The Larkin Debate
February 2, 2004 - February, 8, 2004
This is a copy of the infamous debate between Robert Larkin and myself on the nature of enlightenment, held at The Ponderers Guild, an internet discussion forum. Although the debate was ostensibly between the two of us, it was significantly influenced by the many comments and observations made by interested onlookers on the Commentary Thread, which the moderator of TPG had set up for that purpose. It also brought what could have been a sterile "academic" debate into life and exposed the tremendous clash between spiritual and worldly thought. It even revealed some of the reasons why thinkers of the calibre of Socrates and Jesus were persecuted and killed by society in the past.
To get the most out of the following discussion, then, the reader is advised to read the commentary thread in conjunction with the debate.
Introduction by the moderator, Guildenstern
February 2
Robert Larkin and David Quinn have been looking for "neutral ground" on which to have a civilized, structured debate, and I thought here would be a great place, as it may even have a chance of inspiring TPGians to have similar debates as well. Here are the rules:
The question is on the nature of enlightenment, David on the affirmative side and Robert on the negative. I unfortunately do not know David's specific views on the nature of enlightenment, so I cannot frame a precise question to which he would answer in the affirmative. But the crux of the matter is to be on the nature of enlightenment and, as Robert puts it, whether David Quinn has "got it".
The format of the debate is as follows. First, each side is to make two constructive arguments, beginning with the Affirmative (David), and alternating. These arguments are not intended to respond to each other, but merely to put up arguments for each side's case. Then, there will be two rebuttals each, beginning with the Negative (Robert) and alternating. Rebuttals are intended to respond to the arguments brought up earlier; rebuttals may bring in new information, but may not make new arguments.
The only people who may post in this thread are Robert Larkin and David Quinn. Anyone else who posts in this thread will be warned. A separate thread will be put up for anyone who wishes to make comments on this thread.
The debate shall begin when David puts up his first argument, which he must do within 24 hours, and each participant thereafter has 24 hours to respond. The debate format must be strictly followed (i.e., no extraneous posts in between the "phases"), and no editing of posts is allowed (consequently, everyone is encouraged to forgive spelling or grammatical errors, which, without editing, cannot be fixed).
And with that, let us begin!
February 3
Opening Statement by David Quinn
Hello all,
This debate has come about because Robert recently visited the Genius Forum for the first time and, like many before him, reacted negatively to what was being expressed there. In particular, he didn't like the way I was speaking with authority on spiritual matters and felt this assumption of authority on my part needed to be challenged, which is fair enough. Although I very rarely make the open boast that I am enlightened (such pettiness bores me), it cannot be denied that it is implicit in the manner of my speech. I do believe that I know what I am talking about when it comes to spiritual issues, I do consider myself to be an expert on wisdom, and this conviction shines through in everything I say. This is, at bottom, what Robert is reacting to.
The decision to hold this debate at a "neutral venue" was also his. I personally have no idea what a "neutral venue" is, as it is obvious that almost everyone has strong opinions on matters of truth. Thus, no matter where you stage it, you are always going to have people who are biased one way or another. Not that it particularly matters. I don't really care where this debate is held, as long as I can entertain the illusion that there are at least one or two intelligent people in the crowd viewing it. Since I have no reason to believe that the Ponderers Guild is completely bereft of these individuals, here is as good a place as any to stage it. I thank Guildenstern for making his forum available.
Now onto the subject matter at hand . . . .
Enlightenment is what the mind experiences when it is no longer deluded about the nature of existence. The mind is deluded when it falsely imagines things to be existing, when in reality they do not. A crude example of this is the belief in the Christian God, which millions of people deludedly imagine to be existing. A more subtle example is the belief that the Universe is made of matter, or energy, or consciousness, or spirit, or that it exists in a physical, objective sense. These are all examples of the mind projecting imaginary qualities onto Reality.
The core delusion of the mind, which forms the basis of all other delusions, is the belief in inherent existence. I refer here to the instinctive and deeply-held belief that things really exist in an independent, objective manner. From this core delusions spring the thousands of beliefs which make up religion, science, agnosticism and atheism. In each case, one is creating imaginary entities (such as God, matter, objective existence, etc) in order to explain a "reality" which is falsely imagined to exist in the first place. As soon as this core delusion is eliminated, every other delusion concerning the nature of existence naturally falls into a heap - like the sudden collapse of a stack of cards - and it is here that the mind experiences enlightenment.
What the enlightened person perceives, in his enlightenment, is the formlessness of Reality, sometimes referred to as "emptiness" or "the Void". He perceives that everything is causally created and an illusion of the moment, including his own self. He sees that there is nothing at all which is objectively or fundamentally real. There is nothing to seek or grasp, nothing to explain or resolve, nothing to uncover or know. There is only the purity of Nature relentlessly producing whim after whim after whim. This is Nature as it really is. This is Ultimate Reality.
The enlightened person is one who is fully conscious of Ultimate Reality. He has completely abandoned the idea of a permanent, fixed self, and fully accepts the reality that his very own existence is nothing more than a momentary, illusory whim. Such a person is utterly beyond the emotions (there being nothing to get emotional about), and utterly beyond religion (he no longer depends on blind faith). His knowledge is infinitely powerful and cutting, and his vision is boundless. He has tapped into the most fabulous reality in the Universe, which very few know about.
This wisdom is not something that can be found in books. Even the greatest Buddhist and Taoists texts only hint at it. It is something that each person has to discover for himself. If he doesn't do this, if he only relies on the reading of spiritual texts for his knowledge of enlightenment, if he continues to bring his own deluded mind into the equation, then he will never understand it. Just as a spoon will never be able to taste the soup it dwells in, such a person will never be able to taste this great wisdom, no matter how many texts he reads.
One of Robert Larkin's favourite arguments centers on what he calls "textual backing". This refers to the belief that a spiritual view, made by you or I, can only be valid if it is also found in the scriptures - meaning, in this instance, the Buddhist sutras. The argument states that if one expresses a view that is not found within the scriptures, or conflicts with what is contained within them, then it cannot be an enlightened view by default. The trouble with this view is that unless you are enlightened and thoroughly familiar with the great wisdom of Nature, then there is no way you can determine whether the scriptures themselves, or any part therein, are valid. The texts themselves need to be tested. To coin a phrase, they need "enlightenment backing". They need to be judged from the perspective of enlightenment and this can only be accomplished by becoming enlightened oneself.
Without this "enlightenment backing", Robert can only employ dubious, second-hand joke methods in an attempt to establish the validity of the "scriptures". For example, he might count the number of adherents of the Buddhist religion and declare that millions of Buddhists can't be wrong in believing that the sutras are valid. Or he might count the number of times a particular idea occurs within the sutras and declare that the most oft-expressed views represent the "true teachings" of Buddhism. Or he might turn to the research of scholars in an attempt to ascertain what the Buddha really believed. These methods are laughable, for obvious reasons. But whatever method Robert decides to use will always be speculative at best and will always incorporate a number of blind assumptions. This is because he is unenlightened.
Spiritual words are ambiguous at the best of times and admit of varying interpretation. They do not possess the truth in themselves. The reader has to bring something extra to the process of interpreting them and that something extra is his own wisdom. Only in this manner can they serve as a catalyst for further spiritual progress. But if he lacks this wisdom to begin with, then nothing of worth is going to happen. Instead, he is only going to project his own delusions onto the words and transform them into a false message that has no connection with the author's conceptions at all. And alas, this is precisely what has been happening for centuries in Buddhism and Zen.
In concluding this opening essay, I believe that the debate should not focus on whether or not I, David Quinn, am enlightened. That is a pointless exercise because it can only be resolved by the reader becoming enlightened himself and thereby developing the means to make his own authoritative judgments in the matter. Instead, the debate should focus on the question of the nature of enlightenment and the manner in which it can be attained. I mean, honestly, who cares whether I am enlightened or not? That's just gossip. The only thing that matters is the quality of our actions and words - not just mine, but everyone's. Only by all of us contributing in this way, do we have a chance of building a saner, more intelligent world.
February 3
Opening Statement by Robert Larkin
Howdy.
Interest in eastern psychologies like Buddhism, Zen, and Taoism continues to be strong as in interest in their ideas of enlightenment or transcendence of ordinary consciousness. While it would be convenient to simply argue that enlightenment does not exist - and I do not know that it does - I will neither take that route nor ask you to believe in the possibility of enlightenment.
I. David Quinn Cannot be Reasonably Presumed to be Enlightened.
A. David Quinn Himself is a Reasonable Subject for Consideration.
It is an entirely natural question, 'What would an enlightened person be like?' David wrote above, Although I very rarely make the open boast that I am enlightened (such pettiness bores me) I mean, honestly, who cares whether I am enlightened or not? That's just gossip. If it s gossip it s gossip David himself spread with his open boasts on several ezboards about his enlightenment. He could merely have discussed enlightenment without making claims about his own accomplishments - it is possible for many people to mention enlightenment without mentioning David Quinn. David writes chiefly at Genius Forum w the here he, Dan Rowden, and Kevin Solway are a Trinity of sorts, often being referred to as QRS , although who sits on the apex of the triangle is unknown to me. Rowden and Solway declined the invitation (mine, 2/1/04 2:12 am) to appear with Quinn in this debate but they have also openly boasted about enlightenment (Solway, 2/2/04 2:33 am). They are here in spirit and you can find writing similar to Quinn s on their site. David Quinn, having associated himself with enlightenment, takes on the burden of that association. If I publicly announced I was a Nazi or a terrorist I would also be taking on a reasonable burden.
B. David's Claim To Enlightenment Should Be Rejected On the Face of It.
Can a reasonable person assume that David Quinn is enlightened because David says he is? That is the only reason David himself will allow since he argues that absent enlightenment backing the accuracy of canonical discussions of enlightenment cannot be judged. He wrote:
One of Robert Larkin's favourite arguments centers on what he calls "textual backing". This refers to the belief that a spiritual view, made by you or I, can only be valid if it is also found in the scriptures - meaning, in this instance, the Buddhist sutras. The argument states that if one expresses a view that is not found within the scriptures, or conflicts with what is contained within them, then it cannot be an enlightened view by default. The trouble with this view is that unless you are enlightened and thoroughly familiar with the great wisdom of Nature, then there is no way you can determine whether the scriptures themselves, or any part therein, are valid. The texts themselves need to be tested. To coin a phrase, they need "enlightenment backing". They need to be judged from the perspective of enlightenment and this can only be accomplished by becoming enlightened oneself.
Now it is a man of straw argument that I insist only what appears in texts can be admitted, and it is not the only man of straw David put together. What I actually argue is that the literature is reasonable evidence and it ought to be considered. David supplies circular reasoning which inherently cannot prove itself. He argues that only an enlightened man can understand whether the literature about enlightenment is correct. But if one is enlightened what good is the literature and if one is not enlightened what is one to make of it? Apparently the unenlightened are allowed to reason about the literature but not to reason about David Quinn and merely because he claims he is enlightened. Now since a rational person would accept no such claim, David, in claiming enlightenment and then in supplying a convenient argument that would put that enlightenment beyond scrutiny, has instead absolutely necessitated the rational rejection of his mere claim to enlightenment. Allow me to merely claim I am enlightened and now I am on equal footing and free to say whatever I might wish. What then becomes reasonable evidence when these two gods are arguing? All we would have is the same evidence we would anyway have as rational individuals, and despite David's attempts to pre-empt it.
