goldisheavy

Zenshiite, thanks for your writing. I think that even if we take the most gentle and merciful interpretation of Koran, we cannot avoid the fact that we need to revise religion anyway. For example, are women the property of men? It's pretty damn clear to me that the answer is "no." Should women be covered up? Again, I think the answer is "no." Why should women be more modest than men? Why don't men cover their heads too? No matter how nice you try to be to religion, it still ends up being unsatisfactory. Obviously many people are not ready to dispense with religion altogether. For their sake we need to adopt these "more enlightened" interpretations as a stepping stone. Long-term though, religion has outlived its usefulness and is getting close to its expiration date.

http://www.shambhalasun.com/index.php?opti...87&Itemid=0 I saw this recently and thought people here might find it interesting.

I also agree with him. What I really like is that he's looking at things from a high level point of view. He's not tying this understanding to any specific belief, rather he talks about beliefs in general. He also talks about the relaxation response, and that's also universal to my mind. I think if people could understand this information, we could transcend religion as dogma and we'd feel more empowered to revise religion and to make it more beneficial instead of feeling the need to preserve every damn aspect of it, even if that aspect hurts our humanity.

People in the West, the so-called "rational, civilized men" have tremendous faith in the physical reality, far more than in anything else. Even as our understanding of physical reality is changing, most people still think about it as they always have, as something immutable by mind, as something independent of mind, as something that operates by its own laws in a deterministic fashion, and so forth. The weight of this belief is so intense, that in many cases no spiritual healer can even hope to budge it, not even the most amazing psychic surgeon. I can guarantee you that if some hard-core skeptic goes to the best psychic surgeon in the world, the result will be zero on all planes of being, and definitely zero on the physical plane. When I say "I can guarantee you", that's just my perception, but don't just take my word for it. Check it for yourself and see if you discover something different or same. The upside is that with people who don't have a firm faith in the physical reality, the so-called "physical" changes are quite possible. This also applies to entire cultures. Because you can also discuss cultural beliefs and not just individual beliefs. Individual beliefs may differ from the cultural beliefs of the culture they are said to belong to, but cultures still have the ability to set their own tone, and to have their own "flavor", for the lack of a better word. So, for example, I think in a Chinese culture, it may be easier to observe physical changes from spiritual/mind healing than in, say, Western European culture. Mind is kind, but mind is very deep. Mind is not just the superficial layer of consciousness we all think of as "mind", and that is what makes talking about it difficult.

As far as danger goes, saying that something is dangerous is not a reason to demand supervision. Instead a person can be taught how to sense danger before it manifests -- this leads the person toward self-reliance. Understand the nature of danger and you'll be as safe as you can be in this ever-changing world. Besides attention you have structure and intent. If you have mastered attention, structure and intent fall into your domain naturally and you don't need to learn them separately, although you can talk about them separately.

Because he's charging money. Lineage is what let's you charge money easily in our society. You can probably find a way to charge money for spiritual services without lineage as well, but it's easier with a lineage, because people believe in tradition and in authority, and lineage gives you a "respectable" background necessary to charge money. None of this has anything to do with actual ability or wisdom, btw. It's easy to understand tho. Someone suffers and you look for what went wrong. First thing you do is you check for the authority. People don't want to take responsibility for their actions. So if you select a fool doctor for yourself, you don't blame yourself, you blame the doctor's certificates, his/her authority. There are many fool doctors with and without certificates and only a fool patient relies on certificates anyway. If you want to live your life without wisdom and you expect some outside doctor to constantly patch you up, you're an idiot. But if you have wisdom, first of all, you probably don't need doctor that much, and secondly, if you do need one, you won't be easily fooled by a doctor with good credentials or without.

Your intuition about you being able to enhance their lucidity is correct. You could enhance them, if you gave yourself over to those images. But the reverse is also true. You can make them more vague, and eventually disappear as well. I can think of two ways to get rid of them. Pay attention to blackness and make the blackness grow. Alternatively pay attention to something totally different, like your breath or some higher order concept, like infinite space, or some such, and you won't be seeing any images then either. Basically you see that which you pay attention to. Expectations play some role in this too. Don't worry about ego either. If you want to deal with ego issues, you need to contemplate what is ego rather than meditate anyway. Absence of images is egoic as much as their presence, so there is no pride in the silent mind. Silent mind is ego as much as the noisy mind in the same way that my message is as much space between the letters as it is the letters themselves. It's all the same thing and to understand this you need contemplation instead of meditation.

So you agree then. Now stop dicking around and move out of my way fool.

