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    hardie karges 2:20 am on December 14, 2025 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhism and Language, With and Without… 

    Language is a tool, not a weapon. It is a gift, not a curse. It all depends on the circumstances, time and place and details of the chase. To be honest, it is almost impossible to imagine life without language, since not only do we habitually think in a language, but for many people the two are inseparable. And that is why meditation is practiced, is it not? Yes, I think it is, because we can think without it, using what I often call ‘mental maps’.   

    Now, meditators and fellow travelers can gleam and bliss out about ‘insight’ and ‘calm abiding’, but the modus operandi is to cut off the language, or at least slow it down, if not exactly swatting thoughts away like flies on our windshields. The fruit of this activity is not something we can control, but only comment upon, for better or worse. Meditation may or may not provide ‘calm abiding’, much less insight, though those are worthy goals, I feel, but it can reduce the dependency on language, and that helps. It’s interesting that in some languages, to think and to feel are interchangeable concepts, but not so much in English. 

    The important point to remember is that not only are thought and language not synonymous, but the one is not even necessary for the other. Because, not only do animals think without language, but so do computers, i.e. they use machine language. Machine language is binary, 0’s and 1’s, and its (Boolean) logic corresponds to that, more than, less than, equal to, etc., i.e. ‘and’, ‘or’, ‘not’. This can just as (or more) easily correspond to all the phenomena of existence as the more familiar Aristotelian logic that we are familiar with, variations on if/then syllogisms. Your dog and cat have little need for that, and you could probably do with less. All you really need is mindfulness. 

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 2:31 am on September 28, 2025 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhism 102: Cooling the fires of Kilesha… 

    When everything is burning, cool the fires inside with the water of empathy and the chemistry of compassion. There are always at least two different ways to kill a wildfire, of course, as every firefighter knows. You can kill it with water, or you can kill it with fire itself. But which method causes more damage? That’s why water is always preferable, when possible. Because to kill a fire with a rival fire is to destroy everything in the path, ‘scorched earth’, so to speak. It ain’t pretty.

    But drenched earth can be quite pretty, especially after a nasty fire. And if those fires are inside, such as with hatred, greed, and anger, then the improved results are notable. Two foes can fight to the death, of course, but neither one could truly be considered a winner in that case. So, peaceful solutions are always preferable. Both parties will live to play another day, and with all faculties intact, both might even succeed.

    But that is the hardest thing to accomplish, of course, what with alpha males hogging the harem and acting like DNA whose only goal is to climb the ladder of succession to another day and another successful matchup in the breeding room and the board room, where the winner takes all and the losers take nothing. That’s the world of Nature, sometimes cruel and forbidding. But we can do better than that. Because we have the world of consciousness and mind, hopefully even some measure of mindfulness. Be kind.

     
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    hardie karges 4:35 am on April 20, 2025 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhism and Mindfulness, Language and Life… 

    ‘Mindfulness’ is a tricky term, full of modern marketing. I prefer ‘consciousness,’ the original meaning to the same word in Pali, sati. Now that may seem like a minor quibble, but I prefer to keep superstitions and general ‘woowoo’ and ‘joojoo’ to a minimum for easier acceptance. Because I don’t want Buddhism to be something magical and mystical, even if that brings in some fervent fanatics full of vim and vigor. But it rules out science and that is the problem for me. Religion and science should be perfectly compatible, and that is best accomplished by staying off each other’s turf.

    Maybe it’s an impossible task, I suppose, but it’s still worth trying, I think. Because already a certain stratum of words has been ‘Buddhafied’ and elevated to a meaning that doesn’t conform to that of the ordinary world and its ordinary usage of the word. I’m not worried about the extra work of cataloging two meanings in my mind, but I’m concerned that we’re losing something by avoiding that original meaning. So, when samsara comes to mean ‘endless cycle of rebirths’, rather than its original meaning as simply ‘the world’ (e.g. in modern Nepali), well, something has changed, and not always for the better. You can check to see if that original meaning still works in every case, and it does AFAIK, but with a difference—authenticity.

    Only rarely does a word totally change meaning within the historical period, like the English word ‘passion’, for instance, once suffering, now a kind of special love, for us silly westerners, of course. In modern standard Thai, the word that now means ‘mindfulness’ is sati, from the Pali, but there it simply means consciousness. When I was lying on the side of the road after a motorcycle accident near Wiang Papao, no one was asking if I was mindful. They were asking if I was conscious. There’s a difference. Original early Buddhism was very down to earth. Transcendence came later. For me mindfulness is the opposite of mindlessness, pure if not simple.

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

    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 7:37 am on December 15, 2024 Permalink | Reply
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    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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    hardie karges 4:40 am on December 1, 2024 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhism 202: Thoughts and Thinkers 

    Buddhism in Bhutan

    Samma sankappa, one of the Buddhist Four Noble Truths, is Right Thought = Good Thought, not No Thought. For no thought, maybe samma samadhi is better, Right (Good) Meditation. It’s very popular for New Age-y Buddhists to talk about ‘thoughts without thinkers and/or ‘thoughts that think themselves’, as if they were both particle and wave out there floating around looking for a pickup gig, but that implies that thoughts are bad, and the Buddha never said anything like that.

