Vajrahridaya

In Vajrayana Kundalini isn't named a single energy, it's more like a blissful experience of the fruit of the 8 fold noble path when one's energies are balanced and one's neurotic inner knots are released through contemplation and the work of meditation. The energy then naturally aligns with the spine or the central channel which is parallel to the spine. So, generally it happens within a context of a smooth transition and not a forced purification, so one doesn't have negative experiences. It's known as chundali I think, which I think means light of the moon. So that's kind of a metaphor as it mostly is awakened through being in the light of the moon, which reflects the light of the sun. The sun being the dharma and the moon being the realized teacher. I suppose one could consider this metaphor in many ways. But it's generally initiated through intermingling with the mind of a master and catching fire through a glimpse of the state of Buddahood, which happens kind of like the idea of osmosis.

Buddhist enlightenment is defined by the end of psychological suffering. One see's directly the interdepedency and relativity of all things and experiences, and transcends experience all together. One see's the empty nature of all experiences and concepts, thus liberates awareness from identification or limitation of any sort, because you see the cause of awareness itself as endless and not established, you self-liberate in every moment. One transcends the paradox of coming into being and no-being. As in, one see's through any standpoint, any point of view, any permanent state of consciousness. But, because one see's that all experiences and things are always dependent, and never true from their own side, and always caused by another, that's caused by another add infinitum, that as long as the realization of this is continuous, so is also the experience of being liberated from experiencing. The other quality of enlightenment is seeing that since we are connected, that giving this information or wisdom selflessly is also a way to liberate from self clinging. The main difference between Buddhism and other paths is the fact that Buddhism never posits a beginning. A mysterious source to all existence that holds all potentiality as an essence of being that expresses as all. It posits that there is in fact no source and no beginning to things, that each moment in history leads to endless moments in history in a way that realizes infinite regression and thus infinite expansion. There is no rooftop concept, of, "This is the Self", or... "This is the absolute Truth". It see's all of life and experiences from formless to form, from concept to beyond concept as dependently originated without origin, not as a causeless cause, but that... all is merely a chain of causation without a primal cause or a point of origin. Kundalini in most traditions is considered an energy that is inherently intelligent and thus mysterious. But, in Buddhism it's considered merely the realization of mind reflecting light that is merely awareness and that awareness is illuminating infinite internal causation within one's being, thus opening closets of previous causes and effects that form a vast and infinite chain, or matrix of interconnectivity, that is so deep that one can only think of it intuitively in any one moment, merely by recognizing in a way that is beyond thought, but not beyond knowing. This awareness brings to the surface all that is hidden within, and thus the energy of awareness, or illumination acts through one's karmic baggage and by working with the impressions that are now being seen through the path of the Dharma, or virtue of the Buddha's teachings, one de-wires the knots through contemplation and the energy or winds/karmas or the movements start becoming centered into an experience of wholeness and connectivity, and singularity of experience, as one see's that all seeming variables are equally empty, thus of one taste and through the body that experience is represented by the one spine that balances polarities such as left/right, up/down, in/out. If you think of the human body being an emanation of the balancing point of the spine, the hemispheres of the brain, etc. also being metaphors for the universe, the world, East and West hemispheres and polarities, it's endless in explanation. But basically it all balances by seeing the natural interconnectivity of all things and the inherent emptiness of all individual specs of the interconnected all, and one has the experience of non-dual awareness, or rather, awareness of the non-dual and non-abiding nature of all things. It's not an experience that is itself the TRUTH, but rather a realization of the empty nature of things as they always were, are and will be inherently, and thus is a true realization of what all this is. I thought maybe I'd edit for clarity, but maybe the run on sentences will help to bring understanding that is non-linear, reflective of a stream of expression pointing back to the meaning of the experience of holding paradox lighty? It's best described by poetry of the Mahasiddhas I think... Though even the poem below can be misunderstood, as in Buddhism, the term essence is referring to the essential nature of things, that they are relative and thus inherently empty of a real base, and thus, that is the base. So, explanation seems paradoxical and can confuse if not contexualized properly through the original teachings of the Buddha. Nagarjuna's Mahamudra Vision Homage to Manjusrikumarabhuta! 