Good to see that there's a community for Buddhism!

3 years ago by kaxora to c/buddhism

I am anyway trying to reduce my screen time and time on Reddit, and the new changes they're making spurred me to check out Lemmy when I heard about it. I like the simple feel of it and hope that it will create smaller, tighter knitted communities, encourage individual posting (I never posted on Reddit but it feels more acceptable here somehow), and also help to further reduce my screen time.

I'm glad to see there's a Buddhist instance here. I think this may be the first or second post ever on this instance, so for the sake of encouraging conversation I would like to ask those who may see this post:

What sect of Buddhism do you subscribe to? What do you like most about that sect?
What is one way you have incorporated the teachings into your life recently, or one thing you would like to incorporate?

For me:

Tibetan Buddhism (Gelug tradition). I like the fact that it purports that enlightenment can be achieved in just one lifetime; that negative karma can be purified; and that bad things happening is just our negative karma ripening, which means you are paying your karmic debt in those situations. It's very motivating for this lifetime.
I am trying to be more mindful in everyday life because I don't meditate much at all, and I think mindfulness is the next best thing.

I hope this instance / community grows in the future!

load all comments

RaccoonHands 3 points 3 years ago

Hi, I'm new here too. Happy to see the community also! Hopefully it'll grow! I realise the post is a little old but thought I would reply anyway. I am currently halfway between Theravada and Zen. I love the simple teaching of both schools. That awakening is already here but we just have to realise it. Ask yourself the right question or see the right thing and you will awaken right there to some extent and you can keep going and getting different experiences and awakenings. As someone said it's not like you're awakened and now you can levitate and control light but you can start to see the world for what it is, without all of our conditionings and essences colouring everything. You'll see a rose and rather than thinking about all the romance and whatever other things you have picked up which cause a rose to make you feel a certain way, you will see a rose for what it is. The minerals in the ground, the cloud that watered it the river and sun that made the cloud, the animal that died to give it nutrients, the person that cut it back to make it flower more prolifically, the parents of that person....you see where I'm going. This is of course a massive rant and I am always still learning but this is what I see as a large aspect of awakening...if I ever manage that then I'll come back and let you know 🙂 and I would love for anyone else to let me know their opinions as it is obviously something that words and conceptions cannot explain. I somewhat struggle with meditation too but I'm being quite good at keeping a routine and sometimes sneaking one in at lunchtime in work if I can find an empty office somewhere even 10 mins can be amazing. I would really recommend Sam Harris's waking up app purely for the meditation if you can handle how secularised it is but some of the talks on the app really are great and Sam's way of looking at meditation is very interesting even if you disagree with him on it. I think it's really important that we all keep talking to eachother and if you disagree... great. Me hating the taste of tuna shouldn't make you love it any less and unless you try and ram a can down my throat or vice versa then we should all be happy that we can enjoy the dhamma in whatever form works best. Thanks for taking the time to read. With Metta.

save

path: 0 775809, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 1

kaxora 3 points 3 years ago

I agree with your last bit- I love that Buddhism is tolerant of other ways of thinking and religions. It seems to acknowledge that everyone has their own karma and way of doing things, so we shouldn't try to "convert" everyone to Buddhism, perhaps they will gain realizations or become happy by some other religion or philosophy etc. It speaks for itself, I appreciate that Buddhists don't try to convert others.

As for the first part, I was daydreaming about something recently and then remembered that life itself is said to be an illusion. We need to get by using subjective labels and concepts. Of course those are necessary and we need them to function in the world, but it's important to recognize that they are just labels in order to see reality for what it is. If life itself is a delusion of sorts, daydreaming during my free time is like a delusion within a delusion. Spending time fantasizing about something that isn't real, when so much of my life experience itself is exaggerated or imbued with too-strong emotions and is thus not "real" either. That's not to say that daydreaming is bad or anything, because the "good" or "bad" judgement is also a label, but it's better to at least be aware of what's going on mentally. Man, I would probably be able to maintain a mindset like this more consistently if I meditated regularly lol. I still have so much to improve on. But reading your comment was able to remind me of some of these things, so thank you!

save

path: 0 775809 844710, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 0