... I'm not sure where he gets that vipassana is a modern thing. It's an idea I've come across before - people saying that the practice of meditation was so nearly completely lost in Theravadin traditions that those reformers had to virtually reinvent it from the scriptures or learn it from other s...

as to bowing. i started practicing bowing in the therevedan way doing kneeling prostrations 2 days ago. it took about 3 minutes before my ego started running for its life. can you imagaine what that does to the ego/pride. bowing your head, to the buddha, dhamma, and sangha, it gave me revelations t...

I'll make this comment. When speaking with Bhante Gunaratana about ordaining and he told me about the age 36 limit at Bhavana Society( a place where the practice is most important.. hence it's name). I asked if there was an age limit in Sri Lanka. He said that I would not want to ordain in Sri Lanka...

buddhist " cultures" and countries come with them all sorts of extra added things that really have no use or bearing on the practice in the end. Insightful teachers like Ajahn Chah, Brahm, and Bhante G talk about this to a fair degree. one example I can give is the touching of flowers that...

and... so?

there is no need to engage in any internet debates, better to spend that energy in practice.


also.. there have been documented cases of child abuse in monasterys...and there have been many atrocities in " Buddhist" countries.

as far as I can tell the Buddha hung out in forests and traveled the land.. thats my kind of living , I don't care much for temples. a nice abandoned hut in a forest under a tree is a good place to practice

welcome darkestmatter, good to see you on!

Prior to my first 10-day retreat, I had done 3 and 5 day retreats in other traditions, and therefore assumed I was "ready". Turned out that my past experience translated very poorly in regards to preparing me for the 10-day retreat, because it wasn't quantity of time on retreat but my fau...

Ben wrote:

Ferox wrote:I've been through enough retreats now to know what to expect.

They're all different!
kind regards,

Ben

I meant in terms of what will arise within my own mind and body in terms of pains etc, sorry should of been more specific.

Greetings, My first retreat was a 10-day Goenka one - I didn't consider this decision to have been near insanity then, nor do I consider it such now. Metta, Retro. :) lol... I'm just basing it after my experiences doing 5 and 7 days being rough, let alone 10. I'm sure I would of made it through a 1...

I'm hardly a "goenakaist". I've only done one retreat, and I prefer the Mahasi-style approach that my local teachers use. The method itself is a bit too rigid for my taste. However, I don't see anything about the structure of a Goenka retreat that is at significant variance with other str...

I have no view on this other then a possibly very ignorant one.. but my suspicious alarm rings just for the fact that the retreats and tradition are named after the guy and I hear talk about him and his students rather then the Dhamma... I'll stick with monastics and monasteries for myself personall...

Greetings, Did the Buddha ever recommend his lay followers stop behaving sexually? If so, where (which document/manuscript)? Goodwill Daniel I'd say it's right in the 5 precepts that he did not... I undertake the training rule to abstain from sexual misconduct(not any sexual activity as in the 8 pr...

I will add this in... I am not a monk(yet), nor am I married or with a gf currently (thankfully), but through my practice I came to what I called "spontaneous celibacy". It was a gradual process of dispassion that grew until one day any type of sexual activity became with little to no pass...

Yet there is also much to be said in favor of modernist trends in contemporary Buddhism, and I wonder if we might find a way of rehabilitating Protestant Buddhism to the satisfaction of its critics. why does something need to be satisfied to it's critics?(or on the flip side why do people need to p...