Author: Warren Tang

I write about linguistics and philosophy. I also write poetry and take photographs.

A Short Introduction to the Buddha

Warren Tang7 Comments

The Buddha, who is said to have inspired the “religion” of Buddhism, has been a major influence on my life and thinking since I was sixteen. And today I continue to practice as a non-monk.

There are plenty of Buddhists and plenty of environmentalists out there, but very few are consciously “ecoBuddhists” or “Buddho-environmentalists”. And although I do not think I am one I have chosen to write about sustainability and Buddhism, and how they relate to me. Most people who find this page have probably reached it via the sustainability aspect of my blog rather than through the Buddha aspect. So I feel I owe it to my readers that I explain the Buddha and Buddhism in order not to be misunderstood. And to my Buddhists readers I need to explain why I feel sustainability is an important issue for them as well.

The Buddha
The Buddha lived about 2,500 years ago around the area now can be loosely referred as the Indo-Nepalese border. He claimed neither to be a god, nor to be a son of a god, nor to be a prophet. He claimed to be just an ordinary man. Although he was born a prince (and I do not know of any princes who can claim to have special powers) it is said he renounced his noble life in order to find true happiness.

In being an ordinary man then it is difficult to say what he taught could be called “religion”. While I am aware that the Buddhisms of today may have become religion-like some time in the past it doesn’t necessarily follow that what he taught was religion. And this is a point I hold as truly important.

As I wrote, the Buddha was born a prince. And until he left home to find happiness, he had lived a life of luxury and beauty, sheilded from the truth of the world by his father. He was about 29 when he made this decision.

After studying under the two most renowned teachers of the time he left them to search for an even greater truth. And at the age of 35 he came to a great realization and from then on he called “the Buddha” or the enlightened one.

His teaching
1.
Being an ordinary man claiming no divinity it is only logical that what he taught would be nothing but mundane (not extraordinary). And that was the way it was – there were no gods, no supreme power, nothing there that is greater the physical world in his scheme of things.

His taught that all things are marked by impermanence. And it is interesting to note that even Buddhism did not stand outside of this truth according to him. No other religion, teaching or philosophy has stated this.

So man’s folly had been to think there could be anything permanent to hold onto. This mistake the Buddha called suffering. If one accepted that nothing is permanent then one will come to see that our actions are suffering ridden and will lead to more suffering as such.

The last main logical idea that follows from impermanence and suffering is that there is no soul or no-self. It is simply the greatest hinderance to us for finding “true happiness”. The idea of no-self too has no equivalent in any other religion.

So with the understanding of these three characteristics of existence he taught that it was possible to end suffering, the “true happiness” he had been seeking. Today we know this basic teaching as the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path.

The Four Noble Truths are statements which proclaim the idea of suffering, its cause, its cure and the curing procedure. And the curing procedure here is the Noble Eightfold Path, which covers every aspect of how we should live and practice in order reach the goal of true happiness or enlightenment.

2.
Before I wrap up this short introduction to the Buddha and his teaching there are two more concepts in Buddhism which I feel need clarification. They are 1) reincarnation and karma, and 2) the Buddha’s view of the mind.

Reincarnation is neither an idea unique nor original to Buddhism. It was a concept borrowed from Hinduism, the dominant religion in the Buddha’s culture during his lifetime. And the idea of karma likewise was also borrowed from Hinduism. However they differ to Hindu concepts.

Hinduism espouses that one need to seek to be reborn in higher and higher planes to finally unite with an ultimate being. But since the Buddha rejected the notion of an ultimate power or being ,the goal of reincarnation has to be necessarily different. The Buddha’s concept is one where one must try to end reincarnation (the cycle of rebirth) which is the true happiness.

Again karma in Hinduism is about producing good karma and avoiding bad karma in order to be reborn in higher and higher planes, again, until one unites with the ultimate being. Thus the Buddha did not see the production of karma – good or bad – as something that is desirable but rather something to be avoided all together. Moreover, the effects of karma only operated on the original producer of the karma. So what we do has no real effect on people, place and things around us, and to think so is incorrect. This is a sticking point for many Western non-Buddhists (and some Buddhists as well) but it really only has to be worked through in order to be grasped.

And the second concept – the mind – is another sticking point for many Westerners. In the Buddha’s teaching the mind is thought of as a sense organ, like the eye, ear, tongue, nose or skin. Its primary function is to comprehend the information from the other senses, as well as, to create new information. In other words, it is not a place of the soul or the seat of a personality. With the West’s emphasis on a soul and personality it becomes hard to accept that the mind can be a mere sensory organ.

I have given here an explanation of my personal understanding of the Buddha. It may not be how most Buddhists would explain it but I have no apologies for this. If you think I am wrong in something please comment about it.

Also I have yet to write about Buddhism. I will try follow up with a new post in the near future.

