Vmarco

If,...LOL,...one of Buddhas Bodhisattvas,...Avalokiteshvara, Manjushri, Samantabhadra, etc., were to reincarnate and walk into a Dzogchen, Shambhala, Gelug, Theraveda, etc Lineage organization, they would most likely have to follow the standard requirenments of level advancements,...but never be allowed to be higher than the teachers of the levels they were on,...and certainly not higher than the Lineage holder. In addition,...I'd suggest that they would quickly be unwelcomed if they attempted to explain anything to anyone,...because people don't want to know what they consider meaningful may actually be meaningless. V

There is no indication that "Lao Tzu, Shakayumi Buddha or Padmasambhava" will return to this plane of consciousness,...however, Shakyamuni suggested that Maitreya would appear before the last of The Five Disappearances. Maitreya, the Future Buddha, it is said, will be of the Red Hat sect, and will renounce the world and realize her enlightenment in a single day; although she will likely be born a male. History suggests that Maitreya, like the male Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara, who became Kuan Yin, will be transgender. It doesn't matter how Avalokitesvara, "The on-looking Lord," and Dhyani Bodhisattva of Amitabha Buddha," was transformed into Kuan Yin,...the fact is he was, and he is as the templete of Maitreya. Because of the difference in the evolutionary stage of the human beings from the time of Shakyamuni, Maitreya is said to point the way for a thousand to awaken to Buddhic consciousness. v

Clear Light is not Self, but is the fulcrum upon which Self is. It appears that your fear of bliss is hiding your Self from your self,...and your diatribe of monism is ridiculous for anyone reading my posts. Although duality's energy is a force that seeks union with Causeless, Undivided Light, such union is imposible. There can never, ever be a union of opposites. Any coming together of opposites simultaneously dissolves them. In addition, those who seek imagined positives as if they can be separated from negatives, only diverts the clarity of wholeness. Wholeness is not realized through a union of opposites. Opposites cannot unite, and pairs of opposites cannot experience the unconditional. Opposites are conditions. How can conditions experience something that they are not? Wholeness, as I use the term, is not a monist, Brahman, divine reality,...the so-called Oneness of monism, Brahman and divinity are illusions of duality. Both One and Many belong to duality. There is no One or Oneness in or of the Causeless, Clear Light that is the fulcrum upon which duality effects its motion. Be wary of those who quote dogma. "Clear light cannot be revealed by the canonical scriptures or metaphysical treatises, of the Mantravada, the Paramitas or the Tripitaka; The clear light is veiled by concepts and ideals." Tilopa

Yes,...IMO 100% unhealthy. Osho made a comment, "certainly it has given consulation, but consulation is not the right thing,...consulation is opium,...it keeps you unaware of reality. Of course those who cling to Lineages for their identity will adamantly disagree. But they're just businesses, many set up like martial art businesses,...where no one can exceed the top guy. I've also found that Lineages have polluted older principles in order to maintain their followings, and sustain their various interpretations. I consider myself a Freethought Buddhist,...one who is guided by pre-Islamic invasion texts of Buddhism, and yet unrestrained by deference to authority, tradition or belief. IMO that is what Buddha wanted,...Shakyamuni said in the Kalama Sutra, "Do not accept anything by mere tradition. . . Do not accept anything just because it accords with your scriptures. . . Do not accept anything merely because it agrees with your preconceived notions." Buddha taught irreligion. My advice,...be cautious of those who wish to step between you and your direct experience,...be cautious of anyone giving you a belief system.

This reminds me of an EJ Gold quote mentioned in the Charisma and Women thread. http://www.thetaobum...charisma-women/ Real emotion has no need to communicate with words. Although that is implying two or more people, it's also valid with self alone. V

