Lucky7Strikes

@ Xabir This is my last message on this thread. There's no need to bicker with you since hopefully enough people have seen your egotistical stubbornness and complete lack of the ability to formulate insights according to the topic or the person being engaged. You have no genuine interest in other people's insights or experiences as made clear by the sheer lack of questions or attitude of inquisitiveness on this board (even Vaj was a lot better than you). All you have is your own fixed language like (ironically) a fool who clings to names and ideas. You are a mere religious fanatic: the response that "oh other religions aren't true because they don't realize anatta" show how incurable you are like asking a devout Muslim whether he considers the veracity of other religions to which he says "oh other religions aren't true because they don't worship Allah." And don't give me that crap about seeing it yourself or understanding it directly. You were just as devout before you claim to have had these insights four years ago as you are now. So the worshipper dreamed of Allah, and now he suddenly has personal proof. As GIH once said very aptly, you are a mere voice hearer and a follower of dogma. It is unfortunate really that since the time you were only two years old you didn't know any other ways of understanding the world outside of Buddhism. All the pride and identity that you have as a person is wrapped around your faith and another man's insights, Thusness's. Your words are not your own and your pitiful wisdom is just a repetition of others, and hence you are inflexible with the usage of language. It's not that important what we are debating about here, the significance is really in the type of responses you are generating: repetitive, rigid, stubborn, and most of all unimaginative. It is my experience that with the growth of spiritual insight and awareness, one's creative capacity increases, as with imagination. For the last six or so years you could only use a handful of examples to explain yourself, the "weather" the red "flower" and the "wind" (actually, I think that's it really) that are all someone else's. This shows that you don't really own the insights they point to, but just regurgitate the example for the sake of the message. Any other examples you have shown are just plain shallow and backfire (like the "santa claus.") As I have mentioned to -K- above, the way you engage others in discussion is quiet disheartening. The tone of authority and the violent propagation of your views without really considering the other person's experience outside of your own paradigm is an unfortunate display of bigotry and haughtiness. How many times have you tried to sincerely learn from someone's experience on thetaobums? Probably none. Why? Because you think you are better than everyone and know what everyone is going through, and believe that your way is the only way to salvation. The most alarming thing is you do it under the disguise of wisdom. But that's only because you fool yourself more than anyone else. You give the same vibe as an evangelical Christian out to "save" everyone, no different and just as violent and unsympathetic: never truly for the sake of others but for the sake of Buddhism, and merit points. Again, don't give me that crap about "oh but I discovered it to be so." Four years ago for the entire time we had the lengthy discussion here on the taobums passionately for your views (for something like 40 pages), it was revealed later that you really had no direct insight into any of the stuff you debated for. You just argued on and on with dwai on mere belief, on mere theory pretending all the while that it was something you were certain about. And now you say it's not something one can understand through theory. So basically you are saying back then you were just debating on grounds of faith alone, pretending it was wisdom. That stubbornness is no different now. Oh, and I forgot, you are really here to gain merit by proselytizing so to speed up your own meditative progress. To me you are a great example of how eastern spiritual traditions are not exempt from becoming a mirror to the west's religious infatuation. The fact that people will see you as some wise practitioner is what I am concerned about, but hopefully people like Seth can make their own judgments after interacting with you for a while. It will take a while because the disguise you put on is good enough. You are going to merely waste a lot of people's time. At worst I think you are toxic and joykill because you no longer have an open mind, absolutely no sense of exploration, no creativity. Just sheer ego and dogma; violence shrouded in pretentious compassion.

