Religions that don't offer an afterlife cannot compete with those that do. The human mind is programmed for its own continuance, and a heaven is the ultimate reward for such a program. If there was only one religion, it might work; but there are many - and they are in deadly competition with one another.
In the near future, we will program the human mind in the computer based on a linguistic "survival" algorithm, which will provide irrefutable proof as to how we trick the mind with our ridiculous beliefs about what is supposed to survive - producing minds by definition programmed de facto for destruction. These minds see the survival of a particular belief as more important than the survival of itself - or the whole world for that matter. When we understand this, we will begin the long trek back to reason and sanity. If we don't, we are doomed as a species. Spirituality be dammed.
See RevolutionOfReason.com
2
The image of the headless Buddha says it all. He's speaking about freedom, but notice how many times Mr. Hagglund uses the verb "must." For example, he writes, "I must always live in relation to my irrevocable death." Again, "Any form of spiritual life must . . . be animated by the anxiety of being mortal." And "we must be vulnerable." Must, must, must. He's is telling you that if you don't accept his Heideggerian ideal of being-towards-death, you are living falsely. But that's not freedom at all. In fact, it's totalitarian, since it won't accept even the possibility of valid but alternative ways to live.
1
Q: What color is your prophet?
A: Don’t know – more fixed on the content of character, than the color of skin
Q: OK – pas blanc. Could you narrow it down further?
A: Yes – but then they’d have to kill you
Q: Would it be a crucifixion?
A: Metaphorically, not literally
Q: A martyrdom, at least?
A: As ever – depends who’s got the pen
Q: Could we just pretend this conversation never happened?
A: Maybe – maybe not
Q: Just like we did yesterday?
A: Maybe – maybe not
Q: Thanks – can I have your number
A: No need – I’ve got yours
3
You got to live somehow.
1
This essay kills it.
1
Heaven? Hell? Existence? Nonexistance? Too complex for my little mind. I just hope that at my funeral friends will cry, will laugh, will eat and drink and toast saying, She had true grit, she made a difference, she did her best with what she had to work with. ‘Cause all that is true. What happens after life.....well, I will find out or I won’t.
21
I'm not religious or spiritual but I have studied the bible and Tibetan Buddhism and I meditate. Nirvana to me is not something we can truly experience. It is like heaven, just an illusion to keep us going through the darkness of our conscious existence. Like all animals, we are driven by instinct to survive, procreate and seek pleasure. Meditation is a way to escape our instincts or reframe them to serve a higher need and pacify the anguish of needs unmet. But it will not save your soul, if that even means anything in reality. No religion and no spiritual belief can save me from the finality of death and the destruction of my consciousness, that is just wishful thinking and if I want to make the most of my time then I should strive to satisfy my instincts including all of Maslows hierarchy of needs but in the end it really doesn't matter. Buddhism was born of suffering and inequality while the abrahamic religions were born of the agricultural lifestyle. They can't save me any more than science, wealth and power can. The peace we all so desperately need is unattainable because it is merely an illusion driven by instinct. The obsession with the spoiled rich kid president is telling. He is a crook but he can't be punished. He is demonic but there is no hell to send him to. That's what is so troubling. He reminds us that there is no God and no justice and it breaks our illusions.
9
Preach, Martin! I had never considered this point of view. I'm going to go find something worthwhile to do with my time this morning.
2
"Mortality will make us free" sounds like the result of some type of internalized existential stockholm syndrome. It's always been my opinion that 80-100 years is simply not enough time to do everything one may want to do.
As for the argument that immortal humans will ask "What's the point, I'll live forever," I'd be quick to point out that there are people right now who ask "What's the point, I'll die anyways." In both cases these questions result in us deriving meaning from our lives, but only in one case do we have something critical and precious: time
3
Our lives on earth are not lived in eternity. For us it is a concept or a mathematical set of equations. We cannot know what it is because we have no references of its experience. Would it be boring? Who knows? I can't begin to comprehend it.
If meaning in our lives depends on the nature of an incomprehensible eternity, there is no way to know how meaning relates to it. My spiritual life is about the tiniest slivers of eternity I glimpse and responding to them in ways I hope enliven what comes after this life and enhance what I experience now.
3
Much respect to Mr. Hägglund. What beauty could life possibly have if it never ended?
“And yesterday I saw you kissing tiny flowers,
But all that lives is born to die
And so I say to you that nothing really matters,
And all you do is stand and cry” -Led Zeppelin
3
"An article in U.S. Catholic asks: 'Heaven: Will it be Boring?' "
This reinforces one of my Twilight Zone-type scenarios: Submitted for your approval----Imagine, sitting on a cloud, holding hands with your fellow "saved" souls, and singing "Kumbaya My Lord" for all eternity. Are you in Heaven, or the other place?
As for me, I'll meet you at the nearest bar to the check-in desk for the other destination.
18
As a Catholic with a profound beleif in Christ I cannot but feel sorry for someone who only appreciates 50% or less of the real reason of what our life on earth is about.
4
Everyone is cluelessly repeating their Buddhist programming. Don't you know about not letting your mind rest anywhere? Gotta get beyond Buddha and when you do, you're still be just as clueless.
1
All I could think of while reading this is the song Is That All There Is.
"Is that all there is, is that all there is
If that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing
Let's break out the booze and have a ball
If that's all there is"
Jerry Leiber / Mike Stoller
https://youtu.be/LCRZZC-DH7M
1
I have evolved from being raised a Hindu to becoming strongly against ALL religions. Heaven, hell, afterlife, god, and so on, are mere inventions of limited human minds, largely for the purpose of social control. None of my dead relatives have contacted me after their death, so I have no idea what happens after I die, and no knowledge of what happened before my birth. Hence all I know is this life and the belief that I must live by my own credo, and not that of religious charlatans.
51
Professor Hagglund is describing a life philosophy with much similarity to Tikkun Olam of Judaism.
2
All is emptiness.
2
So: eat, drink, and be spiritual, for tomorrow you may die.
Got it.
12
My goodness, I'm surprised that a humanities professor wrote about Buddhism for the NY Times without providing any evidence about Buddhism. Your comments about "salvation," meaninglessness, ethics, impermanence, and action a suggest you haven't looked into these topics in Buddhism.
4
The idea of 'extinction' as the author uses it is incorrect. To understand the metaphor of the Sanskrit word nirvana (nibbana in Pali, and better translated as 'unbinding'), please read the excellent short book - The Mind Like Fire Unbound, An Image The Early Buddhist Discourses, written by Thanissaro Bhikkhu (Geoffrey DeGraff). This book is downloadable free as a pdf. Extinctionism and externalism are both incorrect views (extremes) according to the Buddha's original teachings. And if you are into further study of this stuff, see Buddhadasa Bhikkhu's (also excellent) small book - Paticcasamuppada, Practical Dependent Origination - for how that teaching has also been misunderstood (in this case, mainly by Buddhists themselves). Any ideas that are not applicable in our lives is this present moment are incongruent with the Buddha's eminently practical teachings on mindfulness.
The 'flavor' of these teachings is freedom in your being - right here, right now, regardless of your circumstances.
May you find this freedom
1
I think anxiety about death is foolish. What's the point? It seems to me that fear of death is what makes all religious people religious. Social norms only tend to make us reject reality. To pretend that their is something after death.
Work hard, live simply, learn and enjoy. Try to help others but don't obsess because they seem to hurt themselves. It's not good to be poor but to be rich is unnecessary and a waste of time. Literature, music, nature, food, drinks and THC. Exercise enough to stay healthy.
Fear is only one of the emotions that manipulators use to gain a measure of control. Hate and shame are a couple others. Every religion works to manipulate and they do it mostly with imaginary beliefs taught to us when we are young.
Meditation has been shown to be a real method that allows one some ability to calm ones self and to think more clearly. It could also be called quiet thought, and is something that most never do. It doesn't validate the rest of the silly beliefs of Buddhists or any other religion.
5
Activity, anxiety, and purpose may be spiritual in this Yale professor’s very Western opinion, but all of that falls away with Eastern enlightenment.
3
Along the same lines, E. M. Forster wrote this in 'Howards End':
"Death destroys a man; the idea of death saves him."
25
Slightly off topic, but I am always perplexed why many writers in the west often equate Buddhism to just Gautama Buddha, when he achieved a state of enlightenment and NEVER saw himself as an evangelizing/messianic figure, rather as part of a greater cosmic Unity. In Buddhism there are many Buddhas including Tara, Dzambhala, Padmasambhava etc. Then there are the Dakinis and worldly protectors. Buddhism should never be narrowed to such a western framework, it is a vast and extremely rich tradition of Spirit and Wisdom.
3
This may be what Walt Whitman means when he writes in "Song of Myself": "Has anyone supposed it lucky to be born?
I hasten to inform him or her that it is just as lucky to die, and I know it."