Sadly, Towards Urbanization

Warren Tang2 Comments

Our modern lifestyle seems so boundless. If the food in your refrigerator runs out just get more from the supermarket. And it seems just like that – the supermarket is like some kind of miracle place. But this is just an illusion, just like a magic show. We have come to believe that if we have money food will appear.

That food in your supermarket must come from somewhere. And it can run out like all else in the world. And I don’t mean run out on the shelves but actually disappear from existence. It is by equating everything with money that we lose sight of these facts.

Whereas once we would farm with our bare hands and hunt with our own prowess, we would know what exactly is available. But today we place that burden on someone else and expect miracles from them. If there isn’t enough petrol one just needs to complain to the government. If the block of cheese you want isn’t there on the shelf just ask a store clerk.

Just remember: sometime this year more people will be living in the city than off the land for the first time in human history (if it hasn’t already happened). For whatever reason people are motivated to move into the city it means more of us will make invisible the logistics of sustainability.

Are We to Blame for Climate Change?

Warren Tang4 Comments

“The global scientific body on climate change is expected to report soon that emissions from humankind are the only explanation for major changes on Earth.”

Why is it that every time someone puts out one of these reports it falls on deaf ears? You really don’t have to be reading the newpaper to notice the changes in the climate. By the late 1990s the winters in the city of Sydney (where I used to live) seemed almost like the autumns of ten years earlier.

“It’s amazing how much we can learn from history – and how little we have.” anon.

Have we not learnt by now that our governments are not looking out for our interests? Have we not learnt that they are doing too little too late?

If we are shocked now by the changes occurring from thirty-percent greenhouse gas emission levels what will it be like with forty-percent? No. I am scared. I am scared that it is too late. I am scared that my child will instead of working in a normal job he will be a some kind of global warming refugee. I am scared that all life on this Earth will come to near mass extinction because of humankind’s way of living.

Right now, I can only think of humankind as a cancer to this planet, the very kind that we have tried fighting so hard but have lost to in so many battles for life. No, I don’t want to be cynical but it is turning that way.

But, you know, the Earth will recover. It will one day recover without “us” around. Because it seems this is the only way to stop global warming.

Moderation – Buddhism and Sustainability

Warren Tang6 Comments

I wrote in my sustainability introduction page that I believed that sustainability is important now more than ever. We live in an age where human population and consumption is putting too much strain on the nature to sustain us – we are “using up our savings” so to speak. But why should this concern Buddhism? Isn’t Buddhism about enlightenment, and not environmentalism?

I would beg to differ. The Buddha is also known as the Middle Path – where one neither lives too extravagantly nor too frugally. Extravagance implies selfishness and hedonism. And frugality leads to a short and useless life. In other words, Buddhism is about moderation.

Buddhism talks about moderation in our understanding, thought, action, speech, livelihood, effort, mindfulness and concentration. You might look at this list and say “how can we have moderate understanding”? Well, I believe it is important to understand certain things and not others.

The Buddha used an analogy of a man dying from an arrow wound who wanted to know about insignificant details like who shot the arrow and how the arrow was made, etc. In the end, he dies because he does not get the treatment he had needed. In short, some things are necessary and others are not.

Since Buddhism has always been about living within one’s means, it shares much in common with the ideas of sustainability. But it would be wrong to jump to the conclusion that the Buddha was an environmentalist (or label him so). For there is an obvious reason why sustainability didn’t concern him – it wasn’t an issue anywhere back 2,500 years ago. In the Buddha’s lifetime people lived within nature’s regenerative capacity.

But we cannot say the same thing today. We are pushing the environment pretty hard. Which is why moderation is necessary. And whether it is from a Buddhist’s mouth or an environmentalist’s, it should make no difference.

Environment and Sustainability Humour

Warren Tang10 Comments

Here is a list of ten of my favourite environment and sustainability jokes (not in any order). It is not so much that I find them funny but that because they have some truth in them. Enjoy.

  1. We need science to solve all the problems we wouldn’t have if there were no science.
  2. “If sunbeams were weapons of war, we would have had solar energy long ago.” Sir George Porter
  3. Gravity is a myth – the Earth sucks.
  4. Whenever he thought about the environment he felt absolutely terrible. So he came to a fateful decision. He decided not to think about it.
  5. The modern electric toothbrushes are having an effect on tooth care. In fact, my dentist was telling me that in Great Britain today, the major cause of tooth decay is weak batteries.
  6. Progress: the continuing effort to make things to be as good as they used to be.
  7. Have you ever noticed how modern developers operate? They bulldoze the trees and then name the streets after them!
  8. Most people in the city have come up from the country to make enough money to leave the city and live in the country.
  9. The government is finally doing something about energy conservation. They are asking motorists to remember to turn off their wind-screen wipers whenever they drive under a bridge.
  10. How wonderful it is to wake up in the middle of London every morning to the sounds of the birds coughing.

Know of any good sustainability humour? I would love to hear it.

