Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain! - Discussion
Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
Matthew O'Connell, modified 5 Years ago at 6/24/19 1:39 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/17/19 4:44 PM
Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
Posts: 43 Join Date: 12/22/10 Recent Posts
Here are two brand new episodes of the Imperfect Buddha Podcast with Daniel Ingram, exploring new terrain of thought and practice. This is one for you seasoned practitioners. It was a buzz recording them both and a third installment will arrive soon enough.
(1) Daniel on his current practice, awakening, generation-X, and much more.
(2) Daniel on Trash Theory: a set of practice axioms over at Speculative non-Buddhism.
https://soundcloud.com/imperfect-buddha-podcast/53-ibp-daniel-ingram-on-the-practicing-life
https://soundcloud.com/imperfect-buddha-podcast/54-ibp-daniel-ingram-meets-trash-theory
(1) Daniel on his current practice, awakening, generation-X, and much more.
(2) Daniel on Trash Theory: a set of practice axioms over at Speculative non-Buddhism.
https://soundcloud.com/imperfect-buddha-podcast/53-ibp-daniel-ingram-on-the-practicing-life
https://soundcloud.com/imperfect-buddha-podcast/54-ibp-daniel-ingram-meets-trash-theory
Anna L, modified 5 Years ago at 6/17/19 9:21 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/17/19 9:21 PM
RE: Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
Posts: 232 Join Date: 1/21/17 Recent PostsLaurel Carrington, modified 5 Years ago at 6/17/19 9:58 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/17/19 9:57 PM
RE: Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
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Binge-listened to all three hours of you gentlemen this evening and wish there were more, right now, which is a good thing. Thank you kindly. I will think about it and maybe post some questions. In fact, I have one: Daniel, you seem to get very annoyed, even outraged, by deconstruction taken to the extreme, with the view that everything is socially constructed. What is the nerve being touched?
Actually, I withdraw the question because it’s none of my business. I’ll talk about my own experience instead: I can recall getting thoroughly put out with a certain brand of feminist “practice “ in graduate school that seemed to consist of verbal cleverness and nothing more, while in the meantime real women were suffering the effects of spousal abuse, poverty, sexual harassment, and rape. I could see the whole enterprise as nothing more than a self-serving distancing strategy. At the time, I was still feeling keenly the effects of an abusive first marriage and took the whole thing personally, even as I was fascinated by it. I ran into one feminist from Berkeley who told me she didn’t believe in testosterone. This struck me as just plain silly.
In general, I think the real contribution these philosophers have made is the attack on essentialism. Maybe we can accept that testosterone is a workable thing to believe in as something that exists, but what actually follows from that is open to discussion. Do those who have more of it get to rule over those who have less? What does it “mean” to be a man or a woman? Etcetera.
That’s all my brain wants to produce tonight.
Actually, I withdraw the question because it’s none of my business. I’ll talk about my own experience instead: I can recall getting thoroughly put out with a certain brand of feminist “practice “ in graduate school that seemed to consist of verbal cleverness and nothing more, while in the meantime real women were suffering the effects of spousal abuse, poverty, sexual harassment, and rape. I could see the whole enterprise as nothing more than a self-serving distancing strategy. At the time, I was still feeling keenly the effects of an abusive first marriage and took the whole thing personally, even as I was fascinated by it. I ran into one feminist from Berkeley who told me she didn’t believe in testosterone. This struck me as just plain silly.
In general, I think the real contribution these philosophers have made is the attack on essentialism. Maybe we can accept that testosterone is a workable thing to believe in as something that exists, but what actually follows from that is open to discussion. Do those who have more of it get to rule over those who have less? What does it “mean” to be a man or a woman? Etcetera.
That’s all my brain wants to produce tonight.
Daniel M Ingram, modified 5 Years ago at 6/19/19 7:54 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/19/19 7:54 AM
Thread Split
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The new thread can be found at https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/view_message/14009235. Split off due to wandering off topic into idle banter.
Daniel M Ingram, modified 5 Years ago at 6/19/19 8:05 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/19/19 8:04 AM
RE: Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
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While it is easy to poke fun of reactionary 60-70's deconstructionist Feminism from this vantage point, I totally get why that part of the conversation needed to happen as a reaction and critique of what came before, and also why we are lucky to have mostly moved beyond some of its weirder excesses.
It is like Mondrian, whose stark, blocky deconstructionist-yet-essentialist paintings I was just viewing in a number of museum galleries in the last few months.
I really don't like his works on their own, finding that, up close and personal, they look like a college-level art student's joke in today's context, yet, at the time, they were a very important part of the conversation and a contribution to how we got here, and I can appreciate at least that aspect.
Similarly, I suspect that, in 30 years or so, if we are still lucky enough to be concerned with such topics rather than issues a bit farther down the Maslowvian Pyramid, that we hopefully will be at a place where we view the SNB site and its reactions to "x-Buddhism" the same way.
It is like Mondrian, whose stark, blocky deconstructionist-yet-essentialist paintings I was just viewing in a number of museum galleries in the last few months.
I really don't like his works on their own, finding that, up close and personal, they look like a college-level art student's joke in today's context, yet, at the time, they were a very important part of the conversation and a contribution to how we got here, and I can appreciate at least that aspect.
Similarly, I suspect that, in 30 years or so, if we are still lucky enough to be concerned with such topics rather than issues a bit farther down the Maslowvian Pyramid, that we hopefully will be at a place where we view the SNB site and its reactions to "x-Buddhism" the same way.
Laurel Carrington, modified 5 Years ago at 6/19/19 8:33 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/19/19 8:32 AM
RE: Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
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Yeah, I suppose I can agree that deconstructive feminism is a soft target now. I compare that extreme view to those nondualists who claim that there is nothing outside of experience, which means that climate change, starving children in Yemen, and African Americans killed by police don’t exist. I actually had this conversation with someone a couple of years ago. If that is where we’re going, then I don’t blame one of my former students, an avowed communist, for telling me that all my practice is nothing more than outrageous escapism.
A couple other points from the talks really struck me: first, Daniel saying that the role of the sage, the person who doesn’t necessarily become active in the world, is worthwhile for some. In the Renaissance there was a long-standing discussion among humanists about the relative merits of the active life vs. the contemplative life, with those more socially inclined saying the latter was a bogus path and not an appropriate model for the good life. I think people have to see what moves them in whatever direction as they go more deeply into practice. It’s not even a matter of making a decision, but of watching the process play out in its own way.
Second, there’s the question of enchantment. My recent blog post is along those lines. On the one hand, seeing clearly means shaking off the various enchantments that cloud people’s vision; on the other hand, the fire kasina practice leads to visions of another kind, which are as much a part of traditional Buddhism as the more ascetic side of it.
Finally, back to deconstruction: isn’t it possible that the attack on essentialism can lead to a kind of understanding of emptiness? It’s not the sort of insight that comes from practice, but it does suggest that the ordinary commensense view of the world isn’t the whole truth.
A couple other points from the talks really struck me: first, Daniel saying that the role of the sage, the person who doesn’t necessarily become active in the world, is worthwhile for some. In the Renaissance there was a long-standing discussion among humanists about the relative merits of the active life vs. the contemplative life, with those more socially inclined saying the latter was a bogus path and not an appropriate model for the good life. I think people have to see what moves them in whatever direction as they go more deeply into practice. It’s not even a matter of making a decision, but of watching the process play out in its own way.
Second, there’s the question of enchantment. My recent blog post is along those lines. On the one hand, seeing clearly means shaking off the various enchantments that cloud people’s vision; on the other hand, the fire kasina practice leads to visions of another kind, which are as much a part of traditional Buddhism as the more ascetic side of it.
Finally, back to deconstruction: isn’t it possible that the attack on essentialism can lead to a kind of understanding of emptiness? It’s not the sort of insight that comes from practice, but it does suggest that the ordinary commensense view of the world isn’t the whole truth.
