There's actually no evidence that Pythagoras existed. Does that mean Pythagoras's theorem is unverifiable?
Can you explain the experiential difference between red and blue to someone who's never experienced color?
It doesn't make sense to explain Buddhist theory of mind in material terms.
> [The Buddha](https://www.dhammatalks.org/audio/evening/2008/080518-in-terms-of-the-four-noble-truths.html) once said that there’s no one internal quality more useful for awakening than appropriate attention: asking the right questions, looking at things in the right light. And appropriate attention essentially comes down to seeing things in terms of the four noble truths. And the truths here are not issues of just saying, “Well, there is suffering, there is the cause, there is cessation, there is a path.” It’s expressed in this way: “This is suffering.” In other words, you look directly at what suffering is or what stress is. You try to identify in your immediate experience what the cause of suffering is. This is the cause of suffering, the origination of suffering, what arises together with suffering. This is cessation. This is the path. In other words, you look for these things in your direct experience. This is the framework of questions you bring to the direct experience—where is the stress? Oh, it’s right here. Where is the cause? It’s right here too, but you have to look closely to find it.
>
> When you’re looking in this way, you try to apply the duties appropriate to each of these experiences. When you experience stress, you try to comprehend it. Comprehending means knowing it so well that you develop dispassion for it. When you can identify the cause of stress, or the origination of stress, the duty is to abandon it. The cessation of stress, which is dispassion for the cause, that’s something you want to witness, to see for yourself: *sacchikaatabbam*. And finally the elements in your experience you can identify as path are things you want to develop. You want to nurture them, strengthen them, bring them, as they say, to the culmination of their development.
It's fine if you don't think he said what's claimed here, or even existed, but Buddhism lays out a concrete strategy for the release of suffering (translated as "stress" in the above excerpt), which you can verify for yourself. You owe it to yourself to try. It's worth it.
It is verifiable. But if you want to verify everything, it may take eons. I have verified something that's said in the sutras, so have many other Buddhists and monks. If you don't walk the path you will never be able to verify them.
I am not supposed to talk about it it may stroke my ego. Let's put it in a simple way, my experience was about self being an illusion, and it was not an experience in mediation.
Practice and you will see for yourself.
Let me elaborate a little on my own journey.
I started with meditation, mindfulness of breath, to train my mind to have a "stop, think"-function because of anger issues.
This training of the mind is verified. You see, I was not only atheist, I was antireligious. I only wanted to work with proven methods, and meditation was proven and widely used outside of religious circumstances.
Now the meditation worked very well. I became more aware of my emotions and thoughts and less attached to reacting.
This made me wonder. What more is there to the origins of meditation? I found Buddhism. Now buddhism is not the origin of meditation as such, but it was the origin of the kind of meditation I was practicing.
I found in Buddhism a few simple rules I could follow, which seemed like a good idea no matter what. It was the five precepts. I came to read some Suttas. I liked reading them, so I read Suttas once in a while. I joined a buddhist online forum to debate things I did not understand.
I saw the value in the precepts to clean up my life. For several years I mostly kept the first precept. Because my life was complicated by having been an idiot for so long. It took years to clean up enough that I felt comfortable taking more precepts.
I started a new life. Over the years I had learned a lot and I began to have faith in the teachings on a mundane level.
Then one day in meditation, I had a glimpse of the unconditioned existence beyond samsara. I wasn't in jhana (never progressed past glowing orb nimitta). It was a brief moment of nonbecoming or seeing the infinite.
So I knew at that moment, whatever Buddha found in nibbana, it was real. We can go there. I have seen it myself.
This was 15 years briefly explained. My experience was a few years ago though. I do not meditate so much anymore
Try to translate the Buddhas teachings into psychological terms and try to remove yourself from the metaphysical aspects of the teaching. Try to realize the relevance (or lack thereof) of the historical significance of whether or not Siddhartha Gautama existed and actually did the things he’s said to have done…but you’re arguing word of mouth, which you will never find a true answer for. The purported words of the Buddha say to test his teachings instead of simply taking them as fact. My sense regarding Buddhism is that even the Buddha knew that words can’t express exactly what he meant because he knew that ‘communication’ itself is inherently flawed, therefore, subjective experience is the only way to “verify” or ‘experience’ and ‘know’ his teachings…and so he encouraged people to test his teachings. The answer to your question is, No, because without experience, how can someone judge the viability of a claim? You can certainly judge the ‘words’ you’ve heard, but without experience, you can’t judge the ‘context’ of the claim.
>It seems more that a lot of things need to be ‘believed’ even with
You mean there needs to be faith. Yes, that has always been the case. The Buddha himself even said as much. Faith has never been irrelevant. That has been true since the beginning. It’s really just a western misunderstanding and misconception that Buddhism doesn’t involve faith.
Dharma is quite a vague term. Your question seems to be quite specific. It is as if saying we should not eat food as food eventually turns to feces because feces are dirty & can lead to disease & sickness.
Suffice to say, I don't understand what you're trying to get at.
This is just my take, and I’m very new to Buddhism so forgive anything that may not be classic teaching. My take on any religion is that it’s a religion because you cannot prove it. If it was verifiable and proven, it would become science. Instead it is a faith. We believe, like Christians and Hindus and Muslims and Pagans etc etc, based on teachings and our faith in their truth. To verify it would take the faith aspect away and it would no longer be a belief system, but a set of scientific laws.
Just chiming in that emptiness is completely verifiable and so is the claim that ignorance causes suffering. They kind of go hand in hand. Buddhism is also a very integrated system contrary to your final suggestion. Concepts are all tied together and internally consistent.
Emptiness is a concept that describes the way things exist in the world. Just like you can verify that things in the world are impermanent, you can also verify that there is no self existing thing that is separate and substantial.
