Vmarco

Before suicide,...I would concider this: http://www.lobsangrampa.org/ebooks/I_Believe_-_T.Lobsang_Rampa.pdf It may help with the shock after death. Nice story,...hate the title.

Question 1, 2, 3,....Lao Tzu said, "Who can enjoy enlightenment and remain indifferent to suffering in the world? This is not keeping with the Way?" Question 4,...It is impossible to uncover a realization of Emptiness, if one feels trapped and forced to forced to live amongst unhappiness. Keep in mind, as you struggle with the simplicity of waking up,...Nirvana is merely the flip-side of Samsara,...and just as impermanent. Buddha was Buddha, because he popped the whole alaya. http://www.chronicleproject.com/stories_88.html

I summarized why Islam will quickly follow the collapse of Christianity,..previously in this thread,... As to another point you mentioned,...I don't consider myself an atheist, however, the atheist woman in the below link is very insightful. http://atheistexperience.blogspot.com/2009/03/do-moderate-christians-enable.html

I'm often amazed at how few people, especially Tea Party types, who don't have a clue about the Constitution. America is one nation under a Constitution. Although the Constitution sets up a representative democracy, it specifically was amended with the Bill of Rights in 1791 to uphold individual and minority rights. On constitutional matters we do not have majority rule. The majority has no right to tyrannize the minority on matters such as race, gender, or religion. And yet, the majority feel that a majority can indeed tyrannize the minority.

Agreed! All Buddhists and Daoists I have communed with personally, are very open to the subjects I've typed out on TTB,...however, when the non-verbal interaction is removed, it's a fully different exchange. From the first post I read of yours, I felt that the universe would vanish for hours upon hours if we had a sharing in person between us,...as I have had with others with level of openness.

I love their winter collection.

