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  hardie karges 4:17 am on October 15, 2023 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: BLM ( 2 ), boycott ( 2 ), Hardie Karges, language ( 171 ), meditation ( 224 ), monkey-mind ( 3 ), politics ( 32 ), silence ( 14 )   

  Buddhism 499: The Only App You Need Is Silence    

  

  If in doubt, then leave it out. Some of the cleverest words are never spoken, simply because they might hurt someone in the process…and that’s not good. But that’s one of the most difficult tasks for a Western convert to Buddhism, especially Americans, for whom argumentation is a way of life, even on a good day, even for the best of us, schooled in the liberal arts and dedicated to the proposition that all humans are created equal. 

  But sometimes the advanced degrees only get in the way of politeness and forbearance, which is often seen as old-fashioned or too folksy in an age where a clenched fist stands for political correctness and a loud mouth stands for factual correctness. Good luck with that. But I forgive the BLM (no, not the Bureau of Land Management) for the naïve assumption that ‘Silence is Violence,’ since I know where they’re coming from and largely agree with their goals if not tactics. If history has taught me anything, it’s taught me that there are usually better tactics than violence, or even confrontation. Just ask C.C. Boycott.

  As Buddhists, though, peace of mind is one of the main goals of our path, and that’s non-negotiable, just like human rights and freedom of expression. But patience is a virtue, and most arguments are non-essential. I once had a policy with a previous partner that whenever an argument lasted too long, we should stop, sleep on it, then come back to it again the next day. Guess what? Not once could we even remember what the argument was about, much less care to revisit it the next day, not once. 

  That’s typical of lower-level mind-stuff. We argue the most minute details to the last breath, and still people die of unnecessary wars at a rate that never seems to abate, though that point is arguable, too, haha. Meditation is the best response (non-response?) to too much mind-stuff, of course, and I won’t insult the ape community by calling it ‘monkey-mind.’ That’s us. The only difference is that they don’t meditate, not yet. Silence is our birthright. Be kind and don’t intrude on that of others.  

   

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  hardie karges 3:40 am on October 7, 2023 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: abundance ( 7 ), Buddhism ( 465 ), capitalism ( 26 ), CHRISTIANITY ( 163 ), global warming ( 16 ), Hardie Karges, myth, Protestant ( 2 ), religion ( 168 ), Thailand ( 76 ), zero-sum   

  Buddhist Self-Sufficiency Trumps Christian Abundance  

  

  Overflowing abundance is a myth, but there is always enough, just enough. And that’s probably an act of faith, also, but preferable to the call for gluttony. Because that’s what abundance signifies: more than enough, all you can eat, sky is the limit, all that Christian mythology that spurs capitalism, Protestant individualism, global warming and war, as if winner takes all in a zero-sum game. But why would that be the case, since it clearly is contradictory?  

  If there are unlimited resources, then there should be plenty to go around for everybody, but that’s not the way it works, apparently. It seems that it doesn’t really count until counted. Until then it’s just religion, myth and ritual, designed to encourage the gods as much as to propitiate them, since they are the gatekeepers of these mythical resources. So, Christianity shoots itself in the foot by trying to claim more than it can realistically access. Abundance, i.e. unlimited resources, are useless if not freely available. 

  Buddhism makes no such outrageous claims, but ‘just enough’ can be easily surmised if not statistically proven, with much better results than the Christian hubristic assertion. And that’s what the previous king of Thailand did with his theory of self-sufficiency, พอเพียง, ‘just enough,’ which, from a Buddhist standpoint, is a self-adjusting mechanism as much as a statistical reality. Whatever there is, it’s ‘just enough,’ as long as you can adjust your desires accordingly. This is classic Buddhism at its best, and a win-win situation for all. Don’t be greedy. 
   
