From: Chen Yixiong, Eric (cyixiong@myrealbox.com)
Date: Sat Jul 20 2002 - 01:08:21 MDT
<< We value aspects of Buddhism because it brings out a mature, understanding and wholesome aspect of humanity. But we must
remember that Buddhism, like most religious philosophies, are best appreciated in their pure state as they were written, in their
ceremonial quality, and then borrow the elements of the belief that add to our own growth and transhumanity. >>
I would like to speak about this.
Buddhism has the goal of minimising suffering for non-sentient beings as much as possible. This does not mean it "disires" to do
that. A "goal" and a "disire" has different meanings. Our usage of language contributes to this confusion especially when the
concepts of Buddhism originate from another language.
The core intrinsic source of suffering, and thus desire and other Buddhist "unskillful activities" lies with ignorance. This does
not mean the ignorance of "no-knowledge", but the ignorance of proper mindset, perception and self-awareness. It also hints at the
incongruence of our actions with our goals.
The main component of "ignorance" lies with the self, or more precisely, attachment. When we desire something, we have an attachment
to it. The attachment gives us the motive force, not ourselves. We surrender our power to decide by letting the attachment gain
motive force. If we encourage the attachment of base power, then we empower our genes. If we encourage the attachment of power and
wealth, we empower the lower brain. The self helps make the illusion of self-control complete by providing a foundation for
attachment and making an opaque block to "true reality".
When in operate in our society, the more attachment we have in respect to our environment, they more dependency we have on others.
When you disire some stuff, you have to folk out money or some other payment for it. Later you may find that you might absolutely
need to depend on others for your life's operation because you disire so many things. Expensive addictive drugs illustrate this
effect very well. People closer to true freedom make do with the least, not the most disires.
One should not underestimate the power of attachment. It causes many problems, from flames in discussion group from people who have
too much attachment to their opinions and ideals, to our global environmental problem. Because we disire, we take. Because we take,
the Earth gives. Because the Earth gives, it depletes. Because it depletes, it not longer operates as well as it previously did.
Because it no longer does that, we have so many problems today.
I do not mean that we must never have attachment. Having attachment probably remains an essential step to our inner development,
much like a child learning to speak with simplified but "incorrect" grammar. However, we eventually have to learn to outgrow it and
explore further frontiers.
You cannot innately understand the core idea with logic and without adequate preparation of the mind. Only when your mind allows
change to happen will you understand. Zen masters speak with actions and koans, because they know normal words would not have the
required effect. The mindset of many people here, Libertarian and materialistic, prevents the proper mindset from occurring to
understand this. This does not mean your mindset has inferiority, but that it diametrically opposes the teachings of Buddhist and
thus you will still have to content with suffering if you choose it.
Once, while on the subway, I thought deeply about life and suffering. Then, all of a sudden, I realised why we should remove our
disires. We pay the price with the immense dissatisfaction we constantly receive, a form of suffering, from our disiring to acquire
certain things and yet our apparent inability to fulfil them. When I can sense the suffering from my past thinking clearly, then I
can realise innately why I should live with minimal disires and attachment. I still "own" things in a legal sense, but I know they
do not really belong to me.
It has also taken me many years, from my first intellectual exposure to Buddhist philisophy, to truly understanding some of what it
really means. I realised the power of mindset when people flame me for things I did not say because they do not take the effort to
understand my mindset. This has a lot to do with the duality mindset many in the "West" subscribe to, in effect: "If you do not
think X, you must think anti-X. If you do not support me, then I consider you an enemy."
When I said the concept of rights has no relevance in my theory, they immediately interpret me as denying rights to people. When I
wrote that my proposed economic system will not work like a free market system, but more like a carefully maintained self-operating
system, they take it that because I do not support free market systems as they understood it, then I must subscribe to communism and
thus want to build a static, state controlled market system! Of course, when I said I found flaws in Libertarian thinking and thus
would no longer support it, they then think that I support government control!
When Buddhism speaks about the creasing of desires, this does not mean one has to think of it as a totally empty shell devoid of its
former greatness. We can transcend what limits us to something greater. The words do not give convey the spirit well, but if we
truly understand the concepts, we will understand what it really means.
Perhaps one day we might gain the ability to literally make our world. We could then live in a computer simulation of our perfect
universe. However, do we really want that? What do we really one then? Maybe, we will all have to go the path of the Buddha, because
in the end, if we seek to pursue true reality for eternity, then we will see emptiness. Perhaps another possible explanation for the
lack of alien intelligence.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:15:35 MST