Today's discussion question

[Ian Livingston]

Well, I guess you're as apprised of the situation as you want to be. Carry
on, then.


On Mon, Aug 12, 2013 at 7:04 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

> So they ran afoul of you.  You were offended by their behavior,
> hypocracies, etc.  And then you generalize, expand the offense.  And, of
> course,  you were the innocent victim of their bad fitting shoes.
>  The power of employers always makes them clay-footed.
>
> Clay feet, glass slippers.  Nice, easy fit.
>
>
> On Monday, August 12, 2013, Ian Livingston wrote:
>
>> 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 *<http://us-mg4.mail.yahoo.com/HLMenckenBot/status/366484217795846145>
>>
>>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20130812/408585be/attachment.html>