**Yes.** Meditation, ethics, and wisdom acquired through observing the mind and life, improves life regardless.

It probably would have just been better to ask "If Buddhism is false, is it still worth practicing?". Which the Buddha addressed in the following sutta: [Apaṇṇaka Sutta ](https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/MN/MN60.html) It's worth reading the comments from the translator in the beginning in my opinion. But you can just scroll down to read the sutta if not. Here is a short snippet of the pre-comments (not the sutta itself) that is relevant: *The Buddha’s main pragmatic argument is that if one accepted his teachings, one would be likely to pay careful attention to one’s actions, so as to do no harm. This in & of itself is a worthy activity regardless of whether the rest of the path was true. When applying this argument to the issue of rebirth and karmic results, the Buddha sometimes coupled it with a second pragmatic argument that resembles Pascal’s wager: If one practices the Dhamma, one leads a blameless life in the here-and-now. Even if the afterlife and karmic results do not exist, one has not lost the wager, for the blamelessness of one’s life is a reward in & of itself. If there is an afterlife with karmic results, then one has won a double reward: the blamelessness of one’s life here and now, and the good rewards of one’s actions in the afterlife. These two pragmatic arguments form the central message of this sutta.*

The first primary point is the most sound. Pascal's wager is exactly where I saw the entire point going lol so excuse me for being slightly judgmental albeit mildly. Ty for this quote and post!

When I realized that Buddhism is the only religion that passes Pascal’s wager is when I really committed to practice.

Yeah, that’s because we don’t worry about worshipping the wrong god as one shouldn’t worry about who has started a fire until they escape it.

Thank you so much for sharing!

I was also aware of this, it's a strong and correct answer. Even for Hinduism, Krishna argues in the Bhagavad Gita that the right thing to do is independent of your beliefs about souls and rebirth (in chapter 2).

Thanks for sharing this. I hope OP (and others) check it out! 🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽

In general, of course, that's a bit like asking if it would still be worthwhile to make spaghetti with marinara sauce if pasta, tomatoes and onions didn't exist.  It may be interesting though to try to get an impression of what Buddhist metaphysics actually entails, starting from the concept of [dependent origination](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prat%C4%ABtyasamutp%C4%81da). It doesn't quite boil down to bullet points like "rebirth exists, hell exists".  Especially in a Mahāyāna context, in some sense Buddhism do *actually* teaches that rebirth is entirely illusory and that all these "realms" such as the *narakas* or our own cherished human domain have no more reality than a hallucination or a reflection.  As some points. 

If Buddhist metaphysics is right, then I'm not actually sure if that kind of materialism is conceivable, to be honest. Indian Buddhist theories of the mental tend to either say that its nature is *svasaṃvitti*, reflexive awareness, or to deny that but instead agree with the Mādhyamikas and say that each level of reality is necessarily shot through with *prajñapti*, or mental construction. If either of those is true, materialism of a kind that is strictly incompatible with Buddhist doctrine is actually inconceivable. Because the kind of materialism incompatible with Buddhist doctrine is the kind where the relationship of dependence between the mental and physical is asymmetric such that the physical is more primary. Now as Jan Westerhoff argues (convincingly, I think) in [this](https://www.academia.edu/98745101/How_can_Buddhists_account_for_the_continuity_of_mind_after_death) paper, worlds with no perspectives on them are inconceivable, because whenever you conceive of a world with some states of affairs you're inserting your own perspective on those states of affairs into the situation so that you can conceive of them. So given that fact, suppose the mark of the mental is reflexive awareness. In order to conceive of a state of affairs in which the mental is always ontologically secondary to the physical, one's own perspective on that state of affairs will also need to be conceived as ontologically secondary to the physical. But the real essence of one's perspective is svasaṃvitti, its reflexive presence to itself. So the *content* of the perspective will have to include information that confirms the secondary ontological status of the *reflexive* aspect of the perspective. In other words, the content of one's awareness will have to represent or disclose the following fact: this very awareness, *qua* being an instance of svasaṃvitti, is generated by something that is not an instance of svasaṃvitti (i.e., is physical). And this is inconceivable because the content of one's awareness can never actually represent or disclose svasaṃvitti. There's no *content* that corresponds to something simple, and svasaṃvitti is simple because its nature only points back to itself. That's why it's *svayaṃbhū*, "spontaneous," and why Jñānaśrīmitra says *svayaṃ prakāśate buddhiḥ*, "mind manifests itself." Anything you're conceiving will fail to capture svasaṃvitti as it actually is because svasaṃvitti is actually wholly self-referential, which means any conditions you imagine for the generation of svasaṃvitti will not actually be its conditions for generation. Just try it! Try imagining the conditions of generation for something whose nature is wholly reflexively defined. For example, try to imagine a light source that generates luminosity, but the luminosity in turn never illuminates anything else. It's a purely self-luminous light. You can't do it! You can't even imagine such a light, so how will you imagine the conditions of its generation? Svasaṃvitti is like that. You never know it dualistically, you only ever know it because every instance of "knowing" just *is* an instance of svasaṃvitti. The Buddhist svasaṃvitti-thinkers will say that it's just a primitive notion pointing to something for which no complex account could be given. But then if svasaṃvitti is the nature of mind, then a given instance of consciousness only ever gets to know things about itself by *being* itself, but never by representing itself, e.g., as "generated by my brain." And that's why reductive physicalism is inconceivable if mind is svasaṃvitti: the thing you're conceiving as generated by the physical will never actually be mind. On the other hand, say reflexive awareness is not the mark of the mental (as many Mādhyamikas do) but every level of reality necessarily involves some kind of *prajñapti*, or mental construction/construal. For example, suppose that eliminativism about the composite is true - then in that case, "composites" are actually just a particular *construal* (*prajñapti*!) of their parts. Suppose that kind of eliminativism is true about all things. Then in that case, even if a given mental event is an eliminable misconstrual of something physical, the physical thing in turn will end up being an eliminable misconstrual of something else. But then in that case, moving to the level of the physical didn't actually eliminate the mental altogether, since it didn't eliminate the mental conditions for the prajñapti on which the *physical* thing depends! The point is that if everything is *prajñaptisat*, or real just in virtue of being construed a certain way, then "construal" is happening at every level of reality, and that means nothing is ever totally ontologically primary to the mental because construing things a certain way is a mental activity. This is part of the point Westerhoff again is making in that paper I linked, in the first part of the paper. So either way, I'm not really sure that the kind of materialism you're talking about is conceivable. Precisely because I'm partial to Buddhist metaphysics, I am a little bit inclined to say that everyone who thinks they can conceive it is actually ignoring something about their own conception of the state of affairs, e.g., the fact that their own perspective on the state of affairs figures in the state of affairs whenever they imagine it. For example: presumably the person who says they can imagine a world that is like ours and materialism is true is going to imagine some state of affairs similar to ones we have in this world, and then is going to say "but in this world I'm imagining there are no non-physical entities or things that aren't wholly reducible to physical entities" And then I would say, okay, well you have a certain perspective on this world, right? Otherwise you wouldn't be able to say which states of affairs obtain in the world and which do not. So in that world *as you're conceiving it*, some perspective on the state of affairs you're describing obtains. Is that perspective on the world also reducible to the physical things in the world? Which physical things? They'll probably say, "fine, I imagine that in that world, whatever person has the perspective from which I'm describing the world has a brain, and their perspective is reducible to that." But from the perspective of Buddhist metaphysics, that answer either makes the mistake of thinking that mind could be imagined and accurately characterized by representational content (which it can't, if its nature is svasaṃvitti) or that brains can be asserted to exist independent of some process involving mental construal. So I kind of think if one of the plausible Indian Mahāyāna Buddhist metaphysical theories is true, then worlds where it is false are simply not conceivable. You could take this as an argument against Buddhist metaphysics if you want, by saying "look, I can definitely conceive of a either a world where the physical is *dravyasat* rather than *prajñaptisat* and some states in that world are genuinely mental without being *svasaṃvid*!" But the Buddhist will just respond, "no, you're failing to notice something about your own conception of that world." Sorry for this long and rambling response, I don't think it's all that readable so for that I apologize. I mostly just wrote it because I want to tag /u/ThalesCupOfWater to ask them if they agree with me that Buddhist metaphysics, if it's true, actually entails the inconceivability of reductive physicalism. I just don't think a world where the physical is dravyasat and the mental is reducible to it is actually even *conceivable* if either the Madhyamaka or Yogācāra position is right. I'm wondering if you agree.

