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skillfulmean.bsky.social
@skillfulmean.bsky.social
46 followers 0 following 38 posts
harsh criticism and sarcasm from in and around buddhist traditions. updated intermittently by @r0landa.bsky.social
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skillfulmean.bsky.social
Nature and the Environment in Early Buddhism - Shravasti Dammika
November 6, 2025 at 1:48 AM
skillfulmean.bsky.social
I made him sound like a baptist preacher in this
November 1, 2025 at 8:33 PM
skillfulmean.bsky.social
October 24, 2025 at 2:08 AM
skillfulmean.bsky.social
Saṅkhitta Sutta (AN 8:70)
Then a certain monk went to the Blessed One and, on arrival, having bowed down to him, sat to one side. As he was sitting there he said to the Blessed One: "It would be good if the Blessed One would teach me the Dhamma in brief so that, having heard the Dhamma from the Blessed One, I might dwell alone in seclusion: heedful, ardent, & resolute" "But it is in just this way that some worthless men make a request but then, having been told the Dhamma, think they should tag along right behind me."
September 9, 2025 at 11:38 PM
skillfulmean.bsky.social
Bhikkhu Ñāṇananda describing the means by which Dabba Mallaputta, arhat, performed his duty of allocating lodgings to visiting monks

seeingthroughthenet.net/wp-content/u...
He acquitted himself well in the perfomance of both these duties. Particularly in regard to the duty of allocating lodgings to visiting monks, it is said that he was so efficient as to do it according to their dispositions and predelictions. He saw to it that visiting monks who devoted themselves to the preservation of discourses (suttantika) lodged together with the wish: 'Let them spend the night reciting the discourses.' When monks expert in discipline arrived, he made them lodge together thinking : 'Let them spend the night discussing points of discipline.' When preachers of Dhamma came, he gave them lodgings at one spot with the wish : 'Let them pass the night in Dhamma discussions! When garrulous monks given to frivolous talk, those who had gone forth to fatten their bodies, came visiting, he made them lodge together with the thought: 'Let them waste the night in their accustomed frivolties.'
August 9, 2025 at 4:52 PM
skillfulmean.bsky.social
www.dhammatalks.org/books/Desire...
To think of "skillful" and "unskillful" desires is dualistic and judgmental. You don't want non-dualistic mechanics working on your car, or non-dualistic surgeons operating on your brain. You want people who can tell what's skillful from what's not. If you really value your happiness, you'll demand the same discernment in the person most responsible for it: yourself. It's too goal-oriented. Just accept things as they are in the present. Every desire tells you that things in the present are limited and lacking. You either accept the desire or accept the lack. To accept both at once is to deny that either has any real truth. To try to dwell peacefully in the tension between the two-in a "path of no craving" to be rid of either-is what the Buddha called limited equanimity, and what one Thai forest master called the equanimity of a coW.
July 1, 2025 at 6:09 PM
skillfulmean.bsky.social
tendaiaustralia.com/text-1/
於是。愚中極愚。狂中極狂。塵禿有情。底下最澄。上違於諸佛。中背於皇法。下闕於孝禮。 Consequently, I, Saicho, who am the most foolish of fools; the most deranged of the deranged; a nothing [lit. speck of dirt] among the bald-headed ones; and the lowest of the low: upwardly disregard all the Buddhas; middlingly disobey the Emperor's laws; and downwardly lack filial respect [for my parents].
June 25, 2025 at 9:28 PM
skillfulmean.bsky.social
Bodhicaryâvatāra, Santideva, trans. Crosby and Skilton, p93 57 Aside from the delicate lotus, born in muck, opening up in the rays of a cloudless sun, what is the pleasure in a cage of crap for a mind addicted to filth? 58 If you do not want to touch something such as soil because it is smeared with excrement, how can you long to touch the body which excreted it? 59 If you have no passion for what is foul, why do you embrace another, born in a field of filth, seeded by filth, nourished by filth? 60 Is it that you do not like a dirty worm born in filth because it's only tiny? It must be that you desire a body, likewise born in filth, because it is formed from such a large amount! 61 Not only are you not disgusted at your own foulness, you glutton for crap, you yearn for other vats of filth!
June 10, 2025 at 1:44 PM
skillfulmean.bsky.social
Middle Length Discourses, Ñāṇamoli and Bodhi, p433.
