Scared Of Becoming A Buddhist Follower

[nahtanoj]

So on Sunday I went to a "Mindfulness Center". It is a Thich Nhat Hanh community. All the people in this place were very friendly and supportive. I did 30 minutes of meditation with 15 minutes of mindfulness walking followed by chanting and an hour long talk that feel like watching profound videos of Leo. But they have images of the Buddha a in all of their halls. You are supposed to bow to the buddha for respect of his teachings and I felt weird doing it because I just started dropping my dogmatic atheism. The thing is that after finishing everything I sign up for a mindfulness class. And today I'm craving to go back there every Sunday for their sangha. I feel like I could easily become a buddhist follower and I'm aware that I could be changing one dogma for another. I also feel like I don't want to follow susscess anymore and just start creating and supporting a community like this one. Any thoughts on this? 

[Joseph Maynor]

@nahtanoj Read some books on Buddhism and start studying Indian Philosophy.  Expand your knowledge of the different ways of thinking and practicing.  There's a ton of information on Wikipedia.

Edited July 4, 2017 by Joseph Maynor

[Toby]

Just let yourself drawn to what you are drawn to. Don't worry how it looks to your super-ego.

[nahtanoj]

@Joseph Maynor They have a library with tons of books and classes of dharma every week. I'm thinking of taking them. 

[nahtanoj]

@Toby but that was what happen when I started becoming an atheist. 

[Nahm]

@nahtanoj Buddhism is about awakening your self. There's no such thing as a Buddhist follower, it's doing the practices or not doing the practices, right? (assuming their not asking you to donate money, or trying to molest you, save the world, open another 'campus', etc).

You are going there and doing practices. Doing the work. Not worshiping, right?

I don't see respect & acknowledgement as accepting dogma. 

"If you meet the Buddha in the road, kill him."

Edited July 4, 2017 by Nahm

[nahtanoj]

@Nahm they emphasize that bowing to the buddha is just for respect (you don't have to do it if you don't want).  They do ask for donations but it is only for support (they have lots of free clases and retreats) ,  and they don't do it in a agresive or demanding way. The thing is that doing all of this just feels like religion to me. Something that I have been trying to cut from my life in the past decade. 

Edited July 4, 2017 by nahtanoj

[Nahm]

@nahtanoj Thoughts then emotions. If you want to feel differently about it, think differently about it. 

[Joseph Maynor]

26 minutes ago, Nahm said:

@nahtanoj Thoughts then emotions. If you want to feel differently about it, think differently about it. 

Words of wisdom.  I gotta remember this.  Thoughts cause emotions.

[Leo Gura]

Dogma will be a problem no matter what spiritual school you follow. That is why I strongly advise people to never study just one school. Even the best school will fill your head with dogma. It's too difficult not to. Such is the nature of the mind. And enlightened people are not immune to dogma.

When evaluating a school it's always a good idea to ask yourself, "Okay, how many people here are ACTUALLY enlightened? And how deeply?"

Often times, the answer will be 0 or 1.

[ajasatya]

@nahtanoj do not worry about it. you felt the peace of true humility. bowing is a beautiful act.

as opposed to what some people have suggested here, i suggest that you surrender absolutely to their practices. why is that so? because i could feel in your words that it's what your heart is asking you to do. and that's what i did when i was where you are.

it's easy to notice those who are still trapped in mental processes. they say be careful; study a lot; integrate knowledge. i say just go; surrender; be happy.

listening to our heart is one of the hardest thing for us, human beings, to do. and being humble enough to obey is even harder. it's scary, i know. the ego makes up a bunch of excuses and puts up a lot of obstacles. but in the end you simply have to go there.

go there every sunday. smile and laugh with them. listen to them with a relaxed body.

when we bow to buddha, we don't bow to a god in the common sense. we bow to our true nature. we bow to the big mystery of this present moment.

