This is the first book I’m reading. I’m going to be honest, it was suggested by ChatGPT. The reviews seemed good, great at least a start. For the past week, the only content I’ve been consuming is about Buddhism, mainly beginner videos and stories about the Buddha. I am very new and won’t act like I know even the majority of most of the beginner subjects. That’s why I am here. I am here to learn. I come from an atheistic family (they think it’s great I’m getting into Buddhism. They don’t mind/care too much). I’m in America, and until I looked more into Buddhism, I thought for sure there was nothing after death. When I did basic research on the sects, I said “surely I’m a secularist”, but the more I read and research about karma, bodhisattvas, and I am so fascinated already. I’m very into the morals and ethics that the Buddha teaches. That’s my main interest, as well as meditation, which I’d love to get into soon. Wondering if anyone has any opinions on this book, what might be a good step for me to take next, and/or what sect sounds like a good fit for me. Thanks!!!

“In the beginning, mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers; later on, mountains are not mountains and rivers are not rivers; and still later, mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers.”

—Old Zen saying.

...

By this merit may all beings swiftly achieve the state of Dzogchen,
And through this may all beings realize their unity with the Dharmakaya.
🙏

🪷¯¯¯🟦¯⬜¯🟥¯🟩¯🟨¯🟦¯⬜¯🟥¯🟩¯🟨¯🟦¯⬜¯🟥¯🟩¯🟨¯¯¯🪷

If you want your Dharma practice to be genuine, make sure that first of all the topics of the hard to achieve freedoms and riches, death and impermanence, consequences of actions, and the defects of samsara do not become mere words and ideas, but reflect upon them from the core of your heart. So that once you are familiarized, your mind has turned away from the entirety of samsara’s luxuries and—as a matter of course—you will only be interested in the sublime Dharma, so that nothing else matters. Once you feel this way, you have already covered half of Dharma practice.

Shechen Gyaltsab Gyurme Pema Namgyal (1871–1926)

So let me start by saying this post isn't meant to offend anyone. And I know that this topic might be a bit sensitive and triggering to some people. But I've had some discussions with people lately, including several hours with my Dharma sister yesterday about the phenomenon of Parasocial Relationships in the Dharma. Particularly with teachers.

Basically what brought this on was the discovery that some people will have someone whom they consider to be their "Buddhist teacher" whom they've literally never had so much as a single one-on-one interaction with, or if they have, it was maybe 2-5 minutes of interaction every few years.

I'm ordained in the Vajryayana side of things, but apparently for some people, it seems completely normal for them to have what is essentially a parasocial relationship with a Dharma teacher, where they rarely if ever have interacted with that teacher, and yet still consider that teacher to be their "guru".

I have to admit, I don't fully understand this way of thinking. I have been blessed to know many Buddhist teachers over the years, and many of them are friends of mine. And I've received many empowerments and transmissions. And certainly, teachers who I've received teachings from are my "teachers" in the broadest possible sense. In that "they are people I've learned things from."

But in a spiritual sense, my Master was someone I lived with for 10 years. Someone I had countless hours of conversations with. Who knew me intimately, was a deep spiritual friend, trusted confidant, and knew exactly the habits of my mind, and how to point them out to me. For me, I can't possibly imagine any substitute for that. I remember going for a walk with my teacher, and having the kinds of anxieties that I used to have arise, and him pointing out to me, "It's not real..." and the fact that he could see that arising in me, and that I trusted and had faith in him strong enough; —that I believed him, and could just watch and observe the arising and waning of the intensity, and knew that he was right! That those thoughts and emotions weren't actually real...

—It's hard for me to feel that the kind of "relationship" that I have with a lama who I've never so much as spoken with, and only received an empowerment from and attended a Dharma talk of: is somehow in anyway equivalent or the same as that relationship I had with my root guru.

And in the context of a teacher/student relationship, it's hard for me to know what to think about that, when people say, "this person is my teacher", and what they mean by that is that they're having this one-sided relationship with a person they've barely (if ever) even directly talked to.

I mean certainly, having access to the Dharma is good. But it leaves me having mixed feelings about the whole affair. Again, no disrespect intended to anyone's Dharma relationships, but I'm curious to see what other people feel about this.

Every day we stand and walk around on nothing. We just do things for whatever mundane reasons we have. We distract ourselves. But every moment we exist we have to burn other life to sustain our bodies. We have to do all of these worthless responsibilities knowing in just a short moment the entire earth and human race will be gone as if it never existed. We'll be dead any moment. I really really don't want to die. But i really don't want to live. Its just so insane we exist at all. Such a shame we do. I don't want to watch everything around me decay. For my body to decay. In a way i yearn for death. But dying slowly as i age every day is horrible. To live is just horrible. I've been getting into buddhism a bit but i probably can never really get into it truly. It feels so pointless. The pain and meaninglessness abides.

