Monthly Archive: May 2023

Why would Australia want to align with the US against China?

Below is the text of my submission to the Australian Senate to register my grave concerns about the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarines deal.

Re: The Defence Legislation Amendment (Naval Nuclear Propulsion) Bill 2023 [Provisions]

I am writing as a concerned, and I would like to think, well-informed, Australian citizen. I study current affairs in great detail and have also made a deep study of the relevant history – especially the history and of the US-dominated NATO alliance and foreign-policy alignment of Australia with the US since WW2.

I have to say that I am a little horrified at the lack of democratic process and appropriate reflective consideration that has so far gone into the AUKUS nuclear powered submarines deal. There is a lot of very important geopolitical information (and practical information related to military strategy and technology) that should be providing context for this decision, that is being excluded from the discussion – apparently in an irrational and fearful concern on the part of the Australian government, to be seen by the US as showing absolutely un-questioning allegiance, and an absolute willingness to follow their lead. It is clear that there is also a great deal of deliberate misinformation informing this decision-making.

The pervasive assumption that Australian national security is best served by this unquestioning alliance with the US is just deeply untrue and is extremely dangerous. This is not just my view as an informed citizen in my mid-60s – it is also the view of older and wiser and even better-informed Australians. The older Australian statesmen like Paul Keating and John Lander, whose grasp on these issues comes from many decades of hand-on engagement, and of devoted service to the national interest, are of the same view. These men have really studied the economic, historical, geopolitical and national security issues that the AUKUS subs deal is supposed to be a response to, and these men have been so concerned that they have come out of retirement specifically in order to challenge to bogus assumptions to have been established in the Australian public mind – and in Australian governments of both Liberal and Labour persuasions.

Even without the benefit of seeing the horrific outcomes of the irresponsibility and lack of foresight in US foreign policy that are currently playing out so badly in Ukraine, well-informed Australians know that the US has not shown itself to be a true friend of Australia in the post WW2 period – or of any other nation for that matter. Indeed, looking back over the last 30 years, it is clear that the US has engaged in a series of truly terrible, unnecessary, foolish, and extremely expensive military adventures that have not even served the security interests of their own populations, let alone those of their allies. And what we see of US foreign policy is always just the tip of the iceberg. US funding of covert operations to achieve dominance through destabilisation and regime-change operations and other subversive activities in service of US economic interests, has always been vast in the post WW2 period – a long-established part of modus operandi of US foreign policy.

World geopolitics is rapidly changing, and now is not the time for Australia to be locking itself into an extremely expensive long-term alliance with the US. US politics is becoming increasingly irrational. As the debt-fuelled economic dominance that has been achieved due to the US dollar’s status as the world reserve currency is unravelling, this irrationality can be expected to increase. Informed Australian citizens have been watching in horror as the Australian government pulled out of its submarines collaboration with the French – a truly defensive military choice using smaller subs designed for the protection of Australian waters. In place of that more modest and appropriate naval defence strategy, we are now presented with the fait accompli of the AUKUS deal, in which we are investing massively in a long-term offensive capability against our most important economic partner – China. Nothing could be more provocative and reckless – and more profoundly undermining to the trust and collaboration with China that is so fundamental to Australian prosperity. There are over $700 million people living in the costal cities of China. All of them will be directly threatened by the presence of these submarines. Australia is better than this – morally better, and hopefully more intelligent than this also.

This is not a situation where our economic interests must be sacrificed because of an overriding national security concern – that it not what it happening. The fact of the matter is that the China threat is just a propaganda construct promoted by the US government for whom China is an economic threat – but not a military one. It is not China that is engaged in reckless military activities and the establishment of 800 military bases around the globe – it is the US that is acting in a threatening and provocative way. The irrational and dangerous US decision to arm Taiwan against China, and the US aspiration to establish Taiwan as a US base off the coast of China shows the same absurd lack of any common-sense respect for spheres of influence and for the legitimate security needs of other nations that we saw at the end of 2022 – which caused the Ukraine civil war to became a full proxy-war between NATO and the Russian Federation.

