Yascra

Aye, shall I read some Sutra for you?

Tadaa.. And yes, it is as wet and cold as it looks like ...

Hm, maybe. The problem is that another state of not being able to "see" or recognize sediments tends to be a state of complete stirring, in which you have one more or less homogenous suspension in which you don't even notice the sand in the water. Every good teacher I met till now, concerning different fields, confirmend to me that the trial to explain things to others is the opportunity to deepen one's own understanding .. and to find out what in reality you haven't completely understood yet. So why not use this way to train oneself here? Of course just if people want to. We should help each other with such things. It's not a contest in the end, or, at least, shouldn't be ;-)

I'm really not aiming to be rude, but might you sum up the essence of what you're trying to say in your own words? If they are not your thoughts and words, how do you want to discuss things anyway?

*giveyouahug Might you just let go off your negative emotions. You're really not stupid. I like your strange thoughts

Hm, didn't get that completely, so.. his sex life is messed up, I assume, not hers? Well, my experience is, for what works, at least if it's not a really professional curse: Finding a girl who loves that guy and who's stronger than the first girl, BUT.. especially if she helps with it, one should take care not to treat her badly afterwards. Another easy option might be to develop sufficient loving-kindness to forgive the cursing girl and solve the negative aspects on one's own. If it should be a high level curse one will have to find s.one who's able to work on such a level and willing to help anyway.

Yah

No problem Thanks and same to you : - )

Excuse me, but what else are you saying in this sentence then: ?To me that suggests that a mahayana student should think ..., know ... and be clear about ..., doesn't it? Well, but if you aren't even aware of making religious-biased suggestions when you inherently suggest that persons who you regard to be mahayana students shall share this and that of your views, then what exactly do you mean by "awareness"?that is one of the points I was aiming at with my more "extreme" examples, by the way. While s.one runs amok he might feel more aware than he ever was - but that's due to the fact that what s/he perceives to be awareness IS NOT ultimate awareness. So, sorry, I think some of your words are not so bad, but if you have such great problems to applie this to a given example, I have reason to doubt that they are your own words. Which is also okay to some extend, but in this case there's nothing to discuss, as obviously s.one can't discuss a point that's not truly his or her own thought. Might you explain what you consider to be preliminaries? I'm not a mahayana student in any religious way, just for your information. I'm not completely done with my experiences of Tibetan buddhism, but to be honest I haven't found any religion which would really emphasize searching for truth. Real buddhism does advice the latter.. But real buddhism has nothing to do with religion, quite the opposite. Which is the case for most spiritual cores of the existing religions. If you want to sort me into some religion there's some interest in taoism or esoteric buddhism at the moment, but I'm still for sure closest to christianity. You don't change twenty years of cultural influence in two years. Greetz

In short: If holding a correct view about what complete, perfect enlightenment entails is such an easy task for mahayana students, as you seem to suggest, Tibet should be full of fully enlightened buddhas, which obviously is not the case, so my conclusion is that obviously the task of proper sowing or treating the correct path and holding the correct view is not that easy.

Actually I do think that assuming you know what full and perfect enlightenment entails as long as not being a fully awakened budda might in itself be an even greater hindrance to correct practice than most of the things that might come or not come due to that practice.

But, ehm, sorry, I think to some extent this quote is bullshit. A farmer will choose seeds according to what he wants the harvest to be, right? So, the choice to, for example, sow wheat, which you can eat, and not to sow weeds, is due to the thought of whether the harvest will be something that might be helpful, for himself and/or others. Ok, d'accord so far that you should not practice to particularly reach some of the mentioned potential results, I think we agree that they are the sort of being "useless". D'accord also if you mean to not think about results WHILE you're doing something, as this would be a kind of distraction. But as a general attitude, I think, you'll hardly find out that the work you invest in sowing weeds is a waste of time if you never look at what came out of your seeds. So here now you define enlightenment as a kind of peace, right? Which is exactly on of the aformentioned results you should not aim at, right? Alcoholics find peace in drinking alcohol, many persons find some kind of peace that passeth at least their "understanding" by having sex. How do you know it's enlightenment if you don't care about results; what, in the end, IS this enlightenment you're looking for? How do you know it is REAL enlightenment and not your false thoughts about what enlightenment might be? Is it okay to go running amok and kill dozens of people if you find peace in doing it? If, why, and if not, why not? I think actually many people who do this amok-running-stuff might feel very calm and clear while they are doing this. How do you find out, if, that this kind of deed is not "proper sowing" anyway? ... Get my point?

@Chang, please don't get me wrong about it, it's not that I'm too lazy to think about it, and I'm aware of the fact that I made up the mentioned scenario of "if, when, else...". I just think as long as one can't use own words to go deeper into how one holds this view we can't be sure we're talking about the same thing.

Haha! Oki, no problem

To be honest, it is one of the reasons why I don't.

Eeeh, not absolutely, actually. They would just claim that at the moment they'd observe it they could not absolutely KNOW about it

Your habits, maybe? At least in your example you would notice that something changed, while the things that really matter might remain more unaffected, depending on your condition. What would you say he suggests?

So depending on the circumstances there might not be absolutely absolute absolutes, which might change, as circumstances do, so if you absolutely logically follow this train of thought you might end up with (a) more absolutely absolute absolute(s), while rationally the FIRST thought might be that the general statement of no absolutes shouldn't include absolutely absolute absolutes, so would contradict either one or even two of your not absolute requirements, thereby proving the non-absolute character of the provided preconditions. ?

