ashgromnies posted:What would you say to someone who was feeling like me? Tentative is a way to describe it. I'm not engaging fully and mindfully with the universe right now -- like I'm at the edge of a pool dipping my toes in. Push me in. Engage me. Get into Eurorack and meditate on both the sound and the empty nature of your wallet.
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Mar 21, 2014 02:47
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ThePriceJustWentUp posted:I'll try to stop posting in this thread if I'm going to get a bad reception every time This was all any of us were asking of you. Thank you. ThePriceJustWentUp posted:but I stand by everything I ever said. Pretty much everything you have said in this thread has either been word salad or more than misguided but demonstrably wrong. You've made comments about enlightenment, harsh speech, substances, seeking skillful help, etc. that run contrary to literally every school of Buddhism and disagree with the teachings themselves in totally unambiguous ways. None of us have any problem with you trying to get access to the Dharma and learn more, but most of us do have a problem with how you present your wildly crazy worldview to those who come in here asking questions on what Buddhism is. If you want to start your own thread about your own personal theology I'm sure that'd be interesting, but as it stand you're posting like someone who claims large degrees of authority and has no knowledge of what he is meant to be authoritative of. I'm not actively trying to be a dick, but a good percentage of this thread, and certainly a majority of posters here, have asked you to stop posting here. Your behaviour both in presenting the Dharma and interacting with others has been totally inappropriate and you've already been banned once and probated twice for your content in this thread. To provide you with some more insight beyond just making you feel unwanted (which, make no mistake, in the context of this thread you are unwanted) might I recommend listening to Urban Dharma podcasts when you're out for a drive? Possibly glance at the interpretations in the Sutras on how they are broken or upheld, or maybe some dialogues on discerning speech? If you seek out a physical Sangha you will be in a much better position to get the education you need, and maybe concede that if you're going to stand by your readily falsifiable statements that this perhaps isn't the best place to do so. WAFFLEHOUND fucked around with this message at 17:05 on Mar 28, 2014 |
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Mar 28, 2014 16:50
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I love traditional Tibetan sandalwood incense, because it smells like burning logs of sandalwood and reminds me of monasteries in Tibet.
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Apr 16, 2014 00:50
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Folderol posted:Any brands / sites you'd recommend for Tibetan sandalwood incense? Mine is from Nepal and I got it through a monastery in Seattle. No idea where to find it online though.
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Apr 17, 2014 17:30
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Splurgerwitzl posted:Are there any resources in the Seattle area that you'd recommend? Sakya Monastery of Tibetan Buddhism has a store open limited hours which is super cheap or Pema Kharpo, which is expensive but run by an awesome Tibetan guy who is worth giving a bit of extra money for how good his customer service is.
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Apr 17, 2014 21:18
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Smoking Crow posted:Would it be rude to ask a question? I want to know why cessation of personal suffering is so important. I understand the cessation of someone else's suffering (no one wants someone to starve to death), but my personal suffering is what made me who I am. I wouldn't change a bit of it. As a Christian, I believe that personal suffering and struggle is important. Tears are the companion of the penitent man, after all. Because even if this life is awesome and rad, the next one may feel like an eternity of suffering; it's actually why being born as a human is considered a more fortunate birth than being born a god; you're not blinded by how great things are and forget that how great things are is transient. Plus, there's a really solid argument that reducing suffering, even as a Christian, is a good thing. This is from Urban Dharma, it's a talk given by a Zen monk at a Catholic high school, so if it's the talk I remember it's A: addressing Buddhism in very simple terms and B: using a contrasting Christian framework. You might find it interesting, because (again, if it's the talk I'm thinking of) it discusses some of the root differences of the underlying theology.
