Ask us about Buddhism: This thread is Avici

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Yiggy: Sep 12, 2004; "Imagination is not enough. You have to have knowledge too, and an experience of the oddity of life."

Shnooks posted:

They're ok words when they're used alone, like...in a description or whatever. But when I see all of them put together its kind of like my history books in college where I'm pretty sure people just took words, smooshed them together, and made a new one. Also I find everyone spells the Sanskrit and/or Pali a bajillion different ways, which gets confusing.

It's ok, though. It's still interesting to read.

A few points which may help explain. So, in English we have compound words that will normally be two, sometimes three words. In Sanskrit there is no limit to this, and there are sometimes compound words composed of many, sometimes 23 words for really heady concepts. So in the history of Sanskrit and new terms within it, people literally did just take a ton of words and smoosh them together. Re: the spelling thing, Sanskrit and Indic alphabets are normally incredibly specific with their phonemes, many times having 40-50 letters an an alphabet and 10, sometimes more vowels. How its written, in the proper alphabet, is a clear guide to how it sounds. In English, for instance, we have those same ten or so vowel sounds, but we use five characters to express them, often depicting the same sound in different ways. So proper transliteration is pretty difficult, and especially outside more scholarly works, the conventions are poorly held to.

You also have the problem of mistransliteration into one language, embedding itself in that tradition and new language, and then eventually being mistransliterated again into English. For instance, take an influential Buddhist monk from Thailand, which in English is often referred to as Buddhadhasa. Well in Thai it's "Putatut" (and here, I probably just butchered a convention). Putatut itself literally meaning Buddhadhasa when you trace the threads back to sanskrit, but over time as the language spread it adapted itself to local phonemic distinctions, not always caring for precise phonetic distinctions. Especially in literature meant to popularize and spread Buddhist ideas in a more ecumenical fashion, transliteration standards can be held to with even less rigor. Considering that Pali itself was never really a living language, but one meant to crystallize concepts and stabilize them by removing them from the living, shifting web of Middle Indic languages and prakrits. Add to this that Buddhism is rarely interpretted or studied purely in this context, as many of the eastern traditions are based off of later sanskrit texts, with their own translation problems as they were ported into Chinese, then Japanese and other Asian contexts, etc.

Much of the dharma we see and talk about is a palimpsest of reinterpretation and translation. So it's going to be difficult to get to conceptual core of any of it. This is also one of the reasons a lot of Zen Monks became disdainful of text, language and the obscuring nature of words and terms.

Yiggy fucked around with this message at 20:59 on May 11, 2013

# ¿ May 11, 2013 20:48

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 11:55

Yiggy: Sep 12, 2004; "Imagination is not enough. You have to have knowledge too, and an experience of the oddity of life."

Wrt Amitabha, more specifically, he is the Buddha of another realm or heaven. Doctrinally, any realm or sphere of existence can have only a single Buddha reigning at one time, although you can still have arahants (people enlightened by the Buddhas dharma) and pratyekabuddhas (people enlightened on their own, like a Buddha, but who ultimately do not spread the dharma. Sort of like a Pre-Buddha Arahant, or a John the Baptist like figure to make an analogy).

Particularly among pure land Buddhists, if you do well in this life, you earn a spot in heaven, which is supposed to be the Buddha Amitabha's realm, where everyone is instantly enlightened and just sits around listening to Amitabha preach the Dharma 24/7. Depending on your hermeneutic approach, this isn't necessarily a different realm per se, but awakening to a world where the dharma is all around you and ever present. Similar to the phrase from another tradition, "Everyone is the Guru if you know how to listen". I'll of course accede to this being a potentially controversial and contentious point though. Like all traditions, Buddhism has its literalists.

# ¿ May 12, 2013 20:18

Yiggy: Sep 12, 2004; "Imagination is not enough. You have to have knowledge too, and an experience of the oddity of life."

Can you provide some of the context of your discussion? Amita Bodhisattva as past or present, perhaps? Otherwise its hard to tell. If they were referring to previous rebirths than they'd be talking about the Bodhisattva Amita. At this point I'm nearing the end of my pureland knowledge, but if for some reason they're of the mind that the pureland with Amitabha Buddha will happen in a future not reached, than the Bodhisattva Amita would possibly be living out his final births in present time and not quite yet a Buddha. This is one of the twists of Mahayana doctrine and its spinoff sects, that we are potentially living concurrently with all sorts of Buddhas to be, although strictly speaking this isn't necessarily unique to Mahayana as even Theravada acknowledges the future Buddha Maitreya, who if floating around at present is a Boddhisattva until he reaches his birth in Tusita heaven just prior to his Buddha birth.

Without knowing more thats the most I can hazard.

# ¿ May 12, 2013 21:17

Yiggy: Sep 12, 2004; "Imagination is not enough. You have to have knowledge too, and an experience of the oddity of life."

Also, and I'm not saying this to raise any spectres of wrong or right Buddhism or of ignorant lay believers vs otherwise, but sometimes people get minor details wrong, or adhere to a tradition of which they know only the sketchiest outlines. I sat in a seminar on anthropology of Buddhism which had two religious studies PhD candidates specializing in Japan. Their reports were that most Japanese, while nominally Buddhist and many of those being Pure Land, that adherents still had a fairly tenuous connection with the institutions and doctrines. For many Japanese lay Buddhists, their only real interaction with the religion is at funerals, and so it wouldn't be crazy for them to mince Bodhisattva with Buddha.

Now if these were monks or advanced practitioners, confusion persists. More context needed.

# ¿ May 12, 2013 21:32

Yiggy: Sep 12, 2004; "Imagination is not enough. You have to have knowledge too, and an experience of the oddity of life."

Quantumfate, maybe you could clarify for me, but through my studies it seems to be that the Store Consciousness (Alayavijnana) posited by the Yogacarans is almost indistinguishable from the impersonal, monistic "Self" that developed out of the later Upanishads and became the doctrinal basis later expounded in the Bhagavad Gita. At a certain point it seems to merely be quibbling about Hindu's wanting to refer to that as a self, but ontologically any distinction between that and Store Consciousness would seem to me to be without a difference.

# ¿ May 14, 2013 03:48

Yiggy: Sep 12, 2004; "Imagination is not enough. You have to have knowledge too, and an experience of the oddity of life."

Secret Sweater posted:

This wasn't exactly where I was going, but I can use this to the same effect. Parinirvana occurs at the time of death; Siddhartha taught that this is as a thing that can happen to people. Siddhartha learned this while presently alive as a human, not as a past experience. So why can Parinirvana be spoken of as if truth when it is, in fact, an unknown. I'm not even talking about after Parinirvana, I'm talking about Parinirvana itself. Nobody knows what happens after Parinirvana, how can you truthfully say you know that Parinirvana occurs at all?

Parinirvana is a problematic term. In a great many places in the pali cannon it is used interchangeably with just Nirvana, and often refers to someone who then goes on to very clearly keep living as they had before. It is important not to attach too much meaning and also try to keep a perspective on both Nirvana itself and how Buddhist monks are typically taught to think about death, including some specific kinds of meditation detailing the process of death.

To refer back to Nirvana, as a concept it often picks up a lot of baggage. In a recent, highly detailed, well researched and cited work titled Nirvana and other Buddhist Felicities, Stephen Collins goes to great lengths to explore the concept as understood and detailed in the Pali Imaginaire, the overarching body of concepts and imagery employed in the Pali Cannon. Doctrinally, several things are outlined about the nature of understanding Nirvana, notably things like no-self, impermanence, how every facet of our being is conditioned and contingent on causality. Stuff like that. As for the lived experience of Nirvana, what it feels like etc., the Pali Cannon is very careful to avoid this. The closest it gets it through a body of recurrent poetic themes and aphorisms. Collins explains that you really need to look at both to get a full feeling of whats going on. One of the most recurrent pieces of imagery is water returning to the ocean, and reaching a union. No more struggle for separation, effortless flowing back to the source. He goes further to posit that the point of all of this and Nirvana in particular is to create a state of felicity, to end suffering. While lots of other baggage gets added to the concepts in later chronicles like the Chula and Mahavamsa, relic legends, sectarian texts, etc. At least in the beginning, it was about creating this state of happiness where you are free from suffering and self-aware to prevent from continuing it in others. It is, in many ways, for those who can see The City of Nirvana, about finding felicity and freedom from suffering in This Life, immediately, because death can take you at any time, and up until reaching this felicity you are engendering more of this causality, sending ripples into others still bound in ignorance, furthering suffering.

quote:

If life is able to continue without the self or the soul, we are then left to conclude that those same forces can continue without the functioning body. But Buddhism defines life by the existence of the five aggregates, who is to say that something will take its place when the body is no longer there? That's unanswerable right? Why even pledge the concept of Rebirth if the knowledge of what happens after death is unimportant in achieving Nirvana?

For this, its important to think about the how Buddhist monks in the suttas and even up to today tend to approach death, see it, its after effects, and how something could possibly live on after the dissolution of the skandhas. In several suttas there are outlines for meditating about death, especially its process, in graphic detail. In the broader history of ascetic practice in India, including Buddhism, it was common for monks to at some point undergo a series of meditations, each with a fresh corpse. To meditate on the break down of the body, its consumption by insects and other carrion. Its breakdown into soil. The ultimate fate of all these other animals that consume the corpse, what happens to them, how they themselves move forward in this chain. The skandhas are dissolved, but what was left behind is visually and obviously, to the monks, passing on through other things, continuing a cycle.

Why posit rebirth if its not important for Nirvana? There are a handful of partial answers to this. One is, that the Buddha (and the texts are explicit about this) adapted all of his teachings to his listeners, altering and varying as he thought necessary in order to best help the listener end suffering. Rebirth, a very literal, eternalist stance on it was the common cultural assumption about lived existence in Ancient India. I'm not pointing this out to say that secretly the Buddha didn't believe it or something, not at all, though he often times explicitly avoids comment. Rather, that there is no way he was going to be able to even have a common conversation concerning accepted metaphysical truths unless this is in there.

Stephen Collins also goes on to explain the purpose of Nirvana in this life, in the context of the ongoing round of rebirths. At heart, the main concern of the Buddhists (and also many Hindus and other sramanas), is rebirth fatigue.