1. I bow down to the all-powerful Buddha Whose mind is free of attachment, Who in his compassion and wisdom Has taught the inexpressible. 2. In truth there is no birth - Then surely no cessation or liberation; The Buddha is like the sky And all beings have that nature. 3. Neither Samsara nor Nirvana exist, But all is a complex continuum With an intrinsic face of void, The object of ultimate awareness. 4. The nature of all things Appears like a reflection, Pure and naturally quiescent, With a non-dual identity of suchness. 5. The common mind imagines a self Where there is nothing at all, And it conceives of emotional states - Happiness, suffering, and equanimity. 6. The six states of being in Samsara, The happiness of heaven, The suffering of hell, Are all false creations, figments of mind. 7. Likewise the ideas of bad action causing suffering, Old age, disease and death, And the idea that virtue leads to happiness, Are mere ideas, unreal notions. 8. Like an artist frightened By the devil he paints, The sufferer in Samsara Is terrified by his own imagination. 9. Like a man caught in quicksands Thrashing and struggling about, So beings drown In the mess of their own thoughts. 10. Mistaking fantasy for reality Causes an experience of suffering; Mind is poisoned by interpretation Of consciousness of form. 11. Dissolving figment and fantasy With a mind of compassionate insight, Remain in perfect awareness In order to help all beings. 12. So acquiring conventional virtue Freed from the web of interpretive thought, Insurpassable understanding is gained As Buddha, friend to the world. 13. Knowing the relativity of all, The ultimate truth is always seen; Dismissing the idea of beginning, middle and end The flow is seen as Emptiness. 14. So all samsara and nirvana is seen as it is - Empty and insubstantial, Naked and changeless, Eternally quiescent and illumined. 15. As the figments of a dream Dissolve upon waking, So the confusion of Samsara Fades away in enlightenment. 16. Idealising things of no substance As eternal, substantial and satisfying, Shrouding them in a fog of desire The round of existence arises. 17. The nature of beings is unborn Yet commonly beings are conceived to exist; Both beings and their ideas Are false beliefs. 18. It is nothing but an artifice of mind This birth into an illusory becoming, Into a world of good and evil action With good or bad rebirth to follow. 19. When the wheel of mind ceases to turn All things come to an end. So there is nothing inherently substantial And all things are utterly pure. 20. This great ocean of samsara, Full of delusive thought, Can be crossed in the boat Universal Approach. Who can reach the other side without it? Colophon The Twenty Mahayana Verses, (in Sanskrit, Mahayanavimsaka; in Tibetan: Theg pa chen po nyi shu pa) were composed by the master Nagarjuna. They were translated into Tibetan by the Kashmiri Pandit Ananda and the Bhikshu translator Drakjor Sherab (Grags 'byor shes rab). They have been translated into English by the Anagarika Kunzang Tenzin on the last day of the year 1973 in the hope that the karma of the year may be mitigated. May all beings be happy!

Ah! Bless you, as you are a regular Taoist encyclopedia!

The Buddha talked about being able to remember past the so called beginning, as that beginning had a beginning so on and so forth... That's why Buddhism is the only path that talks about beginninglessness. The Buddha proved it to himself and spoke from that proof and convinced plenty. I have proven his words to myself as well, so I don't believe blindly. I have seen past this so called beginning. I have tried to prove it to you. But, as the Buddha failed to prove it to everyone, so I will fail to prove it to people as I have merely a fraction of the Buddhas realization. It was a teaching for people that already agreed that we have past lives and will have future lives. He was talking to Hindu's who already agreed with the logic of reincarnation. So, really, it will matter to your future lives only, probably not this life, unless you realize something more, and you realize that previous to this life, you have other lives that this life is based upon. Those that believe in a beginning to the universe, generally think that they too had a beginning and will have an end. Much as you believe. Just as the fact that you had a previous life goes into the it doesn't matter basket as well as you don't feel you will have a future life. I understand. You can't see the connections. Oh we dismantle it only to see the perfection of it all. LOL! I like that... Nothing is ever lost forever! Even the previous moment can be completely re-experienced through meditation. Suicide is no ones fault but the one who commits it. Unless you had a gun pointed to your head or something like that. Basically, the offended make more violence than the offender. As the offender is innocent but the offended manifest their own reaction and are the cause and effect of it, so the offended has lost innocence.

