|
|
 |
|
| Author |
 Topic  |
|
Frank-in-SanDiego
USA
363 Posts |
 Posted - Jan 19 2006 : 11:57:53 PM
|
Hari Om
~~~~~~~
quote:
Originally posted by Jim and His Karma
in one posting you're annoyned by my attempt to clarify, and in the next you seem to be asking for clarification
Hello Jim, and no worries.
There are two different subjects at hand being addressed as I see it.
One is on your experience in isle 5  - fun to read and am happy for you. I did get what you said and tried to relate, yet that did not work out - go figure. So, we can drop that and not waste any BTU's on that one.
The other is on comparing and contrasting Buddhism and Hinduism ( Sanatana Dharma) - Here I asked if you wished to explain further if you cared to. My point was I think I have a pretty good handle on Vedanta and see repeatedly the theme of 'One without a second' as a key theme. Now, if there is a difference between the knowledge 'Vedanta' and the worship ~ Hinduism ~ then perhaps your observation may apply. Yet it does not match the knowledge base that it( Hinduism) rests on.
Now the brilliance of Sanatana Dharma w/o getting long winded or lecturing is how the sages metered it out to the unenlightened ( that would be me and a few others in Kali Yuga) to understand the knowledge of SELF. That is, the 6 systems of Indian Philosophy that we need not pursue for this discussion. Yet, the culmination of all the wisdom of these 6 systems ends in Vedanta, literally the end of the Vedas or ~ the final say.
It confidently proclaims 'all this is ONE without a second'. Hence my conversation here. If in fact Buddhism proclaims the same, all well and good and I see no difference, yet you have called attention that there is a difference, and I am eager to see how so?
Peace,
Frank In San Diego
|
 |
|
|
Juliet
43 Posts |
Posted - Jan 20 2006 : 07:04:41 AM
|
Loved this whole thread. And, Victor and Jim, I'm in Berkeley, too. Let's hook up some time and check out the produce vibe at Berkeley Bowl together or something...
Juliet |
|
|
|
david_obsidian
USA
2602 Posts |
Posted - Jan 20 2006 : 10:19:18 AM
|
Jim said:
so maybe better for me to resolve my work stress, get back into the practice groove, and try again later...
Hi Frank,
Since I have been perhaps a bit ungraceful towards Jim (or at least the pot who challenges the kettle), I'll try to make it up and like the good elf who made the shoes for the shoemaker, I'll try to have your question answered for Jim by the time he gets back.
I am only trying to clear up what I think Jim is saying. I am not teaching you Vedanta --- and I'm sure you have fifty times the knowledge of Vedanta that I have.
This is my understanding, which may be sketchy.
There is a belief (within that vast array called Sanatana Sharma) that there is an 'Atman', in its meaning as an eternal individual soul or identity.
The buddha did find this belief to be very prevalent, and maybe the most common point of view in 'Hinduism' at the time. He did very directly repudiate this 'individual-atman' belief. He said no such eternal-individual-atman exists, though he did say reincarnation does happen.
While his point of view was quite controversial, and a departure point, I don't expect it was original, in the sense that he was probably not at all the first to think of it. I expect there were certainly others who were on the same track. Who knows how long Buddha's point of view on this existed in India.
But what we do know is that Vedanta existed in India from at least around the time of Buddha--ish. Was it influenced by Buddha, or the other way around, did it exist before him and was he influenced by it? I don't know if that is known. I think it is not known (in the secular-scholarly sense). But Vedanta shares, pretty squarely, the Buddha's point of view on this issue, though it uses different language. As Jim said:
Says J&K:
Note that both hinduism and buddhism are immense, so anything you say about either can be contested. Advaita/vedanta mostly skips Atman, and is nearly identical in many ways to certain strains of Buddhism. But, moving along....
When Vedantins speak of Atman, they do not mean an eternal, individual-atman. There is only one Atman to a Vedantin, and that is Brahma.
The Buddhists will say the Atman does not exist. The Vedantins will say the atman exists but is one with Brahma.
They are not actually contradictory -- they are saying exactly the same thing, but are using language differently; the meaning of atman is different to them both.
The Buddhists are actually saying that the eternal-individual-atman does not exist. The Vedantins agree, and the eternal atman which they say exists, is not individual, but is identical with Brahma, and there is only one.
I hope that clears it up.
|
Edited by - david_obsidian on Jan 20 2006 12:20:13 PM |
|
|
|
Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - Jan 20 2006 : 12:43:12 PM
|
Since we're nudging Buddhist in this thread, here's a story from the Buddha:
Two wise men find a dying man in the road with an arrow through his liver. They examine the arrow, and determine its place of manufacturer. They examine its location, and learnedly decode the body processes that are causing him to die. They examine the angle of penetration and determine where the arrow had been shot from. And, during all this examination and erudition, the guy dies. If they'd just pulled out the damned arrow, he'd be ok.
