvana or moksha even a worthwhile goal ?
Is nirvana or moksha even a worthwhile goal ?
The whole ordeal can be understood in terms of a life dominated by non-dualistic living, where the subject is removed from the mind as an impermanent conditioned phenomena and the world is experienced without any hint of attachment or where the subject is identified with eternal bliss and consciousness, and the world regarded as an illusion that has been spun by the webs of Maya.
This is what it is supposed to be. Is it ever like this ? Almost never, especially for monks and yogis. In fact, you are more likely to find the worst aspects of us in them.
Whether it's Nirvana or Moksha, the enlightened life represents a flight from suffering. Ofcourse, life still brings suffering, but the person no longer identifies with it. But this isn't the complete story. It comes at the cost of no longer identifying with all that is healthy, good, beautiful and pleasurable in life. How many of us would give up good food, beautiful women, a big library and a great music collection for a life in the monastery ?
What is even more terrible is this spiritual tradition sets one up for a lifetime battle against oneself. It's a cult of self-overcoming, rooted in self-hatred, unrealistic goals and struck by a fear of relapse into all that enables one to identify with other human beings, i.e our innate weaknesses.
With all that in mind, some philosophers have exaggerated the importance of suffering and restless agitation, as a characteristic of life. They have turned it into a neccesary evil that should be embraced with open arms to improve ourselves. When in fact, it is almost always destructive. Sustained suffering leaves your body searching for death, as it consumes your soul without destroying it.
Maybe hedonism represents best of all the worst ways you can live your life. But no one wants to hear this.
People want to know what is the other alternative.
Nothing. Every cure brings its own sickness here on earth. Sorry for not being a guru. I'm like you all.
The whole ordeal can be understood in terms of a life dominated by non-dualistic living, where the subject is removed from the mind as an impermanent conditioned phenomena and the world is experienced without any hint of attachment or where the subject is identified with eternal bliss and consciousness, and the world regarded as an illusion that has been spun by the webs of Maya.
This is what it is supposed to be. Is it ever like this ? Almost never, especially for monks and yogis. In fact, you are more likely to find the worst aspects of us in them.
Whether it's Nirvana or Moksha, the enlightened life represents a flight from suffering. Ofcourse, life still brings suffering, but the person no longer identifies with it. But this isn't the complete story. It comes at the cost of no longer identifying with all that is healthy, good, beautiful and pleasurable in life. How many of us would give up good food, beautiful women, a big library and a great music collection for a life in the monastery ?
What is even more terrible is this spiritual tradition sets one up for a lifetime battle against oneself. It's a cult of self-overcoming, rooted in self-hatred, unrealistic goals and struck by a fear of relapse into all that enables one to identify with other human beings, i.e our innate weaknesses.
With all that in mind, some philosophers have exaggerated the importance of suffering and restless agitation, as a characteristic of life. They have turned it into a neccesary evil that should be embraced with open arms to improve ourselves. When in fact, it is almost always destructive. Sustained suffering leaves your body searching for death, as it consumes your soul without destroying it.
Maybe hedonism represents best of all the worst ways you can live your life. But no one wants to hear this.
People want to know what is the other alternative.
Nothing. Every cure brings its own sickness here on earth. Sorry for not being a guru. I'm like you all.
Comments (61)
An excellent demonstration of the concept of the value of moderation in all things. Life isn't a single variable which should be maximized. As folks like to say: life's complicated. There are numerous variables that have importance at various times in various situations and circumstances. We all get to prioritize them differently. We look back from a wiser future and feel good about some of our decisions and regret others that we would do differently with our (new) wisdom. But having some regrets is okay too.
Overly simplistic philosophies that (over) emphasize single viewpoints ultimately leave me cold as too impractical.
I agree with everything else you said, except this point. l doubt this maxim is valid. As you see, human nature is too complicated for such generalizations.
Would l tell Newton to spend less time on physics and alchemy, and more on other departments of life ?
