About the Death and
Rebirth of Buddhism
Helena: Lately I've caught my self several times thinking that it is incredible how people participating in online discussions are completely deaf and blind. Only a few people seem to be ready to hear when we are writing or commenting on posts. It is actually quite sad, that the state is like that. I think, however that we must keep on spreading the dharma. I am only momentarily struck by how unripe people are.
Kim: It has been the topic of several discussions recently how we need to filter our own stuff from the matter itself, that in this case is loaded with the ignorance of other people. This is not difficult to do and reminding oneself about ethics and motivation goes long way in but it isn't until the whole subtle body is permanently clear when you really get to see how much self-reacting was or wasn't there.
Anyhow, even when the self and its buddies of all phenomena is gone the problem of people being so deaf, dumb and often aggressive, remains... and yet there isn't anything we could do about their lack of readiness. But it's like you say, that there are few among the mass who are ready and who listen. You, I and all of us here are like them and we ended up here because bodhisattvas before us fulfilled their vows sufficiently. So let's do the same.
If you look far back enough, you'll find a point in your past lives when your own ears were as deaf and your mind was as shut. I can, in fact, remember times from not farther than 15 years ago when I was completely fixated and blinded by learned beliefs and dharmic propaganda. I actually ridiculed some masters who I now know to be perfectly enlightened mahasiddhas. Also, those teachers who I followed and believed in at the time were far from being mahasiddhas.
A horse doesn't drink if it isn't thirsty and even though one can joke that you can add a little salt in it's food to make it thirsty, the only way to really become disillusioned of beliefs and propaganda is to come into the painful discovery that this whatever practice or method one follows isn't actually working and delivering the described results. Oh, it's such a vast collection of misunderstandings, and commentary after commentary about misunderstandings that I see very little hope in the sight of dharma, and yet lot of people pass the piss bottle, telling themselves and others that it is fine aged wine. Down the hatch!
Actually, I think that buddhism as it is known now will not survive more than couple of hundred years maximum. The positive aspect (there is one at least!) of the modern educated scientific mind is that people learn to ask questions which is exactly what most people who follow religions, buddhism included, don't do. So looking at the modern educated mind and the old buddhism loaded with all kinds of mistakes, I don't think the two will ever properly come together, and therefore inevitably buddhism as-we-know-it will perish. Then finally, one the verge of extinction, the traditions are forced to start fresh and prioritise the needs of people, rather than have people fit the forms and ways of the old traditions.
I think that many great things come out of the mindfulness movement because little by little it absorbs emptiness/nonduality. That could be the rebirth of world dharma right there.
It is quite unbelievable if you think about it, that we all have buddhanature, and there are millions of buddhist practitioners who most are utterly clueless about their own nature because what they practice has little or no relevance at all in actually seeing themselves as buddhas. People do stoopid practices in stoopid ways that don't lead them to their own nature but away from it. It is utterly mad when you think about it! Samsara!
Like that bit that I wrote about chan buddhism and jhanas, it is ridiculous to spend years or decades practicing meditative absorptions, only to get away from them. It is the logic of fools. No one in modern societies can follow such methods that take 500 or 5000 years to complete but this very question doesn't enter the minds of those who believe the propaganda of the old tradition. We have the common sense to change and buy new working clothes when the old ones get worn out but people don't have the common sense to apply this to dharma. It's so holy and sacred that you want to puke! But modern educated people won't buy that nonsense and within some time from now, there won't be many interested in that method or methods like it, especially when there is the internet to spread the word of pragmatic dharma. Regardless of the way how fanatics think about their old traditions, they stand no chance in mainstream that isn't marked by belief-based faith but by reason, openness and results. Results! Shakyamuni adviced us to question everything, not to believe in anything blindly and to find out through one's own experience. So there you have it.
16.5.2021
