Best Of
Re: 6 karmic realms
@Jeroen said:
The whole idea of the realms seems odd to me. Who could have explored them, or reported on them? Perhaps it was a teaching device?
Yes, it does kind of go back to older days when it was believed it was more possible for people to have visions, or even travel directly, of these places.
But there is plenty there to view it through a modern lens as a teaching device with everyday parallels. People living in their own mental hell or hungry ghost realm. I see the god and demi god realms as that of billionaires and millionaires, yes millionaires are doing well, but are often still envious of those who have more.
person
Re: Funny Stuff
I really appreciate it when a tradesman really perfects his craft and brings to a larger market...
person
Re: Can the mind be conditioned into enlightenment?
@Jeroen said:
Since the human realm is part of the desire realm, don’t we all have intimate knowledge of it?
Indeed.
We all have predominant 'tendencies' and also insights throughout life. We also can move in a different field of experience, untainted by our past, present and future. A condition of how it is possible to be 'In the world but not of it' as some of the Gnostic Christians state it...
lobster
Re: Meditation as a state of mind
I woke this morning after a dream about our house being broken into.
AND the emotion/Mind stayed in fear. Much to my surprise. An arising. That was not calmed by meditation but physical exercise.
In Buddhism the Mind includes feeling and sensations. As most of us know.
The experience we have is the Mind. This is what we practice and try to integrate with using tools we have gained. 
lobster
Re: Buddhist View of Justice
"All tremble at the rod. All fear death. Comparing others with oneself, one should neither strike nor cause to strike.
All tremble at the rod. Life is dear to all. Comparing others with oneself, one should neither strike nor cause to strike.
Whoever tries to seek happiness through hurting others, cannot find happiness.
Whoever tries to seek happiness without hurting others, can find happiness.
Speak not harshly to anyone. Those thus addressed will retort. Painful, indeed, is vindictive speech. Blows in exchange may bruise you.
If, like a cracked gong, you silence yourself, you have already attained Nibbana: no vindictiveness will be found in you.
As with a staff the heardsman drives his cattle to pasture, even so do old age and death drive out the lives of beings.
So, when a fool does wrong deeds, he does not realize (their evil nature); by his own deeds the stupid man is tormented, like one burnt by fire.
Whosoever causes pain to the innocent ones will himself suffer quickly from one of the following ten states.
He will get sharp pain or injury of the body, or get serious illness or become mad.
Or punishment by the kind, or being accused of doing wrong or death of relatives or loss of treasures.
Or his house will be struck by lightning or after death, he will be reborn in Hell."
Meditation as a state of mind
I came across a passage in a book which said,
“Deep in you, meditation is already the case. So whenever it happens that your day-to-day turmoil is a little bit less…. Maybe you are watching a sunset, and watching the sunset your constant chattering mind has become quiet, the beauty of the sunset has made it quiet, and then you feel meditation come to the surface”
This struck me as something that was very likely, that in order to connect to meditation we just need to let it surface by encouraging the mind to be quiet. I woke up in the evening last night, and in my mind was the word “Prashant”, which is a common male name in South Asia and means patience, calm, quiet, or tranquil.
To be calmly aware is an excellent state. Often awareness has an element of searching to it, of shifting attention from place to place. These things are good to examine while waiting for quietness of the mind. But meditation as a state of mind implies that we can’t really do it, we aren’t actively making it so, at most we can make conditions favourable for it to arise.
Jeroen
Re: Buddhist View of Justice
@RobinH said:
It's a comic, it's cheap in the sense that it aims to portray a pleasure-oriented mindset in relatable ways and it's not afraid to go down in the mud and get dirty. It's using entertaining qualities to lure the reader in for the deeper content as it aims to be about how the sexual fantasies and behaviors people develop often have roots in trauma or are otherwise coping mechanisms that the more one understands about the more they can do to become independent from their harmful effects.
It definitely has some Buddhist aspects and would be worthy of a topic in its own right. Sometimes people who are addicted to pleasure turn to religion as a way of solving their problems, it might be an interesting counterpoint in your story.
Jeroen
Re: Buddhist View of Justice
Buddhist View of Justice
At a Dharma talk many moons ago the Dharma teacher made this interesting point:
If people truly understood that their actions inevitably bring consequences "for every action there is a reaction", those of sound mind would act responsibly, not out of fear of punishment but out of wisdom. A society guided by this awareness might have little need for police, armies, or courts. Ethical behaviour would come from inner awareness rather than external enforcement.
However because human beings are still imperfect and often unaware, social structures like laws and institutions remain necessary.
Understanding karma can be seen as a path toward a more peaceful society.
A peaceful journey of 1000 kilometers begins with the first wholesome karmic step.
Shoshin1
Re: Buddhist View of Justice
I don't know about such. I know genital mutilation can be culturally / religiously motivated and I can imagine sexual abuse being more rampant in some cultural circumstances, but never heard of the specific example, nor seen any data about it. I have very specific ideas about all the factors that come into play from the nurture side of the story when people engage in abusive behavior like such. I can point fingers to society all day long and write several pages on how all our monsters are just products of their environment and I guarantee that even if some of you are hell-bent on seeing this issue in black and white, it'd all make sense. But at the end of the day, there is agency, there is personal responsibility and everyone is very much responsible for their own behavior. There is a collective fault for pushing people to the edge, after all, we are all conditioned to be pleasure-oriented, from a young age to measure one's worth in success in romantic relationships and libido among other things. But choices are still made and those choices have consequences.
RobinH
Re: Buddhist View of Justice
It's a shame wealth and power shields people from consequence, because it only adds to this blind outrage, yet it fails to be constructive. I believe Epstein himself ended up on the registry a while back, yet it didn't stop him from building a network of abuse further. While others like that sometimes got murdered by their neighbours (hailed as heroes), he was still shaking hands with the elite and doing his operations from his private resorts. People are rightfully upset, that politicians and authorities choose to make exceptions when it comes to the privileged, but then again, people think they can take everything that's wrong with these things and pack it into the word "pedophile" (a clinical term) while refuse to acknowledge that the reason for abuse, any kind of abuse is much more universal: ignorance. Ignorance of privacy, of bodily integrity, of boundaries, of agency, of healthy developmental needs. Anyone who learns to avoid these and how to: can be kind to others and anyone who fails to avoid these can do great harm, even if they believe their motivations are pure as snow and they have the support of society behind them.
RobinH