What is correct, asceticism, or hedonism?

OK so from what I understand currently about philosophy, asceticism and hedonism seem to be direct opposites of each other. However if this is a false assumption and they are not directly opposites, I'd like to know that and I'd be open to hearing new ideas. But for now, I'm assuming that they are. Asceticism is featured in different forms and in many different ways throughout many religions. The whole basis of it is to disregard sensual pleasures because it leads to some kind of enlightenment depending on what your religion is. Some examples: Gautama sat under that tree for a long freakin time without eating food or water or doing anything and he eventually hit a state of enlightenment so powerful it's called nirvana and he became the Buddha. Jesus went into the woods for a long time and fasted, no food and no water and he ended up having this experience where he was talking directly to God and then Satan showed up and tempted him but he still resisted. So many modern religions practice asceticism in different ways whether it's Christian, Jewish or Muslim fasting or anything like that. Even the notion of not having sex before marriage and not masturbating all is linked to the belief that asceticism is a good way of life. It's anti-addiction and anti- sensual pleasures. Ok so in comparison hedonism is much more mysterious to me because I don't know much about it. From what I understand Greek culture seems to be hedonistic especially if you take into account Dionysus the god of wine and partying which one could say might have been used by the Greeks in order to justify hedonistic living. I think other modern day Wiccans and Satanists use deities to justify hedonism. They all support things like drinking and partying and having tons of sex and it all goes against ascetic principles but I don't know that much about it. I think the reason that they support it is actually similar to asceticism in that they think that when you maximize the pleasure you get out of life, you can reach a similar state of enlightenment. But I wonder what everyone seems to think about these two conflicting ideologies? In my experience, it seems like a great deal of asceticism is helpful. As someone who's dealt with addiction I can honestly say that abstaining from pleasures like that is actually good and would lead me to a better life. But maybe that's just my own personal experience? Maybe hedonism in other facets of life is justifiable? But there's seemingly stupid or irrational aspects of asceticism. Take for instance eating and drinking which Buddha didn't even do and other religions still practice that today. But you legit need to eat and drink and so if we do that daily, are we depriving ourselves of ascetic enlightenment and giving into hedonism or are we just doing what makes the most logical sense? It seems like full asceticism is stupid right and that you need some deal of hedonism just so that you don't starve or dehydrate?

>What is correct, asceticism, or hedonism? If this thread does take off, I bet there will be many "whichever suits you" or "whichever helps you achieve your goals more" and other bullsoykaf replies. That's not what correctness is, neither asceticism nor hedonism are correct. Correctness conceptually is very similar to truth, but is usually in some context - a field of study, a set of cultural or business rules, or a specific curriculum. 42 can be a correct answer in one context and incorrect in another. Neither asceticism nor hedonism provide any real context for themselves but instead generalize to most or all human situations. Each sides uses examples when the other side didn't fit the context as proof of their own right, creating a pointless quagmire of left-right red-blue tribalism. In the end they really boil down to your model of reality and values, you pick the one that according to your model is more effective at producing your values. Some people try them to test their model of reality. Conceptual tools at best, it's pointless to choose either unless you have a clear idea of what your goal is (goals like "happiness" are vague).

Its similar to enlightenment in that letting go of your ego and desires completely means you lose the desire to reach enlightenment. One way of thinking about this is that it is because when that is gone you have achieved it. But others say no, you just will go back into previous behaviours and therefore you must keep the desire to achieve enlightenment actually. Hedonism and ascetism are in a way two ways of achieving pleasure. Ascetism often has an implication thouugh of a higher pleasure, or portrays hedonistic pleasures as false pleasures and this is how they distinguish themselves. I personally see this as true too, because the way I see it if your pleasures depend on the sensual when you die and lose the sense experience you will lose all that gave you pleasure. Therefore you create your own hell through the suffering of the loss of all you love. Forget what happens after you die even, though I believe in such things, how will you observe time passing when you have no senses and your brain may not fully function. That moment of death could be eternity, an afterlife of its own inside your head. I dont find much good in those who lack a higher power, I dont care what that higher power is. They can even believe themselves to be an eternal high power. However the hedonist can't be at peace just sitting there and I can. I was a hedonist for a long time, first by choice and then I couldnt stop it. I still struggle but the more i reject pleasure seeking the more I find pleasure in whats already around. Personally beyond my death thing, i'd have to disagree with other ascetics saying its a higher pleasure or seperate. Its just not as up down up down as with hedonistic behaviour is all, more stable and consistent yet not as extreme.

