Samatha (calm) and vipassana (insight): two aims of Buddhist meditation. Also, What is Meditation?
Gandhara Buddha circa 1900 years ago, courtesy of wikimedia commons
The twin aims of meditation, in Buddhist practice, are calming the mind and attaining insight. From Wikipedia:
- Samatha, calm abiding, which steadies, composes, unifies and concentrates the mind;
- Vipassanā, insight, which enables one to see, explore and discern “formations” (conditioned phenomena based on the five aggregates).[5]
Meditation is a practice which predates Buddhism and probably also Hinduism– it has been recognized since at least 1500 BCE, or 3500 years ago, in Vedantic Hinduism. The practice of meditation is recognized in all major religions, including Sufism (an Islamic tradition), Christian “Hesychasm” (from the Eastern Orthodox), and Judaism (in the Kabbalah.) The term defies precise definition: (Wikipedia) “A 2009 study [in the Journal of Psychology of Religion and Spirituality] noted a ‘persistent lack of consensus in the literature’ and a ‘seeming intractability of defining meditation’.”
In meditation, a person sits, lies down, or even simply stands still. It is also possible to meditate while walking or while performing a simple, repetitive task. You attend to one thing or nothing and concentrate the mind. You do not try to do anything at all (at least nothing that you’re not already doing.) One common technique is to concentrate on breathing slowly, in and out; in through the nose (employing the inherent air-filtering capacities of the nostrils and nasal cavities) and out through the mouth (relaxing the diaphragm, allowing it to move upwards and letting the chest collapse.)
A commonly used technique is to concentrate on a single word or phrase. This technique, most used in Tibetan Buddhism, often includes the phrase “Om mani padme hum.” This means, according to Wikipedia (among many other things): “The first word Aum/Om is a sacred syllable in various Indian religions. The word Mani means “jewel” or “bead”, Padme is the “lotus flower” (the Buddhist sacred flower), and Hum represents the spirit of enlightenment.” In Tibet, this phrase is everywhere painted onto hillsides, carved into rocks, or written on prayer flags and prayer wheels.
Meditation also can begin with emptying the mind. One would not try too hard; anything that enters the mind while meditating should be remarked upon then discarded, as if “moving on.” It is important not to try, because trying involves effort, and the effort itself interferes with relaxation. Calm is achieved in part through simply relaxing. Once the mind is emptied in this way, single thoughts that arise can be more easily dealt with. One can acknowledge that a thought is a symptom of the mind’s clinging to the senses, and classify a thought as to whether it means one is obsessing about something in particular. Why would this thought come up now?
Meditation is broadly classified into two forms: open and directed. In directed meditation, one focuses on something or concentrates on a single thought. In open meditation, one simply monitors all thoughts that enter the mind, dismissing them one by one and returning to an empty, mindful/mindless state. You might say that open meditation steadies and calms you, while directed meditation allows you to achieve insight. You can use both forms, either sequentially or all at once.
When one meditates, the brain often enters a state easily recognized on the EEG (electroencephalogram, a recording of the brain’s electrical activity obtained with electrodes attached to the scalp.) A rhythm called the alpha rhythm appears, a slow 8-12 beats per second wave. This differs from the rhythm seen when one is thinking about something, when there are no visible waves. According to brainworksneurotheraphy.com, “Alpha brainwaves are dominant during quietly flowing thoughts, and in some meditative states. Alpha is ‘the power of now’, being here, in the present. Alpha is the resting state for the brain. Alpha waves aid overall mental coordination, calmness, alertness, mind/body integration and learning.”
The practice of meditation has been the subject of scientific research for quite some time. It is attractive especially because it would seem to provide some therapeutic effects for pain, depression, anxiety, drug addiction, antisocial behavior, etc. However, research has not been able to clearly establish whether the benefits of meditation can be separated from the social activities associated with teaching the practice. Nonetheless, it seems to provide some pain relief and, in a 2017 systematic review it was found to help “improve positive prosocial emotions and behaviors.” (Luberto, Christina M.; Shinday, Nina; Song, Rhayun; Philpotts, Lisa L.; Park, Elyse R.; Fricchione, Gregory L.; Yeh, Gloria Y. (2017): “A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of the Effects of Meditation on Empathy, Compassion, and Prosocial Behaviors”. Mindfulness. 9 (3): 708–24. doi:10.1007/s12671-017-0841-8. PMC 6081743. PMID 30100929).
