Vajrahridaya

That's not really what I'm arguing. My argument is that there is only one way that the universe really does it's thing and that's interdependent co-arising. To see that truth through any spiritual tradition would lead to the same result, as result originates dependent upon view. For me, God can be a metaphor for the interconnectivity that is the creative matrix of infinite consciousness' manifesting. As long as there is no attachment to some final identity, or personal being around this view, you'll be fine. I've mentioned what I feel would be an "awake" way to see the "Tao" as the way things mutually co-arise. Shiva is the auspicious paradigm of universal vision, seeing infinite potentiality that is the emptiness of all things. I'm passing out while writing... so I should probably get off and I would rather relate this through a clear mind, which is not happening when the very words I type are. It's been a strange day of seeing multiple universes simultaneously while awake, like dreaming with eyes open and seeing. I want to see this expressed with clarity. So, I'll say it tomorrow I suppose. The liberating factor is "right view" really meaning, correct cognition, or liberated interpretation of experiencing. I feel strange right now though, like I'm in that TV show Fringe or something?

EDIT: As this thread is about "light" and "heavy" people and teachings surrounding these two paradigms of experience and expression. I want to say and I hope this registers with people and makes people think about what they really feel within. I absolutely do not believe in "enemies" in any absolute sense. "Heavy" people or even demons have the capacity to become "light" beings and "light" beings can loose their virtue and become "heavy" beings or become demons even. Demons have not always been demons, or heavy people have not always been that way, it's all very fluctuant and things change over years and eons, consciousness is actually innocent, but the way it's conditioned defines it's environment of awareness both inner and outer. So, I do not believe in enemies, I don't believe that there are enemies and I don't believe that enemies exist anywhere at all. There is merely what is beneficial and what is not beneficial.

There is judgement of an absolute value, which I don't think Stig is on about as the motivation for this post. Then there is discerning about someones state of mind and knowing who you do not want to associate with. There are signs which reflect a persons state of mind. For those that have an ability to see energies, one can see certain signs in the auric field or chakras of individuals and see how heavy or light a person is. Sometimes it's difficult to ascertain how subjective this is as an enlightened being can mirror back exactly the issues that you have within, right back at you from without, unintentionally. For instance an enlightened being due to being empathic will feel you completely and take on your energetic dimension or even subtle energetic dimensions that you may be avoiding or not aware of, and not be effected by it personally, but experience it while you are looking at them. There are also extreme interpretations which has a habit of not seeing the inherent relativity of a situation. Like for instance, one person can come off heavy to someone else and come off as light to another person, depending upon how two people connect to each other. Or one circumstance can be read in two totally contradicting ways depending upon the angle from which you are looking upon the situation. There are differences, and relative values in the world around us. It's just applying an absolute value which might not be helpful and miss an opportunity to experience insight, or miss a chance to learn something due to a projected pre-conception, conditioning the experience of a given circumstance, thus mis-interpreting it entirely. Because people are at different stages of evolution, there are different methods for teaching. The Buddha reveals this in the Pali texts when he teaches different people in different ways about the same topic. Some people get the version that is more illuminating and goes into more detail, thus the audience is lighter and at other times, one can see that he is talking to a heavy or dense audience, so he just keeps it simple and straight forward, doesn't go into detail much and just offers a method of some sort so that the audience can raise their capacity. Sometimes, if a person is light, all they need is a terse lesson, and the details are elaborated within the being just through a very simple lesson, and others need for everything to be broken down and the outer guidance has to be more elaborate because the person has more inner obstacles.

Double post.

