Restless Soma

Death (the tumbling force, public) => Wisdom => Topic started by: Michael on December 08, 2008, 05:47:43 AM

Title: Buddhism: View, Path, Result
Post by: Michael on December 08, 2008, 05:47:43 AM: There are three pillars of Buddhist yogin training:

The View, the Path, and the Result.

These are very apropos of our own path, and as we have slim depth to the philosophical underpinning of our path, it is wise to draw on the vast knowledge of traditions that walk the same intent.

The View is our State of Mind. All experience, including the prosecution of our path, is conditioned by our state of mind. This is underwritten by a philosophy.

We are the prisoners of a philosophical legacy by nature of our upbringing - culturally and family. For example, notice how often in movies the 'close-up' shot is used repeatedly in American movies. This is due to a powerful cultural philosophy which has vied for supremacy in the US of what is called the cult of the individual - the lone gunman against the world etc. The definitive film being High Noon. This is being challenged now in the US as another powerful theme is finding relevance - the community. The 'close-up' shot typifies and reifies this individuality theme in the viewer, without any debate or informed permission.

Thus the job of those on the path is first to dismantle the hidden philosophical elements of influence which have been embedded in our mind without any asking for permission or evaluation of consequence. Then a rebuilding of a new mind with questioning, permission and evaluation. This is the View.

It is a state of mind devised and debated over centuries in Buddhism, and constantly evaluated against experience.

The Path is the body of practices.

The Result is the accumulation of realisations, small and large, and the consequential changes which are observed in the yogin, both inner and outer.

I want to follow here with a summary of the View - why it came about in Buddhism, how it modified and how it seeded contesting themes, some of which still remain in Buddhism today.

You will see they engaged in insightful investigation of many of the questions we begin to ask as we also have experiences which we need to place in some View context. By looking at their dissections, we can find some elements to include in our own new structure of mind, plus realise we are not alone in trying to make constructive sense of a universe that reveals itself after some progress on our path, which our normal outer world has little to offer by way of clarity.
Title: Buddhism: View, Path, Result: Permanence
Post by: Michael on December 08, 2008, 05:48:39 AM: Permanence lies at the core of every worldly and spiritual mind.

Understanding the critical significance of this concept is perhaps the very first practice any aspirant undertakes. If you haven't thought about it, then you should - most traditions initiate this task with the practices surrounding Death.

The desire for permanence permeates our cultural and personal world. How we build buildings, take pictures, focus on family generations, seek to be remembered in all kinds of ingenious or stupid ways. The pyramids are perhaps the greatest monument to this desire, and they symbolise in our consciousness the folly and intensity of our desire in seeking permanence on this side of the line.

Some of you may know that I also use this concept, in seeking permanence, in my own spiritual structure, and have spoken of it elsewhere. But I seek permanence in impermanence, which for the Buddha, was far too clever and tricky.

The Buddha looked at the world of humanity and saw that everyone is embedded in a mind of attachment, and the driving core of that world was the yearning for permanence. The consequence was only one thing - suffering.

So he said, there is no permanence, and for a yogin, it's desire is the greatest obstacle on the path.

For Buddha, belief in permanence, the desire for permanence, in any form whatsoever, inner, outer, this or the other side of the line, is not only absolute folly, but demonstrates a profound ignorance of reality. Permanence simply does not exist, anywhere.

(I have no problem with this, but I ask, "What is seeking permanence?" But back to Buddhism... )

Yogin training begins with meditation, which frees the yogin from attachments. Once free from attachments, the link to permanence is broken. Once permanence is broken and replaced with flux, constraint and fear fall away, creativity flows and the mind reverts to its original and natural state of joy. That is the strategy, the plan and the process.

Karma also came into this - recognised that there were deep momentums of current within our being from ages past. The above strategy was, in early Buddhism, believed to also wipe out the long arm of karma.

This was the focus of early Buddhism, and it produced what was known as an Arhat, one who attains the ultimate release. Through meditation and non-attachment, the assimilation of impermanence is achieved, and personal liberation is realised.

But as the centuries passed it dawned on Buddhists that the Buddha was more than an Arhat. He came to bring liberation to all beings, not just himself...

Should not his followers seek to attain His mind?
Title: Buddhism: View Path Result: Emptiness
Post by: Michael on December 08, 2008, 05:49:25 AM: Once they adopted the approach that we could become more than an Arhat, that in fact we could become Buddhas, or rather Bodhisattvas - there could be many Buddhas who led all beings to enlightenment, not just achieved it themselves - then the concept of the ‘Large Vehicle’ arose. This was also based on the belief that the natural free mind was kind, compassionate, and as such naturally drawn towards relieving the suffering of all beings.

The Large Vehicle was called Mahayana, and its arising was called the Second Turning of the Wheel.

I should point out a critical difference between Buddhist philosophical thought and that of European Philosophy or Christian theology, and many other philosophical systems. Buddha’s ‘method’ as simplistically outlined above, was unbelievably successful in delivering for thousands upon thousands of practitioners, the intended result - a dramatic and life changing experience, known as enlightenment or samadhi. The philosophy was the subsequent attempt of these enlightened monks to improve the practice as a whole - specifically the View. Because the philosophy was no idle pastime of wealthy intellectuals, it was an integral component of the whole practice which was intended to produce a definite result.

