streaming consciousness…

Tagged: renunciation Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

• 

  hardie karges 4:48 am on July 21, 2025 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Buddhism ( 428 ), enlightenment ( 13 ), Hardie Karges ( 239 ), meditation ( 189 ), monkey mind ( 4 ), renunciation, skillful means ( 3 ), wokeness   

  Buddhist Enlightenment and the Means to an End 

  

  True enlightenment is like ripples on still water, radiating outward, never making waves, never causing pain. In other words, Enlightenment is hard to describe. If you think you have it, then you probably really don’t. And if you think you deserve it, then you probably really shouldn’t. But there is something there to be accomplished, without really trying, the placement of self between renunciation and monkey mind, a state of being awake and aware.

  So, why are we so obsessed with it? We Buddhists, that is, some of us, at least. Why does a Buddhist, who technically doesn’t even believe in a self, want to claim to be enlightened? That would seem to be a selfish desire, akin to wearing a gold chain around ones neck, like a cheap date hanging out much too late. But Buddhists aren’t perfect, especially the not-yet-ordained masses who think that ‘being Buddhist’ and talking all ‘spiritually’ somehow conveys a certain status akin to ‘wokeness’, which is what the word really means, after all, i.e. ‘awakened’?

  Maybe there’s a law akin to the Middle Path that states that everything is the opposite of what is claimed? That is, those who claim to be enlightened are the least enlightened, and those who make no such claims are likely the most enlightened? I doubt that the rule would hold in every case, but it might work in a bunch of them. Because the most enlightened being might not speak a word, in fact, and so long as he similarly does not lift a finger to inflict pain to even a cockroach, he is accomplishing much of what the Buddha would recommend. Maybe there should be a principle of strategic inaction, if not complete renunciation. There is. I think it’s called ‘skillful means’.

   

  Reply Cancel reply

  Required fields are marked *

  Name *

  Email *

  Website

  Notify me of new comments via email.

  Notify me of new posts via email.

  Δ

• 

  hardie karges 4:47 am on March 9, 2025 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Alpha male ( 9 ), Hardie Karges ( 239 ), meditation ( 189 ), renunciation, rishis ( 2 )   

  Buddhism in the Material World 

  

  Fire can extinguish fire, but water is usually more effective and less destructive. Still, we almost never learn that lesson, do we? So, when there’s a battle over turf between two Alpha males of almost any species, the only solution is to thump our chests and prepare to do battle, winner take all, mostly bragging rights and reproductive rights. That’s the way it’s always been and the way it is today—often. But what if the females were to simply say ‘no’? there’s food for thought.

  After all, it only takes one male to impregnate a hundred females. They would just have to decide and let the blokes know the new rules of the game. Sound unrealistic? But that’s how horses were tamed, albeit selected by humans overseeing the process. The one horse that left his genes for the next 5000 years was the tame one, not the Alpha male beating his chest. And many tribal humans preferred lofty reaches, safe and secure, over green valleys that they would have to fight for—forever, something Homer gave the Persians credit for, deserved or not, if I remember correctly.

  Buddhists simply declared the right to renounce right here right now, no apologies, this after generations of rishis showed how it could be done individually, with quite favorable consequences. So, the same might work for a group, united and vocal, about their intents and purposes, if not much volume in their voices. Sure, a heartless despot could slaughter them mercilessly, and they have. Tibetan monks self-immolate to this day. But the despot is the one who lives in fear—and hatred. The victim is usually free to live another day, or millennium. The choice is ours.
   
• 

  hardie karges 5:00 am on September 29, 2024 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Buddhism ( 428 ), Hardie Karges ( 239 ), love ( 49 ), poem ( 2 ), POETRY ( 12 ), politics ( 32 ), religion ( 158 ), renunciation, spirituality ( 27 ), 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.

   
• 

  hardie karges 2:56 pm on September 22, 2024 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Abrahamic ( 2 ), binary ( 3 ), Buddhism ( 428 ), ego ( 33 ), Hardie Karges ( 239 ), Marx ( 4 ), meditation ( 189 ), Middle Path ( 53 ), religion ( 158 ), renunciation, Science ( 25 ), spirituality ( 27 ), Taoism ( 3 )   

  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.