Neat! We need more non-dual depiction cartoons. I don't know if I should share a dream here that I have more than once, at least this one part, but I'm feeling inspired to do so, so... I'll do it. It's different dreams that have a repeating element to it, as different things happen after this first part which repeats. The repeating element is; I wake up in sleep paralysis which happens often enough so it doesn't scare me anymore, I just follow the feeling and relax into it, and I slowly slip out of my body... I then find myself in a state of a wondrous bliss. I'm made of light and everything is just this light, a bright white light. I'm floating in this light, made of the light, experienced as bliss. I'm both aware of being in the light and that I am the light with the regular me swimming in formless me. I am both seeing from the perspective of being the person swimming around in the light, more like floating around in the light and I'm aware from the perspective of being the light that I'm floating in. So, I'm having perception from both sides. Having vision through the eyes of the "light being" swimming and the light itself being one big eye that is looking at me swimming in me. Like seeing through two heads at the same time except one level of perception does not have a center of vision to see from, there are no eyes, it's seeing from all directions at once and the other one, the little me swimming in the big me is seeing through the two eyes. So it's simultaneously limited vision and 360 spherical vision focusing in on a person floating around within itself. Like the ocean was suddenly aware of a fish inside of it, except I'm both the fish and the ocean. According to Buddhist interpretation of this experience, my consciousness was basically just experiencing the water element which appears as white light and this water element is all around. I was aware that my consciousness was mingling with the all pervasive pure level of water element, the freedom was blissful, and there was no sense of concrete identity as well, there was just awareness and bliss. The big formless awareness which was my consciousness being aware beyond it's habitual identification with the body, was seeing the little me blissfully floating within it, but the color was all the same, yet I could differentiate both houses of consciousness, one was the water element and the other was my subtle mind body. Though it was white on white, I was aware both of the unity because both experiences of simultaneous awareness' was from my one consciousness, my mind stream. I was aware of the contrast without there having to be color, like I could see my face and the details of it without there having to be shades and color differences. Though it's hard to explain and probably even harder to read, this type of experience I feel shows that awareness is not trapped within or dependent upon the physical body to see. That apparent limitations are merely a game, or a play on a stage that we do for fun, but we have forgotten how fun it is. Of course individual intentions for becoming physical and limited differ from mind stream to mind stream and the causes for birth into this realm differ from being to being. Yet, at the beginning of any particular cosmic cycle, the intention was probably merely for the sake of experience propelled by the condition of a feeling of need left over from the last universe since we didn't become Buddhas then. I don't personally see awareness as some mysterious will that choses to condition itself out of some desire or will to do so. I don't see it as the source of all things either, but I see that our individual consciousness can become aware of subtler paradigms than the 5 senses, thus transcending body and brain consciousness. Because when we come out of this subtle state we see our physical universe kind of re-manifest perceptually, we assume that it's awareness that's doing this, but it's really just conditions of the physical habit coming back into awareness from a subtler paradigm of consciousness. Our consciousness occupies dimensions beyond the body even while we are only being aware of the body level and sense consciousness most of the time. I'm having a hard time explaining this right now as I find that as I try to explain there is a flood of information and dimensions and details that need to be explained, so I feel like a huge book is trying to be expressed here... Which I'm not going to write, right now. So... thank you for posting this and asking us to express our beliefs around this. It's always a nice challenge to try to put experience beyond the linearity of sequential time and of limitations of expressed on paper words through the English language. Thank you. Take care!

I'm saying that this is subjective. Because other people make sense of my writing and have said that it's very clear. I think it's because you don't understand the content. I have no problem with criticism when it's actually made from a loving heart and a trusting source. I don't trust you as a source and I don't feel your love when you make these criticisms, though that is actually changing recently as I am finding you are coming across with a much softer intent and I can actually feel your heart more now. But, because you, Blasto, and Songs can't make sense of my writing doesn't mean it's incoherent, it just means that you are having a hard time deciphering the meaning of the whole through the way I am using the words. But yes, I of course would like to improve, but there are people who do understand the things I say and find agreement, so they must be understanding my posts, even the ones that you do not. Yes, I do at times find English tedious. Like "c"'s and "s"'s and "f" and "ph"... for instance I wrote "desifering" and it underlined so I opened up the spell check dictionary and it couldn't even find the actual word I was looking for, because the "f" in place of the "ph" threw the spell check search out of whack, even when I replaced the "s" with a "c". so tedious. But, thus my patience is tried. Yes, but the Wiki used some examples from everyday life. Anyway... it shows to me interconnectivity, and interdependence. It's wonderful that you have a mind for such things. I've never pursued studies in the sciences.

