Appreciations! This is the way I like -- someone to take into consideration (i. e. thinking carefully about a particular fact when deciding or judging something) when we debate it.
Thank you very much for your mature attitude and for understanding that I was debating without bad intentions.
And straight to the topic (my style; trying not to waste time):
1) There are (in Buddhism, and in other religions) things that are right, useful, good. If we're true scientists we shouldn't ignore the things that are right (religious or non-religious). This is what I learned before from an Armenian (Soviet) philosopher (1926-2015) who reminded the old rule that from everything you can take the reasonable and the right thing, don't ignore it in 100%.
For example,
1.1. "Things derive their being and nature by mutual dependence and are nothing in themselves." (This is 100% scientific and philosophical because it's stating the universal relationship of the things, simply like "If there is no Earth, we'll be not able to exist." or "If you kill all of the flora and fauna, you're a dead man.") /Nagarjuna/
1.2. "Although you may spend your life killing, you will not exhaust all your foes. But if you quell your own anger, your real enemy will be slain." (Also, nearly science related, because it's a simple, but true psychological and/or mathematical conclusion that if you're negative, the chance to get more enemies is higher than if you're positive and keep low profile.) /Nagarjuna/
1.3. "Everything in moderation, including moderation." (Very dialectical, exact and wise!) /Buddha/
1.4. "One moment can change a day, one day can change a life, and one life can change the world." (Almost the same as the Butterfly effect! (蝴蝶效应, in Chinese, you should know it.))
2) There are obviously wrong (or semi-wrong at best) Buddhist statements like these:
2.1. "Since all is empty, all is possible." (First, he didn't prove the emptiness. Second, he didn't realize the nature of the possibility -- there are 3 kinds of it: formal possibility /i. e., only thinkable, but nearly 100% impossible, /, abstract possibility, i. e. somewhat possible and real possibility, i. e. the one that is very easy to become a reality (like Xi Jinping dies soon and China has a better leader like Hu Jintao, at least!)) /Nagarjuna/
2.2. "Pain is certain; suffering is optional." (Which is true only when it comes to mild problems like "My relatives don't want to give me the property." /our present COMMON problem, my friend, which makes me feel you even closer!/... Well, LET US say that we may ignore that I am losing my thousands of EUROs apartment in Bulgaria and you're not getting your millions of RMB in China... we can just "ignore those lacking off empathy and greedy relatives"... but WHAT IF we really suffer from some physical pain like kidney stones? There is almost no way to say "I feel my kidney like hell, but, hey, no worries! Ii is optional!"... Most of the tough people who are tortured, sooner or later, give up. The physical pain isn't a joke. This is one of the reason why the bad dictators, bullies, etc. do win. They just cause a severe pain, physical, semi-physical or mental, but a pain... )
See, I know that there are SOME monks (and even ordinary, non-religious people) who can feel no pain or ignore the pain, or stand the pain (to the level when they do some scary protest like "I burn myself!!!"...), but it's all about the outliers (异数, in Chinese, right?).
And, at the end, the answer:
3) Well, the felicitology (the "science" or philosophy of happiness) is something that (as I learned during my university's years) something impossible, unrealistic because of "happiness" is too subjective. The happiness for a girl who can't walk is to be able to run on the green grass; the happiness for an incel is just to have a loving Betty or Stacy; the happiness for you is to live happily in Shanghai, but for me is to live happily in Hainan (if the neo-emperor somehow 下台 /steps down/ or just die as soon as possible) because I love China and I love the Tropical places...
So, let's take into account your concrete subjective situation:
3.1. You want to be in Shanghai + to have a Shanghai girl... Oh, there is nothing in science that can help you to achieve the happiness (this goal) except the ultra-maxx (yes, I know it sounds silly from the perspective of the colleagues, noncels and the common science, but what I do is to use the incels' jargon). Ultra-maxx, in this case includes:
- money-maxx (and/or property-maxx, car-maxx, status-maxx, etc.) because you can't very easy satisfy a Chinese woman and especially a Chinese woman from Shanghai. Yes, there were some native ones, who claimed that the native Shanghai females weren't so greedy and all the greed came from the new-comers, from the surrounding villages, other places of China, etc. but still, ,if you are house-less, car-less, status-less in Shanghai... "good luck" with a local marriage!
3.2. If you lower your goals (something like me -- just trying to be happy in the poorer SEA-countries), then you even don't need any science!
Here, you're enough:
- white
- tall
- good nose-d
- rich (extremely rich!!!)
- you can have instantly a good house, a Toyota (already high-status or around) and a lot of decent girls to like you (not only gold-diggers).
3.3. If we're not talking about you but about the average person, well, then the science that helps your happiness is almost everything: yes, you have to know your brain and psychology, but also you have to be good at geography (for example, to choose a place without earthquakes, typhoons, volcanoes, etc.), to be good at learning languages (the sooner you learn the foreign language the better!), to be good at elementary math (at least count well the money and the prices, because some locals think "Foreigner = rich" and/or "Foreigner = must pay more!"), etc.
So, practically, almost all branches of the science may help you to improve your happiness. Last example, knowing hygiene, can save you from getting some easy to avoid (but terrible) disease like echinococcosis (Chinese name: 胞蟲症)...
Topic: Since Buddhism is not a scientific Dharma of 'happymaxxing', what else are? (Read 1080 times)