Dharmavidya

Breakfast conversation number 108

We had an animated breakfast conversation. We started from the film that we watched a few days ago which was about originals and replicas and this led to a discussion of the arts. We talked about the possibility of doing some work toward a course on the history of Buddhist art. We talked about T.S.Eliot and the dialectic between classicism and romanticism, about modernism and post-modernism and about the felt need to make sense of what one is experiencing. This also led us on to talking about differences between cultures, especially those of north and south Europe and this led to some discussion of history, especially in the light of a recent local event to celebrate a historical event in which three young men held up one of the trains upon which the Germans were transporting Jews to Auschwitz. What lead people to collude, to ignore or to act? We talked a good deal about how historical events are perceived, about how the meaning given to something is contextual, about how a consequence of this is that the success of a venture of any kind, artistic, political or commercial, is substantially to do with positioning in relation to larger forces that have their own historical momentum. A wonderful, rich conversation.

The secret of happiness

Commentary on recent conversations with friends in Spain. Life is mysterious and paradoxical because it is whole and we can only ever concentrate on one part at a time. Things present before us and we can love them or hate them, but beyond them there is a shadow, an irony, a context, a possibility, many possibilities. We can be positive, but we grow through negation. We struggle with our nature, and with nature, and must rise above nature, yet only because it is our nature to do so; we defeat nature, but nature must always triumph in the end. If we just left all to nature we would have no civilization, no spirit, no consciousness, and we would be kept in check by nature's methods which are famine, predation and disease. We try to triumph over these. We try to make every life sacred where nature's way is to over-reproduce and then cull, but although we succeed sometimes, we can only do so by drawing on our natural energy. Our hate drives our creativity. Our greed empowers our love. Our delusions lead us to triumphs of spirit. Growth comes out of inchoate depths. The lotus grows in the mud. The mud is not glorious but it is essential. We are not glorious, but we can become the instruments of glory. There is more going on than any one of us can comprehend and it is the bigger process that matters. Travel light, lend a hand where you can, ask the difficult questions, be willing to fail, leave no trace and trust what gods there be to guide your steps. 

Breakfast conversation: Hegel, Nature, Spirit & the EU

This morning at breakfast conversation roamed over Hegel's theory of the conversion of nature into spirit, the individual and collective dimensions thereof, the ever present risk of reversion to nature in the form of madness in the case of the individual and social breakdown in the case of the collective, the relevance of all this to the stage of development of the European Union considered as perhaps the most ambitious peace project of modern times. Humans build towers toward heaven and in doing so are expressing a creative potential in nature that ever tends toward spirit, but this tendency is a moving outward and as the line of extension grows the risk of collapse also grows - the under-current gains power. A successful project in civilisation must at once overcome nature and at the same time draw its strength from nature. Ideally this is a kind of gardening in which there is co-operation between the various forces. Such cultivation needs continual attention, however.

Civilisation is a project in going beyond ego but what does operate beyond ego? Spirit on one side and madness on the other. For Hegel that spirit is a property of nature, but also an evolution beyond nature and also a collective venture. The fear of madness is what tends to keep ego in place and inhibit the movement toward spirit, yet that movement cannot happen without energy drawn from nature. The ego itself tries to hold on to a fragile stability by stoicism and cynicism. So the drive toward spirit is beset by the ego's attempt to bring about an end of change in defiance of reality, a defiance that may end in another breaking out toward spirit or a backward fall toward insanity and disruption. In the case of the EU, a period of stagnation was disrupted by expansion into East Europe which added new energy - an influx of nature - which gives a new possibility of advance or chaos. All currently hangs in the balance.

Hegel is difficult, everyone agrees, but the difficulty is essentially that of presenting a middle path that does not simply reject the extremes but rather sees their place in the scheme of things. This makes for a complexity that encompasses the individual and the collective in a common but by no means certain project. Nature is wasteful. In the attempt to go beyond herself she does not seem to mind how many civilisations are attempted and then cast aside - but we do. In that sense we are trying to defeat nature, yet nature is our nature too and hence we are caught in an unavoidable dialectic that gives dynamism to our lives or, just as easily, can cast us into despair. Indeed, the at least occasional intrusion of despair is, Hegel would say, a necessary part of the whole process, there being no possibility of creativity without it. 

Because he is difficult, many seek to refute him seeking the comfort of simplicity but many of these supposed refutations are probably actually tilting at windmills, refuting positions attributed to him that he did not actually hold. He is not simply historicist for there is nothing certain in this world, but nor is he rejecting of the notion that history can show progress. Whether we here in this continent can show continuing progresss and not fall into our old ways of xenophobia that make for war remains to be seen.

the two stage nature of spiritual awakening

Today's breakfast conversation at The Buddhist House

8th May: Buddhist theology?

This morning's breakfast conversation includes a debate about whether one can appropriately speak of "Buddhist Theology" or not. Susthama is currently studying on the Master of Theology course at Cardiff University as a Buddhist. What did theos mean to the ancient Greeks? Is that the Dharmakaya? Would Dharmavada be a better term? Interesting discussion.

welcome back Jnanamati

It is delightful to have our friend Jnanamati back with us at The Buddhist House. Sumaya and I collected him from Heathrow yesterday returning from his nearly four month spell in India, much of it in the remote north east, assisting the work of the Tathagata Trust. Despite being jet-lagged he was with us for morning service, enjoying being back and chanting with the community. We had the usual lively Buddhist House breakfast with discussions about ethics - Susthama is sweating over her MTh essay - leadership style, what is expected of a Buddhist teacher, ethos in Buddhist sanghas in UK and elsewhere, techniques for making soya yoghurt, the good attendance at last night's meditation and relaxation class, and other related matters. Now I must give some thought to my talk for this weekend at the QUG conference.