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  • hardie karges 3:10 am on January 6, 2024 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , kindness, , , ,   

    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.  

     

  • hardie karges 8:22 am on April 9, 2023 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Buddha Mind, , , , kindness, , , ,   

    Buddha Mind and the Incremental Steps to Enlightenment  

    Buddha mind is best all the time. But a little bit is better than nothing. That should go without saying. Because this speaks to the nature of thought and the nature of consciousness, but mostly to the nature of awareness itself, sati, which is essential to the development of samadhi, a more meditative state which is probably the best one-word definition of ‘Buddha mind.’  

    But the problem is the problem of any definition, or lack thereof, in which words compete with themselves for attention, and clarity is often lacking. After all: what is ‘mind,’ anyway? But I think that we can assume that whatever ‘mind’ is, then ‘Buddha-mind,’ must be the cooler (literally) and more meditative version of that, full of kindness and compassion, and with a heavy dose of intuitive wisdom, the kind less analytic, and much less critical.  

    But my point is that this is not a yes-or-no binary choice. This is a choice of many incremental intermittent steps, and none is too insignificant along the pathway to enlightenment, whatever that is. Because this is a Mahayana concept, so a full step toward a transcendental Buddha, world-inhabiting and mind-manifesting; and a step away from the more (non) self-centered and discipline-oriented early Buddhism of Theravada, aka Hinayana. Don’t worry about enlightenment. I’m sure that we’ll all recognize it when we see it. The point is to make the world a better place. ASAP. 

     

  • hardie karges 4:09 pm on September 25, 2022 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , Japan, , kindness, , , , , ,   

    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…

     

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

    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 …)
     

  • hardie karges 1:05 pm on December 3, 2020 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , kindness,   

    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…

     

  • hardie karges 11:42 am on January 12, 2020 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: arrogance, , , , kindness, Paradise, paradox,   

    Paradox in Paradise, the Buddha’s Suffering as Our Own… 

    Life is sometimes too easy. Without struggle there is no need for kindness. Thus we confront a Buddhist paradox, every day, in a world at least partly defined by its suffering, and the need to mitigate that suffering, so that we can survive, without falling into the trap of false flattery and the lure of luxury. Because if the suffering is a matter of opinion and the appropriate means of measure, the imperfection is rife. There may be a perfect world somewhere, of which this is but a poor manifestation, admittedly, but not this reflected world itself, which at times resembles a cheap carnival sideshow. But this is the only world that we truly experience on an ordinary day, so this is the hand we play. And that is okay. If this material world is all we ever know, then so be it. And let the imperfections speak for themselves. Because every imperfection is an opportunity for improvement, in life as in genetics, in which natural mutations provide the raw material for evolution. So if nothing ever changes, then there’s no chance for it to get better, and perfection is just hubris, the arrogance of species, this human species, full of itself and full of its self-importance, which is only partially justified. The human species IS important, but not always for the reasons that we think. It is not important because it is ABOVE the rest of the animal kingdom. It is important, because it is OF the rest of the animal kingdom, in an unbroken chain of Becoming, of which we humans are probably on top, that is true, but which is no reason for celebration, and certainly no reason for arrogance, for we were once only poor struggling mammals, looking for strength and succor. Thus the flip-side of freedom is always responsibility, and that is our lot in life. Always treat people better than they treat you, and the world becomes a nicer place…

     

  • hardie karges 12:53 pm on December 22, 2019 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Buddhsim, kindness, ,   

    Reality Po’ Boys: the Light Within Us and the Light Without… 

    A kind word can heal forever, just as an unkind word can wound. Indifference is not the best option, but a healthy silence is okay. Such is the hand we play, as opposed to the hand that we’re dealt. Because this is not the best of all possible worlds, enshrined in legend and showcased in gold. The best of all possible worlds would be pure light, magnetic and electric, but we can only barely perceive that world, so imagine it as a force, outside us and distant. But once we perceive that force as inside us and accessible, then the equation changes and the call to action becomes explicit. It is our position as intermediaries to retransmit that internal light back outward to its external locus of purity. Because the reflected light within us is muddled and muddied, conflicted and confused, by virtue of its inferior status of self-ness, earth-bound and body-tired, while the light of external space is godly and illuminating. But that is neither here nor there, because the light is just indicative of our reflected status, a function of frequencies, and tendencies to exist, when there are no better options available. So we fall in love with this earth and this body, for as long as it lasts, and for whatever good it will do, because it is ultimately doomed to failure, no matter how hard we try, and the common phrase for that is ‘we’re all going to die’. And so the pretensions of humanity fall flat on their faces, no matter the lineage or the appearance of race. This physical world is but a tiny whirlpool in the cosmic stream, where the going gets slow and white light passes through the spectrum of physicality, rain and snow and fog and steam and all the colors of the rainbow’s stream, in full panoramic display, beauty incarnate and suffering, too, the price of our perfection its negation. So cries and crises ensue and volcanoes erupt, earthquakes and landslides and the rising price of a 20-ounce cup. Now the only path forward loops around and comes back to haunt us, every time and in every place. But there is no cause for anger, as this is simply the way of our world, by definition. There is no cure. The cure for anger would be a creative solution to the cause, but Buddhist meditation can work in the meanwhile…

     

    • KINDNESS 3:06 am on December 23, 2019 Permalink | Reply

      Merry Christmas 🎄

      • hardie karges 4:19 am on December 23, 2019 Permalink | Reply

        Thanks. Merry Christmas to you also, and a happy new year.

  • hardie karges 12:46 pm on August 24, 2013 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , kindness   

    Random Acts of Kindness 

    The Little Old Lady (LOL for short; wait a minute…) was barely halfway across the street, when the light turned green, she teetering and tottering and hanging on for dear life, walking stick in one hand, rolling luggage in the other, a look of chemical fear spreading across her face while I looked on from the distant shore of her destination.  She reminded me of Hetty from NCIS-LA, aka Linda Hunt, long past her gender-ambiguous days as Billy Kwan in ‘Year of Living Dangerously,’ and now just the LOL that she is, naked and afraid like a deer caught in the headlights.  Hetty’s tough, but is it enough?  It’s still LA; am I to be her LL Cool J?  She’s hanging in there; good thing, too, because the car in the lane she’s just now cleared is hot to trot, got his motor running, heading out on the highway, looking for adventure, etc.  The car in the lane she’s still in is holding still at the traffic light.  He sees me watching him.  

    I’m tempted to just step out, grab her under the arms, lift her up, and carry her over to the near shore,, but… that might scare her more than the traffic.  I don’t want to startle her… or insult her either, for that matter.  So I start inching my way out, as if approaching a dog whose masticatory habits I’m unfamiliar with, then reach out my hand to take the luggage.  She hands it to me.  I place it on the curb.  We’re good.  Then I reach out again, to take her hand and steady her while she steps up on to the curb.  She’s somebody’s mother, after all, and obviously not homeless.  Why is she out here on the streets alone?  “Are you okay?” I ask.  “Oh, thank you so much!” she exults.  “Well, you’re welcome so much.  It’s nothing,” I respond.  And it wasn’t.  What I did for her was negligible.  But what she did for me was priceless. 

     

    • kc 1:38 pm on August 24, 2013 Permalink | Reply

      for some reason, “no good deed goes unpunished,” so look for some rainy skies coming your way

c
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