goldisheavy

Shut the fuck up. You should have taken your own advice before you even opened a thread.

Only someone who doesn't understand the profundity of the teaching of dependent origination would say such a thing. Both the experience of Samsara and Nirvana as well as the experiencer are empty of inherent existence and arise dependently, Nirvana arises dependent upon wisdom of dependent origination and Samsara arises dependent upon ignorance of dependent origination. Nirvana merely being the correct cognition of Samsara. Samara merely being the incorrect cognition of Nirvana. A politician's answer.

I believe everyone has a right to be heard by at least one other person, at the minimum. So, in the spirit of this, I thank you for sharing your pain with me. I can relate to you. I don't want you to suffer and I'm doing the best I can to minimize suffering. Minimizing suffering requires an excess of flexibility across the entire society, which is to say, willingness to accommodate and to forgive. Things are hard because a lot of people with wealth and thus power refuse to give even an inch, and many people think it's OK to be somewhat immoral if it will bring a little more profit. And here we are. I don't think it will always be this bad. Things can be worse, but I think things will get better than they are today. Hang in there and try to relax.

No kidding, eh? I will be happy with a reasonably secure income that's enough to pay rent/mortgage, to own a car if I need it for commute, or enough money to pay for public transportation if that's an option, decent food and some money to go on an occasional vacation and play plenty of computer and console games. How's that for a laundry list? As for supermodels, a non-repulsive woman who loves me is good enough. What I want more than money though is to be treated like a real human being at work, and not as a resource, or as a fungible commodity. That would really make my day.

Intent works every time, but as I said before, we unwittingly intend all kinds of things, some of which are contradictory. In other words, we have diverse interests and some of our interests are mutually contradictory. That's a big problem. If you want to be hot and cold at the same time and in the same place, you can't get it, at least, not with a normal belief system (mindset) which prohibits such mixing. So depending on what you want more, something might have to give.

It's OK to be crazy. Don't worry too much. I also think dreams come true for people who are slightly crazy. If your mind is too sane, it means it is too rigid and too inflexible for dreaming. You need to be flexible, loose to dream well. That's why I say being a little crazy is good. But sometimes you have to be completely crazy. Not even just a little, but a lot. And that's OK too. Try to relax and pay attention in a relaxed manner. Don't worry too much about sanity or what's proper. Try to enjoy your life as it is.

You seem to dislike that, but some other people would trade places with you, I am sure. Some people think the dreams are bothersome things and would prefer just blackness. Have you tried enjoying it? If I experienced such a thing every night, I would find it interesting. In any case, you still see this waking world, or else you wouldn't be typing here. So that means you are still dreaming just fine. Maybe your subconscious wants to relax and doesn't want to trouble itself with dreams.

It's not "just" semantics. The word "semantic" refers to "meaning." (or the study of meaning). Meaning is the most important "thing" in a sentence. Syntax and grammar are less important. So if you said "it's only just syntax" I could understand that. If you said "It's only just grammar." I could even understand that. But when you're saying "It's just semantics" that's like saying "Oh, it's only just meaning." Just meaning? What else is there more important than meaning? Let's continue. You don't think you wish these things because you don't understand the full extent of your wish. You're just not cognizant of the grand scheme of things. It's true that you do wish for all these things, but there are other things you wish for much more. Those other things are interfering. In other words, you wish is fragmented, and the individual fragments of your wish are complicating, or even making entirely impossible the fulfillment of some of the other fragments. I'll give you a simple example. You most likely wish that each person have a free will and an independent mind. That's one thing that will complicate finding your romantic match. You also wish for the world to have physical qualities. That also complicates things, because now things must make sense. A woman can't just appear at your door -- that would not make sense to you, because the world you have built up with your wish demands that such things be either impossible or extremely, extremely improbable. And it is your wish for that kind of world that makes thing this complicated. If you give deep thought and consideration to the full extent of your wish, you will realize that everything is exactly as you want and has always been. The key word there is "full". Not partial! There are many things you take for granted. There are many things that you only notice when they are gone. These kinds of things are also your wishes. When you ignore a thing and begin to miss it when it's gone, that thing was your wish and you didn't know it, because you took it for granted. This means that many of your wishes are hidden from you, because you just think "that's how it always is" -- you take them for granted. You probably don't think gravity is your wish either, but should gravity go missing you will quickly find you want yourself some gravity quickly, and you want it a lot more than you want a romantic partner. Your dreams should be much easier to influence than the appearance of a partner. Why don't you try this: before you go to sleep, resolve to have a dream and to remember it. Be serious about it. Mean it. Believe it. And don't get too worked up about it, because being obsessed about something could be an indication that you believe it is hard to achieve. Try this. You're the only one who has access to all the hidden corners of your own consciousness and subconscious. There might be things buried in you that make your life more difficult than it has to be. For example, maybe you used to commonly have nightmares, and then your mind learned to black everything out as a defense mechanism. You might have fear of dreams. Or there might be completely different reasons that are buried deep down that cause that blackness. You are in a much better position to find all that than me. You are the one who is intimate with your own consciousness, so even if you may not know it perfectly, you stand the best chance of figuring things out. You can get some hints from others, but other people can't solve anything for you in the end.

