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There is no past to go back to. Everything exists in the present. And there is no future, as it depends on the present conditions to create it, which is in the process of happening.
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May 10, 2021 23:08
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echinopsis posted:Where does Buddhism (or the various schools) derive it's beliefs about anything metaphysical from? The Buddha in the Pali Canon often put down metaphysical pondering, which can be interpreted as a distraction from the path or that the answers to such questions are ineffable. After his death, the Abidharma school came up with the idea that the world is made of phenomenal atoms call dharmas. And these sort of things can range from sights and smells, to restlessness and pride, on to space and nirvana. The Yogacara school made the argument that those dharmas are just all in your head. Yogacara is fine as a sort of phenomenology, but some take a metaphysical turn and use it to argue for idealism. Madhyamika came along to argue against the Abidharma by showing it to be absurd, but in the end also gets held up as proof of the metaphysical certainty of "emptiness". Buddhism makes few metaphysical claims, but Buddhists make tons of them. And the teaching of all those above schools can still work using metaphysical certainty. There is a utility to telling a student that dharmas, or cittamatra, or sunyata, are the foundations of existence. It can be assumed they'll ditch metaphysics like a raft once they cross the stream.
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May 16, 2021 04:36
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While I was pulling the stream metaphor from early Buddhism, the two truths system is also an excellent way to look at Buddhist views on metaphysics. Yogacara adds a kind of temporary intermediate truth of realizing everything is dependant. There is an old Zen saying that roughly goes "first I saw mountains, then I saw no mountains, then I saw mountains again." A lot of Buddhist metaphysics is on the deconstructive end of things. Abidharma thought was picked apart by later schools, but the point of seeing the world as made of atoms of phenomenon is to give one a tool to pick apart their perceptual world. Yogacara and Madhyamika have the same goal but different means. To go back to the mountain example, the average person looks at a mountain and sees a mountain. After reading a stack of books on buddhist metaphysics, they no longer see the mountain. Instead they see dependant origination, or reactions of the eye conciousness, or the ripening or karma, or the absence self existence. Then they have their breakthrough moment, and they can see the mountain again, but without the bullshit that causes suffering. Does that mean that karma, or dharmas, or emptiness is bullshit? No. They were true in the sense that they lead to ultimate truth. In the end, all Buddhist metaphysics falls into "conventional truth". At best, it is a half truth that one can use as a path to ultimate truth.
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May 16, 2021 09:22
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Rather than "Taoist magic", try looking into "Taoist alchemy". For various reasons that seems to be how much of that end of taoism got translated into English. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_alchemy Probably because a lot of it comes down through tales of sages brewing elixirs of immortality.
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Sep 1, 2021 06:56
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Buddhist hells tend to be places for people who are deliberately evil in particularly nasty ways. The mundane "sins" that most people are involved in just land you in a rebirth as an animal or "hungry ghost". With Buddhisms emphasis on craving, hungry ghosts tend to be in situations like being thirsty all the time, but every drink is salt water. And for animals, there is story of a monk who was really attached to his robes who got reborn as a louse infesting those very robes.
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Sep 26, 2021 17:21
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Bilirubin posted:The Four Noble Truths I recognize as real and true and obvious when put like that, and the 8 Pillars seem a logical extension that naturally follow. Turning off the voice in my head would be an added bonus. But meditation alone I'm not sure will get there, but I'm also not prepared to jump into any particular lineage or tradition (or even take up a religious life again). If that makes sense? Meditation alone isn't enough, which is why half the 8 fold path is about ethics. It goes round and round though. Watching what you say and do in day to day life is a kind of mindfulness. And seated meditation goes smoother if you aren't involved in a lot of scheming, or beating yourself up over yestersays immoral behavior. One half helps the other. Bilirubin posted:e. actually, which would be the combination of both traditional in teaching yet lack doctrinal rigidity? Is this a combination that might exist? That depends on what you consider traditional, and what sort of behaviors you consider to be too rigid. In a lot of contexts, being traditional is a synonym for being set in one's ways. And in Buddhism, many schools with wildly different practices can point to some very old texts to justify why they teach what they teach.
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Jan 19, 2022 10:02
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Bilirubin posted:I am very sorry to hear it. I know he was a personal inspiration to many here, and I have been getting a lot from his teachings in the past few days. I'm sure people will be getting inspiration from his writing for generations to come. For over 20 years, there has been very few days where I have not silently recited his "driving meditation". Before starting the car, I know where I am going. The car and I are one. If the car goes fast, I go fast.
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Jan 22, 2022 09:36
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The oldest texts, like the Pali Canon, were original transmitted orally, and they have a lot of devices in them to help monks chant and memorize them. Lots of repetition, lists, call and response type things. And many verses famously begin with "I've heard it said" and then when and where it takes place at. Even after it was written down, chanting the sutras was still important as not everyone had access to the massive stack of palm leaves and ink to write everything down on. And the humid climate of India meant that books had to be recopied, at great expense, on a regular basis. I know Bhikkhu Bohdi will often put "..." in some of his translations to let the reader know that the dialogue is going through another bit of repetition. Even old stuff, like The Heart Sutra, has parts that seem disjointed were it mentions just the first and last part of lists that a serious student would have already learned from other texts.
