End times propaganda in Buddhism?

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Mr. G
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Re: End times propaganda in Buddhism?

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Food_Eatah wrote:This forum is a physical manifestation of the Dharma Ending Age!

:cry:

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Re: End times propaganda in Buddhism?

Post by Grigoris »

padma norbu wrote:"The Tibetan calendar is so similar to the Mayan that traditional scholars now speculate that they share a common origin."
Of course they share a common origin, they were both formulated by human beings for Buddhas sake! If you study Abhidharma you will quickly understand that we are nowhere near as as unique, either as individuals or groups, as we believe we are. Just lists of thought processes/patterns and emotional responses.
Or just someone taking huge liberties to try to tie everything together?
:roll:
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Re: End times propaganda in Buddhism?

Post by LastLegend »

Thank you Greg.
It’s eye blinking.
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Re: End times propaganda in Buddhism?

Post by Huseng »

ronnewmexico wrote:I tend to disagree H.

I think retention descends into the aspect of consciousness realm. In that it may be hindered in a conscious sense by toxin, but it is really not hindered in a larger sense.
We know that for most humans damage to the brain, whether by trauma or by toxins, causes it to malfunction. Memory faculties can be hindered by physical damage.
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Re: End times propaganda in Buddhism?

Post by Huseng »

Aemilius wrote: It certainly means conscious memorizing. The culture was to a large extent oral and thus dependent on memory. Even when writing existed, like in India, memorizing was the norm. Writing down of sutras began quite late. Before that sutras had been in an exclusively oral form for five hundred years or more. There must have been special techniques of memorizing, and there stil are, at least some remnants of it.
There is a ritual performed in Japanese Vajrayāna/Shingon that enables a practitioner to memorize and retain vast amounts of literature.

Even in traditions without such ritual technology, I think in times past it was just easier for most humans to memorize vast amounts of text and accurately reproduce it at will. Mental faculties were simply stronger.

In any case, this decline in memory faculties is a quality of the kaliyuga.

Most people would not want to admit it, but the fact is is that if you're born during the kaliyuga, then you're probably intellectually and mentally inferior to past generations just by virtue of the environment you have come to operate in. This is not culturally specific either -- it is worldwide. The effects of the kaliyuga apply to most people.
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Re: End times propaganda in Buddhism?

Post by ronnewmexico »

If I be born in that greater time and be greater, and now be born in this lesser time and be lesser.....which would I admit...the former or the latter.

and on what basis would I qualify that thing of greater or lesser. If all be lesser and I then be lesser be I perhaps not the greater of the lesser...and the inverse greater times and I be lesser be I then not greater then I of lesser time but lesser than greater that does abound....and then what would I admit, admitting such thing.

I personally find not a conscious basis for many retentions. Personally I have not a tenth of the retentive capacity of a conscious sort that I had in very many years earlier. I try to remember nothing it is so fruitless.
But I also find unconsciously I am remembering things of all sorts and in all sorts of manners that I could never expect to know in the past.

So personally I find such statements of advancing and declineing true in a way but untrue as well.
"This order considers that progress can be achieved more rapidly during a single month of self-transformation through terrifying conditions in rough terrain and in "the abode of harmful forces" than through meditating for a period of three years in towns and monasteries"....Takpo Tashi Namgyal.
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Re: End times propaganda in Buddhism?

Post by Huseng »

Namdrol wrote: Reality i.e. suchness, emptiness, etc., is not conditioned. Things arise in dependence because of the reality of things. Things are conditioned, but the reality of things is not.

N
Crow's teeth and rabbit horns.

You say things arise in dependence because of the reality of things -- that those arisen things are conditioned, yet they arise in dependence on the unconditioned.

If this were so, we would see flowers growing in the sky and lust arising in an arhat. In other words, conditioned things arising from the unconditioned, which cannot directly act as a cause.

Positing that the reality of things in unconditioned is problematic as it also ascribes qualities to tathātā. One quality of the unconditioned is that it is not subject to arising, abiding and cessation. It cannot be causally efficacious.

Tathātā is neither conditioned nor unconditioned.
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Re: End times propaganda in Buddhism?

Post by Aemilius »

Huseng wrote:
There is a ritual performed in Japanese Vajrayāna/Shingon that enables a practitioner to memorize and retain vast amounts of literature.

Even in traditions without such ritual technology, I think in times past it was just easier for most humans to memorize vast amounts of text and accurately reproduce it at will. Mental faculties were simply stronger.

In any case, this decline in memory faculties is a quality of the kaliyuga.

