Tuesday, January 5, 2010

The Same Old Trick!

On the topics of Jubus, perhaps I've been hoodwinked again? It's not like it'd be the first time. Here's a thought - would it be beyond the realms of possibility for those who constitute sheepdogs amongst the Jewish flock, dismayed at the constant haemorrhaging of Jews to Buddhism, to do their usual trick and misrepresent things? After all, misrepresentation is their best and only weapon. So, perhaps there's tons of Buddhists who eschew the Jubu tag, who look back at their past Jewish identity of us-and-them / me-uber-alles with a kind of dull horror, and now strive only to ever more perfectly realise that there is no self, Jewish or otherwise.


Or let's put it another way - if such an individual did exist would they get a shiny book-deal from Faber and Faber with endless cross promotion on the rounds of the talk shows? Cut to Oprah - "Next up on my Book of the Month we talk with an author who after spending ten years in a Zen monastery had what he calls an awakening. But part of this awakening was to the 'the delusional nature of Judaism', his previous religion. He says Jewish people should likewise wake up to the fundamental wrongness of their us-and-them identification and that Buddhism provides an ideal way to do that. The book is entitled There Is No Self, Jewish Or Otherwise, and its author John Smith joins us after the break. Oh, and wait till you hear what he has to say about the Talmud! Whoo-ee, strong stuff."

Ha ha ha ha, fat chance of that! Thinking about it, such a book, if it existed, would constitute an apostasy of the highest order and would make whatever Norman Finkelstein copped look like foreplay. Instead we get books like The Jew in the Lotus: A Poet's Re-Discovery of Jewish Identity in Buddhist India by Rodger Kamanetz. Says he, "Buddhism Shmudism. I tried it and it's okay, but really it just made me more Jewish than ever!" And so it goes, every Jubu book out there has the same message: never mind the middle way, the alpha and omega are Jewish. Or to put it another way - If you're pissed off with Judaism and are wondering if Buddhism might be an alternative, well... it ain't.


Okay, so that being the case, who's to say that this apparent triumph of Jewish-first-and-Buddhist-second over Buddhist-first-and-apostatic-daylight-second isn't bullshit? Even if a shocking number of Jews were taking up Buddhism and truly leaving their ugly chosen-by-God identification behind, the Jewish media would have to a) ignore it and hope no one noticed, and b) arrange for funds and book contracts to ensure that an opposite message predominated and that Buddhism would never be seen as a pair of scissors to cut the apron strings. Given that, what are we to make of the conversation about Jubu-dom being hogged by a tiny handful of commentators each of which sings from the same songsheet?

Ayah! In amongst this, what's a mad metaphor mangler to do? Um... choose! Choose between: Judaism as an impregnable us-and-them edifice against which Buddhism is less of an indictment/threat than it is a good housekeeping seal of approval, or; Judaism as the Amityville Hotel with the owners (in between hiding skeletons and mopping up blood etc) perpetually telling all the guests that they should pay no attention to any brochures they might find from the Buddha Guesthouse up the road: "Yes, we've had a few people who tried it but they came back saying it was much better here." Cue voiceover of Mandy Rice-Davies, 'Well they would, wouldn't they?'


Choose, don't choose - or just leave it as it stands and see if there aren't some clues in amongst it. In all my reading about Jubus it appeared that several themes predominated and several were left out altogether. Permissible and oft-repeated topics are meditation, suffering, karma, as well as the fuzzy buzzwords 'spirituality', 'ancient texts', 'esoterica', and 'mysticism'. Clearly these are innocuous and may be discussed. By keeping within these boundaries Judaism and Buddhism have a lot in common, so much so they can be best buds, each in the other's fan club. "You da bomb." "No, you da bomb."

Left out of the whole conversation are the otherwise crucial words 'self' and 'selflessness'. And 'compassion'? Nowhere to be seen. These aspects of Buddhism may not be broached because were that to happen suddenly we're no longer waltzing around the edges and instead have leapt right to heart of the matter where Judaism and Buddhism have nothing in common at all. Oh, and God forbid anyone should mention the Talmud. Mind you Buddhism isn't Judaism's only friend not to know about his predilection for secret black-hearted wickedness.


Fuck it, I'm going to declare that this noisy Jubu celebration of commonality is less a warm-hearted seeking of concord than it is a means of putting the kibosh on any discussion that might cast Judaism in an unflattering light and thus lead to its further dissolution. Hell, why don't I go balls out and ask the question - Has Judaism's entire involvement with Buddhism, right from the get-go, been one of threat identification with subsequent Jewish adoption as a means of evisceration / emasculation? It works for me.

And as ever, the very trumpeting of strength and inevitability signals the 180° truth of the matter. The strength is a weakness. The inevitability is no such thing. The only certainty is change. Everything else is delusion.

17 comments:

kikz said...

ya know....

somewhere its said.. that jesus was a jew...

even he - got the fuk over it :)

nobody said...

Yeah, and as I recall the sheepdogs of the day didn't much care for that neither.

A. Peasant said...

ackshully...they started this bs with 'jesus is a jew.' he wasn't. he was a galilean, not from judah, not a pharisee -- ie: not a "jew" and they were even called jews then. so even there it's just a way to put the jewish hand in somebody else's glove and make like puppets... a technique much perfected in the meanwhile...

Penny said...

Well, I am totally confused.
Are they or are they not becoming buddhists?

If they are, though, do you not think the rank and file would keep a lid on that?

As you do seem to be wondering that, I would say, yes.

This made me think of Leonard Cohen.
Surely, you have heard of him.
Wonderful songs, really.
He is a jewbu, I guess you would say, but, he seems to be known to everyone as a buddhist.

