Lucky7Strikes

Pretty self explanatory. Did the chicken come first... OR the egg? Edit: This is an incredibly important question. Actually, I think everything comes down to this question.

Well, back then I was trying to really understand and re-understand the varying frameworks of Buddhism, Hinduism, Anatta, Emptiness, etc. etc. And then see if my experiences and practices were in line with them or observe how they were changed when these teachings were implemented. Since, there have been multiple bodily and mind experiences I went through that really truly showed me that these understandings, as cliched as it sounds, are absolutely just pointers to let you discard absolutist frameworks and find more direct experiences and to go from there, and not have an established framework from which you build experiences from. Looking back I felt like I was trying to make out the truth or whatever with such limited perceptive abilities. If you are colorblind and you want to understand color, the best way is to find a way to unblind yourself not conclude that there is no such thing as color or make final statements about colors from your limited vision alone (this isn't a literal example). I still like the Buddhist teachings because it doesn't let you settle, it doesn't allow you to be glued to constructs or experiences. Just when you think you've "got it" you realize you've fallen into another of mind's entanglements. But really, I'm at a stage where I'm very uncertain about many things. I think life is very mysterious. I have a hard time today telling myself I can prove some position I take. One thing that has improved is I can see why a person does so and on what basis he declares his beliefs, because I can remember myself falling in similar steps before and easily empathize. There's really no benefit to declare absolutist positions based on scripture, but being very honest about what you know and what you don't know, what you are capable and not is very important. I feel that so many of us easily fool ourselves due to our affiliations to ideologies. In a way I really respect the way some members on this forum go about it. It's a very personal journey and you really have yourself to trust.

It's incorrect imo to see the self as merely 5 aggregates. The 5 aggregates is a mere categorization of experiences we label the self. It's there to deconstruct the idea of an entity. They are just as unestablished as the "self." I...COULDN"T..HELP IT...

It's clear that your motivation is for hedonistic pleasures of experience. Bliss is not the goal one should strive for, it is just one of its effects when one becomes clearer in wisdom and awareness. You strive to liberation not to attain greater bliss but to understand and liberate from suffering and to understand one's existence. In other words, I think you are asking the wrong questions and they reveal more about your own attachments and inner conflicts.

Yeah, that was really the part I felt I could understand this man. I don't think he is a consciously manipulative or a self-gloriyfing guru, but moreso someone despite all the learnings of non-attachment, celibacy and what not, still has a great yearning for what we perceive to be basic human wants, i.e. companionship, intimacy, and... clubbing. And tries really hard to compromise his inner wants and constructed identity as a Geshe.

...so when his "partner" left him, he dressed in an Armani suit to go clubbing...it's like watching a satire.. http://www.nypost.com/pagesixmag/issues/201002 /Monk+y+Business+Controversial+NYC+guru+Michael+Roach He's been celibate since he was 22, but according to him celibacy is just semen retention: ""We are not allowed to have sex, but in yoga there are practices that involve joining with a partner,'' he explains. "They are secret, and you are not allowed to disclose them. You might think of them as sex, but their purpose is to move inner energy. It takes very strict training. There would be penetration, but no release of semen." ...meh. Why not just disrobe and teach his own message? I guess it's really the title of Geshe he leans on. But I'm not sure the article does Michael Roach justice, I think he is a very interesting case study how someone decides to practice austerities for more than a decade under acclaimed tutelage, become rightfully certified by the teachers, but end up still bound to, as he put it, "high school drama." This is a better article about John Friend I came upon a few months back which really goes to show that these teachers don't fully know what they are doing when teaching, they are very much uncertain of their paths themselves. http://nymag.com/news/features/john-friend-yoga-2012-4/

IMO, what you are saying is completely baseless. Have you met a world leader and saw that he was some demonic force? If so how was the experience? Have you met a Buddha or an angel? There is poverty and suffering in this world because of people's greed and ignorance of what is true happiness we all strive for. Not because of some devil's control. It's the same darkness within you that is the cause of misery for yourself and people around you. Blaming this on some supernatural forces, and in turn just waiting for some savior, is irresponsible and quite against the Buddha's famous last words to work for your own salvation. Forget some enlightened government official. Go become enlightened yourself then join the government and help out humanity. So in reply to op, I'd say that free will is always good. It is what distinguishes you from a dead thing or a robot. Life and free will go hand in hand.

