Buddhism Thread: Bitch I just told you about kshitigarbha

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Thirteen Orphans: Dec 2, 2012; I am a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist and a theoretical philosopher. But above all, I am a man, a hopelessly inquisitive man, just like you.

How do Tibetan Buddhists treat dreams? Are dreams containing deities, Buddhas, and other spiritual beings considered sacred or extra important? Also, how ubiquitous is dream yoga in Tibetan Buddhism and who practices it?

# ¿ Feb 21, 2020 19:30

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 00:03

Thirteen Orphans: Dec 2, 2012; I am a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist and a theoretical philosopher. But above all, I am a man, a hopelessly inquisitive man, just like you.

Very interesting, thank you!

# ¿ Feb 21, 2020 20:00

Thirteen Orphans: Dec 2, 2012; I am a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist and a theoretical philosopher. But above all, I am a man, a hopelessly inquisitive man, just like you.

Achmed Jones posted:

Our dog died last month, and lately I've been doing a five Buddha mandala bardo practice with my four-year-old for him. It's probably dumb to do bardo stuff for a dog but it makes us both feel better and he was a very good boy

It's my first interaction with vajrayana stuff broadly speaking, so that's been interesting what with the visualization and all.

Senju believes our dog, ~~because of his merit~~ because he was a good boy was reborn as a human. If I was Buddhist I think I�d agree.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2020 01:27

Thirteen Orphans: Dec 2, 2012; I am a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist and a theoretical philosopher. But above all, I am a man, a hopelessly inquisitive man, just like you.

Yorkshire Pudding posted:

I'm about finished with Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind and I am not thrilled with it. Most of my knowledge of Zen comes from works by Miyamoto Musashi, and I found these little snippets by Suzuki to be not all that interesting. The whole theme of "Don't try to hard, but your posture and breathing is super important, also everything is zen" didn't really land with me. I've never really had a specific transmission I've followed, but Suzuki has made me think Zen isn't my cup of tea.

My previous read was Thich Nhat Hanh's The Heart of the Buddha's Teachings, which I thought was an excellent overview of general Buddhist belief. I have The Book of Living and Dying next, which I started but never finished some time ago. I also ordered Walking an Uncommon Path as Paramemetic recommended, but it won't be here for a few weeks.

Thanks for listening to my book report.

Thich Nhat Hanh and his Sangha are Vietnamese Zen!

# ¿ Mar 9, 2020 02:30

Thirteen Orphans: Dec 2, 2012; I am a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist and a theoretical philosopher. But above all, I am a man, a hopelessly inquisitive man, just like you.

Isn�t there a story in the Pali Canon where the Buddha�s mother enters the Sangha? I may be fuzzy on the details...

# ¿ Mar 11, 2020 00:55

Thirteen Orphans: Dec 2, 2012; I am a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist and a theoretical philosopher. But above all, I am a man, a hopelessly inquisitive man, just like you.

Paramemetic, how did you come about finding your Guru? Not in a wholly spiritual sense, like a conversion story, but more like, did you start showing up at the temple and eventually you crossed paths and you asked him, are most people at your temple disciples of the same Guru so you just joined, etc? Would you say your experience is common for Western converts? Hopefully my question isn�t too personal, I�m interested in the mechanics of finding the Vajrayana Guru for Westerners.

# ¿ Apr 17, 2020 03:43

Thirteen Orphans: Dec 2, 2012; I am a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist and a theoretical philosopher. But above all, I am a man, a hopelessly inquisitive man, just like you.

Qu Appelle posted:

last night, I watched the Sunday Morning Service from a Jodo Shinshu temple.

My sister is Jodo Shinshu so I�ve been to a few Buddhist Churches of America services. The temple is beautiful and their bowl gong (what�s this called?) is exquisite. It really has that special feel of a sacred space.

