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Who here is willing to state why their practice is superior to others.??????
Toraldris -`-,-{@ Zen Nud... Buddhist @}-,-`- East Coast, USAVeteran
@shanyin said:
Someone previously on this forum constantly up-talked the Theravada 'vehicle', even calling it 'superior'. He often quoted Pali Suttas.
That's one of the reasons I'm a non-traditionalist. I've heard all sides, especially people touting the Lotus Sutra (but not only them), acting as if their individual traditions are superior to all others. So here I am to tout non-traditionalism as the superior way... no, no I'm not. Hahahaha.
Is pointing out why somebody else's practice sucks the same as saying yours is superior?
0
Toraldris -`-,-{@ Zen Nud... Buddhist @}-,-`- East Coast, USAVeteran
edited May 2014
@MeisterBob said:
Is pointing out why somebody else's practice sucks the same as saying yours is superior?
If you also say that your own practice sucks, then no. Otherwise it's probably "implicit" that your practice doesn't have the pitfalls that the other practice does (hence superior).
What exactly do you mean by manipulating the sense data?
0
Toraldris -`-,-{@ Zen Nud... Buddhist @}-,-`- East Coast, USAVeteran
@shanyin Thanks for that, but after reading it I'm not sure why I read it. It may be helpful for Christians trying to reconcile their views about God and Heaven with Buddhism.
@Jeffrey said:
What exactly do you mean by manipulating the sense data?
As information from any of our sense organs are received, one can either allow that data to freely flow or fiddle with it. (typical fiddling with it involves clinging to it or pushing it away).
Meditation is largely the practice of learning how to stop habitually manipulating our data streams.
I have never thought of meditation that way. Well walking meditation. But in my sangha we are just taught to find the spaciousness in all arisings. Which might BE a fiddling if misunderstood. But the spaciousness is already there so it's just a focusing on the space rather than fiddling. I guess.
@Jeffrey said:
I have never thought of meditation that way. Well walking meditation. But in my sangha we are just taught to find the spaciousness in all arisings. Which might BE a fiddling if misunderstood. But the spaciousness is already there so it's just a focusing on the space rather than fiddling. I guess.
@Jeffrey
Hah! You dare compare your mere story of Tibetan spaciousness to a Zen practice?
Sorry! Considering the thread title..How could I resist.
Finding that spaciousness in either the observer or the data streams is a good description of the meditation practice. There are many different explanations in the various schools to explain the same process.
@AldrisTorvalds said:
shanyin Thanks for that, but after reading it I'm not sure why I read it. It may be helpful for Christians trying to reconcile their views about God and Heaven with Buddhism.
I suppose I generalized non-traditionalist as not being particulary adherent to a specific school, rather than tradition.
EDIT,
And since since it seems to encompass all schools, I thought you might be interested.
It's actually confusing because in teachings such as 'the Lion's Roar' it is recommended that all of our mental states we can relate to them in some way. They are all workable. That word 'workable' strongly suggests that we do engage the arisings with our minds. Yet at the same time Dzogchen, I hear, has to do with just letting everything be as it is. I think this means that we work with the arisings, but in that itself we find a non-doing. But in many activities we need to engage the world with our problem solving mind that is open, clear, and sensitive.
@Jeffrey said:
It's actually confusing because in teachings such as 'the Lion's Roar' it is recommended that all of our mental states we can relate to them in some way. They are all workable. That word 'workable' strongly suggests that we do engage the arisings with our minds. Yet at the same time Dzogchen, I hear, has to do with just letting everything be as it is. I think this means that we work with the arisings, but in that itself we find a non-doing. But in many activities we need to engage the world with our problem solving mind that is open, clear, and sensitive.
I simply try to allow the input from the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body & mind to arise, live and fade away without attempting to interfer with it, in contrast to our more habituated inclinations to interact with all phenomena in whatever way best aids the ego.
