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    hardie karges 2:47 am on April 6, 2025 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , passivity, , ,   

    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 4:58 am on July 22, 2023 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , passivity, , upekkha   

    Upekkha and the Buddhist need for Equanimity 

    Buddhism is all about dispassion, not passivity. They’re not the same thing. Dispassion is to handle things with calmness and little emotion, arguably the best way to deal with pressing events, and certainly the best if you’re Buddhist. The Buddhist term usually reserved for such moments is UPEKKHA, often translated ‘equanimity,’ that itself was maybe best translated originally as ‘balance.’ Meanings go through many iterations in their process of becoming ‘Buddhist.’  

    Thus, many words have different meanings in normal speech and Buddhist speech. Some of the best known of these are: ‘mindfulness,’ samsara,’ ‘nirvana,’ and ‘aryan’. But, they’re all good, just specialized meanings, of course. ‘Passivity’ is not good, though, not in my opinion, and that is the curse of Buddhism, that people not only use it to escape the ordinary world, but that they teach that as doctrine and faith, to which no further questions need be asked. Do nothing: that is good. But I don’t buy it.

    I’ll have to admit that it’s much more acceptable than it used to be, though, given the mess we’ve made of this planet, but still, I think it’s too early to pull the plug on all hope of making this world a better place. And that’s my mandate, to make myself a better person, and THEN make this world a better place to live. I think that a reasonable interpretation of the Eightfold Path. It’s also the main distinction between the early Theravada form of Buddhism and the later Mahayana. Let’s not give up on this world while there’s still so much hope and promise, though obviously a few bumps in the road. Ouch!

     
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    hardie karges 12:04 am on May 28, 2023 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , no self, , passivity   

    Buddhist No-self (Anatta) and Non-Dualism  

    The Buddhist concept of “No self”, Anatta, doesn’t mean to imply passivity and no confidence. But it does imply non-aggression and no selfishness. Remember the middle path. But this is one of the oldest and thorniest problems that Buddhism has had to deal with, and the modern repercussions are almost as absurd. Back in the old days, 2500 years ago, or so, Brahmanism was consolidating its doctrines of a cosmic Brahman and a cosmic Atman, reality and self, whose highest goal was to unite in some sort of cosmic union… 

    But the Buddha came along and said something like, “Meh,” declaring that the idea of a cosmic self, whether individual or universal, was not only not likely, but wrong. And thus began the Buddhist doctrine of anatta, which was never intended to argue that you and I don’t even exist, but just not in any permanent way. Well, now the ‘Non-dualists” come along and say no, you don’t exist at all, just something like a collective figment of imagination that asserts itself through the power of repetition, so something like a cloud Matrix. 

    But reality is reality, and science doesn’t support the non-dualist conclusion, any more than it supports the original Hindu idea of Brahman and Atman in cosmic union. But science can support the Buddhist attitude, as long as it avoids superstitions (not always easy) and sticks to asking the right questions in order to avoid contentious answers. Ego is a term I usually avoid, though, given the historical circumstance that Freud has forever made in changing our use of that term.

    And that is something which the ‘ancients’ could’ve had no knowledge of, and which is about as familiar to the modern American as quantum mechanics. Passivity has been something of a problem for Buddhism, though, and that is not a desirable conclusion except for monks, possibly. But most of us live and navigate the real world, and it’s nice if we can make that a bit better, without being obsessive about it. As always, the best path is the middle one… 

     
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    hardie karges 11:43 am on March 18, 2023 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , , , , passivity, , ,   

    Buddhism 499: Suffering doesn’t have to be so sad…  

    Suffering does not mean sadness, maybe in Nepali language, but not in Buddhism. This is one of the lessons, and this is one of the discussions, about what the word ‘dukkha’ really means, and what that means for us. Many pandits try to redefine it variously as ‘stress,’ ‘disappointment,’ ‘dissatisfaction,’ ‘spot of bother,’ haha, or various and sundry other things, but in most modern SE Asian languages the word indeed is usually best translated as ‘suffering,’ however minor or apparently insignificant, which sometimes earns Buddhism the rap as pessimistic.  

    What IS significant is that you will one day die, or simply expire, from this life in this world, and whether anything goes on after that is a matter of sober conjecture. But that IS a limit to your free will and your open skies and your desire for the Christian myth of abundance. For if there is indeed an infinity and/or an eternity, then it is surely empty, and that can indeed be beautiful, just as can the various limits placed upon it. For what is a work of art if not a limit, or definition, of reality, and what is a song? They are nothing if not sublime limits placed upon an undefined eternity. 

    Thus, suffering need not be so cruel. For me it is little more than life in passive voice as much or more than active, if those grammatical terms still have meaning for you. They do for English language literary agents, I assure you, and passive voice is largely prohibited, while in Asian academic circles, it is almost required. Go figure. But I’m not advocating passivity, and that is what kept me from Buddhism for many years, the passivity that I perceived in Thailand. As always, the truth lies in the Middle Path, and the subtle balance between aggression and renunciation. There is always a way forward without resorting to extremes… 

     
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    hardie karges 6:00 am on January 9, 2022 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: civil disobedience, , Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Pancasila, passivity   

    Buddhism and the Power of Emptiness 

    Non-action is not the same as inaction, and it can often counter aggression successfully, with non-compliance and non-cooperation, etc. Because inaction is passive, while non-action is deliberate and intentional, so the better Buddhist response, by far, and a well-tested tactic by such civil disobedience luminaries as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Buddhism’s weakest point is its passivity, by those who misinterpret its dispassion as such. But that is a logical non-sequitur. Dispassion does not imply passivity, even if that is a hard point to make to people in many Buddhist countries where that is the norm.

    And I’ve made my peace with that reality, somewhat, in that at this point in the history of the world, passivity is better than the mindless aggression that consumes so many lives in its quest for legitimacy, usually being marketed as any one of various forms of freedom, which is largely a masquerade and a farce, a caricature of true freedom which is freedom FROM the addictions and cravings that enslave us, not a freedom TO do whatever and whenever we want, no matter whom it might hurt in the process. Because that is a precept as important as any in the Buddhist Commandments, whether five (Pancasila) for the layperson or Eight (Atthasila) for monks.

    First do no harm. Then decide what else is required and necessary. To do nothing is better than to do something wrong or bad. And, when properly applied with strategy and forethought, non-action can be revolutionary. Because dictators and autocrats depend on the acquiescence of a docile populace to rule by force and coercion. That means enough optimism and goodwill to reproduce the human race, without which no ruler can rule. Many, if not most animals, cannot reproduce in captivity. Why is that, do you think? The answer to that is the secret to life and the origin of the science of psychology…

     

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