Asceticism is right in its general principles I think, but when it's taken too far it essentially becomes dick waving. You should avoid seeking pleasure through acquiring possessions because it's always a fleeting pleasure, you'll grow to take your possessions for granted no matter what you do; it's human nature, and more and more they'll begin to burden you and you'll eventually lose them, and the pain of losing something is always worse than the pleasure of gaining it. The more you become focused on gaining possessions the more time you'll spend doing things you don't enjoy to get them. This doesn't mean you should go without anything at all and live in a barrel or something, but keep your possessions to only the things you need to pursue the things that bring you fulfillment. For example if painting brings you the most satisfaction in life, then going without paints or canvas isn't going to do you any good, but abstaining from buying some fancy ass $600 brush will, buying things like that is only going to distract you from the thing that actually brings you satisfaction.

>>12312 I suppose that really just shows how enlightenment doesn't actually exist, or is basically anything we want to slap the term on. This "anything you want it to be" attribute is rooted in nothingness, which is really whatever is behind/beyond it.

Asceticism or hedonism are both spiritual philosophies that make a similar statement: that spiritual ascension is dependent on the desires of the material body (fulfilling them or not). Hence they place the body as a gate to the spiritual plane. It can be said in this view that Greek and Hindu traditions are not so far apart. Contrary to them Zen adheres that spiritual desires are to be abolished, something that may seem like asceticism but is not in reality, since the material body must exist in balance. In fact Tao is what brought Buddhism out of asceticism. In fact all these views are correct, false and meaningless in some way, so divulging in each as you seem fit is the most reasonable disposition in my book.

As for which of the two is objectively correct, I can't say. You may have the delusion that you can put philosophical questions into the magical answering machine (the Internet) and receive a correct answer as if you were asking a simple scientific question. That delusion seems to be just that, though...a delusion. While it may be the case that someone knows the answer to your question, it seems more likely that you'll just get opinions from people who are roughly as limited as yourself. You may find it helpful to develop a more rigorous definition of the term "correct" from your particular perspective. Supposing we're born into the darkness of ignorance, do you believe that there's a preexisting "narrow gate" (to borrow a Christian concept) that we ought to be groping towards? If there's a divinely-ordained "win condition," then that has implications for the nature of "correctness." On the other hand, if the highest-order goals in existence are those that we create for ourselves, then the "correctness" of asceticism or hedonism becomes a question of the degree to which either approach assists you in attaining your personal goals.

You ever read the treatice that Lorem Ipsum was taken from? "de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum", written by Cicero in 45 BC >"But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of the great explorer of the truth, the master-builder of human happiness. No one rejects, dislikes, or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but because occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure?" >"On the other hand, we denounce with righteous indignation and dislike men who are so beguiled and demoralised by the charms of pleasure of the moment, so blinded by desire, that they cannot foresee the pain and trouble that are bound to ensue; and equal blame belongs to those who fail in their duty through weakness of will, which is the same as saying through shrinking from toil and pain. These cases are perfectly simple and easy to distinguish. In a free hour, when our power of choice is untrammelled and when nothing prevents our being able to do what we like best, every pleasure is to be welcomed and every pain avoided. But in certain circumstances and owing to the claims of duty or the obligations of business it will frequently occur that pleasures have to be repudiated and annoyances accepted. The wise man therefore always holds in these matters to this principle of selection: he rejects pleasures to secure other greater pleasures, or else he endures pains to avoid worse pains."

