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  • Unknown's avatar

    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

  • 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.   

     
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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 4:09 am on January 12, 2025 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , artificial-intelligence, Hadron Collider, , introspection, machine-learning, meditation, , , , ,   

    Buddhism 499: Finding Strength in our Mutual Weaknesses… 

    To know your weaknesses is to know your heart, and from there derives your strength. But it may be a tough sell in this day and age of winners and losers with little in between, still the Buddha’s truth holds true. We are but accidents of fate and creatures of chaos, the ‘good genes’ largely wasted on pretentious and presumptuous pretenders to power, while the rest of us use our mindfulness not as a weapon, but as a tool of deep introspection, probably a better term than ‘self-knowledge’ and the next best thing to hard science, which requires group effort.

    But much can be accomplished with deep introspection, and the best part is that the proof is in the perception, rather than the dictates of science, which will likely always fall short of the requisite proofs which can only be attained at the Hadron Collider. And still, that is not enough, because our brains gnaw at the edges of the known universe like rats with a ball of cheese that is self-expanding. But, at some point we have to take a rest and live our lives and create a society that responds to human needs, not the scientific ones.

    Because we live in a simulation, neural not digital, and this is my great revelation of the modern age, where Buddhism meets science and Virtual Reality is an apt metaphor. So, this life and this world are not an illusion, as often cited, but a simulation, which is a very bit different, without the ring of falseness which haunts the other term. This neural simulation, a twin of the ‘real’ world, is as it should be, but far from the quarks and tachyons which clamor for recognition in the collider. But our neural simulation requires no Collider, but only mindfulness, patient recognition that this is exactly how it should be, no matter how short it may fall from ultimate reality. Don’t think too much…

     
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    hardie karges 5:03 am on January 5, 2025 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , meditation, , , , Robert Wright, The Matrix, ,   

    Book Review: ‘Why Buddhism is True’ by Robert Wright… 

    Okay, I owe this review to Robert Wright as payback, because, while others at my Buddhist college were ‘oohing’ and ‘aahing’ back in 2017 over the release of his book ‘Why Buddhism is True’, I was extremely skeptical—and quite vocal about it. Why? Well, first, there’s the title: ‘Why Buddhism is True’. It seemed phony to me, as phony as some rock-and-roll band calling themselves ‘Nirvana’. Don’t push my buttons. Then there’s the Matrix glom-on right in the First Chapter. Or was it the Introduction? Are you serious? That’s certain proof of amateur hour for me. Last, but not least, there’s professional jealousy. Wright is first and foremost a journalist. So, what makes him the best person to write this book?

    Because, even back then, I knew that that’s the $64k question that any self-respecting literary agent would ask you before rejecting you, without telling you about the ‘journalist’s exemption’. Now I know, older but wiser (and with an MA in Buddhist Studies plus a recently published novel based on the travels of Buddhist pilgrim Fa Hien, hint hint). But his book is pretty darn good. So, I owe Mr. Wright a heartfelt apology. And that’s not a quick and easy decision, because he’s pressing his luck by reducing Buddhism to meditation, when many, if not most, of the world’s Buddhists, meditate very irregularly—IF EVER!

    But he pretty much left the Matrix references behind (‘Dharma film’, indeed!), and moved right on to other topics, some of which still stretched credulity, but served as some kind of Buddha’s Greatest Hits collection, if nothing else, so that’s probably a plus for the lightly initiated. After all, Buddhism has come a long way from its early Theravada discipline, Mahayana metaphysics of Emptiness, and Vajrayana mysticism. Now there are Vipassana, koans, and ‘crazy wisdom’, instead. Wright even devotes an entire chapter to ‘How Thoughts Think Themselves,’ one of my pet peeves in the modern Buddhist canon. But Wright handles it with journalistic equanimity, making clear that there are ways of justifying that attitude, without necessarily seeing all thoughts as falling into that category.

    But my favorite part of the book is the attention given to the possibilities of a simulated reality for us here in this life in this world, as alluded to in ‘Chapter 11: The Upside of Emptiness’, in which he argues that it is a psychological necessity to project ‘essence’ for long-term survival and human evolution. And while I would prefer to draw parallels between our neural simulations and the digital simulations of Virtual Reality, the bottom line is the same: it’s better than ‘illusion’ and nihilism is prohibited. Nirvana is similarly and summarily dismissed as the overriding raison-d’etre of Buddhism, while mentioning the unmentionable: we’re talkin’ ‘bout death here, y’all.

