Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!

Examples: Monday, today, last week, Mar 26, 3/26/04
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.

Gautama Buddha: deadbeat dad?

2»

Comments

  • karastikarasti Breathing Minnesota Moderator
    I realize that and I understand what you are saying, and what you mean, but it is not the fault of the spouse or the children that their loved one did not realize that course of action before he/she committed to being a partner and parent. Even if it is a very deep seated knowing, I still find it selfish for a person to consider leaving their family, especially young children. They made the choice to become involved and have children, and once you make that choice, it is a lifetime commitment, or at the very least a ~20 year commitment, one you cannot shirk because you suddenly found your true nature. your true nature may need to wait for better timing.

    Now, if there are no children or the children are well grown and established in their own minds, then a person is basically free to do what they want, but I hope they would consider the needs of their spouse/partner and so on, first. After all if you do all the work to raise your children, missing out on your grandchildren and the unique opportunity to be a mentor to them, and to your children as they raise their own would be unfortunate.

    That's what I mean by parenting is a lifetime job. it isn't always, but it *should* be. I am 37, and my parents are 61 and 58, and they are just as involved in my kid's lives as they were in mine. Even my grandma. It is invaluable to them to have their values reinforced and to have that kind of extended family to turn to. When you decide to have kids, you have to think that far in advance, because it's not limited to raising them and booting them out at 18, or 22 or whatever.
  • seeker242seeker242 Zen Florida, USA Veteran
    karasti said:

    Why is that hard to understand?
    Husband from Mexico comes to US to work, sends money back home so wife and children have food, home and medicine.
    Husband from Mexico leaves his family to become a monk. Family has no food, no home, wife gets sick, dies, leaves children as orphans. But the man obtains mindfulness and a better spiritual life.
    How can you compare the 2?

    I don't think that is an accurate comparison. To be an accurate one, I think you would have to change scenario 2 from "Family has no food, no home, wife gets sick, dies, leaves children as orphans"

    To:

    "Family has rooms and rooms full of gold, as much food as they can eat for the next 50 years. The most opulent Royal palace to stay in, with 20 servants each, attending to their every need. The best doctors money can buy. Personal protection of the King's army, the rulers of the land. "

    Or something like that. Then I think it might be an accurate comparison.

    riverflowInvincible_summer
  • SabreSabre Veteran
    edited April 2013
    karasti said:

    ....

    I see where you are coming from. Yes. It would be better if monks and nuns left nobody behind who relied upon them. I recall hearing about a story in the suttas also of a lay person who was very advanced in the path, but couldn't leave his sick parents. :) But in the end, they will almost always leave some form of family and friends behind, which will always be hard. Me myself would probably could not ever live with leaving kids behind and in that way am happy I don't have them.

    But perhaps others who do have kids don't really feel like having a choice because the calling is too strong.. I don't know, but I can very well imagine. I just try to be open minded and nonjudgmental about it, especially because they already have enough hurt because of it, probably.
  • karastikarasti Breathing Minnesota Moderator
    If the calling is really a calling and is that strong, then why did it not come about before they were of the age to create children? If you have a strong calling to be a monk, then terrific, but then don't put yourself (or others) in the situation. Practice celibacy early on. Something that is truly a calling usually doesn't come about when you are 40 and have 3 kids and a wife to support.

    @seeker242 I was referring to your 2 comments about why it's ok for someone to leave their family to come to another country to send money back home but not ok for them to leave for spiritual reasons. I don't see how you can compare the 2 at all. You asked earlier why it's ok for someone to move to a foreign country to send money home. You tell me how you'd like to compare the 2 then? lol I guess I misunderstood what you were asking then, because someone who already has a palace and money and servants then would not leave their home to go to another country to make money to send home...
  • seeker242 said:

    seeker242 said:

    Yes, I know it was tongue-in-cheek. :) No problem. :)

