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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Dec 17, 2014 - 11:03pm PT
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Assad is a 10x bigger monsters (literally, in terms of casualties) than IS will ever be. US policy should be to support the end of the Assad regime on pure moral grounds. As for regional stability - it will never happen with Assad still in power. Ever.
Sorry - the No Threat assessment was from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs (not the CIA) . The US is supporting the Iraqi military in countering ISIS at the request of the Iraqi government - not because it poses a direct threat to the US. We have no intelligence - zero - that ISIS is planning attacks against the US. A quick study of the groups actions and tactics supports that assessment.
Of course, FOX NEWS begs to differ.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Dec 17, 2014 - 11:18pm PT
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ya know for guy's that are so opposed to black and white.
you sure seem to know absolutely what to do.
ur living under Alhambric Law as much as they are
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Dec 18, 2014 - 10:45am PT
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Read. Analyse. Opine. Repeat.
That's four colors.
Assume as little as possible.
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Dec 18, 2014 - 10:58am PT
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Tvash: My untouchable's understanding of Buddhism, which came up with the whole enlightenment thing, is that ever loving kindness and compassion figure large in the eightfold path. The idea that 'tough love' - that is to say, abuse, denigration, and attempts at domination - is required to shock supplicants into a state of grace is, of course, just an excuse to indulge in less-than-enlightened behavior.
Hmmmm, no, I don’t think you quite have it. Upaya, or skillful means, means doing what’s needed for development. Abuse, denigration, even taking another’s life have all fallen within the notion of upaya. Everything does.
Buddhism is not pointing to a trance-like state of sugar plum fairies and new-age bliss. It’s just not like that.
There are many buddhist deities who represent what seems to be the darker sides of life, night with day. Vajrapani, for example, is known as a wrathful deity who hung out with the Buddha along with Avalokiteshvara (compassion) and Manjushri (wisdom). He is a kind of enforcer deity who would bring lightning upon the head of anyone who diss’ed the Buddha 3 times. He’s also known as a sort of patron saint of teaching—for the ability to bring wrath, compassion, or whatever else needed to help folks to move on to the next phase of their development.
Anger is an emotional state with lots of energy. It can be used to enlighten (bring clarity) to an experience. There’s nothing wrong with it. Your characterizations of abuse, denigration, etc. are (I think) your interpretations of the displays that have shown up in front of you. Those indicate value judgements.
There is an old story about a pirate who commandeers a ship and starts to murder its passengers and crew so that he’ll gain a ransom. A buddhist monk on the ship kills the pirate not because the pirate was going to put the 500 people on the ship to death. The monk kills the pirate because it will diminish the long-term pain and suffering of the pirate, as well as the people on the ship. Too much karma would have been generated for too many sentient beings. You don’t have to take the story seriously to get the idea of what compassion, skillful means, and wisdom might look like from the story.
Seeing anything as anything is an interpretation. It’s impossible to see how or what’s really going on around you. You just need to relax with life and let things flow. You are a kind of flow.
As for the 8-fold path and that so-called path to enlightenment, you should also look up “Nine Yanas.” There are different approaches depending upon your natural skills and karma. (Again, another rendition of upaya.) Many of us are keener on the 4 noble truths, and an even smaller set think that everything that needs to be said lies in the first 2. The last (4th) one the Buddha did not say; #4 seems to be about crowd control.
Jgill: I couldn't get an answer here to my question of what this meant [a non-philosophical philosophy], . . .
I meant to answer. “Noesis” is direct apprehension, just getting it. Metanoetics I’m no so sure about.
Guys like Derrida and Foucault (postmodernists) attempted to show that any sense of “proclaimed reality” or truth (as developed by academic research, let’s say) fails because language cannot represent reality or truth, and moreover because truth cannot be told. They did that through intense, detailed, and often embarrassing examinations of significant academic studies. Derrida would take a key phrase or idea out of an article and carefully trace the development of the thought within the article and expose how the idea was internally inconsistent with what was being said in another part of the same article. Foucault took common notions that most of us have come to take for granted (maybe how prisons emerged or mental health care a couple of hundred of years ago) and showed that they may well have emerged historically due to a complex set of disconnected trends, understandings, and practices. In other words, no one really intended those institutions to emerge as they did. They appeared to have developed with a life all of their own. Not quite chaos, but not anything either that could be said to have been managed, developed, or intended. I’m sure exactly the same thing could be shown in my piece of writing right here and right now. Everything looks like complete improvisation.
