A Cry for Freedom by Robert Thurman.

[Peter Terpstra]

Commentary: A Cry for Freedom
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 4:27PM

by Robert Thurman
Oh my heart! Oh, my life! How can this happen! What can I do? I’m overwhelmed as I watch a video of the brave and passionate Tibetan
Buddhist nun Palden Choetso standing in the street, burning herself as a human torch. I want to respond, to douse her flames. It’s
impossible. So too is it to salute her for her bravery, for her faith in love, for her determination, and her belief that peace is possible.
Did she cry out for freedom? For herself? Her people? Her land? Her nation? For her beloved lama, teacher, and savior?

I watch as an elegant laywoman, a passerby startled and gripped with horror, manages to quickly take a white khata greeting scarf out
of her bag, a traditional offering of goodwill and respect. She waves the scarf toward the stock-still flaming nun and then offers it into
the fire as Palden Choetso passes out, dying in agony, her body crumpling to the ground. I also offer a khata from my heart.

In a gathering we held at Roosevelt House in New York, in a hall adorned with the words of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms and a
picture of FDR, Churchill, and Stalin at Yalta (where once again they ignored the fate of Tibet), Kirti Rinpoche, exiled abbot of one of
the monasteries where some of these brave monks and nuns who have selfimmolated came from, declares: “This is an ultimate act of
nonviolence!” I am not sure at first, and surprised, as all evening he had been deploring that this is happening, as we all do. If any young
monk or nun were to ask their abbot or their lama, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, “Should I offer myself for freedom?”— the answer
would be an emphatic “No! Absolutely not! Endure the oppression and turn your mind toward practice to attain the ultimate freedom of
nirvana and buddhahood for the sake of all beings!” But once they do commit such sacrifice, one cannot help but respect their courage.

When you destroy your body, you violate your own life, the lives of what Buddhists call “the 84,000 cells” that constitute it. This does
seem violent. Yet in this case, the individual sacrifices herself to appeal to her enemy, to convey the perhaps all-too-subliminal message
that they have nothing to fear from her, that she will resist their relationship of fear and harm by removing herself from being the
target of their ultimately self-destructive, evil behavior. That is true non-harming—perfect resistance by complete surrender. If your
victim prevents you from harming her by harming herself and taking herself out of your reach, then why were you afraid of her and
wanting to harm her in the first place? Since she won’t harm you, she must love you. She wants you to stop fearing and hating; she
wants you to be happy! Indeed, she cries out to you with her very life to wake up and behold the power of love—how it does not fear
death, how it gives itself away to reality, how it overwhelms hatred.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama is being blamed by the Chinese Communist Party government for these dread-inspiring demonstrations of
their illegitimacy in the eyes of the Tibetan people, if not in the eyes of the hypocritical world of diplomacy and commerce that favors
the rich and powerful winner of whatever illegal action, even the theft of a country. Such blame is totally unfair. I still remember His
Holiness’ reaction to the selfsacrifice of Thubten Ngodup in Delhi, whom he was able to visit in the hospital before he died. His Holiness
was very upset by it, and Thubten Ngodup was elderly, not young and brilliant with a whole life of study and achievement ahead of him.
His Holiness said, “This is violence, even if it is self-inflicted. The same energy that can cause someone to do this to himself is very close
to the energy that enables someone to kill others in fury and outrage.” His Holiness was also worried about this powerful gesture. But he
was pleased that at least he was able to whisper into the ear of the totally bandaged victim, “Do not pass over with hatred for the
Chinese in your heart. You are brave and you made your statement, but let not your motive be hatred.” Thubten Ngodup somehow
signalled that he understood, to His Holiness’ great relief.

One of the brave monks who set himself on fire did so in the close presence of Chinese military police, who were so confused by this
astonishing gesture, they shot him and then proceded to beat him as he was dying, as if to punish him for freeing himself from their
punishments! It was a sign of their utter confusion. They could not understand the power of his act to completely cancel the conflict of
oppressor and victim, nor his wish to take control of his own life by giving it away.

Buddha said that hate will never put an end to hate—only love can. Hate wants to destroy its object, a person seen as obstructing the
hater’s happiness; but love wants even a hating person to be happy, not to be any sort of obstruction—that’s how it can overcome the
hate.

The numbers of young monks and nuns burning themselves in a final appeal for a change in the iron hearts of their oppressors strikes
straight to the heart of our whole world.

I think of the Buddha Dipamkara, Buddha the Lamp-maker, who offered his body as a lamp for the wise and loving enlightened beings
who strive ceaselessly to bring beings out of the fires of hell and other nether realms, and humans out of the tragedies of death,
famine, plague, and war. Oh please Father Chenrezig and Mother Drolma, reach out to these young souls as they leave their bodies
behind in writhing agony and guide them to havens of healing and a further life of ideal circumstances for spiritual advancement! Oh all
you savior deities and protecting angels, go to the cruel despots in their dreams if necessary, and help them face reality, heed the power
of truth, let go of their paranoid fantasies of making eternal their deadly suppression of freedom everywhere!

From the Spring 2012 issue of Buddhadharma: The Practitioner's Quarterly, available on newsstands and by subscription.

Robert Thurman is the Jey Tsong Khapa professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University, and cofounder and president
of Tibet House U.S.

http://www.thebuddhadharma.com/web-archive/2012/2/8/commentary-a-cry-for-freedom.html

[liaM]

Buddhist nuns and monks immolating themselves for freedom as reported by
the US buddhist community (all praise be Robert Thurman who 50 years ago
was already translating sutras)

As for me in my small capacity to be moved and outraged by world events,
I offer a katha to the victims of the massacre in Haditha.

Contemporary USA is far more than Contemporary China a bestial predator.

[Tang Huyen]

On 2/9/2012 10:44 AM, Peter Terpstra wrote:

> Commentary: A Cry for Freedom
> Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 4:27PM
>
> by Robert Thurman
>

> [snip]

>
> When you destroy your body, you violate your own life,
> the lives of what Buddhists call "the 84,000 cells"
> that constitute it. This does seem violent. Yet in
> this case, the individual sacrifices herself to appeal
> to her enemy, to convey the perhaps all-too-subliminal
> message that they have nothing to fear from her, that
> she will resist their relationship of fear and harm
> by removing herself from being the target of their
> ultimately self-destructive, evil behavior. That is
> true non-harming—perfect resistance by complete
> surrender. If your victim prevents you from harming
> her by harming herself and taking herself out of your
> reach, then why were you afraid of her and wanting to
> harm her in the first place? Since she won't harm you,
> she must love you. She wants you to stop fearing and
> hating; she wants you to be happy! Indeed, she cries
> out to you with her very life to wake up and behold
> the power of love—how it does not fear death, how it
> gives itself away to reality, how it overwhelms
> hatred.

On the Buddhist boards, I have previously
objected to cultural imperialism, which I
take to be the imposition of one's
cultural bias on others who may or may
not share it. This cultural imperialism
is blatant in those people who flatly
impose their cultural bias on others in
an objectively unfactual manner, as in
claiming that certain people believe or
behave in ways that are *not* consistent
with the ways they actually believe or
behave.

http://groups.google.com/group/
talk.religion.buddhism/msg/
bfa8b85b86ca1c7e?hl=en&dmode=source

In the above message, "Re: Hi, is the
Swastika a Buddhist religous symbol?" on
2000/06/06, Rick St. Clair of MIT said:

<<You will find swastikas in iconography
of early Buddhism in India. It was not
carried to other cultures when Buddhism
migrated outside of India and SE Asia
2,000 years ago. Few Buddhists use the
swastika today, largely because of the
toxic association to Hitler's regime.>>

I replied to him on the same day:

<<Chinese Buddhist books bear the
swastika (but with vertical and
horizontal lines, and the outside lines
pointing in reverse direction to the
Nazi swastika) all over, and it is still
used in Chinese and Vietnamese Buddhism
as a sign of luck and protection. Many
Vietnamese Buddhist wear a necklace
with it surrounded by a circle.

It was invented in Mesopotamina, was
exported to Greece in the West and
India in the East, from where Buddhism
carried it to China, Vietnam, Korea,
Japan. Nazi relevance and consciousness
are very low in the Far East, unlike
the West, so the swastika (but in the
Buddhist form, as above) is still
popular. You seem to be universalising
a Westerner's sensibilities to areas
of the globe where they are next to
unknown -- a phenomenon otherwise known
as Western imperialism.

Since you are in Boston, go to St.
John's Catholic Church, near Alewife,
and you'll see a swastika (Buddhist
style) carved in front, along with
symbols from various religions.>>

Returning to Thurman's article, he says:

<<Yet in this case, the individual
sacrifices herself to appeal to her
enemy, to convey the perhaps
all-too-subliminal message that they
have nothing to fear from her, that she
will resist their relationship of fear
and harm by removing herself from being
the target of their ultimately
self-destructive, evil behavior.>>

Thurman's proclamation is of the worst,
most brutal kind of cultural
imperialism, and there is nothing
subliminal about it. He says of the
Chinese that their behaviour is
<<ultimately self-destructive, evil
behavior.>>

How does he know? If the Chinese do not
accept such a view of their behaviour,
how does Thurman know from his own side
that their behaviour is <<ultimately
self-destructive, evil behavior>>?

He can object to it, out of his own
bias, but how does he know objectively
that their behaviour is <<ultimately
self-destructive, evil behavior>>? He
can offer an analysis of long-term
effects of violence on their authors
(which he does not), or he can
unilaterally say that *from his own
beliefs* (and not theirs), such
behaviour would be <<ultimately
self-destructive, evil behavior>>
(which again he does not), or he can
simply appeal to the sense of humanity
in the Chinese (which again he does
not), but how can he charge right in
and baldly attribute such a
characteristic to the behaviour of
Chinese, without their consent?

He says: <<That is true
non-harming—perfect resistance by
complete surrender.>> Of course he
could have given this counsel to the
Tibetans (I am not saying that he
should, but only that he could,
presumably on the basis of their own
teaching, and in this case there would
be no cultural imperialism).

