Re: Tantra--Hindu, Himalayan Buddhist--problems
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: October 26, 2012 12:06AM
More Ways India is Similar to the LGAT Wrap Around Room Control
Time zone change. You arrive short of sleep and disoriented.
Little or no privacy. Boundaries as we negotiate them in the West do not exist.
Sensory overload.
Food, language, social customs unfamiliar
No doenst mean no. You say no, they keep nagging at you until no becomes yes.
Emotions considered bad by spiritual aspirants are constantly inflamed by the stresses of India--guilt, shame, rage when people refuse to leave you alone. Then you feel shittier because you have flunked your self examination for what it takes to be a good person.
Risks of illness
A desperate need for finding someone or some-thing to cling to so you can regain your inner coherance. This can leave even the strongest person vulnerable.
Over fifty years ago, Jan Willem van de Wettering told how he wanted to go East in 1957 or so and wisely, before leaving the Netherlands sought advice from a university professor he knew and whose judgement he respected.
The professor advised him to study Buddhism in Japan. Interestingly, the professor advised Jan to avoid India, and listed the reasons why. He warned that the poverty of India was so horrifying that it sent too many Western visitors off their heads. Furthermore, in India there was too much risk of getting sick and dying.
In Japan, modern medical care was reliable if anything went wrong and one could easily locate the Dutch consulates or the embassy.
(Willem van de Wettering The Empty Mirror)
van de Wettering did encounter bullying in Japan, but ironically, the worst of it came from a Westerner who had studied Zen longer than he had--and was appointed to be Jan Willem's preceptor!
But, de Wettering did not become incurably ill or insane. What is interesting is that when he did become ill due to an inablity to thrive on the diet provided by the monastery, the abbot directed him to go see a doctor and when the physician prescribed a higher protein diet, the abbot arranged for the young man to have meals at a restaurant where he could get the food he needed to maintain his well being and follow the practice schedule.
His Dutch mentor had supplied quite excellent advice.
Time zone change. You arrive short of sleep and disoriented.
Little or no privacy. Boundaries as we negotiate them in the West do not exist.
Sensory overload.
Food, language, social customs unfamiliar
No doenst mean no. You say no, they keep nagging at you until no becomes yes.
Emotions considered bad by spiritual aspirants are constantly inflamed by the stresses of India--guilt, shame, rage when people refuse to leave you alone. Then you feel shittier because you have flunked your self examination for what it takes to be a good person.
Risks of illness
A desperate need for finding someone or some-thing to cling to so you can regain your inner coherance. This can leave even the strongest person vulnerable.
Over fifty years ago, Jan Willem van de Wettering told how he wanted to go East in 1957 or so and wisely, before leaving the Netherlands sought advice from a university professor he knew and whose judgement he respected.
The professor advised him to study Buddhism in Japan. Interestingly, the professor advised Jan to avoid India, and listed the reasons why. He warned that the poverty of India was so horrifying that it sent too many Western visitors off their heads. Furthermore, in India there was too much risk of getting sick and dying.
In Japan, modern medical care was reliable if anything went wrong and one could easily locate the Dutch consulates or the embassy.
(Willem van de Wettering The Empty Mirror)
van de Wettering did encounter bullying in Japan, but ironically, the worst of it came from a Westerner who had studied Zen longer than he had--and was appointed to be Jan Willem's preceptor!
But, de Wettering did not become incurably ill or insane. What is interesting is that when he did become ill due to an inablity to thrive on the diet provided by the monastery, the abbot directed him to go see a doctor and when the physician prescribed a higher protein diet, the abbot arranged for the young man to have meals at a restaurant where he could get the food he needed to maintain his well being and follow the practice schedule.
His Dutch mentor had supplied quite excellent advice.
Re: Tantra--Hindu, Himalayan Buddhist--problems
Posted by:
pS1bY8pG2l
()
Date: October 26, 2012 04:36AM
Quote
"Early Jesuit missionaries who visited Tibet were shocked by the many similarities they saw between Catholic liturgy and customs and those of Vajrayana Buddhism--to the point where one missionary thought the similarity was a diabolical one.
The explanation may be more mundane.
Nestorian Christianity entered Tibet and even Mongolia before Buddhadharma.
[www.google.com] means Christian concepts of heaven hell, damnation and demonology may have entered the local mindset, and then were co-opted into Vajrayana Buddhism, accounting for the terrors of damnation that are used to scare anyone who presumes to question or challege the lamaistic power structure.
So the worst features of clerical Christianity may have been incorporated into Vajrayana.
