Seth Ananda

I too withdraw from this bout. I have just reread through hundreds of Vmarco's posts, and without reading the conversations around them that contain much of the emotional charge for me. I think he did deserve the suspension but not a longer one. I am also starting [i hope] to get a clearer understanding of his perspective, and I also feel now that he does offer this forum some value. And he does occasionally communicate well with others... I still think he can come off like a condescending and denigrating twit sometimes, but hey, can't we all So I am sorry Vmarco for the overly bitter hell fire I aimed at you earlier. I am kind of looking forward to your return now I {may} be getting a clearer grasp of your Ideas. Seth.

A good honest reply. Thank you. First I was not attacking you either, just to get that out of the way. When I said you must be blind it is because either you are just skipping over or have not read the seriously denigrating things Vmarco has said about our tradition {and many others}. And as to you being Anti Buddhist, I have seen you take many swings at them over time here, but I should have written it more clearly, that [to me] you seem anti some of the Buddhists here... I also should have expressed that most of the other stuff was not really directed at you, apart from the Imaginary scenario which was just meant to give you a feel of what its like for us, having Vmarco round here. That example was meant to be emotionally charged, but does not represent my views towards you. If I lived near you I would come and study with you. But just on an annoyance point, you put up in one of your posts back a bit, that you don't like passive aggressive, then here you say: To me this is passive aggressive. Vmarco has pissed me off, I am being openly aggressive, and you are trying to rub my face in it. I am allowed my reaction. This is a subtle dig at us and our tradition again. In what world are we all supposed to be perfectly realised and free to take shit from anyone door mats? My other question is why are you even in this thread? I did not see you conversing with Vmarco? [maybe you did] And you obviously have not read half of his posts or you would have seen his insults and denigration towards, well nearly everyone... So what are you personally getting out of being here?

Princessism: Women don't shit, they delicately excrete!

Oh Lordy! Fantastic posts! Rofl! Satanism 2: We made this shit happen! lets shit some more!

Yes! What we all crave [i believe] when it really gets down to it, is to have Love coming out of our heart, to be its centre. That is what feels so good. All this 'I need to be loved' is just emotional Baggage. And if our heart is like a sphere, love should shine out in every direction, which means to all things. If one only has a relationship, its like our heart is only shining in one tiny direction {towards our partner} instead of radiating out everywhere... But, at least in the great Spiritual traditions that I like, The world, while simultaneously being Illusory, is also Sacred. Its sometimes called the 'play' or 'dance' of Consciousness or God... These traditions see 'spirit' as being Transcendent {beyond the world} but also Immanent {also actually the world} So the rare Woman who's heart is also like its own sun, who does not feel the 'need' for your love, nor you hers, will be an amazing enriching presence in your life. Every level has its Joy's and Wonders, and relationships can be that on our earth plane. I like the idea of horizontal and vertical growth. Extended time fasting and in prayer and meditation, usually solo [except in one of those rare relationships], is an absolute requirement for profound vertical growth towards God/spirit/reality... But healing of old wounds, developing a good well rounded psyche, and getting ones shit together are important for our earth plane or our horizontal growth [temporary as it is]. I spent much of my late teen years till round 28 doing Vertical practices and it was utterly worthwhile. But then I began to realise that I had great amounts of emotional baggage I had not let go of, and I had literally nothing in the world except a few books. In relationships, therapy, working, healing processes, through prayer... I got to resolve a lot of stuff. And funnily enough it made my Vertical connection stronger. I admit i was guilty of chronic Spiritual bypassing till then. If i did not like something I could just use my mantra and wash it away in a sea of bliss. I then swung almost to the opposite spectrum for a few years. I became very suspicious of bliss and stopped seeking it. I was always on my path, but I wanted my psyche to become so 'clear' that reality could just shine through it by it self, without me impeding it. Hehe I am not there yet, but now I am consistent in my horizontal and vertical growth, and it is very enriching... But that is my journey. If someone had told me as a young Yogi, that I should get a family, a job, material possessions, I would have looked at them like they were crazy. "What exchange the Infinite wealth and bliss of God, for a few meagre items and simple pleasures?! Your Mad!" I would have rather been a half starving renunciate any day. So I say do what you are driven to do, stay honest about what you want and blessings on your path! Seth.

