goldisheavy

In Pali Cannon there are instances of deities taking refuge in Buddha, but never the other way around. People themselves were asked to take refuge in the triple gem and only in the triple gem. Never in any deity. Ever. Deities are considered ignorant unless they also happen to be bodhisattvas at the same time. In that case, the status of a bodhisattva is what's important and the status of deity is ignorable. And yes, Tibetan Buddhism is a big mix of things. It's not pure Buddhism by any means. That doesn't make it bad or unacceptable. Just face the truth.

And in Chod you allow demons to consume your body. Why so? Because Buddhism teaches universal compassion. We have compassion even for demons. If demons want to eat our bodies, we don't resist. We offer them. This also, obviously, cultivates a state of utmost unparalleled fearlessness, which is equal to unbinding and liberation. When Manjusri was threatened by lord Yama, he manifested himself as Yamantaka, which is like Yama times 10: more demonic and more menacing. Do you understand the meaning of this?

That only means you're a moron. You could conceivably build your house on a nuke and not even know it. Don't fret. Do you want heavens destroyed? No? Then they won't be, no matter what anyone does. I can't do something to you that you don't believe and support at least on some level of your being. I wish you worried as much about liberation as you worry about safety. What a disgusting coward.

Of course Buddhists have been subverting things forever. You do realize that originally Buddhism scorned the very idea of deities? However, when Buddhism came to Tibet, people were attached to Bon deities like Tara and so on. For example: So you see, when Buddhism couldn't get rid of something, it just co-opted that something to fit its purpose. Thus chakras were co-opted and became empty and symbolic rather than substantial and real like in Hindu Tantra. Deities became empty and meditational yidams rather than inherently real. And so on. So it's only fair that some of our wisdom is co-opted by others. If you co-opt the teachings of others without allowing some of your teachings to be co-opted, then you're a greedy and fearful tightwad who will surely go to hell. I am powerful and I fuck everyone. But I also allow to get myself fucked. Thus there is balance. This is a very secret instruction. I kill only because I allow myself to be killed. It goes both ways.

This is idiotic. You don't understand how magic works. Nothing could be destroyed against your will. The heavens can be only destroyed if you secretly or knowingly believe in such possibility and if such expression is not counter your deepest intent. Further, I myself have a nuclear bomb as you say. I have it now and I will give it to anyone who asks. So what's the point of keeping secrets? Further, there are nuclear bombs all over the place already even without me. Ever read "Buddhahood without Meditation?" It's a nuclear bomb right there. So what?

It's easy to corrupt something that is kept secret. If the correct teachings were publicly available and well known for what they are, there would be no way to corrupt them. For example, try to corrupt the text of the Constitution of the USA and promulgate that corruption. See how far it goes. Secrecy is precisely that which brings on ignorance, corruption of the content, and abusive behaviors.

I'll give you another reply. Let's compare the power of the secret mantra to a different kind of power: guns. Guns are dangerous, I think we can all agree. Should the sale of guns be limited then? Who does this benefit? It turns out that gun control only benefits the crooks while it deprives ordinary citizens of many rights, such as their right to self-defense, and their right to overthrow a tyrannical government, and their right to practice marksmanship as a hobby, and so on. The answer to outlaws having guns is to empower everyone, rather than to try to disempower everyone by default and to attempt to control the flow of power. Make everyone powerful and then the deviant users of power won't feel so confident and sure. Now, is there a danger that someone will buy a gun and then misuse it? Of course there is. But it's worth the sacrifice. For every 1 person who misuses the liberty to own a gun, there are 100,000 who don't misuse it. We shouldn't punish the 100,000 in order to protect our society from that 1 oddball. "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." --Benjamin Franklin Now, the teachings of the secret mantra are certainly powerful. But their function and intent, first and foremost, is to liberate. Never forget that.

