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Who here is willing to state why their practice is superior to others.??????
how
Veteran Veteran
I only ask this question because of the recent threads here that seem to partake of such unspoken beliefs.
Is this the nasty bit of poo that most sidestep on the spiritual sidewalk until some unaware knob find themselves tracking it far and wide.
or does everyone have something repugnant stuck to the bottom of their shoe that only continued path walking gradually wears off?
I get that everyone is attracted to some aspect of one practice over another but to coddle that as some identity trophy seems like willful obscuration within ones meditation practice.
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Comments
Well, sounds to me like you think yours is....
I like to share with whoever cares to ask what practices have worked for me.
That doesn't mean my practice is superior to anyone's.
In fact, I have often learnt a lot from other people's comments on their own practice to improve my own.
Actually my practice is inferior to everyone else's.
When I grow up I am going to become an Amish.
If you ever grow up, that is.
I intend to resist all temptation.
My practise is superior to anybody else's...for me!
My practice is superior to others (LOL) because it includes all others within it and does not disparage any others. Often referred to as "Ekayana" or the "Most Supreme Vehicle".
Always liked this description:
I don't subscribe to any particular practice, and that is why my practice is superior.
Yes you are probably right blind Ego.
Who are you to call me Blinded?
I'm not touching that one - even with someone else's karma :P.......
It goes without saying that mine is. (Like the Great Brahma, God Emperors have to keep up appearances in front of their retinues.)
My purpose was not to see if anyone would say that their practice is better than anothers. I thought (almost) no one here would be daft enough to say that directly. (now this is not a challenge!).
IMO, something as ethereal as our attempts to walk towards suffering's cessation is unlikely to be very fruitful while also burdened with prideful assumptions that our way of walking it has an authenticity that others lack.
My practice is superior to my own practice from 10 years ago. That is to say I'm better at it, not that I had a "different" style of practice in the past (I was just lazier). That's all I can say!
I like to feel superior to New Agers. Also non Buddhists. I like to feel superior to advanced practitioners. Only Mr Cushion can save us? Wot no cushion? Ah well you must be one of the results of perfect practice . . . anyone feeling inferior yet?
HOW ENLIGHTENED ARE YOU?
IF....
If you can live without caffeine,
If you can be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains,
If you can resist complaining,
If you can understand when your loved ones are too busy to give you any time,
If you can take criticism and blame without resentment,
If you can ignore a friend's limited education and never correct him or her,
If you can resist treating a rich friend better than a poor friend,
If you can face the world without lies and deceit,
If you can conquer tension without medical help,
If you can relax without liquor,
If you can sleep without the aid of drugs,
If you can honestly say that deep in your heart you have no prejudice against creed, color, religion, gender preference, or politics,
--Then you have almost reached the same level of spiritual development as your dog!
Look, I just hate anchovies! This, of course, is the superior view anyone in his right mind would take towards anchovies. I may marvel in surprise or quiver with disgust that anyone might actually enjoy these salty little ick-mobiles, but I am too utterly content in my own understanding to worry too much about the poor, inferior fools who disagree. All I ask is that nobody try to convince me that anchovies are actually good: I have enough delusions in my life without adding that low-life bit of stupidity.
Superior? Moi?
Nah ... it's just common sense, right?
And if you'll hold on a second, I'll run out and find an ancient sutra or an authentic text to support the one, all-encompassing Truth when it comes to anchovies.
@lobster
My lab has done this to my cushions too
"While our thinking colors all our experience, more often than not our thoughts tend to
be less than completely accurate. Usually they are merely uninformed private opinions,
reactions and prejudices based on limited knowledge and influenced primarily by our
past conditioning. All the same, when not recognized as such and named, our thinking
can prevent us from seeing clearly in the present moment. We get caught up in thinking
we know what we are seeing and feeling, and in projecting our judgmentsout onto
everything we see off a hairline trigger. Just being familiar with this deeply entrenched
pattern and watching it as it happens can lead to greater non-judgmental receptivity
and acceptance" Jon Kabot-Zinn
Emphasis on "can lead to"... in progress ? ...
... Bob
You have a dharma lab? Wow, I am feeling really humbled. Oh labrador not = laboratory . . .
This afternoon I chanted with the rain. What pathetic excuse for practice is that? Best I could manage at the time.
At least I am not a clown Buddhist . . . oh wait . . . still feeling superior . . .
@ MeisterBob
My zafu says that thinking more accurately than not, depends on thinking neither dominating or becoming subservient to form, sensation, activity or consciousnesses.
"right sized" as we would say in my "sangha" Bob
Do I have a practice? Does my life discovery count as my practice? Is this in reference to Buddhist practice?
My practice is superior because eternity goes by in a matter of minutes, 5 to 10 minutes to be exact.
Feels like I've been sitting for an hour, the I look at the clock and only 5 minutes passed by.
The Dharmakaya radiates on all beings respecting neither high nor low. All beings are one of the five families of Buddhas.
More on the five families of Buddhas. Trungpa (love or hate) introduces this teaching but it is actually dating back to the Jewel Ornament of Liberation which dates back to Gompopa.
Gompopa (11th century... so LOTS before Trungpa)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gampopa
Five families
http://www.shambhalasun.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=1658
Kia Ora,
It all comes down to "Different strokes for different folks !" or if you like "One man's meat is another man's poison!"
Metta Shoshin
That dog is sooooo sweet... Very lovely post, @dhammachick!
Not daft enough
he thought I was
Smirking loudly
just because
He asks for fun
whose path is boss
How mine is not
Im at a loss.
I can only go forward but the only path I see leads backwards. No matter what anyone says, ultimately, I have to forge my own, for better or worse.
