[Buddha-l] Re: Aama do.sa I

[Joy Vriens]

Hi Dan,

>As you have redefined "surrender," it would seem you mean something more 
>like "let be" (e.g., Heidegger's Gelassenheit -- perhaps you are 
>uncomfortable with possible associations to laissez-faire, which has taken 
>on capitalist connotations?) than what is normally meant by surrender. 

Perhaps letting go rather than letting be. Gelassenheit, yes, but being conditioned with Western hyperactivity and interventionism, I do indeed feel a bit uncomfortable with that. One of the solutions would be to take a more "active" part in the Gelassenheit, by, like the Stoics or Nietzsche's Amor fati, wanting to happen what happens, instead of undergoing it passively. But isn't that to stroke the ego in the end and to imagine some sort of control that one doesn't really have?   

>Letting be has its virtues, but sometimes one has to take control and direct 
>things. Letting be -- aside from passivity problems, which are 
>significant -- can also become very unethical, and an excuse for not doing 
>what needs to be done. The ethical position would be a middle way -- that 
>is, by analysis, figure out when, where, how to direct one's action, and 
>when, where, how to desist. Too many missionaries is a problem; letting 
>dangerous trends increase and intensify is also a problem. Knowing when, 
>where, how and why to intercede, rather than interfere, requires analysis. 

Difficult question and one that keeps me very busy. What I see as a dangerous trend, greed and "growth" as an ancient main value, but more and more monopolising other values, is increasing and intensifying. And I don't see anything can be done about that. We live in democracies and if the majority decides that is the direction to be taken, then what can be done about that? Marxism and socialism have always been countervalues to that, very imperfect, but at least they were productive countervalues. They are more and more considered as a naive daydream and are losing power and even credibility. Social cohesion and solidarity are slowly crumbling. Elections don't offer a real choice and therefore, I don't participate anymore. Not participating, I don't feel responsible for the choices made. I follow the line and accomplish what is expected of me like a good Confucian, or like Arjuna. But at the bottom line there is disengagement, adieu Sartre. 
 
>> > Actual 
>> >enlightenment is a long way off for them, anuttara-samyak-sambodhi, 
>> >somewhere in the infinite kalpa future. But, tautologically, they 
>believe, 
>> >to enter the path is already to be guaranteed the end, so the telos is 
>> >already present. 
>> 
>> Which procures some peace and rest so one can walk the path placidly. 
 
>Maybe. Or maybe it just becomes a transcendental justifier for doing what 
>one does with complacency, assigning it greater scope and import and 
>righteousness than it deserves. In order to be complacent. And 
>self-justified. 

That's a risk, but if the initial conversion (bodhicitta) was genuin, then it will be unlikely.
 
>> But then nothing is, sabbam dukkham. This self-realising tautological idea 
>of imperfection may hurt you... 
 
>The order is reversed. We are not (or should not) be talking about original 
>sin here, or some other silly idea -- which puts the telos in the past (how 
>confused is that?). Pain, suffering, dukkha, discomfort, etc., are physical, 
>emotional, mental, etc. indicators that things are not right. Pollution 
>doesn't disappear because I surrender to it, or let it be.

Pollution, ok, let's take that as an exemple for what I said above. To really fight pollution, we need to rethink the way we live. And the way we live is based on greed/growth. Are we considering  to reduce the number of cars or to develop public transport? No. We will develop ecofuels (?), which are already presented in advertising as a positive contribution from industrials and car manufacturers to preserving the environment PLUS the economy. "See we do care and we listen to your wishes and concerns." That sort of an excuse of fighting pollution is dangerous, because hypnotising and we lose precious time.  

>Complacency and 
>compliency don't clean the air, water, food, and mental garbage. One fixes 
>what is broken -- rather than looking around for things that are fine and 
>tinkering and modifying with them until one breaks them. There are plenty of 
>broken things around in need of fixing. 

And many of those broken things proceed from the imperative of growth of individual nations, individual corporates and individual shareholders. They could only be fixed by changing some very fundamental values and we are not ready to do that. Keeping patching up broking things without tackling the real causes, what's the point?   
 
> >"Mourir pour des idées, d'accord, mais de mort lente" (Georges Brassens). 
 
>This had me laughing out loud! And the slower, the better! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgrQ67SswJ8
http://www.projetbrassens.eclipse.co.uk/pages/transmourir.html

>> Aha, I see an agreement. Effort stands in the way of figuring out things. 
>I imagined that your figuring out was will-driven and with effort, but here 
>you seem to suggest another possibility. 
 
>Again, middle way. Some things require more effort than others. There are 
>least resistance-producing ways of trying to get things done (what the 
>Daoists called wuwei), but Buddhists do encourage viirya -- heroic, 
>energetic effort. Since you admire the Vimalakirti, it might be useful to 
>consider that it usually had a companion volume, which almost all the 
>Chinese translators of the Vimalakirti also translated (the earliest Chinese 
>versions of both are no longer extant), and which Lamotte also translated: 
>The "Suura.mgamasamaadhi-suutra (not to be confused with the tantra-tinged 
>Chinese pseudepigraphic text with a similar title), which Lamotte translates 
>as La Concentration de la march héroïque. Does "heroic progress" make you 
>uncomfortable? Can you imagine a version of that which does not imply Onward 
>Christian Soldiers (I will omit our updated Godwin reference) and progresses 
>in a different way, in a different direction? 

I am heroically working at it :-) Thanks for the reading tip.

Joy