Yesterday, trying to measure some godforsaken American units ( a thimbleful and three pigs’ mouths full of water, add 3 ounces and 2 butt-pinches, put into a pan 5 1/2 spans wide or some crap like that), I yelled over to my wife (in my stand-up mode), “See this is what’s wrong with this f***ing country, it won’t accept the metric system, nooo that’d be SOCIALIST! AND – the terrists – who hate us because we’re free – would win. 100 degrees boiling, 0 freezing ? Hah! We can do BETTER than that. Here’s a disproportionate scale for ya !”

In college, I wrote a paper “Nietzsche never made it to America” :) Apparently, neither did healthy food, sane politics, distrust of the military, sex ed and evolution. The comfort I find when pondering the “the extend of my own stupidity” is that it’s still nothing compared to red-state-
America’s.

Now if I received Dharma transmission, that’d be an interesting thing to post on the internet. My shrink’s already fascinated by my fast rise and public “#&@! this” in the Catholic blog world :o) He’s Polish, recovering Catholic. It really is different talking to a European, btw. My family and friends mostly say “Well, we knew this wouldn’t last forever. Welcome back”.

I do think you would like Batchelor’s work — you can see some of the talks he gave here: http://www.stephenbatchelor.org/online%20articles.html one of the things he is known for is being the “agnostic Buddhist.”

You probably can understand that many of us talk about your blog, from time to time, and try to figure things out – trying to fit in makes some sense to me. But if you think Creative Minority Report is crazy, look further to “Coalation of the Fog” and you will find something which makes CMR look sane.

There are some good Buddhist-Christian resources; there are even Jesuit Zen Masters (confirmed Zen Masters, not self-made ones). Of course, there will be differences between Buddhism and Christianity — things which one must follow one direction or another, but beyond those answers to the big questions, I think Buddhism provides a good framework, esp, in the post-modern world – from which one can engage society at large (and really address questions the West has yet to engage).

As far as dialogue with Catholicism is concerned – the “we’re the one true religion” thing does get in the way just a bit :) Although, a Buddhist master may well just smile at that without being offended. The current pope is basically a very nice, let alone erudite, man – except when it comes to particular issues, like the two letters on gays that were the last straw for me. This is common in people of course. Most love their family but if they have an ideological reason to be against something, watch out. Insofar, the pope might profit from a little non-dual thinking =)

One can certainly read “more abstract” Catholic authors (ie, not Karl Keating :P) as an agnostic, Buddhist etc. and profit from it – and vice versa. Openness toward all sources is a good thing. Heck, I’m reading Howard Zinn now.

One can admire Jesus after having jumped the “bark of Peter”, maybe more so – not so much the ground crew (or the Old Testament god). In particular since it seems that the ‘harsher’ statements may well not have been his. The ginormous edifice of intricate rules that the Catholic church came up with aren’t exactly his fault :) I blame OCD people who kept asking “Well, what about that, Father ? And this ? Let’s suppose that… What if this… ? How bad of a sin is this ?”

The whole drop-your-illusions thing has been interesting. Buddhism fits in really well with psychology/psychiatry. As someone who’s certifiable, I can attest to that. i think what I especially like about the process is that neither Buddhism nor shrink have a guilt-inducing effect. You haven’t “sinned”, you’ve screwed yourself by virtue of your delusions. You got yourself into it, you gotta get yourself out of it. It doesn’t provide a roadmap, but rather travel rations. I’ve never liked authority, except when I thought I could bolster myself via having an authority – ie the church – behind me. Until that became untenable.

It became clear via sitting down and shutting up, so to speak, that I am not Catholic on a faith level – since “belief” is entirely foreign to me, but, ironically, that I now agree with a lot more Catholic social positions (except for the notorious sex-related things, of course). So, in a way, I am a better Catholic without being Catholic :P Compassion for all creatures, well except the Bush administration, that is. I’ll never live down my support for those $#&!#$, esp. not with myself.

It’s hard to relate the Buddhist (and medication) inspired thought processes. They’re not entirely new, but channeled. Grasping on to things becomes more and more silly, esp. grasping on to self-views one fancies. I’m not an American by birth, I’m European and use the metric system, Celsius and eat food that’s not $%#!. My whole rabble-rousing-right-wing-Catholic thing was just trying to fit in (and a result of lacking medication). This leads me to an interesting theory – if right-wingers were medicated, they’d cease to be.

More so than others perhaps I liked to create personae, I call it method acting. “I wonder what it’s like to be…” It surely helps to elude one’s lesser qualities via delusion. I’m sure zazen has commonalities with prayer, except that it’s not “outsourced”. Well, at least prayer that’s not a wish/shopping list.

I love the book subtitle “An ongoing lesson in the extent of my own stupidity”. (“Novice to Master” by Soko Morinaga). That’s really what it comes down to when you “sit down”. I just listened to all 6 Lewis Black albums in chronological order, and it summarized the Bush years. Every lie, every insanity, every despicable thing. And then I’m basically begging to be whacked over the head by a Zen master. In 2000, I was much smarter when I disliked the bastard. So, Buddhist thought is a nice barrier against self-congratulation. I’ve been “repenting” for quite some time now, mostly in the manner of “How could I have been this f***ing stupid”. (rather than “so sinful”)

If you know the blog “Creative Minority Report”, you’ll understand why I read it once in a while. As a reminder of my own idiocy. It’s quite a bit like the Cafeteria, isn’t it.

As one who academically studies the Buddhadharma, I try to keep the proper distinctions in mind — though, as a Christian who learns from it (like St Thomas Aquinas did with Aristotle, and the Fathers from Plato), I too have to be “cafeteria” like when engaging the whole system. What, btw, is your take on Stephen Batchelor?

Chris and Ben Mann: since I am slowly editing it and putting up a short fragment each time, the next one (today) will continue with the Buddhism, but I hope some people can see where it is going.

Ben: Vladimir Solovyov considered Buddhism and important part of the development of humanity. He explored it and showed in many of his essays how he thought it was a needed “no” to some of the excessive “yeses” preceding it, though he thought the “no” went too far.

Everyone: did you know our Pope (Benedict XVI) thinks much could be had from a Buddhist-Christian engagement? Balthasar saw Buddhism as possibly becoming for the modern age what Platonism was for the Patristics. I suspect Benedict got his enthusiasm from Balthasar (though he has always been interested in inter-religious issues.