Is the Constitutionally illegal motto "In god we trust" on every denomination of money you come across? That has a direct relationship with your everyday experiences. Since the Joseph McCarthy Era, during the post-World War II years, Christianity has infiltrated nearly every aspect of the United States government, trimming that wall of separation into a small hedge, which now, inescapably, allows their beliefs to pollute our everyday environment with its virulent, theocratic moralistic views. These views may have all the good intentions of its faithful, yet that does not reduce the irrationality of the superstition or diminish the threat to the nation of my birth from that faith’s agenda for a monotheistic, theocratic government. The U.S. Constitution is not a body of laws that evolves at the whim of the majority. Many Christians, however, in their pursuit of a Christian theocracy, not only preach that religion plays a vital role in holding society together, but also that the nations founding fathers would have wanted God in the public square. The facts are clearly the opposite. Most of the U.S. founders had a deep disgust for Christianity and its god. Their creator, although not specifically defined, was certainly not the god of the Bible. If Charles Darwin had been born in 1709 instead of 1809, the word creator probably would not have appeared in the Declaration of Independence. In my American nation, the symbols of Christianity are being forced upon its citizens everywhere. "In God We Trust" was adopted as the new national motto and added to currency in 1956. Could there be a more irreverent homage to the portraits of Jefferson, Franklin, Lincoln and Washington than putting an invocation to the Christian god next to them on coins and currency? Every dollar I use is an advertisement for the Judeo-Christian religion. Other offensive pseudo-patriotic slogans exclaim "God Bless America" on public mass-transit vehicles and even in post offices. These signs further erode any semblance of a separation between church and state, promoting instead the propaganda of a theocratic government. The majority of the U.S. citizenry, who are inflicted with the Christian meme, not only think that the government’s endorsement of their monotheistic religion is acceptable, but also that it’s honorable for them to inhibit and deprive freethinkers, pantheists, atheists, spiritual nontheists, deists, polytheists, Wiccan, etc., of their liberty and full membership in this American nation. Most of these Christians even think that their majority status gives them the right to oppress and offend nonadherents to their faith. They espouse public prayer, the election of politicians who claim that God called them, annoyingly express their "God bless"-ing of everything, and advocate an evangelical agenda to legalize what is Constitutionally illegal. They believe that it is their Christian duty and mission to indoctrinate others with the falsities to which they cling. In that process, what has become lost is the reality that the United States of America is one nation under a Constitution, not under a god and certainly not under their neo-Christian groupthink. The fact is, "The Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded upon the Christian religion." That declaration was drafted in 1796 under George Washington, unanimously ratified by the U.S. Senate, and signed into law by President John Adams on June 10, 1797. And even though that document, less than two pages long, was read aloud in Congress without dissension and well-publicized at the time, there were no complaints, and there was no public outcry, as would be media-ted today. Before the testimonium clause is this paragraph of ratification and proclamation, published in several national newspapers of the time: "Now be it known, That I John Adams, President of the United States of America, having seen and considered the said Treaty do, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, accept, ratify, and confirm the same, and every clause and article thereof. And to the End that the said Treaty may be observed and performed with good Faith on the part of the United States, I have ordered the premises to be made public; And I do hereby enjoin and require all persons bearing office civil or military within the United States, and all others citizens or inhabitants thereof, faithfully to observe and fulfill the said Treaty and every clause and article thereof" The people of that era knew well that Article VI of the U.S. Constitution said: "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law the Land." The people of that time wrote Article VI of the Constitution. Despite that indisputable event, Christian revisionists continue to media-te their faithful towards the reactionary side or the far right of even an appearance of religious neutrality. The past sixty years have shown that they have been quite successful in forcing their theo-beliefs on the common citizenry. They cleverly removed the original national motto, E Pluribus Unum, "out of many, one," which was coined by Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams, from U.S. currency and public places. They successfully proselytize that the U.S. was founded as "One Nation under [their] God" and one nation under their religion. However, the historic truth is, according to people such Herman C. Weber, DD, an expert in religious censuses and statistics, that few early Americans were members of a Christian church. In the 1933 Yearbook of American Churches, for instance, it says that just 6.9% of U.S. citizens belonged to a church in 1800. By 1850, religious membership had risen to 15.5%. By 1900, Christians had doubled their percentage to 37%. However, not until 1942 did Christian affiliation exceed 50% of the U.S. population. Few people realize that in 1850, only about one percent of Irish-Americans attended church. But as anti-Catholic bias grew and the Anglos tormented the new Irish immigrants, the Vatican ordered all parishes to provide schools so that Irish-Americans would have a sense of community. By the late 1880s, church attendance among the Irish is said to have grown six-fold. In nineteenth-century North America, an Irishman was treated less favorably than a Negro. Hate is religions favorite fuel. In 1954, the U.S. Congress, in direct violation of the First Amendment, began to secure the presence of Christianity’s monotheistic God in government. For example, pressured by McCarthy-era hysteria and Christian groups such as the Knights of Columbus, the Pledge of Allegiance went from a patriotic oath declaring liberty and justice for all, to a religious invocation through the insertion of the words "under God." This made the Pledge of Allegiance into a Judeo-Christian prayer advocating, as the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court ruled in 2002, "an impermissible government endorsement of religion [that] sends a message to unbelievers that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community, and an accompanying message to adherents that they are insiders, favored members of the political community." What was America’s response to the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court? Kill those liberal judges! It is now time to get religion out of the state. It is time for Christians to start rendering to the United States of America what is the United States of America’s, in compliance with Matthew 22:21. It is time to remove "In God We Trust" from currency, and public places. It’s time to remove me, and other pro-Constitution Americans, from this "We" that these Christians promote. As long as a nation allows its government to endorse monotheism, that nation will be a divided nation, and the world as a whole will be suppressed, disempowered, and disconnected. The United States was established through common law. On February 10, 1814, Thomas Jefferson wrote that common law "is that system of law, which was introduced by the Saxons on their settlement in England . . . about the middle of the fifth century. But Christianity was not introduced till the seventh century. . . We may safely affirm that Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the common law." Christian values are not American values. Christian values are not nature’s values. Christian values can never lead the world towards an era of peace. The United States is a secular nation, a nation whose founding principles arose from freethought and deism, not evangelism and theism. The U.S. was designed to be a guiding model for the world. Yet Christians (with their legally protected and privileged superstition) fail to realize that their First Commandment is in direct opposition to the United States Constitution’s First Amendment. In fact, for the most part, their Ten Commandments are everything that the U.S. Constitution is not. Christian values are inherently un-American and unnatural values. Christianity needs immediate marginalization, such as its addition to the NC-17 laws, along with cigarettes, alcohol, and pornography. That is to say, no children under 17 should be allowed in or exposed to faith-based environments. There should not be a single religious school for children in the U.S., especially tax exempt one’s, that indoctrinate our youth into the ignorant and superstitious beliefs of hollowness. Wherever we see Christians polluting our environment through burning Harry Potter books and other literature, we should gather for huge Bible collections to compost their un-American literature. Wherever we see their crosses of suffering polluting our environmental landscape, we should send letters asking for its removal. The need for suffering is a delusion. We need to employ constructive, creative tension to produce an environment that nurtures peace and the liberation from suffering. To alter the division that has become the United States and which this theocratic agenda has perpetrated upon the world, we need to explore immediate redress. At the top of the list should be the swift reversal of the current constitutionally illegal Christianized national motto, "In God We Trust," which replaced "E Pluribus Unum." In its place could be the motto "In Love We Trust." As Christians think that their god is love, it shouldn’t be too difficult to persuade them that it’s in the best interest of the U.S. and the world to change the national motto to a less offensive, more inclusive wording. Whenever they hear or say "love," they can think of their god. That’s much more palatable than to have pro-Constitutional Americans, many whom are not Christian, being forced to hear, say, or swear to monotheistic concepts, which Thomas Paine would say was an outrage to common sense. Fortunately, I have never had to be a witness in a courtroom. However, if I were, and if I were asked to swear to their god on their Bible, the presiding judge might declare me in contempt because of my laughter. It would be like swearing to Bobby Henderson’s Flying Spaghetti Monster. The U.S. Founding Fathers, including George Washington, abhorred the "age of Ignorance and Superstition" imposed upon humanity by Christianity. However, the time has arrived to for the U.S. to realize the ideal of Annuit coeptis, Novis ordo seclorum, by finishing the pyramid on the Great Seal, as seen on the one dollar bill, both before and after its desecration by "In God We Trust." It is time for my nation to ascend, and lead a new order beyond ignorance and superstition, into an era of human beingness, peace and love. Time for an emancipated United States of America to be first nation in history to "Trust in Love." A noble gesture towards trusting in love could be the end of the Christian calendar. Our current calendarics are designed to keep society as a whole disconnected from nature. The Christian calendar has influenced secular governments, social structures, and the ideology of economics long enough. A calendar establishes the rhythm of social life. In a large part of the world, the Christian belief system, through its calendar, infiltrates the rhythm of our years, months, and weeks, and thus, albeit subtly to most, dominates society. Because Christianity’s Gregorian calendar disconnects us from the natural cycles of life, it is one of the most significant underlying impediments to peace, love, and spirituality in the world. A calendar organizes our human activities. The Christian calendar has much to do with our difficulty. Although the Christian calendar is an outer manifestation, it governs our inner life by obscuring the natural cycles of the outer. To establish peace, love, and a connection with spirituality in the world, we need a profound shift in our everyday consciousness that can be facilitated through a "natural calendar" one based on natural time. The CRFC (Calendar Reform for the Future of Civilization) pointed out that "by rational discourse and common sense, it has been determined that the Gregorian calendar does not represent a true or accurate standard of measure or belong to any systematic science of time, and hence, is worthy of reform." That is to say, as the sword is an anachronism in modern warfare, the Gregorian calendar is, as Rick McCarty says, "an anachronistic scheme serving the interests of men in a pre-scientific, theocratic society with a feudal economy." The Christian calendar encourages neither love nor a birthing of human beingness. It stimulates unrest, disempowerment, conflict, unrighteous intolerance, and violence. A natural calendar based on the natural rhythms of earth and our relationship within the universe would promptly change everything. Our activities would ensue through an atmosphere of connectivity and cooperation, versus an environment that arose from spiritually limiting Aristotelian logic and dissynchronizing theocratic beliefs. We are where our attention is. If our attention functions within a religio-centric environment, there is an obscuring of our essence and human potential. It doesn’t matter whether we think that we are becoming more evolved; we simply are not, and we cannot cultivate the sapientialness needed upon a dogmatic sciential foundation. Christianity is a patriarchal, cerebrally invented religion whose intent is to perpetuate an inferior humanity. Christian calendarics muddies our view and understanding of the nature of time and timelessness. The Gregorian calendar denies zero, whereas calendars that connect us with the natural rhythms of time and those things upon which time effects its motion, encourage our human potential and fosters what Sam Harris calls Contemplatice Science. Religions such as Christianity, along with their instruments of propaganda, such as the Gregorian calendar, step between us and our direct experience with human potential. Christianity wants us to think that the essence of who we are can only be accessed through accepting their Jesus. They want us to think that love can only be had through the conditions of bearing, believing, hoping, and enduring, as in their scriptures (such as 1 Cor. 13:7). That is not love; that is the submission, devotion, expectation, and suffering to the conditions of their beliefs. What a gift to Humanity,...what a gift of love,…the end of the Christian calendar.

