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  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 5:11 am on June 21, 2025 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , kuti, , possession,   

    Buddhism on the Installment Plan: the Gift is in the Giving… 

    Don’t worry about what you can get from this life and this world. Give all that you can give, before it is too late. Too many people see this life and this world as transactional, i.e. what do I get? But, if you’re Buddhist, then that is the wrong question to ask, and anything obtained in that way is fraught with great risk. Because giving is the path of righteousness and the foundation of karmic justice, that somehow some way you will be rewarded for your generosity, details to be left to future generations to determine, whether that is truly necessary or not.

    It’s not. The only thing that is important is the act of giving itself, regardless of whether the outcome bears fruit or not. Because if everyone gives from the bottom of their hearts, then the outcomes can only be good. This is not the jungle, and the laws of the jungle no longer apply. This is the law of the dharma, and the dharma dictates dana, giving, Possessions are loaded with contradictions, anyway, after all, and the rewards are subject to interpretation. If you can’t take them with you, then why bother with them?

    The devil is in the details, of course, as always, and it’s no different here. Because the act of possession is the great conundrum of modern existence: the more we get and spend and squirrel away, the more miserable we are somehow some way. The math just doesn’t add up and it likely never will. It’s the modern curse, the high price of buying a house, but I often wonder if that’s not a curse but a blessing. It does signify the end of freedom, after all. So, there’s that. It also opens up the possibilities of other lifestyles that just might offer substantial benefits. A kuti in a Thai Forest Temple cost me nothing—nice.

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    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.

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 1:24 am on October 27, 2019 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , , , possession, , , ,   

    Buddhism and the long winding path: No soul for me, please, and make that karma ‘lite’… 

    Salvation implies a soul to be saved. I’d prefer some enlightenment, in this lifetime. And that’s a fundamental tenet of Buddhism, of course, the lack of a permanent enduring soul to guide you through the ages, or even a solid existent self to call your own in this lifetime, the basis for egotism and possession, and all the misgivings of misplaced attachments. And if that seems like a significant deviation from the teachings of Christ, then it was even more of a deviation from the early Vedic-inspired teachings of India, including Jainism and what we now call Hinduism. For if the Vedantic Hindus want a Self to unite with a Cosmos, an Atman to unite with a Brahman, then the Jains want to find a soul in everything, every little thing, be it rock, insect or umbrella. It’s not just that everything is alive, but it’s permanent and enduring. The Buddha thought he saw something simpler than all these machinations of overwrought mentality, which are just linguistic conveniences standing up and asking to be counted, when in reality there is really nothing there, just ‘mental formations’ or something like that. After all, if everything has a soul, then what do we do to acknowledge that? The Jain answer was: not much. Just sit, sit, and sit some more. It’ll all go away sooner or later. Every action was possessed of karmas, plural. Now that may seem like a strange definition of karma, but they likely invented the concept, so that’s their right. Others saw it differently, for once the cat of karma was out of the bag, so to speak, then there is no end to it, the generation-jumping karma of retribution and the things we’ll do to avoid it. If religion craves certainty, then this became the Hindu leitmotif, past lives and reincarnation, which, like conspiracy theory, cannot be disproven, so it must be true. But don’t we need some semblance of free will, simply for the dictates of morality and ethics? So I prefer something simpler, ‘karma lite’ if you prefer: Do good and life is good. Do bad and life is bad. That’s karma, actions. You will be rewarded by them, not for them…

     
    • quantumpreceptor's avatar

      quantumpreceptor 7:08 am on October 27, 2019 Permalink | Reply

      Hardy, good job boiling things down and making them simple enough to live them.

      QP

    • Passport Overused's avatar

      Passport Overused 8:01 am on October 27, 2019 Permalink | Reply

      Great post 😊

    • hardie karges's avatar

      hardie karges 10:57 am on October 27, 2019 Permalink | Reply

      Thanks

    • Dave Kingsbury's avatar

      Dave Kingsbury 4:41 pm on October 27, 2019 Permalink | Reply

      You will be rewarded by them, not for them… great insight here, the circle squared perhaps?

    • hardie karges's avatar

      hardie karges 11:45 pm on October 27, 2019 Permalink | Reply

      Actually I may have modified a quote from the Dalai Lama there, so should give credit, not sure of his exact words. ‘Circle squared’, though: I like that…

  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 5:16 pm on July 14, 2019 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , possession   

    Buddhism, Possessions and the Middle Path 

    We are possessed by our possessions, slaves to our desires, captives in our own cages, smiling all the while. For this is the fate we choose for ourselves, lest freedom tempt our fates. This is the road well-traveled, secure in its very weight. This weight of possession is what keeps us grounded, and flying is too far to fall. This weight is what keeps us padded, in case the path gets too steep, or too deep, and the only way out is up. Because these ruts can get sticky, and success can breed contempt. Still the only path is forward, and to return is not allowed, unless it’s by a different route, and then all bets are worthless. Survival is the only goal, and bliss just a wayward thought. The Middle Path is always best, no matter what or where the terrain. Inner psyches are rock-strewn and social challenges are cruel. Still we have so much to learn and so little time, and the only school is too brutal to waste time in fear of it. Time is short and the clock is ticking. We are probably the first species to consciously decide its own fate, or not…

     
  • Unknown's avatar

    hardie karges 11:27 am on November 2, 2014 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , possession,   

    Buddhism 101: ‘Letting Go’, and all that jazz 

    One of the Buddha quotes currently making frequent rounds on Facebook these days goes something like (I’m paraphrasing, since my Pali is a little rusty anyway): ‘…the important thing in life…is how well you let go’…

    Let’s assume for the sake of discussion that that quote is accurate and correct, if not entirely complete nor definitive. Now that’s interesting, because I’d always credited Buddhism (from Hindu precedents) as advocating ‘non-possession’. But ‘letting go’ is not ‘non-possession.’ ‘Letting go’ implies that there was previous possession, and that’s an important point. I think I was wrong all these years. (More …)

     

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