“Energy… you go into the energy. You came from the energy, you are the energy and you will return to the energy… to the absolute divine, joyous energy that is all things. That’s where you come from and that’s where you go.
“It’s a circle. Life is of course a great circular infinity. And it’s marvellous. It’s absolutely, totally comforting, you don’t have to live in fear anymore. You can put the fear behind you and embrace all of existence.”
‘This Is The End’ would probably be a fitting song to play now, but growing up I was always intrigued by ‘Riders on the Storm’ when my brother and his friend would stay up late listening to The Doors.
David Foster Wallace’s “This is Water” is one of my favourite pieces of writing ever, and someone has taken part of it, and made it into a lovely short film. I see this as a really important part of my world view and something I *try* to practice everyday.
As the world seems to be falling apart, and social media introduces a new level of cacophony of misinformation, speculation, and downright venomous bile — we should ask ourselves, is what I am about to say better than silence? Am I adding anything to what’s already being said? And possibly most importantly, is my desire to say it keeping me from listening to what is already being said. Because waiting for your turn to talk is not the same as listening.
Have I actually improved the silence?
In a month where between Thatcher and Boston we definitely saw some of the worst of ‘social media’*, Mike Monteiro hits the proverbial nail on the head when he asks us to question our contributions to the digital debate. Twitter just seems to be flowing with bile at the moment. Conversely, I took a dip into Facebook recently following months of having a deactivated account and it just seems so dull, full of banal marketing waffle. Either way, its not very nice to swim in.
Monteiro’s Quaker-inspired creed is a very good way to conduct your online business. As I’ve explored Buddhism more, I think more and more about the effects of my online actions. I’ve become a bit more reluctant to just pump the contents of my brain out there, especially if its for cheap laughs at someones expense or if its throwing a bomb into a heated debate. Mindfulness needs to extend to all our actions, including our tweeting. Indeed, Prickly Goo was born out of a growing dissatisfaction with the tone of my old blog, which had (for me) become simply a rant-fest. Your words have consequences out there in the real world. We really need to think about those, and indeed, our motivations and intentions. Why are we saying what we are saying? I think a lot of why we publish these days is less to do with contributing or debating but more to do with solidifying our own digital ego. As the Boston Bombing story was breaking, you got the impression people were simply tweeting just for the sake of contribution, to be seen to be part of the ‘breaking event’. As a friend pointed out, we get the lunacy of people tweeting that they are speechless. You are telling us you have nothing to say.
*On a side note, there’s been a lot of meta naval gazing about social media’s role in such events. Almost as much discussion to the event itself is now given to how we discussed the event! And in doing so, ‘social media’ has become this almost natural force. Or, to paraphrase the Mighty Mos Def “People talk about social media like it’s some giant livin in the hillside, Comin down to visit the townspeople”
What wasn’t understood then, and still isn’t really understood today, is that the reality of money is of the same type as the reality of centimeters, grams, hours, or lines of longitude. Money is a way measuring wealth but is not wealth in itself. A chest of gold coins or a fat wallet of bills is of no use whatsoever to a wrecked sailor alone on a raft. He needs real wealth, in the form of a fish rod, a compass, an outboard motor with gas, and a female companion.
I quite like the Washington Post’s take on it. It deals with what is for me the most interesting thing about bit coin – it is forcing people to think about what money is.
…money has almost nothing to do with physical form. It also doesn’t have much to do with who creates it: The dollar bills were issued by the Federal Reserve, the checking account created by my neighborhood bank, the money market fund was created by a mutual fund manager, the gold was mined out of the ground, and the refrigerator was made by General Electric.
Rather, what makes money money is what you can do with it. If you can purchase the goods and services that you want and need with it, it is money; if you can’t, it isn’t. Money is memory, said Narayana Kocherlakota in an important 1996 paper (he is now president of the Minneapolis Fed). It is the way we as a society record how much capacity to buy stuff each of us possess.
This is inline with Watts talk of money as measurement. Bitcoin idealists I guess use this to legitimise themselves; it is just another, radically different (in its lack of centralisation) measurement tool. The Post, however, posit some retorts – one of which is that currency like the Dollar is not just ‘socially’ accepted as currency, it is effectively enforced by the most powerful entity on Earth – the U.S. government. And both the Post and the Guardian bemoan it’s like of liquidity and central control to keep it liquid.
Still, it’s nice to see this debate being played out. Watts was keen to get us to remember that money is not wealth. Bitcoin helps us remember this, I think. Interesting times ahead.
