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  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 3:11 am on July 23, 2017 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhism, Life and Death: Welcome to Prison… 

    img_1341

    Shan ‘Tai Yai’ temple…

    Welcome to prison. Welcome to the farm. Welcome to this life, 3-D, biological, in which you will live an average of seventy-plus years, maybe more maybe less, with time off for good behavior, if lucky, subject to local conditions, and just a few rules. So these bodies will be our home, and this life will be our penitentiary, life at the speed of sound, dreaming of light, and avoiding gravity…

    That doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy it, though, just that knowing our limits and avoiding extremes is usually the better bargain than seeking them out, by my understanding of Buddhist insight. And yet we do seek them out, don’t we, especially we Americans, with our extreme sports and our extreme prejudices, and our passions and our pride, that usually goeth before a fall? (More …)

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 9:04 am on July 19, 2017 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , cockroach, , , , subway   

    Buddhism, and the Cosmic Cockroach of Divine Retribution… 

    img_0545Hollywood is not the glamour capital of the world, as many people imagine. In fact, it’s pretty slummy, though a vast improvement over a decade or two ago. Remember Kramer’s apartment building during his trip out west (actually just right across town) in the old Seinfeld TV show? Yep, like that (that dive goes for $100 a night, now, BTW, a sure sign of impending gentrification)…

    So to see a cockroach or two in the Metro station at Hollywood and Vine is no surprise, especially considering the amount of fast food that gets tossed by the wayside by the area’s homeless, who are apparently equally bin-less, in mind if not in fact. But the elderly lady on the mezzanine level seems particularly entranced by the one she’s found trying to make a run for it, far out of his comfort zone down by the tracks, big and juicy, and slow on the getaway. Actually the lady’s probably younger than I, but you know… (More …)

     
    • tiramit's avatar

      tiramit 6:13 pm on July 19, 2017 Permalink | Reply

      “(the) mind’s ear, hearing what it’s feeling, substituting imagination for the lack of investigation.” This is a teaching in itself. I’ve never been to Hollywood and the thought that it is not at all what it seems holds my attention for a moment, thanks.

    • Dave Kingsbury's avatar

      davekingsbury 3:34 pm on July 20, 2017 Permalink | Reply

      That’s the way to do it! I share your horror at the vendetta. Great post, by the way, as good as David Sedaris. Better, actually, because it has a message …

  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 10:40 am on July 16, 2017 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , animal, , , , reintroduction, , ,   

    Buddhism, Taming the Wild Child: Save the animal, not the wild… 

    img_2116“…the animals I’ve trapped/Have all become my pets/And I’m living off of grass/And the drippings from the ceiling/But it’s okay to eat fish/’Cause they don’t have any feelings”–Kurt Cobain, ‘Something in the Way’

    And that’s about right, I’d say. But a tamed animal, a mammal—especially cats and dogs—are nothing BUT feelings, it seems to me, having long ago lost their wildness and their feral instincts, on some cold dark night way back when it was far preferable to cultivate humans as masters, in exchange for security alarm services, rather than toughing it out in the wild with wolves and foxes and other lower uncivilized breeds…

    But we Westerners, Americans especially, are so in love with the wild, and the wilderness, or at least our romantic conception of it, that we go to great and elaborate expense to ‘reintroduce’ those other lower species that we once hunted or otherwise annihilated, i.e. ‘extirpated’ to near or even complete extinction… (More …)

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 10:31 am on July 9, 2017 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , , , , Type-A behavior   

    Buddhism, Meditation, Alpha Males and the Myth of Leadership… 

    img_1893When people ask me about meditation practice and/or Buddhism, I make it clear that meditation is one thing, and Buddhism is another, though I certainly appreciate both, even if knee problems likely mean that I’ll never achieve the classic lotus pose, and maybe not even the half of it…

    …so sitting meditation becomes chair meditation, which is just as good or better, just not as cool to look at, though maybe better for sati, ‘mindfulness’, if the cross-legged pose is uncomfortable, thus freeing the mind for focus, on nothing, emptiness, the vast undefined, even if in a sitting position less defined than the classic figure-8 flower… (More …)

     
    • Dave Kingsbury's avatar

      davekingsbury 3:45 pm on July 10, 2017 Permalink | Reply

      I think the link with the wider world is as significant as the opportunity for personal development. This makes that point firmly, Hardie.

  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 10:23 am on July 5, 2017 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , , , YouTube   

    #Samadhi for non-#Buddhists and Children of the #Matrix: Turn it down!!! 

