He's Canadian military. Seeing as how the Canadian military never puts itself into harm's way, no Canadian will ever be captured, and thus, they have no need to learn these techniques.
What's miraculous about it? It isn't a miracle, it is simple self control, anyone could learn to do it. With practice, you can learn to isolate your consciousness from your sensory inputs. This isn't ESP or psychokinesis or anything weird or supernatural at all.
I'm actually really curious now as to why this story makes you react the way it does. You seem to be actually angry about this simple, natural, human phenomenon. And when I ask you about it, you don't respond. Weird. Did a Buddhist monk beat you up when you were a kid or something?
Well, Buddhism is non-dualistic, meaning there is no 'internal' or 'external.' And it's a subtle difference, but no occurrence can cause someone in the enlightened state (known to psychology as the 'flow' state) to react. It can cause them to act. A reaction is like a reflex or habit. An action is spontaneous. That's my understanding.
Hmmm, I don't think Buddha would be too impressed with people immolating themselves just to honor him. But Buddhism, like any religion (and we'll call it that for the sake of argument), attracts some whackos. Self-immolation to honor Buddha is, IMHO, ego glorification, and runs counter to everything Buddha taught.
Why NOT burn yourself, if doing so will help resolve a source of suffering? In fact, this man's actions not only helped stop oppression of Buddhism in Vietnam, they defused any violent reaction to the repression.
As for the story that his heart resisted burning, I used to feel this was an important fact. I no longer do. And I'm not entirely convinced it's true. Being enlightened does not make one a superman. But plenty of people think it does, or should, and they want to venerate people who they think have it. But doing so creates a gulf between the venerated person and the rest of us. Our hearts would burn, the thought goes, but his did not. He is not like us. How, then, can we overcome attachments the way he did?
Absolutely. In fact, there is a fairly well know story in Buddhism, about a recent Zen master who lost his wife. His students were surprised to see him cry. "Master, why are you crying? You're enlightened!" They asked. "Yeah, but I miss my wife" was his approximate reply. The point is that enlightened masters do whatever the hell they want to do, I guess. The Buddhist master felt no reason not to fully feel and express his sorrow, but his actions were in no way constrained by feeling it. Some people feel he was trying to educate his students that being enlightened has nothing to do with being a superman, or repressing all feelings.
So, if a Buddhist master's family were being tortured in front of him, nobody could possibly predict what he would do about it. He could calmly watch, and lose no empathy for the torturers (theoretically. I've never witnessed this, so I'm going on anecdotes and guesswork, really.) Or he could do infinitely many other things. We don't know.
He can not help more people by expanding because if the business grew too large, he would not be able to take a personal hand in helping his employees. He's grown it as large as he can while still maintaining the direction he desires for the company.
Unfortunately, 'violent coercion' also means, "work how I tell you to, for the price I offer you, or starve to death." Do people really leave when the boss is an asshole? If they can, they do, but most can't. And therein lies the coercion. The government is there with guns to protect the rights of property owners, over the rights of the non-owning class. Your libertarian utopia has never existed, and can never exist, because it encourages and rewards the most selfish, least empathic, and least remorseful among us.
Now who fits that bill? Who is selfish, has no empathy, and no remorse? A sociopath. A purely libertarian society gives the poor and powerless no collective voice. It's every man for himself. And in such a society, there is no check or balance to personal, individual power. It is a society designed for sociopathic exploitation of the weak.
If people can use government to gain power over others, they can use any other power structure, such as a corporation, to do the same. Only, with a corporation, citizens do not have a vote. At least with government, people can decide collectively what will benefit them.
I've watched it. Do you see him open his mouth? No. My point stands. But I ask you: why so cynical? You'd made up your mind what must have happened, before you'd even seen any evidence. Why? Does the story contradict some deep seated belief you hold about human nature?
He wasn't on any kind of drugs. He did topple over, but that was after he'd been burning for a while. There were tons of witnesses, he chose a busy street corner. According to witnesses, he never uttered a word, and his facial expression did not change. Believe what you like.
