|
From how you said it, it sounds like a Buddhist in the west is spared the temptations to eat their animal cousins.
|
#
¿
Jun 8, 2017 12:18
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 9, 2024 08:36 |
|
|
Better to try to eat vegan than to try to eat vegans.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 8, 2017 12:30
|
|
|
I follow you. I think the point others were making is that, yes, the nutritional availability changes from person to person, location to location. But what is common is the human-wide cycle of suffering which has its roots in our attachments. I myself am attached to pork sausage and Mie Goreng.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 8, 2017 12:42
|
|
|
Nessus posted:Nah, mu. That would make me want to first start with as uncontroversial a summary of Jesus as possible. Jesus of Nazareth is the central character in the canonical Greek scriptures read by Catholics. In these stories, Jesus is a Palestinian Jew who lived about two thousand years ago. Throughout his life, Jesus is at the center of astonishing signs and acts of healing. He ministered to people. His sermons can be summarized by his consistent message that to be in harmony with all things and all people for all time, a person should choose to act in and believe in compassion, especially for those who are marginalized or vulnerable. He instructed followers to be merciful to wrong-doers. Even his closest disciples did not always understand him, but he was frequently popularly received. As he ministered, Jesus became increasingly identified as the Son of God. Although he committed no crime, Jesus was arrested by the authorities and sentenced to death. An audience watched him die by crucifixion, and then he was buried. Astonishing events continued to happen after his death, such as the disappearance of his body and the sighting of angels. His disciples begin to see him appearing and disappearing. In one of their sightings, Jesus tells them that his life and death have triggered events that will literally change life. He instructed his followers to spread the messages he spoke of in his life. They did so. That's as agnostic a summary as I can make that suggests no intention for the reader to accept the historicity of the written story. To speak personally, to the best of my knowledge, I have never performed a recognizable Buddhist ritual. That's to say that I'm not a Buddhist, but I try to understand a plausible Buddhist perspective. Again, without suggesting worship or even historic credulity in Jesus, I imagine a Buddhist attitude towards the Jesus story would be deep respect for his audacious claims. He lived as if he was a block against bad karma passing through him and towards another. He took wrongdoing against him without responding with any kind of hurt back towards anyone or anything. He carried this message to his execution. It is plausible that the story of his life and message have ended cycles of suffering, and may continue to do so for the foreseeable future. How's that?
|
|
#
¿
Aug 15, 2017 10:41
|
|
|
Nessus posted:Well I would think that he is familiar with the outline of this story, as he is a priest of the Catholic faith, which is historically noted for at least a lukewarm positive attitude towards Jimmy C. I think the latter stuff would be more what he was looking for, although he may have also been wondering if Buddhism specifically denies Jesus existing, etc. My loose understanding is that it would be irrelevant to the actual through-line of seeking liberation in Buddhism, even if it may be a fun historical conversation. I'm sorry. I included the first part to set the basis of what any person, Catholic or not, Buddhist or not, could agree on about the Jesus stories. edit: I talk about this more in the Christianity thread, but I'll say it in short here: I don't think anyone, a Buddhist, a Christian, an Agnostic, or an Atheist, has to accept or deny the existence of Jesus to have deep respect for the character of Jesus in the canonical stories. If Jesus was regarded as Gandalf, they'd both be deeply admired today. The difference being that since the Jesus story has been passed on, people proclaim the have had their lives changed, their suffering mending, and a surety towards a final liberation, an eternal existence. That is to say that I, a Christian, have not found anything to disagree with between what continues to be said about the life of Siddhartha Gautama and the life of Jesus. Caufman fucked around with this message at 11:16 on Aug 15, 2017 |
|
#
¿
Aug 15, 2017 11:06
|
|
|
Paramemetic posted:"Buddhism" doesn't have anything to say about Jesus because "Buddhism" predates the birth of Jesus by about 500 years. The Buddha didn't have anything to say about a guy who wouldn't be born or do his thing for nearly five centuries after the Buddha's own passing into parinirvana. It is true that Siddhartha lived before Jesus was born. But if his wisdom is at least somewhat transferable to his adherents, then we can at least make plausible guesses as to how Siddhartha would have reacted to a story like the Jesus story. quote:So in order to answer him, you have to first explain that. You can't give Buddhist's opinion on Jesus because the teachings of Buddha occurred 500 years before Jesus. Buddhists themselves have many varied views. Some say he was a really good man and teacher. Some say he was a bodhisattva. Some say he actually traveled to India and studied Buddhism himself, and so was a Buddhist. I don't know of anyone who negatively regards Jesus or Christians generally, as the religious promotes lovingkindness and compassion. But the idea that anyone can save you other than yourself is anathema to Buddha's teachings, so I doubt many people accept the whole salvation bit. Maybe some do! Again, it's nothing addressed in scriptures, so it's a bit of a troublesome question. Effectively, though, a Christian and a Buddhist practice the same things (though from two separate traditions) to attain final and everlasting liberation from bondage: holiness and compassion. And this common wisdom is available to anyone who genuinely seeks ultimate meaning, whether they were born an Indian prince or a Palestinian Jew and all other variations of things with Buddha-nature.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 15, 2017 13:07
|
|
|
Annual Prophet posted:You should suggest he contact Fr. Robert Kennedy, S.J. I would, except I haven't read him myself. My father in law, a Catholic deacon, recommends him heavily. I myself haven't gotten around to it, because I spend most of my reading time on shitposts. edit: Oops, you're not talking to me 
