| |
Welcome... |
|
 |
| |
Mukluk is here! |
|
Author |
Message |
 |
mystic light
Administrator
Posts: 6815
Registered: May 2006 |
|
 Posted March 31st, 2007 07:31 IP   
Quote:
mukluk wrote:
Hi, I'm Sean. I'm from Canada. I'm 35 and the parent of two teenagers. I'm a lover of nature although I don't spend nearly enough time outside. I consider myself a humanist, taoist, unitarian and a buddhist - I believe that wisdom can come from many places.
|
Hello, and welcome Sean! Nice to see you! You come from Derek's website, right? I think I saw your membership in the TH!
Anyways, no matter how you found us, we wish you a happy journey and many interesting hours here!
I moved your introduction over here, hope you don't mind. 
ML
|
  
 |
http://schmuckzauberei.blogspot.com/ |
|
 |
|
mukluk
Member
Posts: 43
Registered: Mar 2007 |
|
Posted March 31st, 2007 15:28 IP
Moving it was a good idea. I don't mind at all.
I'm registered as SeanCooper over in the Teahouse. I lurk at e-sangha (although I've never posted there) and I've also tried to start my own site (see sig (sorry - shameless plug.))
|
|
|
www.collectedwanderings.com |
|
|
|
mystic light
Administrator
Posts: 6815
Registered: May 2006 |
|
Posted March 31st, 2007 15:30 IP
Very shameless!! :lol: Yes, I've seen you then. Who are you at e sangha? Or aren't you a member?
|
|
|
http://schmuckzauberei.blogspot.com/ |
|
|
|
mystic light
Administrator
Posts: 6815
Registered: May 2006 |
|
Posted March 31st, 2007 17:46 IP
Hm...now I wonder why you registered in the TH and here....are you more comfortable with taoism then?
|
|
|
http://schmuckzauberei.blogspot.com/ |
|
|
|
mukluk
Member
Posts: 43
Registered: Mar 2007 |
|
Posted March 31st, 2007 19:34 IP
No, I wouldn't say I'm necessarily more comfortable with Taoism. I was introduced to Taoism about 15 years ago and Zen shortly after. Most of my early exposure was admittedly through reading Alan Watts books. Lately however I've been looking at Buddhism more deeply.
Mostly my spiritual cultivation has been self directed. The Buddha and the Dahrma but not much Sangha. I probably spend too much time reading and not enough time practicing.
I joined the Tea room partly because I really like Derek's writing. I find his aproach Taoism incorperates alot of Buddhist ideas. I'm kinda sad that he took down most of his Tao Living articles - luckily I read them all a while back.
I came over here as I liked the more diverse aproach to spirituality.
I also like the sense of community here and in the Tea room. Maybe its just the smaller size. E-sangha is big and hard to keep up with. It also got a little crazy a while back with the attack of the moderators (at least in the zen forum.)
One other thing is that here and in the Tea room I don't feel like I need to be an expert. It seems more like a discussion of equals. On esangha it feels more like ask the experts. This isn't a necessarily a bad thing but I'm not sure how much I'd have to offer.
Sean
|
|
|
www.collectedwanderings.com |
|
|
|
mystic light
Administrator
Posts: 6815
Registered: May 2006 |
|
Posted March 31st, 2007 20:44 IP
Hey, that was beautiful what you said about not having to be an expert here and the community we share.
To Derek: I think I Kuan Tao embraces Christianity and Buddhism, at least that is what I read on Derek's site, I'm not considering myself an expert but much rather Derek's disciple who just shares into the experience.
If I'm not completely off track Derek is going to publish another book soon (Penguin) so maybe that has something to do with taking down the articles, I dunno. :shrug2: They are very good.
When Richard started the Lounge we wanted to create a peaceful place where people can hang out with easy topics as well as serious general topics that are not tao related,- to keep the Tea House for Tao discussion.
Since then we have let things develop and it's interesting to watch it getting it's own character...each member brings adds a new own facet, and I think that's great. And if Tao discussions flows in here too, wonderful.
