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Friday, April 10, 2015

Buddhism



I've given up on you, "Buddhism", you are

traitor, I can't

believe I fell for you,

full of Sanskritic fantasies of

grandiose humility, what a find! I

miss you already, please let me back, you

for whom my early romance with Dharma meant

obsessing over so many texts of you,

Sutra and Shastra,

Zen and Tantra,

Psychoanalysis and Buddhism,

Meditation books and then more, still, all

excellent Enlightenment Marketing,

spiritual development in academic Buddhist drag




Buddhism,

you are a disgrace!

I miss you already.

Sunday, March 15, 2015

Humility

"Humility will not be served by lowering your sense of your own worth ([a] common misconception). To do that is simply to cringe, and cringers, beneath their lowly display, are rarely humble- more often they harbour an inadequately sublimated envy at what they see as others' good luck, which should have been theirs, had the world been more just. To be truly humble is to remain alert to the fact that, unless you're a castaway, your life unrolls amidst a tangle of reciprocal relationships, all of which demand some degree or other of discernment that can determine both justly and generously what is due to or from each. It is not humility to see only that your existence will import nothing to many people; neither is it pride to see that, for some, your presence may matter very much indeed. Real humility discerns and maintains an equilibrium between the two. To do its job properly it must solicit the assistance of both love and patience. Love has the best eyes, patience the best temper and tempering faculty. Humility defers wisely to both."

- Robert DiNapoli, from essay "Humility", taken from Arena: The Australian Magazine of Left Political, Social and Cultural Commentary, issue No. 134

Admiration

"ADMIRATION

Purpose:
To bring about growth through the desire to emulate desirable qualities. True admiration, if pure, brings joy.

Distortions:
Competition, then Jealousy, then Envy. (=wants to do as well as, then better than the admired one, to possess, then wants them to do worse than oneself at any cost, even if destroys what is desired.) Criticism and sabotage (in thought, speech or action) of the one envied, and self-criticism and self-hatred. ('Cassio and Othello' stance in life.)

Release:
...envy is a very poisonous combination of anger at the admired one, fear of one's own inadequacy, and grief at the loss of supremacy.

Transformation:
Forgiveness of self and other(s). Remembrance that one does oneself have the capacity to emulate the quality admired, as a latent potential in one's own Higher Unconscious. The decision to develop that quality in one's life. Gratitude and restoration of self-love.

Opportunity:
Qualities of the Higher Self [or one's own latent potential] seeking expression - Acceptance of oneself as one is at present without condemnation, even though one can see where improvements can be made. Unconditional Love. And the development of precisely the qualities perceived and admired in the other from within one's own self.
"

- from "Health, Joy, Love and Forgiveness", by the Psychosynthesis Foundation of Australia Inc.

critical mass

critical mass, let's say, of queer Muslims, making websites, let's say
of hybridised "Asian-'Western'" identities doing politik, perhaps
of bicycles storming roads, demanding justice for all killed by dooring,
victims of dominant ignorance and of otherwise poor social, cultural, political and urban infrastructures,
critical masses making meaning through amassing critical unity,
radical coalition in the service of egalitarianism, in service of
"The People"
"The Marginal"
"The Otherwise Forgotten";
criticalmass,
let's say, of progressive revisions, underway
obligatory ordinariness, making accessible not only
the fruits of liberty to those who may not yet have tasted it fully,
but also of
the ordinary victories of progressive radicalism
without the ugly cancer of fundamentalist extremism, with its own
myopias and tyrannies... "someone must always get hurt": how do I render this also essentially untruthful?

critical masses, let's say, of migrants of colour and indigenous nations in solidarity,
in solidary response to global Euro-/American- and (increasingly) Sino-hegemony,
of working classes linking arms reclaiming management of work,
all and so on and et cetera and ad infinitum

one world, critically amassing;
this is intentional,
not inevitable justice

Sunday, March 8, 2015

Digital Sangha

Facebook as Digital Sangha.
What is skillful action, in the context of Sangha?
What is right view, intention, speech and action?
How does living right livelihood factor into my expressions on Facebook?
What efforts do I make, what is the quality of my mind and my concentration that are integral to relating generously, wisely, lovingly and compassionately to my social network - as - Sangha?

No need to rush... anything...

Letting things emerge as they emerge... Breathing into things-as-they-are.

Friday, March 6, 2015

9.08pm thoughts

I've been sick the past few days.

Woke up in the middle of the night, two nights ago, with nightmares and fever.