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 6/20/19 3:05 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/20/19 3:05 PM
RE: Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
Posts: 7135 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Postsstreamsurfer, modified 5 Years ago at 6/21/19 5:00 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/21/19 4:59 AM
RE: Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
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I am really a big fan of your podcast, Matthew! It was a joy to listen to the both of you.
The takes on practice as a way of life in both this episode and the one with Hokai held a lot of wisdom for the "junior" meditator.
I have a little bit of contentwise critique though, regarding the constructivism debate.
Going in the discussion with a thesis like "...everything is constructed" is simplifying the object of discussion in a very big stretch.
The constructivism problem has many aspects, epistemic and ontological, which are to be regarded when discussing the problem, since they are relevant for implications. For example, one could deny the existence of a observer-independent reality, and still accept the fact, that you can not construct reality "how you want".
I really liked Daniels reaction, referring back to the practice experience. The philosophical debate is one thing, but the pragmatic implications are not necessarily correlated to questions of knowledge acquisition.
Criticism of the philosophical cognitive play is of course justified, but I don't think this debate was acknowledged in its full broadness and truth content.
The takes on practice as a way of life in both this episode and the one with Hokai held a lot of wisdom for the "junior" meditator.
I have a little bit of contentwise critique though, regarding the constructivism debate.
Going in the discussion with a thesis like "...everything is constructed" is simplifying the object of discussion in a very big stretch.
The constructivism problem has many aspects, epistemic and ontological, which are to be regarded when discussing the problem, since they are relevant for implications. For example, one could deny the existence of a observer-independent reality, and still accept the fact, that you can not construct reality "how you want".
I really liked Daniels reaction, referring back to the practice experience. The philosophical debate is one thing, but the pragmatic implications are not necessarily correlated to questions of knowledge acquisition.
Criticism of the philosophical cognitive play is of course justified, but I don't think this debate was acknowledged in its full broadness and truth content.
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 6/21/19 5:32 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/21/19 5:31 AM
RE: Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
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I agree that there are more nuances to constructivist theories. For instance, the sociological concept of social constructions is far more nuanced than that. It is very often used in a simplified way, though. Even Thomas Luckmann, who invented the concept together with Peter Berger, would agree with Daniel. I have personally heard him say that he would never call himself a social constructionist because of the way the concept has been misused. Berger and Luckmann are however very explicit about their theory being an epistemological one, not an ontological one. There are of course ontological constructivist theories in philosophy, but I’m not as familar with them. I think the epistemological theory of social constructions goes very well together will Daniel’s approach, as it, too, focuses on the phenomenology.
Saying that ”everything is constructed” epistemologically is very ”Duh!”, and yet there are far too many mediocre intellecuals who think they are cool for saying it. Or at least there were a decade ago or so. That fad is thankfully over. Investigating how something is constructed and maintained is much more interesting.
...
The word ”transmogrify”, used by Daniel in the show, has eaten itself into my brain. I hear myself saying that word internally all the time, and I’m possibly developing a verbal tic with strong urges to kinesthetically feel myself verbalizing it (I have Tourette).
Saying that ”everything is constructed” epistemologically is very ”Duh!”, and yet there are far too many mediocre intellecuals who think they are cool for saying it. Or at least there were a decade ago or so. That fad is thankfully over. Investigating how something is constructed and maintained is much more interesting.
...
The word ”transmogrify”, used by Daniel in the show, has eaten itself into my brain. I hear myself saying that word internally all the time, and I’m possibly developing a verbal tic with strong urges to kinesthetically feel myself verbalizing it (I have Tourette).
Daniel M Ingram, modified 5 Years ago at 6/22/19 3:25 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/22/19 3:22 AM
RE: Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
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So, the podcasts coupled with apparently distant readings of MCTB, generated some reponses, which, ironically, were nearly 180 degrees from what I said, wrote, and meant.
This clearly triggered something powerful in me, and this nearly 21000 word post resulted. It is not only long, it is difficult, and packs a serious bite.
It had some powerful effects on me as I created it, not only psychological, but physiological, as I describe therein, but also decisional in the non-Laruellian sense of ordinary life decision.
Here's my takeaway:
No quantity of carefully crafted words will always be interpreted as you mean them, even by smart, educated, engaged people who claim to care about what you are writing.
Many who criticize books haven't bothered to read them.
MCTB2 is likely too long in that obviously people I feel should have read it clearly haven't.
MCTB2, which added over 100,000 words to the original, solves many of the problems in MCTB1.
Thus, I can't make MCTB2 shorter easily in good conscience, as those additional words clearly help counterbalance well-known imbalances in MCTB1.
I also can't make it longer, as already those who criticize clearly haven't fucking read it, or, if they did, did it so quickly that they had no idea what they fuck they were reading.
Thus, there is no winning with some people, and haters apparently gonna' hate.
However, it does suddenly cast serious doubt on the ability of a condensed version of MCTB2, on which I have spent hundreds of hours over the last year or so, to meet my goals, which is that those who have read my book will get a complete, balanced package that corrects to the degree that I am able all the known problems with MCTB1.
If you manage to get through that entire post linked above, you are a serious trooper.
May our efforts be more beneficial than they are harmful, and the fire in our emotions warm, transform, clear out, and illuminate at least a little more than it burns.
This clearly triggered something powerful in me, and this nearly 21000 word post resulted. It is not only long, it is difficult, and packs a serious bite.
It had some powerful effects on me as I created it, not only psychological, but physiological, as I describe therein, but also decisional in the non-Laruellian sense of ordinary life decision.
Here's my takeaway:
No quantity of carefully crafted words will always be interpreted as you mean them, even by smart, educated, engaged people who claim to care about what you are writing.
Many who criticize books haven't bothered to read them.
MCTB2 is likely too long in that obviously people I feel should have read it clearly haven't.
MCTB2, which added over 100,000 words to the original, solves many of the problems in MCTB1.
Thus, I can't make MCTB2 shorter easily in good conscience, as those additional words clearly help counterbalance well-known imbalances in MCTB1.
I also can't make it longer, as already those who criticize clearly haven't fucking read it, or, if they did, did it so quickly that they had no idea what they fuck they were reading.
Thus, there is no winning with some people, and haters apparently gonna' hate.
However, it does suddenly cast serious doubt on the ability of a condensed version of MCTB2, on which I have spent hundreds of hours over the last year or so, to meet my goals, which is that those who have read my book will get a complete, balanced package that corrects to the degree that I am able all the known problems with MCTB1.
If you manage to get through that entire post linked above, you are a serious trooper.
May our efforts be more beneficial than they are harmful, and the fire in our emotions warm, transform, clear out, and illuminate at least a little more than it burns.
Edward, modified 5 Years ago at 6/22/19 8:05 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/22/19 8:04 AM
RE: Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
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I've read the whole post. For the first few paragraphs I was thinking, o shit, i wish you hadn't tried to take on the internet, but there's a wealth of helpful stuff there. As to MCTB2: the summary, I'm not sure there's a need for it- I'd be reluctant for my favourite book of all time* to be butchered but will be interesting to see what you decide.
*relegating "A la recherche du temps perdu" in to 2nd place.
*relegating "A la recherche du temps perdu" in to 2nd place.
Stickman2, modified 5 Years ago at 6/22/19 8:46 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/22/19 8:46 AM
RE: Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
Posts: 375 Join Date: 7/24/17 Recent PostsLinda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 6/22/19 1:32 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/22/19 1:32 PM
RE: Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
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This is probably a symptom of my being autistic, but I need to ask: was this only a reply to my post because it was convenient to reply to tha last post? And the haters were totally different people? Because your book is basically my bible, and I loved the podcast too. As for the length, the book is worth every effort. I wouldn’t want to skip one word of it. Many sections of it I have read so many times that I lost count of it a long time ago.
Laurel Carrington, modified 5 Years ago at 6/22/19 2:57 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/22/19 2:54 PM
RE: Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
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It’s a response to a comment/comments on the Imperfect Buddha podcast.
ETA I myself waded into the podcasts without having read the “Trash Theory” posts on Glenn Wallis’s site https://speculativenonbuddhism.com/ . Going back to take another listen to the last podcast especially now.
