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As far as American political and economic life goes, this is the Era of Elmer Fudd. It’s a time when Elmer defeats the irreverent, freedom-loving Bugs Bunny, when the idiot Wile E. Coyote catches up to all those American roadrunners, from Johnny Appleseed to John Muir to Jack Kerouac and the eponymous Roadrunner himself.
There was a time when Americans reveled in the defeat of carnivorous fools. But now it’s the insatiable goons themselves who are the heroes. In a kind of psychological inversion that will probably lead to thousands of academic conferences in the future, today’s tea partiers make rebel heroes out of their own villainous oppressors.
So I ask, with all due seriousness, “What’s up, Doc?”
It’s not like we lack for comedy, which predictably abounds in the Fudd Era. Maybe the only rhetorical rule still on the books, at least as applied by today’s media, is that any ridiculous thing that can be said will be said.
Ann Coulter said the other day that radiation is good for us. Will she take her own advice and head for the healing waters of Fukushima, Japan?
FoxNews accused a CNN reporter of volunteering to serve as a human shield for Muammar el-Qaddafi. Jon Stewart, perhaps the last Bugs left standing, had some fun with that one, wondering aloud whether the Fox reporter who refused to be so used covered the Libyan revolt from the safety of his hotel room in “Coward Johnson’s” motor inn.
So, it’s not that we are any less funny. We may be funnier than ever, though I doubt all those future academic conferences will get the joke (I hope they do).
Historically, mass identification with oppressors and abusers has always led to, uh, very unpleasant outcomes. Yesterday’s words for these circumstances are currently prohibited (okay, maybe there’s a second rhetorical rule). There’s a big, flashing neon Verboten hanging over such terms as fascism, tyranny, Nazism, totalitarianism, etc. Bipartisan correctness demands that we move beyond labels, don’t you know.
How about Fuddism, then? The term would refer to a political arrangement in which fealty is called freedom, in which the regular sacrifice of have-nots and the enrichment of haves becomes proof of economic health, in which the hunters, masquerading as the hunted, vanquish the tormentors who stood in the way of their supreme wills for so long.
I don’t doubt that self-interest and willful acquisitiveness have permanent niches in our DNA. What’s troubling, though, is that democracy-protecting safeguards and laws intended to promote egalitarian striving and the common good are now seen as inhibiting liberty, not promoting and protecting liberty.
Is Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker not an Elmer Fudd loosed upon the real from the virtual world of satirical cartoons and given ACME parliamentary traps to nab Bugs? Walker’s demands upon the heroic, quorum-busting Wisconsin Senate Democrats were just inelegant versions of Fudd’s delightful command:
Come out of your holes, you cowardwy wabbits! Bang, bang! And I’ll bwow you to smitteweenies!
By smitteweenies Fudd means smithereens, a word that comes from smidiriin, an old Irish word for fragment, which is precisely what is left of our democracy.
The time has come for climactic turning-of-the-tables, when the ACME dynamite explodes in the faces of Fudd and Coyote. Can we return to those stories and restore something like a democratic consciousness in the land? I think so. It remains alive in many.
All right now, this has gone far enough.
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Good Morning Glenn…
Now ta finish reading your always thoughtful post!
But now it’s the insatiable goons themselves who are the heroes.
And in all those nightmare dystopian movies about a mindless robot relentlessly tracking down an innocent victim, the robot is us. That’s what I think every time I read about a drone attack, especially the ones that go wrong.
Do “those people” really enjoy life while they’re being so nasty.
As FDL acquires more trolls, the gemutlich feel of the blog has deteriorated sharply. I’ve done my best to encourage frequent commenters to ignore them, so the atmosphere can be preserved and the thread doesn’t take on the trolls’ agenda. But, no, every troll argument must be countered. Makes trolls nastier & nastier. I’ve had to leave quite a few of them of late.
It has been said that Ayn Rand’s work succeeded most forcefully in it’s promoting sociopathy as a desirable, even a sacred, personality construction.
Along with the power of celebrity I have been thinking a lot on that observation since I read it somewhere. Recently in a fit of boredom I tuned into some of MSNBC’s weekend programming. It is so blatant in its “humanizing” of the perverse and criminal mind that one wonders if Rand left an endowment to GE to continue her work.
Then there is the infatuation with the Mafia, the Godfather, The Sopranos, etc. Just ordinary family loving God fearing people, except for one minor area — their work. Work is excluded from moral restraints.