Its hard for us to understand this to a full extent because we have no real benchmarks for the brutish, short and nasty nature of life in Ancient India, for one. Life is awful, with intermittent rounds of happiness and pleasure, but it never ends. An analogy I've seen is its like being at the party too long. Long after you feel it should be over, you've had your fun, you just want to go home and go to sleep. Your fatigued with the whole enterprise. In samsara, the narrative never ends. It has no closure, which creates anxiety in people, particularly if they think its going to go on for all time. Collins goes on his book to describe how the doctrinal outlines and the imagery used in the Pali Cannon ultimately paint the picture of Nirvana providing a real sense of narrative closure to peoples' lives. If gives them a way out, either directly in this life, or, if they are not ready, perhaps in another life. The main point being, that there is an end, eventually. It really doesn't go on forever, at least it doesn't have to. Even short of full, in-this-life Nirvana, this does create a smaller and still felt sense of Felicity, which to some extent even then is relieving some of the inherent suffering and anxiety of life fatigue.

# ¿ May 14, 2013 08:16

Yiggy: Sep 12, 2004; "Imagination is not enough. You have to have knowledge too, and an experience of the oddity of life."

Quantumfate posted:

EDIT: My point of contention with what you posit though is the relegation of rebirth to a smaller role than it can really stand to play in most buddhism. But your point about the difficulty of having a common conversation without the accepted metaphysical truths is one of the most stalwart roadblocks that buddhism seems to encounter in the west. Atheist or Theist, most people seem to have a tacit agreement that there is one life and one death. That both are permanent and real things. It can make sunyata or tathagatagarbha hard to convey.

Sure, point taken. I'm merely trying to strike a balance between making too much or too little of it, as at times I know it was certainly a stumbling point for me. Its hard for us to think about it in the West, I feel, because even when we hear and understand concepts of egolessness, our entire culture, society and intellectual tradition sort of depends on the existence of the ego in order to have ITS metaphysical conversations, and so knowing about it and even understanding to some degree doesn't always lead to internalization. I completely agree with neither eternalism or annihilationism, that there is a lot of nuance not easily captured by words. What that means and how to explain it is certainly no easy task, and so we may both be fairly close to the middle way we may be approaching from different sides of the road.

Also, as an aside, the Buddhist tradition when extended as a whole from 400 BC to present does not always make it easy to get away from the eternalist position. As an example, in the lived lives of many Buddhists in Asian countries today, they really know very little about sutras, texts, to some extent even a fair bit of doctrine. The tradition has largely catholicized, in a sense (as its done many times in its history, in India included). To be more specific, what Buddhists on the ground are frequently familiar with are the relic stories and the Jataka tales, particularly like the Vessantara Jataka, and many of these popular stories make little or almost no sense without more eternalist views of rebirth. I would contend in one sense that its no easier for Easterners to walk away from than it is Westerners. A common refrain in the anthropological literature I've encountered on Buddhist peoples is that most of them very much want a rebirth, of their lived experienced self. They would just prefer it be a good or better one. Nirvana ends up being a quaint ideal to aspire to, use as a moral polestar maybe.

quote:

I hope I helped repay that by being able to partially (at the least) answer the question you had RE: yogacara.

I'll probably come back to that and have some more to ask and say, but I need to chew on it a little. Thanks for your candor.

Yiggy fucked around with this message at 09:45 on May 14, 2013

# ¿ May 14, 2013 09:43

Yiggy: Sep 12, 2004; "Imagination is not enough. You have to have knowledge too, and an experience of the oddity of life."

Two other short books are An Introduction to Buddhist Philosophy by Paul Williams and A Concise History of Buddhism by Andrew Skilton.

Williams book is more about doctrine, the development of thinking, the growth of Mahayana and Vajrayana and the philosophical and ritual underpinnings of them (ritual underpinnings referring more so to Vajrayana). It is careful to balance focus on texts with discussion of material culture, meaning archaeological finds, buddhist art and iconography. It also at points has a comparative religion sort of perspective, particularly with regards to the differences in the three major vehicles. WILliams book sort of ends with the end of Buddhism in India, with not a whole lot of discussion on modern developments and the extant history of Buddhism outside of India. For instance, I don't recall there being much discussion at all of stuff like Chaan/Zen Buddhism, Pure Land or other sects which developed later and farther from India.

Skilton's book is more of a historical blow by blow of the spread of religion and development of internal divisions and sects. The second half of the book or so is a brief discussion of the spread of Buddhism out of India into other Asian countries and the effects of their history on Buddhism and vice versa.

# ¿ May 14, 2013 19:15

Yiggy: Sep 12, 2004; "Imagination is not enough. You have to have knowledge too, and an experience of the oddity of life."

Secret Sweater posted:

for An Introduction to Buddhist Philosophy by Paul Williams are you referring to this one by Stephen Laumakis?

Additionally, do you have any suggestions that would cover some of the more recent sects?

Whoops, I had the title wrong. The book is called Buddhist Thought: An Introduction to the Indian Tradition

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0415571790/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1368558884&sr=8-1&pi=SL75

Re: readings on other Buddhist Sects, I'm woefully separated from my library until October. For a good book on early zen in Japan I liked Eloquent Zen: Daito and early Japanese Zen. I found a really good (looking at least, based on table of contents and a quick flip through) book on the history of Chaan and other Chinese sects but I haven't gotten a chance to read it yet, Buddhism in China by Kenneth Ch'en. The rest were readings from course packets, the Encyclopedia of Buddhism (which I think is accessible online somewhere, had an Asian studies prof assign readings from it) and random book chapters. Gregory Schopen has some interesting things to say about early Mahayana development touched upon briefly in Paul Williams's book and expanded in more detail in some of his articles written for the Encyclopedia.

Yiggy fucked around with this message at 20:26 on May 14, 2013

# ¿ May 14, 2013 20:23

Yiggy: Sep 12, 2004; "Imagination is not enough. You have to have knowledge too, and an experience of the oddity of life."

Hiro Protagonist posted:

I wanted to gain clarification on one aspect of Buddhism: Love. Love seems to be one of the most important concepts to the Buddha, from my very little research and understanding on the topic, but the Preta, or "Hungry Ghosts", are supposedly attached to the world for a variety of reasons, one of them being Love. How does this work? Is it particular kinds of love(i.e. Platonic vs. Romantic vs. Friendship), or ways of loving, or is it an intensity thing? I always thought about it like this: the Buddha wants us to love and bring happiness to others always, but accept their deaths as an inevitability, allowing us to be both deattached and attached. But again, I'm not a Buddhist. Thanks in advance!

As far as I understand things, love isn't the term I often see to describe what is more generally emphasized as compassion, which in our language love would be a little over general as far as terms go. It would be in line with the agape or caritas conception of selfless love for others, but in many ways is at odds with some of the other conceptions, particularly Eros. For monastics of just about all settings the vinaya is pretty explicit in saying monks aren't supposed to be having sex (which doesn't mean it didn't happen of course), as its one of those things which so easily breeds, pun not intended, attachments. And this is so throughout most of the tradition, even Mahayana leaning monks lived in the same monasteries and followed the same vinayas as mainstream Buddhists (there is no such thing as a Mahayana vinaya), with vinaya being the big thing that identified your sect. For lay practitioners, the ideal is more realistic an captured in the pancha sila as an injunction against sexual misconduct and immorality, as generally interpreted and determined my surrounding social mores.

As far as it being an intensity thing, I don't really think so, rather its more an attachment thing and a motive thing. So often love happens to be about sexual gratification, the good feelings it brings one's self, what the other person can/is doing for me, etc. and in that sense love can be problematic. In other ways it can be a sort of intoxicating substance, leading to all sorts of unhealthy attachments on other things. I've met many people who feel that if they're not in love or a relationship, they're failing a societal standard, they're not attractive or worthy, and it causes all sorts of distress. That's clearly attachment to a variety of things aside from and in addition to love. It's almost a truism to state that love can lead to both selfish and selfless behaviors, and in the sense that it is a mask for selfish motives and behaviors, for self-gratification, this is what damns the pretas in my mind. But in the ways love leads to selflessness, particularly when that love is not restricted to just one entity (which is in turn then is so often about how that entity makes ME feel, what they do for ME etc.), then it's the sort of thing that only leads to compassion and would be an unequivocal good.

Yiggy fucked around with this message at 10:43 on Jun 3, 2013

# ¿ Jun 3, 2013 10:38

Yiggy: Sep 12, 2004; "Imagination is not enough. You have to have knowledge too, and an experience of the oddity of life."

Regarding meditating on things, and how practice isn't always just keeping the mind calm and clear, I would like to offer a reading to the thread. It's from the zen perpective, but I feel like it has applications for all sorts of practice. It's the concluding chapter wrapping up the book, but I feel like it stands well enough on its own.

Meditations on Zen Buddhism by David Wright posted:

Ch: 10 Conclusion: Zen Buddhism in Theory and in Practice

"When we discover that we have in this world no earth or rock to stand or walk upon but only shifting sea and sky and wind, the mature response is not to lament the loss of fixity but to learn to sail." - James Boyd White

"During Huang Po's time, he left all the monks who followed him and became involved in the general work at Ta-an Monastery, where his continuous practice consisted of sweeping out all the rooms. He swept the Buddha hall and the Dharma hall. But is was not continuous practice done for the sake of sweeping out the mind, nor was it continuous practice performed in order to cleanse the light of the Buddha. It was continuous practice done for the sake of continuous practice." - Dogen

Zen Buddhism has been practiced in East Asia for well over a millennium. During this lengthy historical period, the Zen tradition incorporated into itself many of the spheres of culture - or cultural practices - that were dominant in its time. Theoretical thinking, or philosophy, was one of these, and the Huang Po texts are fine examples of its Zen form in the early Sung period. Nevertheless, Zen Buddhism is not primarily a philosophical movement. Indeed, criticism of theoretical reflection from the perspective of Zen meditation practice is ever present in Zen literature. Even when Zen Buddhists do philosophize, as Huang Po certainly did, practice, not theory, is the emphatic focus of reflection. Therefore, it seems important that we conclude these meditations by asking, first, how should we understand the relation between meditation and philosophy in Zen Buddhism, and, second, how should we understand the relation between our own theoretical reflections on Zen and the practice of Zen?

