The Middle Way

I've always thought that coming to the middle way from asceticism must be very different from coming to the middle way from hedonism. Coming from hedonism, the middle way might be indistinguishable from asceticism. 

The middle way is specific to the space between asceticism and hedonism. It rose out of the Buddha's nearly dying from asceticism. He turned to meditation, and found the way.

There are many things you could deprive yourself of in asceticism. Food is one. Sleep is another. The goal is to train oneself to not be reactive. Today I tried to not eat, though I drank water and coffee. I buckled after 16 hours, 8 hours short of 24 hours. 

Reading Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari he discusses the ancestral past. He is careful to point out that there is little known and that speculation is more about what we think than what happened. But he talks about in the past you would come upon a fig tree, full of fruit. You'd better eat as much as you can before the monkeys get it. You're unlikely to be able to store or come back to it.

The ancestral past would not have been about materialism because moving often would curb that. And there was little if any food storage. Maybe. So you gorged when you had the chance. (Agriculture flattened out the variety, and meant more work.) Humans are prone to gorging. When there is abundance, like there is in modern society, there becomes the problem of obesity. When you're young you can eat all you want and not gain. But the decades pass by and I find myself a big pile of mushy goo. Fasting is seen as the way to counter this. Surely we had lot of fasting in our ancestral past. 

In The Millionaire Next Door, the author points out that immigrants have an easier path towards living below their means and investing the surplus. Surprisingly Native Americans have more millionaires by percentage of population. The stereotype is a poor reservation. The poverty allows for living below your means. 

Chipping away at one's quality of life isn't easy or a fun project. It's like celibacy, it's not often talked about. Celibacy is just another form of depriving oneself, not reacting to the game of grasping at pleasure and pushing away pain. What would be the point of it, there must be some gains to doing such a project. 

Just as a lying politician can promise things s/he doesn't come through on, the individual wishes for more control about the world, but finds herself or himself coming up short. We are puny. Controlling yourself is an unattractive project, but it might be the thing you can get the most control over. Materialism says you can have it all, just buy things. The happiness movement says you deserve to be happy. We are relentlessly seeking to improve, get more. 

Spiritual materialism is when we go see all the famous teachers. Retreats at amazing retreat centers. The upper middle way is joked about. 

The image of men smashing their heads in The Holy Grail is funny. You don't hear much about finding hidden hairshirts on people these days. Asceticism has gone out of style. There are still monastics, though the numbers are decreasing. Buddhist communities are moving into unused Christian communities in the west as 200 years of exposure to this eastern religion take root.

There are many cautions about being too willful, and the parable of the lute strings. Asceticism is seen as an adolescent defense against wanting things in modern psychology. I can hear Donna Meagle and Tommy Haverford on Parks and Recreation saying, "treat yourself."

Then there are stories to the contrary. Charlie Parker practicing his saxophone 11-14 hours a day. One of the defining traits of Kobe Bryant was his working hard in the weight room. Bobby Sands hunger strike. I know some monks who were forest monks for 5 years. Ajahn Mun is one of my heroes, he was tough Forest Monk. There are also bodhisattvas like Samantha Powers who devote their life to trying to decrease genocides in the world.  

So this was just an exploration of asceticism, the middle way and hedonism. I am pushing myself to be more ascetic, which really is moving more towards the middle way.

I've been thinking that the protestant work ethic can be quite ascetic, and that having children can be quite self abnegating. Even Hillary Clinton complained about how boring it was to raise a child. 

Vegan memes

 

A Modest Proposal

With a wink to Jonathan Swift, I submit the following proposal.

Buddhists in the USA should vote republican. 

First off, your spiritual life is yours and yours alone. Nothing outside you matters. Provisional exercises are to help people. If the government is a wreck that means there are lots of opportunities for good works and charity. 

Secondly, if you know as all Buddhist do, that life is suffering, then to end life, is to end suffering. The policies that lead to more deaths, actually decrease suffering. Survival of the fittest. (But reward fundamentalists who don't believe in evolution.)

Therefore the policies that lead to the most deaths gets rid of the most suffering. No universal health care. Neverending wars. Racial wars and other tensions inside the country. Promote tribalism and pit every tribe against each other. Corrupt government that steals money from the people. Cronyism doesn't give the job to the best person of merit, and the is inefficient. Keep education broken so people can't figure out what's going on. Undercut the idea of truth and the 4th branch, the press, so there are no checks and balances. 