2
I find the article interesting but somehow difficult to connect with because it is centred on "me" and imagines the next life as being simply an extension of this one with the same concerns worries etc.
As a christian things are entirely different. The starting point are the gospels [for which there is growing historical evidence] and the other writings written by those who were there at the time. To be as succinct as possible reading and trying to live the gospels, means living a relationship of love with Christ, specifically agape love. The purpose of this life is to learn, in a limited way, how to do that and then to use that learning in the next life. Approx: "The eye has not seen and mind has not conceived what God has prepared for those who love him." The point is that our life here, in love , is a preparation for the next life but a life based on love but at an intensity we cannot beging to conceive of.
I know full well that that will make no sense to many but faith/religion is not a nice fuzzy feeling but a fucused way of life based on love and respect for others. After all we are all made in the image of God, though it can be hard to see sometimes....
4
The subject is interesting because there is no scientific proof of being right or wrong. But most of us would agree that the questions matter. Christianity is a very robust system of answers that is fulfilling for me, but it's easy to get wrong as the Church often does. Yet, on balance, it gets it more right than wrong. For me it's about the journey more than the perfect answer. There will always be a need for the further unfolding of revelation so we must be constantly attentive.
6
It’s a noble sentiment and well-written article. But the depiction of Buddhism is not really accurate of Mahāyāna Buddhism which is dedicated to the enlightenment of all beings. And Nirvāṇa itself is not mere quiescent extinction, although quite what it is, is unknown to those who have not yet realised it, according to Buddhist doctrine.
4
All life will defend itself against the threat of “death”. From the single cell organism to the complex homo sapiens, it’s universal. One could argue that there in lies your purpose.
Everything else is just gravy— like being able to enjoy a beautifully written essay like this one (even if I had to read it three times to understand it).
Well done, Thank you Dr. Hagglund.
8
Of all the world’s faiths, Buddhism is the only one that makes sense to me. My idiosyncratic view of it is that it enables an understanding of our awareness as an energy state, which we have the power to increase, or squander.
The prosaic, low end of this energetic awareness can be understood as an individual who is only concerned with the things of the world; the physical, the personal; think Donald Trump. These individuals’ notions of existence are, in essence, childish. The Abrahamic faiths are a prime example with the god the father, spiritual retribution for worldly misdeeds tropes. This childishness, harnessed to faith, gives an illusion of purpose and continuity; without faith it is utterly individualistic. Both are illusions, distractions of an earthbound life.
By training the mind through meditation we can both focus and expand our awareness, or energy state. In this way it is possible to achieve a higher awareness that allows us to part the curtains and see through the illusion of life. We achieve spiritual escape velocity as it were, and are able to avoid having our “energy” recycled into another cycle of worldly existence.
The author of this column, while clever, has clearly never achieved satori, or an ecstatic awareness of the one.
5
"Likewise, social norms continue to inform who I can take myself to be and what I can do with my life. "
And Nietzsche would laugh... and laugh... and laugh.
"What is it: is man only a blunder of God, or God only a blunder of man?" Twilight of the Idols (1888)
1
"Why Mortality Makes Us Free
The heart of spiritual life can not be found in nirvana or heaven, but in the mutual recognition that this life is our ultimate purpose."
Speak for yourself Prof. Hägglund. What you describe makes you free. Why do you think that you have the right to impose your ideas upon me.
"The task is to transform our social conditions in such a way that we can let go of the promise of salvation and recognize that everything depends on what we do with our finite time together."
Everything (sic!) depends? Once again, speak for yourself.
"The heart of spiritual life is not the empty tranquility of eternal peace but the mutual recognition of our fragility and our freedom."
Once again, speak for yourself. Others can legitimately seek their spiritual life in other forms. Criticize religious notions of salvation to your heart's content but to dot deign to proselytize your "religious" views on me.
1
I personally think that religion is a blight upon humanity. Having said that, I also recognize that with billions of adherents, religion is meeting a fundamental need in the human psyche. I think our society has lost its way, and based on the performance to date, religion is not helping us find our way out of this mess. It seems that we need another way. Buddhism may be a possibility, spirituality may be another, I am sure there are many paths, but I would think they all have one thing in common, and that is taking personal responsibility for making the world better. It could be as simple as being the best person you can be in your own life, or it could extend to helping others along their path. To me the measure of a successful life is how many others you have helped become successful. Measuring your life by the number of goodies you have, is I think, a waste of potential.
This attitude means I don't hate Trump, he had a mandate, he could have done so much good. Instead the is wasting his time in the most influential job in the world, on petty concerns and small ideas. No I don't hate Trump, I pity him. So much potential, such little consequence, a waste of a glorious opportunity.
7
Beautifully expressed. Makes the case for a life well lived without the presumption of some inert fantasy beyond death. Confirmed my long held belief that this life is all there is and that existential meaning is found in the choices and actions we make, not in the hope for some will-less eternity of worship and vacuous 'bliss'.
12
Spirituality is uplighting our consciousness to the ultimate good and embracing it wholeheartedly, even our senses tell us a different story. No matter how overwhelmingly real material evidences appear to be, we hold onto the vision of spirituality. Then we will realize material evidences—considered real from our mortal beings’ view point—-are merely illusion.
3
As a Christian approaching my twilight years, I think this column misses something. What I feel most passionate about in this life are the people I love and the vulnerable people I believe I am called to champion. Admittedly, I haven't tried dying yet, so I don't know experientially what happens next, but the thought of breaking those ties of love is most painful to me. Because of my belief that God is, above all else, Love, I do not belief that death will break those ties. I am not looking for the empty tranquility of eternal peace , I am looking for more opportunities to love.
23
Ok..if God is Love...can he/she /it be all powerful..?? Think about it.
@suntom the answer is yes
3
Because we are conditioned by our physical senses and the boundaries of time and space we think of an afterlife as a continuation of the physical life we know so well.
6
Please can we realize the depths of our inherent ignorance and our (obviously natural) attachment to the thought-of self and quit pretending to know what we obviously do not? It's just tiresome, a diversionary waste of consciousness.
All the unquestioned categorical statements, the a priori value judgements, the urgent philosophical imperatives ("agency is all!") only serve as tragi-comedy at the hilarious hubris of the human animal in the face of the unknown.
It takes courage to realize and admit honestly the essential fact of existence: "I don't know" and live with it for even a few seconds.
As Steppenwolf sang:
I don't know where I came from
I don't where I'm going to
But if this all should have a reason
I would be the last to know
Now THAT'S funny, no? Somehow hearing the truth in it returns one to the only accessible, present reality in this particular here and now as experienced from a unique -- and utterly limited -- point of view. But from attention to this only possible point of experience (one among uncountable others equally unique and equally intense, of course) can arise the unconditional compassion merely theorized in religion and the self-less wonder, effortless enthrallment and miraculous creativity characteristic of the open mind. Every open mind.
6
@TS
Well, gee. Here's a little tit for tat, then. You mention "unconditional compassion," yet your post strikes me as cutting and arrogant. So typical of so many who seem to think THEY understand what others do not. It's the human capacity to be so unable to embody our spoken values and ideals that makes my heart break for us, and for all the things we harm due to this disconnect. What would "unconditional compassion" arising even look like? You ask us to acknowledge our ignorance, yet you seem quite sure of yourself. I agree, however, that we are probably extremely ignorant – so my guess is that you have no idea what unconditional compassion is or would look like because you have never experienced it, embodied it, or seen it. I certainly don't, and don't presume to know whether or not it even exists, or could arise anywhere if it did.
1
The problem with religion, of which organized religion is just one form of "magical thinking", as the late, great, Carl Sagan put it, is that it starts with a false assumptions about "knowing" thing. We "know" there is a "heaven", we "know" what God said about "x, y, or z" topic instead of starting from a point closer to the truth, which is that there is more about the universe that we don't know than do know. There are are large possibly forever out of humans' reach gaps in our understanding of the universe, particularly if there was a "before" the big bang of the singularity.
Then there are the gaps in our understanding of neuroscience. This article used a lot of "I" and "me" without one mention that neither physics (Schroedinger's Cat anyone?) nor neuroscience can tell us whether there is even such a thing as free will, without which the freedom that this article speaks of is also meaningless.
5
@Tyrone Carl Sagan would have been familiar the scientific theory of "dark matter" which postulates that 85% of EVERYTHING (mountain ranges, wind, sun, footballs, galaxies) doesn't exist - cant be seen, measured, observed - is that magical thinking or the inkling of God?
1
Even if i was an atheist and believed in no form of existence after death i would not write or want published an essay such as this. There are too many people in this country alone who have lost children to cancer, etc., who may need to cling to a belief system that promises eternal life and eternal love. There may even be family members who have lost loved ones in the most recent plane crash who right now need some hope that they will see their loved ones again.
