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  hardie karges 4:45 am on February 9, 2025 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Buddhism ( 429 ), compassion ( 14 ), control, Hardie Karges ( 240 ), karuna ( 9 ), kindness ( 16 ), language ( 145 ), meditation ( 190 ), metta ( 25 )   

  Buddhism 201: Beyond Metta and Karuna 

  

  If kindness and compassion are the primary virtues, then patience and restraint are the primary disciplines. Be willing to wait, all the time. Whenever someone baits you with fear and anger, just wait before responding, usually nothing else required. And isn’t that the hardest part? Of course. The heat of the moment is always the peak emotion, and if that is magic for some, it’s probably misery for others, because the present moment is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it can be the most sublime pleasure. But, on the other hand, it can bring the worst pain.

  If you want to take the analogy one step further, then we could easily say that self-control is one of the best tools of Buddhism, but that is a tough sell to a free-thinking crowd in the Western world, where the word ‘control’ smacks of subversion and freedom is the cause for which we will die gladly. But, there’s a difference between self-control and control of others, just as there is a difference in the freedom TO and the more important freedom FROM, at least from a Buddhist standpoint. Just because we want to be free of certain defilements doesn’t mean that we can do whatever we want.

  Bottom line: what’s good on the battlefield isn’t necessarily so good on the Buddha fields. Because here we’ve got all the time in the world to do things right, and little time or tolerance for doing it wrong. We’re playing for keeps in this samsaric time out of mind and hedging our bets on another life after this one. But that issue is above my pay grade here as a humble scribe, so I’ll let the physics and philosophy professors and proficiency masters work out those equations and analyze that language. Me, I’ve got a tea kettle whistling, so that’s all for now. The Big Questions can wait until next time.   

   

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  hardie karges 5:15 am on July 16, 2023 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Buddhism ( 429 ), control, freedom ( 13 ), Hardie Karges ( 240 ), language ( 145 ), meditation ( 190 ), Right Action (karma) ( 2 ), Right Aspiration, Right Effort ( 2 ), Right Livelihood ( 2 ), Right Mindfulness ( 2 ), Right View ( 2 ), self-control ( 5 )   

  Buddhist Right Speech 

  

  Right speech (samma vaca) is easy, because you really don’t have to say anything. That’s the point. But if you do say something, then, say something nice. Most of Buddhism is that way. You don’t have to promote anything. you don’t have to do anything. But if you do something, then do something good. Say something good. Be something good. Because you don’t know until you try it. 

  I’m referring to the Buddhist Eightfold Path, of course, that final Nobel Truth after the previous three others which showed the suffering of the world, its main cause—craving, and its main treatment—release from craving. The rest are the Eightfold Path, something like the Eight Commandments, in which the sage advices are a bit sager, like Right View, Right Aspiration, Right Action (karma), Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration (meditation).  

  Buddhism is not a controlling religion. If it were, then it would want to control the moments of the day, minute, and hour: prayer at such-and-such a time, meals at such-a-time, etc., as if these were the important thing of religion. But when a Buddhist says that he wants control, then he wants self-control, a measure of forbearance against predatory life and logic that are certain to happen if our flanks are left unguarded. More importantly, this is a freedom FROM, not a freedom TO, and that means all the difference in the world… 
   
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  hardie karges 10:24 am on February 5, 2023 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: America ( 59 ), Buddhism ( 429 ), control, enlightenment ( 13 ), freedom ( 13 ), Graeber, Hardie Karges ( 240 ), John Locke, Kadiaronk, language ( 145 ), meditation ( 190 ), philosophy ( 102 ), religion ( 158 ), Wengrow   

  Buddhism, Craving, and the Path to Enlightenment… 

  

  

  When you realize that you and your cravings are the cause of most of your problems, then you are on the path to enlightenment. And that’s the Second Noble Truth, more or less, so fundamental to the practice of Buddhism. After all, most Buddhists worldwide don’t meditate, and many physically can’t, but anyone can train their mind. That’s the heart of the Buddha’s original message, not rebirth, past lives, or even emptiness. Control yourself, and not only will the world be a better place, but you will be a better person.

