Today's discussion question

[Joseph Tracy]

It is fairly easy for a curious person to learn the true history of Quakers and slavery or to learn the diverse ways of native North Americans. There are also sound reasons why the historic emphasis is usually on Quaker rejection of and  opposition to slavery. Friends themselves are well aware of the darker side.

 Nixon was from a Quaker family, but so was Bayard Rustin. Nixon's behavior is his own and is not exemplary of the majority of Quakers who were historically active for civil rights and opposed to the war in Vietnam. Rustin is far closer to representing the thinking and action of Quakers of the time.  There are jerks from every religious background. There are also amazing examples of compassion, courage to oppose injustice, and liberating joyful love from most religions. 

One of the things that is little understood about Friends is that they have no creedal statements, no dogma, no definitive interpretation of scriptures.  They try to remain open to spiritual persuasion and unfolding truth and this has led them to wrestle with and reject violence and slavery and to accept women as equals and most recently In the Friends General Council  to accept same gender sexuality. The process by which this all happens is complicated but very grass roots, meeting by meeting. 

Quakers, like US Buddhists are a group with lots of participants not born in the tradition. One of the things that may mark this transition for many is what Ian talks about- a carry over both of rejection of former ideas that can tend to combativeness, and the subtle resurrection of religious and cultural patterns that have formed as deep habits.  Still, there can be very good reasons to reject the old and very good reasons to embrace the new. I think the Dalai Lama is not the voice of Buddhism or truth when he advises to stay with your own tradition. For some that would be unwise. As in many experiences, some paths can simply be very hard, some changes slow in coming. 

I personally think that it is the more resilient and paradox embracing philosophies and branches of religious practice that best fit the human condition.  There is a line in the psalms that says the voice of the lord is upon many waters. There s a line from a Dead song that says" if the thunder don't get you then the lightning will.

On Aug 15, 2013, at 11:34 AM, alice wellintown wrote:

> There are common misunderstandings of other religions, cultures,
> peoples, often perpetuated by popular media. Like the notion that
> Native Americans were peaceful Earth worshiping souls, Quakers didn't
> own slaves, carry weapons and "police" runaway slaves, fund slave
> kidnapping and the shipment of enslaved Africans, etc.
> 
> Nixon was a Quaker.
> 
> And Melville's M-D shows us how some Quakers were hell on the
> environment, the sea, whales, not to mention other Christians and
> non-Christians, who were, as Ishmael discovers, all slaves on ships.
> 
> It's a tangle of lines.
> 
> When Frederick Douglass sees tha the Irish in Ireland, the Catholic
> Irish, live far worse than the Narrow-Back Irish Catholics in America,
> many who lived far worse than  his own enslaved African Americans, he
> is struck dumb. Though inspired after reading Catholic Emancipation,
> and of the Rights Irish Freedom, and by the Irish men and children in
> America who helped him, taught him, supported him and his cause, when
> Douglass has the chance to speak against the genocide in Ireland, he
> takes the money for his cause and turns his back on the poor.
> 
> 
> On 8/14/13, malignd at aol.com <malignd at aol.com> wrote:
>> Not willful.  I guess the context was Buddhists in America, but your
>> question seemed addressed at Buddhism in general.  There are after all
>> people who seem to find Buddhism the one unimpeachable religion.  And, to be
>> honest, when these  Burma stories first started coming out, I was, perhaps
>> naively surprised.  I think of Buddhists in the east setting themselves
>> afire, not wantonly murdering practitioners of another religion.
>> 
>> 
>> But you're right about my attitudes; the idea that the DL is a reincarnated
>> spirit is as bubble-headed as any other religious myth.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
>> To: malignd <malignd at aol.com>
>> Cc: pynchon-l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>> Sent: Tue, Aug 13, 2013 7:46 pm
>> Subject: Re: Today's discussion question
>> 
>> 
>> 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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