Destroy democracy. Create a lot of red herring scandals. Create a lot of strawman arguments. Lie, lie and lie some more. Whenever accused of something, just flip it and accuse the accuser of what they say you are doing. Be as hypocritical as humanly possible. That shows you have power. Exaggerate your popularity and attack anyone who attacks you. Make people pay, power is the ideology. Smite dissenters. 

Get rid of whistleblower protections. Get rid of ecological protections. Nominate the opposite of who would help out every department. Get a guy who competes with the post office to wreck it, so he has more business. Get an idiot to run education and promote private education, and religion in school schools. Better indoctrination, not education. 

Have so many people leave the sinking ship that it's hard to fill vacancies, and drag your feet to fill them so the government is less efficient. Fill the government with yes-men. Don't hire any minorities or women. Bring back the old boys network. Trade favors to enrich yourself.

Let the police escalate violence in protests. Do not help out the people in times of economic crisis, but the biggest corporations. Escalate class war. Create trade wars with other countries so that trade is hurt. Half stumble on a series of selfish moves that enact policies that kill the most people. Spend a lot of money on the leaders to highlight the differences between those who have power and those who don't. Encourage helplessness, hopelessness, and also have crap mental health policies. Blame everything bad on previous leaders, and take credit for anything good that accidentally happens. Have lax gun laws so that 35 children are sacrificed every year for the love of guns. Fill the police with right wing nut jobs who are not interested in the idea of limiting force to make people comply with whatever comes into their heads. Forget the courts, let the police be judge, juror and executioner. Use the police to incite race wars, class war, and tribalism.

Mismanage pandemics. Don't listen to the experts, in fact make fun of them. Make a bunch of terrible deals that in the end don't help the country, like getting ventilators that don't work. Put your worst people on the tasks. Promote bogus cures that kill people. Drink bleach. Don't coordinate with other countries, or indeed the governors and mayors of your own country. Only give a few favors to the highest bidders. If masks would decrease the pandemic, then say it really doesn't. Misinformation is key. Never wear a mask. Never console the people who have lost people. They are weak, let the dead bury the dead. Blame the victims. It was their fault.

Whenever possible put children in cages. Do as much othering as possible. Us versus them. Black and white thinking, demonizing, fear mongering. Pretend to be a traditionalist, and rant about how nobody really wants things the way they were in a imaginary nostalgic past. Squash evidence to the contrary. Reward every reprobate that embodies your power grab. Get rid of press conferences where representatives answer tough questions. 

The president is a huckster who sells the opposite of what people would want if they had enough education and were not distracted by shiny materialism. And promote those who help you sell these "policies" in the media. Have a national convention with no platform. Make political debate a dada dance to frustrate the opposition. Call anyone who pokes holes in your lies an intellectual, and keep the American anti-intellectual tradition. Call the opposition the party of resentment. Anyone who is rich who criticizes the system, point out that they are hypocrite rich to nullify their political ideas of fairness. For any oppressed group find one person who will agree with you and say, "see!" and, "It's all just hokum." The only thing that is sustainable, is people who will betray their tribes for baubles. 

The greatest virtue is selfishness and greed. Bail out the Ayn Rand institute if they almost go out of business. No hypocrisy there, keep it moving, gaslight whenever possible. What you going to believe your lying eyes?!

Keep Hitler's works at your bedside.

Basically it's the devo party. Reverse evolve back into feudalism, or even further. I don't know what came before feudalism but evolve back as far as you can go.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Statue replacement

Buddhist insights got their statue replace, and they sent the statue over to their Christian brethren. Pretty cool.

Feast of Pomona August 13th

Pomona was the Roman goddess of fruitful abundance. "Pomona was the goddess of fruit trees, gardens, and orchards. Unlike many other Roman goddesses and gods, she does not have a Greek counterpart, though she is commonly associated with Demeter. She watches over and protects fruit trees and cares for their cultivation. She was not actually associated with the harvest of fruits itself, but with the flourishing of the fruit trees. In artistic depictions she is generally shown with a platter of fruit or a cornucopia." You can read more stories in Ovid. 

Links:

Reverie at Benny's Place

Dinosaurs and Barbarians: It was the end of Summer in Rome, harvest festival, but this one centers on apples. I like the links to nature, the mythology that connected to nature.

