Vajrahridaya

Yes where the gunas are balanced into a state of potentiality to manifest when the conditions ripen to do so. Yes, and so your second assertion is also correct and succinct. The alaya vijnana of the Samsarin has become now the Dharmakaya of a Buddha. So yes... you are correct.

Oh Buddhism is mostly about experience and practice. Especially Vajrayana where the practices are deep and particular. Also, sure plenty of Buddhists look deeply into this, but they are the type that study the scriptures. All this is in the cosmology written down in texts really. Anyway... no they don't merge, they think they do, but they just go into a suppressed state of consciousness where all the potentiality for 3 dimensional experience is hidden in their alaya vijnana, which is a formless storehouse consciousness that appears like a deep sphere or a bindu in meditation.

Well, have you ever meditated and experienced an expansion beyond the body where you feel like your just consciousness without thought or object? It's all lit up, there are different stages. All white light, translucent darkness. Or just total darkness and no sense of awareness? These are the formless jhanas and I didn't list them in order here. But, beings generally fall into these states at the end of a cosmic eon due to mistaking these states of altered consciousness as the true blissful Self of all. Then the merits burn after some time and one by one, the first being the first born who thinks himself God and the others coming afterwards thinking he manifested them from the formless potentiality with no memory of a previous universe. This is why the Vedas are not truly correct and why the old testament is not truly correct, because the cause of life is given to this first born who mistakenly thinks his being as the start of all things. There are layers to this too, as some wake up from this formless state with infinite consciousness but no body, and others wake up with a refined body, and they are not necessarily all aware of each others dimensions at first. Some may start arguing with each other, literally about who the creator is then a big formless voice will come in saying, "ahahahaha, I... the creator of all being, saw you emanate from my formless essence, I am in you and you are in me." So... These things do happen in refined form realms. Check the 31 planes of existence, it's all right there. Though it seems at times that Taoism identifies the Tao with some sort of meditative absorption? So, that would be wrong as well.

Indeed. At the same time, because of how karma is and how it's propulsion continues due to past actions and thoughts, even after enlightenment, one may seem to display foolishness, but be completely free from the display as karma does as karma does, it connects due to causes and conditions. An enlightened being still has karma, but see's right through it. Virtue is important in the sense that eventually it manifests a body of virtue that reflects the condition of enlightenment with more lucidity as a teaching guide. Which is exactly what a Sammasambuddha is. Someone who has attained liberation in a previous life, but still practiced the accumulations of merit in order to manifest a perfect teaching body and turn the wheel of dharma with perfect teachings. So, it's even subtler than how you see a person act. Enlightenment is not necessarily founded upon how it looks. As in, if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it's not necessarily a duck. I am not that enlightened though to say that about myself. I have plenty of egoic attachment to uproot.

No primal cause other than endless cause and effect through a beginningless web of interconnectivity and how much we organize the received chaos into the understanding of expanding awareness of complexidly ordered connection, thereby acting virtuously and selflessly. Eventually seeing emptiness directly and having a body of both virtue and freedom. Ignorance is more like a way of saying the cause of limitation rather than a point of self aggrandization. It's more like the cause of limiting self identity. Not if they were Buddhas. Besides, their mind stream didn't die, just that karmic physicality died. Those Iraqis are experiencing the fruit of previous karmas through other bodies in this or other realms right now. Same as above, nothing happens without causes and conditions. We'll according to Taoism, we are the Tao. So, in certain way's Taoism is in cahoots with Buddhism, though I think Buddhism goes into much more detail. Your right there about Bohm. He musta been a Bodhisattva! Well, I don't know how much actual bodhichitta he had developed. So... he mighta just been a really smart dude.

LOL!! Ok.. Look at awareness itself. It's job is illumination, it's luminous by nature. To recognize it's origination is dependent upon your own personal infinite mass of interconnections coming together in the particular way that awareness illuminates things and thoughts in your world, and then calls them names according to conditions, one becomes luminously aware of the inherent emptiness or freedom of this beginningless structuring. So, what's left is an empty luminosity that is both aware of things but free from things.

According to Buddhism, that's just a Jhana state or Samadhi state and originates dependent upon a certain type of focus. It is not considered absolute in nature by the Buddhist teachings. It's quite clear in Buddhism that this only leads to a formless bliss realm. This is what the Buddha taught and is how Buddhists interpret such experiences since the first turning of the wheel. Eh, that's just the Aries in me. Again a debunked conclusion according to Buddhist teaching. Which you are not that familiar with. That's an interesting assumption. To a degree there is definitely correlation it seems. He was living at aproximitely the same time as the Buddha. I grew up Hindu with the same outlook that Dwai has. It was extremely painful to realize the truths of Buddhism at first, outside of the blissful epiphanies and peaceful meditations that brought them to me. My outer world kind of crumbled because I had built it upon a notion I held so experientially strongly to on deep metaphysical levels. I'm still in the process of picking up the pieces. It's an all together different world view and all together different way of practicing and understanding the practice of meditation and it's goal. It's your experience of your own and everything else's inherently empty interdependency and it's not a Self that is the absolute source of all existence. It's a realization "of" rather than a merging "with". Hindu's say they realize that we all are already merged with this non-conceptual entity that transcends time and space. Buddhists say, we realize that all interconnected beings are inherently able to have this constantly liberating experienc-ing, individually free from individuality while acting happily through it ever-more. Not as a transcendent omnipotent being looking through it, or witnessing through it, but just realizing what all this is and how things connect without static identity. The interpretation of the Hindu is basically just identifying with a kind of vast super ego that subsumes all. The Buddhist interpretation of liberation does not justify this interpretation and see's it as mis-guided. EDIT: editing for clarity and better words.

