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Truly Understanding Buddhism
MindGate
United States Veteran
I made a thread recently saying I don't understand Buddhism. I don't think you guys really understood what I meant when I said that. I meant it literally... I don't think I understand Buddhism. I did at one point understand it, but then it went away.
A satori moment, as some would say.
I could spew out lots of information about Buddhism right now. I could tell you the entire story of Gautama Buddha's life. I could tell you the 4 Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, tell you about mindfulness and meditation, rebirth, the ego, realms, interconnectedness, emptiness, etc. But I don't understand it. There is a language barrier getting in the way. I can tell you what I've been told, but words can only express so much, especially if it is only one or two words.
I would like to focus on the 4 Noble Truths as an example.
1) Life involves dukkha, or suffering/dis-satisfactoriness.
2) Dukkha is caused by *attachment/craving.*
This may be one of my big problems.
What is attachment? If I have a kid, I will most likely be attached to him. If he would die, I'd cry and feel bad. But the Buddha said it is okay to be sad for the death of a person.
I'd think that being sad about someone's death would mean you were attached to them, though?
This is just one of many issues. I really don't grasp this concept in its entirety. I need to really understand this and I just can't seem to. Books, talks, etc, just seem to kind of dance around the subject without really getting to the core of the meaning that would explain it to me.
Kindly help me.
A satori moment, as some would say.
I could spew out lots of information about Buddhism right now. I could tell you the entire story of Gautama Buddha's life. I could tell you the 4 Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, tell you about mindfulness and meditation, rebirth, the ego, realms, interconnectedness, emptiness, etc. But I don't understand it. There is a language barrier getting in the way. I can tell you what I've been told, but words can only express so much, especially if it is only one or two words.
I would like to focus on the 4 Noble Truths as an example.
1) Life involves dukkha, or suffering/dis-satisfactoriness.
2) Dukkha is caused by *attachment/craving.*
This may be one of my big problems.
What is attachment? If I have a kid, I will most likely be attached to him. If he would die, I'd cry and feel bad. But the Buddha said it is okay to be sad for the death of a person.
I'd think that being sad about someone's death would mean you were attached to them, though?
This is just one of many issues. I really don't grasp this concept in its entirety. I need to really understand this and I just can't seem to. Books, talks, etc, just seem to kind of dance around the subject without really getting to the core of the meaning that would explain it to me.
Kindly help me.
0
Comments
Monks are 'attached' to their vocation, and study the Dhamma to follow the Buddha's 8Fold Path, right?
View Craving, or Grasping attachment as getting 'too hung up' about something.
View it as being a bit obsessive.
Sometimes, we have a possession that we consider so precious, that if we lose it, we spend a long time lamenting, agonising, seeking it, desperately trying to find it again, and feeling an overwhelming sense of loss and resentment, if we don't.
Sometimes, the possession isn't lost - it gets broken, and then it's really had it - so the feelings of lamentation, agony and desperation are magnified a hundredfold, because it's irreplaceable, and we feel a void, and utter desperation at its irreversible damage....
with people, the loss of someone from our lives - either through separation, or death - can have a devastating effect, and some people find it hard, or even impossible, to recover.
This is dukkha.
It's fine to grieve over something that is gone, or lost, or broken.
The secret is to be able to view that absence or loss, or separation, as part of life, a part that is both inevitable, and constant.
we are always losing things, be it time, be it our way, be it tangible.
And that's what Life does.
It changes, irretrievably.
You are young. You won't be, for ever....
I was young once too.
I would love to be in my 20's again, and have another go - but I can't do that.
I'm 54, and things move on.
I can either lament and grieve over so many years gone by, so much time gone and wasted, so many things left undone, or so many things done that I wish had not been....
but that's just ridiculous.
because however much we might like to grasp, connect and attach to some things we view as being of primary importance - it's not possible.
so not getting hung up about it, is the best way to deal with it.
Care, but don't obsess.
Accept things, and let them go with equal willingness, when the time comes.
This is why the Dhamma is often referred to as a 'raft'.
You use it, rely on it, and depend upon it, to cross the river with.
But once you 'get it' to the other shore, be prepared to step off it, and move on.
There will be other rivers, and other rafts at your disposal. use them as you need, but be prepared to discard them once that particular part of the leg of the journey is over.
Even Monks can get too attached to the raft.
