Literacy

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>>18131211
See the story of Daikan Eno (Hui Neng) in spite of being a poor, illiterate, social outcast he became 6th patriarch of Zen School (Caodong).

>>18131211
>>18131251
But anyway, Daikan Eno not only studied, but also decorate the sacred texts.

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>>18131211
>peasants were illitirate;does that mean they were deemed unfit for Nirvana?

>illitirate

Well, looks like your chances aren't 100% then OP.

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>>18131251
>in spite of being a poor

>Thinks being rich helps one become enlightened.

>>18131280
>he thinks a meager billions of dollars can slow down the subtle process of enlightment

>>18131211
http://www.bhagavatam-katha.com/gita-jayanti-story-the-illiterate-brahmana-reading-bhagavad-gita/

Sincere endeavor to return to Godhead is much more important than any understanding of the words.

>>18131289
No, actually. Suffering is in direct correlation to enlightenment.

To receive enlightment, your life HAS to suck! Why would you ever empathize with the suffering of others if you aren't familiar with the cold of a rainy day, yourself?

>>18131293
The burning bush had already burned my eyes. I do have have the desire to return to the godhelm, and the arrogance I display around my own skinny dip into Nirvana is an arogance so profound!

The Tibetan word for arrogance, pronounced in English like "naggehl", is also synonymous with "king-lyness" for good reason. To have things handed to you is to never understand the struggling of others.

Medicine bhuddah is my friend. He no longer assumes my body because there is no need for me to experience that kind of bliss. I seek refuge in the other Tibetan gods because they are more applicable to my life as it currently is.

>>18131211
>>>18131293
>The burning bush ha*S already burned my eyes. I do*N'T have have the desire to return to the godhelm, and the arrogance I display around my own skinny dip into Nirvana is an arogance so profound!


Talk about spoopy typos, yo.

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>>18131289
>uses greenteXT TO BE A FUCKKING IDIOT
choke yourself

>>18131211
But, no. Absolutely not. You can be blind and deft and dumb and that will never prevent you from the state of being known as Bhuddahood.

Remember that there are Bhuddahs whom share thier wisdome, and there are bhuddahs whom do not. If an ant can be a bhuddah, you can, too.

My favorite example of this is the mute Bhuddah who runs from his fellow man, and lives speechlessly in the mountains. Is he truly divine? FUCK YES, he is.

But what makes him different than the bhuddahs that have their ashes secured within statues of gold?
He is the of the same dharma of the ant bhuddah, that is.

This mute is dumb and uneducated and his wisdom will never be shared with others.
Is that vain? I sure think so.

I wish I could be the mute bhuddah, honestly. Sounds like paradise to me.
But the monks are rather concerned with my ability to breath and speak and as drastic as my desire is to cut out my tongue and become one with God, God has other plans for this body.

>>18131417
>deft and dumb
A retarded ninja?

>>18131211
Can someone become spiritually advanced without deep study of religious text?

Yes and no. You need deep study but it doesn't necessarily have to be of anything religious. Just a deep study of your own life, seeing the patterns and themes, understanding how your own ego works, understanding yourself basically. There's a lot that can be done without going into anything religious.

Nirvana isn't about how much information you know or how smart you are. If that was the case, scientists, physicists, mathematicians, etc would be enlightened. There are stories of all kinds of people making it, some poor, some rich, and so on. No one is unfit for Nirvana.

>>18131391
>To receive enlightment, your life HAS to suck
>To have things handed to you is to never understand the struggling of others.

But then you rule out the most recognizable enlightened person in history, Gautama Buddha.

Remember that he was a prince, had everything given to him. When people think of his story, they think that his seeking only began when he glimpsed the suffering of people outside the castle walls. But if you pay attention, he was already seeking, that's why he asked to go outside and see what's happening. Gautama never had a cold rainy day, yet when he saw it happening to others, his heart was there. Immediately, he felt empathy.

Suffering happens at all levels, rich or poor it doesn't matter. That means empathy can happen at any level as well.

When the Buddha became enlightened, the first thing he recognized is that everybody is enlightened. You are also the Buddha, that's what he'd say.

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>>18131822
>but bhuddah was born a prince
That guy wanted to advance himself, so he made it fucking rain. He starved himself, probably gave himself lashings, ect...

He abandoned all that posh stuff that he had began with. To have it and to loose it is a higher karma than to never have it at all.

Are you implying All abramaic religion is paganism masked with a single God and all saints represent the pagan gods?