ETA I myself waded into the podcasts without having read the “Trash Theory” posts on Glenn Wallis’s site https://speculativenonbuddhism.com/ . Going back to take another listen to the last podcast especially now.
Daniel M Ingram, modified 5 Years ago at 6/22/19 5:33 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/22/19 5:33 PM
RE: Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
Posts: 3293 Join Date: 4/20/09 Recent PostsLinda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 6/22/19 5:50 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/22/19 5:50 PM
RE: Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
Posts: 7135 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent PostsNot two, not one, modified 5 Years ago at 6/23/19 2:42 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/23/19 2:42 AM
RE: Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
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Daniel - I guess there will always be people with a lot of dust in their eyes. But what you have written is of enormous benefit for me and many others.
I had a wonderful experience reading MCTB 2. It arrived earlier this year during a time of review and reflection, and was a beautfiul visual and haptic experience. I was fortunate enough to get the hardbound version, with the beautiful burgundy covers, the golden wheel of the dharma and the creamy pages inside. So it was a sensual treat as well as well as a dharmic treat.
As I read MCTB2 cover to cover over a period of weeks, I was struck by the care and detail and passion that had gone into producing the work. I was honoured by the trust you had in the reader to put in so many very personal aspects of your own progress, including the extraordinary stories in India as well as the fascinating details of your own path. Those comments were of great value to me personally (for example, I made a point of having an oat latte and a long dharma discussion a few weeks ago with the person you mention helping you into the stream, and that really was a fantastic experience).
Aside from reading MCTB2 cover-to-cover, I reflected a lot on the content and also on the changes I noticed from MCTB1 (which I had previously read twice, cover-to-cover). Both books remain incredibly illuminating and of great benefit. Are they perfect? We do not follow a path of perfection!
Metta and gratitude
Malcolm
I had a wonderful experience reading MCTB 2. It arrived earlier this year during a time of review and reflection, and was a beautfiul visual and haptic experience. I was fortunate enough to get the hardbound version, with the beautiful burgundy covers, the golden wheel of the dharma and the creamy pages inside. So it was a sensual treat as well as well as a dharmic treat.
As I read MCTB2 cover to cover over a period of weeks, I was struck by the care and detail and passion that had gone into producing the work. I was honoured by the trust you had in the reader to put in so many very personal aspects of your own progress, including the extraordinary stories in India as well as the fascinating details of your own path. Those comments were of great value to me personally (for example, I made a point of having an oat latte and a long dharma discussion a few weeks ago with the person you mention helping you into the stream, and that really was a fantastic experience).
Aside from reading MCTB2 cover-to-cover, I reflected a lot on the content and also on the changes I noticed from MCTB1 (which I had previously read twice, cover-to-cover). Both books remain incredibly illuminating and of great benefit. Are they perfect? We do not follow a path of perfection!
Metta and gratitude
Malcolm
Daniel M Ingram, modified 5 Years ago at 6/23/19 4:35 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/23/19 4:35 AM
RE: Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
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Those are kind words and much appreciated. Thanks!
Yes, clearly imperfect, and, as such, a Summons to all who can move the conversation forward skillfully.
Yes, clearly imperfect, and, as such, a Summons to all who can move the conversation forward skillfully.
Laurel Carrington, modified 5 Years ago at 6/23/19 4:10 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/23/19 4:08 PM
RE: Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
Posts: 439 Join Date: 4/7/14 Recent Posts
I wrote a comment replying to Glenn Wallis on Parletre’s blog, but it has been awaiting moderation all day. I don’t think they’re going to post it, and since it’s their Wordpress blog, I guess they don’t have to. I’ve copied it and am going to post it here. Probably it’s overkill, but I was so annoyed by the whole exchange that I couldn’t help it.
What Wallis did is slap a whole list of labels on Daniel and then dismiss him.
“So you want to make generalizations about Daniel Ingram’s positions based on a cursory knowledge of his work, find a group of pigeonholes to apply to him, and thereby define him without engaging with anything he has said. C’mon, Mr. Wallis, this is poor and lazy stuff. You have adopted a method and a language that allows you to shut anyone down without having to do any real work. If you don’t want to do the work, just admit that you don’t get what he’s doing and aren’t interested because you have other priorities.
“On the matter of his lengthy quotes from his book: parletre is by his own admission criticizing Ingram’s book after having read the first edition a few years ago. I may be getting old, but even when I was younger I would have taken the time to refresh my memory of a book I was planning to critique publicly before doing so, especially one as difficult and complex as MCTB, and furthermore I would have taken a look at the updated edition as well to see what was new that I should know about. In the absence of such effort on the part of his critic, Daniel ends up needing to quote extensively from relevant passages to explain how OP has misread him, but you dismiss these efforts with a wave of your hand. I can’t imagine you got a PhD from Harvard by such methods.
“On the matter of his citing exceptions: Daniel is attempting to show that the OP is mischaracterizing his thinking by boiling it down to gross simplifications. I can’t see what is wrong with Daniel’s having done so.
“On the matter of “Baroque” practices: well, you can’t really talk about something you don’t understand, and whether you like it or not, you won’t understand these practices without actually doing some of them (which parletre claims they did, but sometimes even that isn’t enough to understand them). In my own case, I have to admit that my reading of MCTB (the first edition, which was the only one available at the time) bogged down at points, especially in the descriptions of the stages of the Insight Path, so I would stop reading and practice. I came to understand more and more as I had my own basis of experience for making sense of what Ingram was saying.
“I’ll conclude by saying that if you really want to discern what kind of thing this is, you might start at the very least by refraining from misreadings. If you can’t or won’t do that, then you should avoid speaking about it altogether.”
What Wallis did is slap a whole list of labels on Daniel and then dismiss him.
“So you want to make generalizations about Daniel Ingram’s positions based on a cursory knowledge of his work, find a group of pigeonholes to apply to him, and thereby define him without engaging with anything he has said. C’mon, Mr. Wallis, this is poor and lazy stuff. You have adopted a method and a language that allows you to shut anyone down without having to do any real work. If you don’t want to do the work, just admit that you don’t get what he’s doing and aren’t interested because you have other priorities.
“On the matter of his lengthy quotes from his book: parletre is by his own admission criticizing Ingram’s book after having read the first edition a few years ago. I may be getting old, but even when I was younger I would have taken the time to refresh my memory of a book I was planning to critique publicly before doing so, especially one as difficult and complex as MCTB, and furthermore I would have taken a look at the updated edition as well to see what was new that I should know about. In the absence of such effort on the part of his critic, Daniel ends up needing to quote extensively from relevant passages to explain how OP has misread him, but you dismiss these efforts with a wave of your hand. I can’t imagine you got a PhD from Harvard by such methods.
“On the matter of his citing exceptions: Daniel is attempting to show that the OP is mischaracterizing his thinking by boiling it down to gross simplifications. I can’t see what is wrong with Daniel’s having done so.
“On the matter of “Baroque” practices: well, you can’t really talk about something you don’t understand, and whether you like it or not, you won’t understand these practices without actually doing some of them (which parletre claims they did, but sometimes even that isn’t enough to understand them). In my own case, I have to admit that my reading of MCTB (the first edition, which was the only one available at the time) bogged down at points, especially in the descriptions of the stages of the Insight Path, so I would stop reading and practice. I came to understand more and more as I had my own basis of experience for making sense of what Ingram was saying.
“I’ll conclude by saying that if you really want to discern what kind of thing this is, you might start at the very least by refraining from misreadings. If you can’t or won’t do that, then you should avoid speaking about it altogether.”
Hac Phi^2 Vita, modified 5 Years ago at 6/23/19 10:17 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/23/19 10:17 PM
RE: Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
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Great! Really looking forward to listening to these episodes.
For some reason my podcast player (Podcast Addict on Android) had stopped updating the IBP, so I thought there hadn't been a new episode for months. I was worried the podcast might be over. When I reloaded manually they all showed up (I mention this because in case anyone else has the same issue). So, good thing you posted here!