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Jan 26, 2022 09:30
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Achmed Jones posted:i wish it weren't so dang hard to read indian philosophy from 1500 years ago. you have these really intricate and complex systems - and arguments for them - that are absolutely hamstrung* by the stylistic conventions of the time. Even newer stuff can be tough. Mahasi Sayadaw's "Manual of Insight" is very modern by Buddhist standards, but along with the usual Buddhist jargon, has references to old school "earth/water/air/fire" cosmology. I had to read through Garfield's translation and commentary of the Mulamadhyamakakarika twice to get a handle on it, because many times Nagarjuna just assumes that the reader would understand what philosophical system he was arguing against. Achmed Jones posted:anyway, if any of yall have translations of vasubandhu and/or asanga's work that do for them what irwin did for the nicomachean ethics i'd really appreciate it. i can read old lovely translations of greek, french, german stuff, but with indian stuff i feel about how i did in high school reading old lovely translations of the greek works and i just don't have the energy to power through any more I like Ben Connelly's take on Vasubandhu's Thirty Verses. And since it is just translation and commentary on 30 verse, it is a pretty quick read. https://wisdomexperience.org/product/inside-vasubandhus-yogacara/ This one is on my list of books to get; https://www.shambhala.com/a-compendium-of-the-mahayana.html It came up a lot when looking for translations of Yogacara texts. But I haven't read it yet, so I can't say how good the translation is.
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Jan 26, 2022 19:51
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Hiro Protagonist posted:I hear about stuff like this from a bunch of ancient cultures, and I'm always amazed. I wonder if it was pure willpower or a technique they all came across that we lost or whatever, but it would be amazing if we find a way to do this in the modern era (with the understanding that I'm sure many cultures around the world still can perform these practices, they just aren't cultures I'm familiar with personally). They had willpower, but they also had few distractions. Doing a communal chant is likely the entertainment high light of a day that was other wise full of quiet chores. Technique is the big component. If you listen to people reciting it in the original language, they definitely have a cadence to it. Likely, they can recall specific words on the spot because they only have to count so many beats into a verse. A lot of works also mix techniques. I know the Sandhinirmocana Sutra and the Lankavatara Sutra finish the chapters with a "verse". So the bulk of a chapter is a back and forth dialogue, and then wraps up with a poem.
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Jan 26, 2022 21:21
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BIG FLUFFY DOG posted:If the sutra doesn’t end with the guy the buddhas debating suddenly talking about what a great argument the Buddha’s just made and he’s the light of the world and will never doubt him again how am I supposed to know the Buddha was right??? In the Sandhinirmocana Sutra each chapter features a different bohdisattva, so the formula is a little different. It is more like; Bohdisattva: Tell us again about P. Buddha: How kind of you to ask about P. This is P 1, This is P 2, This is P 3. Boddhisattva: Thanks for clearing that up. Buddha: ( Summarizes P 1, 2, 3 in a poem.)
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Jan 26, 2022 22:35
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Impermanent posted:thread is david chapman's stuff on buddhism and the whole 'meaningness' thing good and interesting or just the most white buddhist thing in the world. I can't decide. I had never heard of him, so I found a couple podcast/interviews with him to listen to at work, and then read some of his website... There is a bunch of people going around with this sort of project right now. People who suddenly realized they are living in the postmodern condition, are smart enough to think they can design a way out of it, but don't realize their plans are also a product of the postmodern condition. Basically; The old ways can't work anymore, no one believes in grand narratives. I'm a smart guy, I'll make a new truly true grand narrative by piecing together the best parts of others. It is knowingly making bullshit... for the noble cause of giving people meaning in life. But people lost meaning... when they found out the last thing they believed in was cynical bullshit. Chapman sounds a lot closer to Ken Wilber. But Jordan Perterson is riding a similar wave using Jung and Christianity. John Vervaeke is at least well read enough to be interesting. It was funny hearing Chapman compare his concepts of erternalism and nihilism, or pattern and nebulosity, to the form and emptiness of the Heart Sutra. When the Heart Sutra is pretty explicitly telling you that the highest knowledge is knowing that, at some point, one has to let go of even the most cherished of Buddhist dogma and cosmology. I suppose I shouldn't be completely disparaging. Sometimes these sorts of people have an interesting perspective. But "the most white Buddhist thing" isn't far off the mark. It very much is a Buddhist solution to First World Problems. But, people do feel actual suffering from their First World Problems. He may have a solution to postmodern ennui, but I doubt he has some new grand unified theory.
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Jan 27, 2022 07:13
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corn haver posted:I'm considering the possibility of somehow convincing/tricking reddit atheists, jordan peterson freaks, and similar types into becoming stream-entrants, giving them the dustless, stainless Dharma eye, knowing that all conditioned things are subject to disintegration. Not just understanding that with their cognition, but connecting with their emotional heart, their citta. Their stupid emotional heart that has to see things directly rise and fall and then just knows. Those guys loving suck and remind me of myself in the early 2000s reading the internet as a kid/young teen in terms of emotional intelligence. I think it would be really funny if it worked even once. This really isn't that big of a stretch. Stoicism made a comeback. Buddhism has a very nerdy intellectual and debate culture. For aesthetics, you can go poetic yet austere Zen, or human bone horns and vengeful deities of Tibetan, or the orthodoxy of Theravada. But, there are also the types that learn just enough meditation to hack their sleep schedule so they can day trade more. Or enough pop tantra to think they can gently caress their way to enlightenment. There is definitely an audience out there looking for stuff the dharma provides. But there also also plenty of examples of people who lost the script and went down some crazy paths.
