Heady Stuff
Justin Whitaker keyboards the heady blog American Buddhist Perspectives: Buddhism. Philosophy. Life. from Bristol, UK, where he is finishing up an MA in Buddhist Studies. He has a wonderful entry “Philosophy: Fear of Nonsense in Blogging.” Justin writes, “I guess its not just in blogging, but in life in general. That hesitancy in the moment of conversation, that lost opportunity to speak from the heart, the fear of nonsense and judgment. I've been feeling a bit of all of these lately and I'm only slowly coming to realize why.”
He makes several forays at explaining the why. Here’s most of the first one: “It's that inside/outside block, the hypostatization/reification of outward circumstances as beyond my control and thus controlling me, where in fact all I have is my own dissonant and disordered mental states discoloring and disfiguring an otherwise beautiful world around me. Clear enough? It seems clear to me. Clearer at least.”
See. I told ya it was heady stuff. Justin's words can also be found in The Buddhist Channel this week where, in a letter, he explains the Buddhist orientation on homosexuality.
Meantime, the anonymous Irish Zennist who blogs Everything is Illuminated ended the week with the announcement of a several-day blogging hiatus in order to “read about Aristotle’s notion of agent intellect (commented by Saint Thomas Aquinas), Saint Augustine’s notion of ground of the soul (abditum mentis), Dietrich of Freiberg’s equation of these two notions, [practice] latin, [write] in the latin Vicipaedia and [think] about putting together an organized library of zen texts in various languages.” Some guys have all the fun.
Our man of the mountaintops, the verse-atile Dave Bonta, offers several poems of Paul Zweig's in entries [#1 & #2] this week in Via Negativa. Here is the beginning stanza of one poem, “Snow”:
Love is all we could manage,
Its particles floating from the hard rim of the air.
Our tracks were clear in the fresh chance
Heaven threw behind us. The pain
Went on searching behind your face,
The snow went on falling.
And in Ryan’s Lair there’s another adventure in Buddhology: Excitement crests as four – count ‘em, FOUR -- historical linguistics professorship vacancies open at three premo universities. That’s the equivalent of four Supreme Court vacancies opening up at once, Ryan tells us. [Professors must be dying like flies. Funny, this news hasn’t yet appeared above the fold in the NY Times.] That Ry. Must be looking for work.
Mighty ID-Indemnifying Ideas
Woodmoor Village Zendo’s Nacho, a university professor, posts very frequently against a peeve of his: ID, aka Intelligent Design. His newest, raging against the Dover, Pennsylvania, school board has caused ripples in the Buddhist blogosphere. Says Nacho, “I really would like people to realize that we are constantly being fed a diet of pablum about this so-called controversy. There is no controversy of this nature in the scientific community.”
Jeb posted a supportive response in a cleverly titled post, ID Ology, in his blog, Wonderings on the Way. He wrote, “I think the basis of the dispute is much different than it appears to be, despite the pushy, in-your-face attitude of many who promote ID. … The real argument is about meaning and values. Does life have a purpose if things just happened, if everything is just random coincidence playing out to a pointless if not miserable end? If life has no purpose, does it have meaning? For most religions, purpose and meaning are inextricably entwined. They are not the same for me.”
Dave Platter took on a part of Jeb’s post in his meditate NYC blog’s weekly feature, the Blogmandu-like "Wednesday Blogma." Citing a quote in “ID Ology” where Jeb talks about “adherents of the ID community … often [being] vociferous in the condemnation of Muslim theocracy,” Dave muses “Is our anger at Intelligent Design-ers tapping a similar well? Perhaps we, too, see in them ‘the familiar face of our enemy from within.’ ” In the comments section of his ID Ology post, Jeb says he doesn’t know if what he wrote was “a dig,” as Dave put it, but bemoans “the world suffer[ing] through revolution after revolution that fails to do anything except change those who hold power.”
Concept This
The compassionate Buddhist crowd over at LiveJournal have blog entries that sometimes turn into lively forums. A good example this week begins as a question asked by homestarmy42: “Does anyone know of some good books on the nature of self in Buddhism?”