Thanks!
For some reason my podcast player (Podcast Addict on Android) had stopped updating the IBP, so I thought there hadn't been a new episode for months. I was worried the podcast might be over. When I reloaded manually they all showed up (I mention this because in case anyone else has the same issue). So, good thing you posted here!
Thanks!
Eddie Z, modified 5 Years ago at 6/25/19 1:39 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/25/19 1:39 PM
RE: Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
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I'm listening to the second podcast, episode 54, and I think "I have no illusions that empires fall, that dreams get crushed, that we all die." is my favorite inspirational quote of the month!
Edward, modified 5 Years ago at 6/26/19 5:06 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/26/19 5:06 AM
RE: Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
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https://parletre.wordpress.com/2019/06/25/response-to-ingram-3/
This very interesting discussion continues. I think the difference between recognising vs projecting the 3Cs is pertinent to practice as well as philosophy.
This very interesting discussion continues. I think the difference between recognising vs projecting the 3Cs is pertinent to practice as well as philosophy.
Edward, modified 5 Years ago at 6/26/19 5:26 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/26/19 5:25 AM
RE: Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
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To anyone who has been in more than 1 Buddhist circle, Glen Wallis' point here (from the discussion posted above), at least the middle 2 sentences, is undeniable:
" In the posts and in many of the comments, a suspicion is being expressed that the ideological “surround” overdetermines the “looking,” “seeing,” and “how” that you refer to. How curious that Vipassana Vince turns his gaze toward the inner workings of “subjective experience” and finds–lo and behold!–the categories of Vipassana operating therein. Ditto Soto Susan and Dogen, Mindful Mary and JKZ, and so forth. In my new book, I argue that what is happening is an intermixture and projection that is not at all harmless, in that it deepens the delusion and samsaric capture that the practice is intended to ameliorate. "
I read KF's contemplative fitness yesterday, and its similarities with MCTB are unignorable. Both KF and Daniel are Hamilton-ites and their language (and experiences?) accordingly overlap. To what extent it is the former alone (language) as opposed to the latter (experiences) is probably the key point.
" In the posts and in many of the comments, a suspicion is being expressed that the ideological “surround” overdetermines the “looking,” “seeing,” and “how” that you refer to. How curious that Vipassana Vince turns his gaze toward the inner workings of “subjective experience” and finds–lo and behold!–the categories of Vipassana operating therein. Ditto Soto Susan and Dogen, Mindful Mary and JKZ, and so forth. In my new book, I argue that what is happening is an intermixture and projection that is not at all harmless, in that it deepens the delusion and samsaric capture that the practice is intended to ameliorate. "
I read KF's contemplative fitness yesterday, and its similarities with MCTB are unignorable. Both KF and Daniel are Hamilton-ites and their language (and experiences?) accordingly overlap. To what extent it is the former alone (language) as opposed to the latter (experiences) is probably the key point.
Chris M, modified 5 Years ago at 6/26/19 6:54 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/26/19 6:41 AM
RE: Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
Posts: 5474 Join Date: 1/26/13 Recent PostsHow curious that Vipassana Vince turns his gaze toward the inner workings of “subjective experience” and finds–lo and behold!–the categories of Vipassana operating therein. Ditto Soto Susan and Dogen, Mindful Mary and JKZ, and so forth.
I see no reason for debate on this point what-so-ever. Of course we interpret experiences using frames of reference and terminology we know. What else do we have to use? That's how mind works - it experiences "things" and assembles constructs from the concepts and language it has at its disposal. This doesn't mean that the observations and insights people have from meditating in any tradition or under any paradigm aren't real and valid. Does this criticism mean to say that neither vipassana, zen or vajrayana practitioners are capable of legitimate inquiry and insight? Or is the idea as trite as it sounds? Maybe I'm missing something more profound?
EDIT: I should add here that I think, knowing this "construct-laden" way we experience and interpret the world, it's important to do our best to see it for what it is and practice in ways that help us overcome its inherent limitations. But that's something pragmatic dharma is about as I see it (ha!) - whatever works. We can practice in various modes unanchored to one way of seeing, one way of meditating, one way of interpreting.
Edward, modified 5 Years ago at 6/26/19 6:58 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/26/19 6:58 AM
RE: Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
Posts: 131 Join Date: 6/10/19 Recent PostsChris Marti:
How curious that Vipassana Vince turns his gaze toward the inner workings of “subjective experience” and finds–lo and behold!–the categories of Vipassana operating therein. Ditto Soto Susan and Dogen, Mindful Mary and JKZ, and so forth.
I see no reason for debate on this point what-so-ever. Of course we interpret experiences using frames of reference and terminology we know. What else do we have to use? That's how mind works - it experiences "things" and assembles constructs from the concepts and language it has at its disposal. This doesn't mean that the observations and insights people have from meditating in any tradition or under any paradigm aren't real and valid. Does this criticism mean to say that neither vipassana, zen or vajrayana practitioners are capable of legitimate inquiry and insight? Or is the idea as trite as it sounds? Maybe I'm missing something more profound.
The triteness of the debate depends on how you define 'real', 'insight', 'legitimate' and 'valid'.
Chris M, modified 5 Years ago at 6/26/19 8:32 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/26/19 8:32 AM
RE: Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
Posts: 5474 Join Date: 1/26/13 Recent PostsEdward, modified 5 Years ago at 6/26/19 9:39 AM
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RE: Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
Posts: 131 Join Date: 6/10/19 Recent PostsChris Marti:
So how do you define those terms?
Noone wants to hear my epistemological ramblings. Instead, here is Bertrand Russell on William James:
In a chapter on pragmatism and religion he reaps the harvest. “We cannot reject any hypothesis if consequences useful to life flow from it.” “If the hypothesis of God works satisfactorily in the widest sense of the word, it is true.” “We may well believe, on the proofs that religious experience affords, that higher powers exist and are at work to save the world on ideal lines similar to our own.”
I find great intellectual difficulties in this doctrine. It assumes that a belief is “true” when its effects are good. If this definition is to be useful—and if not it is condemned by the pragmatist’s test—we must know (a) what is good, (b) what are the effects of this or that belief, and we must know these things before we can know that anything is “true,” since it is only after we have decided that the effects of a belief are good that we have a right to call it “true.” The result is an incredible complication. Suppose you want to know whether Columbus crossed the Atlantic in 1492. You must not, as other people do, look it up in a book. You must first inquire what are the effects of this belief, and how they differ from the effects of believing that he sailed in 1491 or 1493. This is difficult enough, but it is still more difficult to weigh the effects from an ethical point of view. You may say that obviously 1492 has the best effects, since it gives you higher grades in examinations. But your competitors, who would surpass you if you said 1491 or 1493, may consider your success instead of theirs ethically regrettable. Apart from examinations, I cannot think of any practical effects of the belief except in the case of a historian.
But this is not the end of the trouble. You must hold that your estimate of the consequences of a belief, both ethical and factual, is true, for if it is false your argument for the truth of your belief is mistaken. But to say that your belief as to consequences is true is, according to James, to say that it has good consequences, and this in turn is only true if it has good consequences, and so on ad infinitum. Obviously this won’t do.
There is another difficulty. Suppose I say there was such a person as Columbus, every one will agree that what I say is true. But why is it true? Because of a certain man of flesh and blood who lived 450 years ago—in short, because of the causes of my belief, not because of its effects. With James’s definition, it might happen that “A exists” is true although in fact A does not exist. I have always found that the hypothesis of Santa Claus “works satisfactorily in the widest sense of the word”; therefore “Santa Claus exists” is true, although Santa Claus does not exist. James says (I repeat): “If the hypothesis of God works satisfactorily in the widest sense of the word, it is true.” This simply omits as unimportant the question whether God really is in His heaven; if He is a useful hypothesis, that is enough. God the Architect of the Cosmos is forgotten; all that is remembered is belief in God, and its effects upon the creatures inhabiting our petty planet. No wonder the Pope condemned the pragmatic defence of religion.
