2010: Integration of East and West.

What needs do mythology and religion serve in today's world and in ancient times? Here we discuss the relationship between mythology, religion and science from mythological, religious and philosophical viewpoints.

Moderators: Clemsy, Martin_Weyers, Cindy B.

Locked
jonsjourney
Associate
Posts: 3191
Joined: Fri Oct 17, 2008 3:24 pm
Location: Earth

Post by jonsjourney »

Jung was so incredibly adept at dealing with some of the most difficult issues that have been faced by humanity. I think he is one of those folks who people will be reading many, many years from now and realize how much he was attuned to what we thought was "unattunable"

I think I will share this brief passage from the Diamond Sutra in order to getting this heading back East, so to speak...
When causes and conditions are sufficient, eyes are present. When causes and conditions are not sufficient, eyes are absent. The same is true of body and consciousness, mind and perception.
"He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot." -Douglas Adams

Cindy B.
Working Associate
Posts: 4719
Joined: Wed Oct 05, 2005 12:49 pm
Location: USA
Contact:

Post by Cindy B. »

Cool, Clemsy. 8)
If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s. --Jung

Andreas
Associate
Posts: 2274
Joined: Sun Aug 23, 2009 6:07 am

Post by Andreas »

Ercan2121 wrote:
Andreas wrote: Still Karma has no value for me unless there is some kind of personal involvement to some degree. There needs to be a choice at some point...
Andreas,
Here again, I believe that it depends on how we choose to define ‘the Law of Action’.
Can heroism be the keyword with respect to personal involvement (breaking point)
that you refer? :)
Indeed Ercan but I wouldn't say heroism, courage has better value for me but I think we are talking about the same thing. ;)

Morpheus: You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.

Great quotes everyone. :)
“To live is enough.” ― Shunryu Suzuki

Clemsy
Working Associate
Posts: 10645
Joined: Thu Apr 04, 2002 6:00 am
Location: The forest... somewhere north of Albany
Contact:

Post by Clemsy »

Cindy,

My head is still ringing with that quote. I shared it as my FB update today and gave you a thanks for it.
Give me stories before I go mad! ~Andreas

Cindy B.
Working Associate
Posts: 4719
Joined: Wed Oct 05, 2005 12:49 pm
Location: USA
Contact:

Post by Cindy B. »

Thank goodness, Clemsy, sometimes I wonder if folks see me offering another Jung quote and go :roll: .

But does that stop me? :P And thank you.

Cindy
If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s. --Jung

Andreas
Associate
Posts: 2274
Joined: Sun Aug 23, 2009 6:07 am

Post by Andreas »

Never crossed my mind, Cindy. And please don't stop because I really enjoy these quotes, I mean really... and sometimes the timing is just too much to think of it as a coincidence. :D
“To live is enough.” ― Shunryu Suzuki

Dionysus
Associate
Posts: 476
Joined: Thu Nov 30, 2006 4:07 pm
Location: Pittsfield, MA

Post by Dionysus »

j.j. : i wanted you to know that I just finished reading, at your suggestion, Batchelor's, LIVING WITH THE DEVIL a Meditation on Good and Evil and am glad that I did. I will read more of his work . What a wonderful man he is! Thank you. Thank you. It was the best present that I received this season.

In the book B. brings up a point on p. 178. To Quote:
The creation of a nonviolent world is founded on an empathetic respect for the inviolable freedoms and rights of others. The oppressed call out to be free to pursue a path, unconstrained by the constraints placed on them by Mara's latter-day army of governments, religions, superpowers, and market forces. Now that the principalities and the powers stockpile weapons of mass destruction, contaminate the earth with their feverish industry, release floods of images to trigger insatiable desires, treat animals and humans as commodities and functions of a market, . . . As sovereign nation-states behave more and more like personalities (embodied and caricatured in the figure of monarchs, presidents and dictators), they assume the diabolic features of a disconnected cell of a self, blind to their own defects and infatuated by their own image.
The devil is incarnate today as the structural violence that pervades and ruptures the interconnected world.
How can we, as pacifistic enlightened (of a sort) beings, counter such a monstrous creation as this modern Mara?

jonsjourney
Associate
Posts: 3191
Joined: Fri Oct 17, 2008 3:24 pm
Location: Earth

Post by jonsjourney »

You are welcome, Dio. I am glad you enjoyed it. It was definitely one of my favorite reads of 2010...and I am a voracious reader!

