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  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 12:45 pm on December 29, 2019 Permalink | Reply
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    Life and Buddhism at the Crossroads of Culture and the City… 

    Human selfishness is appalling, incompetence assumed, myopia even worse. So it’s no wonder our kids will inherit a Hell of our own making. Of course many people are quite proud of the world we’ve created, and with some justification, certainly, but the question we must ask ourselves is in which direction are we heading. So if you are in love with cars and buildings and highways and cities, then you should be quite happy. But much of our present world is based on white male privilege, of the Aryan upper class, so what would it look like as done by other tribal sources, and by the females who bare the burden of multiple births? Unfortunately that question is hard to answer, since it is typical now to copy the Western paradigm as if it were the only one available. So Chinese plans for the future look almost like a caricature of the Western model, Hong Kong extrapolated exponential, high rises up and down every street, with almost no one left in the state of nature. But that’s exactly what my perfect world would look like, if it were up to me, and if I had the decision to make, because nature is what we are, not concrete and steel, no matter how we feel, under the influence of elixirs and potions and untested notions, the children of experiment, left to our own devices, mostly electronic. But where are we then when the lights go out? Because they most certainly will, somehow some way, in some year, if not some day. And we should be prepared for that eventuality, with no time wasted in transition, not only because it is imminent, but because it is better. We are organic beings, not robots, and to deny our connection to the earth is not only futile, but misguided. If there is beauty in this world, then it comes from nature. If there is good in this world, then it comes from nature. And if there is any truth in this world, then it comes from Nature. And to Nature it should return, in a constant process of recycling, and returning to the source for refreshment. That doesn’t mean living in the wild, not necessarily. It means living in villages, without walls and without fears, no guns and no tears, preferably Buddhist. Villages are feminine and forgiving. Cities are masculine and unforgiving. The world has developed physically, but have we developed mentally and spiritually? That question remains to be answered…

     
    • Robert@69's avatar

      Robert@69 10:12 pm on December 29, 2019 Permalink | Reply

      we have developed mentally – clearly technology is a product of our minds – as are religions, billionaires and 5G. Spiritually…ahhh that’s difficult to discern. Christianity, as preached currently in america appears to fulfil the notion of “making a pact with the devil” for power, with Trump. But that speaks more to ideology/mentality than to spirituality and I pray that recent events of rebellion from the base may lead to a “resurrection of Jesus,” in the sense that honest and practicing Christians begin waking up from the spell false prophets.

      Sorry, I ramble. I would hope too that our villages would orient around feminine energies – no guns and much metta and mudita. One of the sweet things about Buddhism as I understand it, is that no one knows quite where they are on the path but we know we are on a path of heart and the 3rd Noble truth reveals that indeed we can lesson our suffering, we do indeed love as we love ourselves, and experience greater spaciousness in our lives.

      • hardie karges's avatar

        hardie karges 10:19 pm on December 29, 2019 Permalink | Reply

        You are welcome to ramble. Thank you for your comments. And I largely agree…

  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 12:53 pm on December 22, 2019 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Buddhsim, , ,   

    Reality Po’ Boys: the Light Within Us and the Light Without… 

    A kind word can heal forever, just as an unkind word can wound. Indifference is not the best option, but a healthy silence is okay. Such is the hand we play, as opposed to the hand that we’re dealt. Because this is not the best of all possible worlds, enshrined in legend and showcased in gold. The best of all possible worlds would be pure light, magnetic and electric, but we can only barely perceive that world, so imagine it as a force, outside us and distant. But once we perceive that force as inside us and accessible, then the equation changes and the call to action becomes explicit. It is our position as intermediaries to retransmit that internal light back outward to its external locus of purity. Because the reflected light within us is muddled and muddied, conflicted and confused, by virtue of its inferior status of self-ness, earth-bound and body-tired, while the light of external space is godly and illuminating. But that is neither here nor there, because the light is just indicative of our reflected status, a function of frequencies, and tendencies to exist, when there are no better options available. So we fall in love with this earth and this body, for as long as it lasts, and for whatever good it will do, because it is ultimately doomed to failure, no matter how hard we try, and the common phrase for that is ‘we’re all going to die’. And so the pretensions of humanity fall flat on their faces, no matter the lineage or the appearance of race. This physical world is but a tiny whirlpool in the cosmic stream, where the going gets slow and white light passes through the spectrum of physicality, rain and snow and fog and steam and all the colors of the rainbow’s stream, in full panoramic display, beauty incarnate and suffering, too, the price of our perfection its negation. So cries and crises ensue and volcanoes erupt, earthquakes and landslides and the rising price of a 20-ounce cup. Now the only path forward loops around and comes back to haunt us, every time and in every place. But there is no cause for anger, as this is simply the way of our world, by definition. There is no cure. The cure for anger would be a creative solution to the cause, but Buddhist meditation can work in the meanwhile…

