Daammnn priest,

They are full of intellectuals knowledges, but they  have low wisdom and experience.  In general case, I think religious leaders have close mind.  That's why they are often trap in beliefs systems territories.  Hopefully, they are not all like that. 

Trust your experiences and your inner force.  Keep an open and rational mind.

Hi, I resonate with all your posts, I see this pattern as well.

What really is ironic, in a bad way, in my culture I live in, many people with spiritual issues think the appropriate person to talk about this is a priest, which unfortunately in most cases is the very worst choice. "It's psychological / physiological" seems a really typical answer, or, when asking the really interesting questions, you get "it's a mystery, go read the bible and have faith" or so.
It's a sad thing, and sometimes I have had the impression some priests are very unhappy because of their wishes and hopes they once had, which caused them to become a priest, and on the other hand their strict religious rule-system and everyday-church-business which is covering their own needs and therefore they can't get happy. Just my impression.

Spooky

The priest will see whats going on after dying. But who walks to a priest and tells him about an oobe?

Hi Vajra-

A "dangerous cult" indeed - Buddhism is based on taking personal control of one's spiritual status. If you have become personally responsible, then why have priests around?

Buddhism does not deny any specific teaching, but rather tells us to seek out that which works for our own selves, otherwise, not to believe in it. The idea of an objective and material God is denied - no big guy with a beard sitting in the clouds tossing lightening bolts down at us - and the idea of an unchanging soul is denied - instead we are products of our own growth processes as we reincarnate.  The abstractions that are left over are often beyond traditional Christian philosophers (although Pere Teilhard de Chardin seemed to understand what is happening - and amost got excommunicated for it). Much of what Jesus said can be interpreted as the words of a buddha, as can the words of most of the prophets of most major religious groups, especially in the Eastern religions. Worse, Buddhists generally believe that the world has a large number of enlightened souls in it, most of whom are smart enough to hide under the social radar. That pretty well does away with a "single and unique path to salvation", or "mystery" and "take it on faith". Yet, if we view the Christ as the projection of God-Mind into the world to bring resolution, taking on the personification of a buddha, as opposed to the role of Jewish King, then we could create a Christian version of Buddhism that loses nothing of the richness of either approach.

I sympathize with the priest - that's job security he's talking about!
dave

Hi  dave and vajra  The spiritualist church i used to go to were very down on buddisum as there was someone who went there and he was well into buddism and one night when they had the healing there,he brought a buddist bowl in,which he was going around everyone and placing it over there head,then hitting this bowl with a gong,because he said the vibration of him hitting it made you closer to the spirit,so those who run the church resented him and showed it and he has stopped going to the spiritualist church.

Love and God bless   Love Juditha

Not too sure Juditha why that guy might have done that with a bowl - I've never seen anything like it in Tibetan Buddhism anyway, although maybe there's something in another tradition. Think that most Buddhists would regard pushing into another tradition's ceremony as pretty bad manners though. But then Buddhism like all traditions has people at all levels and of all sorts of legitimate and not so legitimate views within it it.

On meditation Dave. I guess it's a big subject and a long road. The basic shamatha meditation taught in most Buddhist groups is the basic discipline which only lays the ground for further types of meditation involving insight (vipassana) and visualisation.

I know very little about it but Dzogchen while publicly discussed quite widely now (especially by Sogyal Rinpoche and his Rigpa organisation) is a very rarefied teaching peculiar to the Nyingma tradition which is a part of Vajrayana or the Diamond vehicle - essentially the highest teachings of Tibetan Buddhism. It was traditionally secret, and while it's now talked of publicly the real teaching and transmission (abisheka) is still subject to vows of secrecy, obedience to teachers and the like - and only available after a long period (up to 13 years) of preparatory study and practice.

It's essentially experiential and pretty much unexplainable, but entails realisation of the true nature of the mind or the 'rigpa' - a state of pure awareness arising prior to mental concept or commentary, before all the concepts and beliefs that give rise to our perceiving and being limited to our conventional reality kick in.

Teaching relies heavily on meditation, visualisation and mind transmission from a realised teacher, realisation involves insight or seeing of a new view rather than anything to do with intellectual understanding.

It's for this reason regarded as 'self secret' - you won't even be aware the teacher is showing you the 'true nature of mind' if you're not prepared. It's apparently like coming to exist in a state which is continuously aware of the absolute dimension (the dharmakaya), of the collective nature of mind, of the sambhokaya (afterlife realms) and of the illusory nature of self.......

It sounds Dave like you've been on the path for quite a while. More than myself.

I spent the 70s and 80s trying to be a ruler of the universe until it knocked some manners into me and I had to look for help in the form of the spiritual path. Sogyal Rinpoche (Rigpa) the well known Nyingma teacher has been quietly pushing Dzogchen for quite some time too. If I remember it right  he reckons that us Westerners manage to combine spectacular neuroticism with sophisticated minds likely to be able to utilise the rather subtle perspectives of Dzogchen.

Tibetan Buddhism is very old and sometimes a little Tibetan, quaint and difficult to swallow, but much like yourself it's helped me so much as well. To the point where I've developed some real faith in the teachings. It's very hard to belittle or set aside a tradition or a body of teaching which time and again shows itself to be trustworthy and effective.....