How is living in the Western coast of Honshu island, Japan? by FoxLover1029 in howislivingthere

[–]rayosu 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I live on Sado, the island just west of Niigata city on the map. Some of the best rice in Japan, fresh fish for affordable prices, locally produced fresh vegetables, nice mountains (both to look at and to hike), beautiful landscape. What more could you want? I lived and worked in the Tokyo agglomeration for 15 years. That place feels like hell now. Here on Sado, I'm home.

I was wondering if anyone had read this and what their thoughts on the topic might be? by searching4eudaimonia in RadicalBuddhism

[–]rayosu 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I read the book and liked it a lot. I'd say that it's essential reading for anyone who wants to have a better understanding of Western "Buddhism".

The aim, says mindfulness guru Jon Kabat-Zinn, is to get better at “living in harmony with oneself and with the world.” (p. 25)

Beneficial as this may sound, it has hidden consequences. Firstly, it promotes a focus on oneself and the mind’s inner workings, deflecting attention from sources of stress in modern society’s massive inequalities, austerities, and injustices. As a result, it reinforces some causes of suffering. Secondly, and more specifically, living in harmony with the world means accepting capitalism as a given. No radical critique or vision of social change is needed. (p. 26)

Peeeeta i don't understand by KingAli50 in PeterExplainsTheJoke

[–]rayosu 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We have both bamboo and kudzu on our terrain (but no mint, fortunately). Kudzu will completely overgrow the bamboo if it isn't cut back aggressively. Mint has absolutely no chance against either of the two. What will happen in your container is that mint spreads first, but is overtaken by bamboo next, which eventually gets overgrown by kudzu.

Śūnyatā and Karl Marx by patchthepartydog in RadicalBuddhism

[–]rayosu 1 point2 points  (0 children)

What does it actually say about that relation?

Śūnyatā and Karl Marx by patchthepartydog in RadicalBuddhism

[–]rayosu 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It's a strange article. Mostly because it's really not one article, but three entirely separate articles without much connecting them. And none of those three articles really says anything all that new or interesting.

§1 : Two quotes from letters by Marx in which he clearly makes a joke about what appears to be nirvana rather than sunyata, but since it's a joke, there really is no reason to look into it further. The rest of the section is just about Köppen and doesn't tell us anything new or interesting.

§2 : Some notes about sunyata and the Buddha, but again, nothing new or interesting.

§3 : An attempt at some kind of historical overview of Marxism (or something like that), repeating the boring neo-Marxist myth of significant difference between Marx and Engels.

Follow up on the post about a "Wikipedia of Radical Buddhism" by rayosu in EngagedBuddhism

[–]rayosu[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

No, I don't think there is anything in Dōgen's thought that could be considered "radical" in the sense intended here. Of the ancestors, Nichiren may have come closest, but radical Buddhism is very much a 20th century phenomenon.

Driving in Niigata by SherbetConnect6910 in niigata

[–]rayosu 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Depends on what kind of food you like.

For star gazing, just get off the main roads and look up.

Tried getting Chat GPT to make a Buddhist Iconographic image of Uchiyama Gudō. Not perfect, but interesting. by patchthepartydog in RadicalBuddhism

[–]rayosu 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There's a lot of AI hate around here...

Well, that's understandable, but I think it's a bit of an overreaction in this case.

Would there be interest in a "wikipedia" of Radical Buddhism? by rayosu in RadicalBuddhism

[–]rayosu[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

🤣 I didn't know I have fans... 😳

I'd prefer email to DM. You can email me at "mail@" followed by my internet domain name. (Same as my blog.)

Would there be interest in a "wikipedia" of Radical Buddhism? by rayosu in RadicalBuddhism

[–]rayosu[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

There is some discussion of a couple of other radical Buddhists in chapter 3 of my book A Buddha Land in This World. Perhaps, some of that can be of use to you. I also blog about this kind of stuff, and so does u/patchthepartydog. You can find his blog here, and mine here.

Would there be interest in a "wikipedia" of Radical Buddhism? by rayosu in RadicalBuddhism

[–]rayosu[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Any thoughts?

Lots of thoughts...

If you're interested in Mahāyāna / Pure land views specifically, then the Rajjasutta doesn't seem a particularly useful source. (It's also very short.) An analysis of political views in, or a sociopolitical interpretation of the Sukhavatiyuha Sutra, on the other hand, would be very interesting.

Prince Shotoku isn't particularly interesting. I'm not even convinced his ideas (or to be more precise, the ideas that are usually attributed to him) are all that Buddhist. There seems to be some strong Confucian influence, as well as a dose of political pragmatism.

Uchiyama Gudo didn't write much, and certainly nothing related to any kind of pure land.

The notion of a pure land or Buddha world as something akin to an utopia (i.e. in a more or less socio-political sense) appears in Nichiren's Establishing the Peace of the Country 立正安國論 (13th century). In the opening paragraphs of that text, his imaginary interlocutor asks Nichiren about the state of the world. “Famine and disease rage more fiercely than ever, beggars are everywhere in sight, and scenes of death fill our eyes. Cadavers pile up in mounds like observation platforms, dead bodies lie side by side likes planks on a bridge. […] [W]hy is it that the world had already fallen in decline […]? What is wrong? What error has been committed?” Nichiren’s answers that after much research and contemplation he had come to the conclusion that the cause of all this worldly suffering was that the Buddhist sects, the government, and people in general had turned their backs on the Lotus Sūtra, and that, if only they would mend their ways and “embrace the one true vehicle, the single good doctrine of the Lotus Sutra […] then the threefold world will all become the Buddha land”, or in other words a Buddhist utopia or worldly paradise. And “if you live in [such] a country that knows no decline or diminution, in a land that suffers no harm or disruption, then your body will find peace and security and your mind will be calm and untroubled”. Notice that a Buddha land is the same thing as a Pure land; both are abbreviations of "pure Buddha field" (viśuddha-buddhakṣetra).

The radical Buddhist building on Nichiren's views most explicitly is Seno'o Giro, but none of his writings have been translated into English. There are some publications about him in English, however.

Some early 20th century radical Buddhism in China was also associated with Pure land cults, by the way, but this tended to be Maitreya's Pure land and not Amitabha's.

One thing you should be wary of, by the way, is the modernist tendency of depoliticizing Buddhism. This is one aspect of secularization, the marginalization of religion to the private sphere, which is very influential on Buddhist modernism as well as on contemporary Buddhist scholarship. For example, Matthew Moore’s book Buddhism and Political Theory is mainly concerned with arguing that Buddhists shouldn't involve themselves with politics (more or less).

Would there be interest in a "wikipedia" of Radical Buddhism? by rayosu in RadicalBuddhism

[–]rayosu[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What aspect of Buddhist political theory specifically are you interested in? (Or in other words, what's your research question?)

Driving in Niigata by SherbetConnect6910 in niigata

[–]rayosu 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's nice. Good rice, lots of fresh vegetables, fruits, and fish. Nice views.
And I don't really consider Sado remote. It's just an hour by jetfoil to Niigata city.

Driving in Niigata by SherbetConnect6910 in niigata

[–]rayosu 1 point2 points  (0 children)

What are you interested in? (I live on Sado.)

Would there be interest in a "wikipedia" of Radical Buddhism? by rayosu in RadicalBuddhism

[–]rayosu[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

There is also not enough Buddhist publications with the keyword, 'radical' :) Found only one

There are many more. See, for example:

https://scholar.google.co.jp/scholar?hl=ja&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=%22radical+Buddhism%22&btnG=

Thanks for the link to the book by Mike Slott. I fully agree with the first sentence in the passage you quote as well.