Reflecting on TDB

[Maddie]

I had a little extra free time which I don't usually have and was spending a little bit of time going over my posts on TDB since I first joined in 2009. I can't believe it has been that long! 

 

Looking back at those posts I remember the things I was doing at that time were Dan Tien breathing and MCO, Five organ healing sounds and meditations, Karate. 

 

At that time there were people like Marble Head (rip) and Drew Hempel, as well as several others that are still here. 

 

In that time I went from a primarily a qigong based practice, to a Buddhist based one, and became an acupuncturist. 

 

Just thought I would share my reflection and see if anyone else wanted to contribute theirs. 

[Mark Foote]

1 hour ago, Maddie said:

I had a little extra free time which I don't usually have and was spending a little bit of time going over my posts on TDB since I first joined in 2009. I can't believe it has been that long! 

 

Looking back at those posts I remember the things I was doing at that time were Dan Tien breathing and MCO, Five organ healing sounds and meditations, Karate. 

 

At that time there were people like Marble Head (rip) and Drew Hempel, as well as several others that are still here. 

 

In that time I went from a primarily a qigong based practice, to a Buddhist based one, and became an acupuncturist. 

 

Just thought I would share my reflection and see if anyone else wanted to contribute theirs. 
 

 

 

I didn't know that Marble Head had passed.  Folks come and go here, so one never knows.  Rip, indeed.

 

Drew Hempel is still around under a different pseudonym (unless there's someone else on Dao Bums who writes about "O's at a D", and in the same style, ,which I very much doubt).

 

Congratulations on becoming an acupuncturist, and taking up a Buddhist practice.  Wonder which of the many branches that practice might originate with...

I have a good friend, who attended Naropa for awhile (I think she got a masters in Buddhist psychology there), who is now nothing but disillusioned with the Shambala tribe.  There's a sad story, for sure.  Bringing Buddhism to the USA, not without its missteps and some pain along the way.

Stirling and I go round and round, on a lot of threads.  The last go-round I think touched on the major issue confronting Soto Zen Buddhism in California:

 

Quote

Posted December 4 (edited)

  On 12/3/2023 at 4:07 PM, stirling said:

 

The hara isn't a topic of conversation or practice mentioned in Soto Zen. It isn't necessary to complete the great work. 
 

 

 

That is a kind of strength which you will gain by your tummy here. When your mind is here or here, you know, it means you are entertaining them (images in the mind). If your mind is here, you are not concern—concerned too much about the image you have in your mind. So, try to keep right posture, with some power in your tummy.

 

("Practice Zazen With Your Whole Mind And Body", Shunryu Suzuki Transcript, Friday, September 8, 1967)
 

 

 

There are instructions to do this and do that with the body in the offerings of many Zen teachers.  My take on that is that I’m bound to end up in the wrong place, if I take the advice to mean there’s something I should do.  I can understand stirling's desire to reject that kind of advice altogether. But that is precisely the issue that must be addressed, IMHO, in Soto Zen in the West.

 

Maybe you are pursuing another strand of the teachings.  It's a wonderful world.

 

Edited December 19, 2023 by Mark Foote

[Maddie]

3 minutes ago, Mark Foote said:

 

 

I didn't know that Marble Head had passed.  Folks come and go here, so one never knows.  Rip, indeed.

 

Drew Hempel is still around under a different pseudonym (unless there's someone else on Dao Bums who writes about "O's at a D", and in the same style, ,which I very much doubt).

 

Congratulations on becoming an acupuncturist, and taking up a Buddhist practice.  Wonder which of the many branches that practice might originate with...

I have a good friend, who attended Naropa for awhile (I think she got a masters in Buddhist psychology there), who is now nothing but disillusioned with the Shambala tribe.  There's a sad story, for sure.  Bringing Buddhism to the USA, not without its missteps and some pain along the way.

Stirling and I go round and round, on a lot of threads.  The last go-round I think touched on the major issue confronting Soto Zen Buddhism in California:

 

 

 

There are instructions to do this and do that with the body in the offerings of many Zen teachers.  My take on that is that I’m bound to end up in the wrong place, if I take the advice to mean there’s something I should do.  I can understand stirling's desire to reject that kind of advice altogether.

