One of the distinct features one finds in almost all truly degraded and delusional people is the certainty that they are right and everyone else is wrong. For a number of years now I've been attending a synagogue on Saturdays. At first it was just to please my wife, but I really enjoy davening even though I don't believe in a literal God, know thoroughly the mythological, legendary, and edited elements in the creation of the bible, and really would prefer to do my prayers while chanting nam myoho renge kyo. I find it interesting, and usually it stimulates meditation.
Todays subject was Korah. Korah led a revolt against Moses. Of course the story has been handed down through so many layers and retold so many different ways and for so many different purposes that I suspect the real story, the story between the lines, is much more nuanced than the readers digest version that got put into the five books, but basically Korah challenges Moses for leadership and then is killed in an earthquake. One of the interpretations of that story is that men who don't doubt themselves (Korah is depicted as very sure of himself) make lousy leaders, while those who have the ability to self-reflect do much better.
The lesson to me, is that certainty and wisdom, the semblance of faith, and true faith; are not purely equivalent attributes. Many people insist that they have the one pure and only faith. Fortunately, as our society evolves, people are starting to realize that none of us know what comes before and what comes after, and so our faith in "what comes after" is at best an extrapolation from what we experience while we are alive.
Imagine the life we live as a game played between goal posts. Imagine further that there is an audience but we can't see it. It is a game played in a fog. Each down is played within this fog, and one only knows where the yard lines are because of referees and because when one gets too close to some of them they become visible. One can't even see the goal posts. In fact, in this game, if one is close enough to see the goal posts, the game is over.
Life is like that game. We don't know what is on the other side of the goal post. A touchdown or a touchback is an end condition for our consciousness. Therefore I'd be a fool to say that Mohammedans are completely wrong about this or that, or that hindus, or Christians or Buddhists; except where I have definitive evidence. Moreover, all these religions may represent different games that end with the same goalposts. Sheol may be a resting place, or another life, or heaven; but "only my dying will tell."
However, there are still truths. One of those truths is that we are human beings who have to live with other human beings. This game is a team sport. One doesn't get to the goal without working with others to some extent. But at the same time, the idea of a "team sport" has a certain amount of illusion to it. Do the particular rules really matter so much as that we have rules that get us to play together, love one another, work together, and not dig our cleats into the backs of the people on the same team? Could it be that we all are really playing by the same rules and don't know it?
Chris
Somebody wrote:
"The Nirvana Sutra teaches that even those who commit the Five Cardinal Sins, if they destroy the enemies of the Lotus Sutra [and I can think of no worse enemies of the Lotus Sutra than the Islamic fundamentalists], will never fall into Hell."
This is literalism. And worse it is a demented sort of literalism that isn't even accurately literal. One can imagine a supporter of the Hojo's writing something like this in 13th century Japan, but it is hard to take a passage like this seriously in our own day and age when we know so much about textual criticism, human frailty, and doubtful authorship. I can imagine what Nichiren's disciple Sanmibo Nichijo, Sairenbo, Nichijun, (or any of the others) would have done with this. It just doesn't say any such thing in the Nirvana Sutra. What it does say is more nuanced.... the word the author renders as "lotus Sutra" is Law true law. It includes the Lotus Sutra, but not quite the way this renderer renders it.
Reply to Sairenbo (which isn't maybe 'genuine' but is a hell of a treatise) has Nichiren saying: "In the end, what we mean by heretical and evil teachers are those priests in the world today who slander the Lotus Sutra. The Nirvana Sutra says: "Bodhisattvas, have no fear of mad elephants. What you should fear are evil friends! Even if you are killed by a mad elephant, you will not fall into the three evil paths. But if you are killed by an evil friend, you are certain to fall into them." And the Lotus Sutra says: 'In that evil age there will be monks with perverse wisdom and hearts that are fawning and crooked...'"
Nichiren isn't talking about politics. He's talking about human nature. And he's not talking about loyalty to a particular political power, "left/right", "North South" (the Politics in Japan differentiated between a Northern Court and a Southern Court in the Japanese Royal Dynasty). No he's talking about "slander of the Lotus Sutra" -- and there he'd praise ignorant "Mongols" who at least weren't Buddhists (ironically until 1279 when they converted to Llamaism), and attacked Buddhist Japan.
