|
NikkolasKing posted:Since we're talking Tibetan Buddhism, can I ask about something? The Dhammapada was first translated into Tibetan in like, 1938 by Gendun Choepel. Straight up did not exist in Tibetan language before that, it was completely unknown to them. The thing about Tibetan preference for commentary is this: Buddha's words are the most important of course. However, Buddha isn't here now, but the Lamas are. The Lamas can teach us presently, and they can make things more applicable to our current situation. This has been the case for a long time, and so a huge number of commentaries exist. Of those commentaries, certain "favorites" have fallen into a fixed position in different lineage curricula. For example, the Drikung Kagyu lineage leans hard into Gampopa's "The Jewel Ornament of Liberation," as well as our founder's teaching, "The Single Intention," and some commentaries from other lineage masters like "Rays of Sunlight" or so on. Largely, the Tibetan monastic institutions follow those commentaries because they have been doing so forever, and often they are centered around the particular masters that make those lineages unique. Their lineage identities are based on those teachings - but the essence has to accord with the Sutra tradition. Lately, our master, HH Chetsang Rinpoche, has been pushing heavily for making sure that all commentaries are reviewed for according with the Sutra teachings. Additionally, I've praised Thich Nhat Hanh's "Old Path, White Clouds" in this thread. I actually first ran into this book while in India, and the excitement was because it had just recently been translated into Tibetan. While the Tibetan Buddhists knew about the historical Buddha's life stories, and the sutras had been translated, they weren't the focus of study. That book made it very accessible. The sutras in Tibetan are also a mess to read because of course they are - even for Tibetan. It's translated from Sanskrit sutras as far as I can tell, and I have never been successful at matching things up one to one. I was actually told about the sutras in Tibetan by His Eminence Thritsab Rinpoche, the lineage regent - there's an app called Adarsha that has them. quote:Also what do Tibetan Buddhists make of beings like Tara? I first re ad of Tara as a Hindu goddess but am I wrong that Buddhist Tara is less a divine being to venerate and more just a source of inspiration? Tara is called "Drolma" in Tibetan, where her name means "Liberation-Woman." She's a fully enlightened Buddha, often called by Tibetans "the mother of all Buddhas." She's super popular because Tibetans are super into moms. Most commonly practiced are Green Tara (wish-fulfilling) and White Tara (long life) and then more rare would be Red Tara (sorcery and magic). There are 21 Taras and they all get practiced by someone at some point. But she's considered a fully enlightened Buddha, in the Lotus Family with Amitabha and Chenrezig/Avalokitesvara. That said, she's not a "divine being to venerate" per se. While people do supplication prayers, make offerings, and so on she's also an yidam; that is, people receive empowerments and do deity yoga where they visualize themselves as Tara in order to cultivate her enlightened qualities in themselves. Edit: Speaking of commentaries, my Lama wrote a commentary called Profound Protection, on a supplication to Green Tara by the lineage founder. Because your commentary game isn't pro until you're writing commentaries about commentaries. I arranged it for publication. It goes into a lot of detail on philosophy - Rinpoche is particularly a scholar. If you (or anyone) want(s) an example of a modern commentary that elucidates a lot of the philosophical tradition, I am happy to provide a PDF, let me know. Edit2: It will also directly answer the question of what Tibetan Buddhists make of Tara, in great detail. Paramemetic fucked around with this message at 02:16 on Oct 2, 2019 |
#
¿
Oct 2, 2019 00:09
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 14, 2024 08:40 |
|
|
Mushika posted:Wait wait wait, the Dhammapada? The Dhammapada? Plenty of early Buddhist scriptures have been available to Tibetan monastic scholars for centuries, surely? First major dissemination of Buddhism to Tibet wasn't until the 700s, like 1100 years after the historical Buddha. You're a Mahayana tantric practitioner, and some child warlord's minister rolls up and says "hey, our king loves what you're doing out here, he wants us to develop writing and poo poo and then bring him stuff to translate." Now, are you gonna give him that tired old sutra stuff? Or the new hotness straight out of some Mahasiddhas at Nalanda? Remember, this guy is a warlord emperor's minister, like you want to give him yr absolute best poo poo. It's gonna be the tantra stuff every time, you know? Like, on the one hand you've got  tired But on the other hand you've got...  