Vajrahridaya

No, LOL! Yeah, that came out wrong. I mean the human experience that is popularly excepted as the limits of human potential is based on a very limited criteria. What I'm saying is that people have an idea of what it is to be human and it's based on very little knowledge of what a human actually is. Scientists don't really know what a human is, it's a word labeling a mystery. We don't fully know what our potential is on a popular level, only some really advanced yogi's really know our potential. As in, humanities general consensus of what a human is, is built on a very limited premise. I'm trying to structure a sentence that really gets to the point of what I'm actually thinking. Because, I don't really think in words, I think in images and subtler, as in remembered emotions linked to the images and perceptions, contexts, etc. Or, at least I'm aware that I do. It's not an old horse, it's a renewed horse, in every moment, behold, I make all things new! No, just kidding. I don't think it's a horse that has been ridden to the end of it's road yet. I don't believe the lies of solidity that the 5 senses tell us are a way to gauge reality, other than in a practical means to live out the illusion. Science even says that by the time we perceive a feeling or a sight, it's actually passed. That we receive information through our senses more slowly than the speed of life. I'm saying that we are largely conditioned to think of ourselves in a limited way, which in my opinion is really a large scale dumbing down of society. Anyway...

I think it's more of a powerful imagination that thinks that reality is contained in the limits of 5 sense perception and the human experience that is popularly accepted as human. Oh how we limit ourselves by perceived and popularly accepted conditions labeled as "reality".

Most people were animals in there previous life. You can tell. Hasn't the human population grown from half a billion to over 6 billion in just a few hundred years? Sheesh!

Yes, that's the unconscious mind, and basically its the jhana of nothingness without actually consciously trying to make the effort to go there, which is why in Buddhist Jhana, the state of infinite space and infinite consciousness happens before you experience the state of nothingness, because when you go there through cultivation you are consciously illuminating the unconscious mind by absorbing the conscious mind usually pouring through the 5 senses and doubling it back onto itself, going subtler than the brain level consciousness. Sure, but you experience the formless jhana without consciousness, one doesn't really get anything out of it except of course the much needed rest. One doesn't get into the deep psychological causes for conscious and subconscious habit patterns which are enlodged in the formless states of consciousness in your unconscious mind unless you cultivate consciousness there. For an enlightened being, there is no more subconscious and unconsciousness, it's all lit up for that being through cultivation of subtleifying consciousness deeper than mere 5 sense and brain activity. True, but that's just the unconscious mind, that's common, of course to contemplate the ramifications of that as you are doing is uncommon. But to cultivate conscious experience of it through meditation is yogic. As you start to really illumine your unconscious, that's when you start having past life memories flood your conscious experience and all sorts of things happen, knots in your body untie, tensions in your organs dissolve, or some tensions come up and pains come up to intensify then dissolve. Your making progress. We have to loose ourself or loose what we once conditioned ourself to be, to truly find out what we really are beyond all these limitations. In this sense the practice of Chittamatra meditation on the delayering of consciousness through various states of focus, through the different stages of jhana would be good. Good wishes to ya!

