[Buddha-l] Jinapanjaram

[Joy Vriens]

Hi Eric,

> it is always good to read the thoughts of a fellow Buddhst on this. If
> there's such a chaos in the centre how much more is there on the streets.

But nothing can happen to us there in vajra armour or the Jina's cage.

Hi Joanna,

You know, the cultural imaginary is varied and proliferous here as
well. I am trying to give a helping hand at the local Buddhist center.
They try their best to offer fundamental practice and studies, but
their is a strong pressure for more prapancal material. An initiation
will always beat a more fundamental programme and therefore bring in
more money. Same goes for teachings, the infernal couple karma and
reincarnation plus Bardo teachings will always draw more people. They
always are eager to hear more about it. Or actually they want to hear
the same drab repeated over and over again. Since one never can beat
people's fantasies and imagination about karma and reincarnation, no
matter the amount of information about background, context and
precisions, I would suggest to throw them out of Buddhism all
together. They do more harm than good, except to some authors and
conferenciers who make a living out of them. Limit karma to
pratitya-samutpada. That's more than enough. There seems to be an
indestructible link between money and prapanca and prapanca and money.

Hi Bankei,

I personally think it has always been like this. "Pure" Buddhism is a
prapanca too :-). There is a French saying that goes "Chasser le
naturel, il reviendra au galop" Ou "chasser le par la porte, il
rentera par la fenêtre".
I see Tantra very much as playing the same role that science plays
now. When religion and science weren't separated, science was simply
more magical, but having the same sort of consideration and respect as
we feel for science nowadays. I see the flirting between Buddhism and
Science (ken Wilbur and his electronically assisted samadhi, Mathieu
Ricard helping to establish the brain wave frequency of happiness etc.
and the next step trying to reproduce them with technology) as
something similar than the flirting between Buddhism and Tantra in the
past.

Joy