When I read Hume, I am never disappointed. With a little guidance from Martha Nussbaum, today I found this passage in Hume:
"It may happen, in some countries, at some periods, that there be established a property in water, none in land; if the latter be in greater abundance than can be used by the inhabitants, and the former be found, with difficulty, and in very small quantities."
When Hume was writing this, he said that water was not an issue of justice because there was plenty of it to go around, but he could see the possibility of the future we now experience. Shifting resources cause our conceptions of justice to shift (according to circumstances). Thus, justice is always dynamic and never static.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Friday, August 14, 2009
On Lying
Anyone who has taught an introductory course in ethics has discussed the morality of lying, and most of us find that few people endorse an absolute prohibition against lying. Though we like to reject "situation ethics," we tend to say that whether one should lie "depends on the situation."
Against Kant's absolute prohibition of lying, we offer the Murderer at the Door who wants to kill our innocent children. Surely, we should lie to throw the murderer off the trail of our children and, one would hope, into the hands of the police. This kind of lie is justified because it saves or has the potential to prevent great harm, or so it seems to some of us who don't find Kant compelling.
On the other end of the spectrum, we find ourselves wanting to demand the truth even when dishonesty (or withholding the truth) appearss harmless. We have the case of police who have taken embarrassing photos of an assault victim to be used as evidence against the perpetrator but who then use the photos for the amusement of themselves and their colleagues. The victim may never be affected by this secondary use of the photos so long as the victim remains completely unaware of them. Doing such a thing seems quite wrong, though, or at least it does for me.
In relationships, we have all kinds of information that could help or hurt our partners. Should we tell them what their friends have said about them behind their backs? Should we go so far as to tell a complete lie ("No, Susan has never said an unkind word about you!)? Learning every detail of what your friends and colleagues have said about you is likely to be painful at best. I personally recommend sheltering yourself from this as much as possible. I also think it is possible to share too much information.
On the other hand, if your friends are so hateful towards you that they cannot be considered friends, you might want to know that. So, we are tempted to say we want complete honesty except when it is more painful or harmful than a lie. This leads to the problem that we do not always know what is better or worse in the end. Lies have unintended consequences, and we feel responsible for their consequences while we do not feel personally responsible for the consequences of the truth, although many people have said something along the lines of "I never should have told the truth!"
So, we are left with decisions based on the context and situation. We must choose between protecting someone's feelings and offering full disclosure. There are a number of things we can consider in our decisions. First, I think we may consider how the other person will react if the dishonesty is discovered. Many people have said that if their death is imminent, they would want their friends and family to lie to them.
We can also consider our own motivation for the lie. Are we lying to protect others or to protect ourselves from taking responsibility for our own actions? When we are only trying to cover our own footprints to avoid having to confront truths about ourselves or our actions, I think the lie is most likely not justified.
Finally, as much as consequences cannot be predicted, we really must think of what outcome we are trying to achieve. In many ways, this last consideration echoes the first two, but it deserves a little focus on its own. We must think of what good the lie may produce if it is believed and what pain it may produce if it is exposed. I suppose we must also attempt to evaluate what pain may result if a lie is believed. (E.g., what is the harm in telling people they will live 10 years when you know they have only a few hours left?)
Against Kant's absolute prohibition of lying, we offer the Murderer at the Door who wants to kill our innocent children. Surely, we should lie to throw the murderer off the trail of our children and, one would hope, into the hands of the police. This kind of lie is justified because it saves or has the potential to prevent great harm, or so it seems to some of us who don't find Kant compelling.
On the other end of the spectrum, we find ourselves wanting to demand the truth even when dishonesty (or withholding the truth) appearss harmless. We have the case of police who have taken embarrassing photos of an assault victim to be used as evidence against the perpetrator but who then use the photos for the amusement of themselves and their colleagues. The victim may never be affected by this secondary use of the photos so long as the victim remains completely unaware of them. Doing such a thing seems quite wrong, though, or at least it does for me.
In relationships, we have all kinds of information that could help or hurt our partners. Should we tell them what their friends have said about them behind their backs? Should we go so far as to tell a complete lie ("No, Susan has never said an unkind word about you!)? Learning every detail of what your friends and colleagues have said about you is likely to be painful at best. I personally recommend sheltering yourself from this as much as possible. I also think it is possible to share too much information.
