posted January 12, 2015 03:15 AM            

Natch, any old religion is going to have all sorts of conflicting views, many of them not compatible with each other...and that's despite a thousand years of torture, mass murder, and persecution in a vain attempt to get everyone to believe the same (and Buddhists have done that, too). Many older traditions will have libraries of books (and even those will probably contradict each other at some point, or be interpreted differently through the ages as well as by an individuals own lens) and it's often confusing enough when lawyers argue the finer points of law, how much more harder is it to resolve when the core is based on faith and certain assumptions (that others would say was "begging the question" such as "Did Buddha truly reach enlightenment?" or "Is the Bible the Word of God?") which is why you will rarely, if ever, hear of a denomination that says "we have looked at the facts and prayed for insight so that now we can say we were wrong and are now going to merge with that other denomination/trad/school of thought."

And that's before you add in that some are more pragmatic rather than philosophic, or that it's more cultural/tradition rather than truly believed (that is to say the church or whatever is more of a social club than a religion, though rites are still typically observed "going through the motions" like a secret handshake or saying the pledge of allegiance before class when it means nothing to many who utter it other than it's what everyone else is doing).

posted January 12, 2015 03:38 AM            

(To about 3:05 or when she shoots that guy in the leg right after he asks, "Can you shoot me so easily?")

Of course I'm sure LK isn't talking about such an extreme (though I do believe ego serves a purpose when properly channeled and a person truly without ego could be very scary, especially if they were trying to "enlighten" others by ridding them of their own ego and personal desires, that is in my own belief structure it's not good to try to get rid of it, only to learn to be informed by it rather than controlled), but even so I could see how personal relations, families, and responsibilities to specific people could be hampered, quite possibly with harm resulting for those individuals affected by it, because Daddy was off taking care of the masses and giving up much of what he had while the kids saw very little of that love and care (at least beyond the same impersonal care everyone else got).

posted January 12, 2015 04:48 PM            

As I have been reading your replies I've noticed a tendency to play a mix and match game between all of the various Buddhist schools of thought and label it “Buddhism”, as if its a singular philosophy. Which is somewhat... lazy, maybe even bordering on disingenuous but that's probably being harsh. Yet I'm not comforted by this approach, and its not at all helpful to anyone who is actually trying to understand Buddhist philosophy as a random observer.

It really bothers me because, I feel that had I NOT posted a rebuttal Faith (unless Faith choose to delve into it on her own time) would likely have have been left quite unaware of the conflict in teachings existing between Theravadin Buddhists & Mahayana Buddhists over one of the key points brought up via the anecdote with regards to Buddha/Nirvana!

This would be akin to someone talking about Christianity and playing a mix and match game between the varying groups which often have DEEP conflicting opinions over core teachings and just saying... well Jesus said this, and Jesus said that and its all Jesus and its all Good! Where as each individual group within Christianity would be up in arms over having a spokes person such as you appear to be for Buddhism in this thread misrepresenting “their” Christian teachings.

Yet... I do NOT think you are even aware that you are doing this, or that you are consciously trying to BE misrepresentative! No, but what is clear to me is that you yourself have deep conflicting opinions with regards to Buddhism in general as you try to make sense of, and undo the junipers knot that is the true teachings of (insert religious/spiritual teacher). So I can understand the sometimes need to take the best of the different schools in order to get at grains of the core truth but still...

Every time I hear someone say: That's not what Jesus taught, That's not what Muhammed taught... or in your case, That's not what Buddha taught... I want to throw up!

quote:

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I agree it's very harmful to teach people to actively deny and suppress their essential nature - but that is not what the Buddha taught people to do at all. He taught a method for gaining gradual insight into the causes and mechanisms of suffering

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Please... Are you actually suggesting you know what Buddha taught? What Buddha did or didn't actually say/teach!? What of the man himself...!? Have you ever taken the time to look into the possibility that there even ever was a person known as Gautama Buddha and what he may or may not have actually taught with regards to Buddhism...?

