Rational Buddhism
Rational Buddhism
The older the question, the older the answers.
You’ve called your philosophy Rational Buddhism. How does it differ from traditional Buddhism? What type of exploration did you go through?
The rational part means I have to reconcile with science and evolution. I have to reject all the pieces I can’t verify for myself. For example, is meditation good for you? Yes. Is clearing your mind a good thing? Yes. Is there a base layer of awareness below your monkey mind? Yes. All these things I’ve verified for myself.
Some beliefs from Buddhism I believe and follow because, again, I’ve verified or reasoned with thought experiments myself. What I will not accept is things like, “There’s a past life you’re paying off the karma for.” I haven’t seen it. I don’t remember any past lives. I don’t have any memory. I just have to not believe that.
When people say your third chakra is opening, etc.—I don’t know—that’s just fancy nomenclature. I have not been able to verify or confirm any of that on my own. If I can’t verify it on my own or if I cannot get there through science, then it may be true, it may be false, but it’s not falsifiable, so I cannot view it as a fundamental truth.
On the other side, I do know evolution is true. I do know we are evolved as survival and replication machines. I do know we have an ego, so we get up off the ground and worms don’t eat us and we actually take action. Rational Buddhism, to me, means understanding the internal work Buddhism espouses to make yourself happier, better off, more present and in control of your emotions—being a better human being.
I don’t subscribe to anything fanciful because it was written down in a book. I don’t think I can levitate. I don’t think meditation will give me superpowers and those kinds of things. Try everything, test it for yourself, be skeptical, keep what’s useful, and discard what’s not.
I would say my philosophy falls down to this—on one pole is evolution as a binding principle because it explains so much about humans, on the other is Buddhism, which is the oldest, most time-tested spiritual philosophy regarding the internal state of each of us.
I think those are absolutely reconcilable. I actually want to write a blog post at some point about how you can map the tenants of Buddhism, especially the non-fanciful ones, directly into a virtual reality simulation. [4]
Everyone starts out innocent. Everyone is corrupted. Wisdom is the discarding of vices and the return to virtue, by way of knowledge.
How do you define wisdom?
Understanding the long-term consequences of your actions. [11]
If wisdom could be imparted through words alone, we’d all be done here.
理性佛教
问题越古老，答案也越古老。
你称你的哲学为理性佛教。它与传统佛教有何不同？你经历了怎样的探索？
理性的部分意味着我必须与科学和进化相协调。我必须拒绝所有我无法亲自验证的部分。例如，冥想对你有好处吗？是的。清空你的思绪是件好事吗？是的。是否在你喋喋不休的心灵之下存在一个基础的觉知层次？是的。这些东西我都通过自己的经验验证了。
佛教中的一些信仰我也相信并遵循，因为我同样通过自己的验证或思想实验得出了结论。但我不会接受的是诸如“你是在偿还前世的业力”之类的说法。我没见过，我也不记得有什么前世，我没有任何记忆，因此我不能相信这种说法。
当人们说你的第三个脉轮正在开启等等——我不知道——这只不过是一些华丽的术语。我无法亲自验证或确认这些说法。如果我无法亲自验证它，或者我无法通过科学得出结论，那么它可能是真的，也可能是假的，但由于它不可证伪，所以我不能将其视为一个基本的真理。
另一方面，我确实知道进化是真实的。我确实知道我们是作为生存和复制的机器而进化的。我确实知道我们有自我，这使我们能从地上站起来，不被虫子吃掉，实际采取行动。对我来说，理性佛教意味着理解佛教所倡导的内在修行，以使自己更加幸福，更加安稳，更加活在当下，更加掌控自己的情绪，成为一个更好的人。
我不追随任何因为写在书上的奇幻说法。我不认为我能悬浮，也不认为冥想会赋予我超能力这些事情。尝试一切，为自己测试，对其持怀疑态度，保留有用的，舍弃无用的。
我会说我的哲学可以归结为——一极是进化，作为一个约束原则，因为它解释了很多关于人类的内容，另一极是佛教，这是关于我们每个人内在状态的最古老、最经得起时间考验的精神哲学。
我认为这两者是完全可以调和的。我实际上想在某个时候写一篇博客文章，讨论如何将佛教的教义，尤其是那些非奇幻的部分，直接映射到一个虚拟现实模拟中。[4]
每个人一开始都是纯洁的。每个人都会被腐化。智慧是通过知识抛弃恶习，回归美德。
你如何定义智慧？
理解你行动的长期后果。[11]
如果智慧能仅通过言语传递，那么我们早就功德圆满了。