Could someone explain the Buddhist belief system to me?

[DreamBliss]

On the one hand I feel I should not post, risking bringing this thread to the forefront again but on the other I feel I should post, to thank the posters for all the links and materials. Also to try to get this runaway train back on track, and to blow my referee's whistle. Can you hear it?

 

OK in consideration of my desire to touch only positive seeds in myself and others, to cultivate positive or null karma, and to only set positive intentions for myself and others, could we please stop with the arguments? I would really appreciate it!

 

Whatever your path is, whatever you may believe, I'm sure you can agree with me if you have been down the spiritual road very far at all, that attatchment to one's beliefs, and pretty much anything else, will only bring suffering. It's the beliefs in many of our religions that have brought us war and lost us much knowledge.

 

So let's stick with discussing our beliefs as a Buddhist practioner for the remainder of the life of this thread. Try to clarify important insights you have gained or issues you are passionate about. But whatever you post do not be attatched to your words or the beliefs to which they may be connected. That way if someone comes in and challenges them you can do what I imagine the Buddha himself would do. Pretty much nothing. Maybe smile brilliantly at you. But he would view these opposing viewpoints as simply gifts, and he would decide whether or not he would accept them.

 

Because the secret is any gift that is not accepted has to be taken back by the giver. So someone can insult you and spit in your face, and by not responding, or merely smilng at the person with love, all those negative feelings, all that garbage they tried to throw up on you, well it changes course and goes back to them. I used to love saying this to my brother, even before I started walking my current path. Drove him nuts. I would say something he didn't like, he would respond, usually defensively, and I would simply say, "You know I can't insult or offend you. You have to choose to be insulted or offended."

 

OK I'm putting the whistle down for now. Please don't force me to use it again! Oh and BTW, thank you for all the information and posts!

- DreamBliss

[GrandmasterP]

 

 

I believe it may have been Lama Dongdroop who advocated visualising the dharma as a removal vehicle but to avoid Gelugpa teachings, he was taught this by his aged master, so he used to quote: "My old man said follow the van but don't Dalai Lama on the way ..."

 

(joke for Brits only)

.................

He shoots. He scores!

LOL

[GrandmasterP]

Fair comment ref.

The only Buddhist cultivation I do is PL chanting.

Very nice too so it is.

The PL folk reckon that's all that's necessary, there are journals, I'll post a link later.

[GrandmasterP]

Taking it all of a piece as there's nothing there to be gained or lost, stuff just is; then it makes not a ha'porth of difference what and how we cultivate. Anything done with intention must ( in theory) work as well as anything else.

Hence my skepticism about Tibetan kit and endless rituals.

Not saying there's anything intrinsucally wrong with rituals and spending one's life reading sutras and the like but when such a system serves to keep some people on top wearing nice eobes and eating the best food and a lot of other people living in shit and ignorantly superstitious as they're not allowed near the top table, then that has to be wrong. hence, having visited the DL at his summer gaff in South India and seen just how hierarchical and feudal that whole set up is, I am no great fan.

Back in the day here in England we had some coves called Prince Bishops, they ruled the roost by ritual and status along with handy soldiers to ensure they got and kept the cream. Lovely great cathedrals and palaces surrounded by folk living in poverty.

We've kinda moved on from that here but Tibet, nah.. They are still pining for the middle ages and the DL and his cronies live high on the hog on the back of such nonsense. Check out their Patek Phillipe watches next time you get close to DLs travelling circus.

Frankly chums, it stinks.

Edited November 7, 2012 by GrandmasterP

[Jetsun]

Taking it all of a piece as there's nothing there to be gained or lost, stuff just is; then it makes not a ha'porth of difference what and how we cultivate. Anything done with intention must ( in theory) work as well as anything else.

Hence my skepticism about Tibetan kit and endless rituals.

Not saying there's anything intrinsucally wrong with rituals and spending one's life reading sutras and the like but when such a system serves to keep some people on top wearing nice eobes and eating the best food and a lot of other people living in shit and ignorantly superstitious as they're not allowed near the top table, then that has to be wrong. hence, having visited the DL at his summer gaff in South India and seen just how hierarchical and feudal that whole set up is, I am no great fan.

Back in the day here in England we had some coves called Prince Bishops, they ruled the roost by ritual and status along with handy soldiers to ensure they got and kept the cream. Lovely great cathedrals and palaces surrounded by folk living in poverty.