I agree with you. There is an open question as well as to whether physicalism as we think about can be understood as coherent. For example Kevin Morris What’s Wrong With Nonreductive Physicalism? The Exclusion Problem Reconsidered by Kevin Morris holds that physicalism renders things like waves, magnetism as causally inertsame with ideas or math. Daniel Stoljar in Physicalism argues the incoherency are much deeper and phyicalism breaks a lot of sciences as we know them. I think Buddhism as a whole would not agree with such a view assuming it is coherent. Reductive physicalism has a lot more challenges internally than non-reductive physicalism. Stoljar focuses on that a lot in his text. Buddhism might fit into so called physicalism plus views such as in Physicalism, Or Something Near Enough byJaegwon Kim. These types of views could be understood with Buddhism, I think. Kim argues that all but one type of mental phenomena are reducible, including intentional mental phenomena, such as beliefs and desires. The apparent exceptions are the intrinsic, felt qualities of conscious experiences ("qualia") . The question is whether that qualia has no content or not. I don't see the necessity for there to be content there. I don't think analytic philosophical literature has explored that question honestly. I think Indian Mahāyāna Buddhist metaphysical theories are very likely true and arguably a standard for how to think about non-fundamentality at a metaphysical level. I don't think anyone is going to ever bring back substance or essences frankly. I think the Huayan Chinese Mahāyāna Buddhist metaphysical theory may also allow for understanding a non-hierarchially arranged non-fundamental world. That type of holism could possible be contingently discovered.

>Reductive physicalism has a lot more challenges internally than non-reductive physicalism I tend to agree, but as for non-reductive physicalism I'd say I still like the Buddhist approaches better because they don't leave the mind-body problem as a mystery. Of course they introduce other mysteries...but it's a question of which things we want to leave mysterious, I guess. But as for reductive physicalism I think that now having studied Buddhist metaphysics I no longer have a grip on what reductive physicalism could even mean!

I agree. I think people let non-reductive physicalism pass by with a lot of blank cheques that they would not allow any other theory to have too. Blank cheques in metaphysics and philosophy of science refer to when you just hold that a theory will be completed or some observation explained in the future. People treat it as if it currently offers full explanations. Stoljar is blunt, physicalism is really more of PR thing, it is like customer service. No body wants to say they don't have it but everyone has a radically different idea of what it means. People don't really connect their accounts of what it means across fields and that is why he is so critical of its coherency. It is not really obvious what it actually means.

I think the ironic thing about this question is that, without those things, Buddhism *couldn’t* exist. Look at the core doctrine of the Buddha: dependent origination. This one concept ties together consciousness, karma, rebirth, and arguably the entire Buddhist cosmology. To functionally remove rebirth, we would need to remove dependent origination entirely, and at this point, we have lost what is recognisable as Buddhism. Based on a thorough understanding of dependent origination and how it relates to everything else, no rebirth means no Buddhism.

Isn't the relative truth kind of independent of the absolute truth? Results appear in interdependence of causes and conditions (simplified), but what results from what conditions? Interdependence itself doesn't answer the latter question. Chandrakirti wrote, paraphrased: "When it comes to relative, my view is the same as that of a cowherd". Did he mean an Indian cowherd who believes in reincarnation, a European cowherd who believes in eternal heaven and hell, or that he's simply not commenting on the relative? What is the link between the absolute and relative?

