2 more examples of my 'mixed' practice
In Mahayana, one is supposed to be able to overcome such as anger by using the emptiness teachings - contemplating how the anger does not exist from it's own side, whereas I have already dealt with removing anger, and am currently dealing with the seeds of anger/anger on a subtler level, from the Thai Dhutanga teachings regarding kilesa eradication.
Maybe I follow the Eastern road to arrive at the Western city! It would not be the first time that something worked better for me when done in a different - yet still correct - way.
Taking another example - attachment. When I attach to someone/thing, it is for a valid reason, rather than a mistaken and unaware action. For example, I attach myself to a few select people - not because I have wrong view or let my emotions rule, but because doing so helps my studies progress rapidly. The Buddha himself was known to say that one should socialize with wise friends, and that it is better to live alone than with foolish companions. Eliminating my thought and emotion, making the choice of my company based upon knowing who is/is not wise company, is it still wrong to hold on to friendships with the wise and loosen hold on those with the foolish?
Perhaps if I clung fast, exaggerated, and made demands of these people. But it does not seem wrong to make arrangements to continue to know people who can help my practice, or if they seek freedom from my presence currently, to ensure that we will meet again in our future lives. (I do not want to waste forty years in my next life before encountering Buddhism.) I want to know that I will connect with people who can put me on the right track right away next time through!
In Buddhist readings, you hear of people who meet again and again in many of their lives; sometimes they are friends and sometimes family. You also read of spiritual friends who make a vow to help one another continuously throughout their many lives, until they both reach their goal of realizing Nirvana. Is such an attachment as THAT to be considered wrong?
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