US, London, India

It’s interesting how some of the cardinal virtues of American culture: ambition, desire (drive?), and pride, are seen as vices in early Buddhism. But in truth we need to be careful here. For, as the great English scholar David Webster has shown (The Philosophy of Desire in the Buddhist Pali Canon), there are plenty of ways in which ‘desire’ in Buddhism is a very good thing – desire for enlightenment being an obvious one, desire to help people in need, and so on. Westerners tend to see the Pali term tanha (Sanskrit: trishna) translated as desire and given the villainous role of causer of all suffering. But in fact the term refers more to ‘thirsting’ – even used in that colloquial sense at the time – and thus is a technical term used by the Buddha for a very particular kind of desire, one which by it’s nature could not be satisfied and would thus lead to frustration.

That again brings us back to our society, which seems built upon frustration and the promise that more ambition, desire, and pride might be the solution. I’ve had the pleasure of several really good conversations with my new coworkers here – and students as well – and look forward to more in India. Common to many of them has been the realization that the system is broken. The scraping along, grand celebrations at each new achievement, and grand disappointment in each set-back, just doesn’t cut it in the end. That last sentence just might be a realistic version of the ‘American Dream’. 

But for those who realize that the system is arbitrary and our participation is voluntary, there is a sort of small awakening.

Think about that. The whole American capitalistic meritocracy is arbitrary. Those who ‘make it’ and those who don’t can not be placed in relations of goodness or industriousness any other virtue you choose. Sometimes those who fail and are forgotten truly are amongst the best in the world. Too often those who succeed wildly are despicable human beings. The American system – which extends to various degrees throughout the world now – doesn’t prevent this, it facilitates it.

This is where foreign travel comes in. I learned today that Wanda, the manager of our program in Bodh Gaya, is doing some sort of research on how foreign travel effects our ethics – I think especially for students who will be exposed to this culture for the first time. I’m very intrigued. My own hypothesis is that the trip will expand our notions of our ‘selves’ in the sense that we will realize that much of our previous belief’s about ‘us’ were very limited – by our culture. Seeing people living in such different conditions should force all of us to rethink our identity and what we take for granted in life. Of course those who are self-assured and insecure (you know the type, those who are very self-confident but utterly incapable of seeing things from anyone else’s point of view), will only grow more convinced of their narrow views of the world. I’ve certainly met some people whose world travels have made them even more bigoted, because now they have ‘proof’ that other cultures ‘really are (insert bigoted view).’

In any case, through a bit of my own effort and a lot of luck, I’ve found myself getting paid to travel to India tomorrow. So I’d best be off to sleep… But first, a few pics from my last couple days here.

Reflections.

Part of Victoria Station in central London.

An intriguing looking pipe running up the side of a building. Just a block or so from my hotel near Russell Square.

A bit from the days of old – a “Horse Hospital”; also just near my hotel.