goldisheavy

Do you know what is the source of that writing? Is it from Pali Canon? Where is it from? This is a quote from the same text: "Most women in the world have little wisdom and are saturated with emotion. They give birth to and raise children, feeling that this is their duty." No, I do not. Do you? That doesn't mean those people are wrong or that they don't read Arabic. This is just bullshit. I've been digging around and I think I found something that should interest you. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutra_of_Filial_Piety I knew something was suspicious when I failed to find this text in the Pali Canon translations available on the net.

Thanks for the link. I'm aware of this issue, but it's good to have more information.

Sharing feelings has value, but still, I would appreciate a real explanation. Excellent question. Absence of objective world does not imply absence of cognizance. Since cognizance is present, there are pleasurable, painful and neutral perceptions. Beings naturally incline themselves toward pleasure and away from pain. That's plenty of motivation right there. You must also keep in mind that avoiding action is still a choice, thus is still passion. So if you lay around and do nothing, that's an example of passion. That's not an example of apathy. It's a clear preference toward rest, assuming you've consistently declined all friendly and beneficial offers to become active. On the other hand, if you do believe in an objective world, there is no reason why you couldn't be apathetic. You can be perfectly indifferent to life and still believe that objective world exists. Indifference is your attitude toward phenomena and that attitude is not directly connected to your belief about the ultimate status of phenomena. If you think that the ultimate status of phenomena is impossible to establish, yet if you have love of life, you are in no danger of apathy. If anything, there is danger you might become even more passionate, because you'll perceive fewer limitations on making your dreams come true. Some people have answered this pretty clearly, although not directly by a "yes" or "no" answer. I am pretty satisfied with the answers I've received (to the question in your quotation).

For my own future reference I would like to know which Sutta describes this event. I would have to see what could be gained in either case. If I saw that Mohammed had remorse and that he could see why it was wrong what he did, or if I could see there was at least a chance of that, I might want to let him live. Also, if I could be convinced that Mohammed would not be preaching anywhere, I might also let him live, even if he had no remorse for his actions. But the combination of doing something evil without remorse while simultaneously preaching and spreading fear around the globe, that combination would cause me to put Mohammed down like a bad dog.

Oh sure. Just because one man was a murderer, doesn't mean he was the only one. The world is full of murderers. That still doesn't make murder more acceptable though, does it? We don't need to know the real reasons. This line of thinking can be used to justify anything. Was Mohammed equally as compassionate to others? So if some woman committed adultery, did Mohammed go, "oh well, we don't know the reasons why she did that... so we should reserve our judgement"?? Of course not. Mohammed would be saying, "Down with that bitch!! STONE HER NOW!!!" Etc. Mohammed was ruthless and not compassionate. So if I were to meet Mohammed in person, I might cut his head off. Why is that? Because I think he's a scumbag who shouldn't be alive. Or I might show him compassion and let him live, compassion that he failed to show to so many others like himself. You should learn to see things for what they are. What you are doing now Vajra, is called apologetics. You're apologizing. Stop apologizing. Don't try to smooth Mohammed over and accept the fact that by any modern standard in our culture and in most other cultures someone who committed Mohammed's action would be considered both an asshole, and a criminal. Mohammed would rot in jail had he behaved the same way in USA or in any country of Europe, or Russia, or China, etc. Mohammed never had a problem judging people. He condemned countless men to death without any deliberation or thought. This is bullshit on so many levels. First, we are a sleeping and dreaming God. Second, we judge all the time. All the time. Perception is judgment. Third, it is hypocritical to ask not to judge a dirty and murderous character like Mohammed, while being asked to come down heavy on adultery and theft. How can I consider George W Bush a dirty character and Mohammed clean? No way! If what Bush did was dirty, then Mohammed is even more dirty. If what Mohammed did was clean, then Bush is a saint. Anything else is hypocrisy. And I don't like hypocrisy, and apparently, neither did Mohammed, although he was a hypocrite of the highest order. Muslims are some of the most judgmental people I know. In fact, the more religious a person is, the more judgmental they are. I feel sorry for you Vajra. You are in a bad predicament. You're in a situation where Sufis have some legitimate wisdom, and you want that wisdom. But at the same time, Sufis are associated with a terrible religion, with something that's a blight upon the world. Mohammed, the leader of your religion, is a dirty and murderous scumbag. That's a difficult situation. You probably have nice Muslim friends and then you also know that there are lots of asshole Muslims around the world. It's hard to reconcile all that. How do you reconcile your Muslim friends, who probably don't rape 9 year old girls, with Mohammed? You cannot. How do you reconcile peaceful Muslims with those who want to convert every non-believer into a Muslim? Wanting to convert every human being into a Muslim is the most violent thought I've ever known. To make every person into your desired image is precisely what violence is. Islam is violent at the core, because of the concept of Jihad. Yes, there is inner Jihad. But inner Jihad is not the full extent of Jihad. Muslims consider non-believers fair game. Non-believers are not protected by morality from the Muslim side. Apostates are to be executed. What kind of thinking is that? So people are held in the grasp of Islam by fear. If people don't feel free to leave Islam, and if they fear being killed by leaving it, then it's no longer a free choice. So you are trapped brother. You got caught in a mouse trap. You fell for that little bit of cheese, but now you will pay with your life, because you've stepped on the path to hell. Do you know what statutory rape is? Did you read the link I gave you? Aisha's mother had to take her by the hand and lead her to the dirty and filthy Mohammed. Aisha would not have sex with him on her own. She needed her mother to "gently" prod her toward Mohammed. Me too, but that's beside the point. We're not talking about our personal sexual preferences here.