Of course it is much more subtle in the way we have looked at the predators of Wall Street. What is called “animal spirits” is nothing more than criminal and irresponsibleness behavior. Many of us still struggle to even recognize it and to find ways to paint these criminals for what they are. Even in the Gilded Age the big players were expected to behave in a moral way and those who didn’t were at the least socially ostracized.
I surely would hope so but I just don’t see it. As things for the working class are only getting worse, the price for everything(except housing) are skyrocketing, have you bought any green or red peppers lately. The wife just paid $2.79 for just one $2. fucking 79 for just one… Produce prices have gone up by 50%. And gee I wonder just who gets hurt by that?? We need a Teddy Roosevelt like right now to start putting these Robber Barons in jail and strip all their ill gotten wealthy from them.
Very true. Financial success is, by contemporary definition, moral. It’s immoral to be poor, moral to be rich. Reasons have nothing to do with it. That is, essentially, Reaganism/Thatcherism. And Rand’s objectivism.
Well, it’s at least true that things have gone far enough. Whether we muster the will to turn the tables, that’s another question.
What particularly troubles me is that morality has become an object of the far right’s general rejection. The virtues have been turned into vices in their revisionist creed, and while they claim to be religious and moral, they practice anti-social behavior that goes against what used to be goodness. They’re robbing the poor to give to the rich. That this results in financial catastrophe for this consumer economy just hasn’t reached the level of consciousness among the Fudds.
Notice that real-world consequences are missing from the Right’s “moral” vision. So is accountability. It’s Calvinism without the saving grace.
I was just ranting about Coulter this morning. Yeah, Ann Coulter gets to be the first to demonstrate this to us like those chemical execs that washed their hands in carcinogens to show us the industry was good. So much for that future trip to the Minakami hot springs. I’m still reeling over what has been destroyed and poisoned all for a nuclear half-life. I don’t accept these people’s apology, I accept at least their life imprisonment (hat tip Scarecrow) and the dissolution of the agnotologic capitalistic system that made this horrific event even possible.
Another observation I saw somewhere but can’t source is that a person’s philosophy, world view of how things work, is as much a representation of emotions and perceptions their sense of sanity demands they must obscure and deny.as it is a positive rationally determined construction.
I think Rand’s bete noire was vulnerability, a debilitating terror of tender feelings, and what seems almost a phobia to emotional attachment. A wonderful fiction writer she make her heroes objects to be worshiped in awe and described them as selfishness in its purest form. She even went so far as to deny any other human, (or spiritual) experience could inform ethics and moral behavior.
Now that’s a pretty resistant “containment vessel”
The Left, though aware of the Noise Machine, has consistently under-estimated its scope and power and has failed to answer with its own, competing version of reality. (Which is, of course, not entirely the fault of Progressives. It’s corps who own the bandwidth, uh, i mean lease it.)
We are indeed living among brain washed robots. As the noose tightens around their own necks, how will the robots react?
Yes at the heart of their philosophy is the demand that the wealthy (the producers) be elevated as sacred objects and the less successful and especially the poor, not just be excluded from favor but indeed be punished.
It’s a sign from God for the elect. If you are successful, you are Elect. If you are not, you’re a sinner condemned to eternal damnation. Amazing how this has persisted into this era.
Some of what is going on here is an extreme version of what Sirota calls partisan war syndrome, where facts and arguments will be deployed to support a team rather than in the service of truth. Certainly, these are some of the worst offenders, but the problem itself is rather common.
The word “Fuddism” has it’s merits and from a purely comedy point of view it’s spot on. I just feel that it’s a little dismissive of the danger of the things these people do and the illegalities involved where applicable. No matter what happens in a cartoon, even cartoon death, there are no lasting consequences. Not so in the real world. I just don’t want to help the ‘baggers keep pretending that their votes and their actions don’t have real world consequences. Just my .02
We just have to be careful confronting “partisan war syndrome.” Today’s “bipartisans” want to say that truth is a compromise between the extremes, which of course, it can’t be.
They are becoming frantic in their demands for admiration. eg hurt feelings over the mural in Maine. I say remind them “the rich have their rewards on earth.” –JC So shut up and enjoy being rich.–TS
I just try to use cultural tropes and narratives to make familiar what might be unfamiliar. We think in stories. So, I make no real claims for Fuddism. In fact, it’s a little unfair to Elmer. But I think the essential point is a true one.
When the keynote speaker at the recent conservative convention in Iowa said, with an absolutely straight face that the Framers of the Constitution weren’t actually framers, God was moving them around like men on a chess board – in other words God (specifically the Christian god) ‘wrote’ the Constitution – we’re in deep kaakaa.
