doc benway

I listened almost exclusively to classical music for decades in my 20's and 30's mostly. Now that I'm older (50's), I prefer more rhythmic music - Brazilian, West African, Cuban hip hop, Andean, along with Tibetan music. I've maintained a bit of interest in current (not necessarily pop) music through my kids. It's always been a way for us to communicate and share something.

I just noticed this Why do I need to provide evidence to support my description of my path? You are welcome to look at spirituality as transcending only the physical. I choose to focus on the mental as well. Thanks for sharing your presumptions and opinions regarding my path. It seems like you are trying to paint learning from others as a weakness, I see it as a strength. I have a very different perspective regarding the value of "instruction books," particularly those developed by a lineage of accomplished masters over a period of centuries or millennia. For me, there is profound value there and I feel blessed to have connected with such wisdom. I do agree that we need to take responsibility for ourselves but that doesn't exclude making use of what we learn along the way. Plagiarism means to take someone else's ideas and pass them off as your own. Learning is to integrate what we encounter and synthesize it into something unique in a process of growth. Self-doubt is quite valuable when that self is the root of ignorance. From the perspective of the absolute, self and other is delusion so from that perspective it is equally true to say that all learning is independent and no learning is independent. In the tradition I'm working with there are three classes of teacher: 1) one's personal teacher, 2) all appearances and experience, all of which we can learn from if we are open, and 3) the nature of mind, the ultimate teacher. The practice of guru yoga is ultimately a union of all three of these with awareness.

Nope, I'm suggesting that the Spanish Inquisition, the divine right of Kings, and the rape of little boys have nothing to do with Christianity. They are manifestations of human ignorance and depravity. The opposite of all genuine spiritual teachings. Many people identify religions with their political institutions, I choose to identify religions with their core teachings and [what I consider to be] credible commentaries and teachings. That's my prerogative, my choice. I acknowledge Osho's limitations and corruption but something he once said stuck with me - 'religion is an individual's internal search for the truth, everything else is politics.' Here's a beautiful little story told by Anthony Demello that helped to guide me towards seeking truth in religion rather than settling for something less, no matter what "religious leaders" might prefer. It addresses quite nicely your legitimate disillusionment with "religion" and demonstrates his own. "There was a man who invented the art of making fire. He took his tools and went to a tribe in the north, where it was very cold, bitterly cold. He taught the people there to make fire. The people were very interested. He showed them the uses to which they could put fire: they could cook, could keep themselves warm, etc. They were so grateful that they had learned the art of making fire. But before they could express their gratitude to the man, he disappeared. He wasn’t concerned with getting their recognition or gratitude; he was concerned about their well-being. He went to another tribe, where he again began to show them the value of his invention. People were interested there too, a bit too interested for the peace of mind of their priests, who began to notice that this man was drawing crowds and they were losing their popularity. So they decided to do away with him. They poisoned him, crucified him, put it any way you like. But they were afraid now that the people might turn against them, so they were very wise, even wily. Do you know what they did? They had a portrait of the man made and mounted it on the main altar of the temple. The instruments for making fire were placed in front of the portrait, and the people were taught to revere the portrait and to pay reverence to the instruments of fire, which they dutifully did for centuries. The veneration and the worship went on, but there was no fire. Where’s the fire? Where’s the love? Where’s the freedom? This is what spirituality is all about. Tragically, we tend to lose sight of this, don’t we? This is what Jesus Christ is all about. But we overemphasized the “Lord, Lord,” didn’t we? Where’s the fire? And if worship isn’t leading to the fire, if adoration isn’t leading to love, if the liturgy isn’t leading to a clearer perception of reality, if God isn’t leading to life, of what use is religion except to create more division, more fanaticism, more antagonism? It is not from lack of religion in the ordinary sense of the word that the world is suffering, it is from lack of love, lack of awareness. And love is generated through awareness and through no other way, no other way. Understand the obstructions you are putting in the way of love, freedom, and happiness and they will drop. Turn on the light of awareness and the darkness will disappear."