    Thanks. :) I typed that on my phone as I was rolling out of bed, so I wanted to re-visit this and reply to your reply *grin*, and just let you know that I was being boogie-eyed and still half awake when I wrote that, so didn't mean to offend anyone or sound uppity. When I re-read it just now it sounded that way to me at least. I try very hard to practice right speech, but sometimes I still have epic fails. :D

    I didn't read it as "uppity". :)

    But I still have a question! Not necessarily for you but anyone. Why is it ok to leave home to go get money, but not ok to leave home to go get something that is one million times more valuable than money? I don't understand! Please someone answer this! :D
    You got me there. Offhand, I'd say if the husband is trying to support the family with the money or career, then it's thought he's still trying to live up to his responsibilities. But that's not strictly the case all the time. Why then is it noble in most people's eyes for a man to leave home to fight a war where chances are he'll create a widow? It just is. Cultural standards apply. In some cultures, going off to be a monk is accepted but divorce is almost unheard of and means a huge scandal. Here, it's tragic in some cases but we excuse it quite a bit and it's just how things are. Oh, we still don't like it when some guy has a midlife crisis and runs off with a girlfriend, but half the time it's the woman walking out the door.

    In Korea, my local friends kept asking me why everyone kept getting divorced in the US. Those same people wouldn't question a man leaving home to join a monastery. Different cultures, different expectations.
    personVastmindkarasti
  • seeker242seeker242 Zen Florida, USA Veteran
    edited April 2013
    karasti said:



    @seeker242 I was referring to your 2 comments about why it's ok for someone to leave their family to come to another country to send money back home but not ok for them to leave for spiritual reasons. I don't see how you can compare the 2 at all. You asked earlier why it's ok for someone to move to a foreign country to send money home. You tell me how you'd like to compare the 2 then? lol I guess I misunderstood what you were asking then, because someone who already has a palace and money and servants then would not leave their home to go to another country to make money to send home...

    Hi karasti,

    My point was that it's considered ok for a Mexican husband to leave home to go get money, but not ok for Prince Siddhartha to leave home to go get enlightenment, even though he is leaving them in the lap of luxury. I don't understand how the first can be ok, but not the 2nd. :) In both situations, the person is leaving home, just for different reasons. The first reason is ok, the second reason is not. I don't understand why that is. :)



    riverflowInvincible_summer
  • SillyPuttySillyPutty Veteran
    edited April 2013
    seeker242 said:


    Hi karasti,

    My point was that it's considered ok for a Mexican husband to leave home to go get money, but not ok for Prince Siddhartha to leave home to go get enlightenment, even though he is leaving them in the lap of luxury. I don't understand how the first can be ok, but not the 2nd. :)

    I think someone already touched upon this, but the argument seems to be that the individual going to make money had this job already promised to them. The income being sent home was guaranteed. On the other hand, Prince Siddhartha did not know he was going to become enlightened. So he left on a whim, basically, with no promise of benefit for anyone, really, not even himself. It's kind of like a story where there's a husband, wife, and baby, and the husband takes off because he wants to make it big as a rock star. He may or may not have that happen. As a matter of fact, the chances are slim. If he makes it? His family will most certainly benefit. If not? Then he just left his wife and child at home to struggle, while he pursued his own desires. Instead of just getting a job at the local store and fulfilling his responsibility to his family, he allowed his ego to drive his actions.

    This also makes me wonder how many other people tried to do this before Prince Siddhartha? He couldn't have been the first to want to try to do this. Only difference is, is that he succeeded.
    VastmindInvincible_summer
  • karastikarasti Breathing Minnesota Moderator
    @seeker242 I never said that that wasn't ok. Most likely yes I would have said the same about Buddha, but like I also said, I cannot imagine how I would have felt 2500 years ago growing up in the same culture he did. Perhaps I would not have felt the same. All along my comments on the discussion have mostly been about the actual question of someone leaving behind family to be a *monk* or a *nun* not a Buddha, not someone leaving to see the entire answer to life.