Before meditation, the machete is dull
During meditation, there is no machete
After meditation, the machete is maybe less dull but maybe less heavy too.
I can't say I practice the Dharma at all. I smoke pot, am not currently doing any meditation practices the Buddha taught.
I wonder if I have ever practiced the Dhamma? One whole day of practice? Probably not.
On my meditation retreat I did refuge and tried to keep the precepts. But I do not see myself as having made consistent steps (if any) on the path to enlightenment, or the awakened state.
@shanyin, What if you do walking meditation for 5 minutes before you get high? And then you ask yourself why you don't like to meditate. You could burn incense when you meditate and put it out when you are done. When you finish a stick congratulate yourself and dedicate your merit to others dealing with all the shit you are dealing with in your life (everyone has this shit in some degree).
@Jeffrey Sounds like a great practice and exercise in gratitude, compassion and mindfulness. I will have to learn how to do walking meditation first. I think the monk Yuttadhammo has a youtube instruction video on it.
I have been doing for the past week, a 5-10 minute sitting meditation called 'quiet observation'. What it consists of is letting the body relax, and allowing the mind to be free, and just being aware of it. I intend to continue everyday until I feel I have acheived all I can from it.
Also, I have been trying to keep precepts.
@shanyin you start where you are, you do what you can. You change by doing something different. Bravo!
When I was involved in Rigpa there was a prevailing attitude that Dzogchen was by far the superior path . I don't recall any coherent explanations about _why _this was so, and it began to seem like arrogance - or possibly a form of self-promoting propaganda?
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 ?
>
"Our own path.....The path which is our lives" to paraphrase JKZ ...
...
Thats your choice. The fact is that the Path has already been traversed for this age of the world.
You need no more invent your own than you need to reinvent the wheel.
You do have to walk the the known Path yourself however.
My Buddhist practice is superior to that of people following other faiths, because it would appear that I 'suffer' less. This is just from my own perspective - but of course I don't ever really know what it is like to be someone else (buddhist or otherwise), and of course there are other factors at play, for example.. friends I have that have gone through tough times... I think I would suffer less if the same thing happened to me (because of my practice I believe that) HOWEVER, I don't know that to be the case for certain; the experience wouldn't ever be EXACTLY the same because no two people are. And I don't know what the future holds... I may wish to retract that statement next week lol OK, I'm jumping off this merry go round now....
BTW I've never said that to anyone before. It wouldn't be helpful to someone going through a tough time: "oh well.. you know what.. become a Buddhist and it won't be as tough' yeah right... that would just sound weird, unhelpful and I actually think a bit cruel. :eek2:
I don't think my faith is superior to other practising Buddhists, mainly because I don't know any out of virtual reality, so I have nothing to go on!
Kia Ora,
The practice I participate in is neither superior nor inferior to others...It's just a practice of which the byproduct is very beneficial...
Metta Shoshin:)
Hahaha, this is like saying my imaginary friend is superior to your imaginary friend!
I swear by Almighty Cod, that anchovies ARE the Truth. Time to sit on my anchovie.
This thread is a good reminder that I do not like being preached to as in -"this is what you need to do". I shut right down. Rather I find "this is what worked for me" much more palatable. Also my unsolicited advice is not "required". lol! Bob
Some of my practice has been the surprising discoveries of the various ways that my identity has re-clothed itself from a worldly presentation into a spiritual one. I see this as a compounding of delusion where simple ignorance learns how to camouflage its existence by mimicking the spiritual lay of the land.
While I think this is typical of normal ego protectiveness when being challenged by a practice, an additional swath of it arose for me from practicing within a school which cloistered itself off from much of the world.
Is an "us verses other" mentality on anything not just stating a belief of one being superior over another?
In a manner of speaking... The 8FP is more like a guide for the path each of us must walk but each path is unique. Even between various schools that go by the Eightfold Path... The actual path the schools follow are different but the guide is the same.
The path you walk only gets revealed by being tread... Even with guidelines.
Even just noticing how beautiful a rose is is an "us verses other" mindset... Sadly, we seem to have to see the world in these terms first before we can get over it and start using duality as the tool it is.
Not a bad thing... Just evolution.
@ourself
For the beauty of a rose to qualify as an "us verses other" mindset, that incoming data must be manipulated. With out such manipulation, that beauty has no self reference to create an "us verses other" mindset.
While I agree that our normal worldly conditioning does pattern an "us verses" other view, a meditation practice is the softening and dissolving of such conditioning..
Duality for me is only a tool in service to our continued ignorance.
@how;
Agreed... As we notice the beauty, it is manipulated but as soon as we do, us versus them rears its head for good or ill.
As for duality, it is what it is and as they say "when in Rome"...
It helps to know that Rome is temporary, no?
I think, know, believe that there is no right path, but know I am right in my own way on my own path; which means words are pretty much meaningless and probably redundant in this discussion. So back to the meditation where everything is fundamentally clear to me, and where staring at a cloud or a stone on the path is an acceptable practice.
Someone previously on this forum constantly up-talked the Theravada 'vehicle', even calling it 'superior'. He often quoted Pali Suttas.
>
Hopefully they saw their contradiction.
I forgot to mention he was, banned
@ourself
what is the contradiction?
We do go by appearance or apparent comparisons.
So superficial, going by appearances . . . yes I do that too. However I tend to relate to time without practice v time with practice - in my experience. It seems easier to suffer less - not necessarily less difficulties - with practice. Superior . . . m m m . . . avoiding judgements is hard. Some of us even judge ourselves too harshly against some superior ideal . . .
Here is one of the elitist superior dharma lads I met this morning beating his very actual drum.