I would add to that - it not only defines us beyond the purely physical but beyond the physical and mental.

When he gave his teachings. Yes, in the same way. I think there is great value in well-preserved teachings and lineage. And there is the potential for great harm when the teachings are misappropriated and politicized. We can look at religions as what the founders gave us through the clarity and compassion in their message, such as defining Christianity through the teachings of Jesus and Daoism through the teachings of Laozi and Zhuangzi. Or we can look at religions as what has has evolved through centuries of interpretation and politicization. My own preference is to look back to the source material as best I can, and to qualified teachers, and take the former approach. I agree and I am also open to learning from others.

I also very much like the acknowledgement that we can look at all appearances (eg all things, situations, people, etc...) in our lives as our teacher. I think at each of the three levels he describes - guru as teacher all appearances as teacher nature of mind as teacher - we are "life recognizing itself" - beautiful phrase.

I suspect you meant to say attachment to [the delusion of] permanence.

Feel free to choose your own definition if you care to answer. While I may have the right to be argumentative, I find it tends to take me in a direction I prefer to avoid.

If you don't allow Buddha to define Buddhism, what definition would you accept? Your example of cat is not applicable as it is not at all comparable to the concept of Buddhahood.

As a matter of fact, Buddhists are Buddha, by definition. They are just in a state of confusion and delusion in their present manifestation. That does not negate their Buddhahood, only obscures it.

Hi Karl, I don't mean to be argumentative but I am curious about what you think you can prove and how to go about that in the spiritual realm. Warm regards, Steve

While there is much truth in this statement, it is a partial truth. Most people require much more effort than the simple realization that conscious effort is not their salvation. I like the words of Peter Fenner in this regard - 'If I didn't do what I didn't need to do, I wouldn't know I didn't need to do it!' The first nail of the Twenty One Nails, a teaching from the Bön canon, addresses this very point. The Buddhist teachings include a variety of approaches which are appropriate for practitioners at multiple levels of development. Beginners generally require quite a bit of conscious effort to gain control of the unruly and undisciplined mind. With time and experience, less effort is required, and at some point all effort must be released. Even the subtle effort associated with releasing must be let go eventually. I suspect Mr. Brazier has exerted quite a bit of conscious effort along his path to come to this realization. Unfortunately, I suspect we each must go through this for ourselves. The words are just not enough.

Anthony Demello speaks about the conflict between acting as a therapist and a spiritual guide as he had experience with both. As a therapist he was often motivated to ease the person's pain and suffering whereas as a spiritual guide he recognized the need for many people to experience very profound levels of pain in order to break through ignorance to achieve spiritual transformation. I agree with you that both can take us in a similar direction although it's very hard to make generalizations given the vast differences in therapeutic approaches in particular. In particular, many therapeutic methods can get us bogged down in intellectual and analytical approaches to our problems whereas spiritual methods, in general, recognize that this is not the answer. I've had some personal experience with therapy and, fortunately, encountered a therapist who specialized in ACT, a method rooted in mindfulness and acceptance methods, which integrated perfectly with my spiritual work.

Not sure if this topic is interesting to many people but here is a link with some nice, though limited, discussion on the topic that may be illuminating. http://www.lionsroar.com/what-does-it-mean-to-be-devoted-to-ones-guru/

I don't know how accurately I'm able to read people by their faces, be they spiritual leaders or otherwise. I sometimes feel like I can see deeply into people but I've been mistaken more than once... Something that I think I can recognize is sincerity and genuineness. Perhaps kindness and compassion. I will offer this brief story - a friend once gave me a book. On the back cover was the author's photograph. When I looked at it I immediately felt like I knew him somehow, not superficially but deeply. He was very familiar. Not only that - I felt drawn to him, I felt warmth, and love. It was really strange and a bit scary for me because at the time I was quite a left-brained, dry, concrete thinker. I was so drawn to him that I sought him out as a teacher and have studied with him ever since. And he is an incredibly warm, generous, and genuine person and an amazing teacher.

