Slowly studying the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā of Nagarjuna. Reading very slowly. Watching a bunch of videos around him in the hopes it provides more of a bed to place my understandings.
Some scholar names: Jay L. Garfield, David Kalupahana, and Geshe Ngawang Samten, Joseph Walser, McClintock, and Dunne.
I'm listening to Dr. Jan Westerhoff on YouTube today.
Fascinating talk about rebirth. The argument for rebirth is this. When you start a fire, and then fire burns down the neighbors field, you don't say, that wasn't my fire, my fire was over here. Another example is if I say jalapeno pepper, my mouth just waters. There was no physical cause except the physical cause of thinking of jalapeno, so it's considered that rebirth is similar to that (from Richard Hayes).
The conceptual problem of not having rebirth is that then when we all die, everyone goes to nirvana.
He goes in Nelson Goodman's constructivism. I read his Ways of Worldmaking (1978). Causality is complicated.
One person writes in the comments: "The problem is these arguments for rebirth are so complicated and speculative. Why not just accept rebirth teachings as skillful means and be done with it?"
My response is, why even comment? Why not walk away with your blissfully uncomplicated life? Would you like more people like you? Would you like to be seen as witty and wise without really putting in any work, just declining to see complications?
Westerhoff has studied philosophy in general, not just Buddhist philosophy and he brings in modern developments into the understanding of karma.
Prof. Asanga Tilakaratne on YouTube. Sound quality gets bad at 21, sorry, couldn't listen any more.
Thupten Jinpa's introduction on YouTube in a short 7 minute video.
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