This week’s Open Thread.
- Zach Goldberg, the guy who coined the “Great Awokening”, is now blogging at Substack. You should give him a follow.
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Alex Tabarrok observed that it is “depressing” that you’d have done better investing in Dogecoin this year than in Pfizer. I think this is a function of (1) vaccines being priced in, and (2) populism was never going to allow Big Pharma to extract significant profits from Corona vaccines, so furthermore, it was never even going to be worth much in the first place. In fact, pharma as a whole not only underperformed Dogecoin or crypto, but even the stock market as a whole. If the vaccines were created to “enrich” Big Pharma, as conspiracy people claim, they sure were not very competent at the “enrichment” part.
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TIL. Wikipedia – Complaint tablet to Ea-nasir. (h/t Daniel Chieh). The original salesman from hell.
It’s pretty funny, but a large percentage of the early Russian birch-bark manuscripts also concern various kinds of commercial disputes. E.g., one from 1025-1050:
The most amusing of these is a letter written by a guy called Zhirovit to another guy called Stoyan demanding the repayment of a nine year old debt of 4.5 grivnas. Otherwise, he threatened to sue Stoyan and to seek confiscation of his property. According to linguistic clues, Zhirovit is very likely a non-Novgorodian, perhaps from Smolensk, Vitebsk, or Polotsk.
- AP: The NFL says it will halt the use of “race-norming” — which assumed Black players started out with lower cognitive functioning — in a $1 billion settlement of brain injury claims. The practice had made it harder for Black players to qualify. Commenting such things is tiring at this point, and probably worthless. “Those who know, know.”
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Insomniac Resurrected:
- Black Sun Azov Magazine With Protasevych Will Earn you a Zucc
- If Your Facebook Profile gets Tagged by Fact-checkers, Your Ass Will be Shadow-blocked
This is the current Open Thread, where anything goes – within reason.
If you are new to my work, start here.
Commenting rules. Please note that anonymous comments are not allowed.
https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/337/849/4b4.png
Apparently, there is a sex tape, circulating on the internet, featuring a Navalny ally Lubov Sobol’ and her Dagestani lover.
https://twitter.com/VatnikVII/status/1400868099008647177
Russia completes first pipeline of Nord Stream 2.
Women, children, and apparently Polish, most hurt.
https://www.ft.com/content/b9f4af6e-deef-473d-b4fd-0329ab1f1d03
Ukraine Uncensored & Related Missives
Better late than never, this JRL promoted piece:
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/skeptics/ukraine%E2%80%99s-accelerating-slide-authoritarianism-186368
came out two years after this one:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/04/24/gauging-ukraine-with-russia-and-belarus/
On the subject of TNI, is this a setup?
https://nationalinterest.org/profile/michael-averko
While positively noting some of its content, I’ve also been a well reasoned critic of TNI’s overall slant. If svidos can be an influential part of the US foreign policy establishment, than there should be room for pro-American/pro-Russian moderates. Related:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/05/22/bbc-limits-and-related-censorship-on-russia-coverage/
Some people can be their own worst enemies.
Vaccines have always been avoided by big Pharma. They depend on Universities, Charities and governments for development. the only need for big Pharma this time was for rapid production by the billion.
Symbolic of this bar chart.
https://img.yicaiglobal.com/cdn/images/2021/06/637581393788585158.png
A sharp reply to the sanctions regarding the SCF:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/06/04/think-tank-wars-and-the-enforcement-of-thought-crime-laws/
Isn’t her husband some Azov/svidomy type? Only proper that he got cucked by a Chad Dag.
I think I’ve found quite possibly the most perfect description of the current state of Chinese culture:
In a way, it reminds me of the West in the 19th century when it’s ascent was at it’s peak – unparalleled cultural and economic development, yet at the same time absolutely dreadful working conditions for the lower classes, blood sports (animal cruelty) and so on and so forth. Yet at the same time the materialistic cancer is appearing in China despite the fact that their ascent hasn’t reached it’s end yet because Western civilization has subsumed every other one.
Most Westerners don’t seem to understand this. They go for the “hurr carpet nuke china they treat animals badly” while 250 years ago it was the same goddamn shit in their countries too. Like, their thinking style is “we don’t do that, you must magically advance your society in a day, otherwise we will jack off at the thought of exterminating you.”
Obvious conclusion – from global mankurtization/globohomo, to this rabid form of thinking, der ewige westoid is the biggest threat to human survival and advancement.
As far as i know, TNI is realist school of foreign policy funded by Nixon Foundation or something. So their thinking is dual approach – they want to do “Nixon goes to China” thing except this time, go to Russia, and get Russia to join US to contain China.
Also, as realists, they correctly understand that US Empire is expensive and contrary to US national interest. I mean, they call themselves The National Interest for a reason. As such, they dislike neocon/neoliberal/globalist vision at American expense. So they are more receptive to Putin’s multipolar international framework and live and let live approach.
But its an American Interest publication, not a Russian Interest.
What do you think about autonomous drone attack (Turkish drones reportedly used at Libya.)? There has been a lot of news report and pieces recently, mostly negative from the West. I read a piece comparing it to detonation of atomic bomb (lmao).
I think the West, particularly USA, particularly dislike to see cheap and effective drones developed by 2nd tier country and sold pretty much anyone. Affordable killing machines can damage USA hegemony on high tech military equipment. USA don’t want to sell drones, why shouldn’t I go and buy from others? At the end, there’s no congress, no drama, no sanction etc…
America Sucks and is stupid the American military is criminally incompetent and unbelievably corrupt and stupid. Not a controversial thesis but here is some recent evidence
1)failed missile interceptor test. First of all missile defense by way of hitting a missile with another missile or a laser is impossible, second it is just a way of shoving tax payer dollars to greedy fucks, and to fucking fail on top of it all.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-missile-defence-fails-test-drill-military-shoot-down-target-north-korea-a8188236.html
this is from another test from 2017 but embarrassing reasoning http://www.defensenews.com/naval/2017/07/24/sailor-error-led-to-failed-us-navy-ballistic-missile-intercept-test/
2)America is behind on hypersonic missiles and can’t even launch their prototypes during tests, they simply do not have the brain power and discipline and selflessness to make advanced weapons
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/air-force-hypersonic-missile-test-fails-to-launch-from-b-52/ar-BB1fmDhE
3) U.S navy ships crashing because of incompetence and overwork of crews and fucking touch screen ship steering, https://militarytruth.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/The-Navy-installed-touch-screen-steering-systems-to-save-money.-Ten-sailors-paid-with-their-lives..pdf you can’t make this shit up
RIP those who lost their lives, though they be Americans they deserve better.
The U.S empire is over, the end.
So South Africa’s population is expected to get younger in 2050?
Amd India’s too? How does that go with falling fertility, and India’s aging population? The southern states are already below 2.1.
If Indian cognitive elites are so smart, why is India a lot worse run than East Asian states?
Socialism vs caste system. Chinese are more equal and meritocratic and Indian smart caste simply doesn’t care about the underlings. Indian rich live very nice.
Reading a lot of horror stories about inflation dooming us all, and indeed CPI is above 4%.
And yet 10 year Treasury sells for glorious 1.55%. Either our Financial Wizards want to lose a lot of money, or something doesn’t add up. And yes Fed is running $120 billion/month QE but that’s been stable for months as far as i know.
Most of their smart fraction is working in American hospitals, tech companies and universities.
Do Indian rich never leave their house? That doesn’t sound too appealing to me.
When killer drones get small and cheap enough Gates and Bezos and Zuckerberg will to have to live under ground 24/7. The future does not completely suck!
It is priced in and “not allowed to extract significant profits” because the way vaccines are imposed and marketed, with as much bad news as good news being propagated, is intentionally divisive thru physical segregation and political polarization. Before that, everyone has been used to losing much of economic and social rights, and the structural social-distancing imposed since the lockdowns (The “international travel not bouncing back” is a good example – year-long border closures and the vaccine passport ensure that a good portion give up their dreams of ever leaving the country)
Whoever going beyond being a black-and-white antivaxxer can see Big Pharma not as the ends, but one of the means. As a Russian who hasn’t been subject to serious lockdowns after the initial burst last March-May and whose prime vaccine is a state effort, our host don’t really see the plot.
The urban young generation is “lying low” (躺平), like the Japanese youth before them.
This is actually related to the predominant employment type: in the 70s heydays, and even up to now, Japan had a rigid system of life-long employment security with career progress based on seniority for the middle class (I’ll assume the working class is close to that, but being more flexible). There was definitely long hours of overwork, but you could at least have a drink at the end of the day while being a breadwinner for stable families.
Come the ’90 crash and the liberalization of labor markets – part-time and freelance (“freeter”) jobs now absorb a significant part of the workforce if not being predominant. Irregular hours and earning barely enough for convenience store food and rent mean eating and sleeping irregularly, bury yourself in otaku pursuits, and have no means for raising kids.
Dengism is this, but with everything played up to Randian levels. There have only been a small contingent of really secure labor, while everyone else races to the bottom.
Blinky Bill posted an interview with Nabiullina, Russian Central Banker.
She noted that to derisk, she wanted to reduce currency holdings in Central Bank portfolio. At this time, it means increase gold reserves.
Effectively, as dollar is eliminated, euro and yuan will take its place alongside with gold. This makes sense because EU and China are Russian trade partners and US is not. Russia doesn’t need USD because Russia doesn’t do much trade with US. It makes no sense for Russia to hold useless dollars.
In reality, Reserve Currency is an obsolete Boomer concept. If in like 1970’s if Angola wanted to trade with Mongolia and didn’t know relative prices, reserve currency was helpful. But since the 80’s at least there was such thing as Internet and fast electronic currency trading.
Whatever currency trading and hedging tools are there for the dollar either already exist for any currency pair or can be developed easily. There is no need for USD or any other currency as middleman. In the past, management of multiple currencies was complicated, today its algorithmic numbers on a computer.
You don’t need reserve currency anymore. Just currency of your trading partners, and hedge your prices and contracts accordingly. So save USD for countries that trade with US, no need for it to be global. And Russia doesn’t really needed until trade with US become significant.
I’ve only been in Gujarat and New Delhi about a decade ago, in my limited experience they live in nice walled villas and drive to gleaming technoparks to work. They drive by people literally living in shipping containers on the side of the highway.
Never been to China, so can’t say how things are done over there.
it amazes me that the powers-that-be across the world and over time never seem to see the danger in masses of their young men having nothing to lose
You forgot the superpowered mystery drone that violated US airspace, scouted critical infrastructure, and escaped not one but two helicopters after a 70 mile chase in Arizona last February:
FBI hunting souped-up drone that air-trolled a border patrol chopper
https://dronedj.com/2021/05/24/fbi-hunting-souped-up-drone-that-air-trolled-a-border-patrol-chopper/
New info surfaces on mysterious Tucson ‘high-powered’ drone
https://dronedj.com/2021/06/02/new-info-surfaces-on-mysterious-tucson-high-powered-drone/
Never mind all the other mystery drones trolling US nuclear plants, destroyers off San Diego, and THAAD installations on Guam.
Time to reply all the other posts!
Crypto-imperialist mourning the loss of “their” country’s dominance.
Culturally China also had a caste-like division of the “Four occupations”: gentry-scholars, peasantry, artisans and merchants (the order’s rationale is apparent to any traditionalist). But this had never been as rigid as India or even Japan’s castes. The gentry class fused with merchants and the peasantry with artisans: rich merchants buying bureaucratic titles, scholars owning land and making money, and labor moving between the fields in peak seasons and the workshops off-season.
This goes a long way in explaining deep-seated cultural differences.
(Japan industrialized after the caste system fell apart in late bakufu)
Asset price inflation and people hoarding money because of having their normalcy upended by lockdowns and the false-reopening?
We’re just getting started.
This is why the central banks are impatient to get CBDCs set up – they can write-off bad debts with a currency reset.
Reserve currencies are based on the concept of backing – having an anchor in assets which mostly retain their value in the medium term. In the olden days, per Mises’ regression theorem, valuable goods such as precious metals become the reserve currency, and then states minted those. Due to wars and Keynesianism everyone went off the gold standard and onto Bretton Woods, which is backed by USD priced in gold. Vietnam led to USD going off gold standard and everyone followed suit, leading to freely-floating currencies either backed by economic strength, other commodities (petrodollar), or Uncle Sam’s guns (in the case of USD). CBDCs will be backed by banning any other means of payment and controlling channels of distribution, like how the Eastern Bloc did it.
You don’t apparently see the point of reserve currencies, so I have to explain all these to you.
See my CBDC comment above. (China-bashing goes nowhere when the US and Europe have the potential to sink even further)
They’ll either clamor for UBI, quit the system or throw themselves at the riot cops. Compliance, flight or fight.
If we still had supply chains for killer drones.
“I learned to live simply.”
– Anna Ahkmatova
I recommend collectible stamps over USD, or Euro, RMB for that matter then.
Fictional foreign assets that you can’t even access if you get sanctioned make no sense in the modern world.
Here is the rate at which we are creating USD backed financial assets.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TCMDO
Euro, RMB, etc are likely following the same path.
The good news is this plot is consistent and predictable. The bad news is unless you trade in USD, you know for a fact that if you purchased a $trillion of those assets today, there will be like $10 trillion of that printed next year. Unless you plan on increasing your shipments to US by $9 trillion, that money is useless to you, and that $1 trillion that you already have is sort of useless too unless you import $1 trillion worth of goods from US. Which you won’t as US always runs trade deficit. And if you want to buy something strategic, even if Congress allows (and they won’t, national security reasons), people who just got fresh $9 trillion will outbid your pathetic $1 trillion.
Clearest example is China. They spent a generation working insanely hard to accumulate $1 trillion in reserves. It was their life. And then Federal Reserve showed up and printed $4 trillion in a week with a few keystrokes.
Trollolol. Too bad Chinese. You think China will win a bidding war vs Federal Reserve and associated banks? LOL no. Their $1 trillion is worthless, and they can’t even spend it domestically. China wasted a life of one generation of their people on imaginary numbers that can be created in unlimited quantity at will.
At least China trades with US, but it won’t last long. Once US sanctions start, that $1 trillion will become completely worthless.
Again, i recommend collectible stamps over currencies of non trading partners. Russians understood that a while back. Rest of the world is slower on the uptake, but they will catch on. Only fools will hold on to reserve currency without trading component.
They don’t care. It’s a very dog eat dog world there.
I said “reserve currencies”, not “exchange and trade currencies” (but you are right if you speak in term of pure fiat)
Collectible stamps, or physical commodities you can barter (precious metals foremost, raw materials second). Cryptos possibly.
Chartalist theories (domestically) or exchange currencies (for international trade) besides, it is ultimately real production and flows of goods and service that matters.
Sure. China loses that trillion of scrap paper, the US loses some or maybe most of its good imports, and the World loses supply chains and will head towards economic collapse worse than the Great Depression. You are talking about trade embargoes between the 2 largest economies on the Globe, one never tried on the Soviets since the 70s.
The collateral damage will be great – practically an economic nuclear strike, and a MAD at it.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/700813543720747009/850686153844981790/5bwj7enijd371.png
http://exiledonline.com/war-nerd-classic-in-praise-of-sikhs-the-coolest-warrior-tribe-around/
https://twitter.com/amaanbali/status/1400332309178372096?s=20
https://www.reddit.com/r/Sikh/comments/6giiu5/myths_misconceptions_about_1984/
ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕਾਖਾਲਸਾਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕੀਫਤਿਹ
Dear Bill P, I would now like to answer to your comment, sorry that I’m two weeks late, but better late than never.
Yes, I do know that Kant was speaking of noumena, I just forgot to make a distinction between phenomena and noumena, because from Buddhist perspective there is no such distinction between things. In Buddhist Logico-epistemology or Pramana-vada everything that exists affects our reality in some way, either by it’s presence or by absence, in our opinion there are only two valid means of gaining proper knowledge of phenomena, either by perception or inference, there are things that do affect by negation, as an example one of your close friends dies, he still continues affect things by not being present, every situation would lack him and his input, or in other words he would still have effect upon reality by power of negation. Therefore if God exists he must have some kind of effect in our reality, he must interact with the reality in some way, if he does not interact with our reality, then what kind of omnipotent God is that? If he interacts, then his nature must be somehow empty of inherent existence, it means that he does feel an urge to change things somehow, which then means that he can’t have a permanent state of being, in other words he is a subject to change, and something that is under a change, can not be an Absolute.*
I don’t know much about Nominalism, but I always thought that it’s a Medieval Scholastic philosophy, and more or less moribund nowadays. Interesting, thank you!
I should clarify that Doctrine of Emptiness or Sunyavada is not a philosophy in itself, just a tool for Buddhist practitioners, a mental instrument for liberating us from subtle forms of clinging in the path of renunciation and self-sacrifice. Sunyavada does not deny that things do exist conventionally, and thoughts like, “gender is a social construct,” are seen as very opposite of liberating beings from self grasping(upadana).
Doctrine of Emptiness does not negate the existence of things, only that things do not exist independently. It is a great truth because it affirms all morals, it says that there is no happiness without ethics, that all happiness in our reality arises then we we do understand that our happiness and others happiness is dependent on each other. If we lack of intrinsic nature, then what is our true nature? Our true nature is our dependent nature, what we do, how we interact, that is what we are, that is how we experience the reality, so if we are moral and compassionate, then we are good, in other words our true nature is Buddha-Nature! But our past acts define what we can do in the future and how we react to new things, therefore the doctrine of Emptiness/Selflesness and Buddhanature is not a purely relativistic teaching! In a such way the problem of evil is easily solved in Buddhism, evil arises when beings think that their happiness is separate from the happiness of other beings, in other words evil is a delusion and illness, nothing else! This also does not mean that we should necessarily leave our homes and start washing the feet of refugees, to truly help we must also understand the Karmic/Causal chains that have led a being to his current state, without administering right medicine for a particular illness, you can never truly help others, metaphorically speaking, without understanding the causes that have led a being to his present state, we can never truly help him. It’s common sense that giving money to a drunk or junkie will not help, also as long as we are not Buddhas, it is wise for us to be conscious about out limited nature, and that we err easily, therefore a Buddhist layman should first help his loved ones, and only then when he has mastered that precious skill, go forward and try to help masses, step by step grow his field of compassion by genuine practice.
All things exist in relation with each other! Sunyata/Emptiness does not deny existence of things**, but negates the illusionary modes of existence created by our confused mind. Some westerners do not understand that out teachings will not make any sense if taken out of the Buddhist context, they are just means to an end, which is welfare of all sentient beings, to all Mahayana Buddhists concept of Sunyata is intimately, or should I even say intrinsically(lol) linked with the concept of Tathagatagarbha, Buddhanature.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20John%204%3A7-21&version=KJV
Great man He was and truly a God!
**Though there are some minor schools, that deny even the conventional existence, MADNESS, I say!
And this living simply did not impede her from creating beautiful poetry and raising her son in manner that would allow him producing an outstanding contribution to ethnography (ethnogenesis through passionarity).
Being rich and comfortable is good, staying human is better. If you need to choose, do it wisely.
https://myhero.com/content/images/thumbs/0140456_anna-akhmatova.jpeg
https://magazines.gorky.media/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/LG.jpeg
https://irrussianality.wordpress.com/tag/lev-gumilev/
“Lev Gumilev’s Ethnogenesis and the Biosphere (which, for those of you who don’t know, is an influential work in neo-Eurasianist thought). It certainly isn’t light reading, and is more than a little odd. The idea that ethnic groups (ethnoi) are a product of an upsurge of people who have a mutation giving them a greater capacity to convert energy into work (passionarnost’) is weird enough. The idea that this energy comes from the animate matter of the ‘biosphere’ and also from some sort of mysterious and undefined ‘cosmic radiation’ is downright kooky. At least old Lev was smart enough to realize that the ‘noosphere’ [derived from the Greek word ‘nous’, meaning mind] was a load of nonsense, but otherwise I can’t say that he convinced me of his theories. I sympathize with those who think that they’re pseudo-scientific gobbledegook. “
I can never get away from the impression that 95% of irrationalist Rightism is a load of horseshit. Everyone can cook up stories like these.
Not a reply to your understanding, but speaking of Buddhism:
I’ve been thinking if the prevalence of Sufism in Turkey and India are because of these people’s (cultural or actual) ancestors being Buddhists. Turkic types in Central Asia had been heavily Buddhist, and the cultural ethos acquired from Buddhism stayed even after embracing Islam, spreading into Persia and Anatolia after adopting a Sufi guise…
It’s all orgones, all the way down.
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0441/7919/4022/products/org123h_1296x.jpg
Gumilyov was not a Rightist at all. He was a Soviet ethnographer. Biosphere and Noosphere as states of evolution of living matter were developed by Vernadsky and widely accepted in Soviet scientific circles.
As I replied above to melanf, the fact that they missed crucial elements to describe the underlying mechanism, does not invalidate their observations.
I have read a number of Gumilev’s books when i was like 10 (that’s what you get for growing up in librarian family) and that’s not how i remember it at all.
‘Passionarnost’ is an idea adopted from biology (those logistics growth curves that all life follows – steady state, exponential growth to fill the niche, steady state, decline) and applied to culture. I think that was a pretty clever approach and its still valid to this day.
As for energy, ‘cosmic radiation’, and ‘biosphere’… Err… Seriously? Gumilev studied Eurasian nomadic tribes (Mongols, Turkic tribes etc) and how rainfalls, draughts, solar radiation etc were impacting nomadic migration patterns.
In a modern world where if you are hungry you can buy a potato from Japan or whatever Gumilev has less relevance. But in middle ages and earlier, climate had massive impact on both settled cultures and nomadic migration. How is that ‘kooky’? And yes, for people of those times energy came from organic source – horse. Of course. And horse ate animate matter – grass. Grass was impacted by sun radiation and rainfall. How is that controversial in any way i don’t understand.
Doesn’t Dugin work with his Eurasianism? If Gumilev rejected European influence and praised the Mongols, that fits Dugins work, afaik. From a modern perspective, that’s a right-wing idea.
Using the famous meme as a template:
Gumilyov did nothing wrong…
https://lib.herzen.spb.ru/media/exhibition/2/2/02_2.jpg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/68/Stamps_of_Kazakhstan%2C_2012-12.jpg/220px-Stamps_of_Kazakhstan%2C_2012-12.jpg
The simple fact that Russian Westernizers and their post-Khazar allies hate him and disparage him, is proof enough that Gumilyov’s insights are valuable.
Using epigenetics to explain mass differences in psychologies seems like an empty theory to me. All things are possible, but then again, all things are possible.
LOL
If you gave one population a regular dose of lead in their food to grow up with, while their clones in another population did not, they would exhibit quite divergent psychologies. Technically speaking, epigenetics isn’t any different, via triggers on methylation that alter expression of genes which affect neurotransmitter profile, which will affect psychology and thus personality.
Vodka can provide an accessible experiment on this.
Did he have a comment on the Genghis Khan process of going up to a mountain top and then after taking his army in the direction the Sky God instructed him at?
Maybe the guys at Cambridge and Harvard think this is too silly to give a minute of discussion to but there must be some nuanced views.
Russian Government to move further towards “traditional values”
New National Security Strategy:
https://rg.ru/2021/05/31/patrushev-raskryl-neizvestnye-podrobnosti-zhenevskoj-vstrechi-s-sallivanom.html
https://www.mk.ru/economics/2021/05/30/chto-izmenitsya-s-1-iyunya-shtrafy-za-rezinu-kontrol-cen.html
The US has had plenty of accidents and disasters before with the military – the Mark 14 torpedo, results of the Bikini Atoll tests, etc.
The empire will likely endure this reasonably.
Is there an update or followup post for this?
https://www.unz.com/akarlin/afrotriumphalism
Based. But if you dislike Putin and hate westernizers, what do you believe in?
Agreed, but the normal epigenetics anecdote seems to be along the lines of “my ancestors worked very hard as slaves, which changed my genetics, so I npw need to catch up on sleep.”
As if flapping your arms will give you, and your kids, the genes for wings.
Epigenetics as another word for magic is pretty common, unfortunately.
Probably not. Should there be? I don’t think much has changed.
I believe in the biological and spiritual survival of my kin and kind. Starting with, but not limited to my own genetic lineage. See my reply to FerW on the previous open thread.
Epigenetics is the word for the environmental impact upon the expression of genetic information mediated through the modification (mainly methylation, but also supercoilng or relaxation of DNA) in utero and early childhood. As I wrote in my reply to mal above, the majority of people who hear this word have no clue what it means.
Below a nice review on the topic, see for yourself if that might perhaps explain some of the things Gumilyov has described :
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32706263/
A psychology is first and foremost the amount and balance of neurotransmitters in your brain. Do we agree?
Look, flat out you said it’s not your job to tell others what to find sacred or not.
Ie you won’t get a Dharmic state that bans cow slaughter & promotes Honor killing.
Therefore, you’re an unserious homosexual।।
https://twitter.com/Parikramah/status/1287794290886873091?s=20
ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕਾਖਾਲਸਾਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕੀਫਤਿਹ
At times, both interests work – arguably more so than is generally noted.
The basic TNI slant is realist, while giving space to neocon and svido views. My contention remains that there should be room for the pro-American/pro-Russian perspective. Concerning TNI:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/08042016-fuzzy-history-how-poland-saved-the-world-from-russia-analysis/
https://www.eurasiareview.com/07112016-realists-on-russia-analysis/
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/08/21/getting-real-with-the-us-foreign-policy-establishment-realists/
https://www.eurasiareview.com/25052020-what-evelyn-fakas-trey-gowdy-and-some-others-dubiously-have-in-common-oped/
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2017/10/11/slanting-against-russia-us-establishment-pastime/
https://www.eurasiareview.com/31082017-talking-russia-continued-us-foreign-policy-establishment-limits-analysis/
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/09/21/remembering-stephen-cohen/
Not really. Even if somewhat true, that view is so reductionist as to be unhelpful. Like saying a container is foremost for storing things, therefore it has water in it, as water is a thing.
