Posts by omanreagan@mastodon.social
(DIR) Post #AHr2h7P3VE8VSVZwCO by omanreagan@mastodon.social
2022-03-28T00:13:46Z
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As I go back and re-read my tweets I keep in mind my aspiration toward 'right speech.' I can see where I get dragged into behaviour, speech, and thinking that isn't helpful. I clear out anything that isn't what I aim to say and do. It's a way of learning.https://twitter.com/OmanReagan/status/1502079992024289283
(DIR) Post #AHr2hAYNn0NbEIxvea by omanreagan@mastodon.social
2022-03-28T00:16:48Z
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When my reactions and feelings have pushed me to say and do things sometimes what's happening is I'm losing a bit of my sovereignty, my freedom. By reviewing and learning from the times where I got lost I notice how my mind works, how I lose that freedom, and I regain it.
(DIR) Post #AHr2hDB622XFMx5sH2 by omanreagan@mastodon.social
2022-03-28T00:16:48Z
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I also regularly delete all tweets and start fresh. I last did this at the start of the new year. So a few days ago I started reviewing, re-reading all my tweets beginning January 1 until today. I've gotten to February 24 so far.
(DIR) Post #AIUXoUpo4lTSaiAz2W by omanreagan@mastodon.social
2022-04-16T01:32:08Z
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All happening this week: The Jewish holiday Passover, The Muslim holiday Ramadan, the Christian holiday Easter, the spring festival Vaisakhi celebrated by Sikhs and some Hindus, the Jain festival Mahavir Jayanti, and Theravada Buddhist New Year. What other holidays and festivals?
(DIR) Post #AIWRyFLSCZIjkUjLNY by omanreagan@mastodon.social
2022-04-16T23:09:10Z
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In a fair economic system everyone who doesn't have basic needs met would have them, everyone who has too little would have enough, and a very tiny number of people who have more than they could ever use would have less than they do now. It's the bare minimum we should expect.
(DIR) Post #AIWRyHK6qXPjsu7IYq by omanreagan@mastodon.social
2022-04-16T23:12:11Z
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Politicians who don't support this simple goal of a fair, just, and moral economic system are defending the privilege of a tiny number of people to have more than they could ever use, a privilege that requires others to go without their basic needs. This is the status quo.
(DIR) Post #AIWRyJIlUVWk1JVFk8 by omanreagan@mastodon.social
2022-04-16T23:15:11Z
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It's not just the power and influence of the wealthy that keeps most politicians defending this system where a few thousand people get to be billionaires at the expense of billions of other people having their basic needs met. It's a culture, an ideology, a system of values.
(DIR) Post #AIWRyL8CgkGdh8ZqYi by omanreagan@mastodon.social
2022-04-16T23:18:12Z
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What has to change is not just laws and taxes, but values. We have to change the very basic ideas about what matters. Voting won't do this, legislation won't do this, it requires transforming society, changing culture.
(DIR) Post #AImqarci7i4v9hp6Rc by omanreagan@mastodon.social
2022-04-24T20:43:28Z
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Immolation occurs around the world. It is not suicide. I've studied and written about Indonesia's first immolation. Immolation has sparked revolutions and movements in many countries. To learn more about it in some Buddhist contexts see this article. https://tricycle.org/magazine/self-immolation/
(DIR) Post #AImqasim2eWSYnfSXA by omanreagan@mastodon.social
2022-04-24T21:31:35Z
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"Buddhist practitioners understood self-immolation in terms of the perfections (paramitas) of charity (dana), vigor (virya), and patience (ksanti)."
(DIR) Post #AImqatNXb58GbEk14q by omanreagan@mastodon.social
2022-04-24T21:31:36Z
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"The major motivation, whether for advanced bodhisattvas or for ordinary beings, was often expressed in terms of the primary Buddhist virtue of compassion (karuna)."
(DIR) Post #AImqau6usNQcrxyFns by omanreagan@mastodon.social
2022-04-24T21:31:36Z
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"Self-immolators were understood to be acting not only for themselves but also for the good of others. Their biographies often emphasized both the benefits to their immediate communities and the larger resonances of their acts on the entire cosmos."https://tricycle.org/magazine/self-immolation/
(DIR) Post #AImqb7FY1b3bcV6pYu by omanreagan@mastodon.social
2022-04-24T20:46:32Z
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It's common for some people, especially in the west, to see Buddhist immolation as self-destruction, and assume it implies loss of hope or desire for non-existence. This is a misunderstanding from lack of familiarity with the fundamentally different view of reality in Buddhism.
(DIR) Post #AImqbA1ph2rwEpiQ6K by omanreagan@mastodon.social
2022-04-24T20:49:31Z
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Thich Nhat Hanh’s 1965 letter to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. "In Search of the Enemy of Man" was written in part to explain to westerners and non-Buddhists how Buddhist immolation is not suicide. It is worth reading to understand these acts more deeply.https://plumvillage.org/about/thich-nhat-hanh/letters/in-search-of-the-enemy-of-man/
(DIR) Post #AImqbCHVJkapE13xo0 by omanreagan@mastodon.social
2022-04-24T21:01:31Z
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Buddhist views of ultimate reality are often shared but not taken literally. But when Thich Nhat Hanh says "the notion of death can not be applied to reality" he means it. It's neither the nihilism of death as end nor the eternalism of life after death. https://youtu.be/t-rCGmCCMMs
(DIR) Post #AImqbE4odtdEnF8rJ2 by omanreagan@mastodon.social
2022-04-24T21:04:30Z
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"Ideas like being born, dying, coming and going, being and non-being, should be removed by the practice of looking deeply. And when you can remove these notions you are free, and you have non-fear. And non-fear is the true foundation of great happiness."— Thich Nhat Hanh
(DIR) Post #AImqbLItlw3XCwmhjE by omanreagan@mastodon.social
2022-04-24T21:13:30Z
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Important to note there is enormous variation in views of ultimate reality, life, death, and everything else not just between Buddhism and other religions but within Buddhism. This is true of all religion of course. Can avoid problems by specifying who, what, where, when, etc.
(DIR) Post #AImqbQvir15AenzHRA by omanreagan@mastodon.social
2022-04-24T21:16:30Z
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Obviously cultural, social, political, and religious context for self-immolation of an American Buddhist who was Shambhala adjacent and influenced by other Buddhist schools is not the same as other immolations elsewhere. But just as there are particulars, there can be universals.
(DIR) Post #AImqbc7TFg13MQZJmC by omanreagan@mastodon.social
2022-04-24T21:22:30Z
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Taking this view of ultimate reality into account it should be clear that Wynn Alan Bruce has not destroyed himself at all and that he continues. He continues in everyone who witnesses his flames of prayer, in every conversation and mention of him here, he continues in all of us.
(DIR) Post #AImqblrt0TUXazM0sC by omanreagan@mastodon.social
2022-04-24T21:22:31Z
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"The fire that burns himburns in my body.And the world around meburns with the same firethat burns my brother."— Thich Nhat HanhThe Fire That Consumes My Brother, 1963