Vajrahridaya

There are those caught up in a lower level jhanic bliss who think "no-thinking" coming from "no insight" is enlightenment. Mind numbing bliss junkies think that all our expressions are mere conceptual levels of knowledge and not the joyous labor of putting insight onto page? Tell me Mr. Why are you here? To teach us not to think? I've already gone through that stage. Mind stilling, Jhanic bliss, peace percolating throughout my body. Ah!!! The cosmos opens up into blissful splendor through the senses. This is very good indeed. Just go deeper my dear. This is a key, not the lock. These aren't stories, these are revelations of how the mind works. The mind of a sentient being is a multilayered hall of mirrors, and the deeper you go, the smaller and more compressed the information held in the chards get, and you find yourself in quantum paradigms of processes within you. This you are ignoring for sense perceived jhanic bliss, it's peace blindness, which happens with lots of yogi's and they stop going deeper. Your bondage is subtler than your conceptual thought. You have numbed yourself from going deeper by believing this circular logic you keep presenting about not thinking and just "being" without exploring the "nature of being". Without exploring the actual capacity of what it is to be in a human body. If you don't exercise these capacities soon, you will have wasted your life in the human body and die without knowledge of it's capacity. There are deeper vistas of insight available to you, if you'd only drop your pride and projection, drop the story you keep telling yourself about our stories... you might learn something more about yourself and how you work. You don't seem to have any realization about why you are here, who you really are, where you've been and where you might be going? You seem to be no better than a dog, without questioning anything, you're satisfied through ignorance with just living and sense experiencing without having delved into the mystery's of birth, sickness, old age, and death. You've meditated and chi'd your way into physical satiation of body health and mind numbed jhanic peace, without actual insight. This is just a sense experience, nothing deep. If you are satisfied with the answers that modern science has presented to you about your nature, considering this to be the holy grail determinator of the nature of reality? Then that's fine. But please respect the fact that we wish to go deeper.

Then again, that could just be imaginative thinking.

Oh ok... I get what you're saying, yes of course! They aren't as complex with their emotional attachments... I did state that, didn't I? That we are more complex about it all? I agree with you now. I thought you were saying they were already Buddhas or something? Though there are stories of Buddhist masters guiding their animals to liberation in the bardo. I have an intuitive inkling of how that's possible, but not enough to lay it out clearly through concepts.

Unless the facts have been hidden from popular consumption. Uh oh... I hear a conspiracy theory argument coming on!! Dude I feel you man... it's good to be skeptical. Just be skeptical about your skepticism as well. The uber wealthy and uber powerful have always conspired in ways to keep their uber power and wealth. These day's, the uber powerful have more in their hands to manipulate and hide information due to all this goody fun technology we all enjoy playing with!! Also the knowledge of history concerning lessons given by those that failed in the past to keep their positions of power and information hiding. Basically, the really wealthy and powerful are smarter and have more at their disposal than ever before, both knowledge, lessons learned from history and really high breeding. Sadly, many lack the compassion bone though.

SACRILEGE! Well buddy, you'll just have to have more animals in your life and watch their way of being with more avid attention. I definitely feel that their sense of loss and attachment go further than that. Many times animals get sick when people they love leave them, stop eating, whine all day, etc. What about that video on youtube of the lions that remembered their owners years after they were set free in the wild, they certainly enacted long term positive attachment when they saw them again and hugged and licked them with such an obvious show of recognition and love. They also have a tendency to go towards those people that treat them well on a more consistent basis, showing emotional memory. Also, one of my cat's would enact revenge, waiting for the right time to strike back after chillin' out for a while, looking all innocent, then he'd walk by me, then quickly attack my leg and swipe it if I had chastised him for something half an hour earlier, my boy Istha was a bad kitty... very mischievous. I loved him for it! I could go on and on. Not to get all new agey spacey... but, I don't want to include my lucid dreams and states of meditation and psychic intuitions concerning the states of mind of an animal. I bet people think I'm already pretty crazy as it is. Dude, animals have more human tendencies than you may be aware of at this time.

Awesome! Thanks!!!

If you've hunted before, you will know. There is compassionate hunting and there is malicious hunting, since animals are capable of both types... they have individual personalities without having concepts in the way's that we do. They think in images and feelings based upon experiences relating to the images, conditioned intuitions and such. This shows that bondage is not predicated upon concepts, and clearing your mind of concepts is not going to bring true and lasting liberation, in the Buddhist sense at least. Also, living from intuition is not necessarily liberation, as intuition is conditioned as well. One really has to delve into the subconscious, and then of course the unconscious. We also flutter through the images, feelings related to these images based upon experiences, etc on fast levels. We have the very same brain as animals on core levels, there are just more developments in other areas which allow us to have more complexity.

