Questions about Buddhism, ask them here.

[dyanaprajna2011]

If anyone has any questions about Buddhism, post them here, and I'll answer them to the best of my ability.

[dyanaprajna2011]

Can you elaborate on the difference between the "ego-self" and this idea of "Karma" that is birthed.

I mean, in terms of conscious awareness what is the difference? Is there an independent conscious awareness that is re-birthed.

It seems to me that if there isn't, then what sense does it make to even speak about an existence in another life that was determined by the actions in this life?

What is it that's going to experience this re-birthed life? Wouldn't that seat of consciousness be considered some sort of "soul".

This is what I don't understand. If there is no independent recognizable seat of consciousness that is "my soul", then what meaning does it have to speak of a next life being determined by the actions I had undergone in this life?

The main aspect rejected by Buddhism, is that the 'ego-self', called the atman, is eternal. In the Buddhist view, it really depends on school, but some (like myself) believes that the consciousness is divided into six (or eight by some schools) parts. The part that is rebirthed is the part that carries the karma. Think of it like this: karma is the law of cause and effect. Let's say that you did some things (causes) that had yet to have their effects come to fruition before you died. Those causes still need effects, so the karma is 'inherited' so to speak, in another life. Now, this is where the Buddhist idea of dependent origination comes into play. This basically says that all things are interconnected, and nothing exists independently of it's own. This, in some sense, solves the problem of how karma is transmitted to a future life without there being an eternal soul. This karma is carried by the part of the consciousness called the mindstream, or in those schools influenced by Yogacara philosophy (like Zen), the alaya (storehouse) consciousness.

What you just said here: "One ends up in one of these realms depending on the karma they cultivated while in the previous realm.";

Seems to imply that there is some "One" that is being kept track of in some way. Otherwise what sense odes it make to speak about my next life being determined by my current actions?"

So there must be some 'individual one' that is being kept track of or preserved from one incarnation to the next. And that certainly reeks of an idea of an individual "soul".

Not that I have anything against that idea, but it seems to be a bit of a contradiction in terms here with the concept of karma spread out over different lifetimes.

The karma itself kind of acts in the place of the 'soul'. Any causes that have not come to fruition need to see their effects come into play. But, the mindstream does act in this regard, however, it's not part of the consciousness that retains the personality of the person.

Now, if I accept what you've said thus far, I would expect (rightfully or wrongfully) that my next incarnation will most likely be either human again, or in the asural or heavenly realms.

By the way I've never heard of the asural realm. Is that a typo? Did you actually mean astral realm? I'm very familiar with the astral realm from Wicca and European Faery Lore. Although their ideas may be different.

Could you elaborate on this asural realm (or astral realm if that's what you meant?)

I'm curious to see if it's much like the Wiccan and Faery Teachings.

It's the "asura" realm. The asuras are somtimes called demi-gods, sometimes half-gods, or sometimes anti-gods. They're more akin to the old pagan gods, not really divine and holy, but have personalities more like humans, but on a higher spiritual plane.

Is this part of Zen Buddhism? I didn't realize that Zen Buddhism got into such detailed spiritual concepts. I thought Zen Buddhism was more abstract like Taoism without really saying much about what any afterlife might be like.

Zen doesn't really deviate much from what other schools of Buddhism teach, it just downplays most of it. Zen is more abstract, and while it downplays most of the religious ideas found in other schools of Zen, it doesn't do away with them completely.

ow I must admit I am bad at using Google search
but I did put in some hours and effort and spread out
through some years too looking it up again and again
and I did not find any good group of former Buddhists.

Christians have groups online of former or Ex.Christians ...

There are those who have left Buddhism, they're just not as vocal about it. Also, those who have left Buddhism, generally have not done so because they have had bad experiences, or disagree with the teachings, instead, most believe that all religions are valid paths, and sometimes they find something that fits them better.

[ndf8th]

Thanks to both of you.

Divine Insight, I did not expect that answer.

Maybe it depends on what you challenge an atheistic Buddhist with.
Now I can only refer to two individuals but they did see themselves
as typical for Western Buddhism and they also saw themselves as atheists.