Which gets me wondering about this whole thing?

slozo said...

People in denial of their culture . . . cognitive dissonance on a grand scale.

I remember listening to an amazing radio show way back which spoke at length on the origin of the word "jew", and how it had been literally mistranslated from Hebrew to English. From what I remember, it never should have been "jew", but "Judean", and in the bible (where the word came from) it only references a people from a certain place, with no religion or race attached. Like a Liverpudlian or Londoner or Torontonian, you see.

The word "jew" was not a word in use in the english language until the late 1700's if I recall, and it was at that time that powers conspired to create a secondary meaning to the word pronounced "you-day-an" to jew.

The cultural trappings of words are extremely important, and have played a heavy role in "jewish" conspiracies . . . ie jew, holocaust, israelite.

It is funny to think that originally, until 18th century editions came out, that Shakespeare never used the word jew (he used Iewe), and the bible never did either (Jesus referred to as Iudaeus). There was no letter J until the middle of the 18th century, you see. Is it a coincidence that for a letter that was the last to be included in the English language, so many important words surrounding this religion and christianity begin with it? Jesus, Judah/Judean, jew/jewish, Jerusalem, Jesuit, etc.

All interesting stuff, but it doesn't really explain how these jews got the idea that they were better than others, and that they were 'chosen' people by god. Or does it point us in the right direction?

At any rate, good stuff, Nobody.

kikz said...

hi there APea :)

i was crackin a joke... but i think you're right.. i think he was co-opted...

i've also heard the terms essene/nazorean used inre j the c. they were quite a different stripe. :)

if he existed, he was quite different ideologically from any heirarchical religious power structure of the day...

i'm an odd duck.. i put more emphasis on the message than the messenger...

all of the centuries of bs stripp'd away; all the meddling dogmatic noahic hands, all the nicene power-plays and voodoo, even a rewrite by sweet will for Kjames..and a later redeux by jefferson, who abhored hoo-doo...

the song remains the same.

the golden rule - treat others as you'd wish to be treated... love one another...

and the key - the kingdom of god is 'within'.

isn't a bad creed, nor bad advice.
simple and elegant.

imho, in the entirety of the misshapen perverted lump...those sentiments are the only things worthy of notice or heed.

:)

A. Peasant said...

hullo to all...didn't mean to make trouble, it just comes naturally to me haha. first off my post should have said "they *weren't* even called jews then" -laDUH -- as slozo points out. and yes kikz i know you were joking. ; ) and i'm with you on the essential points of being a good human being. it's not so damn complicated, it's just not always easy.

Bleeding Pom said...

You had me going with that photoshopped book title, you really did.

Not sure about your conclusion, though, that Jews are becoming Buddhists and are then doing a hatchet job on it to prevent any more sheep straying from the fold. Surely they're not that calculating.

nobody said...

The people who leave no stone unturned? The people who utterly dominate the media so that there is only one songsheet and everyone sings from it? In this Jewish bloc-media songsheet, every race and religion can be questioned, badmouthed, made fun of, shown in a bad light, defamed or otherwise shat on, except for one, that of its owners the Jews.

Does that not speak of 'calculating'? Otherwise in the face of such totality would you really want to run with an argument that loosely consists of 'not everything would be like that'. Wouldn't it? Isn't that what totality is?

If you want a comparison google 'scofield annotated bible zionism'. Check the timeframe for that effort. Would you call that calculating?

I'll admit that turning Christians into zionists is one thing and keeping Jews from straying is another, but actually... it's not. Defensive, offensive, they're both the same thing according to Bruce Lee. And same thing or no, if it's you against the world (and Jews are) one wouldn't get very far if one could only do one or the other.

The Jews are about nothing if not totality, and yeah they are precisely that calculating.

Bleeding Pom said...

Oh so you DO remember me. I'm not hostile: my question was asked with a wink.

;)

True story: I've just started at a newspaper and they want, for some reason I never did find out, some dummy copy. The desk editor says: "Write anything."

Oh, really? I thought. I dashed off a light-hearted dig at the practice of Jews (and Muslims) of writing G_d, explaining that the word is simply generic, isn't any deity's actual name, and that, etymologically, it comes for the Old High German meaning "voice" (cf. gutteral).

Then I segued into an aside about the striking coincidence that a deconsecrated redbrick synagogue in the downtown of the city was now being used as a takeaway joint called "The Voice".

Quite by chance I was walking past the office of the Jewish poobah who ran the Arts section just as he was being handed the piece. He looked up at me with a primaeval hatred of such intensity that I felt the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.

From then on, my job was doomed.

nobody said...

BP! Now I remember you. I was a bit vague before...

And mate, the problem with silent winks is that one can't hear them. Can you dig it? Otherwise I hope you're not deterred by being met with, um... something other than indifference, ha ha. Feel free to pile in at anytime.

Actually never mind you, I should feel free to pile in at any time. Very slack lately.

james said...

I went searching as Nobby suggested and found this to be the best of what I read in my limited search-
How Zionists Corrupted The Bible"

Interestingly, Schofield (or whoever wrote his commentaries) drew on the work of John Nelson Darby who wrote his own version of the Bible. His bible is the one used by the Exclusive Brethren, another "Chosen People" with attitudes similar to Orthodox Jews.

nobody said...

Thanks James,
And the Exclusive Brethren, eh? Link unread, straight off the bat that makes a ton of sense. Anyway thanks matey, I'm off to have a read.

kikz said...

yupyupyup... scofield/darby...



i'd this about this 'crap' years ago.. thx for the relink...james.

kikz said...

teehee.. noting the above 'brainfart' in the post above..

@@.......

nobody said...

Gesundheit!

james said...

Oh, thanks kikz, . . I thought it was me!