Anything can.

If you have good training in emptiness as a concept, then bliss is the great key to unlocking the deeper realizations that the Buddhist notion of emptiness holds. Or Taoist too...

Yes!!!

Feelings of duality exist in the non-conceptual, emotional levels as well. You don't have to have concepts to be trapped in dualism and conflicting states of mind. It actually helps to have concepts in order to learn discernment. There are all sorts of neurotic activities that animals do, like enjoying the hunt before the kill, watching the victim squirm in suffering. My cat get's scared of invisible things, and jumps 3 to 4 feet into the air out of fear of a bug. He's not a hunter, obviously. Anyway, the list goes on. Animals are far from enlightened beings or Buddhas.

They generally act selflessly out of instinct to help their young without much self consideration. Some do show some activities that are compassionate, you can see them on youtube.com Like videos of inter-species compassion and stuff. Yes indeed. I think this goes with the Jadaka Tales of how the Buddha talks about having been a monkey and putting his life on the line to save his monkey friends and family from a burning tree I think? Anyway... yes, you're right! Who knows, maybe even some bugs too!! I just don't see it as developed as it is in the human potential. Thanks for the reminder though.

Emptiness, not the concept, not the jhana of nothingness, but the luminous emptiness. It is not a consciousness, nor is it a self. It is awareness free from itself, an awareness that has always been available because everything has always been empty. This is when the light of your awareness has realized it's clarity. (Clear light) From the Shurangama Sutra with some commentary: QUOTE (41) Ananda, you should know that the good person has thoroughly seen the formations skandha as empty, and he must return consciousness to the source. He has already ended production and destruction, but he has not yet perfected the subtle wonder of ultimate serenity. He can cause the individual sense faculties of his body to unite and open. He also has a pervasive awareness of all the categories of beings in the ten directions. Since his awareness is pervasive, he can enter the perfect source. But if he regards what he is returning to as the cause of true permanence and interprets this as a supreme state, he will fall into the error of holding to that cause. Kapila the Sankhyan, with his theory of returning to the Truth of the Unmanifest (Like what is discussed in the Upanishads), will become his companion. Confused about the Bodhi of the Buddhas, he will lose his knowledge and understanding. This is the first state, in which he creates a place to which to return, based on the idea that there is something to attain. He strays far from perfect penetration and turns his back on the City of Nirvana, thus sowing the seeds of eternalism. (42) Further, Ananda, the good person has thoroughly seen the formations skandha as empty. He has already ended production and destruction, but he has not yet perfected the subtle wonder of ultimate serenity. He may regard that to which he is returning as his own body and see all living beings in the twelve categories throughout space as flowing forth from his body. If he interprets this as a supreme state, he will fall into the error of maintaining that he has an ability which he does not really have. Maheshvara (great god, shiva, etc.), who manifests his boundless body, will become his companion. Confused about the Bodhi of the Buddhas, he will lose his knowledge and understanding. This is the second state, in which he creates a specific ability based on the idea that he has such an ability. He strays far from perfect penetration and turns his back on the City of Nirvana, thus sowing the seeds for being born in the Heaven of Great Pride where the self is considered all-pervading and perfect. (43) Further, the good person has thoroughly seen the formations skandha as empty. He has already ended production and destruction, but he has not yet perfected the subtle wonder of ultimate serenity. If he regards what he is returning to as a refuge, he will suspect that his body and mind come forth from there, and that all things in the ten directions of space arise from there as well. He will explain that that place from which all things issue forth is the truly permanent body, which is not subject to production and destruction. While still within production and destruction, he prematurely reckons that he abides in permanence. Since he is deluded about non-production, he is also confused about production and destruction. He is sunk in confusion. If he interprets this as a supreme state, he will fall into the error of taking what is not permanent to be permanent. He will speculate that the God of Sovereignty (Ishvaradeva) is his companion. Confused about the Bodhi of the Buddhas, he will lose his knowledge and understanding. This is the third state, in which he makes a false speculation based on the idea that there is a refuge. He strays far from perfect penetration and turns his back on the City of Nirvana, thus sowing the seeds of a distorted view of perfection. (44) Further, the good person has thoroughly seen the formations skandha as empty. He has already ended production and destruction, but he has not yet perfected the subtle wonder of ultimate serenity. Based on his idea that there is universal awareness, he formulates a theory that all the plants and trees in the ten directions are sentient, not different from human beings. He claims that plants and trees can become people, and that when people die they again become plants and trees in the ten directions. If he considers this idea of unrestricted, universal awareness to be supreme, he will fall into the error of maintaining that what is not aware has awareness. Vasishtha and Sainika, who maintained the idea of comprehensive awareness, will become his companions. Confused about the Bodhi of the Buddhas, he will lose his knowledge and understanding. This is the fourth state, in which he creates an erroneous interpretation based on the idea that there is a universal