Chronicles of Personal Practices 1
•October 3, 2008 • No CommentsHaving long been a fan of biographies, diaries and personal histories the advent of blogging is something I really appreciate.
Individuals and groups of people have started to chronicle their practices, opinions of practices, Buddhist viewpoints, criticisms, obstacles and just general perspectives. Below (and in the blogroll along the right) are a number of such blogs that I like to drop in on periodically. They are all thought provoking, interesting and helpful in realizing the depth and breadth of the greater Sangha of Buddhism. There is no preference given for one school or sect over another in this list. When I discover more that I find interesting I will do another piece to highlight those as well.
If you are blogging your experiences/viewpoint or know of others who’s primary, though not exclusive blog focus is their personal practice of Buddhism, please feel free to mention the link in the comments. If your blog is mentioned here and you would like to provide a description of your content or viewpoint let me know and I’ll edit this piece to include that as well. Just put it in the comments with an “add edit” note at the beginning.
Individual Blogs
Group Blogs
Buddhist Drugs and the Emperor’s New Clothes
•September 30, 2008 • 3 CommentsA couple of months ago I was reading some blogs and the comments sections had a lot of opinion and rather soupy emotional outpourings about Good Buddhist/Bad Buddhist, Compassion as Syrupy Balm to Soothe Everything and especially stuff about how Mind Blowing certain Buddhist practices are-mainly chanting and meditation. There’s even a discussion board for this kind of stuff at :
Weird raptures discussion board
That’s kind of typical stuff for Western Buddhism but it keeps cropping up again and again so I am inclined to blast away at this with my opinion as well now.
An edited and amended version of the comment I left on a certain blog was this:
There is a time in practice when some people begin to think they get this interdependence thing. One gets all syrupy and weepy and sobs uncontrollably when their dog takes a shit because it helps the continuity of life by fertilizing the earth, oh the blessed earthworm is me and those flowers are blossoming in my blah blah blah brain. The Heart Sutra nearly gives multiple orgasms every time you hear it and forget about the rush every time a drop of water falls from the faucet into the bathtub as you soak there.This is simple dharma rapture. And it has an ugly side as well. And that starts to come up more and more as one pushes beyond the falseness of the dharma rapture. And its a place most people don’t want to go so they stay all love and light and weepy creepy. Its what I think of as the Buddhist drug of choice. It was mine for a while too when I gave up the other kind many years ago. It’s E alright but not Enlightenment.
And on the other side of it is another kind of realization which I’ll address also.
After the first time I felt these Dharma Rapture experiences, which generally came up during Pure Land chanting (I noticed this and then proceeded to seek it out at every turn cause it was such a rush sometimes-it became an attachment in a heavy emotional way and then like an addiction for a couple of years-a teacher I asked said not to worry about it as I would grow out of it eventually-he laughed at me actually-but he was right. After I did “grow out of it” I felt something like this.
The superficiality of EVERYTHING was becoming incredibly frustrating. The feeling was like “How can YOU-meaning everyone else in the world-take any of this bullshit seriously?” Its all made up. Everyone is just a made up conglomeration of stuff from this fake world, this dream and is believing in it with all their might. And they are defending it and they are even willing to fight and die to maintain this facade. What you think you are is just a result of biology/culture/parenting/education/experience/worldly fake stuff. Can’t you see that? What a bunch of fools.
At the same time for someone who takes the Bodhisattva viewpoint seriously there is this incredible urgency to wake them all up. To dispense this knowledge to as many as possible by any means available or necessary. To shout at them, slap them, zap them with a taser if necessary, anything to get a non-conditioned response. But most people aren’t ready for that. And the urgency to do something drastic about it also indicated to me that I was as tied to it as everyone else. Eventually-meaning 10 years later or so-I just decided to write a blog-this one and carry on with things as they are. So I guess there is a lot of “growing out of it” to be done.
