Talk:Buddhist philosophy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Religion Portal

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Religion, a project to improve Wikipedia's articles on Religion-related subjects. Please participate by editing the article, and help us assess and improve articles to good and 1.0 standards, or visit the wikiproject page for more details.

???

This article has not yet received a rating on the Project's quality scale. Please rate the article and then leave a short summary here to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article.

This article falls within the scope of the Interfaith work group. If you are interested in Interfaith-related topics, please visit the project page to see how you can help. If you have any comments regarding the appropriateness or positioning of this template, please let us know at our talk page

This article is part of WikiProject China, a project to improve all China-related articles. If you would like to help improve this and other China-related articles, please join the project. All interested editors are welcome.

Start

This article has been rated as Start-Class on the quality scale. (add comments)

[edit] Article Organisation

Why is this article organised into sections such as Metaphysics, Epistemology, etc - which are branches of Western philosophy? Shouldn't the sections be based on the key Buddhist concepts such as Anatta, Pratitya Samutpada, etc?

[edit] 2002

I just wanted to thank the anonymous person who wrote this excellent start of an article on Buddhist philosophy. --Larry Sanger

I think that something about philosophy of Zen and other non-traditional Buddhist sects should be written. Taw

Many philosophers of Zen would maintain that Zen is anti-philosophy. :-)

I would like to see something about commonly practiced forms of Buddhism, such as Nichiren Buddhism, Tendai and Nembutsu. [bddougie]

(Nichiren Buddhism, Tendai Buddhism, Nembutsu Buddhism).

To my knowledge, the Buddha clearly states in the Pali Suttas that there is no self or soul (anatta). - Clive

[edit] Recent edits

I just made some pretty sweeping changes; the existing description was questionable on several points and vague on most, and I did my best to make clear some of the basic issues. However, this is still massively underdeveloped.कुक्कुरोवाच

The fact is that philosophy is different from religion and therefore should not be merged.

[edit] Round Two

Deleted a sentence saying the Buddha began from the Upanishadic position on the unity of the atman and Brahman, and the desirability of escape from samsara, because (1) Early Buddhism does not reject the ultimate desirability of samsara, and (2) as I learned it, the Buddha's teachers were likelier Samkhyans then advaitins, (3) I'm not at all sure that the Upanishads are what the Buddha was rejecting, since they were largely being formulated around the same time, as I recall, and wouldn't be totally canonical yet. This is not to say that the Buddha doesn't reject them, of course, but that's covered under saying he rejects metaphysical being.

I'm moving the pratitya-samutpada section into metaphysics and phenomenology where it belongs; causation is not a problem of logic in Indian philosophy, it is a problem of metaphysics, and, in Buddhism, a problem of psychology or phenomenology.कुक्कुरोवाच 21:07, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Explanation of revert

I thought the deleted paragraph had some value in its original form. I didn't find it to be particularly trite. Also, I think "non-theistic" is better than "atheistic". "Atheism", as people often use it and as W'pedia defines it, seems to rule out a "middle way" balancing act. In conclusion, please allow me to say that I think the paragraph's last sentence preeemptively expresses Kukku's concerns about a tendentious definition of religion. That's all, thank you. - Nat Kraus e 04:19, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I am happier with non-theistic than with atheistic; however, I do object to having a pragraph that's so problematic that it has to conclude with a disclaimer that it may be moot before we ever get to what the article is actually about. I suggest that that paragraph be moved somewhere less obtrusive in the body of the article. -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 04:35, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I reworded the paragrpaph and put back in the fact that many; including some prominent Buddhists describe much of Buddhism as atheistic, this is a matter of fact not POV. Here are some sources:

The prominent British Buddhist Christmas Humphreys (also a prominent judge) in "Buddhism"(1954). C.H. was President of the Buddhist Society, London, from it's foundation in 1924 for 30 years. On page 79 under the title "No God, No Soul" he writes "As between the theist and atheist positions, Buddhism is atheist".

"The Varieties of Religious Experience", William James pg 50: "the Buddha himself stands in place of a God; but in strictness the Buddhistic system is atheistic".

