Vajrahridaya

Michaelz is actually quite a smart kid. Ok... look, she did and she didn't. She did create the karmas (which means action) to be in that situation by following certain prompts. Like maybe she decided to walk out early in class because her friend called her about a problem and she was so attached to him/her that she didn't follow the dharma of just staying in class. Dharma means righteous use of action, as in proper more wholistic use of karma. Now in that moment that person who did the deed, could have thwarted his own karma by being more aware of conditioning, (karma) and understood the interconnectivity of both person's actions (karmas) and been compassionate and aware that his desire (karma) would only compound (karma) both her bad karmas (who's causes are complex and manifold dimensionally, through unconscious, subconscious and conscious personal realities) and his own. Because he wasn't awake about his own craving's (karmas), he compounded (karmad) his own and her own bad karmas through more karma, or action as it may be. Now, if she understood the doctrine of karma and saw directly that the person who did the deed was acting (karmaing) out of suffering (karmaing), and she had compassion (dharma) on him, she would forgive him and move on from the event in a way that would disable any future neurosis (karma) due to that event. This of course is extremely hard to do (dharma) and would require incredible insight (dhyan/meditation) into the nature (karma) of seeming chaos and it's secret order (pratitsamutpada or interdependent origination). Only very rare beings in this point of time in the Kali Yuga or age of seeming darkness (not that that's inherent but the Kali Yuga is an age when most people are ignorant of the true nature of being and are caught up in externals.) Though anyone can transcend that at anytime and see now as complete and perfect even as it seems to be chaotic and imperfect through deep realization. Which is another discussion. Anyway, yes it's all due to karma. But who creates karma? You do! So the blame game is a lame train.

LOL! We'll I'm sure that is a blessing in it's own way. As everything is indeed relative. Yes, I grew up most of my youth right near a Navaho and Pueblo reservation, in a pre-dominantly Mexican area that was famous for spiritual occurrences, alien sightings and ghost hauntings.... Rofl, somewhere between Santa Fe, Los Alamos, and Espanola (N has an enye above it like nyola)! The nearest store being a Bar, or a Candy store, a half hour walk through all sorts of poor areas down a main dirt road running through many http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arroyo_(creek) ..'s I some how disabled the ability to post links through a windows prompt that I'm too tired to look into right now. If anyone can help me with this in a simple and straight forward way. I'd really appreciate it, because now I can't open any of the abilities located above this reply.

You can do a search on that... but, you have to throw Yarrow sticks or coins that are specially reserved for that purpose and are re-used in that way. It's originally a way of examining specific questions about life, or choices that are coming up in your life. It's amazingly accurate, but sometimes metaphorically, other times literal. But it's truly amazing. One time, just before my 18th birthday, my mom threw the coins for the I Ching to get a reading on what was the best way to go about the trip. She read it and we left for a long drive from New Mexico to Oakland to go see a meditation master for my 18th birthday, we were poor so there was no airplane flying for us back then. Air travel was much more expensive in the early 90's. We waited in line on the day of my birthday behind thousands of people, literally. We were all the way outside of a packed auditorium in Oakland. We waited and waited, and right during the very minute of my birthday 18 years earlier, the exact minute... literally 10:07 PM on April 15th on my 18th birthday, I was sitting right in front of the meditation master, in perfect timing, receiving blessings. So that was auspicious and serendipitous. It was an amazing trip and deeply spiritual. We came back to pick up my dog who we had left at a friends house. Only to find out at the time, this was before cell phones, that my dog had ran away and was not to be found many days earlier. My mom freaked out and went back to the I Ching because she remembered reading something in the exact place that was the divination to read through the coins, the exact triagram in the I Ching said in one of the paragraphs. "All that is needed to make this an auspicious trip is the sacrifice of one dog." It literally said that, because I remember reading it. I was so mad, and sad, and cried for days and days. I loved Gizmo. But... it said that, and the trip was indeed auspicious. But, it was exact! My mom asked what would make the trip good, and it came up with the Triagram describing how to make a trip good. That book is amazing!! If done correctly, it will tell all and help with difficulties in life. Since then, I was a total believer in the power of "throwing the I-Ching". I'm 34 now and still use it with the help of my Mom because she's a Master at interpretation. My Mom is a great being a great Yogini!! LOL! She's 67 but looks 45. It's quite amazing actually. But, she's been doing the I-Ching regularly my whole life. Ciao!

