6 ms·

"Wasn't he defying that philosophy, she asked, by making computers and other products that people coveted?" Buddhism expresses a distinction between a thing in

by Arjuna 15y ago

"Wasn't he defying that philosophy, she asked, by making computers and other products that people coveted?" Buddhism expresses a distinction between a thing in and of itself and an individual's interpretation of a thing. "Computers and other products" are simply things in and of themselves. However, it is the individual that applies an interpretation to these things, such that the individual can allow these things to define him or her. In essence, there is nothing "defying that philosophy", as the question asks. If an individual covets or self-identifies with a thing, Buddhism says that this attachment is what ultimately causes suffering. This attachment is the result of an individual's interpretation of a thing, and not due to a thing in and of itself.

gwern 15y ago
> "Computers and other products" are simply things in and of themselves. However, it is the individual that applies an interpretation to these things, such that the individual can allow these things to define him or her. It is also an individual who devotes his life towards working on ever more desirable consumer products, and also individuals who devise and support ad & PR campaigns based on the idea of defining oneself with a brand and associating with it and all the insidious consumerism ideology that comes with 'lifestyle' brands. > In essence, there is nothing "defying that philosophy", as the question asks. The philosophy in question was not Buddhism's ontology, which varies drastically from Madhyamika-style emptiness to older karma entities; nothing can defy that philosophy because they are consistent with all possible actions and observations. The reference was to the moralizing; for all you wrote, I still see tension between a stance based on eliminating cravings and a life spent stoking and satisfying for cash cravings.
- msbarnett 15y ago
  > The reference was to the moralizing; for all you wrote, I still see tension between a stance based on eliminating cravings and a life spent stoking and satisfying for cash cravings. It seems as though that tension arises in you simply imposing your misunderstandings of what Buddhism seeks to do in eliminating worldly desires, though. Buddhism fundamentally offers the proposition "if you are dissatisfied with life, and if you agree that certain things are responsible for that dissatisfaction, here is what you can do about it." It isn't proselytory. It doesn't require that you impose that view on others, or work to reduce their attachment, whether they want it or not, out of some need to save them from some Western concept like sin. The fact that you think the right livelihood for a Buddhist ought to be one that in no way involves creating or selling things that people might form worldly attachments to, doesn't mean that Buddhism itself teaches that, or that people doing so are behaving inconsistently with the teachings of the Buddha. There are Buddhist teachings surrounding what the right livelihood is and is not. Being a salesman doesn't fall under the "inconsistent with the teachings of Buddhism" livelihoods, even though it, by definition, means making others want to buy things from you.
  - pbhjpbhj 15y ago
    So you're saying Buddhism as you see it teaches you to screw other people over (cause them to become more attached to material things) in order to benefit yourself at their expense? It's not that Apple is about selling things that people might form attachments too - that's the business model, to make people become attached to them in order to continue to sell to them. That doesn't mesh with the, admittedly very limited, reading/experience of Buddhism I've had.
    - msbarnett 15y ago
      > So you're saying Buddhism as you see it teaches you to screw other people over (cause them to become more attached to material things) in order to benefit yourself at their expense? No, not at all. Attachment isn't like sin. To a Buddhist, attachment is more like lactose to a lactose-intolerant. You can recognize that lactose is the root of your difficulties, and work to eliminate it from your life, while still working for the Milk Council without that being some kind of deep moral hypocrisy. Just because it causes suffering for you doesn't mean other people have a problem with it, and even if they do, it doesn't mean they can't choose to drink the occasional glass without over-doing things. You can work a job and buy an iPod and sleep with your wife without being attached to those things in the unhealthy way that Buddhists mean by attachment.
drzaiusapelord 15y ago
Err, there isn't just "the thing" but a dedicated and directed marketing program to make you absolutely covet the product. Everything about capitalism, marketing, and advertising is about making us covet things so we buy them. Sorry, but there's no easy cop-out here. 99.9% of what Jobs did was marketing and its even more important than the product, imho.
- msbarnett 15y ago
  What's your point? Buddhism is not Christianity. It does not assert that it is the One True Path, and that it's teachings are the One Size Fits All solution to everybody's problems. It does not follow that what Buddhism teaches is bad for Buddhists (attachment to objects) is therefore bad for everybody, and that if you market something that someone may allow themselves to form attachments to, you have therefore harmed them. If a Buddhist allows themselves to become attached to their iPod, then Buddhism offers them tools to deal with the suffering that might arise from that; there is no attached 'sin' committed by the marketing team at Apple. Jobs didn't fail to meet any standard that Buddhism sets out for Buddhists (Buddhism sets very few such standards. You can be angry and discompassionate and attached to worldly things, and be Buddhist. The idea is that Buddhism helps you deal with the problems you have, not that Buddhism requires you to be a perfect being or kicks you to the curb). You're simply inventing your own arbitrarily high standards based on fundamental misunderstandings of Buddhist concepts.
  - muraiki 15y ago
    So if Buddhism does not assert that it is the One True Path, what's the Fourth Noble Truth? In America, Buddhism tends to be portrayed in this sort of light: basically, that Buddhism makes no exclusivist truth claims. But for a Mahayana Buddhist to make the Bodhisattva Vow in the context of the Four Noble Truths necessarily entails teaching others about certain things which are True, to the exclusion of things which are false (belief in Jesus or Allah or Vishnu etc) Perhaps the missionary form of this is not quite equivalent to, say, Evangelical Protestantism, but it's there. One concept within Mahayana Buddhism is that of Skillful Means, the idea that sometimes a teacher has to use or allow an expedient practice even if it's not the "highest" truth. So the Zen Buddhists say that all the Shin Buddhists are ok, because it's just skillful means for them to believe in the salvific power of Amida Buddha and next life they'll have a better chance at encountering the fullness of Zen. Or maybe their recitation of the nembutsu is just some sort of meditative practice that happens to produce desirable Buddhist qualities. Nevermind that this is totally revisionist to the Shin understanding. Yes, you can be angry and discompassionate and attached to worldly things and "be Buddhist." But if you die that way you probably won't be reborn as a human. Maybe as a hungry ghost or a fighting demon. :)
Homunculiheaded 15y ago
"Wasn't he defying that philosophy, she asked, by making computers and other products that people coveted?" Just to add to this, buddhism actually has the idea of "right livelihood" which is one part of the noble 8-fold path. The 'wrong' livelihoods are enumerated: Business in weapons, human beings, meat, intoxicants and poison. essentially things that do physical harm to other life. Attachment is all around us, not just consumer goods. It is no particular "sin" for Jobs to make a livelihood selling things people want, overcoming our desire for consumer goods is just a small step in many life times process of liberation.
- pbhjpbhj 15y ago
  >It is no particular "sin" for Jobs to make a livelihood selling things people want // The success is that people don't want things, you make them want them and then you sell them and then you make them feel that what you sold them wasn't quite as good as they thought. Then you can sell them the same idea that they're unfulfilled but will be completed by your latest product. Manufacture of cutting edge gadgetry has long involved dealing in intoxicants and people; mostly manufacturing without care for harms to the environment and those living in the areas that are harmed. Dealing in people as near worthless entities to be dismissed as simply a cog in the machine that makes the machines that you sell to become a better capitalist.