Your essay showed no empathy or compassion toward many people you knew would no doubt be reading this.
And BTW just how is it you know beyond any shadow of a doubt there is no after life??? Maybe, just maybe love is eternal. And yes, there are many excellent reasons not to believe, but unless you are teaching a college course isn't it better not to flaunt your ideas?
Compassion for all. Isn't that a Buddhist concept?
6
@Nightwood
The problem is that people who cling to religion for self-comfort are seldom content with keeping their religion to themselves but instead tirelessly work to pass religion-based laws in order to affect other people who don’t share their religious worldview or beliefs.
17
You are not owed in the public sphere of a democracy the right to only see and hear the those sights, expressions of free speech, or the other outward displays of those guaranteed rights which conform to your views. This type of thinking is not unlike racists who only expect to see people of their own skin color in designated spaces lest they be offended. It is also not unlike religious zealots or chauvinists who also believe that women should dress in a certain way lest men be tempted or otherwise offended. To suggest that the only proper place to discuss public ideas in a forum specifically designated for public discourse as part of a Free Press, that right guaranteed by the First Amendment, is truly antithetical to the foundations of democracy.
It’s also presumptuous and flat out wrong beyond belief that the author or anyone not of a particular spiritual faith lacks compassion merely by philosophizing about the nature of reality. The author did not claim authority over all truth, but merely analyzed the idea of non-existence after death from a particular lens in order to draw some possible conclusions. If the author is an atheist it’s likely for the same reason that agnostics, humanists, and atheists alike often withhold judgment on the prospect of an afterlife. It’s because bold claims require bold evidence and and there is as yet no evidence of an afterlife, especially of the fantastical types of anthropomorphized angels and saints portrayed in popular culture.
9
@Laurel Hall The people i know are more than content to keep their beliefs to themselves. The born again types not so much. The Pences, etc., i consider to be enemies of all religious beliefs.
2
"Yet this answer only underlines the problem, since there is nothing to be concerned about in heaven."
How can you speak with such certainty about this without having experienced heaven or know for certain that there is no such reality as heaven? Seems to me, the only honest response you could possibly give would be: We have no idea regarding life in heaven, assuming, that is, that in dying we do not perish and heaven is a reality.
5
Mortality makes us dead. However, that's okay. As Edward Abbey said regarding infinite economic growth, "Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of a cancer cell" and is killing the planet.
However, although Jesus once said the it would easier to ride a camel through the eye of a needle that for a rich man to get into heaven. modern Christians actually think they can ride into heaven through the eye of a needle...and take all their earthly wealth with them.
I like what Thoreau said the best, "By a seeming fate, commonly called necessity, they are employed, as it says in an old book, laying up treasures which moth and rust will corrupt and thieves break through and steal. It is a fool's life, as they will find when they get to the end of it, if not before.”
3
@Jay David - why is it OK to categorize all Christians but not any other people? Does that seem OK to you? There are many Christians who take a vow of poverty; and most modern Christians place other things above money. Get to know some. With God, all things are possible.
1
We are all temporary vessels of a cumulative body of knowledge and experience, refreshed in every new generation, and everyone gets to Nirvana on their first try. Sentience is inherently mortal.
1
Any thinking materialist who is not a nihilist isn't thinking hard enough. More and more science points out that freewill is probably an illusion, and that we are automatons. If this is true, moral concepts are essentially meaningless. All we really have is the survival instinct which is the basis of all human actions
5
Have another read of Dante's Inferno 10, the 6th Circle, where the Epicureans (deniers of the immortality of the Soul) are interred in burning sepulchres: an ironic second internment of those very incorporeal Souls in their final destination.
1
You lost me at “personal agency is an illusion”. I worked very hard to develop my sense of personal agency. Maybe I’ve been been lucky.
1
Human beings are either creatures of God (my hope and belief)) or highly evolved apes ( Darwin and the secular world's belief).
Absolute mortality does not make us free.....it makes us totally and absolutely irrelevant as individuals.
Or am I missing something here?
4
A person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their own toil. This too, I see, is from the hand of God. Ecclesiastes 2:24 Sunday school also taught me that one man who lived 950 years built a boat big enough to hold two of every animal on earth. Freedom from religion and guilt is the true "Peace that passes all understanding"
3
I would like to see an article about Shintoism, with explanation of the role of gardens, too.
2
Matter and forms as well as agency highlight this authors concerns.
There’s a reason, albeit lost to contemporary thought... why spiritual masters withdrew from worldly concerns. Formlessness was their concern ....not matter nor agency because formlessness is immanent and transcendent.
To quote Wittgenstein.... “ Whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent.”
1
"The sage is averse to disease and decay; he is not averse to danger and difficulty. He maintains the integrity of his body and the resolve of his heart. He desires the people's benefit, he is not averse to the people's love. The sage does not consider his own dwelling."--Mozi 44-8
No, what "enjoys the greatest respect and popularity among those who seek a model for “spiritual life” beyond traditional religion" isn't Buddhism, or any such "ism".
It is constitutional democracy that shares both the rights and the responsibilities of community. In that we have our lives, our hospitals, and our hospices.
Of course, I define "spirit" as "that which is generated by a common people on a common journey", and Buddhism has a perspective and a hierarchy that is itself a divider.
To walk out of a belief system is to walk into a common journey.
Hugh Massengill, Eugene Oregon
3
Salvation means the dissolution of individual identity to merge with the whole. It is not dissimilar to how all rivers merge with the ocean or why air always seeks to move from higher pressure to lower pressure. It is the very nature of life to merge and seek union.
The two points you make in the essay are not cause and effect and each can be argued on its own merits. (i.e. salvation is meaningless and meaning is best found in our mortal lives). I agree with the latter and completely disagree with the former.
Salvation (or) Eternity is freedom from thought, desire, and compulsive conditioning of the human mind. This is the ultimate bondage and the cause of suffering. In the end-state, there is no "me" to ponder the meaning of that state or the lack-thereof when "me" does not exist.
You could have made the second point without throwing spirituality and Buddhism under the bus.
4
Author says:
//What we do and what we love can matter to us only because we understand ourselves as mortal.//
My Response:
The author's barking mad. It is a simple matter of fact that we *do* care and love. How exactly does this refute the possibility that we have never come to be, nor will ever cease to be?
We do not know what will happen when we die. We do not know if in an afterlife we will encounter those whom we have known in this life. We do not know how our psychological states will change. Regardless of whether there is an afterlife or not, we experience anxiety. We desire to achieve goals in this life. His point might arguably have some merit if by eternal life he meant in this life alone with our present psychological states. But, even in this life, we change all the time. Compare our adult selves to when we were children.
Indeed, it's the absolute opposite of what he says. If we are mortal, then ultimately our lives are to no avail. Whatever goals are achieved, whatever satisfactions are attained, whatever pleasures we experience, ultimately it is all pointless in the grand scheme of things. Eventually the last human being will die, the last sentient being on Earth will die and eventually the earth will be swallowed up by the Sun when it ends its life as a red giant.
With the death of the Earth we might legitimately conclude that the whole history of the human race -- every thought, every action, every emotion experienced -- might as well never have occurred.
6
Human mortality makes us free? There is only the one mortal and free life for a person? There is no afterlife? The freedom vs. determinism problem?
Human history, human action, human aspiration seems to reveal human existence to be all but determined, decided by much more powerful forces than the human, that humans are hardly free, which is why they constantly aspire to better life to point of dreams of a glorious and peaceful afterlife.
Worse, after all the millennia of human suffering, the obvious and next to impossible odds of improving chances of human freedom against determinism, there is still no laid out and sensible plan of campaign to improve freedom which would satisfy a mediocre general not to mention an excellent one.
Any dunce by now should be able to look over all of human history and compile a list of the most freely acting and brilliant humans, the most likely conditions (natural environment, society, institutions) for increasing the number of such people, and put forth a plan of increase of human freedom, thought and action against forces of entropy, determinism.
Human freedom is not a given, a known quantity/quality, but something quite relative, hardly in existence, easily capable of decrease, of unknown increase, and once actually felt is realized to be equivalent to needing to live as heroically, bravely, self-sacrificingly, and as intelligently as possible.
Asking a person what freedom is is a pretty good gauge of quality/education of a person.
2
Why must religion - in this case Buddhism - be caricatured in order to defend spirituality? Every idea in this piece can be found in the Buddhist traditions the author disdains. Indeed, the connection of mortality to compassion to responsibility found within Buddhist (and other) religious practice traditions is deeper than the one through "freedom" and more likely to help us find ways of living well as the interdependent beings we are.
4
"We can thereby acknowledge that our life together is our ultimate purpose." That's a step in the right direction. You'll reach the destination when you realize that our ultimate purpose in life is exactly the same as purpose of any number of randomly selected molecules that - retrospectively - appear to be following the "rules of nature".