Are you sure about that? It's always easy to say that winning a million dollar won't change your life, for example. But when people suddenly do get such a lot of money they tend to be distracted anyway. So I'd say you're being extremely optimistic

Hi again I thought a little about that @OldChi. The point is that I never really was in the situation to have the "choice" to start practicing, or beginning slowly. I just bumped into some key experiences and afterwards couldn't go way back, but on the other hand felt overburdened with going on on my own. And I had to recognize that there was a LOT I'd still have to learn (which is still the case, lol). Finally I found at least some information to make some steps to get my unexperienced mind and thoughtstream in accordance with these experiences.. but it really took time and efforts. So, I'm on my way to harmonize these things with the "rest of me", but it really wasn't easy. An experienced teacher could have made it more easy, and that I found this way towards some kind of the right direction actually IS just due to some good books and some teachings about sutras, which make these "old" and sometimes really profound teachings accessible to me. Actually I still don't know what would be the best things to do for me, and still have to try everything myself, using the bit of information that's already somewhat structured and available to me. I have no time to waste, you know, and though I'm aware of the fact that I HAVE to make some of these experiences on my own to later be prepared, and to be really sure that in the end I'll be doing things right.. clear and complete advice and instructions are really the greatest gift your universe can give to you. Unfortunately on the one hand there actually ARE not that much teachers who can give these clear and COMPLETE instructions, and on the other hand you really need a VERY special karma to be privileged enough to receive those. I'm quite happy with what I finally found, also because it brought me to really studying some (mahayana) sutras, so don't get this part wrong. Anyway I'm just doing regular practice for about 1 1/2 years now, several ups and downs and trials of different "ways to do it" included (about 5 years of struggling without an idea what practice meant before this time), and though improving my emotions still tend to be quite unstable. So, when it's fine, I don't care so much.. but woe when there's another "cleansing" phase. .. ehm, do you get anything of what I'm talking about? Well, maybe I'll ask for a practice journal Peace!

Uhm, the teacher who told me this energy stuff, a teacher to teach you meditation or what for..? I could recommend some reading if you'd like to

Ouh, hmm ... I know that opinion that you should focus on one system, but I find this is a complicated issue. Where exactly would you say that "practicing a system" starts? With doing some particular practice of that system? When you do some particular mantra or prayer stuff for example, or receive empowerments? I started my life with a moral "setting" heavily influenced by Christianity, you know, as I suppose most Western people do, and as I even started my spiritual way with this system I'm still influenced by it. But .. I couldn't go on there from some point on, as I found teachings for higher cultivation are completely absent there. So what else can one do but look for something else? As a consequence, when I find something new, I tend to stop most of the other things for some months to concentrate on this and to some degree "test the effects". But if I find some technique useful, and as I lack personal guidance by someone with sufficient experiences, it's hard for me to stop it in the long run, especially if I find that other techniques don't fill the resulting gap. I think that's largely due to the fact that I've not made close contacts to a system I feel is "complete" in a way of giving me all I need, and acutally I'm just "on my way" for some few years now. But actually, you know .. if I don't even trust a system, how can I then say that I'll stop everything else forever to do only THIS? Or are you only talking about persons who have this personal guidance? Well, hm. I know a person who is stuck in her practice for almost a decade now because she's waiting for the person she considers her "teacher". She has health problems and is not the youngest person, but while I suppose that this teacher might not even regard her as a personal student, she is stuck on the thought that she has to be limited to this system, and to him as a person, although she might have (had) a large profit from other influences as well, and might even had good chances to improve her health. Not even to mention the time she is wasting while she is sitting there, getting older and older and coming closer to end her opportunity to practice with her human body and with the contacts to spirituality she has already made in this life. She might die in some years and then almost everything will be lost by a loss of memory, and she will have lost YEARS, just because of not allowing herself to be open for new influences. Is that not very, very sad? So, for me it is not that I would not care about it, and I actually am a sensitive person and sometimes feel tensions there, but it's a difficult topic for me, and I really don't know how to handle it. For sure, if you are practicing a complete system in which you have full trust, know accomplished masters, have maybe even personal guidance, support and all this, it's great. But how many "seekers" nowadays can claim something like that? I for my part am surely not practicing a "system". I'm just on a way and practice techniques when I find them helpful. It is not nice to find a balance between different things, especially if you don't know the whole truth, so your judgement about what is good and what is bad might still be completely wrong, right? You can't even be sure that your karmic connections will always lead you to the best, for not all connections you have might be auspicious. So how do you judge what's right and what is to be left out? Until I find a better way to measure it, I'd say I'll stick to my method to just try .. and look whether things are helpful or not, rather than ask about lineage. Of course that's not mastery of a "system". But I think I'd prefer persons who master their own mind, instead of being accomplished masters of particular systems. As far as I am aware of it, the rule is that you have to change the system anyway when you find something that's more effective (for you?) than what you have practiced till then, as everything else would be a waste of time. Well .. really not an easy topic. Best regards

That a statement about spiritual accomplishments is a statement about no spiritual accomplishments, maybe? Or, in other words, if this is your view, what might happen to your view if some of these things might come?

lol Congratulations for having found out yourself that sex weakens your energy. I think cutting off porn from your life is a great idea, the kind of sexuality you see there is unhealthy anyway, and therefore is a bad example. I'd try emptiness meditation