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I was picking up some vegan Vietnamese food again today and contemplated their alter and was wondering. Its clearly a Zen setup, but the statue at the top has 4 arms (two in lap in meditative pose, two held aloft about head level), and (from the distance I was sitting) appeared female. There is a large portrait of the Buddha hanging to the right, so I assume this is a Bodhisattva. It did not look like Guanyin but perhaps she is portrayed differently in Viet Nam than China (where I am more familiar)? Anyway, very cool to be learning while waiting to pick up take out. The fake meat garbage cow soup was excellent, even had the texture of the mock tendon on point. I am two months red meat free and this option makes this dietary choice a no brainer
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Apr 1, 2022 05:35
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Avalokitesvara is the only bodhisattava with multiple arms. It is otherwise an almost exclusively Hindu trait
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Apr 1, 2022 12:49
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BIG FLUFFY DOG posted:Avalokitesvara is the only bodhisattava with multiple arms. It is otherwise an almost exclusively Hindu trait  That's very close to the statue and is likely it. Thanks! e. "Avalokiteśvara has evolved into the somewhat different female figure Guanyin or Guanshiyin, also known as Kannon or Kanzeon in Japan, Gwanseum in Korea and Quán Thế Âm in Vietnamese." definitely it! Bilirubin fucked around with this message at 14:35 on Apr 1, 2022 |
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Apr 1, 2022 14:30
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Bilirubin posted:
Yunyan asked Daowu, ‘How does the Bodhisattva Guanyin use those many hands and eyes?’ Daowu answered, ‘It is like someone in the middle of the night reaching behind her head for the pillow.’ Yunyan said, ‘I understand.’ Daowu asked, ‘How do you understand it?’ Yunyan said, ‘All over the body are hands and eyes.’ Daowu said, ‘That is very well expressed, but it is only eight-tenths of the answer.’ Yunyan said, ‘How would you say it, Elder Brother?’ Daowu said, ‘Throughout the body are hands and eyes.’
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Apr 1, 2022 15:36
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Other than the Heart Sutra that's my favorite little bit of Avalokiteśvara story. Compassion like flipping your pillow over to the cool side in the middle of the night. It's uncontrived, spontaneous and direct action taken with the type of intention to help from oneself to oneself. But if you see through the conceptual barriers that delude you into the belief in self and other, all compassionate action is this way. The nature of the bodhisattva of compassion is hands and eyes; undeluded sight and uncontrived action. No self-and-other, no negotiation or thought of reward, simply the perception of suffering and the skillful motion towards the easing of that suffering. Lovely. Flip the pillow over to the comfortable side, because you can, and it's that simple.
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Apr 1, 2022 16:02
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That's lovely, thanks!
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Apr 1, 2022 16:50
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Smaller, shorter but more frequent meditations this week. I feel rested, despite my lack of sleep. My mood evens out when I meditate well/regularly, but always at a lower level than my more dramatic highs. I believe that's more my temperment, I want to cultivate this plateau even if it's "less happy" since it feels more balanced
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Apr 1, 2022 16:57
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Brawnfire posted:Smaller, shorter but more frequent meditations this week. I feel rested, despite my lack of sleep. My mood evens out when I meditate well/regularly, but always at a lower level than my more dramatic highs. I believe that's more my temperment, I want to cultivate this plateau even if it's "less happy" since it feels more balanced Nice! Keep it up. I'm there with you in solidarity. I have moved to almost exclusively early morning sittings of 20-30 minutes, plus attempts to maintain mindfulness throughout the day, and its making daily practice much more of a habit. Like, last night I got to bed a little later than usual and decided to not set my alarm and sleep a little later. Body had other plans! Woke up at my usual early time screaming "time to meditate!" at me. As far as "happy" goes I agree with you. I instinctively distrust anything that says you should be happy all the time, because you can't and it just seems culty. Evenness is also what I am working towards, and insofar as my anxiety has calmed way down it seems to be working.
