tyler zambori

At this point I'm more interested in how the Taoist raft is better than teh other two rafts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddha-nature And I quote: Hmm.....Buddha nature is a truly real and pure, internally hidden immortal potency. Different term than Self, same thing. Denying it is pure BS. In fact, not only does one have a Self, one has a BUDDHA SELF, named after the founder of the religion. That's clinging all right! Personally, I'd rather not have my ahem SELF be dependent on the founder of any particular religion.

Oh, the Buddhists believe in a Self all right, they just don't want to admit it. At this point I'm more interested in how Taosim is superior to both Buddhism and Advaita.

looks to me like the little kid is falling down on purpose.

Muslims are always productive, happy, and at peace? Gimme a break.

And do you think such a person would be interested in proving that siddhis exist to the world? I doubt it. Such a person would have other priorities. As for not believing in siddhis as a protection against falling into a cult, even that doesn't work. You don't need to have any stinking siddhis in order to have a cult! Did you know that the Amway company, a multi-level marketing company specializing in selling soap, is listed as a cult on the RickRoss website? And when I was in my screenwriting class, it turned out that a fellow student had been in an acting cult. Yes, they were going to go off to Los Angeles and become famous together. Cult thinking is even scarier and more widespread than that, even. You don't even need a charismatic leader and a group to get it going. But if faced with such a group, you don't have to look for believing or not believing in siddhis for a litmus test. I would say the things to look out for are: do they treat you with disrespect, and do they try to get you give up your independence? Do they try to coerce you into anything at all? Also, look at their ethics. Bad ethics will start to show up in small ways, pretty quick. That's just a rough idea of what *I* would look for.

Yes, even pointing out striving is striving!

IMO, she is making it black and white because she needs to. But many of us don't need to. I predict that she won't allow any room in the middle of the spectrum, but the rest of us can and will do so as we please. It's often hard to tell the Bullshitters from somebody who might actually have experienced something. Yeah, I agree that a lot of this stuff is just immature, real or not. I think that is another explanation why don't see people going out to prove it. I consider kind of insulting that she considers anybody who doesn't think the way she does, to be brainwashed, but that is all about her, not anybody else. Because if we do follow her way of thinking, the brainwashing factor could very well still be at work. Notice she did not use the scientific method in thinking about her own experiences when she converted over to the "science jargon" way of thinking. She just simply became a convert.

Those who meditate and do.

Wow, that took courage to post, thanks for being open about it. I do take issue with something, but I do not mean to put you down in any way. Are you really sure that you came to your conclusion that "psychic powers" are basically all fake, by really scientific means? I ask, because I don't think so. For example: "It was the end of last period class in junior high and I knew, I just knew, with total certainty, who was going to be called down to the office during the afternoon announcements. Sure enough within a minute or two of my perception, the announcements began and the first two people called were the names that had popped into my head. My whole body began to shake because I thought I was a mutant. I thought this was the beginning of me becoming Carrie or Firestarter." How was it that later you decided you didn't really know who was going to be chosen after all? (If I'm understanding you correctly). You can't "cold read" something like that. Also: "I had my first full out of body experience when I was fifteen. My new foster parents had just grounded me for a week for some misdeed or other. Coincidentally I had just been to the mall and bought 'Opening the Energy Gates of Your Body' and the 'Astral Projection Workbook'. It so happened that I set aside OTEGOYB first and got to work with astral projection. For twelve hours I tried to rise up or fall backwards out of my body. Hour after hour I tried. Finally, I was so tired that I literally collapsed forward onto my face, all tension and effort left me as I crashed into the mattress and then I was staring down at my body from the ceiling." Also, how did you decide that this experience also was not real after the fact, when you did expereince it as real at the time you had it? Could it not also be that you needed to reinforce facing your tendency to desire for power with the scientific position (and jargon) on the matter, to help you get off of that track? I was also involved with an occult group, and they did not have quite as many "powers" as they wanted people to believe, but they had some, and they used them to really bad ends. They also did not have their act together on the physical plane - they did not have decent jobs, could not afford good food, and were always on the verge of being kicked out of their apartment by the landlord. Seriously they would have been far better off becoming something like money-grubbing lawyers than doing what they were doing because it was the worst form of what the Hindus call "Tamas." The reason I'm pointing this out, is that maybe in the future I will have a reason to want to talk about things going on with me that have to do with "powers" without feeling like I have to turn myself into a petri dish. So I will give one exampole from my own experience: When I was in the process of getting help with leaving that occult group, the woman who was helping me wanted to see for herself something about me, so she put this ring in the palm of my hand to see if I could feel anything. So I stood there for a minute or so with the ring sitting on my skin and felt nothing. It looked like the would be no reaction, so she took the ring off my skin. Then the reaction happened - painful chi in my hand. I said that my hand was starting to hurt, and she performed her own technique for getting it to stop, and it did. Ok, she was a friend of a friend, and there was no exchange of money. If the power of hypnotic suggestion was so good that it could cause me to feel this pain my hand, why could't I use this in better ways? Why couldn't I use this all the time, in every way? I've tried self-hypnosis, and lemme tell ya it does nothing for me. In fact, that occult group had actually wanted to hypnotize me to get me better under their control, but in the end decided it would be too much work. She told me afterward she had picked up the ring somewhere in Russia, and knew it had an evil influence on it. (er. why did she want it then?) I dunno...but she helped me for no money. That was the extent of the involvement. I am able to feel nice happy chi too. I don't see auras or go chasing after OBE's. I would much rather make a successful film than get occult powers over people. I think the reason nobody really took the amazing Randi up on his challenge, is just because a human is not a petri dish. For example. would I want to do that ring experiment on national tv, even for a lot of money? Heck no. How would I even prove that I was experiencing pain from having touched the ring? I couldn't. And then there is the psychic barrage of skepticism. Sorry, no thank you. And yet it was real. The fact that I cannot, and would not want to, turn myself into a petri dish, doesn't mean I didn't experience it. Congratulations to you on snapping yourself out of the hunger for power, it takes a lot of courage to face that and deal with it.

