I was just wandering if any of you practice in a Buddhist tradition that may not exactly be your cup of tea but you go because it happens to be very convenient to you?
I ask this because I happened to bump into a Sri Lanka Buddhist monk virtually outside my house and he told me they've just built a Buddhist temple, walking distance from me. I don't know that much about Sri Lankan Buddhism but I've heard it's the most orthodox of the Theravada schools, which doesn't really thrill me. I'm more familiar with Zen, although it costs a bit to get there then and I also have to pay for it to, whereas this is walking distance and would be free.
Any thoughts? Anyone else encountered something similar?
For convenience sake
-
greggorious
- Posts: 263
- Joined: Thu Mar 24, 2011 6:40 pm
For convenience sake
"The original heart/mind shines like pure, clear water with the sweetest taste. But if the heart is pure, is our practice over? No, we must not cling even to this purity. We must go beyond all duality, all concepts, all bad, all good, all pure, all impure. We must go beyond self and nonself, beyond birth and death. When we see with the eye of wisdom, we know that the true Buddha is timeless, unborn, unrelated to any body, any history, any image. Buddha is the ground of all being, the realization of the truth of the unmoving mind.” Ajahn Chah
Re: For convenience sake
Greg,
Go check it out!
kind regards,
Ben
Go check it out!
kind regards,
Ben
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road
Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725
Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global Relief • UNHCR
e: [email protected]..
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road
Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725
Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global Relief • UNHCR
e: [email protected]..
Re: For convenience sake
I consider every person I meet in my life as a messenger.
Sometimes they appear as strangers or even as enemies.
Just be open mind and see what message they are trying to convey to you.
Sometimes they appear as strangers or even as enemies.
Just be open mind and see what message they are trying to convey to you.
“As the lamp consumes oil, the path realises Nibbana”
-
Bhikkhu Pesala
- Posts: 4647
- Joined: Thu Jan 29, 2009 8:17 pm
Re: For convenience sake
We are all just wandering. Sri Lankans make a very nice cup of tea.
Go and check it out. Take from it whatever is helpful to your practice, and leave the rest.
Go and check it out. Take from it whatever is helpful to your practice, and leave the rest.
Blog • Pāli Fonts • In This Very Life • Buddhist Chronicles • Software (Upasampadā: 24th June, 1979)
Re: For convenience sake
I sit with a Vajrayana group although I prefer Theravada. It's one of very few groups in my city (and the next nearest city with any kind of group is four hours' drive away), it is well run, friendly, and meets at a time that suits me. The only Theravada group is minuscule, with one visiting monk, and exists only because it serves one of our immigrant communities.greggorious wrote:I was just wandering if any of you practice in a Buddhist tradition that may not exactly be your cup of tea but you go because it happens to be very convenient to you?
I agree with previous responses - go for it, and get from it what you can.greggorious wrote:I ask this because I happened to bump into a Sri Lanka Buddhist monk virtually outside my house and he told me they've just built a Buddhist temple, walking distance from me. I don't know that much about Sri Lankan Buddhism but I've heard it's the most orthodox of the Theravada schools, which doesn't really thrill me. I'm more familiar with Zen, although it costs a bit to get there then and I also have to pay for it to, whereas this is walking distance and would be free.
Any thoughts? Anyone else encountered something similar?
One of the biggest advantages could be one that I value with my Vajrayana group: a bunch of nice folk who support and encourage my practice. Without that, I would have dropped away from it several times.
Kim
Re: For convenience sake
I go to two different Sri Lankan viharas.
Most of the people at the meditation sessions, after the Americans, are Vietnemese and Cambodian immigrants. They don't have a problem with going to a Sri Lankan place.
FWIW, "orthodox" doesn't mean the same thing in regards to Buddhism, meditation, sutta study etc as what that word might mean with Christianity, Judiasm or Islam.
Most of the people at the meditation sessions, after the Americans, are Vietnemese and Cambodian immigrants. They don't have a problem with going to a Sri Lankan place.
FWIW, "orthodox" doesn't mean the same thing in regards to Buddhism, meditation, sutta study etc as what that word might mean with Christianity, Judiasm or Islam.
In reading the scriptures, there are two kinds of mistakes:
One mistake is to cling to the literal text and miss the inner principles.
The second mistake is to recognize the principles but not apply them to your own mind, so that you waste time and just make them into causes of entanglement.
One mistake is to cling to the literal text and miss the inner principles.
The second mistake is to recognize the principles but not apply them to your own mind, so that you waste time and just make them into causes of entanglement.