He says: <<Indeed, she cries out to

you with her very life to wake up and
behold the power of love—how it does
not fear death, how it gives itself
away to reality, how it overwhelms
hatred.>>

Admirable feeling, but what "reality"
is he talking about? If the "love" of
the self-immolator could indeed do
what Thurman claims that it does:

<<how it gives itself away to reality,

how it overwhelms hatred>> -- then he
should not appeal to the Chinese, as
the love of the self-immolator should
be able *from its own side* alone to
<<overwhelm hatred>> (assuming that
hatred existed in the Chinese) and
establish love, whether the Chinese
cooperated or not.

To me, he is committing the very sin
that he attributes to the Chinese.

I object to his cultural imperialism,
regardless of the other (presumable)
merits of his proclamation.

Tang Huyen

[oxtail]

Tang Huyen wrote:

>
> To me, he is committing the very sin
> that he attributes to the Chinese.
>
> I object to his cultural imperialism,
> regardless of the other (presumable)
> merits of his proclamation.

We all do (commit the very sin).
What matters is whether we do so
with an awareness of what we are doing.
Good luck.

--
oxtail

[oxtail]

liaM wrote:

>
> As for me in my small capacity to be moved and outraged by world events,
> I offer a katha to the victims of the massacre in Haditha.
>
> Contemporary USA is far more than Contemporary China a bestial predator.

Only if you believe drug dealers in jail are political prisoners.

--
oxtail

[pi]

I know I will get an honest and straightforward answer from you Tang, or
no answer at all.

So I am asking you, what is the world really doing?

Do you think imperialism is the necessary stage of our lion-like
species' becoming the child-like species and finally ensuring our place
in the Universe as such?

Or is it all driven merely by earthly greed?

I am purely guessing, but since the broken and the gutted (like myself)
still enjoy optimism about the final outcome of the whole process for
the entire species, is it possible that all the breaking and gutting is
indeed happening for a good reason?

Thank you.

pi

"THREE metamorphoses of the spirit do I designate to you: how the spirit
becometh a camel, the camel a lion, and the lion at last a child."

-- Zarathustra

http://barzilay.org/misc/TSZ/html/TSZ.sec1.html

[Allen Barker]

I certainly agree with your critique of contemporary
USA (and could expand on it). But can the same
critique not *also* apply to contemporary China, if
not in exactly the same way?

Couldn't the old Soviet Union and the United States
have *both* been evil empires? Maybe it's an
inclusive-or, rather than an exclusive-or. Why the
false dichotomies based on nationalism?

As I see it, human rights are about people, not
nations and national boundaries. All human rights
abuses should be condemned (especially when one's
own country is the guilty party, but not exclusively).

[Allen Barker]

I'm not clear about your chain of logic here.
Perhaps you could elucidate...

[Allen Barker]

On 02/09/2012 09:06 PM, pi wrote:
>
> I know I will get an honest and straightforward answer from you Tang, or no answer at all.
>
> So I am asking you, what is the world really doing?
>
> Do you think imperialism is the necessary stage of our lion-like species' becoming the child-like
> species and finally ensuring our place in the Universe as such?
>
> Or is it all driven merely by earthly greed?

I'm not Tang, but your question itself is implicitly
loaded with questionable premises and assumptions,
leading to a demand to provide an answer to a false
choice.

> I am purely guessing, but since the broken and the gutted (like myself) still enjoy optimism about
> the final outcome of the whole process for the entire species, is it possible that all the breaking
> and gutting is indeed happening for a good reason?

It's been going on for all of recorded history. Read
a history book. One might hope that our collective
culture would evolve to mitigate against the negative
aspects of human nature, and to encourage the more
positive ones. In some ways it has. In some ways it
hasn't.

[Tang Huyen]

On 2/9/2012 9:06 PM, pi wrote:

> I know I will get an honest and straightforward
> answer from you Tang, or no answer at all.
>
> So I am asking you, what is the world really
> doing?
>
> Do you think imperialism is the necessary stage
> of our lion-like species' becoming the
> child-like species and finally ensuring our
> place in the Universe as such?
>
> Or is it all driven merely by earthly greed?
>
> I am purely guessing, but since the broken and
> the gutted (like myself) still enjoy optimism
> about the final outcome of the whole process
> for the entire species, is it possible that
> all the breaking and gutting is indeed
> happening for a good reason?
>
> Thank you.
>
> pi
>
> "THREE metamorphoses of the spirit do I
> designate to you: how the spirit becometh a
> camel, the camel a lion, and the lion at last
> a child."
>
> -- Zarathustra
>
> http://barzilay.org/misc/TSZ/html/TSZ.sec1.html

Our friend and occasional visitor Kater Moggin
from the Gnostic board keeps on praising some
passages in the OT:

<<Isaiah 61:1 is revolutionary in its
implications (opening the jails, good news to
the poor, freedom for the oppressed, sight to
the blind and even healing to the
brokenhearted), and the peaceable kingdom, the
lion lying with the lamb, is unmatched by
anything in the NT.>>

<<Isaiah 66:3 goes further by saying that
blood-sacrifice is an abomination and comparing
the slaughter of an ox to the murder of a man:
"He that killeth an ox is as if he slew a
man.">>

As Moggin keeps saying, for the lion to lie
down with the lamb is an implicit admission
that the present world is a bloody failure.
The Jewish God has failed and needs to restart.

Steven Pinker has written on the lessening of
violence in our world, both at the individual
level of crimes and at the collective level
of wars. It looks hard to believe, though it
may be true. However the exhaustion of earthly
resources by overpopulation may reverse the
trend.

But is there a future goal of humanity, where
happiness and perfection will reign? It is
interesting to know that Hermann Lotze objects
to the idea of a future state of perfection,
because the people in the past and present will
not partake of it. See Phillip Merlan,
Monopsychism Mysticism Metaconsciousness:
Problems of the Soul in the Neoaristotelian
and Neoplatonic Tradition, The Hague: Martinus
Nijhoff, 1969, 116, n. 4. You may want to
locate a copy and read the very absorbing
discussion. Just a short quote (from Merlan,
not Lotze): "it is entirely irrelevant, whether
the eschaton will or will not actually take
place - it has already taken place in the mind
of every believer in it".

Tang Huyen

[Tang Huyen]

On 2/9/2012 10:13 PM, Ned Ludd wrote:

> For a religion that exalts egolessness, these
> acts are extremely forceful exhibitions of
> individuality.
>
> Is it accurate to suppose that no Taoist
> would ever consider self-immolation? Yet
> everybody seems to accept Buddhists doing it,
> all the way back to the Vietnamese Buddhist
> mentioned in another post.
>
> If there is no attachment (to things,
> countries, religions, etc.) and no ego,
> what exactly is a Buddhist to do when the
> communists take over their homeland?

I worship the Vietnamese monks and nuns
who burnt themselves to protest the Diem
regime running down Buddhism. Vietnam
previously had suppressed the Catholics,
under Emperor Minh-Mang, and from what I
hear, a hole was dug in the ground to
bury the Catholics live, a cross was put
next to it, and those Catholics were
saved who jumped over the cross. Diem
and his Catholic family (who were put in
power by the US, and at the time Diem
lived in a Catholic seminary in New
Jersey) did not follow the Christian
teaching of turning the other cheek but
wanted to take revenge by suppressing
Buddhism, so the self-immolation of the
monks and nuns was one telling way for
them to protest. It was to me as
selfless as any human act could be.

The mass wiping out of Buddhism
occurred in India, and not just India,
but Greater India, including
present-day Pakistan and Afghanistan,
generally Central Asia (which was more
hospitable than it is now) by the
Muslims. The Buddhists basically put up
little or no resistance and were wiped
out. The Muslims went on to Indonesia,
where Buddhists also did not resist. In
more recent times, Buddhism was wiped
out by the Communists from China, North
Vietnam, North Korea, and was on the
verge of being wiped out in Cambodia.
Again there was little resistance.

Buddhists tend to be easy-going and
lackadaisical, and not pushy like
followers of Jewish mythology.
Detachment and equability do not
foster violent resistance (or violent
imposition, which was standard
Christian and Muslim fare).

兀然無事坐、春夾草自生

"Sitting quietly, doing nothing,

Spring comes, and the grass grows
by itself." Zenrin Kushû (The Way
of Zen 134, 222)

青山自青山、白雲自白雲

"The blue mountains are of themselves
blue mountains;

"The white clouds are of themselves
white clouds." Zenrin Kushû (The Way
of Zen 134, 222)

萬古長空 一朝風月

An eternity of endless space:

A day of wind and moon. (The Golden
Age of Zen 246, 22 n.2).

The above attitude is part of the reason
I react strongly to people (the fakes)
who claim "mindfulness" and yet go
ballistic on mere words on the screen,
even as everybody is protected by
asynchronicity.

Tang Huyen

[News Journalism]

German national socialists did not call their symbol a swastika. They
called it a hakenkreuz (hooked cross) because it was a type of cross
and used as crossed S-letters by the misnamed "nazis." The German
national socialist symbol was pointed in the S-letter direction to
symbolize crossed S-letters for socialism. See the work of the
symbologist Dr. Rex Curry. The word swastika was substituted for
hakenkreuz or hooked cross by ignorant people to defame a different
foreign symbol in order to distance German national socialism from the
Christian cross. Please help educate everyone.

[Tang Huyen]

See the Wiki article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakenkreuz#
As_the_symbol_of_Nazism

According to the Wiki, the swastika (but
horizontal and vertical, as in India)
had been popular in Germany before Hitler
adopted it.

The Hindus in India still use it, like
the Buddhists everywhere. See the article
in the Los Angeles Times.

http://www.latimes.com/travel/
la-tr-motherindia11-2008may11,0,6753832,
full.story

<<Outside in the courtyard, wailing
infants were getting their heads shaved
with straight razors. Once shorn, the
hair was offered to the goddess and red
swastikas were painted on their bare
scalps.

"Oy," said Mom, who at last seemed
rattled. "Why are they doing that?"