Dalai Lama schedule

Here's the Dalai Lama's morning routine (reformatted from his website) :

• ⁠03:00 - wake up

• ⁠Shower

• ⁠prayers, meditations, & prostrations

• ⁠05:00 - walk

• ⁠05:30 - breakfast (hot porridge, tsampa (barley powder), bread with preserves, & tea)

• ⁠watch BBC World News

• ⁠06:00 - continue meditations, prayers, & prostrations

• ⁠09:00 - study texts

• ⁠11:30 - Lunch

This guy tried the schedule. 8 minutes

New Links on Buddhism:

Novice Monks 25 minutes

How Ancient Bengalis Established Buddhism in Tibet

Newar Buddhism

Remembering Tan Ajahn Buddhadāsa by Ajahn Sumedho

Lughnasadh

Lughnasadh is a Gaelic festival marking the beginning of the harvest season. Lammas is the English Christianized version of it. As a neopagan, who loves nature, I've been researching the upcoming holiday, which is August 1st, a week from today. Luckily we're going camping because being outdoors is crucial to celebrating Lughnasadh.

The one thing that I read that makes sense is the idea of climbing a mountain. I will make this time by climbing a mountain. The book about it is $400. Why do I covet books that are rare and cost so much used. There is stuff about Olympic type tournaments, and trial marriages.

John Barleycorn is mentioned because the English song is about the barley harvest. Here is an essay on the song. I'll just listen to the Steeleye Span version. I'm striving for sobriety, so perhaps that isn't to be the emphasis.

Celebrating the seasons and the natural rhythms of our ancestors is what my neopaganism is about. In my modern alienation, I seek not the pains of more simple times, but the virtues.



Links:

Magickal Winds "All About Lughnasadh"

A FB post by Monumental Ireland

Omnia Song

The Gypsy Thread

How to set up an Lughnasadh altar

Vinaya

The Vinaya has long mystified me. There is no best selling book or translation laying around so much. But with Buddhism being about what you do, not so much what theories you subscribe to, what you do is really important.

Now I have the 10 precepts to guide me with their principles. And I can confess to myself or another at the new moon and full moon. I wonder if there's some ground between the two.

I can find the list of 227 rules for men and the extra ones for women. There is a sort of complicated set of stuff where you might be thrown out of the sangha. This is called the Patimokkha.

I guess you have a dig a little bit more for them. They're not as sexy as the other stuff. But I was thinking that Dogen updated the rules of conduct for Japanese monks, and in a way, a lot of what we must do to adapt to American or western society is to update the rules.

I have been inspired by Thai monks who follow the Dhutanga rules. My hero Ajahn Mun was one of those who practiced them.

I found an inexpensive electronic version that I'm reading. It says this is the oldest of Buddhist literature. I guess they got the rules down first before they got to Anananda's suttas. One thing that interests me is the discussion to why things are made rules.

The Pāli Vinaya consists of:

Suttavibhaṅga: Pāṭimokkha and commentary
Mahāvibhaṅga: rules for monks
Bhikkhunīvibhaṅga: rules for nuns

Khandhaka: 22 chapters on various topics
Parivāra: analyses of rules from various points of view

The book above has the Pāṭimokkha and Mahāvibhaṅga I'll have to find the Khandhaka and Parivara somewhere else.

I think it's a mistake to avoid the vinaya. Even if just getting the name of a monk Upali. In a way ethical chopping up is like the Abhidharma, chopping chopping, but you can see the principles above.

So far the rules seem to be about basic harming others, sewing disharmony in the sangha and sort of planning to have sex, scheming towards sexual activity.

THE BODHYAṄGA

From A Concise History of Buddhism by Andrew Skilton:

(a) They begin with smṛti, or awareness, usually understood as awareness of the body, feelings, the mind and its thoughts, and finally of dharmas –these to be understood either as the objects of mind, or as the Dharma (Teaching) and the Reality it represents. 

(b) From general awareness one moves to awareness of one’s mental states in particular, through the investigation of mental factors, dharmavicaya, and the identification of those mental states which are positive and conducive to the spiritual life. 

(c) The third factor is vīrya, energy, both in the sense of the effort required to cultivate the positive mental states identified in the previous stage and the energy released by the resultant state of increasing clarity upon which one has entered. 