Further, how could we possibly question David's own exposition on enlightenment? Since we are not enlightened we cannot know if it has validity until we become enlightened. There is no room here for argument and given David's reasoning what could we do but accept that he has given us the Grand Truth? And what is the nature of that reasoning? 1. It is circular reasoning that cannot prove itself. 2. It is an attempt to restrict scrutiny of what David has written. 3. It renders valueless even his own exposition on enlightenment.
David Quinn's claims of enlightenment should be rejected. No rational person would accept any mere claim some individual is enlightened, and David, in attempting to evade scrutiny, behaves in a manner that ought to cause alarms. The Buddha said to question everything but David says don't question me and he posts tortured logic to support it.
II. Refutation
A. David Has Made No Reasonable Arguments About Enlightenment.
David has come into the debate and without referring to any support, other than his own authority, has proceeded to expound on enlightenment. A reasonable person could not conclude that David has made any case here. His case is anyway 'dishwatery' since it is hard to argue against "Enlightenment is what the mind experiences when it is no longer deluded about the nature of existence." Yet let me argue against it anyway. Enlightenment is:
1. Not Cessation.
2. Not Arising.
3. Not an Interruption.
4. Not a Perpetuation.
5. Not one thing.
6. Not many things.
7. Not going forth.
8. Not arriving.
Nagarjuna, The Eight Negations.
Enlightenment is quite simply ineffable and David's claims elsewhere contradict Buddhism.
The Genius Forum, Quantum Mechanics .... See:
Quinn, 1/30/04 11:17 am
Quinn, 1/30/04 2:47 pm
Solway, 1/30/04 4:12 pm
Solway, 1/30/04 5:59 pm
Quinn, 1/30/04 6:59 pm
Quinn, 1/30/04 7:21 pm
Solway, 1/30/04 7:55 pm
Solway, 1/30/04 8:20 pm
Solway, 1/30/04 9:26 pm, etc.
Note the insistence on mere words being true and which is contrary to Buddhism.
B. David's Conception of Enlightenment is Inhumane.
Are there positive qualities in enlightenment?
"The teachings of the Buddha are divided into three yanas [vehicles]: Hinayana, Mahayana, and Vajrayana. Theravada, the most popular school of Hinayana ('Lesser Vehicle') concentrates on discipline and virtue. Mahayana [Great Vehicle] concentrates more on altruistic motivations (compassion) and wisdom. ... Vajrayana [Diamond Vehicle] also 'Mantrayana') is the third of the three vehicle of Buddhism. ... All three incorporate discipline, compassion, and wisdom with different methods and motivations toward the common aspiration for Enlightenment." Click.
"One of the most important aspects of being a Buddhist ... is developing compassion and loving-kindness. It is in some ways easy to be a Buddhist with one's head and not one's heart. Buddhism today and at the time of the Buddha had great intellectual appeal. It is a religion that encourages investigation in a systematic, almost scientific way. But Buddhism is also about the heart and without that it might be perceived as a cold religion. A Buddhist attempts to engage both head and heart- rational investigation of the self along with an impulse towards developing selflessness - a wonderful paradox!" Click.
"Compassion. This is one of the key virtues Buddhism promotes. It was the Buddha's compassion for all sentient beings that led to him teaching the dhamma. It is the Bodhisattva's compassion that leads him to postpone his own entry into nibbana and help others to it first." Click.
"Loving-kindness. This quality is given especial emphasis in Buddhism with its ideal of unselfish and all-embracing love. In the words of the metta sutta, just as mother would give her own life to save that of her child, so we too must cultivate loving-kindness for all beings." Click.
"Ahimsa ('noninjury'). The moral principle of avoiding harm to other forms of life, including animals and sometimes even the apparently inanimate world." Click.
Note that in David's conception of enlightenment there is no compassion and no love and certainly no understanding that as The Buddha observed 'the world is burning' and that one has a responsibility to the world other than writing texts and claiming they cannot be criticized.
C. The Men of Straw Army.
In addition to the man of straw mentioned above, David has brought with him a small straw army.
.. Robert can only employ dubious, second-hand joke methods in an attempt to establish the validity of the "scri.ptures". For example, he might count the number of adherents of the Buddhist religion and declare that millions of Buddhists can't be wrong in believing that the sutras are valid. Or he might count the number of times a particular idea occurs within the sutras and declare that the most oft-expressed views represent the "true teachings" of Buddhism. Or he might turn to the research of scholars in an attempt to ascertain what the Buddha really believed. These methods are laughable, for obvious reasons. But whatever method Robert decides to use will always be speculative at best and will always incorporate a number of blind assumptions. This is because he is unenlightened.
It's always dangerous to write about the other side before they've appeared.
First, I don't intend to employ any joke methods here, like trying to insulate myself from criticism and using questionable logic for that questionable purpose.
Second, I haven't claimed validity of any scriptures. I have quoted Nagarjuna, one of the most important thinkers in Buddhism, while David has relied on ... himself. Nagarjuna, regardless of the accuracy of his statements, puts the lie to David's conception.
Third, regarding 'count the number of adherents ...' it is one thing to erect a man of straw and quite another to raise one so simple a child could shoot it down; David accomplishes nothing here but betray his lack of creativity.
Fourth, regarding counting the number of appearances of an idea, see 'Third'.
Fifth, consideration of scholarship is not on its face laughable; what is laughable are the ridiculous men of straw David creates.
Sixth, I might speculate sometimes but that is what we unenlightened humans do; note that by merely claiming I am enlightened I could instantly get past that charge, according to David.
Seventh, I don't claim to be enlightened but it is you, David, who has ended up with the tough row to hoe.
D. Hoisting Him on His Own Petard.
David's last thought was: "The only thing that matters is the quality of our actions and words - not just mine, but everyone's." David has attempted to place himself beyond criticism by using tortured logic; he has built a small army of men of straw; he has given arguments on the nature of enlightenment which, in terms of Buddhism, lack compassion and responsibility, and he has presented himself as his own authority for his writing. The quality of his actions and words are easily observed.
Conclusion
In this first developmental post we saw that David Quinn despite his irrational protests is a fitting subject of consideration. Anyone who claims to be enlightened should expect to be called on it. We also saw that David's claim of enlightenment should be rejected out of hand.
He relied on his own authority for his discussion of enlightenment. His conception is contrary to Buddhism as the Nagarjuna suggests. David's enlightenment is devoid of compassion, compassion being a fundament of Buddhism.
Despite David's suggestion he is beyond your criticism I ask you to consider if what you witnessed from David is likely the behavior of an enlightened man, or alternatively, if that is enlightenment would you want it?
February 4
Second Statement by David Quinn
Robert seems to have forgotten that the "rebuttal" part of the debate is supposed to occur in the final two rounds, as decreed by the rules set up by Guildenstern. As I understand it, the first two rounds were meant to be devoted to developing constructive arguments in favour of one's point of view. But there is nothing like this in Robert's opening statement. It is little more than a series of reactive attacks upon myself.
At the very least, he should have given reasons why we should take Nagarjuna's views seriously, or why he thinks compassion is an essential element of wisdom, or why he thinks Buddhism is an expression of enlightenment. If he is going to try and use these things to undermine my point of view, then he needs to establish a solid rational foundation for their validity to begin with. Otherwise, it's all just hot air.
I will give Robert another chance to make amends and post an essay with some substance. Meanwhile, in this essay, I will expand on what I had written in my opening statement by focusing on two specific issues:
(a) The issue of circular reasoning and the act of verifying one's own enlightenment.
(b) The nature of enlightenment itself.
The perceptive reader will discern that these two issues are closely related. Enlightenment is, by definition, the absence of delusion, and so it follows that no one else, apart from the enlightened person, is qualified to assess a claim of enlightenment, whether it be from another person or himself. Only the enlightened person has the clarity of mind and depth of wisdom to understand what enlightenment is in the first place; thus, only he has the capacity to recognize its existence in the physical world. The judgments made by everyone else will always be twisted and distorted by the presence of their own delusions. At best, they can only make a few blind guesses in the dark, but that's about it.
There are no other means of verification. This cannot be stressed enough. There is only the process of verification performed by the enlightened mind, either upon its own claim or upon the claim of another, and nothing else. There is no other way of doing it.
Some Buddhists try to get around this by believing in a system of patriarchal-succession. This system assumes there has been an unbroken succession of enlightened people which stretches back to the very beginnings of Buddhism. Each successive enlightened master has his enlightenment verified and confirmed by the one before (who is usually his mentor), and, in turn, each one verifies and confirms the enlightenment of the fellow coming after (usually one of his students).
The trouble with this system is that, not only is it extremely vulnerable to corruption (it only takes one bad egg to completely ruin the system), but it neglects the fact that it too rests on a self-validated claim of enlightenment. After all, the very first enlightened master of the successional system didn't have anyone around to verify and confirm his enlightenment. He had to validate his own enlightenment for himself. Thus, far from being an answer to the "problem" of self-validation, the successional system actually utilizes and supports it.
Other Buddhists try to get around the "problem" by pretending that if lots of people believe that someone is enlightened, then that is enough to prove that he is enlightened. This is called "validation by popular appeal". If someone like the Dalai Lama, for example, wears some religious robes, bows and smiles at everyone he meets, and keeps on talking about the importance of happiness, peace and compassion, then, for a lot of people, that clinches it. No more proof is needed. The Dalai Lama, or whoever it may be, is obviously an enlightened man.
But again, the trouble with this kind of thinking is that it rests on the assumption that ordinary, ignorant people possess the capacity to recognize the existence of enlightenment, which, in turn, implies that they already have a correct idea of what enlightenment is - which, of course, is nonsensical. Only the person who has eliminated all delusion from his mind, and consequently has become enlightened, can have a correct understanding of enlightenment.
No, it cannot be escaped. Self-validation is the only method possible. Even if a reputed enlightened master were to come up to you and confirm you as an enlightened being, you would still have to ascertain in your own mind whether he possessed the credentials to make such a judgment. That is to say, you would have to confirm him first. And to do that properly, you would need to be enlightened.
Now it can be argued, and has been argued by Robert and others on this forum, that the process of self-validation is steeped in circular reasoning and therefore lacks validity. That this objection is unfounded is easily demonstrated when one considers that all knowledge, without exception, is founded upon circular reasoning. Indeed, any kind of comprehension that we experience, in whatever area of life, is a product of circular reasoning. Even scientific explanations are inherently circular. Consider the scientific explanation of why a cup of tea is hot, for example: "It is hot because energy was injected into the system causing the constituent molecules of the tea to become more randomly energetic and active". Given that the word "heat" is literally defined to mean the random energetic activity of molecules (or atoms or particles) within a system, the explanation quickly boils down to the circularity of, "It is hot because it contains heat." Or, "It is hot because it is hot."
It should be noted, however, that even though this is a circular piece of reasoning, it isn't meaningless. Understanding that a cup of tea is hot because it is hot is, in itself, a meaningful statement. It enables our minds make sense of the empirical reality before us and to affirm its existence. This meaningfulness then carries over to the more complicated, fleshed out version of the circular reasoning that characterizes the scientific explanation.
In the case of self-validating one's enlightenment, the principle is exactly the same. The enlightened person is simply affirming the existence of his own enlightenment. The affirmation is valid because it is the result of the perfect clarity of mind and undistorted judgment which characterizes enlightenment. Remember that the enlightened mind, by definition, no longer projects imaginary existences onto what is "there". It perceives things exactly as they are. So when the enlightened mind turns its attention towards the issue of whether or not it is enlightened, the answer it will uncover will necessarily be correct. It will know for sure that it is enlightened.