I think the mods should take a careful read of my 'Three kinds of teachings' thread and see all the anti religion hate Vmarco spewed all over it, and consider banning him for longer, or giving him a sever warning about continuing to do so in the future... I didn't complain back then but from now on every time he opens his mouth and lets out something Intolerant, I hit the report button.

Then you are blind my friend. Re read my 'three kinds of practice' thread. It is full of extreme Religious Intolerance. You my friend have been anti Buddhist for a long time. It comes out in your posts. So you are pretending Vmarco is a saint, siding with the other anti Buddhists and trying to get Buddhist members people kicked out for reacting to Vmarco and simplicity. That is very low behaviour. Its Hilarious right now. A bunch of people who are sick of the 'Intellectual Buddhists' are ganging up on them, calling them 'Internet Bullies & thugs' all because they do not like the way conversations can go sometimes... In general though these Buddhists act very well towards others, and have never ganged up on anyone. Sure Vajraji had his moments of thread invasion early on but on the whole its been much better. The Buddhists tend to stick to our own threads, which I could say get Invaded by Taoists. One thread on E%DO recently had a member excuse his behaviour there as 'hey, this is a Taoist forum' but yet it was in the General discussion area, not the Taoist discussion area. The First BS point used is that we are all In on this together [us Buddhists that is]. that is Impossible as we argue ourselves over the finer points, and I myself only see Buddhism as the currently known 'Ultimate' practice and philosophy for me, my self. Not necessarily as 'Ultimate' for anyone else. Also several of us are dedicated to other practices as well. This is simply enemy patterning, where a group points at another assortment of people and labels them 'An organised threat, dedicated to overturning our way of life, and who must be stopped' This tactic works very well in the media to rally everyone on side. do I need to mention Nazi Germany, or the West in recent wars? The Second BS point is that our alleged group of 'Buddhist bullies' ganged up on vmarco because he didn't share our views. BULLSHIT! lots of us don't share views and it doesn't end up like this. Also many of our 'Buddhist Gang' don't share views with many of the non Buddhists, and have regular respectful conversations that enrich all parties. CowTao has been a Paragon on this level in the past. Vmarco does not converse. That is the only problem. He is a Fanatic for his cause. He also says things like 'Buddha's first teachings were basically for people with retarded levels of Intelligence' Do you not see how denigrating that is. Entire traditions of Vipassna practitioners or even Saints, wiped off as Retards. Put your self in the hot seat. Imagine him saying: "I am the only one who understands anything about TAO or energy cultivation. You are a Retard. Your Chikung/Neikung is bullshit, you are a bullshit teacher, You are deluded, and your students are retarded. What the F@%K is viking chikung, you made that lame ass shit up, you half witted tard!" That is what he did to the Buddhist people here. This is what the people who are defending him are calling 'Vmarco is just a bit strong in his opinions.' Part two of The Second BS Point Is that I myself would love to be able to converse with Vmarco and share Ideas. He is into things I also like, and I wish he were capable of communication, I really do. I actually still may buy his book if I keep struggling to get his strange and convoluted Idea system... So as Far as a Disinformation campaign goes, there is one being run right now by anti Buddhists who use cheap psychological tactics, like lumping us all together as one creature, and Inferring evil qualities to that one creature to rally all the halfwits and rabble rousers who don't like us for what ever reason... If you keep poking a monkey with a stick, [even a buddhist one] eventually you will get a reaction. That monkey was Vmarco, but now a bunch of low lives are shouting "look look, the monkey reacted! Ban the monkey!" Anyway Seth, over.

