I've been interested in converting to buddhism. By means of religion and philosophy. I have, however, come across a few areas in which are a bit vague to me.

The first part of the eightfold path:

"And what, monks, is right understanding? Knowledge with regard to stress, knowledge with regard to the origination of stress, knowledge with regard to the stopping of stress, knowledge with regard to the way of practice leading to the stopping of stress: This, monks, is called right understanding."

With right understanding one is supposed to find the sources of stress and eliminate them. How does one eliminate stress related to something that is everyday and unavoidable without simply saying "I don't care about ___ anymore"? That's rather pessimistic. Are we instead supposed to fall back on the idea that what's causing the stress is inevitable and that we should accept it as life? Life is pain? That's even more pessimistic. I thought the whole idea of buddhism was to escape our dukkha and to live free of ego.

And on the subject of ego... How do we live without desire? Without desire, we would not have the motovation to do anything. We would not want to do anything recreational at all. The only things that WOULD get done would be the five precepts.

The only way I can see that it is possible to reach nirvana is if you lived back in 500BCE when life was that simple. So I guess what I'm asking, is if it's possible to reach nirvana and become enlightened in this lifetime in our world today without becoming a monk. Or is it even necessary to follow the eightfold path? I mean, there are many paths to nirvana, the eightfold path is just what Siddhartha Gautama Buddha taught as "the most direct" path.

This is one of the few long posts that I have posted on totse which I have not error checked, so bear with me. I would also like to call notice to the fact that this is my first ever post in My God.

Who says you have to live in the past to become enlightened? You could go to some tibetan mountains or something, and shouldn't true enlightenment come from an inner peace, not an outer one?

And i think when they talk about desire and stress, they mean gratuitous (sp) kinds, like the desire for wealth and shit, not water and food etc.

[This message has been edited by -Mephisto- (edited 02-19-2005).]

quote:Originally posted by Zok:

[B]With right understanding one is supposed to find the sources of stress and eliminate them. How does one eliminate stress related to something that is everyday and unavoidable without simply saying "I don't care about ___ anymore"? That's rather pessimistic. Are we instead supposed to fall back on the idea that what's causing the stress is inevitable and that we should accept it as life? Life is pain? That's even more pessimistic. I thought the whole idea of buddhism was to escape our dukkha and to live free of ego.

I'm gonna try and lay a modern perspective on you. Its importmant to understand the difference between what could be considered "religous" buddhism, that is the Theravedic and Mahayana traditions, and the core philosophy. These traditions can basically be thought of as more and less "religious" Theravedic buddhists make up the order of monks (sangha), and they attempt to emulate the life of siddhattha in the same way many new age Christians try to emulate Jesus. Buddha is still a guide, and not a god, but they feel the best way to attain enlightenment is by following his teachings (Middle way, 8 fold path etc....) In Mahayana the focus is more on the core teachings of the buddha. Notably The 4 noble truths.

1) Life is suffering

2) The cause of suffering is our desire for permenant attachment to a world that is by its nature temporal and impermentant.

3) There can be an end to suffering, (through ending desire)

4) That way is the 8 fold path.(more importent to Therevedics, other buddihists see it as one way only)

Now the core element here is to acknowledge that our natural constituency for desire for the permenanent in an impermenant world is the FUNDAMENTAL ontolology of buddhism. This is intertwined with Karma and Reincarnation, but this is where many people get turned off. It is not essential to have these beliefs to be a buddhist. They are older Indian beliefs that many do not find essential to the practical philosphy of Buddhism, and more a matter of ontological faith (although most do). There is an awesome Book called "Buddhism without Beliefs" by Stephen Bachelor, that takes the fundamentals of Buddhism in practice away from these philosphical, and more contraversial problems.)

The practice remains the same. Traditionally Buddhists want to alleviate Dukkha by escaping Samsara, which is the infinite chain of death and rebirth that is moderated by karma. Since all life in this world, the causal world, is suffering as described above. The idea is to do whatever possible to get "out" of the vicious circle of life. So Buddhists identify various forms of yoga, ethics, and meditation that will allow them to alter (or rather eliminate) their karma in such a way as to not be reborn. Then they enter "Nirvana" which literally means "extinction" and implies "unconditioned". Its is a world without any attachment, or conditional existence. I have always seen nirvana as the westerners see Death, but with an emphasis on the freedom of not existing. This is not how many Buddhists see it though.

In more recent times Buddhism has been understood less as a vehicle for some great metaphysical escape than functional strategies for dealing with the suffering that is reality.

Earlier Buddhists (Nargajuna) brought the concepts of Samsara and Nirvana into the SAME sphere of existence (voidedness), where an enlightened person can access the bliss of Nirvana without actually "leaving" samsara. Now again, the older buddhists thought of enlightenment as some permenant state that, once attained, would always be there, allowing the "arhat" to be something of a god on earth. However, more recent thinkers recognize that even enlightenment is impermenant and fleeting. So now many intellectual Buddhists use enlightenment as a tool for deconstructing the suffering of reality. Not to get rid of it, but to make it bearable. When you come to the conclusions of Buddhism, and understand them, you can "carry" them: to an extent. The more you meditate and focus on them, the more present they will be. Then the idea is to bring these into mind when suffering is felt.

