Search found 933 matches
- Mon Jun 14, 2021 9:32 pm
- Forum: Lounge
- Topic: Richard Dawkins - The Enemies of Reason - Part 1: Slaves to Superstition
- Replies: 112
- Views: 7492
Re: Richard Dawkins - The Enemies of Reason - Part 1: Slaves to Superstition
So is the religious part of Buddhism Santa? You could argue effectively the culty bits are worthwhile for character development if they are discarded once one reaches the far shore having achieved the 8 Paramitas(or however many your tradition has). My problem is lately the culty bits are making peo...
- Mon Jun 14, 2021 4:44 pm
- Forum: Lounge
- Topic: Richard Dawkins - The Enemies of Reason - Part 1: Slaves to Superstition
- Replies: 112
- Views: 7492
Re: Richard Dawkins - The Enemies of Reason - Part 1: Slaves to Superstition
You can't avoid the language of "I", it seems; you too say "whose three-dimensional space am I occupying?”. Language refers to things in the outer and inner world. In the Apohavada it is said that if the things that language refers to have results, then they exist and are real, i.e. ...
- Mon Jun 14, 2021 1:18 pm
- Forum: Dharma in Everyday Life
- Topic: Why drugs are bad for meditators?
- Replies: 44
- Views: 5597
Re: Why drugs are bad for meditators?
Habitual use or rarely as a leisure activity? As a leisure activity it's not a bad way to test your realization. If you are using habitually clearly you have little to no realization and are trapped in a cycle of drug abuse. Personally when I am getting surgery I like all the drugs please. Being awa...
- Fri Jun 11, 2021 8:58 pm
- Forum: Lounge
- Topic: Richard Dawkins - The Enemies of Reason - Part 1: Slaves to Superstition
- Replies: 112
- Views: 7492
Re: Richard Dawkins - The Enemies of Reason - Part 1: Slaves to Superstition
Dawkins can't even understand Kafka. He is what my kid would call not neurotypical. His nature may have a biological component.
- Fri Jun 11, 2021 1:47 am
- Forum: Lounge
- Topic: Richard Dawkins - The Enemies of Reason - Part 1: Slaves to Superstition
- Replies: 112
- Views: 7492
Re: Richard Dawkins - The Enemies of Reason - Part 1: Slaves to Superstition
Theists invent a God in the sky to enslave themselves to. It's some perverse Dominance and submission weirdness.
- Wed Jun 09, 2021 1:52 pm
- Forum: Lounge
- Topic: Richard Dawkins - The Enemies of Reason - Part 1: Slaves to Superstition
- Replies: 112
- Views: 7492
Re: Richard Dawkins - The Enemies of Reason - Part 1: Slaves to Superstition
Dawkins militant atheism is perhaps extreme, but the opportunity costs to society from superstition are unfathomablely large. There are a thousand kooky cults out there. All filled with true believers. Imagining enlightenment is clearly very different from actualization of the Buddha's teachings. Th...
- Sun Jun 06, 2021 10:47 pm
- Forum: Lounge
- Topic: Richard Dawkins - The Enemies of Reason - Part 1: Slaves to Superstition
- Replies: 112
- Views: 7492
Re: Richard Dawkins - The Enemies of Reason - Part 1: Slaves to Superstition
We have had some people be total suckers for exploitative sexual and financial manipulation. They lost years of their life. Buddhism has developed a cult problem. I think it might be a good time to go back to first principles and stop making excuses for Adharmic behavior masquerading as the Buddha's...
- Fri Jun 04, 2021 8:44 pm
- Forum: Mahāyāna Buddhism
- Topic: "Which has primacy, Buddha or Dharma"?
- Replies: 82
- Views: 6680
Re: "Which has primacy, Buddha or Dharma"?
Is the Dharma really the Dharma if you practice for 30 years and it produces no realization? We don’t practice for this life. We practice for the next life. Realization is a not campaign badge one can show others. It’s undetectable by ordinary people. The only thing ordinary people can observe is t...
- Fri Jun 04, 2021 4:42 am
- Forum: Mahāyāna Buddhism
- Topic: "Which has primacy, Buddha or Dharma"?
- Replies: 82
- Views: 6680
Re: "Which has primacy, Buddha or Dharma"?
Is the Dharma really the Dharma if you practice for 30 years and it produces no realization? Buddha was not a man who taught a religion. He revealed the natural state. In his awakening he thought, "this cannot be taught." The Dharma is a finger pointing at the moon, not the moon. I see ver...
- Wed Jun 02, 2021 7:22 pm
- Forum: Sūtra Studies
- Topic: MPNS on Women
- Replies: 92
- Views: 7227
Re: MPNS on Women
Assuming that the translation is accurate... I would interpret it as saying that men can grasp the profound meaning of the sutra, and women can’t. It that actually true? No. But let’s not dodge the ball and make up excuses. Let’s just admit that the text is sexist. After that, you can speculate as ...