"In India, the swastika is an ancient
design," I said. "The Nazis stole it,
but that doesn't matter here. To Hindus
and Buddhists, it's still a symbol of
good luck and a sign of protection by
the gods."

"The religion here," she said, shaking
her head. "It's all-encompassing. I
had no idea.">>

Returning to Thurman's article, he says:

<<Yet in this case, the individual
sacrifices herself to appeal to her
enemy, to convey the perhaps
all-too-subliminal message that they
have nothing to fear from her, that she
will resist their relationship of fear
and harm by removing herself from being
the target of their ultimately
self-destructive, evil behavior.>>

If the behaviour of the Chinese was
<<ultimately self-destructive, evil
behavior>>, as Thurman claims, the
enemies of the Chinese should wish
that they kept on with it, so that
ultimately they would self-destruct
by their evil behavior. The enemies
of the Chinese should wish that they
piled it on.

Tang Huyen

[Ned Ludd]

"Tang Huyen" <tanghuyen{delete}@gmail.com[remove]> wrote in message
news:CsSdnaw7gfvyuKjS...@supernews.com...

So, what is a Buddhist to do, when communists (or any
imperialists) take over their homeland?

The bulk of your post says to 'not resist', be 'easy-going',
with the one exception of the self-immolators that you approve
of in your homeland. Is that because you have an axe to grind
over Diem's puppet government in your homeland? So, is your
message to be 'easy-going' until it gets personal, and then
destroy yourself in flames? That sounds very hypocritical.

You say Buddhism was "wiped out" in India, wiped out in
Pakistan, wiped out in Afghanistan, wiped out in Indonesia,
wiped out in China, North Vietnam and North Korea.

Yet here Buddhism is today, with 400-500 million adherents
world-wide. How did that happen? Tibet will not be 'saved'
by people lighting themselves on fire. Buddhism will survive
or perish independently of the foolish actions of martyrs.
If the dharma needs people killing themselves in order to
persist, then it is a very stupid dharma indeed.

So, what is a Buddhist to do, when the imperialists take
over their homeland?

And the answer is...

Whatever the fuck he wants.

Ned

[beerlet dhiblang]

On Feb 10, 11:58 am, "Ned Ludd" <nedl...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> "Tang Huyen" <tanghuyen{dele...@gmail.com[remove]> wrote in message

What's a foolish action if it has an impact? Who's to say, if a self-
immolator has sufficiently considered their actions?

It's not like we're reviewing the case of Hamas sending children as
cannon fodder into Tel Aviv to blow themselves to bits.

If the greater good justifies 30 minutes of agony, if the defense of a
society of mind hits such a critical point that dramatic statements of
ultimate pacifist commitment and defiance, if it incites more and more
resistance against a slow, grinding culturecide, and a votary is as
good as their commitment to their belief system, then it is not only
internally consistent for whoever to sacrifice themselves in a battle
for cultural autonomy, but it is no less noble a commitment than
jumping into a raging icy cataract to save a child, or standing in
front of a tank to incite revolution.

Tang's entitled to have feelings about this, even cultural, ethnic,
nationalistic ones. And I can identify with his sentiments.

And I'm still completely surprised by the lack of altitude in this
discussion.

Whatever.

/l

[News Journalism]

The wiki article you cite is missing the point. The "swastika" had
been popular in Germany before Hitler adopted it, but the swastika is
a wide vague term, and wikipedia does not dispute that Hitler did not
call it a swastika, he called it a Hakenkreuz, or hooked cross.
Wikipedia also does not dispute that there is no evidence Hitler
borrowed it from India or anywhere else. Other than that, you should
not cite wiki ever for anything because wiki posters keep the above
info deliberately vague, and unaddressed, in order to promote the
widespread ignorance. Wakipedia is an anonymous bulletin board that
changes by the millisecond. If anyone cited it, they would have to
cite the date and time they relied on it.

German national socialists did not call their symbol a swastika. They
called it a hakenkreuz (hooked cross) because it was a type of cross

and used as crossed S-letters by the misnamed "nazis." German national
socialists did not call themselves nazis, nor fascists. They called
themselves socialists. The German national socialist symbol was

pointed in the S-letter direction to symbolize crossed S-letters for
socialism. See the work of the symbologist Dr. Rex Curry. The word
swastika was substituted for hakenkreuz or hooked cross by ignorant
people to defame a different foreign symbol in order to distance

German national socialism from the Christian cross. The Nazi salute
came from the USA's Pledge of Allegiance, written by Francis Bellamy,
an American national socialist. The gesture migrated to Germany via
Ernst Hanfstaengl. Please help educate everyone.

[Ned Ludd]

"beerlet dhiblang" <dodeca...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:b33007a8-1c75-4acc...@k40g2000yqf.googlegroups.com...

Yeah, and it's not my ox that's getting gored here, and I'll even
go farther and say that I don't personally feel any great empathy
for the medieval, theocratic regime that was ousted from Tibet.
(Nor for the commies' ways and means of doing just about anything.)

To recap my opinion and answer to the question 'What is a Buddhist
to do, when the imperialists take over their homeland?', it is:
'Whatever the fuck he wants.' A Buddhist with any knowledge of the
teachings might reasonably be expected to ask himself, "Why do I
want this so badly?"

Buddhism IS flourishing on this planet after being "wiped out"
(to use Tang's words) from so many countries on earth. The Tibetan
occupation has, ironically, resulted in Tibetan Buddhism being more
widespread, known and practiced than any prior time in history.

Pressing the issue of returning Tibet to its medieval, theocratic
rulers is starting to look greedy and worse, stupid. You know, 50
years ago, Mongolia (Inner Mongolia - 'Chinese' Mongolia) was 80%
Mongol. Today, it is 80% Han Chinese. This is EXACTLY what China
is doing and will continue to do in Tibet. When Tibet is 80% Han
Chinese, are you still going to press for the return of the country
to its medieval, theocratic, Tibetan rulers?

Because if you are, you'd better have a good answer for why all
of America shouldn't be returned to the native tribes of this
nation.

Ned

[Tang Huyen]

On 2/10/2012 3:15 PM, News Journalism wrote:

> The wiki article you cite is missing the
> point. The "swastika" had been popular in
> Germany before Hitler adopted it, but the
> swastika is a wide vague term, and
> wikipedia does not dispute that Hitler
> did not call it a swastika, he called it
> a Hakenkreuz, or hooked cross.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika

<<In the wake of widespread popular usage,
the Nazi Party (Nationalsozialistische
Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP) formally
adopted the swastika (in German: Hakenkreuz
(hook-cross)) in 1920. This was used on
the party's flag (right), badge, and
armband.

In his 1925 work Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler
wrote that: I myself, meanwhile, after
innumerable attempts, had laid down a
final form; a flag with a red background,
a white disk, and a black swastika in the
middle. After long trials I also found a
definite proportion between the size of
the flag and the size of the white disk,
as well as the shape and thickness of the
swastika.

When Hitler created a flag for the Nazi
Party, he sought to incorporate both the
swastika and "those revered colors
expressive of our homage to the glorious
past and which once brought so much honor
to the German nation." (Red, white, and
black were the colors of the flag of the
old German Empire.) He also stated: "As
National Socialists, we see our program
in our flag. In red, we see the social
idea of the movement; in white, the
nationalistic idea; in the swastika, the
mission of the struggle for the victory
of the Aryan man, and, by the same token,
the victory of the idea of creative
work.">>

Tang Huyen

[Kitty P]

"Ned Ludd" <ned...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:3PednSePm7yFFKjS...@earthlink.com...

Where do you get information that this is about a return to theocratic
rulers? My limited understanding is that it is about recent new repression
regarding what monks and nuns should do, how they should pray, and who
should be allowed into monasteries. They are seeing fellow monks expelled
because they refuse to denounce the Dalai Lama or to desecrate his likeness.
It is an obvious step to get rid of Buddhism in that region and the question
probably became - what will it take for the mild mannered Tibetan people to
get aroused enough to not have that taken away from them? They probably
foolishly believe that to copy

They are perhaps following a Jataka tale about the Buddha who in a previous
incarnation, gives up his body to feed a starving tigress and her cubs.
Suicide is prohibited in Buddhism, but just as 98% of Catholic woman use
birth control, some Buddhists believe it depends on motivation. It is not
ego. It is not about wanting to be ruled. They perhaps believe if it is for
a pure cause, their faith, then it is acceptable. This isn't encouraged by
the Dalai Lama - just the opposite. They are moving away from his teaching
of non-violence. It is about the Chinese upping their repression of
Buddhism in Tibet. We can all have our own opinion about all this, our
differing opinions about the Dalai Lama - and like you I don't agree with
the concept of suicide. But it is their practice and their lives.

'What is a Buddhist to do, when the imperialists take over their homeland?'

Nothing as long as they are able to practice. But what other non-violent
actions that don't involve others can they do if that is taken away from
them? Mohammad Bouazizi's self-immolation woke up the oppressed people of
the Middle East after decades of fear and apathy. Perhaps that is where the
discussion should start.

Kitty

[Tang Huyen]

On 2/10/2012 3:09 PM, beerlet dhiblang wrote:

> If the greater good justifies 30 minutes
> of agony,

Probably not. The Buddhist monks and nuns
in Vietnam practice meditation according
to the Agama-s (there are Chinese
translations of the Agama-s, Great
Vehiclistic scripture quote the Agama-s,
and there were Indian missionaries who
went to Vietnam [back then, North Vietnam]
and who taught Buddhist meditation as it
was practiced in India, just as there
were Indian missionaries who went to
China, like Bodhidharma, and who taught
Buddhist meditation as it was practiced
in India). This practice helps the
practitioners get out of physical pain
(the Buddha got back pain in old age, and
went into the signless concentration
[a-nimitta-samadhi] to spare himself
physical pain). During the meditation,
the body is left aside, and nothing is
felt from it.