We come here to a fundamental difference between James’s religious outlook and that of religious people in the past. James is interested in religion as a human phenomenon, but shows little interest in the objects which religion contemplates. He wants people to be happy, and if belief in God makes them happy let them believe in Him. This, so far, is only benevolence, not philosophy; it becomes philosophy when it is said that if the belief makes them happy it is “true.” To the man who desires an object of worship this is unsatisfactory. He is not concerned to say, “If I believed in God I should be happy”; he is concerned to say, “I believe in God and therefore I am happy.” And when he believes in God, he believes in Him as he believes in the existence of Roosevelt or Churchill or Hitler; God, for him, is an actual Being, not merely a human idea which has good effects. It is this genuine belief that has the good effects, not James’s emasculate substitute. It is obvious that if I say “Hitler exists” I do not mean “the effects of believing that Hitler exists are good.” And to the genuine believer the same is true of God.
James’s doctrine is an attempt to build a superstructure of belief upon a foundation of scepticism, and like all such attempts it is dependent on fallacies. In his case the fallacies spring from an attempt to ignore all extra-human facts. Berkeleian idealism combined with scepticism causes him to substitute belief in God for God, and to pretend that this will do just as well. But this is only a form of the subjectivistic madness which is characteristic of most modern philosophy.
A History of Western Philosophy, 2007 ed., pp. 817-18
Chris M, modified 5 Years ago at 6/26/19 12:19 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/26/19 12:17 PM
RE: Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
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*I* want to hear your epistemological musings, specifically about the meaning of the words I used in my post. They're pertinent to the conversation and to your reply to me, which I assumed had meaning specific to my comments behind it or you wouldn't have said it. I'm not William James and you're not Bertrand Russell. It's me and you talking. If we're going to talk about this stuff it seems to me it would help to actually engage with each other, wouldn't you agree?
Chris M, modified 5 Years ago at 6/26/19 12:30 PM
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RE: Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
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If we were to somehow prove that this foundational aspect of Buddhism (also of many other spiritual traditions) is null and void because human beings can't actually observe through meditation or some other technique "what's really going on" in regard to the mind's creation of subject and object, then there is no reason ever to practice meditation. If we can't ever see the process of how constructs and concepts, of relationships, of categories, of even space and time, are being produced and displayed to us by mind, then there's no point to any of this stuff. If that were proven, then we'd all here be known to be fooling ourselves.
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 6/26/19 12:37 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/26/19 12:31 PM
RE: Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
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Laurel, I’m glad that you took your time to write that. Hopefully he read it at least, even if he doesn’t publish it.
Also very good points from Chris. That criticism was very ”Duh”. There is no way to talk about our experiences without concepts and some kind of framework.
Also very good points from Chris. That criticism was very ”Duh”. There is no way to talk about our experiences without concepts and some kind of framework.
Laurel Carrington, modified 5 Years ago at 6/26/19 12:42 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/26/19 12:42 PM
RE: Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
Posts: 439 Join Date: 4/7/14 Recent PostsLinda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Laurel, I’m glad that you took your time to write that. Hopefully he read it at least, even if he doesn’t publish it.
Also very good points from Chris. That criticism was very ”Duh”. There is no way to talk about our experiences without concepts and some kind of framework.
Also very good points from Chris. That criticism was very ”Duh”. There is no way to talk about our experiences without concepts and some kind of framework.
Thank you, Linda. He eventually approved it, and Glenn Wallis replied saying I’d misunderstood his use of the heuristic, that speaking in generalities works even with a cursory understanding, and even more so with detailed knowledge, functioning as a fractal. Since I haven’t read Adorno in almost 40 years, and since I’m not inclined to plunge into it now, and since the conversation seems to have moved on, I am not posting anything further. But thank you for the kind mention.
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 6/26/19 12:56 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/26/19 12:56 PM
RE: Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
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Haha, I think he just proved your points. It’s obvious that he is just trying to lay a smokescreen of words and namedropping instead of digging into the actual practice. I’d say you won.
Chris M, modified 5 Years ago at 6/26/19 2:23 PM
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RE: Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
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Edward, since we're talking about stuff, you said a few posts up above:
Hell yes, it is. Is it possible to elaborate on the difference, do you think? How would a meditator know they weren't projecting as opposed to recognizing the three characteristics?
I think the difference between recognising vs projecting the 3Cs is pertinent to practice as well as philosophy.
Hell yes, it is. Is it possible to elaborate on the difference, do you think? How would a meditator know they weren't projecting as opposed to recognizing the three characteristics?
Edward, modified 5 Years ago at 6/27/19 9:36 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/27/19 6:13 AM
RE: Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
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The Russell quote shows resorting to Pragmatism can lead you to asserting things you don't want to (Santa exists because that's useful).
Take the following propositions:
1. The President of USA colluded with a foreign state.
2. Climate change is a result of human activity.
3. There are 5 (and only 5) pure land Jhanas
4. Perfect and complete enlightenment = 4th Jhana
5. There is an Unborn, Unoriginated, Uncreated, Unconditioned. If that Unborn, Unoriginated, Uncreated, Unconditioned were not, there could be no escape from this that is born, originated, created, conditioned. But because there is That which is Unborn, Unoriginated, Uncreated, Unconditioned, an escape from this that is born, originated, created, conditioned can be proclaimed.
6. So and so attained 3rd path yesterday.
What criteria do we use to assess their truth/validity/legitimacy/correspondence with reality?
1. ‘Whatever works’ (See Russell)
2. ‘What’s really going on’ (begs the question)
3. Subjective Revelation
4. Consensus of the community
5. Appeal to authority
Take the following propositions:
1. The President of USA colluded with a foreign state.
2. Climate change is a result of human activity.
3. There are 5 (and only 5) pure land Jhanas
4. Perfect and complete enlightenment = 4th Jhana
5. There is an Unborn, Unoriginated, Uncreated, Unconditioned. If that Unborn, Unoriginated, Uncreated, Unconditioned were not, there could be no escape from this that is born, originated, created, conditioned. But because there is That which is Unborn, Unoriginated, Uncreated, Unconditioned, an escape from this that is born, originated, created, conditioned can be proclaimed.
6. So and so attained 3rd path yesterday.
What criteria do we use to assess their truth/validity/legitimacy/correspondence with reality?
1. ‘Whatever works’ (See Russell)
2. ‘What’s really going on’ (begs the question)
3. Subjective Revelation
4. Consensus of the community
5. Appeal to authority
Chris M, modified 5 Years ago at 6/27/19 6:53 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/27/19 6:46 AM
RE: Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
Posts: 5474 Join Date: 1/26/13 Recent PostsWhat criteria do we use to assess their truth/validity/legitimacy/correspondence with reality?
I would, and have, and do, use my personal experience. That's all I have to make the judgments I make about my meditation practice. In the end I can't actually know the inner experience of another person, so they can claim whatever and I can't speak directly to that. Can you describe the color red to a congenitally blind person?
What would you use?
BTW - I don't think you're actually arguing with anything I said. I think you may have created a straw man that hinges on my use of the term "pragmatic." I used it as a name, as nomenclature, not as a decision criteria or as a way to judge the veracity of a claim of meditative attainment. For that, because of the nature of meditation's focus on personal experience that no other human being can know, we have to rely on our own experience of it.
Edward, modified 5 Years ago at 6/27/19 8:26 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/27/19 8:24 AM
RE: Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
Posts: 131 Join Date: 6/10/19 Recent PostsChris Marti:
What criteria do we use to assess their truth/validity/legitimacy/correspondence with reality?
I would, and have, and do, use my personal experience. That's all I have to make the judgments I make about my meditation practice. In the end I can't actually know the inner experience of another person, so they can claim whatever and I can't speak directly to that. Can you describe the color red to a congenitally blind person?
What would you use?
BTW - I don't think you're actually arguing with anything I said. I think you may have created a straw man that hinges on my use of the term "pragmatic." I used it as a name, as nomenclature, not as a decision criteria or as a way to judge the veracity of a claim of meditative attainment. For that, because of the nature of meditation's focus on personal experience that no other human being can know, we have to rely on our own experience of it.
