Leo's critique of Zizek

[Aimblack]

Hey Leo, I felt that you misunderstood some of the points Ziziek made and I would have loved to hear you address the things he said.In your video you pointed out how zizek was basically right in saying that enlightenment doesn't make you better and went on to speculate how zizek would respond to that. You also misunderstood his point of stating that there is no difference between a pill and a genuine enlightenment. 

So basically what Zizek was saying was that Buddhists on one hand claim that you have to follow certain ethical rules to become enlightened and to be seen as enlightened and his argument is that there is no reason for that to be the case if enlightenment is only a spiritual shift. His example with the pills is used to as an argument that there is such a thing as enlightenment without adhering to moral precepts. His reason for citing DT suzuki was also  to show exactly that.

[Leo Gura]

9 hours ago, Aimblack said:

Buddhists on one hand claim that you have to follow certain ethical rules to become enlightened and to be seen as enlightened and his argument is that there is no reason for that to be the case if enlightenment is only a spiritual shift. His example with the pills is used to as an argument that there is such a thing as enlightenment without adhering to moral precepts.

It's not so simple.

Adhering to moral precepts is part of the path. It's hard to reach satori if one is a devil. Hard, but not impossible. And it's hard to live in alignment with satori if one doesn't adhere to some moral precepts.

Basically the moral precepts serve as training wheels.

Even when doing psychedelics, your trips won't go very deep unless your mind is pure enough. Giving psychedelics to a guy like Donald Trump will not result in his realization of Buddha nature because his mind is too impure. First his actions would have to change. He'd have to stop lying, stealing, cheating, manipulating, etc. Or at the very least cut back on them.

Of course enlightenment does not require adhering to anything. It is total liberation. But in practice you'll never reach it unless you make an effort to be less egotistical.

A spiritual shift is also an ethical & moral shift.

If you complain that people are devils after enlightenment, just try to imagine how big of devils they would have been without it.

The mistake here is expecting some kind of perfect moral actions from people. This is not possible because morality is relative. Zizek likes to moralize without acknowledging that his moralizations are constructed by his own mind. If you are digusted by Nazis and Stalanists, it's not because they are inherently disgusting, it's because your mind is doing it out of survival drive. That is a self-bias Zizek's mind projects onto reality. Zizek seems to hold people like Nazi's as an absolute evil or wrong-doing, but that it is not Truth. That's not how a Nazi looks after satori.

Perfection is not something one achieves through good moral actions. Perfection is already the case. All one needs to do is attain satori to see it.

[Farnaby]

8 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

 

Perfection is not someone one achieves through good moral actions. Perfection is already the case. All one needs to do is attain satori to see it.

@Leo Gura So in an absolute sense, if morals are relative projections of our own mind and Nazis aren’t bad and evil, the same could be said about Trump, Bolsonaro, Mao Ze Tung, etc.

I can see how the moral compass is subjective and relative, but I think there are clearly people who have damaged the world and caused more suffering than others. 

[Leo Gura]

14 minutes ago, Farnaby said:

@Leo Gura So in an absolute sense, if morals are relative projections of our own mind and Nazis aren’t bad and evil, the same could be said about Trump, Bolsonaro, Mao Ze Tung, etc.

That's exactly right.

Quote

I can see how the moral compass is subjective and relative, but I think there are clearly people who have damaged the world and caused more suffering than others. 

Damage and suffering is relative.

According to you Hitler caused damage. According to Hitler he was improving the world.

[Aimblack]

9 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

It's not so simple.

Adhering to moral precepts is part of the path. It's hard to reach satori if one is a devil. Hard, but not impossible. And it's hard to live in alignment with satori if one doesn't adhere to some moral precepts.

Basically the moral precepts serve as training wheels.

This is what confuses me.Because that would imply that there are some moral values that are absolute,right? Because just like you mentioned even Hitler thought he was doing the morally right thing and especially Donald Trump thinks he is the best thing that ever happened to America so who gets to decide which moral precepts are necessary?

[Leo Gura]

16 minutes ago, Aimblack said:

so who gets to decide which moral precepts are necessary?

That's the kicker! No one.

Whatever you imagine is what goes.

[Aeris]

10 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

It's not so simple.

Adhering to moral precepts is part of the path. It's hard to reach satori if one is a devil. Hard, but not impossible. And it's hard to live in alignment with satori if one doesn't adhere to some moral precepts.

Basically the moral precepts serve as training wheels.

