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    hardie karges 2:47 am on April 6, 2025 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhism, Life, and a World Defined by Challenges 

    Good things take time. Anger solves nothing. Life is defined by its challenges. So, I think that’s my philosophy of life, in a nutshell, based heavily on the Buddhist acceptance of suffering, but without succumbing to that fact and any sordid fate that may await that cruel date. Because it doesn’t have to be seen as pessimistic. And that’s the rap that Buddhism has to fight hardest, in order to make Western converts, the idea that it’s too negative, not full of abundance, eternity, infinity, and all the other fantasies that Christianity has bequeathed us, in its two short millennia of existence.

    But Buddhism is not pessimistic, just realistic. You’re going to die, so get over that, and let’s get some things done while we’re here—or not. There’s no shame in renunciation. That’s not passivity. That’s acceptance of reality. Buddhism is only guilty of a mistake if it promotes passivity. Passivity is residing homeless on the streets of LA, not as an ordained monk in Asia. That’s creative, collective, and cooperative. Society could survive like that, even if the pay’s the same as the godforsaken streets of LA.

    Survival is the current concern, also, species survival as much and as well as individual, since we are living in a world of species identity, even if we sometimes transcend those limitations. But we don’t have to go to Mars to do that, though the moon would be nice, especially during the rainy season, haha. Or we could possibly accomplish as much or more in Virtual Reality, if and when the time is right, and the speed and memory are sufficiently available. It’d probably cost less than Mars, too, to create a perfect world as a digital twin of this world. We already have a neural twin. It’s called life, defined by challenges.

     
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    hardie karges 4:36 am on March 23, 2025 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhist Sati: Enjoy the Mindfulness… 

    Sometimes the best thing to do is nothing, absolutely nothing. Just do it mindfully, with intent and purpose. But this is the hardest thing for a Westerner, European or American, to comprehend, that sometimes we don’t need to be jumping up and down, racing around, and blowing things up, that indeed sometimes it’s preferable to chill, baby, chill, and let things proceed one step at the time with clear and simple awareness, rather than obsess about populating Mars instead of making our own planet earth more livable.

    So, the Mars freaks blow things up in midair, invent self-driving cars, accelerate them zero to sixty in four seconds, bore tunnels under cities, insert chips in your brains, and what have they accomplished? Not nearly enough, and far too much, all at the same time. Have the sick been healed? Have the homeless been given housing? Has anyone even tried? True, the poor may always be with us, but that’s no excuse for not trying to help. Jesus knew that, and the Buddha did, also.

    I’d like to go to Mars, too, truth be told, but only when the time is right, and the opportunities exist for anyone to share in that dream, if they are so inclined. But I made a conscious decision that renunciation would be preferable than for the world to continue on its path of mindless consumption. Enter mindfulness, the opposite of mindlessness. Do things consciously, one thing at a time, without fear nor favor. If something isn’t broken, then don’t pretend to fix it, just to satisfy transient desires. Live like there is no tomorrow, calm and steady, because there may not be…

     
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    hardie karges 4:47 am on March 16, 2025 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhism in the Time of Troubles… 

    The healing begins when the fighting ends, and hatred subsides in its wake. Because, what is hatred, if not misplaced emotion in search of a carrier, like some disease looking for a victim? We assume that these emotions are ‘ours’, as if we should be proud of that fact, when neither assumption is true. That is, we don’t own those emotions, and even if we did, there’s nothing there to be proud of. And nothing is better proof of the ‘aggregate’ nature of our personalities than the transient nature of ‘our’ emotions.

    Because, when we speak of ‘personality’ it’s clear that we are not speaking of any kind of ‘self’, much less an immortal soul. And that is our predicament here in this life in this world, that we are not much more than a bundle of emotions, looking for a place to lay the burden down. If that sounds like cruel fate under a cruel weight, then the reality itself may not be quite so bleak. Because the flexible nature of impermanent circumstances does have the advantage of a flexible response to changing conditions. If Buddhism is a failure, the it’s a failure as dogma.

    After all, how can you fashion agreement from a core fanbase that speaks probably at least a hundred languages from a few dozen countries spread out over the world’s largest continent and two largest countries over the last two millennia? And that’s just the core! It’s a challenge to be overcome, and it’s a glory to behold, that these diverse peoples from a thousand different circumstances can and do debate the dharma from diverse traditions, whether conservative or liberal, and still agree on certain starting points: the presence of suffering, the vacuity of personality, and the impermanence of…nearly everything.

     
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    hardie karges 4:55 am on February 23, 2025 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhism 102: Craving is the Curse… 

    Don’t test positive for COVET disease, because jealousy is a hard habit to break, as many a fine pop song has elucidated quite well. But it rings true, especially in the Buddhist attitude toward the world, fully established in Noble Truth number two as the cause of suffering. That’s craving, of course, also known in its manifestations as jealousy, which is only slightly different, or even lust, with its own category of trsna or tanha, Sanskrit or Pali, a thirst gone too far, beyond the simple satisfactions of life, and into unrequited desire. And then there’s greed, one of the three poisons, all closely related on the scale of Dependent Origination.

