🔹INTJ🔹Male🔹37🔹Christian Mystic🔹Zen Buddhist Practitioner🔹 Brace for the Following Content: Storytelling, Philosophy, Zen Buddhism, Christian Theology, Anthropology, Politics, Democratic Socialism, Cats, Free Palestine, Black Lives Matter, The Iliad, Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Lord of the Rings, Welcome to Night Vale.🔹 "The universe is made of stories, not of atoms." - Muriel Rukeyser
“Reality is the raw material, language is the way I go in search of it - and the way I do not find it. But it is from searching and not finding that what I did not know was born, and which I instantly recognise. Language is my human effort. My destiny is to search and my destiny is to return empty-handed. But - I return with the unsayable. The unsayable can only be given to me through the failure of my language. Only when the construction fails, can I obtain what I could not achieve."
"The Greeks were great seafarers, colonizing much of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea and becoming familiar with a great variety of cultures. This exposure to different customs and beliefs encouraged skepticism toward their own myths. From a Buddhist perspective, however, what is most striking about the Greek experience is how much it resembles the perennial situation of the anxious individual self, which is dimly aware that it is not self-existing or 'natural' but a social and psychological construct.
According to Walter Truett Anderson, anthropology's gift to the world — the realization that human beings create different kinds of cultures, which in turn create different kinds of human beings — is a deeply subversive idea, because if you absorb it you will begin to wonder who created it and why; you reflect on what it does to you, and you think about making some changes. 'And the more people there are working their way through some such inner thought process, the more culturally diverse, complex and unstable a society is likely to be.'"
- David Loy, from The Great Awakening: A Buddhist Social Theory, 2003.
The collective works with Palestinian women (refugees and those living in Gaza) to create tatreez (Palestinian embroidery) for Japanese obis (wide sash/belt). They also participate in cross cultural initiatives such as embroidery workshops and exhibitions.
"Power wants to be used, as Gandalf realizes, 'A Ring of Power looks after itself, Frodo. It may slip off treacherously, but its keeper never abandons it.' The Ring has a will of its own. It gets heavier. It wants Frodo to slip it on his finger. If he were to do this, though, it would corrupt him, as it corrupted Sauron and Gollum long ago. Gollum is Frodo's alter ego, a constant reminder to Frodo of what he could become.
Power is eager to test and display itself. What is the point of having an overwhelming military machine if you don't use it once in a while? When you create a new weapon (for example, a 'smart' bomb), you want to see what it can do in a combat situation. The scientists who created the first nuclear bombs during the Second World War, all the while hoping these weapons would not be needed, learned about this the hard way. Once the bombs had been made, their own wishes were of no consequence. But is there something more to learn from the Ring of Power?
Buddhism has not had much to say about power. Traditional teachings warn more about sex and other physical cravings, which play almost no role in The Lord of the Rings. The absolute prohibition of sexual contact for monastics suggests that sexual desire is the archetypal craving that needs to be transcended in order to achieve the serenity of nirvana. Whether or not that was true in India twenty-five hundred years ago, our situation calls for a different focus. Today the primary challenge for socially engaged Buddhism is the individual and collective craving for power, which, Midas-like, destroys whatever it touches. Power and money may be quite valuable as means to some good end, but they turn destructive when they become ends in themselves. Sauron and Saruman, like Gollum, no longer have any goal but power itself — the power that is the Ring. With them Tolkien shows the suffering that results from a quest for power lacking a moral dimension.
In contrast, the strength that Gandalf, Aragorn, Frodo, and others demonstrate is shown not by accumulating or exercising power but in their willingness to give it up. Gandalf has no selfish craving for mastery. He wishes only to serve. 'The rule of no realm is mine, neither of Gondor nor any other, great or small. But all worthy things that are in peril as the world now stands, those are my care. And for my part, I shall not wholly fail of my task, though Gondor should perish, if anything passes through this night that can still grow fair or bear fruit and flower again in days to come. For I also am a steward.'
