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For mindfulness meditation, try building up to it? Meditate for 5 minutes at first, and try to just be relaxed and focus on counting your breaths. Then build up to 10 minutes, etc. I imagine most meditators are like me and are not mindful for nearly the entire duration of mindfulness meditation. Then you can try applying it to other things in your day, like being mindful when you're tying your shoes or peeling vegetables or vacuuming or whatever. One of the things I read about was a Korean practice where you periodically, in meditation and outside of meditation, ask yourself "What is this?" as a way to train yourself to stop behaving automatically. I've found it to be quite helpful. If dissociation just makes mindfulness meditation too difficult for now, you could try something like metta meditation? In that case, you don't have to sit in the present moment exactly--as I understand it, you practice by thinking about people and allowing yourself to feel loving kindness toward them (there are good articles on how to practice it on sites like lionsroar.com). There have been times when I've felt too mentally unbalanced to want to practice quiet sitting meditation, so I've practiced metta meditation instead. It's challenging in different ways.
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Sep 30, 2019 13:39
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Paramemetic posted:Within a Tibetan Buddhist context, the answer is "whatever your spiritual master has told you, or if you do not have a spiritual master, don't worry about it because you should be finding a spiritual master first." Admittedly, though, Tibetan buddhism does make a lot of supernatural claims that are difficult for me to reconcile with the Buddha's stress on empirical skepticism. It is supremely condescending to simply hand wave them away as psychological metaphors, surely, but it is a doubt that lingers in the back of my mind. As far as finding a lama, I guess I'll just have to widen my search. The head of the lineage of the Nyingma center I visit definitely does not resonate with me. My eyebrow first went up when they mentioned his third house in Hawai'i or something to that effect. He also sniffed way too much in his prerecorded chanting. There was a general sense of starry-eyed devotion that turned me off a bit as well. I will say that Tibetan is a beautiful language and hands-down has the best script of any language. Also, Tibetan Buddhism has Ani Choying Drolma.
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Sep 30, 2019 13:53
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Now that I think about it more deeply, I think that's why I keep trying to find something in Tibetan practice to fit myself into: its beauty, its trappings and ritual, and its fascinating history and surrounding culture. That's a terribly superficial reason to choose a spiritual path, and demeaning to Tibetan practice as well. I may not be fully committed to the Theravadin orthodoxy, but neither am I ready to jump onto a path for the wrong reasons. Maybe the Thiền boat I've been on is the boat I should have been on all along, and instead of looking for another boat, I should keep my eyes on the Other Shore. It's super cheesy to say it like that, but it is an interesting realization. I certainly don't mean to say anything to demean or diminish anyone's personal practice, much less Tibetan Buddhism in general, but the more I think about it, the more I think I'm moving at a good clip and I'll take change as it comes.
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Sep 30, 2019 14:49
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Mushika posted:I will say that Tibetan is a beautiful language and hands-down has the best script of any language. This holds true right up until you start trying to read it, lmao.
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Sep 30, 2019 16:07
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Paramemetic posted:This holds true right up until you start trying to read it, lmao. Really? Why is that? Is the alphabet/syllabary/abugida difficult to wade through?
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Sep 30, 2019 16:12
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The pronunciation has drifted so far from script that almost nothing is actually pronounced as it's spelled.
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Sep 30, 2019 16:16
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Mushika posted:Admittedly, though, Tibetan buddhism does make a lot of supernatural claims that are difficult for me to reconcile with the Buddha's stress on empirical skepticism. It is supremely condescending to simply hand wave them away as psychological metaphors, surely, but it is a doubt that lingers in the back of my mind. They may be more explicit in Tibetan Buddhism but fwiw supernatural powers are prevalent in both the Pali and Sanskrit canons, so there's no real getting away from it. Not to say you should blindly believe in them though and probably not worth worrying about unless they pertain to your practice.
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Sep 30, 2019 17:08
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Paramemetic posted:... aaaalso I think I've discussed before my gripes about the Tibetan term "phowa" for "projection" referring to projecting your consciousness out of your body being interpreted by Western translators as some kind of metaphor or some poo poo. Then in the course of looking up if Marpa was a warlord or just a rich guy (lmao these are the same things it's feudal Tibet), I found out that Marpa had a son named Darma Dode. When Marpa's son died in an accident, Marpa used his miracle powers to keep him alive long enough to teach him to project his consciousness into dead bodies. Then Darma Dode transferred his consciousness into a recently deceased pigeon, flew to India, found a recently deceased child, and transferred into that body. Then he took care of that kid's parents until they died, went back to Tibet, and taught some poo poo to one of Milarepa's students. Padampa Sangye also did Phowa and stole the body of Kamalashila while Kamalashila was reanimating a corpse to clear a lake of pollution. Padampa Sangye did this because he was ugly, and apparently Kamalashila was very attractive. Padampa Sangye in Kamalashila's body then ran off into the mists of history, and Kamalashila in Padampa Sangye's ugly as hell body goes to the Himalayas and imparts Chod. The lineage of the Chod traditions are crazy. The magical powers of mahasiddha's are not just metaphorical devices showing the purification of their minds, but are real wizard powers that are seen as being totally real.
