Buddhist sub-culture
 

I've been participating here for little over a year I guess now.
And was wondering why I seem to react so strongly here in comparison to some of the other forum's I have been a member off or have been participating in.

So I have been reading older posts within this sub-forum. And I noticed that there is a strange Buddhist sub-culture forming here. Very little listening very much boasting about the understanding one has of what Buddhism means to the individual.

Sutta's are quoted only when they strengthens ones claims. All in all very little discussion regardless of the length of some threads..

I am probably too invested to make a thorough and un-opinionated conclusion. So I won't. All I can say is that what we see here, even in the posts of those who claim to walk the talk. Gautama would turn in his grave to if he saw what his teachings gave rise to in spiritual lala land 2500 years later.

He did predict it though..

With Love
Eelco

I think your reacting so strongly because Buddhism is an important part of your life and it pains you to see Buddha's teachings being twisted inside and out. I would appreciate it if you would explain why you find some interpretations wrong because then I can learn something. I see you have a lot to offer, but sometimes your like a bull in a china shop :smile:
If someone post's something you think is wrong could you not show a sutta/sutra and point us in the right direction please, that's if you have the time that is.

It's not an understanding of Buddhism in any sense of getting close to the 'true meaning', its an unserstanding in real-life from which the meanings are assigned. Yes, they are use to affirm being right, or proving another wrong, much of the time.
I generally find people want to talk about the high spiritual stuff but the discourse often degenerates to derisive slurs, so there is quite an obvious disparity between the talk and the walk. I usually create threads which are there for the sake of practice, which means walking the talking, as the practice and the philosophy are not two different things, but two parts of the one thing that go together.

I'll try.
That said even though I read quite a few sutta's I am not a scholar and would have to search what the Buddha says about most topics.

I do believe that calling one self a Buddhist pertains the verification of ones understanding with the actual sutta's preferably the Pali Canon.

With love
Eelco

I noticed that. I wonder why you still do, because reading back it seldom plays out the way you intended. I'll say again that what I say in these threads are as much a part of my practise as the patience I display in daily life. The one does not diminish the other in any way.

In fact the help me grow in discernment, understanding and all ways that matter. Sila entails everything that bubbles to the surface which is not part of formal Samantha or insight practises

With Love
Eelco

' as the practice and the philosophy are not two different things, 'Unless the practice doesn't fit the philosophy of Buddhism. Then you do have two parts.

I do know people who call themselves Buddhists and can recite a multitude of Suttas, are they following Buddha's teachings.... not all.

Lol. Yeah I've met those too.
It's why for me it goes both ways. Sometimes I realize something and search where the Canon or the commentaries describe it to see if it fits.
Sometimes I find a gem in the Canon and go to work to come to a similar experience.

Same thing with other religions, which is why I dabbled with a lot of them. Wicca, druidism, shamanism, spiritism. The veda's, Hinduism, the Koran, the New testament.. there's recognition in most. There's aversion as well.

So far Buddhism is the only one I have yet to find something in I can falsify outside the realm of belief.

With Love
Eelco

Yes I feel the same, sometimes I look to Suttas for verification incase i'm going senile or going down the wrong road, at other times I read a Sutta and it's like a light comes on and I realize that the teaching was already somewhere in my subconscious anyway it just need a little spoon to stir it up. I do enjoy reading some Suttas but sometimes it's like I'm reading an alien language, I can't make head nor tails of them :smile: I know when it's time to move on to others and leave the aliens for someone else. If Buddha had a School now, I would be in his baby class :D

Sila is a part of insight meditation, and there must be essays on that online, but I don't know what samatha is.