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hardie karges
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hardie karges
Buddhist Monks Walking for Right Symbolism…
Now that Buddhist monks walking long distances for peace and mindfulness have taken the world by storm and surprise, it’s time to not only sit up and take notice, but to ask what it all means. To me it means no less than the dawning of a new age, hopefully for the world, but definitely for Buddhism, and possibly Christianity, too. Because this is a form of Buddhism that is quite compatible with the Christianity espoused by the followers of A Course in Miracles, who are also looking for ‘Enlightenment’ and for whom Heaven is NOW. Sound familiar?
First, it must present a unified face for Buddhism, though, and that is not difficult with plentiful access to such pioneers as Ajahn Chah in Theravada, Thich Nhat Hanh in Zen, and Pema Chodren in Vajrayana, each about as equally Buddhist ‘New Age’ yet still traditional enough, without causing any alarm while generally avoiding such tried and tired subjects as karma, rebirth, and the number of Heaven and Hell realms to which a non-self might ultimately be consigned, while waiting for a better rebirth, ho hum.
So, if the current long walks are not the traditional pilgrimages common in many, if not all, religions, wherein traditional sites of religious significance are visited for inspiration and blessings, then are a vaguely defined ‘peace’ and mindfulness enough to justify the allocation of resources and expectations? I imagine a ninth addition to the traditional Eightfold Path (or is it already Ninefold)? I’m thinking of Right Symbolism. Because Peace and Mindfulness are certainly symbols of what Buddhism can bring to the table, if not necessarily the thing itself. And that symbol is nothing if not change, positive change, with many credits already in its balance sheet of blessings.
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hardie karges
Buddhism: Living and Dying in ¾ Time…
Fundamental principles stay the same, but situations always change. That’s why I’m here right now, and possibly you, too, if you’re like me and you want to know the truth, and you want it to set you free. That’s what the Christian Scientists used to say until blue in the face when I was a child, so I learned it by heart, whether I really wanted to or not. Because for them to ‘know the truth’ was an all-pervading mantra which supposedly had the power to heal and nothing else was really necessary.
They believed that reality was perfection, and that was our birthright, and all we needed to do was to manifest it. But that was then. And this is now—for me. That was fringe Christianity, this is Buddhism, and still I want to take ancient principles and test them against modern circumstances for veracity and efficacy. But there is a universe of differences between the circumstances of 500 BCE and 1880. Still, both protagonists thought that they had a vision of the truth worth pursuing and still do.
And sure enough, the Zen Buddhism of 500 CE is very different from the Early Buddhism of 500 BCE and looks much more like the fringe Christianity of 1880, with its six perfections and transcendental wisdom. So, Buddhism and Christianity both went through phases of practical application before proceeding to a more ‘transcendental’ phase of perfections and exalted statuses, then a ‘magical’ phase of Vajrayana and New Age mysticism. Neither may be totally right, but the pattern is clear. Once we’ve done the hard work of creating something from nothing, we retrofit the short-cut to prove that’s not what happened at all. It simply manifested. It seems to be a religious, but not philosophical, paradigm. Religions don’t have to make sense. They have to make new converts.
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hardie karges
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hardie karges
Buddhism 401: The Science of Silence…
No experience is truly bad if it teaches a valuable lesson. This is gospel in the Dalai Lama’s Vajrayana tradition of Buddhism, I think, and seems to mesh well with all of them, something of a quick lesson in karma, when initial results might not be encouraging. Because none of us are in this for cheap tricks and quick thrills but settled in for the long run of sublime moments and partial fulfillments which leave themselves open for further development.
The important thing is not what we get but what we give. Life is not transactional. Life is about fulfillment, not about feeling full, but about feeling satisfied at the spiritual rewards of suffering and its many lessons available for the simple taking. This is available in complete silence without any further methods of extracting the good from the fruit other than simple meditation. Precious moments are often wasted in mindless banter and useless argument, when silence will usually suffice.
In fact, Buddhism could almost be known as a faith of silence, in silence, in an age when engagement, by means of speech, is rewarded as currency in the physical medium of social media. ‘Silence is violence,’ some say with no proof, and it’s true that there is no place left to go to escape the howls from the house-holders and the homeless, but there is no reason to surrender the quiet life of contemplation, either. For millennia deep contemplation was the closest we could come to truth, and science will never change all that, but it can certainly change some. There is a science of silence, also.
