Simple_Jack

In Vajrayana, you receive certain commitments related to practice or conduct, when receiving an empowerment. What ChNN is talking about is when one continues in the state of rigpa, there is no need to follow or uphold any other complex commitments. When one continues in a state of rigpa: All samaya's of body, speech and mind are fulfilled, without conducting oneself in an artificially contrived way.

Sensual passions are your first army. Your second is called Discontent. Your third is Hunger & Thirst. Your fourth is called Craving. Fifth is Sloth & Drowsiness. Sixth is called Terror. Your seventh is Uncertainty. Hypocrisy & Stubbornness, your eighth. Gains, Offerings, Fame, & Status wrongly gained, and whoever would praise self & disparage others. That, Namuci, is your army, the Dark One's commando force. A coward can't defeat it, but one having defeated it gains bliss. Do I carry muñja grass? I spit on my life. Death in battle would be better for me than that I, defeated, survive. Sinking here, they don't appear, some brahmans & contemplatives. They don't know the path by which those with good practices go. Seeing the bannered force on all sides — the troops, Mara along with his mount — I go into battle. May they not budge me from my spot. That army of yours, that the world with its devas can't overcome, I will smash with discernment — as an unfired pot with a stone. ~ Padhana Sutta Conquerors are those like me who have reached fermentations' end. I've conquered evil qualities, and so, Upaka, I'm a conqueror ~ Ariyapariyesana Sutta

In Dzogchen, bodhicitta is already present as the compassion/energy of the basis. I don't know who translated this. Garchen Rinpoche doesn't speak English.

Which is why I think this needs to be clarified more often, that the body of light is really a type of realization and not about physical signs of the body.

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FYI, Buddha refutes the views of Samkhya in the Mulapariyaya Sutta http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.001.than.html: "He directly knows water as water... the All as the All... "He directly knows Unbinding as Unbinding. Directly knowing Unbinding as Unbinding, he does not conceive things about Unbinding, does not conceive things in Unbinding, does not conceive things coming out of Unbinding, does not conceive Unbinding as 'mine,' does not delight in Unbinding. Why is that? Because he has known that delight is the root of suffering & stress, that from coming-into-being there is birth, and that for what has come into being there is aging & death. Therefore, with the total ending, fading away, cessation, letting go, relinquishment of craving, the Tathagata has totally awakened to the unexcelled right self-awakening, I tell you." That is what the Blessed One said. Displeased, the monks did not delight in the Blessed One's words." In Yogacara, 'alaya-vijnana' is impermanent and differentiated, not a 'universal consciousness.' You see! This is why we can't get along on this forum!

It was bound to fail, especially on a forum where people's proclivities are so diverse. What "Buddhism" teaches, goes against everything that most people here believe in. No matter how much you try to subvert that by saying "all paths lead to the One." "Hindus" in India knew that. Though, we can't say that "Hindus" are able to actually comprehend what Buddha was getting at. The ones that did converted. I think we can respect each other, instead of just merely tolerating each other.

Some archived posts of Malcolms:

http://www.atikosha.org/:

The "clear light," is not any kind of experiential state of light http://www.vajracakra.com/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=278&hilit=clear+light+visions+of+light&start=20: The "child clear light," represents the "clear light of the path." The "mother clear light," represents the fruition (aka. Buddhahood) that is inseparable from the ground/base. This is why there is the explanation of the ground/base, path and fruition rigpa. Malcolm was once asked to be a teacher of Dzogchen by Kunzang Dechen Lingpa Rinpoche, but declined for whatever reason (http://thetaobums.com/topic/25953-breath-meditation-experience/?p=388431.) IRL, a scholar-practitioner doesn't have to be a contradiction. With avidya the 5 pure lights manifest as the 5 elements. With vidya they are the 5 pure lights, which are not posited as real in Dzogchen (the 5 lights itself are unestablished in Dzogchen.) I personally think you should find an authentic teacher to help you properly understand the teachings of Dzogchen and for general guidance in the path. In the meantime, you can ask the folks over on vajracakra on all things Vajrayana related. There are certain practitioners who post on there who have the knowledge and experience from years of practice. You can ask about general things related to Dzogchen without the worry of breaking any samaya.

I think that this can apply to human cultural developments as a whole and not just one particular civilization. Since you brought up Buddhism: What do have to say about the actual causes of Buddhism's disappearance from India? You know like the instability of the post-Gupta period and the Muslim invasions of the 13th century? How prevalent is the idea that Shankara defeated the Buddhists in debate and chased them and their ideology out of the Indian sub-continent? Just asking because we both know that it's common to hear things like Buddha being an avatar of Vishnu: Who came to correct mistaken teachings/practices that became prevalent in India or other nonsense that has been propagated and widely believed by "Hindus."

Just watching the first 40 minutes of this, I was like "WTF ...." I did not know that these kind of distortions and attitudes were prevalent in Western scholarship. I thought that Gulabchand, Malhotra and the older woman at the end had the most balanced perspectives. I think they had it right, when they summed up the blame as ultimately falling on the Indians for letting things get that way in the academic study of their culture.

