Why Buddhism and the Modern World Need Each Other
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- čas přidán 5. 04. 2015
- The highest ideal of the modern West has been social transformation: to restructure our societies so that they are more just. The most important goal for Buddhism is to awaken (the Buddha means “the Awakened”): personal transformation. Dr. David Loy explores how we need both, not just because these ideals complement each other, but because each project needs the other if it is to be successful.
Dr. David Loy is a writer, scholar, and Zen teacher in the Sanbo Kyodan tradition of Japanese Zen Buddhism. Dr. Loy’s recent research has focused upon the encounter between Buddhism and modernity, exhibiting special concern regarding social and ecological issues.
Learn more about Harvard Divinity School: hds.harvard.edu/
Buddhism can slove every problem
How does it solve the problem of sin that separates man and God? Only the blood of Christ can solve that.
@@a.kay.cPart of the eight fold path is “right speech.” That’s why kms didn’t respond to you. If he argued with you it would had created conflict between you two. He also accepts you regardless of your religion. This is how he solves sin that separates man from man.
No no not every 😊😊😊
If it works for you that's what matters on an individual level, on a societal level I'd be more worried about Buddhism tendency to ignore authority, but as he said it changes.
I don't know, well have to see how it goes, that's the wonder of being alive.
@@a.kay.c
Jesus was conceived by a demonic spirit, therefore he was a sinner and full of sin, and flooded the world with sin.
He can only take you to hell.
The fact that Buddha decided to teach than keep his insights to himself shows that Buddha was externally oriented. He was concerned about the rest.
Wonderfully, insightful talk. Thanks David!
thank you Divid, wonderful speech
This is amazing, wish more people can see this.
I love Buddhism. I have been practising as a layman for 50 years. But here's an issue that worries me. No culture or political structure influenced by Buddhism has arisen that starts with an egalitarian principle at its core both as starting point and ending point. I mean the idea that we all start out with certain fundamental rights and potentials and recognise that this is not the truth has led to setting up a system that seeks to move to an endpoint where it can become true. This structure in Western European-inspired cultures has created political structures with compassion as a design criterion such as social security systems. This doesn't happen in under Buddhism. It recognises that the rich and powerful "should" do charity, should do compassion and mercy but that goes against the fundamental realisation (in both Christianity and Buddhism) that humans are flawed and can't be relied on to be moral.
An example -I had a Chan monk give me a box of Apple juice at the White Horse Temple Luo Yang some years ago. It shocked my guide and other people at the time because they said that people give things to monks. Monks never give things to others.
I have thought that the flaw in many versions of Buddhism is that enlightenment requires a retreat from the world, that worldliness is a block to it. It is true that in Zen/Chan there are many stories/Koans that demonstrate enlightenment coming from and available in daily life among ordinary people (note Hui Nemg's story). But this is not the road most travelled or taught as a path to enlightenment, to moral strength.
The bowing to the authority of monks and priests (and in general to leaders), as was true in Catholicism in Western and East Christendom before the reformation, over evidence/experience and the rule of law, by ordinary people in most forms of cultural Buddhisms is also a flaw that prevents cultures developing political structures that have egalitarianism, mercy and compassion built into them.
I know the West doesn't live up to its ideals but it even recognises this in its politics and so there is continuous evolution and revolution that seeks to achieve it. The movement of Buddhism into the Western cultures and its transformation in this process is based on three principles -
1. an ongoing desire to improve the individuals as it is for monks in the East
2. but also is part of that political evolution
3. Buddhism concepts of Dharma and Karma, both talk of universal laws which resonates with scientific principles. Buddhism's laws add intelligence and morality as part of universal law in a way that materialist science doesn't.
You don't understand Buddhism. All of your comment lacks knowledge of the path, as well as America's organic laws.
