Our FBA Dharmabyte today,and#8221;The Demon of Materialism,and#8221; is the first of three short talks given on Padmasambhava Day, exploring the demons that we meet in the contemporary world, and how to transform them.
Dharmabytes from free buddhist audio
The Demon of Materialism
[music] Dharma Bites is brought to you by Free Buddhist Audio – the Dharma for your life. Our work is funded entirely by donations from our generous listeners. If you would like to help us keep this free, make a contribution at freebuddhistaudio.com/donate. Thank you, and happy listening. So, we started talking about the demo of materialism. It's funny that I just choose this one for me. One month ago, I gave a talk a bit longer on the dangers of dogmatism and fanaticism in our modern world. And I think there is some relation in this. It's interesting, but lately in the Priranda movement, there have been very similar talks around this subject, and I'm quite passionate about this subject, and I'll get into it. So, what is materialism and what does taming the demo of materialism entails? Well, after seeing you mention a little bit, but it's very interesting to see in the history of materialism, at least in Western culture, seems to be tracked to the Greeks, especially the press ochratics, and the very beginnings of philosophy, with Socrates, with the press ochratics, challenging the superstitions of the mythic explanations of the universe, of the very start of the universe, in a way this is how trying to bring more rational explanations to our everyday life, and the constitution of the universe, the beginning of the universe. As antithesis of superstitions, the literalism of Greek mythology, and fate, a religious fate in a way. Recently, I read a book, it's really beautiful, it's by Pierre Hadot, it's called "Philosophy as a Way of Life", and I love this book because he shows something quite different of the idea we got about philosophy. He said that issue of philosophy is something very different of our common understanding of philosophy, just as a mere philosophical discourse divided very systematically into very different branches. So, for the ancient times, it was very much a way of life, it was very much a spiritual practice, a spiritual experience, a religious experience. And I found this quite interesting because we used to think Socrates, the great exponent of philosophy, the original thought was a materialistic, was a complete, how could we really anti-spiritilism, and that's really not the case. So, yeah, in philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter, that all things are composed of material, and all phenomena, including consciousness, are the result of interactions, thoughts, sensations, and emotions, and really products by a chemical reactions of the brain. So, in this way, it's regarded as reduction, it's reducing all experience just into matter. And materialism is usually contrasted with idealism, it's quite a big word, I won't go into it, but in general to spiritual and basic views, mainly to the denial of the existence of trans-material or metaphysical substance, like the existence of God and the soul. And for this very reason, Buddhism, being a theistic and fundamentally grounded and principal, but each other will provide a condition of production, the principle of anata, as usually regarded as with materialistic views. Just until recent decades, this has been quite, quite challenge. But even now, some over-enthusiastic rationalist, insisting symbolism as a form of humanistic materialism. But the deeper exploration of Buddhist tradition, even the polycanola that usually is regarded as more rational, the early Buddhism, it clearly brings the occurrence of supernatural entities. And all these devas have many different hierarchies of the girls. And the three-dimensional nature of the universe, and existence, that is Kamaloka, the world of the physical, central forms, Rupaloka, the world of form, or better said, the world of non-ordinary and higher states of mind. And the Rupaloka is rather mysterious, but even more refined states of mind. And there are many other reference to that. We could put it like mundane worlds, samsara, transcendental, lokutara. But I wouldn't like to go into too many technicisms. This is more important, I think, to question ourselves, what is the problem of materialistic views? Some people argue, especially in the movement of free thinkers or humanists, especially materialists, that we don't need transcendental or spiritual views to be ethical, promote higher values and culture. Especially if we read a little bit of history, history shows us that in the name of God, religion, and many superstitions, many cruel and horrific acts have been made with millions of killings, and speakable tortures and devastation of cultural heritage and of several civilizations. But that's easier said in theory that proven in practice. We tend many times to forget that our views have stronger implications in everyday life than most people suspect. So I really want to emphasize this point, believing that there isn't anything but matter doesn't just throw away the dirty water of superstition, dogmatism, and fanaticism. But it throws away the baby in the way to speak of the spiritual values and heavenism. I'm sorry, spiritual values and idealism. Heavenism, it's a split of mine. So there are many four implications to materialistic views, or that's what I thought. One is nihilism, second rampant adenism, a cynicism or extreme skepticism, and indifference. And I link this indifference with pseudo-egalitarianism, which all of them are related in one way or another. So what is nihilism