Help on the spiritual path

[idiot_stimpy]

2 hours ago, snowymountains said:

I have no clue what's the most popular in this forum 🙂

 

If I would have to guess I would say Dzogchen. 

[snowymountains]

11 minutes ago, Apech said:

 

"There is an Unborn, an Unoriginated, an Unmade, an Uncompounded; were there not, O mendicants, there would be no escape from the world of the born, the originated, the made, and the compounded."

 

Udana 8:3  Khuddaka Nikaya

 

 

Emotions as such are the ground in which we work - because human beings are 90% (?) emotional in their actions.  Insight meditation is (partly at least) to see those emotions and other mental activity against the background of the mind/nature as consciousness itself (one way of putting it).  Examining the intricacies and details of emotions is part of the process of unpicking their nature - just that.

 

 

Buddhism is not static.  It has over the last 2500 years migrated to different countries and cultures and developed forms of expression to suit the psyche of the people there ... like Zen in Japan for instance.  Being adaptable does not mean incomplete.

 

 

There are a very great many forms of technique, some are helpful others not so much, depending on the practitioner.  

 

 

 

This still doesn't show why the Dharma is complete.

 

The adaptability of Buddhism is great.

Of course there are many ways to do walking meditation, as there are to do insight meditation.

But there are still processes that won't be uncovered by any variation, because we need others to tell us, we can't find them on our own.

Nor is the toolset on emotions complete.

 

Which is fine, it doesn't need to be complete, it just doesn't need to be treated as something complete, it can complemented with more modern knowledge.

[snowymountains]

6 minutes ago, idiot_stimpy said:

 

If I would have to guess I would say Dzogchen. 

 

Maybe, I've not seen seen many references to Dzogchen, while I've seen e.g. references to some of the 6 yogas of Naropa, but tbh don't know what folks practice.

[Apech]

12 minutes ago, snowymountains said:

 

This still doesn't show why the Dharma is complete.

 

The adaptability of Buddhism is great.

Of course there are many ways to do walking meditation, as there are to do insight meditation.

But there are still processes that won't be uncovered by any variation, because we need others to tell us, we can't find them on our own.

Nor is the toolset on emotions complete.

 

Which is fine, it doesn't need to be complete, it just doesn't need to be treated as something complete, it can complemented with more modern knowledge.

 

 

I think we may be going round in circles here, so I'll leave it.

 

Best wishes in all you do!

[Apech]

20 minutes ago, idiot_stimpy said:

 

If I would have to guess I would say Dzogchen. 

 

Yes I would have said Dzogchen - of both the Buddhist and Bon varieties.  It became very popular because of Namkhai Norbu I think.

 

 

[snowymountains]

1 minute ago, Apech said:

 

 

I think we may be going round in circles here, so I'll leave it.

 

Best wishes in all you do!

 

Agreed, it's fundamental and I could expand but I won't as again it may not lead anywhere 

 

Best wishes in all you do as well, and clearly the disagreement is not personal.

[Cobie]

23 hours ago, snowymountains said:

… meditation triggers anxiety …

That’s what it’s supposed to do! Facing the anxiety is the cure. But agreed, facing it is not for the gutless. 
 

 

Edited February 11 by Cobie

[snowymountains]

13 minutes ago, Cobie said:

That’s what it’s supposed to do! Facing the anxiety is the cure. But agreed, facing it is not for the gutless. 
 

 

 

It's supposed, amongst other things, to surface suppressed emotions, which may of course also include anxiety.

Then one may process these, which indeed takes effort and persistence.

 

In some cases though it's not recommended and I wouldn't call them gutless.

It's easy to call them gutless if me or you don't have to face the same difficulty and therefore don't really share the same experience.

 

I've mentioned one case with dopamine which is not that uncommon ( eg in another thread a member said their psy confirmed this for their practice ).

There's also another common case which is about letting go of control, there too someone should treat the root of the anxiety ( which they may not even be consciously aware of ) before considering meditation.

 

Some things are just not simple.

Sticking to what the meditation manual from 400BC says is wrong in such cases.

 

There's more to it as well, eg should someone with an eating disorder do loathness of food meditations ( no! )

 

Each case is separate, not all fit to a meditation manual, and that's ok.

[Mark Foote]

On 2/11/2024 at 4:44 AM, Apech said:

 

"There is an Unborn, an Unoriginated, an Unmade, an Uncompounded; were there not, O mendicants, there would be no escape from the world of the born, the originated, the made, and the compounded."

 

Udana 8:3  Khuddaka Nikaya

 

 

 

According to the consensus of the schools, the Sutta Pitaka was arranged in five agamas, 'traditions' (the usual term, but the Sthaviravadins more often call them nikayas, 'collections').

... Ksudraka Agama (outside of the first four agamas there remained a number of texts regarded by all the schools as of inferior importance, either because they were compositions of followers of the Buddha and not the words of the Master himself, or because they were of doubtful authenticity... these were collected in this 'Minor Tradition').

("Indian Buddhism", A. K. Warder, 2nd ed. p 202)

 

Khuddaka Nikaya, Ksudraka Agama.

On Warder:

 

For a number of years, he was an active member of the Pali Text Society, which published his first book, Introduction to Pali, in 1963. He based this popular primer on extracts from the Dīgha Nikāya, and took the then revolutionary step of treating Pali as an independent language, not just a derivative of Sanskrit.
 