Most people would not want to admit it, but the fact is is that if you're born during the kaliyuga, then you're probably intellectually and mentally inferior to past generations just by virtue of the environment you have come to operate in. This is not culturally specific either -- it is worldwide. The effects of the kaliyuga apply to most people.
In the preface to the Kern (or maybe it is the Soothill) translation of the Lotus sutra he says that when he was translating it he learned to know a japanese man that knew the whole Lotus sutra by heart.

Venerable Hsuan Hua could memorize whole sutras quite easily. He talks about memorizing in his sutra commentaries that have been published in book form. We could ask his disciples to tell us more about it?

Even today there are, in european Zen, people who have taken it up to read the Diamond sutra 500 times, or more. Surely the people with modern fragmented minds will begin to remember sutras after this much repetition !!
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Sarvē mānavāḥ svatantrāḥ samutpannāḥ vartantē api ca, gauravadr̥śā adhikāradr̥śā ca samānāḥ ēva vartantē. Ētē sarvē cētanā-tarka-śaktibhyāṁ susampannāḥ santi. Api ca, sarvē’pi bandhutva-bhāvanayā parasparaṁ vyavaharantu."
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 1. (in english and sanskrit)
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Re: End times propaganda in Buddhism?

Post by ronnewmexico »

I have once observed a very young child, 4 or so remembering in totality a scene. Particular to this child, it was a borrowing of something and the exact surroundings of that. And this occured the remembered thing when that child was 2. I then examined other child to see if this was just a gifted child and found not...it appears most l children can do this thing.
I then ask perhaps that child or any other child to learn or memorize a two syllable word for spelling...that takes maybe a half hour at that age.
I examine myself and find the same thing in other form.

So as to retention I think all have gotton it wrong. It is clear to me one form works against another. As one does entertain the first the second is lost and the inverse. The more the child learns the rote memorization, the less they will remember the actual scene and context of things. One is worked at the other is natural.

Can we be in a time in which rote memorization is not favored and the other is...certainly. And we can be in a time when the other is prdominate and the other retention is not.

No offense to those expressing view but I find that to be true. There then is no regression nor advancement in this thing of memory it is all in the presentation of it....the thing remains the same in human always,the capacity.The circumstance present determins its presentation.
One better or worse and thus one time better or worse....I suspect not.

To make inaccurate determinations to think one knows a thing in rote memorized fashion when one has no such capacity or to imagine one retains things in sensed or picture form but not word when one does not....that is a error and perhaps indicitive of a lesser time if great numbers do that.
That is my opinion on this thing of retention...it is all in how we see it.

So I disagree with that notion of degeneracy in this thing. There could be degeneracy but it has to be of a differing sort.
Personally I think most all spend much time in rote memorization or even occasionally accidental memorization...much much time perhaps...but examining what is this thing of memorization and how it works in relationship...I think few do that at all.
I personally can remember a conversation and subject matter of many I have met very many years ago,how they looked what was the context of the discussion in much detail, remembering exactly the words spoken...ask me the proper name of my practice text....can't tell you.
Is that a degeneracy....not by my take. If I thought it so I would not be that way.....a different way of utilizing the retentive capacity as I see it..being not enlightened it is finate in presentation and we must then determine how it presents rationing it in a way.

So I have...talk to me about anything...I will remember it for ten years or more...pretty much to perfection. I do not aim this thing, just with complete attention(as it interests me)...I will do it automatically. There is not a bit of effort to it. I could continue these conversations with peoples if I have not seen them in ten years..but it would be quite pointless, they would not have a clue.
But they have great capacity for rote memorization..some of them.

I suspect rote memorizers(those very good at it) have pushed this opinion of things this way so other is considered degeneracy .

I say clearly...it is not necessarily.

As a aside..I conjecture those having visions of the future seeing what peoples really think, things of that sort...are based on the nonconscious retention, not the rote memorization. As pictures mostly of the future or senseing, is how that may be done, not by seeing words of those things. In picute form it seems is how those things are at times(I conjecture). so there is a close similiarity.
So rote memorization has a purpose I find but also focusing on this other way may have other implication as well.
So it is our choice. Not our choice as in dementia toxins..that is one aiming at doing a thing or having a thing and then having it taken away. Dementia....to my experience it always suffers a expansion of me, rather than a dimunization. In overall fashion I think is has that as essence though circumstance, toxins age birthed into, whatever, are its circumstance of presentation. What elicits it. First is the to big me which implels the circumstance in this particular fashion.

