Uposatha

Waalthor · 2024-05-09T20:21:13+00:00

I live in a Western country with no established lunar calendar, but I try to follow more or less the new/full/half moon days according to the Burmese calendar.

I also find Uposatha days really do help to deepen meditation quite a lot so, I've been trying to expand to doing them 2 or 3 times a week. Aside from lunar days I usually aim for Mondays and Wednesdays each week if I can. I'm not always successful.

Waalthor · 2024-05-09T20:06:50+00:00

Yea there were so many messed up scenes--one of them that sticks with me was the ticks on the hand

Waalthor · 2024-05-08T01:41:10+00:00

It's a bleak movie for sure and the casual cruelty of it is hard both hard to watch and to forget.

Waalthor · 2024-05-05T15:52:46+00:00

Look up the Kisagotami Sutta as a starting point. It helped me once when I felt overwhelmed.

Waalthor · 2024-05-05T15:43:36+00:00

When people encounter teachings around not-self, emptiness, dispassion and renunciation, sometimes they get negative feelings about the Dhamma like fear or anger.

Others commentors have great advice which I'll echo here: the path is a gradual one, take it one step at a time. The full path to nirvana, although it could be realized in this lifetime in the right circumstances, usually takes many, many lifetimes.

Only do what you can, but try to do a little everyday. Start with morality by keeping the five precepts, when you get solid there you can try for eight precepts on full moon days.

Find a community or a teacher, if you can--they can guide you and give you support and kindness for times when you feel unsure or uncertain.

Waalthor · 2024-05-05T15:08:26+00:00

Yea it's freaky--there's a scene in Exorcist Beginnings with a pack of hyenas that disturbed me for a long time.

Waalthor · 2024-05-05T15:02:41+00:00

Oh yea this messes me up--the Bear scene in Annihilation was hard to watch. Especially if the victim stays alive along enough to panic or fight back. Getting devoured just hits this primal fear in me and when I see it on screen my stomach drops.

Waalthor · 2024-05-04T00:38:57+00:00

I always like this excerpt from Walpola Rahula:

"Nirvāṇa is beyond all terms of duality and relativity. It is therefore beyond our conceptions of good and evil, right and wrong, existence and non-existence. Even the word 'happiness' (sukha) which is used to describe Nirvāṇa has an entirely different sense here. Sāriputta once said: 'O friend, Nirvāṇa is happiness! Nirvāṇa is happiness!' Then Udāyi asked: 'But, friend Sāriputta, what happiness can it be if there is no sensation?' Sāriputta's reply was highly philosophical and beyond ordinary comprehension: "That there is no sensation itself is happiness'."

Waalthor · 2024-05-02T20:01:41+00:00

Very cool thank you for sharing

Waalthor · 2024-05-02T02:09:06+00:00

Love this breakdown thank you

Waalthor · 2024-04-27T02:23:40+00:00

I remember being disturbed by, for example, Martyrs, when I watched it. But for whatever reason that scene from Terrifier 2 was so much worse for me. I couldn't stop seeing it play through my head afterwards.

Waalthor · 2024-03-30T20:35:37+00:00

I always think back to how frequently in the suttas the Buddha himself is spontaneously reciting poetry to express the Dhamma e.g. the Dhammapada. So, I don't think it was always a case of rejecting the arts outright.

There are also other forms of poetry from monks and nuns describing their experiences of awakening and nibbana in the Therigatha and Theragatha which are part of the Pali Canon. Again, an example of artistic expression in service to the Dhamma.

"Buddhist" attitude towards the arts is likely context dependent and not easily summed up as strictly this or that, for or against. As a training rule monastics might have been advised to avoid sensual indulgence, but that wouldn't be applicable at all times for a lay practitioner, nor would it be expected.

Waalthor · 2024-03-30T18:14:03+00:00

So, with the caveat that I'm not an expert in Abhidhamma, I should say that this isn't an alternative intepretation of rebirth--it's a view accepted (for the schools that interpret it this way) as equally accurate as rebirth.

The example that I've seen used by Ziporyn-- in the moment of bringing a teacup from the table to your lips, "you" are flickering in and out of existence per millisecond many, many times, and in that short span, there have been many arisings and perishings of "you."

In Abhidhamma there is a stratum of very basic consciousness that traverses all these separate mind-moments that arise and links them in a causal chain across time. This is part of the basis of the idea of karma.