Back in Saigon, now Ho-Chi-Minh City, I
saw footage of the monks and nuns
burning themselves. They were not
writhing in pain, but were sitting
motionless, except for their jaw moving
up and down rhythmically, as if they had
been reciting the Buddha's name or
scriptures. That their jaw was moving
meant that they were alive. (It was
moving at the same speed). After ten or
fifteen minutes, when their bodies had
been pretty much burnt away, their jaw
stopped, they fell backward, but still
in the sitting (lotus) position, and
their arms spread out a little, and
those were the only signs that they had
died. They were never attempting to get
out of the fire or putting out the fire.
The only motion was their jaw moving up
and down rhythmically, at the same speed,
until it stopped. From the outside, it
was all calm and tranquility, before,
during and after.

The famous Venerable Xu-Yun "Empty Cloud"
of China, who died in 1959, spent ten or
fifteen days in the cessation attainment
(nirodha-samapatti), sitting motionless
during such a meditation session. He
burnt a finger on a candle to honour his
mother, in full calm and peace. The high
meditative states, such as the signless
concentration (a-nimitta-samadhi) and the
cessation attainment (nirodha-samapatti),
spare the practitioner bodily sensation,
pain included. But even if pain is felt,
as when the person is conscious of the
outside world (presumably like when
Xu-Yun burnt his finger), it can still
be felt in levity and detachment, and it
occurs as if it did not occur. This has
to be experienced to be believed.

I am nowhere near there, but that is my
knowledge by hearsay.

Tang Huyen

[Ned Ludd]

"Kitty P" <kitty...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:FqgZq.14829$236....@newsfe03.iad...

How many died in the takeover? 1.5 million? Is that still the accepted
number? And how many had rifles in their hands? Probably most.

> They are perhaps following a Jataka tale about the Buddha who in a
> previous incarnation, gives up his body to feed a starving tigress and her
> cubs. Suicide is prohibited in Buddhism, but just as 98% of Catholic woman
> use birth control, some Buddhists believe it depends on motivation. It is
> not ego. It is not about wanting to be ruled. They perhaps believe if it
> is for a pure cause, their faith, then it is acceptable. This isn't
> encouraged by the Dalai Lama - just the opposite. They are moving away
> from his teaching of non-violence. It is about the Chinese upping their
> repression of Buddhism in Tibet. We can all have our own opinion about all
> this, our differing opinions about the Dalai Lama - and like you I don't
> agree with the concept of suicide. But it is their practice and their
> lives.
>

On that we agree. Everybody makes their own personal decision on
what they WANT to do about this.

> 'What is a Buddhist to do, when the imperialists take over their
> homeland?' Nothing as long as they are able to practice. But what other
> non-violent actions that don't involve others can they do if that is taken
> away from them? Mohammad Bouazizi's self-immolation woke up the oppressed
> people of the Middle East after decades of fear and apathy. Perhaps that
> is where the discussion should start.
> Kitty

Well I can start a list if you like. Self-immolation will be at the
top, of course. Then perhaps starving to death in hunger strikes.
Then fleeing the country (to India or elsewhere, as the Dalai Lama did).
Killing Chinese should be on there somewhere (but there are a LOT of
Chinese). Using the internet to gain world support. What else?

Most people don't know that when Mohamad Bouazizi set himself on fire,
three other people also did that, in imitation of him. Nobody seemed
to know, yourself included, that 19 Tibetans have self-immolated in
the last year, until I posted the article here.

It's a personal decision. Did Mongolians do this when China began
shipping trainloads of Han to Inner Mongolia to overwhelm their
political system? Because if they did, it didn't do a damn bit of
good. How many Palestinians have killed themselves in suicide
bombings in the middle-east in the last 10 years? Do you think
that has done any good or advanced their cause in any way?

Vote with your feet. Nothing else seems to work, and at least
you'll get some exercise.

Ned

[pi]

Allen Barker wrote:
> On 02/09/2012 09:06 PM, pi wrote:
>>
>> I know I will get an honest and straightforward answer from you Tang,
>> or no answer at all.
>>
>> So I am asking you, what is the world really doing?
>>
>> Do you think imperialism is the necessary stage of our lion-like
>> species' becoming the child-like
>> species and finally ensuring our place in the Universe as such?
>>
>> Or is it all driven merely by earthly greed?
>
> I'm not Tang, but your question itself is implicitly
> loaded with questionable premises and assumptions,
> leading to a demand to provide an answer to a false
> choice.

Allen, thank you very much. I just did what I usually do, i.e. I
expressed my ignorant views hoping that they are crushed and their
ignorance comes in full light and detail.

I am not worried when what I say tumbles down like a house of cards, it
actually makes me most happy when someone kindly wishes to knock a card
or two so that I no longer hold false beliefs.

"Implicitly loaded with questionable premises and assumptions" is just
the sentence I needed (with a math overtone that I love).

I am most certainly wrong on most things I think or say. I am here to
change that, so may I ask you to kindly give me a hint or two more, please?

Again, thank you.

>> I am purely guessing, but since the broken and the gutted (like
>> myself) still enjoy optimism about
>> the final outcome of the whole process for the entire species, is it
>> possible that all the breaking
>> and gutting is indeed happening for a good reason?
>
> It's been going on for all of recorded history. Read
> a history book. One might hope that our collective
> culture would evolve to mitigate against the negative
> aspects of human nature, and to encourage the more
> positive ones. In some ways it has. In some ways it
> hasn't.

I've only recently developed an interest into (general) history. It's
intertwined with all social sciences, geography... wait, everything is
intertwined with everything.

So, I've only read about a dozen items on the subject and I guess I need
another two hundred before some kind of general plot comes up.

Well, there's one by Jared Diamond I particularly liked for it attempts
the narrate some most the least obscured patterns pertaining to
technological vs social change.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1842.Guns_Germs_and_Steel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgnmT-Y_rGQ

This is, imho, fundamentally a picture of ethnic conflict driven by
unequal pace and distribution of technological innovations.

What I'm saying is that humanity /seems/ to be past that. It's the
global era, humans should know better than a bunch of primitive
traditional mutually conflicting ethics.

What we're seeing, imho, might be the birth pains of something truly
peaceful, truthful, prosperous and sustainable.

I may be wrong.

pi

[Kitty P]

"Ned Ludd" <ned...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message

news:obOdnfFmHtw0PKjS...@earthlink.com...

Not sure how to respond, other than to tell you the limited information that
I read in blogs from Buddhist sites and friends (not always reliable in
interpretation I'll admit) after your post. Non-violence is far different
than the violence of suicide bombers. Surely you must see that. I'm curious
where the anger comes from about what they are doing. Is it the waste of
life?

Kitty

[beerlet dhiblang]

On Feb 10, 4:16 pm, "Ned Ludd" <nedl...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> "beerlet dhiblang" <dodecapus...@gmail.com> wrote in message

Sorry but it's the aspersions cast at the self-immolators that I find
curious.

The geopolitical context, the future, the past, none of that matters.

The question was raised whether the self-immolators were acting out of
ego, selfishly.

Is there any evidence for this claim, that these are suicides of
anger, or pain?

If anything these are statements of profound discipline, tactical
shaming and, if the slightest smidgeon of ego involved, cultural
spiritual and ethical superiority.

/l

[pi]

When I first posted to these boards (not so long ago), deeply in my
heart I still believed that JC was the messenger of the one and only
true God.

I felt unable to vindicate it by my own modest intellectual means, but I
nevertheless conjectured this ideology to be merely a vehicle used to
indoctrinate me early in my childhood into later participating in a
certain societal structure with a certain (totem/taboo) functionality to
be elicited from me through presenting me with a certain kick-off
pattern (of symbols/behaviours).

Having read enough intelligent people's posts (directly and in between
the lines), I've managed to test that (and not only that) conjecture to
be (as reliably as it can ever be) true.

I now view God as the centerpiece of some or other societal doctrine
aimed to organize social life by means of some arbitrary set of rules,
and I view GOD (or the TAO) as the fundamental principle behind all
realities.

There is no question that all sorts of Gods died and were resurrected as
societies separately tried to find GOD.

Imho, the time has come for all Gods to die (once and for all) and for
humanity as a whole to join in looking for GOD.

(Maybe I'm just babbling. Sorry.)

> Steven Pinker has written on the lessening of
> violence in our world, both at the individual
> level of crimes and at the collective level
> of wars. It looks hard to believe, though it
> may be true. However the exhaustion of earthly
> resources by overpopulation may reverse the
> trend.

I see. Hopefully, sufficiently innovative and harmless technology is in
place soon enough to handle that (and whatever else there is that may
seem a great problem today).

> But is there a future goal of humanity, where
> happiness and perfection will reign?

I am asking too, of course.

> It is interesting to know that Hermann Lotze objects
> to the idea of a future state of perfection,
> because the people in the past and present will
> not partake of it.

Right. (Except, of course, we parttake of our father's sacrifices often
without realizing and appreciating them.)

> See Phillip Merlan,
> Monopsychism Mysticism Metaconsciousness:
> Problems of the Soul in the Neoaristotelian
> and Neoplatonic Tradition, The Hague: Martinus
> Nijhoff, 1969, 116, n. 4. You may want to
> locate a copy and read the very absorbing
> discussion. Just a short quote (from Merlan,
> not Lotze): "it is entirely irrelevant, whether
> the eschaton will or will not actually take
> place - it has already taken place in the mind
> of every believer in it".

You made this quote absolutely clear to me, Tang. Thank you very much.

I have also noted its context, but I think I need to wisen up more to
follow all of it in full detail. Again, all understood, note taken,
thank you very much for all the information.

And thank you for your patience most of all :)

pi

[oxtail]

Just thinking about human right abuse.

--
oxtail

[Ned Ludd]

"Kitty P" <kitty...@hotmail.com> wrote in message

news:EQiZq.22650$Sh7....@newsfe15.iad...
>...

Precisely. And I just have to keep telling myself that
it's THEIR life. If the destruction of their culture and
heritage is intolerable to them, they certainly have a
right to register their non-acceptance of it by killing
themselves in such a public and violent way.