     
    • R. Marshall's avatar

      KINDNESS 3:06 am on December 23, 2019 Permalink | Reply

      Merry Christmas 🎄

      • hardie karges's avatar

        hardie karges 4:19 am on December 23, 2019 Permalink | Reply

        Thanks. Merry Christmas to you also, and a happy new year.

  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 2:54 pm on December 15, 2019 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhism and the Fleshly Prison of the Body 

    Solitary confinement is not torture, if it’s voluntary. Then it’s meditation, a retreat, renunciation. And if this is one of the messages of Buddhism, then let it be known that many religious and philosophical traditions make the case that the body is a prison of sorts. But this is the ultimate irony, is it not (?), that pleasure and pain are but conditioned reflexes, conditioned by culture and sanctioned by nature, such that one man’s torture is another man’s enlightenment, solitary confinement (presumably in prison) and meditation (presumably alone, silent and with no material rewards) are, on the surface, quite similar, differing only in the expectations, and the nature of rewards offered, accepted, and acknowledged. Because if you’re looking for money or street cred or hot nights in a cold crib, then meditation is not your best option. You’d do better out on Sunset Drive after dark with a fistful of dollars and a pocketful of tissues. Whatever you’re packing, it won’t be enough, though, because that is the nature of craving, lust and desire, whether for meat, onions, or sex. It’s never enough, because the sliding scale of satisfaction constantly resets the top dead center of zero, from which all further measurements are calibrated. So it’s like the Asian schoolboy addicted to spicy food who adds hot sauce, to his taste, in a fresh bowl of noodles. The only problem is that after five minutes, it doesn’t taste spicy anymore, because the new standard of ‘normalcy’ has slid up the scale of spiciness, already. So what do you do? You add more hot spicy stuff, of course, and so on and so on, adding more and more beyond all reason, even though your body knows exactly what’s going on, and will protest on the morrow. And if this sounds like a frivolous example, then I assure you that it’s not so frivolous when the ‘spice’ in question is heroin, and the sliding scale of normalcy is tolerance to a drug that cares nothing about your feelings. So people die every year chasing a feeling that will kill regardless of how you feel. So some feelings are best avoided, especially those that are destructive to yourself, or others, generally measured by their hardness, not their softness. There should be no hard feelings. There is no time for that, too much work and too little gain. Life goes too quickly for quibbling over the details of a desire best left unrequited…

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 7:06 am on December 8, 2019 Permalink | Reply
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    The Bodhisattva and the Butterfly: Living in the Material World… 

    The frst rule of life in the material world is that you have to actually be somewhere, in a place, almost all the time, which seems self-evident, I suppose, but sometimes problematic, all the same. I mean: you can’t just scan your own personal barcode on to some digital format and send yourself off to the cloud somewhere. In fact, I suppose this defines the conundrum of existence, where to be and what to do, and how to do it, and with whom. For this is, on the micro individual level, what has been described on a macro social level, as the ‘tyranny of democracy’, so on the individual level something like the ‘horror of free will’, i.e. decisions decisions. So the most obvious thing to do is find your true love, get hitched, and then start making babies, simple–or not so simple. Because what happens when your true love goes south, or those beautiful babies start foaming at the mouth, or the planet gets so full of little poopers that the poop piles up, and the rivers won’t flow no mo’ and the sun won’t shine, and even if it did, it would no longer find any field of flowers to illuminate? So we are the first species to ask these questions, few of which have concrete answers, so we try to console ourselves that the fact of asking will somehow be some compensation, despite all evidence to the contrary, filed in reams of papers and stacks of floppy disks which no longer work and only take up space, while we wait for the next newest technology to come and save us in the nick of time before the door shuts in our faces and the bells no longer chime. But it seems the kid was just having some late teen depression, so normal enough considering the urge to merge and the need to breed. Will there still be meaning to life when population pressures dictate that we need to find other hobbies besides reproduction? These are the challenges we face for the future, if there is to be a future, full of furniture and breakfast nooks and a 2-car garage, regardless of whether anything is parked there or not. So we have to invent reasons for the season, and myths for our bliss, and content ourselves with intransitive verbs, even when we all crave something to truly transit, preferably glory, in mind if not body. I will be at peace when this world is at peace, and if that’s not so much of a concern of Theravada Buddhism, then I’ll forgive them for that, because it’s right in line with Mahayana, the big machine, so that seems right for this era of history, Theravada at home and Mahayana out in the world, C U there…

