I think the biggest core problem with Houseki no Kuni that drags the rest of the series down is that Phos doesn’t achieve enlightenment. He has it forced onto him. And that is so incredibly not the same thing.

Phos doesn’t learn anything. He doesn’t grow or change organically. Every single change he undergoes is one forced upon him by the narrative. By the time of the hiatus, he’s been reduced so much that there’s literally nothing left of him. He doesn’t even recognize his old self or even know why he did anything in the first place. If this is meant to be symbolic of him giving up the material plain a la enlightenment, it fails because he never actually gave it up. He was violently kicked out of it by Aechmea. 

When you get right down to it, Phos has no agency. He never accomplishes anything by his own will. Everything he accomplished was due to someone else’s manipulation. It goes beyond him failing everything. He’s just a pawn in somebody else’s game. Not only is that not exactly a compelling trait in a protagonist, it also goes against what enlightenment is supposed to be, doesn’t it? Based on the literature I’ve read, walking the Eightfold Path is supposed to be incredibly difficult. You have to devote yourself to it wholly. But instead of choosing to walk it, Phos was hustled along at gunpoint.

And even then, I’m not sure he actually did hold true to the Eightfold Path. Because the Eightfold Path is one of broadening compassion, but Phos only becomes more self-absorbed as the story unfolds, forgetting his promise to Cinnabar, shattering gems left and right, asking Sensei to pray “for me” when the prayer would affect everyone, etc.

The Buddha achieved enlightenment when he mediated under the Boddhi Tree for 48 days. Nobody forced him to do that. Nobody chained him to the tree or threatened his family if he didn’t. That’s something he chose to do. It was act of will. But this series sees Phos’s choices as irrelevant. Phos didn’t sacrifice himself for everyone else’s benefit, somebody else chose to sacrifice him. Neither Phos nor Aechmea are true Bodhisattvas because one was tricked, and the other did the tricking.

Maybe that’s the point. Maybe this whole story is meant to be a deconstruction of the journey toward enlightenment. But you can’t deconstruct something without holding true to what it is, and this manga (unless there’s something I’m missing) doesn’t even seem to understand enlightenment well enough to deconstruct it.

At any rate, “The Eightfold Path actually sucks lol” doesn’t seem worth it as a core theme.

A Stroll Through Green Reddit

I love reddit.  I spend far more time there than I care to admit, but it is extraordinarily useful, so it doesn't matter really: whatever your area of interest, there's a community on there for you.  In fact, there are several.  Perhaps hundreds.  It's impossible to keep track of them all, or even of all the intersections between communities, topics, ideas and trends.  Such is the internet, and the nature of our tiny, individual brains.

Recently I've been using reddit to generate some traffic to this blog, and it's working out very nicely I have to say, so it seemed appropriate to post about some of favourite parts of this vast resource, which if you're visitor with interests in  a the world of green  a and simply living, gardening, veganism, zero waste and environmental or minimalist issues in general, you may find useful too. (Link to pages)

A quick primer on reddit culture for the uninitiated.  (If you already know what I'm on about, click here to skip this section).

1.  www.reddit.com is divided into subreddits or "subs".  Each of these has an URL that begins with "http://reddit.com/r/..." Add anything you can think of that people might want to talk about on the internet after the "/r/" and chances are you'll find what you're looking for. Some subreddit's URLs are more, shall we say, esoteric than others - /r/trees for example, isn't exactly about trees - but it's not hard to get your bearings generally speaking.  Inside reddit, subs are always referred to by their /r/URL - and typing any such sub address in a comment will automatically link to that sub.

