On 7/26/05, mihaeru <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Well, I got a personal reply from Bhikkhu Samahita:
>
> my posting:
> >>What do you intend by sending these kind of
> >>messages? I am really wondering about that.
>
> Bhikkhu Samāhita's reply:
> >The supreme best state for all beings: Bliss!
>
> While I have read some really good comments about intention (thank you
> very much for this Neutral Milk!!!), I am still not convinced about
> the true intentions of Bhikkhu Samāhita. What is this bliss?
>
> Unless you are not using your own words and expressions, your postings
> remain essentially hollow and thus more or less unnessarily.
> After all, we could all start to copy some texts from the scriptures
> and post them to this mailinglist. These texts maybe valuable but soon
> - this mailinglist would be dead, wouldn't it?
>
> This mailinglist is living because humans are involved here, humans
> with their problems to understand the dharma or the practice of zen.
> Humans that would like to >>exchange<< about Zen practice and this
> very Life.
>
> So, what about posting some real personal experiences? As far as I
> know, you left as a physician Copenhagen/Denmark and your family to go
> to Sri Lanka to become a monk. What are your reasons for doing so?
>
> And please - don't use the scriptures as a resource for your answer :-).
>
> It is all about life! Isn't it this, why the old patriarchs said,
> don't slander the Buddha, when using the words of the Buddha?
We seem to be caught between the two currents in the general
discussion on this forum:
a) one that advocates using the supporting material (i.e. the
scriptures), quoted appropriately to the context of the discussion
b) another one that advocates avoiding using the supporting material
(not using the scriptures as a resource, but drawing on life itself)
These two currents seem to reflect different philosophies, different
outlooks on life. It's a tug of war, and it may be difficult to see
which side has higher merit.
Leo Tolstoy wrote (and I paraphrase from memory): "All happy families
look very similar; it is only when we compare unhappy families that we
see how each one of them is totally unique."
Same thing applies to the practice of Buddhadharma -- fully
accomplished practitioners tend to blend into the generic backdrop of
the Buddhist practice. They all seem to be only bent on doing good,
and avoiding all harmful acts. As such, they appear quite
'uninteresting'.
It is the rejects, the downtrodden, the destitute, the flakey ones,
that appear to be the most 'interesting'. Each and every one of them
is highly unique, with a 'one in a million' life story to tell.
But the question is: can we learn anything spiritually uplifting from
those deluded people?
Current Book Discussion: Appreciate Your Life by Taizan Maezumi Roshi
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