Vajrahridaya

It's called the Jalus in Dzogchen from North India in the 200's B.C. moved to Tibet 1,100 years ago. It's the main goal of Dzogchen practice in fact, which is what I practice. Yes, we use Sanskrit mantras. You actually turn your physical constituents into an immortal body of light representing the Dharmakaya (body of infinite buddha wisdom), Sambhogakaya (body of enjoyment and bliss) and Nirmanakaya (emanation for the sake of compassion towards endless sentient beings). If you really want to know more through the active Dzogchen lineage where beings have attained this "Body of Light" recently, you'd have to get transmission and follow the teachings. All the best!

It frees you more clearly from ego and self in you and others. It also helps one to understand more deeply the chain of inter-weaving causation and allow you to be a more clear channel of healing and selfless service.

Yup, read all that stuff, Nag Hammadi Library too. It's all very nice. Some theorize that Jesus even went to North India and learned his ability to take on others karmas directly as there already existed specific practices for that. Who knows!? It's all shrouded in mystery and hearsay, and I like clarity. Buddhayo! p.s. When I was a little kid, I used to carry a picture of Jesus around and say, "I love him." and I used to pray to him before bed and while sitting on the toilet to help everyone in my life get what they wanted and to be happy and I wasn't even Christian. My mother was a devout Hindu tantrica.

HAHA! Awesome! I just followed this description through my mind into my body while just sitting here not cross legged and got all high dude!! Yo!

LOL! Paleeeease! Not possible... now I'm feeling very little. HAHA!

SORRY, I FEEL BAD FOR BRINGING THIS ARGUMENT IN HERE!! I should have just left Dragonfire with her view...

That's the thing, he taught that the only enlightened ones before him during this age were solitary enlightened beings of a certain type of quality not quite as high as a Sammasambhuddha, or even Buddhas after the Shakyamuni who follow his teachings, known as enlightened through listening. The solitary enlightened ones did not know how to preach the dharma in a way that others could truly understand for many thousands of years due to the death of the previous dharma long prier to his coming. Christ consciousness is a completely new age phenomena emergence between Hinduism and mystic Christianity in the West. I mean... come on. Sure there were mystic Christians who attained some of the higher formless Samadhi's, but they did not realize dependent origination/emptiness. They still just realized the emptiness of their ego only and still think that the universe is independently originated by a supreme being made of divine light. They really don't teach the same thing though. Really, the cosmos is much more complicated than the new age "oneness" group you are subscribing to believes. Sorry to disappoint you, but you should study each teaching within context and not just little bits here and there merged together in a messy way thinking they all came to the same conclusion when they didn't. The Buddha taught that your understanding leads to the perfection of the 4 immeasurables (Bhramaviharas), but not insight into the nature of things within the spectrum of infinite regress. Then the Maitreya Buddha will come eventually when the conditions are ripe to preach the dharma of dependent origination/emptiness once again. Whose teachings are not the same as Christ or Krishna who's teaching lead to high level, long lived god realms which the Buddha did teach about. Please, if you are truly interested in what Buddha taught, read his teachings within context with an open mind. I used to believe as you did with all the meditative experience and interpretations of them to back it up with this universalism theory of today's new age pu pu platter spirituality mostly based on the proliferation of Hindu dogma throughout the West many years ago. Finding out I was wrong was a huge blow to my ego which took years to recover from. I wish you well. P.S. When you understand the Buddhas teaching on it's own terms, you will see that it is deeply specific and not messy at all. We have very little to go on with all the other sages and saints, but what the Buddha taught was uniquely specific, categorizing as well as deeply abstract at the same time to a degree unheard of. He preached vehemently and debated with other religious leaders non-violently for 40 years in an attempt to bring them to the "right view." He criticized the Vedas and the Upanishads as well as Jainism.

The Buddha wouldn't agree, but... that's another argument. I'm definitely a Buddhist under the guidance of the triple gem.

I've been on the Shen level for 15 years. Well, in this lifetime. But, I'm not officially a Taoist.

Yup. What they do with it though, can be very different.

Well, it does go into clear and concise descriptions of channels and winds. But yeah, it's mostly about the Yantra Yoga postures so you could be right. I guess I'm biased because my Rinpoche wrote it.

Beginningless means beginningless. As in... endless universes. In some of the first Buddhist texts, they talk about the Buddha knowing his past lives in 100's of thousands of previous universes, not just the ones of this universe. I myself have experienced directly some very amazing memories, and some only became more lucid when I finally accepted the Buddhas teaching on Dependent Origination instead of giving into Independent Origination which most religions do. It's natural to want to find a beginning, a supreme identity. But, that's Samsara. No start, no end. No uncaused cause, no super identity to everything and everyone, and no final destination either, just awareness or non-awareness, it's either rigpa or ma-rigpa, insight or ignorance. I don't really know what to say about that. It's interesting, and there are similar things in Shaivite philosophy about the fires or "rudras". They are always personified in Shaivism though. Anyway... talk with you later!

Indeed, but good things, good things only.