There are also potential negative effects of meditation. In one criticism, the practice is felt to enhance narcissism– this is true but also highly reductive or simplistic. Meditating in a deconstructive fashion (for example) may result in anxiety, fear, depersonalization, or distorted perceptions. “Unwholesome or frightening visions” are also mentioned as to be expected, in a Theravada Buddhism practical manual on vipassana meditation (Vörös, Sebastjan (2016). “Sitting with the Demons – Mindfulness, Suffering, and Existential Transformation”. Asian Studies. 4 (2): 59–83. doi:10.4312/as.2016.4.2.59-83).
Nonetheless, meditation is a highly effective means of, at least temporarily, obtaining calmness and even insight. See also the Wikipedia article on “meditation” for considerable details on the history and prevalence of meditation in various religions and for therapeutic purposes. From a traditional point of view, see “What is Meditation” by Shiva Shakti Yoga.
sars-cov-2 virions (complete virus) in EM by NIAID (via Medscape.com)
A Scripps Research post dated June 12 describes a mutation called D614G in the novel coronavirus that has come to dominate new infections. The mutation, changes a glycine residue to an aspartic acid residue in the spike protein and stabilizes the spike by making it more flexible. This leads to a 4-5X increase in the number of functional spikes on each virus particle (virion) which improves the virus’ ability to bind to and infect human cells. The research behind this finding is described in the paper “The D614G mutation in the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein reduces S1 shedding and increases infectivity” published by Scripps as a pre-print (before peer review.)
The research was done with a harmless coronavirus ( Maloney murine leukemia virus (MLV)-based pseudoviruses (PVs)) engineered to express the same spike protein as the pathogenic virus. The mutation does not appear to reduce the effectiveness of neutralizing antibodies raised against the SARS-COV-2 virus during natural infection, so there is probably no difficulty with vaccines that are currently being developed.
The mutation does not appear to increase severity of infection. The mutated virus has come to dominate new infections, probably because it is much more efficient at spreading. According to the Scripps Research post, “It is still unknown whether this small mutation affects the severity of symptoms of infected people, or increases mortality, the scientists say. While ICU data from New York and elsewhere reports a preponderance of the new D614G variant, much more data, ideally under controlled studies, are needed…”
The novel coronavirus will continue to mutate. This mutation appears to increase the efficiency of transmission but apparently without making it more severe. Future changes in the virus genome will have unanticipated effects, but they are unlikely to change the basic strategy for preventing transmission: mask wearing, physical distancing (six feet where possible), and frequent hand-washing or sanitizing before and after being in public.
(image courtesy of pixabay.com and Gerd Altmann)
The Washington Post has a good graphic of state by state case and death counts on a daily basis for all US states on this page. You can examine the case counts and death counts as they go up and down on a daily basis. Some states are clearly having problems, while others are getting better. Some states have had more than one peak in case counts. Some states don’t have clear trends at all, either because the totals are too small (like North Dakota and Montana) or else there’s just no clear trend. Sometimes it looks as if the counts are fishy; in other places, they don’t count on weekends. This page is for the nerdily inclined.
photo courtesy of pixabay.com and Erika Wittlieb
This Jennifer Rubin op-ed in today’s Washington Post is priceless: “[redacted] [and his] reckless endangerment problem” or, as the URL has it, “… beset by cognitive dissonance over coronavirus”:
CNN reports: “Attendees of President [redacted]’s upcoming rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, must agree not to sue the campaign if they contract coronavirus.” Attendees must RSVP to register for the event, and in [sic] that registration contains a boilerplate waiver that the attendees understand the “inherent risk of exposure to COVID-19 exists in any public place where people are present” (especially one where people refuse to wear masks!). They have to promise not to sue the Great Leader or his campaign if they acquire the virus. The takeaway here: [redacted] is happy to endanger his followers’ health, but not his own pocketbook. (It is far from clear that kind of waiver is legally sufficient when the conduct is “reckless” — an apt descriptor for [redacted]’s covid-denying rallies.)
