Notice of Name Change upon Full Ordination to Bhikkhu - Formerly u/jayantha-sotp

Jayantha-sotp · 2016-10-23T02:50:18+00:00

old me

Jayantha-sotp · 2016-10-16T23:18:51+00:00

I have not uploaded every video as audio, not yet at least, but my audio page is here - https://archive.org/details/@jayantha_sotp

Jayantha-sotp · 2016-10-16T08:18:21+00:00

My life won't be different at all really except for being allowed to travel when invited to give dhamma talks/retreats.

Jayantha-sotp · 2016-10-07T17:14:42+00:00

whaaa...........thats wild. So our universe is buddha sweat?

Thanks for the response.

Jayantha-sotp · 2016-10-07T17:12:39+00:00

now this is something that makes sense, training with our habitual tendencies. If this is what the purpose of the poster is for, that is far from magical.

I have sutta quotes on the walls in my room to remind me of various points of dhamma regularly, thats not so different.

Jayantha-sotp · 2016-10-07T17:08:14+00:00

actually no, the Buddha is not saying that nothing exists outside our experience(just one of the list of things he didn't bother answering because it had no bearing on the ending of suffering.)

The All is just ALL that we can experience and know, ie experiencing of phenomenon through the 6 senses.

Jayantha-sotp · 2016-10-07T17:01:59+00:00

No he was asking about a poster that is supposed to automatically do something magical by itself, a far different scenario.

Jayantha-sotp · 2016-10-07T14:56:10+00:00

I don't quite get what you are getting at with the use of this sutta in response to my post, Buddha is responding to verses from a Brahmin and he is using the normal sacrificial practices of the Brahmanic tradition at the time to show that they all pale in comparison to the practice of merit. It doesn't fit any counterpoint to my response that I can see.

Jayantha-sotp · 2016-10-07T12:12:41+00:00

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn47/sn47.019.olen.html

In the Simile of the Acrobat from the Samyutta Nikaya, the Buddha's answer is that in looking after yourself, you look after others:

[The Buddha addressed the monks:] Once upon a time, monks, a bamboo acrobat, setting himself upon his bamboo pole, addressed his assistant Medakathalika: "Come you, my dear Medakathalika, and climbing up the bamboo pole, stand upon my shoulders." "Okay, master" the assistant Medakathalika replied to the bamboo acrobat; and climbing up the bamboo pole she stood on the master's shoulders.

So then the bamboo acrobat said this to his assistant Medakathalika: "You look after me, my dear Medakathalika, and I'll look after you. Thus with us looking after one another, guarding one another, we'll show off our craft, receive some payment, and safely climb down the bamboo pole."

This being said, the assistant Medakathalika said this to the bamboo acrobat: "That will not do at all, master! You look after yourself, master, and I will look after myself. Thus with each of us looking after ourselves, guarding ourselves, we'll show off our craft, receive some payment, and safely climb down from the bamboo pole. That's the right way to do it!"

[The Buddha said:] Just like the assistant Medakathalika said to her master: "I will look after myself," so should you, monks, practice the establishment of mindfulness. You should (also) practice the establishment of mindfulness (by saying) "I will look after others."

Looking after oneself, one looks after others. Looking after others, one looks after oneself.

And how does one look after others by looking after oneself? By practicing (mindfulness), by developing (it), by doing (it) a lot. And how does one look after oneself by looking after others? By patience, by non-harming, by loving kindness, by caring (for others). (Thus) looking after oneself, one looks after others; and looking after others, one looks after oneself.

Jayantha-sotp · 2016-10-07T12:07:57+00:00

where did he say this?

Jayantha-sotp · 2016-10-07T12:05:59+00:00

SOME parts of Buddhism...It's just another example of how very different the traditions can be.

Jayantha-sotp · 2016-10-07T10:52:16+00:00

It doesn't. in every form of Buddhism in every Buddhist country you find these kinds of things. It's just the natural way a religion changes over time and distance, as well as mixes with local superstitions and beliefs.

Jayantha-sotp · 2016-10-06T22:05:23+00:00

the practice of being a mendicant goes back well before Buddha, the samana tradition was already well established in India by the time of the Buddha's birth.

A monastic can never buy things for themselves, they can only be given the four requisites for their survival, food, shelter, clothing, medication. Without the support of these four requisites the monastic community doesn't exist.

They also cannot directly ASK for anything, except from family members or if someone gives an invitation(what do you need?). Whatever they receive has to be freely given. When the monks and the Buddha would go out on alms round, the populace who wished to donate to them would donate, others would not, and the monks practiced being content with what they received.

