2023-2024 Second Semester Midterms Flashcards
What is the role of creativity and experience in Indian Buddhism?
Buddhists believe that Nirvana and enlightenment is achieved through spontaneity and can only be learned through experience, not through teachings of any kind, as shown by Siddhartha. Creativity is important as it opens your mind and allows for the flow of ideas and spontaneity.
What does the following mean: “The anxiety-laden problem of what will happen to me when I dies, is, after all, like asking what happens to my fist when I open my hand, or where my lap goes when I stand up…Suffering alone exists, none who suffer; The deed there is, but no doer thereof; Nirvana is, but no one seeking it; The Path there is, but none who travel it.”
This quote, extracted from Watts, has several meanings. It relates to maya, or the categorization of things. My fist is classifies as a noun, or a thing. However, when I open my hand, it just disappears. What happened to it? It’s one of the thinner lines of categorization, and why Buddhism rejects maya. It also mentions the theme of spontaneity, an important aspect of Buddhism. The only way to attain Nirvana and enlightenment is to stop grasping and reaching for it.
How does Watts portray Buddhism’s approach to categorization?
Maya, meaning magic or illusion, is the classification and categorising of a world that does not fit into boxes—a false sort of measurement. There is constant change and interconnections in the world, a wholeness that such ‘names and forms’ miss (nature doesn’t make the distinctions of ‘facts and events’). Buddhism rejects such boundaries and the small, biased projections of our assumed objectifications onto reality (e.g. ‘animal’ vs ‘vegetable’), such dualities of ‘this object’ and ‘that object’ and the rigid, static reality it suggests.
What’s happening in this quote: “he saw life, that what is alive, the indestructible, the Brahman in each of their passions, each of their acts. Worthy of love and admiration were these people in their blind loyalty, their blind strength and tenacity. They lacked nothing, there was nothing the knowledgeable one, the thinker, had to put him above them except for one little thing, a single, tiny, small thing: the consciousness, the conscious thought of the oneness of all life. And Siddhartha even doubted in many an hour, whether this knowledge, this thought was to be valued thus highly, whether it might not also perhaps be a childish idea of…the thinking and childlike people. In all other respects, the worldly people were of equal rank to the wise men, were often far superior to them, just as animals too can, after all, in some moments, seem to be superior to humans in their tough, unrelenting performance of what is necessary.”
This is a connection between Siddhartha and the cynics. The point about ‘child-like people’ can be compared to the cynics’ motto of ‘live like a dog’. This is shown in the last part, ‘the worldly people were of equal rank to the wise men, were often far superior to them, just as animals too can, after all, in some moments, seem to be superior to humans in their tough, unrelenting performance of what is necessary.’
The Tao Te Ching describes the tao, in part, as an indescribable boundless thing- nothing that ‘gives rise’ to the world through not-doing (wu-wei). What does this mean?
One of the central points of Tao is wu-wei, which means “non-action”.
This means that some things are revealed by way of what it is not, like art, music, or peripheral
vision. Sometimes, in order to fully take in something, one just has to drift along without any
goals and trust the process, which is the Tao’s principle, spontaneity. It is a path/way-of-being that embraces spontaneity, coming to be through not-making (becoming), liberation from set categories, overcoming duality, and attunement with the world.
“For it is really impossible to appreciate what is meant by the Tao without becoming, in a rather special sense, stupid. So long as the conscious intellect is frantically trying to clutch the world in its net of abstractions, and to insist that life be bound and fitted to its rigid categories, the mood of Taoism will remain incomprehensible; and the intellect will wear itself out.” What does this mean?
This quote refers to maya and the spontaneity of Buddhism and Taoism. Both Buddhism and Taoism believe that maya, or the categorization of words and objects, limits spontaneity and creates small, biased projections of our assumed objectifications onto reality (e.g. ‘animal’ vs ‘vegetable’), such dualities of ‘this object’ and ‘that object’ and the rigid, static reality it suggests. It also suggests that spontaneity and ‘letting go’ is needed in order to understand and comprehend the mood of the Tao, much like the un-grasping of desires is needed to achieve enlightenment in Buddhism (such as in Siddhartha).
What are common themes in the Zen?
