I'm reading my final Bill Porter (Red Pine) travel book: South of the Yangtze.
Bill Porter has 6 amazing travel books in China, from when he traveled there in the 1989 to 2006:
Road to Heaven: Encounters with Chinese Hermits 1993
Zen Baggage: A Pilgrimage to China 2008
Yellow River Odyssey 2014
South of the Clouds: Travels in Southwest China 2015
South of the Yangtze: Travels Through the Heart of China 2016
The Silk Road 2016
There's one book called Finding Them Gone (2015), where he goes to poets gravesites, and it's so disappointing to go visit famous poet graves, and nobody knows who they were. I'm not sure if I'm going to read that one, but it's a 7th book. I realize I've miscounted. There's potentially one more to read. That happens a number of times in the 6 books I've read. He talks about going back to places he's already been before, and he's quite a traveler in China, retracing his steps at times.
I've loved his poetry translations of Stonehouse, Cold Mountain and others. Thought I would link my past blogs on Bill Porter:
Discussing Zen Baggage: That blog post had a lot of Porter links:
“For many decades, I’ve felt that it was my responsibility, together with my hundreds and thousands of colleagues, to address and change the trajectory of climate and biodiversity in order to bequeath a much safer planet to future generations,” she said. “When you have that self-imposed responsibility on your shoulders, it makes the work very, very hard because there are so many things we don’t control.”
From: "What Christiana Figueres thinks the climate movement can learn from Buddhism: Figueres, the architect of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, has been helping people around the world understand the teachings of Buddhist monk and peace activist Thích Nhất Hạnh." at Yale Climate Connections
"Thích Nhất Hạnh often used composting as a metaphor for transformation. He summarized the idea with a pithy aphorism: “No mud, no lotus,” referring to the idea that the lotus flower only roots and blooms in the mud. He taught that people spend much of their time in the mud, wading through complex, inescapable, emotional experiences." (op cit)
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The Chengling Stupa, also known as "Green Stupa", was built in 867 and has been rebuilt numerous times since then. the stupa is multi-eaves style brick stupa with 9 stories. It has an octahedral shaped hollow tiers and is 30.47-metre (100.0 ft) high. It is composed of a stupa base, a sumeru throne and a dense-eave body. The sumeru throne and banisters were engraved patterns of various flowers and birds.
Linji was an iconoclastic teacher who used shocking language in vernacular Chinese to disrupt the tendency of his listeners to grasp at concepts such as buddhas, patriarchs, bodhisattvas, stages of practice and levels of attainment. He famously said, "If you meet a buddha, kill the buddha."
Linji traveled to Jiangnan where he met Chán master Huángbò Xīyùn, at some point between 836 and 841. He likely stayed with Huangbo at Mount Huangbo for about three years until he had a great enlightenment. Linji questioned Huangbo three times about the central meaning of Buddhism and Huangbo struck him three times. Then Huangbo sent Linji to meet the reclusive monk Dàyú. After exchanging some words with this monk, Linji attained an awakening. He then returned to Huangbo and told him what had occurred. Huangbo slapped Linji, saying “You lunatic, coming back here and pulling the tiger’s whiskers!” Then Linji responded with a loud shout.
Slowly studying the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā of Nagarjuna. Reading very slowly. Watching a bunch of videos around him in the hopes it provides more of a bed to place my understandings.
Some scholar names: Jay L. Garfield, David Kalupahana, and Geshe Ngawang Samten, Joseph Walser, McClintock, and Dunne.
I'm listening to Dr. Jan Westerhoff on YouTube today.
Fascinating talk about rebirth. The argument for rebirth is this. When you start a fire, and then fire burns down the neighbors field, you don't say, that wasn't my fire, my fire was over here. Another example is if I say jalapeno pepper, my mouth just waters. There was no physical cause except the physical cause of thinking of jalapeno, so it's considered that rebirth is similar to that (from Richard Hayes).
The conceptual problem of not having rebirth is that then when we all die, everyone goes to nirvana.
He goes in Nelson Goodman's constructivism. I read his Ways of Worldmaking (1978). Causality is complicated.
One person writes in the comments: "The problem is these arguments for rebirth are so complicated and speculative. Why not just accept rebirth teachings as skillful means and be done with it?"
My response is, why even comment? Why not walk away with your blissfully uncomplicated life? Would you like more people like you? Would you like to be seen as witty and wise without really putting in any work, just declining to see complications?
Westerhoff has studied philosophy in general, not just Buddhist philosophy and he brings in modern developments into the understanding of karma.
Prof. Asanga Tilakaratne on YouTube. Sound quality gets bad at 21, sorry, couldn't listen any more.
Thupten Jinpa's introduction on YouTube in a short 7 minute video.
"You must also “guard the doors of the sense faculties” lest “evil unwholesome states assail” you. This does not mean you don’t look, you don’t hear, and so forth; it means you do not get carried away by what you see, hear, sense, and cognize. Can you walk past a bakery, with its door open (of course), smell the wonderful aroma of the goods on offer, enjoy that smell, and yet not be tempted into entering and buying something? That’s guarding the door of the nose faculty. The senses are totally necessary for navigating our environment—but they are not an amusement park, at least not if you are intent on developing the higher mind needed for liberation. It’s perfectly OK to enjoy the pleasures that come via the senses—but don’t let your enjoyment of them lead you to becoming even more entangled in the world of delusion. It’s perfectly OK to respond to unpleasant sense contacts by dealing appropriately with the situation. But in neither case should the sense contacts lead to craving and clinging; if they do, then the sense doors are unguarded, and progress on the spiritual path is hindered."
Right Concentration (2015) by Leigh Brasington
Statues of Mahasthamaprapta and Avalokitesvara on lotus pedestals. China, Northern Qi dynasty, 6th century AD
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