    Then there’s the title, which I assumed was editorial overreach on the part of Simon & Schuster, in the vein of the previously mentioned ‘Thoughts w/o Thinkers’, ‘Hardcore Zen’, ‘Universe in a Single Atom’, and other such pseudo-Buddho titular nonsense, but no: this is Wright’s chosen title, which he is prepared to defend as indicating its psychological appropriateness, something like samma ditthi, right view; nothing like absolute truth, so that’s cool. Wright is casual too, sometimes even funny, witness the title to Chapter 13: ‘Like Wow, Everything is One (at Most)’, haha. I like that. Bottom line: sometimes a well-traveled journalist is preferable to a star-spangled Rinpoche, especially when that guru is telling you to vote for the orange guy with the big bulge and the bankroll. I like honest brokers. Wright is worth the read. R.I.P. Kurt. The last Matrix movie sucked.

     
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    hardie karges 5:00 am on December 29, 2024 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: biology, , , , meditation, , , , ,   

    Applied Buddhism: the Present as Precedent… 

    Let go of the past. Embrace the future. Accept the present as the only thing we can truly know from direct experience. And this I know from experience, having been at the losing end of many debates on the subject, I once a proponent of the losing idea that time, like space, has three dimensions: past, present, and future. But now I can see clearly that those are really only one, or maybe three-in-one, if you prefer, the only remaining question being whether space is truly three dimensions, or whether it, too, is really only one, or maybe two, if we see the world as composed of drops rather than crystals, circles rather than cubes.

    So, how can you embrace the future, then, if it’s really only a simulated version of the present? I think of it as Emptiness, or shunyata, which is literally the zero in intermittent mathematical placement notation or potentially the final zero(s) which are capable of multiplication to infinity, and which are arguably a necessity for human existence, that clear blue sky which not only implies oxygen, but life, as much or more than the green of its fruit or the red of its roots, that ultraviolet of infinity as important and ubiquitous as the infrared of black-hole gravity. That’s the past; lose it.

    So, we see everything through the eyes of the here, and the now, which color everything in tones which they are comfortable with, and knowledgeable of, in some vast neural simulation which only vaguely resembles the particle/waves of consciousness and biology which lie at the root of all existence. This is not illusion, though, so much as it is a neural twin of ultimate reality, like VR’s digital twins, so that we can live, and move, and have our being with a minimum of obstacles to movement and awareness, and so happiness, which is all we are really capable of, even on the best of days.

     
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    hardie karges 7:37 am on December 15, 2024 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , Buddhist precepts, , , meditation, , , , , ,   

    Buddhism in the Balance: Giving is primary… 

    We own nothing but the experiences of a few hours days weeks months and years upon this planet. We can spend them in mindless consumption or quiet contemplation. The choice is yours. Because, bottom line: you don’t have to do anything, but keep your body alive. But, beyond maintaining the body in an active state, there is no specific call to action. In fact, it’s much more important what you don’t do than what you actually get around to doing in your precious time in this life on this earth.

    Don’t lie, don’t cheat, don’t kill, don’t steal; these are the commandments of Christianity and the precepts of Buddhism, as well, which seems obvious, until you imagine what must have come before. It wasn’t always pretty. I think that is what is obvious. Neither set of rules and regs says anything about doing this or doing that, though, until you get into the higher levels of commitment, and for Buddhism, that’s right thoughts, right words, right actions, etc., simple. That’s not rocket science. And the main blessed action is to give.

    Because giving serves two purposes, both of equal value. On the one hand, you are helping others. On the other hand, you are reminding yourself that your needs are few and possessions are often unnecessary. In fact, we often become possessed by our very possessions, which seems counter-intuitive, but accurate. Therefore, possessions are really no better than mindless consumption, short-term satisfaction or longer-term, but the result is often the same: we become addicted to the rush, whether the rush of sensation or the rush of satisfaction, for something which often offers no deep level of satisfaction at all. Quiet contemplation is often better.

     
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    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.

     

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