No live teacher no problem

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Jesse
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Re: No live teacher no problem

Post by Jesse »

LastLegend wrote:
Jesse wrote:
I think the sort of experience is common, but should be regarded with much caution. As we are deluded beings it's very easy for us to fall into delusion about our experiences, to put meaning where there is none. That is not to say I don't believe buddhas and bodhistavas appears in our dreams and lives to guide us, I believe it very much so.
There is always delusion as long as we are not completely realized. But when in doubt, I think it's best to stick to precepts.
I've never had a real life teacher and in many ways I regret it, because I probably could of avoided many pitfalls along the way. One of them is getting too involved with the mystical aspect of reality. It certainty does exist, and it's almost certainty dangerous for those who aren't very realized and mentally stable.
I can relate to this. It's certainly a stressful challenge that involves fear. But deep faith can help a lot. Let the Dharma strength build from there. "From murky water, the lotus blooms." Hopefully, :lol: .

The thing about maras is, you won't realize your being deceived until it's way too late. Don't take them lightly.

but this is coming from someone with mental issues so take it how you will, haha. :twothumbsup:
Don't worry dawg. I am mental too :P . I work with the mentally ill mostly people with schizophrenia.
Hm it's embarrassing me for me to reveal my experiences with these things but I will just so you don't fall into the same trap. I had many dreams with the same beings reappearing in each one, not only did they appear in my dreams, but also in my mind during waking hours. At first I thought they were buddhas, Bodhisattvas.. let's just say after a while after they were very much embeddeded in my psyche thing's changed. This is also another opinion, but buddhas and bodhishitavas will never reveal information to you, they won't talk to you either. When one appears what will happen is delusion will vanish and you will either get a glimpse of your true nature, or your will be freed of a deeply rooted bad habbit. Buddhas don't like to interfere because they know how deluded we are, they know we will take the experiences and cling to them and further our ego-centered mind. Buddhas are much much wiser than us.

It's taken me a very very long time to stop grasping to my experiences and just accept them for what they are.. experiences. Please listen to the advice people have given you, find a real life teacher, and a good one. I could tell you a whole lot more if you want to pm me, but mostly what appears to us are demons, spirits and our own ego's.
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Thus shall ye think of all this fleeting world:
A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream;
A flash of lightning in a summer cloud,
A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream.
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明安 Myoan
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Re: No live teacher no problem

Post by 明安 Myoan »

It's my impression that the role of a teacher is different in Pure Land than in other schools, and I believe LL is a Pure Land practitioner. I may be wrong.
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LastLegend
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Re: No live teacher no problem

Post by LastLegend »

I am a Pure Land practitioner. Yes.

Jesse,

I have never had any being appearing in my dream twice. Never in my mind, I asked to see Bodhisattva or Buddha in my dream. I also have never seen a Bodhisattva or Buddha in their elaborate appearance. Often just ordinary human beings. Things you can tell in your dreams that are signs of their support is they remind you to continue to recite a Buddha( I.e., Amitabha) and stick your precepts. If you are beings seduced sexually, tell you to do things like breaking precepts, then don't listen. I recited Nam Amitabha in one of my dreams when an airplane hijacked by terrorists exploded, I was saved and brought to earth by guess who? A mechanic he told me to keep recite Namo Amitabha. I have had my fair share of weird dreams even being paralyzed by demonic ages on my own bed in my life. If dreams are too complexed for people, just ignore them all together. Also in the Earth Store Bodhisattva Sutra ( Krismigarbhe something in Sanskrit) mentioned, if you do this and this according to one of his vow, he will manifest in your dream. Another thing to remember is if your dream intensify your ego, then it's best to ignore it. Dreams can be very confusing and stressful. Most of the times, it's psychological projections, sometimes foretells an event, and in my case was told to recite Namo Amitabha. Just ignore them all together if we can't manage to understand them.
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LastLegend
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Re: No live teacher no problem

Post by LastLegend »

I am also very sensitive to anything that tries to harm me in dreams. I often manage to fight them off.
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Hieros Gamos
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Re: No live teacher no problem

Post by Hieros Gamos »

Mkoll wrote:Huh? So any teacher who isn't "on your payroll" so to speak is trustworthy? That would be every single teacher out there unless you have teachers you are your "cronies" that I don't know about.
My family, my coworkers, my friends, my colleagues, are all biased in favor of supporting my own prejudices. Obtaining a reference for a reliable doctor is easy, so is locating a reliable teacher. I can't cure my own anxiety nor can all my family, etc. Furthermore they all have agendas of their own. The only agenda a teacher has is to wake me up as soon as possible. I need someone like a doctor who will look at me objectively and prescribe a medicine. If I don't do this exploring my own neurosis could just turn into another pleasant trip for me.
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Hieros Gamos
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Re: No live teacher no problem

Post by Hieros Gamos »

A chimpanzee could eat with a gold fork on the best bone china and sit on a brocade zafu, or meditation cushion, but eating chimpanzee-style is not the mark of the best human being or the best anything. A chimpanzee has never known the possibility of having a teacher.
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Mkoll
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Re: No live teacher no problem

Post by Mkoll »

Hieros Gamos wrote:
Mkoll wrote:Huh? So any teacher who isn't "on your payroll" so to speak is trustworthy? That would be every single teacher out there unless you have teachers you are your "cronies" that I don't know about.
My family, my coworkers, my friends, my colleagues, are all biased in favor of supporting my own prejudices. Obtaining a reference for a reliable doctor is easy, so is locating a reliable teacher. I can't cure my own anxiety nor can all my family, etc. Furthermore they all have agendas of their own. The only agenda a teacher has is to wake me up as soon as possible. I need someone like a doctor who will look at me objectively and prescribe a medicine. If I don't do this exploring my own neurosis could just turn into another pleasant trip for me.
Some doctors are bad doctors, even though they may be accredited, certified, trained, and even recommended. For example,
Propublica wrote:In 1999, the Institute of Medicine published the famous "To Err Is Human" report, which dropped a bombshell on the medical community by reporting that up to 98,000 people a year die because of mistakes in hospitals. The number was initially disputed, but is now widely accepted by doctors and hospital officials — and quoted ubiquitously in the media.