I agree and acknowledged that. In my own clumsy round about way. :)
You ask a question that must be answered if this country has any chance of returning to what it was not that long ago. I’m grasping at straws to get reactions. Maybe part of it is that society has become atomized. Many people have lost the kind of intimacy that limited this behavior. My grandfather didn’t drive. He lived in an ethnic community. His friends from what they called the “Old Neighborhood” and those who moved to the summer gathered at his home virtually every night. They talked. They argued in ways that sounded as though they were about to start fighting. A ball game would often provide background noise. They were there for each other. They shared to good times and the pain. They were a physical presence in the each others lives.
Today my closest friends are scattered around the country. One goes back to childhood. The rest are from grad school. My one very close local friend died last summer. Emails and phone calls are not the same. Those people could tell how others in the group were doing as they walked in the room. I could never communicate all that in an email. My friends are good friends who are there for me. But we don’t know the details about each other in the way that previous generations did.
I think part of the horror you are describing is a form of bonding. The more thoughtless it is, the better, because it requires more of a commitment.
Another factor worth thinking about is how frightening things are getting for people. The job is in danger or gone. The mortgage may be under water. Any experience with the government bureaucracy that’s supposed to help is enough to turn you into a libertarian. The country is falling apart.
People need channels for their anger. The economic top 2% have done a fine job of focusing people’s anger on people barely better off than they are, or in the case of those even worse off, people taking money they desperately need for “entitlements” that they never seem entitled to and driving jobs away because of TAXES. These people know something is very wrong, but they don’t know what. Coming together at a Tea Part rally may offer a catharsis. They are surrounded by people with whom they have a lot in common.
If there is a solution, I think we need new, more fulfilling ways of connecting. Me need a 21st century equivalent of the union hall. We need ways to circumvent the MSM.
Agreed. To fight back is important, but on what grounds to fight it also important. Not all fights are equal.
It’s amazing how the right continues to hold together this coalition of God the manipulator folks and the Godless Randians. I think Glenn and others nail the reason in the references to Calvinism. It’s Calvin and primitive emotion.
The perfect example of this is none other than Mark Sanford, the man who professes to be a Christian yet worships Ayn Rand’s “selfishness is good, kindness is bad” doctrine, as do many if not most powerful conservatives.
Like Third Way. They don’t represent a ‘third way”. They are Republicans who are terrified of teabaggers as demonstrated by the above philosophy. Like all conservatives, they have to reduce things down to their lowest common denominator despite the result always being unrealistic and unsuitable. They want one philosophy to fit all, one language, one race, one orientation….etc.
Yup. You cannot be a Randian and a true Christian, yet people like Mark “Appalachian Trail” Sanford profess to be both, and they’re the ones controlling the GOP.
Well said and I think the focus on the loss of connection, or at least the change in the nature of connection, is right on. It is to some extent a consequence of geography and technology. Personally I am more than hopeful that we can evolve to experiencing our life and relationships to all the people on this one earth as you describe for the old neighborhoods
Yeah. John Cole, reformed Republican, said it best when he compared it to negotiating where you and your date wanted to go for dinner, and you suggested Italian food and she insisted on hubcaps and tire irons. There is no compromise with someone who wants tire irons — not one that’s moral or sane, anyway.
The Amazing Flim Flam Men.
John Cole still has a lot of conservative traits, like almost unshakable loyalty. He likes things neat and orderly too. Ed Schultz is the same way. They both mean well but they are still in that conservative head. Of them all, I think that Cenk Uyger is the one who has truly completed the hero’s journey.
Sort of the modern version; hate the sinner, but love the sin?
tax the dead not the middle class. Don’t cut social security for our kids and grandchildren.
goopers are so concerned about not running up the debt because that may cost our kids and grandkids, that they advocate a guaranteed hurt to our kids and grandkids: cutting their social security.
Cutting SS is a tax increase on the middle class.
tax the dead, not the middle class.
They don’t really care about the debt. They resent it that a dollar spent on a child’s education is a dollar not in their offshore account.
yes, I know that. It is just their rhetoric and spin.
tax the dead, not the middle class.
tax the dead, not seniors.
I just don’t get the aversion to the estate tax. I mean the threshold is so high that the beneficiaries are still rich even if they get taxed. It’s almost like they are hedging their bets. Just in the vanishingly small hope that they can take it with them after all.
The estate tax has created a whole industry of attorneys that create ways to avoid it, as well. Abolishing it does lower incentives for the wealthy to give to charities, which probably makes the right very happy.