There are conditions that bind you beyond your mere decision to "let go." Letting go is a practice and shouldn't be mistaken for a state to rest in. You have layers of conditioning including the physical body itself that are at the mercy of death and old age. Merely "flowing" with the winds will get you somewhere but it will leave the practitioner often complacent, or their practice of surrender will become compromised. They will accept life merely for what it is without pondering into deeper layers of their identities. It is very difficult to let go and let that force unbind you deeper conditions. People of these traditions don't just sit in caves all day for nothing. They are unbinding each karmic root within them. They say "do nothing and rest in the natural states." But this is difficult. If you think it's easy you haven't faced your attachments to phenomena fully for what they are. All is music and dance...ok, it's all good until your personal demons and fears are encountered. Suddenly you don't "let go" but cower in safety of habits believing it is a let go. Or maybe a sudden tragedy strikes. Or you are at your death bed not knowing who you are or what will greet you beyond the body. At that point you just have faith and accept your conditions for what it is. Spirituality is escapism. No doubt about it. It's escaping from your own ignorance and the pain of cyclical existence and life and death. People who look down on this are merely speaking from their own attachments to this society.

There are conditions that bind you beyond your mere decision to "let go." Letting go is a practice and shouldn't be mistaken for a state to rest in. You have layers of conditioning including the physical body itself that are at the mercy of death and old age. Merely "flowing" with the winds will get you somewhere but it will leave the practitioner often complacent, or their practice of surrender will become compromised. They will accept life merely for what it is without pondering into deeper layers of their identities. It is very difficult to let go and let that force unbind you deeper conditions. People of these traditions don't just sit in caves all day for nothing. They are unbinding each karmic root within them. They say "do nothing and rest in the natural states." But this is difficult. If you think it's easy you haven't faced your attachments to phenomena fully for what they are. All is music and dance...ok, it's all good until your personal demons and fears are encountered. Suddenly you don't "let go" but cower in safety of habits believing it is a let go. Or maybe a sudden tragedy strikes. Or you are at your death bed not knowing who you are or what will greet you beyond the body. At that point you just have faith and accept your conditions for what it is. Spirituality is escapism. No doubt about it. It's escaping from your own ignorance and the pain of cyclical existence and life and death. People who look down on this are merely speaking from their own attachments to this society.

There are conditions that bind you beyond your mere decision to "let go." Letting go is a practice and shouldn't be mistaken for a state to rest in. You have layers of conditioning including the physical body itself that are at the mercy of death and old age. Merely "flowing" with the winds will get you somewhere but it will leave the practitioner often complacent, or their practice of surrender will become compromised. They will accept life merely for what it is without pondering into deeper layers of their identities. It is very difficult to let go and let that force unbind you deeper conditions. People of these traditions don't just sit in caves all day for nothing. They are unbinding each karmic root within them. They say "do nothing and rest in the natural states." But this is difficult. If you think it's easy you haven't faced your attachments to phenomena fully for what they are. All is music and dance...ok, it's all good until your personal demons and fears are encountered. Suddenly you don't "let go" but cower in safety of habits believing it is a let go. Or maybe a sudden tragedy strikes. Or you are at your death bed not knowing who you are or what will greet you beyond the body. At that point you just have faith and accept your conditions for what it is. Spirituality is escapism. No doubt about it. It's escaping from your own ignorance and the pain of cyclical existence and life and death. People who look down on this are merely speaking from their own attachments to this society.

Osho's central message is no technique and non-action. IMO, techniques and rituals are there to mirror to you aspects of yourself you are unwilling to even admit or look at. They are there to create aspirations so that you may eventually drop them, and as a consequence drop all aspirations altogether. Techniques are just catalysts.

If you feel loneliness, it isn't because you have no one to communicate with, but it's because you are constantly holding onto and reflecting back to yourself and ego. If you are bored, it's because you are attached to the securities you have built around yourself. If you are struggling with lust, go find ways to transmute that energy into something creative or there are plenty of energy practices. Your desire is basically chained to the object of human form, so let is disperse into other areas as well. Let go of yourself and let life enter you, and life is pretty goddamn scary without you there, but it is also very exciting if you don't know the next moment of arising. Good luck.

http://www.jiddu-krishnamurti.net/en/1964/1964-02-19-jiddu-krishnamurti-4th-public-talk

We all want different things out of life. So people want different outcomes in their spiritual journey. My current goal is pretty straight forward. It's to transcend old age and death whether that is via energetically, through awareness, physical alchemy, or other means so that I don't become entrapped by the oncoming physical conditions without any idea of where I'm headed or no sense of freedom when everything begins to deteriorate.

