A Buddhist pilgrimage

**Joyo** · 04-18-2015, 09:41 PM

Thank you Troy, look interesting, I'll be watching for sure

Gassho,
Joyo
sat today

**Troy** · 04-18-2015, 11:50 PM

Hope you enjoy

..sat2day•

**Myosha** · 04-19-2015, 09:48 AM

Hello,

Thank you for the link.

Gassho
Myosha sat today

**Kyonin** · 04-19-2015, 10:05 AM

Hi Troy!

Thanks for the link. I will watch it this afternoon

Gassho,

Kyonin

**Banto** · 04-19-2015, 11:34 PM

That was interesting indeed, thanks for sharing
Gassho
Rodney SatToday

**Joyo** · 04-20-2015, 01:17 AM

Originally posted by Troy

Hope you enjoy

..sat2day•

I did enjoy, thank you. I was interested in how different this Buddhism seems, just more into supernatural beliefs. Did you find that too?

Gassho,
Joyo
sat today

**Jundo** · 04-20-2015, 02:44 AM

Originally posted by Joyo

I did enjoy, thank you. I was interested in how different this Buddhism seems, just more into supernatural beliefs. Did you find that too?

Gassho,
Joyo
sat today

Yes, for most people in Asia, Buddhism is there religion not much different from any religion, and the Buddhas are their gods, the Bodhisattvas their angels and saints. That is fine. The commonalities among religions far outweigh the differences. Here is a very similar tradition in Mexico (I have encountered the same in Europe as well), and some of these pilgrims will travel such way for hundreds of miles ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0Sg3u0vv2o

There are many doorways to belief and practice, just as there are many sentient beings.

Gassho, J

**Troy** · 04-20-2015, 05:10 AM

Originally posted by Joyo

I did enjoy, thank you. I was interested in how different this Buddhism seems, just more into supernatural beliefs. Did you find that too?

Gassho,
Joyo
sat today

I found that interesting. A lot of that was new to me. Buddhism has so many flavors I don't think I will ever get my head around it all. My understanding is a lot of that depends on the culture it finds itself in. I wonder if Soto Zen has some element of supernatural belief? Maybe not in our westernized version, but traditional Soto? Jundo?

..sat2day•

**Jundo** · 04-20-2015, 05:42 AM

Originally posted by Troy

I wonder if Soto Zen has some element of supernatural belief? Maybe not in our westernized version, but traditional Soto? Jundo?

Oh yes! You name it, Soto has got it! The flavors of Soto Zen (and Zen in general) that one is likely to encounter in the West tend to be rather modernized, focused on lay and "in the world" practice, purged of many (not all) religious and supernatural elements. (The main exception to that may be the Soto Zen "Order of Buddhist Contemplatives"/Shasta Abbey/Kennett Roshi Lineage, who sometimes have professed some very mystical beliefs) ...

The Cosmic Buddha said what?????

http://obcconnect.forumotion.net/t173-the-cosmic-buddha-said-what

So i am going to start a new topic / discussion. About the "Cosmic Buddha" - how Kennett talked about this idea/entity, how she began to have dialogues with t

However, Soto Zen Buddhism in Japan is also people's religion. Most Japanese who are "Soto Zen" are so for historical reasons (there was a time, a few centuries ago, when the Japanese Samurai government insisted that everyone pick a temple to belong to, so most folks just picked the closest one). Most "Soto" Japanese could not tell you much if anything about what their temple believes or practices, as opposed to the "Jodo" or "Tendai" temple down the street. Most of the priests over the centuries then catered to what their parishioners wanted, namely, good health, good crops, protection of ancestral spirits, safe childbirth and such, and offered ceremonies and charms to help attain those things. For example, until modern times many Zen priests made quite a business saving women from this ...

The Blood Pool Hell Sutra

https://zendirtzendust.wordpress.com/2009/08/14/the-blood-pool-hell-sutra/

Generally, Zen priests and monks are not seen as mediators and benefactors of the afterlife for their practitioners. However, in medieval to early modern Japan, priests took exactly this role; most…

Within Soto Zen there are also so many elements of esoteric practices mixed into our ceremonies and rituals, even though those are not emphasized by most Western Sangha (and especially not emphasized at places like Treeleaf, were the focus is very down to earth). For example, read a few pages from p.927 here for a taste ...

Esoteric Buddhism and the Tantras in East Asia

https://books.google.com/books?id=F0XNX3N1a2AC&pg=PA928&lpg=PA928&dq=soto+zen+esoteric+ceremony&source=bl&ots=WPPMBxVWSp&sig=4-UwO4a15ZORaJvC8yVzSilk1ZI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=nZA0VdfNBsnYtQXox4HICA&ved=0CD4Q6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=soto%20zen%20esoteric%20ceremony&f=false

This volume, the result of an international collaboration of forty scholars, provides a comprehensive resource on Esoteric Buddhism and the Tantras in their Chinese, Korean, and Japanese contexts from the first few centuries of the common era to the present.

