Kinda like a “Fire Rescue Bu?”

michael j

http://www.tibetreisen.com/Article/ShowArticle.asp?ArticleID=1882

Also, Dan wrote about Tibetan games a while ago, here:

http://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/2008/05/tibetan-olympics-of-1695-nine-mens.html

He quotes Desideri from the early 18th century, who mentions a Tibetan stone-throwing game “like quoits”. I wonder if he has any references that go back earlier than this…

In Khyentse Norbu’s movie The Cup, in the scene where they are waiting outside the abbot’s room for an answer, the two young monks do something similar.

I had vague memories of hearing about a Tibetan game where you throw a rock and try to dislodge the other person’s rock.

And a PS regarding Michael J’s question about blasphemy: the Bodhisattva vow of Mahayana Buddhism is to stay in samsara until everybody achieves Buddhahood, maybe like a fireman making sure that everyone gets out of the burning building. Because we’re “all in the same boat,” to mix metaphors.

I think you’ve just answered the question I was wondering about… With a question. Of course, with a question! Happy New Year for you and for the whole wide world! Here’s hoping everything looks clearer to us, and twenty ten won’t turn out to be just a prescription from the optometrist. The future is full of uncontrolled variables, which under some circumstances would be taken as reason enough for hope, don’t you think? Will you allow me to express even more hope? OK. Here’s hoping more Tibetanists will join the community of bloggers and take things up a notch! What’s your New Year’s resolution?

Yours,
D.

Don’t you think a lot of academic writing comes out of being puzzled to begin with? Then when we’ve come to some kind of conclusion, the puzzlement is reframed or entirely edited out of the picture. So is it just that puzzlement is more apparent in a blog? Or is it more about style – a tendency specific to blogs to put things in the form of questions rather than assertions?

S.

I think the main point here is the “single vehicle” or ekayāna movement which is expressed in some Mahāyāna sūtras, including this one. That is, whatever Buddhist path you happen to be following, you will reach the same result in the end — Buddhahood. The converse idea, that the paths of the śrāvakas and prateyakabuddhas (followers of the the “Hinayāna) will only attain a lower result, also existed. I guess that the stone-throwers in this story held this latter view.

S.

And is that kinda like a blasphemy?

Or, can it be a way of relating to all, that is, for me to feel humble and to “bow” to all other sentient beings because of the . . . I don’t know, “knowledge” that all have the budding Buddha within?

Just a thought from

michael j

Conshohocken, PA USA