Tagged: CHRISTIANITY Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 2:20 am on November 16, 2025 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , CHRISTIANITY, , , , genocide, , , ,   

    Buddhism and the Saving Grace of Suffering… 

    Suffering is the raw material for a further and higher evolution of consciousness. The world is neither happy nor sad. It just is. Adjectives come later. I’ve often wondered how such horrendous situations could have existed in the past, in which wholesale slaughters not only occurred, but were commonplace. How could people have possibly been so heartless as to commit such horrible acts of genocide, and gendercide, in which the defeated men were executed point blank while the women and children were enslaved and entrained for further engagement, all so that one group of men could claim superiority over another?

    Because hunger has no heart, and so they had no heart(s), not as we know the concept. The evidence would suggest that such feelings of empathy and sympathy did not even exist at that point in the development of mammalian psychology. Mammalian psychology? WTF?! But think about it, and see if you don’t agree. Because, for millennia, not only humans, but all animals, merely and simply grew, expanded, and multiplied, with probably limited contact except in situations of the hunt, for food.

    Now we can easily see gorillas and chimpanzees performing acts that can only be described as ‘almost human’. Consider the DNA. But extend the concept to include the dogs, the cats, and even the elephants (!) that we consider to be our pets, and the likeness not only continues but expands exponentially. DNA can’t explain all that, certainly not beyond the mammalian similarity and symmetry. So, what could explain all that?

    One possible explanation is that the exponential population expansions which had occurred for millennia (with at least one, probably more, prehistoric bottlenecks), suddenly came to an end as we approached Year 0, and populations struggled to maintain those levels for at least a millennium. So, is evolution self-correcting? Does that evolutionary need for constant population increase mean that people might start to be nice to each other if it means higher populations? Christianity might favor that explanation. Or Jesus might take full credit entirely, from his teaching.

    But I have another idea. We really know very little about what we really want and even less about how to attain it. But we do know what we don’t want, since the only true certainty is negation: not this, not that, not the other. How much death and destruction must be endured before someone gets the idea to try a little tenderness, i.e. kindness and compassion? Ah, that feels good, as long as we’re all one family. Let’s do that. Be kind.

    This life and this world require nothing but kindness and compassion…

     
    • Zohar Leo Palffy de Erdod's avatar

      Zohar Leo Palffy 5:10 am on November 16, 2025 Permalink | Reply

      This is true, but only in potential, not in the structure of the world.
      Suffering itself teaches nothing.
      Only awareness of suffering can teach.
      Some people go through pain and become embittered.
      Others open up.
      The evolution of consciousness is not an automatic result, but a choice that is not available to everyone.
      Therefore, I would clarify:
      Suffering is an opportunity for evolution, not a guarantee of it.

      • hardie karges's avatar

        hardie karges 7:22 pm on December 7, 2025 Permalink | Reply

        Thanks for your comments.

  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 2:27 am on November 9, 2025 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Brahminism, , , CHRISTIANITY, , , , , , , , predetermination,   

    Buddhism and the Conundrum of Change 

    Change is not a cause of suffering if things are getting better all the time. That’s the Buddha’s only conceptual mistake, and that’s what makes him so real. The Mahayanists tried to make him perfect, as some transcental manifestation should be, but the historical Buddha was first and foremost a real person with real-world problems, which he tried to renounce, of course. Some modern women take offense to the fact that he left his wife and child behind, but that must be seen within the context. They were well cared for.

    But his conceptual blunder, just like Einstein’s ‘cosmological constant’, Jesus’s birds with nests but no barns, and Plato’s perfect dictatorship, show his intrinsic humanity. Everything is subject to revision, and everything is subject to change, even concepts. That is a conceptual necessity, since it can never be proven one way of the other, anyway. But if life is predetermined, then there is no reason to act, either good or bad, and karma loses meaning. Change may appear to be a cause of suffering, if your high status is diminished, but that probably says more about superficial status than change itself.