Are you getting pleasure from being so subversive? I said black and white absolutism, or black and white linearity in thinking is not Buddhism and I was not making this a distinguishing factor from Taoism. Taoism is not so black and white in it's thinking either and see's relativity and applies this to a certain depth, just not deep enough for a Buddhist, in general. We see beginningless and endless interconnecting chains of relativity without a fundamental essence. I've said many times that what distinguishes Buddhism from Taoism is the fact that there is no absolute reality, no single fundamental source of existence in Buddhist interpretation of the cosmos. Buddhism and Taoism have a lot of parallels, but in the final analysis, they do not come to the same conclusion as to the universal phenomenology. I'm not trying to make this argument here though, so why bring it up? You certainly do hold grudges, don't you? I also am having a hard time understanding what you mean by the above statement? I don't think your wording is very clear? To a Buddhist, yes... we find that only buddhism really teaches pratityasamutpada and seeing this is the liberating factor. It depends on what your goal is though. The Buddhist goal is liberation from psychological suffering through and through, but also, liberation from unconscious rebirth or unconscious recycling. Not knowing where you are going after you die is an ignorance according to Buddhism that the methods of Buddhism rectify. Please stop bringing up this argument though. I'm not trying to argue this, but if you keep making mis-interpretations of my posts and pasting them all over the place, I will attempt to clarify the meaning. But, some threads are not for this debate. Please don't begrudgingly chase me around the room.

Oh, I have compassion for them. I have compassion for you as well. It's mostly an inside joke and is relative. My girlfriend just got back from spending 3 months with a narcissistic vampire, who she had been friends with her whole life but didn't get to see clearly until this 3 month long trip around the world. This girl psychologically drained my girlfriend, projected all her issues onto her, basically psychologically tortured her for a three month period and she had to live with her night and day. My girlfriend is very sweet natured, for instance she saw a homeless kid in Thailand and took the kid to a restaurant and fed the kid a full meal, meanwhile this girl judges her spirituality, calls her heartless, and all sorts of things which are more like qualities of her own. When I first saw them together when I visited Toronto more than a year ago, where my GF is from, I saw this young lady, Lindsey, taking over my girlfriend with this dark energy and my girlfriend was almost not recognizable. This girl was vamping her and taking advantage of my GF's innocence, I could not see Alana's usual light. I could see that this girl had some psychic powers, but used them to hide her insecurities and help her get petty desires fulfilled. This girl was very demonic in her intentions at every turn. I showed her love, but she was very judgmental about every action, thought and offered tid bit of wisdom. I wondered how Alana (my GF) could even be friends with her and it almost made me just want to break up with her, as this was towards the beginning of the relationship. Anyway... a year and some months later, I told her "don't go around the world with Lindsey (the vampire friend) because she is dense and nothing good from you will get through to her and she will turn everything around to make it seem like your fault". Her mother told her the same thing as well as a few of her best friends. But she said that if she didn't go, she would regret it and that they had made a promise to do this trip since they were in middle school, as they had known each other since elementary school. So, she went and the things that I warned her about did happen, but it was even worse than any of us imagined. I won't go into details, but this girl effected my GF in way's that are still harming her even 4 months after the trip's end. She came back psychically drained, pale and scared, an almost entirely different person, gone was the peace that I felt in her presence. All I felt was agitation and sadness. She keeps saying that she should have listened to us and not gone, but I tell her that she would have regretted not going, seeing all the pictures on facebook from Lindsey taken on the trip would have made her feel like she missed out. Also, Alana wouldn't have come to know exactly what type of person this girl was if she didn't go. It took spending an entire 3 months with this girl, day in and day out, and sleeping in the same room with her to finally see what kind of company she was keeping. So, though I keep trying to tell her to send her love and try to forgive her because she doesn't know any better, that she is a victim of her conditioning much like you cannot blame fire for being hot. That it was also your karma to go through such a thing, because you chose to go, you needed to learn something from it. But that Lindsey and people like her are "densies" and no matter how much love you give them, or how much you forgive them, you are really just doing it to help yourself let go and relinquish the attachment and blaming that's binding you to her. The goodness is not going to get through to Lindsey and people like her unless they make a conscious decision to open up to it. But people like her, in this lifetime are generally too far gone and it would take a major life changing shock of an experience to cause a paradigm shift of any significance for these "dense" or "heavy" people to open up to a perspective that is, "light" and not so dense. Take care. EDIT: I was just corrected by Alana, it was a 3 month trip. Which is true... LOL! I was 3 months without her. Duh!

