Pain can exist without desire not to experience it
Yes, I agree. There's suffering caused by holding onto certain ideas beyond the point they are useful or practically applicable and then there's physical pain.
My read of Buddhism is more about going with the energy flows around us rather than attempting to divert those flows.
Energy flows? Could you please be more literal? If it's a metaphor for something.
Not necessarily as a means to be free from suffering but rather in acknowledgement and reification of ones place within the universe.
Reification of ones place within the universe? Do you mean the acceptance of one's place in socio-economic hierarchies rather than rebelling against them?
I feel like the bigger picture is lost
What is the bigger picture? Socio-economic factors determining social structures?
a paradox of desiring to be free of desire.
Just view it as a simple pragmatic tool, as a crutch till you can walk, as a means to an end. If desiring to be free from desire leads to the reduction of desire then the contradiction doesn't really matter. Perhaps the next step from there is to get rid of the desire to be free from desire itself but even if it's not, it's still a net gain in peace and clarity of mind.
If instead the focus is on the flows around us and how we effect them
Again I am not exactly sure what you mean by "flows around us" but if you mean having an affect on the material world there's a limit to how much we as individuals can affect the world. For instance we can't stop ageing and death.
Little wonder that Buddhism took off in places with ridged caste systems
It's funny you say that, cause I hear that a lot on a certain imageboard too. Look, if you want to you can interpret Buddhism as anti-caste system, so I think it's a matter of people's intention in reading a text, especially religious and complex ideological texts which can be highly ambiguous.
it's now taking root in the west where a new caste system is currently crystalizing.
I am not sure about America but in Europe I see more of a turn towards European Paganism than Buddhism... Then again Buddhism in places like Japan has been an upper class thing, so there's a remote possibility that the ruling caste picks it up and then forces it on the masses. It's just that when I look demographic projections, I don't really see a massive spike in the percentage of Buddhists.
These are quotes/paragraph from a philosopher of the Kyoto School of Japan Keiji Nishitani in which he describes his zen inspired metaphysics maybe it ties into or clarifies what you are saying or not but maybe it can clarify some stuff:
"Sunyata is the point at which we become manifest in our own suchness as concrete human beings, as individuals with both body and personality. And at the same time, it is the point at which everything around us becomes manifest in its own suchness. As noted before, it can also be spoken of as the point at which the words "In the Great Death heaven and earth become new" can simultaneously signify a rebirth of the self. Even though this be spoken of as a "rebirth," what is meant here is the appearance of the self in its original countenance. It is the return of the self to itself in its original mode of being."
"To say that a certain thing is situated in a position of servant to every other thing means that it lies at the ground of all other things, that it is a constitutive element in the being of every other thing, making it to be what it is and thus to be situated in a position of autonomy as master of itself. It assumes a position at the home-ground of every other thing as that of a retainer upholding his lord. The fact that A is so related to B, e, D . .. amounts, then, to an absolute negation of the standpoint of A as master, along with its uniqueness and so, to its "being." In other words, it means that A possesses no substantiality in the ordinary sense, that it is a non-self-nature. Its being is a being in unison with emptiness, a being possessed of the character of an illusion. Seen from the other side, however, the same could be said respectively of B, C, D . . . and every other thing that is. That is to say, from that perspective, they all stand in a position of servant to A, supporting its position as master and functioning as a constitutive element of A, making it what it is. Thus, that a thing is -its absolute autonomy-comes about only in unison with a subordination of all other things. It comes about only on the field of sunyata, where the being of all other things, while remaining to the very end the being that it is, is emptied out. Moreover, this means that the autonomy of this one thing is only constituted through a subordination to all other things. Its autonomy comes about only on a standpoint from which it makes all other things to be what they are, and in so doing is emptied of its own being."
Yes, I agree. There's suffering caused by holding onto certain ideas beyond the point they are useful or practically applicable and then there's physical pain.
Energy flows? Could you please be more literal? If it's a metaphor for something.
Reification of ones place within the universe? Do you mean the acceptance of one's place in socio-economic hierarchies rather than rebelling against them?
What is the bigger picture? Socio-economic factors determining social structures?
Just view it as a simple pragmatic tool, as a crutch till you can walk, as a means to an end. If desiring to be free from desire leads to the reduction of desire then the contradiction doesn't really matter. Perhaps the next step from there is to get rid of the desire to be free from desire itself but even if it's not, it's still a net gain in peace and clarity of mind.
Again I am not exactly sure what you mean by "flows around us" but if you mean having an affect on the material world there's a limit to how much we as individuals can affect the world. For instance we can't stop ageing and death.
It's funny you say that, cause I hear that a lot on a certain imageboard too. Look, if you want to you can interpret Buddhism as anti-caste system, so I think it's a matter of people's intention in reading a text, especially religious and complex ideological texts which can be highly ambiguous.
I am not sure about America but in Europe I see more of a turn towards European Paganism than Buddhism... Then again Buddhism in places like Japan has been an upper class thing, so there's a remote possibility that the ruling caste picks it up and then forces it on the masses. It's just that when I look demographic projections, I don't really see a massive spike in the percentage of Buddhists.