Farther to the South, and in Japan, where Nestorian Christianity never penetrated, the Buddhadharma remained free from detailed and imaginative renditions of Hell--that concept so useful for emotional and mental terrorism."
Even in Buddha`s sutras you find a pandemonium of hells and demons, so come on, Corboy, what an idealist idea! You may wish the Buddhadharma without those concepts, but it isn´t true.
What was brought to Tibet by Padmasambava was the tantric Buddhism with its very special rituals and mythology about what Buddha had teached. Those are the roots of Lamaism. It is totally nonsense it would be influenced by Christianity. Aside from the fact, that all religions create a "good" and "evil", just of its own accord.
"Early Jesuit missionaries who visited Tibet were shocked by the many similarities they saw between Catholic liturgy and customs and those of Vajrayana Buddhism--to the point where one missionary thought the similarity was a diabolical one.
The explanation may be more mundane.
Nestorian Christianity entered Tibet and even Mongolia before Buddhadharma.
[www.google.com] means Christian concepts of heaven hell, damnation and demonology may have entered the local mindset, and then were co-opted into Vajrayana Buddhism, accounting for the terrors of damnation that are used to scare anyone who presumes to question or challege the lamaistic power structure.
So the worst features of clerical Christianity may have been incorporated into Vajrayana.
Farther to the South, and in Japan, where Nestorian Christianity never penetrated, the Buddhadharma remained free from detailed and imaginative renditions of Hell--that concept so useful for emotional and mental terrorism."
Even in Buddha`s sutras you find a pandemonium of hells and demons, so come on, Corboy, what an idealist idea! You may wish the Buddhadharma without those concepts, but it isn´t true.
What was brought to Tibet by Padmasambava was the tantric Buddhism with its very special rituals and mythology about what Buddha had teached. Those are the roots of Lamaism. It is totally nonsense it would be influenced by Christianity. Aside from the fact, that all religions create a "good" and "evil", just of its own accord.
Re: Tantra--Hindu, Himalayan Buddhist--problems
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: October 26, 2012 10:09PM
I am presenting material from archeologists, historians who have dated texts and mythological genres, and anthropologists.
They work from evidence, not from emotion driven devotionalism.
THe difficulty is if one has been assigened special, priviliged status based on a mythology and from a cycle of sutras created centuries after the Pali canons and retrospectively attributed to Buddha, despite containing material that contradicted what he taught in the Pali canons, to dare see tantra as a product of history means questioning the entire framework within which one was assigned a privileged place.
And until one can question tantra and see it is just as much a social movement with a history as any other religion, one cannot examine, objectively, where generates power imbalances, secrecy and creates social settings that foster abuse.
There is nothing special about tantra. It is a subject for history and cross cultural mixing, just the way Latin Catholic missionaries made converts in Germany by incorporating older, pre-Christian customs, and making them seem Christian, such as the Christmas tree.
They work from evidence, not from emotion driven devotionalism.
THe difficulty is if one has been assigened special, priviliged status based on a mythology and from a cycle of sutras created centuries after the Pali canons and retrospectively attributed to Buddha, despite containing material that contradicted what he taught in the Pali canons, to dare see tantra as a product of history means questioning the entire framework within which one was assigned a privileged place.
And until one can question tantra and see it is just as much a social movement with a history as any other religion, one cannot examine, objectively, where generates power imbalances, secrecy and creates social settings that foster abuse.
There is nothing special about tantra. It is a subject for history and cross cultural mixing, just the way Latin Catholic missionaries made converts in Germany by incorporating older, pre-Christian customs, and making them seem Christian, such as the Christmas tree.
Re: Tantra--Hindu, Himalayan Buddhist--problems
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: October 26, 2012 10:54PM
Some cool things to read.
The Encounter of Nestorian Christianity with Tantric Buddhism in China. It seems that in China Nestorian Christianity borrowed elements from Tantric Buddhyism.
However, what this paper also tells us is that those who brought Buddhism to China and Central Asia were from Indo-Iranian backgrounds, which meant that they were from an area (Persia) where there were already belief systems that emphasized heaven, hell and saviors. (Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, Nestorian Christianity)
So even before the arrival of Nestorian Christianity in China, Buddhism which arrived in China and then to Tibet would already have been refracted through the medium of Indo-Persian missionaries who may well have been influenced by the older Persian ideas of heaven, hell, dualism. Its not at all easy for Westerners from dualistic religious backgrounds to make sense of nondualistic Dharma; Iranian/Persians would have had similar difficulties.
[www.academia.edu]
and
Once the Nestorians arrived, later followed by the ultra dualistic Manicheaeans, they all influenced each other and were influenced by the Buddhism that had been transmitted by earliar Iranian-Indian missionaries and merchants.
