Best Of
Re: Bodhisattvas?
This thread actually brought me back to a discussion I started here about six years ago, called Advice on adding ritual to practice. It is interesting to read it now because I can see how much my practice has changed since then.
At the time, I was looking for ways to add ritual and devotion to what had largely been a philosophical and meditation-oriented Buddhist practice. I was considering Nembutsu, prostrations, huatou, Silent Illumination, and eventually the Eight Great Bodhisattvas and various Dharma protectors. I initially thought I needed to find a place for several Bodhisattvas in my practice.
Looking back, I don't think I was trying to “collect” practices. I simply had the feeling that I wasn't doing enough. I thought that if my practice felt incomplete, perhaps the answer was to add something else; another Bodhisattva, another practice, another form of devotion.
What eventually became clear to me was that I didn't actually need more. I needed to go deeper into what was already there.
And in that process, something rather unexpected happened.
I had originally been looking for ways to incorporate multiple Bodhisattvas into my practice. Instead, I found that I needed one.
For me, that became Guanyin (Avalokiteśvara).
She has gradually become much more than an object of devotion or an image representing compassion. She has become the central orientation of my practice. The important distinction for me is that I don't think of Guanyin as someone who is going to save me. Rather, she represents the direction in which I am trying to train my own mind and conduct: learning to listen, to notice suffering, and to respond with compassion.
My practice has consequently become fairly simple at its core, although it is an amalgamation of influences from Chan, Theravāda, and Tibetan Buddhism. Over time, I have drawn practices and teachings from these different traditions that have spoken to the same direction of practice for me.
Sati — awareness.
I cultivate mindfulness and presence, beginning with the breath and extending into ordinary life. The point isn't simply to become more attentive, but to become less lost in habitual thought and reactivity.
Mettā — kindness.
Awareness without kindness can become rather dry. So I deliberately cultivate loving-kindness toward myself and others, and try to carry that into relationships and ordinary interactions.
Karuṇā — compassionate response.
This is where Guanyin becomes particularly important. Compassion isn't simply feeling sorry for someone. It means allowing what I hear and perceive to actually affect how I respond.
And then there is Guanyin herself as the thread running through all of it.
Her name and imagery remind me to listen. The question “Who is hearing?” gives me one way of turning attention inward, while listening to sound and to other people gives me a way of turning that same attention outward. In that sense, listening becomes both meditation and ethical practice. The connection isn't something I invented retrospectively; the practices I follow draw on the Buddhist tradition of Guanyin as the one who hears the cries of the world, including practices centered on hearing itself.
So I suppose my answer to the original question is that Bodhisattvas are extremely important to my practice; but I don't really approach them as a collection of supernatural beings I need to incorporate.
I found that one was enough.
Guanyin gives me an image, a practice, an aspiration, and a constant question: Am I actually listening?
And perhaps that is the biggest difference between where I was six years ago and where I am now. Back then I was asking, “What else should I add to my practice?”
Now I'm much more interested in asking, “How deeply can I actually practice what I've already been given?”
The ritual is still there. The prostrations, recitation, imagery and devotional elements didn't disappear. But they became means of embodying the practice rather than things I was collecting.
In a way, I went looking for Bodhisattvas and eventually discovered that I was looking for a way to make compassion the organizing principle of my practice.
Guanyin just happened to be the form through which that became real for me.
Re: What books are you reading?
I’ve had similar reactions to the way some Buddhist texts talk about Hell, especially when the language is very absolute or very dramatic. What’s helped me over the years is shifting the frame from “places we go after death” to “realms we move through moment by moment.”
In the older Buddhist cosmology, the hell realms aren’t just locations — they’re descriptions of what the mind feels like when it’s overwhelmed by certain patterns. Anyone who has been caught in rage, shame, or self‑loathing already knows what a hell realm feels like. It’s not somewhere you go, it’s a state you enter, often many times a day, depending on where the mind lands.
From that perspective, the warnings in texts like The Way of the Bodhisattva stop sounding like threats and start sounding like psychological descriptions. “Falling into Hell” becomes “falling into a mental state where suffering becomes intense and self‑reinforcing.” And “walking the Dharma path” becomes “learning how to recognize those states early, soften them, and step out of them before they harden.”
For me, that makes the whole thing much more workable. Instead of imagining some cosmic judge sending people to eternal torment, I can look at my own experience: how anger creates a world where everything feels hostile, how fear creates a world where everything feels dangerous, how craving creates a world where nothing is ever enough. These are realms too — and they shift as quickly as attention shifts.
So when I read strict passages now, I take them as reminders of how dramatically the mind can change the world we seem to inhabit. Not as predictions about the afterlife, but as descriptions of the landscapes we walk through every day.
What my practice is now...
This thread actually brought me back to a discussion I started here about six years ago, called Advice on adding ritual to practice. It is interesting to read it now because I can see how much my practice has changed since then.
At the time, I was looking for ways to add ritual and devotion to what had largely been a philosophical and meditation-oriented Buddhist practice. I was considering Nembutsu, huatou, Silent Illumination, and eventually the Eight Great Bodhisattvas and various Dharma protectors. I initially thought I needed to find a place for several Bodhisattvas in my practice.
Looking back, I don't think I was trying to “collect” practices. I simply had the feeling that I wasn't doing enough. I thought that if my practice felt incomplete, perhaps the answer was to add something else; another Bodhisattva, another practice, another form of devotion.