You just have to commit to understanding emptiness and maintain an open mind as it is a challenging concept that exposes fundamental delusion and ignorance in the way we conceptualize reality.
It’s very simple in theory but it is a path. At the outset it seems confusing or doubtful but as you go you begin to see that the concept accurately describes the nature of things.
It’s not an assumption. Empirical science has demonstrated that stars are impermanent. All science is based on inference and the thing we infer is that the sun will thus be impermanent. An assumption is like me saying you’re wearing green socks. I have no basis on which to say that, it’s entirely an assumption.
You have to dive deeper and really think about what you’re saying and what these things mean. You have some work to do, friend.
Remember that science is not proof and even if some stars have demonstrated impermanence it does not necessarily mean every star will. Besides it may be viewed that stars are not necessarily suns or vice versa.
The sun is a star. That is the definition.
Also like stated previously, what is called proof in science is based on inference. We can’t know for certain that every peacock is going to be pink but we can infer that they will.
But anyways, based on your rebuttal you seem to be drifting into an undefined ignorance that seems profound but errs on meaninglessness. How can you know anything then? You could be immortal, even though there’s never been a human being who is immortal that we are aware of.
If you’re interested in the study of knowledge and how we can know anything at all, that’s one thing. I would suggest learning philosophy of science and epistemology. Anyway, I wish you luck. Be well.
Sabbe sankara anicca. All formations are impermanent.
Verifiable?
Identification and attachment to X leads to suffering due to X, some form of it anyway?
Non-identification and non-attachment to X would mean suffering cannot arise due to X.
Verifiable? No?
As to why non-identification and non-attachment, refer to the Dharma for full dissertation.
But yeah, admittedly, the Dharma is not verifiable by those who are just trying to poke holes and not actually use the Dharma to reduce and remove suffering. This, I've seen and verified. ;)
Reminds me of flat-earthers claiming that earth being a globe is not verifiable but throws out all manners of physics at the same time.
If this discussion is to be had in earnest, a couple of things have to happen first. 1) you need to operationally define what you mean by dharma. 2) you need to define your parameters for when something becomes unverifiable. For the sake of the expediency, I will assume by, "dharma," you mean generally the four noble truths and the noble eightfold path. I will also assume by, "unverifiable," you mean it cannot be reasonably tested and determined to be true. We'll be defining other terms for clarity along the way.
To be verified, the Dharma needs to be making a claim or set of claims that can be tested and falsified. So let's look at that; let's list the dharma's claims and whether or not they can be falsified through testing. We'll worry about what those tests look like later. The claims made are basically contained in the first three of the four noble truths. I will list them in a more scientific parlance. These definitions may be imperfect, but it provides a starting point.
1. Dukka (defined here as lack of satisfaction with one's human experience) is an extant aspect of human experience.
2. Dukka is caused by craving (defined here as wanting changes to one's human experience, regardless of the feasibly of those changes).
3. Dukka can be ended through training one's mind to not crave.
So here we have the central claims. Are they testable? Well the test for 3 is effectively practice of number 4, i.e. practicing the Eightfold Path. To be more clear, we test number 3 by saying, "if one practices the Eightfold Path, then they will stop craving." If that happens, we by default have tested the second: if they have stopped craving, they should no longer experience Dukka. Number one is testable by observation and statistical analysis. Simply asking everyone if they've ever been bored will confirm that Dukka is extant in all human experience.
So let's devise a hypothetical study to provide some level of evidence for claims 2 and 3. We set up 3 groups one will begin practice of the eightfold path, one will begin practice of some non-dharma based relaxation regime. One will have no changes to their lives. Both practice groups could be overseen by an expert in that regime. We set up a before and after questionnaire to assess the presence and magnitude (approximate) of Dukka. Then we assess if the eightfold path has reduced Dukka compared to the other groups. If there is a statistical difference in this reported dukka, then the dharma has evidence for verification. Studies like this have been (improperly) done on mindfulness meditation. They always forget the positive control, so no conclusions can be properly drawn. But the methodology is there.
I think Buddhism is unique among traditions as there is a really intense, real-world data point to point toward the mundane claims of Buddhism (i.e. the non-supernatural ones) working at all. This is found in the story of [Thích Quảng Đức](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%ADch_Qu%E1%BA%A3ng_%C4%90%E1%BB%A9c). Tl;dr of this: as a form of protest, he self-immolated. Avaliable eye-wittness reports say he sat silently in the lotus position while burning. If Buddhism's central broad claim is you can become equanimous about your human experience regardless of what that experience entails, I know of no more extreme test of that than sitting silently and calmly while you burn to death.
So to sum up, the central actionable aspects of the Dharma are absolutely falsifiable, testable, and verifiable. I would argue that the venerable Thích Quảng Đức has provided a valuable data point to that measure. The other aspects of the dharma, namely kamma and rebirth, as practiced by the majority of Buddhists are supernatural and therefore functionally unfalsafiable, untestable, and unverifiable. But that's of little concern to your central question as they are by no means the major aspect of practice.
>Number one is testable by observation and statistical analysis. Simply asking everyone if they've ever been bored will confirm that Dukka is extant in all human experience.
This is a non sequitur. Being bored does not necessarily entail one is in ‘dukkha’.
>This is a non sequitur. Being bored does not necessarily entail one is in ‘dukkha’.
You clearly don't understand dukka sufficiently enough. Nor did you consider it from the point-of-view of the operational definition we established. Bordem is one of many concepts under the umbrella of Dukka. Recall we defined Dukka as, "wishing to change aspects of one's human experience regardless of the feasibly of that change." If you are bored, you are wishing stimulating activity where none currently exists. By our operational definition, boredom is a form of Dukka.
