Vajrahridaya

This is exactly what samsara is. The only escape is insight into dependent origination... What you are talking about is the axiom of most paths... independent origination/consciousness... without true insight into emptiness. The Buddha emptiness experientially leading to complete fullness without reference to even consciousness or origin as singularity. This infinite singularity is both the storehouse and origin of all delusion, even blissful high up delusions such as the one expressed in word format quoted above... no offense intended, at all. But... this I found to be true. The Buddha is deeply worth listening to.

Yes, all manor of things still happen, they just self liberate instantaneously through natural insight into the nature of all things. This is what's meant by omniscience. Not that you know all things, but that you know the nature of all things... directly, even before thought occurs in/as each moment.

Yes, this is why I recommended doing calm abiding meditation first and getting into the lower jhanas first, before attempting visualization meditations. This is what I did, and I find getting into the lower jhanas is a very important step. Yes, yes... I do agree... which is the why for my recommendation. I guess you didn't read my posts very well.

From the Buddhist perspective there is complete liberation from psychological suffering in enlightenment, no matter what happens to the body of with thought as ones constant state of contemplation self liberates every experience on the most subtle level of cognition.

I think you need to get deeper into the experience. There is no solid discrepancy between anything, it's all empty and equally primordially pure, including thought forms. Only aparently on a certain level, but there are many dimensions. In the experience of emptiness as it is discussed in Dzogchen, there is no discrepancy... just the experience of kadag and rigpa. That's merely dialectical emptiness used in arguing the fact over the thought, yes, within the Madhyamaka two truths this is relative truth in order to understand ones habit patterns. This is not the only type of emptiness. Yes, it's good and true only from a certain perspective, but not the whole thing. The poem I've quoted below has many examples of both relative and ultimate emptiness as discussed in Madhyamaka. As well as the Kadag type of emptiness discussed in Dzogchen. See if you can make it out, but I highlighted a number of examples. From Nagarjuna: 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. = I'm talking about this. 14. So all samsara and nirvana is seen as it is - Empty and insubstantial, Naked and changeless, Eternally quiescent and illumined. = and this. 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. = you're talking more about this. 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. = I'm talking more about this. 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!

There are lots and lots of masters of Vajrayana with power over the elements and the weather who teach that it is quite necessary in that sense. It is not necessary for enlightenment though.

The intention of visualization is very powerful, but you should cultivate calm abiding first and get into some of the lower jhanas before you attempt visualization practice. The intent is to make the mind more powerful as well as connected to the subtle radiance's of the elements past the physical level, so it opens up psychic centers in a very refined manor, you can actually feel the energy of the brain deepening and opening up through this practice.

Actually, the experience is different. Your experience is conditioned by "consciousness is all" theory and assumption. Also, a problem with "consciousness is all" schools is using experience as a platform for assumption, instead of investigating more deeply into the experience through intuition.

He does very well. Emptiness does not say that there is discrepancy, in fact there is fluidity if you have experience, thought and reality are not at odds. Yes, including thought forms.

I absolutely agree, without grasping too tightly to my agreement. LOL! Kidding.

Because those schools that ultimate consciousness sit at the edge of Samsara due to the fact that "you" are the edge of samsara and only the emptiness teachings subvert any sense of you, both individual and universal leaving you free from yourself. HAHA!! Sounds so paradoxical in words, but it's really not. It's clarity while experiencing... or rather, clear experiencing.

Which also is empty of self nature, does not inherently exist and is ungraspable. Buddhism does offer a type of surrender, but not to an inherent nature, or inherent moment... it cuts a little deeper and asks to surrender a little more, but that is the difference between the edge of Samsara and Nirvana.

