Dharma
lobster
Crusty Veteran
Dharma is Buddhist lore.
The store, storey and building of our tradition.
When I started it was very useful to tighten around the key teachings. My first Buddhist book was 'What the Buddha Taught' which belonged to my uncle. I read it as soon as I was old enough - at least once or twice a year when visiting his family.
It inspired me to read and reread many Buddhist classics from the adult library which I started attending once I had read practically all of the childrens library.
I took detours into magick, and the gnostic and the contemplative heresies of the Cathars. This would effect how I understood dharma.
So the first aspect of dharma is study. The next is application. What are the implications if dharma is to be implemented? Which after a while and quite naturally turned out to be meditation which has its own 'dharma' or levels of understanding ...
Eventually everything becomes reflective of Dharma but that does not mean everything is Dharma ...
Comments
I'm not sure that's true... The Dhamma is as diverse as people are, and successfully touches on every aspect of human existence.... We have often been asked by other (new-ish) members, how to incorporate 'this' or how to practise 'that' or even, how to 'consider' the other, while living a normal existence, and almost without exception, they have received the response that 'this, that and the other' ARE points of practice. We don't incorporate them, we make them practice because Buddhism IS practice, and practice is Life.
Dhamma may be Buddhist Lore, but we are Buddhists, and as such, you're either in it, or you ain't. If everything isn't Dhamma - what else is it?
Ignorance.
Not so. "You" are the ignorant one, not "everything else".
LOL
'I' iz? Tsk tsk. No rest for the wikid. Ah well back to the near shore for us ignoramusi
The dharma? Ah, don't get me started on the dharma.
OK, since you insist.
The dharma is one of the three legs of Buddhism when the metaphor of a stool is used. "The Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha". The dharma is the collected words of the Buddha that expound on the Middle Way. It's also the message itself, usually distilled to the Noble Truths in the first and most famous of the Buddha's sermons.
It seems so simple, doesn't it? We have the example set by the Buddha, a man who managed to figure it all out and free his mind of the shitstorm of crap that defines the human condition. We have the dharma, the diagnosis and treatment he left us, a road map to accomplishing the same thing. And then we have the sangha, the monks and temples and Buddhists who have practiced and expounded and expanded on the legacy through centuries and across national and cultural borders.
Three legs of a stool. Each as important as the other. Each needing the other two to create anything useful. The dharma by itself is just another collection of myths and observations about living and one more philosophy of life to add to our list.
As I first explored Buddhist dharma by reading the sutras, I loved that it had an open canon. Nobody ever had the secular authority to declare one set of sutras to be the only authentic, authorized ones and burn the others, like in Christianity and other religions. Theoretically, something written by a Master today is just as authentic and important as something written and stored in temples for thousands of years. On top of that, these sutras weren't a miraculous, inerrant message from God dictated to prophets. "Because the Bible says so!" is such a stupid defense. You could argue and accept that this sutra contradicted the other one because the two writers disagreed and whoever wrote this sutra here had his head up his ass in your opinion.
But being who we are, I discovered it's not that simple. We have a canon based only on what sutras were popular in the various temples that managed to survive the invasions and chaos of those times. People have always had the habit of declaring something sacred and above question based on tradition only and we're no different. In my case, a collection of Koans written in China that started out as nothing more than a helpful study guide to help the student with the oral exams they faced with the Master became some mystical doorway to the secret world of Zen, laced with deep meaning that ordinary mortals can't comprehend.
The great truth I have found is that most of what is written in the sutras is crap. Wonderful crap that gives us a window into the thinking and world of the early monks, but crap nontheless. It has to be, because human beings wrote it. Buried somewhere in that crap is a pearl of great wisdom, but you won't find it if you're too busy admiring the crap.
Just my opinion.
I've always felt that the dharma is more like a thread that runs through everything... it's like the highest ideal, the purest path, this golden thread that runs through mounds of tangled wool. To me, it feels like something alive, something here and now, something to be tapped into - something that I do tap into and feel in moments run through me. I think the Buddha tapped into the dharma in the most profound way, but I don't think the dharma is exclusive to the Buddha, i.e. I don't simply see the dharma as 'the Buddha's teachings', I just see the Buddha's teachings as his explanation of the dharma. I think we can all tune into / tap into / realise that golden thread, and when we do its relationship to our lives is that of a correcting tool.. but that's the relationship between it and us. What the dharma actually is, is life... the pure essence of life at its highest expression. Which is why, when we do tap into it, it feels so natural, so joyous, so easy.
For me the dharma is a flowing teaching, constantly changing depending on the persons perspective but always hinting at what is.
Before and after dharma runs something like this,
Before" I went for a walk this morning, I liked the sounds of the birds. I was thinking about work and how much I have to do tomorrow."
After: " walking happened, sounds of birds in the morning. Appreciation of bird sounds appeared. Thinking about work, noticing of monkey mind happend. Appreciation of sunrise."
For me it is like flossing my teeth. It is something I do every day. It occurs to me that it might someone blossum into a great understanding that I don't have today but that putting myself into exposure is the only way for that to happen in the future.
