The Longer One Studies The Dharma The Better One Becomes At Putting It Into Practice ?
Shoshin
No one in particularNowhere Special Veteran
"The Longer One Studies The Dharma The Better One Becomes At Putting It Into Practice !"
Or do they?
Is it possible that past karma can bite one in the bum- put the brakes on ones progress ?
Sometimes you can tell when a person has got this Dharma thing down pat...They seem to breeze through life going with the flow (Even those who have physical disabilities or a chronic illness often putting the able bodied and healthy to shame )
Then you have others who have also studied the same amount of time (Or in some cases even longer) plus gone on all the retreats, listened to all the Dharma talks, yet still tend to struggle with the mundane things that have plagued them since before entering the Dharmic path...
I can only put this down to past karmic events....(But I guess one should also bear in mind that one can change the flow of karma- the path one is on is not fixed)
If one takes the many rebirths into account (trials & errors) the odds are one could nail it this time round...
What are your thoughts on this ?
When it comes to progress on the path ....Is there a natural mystic blowing through the air ? Mystical Karmic connection (Wholesome= going with the flow Unwholesome= going against the grain )
Comments
@Shoshin
**The Longer One Studies The Dharma The Better One Becomes At Putting It Into Practice ?
**
Nope!
Study doesn't necessarily mean the comprehension or the application of what you study.
&
becoming attached to what you study, or who is doing the studying, is not putting the Dharma into practice.
Intellect is one thing. Action is another.
True...It was an interesting observation...When I first started on the path I was under the impression those who had been long term practitioners and who could Talk the Talk were also practice savvy, but this naivety was short lived...For some their struggles seem to continue, no great improvement in their day to day lives , so I add karma and other factors, such as ones inability to let go/drop it into the equation...(Sadly it would seem that certain situations attachment to the what was and the what might be still attracts/entangles them...Perhaps they're not able or willing to just drop it ie too much thinking/ intellectualising )
And that's a great point everyone, Duh!
WhadidIsay?
I can be intellectual , but it would bore you stoopid! Doh!,
I could be opposite and bore you stupid. Yet we could sit down and make bread from dough!
Though all you really need is... No..............
@Shoshin
Long term practitioners often develop enough spiritual speak to be able to give anything a spiritual patina. It is too often used to justify ignorance when doing otherwise challenges one's attachments.
Better to stay the perpetual newby in the awe of each unfolding moment than an experienced practitioner in thrall to their own tongue.
"Beware of unhappy Buddhists, they are not really practising, but just being intellectual!"
'Practitioner' eventually trancends recognizable behavour traits. In other words one is not aligned or confined to dharma, being Buddhist, practicing, beginner mind, advanced, skilfull etc.
Knowing that does not make it so. Being ignorant is after all nothing more than a sham.
I would rephrase! "The longer one practices, the better one becomes at putting it into practice." If you want to become better at something, generally you just practice it. If you want to become better at putting it into practice, then practice putting it into practice.
Well said. It can too easily become a bit of an ego trip, knowing lots of stuff.
Or as my father once said to a guest (and fortunately, very good friend) who was eulogising about how wonderful my mother's cooking was -
"Just shut up, and eat!"
Doing, and not saying, is practice.
Saying and not doing, is hypocrisy.
Sort yourself out.
That's just good manners!
The longer we do anything, the better we get at doing it.
If you begin your study of Dharma with a raft of preconceived notions about 'what Dharma should be', you'll only see bits and shreds here and there and rapidly go nowhere because your preconceived notions block 98% of the available Dharma. I suppose this is how a person can study their buns off for years and still need help coping with the same old things.
The Beginner's Mind is for me a gradual undoing. I don't even know how DONE I am
and so it's a journey of letting go and unraveling so my practice is more and more OPEN to what Dharma is.
I believe I've made more progress doing THIS than actually 'getting' Dharma, if that makes sense?
That said how much I'm not aware of is just beginning to dawn on me. It's part of why I'm taking a free Coursera class in "Mathematical Thinking". If Dharma is the 'Truth', and logical thought process is a 'freeway' to truth, it follows to clean up my logical thinking. It's not groundbreaking, it's just another thing to help clear the brush.
Agreed. But he'd been banging on during starter, after starter, during main course, and just made my mother embarrassed.....I mean, really, 20-minutes non-stop, was wearing a it thin....
Wow @Hamsaka learning how to be logical, good plan. Some of us need to be less logical . . . ultimately there is no logic in love, though there might be a program of causations . . . maybe we are more than the sum of the parts . . .
Here is my formula
1-1=infinity(0)
or how about
1+1=no one steps in the same river twice
. . . two don't exist? [lobster faints]
Good luck with your course
Thanks @lobster. I know love is irrational and 'logic' has its limitations. I want to know what those limitations ARE.
I've been just like the next person, aware that purely being logical and rational flattens existence and does not make much room for things like love, transcendence and Awakening. But like the next person, I have no personal experience of the true limits of logic. I've tended to place limits on it that may not exist. Logic indeed may inform me of much, may make sense out of much that doesn't make sense, and if the pursuit of what is essentially true is also known as the Dharma, it makes sense that a personal relationship with logic will help me to grasp, utilize and surrender to the Dharma.