Nobody made the guy do it. He personally thought it was the best way to publicize the crack down on Buddhism by the Christian rulers. He was right, people rose up, and the oppression stopped.
If burning yourself would help the lives of tens of thousands, and it wouldn't actually hurt you because you have self control, wouldn't that actually be the sanest thing to do?
We have an open marriage. I'm useful to her not because I satisfy her sexually, though I do at least as well in that regard as anyone who has been married for ten years, but rather, because we have each other's back, because we have the same moral center, and because our strengths complement each other's weaknesses.
Ah, I see, you were talking about fools in general, weren't you? Why tack on 'idealistic' then? Why not just say 'fools' and be done with it. You are being disingenuous and you know it: you tried to tar all idealists with the 'fools' label, but now you don't want to admit it.
One of the perks of being powerful is you don't have to go to psychiatric counseling and you don't get labeled a sociopath even if you are one. But here is a good citation: http://www.hare.org/links/saturday.html, it talks about how the characteristics of psychopaths or sociopaths, like lack of empathy or remorse, make them very good at climbing the corporate or political ladder.
No bosses, but facilitators and managers. Teachers, okay, but we're talking about children again. Judges, sure, they need power over others. Leaders, religious or otherwise, do not need power over others. If they are real leaders, people will follow out of self interest. Celebrities don't have power over others.
No, obviously people shouldn't get anything they want. But everyone should get the bare minimum: food, shelter, clean water, and access to medical care. If you want more than that, you work for it. And people will, because once people's basic physiological needs are met, social acceptance and respect become highly motivating factors.
If you scream while immolating yourself, you aren't doing it right. The Vietnamese Buddhist who torched himself sat peacefully in the lotus pose with a beatific smile on his face while he burned. And that, kids, is what inner peace is really all about. If it is possible to train your mind so that you can calmly burn yourself to death without moving a muscle, nothing anyone can do to you can possibly affect you. Nobody can have any amount of power over you if you've got that kind of self control.
Maybe the fact that you see the majority of Muslims as crazies has more to do with the misinformation you've picked up and your own biases than with the actual craziness of most Muslims. Perhaps there are reasons you don't see the violent actions of Christian fundamentalists reported in the media. Remember the Christian militia that was plotting to kill government officials? Wasn't that long ago. Whatever happened to them? Why haven't we read more about them in the media?
No, that isn't what you said. Reread your post if you've forgotten.
You were the one who first stated that 'idealistic fools' will always run a corporation into the ground, how is responding with a counter example not germane to the discussion?
Sorry, I meant 'you' in the generic sense, not you personally. But you do come across as someone who fancies themselves a realist and you seem to mistrust people who think of themselves as idealists.
I also forgot to add in my first post that I completely agree with your four points. However, I do blame the fat cats, who tend to be sociopathic or narcissistic tyrants. No one should have power over others, except to some extent, parents over their children. Being wealthy should give you comfort, and a cushion against hard times, but it should not allow you to dictate terms to the poor and desperate.
Obviously, if someone is stealing from him, that endangers the good work he does for everyone else. Turning them away is not being a heartless bastard, it is protecting the good people he helps. But he is a moral person, and has built a workplace ethic that encourages the best in everyone, so he rarely faces this problem.
I have a wife, and she is the opposite of a hoarder: she's a compulsive thrower-outer. If you can't justify its existence, it's gone.
Possible replies:
1. Make a list of all her clothes and shoes and when she wears any of them. If she ever wants to throw something away, tell her she hasn't used clothes/shoes x in y days and that therefore she should throw those out.
2. How long before you're thrown away?/duck
3. Don't ever tell her you don't want kids!!!
1. She already does this. If she hasn't worn it in a year, it goes to Goodwill. You thought she was power-tripping with the clutter removal? Nope, it's damn near a compulsion.
2. Ah, but I continue to be useful.;)
3.) She hates clutter, remember? Kids are clutter to her. Neither of us want kids.
I've got one box of cables, neatly organized in gallon freezer bags by type. I've got another box with a few spare parts I might actually need. I used to have many, many more boxes of parts and wires I never used, but now I have a wife, and she is the opposite of a hoarder: she's a compulsive thrower-outer. If you can't justify its existence, it's gone.
