Vajrahridaya

Actually the Buddha did, as did proceeding Buddhas. The Buddha said that only the contemplation of "right view" leads to liberation without residue. Not that people who are not labeled Buddhist cannot have this realization, but that this realization was not elaborated to such clarity before the Buddha did in this era. He did say this plenty of times.

This is exactly what Hindus say about Brahman, that it is an essential nature that self exists' which the gods; Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva among others channel through their beings as first borns in this universe. But really it's just the potentiality left over from the previous universe before the Pralaya of the last universe (internet explanation of Pralaya). Basically it's the karmas left over from the previous universe that seems to come after them, thus they consider the universe their emination and even sometimes argue about who the true god is as depicted in the Puranas (internet explanation of the Puranas). Really, this is why these gods are not omnipotent and cannot control our destiny, because our individual karmas extend endlessly, thus our so called "free will" does not come from them, and they do not inherently control us. They can relatively if we give ourselves to them, and they are blissful and seemingly complete, but are not, so our will becomes a gods will originating dependent upon our focus on these deeply powerful but highly deluded beings. This also explains Shaktipat a bit if you can understand this. This is why we do not owe our existence to anyone in particular, even the gods, or a GOD like Brahman, because really this is just a formless reservoir of karmic potentiality left over from universe after universe ad infinitum. Thus what they call Brahman or Tao is really just endless individuals' residual karmic traces in a formless dimension (as noted in the Buddhas explanation of the formless jhanas and the explanation of the Alaya-Vijnana), and because it seems to be without form in meditative experience, it's experienced as incredible bliss. But this too is not a Self of all, or a true nature of all. The true nature is merely interdependency and emptiness which is nothing graspable at all, as in there is no inherent foothold to base enlightenment on. Enlightenment in Buddhism is an insight, not a yoking with an inherent essence of all. Thus the awakening experience in Buddhist tradition called Shaktipat in Hindu Tantra is not so wild like it is in other traditions because it's not based upon the same powers.

Actually, it's the closest explanation to how the cosmos works on so many dimensions that quantum physicists are still trying to prove through closed environment studies in a dualistic sense. You don't seem to have experiential understanding of this as of yet though. Buddhist cosmology is not a belief system, but an explanation of how things work that vastly outweighs the incomplete cosmologies of other systems of spiritual tradition. Of course, you will disagree with me, following me around for as long as I am here in order to throw insubstantial punches in the air.

Yes, infinite regress. But, you also don't want attachment to transcendence of time. Some place where we all transcend time as an essence of all things which happens in deep states of formless meditation. There is no escape from time in any practical sense, there can only be brief or elongated rests from the experience of the passing of time. The formless realms can be experienced as a rest from time and can be elongated for eons for a particularly focused meditator. But... if they take this as a "self of all" then they are just repressing their subtle causes for re-emergence into a deep void from experienced movement only to re-emerge ignorantly when the conditions of focus fall away, which always happens... just sometimes not for a very long time. Sometimes the only way to get someone out of these formless states is for a Buddha to go into them and churn these beings out of their deeply blissful delusion in order that they may take on their hidden karmas and hear the Dharma.

Yes, it's quite succinct.

Hmn... interesting. Thank you. Yes... everyone needs what they need in order to make progression or evolution in the spiritual sense. Buddhism as well uses the focus of an "other power" (specifically in pureland paths) as a universal meditative focus, but of course empties it of inherent existence in the end... called, "emptying the basis", through deep critical analysis and experiential analysis that can't really be described as you have to utilize experiential understanding of inter-dependent origination/emptiness in a jhanic state or state of samadhi.