    When the man leaves his country to work, he in theory is not only sending money to support his family, but is still talking to them, writing, calling, maybe even visiting. Not just gone. While living in a palace certainly eases some of the problem of a parent leaving the home, it does not ease them all. I know rich kids who grew up without a parent (and in one case, both parents, she had to emancipate herself when she was 16 from her grandparents) and the psychological and emotional problems associated with that were not much different.
  • seeker242seeker242 Zen Florida, USA Veteran
    edited April 2013
    Hi SillyPutty

    I think it's a mistake to assume that people climbing across the border fences have a guaranteed job with a guaranteed pay. They could easily be sent to jail just for trying to cross the border to begin with. Many of them are. I also think it's a mistake to assume that a person who lives in a royal palace would be struggling. They have everything handed to them on a silver platter, literally. They live in the lap of luxury! They are royalty, not some poor Mexican farmers wife. I also think it is a mistake to assume that he was pursuing his own desires. He set out for the benefit of all beings, not just himself. Even if he only made it 1/2 way to enlightenment, the benefit would still be 500,000 timer greater than any amount of money. Even if he only made it 0.01% of the way to enlightenment, that benefit would still be 100 times greater than any amount of money. The chances of making it 0.01% of the way, I think are pretty good.

    Reminds me of something my zen teacher once said. He said "Even one minute of seeing into your true nature is worth more than all the money you will ever make in your entire life". It seems that people who actually believe that, tend not to think that the Buddha was being selfish when he left. That's probably why you don't ever hear of teachers talking about the Buddha being selfish, because they actually believe that.

    Just my 2 cents :)
    karasti said:

    @seeker242 I never said that that wasn't ok.

    I know. :) It wasn't intended to be directed at you specifically. It was just a question "in general", so to speak. :)

    Jeffrey
  • karastikarasti Breathing Minnesota Moderator
    For the record, I think the same thing about people who choose to take careers that take them for long periods away from their family, too. I just get tired of our culture who treat having children like having pets. It's just something you do because you aren't sure what else to do in life and that's just what a person is supposed to do. But then later it doesn't quite fit in with what they want to do with their life now, so, they leave to pursue their own lives because dammit they deserve it whether they have children or not! Or they take on jobs that take them away from their kids so much they don't even know them because they need a job they enjoy, and so on. I just don't understand why people put so little thought into bringing a child into the world but spend so much time thinking about their college degrees, what kind car to buy, what they want in their perfect house and so on. It's a bother of mine, clearly, LOL. I know people who spent more time deciding on what vacuum to buy than they thought about who they were creating children with and what they were going to do with these children once they arrived. All you ever hear about is how to afford having a child and how much it costs to raise them. Never how to actually raise them into decent people who have an understanding of the world and themselves.

    I actually have an acquaintance who for a long time worked for a successful business. He made really good money but between his commute and his job, he worked 12 hours a day and often on weekends and even holidays. His kids had a great nanny, a great school, lots of presents, a big house and so on. Except the kids routinely told him as they grew up that they would rather see him more, yet he justified his career/job (which he took on after the kids were born) by saying it was important for him to enjoy his job. What about what was important to the kids? In the end his wife left him for another man, and left the kids too while she pursued her PhD. So for many years, the kids were not only abandoned by their mom, but lived with a dad who abandoned them most of the time for his own career happiness. Both of them managed to justify their actions and even said it was for the best for the kids, while the kids were home trying to get their parents to listen to what they actually wanted and needed.

    And no, I don't think that most people who would ordain would be able to abandon their family in such a way. I think I said that earlier in the discussion. But in the case of the person the OP talked to, clearly that is how they think. They would encourage someone to do so because that's what Buddha did.
    person
  • vinlynvinlyn Colorado...for now Veteran
    karasti said:

    If the calling is really a calling and is that strong, then why did it not come about before they were of the age to create children? If you have a strong calling to be a monk, then terrific, but then don't put yourself (or others) in the situation. Practice celibacy early on. Something that is truly a calling usually doesn't come about when you are 40 and have 3 kids and a wife to support.

