Best Of
Re: Finding more opportunities for generosity in daily life
Freeing ourselves from always responding to the phenomena around us in a particular way, so that any generosity that we foster might also be tempered with the skillful means to not inadvertently become the cause of another's suffering.
how
Re: Are Precepts commandments
It depends on how desperate the individual in question is.
For instance, If I am an alcoholic and I am working the 12 step. I am somewhat taking a vow not to drink. That to an alcoholic is life and death.
The same could be said for some people who practice dharma. It is a life and death affair. Precept or let's say vows are taken to the degree of desperation. I think choice is a luxury and for those who really suffer, the vows are truly something one has to really cling to.
But the axioms are quite different in Dharma. One has to really understand the nature of suffering and how karmic momentums work. Instead of a deity, judging you and causing you harm. It is your mind, and your life that is in question. So the level of responsibility is much grander. And if you want to even go wider, you're actually responsible for all of reality. It's somewhat much easier to blame a deity tbh.
The vows/precepts also become much more subtle in various traditions. Meaning less to do with what your external appearance is doing, verses what you're doing with your mind. And that isn't something anyone else is going to actually be able to notice. That's all on you.
I guess it's a question of why we then would take a vow. A vow is a kind of jail that we want to get out of as fast as possible. No one likes jails and rules. Even if they make logical or emotional sense to us. They are still a restriction.
But we also are naturally full of delusion, anger and lust. Which can be an issue, unless we decide to stop it. So maybe right now it feels like I have a choice. I can be wishy washy with my vows. But if I take karma seriously then there isn't much room for choice. The right answer is always obvious. I have to surrender to my vows because if I don't then I am surrendering to my delusion.
And lastly, moving beyond ourselves. To maintain a society and culture, which is conducive to spiritual practice and individual rights. Upholding whatever level of vow we can helps the virtuous momentum of reality.
So a long winded answer to say, yes it is a commandment. Not from God. Or anyone else. But from one's own naked heart. Love is a demand and responsibility.
taiyaki
Re: Do not convert?
@federica said:
I personally disagree with HHDL. It's a definite case of "If it's broke, then fix it.!"
I was baptised a RC. But in spite of honest efforts on my part to really try to connect with what the church taught me, and what my parents tried to lead me through, nothing ever quite completely gelled.And so it was that I discovered Buddhism.
Which, incidentally, my still-church-going mother introduced me to.
Every page of the book she sent me, sang my name, and called me thither.
And so, I went.
While my practice has definitely been an up-and-down, in-and-out adventure, I have never looked - or been tempted to go - back.Sorry your Holiness.
You're stuck with me.
I'm very much in agreement. If something ain't broke, don't fix it. But if something is broke...fix it! And I agree completely with that one phrase you used: "nothing ever quite completely gelled" with christianity with me, either.
vinlyn
Stabilizing heedfulness
For me maintaining heedfulness is often a kind of balancing act in paying attention. Like paddling a tippy boat across choppy waters from wind and other larger boats. Like keeping the unbroken attention of a wild squirrel living in the back yard or like me not burning breakfast every morning 
. But that's just some view of heedfulness through my eyes.
Beyond me, heedfulness is already stable.
I see it as calm and understanding. A careful attentiveness. The water unbothered by wind and boats, inviting and supportive. A quiet understanding the squirrel is wild and will do what wild squirrels do. A perfect breakfast because without me, there's no one here to burn it.
I would truly like to be as stable as I perceive heedfulness.
Maybe I will be just that.
Re: Engaging with Freedom
I think the way our freedom has been reduced in this regard is often obscured by the narrative we live in. For example, we have more consumer choices available. But if we don't have enough extra money, we're aren't free to actually make them. We are also unaware of how much of common land and resources have been privatized, meaning we don't have the same access. Try finding someone to use the bathroom, for instance, without having to purchase something. We are also under the impression that we have more choices in where to work, but we're limited by who will actually purchase our labour and how much it's purchased for, which in turn limits our choices. And workplaces are essentially authoritarian, with work hours and conditions being dictated by owners, even bathroom breaks being dictated by them. And if we're very motivated to do better, we're limited by having to get specialized education that requires debt (assuming we get accepted into universities and for loans to live on), which constrains us. No matter where we look, our freedoms come with strings or are limited because we lack the means to fully utilize them.
