Truth never fully shows its face.

[mazHur]

life is a mad man's dream and nothing else.
all you see around is 'maya' (hindi) ---deception!

here is a link to Maya in hinduism

http://books.google.com.pk/books?id=...sult#PPA234,M1

[The Atheist]

Why don't you believe in reincarnation? How do you know that your character is not exactly the same as someone else before you? It is not your consciousness that transcends, it is merely your character. Besides, with billions of people alive or dead, why would it be so odd to assume that there could have been someone before you with your personality (in deep levels, not in such that one would be graded [b]{edit}[/] by pure coincidence?

I find the premise just too silly for words.

Given that humanity started with a mere handful of specimens, where did the 6,500,000,000 "souls" around now come from?

How do these "souls" exist?

So far, every thing discovered has a materialist explanation which seems to fit the facts. Consciousness, character, soul, being, ego, whatever term you pick can be explained by the neurons and chemicals at work in the human brain, while no explanation outside of supernatural ones can allow for non-materialistic existence.

In half a century, I've found nothing even remotely likely to come under the heading of supernatural, so I'm comfortable in dismissing it.

Lovely thought, but deeply unsatisfying once broken down.

And what with life not being an illusion: sure it's not an illusion. What is an illusion is everything contained in life. "Je pense donc je suis!" I think therefore I am. The only thing we are absolutely certain of is that we are thinking (which is a demonstration of life) therefore life must be existent! But that does not necessarily mean that pruning a tree is reality...

I said a few weeks back that if Descartes had had the ability to see thought processes happening on an MRI machine, he may have thought differently. Seriously, the entire problem breaks down into a simple choice - is reality real or illusory? The latter leaves only one escape, solipsism. It made an ok movie, but very poor reality.

The demands by would-be solipsists and philosphers in love with Plato and Descartes to provide "proof" of reality, I find quite absurd in a world where fact is far more interesting, exciting and bizarre than any fantasy could ever be. Take dark matter/energy for example. The whole thing is far stranger than any science fiction, yet it appears to be real. Once CERN is online and starts to answer these questions, I harbour hope that philosophers will finally lay down their books and pick up a microscope. Squirming over what constitutes reality in the face of understanding the origin of the entire universe would be simply denying reality, which is different again.

life is a mad man's dream and nothing else.
all you see around is 'maya' (hindi) ---deception!

Yes; those kind of thoughts are very useful if you happen to be starving and 500lb of raw beef is walking past you which you can't eat!

[NikolaiI]

No, I'm sorry, but you have it completely wrong. Start with the basics at Wikipedia. Gautama Buddha was a real person who died a human death. Buddha has some god-like traits [apparently], but he is certainly not a god. Reincarnation is something else I don't believe in, but it has no relationship to any god - Buddhism is a personal belief system revolving around human life and spiritual growth and reincarnation; no gods.

What do you think is Amitabha Buddha, the Buddha of Infinite Light?
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amitabha)

[The Atheist]

What do you think is Amitabha Buddha, the Buddha of Infinite Light?

I understand all that perfectly, but it's still not a deity. I think you're assuming that supernatural belief automatically leads to god, which isn't the case.

[NikolaiI]

I understand all that perfectly, but it's still not a deity. I think you're assuming that supernatural belief automatically leads to god, which isn't the case.

I didn't intend to imply that.

Perhaps you are thinking Buddhists are something they're not? Afterall, the only ones you know are Australian. Tibetan Buddhists are different...actually all are unique. No, not all Buddhists might ever use the word God and actively try to establish connections between the faiths of different religions. Yes, some do. When I spoke of the relation to Buddha and God, it was my own interpretation, and I did not speak for anyone else, certainly not for all Buddhists. I am well read in many different Buddhist literatures, though I am not experienced at debate. Yet I will still try to communicate with you.
There is a great deal of Buddhism of which it seems you are not aware. Much of it is actually supposed to be secret, or confidential. Ahi and mahamudra would fall in this category.

Anyway-- doesn't atheism generally exclude any kind of supernatural? Or would that be naturalist? It just shocked me that you said that Buddhists were atheists, but I guess you will have to answer whether you mean naturalist or not.

http://www.tbsn.org/english2/article.php?id=222

There is a great deal of information I've read that indicates spiritual worlds in Buddhism. I've heard Buddhist lamas say that there are countless bodhisattvas. I am not a teacher but just an interested person. My opinion is that Buddhists are not atheists that happen to use Buddhist ontology, but they are Buddhists. If anything, Buddhist are about ten times closer to polytheism than atheism. A buddha is considered omniscient, and there are infinite Buddhas. Eh? I look forward to your response.

[Mr. Vandemar]

Atheism is defined as the belief that there are no gods. If we were speaking strictly denotatively, Buddhism would fit under the category of "atheist". However, connotatively, atheism tends to be used for "lack of spirituality". I think the two of you are using the two different meanings.