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Apr 1, 2022 18:22
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ram dass in hell posted:Other than the Heart Sutra that's my favorite little bit of Avalokiteśvara story. Compassion like flipping your pillow over to the cool side in the middle of the night. It's uncontrived, spontaneous and direct action taken with the type of intention to help from oneself to oneself. But if you see through the conceptual barriers that delude you into the belief in self and other, all compassionate action is this way. The nature of the bodhisattva of compassion is hands and eyes; undeluded sight and uncontrived action. No self-and-other, no negotiation or thought of reward, simply the perception of suffering and the skillful motion towards the easing of that suffering. Lovely. Flip the pillow over to the comfortable side, because you can, and it's that simple. i'm still working my way through the thread and typing up a big post about how posters here are real good at expanding and recontextualizing previous insights i have had and then. ah. one more thing i'll have to contemplate for a whole week, gladly.
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Apr 1, 2022 19:22
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This is a wonderful thread and I'm happy I stumbled onto it. I've learned a lot browsing it this afternoon, thank you.
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Apr 2, 2022 21:45
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heya Orb! Welcome to a lovely spot in the internet As you all know, I've been a bit fascinated by the Pure Land as it seemed to an outlier in the otherwise completely logical teachings in the first text I read on the Buddha's teaching. r/buddhism has also been discussing cosmology of late, and from this I stumbled across this mind blowing little sutra: THE SMALLER SUTRA ON AMIDA BUDDHA http://web.mit.edu/stclair/www/smaller.html Very cool multiverse take on this entire thing called reality
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Apr 3, 2022 03:04
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Bilirubin posted:heya Orb! Welcome to a lovely spot in the internet India is the real birth place of The Law of Truly Large Numbers. A lot of problems of metaphysics just go away when you think of space as being inconceivably huge and time as inconceivably long. In Buddhism, this same appreciation for large numbers shows up. An old cosmology has a crazy tall mountain at the center (Mount Meru) surrounded by 7 oceans, and massive continents in the 4 cardinal directions. Nowadays, the Dalai Lama will say that the Mount Meru cosomolgy is wrong, but that doesn't effect Buddhism, because Buddhism is about liberation from suffering and not about cartography. And scientists will be all proud of themselves for pointing out the flaws in ancient thinking, because the Earth is not a massive flat disk with a million mile tall mountain at the center. But then they go on to measure the universe as being trillions of light years across, and each light year itself is trillions of miles long, and that it will take trillions of years for all the stars to burn out. And with that much time and space, almost anything is possible.
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Apr 3, 2022 18:04
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Yeah, the multiverse/huge numbers thing helped me, a dog, who had read a ton of science fiction, get on board, if anything. I can understand how it might be a stumbling block for a lot of people especially in the west, and it is definitely expedient means to not emphasize that you have to believe in each and every part of this in order to practice. The way that I figure it is that all of these models are wrong because they are illustrations to the unenlightened, and as Shakyamuni himself said, the point isn't to know if the universe is mortal or immortal or whatever, it's to work out your own salvation; it's irrelevant to the project, beyond some key facts such as rebirth being real in some sense, the operation and existence of karma, and so on.
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Apr 3, 2022 20:32
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Nessus posted:
Ok going to read the Lotus Sutra next and say hi to my alien friend. Just read the chapter on Right concentration, after the Kindle app had me reread two previous chapters for whatever reason, probably because I needed to. And I will need to do so again with this one. He got super deep and detailed and I frankly got a little lost. But at the end he basically says it doesn't matter all concentrations are in all others so focus on your breathing and walking in the moment and your practice will improve. Simple and deep, really powerful writing. I mean I think; I'm an idiot though so whooooo knows
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Apr 3, 2022 22:00
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BDK put out a book/pdf of the “Three Pure Land Sutras” which Shinran considered to be the most important sutras in Jodo Shinshu.
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Apr 4, 2022 01:03
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Just got off the back of a nice 20 minute meditation followed by a bowl of hot chili noodles. Very satisfying stuff. I keep seeing faint mandala shapes when I'm closed-eye meditating and I like it. It's probably because I make a lot of mandala-esque artwork but it's a nice neutral place for my mind's eye to sit so I'm gonna lean into it.
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Apr 4, 2022 03:08
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I'm still aiming for ten minute sits but I did a fifteen minute one the other day and it wasn't agonizing. Ten still feels like the number where it's so short that it's really hard to justify to myself not doing it. I'm finding breaking the meditation up into a first portion where I focus on breathing (less of a problem for me lately) or mantra and then a second portion where I do open awareness helps. The open awareness has been interesting, I keep trying to come back to a home base and not having one and it makes watching my mind pretty entertaining.
