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We lost an important family pet today and all day I keep thinking of “a cloud never dies” from Zen and it is very comforting. 
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Jan 25, 2021 02:06
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Thich Nhat Hanh passed away today. He often taught that a cloud never dies. A cloud may become rain, or a wave on the lake, or the liquid in your cup of tea, but it is never gone. We are clouds, and Thay is a cloud, forever alive in his community and his teachings. I came to the dharma by feeling pulled toward his book, The Other Shore, which is his translation and commentary on the Heart Sutra. From there I spent hours listening to his peaceful dharma talks and officially started identifying as a practitioner of Zen in the Plum Village tradition. Edit: Plum Village posted:Dear Beloved Community, https://plumvillage.org/about/thich-nhat-hanh/thich-nhat-hanhs-health/thich-nhat-hanh-11-11-1926-01-22-2022/ LuckyCat fucked around with this message at 00:26 on Jan 22, 2022 |
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Jan 22, 2022 00:20
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Thay’s views on rebirthThich Nhat Hanh posted:
https://www.lionsroar.com/be-beautiful-be-yourself-january-2012/amp/ LuckyCat fucked around with this message at 20:07 on Jan 22, 2022 |
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Jan 22, 2022 16:04
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Achmed Jones posted:hey luckycat, what's that from? Sorry I should have included a link. It was an article / interview in Lion's Roar: https://www.lionsroar.com/be-beautiful-be-yourself-january-2012/amp/ The Plum Village YT account also just uploaded this clip from a 2014 dharma talk given by Thay, titled "What happens when we die?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xLbZZAjjY8 LuckyCat fucked around with this message at 20:28 on Jan 22, 2022 |
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Jan 22, 2022 20:07
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The last week of memorial and ceremony has been moving to say the least, and has made me want to live the dharma more fully. One thing I have been greatly struggling with reconciling is my feelings on compassion for animals while continuing to eat meat. Today I lost a hen and really struggled with my emotions. After discovering her and tucking her away safely to cremate later I came inside to watch the livestream of Thay’s funeral procession and cremation ceremony. There was poetry, song, touching of the earth, and a sea of saffron as thousands of monks, nuns, and lay paid their respects. At the end I just had a feeling that my desire for meat had disappeared. Idk this is kind of a stream of consciousness post with no real meaning other than I am grieving and growing. 
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Jan 29, 2022 04:29
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Labels lead to suffering ultimately, but I prefer to think of it as a practice and not a religion.
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Feb 1, 2022 02:46
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For what it’s worth there are many ways to think of the pure land of the Buddha, and pure land Buddhism isn’t a requirement to believe or anything. My personal belief is that the pure land of the Buddha is available in the here and the now, through mindfulness, and not some other place or realm.
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Feb 7, 2022 04:20
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I am not nearly as scholastic as I imagine most in this thread are. Even just reading the above, I get the sense that the word “pure” relates more to “things as they are” and not how we perceive them. Like in the above, not tainted with our impure perceptions but that Pure Land doesn’t really imply (or at least my inference) “good” so much as reality as it truly is. In this sense and in the Zen tradition of Plum Village, TNH always spoke of the Pure Land or “Kingdom of God” is available to us in the present, we have only to return to our breath and our body (things as they are, out of our mind and our imperfect perceptions). The other view tickles my occasional pull into advaita though. What a cool topic.
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Feb 7, 2022 05:48
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When asked “how do you meditate?” to Ram Dass, his response was “I imagine wrapping myself in Maharajji’s blanket, then those I know, and then I surround the whole world in his blanket.” This has really stuck with me and I have a blanket in my house that is similar to Neem Karoli Baba’s, that when practicing metta I visualize that blanket as a ray of loving kindness.
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Feb 8, 2022 05:31
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I use the Plum Village app almost exclusively for the bell of mindfulness feature. It is a nice collection of teachings (sutras, discourses, etc), dharma talks, and meditations (including a meditation timer tool) I will sometimes dive into if I’ve got 15 minutes to kill and don’t feel like meditation and don’t want to kill my brain scrolling social media.