How can one recognize someone who has uncovered truth realization? Buddhas said, "A wise man, recognizing that the world is but an illusion, does not act as if it is real." Thus, would one who is honestly truth realized resemble an inter-faith appeasers like Arthur Blessitt, Eric Yoffie, Damon Denson, David Barton, Jesse Duplantis, Ali al-Sistani, Thich Nhat Hanh, Leila Ahmed, Neale Donald Walsch, Joseph Ratzinger, Gibril Haddad,...etc? The authentic Spiritual Teacher can be recognized by how they go about pointing to ways we can loosen our bindings, not their degree of humbleness, personal faith-based knowledge, or how much the majority admires them. As Buddhas said, "A wise man, recognizing that the world is but an illusion, does not act as if it is real." Most people would despise listening to a truth realized teacher,...and would want to kill them. Most people who physically met a truth realized teacher may sense the calm abiding within themself in their presence,...but buyer be aware,... In 'Practical Work on Self' by EJ Gold, he writes: "In the presence of someone who is able to produce real emotion, we experience feelings - perhaps for the first time. Very often, someone who has awakened the higher Emotional Body and who has learned to radiate emotions becomes a celebrity-guru, and people gather like cattle to bathe in the higher emotions. These higher emotions are often mistaken for some mysterious cosmic force or interpreted in some pseudo-religious way, but really they are just emotions. What a pity that human beings are so unaccustomed to emotion that they feel compelled to submissively huddle together in the warmth of the emotional radiation of someone just as mechanical as they are, but who happened to have activated, by accident, the higher Emotional Body."