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Jan 31, 2022 07:31
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Nessus posted:Buddhism to my understanding has no missionary exhortation, but some degree of attempting to spread the dharma is a natural outgrowth of compassion.'. Compared to Christianity, Buddhism doesn't have the same Manichean like battle for souls. But Buddhiam does have a missionary spirit. We wouldn't know of Buddhism if it didn't, because it practically went extinct in the land of its birth, and many of us practice a variety which was spread to Thailand, or Vietnam, or Tibet, or Japan. Soon after the Buddha's enlightenment comes tales of deities pleading to spread the word. Of telling his old companions what he learned. Of traveling the county to train converts and debate the merits of the path he found. Later Mahayana texts are often quick to label pratyekabuddhas, those who find enlightenment on their own but fail to teach it, as a lesser path. I would say that many later forms of Buddhism lost the original evangelical sprit. In places where it became a the official state religion, it is understandable. But when sects lost that comfort, they quickly went back to missionary effort. The spread of Zen out of post war Japan. The spread of Tibetan schools during their diaspora. Thich Naht Hahn after being exiled from Vietnam. Vipasana schools out of Myanmar's coups. Buddhist evangelizing certainly doesn't look like Christianity's. But it still has a long history of spreading the dharma to converts.
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Feb 1, 2022 09:32
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corn haver posted:Here's my very brief, very stupid secular introduction to the Buddhist path that I cobbled together. I wrote this for my benefit to try to wrap my head around things and how to discuss the Dharma with people who would not be drawn to the supernatural aspects of Buddhism or the Bodhisattva path but who might actually take things seriously. Please feel free to dunk on me and definitely please point out anything that is straight up wrong.I'm just trying to learn. That is not a bad take on Buddhism, in the context of keeping it in a secular framework. I would only ask; Is this mostly just to emphasize the insight gained from experiencing the Arising and Passing Away, or are your 4 stages an analogy to the 4 stages of awakening (stream entery to arahant)?
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Feb 1, 2022 09:42
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corn haver posted:God damnit, realizing that I should go back to school and become a clinical counselor or something. My mom isn't going to be happy because I'm making bank right now and she worries about me. Knowing that it's possible to totally be free from a deep reactive orientation towards protecting yourself from the world that you've had since you were a child in an instant, because of a simple desire to see and understand, to see that huge mass of suffering and it just loving evaporates because the continuity of it was an illusion and it hurt too much to pay attention? That's the good stuff The thing with your mom is easy to solve. Just show her the path, and she will learn to stop worrying. Seriously though, I've found myself in a similar place, and trying to explain it to others is really hard. Everyone likes the idea of a life without that kind of suffering, but not many people even think it is possible. And when they do think it is possible, it can come with some other stereotypes, like you would end up completely numb to everything. Like you wouldn't laugh at jokes, or enjoy the taste of good food. But if you really have a knack for teaching, start locally. See if you can just get friends or family to walk this path.
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Feb 3, 2022 18:20
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Bilirubin posted:I definitely prefer that stance to a literal reading for sure. But we'll see, I have a lot more to learn. Buddhism is an old practice that has been incorporated into many distinct cultures. You will bump into a lot of these sort of things. There are 2 ways to view them. Internal to Buddhism is a concept often called "skillful means". That there are many ways to reach enlightenment, and some are better for certain people at certain times. In the early texts, the Buddha would have deeply philosophical debates with priests. When visiting rulers, he would talk about the pragmatic aspects of spreading virtue. With common people, it may just be daily things, like treating neighbors kindly and killing less animals. For some people, they may just be in a place where being mindful of the personification of compassion, as a reminder to lead a better life, is the best path to be on. There is also a tradition in Buddhism that places a low value on arguing over metaphysical objects. Figuring out if the Pure Land is in your head or some where west of your head isn't as important as asking if the belief in a Pure Land brings an end to suffering. From an outside point of view... Buddhism has spread far, and its influence in various places has waxed and waned several times. Various schools have taken root, been challenged, and been replaced. Some invovations can seem to be real head scratchers till you learn that they are a response to some particular thing that was in the culture a long time ago. Buddhism in India could rely on a local tradition of wandering holy men begging for food. When it reached Japan in the form of Zen, Dogen had to do a lot of writing on how a monastery should store and cook its own food. When Buddhism spread to Tibet and Mongolia, it had to explain itself to a very warrior based culture. As a result, they have a lot of allegory involving weilding swords, standing over enemies, drinking goblets of blood. Some teachings may never make sense to you, because they were written for different people, in a different time and place. It doesn't make them fundamentally wrong. It just means they might be wrong for you. In my case, when I started practicing 20 some years ago, Soto Zen really clicked with me. I liked the combination of simple practice and the intellectual yet poetic tradition. Later, when I needed a more rigorous practice, Therevada and Vipassana was what spoke to me. And though those schools can be said to be at very different ends of a scholastic divide, each one was very true for me at a given place in my path.
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Feb 7, 2022 10:29
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for fucks sake posted:I always meditate eyes closed and I never even considered that. I could probably even set up a slideshow to give them the right amount of time each too. Looking at things is used in a variety of meditation practices. A slideshow on your phone could be your Metta Mandala. Another option could be imagining hearing a voice. I don't know if aphantasia includes imagining sounds. But in my case, I am nearsighted, so memories of faces are often less distinct than the memory of a voice.