When I described my atheistic take on Amida Buddha inspired by
the metaphoric take on Jodo Shinshu that I've read online.
Dr. Haneda texts then they told me that what I talked about was
not Buddhism but a deviation that is religious and not pure Buddhism
which was what they where into. I did get the gut feeling they really
looked down upon my naturalistic take on Amida.

They had no sympathy for or empathy for that I've found help from
Buddhism. They rather found it annoying that I did not chose their
kind of Buddhism.

I got the impression they saw their kind of Buddhism as more advanced
and as they told me "pure".

Sure one can not compare that "annoyed" feeling with being outcast
from a sect like version of Christian faith. They lose their whole family
due to being shunned by the group they relied on their whole life.

But my personal feeling where that these atheists kind of shunned me too
even if the result where that they did not saw me as a real Buddhist.
But something they did not approve of a religious buddhist while they
where purely atheist Buddhists.

Now I did my best to explain that my take on Amida is 100% atheist too
and that my take on Amida are 100% naturalistic and not religious
in the supernatural sense at all.

Did not help to them my take on Amida where wrong. Something one don't do.
Not skilful means.

So I am skeptical to this moving on. Sure I trust you can find a lot of
Buddhist confirming your take but my experience of these atheist Buddhist
where not something I could just move on from. They did shun my take
on Amida. To them I did something very wrong. Abusing Buddhism maybe?

I felt so bad about it that I decided to skip trust in atheist Buddhism.

[Baz]

I can see you are busy answering questions and in the main I am happy to just follow the thread. Please excuse me if I butt in with the odd question.

What spiritual connections if any do you believe in?

[Divine Insight]

ndf8th, you'll find weird people in every religion I'm sure. And you'll also find weird atheists.

I'm sure that not every Buddhist would agree with my views on Buddhism. In fact, I've already bumped into quite a few who had really strict beliefs about Buddhism and they shunned just about everything I know about Buddhism.

This does not bother me because I'm happy with my sources of information. Not to imply that my sources are any more valid than any other source. But the sources I've embraced are open to the various interpretations. In other words, if someone else wants to have some very rigid idea of a particular philosophy or religion, more power to them.

I find this in Wicca too. Not everyone in Wicca is in agreement by far. In fact, if you ever log onto a Wicca forum you'll see that there are many arguments and disagreements over what Wicca should even be about. They really aren't any different from how the Christians argue about what Jesus should be about.

The only thing you can really do is just go with what works for you, and if you'd like to join a group that things the same way you need to try to seek out one.

I have found many people who embrace my views (or said more correctly, they share very similar views).

In the end, I really don't care what other people think. Other than it's sometimes interesting to hear different views.

[ndf8th]

I can see you are busy answering questions and in the main I am happy to just follow the thread. Please excuse me if I butt in with the odd question.

What spiritual connections if any do you believe in?

I guess that question where to dyanaprajna2011 or to Divine Insight

and that it just did happen to end up under my post which could indicate
you refer to me?

Regardless whom you are referring to maybe you could expand on

What spiritual connections if any do you believe in?

What is a spiritual connection?
In case you refer to that some Buddhists
talk about that we are all of us
to be interconnected that is something I don't believe in.

Wikipedia has this text about it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_in_Buddhism

Prior to the period of the Tathagatagarbha Sutras,
Mahayana metaphysics had been dominated by teachings
on emptiness in the form of Madhyamaka philosophy.

The language used by this approach is primarily negative,
and the Tathagatagarbha genre of sutras can be seen as
an attempt to state orthodox Buddhist teachings
of dependent origination
using positive language instead, to prevent people from
being turned away from Buddhism by a false impression of nihilism.

In these sutras the perfection of the wisdom of
not-self is stated to be the true self; ...

of dependent origination is another way to say that we are all of us
inter-connected.

The relative reality (i.e., the illusory perceived reality)
comes from our belief that we are separate
from the rest of the things in the universe and,
at times, at odds with the processes of nature and other beings.

The ultimate or absolute reality, in some schools of Buddhist thought,
shows that we are inter-connected with all things.

Could that be what you referred to as

What spiritual connections if any do you believe in?

Me being an atheist we don't believe in any kind of spiritual things
so no spiritual connections at all apart from human to human connections.

