#stephen batchelor

[dk-thrive]

“Instead of asking “What is the ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ thing to do?” the practitioner asks, “What is the wisest and most compassionate thing to do?”

~ Stephen Batchelor, After Buddhism: Rethinking the Dharma for a Secular Age (Yale University Press, October 27, 2015)

[julesofnature]

“Instead of asking “What is the ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ thing to do?” the practitioner asks, “What is the wisest and most compassionate thing to do?” . ~ Stephen Batchelor, After Buddhism: Rethinking the Dharma for a Secular Age

[bodhi-devotee]

“A gender-fluid person is a living example of an excluded middle, a person who eludes the binary categories of male and female, who cannot be reduced to “being” or “not being” a man or a woman.”

in ‘Buddha, Socrates, and Us’, stephen batchelor discloses the story of a disciple approaching the Buddha and asking two questions: “is there a self?” and “is there no self?”. the Buddha’s response to both inquiries is complete silence. this highlights a heavy theme in the faith (lacking attachment to the binaries of “is” and “is not”, “real” and “unreal”, “being” and “ceasing”.). the author then explains a fable where a layman views this same disciple lustfully and is promptly transformed into a woman, who proceeds to run away and start a new life (if you’re interested, it is the story of kaccāna and soreyya). i was not expecting the beautiful commentary on queer identity that followed.

“This tale shows how marginalized people, who did not fit into the normative identities of their culture, could have found acceptance and companionship in the single-sex renunciant communities emerging in India at this period. They may have also been naturally drawn to a philosophy that questioned some of the binary categories that excluded them, while valuing paradox, fluidity, and uncertainty. Rather than prompting a queer person to walk away, Gotama’s silence might have come as a welcome relief.”

the Buddha’s silence is not just a welcome relief, it’s a reminder. a reminder that who i am is not bound to what people at large say i am or am not. i am not confused, but rather following the natural order of the universe that humanity has forgotten. we are not and can never be attached to one label, one identity. anything founded on these fickle human bodies, like gender, is empty. how free am i?

[commonplacebuddhism]

[philosohappy]

Great works of art in all cultures succeed in capturing within the constraints of their form both the pathos of anguish and a vision of its resolution. Take, for example, the languorous sentences of Proust or the haiku of Basho, the late quartets and sonatas of Beethoven, the tragicomic brushwork of Sengai or the daunting canvases of Rothko, the luminous self-portraits of Rembrandt and Hakuin. Such works achieve their resolution not through consoling or romantic images whereby anguish is transcended. They accept anguish without being overwhelmed by it. They reveal anguish as that which gives beauty its dignity and depth.

Excerpt from Buddhism Without Beliefs, by Stephen Batchelor

Photo of the Rothko Chapel, a non-denominational chapel in Houston, Texas, founded by John and Dominique de Menil

[wisdom-and-such]

“  Acts, like contracts,    Are as irrevocable as debts--        Their irrevocability           Ensures fruition. “

“The consequences of what we do now will outlive us. The irrevocability of our actions implies that we are responsible not only for our own conduct in this life but for the impact of our actions after our death. “

 -- Stephen Batchelor, commentary on Nagarjuna

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

emptying

Emptiness is not something sacred in which to believe. It is an emptying: a letting go of the fixations and compulsions that lock one into a tight cell of self that seems to exist in detached isolation from the turbulent flux of life.”

— Stephen Batchelor

+

“There are no passengers on spaceship earth. We are all crew.” ― Marshall McLuhan

[rainbowtwo]

Embracing the Unbearable

‘Rather than seek God - the goal of the brahmins - Gotama suggested that you turn your attention to what is most far from God: the anguish and pain of this life on earth. In a contingent world, change and suffering are inevitable. Just look at what happens here: creatures are constantly being born, falling ill, growing old, and dying. These are the unavoidable facts of our existence. And when I am honest with myself, when I drop all my stoic conceits, this is unbearable.

To embrace the contingency of one’s life is to embrace one’s fate as an ephemeral but sentient being. As Nietzsche claimed, one can come to love that fate. But to do so one must first embrace it, though one instinctively recoils at such a prospect. To steady one’s gaze on the finitude, contingency, and anguish of one’s existence is not easy; it requires mindfulness and concentration. One needs to make a conscious shift from delight in a fixed place to awareness of a contingent ground…’

- Stephen Batchelor, Confession of a Buddhist Atheist.