The way you phrased the rebuttal makes me think you mistakenly inferred that dukka is a constant state. Note that I did not say Buddhism claims one is *always* experiencing dukka. I sad it is a *part* of the human experience that does exist. It comes and goes but it does, in fact, happen.
Arguably you could say Buddhists are ‘bored with samsara’. Boredom can be expressed and have some variance in meaning. Besides, some can even enjoy boredom.
And when I mentioned that I didn’t imply one was constantly in dukkha, but more that being bored must mean one is in a form or byproduct of dukkha.
>Arguably you could say Buddhists are ‘bored with samsara’.
Indeed you can. It's a common paradoxical state that is often discussed.
>Boredom can be expressed and have some variance in meaning.
Correct. Which is why we have defined dukka the way we have.
>Besides, some can even enjoy boredom.
Indeed. And the internal desire for bordem to continue (as opposed to allowing it to end without desire as it necessarily must) is also dukka. The change in one's experience that is wished doesn't need to be positive (i.e. active change). It can be wishing for the absence of change. That this moment of enjoyment continues.
>but more that being bored must mean one is in a form or byproduct of dukkha.
By our definition, yes. I suppose given, "bordem," is the word used to describe both an emotion and the concious response to said emotion, it should be specified that the conscious response (desiring the end of the emotion or wishing its continuance) is dukka, not the emotion itself. Emotions are not claimed to be able to be controlled under the principles of Buddhism.
The 6 Qualities of the Buddha's Teachings:
>1. Svakhato (Well expounded) - The Dhamma is well-expounded by the Master. It is excellent in the beginning, excellent in the middle, and excellent in the end. It has no contradictions but is absolutely complete and totally pure.
>2. Sanditthiko (Self evident, seen for oneself) - The beneficial results of the Dhamma is visible to every individual. One does not need to depend on others to appreciate the Dhamma.
>3. Akaliko (Timeless) - The Dhamma is not constrained by time. Its beneficial effects is not delayed but is realised immediately. The Dhamma was effective in the past, in the present and continues to be effective in the future.
>4. Ehipassiko (Open to investigation) - The Dhamma is open to all to come and see, to inspect and to scrutinize. The Dhamma does not fear challenges. It is not mysterious or vague but is crystal clear.
>5. Opanayiko (Leading inward) - The Dhamma does not take us into fascination, into excitement or delusion, but leads to Nibbana.
>6. Paccattam Veditabbo Vinnuhi (To be realised by the wise) - The teaching of the Buddha points to a truth which can be understood by an intelligent person when properly explained.
It's already accepted in the Buddhist tradition that a number of claims in the sūtras are *atyantaparokṣa*, "exceedingly imperceptible," which as Venerable Thubten Chödrön's Buddhist terminology dictionary explains means that such claims are "known only by relying on the testimony of a reliable person or a valid scripture."
https://thubtenchodron.org/glossary/very-obscure-phenomena-atyantaparok%E1%B9%A3a/
In other words, among beings with epistemic faculties like us, only those with trust in persons regarded as having *superior* epistemic faculties (e.g., the Buddha) will be able to consider themselves reasonable in accepting such claims.
The Buddhist tradition already accepts this, even if some individual Buddhists do not.
This is what I love about Vajrayana: that I can actually see embodied realization of the qualities of Buddhahood directly in the form of the guru, just as if the Buddha himself were here. The historicity of particular claims or sutras isn't so urgent when there are realized beings alive now who are undeniably enlightened.
What is the purpose of this? Do you think millions of Buddhists around the world are going to change their beliefs and practices based on this reddit post?
You look for answers in concepts in them you will find non. The dharma element cannot be found in conceptual reality. It is has no shape and form yet it can be seen by those who seek liberation. Remove your ego and then you will gain all the answers you seek.
The time of verification is at the moment of death.
To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour
Of course it’s not verifiable in a concrete measurable way.
The existence of the Buddha isn’t that controversial. The specific details of his life on the other hand are basically impossible to objectively verify. There are no contemporaneous records, as writing wasn’t invented there yet.
That’s also why the teachings were an oral tradition for about 300 years.
All the teachings are not something one can put under a microscope, or weigh, or measure. No philosophy is.
The question of which specific animals have what level of sentience is not the point of Buddhism. It’s not designed to explain everything. There are whole avenues of investigation explicitly stated are [unanswerable](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_unanswerable_questions).
Buddhism is a practice to move you from ignorance to wisdom. That’s it. You’re invited to give it a thorough examination. Try it out if you like. If you find anything of value, use it. If not, no worries.
You’re not threatened with fire and brimstone for not being a Buddhist. Different strokes for different folks.
I experience the jhanas and I have zero doubt of the Dhamma because when you experience it first hand there is no denying it I have experienced nothing like it. If you develop your mediation practice I promise you can experience those realms for yourself. In the 6th Jhana its a wild party lol
edited to add the experience of Nibanna cannot be explained because of our understanding of concepts. Nibana is the unconditioned mind and the 8th jhana is like being inside a quantum computer. When you have these experiences you will have no more doubt. But if you are so critical of the practice it will be impossible to enter the jhanas because its all about letting go.
Are you being pedantic or do you think that people on Reddit claiming absorption they clearly haven't attained is okay?
The sixth jhana is high-level and would require monasticism, and if OP were ordained, he wouldn't be claiming attainments -- even if he really had them --as it is forbidden to make such claims to lay people according to the Vinaya. Describing a jhana like "being in a quantum computer" is also a sign that OP means something very different than the rest of us.
I don't remember the Buddha requiring monasticism for his meditation and search for enlightenment.
It's basically a style of pedantry aimed at destroying false presumptions. Pratyekabuddhas are real. I just didn't like the attitude behind your post which seemed to negate alternate forms of attainment.