[Divine Insight]

I can see you are busy answering questions and in the main I am happy to just follow the thread. Please excuse me if I butt in with the odd question.

What spiritual connections if any do you believe in?

I guess that question where to dyanaprajna2011 or to Divine Insight

When it comes to spiritual connections, here are my thoughts:

To begin with I don't rely upon any religion or spiritual philosophy to be "Truth".

If there's one truth that I feel totally confident about it is the truth that all humans are agnostic when it come to knowledge of the true nature of our existence. And this most certainly includes scientists.

So that is the first of my personal Nobel Truths:

1. All humans are agnostic with respect to the true nature of reality.

Where agnostic simply means, "without absolute knowledge", and refers specifically to the context of "the true nature of reality".

Everyone is agnostic, including myself. Now we can have intuitive insights and feelings. But those, no matter how vivid or powerful they are can never be known to be anything more than pure imagination. We know for a fact that the human mind can, and does, play tricks on us. And therefore we can never know if any intuitive or psychic visions are real or imagined. We can never know if a spiritual experience is spiritual, or just wishful thinking on our part.

Having said that I have had deeply profound intuitive insights, visions, and dreams that have been highly suggestive that there is more to reality than meets the physical senses. Does this mean that this reality beyond the physical is real? Of course not. But the mere fact that I can imagine it is reason enough to ponder whether such things might somehow be possible?

So then I come to the question: "What do I know about reality?"

Well, in my case, I know quite a bit because I had studied the sciences which themselves study "reality" at least in terms of physical reality. I understand science very well, including most of the cutting edge theories. Don't ask me to do that math problems, although I can give some of them a fair shot, but I do understand the concepts behind the math fairly well. At least well enough to understand what science has observed.

And this is what I know about reality.

Humans, created a mathematical formalism that was originally based upon relationships between physical quantities, and geometric measurements. They have abstracted that formalism far beyond its original application. They have come to rely upon mathematical formalism to a point where they have moved beyond it's capability, IMHO. Mathematical formalism is really nothing more than a human attempt at quantifying a physical universe. In fact, all of mathematics may be nothing more than a reflection of the quantitative property of the physical universe.

The physical universe clearly exists. And we can indeed study it. It appears to have very precise laws of behavior. However, the fact that it exists does not mean that anything physical actually exists. This is hard for many people to understand. But the physical universe could indeed be nothing more than a dream that is being restricted by quantitative laws that we call "mathematics".

There are actually scientists who believe this to be the case.

Do I know that this is the truth of reality. No of course not. But I can see where it is indeed a plausible description of reality.

I have studied physics in depth clear up to and including both General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. What I have learned from both of these scientific theories is that the very nature of physical reality is indeed quite illusive. Reality can indeed be some sort of mystical illusion. There is nothing in science that rules this out, and in fact, many things in science are actually pointing to this as potentially being the true state of affairs.

So my second noble truth is this:

2. Life may very well be an illusion of some sort.

This is not to say that it is an illusion, but rather that insofar as we can tell, this is a very plausible possibility. Moreover the billiard-ball hardcore physical universe of the Newtonian age most certainly does not exist. Scientists have lost their balls forever. That we can be certain of.

Sure, now they are looking for strings. But that's a far-fetched speculation on their part actually. There are reasons to believe that what leads to theories like string theory is nothing more than reflections of mathematics in a mirror that doesn't even exist. In other words, String Theory is a purely mathematical theory. And if mathematics is really nothing more than an expression of the quantitative nature of our physical universe, AND if Quantum Mechanics is true in saying that this quantitative nature breaks down at the quantum level, THEN it may very well be a totally misguided notion that mathematics should even apply beneath the quantum level.

