openmind said:

Tantrika said:

Crazy fun fact
Steven Seagal is recognized by Tibetan Buddhist traditions as being the reincarnation of an enlightened master

this is not actually that uncommon, a number of Westerners have been such identified and there was even a King of the Hill episode parodying it
but still kind of comical to consider that a reincarnated Buddhist master picked out the life of a Hollywood star.....

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I never knew that.


I have a "fun fact" that actually relates to both Steven Seagal and King of the Hill lol.


My father used to deliver propane to Steven Seagal/at his house back in the 90s, I'm not joking .








-OM

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Well, clearly an enlightened master would use something clean burning
so makes sense to me


but yeah, it is actually a pretty robust tradition
cannot find the documentary Words of my Perfect Teacher at the moment
as that examined a very prolific teacher who had been taken to the monastery as a child and taught largely in isolation to keep him from playing
but they also interviewed Seagal about his being recognized

Words of my Perfect Teacher is still prolly my favourite
because it goes through a number of the comically absurd things the teacher does
like around the time of 9/11 he started giving a bunch of kids in Bhutan (his home country)
the official Buddhist name of "George Bush"


this documentary however is potentially just as interesting

it is from someone who was recognized as a reincarnated master, born from a father who was also an enlightened master
but who learned the lessons and decided against being a teacher
and who studies what it is like for other people who have been recognized and how they adapted

also, cannot find the full version at the moment but this documentary was amazingly insightful

it follows the whole journey of the master's death, the monks mapping out where he reincarnated,
and a single monk travelling from small village to small village testing children
until he finds one that responds to his master's beads -- picks the specific set out of a pile of fakes and refuses to let them go for any other toy
the child is then taken to the other masters where he again has to choose the correct ritual object the dead master used from among a group of fakes
and does this 3-4 times, accurately picking the right objects without prompting each time
so he gets recognized and ordained as a master who will then be fast-tracked through his Buddhism lessons
and officiating marriages and helping name children and the like before the age of 10

seeing the system function again and again seems to suggest there is actually something real to it
but recognizing how it at times focuses religious power into hereditary lines or labeling potentially inappropriate people as 'enlightened' shows issues with it as well

Am also actually critical of the claims that enlightened masters chill out in and move freely through the Bardo
the idea of the Tibetan Book of the Dead draws a lot on the indigenous spiritual/folklore traditions of Bon native to the Tibetan area since before Buddhism
and Buddhism taking over in Tibet was achieved through a means of relabeling all Bon deities as Buddhist deities
but part of the idea of the Bardo is that the longer a 'spirit' is there, the more they forget of their past making it harder to become enlightened and more likely to reincarnate again

it strikes me as more likely that if the system is real, reincarnated masters pick their rebirth based on the birth conditions the baby will be born into
rather than a full insight of their life to come
and that a lack of resources within the tradition just meant that a number of masters were reborn a number of times and never properly tracked and found
Seagal in particular is credited as the reincarnation of a 17th century master; but find it hard to believe that he waited a couple hundred years for the ideal life of Steven Seagal
and more likely that someone recognized his aura or energy, and convinced the masters to test him

MadMuncher said:

u guys ever get your pets stoned or is that taboo? some of em like it

...

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watermelon mon said:

I'm living the real life pokemon go.

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That turtle may be laying eggs bruh..