A person with a persistent emotional disorder 24/7 is not likely to be creative in any acceptable sense.
However there are people who have mental disorders who has sporadic periods [in minutes, hours or days] of mental disturbances and normalcy.
It is only during those periods of normalcy [with or without some degree of equanimity] that these people are able to exercise their creativity with recalls from the prior experiences of madness.
You accused me not being adept in basic Philosophy, but I am wondering whether you have sufficient depth and width in Philosophy.
If you have sufficient knowledge and awareness, you should be aware of the limitations within a discussion in a forum like this. If you are aware of the Principle of Charity as in Philosophy you would not have make the above accusations and making a meal of it.
There are two primary techniques in meditation, i.e.
Concentration - Samartha - this train the focusing
Mindfulness - Vispasanna - this module the emotions and other faculties to optimal levels.
Emotions are inherent and unavoidable within the brain and mind.
The strategy is to develop or train the inhibitors via mindfulness to modulate the emotions in regulating its pulses.
Note Aristotle again,
The develop the above mental skills one need to rely on exercises in mindfulness and must be supported by steady concentration.
You are not mindful of the terrible fears that are oozing and pulsating subliminally within your subconsciousness that drive you to the above conclusions based on ignorance.
As I had stated before you criticize anything, in this case Buddhism you have to have a thorough knowledge and understanding [not necessary agreement] of Buddhism, meditation, mindfullness and other related knowledge e.g. psychology, neuroscience, and others.
Unfortunately the above view is based on a terrible level of ignorance.
Note in the video the children did an exercise in reflecting on the full experience of eating a raisin. Normally what children do is merely -see raisin, eat raisin, i.e. pure animal instincts which at present is extended to some adults, “see threats/enemies - kill enemies.”
One good result from mindfulness is to increase impulse control.
In the earlier video you linked there is a simple mindfulness exercise of eating a raisin where the children are directed to pause, think, experience, think again and keep being mindful of the whole process.
The principle is training oneself to be mindful of all one actions and whatever is going around oneself at all times to the highest degree possible.
What is critical here is the technique of ‘think, pause, think, then act’.
The ‘pause’ in this case a stop gap to enable one to take corrective actions where necessary instead of being hasty without impulse controls leading to lusts and all sorts of extreme unmodulated responses leading to terrible acts of evils to oneself and others.
What is presented in the above are very basic exercises related to mindfulness and they are effective in some ways.
To be most effective, mindfulness in Buddhism is a very serious and extensive subject which require sufficient right knowledge and constant ‘right’ practices.
Somehow you are not sufficiently mindful but is stuck with the fear generating idea of being converted to another belief for worldwide control sake.
Ideally humanity must view itself holistically.
But naturally for various reasons in reality there are the concepts of ‘The West’ and ‘The East’ which has on average relied on different paths to knowledge and wisdom.
The supposedly ‘West’ on average focus more on reason, logic, objectivity and thus enable the advent of Science which is very beneficial to humanity.
The supposedly ‘East’ emphasized on the subject and its experience holistically and spiritually which enable the individual to deal more effectively with the existential crisis.
When Science is focused on the advancement of knowledge and objects it missed out on the existential crisis and the problem of the individual.
When the individual[s] focus on their selves in dealing with the existential crisis, they overlooked the system and organized aspect of knowledge thus limited its advance in terms of scientific knowledge.
Since humanity must be holistic in every aspects, the Science of the West need to be complemented with the spirituality of the East.
It is not only from Buddhism, but there are other aspect of ‘spirituality of the self’ from other Eastern philosophies that need to be complimented with the objective knowledge of Science so that each benefit the other.
In your case, your resistance to the spirituality of the East to complement with organized objective Western Scientific knowledge is sub-optimization thus hindering the progress of humanity.
If your resistance is based on the clinging to the beliefs of a theistic religion, that is a very selfish move merely for one’s own salvation without consideration for the whole of humanity.
There is also no free lunch for you to say
“All I need to know is that there is no free lunch in this world.”
You are not mindful and not putting much effort in your hastily ‘shaft down the throat of others’ views and videos above.
The default of Science by its own nature is very neutral.
If there is any political abuse of Science, it is not Science per se but the corrupted people involved. It is due to ignorance that you are blaming Science.
Not sure what is your message re the above videos.
The Chinese Government is Communist thus do not believe in religions but at present allow the freedom for their citizens to practice religion with some limitations.
Those Buddhist conferences are organized by Buddhists and not the government.
