Buddha & Absolutes: Hindu Thought & The View from Nowhere

I found an interesting article at the Skeptic site, called The View from Nowhere or Somewhere?  Maja Caron reviews a novel by Rebecca Goldstein, 36 Arguments for The Existence of God. ( I read her book Plato at The Googleplex, and it is a tour de force.)  In the review Caron brings up Thomas Nagel's classic work, The View from Nowhere, discussing Nagel in terms of the views of Cass Seltzer, Goldstein's protagonist.

Somewhere in her very interesting and good article Caron says this: 

"If the universe is both personal and universal, as both Seltzer and Nagel suggest, and it’s not possible for an individual to wrap his/her logical thinking process around the notion, one should neither assign mystical significance to this nothing, nor should it seek to empirically dissect it as a 'thing in itself'."

I have this to say about that.  Of course. The central tenet of many of the Upanishads, the Bhagavad-Gita, and Buddhism is that the universe is both personal and universal.  But. The difference between Hindu teachings and Buddhism--as I understand them--is that India goes metaphysical with Brahman while Buddhism does not go there with anatta, or no-self.  India took the next step. Buddha, a son of India, did not delve into metaphysics.

Both Hinduism and Buddhism argue that the universal/personal cannot be understood by mind.  But Advaita--to use an example teaching--took a leap of faith while Buddhism--in its non-dogmatic teachings--says you are that, you are both personal and universal, but it's only part of your experience and to be realized empirically.*  What lies "beyond" your experience cannot be known by the human mind and there is no point in taking a leap of faith because any statement of faith is only an assumption. *(Realized in human experience that is not claimed as metaphysical revelation and as stated in The Heart Sutra: "Form is emptiness; emptiness form.")

Buddhist teachings go on to say that the so-called awakening experience, because it is not metaphysical and only a non-conventional possibility of experience, should not be exceptioned as beatitude. It should not be regarded as special because it is only another experience.  It is liberating but not magical, not other-worldly religious, and certainly not revelation from God.  Buddhism is agnostic about any absolute.  "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him; if you meet a ghost kill the ghost," goes an old Zen koan. (Attributed to  Zen Master Linji, founder of the Rinzai sect.)  In short, don't follow mind in its old tricks about absolute/not-absolute.  The ultimate trickster is mind and its musings that keep ego involved in trying to find a "groundless ground."

Yeats said it well: "Like a long-legged fly upon the water his mind moves on silence."  With its attendant experiences the silence is as far as we can go.