forestofclarity

For my part, I find that the more I practice, the more faith I have in things that are not my own ego, intellect, or body-mind. We human beings are poor judges because we lack complete information, living as we do in such a small sliver of the totality. If Kriya Yoga is a divine path, then clearly the divine has brought it to the public. I see two possibilities: 1) the practice will not be effective or fruitful, in which case it will die out and be forgotten OR 2) the practice will be effective and fruitful, in which case it will continue.

I think many people have come to this stage. I notice that in many modern circles, especially modern non-duality, this is seen as an end point or a final stage. I have also come across many older students in traditional spiritual settings who have come to such a stage as well. However, the world being as it is (without fixed points), there are no fixed points or final stages. The world is constantly in an ever present becoming, it is dynamic and always changing. For me, what this tends to mark is a reorientation. It is an orientation away from trying to achieve, or trying to find, and toward allowing things to unfold. It marks an orientation away from wanting to things to be different to allow things to come as they are.

This is a Buddhism sub-forum. One important Buddhist principle is anatta or anatman, there is no self. If you work with this concept over time, you will find it applies to everything, including to ideas that there is an "end goal in mediation" or there is a "Buddhism." To believe in a fixed point of any sort is to deny emptiness and assert some kind of self. In addition, forms of Zen in particular reject this approach. This can be seen in the famous dharma combat between Shenxiu and Hui Neng: I invite you to look at some resources in the Soto school which teaches a different approach, especially as set out by Dogen. If you want immediate guidance, you can head over the Treeleaf Zendo. You may also consider looking at Sheng Yen's Silent Illumination, wherein the master says that reaching samadhi is NOT a goal of that approach. Or you can look to sayings from Vajrayana, such as this from Tilopa. If you don't like Buddhist teachings, consider the teachings of Ramana Maharshi, especially as written in the excellent works of Sri Sadhu Om, or you may wish to consider the teachings of modernists such as Jean Klein. You may wish to adopt an eclectic approach, like Peter Fenner or Stephan Bodian. You may also want to consider this article by Bill Bodri. I have sat satsang with a disciple of Muktananda who taught the same thing.

I have come to realize that if it does not arise in experience, then it is just speculation. Because we cannot experience, here and now in the immediate present, whether there is a creator god or the beginning of the universe, then that question belongs to the realm of speculation and will never be settled to any certainty. 99% of discussion, in my mind, falls there.

Depends on which school you follow. In some schools, there is a "supposed to" and in others there is no "supposed to."

According to the suttas, there is a creator god, but he doesn't create, he only thinks he does: Brahmajala Sutta

Different Buddhist teachings have different approaches to dealing with sexual desire. For example, in Theravada Buddhism, there is contemplation of disgust on the human body in an effort to eliminate it. According to Namkhai Norbu, in Vajrayana, desire is transformed and in Dzogchen, it is allowed the self-liberate. The Zen approach, which I am familiar with, is not about eliminating it, but dealing with it. As Hui Neng says, no-thought is not the elimination of thought, but freedom from thought in the midst of thought. There is a Zen story about a woman and her daughter who supported a monk. In order to test the monk, the woman sent her daughter to embrace him. He said she was like a dead tree, no warmth. The woman knew he was a fake, drove him off, and burned down his hermitage.

I don't think there needs to be anything mysterious or difficult about it. Most of us would agree that the body is a unity, although the hand is quite different from the foot. So while the organs and limbs are diverse, there is "unity is diversity".

When I was investigating this, I found this post helpful: http://wisdomthroughmindfulness.blogspot.com/2011/06/what-is-clinging-buddhist-take-on-it.html

TI, I don't practice Dzogchen, but I know what you're talking about. There are at least two types of thoughts or mentation: active and passive. What you've come across is the passive stream of mentation. I believe this comes from the unconscious, and if you follow it, it will eventually unfold into dreaming.

The irony of speaking about Buddhism is that according to many Buddhist teaching, there is no Buddhism. Like everything else, Buddhist practice is constantly changing and lacks a substantial self. Even more so, the world as it is is much too big to be pinned down in words and concepts. With that in mind, I would say that while some Buddhists are rational atheists, not all Buddhists practice in that way. In fact, the more I practice, the less I find that dualities such as God/not-God, rational/irrational really do not apply.

Here are a bunch of suttas: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/study/kamma.html#kamma

Kunlun seems like only yesterday compared to the David Shen / John Chang debates of '06, which cut across almost every qigong forum in existence.

The truth is not so simple. In my mind, this is not because the truth is mysterious or supernatural, but because words and concepts don't really line up with experience. Take a simple object, such as a cup. Where is the cup? You simply have a collection of parts--- the rim, the body, the handle, the base. There is no cup. Or you simply have a temporary manifestation of earth-- before it was rocks, now it is ceramic, then it will be dust. Or you may say, where does the cup end, and the knowing of the cup begin, or the rest of the universe? Or what is the cup without the artist, the sun, the moon, the stars, society, trucks, and trees? But if you want to drink coffee, nothing beats using a cup. So if you were to ask me, "Is there a cup?" how could I say yes or no?