Buddhist conferences are held all over the world by different Buddhist organizations with their belief in the core principles of Buddhism. There is no way those Buddhist conferences will convert all Buddhist to Chinese Buddhism which eventually will favor the Chinese government. If Buddhism can influence government politically, Tibet, India, Thailand and other more Buddhist Nations would have made that move.
If you can provide justifications that such exercises are useless then I will reject it.
I am well aware of how the world really works at present and a lot of improvements in required in all aspects of life. It seem you are not aware of how the world really works and more so, you are not even reasonable aware of how your own mind works, especially all those unwarranted fears that is oozing out of your brain.
I believe meditation and mindfulness are one of the useful tools to facilitate those improvement for the individual and collectively for humanity toward the future.
As you will note your lack mindfulness is represented by throwing out views without reasonable justifications but based mostly on ignorance.
The emphasis is on attaining emotional stability which is the first step towards solving problems that are out there.
Detachment and the subsequent indifference isn’t necessarily a bad thing and in many cases it is actually the right choice. There can be no ability to prioritize, to separate the relevant from the irrelevant, without such a process.
Also, “the problem is in you” mentality is the left brained mentality (of which you are more than guilty.) The West is individualistic, so it sees the cause of all problems within an individual.
I already answered that question. All else being equal, it’s better to be precise than imprecise. But in reality this “all else” is not equal. There is a trade-off. Precision makes you slow, speed makes you imprecise. So you need both.
Americans are clearly too scientific and individualistic. Also lacking in humor. Do they need the East to save them? Noone is mentioning the East except for you.
Watch the second video again, the one by CCTV (by Chinese government). It admits that its using Buddhism as a form of soft power to expand its connections around he world.
I describe the world as I see it, while you look at it through rose tinted glasses. You’re an idealist who wants to achieve utopia [slavery] through a collective lobotomy. Your descendants will be the easy pickings. They will honor and serve foreign culture and its values (at best).
Prismatic brought Buddhist notions of equanimity into the discussion (on page 3), and I spent the last few posts countering it. The Buddhist concept comes from a lie, and leads back to it. Because it is a political/religious movement it sould not be considered as an option. (Just as Islam should not be looked to and imitated in order to solve West’s problems). All these things have strings attached to them and I believe that they will serve to be self defeating in the end.
Some of your thoughts on left/right brain differences and possible autism spectrum reminded me of a curious observation.
Japanese people (who are prediminately right brained) appears to have a difficulty with a concept of irony (or sarcasm).
I have actually lost a Japanese pen pal on that account (many years back), which was very puzzling to me at a time. I made a joke in one of my letters (it was one of those wink-wink jokes), and for some reason he felt that I was attacking him. He even asked me if I was being ironic, to which I said it was just a joke. Anyone else that I knew would have laughed at it. But I guess he felt too hurt by it, and I thought he was being unusually too sensitive…oh well.
Anyway, it seems a little bit on autistic spectrum to take jokes so literally (and personally), so maybe autism is not necessarily just left brained.
On the other hand, Japan also came up with haikus, so why is it so difficult for them to understand irony and jokes?!
China understood the significance of soft-power and is going into that direction. The above video mentioned the various elements of soft-power, i.e. cultural [Confucius], economic performance, etc. but no mentioned of religion nor Buddhism specifically. There are other elements of soft-power like financial aids to many African and 3rd World countries.
As I mentioned China as a Communist Nation is allowing the practice of the major religions as strategy of developing its soft power. So there is nothing special about Buddhism and I bet CCTV will openly take the opportunity to say the same thing with Christianity, Islam and others as vehicles to facilitate greater connection with the World.
Anyone can describe the world as they see it but you are seeing it with ignorance, e.g. criticizing when not knowing and understanding Buddhism thoroughly. Whatever I have stated, I have provided justifications.
Wonder where you imagine the above from?
If you insist, you are lying. Show me the justifications.
You are the one who is lying.
Produce your justifications if you insist it is a lie.
Islam per se as total way of life [as claimed] has political elements.
To insist that Buddhism is a a political/religion movement is based on outright ignorance.
Buddhism per se is purely a religion [as defined] and do not have any provision for it to be political at all in its doctrines. If you insist produce the relevant verses from the Sutra that indicate Buddhism is political?
Maybe your Asian friend is on the left side of the spectrum. Taking things seriously is clearly a left brained activity. Left brained (masculine) people have this heaviness associated with them because they want everything to make sense. They have low tolerance for chaos and other negative concepts (such as vagueness, ambiguity, death, etc.)
