Mandrake

I'm surprised you didn't ask for the precise quote. As is often the case, the context where it is spoken in this case is everything. Your detour into the pali canon convinces me that you utterly don't comprehend the original quote at all - due to misunderstanding, ignorance or whatever; if you did, this pali/Zen rant would have been unnecessary. Mandrake

Relax, I was joking! Sorry for not being clear on that ; )

Haha, I couldn't resist ;- ) M

Wonderful, thanks Marble! Mandrake

What what? GiH advocates moderation! Mandrake

Utterly wrong, as robmix already pointed out. Buddhism amongst other things states that there is no permanent self in the sensation skandha (encompassing feelings, and sensations of course), and also that there are causes for afflictive emotions that can be found and eliminated. All emotions are not afflictive. "Joy", is one of the factors of enlightenment, and many, many times the sutras speak about joy and bliss. In buddhism people frequently practice the four immeasurables - forms of meditation: loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, impartiality. I could go on and on, but the key understanding is that eliminating emotions is not buddhist practice, eliminating ignorance is. Emotions can become afflictive when ignorance is mixed in, and thus it is the latter that is to be eliminated. It is ignorance that defines afflictive attachment and aversion, not vice versa. Blocking out emotions will create more problems, more suffering, hinder the practicioner from entering samadhi, and increasing ignorance - i.e. regressing and not progressing. Mandrake PS. I here presume that the reader knows what ignorance means in buddhism, if not, point it out. DS.

Apparently you can't even sacrifice thetaobums.com since you keep spending your time here instead of meditating. It will be much more interesting hearing your absolutist statements in four, five years when you return from your Himalaya-voyage. When are you leaving? Do you have the money? If not, why not work and save money instead of spending time here and distracting your self from your goals? Mandrake

In that case, why are you spreading heresay on the net yourself? Mandrake

Do you believe it is a privilege to be allowed to reply to you? Often it is a matter of attitude why people shun participating in a discussion; if it is a setup for derision, why join with the evidence you have? If the purpose of each thread becomes win-vs-loose, and some guys take special pride in the defeat of others, many people will just stay out. There are a couple of people on this board that have genuine knowledge, and I appreciate it every time they share, but they are not any communal bank of sorts to which whoever wants can go and empty the deposits at a whim. Mandrake

This is not a fact. It has not been proven and is an assumption with large leaps of faith. Hard science deals with causality and not correlation. Mandrake

Yes youtube is amazing, isn't it? Aah, now I see, I'm completely taken back by your awesome research methods!! Mandrake

May I ask: What is your intention with this topic? This is like the fourth topic in the same vain that you start. Are you trying to help people? Or spill your bitterness on this forum (one topic would be enough)? Fair enough, if by that you mean that the Himalayan mountains are the tallest in the world! Mandrake

In that case the Creationist God acts as a cause for the effect, so the God is already involved in dependent origination. To insist that the scenario in the quote could exist, is analoguous to saying "we can't disprove that a square circle exists". It could be the case that the universe was created, yesterday, with all the markings for a seemingly longer past, by an entity also functioning in causality/DO, but to maintain that that entity is outside of causality/DO is ruled out by definition; it's not a matter of likelihood however I try to see it. Mandrake

"Invisible Pink Unicorn" can be just as much of a belief as "No-Invisible Pink Unicorn". In the end beliefs have various bearing on existence; some beliefs matter more, some are dispensable. Mandrake

I've had all of the above, simultaneously. When time is scarce, you prioritize, ration, and use it well. Do not misunderstand me; if one can be diligent and disciplined in daily life, one will be diligent and disciplined in retreat. I have met many who are living in retreat conditions who do not use that time and opportunity for more than leisure, unfortunately. Mandrake

Excellent post Susan, excellent! Couldn't have expressed it even half as well. As an adjunct note: when adult, in order to be accepted as a monk or nun, the monasteries demand that one have permission from one's parents. The end does not justify the means; a sick root produces sick branches. Most people don't work 16 hours per day. You can easily cultivate 8 hours daily and 14 in your free days - IF you sincerely think it is important to you. The "run into a cave" mentality I see here and there seems like an attitude often encountered in lazy meditators who think that a trip to shangri-la magically will end their procrastination. Mandrake

This statement of yours: 'But at the heart of what the Buddha taught was emptiness, which is "I don't know"' Provide the quotes and sourcematerial. Mandrake

This is blatantly wrong. You are free to fool around with other people's words and teachings, and make up your own ideologies, but don't try to claim that your new creation is what Buddha taught, or buddhism for that matter. Mandrake

Otis, I think this is so interesting that we perhaps should start a separate thread for it? But at the moment I'm forced to concentrate in writing my CV and finding a more suitable job : ( Mandrake

With consciousness I mean the luminous quality that builds up subjective experience, that has direct cognition, and can't be transferred or communicated completely to others; it can't be shown that others than I have it. I can envision a universe without it, yet we/I have it. It is still an "assumption" that consciousness arises from the brain. There's some repetetive evidence I know of , in favor of that "assumption". However, there are some grave problems with this proposition, not the least, showing that a non-physical property can emerge from matter which is a task for physics, not neurology. I think the real assumption, is that consciousness is only the function of our brain. That's the claim that seems much more open to doubt, since there's so much empirical evidence in support of the contrary. Mandrake

Of course, this I know clearly; my initial comment and reservation still holds. When I'm speaking about consciousness, I'm not speaking about functions. Perhaps the real fallacy are the underlying assumptions that we filter our studies and interpretations through? I think there is more and more evidence, but our standard modes of inquiry may be severly limited, and may have to be revised in order to fully comprehend this field. Mandrake

Personally, I don't believe this; you present an assumption. Evidence perhaps, of correlation between conscious experience and coarse consciousness; but anything else past that - like "It exists within the cells of the brain" (if the meaning is 'constricted to') - I don't buy, since these are plain assumptions/axioms. Mandrake

That's what you see in this video here, in the first seconds (not the woman on the carpet): I was wandering about this since this is the first time I see an animal trembling this way; apparently it is more widely recognized. Mandrake