Personally, I don't see form and emptiness as two separate things. Whenever you have two separate things, you run into a problem: if they are separate, how do they relate? If they relate, how are they separate? Also, I don't think there's any such thing as a "state of pure emptiness," which I take to mean absolute nothingness. An absolute nothingness would lack any characteristics, including existence, so by definition it doesn't exist. To some extent, with the discovery of particles arising from space and evidence of a Higgs field, the idea of a truly blank space is becoming outdated. I like to think of emptiness in this way. Look at a table. It is solid, sure, but the table we see is only a small part of a larger process. Before it was a table, it was a tree, and after it will be mulched back into the earth. The table is "empty" that is to say "open", specifically, open to change. If it wasn't, it would always be a table. Even more, the table doesn't even exist on its own. It needs the earth under it to hold it up, it needs the warmth of the sun so it doesn't fall apart, and so on. The table isn't even a tree, really, because many other things went into making that table. There needed to be table makers who learned their table art in a society, and the society needs a biosphere to support it. It sits on the earth, in an atmosphere warmed by the sun, in a universe with physical laws that support its structure. What you see as a table is an experience created by your consciousness. Finally, if you take the table apart, you won't find anything that makes it a table. A table is a simple arrangement of parts, four legs and a top. How much of these do we need before it becomes a table? Two legs? Three legs? Two and a half? If you look at a table really closely, you may find atoms and space. If you zoom out from a table, you may find an entire planet. So it isn't REALLY a table, it is really the entire universe coming together. From my point of view, if you want to look into the mystery of form arising from stillness, which is a different thing than either "emptiness" or "nothingness", you can look directly into your own mind. Every night, the mind retreats into stillness. Yet every morning, it displays the world and myriad thoughts. How does that happen?

In my mind, Zen and Taoist teachings both advise one to act naturally. What does this mean? Do what you want? No, because we have lost touch with acting naturally. Act naturally doesn't mean do what you want, because what we want isn't natural. It is conditioned. We have become warped and deluded. However, at bottom, we are naturally good and wise. Because we are deluded, spiritual teachings can help us plug into that natural mind. Once we do that, there is no problem.

To offer a different opinion, there are actually many words that point to compassion. Metta, dana, karuna. Some of these things DO have to do with feelings, specifically warm feelings. In the Metta Sutta, which I have chanted at both Theravada and Zen centers: Even as a mother protects with her life Her child, her only child, So with a boundless heart Should one cherish all living beings. Pretty strong stuff.

Here is a good video series introducing Vedanta. Introduction to Vedanta

How do you distininguish between vijnana and rigpa? In your teaching, what is vijnana experientially?

I've been wondering lately if qigong forms aren't all BS. Perhaps the trick is not so much the form, but the relaxation and non-attachment that comes with practice, along with cultivating positive feelings and mindfulness. Of course, I am no expert in these areas, so I thought I'd lay this out to the experts. What do you think?

Mindfulness is only one part of the Buddhist meditation formula. The other part is shamatha, concentrative or calm-abiding meditation. It is key to practice one with the other. A good shamatha practice will allow one to create the space in which challenging thoughts and feelings may arise. The easiest and simplest way to build this practice is simply concentrating on the breath. Another good way is to sit zazen. A strong shamatha practice will not only help during meditation, but in all of life. At some point, it is also a good idea to think about having a teacher.

The smell of the lemon, the tick of the clock.

No, the Buddha did not keep silent about God. Rather, Buddha taught the origin and cessation of suffering. According to traditional Buddhist lore, before the Buddha asked the gods to end suffering. Receiving no answer, he sat under the bodhi tree. Look to the Kevatta Sutta. A monk goes up the entire retinue of gods looking for an answer to his question: where do the elements "cease without remainder." Finally, he gets to the Great Brahma: 'I, monk, am Brahma, the Great Brahma, the Conqueror, the Unconquered, the All-Seeing, All-Powerful, the Sovereign Lord, the Maker, Creator, Chief, Appointer and Ruler, Father of All That Have Been and Shall Be.' "[T]he monk said to the Great Brahma, 'Friend, I didn't ask you if you were Brahma, the Great Brahma, the Conqueror, the Unconquered, the All-Seeing, All-Powerful, the Sovereign Lord, the Maker, Creator, Chief, Appointer and Ruler, Father of All That Have Been and Shall Be. I asked you where these four great elements — the earth property, the liquid property, the fire property, and the wind property — cease without remainder.' "Then the Great Brahma, taking the monk by the arm and leading him off to one side, said to him, 'These gods of the retinue of Brahma believe, "There is nothing that the Great Brahma does not know. There is nothing that the Great Brahma does not see. There is nothing of which the Great Brahma is unaware. There is nothing that the Great Brahma has not realized." That is why I did not say in their presence that I, too, don't know where the four great elements... cease without remainder. So you have acted wrongly, acted incorrectly, in bypassing the Blessed One in search of an answer to this question elsewhere. Go right back to the Blessed One and, on arrival, ask him this question. However he answers it, you should take it to heart.' SPOILER ALERT! The Buddha's answer: The Buddha tells the monk he is asking the wrong question. "'Your question should not be phrased in this way: Where do these four great elements — the earth property, the liquid property, the fire property, and the wind property — cease without remainder? Instead, it should be phrased like this: Where do water, earth, fire, & wind have no footing? Where are long & short, coarse & fine, fair & foul, name & form brought to an end? "'And the answer to that is: Consciousness without feature, without end, luminous all around: Here water, earth, fire, & wind have no footing. Here long & short coarse & fine fair & foul name & form are all brought to an end. With the cessation of [the activity of] consciousness each is here brought to an end.'"

Here are a bunch more Vedanta traps: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mariana-caplan-phd/spiritual-living-10-spiri_b_609248.html The most common I've seen is Identifying with Spiritual Experiences and The Deadly Virus I Have Arrived.

If one doesn't see the bodhisattvas in the world, it is because one is not looking. There are bodhisattvas everywhere, revealing themselves constantly.