Birch

Hi and thanks to everyone who answered this one so far. Again to display my lack of knowledge, but aren't Nirvana and Samsara the same thing? And if so then no-one is really "going" anywhere so I'm thinking the Bodhisattva is just someone who gets involved with the other folks- although why he'd do that is a bit strange given that he now knows he and they doesn't exist in the first place.

Thanks, I think I got the ignorance part. I still don't get why the 2 schools at odds. I'll read again but given what I know about reading and what I don't know about Buddhism I may just not be able to "get it" without further input from people that do know. Sorry about that, I'd just rather not assume.

Ignorance of what? And why would the two schools be at odds on this?

I meant anything North American. The "Native American" practices don't seem to get a lot of bandwidth on TTB and I wonder why that is. Anglo-Saxon stuff doesn't seem to be showing up much either. Not very many Christian mystics, not much Sufism, I guess a bit of Kabbal,... When so many of the people that have these practices in their culture live in North America and (one would maybe assume in error) have the freedom to practice and explore, I guess I'm just wondering out loud ;-) Buddhism can sometimes come across quite well to me as culturally neutral and tending towards universal - but maybe that's more to do with the skills that the western teacher has than anything else. If that the case, has Buddhism in the "West" remained similar to Buddhism in the "East" ? And just how culturally acclimatized would one have to be to accept Buddhist teachings from a Western vs an Eastern teacher? And back to topic;-) Why would one want to knock an arhat out of his bliss? "That's funny. tongue.gif Yeah, we basically tolerate them and kick them out of their meditative bliss state when the conditions are ripe for them to hear some Mahayana."

Ok thanks for the ideas. WHO pays respect to Arhats? And what do you mean by respect? As in "we tolerate them but pretty much leave them to hang around in solitary enlightenment until they join a religion,"? This is not meant to offend. Apologies in advance if it does. And what happens if they aren't Buddhists? Or do they have to be to be Arhats? It seems to me we've got lots of flavours of enlightened folks here (I won't get into the other beings stuff) and I think that's why hanging at TTB's is so interesting. I'm sort of surprised at the lack of North American practices, have none of them survived into contemporary culture or are they just elsewhere? There some interesting science going on out there too!

OK, thanks, I'll have to go away and mull that one over. Don't yet see what's unitive about it - except maybe the compassion that the content is similar or just beautifully different in its nuances or the idea that we're all in this duality together or the fact that we are all in this duality together and can't get out;-) Oh well, time for a salt bath and a change of station;-)

Right, but what of the "they ARE us" idea? If they didn't come back, we wouldn't have to either and "poof" And if they're not us, who are we? We eventually turn out to be them, apparently...if we're doing it right What if there is no them because there's no us either?

So not an actual decision? What about weighing up the rebirth vs non rebirth option? Because they are both enlightened, right? Wouldn't not wanting to hang around to help be considered a bit selfish? I'm not being ironic (hope it doesn't come across that way!) Edit: and if they all decided not to come back, wouldn't that just end the suffering right there? I'm not very up on the texts and I can get easily confused by some of the terminology so would appreciate some simple terms (as much as that is possible!)

Hehe thanks Mal! What do you think it means if you get them all on both sides of the pos-neg slide?

Thanks for telling me. I'm still wondering what, if they are liberated, do they do all day those arahats? Same stuff as other people, just in a liberated way? Are there things they won't do for work for example? I'm assuming they have to make a living. Or do they gravitate towards specific professions?

I don't think I know any!