I wholeheartedly agree that false claims of attainment (and wrong speech generally) are, of course, problematic and feed the I-making of an unrealized practitioner.
Edit: Be well.
Anyone on the internet claiming they've attained the sixth jhana absolutely has not attained it. Making that claim negates the very possibility of having attained it. I could maybe overlook the claim of a first jhana, but saying "the sixth jhana is a wild ride bro" is either flat-out lying or a dangerous spiritual delusion. Hopefully it's the former. Rooting out that delusion is far more important than an attitude "which seems to negate alternate forms of attainment." I only negated a very specific claim of jhana absorbtion Pratyekabuddhas are real, but they aren't on Reddit calling themselves pratyekabuddhas or showing off; and if they're on this subreddit they aren't a pratyekabuddha because they're in contact with the dharma.
Claims of siddhis and attainments are greatly discouraged on this subreddit and usually removed. For good reason.
the completely verifiable charms is the teachings. That mean that following the teachings possible yo achieve enlightenment or possible to achieve peace of mind or possible to achieve other thing like concentration and meditative states and so
When they say dharma is verifiable they probably arent referring to, if Ananda awakened at 68 or at 74. Maybe that isn't 'verifiable'.
* also relevant to note the "verifiable" here is a concept wirh more than 2500 years of history. Not exactly the same concept of modernity... Consider the problem of remembering previous lives. E say is verifiable but not like verifiable through statistics and adn research but verifiable firstly by oneself and secondly according to trustable people that have also reached such attainment... Maybe in fact is also verifiable through adn, don't know, but that's not the way we are pointing
The ego has can be defensive in the most subtle and deceptive ways. The Dharma stands independent of time and history. Focus on the evidence of its impact on your life.
It's verified through the meditation. Any serious practitioner must be willing to consider the possibility that the Buddha never existed. Even enlightenment is just an idea. But the teachings ring true for people who practice them. The teachings, in turn, serve as guidance in meditation on the path. We practice Buddhism because it rings true.
What would it mean to verify? Would we need to find an office door plaque that says "Mr. Shakyamuni" and carbon-date it to 2,500 years ago? Did Jesus exist? The stories of great masters often seem to take the form of classic myths. It's not easy to know which parts might be true. Historical truth is not what keeps Buddhism going. It's living lineages of realized masters; unbroken "genealogies" of buddhahood. There are realized masters today who are willing to teach, so we can practice the path. It's not science. It's a path to wisdom. You can practice it yourself if you feel a connection. You don't need the Buddha's DNA mapped out to do that. You can't "prove" it. Proof implies a limited relative context.
Of course, you could ask how we know that realized masters exist. Can we send them to neuroscientists with electrodes to test them? All of that misses the point. The practice is practical. It's not theory or philosophy. There are no promises. There's no Connsumer Reports rating. There's no license on file with the BBB. There's no neuroscience research shoing that enlightened masters have brain waves in the shape of lotus flowers.
How do you know that you exist? Are you verifiable? How? By looking in a mirror? By kicking a rock and feeling pain? By asking your mother? Those are all seeking evidence in externals. What do you REALLY know? If you think about it, all that we can say for sure is that cognition seems to be happening. When you dream at night you have no doubt that it's reality. When you wake up, you believe that reality was "mere dreams". How do you know you're not still dreaming? There's a famous Taoist saying about that: "Chuang Tzu dreamt he was a butterfly. Did Chuang Tzu dream he was a butterfly, or was it the butterfly dreaming it was Chuang Tzu?"
That might sound silly, but it highlights how reality is not confirmable, and being confused about that causes suffering. The Buddha taught the 3 marks of existence. Suffering, impermanence and egolessness. We "reify" mental experience, conjuring a sense of solid, static reality. That apparent reality is constantly changing and not confirmable. The experience of self is created by constantly referencing some kind of other. "I want this." "I hate that."
Buddhist teachings are saying that you can realize that for yourself. You can cultivate a kind of "meta-sanity". It's not data. It must be realized through the practice. If you want historical or scientific proofs then talk to academics. That's what they're there for -- to maintain a shared, consensus reality.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Buddhism/comments/dktouv/buddhists\_should\_repost\_rebirth\_evidences\_more/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/Buddhism/comments/dktouv/buddhists_should_repost_rebirth_evidences_more/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
Rebirth evidences.
As you get deeper, maybe with more practise and merits, you might meet some stream winners and above. I seem to meet quite a lot after I took up robes. Especially when they are lay person, they can reveal to you. But the way that they reveal is not with pride. It's not blasting it out there. I trust quite a lot of those who revealed it to me. Really, the deep Jhānas allows one to verify a lot of these things.
Your issue is more of faith. Just keep on practising.
Cryonics people have actually more faith in the future tech than Buddhists, because at least by osmosis, the people who are enlightened really lead and inspire practitioners, who in turn become enlightened and so on. There's no time traveller from the future to tell people of today that cryonics tech will one day work.
Dependent origination. One has to abandon the physicality viewpoint.
And accept that kamma done from volitional formations, the ignorance, craving, clinging and becoming would generate new rebirth-relinking consciousness for next life, which then generates name and form and it perpetuates itself until death and the cycle restarts as long as ignorance is not eradicated.
There's actually no evidence that Pythagoras existed. Does that mean Pythagoras's theorem is unverifiable? Can you explain the experiential difference between red and blue to someone who's never experienced color? It doesn't make sense to explain Buddhist theory of mind in material terms.
What purpose would that serve?
It's not objectively verifiable, but release from suffering is verifiable. You should give it a try. :-)
Release from suffering as in parinirvana? What do you mean here?
