"Seeing the bannered force all sides —
the troops, Mara along with his mount —
I go into battle.
May they not budge me from my spot.
That army of yours,that the world with its devas
can't overcome,
I will smash with discernment —
as an unfired pot with a stone."
The Padhanna Sutta is part of the Pali Canon, which are
some of the oldest records we have of the life of the
Buddha and what he may have actually said.
The quote above, specifically deals with his
confrontation with Mara immediately before his
enlightenment. Mara is a god or demon depending on
your definition who consistently tries to tempt the
Buddha to give up his meditation under the Bodhi Tree
and go home.
He tries reasoning with Buddha,
tempting him with beautiful women, and eventually by
threatening him with an army of demons. Buddha touches
his hand to the ground and gives the quote above,
which I liked enough to post here.
There are various interpretations of what Mara is.
Even in some of the early Buddhist texts, there's
an insinuation that he might not be an actual being
but the forces of temptation that we all carry
around in our heads. Other times he's
presented as an actual being. In either case, Mara
contiually throughout the Buddha's life tries to
tempt him away from the path, and each time fails,
and over time these stories move from being akin to
Jesus being tempted in the desert by the devil,
and more towards a sort of spiritual precursor
to a Road Runner cartoon, with Buddha
recgnizing Mara's tricks for what they are more
or less immediately upon seeing them,
with comical results for the would be tempter.
Not to do with Zen in particular today, but
there's a cool quote about smashing armies and
some talk about being unshakeable in your beliefs,
so there you go.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
A quote from the Padhana Sutta:
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Opening Salvo
Right, so let's start at the beginning. Zenarchy is a catchy phrase borrowed\stolen from Kerry Thornley, perfectly summed up in this excerpt from his book (wait for it) Zenarchy (which can be found here http://www.mindcontrolforums.com/hambone/zenarchy.html):
"Now Zen struck me as the natural lifestyle implied by anarchist politics - and from the Taoistic perspective of Zen, anarchism seemed the logical political option. Like the Yin and the Yang, they belong together in a dynamic synergy of creative power." Kerry Thornley was one of the founders of a religion disguised as a joke (or a joke disguised as a religion) called Discordianism and may have been involved in the Kennedy assassination. This is probably the last we'll hear from him, as I've more or less co-opted his word and concept. Also, he's dead.
I recently became a Buddhist after long stints as both a Catholic seminarian and a practicing occultist. I left the Church when I began to feel bogged down by dogma and realized that prayers seem to only be answered about half the time. I began practicing a sort-of post-modern interpretation of Golden Dawn and Thelemic ritual before I began to feel bogged down by dogma and realized that long and intense rituals in secret languages only work about half the time. Funny that. During my time with both schools of thought, I was an anarcho-syndicalist political activist and did things like scale fences and get beat up by cops.
One of the things that first attracted me to Buddhism, and the philosophy of Zen in particular, is that it's focused very much on the objective reality we all see every day. Yes, there's obviously some mysticism involved, but in general most of the philosophy deals with things that you can look out your window and see for yourself.
I also appreciate that the historical Buddha, Siddhartha, was not anyone metaphysically special at the outset. He wasn't the son of a god or in contact with secret ascended masters, he was just a normal person who realized some things about the nature of reality and then passed them along. Unless you delve into Pure Land Buddhism or some of the other more esoteric schools, spiritual fulfillment doesn't come from any outside source, it comes from inside of yourself. The very idea of that makes the little anti-authoritarian in my heart the happiest little anti-authoritarian ever.
I made this blog to catalog some of the thoughts that go through my head in regards to Buddhism, Anarchism, and that little area where they meet called Zenarchy. But for now it's late, so let's just hope that I update here again.
"Now Zen struck me as the natural lifestyle implied by anarchist politics - and from the Taoistic perspective of Zen, anarchism seemed the logical political option. Like the Yin and the Yang, they belong together in a dynamic synergy of creative power." Kerry Thornley was one of the founders of a religion disguised as a joke (or a joke disguised as a religion) called Discordianism and may have been involved in the Kennedy assassination. This is probably the last we'll hear from him, as I've more or less co-opted his word and concept. Also, he's dead.
I recently became a Buddhist after long stints as both a Catholic seminarian and a practicing occultist. I left the Church when I began to feel bogged down by dogma and realized that prayers seem to only be answered about half the time. I began practicing a sort-of post-modern interpretation of Golden Dawn and Thelemic ritual before I began to feel bogged down by dogma and realized that long and intense rituals in secret languages only work about half the time. Funny that. During my time with both schools of thought, I was an anarcho-syndicalist political activist and did things like scale fences and get beat up by cops.
One of the things that first attracted me to Buddhism, and the philosophy of Zen in particular, is that it's focused very much on the objective reality we all see every day. Yes, there's obviously some mysticism involved, but in general most of the philosophy deals with things that you can look out your window and see for yourself.
I also appreciate that the historical Buddha, Siddhartha, was not anyone metaphysically special at the outset. He wasn't the son of a god or in contact with secret ascended masters, he was just a normal person who realized some things about the nature of reality and then passed them along. Unless you delve into Pure Land Buddhism or some of the other more esoteric schools, spiritual fulfillment doesn't come from any outside source, it comes from inside of yourself. The very idea of that makes the little anti-authoritarian in my heart the happiest little anti-authoritarian ever.
I made this blog to catalog some of the thoughts that go through my head in regards to Buddhism, Anarchism, and that little area where they meet called Zenarchy. But for now it's late, so let's just hope that I update here again.
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