Yes,...these are difficult subjects for many to discuss,...however, until certain bridges or leaps are made, a more meaningful conversation about the nature of reality is consistently gets stuck before it begins. For example: "How does Christianity affect people? It makes them hypocritical, bigoted, mean spirited, critical, judgmental, condemning, vicious, vindictive, spiteful and immoral. This is not just name calling. Ask them how they feel about atheists and gays? This is the test to prove me wrong. The only moral answer should be "indifferent". Newton Joseph, Ph.D. A Buddhist put it this way: "Liberal Christians often make statements like, 'deep down Buddhists are really searching for God', 'Buddhism is just a different expression of man's understanding of God', or 'Buddhists are Christians outside the church'. Sadly, such statements are meaningless. One could simply reverse them and say "Deep down Christians are really searching for Nirvana", "The Christian God is just a personification of Nirvana", or "Christians are Buddhists outside the Sangha". Although such statements are often welcomed by Buddhists as indicating that liberal Christians are more tolerant than their fundamentalist brothers and sisters, this is actually not so. Such statements really show that Christians still wish to claim superiority for their own religion. They also show that the liberal Christian's supposed tolerance is dependent upon believing that Buddhism is just another form of Christianity. In short, it is based on a delusion. Liberal Christians will only be genuinely tolerant when they can admit that Buddhism is different from Christianity, very different, and be tolerant despite these differences."