# ¿ May 4, 2020 21:44

Thirteen Orphans: Dec 2, 2012; I am a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist and a theoretical philosopher. But above all, I am a man, a hopelessly inquisitive man, just like you.

Qu Appelle posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lS-8LmOVrtk

Beautiful.

I have a question, I know there is sacred literature outlining the previous lives of the Buddha and I know a Buddha, being omniscient, will know all of their past lives. But is recalling one�s previous lives part of Buddhist practice either as a goal or a side effect of practice?

# ¿ May 5, 2020 17:11

Thirteen Orphans: Dec 2, 2012; I am a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist and a theoretical philosopher. But above all, I am a man, a hopelessly inquisitive man, just like you.

I�m looking to learn more about Nichiren-Shu and the writings of Nichiren. I�m having a hard time finding resources outside of the website for my �local� temple. Also, should I be concerned about Soka Gakkai? The Nichiren establishment seems extremely concerned by them.

EDIT: I should clarify, I meant concerned about them as a source, not as a sangha to join.

Thirteen Orphans fucked around with this message at 02:16 on Sep 4, 2020

# ¿ Sep 4, 2020 01:45

Thirteen Orphans: Dec 2, 2012; I am a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist and a theoretical philosopher. But above all, I am a man, a hopelessly inquisitive man, just like you.

Hiro Protagonist posted:

From what I hear, Soka Gakkai has a perception off being fairly intense and confrontational with other major Buddhist groups, particularly in Japan, and promoting intense devotion that makes the more religiously-skeptical elements of Japanese culture suspicious at best. How much that reflects the truth, both in Japan and abroad, is up for debate. I haven't had many interactions with the group, but I imagine that, like almost every Buddhist community in the Western world, a more ecumenical approach is going to be necessary just to survive, which would likely sand down some of the edges there, so to speak. Take from that what you will.

Thanks for the feedback! I hadn't thought about the relationship between strong religiosity and the general Japanese attitude toward religious practice.

# ¿ Sep 4, 2020 02:18

Thirteen Orphans: Dec 2, 2012; I am a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist and a theoretical philosopher. But above all, I am a man, a hopelessly inquisitive man, just like you.

At work (I work in a cafe inside a bookstore) we have an ant problem. They often congregate on the counter, and they�re had to see, so I�ll wipe down the counter and pick up a dozen of those little guys. I�m stuck; I don�t want to kill the ants, but I can�t let them get around and into the food and drinks, for obvious reasons. It isn�t my authority to call a professional, but can they do anything outside of termination? To me that sounds like being complicit in taking life. I�m curious about the Buddhist(s) perspective to this moral quandary. For the sake of the argument presume I took the precept vow not to take life.

# ¿ Oct 24, 2020 04:13

Thirteen Orphans: Dec 2, 2012; I am a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist and a theoretical philosopher. But above all, I am a man, a hopelessly inquisitive man, just like you.

Nessus posted:

I think that your answer is ant repellent and keeping up cleanliness. If you inadvertently squash some ants while going about your business then I think that this is not held to have nearly as much karmic impact as doing so willingly.

I remember hearing a similar talk about a retreat center that had a mouse infestation that was getting to the point of nearly getting their building condemned or something. I believe they found some other way to resolve the issue (repellents? a cat? though a cat is just moving the problem around!) but the discussions were basically "Well, one of us is gonna have to do it, I guess we'll draw lots to see who has to go buy and deploy the mousetraps."

Oh we heavily clean. These little SOBs are resilient! I�m not in the position to start using repellant, though that�s something I should bring up with the GM.

# ¿ Oct 24, 2020 04:29

Thirteen Orphans: Dec 2, 2012; I am a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist and a theoretical philosopher. But above all, I am a man, a hopelessly inquisitive man, just like you.

