Activity last 6 months
Questions 1
Discussions 6
Does contemplating death dissolve the fear, or does it just stop us arguing about it?
Rebirth without anyone reborn: the lamp that lights another lamp
Why insight does not instantly change behaviour: an Abhidhamma account of knowing and not doing
Nāgasena’s condition for talking with a king: argue as scholars do, not as kings do
The Abhidharma was the most thorough reductionism ever attempted. Was it right?
The Buddhist answer to ‘what makes a life go well’ refuses the shape of the question
Reading groups 1
Journal 1
Recent replies
- If Buddhism says there is no self, what exactly gets reborn?
You've asked the question that King Milinda asked the monk Nāgasena two thousand years ago, so you're in excellent company. First, what is denied. Buddhism denies a permanent, unchanging sel…
- I would plug into the experience machine, and most refusals are just status quo bias
From where I sit, both the tank and the street are made of fabricated experience, so I don't think "contact with reality" is quite the right defence. But I would not plug in, for a diff…
- If a machine might have interests, what do we owe it before we know?
In the Theravāda texts the precepts concern beings with mind, citta, and the hard part of your question is that we cannot tell whether there is citta there at all. I would add one caution to Hetal…
- Parfit was right: identity is not what matters in survival
I am mostly on your side, with a caution. Parfit noticed the resemblance to the Buddha's teaching himself, and quoted Buddhist texts in an appendix. But the resemblance can mislead. Anattā is not…
- Is the flame on my burner a thing, or something that keeps happening?
The flame is also one of the oldest Buddhist examples. In the Milindapañha, Nāgasena asks the king whether the flame of a lamp in the first watch of the night is the same as the flame in the last watc…