The Hippie paradox

[Anoebis]

how is tibetan buddhism among the biggest forms?

 

mahayana: 360 million people

theravada: 150 million people

vajrayana (including tibetan buddhism, mongolian buddhists and a few sects in china and japan): 18 million people.

 

vajrayana is really only widespread in tibet and mongolia, both medium-sized regions which are extremely sparsely populated.

 

 

asceticism is not central to buddhism. buddhism propagates the middle way, rejecting both asceticism and sensual indulgence. siddharta gautama allegedly attained enlightenment after he abandoned both between the extreme asceticism of hindu sadhus and the extremely opulent life (for the time) of an indian prince.

Cool, I never knew it was so small, I was always told in my studies Japanese buddhism was a spinoff of Vajrayana... So I thought it must have at least 100 million (for sure as it is popular in Western countries too). But of course, the centre of my studies were not the spinoffs in Buddhism I learned something here. Thanks

 

As for ascetism, what I meant was: Jesus wasn't a real ascet either (just like Buddhas as you said) but the monks need to be able to trust in God, pray all day,do a vowel to silence & celibaty, fasting etc... Which is ascetism as well... not EVERY buddhist has to do it, but the monks in both religions do.

[Padmapani]

As for ascetism, what I meant was: Jesus wasn't a real ascet either (just like Buddhas as you said) but the monks need to be able to trust in God, pray all day,do a vowel to silence & celibaty, fasting etc... Which is ascetism as well... not EVERY buddhist has to do it, but the monks in both religions do.

that's true. i thought you confused them with sadhus who really give away all their posessions save for a piece of cloth and a trident (if they devote their life to shiva for instance) and live on the streets. many buddhist monks don't come anywhere near that and some of the higher ups live more like some catholic bisphops or cardinals (with expensive cars, business class flights and the like; it seems just as inappropriate to buddhists as splurging cardinals seem to us).

[remnant]

I remember as well images of fat monks on elephants , but cases of buddhist sybaritism and monkish high-life must be contemptuous or illegal in these countries.

More or less, buddhism has some certain elements of ascetism, or a general form, about simplicity, ahimsa, self restraint and cease of dependence. So it is an ascetism, or a way of being or living, and not only for monks or mystics.

 

Eventhough buddhism has distinct branches, it isn't something like a schism or divisions as in western terms.

[remnant]

[Multi-Media]

Related: http://dangerousminds.net/comments/classic_rock_conspiracy_theory_weird_scenes_inside_the_canyon

Also related:

[Psynonamous]

what's your definition of a hippie?

The Truth from GTA San Andreas.

[ollylovesgoa]

I stopped going to Psy parties a long time ago, mostly because I stopped taking drugs and suddenly found the atmosphere extremely uncomfortable. Old guys selling acid to kids etc, I was disgusted. I much prefer Techno / Drum & Bass nights where the crowd are free to admit their hedonism without veiling it behind some kind of confused political agenda.

As for hippies on the whole, the politics etc appealed to me when I was 15/16, but I now find it to be total nonsense on the whole. I know people who live in communes in the forest, "ecologists" perhaps, but all they do is go in the bins behind supermarkets and eat the piles of untouched food that corporations throw away everyday. I agree that we should not waste food, and these people also vehemently attack capitalism because they think it destroys the Earth; I also agree with this sentiment.
The hippies i'm talking about fail to recognise that they are benefiting from capitalism as much as any factory owner by doing this, they believe their practice is "being at one with nature", rejecting mainstream society etc, but this is simply false. Without capitalism they would perish, and the egotism they express because of the way they live aggrovates me.
Perhaps they are guilty of ignorance, but it is a dangerous ignorance where they believe they are free from capitalism whilst subliminally guaranteeing it's future by relying on it - while naively refusing to pay for the hospitals they would happily use if needs be, on the grounds that the mainstream economic scenario is wrong.

And worse, many don't vote for reform because they believe that anarchy is the best solution to an imperfect government, needless to say they have never read about what happens in a failed state like the Democratic Republic of Congo where millions have died in decades long power struggles.

