Apech

I'm travelling on a tantric coach.

Sounds deep ... what does it mean?

With my superior ecstatic powers I don't need drugs.

He didn't say he was happy.

Lets have some definitions then. Morality, ethics, virtue will do for a start. ... just as some thoughts ... I am always interested when atheists like Harris and Dawkins say that knowing what is right and wrong is somehow innate ... they cite Moses coming down the mountain with the tablets and say well the Israelites must have already known that to kill was bad ... they didn't need God to tell them that this was so. I think the confusion over morals is this idea of external authority somehow giving you them and thus making them 'better' than your own natural sense. This makes it hard for people to think through moral relativism because morals are perceived as some kind of carved in stone set of rules. For me the essence is to be a moral or ethical being. What this means actually is not to follow any externally imposed set of dogma (correct or no) but centres on the act or the ability to make a choice. It is the ability to choose that makes you moral or no. The Nazis practiced a fascist ideology which actually takes this responsibility away from the individual and gives it to the central controlling elite. Thus people are told not to think for themselves ... the same goes for certain forms of communism ... and also applies to the conditioning experienced by people in capitalist societies ... so it is almost universal that in order for people to be 'controllable" they have to be denied the chance to be ethical ... otherwise their actions will be individualistic and unpredictable.

If by atheist you mean that there is no belief in any god(s) whatsoever then the traditional world view includes god realms ... but as I described above these are not considered worthy of refuge. Madhyamaka does not belief in the self existence of anything, so describe it as atheism is a bit limiting. Nagarjuna did more than attack other religions.

@Dreambliss Although not a Christian myself I have a lot of time for J.C. himself. And I think it is fair to say that just as there are Buddhists and there are Buddhists (i.e. not all the same) this is also true for Christianity. I knew and studied under a Christian Hermetic mystic for a few years and he was one of the most enlightened (and wise) people I have met ... if you dig into the Theology and metaphysics of Christiann Mysticism you find something quite different to ordinary church. This sounds like shamanism really. In which case you practice the religion of religions which our distant ancestors practiced for maybe 100,000 years before civilisation brought out those schools we call religion today. IMO any worthwhile practice embraces this kind of approach.

Some modern Buddhist consider themselves atheists. But the traditional view is that the world may contain beings which are gods (like the Hindu pantheon) but they are not useful objects of refuge. In other words worshipping Indra or Shiva or Vishnu will not lead to liberation because gods as beings are still subject to pride and desire and so on. In other words they represent very exalted states of consciousness but not liberated ones. But in terms of God = Supreme being = the Absolute ... the Buddha would refute this idea I think because it is like creating an idea of something which equates to that which is beyond definition. In Mahayana Buddhism the ultimate would be expressed as the Dharmakaya which means 'truth body of the Buddha'. When the Buddha became enlightened his mind became non-different to the absolute nature of existence and this is his 'truth body'. Also many schools of Mahayana Buddhism (but not all) teach about how each of us has this essential reality within us and call this Buddha-nature. Buddha-nature is sometimes expressed as the union of emptiness and appearance (or luminosity). This means that our minds are essentially empty of self (that is they do not have a locatable shape, colour, form and so on .. they are void) but also are naturally self-luminous ... that is they creatively express light, form and perceptions and so on ... the union of these two is Buddha-nature. (This is in my own words so make allowances for that !!!!)

This is quite a complex question really. For a start Buddhism is not a belief system in the sense that it asks you to believe in something ... like Jesus or God. Christianity works a lot in this way, encouraging 'blind faith' but Buddhism doesn't. It starts from a completely different place. It starts from analysing the experience of being ... and in particular why people 'suffer'. Why existence as a being seems to predicate on experiencing old age, death and disease and so on. In this sense this is the opposite from asking 'what is really real' or what or who created this world. Buddhist thinking is reductive in that it looks at all possible candidates for what is truly real and rejects them all as having a lack of self existence. Different schools of Buddhism take this to different degrees. In terms of the anatman ... Buddhism says that all compounded things are impermanent and lack essential being of themselves, that is self hood. So this can be applied to your own being. You can say you have a body, feeling, perceptions, ideas and consciousness but all these phenomena lack a 'self-hood' ... they all arise dependent on conditions for their existence beyond themselves and thus do not have a permanent self-hood. This is in ultimate terms. In everyday, conventional terms you do have a self. Just as objects such as chairs and trees exists in an ordinary practical sense BUT ultimately they are empty of self. Rather like in science you could analyse any object down to atoms which are chiefly empty space ... this does not stop them being chairs and trees in ordinary terms. Buddhism says that it is clinging to the sense of self which generates unnecessary suffering. It suggests that you can liberate yourself through freeing up your mind, which is naturally pure and luminous. In other words you can find happiness and enlightenment through letting go of mistaken ideas and attachment because you are naturally enlightened in the first place.

Your two cents are of un-calculable value. Thank you.

