Hinderances and circumstances

Another aspect of the hinderances is that they are very ego driven, and therefore they are an opportunity to observe the self. It's almost crushing to admit you have hinderances, or greed, hatred and desire. The hope is to turn desire into Dhammachanda, which is desire for the Dharma life. I like that concept.

Ajahn Theradhamma also talks about circumstances. He talks about the importance of generosity to help break the hold on self but excoriates the lay who leave after giving stuff, and miss the meditation. Theravadan tradition is plagued by the lay/monastic split.

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Thinking more about Ajahn Theradhammo's book The Five Hinderances, it's almost a Padmasambhava point--that you don't get rid of the hinderances, you work with them. He also says something I've never heard, that working with the hinderances is in the 4th of the 4 items of mindfulness in the Satipatthana Sutta, which would make my waiting 14 years less of a mistake. I had a feeling that that might be a unique Theravadan tradition take on the Sutta because I don't remember that from other books. Some of my books are on Kindle, and I guess I didn't think to search them when I was looking up the Hinderances in my books: Living With Awareness and Satipatthana. I'll have to look into those books, along with the others I mention in the last post. The other thing I feel coming in the book is discussion of circumstances. Theradhammo sort of dismisses them because if you're a monk they're all taken care of supposedly--though Ajahn Chah, seems to think it's a problem with the Thais.

Been thinking lately I'm a Theravadan in the morning, Mahayana in the daytime, Zen in the evening and Pure Land at bedtime. I read a Theravadan book or the pali cannon in the morning before I meditate. During the day I try to add positivity to the world, the Bodhisattva ideal. In the evening I usually do a Pure Awareness meditation. And I fall asleep listening to a pure land sutra.

It's interesting that in the Shorter Sukhavativyuha Sutra that the Bodhisattva who's pure land it is, covers the pure land with his tongue, and then he can describe it. Wow, that's a big tongue, a very descriptive tongue to be able to taste a buddhafield.

The other interesting thing I've noticed listening to Shorter Sukhavativyuha Sutra, is that it says, "He feels the Buddha with his body, he feels the Dharma with his body, he feels the Sangha with his body." That goes along with all the somatic emphasis in our alienating world, including most spectacularly Touching Enlightenment, by Reginald Ray the founder of Dharma Ocean. That's a splinter off Shambhala, though perhaps splinter minimizes the greatness of the movement. If I wasn't in an independent phase and lacking in funds to fly to Crestone Colorado, which oddly has many many Buddhist outfits (8), and also has Richard Baker's outfit, famous to me from the book Shoes Outside The Door.