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Apr 4, 2022 05:36
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Are you able to get "into" it a little quicker with practice? I find with meditation it takes me nearly ten minutes for my brain to figure out that meditation is what's happening. Usually around the fifth time I realize I'm making up some crazy mental scenario and refocus on my mantra, then my ligaments loosen and my body settles into a deeper setting of meditation. I've contemplated whether I should try for shorter meditations and try getting to that state with less dalliance, or just respect how I am and try for longer meditations, allowing myself the time to get into the state comfortably. Or both, I guess, but I like to chip away at one thing at a time.
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Apr 4, 2022 13:43
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Brawnfire posted:Are you able to get "into" it a little quicker with practice? I find with meditation it takes me nearly ten minutes for my brain to figure out that meditation is what's happening. Usually around the fifth time I realize I'm making up some crazy mental scenario and refocus on my mantra, then my ligaments loosen and my body settles into a deeper setting of meditation. I've contemplated whether I should try for shorter meditations and try getting to that state with less dalliance, or just respect how I am and try for longer meditations, allowing myself the time to get into the state comfortably. Or both, I guess, but I like to chip away at one thing at a time. Imagine a glass filled with muddy water from a pond that's been stirred up by rain. You sit it on the table and watch as the particles settle to the bottom. If there's been a storm, the water will be extra muddy and take longer to settle out. If the weather's been calm there's still some mud there but the water's clearer to begin with and it won't take so long to settle out. For a while a couple of years ago I was doing 45 minutes daily and there was usually a shift around the 30 minute mark where things opened up. That never shifted earlier for me. From what I've experienced and read there are no shortcuts, and more often equals better.
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Apr 4, 2022 14:12
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A good analogy. I've been curious about longer meditation after seeing the length some of the meditations on the Plum Garden app are. Can I really do a silent meditation for an hour? It might be a fun experiment.
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Apr 4, 2022 14:37
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i mean the worst thing that can happen is you go "nope too long" and stop. there's no rhabdomyolysis for meditation. only exception is mental illness stuff i guess which still is either a problem or it isn't and i wouldn't expect to be related to length of meditation
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Apr 4, 2022 15:37
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Achmed Jones posted:i mean the worst thing that can happen is you go "nope too long" and stop. there's no rhabdomyolysis for meditation. only exception is mental illness stuff i guess which still is either a problem or it isn't and i wouldn't expect to be related to length of meditation Is it enlightenment or deep vein thrombosis?
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Apr 4, 2022 16:01
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Bilirubin posted:Is it enlightenment or deep vein thrombosis?
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Apr 4, 2022 16:31
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i know a dude who is very, very nice and interested in buddhism. he got interested in it because he was a secular meditator, and had a really intense no-self experience just walkin around one day, turning the bathroom light off. he was really, really moved by this and it got him into dharma. my skeptical brain is thinking "wow, he had a tiny stroke or seizure or whatever," but the fact remains that this experience - whatever it was - put him on the path. and given that, the physiological causes aren't important (unless he needs a checkup i guess but you know what i mean) so what i'm saying is Bilirubin posted:Is it enlightenment or deep vein thrombosis? first one then the other
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Apr 4, 2022 17:10
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I had a question about mindstreams. If we say that most everything ends (body, personality, memories) when someone dies, but they are reborn none the less, is it still understood that there's a continuity of, not consciousness but let's say view path, or first person perspective, in the same way that the mindstream "behind my eyes" continues even after I sleep? Or is that not definitive in Buddhist scripture? Also, if all those things end when you die, how do people remember things from past lives? Do Buddhists have a methodology for those memories to be transferred?
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Apr 4, 2022 17:48
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Hiro Protagonist posted:I had a question about mindstreams. If we say that most everything ends (body, personality, memories) when someone dies, but they are reborn none the less, is it still understood that there's a continuity of, not consciousness but let's say view path, or first person perspective, in the same way that the mindstream "behind my eyes" continues even after I sleep? Or is that not definitive in Buddhist scripture? There is an entire complex situation with the Tibetans; the Tibetan Book of the Dead is meant to be, if I recall right, habits that will guide you through the rebirth process so that if you drill them deeply your 'you' will execute them despite you being a little bit dead at the time. Memory from past lives gets weird and conjectural... my own supposition is that such things impact the tastes and default preferences and habits of thought of the individual in the future, contributing to all the little ways in which even identical twins or similar are different. I think you can attain such things through practice in some cases, but it's a potential diversion from the actual road to enlightenment rather than a goal you should aspire towards.
