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  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 12:50 pm on April 26, 2020 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , CHRISTIANITY, ,   

    Religion Up for Grabs: Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism… 

    The wise person knows his limits. The foolish person assumes there are none. And this is fundamental, the limits at least as much as the freedoms, to which we are so attached as Westerners, raised on revolution, and carrying flags to prove it, standing our ground, even when that ground is shifting constantly.

    We are attracted to belief systems that reinforce our prejudices, rather than the ones that would teach us something new and different and broaden our horizons beyond that line that separates us from the rest of humanity who we spend our lives dismissing as worthless.

    We are taught to exert ourselves, as if our prejudice must be correct, rather than to embrace something other, which may or may not be, all for the privilege of feeling those same old emotions which always evoke such a rapture of righteousness, when captured within a context of confusion, truth and honesty measured by emotional resonance rather than the logical placement order of propositions.

    But the best religions teach us what we need to know, and practice, not what we know and do already, often to an absurd extent, to the point that it does only harm, no good. Thus future Christians were taught love as remedy for their previous existence as steppes warriors, in the hope that they (we) would cease the racist violence in the hope of a better future.

    And future Muslims were taught to surrender, to God, in the hope that they would lose that chip on the shoulder and be less obsessed with futile victory, and maybe even cease the sexist subjugation, if only the women would hide behind veils.

    And Asians were taught Buddhist non-possession and non-grasping in the hopes that they would quit counting money and start counting time, better spent in contemplation than the great poker game of life. And how is that working out for us all? Has anybody really learned anything? We have to learn that which is hardest, not that which is easiest. I hope that I am wrong about the future of this world. I like being wrong sometimes. When you see a path with heart, you take it. The next revolution will be internal, a revolution of thought…

     
    • Dave Kingsbury's avatar

      Dave Kingsbury 4:03 pm on May 1, 2020 Permalink | Reply

      I don’t think you are wrong about the future of the world, Hardie, but there is surely some compensation in knowing why it’s not going well. I think much of the grasping is for a security blanket, something unhappy people seem to need from early on …

      • hardie karges's avatar

        hardie karges 4:36 pm on May 1, 2020 Permalink | Reply

        Yes, that sounds about right. Thanks for your comments, Dave…

        • Dave Kingsbury's avatar

          Dave Kingsbury 4:46 pm on May 1, 2020 Permalink

          Should have said, your post gives the reasons it’s not going well, I just added a psychological observation. 🙂

  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 12:08 pm on March 8, 2020 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , CHRISTIANITY, deliverance, , , primum non nocere   

    Buddhism and the Freedom to do Nothing… 

    Freedom FROM is as much or more important than freedom TO, and this illustrates much of the historic difference between east and west, Buddhism and Christianity, that we Westerners typically want to DO this and DO that, as if all these actions hold supreme importance, as if the world has somehow advanced a step forward if one of the flying Wallenda brothers walks the tightrope over the Grand Canyon or not, as if the spectacles of our life are more important than our fundamental dignity, as if a more important goal is to put the ‘fun’ back in that ‘fundamental’ freedom. But this is a perversion of the concept, IMHO, because a more important freedom is the freedom from the fetters that constrain us, freedom from the ties that bind too tightly, regardless of whether we push that freedom to its final conclusion, regardless of whether we tempt fate simply for the sake of the deliverance we so desire. Because deliverance is easier than all that, it being a simple freedom FROM something, whatever it is that you so fear. Desire need not be brought into this simple equation, when the only result we seek is a simple zero which signifies balance. So why do we need to risk death to prove that we are free, when it is death that we want deliverance from in the first place? Obviously, we don’t. But boredom is the price of freedom, in that once we are free, that we don’t always know what to do with it, because for me to thrust my freedom in your face is to assert the primacy of my freedom to DO something over your freedom to be free FROM something, i.e. me, in this case. But we Americans love to ‘get in people’s faces’, ‘push your buttons’, ‘stand our ground’, even if it means that we reserve the right to follow you around doing just that (and these are all actual quotes, not mere suppositions). And this is something that Buddhism understands well, and makes it negative, in a technical sense, in that you really don’t have to do anything to be a good Buddhist, because more important is what you don’t do, which is to harm anyone else, or any sentient being, for that matter, so not dissimilar from the classic maxim of bio-ethical non-maleficence ‘primum non nocere’, i.e. first do no harm. And the principle carries over easily into social ethics: you don’t have to do anything, as long as you do nothing bad. So ‘not bad’ becomes the definition of ‘good’, and ‘unfettered’ becomes the definition of ‘freedom’. And if this seems like a passive lifestyle, then so be it. You can test your limits as time permits, as long as it does not impinge on the limits of others. After all, the future is distinctly uncertain, and so risky, while the past is certain, but scarcely known. So how can we know where we’re going, if we don’t even know where we’ve been?