“Non-philosophical philosophy” meant to refer to a philosophical view on philosophy itself that noted that there was nothing there that anyone could really grasp onto. It points to intensive self-reflection. It is, in a sense, very buddhist in that regard. It says that as an author (of writing, of myself, of what I see, of what I do), I explicitly recognize that I am authoring with almost untold biases and limitations, many of which I cannot even know. So as an author, I make sure that I am always putting that out there for folks, not trying to become an authority—just an author with an incomplete set of views. Non-philosophical philosophy, intensive self-reflection, a buddhist sense of emptiness or absence of presence, are all reflected in the little image that Psilocyborg showed up above of the Uroboros, of the snake eating its own tail. It is autolysis, or self-digestion—until there is nothing left. Makes no sense, right? But this is what the entire process seems to portend.
BTW, autolysis is what makes fermentation work in beer, wine, bread, soy, and other foods. Fermentation cannot be all that closely managed. It is life developing on its own terms. The development of those foods that rely upon fermentation are all artistic endeavors.
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Dec 18, 2014 - 11:02am PT
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I choose to reject all abusive or denigrating practices and interpretations of Buddhism - or any other path. After all, there as many brands of Buddhism as there are Christianity or any other similarly ancient path. People innovate.
BTW Mike, you make a lot of assumptions regarding my view of Buddhism, but then, you make a lot of assumptions about people you don't know all the time. That's just what you do. You're just not a Beginner's Mind kinda guy.
Anger - an autonomic feeling - is not abuse - an action. Abuse is always a choice. One can manage and channel their anger to gain understanding, wisdom and justice - or indulge it and do damage to the world around them.
As we've discussed, i don't care what Buddha 'actually said' or didn't - that cannot be known to anyone living. The words of Buddhism exist today - open for interpretation, selection, or rejection, by the individual.
We all choose our own path. Even the devoutest fundamentalist Christian or Muslim cherry picks what suits them and rejects what does not.
The Monk got his justification wrong on the pirate ship, BTW. One can't know nor predict the suffering of others. "I know what's best for you" is the justification of as#@&%es.
Forgive me if I don't hold the same reverence for all ancient teachings as some. After all, much of the Bible is utter nonsense. Chalk it up to healthy skepticism.
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WBraun
climber
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Dec 18, 2014 - 11:39am PT
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Tvash -- "i don't care what Buddha 'actually said' or didn't - that cannot be known to anyone living."
Coming from a guy who continually plays god by giving absolutes and claiming there are none .......
Just face it.
You really don't know WTF you really are talking about and continually get your foot in your mouth.
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Dec 18, 2014 - 11:55am PT
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Not compensating torture victims assumes 'hey, they must have been guilty', but the numbers say different.
The only compensation sought is public acknowledgement of wrong doing by the administration + an apology to victims.
Out of the 800 original detainees at GB, for example, only 36 were recommended for trail (15 have actually been charged with any crime to date), and 48 for detention for as long was the war on terror lasts - pretty much a life sentence at this point - without being charged. The rest - over 700 people, including a 90 year old man and 4 boys ages 15 and under, were apparently innocent enough to gain release after, in some cases, over a decade of harsh captivity.
Yet all were tortured. Hmmmm. I'd say some compensation is warranted.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Dec 18, 2014 - 12:18pm PT
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Forgive me if I don't hold the same reverence for all ancient teachings as some.
My sense of this is that you're thinking that the important part of the "ancient teaching" is the content of what is imparted. the old "revealed wisdom" stuff, straight from a diety. Never seen a bit of that in all my time in a Zendo. Not a word of it.
The "teachings" are useful in clarifying experiencews that people have had, but I have hardly ever read any sutras or any Budhist literature (nor was I ever interesting in being Buddhist, Japanese etc) and only really got giggy with Dogen's zen stuff - and that only for while, till I got the wavelength.
Trying to guess what all this stuff is like while being distant from the actal practice is bound to involve people simply projecting their own believs and experiences (content) onto the work. We all do that all the time. It's out spin cycle.
JL
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Dec 18, 2014 - 12:20pm PT
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And, as usual, you would be incorrect in that assumption. In fact, I've stated just the opposite on this very page.
Agreement can be more difficult than disagreement. Understanding is always more difficult than assumption.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Dec 18, 2014 - 12:41pm PT
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And, as usual, you would be incorrect in that assumption.