(d) The release and application of energy result in strong feelings of rapture (prīti), a delight and ecstasy which encompasses the entire psycho-physical organism. 

(e) The grosser elements of prīti subsiding, one experiences the more refined, purely mental praśrabdhi, a state of spiritual happiness in which awareness of one’s physical surroundings is minimized and one is absorbed in bliss. 

(f) The tendency towards absorption innate in the previous stage impels one naturally towards the superconscious states denoted by the term samādhi. These are the dhyānas, and represent states of total, unforced, and harmonious psychic integration. 

(g) The culmination of the Path is the state of upekṣā, equanimity. One is poised, free from wavering between psychological or spiritual opposites. It is a state of profound tranquillity and insight, and is synonymous with Enlightenment itself.

Compassion

I'm not sure when I'm going to get that children don't get sarcasm. I guess it's in my nature. A nasty adult habit. My daughter grew a half inch, and we were amazed she's growing. We joked about putting her in a cage so she doesn't shoot up too quickly. She got very worried, and said, "I don't want to be put in a cage." I suddenly flashed to the children of immigrants who are currently caged. It's really quite horrible. 

There's a republican critic in my head. Yes, if Obama did it, in the past which we cannot change while we're in talking about moving forward now, then that was bad too. Nobody said Obama was perfect. I don't experience republicans as honest debaters most of the time, and I have to translate them into more honest debates. You can't use my compassion against me. Pence saying the Covid tests were invasive, well, trying to control women's wombs is pretty invasive too. 

I get it that we can't cure the whole world's suffering and we have limited resources. I get it that overtaxing depresses capitalism and job growth. I get it that 47% don't want to expand the federal government, want less government. I get it that government can't solve every problem. I just want a government that can be compassionate and reflects that important value. Seems like we don't need to punish children. I get it they want it to be pretty scary to break the law and flee a country for better circumstances. But making profit off of the situation is equally heinous, and the government should run this stuff, because the profit motive is cruel as well. 

That republicans will hold their nose and support Trump is beyond me, but they can never comment about contradictions and hypocrisy. I call it the dada chacha of a death cult. Throw a liberal values argument at a liberal to confound them. The worst of all those is when people say plants have feelings too. If you really believed that you wouldn't eat meat, because less plants are used with a vegan diet. But no, they don't care about how plants feel, they are using your own sensibilities against you, and they don't even imagine their contradictions, they only hope to trap you. Dada chacha of a death cult. The only thing I can say about the republicans is that they won. They were willing to do what was needed to be elected. I'm sure it's going to backfire, but not enough in my opinion.

Proposal for the Washington Redskins

The Washington Redskins are the most egregious mascotting of the Native Americans. Red? At least the Cleveland Indians are just Indians, a mistake of geography. The Chicago BlackHawks at least pick a tribe name, like others.

I live near Saint John's college. They changed their name to the Red Storm quite a while ago. Not that inspiring but who needs a mascot for inspiration.

The Washington NFL team has announced they're going to change their mascot. Turns out hosting a bunch of tribal leaders in the owners box wasn't enough to cleanse the stain of the name. They announced they were going to keep the same color scheme.

So my suggestion is the Washington Amitabhas. Love! Maybe not the warrior mascot you were hoping for but quite a inspiring ideal. Love warriors with blunt head trauma.

What's your favorite mascot?

Knickerbockers are pretty lame. Capri pants or culottes? Metropolitains are lively sophisticates like myself I suppose. NYCFC doesn't have a mascot to my knowledge. City is my nickname for the team, and NYC is THE CITY in the USA, though often people think it's Sodom and Gomorrah. Rangers are cool, but aren't they from Texas? They were founded by a guy who grew up in Texas, so ....  I know they are an original 6. First USA team to win the cup. Jets are pretty cool things. Sky Blue has to be a bit ethereal. Who doesn't like blue skies. A metaphor for hassle free times.

If Washington became the Amitabha inspired team, I would have to change my allegiance.

Samantha Power

I'm reading Samantha Power's memoir The Education of an Idealist, and I think she is a bodhisattva. She is Catholic, so I won't try to put another tradition label on her, but I think she is fascinating.

I'm only 1/3 done with the book, but usually when I'm done with a book I'm not motivated to write.