by Arjuna 15y ago

gwern 15y ago

> "Computers and other products" are simply things in and of themselves. However, it is the individual that applies an interpretation to these things, such that the individual can allow these things to define him or her. It is also an individual who devotes his life towards working on ever more desirable consumer products, and also individuals who devise and support ad & PR campaigns based on the idea of defining oneself with a brand and associating with it and all the insidious consumerism ideology that comes with 'lifestyle' brands. > In essence, there is nothing "defying that philosophy", as the question asks. The philosophy in question was not Buddhism's ontology, which varies drastically from Madhyamika-style emptiness to older karma entities; nothing can defy that philosophy because they are consistent with all possible actions and observations. The reference was to the moralizing; for all you wrote, I still see tension between a stance based on eliminating cravings and a life spent stoking and satisfying for cash cravings.

msbarnett 15y ago
> The reference was to the moralizing; for all you wrote, I still see tension between a stance based on eliminating cravings and a life spent stoking and satisfying for cash cravings. It seems as though that tension arises in you simply imposing your misunderstandings of what Buddhism seeks to do in eliminating worldly desires, though. Buddhism fundamentally offers the proposition "if you are dissatisfied with life, and if you agree that certain things are responsible for that dissatisfaction, here is what you can do about it." It isn't proselytory. It doesn't require that you impose that view on others, or work to reduce their attachment, whether they want it or not, out of some need to save them from some Western concept like sin. The fact that you think the right livelihood for a Buddhist ought to be one that in no way involves creating or selling things that people might form worldly attachments to, doesn't mean that Buddhism itself teaches that, or that people doing so are behaving inconsistently with the teachings of the Buddha. There are Buddhist teachings surrounding what the right livelihood is and is not. Being a salesman doesn't fall under the "inconsistent with the teachings of Buddhism" livelihoods, even though it, by definition, means making others want to buy things from you.
- pbhjpbhj 15y ago
  So you're saying Buddhism as you see it teaches you to screw other people over (cause them to become more attached to material things) in order to benefit yourself at their expense? It's not that Apple is about selling things that people might form attachments too - that's the business model, to make people become attached to them in order to continue to sell to them. That doesn't mesh with the, admittedly very limited, reading/experience of Buddhism I've had.
  - msbarnett 15y ago
    > So you're saying Buddhism as you see it teaches you to screw other people over (cause them to become more attached to material things) in order to benefit yourself at their expense? No, not at all. Attachment isn't like sin. To a Buddhist, attachment is more like lactose to a lactose-intolerant. You can recognize that lactose is the root of your difficulties, and work to eliminate it from your life, while still working for the Milk Council without that being some kind of deep moral hypocrisy. Just because it causes suffering for you doesn't mean other people have a problem with it, and even if they do, it doesn't mean they can't choose to drink the occasional glass without over-doing things. You can work a job and buy an iPod and sleep with your wife without being attached to those things in the unhealthy way that Buddhists mean by attachment.

