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9 - Compassion and Confrontation: Dialogic Experiments with Traditions and Pathways to New Futures

from Part II - Rethinking Knowledge

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2013

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Summary

Introduction and Invitation

Compassion is a key theme and foundation of life in paths of Buddha. It means to share in the suffering and joy of others. According to the Dalai Lama, this is the foundation of Buddhism, especially Tibetan Buddhism. Compassion heals and makes new ways of human development and social transformations possible. But compassion needs to be accompanied by confrontation: the courage to confront those parts of self and society which do not help us to blossom and realize our potential. In my recent visit to China and Tibet (July–August 2009) I saw images of Buddha as well as the Goddess Tara with swords in their hands. This is an example of compassion being accompanied by confrontation. The present chapter discusses compassionate confrontation as an important part of experiment with traditions in Buddhism and explores the contribution of Kashmir, especially the traditions of Kashmir Saivism, on Buddhism in realizing paths of compassionate confrontation.

Dynamic Harmony and Dynamic Sunyata and Pathways of Compassionate Confrontation

Compassion and confrontation are meditative verbs of co-realizations. It is compassion that enables us to confront even our friends, not only our enemies, giving rise to emergent pathways of compassionate confrontation. Compassionate confrontation is pulsated by the simultaneous flows of dynamic harmony and dynamic sunyata, or dynamic emptiness.

Type
Chapter
Information
Knowledge and Human Liberation
Towards Planetary Realizations
, pp. 165 - 170
Publisher: Anthem Press
Print publication year: 2013

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