2.5.2011: Year 18
I need to start writing again. It’s been a few months. Mostly I have been faithful to my mindfulness regime, mixed in with some work and family events that the mindfulness has helped me see more clearly.
I had pretty much dropped Kingsley’s writings on the origins of Western culture as too vague to be useful. And in his latest book on Mongolian shamanism planting linking Apollo and Pythagoras---well, it’s an electrifying thought---but I don’t understand what to do with it.
In any case, yesterday I finished listening to Gary Null‘s discussion about it with Peter Kingsley. Some of Kingsley’s words rekindled my curiosity. One of the questions was about how educated Westerners have been looking to Buddhism as a pure and untainted form of spirituality. Kingsley replied that these eastern forms are helpful and therapeutic, but we must not forget to be loyal to our western culture.
He went on to say that every culture has a spiritual origin and destiny and that we in the West have forgotten and strayed from the instruction packet for our culture and now we have lost the power to change or make decisions about our destiny.
Now I want to go back to the writings and try to figure out what he meant by this. What are the instructions for our civilization? What does that mean anyway? What is the purpose of culture such that even spirituality binds to it? I think he means that every culture brings something unique in being. Tibetan culture has a different pure than Western culture, and therefore no matter how helpful or therapeutic Tibetan spirituality may be, it does not the serve our purpose, or continue the song of the West.