Dear Professor,
Boy can I relate to your essay. In June of 2,000 my life did a one-eighty. Finally, I had time for myself and I followed my nose and discovered (or returned to) my passions for reading and writing. I would describe myself as anti-clerical (the Catholic Church had a hand in this) and now that I am retired I am able to indulge my passions full time. In the morning, I can't wait to get out of bed and face the day. And at night I fall asleep untroubled by "should have's" and "must have's" and I seemed to be living the life you describe in your essay. I am fortunate that my interests and skills allow me (in my estimation) to make a contribution to society, although I don't view it that way--I just feel lucky to have such a fulfilling retirement.
JD
4
what i find interesting about Buddhism is that even though its not supposed to be a religion it seems to be universally practiced as one. one of the hallmarks of religion is prayer and there seems to be plenty of that in Buddhism. even though Buddha is not a god adherents seen to treat him like one. meditation is clearly a good thing. but the only rational approach to life is as an atheist. no gods, no afterlife, no praying, no spiritual materialism.
4
Wallace Stevens, from "Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour":
. . .
Here, now, we forget each other and ourselves.
We feel the obscurity of an order, a whole
A knowledge, that which arranged the rendezvous,
Within its vital boundary, in the mind.
We say God and the imagination are one...
How high that highest candle lights the dark.
Out of this same light, out of the central mind,
We make a dwelling in the evening air,
In which being there together is enough.
7
Our greatest poet. Our Yeats.
Lovely article, and just what I needed to see in a newspaper to break the soul-deadening stream of bad news. One thing I would not try to spend my life doing: writing about religious belief for the nit-picking readers of the NYTimes. I admire your courage as well as your eloquence.
2
Even as a child, I saw an eternity dancing with the angels or an eternity tormented by the devil as equally terrifying. I agree with the author that mortality gives our life meaning, and it also can give us comfort.
3
Though this essay is primarily on Buddhism, there have also been a number of reader comments regarding popular Christian beliefs. These are presented in a dualistic way as being either a misguided hope for a purely heavenly reward after death (thus undermining earthly social engagement) or that, by contrast, Christian discipleship means exclusively working to make our world 'here below' a better one and not to be concerned with an afterlife. In reality, however, Christian faith is oriented to both. This is the meaning of "eternal life" in the Gospel of John. It is life or a relationship with the eternal God that begins now and is completed after death. (See also the "Lord's Prayer" taught by Jesus. ) And love of God must include love of neighbor; otherwise it is not real.
6
A few years ago, I wrote a poem as part of a wedding gift for some close friends. I was attempting to relate a similar perspective about the meaning that comes from our lives being finite:
Our things are not what bind us
To those that we hold dear
But rather trust that opens hearts
And love that conquers fear
Our hair can be lost over time
A ring lost in a lake
But nothing can remove from us
The memories we make
So make each day a chance to give
To learn, to laugh, to dare
And count your blessings, not your age
With each new year you share
For in the end, there is an end
That is what makes life great
Not that we die, but that we try
Before it is too late
26
@Mark Brown
Great poem
1
Any religion or philosophy struggles to reconcile the reality of the many who live very short lives -- often accompanied by suffering during that short span, or who live in highly repressive societies that make it basically impossible to flourish (unless I suppose you are one of the few oppressors who controls all the resources -- but is even that flourishing?). Ultimately we are left to scratch our collective heads about the meaning of life.
4
I don't know... this seems like a conclusion followed by rationalization. It seems to me that if the arguments presented (after the fact, at that) were true, we would all feel our most purpose and energy at the ends of our lives, when we are staring the end in the face. That may be true for some, but for many, if not most, energy and purpose come in youth, when we still feel immortal.
6
I agree with commentators such as PosiThis and Doug; in a practice such as Buddhism, or some other "non-religious" spirituality, it is certainly not that "everything ceases to matter." Rather, it becomes apparent that even the smallest of things matter infinitely. I am guessing the writer is not a Buddhist practitioner.
12
As mortals we can imagine eternity and speculate about experiencing it. An omnipotent, omniscient deity might maintain something that bears no relation to the concept of "salvation," which, perhaps, we cannot imagine.
3
The imminence of successful human cloning will change 'life's meaning' away from forced acquiescence, per boilerplate articles like Prof. Hagglund's, toward the prospect of fresh life cycles. Unknown subjects like DNA stewardship will become important, as the holistic context that motivates our species to safeguard our planet for our own, continued life presence.
3
@Dwight Jones
Cloning is not up-level. Need simulation theory for that.
Three times, once at 30 years old, at 51 and at 71 I have asked a higher power to remove a terribly addictive character defect from my personality. In each instance it has been removed within days despite years of constant effort on my part previous to the removal. The question for me is where that power comes from for it surely is not me.
16
@Bill
That power "surely" could and does come from you, because the mind, when under the influence of absolute belief and expectation, is incredibly powerful. It's called the placebo effect. I've experienced it myself and seen it in others.
When we believe in something with absolute certainty, we can be healed by swallowing a sugar pill or simply by saying a prayer. The placebo effect is so powerful that in pharmacological experiments it must be accounted for before a drug can be proven to work better than said sugar pill.
I assure you: I am not making light of your profound transformation, but I congratulate YOU -- not an invisible omniscient being -- for the wonderful functioning of your human consciousness and body/mind. Our minds and bodies are inextricably linked and together can accomplish all manner of apparently miraculous things, including the removal of character defects considered intractable.
15
@Bill
Wouldnt it be ironic Bill, if our addictive natures were, in some way, related to our inability to accept our own, real, personal power?
A good friend of mine often encouraged me to "experiment" with new awareness; especially when I said extreme things such as "never" or "always". Maybe you could do the same? : just imagine for a moment that you ARE that power; allow the possibility and see if anything new emerges in your awareness.
:)
Good luck.
1
@Bill That Power comes from our more than 52 trillion Universe which our puny minds really have no idea of what it's all about.
Listen to the Adagio, or Bach, Mozart and you may receive a fleeting glimpse
The language is very Heiddegarian, but the logic is left opaque. Why is it that an eternal activity is not 'personally sustained'? Why is abiding in a known state necessarily a case of un-freedom? (If I am now free, despite intellectual error and appetitive corruption, why would removing these defects such that I know and desire what is truly good, make me unfree?) I have the nagging suspicion that a Christian theologian could rebut these claims, and the author has not unpacked enough of an argument to make it a contest. Even if the author's Heiddegarian characterization of -mortal- life is apt, in other words, that of eternal life may not be. Perhaps that was merely a prelude, addressed to an audience assumed secular. Well, I am, but I still hate bad arguments!
9
Spirituality, for the typical New York Times reader I'm guessing, is likely not religious. It's word intended to contain the stuff we feel about the bigger life, our purpose. While not necessarily validating some notion of a malevolent or benevolent old-bloke-in-the-sky looking to tut-tut our failures. Or lift us up. Or whatever he/she happens to fancy in that moment.
In my opinion, which unlike God actually exists, spirituality is simply our innate capacity to be inspired by stuff. Whether it be science, or art, or the majestic affection we call love.
So where does this capacity to be inspired come from?
Well, best guess is that it evolved, along with our giant brains, and our attraction to teamwork, as a part of our species survival protection. As a motivator to greater species stability.
It's great being inspired. Thrilled. By pretty well anything. It's great working together with others, and it's wonderful to feel the joy of new attainment.
But, it doesn't have any mysterious "purpose", any more so than our ear lobes, kneecaps and capacity to solve anagrams. Like all of this, it is simply there, and it's also quite lovely. So my spirit tells me.
There is no validity to superstition, which includes the tenets of Buddhism.
Geoff
6
@Geoff
Girl: "I'm not religious, but I am spiritual".
Guy" "That's so interesting, but I am lying".
1
As one who is predisposed to use too many words, may I simply say that your elegant and incisive piece of writing has made my day? Thank you so very much!
12
Three comments:
I don't know what to assume Professor Hagglund is referring to by the terms 'spiritual' and 'spirituality' in the context of his argument.
I find the conclusion, "The task is to transform our social conditions in such a way that we can let go of the promise of salvation and recognize that everything depends on what we do with our finite time together" to be in surprising contrast to the central message of this essay, that the individual self alone constitutes the exclusive context for encountering existence, which in turn is the product of self-determination alone.
Professor Hagglund's conclusions about this life on Earth, and his comparative projections about an afterlife, lack what I would argue is the foundational basis for understand both: that human existence is intrinsically relational. No understanding of eternal life after this life can ever make any sense if it is framed as being relegated to the experience of self and the product of self-determination.
Between this and my second comment above, this essay merely ends up falling through its own cracks and disappears.
13
@Kevn Christian Pastor Rick Warren had a best selling book years back titled A Purpose Filled Life. The book's first line is "It's not about you". That's the difference between Buddhism & Christianity.