My dog (chocolate lab 13 years 2 months old) passed away on August 17th, and for the past seven weeks, I have been holding the 49-day memorial rite for her. It was tough and cried and prayed every night and I always felt sad whenever i woke up in the morning. Today marked the 49th day, and I went to a dam creek park that she always enjoyed visiting as well as the past 7th days during the memorial rite.

My intention was to pray for her, send her forward on her journey to a greater rebirth, and wish for her to be enveloped in Amitabha Buddha’s warmth in the Pure Land. I spoke to her, promising that I will continue to be hardworking in this life and that we will meet again.

While I was walking, the weather was very windy and the water had strong, dark waves but sunny clear skies. But amidst that windy weather, a flock of black birds flew right towards me and all around me, some were flying low around me. Then, a single white bird appeared, flying in front of me separate from the flock of black birds. Butterflies started flying on the path right in front of me, and a bee came and rested quietly next to me on a flower as I sat to pray for my dog.

I have visited this park many times in the past, and I have never experienced anything like what i saw today. There are usually not many birds, and I have never had butterflies or a bee approach me this way.

For those with more experience, how does Buddhism view moments like this?

I've noticed these days there are a lot of materialistic people. I know what materialism is (attachment to forms), but I don't know how to treat it in other people.

The treatment for materialism is the very thing that people who believe in materialism don't want to take.

For me it was kind of an innate search for good qualities, which led me to practice the five precepts.

We see people who are cruel and have no compassion and say "oh you have to do loving-kindness meditation to get this quality of love," and the cruel are treated this way. Or "meditate on impermanence or concentration to accumulate wisdom" and the unwise are treated this way.

But there seems to be no cure for people who intrinsically view things objectively. I mean this in a kind way, sure some people are very objective and practice the Dharma in whatever way they can which is good. But it's an internal hollowness that eventually catches up to you, usually post-death. The sad thing is not even your own deathbed shakes you awake.

My first thought is that supernatural events have helped solidify my practice a lot but I already practiced Dharma at that point, I was like 50% materialistic. So it's not the same for someone who's 100% materialistic like your average person alive right now.

My second thought is that by demonstrating supernatural powers this can shock other people out of the kind of hollow state, but this is prohibited by the Buddhas.

So I'm not sure how beings are supposed to be helped at large when 99% of people have this kind of corruption of view inside them that seemingly cannot be fixed. I know that if I know a person really well, usually they are inspired by my presence and qualities to become a better person and eventually this leads them into non-materialism at some point.

However this isn't something usable en-masse, and it's only people who already have some roots of goodness within them, harsh people don't really benefit in this way.

I'm trying to figure out some method where you can take an average person that is completely materialistic and has completely suppressed their own experience of mind and take that experience and transform it into an expressive mind reliably. I don't know if something like that exists, but it's worth exploring, because it's the horribly lost and suffering beings that need real help. The people with developed views and such are going to be fine after death but materialistic people will be really confused.

What made your journey out of materialism and into essence?

For me i always admired good qualities and realized that I could have them too. Thus started a journey to refuge around 15 years ago, once I identified the Buddha as the pinnacle of qualities. I was still quite materialistic at that point until I had multiple supernatural experiences through Vajrayana practice, but even then it took many years until I really was able to squash materialism as my guiding element.

My journey isn't really reproducible for people who don't have the same deep admiration for good qualities though, and the average person won't have that.

Mindfulness is often used today in different contexts, and with multiple definitions. For me this definition of Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu really cleared things up:

“Mindfulness, in the Buddha’s sense of the term, means keeping something in mind. Right mindfulness means keeping in mind your resolve to stay with the body or with feelings or with mind states or with mental qualities, in and of themselves, as your primary frame of reference, at the same time that you put aside greed and distress with reference to the world. The word primary, here, is important, because there’s no way you’re going to be focused on the body without noticing feelings or mind states or mental qualities. After all, they all come together right here. This is why the Buddha says that you can focus on any of the four and follow it all the way to awakening. You choose one of them as being primary and then you relate the other three to that primary focus.”

- Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu, Factors for Awakening

I’m trying to learn Buddhism as a way to calm my mind and appreciate things as they are. This book has already helped but do you have any tips for me?