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  hardie karges 4:17 am on October 1, 2023 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Buddhism ( 465 ), Golden Rule ( 2 ), Hardie Karges, karma ( 52 ), Mughal, Newton's third law ( 2 ), past lives ( 8 ), rebirth ( 37 ), Tibet ( 8 ), Vajrayana ( 23 ), Vipassana ( 16 ), Zen ( 31 )   

  Buddhism in the Balance: Karma Chases Dogma 

  

  Karma is not just simple cause and effect. That’s Newton’s Third Law of Motion. With karma the effect is not reciprocal; it’s indirect. If you hit someone and they hit you back, that’s not karma. That’s a fistfight. And if it involves money, then that’s business, haha. So, no, it’s not so simple as it seems on the surface, and not so simple as it’s often defined: cause-and-effect. But that doesn’t mean that it’s as complicated as some people, especially monkish scholars, would like to make it, either, with ‘multiple feedback loops’ often extending over generations. Since this life in this world is all we really know, then everything else is wild speculation. 

  But karma, rebirth, and past lives have largely taken over a once-simple Buddhist discipline of meditation, moderation, and self-control, that apparently needed more magic to sell it upstream to the late-comers and Tibetans. So Buddhist temples in Nepal often share space with their Hindu counterparts, and the official line of Hinduism vis a vis Buddhism is that the latter is merely one of the many branch offshoots of the former, which is not an unreasonable position to take, especially considering the vastly different Vajrayana tradition, which was state-of-the-art Buddhism in the 8^th century CE.  

  That is when it became the official religion of Tibet, and entered its last days of importance in India, before the Mughals finally gave it the coup de grace a few centuries later. That’s also one of the most popular forms of Buddhism in the West, also, along with Zen, though the original meditation-based Theravada is finally making some much-deserved headway, after being reinvented as ‘Vipassana.’ That’s my brand, closest to the original, preferably without all the past lives and subsequent debates about rebirth. 

  But I still make some room for karma, albeit ‘karma lite,’ i.e. this life only, with effects largely subjective and internal to the actor and perceiver. So, in this view, if you do bad things, nothing will hit you over the head, not immediately, but you will set in motion a chain of events that will make your life increasingly more miserable in direct proportion to the misery which you have caused to others. If that sounds like only a toothier version of the Golden Rule, “do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” that’s because, well, it is. The karmic version only calls direct attention to the fact there WILL be consequences. But you will have to be the judge of that, though I can attest to it.  

   
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  hardie karges 4:46 am on September 24, 2023 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: brotherly love, Buddhism ( 465 ), CHRISTIANITY ( 163 ), Hardie Karges, ISLAM ( 67 ), love ( 49 ), meditation ( 224 ), metta ( 25 )   

  Love, Buddhist Style…  

  

  No, Buddhist love is not like falling in love, sorry, more like friendship or brotherly love, no more tears. So, this is one of the main differences between Buddhism and Christianity, and therefore one of the main obstacles for someone hoping to straddle the line between the two and ultimately blend them into a workable hybrid, something of which I approve, BTW, and perceive as being somehow inevitable, such is the status and well-defined dialectical positions of these two pillars of modern religion.  

  This may be controversial with some fierce religionists, but not me. I see it as the highest phase in the history of religion, that in which the family of man becomes inclusive, and everyone reaps the same benefits of being a member of the club. After all, religions have always been successful for their own individual members. The problem is one of how to deal with the non-members, who are all too often perceived as ‘others.’ If this is most obvious with Islam, it is still an issue with many, if not most, of the others. 

  Every religion preaches love, of course, but the devil is in the details. Christianity wants a love that is passionate, as that is the modus operandi of the religion, to FEEL something, first and foremost, whereas wisdom is paramount in Buddhism, that and the action of carrying out the fine and enlightened activities in question, mostly compassion and kindness, nothing more nor less. So, Buddhist metta is probably best translated to the West as ‘brotherly love,’ the same kind that once made Philadelphia famous. It may take more than that to reproduce the species, true, but not much, nod nod wink wink. 