China is not a military threat to anyone because it just wants to trade and to recycle its profits into infrastructure projects around the world (not into war, geopolitical control, and military conquest around the world – as in the US model). It has developed a banking system and a national governance model that is designed to support manufacturing, technological development, and infrastructure development – and to raise the living standard, education, and health, of the whole population. Observers around the world are noticing that this ‘mixed’ and pragmatic economic model creates wealth much more effectively than does the more ideological ‘financial’ capitalism of Wall Street and the City of London. So, China is certainly presenting a challenge to US-style banking and neoliberal economics – but the idea that it is a military threat is just a much-repeated lie put about by the powerful and well-funded lobbyists, propagandists and public relations organisations that support US economic and military hegemony and the US military-industrial complex.

Most significant among these lobby organisations in the Australian foreign policy arena is ASPI, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. Although ASPI claims to be an “independent, non-partisan think tank”, in reality it is a dangerous and deeply dishonest organisation in the view of most of the Australian citizens who have looked closely into the organisation’s actions, motivations and sources of funding. An organisation like this, far from acting in the best interests of the Australian people, allows a tiny handful of people with very base and even delusional motivations to subvert and control the Australian foreign policy narrative within the Australian parliament, the Department of Defence, and within the wider Australian population.

The creation of the Uighur ‘genocide’ narrative is just one of a series of unevidenced propaganda attacks that have been used to establish dehumanising ‘enemy images’ of the Chinese people and their government in the Australian public mind. The ‘detention centres’ identified in ASPI’s report turned out to be educational centres, and the segregated trains were also a fictionalised distortion of Chinese government support to its Uighur communities. Those who have looked objectively into the Chinese government’s response to the many hundreds (800+) of horrific Islamic jihadist bomb attacks, and the militant Islamist sentiment that has been introduced into Chinese Moslem culture from outside – from the Arab world with the covert support of malevolent US actors, as was achieved in Afghanistan (in the 80s) and Syria (since 2011) – are actually impressed by the care and restraint with which the Chinese government has approached the problem. The word ‘genocide’ in this context is just so far from the truth as to be completely ridiculous – and betrays the irresponsible and propagandistic intentions of ASPI as an organisation. It needs to be pointed out, to provide some context, that the indiscriminate slaughter that our US and UK allies have brought to the Moslem populations of Israel, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria could indeed however, be characterised as a form of genocide.

There is a great deal more that could be said. The members of the Senate are charged with a very important decision that will affect Australia for many decades and possibly for ever. I hope an appropriate degree of care is taken in the decision-making process. The purchase of these nuclear submarines throws the Australian people into a dangerous future that is full of unknowns, but there are several very obvious negative indicators – the most important being the almost complete loss of sovereignty for the Australian nation through this deal and the extremely dangerous nature of any strategic alliance with the US and the UK.

In conclusion, I would recommend a delay regarding this decision, at the very least. If, in the process of the economic unravelling that both the US and the UK are entering, those nations end up in a reckless military conflict with a second nuclear armed nation (i.e. China as well as Russia) in the next few of years, our long-term commitment to alignment with the US will only increase our chances of our becoming a target of Chinese retaliation or defensive military action – but our economy will be the first to suffer. There is neither a short-term benefit, nor a long-term benefit for us in this deal, but there is enormous danger in giving unqualified support to the US at this time. This is a time in history where nation-states should be collaborating to rein in US imperial ambitions and working to facilitate the creation of a peaceful, just, and prosperous multipolar world – not giving up their sovereignty in unquestioning support of an empire that is in decline.

I have not dwelt, in this submission, on the technical and environmental problems that are inherent in this shift to nuclear propulsion technology, but I regard the dangers and vast ongoing expense associated with nuclear waste processing and its long-term management as reason enough to reject this proposal. To adopt this technology is, by definition, short-sighted – since the current government would, out of narrow short-term self-interest be committing hundreds if not thousands of future generations to the dangerous and expensive task of containing the radioactive poisons that would result from the operation of these submarines. If there was a benefit in operating these submarines, I would still say the environmental costs and future financial costs were too much to pay. I fear that future generations will view this choice of technology as reckless and absurd.