> [The Buddha](https://www.dhammatalks.org/audio/evening/2008/080518-in-terms-of-the-four-noble-truths.html) once said that there’s no one internal quality more useful for awakening than appropriate attention: asking the right questions, looking at things in the right light. And appropriate attention essentially comes down to seeing things in terms of the four noble truths. And the truths here are not issues of just saying, “Well, there is suffering, there is the cause, there is cessation, there is a path.” It’s expressed in this way: “This is suffering.” In other words, you look directly at what suffering is or what stress is. You try to identify in your immediate experience what the cause of suffering is. This is the cause of suffering, the origination of suffering, what arises together with suffering. This is cessation. This is the path. In other words, you look for these things in your direct experience. This is the framework of questions you bring to the direct experience—where is the stress? Oh, it’s right here. Where is the cause? It’s right here too, but you have to look closely to find it. > > When you’re looking in this way, you try to apply the duties appropriate to each of these experiences. When you experience stress, you try to comprehend it. Comprehending means knowing it so well that you develop dispassion for it. When you can identify the cause of stress, or the origination of stress, the duty is to abandon it. The cessation of stress, which is dispassion for the cause, that’s something you want to witness, to see for yourself: *sacchikaatabbam*. And finally the elements in your experience you can identify as path are things you want to develop. You want to nurture them, strengthen them, bring them, as they say, to the culmination of their development. It's fine if you don't think he said what's claimed here, or even existed, but Buddhism lays out a concrete strategy for the release of suffering (translated as "stress" in the above excerpt), which you can verify for yourself. You owe it to yourself to try. It's worth it.
It is verifiable. But if you want to verify everything, it may take eons. I have verified something that's said in the sutras, so have many other Buddhists and monks. If you don't walk the path you will never be able to verify them.
Share with the class what you verified from the sutras. 🤗
I am not supposed to talk about it it may stroke my ego. Let's put it in a simple way, my experience was about self being an illusion, and it was not an experience in mediation.
Practice and you will see for yourself. Let me elaborate a little on my own journey. I started with meditation, mindfulness of breath, to train my mind to have a "stop, think"-function because of anger issues. This training of the mind is verified. You see, I was not only atheist, I was antireligious. I only wanted to work with proven methods, and meditation was proven and widely used outside of religious circumstances. Now the meditation worked very well. I became more aware of my emotions and thoughts and less attached to reacting. This made me wonder. What more is there to the origins of meditation? I found Buddhism. Now buddhism is not the origin of meditation as such, but it was the origin of the kind of meditation I was practicing. I found in Buddhism a few simple rules I could follow, which seemed like a good idea no matter what. It was the five precepts. I came to read some Suttas. I liked reading them, so I read Suttas once in a while. I joined a buddhist online forum to debate things I did not understand. I saw the value in the precepts to clean up my life. For several years I mostly kept the first precept. Because my life was complicated by having been an idiot for so long. It took years to clean up enough that I felt comfortable taking more precepts. I started a new life. Over the years I had learned a lot and I began to have faith in the teachings on a mundane level. Then one day in meditation, I had a glimpse of the unconditioned existence beyond samsara. I wasn't in jhana (never progressed past glowing orb nimitta). It was a brief moment of nonbecoming or seeing the infinite. So I knew at that moment, whatever Buddha found in nibbana, it was real. We can go there. I have seen it myself. This was 15 years briefly explained. My experience was a few years ago though. I do not meditate so much anymore
Try to translate the Buddhas teachings into psychological terms and try to remove yourself from the metaphysical aspects of the teaching. Try to realize the relevance (or lack thereof) of the historical significance of whether or not Siddhartha Gautama existed and actually did the things he’s said to have done…but you’re arguing word of mouth, which you will never find a true answer for. The purported words of the Buddha say to test his teachings instead of simply taking them as fact. My sense regarding Buddhism is that even the Buddha knew that words can’t express exactly what he meant because he knew that ‘communication’ itself is inherently flawed, therefore, subjective experience is the only way to “verify” or ‘experience’ and ‘know’ his teachings…and so he encouraged people to test his teachings. The answer to your question is, No, because without experience, how can someone judge the viability of a claim? You can certainly judge the ‘words’ you’ve heard, but without experience, you can’t judge the ‘context’ of the claim.
>It seems more that a lot of things need to be ‘believed’ even with You mean there needs to be faith. Yes, that has always been the case. The Buddha himself even said as much. Faith has never been irrelevant. That has been true since the beginning. It’s really just a western misunderstanding and misconception that Buddhism doesn’t involve faith.
Dharma is quite a vague term. Your question seems to be quite specific. It is as if saying we should not eat food as food eventually turns to feces because feces are dirty & can lead to disease & sickness. Suffice to say, I don't understand what you're trying to get at.
This is just my take, and I’m very new to Buddhism so forgive anything that may not be classic teaching. My take on any religion is that it’s a religion because you cannot prove it. If it was verifiable and proven, it would become science. Instead it is a faith. We believe, like Christians and Hindus and Muslims and Pagans etc etc, based on teachings and our faith in their truth. To verify it would take the faith aspect away and it would no longer be a belief system, but a set of scientific laws.
Just chiming in that emptiness is completely verifiable and so is the claim that ignorance causes suffering. They kind of go hand in hand. Buddhism is also a very integrated system contrary to your final suggestion. Concepts are all tied together and internally consistent.
Explain how.
Emptiness is a concept that describes the way things exist in the world. Just like you can verify that things in the world are impermanent, you can also verify that there is no self existing thing that is separate and substantial. You just have to commit to understanding emptiness and maintain an open mind as it is a challenging concept that exposes fundamental delusion and ignorance in the way we conceptualize reality. It’s very simple in theory but it is a path. At the outset it seems confusing or doubtful but as you go you begin to see that the concept accurately describes the nature of things.
>Just like you can verify that things in the world are impermanent Well pictures and handwriting will last.
