India, Pakistan, and History [en]

A few months back I read this post of Anil’s, in which he suggests reunification as a solution to the India-Pakistan situation. I must say I personally quite like this solution, although I’m not sure it’s really viable (see my ideas on critical mass and big communities). I won’t comment further on the problem and its possible solutions, though, as I totally lack the political and economical insight to do so.

One argument in Anil’s post shocked me, however, and this is what I want to talk about today:

I also feel like the division of 50 years, or one hundred years, or however long it lasts, pales in comparison to the thousands of years of shared history.

[…]

It should only take a strong leader to remind Indians, Pakistanis, and Kashmiris of their thousands of years of shared history.

Anil Dash, Jan. 2002

The thousands of years of shared history is unfortunately a reinterpretation of history. The indian subcontinent was more or less unified under the Raj, and also at some point under the Moghul domination, but apart from that its history is definitely not one of unification.

I’m currently in the process of digging out enough indian history to demonstrate this (as I like giving evidence for what I state – sometimes). The “united subcontinent” is another of these “myths” whose origin can certainly be traced to relatively recent times (19th or 20th century, probaly). If anybody is interested, I’ll do a bit of research about it.

Now, let it be clear that I don’t blame Anil a bit for making that statement. We all—me included—repeat things that are “common knowledge” every day, and (unfortunately?) a fair amount of such things “heard and repeated” are false (heard about urban legends?)

The reason I’m telling you about this is because when I read the post, I thought “OK, that’s definitely not correct… but where on earth do I start to explain that it’s wrong? Do I have to go through the entire history of the indian subcontinent?” Actually, it’s possible to give a concise explanation—which I will try to do in a future post. The problem, I have now realized, is that my knowledge of indian history isn’t thorough enough that I am able to do so off the top of my head, even though I remember having seen evidence proving the point. So I’ll sweat a bit for the education of my readers and hunt it down 😉

I run in to this “where do I start?” problem pretty often, especially when the subject matter happens to be in my field of expertise. For example, I have joined buddha-l for my dissertation research. One of the reasons I haven’t participated to discussions there is that a lot of what is said is so far “off the mark” that I just can’t answer to it with my (limited, albeit specialized) student’s knowledge. If I’m pointing at Anil’s post today, it’s simply this afternoon’s indian culture lecture happened to mention Independence and Partition…

Non-Religious Buddhism (Batchelor, closing words) [en]

How to create an authentic community, which provides a sound basis for the emergence of a culture while optimizing individual freedom, may be the single most important question facing those practicing the dharma today.

One of the strengths of religious Buddhism is its ability to respond unambiguously to this question through continued establishment of hierarchic institutions which have weathered centuries of turmoil and change. While such institutions may provide excellent settings for sustained training in meditation and refection, it is questionable whether they alone can provide a sufficient basis for the creation of a contemporary culture of awakening. The democratic and agnostic imperatives of the secular world demand not another Buddhist Church, but an individuated community, where creative imagination and social engagement are valued as highly as philosophic reflection and meditative attainment.

An agnostic Buddhist vision of a culture of awakening will inevitably challenge many of the time-honored roles of religious Buddhism. No longer will it see the role of Buddhism as providing pseudoscientific authority on subjects such as cosmology, biology, and consciousness as it did in prescientific Asian cultures. Nor will it see its role as offering consolating assurances of a better afterlife by living in accord with the worldview of karma and rebirth. Rather than the pessimistic Indian doctrine of temporal degeneration, it will emphasize the freedom and responsibility to create a more awakened and compassionate society on this earth. Instead of authoritarian, monolithic institutions, it could imagine a decentralized tapestry of small-scale, autonomous communities of awakening. Instead of a mystical religious movement ruled by autocratic leaders, it would foresee a deep agnostic, secular culture founded on friendships and governed by collaboration.

Stephen Batchelor, in Buddhism Without Beliefs, pp. 114-115 [end of book]

[emphasis mine]

Freedom (Batchelor) [en]

Instead of creatively realizing their freedoms, many choose the unreflective conformism dictated by television, indulgence in mass-consumerism, or numbing their feelings of alienation and anguish with drugs. In theory, freedom may be held in high regard; in practice it is experienced as a dizzying loss of meaning and direction.