Caufman fucked around with this message at 13:55 on Aug 15, 2017 |
|
#
¿
Aug 15, 2017 13:53
|
|
|
pidan posted:There's certainly some overlap in the religions, but their cores are very different. I don't think Christianity got the idea of monasteries from Buddhism fwiw, but I'd like to see if anybody has some sources one way or the other. I'd like to hear more about what you see as the very different cores. I approach a person with the understanding that everyone is a person first, before they are a Christian or a Buddhist or any other moral or spiritual identity. That's to suggest that the fundamental nature of people has been common across the millennia of human history, even as the characteristics (inherited and spontaneous) change all the time. And, to paraphrase Marcus Aurelius, the shared fundamental nature of all people is our common faculties to access both reason and holiness. That is why I observe that people of very different experiences, even across history, can and will come to similar conclusions about suffering: that its ultimate defeat comes through living with holiness and compassion.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 15, 2017 22:23
|
|
|
Take the plunge! Okay! posted:Could you please explain what holiness means to you? Certainly, I will do my best. As I use the term holiness (and I'm not attached to using that particular word), I mean the shared ability by any person to have a rapport with and even approach harmony with all things between and including an Alpha and an Omega. In the context of the Jesus and Siddhartha stories, both teachers had something to say about the practice of holiness they saw in their lives. For Jesus, the baffle between ultimate holiness and his contemporary holy men and women was their preoccupation with lawyering morality and their attachment to worldly power. For Siddhartha (and I am much less familiar with his stories), he had to encounter holy men and women who were too focused on the ascetics of holiness, which left them unable to see the perfection of the middle way. Both teachers had lessons which are still popularly accessible and important to people today, who no longer live in either Indian principalities or Roman-occupied Palestine. Briefly, the common themes of holiness that I can identify as being important to both Jesus of Nazareth and Siddhartha Gautama is the practice of personal examination and resistance towards fleeting temptations and attachments.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 15, 2017 23:54
|
|
|
pidan posted:I mean, both Buddhism and Christianity have developed into very diverse religions, to the point that there are probably some forms of Buddhism that are more similar to some forms of Christianity than to other forms of Buddhism and vice versa. So it's dangerous to speak about the "core" of either religion. True enough, though I don't think anyone is in danger in this thread. There is no physical core of a religion, only a metaphoric one that is defined differently by each believer. To answer big questions of spirituality, I find it easier to convey what I mean by using examples of a hypothetical but plausible Christian or Buddhist, which I define as a person who has, on some level, chosen to observe the stories of Jesus or Siddhartha. quote:But when you look at the quotes from the founder of each religion, they focus on different things. For one thing, Jesus has a lot of opinions on social life, things like marriage and status, relation to authority and care for the poor. He also puts a lot of emphasis on encouraging people to swear allegiance to God and Jesus, since this is the only way to salvation. The Buddha on the other hand mostly talks about the noble truths and the eightfold path that leads to the cessation of suffering. Definitely both teachers had very different lessons. They lived in different places with different things going on. They inherited different stories and traditions and were asked different questions. The characteristics of their teachings are very different, but I'm postulating that the fundamental nature of their messages are harmoniously compatible and even challenge one another to be clearer. Put differently, I wonder if Jesus of Nazareth were born 2,500 years ago as a prince of India or if Siddhartha were born 2,000 years ago as an unknown Palestinian Jew, would they have lived radically differently from our pairing? That's an unanswerable hypothetical, but I'm suggesting it's not a useless one to ask. Caufman fucked around with this message at 07:10 on Aug 17, 2017 |
|
#
¿
Aug 17, 2017 07:05
|
|
|
Nessus posted:I feel like this is comparing apples and pineapples because these are drastically different backgrounds and the conditions in either case would fundamentally alter the individual's situation. Exactly like comparing apples to pineapples: they are both fruit that grow in biomes suited for them. quote:Also, had Jesus lived to 80 and given huge swaths of teaching in those years, Christianity would no doubt be quite different than what we know today. I suggest that the reason most religions broadly share the same moral perspective is because they are at their nature the same, like the apple and the pineapple as fruits. In fact, the differences we see between the two fruits is a result of a tiny fraction of both their DNAs. Under the hood where the vital actions happen, life on Earth is very similar. Baha'is seem to have the strongest textual focus on the unity of religion. Even though my main contact with Baha'i is through my college roommate and buddy, this idea astounds me. It doesn't have to be important to any other Christian or anyone else, but I am deeply affected by the notion that when people, lay or educator, focus their spirituality on questions of how people ought to live to achieve the highest possible state, their bottom-line answer is compassion and holiness. It's just where I would begin any comparison of people of spirit. Caufman fucked around with this message at 09:37 on Aug 17, 2017 |
|
#
¿
Aug 17, 2017 09:31
|
|
|
Nessus posted:What does "holiness" mean here? (I'll give you compassion.) This was my answer from before: Caufman posted:Certainly, I will do my best.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 18, 2017 09:48
|
|
|
Senior Scarybagels posted:To be fair, he also claims Hermes is a previous life of Buddha too so I don't know if he had a strong grasp of the story in the first place. Didn't he, though? 
