--- In [email protected], "Francisco Garcia Scherer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Many North American > practitioners are embedded in their sense that it is good and right > to realize and express individual selfhood. They often use Buddhism > to promote their individual health and welfare, to heigten awareness > of their own feelings, and to allow for more sucessful individual > engagement.
every culture has it's distinctive paradigms. i think (hope?) what is so powerful about buddhist teaching is that, from where ever you begin the journey - this practice will reveal your individual preferences/prejudices & allow one to 'close the gap' to simply being present to 'what is'. it seems to me that many people have doubts about americans (or westerners or...) 'receiving these teachings' in the proper way - which seems to me to reflect a certain lack a faith in the inherent nature of beings (am i only be responding to your post because of my own 'lack of faith' in the inherent nature of beings?). if humans are capable of experiencing an awakened state by simply (or not so simply) setting down their grasping/resistance to the world - allowing the world to 'arise' as it will, without causing us to create a reaction within 'ourselves' - then i imagine that what buddha was teaching indicates to us that we would manifest in the world as compassionate beings, with a deep gratitude for those who have shown us the way to set down our preferences. > Training in the capacity to experience our lives more fully > through mindfullness, to modulate our inner experience through > concentration, or to become more sucessful due to enhanced well-being > through meditation will serve to enhance our culturally constructed > sense of individuality. to the extent that one does truly "experience our lives more fully", then i tend to believe that one will find 'successfullness' would be less measured by material gain. part of the practice of learning to experience more fully is the practice of compassion & not harming other beings. > When we assimilate Buddhism, sometimes unconsciously, into our > concern for own individuality and happiness, we lose an opportunity > to freshly consider how our norms influence our experience of life > and whether we wish to alter our perspective. this is true for anyone regardless of the role that individualism plays in their concerns & desire for happiness. > My sense is that as Westerners, we yearn for the sense of > embeddedness and connectedness described in the social vision of > Buddhism. Yet we have some ambivalence as to whether recognizing our > relatedness might impair our sense of individual freedom. actually, i started off wanting to refute a good portion of this post - but this does seem to describe well the fundamental problem that we americans face with trying to set down our preferences... > How do we > consider and integrate Buddhist teachings concerning our profound > relatedness? good question - it would be nice to hear more discussion of this. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> In low income neighborhoods, 84% do not own computers. At Network for Good, help bridge the Digital Divide! http://us.click.yahoo.com/hjtSRD/3MnJAA/i1hLAA/S27xlB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Current Book Discussion: Appreciate Your Life by Taizan Maezumi Roshi. New or used at: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1570622280/ref=ase_actionheroesc-20/002-4507763-9442460?v=glance&s=books> Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZenForum/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