Everything below this paragraph is babble. Who cares about Absolute Bodhicitta. That's just a term and an idea you have. Throw that away and let's have a discussion of what you wrote here, because it's more direct than anything you've written so far. What will never leave you? How did you come upon a direct experiencing of "this" that will never leave you and from which you can never leave? More importantly, what demarcates "this" and "you"? Have you been conscious and freely capable of existing outside of the functions of the physical body? If not you don't actually know that if you were to be physically damaged severely, that you can be "clear enough from delusion." Why? Well because you haven't had precedent of existing with clarity outside the body. Are you conscious 24/7, as in through sleep and deep sleep states? If not, it also shows you don't have mastery over the necessities of the body and you "clarity" is affected daily when you doze off.

IMO, We can babble all we want, but we are all just getting old and weak and dying as this body rots. If any of you truly know a way to go beyond this, not by scripture, but by knowledge of life beyond the physical and the power to conquer old age and death, then maybe these discussion can be fruitful. But as always, it's just dogma talk and pointless use of energy. Vmarco, if you've meditated so long and attained whatever you say to have attained, have you surpassed the bindings of the body, and physical deterioration? Or if you get hit by a car tomorrow, are you as clueless as the hedonist next door? What good is any realization if you cannot put it to use to go beyond the cycle of life to death? It's just idle intellectual hubris otherwise. Or at best, faith in scriptures. So this meditation vs. non-meditation talk is silly for most of us. We must meditate, contemplate, inquire, practice, cultivate our entire being into investigating this condition of human life and find a way beyond the material limitations presented to us. Idly sitting around pretending to be a sage, "not needing anything" or "having already attained everything" until you hit the wall of ignorance at your death bed is, I believe, a serious case of misunderstanding the higher teachings.

Cool. A reply just enough to insinuate but not reveal. . What really is this intense, annoying, frustrating cultivation? Is it, as you put it, to find out one's own "nature," one's own self appointed destiny? I put the part in bold where I find it fascinating that we have intentions that are set in stone in this lifetime, that it is that rigid...how do I gather enough insight to see the depths of my desires? I find it curious the way you put it: "once in the heaven of your according with you may either get lazy and just enjoy it or further cultivation." So enjoying heaven is not cultivation, but moving beyond it is? Is cultivation like moving to a new house so you pack your bags and go out the front door to a new state? What is the nature of something? Is it a vibrational state? It's habitual tendencies? If so is human nature and Earth's nature limited to their identities? Haha! More questions! I like your abstract answers the show more than they tell.

I was abruptly awakened today how powerless and vulnerable we are to the conditions of the world we inhibit. The physical and social laws we are bound by don't seem so bad in times of comfort or when everything seems to line themselves in the right direction. But the realization hit me deeply that these conditions we cherish are very much at the mercy of the world's whim when we attach our identities to the body. Basically, I got that taste again of why I had set out on the path in the first place. I feel I've been too content and too engrossed in the bliss from practice and the basic happiness I had thought I had attained from it. I want to transcend my own limitations as a living being, to create, not be the one being created, to be the creator of my world. To break through the physical barrier that bounds me everyday to the necessities of the body. Just sharing a resolution. .

But if one has dropped the thoughts and habits of a self, what is "needed" to come? Also if the Big Nature is indeed not separate from us at all what does it mean to be "being in accordance/going with the flow" when everything is already inseparable?

Is there a line that separates one from this "nature"? I believe most spiritual wisdoms will say no, that there is no distinction. As a long time practitioner, what is your view and experience regarding the self and its boundaries with the supposed external world?