Bashibuzuk has collected two accusations of homosexuality in two days. At three, he wins the game.
I suggest the vodka experiment. Bashi can recommend brands, I’m sure.
The only one I personally drink is Russian Standard. Among the non-Russian ones, Gray Goose is good. But I agree with the Sputnik & Pogrom crew that vodka is rather a tasteless and boring alcohol. I prefer whiskey and bourbon.
Speaking of gay: Danya Milokhin, a Russian tic-tocker has become the star of the Saint Petersburg Economic Forum and will be the new face of the Sberbank advertising:
https://sun9-14.userapi.com/impg/-M_wQKvm24c1vAgpRWjPwD10nYskRHoGbH28_A/XRzUsCXWyJs.jpg?size=427×603&quality=96&sign=9dba39a3d0c88580d7d7137bddeb1dc0&type=album
Danya Milokhin is on the right, wearing the cute skirt.
https://vz.ru/news/2021/6/2/1102400.html
What happened to rums and brandies? 🙂
You are right. I like those better than vodka too.
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-284Ri4A_vRc/YLqz3oqY70I/AAAAAAAAHR0/D-IShOe0N-YPylxAxdzf2mKwHUuzUiwZgCLcBGAsYHQ/s16000/170807-elon-musk-billionaire-2.jpg
I was thinking ‘why has this man not set up a quasi PayPal-esque service that allows cryptos to be interchanged with real cash money (USD, RMB, EUR, RUB); a robust micro-financial system. I should be able to deposit diamonds in South Africa and get USD via crypto in Canada’. With his technical understanding and capital wealth surely it’s within reach.
I can only forge so many Nigerian death certificates to claim large sums of money as “inheritance”. And I’m not even black. It’s not like uncut diamonds where you can walk them to any jewellery chain-store in Canada, claim they were from “grandma in Israel” and get a stack of cash.
Then I remember Jack Ma, his internal ‘illegal’ Alibaba mini-bank and the soy sauce stains of crypto-currency that enabled its smooth operations across borders.
The events I see through my inebriation:
I get an impression Elon Musk had the SEC crawl up his ass for manipulating stocks, but needing a fast way to make large stacks of cash he jumped to manipulating cryptos (twatter plebs will believe anything). No regulations, no criminal charges. And now he boohoos because his (lack of) statements are not making waves like they used to to bolster his secret wallets and off-shore accounts and shelf corporations. Feeding “profits” back to SpaceX and Tesla. Jack Ma and his services seem to have been shut down and no one of relative scale can assist.
I recall John Carmack (Armadillo Aerospace, ID Software, Oculus) talking about Elon Musk and how he nearly bankrupted himself at one point trying to get his first SpaceX rocket off the ground (after many failures). A man like that is a true, blue, balls-deep gambler.
The things that I see impact pricing of cryptos:
-If China (primarily) or G7 nations begin to regulate or prevent crypto trading. Or worse, tax capital gain. This is probably the largest impact, it’s ability to move money from nation to nation and almost tax free made cryptos sexy for the young and hungry.
-The volume of trades based on black market transactions (drugs, organs, counterfeits, firearms, diamonds, etc.)
-How much A-rab money Gulf Mohammedans are pumping through Indian intermediaries. It’s illegal in most states but not for the Indian migrant force that has its own web of connections back home.
-Whales, hodlers, and other rejects selling in bulk.
-Activity by nations excluded by the financial system (Iran, North Korea and friends); I imagine if Hamas is using cryptocurrency the Israelis will be soon shutting it down with a vengeance even if it creates a hiccup in its illegal diamond and organ trade.
-Elon Musk and his squad of desperate no-high-value-skills legion surging from one coin to the next
-The number of exchanges that trick normies (mostly women) that cryptos are just like stocks.
The future of crypto:
As for all the 56-IQ fags who think crypto (that we see in today’s form) will last well into the future know this…. all our CPU infrastructure is based on MOSFETs (x86 and ARM) and we are coming close to its limits. NVIDIA is making moves for a GPU-powered computer which means the big boys (Intel, ARM designers) need to make a bigger move. CPU pipelines are so thin and so close to each other that electrons literally will quantum tunnel to adjacent pipelines; when enough of them do this there is your bit-flip and thus your error and thus why there is extensive bloat ON EVERY STACK in error-checking and cycle-redundancy checks and prediction engines and error-correcting RAM and and and and and….
There is great potential in photonic and quantum CPUs but as of yet there is no Intel-like entity to build the global infrastructure to allow these CPUs to be made cheaply. All computer science is based on this foundation. All cryptos are based on this computer science. I shouldn’t need to extrapolate more than this to get through to people. Use crypto, make stacks, start making businesses that generate revenue. Hodling, it’s what I tell my girlfriend to do to my balls when i nut in her.
Peter Turchin’s cliodynamics answers your question well, here is a good rundown https://peterturchin.com/cliodynamica/to-overthrow-an-empire/
A group with high Assabiyyah unites behind a figure with such traits and applies their Assabiyyah to the surrounding population.
Gumilyov is an original thinker in his own right, I hadn’t heard of him before this thread. the idea of capacity to convert energy into work being a ethnic trait that factors into who gets conquered is lost on most Westerners who will point towards things like ethics, intelligence, god, genetics, germs, steel etc. Though some of these things explain sluggishness, they do not prevent future sluggishness or explain past passionarnost’. Vigor/morale is behind success.
https://www.unz.com/akarlin/transhumanism-2/#comment-4700719
Social adaptation probably has its limitations against the limitations of reality – not all which is malleable to social conception, but yes, quite a powerful rank on our new caste system of reality.
I think that an awful lot of faith is placed in the dissipating powers of porn, drugs, and other will killing distractions. And seemingly not without some justification judging by the rather pathetic state of most manhood. What we have today is far better than the old bread and circuses.
Just wait until mass market VR porn is rolled out. I predict a discouraging number of males retreating to a fake world of bonking CGI porn stars all day rather than facing the system grinding them down.
An ugh emote is needed, Unz.
The first one with growing leashed tyranosaurus is good and truthful, but this sort of thing probably has roots reaching year 1992 when GOP had huge trouble with another hugely popular political outsider billionaire Ross Perrot catching large parts of previous Reagan/Bush voters, while opposing NAFTA trade agreement. Leaving aside Trump’s petty, vulgar and noveau riche type personal character peculiarities aside, he could be called Ross Perot 2.0, just the one who went into Republican primaries, instead of running as independent.
Perhaps inviting Danya to the SPEF, an event where Putin himself made a public appearance, was a subtle signal to the “Western Partners ” that RusFed is looking for a compromise before the Putin – Biden meeting. And if that was the signal, then it was well received, with the Denmark stopping the construction of the Polish – Norwegian pipeline, which was to be an alternative to Nord Stream 2, on completely ridiculous (pseudo)environmental grounds.
We might also think that Denmark’s decision was perhaps somewhat linked to the revelations that for years it helped the NSA spying on the “European Allies” of the Five Eyes empire. Perhaps then Danya should be awarded a “Hero of Russia ” title. Alas for those who thought that Globohomo will make no inroads in RusFed. So much for “muh spiritual bonds” that are supposedly so dear to the Kremlins’ hearts.
With the exception of their Western Bank accounts and their exclusive right to milk RusFed and fleece the RusFed sheeple, everything else is negotiable to the Kremlins. If need be, they are ready to be “clowns to the pederasts” as Pelevin would have put it. They are the utmost cynical realists.
Of course this comment is just me being facetious (as usual) but as the Russian saying goes: “Сказка ложь, да в ней намёк – добрым молодцам урок!”.
What do you mean by “psyche”?
In FUSSR there was a belief that answering a question with another question is typically Odessite (i.e., influenced by the Jewish way of communicating). Moreover, I would like to remind you that you were the one who wrote that epigenetics cannot explain differences in psychology.
Therefore I expect that you already know what psyche is. But if you express opinions about potential epigenetic influence on psychological characteristics of populations or lack thereof, while you still need an explaining what psyche is, then I am probably wasting my time exchanging with you.
Be well…
Just fall back to gold and silver when the hammer falls on cryptos or the lights go out
People use words in different ways, so, before I answer a complex question, I prefer to clarify what it is they mean by the question.
I have no idea what your rant is about, but I’ll reflect on it and see what it informs me about you.
I agree that words are subjective and that the topic that we discussed (starting with my post about Akhmatova and her son) is a complex one. It didn’t stop you from writing that abrupt changes in behavioral patterns of populations cannot be correlated with epigenetic modification of the genomic expression of the individuals who belong to these populations.
Here is your comment:
From your comment, I derive that you have a good grasp of the following concepts : “epigenetics” and “mass différences in psychology “.
Please correct me if I am wrong, that is if you did write this comment of yours without having an adequate understanding of “epigenetics ” and “mass psychology “.
My comment 88 was addressed to Triteleia Laxa as a follow-up on our exchange started with comment # 50. For some reason, it was detached from the rest of the exchange.
Sequel: “Afromediocrity”
Albeit with the inevitable constriction of gibs, these low IQ places will become rather socially darwinistic. Afrotriumph is possible – in a very long term future.
Seems like a job for a large state with a lot of money and tech ambitions… Wonder who it could be…
While the USA’s ruling trash are up to the job of fixing this, it still appears the US dollar is still the least worst for parking a lot of your assets. Other potentially good ones like Switzerland and its franc are just too small, you covered some of the problems with gold for this purpose.
The news about the Russian sovereign wealth fund dumping all its dollars is interesting, but it’s only $186 billion to begin with, around 4% of the nation’s estimated annual GDP per Wikipedia. Absent other evidence, I assume it’s because of the malintent of the increasingly Jewish US ruling class, they can’t hide their centuries long desire to damage or destroy “Russia.” And that’s not counting how “Putlier” and “Russia” convenient excuses for things like the Democratic party apparatus having terrible computer security or being so wretched they inspire people to leak damning information about it.
I’m starting to get the impression that you’re more interested in “gotchas” than discussion.
I have a reasonable understanding of the concepts you mention. I am just waiting for you to clarify what you mean by “psyche” as it is word used differently a lot. I am also confused as to why you are so reluctant. It reinforces my negative impression.
No expeditionary military facing peer or near peer adversaries can continue to be effective in that domain with the sort of social engineering that’s happening to the US military right now. See the “Proud Legions” chapter of This Kind of War by T.R. Fehrenbach on how the US army so quickly lost its core competencies between the end of of WWII and the beginning of the Korean War.
Perhaps it will be adequate for a civil war in the US, the other type of military is focused inwards, and it should be able to continue to “break things and kill people” in the Third World absent intervention from Russia etc. for some time. But that’s not quite the same thing as remaining the world’s hegemon unless it starts to openly threaten the use of nukes, and that doesn’t work well against nuclear armed adversaries, and would certainly change its reputation and the nature of its “soft power.” See how well the PRC’s “Wolf Warrior” diplomacy is working abroad, or not.
The Bikini Atoll test was an accident in the fusion device working too well, at the time we didn’t have enough lithium-6 for it to create tritium during the explosion process, so it had a lot of lithium-5 that was thought to be mostly or entirely inert. Which turned out not to be the case.
We need some positive energy in here।।
https://youtu.be/Ny06u-jrpdg?t=47s
Ano4 you’re cancelled from being Dharmic.
Imagine trying ੨ find esoteric meaning in faggotry
ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕਾਖਾਲਸਾਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕੀਫਤਿਹ
Slowly but surely, America is becoming a better place.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/opinion/Naomi-Osaka-ambition-women.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/05/upshot/jobs-rising-wages.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
Alright, for me psyche / self is just a concept created by humans to describe the integrated set of perceptual and cognitive processes as well as their emotional appreciation.
That a person is both conscious of and not conscious too?
That’s what Elon Musk’s Starlink/Skynet is for. Total battlefield dominance via direct command and control satellite groups and drone swarms. Good luck jamming those – you won’t, at least not from Earth surface.
US military is preparing for war with very little human soldiers, and correctly so. The only question is of “human rights” formality – can’t legally have machines do all the killing, some human must click “approve” button on a computer screen prior to attack to make it legal.
And who is best to click “approve” button as much as possible in a genocidal war scenario? An experienced soldier who has seen violence in combat first hand and has some compassion? Or a transgender person with deep psychological issues who treats warfare as video game and has been brainwashed to hate “fascist” Russia from birth?
So yes, that’s a near peer conflict that US is gearing up for, and the strategy for fighting it is far from irrational. People who don’t see it are stuck on the last war and history shows fighting the last war is always a deadly mistake.
Seems like a dangerous strategy. As in, the transgender person with deep psychological issues gets immediately gangstalked on the internet by Russians. A cheap but effective tactic for such people.
Something though tells me those hypersonic missiles might not be for… earthly targets, then.
Either way, the US has to be decapitated and dismantled by the end of the century if humanity is not to deserve an extermination.
All information flows including the ones we are not conscious of at the individual level.
Ok, great. I have 3 points. I will repeat my original post below as well.
Using epigenetics to explain mass differences in psychologies seems like an empty theory to me. All things are possible, but then again, all things are possible.
Most theories therefore, to be compelling, have to substitute out evidence and replace them with superficial connections. Or maybe they don’t “have” to, but then I can’t otherwise explain why they all seem to be of the “the land became dark and lost its green, so epigenetics means that their personalities became dark and lost their green” variety.
There is little reason to think the two should match up, yet, in these theories, they always do. I consider this astonishing similarity, between external factor and that mediated through changed genes, to reveal that there’s no there there, and this adds musculature to my first point.
Interesting:
https://asset.lemde.fr/prd-blogs/2021/05/b2a6a2be-20210411_102901.jpg
https://www.lemonde.fr/blog/filiu/2021/06/06/a-la-recherche-de-la-premiere-mosquee-de-france/
(In French.)
Islam has been present in modern Russian territory from the time of the Islamic Conquests (And Al Foutouhat), actually Islam took root on Russian soil at least a century before the Baptism of the Rus.
Someone didn’t read the linked “Proud Legions” chapter; get back to us after you do that.
Someone also doesn’t know anything about satellite communications; your scenario doesn’t require a Starlink scale network, and signals from satellites aren’t very powerful when they reach the ground. Although I suppose a huge network would make current peer adversaries’ anti-sat capabilities moot.
Someone needs to fill in the blanks about how “drone swarms” will actually get to combat zones; insert “… and professionals discuss logistics” which includes scale, how big will these drone fleets need to be? Which unless your streets are paved with gold also includes where they’ll return to, maintenance, etc., and how these parts of the system avoid retaliatory attack from peer or near peer adversaries. We’re not talking about killing a general from a Third World country visiting a really trashed one we still have lots of assets in, that’s not in a position to do literal tit for tat retaliation.
I’d also be interested to know how well non-stealth drones will survive against, once again, peer or near peer adversaries. They get a much stronger vote than Third World “goat herders.” As Svevlad implies, they can mount serious intelligence operations to reveal who and how to cause the self-destruction of barely functional “transgender persons with deep psychological issues who treat warfare as video game.”
Continuous counterstrike capability development is the only reason why Russian cities are not burning today like in Iraq or Libya.
In 2002 US withdrew from ABM treaty and by 2006 proclaimed nuclear primacy, that is, ability to launch first strike and survive retaliation from Russia. But US got bogged down in Iraq and Financial Crisis in 2008. The tie eating Georgian performed below expectations and war was canceled. That tie sacrificed itself but saved a lot of people.
In 2009, pesky Russians started work on Sarmat, 2011 – Bulava, 2012 – Kh-101/102, in 2015 Calibr made a splash in Syria, 2018 – Avangard/Kinzhal/Poseidon etc.
There’s always something. By the time Starlink and the drones are ready, Nuklon should be as well. As long as Russians can keep up, war will keep getting canceled.
Starlink does what, 200 Mbs/s right now? Once fully rolled out its bandwidth will support a huge drone army. And a very large part of that army won’t be on the ground.
Are you familiar with a little thing called Starship?
https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/06/the-us-military-is-starting-to-get-really-interested-in-starship/
I mean, Ars Technica is trying to present it as something new but the purpose of Starship has been obvious from the start. Its a military bomber, or “cargo delivery” vehicle. Can drop drones or precision rods, doesn’t matter.
1,000’s of tons.
Welcome to the Pentagon, golden toilets too.
Next round of Starships, from the middle of the ocean, or the middle of Oklahoma, doesn’t matter will deliver spare parts and supplies, and bombs/rods to the opposition.
You can retaliate of course, but those Starships are made from cheap steel and launched from a cornfield on Mexican border. It is a very ‘Russian’, or post-apocalyptic design approach. You can blow up a few steel tanks or a cornfield here and there, but it won’t stop them from coming.
You will need your own space infrastructure that can keep up with the US, but that’s a different discussion.
Proud of Russia. This is real progressivism, not the fake cargo cultism you see in Ukraine. Diversity and tolerance is our strength.
https://www.unz.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/jewish-museum-35.jpg
I wonder if this is typical of the mainstream French media coverage of this kind of issue? It feels quite grounded compared to coverage of similar topics in British papers.
It seems like this chap is now almost a household name for example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Blanke
Some wise words from Ch’an master Linchi. These words go completely against the grain of modern life, especially in the West. Seeming so innocuous, they are subversive and revolutionary. If you tried to live this way in the West you would meet tremendous pushback from everyone. Yet evidently, these words also went against the grain in ancient China. Humans in all ages suffer from the same diseases.
“….the really superior person knows right now that from the first there’s never been anything that needed doing….you rush around moment by moment looking for something. You throw away your head and hunt for your head, and you cant seem to stop yourselves. You are like the bodhisattva of perfect enlightenment….who, in the midst of the pure land, still hates being a common mortal and yearns to become a sage, despite already being perfect. People like that….their minds are still occupied with thoughts about purity and impurity. But the Chan school doesn’t see things that way.”
“……but from times past the real teachers, wherever they went, were never listened to and were always driven out–that’s how you know they were men of worth. If everybody approves of you wherever you go, what use can you be?”
“……don’t take the Buddha to be some sort of ultimate goal. In my view he’s more like the hole in a privy. Bodhisattvas and arhats are so many chains, things for fettering people. Therefore, Manjushri grasped his sword, ready to kill the Buddha…” (manjusri represents wisdom)
“……there is no Buddha to be gained, and the teaching of the perfect enlightenment are all simply medicines to cure diseases of the moment. None have any true reality. Even if they had, they would still all be mere shams, placards proclaiming superficial matters, so many words lined up….”
“…there are certain baldheads who turn all their efforts inward, seeking in this way to find some otherworldly truth. But they are completely mistaken! Seek the Buddha and you’ll lose the Buddha. Seek the Way and you’ll lose the Way….”
“…..at Zen centers they say there is a Way to be practiced and a religious truth to be learned. Tell me, what religious truth is learned and what Way is practiced? In how you are now, what do you lack? What would you fix? Younger monks, not understanding this, immediately believe these fantasists and let them talk about things that tie people up…..”
It is the least worst because most of the funds come from American satrapies.
Once American influence fails the capital will vote again, either somewhere else or in more tangible assets.
To everyone speculating war tech development and military mental degeneration, financial warfare in the form of meddling with USD, trade war, embargo, international COVID restrictions, etc. are far more effective – cutting the money means none of these outrageous proposals get fulfilled or maintained, and psychology of the soldier never matters.
Tho at the end of financial war will be the hot MAD war all of you want to avoid (or secretly hope for).
Buddhism is fun, it supports a variety of ontologies as wide as Greek philosophy. Tantrism, Zen, Theravada, Pure Land and so on…
Only that Greek philosophy is positive while Buddhist philosophy is negative.
(This sounds a lot like Taoism but only superficially)
I am looking forward to election of the first Black Russian president. If Grigoriy Siyatvinda becomes a politician, he might perhaps play his most extraordinary role as the president of RusFed. Imagine Kamala and Grigoriy signing the treaty of friendship and cooperation between USA and RusFed, imagine them launching together the construction of trans-Beringian railway…
“And the stone that the builders refused, shall be the head cornerstone…”
Greek philosophy has something very similar to Chan and Mahayana philosophy – the skepticism of Pyrrho.
Hercalitus, also, produced a version of Taoist non-dualism, and he was known as the “dark philosopher”. Pythagoreans and Stoics are similar to religious Mahayanists and Theravadins respectively.
Unfortunately the West took as it’s central philosopher the banal Aristotle. Although the Renaissance was inspired by the poetic Plato, and maybe he can be compared to the Buddhist “mind” school – although the theory of Platonic Forms has wrecked much intellectual havoc in the intellectual history of the West, and is now reappearing in the guise of a strict (rather than loose) HBD.
The pre-modern West and East were not so different – it’s just a question of emphasis. You could be an excellent Taoist just based on reading Montaigne’s Essays.
Buddhism itself sees it’s many manifestations as not in conflict, but as appropriate to people on different levels of insight, no matter how contradictory each manifestation seems. I substantially agree with this view, and it has the great benefit of eliminating conflict and replacing it with a “hierarchical” approach, which I think far more intellectually mature.
Dualism creates conflict and intolerance, and strikes me as intellectually immature – although I have noticed, that many people who claim to be Buddhist have a deeply dualistic approach to the world, so superficial labels should not be given undue weight.
Further, Buddhism sees all it’s approaches as basically just medicines, expedient means, and not as actually reflecting some kind of ultimate reality. It’s a remarkable conception, but a fully realized Buddhist is someone who has actually left Buddhism behind 🙂
So it doesn’t really make sense to fight over views that aren’t even meant to reflect reality 🙂
I couldn’t disagree more strongly. I find everything said here garbage, complete garbage, and nothing but complete garbage. Just sayin’.
No problem 🙂
It’s certainly not for everyone, and I did say it rather goes against the modern grain, especially in the West. It probably goes against the mainstream in every society in every age. I certainly would not recommend this as a “general” philosophy suitable for everyone – indeed I would regard it’s widespread adoption as impossible.
But it is an important sensibility, that historically has been influential in elite intellectual circles across the world, notably East Asia, but also significantly in the West.
Politically, this sensibility has been rather suppressed in the modern world, and opportunities to live according to this philosophy have grown exceedingly scarce.
Now this poses a political problem – force everyone to be part of the “productive” system, and those that find such a life distasteful, and would more naturally be suitable to a life of quiet contemplation or abandon, will become rebels, agitators, subversives, and malingerers.
In it’s milder forms, you will get a Bartleby the Scrivener or a Hunger Artist, at it’s more extreme, a political terrorist.
Beyond that, the value of this philosophy is that even if it does not replace the mainstream philosophy of “productivity” that the mass of men live by, it lessens it’s intensity, which is a massive mental health benefit. And there are serious indications that modern society is groaning under the weight of its own intensity.
Finally, the value of this philosophy is it’s immense life-affirming effect on those naturally predisposed to appreciate it, and it’s capacity to liberate into health and joy those who can benefit from it. Historically, Ch’an/Zen has been a great source of art, poetry, and life.
You have every right to dislike it and reject it for yourself, but a wise and healthy society will find a place for it.
Looks like we are perhaps witnessing the “eclosion” of a Covid Bellingcat.
https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-how-amateur-sleuths-broke-wuhan-lab-story-embarrassed-media-1596958
China would be like “oups”…
Linji Yixuan was quite drastic in his purging the kleshas from his pupils’ minds. This is due to him being soundly beaten up by his teacher Huángbò Xīyùn every time he attempted to ask stupid questions or tell idiotic stories.
That’s how Linji became enlightened.
Some people would strongly benefit from receiving Huangbo’s 40 blows even to this very day.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/276779.The_Zen_Teaching_of_Huang_Po
You cannot fully appreciate Rinzai if you don’t know what he learned from Obaku.
Hey, I’m starting a book on Pyrrhonism!
I have been really preoccupied, perhaps morbidly from a “normal” perspective, with the COVID vaccination drive. It’s probably time to move on and see it as a symptom of a wider sentiment of rejection:
Anti-vaxx isn’t really about whether the vaccines have issues, or coercion, or medico-political right, but fundamentally it represents how it is administered in a consumption-based society, dispensed shot by shot, with the power of the state. It might actually be a subliminal rejection of consumerism, and with that modern production, how human identity is reduced into an individual that impact others and be impacted, and both the economic and political structures that are bound up with it, if we adopt the perspective of Dugin’s . Which is why it is mostly the types dissatisfied with the old status quo that are most central (including libertarians that are crypto-localists and crypto-agrarians), in addition to those masses who have been alienated more mildly.
That’s widely understood but barely put concretely, except by agorist authors and critics of capitalism who are on the trend – because deep down, those don’t acknowledge this still affirms the Old Normal, even if that inevitable leads to a form of social control more or less like the false reopening.
(Contra Bashibuzuk, no, I’m not making the move since the prospects of anywhere, and even that of staying, are ultimately illusory, in the Buddhist sense of word. If facing the beast of liberalism’s own doing is in the Karma of humans living under global liberalism, you cannot avoid it. That is called 應劫 in Chinese.)
There are 1,000+ Russian troops and contractors in the Central African Republic supporting the government in taking on insurgents. But why? How in the world does it fit into any Russian grand strategy?
Epigenetics is mechanically sound, its not particularly complicated and it is rather self-evident via the gut-mind ecosystem, etc. Its not really much more complicated than anything else in evolution which can cause actual genetic changes via natural selection, including phenomena like convergent evolution.
