Is Buddhism a complete path?

[snowymountains]

16 minutes ago, Maddie said:

I hope this doesn't sound bad, but this is making TDB interesting again (to me at least). Fighting about super powers gets old fast lol. 

 

You say that only because you haven't watched enough Goku 😁

 

Jokes aside, yes an open discussion and evidence-based disagreements, as well as agreements is an interesting discussion.

This does include acceptance as well as rejection of views and practices.

[snowymountains]

To say a real life joke, I had visited his house with some female friends all of whom are psychoanalysts most of them Jungian actually.

Jung was sort of their idol, they were really looking forward to entering the "Mecca" of psychoanalysis.

 

When we entered the house though, the guide was quick to tell us about his official mistress, Toni, living in the same house together his wife, Jung and their children.

 

After which, everything on archetypes, fully living life, not judging people etc went out of the window, they spent half the tour calling him names I won't repeat here 😂

 

 

[steve]

4 hours ago, snowymountains said:

 

In Theravada or Zen as all mental formations, talent manifestations too, are seen as empty of self. There's no special attention paid to talents during practice, mental formations related to talents are treated as in they rise and fall and appear in chains of dependent events.

Basically they're treated on equal footing as a thoughts to pay the bills, both in Theravada Insight meditation and Zen Shikantaza.

Imo this omission is a glaring one and needs to be complemented outside the practice.

 

If you are aware of the background on why the Bon pay attention to talent, I'd be interested to hear.

I'm aware Bon do not rely on Suttas nor Agamas nor Mahayana Sutras at all - their Buddha is not Gautama, it's Tonpa Shenrab.

I don't know his teachings on the skandhas being empty or not of self - or if the difference is there in practice even if a similar view is taken in their suttas.

 

This is the right thing to do btw, talent is of course very important and connected to enlightenment too. 

Jung attributed talent to connections to the collective unconscious.

This is how deep he considered the connection between talent and enlightenment ( his view is contested today in that it is not universal/complete, but there still is truth to it ).

 

As far as I am aware, the Bön and Buddhist teachings and practices in sutra, tantra, and dzogchen are very similar.

Buddha Shakyamuni is respected as a Buddha in Bön but not the first, last, or only. 

The skandhas are considered empty in Bön - the teachings on emptiness are essentially equivalent to madhyamaka teachings.

 

One thing that I have noticed, in my limited experience which is mostly with dzogchen teachings; is that Buddhist practitioners and teachers tend to heavily emphasize teachings on emptiness. In the Bön teachings I've received there is generally a balance of considering emptiness, clarity, and union. This may be a dzogchen thing. I suspect that nihilism can be a consequence of over-emphasizing emptiness. This is something I often see in discussions among Buddhist practitioners, especially at the beginning and intermediate levels. Emphasizing emptiness would also naturally not encourage or value creativity. Once the realization of emptiness is actualized, clarity and union are already present and nihilism has no foothold. Unfortunately, this realization is elusive for many of us. It seems to be the intellectual process of trying to conceptually understand or striving to experience emptiness that lead to problems, IMO.

 

[Bindi]

13 hours ago, Maddie said:

 

What evidence do you have for this true self beyond the mundane mind?

More or less at this point in time I perceive the subtle energy body operating fully as the true Self. This means the subtle channels up to and including the central channel being cultivated, and Siva and Shakti being fully operational. Someone can voice a multitude of wise sounding conclusions and perspectives on life, but without their subtle energy body being operational their words can only be created on the mundane plane. The subtle energy body was recognised by the spiritual system Gotama was born into, but it seems he didn’t meet a teacher who understood this system because he was left less than convinced by those that did teach him. I would contend that if he had met a teacher who knew the nature of the subtle energy body and how to cultivate it and who was able to share that knowledge with Gotama, then Gotama’s realisation would have been much more in line with previous Indian knowledge, perhaps extending it at best. 
 

The Tibetans seem to have come full circle and reinjected this fundamental knowledge into their version of Buddhism, IMO at least they’re looking in the right place. 

[liminal_luke]

1 hour ago, Bindi said:

 the subtle energy body

 

The Taoist teachings I'm familiar with work directly with the subtle body, giving the various channels and pathways names and, in some cases, consciousy directing awareness and energy along their routes.  Some Buddhist practice paths talk much less -- or perhaps not at all -- about the subtle body.  Nevertheless, I suspect that meditative insight (letting go of attachments and aversions, recognizing impermanence, seeing through the "self") develops the subtle body just the same.  The language may be different but the endpoints are, if not identical, in the same spiritual ballpark.  Letting go of attachments, one opens the central channel; opening the central channel, one lets go of attachments.  Chicken or egg.