Everything has a half-life and is subject to decay. If the sun won’t last, pictures and handwriting certainly won’t last.
Nobody has lived that long to confirm that, it’s an assumption.
It’s not an assumption. Empirical science has demonstrated that stars are impermanent. All science is based on inference and the thing we infer is that the sun will thus be impermanent. An assumption is like me saying you’re wearing green socks. I have no basis on which to say that, it’s entirely an assumption. You have to dive deeper and really think about what you’re saying and what these things mean. You have some work to do, friend.
Remember that science is not proof and even if some stars have demonstrated impermanence it does not necessarily mean every star will. Besides it may be viewed that stars are not necessarily suns or vice versa.
The sun is a star. That is the definition. Also like stated previously, what is called proof in science is based on inference. We can’t know for certain that every peacock is going to be pink but we can infer that they will. But anyways, based on your rebuttal you seem to be drifting into an undefined ignorance that seems profound but errs on meaninglessness. How can you know anything then? You could be immortal, even though there’s never been a human being who is immortal that we are aware of. If you’re interested in the study of knowledge and how we can know anything at all, that’s one thing. I would suggest learning philosophy of science and epistemology. Anyway, I wish you luck. Be well.
Sabbe sankara anicca. All formations are impermanent. Verifiable? Identification and attachment to X leads to suffering due to X, some form of it anyway? Non-identification and non-attachment to X would mean suffering cannot arise due to X. Verifiable? No? As to why non-identification and non-attachment, refer to the Dharma for full dissertation. But yeah, admittedly, the Dharma is not verifiable by those who are just trying to poke holes and not actually use the Dharma to reduce and remove suffering. This, I've seen and verified. ;) Reminds me of flat-earthers claiming that earth being a globe is not verifiable but throws out all manners of physics at the same time.
Have you actually read any of the sutras?
If this discussion is to be had in earnest, a couple of things have to happen first. 1) you need to operationally define what you mean by dharma. 2) you need to define your parameters for when something becomes unverifiable. For the sake of the expediency, I will assume by, "dharma," you mean generally the four noble truths and the noble eightfold path. I will also assume by, "unverifiable," you mean it cannot be reasonably tested and determined to be true. We'll be defining other terms for clarity along the way. To be verified, the Dharma needs to be making a claim or set of claims that can be tested and falsified. So let's look at that; let's list the dharma's claims and whether or not they can be falsified through testing. We'll worry about what those tests look like later. The claims made are basically contained in the first three of the four noble truths. I will list them in a more scientific parlance. These definitions may be imperfect, but it provides a starting point. 1. Dukka (defined here as lack of satisfaction with one's human experience) is an extant aspect of human experience. 2. Dukka is caused by craving (defined here as wanting changes to one's human experience, regardless of the feasibly of those changes). 3. Dukka can be ended through training one's mind to not crave. So here we have the central claims. Are they testable? Well the test for 3 is effectively practice of number 4, i.e. practicing the Eightfold Path. To be more clear, we test number 3 by saying, "if one practices the Eightfold Path, then they will stop craving." If that happens, we by default have tested the second: if they have stopped craving, they should no longer experience Dukka. Number one is testable by observation and statistical analysis. Simply asking everyone if they've ever been bored will confirm that Dukka is extant in all human experience. So let's devise a hypothetical study to provide some level of evidence for claims 2 and 3. We set up 3 groups one will begin practice of the eightfold path, one will begin practice of some non-dharma based relaxation regime. One will have no changes to their lives. Both practice groups could be overseen by an expert in that regime. We set up a before and after questionnaire to assess the presence and magnitude (approximate) of Dukka. Then we assess if the eightfold path has reduced Dukka compared to the other groups. If there is a statistical difference in this reported dukka, then the dharma has evidence for verification. Studies like this have been (improperly) done on mindfulness meditation. They always forget the positive control, so no conclusions can be properly drawn. But the methodology is there. I think Buddhism is unique among traditions as there is a really intense, real-world data point to point toward the mundane claims of Buddhism (i.e. the non-supernatural ones) working at all. This is found in the story of [Thích Quảng Đức](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%ADch_Qu%E1%BA%A3ng_%C4%90%E1%BB%A9c). Tl;dr of this: as a form of protest, he self-immolated. Avaliable eye-wittness reports say he sat silently in the lotus position while burning. If Buddhism's central broad claim is you can become equanimous about your human experience regardless of what that experience entails, I know of no more extreme test of that than sitting silently and calmly while you burn to death. So to sum up, the central actionable aspects of the Dharma are absolutely falsifiable, testable, and verifiable. I would argue that the venerable Thích Quảng Đức has provided a valuable data point to that measure. The other aspects of the dharma, namely kamma and rebirth, as practiced by the majority of Buddhists are supernatural and therefore functionally unfalsafiable, untestable, and unverifiable. But that's of little concern to your central question as they are by no means the major aspect of practice.
>Number one is testable by observation and statistical analysis. Simply asking everyone if they've ever been bored will confirm that Dukka is extant in all human experience. This is a non sequitur. Being bored does not necessarily entail one is in ‘dukkha’.
>This is a non sequitur. Being bored does not necessarily entail one is in ‘dukkha’. You clearly don't understand dukka sufficiently enough. Nor did you consider it from the point-of-view of the operational definition we established. Bordem is one of many concepts under the umbrella of Dukka. Recall we defined Dukka as, "wishing to change aspects of one's human experience regardless of the feasibly of that change." If you are bored, you are wishing stimulating activity where none currently exists. By our operational definition, boredom is a form of Dukka. The way you phrased the rebuttal makes me think you mistakenly inferred that dukka is a constant state. Note that I did not say Buddhism claims one is *always* experiencing dukka. I sad it is a *part* of the human experience that does exist. It comes and goes but it does, in fact, happen.
