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    hardie karges 3:10 am on January 6, 2024 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhism 102: Kindness is Contagious  

    Disease is not the only thing that is contagious. So is kindness, and compassion, and the smile of a stranger. That is how karma works. What goes around comes around. And if that sounds all New-Agey and superstitious, I suspect that it could be proven, if we only knew how to properly frame the questions, to probe the parameters of truth, in an open field without any markers nor metrics. After all, just how do you measure kindness and compassion, anyway? I mean: you can’t just walk into the supermarket and order a quart or a liter or it, now, can you? I wish, haha… 

    But what you can do is ‘pay it forward’, i.e. not just return every kindness with a kindness as an equal and equitable ‘payback’, but initiate such actions without any promise of a return on that investment. Because, if you’re expecting a return, then it’s not an act of kindness at all, but an act of business, interest on principal, compounded annually, if not quarterly. But true kindness is entirely selfless, by its very nature, and so avoids the back-slapping and hand-clapping which is the minimum that most people expect as reward for their generosity. 

    Why have most nations adopted some form of religion at some point in their history, anyway? To enlarge the circle of friends, of course, and hopefully improve people’s lives in the process. Because, without it, the only people you can trust are your immediate family, and beyond that, maybe even your so-called ‘race’. Religion is a way to transcend racism, and what is religion if not a circle of kindness? The challenge is to include everyone in that circle. Because then karma is not only a likely story, but a living breathing reality… and the meek will inherit the earth.  

     
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    hardie karges 6:51 am on November 12, 2023 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhism in the Real World: To Be or Not To Be… 

    When you believe in yourself, don’t believe too much, just enough to accomplish what you need, not enough to inflate your ego. But this is a hard thing to measure, so must simply somehow be ‘felt,’ as if it were a real substantial thing. It’s not. This is the problem which often occurs when all the ‘other’ religions, philosophies, theoretical sciences, and sundry spiritualities like Hinduism, Buddhism, quantum physics, and chaos theory all get lumped together as co-equal partners in ‘New Age’ metaphysics. 

    The problem, of course, is that many are mutually contradictory. Many things simply can’t be had both ways, Buddhism and Hinduism being the best examples. Hindus believe in an eternal soul. Buddhists don’t. Still Hindus consider Buddhists a renegade sect and constantly try to surround them and close the circle (zero?) while no one is looking. Karma, rebirth and past lives are the best-laid trap, to which Buddhism must constantly be on guard not to fully submit, lest it become ‘just another Hindu sect.’ 

    And so it is with you. Self is not a binary choice, all or none, duality or non-duality. You can be a personality with a happy and fruitful time in this life and this world without ever being left with the dubious choice of a cosmic eternal all-important soul or a subject-less object-less witness to actions that you have no right to. Our sentences have subjects and objects, whether English, Spanish, or Hindi, and so do you, if you want them. You are only an unwilling participant, simple mindless witness, if you so choose. You can be as active as you want, and you can tell Robert Adams that I said so. 

     
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    hardie karges 4:17 am on October 1, 2023 Permalink | Reply
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    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 8th 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 3:01 pm on May 6, 2023 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhism, Karma, and the Vicissitudes of Fate…  

    Karma is not fate. Karma is action. But the term is often used similarly, even by those who should know better, and so we are left to deal with it as such. So, when someone says, “that’s your karma,” then what they really mean is that you must have done some really bad things, in this life or a previous one, and now the law of karmic justice is giving you a taste of your own medicine. So, you must suffer some consequences, for your current circumstances otherwise would be unexplainable. And to a limited extent I agree with that assessment, but only to that limited extent.  

    But that’s not fate, which is blind, by definition, and which is variously described as ‘beyond control, ‘governed by supernatural powers’, and/or ‘destiny’ depending on whether the word is used a verb or a noun. But karma implies feedback, to something which occurred previously, and to which many would ascribe ‘multiple feedback loops,’ including, but not limited to, previous lives, the contents of which can only be imagined, or at best surmised by reference to what is now occurring, the two often assumed to have similar, if not the exact same, causal connections. 