I think this is a significant point. Anyone who wants to gloss over this or anyone who pretends to smooth this over is ignoring Buddha's real character. This is why I say that Buddha was not a boyscout. He made some tough choices. I don't want to call them good choices or bad choices. Everyone can judge for themselves. I think women and men are entitled to their opinions, and if some women (or men) feel that leaving the family is a lame thing to do, I think that's a valid opinion. I don't think it's the only valid one, but it is an opinion I can respect. So if someone were to say that Buddha was an asshole because he abandoned his wife and child, I might disagree with this, but I would respect such opinion and wouldn't argue with it (or at least, not much ). Should Buddha be a role model for all husbands run away from their wives to meditate? I don't think so. A lot of siddhas were very spicy characters. I love a lot of them, sometimes for their spiciness, and sometimes despite their spiciness and sometimes my feelings are mixed. But I would never want to change what those siddhas were, nor would I want to dress them up and make them look more proper than they were, or to drain them of all their colorfulness or ugliness. This is why I am so happy that Tibetans have decided to reveal some crazy siddhas together with all their craziness.

I like Taoist approach too, and by that I mean the 3 sages, Laozi, Zhuangzi and Liezi, and not anything else. In my opinion Taoists describe exactly the same thing as Buddhists. I think ambiguity is part of the message. It is to train the mind to avoid fixations. But not everything in Taoism is ambiguous though. For example, "long and short define each other" is not ambiguous in the least.

Ahh... finally we get to the real meat. You're only involved in it in your own head. Down here, making a naked assertion does not equal participation. Not at all. Is that the implication of not believing in an objective reality? Please explain how this is the case. I don't see any such connection.

I believe there is unanimous consent on that, Marblehead. Who is apathetic? Who preaches apathy? I don't think your worries about apathy preaching are justified.

Marblehead, You are not really participating in this discussion. No offense. You just came in a few times to say objective world exists and to "thumbs up" this or that quote. Which is fine. Just be aware that you're not really engaged. The same is true for most others. There are only a few people here who are seriously considering the topic of this thread.

