True human subjective reality/virtual reality show. If you are interested, add dinosaurs, plant life and bacteria to flush out the "sentient being" aspect of that ontology (nature of being/relationships between beings/groups).Queequeg wrote: ↑Tue Jun 05, 2018 5:44 pmIt helps to think about the economics of the societies. Traditionally, wealth has meant land holdings. If you have land, its because you either claimed it and defended it, or were given it by someone who claimed it and defended it... Hence warriors sat at the top of social hierarchies. And subsequently, the religious gained land from the warriors... there are plenty of cynical explanations as to how, for instance, the Catholic Church became one of the largest real estate companies in the world... after a life of killing, raping, and pillaging, who can offer solace in the afterlife? "How much land will purify my misdeeds?"...Kim O'Hara wrote: ↑Fri Jun 01, 2018 7:45 am I don't think there was much separation between the two in the Buddha's time - I think they were all "entertainers" in our terms, singing, dancing, acting, juggling and whatever else they could do to put on a show, but I'm not quite sure how I arrived at that belief. Hints in the sutras and Jataka Tales, probably, plus knowing a bit about similar travelling groups in other pre-modern cultures.
Kim
If you didn't own land, you needed to have skills that you could perform in exchange for the things you need to live. The emergence of division of labor happened during the so-called axial age, and coincided with the appearance of Buddha, Lao Tzu, Confucius, Plato, Aristotle... Among the unlanded, craftsmen and merchants sit at the top of the social hierarchy. The nature of the work requires education, care, discipline, patience and restraint... qualities we associate with these teachers, but also with bourgeoisie, across civilizations. Actors and performers are also part of this unlanded class, but consider the skills that lead to their success - its about tickling people's sensibilities, stimulating their emotions, in a way that makes them feel motivated to make offerings to keep the performers coming back. Its about pleasing the audience on various sensual levels...
Think of the traveling circus... the stereotypes about carnies... Shows that also often included "adult entertainment" and prostitution... The whole operation had a seedy air about it... Actors and other performers... the way that they used their bodies and minds, acting on stage and then being courtesans off stage. The type of social atmosphere created by these activities things are affronts and threats to the values of the merchant and artisan classes.
Traditionally, its been the aristocrats who have associated with performers socially. People who are not required to subscribe to the bourgeois standards... Who have so much that the rules don't apply to them... and actors and performers adorn the environments they create, enabling it.
Buddhism has, from the beginning, been a merchant and artisan class religion, a suburban religion. Performers undermine the values of the class. You will not be a successful merchant or artisan during the day if you spend your evenings carousing. Its just the limitations of how we are built. The old grasshopper and ant story.
The Lotus Sutra presents a pretty good picture of the society in which the Mahayana emerged... "Sons and Daughters of Good Families"... Stay away from these people...
Lotus Sutra, Peaceful Practices“What is the sphere of the relationships of the bodhisattva mahāsattva? The bodhisattva mahāsattva should not consort with kings, princes, ministers, and chief officials. He should not consort with heretics, brahmans, Jains, and others, or with worldly writers, critics of poetry, materialists, or extreme materialists. Nor should he become acquainted with pranksters, boxers, wrestlers, clowns, and various jugglers, nor with outcastes and people who raise boars, sheep, chickens, and dogs, nor with hunters, fishermen, and those with evil conduct. A bodhisattva should teach such people the Dharma if they come to him, but expect nothing.
Who is left out of that list? Merchants and Artisans... people who make "honest" livings, who don't kill for a living, who don't lounge around in harems, people who don't stimulate others for a living...
Because buddhism is for them too. For example, t rex most likely was landed and raped and pilaged like a catholic crusader of times past. It is quite natural, horrible and natural. You think its an ego-related poison? Not always. Look at your garden how every plant climbs over the other to be "landed" with star radient energy and block it from others so their roots will not encroach....
And at thr same time there is the harmony of firework like timing: tulips then pionis then roses, taking turns. In buddhism plants do not feel pain. So they are not so sentient (but maybe a bit see man with tree on head).
So those teachings about staying awsy from bad people.... its always at least a bit intetesting, but more for beginners and children. For example, imagine if you are in a higher stage of thd formless realm or a higher bumi of thd bodisatva path, surely a great achievement would have been no attachment to equinimity and peace (of mind).
Which, about actors, brings us to the correct approach/relationship to any being: warm heart and compassion mitfühlen сочувствие what does an actor friend of yours feel? Fear? Pride? Adrenalin? Lonliness? Surely they need a friend with a good ear, to listen to their feelings and so on....