The position of the BMA (UK) is that the Sangha includes (equally) the Laity and the Ordained - and that both constitute a spiritual vanguard in the progression of humanity toward Socialism and Communism! The latest article on the BMA (UK) site seeks to unite theistic monasticism (of the Judeo-Christian tradition and the Sufism of Islam) with the Buddhist equivalent: Of course, implicit in this exercise is the acknowledgement that many great evils have existed within religion - and it must be made clear that the oppression and ignorance that holds many religious teachings together is NOT being defended. To sit and meditate effectively is to breakup this "religious" ignorance and the internal pollution that the system of predatory capitalism imports into the interior of humanity! This is the premise of all further Revolutionary action in the (external) material world. Indeed, the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels is a rich and inspiring resource for self-purification. As is the work of Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Ho Chi Minh! Genuine religion must be purged of its worldly ignorance and greed! Only Marxist-Leninism-Maoism possesses the moral power to achieve this mighty and crucial task for humanity! It is the lies of the Bourgeoisie that sullies the deep spiritual waters of the Proletariat! The workers possess the only moral right to punish the corruption of the Bourgeoisie - and those who value meditation must assist every worker in this task! Marx never defined the state of "Communism" - simply because he could not! How could he? Basically, the only thing that can be said is that "It is NOT this!" The Enlightenment of the Buddha, I suspect, reflects the state of "Communism" inwardly realised in a material world that was not yet ready to manifest such a sublime (external) reality! Look within and find it for yourself and unite with the Proletariat!
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The Western philosophical and religious tradition has often assumed that 'thought' is separate and distinct from 'matter' - as if arising within (and representing) a 'non-material' and 'unseen' realm. However, the above-linked neuroscience research offers proof that 'thought' is a physical phenomenon that possesses physical characteristics and can be both 'observed' and 'measured'. Moreover, all trends in bourgeois science confirm the observations of Karl Marx - but 'stop' only at the measurement of matter - adopting an ideological position of ignoring the socio-economic conditions that humanity has created throughout its long evolution, and which a) influence and b) manipulate how matter manifests and c) conditions 'how' this matter is 'interpreted' in the best interests of the ruling class. Bourgeois science exercises a brutal control of material resources so that its class dominance can be perpetuated and defended (often through naked aggression and warfare). What is interesting is that bourgeois science perpetuates the myth of 'neutrality' as its public face - whilst behind the scenes it cooperates fully with the bourgeois system it serves, supports and endorses. Although bourgeois science is continuously 'proving' the attitudes and opinions of Marx (and Engels) correct - this fact remains suppressed as the bourgeois system itself does not want the masses 'knowing' or 'understanding' this, and thereby being 'influenced' into 'changing' the dynamics of the 'class' that runs and administers Western society. It is probably correct to say that the world prior to the rise of capitalism (and the bourgeoisie control of society) possessed a much more uninhibited and fertile ground for 'free thought' (outside of religion) than it does today - but that without Marx (and Engels) to focus this thought, it lacked the potential for meaningful Revolution!
The Buddha developed a system that generates the conditions of ‘inner’ Socialism by uprooting greed, hatred and delusion from the functionality of the ordinary human mind. Through a corresponding physical behaviour that is ‘free’ of greed, hatred and delusion, Socialism In the ‘outer’ world is built. The Buddha’s path is an expression of early Socialism that places the emphasis upon the individual ‘freed’ from the collective tyranny of the faceless caste-system. Marx and Engels, by way of contrast, denies the ultimate validity of the individual, and instead defines the collectivity of ‘class’ as the only genuine driving-force behind any and all genuine Revolutionary action. Things are not quite this simple, for instance, as the Buddha (whilst advocating the ‘disciplining’ of the individual mind) describes how the notion of ‘self’ (that is, the ‘individual’) is a culturally conditioned concept with no basis in material reality. The ‘Sangha’ in Early Buddhism may well be an indication of the formation of an early-class system. In this case, made-up entirely of ordained Buddhist monastics whose function was to preserve, practice and convey the ‘Dhamma’, or Buddha’s enlightened Teaching. The non-ordained laity, by way of contrast, circumnavigated the Sangha and drew inspiration, guidance and support from it. The Sangha of Early Buddhism was a primitive ‘Communist Party’ defined around the concept of ‘membership’ and ‘non-membership’. The ‘members’ (monastics) conditioned the ‘non-members’ (laity) to develop to the extent where they were psychologically and physically prepared to become Buddhist monastics themselves. Although all Buddhist monastics are ‘equal’, it is also true that the Buddhist monastic community is led by the eldest (and ‘wiser’) strata of the population. This is generally comprised of those monks and nuns who have been ‘ordained’ the longest and not necessarily those who are the eldest in the (literal) chronological sense. These qualified elders had spent a lifetime carefully studying the Dhamma, teaching and advising others, as well as personally putting into practice each minute element of the teaching. In this sense, this ‘inner core’ of the Buddha’s elite disciples formed what might be termed a ‘Polit-Buro’ concerned with the perpetuation of an ideological purity and orthodoxy.
