Eastern Philosophy
As Parishioners know,
I have a profound interest in Philosophy.
I recently found this most interesting article on Eastern Philosophy
via, of course, Arts & Letters Daily
It's not just Zen Buddhism, you know...
Here's a tasty slice:
What then is Indian and Chinese philosophy, and what reason is there for studying it? The origins of philosophy in India and China lie in figures who were primarily interested in offering solutions to problems of existence. In India, the Upanishads sought to liberate human consciousness from its limitations and fragility. The Buddha and Mahavira, founders of Buddhism and Jainism respectively, diagnosed life as consisting in an intrinsic state of suffering, and offered therapeutic methods for coming to terms with and eventually mastering the root causes of that suffering. But none of these teachings was generally considered to constitute an assurance about an eventual state of religious grace. People had to ponder their meaning and significance - a state of inquiry that is philosophical, in that it seeks to analyse various puzzles about the ultimate nature of the world and offers a narrative to take us through it.
In China, the baseline is Confucius, who sought to teach people the norms of civilised conduct through the observance of morally relevant rituals drawn from different cultural sources, at a time when China was still politically fragmented. All subsequent Chinese thinkers accept the need to understand and follow proper conduct, but they vary hugely on what that conduct is: among the Daoists, Laotze sees proper conduct as lying not in social ceremony, but in a life lived in coherence with natural forces and flows, while Zhuangzi suggests that there can be no account of proper conduct, merely lives of spontaneous and equipoised action. The determination of the way (Dao) - the path itself as well as the manner of walking it - orients Chinese philosophy.
The issues in Indian philosophy are much more like those of classical and early modern western thought: they see a world and set out to give persuasive accounts of the entities and processes that underlie its appearance. Indian philosophy is profoundly metaphysical. It follows a framing, teleological narrative that shares features with some thinkers of the western tradition, both Christian and secular. Indian philosophers agree that our ordinary life is defective; our experience is marked by suffering, our understanding is marked by severe limits to knowledge, our conduct falls short of its ethical requirements, and we live in fear of our mortality. We therefore need to inquire into the conditions of existence in order to realise how things really are, and in doing so, our cognitive life is transformed, enabling us eventually to attain some ultimate state of freedom.
By contrast, Chinese philosophy is ametaphysical, concerned with the world as it is encountered, and neutral to the relationship between reality and appearance.
OK, I think that states it quite succinctly;
so I'll paraphrase:
Indian philosophy shares with Western philosophy the belief that there is something more, something better than this life,
and we are advised to examine & modify our behaviour (thoughts included)
in order to reach that higher plane.
Chinese philosophy is pragmatic - concerned with this life.
The Idealist in me adheres to the former - when life is hard, I can always retreat into my mind, my rewards shall come later.
The Existentialist in me salutes the latter -
this is all there is - deal with it NOW!
Mine eyes have been opened to yet another whirl!
For History's sake, the whole thang is below
lerevdr on Fri 17-Feb-2006 @ 23:56 e.s.t [Click here for more SALVATION]
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