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corn haver join me in a Let's Read of this: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25955107-the-heart-of-the-buddha-s-teaching (You know ima post about it ITT, glad I didn't break it before  )
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Jan 30, 2022 21:03
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ram dass in hell posted:the burning house is a bit from the lotus sutra and it's a good bit and a good sutra op
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Jan 30, 2022 21:17
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ram dass in hell posted:the burning house is a bit from the lotus sutra and it's a good bit and a good sutra op
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Jan 30, 2022 23:09
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Bilirubin posted:corn haver join me in a Let's Read of this: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25955107-the-heart-of-the-buddha-s-teaching
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Jan 31, 2022 02:09
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corn haver posted:Thanks, I'll pick up a copy. cool not a huge rush I'm still reading through the The Teaching of Buddha and want to finish it first https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23419773-the-teaching-of-buddha
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Jan 31, 2022 05:17
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corn haver posted:I'm considering the possibility of somehow convincing/tricking reddit atheists, jordan peterson freaks, and similar types into becoming stream-entrants, giving them the dustless, stainless Dharma eye, knowing that all conditioned things are subject to disintegration. Not just understanding that with their cognition, but connecting with their emotional heart, their citta. Their stupid emotional heart that has to see things directly rise and fall and then just knows. Those guys loving suck and remind me of myself in the early 2000s reading the internet as a kid/young teen in terms of emotional intelligence. I think it would be really funny if it worked even once. This really isn't that big of a stretch. Stoicism made a comeback. Buddhism has a very nerdy intellectual and debate culture. For aesthetics, you can go poetic yet austere Zen, or human bone horns and vengeful deities of Tibetan, or the orthodoxy of Theravada. But, there are also the types that learn just enough meditation to hack their sleep schedule so they can day trade more. Or enough pop tantra to think they can gently caress their way to enlightenment. There is definitely an audience out there looking for stuff the dharma provides. But there also also plenty of examples of people who lost the script and went down some crazy paths.
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Jan 31, 2022 07:31
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Bilirubin posted:thank you for a wonderful post. There are a lot of videos from this week that I plan to watch over the coming days. Oof, changing a habit is tough work, in my experience, especially when you're trying to cut against the grain that this world encourages. I am also a natural night hawk, and changing my sleeping pattern is probably one of the most difficult things to stick to. At the monastic retreat, I was able to get up for early morning sitting meditation every day, and I think the monastics started their day at around 5 AM and went to bed at 9 AM. Since getting back, I have not been able to sustain that practice consistently, as the time of this post proves. I have been able to reduce my consumption of animal products. I'm fortunate that I like tofu and grew up eating it, and other plant-based meatless products taste fine to me. And so far, I haven't had any health issues with eating less animal products. But I'm not as strict as some people are about it. My wife eats dairy and occasionally meat, and I'll finish what she doesn't finish because I don't want food to be thrown away. I'm also reminded of a story the Deer Park abbot shared about the difficulties of always eating vegan when the monastics travel outside their monasteries, particularly in France. He recounted when he want to a bakery in France and asked if they had any vegetarian sandwiches and was told, "Yes. The tuna sandwich is vegetarian." But the biggest consumption change I've managed to sustain is that I used to be a daily and heavy cannabis user for years, but I've managed to quit since getting back. My biggest motivation was just to get by with a little less consumption in my life, but I guess it's nice that it is also in keeping with the fifth mindfulness training (Plum Village Tradition's version of the five precepts). There's still plenty of other less-than-wholesome consumption habits to work on, but I was surprised by how I've been able to sustain the sobriety from cannabis. LuckyCat posted:The last week of memorial and ceremony has been moving to say the least, and has made me want to live the dharma more fully. One thing I have been greatly struggling with reconciling is my feelings on compassion for animals while continuing to eat meat. Today I lost a hen and really struggled with my emotions. After discovering her and tucking her away safely to cremate later I came inside to watch the livestream of Thay’s funeral procession and cremation ceremony. There was poetry, song, touching of the earth, and a sea of saffron as thousands of monks, nuns, and lay paid their respects. At the end I just had a feeling that my desire for meat had disappeared. Idk this is kind of a stream of consciousness post with no real meaning other than I am grieving and growing. I listened to a lovely dharma talk today by Br. Phap Dung about Thay Nhat Hanh's impact on his own life and others. It had moments of tears and laughter. It captured well how Thay both challenged his students to strive to practice better but was also fully compassionate at meeting people where they are and what limitations they faced. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EbhHafr2CY&t=1995s Spacegrass posted:The only people I know can help me are Christians. And I am starting to drop back from Christianity. I echo the wishes of others who hope you'll have an easier time, and that you'll have wise and compassionate people around you. I think it's possible for a Christian to be a bodhisattva, even if it's not possible to generalize that all Christians (or all Buddhists) will be helpful. corn haver posted:I'm considering the possibility of somehow convincing/tricking reddit atheists, jordan peterson freaks, and similar types into becoming stream-entrants, giving them the dustless, stainless Dharma eye, knowing that all conditioned things are subject to disintegration. Not just understanding that with their cognition, but connecting with their emotional heart, their citta. Their stupid emotional heart that has to see things directly rise and fall and then just knows. Those guys loving suck and remind me of myself in the early 2000s reading the internet as a kid/young teen in terms of emotional intelligence. I think it would be really funny if it worked even once. May you have success opening dharma doors for people, especially the ones that remind you of who you were when you were less happy or less wise than you are now. Speaking personally, I find it easy to dismiss or despise people I find contemptible, whether they remind me of myself or not. I need the thays to remind me to look with the eyes of compassion, to consider that people are the way they are because they do not know the practice and have not started, and that my scorn is likely not more helpful than my compassion would be.
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Jan 31, 2022 10:43
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there's some way of saying it in buddhist terms, but setting those aside, i think it's a total waste of time and energy to try to trick anyone into being a buddhist who doesn't want to and that all they're going to take from it is some self-serving misunderstanding of how 'actually there's no right and wrong so it doesn't matter what you do' which is generally the idiotic message people take from buddhism when they just ignore/aren't at all drawn to the ethical framework, which is both the precursor to and the result of practice) that's not to say don't wish the best for them or w/e
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Jan 31, 2022 13:08
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Yeah, I was being foolish. I was thinking the self-interest factor could be enough to get people going on a sort of minimal secular Buddhism with very clear simple instructions to at least keep them out of the worst states of mind, but that's already out there presented in 15 different ways for people to discover and few people bite. The ones who actually need it and do find it often end up becoming more deluded. If I do seriously consider trying to help people in such a way I need to be more skillful myself and more realistic.
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Jan 31, 2022 15:10
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Caufman posted:Oof, changing a habit is tough work, in my experience, especially when you're trying to cut against the grain that this world encourages. I am also a natural night hawk, and changing my sleeping pattern is probably one of the most difficult things to stick to. At the monastic retreat, I was able to get up for early morning sitting meditation every day, and I think the monastics started their day at around 5 AM and went to bed at 9 AM. Since getting back, I have not been able to sustain that practice consistently, as the time of this post proves. I have decided that once my current store of frozen lunches are finished I will only buy vegetarian, and will be donating my remaining cans of meat soup to the food bank. I'm not going to stress too much about traces of beef broth here or there (will avoid where I can), and will still permit myself a weekly indulgence in fish, but will be more careful in my purchasing habits going forward. Not going full vegan yet, and will check my blood levels carefully since I have struggled with anemia over the years. LoL the boulangerie story. I lived in Paris for 2 months and the only time I ever had a "Paris moment" was with a particular bakery, who tried to tell me an incorrect way to order a half baguette. When I protested that asking for "a bit of a baguette" wasn't exactly clear, he then argued that I spoke French "funny." Well, yeah, I'm an anglophone who lived in Quebec for many years; but he spoke French funny too, being from Algeria. I then went down the block to the next bakery (there is ~always~ another bakery in France) and got what I wanted, then asked whether they had ever heard of the word this guy was telling me to use to ask for half a baguette. She laughed and said never, so I never went back to the first place again. Some bakers apparently live in another dimension. (Although, in a bit of a reversal of this, one day my partner and I wanted pho, but finding a place that serves vegetarian pho is...difficult. We finally found a place, and the food was fabulous, but the weird thing was the owner and all of the wait staff, all women, were all over my partner (also a woman) in attentiveness, to the point that it was a little much. Like we found a Vietnamese lesbian hangout or something and she was the exciting new girl. A week later it struck me: my partner shaves her head--has done for a very long time. They thought she was a monastic.) re cannabis: haven't hit the vape pen in two weeks now. I have never been a heavy user though, just a toot or two to help me get down to sleep, but that isn't actually good sleep hygiene so I stopped that in favor of sleeping naturally, and its helping.
