On Religious Differences

Why do people who believe they are religiously right hate people of other religions? Shouldn’t that feeling be pity, or sadness instead of hate?

Mmm, I’m not to fond of saying that they should feel pity or sadness, either. To feel those would imply that something is wrong. Is there something wrong for them having different beliefs? Wouldn’t that be the tiniest bit presumptuous of us to think it was pitiable that they didn’t think what we thought? That would suggest we’re right if we pitied them, wouldn’t it? We’d pity them for having misled beliefs.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s laudable, but I think it would be more appropriate to say it is worthy of my appreciation. It’s a new perspective that can teach us about their values or more about our own.

I’m reading a book by Thich Nhat Hanh right now called Living Buddha, Living Christ and in the third chapter he talks about how he was confronted during a meal at a religious conference. A minister asked him “Are you a grateful person?” He said yes. “If you are really grateful, how can you not believe in God? God has created everything we enjoy, including the food we eat. Since you do not believe in God, you are not grateful for anything.”

But was Thich Naht Hahn ungrateful? A common Buddhist practice is to be mindful. It is to be in the present moment and appreciate the “suchness” of things. To appreciate the air we breathe, to be mindful of the food we eat, bringing us nourishment with each chew we take. It’s an awareness of what we have rather than what we have lost or what we do not have. I would like to call that gratefulness.

On Religious War

I’d say one cause for religious war is selfishness. The motivation isn’t truly because “God wills it” or “Allah wills it”, but personal gain.

Pope Urban II launched the First Crusade to extend his power to Constantinople and beyond with an added bonus of fighting off the Seljuqs from previously Christian territory. The Crusaders were in it for all kinds of reasons. If you paid attention to Urban II’s speech, he referred to the Crusades as a pilgrimage. Anybody who died in battle would be remitted of their sins, for they were doing their duty to God. That probably had something to do with it. Also the plentiful amount of loot they would have amounted.

Now I’m not too familiar with Muslim beliefs and practices, but I’ve also heard that some modern terrorism is fueled by the belief that it is to glorify Allah and they will be rewarded with a harem of 72 virgins. Terrorists try to push this concept to take advantage of other individuals who either truly want to please Him or are more inclined to the prospect of a harem. One small problem with that is that Islam does not reward suicide. These small group of terrorists twist words and blur the line between martyrdom and suicide to take advantage of the rest of the population, especially the uneducated, for the sake of fighting the opposition.

On both sides, there was also a little bit of fear involved. Each side was afraid for their own sakes, their own fates, their own souls. They wanted to go to Heaven or any similar paradise, and they were told that going to war for the sake of their savior would make them shoe-ins for salvation. Any doubts they might have had about whether what they were doing as wrong would either be vindicated by calling the acts of war “on the behalf of God” or overshadowed by their own fear of damnation. Again, personal gain: getting into heaven. It’s a dangerous incentive that I think we’re all guilty of wanting. It’s not bad to want it, but sometimes it distracts us from the true motives for having faith.

Furthermore, I think religious wars are about spreading the influence of one’s own religion to another territory or purging another influence from your own territory. Isn’t that also personal gain? It’s because it’s YOUR religion and YOUR territory. You have invested some of yourself in these properties, so again it’s about you and what is yours. We want OUR religion to be the one that is right. If we just had religion as is, not place our ownership on it, I don’t think there would be too much call for religious wars.

So whether it be selfishness or even slightly enlightened self interest (“for the glory of God. My God”) a lot of these wars are a result of us wanting to make it about ourselves. We’ve got to take ourselves out of the picture. Let the ways of God, or whoever we choose, be done through us, not by us. Don’t confuse that with blind faith. One you have to work for, one you don’t.

Translations of Pope Urban’s Speech: http://www.cbn.com/spirituallife/ChurchAndMinistry/ChurchHistory/Crusades_PopeUrbanClermontSpeech.aspx
Interesting blog post on the Reward of 72 Virgins: http://theuglytruth.wordpress.com/2007/03/04/debunking-the-suicide-for-72-virgins-myth/

I M NEW by Kutiman

This guy, Ophir Kutiel, is amazing. He takes YouTube videos and mixes them to make a song. I thought it was just going to be something cute worth 15 minutes of fame…but WOW! I can’t stop listening!

Trying Something New

I’m trying out a new theme. The other one was getting boring for me. Hope this one doesn’t hurt your eyes

Anger Vs. Drama

My philosophy group was having a discussion over How to Be An Adult by David Richo, PhD. I have yet to read this book, and I’m not in a big hurry to read it any time soon, but the topic of anger and how it differs from drama surfaced. What is this difference?

From what I understand, drama is linked to past experiences. For instance, a man might be sensitive to the word “whipped” or “tool”. If he is associated with either of those words, he may blow up because of his severe aversity to those words. This may  be due to a previous relationship or experience where he felt like he was being used. He may have been in a relationship where his opinion was void and his partner made all the decisions, and any similar situation may remind him of that negative relationship. Thus, his expressed anger would be a reaction to that past experience, not a present situation.

When a person feels offended or slighted due to a perceived similarity to this past experience, they manifest aggressive or passive aggressive behaviors. Aggressive anger is where you are considering your own feelings but are inconsiderate of others’ feelings when expressing your own. Passive aggressive is slightly different from aggressive in the fact that the passive aggressor is too afraid to address the other person for fear of a confrontation.