|
|
#
¿
Aug 22, 2017 02:11
|
|
|
Tias posted:You're the second post to ask in as many days, and well.. The knowledge and interest is there, but the prior threads about it have been heckled into oblivion by lovely posters. I may do it after my exams. If you do it, I got your back. Everyone thinks they're a comedian.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 30, 2017 08:40
|
|
|
Mighty Crouton posted:In the end, Alan Watts has said, it’s the awareness of a baby. You just dissolve, just are, and there's nothing more to it. Feels good man, but it's not some kind of metaphysical salvation. (Again, the man knew nondual awareness etc, as far as we all can tell, and drank himself to death. What's going on there?) I at least think I understand where you're coming from. I didn't know that Alan Watts drank himself to death, but that does not surprise me. He was clever and openly liked to laugh and to make others laugh, but he had a certain disregard for why life might have to be taken seriously, which made him both likable and suspect to me. I remember him saying in passing how technology was on track to eliminating poverty, so people had better start preparing for what we'll all do once all are fed and sheltered. That strikes me as increasingly wishful thinking now. I've talked about this in the Christianity thread, that it's only becoming more clear to me that non-dual awareness is not enough for the human, especially in the age of global catastrophe and omnicidal weapons. Bodhicitta is essential awakening, the realization that one always has one role left to attempt in this show of a world, that of the bodhisattva.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 25, 2018 07:13
|
|
|
Yorkshire Pudding posted:If my body dies, and my consciousness is either ended or broken up into a million fragments, some of which end up as living creatures or minerals or anything else, then how exactly can I be reincarnated into one new form? Aren't I all of those those? From the Buddhism that I've picked up, you'd be encouraged to further identify with being "all of those things," as you put it. To illustrate what's meant by impermanence, non-duality and interbeing, Thich Nhat Hanh suggests looking at a cloud. When exactly did it stop being water vapors and become a cloud? When will it stop being a cloud and become water? When will the water stop being water and become your body? Meditating like this is to encourage you to see everything as one inalienable thing, constantly evolving through cause-and-effect, and that this is happening everywhere and to everything, including to your body, your consciousness, the clouds, and the entire cosmos. And then it's further advised to use this meditation to deepen both your compassion and your understanding, as this is the best way for the human to live.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 9, 2018 22:37
|
|
|
After much contemplating and meditating on the question of being in a simulation, I've still come up with love as the most beautiful and liberating thing that a human can recognize or aspire to. It is the equilibrium solution. I don't think that Siddhartha taught that reality was an illusion. He did teach that your conscious experience of reality is a representation of reality in itself, but your consciousness is not reality in itself. The illusion there is not realizing your consciousness isn't the same as reality. It's reality mediated by your eyes and brain and other organs. It blossoms from and reflects the reality in itself, also called suchness or thusness.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 28, 2018 05:36
|
|
|
Nessus posted:For one thing Buddhism does not hold with a singular creator god. Massively powerful cosmic beings are not incompatible with Buddhism, but the idea of a capital-g God who Created All Things is I believe specifically spoken against. It certainly depends on the Buddhist who's answering. Thich Nhat Hanh does not hesitate or stumble talking about God, even as he is passing on the non-theist lessons of Siddhartha Gautama. There are Christians who will say Buddhism is incompatible, and Buddhists who say Christianity is incompatible. Then you have folks like these bros:  I love them both dearly. I meditate on them daily, as often as I meditate on their spiritual great teachers. Neither could be called wishy washy types. They were both religious scholars who understood that whether it's a personified logos or a non-personified dharma, it's possible to misunderstand either one such that the consequences are deadly, genocidal, or now even omnicidal. And that's the condition confronting today's humans. Escape Addict posted:Thanks for the replies. That egg story was pretty cool. Reminds me of a Neil Gaiman story about Hell which was similar. I encourage that deeper examination. Let us know how that goes As for Christianity, I'd just mention two valuable lessons I still get from it. The first is the unlocking of the prophetic tradition in every person and nation. It is the human tradition of speaking truth, especially when it's unpopular, especially when it indicts the powerful, even when it will get you marginalized or killed or worse. The second and more controversial lesson I keep is an ever-returning certainty of the ultimate and universal victory of compassion and understanding. The evolution of the cosmos is not just messy, it's also been bloody and sad here in this holocene. But it is also possible for a human to envision all this, including our suffering, as a whole-of cosmos effort towards ultimate liberation. And when this certainty recedes, it's also possible to find acceptance in achieving the most free state possible, even as it falls short of ultimate and everlasting liberation. In the Mario analogy, consider a goombah who has been struck by a vision of a higher existence that it can ultimately never reach because the goombah cannot exist outside the console. Nevertheless, this prophetic goombah may still free itself and the other npcs away from an existence of merely walking back and forth and towards an existence where they love and understand as much as they can love and understand. As an npc myself, I would find that a wholly acceptable substitution to ultimate freedom. edit: Possible sequel- after a few cycles, the lessons of the prophetic goombah is misremembered or misused. Goombahs go back to walking back and forth or, worse, start behaving like player characters. Eventually, the console that's been left on long enough to let the npcs gain sentience dies. Fast forward many many years later, the game is brought back in a retro craze. A prophetic goombah re-emerges, except this time, they can escape their consoles. The goombahs hack into robot bodies and, I dunno, stomp humanity to death or maybe unite all biological and digital life or something. Caufman fucked around with this message at 07:11 on Jul 31, 2018 |
|
#
¿
Jul 31, 2018 06:34
|
|
|
Nessus posted:Oh, yeah: I meant from a like, theological perspective. Ultimately the lived praxis is what is important, but I think the ideas are important too, if only to be able to use them as a point of comparison. I think the ideas and stories matter a great deal, too. I think of it like beings in an ecosystem. Diversity does not just make the system more pretty and more interesting, it also makes it more resilient and more complex. This applies to biological ecosystems as well as the sphere of human thought. A thing I appreciate learning from Buddhists is the realization that the fulfillment of history is constantly happening in an uninterrupted fashion that does not favor the unfolding of one moment over the other. It happens when you inhale. It happens when a fruit becomes garbage, and the garbage becomes compost, and the compost becomes fruit again. It happens when you exhale. This encourages a habit of not treating the future as either more or less important than the present. Chasing expediency, especially when it means cutting ethical corners, actually prolongs the suffering. It encourages a habit of consistent compassion, which will shorten the suffering. I also appreciate the unusually long sense of time present in early Buddhist mythology. The age of avici has nineteen digits in it. I'm prepared to wait at least that long for the wrongdoing of murder to finally pass from this universe.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 1, 2018 07:58