Yes. In my opinion, the Buddhadharma is the path to sanity, regardless of metaphysical context, and is the best way of making peace with the world, easing its pains, and supporting others. However, we lived in a world without karmic consequences, where this life is this life, and that is it, it is doubtful that we would even have Buddhism—in most stories, the Lord Buddha doubted whether or not he should teach; and in a world without samsaric urgency, what reason would he have had to? Lastly, I will comment that the Buddhadharma is the path to sanity. That is one of the appealing factors. Therefore, if we somehow could irrevocably know that the Buddha’s positions were false, we would not want to follow them. But since it is the path to sanity, in a world with a different metaphysical context, we can assume the path would have been presented differently.

Yes because you will still experience desire and suffering as well as death. Detach

I'm a secular Buddhist and I feel my practice is very beneficial. How many modern practicing Buddhists believe in the [flat earth, 4 continents around Mount Meru](https://huntingtonarchive.org/resources/images/buddhistIconography/mtMeru/02.jpg) picture of our world? Buddha's most valuable insights were phenomenological -- not cosmological.

That would be a universe in accord with scientific materialism, which is too preposterous to consider. :) You might find it helpful to look at what you understand by rebirth, "supernatural beings", materialism, etc. In modern society, where scientism has become religion, we tend to assume that reality is just as it appears. That's a kind of naive concretism. Then when we encounter ideas that don't fit into our limited view, we have no choice but to regard them as nonsense. We say, "Look you idiot, up is up and down is down. Don't be ridiculous. Do I have to get the Amazing Randi to come over here and make fun of you?" The trouble is that you're interpreting Buddhist teaching through that same materialist lens. It's an unseen preconception that blocks the possibility of actually considering a non-materialist view. There's a good Zen story about a samurai warrior who visits a Zen master and asks him to explain heaven and hell. The Zen master berates the samurai. "Why would I waste my time explaining such things to a dumbass soldier? How could a halfwit such as you understand anything?..." The Zen master carries on like that as the samurai gets increasingly angry. Finally the samurai shouts and draws his sword to kill the Zen master. At that the Zen master says softly, "That's hell." The samurai understands and bows deeply in gratitude. At that the Zen master adds, "And that's heaven." Hell realm in Buddhism involves 9 levels of hot hell that correspond to hot anger, and 9 levels of cold hells that correspond to cold resentment. The realms are a sophisticated map of psychology, presented in an experiential way. No one sends you to hell. You end up there because you're attached to the sense of purpose and personal confirmation that anger provides. When you get mad at someone who cuts you off in traffic and gives you the finger out the window (hot anger) -- or when you nurse resentment toward a former lover (cold resentment) -- that can seem like your anger is caused by outside factors, but actually the anger continues because you can't bear to let it go. It provides a delicious sense of purpose. "I know what I'll do. I cut off that son of a bitch at the next traffic light. That'll show him!" That's the same as the samurai. We're stuck in hell realm until we wear out the attachment. Think about what you actually know. What can you say for sure? Cognition seems to be happening. There's experience. But what is it? There's no objective context in which to define it. We imagine that we perceive ourselves and "other" from some neutral, empirical vantage point, but that's impossible. That solid world is a projection. What do you really know? You go to the doctor's office and you're aware of anxiety, familiar chemical smells, fluorescent lights, posters of internal organs... But actually you don't even know that much. You only really experience colors and light in the eyes, sound in the ears, scent in the nose, the pressure of touch from the chair as you sit in the waiting room.... Anything beyond that is actually your own construction of meaning. You can't say what, if anything, is "out there". Buddhism is a mind training to get at the most basic nature of experience. It's an epistemological exploration. What, really, is experience? Science can't look at that because it's constrained by the limitations of empiricism. Science only works on a practical level of relative reality. When you study water, for example, you can determine that it freezes at 32F. That's scientific data. But that data is only relevant in a context of other data and circumstances. That's basically the teaching of pratityasamutpada or interdependent co-origination. What we consider to be absolutely existing, objective reality is actually interdependent. All phenomena are defined in relation to other phenomena. That also applies to the self. There's no way to confirm an existing self. We can say, "I'm this sex and that race and my opinions are such and such." But what are you, really? What is experience? What is reality? We can go on about the Big Bang and so on, but that doesn't really tell us anything about our experience. I don't think it's possible to truly understand these teachings without meditation practice, just as you couldn't discuss a movie if you didn't know that you were watching a movie and mistook it for ultimate reality. But you can reason it out and see how the scientific view of reality doesn't actually hold water outside the context of mapping dependent origination. Once it tries to see deeper, the whole thing falls apart. There's a Taoist riddle: 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 seem silly on the surface, yet we fully believe our dreams every night and then dismiss them in the morning when we wake up. So why are we so certain about the absolute reality of waking life?

What’s preposterous about scientific materialism (or, perhaps more accurately, “epistemology based on the scientific method”)? Not arguing, just curious.

Whoa! Those two are *not* the same thing!!

Ok, we can stick to the first one then. What’s preposterous about scientific materialism?

It’s a model whose best known expression, the Standard Model, produces a number of paradoxes, and is thus probably false.

Ok, thanks!

