According to the Blogger stats, Ex Cathedra has just had 200,000 hits since its inception in December 2006. 2800 posts. Sounds like a lot, but given the size of the blogspheric realm, we remain, though infallible, the tiniest of duchies.
When I first started it, I wondered if I'd keep up my interest. Never thought it would become the letting-off-steam addictive distraction that it's turned into.
4 comments:
Ex Cathedra might be hit on by more netizens if you didn't go on about class so much, which perhaps offends Buddhists.
I was just noticing that Thich Nhat Hanh (deviser of "Engaged Buddhism") rejects any preferential option for the poor: »I am certain that those with the highest understanding will be able to see the suffering in both the poor and the rich. God embraces both rich and poor, and he wants them to understand each other, to share with each other their suffering and their happiness, and to work together for peace and social justice. We do not need to take sides [as between the 99% or the 1%, eh?]. When we take sides, we misunderstand the will of God.« (p. 80 Living Buddha, Living Christ, 10th anniversary edition)
He adds immediately that »I know it will be possible for some people to use these words to prolong social injustice, but that is an abuse of what I am saying. We have to find the _real causes_ for social injustice, and when we do, we will not condemn a certain type of people.«
Evidently engaged buddhism has a way to abolish social injustice: TNH says that some will use Buddhism to prolong social injustice, but this means obviously social injustice will cease, and presumably social justice will then begin.
Presumably the causes of social injustice are the incompetent thinking that causes delusions (mayas) of the sort that drive attachment (uppadana). Maybe the "rich" won't care about claiming to create wealth via the alienated labour power of the workers once the rich realize that they aren't real (for one does right intention etc without a real self: thoughts are think'd without a thinker or only a non-thinker; intentions are intended with only a non-intender etc). And where's the class prestige for the "noble" over the "base" if the base too aren't real? Hegel's silly master-slave relation has always been only a ghost town.
Possibly the wise are real and not delusions, but they won't be interested in praise or honour from the unwise, or even illusory material support form the unwise. Engaged Buddhism proves that the West Bank and Gaza and even the entire land to which the Palestinians have the right to ancestral return aren't even real, so what are Palestinians and Zionists even struggling over? The point is to engage with nirvana.
As TNH says, »Any dualistic response [to class divisions, or I suppose also gender divisions or race divisions etc], any response motivated by anger [sc the 'slave revolt in morals'] will only make the situation worse.« That's what Erasmus should have mildly reply'd to Luther, and the cows of Bashan to the anawim et al.
Or maybe the Maya say, "Boys! Boys! I'm not worth fighting over!"
His Holiness the Dalai Lama:
»Delusions are _states_ of mind which, when they arise within our mental continuum [that would be us], leave us disturbed, confused and unhappy [for example, Jesus’ condemnation of the leaven of the pharisees; or Lao-Tsu's reference to straw dogs, or sending one's self on to the Tao as an uncarved chunk].
»Therefore, those _states_ of mind which delude or afflict us are called 'delusions' or 'afflictive emotions' [for example, Socrates' afflicting the youth with contempt for their Selfs].«
Ex Cathedra would be so much more popular if you would kindly avoid any connection with reality. Focus more on dreams toward the coming utopia perhaps.
I like it the way it is, it's quality over quantity.
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