There is a legal concept called “reckless endangerment” which holds that a person or company is liable both civilly and criminally if its conduct is “wrongful and reckless or wanton, and likely to produce death or grievous bodily harm to another person.” (Wikipedia) Liability waivers, under state law, do not defeat civil actions for reckless endangerment. For example, if you were driving and someone rear-ended you because they were driving too fast for conditions (usually “too fast” is defined as “they hit you in the first place”) then that is simple negligence. However, if you are doing 30 in a 30 mph zone and the person who hits you is going 90 mph, that is gross negligence or recklessness– that person had complete disregard for the safety of others. (This example is from the blog lowenthalabrams and applies in Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey.)
Now, if a company has a rally during the covid-19 pandemic and does not provide/require everyone to wear a mask, requires people to sit shoulder-to-shoulder, encourages attendance by over 10,000 people, and encourages everyone to shout and scream for two or more hours, does that not constitute “reckless endangerment” and does that not overcome a liability waiver if an attendee develops covid-19 and dies? Just asking.
It doesn’t help that the president refused to hold his convention and coronation in North Carolina because the governor insisted on precautions like mask-wearing and social-distancing. Apparently, he couldn’t stand the idea of people listening to his speech while wearing masks and sitting six feet apart. Oh, the optics!
In other news, the president’s hotel and real estate business is tanking because of the pandemic. It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.
echidna (hedgehog) image courtesy of pixabay.com
This article in the Washington Post from June 11 describes the machinations of a hedge fund investor who bought the rights to a drug developed by Emory University with $16 million in taxpayer funds in March. His company, Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, turned around and sold it to Merck for a big profit (the exact amount is not public) in two months, after he commissioned a human safety study– which he tried to get the US government to pay for. His company has lots of capital but no actual medical staff nor research infrastructure.
According to the article, “That wager paid off with extraordinary speed in May when, just two months after acquiring the antiviral therapy called EIDD-2801 from Emory, Ridgeback sold exclusive worldwide rights to drug giant Merck.” The hedge fund manager formed a company, Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, which purchased the rights to the drug from Emory on March 19. “Ridgeback launched a human safety trial of the drug in the United Kingdom and transferred rights to Merck in late May.” But first, the company tried to get hundreds of millions of dollars in government grants to develop the drug. The company was the subject of a whistleblower complaint by Rick Bright, former director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority.
It seems that Ridgeback happened to find out that the drug had been thoroughly studied in preclinical work, found it to be available, and snapped it up for an undisclosed sum. It is unknown how the drug came to be on the market for purchase by Ridgeback nor how the owner learned that it would be a major advance for coronavirus therapeutics.
The hedge fund manager is Wayne Holman, and his wife is Wendy Holman. Wayne Holman has a medical education but his career lies elsewhere:
Wayne Holman, who holds a medical degree from New York University, is a hedge-fund manager with a long track record of investing in pharmaceutical stocks. He founded his fund Ridgeback Capital Management in 2006. Wendy Holman, chief executive of Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, is a former investment manager who was named to President Trump’s advisory council on HIV/AIDS in 2019.
Emory University received a $30 million grant five years ago to develop the drug, but spent just over half the money on preclinical research. EIDD-2801 is an orally administered drug which is active against Ebola and many other coronaviruses. It has a similar mechanism of action to remdesivir. I previously featured this drug in a blog post on May 31 and it is quite promising. Remdesivir was also developed with public money– $70 million according to the Washington Post article. The big question to taxpayers is: how much profit will GIlead and Merck garner from sales of these drugs, and how much will they cost to consumers? Those with public (“socialist”) feelings will want to know why taxpayers should pay for development of a drug that turns out to be a big moneymaker for private companies– shouldn’t the profits as well as the costs be socialized?
photo courtesy of pixabay.com
This article from business insider on June 8 describes a black market for a variant of remdesivir (the only drug with evidence for effectiveness against covid-19) to treat cats with a coronavirus that causes feline infectious peritonitis (FIP)– an otherwise fatal disease unique to cats. The drug, known as GS-441524, is made in China, and has been sold for more than a year through the facilitation of closed Facebook groups. It is not approved by the US government and sales for the purpose of treatment are technically illegal. Groups that facilitate the importation of this drug get around the law by advertising it as a nutritional supplement– which is unregulated.