I have recently understood this practice as simply the perfection of the art of taking a deep breath and saying "It will pass". To remember this fundamentally in any stress, alleviates that stress. When we focus on the pyschological nature and impermenance of reality, then things are less likely to threaten us with stress, because we put less faith in them, so to speak. Its a philosophy for taking life in stride, in its essence.

quote:And on the subject of ego... How do we live without desire? Without desire, we would not have the motovation to do anything. We would not want to do anything recreational at all. The only things that WOULD get done would be the fishiddhattha ve precepts.

We dont live without desire, we only need to recognize that it IS desire causing suffering, and by focussing on this we can deal with our problems more effectively. To the Buddhist our desires are workable, the objects of those desires are not. We will always "want" before we "get". So instead of focussing on the object, they focus on the root of the problem

The key here is the concept of impermenance. When we truly embrace this, we put less faith in things, and we arent as hurt when those faiths let us down.

As for the self. Again, buddhists recognize this concept as illusion, brought about by our attachments to things. We develop this by not realizing 1) The psycholgical nature of reality (in that all "objects" are in fact IN the subject.Atman (soul)is Brahman (god)) 2) As such all things are interrelated in consciousness. When these are realized, desire become more of a phenomenology than a legitimate motivator. We have no means to infer a "self" when we see things in this way - there are only perceptions. The degree to which we can extinguish the self-via-attachment is the degree to which we can have some degree of inner peace. Although, to reitterate many modern buddhists see this as pragmatic and not some absolute trandscendance. So its not about getting rid of motivation, which is impossible, its about making sense of it and minimizing suffering.

quote:So I guess what I'm asking, is if it's possible to reach nirvana and become enlightened in this lifetime in our world today without becoming a monk.

see above

quote: Or is it even necessary to follow the eightfold path? I mean, there are many paths to nirvana, the eightfold path is just what Siddhartha Gautama Buddha taught as "the most direct" path.

My favorite zen quote is "If you meet the buddha on the road, kill him". This means that buddhism is greater than any individual Buddha. Buddhas are guides, but the enlightenment of buddhism is personal. It exists as potential in our psychology. It is a perspective. The end result is some degree of inner peace. However that is acheived counts.





[This message has been edited by dagnabitt (edited 02-21-2005).]

dagnabitt, all I can say is "wow."

I'm sending an email with a small request to the address that you registered on totse with.

Searching for words,

Hunting for phrases,

When will it end?

Esteeming knowledge

And gathering information

Only maddens the spirit.

Just entrust yourself

To your own nature,

Empty and illuminating

Beyond this,

I have nothing to teach.

-*

Zok, you need to buy this book.

Buddhism: Plain and Simple by Steve Hagen.

Steve is a Buddhist Monk in the U.S.

This book cuts all of the culture, the rituals, and every other non-philisophica item out of Buddhism, and delivers it straight to you.

I have the same idea as when you say "Would'nt we have to be living in back in time"

The easiest way, I think, to follow the middle path, would be to move to Asia, and join a monestary (There are plenty of "Non-Monk" monestary/commune type of places, and are free of charge and accept everyone). Becuse life IS simple over there. America was/is a HUGE blockade to me, seeing as our entire culture is BUILT upon ego and self-fullfilment.

But unless you are THAT moved that you would pack your stuff up and leave, thats not an option for you. I suggest you read that book. It completely threw the doors of Buddhism open to me, and made me realize you don't have to be a monk to be Buddhist. READ IT!

[This message has been edited by Krispy (edited 02-19-2005).]

quote:Originally posted by Zok:

dagnabitt, all I can say is "wow."

I'm sending an email with a small request to the address that you registered on totse with.

Hey zok, hope it was helpfull. I have no idae what email I registered here with. But you can reach me at yucabeth AT hotmail. Cheers.

Sorry to go on...but I must.

When you say there are many paths to Nirvana, you are right.

Another suggested read: Siddartha, by Herman Hesse.

I don't personally believe that you can reach Nirvana by follwing a teacher, or his words. The path you take must be your own. The reason Gotama's doctrine is mostly suggestive and vague (<<That's just my opinion) is because you can't put what its like to be enlightened, into words.

What I'm saying is, no man can communicate Nirvana. No man can teach another how to get there, because its a path within ones self, and we are all different. "Siddartha" (The book) is a story of a man who learns this, he is a born a Brahmin, leaves his father and the highest notch of the Hindu Caste System, and becomes a Samana (Ascetic). He leaves the Ascetics and meets Buddha The Illustrious One himself, but decides NOT to follow him, for the above mentioned reasons. He realizes that the path to enlightenment is one that must be taken alone. It can't be communicated, so therefore attempting to follow another's path is useless, for his path will not work for you.

I'm not speaking against studying teaching, as many can help you gain the perspective that you need, just don't cling to them...

"A good teaching is like a raft, when you come to a river, it aides you in crossing it, but once the river is crossed, the raft must be left behind..."

Thats a saying that I've always loved, and emphasizes my point.

One last one:

"Sit like a mountain, strong and firm. Let throughts pass like clouds, barely scraping your peak, but then passing buy...never staying for long."



I have no idea if this is have any value to you whatsoever, but I just felt like typing it. This is my view, and my opinion, someone will probably get on and flame me. I apologize.

[This message has been edited by Krispy (edited 02-19-2005).]