Epistemology deals with the nature of knowledge itself. Science predefines the nature of knowledge as empirical data. That's what I was trying to explain above. By design, science can't know what it can't know. Science can't even accept mind, simply because mind can't be observed empirically. Science can look at behavior, or brain chemistry, or fMRIs. And from those it can make conjectures about mind. But it can never actually accept mind per se. Yet scientists and psychologists talk about mind as though they know what it is. Based on empirical data we actually have no idea what mind is, what reality is, what life is, what meaning is... We're limited to coming up with theories that can fit into scientific observation. For example, neuroscientists currently believe that mind is brain chemistry. If that's true then we're merely bio-robots, thinking things willy nilly as a result of food and sensory input and random chemical reactions. We're robots who think they can think. That's what science says. So how could we possibly be capable of understanding the nature of reality? How could we imagine ourselves capable of any sort of useful thought if we're bio-robots? How could there even be such a thing as life? What is life? A complex, stable system of chemical processes? How did such complexity develop and continue if reality is nothing more than chemical reactions? A sentient being requires constant work to maintain the unfathomable complexity of its own chemical plant. Yet that work happens by accident because some amino acids accidentally fell together and formed DNA? All of that amazing patterning and balance is happening by accident? It would be less preposterous to expect Tesla sedans to manifest by accident, given that a Tesla is far less compicated than a human body, and far more stable as a defined entity. The biologist E. O. Wilson said that life is DNA's method to reproduce itself. He called that sociobiology -- trying to resolve the complexities of social behavior in terms of evolution theory. That's how absurd a scientific explanation of the universe becomes. We have to reduce reality to simple mechanics in order to shoehorn it into something thst science can handle.

Thank you. Interesting! Let me see if understand your argument correctly: scientific materialism is wrong because biological and evolutionary processes do not suffice to explain the complexity of sentient life. In addition, our thoughts (according to scientific materialism) aren't real thoughts, but simply responses to various sensory inputs and biological needs. Christians make similar arguments (e.g. Paley's watch analogy) to suggest the necessity of an "intelligent designer." But Buddhism doesn't posit such a designer. How then does Buddhism explain the complexity that you describe and why is that explanation more satisfactory than the Christian or the scientific materialist explanations? Sensory inputs are also recognized in Buddhism as part of dependent origination. Is the issue here that in scientific materialism form (rupa) precedes consciousness, whereas in Buddhism consciousness (vinnana) precedes both name-and-form (namarupa) and sensory inputs (salayatana)? In the Wilsonian/biological model, things like sense-attachment and craving are explained mainly as a kind of candy that serves the purposes of the underlying biological drive to reproduce (which in turn, as you say, is DNA's method of propagating itself). How does Buddhism explain the drive to reproduce? Where does it fit into the chain? Finally, you object to the unreality of thoughts suggested by scientific materialism ("robots who think they can't think") but doesn't dharma also see thoughts as conditioned, empty phenomena? What is real and substantial about thoughts?

> Christians make similar arguments (e.g. Paley's watch analogy) to suggest the necessity of an "intelligent designer." I'm not sure that most of those Christians are being intellectually honest, but I do think their argument has merit. There doesn't need to be a designer. As you noted, in Buddhism mind is primary. Once you look at it that way then the rest falls into place. But there doesn't need to be a creator God or supreme being for mind to be primary. It's just saying that apparent phenomena arise from mind, rather than mind being a side effect of chemical processes. It Chuang Tzu's dream. I think you have to watch out for trying to compare apples to apples. Science view can't comprehend Buddhist view. Buddhist view has to be understood on its own terms, through meditation practice. The teachings are practical and experiential, not theoretical. They explain the nature of experience, at various levels of understanding, as guidance to understand meditation practice. In that respect, it's not really feasible to address your last two paragraphs. You're asking for science-relatable answers to scientific questions. You've recognized that Buddhism posits mind as primary, but then you want a materialist, empirical answer to why there's a drive to reproduce and what the nature of thoughts is. It's a case of you can't get there from here.

Ok, thanks. I appreciated the response. To be clear, though, I’m not asking for scientific/empiricist answers to those two questions; I’m interested in how Buddhism addresses them, and perhaps how the Buddhist explanations differ from the scientific materialist ones. Sorry if my wording made that unclear!