Neurotransmitters are to the brain as the concept of combustion physics are to the car engine: the basis of its operation. As noted before, for an accessible personal experiment, vodka provides all that is needed. This also functions en masse. Its not “superficially compelling”; alteration of neurotransmitters will directly affect your judgment, inhibitions, emotions, etc. You can also look up the operation of dopamine reuptake blockers:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dopamine_reuptake_inhibitor
He’s our diversity inclusion poster for the mentally challenged.
It should be noted that such notions of “lack of reality” have been argued to have severely stymied development of science in China(though tbh the Chinese usually didn’t take it that far in practice) because it essentially undermined the notion of first principles, making deductive reasoning impossible by positioning either an infinity of causes to effect or close enough to it.
Aristotlean logic, while strictly incorrect in its concept of elements, provided a basic for workable theories on the world.
You keep on referring to “collectible stamps”. You have my attention. I’m interested in finding out more about this market. Is it really a good place to invest money right now? How safe is it? Why might this be a better place to invest than say numismatic coins? At least with the coins, you do own some precious metals, with stamps all you have is paper.
My mother must have shared a similar philosophy. She had a black belt for less serious infractions and a red one for “special occasions”. 🙂 My father was only called in once or twice for really special operations. It all worked out quite well for my benefit. I’m afraid to think what might have become of me had my own proclivities for “stupid and idiotic” behavior been given free reign to expand.
I think the theory once was visited that Russia would end up with an election of Natalia Poklonskaya versus Ramzan Kadyrov as president, a highly entertaining contest that would have only the assured outcomes of that it would be almost certainly negative for her residents.
First Principles impede the ability to be open minded about the results of experiments. They are mental straitjackets. All you need for good science is a willingness to experiment, a sense of adventure, and honesty about what works.
Today, we have First Principles – but little real science.
First Principles, peer review, the whole scientific bureaucracy – secure prisons for little minds. Eventually some bold and fearless spirit like Francis Bacon or Lin Chi will sweep all that nonsense away, and usher in a new era of experiment without presuppositions.
Your intelligence is perfectly adequate for science, Daniel – what you lack is boldness, courage, a sense of adventure. You seek security, like all small men.
Yes, at the highest levels the insight that there is no ultimate reality does eliminate the motivation to do Faustian science, because the element of drivenness and fear is eliminated, and one lives a life of joyous appreciation. But this is a tiny fraction of men.
As Nietzsche said, the most intelligent and spiritual men will always be relatively uninterested in science, mere control of physical things, and science will always be the domain of the broad base of intelligent but mediocre men. But this broad base of mediocrity will benefit from living in an intellectual culture free of a heavy accretions of definite notions about reality.
Huang Po is another one of my all time favs!
Confucian China had become suffocated by a heavy encrustation of order, decorum, ritual, custom, and convention. This happens periodically in every society and sometimes drastic measures are required to break spiritually free from the dross.
We will perhaps soon require drastic measures ourselves. Well, it is all expedient means anyways.
For a gentler version of the same message, there is the Japanese Bankei.
Don’t Get Mad – Get Even
https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/07/football/ukraine-football-kit-map-russia-scli-intl-spt/index.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_latest+%28RSS%3A+CNN+-+Most+Recent%29
A map of Russia with Crimea included, along with a Slava Rossiya.
Francis Bacon, like Isaac Newton, all held principles of an ultimate reality, though it was not necessarily the material reality.
You need not concern yourself with that: you should focus on your next dosage of Thorazine which might make a valiant, if most likely futile effort to combat your mental weakness toward hypocrisy and perhaps even against all odds, grant you a limited theory of mind.
Bacon’s advance was to be open minded about what Gods rules were.
Yet he did indeed retain the idea of a stable reality, with a fixed set of rules. That worked well until quantum science.
Today, the assumption of fixed, stable reality is known to be false, and retaining it is a mental straitjacket impeding progress.
No position is false, it exists in a nested hierarchy, with each appropriate to a particular level.
At a particular level of reality, the assumption that a fixed set of rules exists may be quite helpful. At a higher level, quite injurious.
At an even lower level, the scholastics “knowledge” had utility.
This is just as things pertain to science. At higher levels, a concern with science itself impedes flourishing. Science itself exists within a nested hierarchy.
But this is beyond what you can appreciate, so I will leave off there.
The reply button to the lower left of the message.
That was Navalny vs. Kadyrov https://kireev.livejournal.com/1838193.html and Poklonskaya vs. Sobyanin https://kireev.livejournal.com/1844414.html
Yes, I can see why you might think so, and indeed, it is valid on a certain level of reality 🙂
Good insight.
These political feuds are never about concrete fact, but always symbolic in nature. Countering a political opponent with fact and reason, when he is operating on the level of symbol and myth, is a futile exercise.
I think it’s increasingly important to recognize the huge role myth and symbol play in human life, and the comparatively small role reason plays.
In politics, it never pays to understand something literally. One must always dig deeper.
For instance, in the latest Israel-Hamas conflict, liberal progressives were aligned with Hamas, which on the surface violates progressive principles in every way. Yet pointing that out was singularly ineffective.
Because on the mythic level, Israel represents technological civilization, European culture, and Whites, and progressives are “about” being anti these things more than they are about anything else.
LOL i don’t know. 🙂 It was just an example.
Martin Armstrong is big on collecting antique coins; it seems to have mostly worked out for him, but its more of a fetish than investment.
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/history/ancient-economies/owning-a-piece-of-history/
Same here. I am quite fortunate to have had a stern upbringing. And I thank my parents for everything.
I had quite a strange upbringing, basically alone and surrounded by books, eventually adopting at times fairly fanatical views and living most of my life without anything like television.
I think it did well for me, to be honest but it did make me very strange(perhaps on top of whatever natural strangeness I possessed), with an intense fondness for asceticism.
Apologize for getting into an argument with you over science.
I am not very interested in science. I’m a simple person who isn’t materially successful, so I shouldn’t be talking about what it takes to gain power over the physical world.
I’m sure you, who are passionate about science, understand it much better than me. Its just my big ego.
I don’t disagree with you on that, but does your psyche extend beyond your mind?
Also:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5487283/
Well, I was a bookworm for most of my life, especially when young. But, as I already mentioned once in one of my previous comments, around 16 years old O understood that girls don’t really like the quiet bookworm types, then I started doing sports and adopted a more “young thug” attitude. That was easy because the fall of the Soviet Union was a time of intense youth violence, especially in Moscow. I think being strange is okay. We need strange people so life doesn’t end up predictable and boring.
Echoing your link, this also finds a similar effect:
https://neurosciencenews.com/adhd-drugs-epigenetics-18563/amp/
Concerning, this does not seem to require prenatal exposure; it appears that dopaminergic drugs are somehow modifying sperm and although the mechanism seems to be unknown, the effect is substantiated.
Well AaronB is just taking words out of their context, after all Chan is beyond books and words, precisely because it is transmitted through teacher-disciple lineage. It is absolutely impossible to understand Chan without instructions from a master, which is commonly accepted fact among all legit practitioners of Chan, and even less when you translate cryptical and terse Classical Chinese texts to modern English and study alone. Every master of Chan has studied under other Buddhist masters, in an unbroken line going through Bodhidharma to Mahakasyapa and finally to Buddha.
I find it out funny how Aaron legitimises the behaviour of many anti-semites on this site. Oh, how those guys just love to take random citations from Talmud and Bible and say: “see how those evil Jews want to enslave and rule over us, we know better than Rabbis and Bible scholars!” At least those damn nazis can claim that Judaism and Christianity are holy book based religions, unlike Buddhism which has no one holy book, but a Dharma transmission lineage from the Buddha.
For such delusional beings there is no value in the living tradition itself, but only how that tradition serves in legitimising their own particular worldview.
No matter, it’s cool that Aaron has gone further on the Way than our monks! What a guru!
🙂
Some words of wisdom from great Taoist of the West, the Ch’an master of 16th century France, Michel de Montaigne. At age 38, he retired to live a life dedicated to “tranquillity, freedom and leisure.”. Initially depressed, he achieved liberation from burdensome mainstream ideas by adopting Taoist wu-wei –
In his pursuit of an easeful state, Montaigne wrote that “there is nothing I would break my head against in the name of scholarship.”
While he went so greatly against the grain of the Western Faustian culture of struggle only then emerging, elite Western intellectuals down the ages adored him – perhaps some instinct of self-preservation telling them he was the antidote to the mysterious disease they suffered from. Nietzsche, utterly opposite in sensibility, loved him.
Here are some quotes. Many of his best I could not find online sadly –
“….We are great fools. ‘He has passed over his life in idleness,’ we say: ‘I have done nothing today.’ What? have you not lived? that is not only the fundamental, but the most illustrious of all your occupations….”
“….I propose a life ordinary and without lustre: it’s all the same thing … to attack a tough position in war, conduct an embassy, govern a people, are illustrious actions; to … laugh, sell, play, love, hate, and gently converse with our families and with ourselves in the right way … not pretending to be what we are not, that is rarer, more difficult and less remarkable …”
“…It is not of much use to go upon stilts, for when upon stilts, we must still walk with our legs; and when seated upon the most elevated throne in the world, we are still perched on our own bums….”
“….I set forth a humble and inglorious life; that does not matter. You can practice the art of living with a common and private life just as well as with a life of richer stuff. Each man bears the entire form of man’s estate….”
“….Either our reason mocks us or it ought to have no other aim but our contentment….”
“…between ourselves, I have ever observed otherworldly opinions and sub-worldly behavior to be of singular accord …”
“…I have known in my time a hundred artisans, a hundred labourers, wiser and more happy than the rectors of the university, and whom I had much rather have resembled….”
“….The world is but a perennial movement. All things in it are in constant motion….Stability itself is nothing but a more languid motion….”
“…..(discussing himself) I do not portray being: I portray passing…..”
“……(discussing his essays) This is a record of various and changeable occurrences, and of irresolute and frequently contradictory ideas: sometimes I am different myself, and sometimes I examine my subjects in different circumstances and aspects. So, all in all, I may indeed contradict myself now and then; but truth, as Demades said, I do not contradict. If my mind could gain a firm footing, I would not make essays (attempts) I would make decisions; but my mind is always in apprenticeship and on trial….”
“….Were I to live my life over again, I should live it just as I have lived it; I neither complain of the past, nor do I fear the future; and if I am not much deceived, I am the same within that I am without … I have seen the grass, the blossom, and the fruit, and now see the withering; happily, however, because naturally….”
Montaigne was a Pyrhonnian sceptic, and had no commitment to any dogma or belief. His essays were mere playful explorations. He says of his thoughts –
Also see this:
https://iranicaonline.org/articles/haoma-ii
Someone should look into the epigenetic effects of Ephedrine. Although, to be fair it is quite possible that Soma/Haoma was not (solely ?) ephedra.
To repaint the CAR war map, of course.
https://twitter.com/rr0162/status/1364697641377034241
https://twitter.com/SamRamani2/status/1390035432994480128
From Pavel Pryannikov’s Telegram blog (Google translated from Russian)
Спасибо Путину за это!
I would probably use those as synonyms.
Thanks for the link too.
I agree with your comment and I don’t believe it disagrees with mine.
Is it consistent with Buddhism for an individual to be able to just close their eyes and see?
Indeed, but I do not claim my selections “represent Buddhism”. I have always made quite limited claims. I have been clear that I am talking about one particular sect within Buddhism, and that I am even only speaking of certain particular masters within that sect. So a sect within a sect. My selections don’t even represent the whole of Ch’an, just an influential sect.
I think that’s intellectually responsible and quite different from what the anti-Semites are doing.
I have also claimed that in my opinion, I think the logic of Buddhism tends naturally to develop into the selections I’ve offered. I’ve explained my reasons for thinking so, and made clear that I have no problem if others do not find my reasons compelling.
You say that Ch’an relies on transmission outside words. But the selections I offered do not present any positive teaching – they merely negate received views. So no verbal transmission is indeed being offered.
I think we can see, that your charge is baseless. To be charitable, perhaps you did not understand the specific and limited nature of my claims, so I will not impute any I’ll motive to you.
But I am glad you gave me the opportunity to clear that up.
My mother tried but any disciplinary actions just made me sneakier and better at covering my tracks.
Gang psychopath, I guess
https://www.reddit.com/r/Sikh/comments/nu6bub/june_6th_our_general_finally_falls_obtaining/
https://www.instagram.com/p/CPw9Uzgs3y7OhZEZQD7em4sTQS6qLZfhYudnxs0/
ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕਾਖਾਲਸਾਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕੀਫਤਿਹ
I don’t get your question? Different meditative practices are quite common in Asian religions.
Isn’t being silent and eyes closed, so that one could think more clearly, and therefore “see,” consistent with all humanity?
Qi-shi: You have crossed the ocean to come here and have thus endured danger. What is the object of your visit?
Ananda Jennings: My object is to realise the Buddhadharma.
Q: One should be clear about the question of birth and death when one studies the Dharma; what is your opinion about ‘birth and death’?
AJ: Since fundamentally there is neither birth nor death, what is the use of formulating opinions which alone are ‘birth and death’?
Q: If there is neither birth nor death, what is the use of studying the Buddhadharma?
AJ: Fundamentally there is no Buddhadharma, and he who realises Dharma is Buddha.
Q: The Buddha possessed thirty-two characteristic marks and when he pressed his toes to the ground, the ocean symbol radiated; can you do this?
AJ: Both the ability to do this and the inability to do this pertains to phenomenalistic sophistry.
Q: Although your interpretation is profound and what you say is correct, the mere speaking of eating does not satisfy hunger., what, according to you, is the ‘Ultimate Sentence’?
AJ: The Ultimate has no ‘sentence’ and speech also has no basis, the non-thinking nature of enlightenment being free from verbiage of opinion and ideas.
Q: You have spoken of it in detail and every word of yours accords well with the Patriarch’s meaning. But the word ‘knowledge’ is the gateway to all kinds of calamity. Since you have entered by means of correct interpretation, may I ask you this: Without using words or speech, what is your fundamental face?
AJ: The Diamond Sutra says, ‘Anuttara-samyak-sambhodi is not Anuttara-samyak-sambhodi.
Q: It seems to be so, but the life-root can not be cut off by knowledge and views (consciousness). I hope you will look into this.
AJ: I have not had much opportunity to read the sutras. After my previous seclusion for four years, when I spoke to others, they all said that my words accorded with the Buddhadharma. In my opinion, understanding that does not derive from the mere reading of sutras seems not to belong entirely to human consciousness.
Q: That which does not derive from the reading of sutras and shastras but manifests during one’s meditation still belongs to the former wisdom which is also consciousness.
AJ: That Buddhadharma postulates true realisation but does not rely on human or cosmic consciousness.
Q: By not being bogged down in sutras and shastras and by not clinging to the self-nature, the ‘thusness’ of the Dao is everywhere and the truth prevails anywhere one may happen to be. It can expediently be called ‘The One’.
https://www.drba.org/uploads/6/3/3/1/6331706/_518898_orig.jpg
You seemed to be saying that Chan/Buddhism needs teacher-student transmission.
In reply, I wondered whether an individual might just see the truth themselves?
Or, perhaps be shown what they need by creatures/spiritual phenomena?
I wouldn’t use the term “think” for a process that is more like watching an interactive film, but I also don’t know what term to use.
Patriarch Linji is not any minor figure. Did you not notice Silviosilver’s reaction? Tarnishing the image of Dharma for one’s egoism is not intellectually responsible behaviour. Maybe this is news to you, but faith is a sensitive thing for other people too.
Chan teachings are advanced Sutrayana traditionally only meant for monks who have gone far in the path, and who are well grounded in Buddhist basics, in Chan Dharma lineage is of paramount importance, there has never been a Chan master without his own master. Even Linji was a monk, with a master, living in a monastery.
But go on Aaron, please go on and explain us more how you don’t really care and how you are happy by not caring, maybe you should write a 10 000 word essay about how you really don’t care, and if we still would not believe you, maybe you should then write a book about about how you dont really care, maybe repeating to people how you don’t care makes them to believe that you really don’t care, so go on Aaron!
(Arrested development?)
Graham Greene wrote that every man’s life has a turning point; and that most men don’t recognize it when it comes along. But Jonathan Franzen wrote, what if the big event is not an event at all, but an insight; and that everything is clear after the insight. I think Franzen is right, so I read all of the philosophic viewpoints in the comments looking for the insight. Thank you AaronB, especially. These are quite interesting. Maybe next time.
I’m tired, I will go to sleep….
But before falling sleep I think that maybe there’s not enough violence nowadays, is it good that people have so much of time to think of non-sense? Is this how our species uses it’s precious free time, after hundreds of thousands of years of constant struggle?
They would have raise retirement age regardless of money. Its the same situation as in most of the world – they will need people to keep businesses running.
Japan can (and does) print whatever money it needs, but it still needs business to operate. So they have to keep old people employed. Those who don’t breed, work to death.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/Japan-sees-record-number-of-women-working-but-challenges-remain
Ah, so the quality of a spiritual text is to be judged by an avowed atheist who embraces aggression. Apparently, spirituality is a popularity contest lol. Not superficial at all – can see I am dealing with a person of real depth here 🙂
I quoted Linchi verbatim. I urge everyone to go read him, as well as his wonderful master, Huang Po. You, on the other hand, seem to be scaring people away from reading him with mystifying mumbo jumbo. You are scared people will think for themselves.
By lying to people here that I misquoted him – something easily checked, so a futile maneuver – I am beginning to think that you are a dishonest person with an agenda – not necessarily a conscious one, though.
I think you have an unconscious desire to keep people attached and materialistic, and hence miserable. Unable to achieve liberation yourself, you instinctively wish to prevent others from doing so. After all, misery loves company.
In this last age of the Kali Yuga, people like you appear with increasing frequency. Self appointed gatekeepers trying to bar the passage to the other shore.
I am here to fight your heavy, lumbering atmosphere with divine lightness 🙂
Ch’an is liberation from all that childish nonsense.
My intention is to write a library of books on not caring 🙂
Because not caring is best demonstrated by caring, as anyone who understands not caring knows.
Your intention is to bolster your rather pathetic ego via attention seeking. It is both childish and predictable. The only reason that you don’t realize it is that on top of your total lack of theory of mind in understanding others, you further incapable of realizing how ridiculously pitiful you come across.
But I suppose, that’s one of the basic defining characteristics of mental illness.
It looks like the government forces have the upper hand and are retaking the country. But can anyone answer why do this? How does it fit into the overall strategy?
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Atlas_of_the_Central_African_Republic#/media/File:LocationCentralAfricanRepublic.svg
I’m pathetic, childish, egotistic, pitiful, and mentally ill. I’m ok with all that.
I am quite worthless. But it is good that these ideas, that go against the grain, get out there 🙂 It is good that people know about Linchi.
It is good that the gloomy, serious, ponderous, heavy, water buffalo people, the ones without a divine spark, the attached and materialistic, and consequently the unhappy, do not quite have it all their own way.
And the rage I reliably elicit in you and Altan and others of your ponderous flat footed ilk is proof I am threatening your empire of gloom 🙂
Those who see a bit farther always seem mentally ill to the dull conventional conformist.
You’re missing his whole “financial prophet” role which I see as the most important (he says the whole set of mistakes, COVID & Great Reset, will tank the West by 2032-37 and shift the financial center of the world to China)
I’m skeptical of all so-called prophets, though I find him interesting.
Trump would be smiling in his Floridan retreat. But if there hadn’t been that much rigging and Trump had kept the office then the Guatemalans should have been telling him to mind his own business and go back home, too, since both Biden/Harris and Trump/Pence are two faces of the same Yanqui imperialism.
Trump isn’t the new Jesus.
An update on HK’s vaccine rollout: the BioNTech vaccine is inducing strokes in young uni students, something that only occured in much older cases with real latent risk for the Sinovac one. I think both have their own share of Bell’s palsy and Guillain–Barré, some on relatively young cases, which are likely to be rare reactions common to all COVID and some other types of vaccines, and maybe independent from the type of platform used.
Audacious Epigone and lots of anti-vaxxers say the risk of adverse reactions from the vaccines is much greater than the risk from natural infections, young people should reject it altogether. They’re thinking on the assumption that since the whole COVID thing is a ploy and there is no fundamental need to vaccinate, one case of avoidable reaction is too many (kinda like what Cuomo thinks of the lockdowns he ordered, saving one life is worth it). Besides there are reports of vaccinated individuals contracting COVID (this is possible since many types of vaccines only alleviate symptoms), and even wilder claims of dying of COVID after vaccinations.
Here’s the question to pro-vaxxers: what would you think to be the acceptable base rate on rare and serious adverse reactions like the ones I mentioned above? How does this compare with vaccines for other diseases where vaccination is compulsory by state mandate, or to annual flu vaccines? If you see any thing “wrong” with my above thinking you can say what you know too (but those will be seen as deluded from a antivaxx perspective).
I hope this will be constructive and won’t devolve to name-calling, bitter rivalry and arguments of social systems many debates on COVID vaccines have become nowadays.
One of the more amusing, yet rather sad parts of your belief is that you trigger rage. Its yet another aspect of your surprisingly uncreative and ultimately, deeply inwardly focused mindset toward self-promotion.
Like I said before, work on your theory of mind.
That and Thorazine.
Based Africans.
https://static.euronews.com/articles/stories/05/71/29/84/1024x538_cmsv2_a11d54fd-f74e-54bc-afce-3ee3c69b2833-5712984.jpg
https://www.takimag.com/article/institutional-collapse/
Another seeing the writing in the wall, except that his perspective is only limited to the US while everyone else’s governments are more or less on the action.
Great point to Bashibuzuk for his “Westroika” observation in that it is actually an reaction of globalist elites to the structural crisis caused by their previous mistakes in policy decisions (or if Kissinger to be trusted, some elements of malice). I see it as being based on the logical conclusion of liberalism pointed out by Dugin, of freeing the individual of its self into “dividuals” and of the possibility of post-humanism, something the globalist elites are channeled into seeing and which implies lots of off-the-wall policies – that’s precisely what is meant by the World-System & Liberalism’s “Karma”.
So we are the water buffalo people without the divine spark? You are now Aaron revealing quite much about the inner workings of your mind, I must say. A tribalist with a messianic complex?
How else you will understand a tradition or training that can not be expressed by words and is beyond the scriptures? How else Chinese could have discerned between self proclaimed Messiahs like Aaron and genuine Chan masters?
Good question! It is theoretically possible in Buddhism, but self awakened Buddhas are exceedingly rare, iirc chances to become self awakened Buddha are something like a one in one hundred billion.
But remember Buddhas are driven by sincere compassion, therefore it’s probably even harder to meet Buddhas on internet, where most people are motivated by selfish desires and pride, myself included.
Possible, but not advisable for anyone except highly realised masters, and even for them it can be a risky endeavour. Mind can be a tricky think and there is no limit for human delusions.
Are you speaking about clairvoyance or imagination? Well our mind has also its own way to see things, often after concentration and careful pondering we see better how things are.
“.. you trigger rage..” – This is very telling, Mowgli. You should talk about your rage issues with your machine therapist. Perhaps it will tell you that pointing to humans that their “theory of mind” is not adequate is not how humans think and communicate. Humans have minds while machines have only theories of it.
Yo Anatoly when’s that Great Bifurcation text dropping?
You are coming from a different background, so my questions and observations may only translate with difficulty.
If I ever seem obtuse in this conversations, please be patient with me. I am trying my best. It is fun to explore ideas like these.
I feel that someone motivated by deep compassion would suffer a lot. They would appear to those around them as a blank canvas, perfect for putting our most extreme qualities onto.
In this way, their presence, might bring out those people’s most extreme qualities, which is generally dangerous and hurtful all around.
Is “imagination” where your pride goes into overdrive, and “clairvoyance” what you see when you drop that?
Maybe those spiritual phenomena deserve love and acceptance too?
Rage comes from a place of feeling threatened. What threatens you about AaronB?
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/325ca1ea226069918ee8b9231b922781.jpg
The point is that he doesn’t, it’s a self-belief of his that he keeps insisting due to its self-promoting implications: if you trigger rage in others, you are threatening in some fashion and therefore important.
His hypocrisy is annoying and it’s entertaining to call him on his nonsense, but its not really very anger-inducing.
His greatest threat to me is if I waste too much of my time in responding to him.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind
Perhaps water buffalo people is too harsh.
Just very “earth bound”, gloomy, heavy, serious, attached, unhappy, people.
As for Messiah complex, I am proposing that some people might enjoy an alternative to heavy, serious Faustian striving, and showing that many of history’s most eminent minds, East and West, thought a simple, ordinary, unambitious life the best one – a point of view that I believe, is suppressed today, and perhaps the source of much of our modern angst.
A rather modest claim.
But one, tellingly, that elicits rage 🙂
Sorry for misunderstanding, your comment seems sensible.
Personally, I like his posts. They have something of Hermes to them; who made jokes and tried to rile people up too.
You might prefer comparing him to Loki, but he doesn’t seem malicious or out for vengeance.
If you find mythological comparisons too grandiose, you can also just use the word “fool”. Such types are often tempered by developing their nurturing side.
https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5049222ae4b026ebf3e1b097/1364785261522-XHGGZ0HCUYLFS4ACNIKI/ke17ZwdGBToddI8pDm48kKJKNZz8ysP7pS1ato1V_S9Zw-zPPgdn4jUwVcJE1ZvWQUxwkmyExglNqGp0IvTJZUJFbgE-7XRK3dMEBRBhUpwx_W6wALqYAokBYFuuR5T8vPbey66suvaG6JAziE2x7sjtepKJiGBs-yQ4VWQ4XyE/JewishJester-Poster-Web.jpg
When Leonard Cohen went to Mount Baldy Zen Center, he met with its abbot Sasaki Roshi. On one of their first meetings, the Roshi told Leonard Cohen: “Here you are not a Jew and neither am I a Zen Master”. Leonard Cohen stayed at the Mount Baldy many years and became a personal secretary to Sasaki Roshi.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/music/from-the-archives-state-of-grace/article32811767/
Perhaps Aaron should go to Mount Baldy, although Sasaki Roshi has passed away a few years ago at a venerable age of 97 years.
https://www.mbzc.org/
Excellent comparison.