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Apr 18, 2014 20:16
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ashgromnies posted:What's the end-state of universal enlightenment? A whole lot of enlightenment. ashgromnies posted:One can be an arhat in this lifetime, correct? What if an arhat reproduced? It's possible, with varying degrees of likeliness depending on your school (Vajrayana holds it to be possible moreso than other schools). Arahats cannot reproduce since they cannot have sex. Looking at it overly-pragmatically, if you're beyond desire you're not going to be able to get a boner.  ashgromnies posted:If arhats don't reproduce, is the end state that there are no more sentient beings as they've all escaped samsara? I'm not certain of this one, I think the answer is that it's possible given an infinite amount of time, but if you consider how many sentient beings there are and how few attain nirvana (let's very generously call it a handful a year, given we live in an age of Dharma) contrasted with how many lifeforms there are in this world alone, combined with the fact that knowledge of the Dharma will fade for a time, I think you're going to need to be more concerned with the heat death of the universe. Good theological question though, I'd be curious to ask a monk this one. ashgromnies posted:Or does rebirth continue without suffering? Does nirvana have aspects of rebirth? Nirvana is, by definition, beyond concepts.
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Apr 19, 2014 21:36
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Impermanent posted:I've heard this line of thought before but I don't fully understand it. Dharma itself is impermanent, but knowledge of the Dharma will fade. In more simple terms, while the truths of Buddhism will never suddenly be untrue, Buddhism as a faith will die. The birth of the next Buddha (Maitreya) will bring "Buddhism" back as Maitreya will independently discover the Dharma, as Buddha did before. Impermanent posted:Can you recommend other resources or speak to the idea of the decline of Dharma and how it fits in to a current context? On Wikipedia it talks more about Mahayana Buddhism's idea of the decline of Dharma than the other traditions. No idea, really, beyond the core texts. Quantumfate might be able to lend a hand here. Impermanent posted:Are we doomed to continue a cycle of increasingly-unlikely rebirths into less and less Dharma-filled times? Does Rebirth necessarily even involve a respect for chronology (could I be reborn in the 500s?) Basically, though eventually at some point in a time with no Dharma Dharma will arise again. And yes, it's a really popular thought experiment among new Buddhists but every theological source I've ever seen has expressed that time is necessarily linear.
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Apr 19, 2014 23:38
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Jacobeus posted:Actually, the likelihood of attaining nirvana has far less to do with your school or teacher's lineage and far more to do with how willing you are to actually achieve it. The school you choose is far more likely to be determined by your culture and personal nature than it is to be decided by "well in this school there's only a 5% change of enlightenment but in this one it's 7%." There's a 100% chance for all those who follow Dharma completely (not saying that it's easy, just that it has a conditional guarantee). You misunderstood me; different traditions make different claims to the expediency of their teachings. While all schools recognize all other schools paths as valid paths to enlightenment, you don't see Theravadins doing Tantric initiations en masse just because Vajrayana makes the claim that it is a shortcut to enlightenment.
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Apr 20, 2014 05:36
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Sithsaber posted:It's more a criticism of his office and his western following. It's not even a criticism of that, it's kind of a dumb throwaway I-watched-crazy-people-youtube-videos-and-now-feel-obligated-to-post-in-a-thread-like-I'm-doing-in-the-Freemasonry-thread thing which provides nothing of value. There are definitely valid criticisms of the tulku system, (the Sakya kings could be argued to be a straight-up traditional monarchy stuck into the framework of Avalokitesvara's emanations) but saying the Dalai Lama is out to make himself Dharmapope is on its face pretty silly.
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Jun 3, 2014 03:35
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So what aspect of karmic awaking manifests as dogs that knock on doors, out of curiosity?
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Jul 3, 2014 07:59
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Dr.Caligari posted:How big were said dogs? I know I have a Saint Bernard that occasionally will plant himself right outside my front door, and if that tail gets going for some reason, it sounds like someone is urgently knocking on the door. Clearly your dog is close to awakening, then. No other possibility. Dr.Caligari posted:I don't think these tales of mystical experiences detract, or necessarily add, to anything in Buddhism. But I don't think it's any different that Catholic stories of Saints levitating, and if one were to join the Catholic church just in hopes of learning to levitate, they would quickly change their goals, or else just quit. I do think it detracts to a degree from the sense that a lot of people don't know much about Buddhism, whereas with Catholicism you'll probably learn right quick that if you think a dogs butt knocking on a door is the interdiction of saints that you're probably going to be considered kind of kooky.