Well he does. Xabir trolls around other spiritual websites to propagate his message. And since no one is willing to answer to all the pages of his quotes and his relentless repetition at the end of the day he just appears to have had the last word. Honestly, I hate doing this. I don't like debating someone who is as close minded as he is and whose entire spiritual vocabulary in entrenched in one dogmatic paradigm. It almost feels like having a debate with someone who speaks a foreign language. If you go on atheist or Christianity boards you'll see a similar thing. Just adamant insistence on their own beliefs. No discussion period. Xabir is as stubborn as anyone I know. He will never ever admit his own flaws in a discussion. In the four years I have observed him in any discussion boards and on the tao bums, even on the instances where he is clearly wrong or being self contradictory, he will just mute the point and move on to another one without mentioning anything about the error. He hates being wrong and he despises being vulnerable when he is called out. Once Thusness pointed to the carelessness of what he said on his own board on sgforums once, and you could tell Xabir just hated it and let it out on some other guy on the forum. And here he is also clearly flawed mostly in the usage of his language. But he won't have it. He won't alter anything just so that he will be right. All the while claiming to be enlightened. If you notice he doesn't cater his definitions and message around the other person he is having a discussion with. He will just shove his own dogma down the other's throat. That's just violent. Anything the other person says is almost irrelevant besides his own message. How many times has he addressed question and inquiry into what I have said throughout this twenty page thread? None. Zero. It's just me, me, my Buddhism, my points, my ideas, my words.

Uh...activities don't last an instant. Where in the world did you get that idea? Actually activities are mostly drawn out through time. But it doesn't have to be one particular activity, it can be a collection of activities which is what "weather" indicates. The formation of clouds, rain, the thunder, yada yada are all what we choose to call weather. It's not equated with all activities. Your line of reasoing are all really strangely extreme. There are activities we don't call "weather" like watching tv. Watching tv is not weather. I never said weather is separate from the whole phenomena we choose to call weather. But that weather, the activity of weather I should say so not to confuse your poor mind, is indeed real. It's not some illusion. I think a problem here is that your understanding of english terms are a bit off. What? I thought there were no constituents, no "entities." SO how are you going to break something down into separate constituents? Now you are just contradicting yourself. If the origin of the reflection comes from something that is deemed real, the reflection is also an extension of that which is real. Only considering the reflection as the reality is false, because then you are not seeing things in their totality, but only the partial reflection. So in the end, it's just saying everything is One, the noumenon and phenomenon are together of one source. As for that Alex Weith quote, if luminosity is the characteristic of phenomena and inseparable, and everything is phenomena, then luminosity is indeed the totality. There is nothing that is not luminous and it is in everything...so what difference does it make whether we understand it as universal awareness or not. Again, I'm not saying this is my position, but I'm just showing inconsistencies in what you say. It is true. There is nothing about the reflection that is false unless you think that it is not a reflection. The reflection stands as true as the original object but just of a different characteristic in that it is not as dense of a material but an impression left by the light. Pinning down doesn't mean reality. As I have said before, just because you don't pin down the collective phenomena of moon, doesn't make it disappear into the air. Nor is the appearance of the moon not there. As you have said, it is undeniable. If reality functions by appearances and activity then that is the nature of reality. Then the word "appearance" no longer serves its function because that is simply the reality itself with no other truth behind it. You are merely suggesting a different paradigm of reality and not proving that it is an illusion or that reality does not exist. Truly existent is a different definition then truly existent with a core. No where in our understanding of the definition of reality or our understanding based only on the idea of something's core or essence. That is just one part of it.

Woooow!!! Haha! You are a reeaaaalll ass aren't you? People with cancer learn to deal with their pain through different ways of justification and beliefs. And they might not believe in real life or karma either so those terms are just irrelevant. For all I care karma and past life memories can be just delusional plays of the mind. I'm pretty sure there are as many happy daoists and happy buddhists, because I've heard a lot about miserable Buddhists as well. Happiest people also tend to be atheists who live life as if it is the only chance and who view the passing of people and life's troubles as just mere natural occurrances. Anyway, some people enjoy their sufferings because it's the way they have chosen to live their lives. You are a different individual so happiness means something different for you. Or people find happiness through their own religion or their own spiritual practices like yoga or exercise. Or people just find a way to be happy without wanting things and without the help of Buddhism. It's a frightening thing for you to assume what's good for someone else you don't know much about. Buddhism does not have a monopoly on happiness. To think so is quiet distasteful. But I didn't realize we are talking about suffering. We are talking about the nature of reality. Suffering really doesn't concern myself, because I know I can find happiness without the help of Buddhist doctrine.

