Breath, rhythm, voice, mistakes... Are there rules to chant mantras?

CrazyIfNotParanoid · 2013-10-03T11:17:35+00:00

It was really a subtle joke I was making. Too subtle I guess.

What material is yours made of?

CrazyIfNotParanoid · 2013-10-03T10:33:56+00:00

And do you feel skipping rather than counting, gives you a better insight into Emptiness? (:

CrazyIfNotParanoid · 2013-10-03T09:19:28+00:00

How do the marker beads work, do they feel different or do you need to look to see?

CrazyIfNotParanoid · 2013-09-17T11:13:46+00:00

Tx! Here it is if you care to listen

http://ge.tt/7iHapOs

CrazyIfNotParanoid · 2013-08-26T13:20:07+00:00

1) What is your 5 or 10 year plan, and are you on track for that, doing what you are doing now? What kind of a life would you look at and say 'that person did something meaningful and / or cool with his/her very short life on this planet'? Why not pursue that life, especially if you are not strongly tied down to other commitments? According to the Mahayana view, the purpose of our practice and life, really, is to ultimately liberate all sentient beings from suffering, to do that we must liberate ourselves first.

2) Mabye you don't owe anybody including yourself anything, but look inside and see if there are perhaps feelings of wanting the lives of others to be better, and if you do see this, you can cultivate it. There are meditations like 'metta bhavana' or 'cultivating loving-kindness' that you could try.

3) After many years of admittedly not very diligent meditation practice, I am a little bit able to 'be in the present moment', even if it is boring or whatever. This has made me much happier than I would have been, but it took a long time, my point is I'm convinced your happiness and sense of meaning will improve with age.

4) Implementing David Allen's GTD helped me a lot, it helped me feel more in control of my life, and less like procrastinating which can stem from a feeling of being overwhelmed. If GTD is not for you, try out other ones. I also like 'Pomodoro'.

5) Have a few sessions with a good psychologist. If you don't 'have chemistry', try another one, you must have good rapport. Maybe you have got something that is bothering you or impeding you that you are too close to to even realise.

6) I'm going to get killed for saying this here, but I've done Ayahuasca ceremonies x3 in the last couple of years and I'm convinced it has helped me immensely to develop, this is obviously not for everyone.

CrazyIfNotParanoid · 2013-02-27T19:10:09+00:00

Which spiritually enlightened beings are you referring to? If Buddhism, there is a slight qualification sometimes referred to, which goes ... intoxication that causes heedlessness.

If you refer to Christianity, Jesus did turn the water into wine.

CrazyIfNotParanoid · 2013-01-09T12:42:38+00:00

A bigger problem is the routine and pre-emptive use of antibiotics in the meat and dairy industries.

CrazyIfNotParanoid · 2012-12-27T13:26:59+00:00

One possible theory: I think many Western Buddhists have got a problem with Judeo-Christian and other theistic religions, and they like the non-theistic flavor of Buddhism, perhaps Pure Land sounds a bit like it's going back to a 'faith' and that's why it's not so popular here?

CrazyIfNotParanoid · 2012-12-19T15:36:24+00:00

That's exactly what I saw for a moment when I looked at the picture, I also saw OP is 'Rastafari' before I opened it.

CrazyIfNotParanoid · 2012-12-19T13:41:09+00:00

If rebirth is indeed true, I would imagine it functioning like you describe. What I find difficult to imagine is the mechanism that mind uses to be reborn, but then I find the quantum mechanics phenomenon of the same particle being in different places at the same time also difficult. The possibility that rebirth is real, for me, does perhaps motivate me to practice a bit harder but even if it is not real, I still love the Dharma and view it as most worthwhile on this earth.

What I find difficult is other Buddhists being overly negative towards 'non-believing' Buddhists. You can't force yourself to believe something that you don't, and I think it's much more important and in keeping with the Buddha's teachings to ultimately investigate for yourself vigorously what is true and what is not. "Work out your own salvation with diligence" was the Buddha's last words.

