Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
seeking agreement
genkaku
Northampton, Mass. U.S.A. Veteran
Of all the habits practicing Buddhists may need to confront, I think one of the most difficult is seeking agreement from others ... other people, other books, other emotions, other spiritual persuasions ... other stuff.
Maybe it's the hardest habit of all.
What do you think?
Maybe it's the hardest habit of all.
What do you think?
0
Comments
The moment we condition our beliefs based on the beliefs or expectations of other beliefs we move from the middle path to the path of dogma.
Be Your Own Light, innit!:)
@thickpaper -- Sorry, I'm confused. Do you mean you think that practicing Buddhists do not need to confront the habit of seeking agreement from others?
@genkaku Oh sorry, I misread and misthought:)
I meant what I said in the rest of the post. I guess we are in agreeance on the importance of nonagreeance!
May I ask how you came to think this?
____________________
@sherabdorje -- One of the well-known Zen teachers, Rinzai, (among many others) could wax pretty lyrical about not relying on others, whether people or things or thoughts or emotions.
That just sounds like pretty standard statements from a Zen teacher- of course he's right, but there must have been a context, like it being an introductory class or a semi-introductory class. I doubt he/she would wax that poetic with advanced students if for no other reason that they'd already heard it several times.
But, for instance, Public Television is rerunning that story of the Buddha that is narrated by Richard Gere (Iowa Public Television anyway), and there's this classic shot of HHDL in an interview saying "Buddha says- you are your own master." It just seems like something that is so elementary to Buddhism that it's taken for granted.
If we take your OP premise to an "ad absurdum" logical extension, Buddhism would be very diluted or disorganized, or, for lack of a better term, twisted, because of all this agreeing with others. If we felt a need to seek agreement with Fundamentalist Christians, they'd be correct and we wouldn't. There might not be any Buddhism at all if we sought the degree of agreement with others that you suggest in your OP.
But you're really only talking about one Zen teacher.
I just don't see this excessive need to agree in Buddhism.
__________________
@sherabdorje -- My sense is that Buddhist teachings rest largely on repetition ... over and over and over again, whether to 'new' students or 'advanced' ones. No offense intended, but it's a little like dressing your doll in an endless array of different clothing. Of course audiences have heard the message over and over again ... and they will continue to hear it until they summon up the understanding that allows them to say, "enough already!" Rinzai, for example, was addressing an assembly of monks, many of whom, presumably, had been around for some time.
The reliance on others is not just simple agreement (yes, I agree with you, Buddhism is a sensible life practice), but also a reliance on intellectual and emotional constructs within, distinguishing good from bad, holy from unholy, tall from short, happy from sad....
Well, I hardly think of it as an easy habit to break, but that may say more about me than it says about the actual degree of difficulty.