Are there alternatives to consumerism? Other than a dreary alternative such as loss of a job, a prolonged economic downturn or the stealth tax of inflation?
What is it, this consumerism? It's the assiduous promotion of cravings which our economic system, at least until recently, has somewhat satisfied: "Your neighbor has it. You will be happy when you get it. You can have it now on easy credit." The amping up of desire for stuff is so normal here that it's hard to imagine another approach to life.
Recently, I came across an old box with photos of my maternal grandfather and some clippings from his youth. There were already ads when he was young, but they seem so naive, displaying an object for its own sake, not associating it with sexy women, power, speed or species that vehicles are named after.
My grandfather had much less materially than my parents, but as I know from taking long walks with him, telling stories, playing games, helping him build a boat, he was happy. How was that?
I thought of him when reading the new book by Stephen Batchelor, author of the wildly popular Buddhism Without Beliefs. Buddhist practice teaches that life is full of suffering and suffering comes from cravings. The trouble with cravings is that they often can't be satisfied and, when they are, the objects may vanish or degrade. And, in any case, they usually don't "make us happy," or, if so, not for long.
In this view, a system of implanting cravings by sellers who hope to profit by them, of exacerbating desire, would be crazy. The question is, why would you do that? Of course, people need the basics such as shelter, clean air and water, food, clothing, education, health care, the ability to work. But as Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin asked in their classic, Your Money Or Your Life, to what extent does it serve you to mortgage your life to get more and then more?
The service offered by Batchelor is to get to what he regards as the core of Buddhist practice, free of "accretions" imposed by various Asian traditions. Of course, some westerners are attracted to Buddhism in part by the rich Baroque trappings of the Tibetans, the subtle Theravada traditions of southeast Asia or the spare paradoxes in Zen cultures. But other westerners want a practice they feel is more suitable for a scientific and democratic society.
Having been a monk in two of three Asian traditions (Tibetan and Korean), Batchelor sought what he regards as Buddha's basic realization. In his writing, he even set aside such crucial elements of traditional Buddhism as rebirth and karma, not denying that the founder taught these doctrines, but attributing them to the Hindu world in which he'd grown up and arguing that they aren't necessary to Buddha's genius as expressed in the "four noble truths."
Within Buddhism, Bachelor's heresy is not to do without the concept of divinity (the founder was agnostic about metaphysics), but rather to set aside any realm other than our life on earth and to accept the possibility of death as oblivion. This is a delicate point because the prestige of Tibetan religious leaders, starting with the Dalai Lama, depends in part on the claim to be reincarnations and because the finality of death is almost unimaginable to most of us.
What a waste to obtain the necessities of life, guard against danger, form attachments to other humans and accumulate knowledge, and then poof, it's all gone like photo albums when a house burns down. This would be almost as unthinkable as a process of evolution. What human would design so slow, wasteful and unfair a process? Batchelor's point here would be that the gist of Buddhist dharma practice is being aware of what's here, now, rather than placing hope, without evidence, in a happier life after death.
Insofar as we can see the situation of Gautama, he had been living the life of a prince. His house was not in foreclosure, he was not forced into the life of a wandering ascetic. The "middle way" that he eventually found was not forced on him by the global peak of oil production, by global warming or by economic breakdown. He felt his realization or awakening was superior to the affluent life of his time.
In the phrase of the brilliant British journalist George Monbiot, "nobody ever rioted for austerity." Monbiot acknowledges this political fact in a book called Heat, about a painstaking and ambitious plan for reducing carbon emissions enough to avoid the worst ravages of global warming. A masterpiece of understatement, his phrase conjures the unlikelihood of a parade with placards calling for less affluence; it fails to mention the widespread phenomenon of denial.
I don't know whether the Buddha ever rioted for austerity, but he certainly counseled against arousing rampant desire, especially as a way of life. But what can we do instead? Change comes eventually less from just a critique of a prevailing system than from the building of a new system, of something that doubters can jump to and help in the next stage of building.
