Today's discussion question

[David Morris]

Your answer willfully ignores the context of the question.  I know you are
being disingenuous, because I know you are:
A) Not that dumb.
&
B) Anti any form of spiritual practice.

On Tuesday, August 13, 2013, wrote:

> You live as a Muslim in Burma.
>
> How does one run afoul of any Buddhist, of whatever stripe.
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
> To: Ian Livingston <igrlivingston at gmail.com>
> Cc: alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com>; pynchon -l <
> pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Mon, Aug 12, 2013 8:07 pm
> Subject: Re: Today's discussion question
>
>  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*
>
>
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