WIRED But more seriously, yeah no they got the sutras over there at some point but the first dissemination of Buddhism to Tibet wasn't until super late into the Mahayana period. There are some claims and arguments that the Nyingmapa were there earlier but it didn't catch on, and while there's some historical context that sort of implies Vajrayana practice might be closer to what historical Buddha practiced than Theravada, the Buddhism that Tibet got was definitely late Mahayana stuff and the sutras they'd be getting would be Mahayana sutras. For example the Heart Sutra / Prajnaparamita Sutra are extremely popular for regular recitation. The Fire Sermon? Not so much. Edit: I would love Yiggy to weigh in on this because I am absolute trash for historical stuff. Edit2: I am pretty sure, as a little twist of irony, that the first translation of the Dhammapada into Tibetan was from English. Paramemetic fucked around with this message at 04:09 on Oct 2, 2019 |
|
#
¿
Oct 2, 2019 04:04
|
|
|
Reene posted:Hey send me that poo poo too, nerd. Actually!!! I'll think you find it's you!!! That is the nerd!!!!!
|
|
#
¿
Oct 3, 2019 00:52
|
|
|
Keret posted:As an aside, this seemingly deceptive simplicity of expressions is something that I've noticed running through nearly all Buddhist writing that I've encountered. I say "seemingly" deceptive because "nothing in the world is hidden." In any case, it keeps happening that I read something one time, and I think "oh, okay, that is pretty apparent." And then, months or years later, I return to the expression and, although it is still as straightforward as ever, it takes on an entirely new shade or depth of meaning for me, viewed through the lens of further experience. There is a sense of viewing from a different angle, or of "not the same person, not the same river." Great post. This particularly struck me and I can speak somewhat to the universality of the experience because it's exactly how the practice of ngondro has gone for me. They introduce a lot of concepts in early Tibetan teaching but the "read" is very superficial or academic at first. Then, slowly slowly over time the "read" transforms from something that seemed facile or readily apparent into a rich understanding that permeates all levels of a person's life. It's one thing to know that we're inseparable from deity, or inseparable from Buddha, or empty of inherent existence, or whatever. It's an entirely different thing to realize that, to know it fully and to truly understand it through experiential rather than academic knowledge. And this is the kind of thing that comes with practice, where a statement we appreciated at first becomes an extraordinarily profound thing. The founder of my lineage, Jigten Sumgon, writes in his primary work, The Single Intention, "other lineages consider that the main practice is most profound, but in this lineage we consider that the preliminaries are most profound." I like the wisdom to adequately expound on this, but my understanding is that in part this is because the preliminary practices allow us to make the main practice profound. Without the preliminaries, there's nothing profound in the main practice. Beyond that, what is profound is that which meets the level of the practitioner. Something that isn't matched to our level of development isn't profound because we can't understand it. Even the most advanced practices of a lineage are just some babble and philosophical masturbation if the student isn't realized enough. And we can see this in our own practices, which is what you're seeing here. tl;dr it owns, you own
|
|
#
¿
Oct 12, 2019 18:21
|
|
|
Probably not in the way she's concerned about. I assume she's worried about ghosts that are attracted to death, blood eaters, rakshasas, etc. which are attracted by the act of killing itself. While it's not impossible that a spirit would be attracted by watching death like that on a video, I would consider the risk much less. Tendai will almost certainly have spirit banishing rituals, because both Vajrayana and Daoism have a lot of those. Edit: Tibetan Buddhism of course is loaded full of this stuff. I end up interfacing with it pretty often because astrological calculations factor into the rituals. In any case unless an actual problem is occurring mantra will shoo off most spirits. Before all major rituals in Tibetan Buddhism we offer a gek-tor, or "obstacle offering," which is a ritual cake we offer to local spirits then take away from where the ritual will happen. This is because some spirits don't like Buddhism or rituals so we offer them some stuff so they can leave and then nobody is bothered. I heard a story recently about a guy who died and then his spirit was possessing a woman. The spirit knew every biographical detail of the man, so they called his Lama to see what was up. The Lama asked the spirit the guy's secret name from the empowerment ritual and it couldn't answer. At this point the spirit dropped the facade - he wasn't the guy, he was just a spirit that had been with the guy his entire life. The only time he hadn't been with the guy was when the guy received the empowerments, because it got hedged out by the protection circle. Paramemetic fucked around with this message at 13:32 on Oct 20, 2019 |