There are so many things that are wrong in your statement that it would take hours to correct. Why don't you try to be more concise as to your complaint so that it can be addressed properly. A blanket response would be to say that Jesus didn't do any more than the Buddha. Another would be that neither Jesus nor the Buddha had any idea of how to fix all social problems. They both acknowledged that the material life/world is fundamentally broken, and thus focused on the way beyond material worlds.
Another part to a reply would be that you are deceived by what you see as America. You don't know or understand the 4 organic laws for America. When the king was defeated in the revolution, all Americans were free + equal. And because of that, nobody had any authority over any other. There remained only American common law. Nobody has any authority to rule the lives of others. The Buddha advised that all people remain true to their founding laws because he knew lust+greed eventually corrupts all good things founded in the sacrifice for freedom. It is not the fault of Jesus or the Buddha. It is the fault of ignorance in all Americans. Instead of remaining true to foundations of unalienable rights to life, libertry, and property, Americans decided to chase the promises of rulership+lust+greed in the name of a new God called 'progress'.
Unfortunately, regardless of what system you think would be better or more correct, there is no cure for lust+greed, and so long as some acquire power over others, their lust+greed will result in depravity+despair. There's no such thing as benevolent powers on earth, generally speaking. Once people go down that road, they are headed for destruction. People can't resist getting others to do the dirty work of life for them. The wealthy are not wealthy because of the sweat of their brow and the muscles developed from their labor. They are wealthy because of their lust+greed+deceptions, and the lust+greed+ignorance of the masses.
You can't dream of a quality life for all in America or this world while also accepting rulership+powers. That's delusional. It makes no sense. The best you could do is stand for freedom in harmony with the earth and the 'do unto others' principle of common law.
Buddhism can be summed up by two nobel ideas. 1. All of us suffer. 2. The cure to suffering is to think correctly. Everything else is just filler.
Love this!! Thank you!
Excellent !
Neo Buddhism or Ambedkarite buddhism is the perfect answer to you sir.
I was struck by a new notion of 'Institutional Karma', whilst listening to David. I come from an activist tradition and experience and have seen first hand how action for justice liberates all involved in it and has liberating and expansive ripple effects. Human minds being compromised however, always screws this up somwehre though and create some avoidable limits. Minds could do with clean-ups too.
Insitutions and institutionalised ideas are often huge casues of unsatisfactory-ness in this regard; often disregarding human dignity.
If Karma is fundamentally caused by actions taken on behalf of a false sense of self then, because institutions have 'values, cultures, beliefs and act in their own interests', then they must inevitablly create 'institutional karma' and by definition these actions must ripple out positively and negatively and create new unsatisfactoriness / suffering / dukkha.
I have always struggled with the personal liberation and social acitivism balance.
However I think that I see now how I must act to liberate myself from my own karma but also to liberate social institutions from theirs and the avoidable suffering / unsatisfactoriness that they cause - and disporportionately to some. Thanks David.
thankyou thankyou
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There is
no cure
for the
human condition !
and yet
there is
kindness -
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Vipassanna meditation is a gift. It is only powerful if used, not taked of.
I see the sense of lack more as a sense of alienation from our true nature - our innate sanity, awareness, loving-kindness, contentment, self-existing joy etc. Precepts and virtues were given as voluntary educational training to foster respect for all life and create safety, protection from harm to self and society and also protect human heart-mind's integrity and great potential for higher evolution and holistic spiritual faculties.
I don't get your point. It seems confused.
Kosen-rufu means inner transformation of each individual happiness contribute to society
This guy should go on the Jimmy Dore Show
How do we overcome the possibility that evil will take advantage of the peaceful aspect of Buddhism. We can want what’s best for the world and others, but evil will always exploit the holes in our acceptance to revert society back to chaos
World needs to understand Buddha's original teaching which are beyond any Buddhist sact...people just follow perticular sact instead of Buddha's ideology.
The woman asked the 1st question, didn't get what he said.
yes she havent undestand wht professor was explaning.
