Philosophical Journal

Buddhist Doctrines, Self-Denial, and Nietzsche

During the first lecture today, our professor explained to us how everything we can ever
experience or know is forever not what literal or ultimate reality is like. I took a philosophy
seminar on Friedrich Nietzsche last semester, and now whenever theres a belief system or
argument that denies our first person experience and dismisses it as deluded or misled,
Nietzsches claims arise in my thoughts. Nietzsche claimed that ones endorsing any self-denying
philosophy is a self-condemnation to weakening and disabling oneself. By forever dismissing
your own point of view in favor for someone elses doctrinein the Buddhism case, it would be
the Buddhas doctrine of emptinessyou abandon your own unique being and background, a
result of the combinations of genetics and experiences that will never again occur. There will
never be a person like yourself again, and you have a unique voice and perspective that deserves
legitimacy and respect as much as anyone elses. You shouldnt submit to anyone elses belief
systems.
Although I find some truth in Nietzsches views, I also notice a great danger. Embedded
in his argument is a tendency to slide into anti-intellectualism, or outright dismissal of everyone
elses ideas and advice, and bullheaded, blind commitment to ones instinctual beliefs, no matter
how irrational or destructive ones beliefs are. Buddhism is a great antidote to this danger, by
emphasizing the practice of compassion, to provide foundation and guidance for both ones
metaphysical and ethical philosophizing. I still agree with Nietzsche to some degree that one
should not blindly commit to every bit of all the Buddhist doctrines. Rather, one should critically
evaluate the soundness of the arguments and ideas presented in these doctrines for oneself. This
critical evaluation is kind of like an internalization or first-hand experience of the doctrine, and if
ones intention is genuine to oneself and non-conformist, I believe even Nietzsche would

approve of the results of such an internalization, whether it is an affirmation or denial of the

doctrine. In this way, one has openness and respect for other peoples ideas and avoids radical
anti-intellectualism, while also maintaining self-affirmation and respect for ones own unique
perspective.

Philosophical Journal
The Hidden Cooperation between Mindfulness and Attachment
The concepts of main mind and accompanying mental factors seem incomplete or crude,
and they leave open various questions and counterarguments to their proposed definitions. Main
mind was defined as a nonconceptual taking in of the world, while accompanying mental
factors was defined as a conceptual or attachment-forming judgment of things in the world.
The main mind and accompanying mental factors thus were presented as opposing each other
and mutually exclusive. Once you start forming concepts about what youre seeing, you no
longer see the thing for what it immediately or organically is. Likewise, if you are having an
immediate, nonconceptual experience, you cannot be judging it or forming concepts in any way.
I see a number of problems with these definitions. Firstly, I dont see why the main mind
and accompanying mental factors must be opposed and mutually exclusive. Rather, I understand
that they can be cooperative and mutually reinforcing. The accompanying mental factors can
allow one to narrow down on a specific idea or phenomenon, and then one can be mindful or
openly attentive to this idea or phenomenon in its immediate entirety. Then, this open
attentiveness, the ability of the main mind, and help the accompanying mental factors do another
search and land upon yet another more specific idea or phenomenon. This pattern or
cooperation between main mind and accompanying mental factors can thus reinforce each other
and help a person become more fully aware of the world. Accompanying mental factors were

blamed for their function of making people attached and judgemental of things, but I see that
they are essential to our being in the world.
Secondly, I believe the distinction between main mind and accompanying mental factors
is a false dichotomy. For example, when the lecturer said that dreaming at night time is 100%
conceptual, because there is no external stimuli that one is nonconceptually taking in, I had an
immediate objection. I see that memories of stimuli serve as the materials from which dreams
emerge. But these same memoriesor pre-formed concepts that help simplify, make intelligible
the world around us, and allow our cognitive load to be a bit lighter and more bearablealso
mediate all our experiences in real life. Even the main mind, nonconceptual experiences must
involve these memories and concepts. Theres no such thing as a nonconceptual experience.
There is no such dichotomy, everything falls on a spectrum.

Philosophical Journal (Wednesday, 11 January 2017)

Powerful, Beautiful, and Ethical Aspects of Attachment
Alina Wang
I wish all of these amazing benefits of attachment were mentioned during the classes on
the Bodhisatta and Buddhist ethics from last week. Those classes painted a purely negative view
of attachment and frustrated me for that reason. I think because humans are condemned to form
attachments, we need to endorse this ability to make attachments and strategize on how to use it,
rather than try to overcome it and see emptiness, which is the currently prescribed solution
Buddhist ethics hands to people. Buddhism tells people that to reach Enlightenment, Awakening,
or Buddhahood, a person needs to see the emptiness of all things. I think itd make a lot more
sense to hold onto attachments but adjust the attachments you have and form new attachments
that propel you towards accomplishing your goals. Buddhist ethics should focus on helping

people form the right goals, embrace their ability to make attachments, and learn the skills to
make their attachments align with their goals.