I think there are two different forms or degrees of asceticism. One where asceticism is a tool, forgoing short-term pleasures to achieve long-term goals. And one where asceticism becomes a goal in itself, denying pleasure for the sake of asceticism alone. This leads to confusion when one person is talking about one kind and someone else thinks they're talking about the other. Regarding fasting and Buddhism, here's a relevant passage from Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha: >When on intensive retreats, there are a few basic ways to sail too far out there too fast. The first is to stop eating. It is true that there is a long and glorious tradition of people fasting when doing spiritual practice, but generally they do so because they want to bring on extremely altered states of consciousness. Fasting when meditating is an effective technique for doing this. Should you be doing insight practices, altered states are not your intended focus, and so these are more likely to be distracting than helpful. Further, severely altered states of consciousness can sometimes be very disruptive and hard to process and integrate, leading to what might be considered by some to be temporary insanity or other psychotic episodes. I think it's clear from this that, in Buddhism, fasting is a means, not an end. And, not a necessary means for enlightenment, which is the result of the insight practices mentioned above.

>>12344 >I think there are two different forms or degrees of asceticism. One where asceticism is a tool, forgoing short-term pleasures to achieve long-term goals. And one where asceticism becomes a goal in itself, denying pleasure for the sake of asceticism alone. Useful distinction. IIRC Gautama decided to avoid extreme ascetism after it nearly killed him from hunger

>>12318 I dont think what I said shows that at all but it certainly has a lot to do with nothing. however I dont know that what you understand to be nothing is what I understand to be nothing from what you say.

Asceticism is necessary https://youtu.be/ZqEDhKKPl-o

You are falling into a false dichotomy. It is both possible and desirable to achieve ascetic hedonism and hedonistic asceticism. consider the love of suffering, to suffer to excess and desire as much, is hedonic, yet can be applied in the pursuit of asceticism. Conversely, one could desire to eliminate everything one posses, including one's life, in the pursuit of the pleasure of minimalism. The ultimate minimalist eliminates even his own life, as his life is the source of his greatest burden, and pleasure itself. To destroy the source of pleasure is to be ultimately ascetic in one's practice. Yet, the total pursuit of this minimalist urge reduces to a form of hedonism; IE the pursuit of the pleasure of minimalism, and the fulfillment of the practitioner's ideals. There are no hard and fast dis allowances in either case, and I believe a transcendent combination of asceticism and hedonism is key to living one's best life. Such a union is difficult or impossible to fit into human language, but can be demonstrated, communicated and expounded through lived experience.

>>12363 Well you have shown how wanting enlightenment may keep you from it. This is conceptually very similar to "being something means you aren't being nothing", in this case "something" being defined at least by what you want to be. You also shown that those who stop wanting enlightenment may also fall back. We could argue that someone who wanted enlightenment, stopped and didn't fall back is the enlightened one, but he could still fall back at some point - whereas a stone which never wanted anything cannot. So which one if any is it? What if those who reach enlightenment then go right back to suffering in a realization that it doesn't really matter and their little journey to enlightenment was just that: a little journey? Either way, 'nothing' usually refers to a lack of something or things as defined in the context. A detective who found nothing found many things, just not the things he expected. 'Nothing' without a context is the most general, conceptual form of 'nothing'. For any "something" you look for, that's not what you find. This is very similar to the goose chase after enlightenment which you can only really reach if you stop trying, which arguable just leads to you not reaching it/not being any more enlightened than you were back in the days of suffering.

>>12374 Maybe I understood what you said earlier but you said that enlightment can be anything then and that is not true. The dispute is whether one must also let go of the desire to free oneself from desires. Enlightenment isnt the sky, or you, or a loved one, or a bottle of windex. So it isn't anything in the sense that anywhere you look you won't find it, which I think is what your saying. I think its wrong to think its a goose chase or that you simply are where you started. You are where you started in a sense and the goose chase did not bring you any closer to enlightenment but being where you started and the journey just being a journey doesn't imply no enlightenment was obtained, though it could. Its as with anything else though but thats just my opinion. I dont think personally you gain anything that you didn't have when learning or doing anything, and the journey is often you doing everything but the thing you are trying to do which leads to statements like "you have to fail to learn" and what not. This isnt really relevant though, I think mosy would disagree and I dont care enough to explain myself so il jusy agree to disagree with anyone who thinks you do gain something not present when learning.