It's interesting what you say about the size of e sangha. I once read that the Native American Indios who lived in pueblos never let a pueblo population grow any larger than 3000 people and after that split into 2 groups because people sort of lost sensitivity and responsibility for each other if there were too many. Aggressions increased.
It could indeed have to do with the size and ensuing anonymity in e sangha which makes it easier for a few to bash others and get away with it besides the fact of course that the mods protect the dogma.
What happened in the Zen forum? Riv said something as well, or was it Yogi?
|
|
|
http://schmuckzauberei.blogspot.com/ |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
mystic light
Administrator
Posts: 6815
Registered: May 2006 |
|
Posted March 31st, 2007 22:28 IP
LOL....72? Bummer! But thank you very much, I will definitely check it out! 
|
|
|
http://schmuckzauberei.blogspot.com/ |
|
|
|
Peter_McWeeter
Guest
Posts:
Registered: |
|
Posted April 1st, 2007 01:05 IP
Quote:
I also like the sense of community here and in the Tea room. Maybe its just the smaller size. E-sangha is big and hard to keep up with. It also got a little crazy a while back with the attack of the moderators (at least in the zen forum.) |
Yeah tell me about it. It was over December last year it got really awful. Unfortunately I was at the centre of that firestorm and the admins and mods seemed to decide they wanted to make an example of me to quell some sort of rebellion (geeze, it's just an internet forum! lol) against there power-tripped authority. lol I didn't mind though because by that point i'd had enough of the place anyway, and also it exposed a lot of the sinsiter elements and attitudes that are prevalent beneath the surface there for everyone to see...what goes around comes around eh?
It wasn't just the zen forum by any means. Also the 'comparitive religions' forum, and other forums too ('beginners buddhism')...A lot of people got very upset about the Admins and Mods removing there posts without any explaination. Basically if you asked any questions that probed too much (i.e challenged the teachings) then people would gang up and become quite nasty. Effectively it turned into bullying and the mods and admins were equally if not more guilty of this than anyone...Those were my experiences and the experiences of other posters who dared to ask such questions/challenge there religion. I do not know what goes on there now because I have absolutely no desire to go anywhere near the place anymore.
But basically I think e-sangha got too big, 'sold out' big time, and unfortunately there are over-zealous sinister elements within all religions, buddhism as rich a teaching as it is isn't exempt by any means...basically the atmosphere at e-sangha when I left was extremely elitist, arrogant, dogmatic and over-moderated...
But you are all right about the atmosphere here. There isn't any elitism or arrogance, and there's MUCH more freedom to discuss topics. Pretty much anything goes. These two elements have attracted a REALLY interesting mix of people...Most people here don't really seem to feel the need to label themselves anything, which is of course fantastic.
I agree it's good to keep the size of the community small, but that said I think it could do with a few more people because some days there are only a couple of posts made throughout the entire day...But I think it's very gradually growing in size. Let's just hope it doesn't go the way of places like e-sangha, though i'm sure if the regular posters remain here that wont happen (at least for a long time)!
...woah this post turned out much longer than I anticipated!!! :P
Maybe I should start a Mystic Lotus Lounge appreciation thread...
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
mystic light
Administrator
Posts: 6815
Registered: May 2006 |
|
Posted April 1st, 2007 08:25 IP
The comparative section was the worst I think. An arena for gladiators and snipers. And it didn't stop anywhere, it is also in the vegetarian section.
Believe it or not, but a Theravada mod will delete Mahayana principles there, -on a neutral section!- and vice versa, and close a thread, deciding "everything has been sufficiently discussed, therefore this thread will get closed". After only a few posts, less than 10? When it was just getting interesting?
Since when do you lock a thread then? You just leave it alone, because nobody will post anymore if it's really sufficiently discussed!
Oh well.
We're all only human too, I know. And they do have decent mods too, and decent members as well.
Buddhists just won't allow anything that comes close to disparaging the Buddha.
