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Something larger than yourself...
Shim
Veteran
in Philosophy
What in your life or in your practice is that which is larger than yourself? You know, those words the God people use. Is it awareness, mindfulness, nature, or maybe the Three Jewels? Does it even exist?
I'm really fond of this idea for some reason and I would like to know if there is space for something larger than oneself in modern Buddhism. Even the lamps upon themselves surely use outer sources of light as well. 
It seems to be a built-in feature in human beings as we do have a tendency to worship various things (if nothing else, then pop culture, money, sports etc.)
This might be a bit vague but I'm interested in everything you have to say about this topic. Off you go!
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I think that it has a tendency to create a sense of separation. The universe is bigger than me. As is whatever force that has created and continues to create and as far as we know has always created. It's not all that important to me anymore to determine what that is or how it works. But in the big picture, we are all part of the whole just as is always pointed out about the ocean and a droplet within it. Even when you remove a droplet, it is still part of the ocean. I've always believed we are the same and that calling on someone or something else "out there" or "bigger than me" is really just addressing the same features I already carry within myself and making use of them.
The Buddha himself and what he did and taught is pretty much the larger than life wonder for me. Someone - anyone capable of imparting such an amazing wisdom with love - that does it for me.
I'd say other people and caring about the world as a whole. I think that counts, right?
-On cloudless nights, I look up at the sky, and know the matter in my body came from the same place that the stars I am looking at came from. The atoms, that make up my body could very well be the same atoms that once upon a time helped to constitute a dinosaur, and then they were disassembled and reassembled to form my body, like leggo building block kids play with. It's ALL stardust. My biological hardware (read: my brain) is modeling attention and the output is the operating system I call my consciousness. My consciousness is at this very moment communicating with your consciousness. And this is only part of the greater context...
I don't know... If I believe in something bigger than myself it would mean I have to give myself definition and impose some kind of border.
Larger than myself?
Iam the bigbrother in my family, so I have always been the biggest.
But in Nature I feel very small, in the army we were on the mountains on a 14 days trip . I was on guard, and I had digged a big hole in the snow and I just sat there alone. It was a cold bright night with all the stars above your head and complete slience.
It was a strange moment, I felt I was on a new planet, far away from computers and other small dramatic life to the humans.
Larger than myself - intellectually, nearly everything. Experientially, there is something that sometimes crops up when I start to meditate: I sense a presence in front of me, 3 or 4 feet away. It's not something that comes from conscious thought, it just seems unaccountably to be there. I focus my full attention on it, neglecting to attend to the breath and, I think, ceasing to breathe at all for a few seconds. At some point, not long, the presence vanishes and I am completely still, the mind at rest.
I try not to ideate about this, but if I did I would think of it as the unconditioned, the tao, or maybe a connection point to the universal energy field. The only thing I know for sure is that, when it occurs, it is more effective than breath counting for stilling the mind.
Heh, no idea how this relates to the question, it just popped out.
Whatever it is that is larger, whatever it is that is smaller ... no difference: I'm still going to have to get used to it.
Exist is the wrong word.
If we say does it have presence, or attributes that @genkaku alludes to, then no, existence is not something 'it' does. It does not.
So there it is.
So how to talk about the ineffable in Buddha Speech?
We might call it the 'emptiness of form' without that being a form of emptiness ...
We might say Nirvana is samsara, whilst we are in Samsara ...
Mostly we might have to be enlightened without discriminating between near and far shores.
You think the Buddha lifted a flower to start Zen? What else can be done? What else can be heard?
Whenever I think of big, I think of the gas giant planets, and then of the sun, and supermassive stars, and the nebula's, and the galaxies, and the clusters of galaxies. The universe is immeasurably vast, and I suspect the spiritual universe too is very large...
Whenever I think of awesome, I think of the concept of moving beyond the mind. All perceptions arise in the mind, and therefore moving beyond the mind is also moving beyond perception. What exists in that far flung land is beyond my conception...
Whenever I think of stupendous, I think of interconnectedness, and how the presence of my ancestors brought me into being, that the substances that make up my body were born in the hearts of stars undergoing supernovae, that the air I breathe dates back to the stellar nursery in which the sun was born, all these things form a vast tapestry of existence to which I am intrinsically connected, it is a part of me and makes me what i am.
Or am I?
I have the sense of a point of stillness, like the eye at the centre of a storm. However I think we need to be very cautious about projecting subjective inner experiences like these out onto the universe. It's tempting to assume correlations, but it's also easy to get caught up in anthropomorphism, wishful thinking and confirmation bias.