There are many responses, most suggesting spiffy books.
The longest, most-thoughtful response comes from Padmadelic. He writes, in part, “If the Buddha's anatta (no self/not-self) teaching is misunderstood, it can leave us seeing ourself as a bad person for having desires, ... [a]nd it can even lead to us getting very confused about whether we exist or not! ... Actually, Buddhism teaches that there is no FIXED self. Nothing is permanent. We do not have an eternal soul. This teaching should be understood within the context of ancient India, where the dominant tradition of the time taught that we have an eternal Self (Atman) and that the point of religious life was to get to the stage where this self becomes united with God (Brahman). ...” [BTW, check out Buddhist musician/tramp Padmadelic/Padma's website for a blast: www.padmadelic.com]
Racist Slime or Insensitive, Stupid Slip?
The political issue of the week was surely Bill Bennett's radio remarks, where in a bit of a tangle of issues he gave voice to the idea [or, perhaps, absurdist "thought experiment"] of aborting all black fetuses. Buddhists' perspectives on Bennett's words, in posts and appended comments, ranged from citing Bennett as clearly racist to finding his words to be, probably, merely insensitive and stupid.
In Genius of Insanity, James wrote "This obvious racist is not only refusing to apologize for his disgusting comments but he has now said that HE is the one who deserves an apology!!!" The post spurred a stream of dozens of comments.
In Woodmoor Village Zendo, Nacho posted twice on the topic [Here, and then here.]. After blasting Bennett, he wrote, "Racism survives as a mechanism of power not only in those that articulate support for past racist and discriminatory attitudes, but through those who would have us relegate such attitudes to anywhere but our present and future, those who are blind to white privilege, and those who see race from an essentializing perspective."
Chalip wrote in her blog, Zen Under the Skin, "If we think we can eradicate racism by denouncing people because they make outrageous statements, we miss an important point. Racism has receeded so far into the background that we don't really notice it. I believe racism is more dangerous and has more potential to harm when we see it in play in the subtle ways we deal with each other as members of different races than in rash, broadly publicized statements."
Terrance of Republic of T writes "It’s not a far leap to understanding that many Americans — even if they would never dream of saying so in public — silently agree with Bennett’s basic [bigotted] sentiment. Why? Because it was surprisingly easy for even some well-known liberal bloggers to come to Bennett’s defense. That makes it all to clear just how deep thinking like Bennett’s goes."
Elsewhere in Blogmandu
Virtual Zen’s Eric shows off his tattoos as part of an interviewed conducted by Sage Grouse.
Chalip of Zen Under the Skin, while desperately seeking Sunyata, pretty much finds it in a class called Understanding the Heart Sutra and in her independent studies of the sutra. She shares her happy finds in a long blog entry. She writes, "[I]f we extend emptiness as a mode of perception to everything around us, the suggestion is that we cannot find the 'eye-ness' in an eye any more than we can't find the 'I-ness' in ourselves."
In whiskey river this week, a nice chunk of wisdom from Zoketsu Norman Fischer surfaces. Here’s one sentence: “Thought includes the aroma of our being alive, but it also includes so much that is made, so much of doing and piling up, that it tempts us necessarily away from ourselves.”
Haiku of this zen life offered some wisdom, too – a comment that isn’t a comment following a one-sentence quote from Pema Chodron. This is the quote: "Enjoy your life without rejecting problems or suffering. How we suffer will be our practice."
John Soper, who formerly scribed the long-existent and singled-out-for-praise-by-Beliefnet blog Dharma Path, aka John’s Dharma Path, now has a new blog he shepards, a direct replacement, titled My Zen Life. In it this week, there’s a nice entry that tells the story of how Zen found him. A quote he shares at the end of his essay explains his ongoing commitment to his practice:
“Our main focus is in putting ourselves in the presence of the divine truth very directly and allowing our life to align with it.”
~ Ejo McMullen, resident priest at the Eugene Zendo in Eugene Oregon.