But then people won't allow that to happen to Jesus as well! Understandably so! Where is the difference?
Where is the difference in real life?
Is it okay to insult & bash an American or only an Afro American?
There you go.
And when you tolerate the disparaging of another faith it seems unworthy of a seriously practicing Buddhist to me, but since that is being done, some can't be seriously practising.
Logic?
|
|
|
http://schmuckzauberei.blogspot.com/ |
|
|
|
Peter_McWeeter
Guest
Posts:
Registered: |
|
Posted April 1st, 2007 13:39 IP
This is interesting...They amended these rules shortly after all the goings on in December:
Q. What's this about what I can or can not say about rebirth, karma and self?
A. These topics, more specifically the question of whether they exist or not, have been recurring themes not just on e-sangha but on Buddhist message boards for many many years and have been debated thoroughly in the past by many knowledgeable posters. There is a recurring tendency however towards newcomers coming in and arguing passionately about these topics, with the result that many of the veteran posters tiring of having to repeat the same arguments over and over again.
As such, in order to avoid increasingly one-sided discussion of these topics, E-sangha has adopted an official stance of supporting the orthodox view of these topics across all traditions: Namely that it is generally accepted that the Buddha:
- taught literal rebirth,
- the existence of karma and
- did not teach the existence of a true self.
Members are free to hold to an agnostic point of view about these particular teachings, but we ask that members refrain from disparaging them or arguing that the Buddha did not teach them. This means that propagating views suggesting that the Buddha did not teach literal rebirth and karma or did teach a true self, or trivializing the role of these teachings in Buddhism today, such as suggesting that they were only taught to cater to his audience, is prohibited.
This is interesting stuff. Interesting because it was these topics that lead to me and others being banned/suspended...I was told by the Admin staff that these views were "not welcome here at e-sangha" and I should look elsewhere. Unfortunately that thread has been wiped off the 'comparative religions' now, but it was Namdrol or whatever his name was who said this...
So basically these new rules bought in technically make it illegal to query or challenge a very large chunk of Buddha's teachings, even though Buddha supposedly encouraged this kind of questioning. It seems if you try pointing this out to the staff they warn you not to question there authority and if you don't like it you can bugger off and find another forum to post on...with infinite amounts of compassion of course lol
It's funny how they chose the word "orthodox" to describe there stance. As opposed to what!? Their attachment to labels and obssession with labelling others doesn't seem too resonate with the practice of non-attachment.
Oh yeah, and this reminds me, you follow mukluk's link to Anders Honore's announcement/outburst (this was another moderator I had problems with too, or rather he had a major problem with me lol):
it is deeply unfortunate that the communication of Zen to the west was spearheaded by cultural elitists like D.T. Suzuki, drunkards and hedonists like the beat poets, Alan Watts and Maezumi Roshi instead of profound teachers such as Xu Yun and the like....I look at posts on this forum and find myself thinking what a sorry state it is in when writing haikus and evocative little verses, posting pretty images and pop lyrics(!), parroting 'emptiness is form' or some similar nonsense as if that is supposed to be profound, passing off nice little experiences as touching oneness and in general seem to think they are dealing with something ineffably profound can be classed as Zen Buddhism. Such spiritual platitudes surely belong in the beatnik forum if anywhere.
Can you believe this guy?
He starts off by first lashing out at beatnik writers and calling them elitists, but then in the next paragraph starts slamming peoples use of pop lyrics and posting of images etc...That's incredibly elitist in itself.
But it's actually quite scary because they (mods and admins) don't actually see the connection. They are completely ignorant to it. You have to wonder what kind of mental condition these people are in to be so incredibly arrogant...Infact about the only decent place on e-sangha when I left was the beatnik forum...
Basically what it boils down too is that when buddhism came to the west the 'beatniks' got hold of it and put there own spin on it. Some took drugs just for the high. Some took psychedelic drugs and experimented with meditation on the side or mixed the two together... Some were Anarchists. Some were morons. Some were addicts. But so what? Everybody should be allowed to have there own interpretation on a philosophy or teaching. Infact, everyone should do this, otherwise they become blind followers of a dogma and lose all spiritual intuition they once possessed.