Ah yes, this is a good idea actually. I've also heard that running hot as one can stand water over the genitals and scrotum while feeling extremely horny really helps to dissipate the energy through the body.

Only to your mind. The nature of things are unarisen, as they are inherently empty, because they are dependently originated there is no static essence that things spring from, as they neither arise from themselves or really from another as the other is also inherently empty, so to understand the nature of all things in one moment de-compounds that awareness which is both arising due to the condition and liberating out of the condition due to recognition of the condition of the condition, as in de-conditions, as in, see's through the endless chain of causation for being and self liberates upon recognition in each moment of the realization of the unarisen nature of things. Read the master of logic Nagarjuna a bit and get some clues. So that paradox does into cause a kind of explosion as both sides cancel each other out, neither one, and not-two... which is what non-dualism means in Buddhism. Not the same as the Vedantin... all is one (monism) type of non-dualism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nondualism Why don't you read this a bit... For a Buddhist, we are not-two due to lack of inherent substance, and according to Taoism and Vedanta, we are not-two, due to the fact of a single substance that we all essentially are. So, there is a difference Mr. Mensa. No, they were indeed fun at first, and sometimes still are. But, only in a kind of sad way... I'm actually practicing for my future scholastic carrier. I don't know what your doing? Finding pleasure in the expense of another? Or in the hopes that I will feel so hurt as to run away crying to my mommy maybe? She does live right up the street now that I've moved back to Florida from NYC. I'm sorry... it won't happen. I was a bicycle taxi driver in midtown Manhattan for 5 years. There is nothing you could say that could really make me feel like a total amoeba.

Well, we are saying the same thing... then if that style of expression appeals to you... find out what I'm talking about there. Ignore me as it seems to bring you so much suffering to read me. Though, I think as of right now, it's giving you reasons to speak and type. To start threads of insult. Which are oh so much fun anyway! It gives you a place to practice your sarcasm too. Right?

The Buddhas point exactly, which is why even an experience transcending the concept talking about an experience of a pre-existing wholeness that is eternal and static as well as in motion, described within all the variables of paradox, is considered empty by designation of dependent origination. Therefore, for Buddhism, liberation is not an experience (something I've mentioned over and over again), but rather the recognition that all levels of experience and experiencing, as well as the concepts pointing to experiences, are inherently empty and originate dependently. That also there was no beginning, and that oneness at the beginning of the big bang, was suppressed potentiality left over from the big crunch of the universe before and it's based upon the collective consensual mind states all in agreement that they are of one source and one essence and that they should blissfully do away with form and merge into formless singularity of potentiality. But, what Buddhism teaches is how to become free from this never ending and never beginning cycle of merging into a oneness at the end of the expression of form. Buddhas teaching of dependent origination actually subverts the calling of the mystery, it actually quits the calling to merge into a singularity that becomes the potential for the next coming universe even after this one goes through it's big crunch. So, Buddhism transcends the logic that makes itself abundantly clear that it is natural through how the galaxies are really one star expressing many planets, only to explode and reabsorb all this back into a single potentiality to be many once again in another way. Buddhahood is freedom from that cycle. It's not the surrendering to it.

HA!! Only in that moment did I loose inspiration... Who knows for the future as I merely follow inspiration and it's joyful excursions it facilitates.