In his new book, Batchelor tells his personal story, reaffirms his understanding of dharma practice and offers speculation about challenges that Buddha faced in creating a new way of thinking and acting. This last task is especially tricky, because the writings called the Pali Canon are roughly as far in time from the founder as we from Shakespeare. (Imagine if we had the plays only through an oral tradition.) But Batchelor asks himself, given what we do know, how would a man with Buddha's basic awakening proceed in the world of his time? We'll never know for sure, but a coherent account at least provides an armature on which to build.
To return to the original question: Is there an alternative to consumerism? If the future will be less affluent than the past, for whatever reasons -- we don't know -- will we cling to a system that is failing, or will we have adopted new basic premises? If the latter, what are values that don't depend on having a growing amount of stuff?
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...Cradle to Cradle addresses this squarely and much more scientifically than austerity vs. consumerism. It is in terms of spiral dynamics a view from a higher place on the spiral.
I think our attachments come from our fear of the future.
If I can pile up enough food ,gold,STUFF, I'll be safe tomorrow. If some stuff is good a lot of stuff must mean I'm successfull and safe.
I picture the last human being, a man standing amid the wreck and ruin of Mother Earth proudly proclaiming " All the toys belong to me now. I'm the Winner !!
Ohh! Let me be wrong.
find a buddhist that understands that simple statement. ie a few do.
now suppose there were no ignorance. not a drop.
reflection is a must here.
there would be no individualized entities as a unique self, just isness and call isness anything you want. no us just is and every is would be identical.
we owe our soul to our ignorance and that ignorance came from the process known as involution from oneness to many.
the combination of ignorance and intelligence (not smarts but intellignece, world of difference) develops each and every soul unique. not two souls have ever been alike.
we are expressions of the infinite and unique expressions, even every snowflake is unique. how is that for infinite doing its thing.
One gets the impression that Comstock's entire knowledge of buddhism comes from reading Stephen Bachelor.
If it was his first Buddhist book He must have been impressed.
I just realized this is not a "Chan/Zen Buddhist book , but it reminds me of one so far.
So far I'm finding Bachler is ,except for one term, using western terms to explain the teachings of Buddha . I've read so many books in English that use Eastern Terminology I find myself "missing" the Indian terms when I read them in Bachelor's English.
Could you imagine living without the internet, flight, computers, cell phones, and cars? Well if you can great, but I certainly would not want too. All of these products are a RESULT of 500 + years of money. (search Medici)
If you are not a materialist, congratulations. You are a focused person. However, could you imagine not having modern medicine, also a direct result of the evolution of the world economy since Medici. Imagine another bubonic plague wiping out 40-60% of the population. Progress is good, and progress is DUE TO manufacturing and consumerism.
The only progress comes from increasing awareness and compassion, not technology, which is neutral. Right now we need to buy fewer things, drive fewer cars, have smaller houses, etc. Otherwise, we will cause our extinction through environmental calamity.
The world had a chance to destroy itself (nuclear), it chose not too. We're cool man.
And corollary to this, I've started to feel less attached to physical objects. I see through commercials more easily now, and I crave less the thrill of spending money and accumilating possessions. I've had insight into how many of my so-called "desires" are actually not intrisic to who I am but merely thought and emotional patterns I picked up from my social environment. This self-awareness has allowed me to focus more deeply on what actually interests me.
Maybe your situation allows you to be and grow in that selfless direction but I would argue that most people are surrounded by the realities of modern life, with no way out. Consciously choosing to be less aggressive, and less consumptious could be misinterpreted as weakness and timidness. This misrepresented observation from others could have all kinds of negative results, none of which were intentional.
I disagree, however, that becoming less aggressive and less consumptious would have bad results for most people. They only believe it would have bad results for them. You seem to place undue importance on how people interpret one's behavior. If you are trying to rise in the social hierarchy, trying to control other people's perceptions of you can be important. Trying to rise in the social hierarchy, however, leads to unhappiness--exactly because it causes you to care more about other people's perceptions of you than your own perceptions, cutting you off from your own experiences.