So here I am typing into a yoga forum, discussing atman vs brahmin, reporting the insights I've gotten from having slackened my practice, and speculating about the woo woo glow of love coming from aisle 5 amid the rutabagas.
I need to shut up and go practice. I'll be back in a while! |
|
|
|
david_obsidian
USA
2602 Posts |
Posted - Jan 20 2006 : 12:58:14 PM
|
Ether, it's easy to miss this solo you broke into above during our jamming session (clip below). I appreciate it a lot.
This tendancy to 'throw the baby out with the bathwater' is indeed a nothworthy error. It seems to be a sort of bug in the human system.
Here's a question: isn't our tendency to halo-ize people the other side of the same coin?
We want to make people either all-good or all-bad. So is building up gurus to be all-good just part of the same immature way of relating that makes us leap for making people (such as the politicians) all bad?
Aren't both in a way, a rejection of our true, appropriate relationship with that person, as they really are?
Making people all-good, and all-bad is the way of children, isn't it?
quote:
Originally posted by Etherfish
So in order to love those we hate, we need to examine them closer and communicate with them.
People have a tendency to "throw the baby out with the bathwater" as they hear somebody did something terrible, so they decide it's inexcusable, and that person is on their blacklist forever. All they want to know is if the information is "true" or not, and they have no interest in further humanizing the person.
Etherfish
|
|
|
|
Frank-in-SanDiego
USA
363 Posts |
Posted - Jan 20 2006 : 10:23:30 PM
|
Hari Om
~~~~~~
quote:
Originally posted by david_obsidian
The Buddhists will say the Atman does not exist. The Vedantins will say the atman exists but is one with Brahma.
They are not actually contradictory -- they are saying exactly the same thing, but are using language differently;
Hello David,
Thanks,for your explanation... greatly appreciated.
I can see the Buddhist view as it resonates much closer to what is core to Vedanta (the end of the Veda) - there is no duality at all, so hence no Atman , because its all undivided whole consciousness.
The Upanishads proclaim all this is THAT, no duality at any level. It's further 'up-stream' in the Sankhya line of thought one can see the atman as part and parcel of ATMAN - or Cosmic SELF discussions.
Why is this? Knowledge is different in different states of consciousness (or development). This experience holds true ( atman and ATMAN relationship) for ones experience at a state of development. Then it advances (there are specific techniques called out in the Brahma-sutras for this development) to take one to the next level. Yet the entry fee for all this is that one realizes ones SELF, Turiya Consciousness, popularly called Cosmic Consciousness first. Once stable, 7x24x365, NOW some development really can take place and culminates in Brahman Consciousness... Then all this ( every part, parcel, past present and future) is Me, nothing but Me. I am Brahman. There is no-thing, idea, no little atman or big atman, in this fabric of consciousness because it is wholeness itSELF that cannot be divided. So says Vedanta and so I am taught, yet my knowledge is flawed due to my understanding this and not yet experiencing it.
Thank you for letting me write a bit about this... is very uplifting.
"...men may come and men may go, but I go on forever"
Frank In San Diego
|
Edited by - Frank-in-SanDiego on Jan 20 2006 10:48:19 PM |
|
|
|
Etherfish
USA
3615 Posts |
Posted - Jan 22 2006 : 10:43:58 AM
|
Thanks David,
>This tendancy to 'throw the baby out with the bathwater' is indeed a >nothworthy error. It seems to be a sort of bug in the human system.
>Here's a question: isn't our tendency to halo-ize people the other side of >the same coin?
>Making people all-good, and all-bad is the way of children, isn't it?
Yes, I totally agree idolizing someone is the other side of the coin to condemning someone. People who do it think there are extenuating circumstances; the person did something *so bad* or *so incredibly good* that they deserve it. But it's the same thing as enlightenment not being a permanent state that guarantees no further mistakes. There are no extenuating circumstances. nobody's worth idolizing, and nobody's bad enough to be condemned. It's fun to do either for a little while though.
Well, it should be the way of children to think black or white like this, but it seems to be the way of a majority of adults from my viewpoint! It isn't helped any by movies portraying people as all good or all bad.
I really appreciate the ones that don't. |
|
|
|
yogani99
USA
153 Posts |
Posted - Jan 22 2006 : 2:43:17 PM
|
quote:
Originally posted by Etherfish
Thanks David,
"This tendency to 'throw the baby out with the bathwater' is indeed a noteworthy error. It seems to be a sort of bug in the human system. Here's a question: isn't our tendency to halo-ize people the other side of the same coin? Making people all-good, and all-bad is the way of children, isn't it?"