Arguably you could say Buddhists are ‘bored with samsara’. Boredom can be expressed and have some variance in meaning. Besides, some can even enjoy boredom. And when I mentioned that I didn’t imply one was constantly in dukkha, but more that being bored must mean one is in a form or byproduct of dukkha.
>Arguably you could say Buddhists are ‘bored with samsara’. Indeed you can. It's a common paradoxical state that is often discussed. >Boredom can be expressed and have some variance in meaning. Correct. Which is why we have defined dukka the way we have. >Besides, some can even enjoy boredom. Indeed. And the internal desire for bordem to continue (as opposed to allowing it to end without desire as it necessarily must) is also dukka. The change in one's experience that is wished doesn't need to be positive (i.e. active change). It can be wishing for the absence of change. That this moment of enjoyment continues. >but more that being bored must mean one is in a form or byproduct of dukkha. By our definition, yes. I suppose given, "bordem," is the word used to describe both an emotion and the concious response to said emotion, it should be specified that the conscious response (desiring the end of the emotion or wishing its continuance) is dukka, not the emotion itself. Emotions are not claimed to be able to be controlled under the principles of Buddhism.
The 6 Qualities of the Buddha's Teachings: >1. Svakhato (Well expounded) - The Dhamma is well-expounded by the Master. It is excellent in the beginning, excellent in the middle, and excellent in the end. It has no contradictions but is absolutely complete and totally pure. >2. Sanditthiko (Self evident, seen for oneself) - The beneficial results of the Dhamma is visible to every individual. One does not need to depend on others to appreciate the Dhamma. >3. Akaliko (Timeless) - The Dhamma is not constrained by time. Its beneficial effects is not delayed but is realised immediately. The Dhamma was effective in the past, in the present and continues to be effective in the future. >4. Ehipassiko (Open to investigation) - The Dhamma is open to all to come and see, to inspect and to scrutinize. The Dhamma does not fear challenges. It is not mysterious or vague but is crystal clear. >5. Opanayiko (Leading inward) - The Dhamma does not take us into fascination, into excitement or delusion, but leads to Nibbana. >6. Paccattam Veditabbo Vinnuhi (To be realised by the wise) - The teaching of the Buddha points to a truth which can be understood by an intelligent person when properly explained.
It's already accepted in the Buddhist tradition that a number of claims in the sūtras are *atyantaparokṣa*, "exceedingly imperceptible," which as Venerable Thubten Chödrön's Buddhist terminology dictionary explains means that such claims are "known only by relying on the testimony of a reliable person or a valid scripture." https://thubtenchodron.org/glossary/very-obscure-phenomena-atyantaparok%E1%B9%A3a/ In other words, among beings with epistemic faculties like us, only those with trust in persons regarded as having *superior* epistemic faculties (e.g., the Buddha) will be able to consider themselves reasonable in accepting such claims. The Buddhist tradition already accepts this, even if some individual Buddhists do not.
This is what I love about Vajrayana: that I can actually see embodied realization of the qualities of Buddhahood directly in the form of the guru, just as if the Buddha himself were here. The historicity of particular claims or sutras isn't so urgent when there are realized beings alive now who are undeniably enlightened.
What is the purpose of this? Do you think millions of Buddhists around the world are going to change their beliefs and practices based on this reddit post?
No it’s about viewing more critically and raising questions than just assuming Buddhism is the way.
Who just "assumes" that Buddhism is the way? Not assuming is the entire point of the practice.
You look for answers in concepts in them you will find non. The dharma element cannot be found in conceptual reality. It is has no shape and form yet it can be seen by those who seek liberation. Remove your ego and then you will gain all the answers you seek.
How do you claim there is ‘liberation’ if there is no one who spoke of said liberation?
Exactly 😉
The time of verification is at the moment of death. To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour
Of course it’s not verifiable in a concrete measurable way. The existence of the Buddha isn’t that controversial. The specific details of his life on the other hand are basically impossible to objectively verify. There are no contemporaneous records, as writing wasn’t invented there yet. That’s also why the teachings were an oral tradition for about 300 years. All the teachings are not something one can put under a microscope, or weigh, or measure. No philosophy is. The question of which specific animals have what level of sentience is not the point of Buddhism. It’s not designed to explain everything. There are whole avenues of investigation explicitly stated are [unanswerable](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_unanswerable_questions). Buddhism is a practice to move you from ignorance to wisdom. That’s it. You’re invited to give it a thorough examination. Try it out if you like. If you find anything of value, use it. If not, no worries. You’re not threatened with fire and brimstone for not being a Buddhist. Different strokes for different folks.
Well it does mention various hell realms. And you understand the power of placebo and confirmation bias, right?
I experience the jhanas and I have zero doubt of the Dhamma because when you experience it first hand there is no denying it I have experienced nothing like it. If you develop your mediation practice I promise you can experience those realms for yourself. In the 6th Jhana its a wild party lol edited to add the experience of Nibanna cannot be explained because of our understanding of concepts. Nibana is the unconditioned mind and the 8th jhana is like being inside a quantum computer. When you have these experiences you will have no more doubt. But if you are so critical of the practice it will be impossible to enter the jhanas because its all about letting go.
Claiming attainments is usually a sign that one has none, btw.
"usually," btw.
Actually "always", I just didn't want to be that confrontational.
Damn, insulting the Buddha now? Edit: I don't need a response. The Buddha claimed attainment. We're on his path. Be serious.
Are you being pedantic or do you think that people on Reddit claiming absorption they clearly haven't attained is okay? The sixth jhana is high-level and would require monasticism, and if OP were ordained, he wouldn't be claiming attainments -- even if he really had them --as it is forbidden to make such claims to lay people according to the Vinaya. Describing a jhana like "being in a quantum computer" is also a sign that OP means something very different than the rest of us.
