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cafeteria buddhism

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gepr

cafeteria buddhism

The recent mentions of various aspects of Buddhism by RobertW, Marcus, and Steve, and my perhaps too flippant rejection of it, got me wondering. I started seriously doubting Americanized Eastern religions after/while reading Tao of Physics so long ago. But I didn't think much of it after that. I remembered it when I stumbled on someone making fun of Madonna's apparent cafeteria spirituality (circa 2000?).

I'm a big fan of syncretism. (My official religion is Holonic Pantheism in a Rhizomic Bath.) But I worry about it quite a bit. An analogy with numerical methods might help communicate my point. When you express some mathematical problem and try to apply an algorithm to it, it's wise to examine the problem to see if it meets all the prerequisites assumed by the algorithm. If you apply it inappropriately, you may get garbage, or you may get something that looks right, but isn't. Or you may get something that works perfectly well, but then you change the problem slightly and have a false confidence in how the new algorithm will work.

Picking and choosing the yummy parts of a tradition (like Buddhism) is attractive. E.g. many of the drugs we take that make our lives so much better were developed through purposefully harming various animals (from mice to beagles). -- Or, more interestingly, I really _enjoy_ harming myself by drinking too many pints on the weekend. -- What are the implications of adopting concepts like Dharma without the rest of the context?

On 01/21/2017 02:21 PM, Robert Wall wrote:
> The Buddhist have their notion in the /Dharma/, which is kind of an Operators Manual for the brain. But people don't seem to WANT to live that way even though they like to decorate their homes with statues of the Buddha.

--
☣ glen

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen

Marcus G. Daniels

Re: cafeteria buddhism

Well, I’m mulling over opinions like this.

"If the anti-Trump forces are to have a chance, they have to offer a better nationalism, with diversity cohering around a central mission, building a nation that balances the dynamism of capitalism with biblical morality."

This nauseates me, but it is not clearly wrong.

How to give people the spiritual candy they apparently need, while not having it result in type 2 diabetes? (so to speak)

Can the yummy parts arise as a result of a small set of principles consistent with empirical facts? If so, they could be presented in the usual prescriptive ways for this kind of audience, and then maybe life could go on without unpleasant extinction events and that sort of thing.

Marcus

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of glen ?
Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2017 11:16 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [FRIAM] cafeteria buddhism

I'm a big fan of syncretism. (My official religion is Holonic Pantheism in a Rhizomic Bath.) But I worry about it quite a bit. An analogy with numerical methods might help communicate my point. When you express some mathematical problem and try to apply an algorithm to it, it's wise to examine the problem to see if it meets all the prerequisites assumed by the algorithm. If you apply it inappropriately, you may get garbage, or you may get something that looks right, but isn't. Or you may get something that works perfectly well, but then you change the problem slightly and have a false confidence in how the new algorithm will work.

Picking and choosing the yummy parts of a tradition (like Buddhism) is attractive. E.g. many of the drugs we take that make our lives so much better were developed through purposefully harming various animals (from mice to beagles). -- Or, more interestingly, I really _enjoy_ harming myself by drinking too many pints on the weekend. -- What are the implications of adopting concepts like Dharma without the rest of the context?

On 01/21/2017 02:21 PM, Robert Wall wrote:

> The Buddhist have their notion in the /Dharma/, which is kind of an Operators Manual for the brain. But people don't seem to WANT to live that way even though they like to decorate their homes with statues of the Buddha.

☣ glen

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FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Pamela McCorduck

Re: cafeteria buddhism

I’d need to know which part of Biblical morality we’re talking about.

On Jan 24, 2017, at 11:52 AM, Marcus Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:

Well, I’m mulling over opinions like this.

"If the anti-Trump forces are to have a chance, they have to offer a better nationalism, with diversity cohering around a central mission, building a nation that balances the dynamism of capitalism with biblical morality."

This nauseates me, but it is not clearly wrong.

How to give people the spiritual candy they apparently need, while not having it result in type 2 diabetes? (so to speak)
Can the yummy parts arise as a result of a small set of principles consistent with empirical facts? If so, they could be presented in the usual prescriptive ways for this kind of audience, and then maybe life could go on without unpleasant extinction events and that sort of thing.

Marcus
-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of glen ?
Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2017 11:16 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [FRIAM] cafeteria buddhism

The recent mentions of various aspects of Buddhism by RobertW, Marcus, and Steve, and my perhaps too flippant rejection of it, got me wondering. I started seriously doubting Americanized Eastern religions after/while reading Tao of Physics so long ago. But I didn't think much of it after that. I remembered it when I stumbled on someone making fun of Madonna's apparent cafeteria spirituality (circa 2000?).

