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  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 3:02 am on August 24, 2025 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhist Middle Path: Hold Your Applause 

    All you need is kindness. Compassion is good, too. These are the Buddhist foundational concepts known in the Pali language as metta and karuna, often combined in modern standard Thai language as mettakaruna. I guess that’s similar to the Christian compound word ‘lovingkindness’, but without all the gratuitous emotion, please. That’s more Christian than Buddhism has ever aspired to, and largely by design.

    Christians need to hug and kiss, often, while Buddhists could usually care less. Christians are emotion junkies, while Buddhists are cool as cukes, usually, salad dressing optional. So, Christians deliberately took that word from the Hebrew Chesed and translated it to lovingkindness to make a point. Then, when Buddhism came to the West, many practitioners figure what’s good for the goose… you know. But, by then, Buddhism has changed its character, and not necessarily for the better.

    But that’s one way to fight the charge of pessimism and nihilism: slather the special sauce, and Bam! Thailand becomes like the Philippines, all of a sudden, fiery and passionate. I suppose there’s no real harm, but it’s really not what Buddhism is in its essence–just the opposite. Emotions go up and down as if by design, while the Buddhist path steers towards the middle always. That’s not a hard rigid path, but it’s not seeking peak emotion, either. That’s American Photography Course 101, always seeking ‘peak emotion’. Good luck with that. I’ll follow the Middle Path.

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 4:45 am on February 9, 2025 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhism 201: Beyond Metta and Karuna 

    If kindness and compassion are the primary virtues, then patience and restraint are the primary disciplines. Be willing to wait, all the time. Whenever someone baits you with fear and anger, just wait before responding, usually nothing else required. And isn’t that the hardest part? Of course. The heat of the moment is always the peak emotion, and if that is magic for some, it’s probably misery for others, because the present moment is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it can be the most sublime pleasure. But, on the other hand, it can bring the worst pain.

    If you want to take the analogy one step further, then we could easily say that self-control is one of the best tools of Buddhism, but that is a tough sell to a free-thinking crowd in the Western world, where the word ‘control’ smacks of subversion and freedom is the cause for which we will die gladly. But, there’s a difference between self-control and control of others, just as there is a difference in the freedom TO and the more important freedom FROM, at least from a Buddhist standpoint. Just because we want to be free of certain defilements doesn’t mean that we can do whatever we want.

    Bottom line: what’s good on the battlefield isn’t necessarily so good on the Buddha fields. Because here we’ve got all the time in the world to do things right, and little time or tolerance for doing it wrong. We’re playing for keeps in this samsaric time out of mind and hedging our bets on another life after this one. But that issue is above my pay grade here as a humble scribe, so I’ll let the physics and philosophy professors and proficiency masters work out those equations and analyze that language. Me, I’ve got a tea kettle whistling, so that’s all for now. The Big Questions can wait until next time.   

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 4:32 am on December 8, 2024 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhism Basics: Metta and Karuna, Kindness and Compassion… 

    Kindness and compassion, metta and karuna, are not the path of weakness. They are the path of true strength, which may or may not coincide with the popular images of ‘big men’ and ‘strong men’ flexing muscles and making waves, but that is not the paradigm of the Buddhist monk in partial renunciation from the world. That is the paradigm of the world that the Buddhist must renounce, at least partially, the world of hatred, fear, and anger, often masquerading as bravado, strength, and victory.

    Ironically, many Buddhists may defer to such popular images of strength and victory while forgoing it themselves. Because they know that such phenomena are the manifestations of the world, samsara, over which they have little of no control. We can only control ourselves. But, if we can stay on the good side of those circumstantial strong men that the world spits out like so many celebrities for sale, then so much the better. That’s ‘skillful means.’ It doesn’t imply superior dharma or any kind of enlightenment on the part of the big man, just survival instincts on the part of the average bloke.

    But Buddhism is a path of kindness and compassion. That much is certain. The only question is how best to manifest that in our own private lives. As always, the Middle Path seems to offer the best clue. Don’t be too passive or too aggressive. There is a sweet spot right there in the middle somewhere, defined by an almost equal distance from the extremes that we must avoid. And if it seems like this is a path for losers and nondescript middlemen, then nothing could be farther from the truth. Living right is its own reward.

