I am anyway trying to reduce my screen time and time on Reddit, and the new changes they’re making spurred me to check out Lemmy when I heard about it. I like the simple feel of it and hope that it will create smaller, tighter knitted communities, encourage individual posting (I never posted on Reddit but it feels more acceptable here somehow), and also help to further reduce my screen time.
I’m glad to see there’s a Buddhist instance here. I think this may be the first or second post ever on this instance, so for the sake of encouraging conversation I would like to ask those who may see this post:
- What sect of Buddhism do you subscribe to? What do you like most about that sect?
- What is one way you have incorporated the teachings into your life recently, or one thing you would like to incorporate?
For me:
- Tibetan Buddhism (Gelug tradition). I like the fact that it purports that enlightenment can be achieved in just one lifetime; that negative karma can be purified; and that bad things happening is just our negative karma ripening, which means you are paying your karmic debt in those situations. It’s very motivating for this lifetime.
- I am trying to be more mindful in everyday life because I don’t meditate much at all, and I think mindfulness is the next best thing.
I hope this instance / community grows in the future!
I agree with your last bit- I love that Buddhism is tolerant of other ways of thinking and religions. It seems to acknowledge that everyone has their own karma and way of doing things, so we shouldn’t try to “convert” everyone to Buddhism, perhaps they will gain realizations or become happy by some other religion or philosophy etc. It speaks for itself, I appreciate that Buddhists don’t try to convert others.
As for the first part, I was daydreaming about something recently and then remembered that life itself is said to be an illusion. We need to get by using subjective labels and concepts. Of course those are necessary and we need them to function in the world, but it’s important to recognize that they are just labels in order to see reality for what it is. If life itself is a delusion of sorts, daydreaming during my free time is like a delusion within a delusion. Spending time fantasizing about something that isn’t real, when so much of my life experience itself is exaggerated or imbued with too-strong emotions and is thus not “real” either. That’s not to say that daydreaming is bad or anything, because the “good” or “bad” judgement is also a label, but it’s better to at least be aware of what’s going on mentally. Man, I would probably be able to maintain a mindset like this more consistently if I meditated regularly lol. I still have so much to improve on. But reading your comment was able to remind me of some of these things, so thank you!