awareness. He strays far from perfect penetration and turns his back on the City of Nirvana, thus sowing the seeds of a distorted view of awareness. (45) Further, the good person has thoroughly seen the formations skandha as empty. He has already ended production and destruction, but he has not yet perfected the subtle wonder of ultimate serenity. If he has attained versatility in the perfect fusion and interchangeable functioning of the sense faculties, he may speculate that all things arise from these perfect transformations. He then seeks the light of fire, delights in the purity of water, loves the wind's circuitous flow, and contemplates the accomplishments of the earth. He reveres and serves them all. He takes these mundane elements to be a fundamental cause and considers them to be everlasting. He will then fall into the error of taking what is not production to be production. Kashyapa and the Brahmans who seek to transcend birth and death by diligently serving fire and worshipping water will become his companions. Confused about the Bodhi of the Buddhas, he will lose his knowledge and understanding. This is the fifth state, in which he confusedly pursues the elements, creating a false cause that leads to false aspirations based on speculations about his attachment to worship. He strays far from perfect penetration and turns his back on the City of Nirvana, thus sowing the seeds of a distorted view of transformation. (46) Further, the good person has thoroughly seen the formations skandha as empty. He has ended production and destruction, but he has not yet perfected the subtle wonder of ultimate serenity. He may speculate that there is an emptiness within the perfect brightness, and based on that he denies the myriad transformations, taking their eternal cessation as his refuge. If he interprets this as a supreme state, he will fall into the error of taking what is not a refuge to be a refuge. Those abiding in Shunyata in the Heaven of [Neither Thought nor] Non-Thought will become his companions. Confused about the Bodhi of the Buddhas, he will lose his knowledge and understanding. This is the sixth state, in which he realizes a state of voidness based on the idea of emptiness within the perfect brightness. He strays far from perfect penetration and turns his back on the City of Nirvana, thus sowing the seeds of annihilationism/nihilism. (47) Further, the good person has thoroughly seen the formations skandha as empty. He has already ended production and destruction, but he has not yet perfected the subtle wonder of ultimate serenity. In the state of perfect permanence, he may bolster his body, hoping to live for a long time in that subtle and perfect condition without dying. If he interprets this as a supreme state, he will fall into the error of being greedy for something unattainable. Asita and those who seek long life will become his companions. Confused about the Bodhi of the Buddhas, he will lose his knowledge and understanding. This is the seventh state, in which he creates the false cause of bolstering and aspires to permanent worldly existence, based on his attachment to the life-source. He strays far from perfect penetration and turns his back on the City of Nirvana, thus sowing the seeds for false thoughts of lengthening life. END QUOTE Buddha warned (in Shurangama Sutra) against taking Consciousness as a permanent Spiritual Self: QUOTE (33) Further, in his practice of samadhi, such a good person's mind is firm, unmoving, and proper and can no longer be disturbed by demons. He can thoroughly investigate the origin of all categories of beings and contemplate the source of the subtle, fleeting, and constant fluctuation. But if he begins to speculate about self and others, he could fall into error with theories of partial impermanence and partial permanence based on four distorted views. First, as this person contemplates the wonderfully bright mind pervading the ten directions, he concludes that this state of profound stillness is the ultimate spiritual self. Then he speculates, "My spiritual self, which is settled, bright, and unmoving, pervades the ten directions. All living beings are within my mind, and there they are born and die by themselves. Therefore, my mind is permanent, while those who undergo birth and death there are truly impermanent." ...... Because of these speculations of impermanence and permanence, he will fall into eternalism and become confused about the Bodhi nature. This is the third eternalist teaching, in which one postulates partial permanence. ...... Finally, if your pure, bright, clear, and unmoving state is permanent, then there should be no seeing, hearing, awareness or knowing in your body. If it is genuinely pure and true, it should not contain habits and falseness. (Often considered by the higher or more subtle stages of delusion as the mysterious "Will of God", which is not the same as seeing what the Buddha taught as "Pratityasamutpada; Interdependent Origination, and one will not see how deep the scars of karma go) How does it happen, then, that having seen some unusual thing in the past, you eventually forget it over time, until neither memory nor forgetfulness of it remain; but then later, upon suddenly seeing that unusual thing again, you remember it clearly from before without one detail omitted? How can you reckon the permeation which goes on in thought after thought in this pure, clear, and unmoving consciousness? Ananda, you should know that this state of clarity is not real. It is like rapidly flowing water that appears to be still on the surface. Because of its rapid speed, you cannot perceive the flow, but that does not mean it is not flowing. If this were not the source of thinking, then how could one be subject to false habits? If you do not open and unite your six sense faculties so that they function interchangeably, this false thinking will never cease. That's why your seeing, hearing, awareness, and knowing are presently strung together by subtle habits, such that within the profound clarity, existence and non-existence are both illusory. This is the fifth kind of upside-down, minutely subtle thinking.