Enlightened Ones are not gods. How could a man become a god? They don't. You cannot pray to Buddha, you cannot speak to Buddha after he died. This is the essential difference between the buddhas and gods.

Also, you don't idolize the Buddha. You use his teachings and his example to further yourself on the path to enlightenment.

[The Atheist]

Perhaps you are thinking Buddhists are something they're not? Afterall, the only ones you know are Australian.

Actually, I don't know any Australian ones. I know two NZ Buddhists, while the rest are a mix of Chinese, Tibetan and Nepali.

Anyway-- doesn't atheism generally exclude any kind of supernatural?

Not in any way at all. Atheism simply means no belief in god/s. Buddhists can be atheist, spiritualists often are and even some Wiccans describe themselves [incorrectly, in my opinion] as atheist. Atheism describes no other philosophy or trait.

Or would that be naturalist? It just shocked me that you said that Buddhists were atheists, but I guess you will have to answer whether you mean naturalist or not.

The best term to describe lack of all supernatural beliefs is "rationalist". Naturalist works as well, but it has a slightly ambiguous meaning, so I tend to leave it out - it doesn't have widespread usage anyway.

There is a great deal of information I've read that indicates spiritual worlds in Buddhism. I've heard Buddhist lamas say that there are countless bodhisattvas. I am not a teacher but just an interested person. My opinion is that Buddhists are not atheists that happen to use Buddhist ontology, but they are Buddhists. If anything, Buddhist are about ten times closer to polytheism than atheism. A buddha is considered omniscient, and there are infinite Buddhas. Eh? I look forward to your response.

Hopefully, we've got all that sorted out now. I agree that Buddhists have lots of supernatural beliefs, but none of them that I'm aware of class Buddha as any kind of god.

Atheism is defined as the belief that there are no gods. If we were speaking strictly denotatively, Buddhism would fit under the category of "atheist". However, connotatively, atheism tends to be used for "lack of spirituality". I think the two of you are using the two different meanings.

See above - that's a dangerous assumption, because I do know many atheists who have all sorts of supernatural & paranormal beliefs. This is actually the main reason I use the "atheist" tag for myself, because there are so many incorrect descrptions of what atheism actually is.

Enlightened Ones are not gods. How could a man become a god? They don't. You cannot pray to Buddha, you cannot speak to Buddha after he died. This is the essential difference between the buddhas and gods.

Also, you don't idolize the Buddha. You use his teachings and his example to further yourself on the path to enlightenment.

Spot on!

[NikolaiI]

Life is not a illusion. Life is. And it is what it is every minute, every hour, every day, every week, month and year for every one of us. To prune a tree, kiss your baby, take the bus to work, read Shakespeare, repair a motor, is to prove life real.

What is an illusion is to demand of life that it has some ultimate meaning that one can discover. Or perhaps and more properly speaking, to ask it is a delusion.

Yes, these things are all real. Apparently. But in actuality everything in life is a shadow of its ideal. Would you say it is illusion to demand an ultimate meaning if there is one? The question of whether there is meaning or not indicates to me that there is meaning, that it is quite obvious, only not to us: the existence of confusion tells me that ideally, there is not confusion; the existence of negative opposites of ideal values tells me that the ideal is how it should be. If there is suffering, then there should be peace.

"Life is illusion" means that we are under illusive, delusive energy, thinking that we are this body, mainly. It says in the Vedas that we are born into separateness when we long on for sense gratification, but actually this separateness is an illusion: the true nature is peace or moskha. Thus there is "waking up" from the separateness. In Buddhism this is realizing thusness, or buddha nature, in Hinduism, this is realizing our position as servants of the Whole, the Supreme, God.

Yes; those kind of thoughts are very useful if you happen to be starving and 500lb of raw beef is walking past you which you can't eat!

This is an interesting crack-- it has actually been calculated that if we stopped butchering and eating cows, there would be enough grain to feed the whole world.

Atheism is defined as the belief that there are no gods. If we were speaking strictly denotatively, Buddhism would fit under the category of "atheist". However, connotatively, atheism tends to be used for "lack of spirituality". I think the two of you are using the two different meanings.

Enlightened Ones are not gods. How could a man become a god? They don't. You cannot pray to Buddha, you cannot speak to Buddha after he died. This is the essential difference between the buddhas and gods.

Also, you don't idolize the Buddha. You use his teachings and his example to further yourself on the path to enlightenment.

Buddhists do believe in deities.

Although http://www.khandro.net/deities.htm
says that

There is another important difference between Buddhist deities and mythological gods or goddesses. The latter are, or were once, considered real -- described as motivated by jealousy, power and other appetites and not very different from physical creatures such as people. The deities of Buddhism are ultimately regarded as manifestations of Emptiness. Some practitioners eventually abandon deity devotion as a method for attaining an enlightened state when it has outlived its utility.

the deities are not real, yet in the songs of various masters and yogis, coming to my mind especially, of Jetsun Milarepa, they are spoken to as literally existing. This is a very confidential knowledge of tantra. And this is not a tantra of sex at all. It is a form of Buddhism where you are supposed to learn enlightenment from a master, who has embodied the buddha body in different ways.