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Sep 30, 2019 18:09
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zhar posted:They may be more explicit in Tibetan Buddhism but fwiw supernatural powers are prevalent in both the Pali and Sanskrit canons, so there's no real getting away from it. Not to say you should blindly believe in them though and probably not worth worrying about unless they pertain to your practice. That's true, and not something I was unaware of, but thanks for bringing it up. Hiro Protagonist posted:The pronunciation has drifted so far from script that almost nothing is actually pronounced as it's spelled. Is that something true of only liturgical Tibetan, or is that the case with modern written Tibetan as well? Does that explain the difference between Wylie transliteration and common transliteration? Sorry if I'm nerding out on language, but it fascinates me and I'm more interested in someone's personal experience with it than textual examples.
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Sep 30, 2019 18:24
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Mushika posted:
I'll be honest, I only have experience with Standard Tibetan, so I don't know how much Classical Tibetan compares. All I'll say is that modern Tibetan is probably more accurately described as a language family rather than a singular language. Many of the "dialects" aren't mutually intelligible. Other people in the thread with more experience can definitely expand on this, as they have more experience. I've also heard that most older Tibetan scripts are readable by modern speakers because of the static nature of their spelling, which definitely is a plus for them. I've heard that Thai is similar.
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Sep 30, 2019 20:14
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Mushika posted:Really? Why is that? Is the alphabet/syllabary/abugida difficult to wade through? The alphabet doesn't belong to the language. It was developed in the roughly 600s when Dharma King Songtsen Gampo sent his minister Thonmi Anu to India with instructions to develop a writing system because Tibet kept on losing the Dharma every generation since nobody was writing it down. Sanskrit and Tibetan are unrelated languages from different trees, so the sounds don't map well at all. This is why Tibetans pronounce Sanskrit words like "Vajra" and "Bazra" (or more accurately, something like "Batzr"). You see this mostly in Mantras, which are rendered in Tibetan characters that map to the Sanskrit letters. Tibetans read these using Tibetan phonetic pronunciation rules, but keep the Sanskrit spelling. This leads to a lot of fun because... Hiro Protagonist posted:The pronunciation has drifted so far from script that almost nothing is actually pronounced as it's spelled. Tibetan pronunciation rules vary dramatically across regions, to a point where they are only just mutually intelligible. In Amdo, for example, the name of Tibet བོད་ (Wyl. "Bod") is pronounced "Wö" whereas in the rest of Tibet it's pronounced "Bö." You might notice that there's a "d" on the end there, and that it's not pronounced. This is true of both terminal D and S, which create an umlaut on the preceding vowel, turning back vowels into front vowels. This also happens with the letter "n," but the "n" is still pronounced, whereas the D and S become silent. Thus, pre-Buddhist Tibetan shamans are called Bonpo but pronounced Bönpo, except in Amdo, where they are Wönpo. A Tibetan word must have a root syllable. It can then also have a prefix, suffix, superscript, subscript, and post-suffix. Most of them don't affect the pronunciation of the word in Modern Colloquial Tibetan, but they may have affected it in 9th Century Classical Tibetan. In Ladakh, however, the pronunciations are honored more. Thus in Tibet སངས་རྒྱས (Wyl. sangs rgyas, "Buddha") is pronounced "sang-gye" whereas in Ladakh it's "sang-gyes" or "sang-gyas" depending on dialect. Another common example of this is སྐྱིད་པོ་ (Wyl. skyid po, "pleasant"), which is "k(y)ee-po" in Tibet but "kyid-po" in Ladakh. This is without even getting into the weirdness of Lhasa Dialect, which has poo poo like ཕེབས་ (Wyl. phebs, "to come, to go (hon.) pronounced "pey" in some cases (ཀ་ལེ་ཕེབས། (Wyl. ka le phebs, "goodbye!" or ཕེབས་ཤོག་ Wyl. phebs shog, "come on!, let's go!" pronounced "pey sho" or shortened in Lhasa to "pesh"). So for example, I'm part of the Glorious Drikung Kagyu, དཔལ་འབྲི་གུང་གི་བཀའ་རྒྱུད་, Wyl. "dpal 'bri gung gi bka rgyud," pronounced "pell dree-kung-ki kah-(r)gyu" unless you're in Ladakh where it's "pell dree-kung-ki kar-gyud." You could spell it about a billion ways though, and so in real formal texts spelling is very consistent, but in texts that are more like handwritten notes by monks you'll find extremely inconsistent spellings, usually with the prefixes dropped off the front because there are a whole bunch of words with for example an "m" in front that is completely unpronounced in Lhasa but in some dialects which indicates an unpronounced preloaded letter that you inflect as you start the word, so for example you put the lips together like an "m" in the space between the last syllable and the next syllable. And that's all to say nothing of the fact that Tibetan only has punctuation for syllables and sentence ends. There is no punctuation for distinguishing words in a sentence. I forgot about this because I've gotten used to reading it now but when you're starting out with Tibetan it's pretty obnoxious to not know if you have two one syllable words or one two-syllable word, but there is no way to tell at all. In many texts that I translate (astrological and divination texts right now) there will be multiple sentences between the "sentence" markers because they are actually verse markers in classical Tibetan, which you are supposed to write in lines of 7, 9, or 13 syllables (e.g. "sang-gye chö dang tshok-ki chog-nam-la, jang-chub bar-du dak-nyi kyab-su chi, dak-ki chin-soks kyi-pe sonam-ki, dro-la pen-chir sang-gye drub-par shog," the refuge prayer, in 9 syllable verses). Soooooo, yes it's a beautiful lovely language and fascinating and all that but at the same time lmao goddammit what a stupid language. It's perfect for cutting through attachments and aversions tho I'll give you that!!!!!!111one
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Sep 30, 2019 20:37
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Yeah, I love language but that sounds like inflection by orders of magnitudes. I'll stick with uninflected languages, thankyouverymuch. Like Vietnamese. Pronunciation is tricky, but the grammar makes sense. Unlike Russian or Romanian or Swahili or even Sanskrit or Pali. If your root word becomes unintelligible, it doesn't matter what the prefixes or suffixes do to affect it. Yes, a highly inflected language can express a whole sentence in a single word, but if it means obfuscating root words amongst a slew of affecting modifiers, it just gives me a headache. What I mean to say is, I'm sorry and good luck.