   
• 

  hardie karges 3:24 am on August 4, 2024 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Buddhism ( 428 ), guided meditation ( 3 ), Hardie Karges ( 239 ), meditation ( 189 ), natural selection ( 3 ), politics ( 32 ), renunciation   

  Buddhism 334: Right Views are not Political… 

  

  Politics are not a suitable focus for meditation, and in fact are a great disruption. Which should go without saying, it seems, but for the fact that much meditation is of the ‘guided’ sort. So, caution should be a watchword for practice. After all, silence is the foundation of all traditional meditation practices, so any narrative is going against that stream of consciousness, which at its best is a thoughtless stream.

  But politics is particularly onerous, it being often combative, such as it is, and with no remedy to that in sight. It seems that natural selection does not select for gentleness and conciliation, but for the ability to put freshly fertilized genes into the next generation, without which there may be no next generation. Every breeding couple of every species must produce slightly more than two offspring per couple, or we will all gradually go extinct, as the elevated rates for such a situation amply prove in the present climate.

  Still, some people claim that the Buddha had a political side, but I can’t find much proof of that. His Buddhism of renunciation never advocated total renunciation, though, and that’s the important thing. Partial renunciation is another name for daily meditation, and from there one’s daily life can quickly and vastly improve. The same thing can be said for political activism, as long as it’s peaceful, mindful, and respectful. There are conservative and more liberal sides to all politics, and that’s fine. Just leave the hatred and anger outside. And that will help keep your daily meditation healthy.

   
• 

  hardie karges 4:29 am on March 24, 2024 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Buddhism ( 428 ), Hardie Karges ( 239 ), lovingkindness ( 16 ), meditation ( 189 ), metta ( 25 ), monk ( 2 ), religion ( 158 ), renunciation, spiritual bypassing ( 5 ), spirituality ( 27 ), Thailand ( 75 ), y-chromosome   

  Buddhism in the Bardo: Survival of the Species…  

  

  Some people might laugh at a monk in meditation, wasting his life away, but I laugh at the silly fools who cause global warming. Because, after living a long time in Thailand, that’s the main reason that I was reluctant to get involved with Buddhism, the perception that it was too passive, and incapable of dealing with the issues that face the world. So, for me that was an early premonition of what I might now call something like ‘socio-spiritual bypassing,’ i.e. the avoidance of social obligations by invoking the spiritual primacy of renunciation. 

   But at some point, I realized that renunciation was probably a greater tool than all the political action in the world, and, at least on some ways, likely to produce the greater impact, also. Because, for all our sociopolitical posturing, little is accomplished along those lines, and much of the developed world may soon be crisscrossed with windmills, without any detectable difference in our addiction to rapid locomotion, despite the visible degradation of our relationship to Nature. With a population of more than eight billion souls, renunciation may soon be the only avenue of survival. 

  And, if that’s a bitter pill to swallow, then so be it. Because the writing has been on the wall for at least sixty to eighty years now, and we’ve only sunk deeper in our denial of the likely results, as Elon exhorts us to make more babies, so that he can rake in more gazillions. And that’s maybe the saddest part, that the only way that we can show our love for these people on this planet is to create more babies, who must then shoulder the burden of our conundrum.  

  So suddenly renunciation is not a bad option at all, and the disappearance of the y-chromosome only seconds that emotion. Because, whatever the numbers of our reproduction and its proliferation, or not, it’s impossible to live in a world without love. But we might need to change that meaning. And that’s where Buddhism comes in, because love comes in many forms and flavors. Metta, or lovingkindness, is the preferred Buddhist flavor, and the world community is the intended recipient. That’s Buddhism. 

