How much has Humanity evolved?

[Gerard]

Buddhism. What were the original teachings really like?

 

In Search of the Original Buddhism

 

This is a very serious problem isn't it, which clearly resonates with what some claim as: some branches of Buddhism became extinct because they simply couldn't follow the Buddha anymore due to changes in the mind and the environment! Very true.

 

Ancient Philosophy

 

If you browse and take a careful look of the major philosophers involved with each system then you will realise that deep down they all share a common idea: absolute, duality, parts of a whole (Heaven-Humanity-Earth), causality, etc.

 

Even when I listen to the following Chinese professor I hear Anaximander, Heraclitus, Anaxagoras and Buddha's words (don't go against the will of nature, everything is interrelated):

 

Daoist Medicine

 

So, today 2016. Has Humanity really evolved...ah yes we have the wonderful Internet and laptops so we can share ideas and talk to each other as well as have all those scientific instruments, fancy clothing, cars, etc. But at an intellectual and spiritual level, how much have we evolved in the past 5,000 years?

 

More?

Stale?

Possibly less? If you listen to the next presentation:

 

Macrocosmic Alchemy - Deciphering the Code of the Organ Networks (Heiner Fruehauf)

 

We live in a world where there is no purpose anymore

 

This lecture is worth a lot. Very meaningful.

 

Scary world we live in today!

 

Oh my God what happened to Humanity.

 

 

 

[Golden Dragon Shining]

I believe we've descended from a Golden Age. As per ancient Greek, Chinese and other accounts.

Edited September 27, 2016 by Sionnach

[Karl]

We have begun to fall backwards towards a new dark age, due chiefly to Emmanuel Kant and those academics and intellectuals that took up up his anti-reason cudgel with the kind of glee shown by the vandal who destroys only because he enjoys destruction and sees no purpose in creation.

[Cheshire Cat]

Isn't evolution a darwinian idea?

Are we supposed to evolve because Darwin said so?

 

But this... this...

 

 

We live in a world where there is no purpose anymore

 

It's true.

Our civilization is dying because there is no purpose anymore.

But this doesn't mean that other purposes will not advance, grow and destroy our memory.

[Karl]

Because there is no 'reason' anymore. Without reason you have purpose, but not a directed purpose. The purpose is whatever the whim dictates. It no longer needs a reason, so just do anything you like for the sake of pleasure at any cost.

[Jetsun]

In certain areas we have progressed such as technology and medicine plus there is less war and violence now, in other areas not so much, our emotional development seems to have regressed, politics has been debased to the lowest level, other areas such as art, music and literature show a decline. Depends how you measure it I guess.

[Marblehead]

But at an intellectual and spiritual level, how much have we evolved in the past 5,000 years?

 

At the intellectual level I would say we have evolved significantly.

 

At the spiritual level I would say that we have not done so well.

[Cheshire Cat]

Because there is no 'reason' anymore. Without reason you have purpose, but not a directed purpose. The purpose is whatever the whim dictates. It no longer needs a reason, so just do anything you like for the sake of pleasure at any cost.

 

Yes.

Additionally, there's nothing we're willing to die for.

[Marblehead]

 

Additionally, there's nothing we're willing to die for.

Interesting concept although I don't know if it is worthy a discussion.

[Karl]

Yes.

Additionally, there's nothing we're willing to die for.

We appear willing to sacrifice for anything. The immediate thought 'dying' isn't really uppermost, it's more spike slo mo suicide. People are trying to grab hedonistic pleasure or some forms of mysticism as a counter in a world that increasingly doesn't appear to offer them real happiness nor purpose. It doesn't of course because the philosophy they which with they have been indoctrinated has been mostly about creating fearful, obedient workers and pleasure consumers. Reason isn't something politicians and crony corporations value. They prefer ignorant, frightened sheep that keep voting, buying crap and paying taxes. What's stultifying is that it appears that's exactly what the majority of the population also prefer. Mind numbing tv, tenth rate education, an obsessive compulsion to consume anything and everything regardless of cost, crap music, crap art, dumb, corrupt politicians and a media that hasn't a clue about honesty and integrity.

[Cheshire Cat]

From a spiritual standpoint,  having something to die for is plainly stupid: it shows excessive attachment.

 

But... if you take it as a measure of the strength of a culture or a philosophy, sometimes you can predict what's going to happen: I spent my childhood in a catholic environment, one of the oldest form of christianity.

Christianity gave strength to people, the spirit to testify their faith for the pleasure of lions and tigers in the arena. Today, it doesn't.

 

During the french revolution, people were willing to die for their ideals... the Bolsheviks in Russia risked their own lives too.

And you know U.S. history better than I do: easy to find heores and patriots.