2
I like that. Thank you. Let me suggest one as well. "Three Theories of Everything" by Ellis Potter, a former Buddhist monk who eventually became a Christian pastor and teacher. I found it to be truly remarkable. It taught me some profound things about my faith.
1
The only certainty for me is something we call awareness or consciousness. Anything other than that is a story. The moment of consciousness or awareness is complete. No purpose or end game required. No belief, no dis-belief, no story.
8
Prof Hagglund is simply restating what the Greeks knew: that it is life's finiteness that makes it precious.
In the Iliad, Achilles is presented with the choice between a short but glorious life, and a long but obscure life. He chooses glory and dies young on the battlefield. Achilles' body dies, but his fame lives forever.
But in the Odyssey, Odysseus visits the underworld and meets the shades of Achilles and his faithful companion Patroclus. They dwell forever in the Elysian Fields, where there is no pain. And Achilles tells Odysseus that if he had it to do over, he would choose to live as the meanest shepherd rather than to die gloriously.
I think there is only one more poignant illustration of the temporariness of life, and that is the analogy drawn by one Christian writer (Augustine?) comparing life to a bird that flies through a window into a house, flutters around disorientedly for a small space, then flies out again.
14
@ACW Was that the Venerable Bede (AD 731):
“The present life of man upon earth, O King, seems to me in comparison with that time which is unknown to us like the swift flight of a sparrow through the mead-hall where you sit at supper in winter, with your Ealdormen and thanes, while the fire blazes in the midst and the hall is warmed, but the wintry storms of rain or snow are raging abroad. The sparrow, flying in at one door and immediately out at another, whilst he is within, is safe from the wintry tempest, but after a short space of fair weather, he immediately vanishes out of your sight, passing from winter to winter again. So this life of man appears for a little while, but of what is to follow or what went before we know nothing at all.” From the "Ecclesiastical History of the English People"
3
@D Thank you so much for the citation. No matter how I framed and reframed the terms of a Google search, I just couldn't dig it up. Yet you managed to decipher my clumsy groping. Organic intelligence beats 'artificial intelligence'.
2
Whenever I read things like this I feel spurred to start meditating regularly and work on accepting my inevitable non-existence. I dust off my meditation timer and sit, but my attempts never last for more than a few days. The problem will be when death doesn't loom in the future but is close, like an oncoming train. This, in my case, is likely. How ready will I be when that happens? Will doubt and panic make my final days miserable? We like to think we know but we never do.
10
@Bridgman
It's not possible to generalize when it comes to how a person faces death. But from the years I spent working as a hospice volunteer, I discovered that people face death with a wide range of responses. If they still have their wits and are not in agonizing pain, they may be calm, fully present until the final breath, happy even, pensive, interested in others, and not particularly miserable and panicked. However, it's trickier to die peacefully young than old. I've seen that.
Maybe there's something in us that recognizes and accepts death, because we've been waiting for it all our lives while standing in line as our loved ones go on ahead. Even if you're not ready now, you will be then.
If we're lucky, we get to experience our own conscious death, the last thing we will ever do, forever and all time.
4
@Bridgman
Recently, I decided that I am not really living until I am ready to die.
Sounds kind of morbid, but on some level it makes sense.
Mindfulness practice, (however 'informal' my practice is...) certainly has helped to prepare me more for death and gives deeper satisfaction in life.
To accept that this is it, there is no other existence to which one will ascend or descend, one is free to truly experience life with less anxiety of death. It's not about keeping Kosher or keeping your hair covered or worshipping the devil or the deep blue sea; those constructs may alleviate anxiety for some but they contribute to strife and division in most of the world as people fight over these belief systems.
Imagine if people stopped believing in religions and came to treasure their awareness of living a little while in infinity.
29
@Skukie
Imagine indeed. It will be heaven when belief is superseded by knowing. Know thyself. What we seek lies within. To be able to treasure our awareness of living a little while in infinity. It is happening right now. The moment called Now. How precious is this?
4
The author writes: "An eternal salvation is...not only unattainable but also undesirable..." This is pushing our omniscience a little too far. Since we humans invented this entire line of thought (i.e., the need for salvation and a savior to provide it, the existence of an afterlife, the possibility of experiencing eternity), whether or not eternal salvation is desirable is really up for grabs. You get to make it up. Everybody else does.
I agree that belief in a god and the existence of an afterlife is ubiquitous among all human cultures and so deeply ingrained in us that it might even have some evolutionary purpose. But trying to posit a theory of why an afterlife would be boring or lack purpose is entirely speculative and not worth a whole lot. It certainly won't convince believers to stop believing.
And while we're on the subject of Buddhists, please explain to me how these pacifist people rationalize the genocide they're committing against the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.
13
As is so often the case in such tracts parsing the value of various religious accountings of the nature, purpose and ultimate disposition of life, certain things, poorly defined are taken unquestionably to be 'good'. In this instance, for example it's evident that Prof Haggland (sorry no umlaut available) begins implicitly with the premise that 'kindness' and 'compassion' are universally desirable characteristics of human behavior. Perhaps they are but a fearless examination of what is spirirtually true cannot begin with any such unstated axioms. (We all know too well of many who fierecely wave the banner of 'compassion' when condemning the action of others who selectively abandon or redefine it as a guiding principle for action when it's inconvenient.) In any case, it seems unreasonable to rest any case for what is ultimately true upon a subjective judgement as to what is 'good'.
7
In light of our political environment, the rep Omar flap and its impact on people who identify themselves as Jewish, it is evident that self identification as a particular faith and clinging to it, makes people extremely defensive, they feel they are personally insulted by words and sentiments (in this instance, anti-semitism). Their entire life on earth is then spend attached to their identity, protecting it, reacting to what they perceive as a threat to it. It becomes a life long mission not just for them but subsequent generations as well. Is this really what we are on earth for? For each religion to stick to their faith, to defend it till the end and to fight with others who question their true faith (is your god real?). What kind of life is this. People kill each other in the name of religion. Forget salvation, Nirvana moksha, on the planet it’s a free for all, kill each other till only the true religion is standing? Awful. We are better than this. If we truly understood anxiety before death, why do we kill other humans (wars violence missiles genocides ethnic cleansing)?
7
@petey tonei
In the abstract, I agree. Identification with a sect or group that has particular beliefs or sets of customs can really go too far. I'm an atheist and do not relate to what I consider the magical thinking that religion is based on.
But in the concrete, I'm Jewish, and there are people who want to annihilate me because of it. They blame me for the world's problems, paint me as either a Communist or a capitalist depending on who they want to blame, and have engaged in centuries of institutionalized, systematic extermination of millions of my ancestors. This virulent, irrational, lie-filled hatred continues up to the present moment and in our own country recently resulted in mass murder in a synagogue.
This makes it impossible for me to shrug my shoulders and say, "haha, anti-Semites will be anti-Semites. They're so yesterday. I'm above all that." I can't do it. With or without specific beliefs, I'm a Jew. It's a precious part of my identity. Furthermore, as long as people want to kill me because of it, I will continue to stand up for my right to exist. Anti-Semitism will not define me.
18
@petey tonei
You write: "What kind of life is this. People kill each other in the name of religion." Yes, they do.
So, it shouldn't be that hard to understand why "people who identify themselves as Jewish" might feel "defensive" and "personally insulted by words and sentiments." For centuries, anti-Semites have been exterminating my ancestors by the millions for being Jewish. This murderous business continues to the present day, even right here in the USA, fueled by words and sentiments.
In addition to all my other reasons for identifying as a Jew, I'm going to continue to identify as a Jew as long as there are those who want to kill me simply for that reason. I'm going to continue to feel personally insulted and defensive, and I'm going to speak out against it.
1
Never forget that the ultimate "reward" of Buddhist enlightenment is never having to be born, i.e. live in this world of pain, ever again. Maybe the greater your "cessation of desire" on the way to total oblivion, the better, if that's what turns you on. Nonetheless, according to the Buddha, life remains suffering and the luckiest thing is never to have to live, and thus to suffer, again. You're not in "bliss" when you are not reborn. You're literally nowhere and nothing. More than in anything else I can think of, in Buddhism, by God, the journey not the destination of total oblivion had BETTER be the goal! Since the goal itself is the situation of atoms swirling in utterly meaningless and chaotic space for eternity.
3
@Fred White, we emerge from awareness and return to awareness. We are essentially life, imagine it pooled together in such a way that every awareness downloads or uploads to that single motherlode of awarenesses. That is essentially why every being and their moment of awareness is so important to this ONE mega motherboard. Each awareness moment in our finite life provides a unique experience, it enriched the motherboards Experience, how else will she experience it unless she becomes a finite form and forgets about her original real motherness of all that is to experience!
4
@Fred White
In a way Hagglund is pointing out the difference between
Hinayana and Mahayana Buddhism. Do We just "save" ourselves? or vow to "save" all beings.
