Esoteric Dharma

lobster

As we know some of the Buddha's teaching were a little esoteric, for example when he advised people to be like a rhinosaurus.
http://www.khandro.net/animal_rhino.htm

However Therevada sutra are a little too peculiar for some. So here is some of my olde ramblings on rasayana/alchemy ...
http://tinyurl.com/p3s7th3

What Buddhist teaching advice/seemed esoteric or hidden and then turned exoteric for you?

For me it was the Mahayana teaching: 'Emptiness is form and form is emptiness'. However fortunately I still don't understand it.

silver

OmG. You mean @lobster doesn't know what emptiness is form / form is emptiness is all about? I thought I the novice was the only one on the (Buddhist) planet that didn't quite get it. It makes me feel pathetic and sad! (j/k...sort of) I didn't think anyone who's been as steeped in the B.M. (Buddhist Minutiae) didn't have a grasp on that one. Who knew!

Pretty much all the ones that just keep going on and on, expressing the same thing repeatedly. I-I-I'm not much of a Buddhist, am I!

Walker

Hmmm.. B.M. is an acronym for something else...
Would B.S. stand for Buddhist Scholasticism?

I recently read Stephen Batchelor's Verses From The Center: A Buddhist Vision of the Sublime. Nagarjuna's ideas definitely are not easy for me to get my head around.

silver

I'm always ready to take @lobster's contributions as leaning in the F.Z. (Funnybone Zone) direction...but I know he's a serious Buddhist dude. I'm at the back of the classroom but I'm earnest.

lobster

@Walker said:
I recently read Stephen Batchelor's Verses From The Center: A Buddhist Vision of the Sublime. Nagarjuna's ideas definitely are not easy for me to get my head around.

Nagajuna belonged to Slytherin and traditionally spoke Parseltongue. Some say he was raised by nagas/serpents. I guess that would make him a Sith ...

Alchemy like 'him who must not be named' (JHVW) is full of snakes and ladders.

Nagajuna is sometimes called 'the second Buddha'. In some Christian Gnostic texts, after the Dark Lord (JHVW) had imprisoned us in euphoric ignorance, the true God in serpent form, came to us to suggest fruition would lead to seeding ...

LOL - too wikid?

Walker

@lobster said:

Alchemy like 'him who must not be named' (JHVW) is full of snakes and ladders.

Blasphemy

DairyLama

I still find not-self somewhat esoteric! With some samadhi or strong mindfulness it feels like self-view is more diffuse, but I can't recall ever being completely free from self-view, that residual sense of being "me".

lobster

@SpinyNorman said:
I still find not-self somewhat esoteric! With some samadhi or strong mindfulness it feels like self-view is more diffuse, but I can't recall ever being completely free from self-view, that residual sense of being "me".

I found this answer in an old posting on New Buddhist.

Curl up a rope. Is there really curl-ness? Tangle up some yarn. Is there really tangle-ness there? Make a mud pie. It there really pie-ness there? Look at a whirlpool. Is there whirlpool-ness there? The svabhâva (true nature) is never affected by formation; in fact, the formation is an illusion.

Not clinging to his form,
The water man dives 
Into the great ocean.
His old form has disappeared.
He is free of all formations.

Really expression has to have a form. Like a foot in a shoe. A shoe does not walk without a mover. However movement is not a thing but a process. Many of these not-self-foot-shoe can be said or attributed to the event. We could call it art or clog dancing or call it a separation.

In a similar way text is dependent on the places it is not for meaning. Otherwise it would be black or a blank page.

Not self doesn't exist without being or to put it more plainly:
'Emptiness is form and form is empty' [Lobster faints from total confusion]

DairyLama

I sort of get it intellectually, it's the direct experience which seems elusive.

lobster

@silver said:
I'm at the back of the classroom but I'm earnest.

Just remember the dharma esoteric class is a circle. Sometimes we change direction. Being earnest and honest is about skilfull integrity. Sometimes things become back to front ...

For example some people are troubled by serpents. Some dance with wolves or skate on thin ice.

These are all different descriptions of various parts of our condition.

The esoteric teachings are designed to be:

• Drivel/obscure/hidden/protected
• Simple, open and obvious to those able to profit
• Multi layered metaphors

http://www.buddhanature.com/buddha/prajnaparamita.html

... and now back to the other layers ...

Namada

When Iam trying to speak and ask about emptiness and not self to my buddies and family they just smile or laugh. I asked them, is this a table really a table, and I knoked on it, if you take it a part, can you then call it a table? No, then its just a peace of wood...

So where is the table?

It depends on conditions?

I dont know, this not self thing, I cant understand it either...because...
who is going to Nirvana? Who will be reincarneted?

Its you...not your body, but something...

shadowleaver

I noticed that the emptiness/form thing become a little less esoteric when I'm taking a cold shower.

Shoshin

Form is Emptiness - Emptiness is Form... Nothing exists from its own side

Esoteric Dharma is nothing special the more one 'tries' to understand it (using intellect) the further one wanders from the truth... It's best to just sneak in the back door when monkey mind's not looking...

lobster

@Namada said:
When I am trying to speak and ask about emptiness and not self to my buddies and family they just smile or laugh.

Just when the Buddha was about to pick his nose [unverified source] everyone discussed wether anything had been transmitted:

• The importance of focussing on the air passing through nostrils
• Not to speak the esoteric knowledge (even if possible)
• Note new hairstyle (and matching sari)
• No Buddha snogging
• Alternate nostril breathing - Buddha style ...

etc.

So the essence of emptiness in a table, is reborn as an admonishment to remain empty of intellectual or immature 'wisdom'. That be my plan!