I guess the intentions on the surface are all choices, since they are bound by the conditions from which you choose from. You can't simply choose to fly the next moment, or become a millionaire, or grow another pair of arms. But at its depth, what you are saying is more keen to creativity, since you are saying at depths there really is an unlimited variety of choices. In such a case you are not choosing, but creating the next whatever conditions you choose. But even that, creativity seems limited too by the conditions that give rise to the next moment. For instance, you may be aware that you have this limitless potential breaming within you, yet will not be able to imagine a new color, or create complex music, because they are learned responses and extensions of previous knowledge. So the apparent experience of choice, is its own proof of existence. I see, I can accept that. I have had those dreams but they were never entirely separate from the inner habits and conditions from the waking states. I wake up to realize that certain elements in the dreams, no matter how strange it was while I was dreaming, actually are inspired by thoughts or experiences I had the previous day. I have never been lucid enough to remember within the dream that the contents are related to my day's activities. But yes, I have had dreams where I am convinced that the life I have within it is real, that I am a different character. Again, you are really talking about our abilities to imagine. Maybe the fact that we can imagine is itself a good evidence against this idea that we are merely the outpouring of conditions. You "own" them? I think that's extreme. You can't readily change your environment so easily as if you owned them or go from one environment to the next when they are completely different. There's always a relationship from one condition to the the next. You can become more knowledgeable of your environment and navigate within it with more ease and options, but I think it's up to question whether you are changing your conditions actively, or becoming more knowledgeable of your conditions. This bring up the distinction of the internal and the external. Furthermore, if we are to say there are individuals with intentions, and their own perceptions and contexts, the consequence is that there in fact is the divide between the internal being and the external world/other people. Since there is this divide, intentions must be compromised and are not whole, i.e. individual intentions will clash (as is apparent in many daily cases). The relationship between you and other people is imo what a condition is. And you can't own the conditions involving these other intentions, but rather have to adjust yourself accordingly. And adjusting is not owning. Forget holding the stars in alignment but just making someone in front of you do something or understanding something you are trying to communicate is itself a challenge to one's intent. If an intention is truly spontaneous and free to choose from options, then it isn't conditioned by the intentions beforehand. There must be some complete blank state from which the choice is made, which is, as you say, illogical. In fact, that intentions must arise from a cause is what I am trying to say. But when intentions come from a cause, it is conditioned by the multitudes of causes beforehand and so on. This is how we have continuing preferences, have goals, the urge to do something. We must live by some sort of pattern/habit if intentions comes from causes. I'm not sure the examination of your experience of writing necessarily shows that intentions are free. If indeed there is no such thing as free will, and you are simply the conditions being acted out, whether one feels there is pressure to do something or not is irrelevant because that in itself is the arising element. But, as you say, if you are honest about the apparent experience, you are right that it always seems like there are alternatives to choose from. Logically, there really isn't a problem with the earlier statement that we are simply the causes and conditions playing itself out. But experientially, at least those who haven't completely bought in and transformed the style of life to the previous belief, it is not easily acceptable. It feels contrary to our daily interactions where we have choices. That's really interesting. The mind as a mix of being and knowledge. This reminds me of the duality of heart-mind, how the intentions reside or is symbolized by the heart center and the knowledge/wisdom by the upper dan tien in energy practices. But intentions rely more than the contextual knowledge of things, it is heavily engrossed in habit...and knowledge/context doesn't necessarily drive intentions either...hmm..actually I'm not so sure at this point. There seems to be a direct relationship between context/knowledge, intentions, and experience/manifestation. Anyways, this is all I have for now, I'll try to contemplate a bit more on the trio.

@ GIH If intent is something of a flow, a constant presence, then it also doesn't arise spontaneously. As you often put it, it is always contextual; you can't imagine an act without it having some sort of past basis on some other similar act. It is a product of one's condition. Then there is the question of whose intent it really is from moment to moment. If you say it is "my" intent, you are neglecting the conditioned aspect of the act happening in a seamless flow. Something that is truly "my" intent would signify that the intent is something produced from an intent-less state rather than a continuous action , which you are saying is never the case. It seems that the consequence of understanding intent this way shows that the agent, namely "I," and the intent of the agent is inseparable. You are your intentions, not in that poetic "your actions define who you are," but a very literal way: you are the action.

...ok...so...you have no basis for claiming that Max is a fraud or illegitimate. What you typed above is a very different opinion than calling someone a fraud.

..... I am asking you a perfectly reasonable question. You haven't discussed at all what exactly your friend did to test Max. Isn't that reasonable to ask since his conclusion was that Max is a fraud? Did Max agree to perform a demo on him at all? What exactly was the interaction that prompted your friend, and consequently you, to this conclusion? To be honest I don't think you have a clue about your friend's interaction with Max.