In 2010, the Office of Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services said that bad hospital care contributed to the deaths of 180,000 patients in Medicare alone in a given year.

Now comes a study in the current issue of the Journal of Patient Safety that says the numbers may be much higher — between 210,000 and 440,000 patients each year who go to the hospital for care suffer some type of preventable harm that contributes to their death.

That would make medical errors the third-leading cause of death in America, behind heart disease, which is the first, and cancer, which is second.
~~~

And that still doesn't answer my original question, which I'll paste below with some emphasis added.
Mkoll wrote:How do you know your leader is not tripping over himself and thus showing you how to trip over yourself? How do you know it's not a case of the blind leading the blind?
Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa
Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa
Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa
Jesse
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Re: No live teacher no problem

Post by Jesse »

I also have never seen a Bodhisattva or Buddha in their elaborate appearance.
One time they filled the sky in numberless amounts, the second time it was a young boy carrying a stick. He pulled a black mass from my chest with it and said yuck. Lmfao. I remember waking up and I could still hear his voice, but it sounded like a de-detuned guitar, I said is someone there? And an image of his face smiling appeared in my head, he kind of the smiles that just makes you laugh at the whole of your delusions and smile back yourself.

*now next time he'l probably whack me in the head with it. :shrug:
I am a Pure Land practitioner. Yes.
It may be arrogant of me to say so, but when your chanting amibatas name with full faith... your already meeting with him, no?
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Thus shall ye think of all this fleeting world:
A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream;
A flash of lightning in a summer cloud,
A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream.
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LastLegend
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Re: No live teacher no problem

Post by LastLegend »

Jesse wrote:
It may be arrogant of me to say so, but when your chanting amibatas name with full faith... your already meeting with him, no?

Symbolically yes. Also, when people go through hard times, they need assurance and support. There are a few practitioners of Pure Land who have seen the golden body of Buddha in their dreams. Some reported seeing beautiful peaceful scenes that they have seen before in their dreams. For me, I am a beginner still deluded and attached by everyday life. I am not lucky to see such.
Last edited by LastLegend on Sat Sep 06, 2014 2:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Losal Samten
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Re: No live teacher no problem

Post by Losal Samten »

If it was symbolical it would be fruitless endeavour.
Lacking mindfulness, we commit every wrong. - Nyoshul Khen Rinpoche
འ༔ ཨ༔ ཧ༔ ཤ༔ ས༔ མ༔
ཨོཾ་ཧ་ནུ་པྷ་ཤ་བྷ་ར་ཧེ་ཡེ་སྭཱ་ཧཱ།།
ཨཱོཾ་མ་ཏྲི་མུ་ཡེ་སལེ་འདུ།།
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LastLegend
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Re: No live teacher no problem

Post by LastLegend »

Mother's Lap wrote:If it was symbolical it would be fruitless endeavour.
There is connection there but you don't really see him yet. That's what I meant. Perhaps when ones mind is clear and completely devoted, then will see at some point even before taking rebirth in Pure Land.
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Jesse
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Re: No live teacher no problem

Post by Jesse »

LastLegend wrote:
Mother's Lap wrote:If it was symbolical it would be fruitless endeavour.
There is connection there but you don't really see him yet. That's what I meant. Perhaps when ones mind is clear and completely devoted, then will see at some point even before taking rebirth in Pure Land.
Again also maybe arrogant to say so, but when in deep samadi while chanting his name, that IS his pure land. That is amibda, appearances create many buddhas, many sentient beings.. appearances are just that.. appearances.

It's just like Zazen, when you sit in zazen you sit deeply with all buddhas. You are Buddha.

Someone correct me if im wrong, though.

(At the very least, this is how we practice.) actuality may differ. :shrug:
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Thus shall ye think of all this fleeting world:
A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream;
A flash of lightning in a summer cloud,
A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream.
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LastLegend
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Re: No live teacher no problem

Post by LastLegend »

Jesse wrote:
LastLegend wrote:
Mother's Lap wrote:If it was symbolical it would be fruitless endeavour.
There is connection there but you don't really see him yet. That's what I meant. Perhaps when ones mind is clear and completely devoted, then will see at some point even before taking rebirth in Pure Land.
Again also maybe arrogant to say so, but when in deep samadi while chanting his name, that IS his pure land. That is amibda, appearances create many buddhas, many sentient beings.. appearances are just that.. appearances.

It's just like Zazen, when you sit in zazen you sit deeply with all buddhas. You are Buddha.

Someone correct me if im wrong, though.

(At the very least, this is how we practice.) actuality may differ. :shrug:

Sure but I have never entered deep samadhi. While appearance is empty, I am still attached to appearance. Of Pure Land, you vow to take rebirth there. It's an actual place. I think you are talking about Pure Land from Zen perspective.
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Kaccāni
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Re: No live teacher no problem

Post by Kaccāni »

LastLegend wrote:Sure but I have never entered deep samadhi.
Liar! :)
Shush! I'm doing nose-picking practice!
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