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    hardie karges 4:34 am on June 29, 2025 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , Denisovan, Floresiensis, , homo sapiens, , , , , , , , ,   

    Buddhism, Meditation, and the Zero… 

    We are all conditioned by language. So, try to watch your tongue. That is not a Zen koan, but it could be, since they speak to the same issue. Language is not always a solution.  Often it is the problem. And that places it largely outside the Western world’s system of knowledge and transactional engagement. Because, when Mark Z says that he wants to see engagement on Facebook posts, he’s not talking about flirtation and sweet talk (though that’s okay, too, I’m sure). He’s talking about verbal exchange, to the point of sparring and verbal disembowelment.

    That’s why many people love Facebook. And it’s why just as many hate it and go on to other social media. Because language is the world’s preeminent weapon, likely the reason why homo sapiens, aka homo vehemens, was able to defeat the Neanderthals and Denisovans and Floresiensis so handily and bodily. They had a not-so-secret weapon. The rest is history. The talkers got the spoils of war, and the others got shallow graves. And so, it is today. High-tech is our language.

    Enter Buddhism and the meditation that defines it. Like the zero, shunya, that gave its name to Emptiness, shunyata, we need that empty space to make sense of things. We need that empty space to return to our natural pre-linguistic awareness, sati, which predates the ‘monkey mind’ that language sometimes produces, and which must be held in check by concentration and attention. The world outside is limited, changing, and full of stuff. The world inside is infinite, eternal and empty. We only need that emptiness to hold it all in perfect place notation. That’s what zero is for. That’s what meditation is for.

     
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    hardie karges 9:16 pm on June 1, 2025 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , homo sapiens, ,   

    Buddhism: Compassion is Key… 

    Even the wicked deserve compassion, because it’s never too late for them to change their wicked ways. As a matter of fact, it’s mandatory, because otherwise, if we accept that there are certain ‘kinds’ of people, then we are denying free will to those who need it most, the habitually wicked and morally compromised. And, if forgiveness is too Christian for you, then just call it compassion, and don’t worry about who did what way back when and then started it again just when you almost forgot it.

    The important thing is to mitigate the suffering and promote reconciliation, even if that means foregoing some choice words and fierce jabs in the heat of battle with no breaks to be had, just compassion. Because language is not always a solution and often is the problem itself. That’s no surprise, since, in the history of the world, it’s obvious that homo sapiens only came to reign supreme with the advent of language and the advantages that brought to the battlefield—and the bedroom.

    So, if the bottom line of any Buddhist equation is self-control, then so be it. Because it requires no self, and not much control, really, just wise decisions and the ability to pull punches and hold your temper. It’s hard these days, true, what with politics flying and tempers flaring all for the cost of a taco, but even more necessary because of its prevalence. What happens to us when we’re angry and hateful all the time? That’s no way to live and an even worse way to die. Control yourself to control the situation. Forego the heat of battle to gain the coolness and calmness of forbearance.

     
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    hardie karges 4:34 am on August 18, 2024 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , homo sapiens, , Rumi, , Sufi   

    Buddhism in the Balance: Conciliation, not Confrontation… 

    Conciliation seems to be a prime corollary of Buddhism, something like Christian forgiveness, but without all the weeping and wailing. And I’m not trying to be cute, but seriously, let it go, ‘it’ being that reactive stance to any blow to ego, whether full frontal or slight glance, equal in their danger to provoke chain reactions and nonstop confrontation, which should be the last thing that anybody would really want, and the first thing to avoid. In other words, don’t take the bait.

    Now, I don’t know if we’re just an argumentative species, or it’s a western thing, but the upshot of the modern Social Media (SM?) phase of world history seems to be that we’re a bunch of combative SOB’s. And, while Buddhism and the other Dharma religions are well-known for advocating the non-violence of ahimsa, I’m not sure but that maybe some damage might already be done by that time. So, I think the great Sufi poet Rumi had a much higher and better standard (yes, Buddhists often copy this):

    Before you speak, let your words pass through three gates: At the first gate, ask yourself, ‘Is it true?’ At the second gate ask, ‘Is it necessary?’ At the third gate ask, ‘Is it kind?’