Once again, we can take our initial lead on this issue from John Blofeld. Following the discussion of "Zen doctrine" in his introduction to the translation of Huang Po, John Blofeld addresses the topic of "Zen practice." The practice he had in mind, and the one that he knew would need to be discussed, was meditation. This word "Zen" means "meditation" and this practice, variously conceived, has always been important to the tradition.* The issue of Zen meditation posed a serious problem for Blofeld's understanding of his own book, however, because as he admitted, Huang Po seemed to have very little to say about this topic. Uncertain about what to make of this absence in the Zen master, Blofeld wrote that "Huang Po seems to have assumed that his audience knew something about this practice - as most keen Buddhists do, of course." This was, of course, a sound assumption on Blofeld's part: practitioners in a ninth-century Chinese Buddhist monastery would have known something about this practice, so much in fact that, whether a Zen text discusses it or not, we can be confident that this practice could be found not too far in the background of the discussion. Nevertheless, the question must be significant: if the origins and early centuries of the Zen tradition were heavily focused on seated meditation, why do we find in Huang Po and in the avant-garde Zen tradition of his time a relative disinterest in meditation? Why do we find the practice of meditation being so frequently criticized in the Zen monastic discourse of that period?

Answers to these historical questions can be found in a number of places. Let us take just one, however, as an impetus to our own reflections on the issue of theory and practice. It is clear from many sources that, in addition to their practice of silent meditation, Chinese Zen monks of this period pursued a theoretical practice aimed at rethinking the entire domain of meditation. One theory being practiced to this end claimed that there is nothing for meditative effort to achieve since all human beings already possess the "Buddha nature" that has been their birthright all along. Therefore, Ma-tsu, the lineage founder, would speak as if to absolve monks of the necessity of "constant sitting" because "everyday mind is the Way," not the extraordinary mind of prolonged disciplinary sitting. Following Ma-tsu's theory, Huang Po would instruct his followers that "since you are fundamentally complete in every respect, you should not try to supplement that perfection by such meaningless practices." This theory was taken to be worthy of considerable meditation; dedicated monks would "practice it day and night," both when they were in seated meditation and when they were not.

In the time that Huang Po's text was being composed, it appears that the relations between thought, practice, and all other activities were being radically reconceived. One form that this reconceptualization seems to have taken is a critique of the idea that meditation practice is a special activity located outside the domain of ordinary life. Meditation was thought to be more effectively practiced when it was not considered a separate and sacred dimension of life, but rather as the conscious awareness present in all human activity. If the point of meditation was to elevate the level of awareness in daily life, transforming all moments and all activities in enlightening ways, then raising meditation above and separating it from daily life would be counterproductive. Instead, meditation was to be universalized; that is, all acts, no matter how ordinary, were to be performed as though they too were meditative practices. Rather than limiting meditation to a certain number of hours in the meditation hall, monks were encouraged to live all moments of life meditatively, no matter what the external form of the activity currently under way. When properly theorized, meditative practice was to encompass everything: daily monastic labor, ordinary conversation, eating, bathing, breathing, and so on. When monks pondered the common Zen phrase, "In chopping wood and carrying water, therein lies the marvelous Way," they were simply practicing the most transformative Zen theory of their time, a theory aimed at making all of life one continuous act of meditation.

One of the many forms that meditation could take was theoretical or philosophical reflection. Thus, "theory" could be refigured in the mind as "practice." Although in some ways this may seem an odd conclusion, it would not have surprised anyone in the Buddhist tradition. On the contrary, from very early on, meditation was divided into two basic forms. One form (samatha) is non-discursive silence - stopping thought activity and pacifying the mind - and the other (vipassana) is philosophical meditation, a conceptual meditative practice. Zen meditation can be found abundantly in both kinds. When zazen takes a non-discursive form, the intention of its practice is to calm the mind of pointless and frenetic activity. In this case it seeks to clear away the meaningless chatter that obstructs mindful presence in the world; it opens the senses to experience the world in ways that are otherwise obscured. This is a non-discursive, non-conceptual practice, even though, upon reflection, theories can be found in the background: theories about relationship between silence and enlightenment, theories about what the mind is and how it can be transformed, theories about what reality is and how it an be experienced, not to mention practical theories about how to do it. In the actual practice, however, theory stands in the background, framing the practice by making it self-evident to practitioners why and how it might be performed.

When, on the other hand, zazen takes a linguistic and thoughtful form (vipassana), the mind is to be enlightened through a sustained transformation in thinking. In this case mental images provide the lens through which new dimensions of reality are opened to view. John Blofeld alludes to this in his discussion of Zen practice when he includes in a list of practices "unremitting effort to see all things in light of the truths we are learning." "Truths," in the form of thoughts and images, shed a light on "all things" that transforms the way they are experienced. How things appear differs in accordance with alterations in the mental "light" that is shed on them. Light reflected through the doctrine of emptiness, for examples, shows the world one way, while the doctrines of compassion, sudden enlightenment, and mind-to-mind transmission will display it in other ways. The point here is that, by traditional Zen standards, dwelling in Zen light by thinking its doctrines IS Zen meditative practice.

This point, however, is frequently misunderstood. Both scholars and practitioners, east and west, tend to misrepresent the role of thought in meditation by holding to an untenable dichotomy between thought and meditation. Taking this point of departure, they might assume the obverse of Blofeld's claim that "if we practice Zen it must surely be because we accept its cardinal doctrines" because one cherished doctrine in this tradition is that Zen is a religion without doctrines.** But this doctrine about Zen can neither account for itself nor the presence in Zen of precise forms of thought that support its sophisticated practice. Zen theory is a form of Zen practice that sustains other practices by showing how, why, and to what end they might be worth performing. It is not an optional addition to Zen practice. Although practitioners may proceed with practice on the belief that doctrine is dispensable, the net result is not non-doctrinal practice. Instead it is practice guided by doctrine that is naive and poorly developed, because it has not undergone thoughtful appraisal. Zen scholars have tended to accept this view of Zen without the critical evaluation that has been applied so carefully to other dimensions of Zen.

There are important limits, however, to this way of setting Zen theory over other forms of practice. Perhaps most important is the realization that all thinking of theory, whether religious or not, is already shaped by practice. The word "practice" here means, simply, "what we regularly do," the patterns of activity that we share with others and that form our socially constructed world. Human practices, or patterns of activity, establish the background or context within which thought takes place. Everyone's perception of the world and their sense of what is possible within it are pre-formed by these practical forms of life. They construct the basis or context for thinking. Although all human beings share this common ground, differences are significant. Our patterns of thought will come to be shaped quite differently depending on whether we spend many hours each day with others in zazen or farming or doing social work or analyzing the stock market. Each practice in each of these social worlds directs and shapes the mind with its own distinct language, set of concerns, hopes and fears.

Therefore, from this angle of vision, we can see the role that practice plays in shaping theory, and thus, their reciprocal character. Intertwined, theory and practice continually shape each other. The way you live your life and the way you understand it are mutually determining. In Buddhist terms, they "co-arise," neither one able to sustain itself in the absence of the other. "Practice" is the actualization and embodiment of theory, which, in implementing theory, continually hones, revises, and reorients the world view that gives rise to it. Reflective thinking seeks to make practice explicit, self-conscious, and subject to criticism and revision. It helps everyone continue asking: practice of what, why, and toward what end? These theoretical questions show the essential reciprocal relation between practice and theory in Zen and elsewhere.

In the Zen tradition, the purpose of saying that everything is religious practice is to bring daily life to awareness, to point out the patterns of daily activity to the one living them. This is a very productive theory. Anyone who practices it will be less likely to ignore any aspect of their life; cultivating the practice, they gradually perform each activity with greater and greater awareness. The danger of the theory that "everything is practice," however, is that is may obscure the opposite point: that in the midst of the many practices people perform, a few are worth elevating because they have an important bearing on the quality of all others. Both meditation and philosophy might be placed in this group. "Everything is practice" should not be taken to mean that it doesn't matter, therefore, which ones are chosen or how they are placed in relation to each other. It does matter. Not all practices are equal in their qualitative powers. What the theory is meant to highlight is the state of mind in which all activities are performed. This should not, however, be confused with the question of which among the many activities are most worth choosing to do. When they do get confused, the danger is that, in attempting to elevate ordinary life, spiritual life is debased or lost. Although one goal in the Zen tradition is to eliminate the distinction between "ordinary" and "spiritual," this elimination is only effective when the ordinary has been elevated to the level of the spiritual, and not vice versa. That the distinction is "empty" in Buddhist terms does not mean that it is without important function. Lacking some distinction like this, no transformative awakening would ever be sought, nor attained.

To test these meditations, an experiment in thought is productive. Reversing the idea that theory is actually practice, consider whether, on contrast, philosophy and meditation might both be regarded as theory. Framed in this way, both theoretical reflection and meditation could be considered "theory" insofar as both require a temporary step back out of ordinary life; they are exceptional practices requiring the suspension or ordinary practice. They are both temporary, artificial, experimental removals from worldly activities for the intended purpose of reconfiguring one's overall orientation to daily life. Philosophical thought and silent meditation are the same in this fundamental respect. While all practical tasks are performed on the world, so to speak, these two practices suspend work on the world, requiring instead a self-conscious step back to work on the "spirit" of the performer him- or herself. It is in this sense that they are spiritual activities, in clear distinction from most other dimensions of daily activity or practice.

This gives us two seemingly contradictory alternatives. Is philosophical reflection really a form of practice, like all activities, or is it better to regard reflection and meditation as two forms of theoretical removal from ordinary life? In this case, we can have it both ways, since both bring into view some dimension of the matter inaccessible to the other perspective. In fact, it is counterproductive to think of either as the final word on the matter. "Skill-in-means" - the Buddhist virtue of flexibility in conception - is the ability to move in principle between points of view, each informing the other so that greater and greater comprehension results. Stopping short of this comprehension to finalize a doctrinal position is a self-imposed limitation that is unnecessary and misleading. While philosophical meditation is clearly a practice, like non-discursive meditation, it is a practice that removes one from the practical sphere of everyday life so that greater perspective on life might be gained. The step back into theoretical practice is made in order that other practices might be transformed and elevated.