I have taken this one step further in saying that these deities are real. And in fact there are many stories where they are considered real.

Buddhism is not atheistic, polytheistic, pantheistic or deistic. It is not necessarily one of these, and the focus in the pursuit of understanding Buddhism should not be trying to assign one of these such labels to it. Buddhism is far more sacred than to merit such rough handling.

Now I am merely presenting one view of it, which shouldn't be discarded so carelessly, nor should you assume I am unfamiliar with some idea or other.

Now, the idea of mine is simply that Buddha is, in a way, a relative term, like God. Buddha is teacher, the ideal teacher and the perfect person. Buddha has embodied all the perfect qualities. Now how do we know of anything? Through its relation to us, and especially to our mind and soul, thus it is relative. We can know Buddhas and deities through prayers, through artwork, through meditation and through surrender, as well as through hearing and through chanting, as well as Mandalas and other practices which I am insufficiently versed in. In some instances the role of teacher is of stressed importance, in order to transmit the teachings. The website I linked to says that Buddhas are a manifestation of emptiness. But what does form mean? This is when we start to inquire as to what reality is, the reality of ourselves and the reality of spiritual and material natures. Form is emptiness, and yet form is also Buddha nature, which is emptiness. The term of Buddha is a relative one: Buddha can mean a teacher, a person, or it can mean the complete whole, or a greater part of it; of which we are a part, and, of which we are made. This is why we are part of Buddha and Buddha is part of us, the same as we are part of God and God is part of us. To say that Buddha is like God is rebelled against, but it is dismissed before any part of this wonderful, confidential truth is grasped.

I hope I haven't wandered off-topic too far, we will again come back to the question of truth. And I am interested to see what the other user who said God is Absolute Truth is thinking now...I wanted to say I agree with that statement. It is a statement enjoined in the Bhagavad-Gita. Hopefully I can help explain this wonderful concept. God is the source, from which all other shades and forms proceed.

[jgweed]

"Yes, these things are all real. Apparently. But in actuality everything in life is a shadow of its ideal. Would you say it is illusion to demand an ultimate meaning if there is one? The question of whether there is meaning or not indicates to me that there is meaning, that it is quite obvious, only not to us: the existence of confusion tells me that ideally, there is not confusion; the existence of negative opposites of ideal values tells me that the ideal is how it should be. If there is suffering, then there should be peace."

It is a strange philosophical argument to say there are now somehow TWO realities, one of which is purported to be the shadow of the other, and one of which is something called an ideal reality. It is readily admitted, because obvious, that we live in a world in which things are real, but to then posit yet another world, which we are told we cannot know except we are told it is more perfect than the world in which we live, is to make a long speculative leap.

The world can only be called an illusion if it is an illusion of something else, and we know what that something else is. I would suggest that if that “other reality” is unknowable, that it makes no sense to call our reality an illusion.

What are the warrants for the existence of this other reality? One argument is that because we look for a meaning beyond reality, that it must therefore exist. And if I look for a triangle with four sides, must it exist? If humans are deluded by appearances, one could argue at the same time that looking for a meaning beyond reality is not also an illusion.
A second argument that the existence of confusion suggests there is a state of NONconfusion seems to rely on the theory of opposites. But opposites only exist in the apparent world of illusion, so why is opposition any less of an illusion than anything else; could we not be confused about the necessity of oppositions? For example, it is argued, “the existence of negative opposites of ideal values tells me that the ideal is how it should be.” Now if we cannot know the meaning beyond reality, we can only derive the positive as well as the negative opposites from the world we CAN know, and the meaning beyond reality simply does not help us at all, and do we not look to the actual world to clarify our state of confusion?

Neither of these arguments, as I understand them, seem to warrant the conclusion that there is an ideal world which we cannot know, and a world which is only illusion, or an imperfect copy of it.

[NikolaiI]

Okay, so first of all, I didn't say that everything is illusion, nor did I say that there is one reality and then another. If we are in illusion, then we are actually in reality but we do not know what this reality is.

Secondly, I am trying to explain the wordless or unwordable, the truth beyond words. It is, of course, subjective experience. But it is experience, rather than me attempting at speculation; I am trying to describe something which I have felt, contemplated, and feel as the most important thing my being has ever known. That is the nature of a world beyond this world: it is on a different level, only in the sense that you know it is true, but somehow true on a different level and completely separated from this one. That is why it is called crossing over (to the other shore).

I just wanted you to know that I am attempting this in good faith, and not surrendering to any untruth myself, nor asking anyone else to go against what they think is true. I am not saying that one should surrender to mental activities, nor am I making any judgment about mental or physical activities, platforms, or consciousnesses. But philosophically, there is a truth which is beyond our normal conceptions.

Anyway, I'll write more later, depending on what you reply...