    Christianity thrives on the optimism that change hopefully brings, of course, and the Buddha was certainly right to call BS on that, of course, even if Christianity as such didn’t exist at the time. Bhahmanism did, though, and there are very real similarities. Eternal life is a plaything of children, and we have better things to do, reincarnation ditto. This life and this world require nothing but kindness and compassion.

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 3:02 am on August 24, 2025 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , CHRISTIANITY, , , , , , , , , , ,   

    Buddhist Middle Path: Hold Your Applause 

    All you need is kindness. Compassion is good, too. These are the Buddhist foundational concepts known in the Pali language as metta and karuna, often combined in modern standard Thai language as mettakaruna. I guess that’s similar to the Christian compound word ‘lovingkindness’, but without all the gratuitous emotion, please. That’s more Christian than Buddhism has ever aspired to, and largely by design.

    Christians need to hug and kiss, often, while Buddhists could usually care less. Christians are emotion junkies, while Buddhists are cool as cukes, usually, salad dressing optional. So, Christians deliberately took that word from the Hebrew Chesed and translated it to lovingkindness to make a point. Then, when Buddhism came to the West, many practitioners figure what’s good for the goose… you know. But, by then, Buddhism has changed its character, and not necessarily for the better.

    But that’s one way to fight the charge of pessimism and nihilism: slather the special sauce, and Bam! Thailand becomes like the Philippines, all of a sudden, fiery and passionate. I suppose there’s no real harm, but it’s really not what Buddhism is in its essence–just the opposite. Emotions go up and down as if by design, while the Buddhist path steers towards the middle always. That’s not a hard rigid path, but it’s not seeking peak emotion, either. That’s American Photography Course 101, always seeking ‘peak emotion’. Good luck with that. I’ll follow the Middle Path.

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 4:31 am on July 27, 2025 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , CHRISTIANITY, , , , , , , ,   

    Buddhism on the Installment Plan (with Quick Easy Payments) 

    If Science conquers Death, then Buddhism may be out of work, but I doubt it. Because, for all the rap about Buddhism being pessimistic, the truth is that it’s not; it’s realistic. Now, that may contrast sharply with the goo-goo eyed optimism of Sunday School Christianity (any denomination) and their doctrines of eternal life and passionate love, but it’s only being realistic—and rational. You’re going to die. Get over it. For an adult, that’s the starting point of any life equation. You’ve got x amount of years to produce y amount of children and z amount of money, so you better get started, because time’s wasting.

    Or not. Buddhism always allows for negation in any of its tetralemma style catuhskoti logic, so, if that’s negative, by definition, then so be it. Negation is often the only certainty, just as Emptiness is often the only Eternity. And that is why Buddhism is so often defined by its meditation, which is essentially doing nothing—creatively, watching thoughts come and go while breath counts the time and plays rhythm. But it’s only a partial renunciation, unlike the Jains’ total immersion, from which they seldom emerge. That’s the Middle Path, neither total leisure nor lack, buffet nor snack.

    Buddhism is so ‘right’ simply because it’s so simple. Avoid extremes and be nice; seek friends. Because that’s the heart of Buddhist ‘love’, metta, friendship. Ex-Christians try to soup it up by invoking ‘lovingkindness’, with Mary and babe at the breast, but really, it’s just friendship, non-possessive and cool, not hot, male or female, jewelry or not. Feel free to try it at home. It’s non-toxic. Or form a group. Some call it sangha. Others call it family. And don’t forget to wash your karma.

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 9:16 pm on June 1, 2025 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , CHRISTIANITY, , , ,   

    Buddhism: Compassion is Key… 

    Even the wicked deserve compassion, because it’s never too late for them to change their wicked ways. As a matter of fact, it’s mandatory, because otherwise, if we accept that there are certain ‘kinds’ of people, then we are denying free will to those who need it most, the habitually wicked and morally compromised. And, if forgiveness is too Christian for you, then just call it compassion, and don’t worry about who did what way back when and then started it again just when you almost forgot it.

    The important thing is to mitigate the suffering and promote reconciliation, even if that means foregoing some choice words and fierce jabs in the heat of battle with no breaks to be had, just compassion. Because language is not always a solution and often is the problem itself. That’s no surprise, since, in the history of the world, it’s obvious that homo sapiens only came to reign supreme with the advent of language and the advantages that brought to the battlefield—and the bedroom.

