“Was not their mistake once more bred of the life of slavery that they had been living?—a life which was always looking upon everything, except mankind, animate and inanimate—‘nature,’ as people used to call it—as one thing, and mankind as another, it was natural to people thinking in this way, that they should try to make ‘nature’ their slave, since they thought ‘nature’ was something outside them” — William Morris


Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Buddhist Schmuddist

If you are that into atomism, and beyond that nihilism, just suck it up and admit you're just another modern western human, not a Buddhist. Buddhists, contrary to popular opinion, do believe—it's just that they have a different belief about belief. For a Buddhist, belief is not holding on tightly to an opinion. That is just the belief equivalent of atomism or nihilism. That makes you Pat Robertson or Richard Dawkins.

2 comments:

Brian said...

I disagree with your point about Buddhists (that's a broad category) not holding on to opinions. I'm sure there are plenty who will say that, in those words, but for me and many others it's about not attaching your ego to opinions. Huge difference. Many of us are very opinionated and full of ideas, the problem is creating a self (an illusion) around them.

Anonymous said...

Hey Tim. If you want to stop preaching to the choir, take your writing down a notch or two. Just read your article about Nature but I could barely understand/not understand it. If you are trying to make a point and you really want to have an impact on someone other than who you have lunch with on the campus, write so a commoner can understand it. Other people would call your wrtiting style 'academic' or 'pompus'. I'd call it important enough for you to seek a broader audience.

(Maybe a 2-3 sentence Summary at the beginning where you talk to, but not down to, an average person).

Tom