camerata

10. All spiritual traditions are different paths to the same mountaintop

Many think of Buddhism as a tolerant religion, one that recognizes the value of all religious traditions. In recent years, there have been growing numbers of Buddhist-Christian dialogues and Buddhist-Jewish dialogues. The Dalai Lama has even commented on the gospels. This might suggest that Buddhism holds that all religions are one, that all spiritual paths lead to the same mountaintop. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I also have difficulty with the concept of the extinction of mind and ego. I think extinction is probably not the best word to use in this context. Something that becomes extinct is lost for ever. It cannot be brought back.

I would prefer to use words like 'quieten' or 'still' the mind.

Yes, stilling the mind is what happens. Before awakening, the mind continually thinks itself into existence (along with the "self"). Afterwards, the arahant can utilize the thinking mind as and when he wants or needs to.

It's probably true to say the ego is eradicated or dissolved. There are 10 fetters or mental chains (tying us to samsara) that have to be broken to attain nibbana:

1: personality-or-ego-belief sakkāya-ditthi,

2: sceptical doubt vicikicchā,

3: clinging to mere rules and ritual sīlabbata-parāmāsa, see: upādāna

4 sense-craving kāma-rāga.v.,

5 ill-will vyāpāda

6 craving for fine-material existence rūpa-rāga

7 craving for immaterial existence arūpa-rāga

8 conceit māna,

9 restlessness uddhacca,

10 ignorance avijjā.

I think 1 and 8 cover the modern word 'ego' pretty well.

Bhikkhu Bodhi explains that the teaching of the Buddha as found in the Pali canon does not endorse a philosophy of non-dualism.

Dhamma and Non-duality

by Bhikkhu Bodhi

One of the most challenging issues facing Theravada Buddhism in recent years has been the encounter between classical Theravada vipassana meditation and the "non-dualistic" contemplative traditions best represented by Advaita Vedanta and Mahayana Buddhism. Responses to this encounter have spanned the extremes, ranging from vehement confrontation all the way to attempts at synthesis and hybridization. While the present essay cannot pretend to illuminate all the intricate and subtle problems involved in this sometimes volatile dialogue, I hope it may contribute a few sparks of light from a canonically oriented Theravada perspective.

My first preliminary remark would be to insist that a system of meditative practice does not constitute a self-contained discipline. Any authentic system of spiritual practice is always found embedded within a conceptual matrix that defines the problems the practice is intended to solve and the goal toward which it is directed. Hence the merging of techniques grounded in incompatible conceptual frameworks is fraught with risk. Although such mergers may appease a predilection for experimentation or eclecticism, it seems likely that their long-term effect will be to create a certain "cognitive dissonance" that will reverberate through the deeper levels of the psyche and stir up even greater confusion.

My second remark would be to point out simply that non-dualistic spiritual traditions are far from consistent with each other, but comprise, rather, a wide variety of views profoundly different and inevitably colored by the broader conceptual contours of the philosophies which encompass them.

For the Vedanta, non-duality (advaita) means the absence of an ultimate distinction between the Atman, the innermost self, and Brahman, the divine reality, the underlying ground of the world. From the standpoint of the highest realization, only one ultimate reality exists — which is simultaneously Atman and Brahman — and the aim of the spiritual quest is to know that one's own true self, the Atman, is the timeless reality which is Being, Awareness, Bliss. Since all schools of Buddhism reject the idea of the Atman, none can accept the non-dualism of Vedanta. From the perspective of the Theravada tradition, any quest for the discovery of selfhood, whether as a permanent individual self or as an absolute universal self, would have to be dismissed as a delusion, a metaphysical blunder born from a failure to properly comprehend the nature of concrete experience. According to the Pali Suttas, the individual being is merely a complex unity of the five aggregates, which are all stamped with the three marks of impermanence, suffering, and selflessness. Any postulation of selfhood in regard to this compound of transient, conditioned phenomena is an instance of "personality view" (sakkayaditthi), the most basic fetter that binds beings to the round of rebirths. The attainment of liberation, for Buddhism, does not come to pass by the realization of a true self or absolute "I," but through the dissolution of even the subtlest sense of selfhood in relation to the five aggregates, "the abolition of all I-making, mine-making, and underlying tendencies to conceit."

