Coincidentally this article is from the ABC and refers to people in Sydney!
http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/content/2010/s2915471.htm
Not astounding, but interesting all the same.
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Sunday June 6th, 2010. Posted by Alex W:
Coincidentally this article is from the ABC and refers to people in Sydney! http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/content/2010/s2915471.htm Not astounding, but interesting all the same. Wednesday May 5th, 2010. Posted by Alex W:
Yes, things have been very slow here. I’ve been preparing to move across the world again, and the move is now due to happen in the next few days. I should resurface in the “land of the moon”, Lunigiana, the northern tip of Tuscany, in one or two weeks time, and I hope that things will liven up then. Wednesday March 10th, 2010. Posted by Alex W:
Recently I was asked: Do you think that Tibetan Buddhism (and Buddhism) have been corrupted by Western influences? It seems like most Westerners interpret, or want to interpret, Buddhism as a religion with a much more social-activist and political bent. This is probably partly because most Westerners are pretty ignorant of Buddhism. However, as Westerner who has studied Buddhism in an academic setting but it bothers me more when even those within the tradition (like the Dalai Llama) also espouse such views, which seems to contradict the Buddhist understanding of the causal world as essentially meaningless and arbitrary. One could argue that such social action is justified by the emphasis on compassionate action in Buddhism, but that would be misinterpretation because compassion within Buddhism has meant not improving a personal economic or social position, but leading others to enlightenment. My answer, for what it is worth, was: I have to disagree with you, largely at least. Bringing greater social and political awareness into our lives as Buddhists seems to me a good thing. Yes, some lamas are moving in the same direction too, but I would add “I’m pleased to say”. The lama who was first important to me mocks the tulkus sitting on their high thrones (he was and is one of those, by the way) chanting about compassion but not doing anything about the disabled beggar at the gate. And as you may well realize, the “disabled beggar at the gate” is no mere metaphor in this context. What do you think? Tuesday February 2nd, 2010. Posted by Alex W:
Tony Blair gives us a vivid example of the wheel of fortune. He had such huge support when he gave us in the UK a believable Labour (if only weakly) government. I was a big fan, and I was hardly alone. Now he has turned into one of the most reviled figures of recent British political history: arrogant, lying and almost certainly a war criminal. He is also proving to us how out-of-balance the British system is – the political executive is slipping out of control. We should perhaps all take a moment to consider the value of the Arrest Blair Campaign as described in the Guardian. So was it hubris? Did he start to believe his own publicity? Did he start to believe that God was on his side? He has fallen – but he should fall further yet. Tuesday January 19th, 2010. Posted by Alex W:
This news is well-known now, but I wanted to add my enthusiasm: Thursday December 31st, 2009. Posted by Alex W:
It’s hardly surprising: Apple is purging anything to do with the Dalai Lama from its apps in China. They should do an app (someone probably already has) to sell to the PRC government that purges the Dalai Lama’s name (or anything else subversive like “Tibetan independence” or “Tiananmen Square”) from any text flowing through the iPhone! Monday December 21st, 2009. Posted by Alex W:
Last night a rather worthy – and not entirely unpleasant – TV program dealt with the run-up to Christmas from the point of view of three different “faith traditions”. My question, therefore, is: “what’s one of them?” The fact that the three concerned were Christianity, Judaism, and a very open-minded, friendly version of Islam did not bring me much clarity. I had an uneasy feeling that the term is being used to sweep diverging beliefs into a dark corner where we need not talk about them, as if they were a mad cousin who has been shipped off to the mental home. I do, certainly, realise that “faith” should be about something much more than mere “belief”; reducing somebody’s faith to a mere belief, or set of beliefs, might be useful in primary school, but it does not encourage insight into any mature kind of spirituality. I find, however, it hard to accept that these “faiths” do not also imply certain specific, possibly conflicting, beliefs. What seems to happen in my own mind, and I suspect that this is what the use of the phrase “faith tradition” tends to do, is to reduce “faith” again, but in a different way. Rather than reducing it to a mere set of beliefs, “faith tradition” tends to reduce it to a set of traditional observances. My picture of the follower of a “faith tradition” (and I know I use brackets too often, but I can’t help also but wonder how many people think of themselves in those terms) is of someone who perhaps has some beliefs at the back of their mind, but these beliefs are held for reasons that have as much, or more, to do with tradition as with intellectual rigour. Once the reduction has been done – I would like to say “emasculation”, but I’m not sure if that word still has the right connotations – we can go on to say: “Look, this lot light candles around Christmas time, that lot light candles to celebrate Hanukkah, and the other lot light candles at the time of Ramadan: ergo it’s all jolly nice and jolly similar and we can all be jolly friendly.” Well, of course, being jolly friendly to one another would be a wonderful thing, and there ought to be more of it, and I applaud the points the programme was overtly making. Thoroughly. But I can’t help but feel that talk of “faith traditions” is selling real spirituality down the river. OBC (Obligatory Buddhist Content): many Buddhists light candles at the time of the full moon in May. |
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