rarely seen among Buddhists in america

It can perhaps be argued that it is impossible to practice this among people who have little or no insight into the self.

You may politely remark on how a person draws false conclusions from a set of facts. And he might become insulted becuause you "insinuate that he's dumb and that you're so much better".

And also, playfulness and pranks are common among buddhists from what I've read of stories on historical figures in buddhism. They just love to play jokes on eachother. The eight fold path doesn't forbid that.

But this "method" is one that is intended to give the practicer a better life, and when it is said that you should not speak lies, it is not because of the harmful effect on the world, but because of the harmful effect on the speaker, as I understand it.

Thanks, Cyracuz.

From what I understand from my readings on Buddhism, the right speech is only one of the eightfold path, which is something like eight sets of guidelines or tools that Buddha had developed to help his disciples to work and practice on in order to reach enlightenment (or Nirvana). Each Buddhist has to work for his own salvation, and not expect others to help him in that.

Buddha realized that what he taught was extremely complex and cannot be achieved by everyone who follows his teachings. Thus, there were different expectations from monks (who have retired from active life), laymen (family men) and another category which I forgot. Expectations are higher for monks than for laymen, for example, who can get married and carry on business, and more or less, live a life like anyone else.

Buddhist teachings are to be reflected on and practiced by each Buddhist on his own, through meditation (he does not need to go to a temple or be taught by a monk for that). By being a Buddhist, that does not guarantee in any way that that Buddhist has incorporated all the teachings. One of the main things about Buddhism is that Buddha expected his disciples to question his teachings. As a result, if the Buddhist person is questioning and doubting and not adopting what Buddha has taught, and has not managed yet the "right speech", to come back to the topic of this thread, that is not a reflection on any other Buddhist.

But Buddhist or not, I think we can always learn something out of the Buddhist quote. Maybe not all of it, but even a minor part of it does not hurt. Just as any Christian or Muslim quote that teaches us not to hurt other people, and I am sure there must be plenty.

Nice comments, Cello. I do think we must distinguish between people who affiliate themselves with the Buddhist religion and people who have buddhist understanding. I know examples of the latter who say they are not buddhists.

I agree, JL. Buddhism can be thought of also as a philosophy or way of life, rather than a religion. For me, a religion is when there is a god.

Being Buddhist does not require "baptism" or "communion" (is this the English word also?). Someone can follow, as you say, Buddhist philosophy or thinking without "officially" being a Buddhist.

As Cyracuz said, the Buddhist concepts are for a person's self-improvement, more than anything else.

I wonder if we can have some input from Buddhists in the forum. JL, you are one? I did not know that before seeing this thread, because you seem so well versed in all the religions. (By the way, just to put my comments in the proper context, I do not follow any religion, for those members who don't know me.)

Which parts of the eight fold path quoted are rarely seen amongst Buddhists in America? Or is it all of them? The idle chatter part always jumps out at me. The idle chatter part does seem to be something said more in the context of a monastic setting. Even if it lacks depth it could still end up making someone's day, I also think it's good for the soul with people you know really well. I guess it's relative over-indulgence. Relatively over-indulging in idle chatter might be idly chatting with everyone all day, every day while hurtful lies or malicious slander on just one occasion might be one too many.

JLNobody wrote:


A good point.

I once told some friends that I thought maybe I was a buddhist. Then they laughed at me and said that if so, then I'm not a very good buddhist, since I drink alcohol occasionally, smoke cigarettes and have all sorts of attatchments that toss me about like a leaf in the wind.

I didn't tell them this, but I disagree with them. A good buddhist, as I see it, is not one who abstains from the attatchments that binds him. It is one who strives to become aware of his attatchmets and seeks to suffer through them.
Take the case of badmouthing people, for instance. Through doing it you will attain the wisdom of why it is not a good thing to do, as long as you are tuned in to your experience and not just surfing the days. One who doesn't possess this wisdom might refrain from talking bad about people, but he might still feel the urge sometimes. Abstaining in that case can lead to false pride and bottled up irritations that will manifest in other troubles.

So to be a good buddhist is not to be free of vice. It is to strive towards this freedom. But rushing it is just as misleading as not doing it at all.