Drama is an exaggerated and inappropriate reaction towards a percieved offense, often fueled by an underlying fear that can be tied to a past experience. Once this reaction is expressed there is still a negative residue left behind, otherwise known as a grudge. The dramatic person chooses to hold on to the past experience because he or she feels that there is a payoff for holding on to it. Example: I could choose to hold onto my middle school years, a time when I was constantly bullied, because I believe that by holding onto it others would feel guilty for me and show me pity. I would be considering pity as a surrogate for love. My payoff would be that pity/love.

If I had dropped that drama, if I stopped referring to my middle school years, what cause would I have to be angry? Holding onto my middle school experiences produces unnecessary anger. That is what I understand drama to be.

Anger, on the other hand, I believe to be severely misunderstood or at least in need of redefining. I believe anger is anchored more in the present than drama. Anger, to me, is a feeling that expressed assertively. That means, the person who feels offended expresses his anger appropriate to the action that offended him. In expressing his anger, he is considering himself but considers the feelings of others while expressing his own. I believe expressing anger is necessary because each person has the right to consider his own needs and wants. A person is not wrong for asserting their own rights.

Once the anger is expressed, it dissipates for good. There isn’t any ill will to hold on to. It’s in the past, and is no longer applicable to present situations. Isn’t that a beautiful thought: living in the present? Living in the past or dwelling on the future only brings up drama and anxiety. Do you need either of those to improve your quality of life? What benefits are there to dropping these frivolities?

On Nonduality

I was rereading Being Peace by Thich Nhat Hahn with my philosophy group when a friend of mine posted to our email listserv about her confusion over the concept of self-compassion in nonduality in response to Hahn’s quote, “If you cannot be compassionate to yourself, you will not be able to be compassionate to others.”  Here was what she had to say:

To me, compassion requires a separate entity that acts as the object receiving the compassion.  I looked up the definition, and compassion is ’sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress together with a desire to alleviate it.’    Compassion comes from compati, meaning ‘to suffer with.’  But if there are not two, there can be no ‘with,’ there is only one ‘nondual’ thing, and that is everything; therefore compassion and sympathy are impossible.

And here was my response:

I think you saw compassion as distancing because the definition used the word “sympathy” as opposed to “empathy”. Whereas empathy is where you feel what the other person is feeling, investing themselves in you, sympathy implies at least some degree of objectiveness or disinterestedness. It is my impression that the accuracy of words is something that is important to you right now. I.e. there is a difference between the words “beautiful” and ”pretty”. If my supposition is true, then that could be a big factor as to why you can’t fully make the concept of nonduality your own. Here we have a concept called nonduality claiming that we only perceive that there are dichotomies, and we are working on dichotomizing the building blocks of communication: words.

Even though I don’t fully grok nonduality, myself, I’ll try to explain what I can understand about it. I think what the concept of nonduality is trying to say is that we are not different from each other, we are not separate. However, we do not exist as one being. We are all connected. We are part of a cycle. Each individual is not separate; he is part of something bigger. He is part of a circuit that could not exist without him. He can not exist as his own separate entity, because if the circuit cannot exist without him, likewise he cannot exist without the circuit. So we do not exactly exist as one; we exist in relation to each other and all compose a sum greater than its parts.

In terms of an analogy, a picture I get of the compassion/nonduality complex is like the body. The heart pumps oxygenated blood to the extremities of the body. From the cor of the body to the fingertips and toes. Like compassion, the heart is affecting something beyond itself. It is supplying oxygen rich blood to the limbs. However, it must also supply oxygen to itself (coronary arteries). If it cannot supply oxygen to itself, how can it supply oxygen to something distal to itself? You must start at the center before you can radiate out. This applies to both the heart and compassion. Furthermore, on the theme of “oneness”, the heart and limb vascularity are both apart of the same system, connected in a continuous loop….I’m not too happy with my own analogy but I think it does its job well enough.

On another, complementary level the dichotomy of self/nonself does not exist in the concept of nonduality. Having said that, reevaluate what TNH said: “”If you cannot be compassionate to yourself, you will not be able to be compassionate to others.” Also, with the concept of nonduality, does the dichotomy of duality/nonduality exist?

Personally, I just can’t make this concept mine at this time, and I’m fine with that. I think I resent the concept for reasons I’d have to sit down and think about, and I’m not about to make something I resent a fundament of my life. I’m not going to try to make it mine because Thich Nhat Hahn said I should. I might never make it mine, but if I do one day, I will make it mine because I chose to, not because a monk, regardless of his wisdom, told me to do so.

“Where in the World?” @ Picasa Web Albums

Have you guys tried this game by Picasa? It’s awesome! I end up spending most of my time playing this game when I should be spending that time doing more productive things….like homework. Oops?

Here’s how it works: Picasa gives you a picture and a movable map of the world. Based on the subtle visual clues present in the picture, you make an educated guess as to where the picture was taken.

Here’s an example:

The darker, more somber tones suggest the buildings have been around for a while. History of that caliber suggests a European origin. The tall, close buildings means it’s a larger city, and the architecture implies a Gallic or Spanish style. The darker red makes me lean toward Spanish. In this case, I clicked an area around Northeast Spain. It was, in fact, 80 miles north of Madrid.

Man! This is so fun! You should try it out. It really helps with geography, as well as giving you a greater appreciation for culture and the arts.