Have you got access to his personal texts/writings, do you have first hand accounts of what he said...? Has a singular word of it changed since 500 BC?

I sure as hell don't, but you wont ever catch me saying; Buddha taught this, Buddha taught that...

The least you could do Vajra, is that if you really don't know what he did or didn't say is to at least change the phrasing of your words so it reads:

It is believed that a man known as the Buddha once said... “whatever” ...

As opposed to: Buddha taught...! Which reminds me very much of the standard Christian Fundamentalist approach with regards to Jesus, which really comes across no better in my mind just because its from an eastern philosophies POV.

I am most definitely NOT a Buddhist scholar with regards to their “texts/doctrines” and so currently you probably know more of what various text's say about this and that. But a quick internet search and a few mins reading and I can catch up very quickly as Buddhism has become something of great interest to me as of late! Reason being is for the longest time now I've been sensing there is something definitely rotten in Amsterdam... (In relation to Buddhism).

posted January 12, 2015 05:06 PM            

What Vajra was saying made sense to me. If she had swamped me with all the caveats and complexity that a true Buddhist scholar could muster, aiming for a comprehensive answer, I might have been disenchanted and lost.

I've watched lectures given by Buddhist monks and nuns on YouTube, and they are arguably misleading in their simplicity and the liberties they take with expressions like, "The Buddha taught..."

posted January 12, 2015 05:07 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Randall:
Self-preservation requires Ego.

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posted January 12, 2015 05:35 PM            

I have a different idea of what it means to lose the ego. And just think of all the Buddhists who are still alive.

posted January 12, 2015 08:29 PM            

You have Jupiter in Aries? Then I can no longer blame my Jupiter in Aries for my inability to concentrate on anything religious for very long.

I wish this had not become any kind of debate ~ it's unnecessary, especially when my own inquiry was just casual musing. It's not like I am going to run off and become a Buddhist nun and then realize all too late that my original inspiration (Vajra of Lindaland fame) was not being technical enough and led me astray with her omission of yards of fine print.

quote:

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Sure I could have added a tedious disclaimer to every single sentence I wrote - but I trusted that Faith, with whom I was exchanging these thoughts, and have been exchanging thoughts before, knows by now where I'm coming from, so found that superfluous, as I'm generally not in the habit of discussing stuff I googled together in five minutes... My mistake, of course, I should have remembered to do that anyway, even though this is a leisurely discussion on an internet forum, and not a PhD dissertation

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^

I'm way behind with this thread but hope to catch up eventually, if y'all will stop talking for a bit and let me.*

posted January 12, 2015 09:12 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Faith:

^^ I guess they'll think twice about misrepresenting Buddhism, next time around.

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posted January 12, 2015 09:38 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by mirage29:
What about any notion of Collective Karma?
Are there any beings who incarnate to help burn off karma for others' particular-individual life? (I'm thinking here of Christianity, but understand that I'm not waving a religion flag okay? Faith knows that I don't do that, but some people here may not be familiar with me. This was a genuine question.)

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True, I understand where you are coming from.

I'm glad you mentioned collective karma as I give it a lot of thought...mainly because I feel so personally guilty for things I am culturally wrapped up in (the "normalization" of endless pre-emptive war within the US; the culture of environmental destruction; the use of petro dollars; etc.)

Possibly, the sign of Pisces connects with collective karma, as Pisces absorbs and encompasses so much within itself.

?

quote:

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Originally posted by mirage29:
(topic) Stars, Cycles, and Psyche - Psychological Aspects of Astrology (Ray Grasse interviews Alice O. Howell) [28:30] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXx1IENBnuc

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Wow ~ really enjoyed this, thank you.

Some quotes:

* "No sooner have you understood [your complexes], you're tested: Life comes along and tests you. Can you see how, if the chart is describing certain problems and places where we need to learn something-- we attract them?"

* Quoting Jung: If you don't work on something internally, it will manifest externally as fate. "The whole history of mankind on a collective level is suffering the same thing."

"But very often you can, by working on something within the psyche, not have to suffer it so dramatically in outer life."