Exactly! "It doesn't work, because I haven't experienced it." or... "That's not possible, because it's never happened to me when I meditate." Me and my girlfriend call these people, "densies" and we see this black energy around these people, or like a sheath over their heads, or a black spot over their 3rd eyes. Densies can even have psychic powers but only to aggrandize their black and white linearity in thinking. Eh... Then.. meditate more, go deeper, let go more when you enter meditation. If it doesn't work the first time, then try, try again. Obviously 1,000,000 people who experience a literal physiological healing are not deluded. I can understand doubting psychological healing because sure, it could be the placebo effect, but actual physical healing that doctors go, about? Is saying something. We are not dense beings, we are not physical beings, we are merely "reflections in a mirror."

Not exactly retarded, but in many more words. Incoherent, dilidant, all sorts of things. As if I pay you to be my English professor? It's rude to follow me around and insult my writing over and over again in thread after thread when I'm not even talking to you. If you can't remember these things, I will not waste time searching for your posts because the flood control doesn't seem to allow me to look up a single persons posting history. I said that the Buddha saw universal relativity. I took examples of Einsteins two theories of relativity. Special and General. It made sense to me. I'm satisfied with that. I can read it and see dependent origination. His theories show connectivity, relativity, how subjective interpretation of experience can be through different frames of reference. I can't get into the details of his theories, because I don't know how to. I'm not a scientist and don't have the details of these theories memorized. Yes, he talks about how universes cycle and crunch, then expand again and crunch again. He talks about the causes and conditions for this cycling as well. Read Myriad Worlds. I'm not so much in the mood to have this conversation with you. I think you need to read more Dzogchen texts, as a Dzogchenpa. If you are one. LOL! Amusing. Look, if being reborn in a formless bliss realm is a Taoists idea of a hell, then that's your interpretation, not my intention. That's all I'm saying. Don't put quotes around your interpretation of my posts and say I said that. Because that's not me, that's you. Take care.

But, you are... That's just the truth as I see it, so it's relative to my interpretation and not an absolute, this is what you are doing according to me. You are taking my posts and re-defining them according to your own conditioning. Please read my posts more carefully and see what I say from it's own side instead of pre-defining everything without seeing the larger context. Or not. You can continue this if you wish.

You aren't seeing clearly that's why. The Buddha taught in the Pali that when you attach to a formless essence through meditation and contemplation, go to a formless heaven, you reap what you sow. Your interpretation is fanatical. This is why it's not flagged, because you are not understanding the implication that it's merely a revelation of cause and effect. That doesn't mean all Taoists and Christians do this. It's a debate about attachment and delusion or clarity, yes, according to Buddhist interpretation. Your after life experience originates dependent upon your view and focus. That's all this is saying. The formless heavens are not Buddhist hells, they are not even Buddhist. This is what Buddhism states, not that you have to take it personally. You get so bent out of shape. Xabir has said the same thing, and so has Michaelz. Lucky also does not consider that there is a single essence to all things, a mysterious formless will that is behind all things. This is just a debate in view, not a personal attack saying you are all damned if you don't believe as I do. Your interpretation is extreme. As well as you are taking things way too personally and responding with bitterness. If you are angry and I say... "he's angry"... why is that off? If you are not angry, then why respond, why not prove that I'm wrong instead of reacting with these embittered responses? No, you don't. That's your interpretation, but that's not my doctrine. I am just talking Buddhism, not VH'ism. For some reason you think it is, but me, Xabir, and Michaelz have supported our statements with Buddhist texts, poems from great masters in Buddhist lineage and modern scholars and yogis. This is what the Buddha taught. Not me. I've just experienced this to be true. I can understand and see exactly what the Buddha means. Also, because you interpret it as a hell... that doesn't mean that this is my intention. That's merely your interpretation. You are taking things too personally instead of merely debating the points. You want to attack the messenger instead of merely debating with the message for some reason? Ok, well that's Buddhism. We realize the indestructible drop through realizing D.O., it's not an inherent substance, it's merely the result body of realizing D.O. That's Buddhism and this is why it's different from Taoism. You don't have to take it personally, you are free to think that it's wrong. But attacking me for talking standard Buddhist teachings from the different vehicles is somewhat strange. I have no problem with that. I never have. I have no problem with people arguing against what I consider to be standard Buddhism. This is what debating is for. Why get all bent out of shape about it? Yes, after you called my way of writing basically retarded, called me stiff, all sorts of things. Ralis you have constantly insulted me, over and over again. You are not being very honest. I have answered your questions, just not in a way that you think is clear. But, I answered them in ways that I thought were clear. We obviously think differently and what you think is clarity I think is delusion and vise versa. EDIT: What's interesting is that you take it upon yourself to get into conversations just to insult my writing, over and over again when I'm having conversations with other people who seem to be having absolutely no problem understanding what I'm saying. I'm debating with people who are reading my words and gleaming meaning, and I'm not even talking to you, but you come in and have to insult my writing, everywhere I go. Sometimes I don't want to post in a thread even jokingly because you or Songs take it upon yourself to blow everything out of proportion and take to personal insults.