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Sep 30, 2019 20:51
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I have a follow-up. I'm a secular humanist. I see things I can use from many aspects of Buddhism. But I don't like the idea of appropriating from the faith selectively; especially if I don't intend to accept the spiritual aspects of Buddhism. Does anyone have advice for how I can find my way while avoiding doing the standard white guy appropriation bs?
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Sep 30, 2019 21:19
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I don't think many Buddhists have a problem with appropriation, after all if you use the techniques and follow the ethical guidelines you are accumulating the good merit and karma whether you like it or not! That's more important than whether or not you adopt the whole worldview, and by doing so you may get the karma to be more open to the rest later. Noone has a problem with MBSR for example, and I know some Buddhist monks have taught meditation techniques to Christian monks etc. I think generally what people may have a problem with is when people take some aspects of Buddhism without the worldview and call themselves Buddhists, which is a bit confusing and (at least IMO) you need at least some worldview to take refuge in earnest, which is when you formally become a Buddhist.
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Sep 30, 2019 21:38
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Nah, you can say a lot of things about Tibetan (and I just have!!!) but it isn't heavily inflected. Roots very rarely change, and all of the inflecting particles are independent. In fact it has what I consider a beautiful logic. The future tense construction "I will go" for example is "nga dro ki yin." "Nga" = I "Dro" = "to go" "Ki" = connecting particle indicating the genitive with nouns, or the present/future case with verbs "Yin" = egophoric form of "to be." It logically comes to "I am of going" and means "I will go." The same sentence in the present tense, "I am going" is "nga dro ki yö" The only difference is "yö" instead of "yin." "Yö" means "to have" or "to be (but not as an essential quality)." So, the present tense is logically "I am of going (but not permanently so)." In the past tense, it becomes "nga chin pa yin." Here there is inflection, as it uses the archaic form of "to go," "chin." This is just an archaic form of the word, however, and this is an irregular verb - one of only a handful. "Pa" is a particle which indicates a person who does a thing. So it logically means "I am one who went." There are also a lot of neat verbalizers, and this makes up for a lot of deficiencies in conversation and makes for easy code switching. I have had native Tibetans tell me, for example, "ངས་ཁོང་ལ་introductionབྱེད་གི་ཡིན།" "ngai khong-la introduction che-ki-yin." "Che" is the verbalizer for "to do" and when combined with the English word "introduction" means "to introduce someone." The alternative would be "ngo-shin che" which means "introduction" or "to make their actual nature known" but which has some grammars around it that are trifling, so gently caress it, use the English word why not? But also you see verbalizers all over the place. "To meditate" uses the verbalizer "to press" with the noun "gom" which means "a habit." Thus, "to meditate" means "to press a habit." It uses "gyap," which implies a bit of force. Thus, meditation isn't supposed to be easy. "To drive a car" is "motar tang," where "tang" is a verbalizer that means "to send" or "to operate." Ride a bike? Chak-ta tang, "to send an iron horse." So, "I will drive a car" is "nga motar tang ki yin." "I am driving a car," "nga motar tang ki yö." And so on. In terms of the language itself, it's actually very elegant and logical. It's just written in a completely batshit way.
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Sep 30, 2019 21:42
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RandomPauI posted:I have a follow-up. I'm a secular humanist. I see things I can use from many aspects of Buddhism. But I don't like the idea of appropriating from the faith selectively; especially if I don't intend to accept the spiritual aspects of Buddhism.
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Sep 30, 2019 22:05
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RandomPauI posted:I have a follow-up. I'm a secular humanist. I see things I can use from many aspects of Buddhism. But I don't like the idea of appropriating from the faith selectively; especially if I don't intend to accept the spiritual aspects of Buddhism. I get the sense you're not asking about wearing robes and doing rituals and speaking Tibetan and suchlike. There's nothing else then to appropriate, because Buddha didn't make anything up. Buddha is just an observer of the way the world is, and after he made those observations he told them to some people. You can take the observations you like and leave the ones you don't and nothing is lost. Buddha observed that attachment causes suffering. So did Epictetus! "It is not things that disturb us, but the view we take of them" is the same as "Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought. If with an impure mind a person speaks or acts suffering follows him like the wheel that follows the foot of the ox." So I think you should practice the stuff about Buddhism you like and then just call yourself a secular humanist, that's good! You don't need all these spirits and yidams and naga pleasing rituals and such to benefit from Buddhism because they aren't the point. They're just tools to get to the point, which is that attachment and aversion and ignorance are the causes of suffering, and you can stop those things with practice. You don't have to be Buddhist to not kill things, not steal, not lie, not engage in sexual misconduct, or not partake of intoxicants that cause you to become heedless. Those are practices that will benefit you and make you feel happier and calmer in life, you don't need any Buddhism to do that. Not killing things cultivates compassion, we think about life being precious and then we feel more at peace and we aren't as disturbed by others. That's not appropriation, I wish everyone would practice that regardless. In short, you can't really appropriate that which is given, and Buddha gave his teachings to the world so that people can feel happier and better by practicing them. You can't steal a gift.