On the other hand, if your friends are so hateful towards you that they cannot be considered friends, you might want to know that. So, we are tempted to say we want complete honesty except when it is more painful or harmful than a lie. This leads to the problem that we do not always know what is better or worse in the end. Lies have unintended consequences, and we feel responsible for their consequences while we do not feel personally responsible for the consequences of the truth, although many people have said something along the lines of "I never should have told the truth!"
So, we are left with decisions based on the context and situation. We must choose between protecting someone's feelings and offering full disclosure. There are a number of things we can consider in our decisions. First, I think we may consider how the other person will react if the dishonesty is discovered. Many people have said that if their death is imminent, they would want their friends and family to lie to them.
We can also consider our own motivation for the lie. Are we lying to protect others or to protect ourselves from taking responsibility for our own actions? When we are only trying to cover our own footprints to avoid having to confront truths about ourselves or our actions, I think the lie is most likely not justified.
Finally, as much as consequences cannot be predicted, we really must think of what outcome we are trying to achieve. In many ways, this last consideration echoes the first two, but it deserves a little focus on its own. We must think of what good the lie may produce if it is believed and what pain it may produce if it is exposed. I suppose we must also attempt to evaluate what pain may result if a lie is believed. (E.g., what is the harm in telling people they will live 10 years when you know they have only a few hours left?)
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
How happy should you be?
I've never considered myself a strict Utilitarian in the narrowest sense of the term, but I always believed that suffering is generally a bad thing and that relieving suffering when possible is morally laudable. I still believe this for the most part, but lately I see myself in a dilemma of sorts. I have rejected all arguments for the necessity of suffering offered by theodicists, for I do not find belief in God to be more plausible based on the idea that suffering is the product of love and mercy from a being who only wants to motivate spiritual development and love for the good in people. I would be more able to imagine a merciful God who neglected to create life at all out of concern that life would entail suffering.
Given the fact that life with its attendant suffering is here (and unnecessary, in my opinion), I find myself agreeing that suffering does seem to be an essential element in developing any sort of moral worth. When I've met people, usually quite young, who have never faced financial difficulty, disease, or loss of a loved one, I generally find these people to be underdeveloped. They also seem unaware of the basic truths of life. The lack of suffering in their own lives makes them indifferent to the suffering of others. While most people believe we can't take all the problems of the world on our shoulders, we also believe it is wrong to be "too happy" in the face of pain and suffering, but it is our own suffering that brings meaning to our experience of the suffering of others. We can never know the pain of others, but our own pain can make us care about what others may be experiencing. I realize some people experience pain and remain stubbornly egocentric, but I believe those who never experience any pain are likely to be incapable of placing any value on the pain of others. At least, they are unable to develop a fully empathic individuals.
All of this is said really to argue against the idea that we should be as cheerful as possible at all times. An old movie asked what is so bad about feeling good at a time when gloominess was trendy. Now, especially in the U.S., we have banished sadness, even when sadness is appropriate. We rush to the pharmacist when we experience the loss of a loved one, the breakup of a relationship, or even more minor life changes. We are attempting to deny the experiences that make us human.
My feeling on this surprises me. When I was much younger, I read many of the existentialist philosophers. I knew then that the brute force of one's own existence could lead only to anxiety and, in the words of Sartre and others, anguish. I remember now that Heidegger would have us find an authentic existence by contemplating our own death, an experience that pushes the superficial features of life out of our consciousness. Camus would have us constantly justify our existence by defending our choice to not commit suicide every day. For Sartre, the happy people could not be said to even exist in any meaningful sense--just automata going through the motions of life.
When I think of what it means to love or care about someone, I can't imagine this emotion without pain. (I must add that I wish I could write this without hearing the strains of "Love Hurts," but so be it.) We love our parents, our children, and, of course, our lovers, and each relationship is laced with deep pain, fear, worry, and uncertainty. The joy we get from these relationships can't possibly outweigh the pain, but we find it worth the effort. Perhaps the pain intensifies the joy. It may be that the more pain we feel, the more we love. The more we love, the more we care for others. The more we care for others, the less pain we hope they will feel.
I've led myself to a paradox I cannot resolve. And I feel vaguely peaceful about it.