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Feb 11, 2022 19:09
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I’d be down to read a book together!
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Feb 11, 2022 23:05
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I haven't posted in a little while but I have SO ENJOYED the last several hundred posts and gained a lot of insight from them. Thank you! 2022 is shaping up to be a weird, and very good year for Lucky Cat as I get more comfortable with the idea of who I actually am and not what I think people, coworkers, books, the media, the sangha, or whoever thinks I ought to be (or they don't think it, but I do feel it). For about a year I've been struggling to find ways to connect all of my beliefs and practices. Am I a Buddhist? Am I a Hindu? Is it even worth labeling, and does the lack of a label prohibit me from being in any certain community and feeling identified with it? In 2014 I found Thich Nhat Hanh after I dropped out of college and started working at a "camping store, but for hippies." Between equipping people for through-hiking and mud treks in the rainforest, I wandered to our book department which has a spiritual & "steward of the earth" slant. Everything from books on how to keep your bees happy to The Other Shore, a translation of the Heart Sutra by TNH. This is where I began and after reading and failing to understand large swaths of it I dug deeper because I felt like there was something to learn from here. I read more books by TNH, some Pema Chodron, and others I wish I could remember that talked about mindfulness, meditation, Buddhism, death and dying, and spirituality in general (sometimes even eye-roll stuff that came with dubious testimonials like "after reading this book, I was able to align my chakras!!" and came packaged with a selenite crystal). The path of mindfulness provided a means to control my crippling anxiety, and for me, the Thien way of mindfulness made the most sense. Listening to dharma talks by not just TNH but other teachers of the Order of Interbeing calmed me and I felt armed me with tools to throw off the shackles of my mental illness. I had always had Wrong View, to the point where I had physically ill reactions to my ingrained habit of Wrong View. I started tuining in to Plum Village recordings and live sessions, dharma talks, Internet posts, and even stuff they would mail me. I was drawn in enough that I considered myself to be part of the community. I still do and I doubt this connection will ever fade. My wife had a penchant for discussions on Death and Dying, as an LMSW who minored in gerontology we talked about death daily. I was able to tie my new-found Buddhist views into this of "no birth, no death" and Thay's famous line "a cloud never dies" to where I felt like I became really comfortable thinking about it and discussing it. Right as our hippie camp store was getting ready to shudder it's doors for good, I took a leap of faith in a career I thought I had no chance in (especially being a college dropout with only retail experience). I applied to be a licensed broker at one of the largest brokerage firms in the world. They hired me- I got licensed, promoted, then promoted into leadership, and got my supervisory licenses where I now stand. I would NEVER have accomplished even 1% of that if I had never taken control of my anxiety. I think it's also worth noting I am also medicated- I don't want to diminish the power and importance of proper diagnosis and medication by a trained physician, and also therapy. Holy poo poo therapy is lovely. Like the Three Jewels, I consider my personal jewels to be: medicine, therapy, and mindfulness. Back to death: on Netflix was a documentary film with Ram Dass called "Ram Dass, Going Home." My elderly coworker who was a Vietnam draft dodger, connosieur of psychedelics, Dead-head and fan of Ram Dass, told me I should watch it given my interest in death. I watched it and felt a connection like I did that first time reading the Heart Sutra. OK, time to research Ram Dass. So I began listening to his talks on YouTube and reading his books. A lot of, if not all of, what he had to say vibed perfectly with our practice of Zen. If you've ever heard Ram Dass speak or read any of his books, you'll know he can't go 5 minutes without bringing up Neem Karoli Baba, or Maharajji as he is known to his devotees. Who was Maharajji, what was a guru, and could these views integrate with my own? Ram Dass was so pleasant, happy, and seemed like he had it figured out and I thought to myself "I want to be exactly like Ram Dass when I'm 80 and dying." Looking into Neem Karoli Baba started the next leg of my journey. I wasn't really comfortable with Ram, or Krishna, or Vishnu: and I also didn't know they were all the same being. I also didn't know that a large swathe of Hindu believe