    So, if the bottom line of any Buddhist equation is self-control, then so be it. Because it requires no self, and not much control, really, just wise decisions and the ability to pull punches and hold your temper. It’s hard these days, true, what with politics flying and tempers flaring all for the cost of a taco, but even more necessary because of its prevalence. What happens to us when we’re angry and hateful all the time? That’s no way to live and an even worse way to die. Control yourself to control the situation. Forego the heat of battle to gain the coolness and calmness of forbearance.

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 2:47 am on April 6, 2025 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , CHRISTIANITY, , , , , , , ,   

    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.

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 2:56 am on March 2, 2025 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: CHRISTIANITY, , gratitude, , , , , , , , , Pangea, ,   

    Buddhism and the Middle Path Dialectic… 

    Gratitude is the companion to kindness and compassion in a perfect circle of Right Action and virtuous intent. Gratitude may be more of a Western thing than an Eastern thing, but that changes nothing. Gratitude is good. Lovingkindness was more of a Western thing than Eastern, also, until the Buddhists adopted it as their own as a suitable translation for the Sanskrit/Pali word metta, and the rest is history. The circle is complete, West meets East, Buddhism meets Christianity, and we are all better off for it.

    Because there is no fundamental distinction between the positions of West and East, not really, simply flip sides of the same coin, two pillars of a dialectic, in which antithesis counters the thesis in order to reach a higher synthesis. Now that’s not strict formal Buddhism (it’s Hegel), but I think it’s a nice approach to the Middle Path, illustrating clearly the fact that the Middle Path is not a cold hard set of prohibitions or dogmas, but is open and fluid and capable of change if and when the time is right for it.

    Notwithstanding the fact that India and the West have a common origin (see my upcoming book) genetically and geographically, if you go even farther back, the entire civilized world has common origins in Africa as homo sapiens and even farther back in Pangea as the large family mammalia, that split then from their reptilian ancestors. That’s who we are, consciousness and all, putting nouns and verbs together in sentences growing more complex every day, looking for a path with heart, despite all the suffering. Look inside; that’s the trick.

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 3:35 am on January 19, 2025 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , CHRISTIANITY, , , , , , , ,   

    Buddhist Meditation for Beginners: Silence, Blessed Silence… 

    When you can sit still for one hour without saying a word or moving a muscle, then you are a meditator. And I don’t really even care what ‘kind’ of meditation you do, I only grudgingly allowing that there are different kinds, I from the old ‘anapanasati’ school, long before Theravada was rechristened ‘Vipassana’ and long before Vajrayana became ‘crazy wisdom’ while the Buddha rolled over in his ashes and checked his phone to see what year it is. “Yep,” he supposedly said, “pretty much right on schedule.” Haha.

    I only draw a line between silent meditation, true meditation, and ‘guided meditation,’ which I consider to be something else entirely. And I don’t mean to imply that that’s bad, because it’s not. It’s just more like a ‘dharma talk’ than mediation IMHO. So, there’s certainly nothing wrong with that, since the definition of such is so broad and inclusive that it can be almost anything, so long as it revolves around the Buddha and Buddhism. But meditation is something different, and if you’re not doing it silently, then you’re missing out on something good—and important. And that’s silence.

    Because silence, I think, is the shunya, zero, that qualifies for the important category of ‘emptiness’ so revered in later Buddhism, and I like it. It’s possible that Buddhist monks even invented the numerical zero, but this is not the place for that discussion. But, if ‘American Buddhism is Buddha-flavored Christianity,’ as someone once said (me), then this is the litmus test.

    Because psychological therapy is famously ‘talk therapy’ and this is something so different that those practitioners can, and do, make a case of ‘spiritual bypassing’ while they claim that ‘thoughts have no thinkers’, thus having some cake while eating it, too. Cool, since it’s an open doctrine, subject to interpretation. But don’t miss the forest for the trees. Good thoughts are essential to good and proper Buddhism, but silent meditation is, also. It’s not a case of one or the other. Talking can sometimes soothe the overwrought mind, but sometimes silence can do it better. And that largely defines Buddhism.