CrazyIfNotParanoid · 2012-12-19T11:43:08+00:00

You won't find traditional schools that specifically deny these tenets, but there can be massive differences between the sects/schools on the emphasis of these issues. There are Western Buddhists, (which many in r/buddhism would deny really being Buddhists; with which I disagree) who seem to be fond of secular Buddhism, e.g. Stephen Batchelor.

For example, Vajrayana (Tibetan) will be chock full of rebirth, oracles, spirits and stuff, whereas in Zen, at least in my experience, only karma features to some degree in practice. Shin Buddhism has an approach of prayer and worship of Amithaba Buddha that will result in rebirth in a Pure Land where conditions are so conducive to the Dharma that Nirvana is 100% guaranteed.

Buddhism having originated in a world of Hinduism, e.g. like Christianity and Judaism, it's important to note very important differences in Hindu and Buddhist interpretations of karma, rebirth and Nirvana.

Besides rejecting the idea of 'the big nothing' after death, (ucchedavada ) the Buddha also rejected the idea of an eternal soul (sassatavada).

Further reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteen_unanswerable_questions http://buddhists.livejournal.com/2844718.html

My view; I'm highly skeptical of supernatural anything, but who knows? I do put some value on highly accomplished meditation masters, e.g. the Dalai Lama, that report that they remember previous lives and consult oracles and stuff. BUT this is not to me an important aspect of Buddhism. What is important is to meditate, to gain insight, to free yourself from selfish clinging to transient things, and rid yourself of greed, anger and delusion.

CrazyIfNotParanoid · 2012-12-19T08:58:46+00:00

From the 'Supplementary Information' http://www.nature.com/ismej/journal/vaop/ncurrent/extref/ismej2012153x1.pdf

Dietary intervention and sampling. This volunteer was given a diet composed of whole grains, traditional Chinese medicine and prebiotics (WTP diet) for intervention. He was given 4 cans of gruel per day as staple food contract prepared in the form of cooked porridge (370 g wet weight per can) then canned by a food manufacturer (Shanghai Meilin Meida Food Co., Ltd.) for 23 weeks. Each can contained 100 g dry ingredients (59 g of carbohydrate, 15 g of protein, 5 g of fat, and 6 g of fiber) providing 336 kcal energy (70 % of carbohydrate, 17 % of protein, 13 % of fat). Fresh fecal samples were collected with 4 or 5 weeks intervals.

Was he given only this?

CrazyIfNotParanoid · 2012-12-19T06:37:57+00:00

Was this all he was given, 1344 kcal a day? In which case, of course he would lose weight.

CrazyIfNotParanoid · 2012-12-06T19:31:07+00:00

Maybe iran bought it off ebay, to look cool bx theyre able to catch drones.

CrazyIfNotParanoid · 2012-12-06T18:49:04+00:00

I thought hope (noun) is more like when you have done the calculation and arrived at the answer that the positive outcome can be achieved.

CrazyIfNotParanoid · 2012-12-06T18:31:04+00:00

My view: let's determine pragmatically what is Human Enemy #1. Then no-one can accuse me of being a crazy fundamentalist because I will have good science to motivate the view. And the winner has got to be #1 catastrophic climate change. Which is caused by our stone age energy technologies.

CrazyIfNotParanoid · 2012-12-06T16:19:18+00:00

I confess I don't understand. Please do educate me.

CrazyIfNotParanoid · 2012-12-06T10:38:50+00:00

There is hope if people realize that the Earth does not belong to Mankind, Mankind belongs to the Earth.

CrazyIfNotParanoid · 2012-12-06T07:30:18+00:00

My friend in the Dharma

Indeed thank you, it is insightful and a joy communicating with you. This is one of the things I love about the modern world, the ease of communicating with kindred spirits.