Actually, I am a huge fan of what has been called “crazy wisdom” rather than “sensible wisdom”, and have always been attracted to these types. Zen literature is absolutely full of these types, and Christianity has something somewhat similar in it’s “fool for Christ” (Although too serious for me personally).
I think it’s a natural consequence of philosophies that “see through the world”. I think humor and a sense of the absurd comes naturally.
You are right, I have trouble understanding just how subversive and frightening this light-hearted, carefree attitude is to conventional, common sense types. It always shocks me. I always forget how much people want to take themselves seriously.
It isn’t my intention to be a rebel, and I would happily leave normal social conventions untouched, I just find that today society suppresses this view so completely, and takes everything so seriously, that it’s quite unprecedented.
So I merely wish to carve out some small space for what used to be a widespread and legitimate attitude, if not exactly mainstream and popular, and rehabilitate it.
I think the part of the understanding that is still mostly nascent and mysterious to us is the means of intrageneration transmission for such epigenetic factors. Some of it is probably just cultural, via changes in diet cause changes in gut microbiota and subsequently hormones, etc which contribute promotion or reduction of hormones, but the role of seminal fluid and vesicles is seemingly novel to our understanding.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6974692/
So that’s basically almost “cultural”, though via gene-culture co-evolution, there’s a genetic component as well along with the essential and dramatic changes in the human “ecosystem”, we know that this is true at least of lactose adaptation, which seems to have evolved in the last 20k years(and spread even more recently, Roman-era Britons seems less lactose-tolerant):
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/052084v1
But then , this agricultural component and decrease in variety is accompanied by a massive change in microbiota, an “extinction event” as the microbiota is recolonized by dominance of gut bacteria with agricultural-civilization friendly bacteria:
https://asm.org/Articles/2019/November/Disappearance-of-the-Gut-Microbiota-How-We-May-Be
Incidentally, the article directly also mentions the role of neurotransmitters affected by gut microbiota which influences cognition and behavior. So far all of this is really casual and I think, would be difficult to argue around.
The more nascent and stranger aspects appear to be inheritance by an alternative method besides DNA, and it seems that sperm have vesicles that provide that method, and thus the notion of “stress affects subsequent progeny.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6309802/
Potentially this also lends support to ancient views of telegony as well, which indicates that semen from maternal partners from her first conception(or possibly those that do not lead to conception) nonetheless hold a “sire” effect on her subsequent children:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4282758/
I can’t find the paper, but there’s evidence that the sire effect was observed at least in some humans studied(via first pregnancy), but its fairly well acquainted in advanced mammals such as cattle, so it would stand to reason that humans would also hold some aspect of it:
http://www.tailormadecattle.com/blog-devlin/2015/9/4/elusive-genetics-choose-that-herd-sire-wisely
In retrospect, this isn’t particularly surprising as pregnancy is a significant change to the body, so its likely that also causes influence to subsequent offspring.
Its even more shocking that people correct you when you lie about historical figures.
But of course, there can’t be any lies when you claim it exists on another level of reality, no? Solipsism’s great. Its also a complete waste of time to engage with beyond mockery.
So enraged 🙂
Thanks, that’s interesting.
Many people bemoan the collapse of trust in American institutions, but those institutions are implicated in a whole way of life – material domination of the earth, development of technology, ambition, a life directed not at satisfaction and happiness but at a dubious future state of perfection, a life of excessive seriousness with little carefree joy.
If America, and after that the world, is transitioning to a new era in world history – one more centred on contentment, happiness, joy, and away from Faustian striving – then loss of trust on the old institutions is absolutely necessary as a stage.
Something new cannot come into being without the old dying first.
Cohen went there to hide from his coke dealers so that might not be a good example of anything.
I am not sure about that, according to what he himself told, he was battling a chronic depression. Zen helped him to get back on track. Perhaps he used coke as self-medication, a lot of addictions are in fact self-medication to cope with some mental problems.
Its just the Unz equivalent of this, which gets boring real fast:
https://tri-statedefender.com/i-a-fat-beautiful-black-woman-get-lots-of-sex-why-does-that-bother-you/08/07/
Oh God, so now you’re also enraged by beautiful fat black women getting sex!?
Daniel, my poor friend.
Rage is a serious condition. I think there’s therapy for that.
Thorazine, maybe?
🙂
“Here you are not a Jew and neither am I a Zen Master”.
Beautiful, this attitude of being simply ordinary, and nothing special, is exactly what I am advocating.
Daniel Chieh, Altan, and in your worse moments you, are all trying to be “Jews” – special people, Bodhisattvas of compassion, transhumanists, reaching some higher state, etc.
Unfortunately, practicing in a Zen temple in order to achieve some special insight is striving to be a special person, as Linchi understood. Unless the result of all your striving is to finally realize ordinary life is where it has always been – as Cohen ended up realizing.
The result of the study of Zen is to be more of a jester. That is why all those old Zen stories are full of crazy old jesters. Jesters puncture the lofty airs of the pompous and self-important.
Chieh and Altan are frankly pompous and self-important, and are offended at any philosophy that laughs at that. That is what incenses them in me.
You go in an out of striving to reach sone higher state through practice and discipline and an appreciation for the ordinary and non-special.
I hope, in the end, the ordinary wins in you. But I suspect for that to happen you’ll have to overcome your tremendous resentment towards (((Odessians)), which is plainly poisoning your character and holding you back.
Good luck.
I am mildy happy for the fat, black woman. She got what she wanted and had sex with the rapper.
I feel sorry for the article writer. She must judge herself harshly.
She seems to have scoured the internet for voices, which can substitute for her own self-judgement, allowing her to continue whatever argument she has in her head, by pretending that it is an argument with the world.
I also feel like making fun of her. She is shouting arguments into the public square to convince herself that she is beautiful. I would even hope that she would be able to join in with my jokes, if given insight into the absurdity of her behaviour by them.
I doubt she would be able to though, as her image is too important to her. Remaining cool and impermeable is her defence in a confusing world. I can see how this applies to AaronB. I believe it applies to everyone to a greater or lesser degree.
Its an interesting psychological tic, you see it often:
“The Man doesn’t want you to know this MESSAGE OF LIBERATION! It makes the System MAD!”
Its quite boring after awhile, but its interesting in how it well it works as a kind of basic clickbait for the notion of the forbidden, thus the various “One weird trick that dentists don’t want you to know…”
Exactly.
It tells more about the individual than about the world she resides in.
The individual cannot be extracted/divided (pun intended) from the world one resides into. This world is experienced in the mind of the individual. Therefore, the perception of the world is inherently subjective.
Also:
https://youtu.be/KHbzSif78qQ
Classic…
https://twitter.com/ArtyomLukin/status/1402180271043141634?s=20
https://youtu.be/iin-rqpUqRE
For the individual, yes. You see this in interesting cases with some paranoid schizophrenics, who build elaborate worlds of importance where the CIA chases them and wherein secret messages are left in wisps of smoke.
I forgot where I read this, but I think it was in one of Milton H. Erickson’s books where he mentioned how one of his female clients, who was deeply disturbed and ultimately frustrated that she did not live a life outside, began to happily hallucinate that she was giving birth every day. Of course, her delusions were not concrete for anyone else in the world.
I tend to believe that’s also more generally true, and thus a lot of reasoning can be motivated reasoning; that’s part of what metrics and repeatable phenomena hope to avoid.
So we have achieved a resolution of sorts. I take back my claim that you are enraged by what I’m saying. I accept you merely think I’m pathetic, pitiful, boring, and not worth your time.
I also accept that the “system” isn’t hostile to philosophies that advocate a non-ambitious life. It’s quite likely that it is just an egotistical fantasy of mine.
Unfortunately, I do have an inflated ego, that is quite incorrigible. I’ve admitted this.
I think it’s obvious to everyone here that you are superior to me, and I am happy to accept this.
Going forward, I merely plan to offer my perspective that a simple ordinary life that is nothing special may be quite enjoyable for many people, and that it can be an alternative to Faustian striving for some.
A life of ease, without effort, and centred on contentment, appreciation, and joy, rather than striving. A life that is content to accept personal flaw and messy imperfection, and is not focused on self-improvement or future perfection.
I will also endeavor to show how many great philosophers and religious thinkers, both East and West, thought this kind of life was good.
I understand many people will prefer a life of Faustian striving towards future perfection, and I accept that people who adopt such a life develop into superior people compared to people who adopt my life, who develop into small, unassuming people. This should be stated clearly.
I am happy that people of your type find my lifestyle un-threatening, and therefore can be quite tolerant of it.
On this basis, coexistence is possible. Thank you. In the end this thread was quite helpful, and we can all move forward with our positions clarified. I apologize for my misunderstanding all of you.
I am wondering if part of our limitations as a species is not directly due to us trying to recognize repeatable patterns in the nature of Reality.
Perhaps if we could truly grasp the detailed nature of the natural phenomena we observe, and the way they are interlinked with many other aspects of Reality, then we would tend to see each phenomenon as essentially unique.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/07/politics/white-house-defends-putin-summit/index.html
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202105/1224891.shtml
Describe what you see, rather than see what you describe.
I don’t know many people who can accurately take both sides of an intensely personal argument. I liked it.
I am essentially a Neoplatonist; such notions of superiority are something between mostly to completely meaningless.
I merely see beauty in hidden order and seek to evoke that into the material universe. To strive for beauty seems a truly happy and divine thing. To lose oneself into the fabric of the eternal and to identify with it, even for a moment, is both all-encompassing and completely annihilating of the self.
https://twitter.com/ArtyomLukin/status/1401840080428355587?s=20
https://twitter.com/achkhikvadze/status/1401916495131820039?s=20
https://twitter.com/cchukudebelu/status/1374333560769875968?s=20
As I have already written once, I am the type of “antisemitic ” person that gets perfectly well with Jews. In fact, if it was not for the (decisive ?) role they played in the Russian revolution and the Perestroika, I wouldn’t have anything at all against the Jewish people.
But facts are what they are, the peculiar egotism, which is common to Abraham’s children, has driven them into a kind of Karmic track that breeds resentment among the other normal, non-Abrahamic ethnic groups. This Karma ends up producing violence and suffering, including for the innocent people who are guilty by association.
Jews should really become aware of this problem of theirs and correct it through sincere altruism and honest abnegation. It will help healing them and bringing them closer to the peaceful and happy state that all normal people enjoy.
You perhaps are moving forward to that due to your interest in Zen and Taoism. I wish you good luck in overcoming the Jewish “shadow” in your psyche and reaching towards your Buddha Nature.
And yes, Leonard Cohen is a great example to follow.
He was a fine gentleman.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Ginsberg
Biden is going to try to unglue the emerging Sino-Russian alliance. Happily, he is not in a position to come close to giving Russia what it needs for that to happen.
Meant to press “thanks”.
Not that I disagree – I do significantly agree with your vision and appreciate it’s beauty.
Only, my particular version of Ch’an says that this vision of beauty and non-self “already” exists, and that to strive for it is to lose it (as Linchi says). But we substantially agree on the content of the vision.
Anyways, it would be churlish and mean-spirited of me to respond to your generous comment to me with more quibbling, so I will leave off and emphasize that I find your vision moving and beautiful.
Thanks.
https://kapital-rus.ru/articles/article/germaniya_predlojila_arestovat_aktivy_rossiiskih_oligarhov/
https://biblehub.com/matthew/6-21.htm
So what you want to say, is take the Gilad Atzmon pill?
Well how to put this shortly? Buddhas are beyond all suffering, they innately know that all phenomena are conditional and fleeting, subject to age, decay, etc, therefore there is no fear in the mind of the Buddha, nor grasping, but a deep knowledge that anyone can be liberated from suffering and pain. It is we who think that there is no existence beyond our mundane life, it is we who live in fear. In Buddhism just compassion is not enough, but union of compassion and wisdom. Compassion without deeds is nothing else than spineless sentimentalism, wisdom without results, is nothing else than intellectual masturbation.
I dont understand what you are trying to describe? Imagination is when our mind is simulating sensory stimuli, clairvoyance is when people claim to perceive things beyond their senses. Aren’t you a native English speaker, you should know at least what imagination means?
Even if it were so, it does not mean that such phenomena are necessarily trustworthy.
Being a Buddha is infitely blissful and fulfilling.
Not really, just be nice to your fellow human beings. There is no bad Karma that cannot be healed through good deeds. This is true for all human beings, Jews or otherwise. From the point of Buddha Nature, a Jew is not different from a Gentile. And, as Aaron perfectly understands, a sage is no different from a fool.
This comment was a reply to AK comment # 215.
I don’t know enough about Leonard Cohen, to say if he was a good or bad man, or something, but what I can say is that no matter if you are in China, Tibet, Sri Lanka or Burma, that it is universally agreed by all Buddhists outside of Japan that one should never ever trust a monk who is not keeping his monastic vows, that trusting some one who wears Buddha’s Kasaya without following Vinaya/monastic code, is a sure way to negative states of existence. This fake monk who was Cohen’s teacher was a married man, in other words he was just a charlatan.
For clarification lay teachers are not forbidden in Buddhism, but wearing monk’s clothing without living like a monk is strictly forbidden by Buddha.
Problematic for Atlantoids, but what consequence is it to Putin?
Only the EU is strong enough to plug the gaps in Russia’s economy. The US is too far away and left it too late. The time to venture into Russia and buy small assets to make big businesses was the 1990’s. Mostly the Europeans did that. Nestle sells more dog food than Mars. Mondelez only sells chocolate in Russia because it bought Cadbury Schweppes. GM hardly tried. Ford is in retreat. VW/Skoda is well entrenched. in Deripaska’s factories, Renault run Lada. There are more Airbuses with Rolls Royce engines than Boeings with GE engines. US business stayed out of Russia in the 1990’s (unlike political and financial advisors) and it shows. Tough to find its way back in. US dominance in food is not only irrelevant now, Russia is becoming a challenger. Russian language and cultural barriers (home delivery to the 7th floor of a controlled access stairway) has created an ecological niche for Russian IT.
How to prove it? Human Rights meh.
Whatever, I don’t know if you remember, though I remind you of it again and again, that I have no other motivation with you, than telling to others that you are not a Buddhist and not a member of any Buddhist community, nor does any traditional Buddhist school agree with your line of thinking. Though there are times when you blabber half truths, but as you Americans say, even a broken clock is right twice a day. Therefore my posture is purely defensive one. Still if some one wants to follow AaronBuddhism it’s their choice. Maybe world would be better so, I don’t know, I just know that it’s not Buddhism nor Chan Buddhism.
I don’t get where you get this Bodhisattva non-sense, I have never ever claimed to be a Bodhisattva. Anyway to me it’s clear who is here full of spite and contempt.
Ikkyu was a degenerate demon. So he really doesnt matter, he is a non-Buddhist to all Buddhist schools outside of Japan.
Please show me from what book you found that Bodhidharma is saying that sex is basically immaterial. Seems fake.
Chögyam Trungpa is an extremely controversial figure, but he had given up his monastic vows, therefore when he was partying, drinking and doing coke, he was not anymore a monk.
Et tu Bashi?
Well, if nothing else, he appears to have demonstrated at least the ability to withdraw, at least for awhile.
Definitely seems to have struggled.
Fools dont justify their opinions by associating them with exotic religions and philosophies. Such behaviour is too pretentious for fools or jesters.
Hermes/Mercury is one of my favorite gods of Greco-Roman pantheon. Btw planet Mercury’s name is Budha in Sanskrit…
And I have always said, that I don’t pretend to represent “Buddhism”. I don’t even claim to represent Ch’an. I fully admit Ch’an has a “striving” school (although for the purpose of achieving the “realization” that one already has Buddha-nature (is perfect), and “seeing into ones nature” (that one is not an independent entity).
So what are you fighting with me about?
I apologize if I have misunderstood you – but didn’t you say the goal of your brand of Buddhism is to become a Bodhisattva, develop your compassion, work on yourself- i.e, some form of personal development, self-improvement, and reaching a superior state?
It hurts that people suffer now.
Translating distinctions, which exist in my mind, through language, to see if the same distinctions exist in your mind, requires me to experiment and appropriate the definition of certain words.
I have tried my best to be clear in the above paragraph. Sorry if I was unsuccessful.
The more you understand something, the more trustworthy it is.
Thanks for entertaining my statements and questions. I have an idiosyncratic view on things. Probably like most villagers did, with their own superstitions and beliefs.
He was the Emperor’s illegitimate son relegated to the life of a monk. Although he had a Satori experience, so it was probably worth it. But he was first and foremost a great poet.
About sexuality and Japanese Buddhism, one has to remember that in Shinto, sex is regarded as being of a sacred nature. Perhaps, this is why medieval Japanese people were not of the most prudish kind.
Anyway, I agree with Altan that Vinaya is important. But Buddha Nature does not increase if someone is withholding from sex and it does not decrease if someone lives a dissolute life. It is probably easier to see one’s original nature if one is not overly attached to pleasures of the flesh, but if someone is instead obsessed with “pure vs impure”, then it is perhaps not really better.
I think that Bodhidharma was absolutely right when he said that as long as we don’t see our original nature, we are mortals, once we see it we are Enlightened, even if we still sleep with beautiful geishas as Ykkyu did, or write profoundly moving love poems to a blind nun lover as did Ryokan:
Have you forgotten me
or lost the path here?
i wait for you
all day, every day
but you do not appear.
This feeling of profound love and devotion for his lover did not prevent him from also writing:
Like the little stream
Making its way
Through the mossy crevices
I, too, quietly
Turn clear and transparent.
Zen is not a Haram/Halal binary spiritual doctrine. If Reality is one, Mind is one, then why doing so much hair splitting ?
Only place where that Bodhidharma citation is found is in reddit and in that dubious book. Who were the translators, which Sutras were translated? Your site does not tell anything, except the name of the publisher, who are not famous about their accurate translations of Buddhist scriptures.
Pema Chodron was a member of new religion, so called Shambhala Buddhism, which was established by previously mentioned Chögyam Trungpa.
Sogyal Rinpoche was not a monk, and I have never ever claimed that Buddhist authorities are incorruptible.
But cherry on the cake, or biggest bullshit among your waste is this:
Really Bashi you have reached a new low, Vajrayogini is a Female Buddha, not a male, the article you linked is so shitty that even the gender of someone like Vajrayogini is mistaken. Congratulations, you made me angry, you succeeded in what Aaron could not succeed!
Vajrayogini a man? Tantra misogynistic? Who the hell among practitioners of genuine Buddhist Tantra is thinking of some western bs about is male or female having the dominant role, I just cant express how utterly confused claim this is. Females rarely getting enlightened, wtf? Oh you really are a man of a clickbait bullshit generation Bashi. Never really studying things profoundly, just if article sounds shocking it is to your tastes. Ideal consumer of western bs, a true letze mensch for whom things like Buddhism are just objects of mental consumerism.
I really would not have thought that you would link here bs articles about Buddhism. Now I need to explain Buddhist tantra here, and correct the falsehoods of your link, too much work, I’ll go to sleep, maybe next day…
Still short list of corrections
-Tantra is equal, more equal than any other forms of Buddhism
-Many Tantric lineages were established by women
-Tantra with sex is exceedingly rare and should be practiced only between two loving monogamous partners
-Tantra or Vajrayana is 99% about other things than sex
“Male or female–there is no great difference. But if she develops the mind bent on enlightenment, to be a woman is better.” -Padmasambhava, the so called second Buddha and extremely important figure for Tantric Buddhism.
So far, rocks haven’t been as nutritious as meat, but I’ll let you know when that changes for me.
🙂
This is of course true, but it doesn’t mean that Reality is not fundamentally one.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Pine_(author)
Red Pine is an excellent translator of the Chinese texts. In the book a page of Chinese characters faces a page of English translation. This recension was form a Chinese text that Red Pine has accessed in a Taiwanese Ch’an monastery.
http://www.buddhism.org/Sutras/2/Sutras19.htm
I have read another recession of the same texts plus additional early Ch’an found in Dunhuang, some of the these texts offer interpretations of the Cittamatra that are more extremes than the one found in the Bloodstream Sermon.
https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Bodhidharma_Anthology.html?hl=fr&id=M6UwDwAAQBAJ
Finally, the first version that I read was the French one translated by Bernard Faure from a Japanese translation made from a Chinese text:
https://www.amazon.ca/Trait%C3%A9-Bodhidharma-Premi%C3%A8re-anthologie-bouddhisme/dp/2020367378
Bernard Faire has also written an interesting book about Red Thread Zen:
https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Red_Thread.html?hl=fr&id=W03rYFlgPCYC
That’s probably the whole point: something impossible to prove is impossible to disprove as well.
They’re all intertwined – it’s one system. Putin is the one balancing the different clans, but anyway they all have moneys placed in the West. Roldugin’s cellos and all…
Do you have a meditative practice, incidentally?
Its one thing that I would recommend to anyone reading this post, even if it is only for a few minutes. It is a beautiful thing, and there’s innumerable scientific papers demonstrating its benefits even from a purely material standpoint.
What comes along with Great International Bifurcation is Domestic Balkanization.
Armstrong looked into the future and see only a new system entirely different from capitalism (his 309-year cycle basically means fundamental shifts in economic systems)
Yet he’s too married with his models to see past capital flows, confidence in the material world, and struggles between narrow ideological outlooks.
https://twitter.com/ShunuSweet/status/1402434511489552390?s=20
A frequent if tired cope of Russia’s ill-wishers, in reality, Putin proved that he is not beholden to the West with Crimea.
There are of course many in Russia who stand to lose from Western clampdowns on their offshore wealth, but they are, in general, not the people who are at the epicenter of power.
E.g., people like Kostin. But I doubt Putin or Sechin much cares if he has difficulties going skiing in Colorado: https://www.vedomosti.ru/politics/news/2018/05/23/770400-prezident-vtb
They and their minions will not succeed. The days of Western Supremacism are numbered.
European businesses are increasing investment in China and moving supply chains onshore after the quick recovery from the pandemic last year made China an even more important source of growth and profits.
Nearly 60% of European companies plan to expand their China operations in 2021, up from 51% last year, according to an annual survey by the European Chamber of Commerce released Tuesday. About half of the 585 respondents reported profit margins in China higher than their global average, a jump from the 38% recorded a year earlier.
“The resilience of China’s market provided much-needed shelter for European companies amidst the storm of the Covid-19 pandemic,” said the survey report. China’s quick containment of the virus and successful reopening of its economy early last year made it the main global growth driver in 2020, throwing a lifeline to European companies from French luxury giant LVMH SE to German car maker BMW AG.
A total of 73% of the survey respondents reported a profit last year, with another 14% breaking even. That was about the same level as in previous years despite the pandemic, showing how quickly the domestic market bounced back. Some 68% of the survey respondents were optimistic about the business outlook in their sector over the next two years, up from 48% last year.
Businesses are also expanding in China to further separate their operations in the country from the rest of the world, in order to avoid supply chain disruptions due to geopolitical tensions, according to the chamber’s report.
A quarter of the surveyed companies are “onshoring” their supply chains by moving production lines into China or switching to suppliers with local production, according to the chamber. Only 9% of firms said they were considering moving any current or planned investment out, the lowest level on record.
“The main point is to develop supply chain as much as possible here, as far as it’s possible, to provide what’s needed for the market here,” said Charlotte Roule, a board member of the chamber.
Companies are exposed to the threat of decoupling between China and other economies, with many reliant on imports for critical components or inputs that could be disrupted by restrictions or bans by other nations. A third of firms say that there are simply no viable alternatives to some of the equipment or components they import from abroad into China, leaving them exposed to production disruptions. Another 40% said that any alternative would be either more expensive or be of lower quality.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-08/european-companies-plan-to-invest-more-in-china-after-pandemic
https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/ijyjR0SeB6j4/v0/1200×848.png
The West needed a scarecrow. In the future it’ll be the “viral Chinese dragon” that will play this role, but in 2014 the best contender for the role of the credible geopolitical baddie was the “rabid Russian bear”. And the annexation of Crimea was used to prove that “Russia is back at it again “.
The West uses this scarecrow to distract its middle class from the accumulation of the social problems, the loss of economic competitiveness, the slow but inevitable downgrade in living standards, the degradation of culture and spiritual sphere, the interethnic friction due to immigration etc. The “muh evil Russkyi ” and the “muh vile Chink” are also of course used to chant the beauties and advantages of the “Western democracy ” (bwahahaha) and “Western human rights ” (trololol). The propaganda on the telly is pointing fingers and telling to the petit bourgeois: “look how bad it is out there, count your blessings and be thankful you are here “.
And of course MIC is shoveling hundreds of billions by inflating the geostrategic significance of the “muh terrible Putter” (the Kremlin dwarf). NATO bureaucratic machine is oiled with cash, all kinds of (idiotic) think tanks are also enjoying the gravy train. The elites fill their pockets and the pork barrel rolls.
But thing is – it’s all Kabuki theater. It’s all fake and gay on both sides. Борьба нанайских мальчиков…
Dmitry Ponomaryov (RedDvl) and his group of “unlicensed conspirologists” has made an interesting analysis of how the “Крым наш” played out and there are credible elements that strongly point to a “rigged match ” which was fully approved by the global elites. Ukrainian government did not lift a finger to keep Crimea, quite the opposite. Turchinov gave orders to give it up to the accursed Moskaly. His actions are tantamount to a state treason, but he was promoted instead. And he is a well known asset of the Western influence groups and secret services in Ukrainian politicum. So basically, they gave their blessing to the annexation, which helped designing Russia as a “malevolent power ” for now close to a decade and revive the “muh NATO solidarity ” (and more importantly money spending).