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Sep 30, 2019 22:09
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E: lol you beat me to itRandomPauI posted:I have a follow-up. I'm a secular humanist. I see things I can use from many aspects of Buddhism. But I don't like the idea of appropriating from the faith selectively; especially if I don't intend to accept the spiritual aspects of Buddhism. Of note, insofar as buddhism has sins, it'd be considered a sin to hide dharma from someone earnestly seeking it. So it's never really inappropriate to seek something out. That said if the response is some variation of 'not you/now now/not here' respect that, of course. While keeping dharma from people is frowned upon, each tradition has things that they protect or do not necessarily share with just anyone. Generally, the majority of what any tradition does is public, some stuff is hidden (eg you have to be told about it or stumble upon it and ask), and some stuff is actually secret. So respect that. The other component is that a lot of Buddhist practice is enmeshed in a cultural context and that is a lot harder to not be appropriative of. If your interest is just in the practices or ethical system for the sake of some kind of benefit, that's more or less the right approach. The one caution there is that almost every buddhist practice (and I'm generalizing here, but this is entirely deliberate) is inseparable from and specifically facilitated by a generally compassionate or charitable or just beneficent intention and desire. If you take the desire to be of some benefit to others out of it, zen practice, for instance, just becomes staring at a wall thinking about how loving cool and enlightened you probably are or will be or whatever. Even just a "I want to be more present and engaged in my own life so I can be more present and engaged in my friends' and family's lives is probably enough to start with"
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Sep 30, 2019 22:10
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I just opened my favorite Dharma book, Walking An Uncommon Path by the Gyalwang Drukpa. He is eminently practical and I try to keep his philosophy underlying even my very conservative, orthodox practice! Because we have to remember that it's all just trappings and the actual Buddhism is in our minds. Some choice quotes for some recent questions: Walking An Uncommon Path p 104 posted:"Buddha Shakyamuni said very clearly that his students are not allowed to be fanatical about his teachings or traditions. Deeply, he never lets us be fanatical about him, his religion, his teachings, his lineage, or his blessing. He said that very clearly, he did not beat about the bush. He said very directly that if any of you see him as a Buddha, then you have never seen or come across the Buddha, or if any of you hear his teaching as the Dharma or as spiritual teachings then you have never heard authentic teachings and are not approaching the true Dharma. This is said very directly. Walking An Uncommon Path p. 109 posted:"Even though you may not be a believer of a particular religion and not believe in any "ism" (Like Buddhism), you still have a religion! It doesn't matter whether you realize it or not, you have a religion otherwise you wouldn't even move. You have some kind of faith. You have a faith that water will help you wash the dirt off your hand. That is religion! To me that's religion. You have a faith that fire will burn your hand if you put your hand into it. To me that's religion. Edit: you can get it as an ebook on Google Play and it's super good so everyone should do that thing. Paramemetic fucked around with this message at 22:18 on Sep 30, 2019 |
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Sep 30, 2019 22:13
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Since we're talking Tibetan Buddhism, can I ask about something? I mainly study East Asian Buddhism because I lost all things Japanese and Chinese. One interesting thing about East Asian, especially Japanese Buddhism, is their tendency to focus on just a few, maybe even only one, sutra. I read somewhere that Tibetan Buddhism is distinct in how much emphasis it places on commentaries. They will study commentaries on sutras more than sutras themselves. Is this accurate? I realize there are many schools of Tibetan Buddhism but does it hold true fo r any of them? Also what do Tibetan Buddhists make of beings like Tara? I first re ad of Tara as a Hindu goddess but am I wrong that Buddhist Tara is less a divine being to venerate and more just a source of inspiration?
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Oct 1, 2019 08:26
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RandomPauI posted:I have a follow-up. I'm a secular humanist. I see things I can use from many aspects of Buddhism. But I don't like the idea of appropriating from the faith selectively; especially if I don't intend to accept the spiritual aspects of Buddhism. I feel like in a lot of ways I started from a similar place as you. Well if you’re a secular humanist look at it through humanistic lenses. Take a more philological approach. Try to understand (what one even can from our late vantage, which is not nothing) the Buddha as a human being as opposed to the character we see after thousands of years of accumulated cultural baggage and reification. Read about Buddhism from Buddhists yes but also broaden your scope to include sources of information outside of the received texts and commentaries. After a certain point of reading through translations and commentaries you start to feel a sort of tunnel vision effect on what you’re seeing. I think part of that is because the cannon is so large that you’re necessarily reading one individual or another’s focused, abridged view of the dharma and missing lots of the intervening context. So I find myself trying to supplement that with more historically focused texts. What was life like for a human at that time? What were the historical events shaping things? To what extent does our late idealization of Buddhist monastics line up to late, middle and early Buddhist texts? To the archaeological record? The divergences can often be illuminating: Buddhism has changed throughout time to suit the needs of its practitioners and this is as true now as it was in ancient Magadha. Which forms of Buddhism have reached us across the vast distances of time and which haven’t? How does that change our perspective? Should it? This approach can leave you with more questions than answers but frankly the traditional convert path really only left me with questions. We are, regrettably, so far from the Buddha in space and time that we can only see him as through a glass darkly. But we also enjoy a unique vantage. Even accounting for what has been lost, we still enjoy access to a range and variety of textual and physical records unmatched by most monastics throughout history with experts both inside and outside the Buddhist monastic world able to read and speak to them. There is so much good literature available that you can read for awhile and only scratch the surfaces so I won’t presume which angle you’re taking on your questioning but you can find a ton of good literature to read at http://www.ahandfulofleaves.org/Library.html (but please ask if there is something in particular you’re curious on, maybe I’ve read something on it) And just to recommend one book to get started; From Stone to Flesh by Donald S Lopez is a short review of the historiography of the Buddha and how the western world came to understand and know about the Buddha over time, first through direct cultural contacts and then later through the discovery and deciphering of ancient texts (which, ironically, many if not the overwhelming majority of monastics throughout time couldn’t read or understand for themselves).
