[Poowssnople]

A is never B? Are you claiming absolute mutual exclusivity?

Absolutly. I have never felt or seen any sort of philosophical struggle at any of the teachings of the historical Buddha. Where I have seen such a thing is in the Mahayana tradition that become the proper place for doing such struggles with the teachings. Just give a read to the Mulamadhyamakakarika verses of Nagarjuna.

I think that people with some philosophical skills or addicted to that way of finding meanings tend to see "philosophy" in the teachings that are not "a priory" about for:

1. Problems about the validity of knowledge and/or/why/how knowledge is get.

2. Problems about the conceptual explanation of the self.

3. Problems about the meaning of the Absolute, God, infinite and Infinity.

4. Problems about the existence of man/woman as an entity.

5. Problems about the constitution and evolution of the Universe or the Multi verse.

6. Problems about Ethics, Logic and Aesthetics.

7. Etc.

Philosophy is about problems, doing problems, finding problems and increasing problems as the main amusement of mind. The teachings of the historical Buddha are about facts and solutions.

Now, why do people with, existential worries or concerns and intellectual curiosity tend to look at the teachings of the historical Buddha as a philosophical essay?

The teachings of the historical Buddha are about:

1. The ultimate meaning of things: Anatta, Anicca and Dukkha from where there is nothing more to speculate. To the wandering mind this is a big challenge. The wandering mind will never settle into the quite contemplation of this.

2. The teachings of the historical Buddha are a huge corpus of a very fine and well developed propaedeutic system. And as any propaedeutic, the teachings are to lead, to take on, to open to the knowledge of the ultimate meaning of things experiencing them as facts and not as intellectual amusement or struggle.

The Buddha did not set problems through his teachings but he is giving us to realize the final solution about the ultimate existence of things and beings. This implies a monumental challenge to the wandering mind. The wandering mind will struggle by any means (one of it is the use of philosophical entanglements) to wander around endlessly and never be quite enough to experience through contemplation the fact of Anatta, Anicca and Dukkha.

Philosophy is essentially so entangled that it can take the teachings of the historical Buddha as its formal object and thus the confusion of the teachings of the historical Buddha as a philosophical endeavour. There is a natural human tendency or more accurate, a mind tendency to do metaphysics with anything at hand.

Philosophy can kidnap the entire teaching of the historical Buddha because it does that by nature: To get deep, endlessly, into its object of struggle and takes the teachings of the Buddha as another human problem. An example of this can be the Mahayana (philosophical) religion.

But the teachings of the historical Buddha are not an object for such existential concern:

1. The teachings of the historical Buddha are about realization and experience and of a given solution and not of a stated problem. So the problems that one can face with the teachings of the historical Buddha are not in the teachings but in the inappropriate approach and propaedeutic taken.

2. In essence, the act of doing philosophies is out of any real interest but just the absolute satisfaction of the intellect. The teachings of the historical Buddha are not the case of an intellectual satisfaction but a deep concern about realizing the fact of the ultimate meaning of things. This ultimate meaning of things that are given in the teachings of the historical Buddha are not a proper object for intellectual curiosity because this ultimate meaning is a fact and not a ground for speculation.

I recommend to go thoroughly to the The Brahmajala Sutta: The All Embracing Net of Views (DN 1) so to taste the temper of the Buddha as a teacher and what is his teaching about.

Along the given Sutta this formula is repeated again and again as a warning of what the teachings are about:

36. "This, bhikkhus, the Tathāgata understands. And he [the Buddha] understands: 'These standpoints, thus assumed and thus misappre*hended, lead to such a future destination, to such a state in the world beyond.' He understands as well what transcends this, yet even that understanding he does not misapprehend. And because he is free from misapprehension, he has realized within himself the state of perfect peace. Having understood as they really are the origin and the passing away of feelings, their satisfaction, their unsatisfactoriness, and the escape from them, the Tathāgata, bhikkhus, is emancipated through non-clinging. But, anyway, I can be proved wrong because philosophy is not my best strength to deal with...