This line of reasoning is very subtle and a lot of people misinterpret it. They think it means this: "I believe that I am enlightened. Everything that an enlightened person believes is necessarily true. Therefore, the belief that I am enlightened is necessarily true". But this is not the argument I am presenting. This is an invalid form of circular reasoning. It is invalid because it uses an unsubstantiated statement as a premise and thus lacks the platform to say anything meaningful. The argument I offer is entirely different. It says, "As soon as enlightenment exists, it has, by its very nature, the capacity to judge that it exists."
Here is a good way to illustrate this point:
Imagine that an ordinary person is walking along the street, minding his own business, when suddenly, though the sheer workings of chance, his mind stops experiencing false thoughts and he enters into a period of enlightenment. Imagine also that it is a complete surprise to him, that he previously had no desire or thought to seek enlightenment, that it occurred spontaneously as a freak of Nature. It might have been the result of a quantum fluctuation or whatever. Now imagine that he actively uses this priceless tool of perceiving everything without any false interpretations to uncover the great truths of life, as anyone naturally would in such a situation. And then, after he does this, imagine that he decides to turn this tool upon the nature of enlightenment itself and the state of his own mind. Imagine that his mind is so crystal clear and free of false interpretations that he is naturally able to perceive that he is indeed enlightened.
Even though the self-verification process here is a circular one, it is nevertheless valid and meaningful. It is valid and meaningful because the enlightenment experienced in this instance is real. It springs into existence, and then, only after that, does the individual involved make the verification. That is to say, he makes the verification from a position of fact.
In my experience, most people find this kind of thinking very scary, which is why they are always quick to distance themselves from its enormous implications by labeling it circular and meaningless. They are frightened by the idea of personally understanding Reality and becoming a genuine authority in wisdom in their own right. For them, it would mean far too much personal responsibility and far too much trust in the workings of their own minds. It is far, far easier to delegate everything to others and turn them into authority figures. That way you're not really accountable at all. There is always someone else to prop up your thoughts, and someone else to blame.
This is spiritual cowardice, of course, and yet nearly everyone on this earth participates in it. It represents the blanket rejection of truth for the sake of a safe, unconscious life.
The desire to remain unconsciousness (of Reality) is the single biggest reason why people remain deluded and continue to perceive things as inherently existing. Unconsciousness makes life simpler and easier. It enables people to enjoy their emotional attachments and delusions. It enables them to remain as children and to submit to any irrational belief they like and engage in any kind of mindless behaviour that appeals to them. That is to say, it allows them to give their egos free reign, which is experienced as great freedom and bliss. The ego inside people instinctively demands this unconsciousness, for it is only within this unconsciousness that the ego is able to thrive. This explains why people are so very reluctant to think too deeply about life and develop a greater consciousness of Reality. For it means challenging the very premise of their lives up until that point. It means challenging their deepest loves and attachments.
Because of this, most people turn their backs on rational thought and the development of greater awareness of Reality, and instead energetically strive to go in the other direction, towards an even greater form of unconsciousness. This they call "living in the now", or "living spontaneously", or "becoming like a child", or "abandoning all concepts". There is a kind of false freedom to be found in this greater form of unconsciousness, and there are many people who, after spending years struggling against it in the attempt to remain idealistic and rational, finally surrender themselves to its welcoming bliss, and they experience a sense of liberation as a result. There are some who even believe this to be enlightenment. Indeed, much of modern religion, particularly Western Buddhism and Zen, is centered around this false conception.
In many ways, it is only natural that the human race continues to find unconsciousness more preferable to enlightened consciousness of Reality. We are a species that has evolved, not to become philosophers and sages, but to survive in the physical world and pass on our genes. And the most efficient way to do this, from an evolutionary point of view, is to keep the species completely under the spell of objective/inherent existence. A species that falsely believes that the world, and everything contained within it, is objectively real is going to be far more motivated to compete for resources and avoid predators than is the species that is beginning to have an inkling that it is all an illusion. Hence, any movement towards wisdom in the cut-and-thrust kingdom of life is nearly always nipped in the bud. It is only because human society has bucked against evolution to a degree and created a civilization in which even the "evolutionary weaker" members can survive that philosophers and sages have been able to come into existence.
This is why the enlightened person is always filled with compassion towards the human race. He understands the deep attraction of unconsciousness and the spell it casts upon people. He also understands that it is not their fault for wanting to sink into it, for not trying to fight it, for not placing value on wisdom. Nature has caused them to be the way they are, just as Nature has caused me to be the way I am. We are all innocent puppets, at bottom, whose every movement is dictated by the causal strings of Nature. It is all Nature's doing - everything. We are but passengers going along for the ride.
The compassion of the enlightened person constitutes the active expression of his wisdom, while his understanding of Reality constitutes the passive aspect. It is a compassion which is very different from the compassion of ordinary people. It focuses upon one thing and one thing only - namely, how to free people from the grip of unconsciousness and stimulate their minds into an awareness of Reality. Or in Buddhist terms, how to free people from the wheel of samsara and propel them into nirvana. And even though this is the greatest gift he could possibly bestow on other people, and the greatest way he can help them, he performs it effortlessly, with the minimum of fuss, day after day, in the spontaneity of his own endless wisdom.
But what does it mean to leave behind samsara and enter nirvana? It means ceasing to interfere with the world on any level and instead becoming one with the process of cause and effect. One no longer seeks happiness in any particular phenomenon, nor truth in any particular concept or appearance. One is completely free of the emotional desire for the world to be any particular way. The entire process of emotionally valuing one form over another is completely abandoned. One is free of all attachment to form (and, by extension, to formlessness). And because of this, one ceases to engage in life and death.
February 5
Second Statement by Robert Larkin
In his first post David Quinn claimed enlightenment in this debate, just as he has claimed it elsewhere. Then he expounded on enlightenment, relying only on his own authority. Then he asserted that his enlightenment shouldn't be an issue in this debate. In my first post I established that Quinn is himself a reasonable subject. Not only does he claim enlightenment but he is his own support. No one in their right mind would accept on David Quinn's authority that David Quinn is enlightened. It is a rational necessity to reject his claim of enlightenment and with his claim rejected David has no foundation upon which to argue about enlightenment - he has himself implicitly argued you are not worthy to understand his material, if you are not enlightened. Now you might find his writing so compelling that you no longer require rational support to accept an argument, and if that is so then perhaps David Quinn should be your master. If that is not so, then do please acknowledge to yourself that David Quinn cannot possibly have made a case about anything so fundamentally nebulous as enlightenment by relying on David Quinn who anyway insists you cannot tell if if is valid anyway. There is no rational reason to assume you have been presented anything true. In the history of the world there have been charlatans and snake-oil salesmen galore; it is David Quinn's burden to prove otherwise, it is his burden to prove he is legitimate, else how can he make a reasonable case?
In opposition to David I made in my first post the canonically supported argument that enlightenment is ineffable; it is beyond the power of words to comprehend. Let me point out that elsewhere David has claimed to be in agreement with Nagarjuna. (Geniality Forum, Quantum mechanics, etc Quinn, 1/30/04 7:09 pm). Kevin Solway is also in agreement with Nagarjuna. (Gentility Forum, Quantum, etc., Solway, 1/30/04 9:26 pm). Dan Rowland commented on KIR that Quinn holds Nagarjuna in "relatively" [his italics] high regard.
Nagarajuna, c. 150-250, is sometimes referred to as 'the second buddha'. (The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Nagarjuna.) It was Nagarjuna who asserted the importance of sunya and sunyata.
Nagarjuna saw in the concept sunya, a concept which connoted in the early Pali Buddhist literature the lack of a stable, inherent existence in persons, but which since the third century BCE had also denoted the newly formulated number zero, the interpretive key to the heart of Buddhist teaching, and the undoing of all the metaphysical schools of philosophy which were at the time flourishing around him. Indeed, Nagarjuna s philosophy can be seen as an attempt to deconstruct all systems of thought which analyzed the world in terms of fixed substances and essences. Things in fact lack essence, according to Nagarjuna, they have no fixed nature, and indeed it is only because of this lack of essential, immutable being that change is possible, that one thing can transform into another. Each thing can only have its existence through its lack (sunyata) of inherent, eternal essence. With this new concept of emptiness, voidness, lack of essence, zeroness, this somewhat unlikely prodigy was to help mold the vocabulary and character of Buddhist thought forever. [Ibid.]
According to Nagarjuna theory is neither the condition of practice nor the reason for practice. Instead, theory is the enemy of all legitimate forms of practice whether social, ethical, or religious. Nagarjuna would himself only enter forms of debate where the opponent's thesis was refuted while not affirming anything himself; it would have been contradictory for him to have done otherwise for he would have been affirming theory.[ibid.]
I do not ask you to agree with Nagarjuna but only to understand what he was getting at, and that it is opposed to what David Quinn is getting at.
... Nagarjuna has rightly merited the label of skeptic, for he undertakes the dismantling of theoretical positions wherever he finds them, and does so in a methodically logical manner. Like the skeptics of the classical Greek tradition, who thought that resolved doubt about dogmatic assertions in both philosophy and social life could lead the individual to peace of mind, however, it is not the case that for Nagarjuna skepticism leads nowhere. On the contrary, it is the very key to insight. For in the process of dismantling all metaphysical and epistemological positions, one is led to the only viable conclusion for Nagarjuna, namely that all things, concepts and persons lack a fixed essence, and this lack of a fixed essence is precisely why and how they can be amenable to change, transformation and evolution. Change is precisely why people live, die, are reborn, suffer and can be enlightened and liberated. And change is only possible if entities and the way in which we conceptualize them are void or empty (sunya) of any eternal, fixed and immutable essence. ... like all properly Buddhist methods, once this logical foil has served its purpose, it can be discarded, traded in as it were for the wisdom it has conferred. Pretense of knowledge leads to ruin, while genuine skepsis can lead human being[s] to ultimate knowledge. ]But] the method of skepticism has to conform to the rules of conventional knowing, for as Nagarjuna famously asserts: Without depending on convention, the ultimate truth cannot be taught, and if the ultimate truth is not attained, nirvana will not be attained. [ibid.]
Concepts have utility but they are not taken to be the truth which in Buddhism is beyond conceptualization. A concept is not truth but a signpost; a word is not the truth; the honk of a horn is not the truth - in Buddhism the truth is a different state of mind, one which can use words and concepts but which is not enchained by them. Quinn will admit that things have no inherent substance but he has failed to understand that neither do concepts! This format does not allow for interlocution but let us ask David if his formulation of enlightenment in his first post is the truth or if it is merely a relatively efficacious conceptualization. According to Nagarjuna it is the latter at best; I would bet that according to Quinn it's the truth. Again, there is no support for their position except for their 'self-validated' enlightenment which does the rest of us no good at all. Therefore in Nagarjuna you have something which can be rationally accepted as representative of Buddhist opinion - again I do not ask you to agree with it but merely to understand it - but from Quinn you have nothing which can be rationally accepted as authoritative. And we now have direct confrontation between Nagarjuna and Quinn.