Even some Monks have to be persuaded to not cling.
No wonder we too, need some help in that.
I may not look smart but one thing I really did was not to read or talk about any of it for a long time, just sit. It helped that i had no one around to talk to but the reading was hard to not do. It got me too much in my intellectual side instead of my practice side. I truly think (not that I am thinking) that experience is different than understanding and we can get there, but we probably won't be able to explain it.
Seeing suffering increase along with attachment (or aversion) increasing is something I have experienced plainly in many areas of life. That's one small part I am able to grasp, but I definitely feel like I don't "get it" half the time either. So I just keep practicing!
if you understand these intellectually then actively see the world from this perspective.
the function of the non dual teachings are to free oneself from holding onto views. view of nihilism and eternalism.
frankly any view. this is right view and it starts with getting rid of the falicous notion that there are inherent things. inherency is the root cause of all suffering. it comes from attachment and clinging.
grasp it intellectually then apply it. the gap between intellectual understanding and experiential reality will dissolve.
that is the real practice.
Prajñā: (Sanskrit: प्रज्ञा) or paññā (Pāli) is wisdom, understanding, discernment or cognitive acuity. Such wisdom is understood to exist in the universal flux of being and can be intuitively experienced through meditation.
@MindGate -- The one thing you don't mention (unless I missed it) was your actual-factual practice. As I understand your confusion, it is based on a desire to understand Buddhism with your intellectual and emotional mind: Read enough books, talk enough talk, think enough thoughts, ooze enough sincerity ... and suddenly the dime will drop.
If this is the case, then it can be simply stated that Buddhism doesn't work that way...any more than playing the piano or playing baseball works that way. You can read and listen and think until the cows come home, but if you don't find a practice and practice it, then everything is like peeing into the wind -- all you get is a wet foot.
The proof of Buddhism does not lie in a book. It does not rest with some saffron-robed guru. Such things may be helpful, but the truth of Buddhism is completely up to you. Without you and your very good efforts, Buddhism becomes another second-rate religion with plenty of style and no substance. Gossip is not the same as core understanding, core realization, core actualization. That stuff requires practice.
It's ... up ... to ... you.
Sorry about that.
In Tibetan 'gom' is translated as meditation but it really means something closer to familiarization. There was some video with Stephen Batchelor and Peacock somebody that said essentially the same thing about sanskrit and pali. The real view of meditation isn't about blissing out or something its about familiarizing yourself with these concepts on a more experiential level.
In my experience the thoughts and concepts we have, have a certain emotional or experiential flavor to them. The practice of buddhist meditation is to familiarize and train our minds in the experiential aspect behind the intellectual concepts.
Consider the words of Ta Hui (1088-1163): "As a gentleman of affairs, your study of the Path differs greatly from mine as a homeleaver. Leavers of home do not serve their parents, and abandon all their relatives for good. With one jug and one bowl, in daily activities according to circumstances, there are not so many eneimies to obstruct the Path. With one mind and one intent (homeleavers) just investigate this affair thoroughly. But when a gentleman of affairs opens his eyes and is mindful of what he sees, there is nothing that is not an enemy spirit blocking the Path. If he has wisdom, he makes his meditational effort right there. As Vimalakirti said, 'The companions of passion are the progenitors of the Tathagatas. I fear that people will destroy the worldly aspect to seek the reas aspect.' He also made a comparison: 'It is like the high plateau not producing lotus flowers; it is the mud of the low-lying marshlands that produces these flowers.'....
"We leavers of home are on the outside breaking in; gentlemen of affairs are on the inside breaking out. The power of one on the outside breaking in is weak; the power of one on the inside breaking out is strong. "Strong" means that what is opposed is heavy, so in overturning it, there is power. "Weak" means what is opposed is light, so in overturning it there is little power. Though there is strong and weak in terms of power, what is opposed is the same."
-- Letter to Hsu Tun-chi in "Swampland Flowers: The Letters and Lectures of Zen Master Ta Hui." Tr. Christopher Cleary.
In the analogy of the two arrows, we have the first arrow such as kids, house, partner, and job... those are certainly arrows that we bear in the lay life. However, as our view of them become more clear with practice, they do not spin off into new delusions. Such as "my job/kids/house is the source of my happiness" or "my job/kids/house is the source of my discontent."