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Oct 1, 2019 13:39
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NikkolasKing posted:Since we're talking Tibetan Buddhism, can I ask about something? The Dhammapada was first translated into Tibetan in like, 1938 by Gendun Choepel. Straight up did not exist in Tibetan language before that, it was completely unknown to them. The thing about Tibetan preference for commentary is this: Buddha's words are the most important of course. However, Buddha isn't here now, but the Lamas are. The Lamas can teach us presently, and they can make things more applicable to our current situation. This has been the case for a long time, and so a huge number of commentaries exist. Of those commentaries, certain "favorites" have fallen into a fixed position in different lineage curricula. For example, the Drikung Kagyu lineage leans hard into Gampopa's "The Jewel Ornament of Liberation," as well as our founder's teaching, "The Single Intention," and some commentaries from other lineage masters like "Rays of Sunlight" or so on. Largely, the Tibetan monastic institutions follow those commentaries because they have been doing so forever, and often they are centered around the particular masters that make those lineages unique. Their lineage identities are based on those teachings - but the essence has to accord with the Sutra tradition. Lately, our master, HH Chetsang Rinpoche, has been pushing heavily for making sure that all commentaries are reviewed for according with the Sutra teachings. Additionally, I've praised Thich Nhat Hanh's "Old Path, White Clouds" in this thread. I actually first ran into this book while in India, and the excitement was because it had just recently been translated into Tibetan. While the Tibetan Buddhists knew about the historical Buddha's life stories, and the sutras had been translated, they weren't the focus of study. That book made it very accessible. The sutras in Tibetan are also a mess to read because of course they are - even for Tibetan. It's translated from Sanskrit sutras as far as I can tell, and I have never been successful at matching things up one to one. I was actually told about the sutras in Tibetan by His Eminence Thritsab Rinpoche, the lineage regent - there's an app called Adarsha that has them. quote:Also what do Tibetan Buddhists make of beings like Tara? I first re ad of Tara as a Hindu goddess but am I wrong that Buddhist Tara is less a divine being to venerate and more just a source of inspiration? Tara is called "Drolma" in Tibetan, where her name means "Liberation-Woman." She's a fully enlightened Buddha, often called by Tibetans "the mother of all Buddhas." She's super popular because Tibetans are super into moms. Most commonly practiced are Green Tara (wish-fulfilling) and White Tara (long life) and then more rare would be Red Tara (sorcery and magic). There are 21 Taras and they all get practiced by someone at some point. But she's considered a fully enlightened Buddha, in the Lotus Family with Amitabha and Chenrezig/Avalokitesvara. That said, she's not a "divine being to venerate" per se. While people do supplication prayers, make offerings, and so on she's also an yidam; that is, people receive empowerments and do deity yoga where they visualize themselves as Tara in order to cultivate her enlightened qualities in themselves. Edit: Speaking of commentaries, my Lama wrote a commentary called Profound Protection, on a supplication to Green Tara by the lineage founder. Because your commentary game isn't pro until you're writing commentaries about commentaries. I arranged it for publication. It goes into a lot of detail on philosophy - Rinpoche is particularly a scholar. If you (or anyone) want(s) an example of a modern commentary that elucidates a lot of the philosophical tradition, I am happy to provide a PDF, let me know. Edit2: It will also directly answer the question of what Tibetan Buddhists make of Tara, in great detail. Paramemetic fucked around with this message at 02:16 on Oct 2, 2019 |
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Oct 2, 2019 00:09
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Wait wait wait, the Dhammapada? The Dhammapada? Plenty of early Buddhist scriptures have been available to Tibetan monastic scholars for centuries, surely?