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 11:46 am on February 23, 2020 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , CHRISTIANITY, , , , , ,   

    Mixing Buddhism and Christianity to find a Middle Path that is free and equal… 

    To see the goodness in everyone sometimes requires special eyeglasses and extra effort, but that is the task to which we must put ourselves, because it is central to our thesis that life is worth living and no one is cast off, no matter how deep the suffering or how egregious the past, that one can be reformed, and forgiven, and can start all over with a clean slate, and no misgivings, and a future fresh and untrammeled, without the dirty footprints of yesterday defining a crooked mile, that goes nowhere, and is only fated to return. And in this sense Christianity may have a vast advantage over some sects of Buddhism that insist that we must relive our lives over and over with only small hope of actually making the quantum leap to a higher ‘type of person’, hopefully human (and male), lighter skin the better, in this last-ditch lottery of human salvation, when theoretically there is nothing really there to be saved anyway, in Buddhism, so why bother? Because people want magic and fantasy and the supernatural presence of divine intervention in their little lives, rather than slug it out in the coal mines and canary cages of the material world, with little hope of improvement, that’s why. Supposedly. Because we all know that many of the most knowledgeable people really believe none of that reincarnation nonsense, anyway, but know that it’ll put the fear of Mara and Mount Meru in the average village person, such that he’ll be much more obedient, and ultimately better off in this life of few rewards, and even fewer gains, in the quantum leap upward to a better ‘type of person’. Because this is central to the Hindu Brahmanic thesis, that there are different ‘types of persons’, most specifically those genetically shuffled Brahmins on top of a rapidly descending ladder to the bottom level, of those who must toil and trouble in the bubbling vats of sacred colors, ready to adorn the fashioned features of the fated few, while the vast unwashed steady the ladder that suppresses them. But for many the need for absolute certainty is preferable to the remote possibilities for hypothetical advancement, so acceptable in a belated sort of way. And that’s okay, if that’s what you want, but it doesn’t have to be that way, whether you’re Christian or Buddhist or Hindu or Jew, because you can mix and match philosophies however you want, regardless of what anyone says, as long as you’re honest about it, and true to your own heart and mind, however changing and impermanent. Because ‘skillful means’ can select its topics, and its targets, but not its truths, so I may preach limits to Americans and freedom to Asians, with no contradiction in the least, because there is a sweet spot in the middle that is not only logically inferred, but existentially real. Everyone has equal value. All sentient beings have equal worth. This is no accident of fate or karma, color or birth…

     
    • Dave Kingsbury's avatar

      Dave Kingsbury 5:32 pm on February 24, 2020 Permalink | Reply

      Some healthy cross-fertilisation, with us as the bee … makes perfect sense to me! A little green awareness thrown into the mix …

      • hardie karges's avatar

        hardie karges 5:35 pm on February 24, 2020 Permalink | Reply

        Thanks, Dave. If a free-associative piece somehow manages to attain perfect sense, then that is words choosing their own proper course instinctively, I suppose…

        • Dave Kingsbury's avatar

          Dave Kingsbury 3:08 am on February 25, 2020 Permalink

          Absolutely agree, Hardie, rather like a stream finding its way – I’ve resolved to explore similar, er, territory in my own writing.

  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 10:06 am on February 9, 2020 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , CHRISTIANITY, , over-population,   

