Soul

[rocala]

I frequently read that Buddhism does not accept the idea of a soul. Usually this is explained as an unchanging soul or unchanging eternal essence. The emphasis seems to be on 'unchanging'.

 

Does this mean that a changing essence might be more acceptable.

[rideforever]

Lotus Sutra, Chapter 2, first page

“O Śāriputra! After attaining buddhahood I expounded the teaching
extensively with various explanations and illustrations, and with skillful
means (upāya) led sentient beings to rid themselves of their attachments.
Why is this? Because all the Tathāgatas have attained perfect mastery of
skillful means, wisdom, and insight.
“O Śāriputra! The wisdom and insight of the Tathāgatas is extensive,
profound, immeasurable, and unhindered. They are possessed of power, fear-
lessness, meditation, liberation, and samādhi that is profound and endless.
They have completely attained this unprecedented Dharma.
“O Śāriputra! The Tathāgatas can, through various methods, skillfully
illuminate the Dharma with gentle speech and gladden the hearts of the
assemblies.
“O Śāriputra! To put it briefly, the buddhas have attained this immeas-
urable, limitless, and unprecedented Dharma. Enough, O Śāriputra, I will
speak no further. Why is this? Because the Dharma that the buddhas have
attained is foremost, unique, and difficult to understand. 

 

The Lotus Sutra is one of the later and more mature records of Buddha's teaching.  Here he identifies a number of unique individual beings, including himself.  He refers to them as being individual, having individual character and skills, and being in liberation.
So the result of the path according to Buddha, is clearly an individual being with unique individual characteristics, or something we might call an immortal individual man.   
Or, this is a "soul" in the West.

What the relationship this immortal man has to the aspirant, and what the meaning of it objectively is, one can speculate.

 

(from same page)

 

The buddhas have closely attended innumerable hundreds
of thousands of myriads of koṭis of other buddhas. They have exhaustively
carried out practices with courage and persistence under uncountable num-
bers of buddhas, their names becoming universally renowned. They have per-
fected this profound and unprecedented Dharma, and their intention in adapt-
ing their explanations to what is appropriate is difficult to understand.

 

Therefore, a great deal of effort seems to be required.

 

The rest of the chapter is about the One Buddha Dharma that Buddha would like to present, that supersedes past teachings and is direct and powerful, and Buddha now realises that whatever paths are offered to sentient beings, there really is only one path.

 

 

[doc benway]

The Yungdrung Bön teachings have a unique and interesting take on the Soul -

 

 

[Zen Pig]

1 hour ago, steve said:

The Yungdrung Bön teachings have a unique and interesting take on the Soul -

wow. very interesting.  we have prayer flags out side of our home for years. never got how they worked.  This video is very alien to my culture, for the most part.  Only by learning a little about Chinese medicine, can I understand any of it.  

Just a couple of comments so far. 

I have always wondered on a deep level about the "inherent sin" or "inherent blindness or muddy water" of the human soul.  It is this almost universal belief that we are born being flawed.  I have seen a lot of new born babies, and never saw one born with sin, or flaws. curious.  

The idea that we , by nature are some how blind or flawed is something both western and eastern,  but not necessary deep hunter gather tribal .  Seems the closer we get to the earth, to the actual living with mother earth, the less we see ourselves as some how flawed , don't know why that is, but I digress. 

Damaged Bla sounds right to me.

The Mu hunehen or bad tightly connected part of the soul connected to the physical body, that can become a "bad spirit" is very similar to the Hopi tradition of the so called "ego part "  that disconnects after death, and represents all of our egotistic greed, selfishness,  and other negative human potential.  amazing that the Bon and Hopi beliefs are so connected.  This is why in the Hopi culture one should never touch a dead body at death, because this part of us can invade a living human and cause damage.

great video.  thanks

[doc benway]

There have been a few Bönpo monks visiting the US who connected with Native folks to compare traditions, same in Mexico.

I think there is some very basic commonality in indigenous, shamanic cultures.

Great stuff

[Patrick Brown]

Well I haven't watched the video above yet but within the first few seconds karma and reincarnation are mentioned and I have always thought that there is a direct correlation, basically they are the same thing or one-thing.

 

As for this soul stuff I figure when we're dead nothing remains except our potentiality! This is interesting if you think of something on a shelf which is said to have kinetic energy. We don't know how the object/thing got onto the shelf but we do know it has potential in the form of energy. I think we have a form of potential once dead. We can't point to a thing and say that's us because we were made up of aggregates and therefore exist eternally, albeit unconsciously,  in everything that makes up a human body. The key is genetics and gateways and it has been said that each day we are redefining our next gateway for rebirth until we're gone and then, as if by magic... 

 

So even though I generally take the Buddhist stance of no soul, I will concede that our soul can be seen as our potential.  

[rocala]

I have found this subject very challenging. By chance today I came across Analayo's book 'Rebirth in Early Buddhism'. I will read this and hopefully have a greater perspective. It has some good reviews.

 

Has anybody else read this book?

[whitesilk]

On 2/7/2019 at 11:57 AM, rocala said:

Usually this is explained as an unchanging soul or unchanging eternal essence. The emphasis seems to be on 'unchanging'.

 

I'd like to reference the Platonic Theory of forms . My understanding is that there is one version of a person in existence in heaven, and our realities mirror that one existence. Although this is not necessarily Buddhist in concept (I've read many source Buddhist Sutras) perhaps you are reading from a secondary perspective about Buddhism and the author's Western viewpoint is getting in the way?