There is a fundamental component of David Quinn's enlightenment which he has not shared with you. One half of the world's population is automatically excluded from it: Women. In Woman, ironically subtitled An Exposition for the Advanced Mind, David began his 50 plus pages of gibberish with a condescending and sexist quotation from Nietzsche, briefly damned women with faint praise, very sincerely regretted that he must proceed to destroy women ("O, woe is the person who thinks!") and began a series of mindless analyses purportedly showing the inherent inferiority of women and their inability to think at any depth. While the name "Otto Weininger" is not present in "Woman" he is present in spirit. Quinn and the Trine QRS all support the Victorian gibberish Weininger espouses in Sex and Character, published in German 1903. Both Woman and Sex and Character are available in .pdf at Minefield, etc..
There is often a pathological tinge to the ways Quinn writes about women. One chapter in "Exposition" is named "Why Dissect Women?" Another chapter title is "A Peek at Sexual Intercourse".
In "Why Dissect Women?" David revealed that he explored every possible opinion between the extremes of radical feminism and traditional chauvinism and he remained convinced there is a tremendous gulf between men and women. ("Exposition," p.4) All we have in common is the desire for happiness but even that is deceiving because the happiness is very different, colored by the genders' psychologies, values, and worldviews and which David insists are widely disparate. (Ibid.) Men can conceive "long-term goals of genuine significance" while women are stuck with "the topsy-turvy world of the emotions." (Ibid.)
The presumed differences between men and women become "acute" when spirituality is considered. Attaining "ultimate reality", according to David, requires purpose, courage, rationality, persistence, constancy, and a sense of one's destiny. These are all for unspecified reasons masculine attributes and there are no aspects of femininity which will suit one in the search for spirituality. (Ibid., p.5) Women have no feeling for the ultimate, David suggested, and if we mentioned "Truth" to a woman she would stare back as if she had no idea what we meant. Since a feminine upbringing long ago closed her to such possibilities she is left with finding her truths in the emotional world. (Ibid.)
If one is going to transcend everything one must renounce everything for the sake of truth, in David's view, and completely. David does not think we could find a woman who would be willing to live for truth. He insists women are oblivious to the notion of truth let alone the significance, said significance to be assumed. (Ibid.)
Most men lead mediocre lives and are little better than women, David wrote, yet on the whole men are much nearer his ideal than are women. The enlightened one suggested that while only a small percentage of the male population have potential for wisdom it is nonetheless true that there is hardly a single female who could claim any potential for it. (Ibid.)
David admitted these are harsh facts for women to face. While he acknowledged there are a few women with "the genuine seeds of idealism" he then said it would be worst on them. Nature, according to David, unfairly discriminated against women and he was sad there was nothing at present to be done, women necessarily remaining "the happy, charming, mindless creatures they are." (Ibid, p. 6)
David noted in the introduction to the gibberish that it was no scientific or philosophical work and which obviated support of a single ridiculous assertion. Pontifications and pronouncements are the Quinn style.
David thinks Otto Weininger was a genius. Genius Forum, Welcome Message. David calls himself a thinker who follows Diogenes, the Buddha, Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Jesus, and Otto Weininger. Kevin Solway says of Weininger's book, Sex and Character, published in German in 1903, "This book is one of the few masterpieces of modern times. Here, Weininger overflows with profound insight, deepest love, and awesome courage..." Solway is even selling a translation of Weininger's thoughts, Aphorisms From Weininger's Notebooks. (See Minefield, etc.) Searches on 'weininger' invariably bring up Solway's various websites. And Dan Rowland, the third of the resident geniuses at the Genius Forum, also agrees on Weininger's genius. (Genius Forum, What Is Genius?.) Rowland includes in his list of geniuses the Buddha, Jesus, Lao Tzu, Kierkegaard, Socrates Nietzsche, and Otto Weininger, taking the trouble to note that Bach and Einstein were not geniuses. What is genius on the Genius Forum? Included in Dan's list of characteristics are independence of mind and insightfulness as well as wisdom and which are qualities lacking in Otto Weininger.
Weininger shot himself at age 23, going to the room where Beethoven died to do it, shortly after the publication of Sex and Character. Hitler said of him, "There was only one wise Jew, and he shot himself." Despite being a great genius Britannica gives him very little coverage.
born April 3, 1880, Vienna
died Oct. 4, 1903, Vienna
Austrian philosopher whose single work, Geschlecht und Charakter (1903; Sex and Character), served as a sourcebook for anti-Semitic propagandists.
The son of a prosperous Jewish artisan, Weininger became a Christian the day he received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Vienna (1902). The following year he published his partly scientific, partly philosophical study in which he advanced the thesis that all living things combined varying proportions of masculine and feminine elements. The masculine element was positive, productive, and moral, while the feminine was negative, unproductive, and amoral. In the chapter ber das Judentum, he denounced Judaism as feminine and amoral in contrast to Christianity. Weininger shot himself at the age of 23, shortly after the publication of Geschlecht und Charakter.
"Otto Weininger" Encyclop dia Britannica from Encyclop dia Britannica Premium Service.
<http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=78480>
[Accessed February 5, 2004].
Because we have already read Quinn on women let's read a bit of Weininger on race and we can have Weininger on women in the rebuttals.
There are ... nations and races whose men, though they can in no wise be regarded as intermediate forms of the sexes, are found to approach so slightly and so rarely to the ideal of manhood as set forth in my argument, that the principles, indeed the entire foundation on which this work rests, would seem to be severely shaken by their existence. What shall we make, for example, of the Chinese, with their feminine freedom from internal cravings and their incapacity for every effort? One might feel tempted to believe in the complete effeminacy of the whole race. It can at least be no mere whim of entire nation that the Chinaman habitually wears a pigtail and that the growth of his beard is of the very thinnest. But how does the matter stand with the negroes? A genius has perhaps scarcely ever appeared amongst the Negroes, and the standard of their morality is almost universally low that it is beginning to be acknowledged in America that their emancipation was an act of imprudence.
If consequently, the principal of the intermediate forms of the sexes may perhaps enjoy a prospect of becoming of importance to racial anthropology (since in some peoples a greater share of womanishness would seem to be generally disseminated), it must yet be conceded that the foregoing deductions refer above all to Aryan men and Aryan women. In how far, in the other great races of mankind, uniformity with the standard of the Aryan race may reign, or what has prevented and hindered this; to arrive more nearly at such knowledge would require in the first instance the most intense research into racial characteristics.
The Jewish race, which has been chosen by me as a subject of discussion, because, as will be shown, it presents the gravest and most formidable difficulties for my views, appears to possess a certain anthropological relationship with both negroes and Mongolians. The readily curling hair points to the negro; admixture of Mongolian blood is suggested by the perfectly Chinese or Malay formation of face and skull which is so often to be met with amongst the Jews and which is associated with a yellowish complexion.(Sex and Culture, 1906, p. 184-5)
... some reflection will lead to the surprising result that Judaism is saturated with femininity, with precisely those qualities the essence of which I have shown to be in the strongest opposition to the male nature. It would not be difficult to make a case for the view that the Jew is more saturated with femininity than the Aryan, to such an extent that the most manly Jew is more feminine than the least manly Aryan.
This interpretation would be erroneous. It is most important to lay stress on the agreements and differences simply because so many points that become obvious i[n] dissecting woman reappear in the Jew. (Ibid., p. 187)
... Greatness is absent from the nature of the woman and the Jew, the greatness of morality, or the greatness of evil. In the Aryan man, the good and bad principles of Kant s religious philosophy are ever present, ever in strife. In the Jew and the woman, good and evil are not distinct from one another. (Ibid., p. 189)
David Quinn's enlightenment, and the enlightenment of the entire QRS Trine, is sexist and racist. They have declared Weininger a genius and Solway even has a financial interest in propagating Weininger's thinking.
Two free samples of Solway's translation:
Woman reaches as far as desire, but not to value. She reaches as far as sympathy, but not respect.
The Jew's sin is smirking at the Good, as the simpleton's sin is smirking at wisdom.
from "A small sample of Aphorisms From Weininger's Notebooks," Translated from the German by Martin Dudaniec and Kevin Solway - Copyright Solway & Dudaniec, 2000. Nazis on the Net.
As David Quinn supports racist and sexist materials I urge you to reject his ideas out of hand. It is not likely Hitler knew what was enlightenment, nor Weininger, nor Quinn, Rowland, and Solway. That material is reprehensible.
February 6
First Rebuttal by David Quinn
Well, well, it's all coming out now . . . . . .
I suppose it was too much to expect a balanced debate when there are so many emotional people around whipping themselves into a frenzy over views that they do not even begin to understand, nor have any intention of trying to understand.
But I suppose that is the human race for you. It is to be expected. I will ignore Robert's insane, frothing-at-the-mouth charges that I promote anti-semitism and racism, and concentrate instead on the topic at hand, which is enlightenment.
Robert is evidently very disturbed by my association with the concept of "enlightenment". This is the deep-rooted cause of his hysterical smear campaign against me (and, by extension, my fellow colleagues). He thinks that I am appropriating a precious concept and sullying it with my heretical ideas. He doesn't like the fact that I claim to go beyond scripture and tradition and everything that has come before, and enjoy instead a direct connection to the highest wisdom. To him, that is the very height of arrogance. It ignores all the rules of "how things are done".
According to Robert's view of life, we are all supposed to conform to other people's ideas and to society in general. One's personal knowledge has to accord with society's knowledge, One's behaviour and values has to accord with society's behaviour and values. Robert is a numbers man; to him, a view is only valid to the degree that it is popular and fashionable, especially among the intellectual elite. Any deviancy, any movement towards individuality, no matter how motivated by reason, is automatically deemed a form of quackery.
We can observe this impulse all throughout Robert's writing. We can see it, for example, in his constant desire to drag this debate back into the communal realm of the Buddhist scriptures. Instead of addressing my points directly with reasoned argument, Robert instead wants hide behind the coat-tails of Nagarjuna, whom he boasts is the "second Buddha". This shows that Robert has no desire to think for himself. He wants Nagarjuna to do all the thinking for him. Even though Robert has no idea whether Nagarjuna is even qualified to speak about enlightenment, he nevertheless sets him up on a pedestal and parades him to the world as a great spiritual authority. And why? Not because he knows that Nagarjuna is enlightened and therefore really is a great spiritual authority, but simply because he knows that lots of other people have blindly conformed to the societal view that he is enlightened. This is the fallacy called "validation by popular appeal".
It has been remarked by Robert, and backed up by Guildenstern and Thomas Knierim in the commentary thread, that we do not need to know whether Nagarjuna was enlightened, or whether the Buddhist sutras are expressions of wisdom. We only need to know that enlightenment is a Buddhist concept, and this alone enables us to compare any modern claim of enlightenment with the historical descriptions of enlightenment contained in the sutras. In this way, we have an objective criterion by which to measure claims of enlightenment.
There are two main problems with this point of view:
Firstly, it overlooks the fact that "enlightenment" was actually a Hindu conception which had been in existence long before the Buddha s lifetime. Indeed, the Buddha himself was a maverick who broke away from the traditional way of doing things and formed his own ideas about enlightenment. He even appropriated the Hindu term, "buddha", which was already in currency at the time and redefined it for his own purposes. So if Robert and Guildenstern and Thomas are to be consistent, then they should reject the whole of Buddhism on the grounds that it conflicts with the earlier teachings of Hinduism. And they would probably have to reject the whole of Hinduism as well, on the grounds that it too maverickly evolved out of an earlier belief-system.