    And this is where it often leaves me standing there scratching my head, still wondering how any or all of this could ever be proven. Hint: it can’t, none of it. It’s an attempt to ascribe justice to that which would otherwise have no recourse to justice, the courts too busy with their own peccadilloes and busy work schedules to worry about previous lives, which are at best wild speculation, and at worst total BS. So, I limit my karma to this life and this world, since I surely know that, if I know anything. Another take on the subject would be to assume that it’s all an elaborate hoax to assure that the highest castes and classes of society continue in their dominance of the lower ones, but I’ll leave that speculation to another write…  

     
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    hardie karges 7:15 am on March 3, 2023 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhist Karma and the Middle Path to Salvation   

    You want good karma? Help a beggar to eat. That’s good karma. Because karma literally means ‘acts’ or ‘actions’, though it is often used almost synonymously with the English word ‘fate,’ as though it were all about some sort of predestination. But no, that’s a derivative meaning which may or may not always apply. The most important thing is right actions, or samma kammanta, as specified in the Eightfold Path that concludes the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism. 

    And that’s the important thing, to perform good acts, the other steps along the path, not unlike the Ten Commandments of Christianity, including right speech, right livelihood, and, of course, the basics: do not kill, do not steal, and for god’s sake don’t mess with your neighbor’s partner! Is nothing sacred? And if the Christians like to phrase that as ‘thou shalt not covet,’ then the Sanskrit is not so much different. They’re related languages and people, after all, and the Buddha puts ‘craving’ up there as the main cause of suffering. 

    But where East and West might truly differ, though, is in the speed and willingness to act. Because if we in the West see our active ‘go go go’ lifestyles as a normal and predictable outcome of our sojourn upon this planet, I can assure you that not everyone sees life and the world that way, least of all the rishis for which India is so famous, not to mention the pandits, gurus, swamis, and acharyas. And so, there’s a hidden message for them here also: Do something! After all, you can’t sit in a cave all your life, can you? Can you? 

     
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    hardie karges 9:53 am on December 11, 2022 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhist News Flash! Dogma Gets Run Over by Karma 

    Beat all dogma with the dullest of dull clubs and bury it six point six feet (two meters) under the ground, because Buddhism is better than that. Still the temptations are real, to establish a Buddhism comma INC that can generate ample funds for wayward monks and maybe send a kid or two to school in the process, or at least I hope so. Karma means actions, after all, and that’s almost always better than dogma.

    But the quest for certainty exists, as in all religions, that being their sine qua non, for lack of a better foreign expression to impress you with, haha. Because the only thing certain is the past, and we are its prisoner, if we let it rule us. So, its only use to us is as a guide, or a teacher, and isn’t that why we always chose someone older than us as our teachers? Their past is their certainty and the tool of their trade. But life must be lived, and not merely studied, like so many beans to be counted, while they find a path through us.

    And that’s why we focus on the present, with only an eye to the past, since what was right for that time has a reduced relevance and resonance for the present. Otherwise, we are committed to dogma and the predilections of the past, while the future is a new babe a-borning, and soon must be swaddled and fed. But these are only metaphors, of course, and if time really exists, then it probably has the same number of dimensions as space, namely one, so just here and now. Only one dimension is necessary to define a point, and that’s the point.

     
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    hardie karges 6:47 am on October 9, 2022 Permalink | Reply
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    The Poisons of Buddhism: Hate and Anger and the Path to Danger… 

    Anger destroys everything and everyone in its path, and usually a few bystanders, also. Thus, it is rightly one of the three poisons of Buddhism, as a synonym of hatred, dvesha, and co-equal to lust, raga, and delusion, moha. These poisons are also known variously as the Unwholesome Roots (good name for a Rock-and-Roll band, haha), and the Three Fires. In other words: don’t be like that. Do good things, and good things will come to you. That’s karma, in this life and this world, no need for all the generation-jumping and multiple feedback loops. Obey your Mom and Dad, and love your neighbor as yourself, also, BTW.

    But anger and hatred hold a special place in my Hall of Fame of disgusting behavior, simply because it’s so unnecessary and so easy to avoid. You don’t have to do anything! But there are a few things that you should definitely NOT do: lose your temper, raise your voice, or say and do things that you know you will later regret. But for some reason it feels so good in the heat of the moment to tell someone and his mother where to go and where to stuff it when they get there, that you just can’t help yourself, and the recriminations and guilt will only come later, like maybe five minutes later.