that the One Great Consciousness, who some call Krishna, or Brahman, or God, is me. There is no separate- it's all One. Much like in Buddhism, there is no separate self. And the kirtan fuckin kicked rear end and made me feel spiritual as all hell. I did always feel like TNH's flavor of Buddhism was a little sterile. In a way I appreciated it though. I read in one of his books that Zen and his particular brand was the Buddhism of Buddhism and Zen was getting back to the simple truth and expelling all of the grand fluff and religion that had pulled it back down. As someone born Catholic and used to the grandiose of religion as a child, this left me a little disappointed but the truth wasn't made to fit me. Back to Hinduism: I saw a picture of Maharajji and my heart almost stopped. I couldn't figure out what it was. Outwardly he looked like a big slightly overweight Indian dude that liked plaid blankets and to be surrounded by white dudes in the 60s. Then I found a recording of him saying one thing: Ram Ram Ram Ram Ram Ram Ram and he was in ecstasy. Thus began my second belief system. Bhakti Yoga, or the yoga of devotion and of the heart, the devotion to the names of God, the devotion to Oneself, the One, Ram. I have been able to swoop in and out of chanting the name of Ram for hours, driving to work belting out Hare Krishna, reciting the Hanuman Chalisa daily, all while retaining the practice of Zen cultivated by my discovery of TNH. If I dig really deep, there are conflicts between the two. That's probably obvious to everyone reading this. But the way I fell into them it is less obvious to me. For one- one believes in soul and the other doesn't. I think that's rather unimportant to me personally. The view of "no seperate self" and LOVE penetrates both thoroughly and I am quite happy to be a Zen practicing Hindu living in the Bible Belt. My statue of Hanuman sits feet away from a statue of the sitting Buddha, and I sit in front of them- sometimes in silence and sometimes chanting Ram Ram Ram Ram but I do so with a smile and closed eyes.
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Apr 19, 2022 02:35
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Hiro Protagonist posted:I get really figitty and itchy while meditating, and I find myself constantly readjusting my position. I don't know if that's due to lack of practice, overly avoiding unpleasant sensations, or ADHD taking over. It gets pretty annoying. Time of day and how I currently feel help out a lot for me. For example, if I wake up and I’m a bit drowsy, I find I can easily settle into a relaxing meditative state. The tricky part is just not falling back asleep, but if you remove yourself from bed and sit in the sunlight of the morning in a lotus position right after waking up, at least I have found this to be ideal. Also in general if I’m sitting around and notice I have low stress and calm energy. I take advantage of that by settling into meditation. Other times, my bodily senses are too heightened and I get itchy, fidgety, and easily distracted. A few times I’ve successfully worked through that. Normally if I can sit for 10 minutes in attempted meditation, it will eventually turn into a much more focused meditative state. All of the above are things I’ve noticed about myself but your adventure my vary! Experimentation is key to finding out what works and what doesn’t. I approach it like sleeping. If I lay in bed for more than 10 minutes and still can’t fall asleep, I get up and do something else until my next attempt. E: I also forgot to mention walking meditation. No matter how fidgety I am I can normally do this with success.
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May 5, 2022 23:11
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Does anyone else feel guilty for killing insects? This year it is bothering me more than it usually does. There’s been a colony of ants that make frequent, but not really problematic, excursions into our house and my reaction is to put a stop to it. Or when an ant is crawling on the kitchen counter to just tap it with my finger and it ceases to be. If I think about it, even just walking outside I am killing insects on accident and that doesn’t make me feel guilty like intentionally killing them does. I’ve also held off on our annual pest control service because of this. Any Buddhist insight into this issue?
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May 10, 2022 19:38
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Great food for thought. Thank you!
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May 10, 2022 21:40
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I have found success with mudita meditation- sympathetic joy or imagining and feeling the success of others! It is challenging but it’s allowed me to grow my connection and love to others, including strangers.
