Civilisation and barbarism

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Adi
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Re: Tibetan institutional religious violence

Post by Adi »

One can look at conventional history as simply the recording of and studying of ignorance.

Sometimes outside of Dharma the only place you can find things that are not that is in fiction:
This has all happened before and it will all happen again.
--From the new Battlestar Galactica
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Zhen Li
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Re: Tibetan institutional religious violence

Post by Zhen Li »

Adi wrote:One can look at conventional history as simply the recording of and studying of ignorance.

Sometimes outside of Dharma the only place you can find things that are not that is in fiction:
This has all happened before and it will all happen again.
--From the new Battlestar Galactica
This is certainly a Nietzschean sentiment. I'd say the cycles of history do happen, but not in a perfect circle, more of a spiral or squiggle. At least that's really the best way to understand the Indic view of history, which isn't perfectly cyclical. After all, kings still thought it worth recording their deeds. The dismissal of history as perfectly repetitive is a good way to de-legitimise, and indeed, that may have been the subconscious intention of some Orientalist scholars in discussing Indian history - ignore that they actually did keep quite an accurate record, and you won't have to pressure yourself to consider their own perceptions - you get a blank slate upon which to write all of your expectations.
Adi
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Joined: Sun Nov 08, 2009 10:45 pm

Re: Tibetan institutional religious violence

Post by Adi »

Zhen Li wrote: I'd say the cycles of history do happen, but not in a perfect circle, more of a spiral or squiggle....
heh. And that is a near-perfect Nietzschean physical metaphor. But I am certainly not dismissing history. (Could I, with a degree in the subject?) History has its place and its promise and its perfections. But it does not escape its own view, much like the famous allegory, that of Plato's cave.

Adi
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Grigoris
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Civilisation and Barbarism

Post by Grigoris »

Please stay on topic and refrain from personal attacks.

Thank you.
"My religion is not deceiving myself."
Jetsun Milarepa 1052-1135 CE

"Butchers, prostitutes, those guilty of the five most heinous crimes, outcasts, the underprivileged: all are utterly the substance of existence and nothing other than total bliss."
The Supreme Source - The Kunjed Gyalpo
The Fundamental Tantra of Dzogchen Semde
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