China cannot use use Christianity and Islam as a form of soft power because they do not comprise a significant part of its heritage. But even without the Chinese presence in the picture, Buddhism in its own is a negative influence due to its self abnegating indoctrination. China is being opportunistic here and appropriating it (yes, I believe it’s using it to its own ends, but it doesn’t make Buddhism a benevolent religion of its own, only a weapon in willful hands).
I believe all religions are a form of political movements.
Lol! Surely, if your texts say that it’s not, then it must not be so! If you’re this gullible then I feel sorry for you. …But you get what you ask for. ( and I’m not willing to pay that price).
I believe this is a broader cultural phenomenon. There are other Westerners that have encountered the same problem. (I really feel for this girl because it sucks when you’re put in position where you have to dumb down even your jokes to somebody) youtube.com/watch?v=OlHBVmlaf2I
Maybe you are right, Pandora. Maybe Buddhists are evil. I admit to having little to no understanding of Buddhism. Maybe Buddhists have this unconditional hatred of facts and a strong, unbreakable, preference for detachment. Maybe all they want to do is to forever remain detached from reality existing entirely within the land of pure bliss - nirvana. I don’t know. It appears to me to be a bit excessive. Not exactly how things are in reality. But I am willing to concede this point to you for the simple reason that it matters not to me. What I focus on is what I see to be the good thing about Buddhism. I focus on the potential. I think that the concept of equanimity isn’t so bad as you make it to be. I don’t think that detachment from reality is a bad thing in the same way that I don’t think that other negative concepts such as humility, ignorance, rest, peace, phlegm, boredom, indifference, simplicity, lack of focus, vagueness, ambiguity, randomness and the similar are necessarily bad. The positive and the negative complement each other. They exist in what some call “a dialectical relationship”.
A good example of ‘hard power’ is that of North Korea which is striving to rely on nuclear weapons and armies to strengthen its position. Note the USA is now trying to shift to more hard power by increasing its nuclear armaments. Trump plan calls for new nuclear weapons politico.com/story/2018/02/ … ons-386087
OTOH, the currency of soft power is culture, political values, and foreign policies.
In this case, China is focusing on the cultural element as a tool of soft power.
The cultural element encompasses many elements where ‘religion’ is only one and there are so many types of religion are involved in this case.
It is not Buddhism per se that is the direct tool of China’s soft power. The critical elements is China is showing the world it is allowing its citizens to practices the major religions in contrast to its communist past where it suppressed all religions.
In fact the greater focus of China’s soft power is not religions but rather Confucianism which focus on social values, ethics and virtues.
This is merely your opinion based on ignorance of Buddhist philosophies.
On the surface it does appear Buddhism is ‘negating’ with many practitioners focusing on the extreme of pacifism, compassion, the presence of Buddhist monks, practices of asceticism, and the likes. But extremism is not Buddhism-proper’s core principle which is the Middle-Way.
The essence of the Middle-Way is should only go to the extremes when critical and necessary but one must always be anchored on the Middle.
Don’t insult your own intelligence.
For any one who is reasonably educated, intellectually and rationally ‘religion’ per se is not ‘politics’ per se. Check the dictionary for its specific meanings.
The point is there are religions who mixed with politics and there political government who use religion as a tool. This is theocracy is various degrees.
Frankly I feel very sorry your views are based on ignorance of the subject matter.
Note my point above where ‘religion’ per se is not ‘politics’ per se and how they are mixed.
It is not that the Buddhist texts assert it is not political.
Rather the emphasis of Buddhism is purely religious and spiritual development of the individual and there is no mention of any political elements.
OTOH, the religion of Islam and its doctrine specifically mentioned ‘politics’ is part and parcel of the religion, note Sharia Law, fighting wars, killing enemies and other religious elements.
Whatever equanimity that is claimed by Christianity [theistic], it is definitely different from that of Buddhism [non-theistic]. There are degrees of equanimity and the different ways to achieve the various degrees of equanimity.
It is like one can apply the term ‘building’ to any thing that fits its definition. But if one’s study architecture, there is lot of difference between what type of building in reference its stability to earthquakes and other terrible environment forces.
Where ‘equanimity’ is generally associated with the Abrahamic religions, it is not equanimity-proper as defined. It is more like some sort of psychological security arising out of belief in a God [illusory] who will give them eternal life in heaven. When these theists perceived any threats [arguments or otherwise] to their belief in an illusory God, they will feel very insecure to the extent of killing non-believers. This is in no way can be equated with ‘equanimity’ intended within Buddhism.