usually associated with materialistic view of existence, which indicates one or more meaningful aspects of life. It denies an objective purpose or intrinsic value of life. So since all things in the universe are reduced to matter and under mere physical laws, life with its consciousness and amazing cultural and spiritual expression are seen as mere coincidence or lucky accident without further spiritual or transcendental meaning. I don't know about you, but for me it has been very clear in my own stingers as Buddhists that at times when I've been overemphasized my spiritual life as pure restraining, renunciation, and the meaningful intellectual understanding of the Lakshmanas, that sit on sit on sit on sit on satisfactoryness, impermanence, and insubstantiality. With the positive and evocative ideas of this part of part, especially the bodhisattva ideal, the importance of Shrakha or fate, the Brahma Viharas, all based in the positive emotions of loving kindness, and the strong and almost lying intuition of the possibility of rebirth. Well, all these, these insistence on renunciation, on satisfactoryness, without these positive aspects have led me to a very try and the present times in my spiritual practice. So I've been wishing quite a lot of feedback from very good friends from my own precepts. And in my own experience, I've been able to taste these famous say, you know, Bante, based on Buddhah himself, that the eternalists have a better and easier grasp of the Dharma practice. I am convinced that even when eternalism is certainly one extreme of the middle way, and he he he he in elationism, what that means, the belief that there is nothing after that or beyond the body, and it's associated in elation, is far more dangerous and easy to get trapped, especially in modern times, where we have a god cut off by the indiscriminate, in this communicative ideologies and overrated values of individualism, democracy, and pseudo-egalitarianism. So many, many scholars, philosophers say that they come as a result of ideas of French Revolution, the alignment era, the mischief that of God, existentialism, positivism, et cetera. So, which all these seem to be originated as reactions to extremism of organized religions, political ideologies, and abuses of speculative metaphysics in the history of philosophy. However, this is just a philosophical background, since most people don't even think about it. We just follow the mainstream message and associated values of materialism in the form of consumerism and savage capitalism. We tend to believe that the message of the advertising industry, that material things give us happiness. That's supposed to increase our sex appeal, to give us comfort, security, and excitement, from fashionable clothes and electronic gadgets to newer diets and traits, non-religious booths or barely leasing collections of music, et cetera. Enough to see the adverse in the cinema or TV. There is a lot of intelligence put into manipulate the human psyche and longings. We just want to be happy, and they do all they can't, convince us to buy our way to happiness. So how surrealist is that Coca-Cola manages to sell us dark-color water full of sugar and toxins, and we love it. So, what do I mean by rampant organisms, second point? I mean the compulsion to continually chase immediate pleasure no matter the consequences. That comes precisely from the belief that there is no further meaning in this life, beyond the experience of the body, the senses, survival, put it crudely, eating, copulating, and defecating. So, a materialist would say there is no afterlife, no God or a spiritual meaning, neither moral consequences to our choices. So let's just party, sex and rock and roll. We want to buy our happiness rather than earn it. We tend to undermine and forget the crucial factor that effort and learning process has in happiness. Bante has talked quite a lot about it, and the positive efforts, the Buddhist tradition. But not just that, modern psychologists and philosophy, even economists, have been doing serious research on the subject of happiness and clearly highlight the importance of effort and the learning process to bring real happiness. So, from nearly some comes also radical skepticism and cynicism, and I don't mean by these philosophical schools, that's completely different and they are actually bring something quite positive. I mean, it's more the popular, modern understanding as the attitude of a jaded negativity and a general distrust of the integrity or profess motive of people and their ideals. I found very interesting and revelatory, the first time I heard in a study group, that cynicism means mainly frustrated idealism. I'm pretty sure it comes from Bante, I couldn't find the source, but I found I heard this several times and really struck me. I could really relay that with ease in my own experience. So, it comes a reaction in response of disappointment to the incongruence between the acts of behavior and the grace of the asset values expressed by religious or political movements of people we once admire. So, cynicism comes with bitter criticism of the idealist, who still tries to influence and affect positively the world we live. How many of us have not been called by our relatives or old friends or acquaintances, naive and even immature, for dedicating our lives to the Dharma or spiritual movement and the spiritual path trying to transform and influence our world, rather than pursuing our professional careers, and massing money, making a family with a nice house, a nice dog, an expensive holiday. So, with cynicism and extreme skepticism comes indifference, a sense of