    Because guilt is the weapon of Karma’s choice, the punishment that should be equal to any crime, but it works only if the guilty party has been taught ethics and morality, and lives in a society where such high purposes have value. Some people are so corrupt that they are impervious to the recrimination of guilty feelings, and so the only punishment for wrongdoing is more wrongdoing, as society degenerates into madness and solutions are hard to find. Sound familiar? Such are sanctions in the city. Maybe it’s time to return to Nature. That’s the original dharma, ธรรมชาติ…

     
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    hardie karges 8:09 am on February 20, 2022 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , karma, laptop, Omicron, VPN, WiFi   

    Karma on the Installment Plan—in Nepal… 

    I’ll change my usual format here today, which typically consists of choosing what I consider to be a pithy quote or two—of my own, of course—and then expound on it or them, in the hope of explaining myself and/or the world, so that it might help someone in their own personal quest for beauty, truth, and goodness. Because sometimes life itself offers succinct little stories that say more than I can say from the depths of my imagination, no matter how hard I try. And I would also like to cross-pollinate my Buddha and travel blogs, too, so this seems like a good opportunity. I’ll just re-blog this there.

    In this case the meat of the subject is the idea that the worst things that happen often bring rich blessings, if one can only find the lesson in the suffering and turn despair into delight with a minimum of delay. This goes to the heart of karma, and gives it new value, so not just a justification of an often unjust status quo which consolidates the wicked in power and reduces social mobility to a minimum. Karma, after all, means ‘acts,’ not ‘fate,’ such that the merit gained from good acts, will come back to bless the actor many times over with benefits from unspecified locations and sources.

    (More …)
     
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    hardie karges 8:08 am on February 6, 2022 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , Four Noble Trutrhs, karma, , ,   

    Buddhism and the Path Forward… 

    I’m willing to forego some pleasure, if that means I can forego some pain. And that’s the Buddhist Middle Path in a nutshell, if you like nuts. Because that was the dilemma Siddhartha Gautama was faced with, before he was the Buddha, as a prince of the ksatriya (warrior) caste, most likely, and with all the luxury that life can bring. Until one day, that is, when he ventured outside his harem and realized with a shock that real people, those without harems, also suffer sin, disease and death, not to mention old age, which is possibly the worst of all, or so I hear, haha…

    And from that stark realization, of our impermanence and our imperfection, was born the foundation of Buddhism, the Middle Path to avoid suffering. Some people say that Karma, Rebirth, and the resulting past lives are the bedrock of Buddhism. They’re wrong. The later Mahayanists came up with a slightly different Middle Path, translated from different Sanskrit words, that means the path between existence and non-existence, but that came later, by around five hundred years, give or take a century. Indians hated writing things down, for reasons best left to idle conjecture, since if there was a reason to be known, then it likely would have been written.

    The way to avoid, mitigate, and hopefully even cease suffering, if not actually cure it, is to first cease craving, of course. Because if this is a world of suffering, then it is also a world of desire, and that is no coincidence, they locked in a dance to the death that largely defines our dimension—of suffering. If that sounds pessimistic, then I would urge you to check your American Express gold card at the door and contemplate your own death for only a second. Because that length of time is enough to show you that you are not the master of the Universe, nor even your own fate. At best you are only the master of your emotions, and that is where Buddhism does its best work. Before Enlightenment save the world. After Enlightenment save the world. It beats chopping wood—sometimes…

     
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    hardie karges 8:05 am on January 16, 2022 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhism in the Modern Era 

    Some people might laugh at a monk in meditation, wasting his life away, but I laugh at the silly fools who cause global warming. Because they are the ones that are not only wasting their lives, and themselves, but they are destroying the world for the rest of us, also, and that is a crime that should be punishable to the maximum extent of the law. Meditation is no crime, regardless of whether you think it does anyone any good or not. It certainly does no one any harm, and that’s the Hippocratic Oath, primum non nocere…

    So why do it? The short answer is for the peace of mind, of course, and that should be plenty. But the industrialists and capitalists are hooked on growth like Skid Row addicts on the junk and other trash that populates so much of our lives. Beauty is so much better, and it is absolutely free, costing nothing in the backyard garden and not much more in Amazon, which in reality is a jungle in the South American heart of darkness, which really isn’t so dark at all, in fact a veritable paradise and biology lab par excellence…

    But the Truth, Beauty, and Goodness implicit in the state of Nature are wasted on people who only judge value by dollar signs and Yelp (!) reviews. Because that is a world that means little in the final analysis of man’s involvement with his planet. Karma may be a sketchy concept, but that sketch packs a powerful punch: we reap what we sow, somehow some way, and that murkiness is important. Because the fact that every action has an equal effect is not karma; that’s Newton’s 3rd Law. That every action has an indirect, perhaps greater, effect is karma, and that’s dharma, law, religion, you name it…

     

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