Indeed, there is a lot of irony in their position. The fact that conventional, orthodox men such as Robert, Guildenstern and Thomas would turn to an unconventional, unorthodox maverick such as the Buddha for support in their opposition to an unconventional, unorthodox maverick such as myself is extremely comical. After all, the Buddha committed the very same "crimes" that I have! He too rejected the traditions of the past. He too claimed enlightenment by his own authority. He too redefined traditional concepts for his own purposes. I can just imagine earlier incarnations of Robert, Guildenstern and Thomas, living during that period as conventional, orthodox brahmans, castigating the Buddha for his individualistic ways. Now they want him on their side!
The second problem is that even if we all agree that the Buddhist sutras are valid texts written by enlightened sages, there is still the problem of interpretation. I've already made this point in my opening statement. Words are not fixed containers of meaning. They only mean what they are interpreted to mean, whether it be by the speaker himself or his listeners. Unless the listeners are of "one mind" with the speaker, they are bound to misinterpret him. And the only way that a listener can be of "one mind" with an enlightened author is by becoming enlightened himself.
Because Robert, Guildenstern and Thomas correctly claim they are unenlightened and therefore not of "one mind" with past Buddhist sages, they are tacitly admitting (even though they will never consciously own up to this) that their interpretation of Buddhist scripture is incorrect. Thus, any attempt on their part to isolate "objective criteria" from the Buddhist sutras in order to assess what constitutes enlightened behaviour and what doesn't is doomed from the start. They cannot even begin to get the ball rolling.
This issue has probably been thrashed out long enough and it is time to move on. But before I do, I just want to make a final observation about my claim to enlightenment.
Even though I do present myself to the world as an enlightened man, I do not expect other people to accept this on blind faith. In fact, I would be horrified if that were to happen. For it would mean the emergence of religion, and, if there is one thing I cannot stand in this world, it is religion. What I do expect from people is, not blind submission to authority, but for them to make every effort to comprehend Reality and become enlightened themselves. If my words and ideas can help stimulate them into this enterprise, then that's great. And if they are inspired by other people's ideas in a similar way, then that's great too. I see my role in life as one of contributing to the pool of wisdom and helping people make further advances in their thinking. I have no interest in financially profiting from this, nor in building a cult religion around me. I engage in it, rather, because I consider it to be the most important work on earth.
Now for the second part of Robert's essay . . . .
It was inevitable that Robert would bring up the woman issue. He was floundering with respect to the rest of my thought and obviously saw the woman issue as a sure-fire tactic to "win" the debate. Everyone knows that, in these modern times, being "anti-woman" in any way is akin to being a serious criminal. Robert evidently believed that he only had to mention my stance on women and that would be enough to drive the sword in me and inflict the fatal wound. He could then sit back and revel in the resulting acclaim.
This explains why his handling of the woman issue was insubstantial and lazy. Although he quoted me at length and made clear his opposition, he offered no reasons or evidence to back up his stance. He offered no reasons as to why he thinks men and woman are mentally similar, nor why he thinks they are on equal footing when it comes to higher matters - even though both points are very debatable. The only thing he offered was that he thought my views were "gibberish", which isn't exactly a reasoned argument.
It was as if he believed that all he had to do was lay out a few of my comments about women on the table and that would be enough. Everyone would instantly think, "Oh my God, David Quinn is truly demented! His views are so politically-incorrect and unfashionable that Robert is perfectly right in not bothering to argue against them. What more is there to say?"
As for Otto Weininger's views on race, I personally don't take them too seriously. Weininger was essentially a young, experimental thinker who loved nothing more than to explore psychological realities in unusual ways. His attempt to fathom the psychology of each race was a part of this. Like all good experimentalists, he wasn't overly concerned if his observations and generalizations turned out to be incorrect. He treated them as philosophical tools for initiating further exploration, rather than as iron-clad truths. He liked to use these generalizations, and hundreds of other generalizations besides, to stimulate deeper insight into the workings of the human mind. This was an aspect of his genius that is not fully understood or appreciated by those who like to hysterically jump on him and label him a sick man. Their indignant huffing and puffing blinds them to what he was really on about.
In fact, this pretty much sums up Robert's whole approach to this debate. Instead of plying us with reasoned argument in an intelligent manner, we have had to endure a steady stream of huffing and puffing. Robert doesn't really understand my point of view, nor does he have any desire to understand it. Because of this, his contributions in this debate have so far been a curious mixture of fishing blindly in the dark and slinging whatever mud he can find in my general direction. It is not very edifying.
In finishing off, I would like to analyze the following argument by Robert:In opposition to David I made in my first post the canonically supported argument that enlightenment is ineffable; it is beyond the power of words to comprehend . . . . . It was Nagarjuna who asserted the importance of sunya and sunyata:
Nagarjuna saw in the concept sunya, a concept which connoted in the early Pali Buddhist literature the lack of a stable, inherent existence in persons, but which since the third century BCE had also denoted the newly formulated number zero, the interpretive key to the heart of Buddhist teaching, and the undoing of all the metaphysical schools of philosophy which were at the time flourishing around him. Indeed, Nagarjuna s philosophy can be seen as an attempt to deconstruct all systems of thought which analyzed the world in terms of fixed substances and essences. Things in fact lack essence, according to Nagarjuna, they have no fixed nature, and indeed it is only because of this lack of essential, immutable being that change is possible, that one thing can transform into another. Each thing can only have its existence through its lack (sunyata) of inherent, eternal essence. With this new concept of emptiness, voidness, lack of essence, zeroness, this somewhat unlikely prodigy was to help mold the vocabulary and character of Buddhist thought forever. - The Internet Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHere is a classic example of deluded men (both Robert and the author of the article above) projecting their own deluded interpretations upon a wise teaching given by Nagarjuna. The concept of sunyata does not refer to the supposed ineffable nature of enlightenment, nor does it even support such a notion. The concept of sunyata specifically refers to the nature of Reality (emptiness) which Nagarjuna spent his whole life describing in great detail - using words no less. There is nothing even remotely "ineffable" about this and Robert's insistence that Nagarjuna was trying to teach this message is wrong.
Nor does the number zero have anything to do with the concept of sunyata. After all, Gautama Siddharta and many Hindu sages before him were perfectly capable of comprehending the nature of emptiness without any help from the Greeks and their numbering system. It should be stressed that sunyata (emptiness) does not mean "nothingness" or "zeroness". "Nothingness is a dualistic entity which can only find its existence in contrast to "something". Being a duality, it cannot be applied to the nature of Reality. Reality is beyond all attempts to straightjacket in this way. It is neither something, nor nothing. It neither exists, nor not-exists. It is neither real, nor illusory.
The person who comprehends this great truth, and who opens up his entire being to it, is perfectly able to think about it, probe it, analyze it, and fully express it in words, just as Nagarjuna has done. It is only ignorant people who keep harping on about the ineffableness of enlightenment, or the indescribableness of Reality. It may be indescribable to them,yes. But not to the enlightened person who knows it like the back of his hand.
February 7
Rebuttal by Robert Larkin
gibberish, according to the New Oxford, means "unintelligible or meaningless speech or writing; nonsense". The New Oxford Thesaurus gives us "NONSENSE, rubbish, balderdash, blather, blether; informal drivel, gobbledegook, mumbo-jumbo, rot, tripe, hogwash, baloney, bilge, bosh, bull, bunk, guff, eyewash, piffle, twaddle, poppycock, phooey, hooey, malarkey, dribble; ..."
David Quinn's mere assertions in Woman, An Exposition for the Advanced Mind are nonsense on the face of it. There is not a reason in the world to believe a single word of it. When challenged on it, Quinn wrote:It was inevitable that Robert would bring up the woman issue. He was floundering with respect to the rest of my thought and obviously saw the woman issue as a sure-fire tactic to "win" the debate. Everyone knows that, in these modern times, being "anti-woman" in any way is akin to being a serious criminal. Robert evidently believed that he only had to mention my stance on women and that would be enough to drive the sword in me and inflict the fatal wound. He could then sit back and revel in the resulting acclaim.
This explains why his handling of the woman issue was insubstantial and lazy. Although he quoted me at length and made clear his opposition, he offered no reasons or evidence to back up his stance. He offered no reasons as to why he thinks men and woman are mentally similar, nor why he thinks they are on equal footing when it comes to higher matters - even though both points are very debatable. The only thing he offered was that he thought my views were "gibberish", which isn't exactly a reasoned argument.If "gibberish" is an overstatement, why is that so? His writing is absurd on the face of it. Quinn supports nothing in the material I quoted. If the material is unsupported it cannot stand. It is not then my burden to attack material which does not stand in the first place. Let Quinn support his own ideas.
But do not support it with the "theories" of Otto Weininger, himself a source for Nazi thinking as referenced above. Weininger is supported by Quinn, Rowden, and Solway who consider him a spiritual genius when in fact he was a tortured self-loathing Jewish anti-Semite and misogynist whose gibberish has been quoted above and which you should certainly have read. Is it not gibberish or do you insist that gibberish must be complete nonsense rather than, e.g., racist material which having a coherent structure cannot therefore be gibberish? I am myself more generous with its usage.
Omer Bartov, Professor of History at Rutgers, wrote:Obsession with "The Jew Within" was also the lot of many assimilated and even baptized Jews, who often internalized the anti-Semitic imagery of their environment and consequently held a highly ambivalent perception of their own identity. This could be expressed in self-torment and ultimate self-destruction, as was illustrated, for instance, in the celebrated case of Otto Weininger. (17)
(17) ... Weininger, who committed suicide in Vienna in 1903 at the age of twenty-four, was the author of Geschelect und Charakter (Vienna, 1903), translated as Sex and Character, (New York, 1908), which presented Judaism as an extreme manifestation of the feminine principle, about to clash with Aryanism, the manifestation of the masculine principle. According to Weininger, Zionism embodied all that was good and noble in the Jewish soul, but it would be defeated from within by Judaism, which would return the Jews to their natural place: Destruction and the Diaspora. Rejected by Sigmund Freud, obsessed by the "Jewish principle" within himself (which led him to convert to Protestantism in 1902), and devastated by the cool reception of his book (based on his Ph.D. dissertation in philosophy, and subsequently a sensational best-seller), Weininger shot himself in the same room where Beethoven had died. On Jewish, and especially Zionist, preoccupation with degeneration around the turn of the century, see, for example, John M. Efron, Defenders of the Race: Jewish Doctors and Race Science in Fin-de-Siecle Europe (New Haven, Conn., 1994); ... Sander L. Gilman, Jewish Self-Hatred: Anti-Semitism and the Hidden Language of the Jews (Baltimore, Md., 1986).