Gandalf gives us the definition and the model of a modern bodhisattva, the sort we need today. Are they so rare among us, or is it that the Saurons and Sarumans are so much more visible? And so more powerful, in the conventional sense, because in our world it is not so much physical craving as lust for power that motivates the greed, ill will, and willful ignorance now endangering the earth. People have always craved power, but because of modern technologies there is now so much more power to crave and use; and because of modern institutions, such power tends to function in impersonal ways that assume a life of their own.
Transnational corporations and stock markets institutionalize greed (never enough consumption or profit!) in a world where the centralized bureaucratic governments of nation-states unleash institutionalized ill will (horrific military aggression) in pursuit of their 'national interests.' Under the guise of globalization, ever more sophisticated technologies are deployed to extend the institutionalized delusion that dualizes us from the earth (by commodifying, exploiting, and laying waste to its furthest corners). Today these institutionalized versions of the three poisons [greed, anger, and ignorance] are the Mordor that threatens our future. If Buddhist teachings cannot help us understand this, perhaps there is something wrong with our understanding of Buddhism.
Hobbiton expresses Tolkien's nostalgia for the vanishing rural England in the West Midlands of his youth, but we should not dismiss such home sickness with the reassuring Buddhist maxim that 'everything passes away.' Our collective attempt to dominate the earth technologically is related to the disappearance of the sacred in the modern world. If we can no longer rely on God to take care of us, we strive to secure ourselves by subduing nature until it meets all our needs and satisfies all our purposes — which will never happen, of course. Because our efforts to exploit the earth's resources are damaging it so much, the fatal irony is that our attempt to secure the conditions of our existence here may destroy us. Is there a clearer or more dangerous example of institutionalized delusion? We are one with the earth. When the biosphere becomes sick, we become sick. If the biosphere dies, we die. The technological Ring of Power is not the solution to our problems. It has become the problem itself.
Instead of seeking power, happiness for our heroes is connected with the ability to delight in the simple pleasures of everyday life: enjoying a glass and a song by a warm hearth in the company of others, for example. The fellowship of loving friends is contrasted with the greedy, private pseudo-happiness of those who seek only the Ring. Sauron, Saruman, Gollum: each tormented, solitary soul looks out only for itself, and knows nothing of the wide community of willing helpers that enables Frodo to complete his mission.
We need to recover such community and such an ecological sensibility if we are to make it through the dark times that threaten our world. We also need new types of bodhisattvas, inspired perhaps by the fresh models that Tolkien's myth provides for socially engaged Buddhism. As with Frodo on his improbable quest, it is easy to become discouraged. There is, however, something to remember at such times. Frodo's task was appointed to him in a mysterious way that he did not understand, because it cannot be understood. The implication is that the mission he and others undertook was successful in the end, because they were a part of something greater than themselves.
For us, too, to be spiritual means opening up to a transformative power that works in us and through us when we do the best we can. Is that also true for the world that we are non-dual with? Who knows what is possible, or even what is actually happening today? Who, for example, anticipated the worldwide collapse of communism in 1989, or the sudden end of South African apartheid in 1994? The task of socially engaged bodhisattvas is not to unravel the mystery that is our world, but to do what we can to succor its sufferings in this time of crisis. Frodo and Sam discovered many unexpected helpers along their way, and so may we."
- David Loy, from "The Karma of the Rings: A Myth for Modern Buddhism?" Rethinking Karma: The Dharma of Social Justice, edited by Jonathan S. Watts, 3rd ed., 2014.
"There is virtually no role for religion in Middle-earth, because 'the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism' (The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien 1981, 172). Nevertheless, The Lord of the Rings can serve as a Buddhist fable because it is about a spiritual quest readily understandable in terms of the teachings of Buddhism. Despite Tolkien's demurral that it has 'any meaning or message,' his tale provides a myth about spiritual engagement for modern Buddhists.
Frodo leaves home not to slay a dragon or win a chest full of precious jewels, but to let go of something, which is what one learns to do when following the Buddhist path. His renunciation of the Ring is not done to gain enlightenment, yet it nonetheless transforms him spiritually. The suffering he experiences on the way to Mount Doom deepens him, making him stronger and more compassionate.