The Mahayana schools, despite their great differences, concur in upholding a thesis that, from the Theravada point of view, borders on the outrageous. This is the claim that there is no ultimate difference between samsara and Nirvana, defilement and purity, ignorance and enlightenment. For the Mahayana, the enlightenment which the Buddhist path is designed to awaken consists precisely in the realization of this non-dualistic perspective. The validity of conventional dualities is denied because the ultimate nature of all phenomena is emptiness, the lack of any substantial or intrinsic reality, and hence in their emptiness all the diverse, apparently opposed phenomena posited by mainstream Buddhist doctrine finally coincide: "All dharmas have one nature, which is no-nature."

The teaching of the Buddha as found in the Pali canon does not endorse a philosophy of non-dualism of any variety, nor, I would add, can a non-dualistic perspective be found lying implicit within the Buddha's discourses. At the same time, however, I would not maintain that the Pali Suttas propose dualism, the positing of duality as a metaphysical hypothesis aimed at intellectual assent. I would characterize the Buddha's intent in the Canon as primarily pragmatic rather than speculative, though I would also qualify this by saying that this pragmatism does not operate in a philosophical void but finds its grounding in the nature of actuality as the Buddha penetrated it in his enlightenment. In contrast to the non-dualistic systems, the Buddha's approach does not aim at the discovery of a unifying principle behind or beneath our experience of the world. Instead it takes the concrete fact of living experience, with all its buzzing confusion of contrasts and tensions, as its starting point and framework, within which it attempts to diagnose the central problem at the core of human existence and to offer a way to its solution. Hence the polestar of the Buddhist path is not a final unity but the extinction of suffering, which brings the resolution of the existential dilemma at its most fundamental level.

Fully essay: AccesstoInsight

The story becomes clear if we look at the Tricycle article:

The key term is “noble.” The original Sanskrit term arya—adopted by the Nazis as the centerpiece of their racist ideology—was in ancient India an ethnic self-designation used by inhabitants of north India (whether they were invaders, migrants, or natives remains a topic of scholarly debate) to distinguish themselves from other inhabitants of the region. The Buddha reinterpreted the word, which means “noble” or “superior,” from an ethnic designation into a spiritual one, referring to those with an insight into reality superior to that of ordinary people.

So the king is talking about being of a noble Aryan ethnic lineage, but the Buddha changes the meaning of the word to a spiritual one. Creating his own definition of words was a technique of the Buddha (most famously in his redefinition of the word "karma"), in particular when talking to Brahmins. Instead of just saying "You guys have got it all wrong," the Buddha would hark back to a golden age when Brahmins (supposedly) practised the Dhamma, and explain that they had lost their way and could get back to their roots by following his teachings. So we see that all the way through the Dhammapada there are references to "the good Brahmin," meaning a typical "noble one" rather than an animal-sacrificing religious functionary of the Buddha's time.

8. The Four Noble Truths are noble

We ordinary persons are foolish because we don’t know the truth. Specifically, we don’t know that existence itself is suffering, that suffering has an origin, that suffering can be brought to an end, and that there is a path to that state of cessation. We may know it intellectually, we might know it well enough to list it correctly on the midterm, but this does not make us noble. Only the person who has direct insight into the four truths is noble. And it is only for such people that the four truths are, in fact, true.

A scholar of Pali & Sanskrit languages suggests that a more accurate title for "The Four Noble Truths" is "The Four Ennobling Truths" as practising them has the power to ennoble us.