There are always selfish people. Keeping life-saving teachings secret is more selfish than anything else. Using magic with the intention to put other people at risk is selfish, but it can't compete in terms of selfishness with the elitism and cultism that sprouts around and with the help of secrecy. In any case, black mages know everything they need to know to do their craft. The 4 foci of power sutta is openly available and it teaches everything you need to know to perform any kind of magic. Even without that sutta, mages have plenty of good information internally. Keeping "secret" mantra teachings secret doesn't put these black mages in a disadvantageous spot. It simply deprives ordinary people of liberation, which is their birthright. Quoting from Vimalakirti Nirdesa Sutra: So you see, keeping teachings secret is against the very essence of compassion. It is against the spirit of Mahayana, and also, karmically, it makes you stupid over time. As you keep teachings secret, you become dumber and dumber and eventually you lose the understanding of the teachings altogether. If you want to keep something, you must give it away. If you want to keep wealth, give it away. If you want to keep wisdom, you must give away teachings without the slightest inhibition. If you want to keep your personal freedom, make other people free from your own oppressive desires. If you want to be loved, you must love others freely and without reservation. This is a constant principle in Buddha Dharma. If you want to ignore it, you do so at your own peril. Not to mention that anyone who does so is considered a retard by people like me.

I like the content of the "secret" mantra tradition, but I strongly oppose their practice of secrecy. I think some of their secrecy was well justified at the time, because during many of the tumultuous past times revealing the contents of the secret mantra could get you hanged or beheaded. So keeping the teachings secret was a reasonable precaution in some circumstances. But to keep the teachings secret as a principle -- that's very wrong. It goes against Mahayana teachings, it is in fact the most evil thing you can do. It's much less grave to slaughter 100,000 beings while allowing them access to the highest teachings, than to avoid the slaughter of beings, while keeping the teachings knowingly and intentionally secret. It is not only perfectly OK to liberate any and all secret mantra material, it is commendable. That's my personal permission and empowerment. If people aren't ready, they have every right to reject the teachings and ignore them. If they are ready, they will make use of the teachings. It's very wrong to forcefully push any teaching onto anyone, but keeping teachings secrets is equally as wrong. People must be given a choice and their choice must be respected.

I think neither is true. DO is describing the nature of experience. Dependent origination (or interdependent origination) is better than just a belief. You can change your beliefs, but you can't change DO as the truth of experience. DO is always in effect, unlike beliefs. At the same time DO doesn't talk about something that's beyond experience, such as the way most people conceive of the world "out there". In Buddhism there is no need to surrender the ego. In fact, a strong ego is actually recommended. What's important is to see the nature of the ego -- it is empty, like a dream, like a desert mirage. But to surrender it means you believe there is something less illusionary, something more true than it, and that would be a very big mistake. Everything is ultimately equal in Buddhism. Ego is equal to Buddha. Emptiness is equal to form. Etc. Etc.

You shouldn't need to ignore anything specifically. Even if something is of less value, there is no need to fear it or avoid it. The authorities you appeal to, they themselves constantly appeal to the Gotama Buddha's authority. Constantly! So you should realize that. If you're going to be an iconoclast don't suggest a bunch of Gotama boot lickers as role models!

What are you talking about? The Buddhist texts discuss both ordinary and psychic experiences. As far as practicing Buddhists go, they are of course different, just like all people. Some are completely ignorant and worthless, and simply light incense to pray for their relatives and good fortune, without having the slightest understanding of the subject matter of the Buddha's teaching. Others have a good grasp of the subject matter and know how it relates to their day to day experience, but don't have any psychic experiences. Sariputta was one such example, I believe. Sariputta was considered released/unbound (arahant), and yet he had no special abilities to brag about, and thus, no "experience" as many people on this forum would construe it. Maha-Moggallana, on the other hand, was not considered as wise as Sariputta, but had a ton of the psychic experience. So what kind of experience are we talking about? As far as Buddhism goes, Buddha has praised psychic experience and has taught its development (the 4 basis of power sutta), but at the same time, he didn't make it either a prerequisite for enlightenment (unbound state), nor the most important virtue (that would be wisdom).

I think you are conflating psychic abilities with aims. Not all people make it their aim to acquire maximum material wealth. It seems you take it for granted that everyone craves an unreasonable maximization of the material wealth, so if one had any extra ounce of ability, then "of course" that ability would be directed at getting a job at GS. I hope you are just kidding and aren't actually thinking in that way in real life.

There is only one way to distinguish mind from anything else: you must have a preconception about mind first. In other words, you must be ignorant.