Thanks for your kind words manitou... I'll offer another exception: Father Anthony Demello, an enlightened (?awakened) Jesuit from a Hindu family in India who was trained as a psychologist and primarily worked with the clergy in India. In his later years he became a teacher of the most profound of truths that I suspect he drew from his Indian background as well as his Jesuit training. The Jesuits do quite a bit of internal spiritual work as you probably know. If you don't already know Demello's work, you owe it to yourself to check him out (http://www.demellospirituality.com/). I'd start with A Way to Love (book) or Awakening to Life (CD set). If you're interested - send me a PM and I may be able to hook you up. One way to know just how insightful Demello was is the fact that all of his writings were banned as heresy by Joseph Ratzinger while he was the official censor for the church (new name for the office of high inquisitor) prior to becoming pope: http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19980624_demello_en.html http://www.ncregister.com/site/article/indian_jesuits_offer_insight_into_vaticans_censure_of_de_mello/

Hi Bindi, Sorry to come so late to this thread and I haven't read much of it so I apologize if I'm repeating or contradicting others. I think that people and traditions define and apply words and concepts based on their conditions and education. We can pretty much call awakening and enlightenment anything we like within a certain boundary. Also, it's important to recognize that while both words refer to a personal connection with a "state" that is unconditioned and non-conceptual, the words themselves and any associated activity are certainly conditioned and conceptual. When we speak of awakening and enlightenment we are not speaking of those states but our conditioned and conceptual ideas about them. That said, I'll offer working definitions that would apply if I were to discuss either concept. I would use the word awakening to describe an initial, personal connection with our natural state. I would use the word enlightenment to describe the complete and perfect integration of the natural state into all aspects of life. By my definitions, many people have experiences of awakening and few, if any, attain enlightenment in life. Of course, this begs the question, what do I mean by the natural state? There are so many ways to label and point to this and each tradition and individual has their own unique, preferred approach. While they are certainly not equivalent from our relative perspectives, they seem to be inspired by a common thread which has something to do with the wish or aptitude to go beyond the limits of human mentation and experience. I've met quite a few folks who have experienced awakening and the common thread among those I think are credible (eg - fit with my personal and biased idea of what that is) includes experiences of some of the following: profound and spontaneous joy, unconditional love for all things, loss of subject/object discrimination, feelings of profound connection to nature including other people, lessening of attachment to material things, revulsion to causing harm to living things, an experience that seems to transcend limits of time, space, birth, death, and personal identity, and so forth. Other, less extreme, characteristics of awakening include recognizing ignorance in things we once found important, finding ourselves progressively more open to things as they are rather than as we would like them to be, contentment and ease in our lives, a natural tendency towards kindness, and so forth. With the initial onset of awakening, these experiences can be extremely powerful and life-altering. With time the intensity tends to fade and the previous way of being tends to creep back in unless we are fortunate to find a way to stabilize and integrate the experience into our lives. For us to awaken, we must first be asleep. That state seems to be characterized by an identification with the contents of and experience of our mind and sensory experience. Transcending that identification seems to be at the core of waking up. Integrating that transcendence in a full, permanent, and perfect manner is what I would refer to as enlightenment. One of the practices I'm currently focusing on is dream yoga. The beauty of this practice is that it uses the waking/dreaming dichotomy as a template for working with deeper processes such as ignorance/awakening and life/death. The parallels are quite useful. Once we are awake, it is very easy to doze back off but I don't think we ever fall back to sleep completely. It shows us a way of seeing the world and a way of living that is more consistent with our fundamental nature. I think that this is where both the Daoist and Buddhist masters are trying to guide us (as well as the masters of all other spiritual traditions). Sorry for the long post and I hope it's somehow helpful.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/03/14/sharyl_attkisson_gives_ted_talk_on_astroturf_and_manipulation_of_media_messages.html

