Power

music

Everything requires power - to survive, to resist ailments, to fight against obstacles. Whenever that power is lost, we succumb to sorrow, disease, death, etc. In fact, every problem we have, every source of pain or anxiety, could be traced back to weakness. That's why everyone wants power, no matter how much they deny it.

People who seek this power in the material world - and succeed - become politicians. The rest become religious, seeking otherworldly power. Either way, it is all about power and nought else. We may call it religion, art, culture, humanism, governance, whatnot. But deep down it is all about power because that alone gives us certainty in an uncertain world.

ThailandTom

Right effort is different from power... You should do some research into the 8 fold path and right effort IMO. Power in the terms of a politician or leader is a desire, a desire to gain status and power. It boosts the ego and results in suffering eventually, mental suffering as well as physical. Right effort requires power, power of the mind and body, this if done rightly doe snot have desire and is not ego based.

misecmisc1

But deep down it is all about power because that alone gives us certainty in an uncertain world.

how much power one attains in whichever form, one will still not have any certainty in Samsara (which is conditioned, so uncertain).

footiam

music said:

Everything requires power - to survive, to resist ailments, to fight against obstacles. Whenever that power is lost, we succumb to sorrow, disease, death, etc. In fact, every problem we have, every source of pain or anxiety, could be traced back to weakness. That's why everyone wants power, no matter how much they deny it.

People who seek this power in the material world - and succeed - become politicians. The rest become religious, seeking otherworldly power. Either way, it is all about power and nought else. We may call it religion, art, culture, humanism, governance, whatnot. But deep down it is all about power because that alone gives us certainty in an uncertain world.

Yes, everything requires power. My television, radio, handphone too. And it is sad to say that they are not permanent especially when you are talking about this hand phone of mine which has to be recharged everyday. This is certainly a reason for dukkha.

person

You're kind of right, that is how much of the world works. The Buddha taught a different way, a way to escape all that mess. The Buddhist path isn't merely a way to armor us against life's ups and downs its a way to escape entirely.

Also your bit about weakness reminds me of the view about survival of the fittest and the objectivist (Ayn Rand) worldview. More recent thinking on survival in evolutionary terms recognizes the importance of cooperation and harmonious living in terms of survival. The view used to be that one had to be strong and fit to survive, in actuality people live %99 of their lives in cooperation with others to ensure their survival. That continues even today in such things as commerce or even driving on the road. This is why compassion is such a biological imperative and an important trait for the 'fit' to survive. Kind people are liked and respected, when we work for others they work for us, so when times are tough and things are uncertain if we've got others backs they'll have ours. Love and compassion allow us to live and work together harmoniously and ensure not only our survival but human flourishing.

BhanteLucky

@music, Buddhism is about the escape from the whole power-based structure you are taking about.
No more power needed after parinibanna.

Zero

music said:

Everything requires power - to survive, to resist ailments, to fight against obstacles. Whenever that power is lost, we succumb to sorrow, disease, death, etc. In fact, every problem we have, every source of pain or anxiety, could be traced back to weakness. That's why everyone wants power, no matter how much they deny it.

People who seek this power in the material world - and succeed - become politicians. The rest become religious, seeking otherworldly power. Either way, it is all about power and nought else. We may call it religion, art, culture, humanism, governance, whatnot. But deep down it is all about power because that alone gives us certainty in an uncertain world.

You're flitting between competing definitions of power out of context.

federica

Zero said:

You're flitting between competing definitions of power out of context.

@music, I was about to say the same thing; you have some confusion in your post about which kinds of power you're discussing.

lobster

That's why everyone wants power, no matter how much they deny it.

Perhaps . . .
Perhaps the condition of the Bodhisattva is to empower others, in effect not to accumulate but to give away. How many live up to that ideal?

Can we live up to it or try to? Spiritual 'power' humbles and breaks us in service. Anyone else is more 'powerful' than the powerless . . .

:wave:

Ficus_religiosa

I think reducing everything to a question about power is simplifying life too much. I mean - there are people who are neither politicians nor religious and there are zealous politicians, just to use your own example.