We must see Christ as the great mystic, in the proper sense of the word. A mystic is not someone who has all sorts of magical powers and understands spirits and so on. A mystic is one who realizes union with God. This seems to me the crux and message of the gospel. It is summed up in the prayer Saint John records Jesus speaking over his disciples: “May you be one, even as the Father and I are one, that you may be all one.” May we all realize this divine sonship or daughtership or oneness, this basic identity with the eternal energy of the universe, the love that moves the sun and other stars
Thinking more about Buddhism and Marxism the following occured to me. Another way to tackle the subject is this: if tomorrow, miraculously, everyone on planet Earth achieved enlightenment / nirvana / liberation / Buddha-hood, how would we then go about our lives? Remember, this would be the real deal – the reordering of consciousness, not a Hollywood transformation wherein we would all vanish in a flash of light. Despite realising our true Buddha nature, we would still need to live, society would still need to function. But how would a society of Buddhas organize itself? Remember, as the Zen saying goes:
“Before Enlightenment chop wood carry water, after Enlightenment, chop wood carry water.”
Now, of course, by its very nature it is impossible for the unenlightened to imagine enlightenment, much less to describe it. This is little more than a thought experiment to further a discussion, and not a very deep one. But, looking at the scriptures, the discourses, and our own (however paltry) understanding of liberation, how would you imagine we would ‘run’ our affairs, post-nirvana?
I posit that the society that emerges would look very similar to what is commonly described as Communist (and real Communism at that, not the cartoonish scare story paraded by the right). I can’t for the life of me think of any other possibility, can you?
I recently finished my annual re-reading of Alan Watts “The Wisdom of Insecurity” and immediately followed it by starting into E.F. Schumacher’s “Small is Beautiful”. I had not intended it, but it turned out to be a thematically perfect fugue, as both have at there centre a discussion of our relationship with nature. Both posit that we have become disconnected with our environment and that this disconnection is the source of both mental anguish, and consequentially, the physical destruction of our environment and society.
Although not strictly a “Buddhist” book, indeed Watts spends more time specifically discussing and interpreting Christian thought, “Wisdom” is clearly a book based on and influenced by, the Buddha’s outlook. It is a classic example of Watts role as ‘interpreter of Eastern thought’. Watts makes numerous references to our social and environmental condition, and identifies the problem as being our dualistic separation. And whilst Watts is acutely aware of the social problems that manifest as a result, his ‘cure’ is a personal one; if we could realign our viewpoint to see our innate ‘oneness’ with our environment and the futility of search for permanence in an impermanent reality, our ‘problems’ would cease to be. This is as the Buddha taught. Watts does not have much time for ‘political’ solutions (either on the right or the left) and is focused on personal liberation, again similar to most of Buddhist thought throughout history. This has more or less been my ‘political’ outlook recently.
Schumacher sees the world very similarly (indeed, one chapter of his book is entitled “Buddhist Economics”) and draws his conclusions from a similar point that it is our fractured relationship with our Universe that is the root cause of our problems. In contrast to Watts however, Schumacher is much more interested in suggesting socio-political solutions. These are however still grounded in this basic idea that we need to reconsider our position in nature. Although critical of some Marxist thought, Schumacher is clearly coming from a socialist/collectivist perspective, saving most of his ire for capitalism.
This got me thinking specifically about Buddhism and Marxism. Recently the Dalai Lama described himself as “half-Buddhist, half-Marxist”. From one perspective, on the surface, one can definitely draw similarities between both, but soon seemingly irreconcilable differences appear to arise. I am no where near learned enough on either topic to draw any conclusions myself, but I was pleased to come across this accessible but comprehensive comparison. Taking a scholarly approach to both Victor Gunasekara clearly outlines how both ‘philosophies’ overlap and depart.
For me Gunasekara underlines what I had suspected, that they compliment each other more than they disagree. Gunasekara is cautious however:
When we leave the critique of religion and God, where Buddhism and Marxism have something in common, and consider ether aspects, the differences in the two systems begin to emerge. These differences exist and are real; but they should neither be exaggerated nor minimised.
Gunasekara is careful not to overstate, he rather wishes to show, but being less scholarly I can allow myself more room to clumsily interpret to say that both describe:
A world constantly in change.
The Buddha described this as impermanence, Marx referred to the dialectic. Both were aware of this basic fact of the matter; that everything is in constant flux. Gunasekara points out however that Marx described this movement as going ‘towards’ a certain state, whereas Buddhism did not.
Unsatisfactoriness
The Buddha’s first noble truth is that life for the worldling is essentially unsatisfactory, with pain and anxiety being omnipresent. This ‘pain’ was both sensory (injury, illness, etc.) and mental (anxiety, fear).
Marx too identified both types of pain, the squalid reality that most people live in, and the ‘alienation’ that modern capitalist civilisation has instilled in people. Gunasekara, however, makes clear that Marx traced the root of alienation to man’s relationship to his activity and the fruits of his activity. Marx’s interests mainly lie in the ‘socio-economic’ whilst the Buddha’s was much more Universal.