    Good points. I guess would question the commitment of a potential monk who had already turned his back on one of the most solemn commitments a man can make -- starting a family.
  • Assuming these stories are true, why would anyone care? How does it help us in our path to liberation/enlightenment?
    Invincible_summerJeffrey
  • SillyPuttySillyPutty Veteran
    edited April 2013
    seeker242 said:

    Hi SillyPutty

    I think it's a mistake to assume that people climbing across the border fences have a guaranteed job with a guaranteed pay. They could easily be sent to jail just for trying to cross the border to begin with. Many of them are.

    You speak about assuming, yet, it's funny how you assumed that I would (or should) think that all "Mexicans" who cross the border for work are in the United States illegally. :lol: As a matter of fact, the first thing that came to my mind (having been a caseworker and seeing this all of the time), are those from other countries here working legally, coming over for guaranteed work and on work visas, who send monies back home to their families.
  • jll said:

    it has to do with cultural values.
    in buddhist countries, if you leave to become a monk.
    it is considered a good thing.

    in the west, it is frowned upon if you have young children.
    but if it is due to your career or 'passion', then it is ok.
    eg. if i leave my young children n become a soldier, i will
    spend a few years away from my children and possibly
    die in the war. i am a hero.

    You know, this really is a brilliant analogy to bring up. I never thought about the whole "war hero" aspect. Very good, jll. Thanks.
    Jeffrey
  • Invincible_summerInvincible_summer Heavy Metal Dhamma We(s)t coast, Canada Veteran
    karasti said:

    If the calling is really a calling and is that strong, then why did it not come about before they were of the age to create children? If you have a strong calling to be a monk, then terrific, but then don't put yourself (or others) in the situation. Practice celibacy early on. Something that is truly a calling usually doesn't come about when you are 40 and have 3 kids and a wife to support.

    @karasti - I'm not sure it's fair to say that a "calling" is something that has to be intrinsic to an individual from a young age.

    I understand what you're saying though, and it is indeed suspicious for a father/mother who has kids and a job to suddenly feel "called" to a life without all these pressures and deman- err- responsibilities. :p

    And like @vinlyn said, how can the laypeople rely on someone who gave up their own family?

    However, I don't think it's up to others to say what is or isn't a "true calling." It sounds pretty out there and theistic, I know, but that's not what I mean. We are not in the renunciate's head, we are not the arbiters of the laws of the universe (although I'm sure some of us would like to think so... and in some ways we are... but that's a totally different topic), so how can we say that their "calling" is merely escaping from responsibility? That being said, renouncing comes with responsibility - leaving a family with little warning or preparations is irresponsible. If a father or mother wants to ordain, they should make proper preparations for their family - monetarily and emotionally.


    riverflowSabremusic
  • karastikarasti Breathing Minnesota Moderator
    I didn't mean it in a sense that anyone who has a true calling is shirking responsibility. I should have specified, that in my personal experience, people with a true calling for something seem to know from a fairly early age. I would be a bit skeptical (though I would be open to listening of course) to someone who suddenly had a calling for something, whether they had a family or not. That's just because of comparison's I've made myself thus far between people who seem to have had true callings and followed through with them, and with those who suddenly discover a different way of life and because they want to test the waters, they believe it is a calling.

    For example I know several people who feel called to various, but after a few months, it's no longer a calling, it was a passing fancy. My mom has sworn up and down for the past 15 years that her calling was to be a life coach. She still says this. yet she has taken exactly zero steps to make this happen, even though she is perfectly capable of doing so. This is about her 4th true calling in the past 25 years. Not a one of them has turned out to be a true calling. On the other side of the coin, I know 2 brothers who claimed from very early ages (pre teens) that they wanted to be priests. And they are, both of them. They eat, live and breathe their calling, from the time they realized it was present. I think the term "true calling" is thrown around a bit too much. True I do not know what is truly in their head, nor do I claim to.