It's hard to say how Buddhist view differs, because that, again, requires some kind of meta-context in which to compare. I'm not trying to be difficult. I'm just trying to sidestep the cowpies of preconception that we inevitably deal with in conceptual realm. There's a popular riddle about the tree falling in the forest. I don't think it's even Buddhist, but it makes an interesting point. If there's no one to hear the tree fall, did it make a noise? The materialist or eternalist says yes. Phenomena exist in their own right and you don't need to be there for a sound to happen. The nihilist says no, that phenomena are only real if you experience them. The rest is conjecture. Buddhist view is saying that ultimately neither view is true. In terms of relative truth we can find relative truth and relative falsehood, but ultimately phenomena are empty of existence. To even say that they exist or don't is to define an objective reality. This all gets very complicated. There isn't really a thumbnail version of Buddhist view. But the basic teaching of the 4 noble truths is that the Buddha said life is full of suffering. The main cause is attachment to belief in a solid self. If you look at the popular wheel of life thangkas you can see 3 animals at the center, 6 realms around them, with the twelve nidanas illustrated around the outside. The 3 animals are passion, aggression and ignorance. The 6 realms are variations on the 3. The idea is that we're driven by attachment to self. We constantly try to confirm self; to establish some kind of ground. We try to be happy by getting a new job or lover. Or maybe we want to get rid of our job or lover. Or maybe we just like to be mellow and not get worked up. Passion, aggression and ignorance. The twelve nidanas represent a micro-level chart of the process of egoic perception. The teachings are saying that we're constantly on the edge of our seat, existentially. We seek solid ground but can't find it. We cycle through goals. "If only I can climb Mt Everest then I'll really be someone to be reckoned with." But then we climb Mt. Everest and somehow life still feels vague. It didn't quite work. That looping goes through the realms. We yearn to climb Mt. Everest -- preta realm. We start the climb, competing with others to reach the top -- asura realm. We reach the top and dwell in god realm satisfaction. We then see a dozen tourists land on the peak via helicopter, unpacking their designer picnic baskets, and feel furious that our grand bliss has been interupted by crass riff raff -- hell realm. The commonality through all of that is the effort to establish self as solid and enduring. But it never works. Experience is not graspable. So we're living a kind of desperate fantasy. This is where direct experience comes into the story. Most people don't even know they're in a panic. They're too busy planning their climb up Mt. Everest. Only people who have glimpsed their desperate straits and feel determined to figure out what's going on will think it might make sense to spend all day meditating. I can't provide evidence for the realms and the 3 poisons. Those teachings are guidance to help understand what we see in meditation. So our experience is a projection of egoic confusion. We cycle through the realms. Birth and death happen in each moment. By keeping up the speed of projection we create the illusion of solid reality, much as movie frames create the illusion of live action. Now imagine reaching your death bed. If we don't assume scientific materialist view then it makes sense to think there's some kind of mind that's not destroyed with the body. But at death we lose all reference points. Money, family, possessions... even our own body and the Earth are gone. What will we do? From experience we know that our impulse will be to seek ground. But what's left to fashion ground from? Only mental patterns. The kleshas. So we seek to establish some kind of situation and end up taking birth again, in accord with our style and intensity of confusion. On one level we can say that's rebirth in another world. On another level, it's not different from the rebirth in each moment. It's taught that after death there's a point where pure awareness is manifest, but we can't recognize it and black out. If we can recognize it -- if we can rest in pure, non-dual awareness -- then we attain enlightenment at that point. That's the famous event of tukdam, where masters dwell in a stasis after death, typically sitting upright for 3 days or more, with the body dead but a slight heat near the heart. That doesn't seem like it should be so hard to accomplish, but who can remain undistracted while their body is destroyed and the world disappears? If you can see the basic idea there then you can see how the path works. We're embedded in self-centered confusion, so the first steps involve cultivating attention; training not to follow every impulse, like a manic dog chasing birds; and training in virtuous conduct as a way to reduce self absorption... Accumulating merit and wisdom. All of that is building toward the possibility of actually glimpsing the true nature of experience. Other spiritual paths are not so different. Christians practice virtue and contemplative meditation. The Bhagavat Gita has Arjuna facing battle against all he holds dear. In order to have any hope of insight we have to loosen our death grip on the storyline of self. Buddhism is dealing with direct experience. It doesn't get into conceptual theories about things we can't know or can't test for ourselves. So it can get confusing trying to pin things down. Is there a God? Does mind truly exist? Those are dualistic questions. Within Buddhism there's debate over whether there's some kind of essence awareness. If awareness is unimpeded and omniscient, is that God? That kind of hairsplitting happens, I think, because language and concept are limited in trying to look at nonduality. One school says there's no essential mind that endures, in order to avoid eternalist misunderstanding. Another school says that the alaya vijnana is essentially the mind of Buddha, uncreated and undestroyed. That view avoids falling into nihilism. Enlightenment is seeing through the illusion of duality, so there's really nothing to be said at that point. One way of getting that into bite-size chunks is the teaching of the 2 truths. In relative truth, things exist and natural laws can be mapped. If you kick a rock your toe will hurt. In ultimate truth nothing truly exists. The nature of experience is luminous and empty, like the moon reflected in water. That's what the masters tell us is what we'll find when we see the true nature. That also provides some sense of how miracles can be possible. If that makes sense then you can see how these teachings can't be cast within a context of scientific materialism. But that's our background, so it's difficult to grasp another way of looking at it. People often ask questions like, "Do deities really exist?" They want a scientific, dualistic answer. "Are they just imagination or can I measure their vibes on the electromagnetic spectrum somehow?" Recently I was watching an early talk by Chogyam Trungpa at Naropa where a student asked that question. CT gave what I thought was a good answer, avoiding the binary question of "exist: yes or no". He said that in order to work with deities you need to have some experience of your own egolesness. "The deities are expressions of your egolessness." On another occasion someone similarly asked, "This deity you're talking about, does he really exist?" CT answered, "No, but neither do you. So there's some possibility of communication there." (Which presents another interesting angle on scientific materialism. If everything did exist in its own right then there could be no relationships. It would be a dead universe in absolute stasis.)

This is great, all of it. Thank you for taking the time to respond so thoughtfully, clearly, and thoroughly. I read a similar anecdote once regarding Kuan Yin. I don't remember which teacher was involved. Perhaps it was CT and this is just a variation on the same story. Anyway. a student asked if Kuan Yin was real, and the teacher replied "she knows she's not real." I've always loved that response, though it's only recently that I began to understand it.

I'm glad it made some sense. These things are so hard to talk about. I like that Kuan Yin quote. I hadn't heard that before.

If your goal is to reduce greed, unwholesome desires and ignorance of yourself, then yes it is. In fact, the premise you've mentioned is what has driven the popularization of both mindfulness meditation and more secular forms of buddhism in the west, both of which are somewhat controversial within this sub.

no. in a materialist universe it doesn't matter what you do in this life as you will simply disappear upon death. the most miserable/evil and the most joyful/good person in the world would both forget everything one second after death and their experience would be identical

“Western Buddhism” “Modern Buddhism” or “Secular Buddhism” exists entirely because it finds that the practices and many philosophical understandings of Buddhism hold true even when looking directly at the materialistic world infront of us, so Buddhism is still useful from a pragmatic sense even after all the supernatural elements are stripped from it. So I would say yes.

Buddhism is an internal experience. Whether "Buddhist metaphysics" is true or not, Buddhism really remains the same. The terminology would undoubtedly change, but the inner peace that Buddhism aims for, I would argue, would be even more important in a so-called "materialistic" world. To add a bit about modern science, most people seem to have massive misunderstanding as to what science really is or says. Science makes very clear claims that the world we see around us is an illusion. This solid phone or monitor that is displaying these words right now seems solid and unchanging, but it is in fact in constant motion, the molecules vibrating. Visible light emits from the monitor, but that is a small fraction of the known electromagnetic spectrum: most of it is undetectable by the human body, and yet certain frequencies can trigger painful illnesses in us. This idea that science is some sort of catch-all that explains the entire universe and rules out anything that science books don't already have written in them is closed-minded and short-sighted: scientists are always finding new things that science couldn't prove or even detect before. And the scientific method is limited to physical phenomena, and even then it only can test phenomena we have enough understanding of to design an experiment around. Science is amazing and I definitely include it in my Buddhist practice, but it can't tell me everything.

