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    hardie karges 2:12 am on November 2, 2025 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhism in the End Days: Empathy and Sympathy 

    Create a world in your image and likeness, full of empathy and compassion. Then the problems of self and self-image exist no longer. Because these are universal blessings, the gifts of one human to another, which can only be accomplished with conscious intent. Nature offers no such promise, it full of suffering, however unintended. Nature doesn’t care. Only humans can care, and this is our responsibility on the face of this earth.

    Pandits and pundits quibble over whether anything is real beside consciousness, but this is unimportant. The important thing is that there IS consciousness, and it is capable of accomplishing much, if only we take the time to make the effort. If that requires a makeover of your own image at the same time, then so be it, more power to you. If humans need a self to have and to hold, until death do us part, then that is a small price to pay. Make it a good one. That is the responsibility of every serious artist, to make it a good one. So, start with yourself; what better place?

    Our time on this earth and in this space is limited, most likely, so time is of the essence. We are young and foolish, by design of our creator, it of pure and simple logic, but few means to enforce it. That is up to us, to enforce logic and reason with the passing of seasons, as if by Divine Creation, even though any true creator would only laugh, if it has that capability. We are the prophets of providence, not by our cleverness, but by our empathy. Only we can make this world what it is meant to be, because only we know what it is meant to be…

     
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    hardie karges 5:53 am on October 26, 2025 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhism In an Imperfect World. The world outside… 

    The world outside may be cruel and cold, but the world inside can be perfect. This is implicit in the Buddhist teachings, Theravada especially, before the Mahayana emphasis on the Bohisattva’s sacrifice of enlightenment until all sentient beings can join in the awakening. And, if that seems selfish of the Theravadins, then it’s not, not really. It’s simply a recognition that the challenges are many and the awakenings are few, in an imperfect world, with few Bodhisattvas available, so maybe being a satisfied arhat might be better.

    Because, even if the world were infinite, with no need for competition, there would still be the challenges of hate, anger and greed. Those are the kileshas that haunt all of us, rich or poor, no matter our status or our position in life. And competition is a function of greed, no matter that there might be an infinite abundance, somehow somewhere. No alpha male is worried about getting his share of the offerings. He wants them all, or at least a controlling interest, no matter that there is plenty to go around.

    That is the difference between us and the animal kingdom, the ability to reason and ration any scarcity of resources fairly amongst all interested parties. That is why the alpha male is an anachronism in the world of humans, strutting his stuff as if he were king of the jungle. For the human race to advance, we must leave the jungle behind, and any notion of a warrior ethos that defines us. It doesn’t. It only divides us.

     
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    hardie karges 2:24 am on October 19, 2025 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhism and Mindfulness: Smrti and Samadhi… 

    Multi-tasking is a myth, the idea that you can do two or more actions at one and te same time. ‘Monkey mind’ is more accurate. Mindfulness is not a myth. But what is it exactly? There are as many definitions as there are commentators. But the original meaning of the Pali word sati, from which the word mindfulness derives in the Buddhist tradition, refers merely to consciousness, or awareness, or conscious awareness, if you want to be a smarty-pants.

    Which is not a bad idea, considering that the original Sanskrit word was indeed smrti, before that got shortened by the early Buddhists to sati. Did you know that Sanskrit is related to the English language through Indo-European connections? But when the onlookers in the crowd around your motorcycle wreck in Thailand ask each other, “does he have sati?” They’re asking if you’re conscious, not whether you’re mindful. The modern Buddhist connotations, especially in the West, gravitate more toward the woo-woo style of Buddhism, as if mindfulness were something more than mere awareness, or consciousness. But it’s not, not really.

    The awareness or consciousness involved in mindfulness really only differs in degree, not kind. The more you do it, the better it gets. If that means meditation, then more power to you. A half hour in the morning should last you half a day, easy. It’s a lot like re-booting the computer to reset the sequence, to get a fresh start, like a writer’s legendary ‘fresh eyes’. No need for monkey mind, this and that, altogether now; just do one thing at the thing, in the correct order and sequence. Now make a mental note. That’s all. Samadhi is the next step along the path to liberation.

     
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    hardie karges 3:02 am on August 24, 2025 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhist Middle Path: Hold Your Applause 

    All you need is kindness. Compassion is good, too. These are the Buddhist foundational concepts known in the Pali language as metta and karuna, often combined in modern standard Thai language as mettakaruna. I guess that’s similar to the Christian compound word ‘lovingkindness’, but without all the gratuitous emotion, please. That’s more Christian than Buddhism has ever aspired to, and largely by design.

    Christians need to hug and kiss, often, while Buddhists could usually care less. Christians are emotion junkies, while Buddhists are cool as cukes, usually, salad dressing optional. So, Christians deliberately took that word from the Hebrew Chesed and translated it to lovingkindness to make a point. Then, when Buddhism came to the West, many practitioners figure what’s good for the goose… you know. But, by then, Buddhism has changed its character, and not necessarily for the better.

    But that’s one way to fight the charge of pessimism and nihilism: slather the special sauce, and Bam! Thailand becomes like the Philippines, all of a sudden, fiery and passionate. I suppose there’s no real harm, but it’s really not what Buddhism is in its essence–just the opposite. Emotions go up and down as if by design, while the Buddhist path steers towards the middle always. That’s not a hard rigid path, but it’s not seeking peak emotion, either. That’s American Photography Course 101, always seeking ‘peak emotion’. Good luck with that. I’ll follow the Middle Path.

     
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    hardie karges 2:49 am on August 17, 2025 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhist Skillful Means in the Material World… 

    Buddhism is a social paradigm, too, and a vision of a better world. How is that possible, you ask? How could it not be possible, if everyone could tame the violence that resides there in their minds, implicit in the language we use as operating systems? Because, if craving is the main cause of individual suffering in this world, then violence is the main cause of mutual suffering, and the means of spreading it is by means of language.

    And there is much of the problem right there, because violence is inherent to any form of language and maybe especially to the Indo-European base languages of Sanskrit, Persian, Latin, and German that characterized the early colonial world. So, meditation is the solution to that problem, certainly. The reason language was invented, after all, was for strategic advantage in the battlefield, so we’re lucky that it’s developed other uses and applications in the meantime.

    But Buddhism is nothing if not a philosophy of peace, and that is written into its precepts of kindness and conciliation, if not submission. Because our kindness should not be mistaken for weakness, remember, and that goes double for Buddhism. Skillful means are required to maneuver crooked paths. So, sometimes we have to do things that normally would be unacceptable, with the understanding that it is a measure of the moment, that there is no other option. Death is not an option, forbidden by precept. Everything else is on the table, with the understanding that it is temporary, as is everything.

     
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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 2:56 am on March 2, 2025 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhism and the Middle Path Dialectic… 

    Gratitude is the companion to kindness and compassion in a perfect circle of Right Action and virtuous intent. Gratitude may be more of a Western thing than an Eastern thing, but that changes nothing. Gratitude is good. Lovingkindness was more of a Western thing than Eastern, also, until the Buddhists adopted it as their own as a suitable translation for the Sanskrit/Pali word metta, and the rest is history. The circle is complete, West meets East, Buddhism meets Christianity, and we are all better off for it.

    Because there is no fundamental distinction between the positions of West and East, not really, simply flip sides of the same coin, two pillars of a dialectic, in which antithesis counters the thesis in order to reach a higher synthesis. Now that’s not strict formal Buddhism (it’s Hegel), but I think it’s a nice approach to the Middle Path, illustrating clearly the fact that the Middle Path is not a cold hard set of prohibitions or dogmas, but is open and fluid and capable of change if and when the time is right for it.

    Notwithstanding the fact that India and the West have a common origin (see my upcoming book) genetically and geographically, if you go even farther back, the entire civilized world has common origins in Africa as homo sapiens and even farther back in Pangea as the large family mammalia, that split then from their reptilian ancestors. That’s who we are, consciousness and all, putting nouns and verbs together in sentences growing more complex every day, looking for a path with heart, despite all the suffering. Look inside; that’s the trick.

     
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    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 4:56 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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