    It seems that the movie “The Matrix” has done for the current generation what “Plato’s Cave” did for one almost 2500 years ago, inspiring countless thinkers and wannabe prophets to poke beyond the edges of the common-sense world, just to see if there was anything there, knowing that there would be no sure answers, but an enduring love of the questions, and inspiring narratives that would make any Homer, Shakespeare, Hugo or Cervantes take notice… (More …)

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 10:09 am on July 2, 2017 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , auto-da-fe, , , , , , , ,   

    #Buddhism and #Science: #Materialism is an Act of Faith, too, auto-da-fe’…. 

    img_1773Every self-proclaimed atheist takes it as an article of faith (!) that the material world is the real world, and that any competing claims from the realms of religion and/or any other spurious metaphysics must be misguided at best, silly superstition most likely, at worst maybe even one of many conspiracy theory scenarios that inhabit the minds of the disenfranchised and disenchanted…

    Yet materialism is indeed an article of faith. The only question is to what degree. The fact that it goes largely unquestioned in the modern world, with or without the atheistic conclusion, does not make it fact, and if questioned, its typical devotee will most likely defer to common sense, as if it’s so obvious that no explanation is required. These manifestations say as much about us modern humans, of course, as it does about the validity of the assumption… (More …)

     
    • Dave Kingsbury's avatar

      davekingsbury 3:34 pm on July 3, 2017 Permalink | Reply

      Speaking as an agnostic who flirts with atheism, I can only applaud your identification of materialism as the villain of the piece. Developing/evolving our creative and more spiritual side seems to be the way forward.

      • hardie karges's avatar

        hardie karges 9:59 am on July 5, 2017 Permalink | Reply

        Flirting is fine, but I could never truly consider myself an atheist, though non-theist is different. Mostly I just want to consider all the possibilities, like Plato before me. And the fact that almost all near-death experiences involve ‘a light’ is a fact that I can’t ignore…

    • Trebronztul's avatar

      Trebronztul 7:20 am on July 6, 2017 Permalink | Reply

      On fact, only the early and immature forms of materialism can be considered as acts of faith or, as F. Engels put it, “metaphysics”. In his famous “Anti-Duehring” (published in 1877), he has already presented a critique of this “common sense” based materialism. From this book, I once used the following quote as the motto of my master’s dissertation that I prepared 102 years later:
      “Only sound common sense, respectable fellow that he is, in the homely realm of his own four walls, has very wonderful adventures directly he ventures out into the wide world of research.”

      By contrast, dialectical materialism goes far beyond this “common sense” based materialism. Needless to state that nowadays hardly anyone knows and cares about dialectical materialism, including most scientists. And of course, today much could be added to and modified in Engels’ materialism – WITHOUT FALLING BACK BELOW THE LEVEL THAT HE HAD ALREADY ACHIEVED IN THE 19TH CENTURY, and without falling back into religious mysticism that probably was adequate thinking for feudal and pre-feudal societies (and is dying away to the extent society progresses – good riddance!!). Of course, in times of major crises of the more advanced societies, old religious murmurs tend to come back – as crisis symptoms, NOT as useful recipes for the future!

      Here is a more extensive Engels quote that should clarify things: “Real natural science dates from the second half of the fifteenth century, and thence onward it has advanced with constantly increasing rapidity. The analysis of nature into its individual parts, the grouping of the different natural processes and objects in definite classes, the study of the internal anatomy of organic bodies in their manifold forms — these were the fundamental conditions of the gigantic strides in our knowledge of nature that have been made during the last four hundred years. But this method of work has also left us as legacy the habit of observing natural objects and processes in isolation, apart from their connection with the vast whole; of observing them in repose, not in motion; as constants, not as essentially variables, in their death, not in their life. And when this way of looking at things was transferred by Bacon and Locke from natural science to philosophy, it begot the narrow, metaphysical mode of thought peculiar to the preceding centuries.

      To the metaphysician, things and their mental reflexes, ideas, are isolated, are to be considered one after the other and apart from each other, are objects of investigation fixed, rigid, given once for all. He thinks in absolutely irreconcilable antitheses. “His communication is ‘yea, yea; nay, nay’; for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.” [Matthew 5:37. — Ed.] For him a thing either exists or does not exist; a thing cannot at the same time be itself and something else. Positive and negative absolutely exclude one another, cause and effect stand in a rigid antithesis one to the other.

      At first sight this mode of thinking seems to us very luminous, because it is that of so-called sound common sense. Only sound common sense, respectable fellow that he is, in the homely realm of his own four walls, has very wonderful adventures directly he ventures out into the wide world of research. And the metaphysical mode of thought, justifiable and even necessary as it is in a number of domains whose extent varies according to the nature of the particular object of investigation, sooner or later reaches a limit, beyond which it becomes one-sided, restricted, abstract, lost in insoluble contradictions. In the contemplation of individual things it forgets the connection between them; in the contemplation of their existence, it forgets the beginning and end of that existence; of their repose, it forgets their motion. It cannot see the wood for the trees.

      For everyday purposes we know and can say, e.g., whether an animal is alive or not. But, upon closer inquiry, we find that this is, in many cases, a very complex question, as the jurists know very well. They have cudgelled their brains in vain to discover a rational limit beyond which the killing of the child in its mother’s womb is murder. It is just as impossible to determine absolutely the moment of death, for physiology proves that death is not an instantaneous momentary phenomenon, but a very protracted process.

      In like manner, every organic being is every moment the same and not the same, every moment it assimilates matter supplied from without, and gets rid of other matter; every moment some cells of its body die and others build themselves anew; in a longer or shorter time the matter of its body is completely renewed, and is replaced by other atoms of matter, so that every organic being is always itself, and yet something other than itself.

