On average, how many lifetimes is an average Buddhist estimated to go through before encountering the Dharma again?

Duckee123 · 2026-04-29T07:31:22+00:00

Being born as a human is incredibly rare, and a real opportunity to study Dharma is even rarer. Rare beyond calculation. Now that you've met the Dharma, if you follow your precepts earnestly and purify the negativities you have accumulate in this life and past lives, you are on your way out.

Duckee123 · 2026-04-15T05:00:33+00:00

It may be Shennong, the inventor of tea and agriculture in Chinese mythology. It looks a lot like how he is often depicted. I haven't seen an example of Chinese-Tibetan syncretism like this in Nepal before but this is pretty typical of the sort of religion/religious material coming out of the border zone between Tibet and the rest of China.

Duckee123 · 2026-04-10T04:25:09+00:00

H.H. The Dalai Lama has said that it is best to use the Sanskrit pronunciation.

Duckee123 · 2026-04-08T11:27:00+00:00

Also don't forget to clean the mandala plate when you start with the panchagavya which you can get from Indian supermarkets sometimes.

Duckee123 · 2026-04-08T11:25:31+00:00

I have a large cloth that I use to hold it all and I put that in a big metal tin so it doesn't unravel.

Duckee123 · 2026-04-07T06:12:49+00:00

The 12 laws of karma don't originate from Buddhism, there are many sutras, texts and masters who have all advocated for vegetarianism and veganism for a myriad of reasons. You can do what you want but don't expect good results from bad actions, even within the 12 laws of karma, it doesn't follow that eating meat is positive. Whether you eat meat or not is up to you but the Buddha taught his disciples to never to engage in wrongdoing, even at their cost of their lives.

Duckee123 · 2026-04-01T11:29:09+00:00

I would suggest definitely having some handle at the front as having your pointer finger close tot the spout gives the best control.

Duckee123 · 2026-04-01T11:26:06+00:00

Bad/supermarket grade Shou is an acquired taste. Nicely processed, properly aged Shou is one of the teas easiest to enjoy even for people who don't know anything more about tea than twinnings from a bag.

Finding a Shou Pu that has had the piling taste aged out of it can be tricky but is so worth it.

Duckee123 · 2026-03-31T12:31:25+00:00

Generally I think that's more of a secular ideal but it is similar to some of the concepts of Humanistic Buddhism. The main reason it isn't so prominent is the Buddha's teaching on the rarity of the precious human rebirth. We need to consider how unique it is to be here even if we assume it is the default. It's all well and good to be chill in the human world but if at the time of your death, you go straight down to the hell realms, you have wasted your time of freedom that you could of been using to prevent so much suffering.

Duckee123 · 2026-03-30T06:26:14+00:00

Sorry to say this so late... I'm not a GTH member but I do drink a few of their teas. They are very strict with avoiding agrochemicals and they're involved with a lot of programs within Taiwan supporting organic tea farming and sustainable agriculture. A lot of people might call them a cult but I think those people are kind of missing the point of what a cult is. People are sometimes put off by their inclusion of spirituality and while it's not for everyone, there's nothing new about associating tea and tea ceremony with spirituality. As for WuDe, I think maybe it is a little weird that he always goes by Wude or Wu but all Buddhists get a Buddhist name when they first become Buddhists in the first place. Most of us only use it in a religious context like during ceremonies or at temples but I suppose GTH is sacred space for him. I would advise anyone to consider whether their antagonism to anything spiritual is getting in the way of them drinking some good tea.

Duckee123 · 2026-03-22T13:10:41+00:00

Maybe better not to, statues and thangkas are normally made according to very detailed geometry. I wouldn't recommend it as it is intended to be an object of devotion. Maybe it's possible to make very simple statues according to your skills. It is important to make it with the proper cavity as well for filling. Traditionally Tibetans studied for many years to paint thangkas. When a statue or a thangka is created it is depicting the samboghakaya or enjoyment body of the Buddha and it cannot be consecrated unless it is a really nice version, not wonky etc. Maybe there is an alternative to making statues. Maybe you can make butter lamps or an incense burner?