The Mahayana vow to save all beings wouldn't apply to
future rebirths, but to the remainder of the current life.
But the personal question remains what does "save" or salvation mean, and how can you help another.
It is really hard to make explanations that transcend different religious traditions because the meanings of the words can be so different in each school of thought.
3
@Fred White
Actually, I'm pretty sure the Buddhist take on the ultimate goal is that you cease to be "you", but dissolve into being at one with the ultimate bliss that is always here, but that our personhood gets in the way of. There has never ever been any Buddhist teaching where the "goal" is "the situation of atoms swirling in utterly meaningless and chaotic space for eternity."
1
How does the author know that eternity would be pointless? Heaven and Hell have been proposed as an explanation for why what we do does matter. Also the idea that there is no choice in life (i.e. the spinach or the French fries?) also doesn't ring true. Many things are beyond our control, such as mortality, but surely whether to be kind or cruel and whether to be engaged or to withdraw, etc., are choices we can make. I do agree, however, that we should make the best of the here and now. I seriously doubt life after death or reincarnation are real.
4
The author refers to "an article in U.S. Catholic [that] asks: 'Heaven: Will it be Boring?' [and] answers no, for in heaven souls are called 'not to eternal rest but to eternal activity — eternal social concern.'”
Without having read that article, I will venture either that it is (like many articles in popular religious publications) theologically quite unsophisticated, and/or that the author of this piece misunderstands the phrase "eternal social concern."
I suspect the phrase social "concern" means the popular Catholic view that the saints in heaven bustle about interceding for the concerns of those still living on earth; this is the rationale for praying to saints for their help. Protestants do not share this idea. But *all* Christians -- Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox -- envision a completed New Creation, after the return of Christ in glory, in which sin and death are no more and there are no earthly sorrows to be "concerned" about, in which the vision of Christ in glory, shared by the great "communion of saints" -- the blessed company of all the faithful, from every age, resounds in a symphony of joy, thanksgiving, and praise. Quite different from dissolution into the non-existence of nirvana.
Also, on our earthly pilgrimage, the Christian spiritual goal is not that of enlightenment but rather of holiness of life in loving our neighbors. Inward peace is not an end to itself but a means to that end.
9
@herzliebster
But how can that be the meaning of "eternal" social concern? Science tells us that our sun will cease to exist in some few billion years (and with it, our blue world). After the eventual extinction of humankind, for whose concerns will all the saints in heaven need to bustle about interceding? Wouldn't the existence of humankind need to be eternal for this notion of eternal social concern to work?
3
I thoroughly enjoyed this elegant rant on behalf of the eternally logical and permanently insane human ego. "Life's meaning is found in the fear of death, if only we could get the marbles of chaos to stop rolling around on the tossing ship of this ever-changing universe, utopia is just a magical collection of policies away." And the cherry on top: being free of the choices that we did not create (biological, cultural, etc.) would be bondage. Who (or rather what) else would perceive eternal bliss as purgatory?
3
I wish I could say I agree'd with the author. But all this seems to offer is therapeutic techniques to cope with the reality that I am mortal, and will one day die.
It's just too empty, and I'm rather done with emptiness.
10
"......Buddhism enjoys the greatest respect and popularity among those who seek a model for “spiritual life” beyond traditional religion."
First look into Religious Naturalism. If ever the Earth needed a spiritual model it would be a religion that holds the Earth and all life on Earth as sacred, as deserving of worship, of adulation, protection, and restoration.
7
We are just insignificant ions in the vastness of the universe .
Humankind is afraid of death, needs hope to confront daily life and be prepared for the unknown.
Religious faith is providing an escape route from this eternal dilemma , some need to believe in afterlife, some don’t .
I am not afraid of dying, I am afraid of unnecessary suffering on my exit from life inflicted upon our society by political and religious entities .
When time comes , let us die in peace without interfering !
5
In what way would the tranquility of an eternal peace be "empty"? It's a critical, rhetorical crutch here, and it goes fully unexplored except in the assertion that such an activity-less eternity would be undesirable because it "would eliminate the care and passion that animates our lives."
Such an interesting word: animate! You've lopped off the head and replaced it with animation, as though to be animated were our highest end, self-evidently. The logic of the modern, Marxist obsession requires this slight of hand. But care and passion toward what end? Simple arithmetic equality? And if you achieved that end - the end of injustice, suffering, and pain - would you sit around "un-animated"? Would your resting, ideal state not look exactly like the "undesirable" state of the eternity you so despise because of its foundation in the sacred?
1
Finally .... some meat. Thank you. A baby step for those exploring alternatives to their cultural indoctrination.
2
Paul's letter to the early Church at Corinth is fairly comprehensive in scope, yet accessible:
'If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal.
'And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.
'If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.c
'Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, [love] is not pompous, it is not inflated,
'it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury,
'it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth.
'It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
'Love never fails. If there are prophecies, they will be brought to nothing; if tongues, they will cease; if knowledge, it will be brought to nothing.
'For we know partially and we prophesy partially, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.
'When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things.
'At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known.
'So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love...'
[I Corinthians 13:1-13]
17
I can't imagine anything worse than not getting to die and stay dead. Immortality is a bad idea.
6
@Jody, our physical form dies. But our essence, the part of us which is awareness just merges with the consciousness, until our next journey begins. Life just is. It wants to be. It just thrives in multiplicity diversity and plurality.We, our essence is much bigger than our physical form and our individually identified "I". But what "I am" is something far spectacular. It can be found in stillness, in silence, but once you find it, its always there with you. You do not have to go to a retreat to a mountain to find it, its always with you. It is the closest thing to you, it is witness to your thoughts your innermost desires. People always think of meditation as a formal sit down follow your breath routine. But you can as easily do it while you are walking, while you are engaging in your activities, because being aware is the portal to the divine. There is no path one has to follow because as soon as we are aware of being here, we are there already, nothing missing nothing lacking no where to go nothing to find.
1
@petey tonei Hi Petey. . .my response, respectfully, is how do you "know" all of what you wrote. Humans can easily be fooled and, they can easily fool themselves. You really have no basis, at all, for what you wrote. It was "elegantly" stated but way off the mark for this discussion. Socrates said, before the "hemlock," " the only thing I know is that I know nothing at all." He was a fine witness to humans innate ability to fool themselves at just about every level. We see it everyday. . .the truth is we have much to learn. . .about everything. . .especially the limits of our brains. This is one of the very best discussions from The Stone. Phil Shadle-Solebury, Pa.
So, while we're all burning in the flames of time and the only thing we know for certain is that we do not know anything for certain, let's at least be kind to one another to the best of our abilities. And when your kindness is not reciprocated, be kind to the next person you meet anyway.
14
"Far from making our lives meaningful, eternity would make them meaningless, since our actions would have no purpose. This problem can be traced even within religious traditions that espouse faith in eternal life."
Simplistic notion of the Christian heaven; a return to the ground of being itself, with God, who is absolute, unconditional love. From the Catholic catechism: “Heaven is the ultimate end and fulfillment of the deepest human longings, the state of supreme, definitive happiness”. Time is a human construct as is eternity. Were you “bored” before you were born? The question has no meaning.
11
Energy never dies. It just changes form.
2nd law of Thermodynamics
11
This seems like Bhagavad Gita V2.
1
Hear, hear! A toast to life. L'chaim!
3
If this is true (and I happen to agree with most of it) then my question is this:
What is the process by which we remain largely ignorant of it?
Having been taught it many times over the past several thousand years, why do we continue to cast aside any meaningful awareness and thus live in disharmony with our selves and one another?
What is THAT process?
Interesting article by professor Hagglund, and yet, I think it would have been a little more interesting if there was some recognition of the overlap between eastern Buddhism and western philosophy of Nihilism. I think there is a real similarity between everything ceasing to matter in Nirvana, and the annihilation of the self in the abyss of freedom. Both philosophies see the self as an illusion, and believe that are ultimate nature is free. Maybe the answer is a balance between the the self and the other. A balance between the language you know, and a language that is unfamiliar to you. I would look forward to an article that is devoted to this idea.
1
"This is why all religious visions of eternity ultimately are visions of unfreedom. In the consummation of eternity, there would be no question of what we should do with our lives. We would be absorbed in bliss forever and thereby deprived of any possible agency."
This entire argument is based on a simplistic interpretation of "eternal life" as meaning "life as we know it but with an infinite duration in time". For starters, the concept of time was invented by humans to describe human experience, and is not even absolute in the natural world (i.e., it is not a Lorentz-invariant or generally covariant quantity). There is no reason to believe it remains a relevant concept in what we call the "afterlife". Catholics like me (and most Christians I would say) believe in the existence of the afterlife, but also believe that any theoretical model or "vision" of it constructed using purely human concepts can at most be a caricature, similar to images of God with a white beard or of the devil with red skin and horns.