Part of the appeal of any religious orthodoxy lies in its preserving a secure, structured, and purposeful vision of life, which stands in stark opposition to the insecurity, disorder, and aimlessness of contemporary society. In offering such a refuge, traditional forms of Buddhism provide a solid basis for the ethical, meditative, and philosophical values conducive to awakening. Yet they tend to be wary of participating in a translation of this liberating vision into a culture of awakening that addresses the specific anguish of the contemporary world. Preservation of the known and tested is preferable to the agony of imagination, where we are forced to risk that hazardous leap into the dark.

Stephen Batchelor, in Buddhism Without Beliefs, p. 110

[emphasis mine]

Ce qui m'énerve… [en]

  • Les brochures anti-avortement qui utilisent des images telles que celle-ci pour vendre leurs arguments.
  • Les brochures contre l’expérimentation animale qui utilisent des photos des années septante, impressionnantes certes, mais montrant des animaux préparés pour des opération selon la procédure standard… rien de barbare là -dedans, mais ça choque. Vous saviez que les chats et chiens gardaient les yeux ouverts sous anesthésie? Impressionnant peut-être, mais totalement normal.

On a le droit à  ses opinions. Mais de grâce, que l’on utilise des informations correctes et une argumentation rationelle pour défendre son point de vue!

Self as Narrative (Batchelor) [en]

This passage reminded me of one of my French linguistic classes a couple of years ago. We were talking about autobiography—and to what extent our lives are constructed. Reflecting on our personal history is a way to give meaning to it, thus creating the narrative of our life.

I find it interesting how Batchelor puts forth the contingency of who we are. We often spend time thinking or worrying about the “determined vs. acquired” debate: am I something determined from the start, or am I a blank slate on which life and experiences have imprinted something? I think it is incomplete to put the question so simply: we are also what we make ourselves, at the same time cause and consequence—and this is an important point in the exerpt reproduced below.

And we too are impressions left by something that used to be here. We have been created, molded, formed by a bewildering matrix of contingencies that have preceded us. From the patterning of the DNA derived from our parents to the firing of the hundred billion neurons in our brains to the cultural and historical conditioning of the twentieth century to the education and upbringing given us to all the experiences we have ever had and choices we have ever made: these have conspired to configure the unique trajectory that culminates in this present moment. What is here now is the unrepeatable impression left by all of this, which we call “me”. Yet so vivid and startling is this image that we confuse what is a mere impression for something that exists independently of what formed it.

So what are we but the story we keep repeating, editing, censoring, and embellishing in our heads? The self is not like the hero of a B-movie, who remains unaffected by the storms of passion and intrigue that swirl around him from the opening credits to the end. The self is more akin to the complex and ambiguous characters who emerge, develop, and suffer across the pages of a novel. There is nothing thinglike about me at all. I am more like an unfolding narrative.

As we become aware of this, we can begin to assume greater responsibility for the course of our lives. Instead of clinging to habitual behavior and routines as a means to secure this sense of self, we realize the freedom to create who we are. Instead of being bewitched by impressions, we start to create them. Instead of taking ourselves so seriously, we discover the playful irony of a story that has never been told in quite this way before.

Stephen Batchelor, in Buddhism Without Beliefs, pp. 82-83

[emphasis mine]

Meditation and Death (Batchelor) [en]

I’m still reading Buddhism Without Beliefs by Stephen Batchelor; more quoting for your enlightenment (hopefully):

It might be that all I can trust in the end is my integrity to keep asking such questions as: Since death alone is certain and the time of death uncertain, what should I do? And then to act on them.

[…]

A reflection like this does not tell you anything you do not already know: that death is certain and its time uncertain. The point is to consider these facts regularly and slowly, allowing them to percolate through you, until a felt-sense of their meaning and implication is awakened. Even when you do this reflection daily, sometimes you may feel nothing at all; the thoughts may strike you as repetitive, shallow, and pointless. But at other times you may feel gripped by an urgent bodily awareness of imminent mortality. At such moments try to let the thoughts fade, and focus the entirety of your attention in this feeling.

This meditation counters the deep psychosomatic feeling that there is something permanent at the core of ourself that is going to be around for a while yet. Intellectually, we may suspect such intuitions, but that is not how we feel most of the time. This feeling is not something that additional information or philosophy alone can affect. It needs to be challenged in its own terms.