Ah, so for you there are no other realms of experience other than this physical realm?

What does that mean Dwai? In Hinduism, it's considered the source of all existence, including all beings. Right from the Vedas, to the Upanishads, Puranas. There is no definition of Atman as such in the Parinirvana Sutras. Just that Atman is the true realization of the always, ever has been true empty nature of all things. So, in this case, the Tathagatagarbha is actually everyones source of realization, the source of all is not talking about being the source or creator of all beings, but rather the true realization of all being. Otherwise, the other teachings of the Buddha would make absolutely no sense at all and would make him a lier. But, we know that he's not that, right?

Your kitties are fantabulously cute Froggie.

Thanks so much brother. God bless you! As in, may your personal universe bless you as a reflection of an auspicious state of mind. I'm actually thinking of the same thing as I could get credit for some of it if I take the Program for Experienced Learners which gives one credit for life experience towards what your studying.

I can understand this position. But, I do feel that all the different schools meet certain peoples needs at different times in their developments. They are in a way kind of complimentary contradictions which help to balance out the minds subtle ability to hold paradox lightly without overly shadowing or illuminating one side over the other, within the context of pratityasamutpada (inter-dependent-co-arising) as the empty basis of all these dichotomous seemingly divergent perspectives. As the words of the teaching aren't the entire teaching, as the experience that they allude to is though equal in emptiness, is subtler as far as how much divergent information the experience can hold at one time without labeling with delineating process of thought. Thanks so much guys for the support by the way. My ego needed some chiming in from at least one of the 10 or so people who PM me from time to time. The problem I have with Theism is that it's a fixed view and generally leads to rock like behavior like we have with Islam and Christianity. Buddhism is such a water like philosophy who's logic takes up so many forms of that water, from vapor, to liquid, to solid without fully being any one of these, but all the way through is water/dharma. So, generally speaking within history. Buddhism is the disarmarmament spiritual tradition or if you are so inclined, religion. Yes, Buddhism is in all, the most cohesive and provable religion within the sense of science, and scriptural intactness.

1. Theravada Buddhism (100%) LOL! Eh...

Yeah... uh hu... everything is circular, and so is all logic. Read some Nagarjuna. But, if you follow it experientially, which you'd probably need to have at least some beyond the 5 senses experience and not be so earth bound. You might be able to see how my words are being defined contextually and they won't appear arcane or mysterious to you anymore. You can always look the words up in the dictionary? p.s. I'm not to into Western definitions of logic and reason. I find them quite limited. Like I said, you don't even follow the reasoning. EDIT: Arcane from Archaic

Right, which basically means that the Buddha and the display of his teachings are really not-two. So, find Buddha in Buddhadharma, or even better, your own Buddha-nature realized through studying the Buddhadharma. O.M.G.!! I am laughing pretty loud right now... hope to not wake the roommate. ssssshhh.

I always get a bit of a perk when I see your posts for some reason? Is it the blue, kind of a favorite color, though they all share each other. But, Blue is very nice, especially cobalt or lapis. Anway... yes we do have free will, but it's kind of complex, because we don't as well. It's simultaneous and probably one of the hardest questions to answer in an absolute sense of is or is not. Those that see past their own personal mind stream more and more through introspection, of which the desire arises due to causes and conditions from the past, reflective most likely of how many selfless actions one did, which is also caused by another infinite regress... Whew... Which is why it's so important to teach the Dharma, so that it's seeds spread. But, the more one introspects and free's oneself of the causes and conditions of being a real "me"... the more free that mes "will" get's because the level of information taken in, starts expanding past the self, so the choices that "me" makes are taking in and ordering more of the seeming chaos through understanding connections on faster and subtler planes of comprehension. until one realizes that the only free will is the will offered to all beings as a servant of the sanatana dharma. One may even enter another religion and make it more Buddhist through the concepts that are available. Seems like Jesus did that, and others in other religions. Anyway... yes free will is possible, but not in the way that most Western definitions apply.

Uh hu... a context that you are severely lacking study and experience in. So be it! I know it's a self satisfying and smug place to be. Everything is the Self, all this talk of this and that is nonsense. Buddhists feel that the truth can be explained and that non-conceptuality is not an ultimate truth. But, of course... Buddhism has always been more complex of an explanation of things than Vedanta, then at the same time, much simpler too. That's just objectively speaking. Pratitsamutpada/Shunyata... so simple, though an infinite regress of explanation is possible from this very simple comprehension. Ciao. Yes, and Yes... I am a fundimentalist, as in it's very good to understand the fundamentals of one's path and tradition. Pointless to you is not everyone dear ralis. That's a good thing. Oh.. Prove intactness? It's quite good to practice and see directly. You can decide for yourself. It's not so contradictory as such to think so through direct experiencing of the truths revealed in the texts. Yes, I do absolutely feel that Buddhism is the clearest path to the true nature of things on the planet. I do. This knowledge doesn't come from not studying incessantly and practicing diligently for periods of intensity. Prove it to you though? Why bother... You don't even follow the line of reasoning.