But for the record, I do not consider myself a buddhist, even though I understand my experience in a "buddhist way", if there is such a thing...

Cryacuz, I agree. One doesn't have to be a buddhist monk to be buddhistic in one's approach to life. Monks cannot smoke or drink, but that does not make them buddhist. One can be attached to not-smoking or not-drinking. Non-attachment is a far more subtle achievement than is detachment. Attachment to ANYTHING serves to strengthen the ego illusion. This includes the attachment or identification with "virtuous" and "healthful" actions as well as negative ones. Meditation is the practice of seeing one's attachments for what they are. This realization serves to dissolve attachments, not ego-centered efforts to detachment from them.

JL, I try to understand but can't really grasp very well the difference between non-attachment and detachment. Can you please explain more in detail what would mean detachment? Thanks.

I dunno, I think a full on admission of non attachment could signify ego illusion.

(You will please not listen to me.)

Osso playing...

osso, there's no I, you, or me.

I understand that a lot of buddhists use bay leaves to kill cockroaches so they won't have to stomp 'em.

What's a… what's a… what's a cucaracha ?
It's a … It's a … cockroach
What's a… what's a… what's a cucaracha ?
It's a … It's a … cockroach

La cucaracha, La cucaracha, ya no puede caminar
Porque le falte, porque no tiene
Dinero para gastar

The little cockroach, the little cockroach,
I saw him just the other day
I like him best when, he takes his things and
He gets his friends and moves away!

The little cockroach, the little cockroach,
He likes to play up with the band
Upon the guiro, he is a hero
He's got the fastest moving hands

La cucaracha, La cucaracha, ya no puede caminar
Porque le falte, porque no tiene
Dinero para gastar

The little cockroach, the little cockroach,
He likes to play up with the band
Upon the guiro, he is a hero
He's got the fastest moving hands

The little cockroach, the little cockroach,
I saw him just the other day
I like him best when, he takes his things and
He gets his friends and moves away - ole!

Then there's Kafka which is a mite more complicated.

I look at it on a positive/negative scale (not positive/negative in terms of good/bad though). If attachment is positive, detachment is negative, non-attachment is neutral, arguably some might suggest it transcends the scale though. :wink:

Non-attachment is like the lack of attachment as opposed to detachment which is taking a negative stance to something, non attachment is transcending the stance altogether. Maybe. When you're detached, you're detached from something, when there is non-attachment, there is no something.

EDIT: I guess attachment and detachment are dualistic, while non-attachment is non-dualistic.

As I see it, it has to do with general well being.

What makes you miserable. If you become miserable if you don't get your morning coffee, that is a routine you are attatched to. It has an impact on your daily outlook.

The trick is to shed attatchments, meaning that your happiness should not be dependent on concepts attatched to the self. Ascets practice this, and that is why they do what they do. But even there we find a subtle trap. In neglecting the self and everything that accomodates it, a new pride can secretly bloom. The pride they feel at their accomplishment of disregarding attatcments. I guess this is what Ashers calls detatchment. The pride we feel at not needing what we used to need...

Ashers and Cyracuz, thank you. Very well put. Now the task, as I see it, is to transform such philosophical insights into existential perspectives. Meditation is one way to do that. This will not occur as a form of "brainwashing", viz., talking yourself into believing the truth of such insights with deeper conviction. Through patient meditation (i.e., the regular, unattached observation of immediate experience) this transformation will just come about in the form of a new perception rather than a firmer belief.

Ashers and Cyracuz, I like your examples.

But, Cyracuz, pride? What has pride got to do with all this? It seems to be pride = ego. Shouldn't there be non-attachment of pride also? I don't see the connection with what Ashers called detachment. Ashers, do you?

Yeah, personal pride is attachment to the self. Cyracuz certainly wasn't using pride in any positive sense (like pride in family or friends, although even this is attachment), hence the suggestion of a trap. In reacting against being positively attached to something, rather than transcending attachment altogether, we take pleasure in being able to resist the positive attachment, this is an example of detachment which is based on pride. Detachment is just a negative form of attachment.



