[Buddha-l] Non attached & mindful culinary triumphalism?

[Dan Lusthaus]

> "At least as natural" means that there is no basis for the preference.

Hardly. Neither you nor Richard want to acknowledge a difference between an 
expression of a ethical nature, and an urge to violate it. This is because 
we've left the term "human nature" ambiguous.

Let's stay with Mencius for the moment since this was ground well traversed 
by him 2400 years ago. His interlocutor, Gaozi (Kao Tzu), argues -- like 
Richard -- that Human Nature has no innate ethical directive, it will go 
whichever way conditions encourage. Water will flow to the right or the 
left, without preference. To which Mencius replied, water is not indifferent 
to up and down. Gaozi attempts then to define human nature by our appetites, 
viz. our appetites for food and sex.

Before looking at Mencius' reply, let's observe that:
(1) to say everyone has an appetite for food and sex is basically true.
(2) Nonetheless, there are apparent countercases: anorexics, people who find 
sex "disgusting," etc. Such people are not viewed as expressions of 
unadulterated human nature, but are typically considered people who have 
deviated from their rightful nature. For cultures that esteem or celebrate 
celibacy, this can lead to some interesting issues. That people commit 
adultery is not 'nature,' the argument can also go, but a violation of 
nature, a distorted nature, hence the condemnation, and the rules against 
it.

Mencius doesn't deny that such appetites are part of our nature, but, he 
replies, that fails to differentiate us from animals. We have human nature, 
and that means a higher nature as well, one which values certain principles 
above food and even life. It is that higher nature that makes us human, and 
which we need to cultivate.

So even human nature is not a singular entity.

To not do so condemns us to live like animals in an animal-like society, 
which would be a shame since we are capable of doing better. That, in a 
nutshell, is Mencius' argument.

He doesn't deny that we are capable of messing up bad, and in fact is very 
concerned about such propensities. He relates the human mind/heart to 
human-nature (the character for 'nature' contains the 'heart/mind' radical, 
giving them quasi-cognate status), and laments that someone loses a dog and 
will spend months looking for it, while people lose their mind/hearts (i.e., 
disconnect from the higher nature) and never think to look for it.

People lie, cheat, steal, kill, and commit all sorts of crimes -- and these 
are everywhere condemned as crimes, though many societies teach their 
citizens to accomodate themselves to such breaches, to accept and even 
pursue them. "No one ever said life was fair." "Good guys finish last." And 
in some cultures attempting to desist from all corruption can be tantamount 
to suicide. Yet, everyone knows that it is corrupt, and a "nicer" way should 
be available.

As Mencius says, because a single glass of water won't put out a housefire, 
don't think that water doesn't extinguish fire. It takes a lot of ren 
(humankind-ness) to turn society around, but it is in our nature to pursue 
that, as is evident when all the compromising, corrupting influences are 
momentarily suspended. Mencius' famous example -- one sees a child falling 
in the well, and without a thought of whose child, social status, reward or 
punishment, praise or blame, etc., one immediately, instinctively grabs the 
child to save it. This example became the prototype for the Zen 'sudden 
awakening' when facing death stories. That shows our true 'original' nature, 
when not buried in compromises and aggrandizing concerns. That is pure ren, 
as it were.

To attempt to place that on a parity with the cheater who knows he's 
cheating is simply cynical, and to not understand 'nature' in the Mencian 
sense. (I've now given a sense of one type of understanding of the idea of 
human nature.)

> When we know it, there is either something we know, or there is not.

Knowing is not an either/or. It's quite complex. Heidegger: "The original 
thinker doesn't know his own thought." (hence, we need to unpack and 
interpret it; also that's why people go to therapists). Often what we think 
we know turns out not to be the case, or not in the way we imagined it, and 
even those things we do know have multiple facets not all of which we may be 
aware of.

>If we
> cannot articulate what it is we claim to know,

Then, if that is one of our students, we give them a lousy grade for being 
inarticulate. I often tell students that I grade them on what they've 
actually written, not what they thought they meant. There is nothing wrong 
with trying to pin things down -- there is something wrong in thinking that 
can be done definitively.

Define "religion."

> The universal is hidden in this
> assumed consensus, all I am asking for is explication.

Talk about pre-decided assumptions and values!

> Have you ever done woodwork?

Yes.

>The Dao of woodsaws (single, not double-handed)
> is to cut on the push stroke and clear on the pull.   Just the way things 
> are.
> . . in the West.  Japanese woodsaws cut on the pull stroke,

Both are the Dao of those types of saws. The Dao is not a fixed rule (saw in 
this direction only), but the manner in which things work, the way they do 
what they do. If you keep trying to reduce Dao to universal rules, you will 
be confused about which way to saw...

>
> Hmm,   so there is a injection of Chinese morality in Chinese Buddhism?
> Why would this debate be unavoidable?

Morality and metaphysics. It was unavoidable because nature (xing) was the 
underlying ultimate concern of Chinese philosophy and religion, and unless 
Buddhism participated in that conversation it was meaningless. Need modern 
analogies? Look at all the demands buddha-lers have made in the last two 
decades for Buddhism to be 'relevant', 'meaningful,' have something to 
contribute. It has to play our games, offer something for our concerns. If 
it has ethics, they should be somewhere in the virtue, consequentialist, 
de-ontological, etc. grid -- speak to that, or else it's just ancient, 
irrelevant, confused mumbo jumbo. Right? They must be embracing and 
disclosing (or hiding) universals, right? Nevermind that their best and 
brightest devoted centuries to refuting the very idea of universals... they 
must have it anyway... unavoidable?

>> >But they do tend to be universal  claims.
>>
>> That is the precise point when ethics degenerates into moralism, and when
>> the problems begin.
>
> Hmm, what is the difference, and what are the problems?   These questions 
> are
> only partially facietious.

Some illustrations above.

>> > Again, the question is "why?"
>>
>> Actually, it tends to be "which?"
>
> Dan!  You ARE arguing in circles!  Just a short while ago, when the 
> Northern
> Coast of California was being oppressed by giant trees that just stood 
> there,
> you were insisting that the intention or mental state of those who cut 
> them
> down did not matter!    'Which' is a function of "why'.   You many not 
> agree
> with my analysis of which redwoods to take out, but that would only be 
> because
> you do not have access to the intelligence that I do.   I know a tyrant 
> tree
> when I see one.

I have no idea what you think you were trying to say here. "Which" is not 
"why", and detailing the varieties of consequences (which we were doing 
because you wanted to focus on consequences) does not negate anything that 
was said about the redwoods.

If you can't tell a tyrant from a tree, you need to spend less time in 
universal studios.

Dan