Buddhism

What Make You Not A Buddhist -- Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse

still wanna know if anyone else has read this, or if it's just wee-wee buddhism lite for western herbs

also just got zen at war from the library and have read the first chapter---v interesting! but will have to wait until after exams :-/

http://www.jetcityorange.com/Buddhism/Heart-Sutra-wordle.gif
word cloud of the heart sutra

gbx i have heard from friends that the book is quite quite good! can't vouch personally

Soooooooo siddhis. Fuck.

what do yall think about that dolly llamer fella

I enjoyed Living Buddha, Living Christ by Thich Nhat Hanh- it tries to highlight the similarities between Buddhism & Christianity, although I'm convinced those too are not entirely reconcilable. Still, it was interesting.

I also enjoy Gary Snyder's zen influenced poems

btw read through Shambhala: Way of the Warrior over the winter and came away kinda unimpressed. it was my first (and thus far only) trungpa book. should i try elsewise?

HOOS's insights & thoughts about his practice fill me with suc joy & affection & inspiration - your practice, in itself, ups downs & all, just knowing that it's going on, is a tangible good to at least one other sentient being!

also. The Posting Of The Fenriz Pic is actually a v. v. advanced Zen practice seldom achieved, esp. in Kali-Yuga, so you should feel pretty stoked about that

q for u horrible idolators:

the world's foremost (only?) buddhist theocracy, bhutan, prohibits mountaineers from climbing the peaks in their stretch of the himalaya. since these places aren't ~actually~ sacred (they're just some dumb fucking mountains, god), what is the buddhist rationale for this? a man stands on a rock at the top of a mountain, another man poops, who cares. etc.

(nb - i am only the most armchairiest of armchair mountaineers (and "buddhist"), i'm just curious about this bit of dogma)

spiritual cooties

I cannot swear to it, as I am only guessing. I think the rationale goes roughly like this:

The source of suffering is desire. (<- One of the Four Noble Truths).

Mountaineers bring with them new, strange desires from outside Bhutanese traditional culture. Whether it is the desire to climb the mountain, as approached through a western perspective, or familiarizing remote villagers with new western luxuries. These novelties are unsettling and not especially worthwhile. Iow, mountain climbers will just stir up suffering in novel ways the culture is poorly equipped to deal with.

Afaik, the bhutanese regime does not reject all western values or products, but it prefers to mull them over and admit them in increments. It is paternalistic, but seems to work for them at least as well as the free-for-all chaos most of the liberalized west embraces.

that's kinda what i had assumed, but thx!

i mean, i had guessed that attaining a summit is its own kind of ~grasping~, but it also seemed to me that bestowing sacred status to a mountain was antithetical to some buddhist teachings.

bhutan is pretty cool iirc - don't they conduct a nation-wide happiness survey? they are one of the most happy nations in the world iirc.

i really want to go there so bad :-/

don't bhut-an it

j/k! you should totes go. here's what I was talking about, gross national happiness

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_National_Happiness

~gross!~

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJJa3s_U0wA&feature=player_embedded

Am re-reading this guy's book Sit Down & Shut Up alongside a re-read of Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha. I'm drawn to the Theravada side because, in a word, the Mahayana gets so fuckin boring. Warner does a good job of jazzing up the concepts with his style of writing, but that doesn't change the fact that the core practice of Soto style is trying really hard to do nothing and ignore whatever happens in your head, where the Theravadans I'm reading insist on inducing specific stuff to happen in your head while you sit--that's way more ~exciting~ and speaks to my to-do-list mindset, you know?

And yet maybe a practice that speaks to & even nurtures my productivity neuroses is the opposite of what I need.

Thoughts, anybody?

i dont think ive ever done theraveda style meditation but doesn't the little vehicle thing refer to the nirvana or bust, monk-like devotion? i kinda like the way mahayana loops back around into reality

Well there's been somethin of a renaissance in the last few decades of lay westerners coming to Theravada teachings without doing the whole "shaving your head and moving to nepal" thing, though of course that's exactly what most of these ~renaissance teachers~ did for their training before they brought it back to the states for lazy Buddhists like me.

caring abt people: zzzz
chillin out: a+

oh god this thread just fills me w/loathing, so i am clearly the best to make pronouncements on dharma, this brad warner guy judging by 3 minutes of googling is p much embodies everything tedious and half assed abt young western teacher bros who think they know what buddism is all abt, theyre always writing and talking abt what the buddha really taught, how convenient

----

i mean, i had guessed that attaining a summit is its own kind of ~grasping~, but it also seemed to me that bestowing sacred status to a mountain was antithetical to some buddhist teachings.

― drink more beer and the doctor is a heghog (gbx), Friday, April 2, 2010 9:08 PM (9 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this im sure has nothing to do w/bhutans reasoning, nor does the dharma as actually practiced resemble the heady western psychologized ideal, id hazard to guess their motivation lies in a combination of thoroughly absorbed pre buddhist animistic traditions and really really not wanting to be nepal

its interesting the dharma completely accommodated all sorts of voodoo magic and now its accommodating western psychological self regard

I think it's interesting that you're interpreting Warner's Soto boringness as Western self-regard w/o a word for the self that chases crazy visions in the jhanas.

