A View on Buddhism

[rudyh01]

Great description Mitch!

Nools; don't worry about asking questions, in Buddhism that is a must rather then a 'sin'.

With my own Catholic background, I fully undersdtand where you are coming from. Not all aspects of Buddhism are easy to accept for the average westerner, as we are simply not used to things like karma and rebirth. However, as you have a scientific approach, I'm sure you'll be surprised about how good Buddhism matches with science.
Of course, we cannot prove or disprove things like karma or rebirth - otherwise these would not be religious beliefs - but what I found amazing was the consistency of the Buddhist logic when you consider all the parts together.

Regarding the question if the Buddha is actually around us, is not even very relevant in my view. In the end, our own actions (karma) and mental attitude decide what happens to us in the future. Of course, in tantric Buddhism, one imagines Buddhas all around ourselves etc., but that is also merely a technique to help us change our way of thinking. It can work to think of them as being present to assist us when we don't have much self-confidence or are unsure what to do.
These are things of the path of tantra that were also very confusing at the beginning for me. I decided to not go into them for the first few years, as I could not make much sense of the answers from tantra. So I focused on general Buddhist priciples, and got into tantra later. With such a basis in the general ideas of Buddhism, the techniques in tantra quickly made sense to me. So don't worry too much about that in the beginning.

On the other hand, it is important to realize that from our normal human perspective, the Buddha certainly has supernatural qualities, that's why he is so special! At the same time though, we can all develop to become a Buddha and have these qualities as well, so they are not as supernatural as they seem.
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Love & clear light,
Rudy

[unkempt]

[rudyh01]

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Love & clear light,
Rudy

[Nools]

Thank you all for your patience with my questions. I don't quite know how to express myself (being new to this and all that) but I wish so much good for all of you, my heart feels like it's overflowing with gratitude.

Initially I read the replies, nodded and agreed, felt confused , went away thought about it, felt more confusion as I pondered what is the nature of reality?. Then put it out of my mind, came back and reread your words and I think it makes more sense to me now. I'm glad there is reason behind praying because I wouldn't want to just "go through the motions".

Mitch, your words made me smile - I've found myself thinking the same thing from time to time! Life actually seems quite ludicrous to me sometimes!

I think it's early days for me and I can't expect to understand everything at once. But I think now I feel clearer on some of the practices that troubled me, I am just about ready to take the next step on my Buddhist journey - practising with a group.

Thanks again everyone.

[rampant ego]

Hey Nools,

Welcome to the forum. Funny how Catholicism has kind of prepped a lot of us for Buddhism. We should remember to be grateful to them.

"Did the Buddha go this way?"

I think that, now and then, as life goes on, based on the idea that the Buddha sat like this.

This thought came up last week sometime, just before meditating:
"The inner healer, formless, integrates the many forms of healers it encounters. In this context, all the buddhas and bodhisattvas are the most worthy models."

It needs editing, to be sure--"worthy" seems way understated--but combining the thoughts makes me think that the buddhas have left signs and symbols--"bread crumbs" for our child inner radiance to recognize and follow--rituals, implements, images and texts, mantras emanating in pure lands unseen/unheard/unsensed, right here, reverberating in all sights-sounds-sensations.
This is the Dharmakaya, this the holy speech of the buddhas, the mind of enlightenment, walled-off by the causes and conditions of this limited, samsaric mind.

Dan.

[Nools]

Thank you for the welcome Dan, and for sharing your thoughts. That idea of symbols as "breadcrumbs" is really interesting. I want to be more aware of how I respond to these "breadcrumbs".

And thank you for reminding me to be grateful for my Catholic upbringing. When you brought that up I realised that I truly am grateful and I believe it's been a good influence in my life.

[matt]

I tend to be the other way, I have no trouble believing in the supernatural, and I like the ritual aspects of Buddhism. I once began a thread here about personality types. In the Myers Briggs personality type system, there are 16 personality types, with eight mental functions, four of which may be dominant in an individual. These influence how we take in and process information, and would certainly influence what makes sense to us and seems credible. I think the attitude that we can pick and choose what works best for us from Buddhism works really well for a lot of Westerners. And since Buddha is not a God interested in our allegiance, most seem to believe what works for us is what matters most.

But I completely agree with Rudy about this: Buddhism is based in a kind of logic that is as rigorous as Western Science, but it is a different kind of logic. Westerner languages have a lot of meta-messages that imply that things are fixed or permanent in nature,( in fact, Scientific Method begins with the assumption that there is an objective reality to observe) and Buddhism begins with the observation that everything is impermanent. This subtle difference changes everything. In America, for example, we speak of ourselves and objects as if they have intrinsic reality, and this trains the mind to think of things as isolated from other phenomena and therefore profoundly limited.

From the idea of impermanence comes the mundane nature of reality, interdependence. No thing is real in and of itself, but rather comprised of components, which are comprised of components etc., and every object can be found through analysis to be caused by an infinite chain of causation. Its specific appearance to us is said to be the result of causes and conditions.