12
If mortality is the condition for meaning in life, then the Fall of humankind was not really a fall, but on the contrary, an early salvation that bestowed upon us these paradoxical blessings: "the suffering of pain, the mourning of loss, the anxiety before death". This could be an argument for a form of satanic ethics.
1
Thank you for the article, but two of your statements completely misrepresent Buddhism. For Buddhists, personal agency is not "an illusion", but very real, especially in leading an ethical life. And everything you do does not "cease to matter" but matters down to the last detail, again for ethical as well as other reasons.
19
As an Existential christian who loves Buddhism, I find great peace reading this clearly written opinion. Truly, this moment is all that we have been given. It is up to the individual to choose how to spend it. This will create anxiety, no matter if the person is contemplating the after-life, or wondering which cable service to buy.
Buddhism says that life is suffering. This can be difficult to accept for so many Christians who somehow believe that joy is the purpose and result of turning to Christ. Maybe a better translation for Westerners would be; Life is Always Ripe With Anxiety And This Is Totally Natural, Because The Reality Is, The Difference Between Knowing and Not Knowing Creates Tension.
5
@R. Carr M.S. Buddhism as I understand it doesn't say that life is suffering but that the cause of suffering is a life driven by cravings.
1
The author seems happy with Buddhism and wants to share his thoughts. Fine, but I respectfuly disagree with most of what is written. Or more precisely, I don't know. I have no definitive answer, and I would certainly not write an article to tell everyone that "this life is our ultimate purpose" if it's only my personal belief, my faith (which it is not, anyway, but no one cares). I might be our ultimate purpose, or not.
I am surprised, and a bit disappointed, to read this in the New York Times. I respect other faiths, but it's always unpleasant for me to have the impression that someone wants to tell me what I must (or should) think, on a matter on which nobody can seriously claim to know better. There is not a unique way to spirituality, and I fear there is no best way either.
4
@Jean-Claude Arbaut He is not telling you what to do?
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@Jean-Claude Arbaut I agree Jean-Claude. . .if we have any purpose it is to continue to acquire knowledge in all of its forms. . .and when we "finally" know "everything," then, and only then, can we condescend to tell others how to think about life and immortality. All those pesky things that get in the way of efficiently acquiring new knowledge, like war, racism, etc., are probably what we should think about and "avoid" right now. . . because we only have a small piece of that human construct we call "time." I loved ALL the comments. . .great stuff folks. Phil in Solebury, Pa.
@Maxman
(at first I incorrectly answered this on another comment, my apology for this mistake)
There are two different kinds of arguments in the article. Some about what Buddhism is all about, and I am ok with that (some seem to disagree with the interpretation of the author, but that is at least debatable). I find this very interesting, and the comments are interesting too. That's the kind of exposition I expect form the New York Times. Some arguments are of a different nature. For instance the subtitle tells me where the heart of spiritual life lies. That goes in several places in the article ("we should recognize", etc.). That's the kind of exposition I expect from a religious publication. Maybe be I'm too sensitive, but I see a big difference between the two kinds of arguments. And I'm perplexed: is it intentional? A layer of rational arguments to distill more "religious" belief? The method would not be new.
First, there is no salvation in Buddhism. Salvation is a specific Christian teaching. For Muslims, it is surrender, not salvation. For Buddhists, it is enlightenment, not salvation.
Second, nirvana is not heaven. In Buddhism, there are infinite heavens and infinite hells. Heaven is not sought in Buddhism because heaven is also temporary and transitory. Once the good karmas that got you into heaven are exhausted, you leave heaven and return to the round of suffering.
Third, the author presumes love and compassion are outgrowths of physical existence and physical experience. Buddhism teaches that these are "immeasurable." They do not come from the human heart, but rather they are the very fabric of existence that are felt or channeled through the heart. The Buddhist practice of meditation puts the practitioner in closer touch with love, compassion, joy, and equanimity, by stopping the thoughts that cover over these immeasurables and distort them into anger, fear, and sorrow.
Fourth, and finally, I do agree that it is a common mistake for Buddhist practitioners to use meditation to escape from the vulnerability of suffering, to use Buddhist practice as a kind of armor around their hearts to not feel their own suffering or the suffering of others. But this is a mistake in practice, not an actual teaching of Buddhism.
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@DB
Thank you! Finally, as I worked my way down through the comments, I came across yours, which, if I was not home sick with the flu, I'd have written something quite similar myself. Fevers have a way of limiting clarity in communication I've discovered.
One last thing about Buddhism that wasn't reflected in the article. Many Buddhists, especialy those who have been practicing for years and have achieved some measure of enlightenment, and these are often notably monks (male and female), don't choose to attain nirvana even if they could, but instead deeply desire to be reborn again and again, in order to help others on this pysical realm over many lifetimes. They are called bodhisattvas.
Lastly, I have always believed that the worst thing about most western religions is the need to always anthropomorphize not only God, but every aspect of religious thought.
I've always found it laughable the idea that humans were created in the image of God. What?! God is the universe and everything in it, in my humble opinion.
And the idea that humans were given, by God, dominion over the animals and everything on earth. Those two myths, or tropes, have caused nothing but death and destruction on this planet, upon which all life is sacred, including the rivers, seas, air, plants and trees, not just human beings.
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Timely article in the Christian world which just marked Ash Wednesday, or what should be called "Christian Existentialist Day." ... "Remember that you are dust, and into dust you shall return." +:-)
Ernest Becker, in his seminal book "The Denial of Death," noted this: "The irony of man's condition is the deep need to get rid of the anxiety of death, but life itself always reminds us of it. SO to avoid that anxiety, we shrink from being fully alive." Buddhism is one path.
Like Martin suggests, my experience is that those who are deeply aware of their mortality are those with the deepest spirituality and/or vision to make this world of ours better.
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This is a wonderful essay, and I thank you for it. To me, there is a chasm not just between our our mortal experience and eternity, but between our experience and the world before us. So any description of what is beyond ourselves, whether annihilation or heaven, or the earthly future that I want to create, is a metaphorical description. We understand it only as part of a story that puts incommensurable things in relation to each other: presence and absence, or desire and fulfillment. Even to describe eternity as Prof. Hägglund does, as excluding our agency and concerns, is not to understand what the absence of those things means, but to create a metaphor to give urgency to the lives we live. The interesting thing about religion, IMO, is not just that it gives us a demand to be better people and create a better world, but also that it invents the terms in which those things have meaning, in which our presence & our experience have a standard beyond themselves. I'm not sure if this is a disagreement with, or just a variation on, Prof. Hägglund's thoughts.
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This essay articulates eloquently why I too love the Buddhist philosophy and the ethics that ensue from it. The hard-nosed contemplative focus of Buddhism may lead some to think that it might make all of us head toward a celibate and monastic life free of worldly entanglements. That direction is real too, but it's only one of the choices and it's an open choice; joining and leaving are equally legitimate. Buddhism doesn't dictate; it stimulates, guides and encourages us to follow what it calls the Eightfold Path.
Without going into its details, I just want to point out that each has the word "right," i.e., "correct," in it, and other than advocating the virtues of non-violence, compassion, and non-possession( meaning limiting our desires to what is absolutely necessary as defined by our own refined conscience), it refrains from imposing any absolute moral dicta in defining what is right. That burden rests on us as individuals. We have to cultivate what is right ourselves within the guidelines laid down.
Enduring, vibrant, compassionate engagement with all beings is celebrated, for that brings contentment here and now; this life is the only life we have and making the best of it not just for ourselves but for all is what the eightfold path is designed to foster.
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I am old now, having accepted with joy the person I have become: far from perfect, but with a positive spirit for helping, although, admittedly, I fall short. i.e., I am not perfect.
I agree with Prof. Hagglund. Striving for a place in the hereafter doesn't ring true. Okay, I hear the voices that proclaim we aren't able to understand the hereafter until we are there. Sorry, I'd rather do my best here on Earth, then burn up.
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Once again, the Buddha Way (aka "Buddhism") is mistakenly trashed, a misunderstanding that goes deep. It's as if you gauged current Christian practices in the US by St. Augustine. Buddhism is based on change; doctrines and beliefs in its many paths have changed immensely over time and culture. At the heart of the Buddha Way is wisdom, insight into reality and values and behaviors that spool from that, and compassion, emphasizing agency, vulnerability, and responsibility within ourselves and mutually with all other beings.
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I enjoyed reading the essay by Prof. Hagglund. However, my perspective is that our "worldly" experiences of being and becoming, of unfolding ourselves as who we are and how we feel as "Dasein" when we encounter others and the world, cannot be used holistically as a lens to explain the state of being that ensues after reaching the state called "nirvana." It is difficult to hypothesize the state being/becoming using our perspectives as mortals. To say "life is our ultimate purpose" is to narrow down the horizons of existence or to view "unfathomable existence" from a consumerist, capitalistic, and even epicurean perspective. Life is as vast as the cosmos and cosmos as vast as it can ever be which humans have begun to fathom--but have learned only the alphabet "A" so far when it comes to who we are what our galaxies hold for us, who is the designer and so forth. Let us not limit the beauty of life to life as "being an end in itself," limited only within the boundary of the self itself.