Edited February 14 by liminal_luke

[Bindi]

58 minutes ago, liminal_luke said:

 

The Taoist teachings I'm familiar with work directly with the subtle body, giving the various channels and pathways names and, in some cases, consciousy directing awareness and energy along their routes.  Some Buddhist practices talk much less -- or perhaps not at all -- about the subtle body.  Nevertheless, I suspect that meditative insight (letting go of attachments and aversions, recognizing impermanence, seeing through the "self") develops the subtle body just the same.  The language may be different but the endpoints are, if not identical, in the same spiritual ballpark.  Letting go of attachments, one opens the central channel; opening the central channel, one lets go of attachments.  Chicken or egg.

 

The main thing that needs to be let go of is the idea that “I” am in charge and that “I” know anything. Installing someone else’s ideas only compounds the problem because the mind can then justify itself in thinking it now has the keys to know something, so a secondary mundane “I” has been created, and if that secondary mundane “I” is socially  validated, then it may be impossible to ever go beyond it. Deliberately trying to let go of attachments and aversions is actually adding to the psyche’s baggage as it’s a contrived philosophy that can only ever deliver a shadow of the real thing, and apparently cannot deliver the ultimate state that some people seem to subconsciously sense. 
 

Actually letting go of the notion that “I” am in charge will lead to the true “I” taking charge, a very defined “I” with expanded awareness and understanding, energetically speaking the union of Siva and Shakti in the central channel and their freedom of movement there. Letting go of the “I” artificially, ie. because someone said this is what you have to do, will not lead to the true “I” taking charge because it is a step further away from living the actual process. 

“Absolute emptiness” is a philosophical view, not reality, instead of absolute emptiness in reality absolute completeness should be the ideal, all levels of the human being functioning and integrated. There is a Self, there is a doer which may be called Shakti/Siva. 

[liminal_luke]

2 minutes ago, Bindi said:

 

 Letting go of the “I” artificially, ie. because someone said this is what you have to do, will not lead to the true “I” taking charge because it is a step further away from living the actual process. 
 

 

For reasons I can't figure out, when Bums talk about Buddhism there's often a lot of intellectualizing and headiness.  I think this headiness misrepresents Buddhism as it's actually practiced, at least in my limited experience.  Hopefully teachers don't simply instruct their students to let go of the "I" and leave it at that.  That wouldn't work and might indeed be counterproductive, as you suggest.  A better plan would be to give students an experiential exercise (such as meditation) that could result in the "I" being let go of with time and experience.

[Bindi]

59 minutes ago, liminal_luke said:

 

For reasons I can't figure out, when Bums talk about Buddhism there's often a lot of intellectualizing and headiness.  I think this headiness misrepresents Buddhism as it's actually practiced, at least in my limited experience.  Hopefully teachers don't simply instruct their students to let go of the "I" and leave it at that.  That wouldn't work and might indeed be counterproductive, as you suggest.  A better plan would be to give students an experiential exercise (such as meditation) that could result in the "I" being let go of with time and experience.

Radical Nondualists (aka Neo-Advaitans) do indeed propose that all that is needed is an understanding that there is no “I”, but all nondualists have that tendency to a degree, IMO because it is an intellectual position. Why is there so much intellectualising and headiness when talking about Buddhism? Because Buddhism is just a theory, and that theory can be debated on the mundane level on which it was created. 
 

It’s similar to the theory of God, billions of people live and die believing that there is a God, but it too is just a theory that someone made up. The God delusion, the Buddha delusion, the Islamic delusion, they are all just creations of the mind. 
 

Meditation might work, stripped of all belief directives, but that isn’t how it is taught in a particular school, in Buddhism isn’t the dharma taught alongside meditation? Quiet time to get in touch with what is within would be valuable, but it would likely lead to awareness of internal emotional and mental turmoil which Buddhism seems to contain by promoting nonattachment, perhaps to contain the unendurable emotional pain that we reject throughout our lives. What was Gotama’s big problem? Suffering. “In the past, monks, and also now, I teach suffering and the cessation of suffering.” And his solution for how to not suffer seems to me to be by a variety of psychological tricks to reduce the pain - I’m not attached to this suffering, it doesn’t really exist, it’s as empty as everything else. 
 