Idealists can run easily run a corporation at a profit. Fools can not. I've got a Buddhist friend who owns a medium sized bakery business that specifically employs ex-cons, runaways, homeless folks, and so forth. He operates it at a small, reasonable profit. He isn't rich, but he is comfortable. Stock portfolios containing only socially responsible, environmentally friendly corporations have been around for at least three decades, and they have done well enough that people keep investing in them.
The idea that you can't be an idealist and make a profit is an idea promulgated by selfish bastards who don't give a rat's ass about the well being of others. It's a cop out, nothing more. Just admit that you aren't an idealist and you don't care about others; you don't need to put idealists down just because you aren't one.
No, it isn't an example of the No True Scotsman fallacy. In the no true Scottsman fallacy, the man in question really is a Scotsman. He isn't American or English. A country must actually practice some form of communism to be communist.. Was the USSR really a Republic? Was the DDR? Can we indict the Republic as a form of government because so many so-called Republics were actually repressive totalitarian states?
If you want to make the argument that many states that attempt communism fail to achieve it, I can agree with you. But that is because power hungry elitists fear real communism more than anything else. The power elite care about one freedom: the freedom to oppress others, the freedom to touch your life without being touched in return. Communism in its true form will prevent the sociopathic power elite from dominating others, and so they fight it, and/or infiltrate it and take over from the inside.
Here's a realistic scenario where you might want to do that: you are dashing from a spot of cover to an exit. Your enemies are to the left, say. You look ahead and begin running, look towards your enemies and begin firing, look back to the door to see if anyone has popped out of it, then back to the enemies, then to the right to make sure you haven't missed someone hiding, all the while firing blindly towards the known enemies to suppress their return fire. You are running straight ahead, firing to the left, and looking in all directions.
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He's Canadian military. Seeing as how the Canadian military never puts itself into harm's way, no Canadian will ever be captured, and thus, they have no need to learn these techniques.
What's miraculous about it? It isn't a miracle, it is simple self control, anyone could learn to do it. With practice, you can learn to isolate your consciousness from your sensory inputs. This isn't ESP or psychokinesis or anything weird or supernatural at all.
I'm actually really curious now as to why this story makes you react the way it does. You seem to be actually angry about this simple, natural, human phenomenon. And when I ask you about it, you don't respond. Weird. Did a Buddhist monk beat you up when you were a kid or something?
Well, Buddhism is non-dualistic, meaning there is no 'internal' or 'external.' And it's a subtle difference, but no occurrence can cause someone in the enlightened state (known to psychology as the 'flow' state) to react. It can cause them to act. A reaction is like a reflex or habit. An action is spontaneous. That's my understanding.
Hmmm, I don't think Buddha would be too impressed with people immolating themselves just to honor him. But Buddhism, like any religion (and we'll call it that for the sake of argument), attracts some whackos. Self-immolation to honor Buddha is, IMHO, ego glorification, and runs counter to everything Buddha taught.
So you are saying 'Just let them die.' Is that it? You think, if they can't make it in life, let them starve to death?
Why NOT burn yourself, if doing so will help resolve a source of suffering? In fact, this man's actions not only helped stop oppression of Buddhism in Vietnam, they defused any violent reaction to the repression.
As for the story that his heart resisted burning, I used to feel this was an important fact. I no longer do. And I'm not entirely convinced it's true. Being enlightened does not make one a superman. But plenty of people think it does, or should, and they want to venerate people who they think have it. But doing so creates a gulf between the venerated person and the rest of us. Our hearts would burn, the thought goes, but his did not. He is not like us. How, then, can we overcome attachments the way he did?
That's not what Buddhism is really about, IMHO.
Absolutely. In fact, there is a fairly well know story in Buddhism, about a recent Zen master who lost his wife. His students were surprised to see him cry. "Master, why are you crying? You're enlightened!" They asked. "Yeah, but I miss my wife" was his approximate reply. The point is that enlightened masters do whatever the hell they want to do, I guess. The Buddhist master felt no reason not to fully feel and express his sorrow, but his actions were in no way constrained by feeling it. Some people feel he was trying to educate his students that being enlightened has nothing to do with being a superman, or repressing all feelings.