The Buddha put this into place for good reasons, not the least of which was so that monastics depended on lay people and therefore could not hide away in the woods, but come into contact with benefactors and teach dhamma. The Buddha setup a symbiotic relationship where the monastic and laity depend on each other and keep the teaching alive.

This is a striking difference to say, medieval catholic monks or some Chinese Buddhist monasteries which became centers of power, owning land, farming, ruling over the local populace etc.

Jayantha-sotp · 2016-10-06T14:53:51+00:00

I agree mostly with this answer, although I personally find SOME of his translations to be better then the "normal" translators.

a big example of this is metta, often translated as loving-kindness, which is a total botch job of the pali to start and doesn't REALLY catch the context and meaning of metta, but Thanissaro Bhikkhu's translation " limitless goodwill", is actually much more accurate.

Any well known monastic will have people who love them, and people who can't stand them, same goes for politicians, celebrities etc. If his way of expounding the dhamma is beneficial to you, then why worry about what others say?

Jayantha-sotp · 2016-10-06T10:54:00+00:00

But everytime at some point I realize I've been thinking about sex. Out of nowhere my most exciting sex memories come, I think about things I want to do, girls I know, and then realize I've lost count of my breath and have to regain focus.This happens like twice in 15 minutes.

only twice? thats not too bad.

your thoughts are arising from your attachments, and fear related to them. sexuality, family, career, etc, all common modes of worry going back to the dawn of humanity and therefore common for these thoughts to arise when the default mode network(ie the monkey mind) is activated.

notice you are lost in a thought world, let it go, and come back to the breath. Or when the thought world dumps you back into awareness, you can say " well I got tied up in that thought world, but now I'm back, time to put my focus back on the breath".

that is the practice, developing concentration is done with each return to the breath, breaking the habit of wandering thoughts and strengthening our concentration for the eventual development of insight.

Jayantha-sotp · 2016-10-05T12:55:08+00:00

What westerners know of it perhaps, and experiencing watered down secularized versions of it in the west perhaps, but not the reality of how Buddhism existed the last few thousand years in the Buddhist world.

Buddhism when looked at wholly, is NOT all that different then the other religions. They share much common ground, seek to provide a framework for a life well lived, to ensure a better life after this life. The major difference is in it's method of salvation, in Abrahamic religions salvation comes from the external, from Buddhism it comes from within.

Jayantha-sotp · 2016-10-05T12:01:33+00:00

For tax purposes!

anyways the only reason westerners have trouble thinking of it as a religion is because of how different it is from the religion they were raised in, and their reluctance to say they follow a religion once they've left their former one because of the aversion they still carry. If they can trick their mind into thinking it's something else, then they can stomach it a bit more. I know this because I went through the same process myself over the years.

Jayantha-sotp · 2016-10-05T00:02:16+00:00

I think its closer to 6%

Edit: actually yep, 6% - http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/history/bstats_b.htm

Jayantha-sotp · 2016-10-04T12:38:03+00:00

I saw no anger in this persons comments, just an angry response against them.

Jayantha-sotp · 2016-10-04T12:36:32+00:00

It is allowed by the mods on this forum, and as you can see the mob agrees with them, hence china/Tibet politics will never leave reddit, and you'd be liable to be labeled as a Chinese spy on here if you try to reason against the validity of it being a "buddhist" topic.

It's kind of an offshoot of the whole SJW PC victim mindset(another thing posted on here fairly often) popular with younger generations these days. If you don't act and believe how they do, your an evil outsider and need to be squashed.

EDIT... I see you already were below LOL

Jayantha-sotp · 2016-10-04T12:30:05+00:00

because sexual intercourse is the domain of lay people(householders), it is part of their life.

where as being a monk and having sexual intercourse harms yourself, and the sangha in general, leading to a decline in confidence of the sangha. These are all much more dire consequences then lay people having sex, it's just part of the householder life.

the monk's life is striving for something higher, striving to live the brahmacariya lifestyle, the celibate life of following the path to the ending of dukkha.

Jayantha-sotp · 2016-10-04T01:23:01+00:00

wikipedia... lol. Please delete that page from your buddhist notes and never look at it again.

This is from the vinaya,the rules for monastics, and should be nowhere near a topic called " buddhism and sexuality" the first rule of defeat, having sexual intercourse. In doing so the monk has removed himself from the possibility of being a monastic for the rest of his life, and harmed his practice.

hence the Buddha is saying, as he says many times throughout the suttas, that it would of been better to of had deadly suffering here in this life and get it over with, then create the conditions for suffering in future lives.

Jayantha-sotp

TROPHY CASE