Or, how does one reconcile Enlightenment (Nirvana) and the Action Axiom?
I don't know if I follow your train of thought here, but if I do, everything is material, everything exists as an act of force.
does this help? from HA:
Vegetative Man Some philosophies advise man to seek as the ultimate end of conduct the complete renunciation of any action. They look upon life as an absolute evil full of pain, suffering, and anguish, and apodictically deny that any purposeful human effort can render it tolerable. Happiness can be attained only by complete extinction of consciousness, volition, and life. The only way toward bliss and salvation is to become perfectly passive, indifferent, and inert like the plants. The sovereign good is the abandonment of think- ing and acting. Such is the cssence of the teachings of various Indian philosophies, especially of Buddhism, and of Schopenhauer. Praxeology does not com-
ment upon them. It is neutral with regard to all judgments of value and the choice of ultimate ends. Its task is not to approve or to disapprove, but only to establish facts. The subject matter of praxeology is human action. It is not concerned with human beings who have succeeded in suppressing altogether every- thing that characterizes man as man: will, desire, thought, and the striving after ends. It deals with acting man, not with man transformed into a plant and reduced to a merely vegetative existence.
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It's easy to refute an argument if you first misrepresent it. William Keizer
An enlightened man definitely acts. He is simply content with life as it is, free from past regret or future worry and endless thought patterns in the mind. He acts spontaneously and is very present. He doesn't throw away his mind, he keeps it quiet, to use it as a tool when necessary and not to be used by it. He's coming from a basis of love for everything, not indifference. From I Am That: Talks with Sri Nisargadatta "To act from desire and fear is bondage, to act from love is freedom."
auctionguy10:An enlightened man definitely acts.
Granted.
He is simply content with life as it is
Then he would not act, according to the action axiom. It is dissatisfaction with the status quo which compels one to act.
"To act from desire and fear is bondage, to act from love is freedom."
I would tend to discount this statement out of hand, as I do not understand the distinction between "Act A" performed as a result of desire or fear, and "Act A" performed as a result of love. I also do not understand how acting cannot be the result of desire i.e., the disatisfaction with present circumstances and an effort to optimize the future state of affairs towards the achievement of your desired ends.
Smiling Dave,
Thanks for the quote. I understand that Praxeology is meant to consider acting man, but what I am confused about is how one is considered a "non-acting man" (Enlightened).
Jackson LaRose: how one is considered a "non-acting man" (Enlightened)
how one is considered a "non-acting man" (Enlightened)
As far as I know, it is just nonsense. Everybody who I have heard talk about "enlightenment" was just playing with words.
If I wrote it more than a few weeks ago, I probably hate it by now.
yes; its nonsense, but doesn't buddhism and more famously Zen, celebrate nonsense....
as a kind of poetry its quite effective I suppose
Where there is no property there is no justice; a proposition as certain as any demonstration in Euclid
Fools! not to see that what they madly desire would be a calamity to them as no hands but their own could bring
quote: Jackson LaRoseThen he would not act, according to the action axiom. It is dissatisfaction with the status quo which compels one to act.
Its our definitions of enlightenment which are confused, perhaps you could explain yours. If he eats, its because his body is compelled to eat, but he isn't in mental patterns of thought such as "I need to eat today, I hope that lady behind the counter doesn't give me an attitude this time"- he just acts. Just like you don't have to mentally state "I am dissatisfied with sitting down so now I will stand up"- you're completely capable of just doing it. The enlightened man acts with this spontaneity in every aspect of life with a silent mind.
Being enlightened means he doesn't stress himself out with worry, he has wants but isn't attached to the outcome. So lets say he's physically attracted to a woman- if she rejects him hes still happy- not burdened with thoughts of "Am I ugly? Maybe I don't have enough money. Shes probably just a bitch" or something like that.
quote:Jackson LaRose I would tend to discount this statement out of hand, as I do not understand the distinction between "Act A" performed as a result of desire or fear, and "Act A" performed as a result of love. I also do not understand how acting cannot be the result of desire i.e., the dissatisfaction with present circumstances and an effort to optimize the future state of affairs towards the achievement of your desired ends.
Yeah reading my post over that quote really won't make sense without the context. What I should've said is that the point of enlightenment is that you have desires without being attached to any outcome or anything at all. There is no mental suffering. So in that case there are no more desires which could lead to a path of sorrow. Although in economics we're only concerned with what your desire was at the moment- not with regret. To me there seems to be absolutely no need to reconcile the action axiom with enlightenment.
I'm no Buddhist, but my guess is it's pretty hard to meditate when your stomach is screaming.
It's not a nonsense. Especially comparing to western religions, haha. I am myself quite interested in non-religious budhism, even though I know too little about it to express my deeper opinion. But yeah, I find any self-inquiry, self-philosophy useful.