Away! away! for I will fly to thee, Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, But on the viewless wings of Poesy, Though the dull brain perplexes and retards: Already with thee! tender is the night, And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne, Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays But here there is no light, Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

What did the moon ever do ... to get fingered so often?

Vajrayana Buddhism has something like cultivation in the yogas of Naropa and the winds, channels and drops ... these are not introduced I think before a lot of preliminary practice. I don't Theravada has this ... it comes from the mix of Buddhism with Bon/shamanism and also some Hindu yoga. Big difference between Tbetan Buddhism as a broad spectrum approach and Hinayana (if I may use that expression). Zen of course is a Taoist/Buddhist thing. I still would say, there is nothing wrong with being influenced by or drawing inspiration from different systems but still remaining true to core practice.

"Cheer up it be worse!" he said. So I did and it was. LOL.

Royal yes ... I'm glad my nobility has finally been recognised ... no, no you don't need to bow ... oh go on then ...

Yes! Sinfest be more lady-like ... we need more cross dressing on here.

Eh?

Beastly.

I don't do Jesus much TBH ... but the one thing I take from him is this ... don't trust the state, don't trust religion as an arm of the state ... don't trust the muggles cos they'll turn on you. I don't see this a proto Che or anyone else really. I just think that all that is handed down via the Catholic Church, the vulgate Bible and so on is twisted. So I have no time for Christianity but have a kind of affection for J. H. Christ himself. I'm not saying what I said before is the whole story its just the bit I take from it. Generally speaking through history mystics have been persecuted or made to shut up. Why? We live in an age now where you can expres yourself but this is unusual and we shouldn't forget it.

Yes are you finding that the icon you click to go to unread posts doesn't work anymore you always end up at the first post. @ Sinfest: Jugglement Daze 2 ... please do not ask for the banning of other members it's kind of ungentlemanly conduct (and what ever the female equivalent might be)

What kind of Buddhists are they? Buddhism isn't a monolith it is a very broad 'church' in the sense that there are forms of Buddhism which engage in energy working a bit like Taoist alchemy and then there are those that don't. As Buddhism moved to different cultures it absorbed many things on the way. ... I feel from what you right that you should stick to where your heart is ... i.e. Taoism and treat the Buddhists and friendly cousins that you can hang out with from time to time.

Yes I suppose the 'what is truth' could be rhetorical but I have always taken it to be an unanswerable question. He found no basis for the charge against him ... and still crucified him ... that is the state in action. Truth becomes the official version of events and it is always for the state that which is expedient. The appeal to the people has to be rigged of course, int he sense that propaganda is involved as they end up pleading for the release of Barabbas. Oddly Bar Abba(s) seems to mean son of the Father!!!

Lara, Fernando Pessoa is my hero! So glad someone else mentioned him. Are you reading "The Keeper of Sheep"???? ... my soul is like a shepherd ... it knows the wind and sun ...

Assuming for the purposes of this discussion that the Jesus story is literally true I have a slightly different take on what it means. Jesus was executed by a combination of the established church (the Jewish one) and the secular state (Rome). Jesus threatened priestly authority over people's lives and was deconstructing the hate-the-other cycle by which religion establishes identity. Rome in the person of Pilate tried to wash their hands of the problem but in the end decided that expediency was preferable and more easily managed than truth. ('What is truth?' ... Christ was silent.). The mob called for Barabas to be released because ordinary people are in the thrall of the manipulative concepts/indoctrination operated by Church and State. If the crucifixion has a message it is do not bend the knee to Church and State or you risk destroying your chance of salvation (represented by Christ). Water into wine ... well I get the symbolism ... water (primal substance) becomes wine (spirit). Why did he shut his mother off??? Why did the men have to ask for him to perform a miracle? Who was getting married? I don't want to go all Dan Brown on this but ... there is no groom mentioned ... Turn the other cheek ... is this not actually 'volte face' in Latin and although it does mean turn the cheek ... it means to turn away. It means if someone wants to start a fight you should walk away ... it does not mean offer the other cheek even though it has been made to mean this over centuries of priestly word craft. Jesus did not want us to be door mats but also he did not want us to seek revenge. Love ... Christian love as distinct to romantic love ... means the willingness to become vulnerable yourself in order to benefit others ... this is where jesus sounds exactly like a Mahayana Buddhist ... good for him.

@simple jack hello, I don't have a lot of time right now to answer your questions. I think I misunderstood the First Noble Truth for many years and discussed it with many people who reacted in the same way as some on here do. That is that they don't want to think that life is about suffering but want to stress the wonder and enjoyment of being alive. Christians particularly are like this. despite the fact that they worship an incarnate god who was tortured and killed by painful crucifixtion. Thats fair enough really if that's how they feel. But Buddha was not saying life is a bag of shit ... so be depressed about it or try to escape (though some seem to think he was) he was actually saying ... look people are suffering! why? ...do they need to? is there a way to stop it? and so on then he goes on to answer this questions. he perceived sickness and provided a remedy. so actually its a very positive approach.