I skipped work yesterday, as a result.

Today, I took a half day.

I have been reading Tim Soutphommasane's book "Don't Go Back to Where You Came From: Why Multiculturalism Works". It's very good.

Considerations of Spirituality

So I work for an organisation that focuses on spiritual care and spiritual health.

These are not easy concepts to explain.

A reflection on spirituality as an aspect of health and wellness. That one of the historical "homes" of spirituality has been in religion and in religious institutions. Of course, many religions and religious institutions these days are unfortunately less homes for spirit and more for homes for myopia, the maintenance of privilege, political regression, and an inability to remain present to evolving global realities.

All that said, some things that religions, religious institutions and religious leaders have done, that have been integral to any evolving definition of "spirituality" per se, have included:

- Ethics (e.g. a consideration of Old Age, Sickness and Death and the implications these considerations have on how we choose to live)
- Hermeneutics (textual interpretation in a community of practitioners)
- Ritual
- Contemplation/Reflection/Meditation

When I think of "spiritual health" in the context of a secular health sector, I think not only of the more esoteric aspects of spirituality (e.g. the "transcendent" or issues of "ultimate concern"), but also of health and medical ethics, hermeneutics in the sense of theological literacy when relating to patients and people living with chronic illness or degenerative disease, including more deliberate and mindful forms of ritual (including a reading of the extent to which a mindless ritual is already implicit in terms of access to health systems, e.g. intake forms, confidentiality statements, the taking of medicines, policies and procedures that delimit what sorts of movement or speech are possible, etc.), and moments of silent contemplation (with all the evidence-based promises of increased work efficacy and neurogenesis), integrated into the practice of health professionals, beyond just contact with patients/clients.

Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Why Do Art?

Art!
It is simply what we do,  when peace is possible. Art is simply what is done, as a residue of peace, however precarious, however violently protected or brought into being...
Art is the moment of pause from exteriority, and is the process of interior translation of the experiences of phenomena through some particular form of conveyance, be it piano, painting, or printing.
Art is the possible, out of some moment of peace, or peaceability.

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Monday, February 9, 2015

Problematising Problematising

We begin with the phenomenon, as it is usually experienced, then
the phenomenon, as it is usually described, then... a slow movement away...:
an observation, by some critical mass of observers, or at least from
a significant lone voice, whose critical perception, however lonely,
may transform a critical mass out of a disjuncture, out of their dissonance between their experiences of phenomena and their description of their experiences, which may, in turn, liberate new forms of experience...

Liberatory experiences.

This lone voice is that which Problematises.

Problematising gender relations, for example, to observe the ways that habitual patterns of socialisation entrench female subservience relative to male domination.
Problematising race relations, for example, to observe the ways that historic global patterns of Euro-American media hegemony can entrench cross-cultural commitments to Eurocentrism and maintenance of white privilege.
Problematising economic relations, for example, to observe how normative economic participation increases the wealth of the already wealthy, while continuing to entrench further impoverishment of the already poor.

Et Cetera.

So, this voice that Problematises, ordinarily heroic; necessary.
In the service of justice.

And then:
There is the way that Discourse itself becomes part of a particular status quo, preserving elitist ideals, not only of intellection (which is not itself to be feared), but in particular of an intellection that is excessively deconstructionist, relativistic, and only falsely democractic.

The performative contradictions of Problematisation:
That I problematise all pretences to universality, except the very dialectic of problematisation, which remains as an unproblematic (or unproblematised) good, at least by those who proclaim compassionate progressivism.

This is what Tim Mansfield may mean by "Statusidentitaetsverlustneid"... observing the importance of differentiating between forms of Problematisation.

That it is worth paying attention to the ways that a struggle for justice may be speaking to a sense of thwarted entitlement, motivated more by jealousy (statusidentitaetsverlustneid) than by a sense of selfless compassion.

To pay attention, in this sense, is to problematise... but not only here to tear down, but also to invite that missing (or postponed) compassion.

Thursday, February 5, 2015

2015

This moment. 2015 has been a strange year so far. Very very melancholy.

On the one hand, a cisgender white American dude writing about how the world, on aggregate, is safer now than it has ever been... (admittedly, that is a 2011 reference... I'm not sure how things are stacking up these days)

On the other hand, my smarmy identity politik that attempts to "discredit" the objectivity of his work by pointing out his whiteness, his Americanness, his ... dude-ness...

