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What Makes You ( Not ) A Buddhist...
Citta
Veteran
I may be talking to myself here...it is known. " I'm talking to myself here, its causing great concern for my health " 'The Mind Of Love ' kd lang..
But every so often I feel the need to take down from the shelf Dzongsar Khyense Rinpoche's modern masterpiece.
The most important book concerning Dharma in English since 'Cutting Through ' in my opinion...
The title might make it sound negative..I don't think it is. It is a masterful introduction to the Four Dharma Seals...
The authors concern is to address certain misperceptions that have crept into western Buddhist views of Buddhadharma.
A thorough reading of the book in its entirety is strongly recommended..but a brief precis would take the form of four questions.
Can you accept the fact that ALL phenomena are impermanent ? That all compounded things arise and must pass away ?
Can you accept the fact that ALL emotion is pain ? That even in pleasure there is at a deeper, level pain ?
Can you accept that fact that there is no abiding self to be found ?
Can you accept the fact that Enlightenment is beyond all conceptual frameworks and all intellectual understanding ?
If you can answer yes to all four questions then Buddhadharma is making an impact on you.
If you cannot then you are invited to reflect a little more on what the great Buddhist teachers are imparting..
_/\_
But every so often I feel the need to take down from the shelf Dzongsar Khyense Rinpoche's modern masterpiece.
The most important book concerning Dharma in English since 'Cutting Through ' in my opinion...
The title might make it sound negative..I don't think it is. It is a masterful introduction to the Four Dharma Seals...
The authors concern is to address certain misperceptions that have crept into western Buddhist views of Buddhadharma.
A thorough reading of the book in its entirety is strongly recommended..but a brief precis would take the form of four questions.
Can you accept the fact that ALL phenomena are impermanent ? That all compounded things arise and must pass away ?
Can you accept the fact that ALL emotion is pain ? That even in pleasure there is at a deeper, level pain ?
Can you accept that fact that there is no abiding self to be found ?
Can you accept the fact that Enlightenment is beyond all conceptual frameworks and all intellectual understanding ?
If you can answer yes to all four questions then Buddhadharma is making an impact on you.
If you cannot then you are invited to reflect a little more on what the great Buddhist teachers are imparting..
_/\_
2
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
I'm still somewhere in between...
They are central to Buddhadharma.
They are ;
Anicca
Anatta
Dukkha and
Imponderable nature of Nirvana.
So it is more like saying that anyone who does not believe in the Incarnation is not a Catholic...
Or to put it another way to say that
Anicca is untrue because there is something compounded that does not change, or
Anatta is untrue because there is a soul. or
Dukkha is untrue because there are experiences not characterised by a degree of pain or
Nirvana can be understood by the discursive mind, can each readily be shown to differ from Buddhist teachings.
But I will be most grateful if anyone can point me to a refutation of his view, if that refutation comes from a Vajrayana or any other mainstream Buddhist source.
In other words an accepted Buddhist source that refutes
Anatta
Anicca
Dukkha ( not withstanding different translations )
And states that Niravana CAN be understood by the discursive mind.
Over to you.
_/\_
My point was simply that although I agree with your points intellectually and can say "yes" quite easily, that doesn't mean that I don't sometimes backslide with my instinct. I don't think the intellectual aspects are the hardest part of Buddhism. Although, in your second point (That all emotion is pain) I admit I interpreted that as not so much "pain" (like others have objected to) but more as impermanence.
I feel honour bound to point out again that these are not 'my' ideas.
They are from a book well received in Buddhist circles called
' What Makes You (Not ) A Buddhist ' by the Buddhist teacher and filmmaker Dzongscar Khyentse Rinpoche.
I was reminding myself of the purport of the book and thought others might be interested.
Thats all.