Paramemetic posted:

The Mormon thing with baptism of the dead is generally believed to be non-intrusive to Mormons and hinges on people still having free will. If you accept the Mormon doctrine on death, when you croak your soul goes to a spiritual purgatory similar to a prison or if you want to take a nicer view of it, not unlike a pure land for unenlightened beings where you hang out and get taught by Buddhas. For Mormons, you're taught by spiritual missionaries who tell you about the plan of salvation and so on.

But, for Mormons the physical proceedings are absolutely essential. You need a physical baptism by immersion. The baptism for the dead is a baptism by proxy where you offer your physical body in place of the dead person and get baptized in their stead. It's entirely up to them whether or not to accept that baptism, so it's not exactly forcing them. The theory goes that obviously they would accept it because they've been hipped to the whole thing with a more perfect and direct understanding, but they don't necessarily always do so.

For Mormons pretty much everyone gets some degree of paradise with very few exceptions (you have to have a full understanding of the plan of salvation and then consciously and willfully reject it), but to get Very Best Heaven you have to be baptized and then sealed in the temple to a wife who will be your god partner to make god babies so as to do the whole thing over again on another planet in the future.

There's a whole lot of really wild space for theological speculation within the esoteric canon (e.g., do all planets do the same plan? Are there planets that don't have a plan of salvation? Are all gods equal or is our heavenly father bigger than others? Are there megagods bigger than him?) But the answer to those is basically the same as Buddha's answer to unanswerable questions: don't worry about it, you're on earth now where we're doing the Jesus Plan, so do that as best you can, you can figure that rest out when you're a god.

There are a lot of things about the LDS that are strange but one thing I'll say in their favor is it's an internally consistent and reasonable take. They don't usually accept "because that's how it is" as an answer because that was Joe Smith's whole problem with mainstream christianity in the first place. It tends to be very literal as a result and the "deep doctrines" are not discussed up front in favor of the more standard "get baptized and accept Jesus so you can get saved" and they're generally not discussed in any public format but they can get absolutely wild. They also have a living prophet who they claim speaks directly to Jesus/the Shekinah in the temple in order to update revelations and make stuff work which gives them a degree of practicality.

Like other Christian sects, you can't really make it work 100% with Buddhism for a number of reasons (belief in an eternal soul, belief that you can be saved through the efforts of others, etc) but they wouldn't see an outright hostility. The Mormon inclination towards proselytizing is also consistent with the beliefs: if you know you can only get Very Best Heaven through baptism and temple rituals, then the compassionate thing to do is to try to make that available to as many people as possible.

Their answer to "why doesn't God just let everyone get to very best heaven" is answered in the Pearl of Great Price iirc, and it's back to that free will thing. Free will means the freedom to gently caress up, and the Jesus Plan is basically "let people gently caress up and I'll take the hit for them if they do all the stuff that needs to happen to become gods." Because the rituals are believed to be what makes it work, there's no way to do it except for to give people the freedom to get the rituals done and follow the rules. Another plan, one that doesn't involve free will, would only result in people being lame gods and not the best gods, because they'd lack the free will that is a characteristic of a god.

But yeah basically the whole idea hinges on "cows will never have lambs, apple seeds will never yield oranges, and so if we're the children of God then we obviously must grow up to become gods."

Man, Mormon Deification (do they have a word for that?) vs Deification/Theosis in the Catholic/Orthodox understand is, as you said, WILD.

# ¿ Nov 15, 2020 21:14

Thirteen Orphans: Dec 2, 2012; I am a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist and a theoretical philosopher. But above all, I am a man, a hopelessly inquisitive man, just like you.

thorsilver posted:

Recently, alongside my readings of sutras and commentaries, I've been trying to learn more about the history of Tibetan Buddhism and some of the most famous figures in it, like Padmasambhava, Milarepa, Naropa, and so on. I got the bright idea to search 'Padmasambhava' on YouTube and see if I could find any interesting Dharma talks about him, but instead I found this documentary:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HStACYTbvgA

Right from the start they hit you with the 'Guru Rinpoche produces eight quantum energy fields' or some poo poo. But it really starts to come alive when we hear about the universal vibrational power of mantras from the woman with a PhD from someplace called 'Energy Medicine University'.