What eventually became clear to me was that I didn't actually need more. I needed to go deeper into what was already there.
And in that process, something rather unexpected happened.
I had originally been looking for ways to incorporate multiple Bodhisattvas into my practice. Instead, I found that I needed one.
For me, that became Guanyin (Avalokiteśvara).
She has gradually become much more than an object of devotion or an image representing compassion. She has become the central orientation of my practice. The important distinction for me is that I don't think of Guanyin as someone who is going to save me. Rather, she represents the direction in which I am trying to train my own mind and conduct: learning to listen, to notice suffering, and to respond with compassion.
My practice has consequently become fairly simple at its core, although it is an amalgamation of influences from Chan, Theravada, Tibetan (Vajrayana), and Pureland. Over time, I have drawn practices and teachings from these different traditions that have spoken to the same direction of practice for me.
Sati — awareness.
I cultivate mindfulness and presence, beginning with the breath and extending into ordinary life. The point isn't simply to become more attentive, but to become less lost in habitual thought and reactivity.
Mettā — kindness.
Awareness without kindness can become rather dry. So I deliberately cultivate loving-kindness toward myself and others, and try to carry that into relationships and ordinary interactions.
Karuṇā — compassionate response.
This is where Guanyin becomes particularly important. Compassion isn't simply feeling sorry for someone. It means allowing what I hear and perceive to actually affect how I respond.
And then there is Guanyin herself as the thread running through all of it.
Her name and imagery remind me to listen. The Huatou question “Who is listening?” gives me one way of turning attention inward, while listening to sound gives me a way of turning that same attention outward. In that sense, listening becomes both meditation and ethical practice. The connection isn't something I invented retrospectively; the practices I follow draw on the Buddhist tradition of Guanyin as the one who hears the cries of the world, including practices centered on hearing itself.
So I suppose my answer to the original question is that Bodhisattvas are extremely important to my practice; but I don't really approach them as a collection of supernatural beings I need to incorporate.
I found that one was enough.
Guanyin gives me an image, a practice, an aspiration, and a constant question: Am I actually listening?
And perhaps that is the biggest difference between where I was six years ago and where I am now. Back then I was asking, “What else should I add to my practice?”
Now I'm much more interested in asking, “How deeply can I actually practice what I've already been given?”
The ritual is still there. The prostrations, recitation, imagery and devotional elements didn't disappear. But they became means of embodying the practice, and became connected to one cohesive theme, rather than being separate things I was collecting.
Re: The Manosphere and it’s anti-women sentiments
Well, I think a big part of men’s issues is having lost the role of provider. Back in the sixties a factory worker’s wage would sustain an entire family, nowadays father and mother both work to sustain the family.
Jeroen
Re: No Buddhist Quotes
I believe that God is on Earth, in every living being. What we call the "divine" is nothing more than the energy of awakening, peace, understanding, and love, which we find not only in every human being, but also in all species on Earth.
~Thich Nhat Hanh
Jeffrey
Re: Just for fun: the random, useless announcements thread!
Based on the reccomendation of Bob Harwood, a Zen master and also businessman, I try to buy all non-perishable household items that I repeatedly use when they are heavily discounted. Then, I buy a lot. Today I bought 9 packets of toothpaste at a great price. Great success! 😃
marcitko
Re: Being a light unto yourself
first, the English government deliberately separated the Palestinians and Israeli territories that set up the conflict. The Israeli government then told the Palestinians "You have to leave." The American government treated Israel as the Liberia of the Middle East.
Then the Christian Right (Wrong) placed Israel as a cornerstone of their End Times.
In the US, many of our politicians are bought and paid for by the Israeli lobby.
Under Netanyahu and company, Israel (not Judaism) is going under the lie that all of Palestine is Israeli territory by default the Palestinians are squatters.
Genocide is genocide, regardless of who is committing it and to whom.
Us (We) and others (They) is an artificial construct to make people "less than".
Everyone has the right to life and to peace.
Peace to all
Lionduck
Re: Being a light unto yourself
This is a pretty grim conversation
BUT it is something on the nature of compassion and people's behaviour.
These people are lights unto themselves.
lobster
Re: The Dark Side of Mindfulness
In my experience with depression I have found walking meditation a little better than sitting when I am having symptoms.
During psychosis sometimes I stop meditating altogether out of worry to make the mind that is already having to much energy to increase. During these I cease meditating and then restart when my symptoms cease.
Jeffrey
Re: The Dark Side of Mindfulness
@person said:
Zen is fairly meditation forward. But my overall point was that the way meditation is treated in the west today is a new development, different from how it has been treated traditionally.
Very true. A lot of people seem to be following the advice of teachers like Ram Das to “turn inwards”, and many alternative practitioners believe that meditation will eventually save the world. It is a large inwards turn of mankind’s spiritual energy.
I’m discounting the traditional religions here, because most of them seem to exist for the benefit of the priests. Last I heard an edict came out of the Catholic Church that forbade communicating directly with God, how crazy can you get. I don’t count their practices as spiritual anymore.
Its oversold, it lacks the traditional support framing and personal guidance.
It’s the overwhelming popularity that makes that lack of a support framework apparent. Our society is very good at disseminating information, leading to growths of movements and trends that would otherwise take hundreds of years now suddenly appear in six months.
Jeroen