There is no "how". The step-by-step procedures you are used to following in day to day life are the result of your belief that the reality is split into internal and external, and you believe the external reality is structured, and thus changes in the external reality demand structured behavior on your part. If you understand what I am saying, all you need to do is relax, because all is already as you wish, effortlessly. There is no "how."

When Buddha was talking about the 5 heaps, he was talking with regard to particular, manifested, observable phenomena. That's not true. Is dependent origination itself dependently originated? If yes, that means dependent origination depends on some condition to be what it is, and if that condition changes, dependent origination is no longer dependent origination. That's correct. Correct. Because your own experience of mind is not actually mind. What you experience with regard to all things, including mind, is your mindset. A mindset is something conditional and ultimately temporary. Mindset is like a set of clouds in the sky. Even if the clouds move very slowly, they do move, and they are inconstant. But whether the clouds move slowly or quickly, whether they can be seen or not, the sky is always there. Just like the analogy with the mirror, this analogy is not perfect. Both the sky and the mirror analogies are used widely in Dzogchen, even though they aren't perfect. Our experience has a deceptive capacity. If we allow ourselves to be deceived, we begin to believe the contents of our experiences. If we are not deceived, our relationship to our experience is mystical -- we neither believe it nor disbelieve it, there is a different kind of freedom available than the freedom of belief or the freedom of disbelief, more creative and more dynamic freedom. You're the one who doesn't understand anything. Why don't you contemplate for a bit? Actually mind transcends even realizations. Realizations appear and disappear in the basic space of mind. My mind is not really mine. If you're talking about your mind which is really yours, you're right, that's just a shadow of the mind, a product of beliefs about the mind, in other words, it's a product of the mindset. Remember that the mindset is a condition of the mind in the same way that wind and stillness are conditions of the air.

I like to re-read some things I've read and as I was re-reading the Bloodstream Sermon I linked above, I realized it contained many typos. I hope this is a better quality link, with fewer typos: http://www.scribd.com/doc/13909483/Bloodstream-Sermon-Zen-Teaching-of-Bodhidharma

Radix sounded really interesting to me too, especially after I read some raving amazon.com reviews. BUT.... BUT!!! The book is out of print???!??? :( What is up with that? I thought maybe it is some ancient book, but it's only been written in 1981 or so. So it's not that old. What the??? Apparently it wasn't popular enough or what? No idea. But if I want to get it now, I have to hunt through used book sales and obscure book stores. I thought I could just get it at my local book store, but it looks like I may need to order it online. More info: http://www.radixtetrad.com/tetrad_index.html So looks like you can get 3 of the 4 books of the Radix series, but not the Radix itself, which will be reissued in late 2010. Well, you can still get Radix from obscure stores, but not in any major book stores.

That's impossible. You'll always have both mind and mindset. You can't get rid of them, but of the mind and mindset, you can change the mindset. That's why rebirth and karma that goes beyond one life are important topics in many spiritual traditions. OK, suppose something like that disappears as you say. When this happens, it will be the case that such disappearance was recognized, noticed. What's recognizing? What's noticing? That's the mind. Buddhist texts are pretty clear that both Nirvana and Samsara are mind-made. Here's a reference to one of my favorite texts. This one is attributed to Bodhidharma (whom I consider a Buddha): http://fodian.net/world/dmhml-e.html

If you want to experience prophetic dreams, you can. But it doesn't have to be only this way or only that way. You have a lot of influence over how your life unfolds and in particular, what kind of purpose and meaning dreams serve, or in fact, whether or not you even have any dreams to begin with.

I've leafed through it at the book store. I think it's a decent book that has its moments, but I wouldn't put it anywhere close to Chuang Tzu: The Inner Chapters or to anything Richard Bach wrote. It's not for me, but I can see how it can be beneficial for someone else. Just walk down to your bookstore and check it out. How hard can it be?

