The absurdity of religion

There is one inherent absurdity of believing in one, and only one, religion.

If there is one true religion, then the rest are false. Ergo, all other not-religions are heresy.

Any religion that is not your religion is not-religion because it is not your one true religion.


Therefore, the odds are your religion is heresy since it is outnumbered by many others.

The set of all not-religions is the set including all not-your religions and your religion.  So Christianity is included in the set not-Buddhism. The negation of your religion is the rest of the Venn diagram.  

But how does any one find out which is true?

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Integral Action in Buddhism does NOT MEAN Right Action

I have a great disagreement with most Buddhist monks whom do not study the meaning of words with the same fervor they take to chanting and mysticism.  Assuming you understand a word and accepting it from dogma is not enlightenment, it is orthodoxy.

Right Action is the misunderstood component of the Noble Eightfold Path - towards enlightenment - that makes people assume what it means.

Samma-Kammanta's literal meaning is integral action not "right action".

This is the definition in question.


Integral Action: break down this concept:

Integral means "necessary and important as a part of a whole."

Action means "the process of doing something, especially when dealing with a problem or difficulty."

Right action is as confused as most monks are, what is right about any action? That action does "good"?  There is no absolute good, nor evil. 

To find the limit of evil is like swinging wildly into M.C. Echer's snake enigma above and only hitting one snake.

How does one determine the limits of evil when Buddhism is a personal raft built for one? No other Buddhist can judge - and when you attain deep personal awareness they cannot even advise - what is good in any other method than generalities. If killing Hitler would save 6 million people, a Buddhist mustn’t kill? Does this make sense for the good of 6 million other people? Extreme examples are still within the bounds of humanity.

In fact, Zen Buddhist Samurai took the interpretation over to the other extreme in that any interpretation of killing for the greater good ( for their master, for their house, ...) isn't just acceptable, it's obligatory under the code of a samurai.  It is a convenient spin by those Buddhists that find that offensive to claim Samurai were not dedicated Buddhists as if that made their interpretation true.

To me, it would be shameful to reject the enlightenment of any one Buddhist that I don't agree with. That is intolerance.

To Zen Samurai, their interpretation is that acting for the whole, for the integrity of their community, was precisely what belief in Buddhism was for.

Action for the purpose of integrity does not mean without violence in all cases. If it can contain violence in one case, it can be contained in any case.
 

Violence in pursuit of purpose

My throat-clearing yesterday, Buddhism and violence, was meant as a precursor to my next exploration:

Violence in pursuit of purpose.

Violence to some is abhorrent. I agree.

Violence to some serves no purpose.  To those I state, you do not understand.

All the universe for all time as we understand it is in a constant state of flux, by flux I mean energy and matter in transition. I won't describe this further but I instruct the reader to consider what any observer would see under Transport Theorem, how electromagnetic forces vary under Maxwell's equations, and of course the grandfather of all differential equations, the Helmholtz equations. If none of these awe you, then simply consider through Higgs waves (gravity) matter from across the universe is incessantly pulling on your every scrap of matter, from every direction, and will continue to pull on your remains once you cease to be whole.

There is no time nor space that is free from appearance or disappearance of matter. In fact, if you consider Lawrence Krauss' book

in fact matter can in deed appear from nothing. We can no more avoid transition than we can avoid death.

Buddhists do not fear death, if they understand, because to not accept death would be to not accept the aforementioned fact that matter and energy continues to flux without end. Even the universe, and everything in it, is posited to cease to exist at some eventual infinite moment we can only guess at. I won't mimic predictions here, because physics is incomplete at least because we can't explain dark matter. Not knowing what 70% of the universe's mass is makes any universal demise prediction as laughable as stating CO2 controls climate warming despite the fact that the trillion ton Sun, the solar energy forcing function, is discounted.

The second factor I would draw to your attention is the quest to know if mankind has free will. The great philosopher Immanuel Kant implored philosophers to work on three transcendental problems; the face of god, transcendental morality, and freewill of mankind in his Critique of Pure Reason. He also explained a lot about how other skeptics were practising more dogma than exposing it.

It's been almost 250 years since most philosophers ignored Kant, and soon with the help of MRI, CAT scans, and other natural philosophy (science) products we might soon explain the basis of that last problem faster than the entire field of philosophy could in 236 years of effort.

As Wittgenstein described, philosophers are expert at self-confusion. I digress.