>>18131211
Shingon is for aristocrats.

Zen is for warriors.

Pure Land is for peasants.

>>18131837
The Buddha was walking on the Ganges once and one of his devotees in a very curious way asked him, "How much karma do I have, Lord Buddha?" He looked and said, "Do you see these grains of sand?", and he pointed and they were stretching for miles. "Do you know how many grains of sand are on this beach?". He said, "That's how many lifetimes of karmic birth you have coming. Don't ask me."

So that's there. You can look at that, you can pay attention to how much karma you have and how much more is coming in the future, how many more million births you'll go through. Or you can start looking past the karma and maybe see something different.

>>18131837

But the Buddha only achieved enlightenment once he gave up asceticism.

>>18131211

Yes. I opened the floodgates on my "heart chakra" (basically, I became able to make myself extremely happy at will and still can, 8 years later) and I hadn't even touched a text yet. I opened my 3rd eye after half an hour of listening to Hemi Sync. Sometimes powerful art is all one needs.

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if you're brave and crazy enough and don't want any of the BS anymore, if you just want the straight truth:

Open your heart to SATAN and eat magic mushrooms.

there's good information on Joy of Satan website.


FOREVER IN FLAMES!!!

>>18131211
Yes, the other way is deep understanding of Nature and Mathematics.

You realize they(illiterate peasants as you put it) could attend sermons and there were always travelling monks to ask questions of. Are you really that fucking dense?

if telepathy is real then why would you need to read or speak?

My acupuncturist told me that basic eastern philosophy (yin/yang) (four elements) was based off what they observed in nature. The earth can teach us alot.

>>18131211
no. historically, most mystics operated in a master/student or Abbot/monk setting, so learning could be wholly oral.

The whole purpose of brahmanas and sannyasis in varnasrama dharma is to travel and teach. Make no attachments, show no partiality. If people give food to eat or a place to stay while you're around, that's nice, but don't sit around like a lump in a temple. Deities and books do that better than you. Go out and educate people.

>>18131211
nope man, there have been many guys who reached sahaja nirvikalpa samadhi without reading any books, they didnt have guru who would guide them, its rare, but it can happen. Sri Ramana Maharshi and Shivabalayogi are good examples of that. Ramana Maharshi said that all books before reaching nirvana are useless and they are useless after. Some gurus like to repeat that all what you need is one wish. That wish is to become one with the Father, or One, or whatever personality you wish to attach to It, be it Jesus, Budha, or some Guru.

>>18133653
>oral
>literate
Are you retarded?

the spiritual gains are not content based.

you might not know how to navigate properly to keep moving forward. your lust for religious text will come all by itself then.

peasants have one to one guidance from their masters back then.

>what is oral tradition

A few zen masters have burned all their books when they reached enlightment. Not in a "fuck this" way, but in a "I do'nt need to carry these anymore" way.

>>18133919
shit, I misread OP.

what I was trying to say is that, no, you dont have to be literate to be mystical.

alternatively give Jesus Christ a try, he's the King of Kings and give many gifts and blessings and challenges to overcome on your walk through his creation

>>18133672
Lol what does any of that have to do with op's question?

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>>18131211
>Can someone become spiritually advanced without deep study of religious text?
Yes. In fact, I remember a story - a koan - let me find it.

>Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.
>Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor's cup full, and then kept on pouring.
>The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. "It is overfull. No more will go in!"
>"Like this cup," Nan-in said, "you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?"

Sometimes, all that learning just hinders progress.

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>>18135325
>Christian
I never know if these people are genuine or trolls.

>>18131211
What does it mean to become "spiritually advanced"?

>>18131361
>To receive enlightment, your life HAS to suck!
>To receive enlightment
>receive enlightment
>receive
>enlightment

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>>18132010
>Joy of Satan
>good information

>>18135352
How does a religious caste whose main point is to go out and provide spiritual education to those who are unable to access it either through lack of resources or lack of ability relate to whether illiteracy or indigence is a hindrance to spirituality? That doesn't make sense to you?

Folks used to have a spiritual leader in their community. Priest, shaman, or whatever. They would take care of the community around them and relay spiritual information. So if you can't read op. That's an alternative.

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In modern psychiatric terminology, walking headfirst into "enlightenment" (as per Buddhism) is basically, like Col. Kurtz in Apocalypse Now, embracing a peculiar kind of dissociative, depersonalized madness. There's the gradual unwinding of your ordinary personality, shedding of your past in all its humanity and relatedness to peers, emotionally disconnection from ordinary society, family, friends, and abandonment of all ordinary forms of however fleeting happiness, excitement, and passion for life, to become completely disillusioned, detached, dispassionate, depersonalized, and dissociated. It's hardcore stuff.