"Postulate 6
Every x-buddhist knows that there is a realm of existence called “direct experience” which is ontologically separable, indeed fundamentally distinct from, the unfortunate human mental milieu containing thoughts, cravings, conceptual proliferation, identity, ideology, social practice, etc., etc."
S, modified 5 Years ago at 6/27/19 10:18 AM
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RE: Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
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Because I rarely have a chance to talk much about Bertrand Russell, I'll say that I don't really feel this popular book is particularly credible. I think it is especially bad as a source text for defining philosophies that Russell himself disagreed with (which is essentially all of them). His treatment of some writers is laughably and purposefully ignorant and mean-spirited (I recall his sections on Nietzsche and Hegel being shallow and ridiculous by any serious reader's standard despite Russell's own former flirtation with Hegelianism). His approach is quite polemical, and he would have benefitted from applying the principle of charity better (assuming that the writers in question had expressed the best version of their arguments that you can come up with, though I don't really think Russell was even that consistently familiar with or well-read in all the work he was trying to summarize). You could argue that the wide popular (but non-philosopher) audience for the book does a public disservice.
Beyond that (and despite his historical importance) I am not sure any of Russell's own work is taken very seriously these days even by Analytic philosophers working in the tradition he helped motivate. With a handful of exceptions such as mentioning On Denoting or vagueness (getting into the work of Michael Dummett and Gareth Evans) or theories of 'anomalous monism' (typically taken as a non-robust, unhelpful, vague theory in the eyes of metaphysicians), I can hardly recall Russell being discussed or read in undergraduate or graduate philosophy classes at Brown (which has a very Analytic department). I don't remember Russell's Principia being mentioned (if it was at all it was offhand) in basic and advanced classes on logic and Gödel's theorems taught by NYU-trained or Harvard-appointed philosophers. Given the incredible volume of writing produced during his lifetime, the fact that Russell is read mostly by non-philosophers (often interested in things like his pacifism or arguments against Christianity) is telling. This is not due to its age or the time period he was writing in; Wittgenstein still finds a way to be studied vigorously, and Frank Ramsey whose output was miniscule in his short lifetime attracts intense engagement.
Anyway, I think Russell fails as an authoritative source for an argument from authority.
Pulling that back around, Bertrand Russell's account of pragmatism is impoverished.
I don't think a good pragmatist would say "just believe what gives you good feelings, whatever you want. Don't believe you're a murderer if that puts your mood down. Don't believe in math when you're an engineer designing a bridge because ignoring it will make your job faster, etc."
I think pragmatism is more encompassing if seen correctly. Good pragmatism gives some credit where it is due to empiricism. If you believe something because you can test it and verify it again and again then you have a pragmatic expectation as to the results of an experiment you conduct (which could be useful—it's at least a little useful).
But I think pragmatism is also importantly different from empiricism. Not all of our forms of knowledge are empirical. Some of it is reasoned out, some of it is intuitive, learned in conversation from sources we don't remember, or arrived at through slowly building reflection with no clear step-by-step shift. I don't think we need to have a full-blown theory of all the ways (or one way) we can gain and verify knowledge. We could argue about rationalism and conceptual analysis and whether a priori thinking is possible or some concepts are innate forever (see: philosophy). It is probably wiser and sufficient to accept that the ways in which we can gain knowledge are heterogeneous. This more general insight is useful because we can rely on it typically even if our particular theories of knowledge and knowledge acquisition are contested and prone to fads.
We gain "useful" knowledge from all kinds of sources. The ability to empirically, test, prove, or otherwise argue something is also useful. Pragmatists care about what knowledge and belief can accomplish. I would argue we have good reason to think we don't really know how knowledge-acquisition works and never will have a theory of all the ways we obtain knowledge.
Finally, the elephant in the discussion is that James here is also talking about "religious experience." He is not talking about "I think my life will be better if I read this Bible thing and try to believe in it" really. He is talking about people having powerful, transformative, crazy, sometimes literally miraculous experiences of God and NDEs and ghost and ancestor encounters and visionary experiences and profound ecstasies that actually motivate a lot of people. Find out that half of Americans believe they've seen a ghost, or check out the scientifically rigorous and Lancet-published work by Dr. Pim van Lommel on cardiac arrest patients who have profound visions during time periods where they have literally no measured brain activity (a big hole in theories that these types of things are just random neuron firings) with strangely universal contents and themes (such as meeting dead loves ones).
I think it is a crazy bias in the small group of people who comprise the Western media and academic materialist intellectual monoculture to assume (racistly and classistly) that their life experiences are representative of human experience elsewhere. Standing on a mountain and feeling elevated and thinking that is the core of spiritual feeling that also motivates an irrational, brown, stupid world to build temples and pray at graves and have superstitions about karma is offensive. There are other people out there who have literally met the Virgin Mary and seen her transmute or produce objects out of nothing. Read Namkhai Norbu's book The Crystal and the Way of Light (by a credible Tibetan teacher) for his incidental reporting of a number of miraculous experiences and weird phenomena encountered in meditation and without.
I think the work of the Stanford anthropologist Dr. Tanya Lurhmann is also pretty cool. She studies religious experiences around the world and experiences of those deemed to suffer from psychosis. I believe she also has a book in which she found that American evangelical Christianity is mostly full of hype but not a lot of actual intense experiences of God or anything too weird when you interview many people (but they are looking for it and wonder if they're the only ones missing out sometimes).
Back to pragmatism. Let's say you get those creepy dreams you have about the friend you haven't seen a long time who then calls you? If you keep having that experience you might start to expect that if you get that really funny feeling that a friend will call you (and then they do) then maybe you could have pragmatic knowledge (a call is more likely) with no good theory of the mechanism for this. You might assume that is impossible or people believe this falsely due to being bad at statistics, but you don't know.
That is a philosophically stronger, and stranger pragmatism; you don't need a complete theory of knowledge and its possibilities to know how to apply and believe the things you believe.
Coming to Buddhism and the pragmatic Dharma movement, what people mean by "pragmatic" is not a mystery. They will tell you, and they write about it.
Pragmatic Dharma seems to be partly a reaction to seemingly non-pragmatic Dharma settings. Meditation groups can be motivated by the desire to form communities, creative endeavors, a love of ritual and tradition, escapism from the world, an imitation of therapeutic settings, and more. They can also be unclearly motivated (individually or collectively). Pragmatic Dharma seems to be about resisting that and putting practice first with the idea that meditation is described in both method and result and that by doing the practice with intensity you will at least get results (hopefully or perhaps the often reported, textually-based but still contentiously defined results). If you want to SCUBA dive you should find people who want to actually SCUBA dive, and you should try to do it correctly and follow the instructions or you will drown (or you can only get as far as holding your breath will take you). There is a practical real core activity of SCUBA diving.
The fact that the texts and teachers themselves quibble is not too surprising not only because we are talking subjective phenomenology but because many of these texts and teachers literally insist and have always insisted that the transformative and amazing results and insights of these practices are somewhat ineffable and can never be put truly to words. But words and conceptual frameworks, applied judiciously to the right people at the right time, can obviously point people towards freedom. Otherwise none of this would be possible, and the Buddha would have been silent. One take I quite like about the idea of cessation or nirvana as a non-causal process is the comparison of it to trying to find a resonance point or to force a system into a division by zero. That's my two cents.
I think ignoring accounts of enlightenment, various mind/life-states, and personal transformations as real and motivating pragmatically of both practices and their results is foolish. I think scripting is a danger, but I don't see any real problem with people using words like any normal human being that they have heard other people use to try to describe rapidly shifting but patterned experiences resulting from these practices. The Buddha didn't just stare at people, even if he maybe did enlighten some dude by showing him a flower. Why would anyone care about Buddhism as just a social construct? Why would people think that "Pragmatic Dharma" teachers are somehow uniquely, dangerously, foolishly verbose and not acknowleding direct experiencing when they frequently admit the words are just pointing to the moon?