Nope. Who am l tell a genius like Newton that he should waste his time on what he probably regarded as frivolous pursuits and not dedicate his genius to physics, pushing our frontiers of knowledge to new boundaries.
Would l tell Cioran to go visit a psychiatrist and stop being a NEET pessimist ? Never
As a side note, even if "moderation" is good, it ultimately depends and varies with the individual.
Nope. But it's still worth exploring. I'm sure l will find people who agree with me, and in good numbers hopefully.
Probably not many, because life is still far too easy and far too good for most people to become radical.
Those who experience the diminishing returns in the pursuit of the proverbial "eating, drinking, and making merry", might begin to question whether said pursuit is worth it.
This is a projection of yours.
But I suppose that unless you have personally experienced the above-mentioned diminishing returns, you probably won't be able to relate to those who do.
You don't say.
The tradition does appeal to me, it is challenging, l am always seeking an alternative, this post is criticism. I don't know about my disposition, since l am all over the place, but it's not hard to find an ascetic inclination in myself. Maybe Buddhism is for me, maybe it isn't.
The above post is not sarcastic. It's a true representation.
Why do l feel the need to publicize my views ? There isn't a single motive. I just decided to vent. God knows what pushed my mind/brain to do this
I know meditation has been proven to be useful, but nirvana/moksha isnt that. You can meditate all your life and still never reach nirvana. A lot of people seem to conflate beneficial religious practices with the goals of religions / way of life
If you want me to be completely honest. I have felt and do feel the diminishing returns thanks to my depression. Sometimes l wish for death to overtake me. I don't want to live, nor do l want to die.
I know what is it like for nothing to satisfy you, not even an hour long meditation session, medication, a dedicated study of the religious scriptures of all major world religions does the job for me
Why am l bitter ? Cause the medicine l was given didn't cure me of my illness. I have now come to the conclusion that to look for life-saving, life-guiding guidelines is fruitless. Life is too complicated.
There is no Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha who can guide me. No traditional religion, no secular religion, no philosophy, no arts, no literature.
Anything goes
Thats why I advocate not starting life. But also Schopenhauer, the great pessimist. What you speak of is the hedonic treadmill that the ascetic refrains from. The you have, the more you need to maintain and keep it going for the next hedonic kick.
But let's look at the hedonism of Epicurus. His idea was a communal society of friends enjoying a bit of wine, gardening communally for food, laying next to the river and trees, and being okay with philosophical conversation for higher entertainment. That was it. Materially, however, his culture relied just as much on a large Mediterranean trade network. Not as global as today, but still widespread. He too, had the appearance of an optimist who thought that a commune amidst a larger network was possible. But that's just it, communes only exist because the larger network of economic output outside it allows them to live that lifestyle. So oddly enough, it is using the drudgery labor force so one can maintain an internal idealized labor force.. Rarely does a commune use everything from its own output and only its own output. I am sure the pottery, they used, for example came from far off. Perhaps they only live on oil and wine from their own vinyards, perhaps.. But not likely.
Anyways, moving on.. Pessimism is Buddhism/Hinduism/Gnosticism shorn of its mythological trappings. That is simply seeing the world as a burden, and thus rebelling against the burden.
By the way, you may get something from this here:
And being a huge fan of Schopenhauer's estimation of things, regarding his metaphysics, I would say this previous post has most of my critiques and question of his metaphysics in one go:
Quoting schopenhauer1
Certainly @Wayfarer has much to say on these matters. You may want to revisit that thread actually and pull some things from there as Schop's ideas have been discussed and are pertinent to your question about asceticism:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/831351
And this is why it is all about your expectations and your goals. Whether those are conformant or consistent with the goals of the community of practice can only be decided by you. In general, advanced spiritual training usually involves the active setting aside of personal preferences as one inherent aspect of the practice. It doesn't sound like that meshes with your goals.