In fact, there are scientists who have recognized this situation. Lee Smolin being probably the most outspoken about this, see his book "The Trouble With Physics" where he addresses the problems associated with String Theory.

~~~~

So where does this lead me?

Well on a scientific level it has actually led me back to mathematics. There are problems with our mathematical formalism and we need to iron those out before we can make any further progress in science. But that's a whole other story.

On a philosophical level it leads me back to my intuitive feelings and visions, and dreams. After all, science has led me full-circle. First away from intuitive speculation, toward hard-core physical sciences, and then right back to the very real possibility that life may indeed be an illusion, or a "Dream" of some sort.

How about "religion"? Well I don't care for the term "religion", I perfer to think in terms of "Spiritual or Mystical Philosophies".

What about the Abrahamic Religions? Well, I was born and raised into Christianity and I've studied it in depth. As anyone who reads my posts knows, I have since dismissed it as being utterly impossible on many levels. At least as described verbatim in the Hebrew scriptures. The bottom line for that religion is quite simple. The personified God of the Hebrews is inconsistent in character. The very idea that some all-powerful supreme being would be associated with having his son beaten and nailed to a pole as part of his master plan for humanity is utterly absurd IMHO. So let's just leave it there.

But what other spiritual philosophies might be true?

So I looked into the Eastern Mystical views. I find Taoism to be the most down-to-earth and honest philosophy that I have ever run across. I'm certain that Taoism is true. However, Taoism does not proclaim that some supreme consciousness must exist. So Taoism can go either way. It can be a spiritual philosophy or a purely secular philosophy. So Taoism doesn't get us any further than science. Taoism simply brought us to the same conclusions far earlier. The only difference is that Taoism was hard-pressed to prove their conclusion, where science has methods of showing that their conclusions are indeed the true nature of reality.

So in this sense, Taoism and Science are on the same page actually. They just got to their conclusion differently.

On the mystical side of Taoism there is a suggestion that life is but a dream. And that we are the dreamer. In many ways that makes a lot of sense. After all, if life is an illusion, then we are the entity that is experiencing the illusion. or even creating the illusion.

Buddhism, is along these same lines, but seems to jump to unwarranted conclusions IMHO. Conclusions like reincarnation and karma. Well, if life is but a dream, the idea of recurring dreams is easy, and thus reincarnation is a given. However, karma, at least in terms of affecting separate dreams (i.e. separate incarnations of life) may not apply at all.

So I feel that many concepts in Buddhism are really nothing more than over-ambitious speculation that have no real basis.

What do I 'believe'.

I believe we are agnostic. I believe that it's plausible that life is but a dream. I believe that if this is true, then its obvious that we are the dreamer.

Could a purely secular non-mystical universe exist? Well, sure, I suppose anything is possible. However, this leads me to my third noble truth:

3. A purely secular physical existence is every bit as mystical, illogical, and improbable as a spiritual existence.

Trying to reduce reality to billiard-balls or strings doesn't help anything really. There's still the fundamental problem of where these strings came from, or why they exist and have the properties they have to be able to create such a fantastic universe.

Pure secular atheism is every bit as mystical and magical as anything else.

Moreover, in a pure secular universe made entirely of billiard-ball or strings, then the question remains, "What is it that is experiencing this reality?" The billiard-balls or strings themselves?

In other words, turning to an idea of a an actual physical universe doesn't truly solve the deepest mystery of "Who is the dreamer?"

Who is the thing that is experiencing all of this?

A secular atheists will say, "It's just an emergent property of a physical brain".

Well, hey, everyone is welcome to their own philosophy for sure. But on a personal note, the idea that an emergent property is having an experience doesn't so much for me personally.

The idea that we are some mysterious being beyond our ability to comprehend actually makes more sense to me. How could an emergent property have an experience? That's just an abstract notion. There's nothing there to have an experience.

This is why, for me, the idea that life is but a dream and we are the dreamer is actually quite compelling.

Why would we dream of such horrible garbage as wars, disease. and all manner of personal suffering?

Well, I don't know. Maybe we're capable of having nightmares too?

That seems to make some sense.

So here are my own personal Four Noble Truths:


1. All humans are agnostic with respect to the true nature of reality.

2. Life may very well be an illusion of some sort.

3. A purely secular physical existence is every bit as mystical, illogical, and improbable as a spiritual existence.

