Capital's drive to diminish industrial labor inputs to absolute zero while infinitely accumulating value from itself alone through financial speculation can be seen as a real historical instantiation of an ancient patriarchal dream of transcending the flesh by appealing to the mind's supposed innate affiliation with the divine order ("logos" or "dharma"). The separation of …
Open/Emptiness and Inclusive-Transcendence
The following is an excerpt from my forthcoming manuscript, Process Buddhism & Ecofeminism: Freedom from the Master Mode. — The most generic features of Process Buddhism are the two ultimate principles of Open/Emptiness and Inclusive-Transcendence. The principle of Open/Emptiness is the basic principle that nothing can exist that does not depend on prior (causal) and extant …
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Between Vitalism and Mechanism
One can interpret contemporary expressions of vitalism in the form of some process philosophies or object-oriented ontologies as a kind of metaphysical expression of commodity fetishism — it has been critiqued that way before. I am all for continuously uncovering all the ways in which our discourses contribute to the mystification and obscuration of the …
Process Buddhism: Two Truths or One Truth?
In Buddhism we have the idea of the Two Truths: conventional truth and ultimate truth. In Process Buddhism, in contrast, there is only one truth. Conventional truths (saṃvṛtisatya) are what is true in terms of everyday ordinary experience, which ranges from truths about the most basic things of everyday life (pots, tables, cats, cars, houses) …
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Notes on the merits of a Process Buddhist synthesis
Here are some random thoughts I'm having while I'm finishing up an essay on the same topic: Part of the merit of a Process-Buddhist synthesis is that it can help resolve some deep aporias or internal inconsistencies in each of the traditions when they are considered in isolation. In Mahayana Buddhism there is a tendency …
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The Only Real Refuge
In the age of Hypermodernity where colonization is hypercolonization (where not just space but time and even attention itself is being colonized), the only real refuge is our own Buddha-nature — our innate core potential as the inseparable, amorous union of wisdom and compassion. Our real, true nature — our Buddha-nature — exceeds colonization and …
Rectifying Misplaced Concreteness
The fallacy of misplaced concreteness, whereby we mistake an abstract concept to be the concrete reality it points to, can be understood to be both the foundational basis, and exemplary case, of idolatry: it is the first to give birth to the icon and the last to remain upon its death. Key to note is …
Short Note on the Varieties of Inclusive Transcendence
One of the key factors that distinguishes my conception of the Principle of Inclusive-Transcendence from how it is conceived by Hegelians and Wilberians alike is its relationship to the Principle of Open/Emptiness. I will put it rather simplistically here and go over it in more detail in due time. To define the two principles in …
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On the Authentic Revisionism of Secular Buddhism
Over the years I've developed a more open and soft orientation to "Secular Buddhism," a movement that aims to return to what it thinks is the original intent of the historical Buddha, namely, the practice of mindfulness to attain a state of supreme eudaimonia without dependence on any so-called "supernatural" or "superstitious" beliefs, rituals, mediators …
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The Story of Xena & Theo
The principles of open/emptiness and inclusive-transcendence play important roles in my speculative philosophy of history. In a mytho-poetic way we can anthropomorphize the two principles as feminine and masculine deities (Xena and Theo, respectively) who split apart from a primordial state in which they were indivisibly united as indistinguishable aspects of the same reality. This …