Simple and Complex are simultaneous and unitary. If you go deeply into the simple, you will see the complex simultaneously, yin and yang Dwai, yin and yang. It won't be so complex anymore because it won't be a conceptual level knowledge, though if relayed through words one can be very complex, but the inner workings of the mind can envision many dimensions of knowledge simultaneously. Yes, Alaya Vijnana is not a cosmic back up system, it's a personal back up system. Also consciousness is the coagulation of these atomic particles into a form that can come together in a way to breed consciousness through this dimension from other dimensions. It's possible eventually to actually have conscious computers, which can either be scary or not. Maybe even mind streams will be born into them. It raises many paradigms of consideration with these future possobilities of clones and self learning computers that eventually become self aware. We've even found that the brain naturally merges with a computer implant and that they become one. It's all quite Buddhist really and throws away the myth of a real soul. Of course the causes and conditions for consciousness go subtler than merely the physical. Buddhist cosmology gets into this, but you haven't really read much of it. It may seem sci-fi, but we ourselves are sci-fi. You don't see this because you see a primal cause to the cosmos. The Buddha does not, he saw infinite regress. He has always taught this, it's in the Pali Cannon, Abhidharma, Mahayana. Buddhism never has lead to the same Truth as Vedanta. Which is why the Buddha denied the Vedas. Do you not read Dwai? Buddhism and the Buddhas teachings don't lead to the same Truth Dwai. It's quoted by the Buddha himself. Is this a lie? Dwai? Is Nagarjuna lying when he said that the Hindu's only get to the edge of Samsara? Nagarjuna refuted Vedanta. Yet you want to say it teaches the same thing?

The rejection is a misunderstanding. Just as a computer hard drive is made up of many components outside of itself, and has memory stored in it that when accessed through causes and conditions, the memories come out due to conditions and play in a larger unpacked display. That doesn't mean there is anything inherent there. Shankara's critic is not valid to me, at all. Particles come together from an infinite regress of causes and conditions interplaying in an infinitely complex way. It's an intuitive realization and not at all something that you can actually wrap your mind around, it makes sense when one's mind has released to the experience at least to some degree. But there is a logic here. You don't read well do ya? We've quoted how the Buddha in fact vehemently denied this claim of yours. As well as Nagarjuna. What do you say about that? Are they lies? One scripture you'll believe because you can superimpose your own ideas onto it, but others you don't think are true, because you just can't throw your pre-conceived notions on it? What's the deal Dwai? Where's the open mind that can see objectively from another perspective? Your friend who you hang out with and know PM'd me and said that you are very stubbornly fixed in your view, and he is quite right.

There are lots of other people reading too. They send me PM's often enough. Sometimes they are anonymous users. I suppose I'm writing for them. The universe is made up of uncountable conscious beings, who all give rise to this universe over and over again. When one particle of conscious being realizes the Buddha nature of all things, the awareness expands omnisciently to know the essential nature of all things equally. This does not mean a person knows all things ever simultaneously, but through meditation one can go there. This is why in Buddhism, awareness and consciousness are kind of given two different meanings. Because in Buddhism there is no cosmic consciousness, there is just conscious awareness of how the cosmos works. There's never one being that is omnipotent. Just omnipresent omniscience. Which is defined a particular way in Buddhism as well that is not akin to Western definition.

In a sense you are right, the physical designation is now physical particles broken down into elemental intermingling. But, he does remember his time on earth with vivid clarity, not in the same sense that one does through a brain though.

The ocean is made up of particles of infinite regress, to the point where there really is no ocean, as it arises due to causes and conditions based upon the particles that make it up which as well arise due to causes and conditions, so the ocean's reality is relative as well as are the particles that it's made up of. The above by Dwai is a Vedantin perspective and wouldn't hold up in the court of Buddha law. The universe is made up of uncountable conscious beings, who all give rise to this universe over and over again. When one particle of conscious being realizes the Buddha nature (dependently arisen empty nature) of all things, the awareness expands omnisciently to know the essential nature of all things equally. This does not mean a person knows all things ever simultaneously, but through meditation one can go there. This is why in Buddhism, awareness and consciousness are kind of given two different meanings. Because in Buddhism there is no cosmic consciousness, there is just conscious awareness of how the cosmos works. There's never one being that is omnipotent. Just omnipresent omniscience. Which is defined a particular way in Buddhism as well that is not akin to Western definition.

Your absolutely right. I did spell check on that one and I didn't check the spell checker. I do that sometimes. I had the worst problem with the word "it" as a 1st grader, because it forced my mind to not be spaced out. Spacing out was my favorite activity as a kid.