Reflective meditation is a way of translating thoughts into the language of feeling. It explores the relation between the way we thing about and perceive things and the way we feel about them. We find that even the strongest, seemingly self-evident intuitions about ourselves are based on equally deep-seated assumptions. Gradually learning to see our life in another way through reflective meditation leads to feeling different about it as well.

Stephen Batchelor, in Buddhism Without Beliefs, pp. 31-32

[emphasis mine]

The Vanishing DIV in Mozilla [en]

Having trouble because part of your page doesn’t show up in Mozilla? Using sitemeter, by any chance?

You might be yet another victim of the vanishing div problem, documented by yours truly for the good of all.

Amour, amitié… [en]

Il affirmait toujours à  quel point notre amitié était importante. Je n’étais pas une femme de passage; j’étais une amie. Notre relation était plus profonde que la peau frissonnante qui semblait la diriger. Il serait là  pour moi en cas de besoin—même si nous savions tous deux que jamais je ne lui demanderais quoi que ce soit, car c’état mon auto-suffisance qui lui permettait de s’approcher.

Mais on ne peut retirer à  une relation sa dimension amoureuse, et espérer que dessous il restera une amitié profonde. Le désir a vite fait de se donner bonne conscience en parlant d’amitié. L’amitié peut suivre l’amour, mais elle doit se construire sur ses ruines.

Une relation amoureuse, ce n’est pas de l’amitié “plus” un petit quelque chose. C’est un type de relation à  part entière. Et lorsque l’on regarde dessous, on peut être surpris du vide qu’on y découvre.

Intertextualité: je serai toujours là  pour toi.

Emergence: Labeled Autistic [fr]

Hier matin j’ai trouvé dans ma boîte à  lait la deuxième partie de ma première commande chez amazon.de: Emergence: Labeled Autistic, de Temple Grandin. Je l’ai promené avec moi toute la journée à  l’uni, et je l’ai terminé le soir.

Temple Grandin raconte dans cette autobiographie ses souvenirs d’enfant autiste, ses victoires, et son chemin vers une vie d’adulte indépendante et un grand succès professionnel. Quelques moments de son récit m’ont particulièrement frappée:

  1. Elle explique très clairement que ses “fixations” (ou obsessions, ou idées fixes, ou que sais-je) servent à  la stabiliser, et également que bien exploitées, elles ont servi de force moteur à  son développement et ses succès.
    Je crois qu’on peut transposer ce raisonnement en-dehors de l’autisme: les fixations que l’on peut avoir (je pense surtout aux fixations émotionnelles, par exemple celles qui nous poussent à  vouloir “réparer” quelque chose qui nous a fait souffrir petits) sont ce qui, bien exploitées, vont pouvoir servir de moteur à  nos vies et lui donner son sens.
  2. Temple ne supporte pas le contact physique. Mais en même temps, elle en aurait terriblement envie. Lorsque sa mère lui dit au revoir en la laissant au pensionnat, elle nous dit combien elle aurait voulu qu’elle la serre dans ses bras, tout en sachant qu’elle ne le supporterait pas. Je crois que je la comprends tout à  fait. C’est comme vouloir être aimé, mais ne pas supporter la force de cet amour lorsqu’il est là .
  3. Durant une période de crise durant son adolescence, elle découvre que l’émotion forte d’un carrousel au parc d’attractions la calme et la relaxe. Sans faire de parallèles sauvages, car il ne s’agit pas du même autisme, j’ai plusieurs fois remarqué à  quel point des sensations physiques fortes pouvaient contribuer à  calmer Akirno lorsqu’il est mal (comme le lancer en l’air, courir-sauter-danser en le tenant, le faire tourner…)

Un livre à  lire, que vous vous sentiez concernés par l’autisme ou non. Car ce que Temple partage sur elle-même fait écho en nous: comme si ses maux étaient une forme exagérée, une caricature de ceux dont nous pouvons souffrir.

Histoire que ce soit clair, je ne veux pas réduire l’autisme à  une simple intensification des problèmes “que tout le monde a”. Mais on peut se reconnaître dans ce que vit Temple, sans être autiste. C’est ça que je veux dire.