Arkx6

Im quite interested in theravada. ty for replies guys

So am about to start a 10 week online vipassana meditation course... im wondering about studying a buddhism course online after this...any recommendations? interested in how to practicaly walk the buddhist park. also if buddhism is seeing things as they really are and the world is a reflection of our minds and beliefs...then i can see negativity creates a hellish reality for one to live in...but positivity creates a beautiful reality that is empowering but is it seeing things as they are? Confused...

So if emptiness of inherent existence refers to everything being dependant on previous states for their existence and doesnt refer to what i said....well i am referring to something i can perceive do you know what the buddhist term is for what i am pointing to at all ?

In buddhism there is a teaching/observation that things are empty of independent existence where when we see a spider or hear a scary noise ...the fear comes from a reaction from our senses that have associated pleasant and unpleasant things or from a reaction in our minds...the spider isnt by nature scary...the fear comes from within us. The teaching isnt to deny the existence of fear its to make us realise that freeing ourselves of fear is found within us. You cannot free yourself of fear when you perceive it outside yourself... The teaching is about understanding that the world we perceive is a reflection of our inner world and not just objectively true...ie that spiders are inherently scary. i dont know what perceiving this emptiness does or what this teaching achieves but i am confused... when you see that your love for others comes from within and reality is a blank canvas what are we left with? What does reality become if you perceive that you project your feelings onto the world and live as if fear etc is real? Is this what the buddha meant when he said the world is an illusion that it is empty of inherent existance and that we create the worlds we see? incidentaly this teaching shows how absurd people are when they argue over which is the better food dish...two dreamers stuck in two different dreams arguing about what dream is better lol

I was doing some qi gong felt like lying down and had a vision of being persecuted and evemntually killed in medieval europe for being a gnostic christian priest...gnosticism is a branch of christianity that believes personal gnosis or direct experience of the divine is the cornerstone of the spiritual experience and not old books. i saw myself saying goodbye to my wife and daughter and walk outside as the angry mob of christians turned up to kill me. I was holding my hands in the prayer position...i was very peaceful and calm and felt no anger as the crowd stabbed me to death...on the contrary i felt love for those that stabbed me with tools etc. Taken me a long time to put this memmory into context as to who i am and what survives on death...it brings up a lot of questions and in this life i suffered from 10 years of depression so couldnt see the memmory in proper context. When the vision stopped i felt a being maybe gnostic in the room with me and pleaded for answers bbut they just turned away and left. didnt know about gnostics at the time it happened...i was into chanelling at the time and asked for the being i was connected to to show me what i needed to see when i was in a bookshop later...i saw the image of an eye overlayed over my vision and settle on a book that sat in the bookshop amongst a maybe 200 books and it was about gnostic christians etc. As for there being more objective solid evidence i dont know if that will ever be possible and this might be the most i ever get. i find the following quote to be of great assiastance when dealing with the topic of rebirth etc...not that i understand all the buddhist theories on the subject... Now, Kalamas, don’t go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, ‘This contemplative is our teacher.’ When you know for yourselves that, ‘These qualities are skillful; these qualities are blameless; these qualities are praised by the wise; these qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to welfare & to happiness’ — then you should enter & remain in them.” for years i didnt gain anything positive from my vision it just lead to cynical theories on the value of my life etc...from the above quote i think its important to only accept our own views on reincarnation etc if they "when adopted and carried out, lead to welfare and to happiness". Im still quite a way from that so i try and focus on the value of this life. The only comfort my vision brings is that death is not the end so a kind of peace should be possible down the line for me. Anyway thats my contribution to the topic of reincarnation etc

Apologies for the many threads but i have autism and right now my brain is in overdrive and wants answers and quite a few of them at that. So i said this regarding reading the suttras and everything else that is translated from pali as said by the buddha (fyi i speak english and french so have some experience of concepts encountered when translating things in general and english to/from french specifically). "Stuff like this is so subtle in its meaning, need realise firstly its a translation from a different language and the nuances and subtleties dont translate well...so putting it in english is a best fit situation...u realise this kind of thing when speak 2 languages and can see the nuances etc lost in translation" (as there are no exact matches of words in two different languages, as each word has shades of meaning, subtleties and nuances that are lost when translating). So a sutra passage in english is not literally what it seems to say but something good and empowering is locked in the text i believe...which i but get glimpses of at odd moments. my question is..how much can you learn of buddhism without learning pali and if it is possible to "learn" buddhism by reading the suttras in english without a teacher where is a good place to start and on what websites?