Buddhists also do not hide nor deny the reality of death; any human that eats food is an accomplice to the death of other living things whether knowingly or not. No one escapes culpability. If you choose not to kill yourself upon learning this truth, then you choose of your own free will to accept your role in the death of other living things. Instead, Buddhists accept that sacrifice is necessary that we collectively may continue and serve a higher purpose. Death is not chosen, purpose is.

One cannot know right now if man has free will for certain. Let us make the case going forward with both possibilities.

To combine the two above factors:

If a man has free will he can choose to act, in some cases decide to act violently - to cause death to another living thing.

If a man does not have free will, he does not choose to act violently, but acts violently nonetheless. It appears in civil society that people do not randomly kill frequently enough, on the scale of billions, that this is not the predominant case.

All living things will die, to choose not to kill is to forestall their death until some future point in space-time.  In general, we choose not to act violently. That seems an odd way to describe it, but the fact that violence does not occur to us to be necessary is exactly the same as consciously deciding to act. I would submit that we subconsciously decide to not act - it doesn't occur to act -  more times than we consciously consider acting. But what accounts for an equivalence of the two ( choosing to not act (conscious) versus not choosing (unconscious) to act)? Logically, are they the same?

When one chooses to act violently, and one has free will, it is based on the reason that ceasing another's life at that moment serves a purpose. One has become aware of circumstances that make action purposeful. It doesn't matter what the circumstances are, it doesn't matter what the excuses are, nor the reasons. Conditions have changed that make violence important or necessary.  Necessary to whom? Necessary for what? Given above, are these even important?

To choose to end life is to purposefully change the condition of matter, now, in this moment, for a purpose. It cannot be otherwise as I have laid out. It could, in the case of non-free will violence, but as stated earlier that there are very few cases humans do that despite a multitude of compelling reasons one might ( greed, chemicals, boredom, apathy, pleasure, emotion, etc.). We decide to not act in almost all possible cases because ACTING SERVES NO COMPELLING PURPOSE.

To act is to become directly involved in the state of flux of the universe, to take possession of the course of events for another living thing. Humans are moral enough and purposeful enough to know how rare those conditions are.  But that also underlines why violence is important when those unique conditions exist.

Even the cognitive dissonance people would feel about intervening, to act to defend, to act to attack, to act to hunt, to act to kill, are all conscious awareness events that an imperative purpose has arisen. This is not just instinct, it is not just reason. It is the unmasking of a purpose for violence.

That doesn't mean violence can't be for evil purposes. That doesn't mean violence can't be self-serving. It means that - from a holistic mindful perspective - it alone exists outside the means and the ends.

I am urged to remind you that inside Buddhism one can find nihilism - anarchy - and chaos if one chooses to interpret all I have said strictly on these facts alone. Even Machiavelli might find these ideas acceptable.

But the teachings of the Buddha more than any other implore all to remember that the state of all beings is suffering and finding ways to become more enlightened is the ultimate goal, not possession and not passion. All those evil nihilistic aims have a purpose which is roughly outside the scope. If you are killing for sport, for territory, for gain, you are not Buddhist in the slightest, you are not enlightened in the least.

On the other hand, killing to prevent murder, killing to reduce global unhappiness or increase global happiness, killing to prevent evil committing atrocities, to defend the defenceless, these can all be interpreted within the eightfold path.

For example, Samma-Kammanta  (integral action) means acting with integrity. "Right action" if you learn it in the West. Acting according to understanding, acting along the beliefs of Buddhism includes respect for all living things. What is more respectful than acting to prevent harm to others?

Samma-Sati (complete awareness ) can make you aware of impending suffering or evil about to be committed against the defenceless. 

In fact, most of these are easier to interpret these paths in Buddhism as complimentary in a capitalist society than Samma-Ajiva ( right livelihood ). Right livelihood expressly forbids exploitation and yet exploiting some advantage is the essence of commerce. To my mind, you are a more noble Buddhist wielding a sword than peddling a cart. But that is not my role to judge others, perhaps those same businessmen also conduct charity.

To act violently with purpose in the eightfold path it must conform to the following:

1. It must not be personal, it must not involve anger or other emotions arising from a familiarity of the target. That would be a crime of passion. The reason you are acting is because you are nearest to the danger or able to respond.