Given the fact that life with its attendant suffering is here (and unnecessary, in my opinion), I find myself agreeing that suffering does seem to be an essential element in developing any sort of moral worth. When I've met people, usually quite young, who have never faced financial difficulty, disease, or loss of a loved one, I generally find these people to be underdeveloped. They also seem unaware of the basic truths of life. The lack of suffering in their own lives makes them indifferent to the suffering of others. While most people believe we can't take all the problems of the world on our shoulders, we also believe it is wrong to be "too happy" in the face of pain and suffering, but it is our own suffering that brings meaning to our experience of the suffering of others. We can never know the pain of others, but our own pain can make us care about what others may be experiencing. I realize some people experience pain and remain stubbornly egocentric, but I believe those who never experience any pain are likely to be incapable of placing any value on the pain of others. At least, they are unable to develop a fully empathic individuals.
All of this is said really to argue against the idea that we should be as cheerful as possible at all times. An old movie asked what is so bad about feeling good at a time when gloominess was trendy. Now, especially in the U.S., we have banished sadness, even when sadness is appropriate. We rush to the pharmacist when we experience the loss of a loved one, the breakup of a relationship, or even more minor life changes. We are attempting to deny the experiences that make us human.
My feeling on this surprises me. When I was much younger, I read many of the existentialist philosophers. I knew then that the brute force of one's own existence could lead only to anxiety and, in the words of Sartre and others, anguish. I remember now that Heidegger would have us find an authentic existence by contemplating our own death, an experience that pushes the superficial features of life out of our consciousness. Camus would have us constantly justify our existence by defending our choice to not commit suicide every day. For Sartre, the happy people could not be said to even exist in any meaningful sense--just automata going through the motions of life.
When I think of what it means to love or care about someone, I can't imagine this emotion without pain. (I must add that I wish I could write this without hearing the strains of "Love Hurts," but so be it.) We love our parents, our children, and, of course, our lovers, and each relationship is laced with deep pain, fear, worry, and uncertainty. The joy we get from these relationships can't possibly outweigh the pain, but we find it worth the effort. Perhaps the pain intensifies the joy. It may be that the more pain we feel, the more we love. The more we love, the more we care for others. The more we care for others, the less pain we hope they will feel.
I've led myself to a paradox I cannot resolve. And I feel vaguely peaceful about it.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Some basic ideas regarding knowledge
This is information for students and may be less than entertaining, provocative or illuminating for others. The following are some ideas related to knowledge and how philosophers regard knowledge:
Realism--This is a belief that there is a "real world" outside of our minds that has features corresponding to certain facts that are not dependent on our language, thoughts, beliefs, perceptions, or prejudices.
Anti-Realism--While it may seem that this would claim there is no such world as described by the realist, the anti-realist claims that whatever world exists outside of our language, thoughts, beliefs, perceptions, or prejudices, whether it exists or not, cannot be known.
Verificationism--Some feel that we should attempt to improve our knowledge by verifying what is true and what is not true. Verificationism typically involves testing our knowledge against our experience through observation, mathematical analysis, or, in some cases, our emotional responses to things (this last one is quite controversial and will be discussed later if I get around to it). While the attempt to verify knowledge seems an attempt to discover the "real world," one may claim that any form of verificationism is a form of anti-realism, given that verification relies on our perceptions, observations, language, and beliefs to be practiced.
Relativism--Relativists believe that our beliefs and knowledge claims are formed by our individual or cultural experiences and that there is no unifying conception of reality shared by all humans. In its crudest form, relativism claims that no claim to knowledge is superior to another. If someone from one culture believes that disease is caused by angry gods and someone from another culture claims disease is caused by viruses and bacteria, then it is a kind of arrogance, or worse, cultural imperialism to claim that one view is better than another. A more nuanced view would claim that cultural perceptions form our descriptions of things and those descriptions form our thoughts, given that thoughts are expressed through language.
Skepticism--Skepticism is a view that it is impossible to know what is real or not real outside of our own minds. Skepticism manifests itself in a variety of ways. The skeptic may approach life with a great deal of humility, recognizing that claims to truth are ephemeral and fleeting. The skeptic may be committed to verifying truth claims with the understanding that any truth claim may be modified. Or, the skeptic may decided to focus on the only thing any individual can truly claim to know, the contents of one's own experience. This last approach leads directly to something called phenomenology, which is not the subject of this blog.
As for myself, I attempt to approach life from a standpoint of skeptical humility. I think that beliefs should be based on the best available evidence, but I also believe that modifications to such beliefs are always possible and, indeed, necessary. With hard work and attention, we can improve our lives by discovering beliefs that enhance our lived experience rather than impeding it.