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Jan 31, 2022 17:23
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Herstory Begins Now posted:there's some way of saying it in buddhist terms, but setting those aside, I agree that some kind of elaborate trick or stunt to walk people up into Buddhism would be pointless. The point is practice and while I think you can say that any practice is better than no practice, you should, in the long run, not be deceitful. I suppose the strict Pure Land people might have a case, but even there, I don't think the equivalent of Buddhist Chick Tracts would accomplish a whole lot. I disagree that a change in presentation, or a basic introduction in different ways, would not be a good thing... if the obstacles people encounter involve things which can be ameliorated with different packaging, or by seeing that this isn't something just for (insert group here), then that's certainly good. I did some sitting at a big statue on the grounds of a Sri Lankan sangha not far from me and it felt awkward because I knew I was an outsider to their community. If I had been able to overcome that more easily I think I would have gotten more benefit. That kind of thing.
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Jan 31, 2022 17:39
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But evangelizing is more a Christian thing, even if coming from a place of compassion. At least as I understand it.
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Jan 31, 2022 18:46
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Bilirubin posted:But evangelizing is more a Christian thing, even if coming from a place of compassion. At least as I understand it. Buddhism to my understanding has no missionary exhortation, but some degree of attempting to spread the dharma is a natural outgrowth of compassion. It certainly shouldn't be hidden, or at least any concealments would be along the lines of 'We're making it a little difficult to access this complex Vajrayana visualization exercise because if you do it from a cold start, it will either do nothing or may lead to delusions'.
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Jan 31, 2022 21:25
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Caufman posted:
Thanks. I have a Christian background; I mean literally the strongest memory I had in my youth after kindergarten was a painting my mom put up of Jesus' last supper. I guess I'm stuck; and I hope I find some Christian friends; because I'll probably be treating Buddhism as a philosophy as I usually did (no offense to people who's main religion is Buddhism).
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Jan 31, 2022 23:52
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Labels lead to suffering ultimately, but I prefer to think of it as a practice and not a religion.
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Feb 1, 2022 02:46
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LuckyCat posted:Labels lead to suffering ultimately, but I prefer to think of it as a practice and not a religion. I personally don’t think those things are mutually exclusive. With my interest and study into the monastic way of life I can in all honesty call Catholicism both my religion and my practice. But that’s just me.
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Feb 1, 2022 03:15
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Here's my very brief, very stupid secular introduction to the Buddhist path that I cobbled together. I wrote this for my benefit to try to wrap my head around things and how to discuss the Dharma with people who would not be drawn to the supernatural aspects of Buddhism or the Bodhisattva path but who might actually take things seriously. Please feel free to dunk on me and definitely please point out anything that is straight up wrong.I'm just trying to learn.quote:You have a fundamental emotional problem. The part of your mind that is involved with your emotions and will, which I will subsequently be referring to as the heart, is very naive. When it is resting, when it’s not going out into the world of the senses and mental objects, it is profoundly at peace. But the heart doesn’t know that it can do this. It always searches for things outside of itself for happiness and freedom when it’s right there. It's always experiencing a state of stress because it sees itself in things that will change and that you cannot control. This is the fundamental problem. There are two subsequent problems that arise from this lack of awareness. One is the heart seeing itself in things it likes. The other is the heart wanting to not be with things it doesn’t like. The heart does not know how much it can hurt itself in this process. The results can range from the most subtle, such as gently, almost imperceptibly wanting things perceived as good things to continue and a mild sense of dissatisfaction if they didn't, to states of continual, deep suffering that the heart cannot even conceive of escaping.