* "The chart is like a treasure map to individuation."

* "The chart should lead us closer to an understanding of the indwelling of the Divine Guest."

* She talks about "the collective evolution of the unconscious through these Ages" (Age of Pisces, Age of Aries, etc) The Age of Taurus 4,000-1,800 BC is associated with bull worship (Crete, Assyria, Greece, China, the Celtic World.) The beginning of civilization corresponds with the beginning of agriculture and possessions, both ruled by Taurus. Capitalism and cattle are cognate words (Think of "stock market" and "bullish" as well.)

* Age of Aries, rejecting the cult of the golden calf, adopting ram's horns. Brings in Libra codes of laws, Libra arts.

* Right now we're on the Pisces-Aquarius "cusp" so to speak. The lesson of the age of Pisces is to sacrifice the ego "so it becomes devoted and useful and an instrument." "Once it's sacrificed it opens the way to discover the God within." The trap for the Age of Aquarius is that we become so objective that we become so desensitized. "We're entering a period of tremendous danger."

She stresses the actual, personal honoring of individuals.

posted January 12, 2015 09:44 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Vajra:
I guess a mysogynist fanatical Buddhist preacher (yes they exist too) would muse they could have been women who tried to seduce monks with excessive use of "smokey eyes" make-up.... (which often ends up looking like that at the end of the night...) OK off to bed now!

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Maybe the misogynist fanatical Buddhists are one step lower than raccoons on the ladder.

Maybe it would be better to get bitten by a raccoon than get bitten with "righteous" misogyny. Yessss....I think it would be!

posted January 12, 2015 10:22 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Faith:
I wish this had not become any kind of debate ~ it's unnecessary, especially when my own inquiry was just casual musing. It's not like I am going to run off and become a Buddhist nun and then realize all too late that my original inspiration (Vajra of Lindaland fame) was not being technical enough and led me astray with her omission of yards of fine print

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Frankly, I liked it, I just wish no one got snippy over it.

LK has challenged my beliefs before I went along for the ride and found it enjoyable, a new way to approach things and thus gain new insights, and to laugh at the absurdity of the human condition and dogmas, including my own. Of course LK does that as he is the Fool (not to be confused with a fool, a normal fool not realizing he's a fool but thinking everyone else is, and a fool doesn't spark thinking like a Fool).

Natch, I enjoyed seeing Vajra take the role of Sage as well.

posted January 12, 2015 10:37 PM            

Not sure precisely who you are alluding to when you say that "the latter are more affected by it than the former" and observations like that don't seem particularly useful to me. If you would like to discuss my ego frankly, I'm open to that.

posted January 12, 2015 11:35 PM            

But I don't feel that's necessary (as in exiting this thread) since I don't see how our conversation will be anything less than civil.

Argumentative...!? Probably, but only in relation to philosophy and its varying facets of discourse.

Pix: ssssshhhh!

Faith: I still feel the conversation is relevant to the title anyhow: Karma and the subconscious mind.

Perhaps some cosmic force has coerced Vajra and I into the arena of debate together... In which case I'm inclined to blame Azathoth

posted January 13, 2015 04:45 AM            

To also keep up with my madness I will again remind the reader that I see karma as a natural (and thus amoral) force like gravity rather than some being (our higher selves by whatever name or other such forces) uses to teach us with values that we'd consider good and holy, lessons many seem to believe they already understand but just haven't fully mastered (and tend to believe that the universe will radically change such as "a new heaven and new earth" where all the physical laws match their view of morality and ethics). There is both individual karma (which is shaped by our subconscious and thus could be said to have a type of "morality") and also the collective karma which affects us all and generally speaking we're not going to change that. If it were ever scientifically explained then I believe it would be the psychohistory as described by Isaac Asimov in his Foundation series (the Second Foundation would specialize in more individual karma as part of helping heal the collective karma).

I also don't see the spiritual and material worlds as a dichotomy (let alone as antithetical to each other as some--both materialists and spiritual--see them as). Likewise, one person making good points doesn't invalidate the seemingly contradictory points someone else makes (paradox and "layers like an onion symbolizing reality" are real to me, though of course my scales will weigh the ideas against each other and other ideas besides).