Textbook take-away from the philosophical system to which the identifier “Buddhism” is also associated. Here’s the pith enunciation in stanza form. You have to read about 3 books to find out what is meant by the noun “Buddha” so don’t worry about that for the moment. Instead, pay particular attention to the analysis being presented with the notions regarding “dualistic cognition.”
It’s the best of times, the worst of times, depending on which side of the gate or wall you live on.
I think some at least believe they are really a “better species” of supermen. There has been some writing in the Economist and other places that laissez-faire capitalism is resulting in the evolutions of an improved species or subspecies of man. The wealthy don’t want to have the money passed to the less productive.
To quote Daffy Duck: That’s despicable. And of course totally predictable. I don’t think anybody is born evil but a lot of them sure die that way. I think part of it are the escape hatches in organized religion. You can be just as nasty as you want to be in some faiths but as long as you repent before death, you’re good to go. Belief in absolution = no motivation for the superstitious to lead a righteous life.
That’s an old bad idea that has not yet died. Did it not in part span the concept of eugenics? If eugenics had been practiced in the 1700s would we have an Amadeus? Eugenics is about attempting to breeding permanent slaves and possibly better ones at that.
A year or so ago Jane Hamsher suggested/hoped a Firedoglake reader would compose a diary that reviewed Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic And The Spirit of Capitalism
Hmm…
Anyone think an online Book/Author Chat here, once a month, is a good idea? We select a book or work, and then chat about it. Right here & live.
I doubt that theory would pass peer review. In fact I would put it between young Earth creationism and The Great Pumpkin.
The villainous oppressors use a little bit of their money to make sure that they’re spun as rebel heroes.
Among the very rich, I think the estate tax is about power rather than wealth. If we had strong middle class consumers it’s quite likely that these people would actually have more wealth than they do now. But they would control a smaller percentage of the wealth.
As for the people who could only benefit from an estate tax, an expensive marketing campaign discovered that the words “death tax” created a visceral negative reaction.
Maybe we can link taxes to popular spending programs. “Every nickel raised by the estate tax will go to Medicare.” “The increase in taxes on couples making over $250K per year will be used for veterans’ benefits.” It might be harder to oppose taxes if the relation between taxes and the goods and services they purchase were made explicit.
Well, there’s the old axiom that if you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it. And, there’s not a bigger lie from the far right than the one about the the U.S. being founded on Christian principles. Considering most of the Founding Fathers were men of reason and Deist one would have to say that the U.S was, in fact, founded on principles of the Enlightenment. There is no mention of God, be it Christian or otherwise in the Constitution and I doubt that is some sort of gross oversight.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we had “neighborhoods?” People who spend time together and share their joys and troubles. Who stop in for a cup of coffee and a laugh or maybe a cry. After WW2 people started to move – it seemed like the thing to do at the time. There were lots of jobs. Now the neighbors are strangers. I live in a condo complex of 150 houses. I do not know one neighbor. I’m not complaining because I love my quiet life but it seems to me that no one here knows any one else. I grew up in a small town with no privacy at all. I do think that young people need neighbors, however.
I wonder what makes them think that their children are going to be so much more flipping productive than others’ children.
The key seems to be to get the influence of money out of our politics.
By the way: Just as the Fudds are about to lose control of the Wisconsin Senate due to recalls, Canada’s Fuddy-duddy Tories just lost a vote of no confidence and new elections are on the way:
The big question in Canada is going to be whether Harper can keep his opposition fractured and squabbling sufficiently to remain in power.
like a lock box?
Thanks mzcheif. I am a great admirer of Buddhism and should I someday choose to name a personal religion it likely would be Buddhist. I need to learn more of how to practice it first.
The concept of dual cognition and how one applies and experiences it is in my view a marker of maturity and health. Rand forcefully rejected the notions of unconscious drives etc. replacing that with the notion that man acts only on the basis of deductive reasoning and on his own.
That’s what a few tens of billions spent over six decades will get you. That, and the work of Fred Bernays.
Yes you can smell it a mile away. However it is how too many of the MOTU think.
When life was more simple, and acquisition of Things was not the Greatest Accomplishment of Life, ideas, sharing ideas and meals and time together was a way to mark value, to measure the “worth” of a person.
That was long ago, but it is present today, and we need all to strive to make sure the last vestiges of it are not lost forever.
Thanks, as always, for bringing this to the fore. Another Sunday. With Glenn. And the community here.
I’d support such an exploration. Weber’s short (and important) work would be a good place to start.
There was a time when the carnivorous capitalists weren’t fools. They understood how to benefit from the system.