Some of the common themes in Zen is experience and ‘non-duality’; Zen Buddhism values experience, much like in Indian Buddhism. Non-duality is also a central part of Zen, as they believe that there is no inherent separation between self and non-self, thing and non-thing, potato and non-potato, etc. They believe everything arises mutually, such as in Siddhartha, when the stone, the river, and the Buddha are all the same; or in quantum theory, when particles can be both here and not here at once.
Why might Western approaches struggle with the following?: “When everyone recognizes beauty as beautiful, there is already ugliness; When everyone recognizes goodness as good, there is already evil. ‘To be’ and ‘not to be’ arise mutually; difficult and easy are mutually realized; long and short are mutually contrasted; high and low are mutually posited…before and after are in mutual sequence.”
Western approaches typically favor a rigid duality between things: good and evil, beauty and ugliness, everything is seen as black and white. In eastern philosophies such as Buddhism and Taoism, however, they believe that there is no inherent separation between self and non-self, thing and non-thing, potato and non-potato, etc. For example, in Siddhartha, the stone, the river, and the Buddha are all the same; or in quantum theory, particles can be both here and not here at once.
What does Job get angry about? How does his god respond?
In the book of Job, God and the devil makes a bet about Job, leading God to make Job’s life miserable. He killed Job’s family, took away all of his property, made him suffer with disease, and generally wasn’t very nice. Job then gets angry and condemns his God (understandably), and God responds by posing a series of existential questions to Job to which he does not know the answer. The conclusion, which may be inferred, is that ‘ If justice exists, it does so in a way inconceivable to humanity (Hume 73)’.
In Ecclesiastes, Koheleth thinks that there is no transcendence and only cosmic meaninglessness, dismissing “material accomplishments to a dismissal of even wisdom and truth…‘and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun…as it happeneth to the fool, so it happeneth even to me’”. What do we do about it?
Koheleth’s beliefs are similar to those of the Stoics, Epicureans, and even the Cynics. Like the Stoics and Epicureans (and even Freud, really), he believes that there is no true value or cure that solves life’s problems, and instead, we should all ‘rejoice, and do good in his life’. In his quote ‘as it happeneth to the fool, so it happeneth even to me’, he sounds like the cynics, who encourage everyone to ‘live like a dog’ and reject the rules of society.
Give at least four different arguments Hume makes against the plausibility of miracles.
- It may just be that humans don’t understand what is happening – Humans are very ignorant creatures. Whatever we don’t know the explanation for, we deem it a miracle, but there might be a perfectly valid scientific explanation behind it that we don’t know yet.
- Human reason discourages miracles, but they also like the emotions that come with it – Emotions that come from the discovery of a miracles, such as surprise or wonder, are positive emotions, and the human body often yearns to experience it.
- The examples of miracles are all ancient, when people didn’t have many scientific explanations – Most of our examples of miracles come from the ancient days, when we didn’t have so many scientific discoveries or explanations.
- There is always defeating opposition – The opposition of a miracle is always stronger than the defensive.
According to ‘Epicurus’, what are the limitations of our knowledge about god(s)?
According to ‘Epicurus’, he believes that when we infer any cause form an effect, we must proportion the one to the other. For example, when there is lightning, the only thing we can say for sure is that ‘the thing that caused the lightning is strong enough to cause lightning’. It is logically impossible for us to say anything else, because we cannot know about anything else. We also cannot infer new effects from this inferred cause. For example, ‘the thing that is strong enough to cause lighting is humanoid, lives in the sky, and is also omnipotent.’ The only thing we can infer is that the cause possesses enough force to cause the effect.
What are some concerns if society stops believing in god(s), and how does ‘Epicurus’ respond?
One of the concerns if society stops believing in god(s) is that people will start doing bad things because they will not have anything to fear from doing so. However, religion isn’t the only reason people don’t do bad things; we also have conscience and law to keep us in check.
What does Freud think we all long for? Why?
Freud believes that we all need to fell ‘at home; because we all have a fragile psyche that is grounded in childhood issues. That is, infantile.
What are his three main reasons for humans creating gods?
The three reasons are:
1. The intensity of the belief in Providence derives from the terror and helplessness felt by the child
2. To explain and ‘be in control of’ natural disasters
3. Morality
What are the three main coping mechanisms Freud suggests? What is his ‘cure’?
Freud’s three coping mechanisms are religion, culture and civilization. His ‘cure’ is that there is no ultimate ‘cure’…one could do good and be happy, but ultimately the world is a tough and painful place.