A blissed-out mind-blowing experience is what many people believe a Buddhist practice will lead to. And for a while it may just do that. It’s all Makyo/Maya/Illusion/The Demons and Angels in Your Head. And then its a down trip to the point where one realizes everything including the wonderful experiences are not real. There seems to be nothing left. Nothing to grasp on to. Everything is amorphous, moving, changing.
How does one feel secure in that? Security itself is also an illusion. That’s a big one to deal with but the more these illusory things reveal themselves for what they are actually the less fear there is about the big question of What Comes Next?!?! Because whatever comes next is just reality stripped (or partially stripped or in various stages of undress) of all the big ominous ego-verifying and inflating and solidifying and petrifying ideas/thoughts/judgements/wishes/attachments/hopes/fears and other ego-bound stuff.
And its OK.
The Buddhist Dope Show
•September 20, 2008 • No CommentsThey love you when you’re on all the covers
When you’re not then they love another*
Occasionally I take friends who come to visit India around and the number one place they want to go is to “the place where His Holiness the Dalai Lama lives”. Said in hushed and oh-so-holy-ish tones.
And every one of them is disappointed.
Recently I traveled with a friend to Dharamshala and McLeod Ganj to see the Buddhist stuff up there and it got me considering the spectacle of Buddhism in particular and Eastern religion in general, to the Western viewpoint. And further the apparent need to make it into a spectacle on the part of some Buddhist teachers, a few who I quite respect, as well. Perhaps this is not a conscious effort on their parts but a symptom of the hype-driven culture in which they are attempting to practice and teach and perhaps it is a result of the sometimes very subtle ego-massage of being rather “special” in America.
I mean really Brad Warner on CNN explaining the meaning of life according to Zen-he’s got the punk rock hype that oh say Norman Fischer, Gil Fronsdal or Joan Halifax just can’t muster! He’s got the legions of Suicide Girls (featured on CSI:NY no less!) as well so he must have that “special something” that every spiritual master needs. Check out the new zazen instructions by the Suicide babes! But you need three arms to appreciate it properly. And besides he works in the movie biz and lives in LA, wellspring of all deep spiritual truth. He must also have a good media guy at his publishers-new book coming out and all.
(Hey, I like Brad’s stuff sometimes and even comment on his blog as NellaLou in case you think this is just a hater type statement. And had Suicide Girls been around back when I had my purple mohawk hair and piercings-we’re talking contemporary with Siouxsie and the Banshees here-then I’d have signed up right off.)
Here in India one trips over Buddhist monks, gurus and holy men at nearly every corner. Their “specialness” is not all that spectacular. Their prevalence is as numerous as say local barbers or in some parts, shopkeepers. It is their profession in life if you will. And while it still ranks as a “calling” to many, but not all, as some are placed in monasteries as children to be educated and brought up there, it is little different than the “calling” or “duty” of a Catholic nun, a Baptist or Anglican preacher, aboriginal shaman or any other religious mediator. Here’s a couple of Hindu priests and Buddhist monks at their places of work.
Priest at Dodital Temple. Dodital is the mythological birthplace of Lord Ganesha-the elephant headed god, son of Shiva and Parvati, remover of obstacles, patron of writers etc. Priests perform the rituals they have been trained to do and then ask for a donation for their work. It’s a fairly straightforward transaction.
Local priest at Lakhamandel, site of one of the most glorious episodes in the Mahabharata, the great HIndu epic, wherein the enemies of the Pandavas built a dwelling of wax for them and then set it on fire in an effort to kill them and win the battle. But the Pandavas dug themselves out and escaped to caves in the area and were saved. Lord Krishna helped them during their struggles by giving advice to the brother Arjuna in the form of the Bhagavad Gita which forms part of the Mahabharata.
This priest, like thousands like him, is a local villager with a family and likely some land to cultivate and whenever people show up at the temple he or another if another is available, will come and do the necessary temple things before going back to their farming, lunches or other activities. We interrupted him at tea time I think.
Here’s a rather drunk Buddhist priest in Thailand. He was chanting Buddhist chants and mixing in some of the popular Thai songs from the radio in the heat of the afternoon.