See also Mara’s Dictionary

The “Value” of Money

Warren Tang6 Comments

Think about “money” for a moment – a $1 dollar note cost about the same amount of money to make as a $100 dollar note. Yet we think one is worth $1 and the other $100, even though they cost the same to make. Today governments, businesses, society and culture has pushed us to think in terms of money and not allow for a possibility of any other kind of value system.

This kind of “artificial” measurement has somehow warped our values replacing them with a dollar sign, where even our children or our wives can be priced. Not surprizing really when innocent words like “priceless” can be enlisted by literally anyone to (mis)represent values and be made to lose any real meaning.

But language has been used to deceive us for a long time. They used to call it rhetoric. Politicians, in general, speak this way, as do business. One reason is because speech is not seen as deceitful like action. But it should be, because speech is in itself an action.

I am sure you have your own list of speech/acts which you have seen though as being designed to be deceitful. I am particularly cautious about discourses by politicians and entrepreneurs, because they are really looking out for themselves and not for us.

But it is possible to have other values, values other than those that others want you to have. And it is easier to hold these values once you see through the discourse for what it is.

Three Kinds of Lies

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Earlier I wrote about the Gross National Product – an indicator which measures the total amount of good and services produced at home and overseas in a given period by a nation. And the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) takes into account only what is happening at home regardless of who is producing the goods and services.

Governments and economists want the GDP to indicate growth, because it would mean the nation’s economy is healthy. But do the figures really mean just that?

This is what David Suzuki had to say about the GDP recently:

There is a good rationale for [growth], in that economic growth is tied to jobs and income, which are indeed to a certain extent tied to well-being. But the GDP also includes things like cleaning up oil spills, clearing car accidents and treating asthma attacks brought on by smog. And it includes things like strengthening process efficiencies to “improve the bottom line” – which actually means laying off workers so shareholders make more money. Is that really good for well being?

One of the only things that my psychology taught me that I still remember (and that is still useful) is that there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics. No more is this true than in the way governments use numbers.

The Reasoning of Reason

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In a recent article about deciding whether to teach intelligent design in American schools one (science?) teacher had this to say:

“I think if we look at where the empirical scientific evidence leads us, it leads us towards intelligent design.

“[Intelligent design] ultimately takes us back to why we’re here and the value of life… if an individual doesn’t have a reason for being, they might carry themselves in a way that is ultimately destructive for society.”

All italics are mine. This of course is an old argument and one that I have always felt is flawed but haven’t been able to say why… until now.

Firstly, the why are we here really isn’t a question here but an answer. So naturally his reason for being here will ultimately taint his idea of the value of life. The assumption is that the reader will all agree or sympathize with his reason for being here. But that is not always the case.

As a Chinese and a Buddhist I was never taught or told that there needed to be a reason for living. As matter of fact it has never been a point of contention or a cause for distress. It is only when I speak in English that I have to even worry or think about this. In other words, it is a culturally influenced idea and possibly a linguistic one also.

Generally one can be expected to be offended by his statement of belittlement (he basically dismissed all of non-Chiristian thought in one sentence). But getting upset would be unnecessary and futile. And it would solve nothing.

On closer inspection, here is an example of a man who wants his cake and eat it too. Because unless he convinces himself of intelligent design he would either have to give up his vocation as a science teacher or his faith in Christianity. In short, his argument is flawed so that he wouldn’t have to make that decision. And that is all I need to say about him.

Bottom Trawling in New Zealand

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It was announced this week that New Zealand will ban bottom trawling in one-third of its off-shore waters.

While this might have seemed like good news environmental groups were less ready to rejoice. They said the deal which was struck with the fisheries happened all too suddenly and that it constituted to be nothing more than a PR exercise. They also said the areas which were being declare off-limits have either already been overtrawled or are too deep for bottom trawling.

Such deals are of course always being struck at conferences behind closed doors with environmental groups neither being present nor represented. And by the time we realize the duplicity the fisheries and politicians have already got what they want and the damage to the environment is already done. It is an all too familiar a scenario.

What we seem to have lost is our sense of respect. Where as once a upon a time we would nurture and care for the environment that provided for us, today we more like its masters. And that is not far off the mark. For it wasn’t long ago that slavery was openly and unashamedly practiced. While slavery is still practiced today it has “gone into hiding”.

If you think about it the mentality of fishing and slavery are very similar – they both treat the living like non-living commodity, to be brought and sold by its owner. Where as once we saw a fish as a beautiful and wonderous creation of nature we now see it as nothing more than a supermarket product. It is as David Suzuki said the most urgent problem that needs to be tackled is our attitude. We need to regain a sense of respect for all things including respect for ourselves.

The US and the Kyoto Protocol

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In a recent review of the present state of the Kyoto Protocol US President George W Bush is quoted as saying he decided to pull out of the agreement (in 2001) because he believed implementing it would gravely damage the US economy.

And until we change the way politicians think we will continue to be told that figures like the GNP are actually meaningful.