And of course such beliefs can be another source of clinging.
Something larger than ourselves..?
I always struggled to see the creator of the universe as a crusty old white man sitting on a cloud somewhere judging those less powerful than himself (I'm talking old testement god here) this is one among many of the reasons I gave up on Christianity, I always belived that if a god did excist he wasn't an external being watching over us, but more a part of us something within guiding us to do good, after reading up on Buddhism I realised this is essentially what Buddah was talking about finding that light within yourself whatever you call it and letting it consume you fully, that's what it means to me at any rate, like all things I suppose it is open to interpretation.
There is no distinction between large and small without the interaction of a self or another way, it's just the great perfection.
I see in the concepts/realities underlying Dhamma/God tsomething larger than myself that I can dive into, sort of speaking. Here's something I wrote about it a while back that I think somewhat explains what I mean from a Buddhist/Catholic POV:
Yesterday was my first time back at B- [a discussion group I attend]. Since Fr. Michael is still in LA, Kathleen led the discussion, and almost everyone was there except Chris and Dorothy. We started with a printout of a short bio of Jean-Pierre de Caussade. Caussade was a Jesuit priest and mystic who focused on the importance of being in the present moment and surrendering ourselves to God: "If we have abandoned ourselves to God, there is only one rule for us: the duty of the present moment." In this, his approach was quite similar to Buddhism.
A lot of questions were raised during the discussion that I wanted to address but wasn't sure how to without using a lot of Buddhist concepts and terms, which I knew would be lost on many, so I mostly just listened. One issue was the purpose of being 'in the present.' From the Buddhist point of view, this is where the work of the meditator is done, where mindfulness can help us uproot our defilements and strengthen our skillful states of mind. It's also where we can cultivate the insights leading to the realization of Dhamma, truth, through sustained practice of meditative techniques and contemplation:
But what is Dhamma? In Buddhism, Dhamma is twofold. It refers to (1) the teachings/symbols pointing towards (2) a profound truth. That truth is an experience/way of perceiving reality that leads to a new mode of being and connection with the absolute; and 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, and ultimately selfless mind—a mode of being where, in the words of Caussade, we're able to "embrace the present moment as an ever-flowing source of holiness."
Although Buddhism and Christianity talk about this mode of being in different terms, I think they're talking about a similar experience, one that words are unable to fully express. And while people may argue over the language used in communicating the intellectual frameworks we attempt to build around this experience, this awakening or theosis, so that we can try to understand it and the means of achieving it, I suspect that they're arguing over the symbols rather than what they're actually pointing towards, whether it be the luminous mind of Buddhism or the presence of God dwelling within the temple of our bodies.
That said, it seems to me the Western Church has historically been suspicious of mystics and their approach to spirituality, opting instead for a more intellectual and legalistic one. But I agree with Karl Rahner, via Knitter in Without Buddha I Could not be a Christian, that "Christians will be mystics, or they will not be anything" (15), which I take to mean that an experience of God/Dhamma is essential for having a truly fulfilling spiritual life. And that experience, along with the insights that come with it, will in turn open us up to the truth underlying all religions, or as Knitter puts it:
In essence, I truly believe that the message of the mystic is ultimately the same message of Jesus—a universal and unifying message linking us to God/Dhamma and to each other by means of which we "may come to share in the divine nature, after escaping from the corruption that is in the world because of evil desire" (2 Peter 1:4).
For me it is in service to the nation. The legitimate practice of the patriot. The shot heard rounds the world has not ceased its calling us forth to larger and greater efforts. I try to stay separate from single issues. "Black Lives Matter" is the most important social issue we face today imo. The mirror truly reflects in us what is base and true.
Guru yoga, following a performance related monk, an idealised Buddha or our own projection is part of an alignment or resonance.
As I said to The Tao only this morning: 'Listen. Don't speak!'
Yeah, you tell him her it!
I never thought that anything was greater than myself. On thing I like about The Buddha's teachings because he doesn't see himself no different than you or I regardless of what sect we practice from or what religion we adhere to. The Mind is Buddha and there is no other Buddha than the Mind so how can the mind be separate and higher than ourselves? That would me making ourselves higher.
Mindfulness, awareness, nature, etc makes me see things equally. There is no Theravada, Mahayana, or no Nichiren, Zen, or Vietnamese Buddhism, etc. Every one has a Buddha nature-and because I see it this way, how can there be anyone greater, The Buddha included.