New Age

[PeterVrede]

Originally Posted by 8thsinner

Why is that exactly?

Can you share your source for this?, I am interested in knowing more.

I wish to provide the link but right now I dont' have the privilage to provide the links.
I hope you can search in the wiki for the basic information.
Namaste

[jonesboy]

I do believe that spirtuality is an ever expanding.. err evolving in a way to make it easier for people.

That is what the Buddhas turning of the wheel represented.

That is what new Termas represent.

Some would say that Jesus was an upgrade to the system on the female aspect.

My problem with New Age talk is that most people have not researched the past to find out what is new. They just call it mystic or some other name to minimalize it.

An example of somethng new outside of buddhism is sharing presence.

I have never ran into a writing of a Buddhist teacher talking about sharing presence with anyone. About creating loops of energy to help remove obstructions. I am familiar with guru and deity yoga and this is different than that. Now this is not a new age practice. It has been around for a few thousand years but I think you get my drift.

Originally Posted by jonesboy

I do believe that spirtuality is an ever expanding.. err evolving in a way to make it easier for people.

That is what the Buddhas turning of the wheel represented.

That is what new Termas represent

Some would say that Jesus was an upgrade to the system on the female aspect.

My problem with New Age talk is that most people have not researched the past to find out what is new. They just call it mystic or some other name to minimalize it.

An example of somethng new outside of buddhism is sharing presence.

I have never ran into a writing of a Buddhist teacher talking about sharing presence with anyone. About creating loops of energy to help remove obstructions. I am familiar with guru and deity yoga and this is different than that. Now this is not a new age practice. It has been around for a few thousand years but I think you get my drift.

I thought that the ' turning of the Dharma wheel ' by Buddha is a metaphor of the teachings of the Darhma in the world.
Buddha was said to have turned it three times, the first on the teachings of ' four noble truth's 'the second on the teachings of ' perfection of wisdom ' and the last on teaching ' Buddha nature '

[CrystalSong]

As I understand it and have experienced it New Age sort of cherry picks the best gems of truth and nuggets of wisdom from all the religions and spiritual practices of humanity currently and leaves the dogma untouched.

However its not a religion per say, has no doctrine no weighty tomes of rules and is very much open to whatever a person personally brings to it. It varies from region to regional and country to country depending on what people bring to it and what local influences there are.

In the USA for example what I've notices so far is that in the West it has more Native American influences, flavors and practices, in Colorado there's Buddhist influences, in Florida it's just all out fun Whoo-Whoo!

But it varies even by town to town.

It just really depends who's putting stuff out there, if one of the main people holding classes and workshops in an area is a Christian Scientist or has a background in Scientology then that's going to be New Ages Flavor in that area.
If the same is being led by someone who's a yoga practitioner and has spent time in India studying then that's going to be the flavor.
If your in the Mid West Bible Belt then, Christ, Divine light and the infilling of the Holy Spirit are going to be the flavor.
Pop into Sedona Arizona and it's going to be a mix of votex's, Native American traditions and UFO's.
Head down into southern Florida and it's going to start picking up a lot of Santorini and Haitian and Hoo-Doo, Voodoo influences.
East coast northern USA and it's Celt and druid influences.
Other areas many of the beliefs and practices are brought in from the Askaic Records and Past histories of traditions.

In other words, anyone describing what it is, is speaking from their own particular experience of what it is in their area. How New Age is experienced and expressed in your area is most likely to be different. To really know you'll need to go experience it personally, as in this forum you have people from all over the world and that's a huge variety of different flavors - and some people are going to find the flavor of their area not to their taste and so that is their impression now of New Age.

Your most relevant opinion is going to come from yourself experiencing it first hand, otherwise you just have OPO's (other peoples' opinions) which will give you a large field in which you can make judgments, but which may or may not hold any reality to what your actual first hand experience will be if you investigated it on your own in your area.

To know what this flavor of ice cream taste like you have to actually taste it as a general poll of other peoples experience tasting it can never describe for you what your experience will be :)

[jonesboy]

It sounds like a lot of people being trapped at the theme park.

[sunsoul]

I do agree with the above posts - often New Age concepts are simply reworded teachings or themes from all different kinds of traditions. And, there lies another danger, you often find a hodge podge with people trying to paste together different systems whether Taoist, yogic, Pagan or shamanistic and somehow expecting them all to fit in together when that isn't so easy. In my opinion, you may as well use this short life to maximise your efforts on one system that you connect with and go from there (using other sources as inspiration along the way).