Yes I'd say so, Cyracuz will surely agree with you. Does this clear anything up?

Wonderful discussion.
Pardon the clumsiness of the following effort to enunciate what is inherently very vague to me. I feel it but do not have it formulated for clear expression, even though I've been making the effort to do so for years now.
As I see non-attachment, it is not a prescription for some particular form of action, i.e., like detaching oneself from some desire or attitude. It's a frame of mind (which you suggest with the term, transcendent) in which keen value-neutral observation operates. This is not easy to do ON PURPOSE, it's a frame of mind or mental posture that emerges, as I suggested above, with time and practice.
In meditation the early Soto zen teacher, Dogen, distinguished between two forms of attachment (thinking and not-thinking) and a form of nonattachment (without thinking). It is, we discover after some time, that state of mind in which immediate experience comes without effort, indeed despite any efforts to the contrary. To "think" and to "not-think" are both efforts or attachments to achieve something. When I open my eyes, I SEE effortlessly, without attachment. Then when I LOOK around for something to focus on I am making an effort. When we begin meditating we find that we cannot help but make efforts to achieve something, e.g., a peaceful "unattached" state of mind. It's very frustrating until the time when you realize that no matter what you do you cannot make unattachment, but at the same time you cannot help but be unattached in the sense of being "without" thinking regarding your constant flow of immediate experience. And what you experience IS you, not happening TO you. The Hindu dictum, "tat tvam asi"--that is thou--points to the fact that in experience there is no object nor subject of experience, only experience, and when you transcend the habit (and, remember, this cannot be done "on purpose") of dichotomizing experience into the perceived (object) and the perceiver (subject), you are--and have always been--one with the world (unattached).
Amen

JLN, to have an intuitive appreciation of what people post on this forum, not just an intellectual grasp, seems a wonderful thing, thanks for posting that.

I 100% agree with non-attachment being a position of self transcendence. What worries me with people who talk of "destroying the ego" or really extreme asceticism is this idea of repressing learning opportunities, experience is intrinsically enlightening if we embrace it rather than repress it. I suspect experiencing things in life gives us an intuitive grasp that we cannot get through pure thought, but it is this grasp that again, in my opinion, further illuminates the true "boundaries" between perceivers and the perceived, just not on a thinking level per se. I think the experiences gained through attachments outside of meditation, a more refined intuition, can form a good basis for the experience of meditation itself.

I've been doing a little meditation for some months now, to me, it's particularly interesting in a group setting. The attachments involved with an overly self conscious attitude, a worry of saying the right things to others or doing the right things, all these cease to be when in meditation, but this intuitive sense of transcending all of that seems all the more poignant when you've accepted and been with the attachments outside of a meditation setting rather than repressed them. This is just a small example of honestly experiencing life and then being able to be free like a bird in comparison when in meditation, a comparison which might be lost to an extent on those who choose to repress life and attachment to the point of being submerged with a repetitive cycle of non-learning worry. None of this occurs to me while in meditation of course, this is an attempt to describe a wordless feeling, after the fact, about attachment and what we should make of it. I hope that makes some sense anyway.

Makes good sense, Ashers. I like what you say about repression. I spent at least two decades repressing while in meditation, struggling against thinking (as if the brain could ever not think or the stomach not secrete digestive juices). Eventually you quit the struggle and either stop meditation or "give up" (let go) and continue sitting and looking. In this new looking you passively (without evaluation) observe everything or anything that presents itself to consciousness with "equanimity". THAT'S meditation, as I understand it. Nothing is gained or needed.

Cello

Ashers says it well. And he's right in that I do agree with you. Pride in self, family, accomplishment, -in just about anything, is attatchment.
I have sometimes expressed gratitudetowards JL and other buddhists for their insights, voiced compliments for their way of sharing that can be easily grasped. These things can easily boost pride, and from a buddhist perspective I am not sure this is a nice thing to do :wink:

It is tricky. Even love is attachment. Or to be more precise, love leads to attachment. So the Buddha forbid his followers to love. Not because it's wrong to love, but because to love without attachments is a very difficult thing to do. Who is brave enough for unconditional love?