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 5:20 am on December 1, 2019 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhism 202: Slavery to Self and the Addictions of Ego… 

    Slavery can also be self-inflicted, addiction to money and ego and possessions and false gods, you name it. And I suppose it’s not even a bad thing, necessarily, as some Buddhist devotees proudly display their ‘slavery’ to the Buddha, just like any latter-day Krishna devotee named Das (Sanskrit for ‘slave’). But those are particular and peculiar exceptions to the general rule that freedom is better, self-control the best kind of control, and any exception to that rule to be approached with extreme caution. Because morality demands free will, or at least the illusion of such, to whatever extent possible, given the limits imposed by biological existence and the vicissitudes of circumstance. For we are nothing if not crippled, by space and time and the frequencies at which we are sentient, to light and sound, especially, somewhere between infrared and ultraviolet, and 20 to 20,000 Hz in this world best defined physically by mechanical waves of the kind that shock and reverberate, percussion with repercussions, and the sonic blasts that level all buildings and pretenses to greatness and permanence. Addictions are false gods and self-slavery, selling yourself to the highest bidder for selves and souls on the credit card for true believers, no down payment required and discount options available with bulk purchase. But every purchase comes with a warning: that warm fuzzy feeling that felt so good the first time may not feel so good the last, in some sliding scale of proportionately inverse pleasure, calculated to leave you wanting more the more you have, just the opposite of the Platonic need for what you don’t have, instead the Satanic need for what you do have. But in the end it’s all just ‘maya’, illusion, because it ultimately gets you nowhere, and advances you not a whit, because all your frills and bangles, fancy buttons and silk bows, won’t make you a better person, and that’s the mark of progress…

     
    • Dave Kingsbury's avatar

      Dave Kingsbury 4:15 am on December 7, 2019 Permalink | Reply

      Invigorating perspectives, as always, Hardie! Our addictions aren’t always obvious to us, it seems …

      • hardie karges's avatar

        hardie karges 5:01 am on December 7, 2019 Permalink | Reply

        No, not always obvious, and not even necessarily bad. Thanks for your comment…

        • Dave Kingsbury's avatar

          Dave Kingsbury 5:29 pm on December 7, 2019 Permalink

          The word carries a pejorative association for me, so interesting to consider it from another angle … I suppose enthusiasm and dedication, for example, require a degree of obsessional focus in a distracting world.

        • hardie karges's avatar

          hardie karges 6:38 pm on December 7, 2019 Permalink

          Yes, I know it’s difficult to see the word as positive, but the name Das confirms it, just checked modern Hindi, and it’s the same, but with connotations of ‘devotee’, now, of course. For me the distinction is that between self-control and control by others, and that’s very central to the implicit meaning of Buddhism, even if seldom articulated…

        • Dave Kingsbury's avatar

          Dave Kingsbury 3:46 am on December 8, 2019 Permalink

          I can see the distinction you describe – a very important one in an increasingly homogenous world, I reckon.

