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    hardie karges 4:29 am on March 24, 2024 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , meditation, , , , , , , , y-chromosome   

    Buddhism in the Bardo: Survival of the Species…  

    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, after living a long time in Thailand, that’s the main reason that I was reluctant to get involved with Buddhism, the perception that it was too passive, and incapable of dealing with the issues that face the world. So, for me that was an early premonition of what I might now call something like ‘socio-spiritual bypassing,’ i.e. the avoidance of social obligations by invoking the spiritual primacy of renunciation. 

     But at some point, I realized that renunciation was probably a greater tool than all the political action in the world, and, at least on some ways, likely to produce the greater impact, also. Because, for all our sociopolitical posturing, little is accomplished along those lines, and much of the developed world may soon be crisscrossed with windmills, without any detectable difference in our addiction to rapid locomotion, despite the visible degradation of our relationship to Nature. With a population of more than eight billion souls, renunciation may soon be the only avenue of survival. 

    And, if that’s a bitter pill to swallow, then so be it. Because the writing has been on the wall for at least sixty to eighty years now, and we’ve only sunk deeper in our denial of the likely results, as Elon exhorts us to make more babies, so that he can rake in more gazillions. And that’s maybe the saddest part, that the only way that we can show our love for these people on this planet is to create more babies, who must then shoulder the burden of our conundrum.  

    So suddenly renunciation is not a bad option at all, and the disappearance of the y-chromosome only seconds that emotion. Because, whatever the numbers of our reproduction and its proliferation, or not, it’s impossible to live in a world without love. But we might need to change that meaning. And that’s where Buddhism comes in, because love comes in many forms and flavors. Metta, or lovingkindness, is the preferred Buddhist flavor, and the world community is the intended recipient. That’s Buddhism. 

     
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    hardie karges 6:19 am on March 10, 2024 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhism at the X-roads: More Dharma, Less Drama 

    To live from sensation to sensation is to live like an animal. To follow dharma is to live like a human. Because, despite the attraction of the so-called ‘present moment,’ which may or may not be real, the Buddha prized reason and rationality above almost all else, easily verified by his insistence on recognition of the causes and conditions underlying all actions and motivations. He may or may not have said something supporting the ‘present moment,’ but I’m not sure what or when that would have been. 

    Bottom line: reason(s) and rationality are to be prized above almost all else in Buddhism, the one possible exception being the need for, and insistence upon, meditation. And, for me, this is where that ’present moment’ comes into play, it being almost the perfect metaphor for that suspension of belief and disbelief which is meditation, all thought suspended in favor of pure awareness, of breath, if nothing else, anapanasati, the original meditation of which all others have subsequently derived.  

    Meditation is so fundamental to Theravada Buddhism that it has recently almost become re-branded as Vipassana, or ‘insight meditation,’ all the other disciplines involved in the practice of Buddhism notwithstanding. And this is likely what the Chinese Buddhist pilgrims Fa Xian (Hien) and Xuanzang found above all else, silent meditation, since almost nothing else was written, and was almost too heavy to carry once they had it transcribed from the original Pali or Sanskrit into Chinese.  

    But how do you transcribe meditation into any language for inclusion in a book which someone may or not read at some point in history? Meditation was largely independent of written vinaya (discipline), and that is what had sustained Buddhism for around 1000 years by that time. And that’s what sustains it today, all the opinions and debate on Facebook and elsewhere notwithstanding. Original Buddhism required only silence, and concentration, no apps or other accessories necessary. 

     
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    hardie karges 8:42 am on March 3, 2024 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhism 301: Emptiness Is Also Silent, and Infinite…  

    Silence is normal. All noise should be treated as an alien force, approached with caution and handled with great care. But, we live in a world of mechanical waves, so we assume that the world should be full of it, percussion and repercussions. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that our worlds should be so full, since our worlds are plural, and everyone must make that choice individually. And this is another case of the glass half-full or half-empty, since it’s likely neither. But which is better?  

    Maybe there was a time in the history of the world when to merely ‘break the silence’ was somehow enlightening, revolutionary, and revealing, worth something in and of itself, but those days are likely long gone as the world rapidly fills up with stuff if not substance, and the resulting benefit is as illusory as it is elusive. What to do, then? Embrace the silence, for all it’s worth, as that should be plenty, for it is itself the raw material of meditation. 

