Zhen Li wrote: ↑Tue Aug 02, 2022 7:37 am
Kai lord wrote: ↑Tue Aug 02, 2022 7:12 am
Saṃdhinirmocana Chapter 9, The twenty two obstructions starting from the first bhumi to the eleventh bhumi. Surprised you guys never include that.
Let's include it. I've only read through the Saṃdhinirmocana, I haven't studied it in depth.
Regarding Hevajra and Guhyasamāja, they certainly won't be included and nothing that requires empowerment has been included so far.
Yea, we're only using this organization structure, which is found in the Guhyasamaja, because its useful. Also, as I pointed out above, you can find something like it in Asanga, so its not just a tantric thing.
I did add a section on Dharanis, because they are just too important to general Mahayana to leave out. I don't see dharanis as "esoteric" though or as uniquely a vajrayana thing. As far as I know, they are just as widespread in Mahayana Buddhism as other texts and practices. People chant them, inscribe them on surfaces and use them in a wide variety of ways without any esoteric transmission.
Anyways, Zhen Li, I went ahead and updated the site with your previous suggestions as well. I think there's a decent outline now - though of course, subject to further additions and revisions (comments are welcome from everyone!).
I guess the next question is how do we want to proceed moving forward? Should we mainly use the website and start adding sub-pages with translations done by others (pulled from 84000, BDK, and other widely available sources like Conze's translations) to sort of build the basic text? I guess this is an easy way to start, and then over time we can start to replace these with our own translations or editions (we don't have to re-translate everything from scratch either if we can get permission from certain parties).
One concern with this process is that the various translations do not use a uniform vocabulary, so we should try to get a set of commonly used Buddhist terms and agree on what english words we should render them as so that they are all the same across the various texts. If not, this could get confusing for people pretty quickly.
It is quite impossible to find the Buddha anywhere other than in one's own mind.
A person who is ignorant of this may seek externally,
but how is it possible to find oneself through seeking anywhere other than in oneself?
Someone who seeks their own nature externally is like a fool who, giving a performance in the middle of a crowd, forgets who he is and then seeks everywhere else to find himself.
— Padmasambhava
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https://sites.google.com/view/abhayajana/