You believe you are separate, isolated, discreet? Consider the water you drink; the Hydrologic cycle; and that the water itself was formed in the stars. Our bodies play host to thousands of kinds of bacteria, and are in constant condition of death and rebirth on the cellular level. We share the air, conditioned by all plants and animals, and we need food nearly as often as we need to drink. Our waste continues the never ending, interdependent cycles of life. Even before we consider the strange behavior of our subatomic components, we can see we are far from discreet, so far from limited.

But every time we speak of ourselves and others and objects as separate, isolated, discreet individuals who enjoy intrinsic reality, we train our minds through repetition to perceive ourselves this way, including all our limitations. This is a profoundly repetitive process we have been immersed in all our lives, and repeating mantras trains our minds in a different direction.

Further encumbering the ritualistic apsects are the goals of Buddhism. We are not merely interested in apotheosis, developing God like powers to egrandise ourselves, but rather we want the humility that can only come from including all sentient beings, and their happiness, in our aspirations. This is a tall order, and so many Buddhists rely on many aspects of Buddha, many spiritual friends, to help them realise this dream.
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I want to be more compassionate, humbel and loving.

[Jahda]

Hey Matt,

As someone who is just a little bit interested in personality stuff, I'd I'd be very interested to read the "personality thread" you mentioned if you could bump it up?

Thanks so much, and nice to have you back posting again


jahda
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To study the Way is to study the self.
To study the self is to forget the self.
To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things.
To be enlightened by all things is to remove the barriers between one's self and others.

Dogen

[matt]

Thanks Jahda,

I would, but that thread was a little silly and did not go anywhere. I'm not sure why I mentioned it, except that I often think of Myers Briggs when I read people's posts here, noting our different takes on things, and how this is explained by Meyers Briggs. My belief is that this system is pretty accurate, and Buddha has no personality to type, because along with many other accomplishments, he has integrated all the possible types, and realised selflessness. The rest of us get only pieces of the great puzzle.

I suppose over many, many lifetimes we explore the potentials of different kinds of existence, then when the causal conditions are right, we attempt to integrate them in a single lifetime and bid for enlightenment.

I would also temper this explanation with something I have said before, individual mind streams are valid experiences, but like all phenomena, they lack inherent existence. Also, as you seem to be very aware, a single lifetime is in itself an extraordinarily complex, multi-dimensional experience. I think we can re-capitulate much of our spiritual evolution in a single lifetime, and for me this is a fascinating part of the path. But most of that happens in dreams and meditation and similar experiences, the ego or daily experience of "I" remains the toughest nut to crack. SO any insight we can muster helps and makes getting along with others a little easier too.

The nice thing about Myers Briggs, which evolved out of Jungian Analysis, is that it treats each personality type as equally valid, while offering insights in to how different people are taking in and processing information very differently. Once you get a feeling for the different personality types, you are a little less likely to feel frustrated or impatient with people for having a very different perception of shared experiences.

If you Google Myers Briggs, you will find an abundance of potential resources. I would bet your therapist is familiar with this system as well.
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I want to be more compassionate, humbel and loving.

[rudyh01]

A system I came across many years ago and read a bit about is the Enneagram. That is based on 9 main types of personalities, with each their specific combination of other characteristics.
I found it very useful at the time, as it gave me some good insights into how other people may have a completely different reasoning behind their actions then I have. I had a conflict with a couple of people, and I was at a complete loss to figure out what they wanted or expected of me. After I discovered their personality type and figuring out how they were thinking, we could at least remove the some of the sting from the conflict, and begin a dialogue again.

Interestingly, the Enneagram is a very old system that was used in Christianity and Islam to assess the needs of the various students of the spiritual path, as it describes the main pitfalls and potentials of the personality types quite well.
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Love & clear light,
Rudy

[matt]

Yeah, there are a lot of personality type systems, some very ancient, and they seem to work toward the same end of promoting understanding and enhancing harmony. I have heard of the Enneagram, but never explored it. Some contemporary Catholics use a system of 12 personality types, three guesses why they use that number...

Your saying you could not understand what they wanted from you really rings a bell, these systems help can help a lot with with those kinds of situations. We don't need to be experts in all of them, but familiarity with one good one would help most people, I would think.
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I want to be more compassionate, humbel and loving.

[Nools]

Just in case anyone is interested....

While I was looking into the concept of Buddhist prayer, I found this article which gave interesting perspectives on prayer from different Buddhist traditions.
http://www.thebuddhadharma.com/issues/2003/spring/forum_do_buddhists_pray.html

[Mitch White]

The Reverend Shohaku Okumura, is one of my linages priests.. he is very good.
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"Investigate Right Where You're Standing"
Master Chu-hung

[rudyh01]

Great link Nools!
Funny actually, this is a great example of a positive discussion between Buddhist traditions.
In the beginning it seems there are all these different people that appear to follow quite different traditions, with different techniques and terminology, but in the end, these differences prove to be fairly superficial, and in fact boil down to the same Buddhist principles.
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Love & clear light,
Rudy

[Nools]

Well put Rudy! And I've realised that's what's important to me, those core beliefs.