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Feb 1, 2022 03:59
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LuckyCat posted:Labels lead to suffering ultimately, but I prefer to think of it as a practice and not a religion. Thirteen Orphans posted:I personally don’t think those things are mutually exclusive. With my interest and study into the monastic way of life I can in all honesty call Catholicism both my religion and my practice. But that’s just me. This is an interesting topic for me, the relationship between practice and religion. Thay Nhat Hanh and his monastics will talk about there being a popular form of devotional Buddhism that one can find especially throughout Asia, and there is a numerically smaller form of insight Buddhism that is practiced which focuses more on transformation and healing. The Plum Village Tradition falls mostly on the latter without trying to attack or disparage the former. At the monastic retreat, I was one of only three Asians that I met who were not of Vietnamese descent. I estimate about half the retreatants were Vietnamese and half were non-Vietnamese, mostly White/White-passing. (I am very used to explaining to non-Indonesian Asians that I don't speak their language when they try to speak it to me, which happened a few times at the retreat to my amusement. I assume they walked away thinking I was a poorly-educated young Vietnamese American as opposed to a non-Vietnamese Asian.) I met a Vietnamese women who was interested in the monastic life, and she told me that, in her experience, Thay Nhat Hanh was far from universally popular among the Vietnamese community in America. This did not surprise me, as it is consistent with my experiences of spiritual teachers who take a more revitalizing aspect to their spiritual tradition. I asked her why she thought Thay Nhat Hanh was unpopular among some Vietnamese Americans, and she said she believes it's because they find his teaching intimidating. Again, that's consistent with my experience among religious traditions. I imagine that anyone looking for a more familiar, "traditional" form of their religion will be put off by a teacher whose method could be described as modern in its approach but also remaining very true to the original intent of the root teacher. I see this happening in Christianity and Judaism as well for sure, and I don't imagine it would be hard to find examples of this happening in other large traditions/world religions as well. I'm also interested in the topic of dual/double/multiple belonging. I was reminded of this because of a recent article on Plum Villlage's website about double belonging with an interview with a dharma teacher of Jewish ancestry. Like Spacegrass, I have Christian background. Specifically, my family growing up was nominally Catholic, but I would say its values were closer to Confucian in actual practice. I believe my family converted to Catholicism for practical/political reasons related to the experiences of the ethnic Chinese living in Indonesia more than for any particular fondness for the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. But I had and still have a fondness for those stories and teachings. I also mentioned in the Religion thread that I work for a progressive synagogue and get to observe their weekly Torah study, and this has been a real treat. Seeing people engage the stories and characters of the Torah with such curiosity and intimacy, it makes me think that if a person can draw such closeness from stories of different origins with such original characteristics, why would they not want to, and why would I want to discourage them from doing so?
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Feb 1, 2022 07:27
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Nessus posted:Buddhism to my understanding has no missionary exhortation, but some degree of attempting to spread the dharma is a natural outgrowth of compassion.'. Compared to Christianity, Buddhism doesn't have the same Manichean like battle for souls. But Buddhiam does have a missionary spirit. We wouldn't know of Buddhism if it didn't, because it practically went extinct in the land of its birth, and many of us practice a variety which was spread to Thailand, or Vietnam, or Tibet, or Japan. Soon after the Buddha's enlightenment comes tales of deities pleading to spread the word. Of telling his old companions what he learned. Of traveling the county to train converts and debate the merits of the path he found. Later Mahayana texts are often quick to label pratyekabuddhas, those who find enlightenment on their own but fail to teach it, as a lesser path. I would say that many later forms of Buddhism lost the original evangelical sprit. In places where it became a the official state religion, it is understandable. But when sects lost that comfort, they quickly went back to missionary effort. The spread of Zen out of post war Japan. The spread of Tibetan schools during their diaspora. Thich Naht Hahn after being exiled from Vietnam. Vipasana schools out of Myanmar's coups. Buddhist evangelizing certainly doesn't look like Christianity's. But it still has a long history of spreading the dharma to converts.