  But there’s that ugly word ‘control’ again, the same word and concept which cause so much consternation among us Westerners for whom freedom is sacrosanct, and for whom control is the enemy. And that may be fine for the wide-open skies of Montana, but that might not work in all situations. Because, like it or not (I don’t especially like it), the world is becoming a crowded place, and the paradigms of a previous era may not all be appropriate now.

  Whether we take our cues from John Locke or the now-famous Native American scholar Kadiaronk, immortalized in The Dawn of Everything, by Wengrow and Graeber, the result is the same: a freedom is best understood by its limits—by definition. Most importantly, though, is the difference between self-control and control of others. This is where politics meets philosophy, and we find our place in the universe. Then there’s also that word ‘enlightenment’ again, which implies a duality between darkness and light despite any objective standard of reference.

  And that’s the word often revered to the same extent that control is reviled, but not always. Because words themselves can be as dangerous as their deliverance, and seldom do they live up to our expectations. But once they became our operating system, then so it will be until we find something better. Because, ultimately, language is just the interface, and there are more important things to be accomplished. When you realize that your worst curse just might be your greatest blessing, then you are on the path to enlightenment…

   
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  hardie karges 9:38 am on July 25, 2021 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: ahimsa ( 7 ), ARAB ( 4 ), Bedouin, Buddhism ( 429 ), control, death ( 5 ), religion ( 158 ), self-control ( 5 ), violence ( 7 )   

  Buddhism and the Principle of Ahimsa—Non-Violence… 

  

  

  If violence is the answer, then we’re asking the wrong questions. That should be the simplest lesson of all to learn in life, for any human with the capabilities of reason—but it’s not. This is a lesson that we must learn continuously, over and over and over, not to resort to violence when confronted with a confrontational attitude, and not to ‘take the bait’ when offered, because it will surely lead to no good end. ‘Taking the bait,’ of course, is a response to a form of provocation which pretends to be harmless, but which is designed specifically to evoke a response, often negative.

  So violence is more than an act. It’s an attitude, and it often has nothing to do with physical violence, but still it’s violence—mental violence? Spiritual? Psychological? Yes, all that and more. Because once it infects your mental state, then the harm is already done. That’s the trauma. Any physical distress is almost superfluous unless it’s lasting. But physical pain is only real when you are in it, and so is difficult to describe. Death is the ultimate act of violence, of course, and the highest sin in any and all religions—Buddhism included. If you can’t resolve your differences with someone without killing them, then we are indeed a sorry species—at best.

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  hardie karges 11:32 am on April 18, 2021 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: control, Covid-19 ( 5 ), emptiness ( 29 ), freedom ( 13 ), humans ( 2 ), karma ( 50 ), rebirth ( 37 ), samma kamanta ( 2 )   

  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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  hardie karges 12:36 am on October 20, 2019 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Buddhism ( 429 ), control, PSYCHOLOGY ( 12 ), religion ( 158 ), rishi ( 7 )   

  Buddhist psychology and the meaning of religion… 

  To control yourself is a Buddhist virtue. To control others is a Communist sin. And this is central to the psychology, if not the precepts, of Buddhism, the act of self-control, much to the horror of many western Buddhists, looking for bliss and passion and a free ticket to Buddha Fest, that this thing that is all the rage, too cool for school, hipper than hip and groovier than most, is really quite the opposite, mostly just sitting and avoiding confrontation, even avoiding the world entirely in the most extreme circumstances, sitting in a cave for twenty years. That’s what rishis do, even to this day. So maybe you’re a good Buddhist and you’ve got your favorite Buddhist monk, either in person or online, reading his every word with admiration and waiting with bated breath to hear just a little more. But did you ever wonder who his culture heroes are? Often it’s these rishis, sitting in caves, such that the snarky phrase ‘contemplating his navel’ takes on new meaning. What’s the point? There is no point, other than liberation, and enlightenment, and freedom from the dictates of drudgery and public opinion. The problem occurs when the virtue of self-control gets twisted into the perverse logic of controlling others, as though this is a logical corollary, when nothing could be further from the truth. So Buddhist countries are some of the least free in the world, presumably because governments know they have a docile populace, and pervert that virtue into a deadly sin. That’s not religion. To see the world as a child is to see it with awe and wonder, open mouth optional, rapture not required. This is religion.