I mean, when buddhism went into china, it mixed with the taoist beliefs. When it went to Cambodia it mixed with the hindu beliefs. When it went to Laos it mixed with the animist beliefs. When it went to Japan it mixed with the shinto beliefs. And so forth. Infact, it was this adaptability and liberal nature of the teachings that allowed this too happen. And now it's come to the west, and it's happening again...It's mixing with our culture and is creating a fresh unique set of interpretations; Stephen Batchelor's buddhism without beliefs is one example. The 'beatniks' was another...I mean hell, you don't even have to us ethe 'buddhist' label to meditate. Virtually everyone I know who meditates doesn't consider themselves 'buddhist', infact they don't really consider themselves anything in paticular...And to be honest with you I think these people are sometimes even more 'buddhist' than people who claim to be buddhists lol I find that incredibly ironic...Makes you wonder, does the zen tradition have it all sussed out? heh
But I don't know why people can't accept that ideas change. Everything changes. Even buddhist-dharma decays. This is why there is a predicted future-buddha, to bring a fresh teaching...But buddhists don't generally be able to accept this. Many seem to believe that the dharma is somehow outside the laws of impermanence and is somehow so utterly perfect and pure that you simply cannot question a word of it and it will last forever into infinity...Never mind the fact that it's already 2,500 years old and thus it's perfectly reasonable to assume many of the scriptures have been lost or altered for personal or political gain. Nothing is immune to greed.
Basically many buddhists want to seem uber and superior so want to keep all the asian traditions and superstitions whilst being intolerant towards anything that threatens or differs to this. I think it's an insecurity thing...I wish people could think for themselves rather than adhering blindly to dogmas and traditions. It's very sad.
Okay, that's my rant over for today...
:Woo_Hoo:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
mystic light
Administrator
Posts: 6815
Registered: May 2006 |
|
Posted April 1st, 2007 15:48 IP
I understand you, Pete.
Buddha taught people how to liberate themselves, from suffering, from rebirth. But his teachings were not supposed to create new thought jails.
I don't agree with Anders Honore of course, and I don't think he is doing himself a favor by cultivating and posting such thoughts insteead of seeeing the good-will which is trying to express itself in myriad ways, by each to the best of his or her knowledge and ability, and even if we would think some attempts at spirituality are still baby steps and beginners innocence, it would be better to focus on protecting those tender beginnings and motherly guide them into deeper waters as soon as they can swim better. Any other way scares them away and traumatizes.
But: Moderators are not necessarily spiritual teachers and not all people are born teachers and natural guides, but many would like to be. Hence, their dealings with others are not necessarily representing the perfect way.
We cannot assume that mods are always at their best, and always have their max of patience, you know how stressed I was last week, so that I had to withdraw. It could be Anders has his moments too. I don't know him very well, actually.
I hardly ever had problems with mods, I had problems with a few members...Concerning the dogma-
I believe in rebirth and the stuff they want to have protected.
True self I don't really understand. I don't think we have an individual self, only delusions of it. Therefore it also only makes sense that in unity there is only one truth, as in my signature, so touching it would be to reach enlightenment, yes? Which would be contradicting Anders view totally, and also, I have been reading a thread with Namdrol, Norben Dechen etc, where Namdrol contradicts the above view of Anders completely. Maybe I can find it. Have to check into namdrols posts.
Btw, perhaps it is not so much Buddhism mixing with other faiths, it is the other way round, I would say there are faiths embracing Buddhism. In Taoism we have for instance I Kuan Tao, embracing both ideas of Christianity and Buddhism.
Hardcore Buddhists simply believe that only through the pure original teaching the attachment top rebirth can be cut. Hence the dogma. Any other way they see as less.