Suicides always make me sad. (Unless you're dying of
cancer or such.) What if, on the day that 1,000 Tibetans
decided to burn themselves to death, a giant meteor was
detected coming directly at the earth, and was absolutely
certain to obliterate half the population of the planet
in 48 hours. Would the 1,000 still go ahead and kill
themselves? Of course not. Why not?

We ought to send all the disgruntled Tibetans a copy
of the Fire Sermon. It's all over in an instant, anyway.
You've paid the dime; finish the ride.

Ned

[beerlet dhiblang]

On Feb 10, 5:35 pm, Tang Huyen <tanghuyen{dele...@gmail.com[remove]>
wrote:

> On 2/10/2012 3:09 PM, beerlet dhiblang wrote:
>
> > If the greater good justifies 30 minutes
> > of agony,
>
> Probably not. The Buddhist monks and nuns
> in Vietnam practice meditation according
> to the Agama-s (there are Chinese
> translations of the Agama-s, Great
> Vehiclistic scripture quote the Agama-s,
> and there were Indian missionaries who
> went to Vietnam [back then, North Vietnam]
> and who taught Buddhist meditation as it
> was practiced in India, just as there
> were Indian missionaries who went to
> China, like Bodhidharma, and who taught
> Buddhist meditation as it was practiced
> in India). This practice helps the
> practitioners get out of physical pain
> (the Buddha got back pain in old age, and
> went into the signless concentration
> [a-nimitta-samadhi] to spare himself
> physical pain). During the meditation,
> the body is left aside, and nothing is
> felt from it.

Wonderful.

Years ago I thought that was all BS, trippy hippy dippy crap.

I think that helps put it into perspective.

> This has
> to be experienced to be believed.

In the few times I've hit any serious level of concentration I did
notice a depth of absorption that held the capacity to attenuate
physical sensation & other mental experiences.

I could imagine that an ability to sustain such a state would impart
such a benefit.

> I am nowhere near there, but that is my
> knowledge by hearsay.

I rather suspect you've heard right. I'll take it on your hearsay,
once more removed, as pretty good hearsay.

Thanks.

/l

[Kitty P]

"Ned Ludd" <ned...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message

news:4OqdnRqd7ZgoI6jS...@earthlink.com...

I agree that it seems a waste of life. It's both a personal and Buddhist
belief that I hold as well. I think all that is left after that, for myself,
is to at least try to understand with compassion.

Kitty

[beerlet dhiblang]

On Feb 10, 6:00 pm, "Ned Ludd" <nedl...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> "Kitty P" <kittyp2...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>
> news:FqgZq.14829$236....@newsfe03.iad...
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > "Ned Ludd" <nedl...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
> >news:3PednSePm7yFFKjS...@earthlink.com...
>
> >> "beerlet dhiblang" <dodecapus...@gmail.com> wrote in message

This has been ongoing. But what's there to say?

[beerlet dhiblang]

On Feb 10, 8:04 pm, "Ned Ludd" <nedl...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> "Kitty P" <kittyp2...@hotmail.com> wrote in message

If self-immolation would stop a meteor from killing billions, don't
you think these nuns and monks wouldn't hesitate to do so?

It's a gamble, a wild hope, that engaging in such tactical shaming
might redirect the gross oppression of the massive Chinese machinery
into something more beneficial to all of Asia. Don't you think that
these nuns and monks aren't fully aware of that, that their sacrifice
will tragically have no effect at all, be all for naught?

There are already people being tortured and dying in Tibet. Lives and
deaths are fungible, it doesn't matter who's dying and why, what
matters is a culturecide that continues to take a steady toll, this
long after any likelihood of ever a return to their old feudal
society.

Self immolation holds a very special place in the human psyche. It's a
message: They don't want us to ignore the plight of their culture. The
ongoing human rights abuses in Mongolia & Tibet (forced abortions,
torture, execution) are part of a roiling, rolling ball of suffering
that needs arbitration to resolve.

Sorry, but their plea isn't just being directed at Beijing, but all of
the world. Or is that what pisses people off so much? Being shamed?

/l

[Jigme Dorje]

I don't strictly agree. Sometimes sacrifice is a well-considered choice.
It's an extreme example, but consider the Italian captain who left his
sinking ship. He got a call ordering him to turn his lifeboat around and
return aboard. The conversation went something like this:

"Capitano, where a you go?!"

"Ima go ahome now. Thisa cruise areally sucks."

[liaM]

Just who among us is materialistic ? Who is a believer in magic and old
wive's tales?

Why not tell us in your own words about yourself, your
experience with meditation, your encounters with pain
and suffering. Tell us in your own words what you
have achieved, having told us you're "nowhere near there".
Don't be such a wimp. Tell us.

[Jigme Dorje]

Have ya got a minute?

[beerlet dhiblang]

Don't be an asshole. Everybody's got their comfort zone & you're
nowhere near his.

/l

[web head]

this group is a comfort zone. ugly peoples.

[beerlet dhiblang]

There you go. Comfort amongst freaks, eh, webhead?

/l

[web head]

i dunno. blindness improves ones chances of survival.

[Nobody in Particular]

"News Journalism" wrote in message
news:f773a63f-3e6c-46fc...@l16g2000vbl.googlegroups.com...

>
> The wiki article you cite is missing the point. The "swastika" had
> been popular in Germany before Hitler adopted it, but the swastika is
> a wide vague term, and wikipedia does not dispute that Hitler did not
> call it a swastika, he called it a Hakenkreuz, or hooked cross.
> Wikipedia also does not dispute that there is no evidence Hitler
> borrowed it from India or anywhere else. Other than that, you should
> not cite wiki ever for anything because wiki posters keep the above
> info deliberately vague, and unaddressed, in order to promote the
> widespread ignorance. Wakipedia is an anonymous bulletin board that
> changes by the millisecond. If anyone cited it, they would have to
> cite the date and time they relied on it.
>
> German national socialists did not call their symbol a swastika. They
> called it a hakenkreuz (hooked cross) because it was a type of cross
> and used as crossed S-letters by the misnamed "nazis." German national
> socialists did not call themselves nazis, nor fascists. They called
> themselves socialists.

Aw, c'mon!
They called themselves "Nazionalsozialisten", of which "Nazi" was simply a
convenient abbreviation. It had no other meaning or connotation than the
full-length word. I don't know for sure whether or not they used the
abbreviation themselves, but they certainly had no objection that everyone
else called them by that abbreviation.
But why do you make such a big deal out of it? I don't get it. Do you get
upset if "gasoline" is abbreviated as "gas"?

BTW, socialists which were not national socialists ("Sozialisten"), were
also commonly abbreviated as "Sozis", which also did not have any other
meaning or connotation.

But of course, they never called themselves "fascists", nor did anyone else.
Those were always the Italians.
I think the naming of the nazis as "fascists" started in socialist Russia;
they did not want their socialism associated with the German one. But I
never heard any of the old folks in Germany ever using that term in this
incorrect way. Now of course, the younger (less than 70) Germans use it
because the Americans do.

About the Hakenkreuz, the people I talked with had a vague idea that it was
an ancient symbol, but had not given it much thought.
On the stiff-arm salute I have no opinion. I don't recall ever discussing
the origin of it.
Personally, I have done no research on those, it's just not an area of
interest to me. So I don't dispute your version.

[Nobody in Particular]

"Tang Huyen" wrote in message
news:V-qdnRgkB8jTDajS...@supernews.com...

Interesting.
You know, everybody in Germany had a copy of that book. It was given as a
present at weddings, job promotions, etc.
But i never talked with anyone who actually read the thing. I tried, but
gave up. His style was well-suited to speeches, but sucked when it came to
writing. Just couldn't read much without falling asleep.

[News Journalism]

On Feb 10, 4:46 pm, Tang Huyen <tanghuyen{dele...@gmail.com[remove]>
wrote:

> On 2/10/2012 3:15 PM, News Journalism wrote:
>
> > The wiki article you cite is missing the
> > point. The "swastika" had been popular in
> > Germany before Hitler adopted it, but the

> >swastikais a wide vague term, and

> > wikipedia does not dispute that Hitler

> > did not call it aswastika, he called it

> > a Hakenkreuz, or hooked cross.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika
>
> <<In the wake of widespread popular usage,
> the Nazi Party (Nationalsozialistische
> Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP) formally

> adopted theswastika(in German: Hakenkreuz

> (hook-cross)) in 1920. This was used on
> the party's flag (right), badge, and
> armband.
>
> In his 1925 work Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler
> wrote that: I myself, meanwhile, after
> innumerable attempts, had laid down a
> final form; a flag with a red background,

> a white disk, and a blackswastikain the

> middle. After long trials I also found a
> definite proportion between the size of
> the flag and the size of the white disk,
> as well as the shape and thickness of theswastika.
>
> When Hitler created a flag for the Nazi

> Party, he sought to incorporate both theswastikaand "those revered colors

> expressive of our homage to the glorious
> past and which once brought so much honor
> to the German nation." (Red, white, and
> black were the colors of the flag of the
> old German Empire.) He also stated: "As
> National Socialists, we see our program
> in our flag. In red, we see the social
> idea of the movement; in white, the

> nationalistic idea; in theswastika, the

> mission of the struggle for the victory
> of the Aryan man, and, by the same token,
> the victory of the idea of creative
> work.">>
>
> Tang Huyen

Just a clarification here in case there are some readers who don't
realize that the quote from Mein Kampf in wakipedia is, of course, an
English translation in which the word "swastika" was substituted for
Hitler's word "Hakenkreuz" in German. The English word that should
have been used was "hooked cross." The wackos on wakipedia do not want
you to know that. Thus wakipedia continues to mislead readers
everywhere which is the point made in the earlier post. It is also
clear that Hitler at some point altered the swastika from being flat
on one side to being 45 degrees from the horizontal. That emphasized
the S-letter shapes. He also had it always point in the S-letter
direction. German national socialists had a lot of similar stylized
alphabetical symbolism, for the "SS" division, the "SA," the
"NSV," and even VW (the letters V and W combined for "volkswagen").