4. If we're going to speculate on the true nature of reality, why not speculate big?

[ndf8th]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this topic.
Personally I am not on that level so I can not say much.

[Baz]

I can see you are busy answering questions and in the main I am happy to just follow the thread. Please excuse me if I butt in with the odd question.

What spiritual connections if any do you believe in?

When it comes to spiritual connections, here are my thoughts:

To begin with I don't rely upon any religion or spiritual philosophy to be "Truth".

If there's one truth that I feel totally confident about it is the truth that all humans are agnostic when it come to knowledge of the true nature of our existence. And this most certainly includes scientists.

So that is the first of my personal Nobel Truths:

1. All humans are agnostic with respect to the true nature of reality.

Where agnostic simply means, "without absolute knowledge", and refers specifically to the context of "the true nature of reality".

Everyone is agnostic, including myself. Now we can have intuitive insights and feelings. But those, no matter how vivid or powerful they are can never be known to be anything more than pure imagination. We know for a fact that the human mind can, and does, play tricks on us. And therefore we can never know if any intuitive or psychic visions are real or imagined. We can never know if a spiritual experience is spiritual, or just wishful thinking on our part.

Having said that I have had deeply profound intuitive insights, visions, and dreams that have been highly suggestive that there is more to reality than meets the physical senses. Does this mean that this reality beyond the physical is real? Of course not. But the mere fact that I can imagine it is reason enough to ponder whether such things might somehow be possible?

So then I come to the question: "What do I know about reality?"

Well, in my case, I know quite a bit because I had studied the sciences which themselves study "reality" at least in terms of physical reality. I understand science very well, including most of the cutting edge theories. Don't ask me to do that math problems, although I can give some of them a fair shot, but I do understand the concepts behind the math fairly well. At least well enough to understand what science has observed.

And this is what I know about reality.

Humans, created a mathematical formalism that was originally based upon relationships between physical quantities, and geometric measurements. They have abstracted that formalism far beyond its original application. They have come to rely upon mathematical formalism to a point where they have moved beyond it's capability, IMHO. Mathematical formalism is really nothing more than a human attempt at quantifying a physical universe. In fact, all of mathematics may be nothing more than a reflection of the quantitative property of the physical universe.

The physical universe clearly exists. And we can indeed study it. It appears to have very precise laws of behavior. However, the fact that it exists does not mean that anything physical actually exists. This is hard for many people to understand. But the physical universe could indeed be nothing more than a dream that is being restricted by quantitative laws that we call "mathematics".

There are actually scientists who believe this to be the case.

Do I know that this is the truth of reality. No of course not. But I can see where it is indeed a plausible description of reality.

I have studied physics in depth clear up to and including both General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. What I have learned from both of these scientific theories is that the very nature of physical reality is indeed quite illusive. Reality can indeed be some sort of mystical illusion. There is nothing in science that rules this out, and in fact, many things in science are actually pointing to this as potentially being the true state of affairs.

So my second noble truth is this:

2. Life may very well be an illusion of some sort.

This is not to say that it is an illusion, but rather that insofar as we can tell, this is a very plausible possibility. Moreover the billiard-ball hardcore physical universe of the Newtonian age most certainly does not exist. Scientists have lost their balls forever. That we can be certain of.

Sure, now they are looking for strings. But that's a far-fetched speculation on their part actually. There are reasons to believe that what leads to theories like string theory is nothing more than reflections of mathematics in a mirror that doesn't even exist. In other words, String Theory is a purely mathematical theory. And if mathematics is really nothing more than an expression of the quantitative nature of our physical universe, AND if Quantum Mechanics is true in saying that this quantitative nature breaks down at the quantum level, THEN it may very well be a totally misguided notion that mathematics should even apply beneath the quantum level.

In fact, there are scientists who have recognized this situation. Lee Smolin being probably the most outspoken about this, see his book "The Trouble With Physics" where he addresses the problems associated with String Theory.

