[TimoDassss]

Hello everyone

I ve read the following article and as a beginner it helped me to have better understanding of Buddhism so i decided to share it with you.

http://www.the-philosopher.co.uk/buddhism.htm

Regards,

[Ephejvll]

That's a great article, Bundokji. Thanks for that. I sometimes run across Nietzscheans, and they always have a very strong negative view of Buddhism. They seem to take Nietzsche's word for it, with him being their philosophical hero, and all. They insist that Buddhism is nihilistic, pessimistic and even cowardly. There wasn't much Buddhist scholarship available in Europe in Nietzsche's day, and what there was of it most likely contained the seeds of his misunderstandings about it. That and the high probability of some cultural arrogance and racism...

[Vkowefek]

This 'emptiness'is the human condition to which both Buddhism and Nietzsche respond. The subtleties and complexities of this view in both philosophies run deep enough to write volumes about, and the focus of this study is limited to the controversy over their respective responses; the answer to the question of appropriate praxis in the face of such an existence. The Buddha is said to have become aware of the fleeting, temporal nature of reality through his first encounters with a sick man, an old man, and a dead man. Nietzsche refers to what he interprets as the Buddha's reaction in Thus Spake Zarathustra:

There are those with consumption of the soul: hardly are they born when they begin to die and to long for doctrines of weariness and renunciation. They would like to be dead, and we should welcome their wish. Let us beware of waking the dead and disturbing these living coffins! They encounter a sick man or an old man or a corpse and immediately they say, 'Life is refuted'. But only they themselves are refuted, and their eyes, which see only this one face of existence.

He praised Buddhism for setting out to treat 'suffering'as opposed to 'sin', but believed the treatment itself represented a surrender of life To me, Nietzsche here only shows himself to be a worldly intellectual attached to many things, without any experience of the spiritual path & fruit. For a Buddha, it is not expected a worldling would understand the vision of unsatisfactoriness and the fruits of renunciation.

Like many, Nietzsche saw the phenomenology of things but not their unsatisfactoriness.

This is very common, where the perception of the subjectiveness and impermanence of phenomena does not give rise to the vision of unsatisfactoriness.

For example, it is common today amongst many Buddhists to classify the Three Characteristics as anicca, anatta & dukkha (rather than anicca, dukkha & anatta). This is due to the vision (Dhamma-Eye) of unsatisfactoriness not arising.

In The Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche categorizes Buddhism as one among a group of ideologies that promote '...nihilistic turning away from life, a longing for nothingness, or for life's 'opposite', for a different sort of 'being'' According to Nietzsche, Buddhism can be described as an effort, through restraint from action, to escape suffering and pass into absolute non-existence. The Dhammapada states: "Nirvana is the highest happiness". The Dhammapada states: "One gives up a lesser happiness to obtain a higher happiness". Nietzsche was mistaken because he was commenting about things he never experienced. The Buddha said his (higher) teaching had one sole purpose, namely, the unshakeable freedom (happiness) of mind.

For example, even if Nietzsche understood the proper meaning of "non-existence" (which he probably did not), as one who had never experienced the mental state of "non-existence" or "non-being", he was not qualified to comment on it.

Buddha's experience was one of seeing the unsatisfactoriness of the worldly condition, which resulted is his mind withdrawing inward & naturally developing (peaceful; blissful) samadhi and then, later, insight into emptiness. But Nietzsche seemed to comment on the 'top of the tree' without understanding how it is formed by its roots, trunk, nutrients, etc.

'And this, monks, is the Noble Truth of dukkha: birth is dukkha, and old age is dukkha, and disease is dukkha, and dying is dukkha, association from what is not dear is dukkha, separation from what is dear is dukkha, not getting what you want is dukkha - in short, the five aggregates of grasping are dukkha.'

Understood simply as 'suffering', the word dukkha in this central Buddhist passage expresses only simple pessimism. The common translation of dukkha as suffering has quite likely been the cause of a great deal of misunderstanding on the part of the non-Buddhist world. In fact, 'dukkha'comes in three flavors. The first is dukkha-dukkhata, suffering qua suffering in its direct physical and mental manifestations. The second is vapirinama-dukkha, or suffering through transformation. This refers to the awareness that one's happiness is highly contingent and dependent on factors beyond one's control. Though you may be happy now, it could change at any moment, and this is due to the ungrounded and fluctuating nature of existence itself. The most important type of dukkha, however, is sankhara-dukkha, an existential incompleteness due to spiritual ignorance. If the author, above, struggles to understand the simplicity of Buddhism, then how can it be expected Nietzsche would understand?

The 1st Noble Truth cited by the author is not a "central" Buddhist passage. The 1st Noble Truth is simply the diagnosis of the different kinds of suffering and forms part of a four part formula that explains: (1) what suffering is; (2) how suffering arises; (3) what the end of suffering is; and (4) the means by which suffering is ended.

When a woman gives "birth" to a child and then must look after the child when the child has no mental/physical autonomy, this would certainly entail "suffering" on most occassions. As for the rest of the 1st Noble Truth, it is self-explanatory.

As for the 'three flavours' of suffering mentioned by the author, the interpretation is dubious.

In summary, the 1st Noble Truth is summarised by the Buddha's summary of it: "in short, the five aggregates of grasping are dukkha". The Buddha, in his enlightenment, discovered it is not really birth, sickness, death, separation, etc, which are suffering but it is grasping which is suffering.

