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From: simmonds@demon.siemens.com (Tom Simmonds)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern
Subject: RE: Awakening From the Dream of Experience
Message-ID: <1991Jun5.164839.15497@nas.nasa.gov>
Date: 5 Jun 91 16:48:39 GMT
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>cognos!cognos!uunet.uu.net!garym@uunet.UU.NET (Gary Murphy)
>Subject: Re: Awakening From the Dream of Experience

>I enjoy these postings and I, too, find this man's humour infectious.

Me too.

>Where I am a little disappointed, and this applies to all of the
>above personages, is the lack of practical advice.

I agree.

>How does an 'enlightened point of view' approach the world we live
>in?  Does it imply saving the whales or does it imply not caring 
>about such 'transient' things as sentient beings and their sufferings?
>Do we build orphanages? Wildlife sanctuaries? Nuclear Power Plants?
>Or do we bask in a kind of spiritual masterbation proclaiming ourselves
>as complete in ourselves without need for the obvious diversity we
>have been given?
>
>I'm playing a bit of "Devil's Advocate" here and I know it.  There are
>no solid answers to what I ask, but I wonder, given my ignorance of
>the vast subject area covered by this group, what the general approach
>of each of the eastern views would take.  Zen councils us to be at
>rest at the mountaintop _and_ ceaselessly active in the market but so
>far as I know, it doesn't stipulate the ethics of our business.

Quite to the contrary, Zen Buddhism advocates a very strict code of ethics.
The practices of charity and compassion are important parts of Buddhist
doctrine.  Freedom and enlighenment cannot thrive in a world preoccupied
with suffering and strife.  People care little about Truth when they are
starving or when someone is shooting at them.  The practices of virtue and
charity are essential to achieving peace of mind.  The Bodhisattva tradition
is taken very seriously.  

That this world is like a dream matters little.  What would you rather
have: a sweet dream or a nightmare?  Which kind of dream is most conducive
to the possibility of enlightenment?

--
 ((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((
  ))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))tom simmonds))))))))))))))))))))
 ((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((
  ))))))) "True beauty consists in purity of heart." - Mahatma Gandhi ))))))))