Yes, I totally agree idolizing someone is the other side of the coin to condemning someone. People who do it think there are extenuating circumstances; the person did something *so bad* or *so incredibly good* that they deserve it. But it's the same thing as enlightenment not being a permanent state that guarantees no further mistakes. There are no extenuating circumstances. nobody's worth idolizing, and nobody's bad enough to be condemned. It's fun to do either for a little while though.
Well, it should be the way of children to think black or white like this, but it seems to be the way of a majority of adults from my viewpoint! It isn't helped any by movies portraying people as all good or all bad.
I really appreciate the ones that don't.
Hi David and Etherfish:
This is a very important point you are discussing. It is really at the heart of successfully navigating the spiritual path, and life. As long as we are painting the world "black" and "white" we have little chance of seeing the innumerable shades of gray, and the baby will be thrown out with the bath water again and again. And all the while we will be ricocheting from one extreme to the other.
AYP is a product of "seeing" the shades of gray in the many teachings that are out there, and in myself, over many years. It is about much more than "who" we are considering. The process of seeing what is true also has to do with how we regard our practices and experiences each day. Once we have let go of the idea of this or that guru, practice or experience being all bad or all good, we are well on the to integrating the whole thing together and speeding along on our way home. We then have come to grips with the essential truth that all things in life are a blend of light and shadow playing on the screen of our silent awareness. When we know this to be the case in our practices, we are in a much better position to cull through, separate the wheat from the chaff, add on, self-pace effectively, etc. All of that is dependent on our seeing.
Thankfully, being able to make these distinctions better and better comes with the rise of inner silence. Then, as time in daily practices passes, we find that we are carrying no flag except the flag of the witness, which sees all with no overlay of bias whatsoever. Then we are able to sip the divine nectar from everywhere, while keeping our feet out of the mud at the same time.
Your recognition of this truth is colossal -- an intellectual recognition that is rising to be an everyday "wired-in" direct perception. Practices bring us steadily closer to that.
The guru is in you.
|
|
|
|
Frank-in-SanDiego
USA
363 Posts |
Posted - Jan 22 2006 : 3:16:40 PM
|
Hari Om
~~~~~~~
quote:
Originally posted by yogani99
[quote]Originally posted by Etherfish
AYP is a product of "seeing" the shades of gray in the many teachings that are out there, and in myself, over many years.
Hello all that has contributed to this string,
This concept is so important, its (I believe) actually fundamental to ones spiritual progress. That is, viveka or the ability to discriminate finer and finer levels of 'gray', some may even call this that ability to see through the ambiguity.
When its fully blossomed, one is established in Ritam or Truth. Even Patanjali sees this as key. In his sutras, he calls out the ability to distinguish the difference between the Intellect(Buddhi) and the Transcendent (Or Purusha). This cultures the mind for this discrimination ability out side of ones meditation 'eyes closed' practice.
Just thought it was worth the note.
Peace,
Frank In San Diego
|
|
|
|
Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - Feb 03 2006 : 3:10:21 PM
|
quote:
Originally posted by Frank-in-SanDiego
The other is on comparing and contrasting Buddhism and Hinduism ( Sanatana Dharma) - Here I asked if you wished to explain further if you cared to. My point was I think I have a pretty good handle on Vedanta and see repeatedly the theme of 'One without a second' as a key theme. Now, if there is a difference between the knowledge 'Vedanta' and the worship ~ Hinduism ~ then perhaps your observation may apply. Yet it does not match the knowledge base that it( Hinduism) rests on.
Now the brilliance of Sanatana Dharma w/o getting long winded or lecturing is how the sages metered it out to the unenlightened ( that would be me and a few others in Kali Yuga) to understand the knowledge of SELF. That is, the 6 systems of Indian Philosophy that we need not pursue for this discussion. Yet, the culmination of all the wisdom of these 6 systems ends in Vedanta, literally the end of the Vedas or ~ the final say.
It confidently proclaims 'all this is ONE without a second'. Hence my conversation here. If in fact Buddhism proclaims the same, all well and good and I see no difference, yet you have called attention that there is a difference, and I am eager to see how so?
The following article does a much better job than I can on the prickly, difficult subject of views by hinduism, buddhism, and hindu vedanta on the issue of atman/self. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatta |
|
|
|
AYPforum
351 Posts |
Posted - Feb 06 2007 : 8:56:17 PM
|
| Moderator note: Topic moved for better placement |
|
|
|
Topic |
|
|
|
| AYP Public Forum |
© Contributing Authors (opinions and advice belong to the respective authors) |
|
|
|
|
Samadhi in the Produce Aisle