Whether it's from a book or your own mind isn't relevant to me. I don't care if it's "well received" or not. Please don't take offense to this as none is meant, but Mein Kampf was also well received at one point. The point is, to just quote something and cite a title on an author (titles which may not mean anything to your audience) is not very meaningful. It's like when people tell me being gay is wrong because it's in the Bible, which is also quite "well received". I just... don't care. I hope this doesn't sound combative, I really don't mean it that way... just a note on your pitch, I suppose.
OK.
_/\_
I have clear views on a range of social and artistic and political matters and express them freely..I have done so on this very forum.
But I have no views on matters of doctrine. I sit at the feet of my teachers. Which does not imply that I think others should. But I am a Dzogchen student . Which revolves entirely around the student/teacher relationship
On reflection, as pointing to the words of my teachers is all I have to offer on doctrinal matters, and as that clearly does not meet the expectations of the forum community I shall have to think carefully about any future involvement. Believe me the last thing I want is to gatecrash a forum where I am unable to contribute in a way that is acceptable.
with Metta
_/\_
(I'm going to make sure to sign off with loving kindness as to counteract my provocative reply.)
With Metta,
Namaste,
With Metta-like Namaste,
Namaste squarred,
_/\_
All you can do is articulate your own experience--with the assistance of a teacher. And there is nothing wrong with that either. No one can give you anything-- it comes out of your own real-ization, no one else. It is all we can do. Agreeing (or disagreeing on doctrines is ultimately beside the point. The problem lies in hanging on those views in some sort of final expression of the matter-- a problem we all get stuck on all too often.
The word "accept" seems (to me) to make this more a matter of belief. But, to be charitable in understanding your intentions (rather than getting stuck on MY assumption) I think perhaps you mean "accept" in the more existential sense, an acceptance that comes from practice, not merely assent to a intellectual proposition.
I say this because yesterday at the monastery, I heard the phrase (more than once) about "practicing" non-self. "Practicing" not "believing." Certainly there has to be some degree of trust in Buddhist doctrines. But it ultimately comes down to practicing doctrines, not believing them. One doesn't believe the usefulness of a hammer or screwdriver-- one must USE the hammer or screwdriver to truly realize how it may benefit someone (priovided of course, that one uses the tool properly!). Belief, at best, can only serve a provisional purpose to be replaced by actual existential real-ization. Perhaps that sense of the word lies behind the word "accept"? If so, I can relate more to that myself.
And so if I do understand that correctly, then I can answer these questions in a partial affirmative. I have had some insight on occasion and, if comparing where I found myself at even a year ago, then, yes-- to a limited degree.
As long as we are taking steps in a direction that brings some small measure of wisdom and compassion...
As for Enlightenment being "beyond conceptual framework"? I'd say rather that Enlightenment is nothing special but most Buddhists confuse that statement as meaning Enlightenment is not rare and precious.
What makes one a Buddhist imo isn't about what we call ourselves its about whether we follow the Buddhist teaching or not. We don't have to be a Buddhist or follow the teachings strictly to gain benefit but if you follow a belief that is opposed to the 4 seals of Buddhism you're not really following the Dharma and as per my definition earlier you would not really be a full fledged Buddhist.
[nerd metaphor]You can call yourself a trekkie and like watching the shows but if you go to a convention and tell everyone 'May the force be with you', how much of a trekkie are you really?[/nerd metaphor]
Edit: I should also say that its not that one has to have perfect view and have taken all these things totally to heart but that one should at least understand and be trying to do so.
Which ones?
Or let's say a noted Theravadan teacher were to say, "If you don't agree with Theravadan teachings, then you are not a real Buddhist."
In many aspects of life, I respect self-selection.
Bhikkhu Bodhi says
" The word vedana does not signal ' emotion' " ( which is what the Rinpoche is talking about ) " but the bare affective quality of an experience ".
' Arises does not apply. Does not arise does not apply.' And why does he say this ?
'Because....( Nirvana ) is deep,
difficult, subtle, and BEYOND DIALECTICS '
Which I would suggest is what the Rinpoche is saying in his 4th point.
_/\_
Different strokes for different folks, I suppose.