I'll add a few comments for discussion, I've had some experience with Daoist cultivation and Bön Buddist practice. In my view, Buddhism is based on the idea of liberating ourselves (and others) from suffering. The emphasis is our choice. Not every Buddhist, just those who practice the Mahayana approach. Others focus on personal liberation, more akin to Daoism in that regard. To me it actually begins with a very positive attitude towards life - life is innately and inherently perfect. It is our conditioned mind that causes the problems we face in life. That is the highest view - Dzogchen. If yours is like that already, stop there... no need to look any further. If yours is not, welcome... perhaps we can help you. Daoist training can be quite severe and austere. Monastic Daoism can be every bit as restrictive as monastic Buddhism. I think that you are comparing monastic Buddhism with the Western philosophical adaptation of Daoism stripped of its religious context. Buddhism, in general, teaches that our original nature is and has always been Buddha-nature. That doesn't mean that it doesn't matter what we do simply because most of us are living in a deluded state, not acting fully from that original nature. If we are abiding in that nature, everything we do will be spontaneously pure and perfect. Otherwise, our choices do matter. Daoism teaches the same - it is only the sage who is expressing his original nature, the rest of us are confused and deluded and need to change, hence the teachings of the Laozi, Zhuangzi, Liezi, and so on... So much of the Daoist canon is not translated that we have a very limited understanding. The key here is whether or not you are attached to those positive experiences. If you (or any Buddhist) can genuinely say that are completely unattached then there is no need to avoid these activities and indulgences. The problem only arises if there is attachment. And there is always attachment at some level until we are quite advanced in our practice. Positive emotion is wonderful but if it is dependent on conditions then it is transient. When we base our happiness on transient conditions, we are ultimately unfulfilled and that happiness cannot last. The key here is that your Buddhist practice has been effective and you are attracted to Daoist theory. Try putting your ideas of Daoist theory into practice and see if it works for you. If it does, that's what you need at this point on your path. For me, Daoist methods helped me achieve some very profound insight into who and what I am. The Buddhist approach, however, has done a much better job of putting those insights into context and giving me tools I needed to make positive changes in my life, work, and relationships. I would have to disagree here... There are many types of Daoist practitioners. Those that actually practice Daoist methods of cultivation and transformation are very goal oriented - quite comparable to tantric (Vajrayana) Buddhism. Those practicing religious Daoist methods are quite comparable to the more shamanic methods found in the Bön Buddhist tradition and others. In Bön, these are referred to as causal vehicles, meaning subject to causes and conditions. Daoism and Buddhism both teach us to wander and enjoy the journey. The tradition of wandering and seclusion is very similar in both. Some of the core principles in Dzogchen (Buddhism) are non-doing, non-effort, non-meditation, and non-attainment. Focusing on a goal is a fundamental error and yet it is important to follow certain guidelines for this to be possible. This is exactly the same in Daoism. While wandering and enjoying oneself, one must keep strictly to the guidelines of practicing Wu Wei (non-doing, non-interference), De (integrity, virtue, "right action"), and Pu (simplicity, equanimity, without preconception or illusion). Otherwise, we may be wandering minstrels but we cannot claim to be a sage. I think it is easy for us to be too distracted by what appears to be negativity in Buddhism. Part of this is because the sutric methods are generally practiced first by most beginners and are all about renunciation of our flaws and misdeeds. In fact, Buddhism is about cultivating our true nature which gives rise to pure, unconditional joy, love, compassion, and equanimity. When we genuinely manifest these qualities we naturally share them with others. We do this not by focusing on the negative but by letting the negative fall away to reveal our primordial purity and perfection. We can choose to emphasize the negative and, in doing so, we are simply proving the original thesis that we are suffering. We have the choice to emphasize the positive as well and perhaps this is seen more readily in Vajrayana and Dzogchen practices, which are focused on unveiling the positive in our lives; as opposed to the sutric practices which are focused more on getting rid of the negative. Along those lines, I think it is easy for us to mistakenly think that Daoism is all about having fun, doing whatever we feel like doing, and not worrying about our choices and behavior. While that is a common interpretation here in the West, truly following a Daoist is path is a bit more rigorous. Living a life of non-interference, integrity, and simplicity is not all fun and games, and often not as easy as it sounds. At the end of the day, we can focus on the differences between Buddhism and Daoism or the similarities. I think its instructive to be aware of both. We can support either position quite effectively. Both are magnificent paths, very rich and rewarding. For me, what matters as much or more than which path is the quality of instruction, the credibility of teachings (lineage), and the aptitude of the student. Sorry for such a long post and thanks for listening.