Stepping back out of the rush of everyday life to reflect or meditate is also, in effect, stepping back out of the self; it sets up an opportunity to consider being (theory), or to strive to be (practice), something other than what you have been so far. That is clearly the overarching point of Buddhist practice: to transcend yourself, to go beyond yourself, to become someone wiser, more insightful, more compassionate, more flexibly attuned to the world than the self you have been. In Zen Buddhism, this transformative process is deeply ensconced in institutional structures and is maintained over time in the form of relatively stable traditions. This, of course, does not match the image of Zen we find in much western literature where a significant degree of tension exists between "institutional structures" and the spirit of Zen. The iconoclastic dimensions of Zen are interpreted frequently to encourage the search for enlightened self-transcendence on one's own, individually, thus avoiding the alienating features of hardened institutions and overbearing traditions. This form of individualism, however, is rarely found in East Asia, in the Zen tradition or elsewhere. Even where it is found, it has been made possible by the traditions and institutions that encourage individuals to consider such a quest. Lacking institutions and traditions altogether, Buddhists don't inherit the "thought of enlightenment" at all, in any of its forms; they would not receive the bequest of models, ideals, images, and symbols, all of which give rise to the quest, sustain it and, on occasion, bring it to fruition. In every culture, institutional traditions place images of excellence before individuals and lay out for consideration the alternative forms of practice at their disposal. As has been the case in most traditions of self-cultivation, "transcendence" occurred in Zen through processes of idealization, the projection and internalization of ideal images of human cultivation handed down from one generation to another in the form of traditions by the institutions responsible for them. Zen monks studied the masters before them, in person and in literary image, and then adapted their own comportment to those models. Through these texts and these ideals, monks studied who they could be and what kinds of practice might be entailed in attaining those identities. The initial posture required in this practice of self-cultivation would have been one of self-effacement before images of excellence - the enlightened masters of Zen. Imitation of these ideals was neither unenlightening nor impossible since monks understood these images of excellence to be instances or models of their own true nature - the Buddha nature inherent within them.

Placing emphasis on the institutional "givenness" of these cultural ideals as they are experienced by practitioners, and upon the imitative reappropriation of these ideals, should not be taken to imply, however, that the self's role in Zen practice was simply passive, or that the tradition was so conservative that it was not open to change. Accordingly, we should notice that classical Zen texts project not just one image of excellence but thousands of them - an enormous pantheon of historical and historically constructed saints. The repertoire of possible ways to be a self was immense, showing that previous efforts to construct an enlightened identity each demanded some degree of differentiation. Emptied of previous selves, monks were initiated into processes of constructing identities by synthesizing and reshaping the variety of patterns bequeathed to them through the tradition. "Established convention" and "distinctive identity" were not held to be in opposition since the established models WERE distinct identities, and since one's own act of self-construction would inevitably push in some new direction.

Indeed, as we have seen, one of the most intriguing images in the texts is the example of Zen masters rejecting convention and refusing to follow custom and pattern. This custom was itself a focal point of imitation, a pattern of Zen practice. Although the quest for enlightened life begins when the practitioner is moved by admiration to imitate the image of previous masters, the practice of imitation is not itself enlightened behavior. It does begin the quest, however, by teaching the practitioner how to recognize his or her own deficiency in relation to the model and how to begin the process of self-modification.

Through this process, each participant defines a distinct relationship to traditional resources, and, in doing so, the tradition is transformed. Newly revised images of the ideal emerge as new generations adapt the tradition to new circumstances. It is here, perhaps, that we find the greatest theoretical strength of the Buddhist tradition. In the wake of the doctrines of no-self, impermanence, dependent origination, and emptiness, human beings could easily be understood in flexible and non-essentialist terms, as capable of differentiated possibilities. Indeed, the greatest of the traditional Zen masters were understood to be innovators, who, like Huang Po, put substantial pressure on the traditions they were inheriting. Like others before and after him, Huang Po was expected to "go beyond" the figures of excellence that he had idealized and imitated. Lacking a fixed essence, what possibility for human cultural transformation could be ruled out in advance?

The tension between traditional models of excellence (the results of prior activities of "going beyond") and the current act of going beyond those models through critical innovation is potent in its creative force. Positive idealization gives substance and concrete shape to the tradition; critical appropriation builds the tradition by pushing it beyond its forms into further refinement or reformulation. Zen practice requires correlating these positive and negative functions so that they sustain each other over time.

Each practitioner had to do this on his or her own. Doing it, however, required "awakening." Only when stirred out of complacency do practitioners ask crucial questions. In the Zen tradition, one of the critical functions of the awakened masters like Huang Po was to expose the sleepy routines of everyday life, to show the ways in which even Zen discourse tended to objectify and substantialize the self, such that "the self" became a topic about which one could hold forth, all the while forgetting WHO it was that was holding forth. To counteract this tendency in discourse, Zen masters sought to force the self as "I" into manifestation, to bring the self out of its place of hiding within the language and customs of the tradition. When Hui-hai Ta-chu, the "great pearl," came to the master Ma-tsu to study Zen, Ma-tsu shocked him with the question, "why are you here searching when you already possess the treasure you're looking for?" "What treasure?" In response to which Ma-Tsu replied: "The one who is right now questioning me." This was Ma-Tsu's favorite line and the text has him present it to all of his students at precisely the right moment: the moment when, through prior cultivation, the "I" is prepared to emerge into self-awareness. This is about YOU, not "the self" in general, or some other self! Who are YOU, and what are YOU doing? When, on another occasion, Ma-Tsu was asked, "What is the meaning of Bodhidharma coming from the West?" he bent the inquiry back upon the asker: "What is the meaning of your asking at precisely this moment?"

As a question posed to modern, western interpreters of Zen, Ma-tsu's question could hardly be improved upon. What is the meaning of "our" asking at precisely this moment in our own history? Why are we interested, and what is the point of the modern western engagement with Buddhism? Asking these questions brings our own act of reading and thinking into view. Who are we, the ones who engage in these meditations across cultural and historical lines? These questions are crucial for the reflective reader of Zen Buddhism today. They are also similar to questions that Zen texts like Huang Po sought to evoke in meditative readers of earlier times. The connection between these questions across historical eras is the focus on self-awareness. Thus we realize that when we are studying Zen, what we are also inevitably studying is... ourselves, regardless of when we are studying or why. And that, clearly, is the point of Huang Po's Zen. Realizing this, and imagining the gleam in Huang Po's eye, is all that it takes to bring these meditations to fruition.

Notes:

*Foulk is right, however, to insist that there is no single element of the Zen tradition that can legitimately be conceived as the essence of the tradition throughout its history ("The 'Ch'an School").
**We should not that in later years Blofeld too began to teach that not only Zen but Buddhism itself did not depend upon doctrinal truths.

# ¿ Jun 4, 2013 03:20

Yiggy: Sep 12, 2004; "Imagination is not enough. You have to have knowledge too, and an experience of the oddity of life."

Ugrok posted:

It's really interesting, too, to see how each teacher has his own style. Of course all zen masters have things in common, but Deshimaru's approach is not the same as Nishijima's (for example Deshimaru focuses on the breathe above all, while Nishijima does not) ; but at the same time, they both studied with Kodo Sawaki...

from Transmission of the Lamp posted:

Master, You conduct a memorial service for the late Master Yun-yen. Are you in accordance with his teaching? Half accord, half not, replied the Master (Tung-Shan). Why not complete accord? If I were entirely in accordance, I would have been ungrateful to him.

from Philosophical Meditations on Zen Buddhism posted:

The Transmission of the Lamp tells us that when the young postulant, Huang Po, first came to see the Zen master Pai-chang, the teacher said to him: "If your 'awakening' is identical to that of your teacher, your power will be merely half of his. Only when you are capable of 'going beyond' your teacher will you have truly received the transmission." If we accept this understanding of the matter, then Pai-chang's "transmission of mind" to Huang Po will have been effective and complete only at the point that Huang Po has transcended Pai-Chang's "mind" in the act of creatively "going beyond" it. If each "enlightened mind" goes beyond its predecessor, then each would be more than the replication of a pre-given identity."

Generally within the Zen tradition, to just copy and attempt to emulate one's teacher is not enough, and often a tell-tale sign of a lack of understanding and insight, by just aping what one has seen the Master do without any insight into why. You really wouldn't expect two different masters from the same lineage to go about things the exact same way, even if they received teisho from the same master. WIthin the tradition, its important to take the teachings of one's master and other figures from within the tradition, combined with one's own insight in order to craft one's own zen identity and way.

Yiggy fucked around with this message at 17:48 on Jun 29, 2013

# ¿ Jun 29, 2013 17:38

Yiggy: Sep 12, 2004; "Imagination is not enough. You have to have knowledge too, and an experience of the oddity of life."

Ugrok posted:

For example, if Nishijima gives you transmission, then you are a "zen master". It's as simple as that !

Debatable. (This being said without knowing or passing judgement on Nishijima in particular, but rather to point out that in Zen's history and especially in Zen's present this is not necessarily so cut and dry, and that some scrutiny is in order to check against credulity)

Paramemetic posted:

Question for the Zen folks:

The term "Zen Master" is almost genericized in the US, and my understanding is there's no specific thing that makes one a "Zen master." But is the term generally understood to mean someone who has achieved liberation? Or is it just a term for someone who "gets" Zen? I should think the very nature of Zen being so individualized, a person who "gets" it should, well, have achieved liberation. I also get the impression that Zen masters teach, and I should figure one should have gained some degree of enlightenment to teach. So, what really does it mean here?

So, the catechism of Zen enlightenment and teaching is that it is "A transmission from mind to mind, separate from the teachings" or floating above/resting underneath the official, linguistic, scriptural dharma and sutras. The transmission is supposed to originate with an interaction between Sakyamuni Buddha and his senior disciple Mahakasyapa. Upon being asked the meaning of nirvana, Buddha holds up a lotus flower and Mahakasyapa has his Ah Ha! moment. From Mahakasyapa you have 28 dharma transmissions until you get to Bodhidharma, the first patriarch in the East. Most of the Zen lineages of today try to trace back to the 6th Ch'an patriarch, Hui Neng, and from there the understanding is that they have a link back to the Buddha himself. The idea is that each link in the chain is representing a continuation of the Buddha's actual, lived nirvana experience. As if its the same flame being passed from lamp to lamp.

Inherent in this sort of tradition is a kind of criticism of other parts of the Buddhist tradition, that in the process of scripturalizing and codifying the dharma, that the actual lived enlightened experience has become lost or obscured, unnecessarily. In certain parts of the tradition this (and arguably very much so in the present time) has been interpreted as a sort of anti-textualism or anti-intellectualism ( i.e. just sit, only sit, only dhyana!), but thats not it either. Rather there is an understanding that understanding itself, of texts, teachings and concepts is couched in the context of certain times and periods from which they originate and are depended on, and that these contexts and hence their discursive understandings are impermanent. This is seen as a weakness in some of the formal teachings, which while not making them disposable, none-the-less places their importance beneath this direct mind-to-mind transmission which Zen emphasizes.