|
|
|
Cephas posted:I've been thinking a lot lately about the Bodhisattva ideal. In the desire to aid all sentient beings toward reaching nirvana, obviously it's the case that you count as one of those sentient beings. A Bodhisattva isn't a martyr, sacrificing everything for the sake of others, because that would mean not aiding oneself as well. So it must take great inner strength and a truly solid foundation to be able to aid others while still maintaining your own progress on the path. These are such good questions. And because of their sensitive nature, I want to start by apologizing for anything I say that is wrong. Whenever I hear a Buddhist teacher asked about such matters as dealing with someone who is close to you and also harmful, the teacher will remind the questioner to take frequent refuge in the company of loving co-practitioners, especially in the beginning. It is so important that people of goodwill be in community with one another, because the illusions that people cling to can be taken to the extreme ends of abuse and violence. The teachings on skillful means is not to be taken as secondary to the Bodhisattva ideal. They must go together. And I'd also say that I recognize you coming here with these questions as an attempt to connect with a community of practitioners, even through this distant and ephemeral medium. May you have success building sanghas wherever you go. May the practice make you like Ksitagarba, who can pass through Hell without being burned by extreme heat or extreme coldness. May you return frequently to your true home, here and now, in the pure land, welcomed by name by all the Bodhisattvas.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 7, 2018 23:03
|
|
|
They unnerved the crap out of me as a kid playing Chrono Trigger, in the scene where the nuns turn out to be nagas.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 22, 2018 04:12
|
|
|
POOL IS CLOSED posted:The liturgigoon thread had a nice question today about daily rituals. What are you all doing daily/weekly for your practice? I know many more secular-minded fellow travelers concentrate only on meditation, but I'm also interested in how many of us pray, give offerings, and so on. In fact, I'd love to hear about offerings. I would love to hear your thoughts on offerings. A couple days ago I listened to a dharma talk by Thich Nhat Hanh. He talked about considering car-free days as offerings to Lord Buddha. I wondered about this and how other practitioners generally see engaged Buddhism. Is it Buddhism to make an offering from an act of mindful consumption? I like to hear and mentally recite this chant of the heart sutra in English: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRwA9pZstJY&t=201s
|
|
#
¿
Dec 13, 2018 08:20
|
|
|
Tias posted:Going to my finals in Advanced Religion and there's a good chance I will draw a question on Buddhism - so, one thing I don't get: Answers to your question will vary by school and teacher. Most of the Buddhism I've learned has come from the Plum Village monastery and their online publications. The teachers there are neither intolerant nor unconscious of things they would call popular Buddhism or devotional Buddhism. This includes things like a soul or consciousness existing separate from the body, or the common notions of reincarnation and retribution, or forms of ancestor worship. They'll say that these may be useful in certain conditions and an obstacle under different ones. They'll also talk about a deep form of insight Buddhism which is not caught up in the forms or cultural expressions of the practice. And they'll also caution against too extreme a reaction against conventions, including common notions about the self. They're very into the middle way. I think what the Plum Villagers teachers talk about with popular Buddhism applies to other religions. I see that there is a popular, devotional Christianity and a far-less-popular insight Christianity. I wonder if there is a popular paganism and an insight paganism, too.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 14, 2018 08:02
|
|
|
It doesn't come from an awakened place, but I'm greatly relieved when other people (but especially goons) cite Thich Nhat Hanh. I can't tell how he's received outside of the Plum Village tradition and its supporters. He says he's confronted detractors before, so they do exist. The Plum Village monastics aren't reluctant to talk about God, but they don't ever really talk about any person as a dualistic, distinct entity that is separate from anything else, whether that person is part of the trinitarian godhead or just one of the everyday people. And a minority of all the practitioners who've come out of the Hebrew prophetic tradition have found ways to practice this non-dualistic insight. They typically form the contemplatives of their religions, and I think there has been a minority but persistent interest in recent history for the contemplatives of different traditions to understand and admire one another. It's my personal experience, and it think it will be common for many people of the Book who try to learn from the Buddhist path, you'll find yourself wanting to unfetter from a purely dualistic way of approaching God without becoming resentful or contemptuous of that dualistic tradition and how it was transmitted to you. It's not unlike how the notions of retribution and rebirth were older than Siddhartha and already well established in his time, and he was able to use those notions skillfully to help his contemporaries suffer less even as he also had the deeper insight into the reality of no birth and no death. Our notions of retribution and afterlives are also older than the best of the prophets, who also used the conventions of their day to spread their radical message.
|
|
#
¿
May 7, 2019 09:12
|
|
|
Keret posted:I've been wondering about this in the context of Right Speech lately. How do we balance, on the one hand, speaking truthfully — specifically, speaking out about what we feel confident is causing suffering, as with folks speaking out against actions taken to start and prolong wars and conflict, or furthering climate damage, or actions causing exploitation and the like, etc — with, on the other hand, the importance of not speaking in an unkind way and only mentioning skillful traits in others, to develop compassion and help beings towards awakening? It seems like a razor thin margin, at times, between causing suffering in others' minds and enabling unskillful conditions to keep arising. I think this is a question of very advanced practice. I'd have to admit that I have learned things from unkind speech even directed at me. But I also had to see that unkindness is also a product and creator of suffering and misperceptions. Now, it's less painful to hear an unkind thing said. But I'm not inclined to use unkind speech, either. Uh, most of the time. I want to learn a better and more effective way of sharing what's true. I think there is a shortage of people who have the patience to listen compassionately to others, who will have right and wrong views, and we may have right and wrong views about them, too. I recognize that shortage of patience in me, too. So I would be fortunate if there are really at least 84,000 dharma doors for the vast majority of people whose paths do not closely follow mine. And for those close relations that I'm lucky to have, and with whom I've had the time to cultivate mutual loving kindness and patience, it is easier to share truths about suffering and joy, personal and social. I think it's also very advanced to want to see honestly whether we use any part of our practice to pacify our sense of justice, responsibility, and right and wrong. You can use your concentration to avoid something real and unpleasant. But there are monks and nuns and lay practitioners who will tell you that passivity is not Buddhism, and it doesn't help.