He goes on to say:
"As I have pointed out so many times in the past, when teachers such as Shan-wu-wei, Chin-kang-chih, Bodhidharma, Huik-k’o, Shan-tao, Honen, Kobo of To-ji, Chisho of Onjo-ji, Jikaku of Mount Hiei or Ryokan of Kanto read the golden words, "I ... honestly discarding expedient means, [will preach only the unsurpassed way,]"10 they take them to mean, "honestly discarding the true teachings, I will preach only the expedient teachings." When they read the passage that says, "Among the sutras, it [the Lotus Sutra] holds the highest place,"11 they take it to mean, "Among the sutras, it holds the lowest place." And when they read, "[Among those sutras] the Lotus is the foremost,"12 they take it to mean, "The Lotus holds second place," or "holds third place." That is why I describe these various priests as heretical and evil teachers."
http://nichiren.info/gosho/ReplySairenbo.htm
So, the issue isn't what the Government is doing, its what you and I are doing. It's pretty convenient to rank GW Bush with a wheel turning king as our friend does next, He also writes:
"George Bush in a sense is a great Wheel Rolling King."
Does GW Bush uphold the Lotus Sutra? Does he discard "expedient means" and go for the "truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth" so help me my higher power? Not exactly.
Has he made the world safer for Buddhism? Not exactly.
More importantly has he truly upheld the principles of the Lotus Sutra? No, not exactly. No he uses it as an excuse to make an oblique threat.
"Should the Muslims ever take the upper hand, Bruce Maltz and his family will be the first ones whose throats are cut."
It seems to me that Muslim listeralists would go after folks like Mark Rogow, myself, and anyone else that they perceived as a threat to their religion and way of life. And they would sound like this quote from the Nirvana Sutra.
But better is to teach the true law and explain to them that Moslems too need to set aside narrow and literalist views and look at enlightenment. Mohammed was a human being. One of the core teachings of Islam is that he wasn't a perfect person. His teachings have to be compared to better teachings, but that won't happen with people who think that the "law" is whatever is convenient to them at the moment.
The Lotus Sutra has stories suggesting that defending the law is a great cause, but more important are the four assurances:
"In a scripture called the Nirvana Sutra, the Buddha says, "Rely on the Law and not upon persons." Relying on the Law here means relying on the various sutras. Not relying upon persons means not relying on persons other than the Buddha, such as Bodhisattvas Fugen and Monjushiri or the various Buddhist teachers I have enumerated earlier.
In "Repaying Debts of Gratitude" (A Gosho i keep referring to though the admonition falls on deaf ears) Nichiren writes:
"Now in the fifth volume of the Nirvana Sutra we read: "Mahakashyapa spoke to the Buddha, saying, 'World-Honored One, I will no longer depend upon the four ranks of saints. Why is this? Because in the Ghoshila Sutra that the Buddha preached for the sake of Ghoshila, it is said that the devil king in heaven, because he is determined to try to destroy the Buddhist Law, will turn himself into the likeness of a Buddha. He will have all the thirty-two features and eighty characteristics of a Buddha, will be solemn and imposing in appearance, and a round halo of light will radiate from him ten feet in all directions. His face will be round and full like the moon at its fullest and brightest, and the white curl in the area between his eyebrows will be whiter than snow.... From his left side will come water, and from his right side will come fire.'"
We are to follow the law, not persons. Even persons who claim to be orthodox. Whose "sects" claim orthodoxy, or whose leaders are kind looking folks with wizened faces who look like Yoda. And this is the reason. In our world, even people who claim to be Buddhas can be full of stuff. Even people who claim to be upholding the Lotus Sutra can be attacking its intent.
"Again, in the sixth volume of the Nirvana Sutra, it is recorded, "The Buddha announced to Mahakashyapa, 'After I have passed into nirvana,... this Devil of the Sixth Heaven and other devils will in time try to destroy this True Law of mine ... He will change himself into the form of an arhat or of a Buddha. The devil king, though still subject to illusion, will assume the form of one who has been freed from illusion, and will try to destroy this True Law of mine.'"
So, can Moslem literalists destroy the true law, or will demented Buddhist literalists do so? It's bad enough to deal with the literalism, chauvinism, poor logic and bad citations of mainstream Christianity, without dealing with people who treat Nichiren's Lotus Sutra teachings with the same cavalier attitude they once treated the five books of Moses, the teachings of Jesus, or the teachings of Isha and Mohammed.