This is hilarious. So some people "access" it and some don't. I disagree. I've been studying Advaita for a while and I haven't run across any mentin of Turiya until way later. Also, I believe Avadhuta Gita makes fun of Turiya as a big joke that it is. Well, I wouldn't say that. I've studied some Advaita texts and read some Advaita web sites for some time. I believe I have some understanding and a decent degree of experience as well. However, I wouldn't bill myself as an Advaita scholar by any means. I'm not all that scholarly. I am interested in the root meaning. I always look for the bottom line, for the root. I don't memorize a lot of jargon unless it sticks naturally by itself. I don't make it a point to systematically study any tradition. Alternatively you can say that objects are not what they seem to be in the first place. The nature of all objects is precisely this "objectlessness" you speak of. So you don't need some other consciousness to see it. You just need to see the objects as they actually appear. At this point you may realize that the distinction between the presence of objects and their absence is purely ornamental, without any substance, purely arbitrary and without any real weight or importance. For what it's worth, I actually agree with the main thesis of the article.

It's not up to anyone to decide who is and isn't ready. If you try to decide for others when the others are ready, that's unwarranted, ugly, destructive elitism. I stand against it 100%. **** you and anyone else who supports such elitism. **** all the Tibetan masters combined 1000 times over if that's how they think. Your job is to present the material. Let the recipient determine for oneself if oneself is ready or not. There should be no secrets at all except when your life is threatened for disseminating certain materials. So there is exactly one exception that allows for secrecy. That is all.

The short answer is: it depends. The long answer is below. If you're a solitary animal who is born with eyes open, standing up from day 1, with a body that requires no clothing or shelter, with all the instincts necessary for survival in place, then indeed, if you fuck up, you can only blame yourself. So in some realms, under some conditions, it is strictly true that you should only blame yourself. In the human realm, we are born helpless and non-viable. We can hardly see and hear, and forget about standing up straight. Our instincts are way off (how many kids stick their fingers in the wall socket or burn them on the hot stove?). How many kids naturally know what is poisonous and what is safe to eat? All that humans have to be taught. In contrast, animals and beings in other realms know this immediately and instinctively. So right from the start, when you are born human, you depend on others. So right away you have some right to blame other people for your failures. People depend on each other for both mere survival and for prosperity. I've done some research on the survivalist and bushcraft movements, and even then, most people rely on knives that have been made from metal. In other words, I don't know any human that's completely self-sufficient, not even the most hard-core survivalists. I've heard that it's hypothetically possible to make flint knives and to live without a knife, alone, but realistically I don't know anyone who actually does that. And I doubt you are anywhere near this level of hard-core-ness. You're probably an average human who hasn't even tried to live alone in the woods without any reliance on society and its products. Interdependence is a unique human weakness, but obviously, it's also our strength. While we are weak and stupid individually, as a group, humans are the most influential and dangerous group that exists on this planet. As a group we can obliterate any species and we have the power to destroy recognizable life on this planet. In recognition of interdependence you have to realize that how you perform is hugely dependent on the people around you. If you work with good people, your performance will be a multiple of that when you work with a bunch of losers. So blaming others is not unreasonable. At the same time, changing others is a very slow and uncertain process. Changing oneself is also hard. But you have a slightly better chance to change yourself than to change others. So while blaming others is logical and is justified, in terms of the immediate reward in the here and now it helps to focus on what you can do better rather than what others can do better. However! Long-term, it is not enough that only you alone improve and improve if people around you remain ignorant and with bad habits. So for immediate gain, for a gain you can feel in the here and now, it helps to focus on improving yourself. At the same time, as long as you plan to remain in human form, and plan to live as an interdependent human, it makes no sense to only focus on improving yourself and completely ignoring the people in your surrounding environment. It's good to know your power, but it's also good to know your limitations when you're in the human form. If you don't like the limitations you have to ditch the human form first.

Which realm is higher than the mental realm?