~~~~

So where does this lead me?

Well on a scientific level it has actually led me back to mathematics. There are problems with our mathematical formalism and we need to iron those out before we can make any further progress in science. But that's a whole other story.

On a philosophical level it leads me back to my intuitive feelings and visions, and dreams. After all, science has led me full-circle. First away from intuitive speculation, toward hard-core physical sciences, and then right back to the very real possibility that life may indeed be an illusion, or a "Dream" of some sort.

How about "religion"? Well I don't care for the term "religion", I perfer to think in terms of "Spiritual or Mystical Philosophies".

What about the Abrahamic Religions? Well, I was born and raised into Christianity and I've studied it in depth. As anyone who reads my posts knows, I have since dismissed it as being utterly impossible on many levels. At least as described verbatim in the Hebrew scriptures. The bottom line for that religion is quite simple. The personified God of the Hebrews is inconsistent in character. The very idea that some all-powerful supreme being would be associated with having his son beaten and nailed to a pole as part of his master plan for humanity is utterly absurd IMHO. So let's just leave it there.

But what other spiritual philosophies might be true?

So I looked into the Eastern Mystical views. I find Taoism to be the most down-to-earth and honest philosophy that I have ever run across. I'm certain that Taoism is true. However, Taoism does not proclaim that some supreme consciousness must exist. So Taoism can go either way. It can be a spiritual philosophy or a purely secular philosophy. So Taoism doesn't get us any further than science. Taoism simply brought us to the same conclusions far earlier. The only difference is that Taoism was hard-pressed to prove their conclusion, where science has methods of showing that their conclusions are indeed the true nature of reality.

So in this sense, Taoism and Science are on the same page actually. They just got to their conclusion differently.

On the mystical side of Taoism there is a suggestion that life is but a dream. And that we are the dreamer. In many ways that makes a lot of sense. After all, if life is an illusion, then we are the entity that is experiencing the illusion. or even creating the illusion.

Buddhism, is along these same lines, but seems to jump to unwarranted conclusions IMHO. Conclusions like reincarnation and karma. Well, if life is but a dream, the idea of recurring dreams is easy, and thus reincarnation is a given. However, karma, at least in terms of affecting separate dreams (i.e. separate incarnations of life) may not apply at all.

So I feel that many concepts in Buddhism are really nothing more than over-ambitious speculation that have no real basis.

What do I 'believe'.

I believe we are agnostic. I believe that it's plausible that life is but a dream. I believe that if this is true, then its obvious that we are the dreamer.

Could a purely secular non-mystical universe exist? Well, sure, I suppose anything is possible. However, this leads me to my third noble truth:

3. A purely secular physical existence is every bit as mystical, illogical, and improbable as a spiritual existence.

Trying to reduce reality to billiard-balls or strings doesn't help anything really. There's still the fundamental problem of where these strings came from, or why they exist and have the properties they have to be able to create such a fantastic universe.

Pure secular atheism is every bit as mystical and magical as anything else.

Moreover, in a pure secular universe made entirely of billiard-ball or strings, then the question remains, "What is it that is experiencing this reality?" The billiard-balls or strings themselves?

In other words, turning to an idea of a an actual physical universe doesn't truly solve the deepest mystery of "Who is the dreamer?"

Who is the thing that is experiencing all of this?

A secular atheists will say, "It's just an emergent property of a physical brain".

Well, hey, everyone is welcome to their own philosophy for sure. But on a personal note, the idea that an emergent property is having an experience doesn't so much for me personally.

The idea that we are some mysterious being beyond our ability to comprehend actually makes more sense to me. How could an emergent property have an experience? That's just an abstract notion. There's nothing there to have an experience.

This is why, for me, the idea that life is but a dream and we are the dreamer is actually quite compelling.

Why would we dream of such horrible garbage as wars, disease. and all manner of personal suffering?

Well, I don't know. Maybe we're capable of having nightmares too?

That seems to make some sense.

So here are my own personal Four Noble Truths:


1. All humans are agnostic with respect to the true nature of reality.

2. Life may very well be an illusion of some sort.

3. A purely secular physical existence is every bit as mystical, illogical, and improbable as a spiritual existence.

4. If we're going to speculate on the true nature of reality, why not speculate big?

I suppose I was thinking about dyanaprajna2011 when I asked the question but it was more or less an open question anyway.
I am very pleased you answered and in such a descriptive way thank you for your time. I did find it very interesting and in a lot of ways your take on a possible reality or truth is similar to mine.
Though I have to admit to having to read it through twice and look up one or two terms. (That’s life with a pore education for you)

To a point I would agree that Abrahamic religions don’t ring true on many levels. I personally see this as a problem with dogma and literal translation of ancient views. I expect a lot of stuff in many of these books did take place in one form or other but I think that they should just be looked on as books. I would at a push except that some parts of some books could be inspired by god (definition not relevant) I see nothing wrong with taking inspiration from books or anything else but religions seem hell bent on stagnation.(please excuse the wording)

I’m pleased you mention string theory as I particularly like the notion that partials can be linked in a way we cannot understand across vast areas of space and across different dimensions. I think Hawkins supports the theory for different reasons to me. Although I am the first to admit I have no idea what it’s about or how it is supposed to work, it would in my feeble mind make it possible for some part of me to be some part of something else.

