Conventional Versus Ultimate Truth and Introduction of Chronism
A useful separation in Buddhism is that between conventional truth and ultimate truth, or subjective versus objective truth. This is often applied to solve for tricky problems such as reconciling the lack of self with reincarnation. The question makes sense — if there is no self, then what is it that gets reincarnated? For our purposes here, we do not need to concern ourselves with the more religious pieces of Buddhism. Although founded very much as a philosophy, with insights that would only be proven scientifically many centuries later, as a religion, Buddhism also comes with the trappings of any organized religion. These two aspects must be separated. It doesn’t have to go to the length of what is often called Western Buddhism or Secular Buddhism necessarily. But there is clearly rational Buddhism and irrational Buddhism. It’s not that reincarnation and other ones of the “irrational” aspects are patently false and impossible to be true. But the point is that it is uncertain. Therefore, we’ll focus here on the aspects of Buddhism that are rational in the sense that they have been proven by science. That’s what I call rational Buddhism. Rational Buddhism is closer to philosophy, and contains elements such as introspection for insights into oneself, similar to the daily review in stoicism. These insights are sometimes downplayed in vipassana insight meditation…
