[Engaged] Negativity against engaged Buddhism?

[Sekishi]

PS - I'm sorry I keep responding to these; I tell myself not to respond, you don't need the last word all the time, but this discussion is just very compelling and my storehouse consciousness won't let me stop. hahahahah

And then you took action, allowing the seeds to bare fruit, planting future seeds. And then I responded, and ... D'OH!

Gassho,
Sekishi
#sat

[Jakuden]

[emoji4][emoji120] Thank you Jundo [emoji573]

Gassho
Jakuden
SatToday/LAH


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[Jundo]

Again, I have to bring this conversation back to Zen Practice, no matter how we each personally feel about the question of Global Warming.

If there is global warming, if the land will flood and most of the animals will vanish (including us), and whether or not humankind is the cause ... sit Zazen and let it be.

And if there is no global warming, if the land will not flood, if the animals will flourish, and/or if humankind is totally innocent ... sit Zazen and let it be.

In either case, all composite things are impermanent, this earth and our lives upon it, all the plants and trees are only here for a time, long or short. What is more, there is something tasted in Zazen that is beyond all time, at the source of all hot and cold, free of passing ages, without coming nor going, sweeping in all people, plants and trees, their thriving and dying ... and we sit Zazen here.

At that point, when the bell rings, getting up from the Zafu sitting cushion, some folks may wish to march and install solar panels, believe the scientific data and move higher up the mountain.

... while others may wish to stay in their house not far from the beach in Florida (where Risho lives by the way, in Tampa, so he will have to live the Karma of his beliefs I suppose ) enjoying a high fat burger.

We already have one or two threads in this Forum dedicated to those who would like to make environmental issues part of their Practice ...

Living Earth

https://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showthread.php?16570-Living-Earth

ECO-Life

https://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showthread.php?17002-ECO-Life

Those folks feel that it is their calling to help clean the planet, just in the same way that monks in a temple make it their practice to sweep the floors, wash their bowls and tend the garden. However, participation there is purely optional, and it will not resonate with all our members to join there.

Zen practice is a strange beast: We may seek to stop a war, take medicine to cure a disease, prevent violence against children ... yet somehow when we sit, we sit as that which is at the center and beyond all disease, war, violence and other suffering. Then, getting up, we get back to stopping war and violence, curing the disease. We may not all agree on the means and medicine however.

Gassho, J

STLah

PS - Ya can't trust those Nasa guys anyway, as they faked the moon landing. (Just kidding)

https://www.space.com/apollo-11-moon-landing-hoax-believers.html

PPS - As a former Florida resident I will also say that, should the whole place vanish ... well, it is not only a bad thing.

[Kyōsen]

The "experts" tell us eating meat causes cancer, saturated fat and cholesterol are bad when they are in fact protective, that you need to eat a certain amount of portions or calories to lose weight (the cal in/out hypothesis), that taking a statin to lower cholesterol is good even though statin drugs are very harmful and have never been scientifically proven to help reduce cardiovascular events and have been correlated in an increase in dementia, and the same "experts" that tell their diabetic patients to make sure they eat enough carbs even when carbs are what causes the pancrease to release the most insulin.

I know I'm switching topics to nutrition, but this is the same case where the purported "experts" who tow the company line do not know anything when it comes to human nutrition.

So forgive me if I'm suspicious of experts that claim the world is ending; but of course I could be wrong

Science does seem to have a bit of a PR problem and unless you're a scientist yourself or you're immersed in the world of academic research it's perfectly understandable why anyone might think the experts are confused (at best) or even maliciously deceiving the public to push an agenda (at worst). I honestly believe the real problem lies with how scientific studies and findings are reported by mainstream media which does not understand how science is done; they pick up on some neat bit of "gossip" from the science world and run with it and there's no sense of literacy there. So we end up with having a new study every other year that says coffee is either good for you or bad for you. Which begs the question: How is the average person supposed to make sense of any of this?

In my opinion: They should stop getting their science news from mainstream sources. Mainstream sources, again, don't care about educating or informing - they care about viewership because viewership means ad revenue which means $$$ for them. They should not be trusted sources when it comes to studies being done about nutrition, climate, physics, astronomy, or anything of the sort. They are, at best, tabloid magazines sensationalizing things that only may be true in part.

