What Would Mencius Do: A Confucian Response to COVID 19

An Eclectic Humanist

This episode kicks off a new sequence, or maybe a couple of new sequences. I've been wanting to explore both Buddhism and the figure of the cyborg since first starting this little project. As it turns out, by starting with Buddhism, I can do both at the same time as much of my take on both cyborgs and post-humanism generally is rooted in that and other non-Western schools of thought. So what I think I'm going to do is devote a few episodes to the Diamond Sutra, a short and quite important Buddhist text, both for its own sake and to lay the foundation for a broader exploration. It presents a vision of human nature that, I think, poses serious challenges to a number of assumptions that Western worldviews tend to take for granted. After this sequence, I may look at one or two other worldviews that I haven't addressed yet, and then segue into the post-human themes I also want to roll around in.

As for the current installment, it sketches out some of the basics of Buddhism generally and Mahayana Buddhism specifically, so that the Diamond Sutra itself will make more sense when we dive into it next week. I hope you find it interesting, whether you are here strictly for the immediate subject matter or also for the longer narrative.