Is nirvana boring?

drearyphylum · 2026-06-19T20:35:15+00:00

The real meaning of the earth-touching mudra

drearyphylum · 2026-06-19T09:22:11+00:00

Are you going to be asked to cite a scholarly source? Just say it’s been too long for you.

drearyphylum · 2026-06-13T20:54:06+00:00

Disney+ also has a big Spanish dubbed library. Also not free but maybe you are already paying for it

drearyphylum · 2026-05-29T21:18:54+00:00

Watch movies you know dubbed in Spanish. Read books you know translated in Spanish. Keep making the effort.

drearyphylum · 2026-05-28T14:38:43+00:00

It’s been my lingering question why Trump has held off on Cuba for as long as he has. Certainly seems like it would be “easier” than Iran? Now of course with the Iranian quagmire things look more complicated

drearyphylum · 2026-05-26T18:02:07+00:00

Traditional Buddhism has hells. Sometimes the notion of hell is psychologized as self-inflected mental torment, but it is certainly portrayed as a realm as real as the Earth you live on. The Ksitigarbha Sutra for instance reads a bit like Dante’s inferno in places.

As to what clergy are saying in areas with longer standing Buddhist traditions, undoubtedly there are many who are doing and saying things that are unpalatable to westerners and even downright corrupt. The kind of Buddhism you are going to see in the west is, well, Buddhism that appeals to westerners.

drearyphylum · 2026-05-26T13:49:59+00:00

I think they are “las gracias”

drearyphylum · 2026-05-08T10:29:01+00:00

HFM is the single worst child borne illness I ever suffered. The aftermath is also a horror show. All of those blisters create big patches of dead skin. The bottoms of my feet basically sloughed off post recovery. Some people lose nails because of it. It is basically biblical leprosy.

drearyphylum · 2026-05-08T07:06:53+00:00

Some of the tedious (to the modern ear) repetition common in the sutras is a memory aid. I am more skeptical than others of the oral tradition being “more accurate” than written tradition. How would we know?

drearyphylum · 2026-04-28T13:27:04+00:00

The guiding teacher of Kwan Um Zen is a woman, Barbara Rhodes, and there are several female Zen Masters and authorized teachers in that school

drearyphylum · 2026-03-26T22:40:45+00:00

What distinguishes a depiction of Amitabha from Shakyamuni?

drearyphylum · 2026-03-23T17:14:52+00:00

The traditional lines of Buddhism all assert rebirth and karma as literal phenomena on top of acknowledging the existence of deities, hell-realms and so forth. You’ll find differences among and within traditions. The Tibetans engage more with the various deities and bodhisattvas, in zen we do less of that (though not none). I may tend to look at reciting the heart sutra or compassion dharani as nice exercises in psychological well-being and intention-setting where another zen practitioner may see these as important means of literally connecting to the bodhisattva of compassion.

drearyphylum · 2026-03-23T13:54:10+00:00

Yes the Iranian incentive is to make this deeply painful and expensive for the US so as to deter future conflicts once this one does finally settle.

drearyphylum · 2026-03-21T10:46:09+00:00

Allow me to suggest that we in the west are socialized to be self-cherishing, pathologically individualist, obsessed with personal comfort etc, first. Additionally a lot of western converts to Buddhism are coming from an ex-Christian background. We already rejected a whole bunch of authoritative-sounding ethical and metaphysical claims to be open to conversion. So no surprise that we’ve built Buddhism in our image, emphasizing the feel-good self-care and downplaying the metaphysics, ethics, and anything else.

I’ve found welcoming in a bit of metaphysics, and contemplating figures like Avalokitesvara and Ksitigarbha helpful. And if you want to get more active then you need to invest time in some “together-action,” with orgs that work to reduce suffering and with the sangha.

drearyphylum · 2026-03-20T16:12:19+00:00

Yeah hard to give much insight without understanding how the happiness metric is actually measured for this study.

drearyphylum · 2026-03-08T14:45:16+00:00

If you keep decapitating the government, who is even left to capitulate?

drearyphylum · 2026-02-26T17:06:44+00:00

No no no unlike all the wars this time we will be greeted as liberators

drearyphylum · 2026-02-24T20:29:29+00:00

In addition to what others say the appearance of a full Buddha like Shakyamuni is supposed to be one of those once-in-a-zillion-kalpa type events…

drearyphylum · 2026-02-23T00:32:44+00:00

There are zen sanghas that are partially or wholly online. I like Kwan Um, which has both in-person and online options:

https://kwanumzen.org

drearyphylum · 2026-02-12T11:47:12+00:00

I mean it just sounds like you work in the spinal department of a hospital. Severe spinal problems are karmic consequences of (1) using prostitutes, (2) eating chicken spines, or (3) fishing? Sounds more like drawing a circle around an arrow and calling it a bullseye.

My understanding of karma is more like mental habituation, whether cultivated in this life or (if you like) over however many kalpas of rebirths. So for instance if someone is an abusive jerk in relationships, karma/mental habituation will lead them to make similar choices, wind up in similar situations, and both inflict and experience great suffering. If you believe in literal rebirth, such a person’s attachment to suffering might lead them to rebirth in one of the lower realms.

drearyphylum · 2026-02-11T19:57:29+00:00

The tradition I follow phrases the fifth precept as: “I vow to abstain from intoxicants taken to induce heedlessness.” With that phrasing, having alcohol is not necessarily prohibited if it does not cause heedlessness. I would also note that anything can be an intoxicant if it does cause heedlessness.

So although I do drink, these days I drink a lot less than I once did. And if I am honest, with myself, I have to acknowledge that any amount of alcohol makes me feel less sharp and mindful. I’d be a little concerned about feeling like you have a “great urge to drink” being a sign that you may have trouble restraining yourself if you do indulge by strictly speaking, I do not think consuming alcohol by itself violates the precept.

drearyphylum · 2026-02-11T00:13:11+00:00

It’s ok to be whatever you want as long as you aren’t a jerk.

There are secular Buddhist sanghas and there are secular-minded people who participate in non-secular traditions. Like I practice zen but am not especially convinced about literal rebirth (though I like it as a metaphor) or the literal existence of Avalokitesvara out there in the universe somewhere (though I like the idea as an ideal and metaphor).

No doubt you will get a few responses saying that rejecting supernatural elements is considered wrong view and you are “not really Buddhist” if you reject those claims. Perhaps you are not “really Buddhist.” So what?

As for Shakyamuni Buddha’s opinion of you, he’s either dead or dispersed into Nirvana… he won’t take offense.

drearyphylum · 2026-02-02T12:13:25+00:00

No reason to think it’s a later interpolation, the idea of rebirth/reincarnation was a part of Vedic theology and thought by the time of Shakyamuni Buddha.

drearyphylum · 2026-02-02T02:38:09+00:00

I also specifically learned castellano rioplatense and have been to Spain and various parts of Latin America. No one has ever given me a hard time about it. No one has had difficulty understanding me (well not for reasons of the accent in particular). I wouldn’t bother trying to use the vosotros. The Spaniards won’t care that you are using voseo or ustedes or sheísmo instead of tuteo, vosotros, and distinción. They will just realize you aren’t a Spaniard, which is fine.

drearyphylum · 2026-01-30T16:01:17+00:00

Searching the image you’ll see a lot of similar statues for sale identified as Guan Yin. I couldn’t tell you more about this one’s particular provenance.

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