Maddie

All I'll say at this point is that I was a history major for my undergrad degree and I have never ever heard of any evidence for this sort of history in India or anywhere else that goes back this far in this manner.

The reason this statement got my attention is because lately I have the feeling from my studies of Buddhism and the suttas that what I learned of the Vedic tradition might be somewhat of a straw man Vedic tradition. To me the Brahmin priests coming to the Buddha to learn how to preform their own religion better seems a bit ridiculous and also probably propaganda. So with that being said I think a basic summary of the Vedic tradition that I read in the Buddhist suttas mostly involves preforming sacrifices and reciting mantras correctly. Again this seems a bit simplistic I think, so what I want to know is what actually was the Vedic path to liberation?

Why not get this puppy back on track.... A few days ago someone had made the claim to be enlightened and this thread was created to discuss how one can know if someone is truly enlightened or not and if so how this can be known.

Lots of delusion happened! I seriously think one of the posters yesterday was either taking something or had stopped taking something they needed to be taking.

Is something in the water today? Lol

https://www.activeherb.com/wendan/

You feeling ok today there buddy? Do you need to take some medicine or something?

I wonder how far one can get in cultivating the body with herbs and acupucture?

Coming from a Christian literal fundamentalist back ground I tend to react uncomfortably to the word God, but I think in Hinduism it means something different?

I don't know why exactly, but in the last year or so or maybe more I've noticed that what ever I had not traditionally reacted to well whether it be anger, lust, fear, or what ever keeps coming around until I react "better" or maybe better to say don't react. Lately it seems to be fear of lack. In the past I've not reacted well to this situation so I'm trying to keep that in mind now. In the past year I've worked on dealing with anger in reacting to certain people that pushed my buttons, and anger at certain situations. It seemed like usually I would not react well to these things and they kept happening. In the past year I feel like I became savvy to this and decided to react better and then it seemed as I did so each of these situations tended to pop up less and less. So as I now approach the fear of lack I'm trying to approach this with the same attitude.

Fortunately I am an acupuncturist and TCM practitioner so I was able to offset some of that with herbs and acupuncture, but it was kind of like swimming upstream. It does not have to be Buddhism for me, I'm more of a pragmatist and just want to do what works. It's just that for the past several years I thought Buddhism was what worked.

About a year ago I really began to reevaluate my approach of the past several years. I meditated every chance I had, every moment of free time I got, but began to feel like the monks at the Shaolin Temple that were listless passive blobs. I had no energy, no drive, didn't want to do anything, go anywhere, had no motivation at all. This being the case I began to seriously reevaluate my practice and approach.

That is very interesting as I was totally unaware of that. I wonder what caused him to change his mind? * today has been a day of shockers lol

Simply from my experience. Westerners tend to be more dismissive of things like chanting sutras in general, and my time visiting predominately Asian temples this type of practice was much more common.

I guess another method that seems to be popular especially in Asian Buddhism is chanting sutras. I don't quite understand the benefit of chanting something that you don't understand, but it seems to be an important aspect of the religion in Asia, and the chanting of the sutra is said to have beneficial aspects.

You were asking about "my perception" so the word "me" seems applicable.

No, the whole reason I mentioned this example in the first place is due to me evaluating God in relation to the teachings of enlightened behavior that is contained in the suttas. When using this comparison God falls far short. He describes himself as a jealous God. Jealousy is not the characteristic of an enlightened being. It's not about me.

No I'm not, but the difference is I don't claim to be, nor do I demand everyone worship just me and no one else because I'm better than everyone else, nor do I threaten to send people to hell for not recognizing my self proclaimed awesomeness. If I did demand that then I better actually be perfect.

I wonder if different and various ages would (or would not) explain the different "fads" civilization goes thorough? Go back a while and things like Pyramids and Stonehenge were being built. Then when you read the Hebrew bible and the Greek classics its all about animal sacrifices. Then at the time of the Buddha and the other sects in India meditation is the rage. Now it seems to be tantra and chanting? I wonder if this is a thing?

I don't know if I'm familiar with those specifically. Is that a meditation approach?

So I'm going to assume that the Kali Yuga and the third age of Buddhism taught by Nichiren and others during his time are the same or at least very similar. As stated this would seem to be the reason that tantric techniques became more prominent as well as the idea that Nichiren and the Hare Krishnas propagated that now days chanting was the primary method. Not trying to hijack the thread but this does seem relevant to the topic of enlightenment.

The floor and I make it work

This is one of those topics that come along every now and then that cause you to just stop and stare at the floor and rethink your life choices.

How much of an effect has the advent of the Kali Yuga or the Later Day of the Law had on cultivation and reaching enlightenment? Why did it used to be easier? Why did new methods become necessary?

This would explain a lot as to why when I was trying the purely Theravada approach things seemed to stagnate even though I was very diligent to do things as instructed. This is a VERY interesting thing to consider! ** edit: This makes me think of what Nichiren said about the later day Buddhism and why he found it necessary to introduce chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo for these times as things had changed since the time of the Buddha.