Right. That's exactly what the article says:

Thus, the term that we know as the “four noble truths” should really be translated as the “four truths for the [spiritually] noble.” The truths themselves are not noble; the people who understand them are. And it is the understanding of these truths that makes them noble. Another translation might be the “four ennobling truths.”

The idea that those who have attained stream-entry and above are "noble ones" comes from a comment by the Buddha himself:

This phrase — the customs of the noble ones — comes from an incident in the Buddha's life: not long after his Awakening, he returned to his home town in order to teach the Dhamma to the family he had left six years earlier. After spending the night in a forest, he went for alms in town at daybreak. His father the king learned of this and immediately went to upbraid him. "This is shameful," the king said. "No one in the lineage of our family has ever gone begging. It's against our family customs."

"Your majesty," the Buddha replied, "I now belong, not to the lineage of my family, but to the lineage of the noble ones. Theirs are the customs I follow."

Source: The Customs of the Noble Ones by Ven Thanissaro

9. Zen frees its followers from extended regimens of training

The East Asian Zen tradition has long understood enlightenment to be a sudden flash of insight rather than a gradual revelation. Zhongfeng Mingben, a Chinese Chan (Zen) master in the Linji (Japanese, Rinzai) lineage, described the sudden approach to enlightenment in verse:

Chan practice does not involve any progression,
The absolute essence is free from all extremes and representations.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
In one realization, all is realized,
In one flash of cognition, all is cognized.

According to an aphorism attributed to Bodhidharma, the founder of Zen, sudden awakening occurs by “pointing directly to the human mind so that one may see the nature and achieve buddhahood.” In some accounts, a focus on “seeing the nature” (Japanese, kensho; Chinese, jianxing) frees followers from the extended regimens of training outlined in so-called conventional forms of Buddhism. This “subitist,” or sudden, approach to liberation—what we in the business call a “soteriology”—is so central to Zen’s identity that the broader East Asian Buddhist tradition often refers to it as the “Sudden Teaching.”

There is, however, great debate as to exactly how sudden “sudden enlightenment” is.

Interesting article about the serious problems that can result from Buddhist meditation, particularly in a secular environment.

The Dark Night of the Soul

Tomas Rocha

Set back on quiet College Hill in Providence, Rhode Island, sits a dignified, four story, 19th-century house that belongs to Dr. Willoughby Britton. Inside, it is warm, spacious, and organized. The shelves are stocked with organic foods. A solid wood dining room table seats up to 12. Plants are ubiquitous. Comfortable pillows are never far from reach. The basement—with its own bed, living space, and private bathroom—often hosts a rotating cast of yogis and meditation teachers. Britton’s own living space and office are on the second floor. The real sanctuary, however, is on the third floor, where people come from all over to rent rooms, work with Britton, and rest. But they're not there to restore themselves with meditation—they're recovering from it.

"I started having thoughts like, 'Let me take over you,' combined with confusion and tons of terror," says David, a polite, articulate 27-year-old who arrived at Britton’s Cheetah House in 2013. "I had a vision of death with a scythe and a hood, and the thought 'Kill yourself' over and over again."

Michael, 25, was a certified yoga teacher when he made his way to Cheetah House. He explains that during the course of his meditation practice his "body stopped digesting food. I had no idea what was happening." For three years he believed he was "permanently ruined" by meditation.

Full article at theatlantic.com

I guess we'll never know, and I doubt science will be able to tell us.

What Fred is talking about here is straight from the Pali Canon, and maybe the Pali Commentaries. Nibbana is the Theravada Buddhist term for enlightenment/awakening, which is different from the Brahmanical beliefs held at the time of the Buddha.

The topic is 10 popular misconceptions about Buddhism in general. Any more Thai-bashing or monk-bashing posts will be deleted.

8. The Four Noble Truths are noble

We ordinary persons are foolish because we don’t know the truth. Specifically, we don’t know that existence itself is suffering, that suffering has an origin, that suffering can be brought to an end, and that there is a path to that state of cessation. We may know it intellectually, we might know it well enough to list it correctly on the midterm, but this does not make us noble. Only the person who has direct insight into the four truths is noble. And it is only for such people that the four truths are, in fact, true.

