Buddhist concepts often match up with those of Western philosophy. Below is an interesting quote on the function of classification and it’s place with knowledge, as written by two German philosophers, Horkheimer and Adorno in their book The Dialectic of Enlightenment and how I believe it ties into Buddhism.
Classification is a condition of knowledge, not knowledge itself, and knowledge in turn disolves classification.
I will now relate this quote to the buddhist samsaric concept of samsaric existence.
There are 3 realms of samsaric existence(from Thich Nhat Hanh’s book on the Lotus Sutra).
3 realms of samsaric existence
- The realm of desire(kamadhatu), the ordinary world, subject to desire, greed and anger
- The realm of form(rupadhatu), a higher real, where some attachments have been severed
- The realm of formlessness(arupadhatu), the highest realm, where beings are free from attachment to form
Relation between initial quote and buddhist concept
- Desire relates to the need to classify everything, which is a function of knowledge.
- Form relates to see the breakdown of things. Seeing that classification is a category, part of knowledge.
- Formlessness relates to the acceptance that classification is part of knowledge.
(Post from The Middle Way)
Filed under: Dharma, Metta-Data, Wade Millican | Leave a Comment
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