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I'd be interested in hearing, in specific terms, what you feel "ancient wisdom" is all about, above and beyond what you have already started. The reason I ask, is when we hear "ancient wisdom," this is often a catch phrase for the wonky beliefs people used to cook per material reality, stuff which science has since sorted out nicely IMO. It would, again, be interesting to hear what you feel the ancient stuff holds for you and brings to your table which science can't and never will. Insofar as science deals with content, and ancient wisdom (at least of the experiential ilk) does not, we are of course dealing with two different arenas.
JL
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Dec 18, 2014 - 12:46pm PT
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I never used the term "ancient wisdom" in any context.
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jgill
Boulder climber
Colorado
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Dec 18, 2014 - 12:51pm PT
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Thanks, Mike. I get the picture now.
I thought Tvash was going to enroll at a Zendo, paid for by JL . . .? After a few years he might be on the same wavelength as John.
"Fields" are more difficult to comprehend than particles, imho. I doubt there is a true "void." How far down the scale do fields function? I play with mathematical fields all the time and with "point" particles . . . idealizations, and there is no lower bound to their efficacy in theory - as there is in actual measurement. But what does this have to do with ISIS? I'm out of synch!
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Dec 18, 2014 - 12:56pm PT
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Asking a person to describe what "ancient teachings" is all about is like asking them to explain what "nature" is all about - it's kind of a large playing field, no?
I've stated is that "ancient teachings" are limited to the words and interpretations available to us now - we cannot know what Buddha actually said or didn't - and that we all pick and choose (or not) from those ancient teachings.
You appear to agree with that view.
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Dec 18, 2014 - 12:58pm PT
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In the absence of a recommendation, I've enrolled in several yoga classes instead.
I must say - there's a lot to yoga. It was this year's Christmas gift to myself for surviving 2014.
It's turning out to be a great gift.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Dec 18, 2014 - 01:09pm PT
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Where is wisdom found? Let’s take the Christian story of the crucifixion.
We all must face the inevitability of death. We can look at that inevitability with a kind of anxious anticipation and eventually go kicking and “raging” into that inescapable state or we can look to the reasoned example of the Crucifixion in which God himself offers his life as a willing sacrifice with “near” perfect acceptance of what is an inevitable fate for everyone and in that acceptance, as demonstrated in that story, a story that directs us inward to the spirit (that is: consciousness itself ) in which the state of the flesh takes on a kind of irrelevance, one finds serenity.
That figure up on the cross isn’t just some Jew from Nazareth, that’s you up there. And it is the bloody mess that awaits us all and what you can contemplate here is that the willing sacrifice yields consolation and through consolation serenity.
When the Buddha says all life is sorrowful and release is found in stilling desire and fear he is saying essentially the same thing that Christ demonstrates on the cross.
I’m not a believer but I would not give up the remarkable wisdom found in all world religions because in that wisdom many find what is promised: reconciliation to the “grave and constant.”
Doesn’t mean you have to be a “believer” or you can’t have graphs and spreadsheets.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Dec 18, 2014 - 01:14pm PT
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Great you're doing the yoga. Connecting breath to life is a game changer.
I've stated is that "ancient teachings" are limited to the words and interpretations available to us now - we cannot know what Buddha actually said or didn't - and that we all pick and choose (or not) from those ancient teachings.
You appear to agree with that view.
Not exactly because ancient wisdom as I understand it is the art of exploring what words cannot touch and interpretations are totally secondary to direct experience. Ancient wisdom is not doing science without the instruments or calculations. Ancient wisdom is doing what science is not made to do - explore the unborn.
That's my understanding.
JL
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Dec 18, 2014 - 01:15pm PT
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"My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?"
According to scripture, it seems Jesus died alone, scared and suffering like any other man.
After all, that's all he was. If he existed.
Death is ugly. Is there a lesson in there somewhere?
The Bible's clear lesson is that God sacrificed his only son for our sins.
Which is absolute nonsense.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Dec 18, 2014 - 01:15pm PT
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the reasoned example of the Crucifixion in which God himself offers his life as a willing sacrifice
LOL!! It's a blood sacrifice, for chrissakes!
People need to get their heads out of the bronze age.
Look around, nature's a bounty, the world's a bounty, thanks to cultural evolution, the human experience is a bounty. Enough Christian stories for a century or two.
We get it, Paul. Mythologies can be instructional. They can be inspirational. They have their place. But as truth-claims in any way fit for the 21st century and its problems? Forget it.
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