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Other Theravada Buddhist?

Hi are there any other theravada buddhist in this site if there are i would like to know. when i look at this part of the forum, ther are few post. so i was wondering if there were others.
 

Smoke

Done here.
I borrow whatever helps me from whatever form of Buddhism I come across, so my personal Buddhism is a kind of mishmash of Theravada, Zen, Shambhala, and psychology. I do lean more toward Theravada than any Mahayana tradition except for Zen, and I especially like Ajahn Chah. But I wouldn't call myself Theravada because I don't follow any one tradition exclusively.
 

Ywet War

Member
thank you zenzero for your msg.

I agree with ur idea. Smoke!!

the name of the religion is not important.
the way they help us (people) is important.

best wishes
yw.
 

Jojo777

New Member
This thread was made awhile ago be 'ere goez none the less

I love Buddhism. The more i look into it the more i read the more I think about it and the longer i wait for a faith to come a long that maybe i can possibly prescribe myself to in order to connect with something that is valuable more than just the things that surround me the more I am attracted to Buddhism.

heres my problem:

I like to buy stuff. I was born in Uh'mer'ika and i like THINGS

I like my ipod, i like my computer, i LOVE my kindle.

From what I've read of Buddhism, it seeks to find that "true good, one which is capable of communicating itself and can alone affect the mind to the exclusion of all else, or whether in fact, there is something whose discovery and acquisition would afford me a continuous and supreme joy to all eternity" (Spinoza so eloquently puts us). I love that about it. It's all about the search and less about the end result.

I feel like western religions are about the destination not about the journey...

Am i right or am i totally confused on the meaning of Buddhism? What do i do about my desire to buy stuff and have stuff if i were to be a Buddhist (hypothetically ;) )
 
This thread was made awhile ago be 'ere goez none the less

I love Buddhism. The more i look into it the more i read the more I think about it and the longer i wait for a faith to come a long that maybe i can possibly prescribe myself to in order to connect with something that is valuable more than just the things that surround me the more I am attracted to Buddhism.

heres my problem:

I like to buy stuff. I was born in Uh'mer'ika and i like THINGS

I like my ipod, i like my computer, i LOVE my kindle.

From what I've read of Buddhism, it seeks to find that "true good, one which is capable of communicating itself and can alone affect the mind to the exclusion of all else, or whether in fact, there is something whose discovery and acquisition would afford me a continuous and supreme joy to all eternity" (Spinoza so eloquently puts us). I love that about it. It's all about the search and less about the end result.

I feel like western religions are about the destination not about the journey...

Am i right or am i totally confused on the meaning of Buddhism? What do i do about my desire to buy stuff and have stuff if i were to be a Buddhist (hypothetically ;) )

"Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense." - Buddha

Hello,

I like buying stuff too. I don't like Apple, so I dislike anything the make. I have a Moto Droid, and I spend my money on shoes.

Even if the teachings of non-attachment and "materialism" is a part of your Buddhism, or even if the Buddha taught it himself, if it does not make any sense to your own inner reasoning... then why force it to be a part of you?

It's from that inner reasoning within each of us that we gradually achieve Sama Sambuddhi (The Self Enlightening Itself).

You should let things happen it its own time. When you or we get older and wiser, we might then see materialism differently and from our Experience with attachment and materialism we cultivate NOW, we will be the wiser in the future.

The Middle Path between abstinence and over indulgences is the best path to take. We work hard for our money, there is nothing wrong with spending a little of it one things we enjoy. Not having anything in life causes as much emotional and psychological suffering as having too much and over spending.

But materialism and attachment to things, is like one's thoughts and emotions. Are you Master of your thoughts and emotions, or are they Master of you? The thing to keep in mind is who is Mastering who. Do you have such desire for material things under your control... or do you spend your entire paycheck the next day on Stuff?

If your spending hurts you financially or causes you and or your family to suffer in any way, then you know that such materialistic attachments owns you or controls you and causes you suffering - which is the key point.

Take the Middle Path... Enjoy Life a little, spend on yourself from time to time... just don't let it consume your life. In otherwords, use your own reasoning and your own common sense and be smart with your spending, and money. If you already are, then there really isn't much for you to worry over.

This is just what I have been told.
 
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Jojo777

New Member
"Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense." - Buddha

PROBLEM: Were this true i would be more adamant about changing the spelling of ridiculous. It should be rediculous because my reasoning and common sense says that you spell things how they sound, I don't say rIdiculous I say rEEEEEEEdiculous. At face value something like that sounds pretty rediculous (it may be funny but im completely serious about the spelling) but this goes to show me something, sometimes my reasoning and common sense are WRONG very VERY wrong. Obviously websters dictionary and the New Oxford American English dictionary state that rediculous is spelled with an I not an E.

I hope that makes some sense I know it's a weird example though, I'd love to live in a world where my reasoning and common sense are ultimately what makes something believable but i feel like in that world the vast majority of people would be leading very different lives.

I will say this though... that sounds great, maybe Buddha said more after that that explains that? But just that quote by itself definitely seems like a logical red flag to me.

But materialism and attachment to things, is like one's thoughts and emotions. Are you Master of your thoughts and emotions, or are they Master of you? The thing to keep in mind is who is Mastering who. Do you have such desire for material things under your control... or do you spend your entire paycheck the next day on Stuff?

I actually save a lot of it but here's my problem. I would be equally attached to stuff if i blew it all the next day so therefore i still feel like it controls me not I it. Also my thoughts and my emotion make me, who i am, neither master the other they are both part of who I am. In Siddartha (i totally understand if you don't like that book) he says something similar to his friend Govinda "what is meditation? what is leaving the body? what is fasting? what is holding ones breath? it is fleeing from the self, it a short escape of the agony of being a self, it is a short numbing of the senses.... the same sort numbing that a driver of an ox cart finds in the inn drinking a few bowls of rice wine or fermented coconut milk then he wont feel his self any more then he won't feel the pains of life..... when he falls asleep over his bowl of rice wine he'll find the same what Siddhartha and Govinda find when they escape through long excersises...."