2. It must not be profitable, the loss of one is a loss to society and must always be the least worst option outweighed by the sanctity or survival of other life. If you need to shoot at something to prove your mettle or show your worth, hunt humans THAT SHOOT BACK. They are far more dangerous than any predator.  Pick up a rifle and join a civil war. Fight for something and risk dying for purpose. We will all join you shortly.

3. It must not be glorified. There is no trophy, no recognition because that is fulfilment of lusting and passions are never for the greater good. I don't shoot trophy animals. I don't revel nor parade what I do for anyone on earth.

4. It must not be without purpose. There must be an obvious, immediate purpose that waiting, stalling, negotiating, bribing, or any other mollifying action cannot solve.

5. It must not be indiscriminate. To act without focus is itself committing evil.

6. It must be impending. To act now means there is no other choice.

7. It must be completed swiftly. One mustn’t increase suffering of the target by not completing the act.  I shoot vermin that risk my friend's horses.  If those vermin are hurt and I can reach them I smash their heads in without the slightest hesitation. Last week I hit one through the neck and he was wounded writhing on the ground. Often they run into the hole to die, but this was a case for a coup de grace. If you can't imagine smashing your target's head in to end suffering, then don't begin violence in the first place. I sleep fine because I am at peace with my purpose but I'm not proud of it either.

Violence is always abhorrent, it is always the lowest of human effort and it tarnishes more than it burnishes. There is nothing great in violence. No one violent is great because of it.

But to not act violently when the cost is great is to invite more suffering and tragedy onto an already suffering mankind.

Violence with an enlightened purpose can coexist with the eightfold path.

Buddhism and violence

Despite all the yoga mats, meditation, and facile introduction of Westerners to Buddhism, many misunderstand the global tenets of Buddhism. They assume that it is outside the norm when compared to other religions. The biggest misunderstanding is that Buddhists would never use violence.

Here is a Thai example of Buddhists advocating violence in defence of attacks by global muslim jihad.

This next passage explains the eigthfold path:

The path is a process to help you remove or move beyond the conditioned responses that obscure your true nature. In this sense the Path is ultimately about unlearning rather than learning - another paradox. We learn so we can unlearn and uncover. The Buddha called his teaching a Raft. To cross a turbulent river we may need to build a raft. When built, we single-mindedly and with great energy make our way across. Once across we don't need to cart the raft around with us. In other words don't cling to anything including the teachings. However, make sure you use them before you let them go. It's no use knowing everything about the raft and not getting on. The teachings are tools not dogma. The teachings are Upaya, which means skillful means or expedient method. It is fingers pointing at the moon - don't confuse the finger for the moon.

Remember that Buddhism like any religion is occupied by humans, ones that don't understand, others that inject their personal interpretation into it, ones that fall accustomed to luxuries that the Buddha himself would blush at. Any religion drifts and repurposes reality as needed. I wrote earlier dispelling the existence of Buddhism itself.

Recall that while the Dalai Lama possesses nothing and lives nowhere, his monk minders gather $400 per person per event to upkeep his personal well being despite that. Does this fully agree with what Buddha had in mind? While I am not here to judge another's personal interpretation, I hasten to point out there are many interpretations on many issues. 

The Buddhists you should least trust in interpretation are the dogmatic ones telling you a Buddhist can't do that. The ones that don't listen to the original meaning are just as guilty of hubris as christians or muslims.

The hang up word is "right" - right speech, right action, right livelihood...

Right in the dogmatic West is not the whole meaning.

"Right action" in the West means always do good, or never do wrong. But define what is wrong and right in a holistic Buddhist perspective? Good doesn't mean follow the law - even christians disobey the ten commandments and national law at will.  Are you certain that covers all action within a Buddhist mindset? The problem is that the original (eightfold) path guides you to decide what is best to discover (uncover) your true nature and contribute to well-being. You reach nirvana when you've shed everything else, when you attain perfection through the removal of imperfections. How you arrive was meant as a personal journey, not a church-directed one. Buddhism is not a lazy man's religion where your lot is measured for you and your role is obedience.

Thich Quang Duc killed himself in the 1960's protesting.

Does this look like a nonviolent act? This monk determined the greater good, the global happiness, was better served by his action for the benefit of others than to live in silence and contemplation as the world he knew burned.