LOL! Actually the Nag Hammadi Library which was dug up in the 40's and translated fully by the mid 70's say's in the Gospel of Thomas. Blessed is the beast who is eaten by man, but cursed is the man who eats the beast. So if you can do it selflessly, offering merit to the karma of the beast, it's karmas intermingling with yours on a level of flesh will serve the animal to become human in it's next life, and you being conscious of this will in fact not be cursed but blessed as a self offering. I feel this and believe this not because I've read it, but because it makes metaphysical sense on a certain level that I can intuitively feel. Anyway... have a wonderful dinner and bless your fish, like the native americans blessed their kills!

Darn and I was trying to criss cross your synaptic fire works, and knot tie your brain waves. Back to the drawing board.

I have been using the I-Ching for divination since I was a little kid, under my Mom's tutelage. I fully agree, the I-Ching is not only one of the oldest spiritual texts on the planet, it's one of the best!

LOL! It's not that you don't exist. It's that you don't inherently exist in and of yourself. Your existence is mutually dependent upon all causes and conditions throughout the cosmos. You and your consciousness are not singular, separate entities, but neither are you one with everything, you are merely connected with everything and so are your thoughts influenced by other things and your thoughts influence other things. So your existence is, but it's relative, interdependently originated and not self contained, so inherently empty of self essence. Not, non-existent.

Yes, I can dig this. Good and wise, well informed answer. Not sure if the Buddha did that, but why not? It's a green leafy thing that grows wild and frequently in India. I have plenty of friends who have transformed their lives through peyote and I-owaska. I've taken Peyote myself in a ceremonial setting in Massachussetts. With a fire ceremony in a native style hut. It was really powerful and completely equal to some of my kundalini experiences during meditation, deep spontaneous pranayama and energy going into my centeral channel, spontaneous bliss and wisdom with clarity and strength, alertness, calmness, self control or self freedom, free sense of expression, lucidity of consciousness, clarity of singing voice, spontaneous poetry, etc. It was very positive and no come downs afterwards. Environment and intention are key though, both internally and externally I feel. Plus those two so called "drugs" or "potent chemicals" are alkaline and thus very cleansing!