   
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  hardie karges 5:07 am on September 10, 2023 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Buddhism ( 465 ), Hardie Karges, mindlessness, miondfulness, non-dualism ( 11 ), religion ( 168 ), rishi ( 7 ), Thich Nhat Hanh ( 8 )   

  Buddhism 499: Washing Dishes… 

  

  I don’t wash dishes to wash dishes. I wash dishes to get them clean, over and over and over. It can be very meditative. And, of course, that’s what Thich Nhat Hahn meant in his famous quote about “washing dishes to wash dishes,” that that is a meditation in itself, every bit the equal of a walking meditation or even a guided meditation, if not the original cross-legged lotus-pose figure-eight (Thai) immortalized in countless imagery over the ears and centuries, showcasing rishis and maharishis and yogis and sannyasis and vairagis and countless other practitioners of eclectic ascetic disciplines who never wanted to be showcased in the first place. Most just want to be left alone to meditate.  

  But few have that luxury, since even the most renunciant of yogis still must eat sometime, even if that requires leaving the cave to go into town and beg for it. For most Theravada Buddhists, that is the stylized ritual that forms the foundation for their existence in society, if not the world itself, for which meditation is perhaps the precursor to all. And yes, that is usually best done in the silent and still sitting position, for which the only requirement is just that: be silent and be still. Whatever goes on in your mind is your business, unfortunately. But modern Buddhism has brought many new ways, and so the old ways must re-invent themselves, also, to stay relevant to new Buddhist adepts.  

  Thus, the TNH invocation to get your meditation wherever you can find it. Mindfulness must be careful not to drift into mindlessness, however, and ‘washing dishes to wash dishes’ comes dangerously close to that, as if there is nothing really to be accomplished in the world and all such efforts are equally destined to fail. The Buddha never said that. But many ‘non-dualists’ do. I don’t. That is a luxury I can’t afford. So, if TNH’s message is to take your meditation where you find it, my message is to make the world a better place, also, in your short time on this piece of earth. Don’t be obsessed with it and/or possessed by it, but don’t waste the opportunity, either. 

   
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  hardie karges 4:34 am on September 1, 2023 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Bentham, Buddhism ( 465 ), CHRISTIANITY ( 163 ), conciliation ( 3 ), Hardie Karges, Middle Path ( 57 ), Mills, pragmatism, religion ( 168 ), skillfuil means   

  The Skillful Means of Buddhism  

  

  Buddhism wants you to accept and adapt to your circumstances. Christianity wants you to change them. Let’s split the difference and call it good, an ever-evolving Middle Path, in which we are neither totally renunciative nor totally aggressive, but rather capable of both, or either, depending on what the situation calls for. But that doesn’t mean that the ethics or morals change with the situation, only that the path forward can, or might, change in such a way as to benefit the greatest number. 

  Because pragmatic concerns always weigh heavily in the considerations of possible paths forward, i.e. the greatest good for the greatest number. Bentham and Mills didn’t invent such concepts in 19^th century Britain. They only systematized them for intellectual consideration. But the Buddha was way ahead of them with his use of ‘skillful means’ to settle disputes and move arguments forward. It’s very simple: you lean toward the best possibility for conciliation, while de-emphasizing potential conflicts. Points of contention can be worked out later, if indeed they still exist.  

  Still the path is there for traveling, even if it revolves around a familiar center. Nothing stands still, not in this universe of constant motion. Silence doesn’t always imply stillness. That is a luxury. Thus, we can both adapt to our circumstances AND change them, and without confrontation when we use skillful means to ease the path forward. Confrontation is to be avoided at all costs while conciliation is to be encouraged. That is the gospel—of Buddhism, and nothing is more important. 

   
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  hardie karges 5:22 am on August 25, 2023 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: anatta ( 22 ), Buddhism ( 465 ), center ( 2 ), Hardie Karges, meditation ( 224 ), Middle Path ( 57 ), samsara ( 12 ), shunya ( 12 ), zero ( 13 )   

  Shunyata: Emptiness at the Center of Buddhism  

  

  Shunyata is famous as the Emptiness factor of Buddhism. But that zero, shunya, also defines a center. And so that same word, or some variation of it, forms the word or concept of centrality in many Southeast Asian languages, where it first arose. Thus, it refines the concept of the Middle Path in the same way that it refines the concept of anatta or ‘non-self.’ Now we can see that not only is there no permanent enduring self to worship or obey throughout eternity, but there is no permanent enduring anything to worship or obey throughout eternity.  