Like anything else there is a tension between two competing goals. Global happiness and personal attainment can mean many things. If one's purpose requires violence to attain nirvanna then that is not excluded by 
Samma-Ajiva ( right livelihood )
Samma-Vayama (full effort )
Samma-Sati (complete awareness )
Samma-Kammanta  (integral action)

My Buddhist Seasons Greetings

I wanted to write this felicitation on my holiday treats:

As a Buddhist I've sworn off all materialism as illusory trappings of existence. I keep to that principle as best I can. I tend to forget to remember and consider the impact and importance for others. I've also been singled out as anti social, while that seems true it's only apparent, I'm so behind on work and my obligation to help binds me to do the most I can.

But in honor of the many holidays I'm leaving these treats as a token of goodwill to all my colleagues. I don't understand holidays but I respect them because I respect you.


What I wrote:

Seasons Greetings

Buddhism doesn't exist

People tend to forget, if they get caught up in the Buddhist spiritualism, the human made pageantry and ritual of a religion like Buddhism, that even Buddhism doesn't exist.

As humans, we need "metaphysical" things / mental constructs to help us practice and remember, to share common understanding, to alter behavior, to join a tribe, to cling to, and so on. This has more to do with how our brains work than what and how we choose to believe.

Believing in the eightfold path does not make it real. Believing in reincarnation does not make it real.  Simple people seem to miss the mental flaw underlying the Buddhist belief system.  When I look at Buddhists operating in a Buddhist manner I am reminded that my belief is while Buddha explained and encouraged behaviour that would make his ideals flourish, I do not think Buddha was certain reincarnation or karma existed.

Buddha knew what he was creating didn't exist. Ponder that for a moment.












































































If making his teachings part of a belief system that would spread better and faster needed the extra jewellery of metaphysical constructs, then allow them he did. Like Machiavelli, even the middle way is a practice in pragmatism; ends justifying means. If letting uneducated unwashed illiterate peasants encrust his ideals in ritual and if that made them happier, made them more productive and increased the chances people find harmony, that that was in essence the first compromise of Buddhism with itself.

This reality is why I define my spirituality as "pseudo-Buddhist". No, I will not chant incessantly and play silly human games. I will not pray and meditate for hours for the benefit of a cause or a person. I don't wish anyone ill, I wish all well, but conducting a ceremony made for the other purpose - to solidify the Buddhist practice - is not necessary. It doesn't exist. So in a way I can also claim to be an atheist.

What is necessary if one doesn't want to live as a nihilist or an anarchist,  is to adopt a set of operating principles, based in an understanding of humanity, that allows one to tread lightly in the universe. The eightfold path, offers a compassion and goodwill based philosophy.

Even Buddhists can persecute and be intolerant.

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/muslims-are-dangerous-myanmar-buddhist-monks-threaten-democracy-with-support-for-anti-muslim-laws

Religion poisons everything, even Buddhism which can be interpreted for ill as well as any orthodoxy, any dogma, as even Bill O'Reilly has pointed out about nihilism and atheism, although nihilism can be argued to be a belief system as much as a formal religion. Buddhist monks in Myanmar have spawned ultra-nationalistic supporters of anti-Islam sentiment, even participating in protests and calls for violence against Muslims.  It saddens me to see Buddhists getting so upset about tempo-material things. 

On the other hand, it can be argued that only the most severe conditions would make normally-peaceful, esoteric Buddhists drop the separation and advocate against another group. One can't argue that Islam is not without danger and harm for non-Muslims. Perhaps this should be a wake-up call for those that are sympathetic or too liberal to see the truth.

Nothing has inherent meaning

Political rally or target practice?

Or this:

How can any meaning attach to things? In one context it is understood commonly as one meaning to have a head on a sign, in the next context it means entirely something different.

So what does this mean anyway?

http://img.technospot.net/Shoot-osama-as-your-target-practice.jpg

People are ready to fight and die for the meaning of things that are perfectly absent of meaning.  Meaning is an ablative concept.

People that run on emotions hurt the people around them.

One of the biggest errors in society that has developed over the past few decades is the psychological mantra of validating feelings and the need to express emotion. It may seem therapeutic but without Eastern wisdom it causes as much pain as it solves. Without an understanding of the teaching of Buddha it is misguided advice that causes more pain. To accept that emotions happen is good. To not teach people to control their emotions is bad.  To allow oneself to react to emotions is to allow them to control you. Your locus of control has become other people and the stressors that cause you unhappiness.
 