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Feb 7, 2022 20:17
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prom candy posted:Yeah a lot of the Buddhism for Westerners genre deliberately ignores things like karma or rebirth. The books are very accessible, but they're often pretty secular. So yeah the stuff about samsara, non-dualism, etc. But written for dumb guys like me. If you want the nuts and bolts of karma and rebirth specifically, try looking for stuff on the 12 links of dependant origination. Some western writers don't go into detail on these subjects because, depending on the school they were trained in, some of these topics are more allegorical than real. This is especially true of those who came into it through vipassana practice. So from their point of view, they may be covering it, but translated into modern English. Is rebirth just like the Hindu concept, minus "the self"? Or is it an allegory for a process that happens moment by moment? Or both? Or neither? Is karma a cosmic ledger that exists independent of you? Is it a way of seeing how you reinforce habital patterns in a psychological sense. Something in between? There are debates about this in Buddhism, and unfortunately they get very deep very quickly.
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Mar 2, 2022 10:47
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Herstory Begins Now posted:Nagarjuna's Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way idk if it is approachable exactly (it's certainly not impenetrable, at least) but it really, really gets into buddhist metaphysics. Probably find a translation with some commentary or at least really good footnotes I thought about suggesting that one, but I'm also a philosophy nerd, and enjoy reading things like Wittgenstein's Tractatus. The Mulamadhyamakakarika is probably one that would be a good Book Club read. Jay Garfield's translation and commentary is an easy version to find if some one was interested. I also enjoyed Garfield's lecture series on Yogacara for Sravasti Abbey. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8DRNsjySiiYe3Ttgf5tpqDtp3NPNHkYq
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Mar 6, 2022 18:20
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prom candy posted:Do you guys ever have days where you're just so resistant to meditating? The past week or so I've been having trouble focusing at work, my mind is just darting around like crazy from distraction to distraction and it's like a wrestling match with myself every day to get myself to sit down and meditate for ten minutes. If it makes you feel any better, tradition says that this sort of restless mind is only completely shaken off when one reaches the state of an arhat. If your practice is more focused based, like breath counting or mantas, if feel for you. That is tough. These sorts of busy moments in life can come and go, so you may just have to tough out this cycle. Another option is vipassana style meditation. As soon as you notice your mind is running down some trail, just label it. Just say to yourself "thinking". Or sometimes it is more helpful to differentiate between memories with "past", or plans with "future". And then just watch that line of inner dialogue end. It will inevitably start up again, you will get caught up in it, then remember you should be meditating, so you note to yourself that you are "thinking" again. In this way you can kind of turn the constant distractions of life into a meditation object. And it can lead to insights. Getting faster at noting the thoughts as they arise can often lead to seeing what exactly is prompting the thought in the first place.
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Mar 15, 2022 07:56
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prom candy posted:I pretty much always do breath, mantra, or like body scan type meditations. I think that's definitely the cause of resistance because I can feel myself just screaming "noooo don't make me focus on one boring thing!" I was so all over the place yesterday I couldn't even play Elden Ring for more than about 30 minutes. Not even anxious or worried, just zipping around from this to that. Maybe I'm destroying my mind with TikTok. Thoughts are an interesting one. With other body sensations, it is very easy to realize that they are happening, and that there isn't much you can do about it. So you can reach a kind of equanimity that there is a sensation of the floor against your leg, or air going in and out the nose. Thoughts we take personally. They are my thoughts. They _are_ me! But just as your stomach secretes digestive juices in response to swallowing food, the brain secretes thoughts in response to some other stimulus. The more you think about your thoughts, the more thoughts you think. And we are taught to take our thoughts very seriously. Often times, the mental exercise of sticking a one word post-it note on a passing thought is enough to deprive the thought of any additional karma, and it will just fizzle out if you don't give it additional material to work with. The better you get at it, the more it becomes like watching an itch come and go in your leg. It becomes, "Here comes a thought about plans for tomorrow... There goes a thought about plans for tomorrow". As for what comes next? Another thought. There is always another thought that pops up in the mind. A lot of body scanning techniques are to build an ability to dispassionately observe, and then to turn that ability onto the mind itself. There is also meditation that "focuses on not being focused". Like shikantaza from the Zen traditions. They often start with breath watching to build concentration. But instead of using that concentration to grip harder onto an object of meditation, you concentrate on keeping your "hands" open to just let experience and sensation flow right past. It may also just be that you are over stimulating yourself with TikTok. In which case, use the insight you've gained to recognize that, and the concentration you've gained to put the phone down. If you want a more technical explanation into why you may have some kind of aversion to some aspect of meditation, look up dukkha nana or "knowledge of suffering". It is very natural to cycle though these sort of things. As you start a style of meditation, it holds your attention because it is kind of hard. Then it becomes easier and you get a sort of bliss of accomplishment. But the bliss is fleeting, and then you feel resentment and aversion. If you keep at it, you realize that this is the natural flow of life, and your reach equanimity. So you move through; "Let's do this." "I've got this!" "Not this again..." "This just is." And with that, you slowly but surely chisel away at the grip that suffering has on your mind.
