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  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 4:25 am on May 11, 2025 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Buddhism, , , , , , , , ,   

    Buddhism in a Time of Troubles 

    In times of chaos, we need calm minds. In times of crisis and cruelty we need strong hearts. Welcome to the USA, c. 2025. It is a time of peace. It is a time of war. There’s no real way to know what future historians will think about this era, but it probably won’t be good. Goodness is as goodness does, and cruelty just doesn’t count for much, unless you’re engaged in some frightfully fanciful fantasy. But Buddhism is just the opposite of that, and that comes after many a long involved historical dialectic, the likes of which continue to this day.

    But cruelty was never the kicker. Kindness is. The Dalai Lama said it, and I’d second it in a second. In Buddhism you don’t really have to do much of anything, as long as you’re nice about it. In fact, Buddhism is defined more or less by what you’re NOT to do, e.g. the precepts, not to be confused with the commandments, more like the prohibitions. Then there’s Emptiness, ‘shunyata‘, which veritably defines Buddhism by its lack of requirements, meditation being the prime example.

    So, the trick is not to be consumed by the swirl of politics and policies, even when the angst is almost overwhelming. After all, sometimes the worst situations eventually yield the best results. The important thing is to hold fast to certain principles, no matter how difficult that can sometimes be. Then there are ‘skillful means.’ That means that sometimes difficult goals can be accomplished in unfamiliar and unexpected ways. Be creative. The world is waiting patiently.

     
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    hardie karges 4:33 am on April 27, 2025 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhism Meditation and Emptiness 

     Meditation is the art of open heart and open mind, closed mouth, eyes optional. To me it’s almost amazing how many Theravada Buddhists don’t meditate at all, but I suppose that speaks to the time and the place as much as anything, as well as the ultimate goals and prime motives. Because a Thai citizen or resident doesn’t really need a motive to be Buddhist, except to be good and be social and contribute to the overall well being of the populace. If you’re already Buddhist, then you don’t really need a reason to be Buddhist.

    But a Westerner needs a reason to be Buddhist, and so for many of us that’s long been a choice of Zen or Vajrayana (Tibetan), two of the more exotic versions of the field, and so an attraction to those for whom an attraction is helpful. The only problem is that the Buddha himself might not recognize either of them as representative of his teachings. For us street-corner philosophers, that’s plenty of motivation by itself, the simplicity and veracity of the original message. So, now that Theravada is re-branding itself as Vipassana, pure and simple, that accomplishes a necessary goal, to get Buddhism back to its root without worrying about word games and past lives.

    Because Theravada Buddhists were always the best meditators, even if many never did it. And meditation can accomplish with practice what precepts and concepts can only suggest with words. You can talk about shunyata—emptiness—all day and not know much more than what you started with. Or you can sit silent unflinching for an hour while concentrating on breath and know quite a great deal, without uttering a word. It’s an acquired taste.

     
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    hardie karges 4:35 am on April 20, 2025 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhism and Mindfulness, Language and Life… 

    ‘Mindfulness’ is a tricky term, full of modern marketing. I prefer ‘consciousness,’ the original meaning to the same word in Pali, sati. Now that may seem like a minor quibble, but I prefer to keep superstitions and general ‘woowoo’ and ‘joojoo’ to a minimum for easier acceptance. Because I don’t want Buddhism to be something magical and mystical, even if that brings in some fervent fanatics full of vim and vigor. But it rules out science and that is the problem for me. Religion and science should be perfectly compatible, and that is best accomplished by staying off each other’s turf.

    Maybe it’s an impossible task, I suppose, but it’s still worth trying, I think. Because already a certain stratum of words has been ‘Buddhafied’ and elevated to a meaning that doesn’t conform to that of the ordinary world and its ordinary usage of the word. I’m not worried about the extra work of cataloging two meanings in my mind, but I’m concerned that we’re losing something by avoiding that original meaning. So, when samsara comes to mean ‘endless cycle of rebirths’, rather than its original meaning as simply ‘the world’ (e.g. in modern Nepali), well, something has changed, and not always for the better. You can check to see if that original meaning still works in every case, and it does AFAIK, but with a difference—authenticity.

    Only rarely does a word totally change meaning within the historical period, like the English word ‘passion’, for instance, once suffering, now a kind of special love, for us silly westerners, of course. In modern standard Thai, the word that now means ‘mindfulness’ is sati, from the Pali, but there it simply means consciousness. When I was lying on the side of the road after a motorcycle accident near Wiang Papao, no one was asking if I was mindful. They were asking if I was conscious. There’s a difference. Original early Buddhism was very down to earth. Transcendence came later. For me mindfulness is the opposite of mindlessness, pure if not simple.

     
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    hardie karges 4:06 am on April 13, 2025 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Buddhism, , , , , , superstition   

    Buddhism 101: You shouldn’t take more than you give… 

    Give more than you take, and the world will become a better place. It’s almost hard to believe that something so hard could really be so easy, but I tend to think that it’s true, and that’s how I try to live my life. Because, for one thing, it places high value on the concept of giving, regardless of the amount, and I think that’s important. But how much to give? That’s often a tricky question. So, it’s very easy just to simplify the equation. Just give more than you take.