Thats all it seems on the surface, but the conditions there-in which scientists are still regressing more and more into find their causes as an effect based upon a previous cosmos, or a previous universe. There is no causeless cause, so you see what seems logical on the surface is deemed superficial when looked at from a deeper vantage point. You can enter into that single cell organism and find a whole multitude of conditions for it's multiplying. You will find many examples to support the view that we all come from one and will return to one, as that one is the all consumer, the holder of the cycle of Samsara. That which the Buddha taught transcendence of in no uncertain terms. He didn't just teach one how to be free for the interim during the expression of a universe from a seeming oneness, to only return blissfully to this oneness, only to be part of the potentiality for the next ignorant experiences to befall one in the next coming cosmic eon. There are conditions latent in the singularity that only seem as a one, due to the fact of no arising secondary causes to allow the ripening of potential to actually manifest. The realization of dependent origination is not really a whole bunch of concepts, though that's all we have to express through here, it's much subtler. It takes a mind that is willing to investigate, no holds barred, what seems natural. As cycling seems quite natural. So, then the Buddha's teachings help a person to transcend nature.

I don't think it's my writing because if you can't understand Xabir, or Michaelz either. Then it's more something wrong with the readers. Also, if other people can understand who have commented on the fact that they understand, then it's definitely not the writer who's at fault, because these others that have gained understanding reveal that there is clarity to be seen in the writings of the above mentioned, including poor, ol' convoluted me. No ralis, I use my own experience to compliment the books that I have read, or vice versa. Also, yes, non-dualism has different meanings in different traditions and literally mean's "not-two", you know? "non-dual?", which only implies absolute oneness if you were to consider the opposite of "not-two" as the definition. But, "not-two" also implies... maybe it's 3, or 5, or infinite qualifyability. How high is your IQ? No, the limiting conditions of your pre-conceptualizing mind need a toilet. :lol: Sorry, I couldn't resist, or rather I didn't want to. I am not a scholar, as that would pretty much mean that I have a doctorate in a particular discipline of study. Tell me steve? Have you read the Nikaya? I guess he was arrogant as he said one of the wrong views was that there was an omnipresent Self that is sensitive to the ripening of good and bad deeds that is everlasting, and eternal. So, basically he taught that the Upanishadic Self was a wrong view. His teaching clearly transcended eternalism. I'm sorry if your mind is not subtle enough to grasp the truth's laid out clearly by the Buddha and instead you fall for the arrogant all consuming view that all paths must lead to the same objective, in a hope to make yourself feel better. Yes, his state of consciousness realized the uncompounded nature of all things. He also said that the realization is the Dharma. Anyway... I could go on and on but you wouldn't read with any sense of objectivity as your already convinced of the lie that you hold as Truth. I won't waste my finger power.

Wow, expensive! It might be worth checking out though. But, since I don't have it yet. Would you say that the Taoist rules of conduct in their monasteries was heavily influenced by the Buddhas Vinaya? Or do you know who made up the Taoist rules for monks? Or what group of people put them together, are there names? Yes, sorry, I still have a bit of the rebellious teenager in me. But, no, I'm genuinely interested in the history of all religions. It's an interest that at times subsumes all other interests, including eating and sleeping.

That's one of the motivations behind going to school, not the main one, but one of them. I agree that early Christian influenced translations of eastern texts made it hard to create a really good and clear Western foundation for these Eastern spiritual practice traditions.

My... how objective of you... (slight tone of sarcasm noted) How does no one benefiting equate with good? If no one benefits that's basically a signification of it not being good.

People in large groups have thought that Armageddon was coming throughout so many turning points in history. Can you imagine what the black plague did to peoples ideas about life? It's interesting Michaelz. I don't know if you remember me saying the same thing about this 1012 thing that any events are dependently originated as in the arising circumstances depend upon group consensus and the power of group mind manipulation. That lifetimes of group faith manifest situations that reify the idea to begin with. I agree with Robert, that really it comes down to us, and what we make happen as a whole and that the group subconscious creative mind matrix has so much power over what we consciously experience as a global community.

