Pranams,
While I enjoy the vast and great literature's of Dharma my main insterest is understanding the mind of sadhu or the self realized and wise ones. The last few days I have been going through this video in stages.
Venerable Ajahn Bua is a worth while study, as previous posts have indicated that he does in fact talk about an eternal self in the same way as is described in Vedanta. Perhaps only style and language and technique differ.
Ring any bells :)Quote:
Bua sees the essential enduring truth of the sentient being as constituted of the indestructible reality of the citta (heart/mind), which is characterized by the attribute of Awareness or Knowingness. This citta, which is intrinsically bright, clear, and Aware, gets superficially tangled up in samsara but ultimately cannot be destroyed by any samsaric phenomenon. Although Bua is often at pains to emphasise the need for meditation upon the non-Self (anatta), he also points out that the citta, while getting caught up in the vortex of conditioned phenomena, is not subject to destruction as are those things which are impermanent, suffering, and non-Self (anicca, dukkha, anatta). The citta is ultimately not beholden to these laws of conditioned existence. The citta is bright, radiant, and deathless, and is its own independent reality:
This is in vast contrast to many who perceive Buddhism as some sort of voidist practice and anti vedic, the whole issue is very complex due to Scholars and other forms of sectarianism and the re-establishing of the Dharma at certain points in History, where the Dharma had again fallen into decline.
The video I am posting is certainly heart wrenching and I for one can only see him as valid and true and there is nothing fake or artificial about this. I don't like to look at the computer for to long and prefer short visits so I have watched it in stages, but it has left a lasting impression within me.
One thing for me here in the study of what I term as the sadhus mind or conscious being is that they are very human, but it is a supra-mundane state of being. I had for quite some this false notion of transcendence as something that has no feeling towards towards this world, the state was supra-mundane that all sense of any human emotion was absent.
If one has time please go through this, I feel it is very important. I read a site a few months back and I cant find it ( need to learn to bookmark) but it was telling the story of Sri Buddha Muni post enlightenment and how he walked around from village to village teaching and helping people, and all classes of people, from Brahmins to outcast, he made no such division, the teachings were for all, he never was aloof and holy but was the full potential of human being acting in an enlightened way. Many images of Sri Buddha Muni is now one of a person always absorbed in deep meditation, he is aesthetically beautiful ( not that I have a problem with this ) , but in fact while he had this mastery he only did meditation as a means to teach others, he did not need to meditate himself. There is further evidence of no need for mediation in the final stage. Avadhuta Gita Chp 1 V 26. I think these reflections can help us with the all important culture of humility, wisdom and compassion. And that there is nothing like false pride to be included within the path of self realization, we are after all only picking ourself up from a position of ms-identification.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iI5TQnYcFn8
Ys
Md