    So, not only is that a net positive increase for the world, but it speaks to karma, also, and that’s one of the toughest concepts to tackle. But it shouldn’t be. Do good things. Karma means action, and samma kammanta means right actions. Nothing is more right and good than giving. That’s called dana. But how much is enough? Give more than you take. That’s plenty. And that’s good karma, so you will be rewarded, somehow some way, somewhere. That’s as far as my superstitions go.

     
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    hardie karges 2:47 am on April 6, 2025 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhism, Life, and a World Defined by Challenges 

    Good things take time. Anger solves nothing. Life is defined by its challenges. So, I think that’s my philosophy of life, in a nutshell, based heavily on the Buddhist acceptance of suffering, but without succumbing to that fact and any sordid fate that may await that cruel date. Because it doesn’t have to be seen as pessimistic. And that’s the rap that Buddhism has to fight hardest, in order to make Western converts, the idea that it’s too negative, not full of abundance, eternity, infinity, and all the other fantasies that Christianity has bequeathed us, in its two short millennia of existence.

    But Buddhism is not pessimistic, just realistic. You’re going to die, so get over that, and let’s get some things done while we’re here—or not. There’s no shame in renunciation. That’s not passivity. That’s acceptance of reality. Buddhism is only guilty of a mistake if it promotes passivity. Passivity is residing homeless on the streets of LA, not as an ordained monk in Asia. That’s creative, collective, and cooperative. Society could survive like that, even if the pay’s the same as the godforsaken streets of LA.

    Survival is the current concern, also, species survival as much and as well as individual, since we are living in a world of species identity, even if we sometimes transcend those limitations. But we don’t have to go to Mars to do that, though the moon would be nice, especially during the rainy season, haha. Or we could possibly accomplish as much or more in Virtual Reality, if and when the time is right, and the speed and memory are sufficiently available. It’d probably cost less than Mars, too, to create a perfect world as a digital twin of this world. We already have a neural twin. It’s called life, defined by challenges.

     
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    hardie karges 3:05 am on March 30, 2025 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhism and the Pursuit of Truth(s) 

    Absolute truth is a difficult subject. But right speech is easy: honesty and politeness, no trash talk, samma vaca. Most truths are relative at best, anyway, and that includes science, but it goes double for superstition. Because science acknowledges its limitations up front, and that’s the best that you can do. Buddhism is pretty good about that, also, at least in its earliest purest phase, when control of the self (not-self) was primary and gods were kept in their place—somewhere else.

    Buddhist truths are limited to only a very few ‘truisms,’ which is probably more accurate than the notion of absolute truth. Those pretty much consist of the presence of suffering, the main cause of suffering which is the bad habit of craving, and the way out of that condition, which is the Middle Way, between luxury and lack, and strict adherence to the Eightfold Path. One key element of that is samma vaca, right speech. Then there’s right actions, right intentions, right views, right livelihood, and so forth.

    Add to that the acknowledgement of change, or impermanence, and the deleterious effect that has on us, and you’ve got the basics of original early Buddhism, before the verbal antics of Zen or the elaborate trappings of Vajrayana. It’s pretty simple, really, just do good things and watch your tongue, say good things or you could just say nothing at all. That works, too. Don’t worry about absolute truths. Buddhist Noble Truths are more than enough of a guide for living this life.

     
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    hardie karges 4:36 am on March 23, 2025 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhist Sati: Enjoy the Mindfulness… 

    Sometimes the best thing to do is nothing, absolutely nothing. Just do it mindfully, with intent and purpose. But this is the hardest thing for a Westerner, European or American, to comprehend, that sometimes we don’t need to be jumping up and down, racing around, and blowing things up, that indeed sometimes it’s preferable to chill, baby, chill, and let things proceed one step at the time with clear and simple awareness, rather than obsess about populating Mars instead of making our own planet earth more livable.

    So, the Mars freaks blow things up in midair, invent self-driving cars, accelerate them zero to sixty in four seconds, bore tunnels under cities, insert chips in your brains, and what have they accomplished? Not nearly enough, and far too much, all at the same time. Have the sick been healed? Have the homeless been given housing? Has anyone even tried? True, the poor may always be with us, but that’s no excuse for not trying to help. Jesus knew that, and the Buddha did, also.