The Sydney siege
Charlie Hebdo
Boko Haram's mass murders
ISIS/ISIL/DAESH beheadings, immolation, gay-killings
etc.

Also:
Just the pornographic virality of filmed murder...

Reflecting on how social media (i.e. FB/Twitter) and high speed internet access
contribute to my notions of "brutality"

Reading Judith Butler's "Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence"

Also, the physical separation between me and most of my family.

Tiredness, as well. Tiredness, yes, as well.

Tiredness exists in part because of ongoing expectations (however self-imposed or inflicted)
about achievement, correctness, etc.

The sense of the Internet, such as:
Afghanistan, of the 1950s/60s
- An anthology of Radical Black (mostly African American) thought

Also, retrospectives... I read articles now from prior to The Most Recent...
It is worth revisiting old pieces, from elsewhere, from a decade or more ago
to see how far we have come, or how little has changed, or how "backward" we have gone...

Judith Butler's "Precarious Life" was written soon after the attacks by al-Qaeda on the TwinTowers of NYC on Sept 11th 2001...

And the book resonates with me still today, her insights into what ethical quandries we need to deal with, after every new beheading...

I have also recently become much more interested in reading the corpus of works by Noam Chomsky...
connecting with Anarchism, beyond the early20s-hipster-identitypolitik of the anarchist spaces I have traversed

I have also, in 2015, become more wary of identity politics in general, with a visible (online) expression of endless cycles of impotent anger, of rehashed (and perhaps rehearsed) traumas, of allergies to beauty (as if beauty were some affront to the purity of precious political outrage)

My friend Tim writes about
"Statusidentitaetsverlustneid
n. the feeling of jealousy one gets when one is born into a powerful family, ethnicity, class or social position, but one winds up with no power."

I reflect on my own class privilege, my obsession with 'justice', perhaps
a clinging onto some sense of power and privilege and access I once knew
as a Chinese ethnic majority in a Chinese-run country, even as I spoke English fluently so I was still
the elite Chinese among Chinese in a post-British colony, and
I remember now, also

I was approached at 14 years old, in my favourite shopping centre (the Heeren, which was once almost entirely devoted to the HMV music store, which has since gone bust in Singapore), 
being approached by a person who told me
that I was handsome, that I could be a model, that I should be a model...
She gave me her card for a modelling agency, with some details for an orientation into the business...
 
I used to be so... gorgeous.
Young man, Chinese, of course, among Chinese
fair skinned, tall, I was told: I had impeccable dress sense, that 
I had good skin, smooth and fair, yet also 
darker than female
and that all the girls who knew me
wanted to be with me, even as 
I found myself primarily wanting to 
give fellatio to Caucasian tourists
who were escaping the tyranny of their own
monoracial nightmares, from their countries of origin

Singapore is so amazing, it is so. so amazing

and I am not young anymore.

The air I breathe is Australian bush air
desert air, and
a new sense of justice is possible here, necessary here

I leave behind my legacy of class privilege, my statusidentitaetsverlustneid... I must try on some other outrage
move beyond indignation or pity
meditative inquiry, let's say
psychonaut erotica

in 2015, 
I am as bewildered as I have ever been

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Post-Warburton Yarn

Been to Warburton, close to the source of the Yarra River, with my lover.
Getting to an interfaith ashram, feeling the power of the land,
sharing doctrine with the Yogi and the Priest while having tea
on a Sunday evening
after
a walk (beginning with banana) to and from Lala falls.
On Monday, a slice of Californian Redwoods,
surreally planted in rows
on the Western edges of the Eastern Victorian Yarra Ranges,
an afternoon yarning with a Catholic woman, still searching.

A thought of just settling there
a young retirement, not quite:
more a renewed dedication to spiritual practice and study,
a privileged space for magic.

A Buddhist monastery with by-donation lunch & retreat,
a love of breathing, river and bush.

The Spell of the Sensuous
A memory of some younger dayze.

Other possibilities abound.

I drink red wine to prevent heart attack, and hope for the best.

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Baha'i notions of Progressive Revelation

I have recently been interested more in Baha'i thought.

Just read this article,
The Baha'i Principle of Progressive Revelation by Iko Congo

Reflecting on Congo's post, I am noting the similarity between the Baha'i Principle of Progressive Revelation, and the Mahayana Buddhist principle of Upāya, or skillful means in spiritual teaching.