All that matters to your 5 senses, but really we have found that most of the universe is dark matter and that even the seeming space of which constitutes your perceived solid object is really just empty space and they keep finding subtler and subtler dimensions in this space, of which I've heard recently but I don't remember exactly what I was told. The deeper science goes, the more it shows it doesn't know. Theories keep changing... They have found more electromagnetic activity in places of reported hauntings actually. I don't remember the exact details but I have a friend who follows this science and there is more to it than you currently know about. Sure, schizophrenics... but that's just subconscious projectioning. There is also joint experienced subconscious projectioning which reveals that we can connect and communicate on levels beyond the 5 senses. Your so sure of the reality of your 5 senses, that's a little scary. As if your level of perception and current knowledge of it was the end all be all way the only way that things could be. That psychologists who call something they don't understand schitzophrenia, which has different definitions as unique as the people diagnosed with it, doesn't give me much faith in your ability to think outside of the box. Sure, but they experience it differently. Cats even at times seem to chase things that we don't see. I just find that you are limiting yourself way too much. Science really is not a source of absolute truths but it verifies certain relativities that may repeat. Just because it doesn't exist through the 5 senses, doesn't mean it doesn't exist, is all I'm saying. Because to think so sure is a limiting way to think about the universe. It's ok, I still think myself as delusional at times as well. I think that most people are delusional, and many times I'm just looking in the mirror. So don't take it personally. Me and my girlfriend have conversations like this all the time. Oh sure, until it becomes part of your observation that start co-relating with physically verifiable truths. Like kids who remembered past lives with startling clarity at an age before they could even talk then when they learned how to talk and express the information and even named the previous parents and then they corroborated the information with physically verifiable facts to the point where there was no other rational explanation except that this kid really did remember his past life as for a real example a WW2 fighter pilot and remembered the airplane and his past name and everything. Later only to forget, but not before the information was recorded and verified. I'm sorry to break the news to you, but there is more to reality than is perceived through the limits of your experience, conditioned knowledge and perception, as well as what is perceived through physical science and the instruments and math of physics. I could show you where you can read some of these stories of the kids remembering past lives. Why do you keep coming up with this mis-understanding of Buddhist teaching, like its hard-lined in your brain, when it's been explained to you by so many Buddhists that we don't think that the universe doesn't really exist. Of course the Buddhists have given information as to how to make the world a better place, but it works individually and each individual has to make it work for themselves. We don't think the universe doesn't exist, we just feel that every experience dependently originates so is impermanent in the way it appears right now, so it's not absolute. Haven't we been through this? Why do people hold onto mistaken interpretations that have been proven to be mistaken? It's as if, after a certain time, it's impossible to learn new things, like you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Ah, habit patterns, the hardest things to over-come. Oh well, I forgive you. The 8-fold noble path is a very good place to start. Wisdom constitutes; 1. Right View 2. Right Intention Ethical Conduct constitutes; 3. Right Speech 4. Right Action 5. Right Livelihood Mental Development constitutes; 6. Right Effort 7. Right Mindfulness 8. Right Concentration Explained in full here... Eightfold Noble Path link of explanation If you read the explanations in the site, you will see that the Buddha indeed did give helpful information, but the majority of people aren't even interested in making a better world. Mind cannot be found, even when your brain is functioning, unless your equating mind with the electric currents flashing through the synaptic patterns? A mind-stream that is disembodied can only be communicated with by a mind that has been trained to open that capacity. I wish I could remember all the places online that talk about this stuff with much more scientific information than I can bring to the table right now, but oh well. I'm saying that you can't see atoms and quarks, and dark matter, but we make machines that we can see through that help us to see these activities. I doubt that I see neutrons.

You mean consciously, as in a group of people specifically creating the complex conditions surrounding involuntary brain washing for the sake of supporting a mass consumerist lifestyle that feeds the rich creators and keeps us working for the sake of their health and our detriment? I think possibly partially, or it might have just happened, like the power just ended up on peoples laps and we just give it to them, like sheep, and due to the distractions of TV and Movies, bubble gum magazines and computer games, we never question more deeply and we succumb slowly as a society to happiness through electronics and we never actually realize the deep spiritual possibilities of human potential as a global community? Man...

Ah, you were thinking hermit, like maybe I lived in the mountains and grew my own food and picked berry's. No, yogic seclusion has nothing to do with such extreme perspectives. As, it's really an internal thing.

Indeed, more and more I'm starting to find out the co-relations between Taoism and Vajrayana. It's quite amazing and exciting actually. I'm having new revelations about Taoism through this board. It's so nice. Dharma also just means, the way, or the way about doing that, the way about doing this, or the best way to do something. Like, that's dharmic or adharmic. As in, the dharmic way to do something means, to do something with the entire cosmos in your mind. Like if you were to go to school, make your approach dharmic, as in for the benefit of beings and to make it non-selfish. Also in a way that flows. Because if one is referencing the whole in one's actions and thought, then your movement is in conjunction with the way the universe is moving. So yeah, Dharma means The Way that the universe works and if your one with the way the universe works, then you are in a space of benefit, both for you and for all you come into contact with, which of course chain reacts and the butterfly effect happens.

