Apech

I refuse your nougat.

I refute your negation.

I disagree with your disagreement.

i want my mummy

I agree - whatever you said.

I'm British Neolithic personally myself.

A concise explanation of the Zhentong lineage and texts can be found here in pdf form : https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5634b2fae4b03ef968053606/t/568154e440667a315367456e/1451316452889/THEGREATMADHYAMAKAbooklet1994_000.pdf

Shentong teachings are very beautiful and profound.

It is sometimes spelled Shentong also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shentong

Hi, Back to the original question. Mahayanists talk about three vehicles - Hinayana (Lesser Vehicle), Mahayana (Great Vehicle) and Vajrayana (Diamond Vehicle). However Theraveda would not use these terms because they regard the Mahayana to be a departure from the Sutra teachings preserved in the Pali Canon. Some Mahayanists might describe Theraveda as Hinayana but this would be a mistake - since the schools that are referred to in this way in Mahyana texts have died out. However there is some element of validity because the view of these traditions is that the path is to escape Samsara (cyclic existence of suffering) and enter Nirvana never to return. So it is a kind of linear view - but no less valid in itself and viewed by Mahayanists as being true in a limited fashion. Escape from samsara through the elimination of the mental attachments and poisons such as afflicting emotions is thought to take many life times - but since existence is suffering there is no other 'purpose' than the pursuit of the state of Arhat or liberation. Mahayana practitioners take a slightly different view which builds on the first view. They argue that while the Buddha was liberated from Samsara he did live and teach in the world and exhibited the positive qualities of compassion and wisdom. To reflect this we should also cultivate these positive qualities to benefit sentient beings. Again this is a long process taking many, many lifetimes and is called the way of the bodhisattva (awakened being). They would claim that the Mahayana view is more expansive and positive than the Hinayana view - and that it is more 'relaxed' in that the view of the path is less focussed on self-liberation but more on the understanding that samsara and nirvana are two sides of one coin and that both are sunya - that is empty. Vajrayana is the Diamond Vehicle of Tantra where a more direct approach is taken through working with meditation 'deities' which represent aspects of the awakened mind or buddha nature. This is based on energetic transformation of the mind and mind content through the practise of sadhanas - so your ordinary mind is transformed into the enlightened mind. There are also the 'direct' paths in Tibetan Buddhism of mahamudra, dzogchen and lamdre. BTW vipassana is actually a meditation technique which is basic to most Buddhist practice but was exclusively promoted as a stand alone meditation by someone called Goenka - (in my humble opinion it, like all secular mindfulness, is to be avoided, but that is just my opinion).

I practise Mahamudra which fits neatly with Zhentong

Thanks I shall therefore elaborate another detail This applies to Tibetan Buddhism mainly (possibly only). Most schools of Tibetan Buddhism i.e. all Sakya and Gelugpa uphold the sceptical view of Madhyamaka which essentially refutes any thing as being ultimately real - so all possible postulates as to what may be underlying reality such as Atoms, or even consciousness and energy and so forth as conceptual and empty of self-existence. This is based in a strict interpretation of Nagarjuna's middle way and four fold refutation. The Yogacara school (which means 'the way of yoga') - founded by the great Asanga this school takes as its basis yogic realisation (i.e. meditative realisation) of Mind as the self-existent basis of everything. It is this approach which is the basis for Ch'an and Zen - which are actually Chinese and Japanese versions of the Sanskrit Dhyana (Pali Jhana) which refers to states of meditative absorption. Mind here does not mean what we mean by 'its all in the mind' and so on - but 'citta' which is more like a field of consciousness or mind-substance. There was some penetration of this approach into Tibet although the official history records that 'Zen' was defeated by the proponents to the gradualist Lam Rim approach and died out. The 'problem' arises in the practice of the Tantras. Some Buddhist Tantras affirm the self-luminous Buddha-nature which is actually a Yogacara teaching and obviously vajrayana practitioners do rely on meditative experience as the basis of their understanding of ultimate reality. So even tho' they may belong to a Madhyamaka system when engaged in tantric practice they are more like yogacara in many ways (although they would probably refute this saying buddha-nature is just a provisional term and not a statement about what is real. But even more interestingly there is a minority Madhamaka view called Zhentong or Great madhyamaka which was upheld by the third Karmapa and the Jonan school which is terms 'empty of other' - and takes the self-luminous mind or buddha-nature as ultimately real and that everything else is empty hence buddha-nature is empty of other. This view was persecuted especially by the Gelugpas and they forcibly converted whole monasteries away from this 'heresy'. However it does live on in some Karma Kagyu teachers to this day. Although the Zhentong view is taught as a development of Madhyamaka - it is also possible to see it as a kind of advanced Yogacara where citta (mind) is replaced by the continuum of buddha nature which is the union of emptiness and luminosity. this explains why Mikyo Dorje having first taught Zhentong later 'dismissed' it as Yogacara.

Why do you think it is important, Jeff?

Within Mahayana there are two main philosophical schools - Madhyamika and Yogacara (or Citta Mattra). The first focuses on the emptiness of all phenomena and the second (which includes Zen) focusses on Mind as the reality behind everything.

Healing with silence. Machine with tubes goes, beep, beep, Healing with science.

That I lit on fire My next door neighbour's fine house Inflamed relations.

yep

Build bridges not walls!

Could you repeat that in Proto-Uralic I'm sick of all this PIE talk. Thank you.

You'll feel the earth move.

Are you translating this from something? I am not familiar with dry and wet stages.

I'm convinced you can't say heterozygosity after a few beers.

Wet??? Sorry I don't understand.

Sky is blue and hot By itself, there is no need for big yellow sun.