    How Buddhism Can Save the World… 

    I think the human species is worth saving; so call me old-fashioned. But that’s the deal in this day and age, whether your predilection is politics or religion, or New Age philosophy. Because the clock is ticking, and everyone knows it, even if they prefer to keep it hidden, out of consideration for their wide-screen TV, or their breakfast nook, or their three-car garage, complete with convertible and pickup truck and maybe a Harley or two for good measure on weekends. But the elephant in this room is not rebirth, but birth itself, and an ever-crowded planet, likely ten billion within my lifetime, depending more on my life than the planet’s, because the growth bug is in the predetermined fix, ever since China relaxed its prohibitions, and now Sichuan streets look almost like the Catholic Philippines, with every eligible matron followed by a gaggle of little goslings, each one precious in and of itself, but more like a murder of crows when multiplied exponentially across the breadth of the vast Chinese underbelly, bulging wide over the South Chinese Sea, and ready to give birth somewhere in the lower archipelago. But this is the paradigm we created for ourselves, more more bigger bigger, torpedoes be damned and rivers be dammed, as if resources were unlimited and hope springs eternal in the human breast, with infinite milk and unlimited succor. And that is a matter of faith, for many Christians, especially, full of the fruits of capitalism and ersatz freedom, i.e. freedom to screw up and much much more, full of religion and science and peace and war, that our big juicy smiles are based on more than economic inequality, first come first served, but on inviolable principles of the invisible hand, dollar in the hand is always worth at least ten in the bush, as long as the day of reckoning never comes and past loans can always be repaid with future ones. But guess what? The day of reckoning will come, when confidence crumbles and somebody smells a rat in the recipe, and that’s when doors start closing in succession, like Agent 86 remembering that he almost forgot something, but the doors are already closing, so it’s too late to go back before the show ends unceremoniously as doors slam in our faces. But that’s Christianity for you, full of big-a$$ smiles and frequent flyer miles, when the reality is that our dimension of existence is defined by profound limits, such that we are doomed to die, no matter how hard we try, and the only challenge is to realize that is cool, and this is school, and we are so much the wiser for our study of it. And this is implicit in Buddhism, if not explicit, and thus a social paradigm as much as a philosophical or psychological one, for me at least, and that is all I know: do the right thing, don’t be a jerk, and don’t place yourself above all others. Outcomes are more important than incomes…

     
    • Robert@69's avatar

      Robert@69 11:06 pm on February 10, 2020 Permalink | Reply

      Nice rap. Lyrical and rhythmic good pacing and rhyming, it all hung together and made sense and one could almost hear a Darrell Scott guitar in the background and maybe a Van Morrison harmonica. I enjoyed it. Thanks

    • hardie karges's avatar

      hardie karges 11:34 pm on February 10, 2020 Permalink | Reply

      Thank you!

  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 5:15 am on September 1, 2019 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , CHRISTIANITY, , irrationality   

    Submission to Fear is the Death of the Individual… 

    Worse than a life of fear is a life of willing submission to that fear. Because fear is normal, after all, and can be a valuable survival instinct, especially when you’re swimming in the ocean and the sharks just happen to be biting that day. In other words, fear can save your life. The problem is irrational fear, fear for the sake of fear, fear that has no meaning outside of the singular fact of its existence, disembodied with no antecedents and no outside connections beyond itself. And for many people, this is all too real, that fear becomes a way of life, and acquiescence a way of self-deceit, the belief that certain things are pre-ordained and that certain kings will rule domains regardless of any attempt to limit them. This defeatism thus becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, the idea that nothing can be done, so nothing is worth doing. This was once a stumbling block for me with Buddhism, the perception based on certain SE Asian countries that they were too passive, that they would give up important liberties without even a fight. The problem is self-correcting, though, of course, by Buddhism’s own middle path, neither too passive nor too aggressive being the brilliant compromise. After all, I certainly know of a few Western countries that I wouldn’t care to emulate, whether Christianity is the problem there or not. But many of the judgments are superficial, based on superficial readings of transient situations, white noise that crackles loudly, but means little. Bottom line: many of the world’s problems would be solved if people listened more and talked less, and that is a relative certainty…

     
    • Tim's avatar

      Tim 12:46 am on September 2, 2019 Permalink | Reply

      Too true. I don’t know if you are familiar with Robert Wright’s ‘Why Buddhism is true’. I followed his online e-course, offered by Yale, called Buddhism and Modern Psychology. The term that I fell in love with was ‘catastophization’ (I’m using the American spelling here). Anything and everything becomes ‘catastrophied’ and therefore loses any fundamental meaning beyond its self reference.

      • hardie karges's avatar

        hardie karges 1:10 am on September 2, 2019 Permalink | Reply

        Catastrophization? I like that term. Yes, gradually I’m learning what the term ‘mental formations’ means, I think, after 2 years of Buddhist studies, always a mystery to me until now. Thanks for your comments, Tim…

  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 7:51 pm on April 24, 2019 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , CHRISTIANITY, , , , ,   

    The multi-colored reality between dreams and darkness… 

    Just because you can imagine something doesn’t mean that it’s real. And this has been a problem since time immemorial, especially in the fields of philosophy and religion, the gap between reality and imagination, the disparate levels of materialism and spirituality. This plays to the difference between our wildest dreams and our harshest realities, and apparently it all began with language. If something can be written down, then doesn’t it exist, at least to some extent? Of course it does, but that does define reality? Probably not. Plato found that out the hard way, ditto Christianity, and Buddhism deals with it on a daily basis.This is the arrogance of the written word, and the thinking mind, by the same token. We need a better measure of reality, and science would seem to be the answer, the method, constantly shifting, nothing to do with anything like blind allegiance. Sorry, grasshopper. Your dreams can’t all come true. So I guess a few will have to do…