I think a lot of these conversations regarding rebirth etc depend on belief of a theory...in the absence of evidence such mental gymnastics will ammount to nothing....a theory without proof is empty. Probably more productive to discuss individual cases of kids remembering past lives than empty theories that depend on belief. How science handles proving theories by examining evidence not of comparing proofless theories. Hate me for saying this but i remember being murdered in my last life and thats all the evidence i need re reincarnation. Everything...that was really helpful and cut to the heart of the issue ty

Dear Rex, i did not say that taking and understanding Dukkha to heart meant one would would bempessimistic and beaten down. I meant to say that some buddhist sources paint life a lot more negatively than i believe the buddha would of. Life can be beautiful but it can also be tragic, learning to embrace life and find never ending joy inside is what Dukkha is about i believe. Not embracing life is not the way...i feel some buddhist sources stigmatise life more than it should and lead to people not embracing the beauty of the world. I think understanding dukkha leads to happiness and joy...some buddhist sources dont show life as it is. Im saying they dont capture the sublety of understanding dukkha in life.

So....its the interaction of something that is Dukkha and the mind that causes suffering...if the mind was "free" it would not react to dukkha with suffering. i see so many bs buddhist sources saying things like:" dukkha = It refers to the fundamental unsatisfactoriness and painfulness of mundane life"...which paints life in quite a negative way which i disagree with 100%. Life contains the seeds of disatisfaction but its in the mind that these seeds germinate and grow. In fact painting life in such a negative way is bound to create dukkha in the minds of those who take this negative view of life to heart. its fair to say that life can be pretty great and its the mind that causes disatisfaction and the "painfulness of mundane life".

That was very helpful Rex, fear and desire interplaying with suffering because of the inability to act... so grasping is trying to hold onto something when its natural time to leave has come? Fear is another type of suffering....does the Buddha talk about the different kinds of suffering like this one? ty all for your replies. Wandalaar...i wonder what the consequences are of getting everything u want?

So im sat by a pool on holiday. I see two beauties in bikinis. I enjoy gazing at them until i realise a) im too shy to talk them, b )without talking to them i will never have them the desire for them is denied satisfaction...i suffer. the more i think on it...(grasping?) the more i suffer. do i suffer because i want more (grasping?) been reading about the 4 noble truths, the first one is just a fact that in a world where we dont allways get our way there is potential to suffer...but suffering is optional i am reminded. Pain doesnt have an opt out but suffering does. So what is grasping? Wanting more than we have, in love, money etc? And it can go two ways...we get what we want or we dont...so in everything desirable there is potential to suffer? is this what the first noble truth is saying? In chasing what is desirable to us there is potential to suffer because its not guaranteed that we get what we crave? And no matter how good we are we wont get what we want 100% of the time... still wish i had those bikini clad babes lol

Ty Effilang, i appreciate the information take care

So i am not sure of the exact quote but it seems to be something to the effect of: the world is an illusion... here's my understanding of this...reality is in part like a mirror reflecting our own beliefs back at us as if they are reality... So reality is made up of several layers...what is objectively true...what we experience because of our own preferences,tastes etc...what we believe is true...what we see as a product of our beliefs and reality. ie if you believe you are too fat or thin then irespective of objective reality this is what you will see when you look in the mirror (this has more to do with our beliefs rather than objective reality). a religious person believing they are close to god because they are holding some sacred manuscript or the self hypnosis of people experiencing exorcisms who make the reactions we see during exorcism real happen because they believe they are trully possesed and under the control of some demon. the mind will make real (within its capability and reach to do so) that which it believes is real...for instance: 1) my father believes romantic relationships are based around ones financial status...this belief had the effect of making him look in places where he was likely to attract someone who was after his money in this case the 3rd world amongst people who were poor and deprived. 2) my sister believes she never has enough money...she is poor financially but this is because she doesnt know how to manage her finances and bring them under her control...her belief that she is poor and doesnt have enough perpetuates her fantasy as it prevents her from examining her behaviour and her situation and of looking deep into the cause of her poverty. Ie her poverty is a result of her actions not a consequence of her circumstances (her income is nearly double mine). I have autism so i struggle sometimes with interpreting things in a literal way. Sometimes my mind interpretes "the world is an illusion" in a literal sense ...i cant tell you the headaches this has caused. And because of this i struggle with abstract teachings that are not designed for the autistic. So what is the buddhas teachings on illusion mean to you?

The buddha seems to of said things that are really great about concentrating on the now, or if things dont make sense to you to disregard them etc. Whenever ive looked into his teachings ive just gotten bogged down in the theory and lost any benefit so ty Steve. I do tend to intellectualise things quite a bit instead of making them practical. ty all for your replies it makes for interesting reading

Growing up i felt life was something you overcame or escaped because of the things i read. These thoughts were probably fuelled by depression from my teenage years to my early 30's. I felt growing up from reading buddhist things that life was something to escape from...the wheel of samsara. I feel like such philosophy marred the joy of life for me or maybe this was simply my depression affecting how i interpreted buddhism. What is your impression of buddhism and the teachings on samsara (the wheel of life)? Am i mistaken in seeing the teachings on samsara as being depressive?