Mike,
It is appropriate to look at a man-made object or symbol and ask “What is this thing’s meaning or purpose?” It makes sense to ask this question about a chair, a poem or a computer because these things were conceived of and created my people. That’s where their meaning or purpose came from. When you ask this question about a blade of grass, the Pacific Ocean or a rock, no answer is possible. You can describe how these things interact with their environment or the benefit we derive from them but that’s not the same as a purpose. To ask what purpose these things have is a loaded question. The question itself implies that a supreme being create them for a purpose. Chuck From: [email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of mike brown Sent: Saturday, July 05, 2008 2:01 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Zen] Dear Bill Even if it were possible to trace every event/phenonema right back to the Big Bang - a belief in God is neither required nor a logical result of doing so. To a Buddhist, conceptual thinking in relation to phenonema is transcended and a more material, empirical method can be employed (zazen springs to mind in this sense). If you take a look around the room where you are now you`ll see lots of phenonema (actually, everything you see is phenonema). Same with all your senses. Can you give meaning to all you see, hear, touch etc? Does the feel of your bum on the seat have meaning? Does the taste of your last cigarette/meal/drink have meaning? Does the sound of the air-conditioner have meaning? You probably wouldn`t even notice these small (insignificant?) sensations unless they were pointed out because, quite frankly, we`d go insane if we noticed all thse things and attached meanings to them. However, the more noticeable phenonema we tend to give meanings to: a faimily member dies on Christmas Day, a comet is visible on your child`s birthday etc. Again, a theist will colour these (selected) events with a supernatural twist, but in Buddhism they are all `just` events. We can`t call it "senseless stupidity" because that judges the events too subjectively. Even less so are they "unconnected". This is what interdependent origination is trying to point out. To give every phenonema a meaning doesn`t make sense because each phenonema is conditioned and interconnected in an infinite number of ways. According to Buddhism, you can`t take one event and give it some divine/supernatural meaning (although we try) and isolate it from a preceding conditional event. All lines drawn this way are purely arbitary and just a convenient way to label the meaningless `meaningful`. This doesn`t result in cold detachment, but gives the observer/experiencer of phenonema a better sense of equaninimity. After all, Buddhism isn`t interested in metaphysical explainations, but in ending suffering only. Mike. ----- Original Message ---- From: Al <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [email protected] Sent: Thursday, 3 July, 2008 7:15:53 PM Subject: Re: [Zen] Dear Bill From: mike brown >to give any phenonema a sense of purpose would require giving that phenonema a sense of purpose right back to the Big Bang. So there. > Which is exactly what a belief in God means. You are saying that in the Buddhist concept it is all just senseless stupidity and mindless unconnected events? _____ Not happy with your email address? Get the one you really want <http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/ymail/new.html> - millions of new email addresses available now at Yahoo! <http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/ymail/new.html>
