The Great Transformation: the World in the time of Buddha, Socrates, Confucius and Jeremiah by Karen Armstrong.

I took some notes on this book before I really got into the stride of how to do this, and as I did not correct them when I had the book some now read as gibberish. I was interested in the Zoroastrian attitude to fire and of course in the psychological underpinnings of extremism and also incidental information about the rise of violence in relation to civilisation. But Armstrong's tendency to exalt compassion as common to all religions, at the expense of the significantly different Christian love agape irritated me. Compassion is inherently hierarchical; it is felt by the less needy for the more needy whereas truly unconditional love must be on the level. I listened to a radio interview with the mother who had helped her terminally ill son to die and that was an example of what I'm talking about, real unconditional love free of control and possession.

I've lost the impetus on this; I'll post it under Updates and Critiques because I might want to refer to it in what I put under Saltpetre. Wednesday 11th July

Notes on The Great Transformation: world in the time of Buddha, Socrates, Confucius and Jeremiah.

Dukkha is a Sanskrit word meaning awry, flawed, unsatisfactory; often translated as "suffering”. Armstrong uses this word quite frequently whichever religion she is discussing, and suggest that they all accept that life is dukkha. I accept that life is suffering but not that that equates to awry flawed or unsatisfactory.

Chapter 1 1600 to 900 BCE

Zoroaster lived in the time of the Aryans on the plains of southern Russia the time of conflict, cattle raids and civil conflict between the raiders and the settled people they preyed on. Armstrong gives the impression that conflict broke out because superior weapons had been developed. Unlikely!

"The whole of life had now become a battlefield in which everybody had a role. Even women and servants could make a valuable contribution. The old purity laws, which had regulated the conduct of the ritual, were now given a new significance. Lord Mazda had created a completely clean and perfect world but the Hostile Spirit had invaded the earth and filled it with scenes, violence, falsehood, dust, dirt, disease, death and decay. Good men and women must, therefore, keep their immediate environment free from dirt and pollution. By separating the pure from the impure, good from evil, they would liberate the world for Lord Mazda. They must pray five times a day. They must rise up during the night when wicked spirits prowled the earth and throw incense into the fire to strengthen Agni in the war against evil." There were apocalyptic ideas in his religion for the first time. It sprang from his outrage at the suffering of the people and his yearning for justice.

The Aryans invaded the Indus Valley in India "but the uncomfortable fact remained that for all his glamour, Indra was a killer, who had only managed to defeat the (? opposing god) by lying and cheating. This was the violent and troubled vision of a society constantly involved in desperate warfare. The Vedic hymns saw the entire cost was convulsed by terrifying conflict and passionate rivalries. The gods fought in heaven, while the Aryans struggled for survival on earth. This was an age of scarcity; the only way that the Aryans could establishments themselves in the Indus Valley was by stealing the cattle of the indigenous settled communities -- the earthly counterparts of the stay-at-home people.

"Agni was the patron of the settlers. Their colony was a new beginning and, like the first creation, had wrested order from chaos. Fire symbolised the warriors' ability to control their environment. They identified deeply with their fire. If he could steal fire from the hearth of a vaishya farmer, a warrior but also lure his cattle away, because they would always follow the flames "he would take brightly burning fire from the home of his rival" says one of the later texts; "he thereby takes his wealth, his property." Fire symbolised a warrior's power and success; it was -- an important point -- his altar ego. He could create new fire, control and domesticate it. Fire was like his son; when he died and was cremated, he became a sacrificial victims and Agni would carry him to the land of the gods. The fire represented his best and deepest self and because the fire was Agni, this self was sacred and divine.

Later the Aryans developed the idea of Brahman, the supreme reality. It was higher deeper and more basic than the gods, a force that held all the disparate elements of the universe together and stopped them from fragmenting.

China

"the city it was a small aristocratic enclave, a world unto itself. The Shang nobility devoted their time exclusively to religion, warfare and hunting. They took a surplus of agricultural produce from the local peasants in return for military protection in the Shang period, elephants, rhinoceroses, buffaloes, Panthers, and leopards still roamed through the forests, together with deer, tigers, wild oxen, bears monkeys and game; the animals could become pests, so hunting was a duty as well as a pleasure. There was little difference between war and hunting. Warfare was an activity that was limited to the aristocrats, who alone were allowed to own weapons and chariots. A typical military expedition was a modest affair consisting of about a hundred chariots, the peasants who followed on foot did not take part in the fighting"

Kenosis, circa 800 to 700 BCE

"The Lu ritualists formulated two important principles: first, the efficacy of a ceremony depended upon the perfect performance of every single one of the actions that contributed to it; second, this perfection was possible only when each one of the participants was fully aware of the value and significance of the rite as a whole. In the late sixth century, one of the ritualists of Lu would initiate China's Axial Age, taking these two principles as his starting point, and would reveal the latent spiritual power of this  BOOKMARK  apparently self-serving and potentially stultifying discipline." -- ( the schizoid shows through)

Suffering (circa 600 to 530 BCE)

"Samkhya made two important contributions to Indian spirituality. First was the perception that all life was dukkha. -- our experience was conditioned by ignorance and sorrow. Everything in the cosmos was disintegrating, mortal and ephemeral. Even when the false "I" felt happy or satisfied, there was something amiss often "I" yearned for a goal or material object only to find that it was ultimately disappointing and unsatisfactory. Nothing lasted very long. Our chaotic inner world could shift from one state to another in a matter of seconds, our friends died; people became ill, old, and lost their beauty and vitality. To deny this universal dukkha was a delusion because it was a law of life. But this imperfect nature was also a friend because the more "I" suffered and identified with the ephemeral world, the more "I" yearned for the absolute, unconditioned reality to be found with their inner true self, only human beings were capable of liberation from pain which all other creatures gods humans animals and insects suffered.

