The State of Most Buddhist Followers

                               THE PLANE TAKES OFF
            THE STATE OF MOST BUDDHIST FOLLOWERS

What made me start this up was essentially the wish to create a counter-commentary to David Johnson's body of sutta references from the Dhamma Sukha Meditation Center. The main post will be coming soon, maybe this week.

I AM... TheAnonPhantasm. Who I am doesn't matter.

But what you'll see below merits attention.

First and foremost, this is The Buddhist Airplane, a vehicle that changes on the fly. We'll be taking a tour across the Theravada's most apocalyptic mistakes, as well as dissecting the frenzy of some other traditions. Theravada sits, however, on the spotlight for proudly regarding themselves as the philosophical school holding the largest compendium of preserved texts.

It will be pessimistic, yes – because the truth we face on the state of conservation of the suttas and their power of truth is rather dire. But not entirely, no.

EVIDENCE OF KNOWLEDGE GOES BEYOND THE TEXTS

This article is a newspaper-style Op-Ed written by an anonymous person, so don't blindly submit to it. Don't blindly reject it either, as I will try to support my interpretations on numerous historical texts and situations with an emphasis on evidence collected from the texts in sanscrit themselves. However I will often seek the advice of logical thinking, philosophy, subjective perception and the many natural sciences and fields of knowledge that exist in the world. There are many ways of reaching the truth, after all.

THE STATE OF MOST FOLLOWERS

Most buddhist followers lack critical thought. They are as attached to the supernatural as they would be in competing sects such as Christianity or Islam. Karma may have replaced God. Most buddhist literature employs vocabulary that serve the purpose of a previously asserted truth that cannot be questioned or understood, falling on overused terms that have since lost their [original] meaning: "Awakening, enlightenment, arahant, jhana, rebirth, kamma, sakadagami, anagami, sotappana, the five precepts, hell, killing, stealing, pleasure, pain, sexual misconduct, animal womb, state of the hungry shades, the devas, suffering, liberation, etc". This terminology can and often will hold and restrict its definition into a preconceived feeling. And believe me, this phraseology binds a tight, cramped space in your head as soon as you finish the assembly of letters – depending on your level of entanglement with evil, of course. This is not without cause and is not without context. There is evidence every written compilation of buddhist text is already disfigured from its inception, as Siddhartha Gautama left no written works. And what was written would later and often be incorporated onto a local culture in India before it was unified, hence why so many terms between these religions are interchangeable. There are texts which mention Sákra, Indra. The Roruva Hell and the Asuras, who may or may not have had its separate plane of existance. And the term ‘hell’ sources itself in western religious culture. If this term is seen in Buddhist literature it will “carry” that concept – embedded with fear – to said literature.

 Unfortunately most lay followers will embrace such corruption in various degrees of intensity. It is not different for monks, save a few exceptions that have demonstrated a higher clarity of interpretation, of which I will publicly disclose. The state of degradation present in other faithful denominations is already deeply planted in all major Buddhist ‘schools of thought’. As such the same mental states may arise: panic, anxiety, confusion, superstition, lack of doubt, austerity, excess of certainty, excess of doubt, attachment to spiritual leadership (the monks), attachment to certain patterns of thought that become invasive and intrusive, aversion to external sources of thought and lastly meditation as a means of prayer. Even if meditation is used scientifically to its fullest potential, concentration meditation may or may not bring an effective change in habits of thought and behaviour; that is a key discovery of The Dhamma Sukha Meditation Center of which merits nothing but praise. Some instructors there, however, have not yet set themselves free from the traps briefly mentioned above, mostly by not recognizing their presence or their capacity to inflict lasting consequences.

The fact a former christian may experience the exact same feelings, mental states and delusions when converted to Buddhism is very telling of its condition.

1. If there is no difference from believing in salvation through faith alone in the figure of a savior such as Christ, Muhammad or God versus accepting that ‘The Buddha’, ‘The Dharma’, or ‘The Sangha’ can on their own remembrance dispel emotional anguish,

2. Or that God's post-mortem glory versus an absolute, ultimatist enlightened state that remains perpetually out of reach,

3. Or Karma that now succeeds God by being a non-actor that will, inevitably and in full force, always reach you no matter the context or the action itself,

Then where has Buddhism failed? I feel the need to save our hypothetical poor christian of throwing away all of his old beliefs, then slowly resignify them once more only to experience the same despair he sought to escape from. Let him at least remain where he was so he can save himself the toll of effort.

 There are even some buddhists who say consciousness is extinguished upon enlightenment and that the ultimate goal is to attain permanent oblivion. This nihilistic take on enlightenment may naturally attract some meditators against it; it has the potential of making the eternal fantasy heaven advocated by christianity and hinduism appealing; it even contradicts a sutta stating that no person should fear their dissolution upon enlightenment because there is none, as it suggests the truth lies in a sort of indescribable state of affairs, sitting in the middle of both concepts of eternal consciousness and permanent annihilation. It is the only reasonable conclusion, left out by elimination, that does not violate Lavoisier's postulate.

 Now, there are two things worth mentioning that constitue potential causes for such enfeebled condition. Either this misguided christian has projected his prior pollution onto Buddhism, or Buddhism did the full descent by itself. Suttas that emphasize faith to overcome fear, or that inflict fear through condemnation of social and cultural behavior that appear to be quite ordinary (such as condemning actors to hell), or that border on gratuitous mysticism and austerity, or that do not provide a compelling argument other than relying on worship and a previously held dogma, etc. I presume the solution lies in the middle; that many men like our tormented example mistake Buddhism for Christianity, but that the suttas also pave their way in kind. If former believers of major sects did not adapt their faulty perceptions to buddhist thought then this phenomenon wouldn't exist, yet the same can be said of the slow foulness that molded the structure of the suttas over millenia; had it not been there as a cause to begin with, there would be no room for confusion or misinterpretation.

 Surely, that’s not to say there are no wise suttas. There are many of them. But our helpless victims will not be able to alter their tightened, compressed mental state of nearly-invisible darkness in order to properly understand them. They will be drawn to buzz words, to popularly spread logic, to magic and imagination, to common sense and, of course, to faith. They will circulate around suttas that reinforce these preferences. And the nearly-invisible darkness by the way? I practically quoted the term from a sutta. Perhaps one of the top five suttas that should be understood prior to reading them; one that explicitly warns of the degradation within the doctrine and of the monks who will teach and meditate with a slight but powerfull darkness that they themselves cannot hope to see. I will address this sutta in a later article.

 This brief exposition should have given you an idea of the hegemonic state of things, of the state in which the global majority of lay disciples and monks find themselves buried under. It is a heavy predicament – and not once have I seen these specific dangers mentioned before. So I felt I had to take action to at least help them stand out more often under the light of a torch.

By TheAnonPhantom

(I am The Anon Phantasm. I’ve come from the realm of the hungry shades – no, Mara himself – to deceive you! Whahahaha! Turn back, turn back to safety!)

(This is a zero rights text. I don't care even if I'm mentioned or not, or if the source is linked back or not).