Sunya

Thank you Gold for writing that... excellent. I very much enjoyed it and was indeed inspired to die.

Tyler, wake up. If you can't see your issues when they are pointed straight out to you, then you are a fool and not a sincere seeker of truth. No wonder your teacher thinks so low of you, however enlightened he truly is. Keep seeking that divine fatherly figure and you'll keep suffering like a confused child seeking a nipple that doesn't exist.

Have no clue about that letter but he generally isn't a respected Dzogchen teacher for various reasons. He teaches a watered down version of Buddhism and doesn't have right view. He also recently lost many students because of a sex scandal. I'm hesitant to say this because I'm sure he benefited many due to his popular books, but for serious students I would sincerely recommend they read a different teacher to truly understand the dharma. He sugarcoats and simplifies. That is great for housewives and beginners but if you're sincere then that will only create problems. Sorry

Surya Das... lol. The guys name is Hindu and he was never authorized to teach Dharma. I would ignore him :/

There is a difference between God and a god. Supposedly Brahma spoke to Buddha after his nirvana and begged him to teach. This does not mean that Brahma was the One monotheistic Creator God that we are used to here in the West. A god is one type of being. They live a very long time but are not immune to impermanence death and suffering like everyone else. This is how gods are seen in Buddhism. As for Buddhism and atheism, it most certainly is atheist. Theism is the belief in a creator God, since Buddha and all Buddhists after him have denied the existence of a Creator, it is an atheist tradition.

Zen is not anti-reason, at least it shouldn't be, but Taoism might be... depends on who you ask. Anyway, your argument is flawed. Not being able to explain love through words doesn't mean that love is beyond reason, or better than reason. I'll argue that without reason you wouldn't know what love is. It would be just a pleasure sensation to you. Thanks to reason, you know that love is an incredible thing. We fantasize about love, romanticize, write poetry etc. all using reason. All of this makes love much more special than it actually is. And selfless compassion, not just obsession or attachment (not romantic love) , requires reason. What separates us from animals is reason. Do animals love? Not selflessly. They only love their own kin. Humans are able to selflessly love and be compassionate because, thanks to reason, we are able to analyze experience. I see reason as a necessity. It is the doorway between feelings, sensations, pleasures (all which animals possess) on the one hand and non-conceptual experience on the other (what you might call Tao). To surrender to Tao requires the thought 'I will let go because Tao is my true nature.' Without that intention there is no experience of Tao.

I'm serious. Who will help me build? There will be plenty of room. and we'll have a holodeck with life-like natural environments and Qi emitters to create a perfect setting for meditation. Just need to figure out the issue of energy consumption and traveling beyond light speed. But srsly.. i'm totally down to explore the multiverse..

My cousin sent me this recently... It's long but you won't need to watch the whole thing to get the picture. The point is that there will be a big crash soon in the Dollar once hyper inflation kicks in unless the Fed Reserve raises interest prices like crazy. Either way things aren't looking good for the future. Anyone want to build a spaceship?

Nothing Buddhist about what? I don't get your point. Buddhism is just a methodology to realize the true nature of existence. Whether or not other methodologies get to the same realization is debated by Buddhists, as you have probably seen in the countless threads here. The reason is because Buddhism does not view meditative or unitive experiences as the end goal. And Buddhist philosophy of mind sees an absolute necessity in syncing concepts with non-conceptual direct experience. All realizations are indeed effects of the methods employed, but you're assuming that the most profound realization is one that can be reached through completely different avenues. It is impossible to make a comparison with this. You have to see the Buddhist view of mind and especially the relation between concepts and experience. Merging the self into world is not, in the Buddhist paradigm, an experience that leads to complete insight. There is a very subtle conceptual grasping at a grand Self in unitive experiences. It is one thing to say all methods of dissolving the self lead to nondual experience, which seems to be true, but it's wrong to put Buddhism into that category. The goal of Buddhism is not to merge with everything.

Good debate: Rabbi David Wolpe and Sam Harris on the existence of God, science and religion, morality, etc. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fqd4sF1sdb8&feature=related

Buddha taught his disciples to question and never to accept any teachings without resolute inquiry. If you inquire into your experience and cannot find any permanence nor any innate controlling independent self, then impermanence and no-self are not doctrines of faith but statements of experience. What sort of Buddhist concepts of faith are you talking about? The essence of Buddhism is impermanence, cause and effect, and no-self. These are all concepts that are real facets of experience. All schools of Buddhism aim at the realization of these principles through different means.