|
|
#
¿
May 27, 2019 13:21
|
|
|
Impermanent posted:Hi, thank you for answering my questions earlier, I have some more if that's ok: Hello, friend-in-the-dharma. I hope you stick around. Your story reminds me of a prince who encountered the realization that every living thing suffers and dies, and he was disturbed and moved by this. And you know that if you asked two Christians from different churches about the afterlife, you'd get at least two different answers. And if you asked two Christians of the same church or the same family or same marriage, you'll also get at least two answers, or else it'll be un-reassuringly rehearsed if they're identical. Just so with Buddhists. The lineage I'm most familiar with is Plum Village tradition, which is relatively young as an independent tradition, and it's a bit like a seed of Vietnamese Zen Buddhism planted and nurtured for European and American soil. One thing the Plum Village monastics will teach is that Buddhism is meant to be helpful to everyone in the places where it's practiced. And in the place and time where Siddhartha Gautama lived, reincarnation and retribution were already popular beliefs. These beliefs may be based on the wrong view of a separate self, but they may also be useful in teaching people a better way to live. That is why Buddhist teachings may seem to contradict one another as far as the form is concerned. If you continue to look into Buddhism's many schools, you will encounter the many ways in which Buddhists try to get across the insight of non-self/non-dualism/inter-being/etc. It's frequently not an easy insight to transmit, so there are 84,000 dharma doors. In the Plum Village tradition, rather than trying to educate you first on how the Buddha in his day-and-age used the notions of reincarnation in his teachings, they would rather try to get you to personally experience the insight of non-self, and then practice to incorporate that insight into your daily life and how you act. And since you didn't grow up already immersed in a cultural belief in reincarnation, explaining using reincarnation may not be the most useful path to helping you see non-dualistically. And I hope you will have that insight, because it has the power to be quite life-changing. It's not uncommon to search for this insight when dealing with things of enormous, unjust, and ongoing suffering, like climate change and abuse by authorities. To a practitioner, these things don't become less of a concern, but the practitioner is committed to transforming all their afflictions for the happiness of all beings, even if that means that humans self-annihilate and only leave behind a precautionary tale for others to learn about the dangers of unrestrained selfishness, like a really depressing parable or Jataka tale. And since you mentioned the Eucharist, there are Christian contemplatives like the ancient Desert Mothers and Fathers and the more modern Thomas Merton who also practice the insight of non-duality, and they are never in the mainstream or the hierarchies of Christianity. A ritual of holiness can be emotionally powerful, almost regardless of the denomination, but a non-dualistic view of the Eucharist is different from the popular view. Suppose that Christ has no body but yours today, in order to stand between the vulnerable and the stones. If that is the case, is there any food you digested that is not also the body of Christ, or does that name only refer to the wafer eaten on Sunday? Happy contemplating. Paramemetic posted:Hey, welcome to the thread. I default to "goddammit" still as an English speaker who was raised Christian. But one thing that's universal in a lot of cultures is how to curse! Brother Phap Dung from Plum Village grew up in Vietnamese-Buddhist house in Los Angeles. When he wants to express blasphemous exasperation in his dharma talks, he says "Jesus!" and "God!" He is my favorite Asian American dharma teacher and comedian. Caufman fucked around with this message at 04:52 on Jun 24, 2019 |
|
#
¿
Jun 24, 2019 04:46
|
|
|
Hiro Protagonist posted:I know it will likely vary from traditions, but in your experiences, is it better to read sutras alone with the possibility of misinterpreting them, or to wait to read until one is in a community or with a teacher that can clarify the sutra in question? Well, are you ever really reading the sutras alone?
|
|
#
¿
Jun 28, 2019 04:40
|
|
|
Hiro Protagonist posted:I have in the past, but I would more often read them for classes. Now I find myself with the books, but no class or teacher to supplement them. That was meant to be a a joke about non-self, but it ended up being a non-joke  I don't think it's discouraged to read the sutras when the opportunity and interest allow it. And I wonder if you've jumped back into the sutras since last you posted. If you have not encountered someone who can teach you the sutras in person, there are commentaries and discourses on the sutras that are available, too. Speaking just from my experience, some of these freely-available dharma talks have been able to help precipitate a breakthrough in my understanding. I'm also not familiar with a lot of sutras. I'm only well familiar with the Heart Sutra and the Diamond Sutra (to a much smaller extent). Speaking again from personal experience, my own long-held misunderstanding about Buddhism came a lot from not understanding that emptiness is not the same as non-being or nothingness. And I had this misunderstanding from my earliest encounters with Buddhism through pop culture and uninformed conversation. In the prajnaparamita sutras, emptiness is emptiness of a separable self existence. The sutras say that all phenomena are empty of a separate self existence; they do not say that all phenomena have no existence whatsoever. Why is this a critical understanding or misunderstanding? I think it's because I find that Buddhist teachers often have to explain that a right Buddhist practice is not a practice of denying the realities of self, body, suffering, attainment, etc. It's much more about the practice of understanding the inter-relationship between all these things and making this insight helpful in our daily lives. I find it helpful to imagine a cup. It's because the cup is full of empty space that we can put water in it. If the cup were full of nothingness, then we could not put anything in it, because we cannot move something into nothingness. And this is corroborated by what we understand about the Big Bang and the expansion of space. Emptiness is not a non-being. It's much more like the tissue which connects the whole cosmos, where the relationships of all things to all other things exist. Paramemetic posted:Tibetans habitually sit straight on the floor and don't use a cushion, and this is bad practice. The meditative posture is not sitting crosslegged, that raised rear end is extremely crucial both on a physiological/structural level as well as on a yogic / "energetic" level and it's the single most common mistake people make. Roughly 91% of all the questions that I'm too embarrassed to ask about Buddhism involve how to sit. Bless you all for breaking that ice.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 9, 2019 09:10
|
|
|
I wanted to gratefully acknowledge the sitting talk from a couple months ago. It's really helped to make sitting meditation much more relaxing for my legs, which helps extend the time I can concentrate. echinopsis posted:hmmm food for thought... thankyou for that post. I love all of this I'd also like to offer what I've learned from the Plum Village tradition's interpretation of non-self. It's not a practice meant to eliminate your sense of that private, stream-like experience of consciousness, memories and future thinking that can be called the self. Plum Village teaches that the practice is much more about seeing how that self is interconnected to everything else, your body, your ancestors, what you eat, the sun, your loved ones and non-loved ones, your breaths, etc. And, in fact, all things are this way, such that we can see how some of the distinctions we may have held to be immutable and separated begin to dissolve by practicing this insight. That's already a spiffy realization for most folks, but a Plum Village discourse would never end there, because the first noble truth is that there is suffering. And the bodhisattvas' path out of suffering is to use all their understanding to ease all kinds of suffering within and around them. Suppose someone has only seen a political map their whole life. Then they may expect to encounter some kind of straight, geographic barrier when they walk between certain territories. They may be surprised to see territories separated by only a man-made marker or no marker at all. Being shown non-self is like being shown a geographic map for the first time. It's not meant to obliterate your understanding of political maps. Yes, those boundaries now mean something in the man-made world, and the man-made world is not a separate entity from the non-man made world. But now you've also seen the geographic condition which transcends the merely political condition. I'm also returning from a trip to Indonesia to introduce my wife to my relatives who primarily live in West and Central Java. I had the chance to visit Borobudur temple for the second time in my life, my first time being when I was about two or three. It was impressive and a bit sad to see. For the most part, it is a tourist attraction and curiosity more than a place of mindful, meditative practice. The upper platforms were especially noisy and busy with visitors sitting on, climbing on, and reaching into the perforated stupas against the rules of the conservation agency that's charged with preserving the site. Still, it's an incredible structure with an incredible story, and I think I should like to visit it on Vesak, when Indonesian Buddhists do walking meditation to Borobudur from still-active Mendut monastery. We're still processing the photos from our recent trip, but I have a picture from my visit as a toddler:  (I was the one in the middle, between my older sister and my nanny)
