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  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 12:10 am on June 28, 2026 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , freedom, , , , , , ,   

    Buddhism and the Nine-fold Path: Right Freedom…  

    Too much freedom can sometimes work against us. And that’s the conundrum, of course, because we’re led to believe that freedom is something of the be-all and end-all of life in this world. But it’s not, not really. It’s most important in opposition to its opposite, i.e. prison, of the heart and of the mind. That’s the importance of freedom, the escape from prison. Too much freedom is not good, though. It’s chaos, with a total lack of control. As always, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. 

    That’s the Middle Path, of course, that nickel-and-dime philosophy that’s almost always right, without having to even think much about it. That’s the beauty of such simple math. Avoid extremes, and you’ll usually be right. If that means that you’re drinking lukewarm coffee, instead of the really hot stuff or the really cold, then so be it. Lukewarm coffee ain’t bad, not bad at all. If that means that you won’t burn your little fingers, then count your blessings. Ditto on the brain freeze. Do you really like that feeling so much, anyway?  

    But this is one of the most important parts of Buddhism, even if it’s not as sexy as the basic mindfulness of breathing in and breathing out. We have work to do, too, as adults we do, many of us householders and addicted to the haze and daze of life on this planet. We can’t all be monks. Some of us have to do the work so that the monks will have something to eat. That’s you and me, brother and sister, and we need some help. That’s where the Middle Path comes in, as helpful as Hegel’s dialectic as it is the Buddha’s spiritual path between luxury and lack.  

    That means that there is always a synthesis, a path forward, between the opposite poles of a dialectic, i.e. a dialog, a discussion, or a decision. And it never stops, like the evolution of species or consciousness. If I don’t know whether to plant early, for maximum growing season, or later, to avoid the heaviest rains, then I’ll split the difference, and keep a watchful eye on the skies. It’s almost like breath. The skies are getting cloudier now, and I know that is information that I can use. And I know that it usually occurs when the days and night are most equal. The sun tells me that when it sets upon the same hill at the same time every year. That’s science. That’s mindfulness. That’s Buddhism.  

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 2:13 am on February 8, 2026 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , freedom, , , , , ,   

    Buddhism and the True Cost of Freedom  

    None of us is truly free. We are all truly connected. But we sometimes value this ideal of freedom more than life itself, as if having a child were more of a burden than a blessing, as if having a car were more important than having a home. But if any one of us were to truly experience this blessed freedom, then we probably wouldn’t really want it. We worship the idea of freedom, not the thing itself. But this is a hard lesson for a red-blooded American, we of the ‘warrior ethos’ and the mid-morning coffee break. 

    So, when we want a healthy dose of that much-vaunted freedom, we ‘go driving’ with the top down, preferably, and foot to the floor, definitely, heads out the window, like dogs with dark glasses and tongue lapping lips. Meanwhile, the Europeans look skeptical and all for good reason. Because it’s not sustainable, that’s why. It’s the same old myth of abundance, wherein not only do we want our own healthy dose of infinity, but we want it filled to overflowing with our own stuff, whether it be physical things or memorable experiences.  

    And memories are one of the most cruel tricks of possession, because then and there we categorize our experiences for safe keeping according to size and shape, use and abuse. But those are just dead forms and figures, with little application to today’s needs. We put them on walls and pedestals, adjusted for height and shape. But nothing really works, and any salutary effect is very short-lived. The freest person on this earth is that orange-robed monk walking nowhere fast and dedicated to making it last.  

     
    • jmoran66's avatar

      jmoran66 6:02 am on February 8, 2026 Permalink | Reply

      As an ex-American. I can relate to this mindset. Thankfully, I got out of there and am in a place where, through practice, I have been able to move beyond that way of thinking. I am in Thailand.

    • hardie karges's avatar

      hardie karges 5:26 pm on February 8, 2026 Permalink | Reply

      Good choice. I was there for a long time myself, mostly up north, around Chiang Rai. Where are you?

