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/yidams-a-godless-approach-naturally

"As an atheist, I rejected Vajrayana for several years when I was told that it’s mostly about gods and demons and magic and stuff.

But Vajrayana (Buddhist tantra) doesn’t need gods anymore. We could take them to bits for parts, if we wanted; or just shoo them back home.

Or, better, we can agree to a new arrangement with them: we will treat them with the respect they deserve, if they stop pretending to exist."

***

'“Deity yoga” is perhaps the most important tantric practice. It requires the cooperation of “yidams,” who are…

Yidams are not gods

The textbook definition begins: “A yidam is a species of Buddhist god.” A page or two later, you read: “Not all yidams are gods; some are flesh-and-blood humans from history.”'

***

"What a yidam is

A yidam is someone you can consistently consider enlightened. In “deity yoga,” you relate to that person in particular ways. You “become” the yidam in meditation by visualizing yourself in their form, and by replacing your ordinary mind with their enlightened mind. Later, I’ll suggest ways to think about this operation naturalistically."

***

"Ideally, you might use yourself! If you could convincingly visualize yourself as enlightened, you’d be enlightened—or else psychotic. (The user manual has one of those exclamation-mark-in-a-triangle-road-sign icons here.) Mostly, it’s difficult to to experience yourself as enlightened, so you experience yourself as someone else being enlightened, which turns out to be easier. That’s why yidam practice—or “deity yoga”—works!

Besides gods, dead humans, and fictional humans, all sorts of monsters, demons, and miscellaneous spooks also function as yidams.

The fact that these people are all either imaginary or decomposed is a non-problem. You don’t have to “believe in” someone to practice them as a yidam. Existence is irrelevant to the job."

references: https://metarationality.com/meta-systematic-judgement and https://meaningness.com/existence-scarlet-leviathan

***

OMITTING WHAT IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWS IN CONNECTION WITH JEWISH RELIGION, BUT IT'S INTERESTING

***

"Be that as it may, many Tantric Buddhist texts particularly emphasize the non-existence of the yidams. The aim of Vajrayana is to actualize the understanding that emptiness and form are inseparable. “Emptiness” is more-or-less “non-existence” according to some Buddhist philosophical schools, so yidams’ non-existence is particularly salient. Vajrayana practice manuals often warn against the error of imagining that you can turn yourself into a concrete, actually-existing god.

So… instead of quibbling over metaphysical technicalities, let’s grant that most yidams are mythical."

references https://vividness.live/ritual-vs-mentalism

"Myths have great value, which has nothing to do with their literal “truth.” I have suggested that mythopoesis—the creation of explicitly “false” religious fictions—is the best strategy for naturalizing tantra." references https://vividness.live/strategies-for-naturalizing-religion#mythologizing

***

"We all do relate to fictional characters. They are important to us. Fiction is a powerful source of inspiration and insight. Asking “What would Aragorn do? What would Princess Leia do?” might be an excellent way to live. The same goes double for religious fiction: myths.

Once you realize being a god is irrelevant to being a yidam, and that existence and non-existence are irrelevant, and that the supernatural is as harmless in myths as in other fictions—then taking a god as a yidam is unproblematic.

But if it really bothers you, unquestionably existent (albeit dead) humans are also available, and can also do the job."

***

"Enlightenment and other aims"

If you can’t see anyone as enlightened, there’s a problem. You may doubt whether that is possible, even in principle. Is there even such a thing as enlightenment?

I think such doubts are reasonable. Every little branch of Buddhism has its own story about what “enlightenment” means. They are drastically different, and most are obviously impossible or undesirable. Some other conceptions of enlightenment may be useful for particular purposes. I think we’d do better to give those more specific names, and ask hard questions about “what is this thing? is it actually achievable? what is it good for?” (I wrote about this in “Epistemology and enlightenment.”) If you share these qualms, it may be better to ignore “enlightenment.”

Instead, in yidam practice, and in tantra generally, we might aim at developing capacities, adopting stances, and engaging in activities.6 “Enlightenment” is a vague, uniform, singular goal; but capacities, stances, and activities are specific, diverse, and plural."

6:"See what I did there? Those three are the three kayas: dharmakaya, sambhogakaya, and nirmanakaya, respectively." (I don't know, if he did this one well.)

"There are thousands of yidams—wildly different, vividly specific—who help you develop and master their particular capacities, stances, and activities. In consultation with your teacher, you can choose which yidam (or yidams) to practice, depending on what direction you want to head in."

***

"Yidams are not archetypes"

“Yidams are not gods but archetypes” is a common, well-intentioned claim, but it’s inaccurate, and I think mostly misleading and unhelpful.

It’s an example of the psychologization strategy for naturalizing Buddhism. That turns external, supernatural entities into internal, psychological ones. The problem is that meaning is neither objective nor subjective, and yidams are neither independently-existing people, nor mental structures found “deeply within” yourself.

Archetypes are supposedly abstract, general, and universal. Yidams are extremely specific. Vajrakila—the yidam shown above—has three heads, six arms,7 wings, and no legs. Instead, his torso is fused at the waist to a huge three-bladed dagger.

Vajrakila is not universal.[...]

Vajrakila is also not an arbitrary cultural creation. He has an extremely specific form, and you aren’t to mess with it. Every detail has a particular significance, symbolism, and function, which weren’t just made up.

Those specifics are utterly bizarre. [...]"

***

"Do we need Western yidams?"

"I expect yidams that reference aspects of Western culture are possible—but I doubt they are necessary. And incorporating Western deities without incorporating Western religious attitudes, inimical to Vajrayana, seems difficult and maybe impossible.'

***

"Where there are humans,
You’ll find flies,
And Buddhas."

***

"Naturalistic yidam practice: how it works"

"Body maps, yidam, and tsa lung" (Tsa Lung energy practice: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trul_khor )