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Jul 3, 2014 18:50
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Paramemetic posted:Both of the things you described are part of the "relative reality." The ultimate reality is emptiness.* *in some denominations
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Jul 4, 2014 07:48
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Paramemetic posted:Even the mind-only school acknowledges that the mind is emptiness in its true understanding. To my knowledge the supremacy of Śūnyatā was actually one of the huge points of divergence between Madhyamaka and Yogācāra?
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Jul 4, 2014 09:08
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Are they any good at meditation or just sitting there uncomfortably cross-legged for a lifetime thinking about boning people?
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Jul 25, 2014 05:14
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Can we find some middle ground between telling people that ask about Buddhism that it's a thoughtcrime not to personally believe in rebirth and that "school X totally doesn't teach rebirth because I have a poor grasp of their actual teachings but not enough to not feel I should present what knowledge I have"? That'd be really cool. Impermanent posted:I am at a point where I frequently find myself aching for suffering in the world and my heart will frequently feel heavy. There's kind of a different way of looking at this that isn't strictly canonical, but is there any reason you're doing what you're doing instead of actively working on improving things in some tiny way yourself? There are big injustices in the world that upset me and I feel from a Buddhist perspective if I am aware of the suffering of my other sentient beings I am obligated at some level to attempt to do what I can, at least to a small extent. I don't mean like move to Gaza and join the protests, but there are plenty of human rights orgs who are desperate for help at a local level. I mean, if the real suffering of others is causing you suffering isn't doing anything at all the most skillful way to alleviate the suffering of both yourself and potentially those others? 
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Jul 25, 2014 19:59
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Frykte posted:When you take away stuff that fills up the mind like sex and suffering mind are all basically the same thing. I can't tell if you're having trouble distinguishing the idea of "basically the same" from "actually the same" or if you're thinking of Hinduism.
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Jul 31, 2014 05:09
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If you're thinking "All consciousness is one" then that's not Buddhism. If you're not thinking that then just because two things are similar doesn't mean they're literally the same.
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Jul 31, 2014 05:16
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Everybody join the CK2 liveblog AIM and maybe we'll accidentally talk about dharma.
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Aug 3, 2014 02:39
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Pancakes by Mail posted:More generally, when a sutta describes something supernatural (a woman's plucked out eye regrows immediately, for example) - is that meant to be taken metaphorically? Literally? Is it sometimes dependent on context? I'm going to tread carefully to avoid starting up a giant slapfight again, but I do not believe that Paramemetic's answer was given as skillfully as it could be. The supernatural stuff in Buddhism is, and has always meant to be, taken literally by every Buddhist tradition (though sometimes in slightly different ways). That isn't to say the only way you can possibly get anything out of it is if you dive head-first into the land of magical thinking, but it's important to understand that the tradition backing Buddhism isn't free from the magical or woo elements of other faiths. That said, there is no Dharmapope, there isn't some central authority out there who is going to lead an inquisition against you if you get something out of a sutra by reading it metaphorically or allegorically. If something is positive to you in that way, it's probably positive in general. That said, there are two common traps here that cause friction; one is when people come in so close-minded that they believe Buddhism is some reductive philosophy that has been taken from the husk of an ignorant oriental faith and exists as a series of shallow platitudes and that their modern interpretation of these Sutras is obviously going to be the 'correct' way because science discredits magical thinking in some of thse places. The other is when people fall into the trap of believing that the metaphorical presentation is what Buddhism actually is. The first discredits thousands of years of religious scholarship and reeks of orientalism, and is much less common to see. The second usually stems from a place of (often unintentional) ignorance when presented with some of the common teaching styles which seek to downplay some of the more mystical aspects of the Dharma due to how hard it is for many people to come to terms with and because in the grand scheme of things they're not exactly the most important parts of the Dharma (usually). In either case the biggest problem from these is when people try to present their interpretations as Dharma, as opposed to their personal beliefs. What may seem a harmless interpretation can be totally beneficial to you but can be greatly upsetting to many Buddhists, and not just random strangers on the internet. The spread of Anyone should be free to get whatever they feel they can out of a teaching, but be mindful if you are presenting a personal interpretation as an authoritative one of the suffering that can cause people. To give a direct answer to your question, which Paramemetic kind of danced around; yes they are "meant" to be taken that way, but then to piggyback off his answer there is nothing on this planet saying you have to. Hopefully I've worded that diplomatically enough not to cause this thread to do a Hindenburg impression.
