{"id":15047,"date":"2011-10-17T12:00:08","date_gmt":"2011-10-17T11:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=15047"},"modified":"2011-10-15T01:00:44","modified_gmt":"2011-10-15T00:00:44","slug":"the-world-moves-south-and-east","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2011\/10\/the-world-moves-south-and-east\/","title":{"rendered":"The World Moves South and East"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dialogue of Civilizations, Rhodes Forum, Greece, 7 October 2011<\/em><\/p>\n

With the US Empire collapsing, parts of the West de-developing, the state system yielding to a region system with Latin America, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation-OIC and East Asia as new regions–maybe also a Russian Union with autonomy for Chechnya like for the Netherlands in the EU-European Union–the world center of gravity is, indeed, on the move.<\/p>\n

Economism has a narrow focus: growth rates, God=Mammon.\u00a0 However, what does the move mean for civilization, religion, the deeper God? Please join me in a spiritual West-South-East move.\u00a0 We know the landscapes: the abrahamic religions (judaism-christianity-islam) in the Occident, the hindu conglomerate in the middle, and the buddhist space spanning the Orient, as buddhism alone or with daoism and confucianism in East Asia.\u00a0 What are some key messages?<\/p>\n

Religions, worldviews, are at our hearts and minds.\u00a0 Huge depositories of the human experiences, religions are mixes of jewels of wisdom and the mud of negativism, reflecting traumas and glories at the hands of, or at the expense of, others.\u00a0 We drop the latter. Nobody shall tell us that we cannot search for, and select,<\/em> the jewels, but have to accept the whole package by faith.\u00a0 The jewels are the truths, the tools, that speak to us, lift us, take us closer to something above ourselves.\u00a0 The mud divides us, like doctrines of chosenness above others, of promised lands excluding others, of exceptionalism above the law for ordinary humans and lands.\u00a0 We leave it behind, for quick oblivion.<\/p>\n

And nobody shall tell us we cannot eclect<\/em> equally boldly, put rubies, diamonds and sapphires together in new ways, learning from the dialogues, going beyond, regionalizing, globalizing god.<\/p>\n

I\u2014a humanist with buddhist spots–have my jewels collection, fruits of countless dialogues around the world.\u00a0 I want to share it with you, and invite you to the same.\u00a0 Here is what I found:<\/p>\n

From judaism<\/em>: that truth is not a declaration of faith, but a process, a dialogue with no end, like in the Talmud<\/em>, not torah<\/em>.<\/p>\n

From orthodox christianity<\/em>: the optimism of Sunday Christianity as opposed to the necrophiliac Friday Christianities of the other two: Christ has risen, He is among us.<\/p>\n

From catholic christianity<\/em>: the distinction between peccato<\/em> and peccatore<\/em>, between sin and sinners, taking a stand against the sin, yet pardoning, forgiving the sinner who does the same.<\/p>\n

From protestant christianity<\/em>: the lutheran hier stehe ich, ich kann nicht anders<\/em>, here I am, I have no alternative; the significance of individual conscience and responsibility; and equality in the face of the Creator.<\/p>\n

From islam<\/em>: the truth of Sura 8:61, that when the Other shows an inclination toward peace so do you; peace breeds peace. And the truth of zakat<\/em>, of sharing with the poor.\u00a0 And the truth of islam-sala’am<\/em>, joint submission, to the cause of peace, togetherness.<\/p>\n

From hinduism<\/em>: the trinitarian construction of the world, as Creation, Preservation and Destruction, which applied to conflict means to pursue Creation by seeing conflict as a challenge to be creative, with Preservation of the parties, and Destruction of whatever generates the violence; unsolved conflict, hatred, habit.<\/p>\n

From buddhism-jainism<\/em>: nonviolence, ahimsa<\/em> to all life, to the whole earth, not only the human part and the earth-human interface.\u00a0 And as a part of this what in Japanese buddhism is known as engi<\/em>, that everything hangs together in codependent origination, no beginning, no end; nobody is totally guilty or totally innocent, we all share responsibility in reducing dukkha<\/em>-suffering and increasing sukha<\/em>-fulfillment, with liberation for all, ourselves. The tetralemma, A, B, A&B, -A&-B: either, or, both-and, and neither-nor; not only the dilemma either-or.<\/p>\n

From confucianism<\/em>: the principle of isomorphic harmony; inside ourselves-inner peace, in the family, at school, at work, harmony in society, the country, the nation, the region, world harmony among civilizations; with all levels inspiring each other.<\/p>\n

From daoism<\/em>:\u00a0 the principle of yin-yang<\/em>, the good in the bad and the bad in the good, and<\/em> the bad in the good in the bad and the good in the bad in the good, and so on; a complexity far beyond Western dualism.\u00a0 And “Share in the suffering of others; delight at the joy of others.–View the good fortune of others as your good fortune.\u00a0 View the losses of others as your own loss”.<\/p>\n

From humanism<\/em>: the idea of basic human needs<\/em>, to some extent reflected in the basic human rights<\/em> as an ethical guideline.<\/p>\n

So we move south, and east.\u00a0 We move away from the individualist consumerism into muslim we-ness and sharing.\u00a0 And from the muslim claim on the only truth valid for all forever, into the philosophy of ever changing reality.\u00a0 And we move on from a hopeless caste system resisting destruction, into the daoist-buddhist richness and the harmony of confucianism; from hopeless peace ideas, theories like “balance of power”, or “become Western”, to mutual and equal benefit.\u00a0 Guided by human basic needs and rights.<\/p>\n

The dualism good vs. evil-God vs. Satan, seductive, dangerous, yields to the sophistication of ambiguity; the yin\/yang of contradictions.\u00a0 We add to either-or the richness of neither-nor, and both-and. Conflicts looking unsolvable suddenly open up; the uncombinable can be combined.\u00a0 We leave behind the idea of an Armageddon, a final battle with enemies beyond redemption, out to do evil, in favor of the joint search for world harmony.\u00a0 And we are rich.<\/p>\n

Our jewels are many and diverse.\u00a0 We move from the sickening idea of one civilization being universal to a multipolar world in dialogue.\u00a0 And we can globalize and evolve by choosing the best.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Please join me in a spiritual West-South-East move. We know the landscapes: the abrahamic religions (judaism-christianity-islam) in the Occident, the hindu conglomerate in the middle, and the buddhist space spanning the Orient, as buddhism alone or with daoism and confucianism in East Asia. What are some key messages?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15047\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}