Realism--This is a belief that there is a "real world" outside of our minds that has features corresponding to certain facts that are not dependent on our language, thoughts, beliefs, perceptions, or prejudices.
Anti-Realism--While it may seem that this would claim there is no such world as described by the realist, the anti-realist claims that whatever world exists outside of our language, thoughts, beliefs, perceptions, or prejudices, whether it exists or not, cannot be known.
Verificationism--Some feel that we should attempt to improve our knowledge by verifying what is true and what is not true. Verificationism typically involves testing our knowledge against our experience through observation, mathematical analysis, or, in some cases, our emotional responses to things (this last one is quite controversial and will be discussed later if I get around to it). While the attempt to verify knowledge seems an attempt to discover the "real world," one may claim that any form of verificationism is a form of anti-realism, given that verification relies on our perceptions, observations, language, and beliefs to be practiced.
Relativism--Relativists believe that our beliefs and knowledge claims are formed by our individual or cultural experiences and that there is no unifying conception of reality shared by all humans. In its crudest form, relativism claims that no claim to knowledge is superior to another. If someone from one culture believes that disease is caused by angry gods and someone from another culture claims disease is caused by viruses and bacteria, then it is a kind of arrogance, or worse, cultural imperialism to claim that one view is better than another. A more nuanced view would claim that cultural perceptions form our descriptions of things and those descriptions form our thoughts, given that thoughts are expressed through language.
Skepticism--Skepticism is a view that it is impossible to know what is real or not real outside of our own minds. Skepticism manifests itself in a variety of ways. The skeptic may approach life with a great deal of humility, recognizing that claims to truth are ephemeral and fleeting. The skeptic may be committed to verifying truth claims with the understanding that any truth claim may be modified. Or, the skeptic may decided to focus on the only thing any individual can truly claim to know, the contents of one's own experience. This last approach leads directly to something called phenomenology, which is not the subject of this blog.
As for myself, I attempt to approach life from a standpoint of skeptical humility. I think that beliefs should be based on the best available evidence, but I also believe that modifications to such beliefs are always possible and, indeed, necessary. With hard work and attention, we can improve our lives by discovering beliefs that enhance our lived experience rather than impeding it.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Postmodern Premortem
I’m here to announce the death of postmodernism. I’m slightly ambivalent about this as I’m not sure postmodernism is something that ever had any life in it in the first place. I’ve tried to get a handle on a good definition of postmodernism, and I think the best I can come up with is that postmoderns reject the enlightenment project of searching for absolute truth. This project is alleged to have begun, I think, with Descartes and carried on by people such as Spinoza, Leibniz, Galileo, and Newton. According to postmoderns, this project was a failure, as we all know that calculus, gravity, and Newtonian physics all turned out to just be socially constructed features of a peculiar language game (please don’t saddle Wittgenstein with the inanity of his followers).
We also know that no one before Descartes sought or claimed to have absolute Truth. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Anselm, and Aquinas were just playing language games and posing riddles. And when Socrates and the others were on their quest for Truth (or not), a few other people were saying things along the lines of “man is the measure of all things” and “truth” is determined by your culture, but the “Pomos” are sure it all started with Descartes. And after Descartes, of course, no one questioned the reliability of sense data to determine truth (Hume who?).
But Modernism, that evil quest for verified truth, has oppressed everyone but dead, white, European men, or so we still hear (I really thought these things had been resolved). Back in the 1980s, Dale Spender wrote, “Multiple reality is a necessary condition for the acceptance of the experience of all individuals as equally valuable and viable. Only within a multidimensional framework is it possible for the analysis and explanation of everyone to avoid the pitfalls of being rejected, of being classified as wrong.” As nothing can be verified, this is a great theory for liars. We must all recognize the “truth” of anyone who disagrees with our position. The use of logic, reason, and observation only serve as forms of tyranny over those whose voices have been suppressed and whose experiences have been diminished.
Also in the 1980s, feminist Jean Grimshaw rejected the postmodern idea of unverifiable realities. She wrote, “The fact that one group has power over another cannot be reduced to anyone’s belief that this is so; nor does the fact that someone does not understand their own experience in terms of oppression or exploitation necessarily mean that they were not oppressed or exploited.” She rejected the idea that one reality cannot be judged better than another. A reality that identifies and eliminates oppression is better than a reality that enables oppression. The irony is that postmoderns claim to be trying to eliminate oppression, but how can you eliminate anything bad when you deny any value judgments related to ultimate “truth” or to dissenting voices?
