Reflections

When he opened his eyes he was blind ~ Acts 9:8 Shoes on the Danube Bank Why are we blind to those we oppress? How can we be deaf to their cries? These days we seem to care so much about our environmental footprint yet so little about stepping on the toes of people right beside us.  Why? I don't have an answer, but I do wonder if the power of rank and privilege is something to which we cling just because it feels good, and looking under our shoes something from which we run- unless a foot catches us from behind and we *feel the heat*. Saul of Tarsus was a Jew of Roman privilege who persecuted the early Christians.  Heaven only knows what possessed this man, not just to oppress other men, but hunt them down, put them in chains and murder them.  Beyond the thrill of power and privilege, a person has to be deluded.  Utter darkness. When Saul was on his way to Damascus, he had a revelation. The story goes that he heard a voice say, "Why are you persecuting...

In two recent essays[1], Glenn Wallis, author of the controversial blog Speculative Non-Buddhism, takes issue with the notion of “empathic resonance”, particularly when the existence of “mirror neurons” is submitted as evidence for the ability to “feel another’s pain”.  Glenn criticizes this notion, especially as it has been co-opted by influential Buddhist figures, because he finds that it perpetuates human bondage in sad contradiction to Buddhism’s own “emancipatory teachings”. Glenn claims that, to be more consistent with classical Buddhist teaching, the notion of "empathic resonance” needs to be replaced with a notion that is more interactive, one that would account for our responses to each other on the basis of reactions to gesture, facial expression and language, rather than on the basis of an inert “reactivity” that bypasses human agency. The purpose of this response is not to deal with Glenn’s exploration of empathy as it pertains to what he calls x-Buddhism, bu...