Later, with the liberalisation of Buddhism, the term ‘Sangha’ was expanded to include not only the ordained Buddhist elite, but now also included all lay-people who considered themselves a ‘follower of the Buddha’ (but not those ordinary people who did not support Buddhism). This expanded the membership of this primitive ‘Communist Party’ to include a non-ordained laity. Furthermore, Buddhist monastics lost their ‘elite’ status and became quite literally ‘beggars’ who existed in a privileged position (where they did not have work or participate in family life), that was ‘inferior’ to the lowest lay-person! Why was this? Everything each monk or nun used was not owned by them per se, but was the collective property of the monastic community ultimately provided by the hard-work of the lay-community that had provided it! Now, with the biographies of Hui Neng (the Sixth Patriarch of the Chinese Ch’an tradition), and the Indian merchant Vimalakirti (the ‘married’ contemporary of the historical Buddha) were well-known, lay-practice within Buddhism was transformed into ‘matching’ or even ‘transcending’ that of the Buddhist monastics. Although a profound example of democratisation, Buddhism today is still led by an elite monastic core, although with one or two lay-practitioners now included in the ‘Polit-Buro’! As the Buddha ‘rejects’ greed, hatred and delusion, it is inherently anti-capitalist. It is a philosophical and ideological impossibility for Buddhism to follow or advocate the predatory capitalist system. Buddhist meditation is a Proletariat device for clearing the human mind of the conditioned (habitual) patterns that generally define human society. As the Buddha states that ‘rebirth’ and ‘karma’ do not exist in the post-enlightened state – it is logical to assume that ‘rebirth’ and ‘karma’ do not exist in the pre-enlightened state. These two concepts only appear to exist because they are common elements of pre-Buddhist (Indian) religion that many Buddhist practitioners brought with them when they decided to approach the Buddha for discipleship. The Buddha used these terms to inspire morally ‘pure’ actions on the physical plane so that the inner mind could be more readily transformed through meditation. Only when advising advanced practitioners did the Buddha decide to ween them off of these childish concepts of religiosity. As there is no ‘rebirth’ or ‘karma’, the Buddha’s path is a purely material ideology centred around the Vinaya Discipline which modifies the external behaviour so that the inner mind (and its functionality) can be permanently modified into a Proletariat (enlightened) state. Awareness probably preceded rational thought by millions of years within human evolution. Long before humans were ‘human’ they traversed various species of animals and started their evolutionary development with a vague ‘awareness’ of being ‘here’ - before learning to visually distinguish between light and dark. This progressed to mediating with the environment through violent instinct before finally developing the ability to produce rational thought. The ‘vague awareness’ that distinguished the primordial life from inert matter has never left humanity and has been continuously misconstrued to represent and justify the ‘religious’ instinct. Whereas this ‘vague awareness’ used to ‘sense’ the dark (tree) canopy within which early humanity existed – today it is used to ‘imagine’ the presence of God (or some similar imaginary underlying substance). Worshipping God today was worshipping the (tree) canopy yesterday. From the canopy all life has emerged and is sustained, and to the canopy all life shall return. A dark damnation lies below – whilst a limitless ‘brightness’ exists above! The mistake of human perception is a basic ‘inversion’ of reality. Whereas the canopy ‘pre-exists’ each new life born into it – the human ‘awareness’ of the canopy DOES NOT pre-exist the sensing of the canopy each new life experiences when born into it! The idea that human ‘awareness’ pre-exists the individual beings that experience its presence is a major misconception and error of judgement. Unlike the pre-existing canopy which possesses a separate and distinct material history outside of the minds and bodies of those who are born into it – the capacity for human ‘awareness’ does not possess an ‘external’ origination (which would see it projected or broadcast into each human mind from afar) - but originates within the bio-chemical deep structure of the psychic fabric of each separate brain-mind nexus. Although human consciousness is a special organisation of matter, this ‘awareness’ emerges from a number of specific bio-chemical reactions which create the illusion of lucidity in the mind – a lucidity which serves to ‘reflect’ and ‘mimic’ the world of external materiality. This is the correct chain of events and pathway of logical evolutionary development despite the religious urge to perceive reality the wrong way around. The point is that nothing can be known to exist outside of ‘awareness’ for each human-being regardless of the external world pre-existing and post-existing each individual life. Material existence carries on regardless of the status of each individual human existence. Awareness begins, for sake of argument at the point of conception and ENDS at the point of bio-chemical death. Admittedly, during the dying process raw awareness may be the last human agency of communication to dissolve – but dissolve it undoubtedly will - leaving no sensory-capacity to discern the imaginary world of religiosity!
