So are you a 'happy' Buddhist ?
Shoshin
No one in particularNowhere Special Veteran
Kia Ora Dharma Devotees, (It's my first threat starter) :wave:
When having a discussion with a friend on another forum, I mentioned that a couple of members of the local Sangha I belong to, seem to take Buddhism way too seriously, they have a habit of making a mountain out of a mole hill by over intellectualising, and are (so it would seem) always worrying about one thing or other(spending more time worrying that doing the practice)...
My friend then told me what her teacher said about 'unhappy' Buddhists ; _"Beware of unhappy Buddhists, they're not really practicing, but just being intellectual". _
"I" found the deeper "I" delved into the Dharma the more laid-back and content "I" became, and it would seem the byproduct of this new found laidbackness was flexibility to just "go with the flow" and not taking 'my' life too seriously...
Are you a "go with the flow" happy Buddhist ?
Or do you have a habit of over-intellectualising things which more often than not tends to lead to discontentment ?
Metta Shoshin 
Comments
"threat" starter...? Worrying..!
I am the village simpleton when it comes to the intellectual approach.
I hate it when I meet those who purport to be such serious and applied followers of the Dhamma, that they don't realise their 'dark place' also stinks of shit....
simple is as simple does.
And yes I certainly am.
Kia Ora Federica,
Welcome to the non seriousness Buddhist club...
I can't remember where or when I read this but it may explain why some intellectuals have a hard time with the 'practice'
"If there's something that is described in terms of language it leads to contradiction-The only things that exist are those which are ineffable and can be experienced with feelings!
Now you can't explain why something is ineffable _without _talking about it...That's a plain contradiction: talking of the ineffable ! "
Metta Shoshin
Traditionally there is a distinction between faith and Dhamma followers - it takes all sorts I guess!
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn25/sn25.003.than.html
There's a time and a place for everything.
Sometimes, seriousness and concentration are necessary, dependent on what the focus of the discussion is.
For example, our 'Advanced Ideas' forum is for the specific discussion of more complex, deeper aspects of the Dhamma, Suttas and teachings of the Buddha.
I occasionally involve myself insofar as my understanding permits; but I have learned much. I also need to keep an eye on threads (generally), as Moderator, to ensure discussions do not stray too far off topic. Particularly in that forum, though I try to practise more laxity elsewhere...
Generally speaking, this forum is more laid-back and 'user-friendly' than others available.
But it's all good.
If you want deadly serious, such forums exist. Here, we can be both serious studious and applied, AND frivolous, jocular and relaxed, and still be devotees of the Dhamma...
Kia Ora SpinyNorman,
I guess it's along the lines of "If you have the "Karma" you see the "Dharma" and if you don't you won't !
Metta Shoshin
Kia Ora Federice,
That's true...Some practitioners are more serious in their approach to the Dharma than others...It's also possible in time they will learn to loosen up, let go and just go with the flow...
When "I" first started out "I" was prime proper and very serious, with both great faith and great doubt in equal measures, but then "I" started to experience what the Buddha was on about regarding "anatta" the "five aggregates" and sunyata "Form is Emptiness-Emptiness is Form"...How can one take the[m] "self" seriously when "anatta" is experienced ?...
To become somewhat serious one must cling to the concept of "I" "self" "me" "my" etc etc, clinging to the illusion of a 'doer' behind the doing. when there is no doer just doing- no thinker just thinking etc etc...
But I do understand for some practitioners a level of seriousness is to be expected but hopefully after a while instead of them practicing to become enlightened- "They make enlightenment the expression of their practice !"
Metta Shoshin
Sona Sutta.
Well I'm not a Buddhist-more of a mindful agnostic. I'm fairly content most of the time though suffered from depression in the past. I try not to take myself too seriously but have my moments! lol! Bob
I hope I can say I belong in the Happy Buddhist group.