But now the capitalists are carnivorous fools who think they can abuse the system until they destroy it, all without hurting themselves.
I guess they’ll have more money than God, but will they have a world that even they would want to live in?
I sometimes describe myself as a Southern Buddhist. I draw much from the practice, and besides, “Southern Buddhist” kinks the eyebrows of my Southern neighbors….
Yeah, I’m hep. Just an example of “scientific” Fuddism.
It’s actually trickier than that because money is fungible. Money tied to social security is used to fund highways and wars and tax cuts for the wealthy. I was thinking about a more symbolic level of debate. It’s harder to call for cutting veterans health benefits because we “can’ afford them” when a tax proposal that doesn’t have an impact on most people is matched with it. Also, there are some operational problems with lock boxes.
But if it takes a lock box . . .
Need to leave for the afternoon.Thanks very much Mr. Smith.
A point I puzzle over, too. Just what do they think this country will look like when millions of seniors are tossed into the streets without health care, when a third of our teachers are laid off, when our children are too uneducated to earn enough to consume what the swells want to sell?
That’s the question I have asked often here. How do the elites imagine that they will escape from the world they are creating? They breathe the same air, drink the same water, and eat from the same food supply. They utilize the same services, fire, police, etc. The ability to fool yourself about being different is silly and self destructive.
I guess the evolution is going in a reverse direction.
You are very wise. If it’s “Southern” it’s got to be o.k.
Se my #11
I thought government was supposed to be of, by and for the people. Instead, it seems like the people are supposed to work, consume and die for the government.
. Instead, it seems like the people are supposed to work, consume and die for the
government.elites.fixed it for you
At this moment in the human-generated socio-econo-political “weather” from what I can discern, it’s looking good for Canada (see here).
George Orwell used the term “bully worship” back in the 1930s. He also noted the stupidity defense, as in the ruling class’s “don’t blame us, we’re just stupid.” Monty Python got a lot of mileage out of the latter.
Sou thurn Bood dist. I love that. The new immigrant group of Tibetans in the US are nuts for cowboy hats. In general, they’re excellent horse people. It’s yee-haw without the ya-hoo if you know what I mean.
In what way does “conceptual ignorance” (selecting, structuring and labelling) imply a dualistic cognition? I get how “innate ignorance” implies unmindful, distracted cognition, but what does a dualizing intellect do?
It’s very much the same where I live, we all know who we are by the vehicles we park but not much else. Yet there are weekly organized gatherings at the fitness center for those who want to meet & greet. There are three swimming pools where neighbors find each other. There’s a playground where families gather. It’s the architecture and landscaping that makes neighborliness very difficult. No porches or front stoops, no sidewalks — I grew up in Brooklyn where the sidewalks were 10 ft. wide, plenty of room for bikes and baby carriages, families and friends to walk abreast. I learned all my language skills b/c of wide sidewalks!
The small liberal arts college I went to had several hardcore ‘traditions’ you violated at your peril. One tradition was that you never passed another person on campus without greeting the person. Suzanne at LLN here had that same kind of homelearnin, and it’s an integral part of LLN’s tradition.
As best as I understand it from the link, dualistic cognition/perception/intellect sets aside bare awareness of reality and creates instead a false edifice that the ignorant mistakes for reality, which leads to attachment, fear, hate, etc. If that’s right, I guess I’m not getting why it’s called “dualistic” cognition rather that “false” or “delusional” cognition. Mostly, I just don’t think I’m understanding very well what is meant by “dualistic cognition.”
Heh. You want to know so now it’s time to study. The system has technical terms and a very fine-tuned description of mental/psychological processes. Emotions are considered to issue out of recognized and unrecognized mental constructs and attributions according to this system. I have tested the ideas and found them to be true regarding my experience. I might have suggestions for a curriculum if I am asked. ;-)
I prefer to regard and approach the rigorous philosophical system to which the tag, “Buddhism,” is also applied as philosophy– which it is– as “blind faith” is not part of it. But one can turn it into a religion just by the application of blind faith. So, one can devolve it into religion. To me that would be a terrible thing and therefore it is by definition no longer appropriate to adhere the label, “Buddhism.” I am being very careful in my enunciation to point up some important subtleties that are easily glossed over in this American culture and therefore is what gets folks into the trouble the system has been designed to help them avoid in the first place. :-)
As a science I prefer mine to Buddhism. In fact I think it is a mistake to consider it as science but rather speculations from inductive reasoning. To do so detracts from its gifts to spiritual and emotional understanding. In my view the “dual cognition” as described in the blog is what I would call hysterical splitting.– something we, especially children,. all do.