|
#
¿
Oct 20, 2019 13:23
|
|
|
Mushika posted:That's really quite sad, considering Buddhism's origins as equalizing, even mendicant religion. Alas, in this degenerate era,,,
|
|
#
¿
Feb 11, 2020 19:54
|
|
|
Mushika posted:Yes, but my question is, "how can I make the lives of other people around me better in this life" because I can't be certain I'll be able to do it in the next. I think the thing being missed here is that Pure Land practitioners aren't praying for rebirth in Sukhavati and then going "get hosed, nerds" to beggars on the street. It is possible to do both. But people are of limited capacity. I cannot possibly ease the suffering of all sentient beings with the limited capacity of this transient body. So, I can do my very best, and then aspire to a rebirth that will afford me more capacity. For the Mahayana practitioner*, this is in the form of the Bodhisattva vow. Out of compassion, one deliberately chooses not to become a non-returner, but instead chooses to stay exactly for the benefit of sentient beings you're discussing. To that same Mahayanist, there is also the necessary recognition that no material comfort will actually reduce the suffering of sentient beings. The conditions of this world are unsatisfactory. Any material comforts are unsatisfactory. No act of benefit to other beings except the practice of Dharma can free a being from suffering. A compassionate Chakravartin King could grant all the world peace and boons of happiness and all those people would still suffer death, rebirth, sickness, and aging. So, we should still absolutely do that thing. We should still aid to relieve the suffering of beings who, in their ignorance and because of their conditions, cannot or will not practice the Dharma. But to do that alone is insufficient - it doesn't really ease suffering, it only prolongs or changes suffering. So we must practice the paramitas in this lifetime - generosity, endurance, patience, wisdom, renunciation, moral action - the whole shtick. But that alone cannot liberate sentient beings. In order to gain the capacity to benefit all beings, to liberate all beings, we must become Buddhas. What that means is a subject of a lot of debate. I find a great irony here that what kicked this all off was a glib remark by Senju Kannon, who has many times linked an incredibly profound treatise on the necessity of Buddhist Socialism, and how we cannot escape our responsibility for the benefit of sentient beings in this very lifetime, and cannot simply "kick the can down the road" in terms of practicing compassion. *edit: I originally said "Vajrayana practitioner" here, but the truth is for the Vajrayana practitioner you do wizard poo poo to expedite your enlightenment with powerful sorcery, and bullshit yourself with nondual wisdom all the while. Paramemetic fucked around with this message at 23:50 on Feb 11, 2020 |
|
#
¿
Feb 11, 2020 23:47
|
|
|
Mushika posted:I wonder if I am following the wrong path. Placing one's faith in the hopes of a better rebirth, as opposed to working to better everyone's condition in this life, seems enormously arrogant to me. But they're not mutually exclusive things? I am a person with limited capacities. I do not have a thousand eyes with which to see the suffering of beings and a thousand arms with which to amend them, you know? Rare is the person who can go into the mountains and be a yogi for the benefit of all beings, and that person should do that. One person cannot do much, and the seed of wisdom they attain is something that persists across lifetimes. This is not the case for feeding the hungry. The meal you give a person persists for maybe a day! The inspiration that Milarepa has given to millions of Tibetan people over generations has been a much greater benefit, hasn't it? The Buddha abandoned his riches and lived the life of a monk. His father begged him to be a wise king, but he refused. Surely Buddha could have been a wise king, he was a fully enlightened being. In fact the Buddha's story is what it is because he chose not to benefit beings in his lifetime by becoming a Chakravartin King. He chose the path of benefiting sentient beings through self-denial, through pursuing wisdom, and through achieving enlightenment. He established the Dharma and became the inspiration for a 2600 year tradition of liberating others. Maybe it's arrogant, but only if the Buddha was arrogant. Pursuing the path of enlightenment is what the Buddha did, and what the Buddha taught. Of course, compassion to sentient beings is central to that. Of course the Buddha wants us to benefit others materially when we can, but critically, he also