Buddhism! WOW~!

[Olyn]

Totally Buddhist here. Definitely not a religion. I don't think I would call it a philosophy, either. just a way, perhaps.

Yeah. "Way" works. It implements thoughts and actions, so I'd call it a way.

 

[Medatripper Tates]

Yes your experience - then again everything is an experience

Some people seemingly arent that open to "experience" - & to dismiss my point about the cultural aspect not being a powerful influence is short sighted of you - I'm feeling charitable & Buddhistic - can't you tell

well even reading scripture is an experience, yes.

but I don't believe buddhism at its base is about conforming to a religion or philosophy, rather about following oneself inwards and depending on nothing external.

 

[B9]

^ Ah yeah I'd agree with you. My point was to widen the debate/discussion really & to see what the perspective of others was on such matters.

 

[Olyn]

well even reading scripture is an experience, yes.

but I don't believe buddhism at its base is about conforming to a religion or philosophy, rather about following oneself inwards and depending on nothing external.

QFT. That's why I think it's light years ahead of western church-based "religions".

 

[BurnOneDown]

But experience isn't ultimately real, because perception can't be reality. Look how much it can change when effected by psychoactive substance. Our perception is conditioned by survival, and survival is abstraction.

...I don't believe buddhism at its base is about conforming to a religion or philosophy, rather about following oneself inwards and depending on nothing external.

This is absolutely true. Depending on ABSOLUTELY NOTHING external... even Buddhism teaches that the teachings of Buddhism can only bring one so far. The Pali Cannon (basically orginal Buddhist scripture) explain that at some point you have to abandon Buddhist teachings and find the truth within.

 

[tree]

What people are saying about the sort of turning inward and doing the knot tie/untie dissapearing act, exaltation of everything because of its inescapability and lightness, almost a kind of existentialism - that's the way i think of buddhism. (*existentialism is philosophical atheism)
But as I've studied its techniques a little more recently I've found that there is a lot of practical knowhow about directing the energy in your daily life to ends that bring joy, peace, and well-being.

BurnOneDown...I think of karma and reincarnation in terms of the doctrine of mutual arising...this is the Buddhist theory of causality; I think of karma as the form of action that arises from that interior/exterior warp thing, where emptiness and clarity emanate and encompass flowstates in which you feel entirely in control but without grasping. This would be the de to the dao. Pure action, the stroke of the Zen Master's brush an embodiment...What goes around comes around because all experiences leave imprints in your mind, in the ground of mind. And this is where reincarnation connects: effects on our physical environment, always filtered through this totality of our personal ground, leave imprints in the collective ground; every evidence of a sentient beings touch will be absorbed by those sentient beings that encounter it - my teacher calls this "interbeing". And it's all an artwork...it's all about our richness of experience, how we feel and articulate the currents that feed us from the environment. Heh...like a karma flow, rushing rivers of water, seen? Reincarnation as a precise thing is related to the concept of "immortality", the capacity for a being to express a very cohesive presence and leave a bold, unmistakable mark upon the world. Some cultures have ghosts, others have spirits.

 

[BurnOneDown]

BurnOneDown...I think of karma and reincarnation in terms of the doctrine of mutual arising...this is the Buddhist theory of causality;

I think your understanding of mutual rising is the same as my understanding of dependent origination. It's an explanation of the karmic cycle. I just don't see any reason to believe that the self is reincarnated through the attachments it makes in the current life. This is very irrational thought. When my body dies the conditions from which my self has arisen cease, therefore I cease. By what means does my self travel to another physical body? I believe the doctrine of dependent origination explains this step in the cycle as ignorance. I don't think that's a substantial answer. Cessation is cessation.. that is the logical answer for me.

I think of karma as the form of action that arises from that interior/exterior warp thing, where emptiness and clarity emanate and encompass flowstates in which you feel entirely in control but without grasping. This would be the de to the dao. Pure action, the stroke of the Zen Master's brush an embodiment...What goes around comes around because all experiences leave imprints in your mind, in the ground of mind.

I think the flow states are created by pure awareness of experience. They involving giving up control. Control is illusory. By giving up all attachments, one can simply observe the phenomenon of reality.