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Mar 15, 2022 18:45
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Virgil Vox posted:What is the relation or rather nonrelation between Karma and fortune? There is a very common folk interpretation of karma as a kind of external balance sheet, and that one can do things to balance things in a way that "good luck" will come their way. Many Buddhist scriptures and commentaries treat karma as more of an internal thing. So you have the doctrine of dependent origination that says everything is dependent on and conditioned by other things. Your karma manifests in how you act in a given situation. By cultivating "good karma", you are intentionally training yourself to act in a compassionate way, and this can create a feedback loop where you get more "good karma" as being compassionate becomes habitual. I like the Yogacara notion of the "store house consciousnesses", which is analogous to modern notions of the unconscious. Every action produces karma. The karma is a seed placed in your store house consciousness. Given the right conditions, like a real seed needs water and soil, the seed of karma sprouts and bears the fruit of another action. If you steal something and enjoy it, you plant the seed of stealing. Next time the conditions are right, like you see something left unattended, the seed of stealing sprouts and you steal again, planting another seed of stealing. So in a Buddhist country, a lay person my donate to a monk thinking they are buying some better outcome in the future. The monk may see that karma as the lay person taking a moment out of their day to be mindful about compassion and spreading the dharma. That good karma is not about expecting help from others, so much as cultivating the mindfulness to _be_ the help to others. quote:The atheist might say, "ah, pure chance, nothing to it" , the christian might say "a guardian angel told you to pull over at the overlook" , what should be the Buddhist response ? Many Buddhists around the world probably would not hesitate to attribute this to super natural intervention, with or without karma. There is no shortage of tales of monks getting super natural help. And sometimes the story goes that it was not so much the "good karma" of the monk, but because the deva or spirit was hoping to score karma points for themselves. quote:Would it be this exact post, examining the causes and effects? Would it be a lesson to tone down desires? That would be the "Right Mindfulness" way to interpret this situation. And that interpretation is also historically and doctrinally sound. The atheist view of dumb luck plants a seed of ignoring the situation. The theist view of guardian angels plants the seed of expecting help from others. The view of examining causes, effects, and desires plants the seed of mindfulness. That's 3 seeds of karma. Which do you want to cultivate?
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Mar 16, 2022 22:10
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BIG FLUFFY DOG posted:Conversely those in hell having no opportunity to learn about the dharma no respite to train themselves to be patient and having constant and relentless negative stimulus applied to them... ...he says, while spreading the dharma at Something Awful Dot Com.
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Mar 16, 2022 22:39
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Caufman posted:My impression is that different schools and teachers are going to have different attitudes about superstition and Buddhism, and the emphasis may be different depending on the student the teacher is talking to, too. The section I just read in The Heart of The Buddha's Teachings was about shaping the message to the recipient. . The early suttas are full of examples of "skillful means". I like the story of Ariya the fisherman. Buddha and his monks are walking along a river. Up ahead was a fisherman named Ariya, and he put down his pole and went to greet this group of holy men. While exchanging greeting, the Buddha noted "Your name is Ariya? That means 'Noble One'. What kind of Noble person kills fish?" And at that moment, Ariya became a convert. The moral of the story is... I hope you have the omniscience of a buddha before you go walking up to fishermen and start making fun of their name.
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Mar 17, 2022 00:49
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Virgil Vox posted:I'm familiar with the term Bodhisattva, but what is a "preferred" bodhisattva ? Are there notable Bodhisattva's I should start learning about? BIG FLUFFY DOG posted:the four big ones are avalokitesvara boddhisatva of mercy, kshitigarbha boddhisatva of hell/protection, manjusri boddhisatva of wisdom, samantabhadra boddhisattva of practice and renunciation As an example of where one may come cross such bodhisattvas, at the top of the list there with Avalokitesvara is the reference in the first line of the Heart Sutra. https://plumvillage.org/about/thich-nhat-hanh/letters/thich-nhat-hanh-new-heart-sutra-translation/
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Mar 17, 2022 07:47
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prom candy posted:I tried that using your thoughts as the object of focus meditation and whoa, I have a lot of thoughts! It's crazy how just labelling them or cataloguing them makes it really easy to just let them pass by. Keep up the practice. With enough practice you can get crazy fast at it. It may be months of daily practice, but you eventually transition from "noting" to merely "noticing", because you can get so quick that you won't have time to stop and think up a word to note with. This can also be the case if you do noting with body scanning. What makes this an insight practice rather than a focus or calming practice is that it gives you direct experience of Buddhist doctrine. The 3 marks of existence are (often translated) Impermanence, Suffering, and No-Self; Your thoughts are in constant flux. Sometimes they appear to have a logical or narrative progression, but they seem to spring from nowhere and then just trail off to nowhere. There is nothing really permanent about them. Buddhist Suffering is broader than just pain or sadness. It is a general unsatisfactoriness that drives craving and aversion. When it comes to watching thoughts, you will never craft a thought so perfect and beautiful that you will just retire from thinking. There is no peak to having the best idea, and also no bottom to how far you can beat yourself up for failing to have the best idea. And for No-Self... If "you" are busy labeling passing thoughts, like some quality control inspector watching parts pass by on an assembly line, then "who" is making the thoughts? The more engrossed in thought watching you get, the more apparent this becomes, and the more insight you gain into the source of this fast moving thought assembly line.
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Mar 18, 2022 17:18
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ram dass in hell posted:Treat the "itching to be done" feeling like a cryptid that had just wandered into a clearing without it noticing you watching from a hidden vantage point. now every time you get to that point in your meditation it is an opportunity to notice characteristics and behaviors of your own personal Bigfoot. What does it do? What does it need? What does it look like? What are its intentions? How does it behave? That is a fun way of thinking about how to handle this. The questions are important too, as the thought of being bored or wanting to do something else doesn't just spring from the void sustained by its own essence. Like everything else, it is dependent on causes and conditions. It has the 3 marks of existence. The thought of getting up wasn't always there. And it will eventually pass. Although it my comeback almost immediately. It doesn't have inherent existence. It is composed of parts, and came to be in your head by some cause. It has some quality of suffering or dissatisfaction, and giving in to it won't really cause an end to suffering or dissatisfaction. The irony is that you feel dissatisfied while meditating, then feel dissatisfied because you think you could have meditated more. For those new to insight (vipassana) meditation, it is often used with calming/focusing (samatha) mediation, like alternating rungs on a ladder. So feel free to switch back and forth as needed. A lot of guided meditations follow this cycle, of calming and focusing for the first half, then more open awareness and examination for the second half. So if you can only handle one style of meditation for 10 minutes, set 2 timers. Do breath counting or a mantra for 10 minutes, then body scanning and noting for the next 10 minutes.