7. Zen rejects conventional Buddhism

Despite Zen’s own claim that it “does not rely on words and letters” (buli wenzi), most Zen monks have engaged in extensive study of Buddhist scriptures and primers of Zen before beginning their training in the meditation hall.

Isn't it next Monday, the 16th?

Great movie!

@rocky I guess it depends on the definition of "atheist." If it refers to God or a supreme being, Buddhism must be atheistic. If it refers to a god (i.e. "one of several deities, especially a male deity, presiding over some portion of worldly affairs") the doctrine of Theravada would seem to be atheistic but "popular Buddhism" may not be.

Tricycle has the burden of having to include all three schools of Buddhism when it discusses Buddhism in general, which can make things pretty confusing. The Buddha of the Lotus Sutra certainly seems like a god, so do the various Mahayana bodhisattvas who come down to earth and help people out.

I think most Westerners would think of a "god" as a being that can have an effect on peoples' earthly lives (punish them, protect them, reward them, bestow good fortune, etc). AFAIK, the devas and gods of the Pali Canon suttas appear either requesting dhamma teachings, petitioning the Buddha or dispensing advice - they never actually do anything. This doesn't seem very god-like to me. As far as I'm concerned, there aren't any gods in Theravada Buddhism.

It's interesting that the bible refers to God as "unbegat" - in other words, unconditioned.

6. The Buddha was human and Buddhism has no place for the worship of gods

"Buddhism is famous in the West as an “atheistic religion,” in the sense that, unlike the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, it does not recognize a single creator deity. However, one should not assume from this that Buddhism has no gods. It has not one, but many."

5. Buddhism is a philosophy and not a religion

Separating philosophy from religion does not work well in the case of Buddhism. Trying to tease apart these two strands of the dispensation would have seemed a futile endeavor to most Buddhists over the long history of the tradition. We in the West need to get over this false dichotomy, which has no significance in speaking about Buddhism or other Asian religions.

Thai Spirit Houses and Land Guardians – Lecture

⊆†⊇

SPIRIT HOUSE CONNECTION

talk on Thai Spirit Houses and local customs

with Marisa Cranfill

at the Neilson Hays Library

Monday 16th June, 2014

Overview

We are joined in Bangkok by Marisa Cranfill – who is one of very few Westerners who is an expert on the topic of Thai Spirit Houses.

You have seen these little palaces everywhere, from the simple to the ornate, with all kinds of offerings placed around them. What are they? What are the rituals? Is this some kind of animism? How does it tie with Buddhism?

• Event is at the Neilson Hays Library, near Chong Nongsi BTS Station.
• 6:30-8:15 pm
• Free of charge (donations to the Library)

http://www.littlebang.org/thai-spirit-houses-and-land-guardians-lecture/

But a reported memory is not scientific proof. For one thing, we don't know that the memory didn't come from a book, the radio, an overheard conversation, etc. There's interesting anecdotal evidence, but no empirical evidence. The anecdotal evidence or "experiential evidence" (if we ourselves have memories of former lives or see them while attaining states of meditative absorption) may well be enough to convince some - and that's fine - but it isn't scientific. Also, memories of past lives doesn't tell us anything about future lives or the fruit of kamma in future lives. On the old bswa.org web forum the kids just weren't buying it, despite the organisation having been set up by Ajahn Brahm, who said, "Past lives are so real you have to believe it."

Is anyone aware of reference material in print or even on the web (I couldn't find anything satisfactory) explaining these. Their meaning, usage, evolution etc. My understanding of spirit houses is that some are designed as a home to ancient spirits attached to the land while others on a higher level are shrines to specific entities. Any offering is good, but some spirit houses it's better to leave specific items - (e.g., eggs, bananas, Red Fanta [don't quite understand that one], etc.). In return you could get a blessing in luck, or finding a soul mate, or you just keep a spirit happy that's occupying that space. Is this accurate?