 

Those people had purposes and ideals: they had strength, they had something to die for.

[Karl]

From a spiritual standpoint,  having something to die for is plainly stupid: it shows excessive attachment.

 

But... if you take it as a measure of the strength of a culture or a philosophy, sometimes you can predict what's going to happen: I spent my childhood in a catholic environment, one of the oldest form of christianity.

Christianity gave strength to people, the spirit to testify their faith for the pleasure of lions and tigers in the arena. Today, it doesn't.

 

During the french revolution, people were willing to die for their ideals... the Bolsheviks in Russia risked their own lives too.

And you know U.S. history better than I do: easy to find heores and patriots.

 

Those people had purposes and ideals: they had strength, they had something to die for.

That kind of blatent idealism and bloody revolution still abound, but the West has been poisoned by something far more insidious. It is apathy and the death of reason. It is the equivalent of an anaesthetic to numb the mind and extract the blood. It seems to me that people accept the slower blood letting as a sacrifice to the ideal of 'the common good' or 'safety' and the anaesthetic is philosophically applied. There is no need to distribute Huxleys Soma, people are willingly blinding themselves to the sacrifice they are making.

[Vajra Fist]

I remember reading how in early Confucianism, they bemoaned how much humanity's moral standard has declined massively. Now, 2000 years later they say the same thing. There has always been a golden age in the past.

 

Maybe it's our species penchant for nostalgia. Maybe we have really been declining steadily as a species over the course of 10s of thousands of years. I know Jonathan Black believes that, and going back a few million years we didn't actually exist in a physical form at all. The physical reality we find ourselves in now is due to our species consciousness falling as a whole.

 

But even then, with the internet people have a greater ability to hear the dharma then ever before. They're teaching mindfulness and yoga in schools. In every town there are dozens of schools teaching esoteric practices that would have been jealously guarded in the past.

 

You could say it cheapens the path. Rarity makes things precious. But I'm optimistic. I think we have a chance as a species and I believe we can change.

[Gerard]

Thanks for your replies, dear friends.

 

We have begun to fall backwards towards a new dark age, due chiefly to Emmanuel Kant and those academics and intellectuals that took up up his anti-reason cudgel with the kind of glee shown by the vandal who destroys only because he enjoys destruction and sees no purpose in creation.

 

Soon humans won't be able to see the sun and the moon. 100 years I predict. Their minds will be has hard as diamonds.

 

Watch this for a bit:

 

Chinese factory line human workers

 

Try telling them working in their conditions is unfair, that daily meditation and living near trees and clean running water is better for their health. The fact is they are working for ALL OF US.

 

 

Chickens

 

Is it healty eating one of those eggs or the chickens themselves when they grow up.

 

Living in the modern urban world.

 

But honestly,

 

I had enough! (Butoh)

 

 

Maybe we should look back into Nature and learn from our furry brothers.

 

 

Meanwhile a bit of sanity in the big city:

 

Mindful awareness.

 

 

Yes our world is what we make out of it, we are all responsible.

 

Keep meditating.

 

[Karl]

The Chinese factory workers are working for themselves. Unless they were forced at gunpoint to work then their conditions-although miserable-are those they chose as part of their employment contract with their hirer.

 

We are nature, animals can't tell us anything about our nature, we are as different as chalk and cheese. We have a conceptual brain and animals don't. We can't live like animals because we are ill equipped to do so. Where an animal has fangs, strength, claws, armour, fur, we have large brains which are our only tool, without it we would be easy prey for everything else and extinct in a matter of decades, or less.

 

We are responsible for ourselves and that's where our responsibility ends. It may encompass a value such as family and friends, but only by choice. Equally no one is responsible for us and neither should we expect it. Be neither your brothers keeper, or expect him to be yours.

[Drifting_Through_Infinity]

WHO CUT DOWN ALL THE GIANT TREES???

[Marblehead]

WHO CUT DOWN ALL THE GIANT TREES???

I'm pretty sure it was the lumber industry.  People needed wood for building homes.

[Prasanna]

A true spiritual aspirant must only focus on self refinement and never ever think about judging the world or humanity or their evolution. One will be totally misguided if one ventures in judging the evolution of the world.

[Karl]

A true spiritual aspirant must only focus on self refinement and never ever think about judging the world or humanity or their evolution. One will be totally misguided if one ventures in judging the evolution of the world.

Quite the opposite. What is 'self refinement' but a judgement of ones self and how can one achieve that without judging the self with respect to reality. Eventually the world intrudes on our little oasis of evasion.

[Gerard]

We are nature, animals can't tell us anything about our nature, we are as different as chalk and cheese. We have a conceptual brain and animals don't. We can't live like animals because we are ill equipped to do so.