"Kobo Daishi declared that, in comparison with the Kegon and Dainichi sutras, the Lotus Sutra was a piece of "childish theory." And this same man, we are told, appeared in the form of a Buddha. He must be the devil who, as the Nirvana Sutra states, will change his shape, that is still subject to illusion, into that of a Buddha and attempt to destroy the True Law of Shakyamuni."
Kobo Daishi made the mistake of thinking that there were secrets too deep for human understanding, and that his being privy to them made him superior to other human beings. The idea is that because he understood esoteric teachings and the "higher" vision contained in them he could ignore or manipulate human laws. It was like a person flying in space thinking that trees don't matter because he is too high up to see them. "Discarding the provisional" means discarding provisional views. The Nirvana Sutra looks agreeably on the Lotus Sutra, and the Lotus Sutra embodies the lessons of the sutras that came before it. Discarding 'expedient means' means what it says, it means learning what is behind reality so we can better live.
"This "True Law" referred to in the Nirvana Sutra is the Lotus Sutra. Therefore we find later on in the Nirvana Sutra the statement, "It has already been a long time since I attained Buddhahood." The text also says that the sutra itself is contained in the Lotus Sutra."
A better way to live is to recognize that "you too can be a Buddhahood" and to recognize that the potential and wisdom necessary for enlightenment have been present in our lives since their beginning. The nonsense of Moslem extremists is a problem, but it is nothing compared to the difficulty of waking up when one is focused on slandering people.
Chris
I learned in college to calculate or estimate "confidence" intervals when dealing with uncertainty. If I'm not sure of all the facts of something I'll give it an estimate of how certain I am. For example I'm 99.9999% certain that an airplane crashed into the Twin Towers in New York. I'd put it 100% but I wasn't physically there. It's beyond a reasonable doubt. I'm 98% certain that Arab Hijackers did the deed. I'm about 90% certain that the US didn't prevent it because of FUBAR. I'm 90% confident that there was no direct complicity with the intelligence services or plotters, but only 80% confident that there was no indirect complicity on the part of some in the administration. On the other hand I'm 100% confident that the administration did their best to take full advantage of the event once it occured.
At any rate the fact is that even witnesses disagree about what happened and what caused what. The facts are that there are some things we can know with fair certainty and others we'll never know for sure about. The fact is we live with uncertainty.
Chris
I wrote in a thread talking about Ms Huffington:
"The only real problem with this is a general one, and that is that there is no incentive to truth telling in our society. I think Ms Huffington tries to stay truthful no matter what her current professions. I know that is a hard concept for some people, but truth does matter."
The person I was discussing with replied:
"Maybe it is a hard concept for yourself. I think discerning the truth is difficult. To be intellectually honest is often to be agnostic and tentative. That has little political appeal though, depending on how well it is presented."
I don't think that discerning the truth is impossible. Getting to all the facts is not easy, but discerning the truth isn't rocket science. Regardless of how difficult it may be to tell facts from falsehoods, there is still such a thing as facts. Those facts may include nuanced information but that doesn't mean that truth is relative, just that our ability to discern reality is sometimes limited.
He then went on:
"It could be that you mean emotional honesty? I personally do not trust emotions on the level of vedana skandha -- the "gut level' responses of attraction, aversion, or apathy. Deeper or more complex emotions, not-perception of noumena, the subject matter of aesthetics and spirituality, is another matter, or not-matter."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I don't remember my exact words, so I'll respond "de nouveau":
He wrote:
"attraction, aversion, apathy" are all attributes. They influence how we react to phenomena, how we evaluate or weigh truth or falsehood, but something is still either true or false. It's not a matter of whether I think it is true or false. It is true if it is, it is not true if it is not.
"On that level. I suspect we are talking about spiritual dualities, like enmity versus benevolence; envy versus appreciative joy, miserliness versus generosity, intolerance versus forbearance -- you get the idea? On that level, I think it is good to be honest with ourselves."
These are properties we have to cultivate. They are not innately true or false. We have to cultivate benevolence, cultivate appreciative joy, cultivate generosity, tolerance, wisdom. If we cultivate those things then those properties are true. If we don't then they are not true. This is not a matter of duality but of choice.
"I think most political hacks do tell the truth as they see it, and sometimes as they want to see it."
