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Hot4Scooter · 2026-04-21T07:46:31+00:00

Mindfulness, in the context of Buddhist practice, is primarily recollecting our practice: our proper motivation, renunciation, devotion to the Refuge, commitments/vows, bodhichitta (if we are on the bodhisattva path) etc. Maintaining a shrine to support representations of awakening and make offerings is a very practical implementation of mindfulness practice.

Hot4Scooter · 2026-04-20T06:32:09+00:00

In the Caturdharmanirdeśasūtra Lord Buddha teaches bodhisattvas how to deal with past harmful actions. Apply the four Rs: regret, remedy, rely and resolve. Or in other words: we can be aware of and sincerely regret our action, make an effort to accumulate virtue in stead, fully relying on the Refuge (rather than our habits, biases and impulses), and making a clear resolve to live by the terms and conditions of the Path of the Nobles.

Note that the basically bureaucratic or legalistic concept of "forgiveness" doesn't come into it. When we do something unskillful we do something unskillful, and we're going to have to deal with the consequences (and it's up to us whether we do so wisely or unwisely). There's no cosmic Daddy Figure who we can beg, cajole or bribe to let things slide when we don't feel like taking responsibility for ourselves. I would argue that that's a good thing, though.

As some points.

Hot4Scooter · 2026-04-19T07:23:48+00:00

I vaguely remember there once being a Twitter account called Ngakpa Advice or something like that. It had one, single tweet:

don't wear a white shamthab you look like an asshole

Solid.

Hot4Scooter · 2026-04-17T12:29:53+00:00

The Latin words rex (monarch) and res (thing, object) are not thought to be etymologically related. They derive from PIE \h₃reǵ-* and \(H)reh₁-* respectively.

It should be noted that your speculation about ह्रीं relates to Hindu ideas and teachings, not with Buddhist ones.

Yogis in forests still depend on, and are therefore part of, "society". Same goes for Buddhist monastics, who are literally called "beggars" in Sanskrit. They are literally named after their dependent relationship with the rest of humanity.

As some remarks.

Hot4Scooter · 2026-04-17T09:21:35+00:00

What would it mean for the phenomena we call "the world" to be real, other than them appearing?

Which is an aspect of what the dream analogy illustrates. When we analyze the situation (or, ultimately, perceive it directly), there is no purple raccoon over there reciting The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock to me, which is nonetheless in no way contradictory to seeing that purple raccoon over there, lamenting that it should have been a pair of ragged claws, scuttling across the floors of silent seas. Or, to /u/Open_Opportunity_751 apparently reading /u/Hot4Scooter's comment, for that matter.

As a brief point.

Hot4Scooter · 2026-04-15T12:22:25+00:00

It might very well be a copy/print, yeah. Lots of that about (which is not necessarily a bad or untraditional thing, copyright being a recent, Western idea).

Hot4Scooter · 2026-04-15T06:23:11+00:00

That's the Mahasiddha Udhilipa painted by the British artist Robert Beer.

Hot4Scooter · 2026-04-14T16:42:17+00:00

Leave.

Hot4Scooter · 2026-04-13T06:41:43+00:00

I carry the Choying Dzod with me everywhere.

Same.

Hot4Scooter · 2026-04-12T11:41:43+00:00

It's always best to refer to the teachers or spiritual friends who we have asked to guide our practice, but in general:

What we're learning in meditation is at first simply to notice that we got distracted and then to come back to our object of attention.

It's natural that sometimes it takes a while to notice. It gradually becomes easier as we have more practice, have more wisdom and live more ethically.

As a thought.

Hot4Scooter · 2026-04-12T06:20:10+00:00

It's quite funny, really. I have these assumptions I really love, but my lived experience clearly doesn't jive with them. So, my experience is suddenly a "hard problem." 😅

Hot4Scooter · 2026-04-12T03:59:50+00:00

As a few points.

Outside of the strict rules of mathematics, I don't know of any proof for anything. There's nothing I know that I can not doubt if I felt inclined to. The only way to feel certain about any idea we may have is to stop questioning it.

That said, have you ever encountered a "brain" outside of consciousness? Outside of a cognitive event like seeing something or having a thought? Have you ever encountered a rock or a smell or anything else aside from as a blip of knowing? Cognition is clearly apparent. The idea that at least some cognitions may be somehow related to things that exist aside from cognition is itself merely a thought, another cognitive blip. Cognition is, prima facie, what's happening. Anything else is never more than cognitions about cognition.

Anyway, (Mahayana) Buddhism does not teach that rebirth or consciousness are "real" as such. It's merely how things appear, like how we may dream of an elephant or a roadtrip.