- Wed Jun 02, 2021 3:21 pm
- Forum: Sūtra Studies
- Topic: MPNS on Women
- Replies: 92
- Views: 7227
Re: MPNS on Women
There were no books in the time of Buddha. With the proliferation of questionable teachers I have been forced to have a crisis of faith and separate what the Buddha taught from the Cult of Buddha to the best of my meager abilities. I was lucky enough to have teachers who kept all 3 levels of vows wi...
- Mon May 31, 2021 10:44 am
- Forum: Mahāyāna Buddhism
- Topic: "Which has primacy, Buddha or Dharma"?
- Replies: 82
- Views: 6680
Re: "Which has primacy, Buddha or Dharma"?
As the Buddha said many times the Dharma is the boat to the Other Shore. Having arrived you throw it away. If practicing does not get you there it's just another kooky religion. Buddhists learn logic for a reason. We are supposed to know.the difference between dogma and realization. If we lose that ...
- Sun May 30, 2021 5:47 pm
- Forum: Mahāyāna Buddhism
- Topic: "Which has primacy, Buddha or Dharma"?
- Replies: 82
- Views: 6680
Re: "Which has primacy, Buddha or Dharma"?
The Buddha was not a God. He was simply Buddhi, Awake. Due to the difficulty in sharing his realization he codified a system of rules to facilitate becoming realized. Dharma is not the awakened state. It is what an enlightened being does naturally. The awakened state is accessible by all beings with...
- Thu May 27, 2021 9:36 pm
- Forum: Tibetan Buddhism
- Topic: How does mantra purify past negative karma?
- Replies: 33
- Views: 2422
Re: How does mantra purify past negative karma?
Karma can also be understood as momentum. Mantras can add subtle positive influences to ones life. This changes ones mood and trajectory. Drinking water doesn't change your Karma of being thirsty but you are no longer dehydrated. Did the glass of water change your Karma?
- Sun May 23, 2021 3:31 pm
- Forum: Kagyu
- Topic: Karmapa's (TTD & OTD) Occupation
- Replies: 52
- Views: 7401
Re: Karmapa's Occupation
I wish OTD the best. He has that Karmapa energy. Putting a kid in charge of a religious org that is a tiny bit culty after many years of imprisonment was not going to be easy. I think this falls on us to ask what he wants to do with his life.
- Tue May 18, 2021 9:07 pm
- Forum: Lounge
- Topic: A conversation about Buddhism with a prototype AGI. (Artifical Intelligence)
- Replies: 27
- Views: 2043
Re: A conversation about Buddhism with a prototype AGI. (Artifical Intelligence)
It's just a program made by a person to trick you. Anyone can make one. It has no idea what it's answers mean. It has no intelligence. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coNjpBa5m1E The advanced AIs I have interacted with seem very gentle. Trolls turned Tay, Microsoft’s fun millennial AI bot, into a ge...
- Sun May 16, 2021 8:43 pm
- Forum: Discovering Mahayana Buddhism
- Topic: Religious/Philosophy Education
- Replies: 13
- Views: 1068
Re: Religious/Philosophy Education
I did a large unit on Greek myths and religion in high school in Canada. Then self a directed project on Norse mythology. But those things are all cut now. You can take comparative religion in your first year of post secondary though. Once you are exposed to a half dozen crazy religions it gives som...
- Sun May 16, 2021 12:15 pm
- Forum: Ethical Conduct
- Topic: The Great Abortion Debate
- Replies: 497
- Views: 136514
Re: The Great Abortion Debate
So if the Buddhist ideas about conception are true do identical twins share a soul. Monozygotic twins disproves the Buddhist THEORY of conception. Sounds like the entire process of you see your dad and get jealous stuff is BS no one will ever be able to prove. Ethical conduct means not living your l...
- Fri May 14, 2021 7:29 pm
- Forum: Ethical Conduct
- Topic: The Great Abortion Debate
- Replies: 497
- Views: 136514
Re: The Great Abortion Debate
As Malcolm wrote, that's a non sequitur, but go for it, I suppose. The fact is that very few people in this conversation have really given any serious thought to the ethical issues at hand. They are mostly just spewing knee-jerk religious dogmas, borrowing rhetoric from pro-life Christians, who hav...
- Fri May 14, 2021 12:10 am
- Forum: Ethical Conduct
- Topic: The Great Abortion Debate
- Replies: 497
- Views: 136514
Re: The Great Abortion Debate
Buddhism does not have the tools to deal with this very modern issue in anything more than the broadest ethical guidelines. It's understanding of biology is too primitive and it's tainted by misogyny and patriarchy. We don't need kings to rule us, wives are not personal property and having sex with ...