‘The Buddhist Scriptures tell us that when Gotama was twenty-nine years old, he saw for the first time an Old man, a Sick Man, a
Tag: mahayana
The Difference Between Gong-an and Ko-an Practice
It is bizarre to consider that as Japan descended into fascism and racism prior to WWII – the distorted, nationalistic Zen Buddhism of that time was popular in the West amongst intellectuals, despite a number of its masters expressing openly hostile attitudes toward the Western people. It is even more bizarre to consider that after WWII – many of these very same masters remained popular as they quietly pushed their formerly racist rhetoric into the background, and applied a more ‘neutral’ policy toward the acquisition of Enlightenment.
Buddhism: Hinayana and Mahayana Notions of Emptiness! (10.12.2014)
Through the work of Nagarjuna, the Mahayana movement developed the interpretation that physical matter is ‘empty’ of any substantiality. This is due to Nagarjuna applying his tetra lemma (catuskoti) formula to the assessment of the ‘Chain of Dependent Origination’ (Pratītyasamutpāda), and logically proving that just as the true enlightened state has no-self associated with it; then it is also equally true that physical matter has no substantiality associated with it. Everything is dependent upon everything else, conditioned by everything else, and contingent upon everything else.
Buddhism and China’s Spiritual Beliefs
China has never had the Western notion of secularism – where spirituality is separate from everyday life – nor the convention that the nobility are separate from the clergy, etc.
Carl Jung & Buddhism
Jung was not religious in the conventional sense, as through the use of psychological insight, he saw through religious structure and understood its historicity. He might be described as spiritual due to the obvious spiritual content of much of his work, but even this appellation is problematic. In reality Jung viewed religion as being a subject of much psychological interest due primarily to its obvious archetypal content. Through his developed psychological method, Jung demonstrated an often profound and startling insight into the inner structures of subjects like religion that at once swept away any unnecessary obscuration or excessive mystification, to reveal the true developmental nature of the teachings.
The Desire Mechanism
For those living in ordinary society but wishing to practice the Dharma, the Buddha advocated that the desire mechanism be controlled rather than transcended. This ‘control’ centres around applying an appropriate sexual manifestation in society that is not excessive or that violates the social codes of the time. This is the practice of appropriate sexual discipline that allows the desiring mechanism to function through strictly defined parameters.
