Kevin

“For certain people, an unintended consequence of such mindfulness practice is the experience of a still, vivid, and detached awareness that does more than just deal with a specific pain; it opens a new perspective on how to come to terms with the totality of one’s existence, that is, birth, sickness, aging, death, and everything else that falls under the broad heading of what the Buddha called dukkha. The simple (though not necessarily easy) step of standing back and mindfully attending to one’s experience rather than being uncritically overwhelmed with the imperatives of habitual thoughts and emotions can allow a glimpse of an inner freedom not to react to what one’s mind is insisting that one do. The experience of such inner freedom, I would argue, is a taste of nirvana itself.”
― Stephen Batchelor, Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World

“But it is also true that a society of equal opportunity, without a top 1 percent hoarding the wealth and power, would actually benefit the vast majority of White people much more than racism does. It is not coincidental that slavery kept the vast majority of southern Whites poor. It is not coincidental that more White Americans thrived during the antiracist movements from the 1930s to the early 1970s than ever before or since. It is not coincidental that the racist movements that followed in the late twentieth century paralleled the stagnation or reduction of middle-and low-income Whites’ salaries and their skyrocketing costs of living. Antiracists should stop connecting selfishness to racism, and unselfishness to antiracism. Altruism is wanted, not required. Antiracists do not have to be altruistic. Antiracists do not have to be selfless. Antiracists merely have to have intelligent self-interest, and to stop consuming those racist ideas that have engendered so much unintelligent self-interest over the years. It is in the intelligent self-interest of middle-and upper-income Blacks to challenge the racism affecting the Black poor, knowing they will not be free of the racism that is slowing their socioeconomic rise until poor Blacks are free of racism. It is in the intelligent self-interest of Asians, Native Americans, and Latina/ os to challenge anti-Black racism, knowing they will not be free of racism until Black people are free of racism. It is in the intelligent self-interest of White Americans to challenge racism, knowing they will not be free of sexism, class bias, homophobia, and ethnocentrism until Black people are free of racism. The histories of anti-Asian, anti-Native, and anti-Latina/ o racist ideas; the histories of sexist, elitist, homophobic, and ethnocentric ideas: all sound eerily similar to this history of racist ideas, and feature some of the same defenders of bigotry in America. Supporting these prevailing bigotries is only in the intelligent self-interest of a tiny group of super rich, Protestant, heterosexual, non-immigrant, White, Anglo-Saxon males. Those are the only people who need to be altruistic in order to be antiracist. The rest of us merely need to do the intelligent thing for ourselves.”
― Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America

“Addressing people who were similarly confused as to what path in life to follow, the Buddha once suggested to the Kālāma people: “Do not be satisfied with hearsay or with tradition or with legendary lore or with what has come down in scriptures or with conjecture or with logical inference or with weighing evidence or with liking for a view after pondering over it or with someone else’s ability or with the thought: ‘the monk is our guru.’ When you know in yourselves: ‘these things are wholesome, blameless, commended by the wise, and being adopted and put into effect they lead to welfare and happiness,’ then you should practice and abide in them.”
― Stephen Batchelor, Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World

“More than any political issue, the alt-right treasured their right to be infinitely offensive, preferably toward women or minorities, always under the banner of free speech, and with Trump as their candidate, the malcontents of the world had someone championing their right to be abusive.”
― Vegas Tenold, Everything You Love Will Burn: Inside the Rebirth of White Nationalism in America