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 4:26 am on February 25, 2024 Permalink | Reply
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    Kindness and Compassion are the Heart and Soul of Buddhism  

    Buddhism in Bhutan

    Compassion has no expiration date. It’s never too late to make new friends with old enemies. This is one of the secrets to a good life: no grudges, no scorched earth, no retribution, and, most importantly, no regrets. It should be simple, since you don’t really have to do anything, but in fact it’s one of the hardest things ever, so attached as we are to our egos and our ‘face’ that we spend so much time and effort saving, lest someone steal it right off of our heads, haha. 

    The Dalai Lama once said that his religion was simple, and that’s kindness, which is compassion, in a word, same thing, same time, and that’s Buddhism, too, in a word. All the elaborate lists and literary expositions that comprise the Buddhist Abhidharma are unnecessary to describe the heart of Buddhism, so why waste so much time and effort when you can put it all in a word, or two? Because yes, there is another word that needs to be included, and if karuna is the first word, then metta is the second, often translated as ‘lovingkindness’ or simple ‘friendliness.’ 

    Put the two words together, and you’ve captured the heart and soul of Buddhism. In fact, modern standard Thai language does indeed often combine the two words for extra effect, so mettakaruna is a word or phrase that you will hear often there. Suffering is famously the back-story to Buddhism, that and its cessation, and that’s pretty much all you need to know. The cosmology of self and rebirth are important but debatable, IMHO, and thus of secondary importance, ditto nirvana. The analogy to Christian forgiveness might be worth mentioning but it isn’t necessary. Be good; don’t be bad. It’s that simple. 

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 4:09 pm on September 25, 2022 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhism and the Dialectic of Deliverance… 

    Buddhism needs no fancy metaphysics nor linguistics, multiple hells nor forty-two flavors of emptiness. Kindness and compassion are enough, metta and karuna and all that jazz. Which is one of the singular beauties of the faith, of course, that almost nothing is required up front, but some goodwill and a policy of non-aggression, ahimsa, such that oftentimes simply doing nothing, absolutely nothing, is the preferred path to advancement, simply because all other options are of lesser benefit.

    Some sects of Buddhism prefer a more elaborate presentation of gods and goddesses, but this is entirely optional and the historical Buddha himself had none of it. In fact, I’m not sure that the historical Buddha would even recognize Tibetan Vajrayana, or Japanese Zen, as something of his own inspiration. But such is the evolution of culture and language, so that a random mutation can be almost guaranteed to occur every eighty years or so, just like the DNA from which we all descend.

    But that doesn’t mean that Tibetan and Japanese Buddhists have nothing in common. They do. It’s just that these two almost-opposite branches of Buddhism are poised like the horns of a dilemma to offer themselves up as starting points for the next phase of dialectical Buddhism. So, given the superstitious and elaborate nature of Vajrayana and the sparse linguistic and meditation-oriented nature of Zen, what would be the next logical step for Buddhism to advance, at least in the West, that great field of dreams left to conquer?

    It just might be the original Theravadin style, with or without the religious trappings, so a more secular but traditional Buddhism, for lack of better terminology. And this is the current situation in the West, where those two extremes have found highest favor with the freedom-loving West, while the more disciplined original approach has found little favor—until now. Because the current acceptance of secular Buddhism goes back to the Early Buddhist roots in many important ways, but without karma, rebirth and past lives. The only question is how all of this will play out I the long run. My fingers are crossed. We are in need of some new synthesis to advance forward…

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 8:50 am on July 18, 2021 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Bodhicitta, , , , , , karuna, , , ,   

    Buddhism Made Easy: Kindness, Compassion, and all that Meditation… 

    Meditation every day keeps the doctor away, and a little kindness helps, too. That pretty much wraps up the gist of Buddhism, without all the doctrines and the calls to action, when inaction is often much preferred. Because Christianity may indeed have been a better paradigm for development of a world raw and wild, but Buddhism is the better paradigm for sustainability. And that is much the reason why I am here. The sentiment is easily extrapolated or interpolated for the life of an ordinary human being, also, such that Christianity might indeed be the better model for growing up and developing, but Buddhism is the better model for settling in and settling down, for the long haul…

    The Four Noble (Aryan) Truths and the primacy of suffering form the cornerstone of Buddhism’s overt doctrine, but meditation is the cornerstone of covert discipline. And so we tame the body and mind as we tame the world, and suddenly things become clearer. The natural animosity of the state of Nature is nothing of the sort when two typically argumentative species—say dogs and cats—are raised together as pups and kittens from the earliest days, keeping each other warm when nights are cold, and heaters are just fantasies from the north country. Is there any better example of Bodhicitta, i.e. Buddha nature?