recognizes that material benefit is transient and impermanent. Teaching Dharma is a gift that fruits continually and benefits countless beings. So the yogi or the monk or the layperson who dedicates to be reborn in the Pure Land so they can become one of those things is not misguided or arrogant or selfish - they are doing what they can do to benefit sentient beings by striving to understand and be able to teach and share and inspire and demonstrate that Dharma, that all who see them can benefit. A vast field of merit that inspires all who see it towards liberation. But the thing is...we can do that and practice compassion, within our sphere, and as best we can. And in this way it often reflects other forms of direct action; that is, you do what you can. I have housed people when they needed housing and given money to strangers, I have dedicated countless hours towards administrating a Dharma center, both serve to alleviate the suffering of sentient beings. I am sure there are Pure Land practitioners who misunderstand and think they can hurt others or cause suffering directly and say the nembutsu, but I think they are probably rare, and beyond that, I think they are still deserving of liberation and will still receive the compassion of Amitabha. And I'm glad of it. But I think far more are saying Nembutsu and then living a life of compassion that touches the hearts of all around them, that alleviates the suffering of their families and neighborhoods and the bugs and animals and ghosts and demons and so on around them. We can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. We can't let our aspiration of benefiting all sentient beings get in the way of benefiting the sentient beings we encounter in our lives. We shouldn't let global-mindedness interfere in local action. And we can do all those things with this transient, impermanent, meaningless life while still aspiring and striving to be reborn in a better position to benefit others. Why does hoping for a better rebirth preclude using the current one to help others? How is it arrogant to think "alas, I cannot do as much as I would like with this life, so I will do what little I can and aspire to be reborn in a way that I can do more?" Paramemetic fucked around with this message at 03:35 on Feb 12, 2020 |
|
#
¿
Feb 12, 2020 03:33
|
|
|
Mushika posted:Therein lies the rub: I have this life here and now. I don't know what sort of life comes next, but I have been exposed to the Dhamma in this life. I understand suffering, and I feel I would be remiss if I didn't attempt to alleviate it. Putting it off because I expect a chance to do so in a future existence is, well, horribly selfish. The fortunate thing is, if you do the good thing now, you get the better thing later. Like I think that's maybe where my biggest contention here is: people who are focused on attaining a better rebirth do it by doing the best they can in this lifetime. I study and practice Tibetan Astrology, and a lot of Westerners ask me about past or future lives, which Tibetan astrology doesn't do much with because, as the Tibetan aphorism goes, "if you want to know your past life, look at your present conditions; if you want to know your future life, look at your present actions." So, yes, good, this is right! You should use the present life you have to accumulate merit by practicing the paramitas. Then you will inevitably have a more advantageous future life. If you believe in cause and effect, then there's no other way and no reason to worry. NikkolasKing posted:The Bodhisattva Vow has always been my biggest problem with Mahayana Buddhism, too. I have large doubts I'll ever be enlightened and saved so how can I hope to save everyone else in the world? How can anyone believe they can save billions of people? It's more than that, you wanna save all life so animals, too. I'ts impossible to imagine. An absolute boatload of dudes have taken vows to remain in samsara until you, personally, are liberated. You can make that vow too, or not. Ultimately we're talking about countless beings, but that's not important. It's not about the result, it's about the process. The important thing is that we keep working to liberate beings.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 12, 2020 07:11
|
|
|
Nessus posted:This is certainly angels on the head of the pin territory, but sometimes I've wondered. Some millions of people have taken the Bodhisattva vow and I imagine people on other planets have done the equivalent. Presumably at some point it will be down to all bodhisattvas. Who heads out last? Moved by great compassion, everyone tries to be the last one out the door, and so everyone stands around until they forget what they were doing, and we're all back at it again. But yeah I mean because of the great compassion of bodhisattvas the ultimate liberation of all beings is inevitable. It's like the Lama says about attaining. If we rely on the Buddha's teachings and practice the Vajrayana with devotion to the Lama, we'll definitely attain Buddhahood in one lifetime. It just might not be this lifetime.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 12, 2020 08:48