A different issue than choosing how a thing may be done, how retention may be done is dementia or neurological deficiency. More karmic consequence as i read it. But really the potential is retained completely. Einstien, could not remember where he put his coat he just took off, and attained many of his realizations in dreams, failed yes his first entrance exam to advanced education back in the day...he perhaps exemplifies intellect being not rote memorization. Warren Buffet can not tell you the color of the walls in the room in his house he has lived in in Omaha for thirty years......and on and on.....

degeneracy is often in the eyes of the beholder. Buffet a painter..he sucks. Einstein a coat checker..he sucks. Intellectually adjudged deficient both in those regards. Degenerat neither it is all a question of focus. Focusing what being unenlightened is a finate capacity of presentation.
"This order considers that progress can be achieved more rapidly during a single month of self-transformation through terrifying conditions in rough terrain and in "the abode of harmful forces" than through meditating for a period of three years in towns and monasteries"....Takpo Tashi Namgyal.
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Re: End times propaganda in Buddhism?

Post by Thug4lyfe »

cool story bro.
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Re: End times propaganda in Buddhism?

Post by Malcolm »

Huseng wrote:
Namdrol wrote: Reality i.e. suchness, emptiness, etc., is not conditioned. Things arise in dependence because of the reality of things. Things are conditioned, but the reality of things is not.

N
You say things arise in dependence because of the reality of things -- that those arisen things are conditioned, yet they arise in dependence on the unconditioned.
Read it again:

I said:

Things arise in dependence because of the reality of things.

You interpreted:

"that those arisen things are conditioned, yet they arise in dependence on the unconditioned"

I never said that things arise depending on the unconditioned. I said that things arise in dependence i.e. dependently, because of the reality of things i.e. the reality of things being emptiess free from extremes.

N
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Re: End times propaganda in Buddhism?

Post by Dechen Norbu »

Topic split.
You can continue to discuss views about this subject from other religions/sects/cults/ beliefs in the topic created for that effect.

Here, please keep on topic.

:anjali:
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Re: End times propaganda in Buddhism?

Post by DGA »

Huseng wrote:
Aemilius wrote: It certainly means conscious memorizing. The culture was to a large extent oral and thus dependent on memory. Even when writing existed, like in India, memorizing was the norm. Writing down of sutras began quite late. Before that sutras had been in an exclusively oral form for five hundred years or more. There must have been special techniques of memorizing, and there stil are, at least some remnants of it.
There is a ritual performed in Japanese Vajrayāna/Shingon that enables a practitioner to memorize and retain vast amounts of literature.

Even in traditions without such ritual technology, I think in times past it was just easier for most humans to memorize vast amounts of text and accurately reproduce it at will. Mental faculties were simply stronger.

In any case, this decline in memory faculties is a quality of the kaliyuga.

Most people would not want to admit it, but the fact is is that if you're born during the kaliyuga, then you're probably intellectually and mentally inferior to past generations just by virtue of the environment you have come to operate in. This is not culturally specific either -- it is worldwide. The effects of the kaliyuga apply to most people.
is the decline in memory a symptom of kaliyuga, or of the changes in the brain (or functioning) that come about with exposure to technology such as text and image saturation?

context: consider the cases of old Yugoslav epic singers, who could remember by heart a voluminous catalogue of material in rhyme... but would lose that faculty if taught how to read and write.
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Re: End times propaganda in Buddhism?

Post by Lhug-Pa »

Are there any Buddhist scriptures that mention the Precession of the Equinoxes?

Sutra, Tantra, Abhidharma, Kalachakra, Dzogchen?

And does Buddhism recognize the cycles of incarnating Avatars based on the Precession of the Equinoxes as other world's religions do?

In [i]Practical Astrology[/i], Samael Aun Weor wrote:"Jainism states that during this Great Day of Brahma, twenty-four greater Prophets who have attained total perfection descend into this world.

"Gnostic scriptures state that there are Twelve Saviors, in other words, Twelve Avatars, but if we think of John the Baptist as the precursor and Jesus as the Avatar of Pisces (the age that just passed), we can then comprehend that for each of the twelve zodiacal ages there is always a precursor and an Avatar, a total of twenty-four Great Prophets. 

"Mahavira was Buddha’s precursor and John the Baptist was Jesus’."
(I should know more about this, it's been a while since I looked into it)

I ask because end-times prophecies and the Yugas should coincide with the Precession of the Equinoxes and the 24,000 to 26,000 year cycle.
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Malcolm
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Re: End times propaganda in Buddhism?

Post by Malcolm »

Lhug-Pa wrote:Are there any Buddhist scriptures that mention the Precession of the Equinoxes?

Kalacakra takes precession into account, without mentioning it explicitly.

See Henning's book.

N
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Re: End times propaganda in [quote="Huseng"][quote="AemBuddhism?