The term free will as it is being taught by the masses (i.e. religion) is a fallacy. The word free in front of term free will in my mind makes it an erroneous belief. We do have a will to choose but it is not free of our unawareness of our divine reality that we did not create. We did not create our ignorance i.e. our unawareness. I.e. the involution process.
We do have choices but those choices have boundaries and again those boundaries are our created/manifested ignorance. Ignorance is always the culprit even in the case of a Hitler type. As we become more aware of our oneness with all that is, which is the Real, we make better choices based in love and divine intelligence.
When people respond they should have known better they fail to understand if they knew better they would not have made that destructive choice. A whole host of misguided desires or attachments or cravings can overwhelm the mind. Misguided desires, attachments and cravings have one thing in common: ignorance of our divine reality.
A study of the involution and evolution of consciousness process is a worthwhile study for any sincere seeker into these mysteries of life. We are advancing towards greater and greater awareness of reality i.e. the Real. At a snails pace but Infinite is in no hurry as time is not an issue.
‘The world is a manifestation of the Real and therefore is itself real.â€
That infinite awareness/consciousness is the creative principle beyond matter and the (transcendent observer); that is observing these “flow of thoughtsâ€. I have discovered that consciousness is the creative expression and manifestation of this infinite awareness and dynamic potential that most call “Godâ€.
The only way Isness can express its infinite oneness is through relative phenomenal expressions; hence we have a relative phenomenal world, indeed worlds or dimensions. I.e. light dimensions. We are Beings of light so to speak.
We are not illusions or nothingness as some teach and the Real cannot be seen except in its expressions but the Real can be realized and we can become aware of this Isness. Now emptiness is not nothingness, it is the real. I.e. infinite awareness, where consciousness is that that is expressing itself, which is necessity.
Now , please say the same thing in about 12 words in three lines. And you will have a real hit.
but all religions dont have to be a "religion" we can take the teachings and find our unique path and benefit from those teachings.
by religion I dont mean the prophets words but how people tend to make those prophets teachings the only valid teachings and then they miss out on others teachings. their mind kind of shuts down.
this shut down mode is what I mean by the paradigm effect. I taught the paradigm effect in several seminars during my consulting career and it had an impact on my thoughts.
now I agree with you I need to explain myself better and say most and not imply that all that follow a religion have to be religious dogma and not be open to new teachings.
as I blog I have noticed that once a person identifies with a certain religion and as I dialog with them for some reason they cannot see outside their religion,s teachings.
there are always exceptions of course and it appears you may be one of those exceptions.
my writing style is harsh and it is not always so much what we say but how we say it.
I am a work in process, hopefully progress, as we all are. thanks for calling me on this. much needed. :-)
A good step would be defining this section as "Spirit" or "Spirituality" instead of "Religion".
The word 'religion' means re-ligare or re-connect, which unfortunately, but accurately, implies separation while spirit is always within. If we thought of being spiritual instead of religious there would be no implicit need for consumption.
Focused on self-knowledge instead of dogmatic consumption we could then evolve beyond consumerism on other levels.
Just an idea. Think about it, if your paradigm allows it. Or shift the paradigm!
do you realize that all religions claim that their teachings are valid from their prophets words that he spoke.
this is religion defined and buddhism is a religion.
now that being said it is a worthwhile study but if you accept it as your religion then the mind shuts down and as much as I hate to say it again and again the paradigm effect takes over.
as I stated few in the world understand the true nature of the paradigm effect. cindbird is one of those.
religion and politics gives us daily example of this phenomenon.
we view the world through our paradigms. it is more than cherished beliefs because we admit to our cherished beliefs but paradigms are hidden from our view.
a whole library in memory for over three hundred years. this belief fails to understand the nature of the human mind. I might add: unaware human minds.
when we dont understand something we write it in our words of understanding or make it fit (here we go again) our cherished beliefs or paradigms. sorry. :-)
once we become religious any religion we no longer see the face of reality. we are blinded by you know what. even materialists are blinded by their you know what. and materialism is a religion.