That said, a task we all struggle with is emotional cognition and how to integrate it with objective physical observations.
Rand dealt with it by discounting all emotion. Most religions deal by discounting objective reasoning.
I attempted to give a response in which I provided some definitions and some context about a system that is foreign to Western culture before making my statements which obviously reflect my preferences and my conclusions. Everyone is entitled to do as they wish as long as do not harm themselves or others within a civil society that has certain philosophical constructs that usually revolve around some form or another of the Golden Rule. The US is facing a system that is no longer constructed upon anything I can see that resembles the Golden Rule. Religions that essentially resembled an elaboration on the Golden Rule have been remade divorced from it. I am trying to get at the use and the abuse of the “blind faith” component in our society that supposedly values so highly the derivative philosophical system called “law.”
In my book, reason and critical thinking skills + emotional control/mastery + conscious, volitional altruistic motivation make great humans.
There is a foreign term originally in Sanskrit transliterated into a different construct called modern English behind that “dual cognition.” It isn’t what I think you are imputing it to be. There really are three books I had to read to try to get the notion of what was meant by “dual cognition.” I actually had to read much more and do a bunch of practicums. That’s the most illumination I can give at the moment. There’s another English phrase that as to be noodled through by the inquiring mind, “superstitious obscurations.” What the heck does that mean? It took me more than the three books to try to get a handle on that!
I do. I guess I’m a member of the Hats & Malas.
You are all mala and no hat, Glenn. :D
I appreciate your postings here and honor your work. As a psychiatrist I am relatively facile at viewing things from a variety of perspectives and usually find a new fact to add to the database. I am pretty hard nosed as to what qualifies for the term science, especially as pertains to emotions. Philosophy, religion bring their own perspectives to our understanding of man and indeed with most, more facts. For me and many folks I have known professionally the more emotional experience is understood and integrated into the observed and measurable the greater the contentment.
OK, so I am now challenged to enunciate the thing pointed to by the tag, “Buddhism,” in 60 seconds. Hmmm… instead I will point everyone to a great read by someone who really knows their subject area (postdoctoral equivalent and beyond training and experience). He does a great job and the book is called, What Makes You Not A Buddhist by Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse. It’s a short and amazingly entertaining read. The author in person is even more thought compelling and fun. :-)
I think we are actually having a meeting of the minds. :-) And, your kind words are appreciated. Buddhist practice actually doesn’t just go with thinking and toss out all emotion. However, as an example and in general, “going postal” is considered among Buddhist practitioners the fruit of the absence of Buddhist practice. You might like this as it gives a glimpse of another side of things we’ve discussed but just said via a Western scientific construct.
I’ve been interested in the Buddha’s teaching on the links of dependent origination (dependent arising) as central to the Four Noble Truths. The points where it seems best to cut off delusion are feeling arising from contact, craving arising from feeling, and clinging (attachment) arising from craving. Mindfulness is an important first step toward understanding and removing delusion.
Buddhism as blind faith is only blind faith. It’s no longer Buddhism as far as I can tell, as experience of the validity of its teachings is key.
If you have a few titles of books that have helped you to better understand the ideas or engage in the practice, please share them!
I can’t quit laughing. Thanks for that..
Yes we are having a meeting of the minds. Just be tolerant of my “doctor think.” Once it grabs you by the balls, or ovaries in my case, it doesn’t let go.
Thanks.
Well said.
You and your fellow posters have had a terrific conversation here. Just wanted to say that.
Best source on this IMO is Tenzin Gyatso (TG). He’s on video tape discussing this and it is a tough go for Westerners given our cultural, um, baggage. I learned the material best by reading, watching and listening and repeating that process as long as it took to get it. Here’s the material free online in audio form (top of the page). Be patient and go slowly. I attended TG’s lecture and was dismayed I did a snooze during part of that as that was *not* my intention.
DING!
The classic first text for study for the Tibetan Buddhist approach to the body of knowledge is Words of My Perfect Teacher by Patrul Rinpoche. A Guide To The Words Of My Perfect Teacher by Khenpo Ngawang Pelzang and The Jewel Ornament of Liberation: The Wish-fulfilling Gem of the Noble Teachings by Gampopa are references so you can look up all the terms as you read the first book (has exercises).
I focused on the material solely for several months including practicums. It’s no different than an athletic conditioning regime with the following analogy: video tape review of what the masters do, practicum to get your body to do it, video tape review to see what to correct, personal coaching back in the physical training arena, off to the race to see what ya’ got then review of the performance with Coach.
