> In this way, I see the Eightfold Path as a way to escape trishna for
> the goal of nirvana, which essentially seems to be enlightenment as a
> release from samsara, that is, from human’s trishna/thirst for any
> positive goal in the world. Striving for any particular goal would
> not, then, fully recognize the
> impermanence/imperfection/interconnectedness of the world.
That's one way of understanding it. The Mahayana way, for example, is different.
> Buddhism might indeed be a “technology to reduce suffering,” but it
> is a technology that has an implicit and ultimately conservative
> metaphysics. To be able to use the technology, one has to read the
> manual, so to speak -- that is, one must buy into the Buddhist
> “theology/philosophy” on the nature of existence in order for the
> technology to be effective in reducing suffering.
>
> So, even though Buddhism does not assume the Good is another form of
> suffering per se, it would see the kind of striving for change which
> would be required to effect any positive Good as a kind of attachment
> to an ultimately impermanent and imperfect universe and oppose to this
> striving a resignation from the world.
>
> In this sense, isn’t it paradoxical/contradictory to be a
> self-identified “Buddhist activist”?
The original followers of the Buddha (and maybe the Buddha himself) tended not to be "activists" in the modern sense, but the Mahayana view allows for activism. Roughly speaking, the argument is that it is meritorious to help other beings in the world of suffering in any way possible (including political action, provided it is *really* helpful). The Mahayana ideal, the bodhisattva, in fact refuses to leave the world until all beings are ready to leave it.
> Other points:
> (1) When Hollywood types (who I shouldn’t even have to name) start
> publicizing their Buddhism, Buddhism becomes a pop-phenomenon. Isn’t
> the latest mystical religion to share this same fate that of the
> Kaballah?
What Hollywood types do is irrelevant to what Buddhism becomes. It is just as possible for them to be true Buddhists as it is for anyone else. If they are not true Buddhists, they are just a few more people who have misunderstood and misapplied the Buddha's teachings -- there have been myriad such folks over the last 25 centuries. Nothing new at all.
> (2) Even though Buddhism recognizes the interdependence of all
> existence, meditation is a technique of placing oneself in proper
> relation to one’s desire/thirst/attachments. Thus, the practical
> effect of Buddhism is to create an “inner distance.” It is this
> practical effect which allows the Buddhist (especially Zen, as the
> quotes I placed in my last post note) to “do his duty” without
> considering the way in which he, has a freely choosing human being, is
> actively contributing to the suffering of others.
Very wrong understanding of Zen. The Japanese militarists probably perverted the Buddha's teachings more than anyone in the history of Buddhism.
> Why else, as Zizek points out, would Japanese corpratism endorse the
> Zen attitude? Why else, as Zizek points out, would Zen endorse
> Japanese corpratism/militarism?
Japanese "corporatist" Zen is also, of course, a serious misunderstanding.
> Both Brian and Zizek see Buddhism as an instrument/technique.
I think that's a misunderstanding, too. I suppose I would have to argue with Brian on that.
> LBO isn’t in my experience a place for discussions of theology.
In my experience, it is! There have been fairly long discussions of it in the past, though I realize that it bores a lot of people. "Theology," however, is not the word to use with reference to a movement, such as Buddhism, that does not assume the existence of a god.
> I contrast Buddhism’s metaphysics with that of the Western
> Enlightenment: I feel that only a politcs rooted in the tradition of
> rationalism (albeit a radical and contemporary version) will lead to
> further beneficial/progressive changes in man’s condition, micro and
> macro.
Isn't that a rather restrictive view? Why only such a politics?
> I think in our era of post-modern relativism and the general
> degradation of “grand narratives” made by post-modernists, as well as
> with the onslaught of mysticism-as-resignation, the Enlightenment
> tradition which includes Marx and Freud are the few things radicals
> have left to hold onto.
Why do radicals need to "hold onto" any "metaphysics"? What radicals need to do is get out there and make some changes. Metaphysics is something for professors to debate (I used to be one myself).
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ A gentleman haranguing on the perfection of our law, and that it was equally open to the poor and the rich, was answered by another, 'So is the London Tavern.' -- "Tom Paine's Jests..." (1794); also attr. to John Horne Tooke (1736-1812) by Hazlitt