As a regular hiker, I'm partial to Tilley hats,...have dozens,...but none in red. I'll have to do something about that. I do have a red hiking parasol however.

Thanks,...but a blog? As CT says, I'm still getting a handle on the English language,...so may be awhile yet. As for my experiences,...recall Joseph Campbell in the 80's talking about his one and only Self-Actualization experience, while participating in a Track-n-Field event in college,...I had already had a thousand way beyond that,....in fact, could already explain Maslow's next level of Transcendence. What intrigues me about TTb the most is how I have dumb down my responses, just to interact at this level. I'm not at all complaining,...it intrigues me. As for my "story." Two points, which occurred rather organically when quite young. First, spontaneous transmissions, often as statements, even before 8 years old, of prior birth consciousness. And second, an ability to recognize indoctrinated beliefs, which when I did, and, for example, looked into a mirror, literally could see the difference with the baggage of beliefs removed. At 8 years old I was very much into "nudity"...not physical nudity,...but the disrobing of beliefs. Everytime time a belief was recognized, it effortly dissolved, and I'd look in a mirror and see how more beautiful I'd become. I was 19 before first coming upon a truth,...up to that point, my favorite thing was recognizing the false,...still too young to realize that when all the false is recognized, there is truth. I longed for the rushes of recognizing the false,...the beauty of its feeling of nakedness,...it was as a compulsion,...going deeper and deeper,...and then there was shamatha,...a calm abiding, more blissful than the beauty of nakedness. As I wrote at the time: Such complete unity of separation enfolded within a simple belief A dissymphonic continuum whose reflection of preference serially esculate unremitting anguish Belief obscures reality entwines lifes learned patterns a stupefying absurdity manufactured from artificiality exploitively seeking diversions. Yet in a moment of unfeigned surrender between com-pression and ex-pression a reciprocal tremendum resplendently springs its metanoia dissolving repeated cycles of confusion. Metmorphesized winged inner sense true Compassion arising in the tranquility as flowinging fractal waves delight the blissful birthing of Beingness in softly ecstatic nourishing Life.

Being brought up in a Vajrayana 'Red Hat' household. The Dalai Lama is a Yellow Hat,...Dzogchen are usually Black Hats.

There is little to argue about in that post,...there is no Dharma. Very good observation regarding what we call Buddha's teachings to be that which was expedient for that perceived time. If you and I were to have a conversation, it would sound much different than that with those here who support Christianity or the Abrahamic memes. For most here, discussing that there is no Dharma, no Bodhisattva, no sentient beings, is an expanse few can deal with,...however, if you saw my posts as offering stepping stones, showing a way across the expanse that their beliefs have built, perhaps you would recognize the expedency of that moment. Nevertheless,...dwelling on the Christian scheme is a barrier to truth realization. What if however,...in a very honest way,...people related with what will never leave them, and from which they can never leave,...where would that leave the Abrahamic memes? One response could be,...why should I care,...or some (as pointed out in this thread) suggesting that truth does not speak, because truth is beyond that which speaks,...in essence suggesting that Lao Tsu or Buddha never spoke. This is a discussion forum,...if one believes that there is nothing to discuss (which ultimately is true), then why be on a discussion forum. I do it for the sentences. I like writing sentences. It's what I like. I died in 1974,...and am no longer worried about that,...my hopes and dreams became irrelevant 39 years ago. "Soon we all will die; our hopes and fears will be irrelevant....on the luminous continuity of existence which has no origin and which has never died, we project all the images of life and death, terror and joy, demons and gods. These images become our complete reality, and we submit without thinking to their dance. In all the movements of this dance we project our greatest fears on death, and we make every effort to ignore it." The Great Liberation

Sure,...that's easily agreed upon,...Wisdom is the judicious application of knowledge. However, there is absolutely nothing in that statement that can lead to waking up,...save the understanding that it is dream talk, to sustain the dream.

How hungry are you for Truth Realization?

