Right, which is why they don't try do or say such things. My point is that it is possible to form a political/social ethic from this individual ethic, and this idea of a Buddhist social ethic goes back to the time of the Buddha and is integral to the religion, so politics and Buddhism aren't fundamentally separate things.
Dharmic Socialism Thread
Ryder Ramirez
Logan Cooper
I'm not sure. I only have a rudimentary understanding, after all. It's admittedly hard to accurately describe the state of enlightenment, since i'm so far from it myself.
Robert Nguyen
Śākyamuni Buddha refused to describe it positively, for reasons that make sense given the Buddhist philosophical perspective on what final liberation actually entails. It sort of can't be positively described by definition, except for that definition itself. We can describe it in terms of what it isn't though, and it is not suffering. So it is true that the path that leads to final liberation is also the path that leads out of suffering.
Angel Price
bigthink.com
What is your take on that?
I find it mostly bullshit of course because I've read 道元 and I somehow instictually know that Buddhism can be reconciled with even the worst (best) form of anarchism straight from the mud of the Neva
And of course the future of cybernetic degrowth that will save the world and use the secondary contradiction of climate change to install communism will accept some form of post-Nishitani dharmic/confucian as its spiritual casing.
And I base this on a material reckoning, because the East Asian sphere is where demographic/geographical constraints, productive forces and planning meet to produce a local optimum for this kind of development.
Russkies and Anglos can just say borders closed and play at resource extracting fashie pseudoethnostate, and the EU will probably turn into a smileyface fortress soon, but if you look at one satellite photo of the Mekong or Pearl River Delta you just know that the PRC and others have some smart people working on similar issues right now.
And Japan's economy is basically a very delicate minimax problem with a trans identity of postmodern hellscape by now, so I'm sure there are people there too.
So, I'll skip the usual questions about ethics and so on but I would like sources and w/e on the following things, if available.
Buddhist take on Anthropocene/ Alienation, my trail for good modern buddhism got jammed by so many fucking freaks and I just gave up, if any responsible people can give me a book I'd be glad.
Also sources/takes on Vajrayana and Shingon please, if you can find a social aspect to that I'll be glad but good commentary and source texts would suffice.
Could there ever be hope for a lefty Sokka Gakkai type of organization? Lots of volunteering and solidarity and so on? Are there any examples?
Anything else you'd like to add or say, especially on fucking Dougen, I love that guy, and I've already read or bookmarked everything in this thread and more books please.
Jonathan Lee
In Metteyya Era the need of market and agricultural will be eliminate people will get things from giant kalpa trees in stead this is what Theravada teach.
Samuel Morales
Huh, that article is interesting, since it is a much better take on Buddhism than his main line about Zen militarism or whatever. He seems to actually engage with Buddhist philosophy a bit.
That's interesting that you're so sure about this. I have had some similar thoughts, but I don't know if it is necessarily the case. Why do you think this will be?
Jill S. Schneiderman has written some papers on this I think. In terms of canonical works, there's a lot of stuff about the progression of history, but here's some things that comes to mind:
"At a time when rulers are unprincipled, officials become unprincipled. When officials are unprincipled, holy men and householders become unprincipled. When holy men and householders are unprincipled, the people of town and country become unprincipled. When the people of town and country are unprincipled, the courses of the moon and sun become erratic. … the courses of the stars and constellations … the days and nights … the months and fortnights … the seasons and years become erratic. … the blowing of the winds becomes erratic and chaotic. … the deities are angered. … the heavens don’t provide enough rain. … the crops ripen erratically. When people eat crops that have ripened erratically, they become short-lived, ugly, weak, and sickly." - AN 4.70
"At present, brahmin, people are excited by illicit lust, overcome by unrighteous greed, afflicted by wrong Dhamma. As a result, they take up weapons and slay one another…
When this happens, sufficient rain does not fall. As a result, there is a famine, a scarcity of grain; the crops become blighted and turn to straw…
When this happens, the yakkhas release wild spirits…
Hence many people die." - AN 3.56
"There will come a time, mendicants, when these people will have children who live for ten years. Among the people who live for ten years, girls will be marriageable at five. The following flavors will disappear: ghee, butter, oil, honey, molasses, and salt. The best kind of food will be finger millet, just as fine rice with meat is the best kind of food today.