|
|
|
Mushika posted:I simply can't reconcile the fact that there is work to be done here in this life with the idea that merit somehow opens up opportunities in the next. Doing work in this life is how you accumulate that merit, so they reconcile pretty easily. quote:How do we know what the next existence entails? If you don't acknowledge cause and effect then this is pretty uncertain, but if you do then this question is trivial. quote:What we do know is that there is work to be done in this life. There is suffering that we can alleviate here and now. The choices that we make in this life have far-reaching consequences. The far reaching consequences you're talking about are exactly the "in the next life" bits I'm talking about. We all need both wisdom and method. Some people focus on one, some on the other, because of our limited capacity. So long as that accords with the Noble Eightfold Path, the ultimate result is the same. As for the yogis, well, in the end the only suffering I have the capacity to alleviate is my own. No material offerings or improvements of conditions can free someone from ignorance or from the cycle of birth, old age, sickness, and dying. Nothing we do with our transient bodies can actually benefit anyone. Only the gift of Dharma can help someone escape suffering in any meaningful sense. This lifetime is a precious and rare opportunity to practice Dharma, and in so doing to demonstrate the benefits. Don't give a hungry man a fruit and he suffers the suffering of suffering. Give a man a fruit and he'll eat for a day but he'll suffer the suffering of change. Teach a man to grow fruit and he'll suffer the all-pervasive suffering of conditioned phenomena. Show a man the ultimate nature of mind and he does not suffer, fruit or not.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 12, 2020 20:17
|
|
|
Mushika posted:So it's spiritual Accelerationism, then. Hope that suffering in this life leads others to the Dhamma in the hope that their future lives will be alleviated of spiritual suffering. Dukkha in this life is irrelevant, only merit for the conditions of our rebirth is worthy of concern. You're not reading it right.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 13, 2020 02:20
|
|
|
Okay I had to go read back to make sure I hadn't lost the plot. So, I think the thing here is that you've drawn a sort of dichotomy between secular and spiritual affairs, and you are very concerned about the secular affairs, and not so much about the spiritual affairs. Hence the looking to secular Buddhism, and not being a fan of the Mahayana or Vajrayana tendency towards... I don't want to say less secular, and I think really my reticence to accept the dichotomy at all is the issue. So, you had mentioned an emphasis on "what the Buddha taught" being primary which kicked off the Jodo Shinshu Trap Card. At the very most basic level, the Buddha taught the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path and this is a common ground for all Buddhisms. The Four Noble Truths are the truth of suffering, the truth of the cause of suffering, the truth of the cessation of suffering, and the truth of the path that leads to the cessation of suffering. The truth of suffering is that all conditioned existence is unsatisfactory. There is no composited thing that is unaffected by this unsatisfactoriness. All sentient beings are born, age, become sick, and die. Any transient or temporary pleasures end. All conditioned phenomena are impermanent and without essence. I alluded jokingly earlier to this, but there are three kinds of suffering, called overt suffering, suffering of change, and all-pervasive suffering. I'll come back to this in a minute, let's get through the four noble truths. The truth of the cause of suffering is that this suffering comes not from the inherent characteristics of things, but rather, suffering is caused by attachment, grasping, and aversion; more concisely, it's caused by the ignorance that leads to those things. Because we are ignorant to the actual nature of conditioned existence, and because we think that the "self" exists, and because we believe that this material reality is reality, we have grasping and aversion. Grasping is when we want things that are not the case to be the case. Aversion is when we want things that are not the case to be the case. Attachment is when we want things that are the case to remain the case (i.e., not to change). These actually parallel the causes of suffering. Grasping and aversion cause overt suffering: we want suffering to stop, we want not-suffering to come. Attachment causes the suffering of change. All of these originate from ignorance to the nature of conditioned phenomena, which causes the all-pervasive suffering of conditioned existence. The truth of the cessation of suffering is that there is a way to stop all suffering. Because there are identifiable causes of suffering, we can stop these causes of suffering. By stopping the causes of suffering, suffering itself ceases. The immediacy of that ceasing will vary from one Buddhist tradition to the next. Theravadins, for example, do not think it comes very quickly - indeed, they aim to achieve the state of once- or non-returners, not to actually end it in their current lifetimes. Vajrayana practitioners believe it can be ended in one lifetime (though not necessarily this one!  ). Mahayana and Vajyrana practitioners alike believe it is selfish to end it only for oneself, but not to strive to end it for everyone else.Finally, there's the truth of the path that leads to the cessation of suffering: the Noble Eightfold Path. This path is comprised of: Right view, right determination, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right samadhi. Of those eight paths, three belong to our moral behavior as actors in the world: speech, conduct, and livelihood. The other five belong to our mental activity (effort, mindfulness, samadhi) and our insight or wisdom (view, resolve). You need all eight to end suffering. The Noble Eightfold Path is not a "pick one." It is not eight paths. It is a single path of eight parts. You must do all of the eight to actually end suffering. That is the truth the Buddha taught, that is the absolute foundation. With no grand Bodhisattvas or Buddhafields of Accumulation or Merit Gaming for Better Rebirths, the Buddha taught that it is utterly insufficient to do anything less than those eight things. The Mahayana and Vajrayana paths elaborate on these in ways that make them operable or accessible to laypeople. The original teachings of the Buddha probably had those methods as well, but the restoration church equivalent of the Theravada does not: it's monk into arhat, or bust, for them. Of the Mahayana paths, there are many different approaches to the Noble Eightfold Path, but all of them necessarily include the Noble Eightfold Path. I am not a Jodo Shinshu practitioner, but of course we have Pure Land aspirations too, as Goldreallas XXX pointed out. So, I will say this: the basic idea is that Buddhas come in waves. There was talk about yugas and degenerate eras and so on, and I mostly joke about this. In many ways we live in a very fortunate era, after all! But to a Pure Land practitioner, they look at the world, filled as it is with distractions and degeneracy, and recognize that there is no way for someone to fulfill all of the Noble Eightfold Path in this lifetime. We can do right speech and right livelihood easily enough, sure. But how can we do right effort when there is no example? How are we to practice samadhi when there is no time for leisure? How can we practice right conduct when there is no ethical consumption under capitalism? Because of the interrelations of karma there is no escaping culpability for merely living. Everything done is at the expense of others. How can we practice right effort when so many things bombard us with reasons to be distracted? How to practice right mindfulness when men in labcoats are trying to figure out how to immerse us further into atomized consumer units? So, with that being the case, there is no hope to actually end suffering in this lifetime. With that being the case, we should focus on alleviating material suffering in this lifetime for ignorant beings who do not know the path, while doing our best to be reborn in a Pure Land where we can attain enlightenment for ourselves and then, using the wisdom we've gained, do a much better job of alleviating the material concerns of others. There was talk before of secular Buddhism: there's no other kind! The concept is a Western attempt to harness Buddhism into the world we're comfortable with, the scientific positivist world of matter. But Buddhism is already concerned with the world! Buddhism by its nature did not come from some divine being. It came from a human being who observed the nature of the world, that the world is unsatisfactory, and that that unsatisfactoriness comes not from the impermanent conditions of phenomena but from the interaction of the mind with those phenomena. You cannot address suffering without addressing the mind, without recognizing its actual nature and dispelling the ignorance that causes us to regard transient conditions of phenomena as real. It's really hard to do that while having to pay a landlord for a place to stay. For Pure Land Buddhists, the solution is to deal with the material world now, while working to be reborn in a better world. For Vajrayana practitioners, it's to alchemically transform sufferings into wisdom while using expedient means to recognize the nature of mind, and cultivating compassion for sentient beings. For