Equanimity

Seriously??! I think you need to lay off your raisin meditation because it’s making you oblivious to how the world really works.

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.

And on China’s soft power agenda: youtube.com/watch?v=R6nkFbQ_3LY

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?

Can’t argue with left brain guided rigorous cultural research like this.

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

Christian idea of Equanimity (synonymous with Buddhism in that to achieve inner peace the external world has to be ignored/detached from)

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Léon_Gérôme

Psalm 112:7

https://www.biblestudytools.com/commentaries/treasury-of-david/psalms-112-7.html

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”.

I don’t think you understand the concept of ‘soft power’.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_power

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.

So here, Christian equanimity is a different type or degree of equanimity.

And here, Christian equanimity is not equanimity at all.

1. Buddhism is not simply non-theistic, though there are non-theistic versions. 2) It sounds like you are saying Christian equanimity is different in degree from Buddhist equanimity. That would require some kind of measure and then research to back this up. Have done that or read that research somewhere?

1. You are oversimplifying Christianity. Equanimity in Christianity is associatied with various virtues, IOW goods and ends in themselves. You are also generalizing about theists. Many theists do not feel threatened by other people’s beliefs and arguments. It even confirms their beliefs about a fallen world, some Abrahamists for example.

And it always come down to written text for you, doesn’t it? First, you tell me that I have to be well-versed in Buddhism in order to understand it and be qualified to judge it; then, you tell me to read Sutras to see if it calls Buddhism a political movement; then you point to dictionary definitions. Your argument is if you call out what you see you must be ignorant, but if you’re well read (texts, books, dictionaries, etc) and follow them, then you must know what you’re talking about (because if a text says it is, then it must be so).
I would hate to even enter an argument with you on gender identity and roles because you’d just bury me under a pile of books and call it a victory (of educated over the ignorant).

Bacause you cannot find a solution by yourself?

I did not and it was Pandora who brought up the idea of equanimity within Christianity.
From what I know, there is a difference between what is claimed as equanimity in Christianity and those of Buddhism.
Note this equanimity within Buddhism:
viewtopic.php?p=2691764#p2691764

Re my view on equanimity between Buddhism and Christianity is not based on research but based on my knowledge of the two religions.

There are verses* in the Bible that denote a sense of equanimity but they are kindergarten stuff compared the state of equanimity to cultivated within Buddhism.

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They don’t toil, neither do they spin. Two verses earlier at Matthew 6:26 Jesus told his followers not to worry about food, because even the birds are provided for by God.

Generally the equanimity if any is leverage on the God exists. If there is any threat to theism, then theists is shaken and lost their very flimsy state of equanimity. [more like assurance, security].

Buddhism in essence is non-theistic in the sense of not believing in any ontological God.
There is no room for any ontological God within the core principles of Buddhism.

I understand there some sects of Buddhism who used the term ‘God’ e.g. Pure Land and some used the term ‘Buddha-Nature’ but the essence of the above are ultimately non-ontological, i.e. an absolutely perfect being/God existing out there.

1. You are oversimplifying Christianity. Equanimity in Christianity is associatied with various virtues, IOW goods and ends in themselves. You are also generalizing about theists. Many theists do not feel threatened by other people’s beliefs and arguments. It even confirms their beliefs about a fallen world, some Abrahamists for example.
   [/quote]
   Note my points re equanimity in the above.

Most theists are not threatened by the presence existent of other people’s beliefs.
However from my own experiences and from what I read most theists feel very uneasy when debating the existent of God when doubts are thrown in their direction.
Note the reaction in this thread,
God is an Impossibility
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=193474

Note the many blasphemy laws and actions in the past and even now.
Note the restriction on freedom of speech [re the very stupid term ‘Islamophobia’, ‘racism’] in the criticism of Islam.
Note the number of non-theists and non-believers killed for criticizing theistic religions.

Note what I demanded is a default of being a good human with integrity and dealing with truths rather than falsehoods.
For example how can I accept the statement ‘Buddhism promote politics within its doctrine’ when I know from extensive reading and research it is not true.

I don’t what are your beliefs but if I were to condemn what you believed with no justified reasons surely you will not agree with that.
If a prosecutor were to accuse you of murder surely you will want proof and if any knowledge is involved then you will want to ensure the knowledge relied upon is justified.

Bringing in knowledge of the subject debated do not necessary meant one will ‘win’ the argument. Both parties will have to ensure the knowledge is objective and true.