    The funny thing is, I've never really had myself what I consider a calling. Though i remember clearly what I wanted my life to be when I was 8, 9, 10 years old. Then real life took hold and I needed to be more realistic, and I went through several phases of what I thought I'd do with my life. From teacher to criminal profiler. Turns out, 30 years later, I'm going back to what I wanted as a child.
    Invincible_summer
  • Maybe him and his wife had broke up. So then he has no responsibility to his wife because she is an adult and they are splitsville.

    So then he has a son. His son has material things. I can't say it is good to leave your son. And maybe he kept contact with the son somehow. If he is separated from the wife then there is limited time with the son in any case.

    I see no responsibility to stay connected to an adult woman, but I am vexed trying to think how he could leave behind the fruit of his loins. My father certainly didn't do that with me.
  • The person who thinks, this is my son, this is my property,
    is a fool. For even your body do not belong to you.
    ~Buddha.
    lobsterInvincible_summer
  • lobsterlobster Crusty Veteran
    @hermitwin
    even my so called thoughts and emotions have been 'stolen' from samsara
    . . . not even an 'I' to call my own . . .

    Buddha help us . . . :)
  • Dear lobster, Buddha can only show you the path.
    the rest is up to you...

    btw, can a lobster walk straight or does it walk sideways
    like a crab.
    if so, it will be difficult for you to follow the middle path. lol.
    lobster said:

    @hermitwin
    even my so called thoughts and emotions have been 'stolen' from samsara
    . . . not even an 'I' to call my own . . .

    Buddha help us . . . :)

    Jeffreylobsterperson
  • seeker242seeker242 Zen Florida, USA Veteran

    seeker242 said:

    Hi SillyPutty

    I think it's a mistake to assume that people climbing across the border fences have a guaranteed job with a guaranteed pay. They could easily be sent to jail just for trying to cross the border to begin with. Many of them are.

    You speak about assuming, yet, it's funny how you assumed that I would (or should) think that all "Mexicans" who cross the border for work are in the United States illegally. :lol: As a matter of fact, the first thing that came to my mind (having been a caseworker and seeing this all of the time), are those from other countries here working legally, coming over for guaranteed work and on work visas, who send monies back home to their families.
    I was not assuming that you were assuming. I was simply pointing out the fact that not all people have a guaranteed job with guaranteed pay, but even when they don't, it's still generally considered ok because they are trying to help their family.

    People don't realize that the Buddha left so that he could help his family. People think that he did that "for himself", but you never hear teachers or wise men talking like that.:)
  • SillyPuttySillyPutty Veteran
    edited April 2013
    seeker242 said:


    People don't realize that the Buddha left so that he could help his family. People think that he did that "for himself", but you never hear teachers or wise men talking like that.:)

    Even though I did create this thread with a catchy title about the Buddha, I think some of us are getting sidetracked here from my main question (which I may or may not have been clear on).

    It's not so much I'm asking if what the Buddha did was or was not helpful to the world. I think this truth is obvious to non-teachers and non-wise men alike.

    However, what I am asking here is, should regular ol' people like myself who are already in relationships (and those who may have children and the sort, or important jobs where people rely heavily upon them, or pets to care for, or other responsibilities/promises they've made to others) leave them in order to peruse their own desire to become an ordained monk or nun?

    Could I change the world and become enlightened? Sure, why not! There is always that possibility that if someone renounced their lay life to lead a monastic one, they could end up helping the world out on a greater scale.

    I simply wanted to open this thread to ask people if they think it is irresponsible and selfish to leave when you have other obligations and relationships going on, or not. Some believe it's okay, since we all die and our relationships become severed anyway, while others believe that it may not be the right lifetime to do such a thing, because you already took "vows," so to speak, with the people already in your life.

    So with your argument, perhaps you would say that, yes, leaving my family would benefit them because I would be on the path to enlightenment and while doing that, it indirectly helps them out, too, since that is everybody's ultimate goal. Even if I don't reach enlightenment and end up teaching dharma to the world, I still have taken the steps towards something greater than myself and my idea of a family.

