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Re: Buddhist Sadhana — what is it?
@person said:
I remember this in some of the TB tantric initiations I attended. The red meat and alcohol was just a small piece of jerky and a bit of some sort of alcohol poured into the palm of your hand that you sipped. It kind of reminded me of Christian communion with the bread and wine. They're symbolic of something greater, but honestly it felt rather ceremonial and ritualistic.
I agree it is ritualistic, but I don’t think I agree with the modern scientific interpretation that ritual is somehow hollow and purely physical. There is this belief in science that things that can’t be measured don’t exist, and that the effects of ritual are nonexistent. But as a counter example there are cases of people suddenly being cured of diseases like cancer.
We do a lot of things because of reasons we believe in, not what the science tells us. Like the Hindu’s choosing to die at their holy city of Varanasi, or bathing in the Ganges to become purified of sins. You could call these things ritual, but for the true believer they have an effect on the body or on the spiritual state.
I think there is very little understanding of man’s spiritual nature. Scientific man is largely cut off from his spiritual nature, which leads to a kind of madness in the spiritual world, and a mental health crisis in the physical world. My experience is that the spiritual world is very real, and that in order to maintain good health, wholeness and harmony of both our physical and our psychic aspects we need to be more aware of our spiritual lives.
Sadhana is a key aspect of that. What is meaningful to one person may not resonate with another. It’s something we all need to explore.
Jeroen
Re: Buddhist Sadhana — what is it?
I remember this in some of the TB tantric initiations I attended. The red meat and alcohol was just a small piece of jerky and a bit of some sort of alcohol poured into the palm of your hand that you sipped. It kind of reminded me of Christian communion with the bread and wine. They're symbolic of something greater, but honestly it felt rather ceremonial and ritualistic.
person
Re: Noble Eightfold Path versus 6 Paramitas
Given what has been written in the prior entries, we can say that The Eight Fold Path and The Six Paramitas are two explanations (views if you choose) of the same bundle of concepts viewed from slightly different perspectives.
Lionduck
Re: About Thangka
Thanks @FoibleFull that is pretty much as I understood it but had kind of forgotten.
The images at the centre of the thangka stand for a Buddha, arhat, deity or lama from history or story, and his or her attributes which are visually represented. If you know how to read it, it is a visual guide. The areas around the edges are evocative of place or retinu.
Jeroen
Re: Taking Oneself Too Seriously = Suffering
There will always be an element if I. We are, after all, Independent beings.
That said, We can move from "I" - "You" or "I - "They" to "We and "Us" united to blend our differences, cognizant of our own separate uniqueness but creating a greater oneness. In another way, we learn and grow to love ourselves with the kind of live that embraces others with the same love. We expand this love to love of all life. Oh, we still carry all the other emotions, states of life, but our core is the Selfless Self Love.
Thus does the "I" become the "WE", the selfish becomes the selfless.
Peace to all
Lionduck
Re: About Thangka
The thing about Thangkas is that each is a visual metaphor representing the qualities we hope to develop as we progress to enlightenment. For instance, the qualities of Chenrezig represent compassion and each details in the image is a symbolic representation. of compassion If you understant the metaphors in the Thangka, focusing on it helps your mind focus on the inner changes you are seeking to develop within.
Its value does like in the "art" of it, but in how you respond to it. Buddhism is more about mind-training than about "awe" or emotion. You train your mind to be aware, and you learn from your own developing awareness. And, as psychology says, "Learning is shown by a permanent change in some kind of behavior."
Re: What books are you reading?
I was reading Only Fear Dies by Barry Long. It was an interesting book, the early chapters were about how personality is formed by mimicking the responses of parents in childhood and how emotional pain forms almost a separate kind of body inside one’s energy.
It reminded me a lot of Eckhart Tolle’s book The Power of Now, which contains a lot of similar ideas, which is not surprising because Eckhart Tolle learnt from Barry Long at one point in his career as a spiritual teacher.
Later chapters in the book contain a history of the world in terms of the mind of unhappiness. Barry holds that primitive man was a lot happier and largely free from likes and dislikes, and that the rational mind evolved almost like a parasite and contains a powerful mechanism taking it towards unhappiness.
Jeroen
Re: An online approach
Good for you! Perseverance is a very important attribute in the world of meditation.
Jeroen
Re: Taking Oneself Too Seriously = Suffering
@Jeroen said:
I had a dream… I was sitting in a train which was going fast, and the desire arose in me to see the train from the outside… so suddenly there was a view from the side of the train, several hundred yards away, watching the train rushing past… and suddenly I realised my body was still on the train! I became aware that the watcher was not the body.
This reminds me of our ever-present friend Awareness
Awareness is fundamentally non-conceptual before thinking splits experience into subject and object. It is empty and so can contain everything, including thought. It is boundless. And amazingly it is intrinsically knowing.
Shoshin1
Re: Taking Oneself Too Seriously = Suffering
@RobinH said:
Interesting. Since I started readig about Buddhism again I'm having a series of dreams in which I go on trips or interact with people from my past in casual manners. I wonder how Buddhists interpret dreams. Are they useful in diagnosing what weighs on one's mind more or should one just let them go on the spot?
I think dreams are significant, that they have something to tell us. It is said in Buddhism that dreams can give one insight into ones karma, among other things.
Jeroen