tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5584699251999622098.post2316025670314112365..comments2024-03-16T09:24:45.474+01:00Comments on 22 Billion Energy Slaves: Of black ducks and mystery teachingsJason Heppenstallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17886109260870545074noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5584699251999622098.post-11088646685912393902012-05-09T08:51:53.804+02:002012-05-09T08:51:53.804+02:00Well, I hope you don't lose the house. Given t...Well, I hope you don't lose the house. Given that you've done so much work on it I'd reckon it is worth fighting for.Jason Heppenstallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17886109260870545074noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5584699251999622098.post-69563209661637873552012-05-08T12:05:20.258+02:002012-05-08T12:05:20.258+02:00Japan is an energy guzzling society that pretends ...Japan is an energy guzzling society that pretends to care for the environment. They're really big on "bring your own bag" to the grocery stores, which conveniently saves the cost of providing plastic bags to customers, meanwhile their meat consumption, the production of which is horrid to the environment, is rapidly increasingly (put all that red meat in your reusable bag!). They also have a mind boggling number of vending machines and other energy wasting and completely unnecessary electrical gizmos. <br /><br />So they citizenry are happy to do away with nuclear energy, but fail to realize they can't have their cake and eat it too without reducing consumption of everything if they want to avoid higher oil imports. In Japan though the major commercial enterprises control the populace and they won't have any serious reduction of consumption.<br /><br />Buddhism is a mixed bag, and I say this as a professional translator of Buddhist texts in Taiwan with a MA in the subject and many many long hours on meditation cushions. On the popular level you get something like "cultural Buddhism" which is just all the traditions and customs that come with a long-standing Buddhist tradition in a society. The practices are seen as a "sea of merit" from which you gain luck for worldly endeavours. This is why Thailand, a Buddhist nation, also hosts a huge meat market of exploited prostitutes while also having a massive sangha of renunciate monks. Feeding the monks erases the negative karma of dodgy behaviours.<br /><br />But it isn't all so contradictory. Personally I filter out a lot of nonsense and see the cultural manifestations for what they are. I'm not a revisionist either, because a lot of eminent natives of Buddhist cultures suggest doing the same.Jeffrey Kotykhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11466850119342584826noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5584699251999622098.post-42379236603418564412012-05-07T16:32:13.188+02:002012-05-07T16:32:13.188+02:00I have most of Alan Watt's books too, and I fe...I have most of Alan Watt's books too, and I feel similarly about Buddhism, that it is a kind of spiritual nihilism denigrating the material, like most of humanity's output the last 5,000 years, overly flavored by the paternalistic. I just ordered Greer's book, and should be reading it this week.<br /><br />The signs are all around us, the unraveling of everything we have come to take for granted. I'm hoping to retrofit my house before winter, but I might lose it too. A curious life, this. Surrendering to the flow of universal processes is one of the hardest things there is to do. <br /><br />www.offthegridmpls.blogspot.comWilliam Hunter Duncanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03659156353754825272noreply@blogger.com