You always come at me with an energy of dis-belief and slight or outright sarcasm. But, it's ok. Yes, I lived in an ashram somewhere around 4 years. That counts, because I secluded myself even from Ashram social life. I also lived a secluded lifestyle in this or that city for a number of years at different times, just going to work, and coming home. I didn't watch TV or movies, just meditated, read books, kept celibate, did my chanting. Did my practices. There were times that I spent many day's not saying anything to anyone, just spending hours doing yoga, meditation, reading various books, chanting, mantra, contemplation, but I also did service or work at the ashram. I supported myself by just trading service for room and board. You should get "Crystal and the Way of Light." An excellent book. That is a nice clip. It's interesting, I used to dance like that lady doing her movements naturally. I would just feel the energy of the music and move with it in a kind of dance that was aquatic, strong and somewhat like martial arts movements. I still like to dance like that, feeling the breathing going through my body and moving around like that, with full body movements and what could be strikes. Though, I can't say that it just came to me, as I did train in martial arts for 6 years from 1st through 6th grade. I will not talk about that stuff, but I moved in way's that I hadn't learned from a teacher in this lifetime. I would just move like that naturally with the music in long kind of fluid body gestures, spinning and arching and striking and doubling back and moving smoothly around... very interesting to see that these movements are very similar to Chinese martial arts trainings. Again... my memories of my past lives find validity in things that I naturally do in this life. What's interesting is that those that remember are generally those that have been human for many lifetimes and those that don't remember are either just not remembering, or at times have not been human enough times in a row to remember. HAHA!! Yes of course... I spent years not talking about anything to anyone, and not even cultivating that ability to share my inner experiences and realizations. When I started about 8 years ago, it was a new thing for me, talking about spirituality.

Buddhists totally agree with this. Which is why we say that the ultimate Truth is not an experience beyond concepts, because that is just a state of meditation, that when you come out of, everything of concepts starts to be re-experienced through the light of consciousness, so one starts to think that this state of consciousness became all of these things and everyone and one makes the mistaken cognition that all things come from this one state of consciousness that's beyond concepts and time. The Buddha said that this too is dependently originated and not the ultimate Truth. It's a good practice to clear the mind and hone the will and focus. But you are absolutely right, we agree that what we experience is directly co-related with what we intend and depending on various conditions, this comes about either immediately or after a certain amount of time. Which is why we don't call consciousness the ultimate truth and we don't call an experience of conscoiusness as the ultimate truth. We call the quality of emptiness of all interdependency, all relativity as the ultimate truth. There is no state of consciousness that is the end all be all. There is just the realization that is the recognition of how all things work. Dependent origination and emptiness.. and that includes intent preceding experience, even if the memory of the intent of an arising experience has long faded, and the experience is seen as coming out of no-where, we still see that experience as having causes and conditions, even if not remembered, from past lives or whatever. The relative self is eternal only due to the endlessness of the chain of cause and effect, at first kept together through clinging to identity, then kept together by using that metaphysical coagulation as a vessel for offering. Have you seen the movie, "Brother Sun, Sister Moon?" I love that movie. Yes, it's theistic, but it's a great move regardless and if one just see's it for what it is... so inspiring. It's a movie by Franco Zeffirelli about St. Francis of Assisi? Zeffirelli also did the 60's Romeo and Juliet and also, Endless Love, now mostly does set designs for Operas at the Metropolitan Opera House in NY and I suppose other big Opera houses. I've seen one of his backdrops for an Opera at the Met, very beautiful.

I haven't been into pot since 99'. But... pills? I sometimes use pain killer. Ooooooo... One can cultivate the ability to talk to ghosts through meditation. Also, science does not totally agree with you on the idea that there are no ghosts, or no conscious experiences beyond the body. There are some unexplained phenomena provably existent that are not explained with the idea that all reality is limited by the 5 sense dimension or being housed in a body/brain complex. I think that if you think that this is the only reality, that you are quite delusional. You are completely fooled by your senses. Look at even the problem with solidity, it's a lie that your 5 senses read, it's a dimension that is recorded by your 5 senses, but in reality it's all non-solid vibration and science proves this. Supposedly certain animals have the capacity through their senses to pick up dimensions of energy that exist but we cannot read through the limits of our human senses. Your idea of solidity is a lie that your brain reads through a limited field of human perception tools, eyes, nose, skin, ear drums, tongue. If we were to put your brain into a cats potential, you'd be surprised what other forms of Earth bound realities there are available to experience. Of course the human brain works specifically with human eyes, but you get the metaphor, don't you? To think that consciousness is merely a product of brain is delusional to me. To think that science is the new absolute truth machine is a silly notion. These scientific machines are built by our brains through our bodies using elements detectable by our 5 senses, and now subtler, because we build machines using other machines that detect dimensions of material existence that is only detectable through the machines that we have built. The brain has way more potential if tapped into through meditation practice and energy cultivation. Of course to a Buddhist, the mind which transcends the brain, but experiences 3 dimensional friction through the brain, can experience much subtler forms of perception that transcend the need for physical eyes. This is tapped into, only through meditation practices. Take care!