But Karma is not ultimately real. Actions are not good or bad by nature, they are actions. Good and bad are human concepts. That is where the clinging occurs. Relieve yourself of this belief, act in a manner you feel is righteous, and there is no attachment to past actions. Your self that committed those actions is not the same self that is contemplating those actions so there is no karma attachment. What goes around does not come around because existence is not governed by 'good' or 'bad'. If you take full responsibility for your present state than there is no need for such distinctions. Righteous action is righteous action and there is no expectation of righteous return. I act righteously, and that is very fulfilling.

And this is where reincarnation connects: effects on our physical environment, always filtered through this totality of our personal ground, leave imprints in the collective ground; every evidence of a sentient beings touch will be absorbed by those sentient beings that encounter it - my teacher calls this "interbeing". And it's all an artwork...it's all about our richness of experience, how we feel and articulate the currents that feed us from the environment. Heh...like a karma flow, rushing rivers of water, seen? Reincarnation as a precise thing is related to the concept of "immortality", the capacity for a being to express a very cohesive presence and leave a bold, unmistakable mark upon the world. Some cultures have ghosts, others have spirits.

I don't understand how that connects to reincarnation. I don't think we are immortal through interconnectedness. That mark made will soon be erased with time.

 

[tree]

Right, but subjectivity makes it so karma is pertinent. I think maybe your understanding of karma is different than mine, as essentially involving an absolutist moral dimension? This isn't Christianity. Buddhist ethics are prescriptions that purport to cover the perrenials of human life, so we can live a free existence as individuals in the fullness of time. Your understanding of what's right and wrong will be personal and circumstantial and have to do with all the factors which you perceive, however much you penetrate those perceptions. Penetration of perceptions gives birth to spaciousness, increasing clarity, and this allows one to act more wisely, to spontaneously realize the sensibility and ease of enacting the teachings. Application is personal and this is how "karma" speaks to me...Morality is a very personal thing. Humans are humans. Practicing "karma yoga" of any sort, which is a part the ethics Buddhism prescribes, is a lot different than just checking out some tabulation of your righteousness. That would be like slow motion or retarded karmic processing. You can experience this by watching the television series My Name is Earl =p.

I don't think we disagree really, except that I don't think the concept should be trashed as a straw man...It is integral to all Buddhist teachings. Youre right, the Buddha teaches you to think for yourself. The ultimate reality cannot be captured in a concept, tis true. Responsibility is a precept of most major religions, and this is the chapter title for Buddhism's articulation of it.

Pure karma is freedom. Cessation is liberation. One is the condition of the other, it goes both ways.

Originally Posted by tree
And this is where reincarnation connects: effects on our physical environment, always filtered through this totality of our personal ground, leave imprints in the collective ground; every evidence of a sentient beings touch will be absorbed by those sentient beings that encounter it - my teacher calls this "interbeing". And it's all an artwork...it's all about our richness of experience, how we feel and articulate the currents that feed us from the environment. Heh...like a karma flow, rushing rivers of water, seen? Reincarnation as a precise thing is related to the concept of "immortality", the capacity for a being to express a very cohesive presence and leave a bold, unmistakable mark upon the world. Some cultures have ghosts, others have spirits.

I don't understand how that connects to reincarnation. I don't think we are immortal through interconnectedness. That mark made will soon be erased with time.

Okay, this is the theoretics that I'm working with. The collective ground is the physical world, and is necessarily opaque to humans as it is in itself. On this "luminous continuity of existence" we project our experiences as individuals. Think of experience as an essentially physical thing: these are changes in the bodybrain of an individual. Nothing is without its mark. Though time may reshape marks, all marks are indelible. The resemblace and similarity of form is brought about by human perception, so lineages, patterns, eventually categories are perceptible. We can then recognize things so complex they appear to be "alive" in a way that "dead" matter is not. The evidence of the individual body is extended by the imprints it leaves in the physical world through its activity and artifact. These patterns are recognizable by other beings as signs of life and they become some type, arranged according to that being's channels. This alteration of the experience of the other being is the transference of consciousness. In humans, due to our social nature, we have perceptions structured with the cultural similarities on top, our artifacts bearing their marks, and in this we share our passions and livelihoods. An individual's "ground" is then all of its evidence of its existence: in its body, in the bodies of other beings it has interacted with, in the space it has passed its time. The more cohesive this thing is - the tight-knittedness of the community this person was a part of or the weight placed on this person's presence in the mind of someone they knew; the works of this person as they have been wrought in the hearts of others and in their dwelling and their paths.