In some ways, while there is certainly a strain of individualism within the tradition itself, the degree to which practice and enlightenment is ruggedly individualistic has been played up to some extent by the popularizers of Zen Buddhism in the west, often choosing their zen stories and anecdotes which tend to resonate best with American westerners (often times including the popularizers themselves), and this more often than not being those stories and figures which emphasize individualism. This creates a sort of confirmation bias where Americans can easily slip into overinterpretation, and telling themselves "Oh, Zen says and believes what I've been saying and believing, No Work Left To Do" which is often not the case. There is a little bit of paradox at play, but a lot of Zen Individualism was only extant within a highly non-individualistic, self-effacing, intercontextual world.

So, ideally, what is a Zen Master? Ostensibly it is one who is sort of "In on the joke" to use one phrase. Someone who, living in and understanding this liberated, enlightened experience is able to then recognize and affirm it in others. Within the greater zen tradition, this requires a sort of lineage, seeing as authenticity was such an important feature to practitioners living in a context from which their religious tradition did not originate. This is part of why you see all of the effort of Zen Buddhists in Japan to trace their lineage back to Ch'an Buddhists in China, and from there presumably back to India. Now, in practice, to assume that there is a true unbroken chain of enlightenment all the way back does stretch credulity, which is why I said earlier I think its debatable that being a Zen Master is as simple of a matter as saying "So and so certified such and such's enlightenment, ergo, he is a master". Even as far back as the 9th century (and almost certainly earlier), you had Masters criticizing the extent and veracity of each others enlightenment.

"From Blofeld's [i posted:

Huang Po[/i]"]Another day, our Master, Huang Po, was seated in the tea-room when Nan Ch'uan came down and asked him: "What is meant by 'A clear insight into the Buddha-Nature results from the study of dhyana (mind control) and prajna (wisdom)'?" Our Master replied: "It means that, from morning till night, we should never rely on a single thing." "But isn't that just Your Reverence's own concept of its meaning?" "How could I be so presumptuous?" "Well, Your Reverence, some people might pay out cash for rice-water, but whom could you ask to give anything for a pair of home-made straw sandals like that?" At this time our Master remained silent.

For hundreds of years, one of the way master's would judge and verify other Zen Master's authentic enlightenment would be to gauge their poetry, of which Masters would pen verses upon experiencing enlightenment and then again right before their deaths. This practice no longer exists. And even by the 1500's the systems in place for establishing authenticity and validating one Master's receiving of the Dharma from his own Master (typically with a practice of Dharma emblems, certificates, or officiating commentaries on the aspirants enlightenment poetry) was full of abuses and critics from within the tradition itself. Ikkyu, a famous rinzai master, eventually became so disgusted and doubtful of the institution he tore his dharma certification in half, much to his students dismay. Since his legitimacy was their legitimacy, they attempted to repair it and glue it back together, at which point Ikkyu burned it to ashes.

So, what being a Zen Master is, is complicated by a great many issues. I think there is plenty of room to argue about the validity of the institution as its survived into today, and the fixation on lineages and formal Teisho while at the same time using a facile scrutiny of whether, in practice, a Master seems to be a Master in their actions, views and in their consistency with the greater tradition itself. Like Ikkyu, I wonder if these token emblems of Mastery, and whether merely being able to anchor one's name on a hazily defined family tree is enough.

Yiggy fucked around with this message at 09:50 on Jun 30, 2013

# ¿ Jun 30, 2013 09:13

Yiggy: Sep 12, 2004; "Imagination is not enough. You have to have knowledge too, and an experience of the oddity of life."

Count Freebasie posted:

Now, here's the question and where I was headed with this wall of text:

I was invited to attend a sangha at a Chenrezig Tibetan Center this Sunday that occurs at the same time as the the Zen sangha. I've been trying to research the differences between the two and the Zen side seems to be a simpler "figure it out on your own" kind of path, and I'm not sure how much they invoke or involve other entities out side of the Buddha himself (nothing was said during any of the prayers or the following talk), while from all of the reading I've been doing regarding Vajrayana, it sounds like the Tibetans have taken what seems to me a path like Catholicism did: Take the teachings of the Buddha (Jesus as a parallel) and then start throwing all sorts of complex rituals and other supernatural beings into the mix, much like how Catholics have veneration for saints (and their powers of intercessions) and other things that they later invented (or were divinely inspired to create) like creating and praying the rosary, wearing of scapulars, Stations of the Cross, etc. All things not found in the Bible and then created on the back end.

Where I'm going with this is "is going to the Tibetan center going to be a waste for me?" The OP intimated that Vajrayana is pretty far out there, and it seems that in order to progress down that path, it requires prayer to and asking for the favors of various deities, demons, etc. Is this as convoluted (or more so) than what I've seen with Catholicism? Are they distorting the teachings of the Buddha by throwing in unnecessary or unfounded rituals/beliefs?

There isn't a good simple answer for this in my opinion. In a stripped down response, Vajrayana has a bunch of extra stuff if you were to look at things from the standpoint of their being later texts and earlier texts, and then holding texts closer to the Buddha's time as more authentic etc. I and others have opinions on this, but I'd be hard pressed to say there is no room for argument on either side.

Vajrayana Buddhism drew from the larger spiritual practices and orthopraxy of the Indian subcontinent, ranging from 500-1100 or so AD. Older, sravakayana/Theravada Buddhism was doing much the same thing however, just one millennium prior. While in earlier Buddhism, the influence of the later Upanishads and monistic mysticism was much stronger, you still find plenty of references to devas/"gods" and prethas/"ghosts" and other sops to more supernatural, eternalist views on rebirth (particularly in the period of Buddhisms history when the religion and its relics were spreading, not to mention the more popular and known jataka tales). Arguably you see more of this in later Vajrayana Buddhism when influence of Tantric Shaivism and ritualistic forms of Hinduism were again on the rise and blended liberally with Buddhism, but in many ways its not as simple of a matter of older Buddhism having less super natural elements, later Buddhism having more. The modes of stupa worship popular to early Buddhists already then had a lot of the "catholic" flavor. The other trap is that looking at some of these beliefs and practices at a purely "supernatural" level, absent from mystical and other hermeneutic contexts which inform and interpret then, can oft times be the most superficial reading of the situation, which won't yield any honest understanding of what the practice(s) might be about.

quote:

I ask this because I have very limited time in my life due to work and other factors to I dare say "waste" by following or starting to follow a path that is overrun with the supernatural, which I am going to be very hard pressed to take seriously. I would have just as hard a time as praying to Green Tara and expecting some tangible result as I would praying to St. Anthony to help me find my car keys.

Well first I'd like to suggest to you not to hurry things. Relax, you have lots of time. The other side of all of this is no place special.

Next, given your aversion to even seemingly supernatural aspects, before diving in too deep you should probably meditate a little on the meaning and understanding of birth and rebirth, what you think that means and what you think Buddhism thinks that means. Particularly with regards to what eternalism implies, annihilationism implies, and what neither of these things being true might look/feel like in your understanding. Even the less ritualistic forms of Buddhism will approach this at some point and you can't run from it. It's also confounded by certain branches within the tradition, sometimes the on the ground beliefs of many lay practitioners will veer towards one side or the other, and so its important to think about for yourself before basing your input solely on others and their opinions.

Overtime you may find a specific Buddhist orientation you like the most, or you might find a comparative approach more beneficial. Don't rush into any one thing though as if these are final, determinative religious affiliations and allegiances.

quote:

White Plum Zen
Chenrezig Tibetan
New Kadampa Tradition � International Kadampa Buddhist Union (which has lots of meetings and sittings, but seems to be more of a "how meditation will calm you down" and doesn't (from what I can tell based on their courses and schedule) seem to really delve into the teachings of the Buddha too much). All they talk about is meditation making your life better, and the website just seems to smack of a bit of new-age-y stuff to me.
Nalandabohi - This is apparently some kind of Tibetan Buddhism with lots of locations in the US and Canada and it has a trademarked name (that seems a little off-putting, no?) http://nalandabodhi.org/

Kadampa is apparently cult like, based on some of the responses in this and the previous thread. Tibetan Buddhism is by nature going to involve more rituals, visualized meditations of mandalas with bodhisattvas and other deity figures inside their realms, incantations of mantras etc. Based on what you've told us, for now at least, you're likely going to be so resistant to certain aspects of this that it creates attachments and aversions. Zen, especially in western contexts, tends to emphasize a lot of meditation and dhyana, as well as the lived experience of dharma day to day, but in some ways this is not so different from other forms of non-Zen Buddhism popularized in the west. The difference with Zen is often a large though un/understated Taoist undercurrent and influence, and so whether or not if that sort of thing resonates with you may influence your decision.

Yiggy fucked around with this message at 18:12 on Jul 5, 2013

# ¿ Jul 5, 2013 18:09

Yiggy: Sep 12, 2004; "Imagination is not enough. You have to have knowledge too, and an experience of the oddity of life."

an skeleton posted:

Cool, thanks for the answer.

Alternately, I would be very curious on the threadmembers views on this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uarCaupZBY

...

Do you think life is more about seeking out opportunity/traveling and developing one's self and learning along the way, or that you can live an equally fulfilling life locked up inside of a monastery or meditating inside of your bedroom? Do you believe in the scarcity of opportunity as described in the video or do you believe that is an illusion? Whether you agree or think the guy is a numbskull I'd like to hear your thoughts.

I feel like in his scarcity of opportunity explanation he reached the point of recognizing the impermanence of life and so many of the things in it that we typically engage ourselves with, but then stopped. His take home point wrt to impermanence, it seems to me, is to therefore "get it while you can" as opposed to digging deeper and questioning what that impermanence means and implies. He seems (to me) to be saying that with such a limited time to make attachments, pursue desires and avoid immediate suffering and displeasure, so that one can thereby frontload one's life with so many sensory pleasures that one will then be dulled towards any later suffering and regret.

This is in many ways indistinguishable from the Brahmanical ashrama dharma system you find in Hinduism, the idea that we have four life stages, and that it is only the last one, in the nadir of our lives, that we are to contemplate spiritual matters and live the renunciants life. That when young, you do the householder thing, enjoy sense desires, accumulate merit through good karma, make hay while the sun is shining and then later, when you're no longer able to enjoy life you then consider what the renunciant has to say. That is, if you make it to that point (and even then, still have the strength of will to leave your family and a life's worth of attachments behind, no mean feat).