 

Maybe you are pursuing another strand of the teachings.  It's a wonderful world.

 

 

I guess the main branch of Buddhism that I have studied was Theravada but I don't consider myself to be any particular school. I think I eventually realized that Qigong wasn't going to answer the big questions. When it comes to Buddhism these days I'm more interested in exploring both modern interpretations while simultaneously looking at the original texts and avoiding most modern Western understandings.  

[Mark Foote]

8 minutes ago, Maddie said:

 

I guess the main branch of Buddhism that I have studied was Theravada but I don't consider myself to be any particular school. I think I eventually realized that Qigong wasn't going to answer the big questions. When it comes to Buddhism these days I'm more interested in exploring both modern interpretations while simultaneously looking at the original texts and avoiding most modern Western understandings.  
 

I'm with you on that, that's my approach too, although I think most modern interpretations don't match well with the Pali Suttas.

I bought the Pali Text Society translations of the first four Nikayas, back in the '80's.  Read them all, at least the sermons that interested me (and scanned the rest).  There are some in Thailand who are very clear that the teaching is about the cessation of "doing something" in speech, body, and mind, but many who interpret the teaching as "bare attention" (from Satipatthana, I think), and it's the "bare attention" that has caught the interest of most Western interpreters.  So far as I can tell.  Alas.

It was the great hope of the abbot of Golden Mountain Monastery in San Francisco and Land of Ten Thousand Buddhas in Talmadge, near Ukiah, CA, that the Theravadin and Ch'an traditions could be reconciled.  He gifted 100+ acres to a Theravadin Thai forest tradition lineage for a monastery near Ukiah.  I think it will be a long time before the folks in that monastery really see eye to eye with the folks in his, but I think he was on the money to believe in the reconciliation.

Stick me with needles, I don't care!   

[liminal_luke]

It's been a wild ride.  I've spent lots of time sucked into whirlpools of controversy and argument -- say about some political issue or the existence or nonexistence of the "self".  As with other social media, there's lots of opportunity here to get lost in addiction, dopamine hits for likes, etc.  And don't even get me started on the horrors of social comparison!  It's easy to emerge from a Taobums session feeling inferior (intellectually, physically, spiritually -- take you pick).  Still, when this place is good it's really Good.  Amidst the crazies and the egoists, there are people here with breathtaking wisdom.  I've learned so much.

Edited December 19, 2023 by liminal_luke

[Maddie]

24 minutes ago, Mark Foote said:

I'm with you on that, that's my approach too, although I think most modern interpretations don't match well with the Pali Suttas.

I bought the Pali Text Society translations of the first four Nikayas, back in the '80's.  Read them all, at least the sermons that interested me (and scanned the rest).  There are some in Thailand who are very clear that the teaching is about the cessation of "doing something" in speech, body, and mind, but many who interpret the teaching as "bare attention" (from Satipatthana, I think), and it's the "bare attention" that has caught the interest of most Western interpreters.  So far as I can tell.  Alas.

It was the great hope of the abbot of Golden Mountain Monastery in San Francisco and Land of Ten Thousand Buddhas in Talmadge, near Ukiah, CA, that the Theravadin and Ch'an traditions could be reconciled.  He gifted 100+ acres to a Theravadin Thai forest tradition lineage for a monastery near Ukiah.  I think it will be a long time before the folks in that monastery really see eye to eye with the folks in his, but I think he was on the money to believe in the reconciliation.

Stick me with needles, I don't care!   

 

Very much agreed. 

 

Personally if its possible at all I think understanding exactly what the Buddha said is probably a very difficult task as every school has their own texts and own spin on things. I think some people think Theravada Buddhism equals original Buddhism, but I don't think so. This is why I try to piece it together from the Pali texts, but I must keep in mind that those don't necessarily reflect all the words of the Buddha accurately either. 

[Maddie]

4 minutes ago, liminal_luke said:

It's been a wild ride.  I've spent lots of time sucked into whirlpools of controversy and argument -- say about some political issue or the existence or nonexistence of the "self".  As with other social media, there's lots of opportunity here to get lost in addiction, dopamine hits for likes, etc.  And don't even get me started on the horrors of social comparison!  It's easy to emerge from a Taobums session feeling inferior (intellectually, physically, spiritually -- take you pick).  Still, when this place is good it's really Good.  Amidst the crazies and the egoists, there are people here with breathtaking wisdom.  I've learned so much.