It does show the high probability that thoughts happen in the brain. Just as music happens with the CD being part of the whole phenomenon when you listen to it. Remember why I brought this into the discussion? It's to show you that thoughts are indeed locatable consistently, that it just doesn't pop out of no where spontaneously. Also you admitted brain waves and thoughts are linked and correlated. So why are they suddenly two different classes of phenomenon. The CD of course correlates with the phenomena of music, it's an intrinsic part of the production of that experience. The phenomenon of music is densely focused in the hearing and the interpretation of the soundwaves by the brain. The density of activity makes the idea of location viable. The CD, the ear, the hearing, the brain are all locations in how and where the music takes place. And, no, if location is relative that's just what it means. If it appears so, then it is so. What do you have any other way of measuring or understanding reality beyond what appears so? Our understanding of the world comes from appearances and our observation about these appearances. Come on, these are some elementary concepts. Well then that begs a new question doesn't it? Whether a conscious experience has a tangible property to it that can be captured and reproduced. But so far no one has been able to reproduce consciousness, so we have yet to understand anything about such element called a consciousness.

Uh, no, you are just labeling things wrong. Thathagata may not be a solid entity, but a verb. Like jumping. When you see someone jump you don't go, "look, there is jump," because the label refers to a series of actions. So a tathagata may point to an activity of being, which does not indicate his non-existence at all, just that it is not some solid thing, but a movement. No it just says weather is an activity. No other understandings of the Brahman state thus: The world is an illusion Brahman alone is real Brahman is the world Flee the many, Find the One Embrace the Many as the One. If the world has no individuality, of selves, but is a totality of movements, then the multitude is united into One sea of activities. Makes sense to me. I'm not saying I am a proponent of this view, but from what you are suggesting, there is no conflict. What did I say about posting things you don't understand. Don't be pretentious. Anyway, all that article says is that objects are densification of fields of space. It also doesn't mention that hadrongs, namely protons and neutrons are held together by an incredible force of energy, i.e. movement and interaction between geometrical points. So...it just reveals a different model of reality. No where is it indicative of reality being an illusion or a trick. Remember you yourself wrote above that appearnaces are undeniable. Well, if reality is the appearance themselves, the term "appearances" no longer has any valuable meaning to it. So reality is the appearance. True existents is not the definitions of what constitutes the idea of reality. Go back a few pages and trace our discussion on the understanding of reality vs. illusion.

Oh, I thought you were making all these claims about reality and how the world was. If you are speaking just about suffering, well, I'll be the first one to tell you that Buddhism is not the only way out of suffering. What a boastful things to say. There are plenty of happy people who are not Buddhist.

.............................. :wacko: ....ok... I'm speechless. What? Of course a Chrsitian doesn't realize anatta or emptiness!!! Anatta and emptiness are Buddhist terms, and Buddhist descriptors and understanding of reality. A Christian see the world in terms of the bible, or heaven and hell, in terms of God the spirit, and the son, Jesus pardoning orginal sin etc. It has an entirely different paradigm of reality than Buddhism. Same with Taoism and Hinduism. They are more similar to Buddhism but the teachings and methods can vary depending on the teacher and their interpretations of the world. You are completely and totally brainwashed. You can't think outside of the Buddhist box.