     But such is the nature of desire, or craving, that it can never be satisfied, by the very nature of its existence, the unsatisfactory nature, i.e. suffering. The best that we can do is ameliorate it, that is, acknowledge its presence, and its call, and give it something, but don’t give it all, of your time or your money, just enough to keep it at bay, far far away, out of your life and out of your mind. Because that is the greatest curse of all, to let nefarious emotions and influences occupy all of your precious thoughts.

    This is why thinking sometimes gets a bad rap and a bad rep, simply because, if left to fester uncontrolled, thoughts can run wild and waste all your time, leading to what we often call ‘monkey mind’, in reference to the constant chatter and mindlessness that defiles us and denies the reason we’re here. And so, we seek more mindfulness, and a decrease in suffering, caused by craving, firstly, and impermanence, secondly, the phenomena of existence that must be dealt with, but not succumbed to, similar to wild dogs prowling Main Street late at night, howling at the moon for lack of something better to do. But we have something better—meditation. When danger threatens, do nothing—quickly.

     
    • jmoran66's avatar

      jmoran66 5:00 am on February 23, 2025 Permalink | Reply

      “When danger threatens, do nothing—quickly”. That’s a keeper.

    • Hardie Karges's avatar

      Hardie Karges 6:06 am on February 23, 2025 Permalink | Reply

      Haha, thanks

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    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.   

     
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    hardie karges 4:56 pm on February 2, 2025 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhism 499: Causes and Conditions… 

    It’s not enough to temporarily alleviate a bad situation, but better to permanently change the causes and conditions that created it. This gives the lie to the dismissive notions that Buddhism is only interested in the ‘present moment’, and that ‘thoughts have no thinkers’, and other casual self-disses that imply that Buddhism is superficial and unconcerned with deeper meanings. The Buddha never said that, and nothing could be further from the truth. Those are popular modern themes, but the historical reality is quite different.

    In fact, Buddhism has been extremely concerned with causes and conditions since day one. And if that’s readily apparent in the earliest Theravada Buddhism, it’s a frank obsession by the time of Vajrayana. Never is there a call to cease suffering without a simultaneous call to end the causes of suffering. I think it’s even fair to say that this was likely something of a revelation in that pre-scientific time. Because in that era prior to the scientific era of experimentation, deep contemplation was the next best thing.

    Even Einstein knew that from his deep thought experiments, and the Socratic dialogs of Plato at or around the same time as the Buddha’s sutras were a dualistic echo of the same approach. It requires deep thinking and difficult training, not just a fly catcher nabbing a thought or two on their way through the garden to the kids’ pool. It’s even very possible that it was Buddhist monks who invented (yes, invented) the zero, something which would not catch on in the West for almost 2000 years. It first existed as a concept in shunya, before making the jump to higher math. How do you transfer the liquids between two full containers? You need an empty container. That’s a zero. Think about it. Then meditate. That’s a zero.

     
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    hardie karges 4:46 am on January 26, 2025 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhism 202: True Love Can Save the Planet 

    The truest love is metta, friendship, without the burden of possession. That’s a hard sell to a teenager with a bone he’s trying to drive home, but it’s true nevertheless, for long-term or short, which is the proof of its purity. Powerful passions may produce plentiful babies, but without lovingkindness, most of those efforts will be largely lost before the high school graduation exercises, and that’s what’s important. Because we’re no longer the young planet that we once were, raw and untamed and unpopulated.

    Now the danger is over-population and the possibility that we might become victims of our own successes, as Global Warming would seem to suggest. So, a different attitude than constant growth is recommended for long-term survival. This means a more thoughtful and less cavalier attitude to our relationship with others, gentler and kinder, less aggressive and careless. If that overlooks the reality that sometimes Buddhism can be too passive, then so be it. The alternative is worse—uncontrolled aggression.

    That’s the reason that I became a Buddhist, to save myself, then save the world. That’s my motto and mantra that also sums up the transition from early self-centered Theravada Buddhism to later society-centered Mahayana Buddhism, not that such a generality explains much about either of them. But the motto and mantra still work, for me, at least. Be kind, first and foremost, and the world will become a kinder place in return. That’s karma.

     
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    hardie karges 3:35 am on January 19, 2025 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhist Meditation for Beginners: Silence, Blessed Silence… 

    When you can sit still for one hour without saying a word or moving a muscle, then you are a meditator. And I don’t really even care what ‘kind’ of meditation you do, I only grudgingly allowing that there are different kinds, I from the old ‘anapanasati’ school, long before Theravada was rechristened ‘Vipassana’ and long before Vajrayana became ‘crazy wisdom’ while the Buddha rolled over in his ashes and checked his phone to see what year it is. “Yep,” he supposedly said, “pretty much right on schedule.” Haha.

    I only draw a line between silent meditation, true meditation, and ‘guided meditation,’ which I consider to be something else entirely. And I don’t mean to imply that that’s bad, because it’s not. It’s just more like a ‘dharma talk’ than mediation IMHO. So, there’s certainly nothing wrong with that, since the definition of such is so broad and inclusive that it can be almost anything, so long as it revolves around the Buddha and Buddhism. But meditation is something different, and if you’re not doing it silently, then you’re missing out on something good—and important. And that’s silence.