So, if a Buddhist master's family were being tortured in front of him, nobody could possibly predict what he would do about it. He could calmly watch, and lose no empathy for the torturers (theoretically. I've never witnessed this, so I'm going on anecdotes and guesswork, really.) Or he could do infinitely many other things. We don't know.
I imagine it would. I think the trick is, with practice, you can learn to disconnect your consciousness from your sense inputs.
He can not help more people by expanding because if the business grew too large, he would not be able to take a personal hand in helping his employees. He's grown it as large as he can while still maintaining the direction he desires for the company.
Unfortunately, 'violent coercion' also means, "work how I tell you to, for the price I offer you, or starve to death." Do people really leave when the boss is an asshole? If they can, they do, but most can't. And therein lies the coercion. The government is there with guns to protect the rights of property owners, over the rights of the non-owning class. Your libertarian utopia has never existed, and can never exist, because it encourages and rewards the most selfish, least empathic, and least remorseful among us.
Now who fits that bill? Who is selfish, has no empathy, and no remorse? A sociopath. A purely libertarian society gives the poor and powerless no collective voice. It's every man for himself. And in such a society, there is no check or balance to personal, individual power. It is a society designed for sociopathic exploitation of the weak.
If people can use government to gain power over others, they can use any other power structure, such as a corporation, to do the same. Only, with a corporation, citizens do not have a vote. At least with government, people can decide collectively what will benefit them.
I've watched it. Do you see him open his mouth? No. My point stands. But I ask you: why so cynical? You'd made up your mind what must have happened, before you'd even seen any evidence. Why? Does the story contradict some deep seated belief you hold about human nature?
We'll see.
He wasn't on any kind of drugs. He did topple over, but that was after he'd been burning for a while. There were tons of witnesses, he chose a busy street corner. According to witnesses, he never uttered a word, and his facial expression did not change. Believe what you like.
Nobody made the guy do it. He personally thought it was the best way to publicize the crack down on Buddhism by the Christian rulers. He was right, people rose up, and the oppression stopped.
If burning yourself would help the lives of tens of thousands, and it wouldn't actually hurt you because you have self control, wouldn't that actually be the sanest thing to do?
We have an open marriage. I'm useful to her not because I satisfy her sexually, though I do at least as well in that regard as anyone who has been married for ten years, but rather, because we have each other's back, because we have the same moral center, and because our strengths complement each other's weaknesses.
...but now I have a wife, and she is the opposite of a hoarder: she's a compulsive thrower-outer...p>
shouldn't that be a thrower-outerrer ?
Throw-outerist, perhaps?
Ah, I see, you were talking about fools in general, weren't you? Why tack on 'idealistic' then? Why not just say 'fools' and be done with it. You are being disingenuous and you know it: you tried to tar all idealists with the 'fools' label, but now you don't want to admit it.
One of the perks of being powerful is you don't have to go to psychiatric counseling and you don't get labeled a sociopath even if you are one. But here is a good citation: http://www.hare.org/links/saturday.html, it talks about how the characteristics of psychopaths or sociopaths, like lack of empathy or remorse, make them very good at climbing the corporate or political ladder.
No bosses, but facilitators and managers. Teachers, okay, but we're talking about children again. Judges, sure, they need power over others. Leaders, religious or otherwise, do not need power over others. If they are real leaders, people will follow out of self interest. Celebrities don't have power over others.
No, obviously people shouldn't get anything they want. But everyone should get the bare minimum: food, shelter, clean water, and access to medical care. If you want more than that, you work for it. And people will, because once people's basic physiological needs are met, social acceptance and respect become highly motivating factors.
If you scream while immolating yourself, you aren't doing it right. The Vietnamese Buddhist who torched himself sat peacefully in the lotus pose with a beatific smile on his face while he burned. And that, kids, is what inner peace is really all about. If it is possible to train your mind so that you can calmly burn yourself to death without moving a muscle, nothing anyone can do to you can possibly affect you. Nobody can have any amount of power over you if you've got that kind of self control.