    And on the other side of the coin, there will be those who will contend that, no, leaving my family would not benefit them, because it may hurt them emotionally, financially (if they, in fact, depend on me for money-- but in my case, they don't), psychologically, and so forth. To truly care for them would be to see your time through to the end with them. There are plenty of lifetimes ahead of us to devote ourselves to the monastic life, so perhaps it's more compassionate to wait.

    It basically comes down to this: are your "vows" to your family as important as taking a monastic vow?

    I do like the suggestion someone made here about becoming a nun every couple of months during the year. That is an interesting alternative and a good middle-way approach.
  • seeker242seeker242 Zen Florida, USA Veteran

    seeker242 said:


    People don't realize that the Buddha left so that he could help his family. People think that he did that "for himself", but you never hear teachers or wise men talking like that.:)


    However, what I am asking here is, should regular ol' people like myself who are already in relationships (and those who may have children and the sort, or important jobs where people rely heavily upon them, or pets to care for, or other responsibilities/promises they've made to others) leave them in order to peruse their own desire to become an ordained monk or nun?

    Ok, I was mostly referring the Buddha himself and his particular situation. :) But I think what you described above is rarely case in real life. Even the Buddha himself required his monks to get permission from their parents before they were allowed to become a monk. And if you had a parent who needed to be cared for, and there was no one else to care for them, you were not allowed become a monk. The Buddha himself made it forbidden to leave home if it meant you had to abandon people thereby causing them some real harm like not having food or something like that. :)

    person
  • SillyPuttySillyPutty Veteran
    edited April 2013
    seeker242 said:



    Ok, I was mostly referring the Buddha himself and his particular situation. :) But I think what you described above is rarely case in real life.

    I must be a rare exception then, because I was seriously asking this due to my own situation. I have been contemplating a lot over the past couple of years of taking that leap and becoming a nun. I am practically a nun already (for various reasons :lol: ), just haven't taken the actual vows and have left home to peruse the path more seriously.
    seeker242 said:


    Even the Buddha himself required his monks to get permission from their parents before they were allowed to become a monk. And if you had a parent who needed to be cared for, and there was no one else to care for them, you were not allowed become a monk. The Buddha himself made it forbidden to leave home if it meant you had to abandon people thereby causing them some real harm like not having food or something like that. :)

    But what about, strictly speaking, emotional/psychological issues? Let's not focus on the financial part. Let's say your family are millionaires (mine are not by any means, but they can definitely take care of themselves financially speaking without me present) and they have everything they will ever need or want. However, the one thing they won't have is the company and love, care, and commitment that you have made to them to stay until the very "end". So is that just giving into attachments by staying? Is it prolonging the inevitable by staying and not leaving (because one day we will all have to say goodbye to one another eventually)?

    I'm not posting this reply because I'm still looking for input. I think everyone here has already shared enough great insights which has helped me to formulate my own opinion on the matter. I just wanted to clarify what my main aim was in this thread, that's all. Everyone was basically answering the general question, but I was just looking for something a little more specific, that's all. What I have come to realize is that, yes, the "vows" you make on an emotional level to the ones you love should not be broken. It is just not the right time to get up and go. There will be other lifetimes to explore that.
  • Lazy_eyeLazy_eye Veteran
    edited April 2013
    I tend to see the choice to get married and/or have children as a binding commitment to the welfare of all involved. Not honoring it (i.e. by failing to support the children one has brought into the world) possibly amounts to a breach of the Buddhist precepts, and is dodgy in any case.

