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sujato

@sujato.bsky.social

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Buddhist mendicant. Pali translations at https://suttacentral.net. I talk suttas at https://discourse.suttacentral.net. Events: The Monastery at the End of the World https://lokanta.github.io/. Writings: https://sujato.me/ repost = read this! 🚫 AI

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sujato @sujato.bsky.social · 51m

For the Buddha, it was obvious that sacrifice was evil. He was not alone in this, of course, as many both within and without the Vedic tradition had similar views.

But this was not even his main point. Just another perversion of desire that had to be dealt with on the way to truth.

sujato @sujato.bsky.social · 51m

Long before Christ, the Buddha did away with the sacrifice even more thoroughly, relying not on rituals of substitution (the eucharist), but purely on ethical consciousness—generosity replaces sacrifice.

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sujato @sujato.bsky.social · 51m

When the ruler is corrupt, it seeps through society corrupting nature itself.

Roberto Calasso’s Ardor obsesses on this point, detailing how brahmanical texts hedge and qualify and sublimate the sin of the sacrifice. Consciousness of sin is not marginal to ritual texts, it is their driving force.

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sujato @sujato.bsky.social · 51m

Such a violation, by the ruler of men no less, who was supposed to uphold a standard which others could emulate, had devastating consequences.

“There used to be three kinds of illness: greed, starvation, and old age. But due to the slaughter of cows, this grew to be ninety-eight.”

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sujato @sujato.bsky.social · 51m

Such was the divine nature of the innocent cow that her slaughter prompted an outraged response:

“At that the gods and the ancestors, with Indra, the titans and monsters, roared out: ‘This is a crime against nature!’ as the sword fell on the cows.”

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sujato @sujato.bsky.social · 51m

This is important: though it is a more severe crime to kill a human than a cow, still the sacrifice of cows was regarded as the most abominable, precisely because of her innocence. This keys in with a whole range of symbolic and cultural meanings, as the cow was a cornerstone of Aryan culture.

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sujato @sujato.bsky.social · 51m

“Persuaded by the brahmins, the king, chief of charioteers, had many hundred thousand cows slain at the sacrifice.

Neither with feet nor with horns do cows harm anyone at all. Cows meek as lambs, supply buckets of milk. But taking them by the horns, the king slew them with a sword.”

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sujato @sujato.bsky.social · 51m

But none of this was the true crime. The decisive point was when they sacrificed the cow, who was distinguished by her innocence and service to humanity.

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sujato @sujato.bsky.social · 51m

This was, it seems, the real reason for the compilation of the sacred texts (unnamed, but obviously the Vedas are meant).

The king then proceeded to sponsor an array of eleborate sacrifices, including human sacrifice (note that the pre-Buddhist brahmanas say this was merely symbolic)

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sujato @sujato.bsky.social · 51m

“perversion crept into them little by little when they saw the transformation of the king and the ladies in all their finery.”

They encouraged the king to perform all manner of sacrifices, the grander the better, and of course these included generous payments for the brahmin priests.

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sujato @sujato.bsky.social · 51m

According to an old Buddhist account, dating several centuries before Christ, the motive for the sacrifice was, in accordance with Girard’s mimesis, the envy of the priests when they saw the royal finery.

(Quotes from Brāhmaṇadhammikasutta, Snp 2.7, my translation)

SuttaCentral

Early Buddhist texts from the Tipitaka (Tripitaka). Suttas (sutras) with the Buddha's teachings on mindfulness, insight, wisdom, and meditation.

suttacentral.net

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sujato @sujato.bsky.social · 51m

He goes on to posit that the figure of Christ upturns the violence of the social order, since the text emphatically affirms his innocence. In this way Christ is historically unique and marks a decisive break with archaic religion. Leaving aside everything else, this just seems trivially wrong.

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sujato @sujato.bsky.social · 51m

Reading some background on René Girard. His key theory of mimetics explains the sacrifice mechanism, where one creature is chosen as the vehicle for the sins created by the desires of the many. One carries the evil of all. Okay, but …

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sujato @sujato.bsky.social · 3h

Oh yeah. If they knew they had to face actual regulation, they'd no more introduce this stuff than toyota would try to launch a rocket-assisted skateboard.

sujato @sujato.bsky.social · 15h

As a bare minimum, we should be requiring a licence for tech products, like we do with cars, ensuring they pass rigorous standards of public safety. Bare minimum!

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sujato @sujato.bsky.social · 21h

in case anyone was wondering why he wants canada and greenland.

Reposted by sujato

m o c h y 👻 @mochy.bsky.social · 28d

fyi--> Current DuckDuckGo desktop settings for AI features including; Ability to turn off the Duck.ai helper and automated AI for search, and hide AI-generated images.

Current DuckDuckGo desktop settings for AI features including; Ability to turn off the Duck.ai helper and automated AI for search, and hide AI-generated images.

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sujato @sujato.bsky.social · 1d

"Racism is man's gravest threat—the maximum of hatred for a minimum reason"

— Jewish theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel, adopted as senior year quote by the son of asylum seekers, a high school student named Kash Patel.

newsoneofficial.bsky.social @newsoneofficial.bsky.social · 2d

[OP-ED] FBI Director Kash Patel got blasted by Christian conservatives for making a social media post celebrating Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights.

https://bit.ly/3JijuQ0

sujato @sujato.bsky.social · 1d

hey take care Ven. I'll try to eat double for you.

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Reposted by sujato

Leon Simons @leonsimons.bsky.social · 1d

This is how the total greenhouse gas forcing changed over the past 130,000 years, relative to 1750 and converted to CO₂.

We've ain't seen nothing yet!

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sujato @sujato.bsky.social · 1d

People say this stuff like it's some radical new idea, "work with stakeholders to transition in economically viable ways". Yes, that would be the default position of every major environmental body. We tried that for decades, and well, here we are.

sujato @sujato.bsky.social · 2d

Ok wow, incredible reporting and important story.

sujato @sujato.bsky.social · 2d

Also they put the Buddha in there for a while

sujato @sujato.bsky.social · 2d

“Centrism” is the abdication of morality to the mean.

sujato @sujato.bsky.social · 4d

My house once got robbed. The front door was broken, the handle smashed. Cops came and went over the whole place, we're breathlessly anticipating the fingerprint dusting and other cool stuff. They returned to the smashed front door and said, "looks like they came in here."