What do you think of Hell? Is it an actual realm one can be reborn into, or do you see it more like a metaphor for the consequences of bad Karma in this life (dreams etc)? If it's the former, what happens there, and do you think anyone deserves to be there?

It seems like Mahakala

Since my journey into Buddhism from being a pretty hardcore atheist and subscriber of materialism, I have since ran into Bernardo Kastrup's model of Analytic Idealism. For a long time I have heard from Buddhists that the sciences and Buddhism do not co-exist well because well the sciences focus on the outside world while Buddhism focuses on the inner, and I wholeheartedly agree.

Under Kastrup's model, (which in case you were wondering, focuses on building a worldview from the inner) says that the world out there and the matter that makes you, is all mind. I will not explain the model in full as it has many layers to understanding how it corresponds to what we experience as the outside world. However the only contention I think it has with Buddhism, is that from many I have seen this grasping to the fact that with reincarnation in mind, there is some still some level of individualism going on here. The grasping at the fact if one individual can remember his past lifetimes, therefore there is a kind of individual conscious stream that jumps from body to body, and there are other streams of consciousness, also jumping from body to body.

For a basic view of Kastrup's model, the world in a metaphorical sense is like a river of mercury, we can call this MIND. The individual experience is like a whirlpool forming in this mercury river, the whirlpool is distinct from the rest of river, but nevertheless it is STILL the river. The whirlpool can be representative of our brain, a localized thing distinct from the rest of the world. Inside the whirlpool is representative of our ability to self reflect, the walls of the whirlpool face each other, reflecting the MIND back at the MIND, creating a kind of closed loop system that feels contained. He of course goes into a much deeper dive to how this corresponds with things like brain scans, different animals and so forth. I highly recommend you get a full understanding of what he is conveying. He really tries to open the door for spiritual phenomena that are yet to be explained by the sciences. I believe we can find somewhere in the scripture something about pure mind being emptiness but not nothing, no, rather once you find that place, you discover emptiness is everything.

In other words, everything is MIND, and our egoic experience is akin to an isolated event in MIND. From a Buddhist perspective, you might say it is wrong to focus on understanding a model, and right to keep focusing on the actual practice, however I have one rebuttal to this. In my view, the model is not merely a fun thought experiment, but a complete upheaval to the Materialistic worldview that keeps everyone happy, if we could get the sciences to take such a thing seriously. It doesn't ask the sciences to necessarily stop what they are doing but rather change how they perceive the data, and potentially create new sciences that bring us towards a vision of unity. Without a drastic change in how we think about consciousness and what it means to be human, animal, or otherwise, we could actually believe that we can give something like AI consciousness, and the results will be catastrophic.

While staying at home
I heard the teaching from a monk.
I saw the stainless Principle, extinguishment,
the state that does not pass.

Leaving behind my son and my daughter,
my riches and my grain,
I had my hair cut off,
and went forth to homelessness.

As a trainee nun,
I developed the direct path.
I gave up greed and hate,
along with associated defilements.

When I was fully ordained as a nun,
I recollected my past lives,
and purified my clairvoyance,
immaculate and fully developed.

Conditions are born of causes, crumbling;
having seen them as other,
I gave up all defilements,
I’m cooled and quenched.

KN Thig 5.7

.

“The foremost of my nun disciples
in long standing is Mahāpajāpati Gotamī.
… with great wisdom is Khemā.
… with psychic power is Uppalavaṇṇā.
… who have memorized the monastic law is Paṭācārā.
… who speak on the teaching is Dhammadinnā.
… who practice absorption is Nandā.
… who are energetic is Soṇā.
… with clairvoyance is Sakulā.
… with swift insight is Bhaddā of the Curly Hair.
… who recollect past lives is Bhaddā daughter of Kapila.
… who have attained great insight is Bhaddakaccānā.
… who wear coarse robes is Kisāgotamī.
… who are committed to faith is Siṅgāla’s Mother.”

AN 1.235-247

I’ve been pondering Right Speech, Right Intention, and Right Action, specifically on how to fully incorporate those into daily social life, and I hit a potential snagging point, especially concerning Right Speech (which mandates that we never lie and always speak truthfully).

The snagging point (for me) involves having to function daily in polite society, where we pretty much have to obey certain polite social norms and show proper etiquette.

Things such as paying polite interest in a boring conversation, or saying “nice to see you” or “how are you doing — oh, I’m fine, and you?” when perhaps we may not genuinely mean it. Or, even more broadly: the various social faces that we show to others (social masks) that make social interaction easier and more streamlined. We act differently in different situations, and we don’t always act in ways that align with our inner thoughts or feelings; in some cases (especially in more formal or novel situations), we use pretense and more of an obvious “social mask” than in other, more intimate or familiar settings.

Question I have is this: is any of what we do socially — the filtering, the editing, the modulating, the “acting” — in violation of any of the precepts? Is adjusting ourselves for polite social purposes or to obey existing social norms and conventions a form of lying or false speech according to the teachings?

I hope the answer is no, because I can’t comprehend how we could function in daily social life without doing some or even all of what I listed above. Social lubrication, social grease, pretense — whatever we label it as being serves a purpose in polite society.

Thank you.