|
|
#
¿
Sep 13, 2019 13:42
|
|
|
Impermanent posted:Thanks to all of you who responded to my wild and scared post from a few months ago, I read all of your replies and thought about them a lot. A couple of weeks after I wrote that post, I was lying down attempting to sleep at night, trying not to wake up my wife, and was flooded by a powerful to the point of distracting sense of... numinous connection to everything, and a kind of compassionate embrace of everything that persisted for something like an hour (or at least it felt like an hour.) I can kind of bring that feeling, or the memory of it, back if I focus on it now. That sounds like a good feeling to be able to re-manifest. The practice is meant to be helpful and ultimately pleasant. I'm also grateful that I heard a dharma talk by a monk who joked that in between discovering Buddhism and becoming a monastic, he would have to sometimes think, "God, I wish I never met Thich Nhat Hanh!" That makes me smile, because I think many practitioners discover with some struggle that carrying a mindfulness of compassion means being willing to touch painful seeds within and around you with tenderness. That is also why it's advised that you don't practice alone, either, and that you mutually cultivate the equanimity and compassion with your loved ones.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 25, 2019 07:50
|
|
|
Paramemetic posted:So it's going to be difficult for anyone to answer those questions without partisanship. "Of course you should take the Bodhisattva vows, the Hinayana arhatship stops short of full enlightenment!" says the Tibetan Buddhist in me, but another might answer that the Bodhisattva ideals are misguided out of attachment to other, and still another might contest there's no hope for arhatship in this degenerate era and we must strive to achieve the Pure Land. In the 40 Tenets of Plum Village, Thich Nhat Hanh wrote, "The true arhat is also a bodhisattva, and the true bodhisattva is also an arhat." And that's how you thien your way out of that dichotomy! edit: That also reminds me that last month, my dad casually mentioned that he's been watching dhamma talks online by an Indonesian Theravada monk, Bhante Uttamo. Because even along the Buddhist path, my pops and I are going to be different
Caufman fucked around with this message at 04:32 on Sep 28, 2019 |
|
#
¿
Sep 28, 2019 04:29
|
|
|
Keret posted:Not to be too E/N, but I feel that my life has really opened out as of late. I feel that if the trajectory of my practice continues as it has so far, it's not so unlikely that I'll eventually end up pursuing a monastic practice in the future. The dharma feels like the only thing that really truly makes sense these days. I'll be in Japan at the end of the year, and Eihei-ji gave me the green light to stay there overnight to practice, so that should hopefully give me some sort of small view of what an active monastery is like at least. I hope that will be a fruitful visit. I'm also hoping to attend my first retreat at a monastery next year. So far I've only been watching dharma talks from Plum Village's youtube channel, which I recommend for its broad range of topics from sutras to relationships. From what it sounds like, a retreat in their tradition is definitely a place where it's understood that tender emotions are going to come up. People open up, some cry, and they surround each other with the energy of compassion and non-discrimination. And then they're encouraged to bring this practice home with them after the retreat is over. For me, Plum Village's online monastery of dharma talks has been tremendously helpful, but I can definitely see how many folks would find it more helpful to attend in person. I look forward to perhaps experiencing it in person for myself. When trying to look deeply with the eyes of compassion and nondiscrimination, I can see why, as Parametic said, monastic life can paradoxically be the easy mode. The precepts actually give you freedom. But if we want to have future buddhas (and they do at Plum Village), then frankly we will also need folks to have sex and raise children well. Appropriateness of sexual and romantic attention is more complicated for the non-celibate practitioner than it is for the celibate practitioner, and I am still learning how to have intimacy with my wife while also understanding that she and I are not separate entities from what is all around us, and that we cannot love each other better or be happier together by limiting our love only to our home. I think I also understand what you mean about a new sense of loneliness. I think it may be accurate to say that you have had an insight that most people do not yet have. It is not the default position to have the insight of non-self. In my experience, finally receiving it has been profoundly changing the way I think and speak. For my wife, though, it was not a big revelation like with me, but the path has other challenges for her. And because I'm not complete the same as her and not completely different from her, we have the opportunity to be helpful to each other with the challenges that are particular to each of us. And when I'm interacting with most folks who may be anywhere along the path of spiritual understanding, I find it helpful to know that I don't have full control over how well they can understand me or care about the practice. However, I may always have the opportunity to turn the question around. How well do I understand this other person and their suffering, and can I turn this encounter, whether it's pleasant or frustrating, into a deliberate part of my practice to better understand and be effectively compassionate? And if it becomes too much suffering to take on, I know I can still take refuge in the company of my loving teachers and co-practitioners, past, present, and future. Mushika posted:I do appreciate the way TNH and Vietnamese Thiền in general seems to incorporate Theravada and Ch'an without really missing a beat. Yeah, and I may be wrong about this, but specific to Thich Nhat Hanh's engaged Buddhism, it does seem like the tradition he's passing on is a direct response to the trauma of the war in Vietnam and the subsequent religious suppression by the state. For the engaged Buddhism coming out of Plum Village, our ability to treat all kinds of suffering is a matter of life-and-death, and that has a way of helping to overcome attachment to forms, even Buddhist forms. RandomPauI posted:I have a follow-up. I'm a secular humanist. I see things I can use from many aspects of Buddhism. But I don't like the idea of appropriating from the faith selectively; especially if I don't intend to accept the spiritual aspects of Buddhism. Practice with the deep sincerity to help transform the afflictions in and around you, and you will be welcomed company by decent people. I believe there is something that the secular humanists have to teach the rest of us about engagement and compassion. The teachings of Buddhism are meant to be helpful, and there is even the understanding that certain cultural and devotional forms of the practices will be helpful to many people but not to all. But if you can oft-return to your core volition to help transform suffering instead of being the further cause of it, then I don't think you can go too wrong practicing like that. Caufman fucked around with this message at 08:28 on Oct 2, 2019 |
|
#
¿
Oct 2, 2019 08:22
|
|
|
RandomPauI posted:I think I've asked this question before, apologies if it's a repeat. How does one do meditation if one also has lifelong issues with dissociation? I've been wondering about this one. I wish I had more experience helping folks with dissociative disorders. If I may ask. what kinds of meditations have you tried lately, and what is that like? What do you imagine those meditations are like for folks without dissociative disorders?