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Dylan Raines
If no experience is truly bad, is no experience truly good? Is believing too much in our own subjective judgment of good and bad perhaps the problem?
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hardie karges
I think you’re probably right, yes, a duality we could probably do well without. Thanks for your comment!
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hardie karges
Buddhism and the Cessation of Suffering…
Wealth has nothing to do with the money in your pocket or your bank account. It has to do with the quality of your thought. That’s why Buddhism is at least semi-renunciative, because there are more important things in life than money. And if that’s what the Bhutanese government official meant when he said something to the effect that Bhutan has no GNP Gross National Product, instead they have GNH Gross National Happiness, then I think that’s what he meant, not that Bhutan is the happiness country in the world, something which would be extremely hard to prove, anyway.
But, it’s been said a thousand times before, and it’ll be said a thousand times more, that there’s more to life than money, and nothing could be truer. Because, if it’s all about money, then how much is enough? At that point, you’ve defined life as something quantitative, and not qualitative, and that’s never good, the artificial thirst and hunger that inhabit the material body in the material world. In Buddhism, this lust is usually associated with thirst, so trsna or tanha in Sanskrit and Pali.
In that sense, it’s natural, so nothing to be ashamed of, but still it’s definitely something to mitigate the extremes of, in order to mitigate the suffering. And I think that’s largely implicit in Buddhism by the use of the term ‘cessation of suffering’ and not ‘cure’. Because I don’t really think that anybody is really looking for a miracle cure with traditional Buddhism the way they might be with Christian Science or even Vajrayana Buddhism, but that’s exactly what the Buddha had in mind, I feel sure. Keep the parties to a minimum and keep the suffering to a minimum for a good and happy life. That’s the middle path.
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hardie karges
Buddhism Meditation and Emptiness
Meditation is the art of open heart and open mind, closed mouth, eyes optional. To me it’s almost amazing how many Theravada Buddhists don’t meditate at all, but I suppose that speaks to the time and the place as much as anything, as well as the ultimate goals and prime motives. Because a Thai citizen or resident doesn’t really need a motive to be Buddhist, except to be good and be social and contribute to the overall well being of the populace. If you’re already Buddhist, then you don’t really need a reason to be Buddhist.
But a Westerner needs a reason to be Buddhist, and so for many of us that’s long been a choice of Zen or Vajrayana (Tibetan), two of the more exotic versions of the field, and so an attraction to those for whom an attraction is helpful. The only problem is that the Buddha himself might not recognize either of them as representative of his teachings. For us street-corner philosophers, that’s plenty of motivation by itself, the simplicity and veracity of the original message. So, now that Theravada is re-branding itself as Vipassana, pure and simple, that accomplishes a necessary goal, to get Buddhism back to its root without worrying about word games and past lives.
Because Theravada Buddhists were always the best meditators, even if many never did it. And meditation can accomplish with practice what precepts and concepts can only suggest with words. You can talk about shunyata—emptiness—all day and not know much more than what you started with. Or you can sit silent unflinching for an hour while concentrating on breath and know quite a great deal, without uttering a word. It’s an acquired taste.
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hardie karges
Buddhism and the Pursuit of Truth(s)
Absolute truth is a difficult subject. But right speech is easy: honesty and politeness, no trash talk, samma vaca. Most truths are relative at best, anyway, and that includes science, but it goes double for superstition. Because science acknowledges its limitations up front, and that’s the best that you can do. Buddhism is pretty good about that, also, at least in its earliest purest phase, when control of the self (not-self) was primary and gods were kept in their place—somewhere else.
Buddhist truths are limited to only a very few ‘truisms,’ which is probably more accurate than the notion of absolute truth. Those pretty much consist of the presence of suffering, the main cause of suffering which is the bad habit of craving, and the way out of that condition, which is the Middle Way, between luxury and lack, and strict adherence to the Eightfold Path. One key element of that is samma vaca, right speech. Then there’s right actions, right intentions, right views, right livelihood, and so forth.
Add to that the acknowledgement of change, or impermanence, and the deleterious effect that has on us, and you’ve got the basics of original early Buddhism, before the verbal antics of Zen or the elaborate trappings of Vajrayana. It’s pretty simple, really, just do good things and watch your tongue, say good things or you could just say nothing at all. That works, too. Don’t worry about absolute truths. Buddhist Noble Truths are more than enough of a guide for living this life.
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hardie karges
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
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.
hardie karges and 
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