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Aug 4, 2014 03:19
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Pancakes by Mail posted:A follow-up, then: when the Dalai Lama says, “If scientific analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false, then we must accept the findings of science and abandon those claims," is he not speaking for all Buddhists? Is the key word "conclusively" and the argument be made that nothing is truly conclusively proven? He's the leader of the Gelugpa sect of Tibetan Buddhism, not all Buddhists (and not all Tibetan Buddhists). And you're reading a bit too strongly into it. Take it this way; there used to be a belief in Tibet that nothing could travel above the height of one of the holy mountains, I believe Kailash, because the winds would simply destroy it. This might be an interesting problem for a monk to meditate on from an airplane. The Dalai Lama wasn't saying "welp I'm a secular humanist".
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Aug 4, 2014 07:16
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Incarnate Dao posted:I think it's also important to note that when the DL says that, he saying that in a very specific cultural context. Most scientists I know would say we have "conclusively determined" that divination isn't real, yet divination is an important aspect of several Tibetan Buddhist rituals. It's worth noting that the Dalai Lama and Tibetan Buddhists are coming from a framework where these things are very real not only in a theoretical way but in a practical part of life way. The normal arguments around disproving negatives fall a little flat when the guy we're talking about is believed to be the 14th direct rebirth whose previous rebirth is known and there's pictures of, etc. I'm not saying that the presence of Tulkus is proof of rebirth, but that it (from the perspective of [at least Tibetan] Buddhists) shifts the burden of proof to those who would attempt to make the argument that science has "disproven" certain things for which their is, from a purely scientific perspective, zero evidence for.
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Aug 4, 2014 19:44
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Paramemetic posted:There would still likely be a head of the Gelug lineage, yes. Wafflehound and I were discussing this (I think he's loosely a Sakyapa but they have some relation to Gelugpa I believe??) I imagine it would either pass to Zopa Rinpoche, or another Rinpoche would arise to become the new head. This is not unheard of historically, I mean, after all, impermanence is a thing. Zopa Rinpoche will almost certainly take over as the head of the Gelug sect for a time. Theoretically with enough time (maybe sometime around 2090-2100) they could operate on the assumption the previous Pachen lama died and a new birth could fill that office, since technically that's a higher office than Zopa holds. I think in addition to the China angle there's possibly Westerner's figuring into the mental calculus as well; Tenzin Gyatso is likely the most widely recognized international figure Buddhism has had in its 2600-year history, and he's hugely responsible for much of the spread of Dharma in the West. By ending the institution here he's not forcing millions of skeptical rationalist Westerners inclined to Dharma to confront the fact that beyond just being a really cool wise guy he's actually a mystical Dharmapope, his legacy in terms of his teachings will be untarnished by later iterations and he will likely remain the greatest influence to most Western Buddhists without people kind of having to think "Well, that got weird." It also recognizes the fact that the next birth isn't inherently going to be as charismatic, it frees up the next ultra-charismatic wise monk to be from any other school or tradition without all the scrutiny that the Tulku process would inevitably bring. It's an unbelievably brilliant move but frankly the Dalai Lama is an incredible statesman with the bonus of being far less personally invested in his political legacy than most politicians. In all honesty, I'm kind of curious to see how Tenzin Phuntsok Rinpoche grows up, he's only ten now but apparently fluent in English and his story has been one of the most visible in terms of the Tulku process, his proximity to Zopa could easily see him turned into an international figure if he has the right kind of mind for it as he gets older, and Zopa seems like the kind of person to realize the media potential there. I'm not loosely Sakyapa, I'm actually-but-shittily Sakyapa.
