Apech

You ask them 'You bean happy lately?' To which they reply 'Eh! jnana banana, you know how it goes.'

I think the hawks on both side of the Atlantic feel much safer with the Cold War and want it back.

I promise not to. Maybe Mr. Sentient Bean ... ?

@RT thanks - that's useful information.

There's plenty on here think you just need to read a book

Actually the Aton was a god worshiped exclusively in a short period at the end of the 18th Dynasty Egypt. It is the visible sun as word Aton as a name comes from itn in Ancient Egyptian which actually means 'disk'. The older gods Atum (the creator) and Re the sun as being represent the power behind the visible universe. Aton worship was an early attempt at monotheism and it also, like Christianity later attempted to destroy the traditional religion of Egypt. Luckily it only really lasted for the reign of one pharaoh Akenaton and then died out.

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art--- Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite ...

Is he time traveller?

I don't think I ascribe to either the total independence of beings but also not to their total inter-dependence either. In relation to others I think it is crucial to maintain one's own integrity and balance. Otherwise it's not possible to form relationships that are healthy.

Is this microagression? (I've just licked up this term from a Guardian article and so am want to use it).

I know that the Shengtongpas say that anyone who practices tantras - because of the emphasis on th epositive qualities of buddhanature is by implication Shengtonpa also

Goodnight RT - boa viagem.

Do you wish to discuss further?

What did you have in mind.

Prajna has perhaps an analytical quality which you don't have with jnana. Perhaps (speculatively) as pra (para) prefixes usually mean either 'towards' or 'in favour of' - you could understand prajna as being that which leads to jnana. I seem to remember reading Trungpa on this but I'm not sure which book it was. Citta originally was 'mind-stuff' and I know that Guenther in the Dawn of Tantra as a 'clearing house which could both store and transmit impression.' He was talking about the Citta -Matra/Yogacara tradition. Manas traditionally is a sort of counting or assessing mind which lies behind (or above) the sense based mind (5 of them) ... rather like the 'ego' in classical psychoanalysis it is also (int he eightfold structure model of Yogacara) the basis of 'self' identification. In the non-Buddhist Samkhya philosophy there was another function called aham-kara which accounted for the self. What the Shentongis seem to be saying is that Primordial Wisdom Mind = Buddha Nature = Sugathahata ... when realised converts or transforms all the skhandas and mind-aspects into wisdom nature. So what was confusion is seen as, for instance, all accomplishing wisdom and so on. It goes very close to positing some kind of higher self without actually doing so - which is probably why the Gelupas tried to wipe out the Jonanpas, eh?

Yes I get the sense of jnana as gnosis ... and we also have prajna of course with this same root. We still have to deal with citta and manas of course - but you say the Tibetans treat them equally? Originally they were not the same thing in Indian Philosophy.

Interestingly the English word 'know' is cognate with the Sanskrit through the proto Indo European root as per: This PIE root also crops up in words like 'kin' - and relates to other words which mean 'to be born (from)' - so to know something or someone is to know what family they belong to. This gives a sense of categorisation into groups. The 'born' also suggests giving birth to e.g. giving birth to subject / object differentiation. If you consider this 'the cause is the cure' - then that which gives birth to duality - if it is fully reflexive can also implode the dualism and realise 'sameness' or mirror-likeness ... or Primordial Wisdom.

Exactly ... it is like a power which creates the subject / object distinction.

@ RT Through extreme laziness instead of typing out I'm attaching a scan of a page from the book I'm reading ... it has the status or translators commentary and not root text of course ... IMG_20160125_0001.pdf it talks about the meaning of vijnana ... which is quite different to what we would normally think of as consciousness. More later when I get my thoughts together.

I've been reading the Namshe Yeshe the Zhentong work by the 3rd Karmapa - so maybe saying Primordial Wisdom is Mind is Zhentong! Perhaps I'm not sure. There is a definitional issue here to do with the word 'Mind'. It goes back to which word we are actually translating ie. citta, vijnana , manas ??? and so on ... and also if we are taking a positive view of the mind having positive qualities or only empty. Here's a quote from Milarepa: Do not see consciousness: see primordial wisdom. Do not see sentient beings: see Buddhas. Do not see dharmas: see dharmata. By the powers, fearlessness, dharanis and so forth That constitute the qualities of a buddha Will arise like a wish fulfilling jewel.

