Search found 8214 matches
- Mon Mar 18, 2024 5:08 pm
- Forum: Dharma in Everyday Life
- Topic: Hawai‘i’s Japanese Buddhist Temples Are Struggling to Keep Ancient Traditions Alive
- Replies: 15
- Views: 1245
Re: Hawai‘i’s Japanese Buddhist Temples Are Struggling to Keep Ancient Traditions Alive
Queequeg BTW is an academic and he is arguing from a historic perspective focusing on institutional organizations. Actually, I'm born into a Buddhist family and have since my earliest days been a practicing Buddhist. I am also fully ordained in Tendai and am authorized to teach non-Mikkyo teachings...
- Fri Mar 15, 2024 4:44 pm
- Forum: Tibetan Buddhism
- Topic: Stagnant sanghas, teachers not teaching
- Replies: 126
- Views: 5588
Re: Stagnant sanghas, teachers not teaching
Look people, let us not overestimate the efficacy of pilgrimage and offerings. These are beneficial practices, and/but they are not exclusively Buddhist practices. All religions have pilgrimage and offerings as part of their practice. According to some of the "logic" being bandied about a...
- Thu Mar 14, 2024 4:08 am
- Forum: Tibetan Buddhism
- Topic: Stagnant sanghas, teachers not teaching
- Replies: 126
- Views: 5588
Re: Stagnant sanghas, teachers not teaching
Yep. LolKarma Dorje wrote: ↑Wed Mar 13, 2024 10:02 pm If one doesn’t have access to a guru in person to point out your hidden faults, get married. Your spouse will start pointing these out to you within two to three years. They may not have as much compassion however.
- Wed Mar 13, 2024 5:27 pm
- Forum: Tibetan Buddhism
- Topic: Stagnant sanghas, teachers not teaching
- Replies: 126
- Views: 5588
Re: Stagnant sanghas, teachers not teaching
I was often told to do things I didn't want to do or to stop doing things I wanted to do. Sometimes these were little things. Sometimes these were big things, like vefry, very big things. The pain was my own pain of attachment. But there was never a time that I could just "drift." I was n...
- Wed Mar 13, 2024 5:17 pm
- Forum: Tibetan Buddhism
- Topic: Stagnant sanghas, teachers not teaching
- Replies: 126
- Views: 5588
Re: Stagnant sanghas, teachers not teaching
Sorry for this digression, but I'm interested in pilgrimage practice in the Tibetan context. I'm aware that it is common and a prominent part of the tradition, but I guess I'm curious about how it is understood in the mind of the pilgrim. I am familiar with pilgrimage in the Japanese context, and pe...
- Wed Mar 13, 2024 4:06 am
- Forum: Mahāyāna Buddhism
- Topic: Why does shantideva say the self,if permanent must be inert?
- Replies: 5
- Views: 337
Re: Why does shantideva say the self,if permanent must be inert?
There are some unconditioned dharmas, such as space.
- Tue Mar 12, 2024 1:19 pm
- Forum: Tendai
- Topic: Tendai and the Laity
- Replies: 6
- Views: 400
Re: Tendai and the Laity
I can understand that the significance of formally taking refuge is being downplayed in Japanese Buddhism in general and among some western Buddhists. But that is still considered very crucial in Chinese and Tibetan Buddhism today, and for good reasons. For one thing, taking and upholding the refug...
- Tue Mar 12, 2024 12:27 pm
- Forum: Mahāyāna Buddhism
- Topic: Why does shantideva say the self,if permanent must be inert?
- Replies: 5
- Views: 337
Re: Why does shantideva say the self,if permanent must be inert?
Something permanent is unchanging. An unchanging thing is incapable of interacting with anything else. Therefore it is inert. A permanent thing is a figment of the imagination. To be something permanent implicates time; time itself is a figment of the imagination. There is no such thing, so explorin...
- Mon Mar 11, 2024 4:58 pm
- Forum: Suggestion Box
- Topic: Poll idea - who is your teacher
- Replies: 5
- Views: 168
Re: Poll idea - who is your teacher
I also think this is not a great idea for many of the reasons already stated.
- Fri Mar 08, 2024 5:29 pm
- Forum: Engaged Buddhism
- Topic: Buddhism Green Anarchism: Opinions?
- Replies: 68
- Views: 2510
Re: Buddhism Green Anarchism: Opinions?
The West is not the future. It is a rotting carcass of slavery and imperialism. Workers here are morally compromised to such an extreme they can't even see their racism and privilege. Seen by most of the world as a creepy labor aristocracy. Maybe Buddhists should warn the millions of people risking...