See the work of the symbologist Dr. Rex Curry.

http://rexcurry.net/bookchapter4a1a2a.html Graphic examples are at
http://rexcurry.net/swastika-vw-logo.JPG

[oxtail]

Not that there is anything to achieve.

--
oxtail

[Sevenhundred Elves]

liaM wrote:

> Le 10/02/2012 23:35, Tang Huyen a ĂŠcrit :

"Us"? I, for one, am content with whatever anyone spontaneously and by
his own free will cares to divulge about his private life. If Tang
should happen to spend his afternoons burning his fingers off, one by
one, in emulation of the Venerable Xu-Yun, it's not something I'd like
to hear about, anyway.

S.

[Tang Huyen]

On 2/11/2012 9:45 AM, Sevenhundred Elves wrote:

> liaM:

>> Tang Huyen:

>>> But even if pain is felt, as when the
>>> person is conscious of the outside world
>>> (presumably like when Xu-Yun burnt his
>>> finger), it can still be felt in levity
>>> and detachment, and it occurs as if it
>>> did not occur. This has to be
>>> experienced to be believed.
>>>
>>> I am nowhere near there, but that is my
>>> knowledge by hearsay.

>> Just who among us is materialistic ?
>> Who is a believer in magic and old
>> wive's tales?
>>
>> Why not tell us in your own words about
>> yourself, your experience with
>> meditation, your encounters with pain
>> and suffering. Tell us in your own
>> words what you have achieved, having
>> told us you're "nowhere near there".
>> Don't be such a wimp. Tell us.

> "Us"? I, for one, am content with whatever
> anyone spontaneously and by his own free
> will cares to divulge about his private
> life. If Tang should happen to spend his
> afternoons burning his fingers off, one by
> one, in emulation of the Venerable Xu-Yun,
> it's not something I'd like to hear about,
> anyway.

My old wive's tale is as above:

<<But even if pain is felt, as when the

person is conscious of the outside world,

it can still be felt in levity and
detachment, and it occurs as if it did
not occur. This has to be experienced to
be believed.>>

Another old wive's tale is what I have
reported about my meditation: namely,
that in content it does not strictly
follow the description of the meditative
states as retold by the early Buddhist
canon in the letter (the four form
meditations, the four formless
attainments, the four Divine Abodes,
etc., each with its own factors), but
that it follows the general Buddhist
scheme of what meditation is like, in
that the higher one rises in meditation,
regardless of specifics, the more airy
and unsubstantial it becomes, so that
one gets a direct, unmediated feel for
the lack of substance and for the
ungraspability of everything, not just
the mind and mental states, but even
things and events out in the real world.

As I often say, it is all fluff, it is
all made up, better just relax and be
serene. That is my third old wive's
tale, obviously with the disclaimer
that they are all old wive's tales,
across the board, without exception.

Which is to me the greatest virtue of
Buddhism, without exception. Iow, to be
easy-going, lackadaisical and debonair,
regardless of specifics.

兀然無事坐、春夾草自生

"Sitting quietly, doing nothing,

Spring comes, and the grass grows
by itself." Zenrin Kushû (The Way
of Zen 134, 222)

青山自青山、白雲自白雲

"The blue mountains are of themselves
blue mountains;

"The white clouds are of themselves
white clouds." Zenrin Kushû (The Way
of Zen 134, 222)

萬古長空 一朝風月

An eternity of endless space:

A day of wind and moon. (The Golden
Age of Zen 246, 22 n.2).

In English:

Things fall apart; the centre cannot
hold. - Yeats.

With a disqualifier: Things fall apart,
the centre cannot hold, but everything
is in peace. That is redemption.

Tang Huyen

[Wilson]

> ongoing human rights abuses in Mongolia& Tibet (forced abortions,

> torture, execution) are part of a roiling, rolling ball of suffering
> that needs arbitration to resolve.
>
> Sorry, but their plea isn't just being directed at Beijing, but all of
> the world. Or is that what pisses people off so much? Being shamed?
>
> /l

I wonder if these self-immolations actually cause the Chinese
powers-that-be any shame.

--
Wilson

[Sevenhundred Elves]

Tang Huyen wrote:

> ĺ ç śç Ąäş ĺ ă ć Ąĺ¤žč č Şç ź

>
> "Sitting quietly, doing nothing,
>
> Spring comes, and the grass grows

> by itself." Zenrin KushĂť (The Way
> of Zen 134, 222)
>
> é ĺąąč Şé ĺąąă ç ˝é ˛č Şç ˝é ˛

>
> "The blue mountains are of themselves
> blue mountains;
>
> "The white clouds are of themselves

> white clouds." Zenrin KushĂť (The Way
> of Zen 134, 222)
>
> č ŹĺŹ¤é ˇçŠş ä¸ ćś é˘¨ćś

>
> An eternity of endless space:
>
> A day of wind and moon. (The Golden
> Age of Zen 246, 22 n.2).
>
> In English:
>
> Things fall apart; the centre cannot
> hold. - Yeats.
>
> With a disqualifier: Things fall apart,
> the centre cannot hold, but everything
> is in peace. That is redemption.

Is this Taoism as well as Zen? It sounds like things a Taoist could say.
That thing by Yeats sounds like it's a quotation from the I Ching, which
predates Buddhism. Anyway, I'm glad for your sake that everything is in
peace. I didn't really think you were burning your fingers off, but I'm
still much relieved that you didn't confirm that hypothetical suspicion.
<snipped absfg>

S.

[SG]

On Feb 10, 8:58 am, "Ned Ludd" <nedl...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> "Tang Huyen" <tanghuyen{dele...@gmail.com[remove]> wrote in message
>
> news:CsSdnaw7gfvyuKjS...@supernews.com...
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On 2/9/2012 10:13 PM, Ned Ludd wrote:
>
> >> For a religion that exalts egolessness, these
> >> acts are extremely forceful exhibitions of
> >> individuality.
> >> Is it accurate to suppose that no Taoist
> >> would ever consider self-immolation? Yet
> >> everybody seems to accept Buddhists doing it,
> >> all the way back to the Vietnamese Buddhist
> >> mentioned in another post.
> >> If there is no attachment (to things,
> >> countries, religions, etc.) and no ego,
> >> what exactly is a Buddhist to do when the
> >> communists take over their homeland?
>
> > I worship the Vietnamese monks and nuns
> > who burnt themselves to protest the Diem
> > regime running down Buddhism. Vietnam
> > previously had suppressed the Catholics,
> > under Emperor Minh-Mang, and from what I
> > hear, a hole was dug in the ground to
> > bury the Catholics live, a cross was put
> > next to it, and those Catholics were
> > saved who jumped over the cross. Diem
> > and his Catholic family (who were put in
> > power by the US, and at the time Diem
> > lived in a Catholic seminary in New
> > Jersey) did not follow the Christian
> > teaching of turning the other cheek but
> > wanted to take revenge by suppressing
> > Buddhism, so the self-immolation of the
> > monks and nuns was one telling way for
> > them to protest. It was to me as
> > selfless as any human act could be.
>
> > The mass wiping out of Buddhism
> > occurred in India, and not just India,
> > but Greater India, including
> > present-day Pakistan and Afghanistan,
> > generally Central Asia (which was more
> > hospitable than it is now) by the
> > Muslims. The Buddhists basically put up
> > little or no resistance and were wiped
> > out. The Muslims went on to Indonesia,
> > where Buddhists also did not resist. In
> > more recent times, Buddhism was wiped
> > out by the Communists from China, North
> > Vietnam, North Korea, and was on the
> > verge of being wiped out in Cambodia.
> > Again there was little resistance.
>
> > Buddhists tend to be easy-going and
> > lackadaisical, and not pushy like
> > followers of Jewish mythology.
> > Detachment and equability do not
> > foster violent resistance (or violent
> > imposition, which was standard
> > Christian and Muslim fare).
>
> > 兀然無事坐、春夾草自生

>
> > "Sitting quietly, doing nothing,
>
> > Spring comes, and the grass grows

> > by itself." Zenrin Kushû (The Way
> > of Zen 134, 222)
>
> > 青山自青山、白雲自白雲

>
> > "The blue mountains are of themselves
> > blue mountains;
>
> > "The white clouds are of themselves

> > white clouds." Zenrin Kushû (The Way
> > of Zen 134, 222)
>
> > 萬古長空 一朝風月

>
> > An eternity of endless space:
>
> > A day of wind and moon. (The Golden
> > Age of Zen 246, 22 n.2).
>

> > The above attitude is part of the reason
> > I react strongly to people (the fakes)
> > who claim "mindfulness" and yet go
> > ballistic on mere words on the screen,
> > even as everybody is protected by
> > asynchronicity.
>
> > Tang Huyen

>
>   So, what is a Buddhist to do, when communists (or any
> imperialists) take over their homeland?
>
>   The bulk of your post says to 'not resist', be 'easy-going',
> with the one exception of the self-immolators that you approve
> of in your homeland.  Is that because you have an axe to grind
> over Diem's puppet government in your homeland?  So, is your
> message to be 'easy-going' until it gets personal, and then
> destroy yourself in flames?  That sounds very hypocritical.
>
>   You say Buddhism was "wiped out" in India, wiped out in
> Pakistan, wiped out in Afghanistan, wiped out in Indonesia,
> wiped out in China, North Vietnam and North Korea.
>
>   Yet here Buddhism is today, with 400-500 million adherents
> world-wide.  How did that happen?  Tibet will not be 'saved'
> by people lighting themselves on fire.  Buddhism will survive
> or perish independently of the foolish actions of martyrs.
> If the dharma needs people killing themselves in order to
> persist, then it is a very stupid dharma indeed.
>

>   So, what is a Buddhist to do, when the imperialists take
> over their homeland?
>
>   And the answer is...

>
>   Whatever the fuck he wants.
>

>  Ned

Right.

[SG]

Empathy is generated, increased with authentic spiritual insight.
Posters can disseminate views without having any referential basis for
it.

[liaM]

Got it; Thanks Tang !

[liaM]

Saying "I am nowhere near there" lead me to conclude the contrary.