Hi dear Karl,

 

Let me disagree with you here, please. My experience with wildlife (and that includes certain insects) is what would normal people would consider as fairy tales.

 

I'll leave it there but let me hint you something: they are closer to the Tao than ordinary humans who are unawakened can't either hear the Dharma or high Daoist principles (or any other spiritual traditions for that matter).

Edited September 30, 2016 by Gerard

[Gerard]

A true spiritual aspirant must only focus on self refinement and never ever think about judging the world or humanity or their evolution. One will be totally misguided if one ventures in judging the evolution of the world.

 

Hi there,

 

Yes very true but when one starts to develop a strong moral persona as a result of dedicated practice and values to live close or in the natural world, then it's easy to see that how the defilements have literally destroyed this world of ours, because whether you like it or not you are also part of it and as such it will influence your life. When you drop a stone in in the middle of a pond the ripples will reach to the edge of the water in all directions:

 

30 years on, Norway’s radioactive reindeer are a stark reminder of Chernobyl legacy

 

 

I do care about our blue planet because it is hosting and feeding us!

[Karl]

Hi dear Karl,

 

Let me disagree with you here, please. My experience with wildlife (and that includes certain insects) is what would normal people would consider as fairy tales.

 

I'll leave it there but let me hint you something: they are closer to the Tao than ordinary humans who are unawakened can't either hear the Dharma or high Daoist principles (or any other spiritual traditions for that matter).

They are purely perceptual animals, they live in a stream of 'now' and couple that with intelligence-sometimes quite highly evolved intelligence, but still purely perceptual. They feel pleasure and pain, but they are instinctively driven and only need a bit of training for them to hunt and survive. They do not communicate an ever evolving explosion of concepts as we do. They see a tree, they cannot conceive of a forest, or think of the wood cut, dried, planed and assembled as a chair. They just copy what the adults do in whatever environment they find themselves to be. Some are pack animals and others lone hunters.

 

It is impossible for us to think like an animal, or animals to think as we do. We have to chose everything conceptually. Animals don't conceptualise life and death, they are simply alive and their instinct is to remain alive. Humans can choose and must choose to be alive. It is not a matter of perceptual instinct, but reasoned choice. Animals experience pleasure and pain as we do on a physical level, but we also experience the conceptual happiness and suffering absent in animals.

 

Often animals are tested for self awareness, but that is a test of intelligence not highly evolved conceptual ability-although it may indicate some potential if evolution permits it. A larger brain can conceptualise but to reach higher conceptual levels it must consume greater energy and that seems to mean reducing the physical capacity. It means we must begin substituting production of tools to augment the poorer physical body. A bird might use a stone to crack a sea shell, or a bear use a stick to get honey from a nest, but this isn't production, it's instinctive use of an available resource that doesn't need adapting.

 

I'm not an expert on animals, or their intelligence, only that we are, as yet, seperated by an intractable difference.

[Brian]

Animals are no more "purely perceptual" than we are "purely conceptual" -- just another false dichotomy raised for the purpose of argumentation.

[Karl]

Animals are no more "purely perceptual" than we are "purely conceptual" -- just another false dichotomy raised for the purpose of argumentation.

We aren't purely conceptual, neither does it necessarily mean some animals are entirely incapable of a kind of low level of conception. We have evolved very differently. We are dependent entirely on conception, where as animals are dependent on their superior physicality and skills.

 

Before you say 'generalising' :-) yes, because to try and add in the sliding functionality of the human perception and physical body confuses what are the main elements of difference. I know you too well and your going to get mashed up in the details of likeness. So, before you do, both animals and humans have senses and perception, both rely on their physical bodies, but to different degrees.

 

Does that cover it ? LOL probably not. I could write an entire paper, carefully thought out and you woukd punch a million tiny holes in it. :-)

Edited September 30, 2016 by Karl

[Gerard]

I know Jonathan Black believes that, and going back a few million years we didn't actually exist in a physical form at all. The physical reality we find ourselves in now is due to our species consciousness falling as a whole.

 

 

Hi,

 

He is right. He probably read that info in the Agganna Sutta (the beginning of life on Earth).

 

The Buddha is always right, for sure!

 

Humans are becoming 'coarser' every year. This planet won't see another 200 years in its present form. Life will cease to exist and start all over again eventually. New beings will be reborn as humans again at that time. Samsara is like a giant pinball machine. Your karma will take to to whatver place is available according to its quality. Earth-like planets if your karma is balanced, Hell (if a human is morally accountable to be reborn there), Heaven for those who lived a life doing good. Up and down the scale unless one has cultivated their minds to the point of reaching stream-entry.

 

Best!

Edited September 30, 2016 by Gerard