While it is healthy to recognize emotions and validate people for feeling, it is not ok to allow people to act on their emotions around others. To think we can act as we please is the problem, because it creates a blind spot where emotional action is OK.  This is the cause of unhappiness. People that feel justified to act a certain way due to emotions may feel better but don't feel worse when those actions cause ripples unto other emotions.  This causes a cascade effect that carries on the emotions to others which ripple through and harm the good. It can all be avoided.

People must be taught that emotions can only ruin them if they let emotions reign. People must be taught that emotions are not enough reason to act out against others. People must be taught that self control and mastery of one's own emotions is a reward and a goal in itself. It is a perfect goal unattainable but rewarding in the pursuit.

To tell people it is OK to react to emotions without understanding the commitment to self-control that is necessary is to arm a nation of unhappy people with a justification to act, to let them shoot wildly. 

Emotionalism, the idea to let emotions run a person's behavior is to harm society. It ripples unto others that did not cause the harm in the first place. It is as harmful as guns and alcohol. Worse because guns and alcohol are outlets for emotional people that act on their hurt feelings. Danger comes from people out of control. Under all the evil actions in society are raw emotions that caused them. Guns held by people may shoot people but it is emotion that pulls most triggers. Fear. Anger. Jealousy. Hatred. Scorn. Sadness. Misery. Palpable feelings let loose on the world.  Emotions have no form but their consequences scar the world.

One might save the world from shootings if one could teach people to be centered and in control of emotions. One might change how we treat each other if one could teach us how to behave.

Not all religions are the same...

remember, there are no Buddhist death squads....

Defining what a name is

So last time I put the ideas of two sets of thinkers / philosophers together to explain why things - objects that we name - don't exist. I applied Buddhism's understanding of existence to Wittgenstein's Tractatus.

Here is our problem with the common understanding of what a name is.  It is childish.  It oversimplifies the meaning of the thing that we now know is more complicated than one might suppose. But it is very easy to fix.

Wittgenstein was right, we should be really really pedantic about the definitions of what we talk about to make sure the essence of what we point at is understood properly.   Now, ironically, as the tortured soul he was, he later wrote and rejected his initial ideas, because he saw that people didn't get his understanding nor did it fully describe the feeling, the experience, and so on.  If his explanations couldn't encompass all of the human experience, then he rejected them completely.  One might call Wittgenstein an absolutist, but that wouldn't go far enough. 

Frankly, in his later work he was whining like a little bitch.  Humans never fully aspire to what potential they could reach. I drink wine and lay on the couch and piss a night away.  But that doesn't mean ideas must be slave to humanity. And a model - what Wittgenstein called a logical picture -  is always an approximation of reality. Until we understand everything fully, we are always estimating.  But it is your job if you are hired as a professor at Cambridge - as he was - to inspire people to move closer to the ideal.  Not wallow in the now.

What Wittgenstein built in Tractatus was an algebra.  A set of symbols that form sets and operators / operations on those elements. I'm not going to sit here and argue how complete it is.  Or if it is a group or a ring or a monoid. I suppose someone has written a Ph.D on explaining Wittgenstein's algebra.  Most of you wouldn't care about that and it's not important for my redefinition of a name.   He explained language, the world, and ideas like the math that models the tick of a clock hand or flies an airplane.  He does state rightly that philosophy exists outside the natural sciences and outside the world.  But if you spoke in Wittgenstein's language you are mathematically correct in general.

Back to the problem.  It is not that things don't exist.  It is not that names don't point at things. What we need is a better approximation for the idea of a name. 

Let W represent an instance of a Wittgenstein logical space.


As I stated previously, a name is a pointer to an object - agreed to by Buddhism and Wittgenstein.  It exists inside W space. The object it points to exists inside the World space (physical 4-space i.e. the Universe). He referred to the world but he means the universe.  So I say a lot of world to strictly translate Wittgenstein, but I am taking for granted you understand it would apply on Mars too.

The "object" in real space is actually an amalgamation sub-objects, which contain sub-sub-objects....ad infinitum.

Let container name be a name inside W logical space.  A container name points at a set of names inside W logical space.  Those names point to objects in the real world (the universe).  A container name is a logical picture AND a name. The names held within the container name - the set membership - is time-varying.

The logical picture changes in lock-step with time change in the world (universe).