The Encounter of Nestorian Christianity with Tantric Buddhism in China. It seems that in China Nestorian Christianity borrowed elements from Tantric Buddhyism.
However, what this paper also tells us is that those who brought Buddhism to China and Central Asia were from Indo-Iranian backgrounds, which meant that they were from an area (Persia) where there were already belief systems that emphasized heaven, hell and saviors. (Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, Nestorian Christianity)
So even before the arrival of Nestorian Christianity in China, Buddhism which arrived in China and then to Tibet would already have been refracted through the medium of Indo-Persian missionaries who may well have been influenced by the older Persian ideas of heaven, hell, dualism. Its not at all easy for Westerners from dualistic religious backgrounds to make sense of nondualistic Dharma; Iranian/Persians would have had similar difficulties.
[www.academia.edu]
Quote
This dynamics came from the unique dominant position of Tantric Buddhism in the capital city of the Tang Empire, Chang'an and also in Dunhuang area and Nes- torians might have been intended to benefit from Tantric Buddhism in order to expand its religious space in a competitive multi-religious society in medieval period. More specifically, Nestorians and Tantric Buddhists in Chang'an benefited from each other during their mutual collaboration in translating Buddhist and Nestorian texts into Chinese.
Some Tantric Buddhists might have shared Sog- dian background with Nestorians, in kinship and in community. Nestorians and Tantric Buddhists all contributed to introducing Persian astronomical knowl- edge to the Tang court. Nestorian Christians adopted Tantric Buddhist scrip- tural pillars in their burial ritual, serving their Nestorian community. Nestorians and Tantric Buddhists in Dunhuang and Tibet might have had a mutual rela- tionship, textually and artistically
and
Quote
Although Buddhism originally came from India, in fact, many early Buddhist missionar- ies who contributed to the spread of Buddhism into China and helped translate Buddhist texts into Chinese were from an Iranian-speaking background. They either came from Persia or Sogdiana.8 For instance, An Shigao jSfHtiiS, the first known missionary and translator, was actually a Persian hostage.9 Some other missionaries with the same surname "An must have also come from Par- thian Persia. Kang Senghui Sff #, a missionary known for his bringing the Buddha's relics to South China, was from the region of Sogdiana. Many other missionaries with the same surname "Kang must have been from the same region. In short, the Iranian-speaking background seemed to play a crucial role among the first generation of Buddhist missionaries in China. Early Nestorian missionaries were also Iranian-speaking people, mostly Per- sians and Sogdians. Persians and Sogdians not only were responsible for intro- ducing Nestorianism into China, but also they spread Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism into China in the early medieval period.
Zoroastrianism is be- lieved to have reached the northwestern border of the Chinese Empire as early as the fourth century. Later on, until the eighth century before the outbreak of An Lushan gcif$:|l[RebeUion (755-763), some Sogdian merchants lived in their own communities in several trading centers along the Silk Road, such as Dun- huang IfelHL, Wuwei SfclS, Lingwu fi5&, Chang'an ft^, and Luoyang rUrfiH. They practiced their own religion, Zoroastrianism, which was particularly re- flected in their funeral and burial rites.
Following the spread of Nestorianism into China, in the seventh century Manichean missionaries also entered China under the leadership of a Persian priest Fuduodan t^^M-10 Nestorianism soon became a multi-ethnic religion when it spread to Central Asia and China. At least, we know Persians, Sogdians, and Turkic-Uyghurs constituted the main body of the Nestorian church in Central Asia.
Among them, Sogdians might be the most important ethnic group of Nestorians in Cen- tral Asia and China. In Turfan B±##, an oasis city in Chinese Turkestan, a lot of Sogdian Nestorian manuscripts were discovered. In central China, Chang'an and Luoyang, it seems that many Sogdian Nestorians lived there as a small community. Ge Chengyong revealed that a tomb inscription discovered in Xi'an belonged to a Sogdian family, which is indicated by the surname of the owner of this inscription, Mi The surname Mi indicates that the home- town of this family was the Kingdom of M
Once the Nestorians arrived, later followed by the ultra dualistic Manicheaeans, they all influenced each other and were influenced by the Buddhism that had been transmitted by earliar Iranian-Indian missionaries and merchants.
Re: Tantra--Hindu, Himalayan Buddhist--problems
Posted by:
walter1963
()
Date: October 27, 2012 02:55AM
It is quite a stretch to imply that Tibetan Buddhism got all it's notions of heaven, hell, demons, etc from Nestorian Christiainity. Buddhism had all this stuff in it before Christianity even existed.