People believe that much of this came into Soto Zen in the times after Dogen, but he had his own rituals and beliefs too (as expected of a man of the 13th century) that might be considered rather magical today. For example, Dogen and the spirit of Mount Hakusan and other earth spirits ...

Visions of Awakening Space and Time

https://books.google.com/books?id=o-Fla22ClSgC&dq=dogen+mountain+hakusan+vision&q=dogen+earth+spirits+or+an+earth+goddess#v=snippet&q=dogen%20earth%20spirits%20or%20an%20earth%20goddess&f=false

As a religion concerned with universal liberation, Zen grew out of a Buddhist worldview very different from the currently prevalent scientific materialism. Indeed, says Taigen Dan Leighton, Zen cannot be fully understood outside of a worldview that sees reality itself as a vital, dynamic agent of awareness and healing. In this book, Leighton explicates that worldview through the writings of the Zen master Eihei Dōgen (1200-1253), considered the founder of the Japanese Sōtō Zen tradition, which currently enjoys increasing popularity in the West. The Lotus Sutra, arguably the most important Buddhist scripture in East Asia, contains a famous story about bodhisattvas (enlightening beings) who emerge from under the earth to preserve and expound the Lotus teaching in the distant future. The story reveals that the Buddha only appears to pass away, but actually has been practicing, and will continue to do so, over an inconceivably long life span. Leighton traces commentaries on the Lotus Sutra from a range of key East Asian Buddhist thinkers, including Daosheng, Zhiyi, Zhanran, Saigyo, Myōe, Nichiren, Hakuin, and Ryōkan. But his main focus is Eihei Dōgen, the 13th century Japanese Sōtō Zen founder who imported Zen from China, and whose profuse, provocative, and poetic writings are important to the modern expansion of Buddhism to the West. Dōgen's use of this sutra expresses the critical role of Mahayana vision and imagination as the context of Zen teaching, and his interpretations of this story furthermore reveal his dynamic worldview of the earth, space, and time themselves as vital agents of spiritual awakening. Leighton argues that Dōgen uses the images and metaphors in this story to express his own religious worldview, in which earth, space, and time are lively agents in the bodhisattva project. Broader awareness of Dōgen's worldview and its implications, says Leighton, can illuminate the possibilities for contemporary approaches to primary Mahayana concepts and practices.

It is not only Soto Zen, but also the Rinzai folks (and Chinese Chan and Korean Son traditions) ... about the same. It is only as Zen Buddhism has come West that one finds more modernized, worldly, down to earth practice free of much of the hocus-pocus and magic.

But, let me underline again: To each their own. One person's "silly myth" is another person's "sacred story", and one person's "abracadabra" is another person's "holy invocation of the spirits", and so it should be. Different people need different approaches.

Gassho, Jundo

**Byokan** · 04-20-2015, 09:01 AM

O Priests of Treeleaf!

Please, save me and all the Treeleaf ladies from the Blood Pool Hell !!!

Gassho
Lisa
sat today

**Troy** · 04-20-2015, 05:27 PM

Fascinating Jundo. I have more I want to say but it will have to be later when I have a little more free time.

..sat2day•

**Joyo** · 04-20-2015, 06:19 PM

Originally posted by Jundo

But, let me underline again: To each their own. One person's "silly myth" is another person's "sacred story", and one person's "abracadabra" is another person's "holy invocation of the spirits", and so it should be. Different people need different approaches.

Gassho, Jundo

Good reminder!

Gassho,
Joyo
sat today

**Kyonin** · 04-20-2015, 06:55 PM

Hi guys!

Yes, there are tons of those kinds of traditions here in Mexico. There are the people who would walk on their knees, the ones who would carry a real life wooden cross, there are those who walk for 5 nights and days and just last week I saw a guy wearing a thorn crown on his head.

Magic and faith are very strong here, but I don't think it's different from other places in earth. Whether it's Buddhism or Islam, we humans need something to believe in so desperately.

I myself would love to go to India and Japan and walk from temple to temple. Maybe someday

Gassho,

Kyonin
#SatToday

**Troy** · 04-21-2015, 04:33 PM

A Buddhist pilgrimage

Originally posted by Kyonin

I myself would love to go to India and Japan and walk from temple to temple. Maybe someday

Gassho,

Kyonin
#SatToday

Me too Kyonin!

-------
I have expressed myself regarding faith in past. I want to say more but I am having a hard time putting it in to words right now. A lot of the time, I am visual in my thinking and sometimes it is hard for me to translate it in to words without a lot of effort if that makes sense, lol.

I do love that Treeleaf is down to earth. The questions of faith/non-faith are left for us as individuals to figure out, but I also feel safe expressing myself from time to time. I also like hearing the belief/non beliefs of others because it challenges me and helps me grow spiritually. Thank you Jundo and Sangha.

..sat2day•

A Buddhist pilgrimage

A Buddhist pilgrimage

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