The only people who say that with certainty are those that have not had very deep experiences in meditation. To people who are attached to this limitation or limited level of experienced perception, one can just teach the way's of virtue, the 4 immeasurables. According to Buddhism there are many universes existing in parallel but connected dimensions. You might get off on some "Vasistha's Yoga" (Hindu Cosmology) or some "Myriad Worlds" (Buddhist Cosmology). Until then, my reasoning is using as reference entirely different realms of experience and human potentiality which you doubt the validity of. I wish you well though.

Your creator?? What do you mean by this, or are you joking? Maybe... But anyway... Buddhism teaches that the potentiality for this universe is based upon the end of the previous universe. We have direct insight into this through meditative contemplation transcending linear thought processes and time and space limitations. Take care!

The Bible and the Buddhas teachings are so very different. The Buddha indeed was a human who did claim to know directly what happens after death. I also claim to know out of insight gathered from meditative absorptions and contemplation. Don't limit other people by your limits, that would be dogmatic. I can talk endlessly without calling on anything the Buddha said, but people then say... "oh he's making up his own religion", oh, "him and his narrow view." People say this out of insecurity because their attached to their interpretation of life based upon a limited reference of experience. The identity of having been born through their mothers womb and that life is what they've experienced through the 5 senses up to this point since birth and that's it. Everyone else who claims deeper experience must be lying or deluded, right? Anyone who uses these other worldly experiences as reference for their logic and reasoning must be totally illogical. Right? Because it doesn't fit within the limits of my encapsulated experience. Buddhists don't seek to return to a source. The Buddha was an elitist, because even this view of yours is based on an interpretation of cosmos that is mis-informed. Or, incomplete. So yes, he did teach that his teaching was not the same as other teachings. Buddhahood is not a return to the source. It's the realization of how there is no source to this universe. No Primal cause. Your view is based upon a cosmology that the Buddha vehemently deny's. I also deny it, because it is my experience that there is no primal source. That the experience of a primal source, or fundamental self is a state of meditative absorption and the experience arises dependent upon causes and conditions leading to a chain of infinite regress, and is not a revelation of the absolute truth of things. So, the Buddha does refute this understanding through his teachings. I agree with the Buddha because I see this truth as well. I understand it and have glimpsed the truth from which his teachings were inspired. I used to be a Vedantist with the view that all paths lead to the same end. That all being is actually one being. I also had incredible meditation experiences that reified this truth for me, experiences of incredible bliss and visions, etc. I realized that these experiences were conditioned. For a Buddhist, the ultimate truth of things, is not an entity, or a substance of things. The ultimate truth of things, is basically just the quality of how things work. It's not a final identity. It's not something that one becomes, or realizes that one already is. It's not conducive to the statement, "I AM THE TRUTH". Buddhist realization does not work like that because it's not based upon that view of the universe. It's not at all the same as Islam fundimentalism. I've explained this many times, but it seems that you cling to your interpretation of things and the limited views of my words, putting them into the same box over and over again. Don't you like the idea of knowing nothing, so that you can learn how to incorporate entirely new vantage points into your mainframe? The view of Buddhism, is that other paths are not entirely wrong, just incomplete. That other paths lead to higher rebirth, even long lived god realms, heaven realms, to good things. Maybe eventually even to the realization of the 4 noble truths and the 1st of the 8 fold noble path, "right view." Buddhist fundimentalism is not indoctrination, it's the revelation of the nature of how things work. This does not mean that we should kill all non-believers and that all other people in other religions are going to hell no matter how good the people are. That everyone is damned unless they believe in Jesus Christ the way I believe in Jesus Christ. It's not that stupid, in fact it's just a realization that seems to fly over most peoples heads, because the popular view that we all come from one source and will return to that one source is a view that has predominated the vast majorities unconscious minds since beginningless time. So even when you meditate very deeply, this view will be reified through supra-mundane experiences in meditation that blow your socks off. So, then.. "ah it must be the Truth"!! Most religions are based upon this premise and this interpretation of experience, that if you just take away all the layers of concepts and personal experiences, we get to the common denominator, that all things are a super-oneness. This experience is considered the ultimate truth of things in other religions. Buddhism just doesn't agree with this. If that were so, then there would be no such thing as liberation from Samsara, and there would be no such thing as will as everything would be completely pre-determined since the very beginning of this universe, based upon the first cosmic, creative impulse, the pattern would be pre-determined. So, according to this, we are doomed to just return to this source and then become ignorant again in the next universe in order to go through the process all over again.

