Lucky7Strikes

Not anyone can become a daoist immortal and attain the shen body or ascend to attain unity with the Tao. Or come and go from the physical realm as they please. That's not like taking more whole foods pills so you can look a bit better in your wheel chair. I'm not saying this is true, but it's a type of enlightenment certain daoist schools purport. As for the quote below from the Shurangama sutra, I have no faith in it as much as I don't have much faith in the Christian bible. But it says what it says as a Buddhist text/school. Have you attained what the Shurangama sutra says you will attain if you follow its steps? Whether it's genuine or not depends on this measure. So I'm also not saying the Shurangama sutra wrong, but I'm not saying it's right either. That it's more like a hypothesis out there just like Christianity's model of heaven and hell. Your practice is based on Thusness' stages and more of the direct way of perception and is not even similar to the path of the Shurangama sutra. Shurangama sutra uses mantras and withdrawing of the senses as preparatory measures.

Enlightenment as a term is not some universal thing. It's like the word "goal." I mean that as in a soccer goal is not the same goal as your goal to get a hundred on a spelling test. The idea behind them is similar, but they are fundamentally different. So as someone said here, whether or not some school is genuine depends on whether it delivers the goods it promises. A sect of Buddhism says it will free the practitioner from suffering. Then that sect's enlightenment is to free the practitioner from the forms of suffering is says is suffering. A daoist sect says it will make you immortal. Then the enlightenment for that school is immortality. We are all wrongly assuming that there is this enlightenment with a capital E. That's an assumption. At the end of the day you take all the words away and see what's left. What abilities do you have? What do you know? Do you know what all this really is? Do you know you'll be aware if someone blows your brains out the next second? The fact that you even have something called "knowing" is puzzling. Being alive is puzzling. So you just have one big question mark at the end when you stop putting so much energy through your brain filters. Most of us will grow old and die and all the while just talking our of our asses about the best words to describe reality. Maybe at the end of the day you might just have tweaked your brain a little bit to make yourself feel better about experiencing the world. Then someone talks about transcending life and death cycle by seeing reality the correct way (here, another enlightenment), but you might need a book to back you up. How many of us truly have powers to escape mortality or traverse beyond the physical? Only a handful. Maybe none. We are all limited to flesh and bone for now. The body goes and no one's come back recently to say otherwise. So another "genuine" school might just tell you to forget all this and live like the trees do. It's very much like the Chuangtzu that asks questions then really the whole text becomes a question into the question until its realized that the problem just comes with the question. And each school asks different types of questions that become different problems to solve. Maybe there wasn't a problem to begin with, who knows? (All that suffering they say you are experiencing may not be suffering in the first place. Why does some ancient text judge my preferences for life?) Like who really knows anything here really? Why do people talk as if they are so sure of a, b, and c when really it's clear you are just another human being loaded with layers of beliefs you picked up here and there?

I don't think anyone is allowed to convey information about R.P. online.

I notice that when the body is opening up the channels and building up enough energy it begins to overpower the mind's ego habit and if one does not let go or give into the bliss-love that is the natural progression and offer it outwardly (or worse engender proud thoughts or attempt to use it for selfish purposes) these tendencies backfire into yourself as energies of fear, guilt, anger, uncertainty and such many more times than usual. One cannot have inner contradictions or progress any further along with any self oriented mindset. The Bodhicitta vow, offering to the Gods, becoming one with Tao/nature, all point to the same necessary stepping stone it seems. Blessings to you all!

Very awesome. Thank you!

Uhhh, I kind of disagree That article kind of twists the theravada distinction of a Buddha and the arhat. The only difference the Buddha says to delineate between himself and the rest of the awakened disciples is precisely that they are disciples who learned via his teachings, and he alone was the self awakened one. It's not that the BUddha declared himself the only "universal" teacher. There are disciples acting as teachers throughout the pali canon. The distinction between shravaka and bodhisattva in the article is also a bit misleading. Shravaka just means disciple. Bodhisattva in the pali canon just points to someone who is working towards liberation, or becoming an arhat. So they are talking about two different aspects of a practitioner. As the article concludes, the Buddha is an arhat. Arhat means one who has attained total liberation and will attain parinirvana upon his death. He has no fetters. His mindstream ceases. So there is no higher attainment since once the arhat dies, according to the hinayana, he is done. The debate between arhats and higher awakening is mostly from the Mahayana and Vajrayana perspectives. It makes no sense for someone who becomes a monk and decides to devote his entire life to monastic practices to go, "oh hey, that seems too hard, I'm going to dedicate myself to the lower attainments." The final attainment of cessation is equal, so the difference isn't important.