The worry is that you never get to the point where you allow yourself to realize what all of this impermanence means, and that in the meantime you're engendering greater ignorance and suffering in others as you go. I feel like in your question you've set up a sort of a false dichotomy vis a vis traveling/developing one's self vs locking up inside a monastery. From a buddhist POV, what is the virtue in developing a non-existent self? What are you developing? Is a monastic life fulfilling? In what terms, by what standards are we talking about something being fulfilling? I think on one level that the Buddha's hagiography speaks to this, and that the answer would be that neither are the middle way, neither severe austerities nor wantonly succumbing to sense pleasures & desires while giving into aversions of "missing out".

It would seem to me that maybe he could be said to be teaching a felicity for the future, at least the very near future. One with a self-acknowledged, short half life, good for as long as you are still able to act on things. What it does not seem to me to be is a felicity of the present, weatherproof against the indignities and changes of time. He offers no advice for those past the point of no more fun, other than "sucks for you, should have picked up women and traveled while you had the juice".

And a lot of this, to me, circles around to a related point, that it can be difficult for us in our modern context to understand, fully, the degree and sort of suffering that the ancient Buddhists were trying to get away from and the urgency of their plea to address it. The old cosmology acknowledged higher and lower births, up to including yakshas and devas with vast, sometimes inexhaustible resources of wealth and pleasure. One of the reasons it was argued that a human birth, objectively not the highest or best of all possible births, was the best for reaching enlightenment, is because an unending cavalcade of sense pleasures and happiness available to a deva or yaksha is blinding, and can prevent one from seeing the impermanence of all things and the suffering it inevitably causes. Likewise, I feel like for a lot of us in the developed world (especially those operating from positions of privilege like, say, a young, white, first world male with the resources to globtrot and start a business) that our long lives and relative comfort blinker us to the abyss that so many people, like the ancient Buddhists, live on the edge of, and all of the existential angst and suffering that brings. We hold it off until the end of our middle years when it starts to befall us all of the sudden and with a quickening pace.

Personally I don't find his advice all that satisfying. I don't see it being relevant to most people (and maybe thats me being presumptuous). In general, I don't necessarily disagree with some of his folksy truisms like seizing opportunities that are available, and success being about a certain orientation towards the world, but beyond that I feel like a lot of what he has to say is couched in wrong view and ignorance. Sure, have your fun and see the world (if you're able). But, after that, then what? Wallow in the past in order to ignore a less fun, sexy present?

Yiggy fucked around with this message at 13:15 on Jul 10, 2013

# ¿ Jul 10, 2013 13:03

Yiggy: Sep 12, 2004; "Imagination is not enough. You have to have knowledge too, and an experience of the oddity of life."

an skeleton posted:

in general I find his philosophy more enlightened than the average person's, which is obviously vague but perhaps you know what I mean.

Sure, in a way it is speaking directly to a modern malaise many of us find ourselves in. However, in certain respects it seems to be doing so in a way thats treating the symptoms rather than the disease. He rightfully points out that many people seem to be complacent in their lives and unhappy because of it. But rather than question why we're unhappy beyond passing up opportunities, the prognosis is do stuff and forget about the humdrum for a bit.

quote:

Your contrasting view does make me ponder if we of the first world have some sort of responsibility towards those in more unfortunate situations, if they can be called that, and if so, what? I think we obviously do, in some sense, but I have no idea how to grasp the logistics of actually helping those people, and it does feel like a problem much bigger than myself-- there are probably an embarrassingly large number of people living in the year 2013 that are living like those ancient buddhists. How do you confront this personally? Is this something to meditate upon? Do you feel compelled to give up material possessions and move into a monastery? I don't know what to do besides keep on living in such a way that improves upon my first world, and hopefully if I am lucky enough to improve my own life and that world MAYBE some of that could spill over to others, eventually.

Hard questions, and I certainly don't have all the answers. Personally though? I think first and foremost, that there is a sort of duty to meditate on compassion and the situations of others, at the least, and from there more concrete actions and results begin to evolve on their own. This would in part mean the material condition and suffering of others, certainly, but not only that. How one acts on that compassion can have a variety of outlets. Some of it more overt, like giving to charity, some of it less so like trying to act as a positive example for the people directly around you.

To make a crude analogy, I sort of see things as similar to the scenario of an airplane losing cabin pressure: before helping others around you to secure their air masks, you need to make sure you have yours on and working to better enable you to help others. I feel like it is more difficult to extract others from their suffering, except in the most direct & material ways (and so also necessarily transient), until you've begun to recognize the sources of attachment in your own life and how to address them.

For me this has meant trying to live a lot more simply. To argue with others less, to try and practice right speech and tactfully pose the gentle question when appropriate rather than relish an argument in a contest to see who is right. I think about right vocation a lot, and whether or not the work I'm doing is socially valuable. I haven't up and tried finding a monastery yet, but man I do think about it some days... A few months back I did some google research on some in the states, and only found like two that offer living accommodations, one with a wait list and a small rent requirement, and one that stated they planned to have a live in monastery, but the main facilities are still under construction. I don't know that the modern situation in the states is so conducive to a monastic setting, and I'm already neck deep in trying to learn two indic languages to want to play around with Japanese, Thai or another language in a country with established monasteries. I think it will be enough for me to strive and live as simply as I can and make a living in something considered right vocation. In any case, I don't know that I'm ready for a monastic setting anyway. Once I'm state side again I'm going to focus on finding a sangha to sit with. I think I'd also be better enabled to impact those around me positively on a more consistent basis without running off into a monastic lifestyle. And even absent that, I have found myself compelled to give up more and more material possessions. Books are my biggest problem, but I've been slowly making an effort to shed as much other stuff as I can and slowly trim down the library.

Finally, since its a question about personal actions, I'll close with a statement that it doesn't always have to be "self" directed changes, and it doesn't always have to save the world all with one fell swoop. Small, charitable actions are good too. Volunteer work is good. Direct assistance selflessly given helps them and it helps you. Research charities and find one you're comfortable with in terms of hows its managed and how effective you feel it to be.

# ¿ Jul 10, 2013 16:35

Yiggy: Sep 12, 2004; "Imagination is not enough. You have to have knowledge too, and an experience of the oddity of life."

ashgromnies posted:

My question: what's up with the bodhisattva vow? Is it a literal vow with specific words or just the concept of dedication to the liberation of all beings from suffering? Isn't a bodhisattva supposed to keep themselves from becoming enlightened in order to help others, giving the idea oh the Mahayana "great vehicle"?

It's roots in some of the early Mahayana "sutras" (quotes because in certain ways they mimic the forms of sutras but are different in many ways and also from several centuries later) are an idealization of Buddhahood. The early mahayanists rather than being a sort of lay oriented movement focused in the suffering of others was a movement based on monastic revivalism. The early Mahayanists were critical of common forms of lay community worship involving stupa cults and heavy community engagement and were pushing for a return to more austere forms of practice with an emphasis on meditation and going back into the forest. From there the idea was that the most hardcore austerity and ideal would to be become a Buddha, seeing as that is what Gautama Of the Shakya clan did, this is what should be emulated. Over time Mahayana iconography and orthopraxy inevitably drifted back towards a similar place it originally tried to get away from, and the Bodhisattva vow became an ideal of attaining enlightenment for all beings as opposed to just becoming a Buddha (which doctrinally you can't do or become until the previous Buddha's dharma has disappeared from the cosmos). So that early mahayanists were seeking a goal more austere an hardcore than mere arahantship, and later Mahayanists seeking enlightenment for all beings, which is technically in a sense incompatible with becoming a Buddha one's self.

quote:

How does a bodhisattva keep themselves from reaching enlightenment?

Glib answer: word games and the attachment to the suffering of others.

# ¿ Jul 25, 2013 19:10

Yiggy: Sep 12, 2004; "Imagination is not enough. You have to have knowledge too, and an experience of the oddity of life."

I was at an academic conference on consciousness studies and one of the presenters was an anesthesiologist reporting findings of people under anesthesia who wake up with a sort of locked in syndrome who reported being being able to feel, vividly, surgical procedures without any outword appearance of consciousness. It was a small number of patients, but non trivial from what I remember. He described it as an inverse of the traditional philosophical zombie problem, where someone has every outward appearance of being conscious but are not. I'll have to find my conference program and notes once I get back home, I remember finding his presentation pretty horrifying though.

# ¿ Aug 7, 2013 23:35

Yiggy: Sep 12, 2004; "Imagination is not enough. You have to have knowledge too, and an experience of the oddity of life."

The-Mole posted:

One must be careful while dealing with spiritual or 'mystical' matters/teachings/books (whatever the hell that means exactly) to remember that what is literally being said in the words is only a small part of everything that is being said. They take the symbolism, layers of symbolism, and interactions between symbols to be every bit as important as what is literally being said. Often, if not usually, instructions have a strong smybolic and/or metaphorical context. Moreover, there is often a traditional commentary or explanation that goes along with a teaching. These things exist to help ensure that when someone hears the words, 'meditate on a corpse,' that they may hear it as an encouragement to open-endedly investigate the impermanence of life, each in our own way, not as a command that they have to go sit on a literal, diseased/decaying corpse until they realize that they shouldn't be sitting on an old corpse, anyways.

Taken literally, 'meditate on a corpse' is some seriously dubious, probably dangerous advice.

Taken (or given) as an encouragement to investigate just what a deeply fulfilling life is and how to make the most out of whatever amount of time we have on this here rock, the encouragement makes a little more sense and can be practiced much more safely. And at one's own pace.

Meditating next to and observing decomposing corpses is literally still a part of Indian aesthetic practice, and an old one at that. There are also several sutras which go over the details of what ways you're supposed to meditate on the decomposing corpse and its steps. The point is ultimately to consider impermanence and the transition of form, but the practice itself is not a metaphor or symbol, its something sramanas have done in India for a long time. In the culture which Buddhism grows out of, corpses are not uncommon or shocking. You're not supposed to literally sit on the corpse, sure, but you're in intimate proximity with it.

Also, in a sense Cardiovorax is correct on one point, that the tradition itself despite explicitly denying eternalist positions on souls, throughout its history continually demures about what rebirth means. The mass of tales which proliferated after the Buddha in service of spreading the religion have a popularly received element which very strongly implies commonplace notions of a soul being reborn/reincarnated (at that point a meaningless distinction). The Jataka tales, which more often than not are the element most familiar to lay and "ethnic" Buddhists who commonly do not know or interract with sutras and doctrine much at all, these stories lose much of their essential meaning without an eternalist interpretation of rebirth, which the large majority of Buddhists on the ground tend towards believing.