It's all covered in books such as Spiritual Abodes of Thailand and Thailand Spirits Among Us, both available locally.

And the medallions I'm wholly ignorant of other than they are supposed to give the wearer special protection or abilities??

Originally, there were votive tablets. In recent decades these morphed into Buddhist amulets worn mainly for protection. Later there were many amulets considered to bring good fortune in business, good luck in love, etc. And there are plenty of non-Buddhist amulets available too - Jatukam Ramathep, Ganesh, former kings, former monks, etc.

An off-topic post about Christianity and all replies to it have been deleted. Let's stay on-topic, folks.

Well, this is the problem with many (mostly younger people) in the West. They think the Buddha arrived with some kind of grand scientific theory and if they can find a crack in the theory the entire teaching is useless. So they ask for proof of "reincarnation" and then give up when they don't get it. Needless to say, they expect this to be handed to them by someone on a website rather than by actually reading any Dhamma themselves.

Firstly, there is no "reincarnation" - at least not in Theravada Buddhism. There is no soul and no transmigration of souls. The Canon talks about rebirth, not reincarnation.

Anyone looking for a scientific proof of rebirth or kamma will never find one. Many Western monks point out that the principle of rebirth can be seen in the way our body is constantly regenerating and that we are obviously not the same person we were 10 years ago. It's the same with kamma. We can see the principle of it in the fact that good deeds generally have good consequences and bad deeds generally have bad consequences. Even good deeds that have unintended bad consequences leave us feeling better than bad deeds. For the sceptic, remaining agnostic about future lives is more logical than speculation or blind faith. Having an "I don't know" stance means you don't get caught up in an attachment to either a "true" or "false" position. For me, this doesn't diminish the core teaching about dukkha in any way.

Nibbana is a bit different because we can at least prove it to ourselves in this life. We may not know the nature of it but we know the Buddha, his monks, and monks down through the ages attained it. When the Buddha spoke to his monks, he spoke mostly of attaining nibbana in this life. Even when he spoke to them about rebirth in other realms, it was after talking about nibbana in this life. So his emphasis was very clear.

When the Buddha and his monks attained nibbana (i.e. became arahants) they did not become helpless or die. They continued to live normal, healthy lives, mostly teaching the Dhamma. An arahant probably wouldn't be motivated to do much other than teach. But that makes sense to me. Over decades they became experts in attaining nibbana, so they should teach it. I suspect a before and after MRI of an arahant would show that the areas of the brain that light up after metta meditation would be permanently lit up, but not much more than that. In any case it wouldn't convey the experience of nibbana. I think a sceptic would want to have that subjective experience recorded and transplanted into his brain before he would believe it.

4. All Buddhists are pacifists

One sometimes hears people say, “A war has never been fought in the name of Buddhism.” Exactly what “in the name of Buddhism” means is debatable. Not debatable is that Buddhists over the centuries have engaged in violent acts, including warfare, and have also condoned such acts.

I think it's mainly a problem for Buddhist authors addressing non-Buddhists. In books I've read, the author will typically explain dukkha early on and then settle on an English word to represent it. "Suffering" seems too heavy to me, "stress" seems too trivial, "unsatisfactoriness" seems too clumsy. But a choice has to be made. Some authors just stick with the Pali word.

In fact, the "Three Marks of Existence" that Fred mentioned (dukkha, anicca, anatta) are all difficult to represent with a single English word. The Pali-English Dictionary of Buddhist terms is good for checking on these words.

Getting back to Fred's original question, having spent a lot of time on Buddhist web boards it seems to me that many Western Buddhists can only sustain their enthusiasm for 3-4 years before they start thinking that their dukkha isn't heavy enough to warrant all the effort. It's a pity, because I think that the practice prepares one for the inevitable heavy dukkha that comes along later in life.