Bodhisattva Vows

[ayar415]

Originally Posted by AbodhiSky

This part: Just look at it he said, don't do anything. Watch it without succumbing to any impulse to feed the poor...

Do you mean I took what Krishnamurti said ("don't do anything") literally and that's the wrong conclusion? I did ponder about what he meant for quite a while. And when someone (in a dialogue session) said "we need to help", Krishnamurti snapped "don't help! Who are you to help?" "Observe the movement of thought", he would say, "just watch it."

One time, in Southeast Asia, I was walking along a path on my way to town. I came upon an old Tamil guy sitting on the grass by the side of the road. Our eyes met and I hesitated. He stuck out his hand to beg, his eyes imploring. I could have walked on but decided to try out the Krishnamurti teaching. I just stood there looking at him. I didn't do anything no matter how strong my impulse was to give him some money as people would in that situation of the beggar and the benefactor. Wow, I realized then that I had assumed a role and was compelled by the mind to act out the part and give to the poor. I resisted. The beggar was perplexed by my inaction and begged with more fervor. I just stood there for several minutes and sat down on a tree stump when I felt tired. The old guy eventually got tired also and lowered his outstretched hand. It was then that I was liberated from the horrible karma of the benefactor. He got up slowly and ambled away. I was overcome with guilt and cursed myself for being a heartless idiot playing with an old man just to test out my version of zazen. Just then, I spotted something on the ground where that old man sat. It was a bottle of cheap toddy. Apparently, he was sitting on the ground to wait for his drunken stupor to wear off. Had I succumbed to my impulse and given him a couple of US dollars "to feed the poor", he would have had gone for another fix.

We Americans suffer from this horrible disease of doing good. We have this compulsion to feel good by doing good. Feeling good about oneself is what spirituality is all about, isn't it? It's all about compassion. And if you don't have it, you are the bad guy.

[sky]

Originally Posted by Skull

Great Compassion is vital to Mahayana, so not surprisingly there are mantras with that focus. This one advocated & used by Master Hsuan Hua has amazing powers for good, if used with full sincerity - as the following video shows. The text of it online in many places.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGmNNHmXeAM

You might enjoy this Skull.
https://youtu.be/ntBfYFFlbV8

[The Cobbler's Apprentice]

"Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It's a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.”

(Pema Chodon.......hopefully this quote will be allowed. I have learnt much from it)

Of course, then there is "pity".

[The Cobbler's Apprentice]

I've read bits and pieces of Krishnamurti. I found most of it went through one ear and out the other. His words sometimes "caught" but more often than not they were empty air. I'm happy to accept I was/and am at fault.

"Just take what you need and leave the rest" (A line from "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" by Robbie Robertson) It's often good advice (although the next line makes it slightly problematic..... "but they should never have taken the very best". Can we ever know for certain what is best for us?)

Anyway, I waffle. It's been a trying day for one reason or another. One bit I did take from Krishnamurti (the best? who knows) was that he often said something along the lines of "when seen it is over". I think an analogy would be a hot-plate. When seen as bright red we know it will burn. Our hand will not go near. This can be seen as applying to much of what the Buddha taught, his constant reference to what brings, causes, is suffering. Once truly seen, it is over.

Personally I am a very judgemental person. I often make instant judgements.......a book and its cover etc . But often now (it seems not a case of all or nothing) there is no judgement. Seen as suffering, judgement simply does not arise. (I suppose some might argue we need to judge in order to act......maybe something to think about!)

"When I speak well of myself
And ill of another
The autumn wind chills my lips"

(Basho)

Originally Posted by ayar415

that's the wrong conclusion?

well not wrong in my view, incomplete. there is more to it. like I would not donate money for people or beggars to get high either. i would help someone needing food though.

it's complicated and hard to understand as the creators of us are far more aware and intelligent than us. there are many factors to be aware of at the same time to truly understand and the human brain is very limited in this.

for example, what we "are" in any given moment in time effects what we do. a good example of this is somebody under a great deal of stress. like say they got laid off from their job, they have a pregnant wife at home and bills to pay, electricity and water and they don't have the money to pay their bills, their landlord just sent them a note raising their rent $400 and on and on, their car broke... then say the persons mother comes to the door and says, "you look bad, get a haircut, no wonder you got laid off" and they guy snaps and yells and curses at his mom, slams the door in her face...

there are always tons of examples in the news of people "snapping" and doing violent things because of stress. now say that guy above won the lottery that morning, then his mom comes to the door and says the same thing, the guy would probably laugh.

what we are, our state of being, affects what we do. getting to the point, if we are without ego, humble, selfless, no conflict within of any kind, then this state of being determines how we act and respond, what we do. if we encounter somebody we can help we do. we don't have to think about it. the action flows naturally out of what and who we are.

you see a homeless person asking you for money, you look, observe, understand, make a judgement if he is going to use the money to get high or to get food. there are a lot of scammers who beg. they beg, then get in their 40,000 car they have hidden around the corner. I've seen that. but then others are truly needy and encountering real problems through no fault of their own, unless one brings in karma. but even then, if we can help we do, it is natural when one realizes we are all one.

one would not hesitate to help their child, well when one is enlightened, all, everyone, is like our child, we love all.

Originally Posted by The Cobbler's Apprentice

"when seen it is over".

I've seen so many teachers say some version of this. Buddha right through Tolle. I just read a version of this the other day once again. It's everywhere. Summed up as forget the past, don't think about the future, be here now in this current moment, alert, awake, aware.