   
• 

  hardie karges 11:43 am on March 18, 2023 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: abundance ( 7 ), aggression ( 6 ), CHRISTIANITY ( 160 ), dukkha ( 15 ), eternity ( 4 ), Hardie Karges ( 239 ), infinity ( 7 ), language ( 144 ), passive voice ( 2 ), passivity ( 5 ), renunciation, suffering ( 28 ), Thailand ( 75 )   

  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… 

   
• 

  hardie karges 4:50 am on March 27, 2022 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Buddhism ( 428 ), emptiness ( 29 ), Hardie Karges ( 239 ), Middle Path ( 53 ), philosophy ( 101 ), religion ( 158 ), renunciation   

  Buddhism: Life in the Slow Lane… 

  

  

  It’s okay to enjoy life, even love it, and still be a good Buddhist, as long as you don’t pretend to possess or attach, crave or covet. Because, even if Buddhism is a religion of renunciation, at its origins, and at the core of its being, it is still pragmatic and rational in its acknowledgement that the average life, for the average householder, must be properly maintained and nourished if any of us are to even have anything to renounce. Renunciation, after all, is not poverty. It is a conscious rejection of the supercilious aspects of human existence that lend it its falseness, and which tend to reduce us to its servants, not its masters.

  Because the master of human existence is the one who can take it or leave it, in its fullness or its emptiness, each of which is valid and credible, neither of which is complete in and of itself, and both of which can serve as valuable paradigms toward fulfillment in the right place and in the right time, the details of which are to be established later. Because Buddhism is nothing if not a fertile middle ground for resettlement, after all the thrusts and forays of penetration and conquest have run their course. Those are but illusions, after all, while the real stuff of life is to be found not in articles of consumption, but in the abstract concepts that occupy thought, feeling, and action. There is nothing mystical about Buddhism in its essence. The Middle Path is all about rationality, ratios, and rations…

   
• 

  hardie karges 12:36 am on September 8, 2019 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Buddhism ( 428 ), GOD ( 24 ), jealousy ( 2 ), relativity ( 4 ), renunciation, success   

  Special Relativity in a World that looks just like us… 

  Never begrudge anyone their success. In a perfect world their success is your success, and we can all go forward together. Of course this is not a perfect world, but the more we work at it, the more that we can approximate that goal. Spurious social goals of equality and free food for the asking are not only not realistic, but not even desirable, the idea that there exists some sort of equality by jealousy and some sort of bounteous government in place of a bounteous God. But both beliefs are bound to fail, ultimately, that faith in a higher power where such does not exist, at least not in any capacity to bestow favors on the underlings which prop them up, with towering posts of fire-hardened belief, topped with monuments to their sacred erections. Belief carries power in the womb of its sword, details left to imagination. Nothing is too priceless to be left to its word, and the breezes whisper soft incantations. We project ourselves outward on to all empty fields, filling in blanks with our prejudices. We rarely turn inward to question those ills, too content with ourselves as judge and creator. Thus all is relative, multiplication and division merely inverse points of view of the same basic equation, reconfirming mental formations and current status updates. One person’s curse is another person’s blessing, and one person’s sin is another person’s merit. And thus it is with the concept of Buddhist renunciation in a modern materialistic world where merit is typically measured in dollars and cents. Some people take vows of poverty, chastity and homelessness, while others bemoan those same fates…

   
• 

  hardie karges 5:41 pm on August 18, 2019 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: bodhisattva ( 9 ), Buddha ( 49 ), consciousness ( 29 ), FUTURE ( 8 ), past ( 3 ), present ( 2 ), renunciation, SPECIES ( 7 )   

  Self-Styled Bodhisattva Vow to Save the Species 

  I won’t bother to look for bliss.
  I’ll content myself in the mitigation of
  suffering and in the effort to help others.
  For that is a path forward, no matter
  how many twists and turns must be navigated,
  no matter how winding the cliched and storied path.
  This is a one-stop shop, for all we know,
  so it is wise and prescient of us to gather
  rosebuds while we may, lest they be unavailable
  tomorrow, for lack of stock in house, or merely
  the wrong season for searching.
  Sci-fi scientists look in the farthest most remote
  atmospheres for life and red herrings, myths
  to live by and fantasies to smoke, magic dragons to puff.
  But that is all for an imaginary tomorrow, cowering
  in fear of a fictionalized past that has sworn
  revenge on the far-fetched future.
  Such are the menu options for consciousness,
  three dimensions three tenses three personal
  pronouns and a pocket full of tissues.
  The choices are ours, to run and hide
  or to stand and fight, with possibly a third
  option still grooming on the side.
  Regardless of the ultimate method and final
  forage for fruit, though, just remember that we
  should all be civil, and polite, and seek our highest
  common denominators, not sink to our lowest…