konchog uma

you're confusing rebirth with reincarnation. And buddhist doctrine with the idea that life is an illusion. The buddha taught unequivocally that life is real, its a major point of the later mahayana teachings which comprise the 3rd turning. And buddhas generally live in pure land heavens til they are called to return or they do what they like. Some might disappear, like some daoists join the void, but thats not generally what is taught. so no, not spot on.

well not quite excellent, from a factual standpoint, but certainly heartfelt. Sorry you had a hard time with tibetan buddhism, its not for everyone. My lama is wonderful and the sangha i belong to is too, i wish they could all be so. Prostrations build humility and purify obstructions and karma. The suffering inherent in ordinary existance is the best place to begin if one hopes to disentangle themself from it. The buddha didn't advocate becoming nothing, and he never said life was an illusion. Quite the opposite, he advocated becoming liberated and he was quite unequivocal in saying life is real. So i agree with you that your experience with Buddhism wasn't a great example, since it didn't even impress you with the tenets upon which Buddhism is founded. the buddha started with suffering because of the human tendancy not to deal with suffering, to try to escape it. he saw that the attempts to escape only caused more suffering. So he began there. His statement wasnt that life is hell, it is the the cyclical revolution of samsara could never bring lasting happiness, and even the relative happiness one finds there is intimately related to suffering. Its an often misunderstood statement. Its also the first of four noble truths, and was never meant to stand alone. It is followed by the truth of the cause of suffering, ego grasping or attachments (and aversions), and then by the truth of the cessation of suffering (the point of buddhism) and by the truth of the path (the method of cessation of suffering). If you spent a whole month in a monastery and didn't learn that, it wasn't a very good monastery. Buddhism is a path to liberation, not slavery. Anything that left you with that impression should be abandoned lol i find it funny that oftentimes in literature and on this forum, i find smug, self assured daoists who think they are better than buddhists, or that buddhism (or their misunderstanding of it) is a bunch of nonsense fit for dogs. But in buddhist circles, there is a lot of humility and respect for other world traditions even though very few buddhists mix traditions with their own, their faith in the success of buddhist methods is in most cases proven by their own experiences. If virtue is any indication of success on the spiritual path, i think that says something interesting.

neat thoughts is that first immortal the same as pan kou? edit: buddhist mythology traces certain bodhisattvas, like vajradhara or samatabhadra back to creation as well (he is said to have arisen from creation fully awakened and never needed to climb the stairs to liberation.. it was he who transmitted to tilopa much that would become part of vajrayana)... but i don't bring that up to contest which is older, just to say that its interesting that both lines of thought and practice trace themselves back to the origin of this reality itself.

oh wow thats a lot of references indeed, thanks for clearing that up marbles

deep breathing usually refers to diaphramic movement. As i have learned breathing, the diaphram is the first gate of deep breathing. The second gate is the dan tian, and once the breath is that deep, the third is the perineum. That is to say, that the breath should make the perineum feel like it is expanding and contracting on inbreath and outbreath. That is the way my qigong teacher taught deep breathing. All three of those usually take mindfulness and effort at first, and with training, sometimes years of, can become automatic. "the sages of old breathed from their heels" -chuang tzu

thanks all i remember is an anecdote about lao and confucius meeting ("he's like a dragon!") but those are later in the book, probably written by students of chuang generations later chuang, in the chapters of the book attributed to him, didn't mention lao to my memory. aaron can you cite a chapter? that might be more helpful

this thing is awesome http://www.examiner.com/slideshow/the-amazonian-penis-snake

i've read the chuang-tzu ten times and don't remember any historical record or factual accounts of lao-tzu. which doesn't mean its not so, but chuang tzu also mentioned the peng bird which was thousands of fathoms in wingspan, and that doesn't make him so. So.... im not really sure of the authenticity of the old longeared sage who was the imperial librarian until he rode off on an ox to the mountains... as far as i understand that stories does indeed have holes in it. Like a lack of imperial records to support it (the chinese kept impeccable imperial records too) So... the premise that lao was an elite and writing for the ruling classes seems unverified. I mean if his identity is in question, everything about him is unverified. Can any chinese speakers say what word is commonly translated as "ruler" because i have seen versions of the DDJ (which i much prefer presonally) that translate that same word as "sage" for example. If anyone can shed light on this i would appreciate it. Thanks!

