[Buddha-l] Jung and Dignaga (Vicente Gonzalez)

[jkirk]

Good question, Mitchell. 
If compassion can be viewed as the imaginative thought-act of
putting ourselves in another's skin or place, of imaginatively
being the other person with all that goes with it, then as
Buddhists, it seems to me we might be able to see both sides of a
conflict as lost in delusion, hatred and greed. This aspect of
practicing compassion strikes me as intriguingly relative: it
only works if one is willing to give up one's axial
stance/location/view in exchange for another's. Aside from
Buddhism's basic moral principles (which it takes as universals),
which if properly observed are to enable skillful compassion,
there seem to be many ways in which Buddhism is also relativistic
because not dogmatic. At least in light of the Pali suttas.

Justice is a matter of law, and civil laws are relative, they
don't necessarily match up with what are taken to be universal
laws. Not yet.  Justice in a universal sense --if there is one,
and in a few instances I happen to think that there is-- isn't a
matter of culture, because cultures are biased and exclusive, for
the most part. With cultures, it is Us vs. Them.

Africa has had an especially bad case of 'us vs. them,' visible
ever since the colonials turned up and began writing about
Africa.  Their very particular ecosystems helped to maintain
tribal solidarity to the exclusion of cooperation across ethnic
boundaries in ways that, say, Europe, only began to overcome with
industrialisation.....which here in the US we tried to overcome
by the Civil War. (Didn't work. War never does.) 

The human tendency to make this distinction even happens in
strange ways in academic discourse, as for example recently
(concerning a film review) where one viewer will see a whole
picture, and another will see --even if not present in the
text--the machinations of an elite class against the subjects. In
this way ideology helps along the invidious distinctions.

Joanna
=======================

So, from a Buddhist point of view, how can there be compassion
for all of the suffering that this involves, from those we
associate ourselves with one way or another to those we have less
understanding or emotional connection with???? 

Mitchell
==========
Homepage (updated 30 December 08):
http://www.geocities.com/jinavamsa (with link to memorial
dedication to Robert C. Solomon) See also
http://www.geocities.com/jinavamsa/mentalhealth.html



      

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