apathy, hopelessness and hypocrisy on the many world problems and suffering, where people stop believing, where people stop believing, we can make a difference in our world, and with pseudo-egalitarianism where the possibility of a spiritual hierarchy is denied and reduced at the level of matter, resulting in lack of reverence and receptivity. So, pseudo-egalitarianism is portrayed as a sensible or rational attitude, the best option against abuses of power and authority from religious or political institutions. We are closing our minds and hearts to the obvious possibility of more experience and spiritual development people, and from which we can learn and benefit great deal. So, under the pretense of individuality, emotional, intellectual and spiritual independence, and anti-dogmatism, anti-fanaticism, many people close their hearts to the precious opportunity of a spiritual receptivity. So, for me, this is the core meaning of the attitude of discipleship that I know for some people is a bit uncomfortable. For me, it's a very precious, a very beautiful world discipleship. And for me, it involves very much this attitude of receptivity to higher values, to people more experienced than us. So, in contrast with a mere intellectual understanding or a tradition that an scholar may have on Buddhism or any other spiritual matter. So, what involves taming the demo of materialism? Well, to start with, we need to learn to share and simplify our lives, cut down our official needs and meaningless accumulation of material things, knowledge or exciting and intoxicating experiences. Generosity is clearly the best way to tame this demo, rightly emphasized along all the Buddhist tradition, with Dana, generosity as the first parameter of perfection in the Bodhisattva path of training. It's said that it comes naturally out of right view, reflection and insight. So, taming the demo of materialism doesn't mean opposed science, but recognize there are limitations to scientific knowledge and sharing it. So, holding academic and scientific advances provisionally with sensibility to spur healthy questioning and anti-dormatic critique of modern views rather than making it the new dogma, than making science the new dogma. We need to bring the same anti-dormatic critique as unbiased reflection, unbiased reflection to all areas of our life, like materialism itself. Look what happens when there is ambient consumerism, and look at the environmental damage, the limited amount of resources for the exponential growth of the population. According to some research that after Priya told me, if the entire world were to consume the same amount of resources that USA consumes, we need 12 planets, but we only have one planet. And the problem with this is that many have to suffer because of this. It's in this absurd. Let's look at the current economical crisis that some naively thing is over. Have we learned anything from it? Have we learned anything from history? And it's not the first time that this happens. It seems that many just carry on on shopping as the best solution of this, as the best solution out of this. Like Gordon Brown told us to do so. It's in this ironic. This is certainly a very tricky situation, but at least we can take further steps to simplify our lives, sharing resources like we do in Buddhist communities, and in Winkers. We also need to open up to the mystery of matter and reality. This is maybe a very important way to tame the demo of materialism, especially for those very keen on anti-dockmatic and abuse and anti-dockmatic research. And it's very important to embrace uncertainty. So modern science hasn't been able to define matter and understand the mystery of matter and energy in relation to consciousness. It's quite famous nowadays. This is famous agnigma in quantum physics of the unpredictability of matter and energy when there is an observer, the famous principal Heisenberg over in 32. So we need to give way to Shratka or fate in the way of intuition, investigation, and aesthetic appreciation of greater values and beauty beyond material things. But it is important to reflect and contemplate the possibility that our matter elicits abuse, and that implications are more than anything painful, disappointment and reaction to the abuses of power, or abuses of influence of religious and political institutions, that precisely indulge into extremes of dogmatism and fanaticism. So what can we do when we feel so disappointed with this cynical behind the history? So we need to relearn to engage more creatively with ideals and spiritual values without naivety or passivity than many fear. Mainly through the practice of Kalina Mitratas, spiritual friendship, and the actual practice of the very clearly mapped path of Buddhist tradition, towards alignment, in his many forms, from the Four Noble Truths and the Eight Noble Path to the practice of the precepts, meditation, study, reflection, the parameters, and many other gradual and wonderful practices. So we need to develop spiritual receptivity, welcome and positively identify ourselves as disciples. We have to take seriously our going for refuge to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. We need to embrace the anguish of uncertainty, like Parma Samava said. I do not have, I do not know, I do not understand. In order to really prepare our minds and hearts to the realization of deeper and higher truth, of wisdom and compassion, so central in the Buddhist tradition. We hope you enjoyed today's Dharma Bite. Please help us keep this free. Make a contribution at freebuddhistaudio.com/donate. And thank you. [music fades out] [music fades out] [music fades out] You You