Hi flowing hands you may be interested to know that the Bon tradition of Tibetan shamanism lists a line of Buddhas that dates back to previous ages, and that Buddhism didn't start with Shakyamuni. As reported by Lopon Tenzin Namdak in Bonpo Dzogchen Teachings: "...there have been many Buddhas in the past history of this planet, the historical Buddha Shakyamuni merely being the last in their number. According to ancient Indian Buddhist belief, there have been six prehistoric Buddhas who preceded Shakyamuni, namely, Vipashyin, Shikhin, Vishvabhu, Krakucchanda, Kanakamuni and Kashyapa. It was said that even in his own day when Shakyamuni was still a young prince, a few followers of the earlier Buddha Kashyapa still existed. ...another list in early Buddhist scriptures records twenty-four Buddhas from Shakyamuni back to the Buddha Dipankara in the distant past. Both Buddhists and Bonpos agree that Maitreya will be the next Buddha, whose advent will be some time in the indefinite future."

nature isn't "nice" or "kind" and christians and buddhists are a world apart in their motivations, but if thats your view of things, you're welcome to it. far be it from me to continue in this vein any further. there are vids of qigong masters walking on paper, im sure if you wanted to see them you would find them. and im sure that if you wanted to disbelieve them too you would. im gracefully dropping out of this conversation, five posts after i said i was. talking to you about buddhism always irritates me.

i was on topic, you didnt respond to the topic, and then you went on a tirade about pit bulls so dont go asking me to stay on topic if i thought youd respond to the topic id stay on it lol

well im glad we have our priorities straight about whats worth responding to lol

yeah. um like i said nothing personal. and yeah lol still laughing... at least i responded to the argument. i like how you don't respond to anything i said about buddhism except to get all crappy about how i brought up pit bulls. wish people treated them better, still love them. still laughing at CTs joke. i've known too many wonderful pits to live in fear of them all. no need to respond, this conversation is over.

frogs bow at my feet which kiss will change my princess? hope he's not a prince!

lol exactly

i just meant that some might indeed find that wei wu wei quote more useful but not to overclarify.. i get your meaning, agreed occam's razor ftw

btw aaron lightness skill has been known to enable practitioners to walk on water, jesus is far from the only one who supposedly accomplished it, yogis and meditators of many traditions have stories about their walking on water and doing miraculous things. Your logic seems to be that all legends are false, and i don't really know where to begin in addressing that. i looked on http://www.yourlogicalfallacyis.com but theres not one for that particular point of view. hmmm and shakyamuni was born to maya, his mother, and not an elephant nothing personal just keeping facts straight

go chi

i guess usefulness is relative i like neti neti better but thats just me

which is why i said "according to legend". anyway my point was about the translation of the work, not the legend surrounding it. youre clearly hanging out with all the wrong buddhists. do you even hang out with buddhists? or do you just assume that since the loudest ones are usually the most dogmatic, that all buddhists are therefore dogmatic? i wonder where people get their ideas about buddhism if they aren't studying the dharma itself.. funny notions going around

neuromancer is an awesome book just started Mindfulness, Bliss, and Beyond: A Meditator's Handbook by Ajahn Brahm, wonderful stuff so far, having never learned directly from Ajahn Chah, and having always appreciated Jack Kornfield, this is a deeper glimpse into the Thai Forest tradition which i always receive so much from. Thank you Tibetan_Ice for the recommendation, really great so far

ohkayyy im glad you said "in my view" because that statement really involves you superimposing your beliefs about buddhists onto the compassion of many buddhists, as you put it. But i dont really see the two as being mutually exclusive, i see the two lines of action-response as happening simultaneously. On one hand spiritually developed people have a natural te response to suffering which is compassionate and in a right brained way, and on the other hand, they are aware that compassion is the appropriate response to suffering in a left brained way. so in my view -g- both hemispheres are working at the same time and there is no mutual exclusivity well lao wrote the ddj for a border guard according to legend, and its only later interpretations that geared it towards rulers and kings, about power and leadership. it can be translated just as easily as being universal. imo. but point taken, thanks for your reponse..

truly (lost in translation) yes also a fan lol

the hebrew word that jesus used to say he was the "son of" god means "the nature of" not literal son like god is my daddy. the bible is full of such mistranslations because its the work of men not god anyway this is a daoist forum and i just wanted to chime in a thank taomeow for her observations, that was helpful, and gatito for saying neti neti cause thats really all that can be said about dao... people generally sound silly when they say "dao is this" "dao is not that" (which is why i especially appreciated that non-silly exposition taomeow) speaking of which, do you think nature is as close to dao as people can come to understanding with logic and words? and if nature patterns itself on the way, why is it said that the movement of the way is reversal (ch.40)? i mean since water never flows upstream and all? i never understood that passage question for all not just taomeow

well the seven sages of bamboo grove were pretty heterodox, i didn't think they were ordained or anything, but i consider them "daoist" not to be argumentative, just trying to clarify my understanding (or lack thereof) lol i don't know much about christianity either, and i thought that daoism was older than master lao?