all emotions are pain?

Discuss and learn about the traditional Mahayana scriptures, without assuming that any one school ‘owns’ the only correct interpretation.
Malcolm
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Re: all emotions are pain?

Post by Malcolm »

Grigoris wrote:Let's try this from a different angle then: Would you agree that an un-afflicted object (a Buddha-rupa) for example, can elicit an afflicted mental state?
If approached as a possession, yes — which turns it into a zag bcas, a contaminated thing. If approached with devotion, no.

However you used the example of a Dharma practice (circumambulation), which is why I responded the way I did.
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Grigoris
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Re: all emotions are pain?

Post by Grigoris »

If an un-afflicted object can give rise to an afflicted state, then why would the reaction to the object (an object in it's own right) not be capable of giving rise to an afflicted state?

I mean surely one can approach circling a stupa as a possession: "My circumambulation."

Or circumambulation can be practiced for self-centred purposes.

Etc... :shrug:
"My religion is not deceiving myself."
Jetsun Milarepa 1052-1135 CE

"Butchers, prostitutes, those guilty of the five most heinous crimes, outcasts, the underprivileged: all are utterly the substance of existence and nothing other than total bliss."
The Supreme Source - The Kunjed Gyalpo
The Fundamental Tantra of Dzogchen Semde
Tolya M
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Re: all emotions are pain?

Post by Tolya M »

It depends, because mental conditions varies. There is no circulating around stupa apart from your rupa and nama. Tipitakadhara says vinAya-sUtta-abhidhaMma: AUM AUM AUM and he is in anagamin-nibbana-phala-samapatti. I'm saiyng AUM for one billion times and nothing happens, because my roots are weak. I don't recognise even what is lobha and why it leads to dukkha, so I have a vicikiccha-moha-mula-citta thinking that need for paying respect to the chetiya is painful. Buddha-rupa can't do anything with your mind. It can't be an un-afflicted object apart from your adosa\amoha\alobha. it can't elicit anything in your state apart from your nama. It is object of your vijnana. Even inscriptions of 4AS and N8P can work as alambana-pratyyaya in tirthika's mind and cause akusala-kamavacara-cittas to arise... :shrug:
Malcolm
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Re: all emotions are pain?

Post by Malcolm »

Grigoris wrote:If an un-afflicted object can give rise to an afflicted state, then why would the reaction to the object (an object in it's own right) not be capable of giving rise to an afflicted state?

I mean surely one can approach circling a stupa as a possession: "My circumambulation."

Or circumambulation can be practiced for self-centred purposes.

Etc... :shrug:

Even the Buddha talked about "his robes, his sangha." Conventional markers of identity and possession are not necessarily afflictive.

The point of practicing Dharma is to cause positive path dharmas to arise in the mind, and transforming afflictive positive mental factors into nonafflictive positive mental factors.

I really have no idea why anyone practicing Dharma would practice for any other reason. Certainly there are people who appear to be practicing sublime Dharma who are in fact practicing the eight worldly Dharmas, but what is the point of dwelling on the mistakes of others?

You initially brought up this unqualified example:
I can, for example, have a pleasurable feeling while circling a stupa and then get attached to the action and feeling, so that when I am not circling a stupa I feel distress (or I feel a desire/need to experience the positive feeling again and this brings me distress.
I responded to your example with the assumption that you were presenting in good faith an example of sublime Dharma practice that somehow could lead to suffering. Now I find myself in another exchange with you that seems to be heading nowhere but to pointless nitpicking over what are, from my perspective, needless trivialities.
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Grigoris
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Re: all emotions are pain?

Post by Grigoris »

You are avoiding my question, and I am not engaging in nitpicking, I am trying to understand your opinion.

I am not engaging in judgement of others, I am engaging in this line of questioning because I find MYSELF sometimes engaging with non-afflicted objects in an afflicted manner.

Which is why your statement comes as a surprise to me: not on the basis of my experience of the actions of others, but on the basis of my own experience.
"My religion is not deceiving myself."
Jetsun Milarepa 1052-1135 CE

"Butchers, prostitutes, those guilty of the five most heinous crimes, outcasts, the underprivileged: all are utterly the substance of existence and nothing other than total bliss."
The Supreme Source - The Kunjed Gyalpo
The Fundamental Tantra of Dzogchen Semde
Malcolm
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Joined: Thu Nov 11, 2010 2:19 am

Re: all emotions are pain?

Post by Malcolm »

Grigoris wrote:You are avoiding my question, and I am not engaging in nitpicking, I am trying to understand your opinion.

I am not engaging in judgement of others, I am engaging in this line of questioning because I find MYSELF sometimes engaging with non-afflicted objects in an afflicted manner.

Which is why your statement comes as a surprise to me: not on the basis of my experience of the actions of others, but on the basis of my own experience.

If one's "practice" is involved with the eight worldly dharmas, it is not sublime Dharma practice, and in the words of the Kadampa seven point mind training, one should not reduce gods to demons.

If one's set one's activities with the right motivation, how can they lead to anything other than the development of the 37 adjuncts to awakening, beginning with the five indriyas: faith, diligence, mindfulness, samadhi and wisdom?
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