Thinking on that line isn't that what the basic premise of most beliefs we call religion.

See……… The reason I asked the question in the first place was that so far as I can see a vast number of humans and in my opinion most likely animals too (I expect that will upset some religions but on the other hand animal rights will love it) feel they have a connection with something other. Deists will say god and invent religions to explain it atheists will call it delusional and Unfortunately quite often have a go at the others for being so stupid.

I like your noble truths but can I sagest that rather than life being an illusion of some sort we are just part of something so unbelievably complex that we are not even close to understanding it. (There I think I have upset the scientists too)
One analogy could be I am a thought in some multidimensional intergalactic brain. (But that’s just Si Fi.)

[Baz]

I can see you are busy answering questions and in the main I am happy to just follow the thread. Please excuse me if I butt in with the odd question.

What spiritual connections if any do you believe in?

I guess that question where to dyanaprajna2011 or to Divine Insight

and that it just did happen to end up under my post which could indicate
you refer to me?

Regardless whom you are referring to maybe you could expand on

What spiritual connections if any do you believe in?

What is a spiritual connection?
In case you refer to that some Buddhists
talk about that we are all of us
to be interconnected that is something I don't believe in.

Wikipedia has this text about it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_in_Buddhism

Prior to the period of the Tathagatagarbha Sutras,
Mahayana metaphysics had been dominated by teachings
on emptiness in the form of Madhyamaka philosophy.

The language used by this approach is primarily negative,
and the Tathagatagarbha genre of sutras can be seen as
an attempt to state orthodox Buddhist teachings
of dependent origination
using positive language instead, to prevent people from
being turned away from Buddhism by a false impression of nihilism.

In these sutras the perfection of the wisdom of
not-self is stated to be the true self; ...

of dependent origination is another way to say that we are all of us
inter-connected.

The relative reality (i.e., the illusory perceived reality)
comes from our belief that we are separate
from the rest of the things in the universe and,
at times, at odds with the processes of nature and other beings.

The ultimate or absolute reality, in some schools of Buddhist thought,
shows that we are inter-connected with all things.

Could that be what you referred to as

What spiritual connections if any do you believe in?

Me being an atheist we don't believe in any kind of spiritual things
so no spiritual connections at all apart from human to human connections.

How about what a lot of people call a spiritual connection actually being a physical connection we do not understand?

[Divine Insight]

I like your noble truths but can I sagest that rather than life being an illusion of some sort we are just part of something so unbelievably complex that we are not even close to understanding it. (There I think I have upset the scientists too)

Sure, that'll work.

One analogy could be I am a thought in some multidimensional intergalactic brain. (But that’s just Si Fi.)

That is the idea of many mystical philosophies. Except the "intergalactic brain", is something far more than just this physical universe. Various scientists have "proven" that the universe itself cannot function as a brain. However, their "proofs" make a lot of assumptions, not the least of which is to restrict the universe to only what current science has revealed thus far. The problem with that is that current science doesn't know everything, so any "proofs" based solely on that information are on shaky ground.

There may well be far more too it than we currently understand. This is why they invented a new word, "Panentheism".

Originally the mystics believed that "All is God", or perhaps "God is all that exists". And this is Pantheism. However this was taken by many to mean that the physical universe is God, since insofar as we know, the physical universe is all that exists.

So the mystics had to event a new word, Panentheism, meaning that God is not only all that we can detect, but God is even more than this. God is everything whether we can detect it or not. The physical universe is not seen as the brain of God, but rather its a product of the mind of God. The mind of God being something far beyond the physical universe itself.

Modern cosmologists, have very strong scientific reasons for believing that there are indeed many universes. All of these universes would then be contained within the mind of God.