old3bob

so can light be seen as matter, for me yes. (just a much finer form)

just making it clear that that is not the end of the story...

Hinduism also has Brahman beyond all categories, including the three mentioned. (or the Self, for instance per the Upanishads),

so profoundly simple that mind can not find or comprehend it

i also hate to break it to some, this is not the Buddhist forum nor a revealed Taoist saying for those that don't understand it.

an enlightened being has no place for the "rhinoceros" horn of death, for then it death that dies. Again for the doubters, it is death that dies and not the life of life, although any form of life joined at the hip with death does pass...the rhinoceros is mentioned in the (Tao Teh Ching)

The definition of suffering (dukkha, anguish, ill): from Mark: “Birth is anguish, old age and decay, sickness, death, sorrow, grief, woe, lamentation, and despair are anguish. Not to get what one desires is anguish. In short, the five groups based on grasping are anguish.” And of course all of those morbid ponderings are offset by their opposites like youth, health, life, happiness, joy, celebration, life force giving freedom and compassion.

I'd also say don't confuse incarnations with suffering since our human karma's must be worked out, like it or not. I've also heard that our subtle bodies energies alone are not enough to reach enlightenment, being that all their energy combined with the energy from the physical body needs to be firing together. (thus implying that an incarnation in a subtle body will only reach to a subtle realm but not Self Realization)

learn the hard way if you must but I did warn you...

If the historic Buddha had never been born in many incarnations (as he somewhat recounted) then he never would have reached "beyond the beyond" and "wonder of wonders" !

there are definitely some evil and malicious beings in the lower astral and you don't want to mess with them! Do they have a dark lord or something similar, yes; as for related names - don't mess with them. Btw the hells and any beings there are not eternally there except in some interpretation's of Abrahamic religions, since for such to go on eternally they would have to have their own separate root which does not exist.

well one point is that the diversity you spoke of in Buddhism several posts back had already been around for thousands of years before Buddhism came along and then more or incorporated some of it...(in various ways) just as most all human founded religions do.

western scholars aside written and oral histories of local peoples from thousands of years already had teachings and beliefs in some of the beings you've mentioned long before Buddhism came about...

a historian with an opinion? Anyway I'd say a fixation on escape or escapism will not lead to fulfilling all karma's which then leads to freedom.

"The Buddhist world is far stranger and multi-dimensional (for want of a better word) than is usually supposed. For instance it contains all kinds of unembodied beings, ghosts, yakshas, betali, dakinis, gods and demi-gods - all with their own intents and purposes". from Apech Were not most of the beings mentioned above already around for thousands (maybe tens of thousands) of years before Buddhism ever came about? Namely in native type related teachings which Buddhism more or less tried to incorporate for the local and native peoples to relate to or feel comfortable about.

isn't that verse saying "there is" or something IS, although not something made of aggreates...so a notion about no IS or no lasting IS could be said to be false per the quote from the historic Buddha; btw in Hinduism the "Self" is "beyond categories" and thus also not made of aggregates and is not denied as it seems to me most Buddhists are convolutedly fixated upon doing !?

Then again Maddie the historic Buddha is said to have stated the quote below for any that have not come across it yet (?): (and which imo has a great deal of import about "Self" if one reads it straight up without a lot of, oh but that means this and not that and so forth ...) “There is, Oh Monks, a not-born, a not-become, a not-made, a not-compounded. Monks, if that unborn, not-become, not-made, not-compounded were not, there would be no escape from this here that is born, become, made and compounded.” Udāna 8.3 — Buddha

that favorite Buddhist saying (which is at least misleading to me) about no abiding self could be made a lot better ime if it said no separate and abiding particular self since the True Self is both within and without of all form, for there would be no forms without It.

emotion's and thoughts are forms of energy, with knowing the energy being the point and not getting stuck in the passing forms it may take although they act to convey it across realms. "Samsara properly understood is nirvana", or something like that sounds like a great saying and truth... but then again the teachings related to Hinduisms Lord Nataraja are much clearer and to me.

"Who sees all beings in his own self, and his own self in all beings, loses all fear". Isa Upanishad, Hindu Scripture This is the power of the Self which is not owned by any particular being and which is greater than any particular being...

that sounds a lot like new age thinking that melts everything into a big comfortable pot...thus interprets things how it wants to regardless of various religious scriptures and many teachers that do not do the same. I don't care if a Christian Church (or other ways) are new age like as long as they advertise themselves as being so --- since they can not really have it both ways. So either use the Bible as it is or toss its black and white differences and then substitute their own and different written and spoken teachings. So no, Jesus or the Buddha are not an incarnations of Vishnu or whatever new agers may come up with that can easily result in offending multiple religious' schools. (and its people in the earth realm, although if one goes to the absolute realm such differences disappear even though that should not be forced on anyone as new agers tend to do)

the greatest power is not owned by or "lorded over" by any true master nor can it be, for it is to directly help reveal your true Spirit Self to your human self beyond any doubt, (and stand on your own two feet) all other powers of the mind pale and also come and go in comparison.

is the problem that the true masters seldom reveal themselves or that certain seekers are often blind to them? Well the thing is a great master could be in a grocery store line right next to us and unless we had a certain or dharmic need and some degree of 6th like sense to see them as more than just a regular Joe or Josephine in appearance while at the same time they see where we are at in consciousness and thus act as spirit moves them, which means they may remain invisible to us or through compassion reveal themselves past our blindness. They are awake while most of us as mankind are walking around in our dreams at various levels that we take for ultimate reality. Anyway, yes they exist but proving that via some kind of egotistic demonstration is way off and counter to whatever spiritual mission a true master has.

there is mention of pagan and or idol worshippers in the Bible, so indirectly many native and far eastern religions were hardly or basically unknown to most of the earlier middle eastern Jews and Christians and if they were known would not be valid or worse per the fanaticism, ignorance, self-serving and co-opting manipulation of power that was and still is in effect via parts of the Old and New testament! So one might wonder if the "esoteric" or "mystic" Jesus will ever have the Bible rewritten for us humans at the "mundane" level or will we have to muddle through somehow along with thousands of more years of fundamentalist religious violence and destruction going on in the world. (when it now looks like much of mankind will be fortunate to exist here in another 10-25-50 or 75 years as the dominate species on a planet that is being environmentally, psychologically and astrally overwhelmed!)