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Oct 2, 2019 03:18
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Mushika posted:Wait wait wait, the Dhammapada? The Dhammapada? Plenty of early Buddhist scriptures have been available to Tibetan monastic scholars for centuries, surely? First major dissemination of Buddhism to Tibet wasn't until the 700s, like 1100 years after the historical Buddha. You're a Mahayana tantric practitioner, and some child warlord's minister rolls up and says "hey, our king loves what you're doing out here, he wants us to develop writing and poo poo and then bring him stuff to translate." Now, are you gonna give him that tired old sutra stuff? Or the new hotness straight out of some Mahasiddhas at Nalanda? Remember, this guy is a warlord emperor's minister, like you want to give him yr absolute best poo poo. It's gonna be the tantra stuff every time, you know? Like, on the one hand you've got  tired But on the other hand you've got...  WIRED But more seriously, yeah no they got the sutras over there at some point but the first dissemination of Buddhism to Tibet wasn't until super late into the Mahayana period. There are some claims and arguments that the Nyingmapa were there earlier but it didn't catch on, and while there's some historical context that sort of implies Vajrayana practice might be closer to what historical Buddha practiced than Theravada, the Buddhism that Tibet got was definitely late Mahayana stuff and the sutras they'd be getting would be Mahayana sutras. For example the Heart Sutra / Prajnaparamita Sutra are extremely popular for regular recitation. The Fire Sermon? Not so much. Edit: I would love Yiggy to weigh in on this because I am absolute trash for historical stuff. Edit2: I am pretty sure, as a little twist of irony, that the first translation of the Dhammapada into Tibetan was from English. Paramemetic fucked around with this message at 04:09 on Oct 2, 2019 |
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Oct 2, 2019 04:04
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Keret posted:Not to be too E/N, but I feel that my life has really opened out as of late. I feel that if the trajectory of my practice continues as it has so far, it's not so unlikely that I'll eventually end up pursuing a monastic practice in the future. The dharma feels like the only thing that really truly makes sense these days. I'll be in Japan at the end of the year, and Eihei-ji gave me the green light to stay there overnight to practice, so that should hopefully give me some sort of small view of what an active monastery is like at least. I hope that will be a fruitful visit. I'm also hoping to attend my first retreat at a monastery next year. So far I've only been watching dharma talks from Plum Village's youtube channel, which I recommend for its broad range of topics from sutras to relationships. From what it sounds like, a retreat in their tradition is definitely a place where it's understood that tender emotions are going to come up. People open up, some cry, and they surround each other with the energy of compassion and non-discrimination. And then they're encouraged to bring this practice home with them after the retreat is over. For me, Plum Village's online monastery of dharma talks has been tremendously helpful, but I can definitely see how many folks would find it more helpful to attend in person. I look forward to perhaps experiencing it in person for myself. When trying to look deeply with the eyes of compassion and nondiscrimination, I can see why, as Parametic said, monastic life can paradoxically be the easy mode. The precepts actually give you freedom. But if we want to have future buddhas (and they do at Plum Village), then frankly we will also need folks to have sex and raise children well. Appropriateness of sexual and romantic attention is more complicated for the non-celibate practitioner than it is for the celibate practitioner, and I am still learning how to have intimacy with my wife while also understanding that she and I are not separate entities from what is all around us, and that we cannot love each other better or be happier together by limiting our love only to our home. I think I also understand what you mean about a new sense of loneliness. I think it may be accurate to say that you have had an insight that most people do not yet have. It is not the default position to have the insight of non-self. In my experience, finally receiving it has been profoundly changing the way I think and speak. For my wife, though, it was not a big revelation like with me, but the path has other challenges for her. And because I'm not complete the same as her and not completely different from her, we have the opportunity to be helpful to each other with the challenges that are particular to each of us. And when I'm interacting with most folks who may be anywhere along the path of spiritual understanding, I find it helpful to know that I don't have full control over how well they can understand me or care about the practice. However, I may always have the opportunity to turn the question around. How well do I understand this other person and their suffering, and can I turn this encounter, whether it's pleasant or frustrating, into a deliberate part of my practice to better understand and be effectively compassionate? And if it becomes too much suffering to take on, I know I can still take refuge in the company of my loving teachers and co-practitioners, past, present, and future. Mushika posted:I do appreciate the way TNH and Vietnamese Thiền in general seems to incorporate Theravada and Ch'an without really missing a beat. Yeah, and I may be wrong about this, but specific to Thich Nhat Hanh's engaged Buddhism, it does seem like the tradition he's passing on is a direct response to the trauma of the war in Vietnam and the subsequent religious suppression by the state. For the engaged Buddhism coming out of Plum Village, our ability to treat all kinds of suffering is a matter of life-and-death, and that has a way of helping to overcome attachment to forms, even Buddhist forms. RandomPauI posted:I have a follow-up. I'm a secular humanist. I see things I can use from many aspects of Buddhism. But I don't like the idea of appropriating from the faith selectively; especially if I don't intend to accept the spiritual aspects of Buddhism. Practice with the deep sincerity to help transform the afflictions in and around you, and you will be welcomed company by decent people. I believe there is something that the secular humanists have to teach the rest of us about engagement and compassion. The teachings of Buddhism are meant to be helpful, and there is even the understanding that certain cultural and devotional forms of the practices will be helpful to many people but not to all. But if you can oft-return to your core volition to help transform suffering instead of being the further cause of it, then I don't think you can go too wrong practicing like that. Caufman fucked around with this message at 08:28 on Oct 2, 2019 |
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Oct 2, 2019 08:22
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Mushika posted:Plenty of early Buddhist scriptures have been available to Tibetan monastic scholars for centuries, surely? Yes. I haven’t read a granular breakdown of what exactly they knew and when but Tibetan Buddhist monastic institutions were preserving and studying the vinaya, the abhidamma, the perfection of wisdom texts (Mahāyāna sutras) and tantras prior and through Tibet’s dark age. The extent to which these texts and the conceptual frameworks impacted the Tibetan intellectual elite is evident in how buddhist ideas transmitted and crystallized in bon po religious texts which start appropriating some Buddhist concepts. So yes, the basic stuff most definitely. However, the dhammapada is a relatively later text, anything in the khuddaka nikaya is kind of extra, later stuff that the sangha tradition tossed into the Pali cannon. What began as the “minor collection” for random texts eventually grows to be the largest basket. It would not be beyond belief for bits and pieces of this nikaya to have not made it to Tibet. Although I don’t know for certain that they didn’t have it earlier than the 20th century. Good read: The Tibetan Assimilation of Buddhism: Conversion, Contestation and Memory by Matthew T. Kapstein Yiggy fucked around with this message at 09:57 on Oct 2, 2019 |
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Oct 2, 2019 09:42
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Paramemetic posted:Edit: Speaking of commentaries, my Lama wrote a commentary called Profound Protection, on a supplication to Green Tara by the lineage founder. Because your commentary game isn't pro until you're writing commentaries about commentaries. I arranged it for publication. It goes into a lot of detail on philosophy - Rinpoche is particularly a scholar. If you (or anyone) want(s) an example of a modern commentary that elucidates a lot of the philosophical tradition, I am happy to provide a PDF, let me know. I'll take you up on this! herstorybeginsnow at gmail
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Oct 2, 2019 11:35
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Hey send me that poo poo too, nerd. I love this thread.
