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Degenerate times?
Bunks
Australia Veteran
I've read a few dharma books over the past year that have stated that we are living in degenerate times (with regard to greed, hatred, non-spirituality etc.)
If that's the case, why are more and more human beings being born and being given the possibility of enlightenment?
Wouldn't that mean that all these people have been undertaking more virtuous actions in recent lives therefore I would think we live in more virtuous times?
Perhaps I'm just confused......
If that's the case, why are more and more human beings being born and being given the possibility of enlightenment?
Wouldn't that mean that all these people have been undertaking more virtuous actions in recent lives therefore I would think we live in more virtuous times?
Perhaps I'm just confused......
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Comments
I suspect modern communications - the media - may give the perception that things are getting worse, but I don't think it's the case.
I think the worst thing is that we are in our own little bubbles. And there is some amount of scarcity in the world.
But yeah I don't agree that this is a 'fallen age'.
Our lives are longer, our quality of life is better, nobody gets hanged drawn and quartered anymore. Good times
I do wonder about enlightenment though. Buddha came along, what, 500 years before Christ? Using just those examples, how likely is it to have 2 enlightened beings within 500 years, and none since? Or are they less obvious now that our population is so huge? If the point of enlightenment (in my mind anyhow) is to help others achieve it, why are we not seeing it happen more often? Is it because our society is less conducive to it now because of all the busy-ness and temptations? I find it interesting to ponder.
How sad virtue is a cause of happiness but more and more people mock the virtuous and those spiritual seekers who look for actual happiness these days.
How sad virtue is a cause of happiness but more and more people mock the virtuous and those spiritual seekers who look for actual happiness these days.
To me degenerate means what the dictionary says: We're not killing each other in the thousands/millions, human slavery has declined hugely, when there's disasters we help (as a planet), we have clean water, we have food, we are living longer, we have better medical care. Wars today are not like the mass slaughter they used to be.
So people are seeking happiness in materialism; that doesn't make them degenerate, it makes them ignorant in the Buddhist sense, yes, but degenerate, no.
We feel in the West this incredible blossoming, and it is certainly blossoming - but it's blossoming of exposure, not necessarily blossoming of deep practice (not a judgement, just, I think, modern reality). If one compares the number of people engaged in very deep practice, I think we could say that number has reduced quite drastically since 1950, if only because the number of people in Tibet and China alone, who were involved in deep practice, was practically vaporized. Before the Communist invasion, there were an astounding number of monks, nuns, and committed lay practitioners, a sizable proportion of these being serious teachers, authors and translators--afterwards, a staggering percentage of these people disappeared.
To us, there are an incredible number of teachers available in the west; but compared to the number that were available only 60 years ago in Tibet and China, our number today is precious but small.
As this aeon moves forward from the begining Human beings experienced great states of fortune and it gradually decreases throughout the ages with various increases every now and again but as with the teaching of Impermanence the experience of happiness and good fortune with Samsara is always on the decline.
Political monks are already everywhere, sigh. Didnt the Buddha teach detachment, esp for Bhikkus??????????
As far as I am aware most people at all times are not interested in the hardier option. They want the quick jollies of wine, men and song. However for those women of a sterner disposition a middle way is always open . . . Charles Dickens
While alarmism takes place in every age, it's also true that languages, peoples and religions do actually wax and wane. Traditions as a whole, worldwide--herbal knowledge, survival knowledge, indigenous musical knowledge, linguistic knowledge--are without question waning today, rapidly. If one looks closely at Buddhism, the number of "deep" practitioners is, has without question plummeted in the last half century, as it has for deep practitioners of nearly every category of traditional knowledge.