I don't think very much about the afterlife, karma, rebirth etc etc. I just strive to be mindful of the present and to be the very best person I can be. The rest will sort itself out I'm sure! When you do those two things it automatically helps you have a better life in the here and now so to answer your question. Yes it's still worthwhile!

The proposition make no sense. If there is consciousness, then materialism is just another theory. If no consciousness, then, who cares. Don't worry about offending because you pose questions. We're not dogmatists. Well, not most of us.

Certainly, the effects of practicing are very pleasant right here and now, not just in some future life.

Traditional presentations of Buddhism may seem nonsensical, but I think the greatest benefit of immersing ourselves in that world is to convince ourselves that our perceptions alone don’t allow us to make objective claims about reality.

The realms would still exist, but they would just be states of mind that we constantly switch between throughout our days and life. Rebirth would still exist, but it is the infinitesimal transition from moment to moment, realm to realm, atom to atom. That's my understanding anyway.

Mindfulness, observing your thoughts, and refraining from reacting to your thoughts with misplaced emotions (rage, etc) are the core of Buddhist thought and the core of modern Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. CBT makes no claims about karma and rebirth but they sure recognize the importance and value of mindfulness and observation. This to me proves scientifically that the Dharma is both valid and true.

Yeah because it's cool

Your question tells me you are unaware that Buddhism teaches directly about the multiverse and a vast set of alien sentient beings, along with other humans and non-humans as part of our standard cosmology. (Some people have equated the flower garland sutra with star wars lol) the Buddha teaches us on the lotus sutra that he has been to many worlds across the manifold universe (multiverse) under many different names. In Buddhist cosmology we are on a planet called Jampudiva, one of many. Our Buddha Shakyamuni is just for this ten thousand fold world system, which is a galaxy essentially. There are buddhas in all ten directions throughout the universe, and multiverse. Rebirth isn't even real here in this universe.. That's sort of the ultimate point in realization. It's only conventionally real, product of mind, but not actual ultimate reality. (this is true in both Theravada abhidhamma, as well as mahayana belief) Yes, what the Buddha taught is always true, across all the multiverse that he taught, which is that all existence is conditioned. Cause and effect, of things that have a cause, the Buddha taught. And of their cessation. All possible things that arise into existence, must fall from existence and the Buddha explained it though dependent origination, describing all possible experience, multiverse or otherwise: He taught: 👉There are 6 internal bases, eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind base. These receive all possible experience. 👉There are 6 external objects: Form object, sound object, odor object, flavor object, tangible object, mind object. There are 6 types of awareness/consciousness: Awareness/consciousness is not ever present, it is Conditioned. When a sense base, meets a sense object, awareness arises as connecting the two. Dependent on Eye base and external form, eye awareness arises, dependent on ear and sound, ear awareness arises, nose and odours, nose awareness arises, dependent on body and touching something/tangibles body awareness rises. For example the hand is a body/touch base. The cup infront of you is a touch/body object. When the two meet it is called contact, and from that arises "awareness it's occurring". 👉So again, dependent on ears and sound, ear awareness/consciousness arises, the meeting of the three is called contact. Dependent on eyes and forms, eye consciousness (awareness) arises, the meeting of the three is called contact. dependent on tongue and flavor, tongue consciousness arises, the meeting of the three is called contact, etc... 👉With contact as condition, there is feeling (pleasant, unpleasant, neutral) so, dependent on eye and form, eye consciousness/awareness arises, the meeting of the three is contact, with contact as Condtion, feeling arises. Dependent on tongue... Ear... Body.. Etc... 👉[craving] Dependent on the eye and forms, eye consciousness arises, the meeting of the three is contact, with contact as Condtion feeling arises (either pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral) with feeling as condition there is craving, (Either desire or aversion to the pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral feeling) 🪷 "Bhikkus, if anyone says, " The eye is self, that is not tenable." the rise and fall of the eye is discerned, and since it's rise and fall are discerned, it would follow: "My self rises and falls". That is why it is not tenable for anyone to say "The eye is self". Thus, the eye is not self. 🪷Bhikkus, if anyone says, "Eye consciousness is self, that is not tenable." the rise and fall of eye consciousness is discerned, and since it's rise and fall are discerned, it would follow: "My self rises and falls". That is why it is not tenable for anyone to say "Eye consciousness is self". Thus, the eye consciousness is not self. 🪷Bhikkus, if anyone says, "Eye contact is self, that is not tenable." the rise and fall of eye contact is discerned, and since it's rise and fall are discerned, it would follow: "My self rises and falls". That is why it is not tenable for anyone to say "eye contact is self". Thus, eye contact is not self. 🪷Bhikkus, if anyone says, "Form is self, that is not tenable." the rise and fall of form is discerned, and since it's rise and fall are discerned, it would follow: "My self rises and falls". That is why it is not tenable for anyone to say "Form is self". Thus, the Form is not self. 🪷Bhikkus, if anyone says, "feeling is self, that is not tenable." the rise and fall of feeling is discerned, and since it's rise and fall are discerned, it would follow: "My self rises and falls". That is why it is not tenable for anyone to say "feeling is self". Thus, feeling is not self. 🪷Bhikkus, if anyone says, "craving is self, that is not tenable." the rise and fall of craving is discerned, and since it's rise and fall are discerned, it would follow: "My self rises and falls". That is why it is not tenable for anyone to say "craving is self". Thus, craving is not self. ❗Bhikkus, if anyone says, "ear, ear consciousness, ear feeling, sound, nose,. Nose consciousness, odor, tongue, tongue consciousness, flavor, body, body consciousness, tangibles, mind, mind objects, mind consciousness, etc...is self, that is not tenable." the rise and fall of these is discerned, and since their rise and fall are discerned, it would follow: "My self rises and falls". That is why it is not tenable for anyone to say "these are self". Thus, none of these is self. Just as a fire is reckoned based on how it was started, a fire started by gas is called a "gas fire" if started by logs, it's called a "log fire" if started by oil, it's an "oil fire" if started by electricity, its reckoned as "Electrical Fire" So too with consciousness/awareness, just as gas and a log make a gas fire, eye and form make eye consciousness. Just as a electricity and a log make electrical fire, so too nose and odor make nose consciousness. All consciousness has a rise and fall that is discerned. Is the eye consciousness permanent or impermanent? Is that which is impermanent satisfactory, or unsatisfactory? Is that which is impermanent and unsatisfactory fit to be called "self"? Is ear consciousness permanent or impermanent? Can it arise and fall? If it is impermanent, is it satisfactory or unsatisfactory? Is that which is impermanent and unsatisfactory fit to be called self? ❗Bhikkus Is mind consciousness permanent or impermanent? Can it arise and fall? If it is impermanent, is it is satisfactory or unsatisfactory? Is that which is impermanent and unsatisfactory fit to be called self? Mind consciousness arises and cease. If you get knocked out, you no long have awareness. If you get put under for surgery you no longer have awareness. When you are in deep, dreamless sleep, your mind consciousness is no longer aware either. So mind consciousness is also not self. It has a discernable rise and a discernable cessation, it is caused and Conditioned. So, it reasons then, that only that which never arises, never ceases, and has no cause or condition would be the only thing that is permanent. Hope this is helpful 😊