I read a lot, I learn a lot, I practice a lot... and my cup keeps getting emptier (Sorry, but we have been talking a lot of full and empty cups, lately)
Overintellectualization of Buddhism (or anything in life, for that matter) blocks the way. It's the raft you have to leave behind. If you are too full of words and ideas, they block the view to the real goal, which is attaining right view and make happier choices about your life. Hopefully, to help improve other people's life too.
So here I am, happily sitting on my cushion (don't envy me, @lobster), mala in hand, breathing in, breathing out, teaching myself to unlearn...
And letting the Buddha guide my steps...
There is something unBuddhisty about criticizing other Buddhists. If someone takes the time and effort to study, and considers that to be important, how can that be negative. Unless they try to beat you over the head with it. But that should be addressed to an individual not by making a generalization about certain types of people, in my opinion.
Your way of trying to demonstrate your realization @Shoshin, is by putting quotation marks around I and me.
Which isn't really necessary here. Most of us take it for granted that normal conversation is all that is needed for normal conversation.
Others like to talk about what they have learned. It's all good.
All that book learning might come in handy one day. Combined with realization, it might make for a good teacher.
Good points @robot.
(I thought the inverted commas a bit pretentious, but as it's a new member, I can thought I'd let it go until it because tedious, but you mentioned it, so fair do's...)
I reckon I'm a happy Buddhist. I'm studying the "Full Awareness of Breathing" sutra and enjoying TNH's commentary.
Breathing in, I feel joyful. Breathing out, I feel joyful.
Breathing in, I feel happy. Breathing out, I feel happy.
It's interesting that he considers joy a preliminary to happiness, rather than vice versa as the English meanings of those words might connote.
Sometimes I am happy. Sometimes I am less so.
Which seems pretty much normal I reckon.
I am not Pollyanna.
Middle way, of course. There is a place for intellect and scholarly activities. But if there is no practice to back it up and truly make sense of it, then it becomes a problem. But for some, it takes more time to walk the walk, first they have need to try to understand before they practice. It takes all different sorts of people. If someone is overly intellectual, it doesn't bother me much. I might not understand, but perhaps I don't need to.
>
I never considered the similarity myself....
@Shoshin
Nice opening thread.
But....
Finding one form of identity to be more transcendent than another allows for a happiness that is relative only to ones former level of suffering. While this is an understandable and enjoyable stage in the progression of a Buddhist practice, it remains conditional and transitory as a subtler expression of suffering's cause.
Identity is a mud puddle that can be endlessly categorized and played within but the countless permutations that one indulges within it will not allow an escape from the confines of that mud puddle. No matter how many times it is raked over, back and forth, it remains what it is, whether one is happy or sad...a mud puddle that we continue to recreate.
Freedom, an ever widening heart and the path towards suffering's cessation, are the experience of anyone's real steps beyond the confines of that mud puddle.
It is soooo much less myopic than judging what anyone else's position or attitude is in the mud puddle .
Kia Ora,
Thank you for your comments....
I apologise if my post came across as somewhat judgemental...I was just trying to point out my observation in how some practitioners tend to over-intellectualise things and in doing so become dissatisfied/disillusioned , in other words they have yet to learn how to just drop it and go with the flow... Sabbe Dhamma Nalam Abhinivesaya
I have a keen interest in the work of neuroscientists especially those who have been studying the effects of meditation on the different parts of the brain, and also how one can create(or reinforce) wholesome neuropathways (thought patterns) "Neurons that fire together wire together!" ...I guess it must be harder for those who over-intellectualise to break a 'habit' of a life time-but the good news is, habits can be broken/replaced with more beneficial ones...
So my apologies again if "I" offended anybody with my comments...
Metta Shoshin
"You" are forgiven....
...
Shoshin, I will be your dog, and not crow.
Avoidance of extremes!
Kia Ora Anataman,
majjhimā paṭipadā; / madhyamā-pratipad
Thus I have heard it's the only "way" to go...
Metta Shoshin
So yet again you have revealed yourself. The wise man who hides behind his words is the biggest fool! And a fool is nothing more than what he says. Oops - Just revealed how much of a fool I am.
