Vajrahridaya

No, it's a pureland where only beneficial things occur, no racial oppression or anything like this. You get there by intensely focusing on such as a practice and then when you're meat bag dies, your mind transfers there automatically and manifests a body of lesser density, more light. Of course a practitioner of pureland will have practiced the virtues and unraveled plenty of their neurotic tendencies while on Earth in order to facilitate a light body with very little to no baggage in a pureland. There are no death camps, and only pleasurable frictions. Far more pleasurable than the ones most people have here, unless they are realized yogi's of course. Then for these beings, the inner pureland is everywhere and anywhere. Ralis, it's pure fantasy to think that you only have on life to live and that when your body dies, you actually die. This is what I call a grand fantasy.

I've seen various movies and read various books. They were interesting and they talked a bit about what used to be in the Chinese mountains before it was all destroyed. I'm sure plenty of mountain lineages still exist in secret. I've seen a recent documentary about such facts.

It does for a Buddha because they've released their cognizance from it's binding conditions of duality. That's what makes enlightenment so grand! You finally see the truth of the cosmos free from dualistic concepts and identities. Even while you use them to communicate, they hold no power of bondage over a speaking Buddha.

It is simply the result of seeing clearly, all the time. Having internally correct cognition. Realizing that all things and mind are empty as in mutable, luminous and pure all the time. The entire universe becomes a place of rapture for the realized being. If liberation was not blissful, filled with great love from within, a wellspring of total and complete joy, all the time new... then what would be the point? Of course it's a carrot, but in this sense, you get to taste the carrot through practice until you fully cut the string that binds it. The 8 fold path are the tools for cutting this string of bondage. There is no ultimate you, no static you... there is still the relative you that is relative to everything else. You are just free from you and this is joy! You are opened and never contracted, never blocking the incoming and constantly evolving experience of living. At the same time, since your inner joy is complete, you are not craving anything and what comes, is a mirror to this joy and what goes is not chased because you are too busy enjoying the next wave of experience that is a mirror for this bliss. You are fully engaged and there is no where to go but here and no time to be but now. But, this is not a narrow now, it includes the 3 times, because you see directly into all inter-connectivity, so there are powers of perception that open up to you. During the path, in order to experience more selflessness, we offer our merits to all other beings and this creates a reservoir of intention that remains after total enlightenment. Thus this is the condition from which enlightenment acts from... the result of the practice of selflessness is the fruit of realizing selflessness. If the path teaches you how the universe works, how the cosmos works, then it's good. Because the cosmos works a particular way. If the path teaches the insight that eradicates all levels of clinging and craving and doesn't make excuses for clinging and craving, then it's good. For instance; The excuse that clinging to this high level experience of formless bliss which is the God of all and surrendering to this clinging will get you liberation, would be a false liberation... Also if the path teaches that all things come from one ground of being that you have to release too, then it's not the penetrative insight that truly teaches how the universe works and you will not realize what the Buddha meant by Nirvana. Yes, this has something to do with the movement of your energy and so you need balancing. Which is why in Vajrayana we have techniques of movements that clear your energy channels and make your body more suitable for higher realizations and state of deeply empowering joy! These movements change you on a cellular level. Trul Khor or Yantra Yoga... there are many different types. But they are good because sometimes energy movement can be spontaneous and very strong in meditation and this can at times cause vomiting, shaking, all sorts of things as the energy pushes through your blockages deep within your being. That's a certain kind of joy. It's not the same as dissolution of the ego that happens in deeper meditation. After coming out, yogi's do at times get puffed up and there is a joy about this, "Wow, I'm such a good meditator, I'm so cool!" this is a certain kind of joy and it may even have traces of the bliss of meditation intertwined with it, making this ego joy even bigger. Some yogi's have the biggest ego's when their not meditating. I've been known to myself... This is why the practice of mindfullness is very important in order to squelch the kind of yogic ego one can develop through strictly meditative paths. It's the kind of ego that leads people to think that they are the one true messengers of God and that they with all this power and love can save humanity and that all beings would benefit from worshiping them. Many religions are started by beings like this. It has to do with not being mindful, not understanding dependent origination, and getting sucked into one of the high levels of Samadhi, Jhana or Dhyan... however you want to call it. This is why it's very important to understand that the Buddhas teaching is subtler and different from these Monisms and Monotheisms and substantiated paths that teach the mis-interpretation of a meditative experience and turn it into the substratum of the entire universe, thinking they have proof, but it's really just a deeper kind of delusion. You can experience past lives, see through things, all sorts of worldly powers of perception through these paths, but still not have that penetrative insight which the Buddha teaches. Yes, it's totally possible to communicate without even using language. Like two people can be open to each other and exchange ideas without even saying or having a single social level thought occur. The idea can cover a large amount of information, transferred to each other very quickly and instantaneously. As thought is not limited to social level thinking, you don't even need to use sounds. But, we are mostly not this open to each other. We are generally pretty dense and identified with the peanut butter body and not that aware of the energy running through it, and even that has layers of density to subtlety.