This is indeed a serious problem. I agree. That's an interesting statement to consider. There may be some truth to it too. I don't think the texts are all that hard to move, especially if each person takes one or two books with them, and even if just 1000 people do this, then you have roughly 1500 texts that have moved over. So it's hard for one person to move an entire library of texts, but if people collaborate and everyone moves a few, then it's not so hard. Second, I think Tibetans still likely rely on memory as much as they rely on the written materials. Even I, who doesn't memorize any text verbatim, I can tell you in a way that's going to be helpful the real meaning and intent of those texts that I've read in the past, since I carry the meaning in my heart and don't really need the text itself. What I'm trying to say here is that authenticity of the text has no value to me. What matters is how the text impacts me, how does it change my thinking and beliefs? Maybe the text is made up. So what? Maybe the authentic texts are junk and the made up ones are the real deal. To me texts like "Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah" by Richard Bach are as influential as any "authentic" Tibetan/Indian text. When Tibetans were expelled from Tibet, they had to offer something to the world to survive. Since they have no technical skills, all they have is their culture. So that's what they offer for sale. Of course Tibetans could enter colleges, get degrees, and (try to) get jobs like everyone else in the world, but that's hard work. It's much easier to sit on a fake throne with a pretty hat and collect little envelopes and scarves from people.

Yea, why tell people how to heal themselves when you can heal them over distance for a fee? It makes business sense.

Not bad, but it would have been better to avoid the jargon "Turiya" (fourth state of consciousness beyond and underlying waking, dream, deep sleep, as I understand it). Since Turiya is a state, meaning, some people experience and others do not, it's not a good thing to use in discussions about non-duality. Of course he also makes the very same mistake when he discusses things from the Buddhist point of view when he refers to consciousness as pure and objectless. Of course dirty consciousness is every bit as good as pure and object consciousness is every bit as empty as objectless consciousness. So saying that realization is tied to achieving purity and lack of objects is grossly ignorant and misleading. So it's the same mistake occurring twice in a row, first in a Buddhist context and second in the Advaita context. Other than that, it's a pretty intelligent writing, imo.

He's not insulting you. Not everything negative is an insult. He's criticizing you. You can argue that his criticisms are unfair, but you can't say that insulting is what he's doing. Just how I see it from here. And yea, I do think that ralis is somehow focused on criticizing you above all else. When other people demonstrate poor writing style or say idiotic things ralis doesn't necessarily respond. But when you do it, he'll be sure to respond. It's almost like he's adopted you as his child. No big deal either way. It's almost like he's your fan.

Being healthy is nothing to sneeze at. The way you say it, it sounds as if being healthy is just a stupid trifle. I think health is a bit better than a trifle. The practice is to examine your experience and your knowledge, and keep in mind, it's not a short-term game. You may achieve an amazing experience in a week, or an amazing insight in 2 days, but the path keeps going and going far beyond that. So it's not a sprint really, so don't try to look at it as a sprint. Spirituality is all about honesty. I would define a spiritual state as simply a more honest state compared to the material one. Since it's all about honesty, you have to be honest with yourself. So if you don't believe something, don't try to pretend you believe it! Don't try to trick yourself. If you don't believe in miracles, then you don't believe in them. It's OK. Trying to force yourself to change your beliefs too quickly can result in mental instability. Changing beliefs is a gradual process that takes time. At each point of this process you have to be honest and always avoid tricking yourself. Limiting beliefs can all be uprooted by questioning them, but only honest questioning has authentic power. In other words, you must really have these questions in your heart. If you don't have a wondering curious mind, then just asking questions mechanically is a waste of time, because mechanic questions are dishonest. You have to mean the questions for them to be honest ones. Honest questions have power over a long period of time. And all that is just my, hopefully informed, opinion. Good luck!

All the Sages are unique individuals and there is no guarantee whatsoever that they'll all do the same thing. I'm afraid there is no such thing as a Sage personality template.

I disagree with this appraisal. While psychic powers do not equal wisdom, nonetheless wise people have psychic powers. Psychic powers are not any more entertaining distractions than other skills like carpentry, plumbing, car repair, and programming. In fact, they are useful skills that make life easier. The most easily useful psychic power is the ability to heal quickly. The ability to withstand the elements is also useful. I don't recommend worshipping anyone based on psychic powers. At the same time, everyone should try to develop at least some psychic powers, especially those that easily improve the quality of life, such as say healing. A simple thing like being able to concentrate on one topic without getting lost in tangential thoughts is a good and easy to attain psychic power for pretty much everyone. The ability to control pain is another one. So psychic powers are not anything I worship, but nor do I scoff at them. Oh, and I also think that the danger of getting caught up in them is real but often exaggerated. You must be pretty damn stupid to mixup a skill like carpentry with enlightenment. So even a half-intelligent person is safe from such a mixup.