A huge fan of his trust-fund lifestyle. It's easy to be pessimistic when one doesn't have to work to pay one's bills!
And yet circles aren't squares.
If you have time on your hands, then maybe look at the work of Matthew Ratcliffe
https://york.academia.edu/MatthewRatcliffe
Hey troll, read my whole post, and you'll see the irony of your trolling. (Hint: read the part about Epicurus in the post above the one you quoted).
I also found it ironic that you couldn't understand the bit of trolling that political satire functions as when lampooning people's beliefs regarding political matters, yet, all you do is lampoon people's posts, trying to find some sort of ad hominem weakness.
A hasty generalization. Though there is plenty evidence of hypocrisy/exploitation of gurus/teachers over their devotees. The worst part is when devotees are taught to put their teachers on a pedestal, to have absolute faith in them as if they were gods/kings on earth. This sometimes seems like a legacy construct of controlling/exploiting folks.
The perennial problem of the guru is understood by the adage: "Do as I say, not as I do."
Quoting Sirius
I don't think this is true either.
Quoting Sirius
You might as well be describing here the internal struggle of those suffering through Capitalistic striving for success or status. There is always a cult to deal with, either the one you enjoy, the one you're trapped in, or the one you're fleeing from.
I have tried to point this out myself. I suspect that if searing is foundational to a worldview, there's not much point engaging with them about this since they will just take it as evidence of your bad faith.
As you rightly should.
Quoting Tom Storm
Can you define searing here? Like having a searing critique? Im not sure thats a worldview, thats the problem. Rather, its a sort of bad faith arguing style to provoke ire. Its trying to be a kind of joker that is deflating the philosophy through ad hom satire. Its too transparent and aggressive to come off more than a type of trolling though.
I meant sneering. Sorry. Typo.
I'm always happy to see someone who admires Schopenhauer. He has played a pivotal in shaping my worldview.
I take Schopenhauer's viewpoint to be identical to what is found in the Upanishads, as long as you don't talk about the personal Saguna Brahman. The will in itself has two aspects to it, it appears to be the driving source behind all that exists phenomenally, whilst being pure consciousness upon which the phenomena rests.
An apt example is that of a dream in which you exist as one character amongst many other characters. You have a body in your dream and operate with 5 senses. But once you wake up, you realize it was all an illusion, and that all the different objects in the dream were just you.
The illusion only exists phenomenally from the perspective of those who are trapped inside it. But for those who escape it, the illusion isn't real. It's like coming across a mirage. You keep going in its direction, believing it to be real, but once you reach the place, you realize it was all an illusion. The mirage doesn't exist.
Schopenhauer's ethics is based on a feeling of compassion for others due to the fact that they are not different from you. Moreover, once you start treating others as yourself, the veils of multiplicity will be lifted. Your life will become a reflection of non-dualism, where the subject is the object.
And you have no interest in being free from that? Or is it you dont believe its possible? Do you think that condition is a factor in your judgement as to what constitutes Nirv??a?
Every belief system seems to advocate for a first prize of some kind, whether that be liberation, a classless society, or the Kingdom of Heaven. We tend to go after the prize that appeals to our personal tastes and inclinations. Or the dictates of socialization.
Quoting Sirius
Depends on the monastery.
Quoting Sirius
How would we demonstrate that any particular way of living is 'best'. Best for my temperament, or needs? Best for society? Best for 'truth? Pick your criterion of value.
And hedonism comes in hard and soft forms. It's not all cocaine and being blown by supermodels.
Personally, I have not come to any deliberate decision about how best to live. I like to improvise and wing it. I have not been socialized or raised in an Eastern religious traditions, so why should they feature in my life? I have read some Buddhism and some Hinduism and studied comparative religions briefly at University. There are some very interesting fames and model of reality provided by these faiths, but so what? Is there any reason why I would twist my life around a belief system I don't really understand and isn't part of my culture?