There will likely be a great difference in the kind of Buddhism transmitted in more casual environments, compared to the kind of Buddhism transmitted from one deeply contemplative teacher to a new, deeply contemplative teacher who has followed the first teacher around for 20 years or so from youth. It doesn't necessarily mean doomsday, but given the emphasis Buddhism places on personal practice, especially for those planning to teach, I think it's important to think of these changes and what they mean. It could be that modern man will somehow find a way to continue to maintain a tradition of deep contemplation, but at the moment this aspect of Buddhism strikes me as endangered.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with lay Buddhism and those of us living our Buddhism day to day among our families; it's wonderful, completely. I just don't think we can honestly say that losing much of the tradition of devoted contemplative teachers is without effect.
The Irish language is undergoing a related process; mother-tongue speakers are dwindling rapidly, but second-language learners are increasing or least holding. There is a quantum difference, though, between a living, home language and a classroom language.
"Degenerate" isn't really a pejorative, just a descriptive. Looking around, I feel I see a lot of degeneration of traditional knowledge, so "degenerate times" seems accurate. I suppose the question is whether what we're replacing that knowledge with is equal in value.
I have trouble with the kinesiology stuff, too, even though he is my teacher. But reading through the calibrations they seem like common sense to me, and sometimes I just kind of ignore it and I get so much from his clinical insights that it doesn't really matter as much.
As for certain steps, I don't really know what you mean. I spoke to him once and he told me that all it takes is goodwill to all of life including oneself. The green book (Transcending the levels) it's more like, how to deal with and clear out those negative emotions - shame, guilt, fear etc. I guess I do kind of see it as a "step by step" but because growth in consciousness doesn't really take a linear path I don't think it really works that way.
But I have complete faith in his enlightenment, and that, for me, is a requirement as a student. If I didn't trust him entirely I don't think he would be a good teacher for me. At the end of the day, his work has improved my life a billion times over and I'm definitely a fan.
Sorry to hear about your mom. 40 pills a day? What the heck is that? I think perhaps kinesiology and kinesiologists are two different things.
I think there are videos of both Maharshi and Maharaj on youtube. I really like Maharaj's teaching style (he like, bangs his fists and stuff and I think he's really funny).
I looked back to the step by step stuff I was referring to, and I found out it was from a guy who heavily quoted Hawkins, and not Hawkins himself, so everything is ok in the department! I'll check out the videos, they sound interesting. It's funny, my teacher posts videos from our retreats on youtube, and I find watching them a bit boring, though I adoring listening to him in person, LOL. Perhaps it's because I've head them in person that they are more boring a second time...
I never watched the Hawkins lecture I went to - because they were in AZ I could only make it once - because when I went up on the stage I made a bit of a fool of myself and I've always been too embarrassed to watch it!
Love of money and status are the prime motive for almost everything in society. What effulgent person would not be sullied by these crass times?
Without [true] charity all things are nothing worth. What could be more degenerate than the self-serving thought patterns that nearly everywhere prevail?
Meh.
And then there's the 500 year prophecy, which deals with both the brute survival of the teaching and the survival of the teaching unadulterated with 'synthetic Dhamma' (saddhamma-patirupa), isn't only controversial and considered by many to be a later addition, but also held by many who do accept it as being conditional (e.g., many hold that the acceptance of the additional rules on the part of the bhikkhunis and the subsequent council after the Buddha's death altered this, acting as conditions for the teachings' survival far into the future).
Moreover, while some things seem to be getting 'worse,' partially thanks to the modern-day, 24hr news cycle continually bombarding us with bad news, many things are actually getting better, such as the overall decline in violence worldwide, better health and increased life expectancy, etc. As Lincoln noted, "In every age there are folks who think it's the end times, that society is ripping at the seams, or that we're descending into a morale morass," whether it's true or not.
http://buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=8,3198,0,0,1,0
It's more about the Dharma degenerating, due to sloppy practice, or outside influences, and so on.
I recently read an article of chinas air quality and how it was double that of what is considered safe to breath.
NASA also has a video called how the earth breathes and it shows like an 80 or so year spam showing what appears to me like the earth is gasping for breath. Quite depressing :,'(
Though I would by no means call the upper crust of our society the scum, nor would I call it la crème de la crème.