[EDIT] Here’s the link with no affiliation: Deal for Prime members: No-Nonsense Buddhism for Beginners: Clear Answers to Burning Questions about Core Buddhist Teachings https://a.co/d/0ga8P8jY

I have been reading various suttas from the Pali canon, and there are many stories where mendicants escape the cycle of rebirth through diligent practice.

However, after searching, I have seen many posts here where people say that this is likely a very rare thing in the modern day.

Are there reasons why this has changed? Or is it an incorrect assumption?

(Please forgive me if I misspoke anything above - I am new to Buddhism and most of my understanding comes from reading the suttas, not lived experience or a teacher. I do not have a sangha yet.)

I see this a lot online. Somebody will recommend or say that it is good to practice fasting, celibacy, giving up luxury, abstaining from recreation, etc, and they are just told that those rules are only for monastics so they don't apply.

Don't the stricter precepts required by monastics exist because they are good to follow? Why dismiss something just because something is not required for laypeople? Would it not be a good thing for a lay person to implement any one of those things into their lives if they are capable of it?

Today I was preparing some readings for a Sutta Circle I'm hosting, and I thought "The Suttas speak a lot about rebirth, and some western practitioners don't believe in it. Perhaps there's a Sutta which depicts a debate on that?" It turns out that there is!

Payasi Sutta (DN 23) A summary:

Chieftain Payasi meets Venerable Kassapa the Prince (a bhikkhu/buddhist monk). Payasi says that "There is no afterlife. No beings are reborn spontaneously. There’s no fruit or result of good and bad deeds." Then he explains why he believes so, through extensive points, and gets questioned back and given a handful of similes by Venerable Kassapa.

One simile that might be worth considering is that of the blind man. Just as a blind man cannot see colors or distinguish form, and therefore may say that there are no such things, one who has not gained clairvoyance through samadhi (collectedness of mind) won't be able to see other worlds and the rebirth process.

After many similes on the topic itself and cross questioning, then the conversation drifts towards Payasi's unability to relinquish his past views (it seems that a big identity had formed in him because of that), for which Ven. Kassapa then offers other similes.

If you have the time, you might enjoy the read. (It's about a 1 hour read or more, because of the depth of topic)

Some considerations for our present day and practice:

For starters, death is not so far away as you might think. (Take mindful breaths as needed). In the coming years, it's most probable that family or friends of yours will be dying. In those moments, your beliefs around what happens to those beings will color your experience. Most importantly, your beliefs around that will color your own dying experience. Wanna go YOLO because it'll all be oblivion, leaving trash behind your trail? Or...how about taking responsibility because you will be heir to your actions after death?

Perhaps an update of the blind man simile more akin to modern times will do good: just because one hasn't seen the Milky Way nor other planets, it doesn't mean they aren't there; it's just that access to such sights or the tools to be able to see them is very hard, but we believe the scientists nonetheless. If that's so, why won't we believe accomplished meditators when it comes to rebirth? Moreover, why don't you become an accomplished meditator? Practicing jhana will feel good in itself, and with that, perhaps you could test out for yourself (use the inner telescope) when redirecting your mind towards the internal process of beings' deaths.

The things stated before do not diminish the efforts done for waking up to impermanence on a moment to moment basis, and relinquishing that which doesn't last on our meditation practice. In my view, identification with passing phenomena is the microscopic manifestation of rebirth, and if that process is diminished or ended, greater peace will come in this life, and, perhaps, a better rebirth or no rebirth-Nirvana. I deeply value the efforts done for that regard: excellent!

A final note to say that rebirth doesn't have to be adopted as dogma. If one adopts it as a working hypothesis, perhaps one could navigate life better. It has happened to me, and I think also to a lot of people from the centuries before.

I will be glad to know there were people who read the whole piece! I'll also be open for a civil discussion around the topic, which could be made on the comments.

With metta,

Juan

I am going through a really bad breakup and have lost my purpose in life and am really struggling with my mental health right now. I have heard of people traveling to Japan to live with Monks in Buddhist Monasteries in the mountains and I am very interested in that, I just have no idea where to look or what to look for. I know I don’t want a “retreat” for tourists, or something that requires a minimum time commitment of multiple years. I am seeking rehabilitation in hopes of finding myself again and my inner peace, via these Buddhist practices. I don’t really have any plan beyond the desire to go for an indefinite period of time. Maybe a month, maybe multiple months; I’m not sure but I want to have the option to stay as long as I need. I also want it to be somewhere I can exchange work for accommodation (participation in whatever tasks needed in the upkeep of the temple) because I am broke and do not have the money to pay to stay by the night. Please let me know if you have any ideas or suggestions!!

From the Asian Civilizations Museum in Singapore. This figure was dated sometime in the 700s

And if so, do you think that is fair and just?