I don't follow a path - remember -; no you have forgotten, and my fruit is just the path; I have nothing to gain. So I will always win, and you will always lose when you try to play the wise man's fool.
But the fool who persists in his foolishness will become wise - so continue... b8 - ooh I was saving that one.
Now where was I. The beginners mind is a breath of fresh air; you already smell like stale bread.
... \ lol / ...
But I forgot to give you something;
A bone
fetch!
Kia ora
Kia Ora Anataman,
True knowledge is "ineffable" one can only communicate this through nonsense...
:coffee:
Metta Shoshin
You have learned much young shoeshine, but your nose carries you to butts others fear to sniff. Only you have missed something vital and essential, the ineffable is a double inexpresso... :coffee: ...
oh please guys, grow up.
You sound utterly ridiculous, both of you. Pretentious twaddle.
Pack it in.
OK...
Back to serious buddhism...
Metta
Kia Ora Federice,
Thank you...You're always the voice of reason when things begin to sound unreasonable...
I admit at times I am both pretentious, ridiculous and full of nonsense...But one thing I am not and that is offended by anything one might say about me or to me...
(They have to find "me" to hurt me and "I" don't even know where "I" am )
Sabbe Dhamma Nalam Abhinivesaya .
Metta Shoshin
I have to say Soshin, ironically enough if one reads between the lines you don't seem very happy to me.
Just angry.
Oh quit with the inverted commas, @Shoshin; it adds nothing, is pointless and unnecessary on several levels.
Kia ora cuzzy bro! How's things across the dutch?
Kia Ora Citta,
You see what you see and I know what I know...
May you see more happiness in your world...
Metta Shoshin
Ah yes..
From Master Seung Sahn's biography:
That spring and summer, Soen-sa did mostly working Zen. In the fall, he sat for a hundred-day meditation session at Su Dok Sa monastery, where he learned Zen language and Dharma-combat. By the winter, he began to feel that the monks weren’t practicing hard enough, so he decided to give them some help. One night, as he was on guard-duty (there had been some burglaries), he took all the pots and pans out of the kitchen and arranged them in a circle in the front yard. The next night, he turned the Buddha on the main altar toward the wall and took the incense-burner, which was a national treasure, and hung it on a persimmon tree in the garden. By the second morning the whole monastery was in an uproar. Rumors were flying around about lunatic burglars, or gods coming from the mountain.
The third night, Soen-sa went to the nuns’ quarters, took seventy pairs of nuns’ shoes and put them in front of Zen Master Dok Sahn’s room, displayed as in a shoe store. But this time, a nun woke up to go to the outhouse and, missing her shoes, she woke up everyone in the nuns’ quarters. Soen-sa was caught. The next day he was brought to trial. Since most of the monks voted to give him another chance (the nuns were unanimously against him), he wasn’t expelled from the monastery. But he had to offer formal apologies to all the high monks.
What first attracted me to Buddhism wasn't the deep philosophical truths, but the ability to laugh at itself. Nothing makes me grit my teeth more than a sourpuss that considers something so sacred that laughing about it is the same as defiling it.
So am I a happy little Buddhist?
Well, I'm not happy, not sad. I am at peace with the world, mostly. Sometimes I think the world and I are two old warriors once on opposite sides, retired and tired of fighting battles, now sharing a drink. I don't concern myself with who won the war. Some wars can never really be won. But wars can be called off and peace declared.
Several years ago I installed a "doggy door" in my back door so the dogs could go out in the fenced yard on their own. Yesterday, my biggest dog got stuck squeezing through it. Seems he's gained a few pounds over the years, eating scraps. After helping him escape the trap, my daughter told me I'd have to put that dog on a diet, and it wouldn't hurt me to lose a few pounds, too. Since shaving my head last week, she commented I look a bit too much like the laughing Buddha on my altar.
Laughing, I told her I had a better idea. I'd cut a bigger hole in the door. But I'd also try to lose a few more pounds. One laughing Buddha in the house was enough.
What does this have to do with the topic? Not a thing. Hope everyone has a good day.