Spoiler alert: Here is her story so far. She became a journalist to find out what was going on in Bosnia. She wrote a book about the history of genocide in modern times, and what practical things can be done beyond just sending in the troops. Obama read the book she got a Pulitzer Prize for, and they struck up a friendship. When he ran for president she worked on his campaign but she screwed up and after flying to London and getting off a call that irritated her, she misspoke about Clinton, but her comments were recorded. So she had to sit out the campaign until she apologizes to Hillary.

She's working for Obama and there's a big fight to call the Armenian genocide a "genocide". Don't tell me speaking truth to power isn't powerful. Obama didn't use the word against Turkey because they wanted to support diplomacy with them. He felt that the chance that Turkey would improve relations with Albian was more important. I'm not saying it isn't important. It was Power's fight to get the word genocide to be used that is fascinating. The word genocide was invented because of this event.

Power invented the word upstander to contrast bystander. She was struck by how people would say "never again" and yet it keeps happening. What can we do?

I've been struck by the Rohingya genocide because the hope was that a "Buddhist" country wouldn't be capable of such things. But of course countries don't practice a religion, individuals do. Countries that have a kind of unified culture that could be inspired by Buddhism--haven't really seen that.

Ahsoka was inspired by Buddhism and he's held up as the guy who used to go around murdering and conquering, and then converted and became peaceful.

Obama's speech for getting the Nobel Prize for Peace is a defense of the just war doctrine. I'm personally as peaceful as I can be, and chide myself for my errors. I remember going to a talk at the University of Wisconsin where a philosopher talked about the ethics of the just war. The idea that we sit out World War 2 and not liberate the remaining Jewish people where were not yet exterminated is morally repugnant.

Powers asks if we could have bombed some of the railroad tracks that led to Concentration Camps, to slow down the slaughter. Thus Powers is not much of an idealist, she wants to do anything, small practical things, to fight even if it's in small ways, against genocide.

Wikipedia has a list of genocides. The Holocaust, Ukrainian, Poland, China, Cambodia, Kazakh, Bangladesh, and then we get to Armenian. Then Indonesia and Rwanda. It seems that every continent is full of these events. I haven't read Power's book, but she discusses how she discovered and learned about these things. She also does a lot of bearing witness, going to place and interviewing people, and then talking about it.

We like stories like Hotel Rwanda or Schindler's List because they portray people fighting against genocide, and yet they can't mask the horrors.

I heard about the Ukrainian genocide when I met a Ukrainian mother at the park. I recently read Buried My Heart At Wounded Knee about the American genocide of Native Americans. I'm not going to say I need to be educated about every single one, but I also need to not bury my head in the sand.

At a certain point in Power's struggle, I realized she was fighting unabashedly for not killing people and was therefore a bodhisattva. She took risks, her husband didn't want her going on a trip that was dangerous. She fought to have truthful language. She became a journalist to find out, she went to law school to increase her power, she worked in government to work on these issues. She became what was needed to fight these issues. She learned Serbo-Croatian.

I'm sure she's not perfect and people could criticize her mistakes in life, or quibble with aspects. But I am highly impressed with this woman, and I find her efforts and memoir fascinating.

I watch Community. Britta is all about knowing about these genocides, the murder of journalist. She tries to date one of Abed and Troy's friend. She ruins their friendships by giving details about these guys. So she witholds that one of their friends was a terrible murderer in the Bosnian genocide. She holds her tongue because she doesn't want to ruin it for Troy and Abed, but later when they find out, they yell at her for not thinking that was significant enough.

Power discusses bringing Ratko Mladić to justice, and the hunt to find him, holding people accountable in this modern age where information is more available.

Endnote: I don't think the USA should be the cops of the world, we are too imperfect and selfish in our deployment of military. But I really like having this aspect in the government working by all practical means to fight against genocide.

Preventing Genocide by Madeleine Albright

Food blessing

This food is a gift of the earth, the sky, numerous living beings, and much hard and loving work.
May we eat with mindfulness and gratitude so as to be worthy to receive this food.
May we recognize and transform unwholesome mental formations, especially our greed and learn to eat with moderation.
May we keep our compassion alive by eating in such a way that reduces the suffering of living beings, stops contributing to climate change, and heals and preserves our precious planet.
We accept this food so that we may nurture our brotherhood and sisterhood, build our Sangha, and nourish our ideal of serving all living beings.

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