Materialism only sees half the picture

As far as the history of ideas is concerned ‘materialism’ is the new kid on the block.  The term materialism was first coined in 1713 by George Berkeley (Bishop Berkeley).  Among  other things, Berkeley said that “Pantheism, Materialism, Fatalism are nothing but Atheism a little disguised.”  I would tend to agree. 

More in keeping with what the Buddha taught I would say that Pantheism, Materialism, and Fatalism are a result of a despiritualizing tendency in Western society that is eager to destroy all that is holy in human beings and for that matter all living things (our current ecological crisis is a result of this despiritualizing tendency).  

The materialist is basically saying there is no Buddha-nature—nothing holy, spiritual, or transcendent whereby sentient beings can escape from the vicious cycle of illusory existence.  On the  other hand, for anyone who has experienced genuine Bodhicitta, illusory phenomena have only heuristic value (they can never be ends in themselves).  This means that all phenomena serve only to reveal the effective work of the radiant pure Mind, that once revealed, completely ends suffering for us.  To make phenomena an end in itself is  madness.

As one can clearly see, materialism is only capable of seeing half the picture:  the half that cannot and should not be an end in itself but is made such by its wrongheaded adherents.  This leads to endless samsara:  a wandering from one phenomenal existence to another, without seeming end.

On this same score, religious materialism is found in the excesses of ritualism which is the veneration of the symbolic.  This is done at the expense of religion’s spiritual content.  Incidentally, this is my beef with Dogen’s Soto Zen in which meditation has been ritualized (J., gyoji) in “just sitting” (shikantaza) as if the posture of the physical body, itself, were spiritually significant (it ain’t).

Why we have been on the course of materialism for almost the last three  hundred years, I cannot say with any degree of accuracy except to opine that materialism is profoundly evil. 

 

Comments

[Azanshi]

The complete establishement of materialism and the overwhelming rule of a total kleptocracy in today USA is presented here in a rather ominous way;

The Shape of Things To Come

Charles Hugh Smith

http://www.oftwominds.com/blogjuly11/shape-of-things6-11.html

[Vaccha]

Greek wouldn't count for the coining of an English term even though they communicate the same meaning, but nonetheless whether or not I am sure that Berkeley coined the English version of the term (I'm not in fact, he might have), it is an important point that java junkie makes, I think, to be quite sure that "materialism" by any name in ancient languages is no latecomer to the scene of philosophy as the Zennist's first sentence suggests.
Even, importantly, the Buddha of the Nikayas encountered it in India and rejected it in no weak way (see any Nikayan description of the 'natthika' views and you encounter it and its forceful rejection by the Buddha).

[java junkie]

You need a history lesson old coot. Materialisms oldest mention is in the Fragments Of Pythagoras in mentioning materialists (hylesimos)

About 2500 years older than your socalled oldest mention. Get yer learnin on