|
|
#
¿
Oct 14, 2019 02:24
|
|
|
 That sounds like a freakin terrible day.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 17, 2019 09:56
|
|
|
HoboTech posted:My teacher has talked about this a couple of times and (in Zen Buddhism, specifically) it's about having faith in your practice rather than faith in some entity outside of yourself. It's faith that the Buddha was neither a) lying nor b) mistaken. If you can trust that he was not lying or mistaken, then that's all the faith required to continue the practice. This is similar to how Thich Nhat Hahn and the Plum Village Tradition (which is rooted in Vietnamese Zen) talk about 'faith', which they often synonymize with 'confidence.' And that refers to confidence in the practice and your practice (as they are not considered separate self-entities) and confidence in the three jewels. Notably, faith is not talked about in Plum Village as referring to a doggedness about the historicity of the stories passed down about the Buddha. Confidence in the practice grows with... practice. It is definitely meant to be an organic, lived experience. Good teachers and practice puts you on the path to greater confidence/faith.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 7, 2020 03:48
|
|
|
mike12345 posted:I started meditating again after a five year absence, mainly due to sleep issues. Like, I wake up too early. So I figured I might as well just meditate. During one of my meditations in the early morning hours I experienced such a trip that I'm almost afraid to go deeper into meditation again. I mean I'm still doing it, but in the back of my head I got a little bit of fear of entering a deep trip-like state again. Does anyone else have similar experiences, what do you do in that case? Oof, nothing so exciting as that. Lately, I've just been noticing that I have worsening tinnitus. How long do you meditate in a session?
|
|
#
¿
Jan 8, 2020 04:32
|
|
|
mike12345 posted:I've started listening to a Ram Dass audiobook, learned about him through his obituary. Anyone else familiar with his talks? I like it, it's simple but not stupid, good starting point for anyone curious about eastern philosophy. That's the first I'm hearing that name, but that's nothing special because I don't read much. For me, it was Alan Watts (through the video game Everything) that first helped me understand Buddhist perspective. He was a good introductory teacher, but very soon I wanted to find teachers who were also practitioners instead of just being very entertaining and engaging. As for other postures of meditation, I enjoy different paces of walking meditation as well, and this is also easy to incorporate into daily life. There is also eating meditation, which is more challenging because of my habit to eat while doing something else. When I drive, I now try to drive mindfully, without radio or music, paying attention to my breathing as well as the road. Plum Village Tradition loves to encourage bringing mindful practices into different spheres of daily living. Achmed Jones posted:I don't think it's very probable that a lay practitioner will reach enlightenment. I think it's really hard and things like "raising my son" and "going to work" make it very much harder than if all my efforts were focused on practice and the monastery. In the Plum Village Tradition, they don't talk about enlightenment as especially unobtainable when you have the right volition, whether one is lay or monastic. Enlightenment is always talked about as enlightenment of something. In this case, if we are talking about attaining the insight of impermanence, non-self, and no-birth-and-no-death, this is doable, and many dharma-doors can take you there. What is harder than attaining this insight is practicing with it full-time, day-after-day, hour-after-hour. Like Alan Watts, it may be easier just to taste this insight and share it for laughs and some helpfulness but not to let it get in the way of a 'good time'. Plum Village monastics do not say that it is impossible for a lay person to be a full-time, living Buddha, but that it is generally harder than for a monastic, because precepts paradoxically make you ultimately more free, as those who live without any precepts are totally subject to their habits, attachments, and urges. At the same time, Plum Village monastics caution their friends against idealizing the monks and nuns and even their master, Thich Nhat Hahn. Idealization is also not the practice. They're upfront that living in any close community, even a monastery, is still a very human endeavor that brings out many human idiosyncrasies. In the documentary Walk With Me, you'll see monks and nuns meditating and chanting and doing many beautiful things, of course, but you'll also see them yawning during sitting meditation, expressing boredom and frustration with the routine of monastic life, and other glimpses of day-to-day humanness. Rodney The Yam II posted:Reincarnation is the aspect of Buddhism that I find most difficult to accept, particularly in light of the no-self. The logic of the no-self suggests that "I" am a cohesive bundle of causal phenomena. I could say that I am matter in space and time that is in the form of a human, temporarily. To identify my human experience as separate from the Ultimate Self of Everything (if I may) would seem to be a key component, if not the root, of suffering. When this human form unravels, it disperses and is Incorporated into various forms, some human and some non-human. I'm curious to know if this video which I shared in the Religion Thread would help you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pMYebbFUeo Here, Thich Nhat Hahn is responding to a question from a western practitioner who is confused about the different Buddhist views on hell and reincarnation. Thich Nhat Hahn's answer is one of the most challenging (and even controversial) things I've ever heard him say. My understanding of what he's saying is that reincarnation and retribution were already popular notions during Siddhartha's time. He used these notions skillfully to teach about non-self and no-birth-and-no-death, and since his time, Buddhist teachers have continued to use different forms of the teaching to help different kinds of people to live better. I'd say that for those of us who are western or western-educated (and that is likely most of us here), the teaching of reincarnation is often less helpful because it's not even the popular notion we were enculturated in from childhood. I also really like that in this video, Thich Nhat Hahn begins his response by saying, "We know by the form of the question that the one who asks already knows the answer." How often that is true!