[whitesilk]

Perhaps, just logically thinking, the soul is de-emphasized to show greater value to the flesh.

[rocala]

21 hours ago, whitesilk said:

the author's Western viewpoint is getting in the way?

This is certainly a factor in some of the material that I have read.

Thanks for the info about forms, This is a new one for me but a very interesting point of view.

[lifeforce]

On 07/02/2019 at 5:57 PM, rocala said:

I frequently read that Buddhism does not accept the idea of a soul. Usually this is explained as an unchanging soul or unchanging eternal essence. The emphasis seems to be on 'unchanging'.

 

Does this mean that a changing essence might be more acceptable.

 

See here:

 

[Everything]

On 7-2-2019 at 6:57 PM, rocala said:

I frequently read that Buddhism does not accept the idea of a soul. Usually this is explained as an unchanging soul or unchanging eternal essence. The emphasis seems to be on 'unchanging'.

 

Does this mean that a changing essence might be more acceptable.

It is actually both.

Your soul calls you forward evermore. And it is the reason why you feel emotion.

To help you come back into alignment with all that you have truely become.

Who you truely are! .... .... ... ... In your ever becoming the moreness of all that is which it is who it is and what it is you truely are.

 

Often people say, well.. Can't I just instantly become in alignment with my soul and then simply feel good all of the time? Well... Yes and no. Because that would imply the death of the physical being, and then you simply reincarnate, for the joy of who you are, which is unconditional, and reaches for the moreness of its everbecoming, evermore, effortlessly, unconditionally.

 

In the same way that people go to sleep, and wake up fresh and new, into the moreness of all that they've truely become, untill they think a thought or strike up an old perspective which is out of alignment with all that they've truely become, and then they feel bad again. And then they resent that they woke up. And they'd rather just wanna go back to sleep again. Due to thoughts of discord with their own greater truth and nature of being, which is primarily non-physical, as we are extensions of that.

 

So meditation is the way to CONSCIOUSLY (as opposed to sleep) release your resistant perspectives and self contradictory thought patterns, which causes you to become blind to your own greater truth of nature and being, and causes a lessening of your life force and consciousness. And then, as you release all thoughts of resistant or contradictory nature, then you come much more easily back into alignment with your own greater truth of being. And so you are then capable of enjoying life much more easily, as you are capable of recognizing all the value of everything much more easily, and life is more enjoyable to you. Because you are more capable of seeing all the goodness that it truely is for you evermore, of why you are here in the first place, your reason for being here in the first place.

 

But your soul is doing all the heavy lifting for you. It is simply becoming, all that you want to be do or have, evermore. And is holding that state of furthest most expansion, Non-physically, unconditionally, energetically. And beams it out to you, unconditionally, relentlessly.

IT is beyond the idea of heaven. It is infact, at the very Source of All Physical Reality.  It is a very very high frequency and very non-physical, beyond anything that we can grasp, but we can FEEL our alignment with it, energy motionally, emotionally. We can feel our realisation of it, as we allow that non-physical beingness of our soul to flow more fully through us, it will never be anything that is different from all that we truely already are. It is only our perspective that allows us to perceive the moreness of it evermore. That feels like bliss. Like realisation, knowing, enlightenment, freedom, appreciation.

 

For that soul flows through all of us, all of the time. But to the degree we allow it, to flow through us, is the degree we have acces to our greater nature, and thus feel better. As we allow it to flow more through us, we recognize it more as who we truely already always have been and will be the evermore becoming of it evermore.

 

So we do want to come into alignment with our soul, by reaching for a perspective that feels better, feelsl ike emotional relief.

And that reaching is always achieved, not by doing, but by allowing our natural and effortless re-alignment with our greater nature of non-physical being. Just like one does through meditation or prayer. Allowing, like an act of non-action. Hence the idea of meditation, of letting go, and then allowing our greater nature. Or as some say, letting go and letting god.

Or some people like the say, you meditate, and flow conscious bliss into you.

Many ways of describing it.

Infact, every religion is about coming back into alignment with our greater truth of being.

All the paths are valid. If there was only one path that is valid, there would be only one person. And one path. But there isn't. There are infinite beingness, and our soul is infinite and ever expanding, eternally.

 

The path of least resistance is unique for every single one, in every single moment. And walking it, is always indicated by your feeling of emotional relief, which indicates your having left behind thoughts and perspective of resistance and discord to your own greater nature.

Edited June 11, 2019 by Everything

[Everything]

And most importantly, to remind you that this is not airy fairy woowoo stuff. WHEN YOU CAN FINALLY PERCEIVE YOUR TRUE NATURE, IT IS NOT POSSIBLE TO DISALLOW IT. AND SO IT WILL BECOME A REAL PHYSICAL TANGIBLE TRUTH FOR YOU EVERMORE. AS THAT IS HOW YOU WERE MENT TO BE IN AND AS EXISTANCE. 

[C T]

On 6/11/2019 at 9:38 PM, Everything said:

It is actually both.

Your soul calls you forward evermore. And it is the reason why you feel emotion.

To help you come back into alignment with all that you have truely become.

Who you truely are! .... .... ... ... In your ever becoming the moreness of all that is which it is who it is and what it is you truely are........................................

 

..............................The path of least resistance is unique for every single one, in every single moment. And walking it, is always indicated by your feeling of emotional relief, which indicates your having left behind thoughts and perspective of resistance and discord to your own greater nature.

 

Reading the above sounds so familiar... almost like Darryl Anka channelling Bashar... you're not Anka by any chance, are you? 

Edited June 30, 2019 by C T