Introduction to Eastern Philosophy

1
Introduction to Eastern Philosophy
2
Asking the Right Questions

• Philosophy is so interesting precisely because it
  is not about the right answers, but about the
  right questions.

3
The Love of Wisdom

• Philosophy literally means the love of wisdom.
  I define wisdom as knowledge that is
  transformational, the original meaning of the
  Greek word gnosis.

4
The Great Questions

• You study philosophy so that you can explore some
  of the great questions of life. Perhaps the first
  philosophical question is to ask yourself why
  there is anything at all? Instead of nothing, why
  is there something called a universe, a cosmos?

5
More Questions

• Next, you might ask What does it mean to be a
  human being, to have life? Do we serve any
  purpose in this great scheme of things? Is there
  any meaning to life?

6
Socrates

• Socrates said that the unexamined life is not
  worth living. What does it mean to live an
  examined life?

7
Twoness in Nature

• When we can see and accept the twoness in nature,
  then rather than duality, we can have polarity.

8
The Indestructible Question

• When philosophy becomes the search for meaning,
  it is facilitating the indestructible question.

9
A Worldview

• Wise people from around the world state that it
  is necessary to have a philosophy of life, a
  worldview. In fact, we already have one and it
  dictates how we live and the choices we make. The
  study of philosophy is to help encourage us to
  make this philosophy conscious.

10
A World in Crisis

• Any college educated person needs to be aware of
  the issues facing our world and our country. And
  to face this crisis students need an integral
  wisdom, a wisdom that is universal and inclusive.
  Hopefully this class will be one step in the
  right direction.

11
Pure Awareness

• Just pure awareness is pure openness.

12
What the Oracle Said

• The oracle in ancient Greece at Delphi said
  Know thyself!

13
Movement Outward and Movement Inward

• Amazingly enough, there can be a movement outward
  and a movement inward, both at the same time.

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The Path of PhilosophyKyoto, Japan

• The sacred is that which allows us to bear these
  two movements within us.

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Soren Kierkegaard1813-1855

• The Danish philosopher Kierkegaard wrote life
  was not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to
  be lived.

16
Seek Wisdom

• Philosophy asks us to seek wisdom right there in
  the midst of the contradiction of all our fears
  and yearnings.

17
Religion or Philosophy?

• Religion and philosophy have been separated in
  the Western world, but they are more united in
  the Eastern world.

18
Both the Yin and the Yang

• A great symbol of this reconciling force is the
  Tao, which contains both the yin and the yang
  together at once. Could this be sacred?

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Integral Philosophy

• An integral approach understands the necessity of
  combining East and West in ones view of the
  world. We live in what is called the global
  economy, a global village. We have access for the
  first time to the wisdom of the whole world.

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The Need for Critical Thinking

• Openness is necessary, but so is a critical mind.
  You want to open your mind, but not so far that
  your brains fall out! A critical mind is not a
  mind that needs to judge and ridicule, but it is
  a mind that ask questions and looks for fallacies.

21
The Axial Age

• What is this Axial Age? It is a virtual
  explosion of mental and cultural consciousness,
  infinitely richer and more sophisticated than any
  of its predecessors.

22
The Sacred

• All people who are originally interested in
  religious and philosophical thought are concerned
  with the nature of ultimate reality. But they
  call it by different names such as Brahman, Tao,
  Ground of Being, the Ultimate, the Holy. In the
  Western world we most often use the word God.

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God

• When the word God is used to define ultimate
  reality it often has a personal taste to it. That
  is God is seen as a Cosmic Person-a divine being
  with will and intelligence who is just and
  compassionate and infinite in virtues. Some
  eastern philosophy considers God personal and
  some impersonal.

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The Impersonal God

• The impersonal God is the recognition that God is
  beyond all ordinary definition. The infinite
  cannot be understood by the finite mind. God is
  said to be pure spirit, not definable in words.

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An Integral Approach

• An integral approach will embrace it all and seek
  to understand it as a vast and amazing drama, a
  mystery drama, the mystery of mysteries.

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Something Else is Going On

• The other broad answeris that something else is
  going on behind the happenstance drama is a
  deeper or higher or wider pattern, or order, or
  intelligence.

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A Different Question

• Who created the world is a different question
  than How did the world begin?

28
Lack of Understanding

• If you dont understand the immune system, then
  how do you explain why some people get sick and
  some do not during an epidemic?

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No Turning Back

• Once people started to look for laws that even
  the gods had to obey, there was no turning back,
  try as so many would.

30
A Belief

• Philosophy begins with a belief that the world is
  intelligible.

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Origins of Philosophy

• The story of philosophy is the story of human
  reflection on life. The two principal sources of
  philosophy are curiosity about self and the world
  and a desire to overcome all kinds of suffering
  (John Koller).

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Ultimate Questions

• Ultimate, universal questions were being asked,
  and answers were being sought from a new quarter
  - the human minds critical analysis of material
  phenomena.

33
Natural Elements

• The significant thing was that it was no longer
  the gods that were being spoken of but natural
  elements.

34
An Intelligible Whole

• The early philosophers held that the universe is
  an intelligible whole. In other words, they
  presumed that a single order underlies the chaos
  of our perceptions and, furthermore, that we are
  able to comprehend that order.