Even when doing psychedelics, your trips won't go very deep unless your mind is pure enough. Giving psychedelics to a guy like Donald Trump will not result in his realization of Buddha nature because his mind is too impure. First his actions would have to change. He'd have to stop lying, stealing, cheating, manipulating, etc. Or at the very least cut back on them.

Of course enlightenment does not require adhering to anything. It is total liberation. But in practice you'll never reach it unless you make an effort to be less egotistical.

A spiritual shift is also an ethical & moral shift.

If you complain that people are devils after enlightenment, just try to imagine how big of devils they would have been without it.

The mistake here is expecting some kind of perfect moral actions from people. This is not possible because morality is relative. Zizek likes to moralize without acknowledging that his moralizations are constructed by his own mind. If you are digusted by Nazis and Stalanists, it's not because they are inherently disgusting, it's because your mind is doing it out of survival drive. That is a self-bias Zizek's mind projects onto reality. Zizek seems to hold people like Nazi's as an absolute evil or wrong-doing, but that it is not Truth. That's not how a Nazi looks after satori.

Perfection is not something one achieves through good moral actions. Perfection is already the case. All one needs to do is attain satori to see it.

I "took" a lot of immaterial things .. for free.

I think I diserve all the fruits in the forest as equivalent to the rich born.

A devil.., isn't full enlightment accepting to be "devil "?  

Steve job was enlightened for 10000% sure, it doesn't make him a "good man"  he studied the teaching of spirituality and was full stage green at 20. 100% sure yellow.

full enlightment means full awareness of morality as a cloud.

You can be moral/good whatever value you attribute to your actions. They are all neutral in the eye of god. ( doesn't mean they are without consequences )
 

for all you know, Donald Trump could be the part of a big schemes that is to improve the politics and concern of people for their society. ( stage green gates ) ( I m very hopeful here, it's surely is a delusion )

when they got Obama, no one was giving a fuck really ( cool president, ok, let's back to work ), now the entire world is watching the Donald Trump show and ask themself, are all politicians jokery ?

Could be that trump by doing a pure devil will work will end by improving the mind of society ( or war culture ) and that's a good thing, if conscious people win over stupidity.

full awakening of society, people then killing all the authority models because of awareness of politic corruption because of Trump.

I would totaly try to be in power if I was convinced that I'll use the monney/power to improve society as a whole, intrinsic dammage. Would embody full orange to progress on a coral agenda.

even if that's not the intention of Trump, better taking a stimulant pill and shit in your pants than the sleepy one and go back to bed.

 

[Aimblack]

33 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

That's the kicker! No one.

Whatever you imagine is what goes.

But that's just the same as saying that there aren't any moral requirements at all. That would mean that Donald Trumps lying, cheating etc. are in fact not a hindrance to his awakening.Because he is imagining that he is doing the right things.

[Leo Gura]

10 minutes ago, Aimblack said:

But that's just the same as saying that there aren't any moral requirements at all. That would mean that Donald Trumps lying, cheating etc. are in fact not a hindrance to his awakening.Because he is imagining that he is doing the right things.

Awakening is not normative. You are not obligated to awaken. Awakening is not better than not awakening.

So yes, Trump will not awaken, but there is no one in the universe to say that is wrong. In fact God loves Trump just as much as the Buddha.

It is us humans who judge Trump because it affects our survival and we are self-biased in that sense.

So we can rightly kick Trump out of office, but that has nothing to do with him being bad in any absolute sense. It is a relative matter.

[Aimblack]

2 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Awakening is not normative. You are not obligated to awaken. Awakening is not better than not awakening.

So yes, Trump will not awaken, but there is no one in the universe to say that is wrong.

Thanks for being patient but we are either talking past each other or I'm being pretty dense...or both

So let me try to explain my problem more clearly.

Where I'm stuck is that if you say that you need to follow some moral rules in order to awaken but you get to set those rules it seems to me that it directly undermines the claim that you need to be moral in order to awaken.

In other words if it is for all intents and purposes an absolute that I have to follow some moral rules but morality itself is relative then by extension whether and if I have to follow any moral rules is also relative?

I hope I'm making sense here.

[Farnaby]

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

That's exactly right.

Damage and suffering is relative.

According to you Hitler caused damage. According to Hitler he was improving the world.

@Leo Gura I guess some delusions (those of dictators for example) are more detrimental to our species and even the whole planet (we have the recent example of the Amazonian rainforest) than other delusions.

[Inliytened1]

3 hours ago, Aimblack said:

This is what confuses me.Because that would imply that there are some moral values that are absolute,right? Because just like you mentioned even Hitler thought he was doing the morally right thing and especially Donald Trump thinks he is the best thing that ever happened to America so who gets to decide which moral precepts are necessary?