And the point of this very intellectual statement is?
...\lol/..
Logic is my nature. It seems at least somewhat genetic. Even my feelings, I can't just feel, I have to logic them (if I can make logic a verb, lol). I don't wear my heart on my sleeve, and learning to love and have compassion for everyone has been something I did have to learn. Am still learning. For some it comes completely naturally.
This is a little off topic, but I was just thinking of it last night. I know a lot of people who are naturally compassionate. They love everyone, and everyone loves them. Not in a fake kind of way, it's just who they are. They wear their hearts on their sleeves, and they are open to everyone they meet. No walls. I think that's extraordinary.
But I also have noticed, and it might just be me, but people who live in a "heart on their sleeve" way entirely seem to be more likely to be victims of dementia and alzheimers. I know there have been connections made between doing logical types of puzzles and helping prevent brain decline. So it could just be that. But sadly, so many of the absolutely most open, loving people I've ever known, fell ill with dementia of one type or another.
Suzuki used to say that Zen is the art of "seeing into one's nature."
Bodhidharma said: "If you have not seen into your own nature, what is the use of thinking of the Buddha, reciting the suttas or keeping the precepts?"
In "Buddhism in Daily Life," Nina van Gorkom thoroughly explains the principles of Abhidhamma, and stresses the importance of constantly observing the workings of our psyche, how wholesome and unwholesome cittas arise, how they impel us into action, and how, in a nutshell, "in understanding more about physical phenomena and mental phenomena, and in being aware of them in daily life, wisdom will develop. [...] We do not refrain from evil things because we have to follow certain rules, but because we have more understanding as to which causes bring which effects."
Studying the Dharma is not enough.
There is never an "enough," but actually comprehending the Dharma, making the internal click to live the Dharma or as @Shoshin said it, put it into practise, that should be a glimpse, a beginning of an "enough."
Or of being on the right track.
Mara is difficult to defeat. It may take lifetimes for some.
What do you mean, 'it may take lifetimes for some."...? It has already, hasn't it...?!
Lifetimes! Sheer luxury! I've been at this since the big bleedin' bang.
The most recent one ?
No, not just the last one! Many periods of expansion and contraction.....
I know... dieting's a bummer, isn't it....?
Practice is the best Dharma study.
I would have to say yes but maybe not always. And I am taking it as a person relative to a hypothetical 'self' of them rather than comparing Joe Blow and John Doe.
And that's why it is so hard to practice. That big honking ignorance is an obstruction and it could go on endlessly without giving the effort needed to start the upward spiral.
Some people don't have as much favorable conditions. Like in school troubles or picked for sports. But the big thing that is interesting is "who are we to designate what is or isn't good practice?" I guess the adage "a mile in my moccasins"... We think that grandiosity has no sympathy whereas it is tragic. The bodhisattvas say it is the hardest for them to see someone sowing future seeds of suffering. That is worse than seeing them actually suffer.
One view is all of existence is just being thrown out into samsara and then brought back by the triple gem through all times and spaces. So the question then is whether we get better at that state of affairs.
Thus I have heard: through past wholesome actions one might find themselves in a very favourable position, (rich, successful, leading the 'good' life, etc) but if they waste the opportunity by acting in an unskilful way this too will come back to bite them on the bum...
@Jeffrey In regards to opportunities to practice...One would think that Karma would dictate the favourable or unfavourable conditions people find themselves in ...But in the long run it's down to the individual to get their act together....
And only time will tell if ones action are truly wholesome or unwholesome...
Logic is a part of your nature that can be improved and developed. So too can the emotive forces be allowed to express their innate quality. The important thing is to find what we love, nature maybe and leave that illogical pass through thought . . .
Enjoy without processing . . . just a feeling . . .
In the Christian Gnostic group I belonged to it was described as a rosebud. Tight, like a Buddhist lotus bud. How do we connect? Feel the practice. Find the feeling. Lose the doing. Into the Being that @Jayantha mentions in another thread . . .
This buddhist nun have been 45 years in solitary retreat.
Receiting the mantra um mani padme hum
So she have been planting good seeds for a long time!
For whom? To what end?
What you say is initially and for most an important path . . . however here is a hopefully relevant post I recently made to a dervish group. There are many dervish specific symbols here but in a sense 'The Path' is eventualy everywhere we turn . . .
Similar ideas from a Buddhist perspective are touched on here
http://themindunleashed.org/2015/03/12-pieces-of-buddhist-wisdom-that-will-transform-your-life.html
@Shoshin in some sense it is up to the individual. They start a practice and study or find a teacher. But in some the sense it is not up to the individual because they don't control it rather it just happens. The penny drops. Some Zen story about a lady who meditated 40 years and then suddenly attained enlightenment when her bucket she fetched water broke a hole.
The essence of patience is one who will never attain fulfillment and thereby the question of fulfillment/non-fulfillment is seen as a duality.