Furthermore, there is a common point noticed by most anthropologists who have studied the interaction of Buddhists, their beliefs and practice as it is on the ground, and generally these people believe (and desire) a personal rebirth, seeing nirvana as a nice ideal for monks to aspire to, but which isn't really relevant to them (let me reach nirvana after a couple more births, "give me chastity, but not yet"). In truth, the 2500 year old tradition of Buddhism prevaricates and plays both sides, with higher doctrine saying that rebirth is not a transmigration of eternal souls, but with the popular elements of Buddhist faith almost always emphasizing its importance. These popular elements reinforcing eternalist notions of souls are continuously flowing into the body of Buddhist texts and beliefs, as relic and rebirth tales filter into the tradition with each community it spreads to. For instance, the jataka tales are placed in the Kudaka Nikaya, which means minor collection. At one time, it was a tiny collection of auxiliary texts. Over time, as more tales were written, this Nikaya has ballooned in size to outgrow the others, in no sense remaining minor, and more often than not being the one aspect Buddhists are familiar with in the cultures in which the religion holds sway.

When you look at Buddhism from its developmental, comparative and historic perspectives, this is not surprising I don't think, troubling as it is for essentialist framings of Buddhism. It's certainly not a hindrance to practice.

# ¿ Aug 26, 2013 07:12

Yiggy: Sep 12, 2004; "Imagination is not enough. You have to have knowledge too, and an experience of the oddity of life."

Paramemetic posted:

So, with all the argument resulting from language, I am thoroughly amused that the Wittgensteinian nightmare has fruited, and people are being called non-Buddhists over translational differences ITT.

Hardly a new phenomenon I don't think, even in the thread.

# ¿ Dec 7, 2013 20:11

Yiggy: Sep 12, 2004; "Imagination is not enough. You have to have knowledge too, and an experience of the oddity of life."

PrinceRandom posted:

For someone with no attachments you're really determined for us to see things your way.

Not that I disagree with you, but policing other peoples' understanding of Buddhism out of frustrated attachment to one's own understanding and being right has been a prevailing theme of both the new threads and the old threads.

# ¿ Dec 8, 2013 01:19

Yiggy: Sep 12, 2004; "Imagination is not enough. You have to have knowledge too, and an experience of the oddity of life."

Prickly Pete posted:

You can examine any sutta in basically any tradition, and then look at its Pali, Chinese, Tibetan, and Sanskrit parallels. It is really fascinating to see how some things changed, and even more fascinating to see how the kernel of most teachings stays relatively the same across languages and time.

If there are any fresh in your mind, would you perhaps be willing to bulletpoint some of the instances where things did change rather noticeably? Or even in a subtle way that could lead to a different understanding?

quote:

This is kind of inspired by a project by Venerable Analyo, a German monk, who is using this kind of study to examine the Chinese Agamas in order to find similarities with Pali sources, and some of the suttas from older schools that no longer exist. This particular site was started by a few monks who are focused on �early buddhism�, including Bhante Sujato and a few others.

Are there any books you could recommend from an academic angle which addresses this kind of scholarship on early Buddhism?

# ¿ Dec 8, 2013 19:50

Yiggy: Sep 12, 2004; "Imagination is not enough. You have to have knowledge too, and an experience of the oddity of life."

Prickly Pete posted:

Links

Cheers, thanks for sharing. Its good to see a Theravadan perspective in the thread. No offense to the mahayanists and the vajrayanists of course, they just tend to have a heavier representation.

# ¿ Dec 8, 2013 20:27

Yiggy: Sep 12, 2004; "Imagination is not enough. You have to have knowledge too, and an experience of the oddity of life."

Threads getting kind of weird, fellow dharma dudes.

Maybe you could just, you know, be excellent to each other? I think the Buddha said that. Or at least Keanu said that, and he played the Buddha, so...

# ¿ Dec 8, 2013 22:54

Yiggy: Sep 12, 2004; "Imagination is not enough. You have to have knowledge too, and an experience of the oddity of life."

ObamaCaresHugSquad posted:

Hey this is the path. If you wanna insult someone, you better be willing to commit to it. This isn't all fun and games. I gave him a way out when I said I was willing to agree to disagree. He didn't take it. What can I do?

As someone who has had discussions with Wafflehound before wherein neither of us agreed with each other much, my decision was to take the first exit off the roundabout and be judicious about hopping back onto it in the future. This fixation on how he is responding to you and you then feeling aggrieved by a perceived lack of understanding is not helpful to you. It is an attachment creating suffering. Wading back into a messageboard discussion (and messageboard discussions almost always go in circles) is only going to create more karma.

It is ok if you do not accept the SA Buddhism thread (which by its very nature is an agglomeration of diverse views, backgrounds and opinions, often times inconsistent) as the ultimate authority on Buddhism. In my opinion, where you go from there is well guided by Right Speech.

quote:

[1] In the case of words that the Tathagata knows to be unfactual, untrue, unbeneficial (or: not connected with the goal), unendearing & disagreeable to others, he does not say them.

[2] In the case of words that the Tathagata knows to be factual, true, unbeneficial, unendearing & disagreeable to others, he does not say them.

[3] In the case of words that the Tathagata knows to be factual, true, beneficial, but unendearing & disagreeable to others, he has a sense of the proper time for saying them.

[4] In the case of words that the Tathagata knows to be unfactual, untrue, unbeneficial, but endearing & agreeable to others, he does not say them.

[5] In the case of words that the Tathagata knows to be factual, true, unbeneficial, but endearing & agreeable to others, he does not say them.

[6] In the case of words that the Tathagata knows to be factual, true, beneficial, and endearing & agreeable to others, he has a sense of the proper time for saying them. Why is that? Because the Tathagata has sympathy for living beings."

# ¿ Dec 8, 2013 23:14

Yiggy: Sep 12, 2004; "Imagination is not enough. You have to have knowledge too, and an experience of the oddity of life."

ObamaCaresHugSquad posted:

Why, because I broke the 4th wall? You want this to remain in the world of unreality. Just type and type and type

Respectfully said: For the most part we're all strangers here. I wouldn't give my personal info to Paramemetic, and hes probably the most even keeled person on the boards. Assuming the utmost sincerity on your part, I would merely point out that you've regged recently, and the longer you've been on the forums you just kind of see first hand that you don't put out personal info or try to break through that fourth wall.

I mean, sure, keep butting heads in the thread but eventually a mod will just probate you, because asking for personal info is kind of creepy (no disrespect!). Dude its not worth it. If you're ok with agreeing to disagree, just do it. The neat thing about that stance is that you don't have to actually both agree to disagree for it to work.

# ¿ Dec 8, 2013 23:35

Yiggy: Sep 12, 2004; "Imagination is not enough. You have to have knowledge too, and an experience of the oddity of life."

Prickly Pete posted:

I have also noticed that western lay practitioners seem much more forward, almost aggressive in the way they press monks for answers on questions about doctrine - not in a mean spirited way but it is distinctly different than the way our Thai members interact with the monks.

Its also a difference of cultural institutions. From what a cultural anthropologist who did all of his field work in Burma and Thailand told me, in Thai Buddhism and it's regional Sangha, if not concurrently than up until recently, joining the Sangha and becoming a monk is a part of every boy's schooling and socialization. They become "monks" for a short period of time, and then eventually leave the sangha to resume normal Thai life as they come of age, with some remaining in the sangha and becoming more typical models of institutionalized monks. They're pillars of society and involved in socialization to such a degree that most Thai people are not going to be so direct and caustic with monks, who many of them have acted deferentially towards since a very early age.

# ¿ Dec 11, 2013 06:10

Yiggy: Sep 12, 2004; "Imagination is not enough. You have to have knowledge too, and an experience of the oddity of life."

Mr. Mambold posted:

Are you really dense, or what. Yes, it depends on consciousness that transcends the brain, that's the whole loving point.

How is this anything but eternalism? A view explicitly rejected by the Buddha.

Ugh, this thread.

# ¿ Dec 13, 2013 00:10

Yiggy: Sep 12, 2004; "Imagination is not enough. You have to have knowledge too, and an experience of the oddity of life."

Mr. Mambold posted:

The Buddha had no views.

This is such crap.

I think my problem with most of the western converts is that in their zeal they lose any interest in examining the tradition, its broad deviations throughout history and the contexts surrounding those changes. In doing so they're able to conveniently see Buddhism through a lens of their own construction, arising dependent on the views they carried with them from before they were drawn to Buddhism.

These views on a continuing consciousness linking birth to birth were shot down by the Buddha. Later in the tradition's history you see the idea pop up again and again. Perhaps earliest and most explicitly you see it with the Pudgalavadins, who were widely lambasted by the other schools of Buddhism for their wrong view. It happens again and again throughout history, but its always just a new label for a Self that certain individuals need in order for samsara to make any sense.

A long tradition of Knowers thought it was crap, because it is crap. But because it is comforting crap, it will appear again and again, no matter how many revivalist movements shut it down, because its Buddhism's back door for an eternal life. And humans, the flawed creatures we are, can't walk away from that desire.

# ¿ Dec 13, 2013 05:14

Yiggy: Sep 12, 2004; "Imagination is not enough. You have to have knowledge too, and an experience of the oddity of life."

The Dark Wind posted:

How do you guys make sense of the Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutras that show Buddha talking about a "True Self"? Are those non-canonical? Are they offering a different perspective on the same topic? Admittedly I've only briefly perused some excerpts and commentaries but going through them definitely confused me a little.

Canonical depends on who you're talking to. What we know of the texts originating from that time, ~200 CE, is that often monks would compose them through a process of visualized meditation called buddhanusmirti, where they would visualize the Buddha and receive new teachings from him. The writings of these meditators were then attributed directly to the Buddha, despite very commonly diverging in both form and content from the earliest texts in the Pali Cannon. Reports from pilgrims at that time, Mahayanist monks were not an explicitly separate sect from what was then considered the main-stream Buddhists. At that time, monks identified themselves primarily by which Vinaya (monastic code) they followed, and the pilgrims report that Mahayanists and Main-stream buddhists coexisted and lived in the same monasteries. Mahayanists would typically spread their ideas and beliefs through shared texts generated through this process of Buddhanusmirti and meet in private, because for most of the monks at that time these were heterodox ideas. (Interestingly enough, this is also a large influence behind why Mahayana Buddhism is what predominantly spread Eastward. Pilgrims to India wanted texts to bring home, and Mahayanists had texts in spades).