The early Buddhists adopted a view that there existed ‘atomic’ events, called ‘dhamas’, which arose and disappeared. ‘Atomic’ meaning they had individuated existence, even if for only a short time.

This was a thought system which was built upon a foundational teaching of the Buddha: the Principle of Interdependent Origination.

This principle held two components - that all existence was in flux, impermanent, and that it was also interdependent: devoid of individual existence in its own right.

‘Emptiness’ has a specific meaning in Buddhism. It does not mean that there is nothing there. It means that nothing exists in the sense that nothing is ‘real’, due to nothing being permanent.

Thus for the early Buddhists, the paradox of atomic events and emptiness became the subject of great interest and writing - wisdom was accorded to those whose insights into this paradox was profound and acknowledged.

Mahayana Buddhism arose at a time of ‘relaxing’ of the strict ‘personal’ Arhat approach to include a shared method, and at the time of the rise of a ‘religion’ of Buddhism in which lay people’s inclusion was to be considered. Thus many pre-Buddhist deities were adopted and called Buddhas or Buddhisattvas. But ironically at such a time of more liberal broadening of the movement, a profound change entered into its innermost core.

Why should anything be excluded from this Principle of Interdependent Origination?

Buddhist thinkers finally come to the conclusion, that if they were to accept the truth of the Principle of Interdependent Origination, then they had to deny the concept of the ‘atomic’ events. This was a devastating realisation and a dangerous one. They called it the ‘emptiness within the emptiness’.

This view was put forth in the Prajnaparamita scriptures of early Mahayana. But its consequence was that everything, without exclusion, was empty of substance and meaning: the View, the Path, the Result,and the Buddha Mind itself were all empty of inherent existence. Everything is purely the expression of the interdependent origination of phenomena, and this is also empty of existence. An arrival at a point of ultimate nihilism. Everything was meaningless.

Tibetan lamas caution the teaching of emptiness to those unprepared to withstand the impact of its comprehension. Yet its very potency within Buddhism (and other traditions in which it has become recognised) is due to experiential validation through meditation. It is no idle mental rumination.

You will recall that in CC’s books, Don Juan also expressed a similar view. Also a little after this view flourished, there arose the great teacher Adi Shanakra in India who almost single-handedly reclaimed India for Brahaminism. He is most known for promulgating within the terminology of the later Vedas precisely the same view, in which ultimate reality is beyond everything. His approach to Advaita Vedanta is renown for its absolute position, that Brahman is beyond all attributes, and all else is illusion.

This has caused considerable confusion in unprepared minds, who posit that there is no realisation and nothing to strive for, no God, no Spirit, no purpose, no intent, no point to anything. Thus you see how a profound truth becomes a trap for those who are not ready or wisely counciled.
Title: Re: Buddhism: View Path Result: Emptiness
Post by: Definitive Journey on December 08, 2008, 03:19:23 PM: ~

Quote from: Michael on December 08, 2008, 05:49:25 AM

This has caused considerable confusion in unprepared minds, who posit that there is no realisation and nothing to strive for, no God, no Spirit, no purpose, no intent, no point to anything. Thus you see how a profound truth becomes a trap for those who are not ready or wisely counciled.

Those damn unprepared minds! ;D

Interesting.

Michael, I ask you to participate with Ang and I. Your posts here are the perfect example.

Will you, reduce the selection you've shared with us down to a single, coherent concept-one lucid sentence?

The Truth.

That which cannot be simpler.

Spiritual Autolysis at work.

Zam
Title: Re: Buddhism: View Path Result: Emptiness
Post by: littlefeather on December 08, 2008, 04:44:58 PM: Quote from: Zamurito on December 08, 2008, 03:19:23 PM
concept-one lucid sentence?

What's a 'concept-one' lucid sentence?
Title: Re: Buddhism: View Path Result: Emptiness
Post by: Michael on December 08, 2008, 04:50:24 PM: Quote from: Zamurito on December 08, 2008, 03:19:23 PM
Will you, reduce the selection you've shared with us down to a single, coherent concept-one lucid sentence?

You mean like the monk who returned to Japan after seeking Buddhist enlightenment in China, and was invited to the Imperial Court to give a talk on what he had found? He went to Court, pulled out a small bamboo flute and blew one short note, then disappeared never to be heard of again.

Is that the kind of thing you want?

Or are you asking for a pill instead of doing a lot of consistent exercises?

This series I am posting is not about conveying the essence of Buddhism - you would need a teacher who offers you only just the next step, and then waits till you absorb and succeed in 'getting' that step before you are presented with the next step.

This series is about cautioning people to avoid populist attitudes, geared to titillate minds that are not ready for a long hard road, and instead want everything now and easy and simple.

This is to inform those who delight in learning, about a tradition that spread over half the world for thousands of years and has produced perhaps the most comprehensive and effective methods ever devised by source-seekers. And I am brutalising and bastardising this tradition by reducing that vast body of knowledge into a few simplistic paragraphs, about which any self-respecting Buddhist yogin would be outraged.