drzaiusapelord 15y ago

Err, there isn't just "the thing" but a dedicated and directed marketing program to make you absolutely covet the product. Everything about capitalism, marketing, and advertising is about making us covet things so we buy them. Sorry, but there's no easy cop-out here. 99.9% of what Jobs did was marketing and its even more important than the product, imho.

msbarnett 15y ago
What's your point? Buddhism is not Christianity. It does not assert that it is the One True Path, and that it's teachings are the One Size Fits All solution to everybody's problems. It does not follow that what Buddhism teaches is bad for Buddhists (attachment to objects) is therefore bad for everybody, and that if you market something that someone may allow themselves to form attachments to, you have therefore harmed them. If a Buddhist allows themselves to become attached to their iPod, then Buddhism offers them tools to deal with the suffering that might arise from that; there is no attached 'sin' committed by the marketing team at Apple. Jobs didn't fail to meet any standard that Buddhism sets out for Buddhists (Buddhism sets very few such standards. You can be angry and discompassionate and attached to worldly things, and be Buddhist. The idea is that Buddhism helps you deal with the problems you have, not that Buddhism requires you to be a perfect being or kicks you to the curb). You're simply inventing your own arbitrarily high standards based on fundamental misunderstandings of Buddhist concepts.
- muraiki 15y ago
  So if Buddhism does not assert that it is the One True Path, what's the Fourth Noble Truth? In America, Buddhism tends to be portrayed in this sort of light: basically, that Buddhism makes no exclusivist truth claims. But for a Mahayana Buddhist to make the Bodhisattva Vow in the context of the Four Noble Truths necessarily entails teaching others about certain things which are True, to the exclusion of things which are false (belief in Jesus or Allah or Vishnu etc) Perhaps the missionary form of this is not quite equivalent to, say, Evangelical Protestantism, but it's there. One concept within Mahayana Buddhism is that of Skillful Means, the idea that sometimes a teacher has to use or allow an expedient practice even if it's not the "highest" truth. So the Zen Buddhists say that all the Shin Buddhists are ok, because it's just skillful means for them to believe in the salvific power of Amida Buddha and next life they'll have a better chance at encountering the fullness of Zen. Or maybe their recitation of the nembutsu is just some sort of meditative practice that happens to produce desirable Buddhist qualities. Nevermind that this is totally revisionist to the Shin understanding. Yes, you can be angry and discompassionate and attached to worldly things and "be Buddhist." But if you die that way you probably won't be reborn as a human. Maybe as a hungry ghost or a fighting demon. :)

Homunculiheaded 15y ago

"Wasn't he defying that philosophy, she asked, by making computers and other products that people coveted?" Just to add to this, buddhism actually has the idea of "right livelihood" which is one part of the noble 8-fold path. The 'wrong' livelihoods are enumerated: Business in weapons, human beings, meat, intoxicants and poison. essentially things that do physical harm to other life. Attachment is all around us, not just consumer goods. It is no particular "sin" for Jobs to make a livelihood selling things people want, overcoming our desire for consumer goods is just a small step in many life times process of liberation.

pbhjpbhj 15y ago
>It is no particular "sin" for Jobs to make a livelihood selling things people want // The success is that people don't want things, you make them want them and then you sell them and then you make them feel that what you sold them wasn't quite as good as they thought. Then you can sell them the same idea that they're unfulfilled but will be completed by your latest product. Manufacture of cutting edge gadgetry has long involved dealing in intoxicants and people; mostly manufacturing without care for harms to the environment and those living in the areas that are harmed. Dealing in people as near worthless entities to be dismissed as simply a cog in the machine that makes the machines that you sell to become a better capitalist.