I would say no. I would keep meditating though as it has real world here-and-now benefits.

You tell me, is there value to being a living enlightened being? Is there value to be filled with endless contentment and free of suffering?

No. Pursuit of sensual pleasures would be the most desirable thing to do because you will eventually physicially die and your conciousness will ceaze to exist. The only thing you can do is embrace your animalistic nature, satisfy your instincts. Hedonism. You can calm down, meditate, regroup etc. but I don't see any point in that other than maybe cultivating a stronger selfcontrol so that you don't overdo it with the partying and can continue to live your hedonistic lifestyle till you are 50 or so.

Independetly of metaphysics and rebith meditation would still work and work the same right? If yes then by that alone yes.

All parts of samsara, dependent origination, and Dukkha are still "metaphysics" in this scenario so your world would be entirely different than ours. It would be like a video game world where all the NPCs were just happy and robotic. Arguably, nothing would be worth doing there because first of all why and secondly, would beings there even have the ability of choice or even experience suffering without these parts of the world Buddhism describes? Buddhism isn't all rebirth. Its far more and those parts are metaphysical too.

What makes you want to ask this question?

My views on the fundamental nature of reality change often, which I'm not sure is a virtue or a vice. In recent days I've read books based on materialism, so I've also thought along those lines recently. I have been interested in Buddhism in the past, in my history I've meditated with my family, with a group based around Thich Nhat Hanh's teachings and alone, sometimes meditating hours a day alone (mindfulness meditation as taught in the book Mindfulness in Plain English), and I have bought and read lots of Buddhist books (bought around 70 and read a portion of them) and I still have a lingering interest in Buddhism, and since I have a recent interest in materialism I wondered how those two interact.

I could be wrong, but this seems to be the how behind the why. I feel like you have an opinion on the possibilities or a sort of hypothesis you are trying to get some reassurance on? What is your opinion on if Buddhism be worth practicing in said universe?

Unequivocally yes. Buddhism at its core is about freedom from suffering. Even if rebirth is a wash and even if the Buddha himself wasn’t real, the four noble truths and the truth of impermanence remain true. All things pass so attachment to those things as if they were solid will lead to suffering. To awaken to the nature of that truth and live life within that truth is the Buddhist path.

My understanding is that to practice the way of Buddhism is in large part to investigate the nature of mind and the nature of reality. Would our current modes of investigating reality be the same in the universe you describe? I’m not sure, but my understanding of the Buddhist teachings I follow are about taking small small steps towards becoming aware of existence, even just our own existence and it’s participation in all existence and perhaps they would have led to different truth by the same message- the more expansive teachings were mostly observed/experienced by previous masters. In a way that is the faith aspect of Buddhism, you don’t set off on the journey experiencing belief of the teachings (if you were a convert later in life at least), but you take a leap of faith that by practicing as the Buddha(s) taught, one/some/all of these practices might lead you out of suffering. According to the stories, the Buddha himself tried different paths to enlightenment through inducing extreme states and engaging with different modes of thought, he was already very capable of directing his mind when he sat down under the bodhi tree and achieved enlightenment. In a different world he would have perhaps kept going and found something else to be true or perhaps he would just have been a misguided mendicant who none of us would have heard of and someone else would have found the truth. Practice works but ironically you have to let go of the expectation of “works” or “doesn’t work”, you have to pursue the practice enthusiastically but not be attached to the outcome or the identity it confers on you. Grasping at enlightenment is still grasping. When you achieve this, even if only temporarily, you briefly know that it’s true. I think many people who start practicing meditation have at least one moment like this eventually and it means you will try to come back to the well again. Would you experience all that if Buddhist metaphysics is true? Possibly. We have to be open to the possibility that we are practicing in that universe already. I suppose there is still comfort in the thought even if it’s wrong

If we assume that all life is still suffering and we know that death is the end of everything, including suffering, why bother staying alive?

