One person who considered himself a Buddhist told me that East Asian Buddhists are solipsists because they do not believe that other people they see and with whom they communicate have consciousness, thoughts, sensations, emotions and feelings. Is that true?
I want to know: Do the Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Singaporean and Vietnamese Buddhists believe that all people in our world, all the people they see and with whom they communicate, have thoughts, consciousness, sensations, emotions and feelings?
This is more of a philosophical question that I am not qualified to answer. I am not familiar with “solipsists” and that philosophy.
There is a philosophical school of thought in Buddhism that is often called “consciousness only” which is way beyond my educational capabilities. As I understand it, in this “consciousness only” school, we are incapable of knowing anything for sure because we cannot know what is real and true. W e are left to depend on our Six Senses (sight, sound, touch, smell, taste and thought), which can be fooled or mis-led. And, everything is always changing. Thus nothing is true and real—we are left only with our consciousness.
For example, what is a chair? if you remove the back, is it still a chair? if you remove one leg, is it still a chair? At what point does our image or thought of a chair stop being a chair? In short, the chair is not real, only the mind has a conscious image of chair.
And it is much more complex than my simple example. But this philosophical train of thought has influenced much of Buddhism.
It is a way of explaining why this world is always changing, It explains why everything is interdependent and interrelated. It explains why the ego is temporary, etc.
As for northern Asian Buddhists (not Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and parts of Southeast Asian, which are Theravada Buddhists), the concept of “consciousness only” has a basic philosophical basis, but does not play a direct role in our daily lives. We know the results of that philosophy— everything in this world is constantly changing.
Most Mahayana Buddhists (China, Korea, Japan, Tibet, parts of Southeast Asia) are much more practical. We know we live in this physical world and we have to rely on our Six Senses to survive in this world.
Our spiritual well-being is not dependent on philosophy or political postures. We look into ourselves and understand how dependent I am on others.
Perhaps it can be summarized by the phrase “the selfless self” (“selfless” because we depend on others, and “self” because we have to understand how selfish I am).
Gassho (with palms together), Rev. Ron