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  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 12:34 pm on May 16, 2021 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , frequencies, Kristofferson, , , Stephen Hawking,   

    Hawking Paradox Sutra, the Buddhism of Big Questions… 

    Stephen Hawking is certainly one of the most interesting figures of the last century, and his previous best-seller A Brief History of Time was certainly a page-turner, if not exactly a nail-biter, so I was excited to have a chance to read his latest, and presumably last (since he is now deceased) offering, Brief Answers to the Big Questions, like, you know: Where did we come from? Why are we here? Where do we go now? Who invented ice cream? Why are women so beautiful? Hey, you gotta’ have priorities.

    Backstory: Freedom and the lack thereof is one of my big themes philosophically, and so it is for many of us, generally in the West, and especially in America, to the point that you can’t escape it, even when you are reading Eastern philosophy, especially that of the Indian/Hindu variety, in which pandits and acharyas will go on and on (I would like to say ‘drone’) about you and your boundlessness and your limitlessness, and wouldn’t it be great if you were unstoppable.

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  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 11:47 am on May 9, 2021 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , Fukushima, , trash   

    Buddhism and the Myth of the Cosmic Karmic Flush… 

    We in the Western world are truly mothers of invention and children of it, too, notwithstanding the early achievements of the Chinese and others, with their paradigm-shifting inventions of paper and playing cards and gunpowder and so forth. But somewhere along the way we got the idea that we can throw things away and they somehow just disappear. Now that big (bad) idea may have come with the development of widespread indoor plumbing, but it likely dates back to the beginnings of our species.

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  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 11:47 am on May 2, 2021 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: etymology, , parabola,   

    The Parable of Parabolas, Sutra of Sutures, and the boy who liked spicy noodles… 

    Buddhist ruins at Ayutthaya in Thailand

    Parables and sutras (or sutta if you’re an adept of Theravada Buddhism) are really the same thing, the former most popularized by Jesus and the latter by the Buddha, though neither is exclusive to either, and neither excludes the other. For I don’t know that any sutra has ever been attributed to Jesus, but I do know that the Buddha has his parables.

    But in reality they’re the same thing, small stories intended to convey some small meaning, but one that might be considered significant, if only one cared to pay some attention to it. For we crave meaning every bit as much as we crave language itself, and the vowels and consonants quickly become subordinate to the verbs and nouns, predicates and subjects that define it. And we love happy endings, so that we can go about our lives with a spring in our step and a smile on our faces, so as to make our lives less miserable.

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  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 12:26 pm on April 25, 2021 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , Carvakas, , , Gosala, , , , Nepali, Predeterminism, , ,   

    Karma, Rebirth, and the Middle Path of Buddhism 

    Karma is not a bank account. Karma is a way to live with right actions. That’s what the word means, in fact, simply ‘actions.’ But somewhere along the way the word got mixed up in the fashions of the day, in 6th to 8th century India, Before the Common Era, and the materialistic demands of the Carvakas in contrast to the predeterminism of Gosala, tutor to both the Buddha and Mahavira, 23rd Tirthankara of the Jains. They were of the extreme ascetic bent, of course, in which Emptiness literally means empty bellies, by willful design, to the point of inanition and even death, for lack of other inspiration.

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  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 11:32 am on April 18, 2021 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , ,   

    Buddhism and the Limits of Freedom… 

    Self-control is a valuable tool, a wonderful trait, and a noble quality. But control of others? Not so much. And this is a sticking point for many Western Buddhists, who cringe at the thought of any sort of control, it being anathema to the Western traditions of freedom and democracy, however ill-conceived and ill-defined. This obsession with freedom arose in response to the tyranny of rulers, so that is the sordid background upon which our story must unfold. It is also the justification for many a disproportionate response which must then invite further repercussions, in an almost endless back-and-forth see-saw of emotions and cataclysms which define the modern history of humankind.

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  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 12:24 pm on April 11, 2021 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , ,   

    Buddhism on the Half Shell, Pick and Choose 

    Buddhism in the North Country is different from the South

    Make the world a better place for humans and other sentient beings. That is the battle charge of the Bodhisattva, the ‘awakened being’ who sacrifices the present moment of his own bliss for the future happiness of the many in waiting. And this is the difference, of course, between the Buddhism of the Elders, Theravada, and the larger vehicle, Mahayana, which supposedly looks beyond the narrow conflicted self and delays enlightenment so that we all can enter the realm of Buddhahood together.

