Vajrahridaya

XABIR! Beautiful presentation!!! Then the Tao does not inherently exist. There is no established Tao. As the Buddha said, he found an ancient path that pre-existed him. Jesus was supposedly taught in North India and there's plenty of proof of that, about as stable as to question if he existed at all? All beings must trod the path alone though, it's always an "insight" not an "outsight" that liberates from either. To know the source of perception and subvert the duality between perception, perceiving and perceived, one must know by looking at the perceiver. Doesn't seem to have been a dead end for Garchen Rinpoche, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche and many, many, many others. We have a tendency to delude ourselves, when a teacher can point out objectively how we are seeing subjectively. It's up to you to find out though.

All these paths are good and help evolve the being to the point where one is able to understand the Buddhadharma. They are paths that teach the four immeasurables, this leads to higher rebirth and higher cognitive abilities. They are good paths, Taoism, Hinduism, Mystic Christianity, Sufism, etc. It's just that Buddhism is as perfect a religion as religion can get with a whole bunch of monkeys with opposable thumbs trying to understand it and writing commentaries on it. Mostly that's just a joke. There are certain concepts that lead directly to the state of liberation, to Buddhahood, these concepts are called Buddhadharma.

Loove your overall answer Michaelz! But, I just wanted to clarify that emptiness is not an abiding nature, it's nature is dependent with the all and the all is dependent origination.

Seth, you are used to conceiving of your consciousness as a constant through reading Shaivite and Advaita stuff. Awareness and it's product are one and mutually co-arising in moments, and sub-moments and formless unconscious consciousness that holds potentialities for future becoming, all simultaneously. Space in Buddhism is measured only by what's in it, what fills it. It's mutually dependent upon it's content as well, and it's content is permeated by it, it's a constant because Samsara is constant, the cycling keeps re-producing itself as a constant process without beginning and without end. But, consciousness can be experienced like space through meditation, yes. Here... a quote. How Advaitins and Shaivites always define Brahman as Consciousness, a featureless consciousness that is shared by all, permanent and full in and of itself, that we all realize we are inherently one with. Buddhism has no place for this type of interpretation. Nirvana is only experienced as permanent because we realize that dependent origination shows that all things are inherently empty of an abiding nature, so become translucent, and luminous and consciousness shines through everything at that point in realization, omniscience is realized. Nirvana is said to be the inherent potential of a being that is always there, only in as much as all things including consciousness are empty of inherent existence, because they are interdependently existent, thus things have always and never had any power to bind. Neither Samsara, or Nirvana truly exist, ultimately.

Yeah, uh hu... ok...

It's not boredom really that awakes them, it's just that the conditions of focus on that level of being cease, and thus the latent karmas not extinguished through truly directly seeing dependent origination arise again and a new cycle of cosmic experience happens for them, where they go, I don't know? Animal, bug, demon, god, all samsaric realms. It's not that the homogeneous state is not blissful though, it's is very, very blissful and is a sense of fullness even, but it's still an illusion, just a really subtle and really high level illusion. Generally they get awakened by a Bodhisattva who goes into that state of mind with them and influences their latent karmas to come re-form them. Bodhisattvas and Buddhas do a lot of churning of higher and lower realms to help bring beings into a state where they can hear the Dharma. I thank the Muni for taking birth here and re-revealing the ancient and timeless dharma of Buddhahood.

Emptiness is not an abiding nature, it's not reified at all. It's actually just talking about D.O. There is no emptiness as such, it is a way of talking about the experience of seeing D.O. and refers to Anatta. Emptiness does not inherently exist either, it is not an essence. It just says how the flow flows as a process without any true nature, without a self, individual, or cosmic. When they say, the true nature of things, they are just talking with words, not that there really is an abiding nature of things. If one were to say the true quality of things, then one would say they are impermanent, that is all, from formless, featureless conceptless concepts experienced in meditation as nothingness, infinite consciousness, or beyond perception and non-perception, which are Jhanas in the formless realms, these have no abiding nature and are dependently originated as well. Most paths take these states of consciousness to be the truth. When one comes out of the meditation the superimposition that Dwai was talking about of things and memories over these formless states happens and thus the formless, featureless state is mistaken as a source of being, a Self, but the Buddha refutes this interpretation.