Postmoderns sometimes quote Richard Rorty as if he is on the same team. This is because he is a pragmatist who rejects ultimate truth (much as Hume did in the 18th century). In 1999, Rorty said, “We have learned the futility of trying to assign all cultures and persons places on a hierarchical scale, but this realization does not impugn the obvious fact that there are lots of cultures we would be better off without, just as there are lots of people we would be better off without. To say that there is no such scale, and that we are simply clever animals trying to increase our happiness by continually trying to reinvent ourselves, has no relativistic consequences.”
The point for me, and that is the most important consideration for me, is that we can be tolerant and listen to marginalized voices without claiming there is no way to judge one opinion or observation as being better than another. We can recognize that no particular group or individual has a key to absolute knowledge without succumbing to the paralyzing belief that there is no truth and no way to improve our working in the world. Reason and observation have had their success and failures. Irrationality and lack of judgment cannot make the same claim (with regard to success). Finding the truths that work best for us takes effort and judgment and a little rationality. Some things and some beliefs are just better. What makes them better? They reduce misery.
We also know that no one before Descartes sought or claimed to have absolute Truth. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Anselm, and Aquinas were just playing language games and posing riddles. And when Socrates and the others were on their quest for Truth (or not), a few other people were saying things along the lines of “man is the measure of all things” and “truth” is determined by your culture, but the “Pomos” are sure it all started with Descartes. And after Descartes, of course, no one questioned the reliability of sense data to determine truth (Hume who?).
But Modernism, that evil quest for verified truth, has oppressed everyone but dead, white, European men, or so we still hear (I really thought these things had been resolved). Back in the 1980s, Dale Spender wrote, “Multiple reality is a necessary condition for the acceptance of the experience of all individuals as equally valuable and viable. Only within a multidimensional framework is it possible for the analysis and explanation of everyone to avoid the pitfalls of being rejected, of being classified as wrong.” As nothing can be verified, this is a great theory for liars. We must all recognize the “truth” of anyone who disagrees with our position. The use of logic, reason, and observation only serve as forms of tyranny over those whose voices have been suppressed and whose experiences have been diminished.
Also in the 1980s, feminist Jean Grimshaw rejected the postmodern idea of unverifiable realities. She wrote, “The fact that one group has power over another cannot be reduced to anyone’s belief that this is so; nor does the fact that someone does not understand their own experience in terms of oppression or exploitation necessarily mean that they were not oppressed or exploited.” She rejected the idea that one reality cannot be judged better than another. A reality that identifies and eliminates oppression is better than a reality that enables oppression. The irony is that postmoderns claim to be trying to eliminate oppression, but how can you eliminate anything bad when you deny any value judgments related to ultimate “truth” or to dissenting voices?
Postmoderns sometimes quote Richard Rorty as if he is on the same team. This is because he is a pragmatist who rejects ultimate truth (much as Hume did in the 18th century). In 1999, Rorty said, “We have learned the futility of trying to assign all cultures and persons places on a hierarchical scale, but this realization does not impugn the obvious fact that there are lots of cultures we would be better off without, just as there are lots of people we would be better off without. To say that there is no such scale, and that we are simply clever animals trying to increase our happiness by continually trying to reinvent ourselves, has no relativistic consequences.”
The point for me, and that is the most important consideration for me, is that we can be tolerant and listen to marginalized voices without claiming there is no way to judge one opinion or observation as being better than another. We can recognize that no particular group or individual has a key to absolute knowledge without succumbing to the paralyzing belief that there is no truth and no way to improve our working in the world. Reason and observation have had their success and failures. Irrationality and lack of judgment cannot make the same claim (with regard to success). Finding the truths that work best for us takes effort and judgment and a little rationality. Some things and some beliefs are just better. What makes them better? They reduce misery.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Commodifying Mindfulness
I attended a presentation last week on the use of mindfulness in marriage and family therapy. I don't know a lot about Buddhism and would never claim to be an expert. What I do know of Siddhartha Gautama leads me to view his writings as moral writings. In other words, I do not see them as a guide to the good life but as a guide to how to be good. I may have missed the point here, and I'm glad to be corrected, if anyone reads his words differently. I also realize there is room for interpretation. Nonetheless, I don't think his goal was to teach people to have a more pleasurable existence or to achieve greater success in business. I also wonder as to whether he intended to help people improve their marriages, considering that he abandoned his wife and son when he left for his journey to confront suffering in the world.