The alternative, accepting the suffering and pain as absolutely real and feeling it fully, is like filling a dry stony riverbed with cool clear water. Without water life feels sterile, it’s a parched desert, allowing oneself to feel brings green growth to a stunted tree trunk. Emotions are real and should be embraced, both the pleasant and the unpleasant ones, that isn’t clinging to them or being overly attached, that’s just accepting that they’re a wonderful and vibrant part of life, and we don’t need Buddhism to interfere with that. 

A question remains though, and that is how does accepting emotional suffering as real lead to letting go of the “I”? 

 

Edited February 14 by Bindi

[Gerard]

To answer the main question and from personal experience:

 

1. Imperfect

2. Incomplete

 

You don't follow an individual but an entire refined and whole encompassing system. Taoism is probably the closest method.

 

No Yin & Yang? Forget about it. Move on to something else.

 

Btw,

 

"He says that in all the monasteries he’s lived in—and they range from the Southern Highlands of NSW to a Chan monastery in Taiwan to a remote Theravada forest monastery in Sri Lanka—he has never encountered any monks who are free, liberated and 

enlightened."

 

Quote from:

 

In search of a wandering Buddhist monk

 

[snowymountains]

9 hours ago, steve said:

 

As far as I am aware, the Bön and Buddhist teachings and practices in sutra, tantra, and dzogchen are very similar.

Buddha Shakyamuni is respected as a Buddha in Bön but not the first, last, or only. 

The skandhas are considered empty in Bön - the teachings on emptiness are essentially equivalent to madhyamaka teachings.

 

One thing that I have noticed, in my limited experience which is mostly with dzogchen teachings; is that Buddhist practitioners and teachers tend to heavily emphasize teachings on emptiness. In the Bön teachings I've received there is generally a balance of considering emptiness, clarity, and union. This may be a dzogchen thing. I suspect that nihilism can be a consequence of over-emphasizing emptiness. This is something I often see in discussions among Buddhist practitioners, especially at the beginning and intermediate levels. Emphasizing emptiness would also naturally not encourage or value creativity. Once the realization of emptiness is actualized, clarity and union are already present and nihilism has no foothold. Unfortunately, this realization is elusive for many of us. It seems to be the intellectual process of trying to conceptually understand or striving to experience emptiness that lead to problems, IMO.

 

 

I don't see it an issue in how they teach emptiness nor do they typically do it in a nihilistic way.

It's that emptiness (of self) of the skandhas instead is something factually wrong and there's lack of direct practices to unlock creativity/talent in Theravada or Zen.

 

 

Compare that eg to Jung's definition of enlightenment, which is bringing the unconscious to the conscious ( "seeing in the dark" ), very deep in the unconscious is the collective unconscious, connecting to it (per Jung) is the source of talent.

In a sense talents are sort real life "siddhis" if you like and unlocking them and living them is part of what enlightenment is fundamentally about.

 

So it's about priorities, or adopting the better roadmap as to what enlightenment is about.

In Jung's view priority is not living according to a dogma, priority is the individual fully living their life.

 

Spoiler

Another member above kindly provided a whole quote from Jung as to what is meant by fully living

 

It's very interesting that the Bon consider the skandhas empty of self and at the same time they go beyond (in that direction) than Insight meditation or Shikantaza.

Shows a certain degree of flexibility and practicality wrt to talent/creativity.

As to why the difference in treatment exists despite having the same view on the skandhas being empty, for me it remains an interesting question I guess, I'll definitely keep a tab on it.

 

Btw Tantra and Dzogchen are not part of Theravada nor Zen which is the flavours of Buddhism I was referring to.

Edited February 14 by snowymountains

[Taoist Texts]

48 minutes ago, Gerard said:

—he has never encountered any monks who are free, liberated and 

enlightened."

but he is, right?

[snowymountains]

1 hour ago, Gerard said:

To answer the main question and from personal experience:

 

1. Imperfect

2. Incomplete

 

Yes and Yes

 

1 hour ago, Gerard said:

Btw,

 

"He says that in all the monasteries he’s lived in—and they range from the Southern Highlands of NSW to a Chan monastery in Taiwan to a remote Theravada forest monastery in Sri Lanka—he has never encountered any monks who are free, liberated and 

enlightened."

 

Quote from:

 

In search of a wandering Buddhist monk

 

 

To put some context on that, a lot of monks in some of these areas are not meditators, some become monks because after a short time they're guaranteed a state job and others meditate e.g. only in the summer months.

Of course there are meditator monks as well, who go on multiyear retreats etc, one would need to look within that subset.

 

Of course he may had done that, we can't know to whom he talked to, but wanted to provide some context as to why it would be a rare find.