According to business insider, “An academic who pioneered using the drug on cats says that a black market is the only option because pharma giant Gilead, which has the rights to GS, will not license it for use in cats.” The Facebook group doesn’t directly sell the drug; instead, it connects buyers and sellers as a middleman. These groups are also attempting to have the drug tested for purity, which is not guaranteed in drugs imported from China.
This American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) article from January describes the treatment, which requires a 12-week course of the drug. It says that the drug has transformed FIP from a universally fatal ailment to one with an 80% survival rate. The drug has been studied by Dr. Niels C. Pedersen, FIP researcher and professor emeritus at the University of California-Davis School of Veterinary Medicine with encouraging results.
The coronavirus which causes FIP is not infectious to humans but shares many characteristics with SARS-COV-2, including sensitivity to remdesivir.
Electron micrograph of SARS-COV-2 virions in vitro
Some 12% of COVID-19 patients have gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms: 7% have diarrhea, and 5% have nausea and vomiting. Fecal samples are positive for SARS-COV-2 in 41% of patients with positive nasopharyngeal antigen swabs. Fecal shedding continues for several days after release from hospital. Surveillance by samples taken from wastewater has revealed SARS-COV-2 antigen in municipal wastewater taken from many cities, often well before patients present with virus symptoms.
Testing by cell culture, however, reveals that antigen passed in stool is usually not infectious, probably because the virus has been disrupted by passage through the GI tract. Only 2 of 153 patients had live virus on electron microscopy in their stool. A significant number of patients had positive stool samples but negative respiratory samples. One patient had a positive rectal swab 18 days after symptom onset.
Roughly 18% of patients had elevated liver enzymes, either alanine aminotransferase (ALT) or aspartine aminotransferase (AST). The presence of GI symptoms and elevated liver enzymes appears to be associated with more severe infections. In addition, some studies that tested environmental samples found virus at higher levels in bathrooms and on toilets. All of the reported studies were observational and most came from China on or before March 20, 2020.
One obvious conclusion from this study is that infection control and prevention of nosocomial spread involves sanitation of toilet areas and frequent hand-washing for both patients and staff as well as civilians.
This information is taken from a meta-analysis of 23 peer-reviewed and six pre-print studies (out of 1484 altogether) on GI aspects of COVID-19 available on JAMA Network dated June 11 for free.
photo of a great-grandson by Mary Molina, who reserves copyright
Today we are going to have a completely non-scientific digression.
Concepts associated with “afterlife” according to Google (this stuff writes itself):
“Afterlife”: Wikipedia: “The afterlife (also referred to as life after death) is the belief that the essential part of an individual’s identity or the stream of consciousness continues after the death of the physical body.” This will be the main theme of this post.
- Wikipedia: “Consciousness after death: “Scientific research has established that the mind and consciousness are closely connected with the physiological functioning of the brain, the cessation of which defines brain death. However, many believe in some form of life after death, which is a feature of many religions.”
- survival of brain after death: “Bone, tendon, and skin can survive as long as 8 to 12 hours. The brain, however, appears to accumulate ischemic injury faster than any other organ. Without special treatment after circulation is restarted, full recovery of the brain after more than 3 minutes of clinical death at normal body temperature is rare.”
- consciousness after cessation of blood flow to brain: lasts approximately four seconds before unconsciousness (lack of thought, feelings, or sense impressions) supervenes.
- “Consciousness after death is a common theme in society and culture in the context of life after death. Scientific research has established that the mind and consciousness are closely connected with the physiological functioning of the brain, the cessation of which defines brain death.” (Wikipedia: “Consciousness after death”)
- Eternal oblivion: Wikipedia: “Eternal oblivion (also referred to as non-existence or nothingness) is the philosophical or religious concept of one’s consciousness permanently ceasing upon death. This concept is often associated with religious skepticism and atheism.”
