Suresh,
All very well; but I'll excuse myself by admitting that I don't go in for
theories and model-building as much as I used to.
After beginning Zen practice and undergoing some experiences through practice,
I don't put much stock in models or theories, although doing so can sometimes
be useful and entertaining play. It can also take over one's mind and blind us
to what is before us.
You were concerned that waking-up more than once is not possible if one is a
Buddha, or "THE" Buddha. All I replied was that holding even the Buddha before
you can be an obstruction to YOUR practice, which is the most important
practice in the universe, and that the Buddha does not enter into that.
I have had respect for Ramana Maharshi since 1973 when I first encountered his
teaching, and in fact practiced some of his methods for a time, and have read
two of his books, which I still have on a shelf now.
But he was not a Buddhist, and in particular is not a Zen man.
The Zen lineage is important to me because it is a consistent line of practice
and concern, with a lot of variation and variety over the generations, which
has become purified and stronger with time, and teaches methods which have been
worked out over centuries through generations of teachers and great
practitioners guided by Wisdom and Compassion. The "quality-control" in our
Zen lineages is and has been very healthy and strong, and continues to be so
(in order that the tradition can be transmitted seamlessly and without
interruption -- nor with fits and starts -- to the future).
In contrast, Ramana Maharshi is a Hindu, and himself practiced a form of
Hinduism, guided by Hindu belief and tradition. You would know better what
this means than I do.
The Ch'an I was taught and practice is influenced more by old China than by
even the Buddhism of old India, and differs very much especially from the
theories and bases of the Hinduism of old India.
Ramana Maharshi may have a lineage, and a line of transmission within Hinduism,
but I do not see it. I feel now as if he was more of a one-off: a singular
personality, a renegade, a maverick, who may also have been blessed with a type
of autism or other mental or nervous-system singular condition which made his
behavior exceptional and truly "abnormal". I do not wish to emulate him! Yet,
I still appreciation his teaching and his effects on me when I began practicing
Yoga more intensively in my early 20s, a long time ago.
I won't talk about Lila being the play of God because in Buddhism there is no
God, you know.
I've "studied" Hinduism extensively in my 20s and while I was a Philosopher,
but I have not embraced it as a path. Its models and metaphors are beautiful,
but I have come to feel over the decades, more and more as I continue, that
practice is more important than model-making and model-adherence, and that, for
me, daily practice and occasional or sporadic awakening experiences are
necessary.
What is helpful is transformation: transformation which returns us to our true
and real human nature, and restores all the full compliment of our human
inheritance. Transformation is more important than "understanding" and
theorizing.
Models and metaphors have a "habit" of acting as palliatives, and can mollify
us, but they make no difference in us where the difference is needed!
What makes a difference is transformation, and experience.
For me and others, Zen practice is helpful there.
I still maintain that awakened Bodhisattvas can slide backward, because their
work is so intimate with the marketplace, and NOT with the jungle. And I
maintain that after Bodhisattvas slide backward, nonetheless, they can (and do,
given practice) awaken again.
This is achieved by practice, and by the power of their (our) Vows.
You can read this in books, and/or you can also accept that this is true from
my experience for me; it is, and I am reporting it here now.
It won't help you, though.
Only practice will help us.
And that is why I keep saying it. ;-)
--Joe
PS I don't suggest you become a Bodhisattva, and never made any such
suggestion. I say that practice is important. What kind of being you become
is decided by that practice. I don't say that free will decides or determines
this, but that practice does.
> "Suresh" wrote:
>
> Dear Joe,
>
> Thanks for the suggestion to take up the job of Bodhisattva
>
> It means you have not observed your life closely. When great
> people like Ramana Maharishi states that this world is illusion, it
> has to be understood as illusion. What he mean illusion is there is no
> individual `self', so all whatever is happening is according to `god'.
> So it follows certain rules, that is `karma' or newton's laws of
> motion.
[snip]
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