(english is not my native language, sorry for grammar.)
I mean if you define it as turning into a plant- then yes that's nonsense. But that's not what enlightenment is at all.
Lol and actually I personally find it easier to meditate when hungry- the purpose of meditation is to recognize your thought patterns(most people are always talking to themselves in their head) and get out of your mind. Being hungry fulfills the purpose of being more in your body and more attuned to feeling over thinking.
Jackson LaRose: "To act from desire and fear is bondage, to act from love is freedom." I would tend to discount this statement out of hand, as I do not understand the distinction between "Act A" performed as a result of desire or fear, and "Act A" performed as a result of love. It's the difference between looking out for number one and looking out for someone else. I also do not understand how acting cannot be the result of desire i.e., the disatisfaction with present circumstances and an effort to optimize the future state of affairs towards the achievement of your desired ends. Look at the context and figure out what "desire" means in that particular sentence.
I would tend to discount this statement out of hand, as I do not understand the distinction between "Act A" performed as a result of desire or fear, and "Act A" performed as a result of love.
It's the difference between looking out for number one and looking out for someone else.
I also do not understand how acting cannot be the result of desire i.e., the disatisfaction with present circumstances and an effort to optimize the future state of affairs towards the achievement of your desired ends.
Look at the context and figure out what "desire" means in that particular sentence.
Couldn't one act to continue a present state of complete satisfaction? Even though there is no dissatisfaction, action may still be necessary?
CommonSense: Couldn't one act to continue a present state of complete satisfaction? Even though there is no dissatisfaction, action may still be necessary?
No, you would need to at least periodically slip from complete satisfaction into an infinitesimal amount of dissatisfaction to have the impulse to act. And, you would, in that example, simply be dissatisfied with the fact that not acting would end up with you losing the position which is making you "completely satisfied", which would impel you to act. Not feeling secure in your position, and feeling like you have to do something to maintain it, is action just like anything else.
By the way, Roderick Long argued against, how, in Human Action, Ludwig von Mises wrote that the idea of an omnipotent God is a contradiction, using that exact argument, that the omnipotent God simply could act to continue his present situation of complete satisfaction; but I am pretty sure that the argument which I gave above totally explodes that argument.
Entropy. Our biology requires us to obtain sustenance.
bcyclwutztht: Our biology requires us to obtain sustenance.
Our biology requires us to obtain sustenance.
Does that mean that truly enlightened people aren't even conscious anymore?
They definitely are conscious. The difference is in awareness. They are aware of all their mind patterns. Another quote from that same guy as I posted before, maybe it will help gap the bridge of confusion as to what constitutes enlightenment.(lol or maybe it'll be more confusing)
By all means attend to your duties.Action, in which you are not emotionally involved and which is beneficial and does not cause suffering will not bind you. You may be engaged in several directions and work with enormous zest, yet remain inwardly free and quiet, with a mirror like mind, which reflects all, without being affected
auctionguy10: They definitely are conscious. The difference is in awareness.
They definitely are conscious. The difference is in awareness.
What is the difference consciousness and awareness?
That's a good question that I fail myself to verbalize an answer to properly, I'm probably adding to the confusion without defining terms. But if I were to say perhaps that thinking to oneself "I wish I had better clothes" was an act of consciousness, then recognizing that thought pattern and saying "Hey I wonder why I thought to myself that I wanted better clothes?" is awareness.
In the book I keep quoting, the same question is brought up
Q: You use the words 'aware' and 'conscious'. Are they not the same?
M: Awareness is primordial; it is the original state, beginningless, endless, uncaused, unsupported, without parts, without change. Consciousness is on contact, a reflection against a surface, a state of duality. There can be no consciousness without awareness, but there can be awareness without consciousness, as in deep sleep. Awareness is absolute, consciousness is relative to its content; consciousness is always of something. Consciousness is partial and changeful, awareness is total, changeless, calm and silent. And it is the common matrix of every experience
@IRyan
Good point.
The "trick" in the question is "Well, Bhodisattvas don't have attachments, therefore don't have desires, therefore don't act."
But, as you correctly insist, consciousness---and therefore life---requires that humans regularly choose among competing alternatives, and therefore bhodisattvas do have desires in this sense, and do act.
Did a bit more reading, and according to this article, Nirvana is the cessation of Dukkha. While on its face, this would seem paradoxical (hence my confusion), it may be that there is a more subtle interpretation I have yet to grasp, something more akin to the Taoist Wu Wei, rather than Mises' description of the "Vegetative Man". Now, whether or not I can understand this nuance, or whether this "nuance" is nothing but morally charged semantic Three-card Monte, is something to meditate on ; ).