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The Path
lobster
Crusty Veteran
As we all know, we are ALWAYS on a Path. Some towards me, me, me. Others asking how they can give away their me, my, mine. Most of us are not sincere, dedicated finders of the requirements.
Because the realisation of the virtues are well known. Integrity, focus and no need for realisation but every need to fulfil the intense servicing required …
Dabbler or dedicated? How is it going?
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It depends on which day you ask me.
Yesterday I was definitely a dabbler but today some more resolve and dedication is being applied
When it gives me headaches, not so dedicated. When everything is fine, more dedicated.
Although last night I had the impression that I had never really reached an intense state of meditation, that I had always kind of phoned it in.
I'm a dedicated Dharma dabbler...
I had a moment. It wasn't long but there was something. I tried to explain it to my family but they didn't understand.
I had it while listening to an audible book on Buddha. I felt like I was there.
Since that moment, the memory has gone hazy. I thought I was holding on to some of it but it was just sandstone. I grabbed it too hard and it turned to sand.
It's gone now.
I know what it felt like but that is all. I'm here because I need to be around those who are around what I heard when I felt it.
I'm here to learn more.
Nice one mate.
I’ve had a few moments myself but they have all gone, never to return
I am here to learn less or more correctly to unlearn. Moments come and go. Insights come and transform. Memory drifts like sand as you mention.
In a sense we have two families. Those that know, those that z z z …
Welcome to Newbuddhist.
The question we have to continually answer is where apart from death are we going? Now you are here, what is the learning plan?
https://www.thebuddhistsociety.org/page/resources
I am a lifelong mindlessness practitioner from years of training in the Stumblebum tradition of Buddhist malpractice, myself.
PS: But I aspire to pursue a degree in 'Seekingdom ...' As the syllabus from Professor Shakyamuni describes it:
You are a seeker.
Delight in the mastery
Of your hands and your feet,
Of your words and your thoughts.
Delight in meditation
And in solitude.
Compose yourself, be happy.
You are a seeker.
~ Dhammapada, Chapter 25: "The Seeker"
(from https://fajones.tripod.com/25.htm)
Your url @Dhammika should be
https://fajones.tripod.com/25.htm
… and very good it is too … 💗
Ah-so! _/_
Integrate myself in sangha and practice the path, ask questions and make statements out of my comfort zone but within my ability to detect bullshit, follow those that speak truth back. You may not seek but I do not yet acknowledge what's wrong with seeking so here we are.
You have some very well placed links.
I have never yet found a learning plan worth its salt for buddhism. I once took a course in Tibetan Gelugpa buddhism, and on day one was handed a folder with printouts of all kinds of numbered lists organised by rough headings, and was told we would be discussing some of these lists in detail on each evening of the course. I persisted, hoping to gain wisdom, but numbered lists were not my portal to sagehood.
That course did give me a kind of bird’s eye view of buddhist concepts, but in terms of wisdom i gained more from The Complete Teachings of Ajahn Chah or various Zen stories I have heard in lectures by Osho and Alan Watts.
So seek on I say, seek in the dusty corners and the hallowed book cases, in the spider-infested nooks and crannies of monasteries and temples, among men who merely profess to be holy and those of whom you cannot tell whether they are wise or fools. Seek on, good sir!
Hmm... I seek because I enjoy discovery and change, and my ego is still plentiful enough to reflect amply upon anything and everything. Hello mirror into my soul, what perceived truth about me will you destroy today? When there are no more perceived truths to be destroyed, what remains?
Is there such a thing as progress, a range of obscuring delusions which get lifted one at a time? A gradual en-light-enment of the inner world? Or is it so that we are already what we should be?
The seekers journey takes in many different viewpoints, and a little buddhism is very useful. What I would suggest you ask yourself, which it took me several years to answer, is this: why do I seek?
I found that I sought to find enlightenment, and I chose to do this through seeking the words of the enlightened, and so my seeking within buddhism was to find the words of the original Buddha. Which led me to Theravada and the Pali Cannon and quite a few sutra anthologies.
So you see, why you seek alters exactly what you seek, and your approach in seeking.
Nothing.
However that is an idealisation, not feasible or possible without a lot of work. That is why we engage skilful means.
http://www.buddhanet.net/skilful-means.htm
We learn how to learn
https://www.scienceofpeople.com/how-to-learn/
And find every path of value …
https://idriesshahfoundation.org/books/learning-how-to-learn/
The Buddha got frustrated when he realized he had to ELI5 for everyone instead of kick back and enjoy his own Nirvana. At least because of him Bodhisattvas today don't need to invent so many truths or paths.
ELI5 = Explain Like I am Five
(for the elders)