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May 26, 2022 15:59
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Nessus posted:This is interesting, is there a routine or more detailed explanation? I would be interested. This is me being vulnerable and exposing one of the many ways I am a lovely person (I know it would be better to say I'm in progress, as we all are), but I've noticed sometimes that I get jealous of the success of others or if someone who I don't necessarily get along with achieves success it makes me feel bad things rather than good things. As a result, when I feel those moments popping up, I settle into imagining how they must feel (good) and just sitting in that feeling with concentration on them. I have a coworker who doesn't like me and he's also my senior, and I mostly work remote. When we have a meeting where he calls me out on a suggestion I make or an opinion I voice it frustrates me. He also gets recognized by leadership quite a bit. I do this a lot with him. The result is I'm feeling less resentment and, at the moment, more neutral- but working toward radiating love inward and outward toward him. Oftentimes I do this while chanting the name of Ram or "om hanumate namah" but you can Buddhify it to your liking!
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May 27, 2022 15:34
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I came across this story from a Hindu perspective:”Sri Sathya Sai Baba” posted:
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May 28, 2022 16:52
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I’ll channel e/n here a little bit but sometimes the best thing you can do to break the cycle of attachment/romantic love is to sever for a period. If you know it’s bringing you suffering and can’t seem to find a way to stop feeling that way, you could try distancing yourself until those feelings are under control before returning to the friendship under new dharmic light. Another option that has been discussed in this thread is meditation of sympathetic joy. Meditating imagining and feeling the joy she will have when she meets the one, and the joy the other person will feel meeting her.
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Jun 5, 2022 23:15
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catgirlgenius that was a good post. About the connection to sangha being difficult, most lately I find myself reading and listening to a variety of “gurus” and just taking what I need. For example Sadhguru has some great stuff to say about not identifying with your mind or body, but then says things like “don’t eat this ingredient on a full moon it’s bad karma!!” which I don’t jive with. TNH always said that he thought the next Buddha would be a community. He also spoke against attachment- so I’m not sure in this day and age we really need to attach to a particular geographical sangha. Maybe the sangha now and the maitreya buddha is just the community of those yogis and sadhus earnestly seeking moksha in this world.
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Jun 6, 2022 23:49
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It looks like the mantra “Om namah Shivaya” I don’t know what the 10 outer symbols are.
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Jun 9, 2022 08:46
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In the news this weekend is about a Google engineer who has been placed on leave after claiming Google's LaMDA AI is sentient. I was perusing the conversation the engineer had with the AI in order to "prove" to Google that it had gained sentience, and one of the methods utilized the AI's interpretation of a Zen koan:Conversation posted:lemoine: Okay. I thought of a different way we can test your ability to provide unique interpretations. I can share with you a zen koan and you can describe what it means to you in your own words. How does that sound? Full transcript here.
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Jun 13, 2022 02:31
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Nessus posted:Got a good sit in last night, no big revelations. I think I need to follow a more determined method than just the breath, though. It is easy for me to just have thoughts start rising and meandering in a way when they kind of slip past my radar as I get comfortable. I’ve been experiencing an elevated heart rate in the evenings for a few weeks now (I have a Dr appt coming up for it). The last 2 nights I’ve been disconnecting sooner, reading something fulfilling (the Tantric Dialogues of Shiva and Shakti are amazing), and just deep breathing. After 30 minutes or so my heart rate comes back down. I’m also able to go to sleep easier. I wish I had tried/learned to do this years ago. I’m hoping this isn’t an elevation of a decades long anxiety disorder. On mind wandering, listening to talks from Eckart Tolle has been the best I’ve personally found for learning to deal with that. He used an example where he pauses for dramatic effect mid sentence, then continues after a few brief moments, and then points out that in that moment none of us were thinking; we were just awaiting the continuation of his sentence. That for me was a light bulb moment because, as brief as they are, it’s a direct and easily experienced “no thought” moment I can look to as an example to emulate, nourish, and grow.
