streaming consciousness…

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  hardie karges 2:49 am on August 17, 2025 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Buddhism ( 431 ), craving ( 15 ), death, Hardie Karges ( 242 ), language ( 146 ), meditation ( 192 ), philosophy ( 103 ), religion ( 158 ), skillful means ( 3 ), violence ( 7 )   

  Buddhist Skillful Means in the Material World… 

  

  Buddhism is a social paradigm, too, and a vision of a better world. How is that possible, you ask? How could it not be possible, if everyone could tame the violence that resides there in their minds, implicit in the language we use as operating systems? Because, if craving is the main cause of individual suffering in this world, then violence is the main cause of mutual suffering, and the means of spreading it is by means of language.

  And there is much of the problem right there, because violence is inherent to any form of language and maybe especially to the Indo-European base languages of Sanskrit, Persian, Latin, and German that characterized the early colonial world. So, meditation is the solution to that problem, certainly. The reason language was invented, after all, was for strategic advantage in the battlefield, so we’re lucky that it’s developed other uses and applications in the meantime.

  But Buddhism is nothing if not a philosophy of peace, and that is written into its precepts of kindness and conciliation, if not submission. Because our kindness should not be mistaken for weakness, remember, and that goes double for Buddhism. Skillful means are required to maneuver crooked paths. So, sometimes we have to do things that normally would be unacceptable, with the understanding that it is a measure of the moment, that there is no other option. Death is not an option, forbidden by precept. Everything else is on the table, with the understanding that it is temporary, as is everything.

   

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  hardie karges 9:38 am on July 25, 2021 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: ahimsa ( 7 ), ARAB ( 4 ), Bedouin, Buddhism ( 431 ), control ( 6 ), death, 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 12:33 pm on October 22, 2020 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: death, life ( 33 )   

  Life is a Pre-existing Condition… 

  Death comes included with each package. One day will be a good day to die, but today is not the day, maybe tomorrow, maybe not. There is no rush. These things take time…

   
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  hardie karges 5:45 am on June 17, 2018 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Buddha ( 49 ), CHRISTIANITY ( 161 ), death, depression ( 6 ), drugs ( 7 ), emotion ( 6 ), Middle Path ( 55 ), nirvana ( 13 ), suffering ( 28 ), SUICIDE ( 5 )   

  Beyond Buddhism: and the meaning of life is… 

  The opposite of death, of course, whatever that is, no more no less, the two like dancing partners choreographed to perfection, or life partners resigned to the fact. There is no other option, no matter how much the creators of cryogenics would wish it, or however much the authors of science fiction might fantasize. You can only delay the inevitable; every doctor will admit that, but still we spend every last cent to prolong our lives another minute or two for the sake of science, for the sake of the impenetrable sadness…

  And these same doctors think that the cure for suicide is better anti-depression drugs, as if all happiness is chemical and all meaning is logical, as if we were born with a seventy-year contract to fulfill, and any less would put us in breach. But yes, we are in breach, we are always in breach, that slashed gap between the open sores of our bodies and the unrealized expectations we had in mind, the slashed gap of duality. Maybe we should invent some new drugs to enhance our false expectations? No, we’ve got enough of those already… (More …)

   
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  hardie karges 8:53 am on October 25, 2008 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: death, life ( 33 )   

  I was brought into this world kicking and screaming, 

  scared of the darkness and scared of the light. Neither fluorescent, incandescent, neon, or ultraviolet are like the clear white light back home, unbroken and undifferentiated. Children are closer to God. The things that old people can barely get a glimpse of, children can still remember. I remember the abstract dreams of shadow and light, the penetrating darkness, the distances that could not be traversed, and that light on the other side of the divide receding into the distance. I remember the act of dreaming more than the dreams themselves. I’m homesick for the void, lovesick for the high priestess of darkness. Loneliness of the child becomes suicide daydreams for the adolescent becomes a way of life for the adult survivor. In all these years, nothing’s really changed. I still get a lump in my throat at a woman’s glance, a lump in my pants at a woman’s touch. Everything else is hypothetical. Everything else is mere color splashed on the screen, light diffracted through a prism, sound run through a synthesizer.