We've kinda moved on from that here but Tibet, nah.. They are still pining for the middle ages and the DL and his cronies live high on the hog on the back of such nonsense. Check out their Patek Phillipe watches next time you get close to DLs travelling circus.

Frankly chums, it stinks.

 

If you actually listen to what the Dalai Lama says he says more or less the same as you that most of the ritual, ceremony and sectarian stuff isn't really necessary. I don't know why you keep banging the same drum about him doing it for the money, he could easily have retired by now with the money he made from just one of his books yet he continually travels non stop to teach out of compassion for others, just look at his schedule its non stop traveling and work year on year giving teachings in all sorts of countries even though he is in his 70's and could relax in luxury for the rest of his life.

 

This year he completely sold out the MEN arena in Manchester, yet they made a loss overall because they decided to make the youth day completely free. Strange behavior from one motivated by cash

Edited November 7, 2012 by Jetsun

[GrandmasterP]

He's a nice guy for sure and it's more or less all he has ever known but that does not make it right. That nice young Panchen Lama has the right idea, autonomy and modernisation plus he has the backing of PRC so can get stuff done.

May he live forever but once DL shuffles off this mortal coil that Harvard educated and non elected 'Prime Minister' of his looks set to take over the circus. Sure to be changes then. If it wasn't for the publicity machine and vested interests DL would be neither more nor less than any of the other jobbing Lamas schlepping around the west.

Usually at his stage someone posts a furious rejoinder along the lines of... What about those self immolating monks in Lhasa? etc etc.

Well guys, they simply do not know any better, they are ignorant and superstitious to the point of self destruction hence non different than our misguided chums the suicide Islamists.

Edited November 7, 2012 by GrandmasterP

[Jetsun]

Buddhist era Tibet was founded on a idealistic premise that the most spiritually advanced members of society were also the leaders, the people invited the Lamas to become leaders they didn't take it by force; imagine having people with genuine wisdom and compassion being the leaders of your country instead of the muppets we have to put up with. But that era is over and won't be brought back, but fortunately for us as individuals in the west we can go and learn from the knowledge that the Lamas have before it becomes exstinct.

[GrandmasterP]

Mmmm quite a bit of warring and poisoning behind this chap's lineage. Same as his predecessors. The history of Tibet is one of strife and tribal factionalism, it was whoever had the biggest army or the most cunning poisoner who got to live like a nabob in the Potala.

We (Britain) even had a puppet in their at one stage back in the old Queen's day, he was paid a Foreign Office salary.

Edited November 7, 2012 by GrandmasterP

[Simple_Jack]

That way if someone comes in and challenges them you can do what I imagine the Buddha himself would do. Pretty much nothing. Maybe smile brilliantly at you. But he would view these opposing viewpoints as simply gifts, and he would decide whether or not he would accept them.

Uhhh, Buddha debated against individuals of both Vedic and non-Vedic schools of thought all across India. One example is the "Brahmajala Sutta: The All-embracing Net of Views" [http://www.accesstoi....01.0.bodh.html.] He critisizes both eternalist and nihilist doctrines in that one:

 

2. Conditioned by Contact (Phassapaccayavāra)

 

"Therein, bhikkhus, when those recluses who are eternalists proclaim on four grounds the self and the world to be eternal — that is conditioned by contact. That they can experience that feeling without contact — such a case is impossible."

 

"When those recluses and brahmins who are eternalists in regard to some things and non-eternalists in regard to other things proclaim on four grounds the self and the world to be partly eternal and partly non-eternal — that too is conditioned by contact. That they can experience that feeling without contact — such a case is impossible.

 

"When those recluses and brahmins who are extensionists proclaim their views; when those who are fortuitous originationists proclaim their views; when those who are speculators about the past and hold settled views about the past assert on eighteen grounds various conceptual theorems referring to the past; when those who maintain a doctrine of percipient immortality, non-percipient immortality, or neither percipient nor non-percipient immortality proclaim their views; when those who are annihilationists proclaim their views; when those who maintain a doctrine of Nibbāna here and now proclaim their views; when those who are speculators about the future and hold settled views about the future assert on forty-four grounds various conceptual theorems referring to the future — that too is conditioned by contact. That they can experience that feeling without contact — such a case is impossible."

 

"When those recluses and brahmins who are speculators about the past, speculators about the future, speculators about the past and the future together, who hold settled views about the past and the future, assert on sixty-two grounds various conceptual theorems referring to the past and the future — that too is conditioned by contact. That they can experience that feeling without contact — such a case is impossible."