If they tell something as they want to see it, and it is not the truth, then it is not truth. It doesn't matter if someone convinces themselves that white is black, newspeak is truth, party line is correct, it matters whether the information conveyed is true. We all make mistakes, but that is not the same thing as lying. And an inadvertent falsehood is still a falsehood. The fact that people see facts differently, or explain them differently, doesn't mean that there is no such thing as facts, or that truth is relative. The only thing relative is the understanding and the words used to convey it. If I'm dealing with an elephant and the only part of the elephant I know is one hair on his arse, that doesn't mean there is no elephant.
"Now, maybe you are getting at truth in advertising or propaganda. In that case, the task is the selling of an idea, a product, a service, or a course of action. In that case, one wants to stress the advantages or reasons in favor, and refute or downplay the disadvantages."
That assumes that one is committed to a particular product or advertising organization or goal. Truthfulness, and other principles such as transparency, require integrity. If a product only kills 2 out of 1000 people, the people need to know about the conditions related to that .2 percent failure rate. It is appropriate for advertisers and salesmen to stress the 99.8% success rate, but it is also important for them to acknowledge the caveats. I've left organizations or positions because the product was being advertised falsely, the people I was involved with were dishonest or cavalier about truth, and they were hiding facts. Some people are willing to leave out that .2% and claim that they are telling overall the true. That is why Scott McClellan was upset with Bush when he saw him rationalizing "forgetting" his youthful cocaine use. He doesn't believe in situational ethics or rationalizations.
"Approach or upaya is an issue; and the use of deception might sometimes be a higher ethic {abhisila}."
There is no "higher ethic" "abhisila" without wisdom. And one doesn't develop wisdom without first mastering wisdom through cultivation of discipline, wisdom, and faith. Discipline is about cultivating self control. One does that by following rules and seeking truth and the principles behind those rules. Once one understands the principles behind those rules one can sometimes bend, or even discard specific rules for "higher purposes."
There are simple rules, like those we tell a child or previously clueless people; such as "thou shalt not kill" and generalized principles, like "love thy neighbor as one loves oneself." But without practicing "thou shalt not kill" "love thy neighbor" is a meaningless principle. Without cultivating self-rule, higher principles become convenient abstractions and rationalizations.
This may seem a tautology, but failure to cultivate self discipline is where most esoteric religions go astray. The specific rules followed aren't as important as that there are rules, and that those rules are aimed at cultivating the kinds of attributes that make truthfulness, integrity, kindness, etceteras... possible. Discarding specific rules before their reason and purpose is understood is known as "antinomianism" and is what makes religions degrade themselves. Sure "love thy neighbor" is an overarching principle -- but historically such notions became a license to kill. Christians "killed [or tortured] the body to save the soul" "out of love and hope for salvation." Ultimately antinomian esotericism when it leads to new religions also either leads to new rules or it leads to degradation of religion.
At this point he seems to have deleted my response, but this is also why I have to continue the argument. I've already forgotten some other important subjects I tried to raise in that post.
"So, I suspect you are getting to the selling of the invasion of Iraq, about how honest the W administration was in that process. Obviously, they thought is was important to go in there, and remove Hussein."
Indeed, they thought that that goal, once set by the President, was more important than any other consideration. The idea that ends and means are linked didn't occur to them.
Ends and means are linked. The pursuit of ends, never ends. Every "end" is a beginning. Eat, and be satisfied, and in an hour or two one may be hungry again. Means are ends. Every thought word and action is important. How one achieves a goal is as important as the goal, and indeed some goals cannot be achieved unless care is taken in how they are achieved. Using lies to remove Saddam Hussein did nothing to improve the Middle East and instead degraded the administration, its relationship with the American people, and its functionality.
Upaya is not a license for deception, theft, murder, or immorality; it is skillfulness in achieving goals. If the messenger of the Physician told the children the Physician was dead -- and didn't lie -- that means he didn't lie. The story is a parable about ends and means. The Physician is essentially dead unless those children value his words enough to take the medicine.
"Part of selling that involved WMD and possible present or future contact with terrorists such as AQ. There was a lot talk about preemption that some of you did not seem to hear."
I didn't miss any of what happened. If I didn't catch it while it was happening I've chewed over the subject enough since then that I've laid out all the invisible spun cloth on the floor and seen through the fabric of lies and deceptions. Even if someone technically tells the truth, if he so spins it that it is unrecognizable he is still lying.