Do not get distracted Tolik, they’re all the same, whether East or West, they are scum.
It will be in tens of trillions, like the Weimar war reparations that triggered the hyperinflation.
This, or WWIII.
So China now gets to demand compensation for the raiding of the Summer Palace, Opium war, Japan’s occupation during WWII, theft of Hong Kong and Macau, et cetera et cetera et cetera.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ExNVY29XMAEzYWj.jpg
The forecast is based on no “nth waves” and gradual but certain reopening after everyone marches onto vaccine clinics. Even if those were realized, Schwab will order massive restrictions on output for the “Climate” (Guardian had coverage on this suggesting locking down once every 2 years).
Knock a few %s away from countries that lock down heavily again, maybe 10%, and 1-2% from those who don’t. That means another year of negative growth for those countries in black on the map (nice job to the mappers), much of Europe and the US. India and Russia, maybe flat, China (they just locked down parts of Guangzhou because of a handful of cases) as anemic as last year.
We’re still closer to the top of the roller coaster than the other end, because everyone is restless.
(Wise people stopped praising Sweden after EU pressure led to soft lockdowns, and Taiwan after their first serious spike and belated lockdown. Praise Belarus and Florida for their decisive leaders not bending to outside pressure)
broke: China is wholly responsible for starting WWIII
woke: WWIII is just the latest war orchestrated the Bankers and part of their conspiracy to enslave the world
bespoke: We’re ending up in a world war again because the system needs war to ensure overall stability, both power centres see the time for the rebalancing of power (Thucydides’ Trap), and the nature of state organization is geared towards that end.
Impossible to win at the negotiating table what is unwinnable on the battlefield.
https://twitter.com/RikeFranke/status/1401929297863053316?s=20
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E3X8Qy7XMAkNAR8.jpg
Surprised by the Polish result.
Polish joke:
One day a Polish man bought an antique lamp and accidentally rubbed it, releasing a genie. “You’ll get three wishes,” says the genie, “One for each day.” The Polish man nodded and said: “I wish Poland will be invaded by China.” The genie thought it was strange but granted his wish.
The very next day the genie asked the Pole for another wish. To his surprise, the Pole said that he wanted Poland to get invaded by China again. He granted his wish.
On the third day the genie asked the Pole for his wish but again the Pole asked for Poland to be invaded by China. “If you don’t mind me asking,” inquired the genie, “you could have asked for anything! Money, women, power. Why the hell would you want your country to get invaded by China???”
The Pole chuckled and replied.
“Because for Poland to get invaded by China three times, Russia will get steamrolled SIX times.”
Yeah, this joke was once told to me by a Polish colleague who candidly acknowledged that (some ?) Poles have a complex when it comes to think of Russia and Russians. He was a bit surprised (and perhaps a little disappointed) when I told him that most Russians are completely neutral when it comes to Poles / Poland and have no more concern for Poland than they have for Vanuatu.
A very nice guy, we really got along fine.
Another Polish joke seen today:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E3YzViVXwAMcZan?format=jpg&
The president of Poland said that no one will be permitted to sow discord between Polish and Belarusian peoples, because they are both citizens of the same Rzeczpospolita.
Many LOLs ensued.
I often write about the sad realities in some of the Russian hinterland- “glubinka ” regions, here is a glimpse of what is going on in the small villages of Kostroma area. Andrey Pavlichenkov, the owner of “Terem” in Chukhloma, wrote about these problems in his FB not so long ago:
Google-translated from Russian:
Nothing to add, except that the salary of the mayor in these small villages is around 15 000 rub. That’s for the mayor…
Спасибо Путину за это!
https://www.rbth.com/special_projects/discovering_russia_1/2016/07/01/the-terem-at-astashovo-grand-dacha-in-the-chukhloma-forests_608137
Well, a rock could theoretically be as nutritious as meat… if we had the capability to digest it.
“no”
cue a lot of westoids reenacting Jonestown out of butthurt :^)
Indeed.
https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-642-11274-4_903
Perhaps the future transhuman cyborg Daniel Chieh will happily munch on asteroids in the Oort Cloud, while remembering our Unz discussions with much nostalgia…
“No” would not be a popular choice for an answer. The whole world has been affected by Covid and China would lose much charisma points if it ignored the global opinion which might broadly agree that compensation is morally justified.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/g7-calls-fresh-probe-covid-origins-targets-chinas-use-forced-labor
Et voilà!
Right as expected…
They’re gonna try carpet nuking China anyway. China might as well rug ’em preemptively.
No easy way outta this – if they pay, the demands will become more insane. If they don’t, the demands get more insane.
The only way to negotiate with the West is to have them in front of the exit end of a gun barrel
And the show goes on:
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2021-06-08/china-denounces-vile-provocation-of-us-senators-in-taiwan
Its unlikely that anything complex will be able to run off rocks due to their inconsistent purity(even obsidian, for example, is glass but has a lot of impurities that make casting it all but impossible), but never say never.
New Jacques Vallee interview on Theories of Everything show.
It is two and a half hours and I watched the whole thing; the most salient bits:
The main topic is Vallee’s new book which is centered on a Close Encounter Third Kind case study which has received almost no coverage before. A presumed alien craft landed in distress in New Mexico in 1945 and surviving aliens were briefly observed by two very young ranch hands. The Army quickly cleaned up. There are modern interviews with surviving witnesses including one of the eyewitnesses of the aliens. It was an egg or bell or avocado shaped craft that was hauled off by an eighteen wheel rig. The aliens were noticeably not human. Short. Very skinny. Funny looking in other respects. Perhaps mantis-like is the relevant jargon used by the UFO people. Two arms and two legs, mouth, nose, two eyes. The weirdest thing is they did not appear to walk, but seemed to will themselves in lateral motion without normal human-style leg movements.
Vallee is bound by security arrangements but he did all of this work exterior to those and thoroughly answered all questions about his book and this case.
He is now 81 years old but very sharp. To be still on his game after over two hours (there was one glitch at around the 2:20 mark) doing the bulk of the thinking and speaking with two younger guys is pretty great.
He endorses the integrity and authenticity of Mellon and Elizondo. You Can’t Have Everything!
https://twitter.com/AlexeiArora/status/1401956496154382338?s=20
Iran and Russia signed a visa waiver agreement geared toward tourists on Monday. The Islamic Republic’s Tourism Minister Ali Asghar Mounesan met with his Russian counterpart Zarina Doguzova in Moscow to sign the deal. The agreement allows tourists in groups of five to 50 people to enter the other country on a single visa as opposed to all the potential visitors obtaining individual visas.
so they think. the phrase that comes to my mind is, ‘the return of the repressed’
putting off the consequences as long as possible rarely produces a desirable outcome
Are you joking or not?
The more likely scenario will be astronomic reparations, then a conventional war by the US and Pacificist bloc to partition and enact industrial-scale ethnic cleansing + genocide. Basically 1919 + 1945 Germany, only that COVID is treated as the act of provocation.
Which is not surprising considering that our side (from Unz to Martin Armstrong) points to America/WEF’s role in releasing the virus, and the sole use of false flags is to trigger a war.
To me it seems that you are trying to represent the Linji lineage of the Chan, which is the biggest surviving Chan lineage in existence, or which particular masters of particular sect you are speaking of?
For someone who claims to be outside of the norms, you are quite repetitive, this has happened already a quite few times, that first you boisterously make big claims about something in Buddhism/Chan/Tao is and then later you start apologizing and belittling yourself. In my opinion this is very formulaic behaviour.
In my brand of Buddhism depending on one’s level of motivation, one can choose, so it has always been in all traditional schools of Buddhism, though in Mahayana beings are categorised into three groups according to their motivation, when in Theravada its morelike non-pious and pious layperson, and monastic community. Vast majority of Asian Buddhists are simply put just trying to have a fortunate or good rebirth in next life.
But most glaring contradiction in both you and Bashibuzuk is that you both often blabber how true Chan is outside of scriptures and books, etc, which is true, but for you both Buddhism is from books, all your knowledge of it is purely out of books, I just can’t fathom how people don’t notice such huge paradoxes in their thinking, then especially you have a gall to say that I am too scripture based in my thinking, even though this living tradition would be part of me and my life even if I would have never even read a one book in my life. So joke’s on you guys!
Emptying countryside with decaying infrastructure is a reality in many other countries too, even in Scandinavia.
There were couple threads in Dharmawheel about this translator who uses the name Red Pine, and his use of words is often quite puzzling, like as an example he translates such a major concept like Samskhara with word ‘memory’. From Yogachara point of view it does not make much sense to say that “sex is basically immaterial,” likewise the death is basically immaterial, so what?
Maybe Sher Singh is right, maybe you are not part of Dharmic gang, disparaging some teachings and praising others is not right behaviour, if you would know something about real practice in Chinese monastwries, and not just a book knowledge, you would know that Chan is just one set of trainings or instructions, in Buddhism we can practice very diversely and take various kinds of Dharma empowerments and transmissions. Pure Land, secret Mantra, Chan, Yoga etc. It is very common for Chan masters to practice also the so called “esoteric” or Mantrayana/Vajrayana practices, which you are actively slandering.
Both you and Aaron are just running away from something, and maybe Buddhism to you guys is nothing else than a highly individualistic project to build a religion in your own image, maybe Christianity and Judaism betrayed your expectations or something, maybe you guys are too full of pride. Aaron is a Jew, but you Bashi are a Russian, and Russians are a Christian people, my advice To you is to repent and pray forgiveness from Christ. He’ll take care of you.
But in the end freedom of religion and conscience is more important than even the Buddhism itself, ha ha! So do as you like, this is just my advice, and you are free to choose as you like. At least don’t slander Tantra anymore I humbly ask, such behaviour is more suitable for non-Dharmic people.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Esoteric_Buddhism
As we both know, Tang was formative period for native Chinese Chan…
Btw to me sex is not impure or pure, I dont care what non-monastic people do on their free time, but as a Buddhist I have right to demand that our monks live as they preach. I have known in my life some very corrupted monks, they are very dangerous… In Buddhism sex is not dirty nor evil, but mostly selfish behaviour and Buddhas are anything else than selfish.
Not exactly. For instance, if I quoted to you Jesus’ words from his Sermon On the Mount, I wouldn’t necessarily be claiming to represent any Christian tradition. That’s because you have to distinguish between a religious figures own words and the traditions, rituals, and practices that later grow up around him and form a ‘religion’.
Generally there is a clear relationship between the two, if often distorted, but frequently the religion bears little relation to it’s supposed founders words. For instance, American protestant Christianity with it’s gospel of prosperity and military intervention bears almost no relation to Jesus’ actual message.
I don’t claim to represent any lineage or religion.
The writers within the Ch’an tradition that inspire me are primarily the Third Patriarchs Song, the Sixth Patriarch, Huang Po, Wansong, parts of Linchi, the Japanese Bankei, various poets, and probably some others I’m forgetting and have yet to discover.
I am also inspired by Indian Tantric writers like Tilopa and Saraha, who have a substantially similar message.
Right, I seem to remember that. Striving to become a Bodhisattva or a Buddha is trying to become a superior person of some sort, however benevolent or refined the ideal. However you slice it, this seems rather self-important.
This is a problem in any spiritual tradition that bids you eliminate the ego or work on humility or charity or self-abnegation. Trying to develop these qualities increases ones ego and self-importance.
In the Ch’an writers I admire, one neither develops ones ego nor works to eliminate it, but merely accepts things as they are. It is precisely trying to become something special that clouds ones vision, and precisely seeking Enlightenment that pushes it away.
Of course, trying to become superior or develop certain moral qualities is a perfectly legitimate choice if that is what you want, only there are other religious traditions that counsel a “wise passivity” and acceptance. We all must choose, after we are aware of all the possibilities.
It’s been said that it’s hugely ironic that the Zen sect which is supposed to be beyond words has generated one of the worlds greatest body of written work from any religion 🙂
I never accused you of relying too much on scriptures. Bashi I think is the one to do that. To be fair, he has also accused me of using far too many words as well!
There is a lot of truth to what you say, but the status of words in Ch’an is somewhat peculiar; they do not impart any positive teaching, but only seek to “liberate” one from the prison of words; views, opinions, dogmas, beliefs, concepts, etc.
So basically we are using words as a medicine against words. It is merely a medicine. Once the thicket of concepts is cleared away, one simply experiences life in a direct fashion.
Ch’an is not a religion in the Western sense but a “way of liberation”. This is an important distinction. In the West, it is assumed you start off inadequate and have to build yourself up into something adequate. In a “way of liberation”, the assumption is that your original nature is perfect, and your frustrations are caused by late accretions you must “liberate” yourself from.
The degree to which ones needs words to free oneself from the prison of words is highly individual. Some people may need none or very little. Growing up in a highly literary culture myself, I need a rather stronger dose of the medicine.
Finally, Ch’an has produced so much writing also because while being the simplest message in the world, human tendencies go against it and the message tends to be repeatedly distorted. So it has to be restated and reformulated each generation, in language that makes sense to that generation. While exceedingly simple, humans struggle with the “middle way” of “neither rejecting nor clinging to”, the “still center” – it is much easier to either cling or reject something. So this attitude ends up being somewhat slippery and subtle, despite being so simple.
The Globalists want to balance the rise of China and they need doing it ASAP, otherwise they will lose control and there will be a Singularity with unpredictable consequences.
https://asiatimes.com/2021/06/huaweis-harmonyos-aims-at-us-tech-dominance/
Perhaps they are already too late and Nick Land is right, you can’t prevent Capital from reinforcing itself.
Agreed, Putin needs to be commended for not heeding populist calls to artificially prop up tiny isolated villages with no prospects – something that is incidentally an issue in just about every developed country with stagnant populations.
Klaus Schwab didn’t support the Iraq War and has been friendlier to Putin than about 90% of Western politicians.
I do think the WEF/Schwab obsession amongst Western rightoids is pretty funny.
The actual people who are going to “utilize” them as cannon fodder against China and Russia are the very “Judeo-Christian values” conservatives, neocons, and “anti-globalist”/anti-CPC rightoids that they vote for.
It was always too late.
What about free will ?
And who has decided that there are “no prospects ” for these villages?
И за это тоже Путину спасибо…
QED. Every transhumanist is implicitly Globalist. Your heart is where your treasure is.
I always thought the issue with Schwab and them was simply the whole “supporting the dominance of select corporate entities and chosen technocrats in a false utopia that acts like a concerned force of egalitarianism in the world” rather than anything else. It’s not like he’s alone in that, though, and better that than a warmonger.
Hmm, that last part sounds pretty accurate. I thought the Neoliberals and Democrats were thirsty for Russian blood too, but after Biden slowed Nordstream to go through, I grew slightly more optimistic. Thankfully, I think the trajectory of the (not mainstream) right is a growing appreciation of China and Russia, though it might just be my social groups.
The fear and terror of the incoming Rus horde:
https://youtu.be/cyPsqsH8I4M
There’s always free will to refuse to use chemical energy, but on an aggregate level, your society will fail against a society that doesn’t refuse to chemical energy.
So, in many ways, not that much choice. Less so now that physical and intellectual distances are minimized.
Russian inventors out, Strong Independent Women (and Boeing Executives) are in.
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210609005317/en/Momentus-Finalizes-and-Signs-National-Security-Agreement
https://spacenews.com/russian-co-founders-out-of-momentus/
Oh yes, decaying countryside and stagnating population in the Baltics and Balkan, Japan, Romania, Poland, Hungary and Finland is clearly because of Putin!
You are so much against of Putin that I am suspicious of your Russian heritage, in practice your words differ very little from Russophobic inhabitants of Near abroad, similarly your worldview is based on Putin being хуйло и вор, and that Russia outside of Moscow is a shitty place without future prospects.
I am myself cautiously optimistic about Biden regime, but remember that quite a few time after US presidential elections, there was a promising beginning, which quickly soured and relations got worse than ever. It happened even with Obama, do you remember the Reset?
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4d/Lavrov_and_Clinton_reset_relations-1_%28cropped%29.jpg
Putin once talked about this, and said that there is a strong bureaucracy in US administration that is very hostile to Russia, no matter who is in the White House.
But maybe this time they are trying to pull Nixon’s trick, but I don’t believe that they are really contemplating such an option, US image would take a huge hit among the Russophobic limitrophes and more ideologically driven progressives of the USA and Western Europe(like German Greens), also China and USSR had already very bad relations in 1971, both countries were on the verge of war, so it was relatively easy for China to change it’s US policy to less hostile direction.
Klaus Schwab is smarter than the average bear. He knows that fighting Russians head on is ill-advised, but Russians are easily seduced.
Depopulation is one of the most important aspects in the Globalist Cabal agenda. Anatoly has just written that Shwab was relatively soft on Putin. I wonder why the WEF crowd would be so gentle about the “muh evil Russkyi Putler” ?
I have written repeatedly that Putin and his regime are pegs into the Globalist machine. When Devil plays chess, he does it at the both ends of the table.
https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/02/16/world/middleeast/hillary-video-still/hillary-video-still-superJumbo.jpg
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/scaled/2011/10/22/article-2051857-0E790BEE00000578-599_308x185.jpg
Russian elites have been seduced long time ago. Probably at the time of the Muscovy Company. And whatever the political system, the extractive character of the Russian economy remained mainly unchanged. Basically: make moneys in North Eurasia, enrich your group and send the rest to your sponsors abroad.
Did you know that the first transnational economic/political organization for Europe, the equivalent of what came later with EC / EU, free trade and parliament and all, was suggested by Khruschev in 1962? Few people are aware of that.
And even less people are aware of the fact that only around 48% of the late nineteenth century Tsarist aristocracy considered Russian as their native language.
Россия которую мы (не) потеряли. Россия против Руси…
So basically Universe evolves consciousness that ends up creating Universes that evolve consciousnesses that etc.
Siddhartha was right, it’s kinda boring…
I don’t hold out my hope for (or care for that matter) the relationship with Biden, though I did caution against automatically assuming he’d be much worse for Russia relations than Trump (because Western elites are consolidating around China as the biggest threat) and I think so far I have largely been vindicated on that.
However, the specific person/institution I mentioned was the WEF, and Klaus Schwab in particular.
If you look at and study what they do and say (as opposed to reading rightoid conspiracy drivel about them), one notices that he is less negatively disposed to Russia than about 90% of Western politicians, left or right. But it’s not surprising to see Bashibuzuk, inadvertently or not, signal-boosting Kasparov:
https://twitter.com/Kasparov63/status/1354901601572544516
Still, “racialist” types being useful idiots for Jewish neocons (intentionally or not) is trad af, basically e.g. what “Belov” (Potkin) and a slew of other 90s “nationalist” fossils do, no surprises there. 🙂
WEF is as Globalist as Communism was. It is basically the same ideology under a different garb. The snake changes its skin, but doesn’t change its venom.
No true Nationalist would ever agree with the Globalist Cabal. You have shown your colors the first time I asked you about the Great Reset months ago. You have derided it as “conspiracy theory”. But in fact you agree with it because it leads to Transhumanism. Now you write that Uncle Shwab is great for Russia.
You write that Russian hiterland must be depopulated and Russian villages built centuries ago abandoned because they have “no perspectives “. You are certainly aware of the plan for the 15 megalopolises in RusFed about which I have commented at the Protasevich thread. You know that the smart city agenda is pushed down the throat of the RusFed sheeple by Sobyanin and his group. And yet you have no problem whatsoever with Russians ending up living under tight control in the digital concentration camps. You know that RusFed is implementing massive biometrics.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-03/moscow-metro-to-let-riders-pay-with-a-glance-by-year-end
There is nothing good for the Russians in all of this. But you like it. That is because you are not a Russian Nationalist, you are a Transhumanist and a Globalist shill (which more often than not amounts to the same anyway).
Yes, a generally pro-markets, geopolitically neutral economics discussion club = a millenarian ideology that crippled Russia’s 20th century demographics and economics. Totally the same thing, dude.
Tell us more about how it is behind the Georgia Guidestones while you’re at it.
I said he is not actively hostile to Russia like ~90% of Western politicians, but evidently, reading comprehension is not your strong suite. (Or maybe it is given the mounting amount of evidence you’re some kind of neocon agent yourself).
Is anybody forcing those villagers to leave for cities with vastly greater opportunities?
What’s the solution? To pour tens of trillions of rubles into places populated by 40 pensioners, 20 alcoholics, and 5 children? Or perhaps to tie them to the land like the sovok predecessors?
Living in a smart city is nice. Most bureaucratic functions can now be completed from a computer screen, saving me time and saving the Russian state money. I can vote on various city initiatives on “Active Citizen” from home, and even in elections as of last year. If this is a “digital concentration camp”, well, I certainly prefer that to the real concentration camp that is dealing with IRL sovok Russian bureaucrats. The vast majority of Muscovites appreciate this and Sobyanin’s work on beautification.
But do continue shilling against Russia’s “smart cities” initiatives… from [redacted] of all places.
You – purportedly, an ethnic Russian who voluntarily expatriated and resides in one of the world’s most progressive and “globalist” countries (and by your own account is quite happy there) – are quite probably one of the very least qualified people to opine on this matter on the planet.
Can’t have multipolar world order without the poles.
In some ways, Russian vision for the world intersects with that of the Davos crowd. Obviously, there are dangers and risks in that for Russia, but them’s the breaks.
Which world if preferred? The one with united Europe standing on their own? Or the one where there are only two poles – US and China, and everybody else is a log, laying down and too weak to stand up?
And yes, united Europe always ends up attacking Russia. But more often than not Russian Army ends up occupying European capitals in the end. It is a war Russia knows how to fight and win. This is not an option in a world dominated solely by US and China.
So basically Davos crowd kinda gets it, they just want to dominate it all. Russia wants things to be more dynamic in the end, that’s the difference. But as you surely have noticed, Davos crowd doesn’t like excessive nationalism in both US and China. That’s because they want to prevent those national poles from becoming excessively strong. And in that, quite rationally, they find Russian support.
TLDR: world is complicated, overlords and Russians are not stupid, yes there are risks, but the rewards make the game worth it.
Are you familiar with Norse mythology? Odin is interesting, as he has much of both Hermes and Zeus.
Re-“doxing” allegation, you implied your country of residence in the discussion here: https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-151/ You have also stated on several occasions that you first emigrated to France, and then moved somewhere with a similar culture (there aren’t exactly many candidates here). Also, countries are big, revealing you belong to a set of millions of people is not exactly a doxing (this would be somewhat different and more questionable if I was to reveal the city, if it is a small one). But regardless, I’ll give you the favor of removing it.
Anyhow, point is, given your background, you are one of the least qualified people to opine on the legitimacy of my political identity (or lack thereof) on the planet. Вы или крест снимите, или трусы наденьте.
You posted a link to an article, which claimed numerous falsehoods and lies about Buddhist Tantric practices, what else that is than slander and disparaging of Dharma?
Ikkyu was a monk, and before 19th century all Japanese monks took Buddhist Pratimoksha vows, he was an oathbreaker, a monk who breaks his Pratimoksha vows is a serious transgressor. But yes, Sasaki’s situation is not so serious, for after the Meiji restauration Japanese “monks” have normally just taken Bodhisattva vows, which do not forbid sexual relations, unlike Pratimoksha and Vinaya vows. Still he wore all the time monastic robes or Kasaya, or Kesa in Japanese, which is only permissible clothing for monastic celibates.
Japanese are very cunning and sly, in Japanese language they call their fake monks as monks, making no difference between legit foreign Buddhist monks and their native fake monks, but in English language they often use word (Buddhist) priest, though there are no priests in Buddhism.
Very nihilistic-relativistic take, ultimately we have the same potential, ultimately our mind is dependently arisen, ultimately we do lack of separate or permanent selfhood, we have do not have our own essence, still on a conventional level Ikkyu was a demon. Teachers of Chan, when they say something, they always have a clear goal on their mind, which arises from a pure motive to liberate a being from some particular form of grasping or self-cherishing, there is no essential truth in their sayings.
https://har-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/item-images-resized/2000px/9/0/0/90017.jpg
Here is Hevajra’s consort Nairatmya, she is a fully awakened Buddha, an ultimate being, above all devas and brahmas, does she look weak or “non-dominant?” Just in case if you utter some modernist rubbish like, “being depicted topless is sexist,” you should know that before Islamic invasions it was normal for women to be topless in the Subcontinent, such behaviour was normative even in early 20th century Kerala and Tamil country.
Perhaps it’s exactly the opposite happening in our interaction. I have lived in the West long enough and traveled a lot, I happen to have an intimate knowledge of RusFed, I have also been keenly interested in Transhumanism so I understand a lot about the way you perhaps might see things today. And regarding your political position, you have yourself written that it is “all cosplay at the end”.
But be careful Tolik, as I once wrote: being rich is great, staying human is better. If you end up among the influential and the powerful, as your intelligence would certainly allow you, but end up losing your best human characteristics, such as compassion towards the “glubinka ” alcoholics and other lost and downtrodden, then perhaps you would have ended losing more than you would have gained. I once spent a couple of weeks with a group of homeless people in the forest located near the place where Putin and his buddies built Ust’ Luga port and it was a great experience. They were human and kind.
The sociopaths are often successful, but I don’t personally would like being a sociopath…
Altan, I just don’t like the “holier-than-thou ” attitude that some people end up having when they are attached to some religious beliefs and practices. In my opinion there is no need for that.