      • jmoran66's avatar

        jmoran66 5:55 am on February 10, 2026 Permalink | Reply

        I’m in Bangkok. Been here for years, now. Over time, I’ve come to see it as fertile ground for practice, in it’s own way. It took a while to grasp that, however.

    • hardie karges's avatar

      hardie karges 5:28 pm on February 10, 2026 Permalink | Reply

      Yes I didn’t like Bangkok much at first but gradually warmed up to it. I might visit again, hoping to do a video series on monks and temples in SE Asia. Stay tuned. Thank you for your comments.

  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 5:15 am on July 16, 2023 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , freedom, , , , , Right Aspiration, , , , ,   

    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… 

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 10:24 am on February 5, 2023 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , freedom, Graeber, , John Locke, Kadiaronk, , , , , 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…

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 10:49 am on October 3, 2021 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , freedom, , , , ,   

    Buddhist Non-attachment and Free Will 

    You can be connected to everything and attached to nothing. That is the Holy Grail, for me, at least, of life in general, and Buddhism in particular. Because, despite the apparent similarities, the difference between the two activities is craving, upadana in Pali/Sanskrit, and that is the deal-killer, as articulated in the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths, number two, to be exact. Visually, imagine making contact, but without a hook that attaches you to that other surface.

    Now isn’t that preferable? Because without that hook, then you are free. And with freedom comes responsibilities. But with that hook, then you are enslaved. And when you are enslaved, not only have you lost your precious freedom, but you have lost your moral responsibility. Because if there is no free will, then there is no morality.

    So, the metaphysicians can argue all they want about the existence, or not, of free will, using arguments based on reason and logic, but the proof depends on the necessity—or not—of morality. Because free will can never be proven empirically, since it’s an abstract concept, and thus not subject to the demands of reason nor logic. But it is subject to the demands of morality. Ontologically, there is no absolute free will, though a limited one, subject to circumstances. This world is our circumstance. It demands morality.

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 11:24 am on July 11, 2021 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , , freedom, inanition, , , , , , , , ,   

    The Rocky Middle Path of Buddhism in America… 

    “Give me liberty or give me death” is America’s battle cry for independence, of course, as so brilliantly elucidated by Patrick Henry, and seconded by many others, notably the license plate slogan ‘Live Free or Die,’ among many others of similar emotion. And by ‘America’ I mean the USA, not the lower 40, though they are largely complicit, as is Europe the mother country, in the case of North America, which lacks the large indigenous base of many of the other more southern countries. Even Mexico is around 65% indigenous the last time I checked.

    And freedom is all well and good, as long as we know the details of the liberties and freedoms referred to, but which can be detrimental, and even deadly, if left for imaginations to run wild and machinations to double down in derailing the original intent of a simple life without a lord and master to serve at every beck and call. So now we consider mask-lessness as an inalienable right, even during a pandemic, ditto vaccines, and any restriction on movement during the same world emergency to be a violation. So the Western insistence on freedom to the maximum extent comes very close to an implicit death wish.

    (More …)
     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 12:34 pm on May 16, 2021 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , freedom, frequencies, Kristofferson, , , Stephen Hawking,   

    Hawking Paradox Sutra, the Buddhism of Big Questions… 

    Stephen Hawking is certainly one of the most interesting figures of the last century, and his previous best-seller A Brief History of Time was certainly a page-turner, if not exactly a nail-biter, so I was excited to have a chance to read his latest, and presumably last (since he is now deceased) offering, Brief Answers to the Big Questions, like, you know: Where did we come from? Why are we here? Where do we go now? Who invented ice cream? Why are women so beautiful? Hey, you gotta’ have priorities.

    Backstory: Freedom and the lack thereof is one of my big themes philosophically, and so it is for many of us, generally in the West, and especially in America, to the point that you can’t escape it, even when you are reading Eastern philosophy, especially that of the Indian/Hindu variety, in which pandits and acharyas will go on and on (I would like to say ‘drone’) about you and your boundlessness and your limitlessness, and wouldn’t it be great if you were unstoppable.