There are so many layers of assumption in his posts that I do not know where to start, and frankly I can't be bothered. PM me your email so we can keep in contact if you leave, or better yet, use the Ignore button and Stay Big Love my friend

I too feel they have the potential to become [if they have not already] extremely cultish. I think they still may help certain people {like me}, but be worse for others... But I have stated my misgivings about them a number of times already...

lol at you all, lol at me... Welcome back Vmarco in a few days

When I write a book I will also plug it here as I do not have a problem with that that. Ya mu and Five are great, and actually contribute to good healthy discussion and debate here. I would never change that. Vmarco on the other hand does nothing of the sort. Re read the threads. He turned nearly everything into 'all other buddhists are idiots but me, all religious people are idiots, I am basically the only free thinking person anywhere!' conversations. Absolute rubbish. where is an ounce valuable Info. It is all pseudo scientific drivel. If you 'learned' anything from it, you learned drivel. His bogus interpretations of Buddhism have no legitimate element whatsoever. They were plain wrong, proved over 1000's of years of debate in actual Buddhist schools. If you want to spiel some post modernist "everything is just as relevant and meaningful as anything else" diatribe then the next time you want brain surgery, why don't you just get a bicycle mechanic to do it? And yes he did directly attack many people. Are you blind? look at what he directed at Sunya, Cow and others. Why should we get used to someone who is not here to communicate but only to prove their superiority, gain a following of all the pseudo intellectuals who are pleased by the disruption he causes, and sell his books. He is nothing like the other authors here. As for his Integrity, he started a thread about Honesty then pretended to be Female?!?

What are you talking about? He alluded to being a writer several times, and I believe given time he would have publicly plugged them. He contributed nothing of value apart from disrupting many threads, and having completely bogus Interpretations of Buddhist thought, and again - He attacked everyone who did not agree with him. I Love TTB's and I love many people here that I regularly disagree with. I have had lengthy heated arguments with MarbleHead for instance, but only come out with a deeper respect for him. No one has had that experience with V.Marco. He is a troll. This is not a cheap shot, its just that his agenda has been revealed... Other authors by the way do fine here because they lack the Absolutism in his communication style. Michael Lomax could teach him a thing or two...

Face Palm! Groan... Are you trying to funny here or are you really that paranoid? For one, RT loathes any talk about pure consciousness, and two, he has described his heart soaring during meditation. Really do you read the previous pages or do you just click open the last page and come in and randomly type responses to the first thing you see...?

Hehe that the love I was talking about. The Unconditioned Love of which relationship lofe is just a small facet of... But just to clarify something, many great sages including some who are considered among the greatest, also had relationships. That great Love does not exclude the possibility of Loving a good Woman. Padmasambhava and Lady Yeshe Tsogal, the Baal Shem Tov and his wife, nearly all the Kabbalists and Sufi's as having a wife was usually a requirement of those paths... And also there are forms of Enlightenment that are not really satisfying to the heart, such as the Advaita pure awareness attainment. It gets described as 'dry' by those who have gone further... When you attain this however, you would not think anything was missing, till the state deepened and started Including the world more, and then your heart 'really' starts bursting at the seams, and you realise what you were missing. {heart wise} There are plenty of records of this kind of thing. Back on to 'love is' though, I like to think that Love is feeling at one with something. When you and your partner are in that early stage of Idealising each other, and feeling that you are perfect for each other, and when differences 'complement' each other and have not started to 'grate' on each other then because of the feelings of being 'at one' there is Love... I find it sad that a state like this that should be our birthright, we should all have things that we feel at one with, but especially the Natural world, as this causes Great Love - is the reason so many relationships are fucked up. Society has moulded people to believe that real Love is only available to us through the relationship structure. We all want and need Love, but when we erroneously believe that we can only get it through a relationship, that puts a lot of control dramas in place within a relationship, not to mention fears. All of a sudden, people are afraid of 'loosing' love and start jealously eyeing off every move their partner makes. Think of all the crimes of passion, murders and suicides that have come from this terror of loosing ones only source of love. If we were taught from child hood to appreciate and be at one with Nature, and what ever grand unifying force one perceives as underlying it, we would all have an abundant supply of love, and that would put a lot less demand on our partners. Its my experience that when one has 'Big Love' jealousy goes out the window. That is also why I no longer go out with partners who are not Mystics themselves. Blessings! Seth.