I'm a big fan of syncretism. (My official religion is Holonic Pantheism in a Rhizomic Bath.) But I worry about it quite a bit. An analogy with numerical methods might help communicate my point. When you express some mathematical problem and try to apply an algorithm to it, it's wise to examine the problem to see if it meets all the prerequisites assumed by the algorithm. If you apply it inappropriately, you may get garbage, or you may get something that looks right, but isn't. Or you may get something that works perfectly well, but then you change the problem slightly and have a false confidence in how the new algorithm will work.

Picking and choosing the yummy parts of a tradition (like Buddhism) is attractive. E.g. many of the drugs we take that make our lives so much better were developed through purposefully harming various animals (from mice to beagles). -- Or, more interestingly, I really _enjoy_ harming myself by drinking too many pints on the weekend. -- What are the implications of adopting concepts like Dharma without the rest of the context?

On 01/21/2017 02:21 PM, Robert Wall wrote:
> The Buddhist have their notion in the /Dharma/, which is kind of an Operators Manual for the brain. But people don't seem to WANT to live that way even though they like to decorate their homes with statues of the Buddha.

--
☣ glen

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

gepr

Re: cafeteria buddhism

On 01/24/2017 02:01 PM, Pamela McCorduck wrote:
> I’d need to know which part of Biblical morality we’re talking about.

I agree. I like the Jefferson Bible, wherein TJ tried to extract Jesus' teachings from the rest of the hooha in the Bible. I think those teachings _might_ cohere as a standalone work. But most of the Christians I have experience with don't really focus on Jesus. They tend to like the Psalms, Revelations, etc. So, it's unclear how/if we can pull out the stuff they find attractive and have it cohere.

> On 01/24/2017 10:52 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>> Can the yummy parts arise as a result of a small set of principles consistent with empirical facts? If so, they could be presented in the usual prescriptive ways for this kind of audience, and then maybe life could go on without unpleasant extinction events and that sort of thing.

My favorite mathematician Raymond Smullyan has written a few books on religion that talk quite a bit about Christianity. He seemed to suggest that it's overall a decent system _if_ you get rid of the concept of Hell. And I think Hitchens used to identify Hell as the most abhorrent thing about it.

--
☣ glen

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen

Owen Densmore

Re: cafeteria buddhism

Administrator

Amen.

On Tue, Jan 24, 2017 at 2:50 PM, glen ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:

On 01/24/2017 02:01 PM, Pamela McCorduck wrote:
> I’d need to know which part of Biblical morality we’re talking about.

I agree. I like the Jefferson Bible, wherein TJ tried to extract Jesus' teachings from the rest of the hooha in the Bible. I think those teachings _might_ cohere as a standalone work. But most of the Christians I have experience with don't really focus on Jesus. They tend to like the Psalms, Revelations, etc. So, it's unclear how/if we can pull out the stuff they find attractive and have it cohere.

> On 01/24/2017 10:52 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>> Can the yummy parts arise as a result of a small set of principles consistent with empirical facts? If so, they could be presented in the usual prescriptive ways for this kind of audience, and then maybe life could go on without unpleasant extinction events and that sort of thing.

My favorite mathematician Raymond Smullyan has written a few books on religion that talk quite a bit about Christianity. He seemed to suggest that it's overall a decent system _if_ you get rid of the concept of Hell. And I think Hitchens used to identify Hell as the most abhorrent thing about it.

--
☣ glen

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

Frank Wimberly-2

Re: cafeteria buddhism

In reply to this post by gepr

I think the central tenet of the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, in chronological order) is expressed in Christianity as "love thy neighbor as thyself".

Frank

Frank Wimberly
Phone (505) 670-9918

On Jan 24, 2017 2:50 PM, "glen ☣" <[hidden email]> wrote:

On 01/24/2017 02:01 PM, Pamela McCorduck wrote:
> I’d need to know which part of Biblical morality we’re talking about.

I agree. I like the Jefferson Bible, wherein TJ tried to extract Jesus' teachings from the rest of the hooha in the Bible. I think those teachings _might_ cohere as a standalone work. But most of the Christians I have experience with don't really focus on Jesus. They tend to like the Psalms, Revelations, etc. So, it's unclear how/if we can pull out the stuff they find attractive and have it cohere.

> On 01/24/2017 10:52 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>> Can the yummy parts arise as a result of a small set of principles consistent with empirical facts? If so, they could be presented in the usual prescriptive ways for this kind of audience, and then maybe life could go on without unpleasant extinction events and that sort of thing.