So....the quote from Batchelor...
The creation of a nonviolent world is founded on an empathetic respect for the inviolable freedoms and rights of others. The oppressed call out to be free to pursue a path, unconstrained by the constraints placed on them by Mara's latter-day army of governments, religions, superpowers, and market forces. Now that the principalities and the powers stockpile weapons of mass destruction, contaminate the earth with their feverish industry, release floods of images to trigger insatiable desires, treat animals and humans as commodities and functions of a market, . . . As sovereign nation-states behave more and more like personalities (embodied and caricatured in the figure of monarchs, presidents and dictators), they assume the diabolic features of a disconnected cell of a self, blind to their own defects and infatuated by their own image.
The devil is incarnate today as the structural violence that pervades and ruptures the interconnected world.
Then you ask...
How can we, as pacifistic enlightened (of a sort) beings, counter such a monstrous creation as this modern Mara? -Dio
That is the question of the ages, is it not? Clearly in this section Batchelor is addressing the macro, largely sociological issues that stand in opposition to individual freedom and enlightenment. If we look to the metaphorical example of the Buddha's liberation, was it really different for him? I would say no, it was just a different time and place. Because we are able (if we are lucky, or perhaps diligent and mindful) to see these tremendous external forces massed against us, I think we have the tendency to also look on the outside for solutions. That may be the real devil here, not the horror of these external forces, but the psychological dependency that they create inside us. And this may be a completely natural way to react, especially considering the degree to which we are social animals. We need each other. This has been particularly problematic in cultures that have placed the emphasis on individual achievement regardless of the effects it may have on the community around us.

If we look at the story of the liberation of the Buddha, we see a tale that has been woven to show us that to break free of this mass delusion, we must look inside ourselves rather than to the world for answers. The Buddha was affected by external forces from the beginning that were conspiring to keep him where he was and on the eternal wheel of Saṃsāra. His father was conspiring to make him into something that he wanted him to be without allowing Gautama to find his own path. He lived that early life surrounded by walls that were both physically and psychologically real. As a young man, it never occurred to Gautama that there was any other reality than the one he was living.

It was when he finally caught those images of reality outside of his narrow world that he began to truly awaken to a fleeting glimpse he had seen as a child meditating one day. It was not until he saw disease, old age, and death with his own eyes that he realized that he had been living in the world of Mara. Later, after rejecting the ascetic life, he sits under the Bodhi tree and meditates trying to recapture that experience he had as a child...a profound and subtle experience of interconnectedness and impermanence. It is then that Mara really comes out with the big guns...the external forces of fear and desire, and then finally with the external force of social duty to try to remove the Buddha-to-be from the threshold of enlightenment. But the Buddha prevailed when he touched the earth and the Earth bore him witness. This part of the story always makes me a little sad because we are so estranged from nature and I fear we have become too numerous and dependent to ever be "at one" with her again.

In many of the stories of the Pali Canon, Mara continues to try to knock the Buddha back into the world of delusion for the rest of his life, right up until the day he died. But the Buddha prevailed and his story remains to help us all realize that we have the power to find a path to walk in the world as it is, without becoming a puppet of it's forces.

It is interesting that the sangha is one of the points of refuge in Buddhist traditions. Here we see a coming back into the community, with the inevitable social constraints that go along with being a part of a larger group. But I see the value there, even if there is always a danger of institutionalization and politics. Many Christian churches around the world are a primary source of helping people who are suffering. Many of these churches are not concerned about "evangelical" aspects of this community service, they just want to help people in need. Social organizations can do very good things as long as they remain focused on the real, rubber-meets-the-road work that needs to be done. The same must be true of a sangha. Even though the Buddha was tempted (again by Mara) to go it alone, he realized that a few would understand the complexity of his realizations and that even if it was only a precious few, those few were worth the effort.

So, and I know this has been a bit long-winded, but it has been a few weeks since I "got my East on" :wink: ...In the end we must tend to ourselves first. Once we have found that immovable spot in our being, we can begin the work of being the change that we want to see in the world. The trick is to get out of the world of theory and into the world of practice. My Zen calendar seems to be pointing to a nice way to get such ideas under way with four simple rules...

1. Show Up
2. Pay Attention
3. Tell the Truth
4. Do Not Become Attached to the Results

Makes sense to me.
"He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot." -Douglas Adams

Dionysus
Associate
Posts: 476
Joined: Thu Nov 30, 2006 4:07 pm
Location: Pittsfield, MA

Post by Dionysus »

j.j. wrote :
So, and I know this has been a bit long-winded, but it has been a few weeks since I "got my East on" Wink ...In the end we must tend to ourselves first. Once we have found that immovable spot in our being, we can begin the work of being the change that we want to see in the world. The trick is to get out of the world of theory and into the world of practice. My Zen calendar seems to be pointing to a nice way to get such ideas under way with four simple rules...

1. Show Up
2. Pay Attention
3. Tell the Truth
4. Do Not Become Attached to the Results

Makes sense to me.

Makes sense to me, too.

boringguy
Associate
Posts: 459
Joined: Fri Jul 06, 2007 1:36 am
Location: Idaho

Post by boringguy »

Hi jj, Dio,

One thing that stands out to me here as a key component is freedom.
The creation of a nonviolent world is founded on an empathetic respect for the inviolable freedoms and rights of others.


Buddha, Christ, Gandi, all were coyote,fool, trickster, of sorts, in that they found the freedom from within to remove the mask that external relationships had given them.

It seems to me, that ideal is condoned in west to a greater degree than in east but maybe thats just me. It does seem to me that todays occurence of the west culture, as in music, clothing, ect. ect., being so desired in the east is also a reflection of the desire for such freedom.

