Nihilism is the absence of basis for values and meaning: life is empty and meaningless, and there's nothing you can do about it. "Might as well party and look after #1" is the typical solution.
Existentialism is "there's no objective basis for meaning, each person carves out meaning by taking responsibility for their own life and the meaning thereof".
You didn't ask, but we continue...:
Buddhism is often mistakenly classified as nihilistic or existentialist. Buddhist philosophy deconstructs a variety of common bases for values and meaning. For example, Buddhism teaches that our belief in absolute right and wrong is rooted in the discriminating ability of the mind, not handed down from God or hard-wired into the fabric of the universe somehow.
Yet at the same time, Buddhism is a highly ethical program. So what is the basis for it's ethical orientation? In order to understand that, one has to actually leave the domain of philosophy, because philosophy can't contain the answer adequately.
In the course of Buddhist practice, students develop their ability to grasp "emptiness", which simply stated means "things are devoid of entityness or self". For example, consider a coffee cup. Normally we think of it as a unit of existence -- a "thing". If we start drilling holes in it, and ask "what is it now?" after 3 holes have been drilled, most people would say "well, it's still a coffee cup... but maybe not a very good one".
If we keep on drilling, eventually we'll have a pile of ceramic dust -- obviously NOT a coffee cup anymore. So where did it's "coffee-cupness" go? At what point did it cease to be a coffee cup? Logically, if it was a coffee cup at the start of the drilling, and was NOT a coffee cup at the end, then there must have been some moment when it stopped being a coffee cup, yes?
But if we play back the film one frame at a time, all we see is the gradual production of a pile of dust from the cup, there's no sharp transition where it's "coffee-cupness" rises up like spirit into the sky. It never gives up the ghost.
This is an example which illustrates the principle of "emptiness". The resolution of the riddle is to realize that there never was an ABSOLUTE coffee cup in the first place -- tha t noun is a convention of thought and language, not a characteristic inherent in the thing itself. Another way of saying this is "the coffee cup is not an entity... it has no being of it's own, independent of the form, purpose, and characteristics attributed to it by thought". So there was no "soul of the cup" to account for in the drilling operation.
The same thing applies to humans: there's no "entity of self" inside the aggregation of body, brain, thoughts, feelings, consciousness, memory, personality, etc. -- no separate and absolute entity which can be called "myself", except in a crude conventional way for utilitarian purposes. Yet we BELIEVE in a self. In Buddhism, this belief is called "ignorance" -- we believe it because we don't study our experience closely enough to see that it isn't true: we IGNORE our experience and cling to our CONCEPT of self.
So far, this is very philosophical. But in Buddhist practice, which emphasizes meditation and reflection, it stops being philosophical and becomes very personal, immediate, and disruptive. The student doesn't just absorb a bunch of ideas about emptiness of self, s/he comes to SEE deeply into the constructed nature of his or her OWN sense of self -- deeply enough to experience it becoming transparent, as if being penetrated by X-rays.
When that happens, another kind of "self" becomes visible: a self which was obscured by the apparent solidity of the conventional concept of self. This other kind of self is sometimes called "true self", or "original nature", or "Buddha nature". It's an absolute presence, a non-personal experience of being deeply grounded in Being itself. This presence manifests as a capacity for unconditional love, freedom, satisfaction, and joy... a limitless fountain of human value.
This kind of self is intimately and immediately rooted in a sense of connectedness with all of life. This isn't a philosophical or intellectual idea, it's a profound shift in the way the immediate moment is experienced. A person who is "tapped in" to this connectedness becomes a sort of "conduit" through which the Absolute expresses itself into life, and that expression includes a very natural concern for ethical action and moral values which does not require any philosophical or doctrinal concept-structure for it's supporting undercarriage.
This Absolute Being is prior to concept -- adding a bunch of concepts to it would be gilding the lily and misleading. A person who SEES the interconnectedness of all life doesn't go on the lecture circuit to explain his or her philosophy, they express this seeing in action, in daily life.
So definitely not nihilistic or existentialist.