- Does dying hurt?–The Atlantic: “The last senses to go are usually hearing and touch. Whether dying is physically painful, or how painful it is, appears to vary. … It probably doesn’t hurt. Sep 9, 2016” In fact, when you die, the pain probably stops. Being alive is what hurts.
- Dying and returning to life: Wikipedia, “The Lazarus syndrome”: “Lazarus syndrome, (the Lazarus heart) also known as autoresuscitation after failed cardiopulmonary resuscitation, is the spontaneous return of a normal cardiac rhythm after failed attempts at resuscitation. Its occurrence has been noted in medical literature at least 38 times since 1982.”
- Does dying feel like sleeping?– The Independent: On the sensation of death…
“Both times I was just “not there”. It was just all black. I would describe it as when you take a nap. A short nap with no dream, you wake up and it feels like you’ve been sleeping a long time, when in reality it’s only been about 15 minutes.” Feb 25, 2015
These are some of the top question-answers returned by Google when you ask “life after death” or similar questions… they are interesting on this subject for several reasons.
First, the Wikipedia article: “Afterlife.” The initial distinction is what happens when a person (or animal) dies. In original human thought, there arose the idea or hope that one’s consciousness could continue or restart after death– this is an easy mental jump because intelligent animals have a hard time accepting that a dead fellow-being is gone or “really dead.” Elephants, for example, repeatedly try to revive a dead companion and only accept the death after repeated attempts and a significant delay.
The concept of afterlife, therefore, was present very early in human thinking. What is hoped to happen can be readily divided into two types: first, that the person is reborn on a spiritual plane: call this rebirth. This can be subdivided into Heaven and Hell but according to the ancient Greeks there was only Hades or the underworld. The second major type of life after death is reincarnation, subscribed to by Hindu and Buddhist as well as Jain-ist thought; in this afterlife, one returns in the body of another or in the physical form of a higher or lower animal or even an apparently inanimate object.
Reversing course, the scientific or “atheist” concept is simply that a person’s consciousness ends shortly after physical death; for a few seconds or a minute, one is still able to hear, but even that peters out after a little while, never to return. This is called “eternal oblivion” by Wikipedia, and there is a chapter with this title. The supporting evidence for this point of view is the experimental finding that consciousness is a phenomenon that occurs when an organized nervous system is awake under sympathetic stimulation (there is a brain region called the median raphe that stimulates the rest of the brain to function.) When a nervous system becomes disorganized due to deterioration of its components, consciousness is lost. Once lost, that particular individual consciousness can never be restored.
Everything with a recognizable central nervous system can be said to have “consciousness” but “self-awareness” is probably a more important aspect of consciousness. “Self-awareness” is the concept that, when one looks in a mirror, one can recognize oneself.
It is theoretically possible to simulate that individual consciousness by reconstructing its components. Most likely, this would be done by applying the inputs of memory units or “engrams” (which vary according to how a person remembers incidents in their life) to an intelligent system like a general-purpose computer. A person, under this theoretical framework for reconstructing a personality, is the sum total of everything that a person remembers, everything that has happened to them and everything they have done. This is, so far, completely theoretical and would have to be tested using a sufficiently complex computer (not yet widely available) and custom memories laid down by a person who cooperates in the reconstruction of that person’s individual consciousness. This is the stuff of science fiction.
To return to religious or philosophical concepts: “Soul or psyche (Ancient Greek: ψυχή psykhḗ, of ψύχειν psýkhein, “to breathe”) comprises the mental abilities of a living being: reason, character, feeling, consciousness, memory, perception, thinking, etc. … The soul is the ‘driver’ in the body. It is the roohu or spirit or atma, the presence of which makes the physical body alive. Many religious and philosophical traditions support the view that the soul is the ethereal substance” (Wikipedia: “Soul”)
But the spirit is: “The human spirit includes our intellect, emotions, fears, passions, and creativity. In the models of Daniel A. Helminiak and Bernard Lonergan, human spirit is considered to be the mental functions of awareness, insight, understanding, judgement and other reasoning powers.” (Wikipedia: “Spirit”)– two overlapping concepts. The Holy Spirit is: “For the majority of Christian denominations, the Holy Spirit, or Holy Ghost, is the third person of the Trinity: the Triune God manifested as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit; each entity itself being God.” (Wikipedia: Holy Spirit) However, to Catholics, “Unlike the human body, the soul is an image of God. The body cannot be an image of God, otherwise God would look like a human being with a human body. Only the soul can see God, but it is caught between the flesh and spirit.”