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Sep 9, 2014 03:41
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There's also the risk of a Tibetan uprising after HHDL's death that this decision helps mitigate.
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Sep 9, 2014 06:26
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Tautologicus posted:
But you've got it figured out. 
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Sep 11, 2014 01:14
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Tautologicus posted:There's also nothing to teach. And nothing to learn. I'm not sure where you're getting your understanding of Buddhism from. The Smokedalottabowls Sutta generally isn't considered canon.
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Sep 11, 2014 02:21
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Keep in mind that the expansion of all-as-emptiness doesn't hold to all traditions, and the way you're presenting it is horrendously misguided in my opinion. Handwaving the entire Heart Sutra's content to be about emptiness then just going around saying "everything is empty" to the point of Nihilism including the dismissal of teachings. I think Paramemetic is being overly generous in assuming you're not a crazy person but at the very least I might kindly ask you not to present your interpretation as prime when it only covers a few schools of Buddhism and when you seem to be presenting yourself as having some degree of knowledge that surpasses even that of monks.
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Sep 11, 2014 04:02
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Tautologicus, you don't really know anything about Buddhism and while it's cool if you want to participate it'd be pretty neat if you took your personal spiritual journey away from Buddhism to be either more of a "this is my own whackjob opinion" or maybe make a general spirituality thread because some of what you're posting is actively detrimental to people who are interested in Buddhism if they listen to you thinking you're an authority of any kind at all.
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Sep 11, 2014 07:48
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I'm not even saying "go away" as much as I think it'd be super awesome if you didn't pretend to have major tradition-defining sutras figured out more than monks and how you don't need a teacher because it's ~all in you~ and you abandoned your Buddhist training once you realized you had it all figured out from the start.
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Sep 11, 2014 08:12
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The-Mole posted:Wafflehound tends to be a bit strict in how he interprets Buddhism. Obamacareshugsquad (dude got a name change to tautologicus) tends to be a bit manic seeming, particularly since he bursts into the thread every few months with everything all figured out and then tends to take people disagreeing with him as a big personal attack. Then he completely disappears again. I actually didn't realize it was OCHS. For anyone reading in, he's a guy who claims to be above teachers, literally an enlightened being, and that Buddhism's prohibition of intoxicants prevents him from taking his anti-crazy meds who wouldn't stop trying to get in touch with me in real life. I'm not strict in how I interpret Buddhism, I just don't think "Buddhism" is a catch-all term for any vaguely Indian philosophy which involves meditation. WAFFLEHOUND fucked around with this message at 23:14 on Sep 11, 2014 |
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Sep 11, 2014 23:02
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Tautologicus posted:Man you're creating drama where there currently is none. And I never said any of that anyway. Read more closely. Also you're the one who self medicates heavily with marijuana, who are you to talk. I don't even drink or anything. I don't have to drug my mind to get through the day. Sorry The funniest part of this is I don't smoke anything. Tautologicus posted:It was, I suppose, a bad time to post, but I was making a logical point about something unrelated to any absent minded personal claims. Claims that have turned to dust as time went on, and they were modest to start with. You claimed to be enlightened. A couple of pages back you claimed to have special insight on the Heart Sutra that would render monks gardeners. WAFFLEHOUND fucked around with this message at 00:49 on Sep 12, 2014 |
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Sep 12, 2014 00:42
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I don't smoke jack poo poo, I just think weed jokes are funny and post in byob. I've been one of the more vocal posters in here about intoxicants as they relate to Buddhism.
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Sep 12, 2014 00:50
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discoukulele posted:Austin Austin Zen Center was my go-to for a while, itʻs amazing and you should look into it
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Sep 17, 2014 08:43
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