In engaging the world, ones practice at maintaining the meditative observation of phenomena rather than mindlessly being controlled by phenomena, is where discernment with phenomena separates itself from the judgement of phenomena.
The** former** allows for fluidic responses to phenomena according to the best needs of the situation where as the** latter** simply dictates whatever responses best fit the bill for ego maintenance.
The former provides no support of the Ego's dream of it's own godhood where as the latter is the support of the ego's godhood.
@how: ^^ so do you mean that if somebody calls you by your name in your house, then you just let the sound sense data to flow through you and you do not respond to it? may be i am getting you wrongly, but please explain to me how to function with the above strategy in my daily house-hold life with my parents criticizing my actions, with a wife who usually has a to-do list for me and with a daughter, who always cries to get her demands met? please suggest. thanks in advance.
By the way, @how you write really good English statements, which clearly explains what you are trying to say and also you say very easily those things which are difficult to express. great ability you have. much appreciated and thanks to you for your being here and sharing your wisdom with us.
@MeisterBob said:
Is pointing out why somebody else's practice sucks the same as saying yours is superior?
I think it depends. If a person is out robbing banks on the weekend and comes home to do meditation to get enlightenment, I think it's accurate to say their practice sucks. :P
3
DavidA human residing in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Ancestral territory of the Erie, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, Mississauga and Neutral First NationsVeteran
@shanyin said:
I forgot to mention he was, banned
ourself
what is the contradiction?
Claiming a superior practice only goes to show more practice is needed.
@lobst yes... easier to suffer less, not that there are less difficulties. Although some of the 'milder' difficulties in my experience have become just that... a lot milder... than before studying Buddhism too.
@misecmisc1 said:
how: ^^ so do you mean that if somebody calls you by your name in your house, then you just let the sound sense data to flow through you and you do not respond to it? may be i am getting you wrongly, but please explain to me how to function with the above strategy in my daily house-hold life with my parents criticizing my actions, with a wife who usually has a to-do list for me and with a daughter, who always cries to get her demands met? please suggest. thanks in advance.
Good question &
yes, your interpretation of my post probably would result in a divorce.
Formal meditation allows us to discover a place of stillness within from which to objectively observe the birth, life and death of phenomena. That stillness is simply us being open to the experience of being untethered from our attachments.
With the development of a formal meditation practice, bringing the meditation along from the sitting practices into the activities of daily life is the next step.
In order to move the formal sitting meditation into the activities of daily life, the same stillness found within the formal meditation practice needs to also be found within oneself while engaging in daily activities.
From the objective stillness developed in meditation (whether in formal sitting or in the activity of daily life), when someone calls your name, you can respond as appropriate from that place of stillness without being entangled in the dictates of our habituated and conditioned impulses.
If you respond outside of that objective stillness then your response will be subject to the conditioned needs of your ego, which is likely just to initiate more ego wars in your home.
In order to move the formal sitting meditation into the activities of daily life, the same stillness found within the formal meditation practice needs to also be found within oneself while engaging in daily activities.
@how: how to find stillness in daily activities? may be a stupid question to ask, but still asking. does finding stillness in daily activities means the mental thought process should not be going on in parallel - say if i am drinking water, then i should be only drinking water and be with the experience of drinking water without any thinking going on inside my mind - in a way, in daily activities, i should try to keep my mind quite with as less thoughts as possible and whenever unnecessary thinking is going on, i should try to be in here and now, by being with whichever activity i may be doing. is my thinking going in right direction? please tell. thanks in advance.
0
federicaSeeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubtModerator
edited May 2014
Pretty much, yes.
If thoughts arise, be aware of them. Treat them kindly and let them pass without staying with them.
By 'treat them kindly' I mean, do not chastise them for being there; your Mind, thinks.
It's ok, that's what it does.
All we are doing, is training it to leave the muck, and focus on the productive.
Because 90% of our thinking is unnecessary 'muck', it will take some time to train the Mind to not focus on it.
