Originally posted by Canute
Sir Mojo
I note Spookz's extracts repeat what I've been saying.
Of course you do. You have a goal of proving that Spinoza is incompatible with Buddhism. Your goal is not to understand what I could be talking about, but only to prove it wrong. Otherwise you would have listened to my response to the extracts of the materialist interpretation of Spinoza.
Spinoza is notoriously difficult to read and understand. I already mentioned that virtually every interpretation you read of him is flawed. This interpretation is another example.
Spookz found a materialist interpretation, which is quite common, and presented it to us. I demonstrated how this interpretation was flawed wrt Buddhism. You seem to have completely ignored my comments and singlemindedly focused on the flawed interpretation as if it were the only possible one. Do you need to be proven right so badly that you will ignore other possibilities?
The only way to study Spinoza properly then is to actually read him.
It is fascinating to see you close off all possibilities of a possible resonance between Spinozism and Buddhism and to focus only on illusory distinctions. There is no doubt that you can find a way to interpret Spinoza so as not to resonate with Buddhism. That is easy, just read any interpretation of him at random and chances are you will find an incorrect one IMHO. What is more difficult is to understand Spinoza so it resonates with Buddhism. The main problem is that our meanings of words have subtly been changing. Substance now connotes "matter" so as to inherently foster a materialist interpretation. This is a weak interpretation, however, because Spinoza shows that matter, as we know it, is entirely a consequence of modifications to substance or conditioned being. Also he directly says that matter results from an objective view of reality through the attribute of extension.
From
http://members.tripod.com/~BDSweb/en/107.htm
“What is this underlying reality? Spinoza calls it substance, as literally that which stands beneath. Eight generations have fought voluminous battles over the meaning of this term; we must not be discouraged if we fail to resolve the matter in a paragraph. One error we should guard against: substance does not mean the constituent material of anything, as when we speak of wood as the substance of a chair. We approach Spinoza's use of the word when we speak of "the substance of his remarks." If we go back to the Scholastic philosophers from whom Spinoza took the term, we find that they used it as a translation of the Greek ousia, which is the present participle of einai, to be, and indicates the inner being or essence. Substance then is that which is … that which eternally and unchangeably is, and of which everything else must be a transient form or mode. “
…
“But further Spinoza identifies substance with nature and God. After the manner of the Scholastics, he conceives nature under a double aspect: as active and vital process, which Spinoza calls natura naturans— nature begetting, the élan vital and creative evolution of Bergson; and as the passive product of this process, natura naturata— nature begotten, the material and contents of nature, its woods and winds and waters, its hills and fields and myriad external forms.
It is in the latter sense that he denies, and in the former sense that he affirms, the identity of nature and substance and God.”
Here is a page on Spinoza from a Buddhism site.
http://www.euronet.nl/~advaya/spinoza.htm
Perhaps this has some interpretations which resonate better with Buddhism?
and another
http://bystander.homestead.com/spinoza.html
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http://www.hackwriters.com/Nirvana.htm
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http://www.susqu.edu/su_press/bookjacketsinfo/Healing the Mind.htm