Can you please reference any time I have said what you accuse me of saying? You are not being very clear because I have never, ever, once said or believed as you insinuate I do and say. So... I think it's you who is having a harsh inner interpretation, rather than me saying anything harsh to anyone on a personal level. I've said a few things to Ralis and Songs, but only after they repeatedly insulted me and my intelligence, attacked my Guru's, my history, and said all sorts of horrible things. Drew even went quite far in his personal attacks of me and my girlfriend. The only thing I've said of him, which both me and Vajrasattva said was that his attachment to the "full lotus" was a limiting mental dogma and that he was coming off as quite the child when it came to Tantra. I've only accused him of being somewhat of a neophyte when it came to the information he was sharing on Tantra. I think I said exactly that "you are a child when it comes to tantra". Vajrasattva said that he was in "diapers". I have never actually personally insulted you Tao99 and I've, never, ever said what you quoted me as saying. Not even a close approximation. I've said that you might take rebirth into a blissful formless realm after death if you hold strongly and focus very intensely on a mysterious formless essence to all things. This is not at all a Buddhist hell, this is a formless bliss realm, a level of bliss that is far greater than some of the higher heavens. It's in fact the highest bliss one can experience outside of actually realizing the dharmakaya. So, it's more akin to being reborn into a heaven realm. So, I've never said that Taoists and believers in God go to hell. Tao99, it seems that you have brown colored glasses when it comes to me, because you don't seem to really be reading the things I say, only the shitty projections you manifest as interpretations of my posts. I have never once said... That's quite an amazing mis-quote. Talk about... never mind. I won't say anymore.

That's quite an extreme interpretation of our debates. I don't think any Buddhist in here has said that about Taoists. I've even said that it's possible for a Taoist to become a Buddha if he or she see's the Tao as referencing mutual co-dependence or inter-dependent co-arising rather than an ontological and mysterious universal essence. I've also mentioned many times that anyone in any religion can reach to higher re-births and higher realms through virtue and meditation. No Buddhist would think that anyone would go to hell for simply being a good Taoist, rather you'd reap the fruit of your own goodness which would be good fuit. It's just Buddhism is specific about what liberation means, and the Buddha said it means seeing co-dependent arising on a personal and simultaneously, on a universal level. Buddhists by default are not black and white thinkers and by default see universal relativity. If the Buddhist understands the Buddhist teachings at all that is.

Yes, I'd like to learn how to use Yarrow sticks. Also the marble method seems interesting. I'll bring that up with my Mom. Thanks guys!!

