Samana Johann wrote: ↑Sat Sep 11, 2021 7:12 pm

ofparadise wrote: ↑Sat Sep 11, 2021 6:54 pm

Samana Johann wrote: ↑Fri Sep 10, 2021 6:47 am Really? So after having faith that sense objects aren't real, not lasting, subject to decay, not worthy, not possible, to make them ones own: What real didhe found, does he find,within himself? Ideas? View? Feelings? Perception? Consciousness that arises on touch? What should one go after, sacrifice toward it?

Hi Samana Johann, the view I expressed earlier, come from my personal spirituality and philosophy, which has shaped my life and it comes largely from the Advaita view of the world.

Even if a disciple of the Jains, why not simply consider the asked, good householder. Many of the Buddhas disciples had been wanderers of the Jains or had been devoted to them. Maybe he likes to consider that's maybe worthy to investigate the Sublime Buddhas Dhamma.

The people whom are in decision here on the subject and these points of the concerned religion, or has some would say the way of life. Could I ask of you, are you Asian or Western people.
Where does your religious values stem from, and most of all, what are your teachings has a scholar. In Buddhism did you have a teacher, a monk or an Abbot. Or did you decide to self-teach from a book of via the internet.
I can accept your points about Jainism, due to that there you would gain acceptance, but I would think to take the religion serious, with its extremities, it would be a difficult path and life too follow.

John Bingham wrote: ↑Sat Sep 11, 2021 9:12 pm Cambodian's don't pray to the Buddha statue. They pray to the Bray which is a volatile spirit that inhabits the base or plinth of the Buddha statue.

Bray (priay): A female demon (almost all the demons seem to be female), the spirit of a woman who died in childbirth. She is the most malevolent of all demons, but can be tamed by those who understand the correct ritual, in which case she becomes a powerful protective spirit. Buddha images and the boats used in the annual Water Festival boat races are protected by bray.

https://pjcoggan.wordpress.com/tag/bray/

Good information John Bingham. When the Buddhist pray, the statue is, we could say of less importance. Such has if you asked a person following the way of Buddha, the reply would be more on the lines "it looks good".

So where is the Buddhism in that?
(sanctified in the Wat, with the monks)

Can i throw in a few of my favourite things too?
My new kayak/swordfish-spirit? and a pizza, if i gold leaf it.
Hey maybe i can get my head around this "all inclusive" approach to the Buddhas teachings after all.

Kinda fits right into our new post-fact world.

PS. If anybody wants to lay a charge of heresy against me, or sacrilege
I think i can point you to where the whole book full of charges can be more appropriately be applied.

imho a local Martin Luther is sorely in need, with his broom

John Bingham wrote: ↑Sat Sep 11, 2021 9:44 pm It's not a Buddhist thing. It's Animism which is mixed in with Buddhism.

I understand this, but you are talking of a small minority that mainly believe in the existence of individual spirits that inhabit natural objects and phenomena.
The tourist “Yo I am a Cambodian punk rocker” talked about the likes.

AndyKK wrote:I understand this, but you are talking of a small minority that mainly believe in the existence of individual spirits that inhabit natural objects and phenomena.

So only a small minority of Khmer have spirit houses?

Cambodians have traditionally been devotedly Buddhist and incorporated elements of animism, Hinduism and Chinese religion and beliefs about heaven and hell and ghost and spirits in a uniquely Khmer way.
Facts and Details /Cambodia

Theravada Buddhism is full of Animism in many places where it is practiced. That is well recognised by scholars.
There are conflicting views about how this is to be regarded.

One school says that Buddhism tried to supplant animist beliefs - but only succeeded superficially, or in part. That the two live in parallel.
Others say they are two different faiths intractably intertwined.
Others say that Theravada is in fact one religion, a fully legitimate and complete combination of both Buddhism and Animism.

This very academic study relates to Burma - but i think it is a similar situation here (from reading around)
The first page lays the basics out pretty well.
(it comes from within the tent, and so has a barrow to push - but it is still pretty objective in its descriptions of the phenomena)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6917267/

My personal introduction to Buddhism was thru the very stripped-back-Buddha, Zen, so all this seems very hocus pocus to me.
So much of it seems in direct contradiction to my understand of the message that Buddha was trying to put out there.
eg, Spirits and demons and gods and praying for stuff.

Supernatural powers of Buddha? ?? I was always told he was teaching us to forget about all that mumbo jumbo- it is up to us, by how we think and act, to control our destiny.