Would you explain what you mean a bit more here? Relative is that which is sometimes relevant and sometimes irrelevant. It is sometimes true and sometimes false. For example, if I say "Today is Tuesday" that's a relative truth. It's true for me, right now. What if 3 days from now I said the same thing, "Today is Tuesday", would that still be true? No, it would be relatively false. That's why we wouldn't say that "Today is Tuesday" is the ultimate truth. Alternatively, if I say, "You have 20,000 pairs of shoes", it might be false now, but when you go to sleep and have a dream, you might actually have 20,000 shoes in your dream, and at that time the same statement will be true. What makes relative truths unstable like that is the fact that their truth depend on various causes and conditions in the mind. Since the causes and conditions are always shifting, and the truth statements themselves are not similarly shifting, the statements either become false or fall out of relevancy altogether. For example, any truth talking about forms is irrelevant in the formless realm (of perception). So if we say that goldisheavy is slightly fat, that's not relevant in the formless realm. And being relevant simply means you're able to make use of it. So, if you know that goldisheavy is slightly fat, you can suggest diet and exercise for example. Or you can make a funny joke. These are some of the ways you can use that truth. But in the formless realm, such truth has no purpose, is not connected with anything, and you cannot use it in any way. When you first hear an exposition on the view of dependent arising, what does it look like? It's a series of statements and maybe questions. It's probably in English (unless you're also fortunate enough to know Pali, Tibetan, Sanskrit, Chinese, or Japanese). Right as you hear the exposition for the first time, it might seem alluring and interesting. But say, the Dharma talk ends and you go back to your girlfriend. You are playing with your girl and forget all about dependent arising. The only truth you need then is how to cuddle and the truth of dependent arising is irrelevant. Let's say later in the day you go to sleep and have a dream where 20,000 shoes appear to you. And let's say you're worried that your house is overflowing with the shoes. You might be stressing over where to put all those shoes and wondering whether or not you need them all and so on. So the truth about 20,000 shoes would be relevant at the time of that dream, but the truth of dependent arising would not be. Assuming when you hear exposition on dependent arising for the first time you're not accustomed to contemplating it yet, as in, the exposition is truly novel to your mind, at that time, the truth of dependent arising is just one more truth competing for your attention with tens of thousands or even millions of other seemingly equally weighty relative truths. Assuming you're attracted to the teaching of dependent arising, eventually you'll spend more and more time pondering various implications of dependent arising. You'll bring it to mind, and start considering this and that implication of it. How it affects your day to day life. How is it relevant to your thinking. How is it relevant to your eating and everything else. As you contemplate it, you may find it more and more relevant in more and more situations. At some point you might even be unable to forget about it for more than 1 hour at a time. Later on you might feel that whether or not you remember it, it is always there, because your very bones begin to carry the consequences of contemplation. As you continue examining it, something strange happens. Your place in the world changes. Your relationships with yourself, other people, Buddhas, and insentient objects change. You begin noticing that your dreams are affected and so on. And, as you keep practicing contemplating the view of dependent arising, you realize there is no substantial difference between ignorance and knowledge, between foolishness and wisdom, between Buddha and sentient being, between dream and waking, between sentient and insentient and so on. At some point you can't even tell if you've ever began practicing this view or if you were always like this. It seems like everything changed and nothing changed. It seems like you've learned so much and at the same time like you haven't learned even one thing. Since I am trying to describe the indescribable, obviously these descriptions do not suffice and do not fully or even partially capture anything. The intention of awakening gathers steam, and at some point becomes unstoppable and unblockable. Then, even if you took LSD, or went to sleep, or lost yourself in meditation, or got knocked out by getting hit in the head, or died in a ditch, or rotted alive in the field somewhere, no matter what, nothing could obscure or block your realization and your realization would even transcend any idea you have of yourself. In some sense it's not even yours. In some other sense you can't be sure if realization belongs to you or if you belong to it, or if maybe there is no difference. Or if there is a difference, that's maybe fine too, because there might be no difference between having and not having a difference. Thus your mind would constantly abide in an open, peaceful, effortless and unconcluded state, but at the same time, there is no way you could identify what state it was, because what would you compare it to? At that point your heart and mind would become free and unimpeded and all possibilities would become open. At that time, your presence, your life, your mind, your conduct, your view would be ultimate and inscrutable. At that time, should the truth of 20,000 shoes arise in your mind, it would have the same meaning and impact as liberation itself. At that time all truths and all phenomena would be liberation. All views would be ultimate and since there will no longer be a substantial difference between ultimate and relative views, your views won't be even ultimate. They will become indescribable. At that time, even if 10,000 Buddhas put their heads together, they couldn't describe your true way of being and nor could they complete the description of your merit, or even properly begin describing it. At that time, should your body be cremated, your very ashes would have the same wisdom as your person before cremation. To give you an example, imagine that your mind is a chunk of steel. The teaching on dependent arising is a hammer. Every time you contemplate dependent arising, the steel of your mind heats up, softens, and the hammer strikes the steel of your mind. After you contemplate dependent arising 10,000 times, it's like this chunk of steel being hit with 10,000 hammer blows by a skillful blacksmith. The result is a sharp sword of wisdom! The sword retains its shape even though it's no longer being hit by the hammer. The sword can even cut the hammer that forged it in half and not lose its sharpness one bit. That's the symbolic sword of wisdom.

Presentation and hearing of the view of dependent arising is relative. However the maturation and the result of full digestion of the view of interdependent co-arising is the ultimate view. So when you read of the ultimate view in the Suttas or Sutras or Tantras, or when you hear of it from someone, especially when this happens for the first time and you are not yet accustomed to contemplating it yet, what you perceive is only the relative view. When you have fully digested the view of interdependent co-arising, it means you've exhausted considering every possible implication of it, and have become steady and confident in a manner that is inconceivable and impossible to describe.