The geopolitical landscape of planet Earth is changing rapidly, and Australia needs to keep its options open and steer its own ship. Geographically, it is well located to benefit from the economic shift of the world’s economic centre of gravity to Southeast Asia. Rather than being a lapdog, minion, lacky and passive instrument of the cynically self-serving and value-free foreign-policy of the US, Australia should be standing up tall and punching above its weight as a moral agent on the world stage – and standing against the US. We have seen a procession of fools and monsters in the halls of power in Washington – reckless men and women who would turn over the geopolitical chessboard like petulant children rather than accept the economic and geopolitical rearrangement that is currently happening. The violent three-decade period of unipolar US hegemony since the fall of the Soviet Union is coming to an end, and the world needs clear-headed diplomatic thinkers if we are to survive the transition to a just multipolar world.

While I see it as a tragic loss of sovereignty for Australia, our membership of AUKUS, has a certain un-thinking logic to it. Australia was originally part of the British empire and is still linked to the UK through its constitution; and as that empire faded after WW2, we attached ourselves to the US empire instead, and contributed with the lives of our servicemen to its horrible wars. This moment in history is calling for deeper reflection, however. It is time for Australia to be stepping up and playing its part in the creation of the new multipolar world – not enabling the addictive and psychopathic impulses of its idiot older brothers in the UK and the US.

William Roy Parker 2023

May 17, 2023

Buddha; Dharma; Sangha, and the Five Wisdoms Mandala – Preface

The text below is the Preface to a book that I am currently working on – Buddha; Dharma; Sangha, and the Five Wisdoms Mandala – the first chapter of which I will be giving away free to ‘Mandala of Love’ subscribers.

Preface

There are three archetypal ideas that have guided Buddhist tradition for twenty-five centuries – Buddha; Dharma; and Sangha. This triad of archetypal principles is often called the ‘Three Jewels’ (triratna) and also the ‘Three Refuges’. In each of the three long essays that are the chapters of this book, I have taken one of these three principles, and in the course of the book, I have set out to weave them together in way that reveals their underlying unity. Most of my readers will have some familiarity with the Three Jewels, but my intention with this book is to challenge myself, and to challenge my readers also, to go deeper into this familiar formulation. I feel a desire to bear witness to the universality of these three principles – to reveal them as universal spiritual principles – principles that go beyond the Buddhist tradition.

I believe that we live in a time of great moral, and indeed mortal, danger – a time in which, even when humanity’s potential for peace and prosperity is at its height, key institutions and cultural forces for good in the world appear to be failing. Buddha, Dharma and Sangha are, in essence, three powerful universal truths that are much needed by humanity at this time of global crisis. There is a wisdom and a natural compassion at the heart of all three of these archetypal principles, without which human civilisation will not survive.

While this idea of framing the Three Refuges as universal and absolutely necessary spiritual principles may seem ambitious, to approach the Three Jewels in a lesser way would be to reduce them, in my view – to reduce them to a merely historical, cultural and religious phenomena. This awareness of Buddhist principles as universal, or archetypal, principles, is easily lost within the dominant post-modern worldview that we are educated into in the West. Although the Buddhist tradition has, historically, seen itself as naming the universal principles at play in our psychology and in our world, I feel grateful to have also gained a particularly keen sense of this sensibility through my reading in the area of archetypal psychology (predominantly through the work of Carl Jung and his students) – which I studied concurrently with Buddhism, in my twenties.

In addition to Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, there are several other major themes that I have set out to weave through these three essays. Most obviously, there is the theme of the Five Wisdoms Mandala. When I speak of the Five Wisdoms Mandala, I am speaking of the universal mandala structure of the body-mind, which the Buddha spoke of in terms of the five cognitive-perceptual skandhas – a model which we find particularly well elucidated in the psychology of Carl Jung. These skandhas give structure to the egoic mind, and when we are completely identified with them, they appear as the components of a fixed and separate ‘self’. When, however, we start to recognise the skandhas as universal and non-personal cognitive-perceptual components, they begin to show us the structure of the Enlightened mind – the Five Wisdoms.

It is one of my most important aims in this book to communicate this dual and reconciliatory function of the ‘mandala wisdom’, The mandala wisdom provides us with both a powerful description of the various dimensions our egoic dysfunction, our suffering, our ignorance, our empathy failure and our cruelty, on one side; and a beautiful description of our sublime potentiality, on the other. The spiritual psychology of the mandala that we find in Tibetan Buddhist tradition, is extremely rich and profound, so I can only provide the barest introduction to this richness and profundity in this short book – but I hope to at least provide an overview of this vast and multidimensional inner terrain.

