Re-sensitizing to Violence

[pinkbuffalo91]

There is a marked difference between simulated violence and physically observed violence.

 

[Foreigner]

Meditation on inevitable death should be performed daily.

Thanks for sharing that, it's appreciated...

I lived with ordained Buddhists for two years so I am very familiar with this practice. At the end of the day it's just another narrative to try and be in control, along with gathering merit and collecting virtue. I can tell you, as someone who as been clinically dead then revived, nothing prepares you for the process of dying, anymore than you can be prepared for birth. You're just as naked and vulnerable. If you need to meditate on death in order to feel calm then it's a sign that an attachment is triggering the fear. This was one of my critiques of Buddhism and eventually why we had to part ways. Why replace one narrative with another? The death that you're meditating on, is not death, is not real, and the contrast it provides is therefore not an accurate lesson. It's just another mind exercise. Emptiness and oneness are the only truths, and to understand this you don't need to literally die, but all concepts must be relinquished. In short, Buddhists try too hard

What I'm referring to here is a body-level aversion to violence and extraneous stimulation. I knew the movie would be violent beforehand but I wasn't attached to that. And I'm not even attached to what happened in this moment. I'm just observing that I'm way more sensitive to violence than I used to be. It's like anything that pulls me away from centre, from the truth, no longer appeals to me... whatever that truth is. I don't know how to put words to it. Maybe it's because violence is based on illusory understandings of what's happening here. People believe that they are who they are and so strongly identify with it that they have to harm others... and violence becomes part of the story.

I mean... when we go to war, who are we warring with, really? It's like fighting with a mirror.

A friend of mine said that due to all of the physical violence I experienced this year at the hands of the medical system, including extreme pain, blood and gore, that maybe this is a PTSD reaction. Because really... a sign of aversion is also a sign of attachment, is it not? Why can't I watch violence without seeing it as just part of the illusion? Some kind of separation is happening. Maybe something has dissociated that I have failed to re-integrate.

 

[thujone]

Thanks for sharing that, it's appreciated...

I lived with ordained Buddhists for two years so I am very familiar with this practice. At the end of the day it's just another narrative to try and be in control, along with gathering merit and collecting virtue. I can tell you, as someone who as been clinically dead then revived, nothing prepares you for the process of dying, anymore than you can be prepared for birth. You're just as naked and vulnerable. If you need to meditate on death in order to feel calm then it's a sign that an attachment is triggering the fear. This was one of my critiques of Buddhism and eventually why we had to part ways. Why replace one narrative with another? The death that you're meditating on, is not death, is not real, and the contrast it provides is therefore not an accurate lesson. It's just another mind exercise. Emptiness and oneness are the only truths, and to understand this you don't need to literally die, but all concepts must be relinquished. In short, Buddhists try too hard

I don't consider Hagakure to be about taking control as it is about surrendering control. When I meditate on death, I am not obsessing over the process of dying, rather I am affirming the reality of mortality so that I can get closer to the mindstate required for "living in the now", as Zen prescribes. Zen and Bushido are indicated to be active philosophies, which may explain why they have been so zealously adopted by Westerners as a foil with which to fight the stresses of "civilized" life. It's not about brainwashing oneself with rhetoric about emptiness, it's about being able to evacuate the mind of all unimportant chatter, to the extreme where you can react to the unexpected as if though it were simply a ritual part of your day. The mind of the swordsman was expected to become so malleable that they could switch from eating a peaceful meal to fending off a mortal attack within a breath. I feel that is the correct context in which to interpret Bushido.

What I'm referring to here is a body-level aversion to violence and extraneous stimulation. I knew the movie would be violent beforehand but I wasn't attached to that. And I'm not even attached to what happened in this moment. I'm just observing that I'm way more sensitive to violence than I used to be. It's like anything that pulls me away from centre, from the truth, no longer appeals to me... whatever that truth is. I don't know how to put words to it. Maybe it's because violence is based on illusory understandings of what's happening here. People believe that they are who they are and so strongly identify with it that they have to harm others... and violence becomes part of the story.

Is violence really divorced from the truth? At the most basic level we are animals, albeit ones that are encumbered with ego. Why is it that even in the peaceful surroundings of nature we can observe and accept the violence other animals commit but view human violence as something that must be complex and psychologically motivated? It seems a bit conceited to assume we are inherently better than the other animals and that all our negative impulses (vices) are just the domain of people who are too 'mentally weak' to 'know any better'.

Does that premise still hold any water if we switch our mentality and contemplate a new truth? What if I said: life is a zero-sum game? We ritually commit violence by proxy (paying taxes that sustain a government that publicly discusses our support in waging wars) in order to secure foreign resources for our own economic benefit. Everything we have as individuals is either a result of us paying protection money (again, taxes) to an entity that fights on our behalf for what we have, or as a result of offering our time and labour (work) to individuals or organizations that, again, fight on our behalf within the legal framework established for resolving disputes in a context where violence is unacceptable (i.e. "civil society"). We have succeeded admirably in abstracting ourselves from the violence that underpins our very survival, but if strip all this extraneous "social" crap out of the essence of our individual lives, are we left with much else but the necessity for violence? What if violence is the highest truth?