The statement is from the Kena Upanishad. What I mean is that, the ego, or the little self, even if aware of the transparency of all things, including itself, thus has the experience of omnipresence, basically has omniscience of the how things happen by surrender of this identification, and likewise the identification of all things so awareness does not confine itself anymore. In Hinduism, the statement would mean, I cannot know, but by surrendering to Brahman, the lord of all things, who is the presence behind all things and one with all things, direct experiencing of the lords always knowing happens. LOL! Funny... but who knows? Yeah, I used to drive my parents mad! "Who, what, where, when, why, how". My Mom's boyfriends used to make fun of me, in a sweet way. I bet he had quite a good amount of spontaneous joy! I never really studied Socrates. Before the Buddha was here, there were solitary realizers who didn't teach but had realization of dependent origination and who squelched the snares of craving through contemplation of emptiness. There are Navaho, Hopi and Pueblo Indian traditions that have realization and wisdom somewhat close to what the Buddha realized, but maybe not to completion. I had a very powerful dream once where I was hanging out with some Hopi Medicine men in an Adobe house, it was powerful and lucid with lots of good vibrations. Every tradition of the spirit has some good wisdom, even if doesn't lead to complete Buddhahood. Besides, if a person has the inner conditions for realization of the nature of things, it doesn't matter if there are not the outer conditions available for it's very clear expression as the Buddha had. It's not all so black and white. But, the universe does indeed work in one way and one way only. Dependent Origination is the way it all works. That's the organic mechanics of the cosmic clock. It's been postponed for a half hour, so I ended up talking a bit more. It's going to be Italian.

I'm going to dinner with my girlfriend and my mother. I have to get a good "Tun" Dzogchen practice incorperating Tantra and Dzogchen in before hand as well. But... Basically as well. Knowledge is relative, so the state of openness for more knowledge allows for more tools to use as expressions, so in this case there is never an end to knowing. What omniscience is in Buddhism when they say, "The stage of no more knowledge", is in reference to knowing the how's and the why's, but not all the what's. As the infinite cosmos will continue to manifest totally new creations all the time from the spontaneous cosmos generator known as Pratityasamutpada. A Buddha doesn't know all the what's or the infinite particulars originating from the beginningless chain of how's and why's, co-dependent-arising. But lives from the constant answer of the question, "How does all this do?" and can enter a state of consciousness where he has no location thus can remote view at will and see if your girlfriend is cheating on you or really just stuck in traffic on the BQE. The thing about the above mentioned platitude at the beginning of this thread is that it's really relative and to take such things at face value can lead to all sorts of mental dogmas. Which of course is why the Buddha didn't talk in Platitudes. He was quite succinct. Again... another why I consider his path the most clear path from beginning to end. EDIT: I was in a hurry when I wrote this and it sure came out badly... Let me re-phrase.

Then why would the Self become a whole bunch of suffering beings for the sake of knowing itself, that it already knows, while standing in it's own light without anything else? We meditate to realize that the holding together caused by beginningless D.O. and the clinging emanating from a sense of lack, does not have to be experienced as a suffering.