I would and do. While there is no greater spiritual authority than myself, that is, my own true nature, Kuntuzangpo, the natural state; from a practical point of view in the real world, there are many who are farther along the path than I am and there are those that have come before who have helped me along the path. There are many I can learn from. The act of prostration is primarily an act of subjugating the ego. It is not about raising someone or something above oneself, but rather an act of diminishing the self, which is the primary obstacle to spiritual awakening. There are many other beneficial aspects to this practice and I'll touch on a few. It is a wonderful physical exercise. A few hundred prostrations upon awakening in the morning is a great way to get going physically. It is also a wonderful method for developing the feelings of devotion and gratitude which are the fuel of Tibetan Buddhist practice. It is said that devotion is the key to success in these practices. When we prostrate ourselves to a master or a lineage, we are not prostrating to who they are but to what they represent, our own connection to the natural state and the source of teachings that helps us to realize liberation. They are wonderful for purifying oneself of attachment to the ego and its central place in our lives. Prostrations in Tibetan Buddhism are generally performed along with recitation of refuge prayers. Refuge can provide a wonderful source of stability and strength in our lives. It reminds us that the ego is not all there is. If we look deeper, we can connect with something vastly more significant than the conditioned mind. I'm no authority so take or leave my comments as you will, but anyone interested in the meaning of prostrations should check out writings from TIbetan Buddhism on the topic. The example I can cite is related to the Ngondro (foundational) practices in Tibetan Bön and Buddhism. Most Tibetan practitioners practice prostrations throughout their lives, not just during the basic training. With the correct attitude, they can be quite powerful and supportive to our practice. And that may be the most important point. They are not an obligation or a requirement, they are a support. To the extent they help us along our path, they are valuable. If we relate to them in a negative way, it is better to change our relationship to them or let them go altogether. This of course can be said about any spiritual practice.

You will run into many unusual, unexpected, and interesting experiences if you're new to meditation. Enjoy the ride!

We'll simply have to disagree, we clearly have different views and this territory has been covered enough for my taste. I don't want to derail this thread any longer. Thanks for the discussion.

Thought is what establishes the identity you cling to. Precisely

Until you see that the being you thought you were is empty... To put an end to ignorance Agreed

When I refer to identities, I am not referring to the "separate and individual identity" that some might refer to as "me," the illusion that there is a distinct "me" that is defined and unique and separate from everything around me. I am referring to the conglomerate of emotional and psychological responses which is defined by a particular relational context. We each have many identities. For example, a given woman is different things to different people - mother, daughter, boss, employee, lover, wife, hostage - it is all a matter of context and relationship. If my wife makes me angry, it is the identity of husband in me that creates that anger based on our specific history and set of expectations. That very same behavior would likely have a completely different effect on someone other than her husband, her sister for example. When my boss makes a comment that upsets me, it is the identity of employee that is disturbed and reactive, not the husband. And that reaction is based on how I feel as an employee, how I have been shown to be by my parents, society, etc... So that which generates the emotional response is a unique and specific identity that we have created in relationship. That identity is made of thought, memory, expectation, and generations of conditioning. We are each composed of multiple identities, each of which surfaces and guides our actions and feelings in response to particular situations. To take it a step further there are collective identities as well that transcend individual and personal boundaries - think of team mentality, nationalism, war, gender roles, football... So when we start to dissect apart our own "self" through careful observation, we find many such identities and, as manitou pointed out, when we try to grasp onto these identities, what is there to hang onto? Groups of thoughts, memories, and emotional responses? Where do they come from and where do they go? The very idea that "I" am a "separate and individual identity" is at the root of this whole attachment problem. Once the specific relational identities are recognized and lose their power, we can have a better idea of the illusion of the "separate and individual identity," the me - the big illusion.