I don't meditate, well not the same way he's talking about, but the passage still resonated with me. I save my money, but really i accomplish the same thing someone who blows his pay check does, in the end though I have money while the spendthrift has stuff. And oh wait there's proof yet that me the thrifty seattlite and the prodigal son have in common, we both are in the same spot we don't know what we want to do with what we have and are searching for something more fulfilling than a big bank account or the most awesome car.

not trying to be personal but this is what comes to mind..

btw your posts about what Buddhism is and how it isn't what Wikipedia says it is and your personal experience with it were really interesting. definatly something that'll be thought about in the back of my mind for awhile.
 

MysticSang'ha

Big Squishy Hugger
Premium Member
Jojo, let me just say that Buddhism allows the practitioner at any level to question the merit of Buddha's teachings.

Nothing wrong with finding a logical red flag because you understand the powerful force of how delusion taints our perceptions. It is with this in mind that we seek non-attachment and mindfulness in order to rectify the predicament. :)
 

Mr Cheese

Well-Known Member
If you are thirsty you drink water
However you obtain water is largely unimportant
As long as you do, indeed, drink some water

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

In one of the very earliest western books on Tibbetan Buddhism entitled The message of the Tibetans, Arnaud Desjardin reported a conversation that he had had with Kalu Rinpoche. He had asked Rinpoche the age-old question, “What is Truth?” Rinpoche replied, “You live in illusion and the appearance of things. There is a reality, and you are that reality, but you don’t know it. If you should ever wake up to that reality you would realize that you are nothing, and being nothing, you are everything. That is all.” In these very few words, Rinpoche evoked in the minds of Desjardin’s readers a variety of concepts about Eastern thought—like the “veil of Maya,” the oversoul, cosmic consciousness, etc.—of which they had only the fuzziest understanding. Even the terms that came to mind in those days, the late sixties and early seventies, were inadequate when employed to interpret what Rinpoche was talking about, because they were expressed in the kind of language Hinduism tended to use, not in the language of Buddhism. In those days the two tended to be all mixed together in the minds of Westerners.

It was not until 1982, during Rinpoche’s fourth visit to the West, that he began to explain in greater detail to Western audiences, from the point of view of the mahamudra tradition, the meaning of this very simple statement. The first two teachings in this edition of Shenpen Ösel were given by Rinpoche during that visit in Little Bridges Hall of Music at Pomona College. In them he describes the empty, clear, and unimpeded nature of mind— tong, sal, magakpa—as the true nature of all sentient beings, as well as four “layers” of confusion, four “veils,” that have obscured the minds of all unenlightened sentient beings in varying degrees since beginningless time: the veil of knowledge (shes bya’i sgrib pa), the veil of habitual tendency (bag chags kyi sgrib pa), the veil of emotional affliction (nyön mongs pa’i sgrib pa), the veil of karma (las kyi sgrib pa).


It is these veils, he taught, that obscure one’s understanding of the true nature of mind and the true nature of reality and are the source of all of one’s suffering, frustration, anxiety, and mental and emotional affliction.
Rinpoche also explained—step by step, veil by veil—which practices in the Buddhist tradition are designed to purify these veils. Through the practice of ngöndro one eliminates the negative karma and push-button reactivity of the veil of karma. Through the practice of shamatha one pacifies the veil of emotional affliction. Through the practice of vipashyana one purifies the habitual tendency to cognize one’s experience dualistically, which tendency is the precondition, the sine qua non, of all emotional affliction. And
through the practice of mahamudra one removes or dissolves the subtlest of all these veils, the veil of knowledge—which we sometimes call fundamental ignorance, the basic misperception of reality.


During these two teachings, Rinpoche also gave direct pointing-out instructions and led short guided meditations. Later, I asked Rinpoche what kind of mahamudra instructions he had given, and he replied that he had given ground and path mahamudra instructions. I also asked him what the difference is between teaching about mahamudra and actually giving pointing-out instructions. He replied that teaching about mahamudra entails simply describing the true nature of mind, whereas, when a lama actually gives mahamudra pointing-out instructions, he or she tells the student or students to look directly at their mind in such and such a way. I then asked Rinpoche whether we might transcribe and distribute these teachings, and he said yes. And then I asked whether Rinpoche wanted us to include the pointing-out instructions, and he said it would be better not to.

Therefore, faithful to the injunction of the lama, we have omitted the actual pointing-out instructions in the publication of these teachings. The reason that these instructions are not generally published in the marketplace is that in giving these instructions the lama introduces the student very directly and experientially to the true nature of mind. This involves using the fruitional state of enlightened mind as the path, rather than simply seeing fruition as some kind of extremely distant goal. For this process to work, the student must be very open and devoted, and the lama must have authentic experience or realization. These instructions also must be received in the actual presence of the lama; it won’t do to get them out of books or off tape recordings. If all of these elements are present, the pointing-out will be very effective, and will become the basis for the student’s subsequent meditation practice. If any one of these elements is absent, then the instructions will not work for the student, as a result of which the student may very well lose faith in the teachings, not practice them, and thereby lose the tremendous opportunity to attain liberation and enlightenment that they afford. It is for this reason that students traditionally have been expected to finish ngöndro before receiving these instructions. However, from time to time some very highly realized lamas may give these instructions without requiring completion of ngöndro, and this happened to be one of those times.

–Lama Tashi Namgyal
 

Musty

Active Member
My preferred teacher is Theravadan which kind of makes me Theravadan since I prefer that particular practice.
 
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