To get a better understanding of what's really going on, there are free sources which are much better. There are YouTube channels like Seeker, SciShow, PBS SpaceTime, Crash Course, It's Okay to Be Smart, and more. These channels are focused on education (while being entertaining) rather than getting attention for those ad revenue dollars.

Channels like these often take care to explain when more research is needed, how one study may or may not be valid depending on methods used to reach conclusions, how other studies contradict one another and why that may be the case, etc.

Then there are philosophical/debunking YouTube Channels like HBomberGuy who investigate claims made against hot-topic issues like climate change and who shows his research, methodology, and uses logical deconstruction to show where other views are weak or even incorrect. He's also an entertainer so his videos tend to be "flashier" than a serious academic investigation (he is on YouTube after all). A good example of this would be his video Climate Denial: A Measured Response.

I realize not everyone has the time to watch a ton of videos, and it's not my intention to suggest that you do - we all have busy lives and can't necessarily find the spare time to sit down and watch these things. By bringing up these sources I hope to start to point others in the right direction. Channels like Seeker and SciShow tend to do shorter videos in and around the 5-minute mark so they're pretty easy to digest once or twice a day and, over time, I think they're pretty effective at giving a clearer view of what is actually going on in the world of scientific research and academia.

Gassho
Sen
Sat|LAH

[krissydear]

For those who have chosen Mahayana Buddhist practice such as Zen, engaged activity is important, no matter how small or large. It is time to sit with what has been said and for each of us to make our own decisions about what activities to pursue, and which to leave to others.

Gassho
krissy
SToday/lah

[Kokuu]

For those who have chosen Mahayana Buddhist practice such as Zen, engaged activity is important, no matter how small or large. It is time to sit with what has been said and for each of us to make our own decisions about what activities to pursue, and which to leave to others.

[Jakuden]

yeah but then why isn't India and China in the lead? They have orders of magnitude more humans all releasing CO2?

I think Daitetsu answered that question above! If you are truly interested in learning more about this topic, there are some good links posted here in the thread now... otherwise, Kokuu’s advice about finding an engaged activity that meshes with your own practice is great. For those who have chosen Mahayana Buddhist practice such as Zen, engaged activity is important, no matter how small or large. It is time to sit with what has been said and for each of us to make our own decisions about what activities to pursue, and which to leave to others.

Gassho
Jakuden
SatToday/LAH


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[Daitetsu]

yeah but then why isn't India and China in the lead? They have orders of magnitude more humans all releasing CO2?

China is in the lead when it comes to total emissions.
However, in the US the emissions per person is by the factor 2.5 higher than in China, which means the average American person produces more CO2 than the average Chinese person.

Is has something to do with which kind of engergy sources and technologies are used and lifestyle among other things.

More populous countries with some of the highest per capita emissions – and therefore high total emissions – are the United States, Australia, and Canada. Australia has an average per capita footprint of 17 tonnes, followed by the US at 16.2 tonnes, and Canada at 15.6 tonnes.

This is more than 3 times higher than the global average, which in 2017 was 4.8 tonnes per person.

Since there is such a strong relationship between income and per capita CO2 emissions, we’d expect this to be the case: that countries with high standards of living would have a high carbon footprint. But what becomes clear is that there can be large differences in per capita emissions, even between countries with similar standards of living. Many countries across Europe, for example, have much lower emissions than the US, Canada or Australia.

(Source: Where in the world do people emit the most CO2?)



Gassho,

Daitetsu

#sat2day

[Risho]

yeah but then why isn't India and China in the lead? They have orders of magnitude more humans all releasing CO2?

[Kokuu]

Assuming of course climate change is occurring due to humans

Hi Risho

It isn't an assumption but based on data and knowing the mechanism by which warming occurs.

Given that we know that increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere causes higher global temperatures and the mechanism by which this happens, and that human activity has been releasing more and more CO2 in the past century, it is not even a particularly hard problem to understand why temperatures are rising in accordance with carbon dioxide levels.

In my experience, raising doubts over the credibility of man-made global warming tends to come more from worries about the political implications of the fact that economic activity and environmental harm may be linked, something which is admittedly much easier for the left to accept and fundamentally challenges ideas around free-market economics.

