The Melancholy of Siddhartha

"You have learned my art well, Siddhartha. Some day, when I am older, I will have a child by you. And yet, my dear, you have remained Samana. You do not really love me -- you love nobody. Is that not true?" (59)

Siddhartha had maintained a control over himself. Wisdom, truth, and ethics, for Siddhartha comes in the way of self-control, possession, "they have not the wisdom and guide within themselves." The deepest insight, the organizing logic of his wisdom is stated in the following:

"But a few others are like starts which travel one defined path: no wind reaches them, they have within themselves their guide and path. "Meditation, thinking and fasting" for him helps him to possess himself and not to give over to others. Even in the sexual acts with the most beautiful Kamala. He never gives himself, he loves someone else, so says Kamala, and this love is directed towards the self as a way of finding the divine internally. The starting and the central node/locus of love is the self. Every experience, every care, every love is redirected towards the self and stays enclosed. Self-possession becomes the key. The vision of self-sufficiency becomes the doctrine/dogma by which the transcendence is realized. Hermann Hesse, a twentieth century German-born Swiss appropriates Eastern religion to realize the vision of the self. The reappropriation of all things Indian (true Aryan) has a long history in Europe. Buddhism is colonized to realize European vision of the self-sufficient self. 

In contrast, we read Psalm 42, there is a cry of dereliction. It is a cry that can only be made by those who have given themselves over to another. This is exactly what whiteness cannot do. The boundary of the self is never to be violated. To do so is death and such a death that is not self-possessed is Sheol, hell from which there is no return. 

Hope in a Fragile World, a Presentation to Christian World Service | Duke University

http://www.cws.org.nz/

Christian Church World Service | Hope in a Fragile World

March 11, 2010-02-15

Arnold Sang-Woo Oh

I was in Seoul, Korea couple of years ago at a conference for North Korea where there was a large gathering of international missionaries who were interested in North Korean missions. The first speaker who greeted the delegation was high profile leader of Korean missions. He said in 1985 there were 500 full-time Korean missionaries who gathered together in Wheaton Illinois and annual per capita income was $500. In 1992 there was 12,000 full-time missionaries and the annual per capita income was $12,000, and he said that by year 2025 (or in relative near future) he believed and was working towards a goal of 200,000 full-time missionaries and per capita income of the same. It begs the question how is the hope of the gospel flow seamlessly through the same channel of hope with capitalism? The mark of success of hope of peoplehood was framed in terms of nation-state, capitalism and missions. In short, he had a colonized vision of hope.

To borrow from Alasdair MacIntyre’s book Whose Justice, Whose Rationality we have to ask the question, “Whose hope, whose fragility?” These words, "hope" and "fragility" do not exist in a vacuum but have a significant historical and cultural cache. Justice, peace, equality, freedom are words that we often use without mind to the long history of development of sense of fragility in various parts of the world. Fragility is has a particular tradition in modernity (a systems of economic, political, and social governance in contemporary period) particularly since colonialism. They are often associated with words like colonialized, Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, Latin America, black, feminine, dependent, poor, uncivilized, un-Christian, war-torn, or underdeveloped, developing, etc. Hope, conversely, has a mirror tradition. It is typically associated with white, European, American, masculine, self-sufficient, developed, modern, etc.

There is a colonialization of hope because there is a colonialization of identity. It is rooted in the exploitation of people's fragility, an inescapable condition of being a creature. To place ourselves in the role of mediation between people's experience of fragility and hope – vis-à-vis mission – is to say that we are translators of hope. This is task that requires much self-examination and incredible amount of humility. 

To help the poor, relieve disasters, etc. no doubt is helpful but we must uncover/unveil the ways in which we frame the problems of the world, and the motivations that drive us for actions. Who are we? What is my fragility? What is my risk? What am I risking in this process?