Paramemetic posted:

I hope that this all finds you well and you swiftly achieve the state of 1000 armed Ayn Rand, who holds 500 hands in the mudra of supreme wealth accumulation, and 500 hands in the single-digit mudra of "gently caress you, got mine," demonstrating individual liberation as most important. After all, Buddhism is an individual effort, and trying to benefit other sentient beings will simply make them more comfortable and lazy so that they never achieve liberation.

HoboTech posted:

Having a small conundrum.

Next week is the July 7-day sesshin at the Rochester Zen Center in New York. I've been going to these for about four years now, doing one or two sesshin a year. Been sitting 45 mins a day, 5 days/week since this time last year in preparation for this coming sesshin. I sat regularly before this, just not as long/consistently.

However, now that I'm a week away, I'm not sure what to do:

If I go, then I will have a single day of earned/sick time for the rest of the year (six more months). Granted I have a semi-flexible schedule if I get sick, but 8.25 hours will be it for the year.

If I don't go, then I'll regret not going. I'll also probably burn the vacation time in the long-term doing frivolous crap like always.

I can cancel any time before showing up, and the Roshi is not my formal teacher (don't have one), but I feel this weird obligation even though I know they wouldn't notice my absence in the slightest.

Any thoughts? Am I just being lazy?

HoboTech posted:

Edit: Never mind! I've decided to go. I'll take my chances.

Mo Tzu posted:

well it's not so much that humans CAN'T, it's that the era in which through self power humans can achieve buddhahood has passed. the founder of jodo shinshu, shinran, lived in the kamakura period of japanese history, which was characterized by widespread war and political instability (the first warring states period, essentially). this, coupled with him and honen (his teacher and one of shinran's seven pure land masters) being laicized by the emperor because other students of honen had some inappropriate contact with the retired emperor's concubines (i'd like to think it was consensual, but let's be honest it probably wasn't) led shinran to doubt the efficacy of the intense meditative practices he engaged in on mt hiei as a member of the tendai sect. he believed he was living in mappo, and as a result thought that self power could no longer be relied on as a means to buddhahood

so it's not so much that humans are entirely depraved by their natures, so much as our place in history has lead to human depravity of such a level that we cannot attain buddhahood through our own effort

Cephas posted:

I think I'm starting to get some of it. Any individual life contains its worth of suffering, and the middle way can alleviate suffering in an individual life cycle, and the wisdom and lessons learned in one life may benefit another life to come; or lessons left unlearned will need to be learned in lives to come. But more than that, to be bound to samsara means being bound to countless rebirths, with ups and downs, but it's not the "downs" that you're trying to dissipate through the middle way, it's being bound to samsara itself. Because rebirth is not linear, and a deva might be reborn as a chicken? And any wisdom to be gained in one life will hopefully take one closer to reaching nirvana, which matters far more to the Buddhist than being born into a comfortable luxurious life where no wisdom is gained. Am I heading in the right direction with this?

Cephas posted:

I've been meditating about 15 minutes a day lately, and it's been nice. I find that it's kind of like getting my calibrations set--I get a good feeling of "this mental space is a good place to try to make my default setting," so later on in the day if I find myself getting too wrapped up thinking about things, I can try to return to that mental space I had while meditating.

So umm... I don't want to spend unnecessary money on meditation tools. It looks like a zafu and a zabuton go for like $80 combined on Amazon, and that's just too much for me to spend on a couple of cushions right now. I already have a futon I can sit on so I assume a zabuton is redundant. I've been putting a pillow in between my legs and sitting in seiza, since I use that posture a lot in martial arts. By the end of meditation, my feet are noticeably red and there's some tingling or numbness that takes a while to get rid of. The physical sensation doesn't bother me, but I'm just concerned about if this is physically healthy or not regarding blood flow. Is there something I should be doing differently or be on the lookout for? The last thing I'd want is for meditation to lead to an unhealthy outcome.

Paramemetic posted:

Does it make you a better person, a happier person? Does it reduce your suffering without causing suffering for others? Great then.

Does it make you a more miserable person? Does it increase your suffering or cause suffering for others? Eh, don't do that thing.

The question over secular Buddhism isn't about whether or not it's "okay," it's about whether or not it gets to be called "Buddhism" normally. Most traditions define a Buddhist as someone who takes Refuge in the Three Jewels, and who makes an attempt to adhere to the teachings that come with that, that is, accepting the Four Noble Truths and following the Noble Eightfold Path.

You don't have to receive the empowerments to manifest yourself as Hevajra so you can enter into the mandala etc etc etc if that's not your thing.

I think the only discord that ever comes from that is when people from different approaches to Buddhism cross into one another's spaces and then start tossing around "my Buddhism is better than yours" type nonsense. It goes both ways, both white American materialist Buddhists going "psh, all that silly superstition is just those goofy primitive Asians who aren't as enlightened about scientific materialism as we Americans" or the Asian practitioners looking at that same American "secular" Buddhist going "psh that guy doesn't even do ritual, he doesn't even have a guru!" and so on.

Both of these are kind of silly approaches but they're very human approaches.

So I'm doing that thing where I type too much again but basically if you're a secular Buddhist and you don't want to believe that there are literal spirits and that hungry ghosts are real things that's fine by me, I'm totally cool with that. Similarly I am going to literally plan practices based on lunar phases and invisible progressions of elemental cycles and that's cool.

tl;dr: Practicing Buddhism while having a Western materialist perspective is cool and good, trying to reject more traditional Buddhism as some kind of primitive rites of backwards people is not.