Comments
sounds like we read the same books!
by LynfromNM on January 17th, 2007
Well I produced 3 paragraphs. You only did 2. But you're using more big words, and more total words. And you threw in the bit about 19th century Russia, which was a nice touch. On the other hand, I have a better avatar. Mine moves.
by Stableboy on January 17th, 2007
so does mine, the clouds DO move. And one of your paragraphs does not technically qualify as a paragraph anyway. Or even a sentence.
by LynfromNM on January 17th, 2007
Not only that, but my first paragraph responds to a question which was edited to make my response look irrelevant. I would be bothered with this if my ego were smaller than a blimp hangar. Instead, I might just launch into a whole treatise on the relationship between nihilism, existentialism, and the Buddhist principle of emptiness. Or maybe not... I mean, for 5 points? I gots a family to feed.
by Stableboy on January 17th, 2007
Oh I hadn't noticed the edit. Too funny!! They keep blimps in hangars? I am in favor of the treatise on emptiness, especially since I am inexplicably hungry.
by LynfromNM on January 17th, 2007
Blimps stay in hangars. Think "really really big wind -- bad". I do feel *slightly* obliged to expand my answer, since you handed out +5 and I could only hand out +3. But we haven't heard from NicoSuave... shouldn't I hang out backstage waiting to hear for the encore bait before storming out graciously to romp through my one big radio hit?
by Stableboy on January 17th, 2007
get stabledog to sign in and give me a deuce? Kidding of course, I know he doesn't wag his tail for just any old answer. Go ahead and, uh, expand your emptiness.
by LynfromNM on January 17th, 2007
Done.
by Stableboy on January 17th, 2007
that's a great job of illustrating the distinctions. please do not, however, drill any holes in my coffee cup!
by LynfromNM on January 18th, 2007
gosh, I'm impressed-thanks for taking such time. It sounds like this topic is rather dear to you, stabledog. It's interesting that you went on to bring in Buddhism; it - and its relationship to ethics -is something that's maintained my interest, though not always attention, for a while now. You write very clearly about concepts that are easily made unclear. One question: I have a sense of non-self-ness (I have an intellectual, and sometimes actual, sense of it I think.) Thanks for clarifying that. So - You write:"...and that expression includes a very natural concern for ethical action and moral values which does not require any philosophical or doctrinal concept-structure for it's supporting undercarriage." But I'm not sure how this is different, exactly from being "hard-wired into the fabric of the universe somehow." Granted, I haven't achieved Englightenment either (or, rather, I haven't recognized the achievement). But perhaps there is a way to understand it, a little, beforehand?
by NicoSuave on January 19th, 2007
NicoSuave: saying "not wired in to the fabric of the universe" is a challenge to notions of mystical forces of good an evil. It does not support some sort of pure good or evil that floats disembodied or is emitted by spiritual beings like God or the Devil. All I'm saying is that a mind which isn't entangled in confusion sees the Whole, and it's actions arise from that seeing. These actions naturally express and honor the interrelatedness between self and others, so things like killing and stealing don't even arise as topics of interest. The selfishness which gives rise to evil actions has it's root in a mind that's confused and ignorant. So the basis for good and evil is right here in my own chair, not floating out in the ether somewhere.
by Stableboy on January 22nd, 2007
Did he call you "stable dog"?
by BAM@Cyberscrewed.tk on January 25th, 2007
It was probably a Freudian slip! There is a "Stabledog", whom I do have some vague resemblance to: http://www.answerbag.com/profile?id=101179
by Stableboy on January 26th, 2007
Aha.
by BAM@Cyberscrewed.tk on January 26th, 2007
This is good stuff. Initially I thought, uh..it looks a bit heavy, but once I got into it it's incredibly interesting. So to anyone reading the comments before then answer, go for it!
by Carmella on February 3rd, 2007
Who reads the comments before the answer, Candy?
by Stableboy on February 3rd, 2007
Admittedly, people tend not to. But when answers are super long and complicated looking, there's a tendency to look at comments before the answer. Well that's what I do/did anyway. Sometimes the comments can help me decide if it's worth firing my brain up to comprehend and think about/absorb stuff.
by Carmella on February 3rd, 2007