I just can't help thinking things are right off track. (sorry)
It happens to religions, you know. Look at some of the most egregious practices of the Roman Catholic church before the Reformation. ( That rebellion was very good for the church and they acknowledge that themselves now. They threw out a lot of ludicrous things that had crept in - but at the time they cut off peoples heads for "heresy" )

But maybe i have got it wrong. Or maybe i am being too 'Fundamentalist'. Or maybe it doesn't matter.

An old bloke once said to me..
He said, Hogan San..

Do not believe what you read in the Holy Scriptures
Do not believe the words of the Old and the Wise
Do not believe even what i, the Lord Buddha, says to you A 70 something, going on 35, Japanese Zen Master told me that little story
the most alive man i have ever met in my life
no hocus pocus about him

@AndyKK I'm not religious nor a Jain.

But I do contemplate and have studied sociology, theology, spirituality amongst others. I was religious in my teens and early 20s and for sometime, I did study to to be a protestant missionary. Largely due to my family life. Grew up in an arts+academia+music+political science family. My indian dad was an loud advocate for all types of artistic expressions who organised many discussion panels on various topics, and he used to fund and keep our doors open to travelling artists, poets, writers, painters, political people to name a few, as the rest would be not considered politically desirable. We were not rich, but he was an advocate and a great public speaker who championed the arts, philosophy, theology and public discourse.

Growing up, every night, there was always some group sleep on the floor in my living room and around the house. And the house was always filled lively debates, discussions, drunk carnatic performers stumbling back, travelling monks holding meetings, musicians tuning and rehearsing, shivites, sadhus, ustads, monks, priests having spirited, polite & friendly, but deep discourse over a killer meal cooked by my mom, to name a few.

My Chinese-indian-mixed race mom, also came from a family that owned music, yoga and military martial art's schools in Kerala, India since the 1800s. She was ultra-religious, and she believed she was psychic... So when I messed up, the beatings I got, had a divine touch to them... She's eventually became a staunch catholic sister after my dad passed.

Both these families fled India in the late 1800s and came to Singapore. And Singapore's where they both were born.

Now, as I grew up, priests and monks were also my babysitters. My days as a child & teen was spent in hindu temples, buddhist temples for 10 hours at least a day. I was also studying classical carnatic music at that time. They shaped my love for discovery and desire to understand the spiritual...

Eventually, as I grew older, I developed my own mixture of these over the course of the school of hard knocks. I also explored the darker sides, which led to me going through the penal system for some time. And that came with it's own awakenings.

Eventually, at the age of 32, I left to find answers outside my country. And somehow, after many turns and twists, I finally found peace here in the Kingdom.

It's been many years since then, and I spend lots of time now simply exploring human experience, math, politics and why we believe what we believe. ... and I've probably said more than I should on a public forum.

As I am now, I'm comfortable exploring both the dark and the good sides of the human experience. My interests, are not what we believe. Just why we do what we do. Everyone has a place, and deserves to have a voice.

So yeah... it's complicated. Hope this helps man.

AndyKK wrote: ↑Sat Sep 11, 2021 9:07 pm

Samana Johann wrote: ↑Sat Sep 11, 2021 7:12 pm

ofparadise wrote: ↑Sat Sep 11, 2021 6:54 pm

Samana Johann wrote: ↑Fri Sep 10, 2021 6:47 am Really? So after having faith that sense objects aren't real, not lasting, subject to decay, not worthy, not possible, to make them ones own: What real didhe found, does he find,within himself? Ideas? View? Feelings? Perception? Consciousness that arises on touch? What should one go after, sacrifice toward it?

Hi Samana Johann, the view I expressed earlier, come from my personal spirituality and philosophy, which has shaped my life and it comes largely from the Advaita view of the world.

Even if a disciple of the Jains, why not simply consider the asked, good householder. Many of the Buddhas disciples had been wanderers of the Jains or had been devoted to them. Maybe he likes to consider that's maybe worthy to investigate the Sublime Buddhas Dhamma.

The people whom are in decision here on the subject and these points of the concerned religion, or has some would say the way of life. Could I ask of you, are you Asian or Western people.
Where does your religious values stem from, and most of all, what are your teachings has a scholar. In Buddhism did you have a teacher, a monk or an Abbot. Or did you decide to self-teach from a book of via the internet.
I can accept your points about Jainism, due to that there you would gain acceptance, but I would think to take the religion serious, with its extremities, it would be a difficult path and life too follow.