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 5:00 am on October 20, 2024 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , CHRISTIANITY, , evangelical, , , , , , , , , ,   

    Buddhism at the Checkout Lane: the Best Rebirth is Spiritual 

    Spiritual rebirth begins within. It should never end. Samsara is something different. Samsara literally means ‘the world,’ always did, though perhaps etymologically from a distant past word connoting ‘wandering,’ but who knows? Etymology is always a best guess. As far as we know, at the time of the Buddha the word meant ‘the world,’ as it does to this day in modern Nepali, the modern language closest to its Sanskrit roots. Hindi probably got tired of the debate, so adopted the Arabic word dunia for most ordinary usage.

    But Buddhists turned the world cyclical, and so that circularity came to represent samsara more than the other aspects of the world itself. And that circularity specifically refers to the concept of rebirth, heavily borrowed from the Hindu concept of reincarnation, but without the literal transfer of the physical body from one generation to the subsequent one. In fact, Buddhism goes to great lengths to explain away the conundrum of <“What is reborn?”> at the same time that they go to equally great lengths to explain exactly what is the nature of this self that we’re denying. It’s a mess.

    Bottom line: the Christians—the evangelical Christians, of all sects—may have beat us to the punch on this issue. Because their insistence on being born again in the spirit is not only in the Bible, in multiple quotations, you may hear it loud and long at any tent revival in the lower US south from participants both black and white, in their exaltation at surviving a ‘Long Dark Night of the Soul’ as originally described by the 16th century Spaniard St. John of the Cross (not Eckhart Tolle).

    There is scarce reference to rebirth in any Buddhist text, though the Brahmanist Hindus and especially Jains would likely have many if only they had bothered to write it down. But that’s another story. The important thing is that spiritual rebirth is a very beautiful thing and idea, whereas physical reincarnation or even sorta kinda almost maybe rebirth of consciousness in a random body is a leap of logic, not to mention dubious science. And to those who say you can’t just pick and choose this and that, from assorted religions, I respectfully respond, “Why not?” They all did. Embrace it.

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 8:16 am on September 7, 2024 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , CHRISTIANITY, , , , , , , , , , , ,   

    Buddhism: It’s a Process… 

    I am not the same person as yesterday, and I will be a different person tomorrow. I am not DNA code. I am skandhas, anatta, annicca, that is: I am a ‘heap’ of causes and conditions, nothing permanent, always changing. So don’t get too attached to yourself or to anyone else, because tomorrow offers no guarantees. Oh, and one more thing: there’s no soul, at least nothing like what the Christians or Hindus have in mind, eternal and/or cosmic, though Buddhism usually allows for at least a limited sort of rebirth.

    After all, we don’t want to get too dreary now, do we? Certainly not. But the principles listed here are foundational to Buddhism. And so, life and the world are at least somewhat illusory, at least in their most obvious manifestations as part of the visual and sensory feast that constitute our world of perceptions. But there is another principle that is even more important to some of us as Buddhists, and that’s the concept of the Middle path, which can be applied to almost anything, including itself, that hypothetical middle path which defines Buddhism by its very lack of definition.

    And such is the history of Buddhism, as it evolves almost dialectically, from thesis to antithesis to synthesis, only to start the process all over again. It is in that view that Buddhism emerged in the first place, as the middle path between the excesses of Hinduism and the extreme renunciation of Jainism. And it is that process which continues today, as Mahayana offers an alternative to the original Theravada, and to which Vajrayana and Zen start the process all over again. Now the original Theravada Buddhism would like to remake itself as Vipassana: meditation, that is, first and foremost. I like that idea.

     

← Older posts

c
Compose new post
j
Next post/Next comment
k
Previous post/Previous comment
r
Reply
e
Edit
o
Show/Hide comments
t
Go to top
l
Go to login
h
Show/Hide help
shift + esc
Cancel