A progress of humanity? Can the world have to many fools? Should everyone endevor to be one? A strength or weakness of east or west?



bg
___________________________
in the light i do life..................... but in the dark i find life

jonsjourney
Associate
Posts: 3191
Joined: Fri Oct 17, 2008 3:24 pm
Location: Earth

Post by jonsjourney »

It seems to me, that ideal is condoned in west to a greater degree than in east but maybe thats just me. It does seem to me that todays occurence of the west culture, as in music, clothing, ect. ect., being so desired in the east is also a reflection of the desire for such freedom. -BG
Gosh, this is hard for me to get a good grip on here within this context, but I do have a few thoughts, although I do not think they specifically address what you may be getting at. For what it is worth, I am not so sure that our culture really embraces the kind of individualism we are talking about in terms of spiritual exploration. After all, here in the States an atheist is still considered the lowest of all life forms, lower than a terrorist. Remember when the Fox News anchor said that Tiger Woods ought to come to Christianity and get away from that Buddhist nonsense that was getting him into trouble. I like to see the stats on infidelity of Buddhists versus Christians and see how that all plays out...I will gladly lay a few bones on one side of the felt.

Freedom is often confused with materialism and wealth. That does seem to be happening in many places around the world. But freedom really does not have anything to do with "free markets", it is just a rhetorical device used to spread propaganda that builds up one system of commerce as being superior to another. To the worker in India or China right now, free market capitalism looks great because it is coming in. China is not "free", but fully embraces the model. We seem to have failed to notice that here. To the worker in the rust belt of the United States who now has to flip burgers to earn $7.40/hr, it looks pretty bad. In a few years, the worker in Africa will think it looks great, while the worker in China or India laments the system that used them up and spit them out.

Our culture does look pretty sexy from the outside to many, but a lot of people here in the States have come to realize the error of our short-sighted ways. Underneath the sexy veneer is a great deal of sickness. We have so many psychosomatic diseases it is not even funny, let alone the environmentally-caused physiological ones. Depression continues to rise in epic proportions, yet drugs have little long-term positive effects. We are gorging ourselves with food that is not even food and being drunk is a weekend-warrior's nationally endorsed way of life. Most everyone I know who has died and been under the age of 60 has died far too young due to a life of abuse to quiet an inner turbulence that they could not even name.

I think if some of the nations that currently are embracing the multinational corporate model that is bringing them these fine things could see what is really happening here they may stop and take notice....but then again, maybe they wouldn't.

Individualism comes with a price and that price is the welfare of the community. The message we get here is "pull yourself up by the bootstraps and make something of yourself" and "oh by the way, never mind the rules, just get yours while you can". At the same time we are supposed to wrap ourselves in a flag, obey the "rule of law", and do what is best for the nation and our children. It is pure insanity. We have become such a schizoid society that ultra right wing zealots feel the need to arm themselves to the hilt to defend themselves against left-wing progressive pacifists who would not go near a gun. If that makes any sense at all to someone out there, I sure wish they would explain it to me.

The bottom line is that there is healthy individualism and unhealthy individualism. The healthy kind can be manifested as individual spiritual inquiry, or even as "pulling one's weight" in the community. The unhealthy kind destroys from within and without.
"He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot." -Douglas Adams

Neoplato
Associate
Posts: 3907
Joined: Fri Nov 21, 2008 3:02 pm
Location: Virginia
Contact:

Post by Neoplato »

WOW! :shock: That was really a good one JJ. All I can say is "ditto". :D
Infinite moment, grants freedom of winter death, allows life to dawn.

Dionysus
Associate
Posts: 476
Joined: Thu Nov 30, 2006 4:07 pm
Location: Pittsfield, MA

Post by Dionysus »

For what it's worth, I think the future that can be envisioned is one where the individualism of the West melds with the "I am one with everything" philosophies of the East. The ideas aren't mutually-exclusive. The understanding that these glorious creations (our identities in the realm of temporality) are ephemeral and wondrously fleeting and what meaning there is to be derived from that are the tales long-told around their communities of these once-LOVED men and women who trod upon their mother, once upon a time. . .

jonsjourney
Associate
Posts: 3191
Joined: Fri Oct 17, 2008 3:24 pm
Location: Earth

Post by jonsjourney »

I agree Dio. This civilization, like all civilizations is an experiment and just because we have not got it right yet, does not mean that it will not happen.
If we lost all hope, then all would be lost indeed.

That was the inspiration for this thread. To try to find the common ground between Eastern and Western thought that may help to lift us all up. It's a formidable task, but as the old saying goes, the longest journey begins with a single step.
"He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot." -Douglas Adams

Neoplato
Associate
Posts: 3907
Joined: Fri Nov 21, 2008 3:02 pm
Location: Virginia
Contact:

Post by Neoplato »

For what it's worth, I think the future that can be envisioned is one where the individualism of the West melds with the "I am one with everything" philosophies of the East. The ideas aren't mutually-exclusive. Dio
Somehow I have a sneaking suspicion that this process is called "Individuation". :wink:
Infinite moment, grants freedom of winter death, allows life to dawn.

Locked