Such caveats aside...

I've found it ironic that I promote healthy ego (not to be confused with Faith's definition which is an unhealthy manifestation) and yet seem less egotistical (at least when compared to many who say they have conquered their ego, not saying I am devoid of it, do NOT associate "all or nothing" statements to me, you're assured of misunderstanding me if you do). In some cases it's what one resists persists while in other cases a person raised to believe the ego/self is bad will of course try to overcome it as they would any sickness or disability (or live up to the worst aspects defiantly) and yet be hypersensitive to anything that remotely comes across as criticism since that is what they were raised with (and in their case trying to overcome the ego is actually more of a psychic/psychological self-cutting/mutilation--and may include physical self-mutilation as well, like those who'd whip themselves--rather than sincere self-mastery).

For that matter I say greed (in moderation, like most vices and also virtues that become unhealthy and self-destructive when it instead becomes an obsession/compulsion, and btw that also includes love) is good and am open minded to polyamorous sexuality as well as other sexual things that many cringe at which seems to put me at odds with most in society...in preaching anyway. Yet many people who say greed is bad say I'm a sap for my charity and volunteer work as well as looking down on my riding a bike, skateboard, or using a bus pass while they drive their gas guzzlers, or are obsessed with sex (as reflected by their chosen media and also topics of conversation) while moralizing on what is bad and unacceptable on arbitrary terms rather than objective ones, and feel desperate longing and pain when not in a relationship whereas I just shrug the "dry periods." Hell, I've found I can be more trusted not to cheat than many who go on and on about the importance of monogamy! (I've wondered if one reason I don't desire a wo/man to submit to is because I can own my sexuality and don't need someone else to take responsibility for my desires...though I think it's much deeper than that but is another topic that has nothing to do with religion, at least not directly.)

Interesting enough, some people think I'm cold and uncaring because I don't believe the world will ever be perfect or that life in human society will never be fair (not to be confused with "will never be better" though I do wonder if what we have right now is as good as it gets, depressing as that thought is) and yet I volunteer to help the homeless, I practice all sorts of random acts of kindness that make me a sap in the eyes of others...and I don't do it to get to some heaven or to fix my karma or some other mercenary goal, I do it because I genuinely care. I don't get the attitude many have that "if it can't ever be perfect then it's pointless." That's not me, but that does seem to be the maxim many operate on and can't understand that I operate under a different understanding...heck, if anything they're the ones who don't care since they're being all mercenary about it in doing it only to get to some heaven or nirvana, which is only caring about one's self in my book (though also in my book one SHOULD care about one's self first, but also others as well...I'd say something about "enlightened self-interest" but to avoid inspiring others to mistake me from an Objectivist into Ayn Rand when I'm not--neither in the actual sense nor in the sense of common misunderstandings about her philosophy--I'll refrain).

It's funny, I've made incredible profits from dolls in which I'd sell them for $40-60...and they sold! One for OVER a $120 (cleverly displayed in a glass case marked "originals" and that one I just mentioned was sold in like 2 months) when I think it was like $10 of materials and a couple of hours for me...I felt kind of bad about that. People (including many spiritual types who see the material and spiritual worlds as a dichotomy) would tell me not to feel guilty about being paid what my skill and creativity are worth but it just felt wrong...I'd do it as I must but avoided it, and if I KNEW such a doll would give comfort or beautiful memories to a child I'd probably give it away for free because even though greed is a good motivator that helps us survive and meet our obligations in this world (and material wealth can facilitate higher learning and spiritual achievements by removing survival as an immediate concern, not that it's a prerequisite, and surplus money gained can empower one to do more good) there are still other things more important still (and, obviously, obsessive greed is bad, but so is obsessive love, charity, or spiritual devotion, at least in most cases, not that the fallout is identical). Luckily I feel better about sewing for "specially sized" people (those not regular enough for the mass market to target) as that's actually helping people, and I do more to earn my money in that case.

