Dave K wrote:
> On Apr 23, 1:10 pm, Robert Epstein <vze25...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
>>dkotsch...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
>>
>>>On Apr 23, 10:30 am, Robert Epstein <vze25...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>
>>>>dkotsch...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
>>
>>>>>On Apr 22, 6:14 pm, Tang Huyen <tanghuyen{dele...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>>>>>wrote:
>>
>>>>>>Dave K wrote:
>>
>>>>>>>Right. There is no "change the world" vs. "change other people."
>>>>>>>Thich Nhat Hahn said that the enemies are greed, anger, and
delusion,
>>>>>>>not people.
>>
>>>>>>>Seeing as it's earth day I think I can reveal my greenhouse gas
theory
>>>>>>>of Buddhism. Greed, anger and delusion are like greenhouse g*****.
>>>>>>>Our job is to reduce emissions. The less the world has the better.
>>
>>>>>>>No bothering about who's emissions they are. No bothering about
>>>>>>>whether it's better to do this in a cave by yourself or to be a
>>>>>>>"useful member of society" who also writes letters to congress and
>>>>>>>goes to protests or whatever it is that people do to be useful
members
>>>>>>>of society.
>>
>>>>>>>Go plant something. Then sit under it.
>>
>>>>>>Very noble feeling, and presumably very
>>>>>>noble action to follow through with it.
>>>>>>However would you take your feeling
>>>>>>and action to be universally valid, beyond
>>>>>>any question, iow would you attempt to
>>>>>>impose them on everybody else?
>>
>>>>>>Tang Huyen
>>
>>>>>I wouldn't even know how to do that.
>>
>>>>>-DavK
>>
>>>>Good to see you in any case.
>>
>>>>If sitting under a tree is the solution,
>>>>and people are not the problem,
>>>>where does that leave sangha?
>>>>where does that leave compassion?
>>
>>>>I prefer the razor's edge of the Diamond Sutra
>>>>to an either/or solution:
>>
>>>>a. "The bodhisattva saves countless beings."
>>>>b. "The boddhisattva does not allow the thought to arise
>>>> that he is saving countless beings."
>>>>c. "Even though countless beings are saved, in truth there are no
>>>> beings,they are just called such."
>>
>>>>In other words, he acts without a sense of separate self, he acts
>>>>without a sense of a separate other, yet he still does act
>>>>compassionately and does not refrain from acting on behalf of others.
>>
>>>Hmm, it seems no-one is picking up on my metaphor. Guess it needs
>>>work.
>>
>>>-DaveK
>>
>>Why don't you explain it, since we are not of the "superior" type?
>
>
> Well I was just letting it simmer in my brain for a bit so that maybe
> I could explain it better. And I hate when I get too verbose because
> then I sound like some prat who thinks he knows everything.
>
> So it's just a theory. Greed anger and delusion are called the three
> evil roots or three poisons. "Poisons" is more poetic and probably
> better illustrative. We generate and emit these things into the
> environment. They go into the environment where they mix with other
> people's poisons. But they don't really belong to anybody, right? In
> a practical sense we are the source, but they are really just out
> there, floating around and mingling in the atmosphere.
>
> So other people are subject to their own poison, but they're also
> subject to mine. It's also like second hand smoke. Remember when
> people used to debate about smoking bans? One person would say "well
> it only hurts the smokers" and another person would say "No, that's
> not right. Secondhand smoke is just as bad if not worse."
>
> So I said that our job is to reduce emissions. You can't reduce other
> people's emissions, but you can stop poisoning other people. So you
> go off somewhere to work on yourself. You reduce your emissions. You
> become less of a burden on the environment. There's no need to
> deliberate about what belongs to who or if there are any beings or
> not.
>
> Thanissaro Bhikkhu is better at explaining it:
>
> "If samsara were a place, it might seem selfish for one person to look
> for an escape, leaving others behind. But when you realize that it's a
> process, there's nothing selfish about stopping it at all. It's like
> giving up an addiction or an abusive habit. When you learn the skills
> needed to stop creating your own worlds of suffering, you can share
> those skills with others so that they can stop creating theirs. At the
> same time, you'll never have to feed off the worlds of others, so to
> that extent you're lightening their load as well."
>
> From "Samsara"
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/samsara.html
>
> From this perspective, I'm not saying that it's futile to go to
> protests, write letters to congresspersons, or whatever it is that
> productive people do, but it'd be better to do such things with a
> clear mind, wouldn't it?
>
> -DaveK
Yes, it surely would.
Robert
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