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Apr 4, 2022 18:14
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Nessus posted:For the first one I think the analogy is to if you light Candle 1, use Candle 1 to light Candle 2, use Candle 2 to light Candle 3 and so on and so forth into the future. When you get to candle 650, you know, is it really the same flame? Yet you can trace it back. Fair, but I don't know if that fully gets at what I'm trying to say. The mind stream changes and flows, as all of the 5 aggregates are impermanent. But when I get reborn, does my perception continue/return, just without the 8 aggregates from before? If not, then how is the momentum from my karma related to that new being? Basically, when I die, is there just nothingness and another being out there that will suffer from my karma, or am "I" the other being, without most of the things we associate with "I", because the self is empty? Hiro Protagonist fucked around with this message at 20:45 on Apr 4, 2022 |
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Apr 4, 2022 19:17
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Hiro Protagonist posted:
*responds with noble silence*
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Apr 4, 2022 19:23
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Hiro Protagonist posted:Fair, but I don't know if that fully gets at what I'm trying to say. The mind stream changes and flows, as all of the 8 aggregates are impermanent. But when I get reborn, does my perception continue/return, just without the 8 aggregates from before? If not, then how is the momentum from my karma related to that new being? A technical explanation of how this is accomplished is probably irrelevant and I will leave it to researchers in karmatron dynamics.
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Apr 4, 2022 19:32
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BIG FLUFFY DOG posted:*responds with noble silence* I am frustrated, unsurprised, and vaguely pleased with this answer.
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Apr 4, 2022 19:37
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Hiro Protagonist posted:I am frustrated, unsurprised, and vaguely pleased with this answer. If you want a more detailed answer. You should try doing kind things, saying kind things, making an honest living, having good intentions, trying hard, paying attention to your own mind, reading sutras and meditating on them. Heard a rumor that it helps you figure it all out.
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Apr 4, 2022 19:41
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I hear ya. One of my biggest struggles with death is oblivion. Just, an inability to reckon with a lack of POV. Obviously. So my mind refuses a world where I'm not behind a set of eyes, or at least within a living--if not sensing--being. The Being is the only existence I understand. For some reason my mind insists that its inability to grasp oblivion means it can't be true, that I must wake up in a second or a thousand years when something lines up just right, with complete cessation of awareness of these current years. It may have happened before. But it's foolish, also, because there's no limit on "self"s and so no need to recycle them. So, idk
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Apr 4, 2022 19:44
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Brawnfire posted:Are you able to get "into" it a little quicker with practice? I find with meditation it takes me nearly ten minutes for my brain to figure out that meditation is what's happening. Usually around the fifth time I realize I'm making up some crazy mental scenario and refocus on my mantra, then my ligaments loosen and my body settles into a deeper setting of meditation. I've contemplated whether I should try for shorter meditations and try getting to that state with less dalliance, or just respect how I am and try for longer meditations, allowing myself the time to get into the state comfortably. Or both, I guess, but I like to chip away at one thing at a time. The settling down period is pretty typical for most meditators. Especially given how busy the modern world is. A lot of modern chores are really quite complicated and take a lot of mental gymnastics. All the media everywhere drifts into your brain and ends up using a lot of background processing. for fucks sake posted:Imagine a glass filled with muddy water from a pond that's been stirred up by rain. You sit it on the table and watch as the particles settle to the bottom. If there's been a storm, the water will be extra muddy and take longer to settle out. If the weather's been calm there's still some mud there but the water's clearer to begin with and it won't take so long to settle out. The muddy water is a great analogy. And things do settle if you sit in a quiet place with the intention to be relaxed. But you do have to be patient and wait a bit for things to just settle on their own. Brawnfire posted:A good analogy. These basic meditation techniques are the slow and steady path to realization. So they really only work faster by doing it more. But like other exercises, there is a "too much" point that can be counter productive. From my experience, 1 hour is a pretty optimal amount of meditation. It allows plenty of time to settle down. Time to work on what ever specific techniques you had planned. And time to face your ego butting in and demanding you get up and entertain it. Depending on how busy your life is, a full hour sit might just be a weekend thing. But it is something worth aiming for. And you don't have to do meditation while in a sitting position. The benefit of getting good at seated meditation is that you can do it pretty much anywhere. And for that reason alone I would recommend everyone to at least get competent at seated meditation. Provided you aren't sleepy, you can do it laying down. I've done this while recuperating from work related shoulder, back, and knee injuries. Walking meditation is often done in monasteries and on retreats between sitting sessions. It can be done with movement/posture exercises, like Tai Chi or Yoga. Not all types of meditation will work in these other settings. Like, I don't think you are going to attain nirodha samapatti by doing meditative dish washing. Or at least, you probably wouldn't want to. But when it comes to mindfulness training, like in the Satipatthana Sutta or Anapanasati Sutta, it is totally possible to do that while in a Yoga pose, or walking through a park.