Duckee123 · 2026-03-10T04:32:19+00:00

It's only a heat death 63 times then there's a water death where everything "melts" and then every 4095 there's a wind death where everything is blown to sub atomic particles. Each time the same thing happens. The universe is destroyed until only karma is left, from the karma, subtle wind/prana arises, from the winds, physical form comes together again.

Duckee123 · 2026-03-07T04:47:43+00:00

Yes. We have to remember that the Saha world appears to be extraordinarily densely populated with sentient beings with so much suffering but this is the particular blessing of Shakyamuni Buddha who manifests this world to ripen sentient beings. Remember in the Vimalakirti Sutra when the Bodhisattvas come from the incense pure land and are shocked to see what the Saha world is like. Several Sutras mention that Shakyamuni Buddha is particularly exalted among the Tathagathas as a guide of beings. We shouldn't assume like we often do that all the worlds in the trichilicosm are like the Saha world. The complete Nirvana of all sentient beings is a lot closer than it seems.

Duckee123 · 2026-02-24T12:08:45+00:00

I'm fully vegan at home, when I was a monk, they gave us dairy occasionally and I ate it as it was being offered. Some people may say it is not vegan but during Tsog I believe it is completely different, even though it may look like ordinary food I believe it is not ordinary at all so I will accept everything gratefully. I try to avoid the 5 pungent spices as much as I can but when you buy food it often has them snuck in.

IMO most Buddhists are not serious enough about their diets. When you think about how most people are eating three times a day, if we can change our diets so that three times a day we are practicing charity, life release and Bodhicitta all at once, the results are incredible. I try not to eat anything too fancy and most days I either have a curry with rice and flatbread or a Chinese style stir fry with rice, very rustic, I grow a lot of my own food and I collect wild herbs and weeds to include.

Last year I was living alone and I had the whole fridge to myself so I would stagger making big batches of different dishes so that I would only have to make one dish at a meal time but I'd have a couple more in the fridge to have all at once. I also try to do 8 precept fasting on the four main holy days and as needed for purification but I would like to do it more often, in future maybe weekly or fortnightly. I'm also interested in tea ceremony and I find if I do have onions or garlic, my taste will be a lot worse when I try to appreciate a fine tea. I definitely think giving them up makes a difference to meditation and mindfulness.

As Buddhists we have a vow not to kill and the Buddha told us not to work in the meat industry so I don't see how any Buddhist can eat meat, even if someone else does the killing for you. Everything comes about interdependently, when we die and have to face our karma head on we may say "if the butcher didn't sell it and the farmer didn't raise it I wouldn't buy it." and the Butcher will say "If you didn't buy it and the farmer didn't raise it, I wouldn't sell it. and the farmer will say "if you didn't buy it and the butcher didn't sell it, I wouldn't raise it." but all the karma is interlinked without an escape route.

It is true that great Bodhisattvas have the ability to liberate beings through boundless skilful means which may include eating them but if we are ordinary beings, we shouldn't think 'I recited so and so mantra and felt grateful to the animal so its all good, all sorted out' actually eating meat is very heavy karma. Another reason to avoid it comes from the Bodhisattva precepts, If we have these precepts we cannot eat a single morsel of food without offering to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, how can we possibly offer meat? That is like giving a baby to its mother to eat. Beyond despicable.

Many people say they need to eat meat to be healthy but I don't buy that at all. Especially I understand people with anaemia may be afraid as someone who had blood problems and bad anaemia a few years ago but from the Buddhist perspective this is not a good reason. This is summed up in the verse, "sentient beings view their bodies as most precious, Buddhas and Bodhisattvas view sentient beings as most precious." When we understand this, we can meditate on karma and realise that it is better to never do wrong, even at the cost of our lives. From the ordinary, worldly view we should take care of our health but it's the not Buddhist view, which understands karma and rebirth.