You can make your dreams be anything you want. That's great power and it's easy to get caught up in it. For example, you can make it so that your dreams have special messages about the non-dream world. You can then get obsessed with gathering and following these messages and forget that you can make dreams meaningless if you want. In other words, you might forget that you have this power to change what things means and just follow a meaning you gave something long ago, all the while suffering a lot. If you are careful not to get obsessed over things, and if you keep in mind that dreams don't have to mean any one thing, and that you are the one that makes them mean this or that, you can go ahead and play with that power and you won't be hurt. When you get bored or tired, don't forget to switch your dreams back to meaninglessness.

It's possible. A lot depends on what you mean by "energy". Seizure activity in the brain can be recorded using EEG. What EEG makes a record of is certainly a type of energy in the "Western" scientific sense of that word. You probably mean subtle energy. According to a traditional Chinese view, ailments can be caused by a number of problems, and as far as I understand, energy imbalance is just one of them. An obvious example of a medical problem that's not caused by an energy imbalance is a healthy limb that got broken due to very strong forces acting on it. None of this is really helpful though. What you want to know is not so much what caused the problem, but can subtle energies be used to heal it? What's your flow like now? Have you tried visualization? It's not exactly the same thing as working on your energy flow, at least, not directly the same. Visualize a color of light that you believe is most healing or most beneficial for you. Imbue that light with the feeling of kindness and softness and feel it suffuse all of your being and even beyond your being, out into the universe. Try this. The best attitude toward a malady is kindness, but without any self-pity. It's a middle ground where you are kind to yourself and wish yourself to get better, but at the same time, you aren't afraid to lose yourself to the disease either, no self-pity. It is completely non-aggressive and firm. You firmly want to improve and are completely kind and non-aggressive, but at the same time, you are open to any outcome. This openness to negative outcomes is important to avoid falling into a state of desperation. If you're not open like that, you will be very afraid and emotionally constricted. You want to be larger than the disease and not smaller than it. So softness and kindness are good, but self-pity is not. Pay attention to your condition without becoming too obsessed with it. As you practice mindfulness, it's possible that your condition will reveal to you how you can heal it.

Playing in the sun and helping people is mental masturbation.

That's only true of the mindset, but not mind. The mind is not dependently originated. But mindset is. It's obvious you haven't been paying attention to anything I've written. The screen is not the movie that runs on it. The mirror is not the reflections that appear in it. When you talk about various experiences such as one of neither perception nor non-perception, that's a certain kind of an image that arises in the mind. It's not itself mind.

Great book.

Dune series by Frank Herbert, anything by Richard Bach, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin. I think all the books in my list meet both of your requirements.

The mind is not really designed. The mind can design things, but the mind itself is not designed. The mind is perfectly adaptable. It is adaptable to analysis. It is adaptable to dwelling in emptiness. Dwelling in emptiness doesn't improve the mind. Analysis doesn't harm it. Let's quickly jump to my movie screen metaphor. The movie screen doesn't get dirty when a movie of dirt is played on it. The movie screen doesn't get any cleaner when a movie of a sparkly and shiny kitchen sink is being played on it. The mind is just like that movie screen with the distinction that we conceive the movie screen to be made of substance, but the mind is not made of substance.

That's something to consider. Definitely.

I agree with this appraisal, pretty much top to bottom. I notice this too. Aren't we the bestest? This is one of the qualities I like in Taoism better than Buddhism -- Taoism is not so anthropocentric. I don't have to go to the extreme of worshiping dogs, cats and the crows to admit to myself that they are not inferior to me, just different. On the other hand, in Buddhist writings, I read time and again, animals used as examples of lower sentience. Hell, some writings even codify all of them into an animal realm, separate from the human realm. That's a rather ugly anthropocentrism right there. Taoists do not view animals as inherently lower than humans, and thus, human Taoists are capable of learning from animals without demeaning themselves. That's a good quality. Let's put this question on its head. Is it possible to apprehend one individual phenomenon in the absence of the totality of the context? As I think you are well aware, the context is infinite and indeed embraces the possible totality of phenomena -- this is a much bigger space than mere totality of phenomena. This depends on the kind of demands you place on omniscience. What if I say you are omniscient right now, and have always been?

Once again you put words into my mouth. If anything is offensive to me, it's not the curse words and impoliteness. It is this kind of behavior. I am going to report you now for misrepresenting what I said.