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Jun 16, 2022 20:41
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I flew to Boulder this week for kirtan with Krishna Das as part of the Buddhist Arts and Film Festival. As someone who lives in a state & city that is very red and only accepting of Protestant Christians it was absolutely wonderful to open the Bhakti heart with hundreds of others. The maha mantra (Hare Krishna, Hare Rama) was the one where most people were up out of their seats but my personal favorites were Om Namo Baghavate Vasudevaya, Jai Ram Shree Ram / Sitaram and most of all the Hanuman Chalisa. Thanks for letting me poo poo up the Buddhism thread with Hindu nonsense, namaste. 
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Jun 23, 2022 04:41
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Sometimes I feel anxiety when posting so I’ve chosen to post this instead of what I actually posted but basically I was just seconding that the Gita provides a perspective on this convo!
LuckyCat fucked around with this message at 02:29 on Jun 26, 2022 |
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Jun 25, 2022 22:27
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Cephas posted:I know this is a recurring topic for me, but can I ask for perspectives on what it means to love someone and be in a relationship with them? I am not really asking from the perspective of "Buddhism and relationships" but more like, as folks who have a generally similar worldview as me, I would appreciate hearing your perspectives. Here are some rambling thoughts about a few things you said from the perspective of a very incomplete human. Sex is what you want it to be. I don’t think sex is “supposed” to be any certain way. If safety is important to you (I’m inferring this as trust) then that is what the primary attribute should be in any sexual situation you enter into. I believe that you get to define the parameters. Everyone’s path is different and societal expectations can be rough. In my opinion, let go of these expectations and maybe even your own expectations and just go with the flow. I’m 35 and we have no kids- her catholic family thinks that is strange. We used to feel pressured by it but eventually we just let go. Our choice of when and how and if to have children are part of our path, independent of societal expectations. “Does having a partner increase your quality of life and capacity for goodness?” It can. It can also decrease quality and capacity. Again, I don’t know anything, but fulfillment can be found in letting go of expectations and just being. When you have a partner, it’s easy to expect things of them and vise verse and this can lead to suffering in both. On the flip side, if you can both “turn on, tune in, and drop out” to quote Timothy Leary, together you can make your relationship just more grist for the mill. My wife and I are best friends. Like Lakshmi and Vishnu I think that we are born age after age and have each other. Every year is better than the last year and this year it will be our 9th. How we express love for each other is in humor, service, and loving presence. We don’t have traditional romantic love between us, at least not visibly. We don’t do lovey-dovey. We find that the key to our partnership is in being best friends and not getting caught up in how we “ought” to be. Since finding the dharma I think I am able to love her, and everyone in my life, in a much more divine, spacious, open, and less attached manner. I don’t know how to wrap up this post but sending out rays of loving kindness to you.
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Jun 29, 2022 04:54
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I am curious if anyone has experience "coming out" to a family of evangelical Christians? I'm spending a week in a rented vacation house with my mom's side of the family and at this stage of my life, I don't feel like hiding. I'm not expecting anyone to be mad at me but I know at least one person will make side comments about Jesus is the only way. This same woman got snarky with me once when I accidentally brought up the beauty of human evolution at a pool party.
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Jul 9, 2022 19:27
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Pollyanna posted:I enjoy the process quite a bit when I am free of the expectations, The Great Way is paved for those who have no preferences*. -3rd Chinese Patriarch of Zen *sometimes also translated as expectations.
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Jul 28, 2022 18:31
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Christ said it well when he said “be in the world but not of the world.” I also think about Krishna urging Arjuna to do what needs to be done that is his worldly duty, but not identifying with the actor that is doing. We all practically have to live our lives but I believe we can still work toward being identified with our consciousness and not the thinking and doing actor.
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Jul 29, 2022 21:27
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Eckart Tolle is always soothing listening for things like that to me, and for other podcast listening I like the Be Here Now podcast, though it’s not dharma talks very often- sometimes it’s interviews, sometimes a classic Ram Dass lecture, etc etc
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Aug 27, 2022 21:03
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Joseph Goldstein has episodes on the Be Here Now podcast and I love those episodes.
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Sep 26, 2022 15:54
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