Not if it actually is. Vajrayana is of course more subtle and profound as it deals directly with ignorance and the cause of ignorance which is not experiencing one's Buddhanature. It doesn't work through suppression it works through transformation of interpretation. One doesn't repress anger, and one also sublimates the sexual experience. Both if you are a monk or a nagpa, it's about sublimation, not suppression with the idea of original sin, or the idea of this is bad. Of course different people need different techniques, also not every monk is a righteous monk, one has to really want to sublimate and transform the experience of energy in order to do it, it takes great patience and effort, or release of effort and relaxing into through the view. Of course if you think in black and white linearity and over-generalizations, then you only see your own pre-conceived projections and don't really get anywhere with insight. You just label and dismiss without further investigation. The Bond of Power by Joseph Chilton Pearce would be a good read for you Ralis, as it goes into detail about the issues that you seem to be having with interpretation based upon a highly Western education.

Yes, but you can change these consequences through right action. Through the 8 fold noble path, you change your destiny through your own effort. Original sin is an idea that if we are born, we are sinners. That's not the case. It's just causation, we reap what we sow and that's it. If you put forth the effort to get a phd in math, depending upon other conditions, but if all conditions are ripe which have to do with the things you are doing to make that happen, it all bares fruit.

The Buddha did solve the human dilemma and Norbu Rinpoche lives in the state that is beyond the human dilemma, yet alas, you can show the horse water but you cannot make him drink. That's a problem of humans, not religion. Your perspective is absolutist and does not recognize relativity and you don't understand where you are wrong in your view, so it seems to me at least. Your statements are a generalization based on a lack of insight. They spring from black and white thinking which is not reflective of the experience of Rigpa. Rigpa sees the universal field of relativity. That's a global responsibility and religion more than any other organisation of any type gives more money and help to the impoverished as well as the beings in religion who are in it for the right reasons who make history with their level of self sacrifice for the sake of uplifting the downtrodden and impoverished. Look at Amma and Mother Theresa for instance. Anyway, the Buddha talks about how these circumstances happen for people, through Karma. All your misunderstandings come from not understanding the Buddhas teachings of how the universe cycles, how individuals get themselves into certain predicaments that are self destructive and are able to get themselves out. If everyone understood the Buddhas teachings, we wouldn't have any of these problems. The real human need is to understand dependent origination, thus business' would not have a parochial vision and dump waste into clean water, and oil companies would turn to investing in renewable resources with their money, the world would get together and non-selfishly share information and resources in a kind of global communalism among many other positive things. If everyone saw interconnectivity, we would loose selfishness and the world would stop revolving around the race to please oneself as individual pleasure seekers who seek through material gains for the sake of a joy that's innate. People do deluded things because they don't understand or experience their own Rigpa. You might have experienced it, but you don't understand it, it's meanings or it's subtle implications or ramifications. You think the Buddha taught something that died with him, but that's because you haven't experienced the meaning of his teachings, as far as I can tell. This doesn't need to be insulting, but you should open your mind a bit. Of course you think your mind is open and mine is closed. But you don't see the illogic and unreasoning of your arguments. I sometimes wonder how old you are? Buddhism is concerned with the cause of suffering and the end of suffering. With this it does the job perfectly and all the problems of humanity arise due to individuals not seeing the end of psychological suffering from within themselves which is merely transforming marigpa into rigpa. You ask these questions and you make statements, but I wonder how you could make such statements and be a student of an amazing Buddhist master who makes it clear that the condition of suffering for anyone arises from a lack of true cognition which is what Rigpa is. I don't feel questioned by you actually Ralis. I feel that you need help with clarity. Your view needs clarification because you keep bashing Buddhism, but you say you follow the teachings of a Buddhist master? As far as people who react out of insecurity, it's because their view is merely a belief and not an experience. It's merely a set of ideas and not an insight. Ah voices in the background... Do you mistakenly judge and irrationally misinterpret? Oh, revealed! I actually feel an energetic relief. That's wonderful! I didn't want to say so because sometimes I compliment someone then they turn to just attack me as a thank you, but I do sense a softness in you. I guess I'm not fooling myself. VH

No the view is alive and well in current Buddhas. One can know for oneself how true his statements were back then through investigation and meditation. No. You don't seem to understand the basis, process and the fruit, nor the triple gem or the triple kaya. Unless this is all just a game and you are just testing me or something. Yes, but I think Islam is the only religion who's forefather resorted to violence to turn people into Muslims. All other religious forefathers teach peace, love and acceptance of differences, but not necessarily becoming one with the differences of others. That's in the West and that has nothing to do with what Jesus taught which is not Christianity as it's popularly understood. It also has nothing to do with the Saints, like Miester Eckhart and St. John of the Cross, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Theresa who were all religious in the good way. Humanity will make all sorts of excuses to enact their ignorance, from religion to capitalism. Religion is not at fault, erroneous views of reality are. What, about holy wars? Human history? Be more specific. The origin of what you do know would be study and the result of questioning.