There is no correct relative view. Relative views are views like "This laptop is here." "The sky is blue." "God wrote the Bible." "Flying Spaghetti Monster is the supreme God." "Paying $500 dollars for a computer is too much." "Objective reality exists." These kinds of views are relative views. Relative views are characterized by their inconstant applicability. A view that sometimes applies, sometimes doesn't apply, is sometimes relevant and sometimes irrelevant, is a relative view. The mistake that sentient beings make with regard to relative views is that they give more weight to the relative views than they deserve. This is what it means to be caught up in samsara. To liberate beings from the limiting shackles of the relative views, the Buddha has taught about the ultimate view. The ultimate view has a characteristic of being always relevant and always applicable and of being steady and constant and reliable -- this is what makes it peaceful. Another property of the ultimate view is that it is able to dissolve relative views. Because relative views are unstable and are applicable only sporadically, they are worrisome and stressful when relied upon. Ultimate view has the power to pacify relative views. I am not going to change how I behave for you. Furthermore you should speak for yourself. If you are not impressed, that's fine. You're not important enough to be worth impressing, so there is no problem at all. On the other hand, if you say nobody is impressed, you overstep your bounds. Don't speak for others. Doing so is just a way to make your position appear more valid and more weighty than you fear it really is. You can't know that. There is no way to know it. You can know the state of your mind. When you suffer, you know this. When you are liberated from suffering, you also know this.

If you can see the rain form in the sky no matter what's going on in your mind, you are lying. For example, if you went out in the rainy weather, and took a hit of salvia, is there a guarantee you would still perceive rain? If you have good meditative skill, and you went out in the rain and entered one of the intangible peaceful abiding, would you still perceive rain? If you went outside in the rain, and laid down on the bench and fell asleep. Would you still perceive the rain? Salvia, meditation, sleep, all those are ways to affect mind's state. Since rain perception is not independent of mind's state, and is, in fact, dependent on it in every way, there is no rain outside your own mind.

Thanks for the reviews people. I want to go see this movie too.

That's a very serious flaw in your thinking. What basis do you have for claiming that objects can arise independently of mind? What do you rely on to gather evidence of this? Wrong. The whole point of the ultimate level is that it supersedes the relative. If it didn't supersede the relative, it wouldn't be called "ultimate". The ultimate truth is more true than the relative truth. Furthermore, there is no clear separation between the ultimate and the relative truths. The entire point of introducing your mind to the ultimate truth is to give you more flexibility and more options with regard to relative truth and to thus emancipate you from the relative truth. Relative truth is what binds. Ultimate truth is what liberates. Relative truth is delusion. Relative truth is thinking that "this laptop here really exists." This is peasant thinking. It's deluded thinking. It's wrong thinking. The ultimate truth is correct thinking. But we must acknowledge the presence and the weight of the relative truth, not because it's right, but because the mind can be in error. If we take the extreme position that relative truth doesn't exist at all, then we take the position that error or delusion do not exist. The relative truth is the truth of delusion. Because delusion can happen, there is relative truth. Because delusion can be removed, there is ultimate truth. So if we only acknowledged the ultimate but not the relative, we would be saying that it's impossible to be anything but blissful Buddha. So when we acknowledge the relative truth, it is the truth of suffering that we acknowledge. We acknowledge the relative truth in a negative light, but we speak of the ultimate truth in a joyous and positive light. Prajnaparamita is the ultimate truth and it is joyous. The relative truth is the truth of the disease. The ultimate truth is the truth of health. Just because the disease has truth to it, does not mean you want to be sick. We learn of the relative truth to learn what not to believe. And why is it I am able to give you this original, never before heard of instruction on the relative vs. ultimate truth? It is because I embody the teachings of the Buddha instead of merely memorizing them.

http://www.muslimhope.com/AishaNine.htm It won't be easy to elaborate better than this.

What's passive intelligence? What is stale and uncreative? Love thyself and love others. A problem well defined is a problem half-solved.

You claim the objective world exists. However Buddha has taught a path beyond the 4 extremes of existence. Emptiness of phenomena is beyond the 4 extremes of existence. The second you claim "objective world exist", you no longer hold the view that is beyond the extremes of existence. I am not convinced you understand what you're talking about. It seems like you are repeating words that are way beyond your actual practical understanding. Kind of like a donkey carrying a Sutta on its back. The donkey is able to faithfully deliver the words of the Buddha, but has no clue about what it is delivering.

