I'm not a Buddhist, but...............PART 2
by Dansk 69 Replies latest jw friends
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Dansk
Essie,
when you said that you are careful of what you share
Please understand. I’ve nothing to hide. On the contrary, I love to share anything I have. I was talking about not discussing what I might see in my meditation because it might erroneously affect someone else (they might go looking for the same thing – a thing which, at the end of the day, might mean absolutely nothing).
Unfettered,
Ian, please understand I mean no offense.
None has been taken!
I understand you are ill.
I’m classed as terminal. I’ve been told I’m going to die. February at the latest!
Are you open to discussing what you've learned and what your Buddhist teacher has helped you with in terms of your illness?
If I had anything to share, believe me, I’d share it! I have a self-made regimen for defeating my disease. It means I cannot come here as much as previously. I have to concentrate more on my spirituality. To reach a certain level is to leave the sickness behind. This has happened on a number of occasions. Ramana has been here to help – and is here now.
I believe I can defeat this disease – a rare form of cancer – and I am not frightened of it. I respect it and it has helped bring me to a path I might otherwise not have trodden. I was already treading a Buddhist path, but it is unlikely it would be this one. I have also met/come into contact with some very interesting people – yourself included. There are no coincidences in life. While the universe controls us, karma dictates (through our past and present actions) our situation now (though, of course, there’s more besides). We have all probably met/been in contact with one another in previous lives. Our paths have crossed again. We should just go with the flow and learn from the experience.
If I sometimes appear distant it’s because I’m working on saving my life. Often, if I feel enough has been said, I see no reason to add anything as that would be a waste of energy and might even muddy the water. On another day I might write reams. I know I am literally fighting for my life. I am preparing myself for living to a ripe old age with my wife and children – but I am also preparing myself for my next journey should I die.
I do not feel tired today, but I have missed some important spiritual activity. It was unavoidable and I am hoping to retire from my work soon so as to gain more time (all my work is done from home). This is an enjoyable thread and I have thoroughly enjoyed everyone’s contributions. Now for a cup of green tea (my younger son is making). My two dogs have come up to say hello. I am happy and content. Life's pleasures really are the simple things.
Love,
Ian
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JamesThomas
It feels as a ray of warm sun upon my heart; oh, hello Ian.
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Unfettered
Dansk,
I'm glad to hear your positive attitude and I choose to believe you have the power to beat this as well... that in some way personal choice is involved in this either at a higher level and even in the physical. I will include you in my prayer and meditation. I know we'd all like to have your presence here for a long time to come.
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Fleur
Please understand. I?ve nothing to hide. On the contrary, I love to share anything I have. I was talking about not discussing what I might see in my meditation because it might erroneously affect someone else (they might go looking for the same thing ? a thing which, at the end of the day, might mean absolutely nothing).
Oh, dear Ian I didn't think you had anything to hide sweetheart! Again, I blew it at articulating myself correctly. I just meant that I didn't want to presume to intrude on anything that was too personal to you...I don't want to pry. You have been so open and so sharing, and I appreciate that more than words can say!
(((((((((((Ian)))))))))))) sending you more positive energy and thoughts...did so last night and will continue to do so....
love
essie
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Unfettered
Ian,
I'm interested to hear your opinion. I've noticed in my own reading that Buddhism tends to focus more on the mental/emotional/spiritual types of meditation where as the Daoist texts tend to focus a little more on the physical manifestation of energy, but also on the spiritual. Have you noticed the differences?
For instance, the Taoist practices of Qi Gong and Tai Chi are very physical in their energetic focus. They focus a lot on the developing and cultivation of the energies that vibrate at frequencies closer to the physical body (namely various forms of what they call Qi) as these tend to raise physical strength and vitality. Primarily they are focussing on the first body, the physical, and the second body, the next generated subtle etheric body resting inside/on top of the physical. I have personally experienced at least 3 separate bodies.
During one out of body experience I rose out of my physical body (#1) to sit on the bed in my etheric body next to my physical body. Then, after looking my physical body over I decided to get up and go look around. However, then the vibrations began again and I rose out of that 2nd body into a 3rd state which was that of being a point or ball of being or energy and I was able to see in 360 degrees all around me. I was much lighter and passed through walls much easier than in the 2nd body state. Anyway, I digress.
Although the Taoist meditations focus a lot on the 1st and 2nd body energy cultivation, they don't focus as much on reaching higher states of enlightenment internally and higher states of the consciousness as the Buddhist do. I notice that many Buddhist may tend to cultivate loving and compassionate personalities fast than those studying purely Taoist philosophies. However, they are not always physically healthy or robust. Perhaps I am skewing this in my mind based on limited experience or association with Buddhists though. Taoist tend to be a little bit colder and more physically oriented, but wow ... some have such strong vital physical energy as I have experienced myself.
