I think a lot of Buddhists would disagree with your political nihilism...

edit:
and this

is borderline conspiracy theory drivel.

Yes. For once, it kinda seems possible that you very well may be among the only ones who fail to grasp the differences and complexities and importance of this election--who fail to grasp the very real things that are at stake here. s5 illustrated that perfectly; your "rise above it" crap is so phenomenally insulting to so many people in this country and in this world. No matter how much pot you smoke or how much non-Western philosophy you think you understand, this point of view you're espousing amounts to nothing more than a failure to grasp and to understand.

I have a hard time believing that eyes are capable of rolling harder than my eyes are rolling right now.

Yes, it is worth keeping in mind that you shouldn't lose your shit on an absolute scale if things don't go the way you feel is best in this election. Losing your absolute shit isn't a good thing. But aside from that, I find very little, if anything at all, worthwhile in this article--and again, my eyes are rolling at a pace and with a kind of force that could very well break records.

Hey Brad I've read and own your books. It disappoints me that this is your view! I will be promptly placing your books in the circular file! Good luck with your view points and perspectives!

You don't agree that voting is good?

Lame.

Are our choices really limited to wound-up over excitement and total apathy? I'm certainly not the least bit apathetic about the political process. That's why I'll be voting. This reaction reminds me of Bush saying "You're either with us or you're against us."

People enjoy getting excited, I suppose. But I don't think it helps very much. The same craving for over-excitement and hyper-stimulation is what leads to war and conflict.

We desperately need a way out of the mess the world is in before we destroy ourselves completely. Yet we keep doing the same things over and over again, calling it "right wing" this year and "left wing" the next. It's all a manifestation of exactly the same thing. I find neither extreme convincing at all.

You quoted Mr. Sawaki, who noted that politicians were "idiots" for attempting to rally votes, that people were "immature" for getting worked up about politics and then said "the world turned out alright, didn't it?" If that's not apathy, or at least apathetic, then I'm not quite sure what it is. It's certainly dismissive and arrogant.

But they're immature idiots for doing so.

So hey man, go with the flow!

Totally disagree on every level. This is just a massive, massive oversimplification. Moreover, not all "conflict" is bad or counter-productive. Was the civil rights movement the same kind of thing that leads to war and conflict? If so, were they "not helping very much"? Were they "Idiots!"? Were they "immature" for getting passionate about something that they cared about? And if not, what makes now different?

This is the problem with the above article: You wanted to make a salient point that people shouldn't necessarily kill themselves if their guy loses. Fine, makes a lot of sense. But in making that point, you chose to insert all sorts of platitudes and back-handed insults at people who actually participate in the political process at all levels. You now justify those insults by saying "well, to me it doesn't matter much" and completely ignore the fact that other people don't have your experience and other people have a lot more to gain and lose from the political process than you do.

Again, I don't know dick about Buddhism, but it seems to me that any healthy philosophy should encourage its adherents to step outside themselves for the sake of perspective.

Right. You're non-partisan. Fine. This does not give you license to infer that everyone who gets passionate about politics is an idiot, nor does it mean that everything's gonna turn out just fine if we just chill out a little bit.

Wait, is it two "extremes" or are they "the same thing"? I'm confused.

I'm tempted to write a pretty long response here, but I'll keep it short. I don't know much about Buddhism either, but I do know a bit about Daoism, and Zen is something of an amalgamation of both. Daoism was a philosophical counterpoint to Confucianism, which put a nearly religious emphasis on civil service. Instead of being a good civil servant like the Confucian gentleman, the Daoist Sage was supposed to be somewhat aloof from the affairs of the world, and to order things subtly, by virtue of his own enlightenment, rather than by service and a public good example. The Dao De Jing talks about a sort of philosopher king, who structures the empire so that people do the right thing without ever really knowing the emperor exists. Zhuangzi, the other main text of the Daoist philosophical cannon, talks a lot about being useless. In one notable passage, Zhuangzi says that rather than being a ceremonial tortoise shell decked out with jewels in the palace, assisting the emperor with conduct the proper rituals, he'd rather be a tortoise dragging his tail in the mud (better to stay home and romp through the swamp than slave away in the palace.) In another passage, he talks about the uselessness of discourse, asking if you and I get in an argument and you win, does that mean that you're right, or just that you blow more hot air. The philosopher Yang Zhu took it even further, saying he wouldn't sacrifice a hair on his own head to benefit the entire world.

Now, I'm making Daoism out to be very selfish here, and I don't want to give you the wrong impression. There's a whole lot more to it than that, and it is very much concerned with the good of the world. Daoism was simply another way of ordering the universe, dealing less with public life and more with personal enlightenment. The life of the poet Han Shan is a good example of this. Han Shan went through the Confucian exam system (kind of like a bar exam, a civil service exam, and a test of calligraphy, classical poetry, and rote memorization, and every other final you've ever had all rolled into one.) He passed, but only high enough to qualify him for a mid level civil service position. Disaffected, he moved up into a cave in the mountains above a monastery, and wrote Daoist poetry on rocks and bark. The monks of the monastery would collect the poems and leave him bowls of rice. Han Shan was a Daoist, but was canonized as a Zen Bodhisattva.

Whew. That was the short version. The point? Zen is rooted in a very, very long tradition of scoffing at the hustle and bustle of the political world. I can understand Mr. Warner's concern about Zen leaders entering the political fray, when the philosophical tradition Zen comes from finds less meaning in political struggle than in the 'blowing of the wind on hollow reeds.' There are few things less Daoist, and by extension I imagine less Zen, than a presidential debate. I'm not endorsing it or saying I agree, but of course the Zen position is "don't take the world (or the election) so seriously that you forget about your own path to enlightenment." Since we pay Brad to give us the Zen perspective, we can hardly fault him for doing so.

s5 said:
Wow, it's so awesome and refreshing to hear the unique point of view that the ebb and flow of politics makes very little difference in the grand scheme of things.

I'll be sure to relay that information to some of these people:

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

Said better than I would have been able to.

Perhaps it's because I'm a bit of a simpleton, but I get a lot of the points Brad made. Don't work yourself into a frenzy, because making a choice in anger is not always the best choice. So many discussions I've had with people make there choices for president very black & white (no pun intended) - no room for discussion, no grey areas, nothing. Plus, too many people are making this a religious issue ("I don't want no Muslim president", "Baby killing is a sin", blah blah blah). With the "vote stealing" scandals of the last two elections, it's fairly easy to see why people are apathetic - even when you do vote, they find a way to make it not count.

Vote with your mind, not with your heart.

Ahah, hyperbole a classic rhetorical tool, maybe not so often recognized for it being as it is.

Having viewed a good part of the first pres. debate, I've developed the impression that both candidates give a good damn about the state of the nation. Of course, every single goddamned special interest would disagree with this, their wanting us all to view things from their bright shiny perspectives, and to ignore everything else that we actually know. I think that's about where the rot of the tuna begins.

Hey, but if anyone has something to lobby kneejerk opinions about, it's gotta be politics right?

Im with Brad on this one

Yes, I'm glad you've thrown in with the people who don't give a shit about the deaths in Iraq because, y'know, Buddha or something.

AANG SHOULDA KILLED OZAI!

(jk)

cause I totally said that

Then you should probably flesh out exactly what you do mean, then. Brad seems to think Bush having gotten "elected" twice didn't make a whole lot of difference, dig?