It's erroneous views that are the cause of this not being experienced as an Eden. I used to have the messy view that all paths lead to the same destination which really isn't that insightful and doesn't see the meaning of things as they are. I made an excuse that the Truth was a transcendent umbrella idealism that is beyond thoughts, logic and reason. I used to think... why is it that Buddhists think they have the only path that leads to true liberation from unconscious recycling? As a Hindu I was able to see that Jesus was a Buddha, Krishna was a Buddha, Lau Tzu was a Buddha and Buddha was the only Buddhist Buddha because all these other guys who say that Buddhism is the only path that leads beyond proliferation are dogmatic and don't understand the Buddhas teaching. All these Buddhists missed the boat and only non-Buddhists understand the Buddhas teachings. I used to think like this. Because I thought all religions and all the cosmos had one source, that there was a beginning to the universe a source that was also it's end and that all things were of one substance and that everything was under the power of a mysterious will. Everything is the dream of one dreamer, dreaming his/himself into multiplicity only to become one again at the end of the cosmic eon. Then I realized dependent origination and saw past this dogma. I realized that it wasn't Buddhists who were being dogmatic, it was me... I was being dogmatic and I was mis-interpreting my experiences the only way an identity knows how. To identify my transcendent experiences with a transcendent identity. It's a habit that has kept me recycling for endless time, over and over again. It's the hardest habit to break. People want to take some parts of the Buddhas teachings but those parts that challenge their view, they dismiss as being some sort of addition that came later. But, the Buddha did say in the Pali Canon that his teaching was special and that the universe works like dependent origination illumines and does not work in the way that other traditions posit. It's an entirely different teaching from other traditions. It is unique and it's either wrong or right. But, it's not the same as other tradition which all seem to fall under the assumption that everything comes from one source and that one day we will all return to this one source. This is true, but that source is ignorance, and ignorance can be bliss, and have a lot of knowledge. That doesn't mean it's liberation from Samsara as the Buddha defines it though. Buddha was the only started of a major world religion that actually meant his teachings to be a formal religion with monks and lay disciples, an entire system of methods and contemplations for the sake of liberation from Samsara. It wasn't a later edition, he actually created Buddhism. Buddha meant for his teachings to be an organised path to liberation. His system of consideration is rebellious. It's rebellious against the habit of oneness, the substratum that we are all products of is ignorance. The fundamental ignorance of a final identity.

Debating the finer points of view is not the same as war and destruction. Actually your take on our debate is more violent than any of us have been with each other. Debate is a tool that one uses to destroy erroneous views of reality and experience. Yes, and how deeply have you questioned your own? Your interpretation of Dzogchen is severely lacking in both study and contemplation. Your interpretation of these debates is subjective and bitter. I see no reflection of having experienced a deep relaxation of heart through the words you share here. All you post are complaints. Oh you can never force someone to question their own belief, but on a blog board in America you are free to question someones belief. Ralis is free to make sweeping negative generalizations, I am free to question and assume the basis for this lack of insight. Just as he has spent lots of his freedom insulting me and my intelligence. I am free to see how gummed up he is by his negative conditioning and try to help him see it by telling him.