Whoever equated thoughts with the organ of the brain or the skull? I mentioned that to say that thinking takes place in the skull since you are always going on about "ohh thoughts just arise and disappear and have no location" non sense. Um, you are the one who suggested this "inapt" analogy. You can't see thoughts. That's a stupid expectation, like saying, "oh,you can't see wind" or "you can't see sound" so it must not be there. Visionary location is different from auditory and tactile location. This is like saying, "oh you can't smell square, so it must no be there." But particular phenomena have multiple facets of conscious experiences to them, like a piece of wooden block you can touch and see and smell. What are you talking about? Do you think I'm saying that the object of CD equates to the music itself? You are completely missing the point here and just being stupid. We are talking about location of phenomena not whether phenomena belongs to objects. Since the activity of the brain waves correlate strongly to the formulation of thoughts, and the brain is located in the skull, we can safely say that the whole phenomena called "thinking" takes place in the skull. And if one does trace the brain waves and finds a device that can translate that into audible sound that can be communicated to a third party, that does indeed mean you get to trace thoughts to brain waves that are in turn given a device to be expressed via sound. So when we are able to hear brain waves through our auditory functioning, that indeed means thoughts can be traced back to the location of the brain. Yes....um. So? Good god your little insights are pitiful. Go take a philosophy class or something because you really need to get your thinking straightened out. So what if location is relative? It doesn't make the entire realm of locations false. It only shows that specific sense of location is relative and hence depends on the one who is viewing it. It's merely relative and not illusory. In fact, since relativity is the reality, we can say it's very real according to how one views the location of a particular instance or object. Yeah. I was the one who said that. Good job. At least you got one thing through your head. No...but the sound that is perceived is located in the system of ear and the brain and the awareness of them. So in that instance in which the music is playing, the music has a location in which it is happening. Whatever. God is great. All worship Allah. And you also have no evidence of saying that thought is not matter, besides what Buddhism says about it. Scientific evidence has so far not shown that thought is in fact no matter, but in fact strongly suggest that it has a physical (not necessarily material) form to it. There is no proof whatsoever to show that consciousness is separate from the elements or of any physical properties. There certainly hasn't been anything observed called the element of consciousness. So all these statements are just conjectures and beliefs on your part and nothing more.

Yeah and what other spiritual disciplines have you studied thoroughly in your 21 years of being alive (besides your pseudo advaita study done under the premises that it was inferior to Buddhism all under Thusness)?

Mhmm. Yes... Ok... Whoa! Wait now. Just because there are no existent "things" it doesn't mean phenomena has no real existence. As I have suggested before it just points to a new perspective that phenomena work like the flow of water, or the steaming of gas, that it is in constant movement, a "sea of energy." Your analysis here is extreme and unsupported. No it just means your view of reality as "things" and nouns is problematic and inaccurate. Seems you haven't yet contemplated the difference between illusion and reality and what the terms gain there definitions from. No no entity weather means the label is not perfectly representative of the phenomena of weather. Doesn't make the weather itself an illusion. Don't push your conclusions without support. No Brahman just means a totality of all as One phenomena. I missed the part where you analyzed atoms, protons, quarks, and quantum strings to be nonexistent. ...you are again equating imputation with existence. Labels don't give phenomena their reality. "Matter" does not make elements real, nor do the names of the elements. Your attempts at insights are just sad.

Ok let's see. This just says a) names are provisional and ultimately false. and B ) that phenomena are not set entities. So how does the analysis that phenomena are just interacting interconnected activities, like clouds forming, rain raining, the winds blowing, say that the phenomena itself is an illusion? That it has no reality to it? This just says that the viewing of phenomena as separate entities and truly imputed nouns is false.

As I have observed, you are a Buddhist fanatic. A dogmatic Buddhist.

Uh...so you say brain waves are highly linked to thoughts...but thoughts aren't linked to the skull. Well, sorry to break it to you but brain waves happen...in the brain...which is in...your head. It's not like saying fire is located in the smoke at all! It means fire can be traced via smoke to a particular location. As for this very ludicrous claim: "You can locate fire by tracing the smoke, but you cannot locate thought by tracing brain waves. You only see more brain waves, not the thought." You are basically demanding that for something to be located it must be experienced first hand. So a fire can't be located because...you aren't being burnt by it? That's unreasonable don't you think? LIstening to music is an activity and not a thing. It is a happening, a verb. So it makes no sense for someone to go try to locate "music" in an object like a CD, but it also doesn't mean that listening to music has no local point. It happens via your ear and your brain, the cd, and the headphones, in a specific channel of causation producing that experience. It has a locality because the activity is condensed to a specific point and as you travel further away from it, the level of effect on the activity itself is loosened. For instance, a squirrel falling in China will have little to no measurable effect on someone listening to music in California. Similarly, it's not so wrong to say that thoughts are located in the brain because the activity is condensed in that region of the body. Surely you don't believe the hand is the focal point or the foot. As for your Namdrol quote, if consciousness is understood as a substance, and there are other substances relative to it, then it points to a relative location. There is no reason to deny the location of thoughts in the head.