  In the same way we can see that not only is there a Middle Path that defines our passage through life, but there is also a center that we can keep coming back to, if we want, or revolve around, if we must, lest we lose our bearings in the passages of time and space. Because that Middle Path can be meandering, as we’ve already seen, but a center is more fixed, by definition, even if it is following a path in 3-D space. It is still fixed in relation to its surroundings. And so is a center.  

  So, I think that it’s possible to postulate and adhere to a Central Point of Buddhism in the same way that we follow a Middle Path. Nothing has changed except the precision of the definition, as with anatta. Thus, we should always ‘stay centered’ in the same way that we should avoid extremes in following a Middle Path. If this seems trite, trivial, and even somewhat torturous to accept, then I suggest otherwise. Because if that concept of samsara was originally a ‘wandering’ which soon became synonymous with ‘the world,’ then at some point we must settle down and find our center. 

   
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  hardie karges 3:08 am on August 12, 2023 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Buddhism ( 465 ), CHRISTIANITY ( 163 ), Hardie Karges, language ( 171 ), meditation ( 224 ), psychotherapy ( 2 ), silence ( 14 ), spiritual bypass   

  Buddhism or Psychotherapy? Mix and Match…  

  

  Psychotherapy heals with talk. Buddhism heals with silence, i.e. meditation. Which is better? That’s your choice, or it could be a combination of the two, in which a sweet spot is found, somewhere near the center, in something of a perfect and creative combination of the two. Because psychotherapy runs the risk of never really solving the problem, since there are always more words to toss on the fire, while Buddhism runs the risk of never really solving the problem, because they ‘bypass’ it and merely leave it there dangling helpless. 

  Both criticisms may be right to some extent, but it may be helpful to ask why. Because it seems as if psychotherapy does its share of ‘bypassing,’ also, but in an attempt to get at the root of the problem, not some superficial solution. The problem is that it never ends. Psychotherapists don’t expect their clients to articulate their problem for themselves, but only offer enough clues that the psychotherapist might have some insight into the underlying causes that manifest in ways that can be crippling to the victim. Buddhist meditation is often accused of making an end-run straight to the problem’s superficial solution, without really dealing with the issues. 

  One interesting aspect of psychotherapy is that it tends to be a Western ‘problem,’ by world measures, i.e. the people seeking such help tend to be European or European-descended by birth. Psychotherapists scarcely exist in many Asian countries (this is changing), and when they do, are often there for Western ex-patriates and their English language. So, does the entire Asian continent ‘bypass’ its supposed need to confront its deepest darkest demons by linguistic means, or does the West maybe have a problem of loving the ‘dualism’ of language, i.e. usually Indo-European language, something which never seems to let us go, unless we let it go. 

  Thus the ‘problem’ seems to be a slippery one. The more we examine it, the harder it is to find. By this point in my life, I may indeed have a predilection for the silence over the noise, but I’m almost always willing to split the difference, as long as that allows a meandering path and a hopefully creative solution. This isn’t Math 101, after all. So, let’s say that the full thesis can be forsaken forthwith, in favor of a soft solution, in which the linguistic and existential hurdles are acknowledged, including sexual slights and psychic manipulation, as long as there is no expectation of ever any total reconciliation. Silence is more honest than that. It allows unlimited freedom of movement, after all, with no retribution necessary. Deal. 

   
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  hardie karges 2:53 am on August 6, 2023 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: anapanasati ( 8 ), Buddhism ( 465 ), CHRISTIANITY ( 163 ), dharma ( 36 ), Hardie Karges, language ( 171 ), mantra, meditation ( 224 ), mindfulness ( 37 ), New Age ( 8 ), samatha ( 5 ), Theravada ( 53 ), Tibetan ( 3 ), Transcendental Meditation ( 4 ), Vipassana ( 16 ), yoga ( 6 )   

  Space is the Place–to Meditate…  

  

  You don’t have to go anywhere to meditate, except inside. Much is made in the modern New Age movements of all the different kinds of meditation, which, according to the books and blogs can easily number into the dozens, if not hundreds. But most of those sources aren’t really Buddhist, not in any strict sense. Still, a quick survey reveals a plethora: mindfulness, spiritual, focused, movement, mantra, transcendental (TM), progressive, loving-kindness, visualization, guided, mantra, present moment, Vipassana, chakra, yoga, and ‘candle-gazing.’ That’s a lot of bliss, and we’re only getting started. 