    Because silence, I think, is the shunya, zero, that qualifies for the important category of ‘emptiness’ so revered in later Buddhism, and I like it. It’s possible that Buddhist monks even invented the numerical zero, but this is not the place for that discussion. But, if ‘American Buddhism is Buddha-flavored Christianity,’ as someone once said (me), then this is the litmus test.

    Because psychological therapy is famously ‘talk therapy’ and this is something so different that those practitioners can, and do, make a case of ‘spiritual bypassing’ while they claim that ‘thoughts have no thinkers’, thus having some cake while eating it, too. Cool, since it’s an open doctrine, subject to interpretation. But don’t miss the forest for the trees. Good thoughts are essential to good and proper Buddhism, but silent meditation is, also. It’s not a case of one or the other. Talking can sometimes soothe the overwrought mind, but sometimes silence can do it better. And that largely defines Buddhism.

     
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    hardie karges 4:48 am on December 22, 2024 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhism and the Middle Path of Least Resistance… 

    The Middle Path can be tricky, it seems, to avoid being sucked into the seductions of the sideline. Streams flow smoothest at the center. But the edges are where the fun occurs, apparently, giving rise to the word ‘edgy’ and the pleasures therein, pushing envelopes and sealing deals, and leaving nothing to the imagination but fantasy. Why do we love hot coffee or iced coffee but detest the tepid middle temps? We love extremes, even at the risk of self-harm. So, in a very important way, the Middle Path is not something tricky and difficult and a test to one’s patience, at all, but is really the easiest and most convenient path.

    We often make life hard in our quest for abundance and diversions, stacking up stuff in piles all the while with no real plan to utilize them, much less to ever dispose of them. But this is often unnecessary. I know it’s almost cliché by now, but how much do you really need? We often assume ‘the more the better’, but that puts all other clichés to shame, and nothing indeed could be further from the truth. For this I speak from personal experience, while passing no judgment against the predominant capitalist economies of the West and their wannabes.

    But it can be a trap and largely defines the Buddhist concept of ‘craving’, which is generally to be avoided. But that’s not just stuff in the closet but stock in trade. The first thought I had when starting to do business, was my exit plan. And, not surprisingly, that’s the part that I did best, defining the timeline as a function of the overall business plan, and therefore leaving with few regrets, and even less stock in trade, while being largely successful, for what I wanted to accomplish. The Buddhist Middle Path is not so different, really. To say that it is the path of least resistance would not say nearly enough, but neither would it be totally wrong. To go with the flow can be good sometimes.

     
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    hardie karges 12:17 am on December 3, 2024 Permalink | Reply
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    My Travels with Fa Hien, 5th century Buddhist Pilgrim: Kindle E-book now available 

    Coming soon to an Amazon near you!

    I am happy to announce that the book “My Travels with Fa Hien, 5th Century Buddhist Pilgrim”, is now available in Kindle E-book at Amazon US (others soon) as well as physical copies there and at Notion Press, Flipkart, and bookstores in India. This is the true story of the 5th century Buddhist pilgrim on a 5000 mile trip from central China to eastern India via what is now Pakistan and the mountains and valleys that lie between. In the course of his travels, not only does Fa Hien complete his mission to find the true origins of Buddhism, while translating its sacred texts, but his crew manage to have adventures of their own in the process. This occurs while Rome falls and Europe enters its Dark Age on the other side of the world. It’s a travel book; it’s a dharma book; and it’s a history book, all in one. This is my tribute to Buddhism, Asia, and multiculturalism at its finest. A portion of all sales will go to charities in India. For more information and samples, please join my Fa Hien Facebook group. Enjoy.

    My involvement with this project began with the completion of an MA in Buddhist Studies, at the age of 65, after a long history of travel that covered some 155 countries, during which I studied language and cultures, while buying folk art. Much of that occurred at or after the age of 55 as documented in my own travel epic “Hypertravel: 100 Countries in Two Years,” published in 2012. After that I spent several years compiling travel guides to world hostels, again published on my own micro-imprint. As my interest in Buddhism grew, I attended retreats and spent time in temples and monasteries in Thailand and Myanmar, before finally entering International Buddhist College in south Thailand as an MA candidate in 2017. I completed my MA in 2019, while studying on campus and online, with much travel in Asia.

    Then came the pandemic. After a growing interest in the story of Fa Hien I finally started writing the manuscript in late 2020 in Guatemala and finished the first draft in early 2022 in Lumbini, Nepal, the birthplace of the Buddha himself. After many rewrites and a 2023 sabbatical waiting for further inspiration, I finally finished the book with several new chapters in 2024. Upon careful consideration I decided to publish the book in India, which is the setting for much, if not most, of the book. Unlike the West, also, Fa Hien is known widely there, even if he never gained the hero status that his imitator Xuanzang did in China with the classic epic ‘Journey to the West’. I’d like to change all that and give credit where credit is due, for the sake of Buddhism and travel. A portion of all sales will go to charities in India. For more information and samples, please join my Fa Hien Facebook group. Enjoy.

     

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