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Oct 2, 2019 23:44
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Reene posted:Hey send me that poo poo too, nerd. Actually!!! I'll think you find it's you!!! That is the nerd!!!!!
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Oct 3, 2019 00:52
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Really weird question out of nowhere: is Theravada Buddhism particularly popular in Germany? Many of the scholars and monks in the Theravada tradition seem to be German. Am I just seeing a weird pattern that isn't there, or have other people noticed this?
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Oct 3, 2019 01:45
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It's relatively large here in Denmark, but nearly all buddhist ways are. We even have an osho sect offshoot, last I checked.
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Oct 3, 2019 12:55
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Tias posted:We even have an osho sect offshoot, last I checked. The persistence of that one always blows my mind. A guy I know got roped into one of their cult cells and now goes around trying to help people get in touch with the divine feminine by joining communes. My wife works with a woman that actually got poisoned at that whole salad bar incident in the 80s.
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Oct 3, 2019 17:22
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Hello, former OCHS/etc etc here, paying 10 bucks to post this as I believe I am still permabanned for some dumb reason or another....just tying up loose ends.the worst thing is posted:I am saying that attachment IS emotion and that emotion IS attachment. And that the self IS emotion and emotion IS the self. I think that's about as clear as I can possibly get. I will not be doing this. No further questions, thank you. The observant among you will note that I said "I will not be doing this" rather than "I did not do this" and I will agree that that is revealing.
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Oct 11, 2019 12:24
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That sounds kind of ominous so just in case you'd like a second opinion, here are some suicide hotlines. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines
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Oct 11, 2019 13:54
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Siivola posted:That sounds kind of ominous so just in case you'd like a second opinion, here are some suicide hotlines. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines Finland has one of the higher suicide rates in the world so this is no surprise
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Oct 11, 2019 14:44
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Yiggy posted:The persistence of that one always blows my mind. A guy I know got roped into one of their cult cells and now goes around trying to help people get in touch with the divine feminine by joining communes. My wife works with a woman that actually got poisoned at that whole salad bar incident in the 80s. I read his book on meditation (the one where he claims he invented or rediscovered certain techniques) after reading Dogen's instructions for Zazen and the Sattipathana Sutta and got a kick out of how it was just those two, combined, with added belief in atman and like twice the pages.
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Oct 11, 2019 16:30
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KiteAuraan posted:I read his book on meditation (the one where he claims he invented or rediscovered certain techniques) after reading Dogen's instructions for Zazen and the Sattipathana Sutta and got a kick out of how it was just those two, combined, with added belief in atman and like twice the pages.
