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.
Mantra Overload
Just went to a local SGI (Nichiren Buddhism) center. After about ten minutes the NAM MYOHO RENGE KYO mantra that they gave me on a card, seemed to change. So I ended up chanting about five different mantras over the course of an hour and a half.
Very informal. We sat on chairs, people checked their mobile phones before chanting and refreshed themselves with bottled water. Came and went as they pleased. Very loud speaker system.
Nobody seemed to mind that I was chanting 'CONAN MERINGUE YIHA' . . . even after telling them.
http://www.sgi.org/resource-center/video-and-audio/
Very varied group, no uniformed branch, mind quietening through sensory overload. Will go again sometime . . .
Very informal. We sat on chairs, people checked their mobile phones before chanting and refreshed themselves with bottled water. Came and went as they pleased. Very loud speaker system.
Nobody seemed to mind that I was chanting 'CONAN MERINGUE YIHA' . . . even after telling them.
http://www.sgi.org/resource-center/video-and-audio/
Very varied group, no uniformed branch, mind quietening through sensory overload. Will go again sometime . . .
3
Comments
Still, it works for them then that's cool.
http://www.sgilibrary.org/writings.php
Just have to keep my wits about me . . . could be contagious . . .
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/buddhism/subdivisions/nichiren_1.shtml
Two days ago I received an extraordinarily beautiful book by Lillian Too "Chant a mantra, read a sutra," which you can get for free by placing an order on her Feng shui site.
There are several mantras to different Buddhas and dakinis.
Problem is, if you had to pray a mala to everyone, you'd hardly have any time left to live a life.
Sorry, I strayed from the Nichiren discussion, but this book has triggered the feeling in me of "mantra overload."
Like Lobster, by the end of each mala the mantra no longer resembles what it used to be. By the way, my son loves to hear Talking Tom echoing back his "Om mani padme hum."
Without selflessness as ones underlying goal, it is hard to imagine how a practice of mental discipline does not manifest as an attachment to itself..
No worries. I am lucky if I chant the same song one moment to the next . . .
For some strange reason we kids were given joss sticks as indoor smelly 'fireworks'. I rather like the idea of dharma toys. Maybe a Dalai Lama doll that gives a mantra blessing every time you rub his belly . . .
Or a 'Simple Simon Chant' - a 'repeat a mantra toy' that guarantees toddlers a good start in their future life . . .
Consumer Dharma . . . m m m . . . could be a mantra market?
Oh @how, for you we need a Zen stick that has lost its attachments . . .
For those still needing a charging chant, remember words/chants are powerless without good will as the motivation . . . as intimated . . .
Quick story about last night and one of these chant boxes....
After getting all the cushions set up, one of the brothers walked over to the main altar and reached over to
the box and was fooling with it. I looked at him weird, I guess...bec
he said..."Oh, I'm trying to turn it down. It's too loud." hahaha
What? It's kinda the place AND the time...... hahaha
That tickled the mess out of me....
BTW: Did anyone else see the magic trick in the above video?
If "the truth is a pathless land" (Jiddu K.) then being "heretic" is perhaps essential. My mantras are all personal to me and in english. Bob
You may find @MeisterBob that squaring ' Jiddu K.' and Buddhadharma is not possible.
Many have tried and in the end have had to choose..
Thank you Citta. I don't know. I was making a personal observation and sharing it. I agree that the truth is a pathless land though in that that inevitably each must must find there own path. Bob
You can insist on traversing a pathless land if thats what you want @MeisterBob, no one will stop you.
But there is always the possibility of seeing that we are not unique as individuals and that the land is actually well marked before us. Dukkha is universal and its remedy is available to all.
Mundane as that might sound.
Thanks not insisting. Just sharing my view at the moment. Insisting connotes I feel you should believe as I -I do not. "Live and let live"Bob
What I said was 'you can insist on traversing ( by yourself ) " Bob.
The fact is the route has been marked clearly. No one can walk if for you..but the maps are there.
The implication of pathless to me is embodied in this quote. I don't know its its really a buddha quote-not that it matters I guess. Sort of finding my own path on a wider broader path...if that makes sense.
“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”
Gautama Buddha
>
"Now, Kalamas, don't go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, 'This contemplative is our teacher.' When you know for yourselves that, 'These qualities are skillful; these qualities are blameless; these qualities are praised by the wise; these qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to welfare & to happiness' — then you should enter & remain in them.
>
From this link.
https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&ei=k5BvU__SHeKi0QXQiYGwBA&url=http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an03/an03.065.than.html&cd=1&ved=0CCoQFjAA&usg=AFQjCNHPxBP4q2VFPXcdD1ijJ1rsZ_2Nfg&sig2=-AwgRz5pmBKpJUp18XvvdA