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Mar 21, 2022 06:55
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Herstory Begins Now posted:In nearly every case you can substitute 'cause and effect' or probably more precisely, 'cause and conditions' for karma and retain the full meaning. Part of the confusion that can come up around these topics is the Buddhism arose in a culture that already had several well developed and competing religious/philosophical schools that shared a similar vocabulary. So a topic like karma would imply "cause and effect" to most everyone, but the reason why cause and effect exists could split between a ledger kept by a god, or dust like particles that stuck to the soul, or a seed in the subconscious, or that the concept itself was empty of inherent existence. Bilirubin posted:I am noticing a huge impact on my dreams of late. I haven't had one of my recurring stress dreams in weeks and just feel calmer in general at night as well as in the days. Very nice outcome! The anecdotes around the effects of meditation on sleep are numerous enough that scientists have done quite a few studies on it. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4054695/ In short, the ability to refrain from being carried away by negative thinking can also apply while being in a state of sleep.
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Mar 24, 2022 18:50
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There is a ton of studies on meditation from a secular perspective. And for those who have trouble just sitting still, similar effects can be found with yoga and tai chi. And the most stand out examples are almost always from serious Buddhist practitioners. Either actual Buddhist monks, or laypeople with daily practices or regular retreat goers. The effects are noticeable enough just between control groups and those who simply have a few weeks of meditation app use. But when the 10,000+ hour practitioners are examined, the effects of meditation are even more pronounced.
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Mar 29, 2022 18:34
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Bilirubin posted:heya Orb! Welcome to a lovely spot in the internet India is the real birth place of The Law of Truly Large Numbers. A lot of problems of metaphysics just go away when you think of space as being inconceivably huge and time as inconceivably long. In Buddhism, this same appreciation for large numbers shows up. An old cosmology has a crazy tall mountain at the center (Mount Meru) surrounded by 7 oceans, and massive continents in the 4 cardinal directions. Nowadays, the Dalai Lama will say that the Mount Meru cosomolgy is wrong, but that doesn't effect Buddhism, because Buddhism is about liberation from suffering and not about cartography. And scientists will be all proud of themselves for pointing out the flaws in ancient thinking, because the Earth is not a massive flat disk with a million mile tall mountain at the center. But then they go on to measure the universe as being trillions of light years across, and each light year itself is trillions of miles long, and that it will take trillions of years for all the stars to burn out. And with that much time and space, almost anything is possible.
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Apr 3, 2022 18:04
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Brawnfire posted:Are you able to get "into" it a little quicker with practice? I find with meditation it takes me nearly ten minutes for my brain to figure out that meditation is what's happening. Usually around the fifth time I realize I'm making up some crazy mental scenario and refocus on my mantra, then my ligaments loosen and my body settles into a deeper setting of meditation. I've contemplated whether I should try for shorter meditations and try getting to that state with less dalliance, or just respect how I am and try for longer meditations, allowing myself the time to get into the state comfortably. Or both, I guess, but I like to chip away at one thing at a time. The settling down period is pretty typical for most meditators. Especially given how busy the modern world is. A lot of modern chores are really quite complicated and take a lot of mental gymnastics. All the media everywhere drifts into your brain and ends up using a lot of background processing. for fucks sake posted:Imagine a glass filled with muddy water from a pond that's been stirred up by rain. You sit it on the table and watch as the particles settle to the bottom. If there's been a storm, the water will be extra muddy and take longer to settle out. If the weather's been calm there's still some mud there but the water's clearer to begin with and it won't take so long to settle out. The muddy water is a great analogy. And things do settle if you sit in a quiet place with the intention to be relaxed. But you do have to be patient and wait a bit for things to just settle on their own. Brawnfire posted:A good analogy. These basic meditation techniques are the slow and steady path to realization. So they really only work faster by doing it more. But like other exercises, there is a "too much" point that can be counter productive. From my experience, 1 hour is a pretty optimal amount of meditation. It allows plenty of time to settle down. Time to work on what ever specific techniques you had planned. And time to face your ego butting in and demanding you get up and entertain it. Depending on how busy your life is, a full hour sit might just be a weekend thing. But it is something worth aiming for. And you don't have to do meditation while in a sitting position. The benefit of getting good at seated meditation is that you can do it pretty much anywhere. And for that reason alone I would recommend everyone to at least get competent at seated meditation. Provided you aren't sleepy, you can do it laying down. I've done this while recuperating from work related shoulder, back, and knee injuries. Walking meditation is often done in monasteries and on retreats between sitting sessions. It can be done with movement/posture exercises, like Tai Chi or Yoga. Not all types of meditation will work in these other settings. Like, I don't think you are going to attain nirodha samapatti by doing meditative dish washing. Or at least, you probably wouldn't want to. But when it comes to mindfulness training, like in the Satipatthana Sutta or Anapanasati Sutta, it is totally possible to do that while in a Yoga pose, or walking through a park.