From a socially engaged Buddhist perspective concerned to bring Buddhist teachings to bear on contemporary social issues, one of the striking aspects of the plot is that Frodo does not want to have the adventures he has. He embarks on the quest because it cannot be evaded. At the beginning Sam is excited about going to 'see elves and all,' but Frodo is more apprehensive, and for good reason. The Ring must be destroyed, and he is the best one to carry it. In some mysterious, inexplicable way the task has been appointed to him. There is nothing he hopes to gain from the journey. By the end, he and Sam expect to be destroyed themselves soon after the Ring is cast into the Chamber of Fire, and indeed they nearly are. Their total renunciation is a powerful metaphor for Buddhist practice. As practitioners, we are sometimes willing to give up everything for enlightenment — but that is the catch. It is the self that seeks to be enlightened, that still wants to be around to enjoy being enlightened. Self remains the problem. Frodo and Sam show us something deeper. They let go of all personal ambition, although not the ambition to do what is necessary to help others. In Buddhist terms, don't they become bodhisattvas?
Frodo's quest is not an attempt to transcend Middle-earth by realizing some higher reality or dimension. He is simply responding to its needs, which because of historical circumstances (the growing power of Sauron, now actively seeking the Ring) have become critical — as are the needs of our beleaguered earth today. The larger world has begun to impinge on his Shire (and ours). If Frodo were to decline the task and hide at home, he would not escape the dangers that threaten. The Dark Lord would soon discover him and his Ring, and the Shire along with the rest of Middle-earth would fall under his baneful control. When we consider the ecological and social crises that have begun to impinge on our own little worlds, is our situation any different?
So is Frodo's journey a spiritual quest or a struggle to help the world? In The Lord of the Rings these two are the same. Frodo realizes ('makes real') his own non-duality with the world by doing everything he can to help it. Middle-earth needs to be saved, not denied or escaped. The goal is not another world but another way of living in this one, even as nirvana is not another place but a liberated way of experiencing this one. In the process, Frodo learns that this world is very different from what he thought it was. And by doing what he can to transform it, Frodo transforms himself. That is how his selflessness is developed. Frodo does not change because he destroys the Ring. He changes because of his tireless efforts to destroy the Ring. His early adventures on the road to Rivendell challenge and toughen him, giving him the courage to be the Ringbearer. His own strength of heart and will grow from these encounters, teaching him initiative and perseverance, and eventually developing into his unassuming heroic stature."
- David Loy, from "The Karma of the Rings: A Myth for Modern Buddhism?" Rethinking Karma: The Dharma of Social Justice, edited by Jonathan S. Watts, 3rd ed., 2014.
"The satisfactions of manifesting oneself concretely in the world through manual competence have been known to make a man quiet and easy. They seem to relieve him of the felt need to offer chattering interpretations of himself to vindicate his worth. He can simply point: the building stands, the car now runs, the lights are on. Boasting is what a boy does, because he has no real effect in the world. But the tradesman must reckon with the infallible judgment of reality, where one’s failures or shortcomings cannot be interpreted away. His well-founded pride is far from the gratuitous 'self-esteem' that educators would impart to students, as though by magic."
- Matthew B. Crawford, from Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work, 2009.
Knowledge needs to give way to forgetting. Forgetting, however, is an utmost affirmation. ‘You forget your feet’, Zhuangzi says, ‘when the shoes are comfortable. You forget your waist when the belt is comfortable.’ This implies that forgetting is based on an agreement that allows for non-resistance and non-coercion. You forget your head, Zhuangzi’s image could be extended, when you think in the right way. You even forget yourself, when you fully are. Complete harmony reigns where you even forget about the right way of being.
Byung-Chul Han. 2023. Absence. Translated by Daniel Steuer. Cambridge: Polity. 2007.
“Modernist manuals of writing often conflate story with conflict. This reductionism reflects a culture that inflates aggression and competition while cultivating ignorance of other behavioral options. No narrative of any complexity can be built on or reduced to a single element. Conflict is one kind of behavior. There are others, equally important in any human life, such as relating, finding, losing, bearing, discovering, parting, changing. Change is the universal aspect of all these sources of story. Story is something moving, something happening, something or somebody changing.”
vaporwave
turnnoffyourmind
2087
titsay
gummygunk
annaxmalina
ellievsbear
blakekathryn
