The Buddha’s bluff
Suffering
signals system’s malfunction Bodhangkur Was the Buddha bluffing….. 1. When he
claimed that suffering (i.e. dukkha1,2)
was caused by impermanence (i.e. annica)? 3 2. When he
claimed that suffering was caused by desire? 3. When he
claimed that suffering was caused by the intoxicants, such as greed, hatred
and delusion?4 4. That
suffering was caused by birth, old age, sickness and death? 5. That
suffering was caused because life lacked an eternal essence (or intrinsic
nature, i.e. anatta)?5 Of course the Buddha was bluffing.6 Simple discrete observation indicates
that suffering (as in personal distress) results not from the above as such
but from adverse relative conditions,7 that is to say, from
conditions that impede personal survival.8 But the Buddha’s bluff was a good yarn,
good enough to satisfy the knowledge and salvation needs of a primitive age
and of a selection9 naive and ignorant people.10 And karma?11
Another bluff borrowed from the wild philosophical speculations that are the
Upanishads. And rebirth?12 Another bluff
borrowed from the Upanishads And Nirvana.13 Yet another
bluff invented to offer closure, i.e. a peaceful ending to, hence salvation for
the distressed. © 2018 Victor Langheld, alias Bodhangkur |
1. What the Pali term dukkha
means is anyone’s guess. It appears to cover all experiences from
unpleasantness to misery. 2. He claimed, falsely, with the Upanishads, that only permanence
(to wit abiding hence intrinsic nature) could offer sukkah, i.e. pleasure and so
on. 3. The causes of suffering the Buddha gives are
superficial, hence obvious to the simple folk he hoped to attract to his
salvation cult. 4. Like all intoxicants, such as alcohol and drugs, the
Buddhist intoxicants distract attention (i.e. mindfulness) from other causes
of suffering, such as impermanence and the fundamental emptiness of
phenomena. The Buddha early discovered, with many intelligent people, that
biological life is an absurdity, hence sorrowful to endure. To distract from
that pain he recommended meditation practices that produced mild to severe
coma states (i.e. the Jhanas). 5. In short that life was empty (Sanskrit: sunja) of an abiding substance. If the Sanskrit
term sunja is translated as absurd
rather than empty then the sorrowfulness of life resulting from its absurdity
is easily understood. Nagarjuna, the Brahmin
masquerading as a Mahayana Buddhist, clearly understood sunja
to mean absurd since he goes to endless lengths to demonstrate the absurdity
of all Buddhist dharmas. See: Nagarjuna 6. He wasn’t the only one bluffing. So were the
inventors of the Upanishads, Samkya Yoga, Jainism and so on in India and numerous other
philosophical and psychological entrepreneurs in Persia, Greece, Israel and
China. To this day no one knows the source of life and its purpose, if any.
Since this lack of knowledge, this knowledge black hole is painful to most
humans, science and religious fiction writers (such as Darwin and Moses)
oblige by bluffing it out with fanciful explanations that distract and
satisfy the naïve. 7. From transient conditional arising. 8. The Buddha didn’t have a clue as to the fundamental
(or ground function) cause of personal suffering. Suffering arises as one
part of a binary Guide & Control mechanism that serves to help a
bio-system adapt to adverse conditions and upgrade its capacity for self-regulation
and so its survival. 9. Those who would be caste free, for instance mainly
the urban poor. With the decay of urban centres between 400 and 7ooAD
Buddhism began its terminal decline. Notwithstanding the invention of the
Mahayana bluff. 10. Better a bluff (i.e. a good yarn = sutra, to wit, a placebo) that satisfies an
immediate need rather than no yarn that leaves one in a painful limbo. His
bluff was akin to that used by parents who give their child a phoney answer
because the either don’t know the answer or the child is too immature to cope
with the answer. 11. Basically meaning ‘You get what you deserve!’, ‘As
you sow, so shall you reap!’ This general and vague idea first popped up out of
the blue in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, approx.
800BC The off-the cuff notion of Karma
was then developed by politically minded Brahmins into a full blown ‘TRUTH’
that purported to explain the injustice (or justice) of life, thus operating
as a useful fiction. Though a case
could be made for residual karmic effects in this life, karmic effects beyond
lives has never been reliably demonstrated, specifically by evolutionists.
But as non sequitur Karma makes for a comforting belief. 12. Rebirth! Another figment of human imagination, to
wit, a red herring, that purports to explain things as they are and, in
particular, that gives legitimacy to Tibetan shamans, including the Dalai
Lama, to acquire power and wealth. (Endless) Rebirth is intended to take the
sting out of the realisation of the absurdity (i.e. emptiness) of life. 13. Nirvana, just
another myth as bluff/distraction and the ultimate Buddhist red herring.
During his 40 year teaching career the Shakyamuni, to wit, Buddha, never once defined
the term Nirvana. Indeed, the notion of Nirvana was a very
late add-on since it is not crucial to achieving release from suffering (to
wit, Samsara) and which was the Buddha’s stated goal. |