On Capitalism & Nirvana...

The configuration of experience for Western and specifically American educated peoples cannot be fully understood and, therefore, transcended without something of a grasp of the driving forces of capitalism as practiced in the U.S. These driving forces are embodied in forms of consumer subjectivity and marketed as gratification in acquisition. We ignore these structuring beliefs at our peril. Ignoring them leads to the instinctual and often violent hegemonic drives evinced in today's political scene. In addition, for those of us desiring release of all "craving" and hence acts of mind, speech, and body that are themselves discomfort and suffering, becoming aware of these insidious proclivities derived and sustained by sophisticated forms of unconscious propaganda, these drives must be made apparent prior to the exercise of dispassion with regard to them. Compassion is enacted when we no longer delight in those experiences configured by the selfish drives that exclude others' happiness.