"I think if you look at the written and sworn testimony to Congress, you are not going to find a case for saying they lied to anyone. The same would be true of the transcripts of speeches. Now, if you mean the emotional impact of speeches'
Several people have done just that, and laid that case out in books. There are witnesses from the administration who admit they were involved in willful deceptions and a pre-emptive, unprovoked war. Bugliosi lays out a case for Bush as Mass Murder in his new book. The use of emotionalism and hyperpatriotism is only a further indictment of their intentionality and deceptiveness.
"I tell you what. I thought Saddam had bio-chems and was working on Nukes. I did not see the evidence Powell presented as convincing though. I had the impression the Administration did not know either way on present capacity. I was certain that Saddam had the means and desire to restart a biochem & Nuke WMD program. I got the impression the administration thought so too."
We were, most of us, deceived. Some folks weren't. Most of us couldn't believe we'd be lied to so brazenly. Some Psychologists have looked closely at Bush's ability to rationalize abusive and violent behavior and concluded he is a sociopath.
"It turns out he did not have anything. He had nothing in late 1998, when Clinton stated with certainty that Saddam did. He had nothing since late 1991. It also turns out that he did have thec capacity and intention of restarting them as soon as sanctions were lifted. He also wanted people to to think he had an active program and stockpiles."
Sanctions were working.
Despite all that he concluded:
> Was this enough to go in? I thought so before and still think so.
>
> Now, the present honesty of the green left Bush haters is another
> matter. Some, I think, believe their own propaganda. Others have an
> agenda to sell.
Amazing.
If you really think of yourself as a "progressive" then you may want to consider something important. What is it? That one should pick positions not because other people believe the same thing (or as many people do to piss off other people :-)), but because you've really thought about an issue, considered the principles involved, and really thin that course of action is the best one.
Bruce gave me this:
http://www.piratesandemperors.com/
I consider myself a progressive, but not as some convenient label, but because I've really considered a whole gamut of opinions. That doesn't mean I agree with my party, or other progressives on everything. I'm more ambivalent than most about some environmental issues; global warming, whether or not to drill for new oil I'm for it under strick regulation. I believe that "peak oil" and other demographic phenomena are more important than temperature change and that we have to take care of the demographic issues because the other issues will take care of us otherwise.
We need to pump that oil, and either turn it into plastics or use the energy to build solar collectors, a new energy grid, new railroads and rebuild cities that are green, owned by the people who live in them, free and democratic. I believe that Eisenhower was right about the kind of "Keynesianism" that actually makes a healthy economy; we need to invest in infrastructure projects. We've been using "Military Keynesianism" to drive our society because our leading lights don't really believe in the value of Capitalism and have pinned their fortunes instead on constant deficits and wars. When we run out of oil we'll be in a "Mad max" wasteland with no automobiles.
...., or how best to protect wildlife; I believe that sometimes one has to allow change and that rather than try to eradicate invasive species, one has to encourage species to adapt to niches. Sometimes the way to balance nature is to ensure the entire circle of life is present; that means things like wolves and bob-cats, frogs and mosquito eating fish; and sometimes telling people they can't build in flood planes without raising their home's level above the floodplane.
It's like that, but one doesn't choose a leader because one agrees with him on everything. We all have to be advocates for our beliefs. Sometimes we can even consider others to support them.
Chris
This site was managed by Greg Dilly. I hope it will survive his passing.
http://www.cdnn.info/news/safety/s080613e.html
I hope that his blog entries will be preserved as a tribute to his open-mindedness and kindness. There are precedents. The "show goes on."
Chris
Sad news comes and goes, life goes on.
The drummers beat drums, the pipes wail out loud.
Beneath green waves, a soul is released,
Rising to the sky, perhaps to soar and fly.
Life goes on, company good and bad,
Friends, loves, relatives,
Walk together, it never lasts.
Life seems comedy, but is always tragedy.
We say our good-byes,
We wave from below.
We reap what we sow,
But in reaping we learn to fly.
We never really know,
We never really know.
We share some kind of enlightenment,
but we never really know.
To us plodding along,
The sun, the moon, the stars;
it all seems so strange,
But not to flying souls
We think that we own it,
but its borrowed every cent.
And at some point we must let go of it,
let those left behind lament.
Waving from on high,
Flying on and on and bye.
You down there don't you see?
What a grand and wonderful ceremony?
Drums roll like thunder.
flowers fall like rain.
Tears soften the soil.
It is we who watch who feel the pain.
Chris
http://www.cdnn.info/news/safety/s080613e.html
http://www.fraughtwithperil.com/blogs/revgreg/archives/2004_06.html