nac

They've told you their thoughts on these issues several times. What's the point of bring it up in every thread? It's annoying!

What do you think of this online translation? http://hk.geocities.com/akrishi0/goflower/eng/index.htm Sorry if this has been asked before.

Form is Emptiness. Emptiness is Form.

Must every thread in a Taoist forum turn into a never-ending war between the Tibetan Buddhist perspective versus everything else? I know you guys are used to making a lot of Buddhism-centric posts in E-Sangha, but this seems unskillful to me, to say the least.

I'm not sure if truth should be described simply as "one" or "many"...

dwai: Could be, but I doubt it.

Nope, there is no universality in regard to right and wrong. Some truths are universal while some are not and most are mixed. With respect, if someone else thinks 2+2=5, it's my duty (for my benefit and theirs) to explain my reasoning and find out if I was wrong or the result really is different for others. (assuming either of us are close to being correct...) Whether it's a matter of subjective opinion or simply delusion, which is important knowledge in itself. I wouldn't do this with an unwilling opponent or with someone who seems unlikely to admit his mistakes, if any. I don't want to be free of opinions, etc. I want the world to be as delusion-free as possible. For instance, I think the above is just a subjective opinion, and I wouldn't dream of forcing someone else to acknowledge that this is the only way of going about it.

I know I would, but only if I'm certain that my "right" is really correct, even when I'm being fully open-minded. That is, I wouldn't settle for agnosticism where 2+2=4 is concerned, but I'll always remain open-minded just in case I'm wrong about it.

Nah... it'll probably disintegrate into nitpicking, or just preaching about not forgetting all the suffering in the world amidst our own happiness. That sort of thing should be strictly voluntary and personal.

From "The Box, Inside And Out" It's not whether you think inside our outside the box that matters so much. Think what you like. Believe what you like. Just lose the box!

In that case, I agree with you. Your self probably does exist in the conventional sense.

Some corruption? Most people have no idea! The Utopian ideal is a myth and Tibet is certainly no exception. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWGGjpJJCKE (this guy's biased, but he's right on many counts)

Agreed. I could argue about that, but I'll pass. _/\_

MH: Do you know precisely what you mean when you say "I know I exist"? If not, then I agree with you.

You don't know? The closer people's opinions are, the more bitterly they argue. Human nature. Don't avoid it, rise above it.

Sweet! At one point in the past I just used to be a Philosophical Taoist. Now I'm also a Zen Buddhist. The only thing I've actually shed is the monistic idealism part. I have to warn you about extreme conventionalism though, it leads to some really scary stuff. ( )

That's of course your prerogative. There's no reason to search for truth, except when you get tired of the lies. As for enlightenment, I don't know what that is either. You may have misunderstood something however, I'm not trying to convert anyone to Buddhism. Buddhists don't believe that everything is an illusion. That's a common misunderstanding. Buddhists try to transcend vague generalizations like eternalism (everything exists) and nihilism (nothing exists) to look for a meaningful way to relate to the world. "How it's like" may be out there, but the established fact is, there's no objective way of experiencing it directly. So saying IT IS out there is just as meaningless as saying there's nothing's out there. I say this as a hardcore rationalist and a strong supporter of scientific inquiry, who's gotten into fights here for taking the side of mainstream science over methods like energy healing, etc. The inescapable point remains however, that the idea "all things exist" (pure Existentialism) is a flawed philosophy because it trails off into pointless metaphysics: What exactly does it mean to insist that everything exists when the existentia cannot be sensed in the first place? This isn't something only Buddhists have come up with, but philosophers throughout history all over the world. Sorry, but I'm afraid you may not know what you're arguing against from the religious angle and possibly the philosophical side as well. Tao knows I'm no philosophy expert either, but you should at least read up the basics before leveling bare assertions. How do I know that? I can't see your chair. For that matter, how can you be sure that I'm sitting on a chair and not (say) a bed or something? Remember, the sort of measurement you get depends on the construction of your measuring instrument, and since the nature of the universe is such that all things can't be known at once, it's unknowable as a whole. You shouldn't over-infer from no data. Be well!

That's the solipsistic attitude at the other extreme from the common-sense point of view. The Truth, if there is such a thing, is certainly more nuanced and should lie somewhere in between.

Emptiness in what sense? Fullness in what sense? If it's emptiness in the sense of the illusory individual and fullness in the sense of a real, external hierarchy or substratum, then not it Buddhism, no. There's nothing "out there" which you can experience while bypassing what's already "in here". Like Genkaku used to say in E-Sangha, "Wherever you go, there you are! Doh!"

"We create our own reality" is a very bad way to phrase it. The phenomena which come in contact with our senses consist of many different layers. Some are objective phenomena, some subjective. Some aspects depend on own point of view, some do not, and so forth. Find out how much "can't be helped" and what can, on your own. Never think "I have reached it: the Truth with a capital T". The moment you begin thinking like that, know that you're falling back into illusory mental states.

Here's what I remember: A CRT (cathode ray tube) monitor has electron guns mounted at the back (one for each of the primary colors) which sweep the screen with a stream of electrons several times per second. The screen is studded with phosphorescent dots which glow when electrons strike it. Every pixel is made up of three such dots placed close together, each of which glows one of the three primary colors: red, green and blue. So if you bring an electromagnetic field close to the monitor, you're messing up the aim of the electron guns, causing many of the electrons to strike random parts of the shadow mask. This interaction between electricity and magnetism is relatively complex. BTW mainstream science isn't that leaky!

Sorry, something like that is hard to capture in a small quote and I'm not feeling very lucid today. I could have chosen a better quote, maybe something stolen directly from a higher nondual tantra like the Manjushri-namasamgiti. PS. If anyone's interested, the Manjushri-namasamgiti is available for download in mp3 format: http://www.berzinarchives.com/web/x/nav/gr...1786920774.html Talk about tantric secrecy... (Remember, this is only the written part. Tantras usually come with secret oral instructions, rituals, etc... I think, I don't belong to any esoteric tradition.)

Sorry for the confusion. The quotation was supposed to show the difference between Buddhist and non-Buddhist teachings on nonduality.