I think insecurity plays a role, yes.
|
|
|
http://schmuckzauberei.blogspot.com/ |
|
|
|
ev
Member
Posts: 693
Registered: Jan 2007 |
|
Posted April 3rd, 2007 08:41 IP
e sangha should remember,
that if you give your self a status your self will feel at home.
The comparative religion forum was funny, there a link to a thread from another thread that had mysteriously disappeared for speaking out against doctrine.
Anna you mentioned Namdrol i could only ever understand about the first three words of any of his posts made me laugh though in his seriousness.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
mystic light
Administrator
Posts: 6815
Registered: May 2006 |
|
Posted April 3rd, 2007 08:54 IP
Wow. Ev. You think there is attachment to status, if I understand you correctly. An interesting idea...
Namdrol...he appeared competent to me... Seriousness is another Buddhist idea. Laughter and singing are to be avoided too, as it creates attachment to pleasure...phew.
|
|
|
http://schmuckzauberei.blogspot.com/ |
|
|
|
ev
Member
Posts: 693
Registered: Jan 2007 |
|
Posted April 3rd, 2007 09:04 IP
Oh Anna Namdrol was indeed competent its just you needed to know sanskrit and every buddhist philosophical arguement known to understand what he wrote and i couldn't be bothered looking it all up.
Give your self a tittle and your self will try to live up to it and will revel in the definition that status gives it, "I AM A MODERATOR", as Arnie might say.
EGO talking,
I AM SOMETHING you see I said i was all along and now i have proof I AM Something,
Then POWER creeps in and power is an enchanting mistress of self indeed.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
mystic light
Administrator
Posts: 6815
Registered: May 2006 |
|
Posted April 3rd, 2007 10:19 IP
Yes. I see your point. Definitely.
(Shut up you silly 'Admin' inside of me, will ya!!!) :lol:
|
|
|
http://schmuckzauberei.blogspot.com/ |
|
|
|
Peter_McWeeter
Guest
Posts:
Registered: |
|
Posted April 4th, 2007 04:04 IP
Quote:
ev wrote:
The comparative religion forum was funny, there a link to a thread from another thread that had mysteriously disappeared for speaking out against doctrine. |
yeah that thread was me and a few others getting ganged up on by most the mods/admin staff there and quite a few members joined in with the 'fun' too lol
I got called and labelled many things during that onslaught lol
So actually that thread destroyed every last thread of respect and faith I had in organised religion.
They removed that thread (mainly because they exposed themselves for what they really are in my opinion...), it was made a 'sticky' for a while, but now they've seemed to bring in all those new amended rules to stop that from happening again.
Wow I feel so special... lol
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
mystic light
Administrator
Posts: 6815
Registered: May 2006 |
|
Posted April 4th, 2007 07:14 IP
They amended those new rules. Amongst them was:
"The disparaging of Buddha and his teachings is not allowed. The topic must be entirely presented in the first sentence. "
I thought that the part with the first sentence was a little bit over the top.
Sooo.... I asked how long this first sentence may be. :P
...in a very long sentence,-in hopes to tell them something in a non-offensive, subtle way.
Because anybody with some command over the language can make a sentence a whole page long without loosing any meaning and correct sentence structure. :pant:
So they said: There is no length limit.
Then I asked if the disparaging of other "messengers" and their religions was also forbidden.
So of course they said that this was forbidden as well.
Then this was made sticky for a while, but now it's gone, I believe, and all can continue as it always has without anybody being able to point at that.
I may have overlooked where it's at though.
Buddha said:
(Kathavatthu sutta)
"Those who discuss
when angered, dogmatic, arrogant,
following what's not the noble ones' way,
seeking to expose each other's faults,
delight in each other's misspoken word,
slip, stumble, defeat.
Noble ones
don't speak in that way.
|
|
|
http://schmuckzauberei.blogspot.com/ |
|
|
|
ev
Member
Posts: 693
Registered: Jan 2007 |
|
Posted April 4th, 2007 10:17 IP
Well said buddha.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Lotus Buddhism Forum :: :: Introductions :: Mukluk is here! |
|
|
|
|