Empathy: circa 530 to 450 BCE

"Parmenides had also embarked on the philosophical quest for pure existence. Instead of contemplating individual creatures, he was trying to put his finger on quintessential being. But in the process, he created a world in which it was impossible to live. Why would anybody undertake any course of action, if change and movement were illusory? His disciple Melissus was a naval commander: how was he supposed to guide his moving ship? How should we evaluate the physical changes that we know within ourselves? Where human beings really phantoms? By divesting the cosmos of qualities, Parmenides had also deprived it of heart. Human beings do not respond to the world with logos alone; we are also emotional creatures, with a complex subconscious life. By ignoring this and cultivating his rational powers exclusively, Parmenides had discovered a void: there was nothing to think about." (One person's route up the schizoid blind alley.)

These teachings all showed a determination to find a way out of the samsaric impasse of rebirth and re-death: some believed that they could achieve this by performing formidable austerities, others by avoiding hostility and unpleasantness. The goal was not to find a metaphysical truths but to obtain peace of mind. Unlike Sophocles, these sages did not think that they had to accept their pain with dignity. They were convinced that it was possible to find a way out. One of the most important of these teachers was Makkhali Gosala (b.c. 385). A taciturn man and a severe ascetic, he preached religious fatalism. "Human nature is ineffective". People were not responsible for their behaviour. "All animals, creatures, beings and souls lacked power and energy. They are bent this way and that by fate, by the necessary condition of their class, and by their individual nature." he believed that the actions of human beings could not affect their fate one way or the other. And yet paradoxically his followers adopted a harsh regime. They wore no clothes, baked for their food, and observed such strict dietary rules that some of them starve to death. They also inflicted intense pain on their bodies. When he was initiated into the effect, for example, the new member was buried up to his neck and had his hairs pulled out one by one. They did not perform these tenancies because they believed that they would help them, but simply because they had reached that stage in their personal cycle when it was their lot to practise austerity.

(The perfect example of the pathological extreme to which the anti-libidinal impulse can be driven by adverse circumstances, which Armstrong calls the intense anxiety of this period, which led to this bleak dharma becoming very popular.)

Later the Jain order would be sponsored by kings and warriors who were not able to abandon their military duties, but who hoped to do so in a future life. Despite its dedication to nonviolence, the dharma frequently used martial imagery. The Jain ascetic was a warrior who was battling his own belligerent instincts and warding off the bad effects of the aggression that characterised all unenlightened people. The Jina would win as much glory for himself, his family, and his order by his life of harmlessness as a soldier on the battlefield. The Jain community was called "a troop" to become a Jina required the valour, determination, and ruthlessness towards oneself that was the mark of a true hero.

Concern for everybody c. 450-398 BCE.

(p. 275) " Later the Buddhists told a mythical story that brought about the deeper significance of Gotama's departure. When he was born, his father invited some Brahmins to examine the baby and tell his fortune. One of them predicted that Gotama would see four disturbing sights that would convince him to become a renouncer and so discover a new spiritual truth. Gotama's father had more worldly ambitions for his son, so to shield him from these painful spectacles he posted guards around the palace to keep all distressing reality at bay. Thus, even though he lived in carefree luxury, the boy was a virtual prisoner. Gotama's pleasure palace is a striking image of a mind in denial. As long as we persist in closing our hearts to the sorrow that surrounds us on all sides, we remain incapable of growth and insight. But when Gotama was 29 years old, the gods, who needed the Buddhist dharma as much as human beings, decided to intervene. They sent four of their number disguised as an old man, a sick man, a corpse, and a renouncer. Gotama was so shocked by these images of pain that he put on his yellow robe and left home that very night." ( I am reminded by this of my client Rosita who was subject to smothering love by a mother who seldom took her to a park, for example, because it was a dangerous place; she attempted suicide as a teenager. Gotama, in fact, nearly managed to kill himself by his austerities before he found his "way". Over-control when "loving" can be even worse than when hating.)

(p. 276) “Gotama achieved the very highest states of trance, but he would not accept their interpretations; when he returned to himself he found that there had been no real transformation. He was still his unregenerate, greedy, yearning self. His trance was not nibhana.

Gotama left his teachers and joined a group of ascetics. With them he practised severe extremities that gravely damaged his health. He lay on a mattress of spikes, ate his own urine and faeces, and fasted so rigorously that his bones stuck out. At one point he became so weak he was left for dead beside the road. Gotama did not give up, henceforth he would rely only on his own thoughts." ( Schizoid pathology stands out in these selected phrases.)