You have very little experience of “RusFed”. As has been observed, and not just by myself, so far as Russia is concerned, you live in the 1990s “time capsule” when you left; most developments since have simply passed you by, from your quaint views on social relations to your caricature takes on the Russian “glubinka” which not even Western hacks tend to produce these days. (Out of a passing curiosity, when was the last time you even visited the glubinka? I visit such places every year, and they invariably get better every year. They are about a decade behind similar places in Poland, but that has been the case since at least the “lost decade” of the 1990s and in many respects earlier, too). Your ignorance about transhumanism is also patent, if your Breitbart-tier takes on it associating it with “globalism” and “satanism” and the like are anything to go by. Have you read the actual literature on the subject – people like Vinge, Kurzweil, Bostrom, De Grey, Hanson?
I approve of your decision to try to avoid being a sociopath. Judging from your comments about desiring to do “really bad and violent things” in Russia had you not emigrated (https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-151/#comment-4694944), I suspect you might have more need of moral support in that department.
Interesting though not quite a TIL, as you probably know, Afanasy Nikitin remarks that Indian women went around topless in 15C Chaul.
I am somewhat familiar, but not anywhere as much as with the Buddhist “mythology.” Norse gods are mostly Aesirs, which is cognate of Sanskrit Ashura, meaning of those gods who are more belligerent and contentious, and not as high as devas, who are more harmonious and elegant, though in Buddhism those categories of divine beings are not as clear cut as in Hinduism and Zoroastrianism. Deva is btw cognate of Deus.
For clarification I should mention that for great many of Buddhists these things dont matter much, and are not very important, before someone thinks that we are preoccupied with such ancient lore…
I feel that all time is present and I think this is conistent with Buddhism. Helpfully, because I enjoy it, this makes “ancient lore” less fusty a subject.
Do the Eye of Ra and Kali have cognates or analogues in Buddhism?
Or the Greek elemental system and a potential fifth element similar to lightning?
Or a white serpentine dragon, huge squids, a great stag, a tree, something like Baphomet, a sphinx, a large walking bird with a stick and so on? Or is this type of imagery not relevant?
Sorry, so many questions: I enjoy this type of symbology.
Last time I was in RusFed was in autumn of 2018, I have been to some glubinka then. I still have family and childhood friends there. And the information I provide is taken from my personal acquaintances some Russian blogs not some Western MSM. There are positive developments in RusFed around the major urban centers, but there is also a substantial depopulation ongoing in the rural areas, including in the chernozem region (which is actually rather surprising).
Regarding the 90ies and the sociopath angle, they’re kind of correlated. You weren’t in RusFed back then or you were a little young perhaps. The way I was evolving and my milieu were conducive to a certain degree of violence. But I never hurt an innocent person, either physically or morally, and I never pretended being superior to all these people who suffered and died in droves back then (among them a few of my childhood friends from our neighborhood бригада).
Regarding Transhumanism, I got interested into it when I arrived in the West, I read Bruce Sterling’s Schizmatrix and immediately thought of it as being something of a Western equivalent to the Strugatsky brothers “Noon Age” and “Vertical progress ” concepts. Of course Sterling is as American as Strugatskys were Soviet, but the evolution of humanity towards something more than our today’s condition and becoming Galactic was appealing and somewhat felt similar. So I started digging for more and I read some of the authors you mentioned and Greg Egan (who I believe is probably the best transhumanist Sci Fi author) and Charles Stross (whom I don’t like that much).
This being said, I was already relatively knowledgeable of Russian Cosmism, and basically Transhumanism is Western Cosmism (Hugo de Garis would probably agree with me here). And Russian Cosmism was kind of the esoteric doctrine of the early Russian Communists (Cf Lunacharsky, Bogdanov Malinovsky, the Богостроители faction and the like). So I often had the feeling that “someone” just kind of “repackaged” the whole thing for Western audiences. And Cosmism is of course a Christian Heresy.
Given that I have read enough esoteric literature back then already, it did not take me a while to understand that Transhumanism is basically an (anti)Christian Heresy too. It is obvious for anyone familiar with the thoughts of Abrahamic Religions’ heretics, that Transhumanists are the same thing but with Deus ex Machina (not the game) some AI, Roko’s Basilisk or other similar shit.
I really let go of Transhumanism when I read Nick Land. I was doing PhD in my field back then and sometimes borrowed from my University’s library some unrelated literature to relax a bit. Fanged Noumena brought me back to Shafarevich’s “Two roads to the same precipice “. Land and Shafarevich, in a very different style and from a very different angle, described something very similar.
And it was inhuman and frightening.
So yeah, Transhumanism is Anti-Christian and to some degree Gnostic, but without the positive side of the early Gnosticism. There is no reunion with a higher power in Transhumanism.
And there was no higher human standard in the Globalism which must pave the road towards the Transhumanist (anti)utopia. As there was no higher human standard in Communism which attempted to lead to the Cosmist (anti)utopia and failed.
And I believe that Globalism and Transhumanism will fail too, just like Communism and Cosmism did. But when it will happen, the catastrophe will be planetary and most humans might simply not survive.
That is why I now completely oppose Transhumanism. It is too dangerous and should be prevented if we want to ensure the survival of our species.
I was hoping from some of his comments (“I saw a UFO onetime when I was in the desert with my Berber friend”), that Ano4/bashibuzuk has tattoos and owns a diving academy in Algiers or Madagascar.
Sometimes he was posting here late nights on a laptop, waiting under the starlight, to take tourists for early morning spear fishing, or because he couldn’t sleep after drinking too much coffee with Bedouin elders. Sadly, of course, a more likely emigrant lifestyle – system administrator in Edmonton.
You missed the main point of my comment. But Xi and the CCP Politburo thinks along technocratic lines too and will welcome some of Schwab’s innovations if only to strengthen their control over Chinese society.
This is why the “outbreak” started in Wuhan. The Devil isn’t a particular faction but an ideology, a concept.
Huxleyan techno-feudalism, and the project has been in motion since around 1900 in concrete form (tho Dugin will say the whole Capitalist project is Antichristian).
Bashi’s intuition is right, and Martin Armstrong especially when he says Russian will collapse again by 2037. Why is Armstrong shilling for China when they are going to race to the bottom while still having sheer size as in the pre-industrial world?
We now have a world where the Orwellian distribution of power is added onto Huxleyan decadence. This is the path set in the 18th century ever since universalism (which is now Globalism) was made the ideology of an increasing number of states.
Tell me Bashi, why did you suggest me to get the jab and go to Canada?
We have always been watching the shadow play in the cave, a play with all the struggle and diversions in the world and written by our masters. But at least some of us know it is a shadow play, look outside and eventually venture out. This is why life is worth living even in the worst of times.
We do have a Kali, but more in Jungian archetypical sense, it is quite complicated, we have so called meditational deities, which represent aspects of our psyches, anyway they are not at all important for the average practitioner. Greek element system, yes we actually have it, our system is very nuanced, and we do have the fifth element, which is akasha or space, then we have atomic system or systems too.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/abhidharma/
There are various kinds of serpents, dragons and snakepeople or Nagas in in our legends, I dont recall if someone of them is white, but they are a one category of beings, so it would not be surprising if there would be a one that is a white.
Great stags too, actually stag is one of the traditional symbols of the Buddhism, Buddha was a man of kingly origins and his father loved to hunt stags, before he stopped it out of compassion, and often stags and does came to listen Buddha’s sermons.
I don’t recall anyone like Baphomet, who by the way is not very ancient, and there are no mythological squids or birds with sticks.
When the Muslim couple became “thoroughly tired of each other,” they separated “without difficulty and the woman is free to go nika with another man or set up again for herself in the bazar.” Disreputable women converted en masse to Islam to be free from social condemnation, as Islam had “nothing conservative in its tenet.” While Muslim women were sexually promiscuous, they were unregulated by regimes of shame and social condemnation.
Muslim women were characterized as sexually brazen, with insatiable sexual appetites and a dangerous promiscuity unleashed by the system of temporary marriages.
https://theprint.in/pageturner/excerpt/what-made-hindu-and-muslim-women-take-up-prostitution-the-british-really-wanted-to-know/581922/
Reminder that Islam is the most feminist religion, unironically.
😀
I am sorry for my occasional outbursts of grief. But we have a dark world…
https://katehon.com/en/video/curse-william-okham-his-razor-damned
(I’m still stuck at “looking Westward for spiritual inspiration” stage, that’s why I call myself Yellowface. But almost every Chinese or other peoples who had their minds raped by Western ideologies do, too.)
Well, you seem to understand a great many things that the majority of people would never even be puzzled about. And despite being very brainy (or as you wrote yourself- a bit autistic) you care about other people, the world around you and you seem to want your genetic lineage to survive.
My intuition is that in the coming day and age, the best strategy for the survival of one’s genetic lineage would be to just conform to the new normal in outward attitude, get forgotten and lost in some place where the controls would be minimal and wait it out.
For that, one would need space, a thinly populated territory, with relatively functional infrastructure and the least performant repressive bureaucratic machine. There are not that many places in the world that combine all these characteristics.
None of us will make it out alive on individual terms, but our genetic lineages might be among those (probably relatively rare) that will get it past the bottle neck. Personally, this is all I hope for myself and my genetic lineage.
But then everyone decides for oneself.
Good luck, friend.
P.S. For a middle aged guy like me, your generation are all a bit autistic, doesn’t mean you ain’t gonna have a very interesting and fulfilling life…
The times in this world have always been in shades of gray. It is never completely dark, nor is it perfectly pure and shiny. And human nature is also that way. The immense majority of people are neither saints, nor monsters. Saints and monsters are exceptional, we might spend our life without meeting one.
Life is worth living because through this life we learn. Perhaps this is the only reason we appear here at all. It is true that it is mostly shadow play on the wall of our own mind, but sometimes we do see the sun rising through the trees and we feel it is real, here and now.
Maybe that is the confirmation that it is worth it.
I’ve had coffee (and tea) with the Berber, nice people some of them (I was once invited to a traditional Kabyle marriage in a small mountain hamlet), I did free diving and spear fishing, I nearly got the Prajnaparamita Vajracchedika Sutra tattooed on my back in my late 20ies (thanks goodness I didn’t) but I never been to Edmonton.
And I have a bit of a more eccentric and exciting career than an average system administrator (not to belittle system administrators who do a very important job). My life is quite different from the life of a normal Eastern European immigrant, my Eastern European immigrant friends seem to all acknowledge that when we compare our experiences.
But there is nothing bad about living an average and boring life. Some people are made for playing scrabble and watching telly. Some others for having Berber friends (and even girlfriends), spearfishing, reading obscure and useless ancient Chinese texts, going crazy and violent places, meeting eccentric businessmen, getting Altan angry and pestering AK on his blog.
Life is what you make it…
You probably don’t know how I live in the real life, so much like one of those Zoomer pod people. That’s why I really believe in the adage (can’t remember the exact wording) that my inner self is what I hate the most.
https://twitter.com/broseph_stalin/status/1402397814211158019?s=20
Thanks to the efforts of transhumanists, life has been much less shorter.
Abhor the clay, rise the Spirit!
Some great quotes from Huang Po, the teacher of Linchi, who I quoted above –
Eternity does not depend on duration. If you’ve lived one second, you have eternal life.
You were neither born, nor can you die.
Well if you would have seen me during the last weekend, excessive, even for me, but then I am not a monk.
Btw Buddhist monk’s vows are completely voluntarily, and they can renounce their vows whenever they like, just by asking abbot to release them from their vows. Therefore Ikkyu’s behaviour as a monk and abbot was inexcusable.
Objectively, I think it all has to depend on measurable metrics, or otherwise one could quite easily hack a dopamine system to have a “fulfilling life” indeed.
Hacking our dopaminergic system is what we do everyday. I’m going to have a coffee…
Forget about Ikkyu as a monk, just think of him as a poor (Emperor’s) bastard and a great poet…
Yes, and with technology, this can be accelerated to perfection.
https://www.sparringmind.com/supernormal-stimuli/
https://i0.wp.com/s3.amazonaws.com/sparringmind/Legacy+Images/Supernormal+Stimuli/supernormal-9.png
It is not optimal to make this a terminal value.
Objectivity is not an option for humans.
Last night I dreamed I was a butterfly. Or am I now a butterfly dreaming I’m me?
Having tried most drugs, I have discovered that with the right perception, simple ordinary reality is the greatest bliss there is.
I think humans are natural bliss machines. We mess this up, then use all sorts of drugs to recover the bliss that was our birthright.
Which isn’t to say you shouldn’t use drugs. They can help you recover the bliss that’s your birthright, and then you probably won’t need them anymore.
Likewise, all these searches for “higher states” and “future perfections” come from having lost connection to our natural birthright.
These searches for higher states are basically no different than drugs – that’s why I don’t oppose transhumanists or believers in various heavens. They have lost touch with their birthright of bliss, so situate bliss in some future state.
But even though they don’t realize they already have what they are searching for, on a symbolic level they know bliss is the human birthright. They should be commended for retaining this sense on some level of their being that bliss is indeed our birthright.
True, by searching for it in the future they guarantee they will never find it – to search for the Way is to lose the Way. But that’s a journey they have to make.
And I heartily enjoy a good alcohol bender every now and then – cleanses the mind, and it’s good to be a little crazy every so often. Intoxicants will always have a part to play in human life, even if the best states are found just being ordinary
I believe that we are created in the image of God, clad in clay, but divine in spirit.
To become closer to the perfection of the divine that we witness in the realm of the ideal, so we acquire wisdom and knowledge, to become closer to God. It is a process of evocation, the summoning of perfection that we can glimpse but briefly into the dross of the material world. Much as the golem was built of clay but made animate through knowledge, so is the entire modern world of technology: made with material, but given life through knowledge and understanding that comes from the perfection of beyond.
To rise beyond, not only as an individual but as a species as a whole, is therefore divine and reinforced by the fact that those who have embraced and sought knowledge and repurposed it into use into this world have prevailed. Technology is adaptive.
The instinct of the animal is part of the clay. It needs not be our destiny, not anymore than the flesh that is our clay.
I know, I was dreaming about four sided triangles for several hours last night.
I’m not interested in solipsism. As I’ve implied before, living in accordance to that means that nothing is real, so you might as well give everything to Karlin now.
Since its essentially meaningless and profoundly maladaptive, there’s no point to it. It prevents measurement, which is essential to understanding and advancement, and engagement with it is a net negative on time expenditure.
Dreaming that the bullet won’t remove your face will not make it so, and your dreams can be profoundly tampered with the right application of electricity and chemistry.
https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/the-man-who-fought-a-bull-with-mind-control
You have learned a false lesson.
It isn’t quite solipsism, and the logic of thinking things not real leads to acceptance, not renunciation of material things. Renunciation attaches intense negative importance to things.
However, unless I’m misunderstanding you, you are adopting the assumption that things are real because of it’s functionality and adaptiveness, not because you think objective reality can be demonstrated.
Sort of like Samuel Johnson responding to Berkeley’s idealism by kicking a rock, or William James pragmatism.
I can totally respect that. In fact, I advocate for the functional, adaptive, and pragmatic approach.
I also grant that thinking things real does indeed have adaptive value, so I’m with you on that as well.
I merely claim, that on the level of spiritual and psychological health, the idea that we cannot demonstrate objective reality, may have adaptive and functional value as well.
And a mature man should be able to think on multiple levels. He should, indeed, be free, and regard his thinking as an adventure.
I am very much on board having the adventure of thinking things real and seeing what we discover – up to a point.
How do I know I am not simply dreaming the bullet has removed my face? I am not claiming we can make up the “rules” by which things happen. That appears to be entirely beyond our control. But how do we know they are really happening? That I am not dreaming they are happening?
If I dream I am a butterfly and then wake up to being a man, how do I know my “wakeful” state as a man is not a butterfly dreaming it’s a man?
The point isn’t even to wake up from the dream. Why do that? And it’s not to change the rules of the dream. But knowing it’s a dream may have profoundly liberating effects psychologically and spiritually.
It may even have an effect on finding our what the “rules” of this strange dream are.
Ah yes, the adaptive value of being a hypocrite.
.
How so? Unless I misunderstand you, you admit objective reality cannot be demonstrated, and that you assume it for it’s pragmatic value.
Doesn’t honesty, then, mean incorporating this into our intellectual world view? Wouldn’t hypocrisy be assuming reality for it’s pragmatic value, but pretending we had demonstrated it?
Also – ” a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds”. Not so?
Too great a concern for consistency, too great fear of “hypocrisy”, would never have allowed us to discover the particle-wave function.
Ask yourself – what is it you really want Daniel? Do you want to really find out how this dream-reality works – and marvelling at it’s strange quiddity, so far from the homely comfort of our human reason? Or are you really after the safety of a merely human consistency?
Is reality stranger – and richer – than the principle of non-contradiction?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dXQPL9GooyI
I’m not sure I understand – would you care to elaborate Coconuts?
I just meant that if objectivity is not an option it should be possible to dream about four sided triangles. But is it? If we were talking about a four sided triangle what would we be referring to?
There are other similar examples related to denying the principle of non-contradiction, the famous one about Socrates and the donkey; a putative ‘object’ that is supposed to possess simultaneously all of the properties of the man Socrates and of a she-donkey; so it has simultaneously only 2 legs and yet 4 legs, 2 arms and no arms and so on.
Please participate in this experiment and let me know how it goes.
What do you think of Bill ੨੧ btw?
Canada not that Prog only elite:
https://www.ekospolitics.com/wp-content/uploads/20190415_slide3.png
https://www.ekospolitics.com/index.php/2019/04/increased-polarization-on-attitudes-to-immigration-reshaping-the-political-landscape-in-canada/
ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕਾਖਾਲਸਾਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕੀਫਤਿਹ
Well said. Maybe I sound like a simpleton, but isn’t triangle made by you and your mind? Are you not yourself setting the parameters or deciding the attributes of the triangle? Triangles are triangles, just like the colour green is green, and can’t be anything else, that is true, but do they exist independently, by their own being, or do they exist dependently? I know that theists and platonists think that they exist in the mind of God or something, but according to our logic they exist by contrast, or in contrast with other things, triangles nature is defined by everything else that is non-triangle.
You are a model case of some one who has gotten everything wrong, remember the Two truths, ultimate and conventional, all masters of Chan were well versed in the works of Nagarjuna. Right now you are constantly grasping, my English is bad, so maybe you will not understand, but your view is very attached, you have made your view and you are reifying it constantly.
When masters of old said something, their intention arose out of pure compassion, and context was everything. You on the other hand are just confused. Even Dharma can be a poison when wrongly applied…
I think here we are starting to look at some of the ‘big questions’ in philosophy. The way it develops in the Western tradition:
Are triangles a creation of our minds or a discovery they make? The mind shapes the triangle or the triangle shapes the mind? Because triangularity seems to inherently involve having three sides, the angles always adding up to a certain sum etc.
When we talk about triangles is the same thing to some extent present in both our minds, which would also be present in a drawing on a piece of paper or in the shape of a road sign? These questions are key points in the arguments between nominalism and realism about universals that was discussed earlier.
A related question, do triangles and triangularity continue to exist when no human is looking at them or thinking about them?
AFAIK in the realist traditions of Western philosophy dependence relationships are usually thought of in terms of ontological dependence; is this thing a contingent being that only exists because it is caused by something else, or is it something that cannot fail to exist? It seems that this is different to the way it is meant in Buddhist traditions.
Yes, there are various ideas and theories about how triangularity and triangles might exist; as full Platonic forms, forms or concepts existing in minds, immaterial objects etc.
I think here there is a different intuition or basic understanding of this point, in these kinds of realist traditions the starting point is that there are triangles and lack of or absence of triangles, rather than triangularity and non-triangularity as contrasting things. I started thinking about this point during some previous discussions; you see various French and British philosophers dealing with it when they are criticising German idealism in the early 20th C.
But, another important point, there is also an idealist tradition in Western philosophy that accepts this view in a certain form, in seed form in Kant, but fully present in Schopenhauer and Hegel. I was wondering if this tradition of German idealism and existentialism is an influence on AaronB. Something weird happens to this idealism in Marx, a whole other story, but important and what got me thinking about these topics lately because a large part of Woke thought seems to grow out of this Marxian tradition.
Is it just your individual belief, or are you perhaps a member in some (informal ?) circles that have adopted this as their spiritual tradition?
Feel free not to answer if it is too direct a question.
https://www.mathsisfun.com/geometry/triangular-pyramid.html
https://www.math.brown.edu/tbanchof/Beyond3d/chapter4/section06.html#:~:text=The%20triangle%20and%20the%20triangular,dimensional%20analogues%2C%20known%20as%20simplexes.&text=Four%20points%20in%20space%2C%20not,a%20three%2Dsimplex%20or%20tetrahedron.
Also see Gantz Graf by Alex Paterson and Autechre. Alex Paterson has designed the whole video to be somewhat close to an LSD experience that he one had. He said that in that trip, the objects that he hallucinated seemed to have a more than 3 dimensional representation. They changed in a way that seemed natural and fluid, but impossible in 3 dimensions.
Our mind is confined in 3 spatial dimensions + time that defines the direction of causality. As long as we stay that way, we cannot possibly know how many dimensions our Mind truly has (if it has dimensions at all).
Just contemplate the words of Huang Po, and you will be liberated.
No attachment is to be found in those words.
Thanks.
As I said to Chieh, it’s not that we make the rules of the game – rather, we can’t know if anything we think happened, has happened.
As for the law of non contradiction, Zeno has some good examples, and many logicians do.
Canadian elites have been shaped by the British Empire and its multicultural ideology. Canadian nation has been shaped by immigration + climate + landscape + history. The elites are rootless urbanites, the rural populations are well rooted in seasonal change and the harsh climate. When you live off the land, as your Jatt ancestors probably did in Hindustan and my Slav ancestors did back in Russian Empire, you develop a practical attitude and a grounded view of reality.
Information is inherently logarithmic.
Question is: what really is Information ?
Is there anything completely devoid of any information content in our whole Reality?
Can our Reality be experienced outside of an information flow?
You know the whole: “In the beginning was the Word…” aspect.
Kant was an absolutely cataclysmic thinker for a few centuries, whose insights have somehow gone into eclipse. Arguably, Einstein and quantum physics could not have occured had Kant not “loosened” our hold on “reality” and opened the mind to new vistas.
It is astonishing that in the 21st century we are returning to naive Johnsonian pragmatists like Daniel Chieh – naive not as an insult but simply as in not incorporating the most sophisticated thinking into ones view.
Kant was the culmination of the great European age of adventure that dared to follow thought wherever it led. What could be scarier for most people than realizing we are not on firm ground, that we can’t know we know? What, also, could be more exhilarating?
But in an age of bureaucracy and peer review, such bold insights cannot survive.
Yet, “contradictory” phenomena like the particle-wave function could not have been discovered until our “hold” on reality was “loosened”.
Our failure of nerve today, is probably responsible for the current scientific stagnation. When most people who are interested in science are like Daniel Chieh, you will get bureaucracy and “sensible” peer review and group consensus, but not bold insights that push the envelope.
This is not to insult Chieh who is a highly intelligent person, just to state facts.
For my part, I don’t care about science or progress and am only interested in the metaphysical and spiritual implications of Kants thought. In certain ways, Kants thought was similar to Nagarjuna’s and can be a great liberating force.
The problem with Woke is the problem with late modern Western thought in general – it is half hearted and doesn’t go all the way. It’s fine to say genders don’t really exist – every good religion says as much, in an ultimate sense. But then to attach so much importance to gender and to define ones essence by gender is to go back into the prison.
Similarly, it’s fine to say soul and spirit don’t really exist – but then to still believe in matter, in the existence of physical things?
Surely they are both? Our minds are co-creators of reality. That is the insight of Kant. Our minds force sense data into particular categories that we cannot know if they are valid or not – worse, even begin to contradict each other if pushed far enough – but can’t think outside of either.
But how would I know if what I thought were the results was just a dream?
It’s not the words, but the mind that one must behold. Words obscure the Mind.
Huang Po on the nature of the Mind.
Of course this is no different from what Shakyamuni, Bodhidharma, Huineng had to say about this topic. Xu Yun confirmed it some hundred years ago. We have no reason to distrust the Masters of old. They opened their mind/heart to us out of their compassion for our lost and deluded errands in this World. They did it for our benefit…
Yes, certain Western thinkers have also dimly begun to perceive that dividing the world into words and concepts is our Original Sin in a way.
And the sad thing is, we twist what the Masters of old say into something completely different, so that we no longer have to hear their radical challenge, losing their message. We are too afraid to simply listen to what they say, because that would be a break with our comfortable habits.
You are needlessly complicating things. Liberation is simple. Just don’t be attached to anything. Not even to becoming a Buddha.
Just realize your ordinary mind is already that “higher state” of wisdom and compassion you were striving for.
The secret of Buddhism is, you’re already “it”, and you’re already “there”. You don’t have to strive. You just have to wake up.
How do you realize what you always had? By not striving. Just settling down into your ordinary mind, just as it is, with all it’s imperfections.
It’s such a deceptively simple message, but so hard for humans to grasp! We love to complicate things endlessly. So we write libraries around this simple message.
But sometimes, we do have to make a journey, just to come back to where we started, and see what we’ve always had.
Yes this is rather sad, but also a little funny in an ironic way, because their “radical challenge” was not radical at all. It was simply the message about “chopping wood and carrying water” or about “washing one’s bowl after having eaten one’s rice gruel”. It was about simply going back to our original nature which is simple and clear-minded and acting accordingly. The fact that we come to perceive their message as radical is proof enough that we have drifted far off from a balanced mind-set.
But if one is “simple in spirit” and “gives to Ceasar what belongs to Ceasar and gives to God what belongs to God” then perhaps one might find for himself that “Kingdom of Heaven is inside you and around you” or the “when the mind is pure, all Buddha-lands are pure, when the mind is impure, the whole World is the realm of devils “.