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Apr 4, 2022 19:53
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I think it's a common anxiety once you think it through, and since none of us are getting any younger -- I assume -- various ailments remind us that it will happen eventually. I've had to deal with it myself, if thankfully for acid reflux rather than anything worse... BIG FLUFFY DOG posted:If you want a more detailed answer. You should try doing kind things, saying kind things, making an honest living, having good intentions, trying hard, paying attention to your own mind, reading sutras and meditating on them. Heard a rumor that it helps you figure it all out. 
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Apr 4, 2022 19:53
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Brawnfire posted:I hear ya. One of my biggest struggles with death is oblivion. Just, an inability to reckon with a lack of POV. Obviously. Oblivion is definitely a source of anxiety for me as well but most of us experience snippets of it. You've never had a dreamless sleep? My conception of it is just that, only without the waking up part. Scary, but also kinda not?
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Apr 4, 2022 22:13
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Achmed Jones posted:i know a dude who is very, very nice and interested in buddhism. he got interested in it because he was a secular meditator, and had a really intense no-self experience just walkin around one day, turning the bathroom light off. he was really, really moved by this and it got him into dharma. my skeptical brain is thinking "wow, he had a tiny stroke or seizure or whatever," but the fact remains that this experience - whatever it was - put him on the path. and given that, the physiological causes aren't important (unless he needs a checkup i guess but you know what i mean) yunmen became enlightened after having his foot broken in a slammed door. yes, years of study and practice preceded it but the precipitating incident of his awakening was his own bones breaking. if there was a method, there would be attachment to the method. non-attachment to the path of no-method means we can include all methods, and if the buddha-nature is truly universal, it is revealed in all things, everywhere, at all times. one just has to learn skillful squinting to see it.
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Apr 4, 2022 22:35
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Regarding the big spooky oblivion anxiety, what helped tremendously for me moving through my own experience of it was the simple question: to who does this anxiety belong? Don't try to answer it, don't make up an understanding, just continue to ask the question whenever the oblivion anxiety appears: to whom does this belong?
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Apr 4, 2022 22:41
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https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/ud/ud.1.10.than.htmlquote:"Then, Bāhiya, you should train yourself thus: In reference to the seen, there will be only the seen. In reference to the heard, only the heard. In reference to the sensed, only the sensed. In reference to the cognized, only the cognized. That is how you should train yourself. When for you there will be only the seen in reference to the seen, only the heard in reference to the heard, only the sensed in reference to the sensed, only the cognized in reference to the cognized, then, Bāhiya, there is no you in connection with that. When there is no you in connection with that, there is no you there. When there is no you there, you are neither here nor yonder nor between the two. This, just this, is the end of stress."
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Apr 4, 2022 23:26
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prom candy posted:Oblivion is definitely a source of anxiety for me as well but most of us experience snippets of it. You've never had a dreamless sleep? My conception of it is just that, only without the waking up part. Scary, but also kinda not? I think that's what gets me, is that the fear is not really of what's after, it's the run-up to it. Try as I might, I won't be able to worry and fear after I'm dead, so it's purely a living Brawnfire thing to cope with. And, in some ways, more potent than fear is regret; despite its suffering, I understand existing, and I love the gifts it brings. That this isn't an indefinite act is... well, regretful. But, ram dass in hell posted:to whom does this belong?
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Apr 4, 2022 23:54
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Thirty minutes tonight. Twenty minutes timer, and I decided I was enjoying where I was at so much I went for another ten. I had some very, very deep thoughts rise up to try to attract my attention, felt good denying them.
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Apr 5, 2022 03:17
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