I'm amazed that anyone 55 or older is capable of believing there's a better spirit around now than there was 40 years ago. Of course, internet junkies think anything pre-internet is prehistoric!
So you see things going on without huge man-made calamities in the next 15 years or so? Bully for you!
I mean, if you think about it, only 48 short years ago states still had laws mandating racial segregation and making interracial marriages illegal. Of course, things aren't perfect, and a combination of globalism and recent technological advancements have made our penchant for less than enlightened actions more potentially dangerous and destructive than ever before (economically, environmentally, etc.), but the past wasn't perfect, as if were some kind of golden age where people weren't violent, selfish, or greedy.
And besides the amount of social and technological progress I've seen in my lifetime, I'm quite encouraged (and slightly surprised) by the number of new Buddhist monasteries and meditation centres that have been sprouting up in the past few years. The new hermitage in White Salmon, WA, for example, is doing amazingly well. The people have been so interested and supportive, in fact, that the monks are able to go on alms round in the traditional way at least half the week.
But our generation thought it lived in the best of times. I guess I will forever be marked by that. You can tell somebody all you like that there is no such place as England, but you cannot convince an Englishman, try as you may.
Degenerate: Having lost the physical, mental, or moral qualities considered normative or desirable; —showing evidence of a decline or lack of generativity.
hell I see it when I hang out with my friends(im 34) and we talk about how stuff was so much better in the 80s and 90s lol. Its human nature.
Ah yes, those were the good old days!
As to your list of phenomena, there will always be troublemakers. But, really Apartheid continuing, Nuclear facility mishaps, oil shortages, and continuing unrest in Northern Ireland were not endemic to the seventies.
Nobody (even back then) said the world was purrrfect or ever could be...
To me the word corruption, Lit, "broken off from [original purpose or function]" is how I'd define "degenerate" in its impersonal sense. With regard to "Virtue," the Greek word is arete, whose meaning is akin to excellence in workmanship. A person's skill was his "arete." Therefore, to be virtuous was, for the Greek, to exert oneself in a skillful, artful, and honest way.
For me, the Ancient Way (or the Way of Wisdom) is the original state of real "civilization" and the further society moves away from this "Tao," the further it is removed from real and meaningful purpose. We have seen so much agonizing over the last couple hundred years by philosophers and theologians about how "lost" humankind is in the universe. For those who are swayed by these perspectives to some degree, through art or philosophy, I'd argue that arguments for virtue lose a lot of meaning in the great scheme of things.
The music of the Seventies was really energizing, unbounded and full of enthusiasm for life. It reflected Tao for me, and had a silence to it —or a rhythm when confronting injustice. But, alas, the loud noise that the present culture craves seems to me to fight Tao. Everywhere the trumpet blares the arrival of some new Product or the latest Significant Study; Loud voices shout past each other on nearly every channel on TV with little listening noted; Every little church with every egoed organist wants an organ too big (and way too loud) for the space; Four lane roads give way to eight-lane roads and the noisy traffic grows even louder; &c ad nauseam... While the population suffers from tinnitus and grows deaf; so YELL louder!
So I think the simple answer is, there is no answer.
SN 56.48 PTS: S v 456 CDB ii 1872
Chiggala Sutta: The Hole
translated from the Pali by
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
© 1998–2013
"Monks, suppose that this great earth were totally covered with water, and a man were to toss a yoke with a single hole there. A wind from the east would push it west, a wind from the west would push it east. A wind from the north would push it south, a wind from the south would push it north. And suppose a blind sea-turtle were there. It would come to the surface once every one hundred years. Now what do you think: would that blind sea-turtle, coming to the surface once every one hundred years, stick his neck into the yoke with a single hole?"
"It would be a sheer coincidence, lord, that the blind sea-turtle, coming to the surface once every one hundred years, would stick his neck into the yoke with a single hole."