In Dharamshala a bunch of monks, and some outside people, including locals and foreigners are debating Dharma in the courtyard of the temple. Sometimes the debaters just look bored and even yawn when the person making the point is going on at some length. But sometimes it is really engaging. Once I saw a debate get so heated that one guy slapped the other one. Same thing has happened when local monks here got into a football (soccer) match with some local Indian guys. Once the police had to intervene to break it up.
So the point is these are just fairly ordinary people who do the same kind of stuff anyone else does. They are not floating a foot off the ground with garlands of marigolds and roses plopping out of their asses behind them.
This is true in Dharamshala also. It’s a fairly ordinary Indian tourist town. Lots of hotels, souvenir shops and touts trying to sell you anything and everything. Lots of Tibetan folks there too and some monasteries but that is true of a lot of Indian towns in the Himalayas. There are over 100,000 Tibetans in India and they don’t all live at Dharamshala. Even His Holiness the Dalai Lama doesn’t live there. He lives at McLeod Ganj which is 9 kilometers above the town of Dharamshala. And McLeod Ganj is pretty ordinary as well. A few temples like most towns and a lot of tourists, similar to many towns in the Himalaya such as Manali, Leh, Shimla and Rishikesh. His house is not a big palace and the temple over which he presides, while being a little more spacious is very similar to Tibetan Buddhist temples everywhere. In fact its not as “nice” as many of the newer ones. The big difference between him and an ordinary monk seems only to be in his level of responsibility. He is the head of a government in exile after all. That adds a few security features and a certain amount of camera glare to his rather ordinary life. In popular belief he is the incarnation of the Buddha of Compassion. That he himself would believe that in ego terms and act in a manner befitting a quasi-mythological being is another matter entirely.
This aura of holiness for religious leaders, and even for religious places, is in the minds of the believers. It does not waft off of them like some kind of celestial perfume that envelops the senses and renders one zombified in the face of the divine on earth. It is an illusory thing that propels some believers to sustain their beliefs. Yes there is an amount of respect for those who are involved primarily with religious vocations but none of this rarified air of divinity and absolute purity is part of any of these folks daily lives.
What seems to happen in the West, and unfortunately increasingly in India, such as the Sai Baba phenomenon for example, is these rather ordinary people are cloaked with, or sometimes assume the cloak of religious infallibility. Some small time teacher, guru, yogi or monk starts out with rather good intentions and finds himself soon attracting a crowd of “handlers” and sycophants. And some charlatans, con men and fakes are certainly among them as well. Then the show begins.
The center of attention gets a whole new wardrobe and stage setting. This usually involves the color orange or yellow (both seeming rather “Eastern”) and a big big chair. For more serious situations purple is invoked. Camera angles are calculated and spot lights set just so. Set decorations and appropriate background music are chosen for the perfect effect. Hair and makeup are given some attention. As is the massaging of the message in order to reach as wide an audience as possible. The message gets inflated along with the ego of the messenger. And here come the fluffers to kick things off. A few nubile babes (male or female) or pictures thereof, gazing all raptured out and ecstatic in their robes, and there’s always some kind of robes, is always helpful. They are all soooo totally satisfied with the experience. And you can be too. They can help you with that. Really! Just like the big spiritual wank off its becoming.
There’s lots of pretty, pretty ones
Who want to get you high
But all the pretty, pretty ones
Will leave you low
And blow your mind
They’ll blow your mind*
And when the music’s over and the lights go down people are left wondering what’s next? Where’s the next big thing going on? Do I go for the Kalachakra Tantra teaching or do I go to Pondicherry India and join an ashram? Has Osho got an opening for some new talent? Top that off with a little Burning Man in the interim and maybe that will be enough. Or should I move to Japan and try to get in on the big Kensho show? More, More, More. Bigger, better, stronger, louder, brighter, faster, stranger. It must be found. I need that big spiritual hit.