Many of us seem to be persecuted by the idea that we should be more serious, more transcendent, more ethical. I'm somewhat simplistic - I think we should just get on with living and try not to be a cunt.
My mental health does influence my judgments. But the ideas in my OP have occurred to me repeatedly.
Actually, the problem isn't with nirvana itself. As a goal , it is not only conceivable, but a select few do manage to attain it.
The problem has more to do with how it's projected or sold as a goal to everyone, which included myself. I firmly believe it's incredibly unhelpful and even harmful to become a Buddhist for the purpose of attaining nirvana. It's akin to studying maths to win the fields medal or solve one of the 7 millennium problems. I can almost guarantee disappointment to anyone who does this.
People just don't seem to take the spirtual traditions seriously anymore, not even monks ( I notice this despite being a nobody, a novice )
On the bright side of things, I noticed people in Buddhist countries usually aim to be reborn in a better state next life. In fact, meditation isn't even a common practice and the religion mostly serves ritual and ethical roles. It's no different from Abrahamic religions. The average Muslim isn't aiming to attain fana either and it is makes sense.
TLDR : For those who are not meant to attain nirvana, going for it is akin to an inexperienced climber aiming to reach the peak of K2. It will be nothing short of a disaster
He has an ingenious way of looking at things and focuses on the big picture of philosophy whilst touching on most of the other aspects and how it fits into the system. He is a system-builder par excellance. A great foil to today's parsing of problems separately. I don't think any of the other system builders were as comprehensive whilst still being consistent and clear to a reader with some philosophical background.
Quoting Sirius
Good summarization of Schop in a few paragraphs. I admire the ability to be succinct but comprehensive, one of the hardest things to do when dealing with lofty concepts.
So without rehashing that thread that already had many of the arguments, I will just reiterate that one can always doubt the unitary Will. Also, I find it hard for Schopenhauer to have Will-individuated in the "mirage" without some intention or myth behind it (why is it not a nothing-unitary-oneness?).
It is a novel way to answer how it is that we have a subjective experience. It is Will mediated through a mind's space, time, and causality, objectified via pure Form into the "mirage" of a dross material world mediated by the principle of sufficient reason. It starts with Mind and works its way to Physical, not the other way around, is thoroughly Idealist. However, that ever remains an interesting and ingenious system written about and synthesized, not THE system that exists per se.
Rather, what I do take as truth from Schopenhauer is his normative understanding of Suffering. Suffering is at the heart of the animal experience. In the Eastern sense, Suffering is a sense of separation, because lack. We are not at home because we are always needing more. But I see it more as just evolution's drive. A subjective feeling of the drives of a metabolically-hungry creature. And the more complex the subjectivity, the more Suffering.
It's 'projected and sold' to those who want to it to be, of which there are many. Of course it's true that because it is conceived of as the answer to all human problems then it morphs into the most precious of all commodities and something that everyone would want. But there's an obvious vicious circularity in that which anyone who seriously engages with such traditions will hopefully see through. That is the subject of one of the early popular books in Western Buddhism, Cutting through Spiritual Materialism, Chogyam Trungpa
I think the whole mindset of 'getting' and 'how to attain' and 'when are we going to arrive there' are part of the problem. You're right in saying that if that is the motivation, then it's a fool's quest. But often, spiritual conversions and epiphanies happen through loss and suffering, more than through the desire to get somewhere. To refer to Trungpa again, he describes that as 'balanced disillusionment' - like, not falling into the pit of despair, but understanding the futility of many of the things we had formerly deemed worthwhile goals.
I have pursued Buddhism as a personal philosophy to some extent and for sure, in my youth, I felt that enlightenment was something you could reach out and touch, that it would be like one of the anecdotes Alan Watts always tells, you'd hear something or see something and aha! I saw through that fairly early, and my interest and commitment has waxed and waned, but it doesn't revolve around 'attaining Nirv??a' or the failure at so doing. One vedantic term for mok?a is sat-chit-ananda, ???????????, generally translated as 'being' (sat, satya, 'what truly is') 'consciousness' (citta, heart or mind, consciousness) 'bliss' (a common suffix on Hindu names). And 'bliss' ought not to be overlooked, it is not reserved for the precious few that have reached the end of the journey, it is part of the 'true nature' which is 'obscured by adventitious defilements', and more than just an intellectual description of what Hindus must be talking about.