Transgender cannot be sweetly place in a folder as this or that,...although those of binary gender orientation believe it can. All Bodhisattvas are transgender. According to prediction and metaphor, the future Buddha, Maitreya, will be a male born into a Red Hat family, and in one day, become a realized Buddha as a female; like the monk Avalokiteshvara became Kuan Yin. Doesn't matter how this transformation of Avalokiteshvara took place; and although many still view him as male, the natural qualities of a Bodhisattva are feminine. Some suggest that Maitreya will be the final incarnation of Kuan Yin.

That was already assumed,..."For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it." Matthew 19:12

Survey question,...how many here have actually realized the Tao? That which does not come and go? How many here would like to experience the Tao,...that which does not come and go? Has anyone here realized what does not come and go? Have anyone here realized consciousness beyond the 6 of sentience? Sentient consciousness cannot realize the Tao,...it is IMPOSSIBLE.

Because it has nothing to do with the 6 senses. Those who KNOW, do not GNOW. When my posts discuss some object-ive, mundane sensory information (by way of seeing, tasting, touching, hearing, smelling or thinking), it is usually mentioned that way,...that it is merely speculation. If the post very implicity/explicity says,...there is no present in time,...no knowledge or wisdom can experience that. Remember,...wisdom literally means knowledge accumulated through philosophic or scientific learning. In other words, wisdom is built upon, and points to the highest and most lofty ideas of ego consciousness, whose sole purpose is to sustain ego.

That's great! The thing is, once you recognize one koan, they're all instantly bustable,...the answer to all koans is the dissolution of the question. As for the Kabbalah,...although there are a few interesting points (if you know where to jump off), the Kabbalah will lead one along a literally infinity of diversionary BS. http://thetaobums.com/topic/23491-berasith-bara-elohim/?hl=kabbalah Comparing esoteric Christians, Sufi's, and Kabbalists,...with Taoists, Buddhists, and Advaitists,...is like comparing the Aristotelian logic of Oneness with a Tathagata's understanding of Zero.

Impossible,...I'm transgender.

Let me spell it out for you,...my posts consistently point to that which is beyond thinking, seeing, and feeling,...my posts consistently stress that thinking, seeing, and feeling are illusory. My experiences here on TTB are fantastic,...it's a fun place to chat with sleep walkers.

In 2008 you likely didn't see LGBT's ever having any equal rights either.

Christianity is about Faith, Hope, and the Charity derived from that Faith and Hope, without which there can be no salvation,....Buddhism is about the obliteration of Faith, Hope, and the Charity that arises from the obliteration of Faith and Hope, without which enlightenment is impossible. "the highest goal is being devoid of hope and fear." Tilopa Although Christians believe the God they invoke while spreading their faith, is love,...in the whole of their Holy Book, the Bible, it only suggests the idea that their God is love at the very end, in the late 2nd Century apology 1John. In fact, when viewing the full length and breadth of the Bible, their Patriarch is clearly a murderous, pro-slavery, vacillant, petty, racist, conditional God. And amazingly, a God who is so insecure, that it demands to be worshiped, obeyed and prayed to. All the Abrahamic religions are about Fear of the Lord.

A Buddhist said: "Morality can only be imposed from without when we are asleep. It can only be pseudo, false, a façade, it cannot become your real being…morality is bound to be nothing but a deep suppression. You cannot do anything while asleep; you can only suppress. And through morality, you will become false. You will not be a person, but simply a "persona"—just a pseudo-entity. . . . Only a dishonest person can be moral. The preachers have convinced the whole world that "you are all sinners." This is good for them because unless you are convinced, their profession cannot continue. You must be sinners; only then can churches, temples and mosques continue to prosper. Your being in sin is their success. [Churches] are built on your guilt, on your sin, on your inferiority complex. Thus, they have created an inferior humanity. We condemn the real and we enforce the unreal, because the unreal is going to be helpful in an unreal society and the unreal is going to be convenient…A child is born in a society, and a society is already there with its fixed rules, regulations, behaviors and moralities which the child has to learn. When he will grow he will become false. Then children will be born to him, and he will help make them false, and this goes on and on. What to do?"