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Apr 4, 2022 19:53
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https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/ud/ud.1.10.than.htmlquote:"Then, Bāhiya, you should train yourself thus: In reference to the seen, there will be only the seen. In reference to the heard, only the heard. In reference to the sensed, only the sensed. In reference to the cognized, only the cognized. That is how you should train yourself. When for you there will be only the seen in reference to the seen, only the heard in reference to the heard, only the sensed in reference to the sensed, only the cognized in reference to the cognized, then, Bāhiya, there is no you in connection with that. When there is no you in connection with that, there is no you there. When there is no you there, you are neither here nor yonder nor between the two. This, just this, is the end of stress."
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Apr 4, 2022 23:26
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Cephas posted:Personally, I'm much more afraid of samsara than oblivion lol. I'd take endless oblivion over samsara if I could. But I believe there is a Buddhist description of oblivion-beings who exist basically without physical form or mental action and think they have reached eternal oblivion, but are merely living out long stretches of time in an impermanent form. So oblivion's not really the end that it's cracked up to be. An aspect of the concentration type meditations is jhana. It is the root word for Japanese Zen, Korean Son, and Chinese Chan, schools of Buddhism. Different schools may have varying definitions of which level of jhana one might get into, but they all agree that there are "formless" jhanas. Basically, one develops single pointed focus to such a degree that they can lose awareness of the physical realms. One would no longer be focusing on the breath and body, but on raw space, or consciousness. Before the Buddha became the Buddha, he studied with a person who could meditate all the way to "nothingness", and was claiming that it was the key to eliminating suffering. Siddhartha learned the technique, but wasn't sold on it. Siddhartha found another teacher that could do one better, and could meditated so hard that he could attain "neither perception nor non-perception". But again, Siddhartha was not sold on this being the total cessation of suffering. This has a quick rundown of the various levels from one of the Buddha's disciples; http://www.suttas.com/chapter-7-sariputta-samyutta-with-sariputta.html Since then, there have been cautionary tales of getting too engrossed in these styles of meditation, because doing so may lead to rebirth in such a realm. Needless to say, getting oneself out of such a realm to be reborn back to some place where one my pick the dharma backup is difficult to the point of impossibility. How does one grow old in die in a realm of "nothing"? How does one hear the dharma in a realm of "neither perception nor non-perception"? And aside from that post-death pitfall, they have little practical value in ones practice in this life. Hanging out in nothingness is kind of nice if you want to get away from back pain. But there is so little mentally going on in these trance like states that it is hard to get anything useful done. The point of liberation is to be liberated all the time, not just in some rarefied meditative state.
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Apr 5, 2022 06:53
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BIG FLUFFY DOG posted:Monastics are already starting to have real trouble spots as Asia modernizes and becomes wealthier since the world before where you gave up sex booze and meat in exchange for not having to work hard and getting a guaranteed meal combined with secularization means a lot of young people aren’t interested. I think at least some Asian sanghas are going to start reforming how monasticism works within our lifetimes frankly. Whether that’s to a Thai model of temporary ordination, a Japanese model of drinking and marriage is okay or a western model of laity do most of our religious functions with monasticism being for people who are really into it or something else I can’t say The modes of monasticism in all those countries are already an adaptation. India in the time of the Buddha already had a well established cultural norm of feeding wandering holy men that few other cultures shared. Marriage in Zen was a later thing, but even before that, Dogen did a lot of thinking in how to do a monastery in Japan, where the expectation was that monks would have to store and cook their own food. And even he was borrowing from Chinese monasteries, which had already gone though adapting to Chinese norms. It will be interesting to see how things go. Hopefully they can realize they have had to adapt before, and not throw in the towel as if this were an existential threat. Brawnfire posted:My fourth unbroken night of meditation. I did forty minutes in two twenty-minute intervals with a stretch because my legs always fall asleep. This may be the perfect length for me? Felt very good. For me the sensation is like being tossed around on choppy seas in a small boat while being enveloped in fog. And that transitions to a glassy sea of stillness and clear visibility to the horizon. Keep up the practice. Like any other exercise, doing a little everyday will add up pretty quickly.