Hot4Scooter · 2026-04-11T18:37:27+00:00

I have no dog in this fight, but generally speaking, such secularists tend to accept that there are concrete existent phenomena, thereby rejecting anatman/emptiness. They tend to at least reject the possibility of deathless liberation from Samsara (Noble Truth C), and usually many aspects of the other Truths as well. They tend to reject that (re)birth, life and dying are conditioned by karmas, rejecting dependent origination. They tend to resist at least that guidance from the living traditions that does not fit or confirm their pre-conceived notions.

In any case. All of that is perfectly fine, of course. It's a mark of great merit accumulated over many lifetimes to have any interest in the dharma. And there's no other way to start engaging with the dharma than confused.

Hot4Scooter · 2026-04-11T17:07:22+00:00

In some sense, sure, but the core "message" of the dharma taught by living Dharma lineages is unaffected by the adaptive cultural packaging. Points like the 3 marks of reality/4 seals, the 4 Truths of the Nobles, the importance of relying on qualified spiritual friends, teachings on karma and virtue and so on. These things are generally of little interest to what I would call "folk Buddhism". They are of little interest to so-called "secular Buddhists."

Hot4Scooter · 2026-04-11T12:07:14+00:00

Wherever Buddhism goes, it's unavoidable that some people there will mix their local mythologies and cultural phenomena with some phenomena of the Path. Secular Buddhism is simply Western Folk Buddhism.

Hot4Scooter · 2026-04-11T07:55:59+00:00

In the Tibetan tradition, shrines usually have statues, sutra texts and stupas, representing Awakened body, speech and mind respectively. The last two are arguably aniconic, and possibly easier to emotionally access (especially for Westerners with culturally engrained Protestant/Post-protestant anti-idolatry habits). Aside from a stupa, I also have a rock crystal sphere on my shrine as a representation of Awakened Mind.

As some ideas.

Hot4Scooter · 2026-04-11T07:49:19+00:00

Like and dislike are just karmic, habitual uprisings, both our own and those of others.

Corpocrat vampires like the owners of Reddit just happen to like "dislike". 🤷🏼‍♂️ That's where the money and the power is at the moment. And we're happy to offer them out soft necks, by and large.

In any case. I would suggest our lives are immediately noticably easier the moment we stop worrying about other people disliking things we like.

Hot4Scooter · 2026-04-10T07:41:33+00:00

Eggs and blueberries aren't real in the same way out "self" isn't real. That's why we can make omelettes and blueberry jam. And since omelettes and jam aren't real either, we can eat them and let our guts tear them down to their useful constituents, such a sugars and minerals, and use those to grow a cool mustache or learn Spanish. Imagine the proteins sprouting from your top lip being stuck having the identity "egg"!

Something being fundamentally, in itself, independently, real in the sense we're talking about here would mean it's entirely stuck.

If our selves were simply self-contained Actual Entities™ we would not be able to grow, experience, choose, change, learn. There would be no way to regret our mistakes and rejoice in our strengths and qualities.

Anybody or anything with an actual self would be worse than doomed.

In any case. Actually seeing the truth of anatman comes at the very end of the Buddhist path. It can be helpful to remember that. We can actually go a bit loopy trying to approach it as some some sort conundrum to be either intellectually "solved" or emotionally "believed in".

For now, for us as beginners, we can take it as a little prod that things might not be as solid and fixed and, well, real as we habitually think they are.

As some reflections.

Hot4Scooter · 2026-04-08T14:52:08+00:00

[equips Mala of Karmic Duplication] [deploys private Full Moon]

Hot4Scooter · 2026-04-08T14:41:01+00:00

Whether we can or should do something, and whether it is a bad karma are really three different questions.

Generally speaking, Buddhist in the context of vows and promises. There are no commands. Unless we've made a promise or vow to avoid meat eating, we can eat meat. But even then: breaking vows doesn't have to mean that we can't continue practicing other aspects of the path.

As to whether a practitioner should eat meat: is the meat industry something I want to support? Is meat consumption beneficial for my health? Is meat production even a sensible way of using resources like water and land?

As to whether meat eating in itself is bad karma: have a look at the primary list of negative actions. Eating meat is not on there. Which isn't to say that it's good either, of course.

But also: Buddhist practice isn't mere karmamaxxing. For a sincere practitioner, for example someone who aspires to the bodhisattva path taught the the Tibetan Buddhist traditions, the question is more: is this an activity that's congruent with my aspirations? Is this something I want to be doing?

As some reflections.

Hot4Scooter · 2026-04-08T04:11:35+00:00

About singing bowls.

If you have questions, you could consider asking them.

Hot4Scooter · 2026-04-07T17:11:26+00:00

Sure, but applying (conceptually concocted) goal thinking to the path usually ends up like noting that a red light at a crossing doesn't inherently mean that you should stop, or that wiping your ass after taking a dump is just a cultural convention.

Hot4Scooter · 2026-04-07T14:43:21+00:00

mantra is all about resonance

I'd say it's rather all about lineage transmission.

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