09-21-2018, 11:12 AM | #1 |
T-Force's Rival
Join Date: Dec 2010
Age: 27
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Hi, please read this article.
http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30...-the-outgroup/
I have a feeling that many of you will interpret this in the wrong way, but a woman can hope that you can be better. It's a message this site needs though. Honestly, people outside of this site too need it. |
09-21-2018, 12:30 PM | #2 |
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Re: Hi, please read this article.
ty for the article
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09-21-2018, 12:44 PM | #3 |
T-Force's Rival
Join Date: Dec 2010
Age: 27
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Re: Hi, please read this article.
anytime
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09-21-2018, 12:47 PM | #4 |
Zageron E. Tazaterra
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Join Date: Apr 2007
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Age: 32
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Re: Hi, please read this article.
Damn, nice article. thank you
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09-21-2018, 01:36 PM | #5 |
Very Grave Indeed
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Re: Hi, please read this article.
Very good article
Edit: I hope the irony of the people who've taken the time to read the article and post here praising it isn't lost on the others of you. Last edited by devonin; 09-21-2018 at 01:48 PM.. |
09-21-2018, 05:11 PM | #7 | |||||
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Re: Hi, please read this article.
This article is pretty good but it's going to make me go on a Buddhism rant because I repeatedly see people misinterpret Zen Buddhism as a way to attack people doing meritorious actions.
The author falls into a pattern I see repeatedly when people try to leverage Zen Buddhism to make arguments about what actions have merit. Zen is the wrong tool. The goal of Zen is experiential; you shut up and sit. A lot of koans themselves are absurd simply to try to drive the point home that if you're talking instead of sitting you're doing it wrong. Why are you doing meritorious acts? What is the "you" that is doing meritorious acts? This questioning of "self" is the goal of the original koan that the author links to but poorly paraphrases. He omits the most important section at the end that drives the point of no-self home, so he instead ends up thinking the koan has something to do with virtue signaling: Here's the author: Quote:
Quote:
Because the author grounds their argument in Zen and misses the entire no-self point of the koan, they have no alternative explanation for why people do meritorious acts than to accrue "Virtue Points". Other schools, such as Mahayana Buddhism have a direct answer for this: bodhicitta. This is the desire to become enlightened to help free others from suffering. Here is a foundational explanation from one of the original meditations on Mahayana Buddhism, In Praise of the Awakening Mind, by Santideva: Quote:
Compare this with how the author views doing meritorious acts: Quote:
1) The point of the koan is not about accruing merit, it's about identifying what a "self" that doesn't even exist is. 2) The author seems to think that helping people that you don't like would suddenly actually be meritorious. Bodhidharma would disagree because that is a distraction from meditating on emptiness. The author has misinterpreted a Zen koan to excuse his way into accusing the "Blue Team" as he calls them of only caring about others as a way to signal their virtues. By creating this tribe and stuffing everyone that cares about others into it, he has effectively created a straw tribe that he can place himself in opposition against. He even admits this toward the end of his piece, but he never stops to consider why people care about others: bodhicitta. That being said, I do think the author has tuned into an issue that many people have, especially those who focus on meritorious acts: They lack forbearance. They become impatient and ostracize instead of seeking genuine connection. Once again, Santideva covers this in his Meditation on the Perfection of Forbearance, and here I think he has an extremely important message for the author's "Blue Team": Quote:
If we want to talk about how and why we develop compassion toward others, and we want to use Buddhist arguments as our foundation, we should be looking at Mahayana Buddhism. It gives us a rich set of vocabulary that lets us move beyond oversimplifying the "Blue Team" as a bunch of selfish brats vying for "Virtue Points" as the author incorrectly (and admittedly) does. It also helps us paint a clearer picture on where the Blue Team (and many other tribes) fail: They lack patience, and this is a different trait than "tolerance" as the author defines it.
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09-21-2018, 06:17 PM | #8 |
D7 Elite Keymasher
Join Date: Jul 2017
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Re: Hi, please read this article.
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09-21-2018, 06:24 PM | #9 | ||
T-Force's Rival
Join Date: Dec 2010
Age: 27
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Re: Hi, please read this article.
Quote:
not a bad thing though eh lmfao aperson that shit's going way over my head. what got you interested in Buddhism though?
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Last edited by Funnygurl555; 09-21-2018 at 06:30 PM.. |
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09-21-2018, 06:58 PM | #10 |
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Re: Hi, please read this article.
I studied for three years under a Mahayana buddhist in college and went to a sangha run by her and her Theravadan husband for about two years after.
Buddhism owns but I wouldn't recommend it without a teacher. It's easy to draw bad conclusions and run with them.
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09-21-2018, 07:13 PM | #11 |
T-Force's Rival
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Re: Hi, please read this article.
well shit. that's really cool
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09-24-2018, 02:31 PM | #12 |
FFR Player
Join Date: Jan 2007
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Re: Hi, please read this article.
It was a good read. I felt very connected to the positive aspects it shares. Forgiveness and tolerance are huge in my realm of thinking. I liked how it started off with those definitions since I practise self healing with them on a regular basis. of course we should all be trying to do our best in any situation that will allow people to understand that loving properly is all we actually need. This kind of light is soulfully radiant and hypnotic to think of.
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