As long as we stay neurotic and twisted-minded, so long we will not find peace. No matter the ideology we adopt, philosophy we adhere to, religion we convert to or technology we develop. Once we become again “simple-minded according to the Way” then we will perhaps have some respite and know what true contentment is.
Your whole comment is very well put. I just posted my response to Altan which is similar in spirit 🙂
In my personal life, I am constantly amazed by how my increasing desire to live imply is seen as “wrong” by people around me. I am constantly being told I need bigger, more, and better things. That I should ask for a raise, etc, etc.
You would think a desire to live modestly would be the most uncontroversial position one might take – yet I am finding that in fact it is extremely controversial!
Partly this is because I live in a big elite city that is where people come to be ambitious, and I need to move to the country, and plan to. But I think it is also a sad commentary on our times as well.
I also think the damage starts in our childhood and is a feature of civilization itself. We are told by our parents and teachers we aren’t “enough”, and must “become” enough – we must always strive for “more”. So then great religions like Buddhism and Taoism and Jesus must come and restore balance.
Yes, and this somehow always happens to the human race, and some “great religious figure” like Jesus or the Buddha or Lao Tzu just arise and express to his contemporaries in language they can relate the message of utmost simplicity and ordinariness, which is seen as “radical” 🙂
It’s the endless cycle.
Correct. If one wants a quiet life, then one needs a quiet place. Also one has to give up on people’s opinions about oneself. People thinking that one is great and good doesn’t make one any better and people thinking the opposite doesn’t make one any worse.
You still continue saying that something is so and so on in Buddhism. How someone so formulaic repetitive is anywhere near Awakening?
You clearly already have a “view,” and both you and Bashi have made your mind. In the Buddhist Way one goes forever further, beyond all sense-aggregates and clinging….
Dear Coconuts, your reply is excellent, I will answer when I have more time. Sadly my knowledge about Buddhist logics is lacking, but I will try my best.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/16/20/81/162081b117513fa199ed3f59b6f0841c.jpg
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/13/c0/de/13c0dea7d0b9b6d273bee0ccc19f3f51.png
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ae/Kanzanjittokuzur.jpg/220px-Kanzanjittokuzur.jpg
Strange that you seem to be attached on Israel, you preach something, but you are not living by your word, eternal hypocrite, just like Chieh said.
Yup, when you are going to let go of Jewishness? I am waiting by the way!
Both you and Bashi are full of contradictions, but major force that is driving you guys is pride. All masters of Chan had deep knowledge of Buddhist basics and were grounded on tradition, something like Chan is only meant to be learnt after many years in monastery. It is a fetter in Buddhism to be attached to rituals, but rituals have their use in moderation. How to break one’s limits, when one does not know one’s limits? Chan has never been it’s own school anywhere else except in Japan, where even Pure Land and Mantrayana have separated to become their own distinct schools, Mahayana’s attitude is holistic, everything that is useful in crossing the sea of Samsara and reaching the shore of Nirvana is to be used, and rest is to be discarded. Japanese Buddhism is nothing else than the death of our Religion, as we all can notice from your confused behaviour. Sometimes I did not agree with Bashi, but I thought that he is a fellow Buddhist, and I tried to be encouraging, even so he continues to be a heretic, not even understanding the importance of Pratimoksha, not caring of such things. Even though Nirvana is eternal, Buddhism is a composite phenomena, subject to decay and old age, and it is well known that Buddhism will crumble that day when there are no more noble people, renouncing the ways of the world, out of compassion.
You fools think that through books you can learn something that is hard to understand even through careful instruction, what else that is than pride?
Absolutely, that’s exactly what I am writing about: beholding one’s mind. How can one transform one’s mind from corruption to Enlightenment if one doesn’t behold one’s own mind ?
The Buddha.
AN 1.49-52 PTS: A i 10 (I,v,9-10; I,vi,1-2)
Pabhassara Sutta: Luminous
translated from the Pali by
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an01/an01.049.than.html
This is the Mind that Gautama Buddha, Bodhidharma, Huineng, Huangpo, Xu Yun and all other masters talked about from their own personal experience.
This is our own mind that we need to behold and develop. And every one must do that for one self, through one’s own efforts and at one’s own pace. Even a snail can climb the Mount Fuji, but slowly, slowly…
But first, one needs to behold one’s mind to become calm, detached, perceptive. Everything we need to find starts in our own mind/heart:
Ryokan Taigu.
https://terebess.hu/english/haiku/ryokan_5.jpg
I’m not very attached to Israel or Jewishness anymore. That being said, I do have a connection to both, and I don’t reject that either.
Being unattached means neither clinging to nor rejecting things.
If you want to say I’m proud for thinking I can understand Buddhism by reading books, that’s fine. But my position is to accept oneself and the world as it is and live a simple life. It’s a pretty humble view.
That being said, I don’t think one should “strive” to not be proud. Just be what you are.
I think you are very dissatisfied with yourself and still have a journey to make. You still have to discover that you were always lacking nothing. As the saying goes, the end of all our journeying will be to return to our beginning.
But in your case, I think right now it would be very injurious to you to stop your great striving and journeying. You still have a journey to go through, so good luck.
Again you are assuming bullshit on behalf of others, actually I am quite content with myself, and as a Buddhist quite lazy. As I said you have developed a fixed view of things, and that is not purpose nor goal of Chan (Buddhism).
So what is the difference between of being not attached to anything and not being very attached? So being a little bit or moderately attached is now okay? This is actually quite an important point. You can’t have it both ways.
But thanks once again proving that you are not living as you preach. Also you lack of consistency in your arguments, so I feel like debating with someone who is constantly hitting the bong.
No shit! Is that to you really some kind of big revelation? Maybe to your neurotic mind, but accepting things and being humble is elementary in most religions, but it’s not all, even if you would live simply and humbly, you would still be under the external conditions, sickness and old age, death of loved ones is reality for simple and humble folks too!
Good start, but you blew it again, by quoting some Japanese Tirthika. I did not even know who this Ryokan is, but cursory googling shows that Japanese thought that he was an exceptionally good monk, who loved to drink and crossdress, well that’s Japan to you people! A mad island of heretics.
Anyway our mind is not enough, or do you honestly claim that self-awakening is so easy? We do need help in the road, especially when Sangha and Buddhadharma still exist. To you Buddhism is just something that makes your conscience silent and content, to many westerners it’s nothing else than a feel good philosophy, so that your petit-bourgeois life could continue without too much hassle. Oh, when having a feeling of guilt, or feeling powerless, or feeling that life is meaningless, well just read little bit soothing Japanese Zen poems and make those noises in your mind quiet!
Fucking heretics!
Actually, it’s the Middle Way. To try and actually eradicate attachment would itself be an attachment. “Working on oneself” is an attachment to outcome and self.
Non-attachment leaves everything as it is, just doesn’t take it very seriously.
What does this look like?
In life, we naturally develop attachments. Our typical reaction is either to repress them or to obsessively build them up. But there is a Middle Way; neither reject nor cling. Simply let it be, without reacting to it by either extreme.
In Ch’an, “ordinary mind” is enlightenment. Nothing special.
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It’s the simplest message in the world, but one that humanity keeps on losing sight of. Acceptance.
So we need great religions to teach us this again and again.
Sickness, old age, and death do not become problems if approached with an attitude of acceptance and life is lived with an attitude of non-attachment, allowed to be just what it is, to flow just as it wishes to flow without us interfering.
It is our striving against life that creates this feeling of alienation from life, and once you live the unattached life you realize you are not separate from everything else. In Ch’an they say you were never born and you will never die. Because there is no “you” against the “world”. You are the world.
In Hindu myth, this is expressed as Atman.
In Ch’an, it is variously expressed as all is Mind in some branches or as “not one “thing” exists from the beginning” elsewhere. In Mahayana, this idea is expressed by saying the world as it appears to us, broken up into individual things, is a dream, an illusion, a magic trick, and in fact there are no “things”. In Taoism you are one with the Tao.
But the basic idea in all is to heal the split between you and the world and reveal the underlying unity that was never lost.
Perceiving this, you no longer need to strive to be anything and can just live simply, letting life flow as it wills and no longer trying to be it’s master.
https://encyclopediaofbuddhism.org/wiki/Luminous_mind
Is it monastic enough for you Altan ?
I usually do not engage in discussions about Ch’an. They are futile.
Be well.
Oh so now it is “actually” about the Middle Way with you? Well you silly man “not being attached to anything,” is not the Middle Way. Not even on non-attachment. Good that you are finally getting it! Or not because you dare to blabber that Atman is the Hindu way of expressing the same truth, nothing could be more contradictory! The false truth of Atman is denied by every Buddhist ,Chan masters included!
But I’m not arguing with you anymore, not at least for today. Because I am tipsy right now, and unlike heretics I do know the difference between clear mind and not-clear mind. Yup, I was so angry about heresy this morning that I took our dog and couple beers with me, and left for a walk in the forest, so now I am not so angry anymore. And I must admit that beer is quite nice sometimes, especially stout.
Still there’s clearly no escape from madness these days. Even on unz.com, my preferred right-leaning website, where I dont meet same faggot liberalism/progressivism that I often meet in my affluent social circles, I meet fucking heretics!
But still I must argue! That dear Aaron is just beginning, it is the right view to understand that there is no separate self, but understanding it is easier said than done in practice, that’s why we need daily work, so that we could purify our mind from the Karmic patterns that are deeply entrenched in our psyches. To see a glimpse of our true nature is indeed greatly motivational!
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Well you can’t even let go of some silly internet debate, how you would let go of something that truly matters? What if America would fall and Arabs would be slaughtering Israelis? Would you approach that with the “attitude of acceptance and non attachment, and just allow what it is, without interfering?” After all even nations suffer from time! There is btw in my opinion nothing wrong if you are attached to Israel and care of her well being, but if so then there’s quite a big contradiction in your words!
Sorry guys if I am going overdrive, but in my perspective… well better to be quiet, sometimes silence is gold, and I’m tipsy…
Well good luck in recognising the Luminous or Clear Light nature of your mind without any guides and their help, I don’t say that it is not theoretically possible, but if you attain such realization alone by your own skill, then you are probably the first in our Saha world to achieve it alone after the historical Buddha! But how Japanese devils use to say? Ganbatte, or something!
During WW2 Americans contemplated of dropping of A-bomb in Kyoto, in the end it was not dropped because of cultural reasons….
Bodhidharma in his sermons also said that it is exceedingly rare that anyone achieved Liberation without the help of a Teacher, but he also mentioned that anyone who has formulated the resolute thought of Enlightenment will eventually recognize the Ground (if we use the Dzogchen terminology).
Meeting a suitable Teacher depends on one’s Karmic influences. But Karma is malleable and the number of Kalpas infinite. One has to have faith in Mahayana. Wherever we go this is our Karmic locus. One has to accept that with an open heart and move forward. We need to learn to act without producing further Karma, to achieve that we need a simple and tranquil approach to existence. You don’t extinguish fire by pouring gasoline.
It is basically a flow of causes and consequences until it is not. We just need to do what we can do about it until it stops. When a great wave comes towards you better surf it or dive under until it is passed. Swimming against it will just exhaust your forces and make you drown. When one enters an impetuous stream, one must just walk carefully one step at a time until one has crossed to the other shore. The Mind itself is Heavens, Hells and in the end its own extinction – Nirvana.
This is my last reply. Discussing these topics through a negative mindset is not beneficial.
Well, learning to just “let things be” is a form of discipline and practice. Resisting the urge to practice is itself a practice, in a way.
Even though being one with everything is the natural state of man, by the time we reach adulthood we are so messed up by society and negative experiences that it does indeed take some effort to recover our primordial simplicity.
But it is not a “building up” kind of effort, which is the kind of effort mainstream society generally recommends.
It isn’t even really an “undoing” kind of effort, although that gets closer to the mark.
It is merely a willingness to let ourselves and life be as they are and go with their flow. Since we reach adulthood inculcated with the message that we must “control” things, this message of utter simplicity is – quite ironically as Bashi pointed out – utterly radical.
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I have a natural human attachment to Israel, but certainly I would be ok with it falling, because I do not cling to it either. I neither reject the natural human reactions that arise within me as a result of my life circumstances nor do I obsessively cling to them and build them up.
Like all things, Israel will pass away in it’s current form. That is inevitable. My personal view is that Islam is in serious decline and in a state of transformation. I think Israel will mix in with the region and something new will emerge, a new kind of culture, neither Muslim nor Jewish nor Western.
There are all sorts of new adventures for the human race to be had.
As for America falling being the demise of Israel, I actually think America with it’s liberalism is what is keeping this conflict alive. Israel could have solved it easily by transferring the Palestinians or taking harsher actions in war, and only being allied with and part of the liberal Western world is what stopped it.
Overall, I think this is a good thing. It’s tempting to fall into the illusion that mere brutal power can solve things, but in the end, the society that adopts that perspective rots from within.
So Israeli “weakness” in making such efforts to spare civilian deaths in the end is a strength. The Muslims do not understand this, and adopt a harsh, aggressive mentality that sees them suffer defeat after defeat, and lose ground over the long run.
Well, Altan, if you feel an inner compulsion to strive, struggle, and build yourself, who can say that’s an “error”? That’s obviously where you are karmically now, and you have to live on that basis. Just as who can say Chieh or Karlin are “wrong” for being transhumanists?
There is no inferior or superior, there are just different levels of insight.
Buddhism is a very big and vast hall, and it has room for all of our approaches as our personalities and needs are different.
Good luck on your journey.
It is a kind of spiritual tradition, loosely a descendant of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.
Blah, blah, excuses and excuses, one is never going to find a teacher without some personal effort, just waiting passively, will lead before later into lower states of existence, good luck of finding a Dharma teacher or having a faith in Mahayana as a snail or some other animal!
Path starts when in connection with the living embodiment of Buddha’s Dharma, the Sangha, only great masters have a need for some personal great guru, for the rest of us it’s good to go to Dharma teachings and other Buddhist happenings.
Yup, run away, think some Zen verses and take couple puffs from the joint! It’s all good, so whatever!
I don’t smoke. Have stopped cigarettes years ago, have never picked up the Marijuana habit and as of late (last two years) I don’t really drink either. Perhaps a couple of drinks now and then, never enough to get drunk. I would have to agree with Aaron here, just being calm and somewhat clear-minded is great enough. You should try it, you might actually like it. You know, the old Sufi saying: “There are only two steps to the door of the Friend. You’re stepping with the first step “, might actually be true…
I am very calm, dont worry I will say when I’m not, and weed smoking was just ironic remark, irrelevant and not truly important, unlike my main message, therefore you are now just evading from the crucial questions here.
https://live.staticflickr.com/7623/16869714915_76bdc458f3_b.jpg
Wheel and Swastika are most ancient symbols of Buddhism, but why you may ask? Because everything moves, Dharma is the beneficial movement and change…
Beneficial deeds, words and thoughts, not being stagnant and complacent..
I don’t disagree. I just did not yet meet a Sangha group that I feel is the right place for me. And I have tried some of them. Including a Vajrayana one which was led by a young Gelug Lama from Mongolia.
Good, excellent, by the way be very careful with Gelug lamas, especially ones from Mongolia, safest bet in Anglo countries are Gelug Lamas affiliated with the FPMT(Foundation for preservation of Mahayana tradition). We do not seek actively converts, except one evil splinter group among us.
Vietnamese and Taiwanese Chan monks and nuns seem excellent, both lands have not suffered from communist repression or Japanese perversion as heavily as Mainland China and Korea have, therefore they have kept their Vinaya and Dharma practice on a high level, almost every time when I visit our main monasteries in exile, there are quite many visiting Taiwanese or Vietnamese monastics, who seem to be very knowledgeable and full of healthy spiritual vigour. Once I stayed in a Vietnamese temple in Kushinagar, and the abbess there was a very inspiring person, though she was very strict about vegetarianism…
Yesterday I was little drunk, so I must admit that mistakes or one great mistake was made, Middle Way does not reject all attachments, only those which are based on self grasping, on selfishness, on wrong views. Desire for well being of others and oneself is indeed important and natural from a Buddhist point of view.
You are just making stuff up on ad hoc basis.
In my opinion you lie, we dont know each other personally, so only way for us to know how other person truly thinks, is to look his comment history, and based on that it seems that you would not be ok with Israel falling, especially when you even now right away start arguing about Israel’s future, and how the potential future change or transformation would be beneficial to her. Aaron I did not mean beneficial change or growth, I did mean inescapable change of fortune and death which will be the destiny of all compounded phenomena, I do not believe that you would have some Zen state calmness if Israel would again be in some huge crisis like in 1966 or during Yom Kippur, and so on. Do not get me wrong, but history shows us that when Jewish fortunes do change, they change quite dramatically. But now we are going to wrong direction in our discussion, I really did hit the nerve with Israel, right? Because you started to blabber so much about her. Well I don’t want that our discussion goes into politicsl direction, but I’ll just say that in my opinion Israel would not have survived without USA during the Cold War, during the 90s it’s debatable, but presently yes, yes I believe that Israel of 2021 would survive without America, but for long I cant say, USA does bring some stability, and I think that without America Israel would probably be even more martial and shell shocked as a society.
Anyway in Buddhism one does not strive to be deattached from one’s nation, that is nihilism, we believe that love and compassion are like muscle, they are natural part of us like muscles are, they grow with training and practice, and everyone must begin from somewhere, you cant start out of nothing, but no matter what I say, you will not get it, because you have taken the Chan and great Siddhas like Saraha and Tilopa out of their Buddhist context, and made them just puppets of your inner biases and inclinations. How nice it is for you to be without teachers and monks, as long as there are no such people you can be the god of your own philosophy!
Well, you say this on purpose, right? Because you very well know that you are not Buddhist according to Buddhist criteria, as I have told you many times already, and don’t say any mumbo jumbo, you are not in our hall, you are not even a beggar outside of the hall, you are in a completely different hall and country, in a hall where Aaron is the ultimate guide and master.
But you are always welcome among us, you just need to take Refuge in the Three Jewels of Dharma with some monk from a proper lineage, oh and most importantly you need to have a sincere mind. I know that probably in your city the definition who is a Buddhist is quite different, you just read some books and buy some decorative elements and a vot you are a Buddhist! It’s very easy for me to discern when people are sincerely Buddhists and when not, as an example those who truly are have no problems of making full prostrations before the statues of Buddha, actually they even enjoy prostrating before the Buddha! But Dharma is already in your mind, though in corrupted form, but everyone must start somewhere.
Good luck Aaron, be well!
Being attached and unattached are dualistic extremes. A non-dualistic philosophy cannot abide in either extreme.
To try to be completely unattached, is to be attached to unattachment. To “allow” oneself to be attached, is to paradoxically not take your attachments very seriously.
Someone who tries very earnestly to eradicate his attachments is paradoxically very, very attached. Someone who simply let’s his attachment be – does not fight them – is liberated from them.
You are still in the power of what you fight. When you no longer fight it, you are released from it’s power.
This kind of “paradoxical” thinking is at the heart of Buddhism and all mystical traditions generally. They reject the “law of non-contradiction” and binary thinking. Nagarjuna philosophizes in this fashion.
But it is a rather subtle point that some people evidently cannot understand. It has nothing to do with intelligence – some very intelligent people cannot grasp this point.
I think both you and Chieh are smarter than me, for instance, but your mind works in such a way that this particular point you cannot grasp. That’s why to Chieh I appear as a hypocrite – though extremely intelligent, his mind naturally thinks in exclusive alternatives and simple binaries.
All that means, is that this kind of philosophy is not your path to liberation. Bashibuzuk would similarly say that I am using far too many words and subtleties, and he is undoubtedly correct.
For me, this kind of wordy, subtle philosophy helped me liberate myself from preferring one extreme to another, and to settle down into an ordinary life avoiding extremes.
But having served it’s purpose for me, I discard it and am no longer much interested in it. It is just a raft, an expedient means, and today, I get more out of simply being simple and nothing special.
But evidently you need a very different means to liberation, and that is perfectly ok.
Thank you, I appreciate it!
And I too wish you a good and interesting journey.
Well we are not Advaintins, who literally are non-dualists, we of Mahayana deny both non-dualist and monist interpretations of reality, for us the key to understanding the reality is Pratityasamutpada or Co-dependent co-origination, which is basic and elementary knowledge for all Buddhist Chan masters, Siddhas, Dzogchenpas, Tantrikas, monks, Vidyadharas, dakas, Acharyas, Aryas, ngakpas, chödpas, no matter which school, Hinayana or Mahayana…
Arya Shantideva says in the chapter IV verse 43 of Bodhicaryāvatāra that he will wage war against mental afflictions, except of those that are related to elimination of mental afflictions. “I shall be tenacious in this matter; and fixed on revenge, I shall wage war, except against those mental afflictions that are related to the elimination of mental afflictions,” or so the verse 43 is translated from Sanskrit, Tibetan version is almost same: Here I am obsessed, and with vengeance I shall wage battle. That kind of mental affliction is the exception, for it destroys the mental afflictions. By the way Shantideva was one of the greatest Siddhas ever exist, Saraha, Tilopa, Naropa and Milarepa came from his spiritual lineage.
It is clear that for you there is no great difference between truths of Daojiao, Buddhism or Hinduism, in that and in other various ways you greatly resemble followers of Advaita Vedanta. We Buddhists do, and even our great Siddhas like Tilopa, Milarepa etc, did believe that our faiths are not manifestations of one same truth. Let’s say that I am not a fan of Advaita, but maybe you can find something interesting there? They are by the way the only Hindu school which can sometimes beat us Buddhists in a debate.
Sorry Bashi and Aaron if I have been too rude, though I believe that both I and Aaron have big egos, but maybe it’s just me and my delusions…
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/8e/e9/eb/8ee9eb184ffe5c4a8caf7a0343d5f1c5.jpg
Green Tara in a modern Newari style. It’s nice that our illustrative arts are not stagnant and at the same time not making a break with the tradition.
You’re not very good at self-observation, but you’re right insofar as your prattle seems to be just about right for your level of spiritual and mental awareness. I’m happy for you and will be even happier once I can ensure that you can be helped to the appropriate amount of thorazine.
Yes, there absolutely is a tradition of great striving and personal effort in Buddhism, and I completely acknowledge that fact.
In my view, the “logic” of Buddhism tends towards acceptance and passivity over time, but often only after a period of great striving, although not always necessarily so.
So I am not “against” striving and effort – it has it’s place as expedient means and as necessary for some people.
But I am sure you would agree with me that no method is right for everyone?
For instance, if the goal is to overcome “mental afflictions”, then if someone discovers that, the more he fights them, the stronger they grow, and the more he “let’s them be”, the weaker they grow, then “letting be” is the better method for that individual?
Modern psychologists have made important discoveries in this field that indicate that it is often the case that the more one struggles against an emotion the more powerful it gets, and that paradoxically, the more one “accepts” an emotion the less bothersome it becomes – even if it doesn’t disappear, it somehow doesn’t world the same power.
Mahayana Buddhism is surely the “large vehicle” partly because it is so tolerant of a vast variety of expedient methods – and an important school within Mahayana has discovered that “letting things be” is more efficacious for some people than striving. It’s harnessing the “law of reversed effort”.
Further, the “logic” of non-self seems to militate against pitting”self” in a struggle against “other”, as those categories are illusions.
That being said, it is certainly appropriate for some people to struggle, and striving and effort can be a very beneficial stage for many people.
Even Huang Po accepts that some people need a period of striving before they can perceive the truth, only this striving doesn’t change anything it is merely a precondition for insight into a truth that was always there.
At the same time, many Ch’an writers including Huang Po warn that at a certain level, and for many people, continued striving can actually interfere with enlightenment, and the expectation of discoveries some grand new thing interferes with perceiving that the ordinary is the marvelous.
So it’s really an individual thing and caution is involved.
This is where a good teacher would come in who knows your individual requirements – alas, there are none left in this age.
Saraha, Tilopa, Naropa, etc, ended up belonging to the “effortless” school of non-striving, but I am sure they would have recognized striving as an expedient means for some people as well.
You will of course find me a heretic 🙂 But I regard Advaita and Mahayana as differing in emphasis and in the development of expedient means.
Advaita allows itself certain “positive” descriptors like Atman while Buddhism does not “cling” even to this. But I see this as a question of expedient means. Different minds work differently – some may benefit from thinking in terms of Atman.
I’m not on a high level. I only try and use what works for me. Philosophers like Nagarjuna and Kant, Hegel and Huang Po, Montaigne and Wittgenstein, have helped me see the limitations of thinking in exclusive binaries.
That helps me come to terms with the “negative” aspects of life and live more joyously and affirmatively, and even be more creative and sensitive to the unexpected and unusual.
If someone else can live joyously while believing in conventional logic then more power to him.
Its just “medicine” – if you’re a stronger, superior, and more intelligent person who doesn’t need this medicine, then you’re in a much better place than I am.
Not being that strong myself, I need this medicine to live well.
I’d be happy to take Thorazine if it was the only thing that allowed me to live well.
But after trying most drugs, I’ve found that with the right philosophical “medicine” I live best without drugs, in a simple and ordinary way.
But if anyone needs Thorazine, they should certainly use it.
And if people like you are strong and superior enough to live well without Thorazine or drugs or any kind of philosophical medicine, then obviously you are in the most enviable position of all, and I am happy for you.
But weaker people like myself must avail ourselves of what we can.
Yes, and people with epilepsy can benefit from lobotomies. I don’t see any objection to that, though of course, one would hope for a better solution.
That does not mean that you should celebrate lobotomies, or advocate it for others.
Your personal hells are your own. You should be wary of harming others just because you need to nurture your own pains and make your own mental issues into something meaningful.
If you truly feel that way, then in my humble opinion, you’re moving in the right direction.
Hope you will reach true peace and containment soon enough.
Godspeed my friend!
