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How do the Buddhists view afflictions that can influence one's understanding of Dharma? Many people afflicted by more serious mental illnesses are incapable of making decisions which will spare them suffering. Or, as in case of old people, they may have been able to live according to the Buddhist values, only to be hampered by neurodegeneration caused by Alzheimer's disease. As I understand, people whose brains do not function properly, still generate negative karma and affect their rebirth?
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Jul 22, 2013 21:17
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| # ¿ May 1, 2024 06:41 |
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After reading "Mindfulness in Plain English", I tried to meditate and realized it is harder than I thought it to be. Somatization is the main problem. Weird pains and sensations have always used to come and go in my life, usually as a response to stress. Unfortunately, they also seem to come during meditation. It's hard to concentrate on your breath when you feel like your neck is going more and more stiff, something itches just under the skin or your eyeball rotates inside its socked and it seems like its trying to break free. Consciously I realize it's nothing out of ordinary - just normal sensations, amplified for some reason by my nervous system - but it's really hard to endure. I tried several times and never lasted longer than five minutes. Not sure what can I do here, except trying more and hoping it goes away. Unfortunately, it definitely will appear if I expect it, so every trial makes the next ones more difficult. Anyone here had a similar problem and managed to overcome it?
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Aug 10, 2013 21:32
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Rhymenoceros posted:You have to add kindness into your meditation. First, that means sitting in a comfortable position that doesn't strain your neck. You can try meditating lying down on your bed or a sofa. Personally I like to sit with my back against a wall, or else my neck gets really strained. That's... something I haven't thought about  Believe it or not, I have never considered the possibility of lying down or scratching, instead trying to meditate the exact same way as before, but with extra resolve. I can see now why it seemed so hard.
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Aug 13, 2013 18:45
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Shnooks posted:Oh god D: we had someone ask us a similar question at my sangha meeting. She had an ant problem and wanted to know the most humane way to get rid of them. Of course that's probably easier than bed bugs. I wonder about the case of animals that can only feed on blood - getting rid of your stuff either causes them to die from starvation or cause another being to be sucked of its blood. For example, a homeless person who finds your old bed. Or even an animal, like a cat or dog. Is suffering of an animal preferable to human? I have no idea. I live in a tick-infested area and my cats frequently come carrying some unwanted passengers. I usually remove the bloodsuckers and kill them immediately. I'd lie if I claimed I don't feel any revulsion towards them, so it's probably not the most merciful thing to do.
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Sep 1, 2013 13:14
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I'm very carefully trying to approach Buddhism (after being a materialist atheist for 10 years) and there seem to be two sanghas near the place I live I could try. The first belongs to the Diamond Way tradition, which seems to dominate in my very non-Buddhist country. Their spiritual director is the 17th Karmapa Thaye Dorje. I have no idea how are they distinct from other variants of Buddhism and don't know too much about vajrayana, so I don't know what to expect. Wikipedia is not very helpful. The second one is a Kwan Um Zen center, whose founder is Seung Sah. I'm somewhat wary of this one, because of what I read here: Wikipedia posted:The Kwan Um School emphasizes socially engaged 'together action' by groups of followers living in a common house, koan or mantra practice tools, and a pastor-parishioner relationship between monks and laypersons characteristic of the Chogye order in Korea."[13] I may be overly paranoid, but this sounds a bit cult-ish. Nevertheless, I know very little about these two traditions. Is there anyone here who could expand this topic?
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Jan 1, 2014 00:15
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Quantumfate posted:[a lot of info] Thanks! It's a lot more to consider than I thought. quote:Can you handle something with more ritual? I have no idea, to be honest. Could you tell some more about more problematic stuff I should expect?
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Jan 1, 2014 23:30
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Quantumfate posted:You're using hinayana unironically again. Also pure lands are not Pure Land buddhism. Pure lands in tibetan buddhism are just the same cosmological feature as you find in a lot of mahayana. Pure Land Buddhism(tm) instead refers to Japanese Buddhism from the kamakura era (excepting soto and rinzai) and Nichiren-shu/Nichiren-Shoshu. Specifically Jodo-Shinshu, Ji-shu, Yuzu Nembutso and Jodo-shu. Basically they took the idea of the ages of dharma and ran all out with it: We live in the age of Mo Fa (I don't recall the japanese) wherin the dharma is degenerating. Because the dharma is corrupt and because our ability to process dharma is waning, we must rely on outside or other power to attain liberation. Specifically the primal vow of Amitabha, and through special devotional acts strive for rebirth in his pure land. So... if dharma is waning from the world and pretty much all enligtened beings get reborn in Amitabha's realm which is isolated from the rest of the world, doesn't it mean that not everyone will be able to attain enlightenment? It seems like the end result would be everyone able to be enlightened chilling out in the Pure Land and plenty of beings trapped outside, not even knowing their only way to salvation.
