Simple_Jack

It's not like someone was holding a gun to your head and forcing you to read discussions, articles or to pursue Buddhist practices. Are you basically equating your "forced conversion" to the situation of say...The natives of Central and South America, who were forcibly converted to Christianity when the Conquistadors arrived? Buddhism states that those are just latent attachments in the mind-stream of the individual which are being super-imposed over the experiences from meditation and yogic pursuits. I will agree though that Buddhism is not the ideology to seek if you want confirmation of the Atman-Brahman as an absolute reality...Or any sort of "reality" for that matter.

Lol. What do you mean you "got converted?" I thought it was your conscious decision to try it out?

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That's interesting. Was this ever mentioned by Dudjom Rinpoche or anyone else within the Dudjom Tersar lineage?

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Lol, I noticed that you quoted this from the "Aro gTer" people.

This is an ambiguous question. In the same way, you can say that "Daoism" has a great similarity to Buddhism, because it borrowed heavily from the latter.

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I thought they postponed mining for at least another 6 months or whatever?

Please, don't try to force your obsessions & biases onto me sir. In any case, I don't ascribe to the limitations of the Pali canon as the final authority on Buddhism. Parroting what Malcolm once said: "The state of Dzogchen is Buddhahood. Whoever practices Dzogchen is trying to integrate with that state. A Dzogchen without Buddhism is not possible, since Dzogchen represents the goal of all paths, whether non-Buddhist or Buddhist. That goal is buddahood or full awakening.....The function of Dzogchen, Mahāmudra, Perfection of Wisdom is to transcend limitations, not to stay bound in them." End of thread.

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Exactly. The part about the arhats, has been described as if 'taking a very long vacation' from cyclical existence. It's pretty much standard for Mahayana, to describe those arhats as eventually reentering cyclical existence after their merit of attaining that state exhausts itself (which is described as lasting '84,000' eons, representing a very, very long time.) Though, arhats supposedly regress to the state of a never returner and not to the state of ordinary sentient beings.

In Mahayana both samsara and nirvana are unestablished, hence they are inseparable. The goal in Mahayana is buddhahood, which is not established in the extremes of samsara nor nirvana. This is standard Mahayana of both the '2nd' and '3rd turning,' whether it's from China, Korea, Japan, Vietnam, etc. Why because you say so? Please, don't try to push your biases onto me sir. Not with deluded cognition, but through liberating insight. Which is gained when one hears/reads, reflects on and meditates on the meaning of the teachings. The basis of which are the 4 noble truths and 8-fold noble path.

I think that Zen master Dogen has some of the best ways of phrasing the above:

Actually, alwayson is spot on when he says the goal of Mahayana is buddhahood and not nirvana. This is the gist of the differences in goals between Hinayana and Mahayana: From the Dzogchen side of things: I hope you understand that Samantabhadra represents the realization of Dzogchen and is not a form of "Buddhist monism."

This is only one aspect of the nature of mind, the other aspect is it's 'empty' nature. The nature of mind is described as the indivisibility of empty-luminosity.

I first heard of it from the book list off of Daniel Ingram's website, lol. http://integrateddaniel.info/book-list/: He's the author of "Mastering The Core Teachings of the Buddha: An Unusually Hardcore Dharma Book." Amitibha's Sukhavati and other Pure Lands are a huge part of Tibetan Buddhism. All the different schools/sub-schools have their own version of a pure land practice. Are you familiar with phowa teachings? If you're able to accept D.O. on some level, than why invest so much energy in attempting to reconcile it with the Atman-Brahman of Advaita? I'm sure you realize that what you're positing goes against like 99.9999999999% of commentaries and authored books that are out today? Mahayana (I'm using this as an umbrella term for all sects,) deals a lot with distinguishing the differences between the nirvana of Hinayana. For the most part, it distinguishes that Mahayana doesn't fall into the extremes of nirvana like Hinayana does; since both samsara and nirvana are unestablished in Mahayana, clinging to the cessation of the Hinayana arhats/pratyekabuddha's is said to be a major breakage of one's bodhisattva vows (this is the point which Mahayana always brings up, at least.)

There was a form of Tantrism in Sri Lanka, but it died out. Theravada is the dominant form of Buddhism in that country. http://www.buddhanet.net/sacred-island/nalanda.html

"Whoever sees Dependent Origination sees the Dhamma; whoever sees the Dhamma sees Dependent Origination." [M.I.191] I knew this. This isn't unknown. I'm sure there a good number of people who know that this came before the Visuddhimagga.

Correction: Arhats and pratyekabuddhas represent non-afflictive ignorance (or the sravaka and pratyekabuddha vehicles represent a non-afflictive ignorance.)

Hmmm, I've always thought that cutting back just stalled the inevitable purification of habit energies. That's just me though, I'm not commenting on what's right for each individual. That's an Interesting take on 'mindfulness' practice: Usually your supposed to keep 'mindful' of the attachments, aversions and neutral feelings/reactions that arise according to whatever is experienced (not saying the above is wrong.)

ChNN, teaches that Dzogchen is an independent vehicle or set of teachings unto itself (which encompass all 9 vehicles.) Apparently, the Nyingma sect originally held to this, but due to the growing pressures of the influence of the Sarma schools: They started advocating a gradual approach, which culminated in receiving the Dzogchen teachings after going through training in the lower vehicles.