streaming consciousness…

Updates from November, 2023 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

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  hardie karges 4:07 am on November 26, 2023 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Calvin, duality ( 6 ), ego ( 33 ), Four Noble Truths ( 18 ), Freud ( 4 ), Hardie Karges ( 268 ), hungry ghosts, maharishi ( 2 ), Maharshi, Mary Baker Eddy, predestination ( 5 )   

  Buddhism in the Bardo Realm: Facing Reality  

  

  All critiques, analyses, and deep discussions of arcane doctrines fall flat in the face of reality. The only important thing is the reduction of suffering. That’s why the Buddha made suffering the focus of his Four Noble Truths, the bedrock of Buddhism, without which there would have been no Buddhism. Because this is the heart and soul of Buddhism, long before the superstitions began creeping in, the past lives and the hungry ghosts and the glittering deities and the evil wicked monsters. And don’t forget the fancy metaphysics, which can be just as superstitious as gods and demons.  

  Because metaphysicians like to talk about perfection, and duality, and free will, and ego, without a shred of proof as to the veracity of any of it—or even the empirical presence of any of it. Who’s ever seen ego? Not Freud. Who’s ever seen predestination? Not Calvin. Who’s seen perfection? Not Mary Baker Eddy. Who’s seen duality? Not Maharshi nor Maharishi. Yet they can all expound on the topics as if they really exist, verbs putting on long pants and a suit to become nouns, leave the hiking boots for tomorrow, in case the latest vehicle won’t fly. 

  But the Buddha probably knew that he was on to something so sublime that it was simple enough to satisfy the threadbare renunciant while subtle enough to satisfy the schooled philosopher—but only for a while. Because soon enough, they’ll be wanting more more, bigger bigger. Just like celebrants banging the drum, the religionists will want more dogma, and the devotees will want more karma. And Original Buddhism will become Big Rig Buddhism, and then there will be Diamond Dog Buddhism, at the same time there’s Crazy Wisdom Buddhism, and so, soon enough, we’ll be right back where we started, and someone will have to sit down and try to figure out what to do next. Hi. 

   

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  hardie karges 3:12 am on November 20, 2023 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Alexander, Brahminists ( 2 ), Buddhism ( 456 ), CHRISTIANITY ( 162 ), FUTURE ( 8 ), Gymnosophists, Hardie Karges ( 268 ), India ( 15 ), Jains ( 2 ), language ( 163 ), Plato ( 17 ), Pythagoras, religion ( 167 )   

  Buddhism and Christianity in the Future of the World…  

  

  Christianity was perhaps better to develop a raw wild unruly world. But Buddhism is better to sustain it. All of which avoids the issue of whether we will survive or not. But, isn’t it better to have developed the world and lost, than never to have developed it at all? Hmmm, I’m not sure, because it seems that we could have developed mentally, and consciously, without ever filling the landfills with so much kitchen appliance junk that our lives are full of, whether we ever perfect the perfect counter-top blender or not. Remember them? 

  But, one thing is for sure: if our civilization collapses, future archeologists will certainly have fun trying to figure it all out, assuming that the historical narrative is fundamental to that civilization, so, it, too, will also likely be lost. Only time will tell, because war is so fundamental to civilization, that to lay down arms, in an effort to reconcile our differences, would be seen as treason to many a competing contender to world dominance. Such is our world and our lives.  

  With the recognition that northern India and modern Europe are genetically related, it must have been interesting to sit around gatherings on the northern steppes when they all spoke a common language, but with apparently different opinions. Because northern Indian philosophy has offered a distinct alternative to the European analytical quest since time immemorial, and that is the milieu from which Buddhism arises, debates with the Brahminists and the Jains.  

  But the Platonists and Pythagoreans had their own issues, never the twain to meet, until Alexander sought the Gymnosophists there in India and the East and West renewed their long conversation left behind on the northern steppes. Now here we sit, trying to make sense of it all, human diversity trying to respond to natural laws, which can only be surmised and rarely proven in the first place or the second instance, and so the only satisfaction lies in trying—or not, if you’re a renunciant.  
   
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  hardie karges 6:51 am on November 12, 2023 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: duality ( 6 ), Hinduism ( 29 ), karma ( 52 ), New Age ( 8 ), non-duality ( 2 ), quantum physics ( 2 ), rebirth ( 37 ), self ( 20 )   

  Buddhism in the Real World: To Be or Not To Be… 

  

  When you believe in yourself, don’t believe too much, just enough to accomplish what you need, not enough to inflate your ego. But this is a hard thing to measure, so must simply somehow be ‘felt,’ as if it were a real substantial thing. It’s not. This is the problem which often occurs when all the ‘other’ religions, philosophies, theoretical sciences, and sundry spiritualities like Hinduism, Buddhism, quantum physics, and chaos theory all get lumped together as co-equal partners in ‘New Age’ metaphysics. 

  The problem, of course, is that many are mutually contradictory. Many things simply can’t be had both ways, Buddhism and Hinduism being the best examples. Hindus believe in an eternal soul. Buddhists don’t. Still Hindus consider Buddhists a renegade sect and constantly try to surround them and close the circle (zero?) while no one is looking. Karma, rebirth and past lives are the best-laid trap, to which Buddhism must constantly be on guard not to fully submit, lest it become ‘just another Hindu sect.’ 

  And so it is with you. Self is not a binary choice, all or none, duality or non-duality. You can be a personality with a happy and fruitful time in this life and this world without ever being left with the dubious choice of a cosmic eternal all-important soul or a subject-less object-less witness to actions that you have no right to. Our sentences have subjects and objects, whether English, Spanish, or Hindi, and so do you, if you want them. You are only an unwilling participant, simple mindless witness, if you so choose. You can be as active as you want, and you can tell Robert Adams that I said so. 

   
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  hardie karges 4:57 am on November 6, 2023 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Buddhism ( 456 ), donation, empathy ( 6 ), giving, Hardie Karges ( 268 ), meditation ( 216 ), scam, scammer   

  Buddhism and the Joy of Giving  

  

  Give without concern about what you will get in return, except for the joy of giving. This is the simplest thing in the world, but also the hardest: simple to understand, but hard to carry out. Because so many of us are accustomed to approaching life as transactional, that it’s hard to see it as empathetic, or even sympathetic, sometimes. Sure, this is a principle easy to understand in the abstract, but not so easy to put down funds with no guarantee in return, not even the joy of giving, necessarily, depending on the habits of the receiving party. 

  Because, if you’re expecting profuse appreciation and lavish attention, then you may be disappointed. One of the reasons that needy people are so needy is that they’ve sometimes, but not always, missed out on the social niceties that make life enjoyable: please, thank you, hello, goodbye, and I love you. But even those niceties can be transactional, if they are used as bargaining chips in the process of negotiation, which was probably never intended to be a negotiation in the first place. 

  But such is the status of our modern online world of scams and scammers: they’ll contact you, don’t worry. So, do you just blow them off? Or do you politely listen to them and then blow them off? Does that feel better? Because it’s always about feeling, whether they’re love scammers or orphanages in Uganda: pulling heartstrings for purse strings. You’re enticed to donate money, for which you will feel good in return. And that’s fine. This is a world of feeling, after all. But don’t get angry, if it isn’t everything you expected. Give for the joy of giving, nothing more nothing less.