Post by Virgo »

Jikan wrote:
is the decline in memory a symptom of kaliyuga, or of the changes in the brain (or functioning) that come about with exposure to technology such as text and image saturation?

context: consider the cases of old Yugoslav epic singers, who could remember by heart a voluminous catalogue of material in rhyme... but would lose that faculty if taught how to read and write.
Probably a result in the imbalanbce of the inner and outer winds, and so forth. So, if that's the case, a result of Kali Yuga yes. Which, is a result of beings lack of accumulated merit. So a result of actions of body, speech, and mind, due mostly to ignorance.

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Re: End times propaganda in Buddhism?

Post by padma norbu »

I posted a video here and then remembered the last time I did that my video got moved to the media section, so I moved it myself. http://dharmawheel.net/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=6116" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
"Use what seems like poison as medicine. We can use our personal suffering as the path to compassion for all beings." Pema Chodron
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Re: End times propaganda in [quote="Huseng"][quote="AemBuddhism?

Post by wisdom »

Virgo wrote:
Jikan wrote:
is the decline in memory a symptom of kaliyuga, or of the changes in the brain (or functioning) that come about with exposure to technology such as text and image saturation?

context: consider the cases of old Yugoslav epic singers, who could remember by heart a voluminous catalogue of material in rhyme... but would lose that faculty if taught how to read and write.
Probably a result in the imbalanbce of the inner and outer winds, and so forth. So, if that's the case, a result of Kali Yuga yes. Which, is a result of beings lack of accumulated merit. So a result of actions of body, speech, and mind, due mostly to ignorance.

Kevin
There are a number of factors that play into poor memory based on my experience in trying to make my memory better.

1) Poor diet in early childhood, ages 0-6. This includes the mothers diet during gestation. If a child is fed junk food during their first 6 years of life, and not the right nutrients, the brain will develop poorly. This can result in a decrease in IQ of 20-30 points, which is a lot when you consider the average is around 100. I learned this from a book on poor nutrition in Americas Ghettos.
2) Poor diet in present life. Even if you had a good diet as a child, having a poor diet now will deprive your body of the nutrients, proteins and aminoacids it needs to work properly now. The two biggest things are eating heart and brain healthy foods.
3) Indeed, poor circulation of Lung, improper breathing, bad posture, all contribute to the functioning of all things in the body.
4) Doing things that promote unconsciousness/non awareness or damage the brain outright. Drugs, alcohol, television, video games. The less conscious you are, the less you are going to remember. The more you engage in unconscious promoting activities, the less you are going to be conscious/aware/present in your daily life.
5) Learning how to learn. There are five keys to learning-
A- Learning with emotion. If you are not emotionally connected to what you are learning, it will be harder to remember. Yet if you have an emotional connection, you will find it much easier to remember anything. You need to care. If you don't care, you won't retain the information. The same can be said for anything in your daily life. You don't care what car was turning right at such an such an intersection at 3:44pm, so you don't remember that it was a red Ford Mustang. You may have had no awareness of it at all.
B- Learning in large quantity. The more you read and study, the more you will retain information.
C- Contemplating what you have learned. Not only analyzing it, but sorting it out. Understanding which traditions which beliefs come from, and so forth. This is kind of like sorting knowledge. You have to consciously recognize it for it to be sorted properly though, otherwise it will just all go into your "Buddhist" memory bank. You have to learn to compartmentalize, just like organizing files on a computer. Doing this takes time, but it means doing more than just absorbing information, it also means categorization.
D- Repetition. The reason past scholars would memorize texts like the Prajnaparamita is because they would read them over and over again, chant them as mantras, translate them, read commentaries on them, and so forth. We either don't do this today, or don't have the time.
E- Usage. You need to use the information you obtain either in contemplation, but better yet in participation in discussions. That will not only help you to retain the information more, but it will show you what you have learned and also what you still need to learn.

So its true to say that Kaliyuga might be the cause of not having a good memory, but most of those causes can be reduced or eliminated. They are a result of conditions, not some absolute truth about our minds right now. If we remove the conditions that cause bad memory, we will at least see our memory improved, even if we don't develop some kind of photographic memory.
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Re: End times propaganda in Buddhism?

Post by Thug4lyfe »

U mean karma bro?
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Re: End times propaganda in Buddhism?

Post by Huseng »

Namdrol,

You said,
Namdrol wrote:Reality i.e. suchness, emptiness, etc., is not conditioned.
Do you mean they are unconditioned?

I said that things arise in dependence i.e. dependently, because of the reality of things i.e. the reality of things being emptiess free from extremes.
In other words, it is due to the reality of things (which you assert are not conditioned, which I'm wondering if you mean unconditioned like space), that things arise in dependence.

If you say that emptiness is unconditioned, then you have to explain how it has some kind of causal functionality which allows things to arise in dependence.

If you agree that suchness is neither conditioned nor unconditioned, then there is no disagreement. If you're saying that suchness is unconditioned (like empty space), then I will disagree.
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