Scribe Jamboree: October 6, 2006

It's Friday, and that means it's time for the Scribe Jamboree, where I provide links to some of the more interesting posts by Daily Scribe bloggers that I've read this week. So without further adieu...

There was a great post by Brother Maynard at Subversive Influence about the difficulties of conversing with a fundamentalist of any stripe. It sounds like a very interesting panel discussion that he attended. Check out Losing my (Fundamentalist) Religion? today.

Over at The Mindful Mission, Dave posted a link to the '85 Bears Super Bowl Shuffle. Having been born in Chicago and still happily living here today, I just had to point this out. :)

Getting more serious again, over at Reb Chaim HaQoton is posted a very interesting take on the Source of Addiction. What I find particularly interesting is how similar his thoughts are to Buddhist philosophy. He writes that, "all physical pleasures which feel 'good' have some bad mixed into them." Buddhism also identifies attachment (a major category of which is attachment to physical pleasures) as a primary source of our suffering. Obviously, our take on the cause of this (Adam's sin in the case of Reb Chaim, and our own ignorance in my case) differs, but the pragmatic end result is quite similar. He writes, "The Talmud says that there is a small limb in a person -- one's sense of pursuit of physical fulfillment -- which if fed grows hungry, and if starved is satisfied." Again the equivalence to attachment is quite obvious. Additionally, in this case, Buddhist karma comes into play in that feeding that small limb generates a habit-force that has significant karmic potential -- as he so aptly stated, when fed, it grows hungry, when starved, it abates.

Shawn at Lo-Fi Tribe writes what I hope is only the first in a series of posts on Notes on Ethics: Three Components of Moral Theory. I'm very curious to read further exposition of this topic, especially a deeper analysis of the various categories of ethics he specifies (utilitarian, deontological, etc.). Shawn, where did you get the categories of ethics you specified here? My initial thoughts are that Buddhist ethics appear to be most closely related to what Shawn labels Situation Ethics. However, there is also an interesting intermingling of Situation and Utilitarian ethics in Buddhist ethics, as we are always looking to minimize harm to all beings, which is slightly different from, but still highly related to, focusing on the greatest benefit to others as in Utilitarianism.

Finally, Will at thinkBuddha writes on Mindfulness, and the Enigma of Life. He gives a great description of how his understanding of mindfulness has evolved throughout his life, not to mention showing us first-hand the importance true mindfulness plays in his, and all of our, lives. Mindfulness is a topic near and dear to my heart, something I find to be of the utmost importance, and I write on it regularly. Will does a very nice job in this post. Please read it if you have time.

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