Vajrahridaya

Wow Seth! What a great list. I'd like to read many of those books too. I really liked Thich Nhat Hanh's books back in the day, though it's been a while. Basic reading on the life of the Buddha: I'd like to recommend, "Old Path, White Cloud." So sweet and a good rendition of the story of Buddhas life and teachings collected from the Pali, Sanskrit and Chinese sources. His style of writing is so engaging and heart warming. Getting to know the Vajrayana/Dzogchen Masters: I'd like to also recommend, "Blazing Splendor," which is the Autobiography of Tulku Orgen Rinpoche. One gets a nice view of the magic and mystery that is old Tibet. Also, "Lord of the Dance," the autobiography of Chagdud Tulku. He's fun, less orthodox than Tulku Orgen, he's kind of a rebel type of Vajrayana Master. Getting to know a bit about the traditions of Vajrayana and Dzogchen: "Crystal and the Way of Light" by Chogyal Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche about Sutra, Tantra and Dzogchen, a nice short book that is deep and thick with content. Getting to know the liberated perspective according to Vajrayana/Dzogchen: "Old Man Basking in the Sun" written by Longchenpa, translated by Keith Dowman and forwarded by Chogyal Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche. "Ornament of the State of Samantabhadra: Commentary on the All creating King of the Pure Perfect Presence of the Great Perfection of All Phenomena." Written by Khenpo Zhenphen Oser and translated into English by Jim Valby. This book I think a person should not read before getting quite firmly aquanted with Nagarjuna. As Chogyal Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche say's that one should have a good internal mastery of Nagarjunas logic in order to understand Dzogchens dialectic. Buddhist Cosmology within it's various Mahayana traditions: "Myriad Worlds" - Buddhist cosmology in Abhidharma, Kalacakra and Dzogchen. by Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro Taye, translated into English by the International Translation committe of Kunkhyab Choling.

is eternity even certain? no certainty = clarity but once u see all there is and ever will be

exactly, it is my hope as well they were not delusional or lying but what gets me is how will we ever know and what if they were, now what so sure, i take in the beauty of the other post, enjoy it while it lasts but even that is just yet another passing beauty like an image in a cloud once all the clouds are gone will there ever be anymore, i dont know how to stop thinking like this... have hope but have hope in what... eternity...

of course this is ms v once again

is only a temporary pleasure..? sigh...

I agree, it does destroy the brain after a while if abused. There are much safer ways of detaching from the body and that is found through meditation. Sometimes experiences happen to people spontaneously though.

hahahah, this is the real VH. Time travel, eh? Thus far, I think we can only do that in awareness, not in body. Progression is the way of process and the cosmos is a process. Those of you who are saying that my wife should meditate! Yes!! Also, I've offered her many books, which she picks up, reads a bit of, and puts down. She needs answers I think which more than words can offer her. She needs some meditative depth added to her life. Thanks for the answers by the way guys. She might hijack my account and come back on again... who knows?

just to add, my father always reassures me that we are on the 3rd dimension and cant even begin to understand other dimensions and how i should not worry so maybe he is right and i sure as hell hope so. science seems to put me more at ease bc its not just ppl beliefs which carry no proof

thanks everyone for ur replies, very good insights im just stuck on when there is nothing, there is always something, but once you dont have a brain, how can you even think of something when nothing is there, of course we cant think of nothing when we are alive and thats what scares me maybe i just miss being a child bc everything seemed to make sense, even death, it wasnt even scary. i dont know what happened and i dont know why im now obsessed with death but i just cannot stop thinking about it but thanks, a lot of the answers gave me some ease. if only someone could come back from being dead for a year or something. too bad the buddha himself cant just materialize right in front of me right now and answer my questions i just dont know when i will ever get it... where is the buddha now i ask, a popular answer i get is inside you but once im gone and all the ppl that ever knew me are gone, where is he now? what happens when there are no more humans? then what? sigh, what happens when there is no more anything. see, thats what scares me, where is the love when u die when u have nothing to experience it?

hi, this is not vaj, this is his wife this has stumbled me for years and maybe i can get some clarity here if we are like a computer - the hardware being our body and the software being our consciousness, how can software survive without the hard drive. i want to believe in something after death, but the more i think about it, the more i realize maybe we just die and sadly thats it. i know im going to die, my body and what went along with it - personality etc. but where is the proof that our soul lives on? i really want to believe we all have souls but sigh every year i get closer to the realization that we just die and thats the end. how can this be? and why? why cant we just live for all eternity? in essence not body of course

Mahamudra is generally going to have more preliminaries, and more studies... generally, even though the outcome is said to be the same in both. Even in Dzogchen, different teachers teach differently. Some teach a more Mahamudra style Dzogchen. It really depends on the teacher how it's transmitted, but yes... for all Vajrayana practices you'll need transmission from realized lineage.

I think it depends upon the individual. Since there is no standard interpretation for Taoism, at least not to the degree as there is in Buddhism, there are those that seem to understand emptiness and inter-dependent origination through their own Taoist language and others which seem to reify one formless jhana or another just due to the nature of self clinging? So, some I would tentatively classify as monistic idealists, simply due to this very subtle tendency to cling to a high state of consciousness as a "self" of all, but others I would say have a subtler understanding that would be in alignment with Buddhist views.

Actually, when having such experiences like my wife has, it's even more paramount to do the study in order to contextualize the seemingly spontaneous occurrences in order to understand their deeper causes, effects and wisdoms. She's very slow to study... Drives me crazy because she asks me questions all the time, when I'm doing other things and I give her books that she starts but never get's into. She prefers to hound me. She say's she prefers to learn in conversation. But, I tell her I'm not qualified to really teach Dzogchen like that. Anyway... yes... I agree that study is paramount, coupled with practice no matter what! I just wanted to point out that not all nut's are hard to crack.