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  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 11:32 am on April 18, 2021 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , freedom, , , ,   

    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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  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 1:09 pm on March 26, 2021 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , , , freedom, , , ,   

    Goodbye Corona, Hello Global Warming, Dark Age Optional… 

    Proof of Vaccination

    I got my second dose of the Pfizer vaccine against the Covid-19 virus today, so I guess that now is as good a time as any to put the finishing touches on this pandemic. Yes, I know that it’s not over and could go on at least another year or more, but for me, this is a defining point, and so I think I hear the fat lady singing. And I say that with a twinge of sadness, because for me it’s been a good year, not in material acquisitions, but in spiritual gain. Because the times of greatest stress and suffering often coincide with the greatest spiritual gains. This is as obvious in Jesus’s eschatological emergence as the Roman Empire entered its down days, as it was in the Buddha’s times, with the emergence of India’s and China’s rise as the two dominant centers of world population, a position that they maintain to this day.

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    • Dave Kingsbury's avatar

      Dave Kingsbury 4:17 pm on March 27, 2021 Permalink | Reply

      First, congratulations on receiving the double dose – each successful step something we can all celebrate. Second, can’t fault your analysis of the recent past nor your prognosis for the near future. Third, you outline new ways of thinking and responding which are also – satisfyingly – a return to older wisdoms. Vive l’humanite!

      • hardie karges's avatar

        hardie karges 5:03 pm on March 27, 2021 Permalink | Reply

        Hear hear! Thanx for your comments, Dave…

  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 11:48 am on February 14, 2021 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , freedom, , , ,   

    Buddhism and Self in an (Almost) post-Apocalyptic World… 

    Self-control requires no self, and not much control, either, really, just wise decisions. Which is convenient, since the last thing a Westerner—European or American—wants to hear about is control, something of a dirty word for the Aryan-descended high-steppes drifters.

    My compatriots tend to love their freedoms, even when they are deleterious to health, to an extent that others might, and do, find laughable, witness the current kerfuffles over life-saving masks in the middle of a pandemic. But limits are crucial to Buddhism, in sharp antithesis to the Christianity of eternal life and eternal resources. Oops! That’s another bad word–limit.

    Bottom line: It isn’t what you do that matters so much; it’s what you don’t do. And if that kept me away from Buddhism for many years, perceived as a passive response to active situations, now it attracts me to it. Because now it really is better to do nothing than run around like decapitated barn-fowl in search of answers to questions we never should have asked in the first place.

    So what do we do about global warming? Do nothing, i.e. instead of driving that car: do nothing. Instead of stoking that chimney of steel: do nothing. Instead of shooting that rocket to Mars: do nothing. Get it? So what if our lives revert to the same economic status of one hundred years ago, was that so bad? All we’ve gained since then is technology-based capitalism, not knowledge.

    One hundred years ago, Einstein’s general theory of relativity was proven and quantum mechanics was in progress. The only thing good that’s happened after all that is Internet, so we can keep that and get rid of all the self-driving cars and self-driven egos. Internet is almost the only worthwhile technology of the last century, that and health care, something still out of reach for many world citizens.

    Yet we are obsessed with economic growth as though that were the English term for God, and freedom as if that were our contribution to the Emptiness that underlies all stuff (which it may very well be). The problem is that quest for infinity when we have no true connection to it, except for our worship of it. So worship we can do, as long as we don’t fancy ourselves the master of it. We’re not.

    We are subject to freedom and must obey its dictates. Oops! There’s another dirty word, no, not dictate, but ‘obey.’ This is anathema to the West almost more than control or limits, but crucial to our place in the universe. It may very well be inhuman to dictate, but very human to obey, like the good children we should all strive to be. And it may be very inhuman to try to control others, but the essence of humanity to try to control ourselves.

    For then harsh words will not be spoken, and harsh actions will not be taken. Sound too simple? Yes, it is, and the most difficult thing for us to accomplish, we raised on the sound and fury of argument and debate. But accomplish it we must, if we are to survive another century. Purify your heart. Purify your mind. Prepare for the coming storm.

     

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