My favorite mathematician Raymond Smullyan has written a few books on religion that talk quite a bit about Christianity. He seemed to suggest that it's overall a decent system _if_ you get rid of the concept of Hell. And I think Hitchens used to identify Hell as the most abhorrent thing about it.

--
☣ glen

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

Marcus G. Daniels

Re: cafeteria buddhism

Works out well for DT -- not a neighbor, not so much love.

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2017 3:12 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] cafeteria buddhism

I think the central tenet of the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, in chronological order) is expressed in Christianity as "love thy neighbor as thyself".

Frank

Frank Wimberly
Phone (505) 670-9918

On Jan 24, 2017 2:50 PM, "glen ☣" <[hidden email]> wrote:

On 01/24/2017 02:01 PM, Pamela McCorduck wrote:
> I’d need to know which part of Biblical morality we’re talking about.

I agree. I like the Jefferson Bible, wherein TJ tried to extract Jesus' teachings from the rest of the hooha in the Bible. I think those teachings _might_ cohere as a standalone work. But most of the Christians I have experience with don't really focus on Jesus. They tend to like the Psalms, Revelations, etc. So, it's unclear how/if we can pull out the stuff they find attractive and have it cohere.

> On 01/24/2017 10:52 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>> Can the yummy parts arise as a result of a small set of principles consistent with empirical facts? If so, they could be presented in the usual prescriptive ways for this kind of audience, and then maybe life could go on without unpleasant extinction events and that sort of thing.

My favorite mathematician Raymond Smullyan has written a few books on religion that talk quite a bit about Christianity. He seemed to suggest that it's overall a decent system _if_ you get rid of the concept of Hell. And I think Hitchens used to identify Hell as the most abhorrent thing about it.

--
☣ glen

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

Gary Schiltz-4

Re: cafeteria buddhism

In reply to this post by Frank Wimberly-2

Unless you are a masochist, of course :-)

On Tue, Jan 24, 2017 at 5:12 PM, Frank Wimberly <[hidden email]> wrote:

I think the central tenet of the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, in chronological order) is expressed in Christianity as "love thy neighbor as thyself".

Frank

Frank Wimberly
Phone (505) 670-9918

On Jan 24, 2017 2:50 PM, "glen ☣" <[hidden email]> wrote:
On 01/24/2017 02:01 PM, Pamela McCorduck wrote:
> I’d need to know which part of Biblical morality we’re talking about.

I agree. I like the Jefferson Bible, wherein TJ tried to extract Jesus' teachings from the rest of the hooha in the Bible. I think those teachings _might_ cohere as a standalone work. But most of the Christians I have experience with don't really focus on Jesus. They tend to like the Psalms, Revelations, etc. So, it's unclear how/if we can pull out the stuff they find attractive and have it cohere.

> On 01/24/2017 10:52 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>> Can the yummy parts arise as a result of a small set of principles consistent with empirical facts? If so, they could be presented in the usual prescriptive ways for this kind of audience, and then maybe life could go on without unpleasant extinction events and that sort of thing.

My favorite mathematician Raymond Smullyan has written a few books on religion that talk quite a bit about Christianity. He seemed to suggest that it's overall a decent system _if_ you get rid of the concept of Hell. And I think Hitchens used to identify Hell as the most abhorrent thing about it.

--
☣ glen

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

Frank Wimberly-2

Re: cafeteria buddhism

Also, according to Scott Peck, one of the most meaningful forms of "love" is to confront a person when he is wrong or doing wrong things.

Frank Wimberly
Phone (505) 670-9918

On Jan 24, 2017 3:22 PM, "Gary Schiltz" <[hidden email]> wrote:

Unless you are a masochist, of course :-)

On Tue, Jan 24, 2017 at 5:12 PM, Frank Wimberly <[hidden email]> wrote:
I think the central tenet of the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, in chronological order) is expressed in Christianity as "love thy neighbor as thyself".

Frank

Frank Wimberly
Phone <a href="tel:(505)%20670-9918" value="+15056709918" target="_blank">(505) 670-9918

On Jan 24, 2017 2:50 PM, "glen ☣" <[hidden email]> wrote:
On 01/24/2017 02:01 PM, Pamela McCorduck wrote:
> I’d need to know which part of Biblical morality we’re talking about.

I agree. I like the Jefferson Bible, wherein TJ tried to extract Jesus' teachings from the rest of the hooha in the Bible. I think those teachings _might_ cohere as a standalone work. But most of the Christians I have experience with don't really focus on Jesus. They tend to like the Psalms, Revelations, etc. So, it's unclear how/if we can pull out the stuff they find attractive and have it cohere.