One difference (and actually, this is where I find Baha'i thought quite compelling, regardless of my own tendency to Buddhist-ic atheism), is that Progressive Revelation takes into account (at least, according to this article), developmental differences in learning spirituality (and not only dispositional difference, as the Lotus Sutra, by way of one Buddhist Mahayana textual example, often suggests of the BuddhaDharma being taught to beings of many different backgrounds)...

Note the analogy around "first grade", "second grade" and "third grade" teachers in school, who each set educational foundations for a person to ultimately be able to attain an analogous "revelation" of a university-level education.

Saturday, January 24, 2015

Noble 8fold Path

Right View
Right Intention
Right Speech
Right Action
Right Livelihood
Right Effort
Right Mindfulness
Right Concentration

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

An afternoon blurb

Sitting at my workplace, contemplating peace.
Peace, this morning, meditating upon a passage... That all is change, and that all blessings may become curses, that all curses may become blessings.

Nothing is stable in quality,
this is nothing to celebrate nor lament.

Equanimity is not something to "will" into existence, but can arise from the dropping of ambition, even if for a moment.

The "gathering of bearings".

This moment feels full... yet also
empty of any particular content (any content-in-particular)
...
and therefore full.

What work is there left for me to be done?
In what guise will this work make itself manifest (or will I manifest "my" "self" in it)?

Moving forward, what is there ?
Everything feels as a strange privileged entertainment...
What are the responsibilities that come with such precarious peace?

My death may be caused by the symbols of any of my freedoms.

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Why Sense?

Why Sense?
"All is Forgiven"
A fetishistic encounter with the thoughts of Luz
Another white man wins my heart
Martyrs have been created in the wake of terror
Their deaths only make sense, because they had it coming, those
racist imperialist bastards
Why sense? why bother with linearity when
emergence is so much more like a lotus, whose
insipid beauty springs forth from muddy roots, its
calm pond breeds mosquitoes,
blood suckers leeching off of the flesh of serene Buddha, holding
"Je Suis Charlie"
"Je Suis Baga"
"Je Suis Cho"
"Je Suis Mahinda"
"Je Suis Boko Haram"
"Je suis Wikipedia"

Wikipedia est génial
Google Translate helps me lose sight of the essential "otherness" of the Other, that
which keeps them incomprehensible,
and hence, that which
keeps them worth loving,
destroying,
or otherwise ignoring.

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Restlessness

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is bombed,
Boko Haram decimates a town of 2000,
Over 141 people are killed in a Pakistani school,
Charlie Hebdo, and hostages at a kosher supermarket in Paris,
Freedom of speech... freedom of speech... freedom of speech...

Freedom from harm
Freedom from fear
Freedom from want
Freedom from hatred
Freedom from oppression
Freedom from violence

The world is getting safer, on aggregate, I hear
The human person is not used to witnessing such a dizzying array of diverse acts of violence
amidst the stunning statistical view of aggregated decrease in violence globally

What are my responsibilities in a precarious peacetime?

"Interfaith dialogue" is a world of possibility
where meaning-making systems seek to find common ground, build bridges

"The best way not to be homophobic is to know a gay person."
... and to regularly interact with the "Other".

Not only the Other as neighbour,
but Other as friend.
To challenge one another, cry one another,
betray one another, and yet to be redeemed by one another,
to forgive one another
to forgive one another
to forgive one another.

A lightbulb bursts in my house and it takes me a full week to buy another, my higher priorities to keep up with the flow of obsessions on social media.

My pillows do not support my breathing at night, and it takes me several months to buy better ones, my higher priorities to keep my eyes opened to digitised flat screens, distracting myself from sleep with games and news and entertainment

Death is inevitable, whether by heart attack, a withering away of the body from age, or from rockets launched into my home from some imperialist cancer.

I find myself afraid of being called
to something more heroic of my abilities.
What blocks me is the 
unfinished violence of my own family legacy
that no amount of good politics will save me from.

I am still a teenager with nightmares of a middle class psychodrama
Hyper-privileged, yet still,
an Everyfamily,
patriarchy does not die even after he is heartbroken.

Revenge is androgynous.
Revenge is multicultural.
Revenge is transnational.
Revenge spans generations, all directions from ancestry to progeny

The stars still twinkle, even though light years closer to their source
we know that they have mostly been
entirely spent of their grandeur.

What if what we see of the universe of one another's potential, may be as the light of stars...?
A glimmer of something already quite, quite gone.?

Sunday, January 11, 2015

Thoughts on Digi-Media

After this long hiatus from Blogger.

