[MD] Platt and Arlo

[Platt Holden]

Paul, 

The metaphor in the article about Buddhist conditionality is much like 
Arlo's "individuals are raindrops" metaphor. The problem I have with both 
is the not-so-subtle implication that individual humans have the same 
value status as inorganic raindrops and ocean vortexes. This implication 
is confirmed when the author says, " In order to get by from day to day, 
to get on with the apparently urgent business of survival, we narrow the 
scope of our vision to more manageable proportions." APPARENTLY urgent 
business of survival? Clearly the author doesn't consider survival, and 
thus worth of the individual, of great importance in the big scheme of 
things.

If this be a true reflection of the Buddhist hierarchy of values, it 
explains why in the East human life is held in such low esteem, and why 
millions can be murdered by Mao, Pol Pot and others with nary a twinge of 
conscience. If humans are looked upon as little whirlpools, who cares if a 
few million disappear without a trace?     

Thankfully, this attitude has been rejected by the West where individual 
rights take top billing. 

Platt


> Platt, Arlo,
> 
> I copy some text from this article:
> http://www.westernbuddhistreview.com/vol1/conditionality.html
> 
> ....which may be relevant to your discussion.  It's an article about
> Buddhist conditionality.  The full article is quite long, some of it good,
> some of it not so good - in my opinion.  
> 
> But anyway, for what it's worth:
> 
> "THE SEA OF CONDITIONS is vast - infinitely deep: unbounded in all
> directions. It contains nothing less than the past and present of the
> entire universe. All 'matter' is contained in it - all cells, chemicals,
> particles and waves. It contains all of human history: all information, all
> ideas. All these ideas, cells, chemicals, and bits of information are
> themselves constantly changing and re-arranging as they flow together in an
> infinitely vast array of different patterns. 
> 
> Looking over the surface of the ocean, we can see some of these patterns.
> Here the sea is smooth and calm, there it is rippled, in another place it
> foams and bubbles. Here it is choppy, there we see waves. In one section of
> the sea there are a large number of whirlpools - vortices of different
> sizes, different shapes. Each vortex is unique, each has its own
> characteristics. Some are larger than others, some are deeper than others,
> some are vigorous, some are languid. They come into being, subsist for a
> time, and then disappear as the sea flows and changes, in constant motion. 
> 
> Each vortex represents an individual human life. We come into being, take
> shape from the conditions available to us: the cells, chemicals, and
> biological matter and all the other conditions of our lives give shape to
> our being. Different fragments of the ideas of Marx, Christ, Thoreau, the
> Beatles, Rousseau, Walt Witman, Raymond Chandler, Freud, Picasso, Adam
> Smith, Jefferson, Keats, Einstein, the advertising industry, Shakespeare,
> Rembrandt, Henry Ford, Chaucer, Ian Fleming, and the Buddha drift in this
> Sea of Conditions. They flow into our vortex, give it shape, flow down and
> flow out. The history of our parents and our culture, flows in, flows down
> and flows out. All our inherited ideas of good and bad; all the cells which
> replicate and die in our bodies; all the viruses which effect our health;
> all the colours, shapes, sounds, smells, tastes and ideas we ever
> experience, flow in, flow down and flow out. All our memories, sensations,
> emotions, desires and actions flow in to the vortex, shape it and flow out.
> 
> 
> In reality we are not ultimately separate from the rest of the Sea of
> Conditions, from all the vast immensity of life itself. But we don't see it
> like that. 'Human kind cannot bear very much reality'. In order to get by
> from day to day, to get on with the apparently urgent business of survival,
> we narrow the scope of our vision to more manageable proportions. 
> 
> Grabbing onto some conditions as they drift by, pushing away others, we
> each create an apparently workable ego-identity for ourselves and then
> spend the rest of our lives in a desperate attempt to preserve that
> identity. 
> 
> Everything that lives is subject to decay. All conditioned things are
> impermanent. To be alive is to change. Without change we would be
> absolutely inert. But the un-Enlightened human condition is to fight change
> every inch of the way."