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Jan 3, 2014 00:14
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tirinal posted:Would you mind expanding on this blurb from the OP? I'm not a Buddhist, just an atheist who finds a lot of Buddhist tenets great. Accepting rebirth, however, was not really a problem. Atheism usually implies materialistic viewpoint. I haven't met anyone who didn't believe in some sort of God, but still accepted the idea of an immortal soul. For most of us, the mind is an emergent property of the brain. When you wipe the hard drive of your computer, its contents are gone. At least until you backed them up on some external medium, or in the cloud. Still, if you reinstall the OS and the apps you had, you will end up with a machine that's pretty similar to the one you had before the wipe. Sure, your kickass wallpaper is probably gone, as is the short story you wrote two weeks ago. The icons are all in wrong places and you will have to arrange them again around the desktop. You also omitted several applications, because you didn't use them anymore prior to the accident. But is the end result significantly different than the configuration you had before? All the changes you could have easily made without the wipe. What if you broke the entire machine instead and bought a similar one? You will probably still want to have everything organized in the same way- because you worked with these settings before and you're used to them. Or perhaps the opposite is true - your previous text editor was unstable and atrociously slow, it's time to find something better. You could even be so fed up with your PC that you purchased a Mac instead. Either way, you will use your experiences with your previous computer to buy and set up a new one. (Yup, ThinkPads were exceptionally lovely PCs in their previous life - I like the way my theology is going.) Of course, there are several problems with applying this analogy to the sentient beings. The machine, after all, doesn't care if it's being wiped... or destroyed and replaced. It gets complicated with the humans, who actually want to stay mostly the same and fear the approaching wipe. Nevertheless, when it inevitably comes, they have no way to register it. The new creature who takes their place doesn't really have to even know about its predecessor's existence. Another thought experiment - how do you feel about being asleep? This is the time when your ego gets temporarily switched off, so the brain could perform maintenance on itself. And it doesn't even leave you unchanged - ever remembered a melody perfectly in the evening and couldn't recall it after waking up? Sorry - your OS decided you don't need it after all. From my point of view, people minds don't spring up from nowhere. Your brain is roughly shaped by the genes your parents gave you. Your thoughts heavily depend of your culture and surroundings. I still have problems with grasping the details of Buddhist thought - like a birth directly caused by a death, not to mention some ideas about the inner workings of rebirth. But I managed to accept enough to believe that, after I die, some being similar to me will spring up sooner or later.
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Jul 13, 2014 01:15
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Is it normal to feel angry and frustrated during meditation? Not even angry at something in particular, just pure rage and a strong desire to stop. It doesn't happen that often, but it tends to completely ruin a sitting session for me when it happens.
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Mar 26, 2018 00:46
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Popcornicus posted:This is normal and you can actually consider it a sign that the meditation is working. These knots of resistance to experience manifest in different ways for different people at various stagesof practice. As you sit with them, they have a tendency to unravel, sometimes suddenly. The subconscious agenda underlying the emotion may suddenly emerge into awareness. The problem is not completely gone, but now it seems to happen much rarer. It seems to be connected to the body - sometimes I feel a compulsion to move, and not doing it produces frustration. This is something I do experience normally, although with less intensity. What's interesting, sometimes I managed to achieve an opposite state when I don't feel any need to move. In fact, moving seems difficult (it isn't, but feels like it's going to be before moving). I'm not sure if this is something I should try to achieve, but seems different from usual "concentrate on breathing, realize your mind wanders since last 30 seconds, repeat".
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Jun 12, 2018 00:23
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Nessus posted:I have heard conflicting stories, but I think the man himself said "it's irrelevant to the project" repeatedly when asked, and generally refused to answer questions that didn't address the project of enlightenment. I am not sure where it slid in but I think it is generally held that the cycle of things existing rises and falls; I think Shakyamuni himself was supposed to be the fourth Buddha of this universe while Maitreya is going to be the fifth. Amitabha may have been from a previous system of worlds. I think in most Abrahamic religions offering a path to salvation (or the end of suffering) is enough to be considered a god for the purpose of determining if you're an apostate or not. Judaism, Christianity and Islam consider their God as the highest being in the universe and a perfect one to the boot; saying "you can end your suffering without him, also he probably suffers greatly because of dukkha" undermines this notion. Even if you considered him a bodhisattwa (and why would you?), this would be suggesting he is one of many and that's a big no-no in all these religions in itself. I don't think even the most liberal branches of Christianity would permit simultaneously being a Buddhist, at best they would wish you luck but still hope you would change your mind. I'm not sure how liberal both Islam and Judaism can be, but probably also not to this point.
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May 2, 2019 11:08
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| # ¿ May 1, 2024 06:41 |
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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. Not a real Buddhist (just incorporating some elements in my daily life), but hopefully I will be able to help here. Two important questions about trying to tell someone something uncomfortable is how does that make you feel and what reaction do you really expect. Do you believe they will be convinced, or do you fully expect them to double down? Does that make you sad? Angry? If they suddenly announced they changed their mind, would you be happy or disappointed? Do you expect the message to hurt them? Do you care? Do you actually anticipate it? When activists tell others unnecessarily harsh truth, it's usually not about the message, it's about them. They want to feel righteous or show they are righteous. For some is a way to feel powerful or get back at someone who for them represents the enemy. Identifying these feelings in yourself really helps being less harsh and more convincing.
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May 20, 2019 09:06
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