    In other words, be better than the other one, the instigator, the troublemaker. Don’t respond in kind. You don’t have to respond at all. In many instances, that’s the best you can do, and there’s really nothing better than that. But it’s not always easy. And what if they’re standing right there and won’t let you just walk away? And wouldn’t you like to teach the instigator something about the results of his bad speech? Humor is another possibility but be careful. The laughter often works. Regardless, reconcile ASAP. Don’t hold grudges, or they will hold you.

     
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    hardie karges 5:27 am on February 11, 2024 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: bonobos, , , , , , homo sapiens,   

    Buddhism 499: Conciliation is always better than confrontation…  

    There is always an alternative to war and conflict. Conciliation starts at home. Such is the way of the world. If we can’t maintain the peace within our families, then how can we ever hope to keep the peace among such large, scattered and diverse groups as exist in the world these days, with eight billion souls and counting? Score one for samsara, the world in all its gory details: hate, greed, fear, and anger, watch your step and be on a constant lookout for danger.  

    But it doesn’t have to be that way. Except for chimpanzees—but not bonobos—no other species besides glorious homo sapiens feels the need to kill for any other reason than to acquire food. We do it because we’re wired that way, I guess, DNA and all that rap, A, C, G, T nucleotides, with sometimes Y and W (just kidding), as if all our thoughts and emotions were pre-programmed at the factory, just like the determinists claim, and all our actions doomed to repetition and suffering.  

    Enter religion, and now we have reason and inspiration to up our game. For now, we have expanded our family to include all like-minded souls, regardless of race, gender, or geography, the only problem being, of course, that that is still not enough. For one thing, different religions don’t always agree with their own governments, much less with each other. Still there is hope, and the rule of thumb to ‘leave well enough alone’ is not a bad guide for the guileless. Sometimes you don’t have to do anything. You have to do nothing—quickly. And like so, determination can defeat determinism, and peace can prevail.

     
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    hardie karges 3:57 am on December 17, 2023 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , homo sapiens, , , , , patanjali, , , , ,   

    Buddhism: Silence is Better than Language…  

    You can say ‘namaste’ all day and prove little. You can say nothing and prove much. Or you can sit in samadhi all day and prove everything, ‘samadhi’ being that meditative state of total absorption, in which the threads of language are locked out at the gates without credentials for entry. Because language is that element of mental activity tainted with the brush of corruption, duality at its most obvious, subjects verbing adjectivized objects so adverbially that prepositions threaten to revolt and assume post-positions, conjunctions just looking for somewhere to put an ‘and,’ ‘but’ only ‘if’ conditions can be avoided, so tenses only indicative, nothing subjunctive allowed. 

    All of which is to say that there’s more to life than language, OR logic, and often it’s even positively negative, if you care to find some meditative transcendence for even a moment in this increasingly noisy world or ours, crowded and clusterf*cked almost beyond recognition of the sublime Nature that it once was, notwithstanding the sporadic violence inherent to that same Nature.  

    Language is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it allowed homo sapiens to subdue, or outdo, all its competitors in the competition for the low-hanging fruit of life, those skills allowing multiple individuals to act as one for the purpose of being ‘firstest with the mostest,’ skills indispensable for survival when life is on the line and food is not yet on the table. This can be proven conclusively with the timelines of our competitors’ mutual demise in the face of sapiens’ overwhelming superiority. 

    On a more practical day-to-day basis, it’s simply an easy recipe for mindfulness, antidote for the common complaint of ‘monkey mind,’ during which our minds are so possessed of internal chatter that it’s virtually impossible to think properly, much less achieve some level of ‘calm abiding,’ i.e. samatha. So, ironically, the very thing that is our military strength is our existential downfall—unless we can control it. This is the unique sapiens challenge to zoological superiority and key to the future ascendance of our species—or not. Thus, Buddhist practice is more than an individual accomplishment; it’s truly intrinsic to our survival. 