I am doing this as a personal exercise in expanding my own understanding into this profound system, by trying to summarise in my own words, the ideas I am studying and exploring. I am always trying to challenge my own view, and thus to strengthen and improve it.

Plus I am deeply impressed with the dedication of the yogins who leave the world and apply themselves to these practices in complete isolation for their entire lives. Why should I think anything less is required? I am personally very attracted to their road.
Title: Buddhism: View Path Result: Madhyamaka
Post by: Michael on December 08, 2008, 04:59:20 PM: For the early Buddhists, these ‘atomic’ events had what they termed ‘self nature’. Meaning they existed independently, they had ‘inherent existence’, they arose and existed ‘from their own side’. In other words, they existed in the universe in their own right and were not the figment of a mind. They were ‘real’.

Not long after the transit from BC to AD/CE, the early Mahayana thinkers wrote the Prajnaparamita scriptures, which in the main rejected this idea of independent atomic events.

This view was taken up by Nagarjuna, then followed and further developed by Chandrakirti. They went for the throat, and used a technique of analytical debate, an utter devastation to all arguments for the proposition of existence in any form whatsoever. This technique was to reduce the opponents view to absurdity. It turned the argument upon itself and rendered it exhausted in its own confusion.

This philosophical position was known as Madhyamaka, the ‘middle position’, and the technique of deconstruction and complete obliteration of all opposing points of view was called Madhyamaka Prasangika.

Madhyamaka is still today the primary philosophical position of Mahayana Buddhism.

It demolished the beliefs of not only all other Buddhist tenants, but also those of other religions. Thus it asserts neither the existence of a void, nor any kind of permanent principle whatsoever, including the atman of Hinduism. Meaning it denied any permanent core existence not only to ourselves personally, either in personality or in our deepest self, but also to the entire cosmos. The universe was thus completely and absolutely devoid of all meaning, substance or purpose.

Madhyamaka grew and flourished up to the 6th century CE, and as I said, is still the ultimate core of Mahayana today.

It is a reasonable argument to say, isn’t this a depressing view? You Buddhists are suppossed to be relieving suffering but all you are offering via Madhyamaka is empty nothing?

They counter this argument by pointing out that all suffering (by which they mean mental suffering) is based upon expectations, fixed ideas, attachments and attitudes. All of which are acquired through our family, teachers and culture. We inherit a value system that then becomes a cage, which is the basis of our suffering when reality does not match it. Our whole subconscious vision, the result of our socialisation, is violated when the world crosses it, and in that we are bound to suffering.

Madhyamaka pushes us along a thought path which ultimately strips us of all support, then drops us into a vision that renders all our presuppositions and presumptions invalid. It is an experiential tool, not just a philosophy. Like Zen koans, it destroys the very foundations of the prison which causes our suffering. It delivers us into utter nakedness of being, before a mirror which reflects nothing more than a mirage.

This is the method behind the famous debates of the Gelugpas, with their dramatic hand slapping gestures. They are trying to apply the Prasangika technique to discombobulate the mind of their opponent. Because in that discombobulation a doorway opens, which remains tight sealed when we have confidence in our mental vision of ourselves, where we are going and why. Once that is successfully laid waste - the mind is such a powerful tyrant - a vital and precious opportunity opens to us. Unfortunately, we strive with all our might to close that door again, to regain our certitude and composure. In that short space, if we were to mount an arrow, like a mantra, we could ride out from our cage on a white stallion, and catch a glimpse of eternity ... but only the wise are capable of that, let alone seek it.

A few hundred years after the peak of this philosophy in India, Shankara adopted the same methodology, for the same purpose, and it was called Advaita Vedanta. Which had many variations of meaning, as happened in the Buddhist world earlier, but both Nagarjuna and Shankara espoused the final and ultimate end point in this direction. One could go no further, so the only way was back.

In both cases, in Mahayana and Hinduism, people began to say, “Yes, but we don’t like it.” It was somehow inhuman, and soon positions of practical moderation began to be presented - and so they should. After all, what is this all around us? How do we account for undeniable appearances and how do we value the heart?
Title: Re: Buddhism: View Path Result: Emptiness
Post by: Definitive Journey on December 08, 2008, 05:35:24 PM: ~

Quote from: Michael on December 08, 2008, 04:50:24 PM

I am doing this as a personal exercise in expanding my own understanding into this profound system, by trying to summarise in my own words, the ideas I am studying and exploring. I am always trying to challenge my own view, and thus to strengthen and improve it.

Yea, that was my take on what you had written as well.

Nice.

Will you, reduce the selection you've shared with us down to a single, coherent concept-one lucid sentence, when you get a better grasp on it?

I couldn't find an answer in your post. You mentioned 'wants' and 'needs.' I'm just looking for an answer. If the answer is yes, I'm looking forward to reading it.

z
Title: Re: Buddhism: View Path Result: Emptiness
Post by: daphne on December 09, 2008, 01:04:22 AM: Quote from: Zamurito on December 08, 2008, 05:35:24 PM
~

Will you, reduce the selection you've shared with us down to a single, coherent concept-one lucid sentence, when you get a better grasp on it?