I'm sure none of us mind. You seem to be the only one that knows anything about this stuff. I for one had Nooooo idea that Islam had any footholds in China at all, at all. I am completely ignorant on that history and have never come across this information anywhere, which surprises me. I have a question concerning Monastic Taoism. What influenced monastic rules, when early really early Taoism was mostly about just going with the flow and enjoying what comes, wasn't it? I've read that at first it was kind of an opposing way of being to rigid Confucianism in some places?

I'm interested in reading and learning. As I have been doing despite your subjective and narrow interpretation of me and my posts. I will do exactly what I wish to do and won't accept any wish from you as a rule.

You know, there is Sufi Islam, the type that seems to be influenced by Buddhism and Hinduism. That would be more compatible with Taoism.

OMG! I just saw this, and it's sooo funny!! I thought it was some regular low budget joke, but boy was I mistaken!! Looove it!

He means one taste as in they taste of freedom, they are both translucent and not-solid. One experiences everythings conventionality and ultimateness simultaneously. The wu and the yo of life are simultaneous. He doesn't mean conventionally, or relativity does not exist. It does, it's just seen through right to the Tao of it all. The experience of things becomes anchored in the unspoken clarity of perception without crutches. What about just floating through without having to explain anything to yourself? What is the experience of things then? Even the inner arisings if arising without reified identity? The body is not a problem, it's our perception of the body or how we interpret the signals that come through it and are in it that can pose a seeming problem. The human vessel is an amazing function of the cosmos. So, attachment and aversion is part of being one with the Tao? Death is generally not like that, and generally those that die don't have these abilities and most people who know people who have died don't have the abilities to hear even if you were trying to say something.

Yeah, I don't know what some subjective science has said, about other subjective science. I know that my body can be used as a reader. Yeah, many times they don't know what they are talking about because they don't have meditative experience and they are bound by the common man experience and thus perceiving and thus interpreting. If neuroscience is pretty confused and just starting to get some steam. Science is largely ignorant of what yogi's directly know about. There have been many studies on yogic power for many years and it's quantum leaping the science of mind, brain, and body. Including that yogi from the 1930's or 20's? who was able to take thin swords through his body, I saw the video and pull them out and he would heal it, like he actually was able to manipulate the particles in his body through the power of his mind. Scientists were baffled, but it was a real occurrence. Also neuroscience studies done on Buddhist yogi brain waves during meditations is teaching science some things. We are limited by the body, but not as limited as you think we are. That's just my subjective opinion, as I don't really know you or your many sides and complexities. That's poppy-cock that they have all been discredited. They have only been subjectively de-based by throwing out a bunch of possible reasons why it couldn't be true. Then people make up their own mind what to believe. Here's one... http://weeklyworldnews.com/headlines/8856/...-fighter-pilot/ I don't think Buddhism is the only way. I think that the realization of dependent origination/emptiness is the only way and the recognition of the 4 noble truths, in whatever language you want to speak it. It just seems that Buddhism is the only spiritual tradition that correctly reveals the way things work. Taoism, more and more that I see and it is revealed to me, might for some as it depends upon how these concepts are related to experientially from within. But taoism seems to come to many of the same conclusions about how the cosmos works, so maybe Taoism does too, not necessarily your form of Taoism. But, Taoism in general is making a better impression on me as of late.

This is not considered a high state necessarily. If you are falling into an unconscious blackness, then that's just falling into what is called the material essence or Prakriti, or the fundamental ignorance. No, if you are having pure visions, or if your just experiencing a conscious illumination that is total bliss and you are aware of your bodies deep relaxation and the energy flowing through your body and everything pumping, but no dreams, just total relaxation in a very deep way, that is good. But an unconscious *stupor is not a good sign. *A state of reduced or suspended sensibility.