[Lee Rudolph]

Tang Huyen quotes and writes:

> Things fall apart; the centre cannot
> hold. - Yeats.
>
> With a disqualifier: Things fall apart,
> the centre cannot hold, but everything
> is in peace. That is redemption.

Yeats, quoted above, famously goes on
"Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world"
but makes it clear that, for him,
"anarchy" is by no means "mere":
it is powerful and evil. So he would
not have written

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
the world is seen in its anarchic peace

even though it scans just as well and
doesn't break any rhyme scheme. (It
wreaks bloody hell with the rest of the
lines, of course.)

Lee Rudolph

[oxtail]

Not that there's anything wrong with awakening.
How is the world you created treating you?

--
oxtail

[Lee Rudolph]

liaM <cud...@mindless.com> writes:

>Le 11/02/2012 15:30, oxtail a écrit :
>> liaM wrote:
>>
>>> Le 10/02/2012 23:35, Tang Huyen a écrit :

...

>>>> I am nowhere near there, but that is my knowledge by hearsay.

...

>>> Just who among us is materialistic ? Who is a believer in magic and old
>>> wive's tales?
>>>
>>> Why not tell us in your own words about yourself, your experience with
>>> meditation, your encounters with pain and suffering. Tell us in your
>>> own words what you have achieved, having told us you're "nowhere near
>>> there". Don't be such a wimp. Tell us.
>>
>> Not that there is anything to achieve.
>
>Saying "I am nowhere near there" lead me to conclude the contrary.

"Hanoi? I am nowhere near there." (objective fact)

"<name of chess grandmaster>? I am nowhere near there." (objective
fact; and it would be an error to suppose, in this case, that I
even think "there" is a state I care to be in)

"Fields Medal level? I am nowhere near there." (objective fact;
and though I can imagine that someone sharing much of my developmental
history might be in that state, I can not imagine anyone recognizable
to the present "I" as very much like that same present "I" being in
that state, and nor do I think of anyone's attainment of that state
as an "achievement" [of that "anyone"])

Imagine Tang, if you will, as the puffy head of a
dandelion (or piss-en-lit should you prefer), blown
apart by a gust of wind and floating, floating. Most
of the component seeds will land where they cannot
root. A few will land where they can. None of those
landings are (their) achievements. And none of them
can know if "I am nowhere near there" or not. Tang's
error above is to be so sure that he *is* "nowhere near
there", as though he were possessed of some sort of
infallible metaphysical GPS.

Or so I conclude.

Lee Rudolph

[Jigme Dorje]

The great thing about awareness is that we can all dip our toes into it,
enjoy the experience of awakening to it in various degrees, either as
the result of practice or of acceptance of suffering. "The sun shines on
all alike."

[Tang Huyen]

I wanted to say "qualification" but
wrote wrongly "disqualifier". My bad.

But the line of course in its isolation
can be understood in the sense of
creative anarchy (or anarchic peace). As
I reported a few times, the first time I
went to see the late Hal Hesse, he said
to me that I periodically took myself
apart and put myself back together again,
though I had told nobody about that, not
even my family. The point is that
whatever happens, from your side or the
world's, if you can plane above it, you
can be at peace. Of course it is not
easy to be at peace when bloody hell is
happening, inside or outside or both,
but if you can be at peace when things
fall apart and the centre cannot hold,
you can be at peace almost in any
occasion. I don't pretend to be there,
but it is something to keep in mind.

Tang Huyen

[liaM]

" ...

Considering that, all hatred driven hence,
The soul recovers radical innocence
And learns at last that it is self-delighting,
Self-appeasing, self-affrighting,
And that its own sweet will is Heaven's will;
She can, though every face should scowl
And every windy quarter howl
Or every bellows burst, be happy still.

... "

[Tang Huyen]

On 2/12/2012 4:21 AM, liaM wrote:

> " ...
>
> Considering that, all hatred driven hence,
> The soul recovers radical innocence
> And learns at last that it is self-delighting,
> Self-appeasing, self-affrighting,
> And that its own sweet will is Heaven's will;
> She can, though every face should scowl
> And every windy quarter howl
> Or every bellows burst, be happy still.
>
> ... "

Thank you, with the reserve that I am not
there.

About taking oneself apart and putting oneself
back together again, when Brian Mitchell first
came to these boards in 2003, he posted as
"Mr Freakyman", and wrote the following in "Re:
Tibetan Practice", 30 Jun 2003:

<<Unfortunately, I don't know German and I
suspect Hegel would over-exert my few remaining
brain cells. I should like to know more, and
it's probable that I've encountered adaptations
of Hegelian thought, one way or another.

Nor do I really know anything of Tantra, but it
doesn't app[e]al me in the way it appears to
app[e]al some. This may be because I went
pretty thoroughly into what I think was a
Western equivalent. I worked with some people
who went very far, and boldly, into an
open-ended deconstruction of the psyche. (I was
a latecomer; the original people were some
heavy-duty explorers).

What was found, no-one will be surprised to
learn, was patterns of thought and behaviour;
from little physical distractors like tapping
one's fingers to deeply structural religious
archetypes. ("deeply" here means less available
to consciousness, no more).

But rather than aiming at a simple rational
analysis, this group was concerned to move on,
to deconstruct in a practical, experiential
sense. It was found that the most effective
way to really own and understand an element
of oneself was to enact it, to go right ahead
and be it, but in this context of conscious
understanding. At a crude level you could see
this as role-play, psychodrama, etc., except
that the enactments were not artificial or
staged.

Anyway, that's why I don't necessarily
discount practices which project and enact
elements of the mind as a way of
seeing/detaching. Doing that for me made the
active psyche an experiential reality, rather
than an intellectual scheme, and I consider it
a valuable part of my education.

_____
freakyman>>

So, the "open-ended deconstruction of the
psyche" can be done in groups, and not just
individually. To me, it depends on how open
and honest one is to oneself. It would never
work, individually or collectively, if one
lacks openness to oneself and honesty to
oneself. If one is open and honest to oneself,
one can go ahead and take oneself apart, into
pieces, look at them dispassionately, perhaps
modify some of them, and put the pieces back
together again. Obviously the new whole is
not going to be the same as the old one, but
if everything is done right, there will be a
new whole (and not a broken-up smattering of
disparate pieces that go their separate ways,
as in the crashed people). It is like
repairing a ship in open sea, to borrow from
Neurath. However it is a dangerous thing to
do, and you have to be stable and
self-possessed to make it work, otherwise
you will end up with a total mess. And if
you do it, you are on your own, even if you
do it in groups, as with Mr Freakyman, as
above.

Tang Huyen

[Jigme Dorje]

Deconstruction is simply the practice. Self honesty naturally, gradually
and inevitably unfolds as part of the practice of mindfulness, as
symbolized by the lotus blossom.

When you are deconstructed, you see that there really isn't anything to
piece back together, and the sense of self is just a jumble of
accretions, the conditions for clinging, delusion and suffering.

A "new whole" is not a new self at all - nothing more than a functional
person shorn of the frameworks that constitute any self narrative.

In other words, the "deconstruction" is of accreted elements, which
become transparent, and reintegration is just the process of adopting
back to the world without the need of these pieces, the ability to
function freely without clinging to things.

That is, you have gone from "thing" to function, as described so well by
the Diamond Sutra, which Hui Neng recognized the truth of at the time of
his awakening:

"Let the mind flow freely attaching to nothing."

[web head]

nice program.

[web head]

perfect. bigger than zenworm for sure.

[Jigme Dorje]

Nice shout out, web. I must say, I miss the old fellow.

[web head]

:D

[web head]

ZENWORM!!!!!!

i'm bored as shit

[web head]

jigme. talk about something interesting quick

[web head]

and keep away from the knife or i will stab you with a fork.

[Jigme Dorje]

I'm done!

[web head]

where's your balls?

[Jigme Dorje]

On your chin!

[web head]

anyway.

[web head]

i am getting sick of everyone else. (that's my way of..)

[Jigme Dorje]

Monkey paw!

[web head]

where's the girls gone.

[halfawake]

I like that use of "mere," which seems to use it as meaning lesser or
value-less rather than simple or inconsequential.

Robert

- - - - - - - -

[brian mitchell]

On Feb 12, 1:29 pm, Tang Huyen <tanghuyen{dele...@gmail.com[remove]>
wrote:

>
> About taking oneself apart and putting oneself
> back together again, when Brian Mitchell first
> came to these boards in 2003, he posted as
> "Mr Freakyman", and wrote the following in "Re:
> Tibetan Practice", 30 Jun 2003:
>
> <<Unfortunately, I don't know German and I
> suspect Hegel would over-exert my few remaining
> brain cells. I should like to know more, and
> it's probable that I've encountered adaptations
> of Hegelian thought, one way or another.
>
> Nor do I really know anything of Tantra, but it
> doesn't app[e]al me in the way it appears to

> app[e]al some...

? the amendment. It was meant to read 'appal' as in, "I am not
appalled."

<snip>

> So, the "open-ended deconstruction of the
> psyche" can be done in groups, and not just
> individually. To me, it depends on how open
> and honest one is to oneself. It would never
> work, individually or collectively, if one
> lacks openness to oneself and honesty to

> oneself...

There's a problem with this, though, when talking about contents of
one's own psyche which are hidden or suppressed. They are suppresed
precisely in order that they *shouldn't* come into the open. One can
only be honest to oneself in this particular context if one has been
confronted in some way by the suppressed material. Suppression, I
believe, is an ongoing, not a 'once-and-for-all' activity. As the
dangerous material begins to surface, having been triggered in some
way, it is forcibly put down again. Catching that urge to re-suppress
is the opportunity for self-honesty, but it's difficult to be so alert
whilst also feeling under some threat. This, I think, is where a group
--or at least one other person, perhaps a therapist-- is almost
essential: to do the confronting, to not allow one to veer off or
engage in distractive behaviours. Mild levels of useful confrontation
can happen in these kinds of groups, I think.

[Tang Huyen]

Sorry for the wrong correction.