The presenter I saw began by mentioning Siddhartha. He said, correctly, that there were four noble truths, but he did not mention what the first three were (they have to do with life as suffering or sorrow, the causes of sorrow, and the extinction of sorrow). The fourth truth is Siddhartha's dharma, or teaching of "the way." The word "dharma" is not specific to Gautama. Anyway, Buddha suggests we can achieve enlightenment by following an eightfold path. The presenter I saw mentioned only the seventh fork on the eightfold path, which is mindfulness.
By doing this, he ignored all the negative precepts of Buddha's teaching. He left out the stuff about avoiding sexual misconduct (interpret how you will), lying, gossiping, killing animals (vegetarianism seems recommended), and a number of other things. Now, Buddhism, as I understand it, has no commandments, so no one is obligated to be a celibate vegetarian who never speaks, but these are suggestions as to how one might find enlightenment, the goal of which is extinction of individual consciousness. Once we are freed from the cycle of samsara, we will pass into a state of universal awareness, which negates the awareness of any individual.
Given that Buddhism does not recognize the existence of individuals and views all sorrow as universal sorrow, it seems unlikely that Gautama intended to help people achieve individual fulfillment. Indeed, when we take action to relieve suffering, the good of the action is not the good of an individual but the good of the universe. Similarly, the suffering of an individual is only (!) the suffering of the universe. To be freed from this suffering, we must no longer think of the individual, we must not think of our selves. So long as we do, life, which is sorrow itself, will continue.
A universe without suffering is a universe without life in it, least of all life that is conscious and driven by individual needs and desires. In Buddha's scheme, mindfulness is one tool to help achieve this ego-less state. It is a moral guideline. It is not a way to focus on our goals and what is keeping us from them. It is not a way to relax. It is not a way to be happier. It is a way to be good and right. While I am not a Buddhist and will most likely never become one, I still respect the efforts of people to be better people. Buddha abandoned his family and friends to try to save the universe. Maybe he made the right choice, and maybe he did not, but I feel using mindfulness in a superficial manner is disrespectful of the effort. Using Buddha's teaching to make money is even more offensive to me, but I suppose I'm easily offended.
The presenter I saw began by mentioning Siddhartha. He said, correctly, that there were four noble truths, but he did not mention what the first three were (they have to do with life as suffering or sorrow, the causes of sorrow, and the extinction of sorrow). The fourth truth is Siddhartha's dharma, or teaching of "the way." The word "dharma" is not specific to Gautama. Anyway, Buddha suggests we can achieve enlightenment by following an eightfold path. The presenter I saw mentioned only the seventh fork on the eightfold path, which is mindfulness.
By doing this, he ignored all the negative precepts of Buddha's teaching. He left out the stuff about avoiding sexual misconduct (interpret how you will), lying, gossiping, killing animals (vegetarianism seems recommended), and a number of other things. Now, Buddhism, as I understand it, has no commandments, so no one is obligated to be a celibate vegetarian who never speaks, but these are suggestions as to how one might find enlightenment, the goal of which is extinction of individual consciousness. Once we are freed from the cycle of samsara, we will pass into a state of universal awareness, which negates the awareness of any individual.
Given that Buddhism does not recognize the existence of individuals and views all sorrow as universal sorrow, it seems unlikely that Gautama intended to help people achieve individual fulfillment. Indeed, when we take action to relieve suffering, the good of the action is not the good of an individual but the good of the universe. Similarly, the suffering of an individual is only (!) the suffering of the universe. To be freed from this suffering, we must no longer think of the individual, we must not think of our selves. So long as we do, life, which is sorrow itself, will continue.
A universe without suffering is a universe without life in it, least of all life that is conscious and driven by individual needs and desires. In Buddha's scheme, mindfulness is one tool to help achieve this ego-less state. It is a moral guideline. It is not a way to focus on our goals and what is keeping us from them. It is not a way to relax. It is not a way to be happier. It is a way to be good and right. While I am not a Buddhist and will most likely never become one, I still respect the efforts of people to be better people. Buddha abandoned his family and friends to try to save the universe. Maybe he made the right choice, and maybe he did not, but I feel using mindfulness in a superficial manner is disrespectful of the effort. Using Buddha's teaching to make money is even more offensive to me, but I suppose I'm easily offended.
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