So what I am saying, I think, is this:

I am Dave. Dave is a container name.  Dave points at a set of member names inside a logical picture.  When I say Dave I am referring specifically to me the amalgamation or set of names in W Logical Space including "more or less" my lungs, heart, liver,.....,ribosome23424356564, atom9342345535345,  photon2343432342,... and so on of an uncountable set of names that point at real objects  Dave's lungs, Dave's liver, Dave's heart,... Dave's ribosome23424356564, Dave's atom9342345535345, Dave's photon2343432342 and so on back here in the universe.

Check back on me one femtosecond later, look at the Dave set membership inside the logical picture and you see that photon2343432342 no longer belongs to the set of names. And photon2343432342 has left Dave's body in the universe.

Proof:  All physical phenomena exist in the universe. Every object can be named. Every object can change names. I spit in your mouth it becomes your spit.  There is a one to one correspondence / mapping to an equal sized set of names in the W Logical Space.  There are an infinite number of names inside W logical space.  If matter changes form inside reality/ the universe then there exists a different name inside W Logical Space.  There are an infinite number of container names inside W Logical Space. Container names may be set members of other container names.  There exists a one to n mapping  from container names to names inside W Logical Space. There exists a one to n mapping from a container name to container names. There is one operator inside W Logical Space, the "not" operator (applied thusly: not-name) that operates on sets to define membership. Both mappings of names and mappings of container names are carried out by the not operator. When not- is applied to a name or container name in W Logical Space it removes it from set membership in a container name logical picture. I.E. photon2343432342 exists in the logical picture / container name Dave and then later not-photon2343432342 does not.   To count the set membership inside any logical picture, review all names and container names in W Logical Space and count only those that are not-not-names or names.  Set membership is time-varying. Set membership only refers to one container name at a time and must be applied to all names and container names inside W Logical Space before inspection.  QED.

(OOPS: forgot one proposition - a name can only be true if it points at a  real object in the universe. A container name can only be true if it points at a container name, or a name and that name eventually points at a real object in the universe. Otherwise it is logically false.  Now QED.)

So from now on, when you name something, you are referring to a container name unless you are talking about a single physical object like a soliton or a photon.  You will almost never, not mathematically correct but stick with me, use a name.  You will in general mean a container name. 

When you use a container name, you are not referring to the set members inside name. That is the general understanding.   But that also means you are not referring to the uncountable set of objects underneath - nor the set membership inside W Logical Space.

A container name is a logical picture.  When you refer to me you are talking about your understanding of what Dave is. Dave is a dad.  Dave is a container name, dad is another container name for the same thing because you are pointing it at me.

You inspect them by looking at all names in W logical space and adding up set members.  You apply it to Dave.  You apply it to dad.  They are both true so the proposition is true.

Apply it to a non-existent object.  Phil is a unicorn.  You look in W Logical Space, you look in the universe.  There is no unicorn.  The name pointer is aiming at nothing.  Phil is a unicorn is a false proposition, a false logical picture.  You can prove it so.  

You are talking in Wittgenstein English. You are using a Wittgenstein name. 

Now I'm going to go play some Xbox, maybe later I will write a paper about this. 

Reconciling Buddhism and Wittgenstein: Inherent Non-existence

Not-self (Pāli: anatta; Sanskrit: anātman) is the third mark of existence. Upon careful examination, one finds that no phenomenon is really "I" or "mine"; these concepts are in fact constructed by the mind. In the Nikayas anatta is not meant as a metaphysical assertion, but as an approach for gaining release from suffering. In fact, the Buddha rejected both of the metaphysical assertions "I have a Self" and "I have no Self" as ontological views that bind one to suffering.^[77] When asked if the self was identical with the body, the Buddha refused to answer. By analyzing the constantly changing physical and mental constituents (skandhas) of a person or object, the practitioner comes to the conclusion that neither the respective parts nor the person as a whole comprise a self.


Ludwig Wittgenstein:   Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

3.144 States of affairs can be described but not named.
(Names resemble points; propositions resemble arrows, they
have sense.)

3.203 The name means the object. The object is its meaning. (“A” is
the same sign as “A”.)

3.22 In the proposition the name represents the object.

3.221 Objects I can only name. Signs represent them. I can only speak
of them. I cannot assert them. A proposition can only say how
a thing is, not what it is.

3.26 The name cannot be analysed further by any definition. It is a
primitive sign.

3.3 Only the proposition has sense; only in the context of a propo-
sition has a name meaning.

++++++++++++++++++++++++
My analysis:

A name has no meaning in and of itself. (Let me underline this: it does not have any existence without the object it points to) It is a point it represents an object.  It is the object in a proposition, and the proposition is an element of a logical picture.