It's like being addicted to a snack which is bad for us... we eat it, to the detriment of a balanced diet, until we realise we are eating more 'bad' snack than good food.
So, it's a process of cutting out the bad snack.
But eating it, occasionally, won't harm or kill us....
You cannot completely eliminate the 'bad snack' but that's ok.
As you may have discovered already if you try to force your mind to be quiet its counter productive..
Just get into the habit of spotting your mind spinning off somewhere and gently bring it back to the breath...to the water..the feel of it. The taste. The sounds.
Exactly so, we have enough hard arsed, frigid, poker up the bum Dharma Daleks. 'Meditate, meditate, Exterminate thoughts'.
Quiet cushion
3
Toraldris -`-,-{@ Zen Nud... Buddhist @}-,-`- East Coast, USAVeteran
@lobster Very entertaining! Always a Sherlock fan, but ever-more increasingly a Doctor Who fan. For a while I thought that Moffat had actually engineered this until I began to notice the effects and later CGI.
When I started reading this thread, I never thought it would lead to Sherlock. Funny is the path of mind and communication.
On the original topic, and I realize I'm a few days behind, it would seem that inferior and superior are both points of view based on ego, at least when it comes to one's practice.
While I could easily state that my practice is inferior, as I've been primarily a "book Buddhist" for way too long, it might in the eyes of others be further along than it really is.
What works for one person does not for another. In fact, what we think works best for us, may not. How many lifetimes does it take to try all practice variations? How often do we engage in a particular practice and the issue is not with the practice, but with ourselves?
I know that is the case with me. I brought it over from Christianity. If I can't truly be Christ-like, what's the point. If I cannot truly follow the precepts 100% all the time, what's the point? It's not the practices that are inferior, in either case, it's the practitioner.
2
federicaSeeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubtModerator
Yes, topics do encapsulate several different ideas.... I tend to keep it in check, if i can, as appropriate, particularly if we have a discussion on, say, re-birth, and the conversation strays towards aunt Emily being a martyr to her bunions....
Superior is not always better than inferior. Sometimes it's just a matter of comparative positions. And sometimes the inferior path is a bit in the fast lane. If you want s-l-o-w results, take the High Road. Remember the old Scottish ballad:
O ye'll tak' the high road, and Ah'll tak' the low road
And Ah'll be in Scotlan' afore ye
Fir me an' my true love will ne'er meet again
On the bonnie, bonnie banks o' Loch Lomon'.
@misecmisc1 said:
how: how to find stillness in daily activities? may be a stupid question to ask, but still asking. does finding stillness in daily activities means the mental thought process should not be going on in parallel - say if i am drinking water, then i should be only drinking water and be with the experience of drinking water without any thinking going on inside my mind - in a way, in daily activities, i should try to keep my mind quite with as less thoughts as possible and whenever unnecessary thinking is going on, i should try to be in here and now, by being with whichever activity i may be doing. is my thinking going in right direction? please tell. thanks in advance.
Thinking we are our thoughts makes us dogs chasing our own tails. Until one allows the meditation to show a wider reality than that illusive tail, running in circles is the game.
Trying to think your way out of this problem only makes the tail a more enticing chase.
Stop!
Find the stillness first in formal meditation. Then nurture it in daily life.
@how said:
Find the stillness first in formal meditation. Then nurture it in daily life.
I gets it!
I must admit when I was being diverted by deviant dharma dervishes we did it the other way around . . . Stillness in daily life and then formal practice.
:orange:
Attend to the moment. Be in the presence of the experiencing . . . Groovy.
And in any case isn't claiming that other peoples claims are ' arrogant and self promoting propaganda ' a roundabout way of claiming superiority over those people ?
No, I was just saying that I have observed a superior attitude and it was from Dzogchen people.
@Citta said:
Has anyone on this thread or this forum made that claim..?
And in any case isn't claiming that other peoples claims are ' arrogant and self promoting propaganda ' a roundabout way of claiming superiority over those people ?