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Oct 11, 2019 20:40
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Yiggy posted:The persistence of that one always blows my mind. A guy I know got roped into one of their cult cells and now goes around trying to help people get in touch with the divine feminine by joining communes. My wife works with a woman that actually got poisoned at that whole salad bar incident in the 80s. wanted to suggest this, if you haven’t seen it already https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7768848/ i’ve never met any of them, but i’m acquainted with someone who (while decidedly not a rashneeshee) was in india during the heyday of the pune ashram, and my guess is that it’s the old timers keeping the whole thing going. the paradigm for an ashram involves brahmacharya, but rashneesh combined a platter of spiritual practices with more or less the opposite attitude, so it was naturally very popular; possibly that’s still a factor, despite the extremely bizarre direction the oregon commune ultimately took i’m always amazed, as a general matter, with the prevalence of hucksters and abusers. adi da, with his weird fiji compound, is the one that stands out for me, though of course there are countless others Red Dad Redemption fucked around with this message at 17:38 on Oct 12, 2019 |
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Oct 12, 2019 17:31
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Thank you everyone for your very kind and helpful replies to my post from some time ago. I deeply appreciate them. Cobbling together a response has been complex and more time consuming than I anticipated, but here goes. Beware: this is gonna be a long one. Firstly, the recommendation from many moons ago that I look into How to Cook Your Life was spot-on, what a wonderful little book. I originally got it back in August, but have been working my way through it very slowly (as I find I end up doing with all Buddhist writing, so dense are they with meaning). I finished it, insofar as you can ever "finish" a book dealing with the buddhadharma, yesterday. It's amazing, actually, how pertinent this book is to my life at the moment. At risk of turning this post into a book review that no one asked for, I'd like to speak on it a moment. I originally picked it up because I was cooking a lot more at home and wanted to do so in a mindful way, but as was mentioned, it really opens out into dealing with the entire life of the Self; which is to say, everything. Uchiyama's deceivingly simple expression that "everything we encounter is our life" has really stuck with me in a visceral way; it was easy to read it superficially at first, but over time as I "live out" the expression in my daily life, it takes on a deeper and deeper meaning and resonates back more clearly. As an aside, this seemingly deceptive simplicity of expressions is something that I've noticed running through nearly all Buddhist writing that I've encountered. I say "seemingly" deceptive because "nothing in the world is hidden." In any case, it keeps happening that I read something one time, and I think "oh, okay, that is pretty apparent." And then, months or years later, I return to the expression and, although it is still as straightforward as ever, it takes on an entirely new shade or depth of meaning for me, viewed through the lens of further experience. There is a sense of viewing from a different angle, or of "not the same person, not the same river." Anyway, the emphasis on meeting everything that comes forth in our life equally, and accepting pain and misfortune as another expression of that, has been immensely helpful for me as of late. Reading about Uchiyama-roshi's life and his reflections on pain/etc has allowed me to meet my own pain, both physical and emotional, more readily in a month in which everything seems to have collapsed and broken. Despite his observations that we cannot exchange anything in this life, his words have been like a stable hand reaching out in the dark. And for that, I am deeply grateful. I find Uchiyama-roshi himself to be an extremely impressive person. His straightforward way of speaking reminds me of Lin-ji in some ways, and for me it is really effective at cutting through the smog in my head. His life experience dealing with extreme poverty, and the no-bullshit way he speaks about those topics, have really affected me. Immediately after I finished How to Cook Your Life, I read his essay about living a life of mendicant begging, Nakiwarai no Takuhatsu (Laughing Through the Tears of Takuhatsu). Both of these, combined with what I've read in the past, make me seriously question my own life choices and direction. As I prepare suddenly to move into a new apartment this month, I witness my urges to get new furniture that I imagine I "need to have" in there, yet I see also the fundamental emptiness and unsatisfactory nature of this wanting — a "playing with toys," as Uchiyama-roshi says — and that contradiction weighs heavily on me. More and more, I start to internalize that a serious, dedicated life of the Dharma cannot in any way be reconciled with the keeping of Things — in the mind, in any case. It seems to me that that is what is meant when they say "the householder's floor is always covered in a layer of dust." And yet, I am so often caught by my own clinging to what material possessions I imagine I have. I'm in no way ready to become a mendicant beggar, but I know on some level that within things lies only dissatisfaction, and therein lies the problem. -------- On a different note, anxiety and panic coming up in zazen has been a mixed bag. Things are chaotic and stressful at the moment, so that undoubtedly influences my sitting. That said, I have become aware of how incredibly important my practice has been; I don't know if I could weather the storm at present without the deep resilience that the practice and the Sangha continue to share with me. For that, I'm likewise very grateful. Taigen (our guiding teacher) has been on sabbatical for the last six months, which just so happens to have coincided with major developments in my practice, so I have not been able to meet with him to discuss what's going on. Luckily, though, he returned this week, and I spoke with him about meeting for dokusan which we should be doing soon. He's also leading a 3-day sesshin later in October, during which I can meet with him as well to discuss both recent developments and what to consider in my future path. Herstory Begins Now posted:E: also if you at all have the flexibility for it, full lotus is like 50x more comfortable than half lotus. Even bad full lotus is a big improvement, imo I have actually been able to start sitting full lotus lately and it's extremely stable which is nice. The only thing at the moment is that I guess I'm still not quite flexible enough to sit comfortably, because over time my right ankle/top of the foot starts to hurt a lot, especially when I get out of the pose. I think it's still putting too much pressure on the joint where the foot meets my ankle. I like the pose but I guess for the well-being of my foot I should go easy with it for the time being. I will say, though, that it makes for an excellent exercise in meeting and sitting with pain.  Nude Hoxha Cameo posted:e: If you'll be in Japan for long enough to squeeze Kyoto in, you *absolutely* should do it. It's replete with temples and other historic buildings (including the old imperial palace), and if you can you'd want (among many other things) to make stops at Kiyomizu-dera (though not a zen temple) and Fushimi Inari (though not Buddhist). Kyoto and Eihei-ji are major focal points of my trip, so I'll definitely do this! I will be in Kyoto for a full week over the New Year's holidays. A friend in the sangha also suggested contacting Saiho-ji (the moss temple) about visiting, which I plan to do as well.
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Oct 12, 2019 17:55
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Keret posted:Kyoto and Eihei-ji are major focal points of my trip, so I'll definitely do this! I will be in Kyoto for a full week over the New Year's holidays. A friend in the sangha also suggested contacting Saiho-ji (the moss temple) about visiting, which I plan to do as well. New year’s is one of the best times to visit! Perhaps a bit off topic, but I hope you’ll post reflections when you get back.
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Oct 12, 2019 18:01
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