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Apr 7, 2022 04:44
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Brawnfire posted:This is a thought loop I have to push aside a lot during meditation: I am looking forward to sharing my progress meditating. It smacks of approval-seeking, but I am also genuinely enthusiastic about my journey with meditation. And I want to stimulate discussion because discussion stimulated my desire to meditate and made me finally seriously set aside time each day. If you think if it as an impediment, you can direct some of that "posting" energy to keeping a journal. It would be handy to track your own progress without worrying that you are only doing it for the approval of others. And you could use it to track things that may come and go but aren't the sort of things you may want to publicly post about. The greater issue of "craving" meditation practice and enlightenment is one that many a Buddhist has gone round and round on to the point of dizziness. In general, it has been accepted that the craving to end the suffering that comes from all the other cravings is justifiable. prom candy posted:I have been doing the thought cataloguing or noting practice where I observe my thoughts, note them ("planning, worry, reminiscing, work" etc.) and one of the ones that comes up a lot is "posting" The brain is a funny thing like that. Buddhism sees people of having 6 senses. The standard 5 of touch, taste, smell, see and hear. And the 6th is sensing thoughts. Once you have built up the mental muscles to sit back and see thoughts as thoughts, like any other sort of bodily sensation, you can then start to break them apart. Most people pretty quickly get the fact that all things are dukkha. They are unsatisfactory. And most people can pretty quickly see, by patiently watching, that all things are impermanent. And the impermanence is partly why things are unsatisfactory. The next step is to see that thoughts aren't even a complete thing. They don't have a self. They are made of parts. In Buddhist terminology they are skandhas. Which translates to "heaps" or "aggregates", and there are 5 of them. So they are often explained in English at "The 5 Aggregates" The classic formulation goes at it from the side of the object. They have Form, the material thing causing what ever it is you are observing. Sensation, the instinctual pleasure/pain/neutral initial reaction. Perception, giving the sensation a name. Mental Formations, your associated memories/karma that are a result of seeing this /good/bad/neutral thing with a given "name". Consciousness, where you are now reacting to all these things put together. Yogacara also has a variation on this from the point of view of the subject. Basically ignoring the material aspect of it, and just dealing with how this happens from a person's point of view strictly in their own head. So when it comes to having a thought like "posting", that is a pretty elaborate thought. How many cycles of skandhas did you go through before finally catching yourself at "posting"? Can you rewind through all that to the initial mental itch started the whole cascade to some narrative about posting? Was the feeling of posting good/bad/neutral? Was the thought that made you think about posting good/bad/neutral? Can you see the instant the feeling change from good to bad between the thought of "posting is fun" and "I should be meditating rather than thinking of posting"? Is the good/bad/neutral feeling strictly in your head, or does it manifest as a sensation in the body? Does the sensation come before or after the thought is clear enough to be articulated in words?
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Apr 8, 2022 07:46
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I have a dharmacrafts zafu, and I would recommend it. It is way more sturdy than a stack of pillows. https://dharmacrafts.com/collections/zafu-round-meditation-cushions/products/buckwheat-hull-zafu-classic For a zabuton I use a large "dog pillow" I found on sale at a big box store. You can cheap out using a folded up comforter or dog pillow for a zabuton, but a proper zafu is hard to beat. And in my case, I realized I was going to spend almost the same money to get good bed pillows, and they wouldn't have been as nice.
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Apr 9, 2022 02:12
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Nessus posted:What are your pro tips for getting a bit of sitting time in or do you just block out a chunk of time and make it a red line in your daily routine? My morning sit is after I have my coffee, to make sure I'm totally awake. And my evening sit is after I take a shower, which also has the effect of making my mind alert. And that is after making dinner and doing any other chores. So it isn't so much a hard and fast time I set, as it is making sure the conditions are right. That also means the morning sit is a bit more of a work out. I'll read the news and make plans for the day while having that cup of coffee, so my mind is more prone to be chattering for the morning sit. Brawnfire posted:Well the forty minute meditations have been going well, or would be if my son would stop waking up randomly I take it your son is rather young. Little kids, say toddler to kindergarten, are great meditation tools. You really have to keep yourself in the here and now around them. Another idea would be to read Zen Mind Beginners Mind, and really cultivate an appreciation for seeing the world with as little conceptualization and judgement as possible. The way little kids see the world.
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Apr 10, 2022 07:14
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The self, no-self, self trip reminds me of the ox herding series from Zen. Near the end, after bring the ox home, there is 1 blank panel, then the next panel the world is back, then the last panel is returning to society. The path doesn't stop at emptiness. That would just be nihilism. And that isn't much healthier than clinging to some notion of an eternal individual self.
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Apr 19, 2022 08:49
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Ramrod Hotshot posted:That's interesting. Especially given that people who have anxiety and depression would, I think, stand to gain the most from meditation. Meditation makes sense if the depression and anxiety is "suffering" in the Buddhist sense, because that is pretty much self inflicted. Meditation is a tool to realize it is self inflicted and to try and stop it. Some mental states are not self inflicted like that. An extreme example would be schizophrenia, or if it turned out the anxiety was caused by some hormone secreting tumor. And, unfortunately, medical science as it is can't always do a test to distinguish the ultimate cause of ones suffering. I knew someone who suffered for over a year with a strange sort of malaise, absent mindedness, and loss of appetite. What was originally diagnosed as stress from going off to university turned out to be a small tumor in the inner ear that was making them slightly dizzy all the time. quote:I don't know if I "officially" suffer from anxiety or depression, but I'm about to start therapy which will hopefully give me a better idea. I do have some of the symptoms for sure though. Nevertheless I'd like to try meditation. What's the best way to get started? I've tried "meditating" as I understand it, meaning "clearing my mind" and focusing on breathing and it's basically impossible. I'm too easily distracted which is of course the problem to begin with. As others have mentioned, mantras are a bit more of a forceful option. Breath counting is another option, to give the mind something more substantive to focus on. You can also use the random thoughts as an object of meditation. Start by just watching the breath, and put an imaginary post-it note "breathing" on each breath. When you catch your mind wandering, rather than see it as a failure of some sort, label the thought. Either just label it as "thinking", or maybe something more descriptive but still one-word. Thinking of what to have for dinner? Label it "future". Remembering the past? Label it "past". Thinking of an itch on your nose right now? Label it "itch". Then go back to labeling your breaths, until your next opportunity to label what ever takes your attention off the breath. It is like a meta-level of focusing. Accept that your are some evolved ape in a highly distracting modern world. Don't be surprised if you have some random thought pass through your head between every breath. Just label it and go back to the breath. So long as you can mentally step back and label a sensation, you build up your ability to stay focused. Part of having a "clear mind" is just to be clearly aware that you have distractions. The better you get at noticing "I am distracted", the less likely you are to be carried away by them.
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May 2, 2022 06:43
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