    (More …)
     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 1:05 pm on December 3, 2020 Permalink | Reply
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    Snarky Buddha Tweet: Special Sale on Kindness and Compassion, all at reasonable rates… 

    I’m looking for something in everyone’s eyes: honesty, kindness, consideration, and compassion, smile optional, must be willing to re-locate. Laughter is the best medicine, no prescription required. Love comes with a warning…

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 12:37 pm on November 29, 2020 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhist Mindfulness and the Myth of Multi-Tasking… 

    Multi-tasking is a myth, aka ‘monkey mind’. Mindfulness is not a myth. Think one thought at the time. ‘Mindfulness’ is a difficult word to translate, and may or may not be the best translation of the Pali/Sanskrit word ‘sati,’ but that is the historical path of Buddhism, so that is the word with which we are left, and that is the task before us.

    I think that the Christians have even borrowed the term now, and so it has taken on a life of its own. But what does it really mean? The term ‘sati’ originally meant something like simple ‘awareness’ or ‘consciousness,’ small ‘c’, almost certainly, (as it still means in modern standard Thai).

    But even more certain would be to simply posit it as the inverse of its negation, and so ‘mindfulness’ is simply the opposite of ‘mindlessness’ and put the onus of exposition upon its protagonists, since the word ‘sati’ worked just fine for millennia, and its simple translations are more than sufficient.

    But the quest for religion is the quest for transcendence, if not magic, and if that means creating holy words with extraordinary definitions, then ‘mindfulness’ is one of those, in the modern post-New-Age reinvention of our spiritual necessities.

    And if that seems tired and trite, then rest assured that the most traditional Buddhists are in on the game, too, they also anxious to liberate terminology from the ordinary humdrum of daily existence, add some hype, aka ‘wu-wu.’

    And one of the easiest ways to do that is simply to redefine terms and double them up. So Sanskrit ‘mudita’ becomes not just ‘joy’ but ‘sympathetic joy.’ And ‘metta’ becomes not just ‘kindness’ but ‘loving-kindness.’ And the Asians do this, too, Thais long combining ‘metta’ and ‘karuna’ (compassion) into one comprehensive ‘mettakaruna.’ Likewise ‘sati’ and ‘panya’ (knowledge) can become ‘satipanya’ for extra emphasis and expansion.

    So beyond all the back-stories and linguistic back-formations, what does the word ‘mindfulness’ now really mean in the Buddhist epistemological sense? As stated originally, probably the best interpretation is focused thinking, i.e. one thought at the time, since there truly is not the ability to hold two thoughts equally and simultaneously, but simply to switch between them constantly, so a trick in itself, but perhaps not conducive to a peaceful mind.

    But I think that a better notion is to think in terms of non-linguistic thought altogether, what I call ‘proto-consciousness’ or ‘paleo-consciousness,’ in the sense that this was once normal, no doubt, before the advent of language some 50,000 years ago, almost simultaneous with the demise of our competitors homo Denisova and Floresiensus, and finally Neanderthalensis.

    That is no coincidence, and no cause to celebrate. But that was then, and this is now. God knows that we are nothing if not a young species, and all should be forgiven. Bottom line: Cooperation is better than competition, community better than individualism. And mindfulness is more than a simple agreement of terms.

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 6:38 am on December 16, 2018 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhism 101: Metta means Friendship, Karuna means Compassion… 

    IMG_2290You’ve got something pretty special when you put friendship and compassion together, and something pretty simple. Even people who profess to believe in nothing, and categorically reject use of that word ‘belief’ can surely believe in friendship and compassion. And friendship, universal friendship, is a very important concept, easy to forget in our day and time that at some time in the not-so-distant past anyone who was not part of the family was suspect and an object of great fear and suspicion…

    One of my favorite stories, recounted many times, is by Jared Diamond of ‘Guns, Germs and Steel’ fame who related that while doing anthropological fieldwork in Papua New Guinea, when two strangers would meet each other, they’d count back to see if they had a mutual relative, so that they wouldn’t have to kill each other, or die trying… (More …)

     
    • Dave Kingsbury's avatar

      Dave Kingsbury 4:28 pm on December 21, 2018 Permalink | Reply

      Informative survey with a convincing historical explanation for fellow-feeling, if that phrase fits. It all builds nicely to your final thoughts where you suggest how experience of different cultures can develop the facility. It’s an important corrective to the divisions – silos, bunkers, echo chambers, whatever – of the modern era.

    • hardie karges's avatar

      hardie karges 4:45 pm on December 21, 2018 Permalink | Reply

      Thanks, Dave! Merry Christmas from Cambodia…

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