... and now you ask that question?

This you mean in terms of reification and negation? Perhaps you are talking about how we place ourselves in relation to the needs of others - to what extent we negate our own selves and needs for the benefit of others and so on? If so, I think the irony of all this is that although the benefit of others is perhaps the highest good and what we should wish for, it is not achievable by diminishing our selves. In fact the even odder thing that I have found is that the more I focus on benefitting others - the more positive I become about myself. The more I focus on my selfish needs the more diminished I become. But I think this depends on some profundity. What I mean by this is that I don't really care about what other people need or want. I think their needs and wants reflect their own confusion. So I have no interest in supporting that. So for instance I might see picture of some refugees in a boat in the Med and feel sympathy for their plight and so on - but at the same time I know that their own appetites or desires have led them there. So I don't have to fall into some kind of emotive identification, guilt or other entanglement. So in terms of our relationship with ourselves - well in a way what else have we got? While we might negate some of the dross we have picked up - ideas, feelings, habits, inherited characteristics and so on - we won't get very far by negating ourselves. But on the other hand if we just dwell on the idea of our selves being ultimately real we could fall into some kind solipsism. Whatever it is that our 'selves' actually are is a great and paradoxical mystery - and really that's how it should remain - because to fall too easily into either affirmation or negation is just a way of copping out of the great mystery. If we open up to the mystery then it becomes something that just keeps on giving - deeper and deeper insight and greater and greater worth - infinite in fact (which is one way of saying what we really are). Sorry if this rambles off the point

OK I think I’ve finally understood the question about nirvana. Just as a kind of side topic I think one of the problems with Western Buddhism is that the Buddha when alive and teaching addressed his audience in terms of the then prevalent Vedic world view - which included the idea that we are all on the roller coaster of the great wheel of Samsara and the idea was to find a way to get off. According to Vedic cosmology the ataman underwent a vast number of cycles before its eventual release into union with God. The wheel of Samsara was real, part of the cosmos. Buddha took this view and subverted it - by saying actually you generate what you experience through desire or craving - one of the three poisons (desire, ignorance, hatred) which originally he called the three fires. He called them three fires in analogy to the three fires that the Vedic householders were required to keep burning as sacrament to their gods (Agni and so on) - so again the buddha was taking something familiar to the Vedic householder and saying those fires? its just your own confused mental activity. If you extinguish the fire(s) then you exhaust the energy which drives the Samsaric wheel and the result is … Nirvana = perfect peace. This is the model presented by the Four Noble Truths and the first turning of the wheel. And while it is designed as a remedy for our dis-ease it was never meant as an ontological model of the universe - but in some ways this was inescapable because of how people think. So the Samsaric wheel became slightly reified - leading to a dualistic view - here is Samsara and over here is Nirvana - one is trouble the other is peace - and the journey is from one to the other. The problem with this model is that the Buddha taught. He interacted with the world and so there has then to be some kind of relationship between Samsara and Nirvana (since the Buddhas mind was Nirvana or Nirvanic) - otherwise why would he bother to teach. His compassion made his teach but that means he perceived the suffering of sentient beings and thus Samsara. The ‘answer’ to this is that Nirvana is not some completely other place than Samsara that they are actually inseparable: ‘to the meditator who sees the unceasing play of mind, may I quickly realise the inseparability of Samsara and Nirvana’ Kagyu Prayer … so through the ideas of Emptiness and Primordial Wisdom (which is Mind) the idea that Samsara and Nirvana are two sides of the same coin arises. Look at it this way and it’s a wheel of suffering, look at it the other way it is pure and perfect peace. Just some thoughts - forgive me if they are poorly expressed or my own misunderstanding.

That tree's ugly - Objectionable.

https://www.newscientist.com/blogs/nstv/2011/07/how-the-universe-appeared-from-nothing.html