Hi Findley! You could get both of those without having other people spend money on your teaching. Kind of like a trial run. And until you are a master - which it sounds like you are on the right course for becoming - I would be wary of putting my dime down. I don't know if what you're considering is quite the same as opening an online boutique. Would you be willing to spend all that time and effort responding to your students? See how much flak Chris and co got for not providing adequate input? And if you're not going to do the work with your students, what would be the result? It seems like it's often tough territory, do you just tell them "suck it up"? I know I may sound terribly critical but I'm worried that until you're straight about motivation (because it might "unstraighten" afterwards) you might be setting yourself - and others- up for a bad ride. I hope I'm wrong! And if I am then you can help me later;-) Either way, all the best! Kate

This thing I recently picked up: - "What should we absolutely discuss together today?" Idea is to make the agenda theirs not yours. Pretty much sounds like what others have said, Might go against some "youth groups" - depending on who's paying. It's cool that you're close to them in age. I was traumatized by an old biddy in Sunday school when I was 12 and she layed it on me that I shouldn't be thinking about sex and to do so was whorish - if I remember, I wasn't thinking about it At least not at the time

Hi Froggie! I wanted to get a sense of how the OP had lived their experience and to me it seemed very dreamlike. (Internet) text is bad for conveying experiences we haven't had and good for reinforcing (justifying?) experiences we have had so please forgive me for the questions. I feel like I need to justify the RV comment because I do consider that $millions (in other words, time and attention) ought to be spent on things that could have a direct benefit on people's lives closer to now than RV in the way it was intended to be used in that project (military intelligence). So I should have posted that on the RV thread but somehow I decided it was a better post on this one. My bad for that. I'd still like to get a sense of the astral travel so I'll hold;-) Thanks for reminding me of the value of shutting up and listening.

I'm wondering. What about people that suddenly dream very vividly and who didn't really dream that much before? Wouldn't it feel pretty otherworldly to them? Dualism is interesting wherever it pops ups IMO. Personally used to making up all kinds of stuff, every night;-) And we could argue, everyday, too;-) Stuff that I've read here that I found freakier than that are the CIA projects concerning remote viewing. Literally millions of $ spent on that. What other things could be done with millions of $ that could directly help people while the RV project was going on? More to the point, why was a RV project underway??

HPV as in "one of the viruses that may cause genital warts which may cause cervical cancer?" It seems to me that most effective treatments seem to involve both symptomatic and lifestyle (all of the things that entails) approaches. Dietary changes can be pretty radical. Floor to other TTB's with herbal skills? Hope your friend feels better soon!

Good one Stig. I tried it again (last time was a few months ago) Got: 1. Mahayana Buddhism (100%) 2. Neo-Pagan (99%) 3. Unitarian Universalism (98%) 4. New Age (90%) 5. Liberal Quakers (90%) 6. Theravada Buddhism (86%) 7. Taoism (84%) 8. Hinduism (74%) 9. Jainism (73%) 10. Scientology (71%) 11. Sikhism (70%) 12. Secular Humanism (68%) 13. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (67%) 14. New Thought (66%) 15. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (63%) 16. Reform Judaism (62%) 17. Orthodox Quaker (58%) 18. Baha'i Faith (55%) 19. Nontheist (41%) 20. Orthodox Judaism (40%) 21. Islam (38%) 22. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (31%) 23. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (30%) 24. Seventh Day Adventist (25%) 25. Eastern Orthodox (18%) 26. Roman Catholic (18%) 27. Jehovah's Witness (14%) Always fun;-) Very cultural.

The chicken/ego topic got me thinking (oh we don't want that;-)) What is this thing some of us have with trying to explain every thing (from the smallest to the biggest) that happens? Why do we do that? I have a couple of ideas: - To explain something is to control it (yes, even anxiety is a way of trying to control something) - To explain something is to fall in love with it I also have a question: - Since when did we start this explaining things - thing?

You know what I did? I posted the "Chicken -Ego" post BEFORE I read the whole Chicken - Egg post. It's actually much more interesting and fun than this one. So don't read or post any further! Go back to Chicken - Egg post!!