We would have to revisit the OP's question and ask which parts of paganism are being compared to specific aspects of Daojia or Chinese culture as a whole. Which is why I said the question is ambiguous.

For our ancestors the environment was a living organism, something that was alive. This can still be seen with communities that have retained their traditional beliefs; such as the communities of the Andes, the tribal peoples of Africa, etc. What I meant by primitive is that as the ancient peoples of China started to form civilizations made up of states, empires and then a unified country: Their previous knowledge evolved into more complex systems of thought through the use of logical analysis. The development of a system of ideals through the use of logic is what characterizes that difference [of course I'm not separating this from ideals of a metaphysical nature either. I'm including this as evolving from mystical experiences also.] I don't think the nostalgic glorification of the hunter-gatherer way of life of our ancestors is the answer to the neurosis of modern society. The sages of ancient China wanted to save and uplift their country and they came up with their own ideals of how people can live harmoniously within society. Though I would find it interesting to discuss how being raised in a modern industrialized society has alienated people from their connection to the natural world and how this relates to the dimming of our 'ecological awareness,' in relation to communities that have retained their traditional beliefs. I like to look at our development as sentient beings as a continual wave of rising and declining, in contrast to a linear descent into madness where the cycle then starts all over again. What I was trying to say in my previous posts is that the ways of expressing "Dao," was continually evolving in Chinese society. I personally don't take what's expressed in the TTC as if from the day we are born we are losing our "Way" or that society is gradually losing its "Way" from an "enlightened past." I think understanding this concept in Chinese society would take looking at the history of its cultural development and the relation to today's form of "Daoism." This means looking at the classics of the Yellow Emperor and the Yijing; the incorporation of the Yin-Yang school into Daojia's thought or the influences from Zhuangzi, Liezi and others. By the way I'm not asking anyone to agree with me. EDIT: Sentence structure/punctuation.

The period of the "Hundred Schools of Thought" before the rise of the Qin dynasty; that's what I was trying to refer to. I can see how Laozi's ideals on rulership of a country were influenced by the tumultuous period of the Spring and Autumn/Warring States period (depending on which timeline attributed to when Laozi was alive and composed the TTC.) Though Confucius's model of social structure and ruling a country are definitely more practical. The belief system laid out on the website would be considered dogma to a materialist/physicalist or an atheist....just sayin (you could group them all under a form of nihilism.)

I wasn't inferring that those early (or modern) societies were ignorant or superstitious. Admittedly, saying that they are "primitive" is denoting them as inferior from the perspective of Western developments in history leading up to the industrial age. Sure I can agree that early CHINESE CULTURAL development stems from the belief system and practices of China's tribal ancestors. Though, in terms of its of philosophies that relate to both the societal and individual level there is a recorded history of thinkers that shaped the later developments of Chinese society. We would have have to ask based off of the surviving belief systems of the descendents of ancient peoples or civilizations around today: What is it that they intuitively understand? Can we unanimously compare these aspects with Lao-Zhuangs philosophical ideals? Does this depend on the person and what they interpret onto the teachings of Lao-Zhuang? (thanks to the fact that there aren't many translated works and the ones we do have are both cryptic and vague.)

In Buddhism, what's carried on is an ever changing conditioned stream of psycho-physical processes that are neither the same nor different from the previous life (http://www.budsas.org/ebud/ebdha058.htm.) Honestly, I don't even know why Buddhist principles were even brought up in the first place in this thread.... I apologize again to sinansencer for hijacking the thread. EDIT: There is a reason why 'reincarnation' is called 'rebirth' in Buddhism.

Can you really compare the deep philosophical principles of Laozi's thought on the ideal rulership of a governmental system or it's utmost principles of human nature to the primitive belief systems of tribal communities? Lao-Zhuang's development into a complex and comprehensive system of ethics, meditation, astrology, etc, was a continual development throughout China's history: With the development of it's metaphysical and world view, stemming from influences from many different thinkers of China's native philosophies and from the continual wave of influence of Buddhism on Chinese society.

In Buddhism that would be conditioned from 'contact.' Which is the conditioned meeting of sense consciousness, sense object and sense organ. This applies to to the physical and metaphysical levels; to the most ordinary and sublime states of consciousness; to the most mundane and mystical experiences. This is covered in the Brahmajala Sutta and the Maha-nidana Sutta for example. From the Mahayana Surangama Sutra: This is covered with the 5 skandha model, which are looked at as conditioning factors which mutually gives rise to certain experiences (i.e. the sensation/feeling skandha.) Sinansencer, I apologize for hijacking your thread.

Can you clarify and back up this statement with examples of philosophical developments that were based off "prehistoric shamanism"?

There are more unorthodox and (dare I say) "Shamanic" practices which are part of Tibetan Buddhism and Bon. Dzogpachenpo for instance is based off of sounds, lights and rays.