heydiddly ho just wondering how many people have taken refuge or plan to in this lifetime? also with the bodhissattva vow? last year i took the boddhissattva vow under Ringu Tulku Rinpoche and this week he is coming from india to edinburgh again so i shall be taking refuge. i know ive done it in the wrong order but he said it was alright for me to do so. so any comments on your experiences? namaste x x x
i know it's not the same as what you are referring to, but i have(in the past) taken it upon myself to absorb the suffering of others and in the resulting act of inevitable destruction absolve into the oblivious energy from which all things manifest. does that count? much love, sweet sister
you know that counts..... he he love you muchly. just wondering if anyone else had done any formal initiations or what liniage peple were. not that it matter overly much to be honest. just curious. namaste x x x
As soon as I knew what the Bodhisattva vow was, I took it. Of course it was completely unofficial and everything but what good does the officiality to. I know what it is meant philosophically by taking refuge but I'm not sure what you mean here. Are you talking about going on retreat? If so I haven't yet but I will in a month or so. Blessings Sebbi
i mean by the cerimony of taking refuge with a lama or a rinpoche. of course you can do this without the ceremony in certain ways but you must do it 'officially' to get the teachings of the liniage. if you trace back through your teachers refuge teacher and further back you can trace it right back to siddhartha himself. i took refuge on friday last week, was an amazing thing..... now have my new name he he. namaste in dharma x x x
What is your Buddhist name. And how long have you been practicing? It took my teacher and aunt Locana 1 year longer than you have even lived to get her new name. Blessings Sebbi
This is quite unfortunate; traditionally it is not so simple as just going and taking refuge and then getting a new name immidiately. Mercantilism, I tell you.
i would not say it was unfortunate. i would say it was right. i never just went into out without questioning for years before hand. and i was under the instruction of a very experienced rinpoche. please do not say these tings without the appropriate information first. sebbi-i have been practicing all my life and lifetimes previousely. i found out what buddhism was 4 years ago properly and have recieved instruction ever since. i know a lot of people wait a long time before taking refuge but it was right for me at this time...think what you will.... my name is 'uma' it means middle way. in dharma x x x
I apologise if anything sounded if offensive. Four years of practice would never have been enough traditionally. Besides 15-19 is hardly an age of great stability and wisdom; no offense once again but you will hopefully see one day that this is true.
Ummm... To be frank I have to agree with Neph. Unless you can recall exactly what you learned over all those lifetimes then I'm afraid I have to be extremely skeptical of you. Four years is the kind of length I might expect for someone to take the low level ordaination, you know the one that says "I've decided I would like to devote the rest of my spiritual life to B'ism" but not the full out one, with the new name and everything. If that's what you decided, then good luck to you and I wish you the speediest path to enlightenment. In metta (sorry Darrel) Sebbi
ok... sebbi that is exactely what i have done. i have not taken robes!! i have merely entered the path of buddhism and through this you gain a 'new name'. i think this conversation is rather hung up on the name issue. i am not a nun. i am merely a lay person trying to do the best in spirituality. i can understand people being sceptical but not buddhists being sceptical, which is why i think we have got our wires crossed at some point in this. the boddhissatva vow- is vowing to help/assist in the best way possible, others to enlightenment before ourselves. refuge is taking the first step thats all, yes its a big deal but not as big as you guys are making out. i can see how my age might be viewed by some but please, refrain from casting that judgement till you know me, i think that is only fair. it is only a number after all. im not feeling good having this conversation, i feel like you are asking me to prove myself, and i do not have to do that. i respect your opinions of course, but please also respect that this was the right thing to do. in dharma uma x x x
In an odd twist, I took the highest tantric initiation in the entire Nyingma tradition, the Nyingthig Yabshi with Kunzang Dechen Lingpa, before ever formally taking refuge. Before taking Bodhisattva vows one does say the refuge and aspirational bodhicitta prayer. This is taking refuge. One takes refuge first before doing any Vajrayana practice, and then generates bodhicitta. The two go hand in hand, and so in taking bodhisattva vows you have already taken refuge. Oddly, after the Yabshi, and then the Guhyagarbha, then I did officially take refuge with Ontul Rinpoche here in New Orleans. So I am specifically Drikung Dogzchen/Karma Kagyu. However, frankly, I consider myself Nyingma. Though I also have taken Kalachakra with HHDL. He is Gelugpa. So I guess I'm rime. It really doesn't matter what lineage one is as Mahamudra and Dzogchen are pretty much interchangable. Techniques and definitions differ but the reality of nonduality can actually be only one. About feeling one has taken refuge and is a bodhisattva from a previous life. This can certainly be the case. I always felt I had been a Buddhist before, but it took me years of Hinduism before I learned to appreciate the bodhicitta aspiration, and how it subtly changes the mind to better ways and karma. I still see my old TM yogi friends running around in the same circles with their lives, but the implicit understanding in the Prajnaparamita, the 4 Great Truths, and the Madhyatmika, as expressed in trekcho, all these things give me a better platform than them, I feel, to make truely substantive personality and mental changes for bettering my karma, and the karma of others. Mainly because in the Vajrayana the experience of yoga is so clearly laid out. If one hasn't really had the meditational path laid out then I would recommend, "The Ornament of Stainless Light" on Kalachakra recently released by Wisdom Press. It reconciles the views of many Mahamudra tantras. Which means that it goes into exquisite detail about Vajrayana meditation in generation and completion stages.
"I still see my old TM yogi friends..." Would you really call TM yogis Hindus though? Their "advanced" meditation course seems to be exactly the type of self-induced hallucination that Shankara and Vyasa so strongly differentiated from healthy meditative practices.
Never thought that value was waiting for years to shine It's a buddhist attitude to recognize that other paths all leads to enlightment. Because it is. ppl who meditate (who look honestly at their inner feelings and thoughts) are already self realised. Whatever you do after is using technics, and / or being honest with yourself, or not All the name that we have given things and ppl are false in a sens, isn't? They are needed to identify things, but the name they are given doesn't make them be. We are influenced in everything since our birth. Everyone's goal is to give "the judgment that one on himself could honestly have" a meaning, and live after. That was... umm to share Much Love and fun
Well, TM is a good meditation. The TM Sidhis also are pretty good. However, there's a package of beliefs that come with these techniques that reflect Hinduism, though maybe not in a purely Indian form. I would say that reliance on the Vedas, adoptions of the Hindu ethics, and worship of many Gods, makes many long term TMers Hindus, though many who do TM may not be, especially until they become more accepting of the basic underpinnings of the source of the teachings. And then there are others who can see yoga as a common path for all of humanity and utilize the tools of Hindu Dharma in their own path, while not adopting the beliefs. This is more like a long term relationship that ends in being really good friends. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen sometimes. That's the way it was for me. As for self induced hallucinations, pretty much each religion induces these. Oddly however, in the Vajrayana, since one uses visualizations in meditation one may actually me more sensitized to products of imagination than in other systems. But then again, maybe not. This particular matter would depend on the individual.