Exactly. The consideration of past and future is part of the path to enlightenment, the revelations that come from delving into ones subconscious and unconscious is part of the path of self realization. Enlightenment is not an ignorant submerging into the sense perceivable now without awareness of it's causes and conditions. When you attain realization, or full enlightenment, or even during the process as it deepens, sure... you are released in the senses, but not as bound by them anymore. "In it, but not of it." Humans are not merely animals, nor are we merely mammals, we have a deeper self transcending potential.

Interesting, thanks! My wife will really enjoy this. Oh, and I will too.

They are all empty, including timelessness. If you've really untied the knot within your formless states of mind, your body will sleep with total awareness. You will have no more unconscious. Again, you are taking a peek experience and labeling it as ultimate truth. Yes, Rigpa is timeless, but not as a state of mind that transcends the experience of time. Uh hu. I know this too... are you qualified to teach Dzogchen on here dude? What is one going to do, come onto a discussion board and just sit there, say nothing? Or repeat over and over again, "Merge with the light"? Or use concepts which other minds are going to be reading and working out an understanding from that may or may not reference personal experiences. Oh, so "now" truly exists as your senses are experiencing it? I don't have much faith in your proclamations of enlightenment. Your understanding shows no consistency, you flop around like a fish out of water changing your understanding from day to day. Emptiness means freedom from concepts while they occur, freedom from your being while it occurs. Direct experience of emptiness also has an omniscience because all of time unites with now as well... so various powers of perception do actualize if you really have insight into "Rigpa" as you are not trapped by the sense perceivable now. Since now is connected to all of time, everything becomes transparent, even your deep sleep state. Enlightenment as a Buddha is not just a state of ignorant peace. If you experience fear when rebirth is talked about, that has something to do with you, not the fact of rebirth. The topic is touching a sense of fear you have within your own psyche and you are playing the blame game instead of finding it's causes and conditions deep within. Take this peace you've found and use it as a key to dive deep into the lock of yourself to unlock your selfless nature.

Actually no, your response arose due to causes and conditions, it does not self exist. Also, you think that being without concepts is ultimate truth. It's clear when one goes deeper that clinging happens on subtler levels than conceptual. The first level jhanas where your body is filled with peaceful energy and a still mind, blinds many mystics and yogis. The cosmos is formulation-ing, the cosmos is inter-causation-ing, this is not a concept, this is a reality. Your body, which you experience until your death is formulated through causes and conditions of endless ramifications, this includes your consciousness which you think is free if it doesn't think. You mistake the key for the lock. There is deeper to go.

Actually the inner debate between Self and no-self extends deep within the non-conceptual states of realization, thus the Buddha elaborated on the 4 formless samadhis of infinite space, infinite consciousness, infinite nothingness, and neither perception nor non-perception. Please take your time in reading these and taking in their meaning, at least through the power of expansive imagination if you cannot reference these directly through remembered experience. If the Buddha had his realization of dependent origination/emptiness after having mastered these formless states of meditation, already exceedingly rare for any person... that should reveal something to you about how deep and subtle of a teaching dependent origination/emptiness/anatta actually "is." Thus, I would recommend to you, that you drop your pride of experience and intellectual formulation and go deeper into the path of the Buddhas.