Nor do they speak of emptiness as a source of all things. The emptiness teachings go deeper than the consciousness or awareness teachings. This is why Nagarjuna said: "Only the path shown by Shakyamuni is complete while other paths only lead to the edge of Samsara." Nagarjuna knew very well what the Upanishads and Vedanta taught. So, all the Vedanta is Buddhism sympathizers are really not understanding what Nagarjuna taught from the perspective of Nagarjuna and are projecting their pre-conditionings. They are not understanding what Shakyamuni nor what Nagarjuna taught and are making the same mistake that Greg and I for that matter did when we first started reading the Buddhist teachings coming from a "consciousness is all" school of thought, view and practice. Especially if you have some deep experience with the "consciousness is all" school, it can be very hard to de-condition and come to the Buddhas first noble truth or "right view" which is the foundation of all the Buddhist schools as it's very hard to let go of ones conditioning and school of thought, especially if you are from a long family tradition associated with a good and deep, but still erroneous view. Both the Buddha and Nagarjuna were fundamentalists, but not at all in the "christian" sense of the term.

Non-duality experience happens due to the emptiness of all things, but most paths mistake the expansion of awareness that happens through focus or letting go as proof that consciousness is the ultimate nature and supreme cause of all things.

empty and free.

Dependent origination doesn't need to be accepted nor rejected, it's empty of inherent existence, but it is the all... and thus the all cannot be grasped and as you are a product of the all... you cannot be grasped by yourself either. This is freedom from proliferation, even as it continues.

Awareness is produced from consciousness and is dependent upon it's objects. The cycle of dependent origination is a continuum and is instantaneous. Just because you are conscious doesn't make you aware. Being aware of consciousness' emptiness as well as the emptiness of it's objects, uncompounds it experientially, expanding it infinitely. Your consciousness arises due to an instantaneous kind of fermentation of the elements on a non-physical level and physical level too. This whole level thing is just a way of saying it, but there are no levels really, there just is on many dimensions all co-supporting each other equally and un-equally at the same time. Go back to the suttas for a basic understanding of dependent origination. You seem to make the mistake of making awareness ultimate in and of itself? Awareness is the ultimate factor in enlightenment, but is not the ultimate, as that becomes "selfish" and conducive to the "pride" of the gods, which is a very subtle pride and ignorance. To put it one way, the cosmos is a sideways flow, cycling without beginning or end, enlightenment is a downward or upward flow cutting through the cosmos, revealing it's emptiness through awareness, but awareness is not ultimate in and of itself, it's only the ultimate factor in enlightenment.

That means recognizing impermanence as permanent (through nothing other than the impermanent mind of a sentient being) leads to the experience of luminosity, generally this experience is clung to as permanent in and of itself due to the mistake of self clinging within this experience through focus or contemplation, which leads to mistaken outcomes. Of course... to say impermanence is permanent is merely a word expression when it's null in and of it's own unarisen nature, thus nothing to grasp and no one to grasp. (This is not to say nature exists in and of itself either) One must transcend luminosity! As well as oneself transcending luminosity. So, even Buddhahood cannot be considered an essential nature, conceptually nor non-conceptually.

Right... but there are different collectives.

In the Tantra of the Precious Garland of the Great Perfection, Adibuddha Samantabhadra states: Clinging and attachment to the trio of body, speech and mind is the cause of samsara. Recognizing the trio of body, speech and mind to be insubstantial is the basis of nirvana. [i.e. nirmanakaya, sambhogakaya, dharmakaya] (Adibuddha means a being that was born into this cosmos with merit from a previous cosmos to not be bound by these afflictions, thus no different from your potential, and as dependently originated as your own existence)

Yea, like certain pop cultural spectrums.

The experience of luminosity arises dependent upon insight. Your luminosity is a dependent arising as well, as it is self liberating upon recognition. Your very existence arises dependently, so does your enlightened experience of yourself arise dependently as well.

The potential is always there, no matter if you're a sentient in hell or heaven, it's just making it real 24/7 that the practice is about. The practice is just about removing the veil of ignorance of what already is, both inside and outside all the time, forever. But yeah, it's still rare to really get that for most people on Earth at this time. So, it shouldn't be an intellectual excuse to not do the inner work.