A reflection on various forms of digital mass media (especially with high-speed internet), and revisiting some familiar metaphors.

Porn: The "McDonaldisation" of sex.
Facebook: The "McDonaldisation" of my social self.

Just as the former desensitises me to "real" (read: in-person) sex, real partnership, sensuality, etc.
So the latter desensitises me to "real" (read: in-person) social relations, political dialogue, etc.

They also have their "uses".

Facebook can expose me to new ideas, new perspectives, etc.
Porn can expose me to new positions, new bodies, etc.

More likely though, especially if mindlessly perused (which is what various porn/FB media platforms tend to be designed to encourage):
That they entrench me in my existing views and habits, or at the very least, trigger me to exaggerated contempt about others' entrenched views and habits.

Facebook will keep me in loops with an outraged and aggrieved Left-wing sensibility (given who and what shows up on my newsfeed).
Porn will keep me addicted to particular notions of the desireable body, or of exciting sex acts (regardless of whether or not I actually enjoy these in "real life").

Facebook will trigger status anxiety, self-esteem issues, questioning (not in an entirely healthy way) my own "value" in my political views (i.e. whether I'm "radical enough").
Porn will have me negating the value of my own body, the sensations of my own interior world.

So... I leave it all be, for the moment.
"Fasting" again, from all this hypnosis.

Letting myself hunger again, to connect with life as it is.

Friday, January 9, 2015

random thought

Reconnecting with the Political Compass (and remembering that I am rated, according to this metric, as "Left-Libertarian"),
I am reminded that I am likely far more identified (as an endless migrant who has only in recent years found citizenship in my country of residence) with Libertarianism (individual considerations more than statist ones) than with my Left-wing sensibilities.

i.e. I suspect I would get along more with Libertarian types of either side of the Left-Right divide more than I would get along with any authoritarian figures, whether they be Stalinists, Tony Abbott, or lesbian-feminist identity politicians.

Ah, Hello Again

A safe space. Somewhat outside of scrutiny.
A revisiting of writing here, not on Facebook.
Revisiting this space of intellectual freedom, my own vanguard, significantly outside of the politics of social media.

Some heaviness. Charlie Hebdo.

Considering: French colonialism.
Considering: Islam.

Have been reading. And reading. And reading. And reading.

Considering:
The stalemate in a war of ideas, and the atrophied postmodern Left.

Considering: That I am tired, also... very very tired.
Very tired of cycles of violence, and also
very tired of heightened fear, and also
my impatience about the inability of a multiculturalist Left (including that impulse in myself)
to acknowledge our own fear, because:
terrorism works...

Terrorism works to keep terror alive
to remind us of the fragility of our lives

"Je Suis Charlie" becomes the internet refrain, expressing solidarity with the slain,
a sudden synonymy of Charlie Hebdo with freedom of speech and freedom of expression

...and then I witness, from people who claim solidarity with marginalised Muslims in the West, suggestions that "Je Suis Charlie" is solidarity with racism, Islamophobia, etc... Where were we when the endless brown bodies were blitzed by drone strikes? What sorts of indignations were we protesting then? How could we elsewhere be so numb, when we now side with the privileged Western lives who peddled racist/Orientalist caricature, when we allow them their martyrdom? How could authoritarian governments condemn these attacks and claim solidarity with freedoms of speech when public organising on Palestinian sovereignty is banned in France?

and I feel ... tired.  And numb.
Numb to this critique.

Perhaps it is indeed my own racism.
Perhaps it is indeed that I have internalised the European colonial impulse.

Perhaps. How can I deny that I both share this critique as well as find myself completely numb to it?

Perhaps something else has shifted in me too.
That I lean into the stalemate in this war of ideas, war of moralities. That I lean into this stalemate and find myself sobbing, and sobbing and sobbing, and sobbing, yes:

I had woken up to the news on social media, of these attacks, and I remember
laying in my bed, listening to the fragile peace of the birds outside my window by the Merri Creek, my eyes transfixed on the screen of my Android phone, and I remember my body
shaking and shaking, quivering
and I saw a part of me murdered too.

For the first time in my life:
I found myself mourning the deaths of a group of old white men whom I have not met and who I do not know.

Yes, everyone will read into the news (or out of the news) whatever they wish.
Something will be triggered in all of us, all our pre-existing struggles, fears, hopes, dreams, rages
All of our unresolved, yet-to-be-resolved, and unresolvable tensions.

There are many agendas.

I am tired.