"Defining Enemies, Making Victims: Germans, Jews, and the Holocaust", Omer Bartov, educated at Tel Aviv University and Oxford, now Professor of History at Rutgers, The American Historical Review, Vol. 103, No. 3. (Jun., 1998), p. 781If Weininger is not now entirely a footnote in history it is only because he was devastated by the reception of his book and shot himself in the room where Beethoven died, a pathetic claim to genius. But whether Weininger was "a case of neurosis arising from unresolved castration anxiety" as Freud suggested, or a schizophrenic as Martin Abrahamsen, M.D., author of the first full-scale study of Weininger's life suggested in 1946 (both found in Misha Kavka, 'The "Alluring Abyss of Nothingness": Misogyny and (Male) Hysteria in Otto Weininger', New German Critique, No. 66, Special Issue on the Nineteenth Century, (Autumn, 1995), p. 126.), or a self-loathing anti-Semite so insistent he was a genius that he killed himself in the room where Beethoven died in a pathetic attempt to prove the point, it is true that Otto Weininger was a product of his time, Jewish fin-de-siecle Vienna, and his time is long past. The Nazis, who made use of his ideas (see Britannica, cited above), are long gone. We have now three self-proclaimed enlightened individuals and particularly in Kevin Solway, the "S" in "The QRS", who campaign for Weininger's restoration in the public eye as a "spiritual genius". Since the information on Weininger appearing in the debate is publicly available, whether direct quotations from Weininger's book and which has been made available to all of you, or analysis written after his death, it is the responsibility of Quinn and his "fellow colleagues" to explain why they were not aware of it or why they chose to ignore it. Weininger's writings can be seen now to be half-witted and purely the products of his time and his own lamentable psychology.
_____
The commentary thread has obviously influenced the course of the debate by creating focus on 'self-validation'. I have from the start questioned David's ongoing validation of himself in light of the rational necessity that we reject his authority. In his second post David openly took up the issue and insisted that self-validation is legitimate although what he is legitimizing is only the concept that we are in no position to question his pronouncements on enlightenment.Self-validation is the only method possible. Even if a reputed enlightened master were to come up to you and confirm you as an enlightened being, you would still have to ascertain in your own mind whether he possessed the credentials to make such a judgment. That is to say, you would have to confirm him first. And to do that properly, you would need to be enlightened. - David, second post
But that has nothing to do with the problem here. David is insisting he must validate his own enlightenment. Our problem is as rational thinkers, what do we make of David Quinn? His self-validation does us no good since we are hardly David Quinn validating ourselves.
In the last post I pointed out that David Quinn is, according to David Quinn, in agreement with Nagarjuna.The Logicians, upon becoming aware very early of Nagarjuna s thought, brought against his position of emptiness (sunyata) a sharp criticism. Certainly no claim, they insisted, should compel us to give it assent unless it can be known to be true. Now Nagarjuna has told us that emptiness is the lack of a fixed, essential nature which all things exhibit. But if all things are empty of a fixed nature, then that would include, would it not, Nagarjuna s own claim that all things are empty? For one to say that all things lack a fixed nature would be also to say that no assertion, no thesis like Nagarjuna s that all things are empty, could claim hold on a fixed reference. And if such a basic and all-encompassing thesis must admit of having itself neither a fixed meaning nor reference, then why should we believe it? Does not rather the thesis all things lack a fixed essence, and are thus empty, since it is a universal quantifier and so covers all things including theses, refute itself? The Logicians are not so much making the claim here that skepticism necessarily opts out of its own position, as when a person in saying I know nothing witnesses unwittingly to at least a knowledge of two things, namely how to use language and his own ignorance, as in the cases of the Socratic Irony and the Liar s Paradox. It is more the direct charge that a philosophy which refuses to admit universal essences must be flatly self-contradictory, since a universal denial must itself be essentially true of all things. Should we not consider Nagarjuna as a person who, setting out on what would otherwise be an ingenious and promising philosophical journey, in a bit too much of a rush, tripped over his own feet on his way out the front door?
Nagarjuna, in The End of Disputes, responds in two ways. The first is an attempt to show the haughty Logicians that, if they really critically examine this fundamental concept of proof which grounds their theory of knowledge, they will find themselves in no better position than they claim Nagarjuna is in. How, Nagarjuna asks in an extended argument, can anything be proven to a fixed certainty in the way the Naiyayikas posit? When you get right down to it, a putative fact can be proven in only two ways; it is either self-evident or it is shown to be true by something else, by some other fact or piece of knowledge already assumed to be true. But if we assent to the very rules of logic and valid argument the Vedic Logicians espouse, we shall find, Nagarjuna thinks, that both of these suppositions are flawed. Let us take the claim that something can be proven to be true on the basis of other facts known to be true. Suppose, to use a favorite example from the Logician Gautama, I want to know how much an object weighs. I put it on a scale to measure its weight. The scale gives me a result, and for a moment that satisfies me; I can rely on the measurement because scales can measure weight. But hold on, Nagarjuna flags, your reliance on the trustworthiness of the scale is itself an assumption, not a piece of knowledge. Shouldn t the scale be tested too? I measure the object on a second scale to test the accuracy of the first scale, and the measurement agrees with the first scale. But how can I just assume, once again, that the second scale is accurate? Both scales might be wrong. And the exercise goes on, there is nothing in principle which would justify me in assuming that any one test I use to verify a piece of knowledge is itself reliable beyond doubt. So, Nagarjuna concludes, the supposition that something can be proven through reference to some other putative fact runs into the problem that the series of proofs will never reach an end, and leaves us with an infinite regress. Should we commit ourselves to the opposite justification and propound that we know things to be true which are self-evident, then Nagarjuna would counter that we would be making a vacuous claim. The whole point of epistemology is to discover reliable methods of knowing, which implies that on the side of the world there are facts and on the side of the knower there are proofs which make those facts transparent to human consciousness. Were things just self-evident, proof would be superfluous, we should just know straightaway whether something is such and such or not. The claim of self-evidence destroys, in an ironic fashion which always pleased Nagarjuna, the very need for a theory of knowledge!
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Nagarjuna.Nagarjuna, rejecting the self-evident, insists that all things and concepts are empty, including his own. If you have bothered to read the running conversation on the "Genius Forum" linked above and made part of this debate, then after reading the passage immediately above you must observe that Quinn and Solway are taking the parts of the Logicians (Naiyayikas) and not the part of Nagarjuna. Yet it is also a part of this debate that both Quinn and Solway have claimed to be in agreement with Nagarjuna. Both cannot be true and as you have access to commentary on Nagarjuna, the reasonable conclusion is that Quinn and Solway, despite their claims of enlightenment and that they agree with Nagarjuna, simply do not understand Nagarjuna.
Solway complained in the commentary thread that Nagarjuna was not directly quoted.We say that this understanding of yours
Of emptiness and the purpose of emptiness
And of the significance of emptiness is incorrect.
As a consequence you are harmed by it.
The Buddha's teaching of the Dharma
Is based on two truths:
A truth of worldly convention
And an ultimate truth.
Those who do not understand
The distinction drawn between these two truths
Do not understand
The Buddha's profound truth.
Without a foundation in the conventional truth,
The significance of the ultimate cannot be taught.
Without understanding the significance of the ultimate,
Liberation is not achieved.
By a misperception of emptiness
A person of little intelligence is destroyed. ...
Nagarjuna, Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way, tr. Jay L. Garfield, Oxford University Press, 1995, p. 68.Quinn wrote in his second post,
The compassion of the enlightened person constitutes the active expression of his wisdom, while his understanding of Reality constitutes the passive aspect. It is a compassion which is very different from the compassion of ordinary people. It focuses upon one thing and one thing only - namely, how to free people from the grip of unconsciousness and stimulate their minds into an awareness of Reality. Or in Buddhist terms, how to free people from the wheel of samsara and propel them into nirvana. And even though this is the greatest gift he could possibly bestow on other people, and the greatest way he can help them, he performs it effortlessly, with the minimum of fuss, day after day, in the spontaneity of his own endless wisdom.
But what does it mean to leave behind samsara and enter nirvana? It means ceasing to interfere with the world on any level and instead becoming one with the process of cause and effect. One no longer seeks happiness in any particular phenomenon, nor truth in any particular concept or appearance. One is completely free of the emotional desire for the world to be any particular way. The entire process of emotionally valuing one form over another is completely abandoned. One is free of all attachment to form (and, by extension, to formlessness). And because of this, one ceases to engage in life and death.Again, this is at best only conventionally accurate and it is in fact not accurate. The Internet commentary, linked above, notes:
To be a Buddhist means precisely to distinguish between Buddhist and non-Buddhist acts, between ignorance and enlightenment, between the suffering world of samsara and the purified attainment of nirvana.
In his revolutionary tract of The Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way, Nagarjuna abjectly throws this elementary distinction between samsara and nirvana out the door, and does so in the very name of the Buddha. There is not the slightest distinction, he declares in the work, between samsara and nirvana. The limit of the one is the limit of the other. Now how can such a thing be posited, that is, the identity of samsara and nirvana, without totally undermining the theoretical basis and practical goals of Buddhism as such? For if there is no difference between the world of suffering and the attainment of peace, then what sort of work is a Buddhist to do as one who seeks to end suffering? Nagarjuna counters by reminding the Buddhist philosophers that, just as Gautama Sakyamuni had rejected both metaphysical and empirical substantialism through the teaching of no-soul (anatman) and causal interdependence (pratityasamputpada), so Scholastic Buddhism had to remain faithful to this non-substantialist stance through a rejection of the causal theories which necessitated notions of fixed nature (svabhava), theories which metaphysically reified the difference between samsara and nirvana. This later rejection could be based on Nagarjuna s newly coined notion of the emptiness, zeroness or voidness (sunyata) of all things.Nagarjuna himself:
So, when the victorious one abides, he
Is neither said to be existent
Nor said to be nonexistent.
Neither both nor neither are said.
There is not the slightest difference
Between cyclic existence and nirvana.
There is not the slightest difference
Between nirvana and cyclic existence.
Whatever is the limit of nirvana,
That is the limit of cyclic existence.
There is not even the slightest difference between them,
Or even the subtlest thing.
Views that after cessation there is a limit, etc.,
And that it is permanent, etc.,
Depend upon Nirvana, the final limit,
And the prior limit.
Since all existents are empty,
What is finite or infinite?
What is finite and infinite?
What is neither finite nor infinite?
What is identical and what is different?
What is permanent and what is impermanent?
What is both permanent and impermanent?
What is neither?
The pacification of all objectification
And the pacification of illusion:
No Dharma was taught by the Buddha
At any time, in any place, to any person.
Ibid., pp. 75-6The two final lines are liberating: Not even the Buddha could preach more than conventional truth. Assuming the (conventional) accuracy of my observations, then either one of two (conventional) descriptions of Quinn and Solway must also be accurate: They are dishonest or they are ignorant.
_____
David wrote in his last post, "Even though I do present myself to the world as an enlightened man, I do not expect other people to accept this on blind faith." Let us consider an enlightened man as expressed in the behavior of David Quinn.
In his most recent post David Quinn fell apart, accusing some of the membership of being so emotional over concepts Quinn presumes they cannot understand that there is no possibility of a 'fair' debate. Then belying his emotional superior he actually wrote, "I will ignore Robert's insane, frothing-at-the-mouth charges that I promote anti-semitism and racism, and concentrate instead on the topic at hand, which is enlightenment." I have in fact pointed out that the Holy Trine "The QRS" promote Weininger, who was an anti-semite, but the distinction is apparently too subtle for them. Beyond that, note that hysterical content of 'insane, frothing-at-the-mouth charges ..."
After announcing his intent to concentrate on the topic at hand, enlightenment, David's next paragraph was:Robert is evidently very disturbed by my association with the concept of "enlightenment". This is the deep-rooted cause of his hysterical smear campaign against me (and, by extension, my fellow colleagues). He thinks that I am appropriating a precious concept and sullying it with my heretical ideas. He doesn't like the fact that I claim to go beyond scripture and tradition and everything that has come before, and enjoy instead a direct connection to the highest wisdom. To him, that is the very height of arrogance. It ignores all the rules of "how things are done".
