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Old 08-10-2007, 10:25 AM
amplify amplify is offline
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Join Date: Sep 2005
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Default Re: Dealing with the \'and then?\' problem

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Amp,

Are you buddhist?

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I use Buddhist maps. If I wanted to get to Ecuador, I would get a map. That doesn't make me a Rand McNallyist. I could still check with people I met along the way, maybe buy another map or make a post about it. But the map is not the territory, which is the fundamental error that many religious or spiritual people make, thinking or pretending that things are actually are as described in literature, sacred or not.

At the same time, you'd be foolish not to explore the experiences of people in cultures who have spent thousands of years studying consciousness, if that's your interest. The danger is that along with brilliant insight into psychology and being, you get a lot of claptrap. With Buddhism you have a lot of ritual, which is useless, and a lot of beliefs that don't help, such as rebirth. I have no reason to accept rebirth and no reason to reject it, so I just ignore it. Everyone in India 2500 years ago just accepted the doctrine of reincarnation (dependent origination) as probably most still do, seeing that it is in Hinduism as well, being as I said, cultural and not scientific.

Then one is free to accept the best of multiple traditions. We can look to Jesus for an example of unconditional love and how to be compassionate and forgiving. We can look to Socrates for logic and a commitment to keep questioning everything. From Lao Tzu we can learn equanimity and the realization that naming things does not make them so. And so on.

tl;dr - no
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