Ok SereneB, Basically the energy body as a result of Buddhist insight is different from the lineages that view reality as ultimately real basing it upon a true and final state of origin. So, to even make an energetic connection to beings of Buddhist lineage generally takes transmission and an experiential initiation into this dimension of understanding and experience. The treatment of the chakras is also dynamic and without static essence, so the energy field of a Buddhist tantric practitioner will be different. The fact of emptiness rubbed me wrong. I used to translate it differently through my theist conditioning and pertaining to some self standing void, thinking that God transcended this. But, this is not what emptiness means in Buddhism as we well know. So, when I started to get a full on schooling of the truths that the Buddha taught and it's later elaborations. I fought it's insight and felt it was mean spirited or even nihilistic because the rug of which I was basing everything upon was being pulled from under me slowly. I started to have a different view of the cosmos through the debates and started understanding and experiencing the insight of infinite regress and non-origin. I started to see how certain questions could not be answered by theories of divine origin and interpretations of spiritual experience through the doctrine of divine origin we're finally seen as lacking in objectivity. This all rubbed me wrong because since the time I started to really embrace spirituality I did so through the concept of God and built everything upon that with immense focus. So when that basic card was pulled, my entire house of cards came tumbling down and I've had to re-arrange everything, even on an energetic level as my understanding of the goal of the spiritual life now has a different basis to build from. This is far more difficult than it sounds. So, it's much better to start off with "right view" from the get go. Like I've said before... there are stories of Hindu yogi's immediately dying to be reborn with a new karmic shell upon having the realization and experience of the meaning of the Buddhas teachings on emptiness. I was almost one of those Hindu Yogi's because I had dug those roots of divine identity deep and to have them shook up and changed so intensely was detrimental to the physical body as it's focus was based on an entirely different energetic pathway in the sub-regions of my being. This is why the Buddha put "right view" of dependent origination and emptiness at the very beginning of the 8 fold path, because it is exceedingly important and cannot be reconciled with paths that internally interpret the cosmos as having a divine origin, super-all embracing God that emanates and destroys the cosmos based upon his/her/it's will, etc. This doesn't mean the cosmos is not beautiful or one cannot embrace it's infinite potentiality, and it's not a nihilistic approach at all. It's just more deeply objective of an outlook that doesn't make experiential excuses anymore for a deeply rooted static identity, nor the intellectual excuse of, "It's God's will" and is thus more a view based on recognizing endless relativity and objectivity due to seeing more deeply through ones own spiritual conditioning. The above is the highly abridged and simple version. Spiritual autobiography is in the works. LOL!

This is all very good and beneficial. I can't really talk about specific practices. But, receiving merit and offering it through visualizations is very important in Mahayana practice.

No way am I more knowledgeable than the Dalai Lama. He's a Rinpoche who has mastered the knowledge and experience of all Tantric lineages and Dzogchen, no matter how humble he comes across, he has exceedingly deep and subtle realization.

Taoism is vague, that's why it's texts could be interpreted towards Buddhahood. I've always said this, but most interpret Tao as an Alpha and an Omega, somewhat like Brahman.

It's generally agreed upon in Hindu Tantra that Sahaja Samadhi is the culmination where there is nothing but Shiva from form to formless. Sahaja means spontaneous. So it basically means continuous samadhi where ones entire life is absorbed into the formless absolute. So all karmas become a reflection of this realization.

Yes, the mani mantra is bringing bodhichitta through the shashumna. They say to let the energy of bodhichitta rush down and back up and down through the central channel until all obstacles are released as this works through different dimensions in the mind/body matrix. Anyway... if you hear how the masters do it with Hri/Shree at the end, they do it very fast, deep and subtle but you can hear it going in and out of them with perfect pronunciation. At least this is how ChNNR does it. It's really deep. In Buddhist Tantra they call the energy of kundalini different things, like ultimate Bodhichitta or Chundali and other things. Even the experience of Rigpa where the pranas are stilled in the central channel and there is natural opening of purity, bliss, love, compassion and insight is like the culmination experience of kundalini had from the very outset, then the process is to integrate this with everything else in life. There is an entirely different handling of the experience it seems as it generally goes from top to bottom in this tradition, or even from heart then down, then up. I've heard different things from different people involved in Buddhist Tantra or Dzogchen. I've never heard it go from tail bone up though like in other traditions. The Tibetans actually consider all the physical shaking as an imbalance and they use herbs and various practices like yoga and mudra to balance the energy and make it less volatile.

I loved it... I noted that I have to really tail bone relax to let that energy flow up through my system and flow it did! You know, before I got connected to Buddhism on an experiential level, it used to bring up restlessness and resistance from me as well. I have my theories on this, but we don't need to bring this up here. I totally agree with your synopsis though CowTao, experientially. Also, you can't really be doing anything else but listening completely rapt with attention otherwise it feels way too intense. The guy is chanting in a really powerful tone, sounds like the didgeridoo in fact from Australia! I've always felt that they were kind of the same sounds, the multi-tone chanting and the didgeridoo.

I think it's kind of funny. In a silly way.

Fresh cucumber, also yogurt is good too. Also breathing in with the tongue curled around in a circle and pursing your lips like a kind of whistle at the same time. Breathing through your mouth only. When you curl the tongue in a circle, you will cool your body.

Are you talking about "neither perception nor non-perception"? This is the 8th Jhana. There are different non-dual states. All the formless states are of oneness with no sense of duality. So there are four meditative absorptions that seem to be without duality while in them. Infinite space, infinite consciousness, infinite nothingness, and neither perception nor non-perception. I'm very familiar with all the forms of Hinduism, as there really isn't one. I practiced very intensely Advaita Vedanta and Kashmir Shaivism reading all their texts. Vedanta and all forms of non-dual Hinduism identify the transcendent and formless samadhi's of one sort or another as the platform for all of existence. The Alpha and the Omega. If you read Vasisthas Yoga it summarizes all the major schools of Hinduism as well and does not teach the same teaching or cosmology of Buddhism as they are all schools that believe in a divine transcendent that is the one of all, that the all is one with.