Searching for Satori
The kick in the eye**
There is a certain type of spiritual literacy that needs to be cultivated along with a Buddhist Practice or any spiritual practice. Anyone, anywhere can make any sort of claim and pump up any sort of hype about their “depth of understanding” or “reception of universal secrets” or “powerful supernatural abilities”. They can make gold watches appear out of thin air-as a certain very famous Indian Hindu guru does for his important Bollywood type followers or they can read the very thoughts of the long dead-a couple of Hollywood types claim that. They can connect with the ancient spiritual masters and channel Joan of Arc along with CNN-Simultaneously!!! There is no limit to the fantastic abilities these enlightened folks pull out of their asses. And some of them say they are Buddhists.
What the fuck! I’m getting on this gravy train too. My name is Marushka. Or is it Missusmanjushri or something else? Gotta do a focus group to get it right. I live in northern India. In the mighty Himalayas no less! I’ve been a Buddhist practitioner for nearly 30 years. Probably longer than most of the people reading this have been alive. That makes me really ancient and wise beyond belief. I’ve got a magical blog that some people actually read, comment upon and egads (I told you I was ancient. I even use words like egads) subscribe to by email (link to your right). Soon I’ll have a hundred books of drivel for you to purchase and a thousand different t-shirt designs as well. All made by child laborers in Calcutta to max out my profits. But really it is an act of compassion to exploit people as sometimes love is tough you know? I’m doing everyone a big big favor. Of course everything I spew out is a precious nugget of spiritual gold. Let’s put it all on billboards around the world! Start a whole media deluge! Now where’s my big big chair?
After all:
We’re all stars now in the Buddhist dope show*
*Lyrics from the Marilyn Manson song “The Dope Show”
**Lyrics from Bauhaus “Kick in the Eye”
PS. Maybe I should have called this The Religious Dope Show because I’ve seen on various Christian channels a lot of similar things. But I’ll wrestle Christians at some future time no doubt.
The Best and Worst of Islam in 10 Minutes or Less
•September 15, 2008 • No CommentsYesterday Delhi got hit with more terrorist bombs. The people in the busy markets were the targets. In the past month I have been to Delhi 3 times. Some of these markets are stopping points for me if time allows. Emails sent by the bombers claim that they are a Muslim group that is an offshoot of a banned Islamic students organization and ostensibly the purpose of the bombs was to “punish” India for the way Muslims are currently and have been historically treated in this country.
Fundamentalism and factionalism of every kind; Islamic, Hindu, Christian, Maoist and even to a small extent Buddhist is rising here and elsewhere. In the Buddhist circumstance I am talking about the Shugden controversy within Tibetan Buddhism.
What all these have in common is the theme of oppression of a minority by a majority or by authority. Some have specific grievances with specific authority (the Shugden situation). Some have an evangelical zeal that causes them to misinterpret Christian teachings into a cult of self-denigration and abhorrence for Indian culture. (More on this coming up in another post) And others have vague complaints against anything and everything that doesn’t seem to agree with their extreme viewpoint (the RSS and Hindutva movement including the Shiv Sena and people like Raj and Bal Thakery in Maharashtra-that is the hard core Saffronists who would very much like to see India become a Hindu theocracy or regional kingdom in the Maharashtra case rather than a diverse democracy) (Don’t get jumpy that I am all about Hindu bashing here because Lord Buddha is, after all, the incarnation of Vishnu and as a Buddhist, technically in this country, that at least makes me a Hindu in-law if not a blood relative! And I do respect that enormously.)
The last paragraph just gave me ideas for about a dozen other posts here but back to the topic at hand for now.
Islam is a religion I have studied academically and encountered many times in travels and friendships. I had the good fortune to spend some quiet afternoons over spiced apple tea in Istanbul with a number of Sufi practitioners and found their approach to Islam really interesting (and even more recently here in India with some Kashmiri folks). And having taken the time to read several translations of the Koran and Hadith as well as other writings I have found there is much wisdom and beauty in the texts and beliefs. Of course this can be said about most religions.
The impetus for religion seems to have been universal in human history . It seems to have arisen from a desire of the human species to understand, realize and/or experience something that is behind/above/inside/beyond/beneath/around/throughout that mundane/normal/ordinary situation that day to day life (pratikya) provides. People want something else or something more out of existence. A deeper meaning or a meaning in general and a connection with the source of that meaning, however achieved, is the principle purpose of religion.