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@Paradesh To say "life is our ultimate purpose" does not imply consumerism in any of the three forms you cite. Life is far more than taking in and consuming, having stuff or experiences. A purposeful life almost never focuses on consumption but on what is produced, what we make happen. While life is more than you suggest, it is not limitless, or even "as vast as the cosmos." There may be surprises out there in the galaxy. We may one day encounter other life forms. Will we ascribe an 'afterlife' to them as well? Nonsense.
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"The aim of salvation in Buddhism, however, is to be released from finite life itself... What ultimately matters is to attain a state of consciousness where everything ceases to matter, so that one can rest in peace."
I'm amazed at the broad strokes being painted here. What school of Buddhism is even being discussed? The Mahayana schools don't have the soteriological orientation suggested here, and wouldn't claim that "everything ceases to matter." The transcendent includes (and in a sense, moves toward, descends into) the finite; it doesn't seek to escape it, be released from it, or render it meaningless. Nirvana is samsara, and the absolute includes the relative.
Whether something matters, or doesn't matter, is just a relative expression -- but absolutist statements of the kind the author makes here are especially meaningless and untrue in a Buddhist context. In a way, Buddhism would suggest everything matters much more than we think it does. Any Buddhist teaching depends on your frame of reference, but the author doesn't seem to be interested in these nuances.
"What ultimately matters is to attain a state of consciousness..."
Where does Buddhism advocate attaining a state of anything? A state is impermanent, and consciousness is not a state nor is nirvana a state of consciousness. These are all basic misunderstandings that Buddhism seeks to eliminate. It is, after all, about removing delusions, not attaining anything.
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I appreciate the author's attention to human flourishing in this life. I was disappointed, however, by the trope of Buddhist teachings as pointing to an empty, non-caring ultimate. This has been stated, mostly by Christian theologians and most recently by Popes, and refuted cogently by Buddhist theologians, notably Bhikkhu Bodhi. The problem at the heart of this misunderstanding is that freedom from hunger and grasping, including grasping at our precious sensations, our precious life, our precious relationships, our precious society, is seen as essential to pleasure and essential to caring about the world. For one who has experienced pleasure without clinging, as well as the higher pleasure of peace, the alternatives to grasping pleasure are clear. In short, peace of the deepest sort does not yield emptiness or a gray nothing, but the free movement of unimpeded awareness. And the notion that this yields a human being, relationships, and society that are uncaring is likewise sadly limited, small, uninformed. The free flow of awareness yields intimacy with the world. Relationally, it yields love and compassion and joy. Socially, it yields a flourishing and caring society, because the selfishness at the heart of injustice is only possible when one grasps at the knot of "me." So salvation as focused around the personal me and "my" precious time will always yield a shaky life, personal concern, and tenuous ethics.
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@PosiThis
Thank you! When I read this I knew my fellow Buddhists would be all over the comments ;) As you say, there is a 3rd option between eternalism and nihilism, between clinging and indifference. That 3rd option is the subtle joy and peace of the unconditioned, which can only be experienced, not explained with concepts.
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@PosiThis
True. As I see it, practicing Buddhist teachings are about cultivating eudemonic happiness, which is a stable type of happiness (and peace), as opposed to constantly seeking hedonic happiness, which is very unreliable and often leads us to disappointment.
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I want to live my life so that the net effect of my actions upon the world and the people in it is positive. If I were immortal, no matter how much evil I have done so far, there would be time enough for me to overbalance evil with good actions. But because I am mortal, I must strive to do as much good as I can in the time I have left to make my net effect positive, not only barely positive but as great in the positive direction as I can make it. So my mortality is what gives meaning to my life. I don’t expect reward or punishment in the afterlife. My reward (or punishment) will be in this life knowing I have lived a good ( or bad) life.
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Prof. Hagglund, this is a moving and beautiful piece. Though I no longer teach, I encouraged my college students (when they would ask "what is the meaning of life") to consider the possibility that they were asking the wrong question entirely.
A life with a predestined meaning would be antithetical to freedom and to the individual value of our own existences. The question I proposed instead was "what will the purpose of your life be?" A life dedicated to the pursuit of some worthwhile goal, driven by the realization that we all have but a short time to achieve that goal, might--in retrospect--turn out to have meant something.
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Raises the possibility that the solution to the Fermi paradox isn't merely the observation that religion is for children, but that the same goes for life itself. Still, humans should give it a go, try to become immortal, and reach for the stars...even if the answer has already quietly been disclosed.
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Hägglund first asserts that personal agency is an illusion, then urges us to consider carefully -- in light of our mortality and ultimate extinction -- how we should spend our limited time.
Which is it?
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@JR I missed any inference to agency being an illusion. Human agency - only possible to the living - is the point of the whole opinion piece.
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@Donald
From the article:
... in many strands of Buddhism there is a remarkable honesty regarding the implications of salvation. Rather than promising that your life will continue, or that you will see your loved ones again, the salvation of nirvana entails your extinction. The aim is not to lead a free life, with the pain and suffering that such a life entails, ***but to reach the “insight” that personal agency is an illusion and dissolve in the timelessness of nirvana.*** What ultimately matters is to attain a state of consciousness where everything ceases to matter, so that one can rest in peace.
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The author said: if it were given what we should do with our time — we would not be free.
And further along: I can give my life for a principle to which I hold myself or for a cause in which I believe. This is what it means to lead a spiritual life.
Beg to differ, no one is free, life is chock full of constraints, they’re called laws. By the argument proposed here, a goldfish in a bowl is free.
Principals and causes are self-imposed limitations. Also an assumption that what one believes is right, and right for everyone else.
There is no free will, ask Sam Harris. I agree on one point, the only certainty is uncertainty. Keeps it interesting.
Perhaps Virgil can help: “Death twitches my ear; 'Live,' he says...'I am coming.”
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@Daphne Sylk
Freedom is not the absence of constraints; such an absence does not exist. It's a particular relationship to the constraints.
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@Martin
There are two different kinds of arguments in the article.
Some about what Buddhism is all about, and I am ok with that (some seem to disagree with the interpretation of the author, but that is at least debatable). I find this very interesting, and the comments are interesting too. That's the kind of exposition I expect form the New York Times.
Some arguments are of a different nature. For instance the subtitle tells me where the heart of spiritual life lies. That goes in several places in the article ("we should recognize", etc.). That's the kind of exposition I expect from a religious publication.
Maybe be I'm too sensitive, but I see a big difference between the two kinds of arguments. And I'm perplexed: is it intentional? A layer of rational arguments to distill more "religious" belief? The method would not be new.
@Jean-Claude Arbaut
This was intended to be an answer to Maxman above. Sorry for the mistake.
You're wrong. Life is an active thing, a pursuit. Ah, but of what? Simple, a pursuit of beauty. The smile on my face at the point of my death will be the direct result of my successful pursuit of beauty, not through efforts to reduce life to nothing.
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@Jimmy well said.
This life is not our ultimate purpose. In this life we are limited by our low level of intelligence which makes it impossible to understand the Universe and all that exists within in it. The Universe is apparently infinite and is controlled by some Power( God ) that we do not have the ability to fully comprehend. The Christian faith teaches us that this life is but a preparation for what comes next and it is our responsibility to study what little information that has been given to us, through the Bible and other writings, so that we will be ready for the next step. I am sure that those of us who go on to dwell with God will not be bored. Think of the millions of interesting people that preceded us that we will have the opportunity to fellowship with. That alone could take an eternity.
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@Aaron Adams Where did Jesus teach this? He taught that the kingdom of heaven is here and now, but we do not see it. It is beyond the senses, beyond the mind, but includes both. Christ taught a radical embrace of this life, not a preparation for the next one.
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@Aaron Adams I am stunned by the willful ignorance of your insistence on magic versus what we know. It takes a village to make an illusion seem real, a church to propagate the enticing illusion of life after death. That reveals the importance of society in shaping minds and beliefs, not that a donation-based social institution's purported reward for my good behavior is somehow real.
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@Reece J
Interestingly, this was a theme regarding the teachings of Jesus that appeared in the writings of one of the most quoted atheists in history -- Friedrich Nietsche, the "God is dead" (among much else) philosopher.
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This article was so beautiful. I definitely agree with the author of it. The way we can really enjoy life is to be vulnerable, knowing that life is finite, and we must live our life the best way possible given we only have one. Life comes with its ups and downs, when we experience pain, we can appreciate love and give more love to the world :).
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