And have you seen the Buddhas directly helping out sentient being in all directions in this multi universe or did you read that in a book? If latter, then that is conceptual belief. Bodhicitta means, as you say, the vow to attain enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. For the sake of all sentient beings. That is compassion. Metta is a form of compassion extending to all beings. Ok? Metta is also included as one of the ten paramitas in the pali canon. Insulting? Don't be so dramatic. You are now insulting the basic compassion of the basic awareness of sentient beings. This oh so inferior compassion gives rise to religion and practitioners. Religion and practitioners don't make compassion out of thin air. You display a lot of, how do you say, justified attitude. That is an exercise in power and not wisdom.

An arhat in the theravada tradition has already reached the highest attainment. So to an arhat, he is already enlightened. Your point above is only from the standpoint of mahayana.

Great way to engage someone in a discussion. What point does this type of sentence really serve? What's behind its manifestation?

You should read Seth's post beforehand to get a better context.

Osho is a bit different. At a certain point in his life he stopped caring for anything. Everyone who has an account of Osho says he was a very different teacher in his early days compared to his latter "wealthy" days. But really, he just stayed in his room and barely left. He was also very sick. He just did talks here and there and was paraded around by his organization that became increasingly corrupt by all the money it was bringing in through the books, retreats, merchandise, etc. A lot of the controversies we hear about him have not been something he had directly decided to do. It's a bit more complicated than, "Osho wanted money and women so manipulated everyone." He is probably one of the most enigmatic teachers in this century. If you read his works or listen to him speak and have any deep experiences with spirituality, it's easy to recognize that this man is not some intellectual fraud or a cultist. His language is more alive on paper than any you can come across. You can't fake that voice for thousands of pages in some planned out and formulated scheme.

Um, you're the enlightened one. Whatever, I just chimed in here to agree with Aaron, SB, and a few others.

This won't go over the next page. I promise.

I guess the word "buzzkill" doesn't translate too well into your culture. It's not depressing in the sense of sadness, but in the sense of...annoyance combined with weariness. Why don't you go ponder about why you arouse such sentiments in other people. Don't you think that's pretty important? I mean the very fact that you are only now understanding the point of this thread, which isn't about "right view" at all, shows how blinded you are when it comes to understanding people. And isn't that a major aspect of spirituality? Building up an understanding of the human being?

No, christ you REALLY don't get it. It's not what you talk about. It's the way you go about them.

In case you haven't noticed, this thread is basically about how much of a buzzkill you are for 6 pages. And really depressing isn't the right word. It's like when you decide to watch a movie, there is always that kid who won't shut up about how unrealistic all these action scenes are because physicals laws a, b, c. Blah blah. Your little ego (I know, I know you don't have one but you sure act like someone who has a very strong one) just can't stand it when something unagreeable crosses your eye.

@ Xabir Way to prove the very point of this thread you knucklehead. You are the biggest buzzkill. Just suck all the joy and life out of spirituality and wear people out with your prideful need for righteousness. Just reading anything you write is depressing and like seeing you just choke the life out of a puppy yelling, "no dog! it's anatta not woof woof!" Just repetitive, unoriginal, lifeless, doctrine spouting, obsessively attached, small minded...you have no "life" the way you interact on the forums here..no sense of communication or creativity (do you even know what that means? Or have pondered anything besides anatta, emptiness, buddha this buddha that?) It's like encountering a living textbook. I mean sure it's good for learning, but... who wants to become a...textbook?

Great thread. Standing practices go much deeper than it seems.

It's always unpleasant when someone is trying to shove things down your throat instead of showing you a delicious meal to choose from.

Informer said realization of metta, not experience of metta. If you are taking the Bodhicitta vow for the sake of becoming a Buddha, then that is not a true Bodhicitta vow. It's a backwards Bodhicitta. You become Buddha as a result of taking the Bodhicitta vow. Also an arhat takes vows to become an arhat, which to the arhat is what the Buddha was (although the Buddha says something that separates him from all the arhats he teaches in the pali canon). So to the arhat he is vowing to become a Buddha. It's not like the arhat says to himself, "hey, I'm going to just become an arhat and not a Buddha, because, you know, I want to kind of cease for a while before the Buddha pulls me out so I can become a Bodhisattva."

Oh god, the irony!

Very nice! Thank you.