     
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    hardie karges 12:06 pm on November 13, 2022 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , homo sapiens, , , ,   

    Buddhism and Survival of the Species 

    Buddhism is more than just a religion or philosophy. It is a method for planetary survival, and that’s why we’re here right now. Because I care about planetary survival, and I hope that you do, too. And by ‘planet,’ I specifically mean the human race, since I have no doubt that the rock itself can continue to provide for itself, regardless of whether humans had ever shown up to sully the mix. But we are like DNA, and DNA is like language, and so we must cross our T’s and dot our I’s and make sense of random mutations.

    As soon as our survival was assured, we humans set about killing each other. And the coincidence of this with the invention of language may have not been so coincidental at all. Thus, once adopted, language has somehow become intrinsic to our existence, and so it is necessary to make our peace with it. Buddhism is famous for meditation, of course, and so that is one way of dealing with language, by losing it—powerful. Because for all the rap about insight, mindfulness, and ‘calm abiding,’ the one thing common to all meditation is silence. Guided meditation is something else.

    Christianity was fine when the human race was still young, and the need to breed was still arguably extant. But with eight billion people (and counting), the passion of Christ has long since been replaced by the passion of mice, breeding like rabbits and eating like wolves. This is not what the world needs right now. We’re a successful species, unless we continue to kill ourselves. I don’t think a species has ever gone extinct by mass suicide. But we could become the first, regardless of stated intents. Buddhism is one way to resolve this issue favorably, by choosing inner peace over mass consumption…

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 11:34 am on September 13, 2020 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , Gandhi, homo sapiens, , Mahatma, , ,   

    Buddhism is Found in the Beauty of Silence… 

    Sometimes silence can accomplish more than violence, and that’s something that Mahatma Gandhi knew, but which most modern protesters seem to have forgotten, when they parade that smug self-assertion that assumes that more chaos is better than less, while innocent victims die unattended and children see their lives suspended.

    This is the problem, not the solution, that we all need to take the bait, and excite the crowds, when just the opposite is truest: when silence prevails, the world is a better place, and we are all more equal. And this is not limited to manipulation of the Anglo-Saxon guilt complex, which Gandhi did so expertly, though that might be where it works best, there and in the surrounding Indo-European community, which has long been indoctrinated with Christianity and the doctrine of forgiveness.

    But it should work elsewhere, too, though perhaps with lesser results, especially where materialist doctrines have gained supremacy, arguably the difference between socialism and communism, that rejection of all ethics and most morality, in total deference to the party and the race.

    But Tibetan monks don’t practice self-immolation to hear the crowds cheering at Wimbledon or the Kentucky Derby. They do it because they want to send a message and because they can, where other avenues of ex-pression are limited, and where memories are long, even if time is short. Buddhists are disciplined if nothing else, witness the current pandemic results.

    And so it can be for all of us. Protestants were once protesters. Passion was once suffering. Our species arose from something that preceded it, and only caught fire with the invention of language. And that is where we stand today, at the crossroads of history, between the forces of good and evil which correspond roughly to the hemispheres of our brains.

    Thus a dialectic and discourse is built right in to our system of consciousness, and language is powerless to prevent it, since language is largely what created it. In the beginning was the Word, and in the end the meek will supposedly inherit the earth, and everything else is for us to figure out, and let the history books sort it out.

    Scientists call us homo sapiens, wise person, but that is probably far too generous, because we are in no position to judge ourselves, not from the long view of history, but only from the short view of a human lifetime. The most we can truly claim for ourselves is language, so homo linguarum, and for better or worse, that is our fate, to yak it up, even when silence is sometimes far better.

    And that is one thing I have learned in Buddhism, if nothing else, in one word: silence. That is the sound of meditation. That is the sound of Emptiness. Language is the best and worst human invention. Use it wisely…

     

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