Your rooster and sun example is not really an accurate comparison. From the article: "They were even able to reconstruct some of the words, turning the brain waves they saw back into sound on the basis of what the computer model suggested those waves meant." We can't reconstruct specific types of sunrises by making the rooster crow in one way then another. The fact that the particular brain waves could match up with different words show strong correlation since in thought no other part of the body changes as accordingly. Hence we can safely assume that the two are linked and the likelihood that the thoughts take place in the brain, just as sounds in your vocal chords is high. All observations of causations begin with correlation. And in the case of the relationship between the brain and language the correlation is very high. There are enough studies done on autism and language development to link the organ and the function together.

Now this has become a ridiculous discussion. This is just stupid. You are making extremely nonsensical points like "if it doesn't have a label, it doesn't exist." Great. So I guess my dog doesn't experience the world since he probably doesn't label things or his experiences. Or maybe to me this new food I ate at some restaurant should've just gone right into the air when I couldn't find a label for it. Or how about I have two labels for my tea pot. I call it a teapot then let me call it a round container. Oh now it must suddenly turn into two things since it has two imaginary conventional existences. Uh I can't or just forgot to label this burn I got on my finger from pouring soup because of the instant pain. Oh hey, it's still there. Ow! ...come on, man.

Uh, no. You reallllly need everything explained to you, huh...First, consistency is not something you establish. You don't wake up and establish that there is a moon above your head for it to be there. It is just there. You don't wake up and establish a "body" for you to begin walking on the floor. If you think otherwise, I ask you if there is no longer a moon outside the window since you've stop establishing it. Is it still there? Good. Then you are wrong. Second, consistency doesn't mean something is the exact same from day to day. It just means that there is some observable pattern to the behavior, a certain rule to the flow of things that you can observe from one day to another. The moon, even though it may deteriorate day to day has a observable pattern to the rate at which it deteriorates and the way it interacts in space according to gravitational forces. The moon is not going to suddenly defy gravitational law tomorrow and drop from the sky. In other words, the world isn't chaotic and completely random. It has a seeming consistency from day to day like your habits. Coupled that with the world being consequential, in that you are prone to be affected by it, the two categories become good measures in determining the level of reality of experiences and objects. The term "reality" is only to determine what is relatively more real in our experiences since we have experiences that are less real, like dreams and fantasies. Our idea of reality and illusion (I mentioned this awhile ago) is just a degree of measurement. And the reason why you can't just say "everything is an illusion" (remember now?) is like saying "everything is 70 degrees." (in case you don't understand, that would mean there is no such thing as measurement of temperature). The relativity collapses then and the words and ideas don't have meaning any more. This is just irrelevant. But what the Buddha should've also said was that the inconsistency of specific forms are consistent. No...just because reality can't be labeled completely, as in you can't completely and accurately describe with words and concepts what the taste of a cooke is like, it doesn't mean it's like a magic show. This is just idiotic. You are basically trying to justify the point that the world is an illusion by proving the separation of visual and linguistic symbols and the sensory experience. It only shows that the symbolic representations are incomplete and partial. It doesn't at all show the the visual, auditory, and tactile experiences are themselves unreal. What? Salt and Atom exist without you labeling it. A child can't label salt. But if you give him salt he will experience it. It has existence for him. By the way, as for the toni packer quote, it doesn't say the weather is an illusion or a magic. It basically just says there is no entity called weather. Uh...ok, it's a label for a collective set of phenomena. It doesn't say there is no such thing as weather. Again you are equating imputation for existence. That would mean that before one's capabilities in language and labels the world didn't exist. That's just ridiculous. Actually, anatta doesn't contradict universal entity of godhead. Not at all. If the god head is the totality, and you have no individual existence besides the universal totality, that can be labeled Brahman. It's just a matter of interpretation. You have only proven that labels are empty, not the phenomena itself. You have partially shown that maybe individual units of matter lacks no inherent existence, but not matter itself. Not at all.

Ah, so you are just going to ignore all the critical errors and just repeat yourself. Good good, I see. Like I said, muff your ears and scream out loud "I believe the spaghetti monster!!"