You mean something like fast food?... as in... "it's finger-lickin good" :D

Gosh Zam.. we'd have nothing to read then... and you'd have nothing to post!
Title: Re: Buddhism: View Path Result: Emptiness
Post by: daphne on December 09, 2008, 10:36:54 AM: Quote from: zenandnow on December 09, 2008, 08:23:12 AM
This post is just an invitation to consider that Zam may be able to move through this stuff faster than say people were able to move through it 3000 years ago...or even 20 years ago.

What is "this stuff" that you are referring to? Who's stuff? Buddha's? Various Buddhist commentators over the ages? Michael's? Zam's? Yours?
Title: Buddhism: View, Path, Result: Cittamatra
Post by: Michael on December 09, 2008, 08:17:16 PM: What began to exercise the mind of Buddhist thinkers was how to account for the world we perceive around us. Accepting that in the final reality, it did not exist, and accepting that it appeared to exist, how was this appearance constructed - how did it come about and what was it made of?

This was important for them as being meditators they had come to realise the nature of mind, and began to feel dissatisfied with a purely logical philosophical position. They wanted to tease out the very fabric of world as mind. This led to a psychological rather than philosophical approach.

The Buddhist scholar who brought Buddhism to Tibet, Santarakshita, posited a new view. So objects were ultimately non-existent, but they could exist in our mind with the appearance of conventionality, ie socially accepted, an agreement taken for granted.

Two brothers, Asanga and Vasubandhu, went further and attacked Madhyamaka in that it failed to offer any base for the understanding of experience and belief. (Which seems fair comment to me.) Nararjuna had really only put forth the position that nothing could be said about the ultimate reality, as it was ineffable. So, by definition, it was inexpressible. But that didn’t stop it existing in a state that was incapable of proof. Sure you can’t logically prove it exists, but there it stand before us nonetheless.

This position became know as Cittamantra, or ‘mind only’. The whole of creation is mind-created.

Citta is a Sanskrit word roughly translated as ‘mind’, but it is far more comprehensive than that, and lies at the basis of the Sanskrit model of the form side of the universe. It is the medium through which we build our world. It comes from Cit, which is one of the three fundamentals: Sat-Cit-Ananda (Truth-Mind-Bliss), of the Divine Reality, the Paramatma. So it is our part of this, but whereas Western psychological ‘mind’ is taken to mean the expression of our thought, volition and feeling, Citta is the universal medium through which consciousness functions on all planes of the manifested Universe. It is the fundamental and immaterial nature of consciousness itself, and as such was referenced in the very first statements by Patanjali on Yoga.

Cittamantra had three aspects. First was the pre-language phenomena in a categorised form. Language grasps this raw material and builds reified conceptualisations - making them appear as real things. Meditation strips this quality of fixedness and boundary from our perceptions of the world, and reveals it as a flow and without defined edges. It unmasks the discriminating mind and resolves everything into what they simply call the ‘suchness of things’, or tathata.

Cittamantra aserts that this ‘suchness’ really exists as the root of experience. Thus the use of the word Citta. Interesting how Buddhism reaches back to the ancient knowledge embedded in Sanskrit when they rediscover the nature of perceived existence, or of Maya. But further, it claims this process is not purely a personal thing - it is universal. Thus this ‘suchness’ it is in fact the Buddha Mind itself - the intrinsically pure universal state of being.

It works like this: bottom layer is the storehouse of unprocessed experience (alaya). Our actions leaves behind ‘seeds’ which exist in a dynamic, constantly changing state within this storehouse. Next layer is our everyday awareness which discriminates between elements of the store, emphasising some and skipping others, influenced by the seeds, and resulting in a construction which appears as solid reality and continuity (manas). What Toltecs called ‘skimming’. Meditation cuts through this construction, perceiving the unmodified store, and revealing the structure as illusion - the fabrication of our mind. Meditation reveals the suchness: colourful, variegated, flowing, devoid of all differentiation, without observer or observed. (Nifty way of describing it I’d say.)

The Kargyupa follow a related philosophical position which closely resembles Cittamantra. It is called Tathagatagarbha. Tathagata means Buddhahood - literally ‘the thus gone one’. Garbha means womb or embryo. Thus the womb-embryo of Buddhahood. The basis of sentience, and as such the Tathagatagarbha is equivalent to the storehouse, alaya, of Cittamantra. Clearance of the defilement of our fabrications results in perception of its pure nature (dharmakaya), which is enlightenment - sans ‘the enlightened’.

Thus the mind itself is the basis of defilement (samsara) and of purity (nirvana). And yoga, as stated by Patanjali in his second sutra, is the “inhibition of the modifications of the mind”: the path to nirvana.

The Tathagatagarbha doctrine underpins the most important medatitive traditions within Mahayana, Mahamudra, Dzogchen, Ch’an, Zen and Son. Comprehension of it gives the tonal note to what all these traditions are aiming at, and their practices. That it subtly negates the Madhyamaka position is known, and the Madhyamakas are none too pleased. Fights have broken out and it remains not entirely resolved to this day.

For the yogin, the tension between these two positions: the philosophical irrefutability of Madhyamaka which regresses into an infinity of absence (what Zen calls Mu), and the meditational experiential perceptions of Cittamatra and Tathagatagarbha, create a dynamic which the practitioner can employ beneficially in acquiring the View.