Computer viruses are harmless compared to cancer or HIV

nice post apepch

I heard from a reliable source that BP will be sued (if they have any money left) for negligence. This could've been prevented with a special device, which I believe costs around 500k to install on each rig. Cheney was responsible for deregulating the installation of this device so that Oil companies could save money, but the person I spoke with knows one of the lawyers who will be suing BP and they said that this special device is meant to prevent things like this from happening.

Seems that Kum Nye is a massage healing modality. Perhaps similar to Tuina. Yantra Yoga is similar to Hatha Yoga and Qi Gong. Not sure how you can do Kum Nye yourself.. seems like it has to be done to you as a hands on massage therapy.

I've called you out twice already and challenged your statements in this thread but have not received a response. Challenging someones opinions doesn't just mean writing your own opinions with exclamation points.. it also requires you to back them up when challenged. You're not debating, you're just presenting your opinion. You guys are getting way too dramatic here. Let's all take a sip of some Cabernet and relax. Nobody is taking over the board. If you don't have interest in the topic then don't read or post here. Quite simply. These threads always seem to go downhill when people get personal and can't stick to the actual information that is being presented.

The topic is 'Advaita and Buddhism are the same.' The OP posted an article that talked about the similarities and thus this thread focused on the differences. The similarities are common knowledge to most here, and I mentioned them briefly in my post about differences between Western and Eastern religions. Oh and btw, I'll call you out on trying to paint me as a 'grim Buddhist with no sense of humor'. You don't know shit In the topic where I said 'Gross' in response to a joke, I was in fact joking too. And when I responded to Ralis about railing on Vajra, I did that because Ralis was not joking. You're new here so you don't know anyone. Get to know Ralis a bit and go see that these conversations are not something new here. They've been repeated couple times before.

there's no such thing as 'Original humans' -- this is the sort of idealistic thinking that white supremacists used to say that white Europeans were the 'original humans'. Fact is there is no such thing as original humans. Evolution doesn't stop for a single 'race' to keep their 'purity'. Yes humans originally came from Africa but Africans have the most genetically diverse DNA among themselves. There is no such thing as a 'pure' race, genetically. It is the same for cultures. There is no such thing as a 'pure' culture.

Not really. and why won't you respond to my reply to you? All you do is criticize and spread your opinion around (with exclamation points of course) without backing up anything you say with arguments. I still await your response. Why are all religions the same?

Gross!!

All traditional systems work the same way. If somebody has an issue then the problem is either physical, energetic, or mental. Always the problem is a habit of some sorts and the solution is to stop the habitual action and treat the effects directly. It could be either energetic, physical, or menetal. There is always one best solution Ignorance is perpetuated due to one primary cause: clinging to a self and believing in either an inherent self or an inherent world, both existing separately. In other words: becoming stuck in conceptual views. The solution is to deconceptualize and rehabituate to the new view. All religions aim to do this in one way or another, you could say. All take up new belief systems to recondition. Some belief systems are problematic and others are more fruitful. Devotion and surrender (lessens clinging to self) or purification (prana is tied to mind so nadis are purified) are the traditional methods but others exist too. The goal is the same toward nonduality by dissolving the self, the particular modality differ, but when it comes to treating the mental constructs Buddhism only sees one way. Buddhism is the only tradition that focuses on mental constructs. ALL other traditions view concepts as only existing temporarily until one is basked in God's glory or experiences Pure consciousness and then one is purified because that experience was totally pure. That isn't true. That experience was not pure because the conditions were not there. The conditions for a 'pure' experience only exist when one has removed the mental constructs of self AND inherency. All other traditions only get the first part but miss out on the latter. The deep mental construct of clinging to inherency does not disappear with clean nadis and purified central channel. Nor does it disappear if you're resting in turiya or deep jhanas. This mental construct only disappears once there is awareness of it and to be aware of it one must first realize it is there. You won't realize it's there until you recognize, through right view, why its problematic in the first place. And you won't worry about right view until you see the interdependent relationship between view and experience. Ignoring the mental layer of mind is to ignore an area of mind that totally distorts experience. Mind is like glass and if you ignore the mental layer you'll have smudges that distort light. Light does not burn through smudges, as is commonly believed. As different as we all are, we all have the same main affliction: clinging to inherency and the only solution to that is to see through that belief by accepting the groundless nature of reality. Believing in a monist consciousness is just reinforcing that clinging by positing a Grand Self to cling to. Instead of clinging to the small self you cling to the Big Self. How is that treating the problem?

ralis, will you respond to my post?

