05.23.11
Self, representation, and thing in itself
Schopenhauer and the caveman buddhas
The comments today (to be discussed) cite the Buddhist anatta vs reincarnation question.
It is interesting that modern ideologies, via Kant, then Schopenhauer, stumbled on the basic issue and, perhaps without solving it, produced a renewed vision that might lead to an understanding of the ancient Buddhist/Upanishadic doctrines on self/no-self/reincarnation.
The problem with reincarnation is simple: people are forced to recound at second-hand the claims by the few who know. The result is often confusion.
The contribution of Kant, then Schopenhauer, is to suggest that the mind and its categories stand before the perception of space and time. That’s a big and controversial step, but it explains at once the confusions of self and reincarnation. The ‘something’ beyond space time is never born and never dies, because that is all in space time. That ‘something’ or ‘somewho’ is not the experiencing self, but its root, and as the Tibetan Book of the Dead makes dreadfully clear, you don’t die, but you may as well be dead in the bardo state, because the experiencing self is left mostly in space time. That’s too simple, who knows, but the opportunity to know the deeper mind before the self is a great chance for those embark on the path, etc, etc,…
Check the archives by typing ‘Schopenhauer on death’ in the search box and the posts on this will come up.
The problem here is that something beyond space/time doesn’t compute in our understanding, so we are rudderless here, but probably with the key to understanding the confusions inevtably arising here.