The Buddha is very clear in the Pali Suttas that even a universal Self, a cosmic Self of all is merely a state of mis-understanding meditative absorption or the stages of Jhana. There is not even a cosmic Self in Buddhism. So, there is also no interpersonal-impersonal Self. That also constitutes grasping at an identity. It's kind of a non-conceptual concept paradox thingy which Hinduism loves. Buddhism utilizes paradox but much less so than Hinduism and it also subverts all paradox. Personal/Impersonal, Macrocosm/Microcosm... etc. We utilize them, but we don't reify them. Proper understanding and then experiential intuition of dependent origination/emptiness is the cure for that disease. There's no grasping when one truly understands how the beginningless cycle of the 12 links works personally, interpersonally and with meditative experiences and kalpas, pralayas... etc. There are also positive pratitsamutpada links mentioned in the Pali Suttas. It's all for understanding what dependent origination/emptiness means on a wholistic experiential level. Same thing, we don't want to become anything, we are in the process of unbecoming, un-conditioning, uncompounding. The subtle ideation of Atman is the super mundane compounder of all. Even on an impersonal cosmic level as the soul of a cosmos that is the will behind all will's, etc. This is just making your ego formless, all pervasive and non-conceptual. It's a state of Jhana, or Samadhi, but not liberation from Samsara. Alleviate all of mankind's problems please. Now, oh great Brahman, soul of the cosmos. Oh wait, you become Brahman but you don't have omnipotence, do you? In Buddhism there is no omnipotence, there is only omnipresent omniscience. There are no deities that are causes of the cosmos, even as metaphors, just realizers of the true nature of cosmos, or realizers of the true nature of mind/cosmos simultaneously. We become Buddha only in the sense of the same realization of what the Buddha had. That's why he was sure not to call himself a God, god, a supreme Self, a self... etc. Yes, Buddhists feel that, "I am Truth, Consciousness and Bliss, I am Shiva, I am Shiva" is a very high mistaken cognition and samsaric view that does not fully liberate. As Nagarjuna said, other paths lead to the edge of Samsara while Buddha dharma leads to the end of Samsara for a person. We don't aim at becoming one with everything, we don't aim at having identity with the entire universe. The aim's are different. Our paths lead to different places. We define liberation differently. But we do both call it bliss. It's just different way's of experiencing Bliss though and our wisdoms are subtly but importantly different, even if our virtues are the same, compassion, altruism, loving kindness, etc. We never get re-absorbed into an all pervasive and omnipotent "Self" because we think of that as merely a formless concept, just as Buddha described in the formless Jhanas and as explained in the higher planes of the 31 plane model. You can see here... http://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dhamma/sagga/loka.html Ok Dwai... Have a wonderful day/night brother. Be well!! Om Ah Hum! It's more like attached to concepts, even subtle non-conceptual reifications. In Buddhism the Truth of the nature of things, is subtler than merely wiping your mirror clean so that it shimmers clean in the light of the sun

I thought it was to draw attention. ROFL!! You did! I was like... what's this Satan worshiper have to say. Then I was like... Oooohhh, must be some sort of trick!

LOL! The Religions are different and have different aims. The Buddha debated with Mahavira (starter of the Jains), Shankara debated with dualistic Hindus and Buddhists. Jesus argued with the Jews. Please, get over yourself. You need an education. You are putting more into this than there is, debate is part of process. It's a practice in fact to refine intelligence and understanding.

ROFL!!! The first chicken was a deformed something or other that just survived. LOL! Like I said, evolution and cyclical existence is beginningless.

Yes! I used to do many mudras spontaneously as a kid and then later in meditative states of blissful realization. Just looking at these are healing. Thank you for posting! I don't understand why you would go by the name of 666 though which is generally equated with some sort of Evil Menace that beckon's people into Hell realms for eternity. Not that I truly believe in that, but people that do, do manifest that reality for themselves.

Yup, that's a good one!

I actually should have said the Alaya Vijnana'(s) of infinite mind streams. I forgot to pluralize. Ooops! But yes, it's all worth a good laugh. I did try! Myriad Worlds does a much better job explaining the Buddha dharma's many approaches to Cosmology. But, only if one is clear about the intention of the words. As English translations are always a bit iffy.

You should practice and read some official Vedanta before you make up your mind about such things. The Upanishads which are considered the cream of the Vedas also means, Sitting with the Teacher. In Buddhism specifically, the Buddha is indeed the spokesperson as he is a Sammasambuddha. Which is a wheel turning Buddha who teaches the Dharma in an age when it does not exist. According to the Buddha the Vedas are not the Dharma of Buddhahood. They do not teach liberation from Samsara. You should study more. Get a good teacher too. The abstract metaphors of the Hindu deity symbolism actually means something different than what the Buddha taught. There is still a subtle reification and identity. It's experientially different as the experience of dependent origination/emptiness leads to a different place than that of the doctrine and practice of the Brahmayana, or Brahman vehicle. That's not all together true, as there have been many Buddhas since then who clarified the teaching. Also, you don't know enough about the initially scripted teachings of the Buddha to know what the Buddha originally taught. As early parts of the Mahayana were written down at the same time as the other versions. He did teach differently to different people, but he most definitely didn't teach Vedanta, Theism, and such. I used to think much like you, then I got more of an education about the different traditions, read more, practiced more, experienced more deeply what the teachings actually mean on subtler than word levels. I wish you the best...

Yeup, that's interesting alright. Thanks for that.