Meditating on the deepest meaning of the essence of existence, while acknowledging the experience revealed through the endeavour of meditation, allows the yogin to acquire a profound and resilient View.

That is a simple exposition of the Buddhist practitioner’s View. Next we deal with the Path.
Title: Re: Buddhism: View Path Result: Emptiness
Post by: daphne on December 10, 2008, 11:47:23 AM: Quote from: zenandnow on December 10, 2008, 10:28:18 AM
There is only one set of stuff to move through.

Various people over the ages have written about it and described it in various ways, but it is the same stuff.

My assertion is that people 30 and under are getting this stuff and moving through it at ever increasing speeds. Largely considered a bad thing by older teachers...especially by the teachers a few thousand years ago.

A number of organizations (usually having nothing to do with spirituality or toltec/buddhism) have cropped up in the last twenty years and are helping people move through the realizations in as short as a weekend...and yes, they really are getting it.

Thats why I asked to what are you referring to when you say "this stuff". When you say "there is only one set of stuff to move through", I find that rather ambiguous. You see... I am not particularly "enlightened" :)

Quote
Is that okay with you that I said that?

Love you.

Don't be silly! You don't need my ok to say anything!
Title: Re: Buddhism: View Path Result: Emptiness
Post by: daphne on December 11, 2008, 11:16:38 AM: Quote from: zenandnow on December 11, 2008, 01:02:09 AM
You don't need to be particularly enlightened...you ARE alive are you not?

Daphne...what holds you back?
Do you know?
You must certainly know what holds *you* back better than me, or anyone else...yes?

What is it you see me holding back from?
Quote from: zenandnow on December 11, 2008, 01:02:09 AM

*That* stuff.
Oh to be sure "I" don't need your permission to speak as I will...but on some level you need to choose to let me say or not, not for me...but for you.

So I will ask you again, is it ok with you that I am saying what I am saying...or that I speak at all? Think about it, then answer. Is it ok with you that I mayhave a view unlike your own???

Love you.

Like I said.. don't be silly. Had I not already chosen, we would not be having this conversation. Why do you have to ask?
Title: Re: Buddhism: View, Path, Result
Post by: littlefeather on December 11, 2008, 03:50:15 PM: A little reminder:

We can see.
;D
Title: Re: Buddhism: View, Path, Result
Post by: daphne on December 11, 2008, 05:09:56 PM: Quote from: zenandnow on December 11, 2008, 02:23:55 PM
Btw Daphne, I am not going to get in a debate with you about whether you want to get this stuff or not...you wouldn't BE here if you didn't want to get it. Your showing up day after day, regardless of what you *think* your motives are on the surface, is a declaration that you, Daphne, WANT to get this.

In other words, you already gave me permission. What you are as yet unable to do (because of this big invisible thing holding you back) is to "choose" this for yourself. In the same way you are as yet unable to "choose" it being ok me being different than you.

Which leaves you powerlessly inbetween in a sort of limbo-land. Your inability to choose this for yourself is why all the things you have tried are not really working. You won't get that from me saying it though...you really have to try it and see.

Here, try one much closer to home. "I choose my son's A _ _ _ _ _ _." And see how things shift inside you. Say it a few times if it is not immediately self evident. You shouln't need to say it but once or twice...and things will get real very fast.

Because, until you can choose...you are a victim. And victims are powerless. You can read thousands of books on enlightenment, and even if they spelled it out perfectly, you would be powerless to attain it for yourself. So you have to "get" choosing...and you can't get choosing by seeing what you have and "understanding" you must have choosen it. You don't get choosing by knowing we have choices. You get choosing BY choosing.

Whatever IT is...the way to IT...is often called the method of last resort...because it is invariably the last thing we try. If we get that, then the logic of trying the last thing first *winks* will make sense.

Love you.

You got it yet? ;)
Title: Re: Buddhism: View, Path, Result
Post by: littlefeather on December 11, 2008, 08:23:28 PM: Quote from: daphne on December 11, 2008, 05:09:56 PM
You got it yet? ;)

(http://www.ciadvertising.org/student_account/spring_02/adv382j/eoff/ultimategoodby/got%20milk_files/image002.jpg)
Title: Re: Buddhism: View, Path, Result
Post by: daphne on December 11, 2008, 08:28:22 PM: aww... cute!!
Title: Re: Buddhism: View, Path, Result: Permanence
Post by: ≈*≈ on December 13, 2008, 12:07:46 PM: Quote from: Michael on December 08, 2008, 05:48:39 AM

Yogin training begins with meditation, which frees the yogin from attachments. Once free from attachments, the link to permanence is broken. Once permanence is broken and replaced with flux, constraint and fear fall away, creativity flows and the mind reverts to its original and natural state of joy. That is the strategy, the plan and the process.

It's important to bring the rebirthing process into all aspects of our lives and be Aware of it. This happens to All of us All of the time, but sometimes we're not fully conscious ... we haven't snapped out of the dream.

Meditation (of any kind) ===> Awareness ==> Detachment ==> Impermanence ==> Clarity ==> Death (natural state of joy) ===> Rebirth. And the rebirth is a Knowing ... what is to be done, said, all the nonsense, untruths, parlor tricks dissolve.