But meaning can become dependent upon interpretation. Interpretation can be a very open or a very closed phenomenon. It is often dependent upon the wishes and desires of the ego of the individual making the interpretation and/or the individual choosing to adopt the interpretation of another. And that is what I want to illustrate here.
I had an interesting experience in Muscat Oman in 2002. While doing some traveling I decided to spend some time in a Muslim country. It was a year after 9/11 and the Western world (America, Europe etc) had been changed by the events of that day and I wondered how or if the Islamic world had also been changed. I had been to Turkey previously and although very much influenced by Europe and secularism it still retained a strong Islamic identity. After some research and a few inquiries Oman seemed to be a country in which a single foreign woman would be able to travel and experience the culture without many difficulties. The question of difficulties for single women travelers arises everywhere in the world not just in a Middle Eastern context. Let me be clear about that.
The flight from Mumbai India to Muscat on Omani Airlines was comfortable and the customs process was fine despite my visa not being quite in order. I had a reservation in a hotel along the Corniche which is a wide avenue that is adjacent to the Gulf of Oman and had booked a room with a view of the water. When I arrived I was shown to a room with a heavily shuttered window at the side of the hotel and which had a view of the wall of the building next door. I could push the shutters open and see a narrow walkway several stories below but it wasn’t used much except by the local cats. The explanation for this that I was given was that the previous guest in the room I had booked had not checked out and had in fact decided to stay on for some time. It did not seem to occur to the manager to give me another room on another floor with a view of the water. And since the hotel was very nearly empty that certainly would have been possible. But I decided to just wait it out for a day or two and see what would happen.
So I took strolls around the neighborhood which is the oldest in Muscat and dates back many centuries to the times when it was one of the major trading ports in the Gulf area and for points along the east coast of Africa, which it still is in terms of the oil trade. Huge oil tankers could be seen anchored out on the water and some of the local vessels could also be seen closer to shore as they brought cargo to and from the local coast and Iran and Pakistan.
I made the acquaintance of some of the local shopkeepers including a perfumer who sold some of the amazing scented oil and frankincense that Oman is famous for and a convenience store owner who sold just about anything you’d find in a local 7-11 in North America as well as some home cooked local specialty fast foods. One day I stopped into the latter shop for some snacks and noticed some pieces of cloth hanging on a hook on the wall. They were black cloths about an inch wide with gold embroidered Arabic lettering on them. I asked the guy what they were. He said “Those are not for you” and just smiled. Then after he rang up my order he handed me a silver and red bag of biscuit type cookies. They were called “Little Hearts.” He said “For you dear miss.” It was a really touching kind of gesture. They had a slightly sweet yet salty taste and reminded me of the taste of tears.
A few days later I was on my way back to the hotel from the Souk which is the old covered bazaar after some shopping. In the past few days I had finally gotten the room I had reserved and been shifted out of the purdah of the side room. It was getting on to evening and the sun was sinking behind the buildings and surrounding mountains so it was not too hot for a stroll along the walkway that surrounds the water. As I walked I noticed that traffic had really started to thin out. And some of the shops had shuttered their doors. My thought was that it was prayer time or some kind of start of a holiday or something as they were usually open until quite late in the evening. And after about a half hour the street was empty of both traffic and pedestrians. Intuition told me this was probably not a good thing.
I started back towards my hotel when I saw a couple of white pick up trucks coming down the road in the distance. There were a lot of people standing in the back of each of them and they seemed to be shouting some kind of slogans. Truly this was not a good thing. As all the shops now across the street from my position were closed there was nowhere for me to go except into the water if I wanted to climb the railing and take a swim with my packages, purse and clothes on. So I did what any stupid tourist would do and sat down on the bench and stared at the vehicles as they approached and began to slow down. Some of the occupants stopped shouting and just looked at me as if I was mad. I noticed they mostly had on black headbands with gold embroidered Arabic lettering. Yes this was definitely not for me.