The so-called "enlightened" man is really a shell of what he once was. His family will wonder what went wrong, how he drifted into such abstract, withdrawn, schizoid hopelessness and emptiness. The memory, in his own mind, of his innocent, naive childhood, full of giggles and games, will remain, but he will feel about a million miles from it, as if gazing upon his own life history with a thousand yard stare of complete disillusionment with life. The supreme aim of Buddhism, as per the earliest texts, is the "end of rebirth" and "extinction"; it's not a state of supreme happiness, it's the end of the life process, the complete cessation. It's called "blissful" because, as the texts record Buddha saying, what is blissful to sages is abhorrent to the world; in other words, sages seek death, true death, endless death, without rebirth, while the worldly cling to life and desire continued becoming.

Do you, then, want enlightenment? It's not fun. It's basically the complete end of your existence. Once you've reached that point, there will be no more relationships, no more romance, no more sex, no more ups and downs of life, only endless emptiness until expiration.

Buddha's brain would've been interesting to study. It's obvious that he went through this incredible process of disillusionment and depersonalization and took it to its final conclusion.

>>18136165
I think you have a flawed view of enlightenment. Think of it more as the penultimate spiritual development. If your practice is not giving fruit to your mind and heart, you should consider a different practice. Isn't it about truth, wisdom, love? Buddha was not the only teacher, every man has a potential connection to infinity. End of rebirth can also mean the culmination of all lives. Its complete and total knowledge of existence. Did Buddha not remember all past and future lives? I plan to stop at nothing short of the ultimate, even if it takes all of time.

>>18136179
>Did Buddha not remember all past and future lives?

He remembered all his past lives and realized that his then current life was his last life and that he'd attained extinction while living; the implication being that his death is final extinction without remainder.

Also, if you want to call the earliest Buddhist texts, the historical record of the Buddha's teaching, flawed, then that's your problem. My post is based on that worldview contained in those texts and my own experience of it. I think you're just naive and still at an early point on the path.

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Do yourselves a favor: watch Apocalypse Now with the thought in mind that it's really about Buddha, Buddhism, the search for enlightenment, and the eventual rejection of it and return to ordinary life.

Col. Kurtz: Buddha
Capt. Willard: Bhikkhu
River: The Path
Horror: Dukkha
What is Necessary: Dhamma-Vinaya
"Broke from them, then from himself": Anatta
Assassination: Rejecting Buddha/Nirvana

I think of the film as the director's summary of his personal interest in Buddhism. All the signs are there. At some point, he rejected the goal, and embraced ordinary life, concluding that Buddha had gone insane.

If you're super attentive, you'll even spot the direct link of Kurtz=Buddha in the film's symbolism and imagery. Don't think there's all that much difference between Col. Kurtz as portrayed and the historical Buddha; wipe away your naive visions of compassionate smiling Buddha and see the shell-shocked, horrified, broken man behind the mask of tradition.

I'm not saying stop; I disagree with Coppola, I say go all the way up the river and never leave, but I know how brutal it really is. You may not like what you're left with when you're actually there.

>>18136182
Do you cut the trunk before letting the tree bloom and bear fruit? Do you think the Buddha bore fruit? Is not Christ the fruit of the soul? What is a bodhisattva to you?

>>18136165
Westerners are always trying to one up others aren't they? Who can be the biggest victim, who can suffer the most in the hopes of reaching heaven, etc.

>>18133556

Your viscero cutaneous reflexologist, anon. Acupuncture is bullshit.

>>18136165

that statue is a skelly DO NOT TRUST IT

>>18131976
...and then the devotee's post was removed for being off-topic with the loss of 3 karma. He tried to dispute this moderation as being relevant to the subject of Buddhism, but the GFAQs mod had a quota to fill and suspended the user for a month to prevent any further disputes.

>>18131211
No, your concern comes from a presumption of the written nature of religious text. Many of our great spiritual texts were actually recorded from oral traditions, by people who had no writing system or were illiterate.

>>18135579
Not him but what I think he meant is that your life has to "suck" in the ways that most people would consider a sucky life. There are of course many ways to reach enlightenment, but the general them is to starve every physical desire in order to gain control over the ego. Many people would consider this a sucky life. But to those who seek it, nothing could be further from the truth.