Listen, None of us are born without some context. In that sense, the context is your teacher. However, you don't have to seek out this context -- you can't help but to have it! The context is always within you, always available. You don't need to seek it far abroad! Your mother and your father are internal to you, not external -- this is a special point of view. This special point of view is for training purposes. It's meant to stretch the mind, but it is not the ultimate truth. It is a useful relative truth that has the capacity to broaden your perception if you entertain it for a while. Let's play a game. I will invent a term. Let's call it "bromanga dolamango". I will then start teaching people this "bromanga dolamango." Since I have invented it, since I am giving birth to this term, I get to define what it means. Then I teach this to others. This is called "lineage". The power to guard this definition is then inherited by this lineage. So then people inside my lineage can claim to know what "bromanga dolamango" is, and rightly so, because I'm the one who invented it, and I made it up, and I passed it on, so pretty much by definition and due to no special achievement or merit or even good karma, my lineage has the power to make a claim "we know what 'bromanga dolamango' is, and if you want to know what it is, you must get a special permission from us and an initiation as well". Now if you manage to paint this "bromanga dolamango" as something very cool, awesome, useful, and in a word, desirable, this gives your lineage social power over others, at least over those who greedily lust after this kind of power. It's like a worm on a hook. And it catches stupid fish that swims there that believes this 'bromanga dolamango' will save it, or make its penis get 2x as big, or give you the power of the Lord, or whatnot. Thus you become a slave to the lineage. Now... Let's step back. Maybe 'bromanga dolamango' is even somewhat useful. But the fact remains that someone at some point, someone like me, has simply made this shit up. And yes, I can claim that God revealed it to me and move all the authorship to God, in order to bolster my claim. That's easy enough to do, especially considering I actually do have a very intimate connection with God, I wouldn't even be lying 100%. But I would still be lying. Why? Because the implied lie is that I have a connection to God and you don't. I am special. I have the right to invent my 'bromanga dolamango' and you don't have that right. I can start a lineage, and you cannot. I am better than you. And you must take it on faith that I am better than you. You have to believe this. If I am long dead, and all that remains is my lineage, then it's easy for you to think that I am better than you. Why? Because even if lineage members are pretty ordinary, they can always tell you legendary stories of my past exploits and how great I was, and since I am dead, and there is no way to verify any of it, you can be left with a glowy and wondrous feeling about me as the progenitor or as the first (after God) inheritor of the 'bromanga dolamango' technique/method. So you see where the hidden lie is? Perhaps the technique is useful, but the implied statement that you cannot come up with your own useful technique is a form of disempowerment and it's not only wrong -- it is harmful, and people who do this all go to hell in due time. It's no problem to share some sacred technique and wisdom as long as you don't imply by it that you are special and that you are the sole source of such wisdom. If you imply that you are, you are judged to be guilty, and there will be hell for you. I say this as God. I have judged all of you -- making claims of exclusivity -- guilty -- and I am removing all of you from my sight. Adios amigos who make claims of exclusivity.

Things mean what you want them to mean. We're not just characters in a story. We're also the storytellers.

What Buddhism wants is different depending on which Buddhism you follow. If you follow Theravada, which only recognizes the Pali Canon, then the goal is to transcend all identities so as to get off the wheel of rebirth. However, in Buddhist view, even for Theravadins, there is not necessarily any material universe to begin with. There are just appearances, experiences, and so forth. There is nothing "out there" backing those experiences up. I'm pretty sure at least some Theravadins understand this, but maybe not all. It depends on how they interpret that Pali Canon. But information in Pali Canon is sufficient, in my opinion, to come to understand that the world is not physical by nature. Now if you listen to what Mahayana Buddhism wants, then they promote a Bodhisattva ideal. In Theravada bobhisatta is just Buddha-to-be, like Buddha Gotama before he became a Buddha, and that's it. There is nothing special about it beyond that. In Mahayana Bodhisattva is someone who vows to be reborn over and over to help enlighten countless beings. In Mahayana understanding Bodhisattvas are not even supposed to cling to Buddhahood. They eventually become Buddhas, but not because they want to -- something like that. They just want to alleviate suffering and so vow to be reborn over and over. This is a rather more positive outlook than in Theravada where you just want to end the suffering and that's it. I would say that Vajrayana is like Mahayana in many ways, but they claim to be able to get you enlightened in 1 to 7 lifetimes, or some such.

Taken from http://www.selfdiscoveryportal.com/cmOtherChanMasters.htm

You're just defending your own identity. What you're describing is important to you and it makes you who you are. Since I've threatened it with my comments, you take steps to protect it.

I would ask them if there are any more texts as profound as Chuang Tzu/Zhuangzi, and if yes, to please translate them to English. The problem is that from what I have seen, there are a lot of, what I would consider, trash texts in Taoism. The quality is very uneven. I love Zhuangzi the best, and nothing else quite matches it for me.

You're right. I am my only teacher. That's an arrogant suggestion. Maybe you need to take your own advice? And who isn't thus affected? Isn't that the whole point? The so-called "masters" are all similarly affected! Is that what I do? Jeez, I don't even need to be myself now. I will let you be me for me, eh? What an arrogant little twat you are.

Thanks a lot Vajrahridaya. I am here to tickle your lazy minds. Well, not all of you are lazy, but those who are will definitely feel the tickle.

That's exactly what I think too! Well said. ---------------- The reason I post my message to enouch and to other people like him/her who might be reading this, is because I feel their pain. I know the pain of constantly begging people to share some wisdom with you, to lend you a hand, only to be taunted with secrets, $$$ prices and claims of exclusivity. The people who refuse to openly share knowledge are my enemies. I will destroy them all in due time, of that there is no doubt. If someone's business depends on secrecy and non-sharing, I will destroy that business. I will not use violence as my main method of destruction, however, I will behave in such manner that secret practices will come to an end and that claims of exclusivity will become irrelevant as they are muffled by the endless torrent of real, openly and widely available wisdom. There will be no more lowly begging. There will be no more taunting and teasing of the genuine seekers, and I assume enouch is genuine.

