101–110 of 133 posts
For something that teaches the impermanence of things, they sure tried hard to make him permanent.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's many flavors of Buddhism and the idea of all "being one" isn't a shared philosophy amongst them all. The "woo" and connected, anything goes mentality, etc is mostly centered on "California Buddhism," which is a sort of western bastardization of common Buddhist concepts. If you were to study, say, Theravada, you'd see something a lot more austere, less touch-feely (but compassionate), and very much centered on…
Specifically the "all is one" philosophy is a western misreading of the Three Marks of Existence, so it's easy to misidentify them as the same thing if you have never been properly exposed to the latter. An egocentric culture would rather extend the ego outward, rather than fully embrace the concept of ego being illusory.
Of course capitalism can't exist without the ego. Everyone here is, as they say, a temporary embarrassed millionaire. Everyone believes in the CEO as this force of nature who does all sorts of things, because the CEO is crafty enough to steal credit from his underlings as self-marketing. Characters like John Galt are seen as realistic and people defend Rand's writing with a straight face. Capitalism is the ego's playground so of course, Buddhism translated here is littered with narratives that protect capitalism.
I also find it a little amusing at how casually we recommend meditation as a self-help tool for workers to be more productive. If done correctly, it should do the opposite.
Also this excellent piece explaining how the Pali canon refutes California Buddhism's "we are all one" belief:
RIP My wife thought “Thich Nhat Hanh” was an entrée, because his book “How to Eat” looks like it says, “How to Eat Thich Nhat Hanh”. It’s a good, practical little book. We’ve been reading a passage per night to our kids before supper.
I haven't heard of him until today. I am very interested in learning meditation/mindfulness, but as an agnostic I tend to shy away from religious teachings. Are his methods heavily religious?
I learned today that technically he died years ago. It's not that he was healthy and then today he passed away. Apparently he had a stroke years ago and couldn't walk, use the bathroom, eat, talk, etc. on his own.. everyone had to do everything for him. Definitely a DNR would have been good to have here. For something that teaches the impermanence of things, they sure tried hard to make him permanent.
Wow. I used to go to the mindfulness retreats at his affiliated monastery in San Diego. You left your phone in your car, and had 3-5 days (or more sometimes) of meditation, fresh cooked meals, and nature. It was really peaceful, and so different from what I had expected (something like a cult, being plied for donations etc. there was none of that). I stopped going when I left California, but it's hard to feel much mo…
Do you know of anyway to find more of those? I'm in Oakland and that sounds delightful.
Near Oakland there is San Francisco Zen Center (in Marin and in SF)—you might reach out and ask them for recommendations.
Also near Oakland you have many Tibetan organizations like https://gyalshen.org/ and https://nyingmainstitute.com/.
If you want to do more research, you can easily find directories like this: https://buddhiststudies.stanford.edu/resourcesother-resource.... There is tremendous access to teachings in the Bay Area and a handful of fantastic monasteries within 100 miles.
For effective teachings, I recommend: https://pointingoutthegreatway.com/. As you're getting started, it doesn't really matter what you do, but if you want to progress along the path quickly, I have found the Tibetan "pointing" style teachings to be most safe and effective by about an order of magnitude.
Realization Process is also very good, and not strictly Buddhist: https://realizationprocess.org/schedule-of-events/
Finally, https://sfdharmacollective.org/ is an incredible resource and people there can guide to whatever might suit you.
I haven't heard of him until today. I am very interested in learning meditation/mindfulness, but as an agnostic I tend to shy away from religious teachings. Are his methods heavily religious?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Specifically the "all is one" philosophy is a western misreading of the Three Marks of Existence, so it's easy to misidentify them as the same thing if you have never been properly exposed to the latter. An egocentric culture would rather extend the ego outward, rather than fully embrace the concept of ego being illusory.
The absurdity I like to point out sometimes (usually with a lot of downvotes when I talk about this on HN) is how capitalism corrupts nearly all. Countless employers sell their employees on the idea of "Learn meditation to help with work stress" instead of "Lets talk about by work is stressful and how we can fix that." The former just buzzword dishonesty, the latter something that could affect profits, and even if on…
This would essentially be a free energy machine and would be a wonderful thing (the owner is making money because value is being provided to society)
It’s not possible though because everything needs maintenance at some point