Good to question and also good to try stuff out. If you read my personal forum you might find some fun things happening. Not maybe enough to go WOW. Of course you could interpret that as my imagination/wishful thinking too if you want to ;-) I'm a n00b so take it as you will. I do find it pretty weird. Fun weird this time around though since I am not doing it totally alone (which is where I think I screwed up with the chi-kung last time and what brought me to TTB's because the folks here are so helpful to DIY'ers!) Also getting more sources of information could help. There is contemporary stuff on the neuroscience, cognitive psychology, ethnography, sports training, business and nutrition bookshelves that might help explain some stuff in terms that don't feel quite as mystical or that don't have mystical-sounding terms attached. Bear in mind though that these are still descriptions, not the things themselves. So what are the things themselves? There are lots of threads about that on TTB's;-) The bottom line I'm working with is that we people are complex systems, part of a complex system, not all of which (understatement;-)) is under our conscious control: but the bits that are - or can be with effort of awareness, broadening of experiences, study and intentional interactions with them are worth looking into developing. A systems approach rather than a one-dimensional approach makes the most sense to me in this context. Obviously you have to have some confidence that whoever you're working with on any personal development stuff is doing it to the best of their ability and in an ethical manner, but that's valid for any teacher/therapist/trainer/professional/banker/doctor/lawyer/farmer;-) I don't see the point in working with people I feel mistrust for or who I discover to be misrepresenting themselves and I would stop if ever that feeling came about. I think Santiago has a sort of a peer relationship with the folks that he's working with. He's young. He really does want people to get positive results - I don't think it fuels much if any arrogance his side (and it shouldn't much if he's developed his skills, maturity, awareness, feeling) although I get the impression he does get very eager for folks and happy when people feel things. He sometimes reminds me of the Cheshire cat;-) It's possible that some folks could be too eager in turn to please him - turning that into an expectation they want to meet. That happens in lots of situations.Is that what happened, unconsciously, in my case? It's still possible and I wouldn't know it if it had! Interesting also to look into! So what I actually felt like explaining to myself during the group meditation was resisting saying anything because I didn't want to go along with the rest of the folks "just because" and I wanted to make sure I really felt something before I could conclude. Result? Read my forum;-) Cheers, Kate

I read Trunk said: "For some it never really gets fun" and he (I think) was referring to meditation. I love everything everyone has said so far about it. I will add mine;-) For me, meditation is not really fun - hence my KAP incursions;-) which some will argue are still stricto senso meditation - ok, yes it is KAP friends;-) BUT I will add that it's ALL damn damn useful. You get inside yourself intentionally (hopefully you are NOT doing this for anyone else!) and once you are there, well, you find out all kinds of fun (and not so fun) things;-) So, is it worth doing? Having done some, I say yes! Otherwise, I don't know. For someone unsure about starting it I would say maybe no.

"The company that offers more for that string (word combination) gets it. In this way words that are irrelevant, hardly used, cost less." I just liked this one. "The Tao that cannot etc etc..." "In the beginning..." Nice one. Edited for punctuation.

The "e-book" "Stripping the Gurus" is a good read. AND probably a good idea to look at where the author is coming from as he wrote it. Bottom line is that it's rarely "all or nothing", "black or white" - except sometimes we have all decided it is... Anyway, if you are interested in protecting yourself and others as you go about "spiritual" pursuits then other texts about critical thinking skills are must reads IMO (a bunch of them are available online) I find critical thinking VERY hard but definitely worth the effort. Worth the effort!

I quote you Mal;-) "a person can never be too wet." Except that I am not - see I even avoided it in favour of everything else (you forget that I was working so long on earthy things;-) possibly to my detriment... Anyway, you could tell me which thing I could/should go for, given you kind of have a vocation. Don't protest;-). However, it seems you were also cheating! Why Mal?? When your person seems to me (my fault obviously) to be built upon watery wonderfulness;-) Oh go on;-) Tell ;-) Love, Kate

I thought I`d get back to you on the "Is this real?" question. It's a VERY good question and probably THE question that brings so many of us to TTB's and elsewhere. You can go very deep and wide with that question, and questions like it. You can also answer it very fast to your benefit. You can also answer it very fast to your deficit. I think that deciding which answers are appropriate in any given situation is the hardest part. But that's what I reckon most of this is all about - also requires a disclaimer that that's just me;-) With love! Kate