This again shows the West is not humble enough to learn from Buddha Dharma thoroughly. What this professor said about Buddhism is perhaps gleaned from the Theravada Buddhism only. When it comes to Mahayana Buddhism, not only social justice but the compassion for all the sentient beings are but the focus or even aim of the whole practice. When one is having loving kindness and compassion for all sentient beings, how can he she not concerned with social justice which is only one facet of many factors causing unhappiness abd suffering
Labels are irrelevant, the meaning of a message, it's content is what matters. We can take the good and beneficial from all religions, that's the reward for us,and leave the rest. The good for humanity and all life is the basic message of all religions.
Wrong.
🐉🐲🐉 BUT WE IN INDIA TALKS, QUESTIONS AND QUARREL OVER PETTY ISSUES🎄[[NANDAKUMAR DEVELOPMENT OFFICER LIC KALOOR ERNAKULAM COCHIN]]
A rather generous interpretation of the Buddha's relationship toward women. The Buddha had to be bitch-slapped by his nurse-mother before he would allow women a very subservient manner of practicing Buddhism. This subservient structure in the earliest Buddhist monastic practice persists to this day in the vast majority of Buddhist sects worldwide.
Nobody understands law in America, though everybody thinks they do. That's the primary problem. It's so depressing to hear people speak about society when they don't understand the fundamentals of a free people.
As a Buddhist and studying other religions, ethics is far superior in Buddhism because it incorporates the relation body mind. In Greek philosophy and Abranhamic religions, body just acts as a container of the soul, taking Aristotle as example. But, Abrahamic religions are far superior than Buddhism, particularly Islam and Christian Catholicism, because they focus on commuties and organization of society.
When studying the origins and history of concepts in a religion, this has a historical and social creation. Buddhism started as existencial and individual approach to life. Whereas, Catholicism, after the collapse of Rome, started to construct the basis of society from scratch. For instance, social justice concpet is indeed Catholic and came from a Jesuit priest Luigi Taparelli. The problem with Buddhism is that it does individualizes structural problems.
Community is one of the three pillars of Buddhism. It's called sangha, and it's one of the three refuges: Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. There is a little parallax in your view because, at least in Mahayana Buddhism, there is emphasis on social action. The whole idea of the Bodhisattva is that enlightenment is put off so they can remain active in the world helping others. I respectfully disagree that it focuses only on individuals.
Buddhism is better than Hinduism. 🙏
Buddhism does not need anything. It has been there. And It's good by itself.
Buddhism has become corrupt. It also needs enlightening.
@@sammavaca5714 Buddhism is not corrupted. It can never be corrupted. It does not need enlightening because it's noble path to enlightenment. But a lot of people are corrupted. People need enlightening, including you. So, get your head right.
@@konthaijaidee3035 thanks for your reply. I guess you mean the Dhamma when you use the word Buddhism, Dhamma as the universal, timeless law of nature that the Buddha rediscovered. Buddhism like any -ism is a term that was coined by Western scholars like Rhys Davids around 1900 or so and it has itself changed a lot since then. If you call yourself a Buddhist then you are perhaps unconsciously identifying with these interpretations. Otherwise you would not become defensive about it.
@@sammavaca5714 Like I said, Buddhism does not need enlightenment. Dhamma has been there. No one can corrupt Dhamna. Get that straight.
Right. But there is no sangha without Aryans. Buddhism really does need people to accomplish things, else, it's infrastructure is just a daycare center. Avoiding semantics. Also, dhamna may not corrupt, but teachings of it may corrupt.
At 5:33, Mr. Loy says Buddhism in Asia has not had a lot to say about social justice. This is an absurd, egregiously untrue comment. Right from the start, Buddhism has always been as much a "social gospel" as a path to personal enlightenment. Mahayana Buddhism in particular, with its emphasis on the bodhisattva (and the sanga) as committed to learning and service -- i.e., wisdom and compassion, or perpetual learning and compassionate service -- changed Indian society (and, for example, Tibet) into paradigms for the achievement of social justice and world peace (tragically destroyed in India by Islam and in Tibet by the Chinese invasion of the 1950s). I like Loy a lot, but his opening comments really do need to be corrected, and I hope he soon ceases to be so absurdly misleading with regard to Buddha's (and Buddhism's) commitment to social change -- i.e., to enlightenment and creative evolution both individually AND socially.