I think you nailed it. Advaita superimposes a Whole and identifies all events and appearances with that Whole. Buddhist realization sees through the existence of that 'Whole'. The experience of pure objectless consciousness, Oneness, is only relative to the belief in an ultimate Subject. Advaita is Parmenidean and it suffers the same problems that Parmenides' philosophy does, which is the problem of change. If you say that everything is one static whole then that makes change a problem. How is realization possible? Development is impossible if change is illusory. Buddhism is more Heraclitean: everything is always changing... but relatively it would seem that there is still identity within the constant flux that reality is. The relative cannot be denied. Physicists know this quite well. On a quantum level there is no such thing as solidity and constancy, but try punching a wall.. you'll soon see that the relative is equally as important. I'll check out the links tomorrow.... sweet!

Let's talk plainly and simply. Goal of Advaita in normal language is pure objectless consciousness, centerless and nondual. All phenomena are identified with consciousness AS consciousness, do you agree?

So, if somebody has a certain illness you're saying there isn't one best way to treat them? I'm sure singing in the rain and juggling oranges will cure someone somewhere of depression but that doesn't mean that is equally as good of a method as say self-inquiry, which is generally a great method of seeing through the self. I'm generalizing here. I'm sure some depressed fellow out there just needs a good juggle to feel happy. This is the problem with radical nondual teachings. You're so stuck on the absolute level that you can't see that the relative is extremely important. How can you really say that that general valuations are impossible to make? How can all religions possibly have the same valuation? I'm not doubting that each religion has had some highly realized beings but generally speaking Eastern traditions have produced SO MANY more realized beings. It's like saying all universities are the same because they all focus on education... Well, yeah that's true but I'd much rather get an education from Princeton or Chicago than Bumblefuck Community College. I'm sure some lucky fellow that goes to the latter will come out quite education but statistically speaking good institutions produce smart people. It's simple cause and effect which is something radical nondual traditions deny because how can you have change and differentiation when everything is One? I think you mean Thusness's Stage 7 which is realizing that all phenomena, including self, are interdependently arising with no cause, no source. This is basically the most refined view that you can have without getting stuck in concepts. The goal of Buddhism is non-conceptual wisdom, to see reality as it is, while also having a sync between that non-conceptual wisdom and conceptual intellect. The way you do that is through understanding dependent origination. It is a deconceptualizing method that leads to a sync between the conceptual and the non-conceptual. The nonconceptual is beyond language, of course, but it can be pointed to through DO. The reason why DO is the best pointing is because it doesn't posit an ultimate source nor an ultimate One background, both of which are conceptual barriers. All that DO does is point to reality as it is before you but without any fantasies of "Everything is one." One is a concept that depends on the previous memory of two. Without two, there is no one. Without no 'one' there is just phenomena appearing as sound, sight, thought, feelings, all of various degree. These appearances are not inside nor outside, they simply are. Self is just an appearance too. So there are only appearances and they arise dependent on various conditions. There is nothing behind appearances. Appearances themselves are divine. There is no container of appearances, no ultimate source, no ultimate anything. There is simply this moment which is whatever is arising at that moment which arises due to conditions set in motion by previous appearances. The appearances of this moment only arise due to the conditions created by the appearances of the previous moment, and so on backwards to infinity. That is all that DO means. Now if you're inquisitive you can analyze your experience and see if it's any different. That's the point. Nobody is saying "believe this!" That's dumb. You gotta investigate your own phenomenological experience. In my experience Buddhism is the most accurate at describing how reality is without mental fantasies and beliefs. DO, the way I explained it, is the way my experience is. I'm not enlightened since I'm still caught in habitual delusions most of the time.. but if I have clarity then I see it cannot be any other way. I suck at meditating too btw. It's not hard to see this though. Just be honest and investigate your experience. Is there anything except appearances?