buddhism and confederation: karma, samsara and reincarnation

[flofrog]

I'm reading the Dhammapada now, and I still don't understand Siddhartha's polarity. Is he positive, or is he negative? His philosophy is such that it defies all labels. Passionless and pure, acquiring energy-density for the sake of energy-density. He seems like he's enslaving others, but then he is also completely harmless and benevolent.

That is shocking to me.  Who is he enslaving?

Maybe "enslaving" isn't the word I'm exactly looking for. He often seems to impinge on the free-will of others, bending their will away from the world and towards his own. But his will was pure, that the painful illusions of this world cease and all beings partake instead in the peace of truth. All the joys and pleasures and passions of life are completely rejected and invalidated by Siddhartha's philosophy, because they all constitute a partaking of illusion and the suffering that accompanies it. He seems to have no problem breaking the veil for another in order to convince them of the foolishness of participating in the world and fulfilling their desires.

I believe it was Q'uo who once said that Gautama ignored the heart, but I can't find that session now. So this is where my confusion about the polarity of his philosophy and actions stems from. I will say that I don't really believe at all that the Buddha was negative. Compassion and loving-kindness towards others still takes a prominent role in the philosophy. It's just the lack of love for the world and the processes of the world which makes him seem so uncaring. So much of his philosophy is about discipline and control, but of the self as opposed to others.

I have pondered some related issues to the OP, and to your post MangusKhan, from a general perspective of communicability of spiritual concepts and I believe something that may be missed in these discussions is what I call the professor effect. I've said before that spiritual concepts are difficult to fully convey before, and I think there is some recognition from both Ra's words and other people that it can be difficult to fully capture a spiritual concept in english, though I believe it's still useful to try. This concept I believe has been somewhat decently discussed. 

However, I believe the 'professor-effect' for lack of a better phrase coming to mind, also applies a substantial additional layer of miscommunication to the communication of any complex concept, including spiritual concepts. I first started pondering this when I was reading an Autobiography of a Yogi, and the author's guru informed the author early in the story and early in the author's life that he had a gift with conveying spiritual concepts in words and that he would be the one to convey the spiritual message of Yoga to the west (this response came about when the author initial said to his guru that the guru had a deeper internal embracement of the spiritual concepts). 

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In short, inner knowledge and the ability to teach inner knowledge and to put into effective words inner knowledge are different (though related) skillsets. It seems very common that intelligent or genius professors have found some amazing concepts in their head, but they have true difficulty explaining them in a concise or effective manner. I personally have experienced this in universities and often the smartest professor has a reputation for being a horrible teacher or presenter. 

I believe this professor-effect has a significant role in the teachings of many masters. Whether it affected Buddha's ability to convey his enlightenment, I can only wonder. But I think it is a concept that is important to bear in mind whenever we discuss the words of a spiritual being that has passed away because now we have 3 layers:
(1) the inherent difficulty of conveying spiritual concepts in words
(2) the 'professor-effect' -the difficulty that a teacher may have to convey a concept they understand fully to a student because they are not natural teachers by language or are not good with words
(3) the additional error added into the words when they have been conveyed over centuries to our present day

A part of me feels as if I have added an additional layer of confusion to the discussion, but I hope instead I just shown light on the confusion that was already inherently present in these sorts of discussions. As Plenum often says, I feel it strangely appropriate to end this sentence with a Namaste 

Thank you xise and MangusKhan,  you both exactly voiced the feelings I have for Buddhism :  I love the complete respect for other beings and compassion that Buddhism  teaches and yet after sort of practicing it for many years,  and really feeling nurtured and having learnt a lot and worked from it a lot,  I found, after,  the teachings of Yogananda and of some Hindu sutras being then much closer to my heart and now I see exactly why, thank you to you both, and Stranger.

As xise says,  Namaste