How do I deal with this long pattern of behavior?

[Hokin]

Thank you very much Hokin. Everything that you have shared rings true to my heart and inspires me deeply. I have felt very welcome so far, so I appreciate your good wishes. Wish you well too.

Gassho,
Sat

Hokin.
ST.

[Hokin]

Ditto

"Dharma gates are boundless; I vow to enter them all." - so I study and learn and believe that Dharma can be even entered through Jesus' heart.
For me personally I chose to stick with Zen because it is only through sitting zazen that I've realised that meditation, Buddhism is not a "spiritual fix" and that following the Way means to open up to the suffering, boredom and all the things we don't want.

"Water in an Old Temple

Leaking from the rock
in an old temple,
water barely trickles –
the voice
of the lingering dharma."
Otagaki Rengetsu

Gassho
Sat

Beautiful poem, Ania.
Thanks for sharing.

And I agree with you that we can find and open to the truth every where and all the time...

Even the rocks
We stumble upon
Wandering about
Through ages
And eras,
While breathing
Living stardust disguised
As blooming springs,
Rotting leaves
And dogs' nightly howlings,
Even all that
Eternally sings
The eternal dharma's hymn
Reminding suffering ones,
Wake up!
NOW!
To the ever-present
Playful love
Of and for
The One
Reality.

Gassho.
Hokin.
ST.

[Naiko]

I think many spiritual seekers can relate to your experiences (been there!). You hunger for the truth, for “the” experience so badly and it’s so tempting to grab that next shiny thing that must have the answers you seek. And while it’s cool and necessary to try on different traditions to find a good home for ourselves , I believe that in the end the vehicle we choose doesn’t matter so much as the commitment and work we bring to it and the willingness to stay and go deeper when it gets difficult or even boring. What we seek is already inside us, already who we are.
Gassho,
Krista
st/lah

[A.J.]

I think we have to be a little careful here about what is considered "attachment to form".

For example, if you were in a Karate dōjō, you would be taught forms in a certain way which are almost certainly taught differently in, say, a Kung Fu temple. That does not mean to say that the form taught in either place is right or better, but it is teaching the appropriate form for the place it is taught. This applies to matters such as how to tie a garment and belt likewise even if that is seen as of lesser importance.

Correcting someone on their form would not in my opinion, be attachment, but more teaching the correct form in the correct place.

Here we find freedom through adherence to form although, at the end of the day, anyone is free to either follow what is taught here or not.




Indeed, but to continue the metaphor, when in a Karate dōjō you practice the correct forms for that place, and when in a Kung Fu temple, you so likewise.


I am not saying that you are doing this, Andrew, but I have seen people respond to being corrected on their form and practice by saying that it is just "attachment to form" and refusal to see beyond the tradition but that seems to me to just be a way of ego defending itself as knowing better rather than seeing it as teaching the correct form for the place it is taught.


Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-

Following a tradition within a tradition is not in itself necessarily attachment to form. It is how you come at it. Certainly we agree that Buddhism can be treated as another form of grasping, clinging and ego-identification.

Gassho,

Andrew,

Satlah