So essentially, this text is later doctrine. Many Mahayanists no doubt see it as canonical, but evidence of Mahayanists self-identifying as a sect of Buddhism does not begin to appear in the material and archaeological record until 500-700 CE, almost a millennium after what is supposed to be the Buddha's death. So essentially the value of the text is going to depend on who you ask and what axes they have to grind.

# ¿ Dec 13, 2013 06:42

Yiggy: Sep 12, 2004; "Imagination is not enough. You have to have knowledge too, and an experience of the oddity of life."

WAFFLEHOUND posted:

But there's been three phd dissertations between the original question and that post. It's not just you, I really think this thread is prone to wanting to solve and explain every broad theological topic whenever a a question is asked, and sometimes I think a partially inaccurate yet useful answer is better than a totally complete answer which is going to go over the heads of people without a really strong academic background in Buddhism.

Weren't you just criticizing the tibetans and their sham debate which avoids digging into any questions in earnest? For not actually looking into the nuance of topics, which you thought could ultimately make the sangha and discussion stronger?

I find actually engaging these topics much preferable to shutting down discussion with "Hey, in religions we just accept certain things uncritically, because thats how religions work. If you're not ready for that, maybe stick to your crass western materialism." Particularly when the Buddha exhorted others to examine everything he taught and said critically and weigh the merits of it for themselves. We do others a disservice by condescending to them and boiling the discussion down to Take it or Leave it terms.

# ¿ Dec 13, 2013 18:36

Yiggy: Sep 12, 2004; "Imagination is not enough. You have to have knowledge too, and an experience of the oddity of life."

Bhikku Bodhi is very accessible in my opinion. He has an intro to the suttas anthology which groups the suttas by themes, with him identifying ten main themes. A lot if the suttas sort of wander in circles between these themes as they naturally serve as jumping off points for each other. There is also another sort collection of suttas titled The Sayings of the Buddha edited by Rupert Gethin, there is a kindle version available on this one. Personally I like the way Bhikku Bodhi handles the repetitive nature of the suttas, which were originally not in a textual medium but rather recited from memory (where that repetition serves more of a purpose).

If anyone progresses to the point where they want to dig deeper into the nikayas wisdom publishers and Bhikku Bodhi have complete translations. I would recommended the majjhima Nikaya, or middle length discourses since the suttas are in a more easily digestible length. Bhikku Bodhi is really good with his annotations.

prickly pete posted:

How Theravada is Theravada?

Thanks PP, this does sound right up my alley, I'll be reading it. Cheers.

# ¿ Dec 14, 2013 18:25

Yiggy: Sep 12, 2004; "Imagination is not enough. You have to have knowledge too, and an experience of the oddity of life."

Since its bowing and acknowledging a unitary life essence, I almost feel like it ought to be "namaste, bitch" even when addressing a group :v:

# ¿ Jan 10, 2014 18:49

Yiggy: Sep 12, 2004; "Imagination is not enough. You have to have knowledge too, and an experience of the oddity of life."

I actually enjoy Alan Watts, though I suppose I ought to be ashamed to have a copy of some of his lectures in a stack next to my majjhima nikaya on the nightstand... Because white people... or authenticity or w/e... A lot of my early exposure to Buddhism was from him, which I've afterwards followed up with more in depth study of Buddhism and South Asian religions both on my own time and in more formal academic settings. Sometimes when you're looking for the trailhead, a sign can be very helpful.

That said, he wasn't really a Buddhist, and would tell you as much. That we should expect him to get caught up in a lot of the doctrinal chest-puffing that so many Buddhists lose themselves in seems silly. Though he enjoyed teaching and popularizing dharma and concepts from Buddhism, his approach is more comparative religion, which is naturally going to be a more descriptive activity than a prescriptive one, not really set out to tell people what they Ought to be Doing (if they want sufficient bona fides that is). At his most explicit, Watts was a Vedantin more than anything else. Even so, through his classroom teachings, public radio shows and lectures he exposed a lot of people that would otherwise have never encountered it to aspects of Eastern religion at a time when much of this was still new. He also set ought to do so in plain speech, which is ostensibly the virtuous thing to do in terms of spreading the dharma, but paradoxically always seems to rankle the most doctrinaire for not being as semantically and linguistically precise as possible.

# ¿ Jan 24, 2014 21:27

Yiggy: Sep 12, 2004; "Imagination is not enough. You have to have knowledge too, and an experience of the oddity of life."

Is the point of Buddhism to find and accept an identity with which to attach oneself?

# ¿ Feb 21, 2014 01:06

Yiggy: Sep 12, 2004; "Imagination is not enough. You have to have knowledge too, and an experience of the oddity of life."

The-Mole posted:

I thought the goal was perfect conformism to someone else's (hopefully more charismatic) interpretation of Buddhism

Ah, I had a feeling I was getting it wrong... good to know.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2014 01:24

Yiggy: Sep 12, 2004; "Imagination is not enough. You have to have knowledge too, and an experience of the oddity of life."

Quantumfate posted:

Really devalues any sort of effort here to have these pithy asides and snide attacks eh? It's not about identity and you and The-Mole are both aware of that. It's more about a foundational doctrine of the faith.

This thread had been a cesspool of cliquish sniping for quite awhile. Wafflehound has a pernicious habit of making GBS threads on anyone who doesn't see through his eyes and making it specifically an issue of Buddhist Identity. He frequently harps on others about what he thinks is right view in an utterly unskillful way. When someone tried to point out other parts of the path that he obviously isn't getting he responds with nothing but pithy asides. He had a habit of dodging arguments in the past with appeals to authority specifically with people like Paramemetic, but now that there is disagreement he starts throwing barbs at him being Alan Watts like after being perfectly clear how much he disdained the man.

So no, when you tell me that this is about a foundational doctrine of the faith I'm going to disagree, as I feel its transparently not at all.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2014 02:45

Yiggy: Sep 12, 2004; "Imagination is not enough. You have to have knowledge too, and an experience of the oddity of life."

Historical and critical approaches to talking about the Buddhist Tradition tend to be frowned on in this thread, not to mention learning about Buddhism from books... So forgive me, but I guess I just can't help myself.

Anywho, the development of tantric literature and the tantric tradition is rather interesting. At its beginning were the Kriya tantras. Ignoring any pejorative connotations to magic, its a rather apt description of what the earliest Tantras were. Rituals in service of affecting the world and achieving worldly goals.

Buddhist Thought by Paul Williams et al posted:

The earliest texts classified as Kriya tantras date from perhaps as early as the second century CE. They continue to appear until about the eighth century - by which time tantric Buddhism had become a self-conscious tradition - with some perhaps continuing to expand subsequently. The term kriya means 'action', and in this context denotes ritual action. And indeed, the Kriya tantras form a miscellaneous collection of largely ritual texts generally focused on the achievement of a variety of wordly (laukika) goals. The range of these pragmatic ends is wide: protection from misfortune and danger, alleviation of illness, control of weather, generation of health and prosperity, opposition and destruction of obstacles and enemies, and placation of angered deities.

They were essentially rituals and magic rites performed by wandering sadhus who would ply multiple religious traditions in order to support themselves (one of the reasons the roots of early Vajrayana are so deeply entangled with Tantric Shaivism and Hinduism to degree that is arguably larger & deeper than for the rest of the Buddhist tradition). The difference you see in the development from Kriya, to Carya, to Yoga, Mahayoga and Yogini tantras is a shift in using these rites for the purpose of obtaining enlightenment much sooner than would otherwise be possible. What lies at the root of the conception of Vajrayana being an airplane which will get you to nirvana much faster. When you look at the phylogenetic tree, to borrow a term from somewhere else, of tantric literature and tantric Buddhism, what started out as mantras and magic for controlling the weather and thwarting ones enemies, became mantras and magic for sudden enlightenment.

So without defending this Ingram guy who definitely seems like a crackpot and his book specifically, some of his characterizations aren't so far off the mark.

# ¿ Feb 22, 2014 20:55

Yiggy: Sep 12, 2004; "Imagination is not enough. You have to have knowledge too, and an experience of the oddity of life."

VH4Ever posted:

So here's a stupid question from an honestly curious person wanting to learn a bit more: I get from reading the About page for my local Buddhist temple that "Jodo Shinshu" or "Shin Buddhism" is part of the "Mahayana tradition," but is it the same thing as Zen or something different? Zen was something I wanted to look into but the temples around me don't specifically identify as such. I'll shut up now, and thanks all.

Its Japanese Pure Land Buddhism, which has a ~~slightly different~~ arguably large difference in emphasis and inflection than standard Zen Buddhism. Its kind of like Buddhism's version of, "As soon as you accept ______ as your personal savior, you're in!" As soon as you say the name Amida Butsu and accept that you will be born into a Pure Land where everyone will be enlightened upon hearing the words of Amitabha, you're guaranteed a rebirth into that realm and enlightenment in one of your, probably the next, future rebirth.

Yiggy fucked around with this message at 04:23 on Feb 27, 2014

# ¿ Feb 27, 2014 04:17

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 11:55

Yiggy: Sep 12, 2004; "Imagination is not enough. You have to have knowledge too, and an experience of the oddity of life."

Rhymenoceros posted:

I challenge the notion that murder can be "worth it" in this sense. If it can, then why didn't the Buddha and the arahants ever kill beings to benefit others? Indeed (IIRC) arahants are the only ones capable of acting without karmic consequences, so why didn't they go around cleansing samsara of all (or at least some) of the bad people?

The proliferation of literature after the period of the Buddha's lifetime and the early sangha puts great emphasis on the Buddha's previous lives and the Bodhisattva vow. Particularly in the Jataka tales you start to see certain things emphasized in the Buddha's previous lives which in one life time obviously create more suffering, but in the grander scheme of things contribute to buddhahood and the enlightenment of all beings. You are viscerally experiencing a conflict between early and middle periods of Buddhism. I'm not saying how you approach/feel about the matter is wrong, and I'm certainly not much interested in arguing the other side much further beyond pointing out that

quote:

The purpose of Buddhism is to lessen suffering. The very purpose of Buddhism, the end goal of Buddhism, is freedom from all suffering, forever.

starts to take a backseat in terms of the individual over the religion's history in certain instances. If nothing else its certainly interesting grist for discussion.

# ¿ Mar 13, 2014 15:24

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Ask us about Buddhism: This thread is Avici

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