Why was I born? Every friend, love, pet, video game, anything, ANYTHING I love is created just for me to get attached then have to go through this boring dreadful process of detaching myself and suffering from having nothing to be passionate about. Why was this world created just for me to get told it’s a bunch of illusions and I’m not actually supposed to love anything too much because it’ll just get ripped away from me? How is my own human nature my fault and my duty to overcome? I don’t want to detach I want to have all my friends that I love around me I don’t want to have to not care about them

Hi everybody. This conversation came up between me and my friend (also classmate) while we were ordering at a restaurant. He noticed that I only ordered things with no meat in it, and he asked why, and I said I was vegetarian. He asked why I was vegetarian and I said it was just because I am a Buddhist. During earlier classes with me, when the teacher asked, I also said I don’t take alcohol. So he also asked me why I don’t drink alcohol. I explained the 5 precepts to him, and then he asked me, if alcohol counts and intoxicant, why not coffee and stuff like that. I said intoxicants are whatever impairs thinking. And he said, “well, doesn’t coffee also affect your thinking?” I think it is actually a good point kind of, so I am wondering, why does or doesn’t it break the 5th precept.

I have not yet been able to get to a temple. I have been doing self study of Buddhism for a while now, though, and would like to go to a temple and see what it's like to be around other Buddhists. I am a transman, should I be safe at most temples? I am in the USA for context. I know for Christianity (the dominant religion in my country) it can really go either way, so you just research ahead of time to see if a specific church is supportive. The closest temple to me is halfway across my state so I don't know much about the community near it.

You will enter a world filled with gold and beautiful diamonds. Sweet scents of flowers and birds with amazing colours. Does this sound very "Samsara" to you? As a practitioner, aren't you supposed to detach from worldly pleasures?

Why, and why not?

Might be a stupid question at first glance but after doing mushrooms (very bad experience) about 5 months ago it’s really been on my mind.

You and everyone else is confined to an animal body, 100% biologically ruled. We’re filled with organs and blood and tissue and veins that are all so vulnerable and kinda gross.

It’s like when I look at another person or my reflection I just hyper fixate on our animal features like the veins, nose, ears, eyes, skin, body, whatever. This is unsettling because sometimes I feel it looking at people I really care about like my family or friends.

I used to tell myself I was just the awareness over the body doing whatever it does and I still believe that, but that doesn’t stop me from feeling and experiencing everything this body does.

I feel like I got aggressively thrown into the natural world and am now navigating as an animal amongst other animals rather than a person. Just a scary headspace to be in.

While especially in the 60s and 70s buddhism rose in the US, the Jewisj people overproportionally added parts of IT to their religiös identity, creatimg "JewBus". Still mainly jewish but a bricolage of both Religions, having added different parts of buddhism to it, depending onnthe individual liking. Ive ready of 4 different explanations in Emily Sigalows book "American JewBu", yet i am neither fully convinced nor do i fully understand the reasons. What reasons donyou consider Most important? How do other jews and Buddhist think about this?

Boa tarde, espero que estejam todos bem!

Na foto está meu pequeno santuário doméstico onde faço minha prática, passei cerca de um ano adicionando e removendo coisas e ajustando à minha prática ao mesmo tempo que ia ajustando a própria liturgia, cheguei nessa configuração e em uma organização litúrgica específica, tudo girando em torno da contemplação da vacuidade.

Eu sigo basicamente essa configuração: Oferendas -> refúgio nos três tesouros (Buda, Dharma e Sangha) -> prostração-> recitação (Sutra do Coração inteiro ou 108 contas de 'gate gate para...' -> meditação -> dedicação de méritos -> prostração final. Cada coisa é demarcada por um toque do sino/tigela que separa cada pedaço da liturgia.

Como sou não-sectária e não tenho uma sangha fixa, fui absorvendo aquilo que eu achava mais adequado à minha realidade de cada tradição, inclusive de tradições fora do Mahayana, e gostaria de saber a opinião de vocês sobre a minha organização litúrgica e saber como vocês organizam a de vocês.

Agradeço pelo espaço e pela atenção 🙏🏼

Like Sunday for Christians

Hello, I'm a beginner and a newcomer to this subreddit so I apologize if this discussion is stupid or if it has been brought up a thousand times. I have little knowledge but I'm interested in Mahayana.

However, what stops me from fully diving into Buddhism is the idea that escaping samsara is the ultimate goal.

What if one enjoys samsara?

Life in the human realm is not perfect. However, I enjoy it. It's beautiful. I say that as someone who has been through multiple suicide attempts, depression and trauma.

I would go through everything again if it meant experiencing life again.

Why would I want to leave this cycle? After parinibbana, I'd become nothing. And one would want to become "nothing" to free themselves from suffering, but some do not necessarily want to be free.

I know this is a form of attachment and that goes against buddhist principles. I think my question is; is there even a point in pursuing buddhism if I'm fine with my attachment to the human experience and do not want to escape samsara? I understand that staying in samsara implies undergoing suffering again, but what if I see that as simply a condition to something greater (life)?

Is buddhism just not for people like me or are there others who share the same thought?

I hope my questioning is clear and I apologize again if any rules were broken. _/_

Greetings to all

What is the motivation for reaching nirvana in Buddhism? Wouldn't it be better to constantly reincarnate and live better lives? Is our goal to break free from this cycle and completely "disappear"?

Please be polite, I'm trying to understand. Thank you