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 5:44 am on March 26, 2019 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , CHRISTIANITY   

    Buddhism vs. Christianity: Abundance is a flawed concept, overflowing and wasteful… 

    Abundance is the Christian rap. I’m Buddhist. I want just enough and no more. But that’s the Christian back-story for you, the myth that somehow there is an eternal fountain of life and resources available for the taking, if only we connect with the creator God and his eternal love, such that he sent his own son down to seal the deal. And Jesus did a good job. So did Buddha. But both were just men, and both had their faults, in spite of their brilliance. The times dictate the message we need, and right now we need limits, not abundance, satisfaction within and without, independent of a creator God and his need for constant creation, a growth economy to mask our inability to come to peace with ourselves. We are too abundant, and miserable because of it, fighting over turf and settling for the spoils. Sometimes less is more. Sometimes it’s better to be a little bit hungry, respectful and thankful, on a perpetual quest for truth and vision, the path…

     
    • Dave Kingsbury's avatar

      Dave Kingsbury 3:45 pm on March 30, 2019 Permalink | Reply

      Common sense, Hardie, and alas not common enough it seems!

    • hardie karges's avatar

      hardie karges 4:07 pm on March 30, 2019 Permalink | Reply

      I’m a Boy Scout at heart, haha. Thanks Dave…

  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 4:10 am on January 13, 2019 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , CHRISTIANITY, , ICE, , , , , ,   

    Buddhism and Donald Trump, Criminal Intent and Modern Justice 

    img_2116Intent is the elephant in the courtroom of modern justice, beyond forensics and beyond genetics, the need to know what someone was thinking and why they thought it, at such-and-such a time and such-and-such a place. But isn’t this a system doomed to failure? And is it really necessary? Only we European-derived Westerners could invent a term like schadenfreude, delight in the misfortune of others, not so much the passive enjoyment of something such so strange, but that we do it so often that we have a name for it…

    But that is indeed the case, that we are so obsessed with our feelings that our whole system of justice is based upon it, such that if someone is supposedly repentant, then that counts in his favor, whereas without it he is doomed to longer incarceration, as if we could really know the difference, so to make ourselves feel good we reward the best actors, and maybe the most honest are doomed to perdition… (More …)

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 7:22 am on December 28, 2018 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , CHRISTIANITY, , , , , Saturnalia, sila   

    Putting the Buddha back in Christmas, and the Rebirth back in New Year… 

     

    img_1469

    Kwan Yin Fest near Chiang Dao, Thailand

    So I’ve made a big deal, for myself at least, over the fact that, at least in my mind, we as humans, and as Buddhists, or whatever, don’t really have to do anything to be upright moral citizens of this world and this civilization. As long as we don’t do any bad things, then all should be well, for each of us, morally and ethically and spiritually. It is no one’s place and position to prescribe the behavior of others, so long as they are doing nothing wrong and causing no one any harm…

    Then there’s Christmas, the Big Deal for Christians worldwide, with much spillover into other countries, especially those which have significant consumer cultures. But that’s not really what it’s all about, not for those who really ‘get it’, i.e. get the fact that it’s all really about what you give, not what you get. So what you get, hopefully, is the satisfaction of making other people happy… (More …)

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 6:38 am on December 16, 2018 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , CHRISTIANITY, , , , , , Khmer, , , , , , ,   

    Buddhism 101: Metta means Friendship, Karuna means Compassion… 

    IMG_2290You’ve got something pretty special when you put friendship and compassion together, and something pretty simple. Even people who profess to believe in nothing, and categorically reject use of that word ‘belief’ can surely believe in friendship and compassion. And friendship, universal friendship, is a very important concept, easy to forget in our day and time that at some time in the not-so-distant past anyone who was not part of the family was suspect and an object of great fear and suspicion…

    One of my favorite stories, recounted many times, is by Jared Diamond of ‘Guns, Germs and Steel’ fame who related that while doing anthropological fieldwork in Papua New Guinea, when two strangers would meet each other, they’d count back to see if they had a mutual relative, so that they wouldn’t have to kill each other, or die trying… (More …)

     
    • Dave Kingsbury's avatar

      Dave Kingsbury 4:28 pm on December 21, 2018 Permalink | Reply

      Informative survey with a convincing historical explanation for fellow-feeling, if that phrase fits. It all builds nicely to your final thoughts where you suggest how experience of different cultures can develop the facility. It’s an important corrective to the divisions – silos, bunkers, echo chambers, whatever – of the modern era.

    • hardie karges's avatar

      hardie karges 4:45 pm on December 21, 2018 Permalink | Reply

      Thanks, Dave! Merry Christmas from Cambodia…

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