2.  Subreddits are started and maintained by moderators or "mods", who have control over the content of their subreddit, as well as the power to ban subscribers who violate their rules. Some mods are liberal, others are very strict. Some have abandoned their subs altogether, leaving them vulnerable to SPAM, trolling or other unpleasant realities of internet life. It's usually a good idea to read the sidebar of a subreddit page and get a feel for how things work there. You are, of course, free to start your own subreddit and become a mod yourself. In theory, it's the internet at its best, though there are some very dark corners of reddit indeed. As the site has grown, its founding ethos of total free speech has come under strain with controversies surrounding subreddits that bullied, doxed, exposed and otherwise humiliated the innocent (and not-so-innocent) people.  For a tumble down that particular rabbit hole, have a look here, here, here and inside reddit itself, at /r/ShitRedditSays 3.  You have to have an account to subscribe to subreddits, and to post and comment, but not to browse the site.  Some subreddits are "closed", requiring you to have an account in order to access them, but this is the exception.  Once you're a signed up "redditor", you'll be known and referred to as /u/USERNAME - the "/u/" here functioning in the same way as the "/r/" for linking to subs.  Posts and comments you make will be public and displayed on your profile page.  For this reason, many people prefer to remain anonymous - which is one thing about reddit that still distinguishes it from social media in general.  Users sometimes have multiple or "throwaway" accounts, for various obvious reasons. That's all you really need to know, except to say what really should go without saying but on the internet often does not: remember Wheaton's Law.

"Green Reddit"

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Now for a tour of what I loosely think of as "green reddit" - the parts of the site where you can explore the kind of things that might have brought you to this blog in the first place: environmentalism, veganism, zero waste, anti-consumption, etc.  Enjoy.

r/zerowaste

13.6K subscribers.  Focused on discussion of specific, practical zero waste questions.

/r/simpleliving

Nearly 100K subscribers.  A variety of topics, ranging from the philosophical to the practical.

/r/vegan

120K subscribers.  Sometimes a little heavy on the memes and 'food porn' (which has its own subreddits, naturally, both of the vegan and non-vegan stripe) but that's to be expected for a popular sub.  Other vegan subs include /r/veganism, /r/eatcheapandvegan, /r/likeus, /r/debateavegan, /r/veganarchism and /r/animalrights

/r/frugal Over 700K subscribers.  Very active, not surprisingly with that number of subscribers, and quite "American" in its topics of discussion, but full of useful information, inspiration and ideas (/r/frugalUK sadly, is virtually empty).  Doesn't allow you to promote blog posts, but I suppose that's fair enough.

/r/minimalism and /r/minimalist The first of these is by far the larger, and tends to favour the more, let's say, superficial aspects of minimalism: design, appearance, lifestyle fetishism, and so on.  That's not to say it's useless, but it can be distracting.  /r/minimalist is stricter about that sort of thing, and ties in more closely with the zero waste, simple living philosophies. Subs like /r/climate, /r/environment and others are both large and general more "news" oriented subs, but through these, you can find yourself some more specific avenues, including:

/r/latestagecapitalism Perhaps not to everyone's taste and is pretty specific on what it will and will not tolerate politically, but well worth a look. For the darker/radical sides of environmentalism and a possible future, have a look at:

/r/dieoff

/r/collapse

/r/collapsesupport

/r/overpopulation

/r/postcollapse

/r/shtf

/r/preppers

/r/stormcoming

/r/darkfuturology

Some gardening related subs I've learned a lot from:

/r/composting

/r/vermiculture

/r/indoorgardening

/r/verticalgardening

/r/microgreens /r/succulents /r/whatisthisplant

And finally, though moving off topic slightly, I can recommend /r/antiwork, /r/anticonsumption and /r/basicincome

One way to get a handle on the quantity of information doing the rounds on reddit is through the use of 'multis'.  These collect together subrreddits (or 'subs' as they're known) into a single feed.  Here's one of mine: I call it "yes".  It has 57 subs in it at time of writing.  I add new ones as I find them, related to topics of interest relevant to me and this blog.  But I'm sure that's more than enough to be going on with.  Enjoy your stroll. Follow @apossibleworld ****** Please consider disabling your adblockers when reading this site.  I make every effort to ensure no inappropriate, rubbish or offensive advertising appears here, and nothing that is contrary to the spirit of this blog.  So it's really nothing to be afraid of.  Cheers. from Blogger http://ift.tt/2sHfJLH via IFTTT