Awesome! Sahasarara is the crown chakra of endless peddles. I experienced many temperature changes. Both cool bliss and hot blisses, those of both moon and sun energy. Plenty of songs and tunes, even spontaneous classical music, completely original tunes playing deeply clear and lucidly in my head. Amazingly beautiful stuff, even flute playing and drumming too. All either spontaneous during meditation or during the space between waking and sleeping as well as during sleep. I definitely can feel my brain changing, sometimes popping sounds or crackling sounds in my head and feelings of swelling or tightening in my brain, all sorts of stuff. Muktananda says these are all a part of the process. Muktananda talks about many things in various books, especially in "Play of Consciousness" though. Oh wonderful! What exact path do you practice?

Nice story! Thanks for sharing as I enjoyed hearing it. I think you wrote something similar before, speaking of the same.

In Buddhism, liberation is an insight. The non-dual experience is not an insight. If interdependent origination is not contemplated as Michaelz said, one merely has a high state of blissful consciousness, but knowledge obscurations and the seeds for re-becoming are not necessarily burnt in the insight of emptiness yet, thus full liberation is not realized.

The 8th Jhana was considered by the Buddha a formless receptacle for the deepest seeds of a persons samsaric experience and is not the non-dual state of vajra-samadhi which is the perfect state of Atiyoga or Dzogpa Chenpo and is not a meditation samadhi. The 8th Jhana is basically the experience of the Alaya Vijnana or receptacle consciousness. Brahma paths mistake this state, the deepest state of meditation for the unifying substratum of all and integrating all experience with this state is considered the realization of the non-dual. Thus, liberation in Buddhism is not a meditation samadhi, and the non-dual state of perfect liberation is not a state of absorption and integration of absorption. Buddhism is a cutting through non-dualism where one realizes the empty but luminous nature of mind and everything, and not a non-dualism where one identifies with everything equally in a homogenous way. Like I said, these differences are to be experienced directly and not merely intellectualized about. Since I have experience in both, I do understand directly the difference and the ramifications of these differences.

It's not meaningless at all, as the state of beyond time or timeless state of meditation arises due to the fact of phenomena. The timeless state or formless samadhi or experience of the state beyond time also arises dependently and is not an independently existing phenomena. Emptiness applies in a state of consciousness beyond concepts as well in order to de-root completely the state of craving for identity. The conclusion of "The Self as being beyond time and space" is a mis-cognition that doesn't recognize inter-dependent origination/emptiness which is more than merely a conceptual model, it's deeply experiential as well. You have to directly experience the meaning of the different states of samadhi as well as their outcomes, then apply emptiness there as well Just that none of this arises even as an experience or concept without causes and conditions. Even the state of de-conceptualization is a conditioned phenomena. Thus, one realizes the non-dual state is truly eminent with concepts too, not just transcending concepts. Both concepts and non-concepts arise dependently, as well as time and beyond time are empty and emptiness is also empty of inherent existence. Going beyond, completely beyond is really just being here, completely here. But yes... the non-conceptual realization is what it's about. It's just really having it and not making an experiential excuse for it, thinking the true experience is due to the one Brahman of all, or merging the Atman with Brahman. These differences in non-dualities of Monism and Buddhism are more than merely conceptual. Though I'm trying to relate this difference through concepts... it really has to be experienced first hand.

The difference between Buddhist non-dual and Hindu non-dual is subtler than the intellect. What the Buddha is saying is that basically the bondage of Samsara or karmic seeds exist in a formless state beyond the intellect, or beyond concepts, while the Hindu school takes this state of the non-appearance of karmas as the source of all being. It's really just the source of an individuals samsaric experience even though it seems to be completely non-dual, it's really just either the repressed state of particulars through samadhi focus, or the unexpressed state of particulars due to the fact of no secondary conditions for the seeds of karmas to be expressed out of this formless storehouse. So, Buddhist non-duality through the insight of inter-dependent origination does go deeper than the Theist, or Monist experiential excuse for non-dualism.

I was reading this and I thought it was someone else. But, oh... it's you GIH. I couldn't agree more. The extreme of all paths are correct doesn't recognize inter-dependent origination, but only recognizes one supreme agent that all things arise from and subside into thus the assumption that where you started, is where you will also end, as if there was an Alpha and an Omega. Rather interdependent origination reveals a more complex cosmos and a more chaotic one as well as a beginningless cosmos.