Beyond that (and despite his historical importance) I am not sure any of Russell's own work is taken very seriously these days even by Analytic philosophers working in the tradition he helped motivate. With a handful of exceptions such as mentioning On Denoting or vagueness (getting into the work of Michael Dummett and Gareth Evans) or theories of 'anomalous monism' (typically taken as a non-robust, unhelpful, vague theory in the eyes of metaphysicians), I can hardly recall Russell being discussed or read in undergraduate or graduate philosophy classes at Brown (which has a very Analytic department). I don't remember Russell's Principia being mentioned (if it was at all it was offhand) in basic and advanced classes on logic and Gödel's theorems taught by NYU-trained or Harvard-appointed philosophers. Given the incredible volume of writing produced during his lifetime, the fact that Russell is read mostly by non-philosophers (often interested in things like his pacifism or arguments against Christianity) is telling. This is not due to its age or the time period he was writing in; Wittgenstein still finds a way to be studied vigorously, and Frank Ramsey whose output was miniscule in his short lifetime attracts intense engagement.
Anyway, I think Russell fails as an authoritative source for an argument from authority.
Pulling that back around, Bertrand Russell's account of pragmatism is impoverished.
I don't think a good pragmatist would say "just believe what gives you good feelings, whatever you want. Don't believe you're a murderer if that puts your mood down. Don't believe in math when you're an engineer designing a bridge because ignoring it will make your job faster, etc."
I think pragmatism is more encompassing if seen correctly. Good pragmatism gives some credit where it is due to empiricism. If you believe something because you can test it and verify it again and again then you have a pragmatic expectation as to the results of an experiment you conduct (which could be useful—it's at least a little useful).
But I think pragmatism is also importantly different from empiricism. Not all of our forms of knowledge are empirical. Some of it is reasoned out, some of it is intuitive, learned in conversation from sources we don't remember, or arrived at through slowly building reflection with no clear step-by-step shift. I don't think we need to have a full-blown theory of all the ways (or one way) we can gain and verify knowledge. We could argue about rationalism and conceptual analysis and whether a priori thinking is possible or some concepts are innate forever (see: philosophy). It is probably wiser and sufficient to accept that the ways in which we can gain knowledge are heterogeneous. This more general insight is useful because we can rely on it typically even if our particular theories of knowledge and knowledge acquisition are contested and prone to fads.
We gain "useful" knowledge from all kinds of sources. The ability to empirically, test, prove, or otherwise argue something is also useful. Pragmatists care about what knowledge and belief can accomplish. I would argue we have good reason to think we don't really know how knowledge-acquisition works and never will have a theory of all the ways we obtain knowledge.
Finally, the elephant in the discussion is that James here is also talking about "religious experience." He is not talking about "I think my life will be better if I read this Bible thing and try to believe in it" really. He is talking about people having powerful, transformative, crazy, sometimes literally miraculous experiences of God and NDEs and ghost and ancestor encounters and visionary experiences and profound ecstasies that actually motivate a lot of people. Find out that half of Americans believe they've seen a ghost, or check out the scientifically rigorous and Lancet-published work by Dr. Pim van Lommel on cardiac arrest patients who have profound visions during time periods where they have literally no measured brain activity (a big hole in theories that these types of things are just random neuron firings) with strangely universal contents and themes (such as meeting dead loves ones).
I think it is a crazy bias in the small group of people who comprise the Western media and academic materialist intellectual monoculture to assume (racistly and classistly) that their life experiences are representative of human experience elsewhere. Standing on a mountain and feeling elevated and thinking that is the core of spiritual feeling that also motivates an irrational, brown, stupid world to build temples and pray at graves and have superstitions about karma is offensive. There are other people out there who have literally met the Virgin Mary and seen her transmute or produce objects out of nothing. Read Namkhai Norbu's book The Crystal and the Way of Light (by a credible Tibetan teacher) for his incidental reporting of a number of miraculous experiences and weird phenomena encountered in meditation and without.
I think the work of the Stanford anthropologist Dr. Tanya Lurhmann is also pretty cool. She studies religious experiences around the world and experiences of those deemed to suffer from psychosis. I believe she also has a book in which she found that American evangelical Christianity is mostly full of hype but not a lot of actual intense experiences of God or anything too weird when you interview many people (but they are looking for it and wonder if they're the only ones missing out sometimes).
Back to pragmatism. Let's say you get those creepy dreams you have about the friend you haven't seen a long time who then calls you? If you keep having that experience you might start to expect that if you get that really funny feeling that a friend will call you (and then they do) then maybe you could have pragmatic knowledge (a call is more likely) with no good theory of the mechanism for this. You might assume that is impossible or people believe this falsely due to being bad at statistics, but you don't know.
That is a philosophically stronger, and stranger pragmatism; you don't need a complete theory of knowledge and its possibilities to know how to apply and believe the things you believe.
Coming to Buddhism and the pragmatic Dharma movement, what people mean by "pragmatic" is not a mystery. They will tell you, and they write about it.
Pragmatic Dharma seems to be partly a reaction to seemingly non-pragmatic Dharma settings. Meditation groups can be motivated by the desire to form communities, creative endeavors, a love of ritual and tradition, escapism from the world, an imitation of therapeutic settings, and more. They can also be unclearly motivated (individually or collectively). Pragmatic Dharma seems to be about resisting that and putting practice first with the idea that meditation is described in both method and result and that by doing the practice with intensity you will at least get results (hopefully or perhaps the often reported, textually-based but still contentiously defined results). If you want to SCUBA dive you should find people who want to actually SCUBA dive, and you should try to do it correctly and follow the instructions or you will drown (or you can only get as far as holding your breath will take you). There is a practical real core activity of SCUBA diving.
The fact that the texts and teachers themselves quibble is not too surprising not only because we are talking subjective phenomenology but because many of these texts and teachers literally insist and have always insisted that the transformative and amazing results and insights of these practices are somewhat ineffable and can never be put truly to words. But words and conceptual frameworks, applied judiciously to the right people at the right time, can obviously point people towards freedom. Otherwise none of this would be possible, and the Buddha would have been silent. One take I quite like about the idea of cessation or nirvana as a non-causal process is the comparison of it to trying to find a resonance point or to force a system into a division by zero. That's my two cents.
I think ignoring accounts of enlightenment, various mind/life-states, and personal transformations as real and motivating pragmatically of both practices and their results is foolish. I think scripting is a danger, but I don't see any real problem with people using words like any normal human being that they have heard other people use to try to describe rapidly shifting but patterned experiences resulting from these practices. The Buddha didn't just stare at people, even if he maybe did enlighten some dude by showing him a flower. Why would anyone care about Buddhism as just a social construct? Why would people think that "Pragmatic Dharma" teachers are somehow uniquely, dangerously, foolishly verbose and not acknowleding direct experiencing when they frequently admit the words are just pointing to the moon?
Edward, modified 5 Years ago at 6/27/19 10:09 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/27/19 10:07 AM
RE: Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
Posts: 131 Join Date: 6/10/19 Recent Posts
Thanks S. I agree with much of that. (I'll forgive your cheeky opening paragraphs and refrain from spelling out my own background in academic philosophy.)
S, modified 5 Years ago at 6/27/19 10:14 AM
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RE: Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
Posts: 21 Join Date: 6/26/14 Recent PostsChris M, modified 5 Years ago at 6/27/19 5:31 PM
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RE: Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
Posts: 5474 Join Date: 1/26/13 Recent PostsStickman2, modified 5 Years ago at 6/27/19 5:37 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/27/19 5:35 PM
RE: Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
Posts: 375 Join Date: 7/24/17 Recent PostsChris Marti:
Philosopher: knows everything about nothing
Meditator: knows nothing about everything
Meditator: knows nothing about everything
Sooo, who's happiest, that lot or this lot ?
Chris M, modified 5 Years ago at 6/27/19 5:36 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/27/19 5:36 PM
RE: Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
Posts: 5474 Join Date: 1/26/13 Recent PostsStickman2, modified 5 Years ago at 6/27/19 5:38 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/27/19 5:38 PM
RE: Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
Posts: 375 Join Date: 7/24/17 Recent PostsChris Marti:
It depends.