It's also a fact that Buddhist cosmology is much vaster. This has nothing to do with being Buddhist or Taoist. It's just textually and objectively true, Buddhist cosmology says more about what's going on out there. Taoism may have some poetry and mostly ambiguity... Buddhism is about clarity, and poetry second. It is different... this has nothing to do with emotional attachment or karmic connection, but the fact remains is that it has more to offer as far as clarity goes. Though it is available for integration with most of Taoism at the same time. It's not at odds with much of it. Actually I think Zen Koan style poetry is inspired by Taoist style poetry. The Ambiguity can lead to open contemplation, but there must be a direction and I'm not quite sure that Taoism has that clear direction. I personally love Taoist and Zen poetry though... but I interpret through Buddhist eyes. I want to clarify that there still might be secret Taoist lineages that reveal more than what is readily available to people. There is the fact that we as a masses wouldn't know about the secret Tibetan teachings if it wasn't for the Chinese invasion. At least, not for the most part... I don't know what could be hidden in the Chinese mountains? I'm sure it's quite interesting.

Maybe not you... then again, maybe it challenges your sense of self?

"Half Empty!?" No no... it's AAAAALLLLLLLLLLLL empty!! This gives plenty of space for my laughter!!

You are misunderstanding the 4 noble truths. The 1st being, "There is suffering", not that it's all a bunch of suffering, but you transcend the mass of suffering through Buddhism. Once you see how deep your ignorance goes directly through meditation... into lifetimes. How many times you have been ignorant, animals, bugs, different types of beings of variant intelligence... etc. You realize that you want to see through this. Even though you delight in many things and there are many glorious things, even these are considered distractions if you don't see right into the truth of everything, because these delightful things will pass, you will grow old, and you will die. If you have not cultivated the path, you will not know where you go after death and even if you know where you go after death, you may not know where after this. Buddhism is about total omniscience. Not just about feeling nice while you life. Buddhism will challenge your comfort zones. You obviously suffer under your interpretation of our existence here. This is an ignorance that Buddhism can rectify. The 2nd noble truth is suffering has a cause. This is ignorance. The 3rd is that there is an end to suffering. This is Nirvana. The 4th is that the way is the 8 fold noble path. This is Buddhism. Clearly you don't know what your talking about when it comes to Buddhism. Which is a good thing. This gives you space to learn something new! If you care to. I do remember having this very discussion before. Don't you remember the previous corrections of these assumptions?

Ok yes... The Buddha doesn't have Omnipotence which would be an example of free will. He just has omnipresent omniscience. There is no one being that has omnipotence as we are all interconnected, you could say that we are collectively omnipotent. Like if all of a sudden every sentient being manifested the same intention, then the entire cosmos would manifest this intention. But... that's not how things are... everyone has intentions going in various directions, thus, the cosmos is so multi-various.

You know what! Kind of... in a way... yes! I've often felt computers/internet as being a manifest potential reflection of enlightened consciousness... This kind of is a realm where people can work out their "shyte" and have conditions for being influenced by good things. Yup!

HA HA It would be funny if we could have spontaneous recordings uploaded of uproarious laughter that could be facilitated without a whole lot of "goings ons" within computer land to do so... like right now! :lol:

What an awesome dream! But yes... Vajra path (yana) does indeed call upon a large number of different types of Buddhas. You realize the intention of this when you start realizing the intention of all of Buddhism. It actually trains your mind to think multi-dimensionally and be in many different places at once without loosing one's state of pure, unadulterated and uncompounded awareness. Because as a Buddha... you will project many fabulous intentions into many murky regions of the cosmos in order to help people. Buddhism is geared towards helping others... that's basically the goal. How to help others optimally and completely, with total surrender to this job. It's a selfless path.