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Feb 1, 2022 09:32
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corn haver posted:Here's my very brief, very stupid secular introduction to the Buddhist path that I cobbled together. I wrote this for my benefit to try to wrap my head around things and how to discuss the Dharma with people who would not be drawn to the supernatural aspects of Buddhism or the Bodhisattva path but who might actually take things seriously. Please feel free to dunk on me and definitely please point out anything that is straight up wrong.I'm just trying to learn. That is not a bad take on Buddhism, in the context of keeping it in a secular framework. I would only ask; Is this mostly just to emphasize the insight gained from experiencing the Arising and Passing Away, or are your 4 stages an analogy to the 4 stages of awakening (stream entery to arahant)?
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Feb 1, 2022 09:42
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It's just a conceptual framework to explain that there is a real permanent psychological change that happens to a person with insight, and that there is there a yardstick for this that can again be grasped with insight, ie what is abandoned. I've poked around online and it seems like those labels found in Theravada can be deeply harmful to people. But tossing the baby out with the bathwater and not discussing liberation in a way that seems possible or understandable also seems like a mistake, like only mentioning full enlightenment.
corn haver fucked around with this message at 12:49 on Feb 1, 2022 |
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Feb 1, 2022 11:20
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corn haver posted:Here's my very brief, very stupid secular introduction to the Buddhist path that I cobbled together. I wrote this for my benefit to try to wrap my head around things and how to discuss the Dharma with people who would not be drawn to the supernatural aspects of Buddhism or the Bodhisattva path but who might actually take things seriously. Please feel free to dunk on me and definitely please point out anything that is straight up wrong.I'm just trying to learn. I enjoyed reading this Do you think the insights are threshold, aha moments? or is there still a very gradual sense of insight as it grows? I think I know a lot of this stuff intellectually, but I don't feel any insight. Probably relates to not enough time on the cushion.
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Feb 1, 2022 12:46
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echinopsis posted:I enjoyed reading this There's exceptions of course, like the story of the monk that got horned up while looking at a naked corpse while trying to contemplate death, and they gained full release right then because they saw the utter senselessness of the heart's desires in full. I am super ignorant though so please take everything with a grain of salt. Someone who really knew their stuff with what is required to gain insight and felt it was important to talk about their own experiences was Ven. Maha Bua, a Thai monk. His book The Path to Arahantship was really fascinating to me because he speaks frankly about his very advanced meditation practice. On a lighter note, he really goes off and ends up calling Thai Buddhists "really stupid" because a lot of monks didn't like the fact that he cried while discussing his experience with the Dharma, which in their minds indicated a lack of attainment. But the skandhas are not the arahant.
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Feb 1, 2022 15:12
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I love logging into the thread in the mornings to find several posts. You all always give a lot to think about. Was reading the The Teaching of Buddah last night, and we're starting to get to the heart of things. One thing stood out to me, about looking into the sky and there being no innate concept of East or West, except for that which we humans introduce. That resonated.
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Feb 1, 2022 16:14
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Bilirubin posted:I love logging into the thread in the mornings to find several posts. You all always give a lot to think about. It's a personal habit of mine to push this one level down every time I possibly can - the "no innate East or West" in nature except what we humans introduce is true in the specific and (because of?) the general. All dualities are mental constructs that consciousness is projecting on the universe. And it's separate from good and/or bad, because the essential function of the human brain is to conceptualize functional frameworks of duality that allow us to navigate life in the world, to a degree of success. All dualities are empty as the east and west; as I learned from Thich Nhat Hanh a while back; no mud, no lotus!