Always useful to have a post quoted in full I think.
I don't think it is arrogant to think your tradition is the best method. But you have to have the perspective that no one from other traditions agree with you.
@SpinyNorman. I just see it as piping up honestly as when HHDL in his book New Millenium said that he feels Buddhism is the best religion. He said that it just seemed that way to him. So I agree you should qualify your allegiance to your religion and pass on that everyone is different and makes their own choices.
@Jeffrey said:
SpinyNorman. I just see it as piping up honestly as when HHDL in his book New Millenium said that he feels Buddhism is the best religion. He said that it just seemed that way to him. So I agree you should qualify your allegiance to your religion and pass on that everyone is different and makes their own choices.
Agreed. I was thinking about it in terms of Buddhists claiming that their own tradition/practice was superior to that of other Buddhists, and observing that there is no way of assessing superiority in terms of outcome.
Comments
That's one of the reasons I'm a non-traditionalist. I've heard all sides, especially people touting the Lotus Sutra (but not only them), acting as if their individual traditions are superior to all others. So here I am to tout non-traditionalism as the superior way... no, no I'm not.
Hahahaha.
Is pointing out why somebody else's practice sucks the same as saying yours is superior?
If you also say that your own practice sucks, then no. Otherwise it's probably "implicit" that your practice doesn't have the pitfalls that the other practice does (hence superior).
@AldrisTorvalds
He was banned from the forum, I don't know the reason but I suspect it was because he put down other schools.
Maybe you'll like this essay, as a non traditionalist!
http://arrowriver.ca/dhamma/kemaNirv.html
EDIT, changed article to 'essay'
I think Vinylyn might like it too, as he his Christian. (I hope that I didn't get his title wrong again)
What exactly do you mean by manipulating the sense data?
@shanyin Thanks for that, but after reading it I'm not sure why I read it.
It may be helpful for Christians trying to reconcile their views about God and Heaven with Buddhism.
@shanyin are you talking about dhammadhatu? He had an anger problem is what I gather.
As information from any of our sense organs are received, one can either allow that data to freely flow or fiddle with it. (typical fiddling with it involves clinging to it or pushing it away).
Meditation is largely the practice of learning how to stop habitually manipulating our data streams.
I have never thought of meditation that way. Well walking meditation. But in my sangha we are just taught to find the spaciousness in all arisings. Which might BE a fiddling if misunderstood. But the spaciousness is already there so it's just a focusing on the space rather than fiddling. I guess.
@Jeffrey
Hah! You dare compare your mere story of Tibetan spaciousness to a Zen practice?
Sorry! Considering the thread title..How could I resist.
Finding that spaciousness in either the observer or the data streams is a good description of the meditation practice. There are many different explanations in the various schools to explain the same process.
Part of finding spaciousness is to awaken to the body, feelings, moods, and phenomena.
I suppose I generalized non-traditionalist as not being particulary adherent to a specific school, rather than tradition.
EDIT,
And since since it seems to encompass all schools, I thought you might be interested.
It's actually confusing because in teachings such as 'the Lion's Roar' it is recommended that all of our mental states we can relate to them in some way. They are all workable. That word 'workable' strongly suggests that we do engage the arisings with our minds. Yet at the same time Dzogchen, I hear, has to do with just letting everything be as it is. I think this means that we work with the arisings, but in that itself we find a non-doing. But in many activities we need to engage the world with our problem solving mind that is open, clear, and sensitive.
@Jeffrey
I simply try to allow the input from the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body & mind to arise, live and fade away without attempting to interfer with it, in contrast to our more habituated inclinations to interact with all phenomena in whatever way best aids the ego.
In engaging the world, ones practice at maintaining the meditative observation of phenomena rather than mindlessly being controlled by phenomena, is where discernment with phenomena separates itself from the judgement of phenomena.
The** former** allows for fluidic responses to phenomena according to the best needs of the situation where as the** latter** simply dictates whatever responses best fit the bill for ego maintenance.