  And that’s the problem, of course, that meditation is often marketed as some kind of bliss machine, when nothing could really be further from the truth. With the possible exception of Vipassana, i.e. ‘insight,’ none of the above could really even be considered Buddhist, which seems to originate with ‘anapanasati,’ awareness of breath, before subdividing into ‘samatha,’ calm abiding, and the aforementioned Vipassana, which puts the goal first and foremost, the insight that one expects to get from the practice.  

  Now, I’m not sure where ‘guided meditation’ originated, but that is unheard of in strict Theravada Buddhism, where silence reigns supreme and strict stillness is the foundation for that. Now, I suspect that guided meditation is chiefly a modern Western-promoted permutation, for Westerners who just can’t stand silence, but will happily sit for a story, but I could be wrong, since Tibetan meditation seems very eclectic and certainly could incorporate some spoken word(s).  

  But for me meditation is silent, emptiness incarnate, and guided meditation is a hybrid form which incorporates a ‘dharma talk’ into the practice itself, certainly not a bad thing, BUT: silence is still golden, at least in my book. If you have a problem with silence, then you should really work on that if you really want to delve deep into Buddhism. Because, as I said in the opening statement, “you don’t have to go anywhere to meditate, except inside.” And that’s the trick, to go inside yourself, where thought becomes anti-thought and talk becomes anti-talk. Thus, everything is shown to be the opposite of what it seems, and that is not a bad thing. “Meditate for at least twenty minutes a day, unless you don’t have time, and then meditate for an hour.” That says it all. 

   
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  hardie karges 3:49 am on July 29, 2023 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Buddhism ( 465 ), capitalism ( 26 ), CHRISTIANITY ( 163 ), commerce, Earth ( 3 ), Hardie Karges, meditation ( 224 ), philosophy ( 113 ), planet, religion ( 168 )   

  Buddhism and the Decline of Planet Earth  

  

  I don’t think that Buddhism is superior to Christianity. But I think that it is the right idea in the right time and in the right place: Here and Now. Because they’re both dealing with situations in progress and in process that are constantly changing and needing updates, but which are both necessary and good and fulfilling a function and that must be fulfilled. It’s the timing that is most crucial. 

  As if the Buddha could almost see that Asia would be an overcrowded and possessive morass of humanity within a couple thousand years and that renunciation might be a really good way of dealing with that—in advance. As if Jesus could almost see that in his neck of the woods violence would take on new meaning as a way of life, unless people could somehow be convinced that that would be unnecessary and highly undesirable, if we could all somehow see that we are brothers and sisters capable of our own strong bonds of love and connection. 

  It’s all aspirational, of course, but if that’s the best we can do, then so be it. So, if the Buddha’s best-laid plans failed to produce a meditative non-possessive Asia, and Christianity could only sublimate the urge for violence into the urge for commerce, then so be it. At least East and West could agree on the commerce. But now the needs are different, since we are largely the victims of our own success and are on the verge of destroying our home planet Earth, rather than finding the proper ways of living with it and in it. And that is the precipice upon which we stand, overlooking the abyss of our own making, with vastly reduced options for a successful outcome.  

  If we could have only somehow frozen world population and consumption at 1954 levels, the year of my birth, then the outcome might have been easy. But income levels were not equal and many people were still in a state of colonial servitude. I see Buddhism as the best chance for a successful outcome, given 2023 circumstances, renunciation and dispassion and all that goes with Buddhism. If nothing else, it can be a way of dealing with a situation that nobody can effectively change. But we must try. Buddhism can at least help deal with that sinking feeling that comes with reduced expectations. That is one of its specialties. Believe me.