Here's what I've noticed personally. If I do the type of meditation that leads to out of body experiences I will frequently return feeling physically energetically drained. If I do too many OBE's per week I will actually start to become sick physically. This implies that by focussing my mental energies away from my physical body up to higher states I am literally taking energy away from sustaining my physical body. When I do more Taoist types of meditation and practice like Qi Gong and Tai Qi my physical energy revs up and I do not get sick and my actual physical strength increases. However, I have fewer higher consciousness experiences and out of body experiences. There seems to be a sort of trade off... personally I've worked to strike a balance between the two. Obviously if I wanted to be in the spiritual 24/7 I could just kill myself, but I need to be here to learn lessons and evolve.
Have you noticed the same thing at all in your own meditations? Have you practiced qi gong or tai chi before? Have you heard of diamond bone breathing techniques? It will be interesting to hear any thoughts from you. Feel free to take your time to comment. I understand you are busy and focussing on getting well. My best wishes to you.
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Abaddon
I am always a little uneasy of ideas like;
"Anyone accepting a blood transfusion automatically ceases to be a Jehovah's Witness."
"If you eat meat on Friday you aren't a Catholic."
"If you engage in war you are not a Buddhist."
I can explain why such constructions give me the willies, but I am assuming it is obvious.
Another thing is that (be they 'disfellowshipped' by fellow Buddhists or otherwise), Buddhists do have and will go to war;
http://web.singnet.com.sg/~alankhoo/MoreQA.htm#Army
I have no idea whether the statements of the Buddha there quoted are part of the canon.
And there are Sri Lankan Buddhists here who agree with war...
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Dansk
Abaddon,
With all due respect you are now dabbling in area of which you know nothing and have taken the Sri Lankan troubles, i.e. that between the Tamils and the so-called Sinhala-Buddhists, to back up your assertion that Buddhists will go to war. Buddhists WILL defend themselves, but they should never be the aggressor. By defending, I don’t mean this allows for joining the army and participating in killing the enemy just because he’s on the other side. I read the links you cited and this stuck out immediately:
In the present, as my study indicates, Sri Lankan Buddhists avail themselves of a variety of Buddhist stories -- canonical and post-canonical -- to support their point of view regarding war.
Clearly, the motives behind "Buddhists" going to war in Sri Lanka is politically motivated and has nothing to do with the Buddhist religion. Buddhists can NEVER condone war so those who participate in it in Sri Lanka are NOT Buddhists even though they may try justify their action through spurious doctrines or otherwise. From the Sri-Lankan link I quote this:
a Sri Lankan Buddhist monk-scholar, the Venerable Palane Siri Vajiranana, writing in 1940 during World War II, urged pacifism as he cited H. Fielding Hall's The Soul of a People:
There can never be a war of Buddhism. No ravished country has ever borne witness to the prowess of the followers of the Buddha; no murdered men have poured out their blood on their hearth-stones, killed in his name ...He and His Faith are clean of the stain of blood. He was the preacher of the Great Peace, of love, of charity, of compassion, and so clear in His teaching that it can never be misunderstood.( 5 )
In this example of comparative missiology, a formulaic remnant of Buddhist-Christian relations dating to the mid-eighteenth century, Buddhism is superior to Christianity because it is non-violent. For the venerable monk, as well as for Hall, Buddhism never has allowed -- nor ever will allow -- for the possibility of war: the example of the Buddha's life, as well as the his teachings, prove as much. There are no two ways about it.
From your second link I took this:
The Buddha has advised everyone to abstain from killing.
If everybody accepts this advice, human beings would not kill each other. In the case where a person’s life is threatened, the Buddha says even then it is not advisable to kill out of self-protection. The weapon for self-protection is loving-kindness. One who practises this kindness very seldom comes across such misfortune. However, man loves his life so much that he is not prepared to surrender himself to others; in actual practice, most people would struggle for self-protection. It is natural and every living being struggles and kills others for self-protection but kammic effect depends on their mental attitude. During the struggle to protect himself, if he happens to kill his opponent although he has no intention to kill, then he is not responsible for that action. On the other hand, if he kills another person under any circumstances with the intention to kill, then he is not free from the kammic reaction; he has to face the consequences. We must remember that killing is killing; when we disapprove of it, we call it murder. When we punish man for murdering, we call it ‘capital punishment’. If our own soldiers are killed by an enemy we call it ‘slaughter’. However, if we approve a killing, we call it war. But if we remove the emotional content from these words, we can understand that killing is killing.
I also notice that the The Mahavamsa or The Great Chronicle was written by the Venerable Thera Mahanama
in the 6th century AD. Please note, the Buddha was born almost 600 years before Christ. I’ve never read the Mahavamsa but it is known as the great Chronicle of Sri Lanka. In other words, in pertains to that land only.In all my years as a western Buddhist (i.e. including those prior to being a JW when I must have lost my way) I had never heard of the Mahavamsa. Contrast some of the clearly exploitive comments from Sri Lankans compared to that of the Dalai Lama’s quote I posted earlier.