Theravadins, it's to be a monk, live your best life with hope you can be reborn as a person who can be a monk. But you cannot alleviate any suffering at all by only dealing with material phenomena, and you similarly cannot alleviate suffering by only dealing with the mind. So, after a billion words, the punchline is the same as it was before: you have to do both. Fortunately, until you achieve enlightenment, you get infinite rebirths to work with. Unfortunately, some are better than others. While you have this rebirth, with leisure and enjoyment, you should practice Dharma, including working to reduce the suffering of others, as this will ensure you keep getting good chances. If you don't do those things, well, you'll be a cockroach or a demon or whatever, but you'll cycle back around soon enough. We all do. Paramemetic fucked around with this message at 03:07 on Feb 13, 2020 |
|
#
¿
Feb 13, 2020 03:03
|
|
|
That last paragraph was where I wanted to end but I do also want to say that amusingly practicing generosity and working only to alleviate the material conditions of others is how you end up getting reborn as a formed god, but to Buddhists this is a bad thing, because gods don't really experience overt suffering until the very end of their lives, when the suffering of change kicks in. Because they only cultivated method but did not practice wisdom, they lack the ability to recognize the all-pervasive suffering of suffering, and so they don't practice Dharma and fall to lower rebirths. If you only practice wisdom, and you don't cultivate compassion, you end up rolling yourself into a ball of formless consciousness as a formless god, and you become totally isolated as a ball of consciousness until the a Buddha or Bodhisattva comes to wake you up. Both of those are bad things. Much better to be a human, because we can practice both wisdom and method.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 13, 2020 03:06
|
|
|
In case I didn't clearly come back to the three types of suffering being important, the kind of suffering you're talking about addressing is overt suffering. It sucks and we should absolutely do our best to alleviate the overt suffering of beings. As Buddhists, we recognize overt suffering to be trivial, suffering in this life is impermanent. Everyone is equal when they're dead, and we all die. No single overt suffering lasts forever. So, when we want to address suffering, we should address the overt suffering where we can, while recognizing that unless we address the underlying ignorance, a person will just find a new overt suffering. Your car breaks down and life sucks, you cannot go to work, you have to get a new car. You take out loans and get a new car. Now you can get to work! But work sucks. Maybe you are really rich. Your car is old and sucks. You buy a brand new car or I dunno lease or whatever rich people do. Great! Now you have a new car, you really love it...for a few weeks. Then it needs maintenance. Then it gets scratched in the parking lot. Then you get a flat tire. Now you are sad again. Overt suffering is everywhere but unless you address the underlying ignorance, you can't actually get rid of it. You can only change the degree of it. Maybe make it a bit less. But what does that matter? Who cares? We all age and get sick and die. You can't make death a bit less! So we can spend all our time reducing overt suffering, but then we die and are reborn. Start over! More overt suffering. Back in gradeschool and middleschool and highschool a thousand times over. Again a cricket, being eaten by a spider, no means to escape this overt suffering, no means to escape this suffering of death. Ah, so those formed gods I spoke of; their lives are wonderful, they do not know any overt suffering because of their ability to manifest anything they want by will alone. It's really great...until the merit runs out and they start to die, their miracle powers fail, they ultimately die. Alas, if they had realized this could happen to them, they would have practiced Dharma, but they didn't. For Buddhists, you want a little suffering. Just enough to recognize that you need to practice Dharma, but not so much that you can't practice Dharma. The Pure Land contingent thinks that this is unrealistic for most people. It might be. We focus on the next life because this one is already over. We're gonna die. You are born hosed. Focusing on this life is dumb. If you get a good next life, you can make some progress. How do you get a good next life? By focusing on this life. Paramemetic fucked around with this message at 03:18 on Feb 13, 2020 |
|
#
¿
Feb 13, 2020 03:14
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 14, 2024 08:40 |
|
|
I was asked to post us a new thread, and so the cycle of post, shitpost, lock thread, and gas or goldmine must continue. Find the new thread here.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 16, 2020 18:00
|
|