Sometimes we get so caught up in words/definitions that we limit ourselves to less than full capacity. Call it "unorthodox", but it doesn't matter if you use a Buddhist, or ______(fill in with your favorite path/religion/belief) to realize Full Awareness, ______(fill in with favorite word ... awake, enlightened, eyes wide open, lucid) ... it doesn't matter what you name it! The important thing is to learn from it. Because in the end after all of the "learning", you'll realize that all the "knowledge", all the "beliefs", all the "all the's" won't mean diddly until their gone.

Maybe a sharing of personal experiences, instead of a bashing of personal experiences is in order. Loosen up that attachment to the egomaniacal posting fool inside ;) ...

A few weeks ago my son had an art project. They have to do a project each month for their art homework. This months was to draw something in nature … sit outside and draw anything of your choice, do a close-up view and then one from further away. My son decided he wanted to climb up the side of Lone Mountain, near where we live and draw the inside of one of the caves.

So we hiked up about halfway, he settled on a big rock and began his work. I sat on another taking in the view, enjoying the silence, the heaviness of the air, the sharp texture of rock beneath me … the world from above … awesome!

When he finished, he wanted to climb higher. I told him to go ahead, that he could go by himself. After about five minutes, I decide to follow him. He turned around as I approached and, smiling, said, “I knew you would follow me.” I asked him how he knew that? He said, “Because I’m thinking like a parent! You were afraid I’d get hurt.” Heh! I told him he was right. We climbed a bit higher, found another cave … he described the type of rock and layers we were examining (he said he learned that in school). We talked about the millions of years it took to form the layers and how perfect that 6” crevice between two parts of the mountain were … as if someone had just taken a knife and sliced it in half. We imagined what animals had lived in the caves and talked about the baby rattlesnakes, scorpions, and vinegaroons (spiders that hug you with their pinchers) we had seen previously in that area!

We had already spent a couple of hours on the mountain and it was beginning to getting dark, so we decide to climb down. He slipped and fell, I slipped and fell … we laughed! We found some rocks and petrified wood on the way down (we love to collect rocks) and shoved them in our pockets. We were dusty and dirty from the dry desert powder. Our desert here is not sandy, it’s more of a very fine grey powdery dirt.

As we got closer to the base of the mountain, there was a path leading away from the parking lot where the car was, that met up eventually with the main road. He said he wanted to take that path and would meet me at the main road. Hmmm … I thought, hesitated for a split second, and then found myself saying, “Ok”. We split up and I watched him out of the corner of my eye as he periodically glanced back at me. I lost sight of him and got in the car. I pulled out and met him at the intersection of the path and the road. He was very proud of himself … the lonesome traveler … heh! We drove home discussing how we would climb to the top next time. ☺

What hit me was the realization that my son wasn’t “My Son” anymore … actually he never was. Parents are merely “vehicles” for transportation to a certain “destination”. Then we let go … some more gradually than others. I’ve watched him grow and learn … and change. I’ve learned that in order to truly Love anything or anyone, you have to set it/them free … that is releasing the attachment we so feverishly hold onto which produces the dark cloud overhead. Now, if we could do that with all aspects of our lives … detach from the infant beliefs by letting them grow and change … ultimately releasing them, knowing they were merely learning tools along the way, what a realization that would be! Instead of holding on to something that only Cements our “belief” … work on the process of letting it go.

Nothing is “permanent”. Permanence is fighting the Universal natural flow and growth process. I’ve had the proverbial “rug” pulled out from under me many times … looking forward to my next “death” … ;)
Title: Re: Buddhism: View, Path, Result: Permanence
Post by: Definitive Journey on December 13, 2008, 04:35:27 PM: ~

Quote from: Panthera on December 13, 2008, 12:07:46 PM

Nothing is “permanent”. Permanence is fighting the Universal natural flow and growth process. I’ve had the proverbial “rug” pulled out from under me many times … looking forward to my next “death” … ;)

I love this planet and this universe and this whole human thing, and one of the reasons I love it is because of the magic that holds it all together. When I look at you I see that magic most clearly.

:-*

z
Title: Re: Buddhism: View, Path, Result: Permanence
Post by: ≈*≈ on December 13, 2008, 06:05:07 PM: Quote from: Zamurito on December 13, 2008, 04:35:27 PM
~

I love this planet and this universe and this whole human thing, and one of the reasons I love it is because of the magic that holds it all together. When I look at you I see that magic most clearly.

:-*

z

That is So Sweet! I Love you .... :-*
Title: Re: Buddhism: View, Path, Result: the Path: Yanas
Post by: Michael on December 25, 2008, 07:56:57 PM: Once we encounter the actual practices, there are many variations, so I will outline here a basic yogin practice derived from the Nyingma sect.

The word yana means a practice, or a path. Thus it is also employed for a large range of extensions of this basic meaning.

Within Buddhism, what is called the Third Turning of the Wheel, was the arrival of Tantra. Tantra is a path of utilising the world in specialised ways to achieve enlightenment in one lifetime. So these practices come within the Tantric tradition, and are practised by yogins who may or may not exist within the formal structures of Tibetan Buddhism.