Mo Tzu posted:

Apparently you boil the worms inside their cocoon so it does kill the worms, and it has a higher carbon footprint to boot

Plus I personally prefer cotton, though I think we're all aware of the problems cotton has had, historically speaking

Mo Tzu posted:

I'm trans and the Catholic Church is not a fan of that whole way of being, but Jodo Shinshu doesn't care. I also found Jodo Shinshu's faith alone approach interesting, since I've never been a fan of American Buddhism's focus on meditation. After giving up on a career as a theologian I just gave up on being a Christian entirely. I used to be sort of Buddhist before I became a Christian so the anthropology, soteriology, and cosmology were things I was familiar with and could/did believe in, so it was a bit of an outgrowth from that

Reene posted:

drat y'all we're not Jains you're allowed to eat poo poo that casts a shadow

Reene posted:

I never know quite how to answer this question but I started with Tibetan and Mahayana traditions and I was interested in Theravada for awhile but most of my influences and interests still rest with Mahayana.

possibly someday I will find a teacher and figure more out but for now I just study and read what I can get my hands on.

Yorkshire Pudding posted:

My only question with that is what to do with your hands while using a bench? Having your thighs slope down and away makes it seem like your hands would slide away from you in a typical posture, which would not be good.

Senju Kannon posted:

i'd argue that constantly trying to compare everything you learn about another religion to something in christianity at the start of interreligious dialogue amounts to shooting yourself in the foot. you're far more likely to misinterpret why things are done if you constantly go back to your own religious faith. better to try to understand buddhism on buddhisms many terms than apply it to christianity. once you have a firm foundation THEN you can begin to look for similarities

Tias posted:

I'm a practicing norse pagan reconstructionist

NikkolasKing posted:

Does anyone here live near Dallas or Fort Worth? Or do you have some personal experience with Sanbo Kyodan Zen?

I have read a ton about many different religions and theologies but I'm a painfully shy, awkward person so I have always kept my studies to myself and my computer. But maybe that's why I've never found something that felt "right." Maybe I need to get out there more and try some stuff. Zen seems like it might be up my alley. Unlike the earlier poster, I prefer the idea of seclusion and introspection. I hear about the world's problems every other second of the day, I'd like some peace of mind for myself.

That's what I'm hoping to find there anyway. I found a meditation group in FW but they recommend new comers go to the Maria Kannon Center in Dallas. There's also the Dallas Meditation on Center which I figure might be worth a visit too since it says it's "interfaith" and I might be able to learn about multiple sects or whatever there.

I mentioned earlier I like religious studies a lot so Zen always seemed not for me. But reading more on it, there's nothing really stopping you from being religious and doing Zen. I can still think about God or gods or other spiritual things. The fact a lot of Catholic Priests do Zen is very intriguing. This sort of religious syncretism is totally my thing.

NikkolasKing posted:

Nofeed posted:

Gassho AP - I guess this is something people type out too then?!

The group is Rinzai, the Osho having learned under Joshu Sasaki Roshi. We sit facing each other, walk and chant in between sitting, have formal tea after the third sit and burn incense throughout. After the practice there is a period of work and cleaning. I haven't any experience with koan, there are no robed figures jumping up and down yelling at me nor has anyone I've seen been struck by a stick unwillingly; all things that one may apparently expect when reading some descriptions of the Rinzai tradition on the web as I just did! The emphasis and direction I've had so far has been on just sitting (And just walking, and just chanting, and just sipping, and just working and just cleaning...) How does this contrast with the Soto practice? I imagine quite a bit the same if one of the greatest differences is "Well, they sit like THAT and we sit like THIS."

It's odd in a way, I probably intellectually know more about Soto so far? My introduction to Buddhism in general has been this thread, and zen in particular by the writings of Brad Warner and transcriptions of talks by Nishijima. I pretty much just googled "zen [cityname]" and didn't pay too much attention to the results when it came to tradition at all. There seems to be a decently sized Soto group following the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi in my city as too, although their schedule is somewhat less active. Maybe I should give them a try and contrast with my experience above? At this point so early in my practice I can't help but feel it's good enough to just sit and not worry about it too much.

I do come from a military background personally and the thought of being a part of a tradition that historically was practiced by a soldier-class is somewhat appealing, I must admit. I would certainly like to read some more on the subject of differing schools, would you be able to recommend anything?

fake edit: I'm still very new to all this and probably have displayed quite the amount of ignorance on the topic at hand above, apologies!

Keret posted:

The second question I had is entirely unrelated, but I've just recently moved to Chicago from Austin, Texas, and am looking into practice centers in this city. In Austin I went semi-regularly to the Austin Zen Center which is a lovely establishment, but it doesn't seem that there are any SFZC-affiliated temples here. Does anyone happen to know of a good Zen practice center in Chicago that I should check out?

Paramemetic posted:

Describing "meditation" as an activity is exactly not consistent with the higher levels of meditation, at least within Tibetan Buddhism, where the highest forms of meditation are non-meditation, maintaining the state of "ordinary mind" (itself a rather tricky concept, not a translation error, but rather something that even original language Tibetan instructions elaborate on the meaning of as it is deceptive) during one's daily activity.