Also, it feels significant that the entire film has Chinese subtitles, and every time the main weirdo goes somewhere new, the on-screen map does not label Tibet but instead calls everything China.

So, does anyone have any links to actual good videos/talks/books/etc. about Padmasambhava, rather than... whatever that was?

Not what you�re looking for, but it reminds me of a bluegrass song about Padmasambhava. The song�s composer is a Tibetan Buddhist and so he is very respectful.

https://youtu.be/1V9ZcQ3-Egk

Thirteen Orphans fucked around with this message at 03:51 on Dec 18, 2020

# ¿ Dec 18, 2020 03:36

Thirteen Orphans: Dec 2, 2012; I am a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist and a theoretical philosopher. But above all, I am a man, a hopelessly inquisitive man, just like you.

thorsilver posted:

Not quite what I was looking for, no, but nevertheless it's nice to hear music inspired by Padmasambhava Thanks for sharing it.

On that note, I'd be interested to hear other recommendations for Tibetan-Buddhist-inspired music too!

So this Westerner, Lama Surya Das, traveled East and became a Lama. He came back and wrote a book and made a CD of chants set to music. To be honest when he first published all this I was pretty incredulous about it. Oh you go and become a religious leader and the first thing you do is sell books and CDs? I then learned that in his lineage just saying the words of the mantra (even just hearing it) accumulates merit. So by making these catchy melodies for mantras he�s bringing good into the world. The music isn�t my taste, but I still catch myself singing some of the mantras. You can find the whole album it�s called �Chants to Awaken the Buddhist Heart.�

https://youtu.be/V6llZ55MSPY

Thirteen Orphans fucked around with this message at 22:52 on Dec 18, 2020

# ¿ Dec 18, 2020 22:20

Thirteen Orphans: Dec 2, 2012; I am a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist and a theoretical philosopher. But above all, I am a man, a hopelessly inquisitive man, just like you.

There�s a local Tibetan Sangha (Kagyu lineage) that�s doing instruction and empowerments over Zoom. Is that becoming more common?

Edit: Zoom/Skype/Etc empowerments, I mean.

Thirteen Orphans fucked around with this message at 02:23 on Jan 19, 2021

# ¿ Jan 19, 2021 02:10

Thirteen Orphans: Dec 2, 2012; I am a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist and a theoretical philosopher. But above all, I am a man, a hopelessly inquisitive man, just like you.

Crossposting from the Religion Thread. Namo Trump Butsu

# ¿ Mar 11, 2021 01:57

Thirteen Orphans: Dec 2, 2012; I am a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist and a theoretical philosopher. But above all, I am a man, a hopelessly inquisitive man, just like you.

Yorkshire Pudding posted:

I thought of a joke. Please tell me if it is funny.

What city is Mara from?

Buddhapest.

# ¿ Aug 19, 2021 01:55

Thirteen Orphans: Dec 2, 2012; I am a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist and a theoretical philosopher. But above all, I am a man, a hopelessly inquisitive man, just like you.

Nessus posted:

It makes perfect sense to me. After all, Shakyamuni had been sitting under that tree for a while. He was probably getting pretty hungary

# ¿ Aug 19, 2021 17:17

Thirteen Orphans: Dec 2, 2012; I am a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist and a theoretical philosopher. But above all, I am a man, a hopelessly inquisitive man, just like you.

Here�s one of mine I posted in the old thread:

Have you heard about the Sutra that denies the existence of Avalokiteshvara? It�s considered by most Buddhists to be non-Kannon-ical.