Exactly my point. If you accept the existence of an objective world, it's only on blind faith that you can do so. Not only do we lack any evidence for this, but there is absolutely no way to even begin gathering such evidence. You either accept the pre-existence of the objective world on faith, or you don't. There is no way to convince someone who has no faith in the objective world to change his or her mind. It's worse than that even. There is no way to convince someone with no faith in the objective world that having faith in the objective world could possibly have merit or improve the quality of life in any way. If anything, as beings accept faith in the objective world, their quality of life declines. No. It's because you claim to understand emptiness. Your question in the beginning was actually very good, but you don't have what it takes to investigate it honestly. Actually, it is very hard. You must be ready to accept the consequences.

Oh good. Turns out I don't have any reason to act like you're ignoring my own pick for an authority. You are a sentient being. You agree there is nothing outside of mind for you. Since I am talking to you and not to non-you, you don't have the standing to present the non-you's case for non-you. Let non-you speak for itself and you speak for yourself. So when you speak for yourself, which is the only honest thing you can do, you have to admit that there is nothing outside mind. Where do you get the idea of the universe from? Did universe tell you about herself or is it your mind that's telling you about it? We all can make any number of statements. So you are making a statement. How exciting and novel. You're a moron. I have no respect for you. Objective world is said to exist independently of observers. Consensual reality is said to exist as a function of consensus between observers. Objective world doesn't depend on observers. Consensual reality does.

There is an enormous difference between consensual reality and objective reality.

I suggest the following rule of thumb guideline: 1. When you read a boisterous post, is the ill temper all there is? Are insults the sole content? Or is the person insulting alongside providing information? For example: if the original message was, "in order to go to Florida, go west from New York," is the reply purely "f u f u f u, period" or is it "f u, you need to go south, or at least north, if you want to go around the whole planet first"? If the person is trying to say something amid the rough language, it's more likely legitimate. If the post has no other information besides sheer put downs, it's more likely to be illegitimate. 2. How often does it happen? Is wrath the only modality the person is capable of? Or is the person mostly calm and kind and uses the wrathful modality only judiciously when the circumstances arise? 3. Are there instances where you'd expect the person to get angry, but instead the sometimes-wrath-using person is calm and reasoned and is not reacting to what could be perceived as provocation? If such instances exist, it is evidence that likely this person has command over one's temper and allows it to flare only or mostly on purpose (as opposed to having a run-away temper). To make a good judgment on this matter, you have to observe the person for a while. Additionally you have to be aware of your own biases. For example, on the first point it's all too easy to feel so insulted, so as to simply dismiss the information present in the post. So while in reality you might have a post there that communicates something beyond and besides roughness, a sensitive and unaware person might not be able to see past the roughness. And finally, I suggest that unless other people move to physically assault you, and as long as there is opportunity to simply ignore the influence, what matters most is yourself. You are your own ultimate teacher. Other people, even if those other people claim to be Buddha, are just accessories to your learning. They are not in charge of your learning. No one is in charge of your mind other than yourself. When you awaken, you'll find that while others have served as the context of your awakening, it is you who awakened spontaneously for mysterious reasons. No one can cause you or force you to awaken. No one can cause you or force you to be ignorant either. Even Buddha couldn't force people to understand what he was saying. This is why you are always the one in charge, and as long as you see others as accessories to your learning, what they do and how they behave is less important, because you won't feel trapped or controlled by such people. You'll be like the owner and Lord of such people. Even a Buddha is like a CD player in your mind -- you can turn it on and off at will. You can begin listening to Buddha and stop listening to Buddha at will. If you think someone is a very important teacher, you are even more important than that someone, because it is you who decided that and who has the power to undecide that at any moment. The teacher is always at the mercy of the student. The student is always the Lord and the Master and teachers are mere slaves.

In Islam women are not as important as men, and to insinuate that women could potentially be prophets is downright insulting to many Muslims. From http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/k/koran/kora...amp;byte=114839 [4.11] Allah enjoins you concerning your children: The male shall have the equal of the portion of two females; then if they are more than two females, they shall have two-thirds of what the deceased has left, and if there is one, she shall have the half; and as for his parents, each of them shall have the sixth of what he has left if he has a child, but if he has no child and (only) his two parents inherit him, then his mother shall have the third; but if he has brothers, then his mother shall have the sixth after (the payment of) a bequest he may have bequeathed or a debt; your parents and your children, you know not which of them is the nearer to you in usefulness; this is an ordinance from Allah: Surely Allah is Knowing, Wise. [4.34] Men are the maintainers of women because Allah has made some of them to excel others and because they spend out of their property; the good women are therefore obedient, guarding the unseen as Allah has guarded; and (as to) those on whose part you fear desertion, admonish them, and leave them alone in the sleeping-places and beat them; then if they obey you, do not seek a way against them; surely Allah is High, Great. Basically Koran is the same backwards crap as Leviticus in the Bible.