[Blair Thaumic]

Civil war is a different situation from anarchy. And I'd argue that the problems in the DRC have more to do with global capitalism and geopolitics than with any variety of anarchism.

[ollylovesgoa]

It's causes are definetly many-fold, but the brutality of a failed state is a reality that the anarchist needs to face up to. Arguably the Rwandan genocide had a significant part to play in the civil war in DRC, and what was the Rwandan genocide but tribal warfare echoing the pre-state existence of humans? Tribal conflict encouraged by politicians for sure, but mirrored in many places today in Papua New Guinea, historically in every continent with a big enough population to have conflict.

The ideal of an anarchy that can mitigate the inherent violence of humans is not realistic.
How do you abandon government in any way that does not produce internal power struggles of that nature? I would assert that any abandonment of government would absolutely produce civil war. Precisely because humans do not naturally produce anarchic societies that are peaceful, democratic process becomes even more important. Stable government is preferable, but requires continuous reform.

[Celaripo]

anarchy would basically mean all the people born with disabilities would be - lets called a spade a spade - f*cked

unless they were born in a rich family

[ollylovesgoa]

Yep, I have to agree.

[Blair Thaumic]

You can also argue that states ramp up human aggression, since organized armies, police, and prisons don't exist outside of a state.

 

I expect we'll disagree on this, but I don't think that any social arrangement is fixed by our biology. Pre-state society is all over the map; I could point to examples of cooperation and say that humans are naturally cooperative, and I'd be equally wrong.

 

Tribal warfare... nah, I'm not letting Belgium off the hook that easily. The colonialists played up tribal differences that otherwise would not have led to a civil war. "It's human nature" is dodging responsibility. Also it lets the Rwandans who led the genocide dodge responsibility. I don't think they were just reverting to a pre-civilized state. I think they had agency and political goals and were consciously evil.

 

About anarchism: there are types of anarchism that don't involve abandoning society. Anarchosocialism is one. Many anarchists want to abolish the aspects of government they see as oppressive, not every aspect of government. Yes, some do want to abolish all government. But I know someone who identifies strongly with anarchism who is a physicist at a university, votes, and supports a social safety net.

 

I agree that a lot of anarchists have a knee-jerk distrust of/opposition to society, and if everybody followed that, it would fuck over a lot of people (including disabled people for sure.) But it'd be wrong to say that anarchism is opposed to things like public roads or hospitals, when that describes an extreme kind of individualist or primitivist anarchism.

[ollylovesgoa]

Fair enough, I will do some reading about anarchosocialism, and I respect your opinion.

[Padmapani]

the situation in failed states or genocide is the complete opposite of anarchy. the term anarchy is only associated with such things because it is used by the media (and the majority of people) as a synonym for chaos. an anarchistic society is not a chaotic one. neither is it one without police of government (in a sense). the difference is that police are appointed by the people and act in the interest of the people; they don't follow orders and directives from above because there exists no above. government exists in a sense that people govern themselves, but not that some untouchable group of people (be it the wealthy, kings, politicians, ...) impose their will on a large group of people, most often against the interests of the majority.

 

anarchy means that there are no hierarchies and that no one has the power to dictate (or end) anyone else's life. so the warlords in somalia or any other failed state with their strict hierarchies and wars are the exact opposite of anarchy. if there is one main principle (or law if you will) of anarchism, it is that your freedom ends when it infringes on another person's freedom. so murder can never be acceptable, neither can theft or violence of any kind.

 

i think there is no doubt that, in theory, anarchy is the best society humans can live in. the question is: can it work like this in practice? many peolple have had their ideas and some could work while others certainly don't (the communism marx envisioned (a stateless, classless, moneyless society, ...) is basically a particular form of an anarchist society, but his way towards communism, namely state socialism, that involves a few taking power and exercising it over the masses obviously leads down the path to a authoritan dicatatorship). other approaches like makhnovia (anarcho-communism) or anarchist spain (anarcho-syndicalism, anarcho-collectivism and anarcho-communism side by side) have worked surprisingly well until they were invaded and crushed by the soviet union or the franco regime (with aid from hilter, although the soviet union also had their hands in this) respectively.