Brahman versus Brain(man)

[waechter418]

A few days ago i discovered in "ilovephilosophy" the following text by Don Schneider - who graciously agreed to share this flower with us.
Thank you Brother! (hope you like the title grown in my garden:)

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In the conventional Western paradigm, consciousness is an epiphenomenon of matter in the form of a human/animal brain. In the Eastern metaphysical schools based upon the Upanishads (most saliently within the Hinduism school of Advaita Vedānta and within schools of Mahayana Buddhism (such as Zen and Yogacara), Consciousness (“Brahman” in Hindu terminology) is the fundamental ground of existence which cannot be further sublated. All is a manifestation of Consciousness just as dream characters and ambience are manifestations of brains as mental processes. Thus, matter is an epiphenomenon of consciousness as opposed to the visa versa view of Western materialism.

[kFoyauextlH]

Yeah. I think so. I think material reality is just a story we are told this moment.

[thetrizzard]

A few days ago i discovered in "ilovephilosophy" the following text by Don Schneider - who graciously agreed to share this flower with us.
Thank you Brother! (hope you like the title grown in my garden:)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the conventional Western paradigm, consciousness is an epiphenomenon of matter in the form of a human/animal brain. In the Eastern metaphysical schools based upon the Upanishads (most saliently within the Hinduism school of Advaita Vedānta and within schools of Mahayana Buddhism (such as Zen and Yogacara), Consciousness (“Brahman” in Hindu terminology) is the fundamental ground of existence which cannot be further sublated. All is a manifestation of Consciousness just as dream characters and ambience are manifestations of brains as mental processes. Thus, matter is an epiphenomenon of consciousness as opposed to the visa versa view of Western materialism.


This is not actually the case in Mahayana Buddhism / Zen. Fundamental to Buddhist thought is 'cause and effect' and it sees consciousness as an 'effect' of skandhas, consciousness being the final
skandha (although each causes the next in a cyclical fashion); there are 5 in total and each can be broken down into further categories or constituent parts

http://www.buddhistdoor.com/OldWeb/bdoor/archive/nutshell/teach11.htm

Also in Buddhism is the teaching of 'dependent origination', essentially this teaches that nothing in itself (including consciousness) has 'self-nature', everything is interdependent, thus consciousness cannot be deemed the origin of itself.

This is expressed in the famous Buddhist saying 'form is emptiness and emptiness is form'

[Socrates]

Some albeit vague overviews of the arguments for Panpsychism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panpsychism?wprov=sfsi1

[kFoyauextlH]

Really enjoying these posts!

[thetrizzard]

Reality is not a manifestation of consciousness and therefore a dream....Buddhist merely states that as things don't have a self-nature (anatman), as all forms are inter-dependent, these forms are not fixed and are subject to change, it is only in this sense can we use the dream as a metaphor (not fixed and impermanent)

Dependent Origination can be seen in William Blake

'To see a world in a grain of sand and Heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand and Eternity in an hour'

[waechter418]

Dear Don, seems like we are stuck with a western and a eastern consciousness.
I - and i think all of us here - understand, that the reasons for it is the reasoning.
Lamentably it does not only separate east and west, but the mind of brainman as well, and thus impedes his Selfrealisation.

[atreestump]

Reality is not a manifestation of consciousness and therefore a dream....Buddhist merely states that as things don't have a self-nature (anatman), as all forms are inter-dependent, these forms are not fixed and are subject to change, it is only in this sense can we use the dream as a metaphor (not fixed and impermanent)

Dependent Origination can be seen in William Blake

'To see a world in a grain of sand and Heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand and Eternity in an hour'


So often do we see Westernised versions of Eastern ideas that run all too quickly towards idealism.

As old Tich Nhat Hahn put it - there is a cloud floating in this piece of paper.

Although I interpret the Brahman dream as a kind of Spinozaesque panentheism, or modes of the same nature, this nature is necessarily expressed separately as a series of relations that are interdependent.

Looks like you could sharpen up your teaching skills for your classes here mate, your interpretation of the metaphorical dream reminds me of the Richard Harland take on Derrida.

[kFoyauextlH]

Yeah, it really would be rather misleading or self-deluding to try to jam Eastern thinking with modern philosophical categories. It can be done and is done regularly, but how much is shaved off to make it fit into the hole?

If the modern ideas were presented to people of the past, they might not even be able to understand it in the same way. The words and their meanings are very different, and so the thinking was very different. They may not have been saying what we think they were saying, and in reading copious amounts of literature from around the world, I am pretty certain people are not wanting to really accept what was being frankly stated and finally, most readers seem to lack the symbolic vocabulary from the culture to really even make a proper choice of what Western category might better fit.

To understand the East and even the past, one has to familiarize themselves with the languages of symbols and themes.

Modern people say one thing or write one thing and mean just that. Ancient people were often saying multiple things at once when they wrote it down, unless it was an actual bill or receipt. This continues until very recently, old terminology was still very symbolic.
[hr]
A nice way to put it might be that ancient people spoke in swathes, especially when dedicating things to writing which was especially a painstaking and rare process. They were not like most people today who in writing generally mean one specific precise object at a time.

[thetrizzard]

Reality is not a manifestation of consciousness and therefore a dream....Buddhist merely states that as things don't have a self-nature (anatman), as all forms are inter-dependent, these forms are not fixed and are subject to change, it is only in this sense can we use the dream as a metaphor (not fixed and impermanent)

Dependent Origination can be seen in William Blake

'To see a world in a grain of sand and Heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand and Eternity in an hour'


So often do we see Westernised versions of Eastern ideas that run all too quickly towards idealism.

As old Tich Nhat Hahn put it - there is a cloud floating in this piece of paper.

Although I interpret the Brahman dream as a kind of Spinozaesque panentheism, or modes of the same nature, this nature is necessarily expressed separately as a series of relations that are interdependent.

Looks like you could sharpen up your teaching skills for your classes here mate, your interpretation of the metaphorical dream reminds me of the Richard Harland take on Derrida.


Sharpen up your teaching skills?