My pleasure! Please steal it!!
Thank you for your response. I apparently came across either harsh or stern and I did not intend that and apologize for it. It’s an artifact of electronic, written communication and I am trying to compensate. “Doc think” is not a bad thing in my book as you appear to really take the Hippocratic Oath very seriously and I admire that.
The body of knowledge is vast and there is more than one valid way to make an approach to it therefore the various schools of study. I’ve also found that I had to have some mastery of the history of the knowledge transfer to make more sense of it. Then I had to figure out the cultural differences and abstract that from the knowledge base that cuts across the different schools. I also had to realize the language concept set differential. Now the curriculum is so developed for Westerners, you can do online study with qualified teachers. TG’s materials are unparalleled for easily and swift imparting the material to Westerners. Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche is one of the super hot specialists on the practicum side. Both configured their books to be as good as working with them in person in case that was not physically or financially possible for folks for whatever reason (TG actually dropped the cost of attending events because of the international financial crises). The custom is that you are only paying a portion of the cost to put on the seminar (space rental, etc.) or publish the materials. You never are supposed to ask for money in exchange for the knowledge and one should never give it. You *can* give money for charitable fund raisers and those have very high efficiencies (we are not talking 45% admin costs off the top suff). At TG events the custom is to give the complete financial ledger.
I am very interested in the Rime approach within this system and then looking across the other systems. For instance, I now know even more about Islam thanks to Gorilla Guides. :-)
So for the Tibetan approach to the vast body of knowledge there is a break out of 4 major universities and then a sub categorization possible within in a kinda of time elapsed photography effect. To get a handle on that I recommend at least reading Introduction To Tibetan Buddhism by John Powers and one should to the compare as the knowledge travelled out of India into China into Japan into Afghanistan … you get the drift.
Thanks to all. Off for red wine and Dahlonega gold miner’s burgers.
Thank you! That sounds lovely.
Another joke: “Cookie Monster Metal.” Recognize the elements from the Tibetan tradition? Who (or what) is the Cookie Monster really?
Thank you so much for the thoughtful responses!
I started attending the services of a Tibetan Buddhist center. I don’t participate in the rituals. I just listen as mindfully as I can. When it comes to practice, I’m content to take the first step slowly and stay at stage one for as long as it takes. I’ve read a few of the Pali Canon suttas several times each and a couple of books on practice, including Ajahn Brahm’s Mindfulness, Bliss, and Beyond and Thera Nyanaponika’s The Heart of Buddhist Meditation: Satipatthna: A Handbook of Mental Training Based on the Buddha’s Way of Mindfulness, which are the best of the ones I’ve come across.
OK so another mapping for approaching the vast body of knowledge can be constructed as Hinayana, Mahayana and Vajrayana. I think of them as vehicle 1, vehicle 2 and vehicle 3. They are all held as valid as different kinds of people have different requirements of their vehicles but they are all vehicles. One is not lesser or “better”; they just have names. But they might have slightly different user guides and requirements for use.
Joke: “My other vehicle is the (pick a yana)yana.”
Pratimokṣa-saṃvara (Skt.) is an important component of the Theravadan school and also a subset of both Mahayana and Vajrayana. FYI the Palli is from Nepal, the Sanskrit from India, the Tibetan was directly crafted from the Sanskrit and all are amazing encodements.
I think of Hinayana as being about liberation from the conditions of suffering ultimately through wisdom/enlightenment (the arahant ideal), the Mahayana being about compassion, i.e. the desire to help others escape the conditions of suffering (the bodhisattva ideal), and the Vajrayana being about a combination of the previous two with the additions of veneration for gurus/lamas/teachers as incarnations of bodhisattvas and of tantric rituals and practices (including visualization techniques).
Btw, the Buddha Shakamuni was also from Nepal and most likely spoke Pali!
Thank you for the links for the books as they look really excellent.
Historically, that’s my understanding.
In the Mahayana and Vajrayana, gurus/lamas/teachers as well as the sangha and all sentient beings (e.g. bugs) are actually taken up as an object of practice to develop the awareness, mental acuity and emotional self-mastery of the student. Rejoicing in the virtue and merit of others is one of a set of special psychological practices that is very effective for extinguishing the thinking and destructive habits of Greed, Hatred and Delusion (also see the 4 Opponent Powers). The later can also be expressed as the antithesis of the 6 Paramitas, or, expressed as the 7 misconceptions creating greater suffering for oneself and others (see how I recast the heavily and negatively loaded word “sin”), or, even rolled up into Ignorance (just simply no knowing better versus wilful destructiveness) because if one knew better one would not go there. There are other unique and special practices I have not seen anywhere else (it doesn’t mean that they don’t exist elsewhere, I just haven’t had the exposure to them via other avenues).