    And, if simple awareness is the stuff of consciousness, then meditation may not be consciousness ‘on steroids,’ God forbid, but hopefully consciousness refined, purified, and made more intense in the process and more sacred in turn. For, what is more sacred than pure consciousness? This is a question that science cannot answer, and likely never will, but if there is something sacred in this life and in this world, then that must be it.  

    Buddhist ‘Emptiness,’ shunyata, based on the numerical concept of zero, is hard to define, and even harder to embody, but if that space is empty, then it must also be silent, and that makes a life more refined and much finer. But which came first, the concept or the number? It doesn’t really matter, now, does it? Embrace it, for to be empty, and silent, does not mean to be lacking. It means to be infinite, as only emptiness can. Stuff is limited. Find a place for it, then forget about it, if you can, for a while, at least.

     
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    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. 

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

    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 5:15 am on February 4, 2024 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhism: Meditation, not Mysticism…  

    Buddhism was never intended to be mystical. Buddha was very rational in his take on life and suffering. Any mysticism came later, mostly in the Vajrayana Buddhism of Tibet that came directly from India, not China, and which had taken firm hold in that country by the Eight Century CE. And while that ‘school’ of Buddhism is often included in the Mahayana tradition which traveled through, and was greatly influenced, by China, such is not the case with Vajrayana, which derives from a later, maybe the last, Indian Buddhist tradition, before it succumbed to the coup de grace by the invasive Mughals, after centuries of losing ground, and followers, to the Brahmanist Hindus. 

    About the only thing that all the Mahayana schools have in common, in fact, is that they are not of the original Theravada tradition, which originated in India and found fertile ground in southeast Asia, mostly. And if the Vajrayana tradition is famous for its multiple levels of heaven and hell, its Tantric yab-yum, mudras and mantras, then Theravada (aka Hinayana), is best known for its lack of all that, and concentration on meditation, especially, to the extent that it’s sometimes known by that most famous meditation technique Vipassana. Meanwhile the Mahayana Buddhism of China is probably best defined by its transcendent Buddha and the vast Emptiness of reality, both more recent developments.

    Many famous Chinese monks, Fa Xian and Xuanzang foremost among them, even made long arduous trips to India just to get it right, like Charlemagne realizing his 8th century French language wasn’t proper Latin. And mostly I believe that meant learning meditation, and some other disciplines, which Theravada monks usually excel at, and Chinese monks often suck at—to this day. In fact, I didn’t really even know what meditation was until I attended some Theravada-based meditation retreats in Southeast Asia, intended for Asians, not Westerners. When you see a layman sitting silent unflinching for two or three hours lost in no-thought: that’s meditation. The monks are even better at it. Now I get it. Get it. 

     
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    hardie karges 3:35 am on January 28, 2024 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhism and the Power of Silence  

    Words once spoken cannot be taken back. Actions once committed cannot be retracted. Silence is better than violence. This is one of the hidden little gems of Buddhism, the value of silence. And other than the emphasis on meditation, it’s something that doesn’t often get mentioned—until now. Because here and now, in the modern age and the Western world, the noise is almost deafening, and the calls to engage are never-ending, no matter that much of that engagement is cruel and disheartening.  

    As a ‘digital creator’ on Facebook, I get it all the time, as if non-engagement were synonymous to incompetence. But nothing could be further from the truth. Silence is not violence, and BLM (Black Lives Matter) should know this. MLK (Martin Luther King) certainly knew it well, as did Mohandas K. (Mahatrma) Gandhi. Silence is one of the most powerful weapons in the world, in fact, but it is also much more than that. As the operating method of meditation, it can save souls (people) and so, it can also save nations.  

    If silence is the zero point for meditation, then meditation is the zero point for life. In this analogy, silence is like the zero (shunya) for which emptiness (shunyata) is named and can be thought of like the mathematical zero as the point between positive and negative (existence or non-existence?) numbers or the absolute zero temperature beneath which there is no lower, or even the zero-point energy of quantum physics as that point closest to absolute stillness. That’s the goal of meditation, insight optional, and that’s the goal of life, if only for a moment, now and again, always and forever. 

