Naturalism, Creationism, Existentialism and Mahayana

This paper is about Baggini’s book - What’s It All About?: Philosophy and the Meaning of Life. While the author objects to naturalism and creationism when discussing meaning of life as life origin is not necessarily linked to the present situation, existentialism seems a better option, which emphasizes existence precedes essence. However, after evaluating these three positions, Mahayana is my preferred position. It is significant to realize that issues about love and suicide can be solved or understood in my position.

PART A

THREE POSITIONS

Naturalism

Naturalists uphold that there is nothing supernatural in the world but natural laws and forces, which continue shaping the natural universe. As genes do not have desires, goals and purposes as well as consciousness, life is created by natural process without any evident purposes. Therefore, life of human is purposeless and inconsequential event in nature.

Creationism

Nevertheless, instead of regarding life is created by natural forces without predetermined purposes, one may acknowledge the existence of God, which represents the cornerstone of Creationism. In this position, origin of human life is created by supernatural agency with particular purposes. God created humans and provided us meaning of life.

Existentialism

Unlike the previous two positions, which suggest understanding meaning of life from the past, Existentialists emphasizes that existence precedes essence. The meaning of human life is created by individuals but not God. We are free to make our own choices. It is noted that we should be authentic and recognize facticity of the world instead of cultivating bad faiths like cheating others. Our life, therefore, is meaningful by creating meaningful moments in the present, which lead to a future ultimate goal.

PROS AND CONS

We need meaning of life.

Naturalism fails to elucidate the importance of meaning of life. They see life as an accident without any predetermined purposes under laws of nature. We need goal to motivate ourselves to keep on living (Ben-Shahar, 2007). If we do not have one, our life will be chaos as mentioned in the book (Baggini, 2005) as we do not know what is the next step. Feeling lost in life, we should follow by order, which is meaning of life, adopted by creationism and existentialism.

We own ourselves.

When it comes to self-possession, creationism fails to recognize the importance of autonomy and free will. They insist that God gives us meaning of life that we have to obey. This is based on the assumption that personal thoughts cannot override the thought of God. In Bible, ends of life are to glorify God and enjoy him forever (Psalm 86; Luke 2:10). If we celebrate God throughout lifetime, we live for God’s will. Therefore, we serve God and He owns us. Consequently, we do not belong to ourselves as we are not able to follow our heart. In my opinion, meaning of one’s life should be personal and tailor-made since we own ourselves. As a rational human being, we hope to achieve self-actualization instead of just glorifying God in our life. If we adopt creationists’ view, we are not genuine to ourselves and may miss important goals we would like to achieve such as building meaningful relationships. What counts one as a human is the ability to perform autonomy and free will, which is highly upheld by existentialists.

We need a guideline to life.

Although existentialism seems a better choice among these three positions, it fails to provide clear guideline to life, which navigates us to correct view of life. Existentialists believe that we are on our own. We cannot go through our anxiety in life if we struggle to find support for ourselves. This is similar to North Korean defectors, who want to go back to their country as they find life is too free and they are not used to be responsible for their own life (Lee & John, 2015). Existentialists tell us to take up the responsibility and be authentic to ourselves. However, it is difficult to achieve without any support or guidelines. Here, existentialism fails to show us a clear and specific way to help overcoming anxiety. Therefore, one may feel confused and lost when seeking meaning of life.

MY POSITION

After denying the three positions above, I suggest Mahayana (大乘), one of the divisions of Buddhism as a better option to meaning of life. The meaning of life is clear: to escape suffering (解脫) from samsara (輪迴). Everyone experience different level of suffering, the meaning of life could be tailor-made and we may solve our own problems through the teaching, which is pragmatic and positive to layperson. Its spirit is dependent origination (緣起), all dharmas arise in dependence upon other dharmas. Besides, there are comprehensive ways to help us to reach our goal. For example, Five Precepts tell us what we should not do. It also stresses that bodhicitta as cause, great compassion as root and wisdom as path (釋衍空, 2007).

Why should we believe in Buddhism if there is no scientific evidence to suggest that samsara is real? Science could not answer all the questions in life. The concept of samsara helps us to understand life and death in a religious way. It motivates us to do good karmas, which is essential to lead a meaningful life. Its value is based on what it brings to us rather than it itself is true or not. It is a personal choice that we accept the belief.

PART B

LOVE, SEX AND MARRIAGE

Why we love?