Simple is complex and complex is simple. Your state of reference seems quite dualistic. I beg my pardon if this seems off color... but... This statement of yours is an example of a complete misunderstanding of intention. You obviously also misunderstand the intention of the whole of Buddhism as it appears on Earth. You can't repress what is vast and amazing through a contrived state of simplicity for more than a few eons. That could comprise many, many lives or indeed, a few great high so called "immortal" lives. What many Taoists don't get, is that the cosmos is much vaster than the philosophy holds. Buddhism seems to be the only philosophy on the planet that sees the complexities with ease. I don't have to think to know... chatter is not chatter to me... I've spent many hours a day for years stilling the social aspect of mind. Now, all I have to do is contemplate meditative experience and the information is there as inter-connectivity is realized instantaneously without effort, beyond thought, though thought merely expresses in encapsulations as attempts to convey experience.

Chatter is only the expression of potentiality. If realized, there is no difference between noise and silence. "Tao" is still a substratum for Eternalist craving for existence, so wouldn't hold in the court of Buddha. But, that doesn't mean it's not a good means to self evolution beyond itself. For Buddhists it falls short though as a complete path, though if integrated with Buddhism, for a Buddhist to practice some of the good things from the path started by Taoist Wizards... no problem. Those who favor simple and see it as different from complex, don't understand the universe. Those that understand the complex, see it simply even before thought finds a place to be.

Right... it's just a matter of awareness. Samsara rightly viewed and experienced from within is Nirvana!

We don't worship deities as separate forms per say. Though there is that and there are other energies and other realms... we just acknowledge that, it also explains lots of things. Even quantum physics is finding that there are many universes besides this one and also that the mind can manifest a body in another dimension much like you do when you dream. Anyway... the deity worship is really about becoming the deity in later stages of practice, when you complete the mandala and integrate it with the entirety of your waking life, you divinize it you can say... for yourself. It's all about becoming the deity yourself with all it's divine qualities. Not worship in an outer way, but actually invoking that state of mind and sense of presence from within. This is what all that deity worship is about. The mind becomes like that which it focuses upon. Yeah? Dude... I love Taoism and had an avid interest in it for a while! I got into the whole Wang Liping thing... he seems great! I might start practicing martial arts again with a Taoist wizard here in the East Coast of Florida who my friend says is really awesome. I have a few friends that practice Dzogchen as well as Taoist martial arts. On the Dorje Shugden controversy... I'm on the Dalai Lamas side. I do believe through direct experience in other realm beings and their individual powers of influence. They exist, much like we do. For them it's easier for them to see us, because we move so slowly, but they move too fast for us to generally see, so unless trained, or rather de-conditioned and subtlified (de-densified) through practice... we don't see these other worldly beings.

Indeed! You are correctamoondoe!

There are all sorts of ways one can integrate ones realization of the emptiness of phenomena. There's the Jalus for instance and the Powa too. But these both happen at the end of ones physical karma to be here. But yeah...

Oh right... yes ok! More to the point. Though a realm lord Buddha, like Amitabha actually wills a realm into being with all sorts of conditions to benefit beings dharmically. Though of course this will to do so is conditioned by the fact that there are needy people. So yes... will is always a conditioned thing. It's just whether or not it follows blissful and liberating conditions or contracted, fearful conditions for the choices it makes.

Yes, they create a realm where beings can work out their karmas, and be more in contact with Buddhadharma while doing so. They don't actually create the beings in the realm, though they will manifest many streams of Buddharific intentioned beings as teachers, which are just reflections of the original in different ways. Pretty awesome stuff!

This is exactly what the Buddha taught in what is known as the Hinayana and also the Mahayana, both of which he taught at the same time to different people of different capacities.

For me, Buddhism is more about escape from my mis-understanding of life and thus re-emergence into it with fresher and more illumined eyes of insight. "Escape" wouldn't even be the right word, as one has to immerse oneself into the inner causes of ones misunderstanding, and not run from them. Of course, this type of elaboration doesn't really start taking full shape until we get into the stages of Tantra, and more so even in Dzogchen in around the 200's or so B.C.

Hi Mikaelz! If you think about it... since we are all the co-creators on so many levels. Even before this realm manifested we were unknowingly manifesting it through our thought patterns before it was ready to house our mind-streams. This is back when we were in less dense dimensions tossing our thoughts to the wind. Anyway... so we are all this life, collectively, not as a single entity, but you could say so as well... metaphorically. We as in all us sentient beings and all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, Gods, animals, etc. Basically mind streams are the God of this creation. Metaphorically of course, not absolutely in a sense of being "one" in any literal sense.