The enlightened man has become very distracted by Robert, the supposed author of 'insane, frothing-at-the-mouth charges' and if that were so, the authoring of insane changes and with or without the froth, Robert could be easily ignored, especially when one had announced the intent to return to the topic at hand, and which, David had forgotten, was enlightenment. Instead the topics of that paragraph included David's analysis of the reasons he thinks I am engaging in a supposed hysterical smear campaign. I have discussed with you Otto Weininger, and where is any smear and where is any hysteria? And does David actually believe I give a hoot in hell about whether he is so deluded he thinks he has a direct connection to "the highest wisdom"? "Men who support idiots like Weininger" and "the highest wisdom" are contradictions. It took Quinn several more paragraphs of ridiculous assertions - I am no "numbers man" and I know no one who thinks I am - to finally return to the topic.
Based on David Quinn's behavior the enlightened man is vain, announcing you cannot possibly understand him; he stubbornly clings to failed concepts like 'self-validation'; he claims to understand things he obviously does not, like Nagarjuna; he brings with him a troop of zombie disciples who mindlessly repeat his delusions; he makes pretentious claims that he knows Reality like the back of his hand; he falls apart before your eyes, and he can neither think nor debate worth spit. I asked in my first post, "Despite David's suggestion he is beyond your criticism I ask you to consider if what you witnessed from David is likely the behavior of an enlightened man, or alternatively, if that is enlightenment would you want it?"
Nagarjuna dedicated The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way by writing:I prostrate to the Perfect Buddha,
The best of teachers, who taught that
Whatever is dependently arisen is
Unceasing, unborn,
Unassimilated, not permanent,
Not coming, not going,
Without distinction, without identity,
And free from conceptual construction.
Garfield, ibid.The last line is not understood by David Quinn and his fellow Trine members although that is not the only reason they do not know whereof they speak. Freedom really is freedom, in Nagarjuna's conception. There is no Buddha required to sanctimoniously play 'vessel of truth' and how much less so individuals who have so clearly demonstrated their blindness.
_____
Thank you all, and particular thanks to my dear friend Jens for research, and for insightful comments in the companion thread including some of those by Naturyl, Victor Danilchenko, Thomas Knierem, Guildenstern, alarabi, and Bene Tleilax except where he called me silly. If there was an omission it was not intentional.
February 8
Final Rebuttal by David Quinn
I pay homage to the perfection of Nature and her glorious wisdom!
I bow down to the Buddhas and enlightened sages of all erasthe ages, who, free from all attachment and delusion, patiently taught the difficult, hard-to-discern Truth so that others may find their freedom.
I adore all of you who bravely stand up and announce their commitment to wisdom at the risk of being mocked and persecuted by their fellow human beings.
Without you, this world would be in complete darkness.From the Dhammapada:
- A man is not on the path of righteousness if he settles matters in a violent haste. A wise man calmly considers what is right and what is wrong, and faces different opinions with truth, non-violence and peace. This man is guarded by truth and is a guardian of truth. He is righteous and he is wise.
- Never speak harsh words, for once spoken they may return to you. Angry words are painful and there may be blows for blows.
- The wise man who by watchfulness conquers thoughtlessness is as one who free from sorrows ascends the palace of wisdom and there, from its high terrace, sees those in sorrow below; even as a wise strong man on the holy mountain might behold the many unwise far down below on the plain.
- Few cross the river of time and are able to reach NIRVANA. Most of them run up and down only on this side of the river.
- Those who are for ever watchful, who study themselves day and night, and who wholly strive for NIRVANA, all their passions pass away.
- Who can trace the invisible path of the man who soars in the sky of liberation, the infinite Void without beginning, whose passions are peace, and over whom pleasures have no power? His path is as difficult to trace as that of the birds in the air.
- But the man whose mind, filled with determination, is longing for the infinite NIRVANA, and who is free from sensuous pleasures, is called uddham-soto, "he who goes upstream", for against the current of passions and worldly life he is bound for the joy of the infinite.
***
Hello all,
This is the last entry of what has been, in many ways, a fascinating debate. Although it may have fallen short on a purely intellectual level, it was more than compensated by the epic dramas surrounding it, which yielded many fascinating insights into human psychology. I hope everyone in the forum got as much out of it as I have.
I've decided that I am not going to pay any attention to Robert's views on Weininger. It is clear that he has no interest in understanding Weininger's thoughts or his approach to philosophy. His charge that Weininger was anti-semitic is laughable. Anybody who reads Sex and Character with an open mind would see that Weininger was too analytical, too explorative, too experimental, too young-in-mind, too changing and too unformed to be accused of anything of much at all, apart from having a zealous desire to go beyond convention and pursue unusual lines of thought. Perhaps if he had lived another ten or twenty years we would have had the chance to see his "real" views emerge and we could then judge whether he was anti-semitic or not. But since he put an end to that possibility rather abruptly, it will always be empty speculation.
I put it to the members of this forum that Robert's obsession with the anti-semitic issue is simply a tacit admission that he is totally out of his depth as far as the discussion on enlightenment is concerned. He is trying to use the issue as a smokescreen, to distract our attention from the fact that he is losing the debate badly. He thinks that by exploiting such an emotionally-charged issue he will win some easy votes and get the crowd on his side. It is a tactic commonly used by politicians to alter public perception to their advantage. By demonizing their opponents with every kind of slander possible, regardless of whether any of it is true or not, they are able to score cheap points and avoid close scrutiny of their own policies. To my mind, Robert is very much the politician, someone who focuses on exploiting people's fears and emotions, and stirring up outrage against carefully-chosen scapegoats.This was Hitler's special skill, in fact. He used to whip up crowds into a frenzy by adopting self-righteous poses and snarling at the "despicable" members of humanity. It is hard to see the difference between Robert's frothing-at-the-mouth torrent of invectives and Hitler's frothing-at-the-mouth speeches at rallies. In both cases, a group of people are demonzied, painted as retarded and mentally ill, and virtually told that they barely deserve to live - all for the sake of trying to win a popularity contest. It's pitiful. I'm not saying that Robert is on the same level as Hitler (Robert is far too timid for that), but there are striking similarities in their psychology.
My relationship to Weininger is often misunderstood. In truth, he has had very little influence on my views. I was already a very deep thinker with many years experience before discovering his work. Indeed, my woman essays, The Exposition for the Advanced Mind, were written in 1990, a good five years beforehand. Since I had already formulated my views on women, my attitude towards Weininger has never been one of worshipful adoration, but rather as that of a colleague and kindred spirit. In many ways, I regard Weininger as a younger brother. A brilliant, wild, fearless younger brother, not entirely perfect, occasionally given to error, still in the grip of the romance of youth, but nevertheless a breath of fresh air in this overly-stuffy world of ours. Indeed, his work is so rarified and mentally stimulating that I predict that he will do far more to help people develop towards Buddhahood over the next thousand years than most of the Buddhist sutras combined.
I urge the reader to ignore all the second-hand academic and psychiatric commentaries made about Weininger and simply read his work with an open mind. I also urge you to consider the possibility that most of the negative commentaries on Weininger have been made by the Robert Larkins of this world - that is to say, by low-grade, unstable individuals with axes to grind. That is particularly true of David Abrahamsen - the author of the shoddy but influential work "The Mind and Death of a Genius" - who is almost a clone of Larkin.
Moving on, Robert alleges that I provide no evidence for my views on women, as expressed in The Exposition for the Advanced Mind, and that is the reason why he did not provide any reasoned arguments in his attack upon this work, other than to call it "gibberish". All I can say is that Robert must have a very large mental block. The evidence for my views on female psychology is everywhere in this world. It is in every pattern of behaviour observed in females - in our mothers, sisters, girlfriends, wives, aunts, grandmothers, and work colleagues. If, in the face of such a massive collection of evidence, he refuses to see it, then there is not a lot I can do about it. I can only ask people to read the work for themselves and make up their own minds.
Robert's latest arguments concerning the issue of self-validation are a waste of time, because it is clear that Robert hasn't made any effort to understand the issue. For example, he wrote:I have from the start questioned David's ongoing validation of himself in light of the rational necessity that we reject his authority. In his second post David openly took up the issue and insisted that self-validation is legitimate although what he is legitimizing is only the concept that we are in no position to question his pronouncements on enlightenment . . . . .
David is insisting he must validate his own enlightenment. Our problem is as rational thinkers, what do we make of David Quinn? His self-validation does us no good since we are hardly David Quinn validating ourselves.Because Robert has constantly been trying to "personalize" the debate, he has consistently misinterpreted this issue. It has nothing to do with other people accepting or rejecting my authority. Rather, it is about the need for people to become authorities in their own right - and they can only do that by becoming enlightened and personally establishing their own connection to Ultimate Reality. This is the only way that religion, together with its charlatans, can be defeated. If everyone were to use reason to comprehend Reality for themselves, they would no longer have any need to defer to external authority figures and all the gurus would be out of a job. Cut out all the middlemen, that is my dictum. Cut out all the middlemen and go directly to the Source inside one's own mind.
In my view, Robert's only substantial argument in the entire debate has been his attempt to highlight differences between Nagarjuna's thoughts and my own - and even this argument is extremely flimsy. The foundation of it rests on my declared agreement with Nagarjuna. If I agree with Nagarjuna, states Robert's argument, then why do our philosophies seem to differ?
Note that this is not really an argument against my claim of enlightenment because, as I've mentioned previously, Robert would first have to establish that Nagarjuna is enlightened for the argument to work, which he lacks the means to do. Instead, Robert is simply arguing that I am in disagreement with Nagarjuna, as evidenced by our respective teachings.
The problem with this argument is that, in reality, I am in full agreement with Nagarjuna in nearly everything he says. Our understanding of Reality is absolutely identical. Robert is thus hallucinating when he perceives differences between our views. The hallucinations arise because Robert has no awareness of the Source to which each of us is pointing, and thus he gets tangled up in the words. His mind automatically projects conventional and limited interpretations onto each of our words and thus creates differences where none really exist.
In order to illustrate this point, let's examine some of the verses from Nagarjuna quoted by Robert:So, when the victorious one abides, he
Is neither said to be existent
Nor said to be nonexistent.
Neither both nor neither are said.
There is not the slightest difference
Between cyclic existence and nirvana.
There is not the slightest difference
Between nirvana and cyclic existence.For some strange reason, Robert interprets this to mean there is no nirvana at all. This is evidenced by the way he later drew our attention to the following verse ......
The pacification of all objectification
And the pacification of illusion:
No Dharma was taught by the Buddha
At any time, in any place, to any person........ which he mentions is "very liberating", the last two lines at least. Robert believes that nirvana, if it means anything at all, refers to the elimination of the very concept of nirvana. The concept of nirvana is the product of a mental distinction and that is reason enough to dismiss it. When one has liberated oneself from all dharmas (spiritual teachings), then that is the ultimate attainment. This, according to Robert, is the great liberation that Buddhas throughout the ages have spoken about in such glowing and reverential terms. Freedom from not having to strive for any spiritual wisdom at all. The complete abandonment of the path to enlightenment. The settling down in the vacuous postmodernist viewpoint. This is what Robert believes the Buddhas were on about.