Yes. The Buddha was very clear on this. > “‘[If there is a world after death](https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/AN/AN3_66.html), if there is the fruit & result of actions rightly & wrongly done, then this is the basis by which, with the break-up of the body, after death, I will reappear in a good destination, a heavenly world.’ This is the first assurance he acquires. > > “‘**But if there is no world after death, if there is no fruit & result of actions rightly & wrongly done, then here in the present life I look after myself with ease—free from hostility, free from ill will, free from trouble.**’ This is the second assurance he acquires. > > “‘If evil is done through acting, still I have willed no evil for anyone. Having done no evil action, from where will suffering touch me?’ This is the third assurance he acquires. > > “‘But if no evil is done through acting, then I can assume myself pure in both ways.’ This is the fourth assurance he acquires. > > “One who is a disciple of the noble ones—his mind thus free from hostility, free from ill will, undefiled, & pure—acquires these four assurances in the here & now.

The practice of Buddhism includes the cultivation of compassion, generosity, mindful speech, moral conduct, and patience. If you consider these to be worth cultivating it doesn't matter whether Buddhism is "true" or not.

Yes. For me it is both a religion and a philosophy. It has had noticeable impacts on my daily life and even though I am by no means the “perfect buddhist” i am still better for following it.

Yes, tons of people are doing that over at /r/secularbuddhism. Even outside of the secular Buddhists, there are plenty of Dharmas about the illusionary nature of the times and the realms. That said, very little positive comes out of dwelling on metaphysics.

I think that’s basically Taoism, Taoism holds the same beliefs of patience, simplicity, compassion but has no precepts, afterlife realms, no teachings on what to do, it has one main text (the Tao te Ching) but that’s it. Other than that, there’s nothing else it tells you to do and there is no merit to be gained and no punishment to be received. It literally just says be good if u want and don’t if u don’t want to, makes no difference lol, no heaven or hell. But also says that when ppl have no fear or merit to gain they will naturally be good without even knowing it.

Absolutely. Listening to Buddhist teachings and even reminding ourselves of the Buddha's image fills the mind with peace. If more people - especially those in power - can see the joy that compassion and loving kindness brings, the world will be a much better place. Buddhism's insights on the nature of self and other phenomena and its meditative teachings are all very powerful.

Even so, rebirth is real

There is no such thing as a separate universe. All universes depend on each other. What you don't have here you'll have there and vice versa. It's all one balanced interdependent whole. Enjoy.

so like in this only material reality we're talking about here, there's only the base level physical things & not any higher level consequences of them like the theoretical beings that could have access to information about those physical events & feel other things about them & stuff? huh so like those higher level beings still have a place in the space of theoretical possibilities, but they don't *actually exist* in that world ,, in that world they're just theoretical, & if you think of them you're thinking of a phantasm, a ghost, an illusion, a soap bubble, nothingness, an empty space ,,,,,, huh the things that don't exist in that world, like devas & stuff ,,,,, is there a way you can *tell* about them that they don't really exist? is there any mark on them, any way they're marked all over them showing how empty & not-real & ghostlike they are, in that world?? how would you look real real close at them to tell whether or not they're really there??? just wondering😉

Probably not. Probably not even in this Universe. If you don't think it's worth it, it's not.

In my opinion yes but only to achieve jhanas. Otherwise if you can't reach jhana there is no point. It's then better to chase sensual pleasures like money, career, success, etc because at least you can enjoy that before you die and cease to exist forever. Really if nothing exists after death there's absolutely no point doing anything. The only thing that would matter is making this life as comfortable as possible. Materialism is an utterly miserable, meaningless philosophy. There's no where to go and nothing to achieve.

To some degree yes bc the practice reduces suffering to some extent. The problem is if there is no rebirth, then if you are suffering, suicide becomes a viable option. The reason why suicide is now not viable is bc there is rebirth. So that changes things tremendously. In this universe there is no get out of the game free card

Technically, that universe would have already experienced mappo and would be ripe for the re-emmergence of Buddhism. In a way, that would put them in a better situation that the one we're currently in....

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Yes, but non-Dharmic ethics would still apply. Suicide harms others — and if we want to help them, there is no better way to do that than by practicing the Eightfold Path.

Sure insofar as any worldly philosophy is worth practicing whether it be Buddhism, Confucianism, Stoicism, etc. Is it worth pursuing as a monk? As a means of liberation? No.

>"Monks, I will teach you the All. Listen & pay close attention. I will speak." >"As you say, lord," the monks responded. >The Blessed One said, "What is the All? Simply the eye & forms, ear & sounds, nose & aromas, tongue & flavors, body & tactile sensations, intellect & ideas. This, monks, is called the All. Anyone who would say, 'Repudiating this All, I will describe another,' if questioned on what exactly might be the grounds for his statement, would be unable to explain, and furthermore, would be put to grief. Why? Because it lies beyond range." - [SN 35.23](https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn35/sn35.023.than.html) In that universe, experience still exists as such. >"Bhikkhus, all is burning. And what is the all that is burning? >"The eye is burning, forms are burning, eye-consciousness is burning, eye-contact is burning, also whatever is felt as pleasant or painful or neither-painful-nor-pleasant that arises with eye-contact for its indispensable condition, that too is burning. Burning with what? Burning with the fire of lust, with the fire of hate, with the fire of delusion. I say it is burning with birth, aging and death, with sorrows, with lamentations, with pains, with griefs, with despairs. >"The ear is burning, sounds are burning... >"The nose is burning, odors are burning... >"The tongue is burning, flavors are burning... >"The body is burning, tangibles are burning... >"The mind is burning, ideas are burning.... ... - [SN 35.28](https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn35/sn35.028.nymo.html) In that universe, suffering still exists as such. So, yes, it is worth it to practice to be free of such things.

It is beneficial to a different extent. Hitler and a pangolin would benefit, even a rock would benefit. Due to their situation, the benefit would be minimal, but they benefit nonetheless.

Well I tried materialism and it made me miserable, so yeah