Well, it's how this argument should be decided isn't it ? Issue a questionnaire, tick a few boxes, happiest guy wins.
Chris M, modified 5 Years ago at 6/27/19 5:45 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/27/19 5:45 PM
RE: Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
Posts: 5474 Join Date: 1/26/13 Recent PostsStickman2, modified 5 Years ago at 6/28/19 4:46 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/28/19 4:46 AM
RE: Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
Posts: 375 Join Date: 7/24/17 Recent PostsChris Marti:
What makes you think "happy" has anything to do with it?
Come now, there's no need for the quote marks .
If the pragmatic dharmaticians are happier than the speculamative-not-a buddhists then they are right... in buddhist terms.
In evolutionary terms you just add up the number of offspring on each side.
In lefty political terms you count up the amount of wealth redistributed to the lower orders.
And that's how you figure out the truth.
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 6/28/19 5:22 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/28/19 5:22 AM
RE: Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
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Happy... I had planned to be a mallard in my next life because they seem to be so happy with so little. I may have screwed that up now. Darn.
Chris M, modified 5 Years ago at 6/28/19 7:17 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/28/19 7:04 AM
RE: Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
Posts: 5474 Join Date: 1/26/13 Recent PostsIf the pragmatic dharmaticians are happier than the speculamative-not-a buddhists then they are right... in buddhist terms.
Well, to this meditation practitioner "happy" is just another feeling not to identify with, or fall in love with.
Stickman2, modified 5 Years ago at 6/28/19 3:53 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/28/19 3:53 PM
RE: Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
Posts: 375 Join Date: 7/24/17 Recent PostsLinda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Happy... I had planned to be a mallard in my next life because they seem to be so happy with so little. I may have screwed that up now. Darn.
Ah yes, the freedom of the skies, the cool of the lake, the rough sex.... Did you ever see them do it? It's scary.
Not two, not one, modified 5 Years ago at 6/28/19 4:14 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/28/19 4:14 PM
RE: Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
Posts: 1053 Join Date: 7/13/17 Recent PostsChris Marti:
If the pragmatic dharmaticians are happier than the speculamative-not-a buddhists then they are right... in buddhist terms.
Well, to this meditation practitioner "happy" is just another feeling not to identify with, or fall in love with.
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 6/29/19 3:19 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/29/19 3:19 PM
RE: Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
Posts: 7135 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent PostsStickman2:
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö:
Happy... I had planned to be a mallard in my next life because they seem to be so happy with so little. I may have screwed that up now. Darn.
Ah yes, the freedom of the skies, the cool of the lake, the rough sex.... Did you ever see them do it? It's scary.
Really? I don’t know if I should be relieved now that I may have made it less likely to be reborn as a mallard or disappointed.
Linda ”Polly Ester” Ö, modified 5 Years ago at 6/29/19 3:22 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/29/19 3:22 PM
RE: Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
Posts: 7135 Join Date: 12/8/18 Recent Postscurious:
Chris Marti:
If the pragmatic dharmaticians are happier than the speculamative-not-a buddhists then they are right... in buddhist terms.
Well, to this meditation practitioner "happy" is just another feeling not to identify with, or fall in love with.
Just don’t do the same mistake as I did a decade back. I said out loud that I had given up on happiness and decided that I was going for an interesting life instead. Something heard me, and then - from that point on - I had several years that were very... interesting... and very unhappy.
Dan Jones, modified 5 Years ago at 6/30/19 8:31 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/30/19 6:45 AM
RE: Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
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lol, "bimswaggle"
my go to is "Florence Whetherbottom"
podcast 1 was dope.
Daniel, the stuff you said about the buddha being a meta-ontologist with a pragmatic bent seems orthodox to me. Comparisons to Hume by orthdox buddhist monastics aren't uncommon (Sujato on youtube for an example). The idea that the buddha was ontologically <blank>[1] but a master meta-ontologist seems totally uncontravertial. seems like the best way out might be just quoting early buddhist texts.
to the idea of there being ontology or some theory of the like "existence", dope shit like this . https://suttacentral.net/sn12.15/en/sujato
[EDIT2] so good, I have to quote it here.
much love for the world with it's grasping insiting!
much love for the thread,
much love for the interesting dynamic in that podcast, you have found a really interesting interculotor.
[1] *leaves the room*
my go to is "Florence Whetherbottom"
podcast 1 was dope.
Daniel, the stuff you said about the buddha being a meta-ontologist with a pragmatic bent seems orthodox to me. Comparisons to Hume by orthdox buddhist monastics aren't uncommon (Sujato on youtube for an example). The idea that the buddha was ontologically <blank>[1] but a master meta-ontologist seems totally uncontravertial. seems like the best way out might be just quoting early buddhist texts.
to the idea of there being ontology or some theory of the like "existence", dope shit like this . https://suttacentral.net/sn12.15/en/sujato
[EDIT2] so good, I have to quote it here.
At Sāvatthī. Then Venerable Kaccānagotta went up to the Buddha, bowed, sat down to one side, and said to him:
“Sir, they speak of this thing called ‘right view’. How is right view defined?”
“Kaccāna, this world mostly relies on the dual notions of existence and non-existence. But when you truly see the origin of the world with right understanding, you won’t have the notion of non-existence regarding the world. And when you truly see the cessation of the world with right understanding, you won’t have the notion of existence regarding the world. The world is for the most part shackled to attraction, grasping, and insisting. But if—when it comes to this attraction, grasping, mental fixation, insistence, and underlying tendency—you don’t get attracted, grasp, and commit to the notion ‘my self’, you’ll have no doubt or uncertainty that what arises is just suffering arising, and what ceases is just suffering ceasing. Your knowledge about this is independent of others. This is how right view is defined.
‘All exists’: this is one extreme. ‘All doesn’t exist’: this is the second extreme. Avoiding these two extremes, the Realized One teaches by the middle way: ‘Ignorance is a condition for choices. Choices are a condition for consciousness. … That is how this entire mass of suffering originates. When ignorance fades away and ceases with nothing left over, choices cease. When choices cease, consciousness ceases. … That is how this entire mass of suffering ceases.’”
“Sir, they speak of this thing called ‘right view’. How is right view defined?”
“Kaccāna, this world mostly relies on the dual notions of existence and non-existence. But when you truly see the origin of the world with right understanding, you won’t have the notion of non-existence regarding the world. And when you truly see the cessation of the world with right understanding, you won’t have the notion of existence regarding the world. The world is for the most part shackled to attraction, grasping, and insisting. But if—when it comes to this attraction, grasping, mental fixation, insistence, and underlying tendency—you don’t get attracted, grasp, and commit to the notion ‘my self’, you’ll have no doubt or uncertainty that what arises is just suffering arising, and what ceases is just suffering ceasing. Your knowledge about this is independent of others. This is how right view is defined.
‘All exists’: this is one extreme. ‘All doesn’t exist’: this is the second extreme. Avoiding these two extremes, the Realized One teaches by the middle way: ‘Ignorance is a condition for choices. Choices are a condition for consciousness. … That is how this entire mass of suffering originates. When ignorance fades away and ceases with nothing left over, choices cease. When choices cease, consciousness ceases. … That is how this entire mass of suffering ceases.’”
much love for the world with it's grasping insiting!
much love for the thread,
much love for the interesting dynamic in that podcast, you have found a really interesting interculotor.
[1] *leaves the room*
Stickman2, modified 5 Years ago at 7/1/19 10:11 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 7/1/19 10:11 AM
RE: Daniel Ingram on the Imperfect Buddha Podcast: new terrain!
Posts: 375 Join Date: 7/24/17 Recent PostsChris Marti:
If the pragmatic dharmaticians are happier than the speculamative-not-a buddhists then they are right... in buddhist terms.
Well, to this meditation practitioner "happy" is just another feeling not to identify with, or fall in love with.