Une (Jai Mā arc)1d ago
i like fierce deities because i crave intensity. Buddhism doesn't really have intensity like that, the Buddhas' energies are all very subtle and difficult to connect with whereas when I say Kali's nama jaapa I know exactly where she is. I guess Shingon has Fudō-Myōō but I'm not really drawn to him in the same way. Something about Goddess energy
Show threaddruid1d ago
@unmind Tibetan Buddhism has fierce deities! But yes, for some reason I find them quite calming to behold.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckJhvt2hydE
The Gyuto Monks Of Tibet - Yamantaka

YouTube
Show threadUne (Jai Mā arc)1d ago
@druid yeah i wish i understood tibetan buddhism i'm very stuck in this Japanese Shingon path i think for the most part. or i should say my primary sadhana is from Shingon
Show threaddruid1d ago
@unmind I know nothing about Shingon! What attracts you to it?
Show threadUne (Jai Mā arc)1d ago
@druid i would say its a combination of things. i really like what i know of the founder kobo daishi's writings. it seemed like a very life-affirming form of buddhism that's focused on living well in this life and becoming a Buddha in this life as the ideal. that and mantranaya is very intuitive feeling to me. also my ex started practicing shingon while i was living with him and we would practice together so thats a very fond memory. and i guess the reason shingon attracts me over tibetan buddhism which is also esoteric and mantranaya is that the japanese language just makes more intuitive sense to me frankly because of anime and decades of being exposed to japanese culture as opposed to tibetan culture. so primarily its a culture thing. i know some jpanese and chinese/classical chinese and can kinda read the texts a little but cant read any tibetan at all
Show threaddruid
@unmind Thank you for such a detailed answer! I wish I could read any Chinese or Japanese... I feel like I've toedipped in Buddhism at best. To be honest, I call myself a Dharmist because in both psychotic and psychedelic states, the truth of the Dharma feels so immanent and self-evident to me, but I've got a lot of wires crossed and I'm not well read at all. 😭
Jun 26 at 10:00pmWeb
Show threadUne (Jai Mā arc)1d ago
@druid i feel the same way about buddhism but i've been circling the idea of being a Buddhist for like truly almost 20 years. the ideas are just too subtle for me to comprehend most of the time. i actually like buddhism because it has a chilling effect on my mind that kinda counters my psychosis a little bit, but it's also one of the reasons i have a hard time connecting to it, cuz a wisdom tradition that doesn't value my psychotic personal gnosis the way something like western occultism does is a tad unintuitive to me. but yeah idk a tarot reading i did for myself recently told me the path i'm headed down is one thats more based in reasoning than intuition which really sucked to hear but gave me good direction
Show threaddruid1d ago
@unmind I find the same thing. In the end, I turned my back on western occultism for pretty much that exact reason - it made a kind of sense of my psychotic experiences but I wasn't supposed to linger in them. The spirit that was with me throughout them made it clear that the process was intended to liberate me from my western mindset and deliver me to wider truth, and it stepped aside in favour of Shiva's influence as soon as was practical.

I've met a lot of psychotic people who were very trapped in the mindset I worked so hard to get out of. There's a certain beauty to the ignorance of Abrahamism (e.g. Jewish esotericism) but imo, it doesn't make for a happy mindset. The ideas presented in Buddhism are difficult to immanentize but they're more "obviously correct" to me.