Philosophical Journal
Dignaga, Misidentified Causes, and Scientific Methods
In the Dignaga lecture today, Jay arrived at an implication of the argument at hand that
experimental psychology is fiercely misguided metaphysically, which according to Buddhism
entails misguided morally. The lesson from the Dignaga text, according the the metacommentary by Yeshes Thabkhas, is that the true cause that leads to content of my cognition, or
perceptual experience, is nothing external but only my own internal world. This internal world
can be understood in terms of my desires, goals, concepts, and other psychological phenomena
that can lead to habitual patterns of thought or styles of cognition. It is my unique subjectivity
that gives rise to the world I experience. Believing that world I experience is rooted in an
external world, and my experiences are based on real objects out there, is completely wrong.
Someone might argue that the world they see is at least a bit similar or connected to a real
external world. However, we can illustrate how they are wrong through a thought experiment
involving different animal minds. The world that a mosquito perceives is radically different than
the one an elephant perceives, or that which a human perceives. The external objects that each
species of animal beholds in their subjective worlds are completely incommensurable. Different
stimuli will become noticeable and appear from out the background of the unknowable mass of
chaos (I believe there must be some kind of realism in that there is a shared space-time in which
all sentient beings are located, but the nature or contents of this spacetime is indescribable
because it is forever dependent on the observer). Even if the same stimuli stood out for two
similar species, like a monkey and a human, the meaning of this stimuli and its particular

appearance would be radically different and non-translatable across minds. In this way, it is truly
nonsense to talk about external objects as causes of our perception and perceptual experiences.
Rather, we must look to the observers unique being for the causes of her perception and
experiences, from her brain structure and overall biology to her intentionality and behavior.
The consequence of this metaphysics is that studying human or animal behavior based on
quantifiable observationsor all that natural science and its methods are capable ofis
misleading and yields false (although often rough and useful) conclusions. Natural science does
not deal with the details of subjectivity or phenomenology because it is totally individualistic and
cannot yield the patterns and predictions on any scale of scientific concern. I believe that even if
natural science aimed at analyzing one particular person in one particular instance, and nothing
more, it would still fail, because no one, and not even this particular person, can have full
knowledge of this persons biological or psychological dimensions. Humans are simply limited
in what we can know.
Fortunately it seems we dont need this exact knowledge, which is impossible to
ascertain, or there might be no object or thing to have knowledge about at all if everything is as
fluid and interrelational as Buddhist metaphysics holds. Unfortunately, natural science has been
used massively to theorize and declare all kinds of knowledge about the human being and
specific populations of persons. These theories are necessarily rough, and their roughness varies
depending on the case. In some cases they are so rough that they are simply wrong, or the
apparent authority of their conclusions is alluring and tempting to believe in. It might be a
common unintended consequence of theorizing about humans using natural scientific methods
that the resultant beliefs about human beings cause individuals to change their desires, goals, and
motivations, which will influence their biology and brain structure due to neuroplasticity and the

interrelational nature of everything. Science shapes humans, and science does not hold a level of
ethical vigilance that is appropriate given this function it has.

Philosophical Journal
Denying Suffering
Buddhism holds a form of pragmatism. The truth value of a proposition is evaluated by
how beneficial it is in helping sentient beings accomplish the goal of reducing or transcending
from suffering. This metaphysical system leads to a massive contradiction with the fundamental
tenant of Buddhism that suffering should be reduced by waking up to the emptiness of all
things, or that there is no stable essence or nature to anything at all. It seems that this wake up
is severely non-therapeutic. In various lectures, professors have explained that suffering doesnt
exist at all, for various reasons. For example, suffering is experienced in the past, present, or
future. The past and future dont exist, and the present is so momentary and fleeting that
anything within it doesnt exist either.
I find this denial of suffering extremely dangerous. It could lead people to suppressing
their genuine emotions. Or, people might rationalize and convince themselves that their very
real-life problems dont actually exist or arent causing their suffering, when these problematic
circumstances genuinely are. In order to transcend from suffering, I believe people need to fully
acknowledge the reality of their suffering and situation. If there are circumstances that they can
change that contribute to this suffering, they should try to remove themselves from them. Or,
they can find meaning from the suffering. They can be imaginative, hopeful, and creative, and
practice findings a greater purpose to their suffering. These are ways to deal with suffering that
actually help. According to Buddhisms pragmatism, these ways should be understood as holding

genuine truth value, truth as ultimate and real as that which Buddhism currently ascribes to
emptiness. Buddhism should boot emptiness out of its currently assigned high seat of ultimate
truth and replace it with creativity, activity, movement, imaginative possibilities.
Of course, different people find different things to be therapeutic. I do not deny that there
are some people who can actually find personal healing through meditating on and internalizing
the concept of emptiness. The problem is that Buddhism doesnt accommodate the fact that this
population of people who find emptiness to be therapeutic is limited, and Buddhism doesnt
emphasize any other way to transcend from suffering. Buddhism cannot keep both its dogma of
emptiness and the pragmatist theory of truth; they are inconsistent with each other. Buddhism
needs to drop or revise either one.