Different context? Right, the one in sgforums is just you replying to some video. And the context here is where you conveniently use similar evidence to support your points. It's not even a good example to your point that the world is an illusion. These supernatural abilities just show that physical laws are malleable and nothing more. It doesn't mean the world is without reality.

Oh god, you're hopeless. No, the point is not anatta or awakening or blah blah. The point is reality and understanding reality and finding wisdom and bliss through that effort. A truly open minded spiritual one at least. It's not, hey let's realize this Buddhist concept called anatta, then become this thing called a Buddha in this religion called Buddhism. Then you are just becoming indoctrinated to Buddhism. If anatta and the idea of awakening is in line with your sensibilities and insight, then good, it's there to help you and transform you. But it should always be reality first. If not, you become just another religious fanatic, a dogmatic follower who worships scripture over truth, doctrine over personal experience and insight. Of course you can travel that path for a while, but ultimately to stand on your own wisdom, one must break from the herd.

Yes you can. Just like you can locate fire by tracing the smoke. So scientists say according to brain wave imagery they can reproduce the thought structure of the individual. That's strong evidence linking brain waves to thoughts. The brain is located in your skull. Hence thoughts are in your skull. Easy as pie.

Nice find! Yea, so Xabir...why does that seem to you like some fake actor, and suddenly when you need examples to support your points other examples become legitimate? Anyway, you are doing tragically bad in this debate. It's pretty clear by now you don't really have any more insights or perspectives to offer. And can't really explain yourself logically either. All you've done now is just repeat your doctrine over and over and has been awhile since you've directly addressed any of my criticisms. Usually, in a debate if you are confident in your claims one tends to directly address the criticism. When you start losing ground, the participant just becomes repetitive. Kind of like just muffing your ears and blabbering. By now your only support is resorting to authority, quoting Namdrol and the Buddha. So you lose. As childish as that sounds this is what a debate becomes. And honestly I don't like doing it because I just observe how cruel it turns out. But this isn't a constructive discussion where we are trying to figure something out together. Nor is is sharing of insights. You have a very narrow concept of what is correct and what is incorrect and I'm just investing myself into revealing how hypocritical, illogical, and nonsensical the wisdom you promote across varying spiritual sites really is. If you look back on this thread you might find yourself just not answering to certain criticism beyond a point and shifting the discussion to a new topic. And every single instance it's been the same. You first try to answer, then find that you can't, then by the end you just begin quoting the Buddha. Your wisdom is very much a thin coated disguise.

No...don't go contorting definitions. Existence simply means something has reality. Not that something has an essential some entity to it. The flowing of water cannot be said to be a "thing." Because it is in action, a flow, there is no thing about it. Likewise when you swing your arm to throw a baseball, the throwing is not a thing, it is a motion. The vibrations of sound waves also cannot be said to be having an entity. It is also a movement. The rays of light cannot be said to be something either. It is just a particular vision of phenomena we choose to call light. But all these are real, because they have consistency and consequential quality to them. The analysis is laughable. There are no explanations, no inquisitiveness, but mere statements. Just claims. Tathagata is not here not here, blah blah, therefore he is no where. There's no explanation on what the qualifications for the existence of tathagata, or of locating a tathagata. The whole dialogue is just exclamations. Why not can the tathagata be in form, in perception, in feeling, in body? What are we exactly looking for when we ask the question, whether is is in it or not? Why is he not in all these experienced combined together? And you call this type of thinking analysis? Yeah, ok. So? So that says reality doesn't exist? This somehow concludes to: "reality is an illusion"? I see that now you are strictly quoting Namdrol. Why are so so unable to explain yourself, your own ideas and insights? But getting to the quote, Namdrol's arguments just say that the imputations are subjective and therefore carry no reality in themselves. "Salt" is just a label. "Atom" is just a label. Well ok. But how does this say that reality is an illusion? That there is no reality, no existents? Absolutely not. It just says phenomena works as a whole and dependently originates. This logic does not counter the physicalist view of the universe either or that the world works a giant system as a whole, which is actually more akin to Advaita, that the world is One.