Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: The trouble with Buddhists

[Llundrub]

You lump all Buddhists together and then separate some schools out.  Like Nicherin and Pure land. Which is it? Are Buddhists nihilists or not?   If you really want a clue start by reading the Madhyamikavatara by Chandrakirti.    The life and stories of Buddha are truely beautiful.  Buddha is said to have taught 84,000 teachings. He started teaching when he was 34 and taught until he died at 80 under the same type of tree that he was born under. The Sal tree. A totally common Indian forest tree. He was born in the woods and died in the woods. His life is not some common story but is the story of the sadhu in retreat figuring out what the limits of the human mind are. He is the Aranyaka. The inward movement of human mental capability. Go figure.    One of the main features of Buddhism of any school is the emphasis on meditation by all people regardless of caste, creed, or denomination, race, sex, or lifestyle. This is a difference between other yogic schools which have great committments usually, and or demand life changes before starting, and which are for the most part sexist.    A secondary and truely useful feature of Buddhism in general is that since all Buddhist masters developed through meditation, in the Buddhist cannon and commentaries, the Kangyur and Tangyur, are a profound wealth of real meditation experiences and outcomes which are plain in wording and easy to follow. This is helpful as a guide. Something not truely available anywhere else in any other religion even Hinduism.   Even in the Buddhist tantras are so much profound knowledge that as soon as discovered one wonders, what took me so long too find this precious knowledge. Even today, 2,500 years later enough people of realization in the world thank Buddha for the directions, that Buddhism is totally alive still. And thanks to the Stupa building and other monument building of Buddha lovers world wide, each one jam packed full of Buddhist artifacts, Buddhism will never die out on this planet. A time capsule of Buddhism will exist somewhere forever or as close to that as is valuable to know.   Furthermore, Buddhist is not doom and gloom and does not have dire prophecies about world wide destruction so it enables one to relax and not strike some assumed and fanatical stance. Nor does it preach.   Moreover, there is not one goal of Buddhists per se. There are nine main rides in Buddhism.  To all who read this I recommend the study of the 'highest first.' That is called Dzogchen, the Great Perfection, and I recommend the specific books, Heart Drops of Dharmakaya, and Wonders of the Natural Mind.   Of course that is because I regard most of you highly as real yogis, or meditation masters, or otherwise I would recommend studying the outer Vajrayana teachings first like the Ngondro and preliminaries.   For myself, when I hear the Buddha's teachings it really takes me back a couple thousand years and it's very soothing. On Saka Dawa, hearing Buddha's life story again I broke down crying yet again. The story always gets me. It's very powerful to hear it from a Lama who has tried to actualize the teachings in every thought word and deed. The same careful teachings of love for all, the 4 Noble, and compassion are the same today as they were yesterday. It's a message that doesn't change. It didn't change in the first hundred years after Buddha, nor in the first thousand years, nor in the second thousand years, nor will it change in the third thousand, and the message is still clear and can be explained to the intellect's satisfaction.   I hope you all find intellectual satisfaction about the path to liberation in this very life. May you all be healthy wealthy and wise.         ----- Original Message ----- From: hyperbolicgeometry To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Monday, May 16, 2005 10:59 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: The trouble with Buddhists -More jewels of wisdom (below).  In addition, most Buddhists are nihilists and have been duped into the false idea that after getting Enlightened, dropping the body (and all subtle bodies) is a "higher" state of evolution than maintaining a body. Even on logical grounds this is baloney since the Absolute is Absolute regardless of whether a "body is present or not.  Besides, why would one not maintain a body for an infinity of time in order to assist others in attaining the goal of Enlightenment.  This is the Boddhisattva vow (valid for Buddhas who wish to maintain a body in some realm in order to help others).  I don't see how others can be helped without bodies to do the work.   However, the illogic of the nihilistic schools of Buddhism is not shared by the Pure Land School or the followers of Nichiren.  In the Pure Land school, one attains Enlightenment then continues to live indefinitely with a subtle body in the Pure Land of the Amitabha Buddha.  n FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "demaris4" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Good one...  According to OUR SPIRITUAL HERITAGE (the book), the > trouble with Buddhism is its "pernicious egalitarianism."  Hmmm. > > d4 > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, off_world_beings <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: > > The trouble with Buddhists is that they are too attached to > Buddhism > > to be Buddhists. 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