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Super excited to see this thread! Gonna pop over from the Buddhist thread to here to quickly comment that: Regarding the caste thing: Buddhism essentially did the "no caste" thing purposefully 2700 years ago, and it's not surprising that people are still converting to Buddhism in protest of a caste system that Buddhism essentially rejects. Regarding the views of Hinduisum of Buddhism I have met a lot of Indians raised Hindu, and one convert, and the attitude has always been mutually respectful, especially, it seems, towards Tibetan Buddhists. The main "sticking" point usually seems to be atman versus anatman, and even that is usually just resolved with Buddhists saying there's nothing like a soul and Hindus saying "nah there is tho" and it just kinda hangs out there. I've never met a Hindu who went, for example, "nah Buddha didn't attain enlightenment" and Buddhism basically uses whatever local deities are appropriate for a practice without too much regard for sect or lineage. Now that I've said my piece: I've heard that in India among Hindus and Buddhists both the interactions with gods and temples and so on tends to be a bit different. My understanding is that the typical arrangement might be that I would make prayers that say, for example, "if I get a new job I'll donate a bunch of money to the temple." Then if I get the job, I make donations, and if I don't, I tell that god "hey screw you buddy ain't helped me out." This is pretty common of lay practice in polytheistic religions generally (the whole "never doubt infallible god" thing is pretty uniquely monotheistic). What do the lay practices of various Hindu sects look like? For example, not everyone can be a monk or a yogi, some people are householders, and they will have their private shrines and so on (Buddhism does this as well), but do they have practices, or is it mostly a "just keep it in mind and hope for better spiritual practice karma next time round?" For example, with Buddhism we have "refuge," and after you take refuge you can choose to hold some precepts, but as a householder, that's pretty much the limit of the expectations. You can certainly go on to become a yogi or householder-practitioner who is very dedicated, but the expectation is more or less "go to the Buddha, Dharma, Sangha for refuge," and then "try to do good." Is there something like Refuge in Hinduism? Of course I recognize there are a billion flavors of Hinduism just as there are a million flavors of Buddhism, so this is a general speaking question, or, maybe more of a "can you lay out the different perspectives from the major traditions" thing.
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Feb 18, 2016 15:16
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A friend just asked me and I didn't know the answer so I'm punting down the line - what does Hindu clergy look like? Are there Hindu monks and nuns or is it purely yogis or priests or what? I'm sure this varies from tradition to tradition so answer in as much or as little detail as you'd like!
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Apr 27, 2016 22:46
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Yiggy! Good to post with you again. That book, The Tibetan Assimilation of Buddhism, looks fascinating for a wide variety of reasons, I will see about picking it up somewhere or maybe even seeing if my wife can get it through a library! Thank you for your very informative post. It answered specifically my question about Hindu monasticism as well as getting into the question of clergy. Regarding monasticism, it makes sense that the religious ecosystem would polarize itself in such a way, in terms of monasticism and non-monasticism, and the religions polarizing into their niches. The discussion of the Sadhu here calls to my mind the early Kagyupa masters whose lineage did not have contact with monasticism until Gampopa. Tilopa, Naropa, Marpa, and Milarepa were none of them monks, and seemed in many cases to be either eccentrics or mundane. Particularly, when Naropa sought Tilopa for instruction, he asked for a great master named Tilli, and the townspeople told him "I don't know anything about a great master, but there's this crazy homeless guy . . . " So if we consider that Kagyu comes out of tantra, itself a method of Hinduism, it would sound like the concept of "clergy" as I perhaps inelegantly used it would appear to be the yogi, or Sadhu. To the question of clergy, the term is tricky indeed. I consider my question very well answered, but I will clarify it a bit to see what else comes. Here in this case I asked about clergy, which you mention can mean many things. This is true, while in my head I was referring loosely to this concept of "religious professionals" it occurs to me this means quite a bit and is in many cases a foreign concept. Most religions or spiritual traditions have the role of a kind of specialist "religious professional," from the Priest to the Rabbi to the Shaman to the Grannywoman. But that isn't a very elegant description outside the Western point of view you mentioned - for example, to the Western eye, familiar as we are with the Christian institution, a monk is clearly "clergy" in the sense that they are a religious professional, but even within the monastery there are teachers and students, and you while you would go to the bursar to request a puja (and make the right donations), you wouldn't go to the bursar to perform the puja - that would be the job of the ritual master and his retinue. So then, does the bursar, a monk, qualify as clergy? Or the ritual master? Or the ritual assistants? So it wasn't an elegant question. This brings up another question I have. There is a stark contrast between the practices of cultural Buddhists (Tibetans, for example) and those of convert Buddhists. While most Tibetans would immediately identify themselves as Buddhists, and may even loosely describe themselves as Buddhist practitioners, many of those same would also have a difficult time reciting the basic principles of Buddhism. In the same way, there are a great deal of Catholics out there, but how many would claim the Bible to be the basis of their faith, how many even know about the existence of The Catechism, let alone that it is actually the doctrinal final word of their faith? We can only know of a religion really what we've seen of it - by simply reading about it, for example, we get the sense that "followers of such and such religion do this or that" and so then we believe that this is invariably the case. We especially tend to see religions as we see them being practiced, which says nothing for how a religion works when it's not being practiced, as is actually the case for many culturally religious individuals. Catholicism in action may look like regular confession, never missing a Sunday, and so on - or it may look like showing up on both of the high holidays in a good year. The practices of many Western Buddhists are strange by the standards of cultural Buddhists because they have religious professionals - monks, in larger areas, or shamanistic ngakpas, but both are someone you go see if you need religious work done. They don't tend to go "you know, I want to learn the practice of such and such." Instead, if they need a practice done, they go hire someone to do it. So with that said, it follows naturally that as a Westerner my conception or idea of how Hinduism is practiced generally is not likely correct. I have heard rumors that generally Hindu engagement by cultural Hindus is essentially an economic relationship with a deity - observing some small practices and making donations to temples, and expecting some kind of result. But there are surely as many different variations as I can imagine - ranging from "aware of the religion" to "a yogi in retreat for 12 years," and everything in between. What does Hindu practice generally look like, at all levels? And returning to the question of clergy, other than the Sadhu, what other religious vocations are there? What is even considered a religious vocation rather than just a proclivity for a layperson to practice? What would a lay person practice, if they want some benefit? Do lay Hindus practice sadhanas, or? Paramemetic fucked around with this message at 03:51 on Apr 29, 2016 |
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Apr 29, 2016 03:45
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So with an idea of the types of spiritual roles that are filled, I'm going to go ahead and prompt next for the question here which is what spiritual practices themselves look like? Yiggy might be familiar enough with Tibetan Buddhist ritual to put it in a context for me, but if not then I'm interested in ritual in terms of what are the goals, the focus, and the means for accomplishing those goals? For example, in a deity yoga practice in Buddhism, I would take refuge, establish my motivation, make offerings, invite the deities, and then practice that deity either by self-generating as the deity or visualizing them in front, and reciting the mantra. Then I would dissolve the visualization field eventually and so on. I think this would be called practicing Sadhana? Is this something consistent with Hindu Sadhana practices? I am assuming there are also pujas and so on for propitiation and suchlike that are done following a similar structure? My ritual knowledge is all Tibetan, so I don't know how much comes from pre-Buddhist Tibetan Shamanism, and how much comes from Indian Tantra. Paramemetic fucked around with this message at 02:01 on May 12, 2016 |
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May 12, 2016 01:54
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