And Tantra existed long before Christianity and always had it's black magicians like the Aghori.
And there's nothing like Tibetan Tantra in Christianity period. And nothing as descriptive nor vivid in regards to the heavens and hells and demons that the Tibetans have.
And Tantra existed long before Christianity and always had it's black magicians like the Aghori.
And there's nothing like Tibetan Tantra in Christianity period. And nothing as descriptive nor vivid in regards to the heavens and hells and demons that the Tibetans have.
Re: Tantra--Hindu, Himalayan Buddhist--problems
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: October 27, 2012 09:04AM
You've got a point.
Geoffrey Samuels has brought strong evidence from multiple sources that tantra originated from shamanism.
Geoffrey Samuels has brought strong evidence from multiple sources that tantra originated from shamanism.
Re: Tantra--Hindu, Himalayan Buddhist--problems
Posted by:
Stoic
()
Date: October 28, 2012 01:55AM
There are some residual elements in Christianity that have a definite whiff of (albeit sanitised) tantra about them:
[www.catholicculture.org]
'The celebration of the Eucharist as a paschal meal. It implies that the faithful in good dispositions should answer to the Lord's command by receiving his body and blood as their spiritual nourishment. They are prepared for the Communion and thank him afterward in a series of liturgical rites, beginning with the Lord's Prayer and ending with the Post-Communion.'
Compare this to the Aghori nourishing and sustaining himself in the charnel grounds.
[www.catholicculture.org]
'The celebration of the Eucharist as a paschal meal. It implies that the faithful in good dispositions should answer to the Lord's command by receiving his body and blood as their spiritual nourishment. They are prepared for the Communion and thank him afterward in a series of liturgical rites, beginning with the Lord's Prayer and ending with the Post-Communion.'
Compare this to the Aghori nourishing and sustaining himself in the charnel grounds.
Re: Tantra--Hindu, Himalayan Buddhist--problems
Posted by:
Misstyk
()
Date: October 28, 2012 01:23PM
I'll have to read the Samuels book. Some of the transformational aspects of tantra may have come from shamanism, but there's no sexual component in Inner Asian shamansim--that comes from India. For an extremely thorough analysis and discussion on the history and evolution of tantra, see N.N. Battacharyya "History of the Tantric Religion".Quote
corboy
You've got a point.
Geoffrey Samuels has brought strong evidence from multiple sources that tantra originated from shamanism.
Giuseppi Tucci is very good in teasing out the different threads that make up the fabric of Tibetan Buddhism, in "Religions of Tibet". He's able to separate the shamanic elements from the tantric, and the folk beliefs.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/28/2012 01:25PM by Misstyk.
Re: Tantra--Hindu, Himalayan Buddhist--problems
Posted by:
Stoic
()
Date: October 28, 2012 04:20PM
There is an extraordinarily strong sexual component in Taoism, which probably qualifies as the earliest surviving root of shamanism in Inner Asia.
I doubt that those ancients overlooked the singular most transformative, powerful and magical thing that humans can do, produce a new human being from seemingly nowhere and nothing.
I doubt that those ancients overlooked the singular most transformative, powerful and magical thing that humans can do, produce a new human being from seemingly nowhere and nothing.
Re: Tantra--Hindu, Himalayan Buddhist--problems
Posted by:
walter1963
()
Date: October 29, 2012 12:53PM
Highly sanitized - symbolic unlike the Aghori that still engage in ritual human sacrifice/cannibalism - when they can steal a child away from village and do you know what to them.
Yes there are schools of Taoism that utilize sex in their rituals but most are entirely negative - basically for a form of energy vampirism. Up until 20 years ago there was a invite only club in Taiwan where it was regularly practiced. Some well known American martial artists engaged in it. That stuff from Mantak Chia and Margo Anad is white washed made up material for bored yuppies and DINKS looking for new sex thrills. There are also another Taoist school where women are used for some really twisted rituals - I won't go into them because the material is x rated. Suffice to say one can find it, if you are into a certain rare Chinese martial-art. You have to go to SEAsia to practice it though.
Yes there are schools of Taoism that utilize sex in their rituals but most are entirely negative - basically for a form of energy vampirism. Up until 20 years ago there was a invite only club in Taiwan where it was regularly practiced. Some well known American martial artists engaged in it. That stuff from Mantak Chia and Margo Anad is white washed made up material for bored yuppies and DINKS looking for new sex thrills. There are also another Taoist school where women are used for some really twisted rituals - I won't go into them because the material is x rated. Suffice to say one can find it, if you are into a certain rare Chinese martial-art. You have to go to SEAsia to practice it though.
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