 

This is such an interesting perspective to consider and I'm sorry this happens to you. I guess I have never felt this from this forum. I suppose its one reason I wanted to discuss our experiences on this forum itself. This too can be an interesting study and topic of discussion.

 

*btw don't feel inferior Luke, you're one of my favorite people on here! :-) <3 

[liminal_luke]

15 minutes ago, Maddie said:

 

This is such an interesting perspective to consider and I'm sorry this happens to you. I guess I have never felt this from this forum. I suppose its one reason I wanted to discuss our experiences on this forum itself. This too can be an interesting study and topic of discussion.

 

*btw don't feel inferior Luke, you're one of my favorite people on here! :-) <3 

 

Thanks, Maddie.    There's probably as many different experiences of the forum as there are Bums.  Have you ever read Yelp reviews for one of your favorite restaurants?  No matter how good I think a place is there's always someone who had a bad experience there and took the time to write about it.  Just goes to show, I think, that our perspective on places -- restuarants, forums, whatever -- often have more to do with us than the places themselves.  

 

For the record, I do feel good about my contributions here.  I often have a perspective that I feel is valuable and that other people seem to appreciate as well, and that's very validating to me.  At the same time, I see people working diligently on their spiritual practices and getting results in ways that I've struggled to.  You won't, for instance, see me posting any videos of myself doing tai chi. 

Edited December 20, 2023 by liminal_luke

[Maddie]

35 minutes ago, liminal_luke said:

 

Thanks, Maddie.    There's probably as many different experiences of the forum as there are Bums.  Have you ever read Yelp reviews for one of your favorite restaurants?  No matter how good I think a place is there's always someone who had a bad experience there and took the time to write about it.  Just goes to show, I think, that our perspective on places -- restuarants, forums, whatever -- often have more to do with us than the places themselves.  

 

For the record, I do feel good about my contributions here.  I often have a perspective that I feel is valuable and that other people seem to appreciate as well, and that's very validating to me.  At the same time, I see people working diligently on their spiritual practices and getting results in ways that I've struggled to.  You won't, for instance, see me posting any videos of myself doing tai chi. 

 

OMG that is how it goes with an acupuncture clinic. I'll have 50 people tell me that I changed their life for the better and then one person is like "eh it didn't do anything" after ignoring the treatment plan and then I just want to go off and cry even though 50 people told me that they love me lol. 

[Cobie]

The theory:

 

3 hours ago, Maddie said:

 

When we see our view as part of our identity then we see the rejection of those views as a rejection of the self, which leads to all sorts of emotional reactions.

 

When we see views as just views and not "our views" then if someone rejects the view it really isn't a big deal. 

 

The human side of life:

 

48 minutes ago, Maddie said:

 

OMG that is how it goes with an acupuncture clinic. I'll have 50 people tell me that I changed their life for the better and then one person is like "eh it didn't do anything" after ignoring the treatment plan and then I just want to go off and cry even though 50 people told me that they love me lol. 

 

[Maddie]

9 minutes ago, Cobie said:

The theory:

 

 

The human side of life:

 

 

 

Practice is to make the theory more a part of life LOL.

[wandelaar]

The Dao Bums is a great place for learning to respectfully disagree. Which isn't at all easy. I don't think even the Buddha thought that his opinions were as good as anybody else's. For why else would he have gone on to preach his doctrine if he didn't think of it as somehow superior to what people were already thinking? The hard thing is staying respectful when (you think that) somebody else is provably wrong and doesn't even change his/her opinion when (in your eyes) he/she is shown to be wrong. Arguments seldom change opinions. And it's equally hard for others to stay respectful when being declared to be wrong with reasons supplied. We don't like to be seen as idiots, not even regarding some particular subject. It's here that realizing the unsubstantiality of the self might help a tiny little bit...

Edited December 20, 2023 by wandelaar

[Maddie]

5 hours ago, wandelaar said:

The Dao Bums is a great place for learning to respectfully disagree. 

 

Ideally compassion should come before ego 😌🩷

[stirling]

I appreciate you all putting up with me.