Vajra used to annoy the hell out of me but he was never an abusive wanker. He piked up whenever Buddhism was mentioned, especially when people like myself were trying to make turn it into some form of eternalism, but above all, despite the condescending tone, He remained consistent, and won my respect. Vmarco has no redeming features that I have seen. He totally Hijacks threads, he accuses people of all kinds of behaviour from his mighty throne and he has no interest in a two way conversation. He is a troll. All his claims are suspect. His theory's are loopy and he Insults people constantly. The funniest thing is that when he had pissed off enough Individuals, and starts copping his Karma, all of a sudden he is being 'picked on' by 'Internet Bullies' lol as if he was a pure lotus who had never said a bad thing to anyone... What a whining manipulative cry baby. I feel outraged that people here are outraged by his suspension, after reading his posts. The people who complained pretty much lost some of my respect. Good job Mods!

Lol I asked him that a number of times. He just doesn't want to communicate, he wants to speak at people from his throne... I would actually Like to have had a chance to converse with him, as I still find it hard to grasp exactly what he was trying to get at, but he ruined my 3 kinds of teachings thread without even reading it first. He just turned it into an anti religion Bash, which goes against TTB religious tolerance rules. He also ruined and cluttered up a bunch of other threads, and generally refused to communicate in a meaningful way [i admit by my standards] which pretty much makes him a Troll. So I personally think one week is not enough. He should have been banned longer.

Cool. I think I am starting to get my head around the different uses of the word Emptiness. I think of Logic as a sacred process of clearing the mind of obscurations and beliefs. May I ask, when you describe emptiness as not 'just nothin' do you think of it as a void or unmanifest potential or something different? I am not trying to start an argument or hijack the thread with Buddhist thought, I just want to better understand how the term is used... Profound experiences aren't they I definitely see there as being a ground of energy and awareness and potential behind or underlying the world as well, just to me it is all Empty. That to me is great news. I don't have to cling to any element within it, yet I get to enjoy it all. Kundalini certainly has similar effects when it reaches the higher centres, and i am in total agreement about the logic being useful for the rest of the brain... Longchenpa describes the spontaneous creativity of Empty Awareness/presence as being the primary source of all appearances. This would seem to go against E&DO teachings, accept that Nagajuna himself points out the even Dependent Arising is Inherently empty and has no true ultimate reality, but only represents the rules within the dream like worlds we Inhabit. So even Dependent Arising itself is spontaneously arising within Empty Awareness. For me the whole thing is Sacred, form, emptiness, and the fact the world does not even really exist yet still appears for us to enjoy...

That will be deeply satisfying to your mind but not your heart. Complete reality will bring total fulfilment to all your systems while remaining non Dual. If there is a love that is a natural part of that all Inclusive Openness, how can it have an opposite? Mystics from every tradition in the world, realise the Natural Love with out conditions, that seems to be the force of the world itself, the energy that holds us all together, and takes us beyond appearances...

It sounds like you are new to meditation, but don't worry, you wont always be able to have 'The Best' meditation every time. Even seasoned meditators still have days where things just wont flow and they just keep getting distracted. It's part of the process of learning about our minds... As for your question, CowTao reccomended me a book round a year ago called 'The Sun of Wisdom' by Khenpo Tsultrim Gyatso, which is a book on Nagajuna's emptiness teachings, and makes easy going of Nargajuna's normally very hard to read material [at least for me] Nagajuna is definatly not for everyone, as he is basicly a Logic machine which many people have a problem with. For me however he has been wonderful. He uses a series of logical steps to remove any faith or belief in the world as a 'real' thing, or anything other than a spontaneous dream like arising. The world doesn't have the sway over me like it used to have, as I can't take it as seriously any more... For some people, aproaching this through logic is very useful, as it helps get the thinking mind onside, rather than chucking up constant doubts about our deeper intuitive realisations... Seth.

Rofl!

No... Jesus was a Left hand path Sex Magician!