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Feb 1, 2022 16:28
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LuckyCat posted:Labels lead to suffering ultimately, but I prefer to think of it as a practice and not a religion. At the same time I think that the meditative practices are a little different from prayers and devotions in Western traditions, especially since you can dabble with them without any sort of a commitment and still get great benefits. Nessus fucked around with this message at 17:50 on Feb 1, 2022 |
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Feb 1, 2022 17:48
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ram dass in hell posted:It's a personal habit of mine to push this one level down every time I possibly can - the "no innate East or West" in nature except what we humans introduce is true in the specific and (because of?) the general. All dualities are mental constructs that consciousness is projecting on the universe. And it's separate from good and/or bad, because the essential function of the human brain is to conceptualize functional frameworks of duality that allow us to navigate life in the world, to a degree of success. All dualities are empty as the east and west; as I learned from Thich Nhat Hanh a while back; no mud, no lotus! yeah this section of the book went on at length (the longest section so far) on this very topic, which I should reread since its important and I'm not sure I got all of it. I understand how good/bad are impermanent--good things can lead to bad if held to long (thinking ego inflation here) and bad things can turn to good in the longer run. But then we still have to perform "right" (suggesting there is a "wrong" to my duelist brain) actions so I guess the answer is to stay even, calm, in order to know and do right at that time. And if it turns out to be wrong, well, not to beat ourselves up about it because we couldn't know before hand, and can only do what we know is right at the time. Maybe I am jumping ahead to far though
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Feb 1, 2022 20:30
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Bilirubin posted:yeah this section of the book went on at length (the longest section so far) on this very topic, which I should reread since its important and I'm not sure I got all of it. I understand how good/bad are impermanent--good things can lead to bad if held to long (thinking ego inflation here) and bad things can turn to good in the longer run. But then we still have to perform "right" (suggesting there is a "wrong" to my duelist brain) actions so I guess the answer is to stay even, calm, in order to know and do right at that time. And if it turns out to be wrong, well, not to beat ourselves up about it because we couldn't know before hand, and can only do what we know is right at the time. Right action doesn't guarantee success in the task, but it does guarantee that you didn't undertake wrong action. In terms of karma, the more you follow right action, the better. It's not an absolute, it's more like an orientation and a location. As you do more right action and less wrong action, you move in a better direction, even if some wrong action is difficult or practically impossible to cease. I think the metaphor of 'accumulating merit' is helpful because it isn't like you are sent to eternal hell if your Karma Score isn't above 370 at your time of death. You can always do good, even if sometimes only a little bit.
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Feb 1, 2022 21:41
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Nessus posted:I think you're on the right track. I've made ALOT of wrong actions; and I have paid for it in prison, though these actions still haunt me. I try and make it up by helping people. Is helping people futile as far as a good rebirth? (Though it's not such a selfish act, as I actually want to see the world as a better place.) Spacegrass fucked around with this message at 01:13 on Feb 2, 2022 |
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Feb 2, 2022 01:09
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There's no futile actions, just cause and effect. If you do good things that help people, you create good causes and get good results. If you do lovely actions that create suffering, you get those results. So there's no futility in doing moral acts if your goal is good results and a net improvement in the world because of cause and effect. Apple trees only give apples, not oranges, you know? More than anything in Buddhist ethics I think the most important thing is recognizing that the fruits of good actions are good fruits, and because karma is complicated maybe you see the benefits at once, maybe you see it later, but you can't not see it. Additionally, it's not like a big ledger. There's no karmic accountant doing math to give you net positive or negative merits. If you punch a guy in the face and then help his mom across the street, they don't cancel each other out. You just get the results of both. So just be good to people and accept that that's good to do no matter what suffering you've caused in the past.