> On 01/24/2017 10:52 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>> Can the yummy parts arise as a result of a small set of principles consistent with empirical facts? If so, they could be presented in the usual prescriptive ways for this kind of audience, and then maybe life could go on without unpleasant extinction events and that sort of thing.

My favorite mathematician Raymond Smullyan has written a few books on religion that talk quite a bit about Christianity. He seemed to suggest that it's overall a decent system _if_ you get rid of the concept of Hell. And I think Hitchens used to identify Hell as the most abhorrent thing about it.

--
☣ glen

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

Merle Lefkoff-2

Re: cafeteria buddhism

In reply to this post by gepr

Glen, this made me smile. I teach in the Buddhist Chaplaincy program at Upaya Zen Center here in Santa Fe. My course is about the intersection between Complex Adaptive Systems science and Buddhism. Happy to tell you more if you're serious.

Also, thanks Owen for asking me to send my recently published paper to the FRIAM list. Will do--I'm just back from the Women's March in D.C. Here's what I saw: after a change in initial conditions (Trump's election), some wicked self-organizing began, characterized by lots of positive feedback loops, netwar, and distributed leadership (leadership emerged but it was very distributed and was an emergent property of the new social system). And everyone--a million marchers we think--were so KIND to one another. Very inspiring. My friend Micah White, the co-founder of Occupy Wall Street, has been moved to start organizing a global Women's Party. If anyone can be a catalyst for this, he's the one.

On Tue, Jan 24, 2017 at 11:15 AM, glen ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:

The recent mentions of various aspects of Buddhism by RobertW, Marcus, and Steve, and my perhaps too flippant rejection of it, got me wondering. I started seriously doubting Americanized Eastern religions after/while reading Tao of Physics so long ago. But I didn't think much of it after that. I remembered it when I stumbled on someone making fun of Madonna's apparent cafeteria spirituality (circa 2000?).

I'm a big fan of syncretism. (My official religion is Holonic Pantheism in a Rhizomic Bath.) But I worry about it quite a bit. An analogy with numerical methods might help communicate my point. When you express some mathematical problem and try to apply an algorithm to it, it's wise to examine the problem to see if it meets all the prerequisites assumed by the algorithm. If you apply it inappropriately, you may get garbage, or you may get something that looks right, but isn't. Or you may get something that works perfectly well, but then you change the problem slightly and have a false confidence in how the new algorithm will work.

Picking and choosing the yummy parts of a tradition (like Buddhism) is attractive. E.g. many of the drugs we take that make our lives so much better were developed through purposefully harming various animals (from mice to beagles). -- Or, more interestingly, I really _enjoy_ harming myself by drinking too many pints on the weekend. -- What are the implications of adopting concepts like Dharma without the rest of the context?

On 01/21/2017 02:21 PM, Robert Wall wrote:
> The Buddhist have their notion in the /Dharma/, which is kind of an Operators Manual for the brain. But people don't seem to WANT to live that way even though they like to decorate their homes with statues of the Buddha.

--
☣ glen

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.
President, Center for Emergent Diplomacy
Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
[hidden email]
mobile: (303) 859-5609
skype: merle.lelfkoff2

Gillian Densmore

Re: cafeteria buddhism

One well two words

Jedi

DaForce

And the wonderful simplicity (" ") of Joy, and Hope.

On Tue, Jan 24, 2017 at 4:51 PM, Merle Lefkoff <[hidden email]> wrote:

Glen, this made me smile. I teach in the Buddhist Chaplaincy program at Upaya Zen Center here in Santa Fe. My course is about the intersection between Complex Adaptive Systems science and Buddhism. Happy to tell you more if you're serious.

Also, thanks Owen for asking me to send my recently published paper to the FRIAM list. Will do--I'm just back from the Women's March in D.C. Here's what I saw: after a change in initial conditions (Trump's election), some wicked self-organizing began, characterized by lots of positive feedback loops, netwar, and distributed leadership (leadership emerged but it was very distributed and was an emergent property of the new social system). And everyone--a million marchers we think--were so KIND to one another. Very inspiring. My friend Micah White, the co-founder of Occupy Wall Street, has been moved to start organizing a global Women's Party. If anyone can be a catalyst for this, he's the one.

On Tue, Jan 24, 2017 at 11:15 AM, glen ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:

The recent mentions of various aspects of Buddhism by RobertW, Marcus, and Steve, and my perhaps too flippant rejection of it, got me wondering. I started seriously doubting Americanized Eastern religions after/while reading Tao of Physics so long ago. But I didn't think much of it after that. I remembered it when I stumbled on someone making fun of Madonna's apparent cafeteria spirituality (circa 2000?).