An Enlightened being while alive on Earth will still have what is called prarabdha karma which is the karma destined to happen on a physical level in this life. Though the responses to these circumstances, as in the sanchita (mind) karma has been completely liberated so the person has no more habitual clinging patterns of reaction to circumstances outside of the persons control. From this level, it is possible to even change these seemingly pre-destinies a little bit while alive. One can even prolong one's life even though one was previously destined to die at a certain point. As an enlightened being one still displays actions and words through the flip around of beginningless Sakam Karmas of bondage into endless Nishkam Karmas of virtue and offering as in you don't just disappear after death if you have actualized Buddhahood. There are still conditions for display, for karma just means action or causation. But one is liberated in these actions and not bound by these conditions internally, one acts as if there is nothing going on, there is a lightness and lack of concrete judgement. Unintentional actions do have seeds as they are still actions with reactions, but the sanchita karma will arise according to the intention of the person who has acted, like for instance accidents do happen and someone who purposely pushed the person off the cliff will suffer a different fate from the person who accidentally bumped into the person who fell off the cliff. There is never a point when a person has no intentions. It's just that once liberated ones intentions go from selfish to selfless, from how can I get to how can I serve. One still enjoys oneself but the causes of this enjoyment are not the same. The enjoyment arises from the condition of seeing emptiness directly in every thing and all circumstance thus everything is experienced as liberated and luminous, one is always in a sense of positive flow with everything so being beneficial and being appropriate is a constant state of being for an enlightened one. Though, these are not contrived ideas and what is deemed beneficial and appropriate from the perspective of the bound is not always reflected in an enlightened beings actions who takes in a much wider array of information as inspiration for acting in any particular way or moment. Re-birth is not linear. As the Buddha said, when you are human, you should cultivate the path of Dharma because being human in this life is no guarantee for the next, as conditions for rebirth into a lower capacity body or political situation where you don't have the freedom of religion may still be stuck in the unconscious, waiting to come out after death. But if you deal with this unconscious possibility for a future life as a cow or something, while alive, then you've dealt with this kriyamana karma which is the karma of a possible future based upon your sanchita karma of the now.

Exactly, I'm not the one taking it personally. If you follow the history, these handful of people attack me at every turn and make a nice thread into a war zone. So, I'm asking why they take me personally? I do... As I've said, I turn it into cultivation opportunities. If you follow the argument, I'm not really the one being bugged. It's that I bug these guys even though all I do is debate sutra and view in order to refine interpretation of experience, as well I share some of my personal experiences that I've had while on the mat. Instead of arguing the points, these people jump to personal attacks because they say they cannot understand my posts or find any sort of cohesive understanding of which to argue against, so they just go straight for the jugular. Which ruins thread after thread instead of just debating like everyone else. Thank you! I am working on not being effected by these peoples affectedness. They are not the same. Though, I can see that if one interprets the Tao through certain commentaries that one might come to the same conclusion. But, Lau Tzu's interpretation of the Tao does not seem to accord with Buddhas wisdom. This is the argument, that for the most part, Taoism leads to a different end than Buddhism and that they have different interpretations of how the cosmos works. If one uses the term, Tao (The Way) in reference to dependent origination or mutual co-arising, then I have no argument and I'm in total agreement. But if one uses the term Tao to describe a mysterious and ontological source of all being, then I know we are not talking about the Bodhi of the Buddhas. I think it's up to an individual person to come up with the view that best suits their disposition and as a person grows through spirituality, I'm sure that disposition will change and thus one's interpretation of spirituality. I have no problem with utilizing tools from other spiritual traditions as I use the I-Ching in my practice, but I maintain the Buddhist view and interpretation of experience as well as the Buddhist interpretation of the value of life. I used to agree that all religions lead to the same end, but I don't anymore. I now find this view faulty and not revelatory of clarity and wisdom. In Buddhism, the goal is not to sit on the mat and do away with discursive thinking and that is enlightenment. Buddhism has an entirely different approach to what enlightenment means than I have found in any other spiritual tradition. The interpretation of whether it is inferior or superior is entirely subjective. It depends on your personal goals in life and after. Oh we know you don't agree. I'm saying that me, Xabir, and Lucky were coming to an impasse of expression due to agreement.

Once again you are mis-identifying me with Vajrasattva. I VH is the one who watches Heroes, and VS is the one who commented about models.

I'm not sure I understand your question? Do you mean how the physical yogas cure ailments? Well through stretching and opening up the blood flow and other elements of the body, but the physical yogas work directly with the winds or energy flow as well, the channels and chakras. Can you clarify your question please? Thanks.