As to the repression as an ongoing, not
a 'once-and-for-all' activity, of course
I have discussed often on these boards.
The people who hate their own guts
intensely fall into this class. They
have to continually repress their own
self-hatred to live. They could grab
their courage and try to resolve their
self-hatred once for all, or at least
confront it on an ongoing basis, but
they are too wimpy to try this. This
continual, ongoing repression takes a
lot of energy (is "high-maintenance"),
and supposes a mind in full form, but
once a crash occurs, the level of
energy required becomes unattainable,
and the hatred oozes out from all over,
in a catastrophic dam-burst that
consumes its owner.

There have been at least two people on
these boards with this massive level of
self-hatred. Before their crash, they
expended massive amounts of energy to
contain their self-hatred, and after
their crash, they were gone, overrun
by their hatred which flooded them
and washed them away inexorably.

Could external help have turned the
direction? I doubt it. They exerted a
death-grip on themselves in a desperate
attempt to contain their own self-hatred,
and to me would not have been receptive
to external help, as you suggest above.

The Freudian defence mechanisms were
operating, and they were of the most
basic, unsophisticated kind, namely
repression (of the unwanted stuff, the
swamp stuff), and compensation. Since
the people in question hated themselves,
they had very low self-esteem, even
negative self-esteem, and the only way
they could live with themselves was to
inflate their ego, but not any ego, it
had to be an ego constructed as the
contrary of themselves, so that they
lived, not as they were, but as they
were not. They spent a lifetime
building up an ego that was the mirror
image of themselves, tit for tat, down
the line. They lived in bad faith to
themselves. When their crash came, they
could no longer maintain this imaginary
mirror-image ego, and it collapsed.
They were in effect forced to face
themselves in the raw, and it (their
factually true ego) made them mad. So
they dumped themselves in public, on
these boards, with utter abandon. They
turned out to be the contrary of whom
they presented to the public.

There is that simple and simple-minded
slogan: take a few deep breaths and
reconsider. These people don't want to
reconsider. Once they made the decision
to repress themselves, perhaps half a
century ago, (and they repressed
themselves, not in this little detail or
that, but across the board, sweepingly,
systematically) they stuck with it,
through thick and thin, and would never
want to revisit it and subject it to
revision.

With people who have lived a lifetime,
say, sixty years, and who have had the
opportunity to be exposed to mental
culture and to practice it, even with
plenty of leisure, they already have
reached their potential, whatever it
was. The real is the potential, in full.
If they have had that much luck and
still are wholly refractory to
themselves, different circumstances
probably would not have mattered much.
It is fate. It is destiny.

There is a virtuous circle, and a
vicious circle. People who are open to
themselves and honest to themselves
are going to become more so. People who
are closed to themselves and dishonest
to themselves are going to become more
so. On each side, the propensity
reinforces itself. Mother Nature knows
how to be ironical.

Tang Huyen

[liaM]

Ohmygod

[liaM]

Le 12/02/2012 14:29, Tang Huyen a écrit :
> On 2/12/2012 4:21 AM, liaM wrote:
>
>> " ...
>>
>> Considering that, all hatred driven hence,
>> The soul recovers radical innocence
>> And learns at last that it is self-delighting,
>> Self-appeasing, self-affrighting,
>> And that its own sweet will is Heaven's will;
>> She can, though every face should scowl
>> And every windy quarter howl
>> Or every bellows burst, be happy still.
>>
>> ... "
>
> Thank you, with the reserve that I am not
> there.

R.I.P.

[Tang Huyen]

On 2/12/2012 7:23 PM, liaM wrote:

> Tang Huyen:

>> liaM:

>>> " ...
>>>
>>> Considering that, all hatred driven hence,
>>> The soul recovers radical innocence
>>> And learns at last that it is self-delighting,
>>> Self-appeasing, self-affrighting,
>>> And that its own sweet will is Heaven's will;
>>> She can, though every face should scowl
>>> And every windy quarter howl
>>> Or every bellows burst, be happy still.
>>>
>>> ... "

>> Thank you, with the reserve that I am not
>> there.

> R.I.P.

Thank you again, I am not there
but hope to be there.

Tang Huyen

[liaM]

There's light at the end of the tunnel :)

[Rosie Lea]

"pi" <pi6...@gmailREMOVETHIS.com> wrote in message
news:Ucadnf04t6lgIKjS...@giganews.com...

> Imho, the time has come for all Gods to die (once and for all) and for
> humanity as a whole to join in looking for GOD.

Too many vested interests and basic inequalities I am afraid.

Good imo to improve things but as somebody wise said even better to wear
leather soles on your boots rather than try and cover the whole world in
leather :-)

[Rosie Lea]

"pi" <pi6...@gmailREMOVETHIS.com> wrote

> What I'm saying is that humanity /seems/ to be past that. It's the global
> era, humans should know better than a bunch of primitive traditional
> mutually conflicting ethics.

They do know better but fear and vested interests just keeps on repeating
the old patterns imo

The Internet is levelling the world ....

And there certainly is hope in Pandora's box - At least until the next
pandemic or comet strike :D

In Buddhism there is no hope or fear, only 'be'

As a human (of a compassionate bent) I wish for less suffering for all and
work for it when I can but do not make my happiness contingent on it... I
also try to avoide optimism and pessimism ;-)

B O O M hahahahah :D


>
> What we're seeing, imho, might be the birth pains of something truly
> peaceful, truthful, prosperous and sustainable.
>
> I may be wrong.
>
> pi

[Rosie Lea]

"Ned Ludd" <ned...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:IsqdnULQFL860ajS...@earthlink.com...
>
> "Tang Huyen" <tanghuyen{delete}@gmail.com[remove]> wrote in message
> news:CsSdnaw7gfvyuKjS...@supernews.com...
>> On 2/9/2012 10:13 PM, Ned Ludd wrote:
>>
>>> For a religion that exalts egolessness, these
>>> acts are extremely forceful exhibitions of
>>> individuality.
>>> Is it accurate to suppose that no Taoist
>>> would ever consider self-immolation? Yet
>>> everybody seems to accept Buddhists doing it,
>>> all the way back to the Vietnamese Buddhist
>>> mentioned in another post.
>>> If there is no attachment (to things,
>>> countries, religions, etc.) and no ego,
>>> what exactly is a Buddhist to do when the
>>> communists take over their homeland?
>>
>> I worship the Vietnamese monks and nuns
>> who burnt themselves to protest the Diem
>> regime running down Buddhism. Vietnam
>> previously had suppressed the Catholics,
>> under Emperor Minh-Mang, and from what I
>> hear, a hole was dug in the ground to
>> bury the Catholics live, a cross was put
>> next to it, and those Catholics were
>> saved who jumped over the cross. Diem
>> and his Catholic family (who were put in
>> power by the US, and at the time Diem
>> lived in a Catholic seminary in New
>> Jersey) did not follow the Christian
>> teaching of turning the other cheek but
>> wanted to take revenge by suppressing
>> Buddhism, so the self-immolation of the
>> monks and nuns was one telling way for
>> them to protest. It was to me as
>> selfless as any human act could be.
>>
>> The mass wiping out of Buddhism
>> occurred in India, and not just India,
>> but Greater India, including
>> present-day Pakistan and Afghanistan,
>> generally Central Asia (which was more
>> hospitable than it is now) by the
>> Muslims. The Buddhists basically put up
>> little or no resistance and were wiped
>> out. The Muslims went on to Indonesia,
>> where Buddhists also did not resist. In
>> more recent times, Buddhism was wiped
>> out by the Communists from China, North
>> Vietnam, North Korea, and was on the
>> verge of being wiped out in Cambodia.
>> Again there was little resistance.
>>
>> Buddhists tend to be easy-going and
>> lackadaisical, and not pushy like
>> followers of Jewish mythology.
>> Detachment and equability do not
>> foster violent resistance (or violent
>> imposition, which was standard
>> Christian and Muslim fare).
>>
>> ???????????
>>
>> "Sitting quietly, doing nothing,
>>
>> Spring comes, and the grass grows
>> by itself." Zenrin Kush� (The Way
>> of Zen 134, 222)
>>
>> ???????????
>>
>> "The blue mountains are of themselves
>> blue mountains;
>>
>> "The white clouds are of themselves
>> white clouds." Zenrin Kush� (The Way
>> of Zen 134, 222)
>>
>> ???? ????
>>
>> An eternity of endless space:
>>
>> A day of wind and moon. (The Golden
>> Age of Zen 246, 22 n.2).
>>
>> The above attitude is part of the reason
>> I react strongly to people (the fakes)
>> who claim "mindfulness" and yet go
>> ballistic on mere words on the screen,
>> even as everybody is protected by
>> asynchronicity.
>>
>> Tang Huyen
>>
>
> So, what is a Buddhist to do, when communists (or any
> imperialists) take over their homeland?
>
> The bulk of your post says to 'not resist', be 'easy-going',
> with the one exception of the self-immolators that you approve
> of in your homeland. Is that because you have an axe to grind
> over Diem's puppet government in your homeland? So, is your
> message to be 'easy-going' until it gets personal, and then
> destroy yourself in flames? That sounds very hypocritical.
>
> You say Buddhism was "wiped out" in India, wiped out in
> Pakistan, wiped out in Afghanistan, wiped out in Indonesia,
> wiped out in China, North Vietnam and North Korea.
>
> Yet here Buddhism is today, with 400-500 million adherents
> world-wide. How did that happen? Tibet will not be 'saved'
> by people lighting themselves on fire. Buddhism will survive
> or perish independently of the foolish actions of martyrs.
> If the dharma needs people killing themselves in order to
> persist, then it is a very stupid dharma indeed.

It's very sad what's happening with this self-burning but they are certainly
drawing attention to some problems in Tibet (QED) that don't even figure on
this list...

http://tinyurl.com/6lvy99f

(Fwiw personally I think any sort of violence should be an absolutely last
resort and I feel that especially monks and nuns should be exemplars of
peaceful means only - Easy for me to say ofcourse)