By the way, the only unforgivable sin is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. I’ll deal with that some other time, maybe in a discussion of sin in general. I mention it because I just found it out while reading about life after death.
To the Abrahamic religions (descendants of Abraham: Judaism, Christianity, Islam– monotheists) the soul is eternal and unchanging. One’s soul persists after death and is subject to rewards and/or punishments depending on one’s behavior in life; there’s only one go-around. To Buddhists, there is no single eternal soul or spirit that is passed on; everything changes constantly. However, one can suffer or find reward depending on what one has done during life– this is accumulating karma.
To Hindus, the soul is a fixed quantity and is treated according to what the person has done during one’s life and during one’s past lives as well. The soul is reincarnated directly as an unchanging quality. The soul discards its old body like an old suit of clothes and takes on a new body like putting on new clothes. In between reincarnations, one receives punishments or rewards; after these are done, then one returns to Earth.
Both Buddhists and Hindus believe that a person is reincarnated over and over again, as lower and lower beings or as higher and higher beings– depending on one’s behavior in the previous life. If one is particularly bad in a human life, one could be reborn as a cockroach or even a bacterium. Actually, since these beliefs predate the use of lenses to magnify things, reincarnation is probably limited to macroscopic beings. I don’t know if one could be reincarnated as a photosynthetic organism. If you are really good, you will reach nirvana and stop being reincarnated.
The two types of religion, Abrahamic and, let’s say, Indian, also differ on what happens later. To the Indians, there was a very long time-scale: millions or billions of years before things will come to an end. To the Abrahamic religions, the “Second Coming” is coming fairly soon. At the Second Coming, “the dead will be raised incorruptible” and everyone will receive their final judgement. After that, the wicked will burn forever in Hell, and the virtuous will stay on in Paradise enjoying their presence with G-d. Actually, there is considerable variation among different Abrahamic religions as to the details; for instance, Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t believe in afterlife at all for sinners, only for the virtuous.
This is called “eschatology”, which is a hard word to spell and which contains some very primitive attitudes. According to Christian, especially Catholic, eschatologists, you are damned eternally if you don’t accept Christ and confess your sins before you die. You only get one chance. This seems like a narrow attitude. During the Medieval period in Europe and well after, common people were constantly in fear of dying “unshriven” and going to Hell if they didn’t have a chance to confess their sins and be forgiven by a properly consecrated individual. People were afraid of going to Hell for the slightest mistake. The Church exploited this fear to keep people in line.
The Buddhists, on the other hand, preached tolerance. They accepted the beliefs of other religions and accepted the idea that other traditions had wise things to say. There was no preaching of fear if one did not stay on the narrow path. There is a major difference here: the right way, to Christians, was narrow and hard to follow, and tolerance was absent. To followers of the Tao (for example), it is said “My Way is broad and easy to follow. But people delight in going off the beaten track and wandering along the byways.”
This is a little off the main topic of “afterlife”. The general idea is that life after death is a very old human concept and it takes two general forms: one is reincarnation and the other is rebirth, or spiritual life after death. Usually with reincarnation it will happen many times, and with the spiritual life it only happens once or twice. In rebirth, one will exist in an intermediate place before the final judgement; if one existed before the time of Jesus Christ, one is stuck there forever in a place called Limbo. Some Christian denominations say that one is “asleep” until the Second Coming.