If you choose to define "power" as "life force" or "the driving factor" (much like deists see god or even how some Satanists perceive "Satan") I think you're on to something. That "force" does not make us either politicians or religious though - there are many different kinds of life styles. Pro athletes for example give their whole lives to some kind of sport. Someone even became movie star, pro athlete, entrepreneur AND politician in a single life; Arnold!

fivebells

@music: what's your goal with these posts? What do you get out of them? Are they issues which come up in your own spiritual practice?

MaryAnne

These posts are merely feed corn scattered to the chickens.... so the 'farmer' can be amused watching them scramble, peck and cluck at each other.

seeker242

music said:

because that alone gives us certainty in an uncertain world.

Yes, and letting go of the need for certainty, in an uncertain world, is a powerful change.

music

fivebells said:

@music: what's your goal with these posts? What do you get out of them? Are they issues which come up in your own spiritual practice?

Yes, while meditating I get these ideas, so I often share them with the forum members.

federica

I think you need to evaluate whether they actually NEED sharing.

If you get them during Meditation, then I'd do the done thing, which is to let them go.
They're usually imponderable anyway, even if they are discussed....

person

I, for one, like music's posts. I think what he asks are essentially the unanalyzed philosophical underpinnings for much of modern society. Trying to address them helps me look for answers to many of the assumptions everyday people caught up in the matrix make about the world.

Nevermind

"My idea is that every specific body strives to become master over all space and to extend its force (its will to power) and to thrust back all that resists its extension. But it continually encounters similar efforts on the part of other bodies and ends by coming to an arrangement ("union") with those of them that are sufficiently related to it: thus they then conspire together for power. And the process goes on." ~ Nietzsche

person

Nevermind said:

"My idea is that every specific body strives to become master over all space and to extend its force (its will to power) and to thrust back all that resists its extension. But it continually encounters similar efforts on the part of other bodies and ends by coming to an arrangement ("union") with those of them that are sufficiently related to it: thus they then conspire together for power. And the process goes on." ~ Nietzsche

Interesting quote, it seems to suggest that power comes through cooperation and harmony rather than competition.

Ficus_religiosa

person said:

Nevermind said:

"My idea is that every specific body strives to become master over all space and to extend its force (its will to power) and to thrust back all that resists its extension. But it continually encounters similar efforts on the part of other bodies and ends by coming to an arrangement ("union") with those of them that are sufficiently related to it: thus they then conspire together for power. And the process goes on." ~ Nietzsche

Interesting quote, it seems to suggest that power comes through cooperation and harmony rather than competition.

Eagles don't often eat eagles

Nevermind

“And do you know what “the world” is to me? Shall I show it to you in my mirror? This world: a monster of energy, without beginning, without end; a firm, iron magnitude of force that does not grow bigger or smaller, that does not expend itself but only transforms itself; as a whole, of unalterable size, a household without expenses or losses, but likewise without increase or income; enclosed by “nothingness” as by a boundary; not something blurry or wasted, not something endlessly extended, but set in a definite space as a definite force, and not a space that might be “empty” here or there, but rather as force throughout, as a play of forces and waves of forces, at the same time one and many, increasing here and at the same time decreasing there; a sea of forces flowing and rushing together, eternally changing, eternally flooding back, with tremendous years of recurrence, with an ebb and a flood of its forms; out of the simplest forms striving toward the most complex, out of the stillest, most rigid, coldest forms striving toward the hottest, most turbulent, most self-contradictory, and then again returning home to the simple out of this abundance, out of the play of contradictions back to the joy of concord, still affirming itself in this uniformity of its courses and its years, blessing itself as that which must return eternally, as a becoming that knows no satiety, no disgust, no weariness: this, my Dionysian world of the eternally self- creating, the eternally self-destroying, this mystery world of the twofold voluptuous delight, my “beyond good and evil,” without goal, unless the joy of the circle is itself a goal; without will, unless a ring feels good will toward itself— do you want a name for this world? A solution for all of its riddles? A light for you, too, you best-concealed, strongest, most intrepid, most midnightly men?— This world is the will to power—and nothing besides! And you yourselves are also this will to power—and nothing besides!”
― Friedrich Nietzsche