Buddha IV

Buddhism, in origin an Indian ideology, spread over half the ancient world and took root in quite disparate civilizations. Despite huge setbacks, it is still spreading. I would suggest that it acquired this adaptability not by chance, but because the Buddha himself was able to see that local mores were man-made, and could show that what brahmins believed to be ingrained in nature was nothing but convention. In much the same period (though they started somewhat earlier) the Greeks were making the distinction between phusis, nature, and nomos, man-made rule, and drawing similar conclusions.

Making the individual conscience the ultimate authority is both a liberating and a dangerous move. What if someone acts on wrong moral reasoning? Society needs a sanction. That is why it was immensely important for the Buddha, and indeed for the whole tradition that followed him, to keep stressing that the law of moral reckoning worked throughout the universe: that good would be rewarded and evil punished in the end. That, I suggest, is also why the Buddha made belief in this law of karma the first step on his noble eightfold path to nirvana. -- What the Buddha Thought, Richard Gombrich 2009

Buddha III

If karma is completely ethicized, the whole universe becomes an ethical arena, because everywhere all beings are placed according to their deserts. If this is generalized into a view of the world, as it has been in Theravadin cultures, it means that ultimately power and goodness are always perfectly correlated, both increasing as one proceeds (literally) up the universe. [...] This picture of a universe under control is from one angle reassuring; but in its belief that there is really no undeserved suffering it can also be harsh. Logically it solves the problem of theodicy, but at a price. Many have found this solution as unbearable as the situation it resolves, and it is hardly surprising that Buddhism as it developed after the Buddha’s death became rich in ways of obscuring or escaping such an intransigent law of the universe, often at the cost of logical consistency. Obeyesekere has also shown how it is logical that the ethicization of a society’s eschatology should lead to its universalization. Once ethics is reduced to the simple values of right and wrong, and located in the mind, something common to all human beings, distinctions of gender, age and social class become irrelevant. Moreover, Buddhism - like mercantile wealth—was not ascribed but achieved. -- What the Buddha Thought, Richard Gombrich 2009

Buddha II

The Buddha taught that all thoughts, words and deeds derive their moral value, positive or negative, from the intention behind them. This does not make the effect of actions irrelevant: Buddhism is no less familiar than is modern law with the idea of negligence. But the basic criterion for morality is intention. Morality and immorality are mental properties of individuals. Metaphorically they were often referred to as purity and impurity. Each good deed makes a person purer and thus makes it slightly easier to repeat such a deed. The same applies to bad qualities, such as cruelty. An intention, carried out, becomes a propensity.

Introductions to Buddhism written for westerners tend to begin by quoting the Buddha’s advice to a group of people called the Kalamas.They had complained to him that various teachers came and preached different doctrines to them, and they were confused about which to follow. The Buddha replied that everyone has to make up their own mind on such matters. One should not take any teaching on trust or external authority, but test it on the touchstone of one’s own experience. [...] If people are responsible for their own decisions, and in particular for deciding which teaching to follow, this sets a high premium on intelligence. [...] In every traditional society, including that into which the Buddha was born, education consists largely in parroting what the teacher says. The Buddha even made a monastic ruling that one of the duties of a pupil towards his teacher is to correct him when he is wrong on doctrine or in danger of saying something unsuitable. That, I think, has few parallels in world history. -- What the Buddha Thought, Richard Gombrich 2009

Buddha I

Nothing in the world [i.e., that which we can normally experience] has an unchanging essence. [...] Buddha is not primarily concerned with what exists - in fact, he thinks that is a red herring - but with what we can experience, what can be present to consciousness. For his purposes, what exists and the contents of experience are the same. At this level, if we want a label, his doctrine looks like pragmatic empiricism.

in this view of the world, to ‘exist’ is not to change: existence and becoming are defined as opposites. But is change random? Surely not. Even if we and everything around us change all the time, life could not go on if we did not recognize continuities at every step. The change, in other words, is not random. The Buddha axiomatized this in the proposition that nothing exists without a cause. Another, simpler way of saying that all phenomena exhibit nonrandom change is to say that everything is process. -- What the Buddha Thought, Richard Gombrich 2009

Concerning Meditation

• A sign of growth is having more tolerance for discomfort. But it’s also having less tolerance for bullshit.
• Who you are is not your fault, but it is your responsibility.
• If you don’t train your mind to appreciate what is good,  you’ll continue to look for something better in the future, even when things are great.
• Spend more time cultivating a mind that is not attached to material things than time spent accumulating them.
• Peak experiences are fun, but you always have to come back. Learning to appreciate ordinary moments is the key to a fulfilling life.
• There are three layers to a moment: Your experience, your awareness of the experience, and your story about the experience. Be mindful of the story.
• You cannot practice non-attachment. You can only show your mind the suffering that attachment creates. When it sees this clearly, it will let go.
• One of the deepest forms of peace we can experience is living in integrity.
• Monks love to fart while they meditate. The wisdom of letting go expresses itself in many forms.

-- Sayadaw U Pandita

Not choosing is not an option III

It is irrational to expect that an economic system that is predicated on externalizing the costs of ecological destruction will somehow automatically stop driving ecological destruction. -- Jason Hickel

Difference

[There's a] difference between problems which are to be solved, and predicaments which are to be endured. -- td0s

The hand you give

The wolves you feed are not your friends.