  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 6:34 am on November 24, 2019 Permalink | Reply
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    Karma and the Necessity of Imperfection 

    Maybe the world is an imperfect place, or maybe I’m just too sensitive. But the world, of course, is defined by its imperfection, and it would be futile to want it any other way, in fact, because these imperfections are what allows for change and evolution, the constant mutation of genetic units into something else, the concepts of better or worse subject to the judgment of volunteers and substitutes, while perfection itself means no such thing, just the fact that it has been completed, finished, no more change, end of story, and that’s not likely to happen, no time soon, anyway, not with egos flaring and guns flashing, the glint of hard cold steel embedding itself in our collective consciousness as a reminder of our potential for cruelty, as a vestige of our not-so-distant past, savage and brutal and begging for redemption when none is likely and where none could be further from the truth. This is ground zero, the testing area, between past and future, for liberation and release, from the bonds of self-imprisonment and the requirements for future freedom. The past is but a signpost and the present a yawning zero, a field of action between the two goal posts of judgment, neither of which has meaning except that which we care to give it, for purposes of narrative, the requirements of closure and the necessities of a happy ending, with possibilities for future options. But in every act of jurisprudence the important question is intent, no matter the difficulty of determination or the conundrums of context, because guilt without intent is in fact no guilt at all, in a good and just world, and any notion of Buddhist karma must take this into account, no less so than the Supreme Court, sitting in judgment over the law of our land. Karma is equal to actions, and actions are equal to intent. Every act of cruelty or kindness carries the weight of its own intent, no more and no less…

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 3:10 am on November 17, 2019 Permalink | Reply
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    Life as a Singularity, and the Vicissitudes of Intent… 

    You can have family. You can have friends. You can have money. You can have plans. But U R still alone. And that’s not so bad. After all, that should be the most obvious thing in life, now, shouldn’t it? That here you are, amidst a sea of anonymity, and that it is futile to seek unanimity. But the reality is just the opposite, that once a child is torn from its mother’s breast, that the existential longing for inclusion begins, the desire for warmth and succor, all for free, all for the taking, with no effort involved and with no questions asked. But this is a boy’s dream, because the mother must make many orders of effort, and every drop of life’s rich milky nutrient comes with the price tag of commitment, paid in the currency of consumption, by installments, with no other credit plans available. And so a baby cries, right on cue, when it doesn’t get what it wants, and the existential dilemmas begin: What do I have to do to get that feeling of warmth and succor that felt so good for that one brief moment, way back when way back where in that crib of communion, before the terror of aloneness set in? Because nobody felt good on arrival, virtually DOA, we all came into this world kicking and screaming, and looking for something we don’t have–NOW! And such is life, the constant searching and craving for something other, in order to make oneself whole again. So it’s a logical conundrum, a teleological surd, a square peg in a round hole, or vice versa, mutatis mutandis, such that no one is allowed any peace for pensivity, without the arduous addition of intent. Intent is the human master stroke, assembly not required, just an act of the will and the acceptance of consequences. And no one can help with that, because mother is long gone now and there is no other except the one that you create within yourself in her image and likeness, if that helps the transition. And now you are free. And I am free. So light a candle for the Buddha. I accept my own limitations. I reject those placed upon me by others…

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 5:46 am on November 10, 2019 Permalink | Reply
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    The Possibilities for Peace, Love and Buddhism in a Trumpian Universe 

    I don’t hate Donald Trump the person. That would be unkind. I hate Donald Trump the concept. And there is more at stake than kindness, anyway, since it is sometimes hard to be kind toward someone who is not a kind person himself. But ultimately we’re all made of the same stuff, so to hate others is ultimately to hate yourself and hate the world we live in, imperfect though it may be, and defined by that, in fact. Even consciousness has a basis in what we call the stuff of this world, so ultimately any mind-body duality is more apparent than real, illusions of the slippery sort, and likely the basis of religion, the division of this world into self and other, mind and body, good and evil, and our attempts to reunite all the apparent opposites, that only exist because we perceive them that way, when if we could avoid them in the first place, then we would truly be a step ahead. But that is the psychic stuff that this world is made of, ‘mental formations’ in Buddhism, the hopes and fears and illusions and divisions and contradictions and emotions that I must write before they smite. But hatred, and love, are in categories by themselves. This era, too, will pass, and we will then have to decide what we’ve learned and where we go from here. But hatred is difficult to take back, un-do, or transform, so probably best avoided altogether…