The first concept to understand is what they call a yidam. Yogins of the ‘old school’ have a personal yidam and/or a series of them for different purposes. The yidam is a meditational diety.

As Buddhism does not in essence acknowledge the gods, or rather, they acknowledge them but dismiss them as futile for the purposes of achieving ‘liberation’, due to the fact that they see the gods themselves as trapped in samsara as humans are. So there is no point in asking them for help or even worshipping them. But over time, as Buddhism spread and evolved as a popular religion, it was natural that the gods found their way into Buddhism.

But Tantra remember, is all about utilising the world, and so the use of deities is no problem for them. More than that, it is essential.

All Tibetan Buddhist practice follows two phases: the Development and the Completion. In the Development, aspects, devises, and forms of all kinds used in spiritual practice are first developed to a level of definiteness and power. Then the process is Completed by the complete disintegration of the object - especially in the realisation of the non-reality of the very forms that have been so carefully built. Thus the Tantric practices which use the world and its items, do so only temporarily as an aid, or a tool, after which they are ‘seen through’ for what they really are, illusions, and then dismantled, discarded and returned to the raw unstructured storehouse of possibilities.

The same applies to the yidam.

I will try to explain a little of the place of a yidam in the practice of yogins. When people from Western countries meditate, they don’t normally associate their practice with any religious diety. So you could assume that the yidam is not a central practice of Western culture meditators. But if you look a little closer, you will find that most people, even in Western cultures, have around them images of certain deities, or they have a ‘personal attraction’ for one or another deity, be it god or Bodhisattva. This is only natural, as we are attracted to the qualities we see in certain deities even though we may not consider it a serious matter. In an informal way, this is very close to the practice of yidam. There is something intrinsic to our humanity which warms to the thought of a deity who espouses archetypal qualities we admire or which have special meaning to us.

Two central foundations to Tibetan Buddhist Tantra:
1. The whole point of Tantra is that the world can be used. Thus you have many in that tradition who are scathing of those who ‘sit doing nothing’. Tantra is about applying oneself to practices, skilfully using the world in specialised ways to produce the outcome of liberation.

I have this image, in my own terms, of what happened when Tantra began in Tibetan Buddhism. This is not historic, and yet I sense there is much truth in it.

At the first Turning of the Wheel, Buddha experienced, and then taught others a method which was very single-minded and direct. Essentially a method for some who are prepared to leave the world. At the Second Turning of the Wheel, his people realised their place in the larger scheme. They also realised the staggering consequences of his teachings. Then came the Third Turning of the Wheel. It happened like this:

One day the grand monks were sitting around feeling very pleased with themselves - they had it all down neat and pat, and they were respectable. In through the door came a shaman. He derided the monks for their complacency, and their happiness to wait many lifetimes for Buddhahood. This shaman changed the course of Buddhism. He bridged the ancient tradition to the new. Years later monks asked those grand monks, how did they know this man was what he claimed?

The grand old monks said, “Because he carried a ladder. And it stretched all the way to the hole in the universe!”

The shaman demonstrated such power and effectiveness that the grand monks could not refuse his legitimacy. “What are we to do?” they asked each other. “I know said one old clever monk, we’ll give him and his ladder a new name. That way no one will know from where he comes, and we will retain some respectability. Let’s call his method Tantra!”

And that my children is how it came to pass. As shamanism demanded entrance, this ancient tradition caused such a commotion, that they named it the Third Turning of the Wheel.

The ladder is the critical thing. That an item of the world could be used to escape the world, was an enigma which caught the imagination of the most daring yogins. They soon developed many clever techniques of body and mind, upon which they climbed to the hole in the universe.

2. One of these techniques, was to utilise a most auspicious item of the world - the body of the Buddha. The Divine Simulacrum.

The principle at the heart of this whole practice became the task of creating in the mind, a direct replica of the Buddha’s body, energetically. They, through the practices I will describe next, created inside themselves the Buddha himself. This is similar to the whole practice of using a yidam - again an inner replica of a deity. So too the inner body of the Buddha is created, and at last, discarded.

Tantra however is dangerous. Using the world to defeat the world is a concept and practice riddled with dangerous pitfalls. Not least of which is the inner body of the Buddha - what if one really began to believe one was the Buddha with all his powers? Isn’t that exactly what the practitioner is supposed to be doing? This path is tempting the ego like none other, and in the confusion between Divine pride and egoistic pride, who can say what will emerge?

But worse, Tantra utilises items that are taboo. The trap of sinking into pure indulgence is immense. This is then a slippery slide right into damnation - this path has no side-rails. Thus one man referred to Tantra as ‘the kiss of a beautiful woman with teeth like fangs of a snake’. Thus in Tibetan Buddhism, some semblance of guide rails are devised, but remember, Tantra is practised by more than monks within an Order. Yogins tend to be a breed apart.

One guide rail is devotion to one’s teacher who teaches and initiates only when the pupil demonstrates readiness. Another guide is the yidam itself, who acts as an inner Protector of the path. And another guide rail is secrecy. It is paramount that the yogin never speaks of his practice to anyone except his teacher, and then later his peers. Lastly, Tantra is embedded within the View - the Sutric foundations.