But there is no such definition for "being" itself. Which overlaps with the Tao - an indescribable, non reducible, flow of transitions and change, lacking any true definition but nonetheless witnessed/observed.
Being is like an eternal continuum of possibilities. And I suspect someone in a state of full recognition or acknowledgement of the simplest sensation of being are relatively at peace. Things seem trivial in that regard. Not to be worried about. Death seems like an illusion because "being" in it's simplest form doesn't die. Dying is for the living. And again they are all definitions of one or more aspects of what it is to "be".
The issue is its not simple to achieve that state. And because the mind forgets, gets distracted, learns bad habits, its also not easy to maintain that state. Every single assumption, bias, prejudice, valuation, craving/desire, discrimination between things that you have in your mind are limits or boundaries between what it is to be "you" (in the sense of ego) and what it is to just "be" (no ego).
As usual it depends on perspective. "Mad geniuses" accomplish great things that benefit the human race, however commonly their obsession impacts them negatively (often quite negatively) from their personal perspective. Thus using your example, if I'm advising my dear friend Isaac Newton who is considered to have died a virgin, exhibited bizarre behavior in his elder years due to mercury poisoning from his alchemical "research", lost his fortune having put a huge percentage of his wealth in the South Sea company before it crashed and had to live out his years in his niece's home, I would have advised him to develop relationship skills, moderate his alchemical pursuits and financial investments.
It's really no different than the concept of heaven. What would heaven be like? If it's continuous happiness and joy then it is static and dead.
Can we settle on boring?
It would be an inhuman condition so I dont think we can say much about it at all.
I have seen this kind of thing a few times. I feel the issue is more or less about equating struggles in life with suffering. To have something in life to tackle is what makes life what it is. To refuse the trails and tribulations in life because they are tough is to not live at all.
Hedonistic views will culminate in an understanding that peak pleasure is attached by prolonged pain. Water is the best drink in the world if you are parched, yet if you are a little thirsty it will not give the same pleasures.
Note: Pleasures are all about relief in some form. Generally we all need variety (relief from monotony).
Goals that can be reached are not our true guiding stars. You will lie and deceive yourself everyday, so just guard against this as best you can and accept that the struggle will continue - enjoy :)
What goes up must come down.
I mean it sounds nice to me, but I don't think it makes sense to pursue it anxiously because that's counter-productive to the goal -- at least for me I have to accept who I am and live with that, and who I am is not that. I have my various anxieties and strange attachments and wanting to be content does not change this. But I still want to be happy and content with life. Why wouldn't I?
The problem, as you note, is that this can be harder to do than it seems.
But at the least I think that striving for contentment is counter-productive. Indeed, contentment strikes me as a lack of striving at all!
Quoting Tom Storm
:D
Interesting goals perhaps, or at least goals that enable interesting journeys?
Damn, this so far feels like some really melancholically pessimistic stuff. Maybe its not. Maybe youve obtained a state of being devoid of both needs and wants. In which case, bravo and keep it up. Still, in my experience, day to day wants such as that alleviating thirst, or hunger, or an itch, or of getting sufficient sleep sure amount to worthwhile aims when held for good reason, and generally pleasure-producing when the goals are not obstructed.
Heres two poems for you, whose vibe I generally hold only in the best of times, but they seem a worthwhile state of mind to express all the same:
-----
A SAIL
White is the sail and lonely
On the misty infinite blue;
Flying from what in the homeland?
Seeking for what in the new?
The waves romp, and the winds whistle,
And the mast leans and creaks;
Alas! He flies not from fortune,
And no good fortune he seeks.