Then suddenly, out of nowhere, as they say, three women appeared. They were wearing full abayas with face coverings. One sat on each side of me and another much older lady stood in front, between me and the trucks full of men. She said something brief and biting to the men. Some of them turned their heads away. Then she apparently told them to go and they revved the trucks with a macho aplomb and sped off. The older lady put her hand on my shoulder as if to comfort me and said something which I understood to mean “Go inside” or words to that effect. They walked me across the street and then all three went into a small gated lane way that led to the Shia quarter. The Shia quarter is where many of the Pakistani families live when they come to work in Oman.
The whole event took 10 minutes or less.
A couple of minutes later I reached my hotel and turned on CNN. The bombings in Bali had just occurred. The young Omani men in the trucks had been celebrating in solidarity with the event.
I started shaking and crying with the shock of realization of what had just occurred both in Bali and in the street outside. It took quite some time to come to terms with what it meant.
The next morning the hotel was empty. The Australian girl who had arrived a few days earlier and had a room on the same floor as me had left very early for the airport the desk clerk told me. Earlier I had a conversation with her and she told me she had planned to stay a week at least. I went down to the dining room and was the only patron for breakfast.
For the next few days I only left the hotel for food and essentials. My time was nearly up and I just wanted to reflect on what had happened. These nameless and faceless women have since come to represent to me the best of Islam. Their attitude is one that I have encountered since in India and elsewhere. They reflected the courage of belief in the peace the prophet taught and the deeper meaning of Allah beyond petty human politics and egos.
But considering history and the human propensity for interpretation through ego bound tunnel vision moving beyond the ordinary to the extraordinary is the exception rather than the rule. But as long as there are exceptions there remains an impetus for the search for meaning to continue.
The view of the Corniche from my hotel window in Muscat Oman
The Gift
•August 12, 2008 • No CommentsWe are all so entranced with the wrapping paper that the gift is ignored.
Waterproof Buddhists and Kung Fu Scuba Gear
•August 11, 2008 • No CommentsJust finished browsing through a whole pile of Buddhist blogs and what occurred to me was that I was reading, on many of them, exactly the same things. They seemed to fall into certain catagories such as:
The quoter-full of quotes of sutras, dharma talks, and famous sayings. If supplemented by commentary, which is rarely the case, it is usually very brief and full of Pali and/or Sanskrit and/or Chinese and/or Japanese terms (often with diacritics and original language characters) which the ordinary reader would not understand.
The paraphraser-rewriting the books, articles etc. that have been read without adding any personal insight.
The intellectualizer-combination of quoter and paraphraser but will dwell upon one concept for a long treatise and come to no conclusion.
The Buddhism confuser-often talks about right and wrong or “sin”and imposes a pre-existing non-Buddhist moral/religious/social structure onto Buddhist teachings.
Flower child Buddhists-leafy poetry at length
Those are just a few of the catagories that sprung to mind as I read. What strikes me about all of them is a lack of understanding of the subject matter of Buddhism. In all cases they are a superficial gloss that may sound authoritative but miss the exact points they are perhaps hoping to explicate.
I don’t know if this is due to getting Buddhism from books, popular culture or friends rather than teachers or if it is a symptom of a greater problem in Western Buddhism in general.
It is a lack of depth that seems to be the main issue. As Edie Brickell so aptly intoned “Choke me in the shallow water before I get too deep.” in the song What I Am, some folks seem to panic when the subject starts to overwhelm and just stay in the safe zone rather than dive deeper.
Buddhist concepts take time to understand fully. And they take serious thought and a certain amount of willingness to self-reflect.
This reminds me of things I learned in my martial arts training. Some people advocate practicing the same kata (form or series of coreographed movements) for 5 years or longer. The point is to obtain a deep understanding of each movement itself and each movement as it relates to the others. And then the point is to understand how each of these movements works in actual application. That is in relation to an opponent or series of opponents. It continually expands outward through understanding the interactions. But it begins with learning the individual movement itself well.
