[Buddha-l] Re: Will new the pope verify Buddhist doctrine?

[jkirk]

> >Don't forget all the atrocities committed in the name of Sad-dharma.
> >Buddhists do not get off the human condition hook, I'm afraid. Buddhist
> >history is just not the place to look for instances of inspiring models
> >to follow in the present and the future. Of course, if Buddhist THEORY
> >were followed, the world would no doubt be a better place. But the same
> >could be said of Islamic, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Sikh and Wiccan
> >theory. The world is completely awash in theory, almost all of it good.
> >Alas, it is also completely awash in practice, almost all of it bad.
> >
> Yes - I absolutely agree. I do not think that Buddhists have any
> particular moral authority
> on social issues. As you point out, the opposite could even be argued
> for (Yasutani Roshi's
> writings on Racial Hygene come to mind). But I do think that Socialism
> needs a heavy dose
> of Spirituality, and I think that Buddhism is one, but only one, form of
> Spirituality that can
> help provide this.
>

> Curt
=====================================
"Those who are unaware of the class
> struggle walk about as if they were asleep and dreaming - someone's got to
wake them up!!! "
                 Yes yes and yes.
                  But:
"...one could argue that Socialist
propaganda is only effective to the extent that it truly jives with the
"objective conditions" of the oppressed."

        There's the rub. They think that the objective conditions of their
oppression are abortion, and being prevented from spreading Bible tracts in
schools and monuments of the ten Commandments all over the place, and
attacking Buddhists if there are any in their neighborhoods. Additionally,
they also think that their objective conditions of repression happen if some
Democrat gets elected president and Congress gets a Dem majority, even
though the differences between Dems and the Repugs are objectively minimal.
Marx could in his time only write about bad faith, false consciousness, and
mystification. He had no idea what mass communications and TV in the pulpit
could achieve: Brain-Washing.

That phrase did not even exist in his time

Joanna

Joanna