A Logical picture is used to depict something in the world (2.19)

2.22 The picture represents what it represents, independently of its
truth or falsehood, through the form of representation.

So a name is a way to describe something (as a placeholder in a proposition) but it holds no other properties than the proposition which may be true or false.  E.G.  Dave is a Dad.  Dave points to an object, Dad points to another object, you can verify the truth and therefore whether or not that logical picture is true or false as a proposition. It either agrees with reality or not. Dave is a person and a father. Both names are true and therefore by Wittgenstein the proposition is true, the object in the world is true, and so on. 

That is the same thing as a Buddhist name for an object, it is an illusion or a primitive sign that points to an object, but does not take the place of the object.  It exists only in logical space not in real space. I don't exist.  You don't exist.  I and you point to us as objects but never take the place of I or You.  If I can't find an I or You that is completely true in the world exactly for all propositions that encapsulate these respective objects, then each proposition is false (errata: typed true but meant false.). The opposite is also true, the named object may exist but the proposition is false.  The name only matters in the statement and picture regarding whether or not these propositions are true.

OK now here is the tie-in to inherent non-existence: By Wittgenstein all propositions within a logical picture must be true for the entire logical picture to represent an object in the world.  Therefore any name must represent that object truthfully for the proposition to be true. Any moment you declare an object as containing such and such elements, the next moment that named object changes, that logical picture becomes false.  See Impermanence below.  There is no moment in time that object is not undergoing changes.  Therefore, the named object is always false. It is always a false proposition. The named object never lives up to the elements that make up the logical picture.   It has inherent non-existence.

Impermanence (Pāli: anicca) expresses the Buddhist notion that all compounded or conditioned phenomena (all things and experiences) are inconstant, unsteady, and impermanent. Everything we can experience through our senses is made up of parts, and its existence is dependent on external conditions. Everything is in constant flux, and so conditions and the thing itself are constantly changing. Things are constantly coming into being, and ceasing to be. Since nothing lasts, there is no inherent or fixed nature to any object or experience. According to the doctrine of impermanence, life embodies this flux in the aging process, the cycle of rebirth (saṃsāra), and in any experience of loss. The doctrine asserts that because things are impermanent, attachment to them is futile and leads to suffering (dukkha).

Buddhism explained through Object Oriented Design: What is a name?

One of the main principles of Buddhism is the belief that there is no inherent self-existence:  no thing exists in itself - all things even energy must consist of other smaller things.  This is the reason there is no magic

So consider what that means for a name.  A name is a pointer to a collection of objects.  Each of those objects is a pointer to further objects.  Ad infinitum.

A named object is a container class for other smaller things.  Since it's a container it only exists to point at other objects.

What does a $3000 Armani suit, a tea towel, and Kevlar body armour have in common?

The simple answer is they are made of cloth.

The real answer is that they don't exist in and of themselves. 

Giving it up, giving it away decreases your mental burden.

As behavioural collectors, we tend to accumulate things.  Money, cars, furniture, clothes etc. Human suffering occurs when we try to protect the things we cherish.  The less we have to worry about, the happier we will be.

But in order to maintain our perspective, because things don't exist and they have no intrinsic meaning other than what we attach to them, we should also practice letting them go and giving things away.

As part of your daily routine, it would be wise to dispose an item - give it to charity, take a scrap of metal to the scrap yard, give it to your friends, and so on.

By letting things go, we remember that we can live without them, and we are not attached to them.

Buddhism: The riddle of the chair

Here is my interpretation of Buddhist non-existence:

Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and imagine a simple white piece of paper.

 (Open your eyes.)

Now, imagine a chair.  What is it?

Imagine that chair with one leg missing. What is it?

Imagine that same chair with two legs missing.  What is it?

Imagine that same chair with three legs missing. What is it?

Imagine that same chair with four legs missing. What is it?

Imagine that same chair with four legs and the seat missing. What is it?

Now, to your mind, when did it stop being a chair? Everyone imagined it ends being a chair differently, so how can any one answer be true?

The truth is: it never was a chair. Chairs don't exist, it's the name of convenience for a set of parts we collectively refer to as a chair.

We, like that chair, don't exist.

How you treat people

How you treat people that can do you no harm says more about you than how you treat people that can.