Today's discussion question

[Ian Livingston]

Well, David, you're welcome to your prejudice about Buddhists. My take on
Western Buddhists is founded in personal experience. I worked for them for
several years and got to know them up close and personal. I won't comment
on Tibetans who are Buddhist, as I got to know only a few of those, and
there were communication obstacles, but the Westerners--almost all--fit my
assessment pretty well. I'm not alone in the observation. Many Buddhists
comment on the phenomenon, too. It's a part of why the Dalai Lama tells
people not abandon their established path in order to become Buddhist.



On Mon, Aug 12, 2013 at 5:57 PM, Rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:

> Guess they forgot about tolerance in Burma.
>
>
>
> On Aug 12, 2013, at 8:07 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> How does one run afoul of any Buddhist, of whatever stripe.  Did someone
> criticize your words or behavior?  Did you cruely squash an innocent bug in
> his presence?  Or is it that the Buddist ran afoul of your prejudices?
>  From your harsh judgement of their aspirations, I would guess the later.
>  "Equanimity" is a foundational goal of Buddhism.  Tolerance is equanimity
> toward others.
>
> David Morris
>
> On Monday, August 12, 2013, Ian Livingston wrote:
>
>> Well, I still wouldn't dare speak for P, but, parsing the statement just
>> a little, I will speak for myself, as someone undoubtedly influenced by
>> Pynchon rightly and wrongly by turns.
>>
>> I have had the great displeasure of running afoul Westerners in Buddhist
>> robes. These people who go bowing to the East in the certainty that they
>> will attain enlightenment through Eastern teachings take with them all the
>> shit they already believe, all the bunk they have learned in school, and
>> all their prejudices and try to shoehorn those into teachings from sages
>> who had no relation to the world we live in. They're like Cinderella's
>> step-sisters but that they go on believing that they are wearing the glass
>> slipper that never fit on their foot in the first place. The whole delusion
>> results in comically tormented psyches. It's a lot like the people in the
>> big Bible-thumping cults calling themselves Christians. They are ruled by
>> their own Shadows, living in darkness that wastes the good any of them
>> might accomplish in the world.
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Aug 12, 2013 at 8:47 AM, alice wellintown <
>> alicewellintown at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Mencken was, as is the average western philosopher, satirist, pundit,
>>> blogger, spirit-hungry westerner...what have you, ignorant of the
>>> traditions of Eastern philosophy, religion, literature, art. But given the
>>> global problems we face, the urgency of many of these problems, climate
>>> change and population growth and depletion of the planet are three that are
>>> obvious, it seems foolish to ridicule those who would seriously turn to the
>>> East, if not for solutions or wisdom, for insights into how East and West
>>> may find common ground. This is not likely to succeed if the West continues
>>> to insist that all that science and math can not take the measure of is
>>> superstitious nonsense, Emersonian naked eyeball transparencies that once
>>> viewed through the superior lens of science are stripped of the rose and
>>> under the rose colorings of the observer and made black and white zeros and
>>> ones. Mencken is a good tonic for the youthful longings of those who
>>> read Herman Hesse, who fail to heed the wit of Voltaire, who live in what
>>> most would call the best of all possible worlds, and who run fast from the
>>> magic of their own traditions and into the trappings of ones they can never
>>> begin to make meaningful. But his scientism is now endemic and allied with
>>> a haughty exceptionalism. A little humility is called for. The planets can
>>> not be charmed from the sky. We must observe them with our feet on the
>>> ground, but what Galileo teaches us about what moves, and what moves, may
>>> be better appreciated if we treat the ancient wisdoms with more respect
>>> than the great man was given by the sages who grilled him (though not
>>> literally). The East is hungry for Western ideas, culture, philosophy,
>>> science, literature, art. The exchange is promising. But why march in with
>>> the scientific method, our new cross?
>>>
>>> On Monday, August 12, 2013, Mark Kohut wrote:
>>>
>>>>   *HL Mencken @HLMenckenBot *2h<http://us-mg4.mail.yahoo.com/HLMenckenBot/status/366484217795846145>
>>>> One of the strangest delusions of the Western mind is to the effect
>>>> that a philosophy of profound wisdom is on tap in the East // @*
>>>> laotzunit* <http://us-mg4.mail.yahoo.com/LaoTzunit>
>>>>
>>>> Anyone think TRP believes this?
>>>>
>>>
>>
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