The things to which I’ve linked entail poetry and symbol but the common theme is actually objects of practice and one must understand what they mean before one attempts practice. When you see “preliminary” what it really means is “foundational” and to be constantly worked with as one is working with oneself. When you see old films of very respected teachers speaking, rolling rosaries between their fingers and doing everything else they are doing, all of it is some kind of practice because of the awareness, intention and focus behind it. The Indian teacher Mata Amritanandamayi blew me away with her practice. Guru Dev Singh Khalsa blew me away with his practice. There are many more incredible folks with incredible practice of other traditions.
This is where you get beyond me! I’m only vaguely familiar with the Paramitas. The special practices (rituals, prostrations, mantra recitations) seem to me to be based on teachings found in the Pali Canon of the Theravadins, but to be recast into what would appear to most people as religious beliefs and devotional practices. Respecting Gotama for teaching the Dhamma and showing the way and choosing proper models in order to reflect on their virtue and achievements are important, but I have yet to discover within myself anything more than the desire to attain a better perspective on our true nature and on the true nature of existence. When I can, I try to find it in the stillness of the present moment. Clearly, our own ignorance is the cause of our suffering.
I suppose it’s some of the esoteric stuff of Vajrayana, no matter how much its underlying ideas may be rooted in Buddhism, that seems so different from the Buddha’s core teachings.
To Westerners, such things can look like empty ritual, superstition, idol worship or some permutation thereof. Given that this is not a monotheistic or theistic system, there can’t be idol worship. So where is that notion coming from? I had to figure out that the outward appearances of such things triggered for me whatever negative thinking and negative emotions if and as they occurred. After I asked, “What is this and why are you doing it?,” I received a different understanding. “Oh, well that’s not what I thought originally. Ooops.” Then I had to go to the root of where I went wrong in my understanding and perceptions as best I could and undo it or learn to stay aware to avoid such mistakes again.
The value of hard earned respect as a result of investigation, analysis and testing is that it makes it easier for *us* to learn. The value of combining that respect, compassion, positive emotion and conviction gained from the investigation, analysis and testing is that we voluntarily and consciously engage in what we know is worthwhile. Devotion skillfully applied to the teacher (object of practice) that we have qualified via investigation, analysis and testing is that it makes it easier for *us* to achieve our goal of becoming better humans. Eventually we are able to muster a very friendly, durable and consistent level of kindness, clarity, impartiality and skilful means. “emptiness” is related to “skilful means” and is a very important concept that it takes studying and contemplating. Without these, it’s all too easy to engage in intellectual exercises which then renders what we are doing as meaningless rituals (going through the motions which is actually a painful place to be).
Most of us certainly need to be shaken out of our routine thinking in order to think in a new way. Is that what you mean?
My only point is that we need to be careful not to replace old attachments with a set of new ideas and attachments, when the Buddha taught that detachment – beginning with the sustained and focused bare awareness of the present – is the key to experiencing existence in a new way.
To your paragraph 1: The idea is that we apparently have to learn how to be aware. Then we can start shaking ourselves out of our routines that don’t serve us.
To paragraph 2: As in “naked awareness” … agreed. Nice enunciation. Apparently not as easy as it sounds. Mahamudra is a speciality practice apparently really helpful for that.
I need to look at Mahamudra much more. In yogic practices, pranayama looks interesting. Otherwise, I sometimes try to focus on the sounds in Jonathan Goldman’s Chakra Chants or Lost Chord without letting my mind wander into random thoughts. Putting your mind where you want it, when you want it, for as long as you want it there is not easy at all!
No, as long as we keep thinking that solving today’s problems depends on mustering the will to turn the tables, we’re still part of the problem. Other posts here speak to the need for a viable alternative philosophy and vision of reality with a practical program for action. The way we frame the problem limits the alternative solutions we can conceive. Thinking like a modern Cartesian in terms of a subject-object duality leads us to frame problems in terms of solutions that supposedly exist independent of and separate from the problem. That way of thinking is the problem! Thinking instead in terms of the unity and mutual implication of subject and object leads to different ways of framing the relation of solution and problem. For more information, see my blog post on this issue at http://livingcapitalmetrics.wordpress.com/2009/11/22/al-gore-will-is-not-the-problem/.