Monks do not get married to remove craving (貪愛), which causes suffering marked in Four Noble Truths, to achieve nirvana (涅槃), a state of freedom from all suffering. If we do not love, we will not be suffered, why we still love? Apparently, craving is not supported in Buddhism. Romantic love is not what Buddhism encourages generally. However, for ordinary people, love comes naturally. At least we need to know how to handle it wisely through practicing paths (道) if we choose to possess it in the view of Mahayana (陳兵, 2006). In addition, there are different levels of love. The higher level we are in, the less suffering we experience and the more stable our relationship is. We should go through the lowest one, craving into the middle one, ethical love and finally to the highest, compassion (慈悲) in order to add value to meaningful and long-lasting relationship and eliminate suffering. Admittedly, compassion and nirvana are ideal but hard to achieve in reality. Yet, we may still gain benefits to ourselves when setting them as ultimate goal in a marriage or even life as explained in the following. In short, it is positive to believe that love is not always the cause of suffering if we know how to control it by wisdom (智慧). It is also an important way (方便) to reach nirvana and thrive a relationship.

Craving is dangerous.

Craving is like licking the honey off the blade of the knife as mentioned in a sutra. It is sweet but dangerous. In this stage, we love because we love ourselves. We want ourselves to be happy (honey). Therefore, we love as we want the return of love to compel loneliness and express our sexual desire. In this sense, “I love you” means I need your love (陳兵, 2006). If we do not receive love from the lover, we suffer (blade). Frustration of not getting what we want (求不得) is a case in point. This relationship may not last long as we only consider personal interests. Therefore, taking love is a selfish, dependent and dangerous act. It is not worthwhile to be meaning of life.

There are duties in love.

Obviously, craving is not sufficient to get rid of suffering. We need higher level of love, ethical love to thrive a relationship. According to《善生經》, love is mutual respect, two-way and reciprocal. For example, a wife should perform her duties well. On the other hand, the husband should be courteous to her. In modern society, the roles of husband and wife may differ from traditional one, the sutra could only be regarded as one of the guidelines to code of ethics. Yet, it is noted that the core value of this love is essential to long-term relationship. This level is not taking but giving love mutually by respecting partner, being responsible and performing moral duties. It is a matter of what I should do rather than what I want from the partner. This is egalitarian approach and thus suffering caused by selfishness may not happen. This adds meaning to life in the process of being a responsible partner.

Compassion as the ultimate goal.

Ethical love is sufficient to last a relationship and yet there is in fact more than our duties in a relationship. Couple with ultimate goal, compassion shows empathy to each other’s misfortunes by understanding nature of love so as to have a lasting relationship. A relationship is impermanent (無常), as it will end one day and we cannot predict what happen next in life. One may not have quarrel over trivial matter as it is not important to cultivate a meaningful relationship. Rather, they choose to spend quality time. Impermanence in life motivates us to cherish each other and seize the day.

Besides, we have no unchanging and permanent soul (無我). A bottle can be a container. It can also be a weapon. Its essence depends on causes and conditions (因和緣), so as ourselves. We do not have fixed personality and feelings. Accepting the truth, we may not see all dharmas (things) as uncontrollable. Rather, we are able to cultivate each other by creating good conditions (助緣) in a relationship. Is it contradictory to impermanence? No, there are inevitable facts, like death. However, we are able to control how we live under these constraints by doing karmas, like living a healthy life to prolong life. In short, no unchanging soul gives us autonomy to lead a relationship we wish.

Realizing wisdom (般若智慧), which is correct view of life (正見), is crucial for building compassion. We may then acknowledge that love can be suffering-free. Noticing craving is based on selfishness, we hurt ourselves when overly pursuing it. In ethical level, an imbalanced relationship results in suffering. Therefore, we should practice to manage our expectations to reality, not too high or too low to free us from suffering.

Concurrently, we should give love unconditionally, which overrides our duties and personal interests. This means we help others to combat suffering (自利利他, 無畏施) after realizing our own suffering. With compassion, we are willing to listen to our partner’s heart, what they care, need and want. By this time, we build trust and understanding among each other and know more about our partner’s suffering. Moreover, as personal interests are not counted, we may make sacrifices to show our great love to our love one. Death is just part of the reincarnation but not an end of life. There are things like doing good deeds, far more important than our life.