 

I came out of an interest in exploring how various practices in other traditions, as well as when happens as understanding deepens after insight. What keeps me coming back, though, is the humanity and camaraderie in the posts. Threads like Liminal Luke's, Maddie's personal story, and the posts of Manitou, Dwai, Apech and others. 

 

18 hours ago, Mark Foote said:

Stirling and I go round and round, on a lot of threads.  The last go-round I think touched on the major issue confronting Soto Zen Buddhism in California

 

You are a good egg, Mark, but I do sometimes think of you like a terrier with a bone.  I admire your determination.

 

As far as the "hara" is concerned, I agree that it features (in variations) in some traditions, but can't point to any number of teachers who have "cracked it" that never did hara practices. I just don't think it is mission critical, but the dialoguing is still fun. 

 

[Mark Foote]

5 hours ago, wandelaar said:

The Dao Bums is a great place for learning to respectfully disagree. Which isn't at all easy. I don't think even the Buddha thought that his opinions were as good as anybody else's. For why else would he have gone on to preach his doctrine if he didn't think of it as somehow superior to what people were already thinking? The hard thing is staying respectful when (you think that) somebody else is provably wrong and doesn't even change his/her opinion when (in your eyes) he/she is shown to be wrong. Arguments seldom change opinions. And it's equally hard for others to stay respectful when being declared to be wrong with reasons supplied. We don't like to be seen as idiots, not even regarding some particular subject. It's here that realizing the unsubstantiality of the self might help a tiny little bit...
 

 

 

There are a lot of suttas in the first four Nikayas of the Pali Canon where Gautama disputes the views of another, maybe more correctly dismantles the logic of another.

An example:

 

[Gautama] spoke thus to the monk Sati, a fisherman’s son, as he was sitting down at a respectful distance:
 

‘Is it true, as is said, that a pernicious view like this has accrued to you, Sati: “In so far as I understand [the truth] taught by [Gautama], it is that this consciousness itself runs on, fares on, not another”?’
 

‘Even so do I… understand [the teaching] ….’
 

‘What is this consciousness, Sati?’
 

‘It is this… that speaks, that feels, that experiences now here, now there, the fruition of deeds that are lovely and that are depraved.’
 

[Gautama rebukes Sati for his misrepresentation of Gautama’s teaching, and continues:] It is because… an appropriate condition arises that consciousness is known by this or that name: if consciousness arises because of eye and material shapes, it is known as visual consciousness; if consciousness arises because of ear and sounds, it is known as auditory consciousness; [so for the nose/smells/olfactory consciousness, tongue/tastes/gustatory consciousness, body/touches/tactile consciousness, mind/mental objects/mental consciousness]. …As a fire burns because of this or that appropriate condition, by that it is known: if a fire burns because of sticks, it is known as a stick-fire; and if a fire burns because of chips, it is known as a chip-fire; … and so with regard to grass, cow-dung, chaff, and rubbish.”
 

(MN I 258-259, Vol I pg 313-315)

 

 

Poor Sati, embarassed in front of all his friends (kidding).  

Yeah, Gautama was a weird one.  Declaring himself a "world-turner" to the first person he met after his enlightenment, an ascetic who basically walked on from the encounter without giving Gautama the time of day.  Having to persuade the five ascetics that he used to hang with to listen to him.  Gautama the mysogenist (there's a lecture where he disparages women).  Gautama who believed in beings of spontaneous uprising (fairies), and the miracle of stroking the sun and moon with the hand.  

Gautama who enjoyed walking on the highway with no one in front or behind  more than answering the call of nature (and in an opposing lecture, enjoying the calls of nature more than walking on the highway, who would think that made any sense except as an addition by later editors to prevent monks from soiling their robes!).

That's why I value David Chadwick's contribution to Soto Zen in California, he put the human side of Shunryu Suzuki on display for the world to see, knowing that Suzuki had discouraged any biography of himself.  Reading the actual transcripts of Suzuki's lectures, instead of "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind", I discover a different Suzuki, one whose words are less prescriptive and more in keeping with Gautama's teachings (I've been writing about it, on my site).  

Dao Bums, bringing us back to the universal.  I'm for it.