13. “Then, Evil One, the M›ra DÒsı took possession of those brahmin householders, telling them: ‘Come now, abuse, revile, scold, and harass the virtuous bhikkhus of good character; then perhaps, when they are abused, reviled, scolded, and harassed by you, some change will come about in their minds whereby the M›ra DÒsı may find an opportunity.’ Then, when the M›ra DÒsı had taken possession of the brahmin householders, they abused, reviled, scolded, and harassed the virtuous bhikkhus of good character thus:523 ‘These bald-pated recluses, these swarthy menial offspring of the Kinsman’s feet,524 claim: “We are meditators, we are meditators!” and with shoulders drooping, heads down and all limp, they meditate, premeditate, outmeditate, and mismeditate.525 Just as an owl on a branch waiting for a mouse meditates, premeditates, out-meditates, and mismeditates, or just as a jackal on a river-bank waiting for fish meditates, premeditates, out-meditates, and mismeditates, or just as a cat, waiting for a mouse by an alley or drain or rubbish bin, meditates, premeditates, out-meditates, and mismeditates, or just as a donkey unladen, standing by a door-post or a dustbin or a drain, meditates, premeditates, out-meditates, and mismeditates, so too, these bald-pated recluses, these swarthy menial offspring of the Kinsman’s feet, claim: “We are meditators, we are meditators!” and with shoulders drooping, heads down and all limp, they meditate, premeditate, out-meditate, and mismeditate.’ Now, Evil One, on that occasion most of those human beings, when they died, reappeared on the dissolution of the body, after death, in a state of deprivation, in an unhappy destination, in perdition, even in hell. [335]
March 5, 2025 at 12:44 AM
skillfulmean.bsky.social
out-of-character to post about Metta but whatever it's the weekend
suttacentral.net/iti27/en/suj...
The Buddha spoke this matter. On this it is said: “A mindful one who develops limitless love weakens the fetters, seeing the ending of attachments. Loving just one creature with a hateless heart makes you a good person. Sympathetic for all creatures, a noble one creates abundant merit. The royal potentates conquered this land and traveled around sponsoring sacrifices—horse sacrifice, human sacrifice, the sacrifices of the ‘casting of the yoke-pin’, the ‘royal soma drinking’, and the ‘unimpeded’. These are not worth a sixteenth part of the mind developed with love, as starlight cannot rival the moon. Don’t kill or cause others to kill, don’t conquer or encourage others to conquer, with love for all living creatures—you’ll have no enmity for anyone.”
October 26, 2024 at 7:52 PM
skillfulmean.bsky.social
from red pine’s road to heaven
Chi-ch'eng said monks who lived in temples had an easy life. They received 50 to 60 RMB (about ten dollars) per month for their personal needs. He laughed and said Yung-ming had been trying to get him to move back down to Big Goose Pagoda. He said he didn't like the flatlands and had no intention of trading the mountains for money. He said, "I didn't become a monk for money or a soft life. I had another purpose. Ever since I was a child, hardships haven't bothered me. I was born to suffer. Monks nowadays aren't the same as before. Those two monks who moved to the back side of Chiawutai won't last one winter. Just because you're a monk doesn't mean you're a buddha. A lot of monks have to wait in line behind a lot of ordinary people for enlightenment. Of course, I shouldn't say this."
October 24, 2024 at 4:57 PM
skillfulmean.bsky.social
Sengrui on Kumarajiva
October 14, 2024 at 7:23 PM
skillfulmean.bsky.social
October 2, 2024 at 12:41 AM
skillfulmean.bsky.social
youtu.be/ZPr9xjkJL5s?...
Still from YT video titled “Talk by Paul Groner at Stanford University.” The captions read “but what strikes me about Japanese Buddhism is Japanese were not sure what Buddhism was,”
September 24, 2024 at 12:30 AM
skillfulmean.bsky.social
daoist feng zunshi criticizing buddhists. anthony c. yu's translation in his revised journey to the west
July 10, 2024 at 1:32 PM
skillfulmean.bsky.social
Ajahn Maha Buwa
July 8, 2024 at 1:05 PM
skillfulmean.bsky.social
July 2, 2024 at 5:55 PM
skillfulmean.bsky.social
zhiyi’s 小止觀 recommending to balance your stupid with your crazy
May 21, 2024 at 3:37 PM
skillfulmean.bsky.social
few have gone as hard as miaozong did here. fyi horses are a common metaphor for enlightened beings
November 26, 2023 at 9:22 PM
skillfulmean.bsky.social
anti-upanishads polemics with a bonus jab at "lowly people [who] weep in the face of death" in the Guhatthaka Sutta. endnotes for context. from Fronsdal's 『 The Buddha Before Buddhism』
November 26, 2023 at 8:03 PM
skillfulmean.bsky.social
Hanshan hating on meat eaters. JP Seaton translation
November 26, 2023 at 7:43 PM
skillfulmean.bsky.social
Master Hsuan Hua defending the Surangama Sutra against (depraved) skeptics. Elsewhere you can find him claiming homosexuality is a symptom of the dharma extinction age and that it’s proliferation will lead to human extinction

Source: x.com/edwardw2/sta...
November 11, 2023 at 3:10 PM
skillfulmean.bsky.social
Yunqi Zhuhong on the Catholic missionary Matteo Ricci
November 10, 2023 at 2:00 AM
skillfulmean.bsky.social
Lao-tzu lived during the Chou dynasty; the ruler did not know him, and the masses did not recognize him. He did not presume to put forth even one word of admonition [to the ruler], and was not able to save even one person [among the masses].

Zhiyi, Swanson (trans),『Clear Serenity, Quiet Insight』
October 6, 2023 at 5:49 PM
skillfulmean.bsky.social
If God could give birth to a son, then evidently the Christian Heaven is the third one of the system of the Trailoka... viz the Kama-Dhatu; and God would be the ruler of one of the “Six Heavens of Desire”. So God himself and all the beings of his heaven are mortals

Pi-Cheng Lee『An Outline of Karma』
October 5, 2023 at 2:15 PM