Nirvana is different from Brahman in that's it's a realization dependent upon seeing D.O. and is not an abiding essence shared by all beings. The subtle differences are very important, and takes a subtle mind to grasp. He never said that the state of Nirvana is the nature of all things, rather that the true nature of all things is that they really don't happen, because things don't inherently exist, thus all occurrences don't inherently exist, including moments of consciousness. This realization is Nirvana, which just means the pacification of psychological suffering. Also, the Buddha said he found an ancient path, a path that had become extinct in his time. He wasn't realizing anything cosmically new, just new for the earth at that time.

Nicely taken out of context. I will help put it back into context. This is actually talking about the state of Nirvana when one see's dependent origination and uncompounds the consciousness, because in the realization one sees that nothing has occured ultimately, thus the consciousness uncompounded shines all around, as a realization of dependent origination, not as an abiding essence. Experiencing the uncompounded means that what was once experienced as compounded, is now not experienced as compounded due to the condition of seeing D.O. This is not referring to Brahman.

No New Age movement. My mother raised me in Siddha Yoga my whole life. So, no I'm not an Indian. But I was raised with Brahmin priests, with chanting of sanskrit texts, meditating on the 8 limbs of yoga, doing hatha yoga, experiencing the different types of samadhi, experiencing kundalini awakening and kriyas, etc. My main lineage was Nitayananda to Muktananda to Chidvilasananda. We studied all the texts of Vedanta and many Kaula Shaivite texts including the Shiva Sutras and the Pratyabhijnahridayam and many many others. The Jnaneshwari or Jnaneshwars Gita, chanted Vedic texts including the Shri Rudram, experienced Yagna or fire ceremonies. Read and chanted Puranas and acted as Krishna in plays of the Mahabharata. Did lots of meditation, yoga, contemplation of genuine Advaita texts. Anyway... if Shankaracharya didn't accept that Buddhism was the same as Advaita Vedanta, how on earth can you? Not even Abhinavagupta considered that they were the same and set out at times to refute Buddhist logic, and Shankaracharya did the same very intensely all around India, of course only after the main schools including Nalanda were destroyed by Muslims, leaving not many good Buddhists to argue with as most went into hiding or fled to Tibet. So, Shankara re-established Hinduism across India at this time, putting four main Ashrams on the 4 corners of India. Before that India was predominantly a Buddhist country for over a 1,000 years, especially after Ashoka established Buddhism and sent people to teach it to different countries.

This is a quote from a Pali Sutta that denounces any self sustaining permanent consciousness whatsoever.. So as you can see, the Buddha in the earliest teachings does not support the idea that there is an eternal state of consciousness to be found. Like I said a Buddha makes permanent his or her state of realization by focusing on the fact that samsara keeps spinning. So the permanent state of liberated consciousness originates dependent upon offering of merits to endless suffering beings in Samsara. So even the state of realization is conditional. There is only dependent origination in Buddhism, there is no Brahman or anything that can be equated with Brahman in Buddhism. They are different. You can think Advaita is the best, which is fine. The argument is if they are the same or lead to the same realization and they absolutely do not.

Transcends as in is deeper, more explanatory, a deeper view, a subtler comprehension. Does that clarify the meaning for you? Samsara is Nirvana to the realized, there is nothing to transcend. Anyway... I've read plenty of Taoism, and I've experienced plenty of states of meditation that are explained as being an experience of Tao, also just open eye experiences of direct cognition of a flow and oneness, bliss and sense of all inclusiveness. I now interpret these experiences differently with the help of Buddhist view. So... It references a universal essence that everything is one with, no matter how beyond words it is, Buddhism doesn't agree with this doctrine. A reified non-conceptualness, that everything is a part of, is in no way compatible with Buddhist realization. Try as you might, the Buddha refutes this as the real experience of liberation from Samsara.

The Tao is considered the unitive true nature of everything that both transcends and encompasses everything in a single field of unity. It is being and non-being, etc. Buddhism transcends this. You mean mutual co-arising, like co-dependent arising? Meaning non-independence, but interdependence? Then same thing.

Could be, could very well be.

Your pretty extreme in your interpretation of me there Siliconvalley. I must question your sanity. You really must feel threatened. You fall into ad hom's. No, not ALL, but plenty. Thanks for the compliment though. Maybe I am Maitreya Buddha??

The words cannot totally describe or encapsulate the experience, but they can lead the horse to water. Buddhas water troff is cleaner than the rest.

Sure, but he's wrong about his all is one claim. He, nor you seem to understand dependent origination. Oh, I forgot to mention, that I have received transmission from a genuine Shaivite Master and have gotten a hold of some secret Shaivite teachings.