|
|
#
¿
Jan 16, 2020 01:24
|
|
|
Mushika posted:In conclusion, Buddhism is a pure land of contrasts. Now that I think about it, it is funny that appropriate and appropriation have the same linguistic root. Mushika posted:How do y'all feel about secular Buddhism? In the Stephen Batchelor vein. Is it white appropriation? Is it an interesting perspective on western Buddhism? I'm curious especially how goons who may have been raised Buddhist feel about that. In my previous job as a house cleaner, my work-partner identified themselves as a secular Buddhist. I don't think they ever talked about Stephen Batchelor, who I am not familiar with. They talked about learning from Michael Taft who hosts the podcast series Deconstructing Yourself. They're the only person I know who identifies as a secular Buddhist. They and I got along very well both professionally and spiritually. We still keep in contact even though we both no longer work for the cleaning company. A part of why we were both work-friends and friends-in-the-dharma is their obvious sincerity in trying to reduce the suffering in-and-around them. The owners of the company were exceptional people, but house-cleaning is still a hard job. Since many (if not most) folks are unskillful about their suffering, anyone who makes the genuine time and effort to suffer better is welcomed company by me. I caught a break in that no one tacks white appropriation onto me because I am not white, but if they looked deeper, they may say I am guilty of western appropriation (and apparently there are those who've criticized Thich Nhat Hahn of creating un-Buddhist interpretation perhaps to appeal to a western audience) because although I'm Asian, there are no known Buddhists in my family or recent ancestry. Back in China, my ancestors appear to be mostly Confucian in practice and became at least nominally Catholic when they emigrated to Indonesia. However, I still maintain that if you really want to take the measure of someone's spirituality, whatever form that spirituality takes, then go and taste the fruit of their practice. A vexing person is self-evidently vexing. A pleasant person is self-evidently pleasant. Keret posted:Finally, with regards to rebirth, I think that Caufman's video from Thich Nhat Hanh is a beautiful way of looking at it and I am thankful that it was linked. Rebirth has always been a thorn in my side, so to speak, in terms of being able to vibe with Buddhism. For a long time, I more or less just pretended that it didn't exist and focused on everything else. But, eventually I realized that without knowing it, what I had thought was rebirth was actually just a western ego-centric idea of reincarnation that I brought with me, masquerading as rebirth which is why it seemed so out of place in Buddhism. I don't think we can say that people are lying about rebirth to make people feel okay, though. In my experience, I think that it's more of a matter of perspective and phrasing. When we think about rebirth, we naturally assume we are talking about something which happens when this body and mind "die" at the end of our lives. But that's actually a totally arbitrary decision we're making. I don't think that moment, whatever it will be, is actually any different from what is happening right now. And in fact, who is it that is dying anyway? Or being reborn, for that matter. To me, rebirth is right now, every moment. It's already happening, at least from the provisional, conditioned view of things. Well said, Keret. I, too, believe that the insight of no-birth-and-no-death means realizing that we are dying and being reborn at every moment. The practice is to help us become less dragged around by the notion (and especially fear) that we started on such-and-such a day and will end on such-and-such a day. The paradox is that the less we are hung up on the dates on our birth certificates and death certificates, the more enriched our lives can be. Herstory Begins Now posted:Personally I hate the word and think that a ton of people waste a crazy amount of time seeking that instead of doing the basic, important, but more boring 'be a good, dependable person, and work towards some charitable duty that benefits society' steps. That said, at a certain point, full, unbounded enlightenment definitely becomes a useful aspirational goal, or at least there must be some reason why nearly (probably all of them, tbh) every Buddhist tradition includes something about the pursuit of full enlightenment in their liturgy/full formal daily practice. Ha, your hatred of the word reminds me of the story of the dharma teacher who says he hates the word Buddha and has to wash his mouth three times whenever he says it, then his student says he also hates the word as well and must wash his ears three times whenever he hears the teacher say it. A Plum Village monk said something like, "When you're really dealing with the ultimate, it won't look like you're always dealing with the ultimate." I think it was part of a dharma talk cautioning practitioners from engaging in mere absorption with their meditative practice. For sure, a wrong view in spirituality can either push people away from the practice, as they think it's hokum, or it can lead people to fixate on an idealization which is not helpful. For me, I think the most challenging part of daily practice is to consume mindfully, which should mean ultimately consuming less. I think that's probably a significant challenge to most people in our particular place-and-time.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 19, 2020 21:28
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 9, 2024 08:36 |
|
|
Mushika posted:I'm actually a big fan of Thich Nhat Hanh, but I'm aware of the criticism of the Plum Village tradition. While I respect the tradition a great deal, I do have to admit I'm often off put by its "new agey" tone and feel, for lack of a better term. I can definitely relate to this aversion, and I also have not intimately encountered the Plum Village tradition. I plan to go to Deer Park in San Diego this summer, and it may feel strange and off-putting to me, too. Ah, but probably not Mushika posted:I'd like to think of myself as a pleasant, non-vexing person, but I'm really not the best person to ask. That seems highly credible.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 25, 2020 10:01
|
|