Stefan Schindler he says it hasn't for a long-time, not that it didn't. Not many years ago the Dalai Lama said gay people cannot be real Buddhists
Stefan Schindler
You're terribly wrong!!!
Tibet wasn't invaded!!!
You'd better to watch the Tibet documentary made by one of the Hollywood producers before you say it
God bless you 🙏🙏🙏
Buddhism has had 2500 years to create a politics with compassion, mercy and egalitarianism built into a political structure. It hasn't done it. By the time Islam came to India about 1000-1200 years ago, Buddhism had been sidelined by various versions of Hinduism. Note the Jains had survived in India when Buddhism was everywhere in Asia but in India. Currently in both Sri Lanka and Myanmar Buddhists are involved in very violent forms of politics that don't seem to have much to do with social justice and a lot to do with nationalism.
Even the framework that names some styles of practice and associated cultures Mahayana vs Hinayana is a judgemental hierarchical naming that lacks egalitarian thinking or social justice in it.
The whole structure of practice and its foundational philosophy that separates monks, practice and enlightenment from everyday life stands in the way of social justice, making compassion and mercy condescending gifts from the special ones on high rather than a truly distributed system of power that acknowledges the Buddhas within all as at least some versions of Buddhism teach.
Western democracy is flawed, definitely, but it is a valiant attempt at distributed power structures that acknowledges that we all have a contribution to make, that we are all sacred, that we all have Buddha within and you don't need to hide in a mountain cave or forest treat to make or find that contribution.
The reference to G.W Bush & Bin Laden, is really evil against evil. Mis identity is the problem, no mud no lotus, is life. That’s all their is to it.
Buddhism can be summed up by two nobel ideas. 1. All of us suffer. 2. The cure to suffering is to think correctly. Everything else is just filler.
zen is the only religion useful for more civilaztion
Dawit Negash
Zen is not a religion 😇😇😇
Maybe so, but that also makes it the least effective form of Buddhism. Originally, Zen meant sitting meditation, zazen, which is very traditional. But in many forms, it seems to have been reduced to a hope in instant enlightenment via some mental trick, like a koan, or some other non arduous method besides lengthy periods of unbroken concentration.
It is not real buddhism. See in to real buddhism and know what u dont know.
Buddhism can be summed up by two nobel ideas. 1. All of us suffer. 2. The cure to suffering is to think correctly. Everything else is just filler.
There is no Buddhism. There is the experience of Awakening everything else is dualistic confabulation of that experience. All so-called Buddhism in every culture is a cultural and intellectual appropriation of the Buddha's Awakening. But that is not bad in any culture as we all can become more insightful about our realities especially once we become awakened, not before.
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Right.
There was no caste system during the times of buddha. Because for caste to exist, endogamy is a prerequisite. But DNA evidence has proved that there wasn't happening any endogamus marriages~ Tony Joseph.
There are many other evidence that proves the non existence of caste system, for eg no one had a surname name in india even during late 7-8 century.
Neither there was any vedic culture during the times of buddha~ dr. Rajendra prasad singh.
Also there are no archeological/inscriptional evidence to prove the existence of any vedic culture. First written evidence of rigved is of late 14 century AD.
then why manusmruthy written?
@@ruthuvikas it was written much much later than claimed. Written evidence of rigved itself is just 557 years old!
Zen is not even buddhism. It is something derived from a basic summary of real buddhism. Buddhism starts with its theories, as stated in abidharmaya. Unless u understand what u are seeking , u can't start meditation or start taming ur mind as in buddhism.
USUS SAID EVEN THE GOOD CHURCH IE RELIGION I HAVE THIS AGAINST YOU YOU FIRGIT THE FIRST LOVE. THE ONE FATHER