    When Gautama left the palace in the middle of the night, he was essentially deceiving his spouse and family -- and thus his actions would have been in violation of the ethical guidelines he taught later. But as others have pointed out, Gautama the troubled young man was not Gautama the enlightened Buddha. In my view, it's better to go by the teachings he left us then by trying to read too much into his life history.
    SillyPutty
  • karastikarasti Breathing Minnesota Moderator
    Not everyone is a Buddhist. I look at the situation with my grandma. She has 5 children, all of whom live within an hour of here, 2 of whom are less than 3 miles away. I live next door. We all work together to provide her care and companionship, but because I am next door more of it falls on me than anyone else. If I did not have my spouse and children but was still caring for my grandma, I would not feel ok to leave to be a monastic. I would wait until she passed. She is 87, so maybe it would be tomorrow, and maybe it will be 10 years from now. But my staying wouldn't be as much because of my attachment to her, but more so her attachment to me. Perhaps I would not be doing her any favors by reinforcing her attachments to me, but it is what it is. She has lived a long life, and many, many times in my life she took care of me. She baby sat me as a young child, she provided homework help, she hugged me, played with me, taught me how to garden, she gave me advice, and so on. She is of the belief that when you are old, your family should take care of you if they can. I agree, and I can take care of her. So I do. For me, to up and leave when she is in need (even though others are nearby to do the things I do) would be an attachment to ordaining over what is the right thing to do. She and I have a special bond, she asks me to do the things she does because she knows I do them with care and love and compassion. I don't tell her what to do, I don't boss her around like my aunts and uncles do. For me to leave her and try to justify it by saying I'm reducing her attachment to me, would be escapism. She relies on me in part due to her beliefs. Who am I to tell her she is wrong based on my beliefs?
    MaryAnne
  • jlljll Veteran
    Buddha call this world samsara, it means a place of suffering.
    Most people dont think this world is a place of suffering.
    sure, they experience suffering from time to time.
    but for the most part, they still want to enjoy life,
    to fulfill their potential, whatever that means.

    until, you can see things from buddha's perspective,
    running away to the cave or forest is very irresponsible.

    to emphasize my point, buddha call our body a bag of
    skin n bones, containing urine, phlegm and excrement.
    pretty harsh.

    buddha doesnt mince his words, does he?

  • lobsterlobster Crusty Veteran
    People think it important what people they admire do.

    What are you prepared to do?

    Personally I am well on the way to Buddhahood. In fact part of me is already there. Yippee. Did not have to travel far, did not have to leave anything. No time like the present. I may say something really cosmic soon . . . may just have a cup of tea . . . with my inner 'Dharma Dad' aka 'ShakeYaMoney Buddha' :thumbsup:
    Invincible_summer
  • I think the problem is we always "assume" a) causality and b) That a person is either all awesome or all useless/dead beat. Can't he be both?

    Why can't a possible theory be that maybe he really did not know what the future held for him. Maybe he was just depressed. Maybe he as a dead beat dad and husband at THAT moment.

    And then he continued creating his story....

    Maybe the story could be a common: Depressed guy --> leaves family --> fools himself into thinking he is pursuing spirituality --> gets into drugs --> Dies a lone death.

    Happens all the time. We would never had a Buddha or the opportunity to discuss on this thread.

    But the story in this case was different.

    Depressed guy --> leaves family --> really serious about overcoming suffering --> works hard --> ended up unlocking some secrets that are universally useful.

    Maybe his curiosity was more than his irresponsibility, and his hard work was enough for his curiosity. But at hindsight, if we start getting jittery about "But if he as good, how could he have done that bad thing????" or "If he did a bad thing, how can we call him good?" then the confusion is inside us. In our need to generalize and see everything in black and white.

    What counts is the message, not the messenger.

  • rohitrohit Maharrashtra Veteran

    Why don't you just learn vipassana and practice it in early morning ! There are 10 days sessions of vippasana which you can attend per year. In these 10 days you can live like monk or nun and just meditate most of the hours.
    There are 45 days sessions too. In these session you need to live away from home and need to keep silence to practice meditation.

  • federicafederica Seeker of the clear blue sky... Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt Moderator
    edited September 2015

    old thread. And we all know what happens to 'old threads', right?

This discussion has been closed.