Indian Logic Forum

tantidharo · Last edited by tantidharo on Thu Jan 18, 2007 10:30 pm; edited 1 time in total

The following is an excerpt from the "Introductory Notes" of Yoga Sri Tantra (http://www.sritantra.co.uk/intro/intro.htm) by Venerable Sritantra (tantidharo)

The Economy of Giving

Now a basic conception of worldly economy is that wealth is based on "holdings." A person or company is therefore always viewed as being worth so much in holdings or assets. But in the religious cultures coming from India an altogether different perspective is held. In fact, throughout the Orient a tremendous importance is placed on perfecting the virtue of dДЃna. Here we have the basis of the economy of giving where ideally wealth is measured not in terms of how much you have, but how much you give. Whole economies are founded on this principle. It is actually a form of "primordial economy" where people graciously vie with one another in order to see who gets to be the richest. In this way, dДЃna also means "wealth."

Westernized cultures rarely practice true giving. They always give downward and never give up. This is why so often our attempts at charity turn into something vain and destructive. Is it possible to correct this? To understand dДЃna one can practice small acts of friendliness and giving, but without strings attached вЂ“ that's the important point. With regular practice, giving gets easier until one comes to see oneself as the ultimate source of all. Thus, perfect giving is to give away everything. Such ultimate giving is equal to surrender and exactly what being an ascetic is all about. For the wise have said that a man gains freedom only with the courage to give away all. So, after giving outwardly, a man aims higher and earnestly endeavors to give away all. And after giving away all, he can only give up. Ultimate surrender means giving up all. It is the basic procedure of Indian thought.

Philosophically the procedure is contained by sannyДЃs, a Sanskrit word normally rendered as "renunciation." But sannyДЃs bears added severity. For according to sannyДЃs, there is nothing worth having. Which brings us to the pith of the Buddhist dialectic: There is nothing worth having, yet still we crave to have things. An absurd situation indeed. And as echoed by Frenchman Albert Camus (1913-1960), this "absurd situation" directly results from the confrontation of two grossly contrary facts of life, the man who wants against the world that has nothing to give. Such is life in the fleshly robe, as "untenable as it is inextricable."[1]

This Fathom-long Body

I am always well aware as I speak or write that people hold many ideas about yoga, often very vivid ideas. Yoga is after all a popular activity and contains a wide variety of meanings.

A fundamental thought in Classical Thai Yoga-Tantra is that everything we need to know is contained within our "fathom-long body." Doctrine is not necessary. Rites and rituals are not necessary. Everything is contained within this body. This is clearly noted in the traditional satipatthДЃna discipline of Buddhist Yoga where special attention is placed on the body together with its emotional and mental adjuncts. SatipatthДЃna means to keep ones awareness in the present moment so that every human action becomes an occasion for contemplation. Contemplation of the corporal structure has always been the basis of Buddhist Yoga.[2] According to the scriptural words of the Buddha,

It is within this fathom-long body, my friend, with its impressions and ideas that you will find the world, and the cause of the world, and the end of the world, and the strategy that leads to the end of the world [3].

Notes

1. Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus, Paris, 1942, English trans. 1955.

2. "[He] becomes conscious of all those physiological acts he had previously performed automatically and unconsciously," Mircea Eliade, Yoga: Immortality and Freedom, trans. from the original French (Paris, 1954) by Wilard R. Trask. Bollingen Series LVI, New York, Pantheon Books, 1964: 168. See MahДЃ-SattipatthhДЃna Suttanta, DД«gha-nikДЃya (II, 327f).

3. Anguttara-nikДЃya, II, 48

Avi Sion · Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 5:30 pm Post subject: Potlach

Hello tantidharo

This reminds me of the Potlach culture of West Coast Indians (Canadian B:C Coast and US Washington-Oregon region).

tantidharo · Posted: Wed Dec 06, 2006 9:07 am Post subject:

Avi,

Thank you kindly for your note.

1. You hit the nail on the head. I was introduced myself to this primordial jape some years ago when I spent the better part of the summer in and around the primordial encampments of the Iriadamant at Capo Vaticano, Calabria. A highly poeticized account of those experiences may be unearthed here
http://calabrian-journal.blogspot.com/2005/12/capo-vaticano.html

2. The correlation between the two-part extract would perhaps appear a little less tenuous if read in its original context here
http://www.sritantra.co.uk/intro/intro.htm .

3. As for the other elusive connection: the totemic package I was trying to put across is that the mind along with its capacious reason remains part and parcel to this fathom long body. Or wider yet, the whole universe is contained within the body. [Thus, "one comes to sees oneself as the ultimate source of all.]

Sorry to all participants that I haven't had time in recent months for this richest Advanced Studies hub on the Internet. I've been in quite a heightened peripatetic mode of late.

Best always,
Tantidharo

tantidharo · Posted: Mon Jan 08, 2007 1:51 am Post subject: reason, intelligence and more

Avi Sion · Posted: Sun Jan 14, 2007 2:41 pm Post subject: Happy New Year

tantidharo,
thank you kindly for your reply. This is just to wish you a happy new year. I too am a bit too busy elsewhere to be able to engage in discussions, though I consider them usually enriching in some way.
Yes, yoga can bring much, without need of intellection. Having done some advanced yoga in the past, I am aware of it. Still, the historical Buddha, and certainly the legendary Buddha of many later sutras, is someone that thinks, and publicly expresses verbal thoughts, even if these thoughts are often advice to avoid (enslavement to) thought!
What I am trying to say, I guess, is that we should always look at what we are actually doing, and frankly admit it, rather than adopt ideological positions, even if these positions are good advice in most cases.