My theory is that the very "whole" reincarnation of for example Tibetans is because of the practices in that culture that establish a very strong, distinct, coherent presence, and this is through recognizing the interconnectness of all life experientiality and acting in accord with it. I would say there are a lot of ghosts in our first world nations. Think about the people you've known. What they will amount to when they're gone. In existentialism, that totality is very important. The image in the mind's of others that finally summarizes a person is the catalyst for that person's rebirth: anything that is solid will dissolve. "Self" is forgetting; "Noself" is waking up.

Ok, I've written a whole lot. Sorry if it comes across as preachy at all, I just got lost in some rapping and I hope it will be taken in kind =)

Lastly, to address immortality, I think of it as "really long time", not "forever". Of course, on the lips of the immortal there may often be the words "Forever" coming often as a blissful utterance.

 

[tree]

And I think you're right about flow. I would say "Effortless control" which is to say stress levels like music. Pure awareness of experience + limber thinking

 

[BurnOneDown]

Right, but subjectivity makes it so karma is pertinent. I think maybe your understanding of karma is different than mine, as essentially involving an absolutist moral dimension? This isn't Christianity. Buddhist ethics are prescriptions that purport to cover the perrenials of human life, so we can live a free existence as individuals in the fullness of time. Your understanding of what's right and wrong will be personal and circumstantial and have to do with all the factors which you perceive, however much you penetrate those perceptions. Penetration of perceptions gives birth to spaciousness, increasing clarity, and this allows one to act more wisely, to spontaneously realize the sensibility and ease of enacting the teachings. Application is personal and this is how "karma" speaks to me...Morality is a very personal thing. Humans are humans. Practicing "karma yoga" of any sort, which is a part the ethics Buddhism prescribes, is a lot different than just checking out some tabulation of your righteousness. That would be like slow motion or retarded karmic processing. You can experience this by watching the television series My Name is Earl =p.

I don't think we disagree really, except that I don't think the concept should be trashed as a straw man...It is integral to all Buddhist teachings. Youre right, the Buddha teaches you to think for yourself. The ultimate reality cannot be captured in a concept, tis true. Responsibility is a precept of most major religions, and this is the chapter title for Buddhism's articulation of it.

Pure karma is freedom. Cessation is liberation. One is the condition of the other, it goes both ways.

Yea, My Name Is Early has the most shallow interpretation of Karma I have ever seen. There is spiritual gratification in righteous behavior as long as you are behaving in a manner YOU believe is right. Nothing else matters. Conceptions of good/evil are not ultimately real. Therefore identifying with these concepts is a form of clinging. That is where the karma arises. To be enlightened is to no longer accumulate karma. It is to behave in a righteous manner having nothing to do with conception of good or evil.

We generally don't agree, and I think through discussion we can reach a greater mutual understanding.

About your theory: I think the greatest spiritual gratification is manifested through compassion. I agree on this. I don't think it is about fulfilling the interconnectedness. I think it is about eliminating suffering. Non-self means that there is just suffering. My suffering is not accurate. There is suffering and it must be eliminated to reach spiritual gratification.

 

[tree]

Righteous action is righteous action and there is no expectation of righteous return. I act righteously, and that is very fulfilling.

\

This is where I think we agree, and it's pretty much the end of the discussion because karma is just a word. What you are saying about karma being a relative truth and not an absolute truth is discussed in Buddhist theory, even Theravadan I think, but I don't dispose of relative truths?? If you use Buddhism both as a set of techniques and as a philosophy as I think you said above in the thread,...well I guess it wouldn't be necessary to have the concept of karma. Reincarnation, though, as I see it, is "magic". Patterns are transferred culturally, and immortality can be seen as a degree on the continuous scale of purity of karma...Long life. I like the concepts of karma and reincarnation, they can both be analogically understood through reference to physical science and memetics, materialism and cultural theoretics. I think this way because that's what I grew up with - if I grew up in a Buddhist culture I would I think have a much less articulable version of these concepts - most of it would be required to be self-explanatory.

