There are so many interesting things upon which to comment in this thread that I hardly know where to begin! First, there is this:
Re:
“…you could tell when the status of something was sliding because women would be moving in.”
Your mother was a smart cookie, Mqurice. It is a shame that if a woman does anything in this world, it is - on average - immediately deemed to be less valuable than the same action, taken by a man. My mom is a smart cookie, too. She was a journalist, writing for the Washington Post under Ben Bradlee starting in the late 1940’s. I have a picture of her dating to November, 1949—the only woman in a sea of men in the newsroom of The Post on the night when Dewey didn’t defeat Truman.
Amelia Earhart was no Johnnie (Joan?)-come-lately, either.
I made my entree (in polite circles, we call it one's "debut") into cyberspace when Netscape was still Mosaic. That said, I am happy to report that I am in no way, shape, or form a male wannabe. I march, skip, swim, and cartwheel to the beat of my own drummer. That’s the way it is, or - in the words of our erstwhile house painter/convicted felon/resident philosopher whose name I have forgotten- “it is what it is what it is, ya know what I’m sayin’?”
Let’s move on to Buddhism. I do not know if you are aware that Buddhism is not a religion, but rather a philosophy of life. The Buddha never claimed to be a god and made it clear he did not want to be worshipped. He viewed himself as a teacher, and what he taught was a way of life that very closely matches some of the core principles upon which the Internet was founded. These same principles allow it to thrive no matter how many greasy, sand-encrusted interlopers wander onto its beaches.
The first of these principles is simplicity. One reason the Internet works so well is that it is very simple. Simplicity characterizes the robust protocols that make it work under ridiculously harsh conditions; simplicity is the goal of master coders; and it maps very closely to the notion of the “stupid network.”
The Internet is not a technology whose survival is premised on human domination over nature. Rather, it rides the radio waves and so doing enables us to connect with one another - on a human level - across previously-unbridgeable distances. Moreover while the goal of enlightenment can be extremely personal, it is also the very things that enables people living under the thumbs of our world's tyrants to reach out to the rest of us, thereby making possible a level of liberation that is decidedly tangible but was, to date, unforeseen.
Moreover, while the Internet is a disruptive technology, it does not initiate any form of violence. Thus, the ‘net seems to embody the “middle way,” which involves staying on course by navigating a safe route amidst competing and sometimes-dangerous cross currents.
The Buddha’s birth name was Siddhattha Gotama. For all I know, that could be Sanskrit for “Joe Blow.” But the title conferred upon him by others, “Buddha” means “awakened one.” This implies that awareness, knowledge, and enlightenment are the goals of Buddhist practice. So it was with the birth of the Internet.
Frank is right. The values that led to the rise Buddhism, Zen and otherwise, are not fundamentally different than those that gave rise to the ‘net….and it’s a fine thing, too. |