"It's likewise a sheer coincidence that one obtains the human state. It's likewise a sheer coincidence that a Tathagata, worthy & rightly self-awakened, arises in the world. It's likewise a sheer coincidence that a doctrine & discipline expounded by a Tathagata appears in the world. Now, this human state has been obtained. A Tathagata, worthy & rightly self-awakened, has arisen in the world. A doctrine & discipline expounded by a Tathagata appears in the world.
"Therefore your duty is the contemplation, 'This is stress... This is the origination of stress... This is the cessation of stress.' Your duty is the contemplation, 'This is the path of practice leading to the cessation of stress.'"
Saying either yes or no treats the world, the various nations and cultures and populations as the same and assumes your experience is valid for the rest of the world.
As Buddhism spread in India, over in South America entire populations were being marched up pyramid steps and sacrificed to appease the sun god. A thousand years later, entire cultures were enslaved by the Spanish and worked to death in gold mines. Many people still live in poverty, but nobody can argue their world today has degenerated from then. So for those people, it's ludicrous to say we're now living in degenerate times.
Except for the few remaining and scattered rainforest dwelling tribes, who are being extermined for their land. For them, a compelling case can be made that their world has degenerated.
And we can look at about any population in any nation and find where it's sometimes better, sometimes worse, and two different people could look at the same thing and claim it's the opposite. Gays in America are finally being accepted as not such a big deal. To some, it's progress. To others, it's the sign of degenerate society. So who is right and wrong? And if you come back in a hundred years, what will you find?
So to this question, an enlightened response can only be, "Exactly which part of the world, which culture, and which group of people are you talking about, and which two time periods are you comparing?"
The question as to whether the times are degenerate or not does not devolve entirely to the actual conditions of the physical terrain, as it were, but to the condition of the atmosphere. I maintain that spiritually we live under a thick smoggy fog and that the Clear Light cannot be seen by any multitude at any time —but can be seen only by isolated individuals. In degenerate times, how can you truly bring these disparate star-gazers together, when there are so many brute interruptions intervening?
Any nonmathematical proposition can be seen as nonsense at some point by "nonsubscribers," but one thinking thus does not make it so. I suggest that if one thinks about the conditions of our times for more than one minute, that the mushrooming population of the globe is perhaps making us a common, crowded worldwide village. Things are going to escalate beyond human control soon. It surely doesn't help that such "forces for good" (so-called) as the Roman Church will not even oficially allow birth control or promote responsibility... I guess that's generativity for you.
(page 6)
(I am still very much figuring this all out..mulling it over, I think I will do so for some many years to come)
@Bunks interesting question. Before I 'found' Buddhism, I often wondered where all these extra 'souls' came from ~ i.e the population is always getting bigger (I used to have a Christian boyfriend, and was interested in learning about Christianity, but this was a question he could never answer.. no Christian I have ever met, ever could, maybe it is an unreasonable question but it bothered me!), but when I started learning about Buddhism and how there are different realms, this question felt like it was answered... also see here: http://www.buddhanet.net/budsas/ebud/whatbudbeliev/300.htm but I know different Buddhist Schools have different perspectives on all of this.
Maybe for a lot of us, it is part of our individual Karma to be born into the human realm at a time (now) when we all have so so many temptations, you don't even have to make the effort to leave your house to buy buy buy! One click of a button and we can purchase something (we usually don't actually need).. maybe it is not about enlightenment for the vast vast majority of us, but about just making one more positive step to get away from greed, temptations, etc. It must be a blumin slow process.. to become enlightened... (thinking out loud here) Blimey. Karma is going to have to get really strict soon though; those that don't cut the mustard must be an ant in their next life.. there is more room for them!!!!
All the best,
Todd
Humankind has always had great achievements, and has always suffered from manifestations of ego, the root of degeneracy. There have always been visionaries, there have always been corrupt individuals and corrupt leaders. The more things change, the more they stay the same. The outward manifestations may change from age to age and culture to culture, but at the root, it's the same old, same old.
Perhaps I'll start a new topic to cover that one.......