Said differently, we detach from the need to completely detach, and simply accept what is here... and use the practice to become more skillful at washing our own bowl and robes and mind.
With respect, it seems like there will be little help in the world of conceptions and ideas for you. Already your mind can "spew" out enough of them. I agree that you don't understand the basic teachings of the Buddha, even though you conceptually grasp their words. I highly doubt that the barrier is linguistic in nature, and has more to do with the solid quality of your conceptual thinking.
There are lots of symptoms of "busy" mind in the way you describe yourself, and it will only be in the silence of MG's point of view that any real wisdom can take root. For instance, the feeling of not being heard arises when we do not make the space to see other people's view. The grasping for clearer definition of words, as though the words will offer us truth, is another.
Consider getting back to a mindful practice, such as meditation, so that you can learn to quiet your mind. When you do that, the words of the dharma become quite clear, and are reflected over and over in various forms throughout the human collection of wisdom... be it scripture or sutta or poems or science. The point isn't to hold an idea that is somehow freeing, but to release the need to generate all of those ideas, and then there is nothing to free. Then, the words don't need solid definitions, because they resonate very directly with the qualities of nature we seek to describe with them.
With warmth,
Matt
grasp emptiness and dependent origination. then apply it 24/7 whether you are sitting in zazen or walking about.
again if you're going to grasp any intellectual concept or philosophy...grasp onto emptiness then dependent origintation.
there are three main practices in buddhism.
concentration meditation, insight meditation, and allowing everything to be as it is meditation.
at different times you will need different things.
but again emptiness & dependent origintation are key. let them marinate in your mind until that is all you see.
Not allowing yourself to be sad is to be attached to states. There are three lords of materialism: materials, beliefs, and states. Bowing to any of those lords is to bow to Mara.
You have wisdom, I have seen it. You will find the understanding you seek, but not here and not in the dogma.
You need to go inside for a while.
May peace be with you
if you see things from soul-consciousness, then you will not be even sad on someone's death, rather understand that the soul just got releived from the physical body and may have either entered another body or may have got liberated and in both the cases still it is there - so there is nothing to be sad about as a soul is neither born nor dies, it always exist.
@misecmisc1-
There is no soul to transmigrate to another body.
Buddhism doesn't ascribe to this.....
Soul-consciousness isn't something we consider. it's just a made-up term....
For me it is a sheer lack of meditation which comes from a lack of mitivation. Mediation should be the staple in your buddhist diet, I just cannot seem to digest it
That's the organization and the format.
But the reality is that each person has to do the work that will actualize the promise. Organizational formats don't solve the problems that individuals suffer -- individuals solve those problems. Assuming there is some determination and patience to actualize the promise of Buddhism, individuals take a very daring step: Setting aside beliefs and explanations, they get to work. And the work is not easy: It is more comfortable and comforting to believe and explain. It is socially acceptable. It is a lifelong habit. And the only problem with that habit is that it doesn't work -- it doesn't provide a settled peace in anyone's life. So, with determination and patience and courage ... and with NO assurance that the promise will be actualized ... the serious student sets out to actualize in his or her life what (up until now) s/he can only speak of glowingly.
Meditation is recommended as a means of accomplishing that work. Does it work? Lots of people may say so, but what lots of people say is not the point. Actualized peace has to do with what individuals, with their own good efforts, say.
Self-realization versus entertaining ideas.
but it maybe something completely different.
what is your experience mindgate?
do you meditate? how often, for how long, retreats? what did you experience etc...
Alot of this stuff is meant to be understood directly and indirectly.
So for alot of this stuff, like attachments, it can become very obvious on good retreats. Where you can actually see and feel them.
Things like suffering, non-self, impermanence are things to think about but also they are qualities to observe directly in deep meditation.
It's difficult without more information about your experience, obviously advices for one who spend the last 6 months in intensive retreats one after the other would be very different then advices appropriate for someone who read and approach buddhism as a philosophy for the last 6 months...
In the first scenario i would think this maybe a good sign of progress the person would have to focus on very specific aspect of his meditation, surely would benefit greatly from the guidance of a a good meditation teacher and progress would be made quickly...
the second scenario i would say this person would need to get out of the world on thoughts and into the world of direct experience if such person desire for more profound understanding of the teaching.... but there are all shades of grey inbetween..