The German Ideology - Part I: Feuerbach.Opposition of the Materialist and Idealist Outlook9/22/2021 [7. Summary of the Materialist Conception of History]
This conception of history depends on our ability to expound the real process of production, starting out from the material production of life itself, and to comprehend the form of intercourse connected with this and created by this mode of production (i.e. civil society in its various stages), as the basis of all history; and to show it in its action as State, to explain all the different theoretical products and forms of consciousness, religion, philosophy, ethics, etc. etc. and trace their origins and growth from that basis; by which means, of course, the whole thing can be depicted in its totality (and therefore, too, the reciprocal action of these various sides on one another). It has not, like the idealistic view of history, in every period to look for a category, but remains constantly on the real ground of history; it does not explain practice from the idea but explains the formation of ideas from material practice; and accordingly it comes to the conclusion that all forms and products of consciousness cannot be dissolved by mental criticism, by resolution into “self-consciousness” or transformation into “apparitions,” “spectres,” “fancies,” etc. but only by the practical overthrow of the actual social relations which gave rise to this idealistic humbug; that not criticism but revolution is the driving force of history, also of religion, of philosophy and all other types of theory. It shows that history does not end by being resolved into “self-consciousness as spirit of the spirit,” but that in it at each stage there is found a material result: a sum of productive forces, an historically created relation of individuals to nature and to one another, which is handed down to each generation from its predecessor; a mass of productive forces, capital funds and conditions, which, on the one hand, is indeed modified by the new generation, but also on the other prescribes for it its conditions of life and gives it a definite development, a special character. It shows that circumstances make men just as much as men make circumstances. This sum of productive forces, capital funds and social forms of intercourse, which every individual and generation finds in existence as something given, is the real basis of what the philosophers have conceived as “substance” and “essence of man,” and what they have deified and attacked; a real basis which is not in the least disturbed, in its effect and influence on the development of men, by the fact that these philosophers revolt against it as “self-consciousness” and the “Unique.” These conditions of life, which different generations find in existence, decide also whether or not the periodically recurring revolutionary convulsion will be strong enough to overthrow the basis of the entire existing system. And if these material elements of a complete revolution are not present (namely, on the one hand the existing productive forces, on the other the formation of a revolutionary mass, which revolts not only against separate conditions of society up till then, but against the very “production of life” till then, the “total activity” on which it was based), then, as far as practical development is concerned, it is absolutely immaterial whether the idea of this revolution has been expressed a hundred times already, as the history of communism proves. Once the mind is emptied of all its reflective junk and habitual patterning of responses – there is nothing left but the reality of ‘matter’ and the ‘space’ within which it manifests. Within the universe, ‘space’ is by far the most prevalent aspect of reality – with ‘matter’ forming a relatively small amount of data. In the mind, this outer reality appears reflected in the reality that ‘thoughts’ appear to ‘arise’ (and pass away) within a boundless and ‘empty’ space. Although probably ‘imagined’ - this inner manifestation of the outer universe certainly seems to be a valid reflection. This explains why Buddhist ideology traditionally equates thought-constructs with material objects – and the psychic-space they appear within - with the outer space that sets things apart and serves to define exactly where physical things are in relation to one another. It just so happens that the philosophical conclusions of Quantum Theory – which explains the outer and inner world – does appear to coincide with Buddhist thinking, in as much that sub-atomic particles (like ‘thoughts’) seems to arise out of nothing in the void, and return to the void once their function is complete. Of course, just ‘why’ this seems to be the case is a matter of conjecture if it is acknowledged that the mind exists within the brain and has no real way of ‘knowing’ exactly what is going on outside of its bony entombment. The fact that the brain constructs the mind and uses the senses of the body to the extent that it does is truly remarkable! This is correct even if it is acknowledged that all the knowledge the brain possesses is ‘imagined’ and is something like a very well-constructed, educated guess. If a practitioner, however, sits and ‘empties’ the mind of all its conditioned junk, he or she will arrive at an innate appreciation of the pristine matter that comprises the universe! We are nothing but ‘matter’ that has become aware of its own presence – with everything else merely being a matter of construction! There is no other reality beyond this material reality. This remains true no matter how much the human mind would like to imagine otherwise. Indeed, the human capacity to ‘imagine’ has been one of the driving forces behind human evolution, to the extent where humanity is now prepared to admit this reality and transition beyond it! Marx quite clearly saw through the ‘fog’ of religion – which is a type of pseudo-science developed around human frailty and longing. Religion is not real no matter how sincere our wish in its constructs might be. Belief does make that which purely ‘imaginary’ manifest as if it were materially ‘real’. Buddhist meditation ‘empties-out’ the garbage so-to-speak, and conveys humanity into a purely ‘modern’ state of mind that is able to directly perceive the material reality of existence, and fully comprehend the ideology of Marxist-Leninism!
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AuthorAdrian Chan-Wyles PhD - Political Commissar and BMA (UK) Historian & Researcher. Archives
April 2024
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