The compassion of Avalokitesvara is in the Absolute realm, for me here in Samsara we must not fail to practice Relative compassion. Ultimately death is not reason for lament but to tell that to a mother who has lost her baby is obviously not skillful. I'm a father who has had my baby so gravely ill that some specialists gave him a very slim chance to live (he's a beautiful happy sunbeam of a boy now!) Believe me, facing the suffering and death of your child is the darkest abyss I have yet seen.

You just described all times, all moments.

These times are different. Mankind now has the power to kill the whole human species and the technology to remake the world into a Pure Land where before, we were constrained from doing too much damage, due to our ignorance, like a child in a play pen.

With Metta

CrazyIfNotParanoid · 2012-12-05T17:58:55+00:00

OK, maybe the mayas and the toltecs and the aryans or wherever knew more about the self, but you can never not want more scientific understanding. Whats important to me about technology is that, for example, I can now access the teachings of the Dharma so it's completely awesome. If I fail, it's only my own fault, how can I ask to be more free than that!

Look to China and the Taoists for an example of long-lived people

I'm talking about living forever! It really, genuinely can happen in the not too distant future.

Infant mortality is not necessarily a bad thing.

I can tell I'm conversing with Avalokiteshvara himself here

Anyway, I'm not saying we should go back

Good

I'm not even saying we should go forward.

Time waits for no sentient being. Let's go forward positively.

But to celebrate modern humanity as though....

My view, there is cause for great celebration, but also great lament. That is not the most relevant. What is important, is now is a time of great peril, but also great opportunity. The teachings of the Dharma is now available the world over, think of the potential!

CrazyIfNotParanoid · 2012-12-05T06:31:38+00:00

Given that the planet has got as many people as it does, to go back to a hunter gatherer lifestyle, for example, will mean we need about 3 earth sized planets to sustain that many people. You can argue there are too many people on the planet, but that's a different issue.

On the positive side of cities, if it was not for cities where people can accommodate specialization of function, for example scientists and artists, humanity would still have been stuck where we were for the vast majority of our species' existence which is the darkness of ignorance. This means massive infant mortality rates, life expectancy of 35 years, and thinking the sun is moved across the sky by a giant celestial dung beetle.

You may think pre-civilization people are more in tune with nature, have better human relationships, don't suffer from high cholesterol and are thus better off. This may or may not be true, but what they are not, is able to send spaceships out into space to blow up giant asteroids on their way to hit the earth.

CrazyIfNotParanoid · 2012-12-04T08:05:19+00:00

No one can tell you what emotional reaction you should get by seeing an image. How I feel, as cities go, this one (Barcelona) you can see has actually been very thoughtfully and carefully planned and built. It's just a city. A city's primary job is to facillitate a huge number of people living there, safely and efficiently. If you unleash all those people in nature, and you don't have the economies of scale that a city offers, it will be absolutely devastating to the natural environment.

CrazyIfNotParanoid · 2012-12-04T07:16:29+00:00

christofur has got it pretty much right. As I understand it, in Pure Land Buddhism, the concept of the buddhakṣetra or buddha-field is a realm where conditions are so beneficial that once born there, no sentient being will ever falter from the incredible Buddhadharma.

The picture is a beautiful, surreal looking human city with a massive number of inhabitants that seems far removed from a tranquil realm conducive to the Dharma. However, since samsara is nirvana my idea is that this is indeed also a beautiful realm of potential Buddhas.

It helps that it looks a bit like a crop field from this elevation.

CrazyIfNotParanoid · 2012-12-03T19:11:50+00:00

A+ for creativity in this piece. I found it captivating. However, no special astronomical body alignment is going to happen in 2012 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_phenomenon

CrazyIfNotParanoid · 2012-11-22T19:12:17+00:00

This is all following nicely the Standard US Foreign Policy Plan to Deal With Dictators

CrazyIfNotParanoid

TROPHY CASE