It's a fair enough point that you shouldn't go around spouting off, but the original comment I made was specifically about people spouting off. That was the entire point.
I'm not telling anyone how to practice in private. I don't think I have any business doing that.
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Even if Buddhism gets things right, though, I don't think that qualifies arbitrarily chosen Buddhists to tell others how to practice.
This is maybe a minor point in the grand scheme of things, but I've encountered it enough times that it seriously bothers me.
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Also: it's great if qualified people can defend their practices, but that doesn't mean a claim to authority is necessarily valid.
And when it comes to lineages that are millennia old, we can hardly claim to understand them anymore (yeah, that also applies to shamanism ofc.)
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there are specific accomplishments in the spiritual paths. And saying that they don't do something, or do do something without having them strikes me as dangerous. And, ofc, as you point out, since we've lost so much, who knows what the Buddha and his original Sangha could do?
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i mean, take the various dhyana: the Buddhists now have 8 of them. But there were tons more of them, they are written of, and mostly we don't know what they were. Or when Chan Mahayanna guys wrote about Hinayana stuff they were very clear their enlightments were different.
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Look, I'm a Jhana essentialist. I have experienced states that, to me and to more accomplished practitioners, fits with the formal descriptions of the Jhanas.
I'm not saying the stuff doesn't work. I am making a critique of the philosophy and the approach, not the craft.
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perhaps, then I misunderstood, or chose to grind my own axe. I'm just not sure that suffering can't be gotten rid of, effectively, for example, so I'm not sure it's a ridiculous philosophy. (Dukkha, otoh, well, perhaps not. But if you don't care, that's very close.)
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Yeah, I came at that particular problem from my own cyclothymic baseline.
I have periods where suffering is an overwhelming constant and I wish only for its end, and periods where it feels hardly relevant at all.
Over time, that both damages and immunizes you.
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I fully understand why some people come to Buddhism looking for an end to suffering. That was my own start.
At this point, my own attitude has drifted towards something like "who cares about suffering? figuring out how to live is where it's at."
Maybe not better, but different.
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Sure. The most important thing is knowing what you're trying to get. If you aren't trying to end suffering, then...
Me, I'd still like something fairly close to an end to suffering, because without I don't much see any point in living.
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Fair.
So, I want to be more competent at doing what I want to do, and more competent at not harming others.
Contemplative techniques revealed to me some rather unsavoury sides to my character. For the moment, I just want those under control.
Then we can see about suffering.
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And, generally speaking, that is what the main paths say. First fix your morality/character, then head on to the deeper stuff.
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Yeah. It's good advice.
I ignored it, got very good at the insight stuff - and then it basically punted me all the way back to "fix your shit, dude."
I was probably lucky. Some people continue right off the map from there. I've even seen it happen to people I know.
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