Well, if a lobotomy was the solution that led to the best overall quality of life, then I cannot see any objection to it.
You’d have to weigh the pros and cons, and people would have to decide for themselves as long as they had all the information at their fingertips.
I wouldn’t advocate it, because I don’t advocate any one solution to human ills, but I’d certainly offer it as an alternative to be considered.
As a Taoist, I would be willing to sacrifice what you call “objective knowledge” – whose primary purpose is to gain power over the physical world – for a life of greater tranquillity, joy, and harmonious connection to the greater scheme of things.
So metaphorically speaking a “lobotomy” – decreased knowledge – strikes me as a legitimate option deserving consideration.
It just depends on whether one thinks happiness is to gained by increased domination over the world or in finding ones harmonious place within the greater scheme of things.
Well, I’m certainly not trying to make my pains into something meaningful. In fact, my road to happiness started when I accepted that my pains have no meaning 🙂
I have repeatedly argued against “meaning” on this site.
In Buddhism, there is no meaning to pains – they are merely afflictions that arise from delusions.
Certainly, my personal hells are my own. But the historical record seems to show that many people share my personal hells (a more accurate term would be “pervasive dissatisfaction”. In Buddhism, “dukha”).
So I merely offer one possible solution to pain that has worked for me, and that according to the religious and philosophical writing of millennia, has worked for countless others.
Certainly I do not say there is one solution for everyone, and I do not seek to advocate for a one size fits all solution. The record of religion offers other alternatives as well, as AltanBakshi shows.
I merely present alternatives that I and others have perceived. I welcome the fact that you offer your own alternative on how to live well, and you make clear that following my alternative means sacrificing certain things humans perceive as a desirable good – like power, status, superiority, and even enhanced survivability.
Perhaps I am not clear enough on exactly what my alternative surrenders, and it’s good that you fill on the gaps for me.
With all information available, people can choose for themselves what will likely lead to happiness for them.
If you believe that power, status, and enhanced survival potential lead to happiness – for you personally- you certainly shouldn’t choose my path. If you think joyousness, appreciation for the marvelous to be found in the ordinary, a sense of harmonious connection to the greater scheme of things, and a sense of release and liberation constitutes happiness, then you might find my alternative appealing.
But as always, each must choose. And I believe in providing as many options as possible.
There’s plenty of reason to cause harm to others, but one should at least give it some thought.
Yamamoto Tsunetomo, Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai
If I understand you correctly, in your last comment to me, you are saying that my philosophy is harmful and should not be advocated.
And in this comment, again unless I’m misunderstanding, you’re elliptically suggesting there may be grounds for suppressing a harmful philosophy?
Again, totally open to the possibility I’m reading too much into your second comment. Although your other comment to me seems clearly to be saying my philosophy is harmful and shouldn’t be advocated.
What puzzles me is that earlier, you said neither you nor society finds my philosophy in the least bit threatening, but merely trivial and boring, and that the idea that you – or anyone else – are trying or might try to get me not to advocate my philosophy is totally in my head.
But now you’re saying my philosophy is indeed harmful and shouldn’t be advocated, and possibly – that the evil my philosophy can do is grounds for it’s suppression (unless I’m reading too much into your comment to Bashi).
So what gives, Chieh? There seems some confusion here.
Perhaps it is less about you and the more about the people that unfortunately I suspect both Bashi and I have had personal experience of.
Ego, Aaron, ego.
You do what you have to do. If you cannot avoid it, then you kill if you must. But only if it cannot be avoided and without deriving any pride from the kill. When you kill someone, you apply the teachings about Emptiness: the killed, the killer and the act of killing are empty. Nothing to brag about, just doing what is right.
My grandfather fought in the Red Army, in one of the worst places on the whole Eastern front and ended the war wounded 4 times and highly decorated (the Order of the Red Flag was his top decoration, he nearly qualified for the Order of Lenin, but was black listed by the political comissar of his unit with whom he oncr had a spat).
He was in the artillery and ended up commanding a battery.
The first winter the rate of attrition was close to 68%. They could not bury their dead comrades because the ground was thoroughly frozen and they ended up piling the corpses up around the battery, it somewhat helped against the enemy fire.
When I was around 16 years old, I asked him: “Grandpa, you must be proud that you killed scores of Germans”. He got angry and replied: “I didn’t personally kill any of them!”. I was surprised and told him: “But your battery shelled them and certainly killed some?” He answered: “I did not see any of them dying and I prefer thinking that we might have missed more than we have killed”.
It is only today that I start to understand his attitude. He could not avoid killing these people who were his mortal enemies, but he was not proud of what he had to do. He just did it because it had to be done. He would have preferred not killing any of them.
There is today a commemorative monument standing right on the spot where his battery was located in 1942 – 1943.
It is my belief that in the end, moving around the atoms of the body means really quite little. It is far more important that your motivations were as pure as it was possible in the situation. I think on a material level, too, it also allows one to be as clear-headed as possible about it.
And this is ultimately true even on a very basic and human level: our immune systems do a thankless and endless job of destroying microbes that invade us, often sacrificing themselves in the process. Certainly they commit harm. But it is a harm to preserve a greater unity, ultimately selfless and part of a process of beauty.
Regarding the Immune System cells. It is perhaps worth noting that they kill our own cells every day and that without them doing this we would end up having cancer much more often. OTOH, the unchecked proliferation and increased destructive activity of the immune cells is itself one of the worst possible concer diseases. Balance is important. Another peculiar thing that I have come to appreciate about our immune cells is that they are simultaneously specialized and highly effective in their activity and communications, while they also somewhat remain archaic in their flexible ability to move around our body and for some among them to proceed with phagocytosis.
There are perhaps parallels to be drawn here between our immune cells and Special Services / Secret Agencies.
Well, there are many people who can benefit from my philosophy, and that are harmed by the philosophy of striving that you and Altan advocate.
So just as it is not about me but the people you know who may be harmed by my philosophy, it also isn’t about you or Altan but the people I know who are harmed by your philosophy.
As someone who for years was harmed by the philosophy of striving advocated for by people like you, I want to share my joy at being liberated from it with people who can benefit from it.
So – how about we both tolerate each other’s philosophy and accept it’s appropriate for different people?
Despite being harmed by your philosophy, I fully recognize it’s of benefit to some people and that it has a fully legitimate place in the world.
In fact, eliminating the philosophy of striving would do immense harm to the spiritual progress of those who need it.
Likewise, I think I have been responsible in making clear that my philosophy is not appropriate for everyone – only those who feel themselves ill served by mainstream philosophies of striving, and who cannot articulate an alternative.
I welcome your warnings that my philosophy, in the wrong hands, can be harmful – totally agree and appreciate that I perhaps don’t emphasize that enough.
So – what can be objected to in what I’ve just said? It seems like an uncontroversial basis for coexistence.
The world is full of different people, and what is poison for one is food for another.
Instead of competing for the “one” philosophy that suits everyone, had we not better work towards a world of multiple options?
Stop being so afraid.
I’m trying.
In the meantime, not everyone can be as fearless as you as effortlessly as you can. You are in an enviable position.
Weaker people such as myself need the right kind of philosophies, which I’m happy to share with similar like-minded people, on this blog and elsewhere.
All the best, Daniel.
Perhaps one of the paths suggested by Atlan could help.
Good luck to you as well, Aaron. I do mean that sincerely.
Tolerating? You can be whatever you like, a Nazi, Trotskyist or even a Mormon, I just dont like when you sell “your philosophy” under the label of Buddhism! Have you already forgotten my comment while ago?
So you don’t even read what I write? Serves me right btw, why even argue with someone who is not present in this world…
Bashi I think it’s beneficial for you to check this old discussion on Dharmawheel about what One Mind means in Chan context. Remember Monism is a heresy and a wrong view, all Buddhists have always agreed on the truth of Anatman, master Huangbo included.
https://www.dharmawheel.net/viewtopic.php?p=345736#p345736
Emptiness is not Brahma, emptiness is not a substance, emptiness is not many, nor few or one, emptiness is selflesness.
Believe it or not, I’ve tried the path of striving. It has not worked for me. The path of quietism and simplicity has been working well for me.
But it isn’t for everyone. I just want to share it’s joy with people similar to me who can benefit from it.
Thank you, I appreciate it. And I too wish you the best.
Thanks for these explanations. I am always interested in learning more about Buddhism from whatever source. It’s a fascinating subject for me.
As for myself, I’m afraid I’m too selfish and average a person to have the ambition to be a Bodhisattva, and only want to have a rather simple and easy going life for myself, and perhaps suggest it as an option for like minded people who I think suffer from the intensity of modern life.
Saving the world I leave to people much grander than me – if I can help one or two people live a more fulfilling life with a philosophy more suited to them, I’m happy. If not, that’s also ok. Helping people is really hard – it’s hard to know what people really need, and you can easily hurt people trying to help them.
It’s hard for me to have these debates with you, because I don’t think your wrong 🙂 Everyone is right from their point of view, and everyone emphasizes different things.
Because we each need different medicines.
I find I am increasingly losing interest in intellectual discussions and I no longer have the same stamina for them I’m afraid.
I also think we are all correct from different points of view 🙂
In Taoism and Zen, the less you make intellectual distinctions the better. Someone raised in a very intellectual culture may need to initially cut through this with the knife of philosophy; logic defeats logic.
But after that, just relax. And if you don’t need that, even better.
I’m offering my interpretation of Buddhism. That doesn’t exclude or supersede anyone else’s.
As long as I’m honest about my sources, my methods, my reasoning, and why I think what I do, I think that’s an honest, fair, and responsible way to proceed.
All the best, Altan.
Thanks Altan, I am aware of it: 無心 “Mind is nomind, we just call it Mind etc.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fox_and_the_Grapes
Well, since the fox couldn’t get the grapes, the most satisfying and wise course of action for him was to cease torturing himself with a futile pursuit.
I have broken my teeth trying to find “objective knowledge”, and alas my intelligence did not prove up to the task. So I can only say, for someone as stupid as me, the most satisfying thing is to give up trying. I have gotten much joy from being liberated from this futile pursuit, and perhaps others, as stupid as I am, may experience joy also at accepting their limitations.
It is entirely possible that for people smarter than me, like yourself, you are both capable of attaining to objective knowledge and find it the most satisfying thing.
People should pursue what makes them happy. I can only talk about the joy of accepting my limitations.
The stupid have their rights too 🙂
Enjoy your pursuit of knowledge, Daniel.
My favorite passage from the same venerable and beautiful author –
One of the most spiritual passages in modern literature.
As I said somewhere, I forget where, we are today among the water buffalos, and no longer among the angels.
But Aaron isn’t such viewpoint pure dualism and nothing else?!
Quite possibly. I no longer understand these intellectual distinctions 🙂
See you on the next open thread, where I will be bringing more wonderful quotes from Ch’an masters, and you and Chieh can freak out and try and suppress the message while pretending you’re not 🙂
Until next time, Altan.
To give you a more serious answer Altan, it is probably not good to be too much the angel for us humans.
Perhaps one must have a bit of the water buffalo in oneself as ballast.
But to be all water buffalo is to be dull and miss out on the best things in life.
One must float a little bit above the world if one is to live well.
Yes, I wholeheartedly agree with you.
You know what would make me completely sure that you have a better understanding of Chan than me? That you would never ever bring up Chan to our discussions here, that’s how! A true Zen master’s trick!
I will try and let the Ch’an masters speak for themselves, but I don’t think you will like it any better 🙂
Good champ! There’s the convoluted answer we were waiting for.
How you Americans say? If it walks like a duck and sounds like a duck….
Taking arcane and ancient oriental religious verses out of their context – is no good and a disservice to Chan, but you do you!
Maybe I’ll become a Jew and claim that we are vehemently planning of enslavement of Goyim.
Or maybe I should become a Christian and claim that welcoming refugees and being accepting of gays is quintessentially Christian behaviour.
Or maybe I should become a Muslim and claim that Shias are kafirs, against Islam and we need to destroy all signs of Shirk!
Or maybe I should just respect others?*
*(USA not included)
What is so baffling – and ultimately, subtly disquieting – is that the claims that incense you so much are not outlandish and radical but merely that Buddhism has has a “quietist” tradition.
Pretty much every single religion has a “quietist” tradition within it, extensively documented.
That you think this utterly banal and uncontroversial claim, that Buddhism has a “quietist” tradition, is a “calumny” on Buddhism, is not just utterly bizarre intellectually, but deeply significant spiritually.
What is also significant, is that you felt Silviosilver, an avowed atheist materialist, should be the arbiter of the value of a spiritual text, and that Daniel Chieh, a materialist who worships technology and who else mai ln focus is enhancement of his physical organism, is your “ally”.
Please don’t talk for me.
You’re not very good at it.
https://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/exhibit/sakas/images/khvs_2_thum2.jpg
https://www.hermitary.com/solitude/rhinoceros.html
One of my all time favorite sutras. Going back to the era when Buddhadharma was just a school among other Sramana traditions.
The most important paragraph in this sutra is in my opinion the following:
Well you clearly are a solitary mahasattva Bodhisattva sage living in a wilderness, filling your days with ascetic practices! As usual you dont care of context or about to whom the Rhinoceros Horn Sutra was and is addressed to.
How much there can be pride?
Thanks for showing that your true colours, for you are clearly implying that Buddhadharma was not it’s own religion during the composition of Rhinoceros sutra, or that we fundamentally had something in common with Six heretical teachers! Buddhism is a Sramanic tradition, but that’s as vast identifier or category as Hellenic sophism is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Heretical_Teachers
Or Six Sramana
To take Buddha’s words out of their context, based on moments whimse or feel good impulses…
Thanks!
I remember this sutra from when I used to be in to non-Ch’an Buddhism.
I have always loved it as well. I have always found the notion of leaving the “dust of the world” behind and wandering freely in solitude in the mountains one of the most appealing ideas in existence.
The Chinese have a similar notion with their “Old Man Of The Mountains” , the Taoist/Ch’an “sage” (ironic), usually a mandarin, who gives up a lucrative and high status court position and goes wandering the mountains in a light-hearted, carefree manner, or goes and lives in a simple guy in some wild area.
And the Hindus have this with their sanyassins.
Of course, the Rhinoceros Sutra need not he taken to counsel literal abandonment of the city for the mountains – one can cultivate solitude in the midst of cities.
This weekend I intend to go to the mountains alone and read those old Chinese Ch’an/Taoist poets in my tent. The weather is perfect – cool, crisp mornings and evenings and bright sunny, windy days. Though Spring, it feels almost like Autumn, and I can think of no better way to enjoy this weather.
Soon the hot, muggy East Coast summer will smother everything in it’s somnolent heat. This has its own lazy pleasures, but the East Coast Spring and Autumn are the true spiritual periods of the year for this part of the world.
Thanks for reminding me of that Sutra!
Edit: sorry meant for AltanBakshi!
BTW Altan, what do you think of my G.K Chesterton quote above, where he says seriousness is mere selfish egotism, and man’s “natural” tendency is to be solemn and serious, and spiritual effort is required to approach life with laughter and non-seriousness?
In a way, Buddhism can be seen as a method to transcend seriousness 🙂
Why is there is there is so little levity and laughter in you then?
In my opinion it can be argued that Buddhism was the first organised religion. Mahayana-Theravada Schism happened 23rd century BC, but Mahayana Agamas and Theravada Nikayas are 90% same, which means that there was an established Buddhist canon already before the schism. Oldest mentions of Jains are found in Buddhist literature, where it is claimed that Jainism was already established Dharma or religion during the life of Buddha. Interestingly Jains say that they have lost almost all of their texts predating 1st century BC, which in my opinion is an excuse, and in reality Jains were before that a loose collection of extremely ascetical mendicant communities, and they only organised in response to Buddhist ascendancy.
What I have said of Jains is my speculation, but in regards of Buddhism I have only stated facts that are agreed upon both by Buddhists and majority of historians.
In those Agamas and Nikayas it is clearly said that Buddha used lots of his time in organising of our religion, it’s rules, organisation, hierarchy, how we deal with other communities and so on. From the very beginning we were very organised. Every minute detail, every nuance, how teachings are preserved, how they are recited, how monks should live, what is the monk’s relation with the laypeople, what should be our relation to our former faith, if we are converts, how laypeople should treat monks, how seniority among monks is decided, how decisions are made, and so on and so on.
Even those Six Heretics are mentioned in all Buddhist canons, their stories are told by the Theravada/Hinayana monks of Sri Lanka and among Buddhists of Russia. If you would not be such a heretic, you would know that Theravadins are extreme purists in a Buddhist sense, and they zealously guard their canon from all that is not surely the word of the Buddha.
Yup, if you would know something, you would know that evwn through millenia of temporal and geographical separation, we all Buddhists have so much in common, our basic concepts, idioms, sayings, which are multitude, are common for all of us. Like Anantarika Karma, Five greatest sins, one of them is breaking of Sangha, Five hindrances, Five obstacles, Brahmaviharas, Dhyanas, the list is almost endless, they all are proof of us having a commonly accepted Canon of teachings.
Well maybe you are slow, also it seems that most Americans are quite bad in detecting of irony and sarcasm, like everything needs to be in your face or something, which is odd, for you seem to have an American protestant sense of humour, and not Jewish.* Yes, you have some Nordic protestant autism in you, even when you speak of anti-semites and Israel hating Muslims. Who knows, maybe some Kurt or Klaus visited a ghetto long time ago?
Don’t worry I really have quite fun with you, sadly same can’t be said of Bashi lately.
I don’t care of Chesterton, what he said about Buddhism is pure chauvinism based on false assumptions. Anyway I dont like much of English literature, I have always been more of a fan of German and French.
*Yes, yes, there are many kinds of Jews, but based on my life experiences.
Well, I have always admitted here I’m slow 🙂 See my comments to Chieh above.
My mother is a convert to Judaism from a central European Catholic background.
I have generally found on this site that I have to tone down my impish and light-hearted sense of humor or people get seriously antagonized.
People want to take themselves and their lives very seriously, and I have been attacked so often for my flippant attitude that I hav found it interferes with my getting my point across.
I do detect a lot of sarcasm and irony in you, but your version of Buddhism does not seem carefree and light-hearted – in fact you seem to strongly object to my celebration of those qualities. Your Buddhism seems very serious and solemn.
So granted you are a very ironic and sarcastic fellow, what’s your attitude specifically to levity and non-seriousness? And how it relates to ego?
I’m glad to hear it 🙂 A sense of fun is the most spiritual thing one can have.
He was actually talking about Christianity and how it’s spirit is always away from seriousness and towards levity.
I also prefer French and German but some things written in English are as good or better. Conrad for instance.
Oh, you meant heretics in a sense of us having Buddhist heretics, am I right? Well, sorry, in a Buddhist context heretics often are Tirthikas or people who are proponents of Wrong Views, so I was writing in such sense when I wrote about the Six Sramana.
(I know when, but I want you to state the obvious: that the Rhinoceros Sutra was composed as an oral teaching before the canonical Tripitaka was assembled).
Tripitaka was originally orally transmitted, similarly Vedas and Avesta were preserved orally, though for much, much longer than Buddhist teachings.
Adi-Buddha is in layman’s terms just the primordial Buddhahood potential in us.
Chan monks are not heretics, anyway you can’t even be a Buddhist heretic, for you don’t belong to any lineage.
Well this bores me, and maybe I don’t possess enough wisdom to expound Teachings of the Perfected Ones. But I have a one good western monk in mind, who is much wiser and eloquent than I am with my broken English. He’s a monk of Jewish origins, though now he is part of Buddha’s family, so maybe I’ll let him to speak to heretics here, and maybe Aaron finds a positive role model for himself… He’s even from New York!
From Views to Vision
by
Bhikkhu Bodhi
The Buddha’s teaching repeatedly cautions us about the dangers in clinging — in clinging to possessions, clinging to pleasures, clinging to people, clinging to views. The Buddha sounds such words of warning because he discerns in clinging a potent cause of suffering, and he thus advises us that the price we must pay to arrive at the “far shore” of liberation is the relinquishment of every type of clinging. In a move that at first glance may even seem self-destructive on the part of a religious founder, the Buddha says that we should not cling even to his teachings, that even the wholesome principles of the Dhamma have to be treated like the makeshift raft used to carry us across the stream.
Such astringent words of advice can easily be misconstrued, and if misconstrued the consequences may be even more bitter than if we simply disregard them. One particular misinterpretation into which newcomers to the Dhamma (and some veterans too!) are especially prone to fall is to hold that the Buddha’s counsel to transcend all views means that even the doctrines of Buddhism are ultimately of no vital importance. For these doctrines too, it is said, are merely views, intellectual constructs, filaments of thought, which may have been meaningful in the context of ancient Indian cosmology but have no binding claims on us today. After all, aren’t the words and phrases of the Buddhist texts simply that — words and phrases — and aren’t we admonished to get beyond words and phrases in order to arrive at direct experience, the only thing that really counts? And doesn’t the Buddha enjoin us in the Kalama Sutta to judge things for ourselves and to let our own experience be the criterion for deciding what we will accept?
Such an approach to the Dhamma may be sweet to chew upon and easy to digest, but we also need to beware of its effect upon our total spiritual organism. Too often this kind of slippery reasoning provides simply a convenient excuse for adhering, at a subtle level of the mind, to ideas which are fundamentally antithetical to the Dhamma. We hang on to such ideas, not because they are truly edifying, but in order to protect ourselves from the radical challenge with which the Buddha’s message confronts us. In effect, such claims, though apparently aimed at safeguarding living experience from the encroachment of stodgy intellectualism, may be in reality a clever intellectual ploy for refusing to examine cherished assumptions — assumptions we cherish primarily because they shield deep-rooted desires we do not want to expose to the tonic influence of the Dhamma.
When we approach the Buddha’s teachings, we should bear in mind that its vast array of doctrines have not been devised as elaborate exercises in philosophical sleight of hand. They are propounded because they constitute right view, and right view stands at the head of the Noble Eightfold Path, the chisel to be used to cut away the dross of wrong views and confused thoughts that impede the light of wisdom from illumining our minds. In the present-day world, far more than in the ancient Ganges Valley, wrong views have gained widespread currency and assumed more baneful forms than earlier epochs ever could have imagined. Today they are no longer the province of a few eccentric philosophers and their cliques. They have become, rather, a major determinant of cultural and social attitudes, a molder of the moral spirit of the age, a driving force behind economic empires and international relations. Under such circumstances, right view is our candle against the dark, our compass in the desert, our isle above the flood. Without a clear understanding of the truths enunciated by right view, and without a keen awareness of the areas where these truths collide with popular opinion, it is only too easy to stumble in the dark, to get stranded among the sand dunes, to be swept away from one’s position above the deluge.
Both right view and wrong view, though cognitive in character, do not remain locked up in a purely cognitive space of their own. Our views exercise an enormously potent influence upon all areas of our lives, and the Buddha, in his genius, recognized this when he placed right view and wrong view respectively at the beginning of the good and evil pathways of life. Views flow out and interlock with the practical dimension of our lives at many levels: they determine our values, they give birth to our goals and aspirations, they guide our choices in morally difficult dilemmas. Wrong view promotes wrong intentions, wrong modes of conduct, leads us in pursuit of a deceptive type of freedom. It draws us toward the freedom of license, by which we feel justified in casting off moral restraint for the sake of satisfying transient but harmful impulses. Though we may then pride ourselves on our spontaneity and creativity, may convince ourselves that we have discovered our true individuality, one with clear sight will see that this freedom is only a more subtle bondage to the chains of craving and delusion.
Right view, even in its elementary form, as a recognition of the moral law of kamma, the capacity of our deeds to bring results, becomes our gentle guide toward true freedom. And when it matures into an accurate grasp of the three signs of existence, of dependent arising, of the Four Noble Truths, it then becomes our navigator up the mountain slope of final deliverance. It will lead us to right intentions, to virtuous conduct, to mental purification, and to the cloudless peak of unobstructed vision. Although we must eventually learn to let go of this guide in order to stand confidently on our own feet, without its astute eye and willing hand we would only meander in the foothills oblivious to the peak.
The attainment of right view is not simply a matter of assenting to a particular roster of doctrinal formulas or of skill in juggling an impressive array of cryptic Pali terms. The attainment of right view is at its core essentially a matter of understanding — of understanding in a deeply personal way the vital truths of existence upon which our lives devolve. Right view aims at the big picture. It seeks to comprehend our place in the total scheme of things and to discern the laws that govern the unfolding of our lives for better or for worse. The ground of right view is the Perfect Enlightenment of the Buddha, and by striving to rectify our view we seek nothing less than to align our own understanding of the nature of existence with that of the Buddha’s Enlightenment. Right view may begin with concepts and propositional knowledge but it does not end with them. Through study, deep reflection and meditative development it gradually becomes transmuted into wisdom, the wisdom of insight that can cut asunder the beginningless fetters of the mind.
(I don’t agree with everything that Bhikkhu Bodhi says, or think that he always has right choice of words, but he’s 98% right in my opinion, and as a Buddhist practitioner much further than I am, )
I meant another text by Chesterton, where he compares Christian statues with Buddhist ones, especially Catholic statues of suffering saints and contrasts them with the Buddhist ones, to him torture gore is a proof of greater altruism of Christianity, but it’s been so long, that I don’t remember anymore accurately what he wrote of Buddhism.
I would not say that I am very much of those things, but sometimes. I’ll try to answer in greater depth sometime later when I have time.
Noone till ever read this.
Recently, I have been looking into turbofolk in the Nato war on Yugoslavia, the bombing campaign on Serbia, horrid.
However, I would say that the first real example of turbo-folk I know was in the late Sov Tv. The Russian protaganist watches the the TV near the end, what he is watching is the birth of the pop, as opposed to the milit, side of turbofolk.