>>12377 *misunderstood

>>12377 Think of how anyone could at any point claim that they were just being ironic, joking, or so on. You can obviously hit a person hard enough that him screaming in pain is likely not ironic, but you can't really prove it. In a similar fashion, a person could attain enlightenment and then go back to doing whatever he was doing before, with the exception that he doesn't desire it and also doesn't suffer from it anymore. We can't really know if this is possible unless we go there (become enlightened) and check, but then we're also in on the joke and we might also lie to the unenlightened. Hence my point that anybody could be enlightened, without any distinctive trait that only enlightened ones have. But a thing that has no definite quality that sets it apart... well that can only be nothing. Enlightenment thus is nothing, just an empty label we put on whatever we suspect is. To boot, someone who realizes this would probably have a good enough understanding of nothingness to pass off as enlightened to others.

>>12352 >IIRC Gautama decided to avoid extreme ascetism after it nearly killed him from hunger That make sense. I recall hearing somewhere that a lot of Buddhism was a response to the extremes of Hinduism at the time. >enlightenment is ... This book explains enlightenment as a very specific thing, dispelling the illusion that you have a separate self. It gives a very detailed map of the process of attaining this, which includes careful examination of all of your sensations and mental impressions, including the sensation of wanting to attain enlightenment, and including the sensation of having a separate self that is experiencing all of these sensations. This ends when you see through that illusion, eliminating the suffering caused by it. After that, you go back to living in the world, dealing with all of the ordinary suffering that comes with life.

>>12382 Oh if thats your point I agree. In fact I cant remember who but someone described that in the scenario of enlightened teacher teaching a student, the student has achieved it once he realizes he is no different from the teacher. I can see how you get its nothing from this but again I dont think its the only option. This doesnt directly counter what you are saying but to me it would be irrelevant whether they are enlightened or not, so the idea of attaining something like that is entirely internal. As in attempting to pass of as such would be pointless. Im only saying this because it seems like part of your doubt of it is the fact that anyone can say they are. Im just proposing that itd be best to see that as irrelevant. If someone came up to me and said they were enlightened id take their word for it because even if they are lying they gain nothing from it, from me at least. At the end of the day though there is 0 proof for it because all words fail to describe it and if it cant be described we can only talk around it. For example I know what you mean by nothing but obviously ideally it isnt nothing either because nothing is something. I think its best to think of it as a metaphor for what lies outside of normal human experience, because it isnt nothing but it isnt anything you could point to, describe, etc. I dont know if I said this but its very similar to the idea of god.

sorry for dumb spacing im on phone so the text chunks look a lot bigger

Hedonism

Stoicism gets no love, but we're stoic about it.

Hedonism is basically hacking your own nervous system. It's really awesome and interesting, I recommend it. Explore your pleasures!

>>12582 the same could be said of more stoic like philosophies if not stoicism itself, as long as you agree that pleasure and pain is relative. If I experience heightened pleasure that is now the ceiling of pleasure, however whatever experience the ceiling was at before brought me equal pleasure to this new one at one time. Its only now that I have experienced such a heightened pleasure that the former seems small in comparison, yet if I lacked the ability to relativize it would seem equal in experience or in the moment. Therefore I am doing something equally amazing to experiencing new intense pleasures, when I deny myself of pleasures so that the simplest thing becomes an intense pleasure.

>>12583 WE HAVE SUCH SIGHTS TO SHOW YOU.

>>12583 Yes, but it's a different perspective. If you are an hedonist (or take an hedonistic approach) you'll seek pleasure for it's own sake, there's no purpose but the pleasure (note that this pleasure can include pain, it's hedonism, not epicureanism). Even if you go to such lenghts as engaging in ascetic behavior to get an especific sesation, the sensation will still be your purpose. As a stoic tho, you shouldn't be driven by the pure desire of getting pleasure, you should always seek to be virtuous. So, yes, you could act equally with different ethics, but I was talking about exploring your pleasures for pure curiosity, just for the sake of the fun you'll have in satisfying the curiosity.