# ¿ Aug 19, 2021 20:32

Thirteen Orphans: Dec 2, 2012; I am a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist and a theoretical philosopher. But above all, I am a man, a hopelessly inquisitive man, just like you.

eSporks posted:

Can you link me to anything?
I'm really only familiar with the Tao te Ching and some of Zhuangzi, and nothing in there is anything I would call magic. There isn't even practice or ritual, the closet thing amounting to magic is that by letting go of outcomes and desire, you create conditions for desirable outcomes to happen; a less magical form of "the secret" as I see it.
I briefly looked up Vajrayana, and while tantric sex yoga sounds cool, I don't see a commonality to Taoism. Its possible some sects of Taosim take it to strange places, and also possible that I am just ignorant. The things I read about Vajrayana would go heavily against the idea of doing not doing.

The Wikipedia article on Daoism touches on its magical traditions. The four books in this series also give primary texts (with light secondary context) that cover different practices.

# ¿ Aug 31, 2021 22:07

Thirteen Orphans: Dec 2, 2012; I am a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist and a theoretical philosopher. But above all, I am a man, a hopelessly inquisitive man, just like you.

eSporks posted:

Cool, I ordered that book and I'll check it out. Im curious what it means by the "trans-formative influence of sex"

The wiki briefly mentions fortune telling and astrology, which virtually every religion has in some form. The source for that is [url="https://www.amazon.com/Taoist-Manual-Illustrated-Applying-Taoism/dp/0967794811"]this book[/url] which also mentions 200 deities. Nothing I have come across in Taoism mentions deities, and that seems to be very contrary to the Tao te Ching, so I dunno. Kinda seems like someone running wild with it.

Again, admitting I could be ignorant, I am very new to Taoism.

Check out the other three books in that series if you get the chance. His Yi Jing/I Ching book and accompanying text is good.

Daoism isn�t just the Dao De Jing and the Zhuang Zi. Daoism absolutely has had deities for much of its history. Part of this is, admittedly, interaction with Chinese Civil Religion but that�s just Chinese religious history in general.

Thirteen Orphans fucked around with this message at 02:07 on Sep 1, 2021

# ¿ Sep 1, 2021 01:44

Thirteen Orphans: Dec 2, 2012; I am a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist and a theoretical philosopher. But above all, I am a man, a hopelessly inquisitive man, just like you.

Beowulfs_Ghost posted:

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.

Yeah the texts about things like talismanic rituals aren�t in the Western zeitgeist like alchemy/qi gong/nei gong.

# ¿ Sep 1, 2021 21:53

Thirteen Orphans: Dec 2, 2012; I am a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist and a theoretical philosopher. But above all, I am a man, a hopelessly inquisitive man, just like you.

Achmed Jones posted:

i remember thinking "wtf they were clearly dying, why did those dumb emperors think they were becoming immortal when they drank mercury?"

and then somebodys like "dude chinese immortals arent fuckin highlander theyre wispy spirit things that can fly and stuff"

and then i looked up xian and it made way more sense

One of the reasons old alchemy used literal mercury is because it preserves the body. An early belief was that a Daoist immortal could leave their physical body and return to it at any time. So folks saw these perfectly preserved bodies and were like �Ah! They�ll be back at some point!�

# ¿ Sep 1, 2021 22:49

Thirteen Orphans: Dec 2, 2012; I am a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist and a theoretical philosopher. But above all, I am a man, a hopelessly inquisitive man, just like you.

Hiro Protagonist posted:

Outside of here, does anyone recommend any Buddhist communities online?

Edit: I mainly ask because the Buddhist community in the city I'm at is fairly small, and I wanted to be able to talk to people about Buddhism outside of this small thread. Y'all are great, but I'd not call this a sangha.

I used to lurk around Dharma Wheel, but I�m not sure how active it is these days.

# ¿ Oct 4, 2021 15:45

Thirteen Orphans: Dec 2, 2012; I am a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist and a theoretical philosopher. But above all, I am a man, a hopelessly inquisitive man, just like you.

corn haver posted:

Currently laughing to myself imagining a cartoonishly stereotypical Texan saying dependent origination

Bobby: But Dad, God created the world Ex Nihilo.
Hank: Dang it, Bobby, haven�t you ever heard of dependent origination?