     
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    hardie karges 4:06 am on January 20, 2024 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Branhmanism, , Divine Feminine, , , , , meditation, , , , , ,   

    Buddhism and the Divine Feminine  

    Is a creator God a product of patriarchy? Probably. Buddhism doesn’t need it, regardless. Buddhism embodies the Divine Feminine, whether it knows it or not. This goes way back, of course, even before the Abrahamic religions, at least as far back as the Sanskrit-era Dyaus Pitr (think Deus Pater) ‘Sky Father’ of the proto-Hindu Rigveda, and probably before that. But Sky Father was always with Earth Mother Prithvi Mata, and that pretty much defines the Hindu/Buddhist dichotomy that dominated the philosophical debates of 500 BCE India, Hinduism the more male-dominant principle, Buddhist the more female-dominant. 

    And this is important, even if it is seldom stated, or even acknowledged, given the lesser status of Buddhist nuns, in comparison to their male counterparts. But it’s there, and it’s true, from what I can see, and that is good. It means that Buddhism is non-agressive, and that is purpose-built, in stark opposition to the early Brahmanistic war god Indra, which Buddhism refuses to acknowledge as its heritage. It also means that Buddhism is more concerned with down-to-earth issues of kindness, and craving, than abstract considerations of dualism vs. non-dualism. 

    Thus, Buddhism embodies many of the qualities often associated with the ‘divine feminine,’ such as ‘intuition, nurturing, creativity, empathy, and wisdom’ (www.anahana.com). So, it should be unnecessary to say that Buddhism is not a conquering religion, unless you count the hearts and minds conquered, not bodies inscribed with epithets and enlisted in future wars with imaginary enemies. Buddhism is better than that. Conquer yourself and you will have conquered the world, your world… 

     
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    hardie karges 3:25 am on January 14, 2024 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhism 102: the Cessation of Craving  

    If you indulge cravings, then there’s no end to them, just mindless consumption. It’s better to cut them off at the source, your mind. This lies at the heart of Buddhism and is enshrined in the Second of Four Noble Truths as the primary cause of suffering. There are other causes, too, and so other forms of suffering, but this is the main one, and the one for which Buddhism is famous. After all, what is more insufferable than craving and its deleterious effects? 

    Well, that is a debatable point, but most importantly, craving is the one cause of suffering that we are most able to do something about, in order to effect a positive change in that status. Old age and many forms of sickness leave us at their not-so-tender mercies to live or die, but craving is just a clownish monster, mocking our every move, and our every intent to free ourselves from its hideous grip, adding insult to injury, when what we really need is encouragement to succeed.  

    Because craving is akin to addiction, and this is one of the most hideous of worldly phenomena that we must deal with in the course of our short lives, the inability to free ourselves from the grips of habits and substances which are harmful to us, even when we are fully mindful of that fact. But the craving is mindless, not mindful. And so that is where we must nip it in the bud, at the point where the mind has made an unconscious allowance that facilitates this perversion of intent. 

    It is of no importance that the mind may have no more intrinsic importance than the craving, either, or ourselves, for that matter. What is important is that we cease the defilement at the source, rather than make excuses for our failings. And the source is will or lack thereof. If you are willing to allow cravings to control you, then they will do so, without fail. Only if you are willing to exert some discipline can you truly defeat the monsters that inhabit the subconscious realm of craving. Only then are you truly a disciple of the Buddha.  

     
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    hardie karges 4:20 am on December 30, 2023 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhism in the Balance, Aware and Mindful…  

    You don’t have to fight for your religion, like Christians do. You don’t have to surrender to your religion, like Muslims do. You can just be, right in the center, with eyes open or closed, aware and mindful, with no particular judgements to make either way, good or bad, offensive or non-offensive. This is the way Buddhism works, simple yet effective, with no ribbons or bows, and no deep bows, except the ones you make to the senior monk when in his presence.  

    Christianity is a religion of passion: weeping, wailing and all that gospel. Islam is a religion of submission. Buddhism is a way of life dispassionate, quiet, serene, full of passion only in the original sense of passion as suffering, the stuff of life in this material world, long before someone decided that it could be fun, as long as someone else was suffering more or worse than you. Because suffering exists, whether we are in the throes of it or not, and the only way out is to give it no quarter.  

    So, the way to deal with suffering is to remove its source of sustenance, the craving and lust which it consumes for breakfast and lunch, hunger and thirst of the craven kind, crude and rude, cowardly and unforgiving in its lack of moral distinction. But this kind of turpitude depends on negligence for its survival, inattention to all detail and the passive acceptance of all things most easily proffered. Buddhism has no such luxury. Buddhism demands awareness, and mindfulness, and wakefulness to the sleepy dream that is all too often the standard for life. It’s never too late to meditate… 

     

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