The Nine Yanas.

These are divided into three by three layers, not necessarily practised sequentially.

The first three yanas are the ways of the Arhat, the Hearer, and the Bodhisattva. The yogin focuses his meditational attention on the fundamental Sutric propositions of Buddhism: impermanence, craving, love, compassion and emptiness.

Next three yanas, called the Three Lower Tantras: Kriyatantra, Caryatantra and Yogatantra. These are known as the outer tantras: action in visualisation, worship and devotion of the chosen deity, the yidam. Prostrations, preparation of offerings, setting up and maintaining a shrine and altar. Complex visualisations of the deity’s arrival, devotion, placation, offerings, blessings and the return to source. The yogin eventually begins to identify as the yidam, and with the deeper meanings of all the yidam’s characteristics. This set of yanas is called the causal vehicle, as it is directly related to attainment of Enlightenment.

The last three yanas, the resultant vehicles, or inner tantras: Mahayoga, Anuyoga, and Atiyoga. These refer to visualisations within the energy/prana channels of the body. Roughly, two streams coming from the nostrils that rise and fall to the lower abdomen, where they form a third stream which rises up through the chakras to the crown of the head.

In meditation a bright drop of light (a tigle) is created which is moved through the prana streams. At each nodal point, it radiates light out into sub-channels which distribute the energy throughout the whole body. In Mahayoga, the imagery is created, in Anuyoga the channels and drops of light are meditated on through to the void state, and in Atiyoga one seeks to simply reside in emptiness. Always the two stages are employed, of Development, where the images and feelings are built up, and Completion, where all returns to suchness, emptiness and the Clear Light.
Title: Re: Buddhism: View, Path, Result
Post by: Endless~Knot on August 17, 2009, 05:50:24 PM: Quote from: Michael on December 08, 2008, 05:47:43 AM
We are the prisoners of a philosophical legacy by nature of our upbringing - culturally and family. For example, notice how often in movies the 'close-up' shot is used repeatedly in American movies. This is due to a powerful cultural philosophy which has vied for supremacy in the US of what is called the cult of the individual - the lone gunman against the world etc. The definitive film being High Noon. This is being challenged now in the US as another powerful theme is finding relevance - the community. The 'close-up' shot typifies and reifies this individuality theme in the viewer, without any debate or informed permission.

Thus the job of those on the path is first to dismantle the hidden philosophical elements of influence which have been embedded in our mind without any asking for permission or evaluation of consequence. Then a rebuilding of a new mind with questioning, permission and evaluation. This is the View.

Kinda like the foreign installation. It would be referred to as 'wrong view' in buddhism. Nice revisit on this thread.
Title: Re: Buddhism: View, Path, Result
Post by: Michael on August 17, 2009, 11:29:09 PM: I wouldn't call it 'wrong' - right and wrong are conditional on what we seek.

Most people do not seek freedom or the isolation of too individuated a View.
Title: Re: Buddhism: View, Path, Result
Post by: Endless~Knot on August 18, 2009, 10:37:41 AM: Quote from: Michael on August 17, 2009, 11:29:09 PM
I wouldn't call it 'wrong' - right and wrong are conditional on what we seek.

Most people do not seek freedom or the isolation of too individuated a View.

Some dont cause they dont know they're not free though, wouldnt you agree?

It takes something, either their own suffering coming to surface strongly, to the point they cant take it anymore, or some event they cant put out of mind which shows them it is so, to show them, they're not free. For others, they may not know they're not free, be completely oblivious to it and be content to their view the way it is.

I dont know about the wrong view assessment. Thich said people are trapped in wrong view due to little mind and he knows a lot on the topic. Plus buddhist have in the eightfold path, the aspect of achieving Right View as part of it (right speech, right intention, etc), so if they say there is a Right View, there must be a wrong view. And the wrong view is an individual undertaking folks must (hopefully) dare to be able to unhook themselves from. Like mentioning when spirit cuts the cords to self reflection and how most people dont want to be free. That may be so.
Title: Re: Buddhism: View, Path, Result
Post by: Endless~Knot on August 18, 2009, 11:36:56 AM: http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/intro_bud.htm

The path to liberation from these miserable states of being, as taught by the Buddha, has eight points and is known as the eightfold path. The first point is called right view -- the right way to view the world. Wrong view occurs when we impose our expectations onto things; expectations about how we hope things will be, or about how we are afraid things might be. Right view occurs when we see things simply, as they are. It is an open and accommodating attitude. We abandon hope and fear and take joy in a simple straight-forward approach to life.
Title: Re: Buddhism: View, Path, Result
Post by: Lex Silentio on March 26, 2013, 05:48:18 AM: Michael, I appreciate what you are doing here with this Buddhist overview/intro. I see how such a thing is a personal exercise, to pull it all together in this fashion, an exercise to help bring clarity to it. I find myself doing the same. I look forward to reading result and then if I may I would like to build on it. I do not consider myself Buddhist either (yet lol) but I do find myself going deeper and deeper into Buddhist literature. I have read pretty much everything else and find myself pleasantly surprised at this point in life to be considering Buddhism in this way. :)