# ¿ Jan 25, 2022 03:28

Thirteen Orphans: Dec 2, 2012; I am a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist and a theoretical philosopher. But above all, I am a man, a hopelessly inquisitive man, just like you.

Cephas posted:

and try to learn how to fly.

That would be very in character, considering the whole �my parachute didn�t open� incident.

# ¿ Jan 25, 2022 17:55

Thirteen Orphans: Dec 2, 2012; I am a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist and a theoretical philosopher. But above all, I am a man, a hopelessly inquisitive man, just like you.

Nessus posted:

The translation of the Lotus Sutra I like to try to read has preserved a lot of these devices in English, so sometimes it is a little rough going!

Have a link for this?

# ¿ Jan 26, 2022 19:12

Thirteen Orphans: Dec 2, 2012; I am a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist and a theoretical philosopher. But above all, I am a man, a hopelessly inquisitive man, just like you.

LuckyCat posted:

Labels lead to suffering ultimately, but I prefer to think of it as a practice and not a religion.

I personally don�t think those things are mutually exclusive. With my interest and study into the monastic way of life I can in all honesty call Catholicism both my religion and my practice. But that�s just me.

# ¿ Feb 1, 2022 03:15

Thirteen Orphans: Dec 2, 2012; I am a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist and a theoretical philosopher. But above all, I am a man, a hopelessly inquisitive man, just like you.

This is interesting! A newly found very early Buddhist temple.

# ¿ Feb 3, 2022 22:18

Thirteen Orphans: Dec 2, 2012; I am a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist and a theoretical philosopher. But above all, I am a man, a hopelessly inquisitive man, just like you.

NikkolasKing posted:

https://www.amazon.com/Chinese-Pure-Land-Buddhism-Understanding-ebook/dp/B07MB7L8BD

Hey, Dr. Jones! I know someone who had him as a professor. He�s by all accounts a very cool dude with a great repository of knowledge.

# ¿ Feb 7, 2022 15:11

Thirteen Orphans: Dec 2, 2012; I am a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist and a theoretical philosopher. But above all, I am a man, a hopelessly inquisitive man, just like you.

corn haver posted:

like a burrito being microwaved with love.

Buddhism Thread: it�s like a burrito being microwaved with love

# ¿ Feb 8, 2022 04:08

Thirteen Orphans: Dec 2, 2012; I am a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist and a theoretical philosopher. But above all, I am a man, a hopelessly inquisitive man, just like you.

Nessus posted:

Maybe we should do a reading club thing more formally, I know they do that in TBB all the time.

If you wouldn�t mind a Roman Catholic I�d be interested!

# ¿ Feb 11, 2022 22:23

Thirteen Orphans: Dec 2, 2012; I am a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist and a theoretical philosopher. But above all, I am a man, a hopelessly inquisitive man, just like you.

Nessus posted:

I would have no objections, the dharma is for everyone. If I remember the other thread you were looking at monastic life yourself, you're already halfway to us!

* Oh yeah should we keep doing it here or break it out to a thread?

Yup, I have a great interest in the monastic life but so far the monastic life hasn�t had a great interest in me. What�re you gonna do! :shrug:

I think it depends on where you make the thread. Keeping it in house, so to speak, would mean that for the most part we know folks will be respectful and post in good faith (no pun intended). The downside of that is our group will be pretty small.

# ¿ Feb 12, 2022 23:29

Thirteen Orphans: Dec 2, 2012; I am a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist and a theoretical philosopher. But above all, I am a man, a hopelessly inquisitive man, just like you.

Bilirubin posted:

Thirteen Orphans: I read about your attempt at the monastic life during my speed read of the religion thread. I am sorry things turned out as they did but am inspired by how you have taken it.

