Cheshire Cat

The highest form of buddhism? Ah yes, It was traditionally practiced on top of the highest mountains in the world.

Ok, this is good. But how does this apply to those cultivators who seek to embody the principle of "If you see the Buddha, kill the Buddha"? Everything apart from the Real Nature is garbage which a buddhist should get rid of. In this view, I ask "If I cultivate enlightenment, I cut false thoughts... how could it be that one could get compassion out of this?" Compassion is a set of thoughts which one should intentionally cultivate, if he wants to have them. For example, vajrayana practice involves specific visualization and prayers to get compassion. As a daoist, I see Ch'an buddhism as the most high form of cultivation of Xing. How could one cultivate compassion with zazen? Equanimity at the very least... yet, one seeks to get rid even of this.

It seems that meditation with eyes open is useful for detaching oneself from the eye-consciousness... in other words, to transform even the eye-consciousness trough meditation: it's like training vs. atrophy. I can't speak from experience because it's a recent thing for me. It makes sense.

Very interesting thread. Thank you! :-) I'm interested in compassion because I can't really get it in a bodhisattvic way. I cultivate emptiness and the understanding of the three characteristics, but compassion doesn't come from emptiness in my experience. Ok, I'm not a good practitioner but I can't see any compassion growing in a long frame of time ... is it a thing that pop-up suddenly? Who is it that have compassion? To whom I should be compassionate? I have no compassion for what I generally consider to be myself. How could I see trough illusion with compassion? It's like crossing a river with a plate armor. Please, clarify this matter.

Well... the mahayana sutras teach to meditate with your eyes 1/3 open. So, do the Golden Flower manual. It seems to be a good idea to meditate with the eyes open.

This is interesting. I've read something about this on Michael Winn's articles. Mantak Chia said that his teacher was proficient in this form of Bigu (in which one lives on Qi from the environment). The main point in bigu is that one shouldn't loss weight, nor be angry.

Trance states cultivation is said to be Du-Yin cultivation. Du-Yin is the yin side of your consciousness, the guy who plays when you are sleeping. It's like a state in which you talk to everyone, but you don't remember what you've just said. It's known in chinese buddhism and daoism as well. What are the benefits of cultivating such a state? Well, it's a state in which one could perform supernatural feats, like mind-reading, shamanic journeying. This is not a 100% reliable method. The most succesful people in this cultivation are called shamans and their abilities with the yin ghost is far beyond the ordinary mind. In cultivating enlightment, one naturally develop such a thing, an illusory body, an emanation body which is invisible to everyone This body can see distant place, but it cannot be touched by others. The stage beyond this is the yang shen emanation body which is tangible and can move objects.

I have a culinary question... or nearby. I bought a lot of goji berries from China (Tibet) and, after eating a few of them, I discovered that they are full of pesticids. Some of them could be prohibited in Europe. Be careful when buying goji berries! My question is: How could I clean them in the most efficient way? Looking for something "strong" like an anti-radiations treatment haha

If we say that anything is good or evil because it is either good or evil in our eyes, then there is nothing which is not good, nothing which is not evil. To know that Yao and Chieh were both good and both evil from their opposite points of view, — this is the expression of a standard. (Master Chuang-Tzu) Please, Don't criticize them; they are just what we would be under similar circumstances (Abraham Lincoln)

The two plagues that western medicine cannot cures are sight-problem (myopia, etc) and hair-loss. There isn't even a valid explanation of this strange things. What does the TCM say about this matter? Thank you

Please, can you speak about those experiences in general terms? Physical changes, visions, psychic phenomena, etc..?

This is your heart, not the heart of Islam. "Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah ; and those with him are forceful against the disbelievers, merciful among themselves. You see them bowing and prostrating [in prayer], seeking bounty from Allah and [His] pleasure. Their mark is on their faces from the trace of prostration. That is their description in the Torah. And their description in the Gospel is as a plant which produces its offshoots and strengthens them so they grow firm and stand upon their stalks, delighting the sowers - so that Allah may enrage by them the disbelievers. Allah has promised those who believe and do righteous deeds among them forgiveness and a great reward" (Qu'ran Surah 48:29)

Today, burning people alive is bad because we're humans and today we believe that we all share the same importance as human beings. In the past, burning normal people alive was bad, but in common believes there were corrupted human beings that were not as important as the others. So, they saw nothing bad in burning them. In your eyes, you can gain more merits in helping a muslim brother or in helping a wiccan? You are a good-hearted person and you will never burn someone alive, but you can see there is a slight difference in the way you see two distinct human beings. In the hard times of the past where human rights didn't exist, this difference between human beings was much more relevant than today.