Jason
Re: Engaging with Freedom
We are certainly all interconnected, and I think it's important to try and contribute to sustain that interconnectedness. But I'm certainly not happy with the current setup of that contribution, a system where I can't eat or keep warm if some capitalist doesn't purchase my labour, where my entire work day and working conditions are dictated by someone else making a fortune while I'm living paycheck to paycheck, where financial speculation is a more profitable than providing healthcare. And it's a strawman to say that people who aren't happy to live in a world where someone with diabetes can't afford to consistently use insulin because it's too expensive or wants more free time with family than at work simply expects others to provide for them. On the conventional level of freedom, we have very little in that regard. Our actions are conditioned in large proportion by the logic of an omnipresent socioeconomic system that tells us we are free while constraining our choices and opportunities.
Jason
Re: Engaging with Freedom
@Shoshin1 said:
I'm under the impression that freedom is about letting go of preferences/bonds ...and I guess expectations too...
Freedom has no limitations...
I'm of the same mind on this I think. To be free is to be free of something. The more we let go of, the more free we become.
Some things are good to hold onto and so the Middle Way lets us discern healthy relationships from fetters.
@person said:
@Jeroen said:
But one can also be emotionally constrained, by duties to look after family or partners. This may take up a certain portion of one’s time or may even be a full-time commitment. This is usually a limitation of freedom that one imposes on onesself.I'm not sure how well this fits with the others. I mean technically you're right, duty and responsibility constrain our freedom. But lots of people find that tradeoff worth taking.
I have to agree here but am biased to a degree by having a family. We are free to make that trade. Also there are not only people to take care of, there are also people who will care for us.
@Jeroen said:
How do you feel this fits with Buddhist thought? The Buddhist ideal is a monk who has renounced and left the home, not creating a family or being a householder, all in pursuit of the end of suffering and the underlying happiness. In a way Buddhist goals replace the biological imperative to reproduce.
I don't think I can agree here. I mean, I agree that's part of it but we can't all be monks as I don't think the plan is to end humanity. In the Mangala Sutta, ( https://www.arrowriver.ca/dhamma/bless.html ) the Buddha lists 38 supreme blessings. 4 of them are about family ties. All 38 of them could be seen as constraints in a certain light and one is to be restrained by a moral code.
Not to be cheeky but it's all well and good for someone like the historical Buddha to say monks shouldn't have kids as he already had Rahula. When he left his family, the Buddha had not awakened yet. When he woke up he could have gone any direction but he was called back to family and community. Indeed, his wife, son and the aunt that raised him chose to join the Sangha.
Freedom is a tricky bit. In the quest to be free we may forget our responsibilities to each other and/or lose sight of what matters.
Re: Just for fun: the random, useless announcements thread!
@FleaMarket said:
Though I feel in meeting someone of similar nature, detached from identifying with the viewpoints they argue, with respect for both sides of the argument, wouldn't it become a friendship?
Its possible, but it is perhaps more likely to become an annoyance to both sides, it depends on how you express your viewpoint, as an opposition or as an alternative. People feel the need to counter a direct opposition, whereas an alternative with supporting arguments will often just be accepted as your view… if you challenge wether people are right, it will often just get their hackles up especially in subjective matters.
Thats been my experience anyway. All we can do is keep learning.
Jeroen
Re: Engaging with Truth
"No thought is true.”
— Ram Dass
When I see a statement like this it seems self contradictory to me. If that thought is true then how can that thought be true? So I tell myself it must be meant in a different way. Perhaps because thoughts are temporary and subject to change they can be considered unreal. I'm not sure that is the message because that supposes that being temporary and subject to change equates to being somehow untrue or not really happening. Which is odd because if something is truly happening, it would necessarily be changing.
I've been trying to track down the origination of a quote by Lao Tzu that goes "Just remain in the center, watching. And then forget that you are there" and it seems to have triggered something for me in regards to this thread and the one on freedom you started. Thanks for that. I might try to elaborate more on the freedom thread.
When we are looking deeply into something and there is strictly observation, there is no thinking. So how can we translate pure observation into words except by metaphor and comparing to commonly known concepts?