 

Edited December 20, 2023 by Mark Foote

[wandelaar]

I wonder if only the ego is to blame when discussions go off the rails. I have a strong suspicion that my irritation at perceived fallacies and debating tricks will never subside whatever the state of my ego.

[Maddie]

1 hour ago, wandelaar said:

I wonder if only the ego is to blame when discussions go off the rails. I have a strong suspicion that my irritation at perceived fallacies and debating tricks will never subside whatever the state of my ego.

 

You can ask yourself the question where does this irritation come from?

[wandelaar]

4 minutes ago, Maddie said:

You can ask yourself the question where does this irritation come from?

 

Probably from the conviction that facts and correct argumentation matter.

[liminal_luke]

12 minutes ago, wandelaar said:

 

Probably from the conviction that facts and correct argumentation matter.

 

Facts and correct argumentation do matter, but not in the way many of us think.  When I get into an internet debate I'm hoping for a response like this: I now realize you were right all along; please ignore my previous ten pages of (sadly misguided and ignorant) posts. In over a decade of arguing on the forum, I've yet to receive this kind of capitulation.  Either I'm a really bad debater or it's just not in human nature to graciously admit defeat.  Do ya think it's just me?  Assuming nothing untoward happens (bad health, zombie apocalypse), I'll keep trying at least another ten years and maybe someday I'll win.

 

 

[ChiDragon]

7 minutes ago, liminal_luke said:

Do ya think it's just me?

No, not ya. It's just me.

[wandelaar]

@liminal_luke

 

It seldom happens that posters on the internet admit that they are wrong on something. I have exactly the same experience as you describe. But if I'm proven wrong I will admit it because I don't even want to win a debate when I'm wrong. Winning a debate in itself is a rather shallow pleasure. Much more important to me is improved understanding. If that comes about by me being proven wrong so much the better.

[Mark Foote]

1 hour ago, liminal_luke said:

 

Facts and correct argumentation do matter, but not in the way many of us think.  When I get into an internet debate I'm hoping for a response like this: I now realize you were right all along; please ignore my previous ten pages of (sadly misguided and ignorant) posts. In over a decade of arguing on the forum, I've yet to receive this kind of capitulation.  Either I'm a really bad debater or it's just not in human nature to graciously admit defeat.  Do ya think it's just me?  Assuming nothing untoward happens (bad health, zombie apocalypse), I'll keep trying at least another ten years and maybe someday I'll win.

 

I find it very helpful to think out loud or in writing, and Dao Bums has been very useful to me in that regard.  

I think that's true for most of the participants here, which explains why no one is persuaded by anything anyone else says.  It's all about thinking out loud for oneself. 

I find that what I say or write only has the potential to return to me in the future, if what I speak or write now is positive.  A funny thing about hypnotic suggestion--so far as I know the suggestion has to be positive to have an effect.  If I speak or write to myself from the heart in a positive way, I may not have the complete picture (and a complete picture may not be possible), but I can at least keep filling in pieces.

 

 

[liminal_luke]

2 minutes ago, Mark Foote said:

I think that's true for most of the participants here, which explains why no one is persuaded by anything anyone else says.  It's all about thinking out loud for oneself. 
 

 

I like this way of looking at the forum.  Occasionally, someone will respond to something I wrote in the distant past and their response will prompt me to go back and look at some old post.  It's sometimes surprising to see the person I was back then.

[Maddie]

2 hours ago, wandelaar said:

 

Probably from the conviction that facts and correct argumentation matter.

 

And where does that come from?

 

Also if there's irritation is it just about facts or is it about the facts that "I" said matter?

[Apech]

1 hour ago, liminal_luke said:

 

Facts and correct argumentation do matter, but not in the way many of us think.  When I get into an internet debate I'm hoping for a response like this: I now realize you were right all along; please ignore my previous ten pages of (sadly misguided and ignorant) posts. In over a decade of arguing on the forum, I've yet to receive this kind of capitulation.  Either I'm a really bad debater or it's just not in human nature to graciously admit defeat.  Do ya think it's just me?  Assuming nothing untoward happens (bad health, zombie apocalypse), I'll keep trying at least another ten years and maybe someday I'll win.

 

 

 

Luke ... I now realize you were right all along; please ignore my previous ten pages of (sadly misguided and ignorant) posts.

 

sniff   sniff  so sorry