- Fri Mar 08, 2024 1:11 pm
- Forum: Engaged Buddhism
- Topic: Buddhism Green Anarchism: Opinions?
- Replies: 68
- Views: 2510
Re: Buddhism Green Anarchism: Opinions?
The West is not the future. It is a rotting carcass of slavery and imperialism. Workers here are morally compromised to such an extreme they can't even see their racism and privilege. Seen by most of the world as a creepy labor aristocracy. Maybe Buddhists should warn the millions of people risking...
- Thu Mar 07, 2024 2:48 pm
- Forum: Mahāyāna Buddhism
- Topic: Is life a illusion?
- Replies: 22
- Views: 757
Re: Is life a illusion?
I never read nagarjuna until today,I have found the most profound philosophical text which makes perfect sense. I was wondering,since all is essenceless and there is no existance or reality,no unconditioned or compounded,is everything a illusion?Not like a illusion or magic,but a illusion itself? I...
- Thu Mar 07, 2024 2:40 pm
- Forum: Tibetan Buddhism
- Topic: Stagnant sanghas, teachers not teaching
- Replies: 126
- Views: 5588
Re: Stagnant sanghas, teachers not teaching
I personally met numerous American and European guys, etc., who finished three year retreats with the solid lineages and are impressive practitioners. The thing is they have familiar histories that are not exotic. Most of them basically keep to themselves and only come out for some important functi...
- Thu Mar 07, 2024 12:41 am
- Forum: Engaged Buddhism
- Topic: Buddhism Green Anarchism: Opinions?
- Replies: 68
- Views: 2510
Re: Buddhism Green Anarchism: Opinions?
I've been really interested in public benefit corporations and other similar enterprises for a while, and studied up on them. If some people came to me and said they wanted to do something like that, I'd help them set it up pro bono and do what I could to help them secure financing. I feel like ent...
- Wed Mar 06, 2024 11:59 pm
- Forum: Engaged Buddhism
- Topic: Buddhism Green Anarchism: Opinions?
- Replies: 68
- Views: 2510
Re: Buddhism Green Anarchism: Opinions?
Everything comes at a cost. The current system is sacrificing the entire planet in order to fulfil the wants of a small minority. This is true. What would it take to change this? I don't know. No one knows. I hope some society shows us the way and leads by example. I would love to know where we are...
- Wed Mar 06, 2024 10:01 pm
- Forum: Tendai
- Topic: Tendai and the Laity
- Replies: 6
- Views: 400
Re: Tendai and the Laity
Mikkyo does require shukke tokudo ("leaving home" ordination, though leaving home in the traditional Buddhist sense is not required - a long story), and then Mikkyo training. Mikkyo is also open to anyone willing to learn and undertake it, but by nature, the undertaking is significantly m...
- Wed Mar 06, 2024 9:53 pm
- Forum: Engaged Buddhism
- Topic: Buddhism Green Anarchism: Opinions?
- Replies: 68
- Views: 2510
Re: Buddhism Green Anarchism: Opinions?
Utopian ideas tend to come with prices, too, but when we're looking at the bright future we tend to romanticize the process and that future. Meanwhile, you plug in real life human beings and it gets messy and often as ugly as all the ills the romantics decry. Everything comes at a cost. The current...
- Wed Mar 06, 2024 8:59 pm
- Forum: Tibetan Buddhism
- Topic: Stagnant sanghas, teachers not teaching
- Replies: 126
- Views: 5588
Re: Stagnant sanghas, teachers not teaching
Just a general comment because I have very little experience in the Tibetan Dharma sphere. However, I think I can say this with some applicability to your sphere: This is one of those moments of great transmission between civilizations. Its going to be hard, and bumpy, and I think we are going to fe...
- Wed Mar 06, 2024 8:11 pm
- Forum: Tendai
- Topic: Tendai and the Laity
- Replies: 6
- Views: 400
Re: Tendai and the Laity
Being an esoteric form of Buddhism, there are practices that are not shared publicly or require training to do properly. Things like doing the goma ritual are more than just making a fire and throwing pieces of wood onto it. So what does that mean for the lay person? I was recently asked if I wante...
- Wed Mar 06, 2024 8:01 pm
- Forum: Engaged Buddhism
- Topic: Buddhism Green Anarchism: Opinions?
- Replies: 68
- Views: 2510
Re: Buddhism Green Anarchism: Opinions?
I am sure Sukhavati is a green, anarchist Buddhist realm. Except for the long-term imprisonment inside lotus buds in the two lowest of Sukhavati's nine levels (the levels prescribed for those who only just scraped in via deathbed repentance). LOL. Right. Down with the Lotus Calyx! The romanticism u...