Edited November 8, 2012 by Simple_Jack

[GrandmasterP]

Ah but does any of it work SJ?

This stuff is a bit like calling a restaurant and asking them to read the menu out over the phone but never actually eating.

[RongzomFan]

If Simple Jack quotes another website, I might lose it.

[RongzomFan]

Hence my skepticism about Tibetan kit and endless rituals.

Not saying there's anything intrinsucally wrong with rituals

 

Again with the rituals?

 

You have no idea what Tibetan Buddhism is about. Just admit it.

[RongzomFan]

That's how you can tell he's not describing the "I AM" phase, which is still dualistic.

 

For the love of "god", no more of this Thusness crap. I've exposed him as a fraud.

[RongzomFan]

You either know about the instant of unfabricated freshness [ma bcos shes pa skad cig ma] and the conceptualizing mind.

 

Or you don't.

Edited November 8, 2012 by alwayson

[xabir2005]

Tony Parsons is talking about substantial non duality, or the one mind.

 

Now obviously, luminosity is not something that needs to be developed. Th mind is already luminous by nature, as Buddha pointed out, only that it is temporarily obscured by adventitious defilements. The only development is in the purification of such adventitious defilements. Then when the luminosity unveils, simply relax into natural clarity.

[xabir2005]

 

How should it be skillfully dealt with so as to avoid reification? Would you say that Shentong is provisional? If it is provisional: At what point in the path, is it actually important?

 

Also, I remember when you posted this over on Dharmawheel, in one of the Jax threads. When I saw that I was like, "Holy..."

 

This part from the notes section of that page: "A more reasonable approach to understanding the statement can be derived from taking it in context: the luminous mind is the mind that the meditator is trying to develop. To perceive its luminosity means understanding that defilements such as greed, aversion, or delusion are not intrinsic to its nature, are not a necessary part of awareness. Without this understanding, it would be impossible to practice. With this understanding, however, one can make an effort to cut away existing defilements, leaving the mind in the stage that MN 24 calls "purity in terms of mind."

 

That is the closest I've personally seen Theravada get to describing a "buddha-nature."

you don't need shentong view. It can be extreme depending. You need to have direct realization of luminous mind and perceive its emptiness.

[RongzomFan]

you don't need shentong view. It can be extreme depending. You need to have direct realization of luminous mind and perceive its emptiness.

 

Thats not what the inseperability of clarity and emptiness means.

[xabir2005]

 

 

Thats not what the inseperability of clarity and emptiness means.

i am not talking about meaning but the realization of it.

[RongzomFan]

i am not talking about meaning but the realization of it.

 

Whatever you said was wrong.

[xabir2005]

 

 

Whatever you said was wrong.

there is nothing wrong with what I said. Recognizing clarity is not the same as realizing its emptiness.

[RongzomFan]

there is nothing wrong with what I said. Recognizing clarity is not the same as realizing its emptiness.

 

What is realizing its emptiness?

[xabir2005]

 

 

What is realizing its emptiness?

Wisdom.

[RongzomFan]

Wisdom.

 

You really have no clue what you are talking about. Its a shame people like you spread all sorts of false ideas.

 

 

"Emptiness" in the context of the inseperable clarity and emptiness of the mind, simply means you cannot point to clarity with your finger. You cannot find clarity, nor get rid of clarity.

 

It does not refer to real emptiness.

Edited November 8, 2012 by alwayson

[xabir2005]

 

 

You really have no clue what you are talking about. Its a shame people like you spread all sorts of false ideas.

 

 

"Emptiness" in the context of the inseperable clarity and emptiness of the mind, simply mean you cannot point to it with your finger. You cannot find it, nor get rid of it.

 

It does not refer to real emptiness.

you and I have different understanding of emptiness then.

 

Eternalists have also said that their atman is unfindable, yet it exists. Obviously emptiness is not just being unable to pin down its whereabouts.

 

Emptiness is about seeing through the reification of extreme views such as existence, etc. just like we impute car-ness of car, chariot-ness of chariot, weather-ness of weather when they are completely conventional designations without real existence. You can't pin down true existence but not merely because it cannot be located.

Edited November 8, 2012 by xabir2005

[RongzomFan]

you and I have different understanding of emptiness then.

 

Probably, but that is a different issue.

 

Emptiness when it comes to the inseparability of clarity and emptiness, merely refers to the fact you cannot find clarity, or point to clarity with your finger.

Edited November 8, 2012 by alwayson