May a thousand flowers bloom and find the sun...
_/\_
However, I'm not sure that it is possible to be so cut and dried about any intellectual understanding of enlightenment being impossible. At the limit, yes. At the limit there would be no understander present to understand anything, as the Upanishads stress. But in important ways I suspect it can be understood. For example, it is beyond the dialectic, yes, but it is possible to understand how it can be beyond the dialectic.
Still, except for this quibble I would agree that if we answer no to any of your four questions we have not yet accepted the teachings in full.
I cannot see why this is about the Vajrayana in particular. AFAIK these four questions would have the same answer in all traditions. They seem to be the basic building blocks of the entire doctrine.
I would probably disagree that we must accept these four answers in order to be called a Buddhist. I accept them, (with the aformentioned proviso) but even so would not call myself a Buddhist. This is because my practice is not sufficiently commited or serious. Just accepting some intellectual ideas does not a Buddhist make, which is a pity since that's the easy bit. I would be as likely to call myself a Taoist, Sufi or advaitan. In my interpretation they would all give the same answer to your questions.
It is not clear to me how something can be 'beyond the dialectic but that we can still understand ' how it is beyond the dialectic '...Surely in the reported words of Shakyamuni he is saying that at that point concepts, and the verbal formulae that frame those concepts, trail off into silence..?
You see I don't think that it takes a lofty and subtle idea like Nirvana to illustrate the limits of thought and language. I don't think words and concepts can even capture the essence of our reaction when we stand in front of a great work of art..for example. Or listen to Beethoven's late quartets..for example ( please supply you own musical example
I expect we're just using 'understand' differently. It is not too difficult to understand that reality extends beyond the duality of opposites. But it is difficult to understand what this really means by just thinking about it, and impossible in a full sense. Still, I grasped that reality must outrun dialectic logic before I knew anything about Buddhism. So did Kant and Hegel.
It is really not too difficult to see that something can be beyond the dialectic or 'beyond the coincidence of contradictories', and even understand to some extent how this is possible. Logic allows us to see the limits of logic, and nonduality can be understood as a logical principle even without any direct experience to bring it to life. George Spencer Brown recounts how he discovered this principle while working on electrical switching circuits for the railways. Of course, it took him many more years to turn this into a realisation and thus into something that might be called an understanding in a full sense.
Buddhas are not emotionless robots. Any human being, unless their brains are diseased or damaged, has emotions. Saying "emotions are pain" is like saying "life is suffering". It's not at all useful or what the Buddha taught.
In order for you to feel joy, you must be able to feel sadness. Eliminate the emotion of grief from your mind and you will be unable to feel compassion also.
That's the Zen Buddhist "mind only" take on emotions.
' All emotions are pain, all of them ! Because all emotions depend for their existence on duality.
They all arise from the sense of subject/object. Our original mind has no such duality. We have feelings and emotions and we do not suppress or deny them..we do not need to.
We rest in our original mind. Our emotions are then from that perspective a sparkling display of pain and pleasure.'
Beyond this duality however, lies a simple joy that couldn't possibly have an opposite because this joy is born of being free of the notion of any true opposite.
Sure in the Sukha Sutta and other places it specifically says feelings are deceitful but then what about the smiling face of Maha-Kashapa? He found it all pretty funny when he received the mind-stamp of Buddha...
It always comes down to that fine line again. Once it is seen, it's hard to take sides.
JMO
That doesn't answer my question. In fact, I'd consider you're response to be evasive.
I'd like to know, specificlly, what teachers you are refering to here ...... I would also like specific citations of other teachers the offering "a snort or two" over the teaching Dzongsar Khyense Rinpoche offers in his book.
If other reputable teachers are teaching against DKR's offering, I want to know who they are and what they're saying about it.
Taken in that context, it does seem a bit funny, no?
I think it unlikely that any Zen teacher would snort at the suggestion that emotions whether 'positive' or ' negative ' have their origin in subject/object duality.
As they themselves teach the same.