I would go farther and say that the issue is not free will, but the "agent" that has the free will. It is the agent which is the "effective theory". The self agent or God agent is an effective theory of something else that exists but is far too complex to understand as the physical process that it is. But it's not a theory of our conscious reason, but rather a theory of the brain that is running the show. It's the way our brain represents the world to us in our experience in order that our body can survive and replicate. We don't have a choice of effective theories. We will never "see" the face of reality. Our experience is all a paradigm created by the brain. There is nothing in it that is "real". We can only think about what is real. And, as Hawking points out, what is real is incomprehensibly complex and determined.
If you are going to try to do the job of philosophy, I suggest you read a philosopher. I recommend Ted Toadvine's MERLEAU-PONTY'S PHILOSOPOHY OF NATURE. He does not offer any easy answers, either. But at least he makes his philosophical assertions within the context of a learned philosopher. Hawking may be a great mathematician, but his philosophy reeks.
So our brains consieve a "face of reality" but can't really see it ?
One can see the world all his life with blinders on, when one day (possibly) they drop off ( even for a moment) the world is seen in a different way. Nothing changed except your way of seeing it. and the fading memory of that seeing.
We have nothing but our ordinary every day brain to see and describe the universe.
You state "do you realize that all religions claim that their teachings are valid from their prophets words that he spoke.
this is religion defined and buddhism is a religion."
I'd say, Buddhism can be a religion, but it doesn't have to be. For me its main teachings are a profound revealing of the human psychology and condition in life.
What I find more important is the measure in which I, or any other individual, can find truth, and therefore reason and logic, in what is being shared. Thereafter, the individual can discover for themselves the truth in their own spiritual experience -- independently of the religious dogma spewed by some voice.
Religions can respect some truth, but only individuals can experience it. Insofar individuals are free to live beyond dogma, they manifest spirit in the ever-changing now, without requiring suffering nor religion.
We stop at a red light not because it is against the rules or there may be cops around the corner.
We stop brecause if we don't we may cause an accient and suffering to other people.
If there are kids traveling with us it is also a good example to them.
It is the same with the Vinaya rules.
For those who already understand and practice morality like Sariputta and Mogallana they do not need the Vinaya to guide them because are already practicing them.
But for those who just joined the Sangha they need to break their bad habits and the Vinaya rules to them are important.
Eventually when one sees for one self the danger of attachment then one let go of everthing even the Dharma. You don't carry the boat around on your back once you have crosed to the other shore.
My point was threefold: 1) The Buddha himself classified the view that death is oblivion to be a species of nihilism and therefore an extreme view to be abandoned. 2) That's because, if death is final, then suffering ends with death. This undermines the need to walk the path to end suffering. Indeed, the 3rd noble truth, of nirvana, is moksha (liberation) precisely because it is liberation from the continuous cycle of birth and death. 3) All traditions of Buddhism, Theravadin, Tibetan and East Asian, affirm the centrality of karma and rebirth to the Buddhadharma. I must point out that "Buddhism" a fortiori means "traditional Buddhism." Buddhism is a tradition. It has always established its authenticity by tracing a lineage back to the Buddha himself, whose authority comes from his awakening under the bodhi tree. That awakening included knowledge of all his past lives. Indeed, especially in the Vajrayana, the subtlest mysteries of karma, rebirth, and continuity are thought to be intimately connected with the nature of reality itself. That's not to say that what Batchelor offers isn't valuable, but it's misleading to call it "Buddhism."
One more point: not all Buddhists think--as you seem to--that ritual and "Asian stuff" is essential to becoming enlightened.
"There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophies. My brain and my heart are my temples. My philosophy is kindness."
--The Dalai Lama