The awareness of connectivity. That awareness can be like a string connecting everything on it like a necklace. But, if the king bumps his head and has amnesia, he'll have sentience, but he'll have to re-develop awareness of the connections again. This is like death, in death and rebirth we generally don't have awareness of the connections between the previous life and this life, because our awareness is so caught up with identity with the body, it's like amnesia and awareness has to be developed or "subtlified" sort of speak. If you've really delved into your unconscious, you WILL see directly past lives, this WILL happen, no matter who you are. If you really take apart your body through awareness, you'll see the stream of your mind and the causes and conditions that brought it from there to here to all sorts of depths, enough to know deeply the selfless nature of existence. As time is without Self as phenomena is without Self as consciousness is without Self, this type of flexibility is available through awareness developing and seeing this flexibility directly is part of the process of realizing the selfless nature of the cosmos.

You know when you know without having to think about it. Because it's a very common mistake from people without training in "right view" who dive into meditation. The Buddha trained his students in right view, as did Tilopa. If the Buddha felt that Buddhahood was just clear light, or that everything was just "clear light" and that was it, he'd say that. Many of his students weren't stupid. The clear light experience is important, and it's life changing, but it's not Buddhahood by itself, because everything keeps going, it's not a refuge in and of itself. It's a refuge if coupled with right view, but right view takes precedence, otherwise it wouldn't be the 1st of the 8 fold path. Everything keeps going, revolving, cycling and if you cling to the experience of clear light as a Self, even blissfully, then this just leads to blissful re-absorption at the end of a cosmic aeon and ignorant re-expression in the next cosmic cycle and the bodhi of the Buddhas is not realized. Buddha does say this. You as well can have this understanding and realization on a non-conceptual level. You don't have to revert to saying that people like me who have practiced extensively and have had the insights and experiences coupled with the wisdom of Buddhas of antiquity are merely talking from book knowledge, because we are not. If you set up an experience as an ultimate Self, or a state of mind, even if beyond mind as a Self of all... there is a clinging. If you are just experiencing the luminosity of all things due to realizing the emptiness of things, that's different, as you're not advocating some kind of self standing nature, or self intelligence, you're realizing inter-dependence. You keep quoting this, but you haven't studied the path to the point where you can actually throw away the concepts. Tilopa taught this to students that were ripe. The Jalus, or body of light, or rainbow body is realization of clear light and full physical integration with that realization, but this has to do with dependent origination and seeing right through it, always. Maybe your understanding is nothing but a veil that you hold onto, a high bliss that blinds you? If so, you need to be directed on a subtle level through transmission. You shouldn't pretend to know about things you don't know about, when it comes to jalus or the body of light. The reason why I know you don't know what Tilopa meant by clear light, is that you make it something different, something transcendent. It's not that you use exact words that reveal this, but it's in how you use the words that you do use which reveals this to me. Just equating the Jalus with these other things reveals your lack of understanding. Setting up a dualism between the Jalus (body of light) and the realization of clear light via Tilopas teaching, reveals that you don't understand dependent origination enough to even say you've transcended it. You've just had an experience that has arisen due to causes and conditions, some peak experience and you cling to it as the end all be all. Sure, but the Buddha warned about experiences of light and being blinded by them. This is why "Right View" is very important.

There is not a single permanent Self of all. This is not what the mahaparinirvana sutra is talking about. It's not talking about merging with an all encompassing light. The self of a Buddha arises as permanent due to a permanent intuitive insight into the emptiness of awareness and phenomena. It's basically the constant recognition that makes one a anuttarasamyaksambuddha, and that state of realization is the permanent self of a Buddha.

I did too, until I got transmission from ChNNR, then that weird feeling was replaced by recognition. Weird is generally a word denoting something not yet understood, so it makes one feel discomfort from within this state of mystery, or... "weirdness". Remember that witch burnings were done from the very same state of, "weird."

Why would I not be pleased? I think it's individual, there are mystics inside and outside of the monastery. The fact arisen dependent upon personal inclinations.

Yes, clinging happens on formless bliss levels too. Otherwise we'd be enlightened in deep dreamless sleep, but we are not, unless we've done the work and gone deep into the formless states of mind and untied the non-conceptual knot's as well. This is done through a subtle awareness that intuitively applies the realizations of dependent origination/emptiness to the more subtle levels of untying, it's not done on a thought level, but more on a will level.

Ok good.