Not least among the themes of this book, are the closely related themes of the Trikāya Doctrine and the Middle Way. These are two important teachings through which the Buddhist tradition approaches the often-bewildering notion of non-duality. Like many Buddhist teachings it is common for these very practical teachings to be reduced to intellectual abstractions, but they each express, in slightly different conceptually useful ways, a core principle that guided the Buddha and has guided the Buddhist tradition – the principle of reconciliation by which the fundamental dichotomies between the egoic mind on one side; and the non-personal Consciousness out of which the egoic mind arises, on the other, find resolution. For me, the Trikāya Doctrine and the Middle Way have become experiential guides, in meditation and in life, and I would love to help to rescue them from their relative obscurity – especially as they are so valuable to us as we seek to relate to the multiple dichotomies of Ignorance and Wisdom that are presented to us by the mandala wisdom of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition.

This book is concerned with universal spiritual truths, so it is my hope that it is a book can be enjoyed by both Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike – and that no previous knowledge of Buddhism will be necessary for you to find it useful. Those with some knowledge of Buddhism, who may be trying to identify my philosophical and cultural affinities within the Buddhist tradition, will notice that I am coming from a perspective that is most clearly articulated in the context of the Tibetan Vajrayāna. I shall be approaching Tibetan Buddhism in a somewhat unconventional way however – so I shall try to briefly explain myself.

The three historical phases of the Buddhist tradition – the three yānas – are confusing because early Buddhism appears so different, philosophically and culturally, from the later Buddhism of the Tibetan Vajrayāna. Some observers, seeing these incongruities, even regard the development of Buddhism as a decent into confusion from an original clarity. I see an opposite process. I see a refinement process in which the core of the original inspiration of Buddhism in the Wisdom and Compassion of the Gautama Buddha has been re-articulated through successive stages of cultural adaptation, and with ever increasing philosophical clarity and sophistication. I would even venture to identify myself with this process. Like many writers and practitioners within Western Buddhism, I am, in my writing, endeavouring to contribute to the ongoing work of cultural adaptation and philosophical clarification which is the Buddhist tradition.

This question of the three-fold (or perhaps four-fold) nature of Buddhism, as a system of psychological and spiritual philosophy, is foundational. We cannot deeply embrace Buddhism without engaging with the deep incongruities that are inherent in it. This is why I give such importance to the Buddha’s foundational principle of inclusiveness and philosophical reconciliation that he called the ‘Middle Way’. I regard the Buddha’s ‘Middle Way’ as essential, both as a guide to spiritual practice, and as a method of enquiry. Without the Middle Way perspective we fall into disastrous oversimplifications and actual falsifications of the Buddha’s teachings. With the Middle Way, we can progress without falling into those polarising and dichotomous views that would inevitably exclude some aspect of the truth. The Middle Way, allows us to embrace Buddhism in its totality – and to embrace reality in its totality.

As a way of trying to conceptually grasp the historical development of Buddhism, it has been said that early Buddhism appears to present a path of ‘self-development’- or ‘self-power’; that the middle (Mahayāna) phase presents a path of devotional-receptive ‘self-surrender’ – or ‘other-power’; and the Vajrayāna presents a path of ‘self-discovery’ – in which the ‘self-power’ and ‘other-power’ principles are subtly combined and reconciled. In this way we can understand Buddhism as a three-fold and ‘nested’ philosophical system in which three apparently quite different archetypal perspectives are being blended slightly differently in Buddhism’s various cultural forms – but with each of these three elements present, at least to some degree, in every strand of the tradition.

We can therefore – perhaps over-simplifying a little – observe three main groups of practitioners within contemporary Buddhism. The first group – the ‘self-development’, or ‘self-transcendence’ group – are those whose predominant frame of reference could be characterised as a form of idealism. I am talking here of a refined and paradoxical idealism in which the Buddha is adopted as a personification of a transcendental ideal – an ideal to be striven towards by an egoic will which, on achieving the goal, will have been transcended.