Beneath him the stream, luminous, azure,
Above him the suns golden breast;
But he, a rebel, invites the storms,
As though in the storms were rest.
(by Mikhail Lermontov; translated by Max Eastman (I like this translation but cant find it online))
-----
Let me live out my years in heat of blood!
Let me lie drunken with the dreamers wine!
Let me not see this soul-house built of mud
Go toppling to the dust a vacant shrine!
(by Jack London, from the opening of his book, Martin Eden)
-----
Potentially noble and thereby worthwhile goals, I say. At least, if ones into this kind of thing.
Now a poem, one gives thanks for, but one does not ask for it to have a goal, not even to comfort the melancholy. But they illustrate my point. One does not denigrate the lives of others who choose a different path, not even a poet, not even a bad poet. Yet the op in sublime ignorance passes judgement over not one but two venerable traditions because they fail to satisfy his own feeble criteria of instrumentalism. It's a piece of egregious "what's-the-point-ism?" that deserves to be exposed for the depressing elitist nonsense that it is.
So I repeat, there is nothing about goals that make them worthwhile. Once get that into your head and you can begin to live a life in freedom.
That's not the recognition of diminishing returns I'm talking about. I'm talking about someone who works hard in order to be able to afford the proverbial eating, drinking, and making merry, and who realizes that the eating, drinking, and making merry don't compensate for the hard work needed in order to be able to afford the eating, drinking, and making merry. I'm talking about people who, for example, one day realize that they need to work for an entire day in order to earn the money to be able to go to the cinema, and that the pleasure of watching the film doesn't outweigh the hardship needed to earn the money to be able to go see the film.
Who gave you that medicine?
In the Hindu system, for example, you'd need to be some 75 years old, having accomplished everything a person is supposed to accomplish in this world in terms of raising a family and building a business, and only then could you even begin thinking about "moksha".
In the Buddhist system, you're supposed to either ordain as a monastic, or live as a productive lay person. And it's only as a monastic that one might think about pursuing nirvana. Everyone else is supposed to be busy earning money in as ethical a way as possible.
It's often 'projected and sold' in a decontextualized manner, especially socio-economically decontextualized. Eastern religions are often being presented here in the West as something one can and should do on one's own, alone, in the midst of a socio-economic environment in which those Eastern religions are alien, while the Western socio-economic environment is actually often even hostile to those religions.
So it's not merely the seeker's own fault, his greediness, his "spiritual materialism" or "spiritual consumerism".
Many Western people interested in Eastern religions are trying to do something (such as "attain moksha") for which they have no socio-economic basis, and they aren't even aware of this lack.
Older, more experienced "seekers" owe the newcomers the courtesy to make them aware of that, so that they wouldn't waste time.
I agree. But I was responding to an OP which was basically dismissing the whole idea on the basis of it being unreal. I'm well aware of the challenges of integrating such traditions into another cultural framework but that ought not to be used to simply write off any such attempt. What Buddhism and Hinduism do provide are radically different ways of framing the problems of the human condition.
So, according to you no goal is worthwhile even if pursuing it leads to interesting, enlivening or inspiring experiences or enlightening insights?
Quoting Janus
Quoting Janus
Quoting unenlightened
Do you think we are going to arrive at more clarity with these questions? I think I explained things clearly enough. A goal that leads somewhere, and end that is a becoming? Yeah, mere semantics.
[quote=Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind]But as long as you think, "I am doing this," or "I have to do this," or "I must attain something special," you are actually not doing anything... when you do not try to do anything special, then you do something. When there is no gaining idea in what you do, then you do something.[/quote]
There is a universalization of both the goal and process where one cuts off parts of oneself. I don't think it is a universal. But I don't feel much urge to stop people who decide that's what they want to do.
If we want to deny that part of our nature, why don't we go ahead and deny the desire to drink water and to eat food?
No.