Whaaatever.

This is why I find Taoism to be the closest to Buddhism that I am aware of, besides Bon of course, which is indigineous Tibetan Shamanism which already had a cosmology similar to Buddhist Cosmology before Padmasambhava brought Buddhism to Tibet. Supposedly Bon is the left over belief system from the previous Buddha, before Gotama, some 30,000 years ago.

See Shankara makes the assumption that we evolve from a beginning, a primal cause so he has to posit a cause to atoms saying how can atoms make consciousness, thus consciousness has to make atoms in order to house itself, and in one sense he's right. But, Buddha say's we evolve out of the last evolution in an endless chain of interconnecting events on an infinite scale. The Buddha say's that this cosmic eon evolves not out of itself, but out of the ending of the last cosmic eon and what is left over. What is left over from infinite samsarins grasping at a formless self? Nothing more than the potentiality to re-manifest another cosmos. So, the consciousness'(s) have always been there, just many times stored away in a latent potentiality that does not have the secondary causes to manifest until it does. Thus the timelessness between kalpas that are pralayas (between thought and process). Add infinitum. Microcosm/macrocosm I don't think I explained it well enough. This does a much better job of it than I am able to do... The Treasury of Knowledge, Book 1: Book One: Myriad Worlds (Hardcover)

Ah... so wise old grasshopper.

That's a mis-critic of Alaya Vinjnana as it's personal and not interpersonal. It's the personal storehouse consciousness, not the universal storehouse consciousness. It is also interdependent with all other infinite mind streams but not one with them, it is both momentary as it sprouts from hidden seeds, occurences that reflect primary and secondary causes, and is beyond time as it holds potentiality seeded in through grasping at identity, which do not have the sufficient secondary causes to manifest fully into the dualistic feild of perception as of yet. It's whole cause is grasping at a Self, a true identity to people, places and things. It's static only in that sense. There is no need for a super conscious agent to glue things together as through our grasping at a self we do the gluing. We are the conscious agents that glue everything together both during the pralaya and after when the new cosmic eon comes out of the reserved potentiality collected from the pralaya of the last cosmic eon. The primary cause is not a cosmic consciousness, it's the stiring of a relaxation of focus on a formless state of consciousness by the beings from the previous cosmic eon that leads to a first born that thinks itself a cause and one with infinite formlessness because seemingly from his wish, beings start springing forth from the formless potentiality caused by grasping at a self by infinite beings in the last cosmic cycle, and thus teaches these types of theisms as Advaita Vedanta and the lot. Both the potential for atomic structures and consciousness are simultaneous. Consciousness merely densifies itself dimensionally through the progression from refined non-3-dimensionality into 3 dimensionality by a progression of the re-sprouting of grasping, latent in the alaya-vijnana of infinite mind streams where physicality eminates from the ignorance of infinite beings as we decend from higher realms moving away from the purity and refinement that is the beginning of a cosmic eon. This is not caused by some supreme will that wishes to be dense and suffer within it's own infinite omnipotent being. It happens only due to the fact that it's always happened since beginningless time as dependent origination and emptiness allows for all posobilities, not as a cosmic consciousness, but just that infinite potentiality is all that all is. I'm finding this hard to explain but easy to think about on a level that is not conceptually structured. But yes, because Shankaracharya posits a conscious being that is behind everything which glues everything together, he is completely opposed to emptiness and dependent origination as the Buddha taught it. He feels there is some non-phenomenal entity beyond the concept of entity that makes entity possible. He believes in an uncaused cause that we can take refuge in. The Buddha taught no such thing/non-thing.

Actually it's to see what's really there, deep past the conscious level of mind into the subconscious and unconscious. It's to let go of all conditioned perceptions. All enlightenment means is seeing what all this truly is. There are methods that seem to control or to discipline, but that's only relative and these methods have context within the my first statement.

Hi Marblehead. LOL! American English... hmmm. This Marblehead is exactly the type of unconscious re-birthing or recycling that the Buddha spoke and taught us liberation from. All the best!