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Feb 2, 2022 01:42
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In my opinion the pro move with moral behavior is to do those things that reduce suffering for sentient beings because suffering sucks. The precepts and bodhisattva vows and so on are just a good roadmap for what that looks like. But for me, if I can reduce suffering in the world then it doesn't even matter if I get personal liberation because this world of suffering sucks rear end and anything I can do to reduce that suffering is worth it.
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Feb 2, 2022 01:46
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Similarly the pro move to deal with my brevity problems is to break my posts up into chains,,,
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Feb 2, 2022 01:47
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Spacegrass posted:I've made ALOT of wrong actions; and I have paid for it in prison, though these actions still haunt me. I try and make it up by helping people. Is helping people futile as far as a good rebirth? (Though it's not such a selfish act, as I actually want to see the world as a better place.) There are schools that say if you call on Amida Buddha you will surely be reborn in a place where you can practice the dharma in way better conditions than you can here, which may interest you.
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Feb 2, 2022 02:31
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Paramemetic posted:There's no futile actions, just cause and effect. If you do good things that help people, you create good causes and get good results. If you do lovely actions that create suffering, you get those results. it sounds kinda boring and mundane, but imo one of the most legitimately transformative things is just how much life changes after you've meaningfully worked to not be destructive and harmful and hopefully even have worked to be decent and supportive person for a while. It doesn't change the past, and of course it isn't some 'you have good karma so now life is all good and you are always happy' thing either, but it's a lot like lifting weights: if you stick with it, eventually the results pile up and you look like someone who has been lifting weights for several years, even if you weren't perfect or doing some scientifically optimal program. anyways i realize I'm mostly just paraphrasing what you already said On a similar but somewhat different note: I don't always know what tf to do in life, but if absolutely nothing else, trying to figure out the path through situations that doesn't do harm and doesn't add to the trauma of the world has never let me down. Definitely doesn't always turn out how I'd prefer, but man I've literally never regretted using that as a guiding principle and wherever that leaves me always seems better for everyone than the alternative. That's probably pretty obvious to most people, but idk I was a huge rear end in a top hat and had to learn that the hard way.
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Feb 2, 2022 06:04
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Thanks for all these posts all Tonight was a bit of a backslide for me, in that events led to a bit of an emotional overwhelm and bad decisions were made. These however led to better connection with my loved others and in the end it was a positive I'd say, stress and pain notwithstanding. Keep moving forward and trying to do the right thing. And I need to redouble my meditation, which was helping tremendously, but I've let slide the past few days.
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Feb 2, 2022 06:38
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corn haver posted:Here's my very brief, very stupid secular introduction to the Buddhist path that I cobbled together. I wrote this for my benefit to try to wrap my head around things and how to discuss the Dharma with people who would not be drawn to the supernatural aspects of Buddhism or the Bodhisattva path but who might actually take things seriously. Please feel free to dunk on me and definitely please point out anything that is straight up wrong.I'm just trying to learn. I found this super useful and have added this to my notes for when I need help with communication and perspective-taking. Thank you.
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Feb 2, 2022 17:32
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Bilirubin posted:Thanks for all these posts all But it's good to do some practice too, so just don't feel like you "have" to do 15/30/60 minutes a day or what not, especially if it is early days.
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Feb 2, 2022 17:34
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Nessus posted:Always remember, it's better to do a little every day than a whole bunch today, none tomorrow, none the day after, a little the third day but not really, none the fourth, etc. Yes good advice, which I will attend to. I was up to 15 minutes of good meditation but I let some deadlines push it aside. I will ensure that time is always allowed in the schedule.
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Feb 2, 2022 21:52
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Hi buddha thread  Is there a goon thread or otherwise generally accepted "Meditation for Dummies" guide? I remember messing with it a decade ago when I was bored and out of work but I can't recall anything I've learned and it'd probably be best to start over.
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Feb 2, 2022 22:59
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Appoda posted:Hi buddha thread 
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Feb 2, 2022 23:18
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