Gunasekara is careful not to over or understate these differences, and concludes that
Thus though traces of the signata (“Three marks of existence”) could be discerned in Marx’s writings he does not give to them the centrality that they occupy in Buddhism. This coupled with the fact that Marx was interested basically only in one aspect of human activity (the socio-economic) explains why he was not able to draw the full implications of those categories used by him which have some relation to the signata of Buddhism.
Materialism
Gunasekara also takes on what has always been a particular obstacle for me, the issue of materialism. In many ways, materialism is a problematic term as it has numerous interpretations. In much day-to-day usage ‘materialism’ is used to refer to a love of ‘things’ and objects, such as clothes, cars, iPhones. It can also be used to differentiate a ‘scientific’ view of reality as opposed to say a more ‘mystical’ or ‘spiritual’ one. Watts, interestingly, argues that what many would call a ‘materialist’, one who wants for ownership of riches etc, is nothing of the sort as they do not ‘love’ the material of nature. A mystic, it could be argued, is a true ‘materialist’.
Buddhism is commonly understood to be a non-materialist or even anti-materialist doctrine, stressing the illusory nature of reality and the ‘dream-like’ existence of the Universe. Marx spoke of ‘historical materialism’ and thus I have always struggled to reconcile the two at this point. Gunasekara, however, considers what Marx meant by this term.
The first thing to note is that “materialism” as propounded by Marx and Engels is not the same as that which is usually denounced by religionists. Thus Robert C. Tucker has observed: “In Marx’s mind the ancient philosophical terms idealism and materialism have taken on unique new meanings…. To begin with by materialism he does not mean this term what we are accustomed to mean when we use it in philosophical discourse. It does not have a physical or mechanical or physiological connotation, nor does it question the reality of conscious mind. It does not refer to a theory about the stuff of which the universe is composed, although Marx assumes that this is material stuff”
Thus it is easier then to consider Marx’s ‘materialism’ within a Buddhist framework. Marx was not particularly referring to a description of the make up of reality, but rather a description of reality was we see it. Gunasekara also notes:
In the more prosaic sense of materialism as a view affirming the importance of worldly goods for human welfare one may make a case for an opposition between Buddhism and Marxism. But even here it must be remembered that Buddhism argues for a “middle way” for both monk and layman, given the demands of their respective life styles. Marx himself considered that “accumulation for the sake of accumulation” was a characteristic of capitalism, and that in his ideal communist state the distributive rule would be “to each according to his/her need”. So even here some reconciliation may be possible . (In passing it may be stated that the Sangha of the Buddha was perhaps the world’s first communist social grouping.)
Gunasekara also considers how both doctrines consider man’s thought process, and identifies that apparent oppositions (For Marx the environment creates his consciousness – whilst for the Buddha “Phenomena are preceded by the heart, ruled by the heart, made of the heart.” or “We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world.” – the primacy of mind is stressed) Whilst this appears to show a complete contradiction between the two, Gunasekara notes that the Buddhist idea stems from an interpretation of the opening line of the Dhammapada that can be considered “Mind precedes all mental states.” – not so much that our mind conditions the world (indeed, Buddhism ultimately refutes a mind-world duality making it a less clear distinction in the end), but our mind conditions our interpretation of the world, going someway to lessening the difference.
Gunasekara concludes that both Marxism and Buddhism are humanistic philosophies of action. I found his interpretation to be most helpful in helping to further my understanding of both; as a Buddhist with distinctly socialist political leanings. Like Snyder or Knabb, it also affirms, in deference to Zizek’s (admittedly somewhat accurate) notion that the Western Buddhist can use his faith to remove himself from the problems of the world, that the Buddhist can indeed not just interpret the world, but change its material conditions.
Lorem Ipsum is a piece of Latin text used by graphic designers as place-holder text. It is based on an actual passage by Cicero from 45 B.C. but with some of the words altered, added and removed.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
Wikipedia and other places have a 1914 translation of the original into English, but I decided to throw the altered common version through Google Translate to see what it would make of it, and I was not disappointed:
This page is available, however, but because occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it. Or desires to obtain pain in the bullet train to find fault with in the pleasure of pain that produces no resultant good to flee. These cases are perfectly account of the system, the fault of those who are in the original text: this is to sink.
“Robot and Frank” hasn’t really made a splash in the public domain but it’s a great little movie. The Oscar’s pretty much mean nothing to me, and certainly not since Russell Crowe took home the Award for Gladiator, but how Frank Langella didn’t get even a nod for his wonderfully nuanced portrayal of a retired cat burglar struggling with old age who strikes up an unlikely friendship with a robot is beyond me. He’s the centrepiece of a lovely piece of film making. It makes subtle points about old age, the role of technology in our lives, friendship and memories whilst also being laugh out loud funny.
Check it out.