Edited July 4, 2017 by ajasatya

[SOUL]

Buddhism definitely has dogma and those dogmas have been adopted by many spiritualists since the 60s. Although to me it's the personal dogmas that are the ones we should be wary of forming in our mindset.

It's very easy to fall under the spell of our own experience and hold up something that happened in the past as an idol to worship. We will view it as a truth in which we will project on to others or everyone as a universal truth so is our own dogmatic paradigm.

Success is just accomplishing a goal we have set for ourselves so if your goal is to be part of a community like that, if you do it. you are a success. It appears you may still be believing the dogmatic idea, ironically, of what success is as it is attributed by others or society.

Edited July 5, 2017 by SOUL

[Nahm]

@Joseph Maynor thanks

[Leo Gura]

@Fidelio I don't really see myself as someone who teaches enlightenment. I share commentary on self-improvement, and it just so happened that enlightenment came up as a topic which I couldn't not talk about.

I also spend a lot of time warning you guys about the dangers of dogma, or taking any one teaching too seriously, which most schools never do.

If spirituality schools actively encouraged their followers to study other schools and perspectives, that would leave me very happy. Unfortunately that's a very rare thing.

[nahtanoj]

@Leo Gura in my opinion I think that no one is enlightened in this place so far. I'm just guessing. It could be 1 or 2. Still it looks like a good place to practice and learn. The reason I went to this place is because I been meditating almost every day for 3 months and I want to start doing solo retreats like the ones you did that you recorded. The thing is that I want to learn more meditation techniques. Like mindful eating and walking. This place has classes about that and they have solo retreats available that I want to do before going to a solo myself like the one you did in the cabin. Btw meditation has changed my view of everything, I hadn't experienced anything like enlightenment but I could see other benefits of it and I believe that one can get enlightened. I also started reading philosophy about Descartes and Humes and others  and I realized that my atheism is dogmatic, that and your videos had helped me to see how atheism is flawed.

[nahtanoj]

This is the guy managing the place. I really like his talkings. 

 

 

[Leo Gura]

@nahtanoj Sure, studying at various schools can be very eye opening. They don't have to be perfect to be useful. Just don't get stuck there, is the point.

[Natasha]

@nahtanoj A friend of mine of Indian origin encouraged me to go talk to a priest at a local Hindu temple when I shared with him about my shift. He said I had a gift and that without a guide I'd get lost or take on a wrong path. I respectfully declined, for the same reasons Leo mentioned in his posts above. I'm open and curious to learn about different schools, but would not join any of them. Consciousness work and deepening of awareness does not require following any particular group, it's simply a matter of sitting down and do the work in solitude, and I don't need a Hindu priest or a Zen master to tell me that.

[Toby]

Depends really what is available to you. For me, there is a zen group and a tibetan group in relatively close distance. I went once to each. I don't know, maybe I'm misperceiving things but I missed a bit the spark of truth there. Instead I find myself driving to satsangs about an hour away where I feel a resonance with. Makes much more sense to me personally. But if for example a zen or mindfulness group was the only one available in any kind of distance I would go there. It helps you get some quietness and stability so that it is easier to do selfinquiry on your own (even if it is not part of what they do).

[Guest Annetta]

9 hours ago, Fidelio said:

I think something similar happened to our friend Rali at Naked Reality. He was such a douchebag he needed a good kick in the balls.

*waggles eyebrows*

I just feel the need to point this out, 'cause I'm sure he'll read it.

(Michael, I'm not interested in your opinions on what I'm about to write)

Dude, you like glommed onto my spiritual experience after skulking around on this forum incognito for a while, and sort of used what I had worked towards as a gateway to "open your heart" for your lady, while simultaneously trying to teach other people how to be more accepting and loving to the all.  And kind of sort of trying to teach me how to do the same?  So... why exactly were you mirroring me yo?  What were your intentions?  Anyways,
To summarize, you had been communicating with me in an indirect fashion for a little while and it was confusing and I made myself look quite foolish for a while there.

Good luck to ya.
Keep teaching, but be good about it.