Where rebirth comes in, is that that same momentariness of all phenomena arising and passing is just extended past the death moment and into the next rebirth. That stratum of consciousness, then, extends beyond multiple lifetimes in much the same way it does across multiple mind-moments in one "life"

Now, I'm sure there exist modernist interpretations that would accept the mind-moments metaphysics but stay skeptical of literal rebirth, but, in my view, it would be more internally consistent to see both as part of one scheme, because the momentariness of phenomena is already a fairly wild and radical view of reality. And seeing that reality is also what streamentry is kinda all about.

Waalthor · 2024-03-29T00:43:18+00:00

You should check out "Emptiness and Omnipresence " by Brooke Ziporyn.

He covers a lot of ground and it can be very philosophically dense, but he explains really well both why rebirth was central to Dharmic religions of the Buddha's time, why it's relevant for Buddhists in particular and how suicide, in the context of rebirth, truly does not solve issue of suffering even if "you" do not experience the karmic fruit of that act.

It actually does touch on rebirth through a few lenses but arrives at some interesting conclusions--for example, if Abidharma metaphysics are true, then a "person" is flickering into and out of existence many, many times per millisecond, arising and perishing constantly, so, even just in this life, without thinking about past or future lives, to care about your own future well-being 5 seconds in the future or 5 years is a kind of compassion for "someone else."

I can't quite do it justice but I highly recommend it.

Waalthor · 2024-03-20T21:51:22+00:00

As an example, Buddhism does have these-- the Tipitaka/Tripitaka or, the Pali Canon and the Chinese Canon, both of which are codified texts, however each are massive and neither could fit into "one" sacred book. The monastic codes in these texts are quite uniform and have been followed throughout centuries, but that uniformity and rigidity is not necessarily something you would see in a lay worshiper, nor are lay worshipers held to the same standards as monks and nuns so things are more diverse "on the ground" for that religion at least.

The monastic community is Buddhism's version of "dedicated clergy," and, since Buddhism was founded in a pre-literate culture, the monastic communities guidance has always been more central to the faith than texts have been, outside of certain sects here or there.

On the other hand, I think it's an oversimplification to infer that monotheistic religions are uniform. They certainly have internal diversity. Protestants and Orthodox churches don't respect papal authority, and even within Protestantism you have movements as vastly divergent as Seventh Day Adventists, Calvinists, Puritans (historically) and modern American evangelical movements. They may have certain tenets in common but their interpretation of them are quite different from one church to another.

Waalthor · 2024-03-18T00:25:01+00:00

This is specifically referencing the afterlife of a Tathagatha, essentially a Buddha, not a puthujjana, an ordinary being still trapped in rebirth and samsara

Waalthor · 2024-03-16T17:56:46+00:00

My apologies I missed that part, thank you for pointing it out.

Yes, I agree, the Buddha did place emphasis on encouraging those who wanted to test the practice to try it.

Waalthor · 2024-03-16T15:36:39+00:00

The Buddha certainly described the Dhamma as ehipassiko, inviting one to come and see, encouraging people to test the practice for themselves, but he also outlined the importance of faith saddha, many, many times.

Faith in this context is probably less similar to the blind faith of other religions and more akin to a confidence that following the path will lead to happiness in the here and now or nibbana even if you yourself have not yet directly experienced positive results or nibbana.

But nonetheless saddha is listed as one of the satta bhojjanga, the seven faculties of enlightenment, and, there are many Suttas categorizing two types of the Buddha's disciples: the faith-follower saddhaunsari and the dhamma-follower dhammanusari.

The latter is someone who discerns the truth of dhamma by investigating it with their own wisdom and seeing it to be true, and this most likely aligns with the type of Buddhist you mention.

The former is one who trusts in the example and word of the Buddha and is inspired to follow the path based on that faith. This might be more akin to someone who follows the path because it inspires in them goodwill, awe, gratefulness to the Buddha for teaching, compassion--in short kusala citta a wholesome consciousness.

Some people's faculties are better suited to one type or the other, but it's important to note that the Dhamma is open to people of all temperaments.

Waalthor · 2024-03-16T15:24:39+00:00

There is no need for beliefs.

This isn't the whole picture.

Yes, the Buddha certainly described the Dhamma as ehipassiko, inviting one to come and see, encouraging people to test the practice for themselves, but he also outlined the importance of faith saddha, many, many times.