Buddhism always will seem nihilistic to Eternalists who think that there is an eternal soul and will behind everything that is one with while transcending everything. Nihilism is defined as the philosophy that thinks there is no meaning, also a philosophy that thinks that you don't carry the effects of your actions after death and that death really is the end of your mind stream. So... though Buddhism may seem nihilistic if you think there is a godhead who governs, or if you think there is one supreme will behind everything, a cosmic consciousness. It actually is not at all nihilistic, it's just not Eternalistic, it's the middle way. But yes, there are different types of Masters and not all types are masters of the whole of Samsara like a Buddha is. Even in Buddhism, there are different types of Buddhas, all essentially Buddhas but within different capacities. The universe is just so rich and multifarious in it's paths and beings. I do appreciate your appreciation even if you don't agree with me. I'm fine with that... just don't hate! p.s. See the idea that all paths lead to the same destination comes from those that think all beings come from the same source. But, in Buddhism, there is no source in that "oneness" sense so we also don't believe that all paths lead to the same destination. Of course your individual mind is the source of your own bondage or freedom, but that's not saying that it's the source of absolutely everything in the universe.

No because your not actually identifying with everything, though you are seeing how your individual self is a manifestation of endless inter-weaving web of causation with everything else. There still is no "oneness" unless you were to use this as a metaphor for expanding awareness beyond the little self, but to identify with everything as a large Self is a mistake as well and only leads to high refined material realms dancing with the gods. Nice, definitely very brilliant, but not Buddhahood. Ok, well that's different. It seems to me that Ken is identifying with everything as being, "The Self" on the grand scale of his own individual self. I'm really looking forward to going to school in Canada.

Basically RyanO, It's purpose is what you make it. The cosmos has no inherent purpose to it other than what the beings that make it up choose of it themselves, and that is what we are dealing with, infinite possibility.

No problem! Hey... my wife loves the looks of your cat, she wants to steel it. Where do you live again?

Yes, according to the Buddha and Buddhas, it never began and will never end. There are endless beings, and endless ways endless beings can go. So, I suppose that as well is a possibility. Fear can serve as a tool for conversion into a better way of life. It's not my intention to instill fear, but sometimes when you become acutely aware of a certain fact, directly, fear is the first reaction, then you start changing and expanding in order to not fear the result of an action. For instance, it's good that a convicted killer starts to experience fear for the results of his or her actions, thus they find a deep necessity to change their ways. This kind of fear is a heightened awareness and should not be feared. Don't fear the fear of expanded awareness and a deepened understanding of karma. It's just manifest karmas of endless beings. If it is to be a tool for your individual liberation, than you must cultivate that awareness, otherwise, it's just a karmic playground, nothing more, nothing less.

Nice, This is about the 4th Jhana though and not liberation. There are both conceptual and non-conceptual differences between Buddhahood and Samsarins. "[Fourth jhana] "And furthermore, with the abandoning of pleasure and stress — as with the earlier disappearance of elation and distress — he enters and remains in the fourth jhana: purity of equanimity and mindfulness, neither-pleasure-nor-pain. He sits, permeating the body with a pure, bright awareness, so that there is nothing of his entire body unpervaded by pure, bright awareness. "Just as if a man were sitting wrapped from head to foot with a white cloth so that there would be no part of his body to which the white cloth did not extend; even so, the monk sits, permeating his body with a pure, bright awareness. There is nothing of his entire body unpervaded by pure, bright awareness." The transition to the Fourth Jhana from the third takes a bit more effort and bit more letting go than any of the previous transitions. The contentment of the Third Jhana is still a positive state of mind. This contentment is refined into a very equanimous, quiet, stillness. There is no positive or negative feeling in either mind or body. There is just an all pervading, deep peacefulness, with of course, one-pointedness. The first four Jhanas are called the Fine Material Jhanas. Intense pleasure, joy, contentment and stillness are all states we are familiar with in our normal, everyday lives. But the quality and intensity of these factors as experienced in the Jhanas is more sublime than we normally experience, thus they are called the Fine Material Jhanas. The next four Jhanas are called the Immaterial Jhanas because they are not like anything we normally experience. Each of these Jhanas has two factors -- the first factor serves as the name of the Jhana, the second factor is one-pointedness." So... keep going!

The Buddha argued, did he miss the mark? So did Buddhas after him argue and debate, sometimes for months with one person, even years. Debate is important otherwise the right view won't proliferate the masses.

The view originates the insight. This is what the Buddha taught. Now I will say for your own sake that it does seem that many Taoists do hold to the "right view" which will originate the right experiential insights... it seems. It does seem that you do have some "right view" flowing through your synaptic fire works.

Yeah, basically... the vast majority are damned to be re-absorbed during the cosmic pralaya, even if they do make it to a high heaven, and yes, it has everything to do with the view expressed based upon experiential investigation into the nature of things. No, I do not sound like a Christian because I'm not saying you are all damned to hell for eternity to get poked by the devil in the butt by a pitch fork for what sins you've committed in this lifetime, no... What I'm saying is far more complex and not nearly as black and white as that, so please don't associate me with that. You can agree to disagree, but to get your panties in a bunch and start associating me with the most violent religion on the planet is just wrong. According to the Buddha, it's "view" that is the first thing to get "right" which means philosophically first, then through experiential self experimentation into direct insight, all based upon the basis of "right view." So yes, philosophy is very important. Otherwise one might think that not thinking is enlightenment.

This is exactly the anti-investigatory attitude of the "oneness" people I avoid. You go ahead with it! The Buddha didn't preach for 40 years for his own sake, he did it for ours, you can know it or not. Your choice.

It really does come down to this, Vedanta = Independent origination/consciousness Buddhism = dependent origination/emptiness