All religions preach something like karma: one is rewarded for good deeds or punished for evil deeds. The consequences, however, are not immediate unless one has done something particularly bad. In Buddhism, there is anantarika-karma– any one of five terrible sins such that anyone who commits one will go to hell. For your reference, these five are: intentionally killing your parents, killing an arhat (a fully enlightened being), shedding the blood of a Buddha, or creating a schism within a Buddhist community. Or, if you are Catholic, blaspheming against the Holy Spirit.
That’s more than enough for today.
Buddhism vs Hinduism: the five hindrances vs the four goals of life, and other speculation
kamadeva from another website
This (what follows) is mostly speculation. Experts would probably find these descriptions over-simplified or just wrong.
Ancient forms of religion (mostly before 1000 BC) put a lot of emphasis on ritual sacrifices. The earliest sacrifices killed people, but this was abandoned by most religions before 1500 BC– it is mentioned with disapproval in Greek myths. Sacrifices involved using fire to burn items that were thought to be offered to the gods for their consumption. Fire appears to have been a symbolic way to convert physical objects into spiritual objects. The development of early Hinduism seems to have involved a transition from physical sacrifices to mental sacrifice-like activities. This is where meditation comes in. Early texts liken meditation to “fire offerings”.
Meditation, or “dhyana”, is an ancient practice (more than 2,600 years) described in Hindu literature probably before Buddhist and Jain doctrines were developed. Brahman is the highest universal principle or ultimate reality of existence to Hindus. In later Hindu thought, dhyana is taken up after learning breath control (“pranayama”) and mental focus (“dharana”), as a deeper concentration of the mind. One might say that Hindus believe in the permanence of the soul.
Buddhists, however, deny that there is any permanent, unchanging soul. That’s an oversimplification. Both Hinduism and Buddhism are diverse and full of complex mythologies. Buddhism, however, denies or ignores the existence of gods, while Hinduism has many gods.
A key Hindu text called the Bhagavad Gita describes meditation. This text is of uncertain date but likely came from oral versions that are dated just prior to the advent of Buddhism in the fifth or sixth century BC. This from Wikipedia: “Meditation in the Bhagavad Gita is a means to one’s spiritual journey, requiring three moral values – Satya (truthfulness), Ahimsa (non-violence) and Aparigraha (non-covetousness).” The Buddha probably studied ancient Hindu religious thought prior to his Awakening but then seems to have concluded that meditation rather than extreme self-denial (asceticism) is the most important aspect of religious devotion.
Buddhists and Hindus agree on certain moral basics: truthfulness, non-violence, and not stealing or non-covetousness.
From Wikipedia:
Kama (Sanskrit, Pali; Devanagari: काम) means “desire, wish, longing” in Hindu and Buddhist literature.[3] Kama often connotes sexual desire and longing in contemporary literature, but the concept more broadly refers to any desire, wish, passion, longing, pleasure of the senses, desire for, longing to and after, the aesthetic enjoyment of life, affection, or love, enjoyment of love is particularly with or without enjoyment of sexual, sensual and erotic desire, and may be without sexual connotations.[4][5]
Kama is one of the four goals of human life in Hindu traditions.[1] It is considered an essential and healthy goal of human life when pursued without sacrificing the other three goals: Dharma (virtuous, proper, moral life), Artha (material prosperity, income security, means of life) and Moksha (liberation, release, self-actualization).[6][7] Together, these four aims of life are called Puruṣārtha.[8]
Kama is an experience that includes the discovery of an object, learning about the object, emotional connection, the process of enjoyment and the resulting feeling of well-being before, during, and after the experience.[9]
Kama is not at all limited to sex; it includes the enjoyment of all sense perceptions and the entire cycle of seeing, learning, making a connection, the actual sense experience, and the feeling of well-being through-out the process.
In the Hindu “tradition”, kama is subordinate to dharma, which is proper conduct (not violating other’s rights or over-indulging oneself.) The whole process of proper living involves earning a living (artha) and self-actualization or liberation (moksha.)
Contrast this with the Buddhist “tradition” of self-abnegation. The monk/nun abandons all material possessions, gives up trying to enjoy him or herself through sex or any other pleasurable activity, stops earning a living and ekes out survival by begging while spending as much time as possible meditating. This extreme is clearly limited to the mendicant or monk/nun. Nonetheless, the five hindrances are very similar to the Hindu four goals in life.