The former provides no support of the Ego's dream of it's own godhood where as the latter is the support of the ego's godhood.
@how: ^^ so do you mean that if somebody calls you by your name in your house, then you just let the sound sense data to flow through you and you do not respond to it? may be i am getting you wrongly, but please explain to me how to function with the above strategy in my daily house-hold life with my parents criticizing my actions, with a wife who usually has a to-do list for me and with a daughter, who always cries to get her demands met? please suggest. thanks in advance.
By the way, @how you write really good English statements, which clearly explains what you are trying to say and also you say very easily those things which are difficult to express. great ability you have. much appreciated and thanks to you for your being here and sharing your wisdom with us.
Yes.
And so is a constant stream of low level put downs of traditional forms of Buddhist practice.
( Not aimed at you Meister Bob, you are still exploring, and quite right to )
I think it depends. If a person is out robbing banks on the weekend and comes home to do meditation to get enlightenment, I think it's accurate to say their practice sucks. :P
Claiming a superior practice only goes to show more practice is needed.
Thanks. I said what I need to hear though. Criticism in the guise of helpfulness. Only when it is heartfelt do I know it is not that. Long weekend....
Always comforting when we hear what we need to hear. Even when its we that are saying it.
@lobst yes... easier to suffer less, not that there are less difficulties. Although some of the 'milder' difficulties in my experience have become just that... a lot milder... than before studying Buddhism too.
Bravo @Dandelion, difficulties eased. That's it. That is the path. No miracles, unless lucky, just dukkha eased, ignorance lessened.
.
@misecmisc
Good question &
yes, your interpretation of my post probably would result in a divorce.
Formal meditation allows us to discover a place of stillness within from which to objectively observe the birth, life and death of phenomena. That stillness is simply us being open to the experience of being untethered from our attachments.
With the development of a formal meditation practice, bringing the meditation along from the sitting practices into the activities of daily life is the next step.
In order to move the formal sitting meditation into the activities of daily life, the same stillness found within the formal meditation practice needs to also be found within oneself while engaging in daily activities.
From the objective stillness developed in meditation (whether in formal sitting or in the activity of daily life), when someone calls your name, you can respond as appropriate from that place of stillness without being entangled in the dictates of our habituated and conditioned impulses.
If you respond outside of that objective stillness then your response will be subject to the conditioned needs of your ego, which is likely just to initiate more ego wars in your home.
@how: how to find stillness in daily activities? may be a stupid question to ask, but still asking. does finding stillness in daily activities means the mental thought process should not be going on in parallel - say if i am drinking water, then i should be only drinking water and be with the experience of drinking water without any thinking going on inside my mind - in a way, in daily activities, i should try to keep my mind quite with as less thoughts as possible and whenever unnecessary thinking is going on, i should try to be in here and now, by being with whichever activity i may be doing. is my thinking going in right direction? please tell. thanks in advance.
Pretty much, yes.
If thoughts arise, be aware of them. Treat them kindly and let them pass without staying with them.
By 'treat them kindly' I mean, do not chastise them for being there; your Mind, thinks.
It's ok, that's what it does.
All we are doing, is training it to leave the muck, and focus on the productive.
Because 90% of our thinking is unnecessary 'muck', it will take some time to train the Mind to not focus on it.
It's like being addicted to a snack which is bad for us... we eat it, to the detriment of a balanced diet, until we realise we are eating more 'bad' snack than good food.
So, it's a process of cutting out the bad snack.
But eating it, occasionally, won't harm or kill us....
You cannot completely eliminate the 'bad snack' but that's ok.
Everything in Moderation.
Including Moderation.
But gently...
As you may have discovered already if you try to force your mind to be quiet its counter productive..
Just get into the habit of spotting your mind spinning off somewhere and gently bring it back to the breath...to the water..the feel of it. The taste. The sounds.