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 2:14 am on November 3, 2019 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , Greta, hope, , need,   

    The Algebra of Need, and the Calculus of Hope… 

    When one door closes, another one opens. It has to, to let some light in.We can’t exist in darkness, not for long, anyway, nor can we exist without opportunities, and if circumstances don’t provide those outlets, then our minds, or our collective mind, will have to provide it, because it’s not clear what mind really is, or how it differs from our singular specific brain functions, we only know it as an all-embracing continuum of consciousness, regardless of whether ultimately that continuum is composed of minute atomistic particles of consciousness, or not, because the only way to analyze it is with consciousness itself, so something of a feedback loop results, in which the thing as observer and observed cannot be distinguished for proper analysis. But the light is necessary, regardless, and from outside, because our minds may be able to create opportunity from the flimsiest excuses, but light is an essential physical requirement for life, and consciousness, even if only the tiniest spark from the most diminutive flicker. A prison cell with a window to the outside is not a prison cell at all, even in solitary confinement, because there is always that patch of blue or flicker of gold to send spirits soaring or feelings flying toward heights yet unimagined or distances yet to be traversed. So we exist in Plato’s cave subsisting on shadows, because they seem so real, when something even more real is right beyond our range of perception, waiting to be discovered–or not. There are no guarantees, and false hopes die hardest, so maybe it’s best to keep expectations realistic, given the high percentage of failures. We are all canaries in this bloody coal mine. Sorry about that, Greta…

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 1:24 am on October 27, 2019 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhism and the long winding path: No soul for me, please, and make that karma ‘lite’… 

    Salvation implies a soul to be saved. I’d prefer some enlightenment, in this lifetime. And that’s a fundamental tenet of Buddhism, of course, the lack of a permanent enduring soul to guide you through the ages, or even a solid existent self to call your own in this lifetime, the basis for egotism and possession, and all the misgivings of misplaced attachments. And if that seems like a significant deviation from the teachings of Christ, then it was even more of a deviation from the early Vedic-inspired teachings of India, including Jainism and what we now call Hinduism. For if the Vedantic Hindus want a Self to unite with a Cosmos, an Atman to unite with a Brahman, then the Jains want to find a soul in everything, every little thing, be it rock, insect or umbrella. It’s not just that everything is alive, but it’s permanent and enduring. The Buddha thought he saw something simpler than all these machinations of overwrought mentality, which are just linguistic conveniences standing up and asking to be counted, when in reality there is really nothing there, just ‘mental formations’ or something like that. After all, if everything has a soul, then what do we do to acknowledge that? The Jain answer was: not much. Just sit, sit, and sit some more. It’ll all go away sooner or later. Every action was possessed of karmas, plural. Now that may seem like a strange definition of karma, but they likely invented the concept, so that’s their right. Others saw it differently, for once the cat of karma was out of the bag, so to speak, then there is no end to it, the generation-jumping karma of retribution and the things we’ll do to avoid it. If religion craves certainty, then this became the Hindu leitmotif, past lives and reincarnation, which, like conspiracy theory, cannot be disproven, so it must be true. But don’t we need some semblance of free will, simply for the dictates of morality and ethics? So I prefer something simpler, ‘karma lite’ if you prefer: Do good and life is good. Do bad and life is bad. That’s karma, actions. You will be rewarded by them, not for them…

     
    • quantumpreceptor's avatar

      quantumpreceptor 7:08 am on October 27, 2019 Permalink | Reply

      Hardy, good job boiling things down and making them simple enough to live them.

      QP

    • Passport Overused's avatar

      Passport Overused 8:01 am on October 27, 2019 Permalink | Reply

      Great post 😊

    • hardie karges's avatar

      hardie karges 10:57 am on October 27, 2019 Permalink | Reply

      Thanks

    • Dave Kingsbury's avatar

      Dave Kingsbury 4:41 pm on October 27, 2019 Permalink | Reply

      You will be rewarded by them, not for them… great insight here, the circle squared perhaps?

    • hardie karges's avatar

      hardie karges 11:45 pm on October 27, 2019 Permalink | Reply

      Actually I may have modified a quote from the Dalai Lama there, so should give credit, not sure of his exact words. ‘Circle squared’, though: I like that…

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