Maddie

Aside from some of the good points that have already been mentioned. Human beings have been cooking long enough that it is part of our evolution now and this is why we can't get away with eating raw food in the same way that animals do. Our digestive systems have literally evolved to "pre-digesting" our food before eating it.

I'll have to look that up and get back with you. I have read so many sutas they all start to become a blur after a while lol. But in general in a lot of suitas were the Buddha is talking about non-self this is the context in which he's talking about it.

It's been a minute....

Hello I thought I would make a thread like this primarily because I don't think there has ever been one like this on TDB since its beginning. So yes I am a transgendered woman (assigned male at birth, now female). You may have known me on here previously as dmattwads. Understandably there is some confusion on here when people see old posts of mine talking about male cultivation practices. I realize that the topic of transgenderism is very poorly understood by the general public and so I decided to make a Q&A post. I will NOT however answer super personal questions about my body so its not an AMA (ask me anything). I will though be happy to answer well intentioned questions about what it means to be transgendered because there may be those out there that are questioning for themselves, know someone that is transgendered, or just want to understand this topic better. Maddie :-)

It's not something that the Buddha taught, but then again there are a lot of things he didn't teach that can be useful.

My guess which is based on his explanations in the sutas is he didn't want people to misunderstand his position and he didn't want them to speculate on things that are a distraction from cultivating for nirvana. Or like one of my friends always said, maybe he didn't know lol.

I think it's commonly mistakenly believed that the Buddha said there was no self. What he actually said was that the five aggregates were not self. When asked if there was a self or not a self the Buddha refused to answer this question.

That was one of those questions that he did not answer.

I recommend Winnie the Pooh, most of my best life lessons came from him :-)

about to start soon

Recent discussions have brought some interesting points for consideration to light. Namely being is Buddhism a complete system for ending suffering permanently aka "enlightenment" all by itself or is it dated and lacking things? When replying don't just state your opinion, but state the reason that you think so one way or the other.

When I was younger I had been raised by a pretty religious mom and then later ended up in a Christian cult. Obviously I left the cult and later when I became interested in Buddhism I thought all was well. But after a while I started to be kind of miserable with the type of Buddhism I was doing. It was in the somewhat recent past that I realized that I had unconsciously brought some of my cult/fundamentalist mindset into Buddhism and it was not serving me well at all. I am still interested in Buddhism but my interest now without the cult mindset makes it much more pleasant.

What confuses me is that I hear it used in a Buddhist context often yet I have never read a Sutta where the Buddha mentioned it.

I hear this duality word thrown around a lot here, but what does it mean in the way that you are using it?

I'm just stating what it is, I think I had already shown enough healthy skepticism. I'm not even sure if there even is such a thing as enlightenment.

I guess that depends on who's definition of enlightenment you are using. The Buddhist one has a pretty high bar ie. no delusion, no unskillful desire, ect.

The only person that I have heard speak that I thought might be potentially enlightened is Eckhart Tolle.

That is a good question and I am not sure as I have never personally seen anyone that I think fits this description.

When I was younger I used to be in a Christian cult.

on right now

Enlightenment or obtaining Nirvana is a technical term in Buddhism. It is when one has seen through all delusion and let go of all unskillful attachments and obtained perfect peace.

That's putting the proof before the evidence.

Have you seen a mental health professional?

while interesting for sure, this is not the definition of "proof" at least in the scientific usage of the word.

Same but that was a long time ago when I was new to all of this and didn't know any better. For what its worth, even that I'm not a Chia fan the book about the sounds is pretty solid.