For me the most obvious place where a Buddhist position differs from the mainstream progressive left is on the question of anger. When I see a self-proclaimed Buddhist advocate that people be angrier about racial or gender issues, I always wonder why they're even bothering with Buddhism in the first place. They could just be a normal progressive leftist who isn't a Buddhist; their Buddhism does not appear to be making a difference.
Yes I’ve wondered about anger a lot too. I think some lean more into Vajrayana teachings which might give it a different spin, like Lama Rod. But I would say that within anger the hurt is valuable and to be embraced (vedanā) while the aversion/hostility in it is to be let go of.
That's an interesting take. Śāntideva's is very different: the hurt or frustration (daurmanasya) that causes anger is itself something to learn to avoid. Undesirable events don't cause the hurt by themselves; what causes it is the combination of those events with our own clinging and resistance, which are what we should train ourselves out of.
I can make sense of Śāntideva's point too. Mental suffering (daurmanasya) is the outcome of aversion in the Pali abhidhamma, and that applies to the suttas as well in most cases, though there seems to be the possibility of an initial unpleasant mental stimulus that's not preceded by aversion to a painful/unpleasant sensory stimulus. Eventually one learns to avoid that famous second arrow, and to sublimate the tendency to reject the unpleasant into renunciation.
For me the most obvious place where a Buddhist position differs from the mainstream progressive left is on the question of anger. When I see a self-proclaimed Buddhist advocate that people be angrier about racial or gender issues, I always wonder why they're even bothering with Buddhism in the first place. They could just be a normal progressive leftist who isn't a Buddhist; their Buddhism does not appear to be making a difference.
Yes I’ve wondered about anger a lot too. I think some lean more into Vajrayana teachings which might give it a different spin, like Lama Rod. But I would say that within anger the hurt is valuable and to be embraced (vedanā) while the aversion/hostility in it is to be let go of.
That's an interesting take. Śāntideva's is very different: the hurt or frustration (daurmanasya) that causes anger is itself something to learn to avoid. Undesirable events don't cause the hurt by themselves; what causes it is the combination of those events with our own clinging and resistance, which are what we should train ourselves out of.
I can make sense of Śāntideva's point too. Mental suffering (daurmanasya) is the outcome of aversion in the Pali abhidhamma, and that applies to the suttas as well in most cases, though there seems to be the possibility of an initial unpleasant mental stimulus that's not preceded by aversion to a painful/unpleasant sensory stimulus. Eventually one learns to avoid that famous second arrow, and to sublimate the tendency to reject the unpleasant into renunciation.