 

That path may under specific circumstances work, for those whose talents are lived in that path, those who fully live life in that path and hence for them it so happens to be the path to enlightenment.

For the rest that path is imperfect and incomplete, so overall it is an imperfect and incomplete path, like all other paths.

 

which goes back to Jung's roadmap being way more complete in terms of scope, as it's not dogmatic.

 

 

That said the practices there are very good, e.g. bringing to consciousness the unconscious process of breath, watching the rise and fall of processes as well as how they depend on each other, accepting death, practices to cultivate positive emotions.

 

All these are still valuable no matter if the path is incomplete and its goals are misplaced for the general case.

[idiot_stimpy]

My issue is, how would anyone know what complete means. Our understanding is only limited. 

[snowymountains]

7 minutes ago, idiot_stimpy said:

My issue is, how would anyone know what complete means. Our understanding is only limited. 

 

Complete as in a sense of "final word", we don't know, of course.

Identifying something is not there though or e.g. seeing something that came out later is more complete, is something we can do by e.g. taking a broader look and seeing if something very fundamental is missing.

 

Nothing is complete in the absolute sense, Jung isn't either.

Edited February 14 by snowymountains

[old3bob]

12 minutes ago, idiot_stimpy said:

My issue is, how would anyone know what complete means. Our understanding is only limited. 

 

Good question, "The Self knows the Self by the Self", otherwise such is just more thoughts which the Self is not,  for mind is meant as servant not master...the deeper reality is echoed by some with, Om Tat Sat!

Edited February 14 by old3bob

[Brad M]

Sometimes the thing you are looking for is found when you stop searching.  Look around.  Life is amazing, whatever path it puts you on.  Buddhist philosophy is just one of many pairs of sneakers you can wear while walking.  Don't lose sight of the forest over the sneakers.  :  )

 

 

[Keith108]

7 hours ago, liminal_luke said:

 

For reasons I can't figure out, when Bums talk about Buddhism there's often a lot of intellectualizing and headiness.  I think this headiness misrepresents Buddhism as it's actually practiced, at least in my limited experience.  Hopefully teachers don't simply instruct their students to let go of the "I" and leave it at that.  That wouldn't work and might indeed be counterproductive, as you suggest.  A better plan would be to give students an experiential exercise (such as meditation) that could result in the "I" being let go of with time and experience.

Couldn't agree more, Mark. This is a very bizarre discussion of Buddhism. Or at least, a very different one. 

_/|\_

[snowymountains]

26 minutes ago, Keith108 said:

Couldn't agree more, Mark. This is a very bizarre discussion of Buddhism. Or at least, a very different one. 

_/|\_

 

In an open discussion you are free to counter the points, though for objectivity to be there, with out self-referencing the dogma.

 

Otherwise calling it bizarre and then dropping out to go back call it again and drop out again, is simply passive aggressive behaviour.

[Elysium]

35 minutes ago, Keith108 said:

Couldn't agree more, Mark. This is a very bizarre discussion of Buddhism. Or at least, a very different one. 

_/|\_

Offer some perspective instead of snide remarks in umbrealla of hand sign emojis perhaps then?

[Apech]

11 hours ago, steve said:

 

As far as I am aware, the Bön and Buddhist teachings and practices in sutra, tantra, and dzogchen are very similar.

Buddha Shakyamuni is respected as a Buddha in Bön but not the first, last, or only. 

The skandhas are considered empty in Bön - the teachings on emptiness are essentially equivalent to madhyamaka teachings.

 

One thing that I have noticed, in my limited experience which is mostly with dzogchen teachings; is that Buddhist practitioners and teachers tend to heavily emphasize teachings on emptiness. In the Bön teachings I've received there is generally a balance of considering emptiness, clarity, and union. This may be a dzogchen thing. I suspect that nihilism can be a consequence of over-emphasizing emptiness. This is something I often see in discussions among Buddhist practitioners, especially at the beginning and intermediate levels. Emphasizing emptiness would also naturally not encourage or value creativity. Once the realization of emptiness is actualized, clarity and union are already present and nihilism has no foothold. Unfortunately, this realization is elusive for many of us. It seems to be the intellectual process of trying to conceptually understand or striving to experience emptiness that lead to problems, IMO.

 

 

Most Buddhist Dzogchen teachers are Nyingmapa which upholds the Prasangika madhyamika - which is a kind of ultimate scepticism regarding the reification of anything and thus emptiness is emphasised.

Edited February 14 by Apech

[steve]

1 hour ago, Keith108 said:

This is a very bizarre discussion of Buddhism. Or at least, a very different one. 

