Затеялся читать online книжку по Ваджраяне

[dmm]

Есть такой замечательный человек по имени David Chapman, который пишет всякие философские интернетные книжки, и вот он недавно сделал "tweetstorm" на тему о рисках медитатации: twitter.com/Meaningness/status/1357113012356714497

vividness.live/meditation-risks

Надо сказать, что в реальности, в которой я обитал, не было никаких рисков, связанных с медитацией, пока Пелевин не выпустил осенью 2018-го "Тайные виды на гору Фудзи", в которой риски медитации - центральная тема. Тут-то сразу пошли статьи в разных местах про риски и побочные эффекты, связанные с медитацией, и я, вдруг, оказался в реальности, где уже лет 10, а то и больше, люди пишут разные тексты про эти самые риски и изучают эту тематику. Вот что Пелевин животворящий делает с реальностью (и это не в первый раз).

Система медитации, которой я занимаюсь примерно с лета 2012-го года (хотя в последнее время менее систематически), по книжке "The Presence Process" by Michael Brown, она, как раз, не переходит ту границу, за которой начинаются риски, но, при этом, крайне эффективна (Дэвид Чапмен, как раз, пишет про то, где "граница безопасности", и, замечательным образом, книжка "The Presence Process" как раз живёт в точности на этой границе). И она вполне в западном мейнстриме по определению Чапмена.

Но, в общем, ясно, что надо бы найти новую систему, в дополнение к той, которой я занимаюсь, и вот, эта книжка Чапмена, как раз, выглядит как то, что нужно: vividness.live/

А та сложная книжка, про которую я писал некоторое время назад, к ней, как раз, применима критика Чапмена (я посмотрел-посмотрел на неё, и решил, в итоге, "на фиг, на фиг"; и Чапмен как раз хорошо вербализует, почему я так решил, а "Тайные виды на гору Фудзи" это прямо-таки живописно и в ярких красках объясняет): dmm.dreamwidth.org/21712.html

UPDATE: It's a very good book, but it's not a "self-facilitated practice book" (I don't think the author even believes in self-facilitated tantric practices).

What is good about "The Presence Process" book is that one can use it for a rather far-reaching self-facilitated practice. (It's not even "officially Buddhist", it's a very secular and rather effective practice.)

But this book, while quite remarkable, can't be used to build a self-guided practice (as far as I can tell at the moment).

UPDATE 2: Actually, I think, some subset ("Yidams" and "Pure Land") should not be too difficult to transform into a self-facilitated practice (the author does not like the idea of self-facilitated practices, but so what; a lot of us don't like the idea of dependence on a "spiritual teacher" even more): dmm.dreamwidth.org/37665.html?thread=97057#cmt97057

Comments

[dmm]

https://vividness.live/unclogging-and-traditional-buddhism

"In the past couple of pages, I described the path of tantra in terms of “unclogging.”

Most often, descriptions of tantra center instead on “transformation.” Tantric methods transform “poison into medicine”: negative emotions such as anger into positive mental qualities like clarity. It’s useful to understand that explanation. (If you’d like to learn more, I recommend Ngakpa Chögyam’s Spectrum of Ecstasy.)

“Transformation” is the language of the generation approach to tantra. “Unclogging” is the language of the less well-known completion approach. They can be understood as different descriptions of the same process.

According to the completion approach, it is only possible to “transform” anger into clarity because they are already the same kind of energy. There is only a superficial appearance of change. At a deeper level, clarity is just anger whose channel has been unblocked, so it runs clear. Or, more accurately, anger is only clarity that has been bottled up so it turns stagnant and rotten.

There’s several reasons I’ve described the “unclogging” framework rather than the “transformation” one [...]"

***

"Any system of practical methods classifies situations and actions, and suggests which sorts of actions are useful in which sorts of situations.

There are many different classifications used in different tantric systems. For example, a common classification of energies is in terms of kleshas (emotional “defilements”). Tantra reveals those to be wisdoms gone stagnant due to blockages. Different tantric systems give different lists of kleshas. In generation tantra, each klesha has a corresponding family of yidams, which are methods suitable for transforming that klesha. (Spectrum of Ecstasy has more about that.)

One common tantric classification of actions to apply to external situations is the four Buddhakarmas—pacifying, magnetizing, enriching, and destroying. Ken McLeod explains this pragmatically as four ways of resolving conflicts (for example in this podcast).

In “Unclogging,” I used a simple classification of internal/external, and high energy/low energy. This is not particularly traditional, and probably it’s too crude to be of much use. I invented it just to help explain tantra in an abstract way.

Because different traditional tantric systems offer different classifications, this is clearly an area in which innovation is possible. Future tantras will classify energetic situations in entirely new ways, with corresponding new tantric methods.

The innovative tantric systems of the 1980s offered just such new classifications. For example, Chögyam Trungpa’s Shambhala terma classifies enlightened activities into “meek, perky, outrageous, and inscrutable,” each with a distinctive energy. The Aro gTér lists “nihilism, eternalism, monism, and dualism” as blockages yidams can overcome. (This set appears elsewhere in Buddhism, but not as a central theme.)"

***

"Smashing the chains of karma

Karma, if the idea makes any sense at all, is about causality.

Sutrayana tends to see karma as an external system of moral book-keeping. If you squash an ant in this life, that causes a brick to fall on your head in some future life. The way you achieve liberation is by “accumulating merit”; if you are nice enough for long enough, you are magically rewarded with enlightenment.

This is stupid. There’s no coherent explanation for how it’s supposed to work.

Alternatively, you can understand karma as habitual emotional patterns. For example, if your anger leads to violence, that generally makes other people violent in response, and your situation worsens. Here karma is not external, but a causal interaction between your psychology and the world.

Spaciousness can then be understood as breaking the links in the chains of karma. You let go of dysfunctional patterns of emotion-laden perception and knee-jerk action, and your situation improves. “Merit” is not required.

Sutrayana describes itself as a long-haul path. It takes billions of years (literally, billions, according to scripture) to accumulate enough merit to gain liberation.

Tantra describes itself as a quick path. You can gain liberation in a single lifetime, by unhooking the train of perception→emotion→action.

This explanation of karma at least makes sense. I doubt that it’s actually useful; I’d be happy to lose the word “karma” altogether. But if you insist on karma, why not go with a version that needs no cosmic magic?"