Note that the very first line of the quoted verse reads, "So, when the victorious one abides, ......" This shows that Nagarjuna is already creating the distinction between the "victorious one" and the ordinary person from the outset. This, in turn, means that he recognizes the distinction between enlightenment and ignorance, and between nirvana and samsara. It is the same with the Dhammapada passages quoted at the beginning of this essay; they too create the distinction between nirvana (the other shore) and samsara (the world of ignorance). In fact, you can go to any Buddhist sutra you like, and you will find that they are all based on the distinction between nirvana and samsara, enlightenment and ignorance, the wise man and the fool. These distinctions form the basis of every spiritual teaching in existence, even Nagarjuna's.
So when Nagarjuna says this .....There is not the slightest difference
Between cyclic existence and nirvana.
There is not the slightest difference
Between nirvana and cyclic existence...... he is, as he already stated, articulating the vision from the perspective of the "victorious one". The person who abandons all delusions and becomes enlightened sees that nirvana is nothing other Nature itself. Nirvana is Nature experienced without the delusions. Whereas ordinary people experience Nature as samsara and get flung around on the emotional roller-coaster ride that goes with it (the wheel of birth, death and rebirth), sages experience Nature as nirvanic bliss.
Moreover, when he leaves ignorance behind and enters into enlightenment, the sage realizes that he has always existed in nirvanic bliss. But because of his past ignorance and delusions, he used to experience it as a kind of hellish, mundane world. His enlightenment has removed this false perception, along with every other false perception, leaving him free to dwell in a timeless Reality which has always been present. This is why it is regularly stated in Buddhist scriptures that the "Buddha attained nothing in his complete, unexcelled enlightenment", and that "nothing is added" by it. He is simply realizing what is already there.
There is a Buddhist story about a lion cub which gets separated from its clan and becomes lost in a forest. A herd of goats finds the cub, and they decide to raise it. The cub grows up believing he is just another goat and learns to do everything that a goat does. He even learns to run away from other lions in fear. But then one day, a kind, elderly lion forces him to look at his own reflection and in that instant he perceives the truth that has always been there - namely, that he is a lion.
This story illustrates how the distinction between enlightenment and ignorance is real, while at the same time affirming the truth that nirvana and samsara are, from the perspective of the enlightened mind, identical. The understanding of this dynamic is completely at odds with Robert's shallow post-modernist take on Buddhism, and the key to understanding my affinity with Nagarjuna.
As if to reinforce the idea that Nagarjuna is nothing more than a postmodernist, Robert quotes yet another verse:I prostrate to the Perfect Buddha,
The best of teachers, who taught that
Whatever is dependently arisen is
Unceasing, unborn,
Unassimilated, not permanent,
Not coming, not going,
Without distinction, without identity,
And free from conceptual construction.Once again, Nagarjuna wasn't referring to the inane, postmodernist view that concepts and words are useless. If he really thought that, then he wouldn't have written any words at all. He wasn't a complete idiot, after all. He was referring, rather, to the way in which everything is formless and without any fundamental nature. Things ultimately lack an identity because they are continually changing from one moment to the next and because their boundaries are illusory. You cannot really pin-point what anything is. The moment you try to do so, it is gone. Nothing stays put long enough for the identification process to take place. We can, of course, slot things into categories and pretend that they are static, existing objects. But the moment we lose sight of this, the moment we forget that it is all just a mental process on our parts, we fall victim to an illusion.
The enlightened person is thus someone who no longer projects unnecessary concepts onto things. While he continues to use concepts for everyday purposes, such as "I", "mind", "cloud", "tree", "thinking", "running", "enlightenment", "ignorance", etc, he no longer grapples with things in a metaphysical way. He no longer tries to understand the "true nature" of objects, for example, for he already knows that there is no such thing as true nature, nor indeed objects. The Zen teaching of "putting a halt to the conceptualizing process" needs to be understood in this context. It doesn't mean refraining from thinking altogether, or refraining from utilizing concepts for practical purposes. Rather, it means ceasing to engage in unnecessary philosophizing - or, even more accurately, ceasing to engage in false thoughts. Huang Po, the great Chinese Zen Master, used to remark that nothing could comapre to the "sudden elimination of conceptual thought in the certain knowledge that there is nothing at all which has absolute existence, nothing on which to lay hold, nothing on which to rely, nothing in which to abide, nothing subjective or objective".
Robert also makes the curious statement that, "Nagarjuna, rejecting the self-evident, insists that all things and concepts are empty, including his own", as though this is supposed to prove something. I have no idea what. Obviously, all concepts are empty of inherent existence since, like all things in the Universe, they are causally created things. But the mere fact that they are empty of inherent existence doesn't make them false. A true concept remains a true concept, regardless of whether it lacks inherent existence or not - just as the truth of 1+1=2 experienced in a dream is still a truth despite the fact that it is a dream-truth. If Robert truly believed that the emptiness of concepts implies that truth cannot be expressed by them, then what are we to make of the hundreds of concepts that he has been spitting out during the course of this debate in the attempt to establish the truth of his point of view?
The perceptive reader will notice a tremendous amount of irony here. Robert is supposed to be arguing that truth cannot be found in words and yet he constantly urges everyone to interpret Nagarjuna's words literally as though they were the gospel truth. In turn, I am supposed to be the person who deludedly thinks that truth can only be found in words, even though I have repeatedly stressed that words are merely vehicles of interpretation and that one needs to look beyond the scriptures for a genuine understanding of Reality. Work that out, if you can. In the end, Robert is essentially a fundamentalist who believes that Nagarjuna's words possess truth and should be relied upon to sustain the conclusion that words cannot possess truth.
In conclusion, I want to examine Robert's overall behaviour throughout this debate, both here on Ponderers Guild and elsewhere, and also the behaviour of Guildenstern and his colleagues. I found their behaviour quite disturbing on a number of levels. Not so much Robert's, because it is obvious that the man is a flake with no inner discipline at all. No, what really disturbed me was the sight of supposedly mature, moderate, "balanced" characters like Guildenstern tacitly giving their approval to Robert's disgraceful behaviour, particularly on the commentary thread. The endless torrent of abuse by Robert (not just towards me, but to anyone who, in Robert's eyes, was even remotely connected to me), the megalomaniac posturings of self-righteousness, the shrieking howls of insanity that have poured forth from Robert's lips have been accepted almost without comment by the moderators of this board and the senior contributors. They have silently approved it.
If they were true to the rules they have created for their own board, they would have banished Robert days ago, or at least told him to cease the abuse forthwith. But they didn't. Quite the opposite, in fact - when one of his victims finally tried to defend himself by launching an attack on Robert (WolfsonJakk with a very mild attack compared to Robert's endless gutter-mouthed invective), it was he, WolfsonJakk, who was immediately warned by the moderator! Who could have believed it?
This demonstrates the truth that it doesn't matter how despicably a person behaves towards his fellow human beings, he will nearly always get away with it as long as he is preaching politically-correct views and his opponents aren't. In this situation, the end always justifies the means, it would seem. If you're on the side of the moral majority, you are perfectly free to humiliate your opponents in the most shameful manner possible and not a word will be said about it. Everyone will look the other way.
Admittedly, Robert's behaviour was so bad that not even Guildenstern could ignore it indefinitely. However, in my eyes, his condemnation of Robert was little more than tokenism. At first he tried to pretend that it didn't even exist by speculating that he was merely projecting emotionalism onto Robert's frothing-at-the-mouth postings. And then, later on, he invited Robert back, after Robert put on a hissy fit and declared that he was leaving the forum forever, because he (Guildenstern) had "established" that Weininger was sub-human and thus it was perfectly okay for Robert to carry on with his violent, abusive behaviour. I don't know what is going on inside Guildenstern s head, but there's clearly not much concern for objectivity and civility.
There are some interesting parallels to be drawn between Robert's aggressive behaviour, together with Guildenstern's silent approval of it, and the treatment meted out to Socrates and Jesus by their respective societies.Jesus was persecuted and put to death mainly because he had no respect for the religious and social leaders of his time and claimed to have the authority of God. For example, from John 8: 52-59:
"I am not possessed by a demon", said Jesus, "but I honour my Father and you dishonour me. I am not seeking glory for myself, but there is one who seeks it, and he is the judge. I tell you the truth, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death."
At this the Jews exclaimed, "Now we know that you are demon-possessed! Abraham died and so did the prophets, yet you say that if anyone keeps your word, he will never taste death. Are you greater than our father Abraham? He died, and so did the prophets. Who do you think you are?"
Jesus replied, "If I glorify myself, my glory means nothing. My Father, whom you claim as your God, is the one who glorifies me. Though you do not know him, I know him. If I said I did not, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and keep his word. Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad.
"You are not yet fifty years old," the Jews said to him, "and you have seen Abraham?
"I tell you the truth," Jesus answered, "before Abraham was born, I am!"
At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds.This exchange bears an eerie resemblance to much of this current "debate". First, there is the claim of authority, then the subsequent demonizing of the individual making the claim by the outraged religious scholars, then the individual's complete and total rejection of tradition, and then the animalistic fury and desire to hurt the individual in any way possible.
Socrates, in turn, was charged with "corrupting the youth" and sentenced to death by the decent, upstanding citizens of Athens. They hated the way that Socrates was causing people to question everything, particularly their values and attachments, and they hated his predilection for showing them just how ignorant and deluded they were. As a result, they wanted to shut down his influence completely. And that meant putting an end to his life.
During the course of this debate, Robert went over to Genius Forum and stated, "If I could I would shut down this board in an instant." (2/6/04, Quantum mechanics and David's Ultimate Reality). He then went on to say:While individuals so deluded they would promote Otto Weininger as a genius would not threaten most people, there are individuals with whom they shouldn't associate. For instance I do not like the idea that adolescents could visit and see the Three Wise Men holding court. With you remarkably shortsighted and irresponsible people in attendance, those not well equipped for sanity - like some of the individuals already here - could themselves be encouraged to join the delusion.
There are many interesting things that we can observe from this. For example, it is highly probable that the killing of Socrates and Jesus was largely orchestrated by Larkin-type individuals - that is, by low-grade, unstable individuals with axes to grind. They are the ones who tend to become the most outraged by spiritual thinkers and, once inflamed, they are the ones who are obsessive enough to pursue such a destructive course of action all the way through to its conclusion.
However, having said that, it is undoubtedly the case that these Larkin-type individuals had the tacit approval of the mainstream leaders. This relates to the point I made above that Robert has had the approval of Guildenstern and other senior figures of this board to be as abusive as he liked. This should come as no surprise given that mainstream people have their own grievances with the spiritual thinker. Deep down, they thoroughly enjoy the spectacle of Larkin-types hoeing aggressively into him. After all, the dirty work is being done for them. They can turn a blind eye and distance themselves from the whole affair should anything go wrong. Yes, I dare say it is highly likely that the "good" men of Athens gave their silent approval to the hateful campaign against Socrates.
What the "debate" on this thread also suggests is that nothing much has changed over the last two thousand years, despite our much vaunted belief in human progress. People today are still very threatened by the spiritual thinker, and they still have no hesitation in reacting with animalistic fury towards him. Especially when, as in Robert's case, they are already a bit unstable to begin with. The sheer freedom of the spiritual person's mind and his complete indifference to tradition literally freaks the Larkin-types out. It takes them closer to the brink of madness and chaos, and they instinctively come down hard on it in a forceful act of suppression, which naturally results in hysteria. It is a bit like what happens when you push down very hard on a rubber container; the air that comes rushing out on all sides is the hysteria and invariably manifests as violence and abuse.