_/|\_

 

Welcome to the DaoBums!

[Apech]

8 minutes ago, steve said:

 

Welcome to the DaoBums!

 

I keep wanting to join into this conversation but it has been taken somewhere it would take an age just to address some of the quite bizarre ideas that have been floated.  But I am in favour of people finding their own paths and being their own teachers, if they can, so I just salute you all.

 

07

 

 

[liminal_luke]

9 hours ago, Bindi said:

 

Meditation might work, stripped of all belief directives, but that isn’t how it is taught in a particular school, in Buddhism isn’t the dharma taught alongside meditation? Quiet time to get in touch with what is within would be valuable, but it would likely lead to awareness of internal emotional and mental turmoil which Buddhism seems to contain by promoting nonattachment, perhaps to contain the unendurable emotional pain that we reject throughout our lives. What was Gotama’s big problem? Suffering. “In the past, monks, and also now, I teach suffering and the cessation of suffering.” And his solution for how to not suffer seems to me to be by a variety of psychological tricks to reduce the pain - I’m not attached to this suffering, it doesn’t really exist, it’s as empty as everything else. 
 

The alternative, accepting the suffering and pain as absolutely real and feeling it fully, is like filling a dry stony riverbed with cool clear water. Without water life feels sterile, it’s a parched desert, allowing oneself to feel brings green growth to a stunted tree trunk. Emotions are real and should be embraced, both the pleasant and the unpleasant ones, that isn’t clinging to them or being overly attached, that’s just accepting that they’re a wonderful and vibrant part of life, and we don’t need Buddhism to interfere with that. 

A question remains though, and that is how does accepting emotional suffering as real lead to letting go of the “I”? 

 

 

I agree with you on what seems like the main point: feelings are to be felt.  I love your image of "a dry stony riverbed" filling with "cool clear water."  So apt!  What we disagree about is the nature of Buddhism.  One of the things I find meritorious about Buddhism is precisely that it does lead practitioners to engage directly with their emotions.  Buddhism doesn't reject emotion -- it doesn't reject anything at all.  Buddhsim says: feel what's there.  Never have I engaged the deeper psychological layers of my being so fully as when I've sat at Buddhist retreats.  So if emotional honesty is what you want, Buddhism is gold.  

 

I'm sure you can find sources that seem to contradict my experience, teachers who say that "feelings aren't real" or something of that sort.  Words about emptiness and nonduality may have a place for some, but for someone at my level they are mostly a distraction, or worse, a source of confusion.  What I need is to sit.  I don't want to read about architecture, I wanna take up the hammer.  The view looks different when you're pounding nails on the roof.

Edited February 14 by liminal_luke

[snowymountains]

5 minutes ago, liminal_luke said:

What I need is to sit.  I don't want to read about architecture, I wanna take up the hammer.  The view looks different when you're pounding nails on the roof.

 

In a lot of the posts, we're not saying at all what's to be done at sitting time during meditation though.

This actually stays intact, unaffected by this discussion.

 

We're instead saying there are important exercises missing and some of the goals of the curriculum are false premises.

This is because the view is wrong on some fronts, because it's based on religious dogma ( ie the skandhas being empty of self ) instead of facts.

 

It's not a matter of doing insight meditation differently, just realising its limitations and showing the gaps can be filled outside the practice, with different non-overlapping work.

 

[snowymountains]

1 hour ago, Apech said:

 

I keep wanting to join into this conversation but it has been taken somewhere it would take an age just to address some of the quite bizarre ideas that have been floated.  But I am in favour of people finding their own paths and being their own teachers, if they can, so I just salute you all.

 

07

 

 

 

In full subject/object form this would be

 

You find the ideas bizarre

 

Which could also be about the "you" part, not the "ideas" part - and to be clear to avoid misinterpretations, I clearly do not mean this neither in a pathological nor a personal sense.

To spell it out even more clearly, no implication of something being "wrong" with you is meant by this, "you" could be anyone instead of you in specific.

 

Rather what I mean is that sometimes demolishing religious dogma also has to do with us, not the arguments against the dogma, as it's a complicated process.

 

The context matters, and in this case the context is an open discussion where a member asked for reasons to abolish or question the Buddhist dogma.

Which is why sometimes arguments showing objective ( as in not relying on religious dogmas) flaws in the dogma are presented against mostly self-referential points from within the dogma.

In this process an argument such as but the Buddha had a perfect enlightenment doesn't hold because we're not discussing it from a self-referential theological point of view.

Edited February 14 by snowymountains