Yes that makes sense,...what makes better sense: René Descartes said, “All that I have tried to understand to the present time has been affected by my senses; now I know these senses are deceivers, and it is prudent to be distrustful after one has been deceived once.” The view that most people have of yang and yin is biased and confused. The propaganda of self-proclaimed visionaries continue to contribute to the absurd misunderstandings of duality. One visionary wrote that, male yang is “explosive, centrifugal, warming, destructuring, and dissipating, while the female yin is implosive, centripetal, cooling, structuring, and integrative.” Once again, these are ego statements, based on a human-centric viewpoint, not nature’s reality. How is dissipating or destructuring, warming? How is implosiveness and structuring, cooling? These people only encourage a world in which oxymorons are considered meaningful. The reality of duality is this: yin is feminine, spiral-out, diverging, radiative, expansive, disintegrating, explosive, discharging, centrifugal, cooling, dissipating, exhaling, and ascending (notice how these are all complimentary). Yang is masculine, spiral-in, converging, generative, contractive, integrating, implosive, charged, centripetal, heating, accumulating, inhaling, and descending. Intermixing or attributing yin characteristics to yang or vice versa because someone feels that feminine energy should be structuring and masculine energy destructuring is dishonest. There can be no full spectrum consciousness until the basics of who’s who in duality is understood. Yin is the polarity of explosiveness, that which is as spiraling from the center; whereas yang, is charged implosiveness towards the center, and has the potential to explode. As Yang explodes it becomes the yin’s explosive cycle of polarity. When the explosion symbolically fills the top of the T’ai chi T’u, its potential is to implode. The yin then shifts to yang and moves centripetally, back into density. Yang is Form, Yin is Empty. Some practitioners of Chinese medicine also appear confused about the nature and dynamics of duality. Yes, they concede that yin is dark and cold, while yang is light and hot. However, in the same breath, they bizarrely preach that yin is downward and matter, while yang is upward and unformed energy, the direct opposite of reality. In reality, yang is the positive, charged, electric force that manifests gravity, and yin is the negative, discharged, electric force that manifests levity. Because of this, people are media-ted misinformation about the nature and the duality of light and dark. Their prevalent societal construct suggests that light is good and dark is evil. Yet where is such a thing true? Contrary to popular belief, light is neither good nor evil, and it does not conquer dark. Cosmologically speaking, we only see as far into the universe as incandescent light allows, then there is darkness, endless darkness. Many believe that light is an all-pervading expression of wisdom, when in fact it is darkness that is all-pervading from a duality viewpoint. Unlike light, darkness has no boundary, nor does it have a center. In a sense, dark is not separated from anything. On the other hand, the incandescent light of duality does have a definable boundary, thus a center. Duality’s light is inherently separate. Most people observe duality from only a yang point of view, and thus believes in separation. For yang to liberate itself from the illusion of separation, is must observe the reverse flow of forward moving things,...it must understand Yin. The light of duality, that is, divided, projected, simulated light, can only illuminate the past, because it is itself the past. From a perspective of dualism, the threshold of the “now” is through darkness,...the dark half of the T’ai chi T’u,...an idea not very palatable to ego consciousness. This makes any contemplation of the nature of light and darkness forbidden, another taboo, or at least it rips the imagined fabric of society’s delusion and leaves it garmentless, naked and free. V

What is "enlightenment?" In Freethought Buddhism, enlightenment literally means being awake to the Light that one is. This Light is not a "sun light", or any illumination from the electrodynamic spectrum, but Clear, Undivided Light,...the fulcrum upon which the electrodynamic spectrum effects its motion. Avadhuta is said to be a state of enlightenment in which the distinctions between good and evil no longer exist. So, enlightenment can be viewed as having levels in the Freethought Buddhist understanding of enlightenment. The actual realization of Undivided Light,...as in the ability to recognize the Clear Light of Naropa's 4th Yoga, is a level of awakening,...at least a level that is quite aware that this illusion is an illusion. At the highest level, we would be talking of the Buddhic fields. Levels of Enlightenment in Freethought Buddhism (a term I just begun using to differentiate the Long Path practices of Theraveda, Mahayana, and Lineage driven Vajrayana, because my use of the word Vajrayana was upsetting Vajrahridaya), is actually a "lightening" experience. Each embedded belief that is let go, manifests a literal lightening from the burden of discarded baggage. There are said to be 3 kinds of food,...the air we breathe (actually, there are more than a few Breatharians said to be living today. Second is the substances we put into our stomache or blood system. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, is "impressions." Just as air and solid/liguid foods have weight,...so do impressions. My first experience with Undivided Light occurred in 1974 by way of a complete surrender, without any anticipation for the outcome,...as I said, it was a complete surrender. According to a clock, I was exposed to the bliss of Clear Light for nearly 6 hours. There was some similarity with NDE's, but this was beyond that,...no beliefs accompanied me (as near deathers have), and thus I went directly past the 4th and 5th densities,...no worm holes or conduits in time,...although I played with those years later. I was quite surprized to return,...that is, to re-descend,...I did not request to come back, nor did I request to stay,...it was simply a state of bliss. Let me be clear,...I did not go into the Light,...I was the the Light. No hope or fear. No tunnel, no warning, no angels, no body, no god,...just this ecstatic bliss within still, clear, unconditional Light. Nothing was beyond it; there was no beyond. There was consciousness, not as in the perceptual, phenomenal consciousness of our ordinary senses and skandhas, but a consciousness more profound then when awakening from the sleeping dreams of our ordinary sense reality. I was awake from the dream of life. For 6 hours of our perceived time,....awake. Imagine you have been sleeping for 20 years, and all of a sudden you woke up,...you were asleep so long that you believed that was the only reality. This still, energy-less enchantment was the authentic home of my consciousness, a home without body or ego. When I returned, still awake, but in this Duality reality, I went up into the New Mexico mountains. A quite unusual experience happened there (which I won't get into) perhaps 5 hours after being fully in the Light, which prompted me to have a thought, and I instantly went back to sleep, so to say. Personally, I don't consider myself "enlightened", but I am aware of Undivided Light, and have become somewhat familiar with the essence of Self that is beyond this 3d reality. V