While this group of practitioners may recognise that the ultimate goal involves a transcendence of the egoic dichotomy of self and other, there is humanistic faith in the power of the egoic will to achieve this transformation, and a faith in the power of egoic mind’s intelligence to guide the process. Many Westerners are drawn to this humanistic ‘self-development’ perspective, which is seen as a primary feature in the culture of the Hinayāna / Theravāda tradition – since it appears to present a view that is a natural extension of the psychological heroism of Western culture and of Judeo-Christian tradition.

The main distinguishing feature of the second group of practitioners within Buddhism – the ‘self-surrender’ group – is their incorporation of devotional practices, and their identification with the culture of the Mahayāna phase of Buddhist tradition. There are two subgroups within this group. The most obvious of these two subgroups are the ethnic Buddhists of the Mahayāna Buddhist countries of the East – those who feel a natural devotion to the Buddha; towards other Buddhist deities; and towards the revered teachers within those traditions. Within this group there is a cultural attitude that can be characterised in terms of ‘other-power’ or ‘devotional receptivity’.

In the modern West, we can distinguish a second sub-group within the Mahayānist ‘self-surrender’ group. This group, rather than practising in the pre-modern ethnic-Buddhist cultural frame of reference, tend to see ‘self-surrender’ as an extension of the ‘self-development’, or ‘self-transcendence’ perspective. For this group therefore, the ‘self-surrender’ perspective represents a stage of practice, which, at least initially, is probably better characterised as ‘devotional-heroic’, than ‘devotional-receptive’.

Whether this heroic and self-willed approach to devotional practice evolves into a more truly ‘devotional-receptive’ approach depends on the individual’s openness, or not, to recognising a bodily-felt resonance in the body-mind of the transcendental dharmic reality – the benevolent archetypal, or ‘suprapersonal’, forces within Consciousness that ultimately guide and facilitate the process of realisation. I find this notion of a transition from a devotional-heroic to a devotional-receptive perspective, to be fundamental to a deepening of practice for the Western practitioner. The egoic perspective of ‘self-power’, even if it aspires to a ‘self-transcendence’ (Hinayāna) or ‘self-surrender’ (Mahayāna) approach, can, by definition, only bring us to the threshold of realisation. It is our surrender of the hubris of the egoic mind that ultimately carries us over that threshold.

The ultimate purpose of the Mahayānist ‘self-surrender’ perspective finds expression in the ‘self-discovery’ perspective that we find most clearly articulate in the Vajrayāna Buddhism of Tibet and the Himalayan countries. I am not saying that Tibetan Buddhism is the only place where we find this complete, three-fold Buddhist vision – only that these strands within the tradition provide our best historical examples and our best sources of inspiration, within Buddhist culture, of this more comprehensive level of practice.

I hope this brief elucidation of the three archetypal perspectives with Buddhism – sometimes called the ‘three myths’ within Buddhism – helps my readers to understand where I am coming from psychologically and philosophically. While I am embracing key elements of the philosophy and archetypal psychology of the Tibetan Vajrayāna – and doing so with a deep sense of gratitude, appreciation, and devotion – I have not necessarily, in so doing, entered into the cultural identity of ‘being a Tibetan Buddhist’.

Tibetan Buddhist culture is so rich and beautiful and compelling, that Western students can find themselves ‘unable to see the wood for the trees’. I have endeavoured to avoid this pitfall. What I have sought, found, and treasured in Tibetan Buddhism are its universal elements. I hope however, that my readers will come to recognise, like myself, and like Carl Jung, that there is a vast resource of universal spiritual truths – truths that are of great importance for humanity – that are better expressed in Tibetan Buddhism than anywhere else in the history of human spirituality.

I am aware that this book presents, not a standard Buddhist view that you could read elsewhere, but a unique synthesis – the unique synthesis that my spiritual journey has brought me to. Indeed, it has been my conscious wish and intention not to inhibit the idiosyncrasies in my perspective, but to present Buddhism in a fresh and stimulating way. It is my hope that, by presenting information that has been neglected elsewhere, I have contributed to a new and clearer perspective on philosophy and practice within the tradition – a perspective which may challenge some commonly held preconceptions.

