Today's discussion question

[Ian Livingston]

One thing the Tibetans fear of the diaspora has already proven founded in
the US and in some European communities: that the teachings will lose merit
through becoming items for trade in business.

Religions have ever followed the cultures in which they find harbor.


On Fri, Aug 16, 2013 at 7:21 AM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:

> 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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