The ten ways of doing skillful deeds will totally disappear, and the ten ways of doing unskillful deeds will explode in popularity. Those people will not even have the word ‘skillful’, still less anyone who does what is skillful. And anyone who disrespects mother and father, ascetics and holy men, and fails to honor the elders in the family will be venerated and praised, just as the opposite is venerated and praised today.
There’ll be no recognition of the status of mother, aunts, or wives and partners of teachers and respected people. The world will become promiscuous, like goats and sheep, chickens and pigs, and dogs and jackals.
They’ll be full of hostility towards each other, with acute ill will, malevolence, and thoughts of murder. Even a mother will feel like this for her child, and the child for its mother, father for child, child for father, brother for sister, and sister for brother. They’ll be just like a deer hunter when he sees a deer—full of hostility, ill will, malevolence, and thoughts of killing.
Among the people who live for ten years, there will be an interregnum of swords lasting seven days. During that time they will see each other as beasts. Sharp swords will appear in their hands, with which they’ll take each other’s life, crying ‘It’s a beast! It’s a beast!’" - DN 26
"There comes a time when, after a very long period has passed, the rain doesn’t fall. For many years, many hundreds, many thousands, many hundreds of thousands of years no rain falls. When this happens, the plants and seeds, the herbs, grass, and big trees wither away and dry up, and are no more…
…this great earth and Sineru the king of mountains erupt in one burning mass of fire. And as they blaze and burn the flames are swept by the wind as far as the Brahmā realm. Sineru the king of mountains blazes and burns, crumbling as it’s overcome by the great fire. And meanwhile, mountain peaks a hundred leagues high, or two, three, four, or five hundred leagues high disintegrate as they burn. And when the great earth and Sineru the king of mountains blaze and burn, no soot or ash is found…
…So impermanent are preparations, so unstable are preparations, so unreliable are preparations. This is quite enough for you to become disillusioned, dispassionate, and freed regarding all preparations." - AN 7.66
Jackson Gomez
On the Tibetan side there's a zillion good books on it you could fine googling, so I'll give some for Shingon: Kūkai: Major Works, The Weaving of Mantra, Shingon Buddhism: Theory and Practice, and Kūkai on the Philosophy of Language are good English works. If you know Japanese, check out 田中成明の真言密教入門.
I think the existing Engaged Buddhist organizations could definitely be pulled left, especially since a lot of their leadership have expressed anticapitalist sentiments. Especially given the threats of climate change, which many Engaged Buddhists leaders seem to care a lot about, there's a lot of ground for left-wing stuff.
The International Network of Engaged Buddhists is a meta organization for Engaged Buddhist groups.
My interaction with that lineage of Buddhism is primarily through its Vietnamese communities, so I don't know much about the Japanese trends. I've been meaning to read some though, since I am sympathetic to that kind of East Asian Buddhism, even though I have been immersed in Indo-Tibetan culture throughout my life and thus feel much closer to that kind of Buddhism.
Adrian Cook
Clearly we should understand this to mean that Metteyya will establish full communism!
Eli Diaz
I think we could definitely use some form of moral or psychological support on this board and within the ideology. Leftists focus so much on the issues of the world that we tend to forget about our own well-being. I'm not entirely sure in what way this could be done, but i am certain that leftism requires some anti-demoralization campaign, especially with the high rate that people give up entirely engaging in politics because of how numerous our enemies are, and because of personal problems which nobody has an answer for.
Chase Torres
Yeah Yeah, Buddhas fully understand that the need of work hinder people from studying dharma and practicing vipassana. I never get it why a lot of Trots joined Zen or Theravada sect with heavily zen influence like Santi Asoke or Suan Mokkh after 80s while still preserve their anti-capitalism point of view after study more in to Buddhism.