nac

You mean the Tao is something like luminiferous aether, a medium that allows the rest of creation to unfold? BTW isn't a hinayanist simply a selfish cultivator from any school or tradition?

Emptiness is not incompatible with nonduality. Source: https://sacred-texts.com/shi/ioe/ioe17.htm

Wow, I'm famous! PS. Yes, I've heard that story before. And the quote too, I've read every sentence ever published by Philip K. Dick. Several times. It's what got me interested in Buddhism in the first place. I wanted to find out what exactly does not go away when once you stop believing in it.

You're lucky. I'm a closet Buddhist in a Muslim family.

You're right. The truth can be discovered through transcendence.

Chicken or egg. The truth lies in transcendence.

... when that's skillful.

As far as I know, an Arhat is a being who has achieved perfect non-being. A Bodhisattva is a being who has given up his own chance to pursue enlightenment in order to help other beings transcend suffering. Buddhist organizations don't tell you who to respect and how much. Note: These are the Buddhist terms. Other dharmic religions like Jainism have their own Arhats, etc.

It's a personal request. I'm begging him to keep his cool. That's all. I'm not sure where the fixation comes in... You might say that true Emptiness is fixed upon a perfect amount of flexibility. As in it certainly resolves into other views, but never permanently. Sitting "fixed" in Sunyatic equanimity (if such a thing is even possible) isn't going to help suffering beings. (offtopic: IMO the difference between this and nondualism -- which often comes in the form of identifying with hierarchies, superstructures and substrata -- is obvious from posts like, say: http://www.hindudharmaforums.com/showthread.php?t=192)

Thank you for your efforts. This will definitely help me explore Taoism in more detail.

What is the Mysterious Pass in traditional Qigong? I've only encountered the term in Falun Gong websites: http://www.falundafa.org/book/eng/zfl_45.htm

Please don't act like this. To be honest, you're making me question the wholesomeness of Buddhist practice more than anything dwai has said. I also wonder if all Hindus stay decent in the face of multiple attacks like him. (Fortunately, I'm not that kind of a Buddhist. And the answer to the second one is no from personal experience, not that I've met many Hindus who are into religion.) 0-ness is not incompatible with nonduality. What it doesn't like is being permanently resolved into a more concrete "reality" such as monism or dualism, etc. It's closer to a method than a belief.

It's true that my attitude is itself derived from zen. It's like a doubled feedback loop. Zen is a philosophy that cancels itself out for the benefit of sentient beings. (or at least it's supposed to) In that sense, when I say I'm not a "real Buddhist", I mean I do not conform to what most people would usually identify as "Buddhist doctrine".

True, speaking for myself. I try not abide by doctrine at all, only the truth as it becomes apparent to my own consciousness. It just so happens that I'm in almost complete agreement with 0-ness and Zen philosophy at the moment. The similarities and differences between various sets of doctrines, doings of religious institutions, etc are more of a curiosity to me than a direct personal interest. Eg. If the doctrinal position of "original/real Zen" turns out to be a monistic or nondualist philosophy, that doesn't mean I'll suddenly reject Sunyata. It means I'll stop being a Zennist. I'm only rejecting Sunyata if I find that Sunyata itself is incorrect/incomplete and I understand why. I have 0 faith in the opinions of masters and teachers.

Existence consists of a jumble of emergent phenomena interconnected by a web of cause, effect and randomness. There are subjective phenomena and objective phenomena and others, all interacting with each other in complex ways. Some phenomena are hard to classify as unquestionably subjective or objective. Moving in any direction from there is bringing judgment and/or opinions into the picture. That's okay. At the moment, my judgment says there is probably no afterlife as we imagine it. I could be wrong. I don't remember dying and even if I did, I wouldn't trust the memory on face value.

What physical realm? SereneBlue: The doctrine of ignorance is applicable to myself before anybody else.

Winner/loser is a false and highly subjective duality.

From the Principia Discordia: A ZEN STORY by Camden Benares, The Count of Five Headmaster, Camp Meeker Cabal A serious young man found the conflicts of mid 20th Century America confusing. He went to many people seeking a way of resolving within himself the discords that troubled him, but he remained troubled. One night in a coffee house, a self-ordained Zen Master said to him, "go to the dilapidated mansion you will find at this address which I have written down for you. Do not speak to those who live there; you must remain silent until the moon rises tomorrow night. Go to the large room on the right of the main hallway, sit in the lotus position on top of the rubble in the northeast corner, face the corner, and meditate." He did just as the Zen Master instructed. His meditation was frequently interrupted by worries. He worried whether or not the resr of the plumbing fixtures would fall from the second floor bathroom to join the pipes and other trash he was sitting on. He worried how would he know when the moon rose on the next night. He worried about what the people who walked through the room said about him. His worrying and meditation were disturbed when, as if in a test of his faith, ordure fell from the second floor onto him. At that time two people walked into the room. The first asked the second who the man was sitting there was. The second replied "Some say he is a holy man. Others say he is a shithead." Hearing this, the man was enlightened. PS. Emptiness in a nutshell: Lord Dunsany's The Sorrow of Search (pdf)

That may be, but what gives you any faith in this experience at all? The experience itself? I myself have never reached that level of awareness, so I can't comment. How does your position differ from dwai's?

Believe it or not, I've had similar experiences a long time back during prolonged periods of meditation. What I'm asking is: So what? How does all this matter? What difference does it make? Should we try and derive conclusions from this, or explain it using natural science, or leave it as a "pre conceptual experience" which has little to do with other phenomena? Just because we can feel the timelessness of experience, is experience really timeless, or is it just a feeling due to the construction of our psyche?

Thanks for letting me know.

And Taoism is the same as Scientology? Oh dear. Why Neo-Pagan?

I don't get it. What exists subjectively for me? The elements of awareness arises out of the complex interaction of non-sentient matter, which can then TRY to sense the environment around it. It usually makes terrible mistakes when doing this. That's delusion. The "I am"-sense arises from the functioning of material components which give rise to consciousness. Take away the components, and those parts of the "I am" will cease. Many animals don't have a sense of Self, but they feel pain regardless. I don't understand the need to place such great importance upon it. This great discussion is only about whether there's a single featureless "me" at the core of my being or not? What is the function of this "me"? What happens to it after death and how do you know that? How exactly does it matter whether it's there or not? PS. I'll be interested to see the summary. Thanks.

I honestly want to understand dwai's position. Despite reading pages and pages of discussion, I'm only getting confused. He certainly sounds more confident and rational than most of the Buddhists here, but when I'm trying to understand his reasoning, I sense a philosophical gulf whose nature I cannot fathom. And the discussion goes on non-stop for months. All that I've actually understood so far is that he disagrees with the Buddha's pressentation of the dharma and it has something to do with reality, unreality and illusion. That's it. I haven't been able to progress a single step further than that.

It was a joke. Anyway, the noumenon of experience is only a meme which exists within our minds. When we die, it will utterly disintegrate along with our brains unless it's passed on to someone else's mind. That's all it is. It's not somehow special, primary, more fundamental or even more useful (like science and maths) than other ideas. Upon death, subjective experience will probably disintegrate too. In that case, not only will there be no afterlife, we won't even be "at rest" like we're conventionally told. We won't "be" at all, and there will be no self to note that we're not. I can't see anything logically incongruous about that. I really don't understand how you're trying to make experience immortal through philosophical arguments. "Unreal" in the sense of being imaginary. Not having an external counterpart justifying the mental construct. Real in that sense. Unreal in that sense.