Buddhism is like that too.
There is some hope on this front however. A couple of the blogs really took their issues on and wrestled with them from personal perspectives. People discussed how Buddhism applied to their ordinary lives. They had actually thought about it beyond making food choices or how many hours per week to meditate or what to wear to the next sesshin. And the application of it in every aspect is what comprises a Buddhist life rather than a Buddhist lifestyle.
Exploitation or Contribution? Who’s Manipulating Your Karma?
•August 10, 2008 • No CommentsThere are a lot of ways people are exploited in the world. And often we are taught to view this exploitation as something other than it is. Some time ago I wrote a little blurb about why I don’t write book reviews for the Mega-bookseller sites. Here is an excerpt:
Why would someone write book reviews that very few people would see? Why not put them on the big mega-bookseller sites?
Part of the answer has to do with the exploitation of people for the purpose of company profits. It seems to me that these companies are getting thousands of hours of work and gigabytes of content, some of it very good quality, from unsuspecting people.
Consider, for example, the top reviewers. There are people who have done over a thousand reviews. If each review of these top people takes about an hour-give or take- that’s a thousand hours of work. Suppose they were being paid $10 per hour-and copywriters make more than that-then they’ve just given away 10,000 dollars worth of work. For what? Well there are bragging rights and the little badge they get by their name on a site. But that’s it.
No doubt for some people book reviewing has become a hobby and they like to see the product of their labors shown to as many as possible. That of course is their choice. And maybe they can even list it as an accomplishment on their resumes.
But for others it would seem that the only time they review is when they have some disagreement with previous reviews or if they want to amplify some point that they think was not particularly well made.
This is where the marketing comes in. My question is who posted the first reviews? Authors? Publishers? Booksellers? And what books were they about? Bestsellers? Possibly were they by some people hired by the companies to get things started? To generate some hype about particular items?
And once the ball was rolling then genuine reviews from individuals with no connection to the products started to appear. And incentives, such as badges and rankings, were offered to keep those people coming back and working. It’s an ego massage and a marketing ploy. And with the possibility of these reviews being seeded by the companies there is always some question as to their veracity, just like anything else on the Internet.
As I consider this in more detail and from the perspective of practice it has become more clear that the whole ploy is an ego appeal to enlist people to work for free and make profit for others. I did mention that in the original piece.
The thing that is disturbing me now is how widespread this kind of manipulation has become. And how blatant. Yet folks cheerfully send in their contributions not realizing the entirety of the effects it has both on perpetuating the profit motive and the manipulation of themselves.
If karma is seen as the action of cause and effect and it becomes bound to the ego or worse local opinion in the form of so called morality, then people are ripe for exploitation through emotional channels. Anyone who understands this, be they marketers, politicians, spin doctors, religious fanatics, television network programmers, advertisers, lawyers, cult leaders or terrorists, can have a free hand at obtaining whatever objective they have in mind.
This is why self-examination is important, be that through meditation, awareness, mindfulness or whatever you want to call it. To be able to slow the automatic responses to situations, examine them and then realize their origins and motivations within, frees a person from the often deliberately programmed manipulated responses. Then true freedom awaits.
What other topics are of interest?
•August 1, 2008 • 3 CommentsI have several article topics that I plan to write about in the next while. Some of these include:
PTSD and Buddhism
More on Compassion
Choosing a Religious Teacher (Buddhist or other)
Management of Emotions
Ego versus Personality
Karma-what it is and isn’t
Each of these if rather vague presently. Most will be in a series of some sort. Some I’ve started and others I’ve done some research on already.
Is there something that you feel hasn’t been addressed in current Buddhist literature. I can only offer my opinion, the experience of my practice and my life, some writing ability and research skills to address things so I may not always agree entirely. Nonetheless dialogues have to start somewhere.
Feel free to leave your views.
A fair comment policy is in use here so I don’t expect agreement but also I don’t expect or tolerate outright abuse. Abuse without any substance or reasonable argument may or may not be removed from comments. My choice. Just so you know.