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  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 12:00 pm on April 4, 2021 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , ,   

    Bi-polar No-lock Pandemic Sutra… 

    Once upon a time there were only two continents in the World, East and West. They were similar in many ways, but the way in which they were most different were their ways of thinking, especially abstract thinking. For instance, the West saw the world and life as something that should be full to overflowing, with everything, of course, apparently related to their belief in limitlessness, infinity, eternity, depending on the context, and most eloquently: Abundance, as the norm. The East, on the other hand, saw Emptiness as the norm, with profound acceptance of limitations, that were at one and the same time as beautiful as they were comforting, as reassuring as they were defining.

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  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 11:29 am on March 28, 2021 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , ,   

    Big-A$$ Half-Ripe Avocado Sutra 

    Better It’s Cracked than My Head

    The fruit that hangs from a tree has inspired many memes and metaphors, with regard to its beauty and irony, but the main conundrums remain: How do I know that it will taste good, and how do I get it into my mouth? And these questions define much of the nature of human existence, i.e. desire, fulfillment, and the middle path in between. And then sometimes the answers almost smack you in the face, quite literally. Like when I was strolling through a certain Central American outdoor market recently, when suddenly I see and feel a definite WHOOSH, which was then quickly followed by a definitive WHUMP! It was enough to stop me in my tracks, to say the least. It seems that a rather large avocado has just fallen from the branch of a tree overhead, barely missing my head, and crashing onto the rocky path below, no harm no foul…

    But it could have been otherwise. Because it wasn’t a tiny overripe fruit, past its prime and ready to sprout seed for some future ancestral father figure. No, this was young—and hard, and unthinking, just like we all once were, and it could have really hurt. But it didn’t, because it missed me by inches. Or did I miss it? No matter. No one claimed it, so I did, and ate the soft parts with pleasure. But the hard parts refused to yield, not even to heat. And so we parted company, but the lessons remain: the fine line between pleasure and pain defined by mere inches on a scale of miles. The same object falling from the sky can nourish or cause damage. Life is short, and the dangers are real: live it fully but cautiously. And so every object in life can offer a lesson, if only we are open to it. Like the Buddhist middle path, we tiptoe lightly through a mine field of obstacles, mostly within our own minds…

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 1:09 pm on March 26, 2021 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,   

    Goodbye Corona, Hello Global Warming, Dark Age Optional… 

    Proof of Vaccination

    I got my second dose of the Pfizer vaccine against the Covid-19 virus today, so I guess that now is as good a time as any to put the finishing touches on this pandemic. Yes, I know that it’s not over and could go on at least another year or more, but for me, this is a defining point, and so I think I hear the fat lady singing. And I say that with a twinge of sadness, because for me it’s been a good year, not in material acquisitions, but in spiritual gain. Because the times of greatest stress and suffering often coincide with the greatest spiritual gains. This is as obvious in Jesus’s eschatological emergence as the Roman Empire entered its down days, as it was in the Buddha’s times, with the emergence of India’s and China’s rise as the two dominant centers of world population, a position that they maintain to this day.

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    • Dave Kingsbury's avatar

      Dave Kingsbury 4:17 pm on March 27, 2021 Permalink | Reply

      First, congratulations on receiving the double dose – each successful step something we can all celebrate. Second, can’t fault your analysis of the recent past nor your prognosis for the near future. Third, you outline new ways of thinking and responding which are also – satisfyingly – a return to older wisdoms. Vive l’humanite!

      • hardie karges's avatar

        hardie karges 5:03 pm on March 27, 2021 Permalink | Reply

        Hear hear! Thanx for your comments, Dave…

  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 11:32 am on March 21, 2021 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , Evil,   

    Buddhism and Evil, Parenthetically… 

    There is no evil in this world but that which exists in the hearts and minds of some misguided individuals. Evil is not an entity, existing independently and harvesting souls for current and future consumption. Evil is merely a function of circumstance, born of uncertain causes and subject to uncertain conditions. To remove evil from the world is to purify your own heart first, metaphorically speaking, and then proceed to spread the goodwill to others. If critical mass can be reached, pardon the cliché, then peace can prevail. It’s like reaching herd immunity in a pandemic. Not everyone has to get vaccinated, thank God, or we could never protect ourselves even the slightest little bit.

    This is the curse of democracy, of course, trying to get a large group of people to agree on anything, much less everything. Fortunately there is a hidden democracy, of the soul, so to speak, in which people want the best for themselves and the world, regardless of the cost and sacrifice. If enough of those people can meet and commune with each other, then the world can become a better place, and ultimately find sustainability. But it requires the most serious sort of open mind and the most diligent kind of experimental effort. Sometimes we learn our best lessons from our worst enemies, seasoned and flavored with experience. This is much the essence of Buddhism…

     

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