This book is not for everyone. Some will say it lacks academic rigour. Others will have preferred more anecdotes from the Pali Canon. Others will say that I am addressing the profound wisdom of Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism without having received any of these teachings formally in the context of a lineage – and that I therefore have no authority to say anything. What I have however, and what I am offering, is 40 years of passionate engagement with these key themes within Buddhist philosophy and practice, during which I have rigorously tested them in my experience.

Some will say that the approach that I am presenting is too eclectic – that I draw on too wide a range of psychological wisdom from beyond the Buddhist tradition (like that of Carl Jung) and that I give too much weight to those sources of understanding. This, however, is precisely what the ‘Mandala of Love’ approach is. It is my wish to contribute to a modern and Western approach to Buddhist wisdom – an approach that draws on numerous strands of knowledge, both within Buddhism, and outside of the tradition, in order to triangulate upon, and discern, the essence of the precious world treasure which is the universal ‘mandala wisdom’ that the Tibetan masters have given us.

Readers may want to think of me as someone who has been meditating in an isolated mountain cave for several decades – and is now returning to share the fruits of his contemplation. I apologise if some of my assertions, seem bold and insufficiently evidenced, but as meditators we are addressing a domain of experience in which our actual experience is the most valuable thing we can share. Please know that I am keenly aware that the spiritual path is different for everyone, and always needs to be tested in our own experience and adapted to individual needs. I feel bound however, to share what I know with the conviction that I feel. I need to share what is true for me. I am trusting that in doing this I will serve you best – and that you will apply whatever discernment you need to, to what I am saying.

The subtitle of this book is ‘An Introduction to the Mandala of Love – Part One’. So, it is my intention that it will be the first of at least two books, which will together provide a form of introduction or overview of the approach that I have adopted, and which I have found myself advocating on my website. Until the second book is published, you will find much more of my writing available for free on my website at https://mandala-of-love.com.

When I started publishing articles in 2017, I chose ‘Mandala of Love’ as the name of my website. While the most obvious reason for this name is my focus on the ‘mandala wisdom’ that we find in Buddhism and in the tradition of Carl Jung; no less important is my wish to make Love the focus of my writing. It has been said that, while the pursuit of Wisdom may not lead to Love, Love is most certainly the path to Wisdom. While I understand this sentiment, and have, to a large extent, been guided by it, it is not entirely true. Rather, there is a reciprocal relationship to be recognised here, and our approach requires a Middle Way – a path of integration and reconciliation.

Indeed, our lack of understanding in regard to Love, or wisdom in regard to Love, is perhaps the greatest problem facing humanity – even to the point where the world has witnessed a series of ever more violent wars, each one justified by bogus humanitarianism and the supposed goal of protection against violence. We may think we are living in a time when the weak and vulnerable are protected from gangs and psychopaths, but in reality the dynamics of violence and psychopathy are just more hidden from view. They are operating on a larger scale as dynamics within international capitalism, or have simply moved to the international arena. The apparent democracy of nation states fails to create rationality and justice in the foreign policy arena, and since our international institutions are so easily subverted, there has, for some three decades now, been no effective restraint on the violent military and economic hegemony of the US-centred unipolar world order.

I notice that even Buddhism sometimes fails in regard to this need for Wisdom in regard to Love, but this is a wider problem – one that is behind the failure of Christianity, and behind the failure of the Western liberalism that has largely taken Christianity’s place. The Buddha’s understanding of Love was very comprehensive and sophisticated however, and has much to teach us. He adopted the ancient Indian framework of the four brahmavihāras (Compassion, Loving Kindness, Appreciative Joy and Equanimity) and made it his own. Having practiced these meditations myself and found them deeply transformative, I have become a passionate advocate of them, and one of my main aims in this book is to share what they have taught me.

In pursuit of this much-needed reconciliation of Love and Wisdom, I shall be outlining in this book, the correspondences between the brahmavihāras and the skandhas – the brahmavihāras being the Buddha’s primary framework for talking about Love, and the skandhas being his primary framework for talking about Wisdom. This connection between the brahmavihāras and the skandhas is rarely made – and when it is, the correspondences made are often incorrect – but it is of enormous value for meditators, and for those intent on liberation from the constraints and inherent negativity of the self-illusion.

I very much hope that you enjoy this book, and that it will support you on your journey.

William Roy Parker

Brunswick Heads, New South Wales, Australia

May 14, 2023