The good Hindu starts with dharma, virtuous conduct, and under its strictures seeks to earn a living, participate in enjoying life, and seek the ultimate goal of self-actualization. The good Buddhist probably starts with dharma too. A Buddhist, unless he or she is overtaken by religious zeal, tries to earn a living and participate in normal activities. The good Buddhist is certainly allowed to have sex with their spouse, eat nourishing and wholesome food, wear warm, clean, and attractive clothes, and sleep in a reasonably comfortable bed. There is certainly a space for singing, playing an instrument, dancing, and even watching TV.
But a good Buddhist will not want to accumulate luxuries or store up great wealth. Nor will they try to obtain rare and delicate foods. Buddhism has parallels with the 21 rules of the Dokkodo, in which Miyamoto Mushashi proscribed luxuries, delicacies, “valuable antiques”, or “elegance and beauty” (see also my post on the Dokkodo translation.)
In Hinduism, the responsible pursuit of pleasure is considered wholesome and natural. Kama is personified as a deity, Kamadeva, similar to the Greek gods Eros and Cupid and often portrayed as using a bow and arrow. In Buddhism, there is more emphasis on asceticism. There is, Buddha said, what is called the “middle way”– asceticism is not to be pursued to the point of starvation or malnutrition.
I’m not going to argue for or against any religion, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, or Buddhism. I just found it interesting– and Americans know so little about the last two religions mentioned. To a Buddhist, meditation involves thinking about nothing, if possible; to a Hindu, you can meditate about something like a beautiful landscape or music. I don’t know enough about these things.
There will be more posts on these subjects, mostly for my edification. You are invited to follow along with me. I find it much more satisfying than learning about the novel coronavirus or racism, not to mention capitalism and socialism (and I know too much general medicine already.) One thousand words (more or less)!!
This guy is a real piece of work. A piece written by Jimmy Lohman in 1991 in the Florida Flambeau (a student newspaper for Florida State University) (sorry no link– see above .jpg file) described how he tormented Jimmy. It seems that, as a child, Billy was a classic bully and a conservative extremist. There’s a piece in Vanity Fair from December 2019 that goes into considerable detail about the father-son relationship that made Billy Barr what he is today: an apologist, bully-boy, and defender for the president.
The Washington Post in an opinion piece titled “So that’s why Billy Barr is such a bully” describes how Barr runs the Justice Department as a “thugocracy.” Barr was in private practice when the president elevated him to the head of the Justice Department; since then, he has amassed tremendous power. Billy’s bullying temperament is similar to that of he-who-must-not-be-named, just without the publicity hound part.
It is sad how people are warped as children. They never change throughout life. Certain people, as children, are formed into bullies. They pick out the different, defenseless, weak, and minorities, and mercilessly abuse them in every way imaginable. They submit other children as well as animals to whatever cruelties they can get away with. The bully seeks and uses power and the only thing that can stop him is equal power.
These bullies recruit bystanders who are similar to them and use them to gang up on individuals or small groups. Their tactics do not change as adults. They seek out positions of power and use them to force their underlings to participate in attacks on those who displease them by being different and weak. Bullies in government use government power to do their dirty work.
I was deeply scarred by bullies in grade school, and to a lesser extent, in high school, until I got to be big enough to fight back (physically fighting back is the only thing that will stop a bully.) A few people, even as adults, still abuse and torment those who are different, those who protest, those who stick out. It is in this light that we should understand the events of June 1 at Lafayette Park in front of the White House.
William Barr saw the opportunity and seized it. He had a group of people in front of him who were disfavored by society (at least white majority society) and he had the power and the excuse to use his authority. He ordered the attack on peaceful demonstrators (after he was told by a National Guardsman, per this Salon article June 8, that they represented no threat) and he relished the opportunity to gas and beat and shoot (with rubber bullets, somewhat less lethal than rifle bullets.)
That is how we should understand what happened on the evening of June 1. It was a classic case of bully meets victim. I know. I recognize this behavior from childhood because it was done to me.
Conrad Theodore Seitz 