Biological Repression

One member of the MCLA class of 2015 has been posting on various social networking sites that he is fasting from food for entire days. He has also been posting that he is an ex-bisexual (which is awkward because sexual orientation is not a choice, and he is making it appear as though it is), which seems strange given that most of his posts are about sex, which leads many to think that he is constantly thinking about sex. He is also, apparently, neglecting education, he has said a few times that he could care less about education over God.  At any rate, he thinks that fasting/abstaining/neglecting from these things will help him to grow spiritually. I disagree with him, and instead agree with the Buddha. I think that you can only work on spirituality when you are not repressing your basic biological needs. The sexual repression, it seems, is especially leading to interference with spirituality with him. Given that at least 80% of his posts are about sex, and not about god, it's apparent that repressed sexuality is hogging up most of his thoughts. There is also the fact that sexual repression and fasting can have severely negative affects on a person's health. I hope that, if there is indeed a god, he is not the kind of god who supports sexual repression, starvation, and depriving oneself of knowledge just for him.

Paths Don't Pave Themselves

In response to Rachel - Full post here

While I certainly think that it is up to you to make your own choices, I would advise you to be cautious about this idea of path. Paths do not pave themselves. You, and only you, pave the path. You are always paving a path, even when you try not to pave the path, you are paving it by trying not to. What I mean is that inaction is a type of action. Your actively choosing to not pursue your education license, is paving another path which may or may not have worse affects on you. I think that the main point behind this meditation is that you should be okay with the choices that you make, not that you give up on something because something has changed. A Buddhist would probably tell you to do what feels right, and I would agree. Continuing briefly, and I'm not sure why, or to what end, I think that a Buddhist would say that striving for your teaching license despite the change in requirements can be the proper path just as much as graduating regardless of the status of your teaching license. Remember that the best path may not be the easiest path

You cannot know, beyond a shred of doubt, what the future is; therefore you cannot know, beyond a shred of doubt, what your path in life is. Choosing to pursue your teaching license may make you incredibly happy in the future, or it could turn out to be completely useless and a waste of time. Likewise, giving up on the teaching license could make you incredibly happy, or it could end with you being unhappy. The choice is yours to make, you cannot know if somebody has already chosen a path, so you must make a choice of your own. Simply, accept your choice and be willing to go with the flow.

Consumption is Justification

In response to Jess - full post here

I agree with the main point of your essay; there is essentially no difference between sacrificing animals and slaughtering them for consumption. I find it amazing that people could be so offended by animal sacrifice, but not blink an eye at the slaughterhouses in America. I suppose the problem with animal sacrifice is largely its association with barbaric tribal practices of the past; people who practice sarcophagy, it seems, are offended when people don't use animals explicitly for consumption. Modern Western society seems to justify meat consumption at the expense of severe animal cruelty.

I do disagree, however, with the view that we cannot get rid of slaughterhouses. Society is made up of individuals. The slaughterhouses will all fail if the majority, and preferably all of humanity, agrees that vegetarianism is preferable to the consumption of meat. You did miss a key point in that whole section about animals consuming other animals: not all animals consume other animals. As omnivores, we don't actually have to consume animal flesh; actually, humans are more biologically similar to herbivores than most other omnivores. As such, slaughterhouses are not necessary, but are, rather, a luxury of sorts.

I think that if a person is against animal abuse, they should become vegetarian. If a person finds that kicking a dog is unacceptable, they should be appropriately moved to find the slaughter of the more intelligent pigs to be equally, or perhaps more, unacceptable.

Life and Death and Coins

Response to Jess - full post here

Yes, that would be quite the loophole. While I love that game with all of my tiny heart, I think that the analogy is limited to shadow and light, I do not think it would be relevant to life and death conversations. Shadow is the absence of light - death is the cessation of life. You can have things which are neither live or dead (rocks for example).

Right now I agree that immortality is not within our reach. However, I think that it's not so incredibly far away actually. I don't agree that what begins must end, I think that in the not-so-distant future we will be able to see immortality. I'm not saying that everyone will choose it. I think it would be necessary to give people the choice to die when they want to. So in that sense there will be death; but any given individual could choose to live forever, or at least until the universe collapses on itself. Though actually, even then, if the multi-verse theory has any weight, even that won't be able to kill people permanently.

Pre-Marital Sex

This is less relevant to Buddhism than I would have liked but I was thinking about the whole abstaining from sex until marriage thing. The opinion that everyone should abstain from sex until they are married is still around; many Christians still think that this is relevant advice for our contemporary society. I was thinking about it and decided that society has changed heavily since the onset of that guideline. That guideline/rule was put into place many years ago (around 2000 at the least); at that time the life expectancy was much less for any given individual. As such, when people were biologically  ready to produce children, they got married. They, on whole, seldom had to repress their sexuality. In this society, people live to be much older and, as such, tend to get married later in life. These individuals who choose to abstain from sex, assuming that they actually have an inclination towards sex, are only bottling up their sexual energy. I think that  this may not be the best idea, and probably isn't precisely what the Christian God would want. He may want people to have sex only after they are married, but his rules would have to be altered slightly to apply today.

Buddhism and Self-Defense

Chapter 26 Verses 389, 391, 405, and 406 of the Dhammapada, all feature the same message: Do not harm others, even if they harm you; do not use weapons, words, or thoughts to harm them, etc.

While I was reading through this chapter I was thinking about possible scenarios where this sort of philosophy would provide a disadvantage. Given that I follow this philosophy myself, it was something seriously worth considering. I wondered about what a Buddhist would do if someone came up and attacked them, intending to seriously wound them (put them  in critical condition), or kill them. I realized then that I had already come up with a solution which is the style of martial arts that I am learning; aikido, I think, would be an excellent style of martial arts for those who take this part of the teaching seriously and strictly. It's philosophy is basically that if someone is an attacker, something about them is wrong or off-balance so it is the job of the person being attacked to defend themselves and to protect the attacker from injury. I can imagine that aikido appeals greatly to many practising Buddhists. The philosophies seem to blend so perfectly.

Meditation and YOU MUST BELIEVE IN REINCARNATION

People seem to equate various practices with beliefs. I was once meditating in my room when my father entered and saw me there. Now, I had only recently informed him that I no longer wanted to practice Catholicism. In response to seeing me meditating he informed me that it was absolutely crazy to believe in reincarnation. At that time I had not known that the rebirth that Buddhism speaks of is not a literal transferring of souls. I was, however, meditating for more practical reasons, so I found it slightly far-fetched to see that he had equated mediations so hastily to believing in reincarnation. I don't particularly believe or disbelieve in reincarnation and I was only meditating to relax. People do often tend to assume that partaking in certain activities must necessarily have been caused by some ideological opinion change.