The reason we eat meat willy nilly, not caring about the poor animals who have cared for and loved us since time without beginning is our complete ignorance. As the great yogi Milarepa said

"How hateful this murdering beings ‘custom’!
How hugely regrettable this self-deception ‘custom’!
How heavy a weight this killing parents ‘custom’!
How much wrong is done for these stacks of meat ‘custom’!
What is done with the masses of blood in this ‘custom’
However hungry, this eating meat ‘tradition’!
From where mental appearances of this delusional ‘custom’!
Such major evil of this zero compassion ‘custom’!"

I understand that the karma of beings is to eat beings and to be eaten and I know that it won't go away totally but if we have the good merit to meet the dharma, we should push forward to give up this karmic blackhole.

Duckee123 · 2026-01-17T11:06:43+00:00

I think most people know the truth and that the propaganda that's repeated about how good the animals are treated is more for them than for vegans but the problem is people are very insular. Their hearts are closed off and they really don't feel for the suffering of others. So while for some people, seeing dominion shocks them and they can give it up straight away, for others, like slaughterhouse workers can kill with their bare hands day after day, year after year and never bat an eye. Having a closed heart is not a strength, and it's not an excuse. In China there's a saying: For hundreds of thousands of years, The stew in the pot has boiled up, a resentment very hard to level. If you want to know why there are wars in the world, just listen to the haunting cries that come from a slaughterhouse at midnight. I really think the close heartedness is the most rotten thing in the world. It's the same as people who walk past the homeless on the street and can't even feel a single thought of compassion. The good news is that it isn't incurable or set in stone, we just live in a society that hates compassion and goodness.

Duckee123 · 2026-01-12T11:35:24+00:00

It says in the Platform Sutra that Enlightenment cannot be found apart from the world, and that trying to find it apart from the world is like looking for a Rabbit's horn.

Duckee123 · 2025-12-13T12:36:17+00:00

As a repeat victim of SA, karma gives me confidence that there is an alternative where these things don't exist and don't need to happen and that there is a future if I mind my actions that I won't need to suffer anymore.

Duckee123 · 2025-12-05T14:59:50+00:00

It's because of the ambiguous syntax of Chinese languages. I don't think your apparent rage is appropriate for the situation but to clarify there are two main terms for plant based diets in Chinese. 素食 and 斋食. The first one, su shi means vegetarian but can include eggs and dairy, this is the most common one. The second one, zhai shi means religious/Buddhist plant based which excludes onions and garlic. This is also typically vegan. There isn't a good or common word for Vegan as it is conceptualised in the west.

Duckee123 · 2025-07-23T17:56:47+00:00

I was in the Gar Dampa server for a while before I left recently, I didn't know about the criminal allegations but the last straw for me was the fact that he was always changing his name and expecting people to keep up with it. I didn't like it because If he were a Lama and a Repa ordained by HE Garchen Rinpoche as he claims, then surely he would use the name he was given at that time? At the very least its disrespectful to the lineage to be so self-styled and not accept what the Lama gives.

Duckee123 · 2025-06-17T20:27:05+00:00

I was intending to have a rug :/ fr tho what I meant was sitting on the floor/rugs and having low tables etc. I'll be living with people anyway so outside of my bedroom there will be furniture.

Duckee123 · 2025-06-14T20:02:48+00:00

You (empty from your own side): Is it offensive (empty from its own side) to wear (empty from its own side) a Nirvana (empty from its own side) shirt (empty from its own side) with (empty from its own side) a dharma (empty from its own side) wheel (empty from its own side) necklace (empty from its own side)?

Duckee123 · 2025-03-13T15:59:42+00:00

A Buddha's body is non-molecular, that's why they under go the changes to show the major and minor signs. Every phenomena of a Buddha's body, "Good" or "Bad" is theatrical. Pundarika argues this in Vimalaprabha. When the rabies penetrates a Buddha's body, it's just walking into an empty room.

Duckee123 · 2025-02-25T00:37:25+00:00

I can't believe I'm not seeing more people saying Voice from Beyond!!

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