His began his academic career at the University of Edinburgh in 1955, but in 1963 moved to the University of Toronto. There, as Chairman of the Department of East Asian Studies, he built up a strong programme in Sanskrit and South Asian studies. He retired in 1990.

(WIkipedia)

 

 

Zen folks particularly like that quote about the unborn.  There are places in the first four agamas (nikayas) where the unborn is mentioned, but never quite in the same sweeping context as in that quote from the 5th.  

I actually take that as an example of the kind of incompleteness in Gautama's teaching that I applaud, that he mostly didn't go for the sweeping infinity as a completed entity, but only spoke of a contrast between the substantial and that which is empty of the substantial (as it were).

 

Edited February 12 by Mark Foote

[Apech]

13 hours ago, Mark Foote said:

 

 

According to the consensus of the schools, the Sutta Pitaka was arranged in five agamas, 'traditions' (the usual term, but the Sthaviravadins more often call them nikayas, 'collections').

... Ksudraka Agama (outside of the first four agamas there remained a number of texts regarded by all the schools as of inferior importance, either because they were compositions of followers of the Buddha and not the words of the Master himself, or because they were of doubtful authenticity... these were collected in this 'Minor Tradition').

("Indian Buddhism", A. K. Warder, 2nd ed. p 202)

 

Khuddaka Nikaya, Ksudraka Agama.

On Warder:

 

For a number of years, he was an active member of the Pali Text Society, which published his first book, Introduction to Pali, in 1963. He based this popular primer on extracts from the Dīgha Nikāya, and took the then revolutionary step of treating Pali as an independent language, not just a derivative of Sanskrit.
 

His began his academic career at the University of Edinburgh in 1955, but in 1963 moved to the University of Toronto. There, as Chairman of the Department of East Asian Studies, he built up a strong programme in Sanskrit and South Asian studies. He retired in 1990.

(WIkipedia)

 

 

Zen folks particularly like that quote about the unborn.  There are places in the first four agamas (nikayas) where the unborn is mentioned, but never quite in the same sweeping context as in that quote from the 5th.  

I actually take that as an example of the kind of incompleteness in Gautama's teaching that I applaud, that he mostly didn't go for the sweeping infinity as a completed entity, but only spoke of a contrast between the substantial and that which is empty of the substantial (as it were).

 

 

I don't know of Warder particularly but he seems to belong to a particular class of British academic who while they made great contributions to 'Indology' and the like, indulged themselves somewhat, as do the current batch of Oxford people like Gombridge, in allowing themselves to 'objectively' have a superior knowledge of Buddhism than Buddhists themselves.  I would suggest that the reason 'Zen folks' like to quote 'the unborn mind' is because it relates closely to actual realisations achieved through Zen practice.  

 

I think it is a fundamental mistake to replace actual practice and realisation with academic skepticism and 'objectivity' (although they are useful things some of the time) - because the Western academic approach is based on Protestant scriptural criticism and analysis.  One of the mistakes western scholars made on studying dharmic religion was to project onto it the same kind of desire for original correctness and not see the developed path as a whole.

 

 

[Mark Foote]

9 hours ago, Apech said:

 

I don't know of Warder particularly but he seems to belong to a particular class of British academic who while they made great contributions to 'Indology' and the like, indulged themselves somewhat, as do the current batch of Oxford people like Gombridge, in allowing themselves to 'objectively' have a superior knowledge of Buddhism than Buddhists themselves.  I would suggest that the reason 'Zen folks' like to quote 'the unborn mind' is because it relates closely to actual realisations achieved through Zen practice.  

 

I think it is a fundamental mistake to replace actual practice and realisation with academic skepticism and 'objectivity' (although they are useful things some of the time) - because the Western academic approach is based on Protestant scriptural criticism and analysis.  One of the mistakes western scholars made on studying dharmic religion was to project onto it the same kind of desire for original correctness and not see the developed path as a whole.

 

I like Gombrich too, but I agree with you that sometimes he believes he understands the teaching and I'm thinking he's gone off track.

I do, however, believe Warder when he says that there's a reason the teachings in the fifth collection were placed there, historically. 

As I said, I'm happiest with the teachings that do not stress an "actual infinity", and the reason for that is that "actual infinities" give rise to contradictions, and I don't believe they are necessary to describe the critical facts about human nature that Gautama taught.  

Just for clarification, something I wrote before on the topic, apologies if you've already read it:
 

Here’s a paragraph or two from Dispute over Infinity Divides Mathematics:

 

Infinity has ruffled feathers in mathematics almost since the field’s beginning. The controversy arises not from the notion of potential infinity–the number line’s promise of continuing forever–but from the concept of infinity as an actual, complete, manipulable object.

 

Assuming actual infinity leads to unsettling consequences. Cantor proved, for instance, that the infinite set of even numbers {2,4,6,…} could be put in a “one-to-one correspondence” with all counting numbers {1,2,3,…}, indicating that there are just as many evens as there are odds-and-evens.
 

 

The mathematician Poincare sums it up nicely for me (from Wikipedia, actual infinity):
 

There is no actual infinity, that the Cantorians have forgotten and have been trapped by contradictions.

 

(H. Poincare [Les mathematiques et la logique III, Rev. metaphys. morale (1906) p. 316])
 

 

I would say that the assumption of the existence of a completed infinite, as in “True Nature”, or “Dao”, or “God”, will result in contradictions, and such an assumption isn’t really required to benefit from the positive and substantive particulars in most of the wisdom teachings of the world.