This summary is the same as sankhara-dukkha, which means "suffering due to mental concocting"

Regards

[Liskaspexia]

It is known the deep contempt that Nietzsche felt for Buddhism and other important spiritual teachers like Jesus.

Many years ago, in those troubled early youth years, I tried to read Nietzsche after having read Hesse's Demian and Siddhartha, books that sow the seed of love for a life of introspection.

I just couldn't finish that Nietzsche book.

I can't judge his oeuvre because I am not qualified for that but the feeling and taste that his book left was that of sadness and existential pain about life. Seems to me, that Nietzsche suffered too much.

Nowadays, I remember with joy those books of Hesse, and I have found the teachings of Buddha -his Suttas- luminous, liberating and releasing as a pond of fresh water and shade for healing of the wounds of life, for quenching desperation and as the path toward the understanding of true deliverance from suffering.

[enentique]

Yeah, for anyone who knows at least some of the details of Nietzsche's personal and professional life, it's a perfect example of the suffering that comes from unbridled chasing after desires and passions. For all his knowledge of philosophy, he gathered no wisdom with regards how to live a happy life.

[ThisIsOK]

Hello everyone,

First of all i would like to thank all of you for your feedback on the article. Personally, i find Nietzsche's Philosophy very appealing and share many similarties with Buddhism.

Nierzsche was like all of us, he spent his hard life searching for freedom and real happiness. Maybe his research and philosophy have not led him to believe in buddhism but i cant help but to admire him as a truth seeker.

According to his philosophy, man is the sole measure of the universe. there are no moral or intellectual certainties. and its up to the individual to develope himself through his own effort. His philosophy (as i understand it) was NOT trying to convince people to think like himself, but a guide for people to think for themselves (hence i found it very similar to buddhism in this particular aspect). His philosophical journey ended up at the age of 44 in insanity.

His life was definitely not an as easy one. At a very young age his father was diagnosed with a brain disease and died when he was five years old. A year after he lost his baby brother. He was born with severe myopia and was always a delicate and sickly child, as well as contracting diphtheria and dysentery while serving in the Prussian forces during the Franco-Prussian War. In addition, he got infected with syphilis which led to his madness so he coped with all these physical ailments by developing his own philosophy.

His book “Human all too human” was a work of psychology as much as of Philosophy. he challenged mankind to think for itself when he said "“And so onwards, along a path of wisdom with a hearty tread, a hearty confidence. However you may be, be your own source of experience, throw off your discontent about your nature, forgive yourself your own self. You have it in your power to merge through everything you have lived through; fore-starts, errors, delusions, passions, your loves and your hopes into your goal with nothing left over."

The death of his father (who was a priest) had a profound influence on him and resulted in his nihilistic views. In a letter to his sister he said “ I write this to you only in order to counter the most usual proofs of believers. Every true faith is infallible , it performs what the believing person wants to find in it, but it does not offer the least support for the establishing of an objective truth, here the ways of men divide: if he want to achieve peace of mind and happiness have faith, if he want to be a disciple of truth then search.”

In his efforts of self mastery he came up with the idea of “overman” (i am not sure if its a good idea to compare it with Nibbana in Buddhism) which is an ideal of self overcoming, not by having recourse to a metaphysical realm outside of the human but within the possibilities of human which unfortunately has been used by his sister Elazabith and the Nazis to promote racism.

In conceiving of a world beyond good and evil, beyond the fleeting preoccupations of the human condition. Nietzsche has transcended “the mark” as he called it and turned it to a philosophical goal. Philosophy had become his consolation for a life of disappointment and deep rooted loneliness.

Finally, While his philosophy was against pity and weakness in general, His last sane action (before he got admitted to mental asylum) in January 1889 at the sight of a horse fell overburdened and slept on ice, Netzsche went over and put his arms around the horse. He was able to express in one of his last gestures to the world profound sympathy for the living conditions which both humans and animals share. His last action was to affirm his identity not as a god, but as a human being full of weaknesses.

Regards,

[larentont]

In conceiving of a world beyond good and evil, beyond the fleeting preoccupations of the human condition. Nietzsche has transcended “the mark” as he called it and turned it to a philosophical goal. Philosophy had become his consolation for a life of disappointment and deep rooted loneliness.

His last sane action (before he got admitted to mental asylum) in January 1889 at the sight of a horse fell overburdened and slept on ice, Netzsche went over and put his arms around the horse. He was able to express in one of his last gestures to the world profound sympathy for the living conditions which both humans and animals share.

hi Bundokji

his last actions seemed they were an act of "goodness"

however, about a world beyond good & evil, this can only arise from non-action

for example, if i decide to watch television or to enjoy some fine wine, these decisions certainly arise from the perceptions "TV is good"; "wine is good"

for a Buddhist perspective, the following may be of interest: Good, Evil and Beyond: Kamma in the Buddha's Teaching

regards

element

[maxfreemann]

Hello Element,

Thank you kindly for the link. I spent the whole day reading it and i found it very informative and helped me to have better understanding of Kamma and how it relates to other concepts in Buddhism. However, it made me a bit confused in relation to the concept of "non-self" and "rebirth vs reincarnation" which i will ask about on a differernt thread tomorrow.

Once again, thank you for sharing your knowledge and wisdom with me

Regards,
Bundokji