Faith in what? rewarded by who?

boy there are some real tea afficionados here ! I like the Fresh & Easy brand decaf Black tea with chocolate flavor. Nothing Asian about that I guess. And I cook it in the microwave.

Buddhists talk about a "true nature" all the time, yet I have not seen one that could give me a definition of what that is. That means they don't even know what that is. So then why use the term at all? TzuJanLi, you are pretty danged smart. I like that bit about turds in a punch bowl. I will apply that to myself.

So are you saying the "I" is the ego? You must be! But Buddhism is not the only religion that says the ego is an illusion.

There's a way around that. What I do when I switch to working the night shift for a show. I sleep a normal night the night before, then get up for a while , then go back to bed from about noon to 10 pm. Then get up. Then I take GABA and melatonin every morning before sleeping. It mitigates a lot of the negative health effects of being up all night.

I'm going to start eating raw fish. Yeah that's it: open up the fancy ceviche recipe book. It's fortunate that we now have a decent fresh fish market.

Usually I buy t-shirts for a buck at the thrift shop. Right now I'm wearing a t-shirt that says: "Freedom to Control your Casino's destiny: WMS Max Your Edge." I got it for free when a show I was working was over. The booth-builder gave it to me. hehehe Not exactly *spiritual* I guess....

Who cares if you don't care that I don't like it? Yeah, this is not mentioned in that document. This is what I mean. Only indirectly - only by mentioning that direct realization is also important. Come on! This document has about the most sectarian viewpoint one could possibly come up with. I guess, according to this, the Taoist practice of chanting the healing sounds is heretical. Also, no guru or devotee could be pure enough for these guidelines, so what is left? Submitting oneself to the guru anyway? Yeah, you betcha, that is how it works.

Ok, *how* does being well versed in scriptures make a good teacher? besides the fact I don't personally like Hindu scriptures, I would state that there are far better criteria. In other words, it takes far more than that, and simply regurgitating old bloated yet worhipped words doesn't cut it.

I don't see any common sense in that document. It's all Hindu Fundamentalist Hogwash, sorry to say, especially the bit about the teacher being well versed in Hindu scriptures. But then I don't think much of Hindu scriptures. I am not Buddhist either, but Alexander Berzin's book on having a healthy relationship with a spiritual teacher is a whole lot better. http://www.berzinarchives.com/web/x/nav/group.html_1305527811.html

Oh! Oh! Judging! That isn't very humble!

I managed to get one without having humility. But being willing to strive for truth seems somehow more basic than having humility towards another person.

What literature, specifically, is that?

Very nice animation!