It's pretty much a core teaching in a heck of a lot of teachers or so called "enlightened" people.

The issue is experiencing now through these filters of the past. Heck I woke up this morning and the same old memories came up in my mind. Making now colored by the past. We tend to experience what we are thinking about more than what is actually happening now externally. Thoughts can drown out everything else.

How to be free of something our brains do automatically? Good question. We can't be free of it. We are hardwired into this animal body and it's brain until we are not. So what can we do? We can recognize when our attention is on our thoughts, when we are focused on thought..... that's it, when we are aware we are doing something not pleasant, we stop doing it. The "cause" is the lack of awareness we are doing it. Well we are not doing "it" it is a habit or function of the brain. What "we" do is go along with it in a passive way.

I woke up, my brain offered up some bad memory from the past, and I looked at it, let my attention naturally and passively dwell on it... because I was not being aware of what I was doing.

Krishnamurti said once it is like seeing a snake. When you see it you jump away. The problem is we don't see it. We don't know we can be free of the past. Free from all conflict. All we have to do is see the snake. The seeing is the jump away. It's not two actions, it is one.

Buddha was asked if he was a man or a God. He said I am awake. He saw the snake.

[Skull]

Here is the text of the Great Compassion mantra, line by line. Master Hua has a verse for each line, his verses are in English. Both mantra & Bodhisattva Hua's verses are worthy of reciting, memorizing, writing out & using in cultivation.

http://www.drbachinese.org/online_re...u/contents.htm

[ayar415]

Originally Posted by AbodhiSky

It's pretty much a core teaching in a heck of a lot of teachers or so called "enlightened" people.

Pretty depressing, isn't it? I get this feeling that we are all going to die a dog's death.

Originally Posted by AbodhiSky

How to be free of something our brains do automatically? Good question. We can't be free of it.

I don't think it is the brain doing it. I don't accept Krishnamurti's allusion to the brain cells having something to do with thought. He just didn't have the chutzpah, that self-confidence to face down the scientific community and state outright that they had got it wrong: consciousness does not come from the brain. To do that, he would have to provide an empirical basis for stating that and resolve the hard problem of consciousness. Krishnamurti didn't have the intellectual training to articulate his proof. "He who knows is not learned. The learned does not know." (Tao Te Ching)

Krishnamurti had not only "seen it", but he also described it - when it manifested several occasions - in his Notebook and Journal: that state when the sense of self-identity, the observer, the ego, ceased to exist.

"Living is dying," Krishnamurti said, "Die before the body dies". I think that is the deathless state that Siddharta was after. Cobbler would equate that with Dogen's "casting off mind and body" zazen. But what is the point of this? Apart from a means for Dogen and His Holiness, and some forum members here to escape and space out for a few moments of ecstatic joy, what value is that to the ongoing human experience of suffering all over the planet? To each his own? Is that it? If that is the case, I would rather have a billion dollars in the bank and get my 4 minute weightless space ride whenever I feel like it

[The Cobbler's Apprentice]

Originally Posted by ayar415

"Living is dying," Krishnamurti said, "Die before the body dies". I think that is the deathless state that Siddharta was after. Cobbler would equate that with Dogen's "casting off mind and body" zazen. But what is the point of this? Apart from a means for Dogen and His Holiness, and some forum members here to escape and space out for a few moments of ecstatic joy, what value is that to the ongoing human experience of suffering all over the planet? To each his own? Is that it? If that is the case, I would rather have a billion dollars in the bank and get my 4 minute weightless space ride whenever I feel like it

The reported words of the Buddha, time and time again, throughout the Theravada texts (purported to be the closest we can get to the actual historical Buddha) were "I teach this and this alone, suffering (dukkha) and the ending of suffering." Ecstatic states were not the aim. The "heartwood of the Dharma" again according to the Theravada texts, was/is "unshakeable deliverance of mind".

Dogen was a man of flesh and blood, dealt his cards (as we all are) of a particular time and place. 13th century Japan. From early on, learning from personal tragedy the ephemeral nature of life, he developed his own questions, sought his own time and place. He travelled to China in his quest to learn and understand.

His answer, when found, was not to withdraw into some somnolent or estatic spaced out state of mind, no matter what may be made by some of "dropping body and mind". I seek to understand. Dogen found his answers, and left a large corpus of works that many now find illuminating in their own quest for understanding.There own quest, involving their own questions, their own time and place.

I was first attracted to Dogen by the book "Eihei Dogen:Mystical Realist" by Hee Jin-Kim. As I have said before, I feel the power of words. The combination of "mystical" and "realist" was for me a potent and suggestive one. Please try to understand that like Dogen, I seek no inner state of ecstasy or escape from the realities of this world. I seek to live in it doing the best I can to alleviate suffering where found and also to deliver my own mind from dukkha.

Not being rude, but I would appreciate it if you stopped surmising and presuming how I may or may not think and keep instead to simply explaining your own beliefs and experiences.

Thank you.

[ayar415]

Originally Posted by The Cobbler's Apprentice

Not being rude, but I would appreciate it if you stopped surmising and presuming how I may or may not think and keep instead to simply explaining your own beliefs and experiences.
Thank you.

You are me, my friend. You insist on being someone else, another human being distinctly separate from every other. THIS is the suffering. Fragmented, as Krishnamurti said. Each piece with its own peculiar beliefs.

How are we to be together when you insist on being apart?