We have to change

Buddhism offers no quick fixes for solving the problems of persistent high unemployment, low paying jobs, or a corrupt political structure.  Buddhism can't reshape predatory capitalism into compassionate capitalism.  Buddhism can't stop violence and wars. Buddhism has little or no ability to turn stupid, selfish, mean spirited human beings into Bodhisattvas.  

It takes good, courageous human beings to make the world a better place to live in.  On the same track, it takes a heaven soaring spirit to rise above the darkness that consumes the world; that keeps sentient beings on the wheel of samsara.

Today we are in short supply of both.  It is much easier to be a stupid, selfish, mean spirited human being and take the blue pill.  It is almost impossible to be a good person who has the courage to right what everyone knows in their heart of hearts is wrong.  As for the heaven soaring spirit, too many lack what it takes to penetrate through the phenomenal veil of illusion and see pure Mind.  It is much easier to be a materialist.  Yes, we have plenty of institutions that are dedicated to helping us conform to  materialism.  

Let’s be frank, if we are going to make any profound changes in the present state of things we have to change our old ways of doing things.  We can’t, for example, be conformists when we know that by doing so we harm not only ourselves but others.  It becomes a huge moral hazard, in fact.  

 

Comments

[Java Junkie]

ive waited 10 F-ing years for this book to be translated into English (and i CANNOT find even a GREEK copy of it)

buy this book, or go jump off a cliff, read the contents , OMFG

BUY IT, PERIOD

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195150295/ref=oh_o00_s00_i00_details

[Sansiddhah]

Great point. My only doubt is this: "Compassionate capitalism" - isn't "capitalism" inherently flawed? This is something we should ask, too.

We need the spirit of "sessa-takuma" (切磋琢磨), competition for the only sake of improving things, not for accumulating more.

Accumulation and private property will always lead to what is in place now. What we need is democracy through and through.

Currently, we only have political democracy. But corporations are hierarchically ordered, they're like "Stalinist states", as Chomsky put it.

Democracy through and through would mean that even the means of production would be democratically controlled. In other words, even "corporations" should be democratic entities.

The deep meaning of democracy is that what we ALL share comes before our specific differences. The Universal in the human being is more important than the Particular. This is, I think, a political order that would be also in line with the Buddha-Dharma.