It gets paradoxical and tricky here because we are in the relative so we can't see the Absolute from the relative.  But when you are the Absolute there is no self to survive anymore.  You are already everything - infinite intelligence and infinite Love.  There is just One.  There is no one to murder or cheat or lie.  You are just pure Truth at that point.   A devil is an unconscious God that has divided itself.   So yes it's there at the highest Absolute level but not how you might think from the relative because once you have divided everything then becomes relative.  

Edited August 24, 2019 by Inliytened1

[tsuki]

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

That's the kicker! No one.

Whatever you imagine is what goes.

What about the universal drive to expand/perfect itself?
Even if creation and destruction are in equilibrium, the forms that are created out of synthesis are greater.
Shouldn't we as humans be conscious of this and strive to align ourselves with this order?

While it certainly is a choice to be made, this choice is a necessity after some point.

Edited August 24, 2019 by tsuki

[ahmad ibdah]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Awakening is not normative. You are not obligated to awaken. Awakening is not better than not awakening. 

Is not awakening  the point? Is not it the goal?

How do you resolve the paradox of everything is already Good and the pursuit of awakening.

Why would I pursue spirtuality then?

I don't know what to ask honestly , I am just confused about this point.

[Shadowraix]

3 hours ago, ahmad ibdah said:

Is not awakening  the point? Is not it the goal?

How do you resolve the paradox of everything is already Good and the pursuit of awakening.

Why would I pursue spirtuality then?

I don't know what to ask honestly , I am just confused about this point.

You pursue spirituality because you want to. That's it. Just desire. 

[Leo Gura]

6 hours ago, Aimblack said:

Where I'm stuck is that if you say that you need to follow some moral rules in order to awaken but you get to set those rules it seems to me that it directly undermines the claim that you need to be moral in order to awaken.

In other words if it is for all intents and purposes an absolute that I have to follow some moral rules but morality itself is relative then by extension whether and if I have to follow any moral rules is also relative?

I hope I'm making sense here.

Strictly speaking you do not need to follow any moral rules to awaken. Just like how you don't need to follow any rules to learn math. But if you are very wrapped up in acting from ego (being highly selfish) you will, in practice, not likely ever awake.

So all that Buddhism is telling you is: stop being a fucking devil for a bit so you have a decent chance to awaken. Stop your whoring, theiving, and hoarding. Not because it is evil, but because it interferes with meditation.

5 hours ago, Farnaby said:

@Leo Gura I guess some delusions (those of dictators for example) are more detrimental to our species and even the whole planet (we have the recent example of the Amazonian rainforest) than other delusions.

Yup

4 hours ago, tsuki said:

What about the universal drive to expand/perfect itself?
Even if creation and destruction are in equilibrium, the forms that are created out of synthesis are greater.
Shouldn't we as humans be conscious of this and strive to align ourselves with this order?

While it certainly is a choice to be made, this choice is a necessity after some point.

It would be nice, but it is not a necessity. You are free to be a devil. There are no shoulds in the universe.

4 hours ago, ahmad ibdah said:

Is not awakening  the point? Is not it the goal?

The point is Totality. This means that some will be awake and many won't. The awakened person understands that most people should not be awake.

Quote

How do you resolve the paradox of everything is already Good and the pursuit of awakening.

Why would I pursue spirtuality then?

There is no why or should. You are free to do whatever you desire.

Things are Good regardless of whether you are conscious of it or not.

Quote

I don't know what to ask honestly , I am just confused about this point.

Awakening clears up confusion.

Confusion is okay too. It is part of Totality.

[Inliytened1]

@Leo Gura indeed Good with a capital G.

That might be where @Aimblack was going.  Do you consider this a facet of Absolute Love?

[Leo Gura]

9 minutes ago, Inliytened1 said:

@Leo Gura indeed Good with a capital G.

That might be where @Aimblack was going.  Do you consider this a facet of Absolute Love?

Goodness is a facet of God/Truth/Consciousness.

[Inliytened1]

@Leo Gura yes i feel it is part of the fundamental fabric based on what i have experienced directly.  It goes hand in hand with God.

[Monkey-man]

On 25.08.2019 at 1:40 AM, Leo Gura said:

The point is Totality. This means that some will be awake and many won't. The awakened person understands that most people should not be awake.

What does that mean? what's totality and what's so wise about the idea that most ppl shouldn't be awake. i don't get that kind of wisdom honestlyy, sounds like spiritual fascism maan