Although witch hunting is a really depraved activity, most of those involved with it weren't aware of their fallacies because they imagined to be right. They were convinced of the rightness of their horrible actions as christians of today are convinced that Christ is the saviour of humanity and Muslim are convinced that Mohammed is the last Prophet. It's all about Faith. We judge their actions adn they were horrible, but if we dare to judge their Faith, then we shall judge our own believes first. How could we do such thing? Said that, I want to point out that alchemy has nothing to do with witchery stuff or satanic rituals. It's not magic at all. It's a science of the Soul and those who know how to operate, know this immediately... as you you know that to build a car has nothing to do with a Catholic Mass. In fact, this alchemist doesn't consider witches as practitioner of this sacred science and he killed them in the same way as most of us want to kill pedophiles. Witches (allegedly) were doing a different things which were against the laws of that time.

Cool songs. I like lions too. Once, I taught a lion to eat tofu

Please, can you speak about the specific signs associated with this mantra? Thank you! :-)

I can totally share this point of view. Yet, the only thing that I consider objectively real is the Nature of the Self. Beliefs and Faiths are Thoughts and if one is attached to them, he cannot see his true nature. Experiences are thoughts as well, and if one is attached to them, he cannot see his true nature. Because Faiths and Experiences perform the same function in obscuring reality, in my opinion they share the same value. If one is strongly attached to his Faith, then much of "what he is" is that religion and to tolerate attacks to that religion is like tolerating a strong personal attack. In this case, the ordinary mind simply cannot see clearly because this mind itself is seriously threathened. People always lack self-critique for this very reason. So, I always tried to figure out what I can expect from "believers". Sages of the past used to exploit Faith to point the Real because certain people have faith in the same way that we have eyes.

If you want to know the theory, lust is empty and emptiness is lust...

In addition to what GrandmasterP said, I add that Crowley claimed to be nothing less then Taishang Lao Jun. He claimed to be Laotzu... this is quite unlikely.

Since we are talking about Islam so much, I dare to ask a question about it. I've heard that people choose Islam as their religion because of the Noble Qu' ran which is quite poetic in a religious sense. Although, one should be able to read arabic to benefit from the beautiful prose. The wondrous thing is that the prophet Mohammed wasn't a great literate as much to be able to write a text appreciated as the Qu' ran on his own. So, it is said that this text comes from divine inspiration. In the book of Arthur Avalon about tantra "The power of the serpent", you can find a translation of an extremely important tantric text which is known as Shatchakra Nirupana (description of the six chakras). One the first siddhis which one gets from chakra openings is Poetry! The illiterate became a wondrous sage and his words are so beautiful that the text says "the richness of his words of nectar flows in prose and verse with a well-reasoned speech". In my opinion, the prophet Mohammed could have this realization. Also the Sufis are well known for their wondrous poetry. So, I may guess the existence of a pre-islamic spiritual tradition from which the Prophet could have taken some spiritual guidance to achieve such a result. We know that the Prophet (pbbh) was skilled in meditation in the cave of Hira. But I think that someone could have teach to him how to sit and meditate. This tradition could survive amongst the Sufis of modern times. Is this thing acceptable from a muslim point of view?

In my opinion, if it was all fiction... then the authors are quite crazy. The story of a man who can hardly claims regal lineage (the gospel try to say that he comes from King David's, but it's a fictional genealogy). His disciples were definitely not "spiritual people". No one of his disciples was recorded as a noble person in the gospels (for comparison, look at the Buddha's disciples). He was betrayed by Judas, one of his closest friends... so close to him that he was the money-keeper of the group. If Judas betrayed him for 30 silver coins... then the group was much poorer. That means that his teachings weren't much regarded by the public. The only spiritual guy in the story who allegedly said something good about him is John the Baptist... a desert ascetic who considered Jesus as the son of God, but strangely he preferred to stay on his own instead of following him and his brigands band. Then he died of an infamous death and a few womens saw him resurrect (womens in that patriarcal society... like saying "a few mad blind children saw a flying horse in the sky"). His enemies were not punished. Instead, they lived a happy long life. Instead of showing himself to all the people who didn't believed in him, he preferred to keep paradise as a special gift to those who blindly believes in his followers.

This thread looks like the springtime of the Buddhas

Yes, this is true. If the text is old enough, then it is valuable. But the essene Gospel of Zekely was invented in the 1900's. There's nothing authentic in it. It's like a fiction... Yogi Ramacharaka's style.

In the historical Matthew, Mr. Peter replied to Jesus. In this fraudulent text however, Mr. John is the most intelligent amongst disciples

Well guys, I've done a little research on the quotations. It's not from a canonical gospel (as I thought it was from Mattew). It comes from a text called "The essene gospel of Peace" or something similar published by Mr. Zekely between 1923 and 1924. He claimed that the original manuscript was from an aramaic manuscript which he found in the Vatican's secret archives. Yet, this text doesn't exist at all. To make a long story short, this gospel is an historical fraud.