#buddhist teaching

[raffaellopalandri]

Universe

We should be able to get amazed by what happens around us, as it reminds us that everyone and everything are interconnected in this Universe. We are made of its same Energy.

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[love-not-lost]

[joeyboy1970]

[wisdom-and-such]

                                 If I look upon,                 The still mirror of my heart                      What there do I see?                          Is it the same mind it was                   Yesterday, or it is changed?  

                                            -Rikyu  

This elegant poem perfectly relates the essence of a key category of buddhist thought that stems from the root of:  The realization of how the  self   relates to the continuous change perceived to take place in all things surrounding, as well as in itself.  We ask what such change must mean to the nature of the self, or  more accurately, to our personal conception of its nature. Moreover, we realize we’re now required to revise the meaning, or the definitions derived from, in relation to, properties of the self’s nature. 

For example, the meaning of a near  fatal accident changes if the self is actually one participant in a computer simulation that starts characters who ‘lost’ anew. Things that bear a core relation to, or which essence is in part founded on, the facts and qualities of the nature of the self; so that if that nature is altered (as in new understanding prompting change in our definition of it), the nature of the related item also becomes altered.

This little poem establishes a clear trail to all these concepts, placing the  eminent internal  understanding in the poem and inplying the explanatory logic written here must be composed by the mind of the reader when working out its meaning. 

Further, that the self is always in continuous change is used as a logical point in establishing it to be more accurately conceived as contrary to the seemingly default assumption which results in part from the continuous relationship with a physical body. A body that is consistent in its changes, and otherwise changes relatively little. It changes only in accord with the properties of its physical features, like movement, or which enable movement, and so on. A physical body which has all the qualities of other physical objects, which can  change position or shape in time but remains continuous in that the position of all its parts coincide with the space which it resides, persisting without any period of disintegration, adhering to the qualities of its features in all things, including its own deconstruction or  any event of radical change. For example, a large rock breaks down at a rate depending on the tensile strength of which its parts are bound together. 

Because the body  of a living creature shares the properties of all other physical objects, we assume the self tied to it to have some basic qualities also. We apply the self to the form of a single entity that is ‘it’ here and ‘it’ there. Yet upon  comparing two points featuring the self, by holding two distinct events which occur a significant distance of years apart;  holding up these vivid memories in our mind, and trying to exclude any bias of our present disposition, we examine the qualities attributed to the self in each.  

Excluding projections of relation formed in line with our previous view, in comparing the details of two vivid memories, we curiously find that, actually, other than the given name used as verbal reference (which is yet another manifestation of the physical body being continuous), and other than the unbroken chain of consciousness and physical processes that run throughout, we can find little or no real, consistently present, quality or feature, to be the same in an isolated moment of our self at a young age, and a similarly isolated moment in life at later age. 

When examined with honesty, we even find that nothing is consistent enough as a basis for definition between the traits of our self in two moments that come one after another, mere minutes or seconds apart.

Whether it be beliefs, general feeling, perception of the external happenings,  its’ character, its’ ethics, or simply the current visual sensation, the current thought, or the present location it is feels itself to occupy. 

And in yet another experimental thought,  we see that although the events contained in our life do not change after happening,  the narrative of our lives reality is changed many times throughout without necessitating  any error in our gathering of the facts of the event in either of its formations. Nearly every single trait of our self from one  point to another is changed to such degree that it is rendered not only not the item defined by direct apprehension previously, but positively dissimilar   from it   in most aspects. 

So, what do these resolutions imply about the nature of the self as it is now better understood? If there is no guarantee of  comparable features between the self in one moment and those of another, why is that of importance? When we examine what we can say about the self, we are dumbfounded until we inevitably conclude it to be all our moments, essentially the sum of experience ; things like where we are, what we are seeing, what we are thinking, and how we are feeling, the perception or assigning of values and meaning to involved parties, alterations of value due to context by relation to a created narrative, and so on to include a total sum that is our experience of a given moment. But if there is, as we have seen, continuous change in all things around us, when defining ourself by our sum experience, because of the drastic variance in moments of experience, we then define our self as having no consistent properties necessary to exist as a unit that can be known and named.

[mysticalblizzardcolor]

Listen to: Amitabha Buddha's Pure Land Meditation by INfinity Music

[raffaellopalandri]

Shedding Familial Traditions to Cultivate My Own Dharma

Daily writing promptWhat traditions have you not kept that your parents had?View all responses Within the tapestry of Eastern philosophies, the concept of Ikigai – 生き甲斐, or what it’s worth living for, resonates deeply with my journey. It speaks of the interconnectedness of all things, a harmonious whole woven from seemingly disparate threads that we experience when we follow our real nature and…

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[planetdharma]

The Dance of Absolute & Relative Truths: Razor’s Edge

Online or In-Person | July 12-14, 2024

The Razor’s Edge is the line between wisdom and ignorance—and it lives inside of you. A paradoxical, joyous, and pristinely aware place, the edge is finer than any other. This weekend course is a precious opportunity to study with meditation master and Namgyal lineage teacher Qapel (Achariya Doug Duncan). He will share fundamental Buddhist teachings on the nature of absolute and relative truths, and how we can best dance between, within, and amidst the two. This is a priceless chance to learn with one who has danced on the Razor’s Edge for decades and dedicated his life to the welfare of all beings by sharing how to do so.

Know More:- https://www.planetdharma.com/event/absolute-relative-truths/

[raffaellopalandri]

The Interesting Case of the Crush-less

Daily writing promptWrite about your first crush.View all responses There is a curious zero in my memories. Where most reminisce about blushing encounters and stolen glances, my past stretches out with no events of this kind, devoid of the fluttering heart and nervous energy that supposedly defines a crush. Photo by Breakingpic on Pexels.com So my question in this post is: Did I miss out on…

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