    I think that the confusion comes with the role of language in thought, and its somewhat checkered past. Because no one would dare say anything bad about sati, i.e. consciousness, mindfulness, or awareness. That’s sacrosanct in Buddhism. And it’s a form of thought, also, but without language. Dogs do it; cats do it. All animals do, to a greater or lesser degree. But: like Boolean logic, we invented language, and now that we have it, it’s hard to go back, at least not full time. And there’s no real reason to.

    Because thought can be a good thing, and the linguistic variety is likely the most powerful type, BUT: it can also be destructive, both to society and to the personality, aka ‘self’. On the metaphysical plane, not only is it not ‘non-dual’, with its definitive subjects and objects, but it’s also argumentative and unsettling, arguably war’s greatest weapon. And while I don’t advocate a return to the ‘non-dual’ lives of bonobos and chimps, I do strongly advocate daily meditation. Because, no matter how powerful linguistic thought can be, its non-linguistic cousin meditation can be much more peaceful. That’s samadhi.

    But this can be a contentious subject for debate, because, on the one hand, thoughts DO just pop up sometimes unannounced and often unwanted. And we DON’T always have total recall, much less immediate recall. But that doesn’t mean that we are passive listeners and watchers of thoughts as they pass in and out of our brains or minds, for lack of better words to portray a very abstract subject. Remember the old saying: ‘Practice makes perfect’? Well, neuroscientists have one, also: ‘Neurons that fire together, wire together.’ That means that we establish neural pathways that can be considered our own, in that they are distinct from that of others. So, yes, to a certain extent, thoughts have thinkers, and thinkers have thoughts. We’re the living proof.

     
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    hardie karges 4:40 am on November 24, 2024 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: ashrama, , , , , , , , mindfulness, , , sannyasin, , ,   

    Buddhism 399: Homelessness and the Joy of Giving… 

    Give more than you take. That will be more than enough, and the world will be a better place. That is the essence of almost all religions, Buddhism included, regardless of whether you consider Buddhism first and foremost a philosophy, as I tend to think. But philosophies don’t usually include a call to action, whereas religions usually do. Buddhism doesn’t do that, though, not specifically, but it is implicit in the practice, the original practice. That’s why you’ll see orange or yellow-robed shaved-head monks walking through the markets at daybreak in almost every Theravada country in SE Asia, requesting alms for subsistence, usually food. This giving is usually known as dana.

    This harkens back to an even earlier practice in India wherein long-haired rishis and sannyasins wearing similar saffron clothing but usually without a group of like-minds, would make similar rounds, a practice which continues to this day. The difference is not only that the former are Buddhist and the latter Hindu, but the former have rules and regular routes, and are often registered for this activity, whereas the latter are more likely free and on their own, often in the last phases of life according to the four Hindu ashramas of student, householder, forest dweller, and renunciant—nice.

    But the important thing is the giving. So, instead of seeing a renunciant as a societal parasite reduced to begging, we should see them as symbols of purity, offering laypersons the opportunity to experience the same bliss of renunciation that they not only symbolize but incarnate. It’s only ironic that they themselves often consider themselves—and call themselves—homeless, no pun intended. Because that is the little joke they play on all of us, that the poorest people of the West are linguistically identified with the holiest of the East. I only wish that Western practitioners would follow the same precepts. The food is usually pretty good, at least in Thailand.

     
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    hardie karges 3:40 am on October 13, 2024 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhism 101: Pain is Our Birthright… 

    Pain is our connection to the realm of sentient being. We are all equal in this regard. But we have a path, thankfully. This refers to the First Noble Truth, of course, something like ‘There is suffering.’ Period. Full stop. That’s the foundational thesis of Buddhism, which all further dissertations struggle to assimilate, what with its apparent pessimism, which only gets worse (before it gets better). ‘Birth is suffering, aging is suffering, sickness is suffering, dissociation from the loved is suffering, not to get what one wants is suffering.’ Yeow. Yes, life’s a real sh*t-show at times. What to do?

    Oh, sure, the PhD’s try to explain it all away by saying that ‘suffering’ can mean ‘dissatisfaction’, ‘stress’, or maybe even ‘bummer’, but the result is the same: it’s not a good look, not when everybody else is bragging about their seven flavors of bliss and their multiple stairways to heaven. But that’s what the Buddha said, and that’s what he meant. But I think that he also meant that’s our connection to the world and each other. Otherwise, how would we even really know that we’re really alive? Pleasure is fleeting.

    But pain is real. And a large part of it is caused by the simple fact of our oh-so-human cravings. Bingo. There’s a path for that, and it will keep us humble in its universality. Because isn’t the underlying cause of all craving, desire, lust, and greed, our selfish assertion that we are something special and deserving of whatever we can get? Haha. Gotcha. Because we are but a bundle of causes and conditions that predictably lead to the defilements which define us: hatred, greed, anger, and those oh-so-pesky cravings. The path outta there is as simple as the decade-old Franz Ferdinand song which seconded that emotion: “Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action.” Simple, no? It works. Try it.

     
    • jmoran66's avatar

      jmoran66 4:25 am on October 13, 2024 Permalink | Reply

      I think you, as they say, nailed it here. There’s nothing to add.

    • hardie karges's avatar

      hardie karges 4:59 pm on October 13, 2024 Permalink | Reply

      Thank you for your comments.

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