Please refrain from saying "Buddhists do have and will go to war", which is a sweeping statement with no basis in fact. One is always going to get some politically motivated idiot who twists the pacifism of Buddhist doctrine to suit his own aims. If the Sinhalis of Sri Lanka go to war against the Tamils then let it be understood for what it really is, political dislike for another’s race or culture. Buddhism has absolutely nothing to do with it.
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zen nudist
here is a model for your consideration relating to my view of reality and buddhism
if you think of the universe as being like the internet.... a large number of computers [us] interconnected and disconnected by many many different ways and means.... each of us participates in the whole and each of us has internal information not completely shared.... each of us is running our own set of internal programs that are part of the one whole but make us unique individuals....
here is where it gets tricky.... the only YOU, I know is a representation within my system... an icon on my screen, never the real you. I have no means of directly knowing anything other than what my connections to you bring me.... and so my represention or icon is likely very cartoonish and idealized based on a lot more fantasy and stereo typing then reality.
e-motions or what MOTivate us are derived from an interplay of the energy flowing through out the entire system... beliefs are like regulators which present us with a specific quality of emotional energy. this energy like electricity is primarily derived from a difference between ground, or contentment/satisfaction and some imbalance of energy.... when you have low blood sugar the imbalance causes an imbalance which is felt and identified as hunger.
in the buddhist four noble truths, attachment and desire is identified as the primary causes of suffering....
attachment would be a mental comparison of what is to what one wishes based on memory.... this would be felt as an imbalance of forces and the belief about why this exists will give the energy its quality such as anger, sadness, etc.
desire is the same only projected forward in time or to sideways present alternatives....
the buddha recommended the 8 fold path [skillful living in all aspects of life within the extremes] as the means of acheiving satisfactory or contented living in this realm....
which is nearly identicle to what I find as well by my alternative view.... every move is a gamble to some degree, accepting every step that brought you to the present moment without comparison and accepting your perceived reality with clarity that comes with such acceptance, make your move with your greatest skill and you will have no cause for regret or strong emotions.
as to death and after lives.... the you I know is again, only an icon on my mental screen, if it seems to die, that in no way effects your true self... and if you think about it, you have never known a moment when you did not exist and you cannot ever know such a moment which does not guarentee immortality but it is as immortal as you need consider.
I beileve we are sharing a virtual reality in which all that we know, the icons of each other, are being moved about within our minds, but not effecting our true self, which is beyond this in a realm which we have no direct way of understanding and may be completely alien to anything we may conceive....
another way to put it, if you were born in a dream state coma and never opened what you consider your real eyes, the only eyes you would know are the ones your dream self had.... you would not even be able to tell if you actually had real eyes.... in like manner, our true body may be completely different than our dream bodies we share in this virtual reality.
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Unfettered
Zen Nudist,
That was an interesting analogy. In my personal experience there are some accuracies about what you describe, but perhaps it can also be expanded upon.
I think of it in a similar vein but more like this:
Every different environment necessitates different types of bodies. For example, if I want to go swimming underwater I cannot "exist" underwater for very well or very long unless I "change" my body to include a scuba tank, some fins, a weight belt, etc. Once I have sufficiently altered my body to include those things I can exist or experience the underwater environment for much longer. If I want to go into space I obviously need a space suit. Imagine reality as being a layered environment similar to air being layered over water and outer space being layered over the atmosphere. Our true self resides at some higher layer. It desires however to experience the environment of the physical earth. Thus, it sends a portion of itself into a vessel that is capable of sustaining it's consciousness within this earth environment and providing it with stimulous, energy, and experience which are transformed through the physical body and brain upward to the higher levels. Perhaps in a similar fashion as a probe might be sent down to deep sea level and we up at the top record the images that are transformed into electrical impulses and back to video on our monitor... however I do feel the experience is much more direct that just a probe. It depends on your perspective at that moment.
Consciousness is mobile. It can freely enter, leave, and create bodies it needs to exist in whatever environment it chooses to visit.
each of us participates in the whole and each of us has internal information not completely shared....
In my personal experience this statement is not completely accurate. I have literally had experiences in which I left my body and entered the body of another individual to experience things from their unique perspective. I believe we are all much more intimately tied together than we realize. However, in order to perceive this state of connectedness it is necessary to mobilize your consciousness away from your physical body by at least 2 or 3 gross "layers" and then merge your consciousness with another human's body. Additionally, I have in communications with what you might call ghosts and/or entites existing in higher layers experienced a type of communication that does not include language or even thought, but simply direct experience is communicated to me. When the entity wants me to understand something a sort of packet or segment of their direct experience is passed to me. This latter form of communication is very intimate and does not seem to hide ANYTHING about the particular experience. So, I believe that our uniqueness is really a uniqueness that only exists in certain layers. As we move upward through the layers our uniqueness dissappears and our individual uniqueness becomes simply another aspect of the whole.
This mobilizing and division of consciousness can be demonstrated in various ways even through science. However, of course science cannot go any further than physical expression and measurements.