About sharing presence - I would say in Buddhism that mindfulness would be a good equivalent, in the deepest sense of the word.

[kkfern]

Originally Posted by running

New age as I see it was an evolution from the old way. Not being a particular way. But a way in such one is doing ones own thinking. A followers mentality came partially IMO through religion. It's unfortunately human nature I feel to not have the confidence needed to come upon things through ones experience. So now the new age is another thing to follow. For me there is a little bit of helpful stuff everywhere. As long as I keep my own thinking and experience before everything else.

i agree. that is a big part of it. being past religion. when we do not need the leaders of a religion to point to god. we go find god by yourself. not a second hand god. Buddhist teacher or preacher are no longer needed.

kk

[birds]

Originally Posted by PeterVrede

What do you think of new Age?
Buddhist Monks who follow early buddhism are protesting against New age.

I recently came across this:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/americanbuddhist/
American Buddhist Perspective

[jonesboy]

Originally Posted by kkfern

i agree. that is a big part of it. being past religion. when we do not need the leaders of a religion to point to god. we go find god by yourself. not a second hand god. Buddhist teacher or preacher are no longer needed.

kk

Buddhist would say which God? There are millions of Gods, Demi Gods and Bodhisattvas.

How are you finding your God? Are you doing Deity Yoga? Do you merge and integrate with Bodhisattvas, with Buddhas? (Very High level stuff)

What is the advantage of such practices? :)

The problem with going on our own is we often stick with that which is comfortable, familiar where as a teacher can show us a bigger view.

I can assure you that without the help of a teacher, a guru I would not be doing or thinking the things I currently do.

[jonesboy]

Originally Posted by celest

I thought that the ' turning of the Dharma wheel ' by Buddha is a metaphor of the teachings of the Darhma in the world.
Buddha was said to have turned it three times, the first on the teachings of ' four noble truth's 'the second on the teachings of ' perfection of wisdom ' and the last on teaching ' Buddha nature '

Hi Celest,

1.The first turning took place in the Deer Park at Sarnath, Varanasi, where Buddha taught the Four Noble Truths.

2.The intermediate turning on the absence of characteristics took place on Vulture's Peak Mountain near Rajagriha.

3.The final turning on the complete revelation took place in Vaishali and other places and included the sutras that explain the three natures, such as the Lankavatara Sutra.

Very simply,
the first turning is mainly concerned with abandoning negative actions of the body, speech and mind.

The second turning is primarily about abandoning clinging to the self of individual and of phenomena.

The third turning is about abandoning clinging to emptiness.


The “three turnings of the wheel of the dharma” mark three historical points at which new developments in Buddhist thought emerged in India. “Turning the Wheel” is a metaphor for the setting in motion of new teachings. Though the teachings of all three turnings are said to have been spoken by the historical Buddha, the second and third turnings, those characterized as Mahayana, were not publicly known until centuries after the passing of Shakyamuni Buddha.

The language of the three turnings was first found in the most famous sutra from the third turning, The Sutra Unraveling the Thought. In that sutra, a disciple respectfully asks the omniscient Buddha about what appears to his limited mind to be a contradiction in the Buddha’s teachings. He asks the Buddha to explain why he explained that things do exist in the teachings from the first turning of the wheel and that they are empty of true existence in the second turning of the wheel. The Buddha’s response to this question forms the basis of the third turning of the wheel. Tibetans traditionally frame the new developments, which formed the basis of new philosophical schools such as the Middle Way school (second turning) and the Mind-Only school (third turning), in this way to help make sense of the different presentations on the nature of reality found in the Buddhist canon. It is traditionally explained that the Buddha taught the different turnings to different disciples according to their propensities and capacities for understanding.

The first turning includes those teachings given by the Buddha in the earliest historical period of Buddhism in general, and Buddha Shakyamuni’s teaching career in particular. Many of these teachings are fundamental to all schools of Buddhism such as the four noble truths, the eightfold path, selflessness (anatman), dependent-arising, impermanence, the five aggregates, etc. Perhaps the most famous of the many discourses (Pali: sutta, Sanskrit: sutra) of the Buddha from the first turning is the one that records the Buddha’s very first teaching at Deer Park to the first five disciples entitled The Turning of the Wheel of the Dhamma Sutta. In actuality, virtually all of the contents of the Pali version of the Buddhist canon, that version utilized by Theravada Buddhists of Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia today, are considered by Tibetans to be teachings from the first turning of the wheel