A day in the life in Halifax

Are you willing to renounce the Dharma on your deathbed if it gave comfort to your Christian relatives? Ajahn Brahm made passing mention of this dilemma in one of his videos, and recommending doing do (and quickly converting back when they've left). I see a serious problem in this.

The deathbed conversion is a trophy in Christianity, especially if you've dedicated your life to countering their corrosive ideology and mystism. Christians even stoop as low as fabricating conversions of predominate figures such as Darwin and Einstein in hopes of unraveling their influence against the Christian meme.

So, when Auntie McChristian comes to your deathbed to procure your soul for her malevolent deva with one last round of emotional extortion, what is the Right Action? Do you stand for what you believe in, and by doing so preserve the advice, teachings and positive influence you've given others? Or do you Ajahn Brahm it by betraying the Dharma, thereby converting your legacy to a propaganda tool in the hands of evil?

I am having a bit of a hard time. Anymore, I feel like there is a significant part of the world's population that is, essentially, monsters walking around wearing rubber human masks. Compassion was never something I struggled with. I never had to think, "Why should I feel compassion for this person?" I just did. But anymore, I feel like it's been bled out of me.

Help? Some sutras or something? I don't know. I am really stuck.

What do you think and feel when you look at the cruellest, most pitiless humans? Can you help me?

( lyrics )

Did I ever mention how much I hate China?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091228/ap_on_re_as/as_china_britain_death_sentence


Actually, China's not alone in this barbarity. Many Asian nations execute people over things that would get them a few years in prison in the US, at most. I'm talking drug trafficking, of course; I'm sorry, but I consider how we treat the helpless- and that includes prisoners who are incapacitated totally- as the supreme sign of what level of civilization we have achieved.

Fuck China. They've gone from being one of the world's oldest and most brilliant civilizations to being an officially atheist toilet bowl with billions of people and corruption beyond measure in charge of their sorry excuse for a government. Their corruption makes USA corruption look like an episode of Mr. Roger's Neighborhood.

But truly, is Texas any better? They just executed a man whose IQ tested in the range of mentally handicapped. Fuck Texas! I wish they would succeed from the "union", such that it is. I think of them as an embarrassment that produced the Bush family.

Good thing I'm not the British Government, because I'd take better care of my citizens. I'd issue a travel advisory for all Brits telling them the truth: If you travel in these barbaric, backwards-assed Asian nations, you may be murdered by the governments there if you do something you wouldn't be murdered for here. (Some of the fools here who may want to argue with me about this execution being a "murder" can be silenced now- morally unjustifiable killing is always murder, even if a barbaric law-code says that it's an acceptable legal penalty.) And if I were the King of England, or the PM, or some important Brit with a Brit accent, I'd send the Special Air Services to the ass-smelling shantytown that this man is being held in, and have them extract him by force (there's almost no chance of them failing).

And I'd tell China that I did it, after the fact, and expel their "diplomats" and cut off all relations with them over this. Yes, over one citizen of my country would I say "fuck you". That's just the resentful sort of bastard I am. I would never allow my citizens to be subjected to kangaroo courts and murder at the hands of thugs and barbarians. I'd be happy to have him sent back to England to face charges of drug trafficking in his home country, however. If the Chinese justice system was worth anything, and not a joke on the world Human Rights stage, I might be inclined to allow my citizens to be subjected to it. But what's happening here is a bigger crime, a far bigger crime than what China claims this man did.

This all comes down to the foolish, backwards, vicious, and useless penalty of death, of capital punishment in general. There's no use for it anymore. It's bullying, it's vengeance, it's useless. It doesn't deter crime, as studies have revealed. I only consider it to be worthwhile in one instance, the instance of the murder of children- but some here (mostly non-parents) would disagree with me on this one. That's fine. These situations are complicated, but in the end, capital punishment as a whole reeks.

China is an embarrassment to humanity, sorta like Texas, except WAY bigger, WAY more people, and WAY more executions. Bullying and barbarity and corruption and violence-for-pleasure seeking power-drunk GOONS everywhere... funny thing, this: do any of you remember when you became an adult?

What marked your real mental transition from a child's worldview to an "adult" worldview? I know when mine was. I remember it. I realized one day, while watching some horrible shit on the news, that adults weren't in charge of the world. My mother couldn't explain to me why someone wouldn't come and stop the terrible things I was seeing, the crying, scared people huddling for shelter from whatever thug or tyrant was murdering them in some country a world away.