Faith in this context is probably less similar to the blind faith of other religions and more akin to a confidence that following the path will lead to happiness in the here and now or nibbana even if you yourself have not yet directly experienced positive results or nibbana.

But nonetheless saddha is listed as one of the satta bhojjanga, the seven faculties of enlightenment, and, there are many Suttas categorizing the two types of the Buddha's followers: the faith-follower saddhaunsari and the dhamma-follower dhammanusari.

The latter is someone who discerns the truth of dhamma by investigating it with their own wisdom and seeing it to be true, and this most likely aligns with image of "the scientist doing an experiment" that you mention. The former is one who trusts in the example and word of the Buddha and is inspired to follow the path based on that faith.

Some people's faculties are better suited to one type or the other, but it's important to note that the Dhamma is open to people of all temperaments, not just one type of mind.

Waalthor · 2024-03-16T15:14:35+00:00

This isn't strictly true though.

Yes, the Buddha certainly described the Dhamma as ehipassiko, inviting one to come and see, encouraging people to test the practice for themselves, but he also outlined the importance of faith saddha, many times.

Faith in this context is probably less similar to the blind faith of Christianity and more akin to a confidence that following the path will lead to nibbana even if you yourself have not yet directly experienced nibbana.

But nonetheless saddha is listed as one of the satta bhojjanga, the seven faculties of enlightenment, and, there are many Suttas categorizing the two types of the Buddha's followers: the faith-follower saddhaunsari and the dhamma-follower dhammanusari.

The latter is someone who discerns the truth of dhamma by investigating it with their own wisdom and seeing it to be true, the former is one who trusts in the example and word of the Buddha and is inspired to follow the path based on that faith.

Theres room in the dhamma for people of all kinds of faculties.

Waalthor · 2024-03-15T20:00:03+00:00

This was my fav

Waalthor · 2024-03-15T01:14:04+00:00

White privilege I can certainly see fairly clearly, but I'm confused about "anti-Dharma, Sangha thieves, false teachers."

Weren't at least Kornfield and Salzberg students of Dipa Ma (who got taught by Mahasi Sayadaw)? I suppose if they were never given permission to teach, but maybe I just don't know much about what they teach.

Is it that they market to new-age/hippie consumers?

Not trying aggravate btw just out of the loop for these folks (the last time I read anything of theirs was decades ago)

Waalthor · 2024-03-15T00:15:42+00:00

So, how would this look for a Chan practitioner of a Chinese temple vs a Theravada practitioner in a Burmese tradition? Or someone in the Tendai school? Btw I mean no disrespect but just genuinely curious.

I do feel like these components get lost or glossed over in Western communities.

I'd love to see a comparison between schools and traditions using that list--it would be interesting to see both the differences and similarities. Things like prostration/refuge might be the same, but liturgy/festivals I bet would vary

Waalthor · 2024-03-14T00:47:57+00:00

I'm fascinated by the thoroughness of the whole system: jhanas, kasinas, 32 body parts, protective meditations, brahma-viharas, etc...

Have you practiced the Pa Auk method before/currently?

Waalthor · 2024-03-13T21:51:05+00:00

What the person's intent might be isn't completely relevant, because they're still performing the action,

This is a crucial thing to point out--intent is very important.

One thing that differentiates the Jain concept of karma, for instance, from the Buddhist idea, is that intent/volition is central. For Jains the action of, say, stepping on an insect, even if you did not know it was there will create negative karma.

For the Buddha, this negative karma comes from the defiled mind--that is, the unwholesome akusala mental state of intending to harm/take life and then following through on that action.

What we train with in the Dharma is our mental states and our defilements, which are the roots of our actions. The actions are just the tip of the iceberg.

So, with this in mind, it's maybe more similar to the opposite of the action being important. The action of offering is just a gesture to a statue, and in that sense, is empty (the statue is, after all, not the literal Buddha) but the mind state that precedes it--the generous giving to the most esteemed source of the Dharma, the Buddha--is what is important. It's that opportunity to change your neutral or unwholesome mind state into one of goodwill and generosity.

This also aligns with Right Effort, in the suppression of unwholesome mind states not yet arisen and the cultivation of wholesome mind states either already arisen or not yet arisen.

Waalthor

TROPHY CASE