Hey Stig, nice to be back, thanks! I hope you and all the people here are doing well.

What the heck is "the non-dual experience"? Don't load your automobile on a pony.

Awake, You will get better, but it takes time. By time I mean it might take 12 years. It might take 2 months, but it might also take 30 years. Don't give up. All the things you've studied have some degree of usefulness. The "problem" is that none of the things you've studied are the salvation, as you have found out. If you want something, a single thing, or a single teaching, or a single doctrine, or a single master, to become your salvation, then you place too high a burden on that thing. Even fool's words can be useful and even master's words can be harmful. Therefore you need to pay attention and cultivate forbearance. Slow down. Slow down. I notice every time I read your posts you are flittering here and there erratically. So, slow down. Slow down your mind. Breathe. Pace yourself. This is not a sprint you are in. It's a long distance run, it's an ultra-marathon. Instead of looking for a magic cure, why not become patient and practice the following: Eat healthy. Sleep healthy. Open windows to your room and let the sun in. Go for a carefree walk at least twice a week. Exercise healthy (don't overdo it). Meditate at least 10 minutes a day or more as you determine to be useful/comfortable. Contemplate at least 10 minutes a day. Participate in life. How's that? It's basic advice. See how there is nothing you haven't heard already there? That's right, because there is no trick. No magic. No shortcut. Just follow a good life and you will have good results. And you need to be steady and slow. Slow and steady. Constant. Relentless. Unyielding. Cultivate diamond resolve. Recall your highest aspirations and feel joy at the fact that you have these beautiful aspirations, even if they are not yet fulfilled, because even having a high aspiration is already a miracle, and because even merely having a high aspiration makes you already half-way to its fulfillment. And slow down please. Your mind seems too fast to me. Because it's too fast, it is blind. You miss a lot. You can't see what's right under your own nose because you're too wound up. That's my perception, nothing more, nothing less. Good fortune to you and may all your best dreams come true.

Oh my... Why can't you be bothered to just read the book? It's a short book! And you can even find free translations online. There is absolutely no excuse for this kind of ignorance.

I'm not a better teacher than Gotama for everyone. Gotama was not the best teacher for everyone. I am the best teacher for me. You are the best teacher for you. I won't get over myself because I am myself, and what am I shall not be delineated definitively by anyone, not even by me.

If you can tell an oncoming tsunami to slow down and it actually slows down, you're a great master. But if it doesn't slow down, you need more practice. That's false. Period. The ultimate authority and authenticity lie always within you. How do you know who is a master? Who is responsible from distinguishing a master from a fool? You are. You are. How do you know that what master says is genuine? Because you recognize it as such. How do you know that knowledge comes mostly from external sources? Did someone teach you that? If someone teaches you that knowledge comes from external sources, why do you accept it? You accept it because you feel it's true. So once again it is you who decides, as the ultimate authority, what is what. Just because someone teaches you something does not mean you will recognize it. It's you who will recognize something or will refuse to recognize something. Most people are not fully conscious, not fully cognizant of the role their own inner ultimate authority plays. This is called "externalized authority." When you externalize authority, the ultimate authority still remains within you, but the relative truth becomes one of authority being outside of yourself. This creates all manner of suffering, because in this condition you are subject to other people's whims and foolishness, and the people you think are masters can easily be fools, and the people you think are fools can easily be masters, because you can be easily mistaken in your appreciation of mastery. Just because the ultimate authority lies within you does not mean you are always correct. When you operate under an externalized authority, your ultimate inner authority is out of control and can toss up all kinds of floatsam your way. You are never without keys. You are the one who gave birth to your mother and father fool. This is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If we all believe that all authentic knowledge is external, it will manifest in that manner for ages and ages and indeed for countless aeons. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. I don't have any achievements. At best I might have recovered a fraction of my original ability. I don't achieve anything. I recover what was once mine long time ago.

There is a number of possible answers to this. One answers that jumps to my mind right away is this. Have you seen other Indian doctrines of the Buddha Gotama's time? Indians love them some numbers! Let me say this again, Indians lllloooooovvvvveee them some good juice numbers... love them love them love them. They enumerate things just to enumerate them. Even in the Suttas themselves, Buddha has counted everything else too. Like the 7 this, the 4 that, the 108 this, blah blah... there are numbers everywhere. Even after Buddha Gotama passed away, you find this addiction to numbers in later Buddhist texts as well. So the answer here is that it's a cultural thing and has little or nothing to do with the actual wisdom. Other wisdom traditions, outside India, were not always so obsessed with the counting. My other answer is that Buddha was not perfect. Buddha was probably one of, or the best teacher at the time of his life, but that doesn't mean he's perfect. Yes, I knew someone would feel that way. I still had to say what I said, because for many people what I said will be liberating.