See Buddhism is concerned with 1. the end of suffering and 2. the end of unconscious rebirth, either while still alive as in rebirth into every new moment, or also in the after this life rebirth. Buddhism if practiced correctly (which is personal and individual) leads to the end of psychological suffering and the end of unconscious rebirth. This is what we call liberated. Those that still suffer psychologically, are considered bound and those that may seem happy in this life but don't know what's going to happen to them in their next life, or where they are going to go after death, are considered bound ignorance. So in that sense, we do see that we are saved through Buddhism as both 1 and 2 cease completely. Actually scientists are finding out that this is true. That this universe is based on the previous one. I don't think they have absolutely conclusive evidence, but they have found some material evidence that suggests this hypothesis. Indeed... my yang hang's low... and swings high! Oh, she knows I'm pretty unconventional. But... um... no.

Very well... Lets link this thread up to that thread.

It's held together by endless D.O. as there is no 1st cause according to Buddhist interpretation of cosmology. It's just Dependent Origination since beginningless time. The experience of bondage in the holding together of an individual mind stream is caused by beginningless clinging without a first cause that is merely within the cycle of ignorance. Liberation is caused by seeing through the beginningless clinging, but that ignorance that coagulated the aggregates gets turned into a mirror as a form of non-clinging for the sake of teaching endlessly. So, the impetus for staying held together as a mind stream that is beginningless craving reflective of a sense of lack for a Samsarin is still maintained, but without a clinging to it, as the craving is turned into bodhichitta (the wish to help endless beings). So it's attachment that realizes that there really is no attacher. No need for an absolute Self of all. Dwai, I think that you misunderstood Xabir's meaning. It's good that you are contemplating though, that does show yoginess.

Steve, I know that this is a popular New Age notion, but... The moon is different. The Moon in Buddhism is not some non-conceptual void, or a state of being that is beyond time and space. Our realization is reflected in the intellectual expressions, and it is different. In Buddhism, the truth is not just a state of mind that is stripped of concepts that we integrate the rest of our day with. In most schools, all things are modifications of one substance and in Buddhism, all things are co-dependently created, sustained and destroyed by and are of infinite mind-streams that are all inherently empty of substance since beginngless time. There is not a source of existence, there is not a fullness of being that was before the universe. There is not a one being that we will all merge into at the end of the universal expression. There is not a single creator of all things that we are expressions of. It's not just semantics. The inner realization is a different Truth of the cosmos. Realizing the state of Buddahood is not the same as being one with Shiva, or being one with the light of the universe, or realizing the one substance that all things are. The Buddha actually pointed to an entirely different moon. He defined the Truth of existence differently through words, not because it's a truth that's beyond words that all rivers lead to, but because it's actually an entirely different ocean on a different planet in a different solar system, in a different universe. Just to use a metaphor. Take care. In every school of Buddhism they are considered real realms. It's spoken of in the Pali Suttas, etc. That is just one dimension of the teaching that if the realization is going to do us any good, that we must uproot the causes of these states and rebirths, from within and not think of them as merely some dimension of reality out there. Do you want me to pick out endless quotes? Are you familiar with "The Words of My Perfect Teacher"? Just as this realm called, Earth is a co-created dimension shared by beings of complex simultaneous states of mental projections giving this reality a reality to be sustained for as long as it is, by countless sentient beings in many dimensions, so are other realms of conscious, sentient experience. This is part of the Buddhist teaching in every turning of the wheel, including Dzogchen. All states of consciousness and states of conscious experience are caused from within though... relatively speaking. One can have direct intuition of these realms, direct experience of these realms through meditative practice and realization.

Hungry ghosts or pretas exist in a dimension of their own reality who perceive us as beings in a less dense dimension and they feed off our more dense energy emissions as in cravings being fulfilled. Their dimension is a dimension that is slightly more dense than ours. Talking about Preta's specifically. They are not merely just metaphors for psychological states. Though psychological states do lead to rebirth in those dimensions.

Nothing to feel sorry about, we generally only really get to see ourselves only after we express ourselves as putting it out there, gives objectivity to the subject. "Since everything is but an apparition, having nothing to do with good or bad, acceptance or rejection, one may well burst out in laughter" -Longchenpa

Exactly... when we know that happiness is innate! We can't become victims of their graffiti like add campaigns if we are busy twirling around in our inner solar system. p.s. By the way, I'm an X-graffiti artist who used to write on billboards and rooftops because I figured... if they want to think art is illegal graffiti and their advertisements feeding self destruction to the masses is a god given right...? "by the power invested in my right index finger, I'll show dem fools!!" pssttttssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhh, rebellion in a spray can!!