btw i realize my judgement of bro warder is snap and unfair - he just seems v much a piece w/a lot of other things people are doing mucking around - there are people who i grew up w/who are writing dharma books! and they are so boring and meaningless - everyone seems v uncomfortable w/the power and culture of irl buddhism - its too messy - theyd rather wonder abt whether buddhists have a responsibility to recycle and vote - the dharma punx are of course the nadir of this movement

correct

this is what im talking abt!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YDXCzNwO-A

like more than once i've thought of getting involved with the ~interdependence project~ but it seems more like dharma social club--buy our t-shirts! come to our picnics!--

xp

lol yes founded by one of my esteemed peers smh

caring abt people: zzzz
chillin out: a+

― ice cr?m, Saturday, January 29, 2011 8:26 PM

love this post

I mean I think it's a question of whether or not we ~want the Dharma to take root in the West~ and shit, what would a truly western incarnation of the teachings look like, covered in the same number of cultural doodads that it picked up on its growth in Asia? And I think part of the answer, unfortunately, is that the same way the teachings picked up unfortunate cultural accoutrements throughout history, the same is occurring now as it gets bound up in the sorta 21st century-stuff-white-buddhists-like machine

imo the way tho it adapts is not through navel gazing by people who are too afraid to do more than scratch the surface - the way that darmha will take root in the west is by people practicing it wholeheartedly - then after like three generations you have something that maybe looks a little bit different on the surface but retains the same core potency - and no one particularly tried to or worried abt changing it

as a cavat i will say its totally fine and good for people to present the teachings so that the people theyre speaking to will understand them - teachers who have actual meditative realization should by all means feel the most free to play w/this - unfortunately a lot of entry level dudes are confusing this approach and modifying things they dont particularly understand to suit their own neurosis

i mean if you cant wrap yr head around calling yrself a buddhist maybe stay home and think abt it, the conceptual barriers only get larger from there

my atheist friend's parents who are christians have been trying to get him to go to a local buddhist meeting so he can have "some kind of spiritual view on life" cuz they know there's no way he'll ever go to a christian church. i think they're attempting to edge him along a sliding scale of belief until eventually he's going to church with them every week. he doesn't want to go, anyway. seems stupid, because he is more philosophical and ethical then most religious people i know as he is.

btw if you ever want to meet some westerners who have humbly dedicated themselves to the dharma check out these doodz, yes they are singing and enjoying themselves, deal w/it *sunglasses*

http://grab.by/8FcB

imo the way tho it adapts is not through navel gazing by people who are too afraid to do more than scratch the surface - the way that darmha will take root in the west is by people practicing it wholeheartedly

I don't claim to be able to assess whether anybody else is practicing wholeheartedly or not, but it does seem to me that there are a lot of people thoroughly engaged in a panoply of practices, and I think that exactly qualifies as the kind of planting the teachings in the soil here that we're talking about here. I--me speaking for me (in THIS thread that's funny)--don't think we can speak of the dharma with the kind of certainty that you're deploying here.

Dogen's practice in Japan in 1200 was the same as Warner's practice in 2010, and I don't think we can say that Dogen designed the Soto lineage with our hangups in mind. I agree with you that the accoutrements are silly, but I--speaking for me, as a rep of a diff lineage!!--don't think we can discount other lineage's practices as less advanced or 'shallower.'

I know this is a thing we won't agree on, but you know, such as it is.

Now somebody call me a weak-kneed syncretic.

Of course I say that knowing plenty of post-hippie Soto cats who disdain anything other than zazen as 'chasing acid trips,' so I'm not really repping anybody's opinion but my own here.

i dont think accoutrements are silly particularly, in fact i think theyre v important, they just need to be the accoutrements that enlighten rather than obscure - and i agree there are lots of people practicing wholeheartedly, certainly more wholeheartedly than me, and thats wonderful

my point i guess is basically: a) there are people who annoy me and are dumb b) they should stop

hahaq

^^ shh secret lojong slogans

lorong slogans

lolong lolgans

lol

Almost all Mahayana Buddhists regard themselves as practicing a superior form of Buddhism, the “large vehicle” of greater aspirations, higher view, and deeper compassion, which they contrast to a so-called “Hinayana” or smaller, inferior vehicle. Many Theravadins regard themselves as practicing a “pure” or “original” form of Buddhism, rather than degenerate Mahayana. Because the term “Hinayana” originated in Mahayana sectarian polemics and has never been a self-designation used by any Buddhist group, I make a special effort to discourage use of this term whenever I teach Buddhist history in a Mahayana or Vajrayana context. Many Westerners who practice a Tibetan-based form of Buddhism find it difficult to accept and assimilate this change into their speech habits no matter how many times the reasons for doing so are explained. Nevertheless, I continue to argue that the term “Hinayana” simply needs to be dropped from our vocabulary. In a pluralistic, diverse Buddhist world that is informed by an accurate understanding of Buddhist history, the term “Hinayana” is deeply inappropriate. I also suggest that the idea of progressive stages of development from “lower” to “higher” may not be the best way to understand Buddhist internal diversity.

boom

eh its part of the samaya vow to not denigrate other forms of buddhism fyi - so i mean this lady who thinks shes thinking big is just going over something thats considered already settled from a tantric pov - and i think you know being ecumenical is good as far as being open minded but if youre using it to not relate to or understand the philosophical differences in varied traditions than its just stupid

and of course she has absolutely no business just changing buddhist terminology just to suit her personal beliefs

extremely weak sauce over all

btw i am aquatinted w/her, one summer at shambhala mountain center she wore this gross cat sweatshirt around all the time w/three cats on the front facing forward and on the back were their raised tails hind legs and everything - nagl

i mean that whole essay is so buddhist challops - as if practitioners are sitting around worrying abt the origins of mahayana, thinking abt how lame theravada is - they are not! they are trying to understand how to work w/their minds, how to be kind to people