Only we understand the nature of love could we convert our suffering. As we understand our suffering, we have compassion to the others. The spirit of compassion is hard to achieve. However, a couple may gain benefits when striving for it together. It helps lead a meaningful and lasting relationship.

SUICIDE

Suicide is not allowed.

Generally, suicide, which is defined as the act of killing yourself intentionally in Cambridge Dictionary, is not allowed by virtue of causing bad karma and low possibility to return to human body in the next life. There are assumptions that one has not attained nirvana and one commits suicide because of Three Poisons, including greed, hatred and ignorance. In Hong Kong, according to Suicide Prevention Services annual report (2014), love or marriage is the major reason of suicide. It implies that people may suffer from love and therefore commit suicide. This suffering may be stemmed from Three Poisons. They fail to know that suffering is impermanent and can be eliminated (釋妙華, 2002).. Without realizing the nature of suffering, they seek committing suicide as the best way to escape suffering and solve problems. However, is suicide effective to escape from suffering? It is not. Killing ourselves is a breach of Five Precepts. Our causes very bad karma which leads you to hell after death. Moreover, there will be no chance to be human being again in the next life. Our suffering extends to the next life. Can we be human beings again in the next life if we have done a lot of good karmas? It is possible. However, the good karmas should be large in sum to override the bad karma. Admittedly, it is nearly impossible to happen for an ordinary person. What will our world be if we allow suicide in society? People will not willing to face the suffering and overcome it with a positive attitude stressed in Four Noble Truths. Their adversity quotient may be decreased as a result. It destructs our autonomy to lead our life. More people are defeated by Three Poisons, causes of suffering. No one would like to live in this kind of society where life is not treasured. Therefore, suicide is not allowed because our suffering caused by Three Poisons will be extended and our society cannot be functioned in a long-term.

Suicide is allowed.

When can we commit suicide without causing bad karmas? In Buddha’s view, suicide is allowed when the state before death is peaceful and without any negative emotions like hatred. A rational discussion before suicide should also be introduced. When we attain Arhat, a perfected person having achieved nirvana. We are able to determine our death in this life. It is a state that we do not cling to life and death or other things in life. If our existence has little meaning in life such as stopping us to continue to help others and ourselves (自利利他) because of illnesses (釋衍空, 2007). Then we may go without leaving any bad karmas. In this sense, we realize that we are one. We belong to universe and death is not an end but return to universe. Life and death are not binary opposition anymore. This is not incoherent as Baggini’s said in Chapter 9. He said that it sounded like we unleash our potential to lose our self and finally cease our existence. Rather, nirvana is the evidence that we are able to control and understand our life to experience the most peaceful state that we long for after losing self. It is valuable that it transcends one self and attains spiritual liberation. Therefore, if we value the ultimate liberation in life even if we do not attain this level, our practice is not useless as we learn more about our life. Returning to the suicide case, this kind of suicide is not about whether suicide itself is correct or not. Rather, it is about our understanding to death and ourselves and it should be grounded on rational discussion.

Can we suicide?

Can we suicide like Arhat? It depends on your state before death. If we can only make decision in the very last minute, why do we discuss whether we can suicide now? Is it meaningless? It at least conveys the message that we will not consider suicide if we practice and we may have right to die, which is religiously permitted although it is rare in reality.

CONCLUSION

In this paper, I have discussed the pros and cons of creationism, naturalism and existentialism. Then, I have adopted Mahayana as a way to address and understand love and suicide issues. It is hoped that my position may bring to a deeper understanding towards these issues.

REFERENCE

Baggini, J. (2005). What's it all about?: Philosophy and the meaning of life. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Ben-Shahar, T. (2007). Happier: Learn the secrets to daily joy and lasting fulfillment. McGraw-Hill Companies.

陳兵. (2006). 佛教的愛情, 婚姻觀. 佛教文化, 76-82.

釋妙華. (2002). 從苦難走向解脫--對佛法苦聖諦的重新確認. 法音, 30-33.

Lee, H., & John, D. (2015). The girl with seven names: A North Korean defector's story. London: William Collins.

釋衍空. (2007). 正覺的道路──智者的足跡和開導. 北京: 宗教文化出版社.

Suicide. 2016. In Dictionary.cambridge.org

Retrieved June 20, 2016, from http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english-chinese-traditional/suicide_1

#Lifeanddeath #meaningoflife #Buddhism #Mahayana #suicide #love