When you're growing up, most people rely on the "adults", you think they have it under control, that they keep shit straight, and don't let things happen in terrible, unfair, unjust ways. They punish you for being unfair and a bully; you have to assume that no one does this stuff in the adult world.

One day, I realized that even adults didn't have this world under control. They were as helpless as me, a child, to stop terrible things, unfair things, unjust things, and that adults everywhere who were in control of cities, countries, and armies were not fair people or good people. They could be worse than any bully kid, more immature and stupid than the worst kid. When I realized that this world wasn't in the hands of benevolent, calm, fair adults, I think I stopped being a "kid". Adults played their hand well- they made me think that cops and lawyers and politicians sorta had things handled, but they don't. They never did. And other nations? Asspounding barbarians and power-hungry petty tyrants who kill or send to death and laugh about it.

There's no dignity out there, waiting for kids who are growing up, just teeth and talons and a struggle for safety and justice which is akin to reaching a mirage in a burning desert.

(I thought this applied since Buddhism has a lot to do with being Present)

Has anyone else read The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle? What did you think of it? Have you applied anything to your life from the book? What changes have you noticed in your life?

Blasphemer: Gatekeeper, is death your disguise?
Gatekeeper: Answers are the Echos of the Dead
Cult Followers: The Dead Know The Answers of The Echos

Blasphemer: Death, do you control the Gatekeeper
Death: I am Alive
Gatekeeper: Screams of a Soul Torn Asunder
Cult Followers: We have with us a Power

Blasphemer: I shall rend your locks useless, and knowledge shall flow free
Death: I have killed the Gatekeeper
Cult Followers: We shall drown the heathen in the lake of Gestalts
Gatekeeper: Seeking a new Gestalt

Blashpemer: I am a Blasphemer and I tear Your Gates Asunder
Cult Followers: Neither Blasphemy Nor Gates Quench Our Thirst Completely

-Noize-: Everlasting Death Echoes In The Lost Myriad Of Gestalts Form The Background Of The Meditational Mandalas

My mother looks like Ms. Piggy. She came over yesterday, and flapped her arms. Then she breathed this NASTY DISGUSTING breath on me.
(I chased that old witch right back to her car.... twice.... yet, it was too late)

I spent the rest of the day vomiting blood out of my nose. I called my mom to tell her what a witch she was and she said -you have Swine Flu-!

(cause she looks like a pig and flapped her arms?)

I don't know who thinks this kind of shit is funny, though when I was a baby, my mom used to tell me bedtime stories that involved everyone else shitting their pants and getting hosed down cause they smell bad.

I don't know what this has to do with anything, though I've never vomited blood out my nose before yesterday.
Anyone else here have a mother who is a witch?

I watched some ballet this afternoon performed in front of a Buddha statue.

First Hit's Free.... and, unlike Crack, they're all free.
( God The Devil And Bob )

Is this real? Any credible info on why monks would attack this particular church?

I am against religous discrimination in any form. I hope this madness stops and freedom is granted to religous minorities in Lanka.

Update: I found some more detail today, including some transcripts: http://persecutedchurch.blogspot.com/2009/11/buddhist-monks-attack-on-sri-lankan.html .

Btw. Good job Robin! Really entertaining to see how dead-buddha reacts to your posts.

The following is a brief excerpt from Fazang's commentary on the Brahma Net Sutra's Bodhisattva vows 梵網經菩薩戒本疏 (T1813).

第二諸藏所攝者。

II. Contents of the Stores

此有四重。

This has four layers.

初約二藏有二。

1. Concerning the two stores having two [layers].

謂大小二乘各有菩薩藏聲聞藏。於此四中唯大乘內菩薩藏攝。

These are said to be the Mahayana, the Hinayana and the two vehicles each having the Bodhisattva store and the śrāvaka store. Within these four it is only within the Mahayana that the Bodhisattva store is [completely] contained.

或通大乘聲聞藏攝。

Some permeate through the Mahayana and are contained in the śrāvaka store.

以大中聲聞悉許成佛。於此戒法亦受持故。

Because within the Mahayana the śrāvaka are all able to become Buddhas, these [śrāvaka] vows are also maintained.

