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hardie karges
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hardie karges
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hardie karges
To be Reborn in the Spirit of the Buddha
Every day should be a re-Birth day, in spirit, not DNA. And, as much as I hate to get involved in the Buddhist rebirth debates and disputes, I’ll have to say that I probably like the Christian use of that term ‘reborn’ more than I like the Buddhist flirtation with Hindu reincarnation. Because the Christian usage is almost always phrased as ‘reborn in the spirit of the Lord’ or something like that, which seems healthy, not superstitious. It might even be for Christians what mindfulness is for Buddhists, a simple way of being, more than anything else.
The Tibetans don’t even pretend otherwise, of course, as they scour the countrysides looking for someone who looks a lot like what a Dalai Lama should look like, while the Mahayanists settle for multiple Buddhist manifestations presumably emanating from some eternal source, and the occasional black-belt Bodhisattva who will assert himself on the field of spiritual battle to prove that such a thing is still possible, the rare individual doing what enlightened beings do, saving the world and making it better for others.
But leave it to the Theravadins to do what Buddha himself did, training himself to a fine fit of a spiritual soldier, ready to forego random desires and craven cravings in order to reduce suffering in the long run and promote inner peace in the short run. And leave it to the Theravadins to walk for months nonstop, too, to promote world peace. That’s what the Buddha would do. Note: I support all schools and sects of Buddhism, but I’m especially proud of Thai Theravadins right now. They’ve truly shown the world something with their Walking for Peace…
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hardie karges
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hardie karges
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hardie karges
Buddhism 202: No Self Means no Selfishness
Selfishness is a refuge only for the wicked and the ignorant, because it is no refuge at all. And this is possibly the best definition of the Buddhist doctrine of anatta, i.e. non-self, or no-self, that it is the opposite of selfishness. That’s only partially true, though, and is, or was, really more of a point of distinction between an emerging Buddhism and a rapidly evolving ‘Hinduism’, i.e. the Brahmanism of the 5th century BC and its eternal Brahmin and its cosmic self.
And that Buddhist doctrine was later expanded into the equally or even more famous shunyata ‘emptiness’ which took the impermanence and unimportance of the self and expanded it to almost everything, or at least everything pretentious enough to pretend to permanence or even importance. But selfishness is among the worst kileshas, or Buddhist sins, on a par with hate, greed, craving, and anger.
Life is not a popularity contest. If you engage in false flattery, then you’ll only have false friends. If you engage in selfishness, you’ll only have yourself to blame for the craven half-hearted character that you might become in the process. Because selfishness does not elevate the self, such as it is. It can only degrade it, or what’s left of it. Selfishness is that imaginary self at its worst, grasping and clinging like no tomorrow. And that’s the honest truth. Because there is no tomorrow. There is only today. And today will soon go away and become something permanent, in the past, hard and cold. Let’s stay warm.
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hardie karges
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hardie karges
Buddhism, the Present Moment, and a Walk for Peace
The only thing certain is the past, and that’s dead and gone. Maybe that’s why so many Buddhists emphasize living in the present moment, because it’s alive and free, even if uncertain. I’m not sure if the Buddha agreed, but he probably would have. Because in the original Buddhism there is a contract between Buddhist society and society at large that the sangha would ensure some level of goodness in this world if society would feed them and house them in turn.
So, monks can essentially be children of Nature, while the householders can plant and f*ck and do all those other things that most people consider ordinary. And so now they bargain for a higher honor, as they walk for peace in multiple countries and on multiple fronts, begging for attention, not alms, but to make a point, not to rock this joint, that point being simply to live a mindful existence in whatever ways possible, and to be peaceful about it. And if the immediate ramifications for Buddhism are more for show than substance, the larger ramifications are palpable.
Because, if Theravada Buddhism has long been moving toward an emphasis on Vipassana meditation and a decrease in dogma, now that is official. There should be no more quibbling over the minutiae of Abhidharma or debates over what exactly is reborn with rebirth. The point now is to have a happy day and spread the cheer around town. Now, if we can only get old-time Buddhists on the same page as the newcomers, many of whom are still trying to escape cyclical rebirths in samsara, then we will truly accomplish something.
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hardie karges
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hardie karges
streaming consciousness... 
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