Maybe the fact that you see the majority of Muslims as crazies has more to do with the misinformation you've picked up and your own biases than with the actual craziness of most Muslims. Perhaps there are reasons you don't see the violent actions of Christian fundamentalists reported in the media. Remember the Christian militia that was plotting to kill government officials? Wasn't that long ago. Whatever happened to them? Why haven't we read more about them in the media?
No, that isn't what you said. Reread your post if you've forgotten.
You were the one who first stated that 'idealistic fools' will always run a corporation into the ground, how is responding with a counter example not germane to the discussion?
Sorry, I meant 'you' in the generic sense, not you personally. But you do come across as someone who fancies themselves a realist and you seem to mistrust people who think of themselves as idealists.
I also forgot to add in my first post that I completely agree with your four points. However, I do blame the fat cats, who tend to be sociopathic or narcissistic tyrants. No one should have power over others, except to some extent, parents over their children. Being wealthy should give you comfort, and a cushion against hard times, but it should not allow you to dictate terms to the poor and desperate.
Obviously, if someone is stealing from him, that endangers the good work he does for everyone else. Turning them away is not being a heartless bastard, it is protecting the good people he helps. But he is a moral person, and has built a workplace ethic that encourages the best in everyone, so he rarely faces this problem.
Possible replies:
1. Make a list of all her clothes and shoes and when she wears any of them. If she ever wants to throw something away, tell her she hasn't used clothes/shoes x in y days and that therefore she should throw those out.
2. How long before you're thrown away? /duck
3. Don't ever tell her you don't want kids!!!
1. She already does this. If she hasn't worn it in a year, it goes to Goodwill. You thought she was power-tripping with the clutter removal? Nope, it's damn near a compulsion.
2. Ah, but I continue to be useful. ;)
3.) She hates clutter, remember? Kids are clutter to her. Neither of us want kids.
I've got one box of cables, neatly organized in gallon freezer bags by type. I've got another box with a few spare parts I might actually need. I used to have many, many more boxes of parts and wires I never used, but now I have a wife, and she is the opposite of a hoarder: she's a compulsive thrower-outer. If you can't justify its existence, it's gone.
Idealists can run easily run a corporation at a profit. Fools can not. I've got a Buddhist friend who owns a medium sized bakery business that specifically employs ex-cons, runaways, homeless folks, and so forth. He operates it at a small, reasonable profit. He isn't rich, but he is comfortable. Stock portfolios containing only socially responsible, environmentally friendly corporations have been around for at least three decades, and they have done well enough that people keep investing in them.
The idea that you can't be an idealist and make a profit is an idea promulgated by selfish bastards who don't give a rat's ass about the well being of others. It's a cop out, nothing more. Just admit that you aren't an idealist and you don't care about others; you don't need to put idealists down just because you aren't one.
No, it isn't an example of the No True Scotsman fallacy. In the no true Scottsman fallacy, the man in question really is a Scotsman. He isn't American or English. A country must actually practice some form of communism to be communist.. Was the USSR really a Republic? Was the DDR? Can we indict the Republic as a form of government because so many so-called Republics were actually repressive totalitarian states?
If you want to make the argument that many states that attempt communism fail to achieve it, I can agree with you. But that is because power hungry elitists fear real communism more than anything else. The power elite care about one freedom: the freedom to oppress others, the freedom to touch your life without being touched in return. Communism in its true form will prevent the sociopathic power elite from dominating others, and so they fight it, and/or infiltrate it and take over from the inside.
Here's a realistic scenario where you might want to do that: you are dashing from a spot of cover to an exit. Your enemies are to the left, say. You look ahead and begin running, look towards your enemies and begin firing, look back to the door to see if anyone has popped out of it, then back to the enemies, then to the right to make sure you haven't missed someone hiding, all the while firing blindly towards the known enemies to suppress their return fire. You are running straight ahead, firing to the left, and looking in all directions.