There is plenty of direct experience. Also, it can be displayed in words, the entire Buddhist cannon from the Pali, to the Sanskrit, the Chinese, Japanese, Tibetan. I do have the same experience with Tibetan Buddhism, just the interpretation is clearer and there is a subtler difference within about the experiencing. It's nice and quite deep, to go deeper. I do, I'm pretty objective, if you actually prove me wrong, I'll concede. I have studied the Pratyabhijna, Shiva Sutras, Tantraloka, I remember reading much more but I don't remember all the names, but Siddhasiddhanta Chandrika sounds familiar. I've read south indian siddhar stuff a bit. Have you read the Vasistha's Yoga? It's quite terse. I have read the Svacchanda Tantra I think? Anyway, I found what used to satisfy my questions, but I realized that there were subtler questions not being answered. So, no I wasn't fully satisfied with what I read in Shaivite and Advaita texts. Here's a link to some of what I've read, much of this many times even. Ananta Yoga Learning Center Link You haven't done much interstellar, inter-dimensional traveling have you? Oh yeah, mystical experiences are hallucinations, I forgot. Well, I listed a link of only some of what I've studied, as I've studied much, much more of Advaita and Shaivism as well as all other spiritual traditions. No it doesn't, but all the while I certainly studied and practiced.

I have seen the Tao directly, and then I transcended it. Not permanently, but I have that direct experiencing. The Tao is a cosmic essence, sorry this also is dependently originated and without inherent existence. I realized it was a mistaken interpretation of mystic experience and moved on.

He actually didn't avoid such questions all the time, only at certain times to certain people. I wish I was a scholar, I'd find the places in the Pali Suttas where he talks about such things. He also talks about no abiding cosmic essence in the suttas. He talks about personal realization where one's consciousness is uncompounded through understanding dependent origination and thus shines all around, but it's not an abiding essence that is shared by everyone. He talks plenty about if the soul inherently exists when he talks about anatta of course. He considered the soul to be dependently originated as well.

Objectless consciousness is considered an object in Buddhism and a phenomena to be emptied. It's a very subtle attachment to inherent existence. Also, Brahman implies that all beings are it. That's not the same as saying all beings are inherently empty of abiding self. Your getting the dogma label wrong. It's actually a Hindu dogma that's deluded that says that all paths lead to the same truth. Because it comes from a certain frame work that all paths have the same source, a God, a singular essence. This is just not so in Buddhism. Dwai, you have not understood a single thing anyone has said. It has nothing to do with looking past the words, it has to do with understanding where the words are pointing to and you have fallen short from understanding.

That's exactly right! Which is what the, "All is one" and "All paths lead to the same truth" camp do not understand. This is what the Buddha has taught the entire time. Which is why the Buddha indeed was an elitist. But, Hindus are imperialists, sucking all traditions into their own saying they are all the same is a Hindu dogma, one that I used to be under the mercy of. Enlightenment is NOT inherent, one must recieve the seed of "Right view" which is exactly what the Buddha taught in the 8 fold noble path. Also, this idea that Hinduism and Buddhism is included in the Tao is something akin to a view that everything is one. No everything is connected. Buddhism is a path out of Samsara, out of the Tao. Hinduism is a path within Samsara, so one with the Tao. Anyway, that's just a perspective and not the whole truth of things. But really... all these fortune cookie platitudes will not liberate one from unconscious rebirth, they'll just make one happy for a little while. The thing is, is that Buddhism is not just words (of course it has tons of meditation and chanting methods as well as yoga methods, etc.), these words lead to a subtle understanding of how things work. Things don't work the way everyone explains it. Only a Buddha knows the Truth, and a Buddha is known by the seals, the 4 noble truths, the 8 fold noble path and has realization of dependent origination/emptiness directly. Brahman, Tao, God, these are all samsaric concepts. We have very intensely deep attachment to these concepts that exist since beginningless time. Freedom from Samsara is much harder than most paths make it out to be. Though the Buddha said his Dharma is so simple a kid could understand it, but he said, "Could" understand it, not "would" understand it. Anyway... all the best!

The view of Buddhism is that there is no view that has inherent existence and all views are dependently originated, so that is the difference. Theists or any other systems view is based on the fact that there is a viewer that is inherent, either a flow, a supreme consciousness, or an inherently existing causeless cause. Edited for clarity in the end of the final sentence.