--Nick-in-South-Africa 07:25, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Link

A view on Buddhism

Someone added this link to the page, and while it doesn't seem like a horrible site on a first glance, it does seem like a personal one, and perhaps not exactly NPOV, etc. Can folks take a look at it and convey reflections? -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 22:00, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] vegetarian

A bot changed [[vegetarian]]s to [[vegetarianism|vegetarians]], since the former is a double-redirect. It was reverted back to the double-rd -- I'm not sure why. I changed it back. If you think it should be [[vegetarian]]s again, let's discuss. Quadell (talk) 13:31, Jul 15, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Quote

My teaching is not a philosophy. It is the result of direct experience...

My teaching is a means of practice, not something to hold onto or worship.

My teaching is like a raft used to cross the river.

Only a fool would carry the raft around after he had already reached the other shore of liberation.

– The Buddha

I removed this quote from the beginning of this article because (a) it's unattributed (we need chapter and verse, not just "The Buddha", (b) it's not appropriate to use it as an epigram, (c) I'm not 100% sure it's pertinent to the article, and (d) if it is to be included, it should get textual context to make clear what it's doing in the article, and this should take place in a section discussing, I don't know, arguments against taking Buddhism as a philosophy. -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 17:33, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Text duplicated

It is pretty clear that the text got duplicated between edit times 20:08, 19 Oct 2004 and 23:59, 20 Oct 2004. I got the diffs down to a few words. Editors may wish to verify that their favorite changes are back in the text. I was clued in to the problem by duplicated categories at the bottom. Looks fixed now. Ancheta Wis 00:08, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Merger

I oppose merging this article into Buddhist Religious Philosophy. There are many people including myself who try to adhere to Buddhist ideals and principles without being religious about it in any way. The two articles cover distinct areas of knowledge. The merge notice should be removed. Hu 20:34, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Even if Buddhist philosophy had strong religious association (for instance, if the philosophy were organised around questions seeking to justify faith and doctrine) it would still be legitimate in being kept separate from Buddhist religious philosophy or Buddhism in general ... there don't seem to be any proposals to rename the Christian philosophy page. A further argument is that Buddhist philosophy, in general, doesn't tend to be oriented toward the same things that scripture/doctrine based inquiries are oriented. There are many streams of inquiry in Buddhist philosophy that have nothing to do with attempts to confirm or refute doctrine or proposed religious entities. Buddhist philosophy tends to be more method than subject matter. (Leo T) 66.91.249.23 05:56, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

It is irrelevant because the new section is created in Buddhism article. Philosophy subsection in Buddhism has direct link to this article. Vapour

[edit] New Proposal-Renaming the title to Buddhism and Philosophy

The title is confusing. Metaphysics, Epistemology and Phenomenology are concept developed and belong to (Western) philosophy. Buddhism's idea should be explained in its own term probably by expanding the article about dependent origination. This article is essentially an comparative study and the title of the article should reflect on it, IMO. Vapour

~~I vote NO. The curent title is just fine. Making it Buddhism and philosophy implies something seperate, different from philosophy, which is incorrect to say. Buddhism is based on philosophy.~~ Monkey Brain 14:29, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Changed my vote, YES. So when will it move? Monkey Brain_(untalk) 18:11, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

It seems we should then introduce some changes into the article to reflect the new title, shouldn't we?--Klimov 18:32, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Oops right, lol my bad for not realizing the obvious. Monkey Brain_(untalk) 18:35, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

I vote YES. It seems to me highly controversial to consider the Buddhadharma being based on philosophy. Please see Buddhism#Intellectualism_and_Buddhist_worldview. --Klimov 13:16, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

We could e.g. keep Buddhist philosophy as a redirect to Buddhism and Philosophy.--Klimov 09:46, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sprotect time?

Second revert on the same funny stuff in 2 days. Sprotect?--Klimov 13:03, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 03:49, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

	This article falls within the scope of WikiProject Buddhism, an attempt to promote better coordination, content distribution, and cross-referencing between pages dealing with Buddhism. Please participate by editing the article Buddhist philosophy, or visit the project page for more details on the projects. Guidelines: Chinese Manual of Style - Naming conventions Indic Manual of Style - Naming conventions Japanese Manual of Style Korean Manual of Style - Naming conventions Tibetan Proposed naming conventions
Start	This article has been rated as Start-class on the quality scale.
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the importance scale.
Article Grading: The article has been rated for quality and/or importance but has no comments yet. If appropriate, please review the article and then leave comments here to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article and what work it will need.