Given this, discussions of the science tend to be pointless but, in terms of engaged practice, it does not matter. For some people, environmental activism will form part of their practice and for others it will not. This is fine. I don't think it is for us to determine the political views of Treeleaf members or what aspects of society most concern them. For me, the importance of Engaged Buddhism is in the making our practice bigger than just ourselves. It does not have to adhere to any political colour or philosophy but does, I believe, require stepping outside of our own lives and acting with kindness and generosity to others in society in some way that accords with our bodhisattva vow. That can be to help at a food bank, supporting veterans, picking up litter in a local park or city centre, volunteering at an animal shelter or whatever works for you. This is not about politics but about helping sentient beings in a demonstrable way.

At Treeleaf we have historically firmly encouraged engaged action to be part of our practice and designated days and weeks in which we set aside time to do just that. Even those of us who are physically unable to do many kinds of volunteer work have found ways of doing this.

Maybe we could focus on what kind of engaged action we would be willing to undertake rather than the kinds that we disagree with? Or are there objections to making practical ways of helping people part of practice in general? Most of us are willing to spend a considerable amount of time sewing a rakusu, but are we as willing to put ourselves out into the world to make a difference to the lives of sentient beings, even if in just a small way?

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-

[Jakuden]

I think, sadly, the real problem is that everyone on the internet sounds like an "expert," so when there is real information there, the average person doesn't know how to discern fact from opinion. Unfortunately the solution to that is to rigorously incorporate education about this in school curricula, especially now in the age of the internet where someone can find pretty much any argument backed up by an "expert" that black is white and vice versa. If one is armed with the knowlege of how to find real facts and interpret them, then they can go right to the study information itself and see, for example, where current medical recommendations are generated.... there is a huge difference in conclusions that can be drawn based on number of studies, size of studies, types of methods used to study, etc. etc.

A lot of those medical recommendations, for example, were perceived as "expert opinions" given all the hype in the media but at least in my case, my doctors actually come out and tell me "I base this medication recommendation on one study, so it may change in the future." Scientists naturally take into account degree of doubt in their conclusions, where to everyone else it is just a sea of "expert opinion."

Gassho,
Jakuden
SatToday/LAH

[Risho]

Yeah I get it - but the "experts" have led us down false paths since the beginning of time. The "experts" tell us eating meat causes cancer, saturated fat and cholesterol are bad when they are in fact protective, that you need to eat a certain amount of portions or calories to lose weight (the cal in/out hypothesis), that taking a statin to lower cholesterol is good even though statin drugs are very harmful and have never been scientifically proven to help reduce cardiovascular events and have been correlated in an increase in dementia, and the same "experts" that tell their diabetic patients to make sure they eat enough carbs even when carbs are what causes the pancrease to release the most insulin.

I know I'm switching topics to nutrition, but this is the same case where the purported "experts" who tow the company line do not know anything when it comes to human nutrition.

So forgive me if I'm suspicious of experts that claim the world is ending; but of course I could be wrong

Gassho

Rish
-stlay

[Jakuden]

I usually direct folks to Nasa's page as they put it in terms that are easier for non-scientists to understand. If everyone had said, "uh, I dunno if I believe you guys" we would not have put people on the moon. Although, of course the conspiracy theorists do not believe that happened either.

It only takes a few Scientists to agree enough to put this amazing technology in our hands that we use to talk to each other across the world, to put satellites in orbit that can pinpoint our exact location to the second to give us GPS, to increase our current survival rates from diseases and even increase our lifespans drastically from what they were just a few decades ago... but when pretty much all of them get together and say we are causing climate change, let's take the risk and tell them they need more proof? And the frustrating thing is that it isn't even complicated Science, it's just basic. Although they can track it to pretty sophisticated levels now too, if one is interested enough to educate themselves on the details.

https://climate.nasa.gov/causes/

Gassho,
Jakuden
SatToday/LAH

[Risho]

Shitou Xiqian had a very low carbon footprint.

gassho
doyu sat today

hahahhahahahah that's true!

[Risho]

I could be on the wrong side of history here - but I'm suspicious; we've heard the sky is falling repeatedly throughout our history.

We aren't even aware of all the changes and cause of changes in our environment and ecosystem.

Things we think we know, we don't know.

Gassho

Rish
-stlah