      Further, we find upon closer investigation that the two poles of an antithesis positive and negative, e.g., are as inseparable as they are opposed and that despite all their opposition, they mutually interpenetrate. And we find, in like manner, that cause and effect are conceptions which only hold good in their application to individual cases; but as soon as we consider the individual cases in their general connection with the universe as a whole, they run into each other, and they become confounded when we contemplate that universal action and reaction in which causes and effects are eternally changing places, so that what is effect here and now will be cause there and then, and vice versa.

      None of these processes and modes of thought enters into the framework of metaphysical reasoning. Dialectics, on the other hand, comprehends things and their representations, ideas, in their essential connection, concatenation, motion, origin, and ending.”

      • hardie karges's avatar

        hardie karges 9:26 am on July 6, 2017 Permalink | Reply

        Thanks for that, Norbert. In fact some of us care about dialectical materialism AND dialectical idealism…

  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 7:08 am on June 25, 2017 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , Bizarro, , , Goldilocks, , ,   

    #Buddhism, #Bizarro World, and the 4 Noble Truths of #Christianity… 

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    We all know the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism, of course, indoctrinated in us since birth: 1) the prevalence of suffering in this world, 2) the cause of suffering—desire, 3) the way to reduce suffering—reduce desire, and 4) the way to do that: the Eightfold Middle Path—do not lie, cheat, steal, etc…

    But did you know that Christianity also has Four Noble Truths? Okay, so they’re not exactly called that, but it’s easy enough to interpolate and extrapolate, so here goes: 1) this world is fun!, 2) the cause of fun is desire, 3) the way to increase fun is to increase desire—more bigger richer sexier, and 4) the way to do that: the Ten Commandments: do not lie, cheat, steal, etc. Ha! Gotcha! (More …)

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 8:25 am on June 21, 2017 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: capitalist, , , , , , global village, , , , small planet, , totalitarian   

    #Dialectic Burrito Deluxe: #Marx or #Hegel, Tortilla or Bagel… 

    Marx and Hegel are almost (almost!) equally famous for their dialogues and dialectics, with themselves and others, materialism and idealism respectively, thesis antithesis synthesis, history somehow some way marching forward zig-zag drunkenly, reconciling opposites into higher syntheses supposedly, like a ball rolling downhill, picking up speed, bouncing from side to side, before finally choosing a middle course out of entropy as much as any conscious decision-making progress…

    And so we do just that, apparently, nomadic hunter-gatherers until we had the ways and means to settle down with plants and animals, sedentary farmer-herders until we had the ways and means to build elaborate cities with specialized skills, accomplished artisans-craftsmen until we had the ways and means to sell beyond our local ‘hood, market-based buyers-sellers until we had the ways and means to go long distances, peripatetic merchant-travelers until we had the ways and means to mass-produce anywhere any time… (More …)

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 9:52 am on June 18, 2017 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , philkosophy, ,   

    #Buddhism #Christianity #Islam: All #Religions Work—if you let them… 

    IMG_1559All religions want the same thing—goodness in general, peace brotherhood compassion and mercy in particular. But their prime proponent visionaries—Buddha, Christ and Prophet—each saw different ways of getting there—non-self and non-craving first, love and forgiveness next, and then finally submission and surrender. And all of them can work, if maybe more appropriate for different groups of people at different times in history…

    In 5-600 BC, Buddhism was the perfect message, in a violent greedy war-torn world more or less centered around India, and ready for meditation (and anyone who imagines that the world was calm and peaceful before the advent of religion is tripping). In year 0-100 CE Christianity was spot on target for a world increasingly shifted westward to new fertile ground, the Fertile Crescent, and based on and around Roman power in the Mediterranean, ready for bread and circuses, passion and power… (More …)

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 3:26 pm on June 15, 2017 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , colon, , , Klee Irwin, , , ,   

    What is #Reality? #Buddhism, #Quantum #Physics or Colon Cleanser, hmmm… 

    Okay, so I have my frustrations from time to time, doubts about my direction and misgivings about my methods, wishing I were more successful and feeling powerless to do anything about it. After all, these things do work themselves out, don’t they? Yes, they do. The problem is that I know exactly what to write to make myself more popular, but it just wouldn’t be honest, so I just can’t do it…

    I know exactly what people want to hear: that we’re all connected, that you are the center of the universe, that you and I are intimately connected to every living organism that has ever existed on this earth, that this very moment is the eternal now, that this is the eternal wow, that every moment that has ever existed is encapsulated in this very moment without end, that we’re all in this together, that one day there will be a better day and a better place… (More …)

     
    • tiramit's avatar

      tiramit 8:25 pm on June 15, 2017 Permalink | Reply

      Thanks for this ‘connection’. Wow, incredible video: “all time is affecting all time all of the time” – making it up as we go along…

    • hardie karges's avatar

      hardie karges 9:53 am on June 16, 2017 Permalink | Reply

      Yes, indeed it seems that way, God help us…

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