I'm a big fan of syncretism. (My official religion is Holonic Pantheism in a Rhizomic Bath.) But I worry about it quite a bit. An analogy with numerical methods might help communicate my point. When you express some mathematical problem and try to apply an algorithm to it, it's wise to examine the problem to see if it meets all the prerequisites assumed by the algorithm. If you apply it inappropriately, you may get garbage, or you may get something that looks right, but isn't. Or you may get something that works perfectly well, but then you change the problem slightly and have a false confidence in how the new algorithm will work.

Picking and choosing the yummy parts of a tradition (like Buddhism) is attractive. E.g. many of the drugs we take that make our lives so much better were developed through purposefully harming various animals (from mice to beagles). -- Or, more interestingly, I really _enjoy_ harming myself by drinking too many pints on the weekend. -- What are the implications of adopting concepts like Dharma without the rest of the context?

On 01/21/2017 02:21 PM, Robert Wall wrote:
> The Buddhist have their notion in the /Dharma/, which is kind of an Operators Manual for the brain. But people don't seem to WANT to live that way even though they like to decorate their homes with statues of the Buddha.

--
☣ glen

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

--
Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.
President, Center for Emergent Diplomacy
Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
[hidden email]
mobile: <a href="tel:(303)%20859-5609" value="+13038595609" target="_blank">(303) 859-5609
skype: merle.lelfkoff2

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

Marcus G. Daniels

Re: cafeteria buddhism

Use DaForce maybe?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/federal-agencies-ordered-to-restrict-their-communications/2017/01/24/9daa6aa4-e26f-11e6-ba11-63c4b4fb5a63_story.html

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Gillian Densmore
Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2017 5:07 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] cafeteria buddhism

One well two words

Jedi

DaForce

And the wonderful simplicity (" ") of Joy, and Hope.

On Tue, Jan 24, 2017 at 4:51 PM, Merle Lefkoff <[hidden email]> wrote:

Glen, this made me smile. I teach in the Buddhist Chaplaincy program at Upaya Zen Center here in Santa Fe. My course is about the intersection between Complex Adaptive Systems science and Buddhism. Happy to tell you more if you're serious.

Also, thanks Owen for asking me to send my recently published paper to the FRIAM list. Will do--I'm just back from the Women's March in D.C. Here's what I saw: after a change in initial conditions (Trump's election), some wicked self-organizing began, characterized by lots of positive feedback loops, netwar, and distributed leadership (leadership emerged but it was very distributed and was an emergent property of the new social system). And everyone--a million marchers we think--were so KIND to one another. Very inspiring. My friend Micah White, the co-founder of Occupy Wall Street, has been moved to start organizing a global Women's Party. If anyone can be a catalyst for this, he's the one.

On Tue, Jan 24, 2017 at 11:15 AM, glen ☣ <[hidden email]> wrote:

The recent mentions of various aspects of Buddhism by RobertW, Marcus, and Steve, and my perhaps too flippant rejection of it, got me wondering. I started seriously doubting Americanized Eastern religions after/while reading Tao of Physics so long ago. But I didn't think much of it after that. I remembered it when I stumbled on someone making fun of Madonna's apparent cafeteria spirituality (circa 2000?).

I'm a big fan of syncretism. (My official religion is Holonic Pantheism in a Rhizomic Bath.) But I worry about it quite a bit. An analogy with numerical methods might help communicate my point. When you express some mathematical problem and try to apply an algorithm to it, it's wise to examine the problem to see if it meets all the prerequisites assumed by the algorithm. If you apply it inappropriately, you may get garbage, or you may get something that looks right, but isn't. Or you may get something that works perfectly well, but then you change the problem slightly and have a false confidence in how the new algorithm will work.

Picking and choosing the yummy parts of a tradition (like Buddhism) is attractive. E.g. many of the drugs we take that make our lives so much better were developed through purposefully harming various animals (from mice to beagles). -- Or, more interestingly, I really _enjoy_ harming myself by drinking too many pints on the weekend. -- What are the implications of adopting concepts like Dharma without the rest of the context?

On 01/21/2017 02:21 PM, Robert Wall wrote:
> The Buddhist have their notion in the /Dharma/, which is kind of an Operators Manual for the brain. But people don't seem to WANT to live that way even though they like to decorate their homes with statues of the Buddha.

--
☣ glen

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Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.
President, Center for Emergent Diplomacy
Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
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gepr

Re: cafeteria buddhism

Best part of inaguaration day!

Watch Brass Band Perform Darth Vader's Theme Outside Trump Tower
http://chicagoist.com/2017/01/20/video_watch_brass_band_perform_dart.php

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☣ glen

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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen