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    hardie karges 5:03 am on January 5, 2025 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , , , religion, 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 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 12:17 am on December 3, 2024 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , , , literature, , religion,   

    My Travels with Fa Hien, 5th century Buddhist Pilgrim: Kindle E-book now available 

    Coming soon to an Amazon near you!

    I am happy to announce that the book “My Travels with Fa Hien, 5th Century Buddhist Pilgrim”, is now available in Kindle E-book at Amazon US (others soon) as well as physical copies there and at Notion Press, Flipkart, and bookstores in India. This is the true story of the 5th century Buddhist pilgrim on a 5000 mile trip from central China to eastern India via what is now Pakistan and the mountains and valleys that lie between. In the course of his travels, not only does Fa Hien complete his mission to find the true origins of Buddhism, while translating its sacred texts, but his crew manage to have adventures of their own in the process. This occurs while Rome falls and Europe enters its Dark Age on the other side of the world. It’s a travel book; it’s a dharma book; and it’s a history book, all in one. This is my tribute to Buddhism, Asia, and multiculturalism at its finest. A portion of all sales will go to charities in India. For more information and samples, please join my Fa Hien Facebook group. Enjoy.

    My involvement with this project began with the completion of an MA in Buddhist Studies, at the age of 65, after a long history of travel that covered some 155 countries, during which I studied language and cultures, while buying folk art. Much of that occurred at or after the age of 55 as documented in my own travel epic “Hypertravel: 100 Countries in Two Years,” published in 2012. After that I spent several years compiling travel guides to world hostels, again published on my own micro-imprint. As my interest in Buddhism grew, I attended retreats and spent time in temples and monasteries in Thailand and Myanmar, before finally entering International Buddhist College in south Thailand as an MA candidate in 2017. I completed my MA in 2019, while studying on campus and online, with much travel in Asia.

    Then came the pandemic. After a growing interest in the story of Fa Hien I finally started writing the manuscript in late 2020 in Guatemala and finished the first draft in early 2022 in Lumbini, Nepal, the birthplace of the Buddha himself. After many rewrites and a 2023 sabbatical waiting for further inspiration, I finally finished the book with several new chapters in 2024. Upon careful consideration I decided to publish the book in India, which is the setting for much, if not most, of the book. Unlike the West, also, Fa Hien is known widely there, even if he never gained the hero status that his imitator Xuanzang did in China with the classic epic ‘Journey to the West’. I’d like to change all that and give credit where credit is due, for the sake of Buddhism and travel. A portion of all sales will go to charities in India. For more information and samples, please join my Fa Hien Facebook group. Enjoy.

     
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    hardie karges 4:40 am on November 24, 2024 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: ashrama, , , , , , , , , religion, , 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 3:59 am on November 17, 2024 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhism on the Half Shell: Dharma without Dogma 

    Beware stir-fried spirituality, vague ideas tossed in a pan and stirred ‘til piping hot. Buddhism is an open doctrine, true, but it needs a compass. And the Eightfold Path is that compass, of course, the prime phenomena of our lives listed and pointed in the direction of ‘rightness’, i.e. the correct and appropriate versions of the main foundations of our lives: thought, intent, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, and concentration. If non-duality can fit into that simple list, then fine; it is welcome. If not, then reshuffle your deck to find your place in lives where things actually exist and thoughts actually occur.

    For better or worse, Buddhism must live with the titles of its popular books, regardless of whether those actually describe the philosophy accurately or not. So, we must spend time explaining why ‘Buddhism is True’, and why there are a ‘Buddha and the Badass’ and how we can have a ‘Universe in a Single Atom’, whether any of that has anything to do with Buddhism or not. For the most part, those titles are just the consumeristic fantasies of book publishers, and the ideas inside their covers have little or nothing in common with them.

    But that’s a compromise we make. The real problem occurs when the ideas themselves get breaded and fried in almost total opposition to the original concept. So New Age Buddhists remind you to love yourself without bothering to explain, or even acknowledge, that we have no intrinsic Self, or even selves. Then they’ll tell you that our thoughts are not our own, while giving no clue as to where they actually come from, apparently just floating around, soul-like looking for a body to inhabit. But these are only minor inconveniences. The dharma can easily transcend most of that. I persevere.

     
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    hardie karges 4:36 am on October 27, 2024 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , asceticism, , , , , , , , , , , , , Padmasambhava, , religion, , Upanishads, ,   

    Buddhism is the Middle Path between Jainism and Brahmanism… 

    Brahmanism is what we now call ‘Hinduism’, but that term didn’t really exist way back when, only recently applied by the Brits to the plethora of sects and devotions which now constitute Hinduism. But it was in the midst of the Upanishad era at the time of the Buddha, which would redefine the previously Indra-based fire rituals which had reigned during the Vedic times. And with the advent of the new Upanishadic orientation, the resulting resemblance to Buddhism was profound—but still distinct.

    And so was Jainism distinct from both of them, at the same time that it shares much with them. But remember, that the ‘Hinduism’ that the Jain reacted to in the 6th century BCE is not the same as modern Hinduism, either, and that is partly because of this same three-way dialogue. Jainism was largely a reaction against the Brahmanists’ fire sacrifices, they being extreme nonviolent vegetarians. But many modern Hindus are also vegetarians, with Buddhists characteristically somewhere ‘in between.’

    That’s the Middle Path, specifically between the extreme asceticism of the Jains and the lavish rituals of the ‘Hindus’, but also between the many gods of Hinduism and the total lack of them in Jainism. Technically Buddhists don’t really have them, either, but, you know… Later versions of Buddhism were not so strict about that, such as the Tibetan version of Vajrayana, which came direct from India sometime after the 5th century and attested by Padmasambhava in the 8th century.

    But both Jains and Hindus were crazy about souls, Jains finding them everywhere and Hindus finding them cosmic, Atman, preferably in union with the cosmic dharma principle Brahman. But Buddhism found little of value in any of that, and so chose non-self anatta. So, they all evolved into different sects with different orientations, and we generally all get along nicely. The main difference is that Hinduism tilted toward a nationalism which international Buddhism could never assimilate. And Jains, ‘winners’ in Sanskrit, were ultimately the losers.

     
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    hardie karges 5:00 am on October 20, 2024 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhism at the Checkout Lane: the Best Rebirth is Spiritual 

    Spiritual rebirth begins within. It should never end. Samsara is something different. Samsara literally means ‘the world,’ always did, though perhaps etymologically from a distant past word connoting ‘wandering,’ but who knows? Etymology is always a best guess. As far as we know, at the time of the Buddha the word meant ‘the world,’ as it does to this day in modern Nepali, the modern language closest to its Sanskrit roots. Hindi probably got tired of the debate, so adopted the Arabic word dunia for most ordinary usage.

    But Buddhists turned the world cyclical, and so that circularity came to represent samsara more than the other aspects of the world itself. And that circularity specifically refers to the concept of rebirth, heavily borrowed from the Hindu concept of reincarnation, but without the literal transfer of the physical body from one generation to the subsequent one. In fact, Buddhism goes to great lengths to explain away the conundrum of <“What is reborn?”> at the same time that they go to equally great lengths to explain exactly what is the nature of this self that we’re denying. It’s a mess.

    Bottom line: the Christians—the evangelical Christians, of all sects—may have beat us to the punch on this issue. Because their insistence on being born again in the spirit is not only in the Bible, in multiple quotations, you may hear it loud and long at any tent revival in the lower US south from participants both black and white, in their exaltation at surviving a ‘Long Dark Night of the Soul’ as originally described by the 16th century Spaniard St. John of the Cross (not Eckhart Tolle).

    There is scarce reference to rebirth in any Buddhist text, though the Brahmanist Hindus and especially Jains would likely have many if only they had bothered to write it down. But that’s another story. The important thing is that spiritual rebirth is a very beautiful thing and idea, whereas physical reincarnation or even sorta kinda almost maybe rebirth of consciousness in a random body is a leap of logic, not to mention dubious science. And to those who say you can’t just pick and choose this and that, from assorted religions, I respectfully respond, “Why not?” They all did. Embrace it.

     
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    hardie karges 4:25 am on October 6, 2024 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , religion, , , theft   

    Buddhism in the Bardo Realms: You Are Never Alone 

    Buddhism in Bhutan

    The existential conundrum of our lives is that we are never alone, nor can we be, nor would we likely ever want to be, even if we could. Think of it this way: Suppose you want to enjoy yourself by yourself or just take a little swim. So, you walk down to the beach, find a nice little spot, and proceed to disrobe and jump right in. There’s only one problem: when you come back, you don’t know if your stuff will still be there or not—bummer. This is what many a happy tourist deals with every day.

    Oh, sure, there are ways to mitigate the circumstances. You can go with a friend, but that friend really can’t jump right in, now, either, can they? No, they can’t, because then any potential plunderer has just doubled his payoff. Even if you have a designated watcher for a larger group, that designee still doesn’t get to have his fun (and you still must trust him not to run). So, maybe hire a professional designee? Ditto. Or you could lock it in a box, if it’s a public space with such amenities, but that would probably preclude a dip in the buff, boo hoo. And even then, would you just wrap the key around your little finger?

    Or, you could just leave the key in your pocketed swim suit, but then, why not just leave your stuff in your room, and saunter to the beach semi-nude and flip-flop friendly, because, after all, nobody will steal a pair of flip-flops, or a towel, now, will they? Or would you even care if they did? And your room is safe, right? But what about the maid? Or you could just drive, and lock everything in the trunk, if you’re American, or the boot, if you’re a Brit, but by this time you’re making quite a big show of it, so maybe just call the whole thing off?

    This is the existential conundrum: that our fates are so intertwined, that it doesn’t leave a lot of time, or space, for accidents or circumstance. So, what is the solution? In a more peaceful time, in a more peaceful world, I have it on good authority that people left their houses unlocked with no ill repercussions, and that is the way that it should be. But that was in a world less crowded than today. And many people take it as their supreme inalienable right to reproduce without limit. So, now we live in a world of eight billion with no end in sight. And there’s no place to hide. So, we must learn to live in peace. And Buddhism is nothing, if not a religion of peace.

     
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    hardie karges 5:00 am on September 29, 2024 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , religion, , , worldling   

    Buddhism 101: Freedom from Fear and Hatred 

    The best religions give herd immunity against fear and hatred. The best philosophies explain the reason why. Buddhism can do this, also, whether or not you call it religion, whether or not you’re liberal or conservative. Because whether or not you’re liberal or conservative politically, Buddhism is the opposite of that, in its acceptance, or even encouragement, to renunciation, i.e. to give up all politics, and all other concerns of ‘house holders,’ as if shelters were the special curse of ‘worldlings.’

    And while I haven’t reached that point of detachment from the world, and may very well never, I do understand it, and to a large extent even applaud it, as long as those renunciants don’t assume that they’re by necessity any better than those same householders and other worldlings, on whom they also depend for sustenance and maintenance and news from the world. Because we’re all in this together, no matter our provenance, we all have the same sustenance, rice and bread and the ideas that feed our heads.

    The important thing is to eradicate fear, anger, greed, and hatred, once and for all, forever and completely. And if that takes some constant reinforcement, then so be it, enjoy the process and the esprit de corps. Because it’s important to be part of that community that provides solace and succor, and assurance that everything will be alright, if only we all stick together, maybe not like glue, but maybe more like sticky rice, with mango and coconut milk, yum yum, peace on earth and goodwill to all men.

     
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    hardie karges 2:56 pm on September 22, 2024 Permalink | Reply
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    Buddhism 101: There are no Winners or Losers…  

    There are no winners or losers. There are only players and non-players. Either one is fine, but if you play, then play well. The concept of winning and losing is obviously a binary circumstance, as are players vs. non-players or even East vs. West. But sometimes binary terms are effective in conveying a message, even if they are often ineffective in organizing your life. Because, we Buddhists have long been of the opinion that the Middle Path is the best guide to living your life with or without any scientific proof. 

    But the concept of winning vs losing is especially offensive, as it suggests that some people are simply better than others, regardless of any merit displayed or accrued in the process of playing the game, which suggests racism, if not just arrogance or hubris. None of that has ever been proven, of course, and my gut hunch is exactly the opposite: the more mixed the race the more superior, but again that’s hard to prove or disprove. 

    The issue of players vs non-players is more well-defined, though, in that participation is an act of will and not an accident of birth. So, when comparing the aggressive Abrahamic traditions vs the renunciative dharma traditions, it is possible to draw some conclusions, even if they are still subject to interpretations and circumstances. Because, while India and China long ago embraced renunciative dharma and taoist traditions, their cultures are anything but. And while the abrahamic West is known for its aggressive colonialism, some of the world’s finest most peaceful cities and cultures are to be found there today. 

    So, it’s a mixed bag at best, and I myself qualify as a proponent of renunciation only in the sense that too much wrong action has already been done, and so its opposite is now often preferable. But I don’t think that humans should be passive and that’s not how I live my life. So, my conception of Buddhism is somewhat like Marx’s communism, something appropriate after the previous partial phases have occurred, i.e. its time has come. At an earlier time, something else was possibly more appropriate, but not now. So, when someone insults you or feeds bait your ego, do nothing–quickly.

     

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