Yes,...for those attached to the skandhas for their identity, the present is a concept and empty. The senses cannot sense the present,...nor can the skandhas observe the instant or Now. The instant, Now, or Present does indeed exist,...Buddha was one proof of that. Unfortunately, the language of the sciential minded,...that is the "thinking, cerebral mind",...is too obsessed with their grey-goo interpretations. There is a higher mind, which has nothing to do with the brain and ego,....their is an Undivided Light that cannot be seen with the senses, although quantum physics has theorized that it is the fulcrum of the electrodynamic spectrum from which all objects become form,....there is a love beyond chemistry, biology, instinct and religion, which cannot be gnown through conditions and beliefs. There is a truth beyong concepts, beliefs, and relative notions,...a truth that does not change. Many deny that there is absolute truth. Many believe that there is no permanent Self, even though Buddha said there was. Most are not honest enough to discuss truth. 3bob says, "the "truth" problem for mankind has made countless rounds at this site yet there are those sounding like yourself that continue to come along to make claims to the Truth....there is no absolute proof or disproof that can be pinned down with words, things or ideas for such are not nor will they ever be absolute." Words of a person who is unaware of a single truth, and thus denies that anyone has ever recognized absolute truth, because how could anyone possibly have uncovered more than 3bob. SereneBlue says, "I am not aware of even one Truth." SereneBlue enters the subject from Right View, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Mindfulness, etc.,..and being honestly open to the inquiry. Schwaller de Lubicz said, "you don't know the questions unless you already have the answers." Yes,...the perceived present is a concept that makes people comfortable in maintaining the false. The actual present, which cannot exist in time, is available through unfragmented, undivided consciousness,...which Head-mind obscures with a myriad of veils. The Present exists,...the Present is neither Empty, nor Form. The Present is not an illusion. The Present is beyond all concepts. The Present does not change. I'd love to have a discussion about the Present,...however, all those who have posted in this thread have indicated that all we can discuss is what the Present is not. And not all have the ability to do that,...that is, to recognize what is not. It's amazing how so few can accept Eckhart Tolle's observation that, "we need to draw our attention to what is false in us, for unless we learn to recognize the false as the false, there can be no lasting transformation, and you will always be drawn back into illusion, for that is how the false perpetuates itself" However,...the massive ignorance in the world feeds my compassion, and wish that honesty is not completely smothered. SereneBlue appears to be one open to the fully naked surrender necessary to go beyond the conditions that obscure Who we really are. V

I have no need for personal truths, relative truths, collective truths, etc.,...if something is not absolutely true, it's not worth having. Wise one's say,...relate with what will never leave you, and from what you can never leave. I do understand that you have no interests other than that which makes your beliefs more palatable,...and that's OK,...there are many bodhisattva's working for your liberation. The word sacred was applicable,...ie, sacred 2. devoted exclusively to one service or use as in a fund sacred to charity. 3. entitled to reverence and respect. 4. highly valued and important, a sacred responsibility. "Sacred space" is in reference to the Emptiness of Duality,...the yin or dark side of the T'ai chi T'u. V

I disagree that a any person with the ability to recognize Clear Light is ever, unwittingly, tossed back onto the Wheel,...most especially one who has uncover the total falsity of the skandhas. I disagree that anyone, who is aware that form is empty, and empty is form (I didn't say know, conceptualize, believe, etc), can come to a wrong conclusion regarding any truth. There is something that you could understand about your questions,...that those who realize the wisdom of the Heart sutra, or the Clear Light in Naropa's yoga, or Quan Yin's (Avalokiteshvara) Dharma-gate in the Shurangama Sutra,...do so by surrendering all ideas about getting out. Their focus is on bringing more love and light in,...by uncovering the barriers built against love and light (Undivided Light). I can tell you this,...you don't need to realize nirvana to get off this wheel if you wished. At the middle-5th density, mentioned in an earlier post, it's your choice. To get to the middle 5th,...ponder on the Bardo Thodol at least once a week,...and better yet,...advance yourself so that you can do the Bardo Thodol for others. V

Did not say "I think" Tilopa was the Second Transmission,...that term has been used by other since 13th century,...and I haven't heard it attributed to anyone else. Why not Padmasambhava, Saraha, Kwan Yin, Nagarjuna, or Hui Neng? Very often, Tilopa does not even get on the top 20 list of important Buddhist figures. But then,...very few people are interested in the Short Path. V