 

[tree]

re: "Spiritual Gratification"

" 218. He in whom a desire for the Ineffable (Nirvâna) has sprung up, who is satisfied in his mind, and whose thoughts are not bewildered by love, he is called ûrdhvamsrotas (carried upwards by the stream).

219. Kinsmen, friends, and lovers salute a man who has been long away, and returns safe from afar.

220. In like manner his good works receive him who has done good, and has gone from this world to the other;--as kinsmen receive a friend on his return."
-Dhammapada, 16, "Pleasure"

Notice how in 220 there is no mention of self, but good works? This is why
I think interconnectedness is the natural ongoing reveal-ation that informs the real-ization of meditation practice, or bodhi mind, which is spontaneously compassionate. In my experience, the more my mind has been elevated the more it sounds like a low purr rather than a loud clatter while it approaches the tasks of reconciling the conflicts of my desires with my changing social and physical circumstances.

 

[B9]

^ I like that post a lot - my mind still clatters & clashes mind you

 

[Medatripper Tates]

^^ werd

 

[tree]

oh yeah man i am having major clatter today. little kid with kitchen pots.

 

[neonads]

Tell me this please - do you think buddhism a philosophy or a religion ?

In Mandarin, philosophy and religion translate to the same word.

The best thing about Buddhism is that it realises that goodness is in all of us as long as we're true to ourselves. All the rest flows from there and to focus on specific morals/issues without this as a core is wasteful. The focus is better spent on making sure you are being honest in your thoughts.

 

[BurnOneDown]

re: "Spiritual Gratification"

" 218. He in whom a desire for the Ineffable (Nirvâna) has sprung up, who is satisfied in his mind, and whose thoughts are not bewildered by love, he is called ûrdhvamsrotas (carried upwards by the stream).

219. Kinsmen, friends, and lovers salute a man who has been long away, and returns safe from afar.

220. In like manner his good works receive him who has done good, and has gone from this world to the other;--as kinsmen receive a friend on his return."
-Dhammapada, 16, "Pleasure"

Notice how in 220 there is no mention of self, but good works? This is why
I think interconnectedness is the natural ongoing reveal-ation that informs the real-ization of meditation practice, or bodhi mind, which is spontaneously compassionate. In my experience, the more my mind has been elevated the more it sounds like a low purr rather than a loud clatter while it approaches the tasks of reconciling the conflicts of my desires with my changing social and physical circumstances.

Wow, that sounds like what I need. Stuff like doing homework after class and lacrosse all day still gets me down. I am trying to figure out where this expectation of not having to do school work (really any kind of work) comes from, but after reading your post I think meditating will offer me more practical insight. Perhaps that is what inclines you towards your particular beliefs.

I think the instant compassion comes from non-self rather than interconnectedness. Yes, we are all connected, but in no significance to one another. Once there is insight into non-self, it is understood that there are no selves obviously. There is a motivation to end suffering, which is no longer a state isolated to personal experience.

This may be where interconnectedness comes into play now that I am thinking about it. It is obvious that suffering causing suffering, in a viral sort of way. Although, even if it didn't, Buddhists would still seek to end all suffering. Maybe interconnectedness offers a greater understanding of the connections suffering has between people. I'm not sure though. I always though it was a concept used to explain the emptiness of all things and dependent origination.

 

[dbailey11]

I don't have anything deep or insightful to add to this thread but I think you'll all get a giggle from this

 

[Spucky]

Maybe you need to look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pure_Land
This is, in my Mind!, the real consequence!
U have to check up the links!

You can be right, even if U are a zero.

Edit: i am just comming back from a visit.
Our shrine say`s:
Wake up with Hope,
Work hard in the daytime (follow the 8 noble Path and do your Homework)
and
be happy when you go to bed!

There is much Wisdom inside.
Do not suffer anymore!

 

[JimiHawK*]

QFT. That's why I think it's light years ahead of western church-based "religions".

Read the quotes from the bible, then read some writing about Buddhism, you will find they share many many similarities. I believe Jesus had a NDE/mystical experience/ego death/etc and because people had less to base their ego on in those days, it made it much easier for people to believe him (even though only at face value, which is a unfortunate).

Nowadays, you try to get a point of view in that differs from the norm and you get ripped a new asshole!

hehe