The connections here, I believe, is that I learn to master my shadow side rather than overcome it. Others resist but I think if people resolve to never think of red sports cars that it will pop up in their thoughts again and again which would distress them, it would show up in their dreams, and eventually develop into something of an obsession. Now apply it to sex which has survival instincts thrown into it and it becomes much more powerful...and that generates karma of gender inequalities and outright hatred, and also range from manifesting the inquisition (the Malleus Maleficarum is a perfect example of sexual repression--and failing at it in one's self--taken to an extreme, and the social karma created by these beliefs allowed it to manifest socially in horrifying ways, though of course there's more to it than that--and includes greed) to sexual abuse in the church (not just Catholic, btw) as well as the Satanic Panics, persecution of gays, or how when the devout preaching against sex rent a hotel for a convention the ordering of pornography in the private rooms spikes.

Btw, this can also apply to traits such as kindness in those who try to repress it in themselves as weakness which can then manifest (or be projected) in all sorts of ways, many that cause harm as the self wars with not only itself but also people around him or her.

Ego, same thing. If the ego is seen as bad then it is consigned to the shadow realm which has a nasty way of generating bad karma (an amoral force though shaped by our psychology) both for the self and for society as a whole. Of course the ego is tied into greed, lust, and the lot, too, and it's all about survival...but there are healthy and unhealthy manifestations of it, and trying to overcome it as "bad" rather than harmonizing it into something healthy seems to cause more harm than good, as does the view of turning the material and spiritual into dichotomies (my more cynical side notes it's the greatest con job ever, tell people that the common traits they share are bad and must surrender their wealth and other power to a church or whatever to be "cured" and the institution becomes rich and an insecure people can be more easily controlled, at least on the surface, but eventually the monster is no longer under its creator control but has a life of its own--not that I think this fully explains most of the dominant religions once enforced by force of arms that we now pretend were spread by love and wisdom instead yet it does seem self-evident to me that it's a major contributing factor).

Yes, Vajra mentions that ego itself isn't bad and that trying to squash it is harmful when one should instead learn greater awareness between one's self and others and rise above it, but if the goal is to transcend this world to some end then that doesn't strike me as likely to produce good results in people as it implies bad things about the material world and themselves, like one's self is a sickness as opposed to clumsy needing to learn grace and the world escaped from rather than learned from & grown into (though also outgrown eventually). I can see how it would help some, but also harm others, especially as so many want to treat it all as a dichotomy and thus endless (and otherwise unnecessary) inner conflict to spread neurotic tendencies and other psychological ills (which isn't good for the collective karma)--especially if people come to believe they EARNED their suffering in past lives or some such when that may not be the case at all (that is, the belief that one doesn't suffer unless one DESERVES it), which to me is as disgusting as that glurge (chain email) of how one woman is raped because she didn't pray hard enough, which is BS but does give some people an illusion of safety and control (but also implies bad things about victims and may lead to self-hatred by those who believe this who become victims).

posted January 13, 2015 04:59 AM            

Sorry the above is so long but I don't know what else to do. I know from experience I'll be misunderstood if I don't (and probably will anyway, or at least be perceived as making a personal attack of some kind). By misunderstanding I mean assuming I have the same core assumptions as others (not that I'm unique) as opposed to not agreeing with me.

posted January 13, 2015 06:08 AM            

quote:

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The connections here, I believe, is that I learn to master my shadow side rather than overcome it.

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That's admirable, but I think you did that, in part, by what I would call overcoming your ego.

The quotes I posted from Eckhart Tolle relate to being aware of oneself. So if you are standing in awareness of your shadow side, that's all that needs to be done.

quote:

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If the ego is seen as bad then it is consigned to the shadow realm which has a nasty way of generating bad karma (an amoral force though shaped by our psychology) both for the self and for society as a whole.

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I don't see it that way. And I don't think of ego as having healthy or unhealthy manifestations..I think of it as a kind of mindset that can have all kinds of manifestations but which is ultimately inferior to, and more painful than, an ego-transcended awareness.