Exactly so, we have enough hard arsed, frigid, poker up the bum Dharma Daleks. 'Meditate, meditate, Exterminate thoughts'.
Quiet cushion
@lobster Very entertaining! Always a Sherlock fan, but ever-more increasingly a Doctor Who fan. For a while I thought that Moffat had actually engineered this until I began to notice the effects and later CGI.
I SO love Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock! I thought nobody could surpass Jeremy Brett's, but Cumberbatch is soo good...
When I started reading this thread, I never thought it would lead to Sherlock. Funny is the path of mind and communication.
On the original topic, and I realize I'm a few days behind, it would seem that inferior and superior are both points of view based on ego, at least when it comes to one's practice.
While I could easily state that my practice is inferior, as I've been primarily a "book Buddhist" for way too long, it might in the eyes of others be further along than it really is.
What works for one person does not for another. In fact, what we think works best for us, may not. How many lifetimes does it take to try all practice variations? How often do we engage in a particular practice and the issue is not with the practice, but with ourselves?
I know that is the case with me. I brought it over from Christianity. If I can't truly be Christ-like, what's the point. If I cannot truly follow the precepts 100% all the time, what's the point? It's not the practices that are inferior, in either case, it's the practitioner.
Yes, topics do encapsulate several different ideas.... I tend to keep it in check, if i can, as appropriate, particularly if we have a discussion on, say, re-birth, and the conversation strays towards aunt Emily being a martyr to her bunions....
Superior is not always better than inferior. Sometimes it's just a matter of comparative positions. And sometimes the inferior path is a bit in the fast lane. If you want s-l-o-w results, take the High Road. Remember the old Scottish ballad:
O ye'll tak' the high road, and Ah'll tak' the low road
And Ah'll be in Scotlan' afore ye
Fir me an' my true love will ne'er meet again
On the bonnie, bonnie banks o' Loch Lomon'.
@misecmisc1
Thinking we are our thoughts makes us dogs chasing our own tails. Until one allows the meditation to show a wider reality than that illusive tail, running in circles is the game.
Trying to think your way out of this problem only makes the tail a more enticing chase.
Stop!
Find the stillness first in formal meditation. Then nurture it in daily life.
I gets it!
I must admit when I was being diverted by deviant dharma dervishes we did it the other way around . . . Stillness in daily life and then formal practice.
:orange:
Attend to the moment. Be in the presence of the experiencing . . . Groovy.
Marry me!!!! I need those cushions to match my Tardis ones :P ...
And in any case isn't claiming that other peoples claims are ' arrogant and self promoting propaganda ' a roundabout way of claiming superiority over those people ?
No, I was just saying that I have observed a superior attitude and it was from Dzogchen people.
But you didn't feel that this ' superior attitude ' was something you wanted to distance yourself from ?
Always useful to have a post quoted in full I think.
I felt they were missing the point.
Has anyone on this thread or forum claimed the superiority of Dzogchen ?
I just ask because the OP's title is " Who Here Is Willing ...etc."
Best offer I have had all day . . . :clap: . . .
I think we should become engaged Buddhists first . . .
http://www.dharmanet.org/lcengaged.htm
Kia Ora,
Who here is willing to state why their practice is superior to others.??????
Ones practice is ones karma
Metta Shoshin
I don't think it is arrogant to think your tradition is the best method. But you have to have the perspective that no one from other traditions agree with you.
There is no objective means of assessing which tradition or practice is best. So if not arrogant it's probably a foolish claim.
@SpinyNorman. I just see it as piping up honestly as when HHDL in his book New Millenium said that he feels Buddhism is the best religion. He said that it just seemed that way to him. So I agree you should qualify your allegiance to your religion and pass on that everyone is different and makes their own choices.
Agreed. I was thinking about it in terms of Buddhists claiming that their own tradition/practice was superior to that of other Buddhists, and observing that there is no way of assessing superiority in terms of outcome.
If peace and love were a weapon, I am the bomb.