@mindatrisk Love how you said that!
The Dharma is....well the Dharma.... no matter which way one looks at it.... One holds it in their heart and mind....
B. Alan Wallace on the Dharma
Doesn't look like Alan Wallace at all to me...
No, it's just another picture with no point to it....
B.Alan Wallace explaining the Dharma in a nutshell…
Squirrel (also sentient being) “holding” nut in shell close to its heart,,,..
Squirrel knows of the benefits, ie how precious the contents of the shell is.
Besides I like squirrels and we don’t get them here in Aotearoa...But we do have heaps of possums
Well, that makes perfect sense, I would never have guessed what you meant....
Form is emptiness @Cinorjer
Dharma is everything.
If you'd asked me about 5 years ago I would have said Dharma was.........
Is the Dharma anything more than whatever helps us along the path towards suffering's cessation?
Thanks guys.
I would agree with @how. Everything can teach us as @federica mentions, so it is true once we are attuned we can find a lesson in most things, situations and people but obviously we must be independent of the tendency to be drawn into ignorance and dukkha which is the flip side.
This is why dharma has outer, formal, skilful Buddhist teachings to base any depth on.
I found what @Cinorjer said interesting because without context and explanation I find most sutra/sutta too simplistic, culturally dependent and irrelevent to my experience. This is why the sangha/teachers are required to cherry pick and interpret.
I've found that the essence that runs through all teachings of the Dharma is that of emptiness
"May I clearly perceive all experiences to be as insubstantial as the dream fabric of the night and instantly awaken to perceive the pure wisdom displayed in the arising of every phenomenon"
Part of a Red Tara dedication prayer....
The problem is that they all pick different cherries. So which bowl of cherries do we pick from? Might not the cherries in another bowl be more to our taste?
^^^ Sadly a lot of the dharma presented is based on preference and palatibility. Too often it is just group reinforcement that may not stand up to independent scrutiny. At its best it is the inspiration and means to develop further our journey.
This is where the discernment of listeners and the integrity of the sangha is tested.
Too often it is just group reinforcement that may not stand up to independent scrutiny.
-I agree with this. As a related aside, any position requiring a leap of faith does not resonate with me...
The Dharma comes forth in meditation when ego dissapears into the background...
Teachers usually teach according to the particulars of their own understanding.
Hence, a teacher whose understanding arose through flower arranging, or past lives, or the Jhannas or faith/devotion or Dharmic study, or a tea ceremony, will teach in reference to what ever opened up the path for them.
What one person calls "cherry picking"
another might call "teaching what you know".
To me, Dhamma is twofold. It's the teachings/symbols pointing towards a truth, and that truth is an experience/way of perceiving reality that leads to a new mode of being. That new mode of being is an existential transformation lifting us above the fear and suffering we experience through our ignorance and craving/clinging, the reality of things as they are when seen with a calm, clear mind.
Although I began with meditation, I think my journey truly began when I read Food for the Heart: The Collected Teachings of Ajahn Chah, which inspired me to read the suttas starting with the Majjhima Nikaya and got me seeing things from a whole different perspective.
But somewhere along the way, I fell into a sort of intellectual rabbit hole, and began to accumulate views rather than weed them down. I felt it important to be authentic and orthodox, which caused me to have a very closed-minded and narrow point of view, clinging to the finger rather than seeing where it was pointing; and I think it's been through a combination of practice and interfaith dialogues and study that I've found myself slowing climbing out of that hole.
I realized it when I started to see through the appearances of the words and symbols and glimpse at what they're pointing towards; and I came to the conclusion that there's a universal truth that underlies the foundation of all spiritual traditions in some shape or form. For me, Buddhism opened my eyes to this truth, and contemplative Christianity, I think, is helping me to realize it.
In essence, from my own experience, I'd say that I agree the first aspect of Dhamma is study; the next, application; and that eventually, everything becomes reflective of Dhamma, which isn't the same thing as saying everything is Dhamma. You just get better and better at recognizing it hiding in plain sight, at seeing through the illusory distinctions and perceiving the fullness of the emptiness beyond.
There is a Buddhist lore, and there are us bringing it to life, fleshing it out.
No, not all sutras are crap. The more I read them, the more I see the hidden pearl shining brighter in my eyes.
It shines even brighter, and everything adds up, the second I put the dead word into practice.
Dharma is alive. We bring it into life.
Thanks guys some good points. In particular the references to applicability to the inner journey. I feel the Buddha at heart was an accomplished and developed yogi who created an authentic and genuine elite that would exemplify and relate the interior path.
Each traditition in Buddhism emphasises the practices and methods that a source of wisdom finds relevant. In the absence of enlightenment the core or methodology is still transmitted.
The important thing as @DhammaDragon mentions is our enablement and empowerment from the dharma lore.
Dharma can be taught through arranging flowers, drinking tea, practicing Christianity [shock horror] or running, walking, mindful activity, stillness even silliness
The first dharma flower arranger was the Buddha who traditionally held up a flower as a piece of wordless dharma. One person understood and eventually this became Zen.
Plan iz: stop and smell roses ...