亦通收小中菩薩。以彼三十四心成佛等事、離此實戒更無餘故。

[The Mahayana] also passes through and absorbes the Bodhisattva [stages] contained within the lesser [vehicle]. This is because outside the actual vows of those thirty-four [states of] mind, achieving Buddhahood, and such things, there are furthermore no other [practises].

或亦通彼聲聞藏。以七眾所持、別解脫戒、皆是菩薩律儀攝故。是故彼法亦在此中。

Some also pass through the śrāvaka store. This is because of the different liberation vows which the seven assemblies all maintain are all subsumed within the Bodhisattva disciplinary regulations. Thus those [śrāvaka] teachings are also within this one.

There are two interesting things I'd like to point out.

The first is that the statement "...within the Mahāyāna the śrāvaka are all able to become Buddhas..." is an idea drawn from the Lotus Sutra where Hīnayāna practitioners are also said to eventually achieve Buddhahood. This was something that Mahāyāna thinkers differed on amongst themselves. Some thought that Hīnayāna practitioners would achieve Arhatship and enter Parinirvāṇa never to return. Others proposed that Arhatship was only temporary, albeit a fairly long, stage and that eventually all beings without exception including Arhats would achieve final unexcelled Buddhahood. It is evident that Fazang was in favour of the later theory.

The second relevant point here is that Fazang is in full support of a Mahāyāna Bodhisattva aspirant observing the śrāvaka precepts. At first that sounds like common sense, but we should keep in mind that only a few decades prior there was Daoxuan, a noted scholar and advocate of the Vinaya, who complained of Mahāyāna practitioners disregarding the Hīnayāna precepts.

《四分律刪繁補闕行事鈔》卷2：「今時不知教者。多自毀傷云。此戒律所禁止。是聲聞之法。於我大乘棄同糞土。猶如黃葉木牛木馬誑止小兒。此之戒法亦復如是。誑汝聲聞子也。」(CBETA, T40, no. 1804, p. 49, b27-c1)

In present times many of those who do not know the teachings destroy and injure themselves saying,"What this Vinaya prohibits is a śrāvaka teaching. For our Mahāyāna we toss it away just like dirty soil. Just like yellow leaves, a wooden cow or a wooden horse deceive a little child, these precept teachings are like this. They deceive you little śrāvaka!"

One can gather from Daoxuan's writings that in his day, which was only a generation or two before Fazang, that some Buddhist monks in China did not actually observe the Vinaya. It should be noted that during the Tang dynasty there were many "monks" who bought their ordination certificates and engaged in questionable and immoral activities and businesses. There was something of a mirror monastic community that was really just a refuge for those wanting to avoid mandatory civil labour duties and taxation. It was something of an ongoing problem throughout the Tang dynasty and it resulted in more and more regulations and restrictions being placed on monastics eventually resulting in the great repression of 845.

I would venture to say that Fazang was aware of this problem and thus in his commentary on Mahāyāna precepts he also indicated that Mahāyāna vows also by default include the Hīnayāna precepts as well so a monk is obligated to conduct himself in line with the Vinaya.

more found here

Honestly, I wouldn't mind finding either of them under my tree.

Hello, dharma pals. =) I have a very mundane question for you.

I meditate with a Vipassana sangha on Sundays. On the first Sunday of every month there's a little potluck afterward. I ordinarily flee from this event, as I'm not very imaginative where food is concerned. Every once in a strange while, though, I like to make tea eggs. Making them is joyful to me, like a little ritual. The boiling tea/spice/soy mixture perfumes my apartment, and the eggs come out looking like marble. I've just gotten some eggs from a local farm with free-range chickens. So just now, I thought: say, wouldn't some locally/humanely-sourced tea eggs be lovely funny things to bring to sangha potluck?

But then I thought hrm, not vegan. Would that be Not OK? I know the snacks people bring are always vegetarian, but vegan I'm not sure. I will first carefully gauge the level of ova-consumption among my fellow sitters so I don't make a terrible faux pas. In the meantime, though, I just thought I'd bounce it off you guys. This is not an invitation to debate the role of veg*nism in Buddhism! It's just a question about wanting to offer something, and not wanting to disrespect others in doing so.

What do you think? Skilled? Or OMG So Not? I know that folks will probably respect my intentions, but still. One likes to get it right the first time if one can.

Ethylene Vinyl Acetate. This chemical is now added to cigarette paper to make it extinguish itself. This chemical does not yield to the metabolism. This is a direct attack on the health and well being of the population.
( tl;dr )