I don't remember the Buddha requiring monasticism for his meditation and search for enlightenment. It's basically a style of pedantry aimed at destroying false presumptions. Pratyekabuddhas are real. I just didn't like the attitude behind your post which seemed to negate alternate forms of attainment. I wholeheartedly agree that false claims of attainment (and wrong speech generally) are, of course, problematic and feed the I-making of an unrealized practitioner. Edit: Be well.
Anyone on the internet claiming they've attained the sixth jhana absolutely has not attained it. Making that claim negates the very possibility of having attained it. I could maybe overlook the claim of a first jhana, but saying "the sixth jhana is a wild ride bro" is either flat-out lying or a dangerous spiritual delusion. Hopefully it's the former. Rooting out that delusion is far more important than an attitude "which seems to negate alternate forms of attainment." I only negated a very specific claim of jhana absorbtion Pratyekabuddhas are real, but they aren't on Reddit calling themselves pratyekabuddhas or showing off; and if they're on this subreddit they aren't a pratyekabuddha because they're in contact with the dharma. Claims of siddhis and attainments are greatly discouraged on this subreddit and usually removed. For good reason.
Can you give tips on how to enter the jhanas?
Ok, explain the differences in experience with the jhanas. The mic is yours.
the completely verifiable charms is the teachings. That mean that following the teachings possible yo achieve enlightenment or possible to achieve peace of mind or possible to achieve other thing like concentration and meditative states and so When they say dharma is verifiable they probably arent referring to, if Ananda awakened at 68 or at 74. Maybe that isn't 'verifiable'. * also relevant to note the "verifiable" here is a concept wirh more than 2500 years of history. Not exactly the same concept of modernity... Consider the problem of remembering previous lives. E say is verifiable but not like verifiable through statistics and adn research but verifiable firstly by oneself and secondly according to trustable people that have also reached such attainment... Maybe in fact is also verifiable through adn, don't know, but that's not the way we are pointing
The ego has can be defensive in the most subtle and deceptive ways. The Dharma stands independent of time and history. Focus on the evidence of its impact on your life.
It's verified through the meditation. Any serious practitioner must be willing to consider the possibility that the Buddha never existed. Even enlightenment is just an idea. But the teachings ring true for people who practice them. The teachings, in turn, serve as guidance in meditation on the path. We practice Buddhism because it rings true. What would it mean to verify? Would we need to find an office door plaque that says "Mr. Shakyamuni" and carbon-date it to 2,500 years ago? Did Jesus exist? The stories of great masters often seem to take the form of classic myths. It's not easy to know which parts might be true. Historical truth is not what keeps Buddhism going. It's living lineages of realized masters; unbroken "genealogies" of buddhahood. There are realized masters today who are willing to teach, so we can practice the path. It's not science. It's a path to wisdom. You can practice it yourself if you feel a connection. You don't need the Buddha's DNA mapped out to do that. You can't "prove" it. Proof implies a limited relative context. Of course, you could ask how we know that realized masters exist. Can we send them to neuroscientists with electrodes to test them? All of that misses the point. The practice is practical. It's not theory or philosophy. There are no promises. There's no Connsumer Reports rating. There's no license on file with the BBB. There's no neuroscience research shoing that enlightened masters have brain waves in the shape of lotus flowers. How do you know that you exist? Are you verifiable? How? By looking in a mirror? By kicking a rock and feeling pain? By asking your mother? Those are all seeking evidence in externals. What do you REALLY know? If you think about it, all that we can say for sure is that cognition seems to be happening. When you dream at night you have no doubt that it's reality. When you wake up, you believe that reality was "mere dreams". How do you know you're not still dreaming? There's a famous Taoist saying about that: "Chuang Tzu dreamt he was a butterfly. Did Chuang Tzu dream he was a butterfly, or was it the butterfly dreaming it was Chuang Tzu?" That might sound silly, but it highlights how reality is not confirmable, and being confused about that causes suffering. The Buddha taught the 3 marks of existence. Suffering, impermanence and egolessness. We "reify" mental experience, conjuring a sense of solid, static reality. That apparent reality is constantly changing and not confirmable. The experience of self is created by constantly referencing some kind of other. "I want this." "I hate that." Buddhist teachings are saying that you can realize that for yourself. You can cultivate a kind of "meta-sanity". It's not data. It must be realized through the practice. If you want historical or scientific proofs then talk to academics. That's what they're there for -- to maintain a shared, consensus reality.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Buddhism/comments/dktouv/buddhists\_should\_repost\_rebirth\_evidences\_more/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/Buddhism/comments/dktouv/buddhists_should_repost_rebirth_evidences_more/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) Rebirth evidences. As you get deeper, maybe with more practise and merits, you might meet some stream winners and above. I seem to meet quite a lot after I took up robes. Especially when they are lay person, they can reveal to you. But the way that they reveal is not with pride. It's not blasting it out there. I trust quite a lot of those who revealed it to me. Really, the deep Jhānas allows one to verify a lot of these things. Your issue is more of faith. Just keep on practising. Cryonics people have actually more faith in the future tech than Buddhists, because at least by osmosis, the people who are enlightened really lead and inspire practitioners, who in turn become enlightened and so on. There's no time traveller from the future to tell people of today that cryonics tech will one day work.
I actually don’t really doubt there can be past lives, perhaps even parallel lives, it’s more so the mechanism since traditions differ.
Dependent origination. One has to abandon the physicality viewpoint. And accept that kamma done from volitional formations, the ignorance, craving, clinging and becoming would generate new rebirth-relinking consciousness for next life, which then generates name and form and it perpetuates itself until death and the cycle restarts as long as ignorance is not eradicated.