    I’d like to go to Mars, too, truth be told, but only when the time is right, and the opportunities exist for anyone to share in that dream, if they are so inclined. But I made a conscious decision that renunciation would be preferable than for the world to continue on its path of mindless consumption. Enter mindfulness, the opposite of mindlessness. Do things consciously, one thing at a time, without fear nor favor. If something isn’t broken, then don’t pretend to fix it, just to satisfy transient desires. Live like there is no tomorrow, calm and steady, because there may not be…

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 4:47 am on March 16, 2025 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhism in the Time of Troubles… 

    The healing begins when the fighting ends, and hatred subsides in its wake. Because, what is hatred, if not misplaced emotion in search of a carrier, like some disease looking for a victim? We assume that these emotions are ‘ours’, as if we should be proud of that fact, when neither assumption is true. That is, we don’t own those emotions, and even if we did, there’s nothing there to be proud of. And nothing is better proof of the ‘aggregate’ nature of our personalities than the transient nature of ‘our’ emotions.

    Because, when we speak of ‘personality’ it’s clear that we are not speaking of any kind of ‘self’, much less an immortal soul. And that is our predicament here in this life in this world, that we are not much more than a bundle of emotions, looking for a place to lay the burden down. If that sounds like cruel fate under a cruel weight, then the reality itself may not be quite so bleak. Because the flexible nature of impermanent circumstances does have the advantage of a flexible response to changing conditions. If Buddhism is a failure, the it’s a failure as dogma.

    After all, how can you fashion agreement from a core fanbase that speaks probably at least a hundred languages from a few dozen countries spread out over the world’s largest continent and two largest countries over the last two millennia? And that’s just the core! It’s a challenge to be overcome, and it’s a glory to behold, that these diverse peoples from a thousand different circumstances can and do debate the dharma from diverse traditions, whether conservative or liberal, and still agree on certain starting points: the presence of suffering, the vacuity of personality, and the impermanence of…nearly everything.

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 4:55 am on February 23, 2025 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhism 102: Craving is the Curse… 

    Don’t test positive for COVET disease, because jealousy is a hard habit to break, as many a fine pop song has elucidated quite well. But it rings true, especially in the Buddhist attitude toward the world, fully established in Noble Truth number two as the cause of suffering. That’s craving, of course, also known in its manifestations as jealousy, which is only slightly different, or even lust, with its own category of trsna or tanha, Sanskrit or Pali, a thirst gone too far, beyond the simple satisfactions of life, and into unrequited desire. And then there’s greed, one of the three poisons, all closely related on the scale of Dependent Origination.

     But such is the nature of desire, or craving, that it can never be satisfied, by the very nature of its existence, the unsatisfactory nature, i.e. suffering. The best that we can do is ameliorate it, that is, acknowledge its presence, and its call, and give it something, but don’t give it all, of your time or your money, just enough to keep it at bay, far far away, out of your life and out of your mind. Because that is the greatest curse of all, to let nefarious emotions and influences occupy all of your precious thoughts.

    This is why thinking sometimes gets a bad rap and a bad rep, simply because, if left to fester uncontrolled, thoughts can run wild and waste all your time, leading to what we often call ‘monkey mind’, in reference to the constant chatter and mindlessness that defiles us and denies the reason we’re here. And so, we seek more mindfulness, and a decrease in suffering, caused by craving, firstly, and impermanence, secondly, the phenomena of existence that must be dealt with, but not succumbed to, similar to wild dogs prowling Main Street late at night, howling at the moon for lack of something better to do. But we have something better—meditation. When danger threatens, do nothing—quickly.

     
    • jmoran66's avatar

      jmoran66 5:00 am on February 23, 2025 Permalink | Reply

      “When danger threatens, do nothing—quickly”. That’s a keeper.

    • Hardie Karges's avatar

      Hardie Karges 6:06 am on February 23, 2025 Permalink | Reply

      Haha, thanks

  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 5:19 am on February 16, 2025 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Buddhism, dream, , , , , , simulation,   

    Buddhism 499: Life is but a Dream… 

    Grasping at memories is like trying to grab air. There is simply not much there. And yet we treasure our memories above almost all else, that walk in the park and that kiss in the dark, that moment so long ago that seems almost like today in its freshness. You can still taste it, right? And smell it? See it and hear it? Everything but touch it, something that you probably never did in the first place, the non-tactile sensations much easier to reproduce in an ephemeral memory or dream.

    And that’s fine, as long as we give little or no weight to it, because memories are notoriously unreliable. That’s an object lesson, also, about the nature of reality and the phenomena that inhabit it. Because none of the phenomena of life are any different. It’s just that memories, like dreams, are such obvious bad actors in a hollow play with no substance real or even imagined. This is heavily implied in Buddhism, also, that life is but a dream, and not in such a shallow way as a kid’s play.

    Because the word maya is used frequently, and that’s magic, at best, illusion, more accurately, or deceit, at worse, more or less the acceptable range of sense perception as an accurate description of reality. But in modern parlance it might actually be more like a simulation, but not digital, like Virtual Reality; it’s neural, a precise, if not exact, neural twin of our brain’s (mind’s) own neural landscape, so that we can coexist in this world, the facts of which are too complex to duplicate by art or artifice. Another quark for Mister Mark? I’ll take a rain check. That’s too complicated. Just buy me the moon, or some reasonable facsimile.

     

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