I appreciate your saying that. I haven�t given up yet! Whether that�s tenacious or foolish only God knows at this point.

# ¿ Feb 13, 2022 01:48

Thirteen Orphans: Dec 2, 2012; I am a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist and a theoretical philosopher. But above all, I am a man, a hopelessly inquisitive man, just like you.

Man I love Joshu.

"A monk asked, "What are honest words?"

The master said, "Your mother is ugly.""

# ¿ Feb 15, 2022 00:32

Thirteen Orphans: Dec 2, 2012; I am a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist and a theoretical philosopher. But above all, I am a man, a hopelessly inquisitive man, just like you.

Nessus posted:

it isn't like TM where supposedly your guru gives you a super secret one just for you.

My best friend dated a woman from Trinidad. Their Hindu religious leaders are called pandits (they�re in India, too) and he offered to give my friend his own secret mantra.

# ¿ Feb 22, 2022 02:52

Thirteen Orphans: Dec 2, 2012; I am a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist and a theoretical philosopher. But above all, I am a man, a hopelessly inquisitive man, just like you.

Tias posted:

Hey TO,

I'm sad that you didn't get into the monastery, and I just wanted to offer some thoughts that came to me will reading something that is, admittedly, quite different; an anthology of pagan and polytheist monastics. Since theirs (and my) faiths are either made up whole cloth in the 1800s or reconstructed from dead practices that have no unbroken lineages of priesthood or other authorities, they tend to be very open and take in most people who ask.

I don't say this because I think you should become pagan, on the contrary, I had another thought: Do you really need to be accepted by an established monastery to become a christian monk? Like, if the eye of their needle is too small, are there other possibilities? I'm thinking yes, since christianitys history is rife with original sects who struck out on their own. Why not try to make a catholic living collective? Or contact catholic businesses and families and see if they want a live-in trying for a simpler life in service?

I could be off, so disregard at your leisure - I just had the thought and it seemed relevant.

Those are fair points and I appreciate your input. For me it comes down to the kind of relationship I feel God wants from me. In Catholicism, being a canonically consecrated person has expectations and responsibilities. To be in a community of consecrated people has its own expectations and responsibilities. To be in a monastic community under the Rule of St. Benedict has it�s own expectations and responsibilities. I won�t bore the people in the thread with the details, but suffice to say that living in a monastery of St. Benedict�s order utilizes many of my strengths and offers assistance for some of my weaknesses. For example, I have a hard time praying the five hours/offices of the Liturgy of the Hours by myself with regularity, but when I was coming together with the monastic community to pray them I had no problem.

# ¿ Feb 22, 2022 22:05

Thirteen Orphans: Dec 2, 2012; I am a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist and a theoretical philosopher. But above all, I am a man, a hopelessly inquisitive man, just like you.

Caufman posted:

I regret missing the posts about your experience with monasticism. Is there any avenue for you to pursue a path of lay monasticism within the Church?

I could certainly work with a spiritual director and write my own rule and follow it, but I�m not sure I could be a canonically consecrated* religious doing that. Also I lack discipline and so being all on my own without a surrounding community would be very difficult.

*In the Catholic Church being a consecrated religious is governed by Canon Law. If you aren�t canonically consecrated then you don�t have certain rights afforded to you by being consecrated.

# ¿ Feb 22, 2022 22:23

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 00:03

Thirteen Orphans: Dec 2, 2012; I am a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist and a theoretical philosopher. But above all, I am a man, a hopelessly inquisitive man, just like you.

Tias posted:

Do you have to be somehow approved by the Benedictines to start your own collective who helps each other doing this liturgy?

No, anyone could in theory start a community based off the Rule of St. Benedict and not be in the Benedictine order proper, but man is starting a community like that difficult. Not just to find people to join but also having the community be ecclesiastically approved.

# ¿ Feb 23, 2022 15:09

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Buddhism Thread: Bitch I just told you about kshitigarbha

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