konchog uma

you are most welcome... i am really learning a lot on every page. I hope you do too

fear itself. phobiophobia. or the fear that you will develop phobiophobia, which is even worse.

yeah thats a really awesome idea. I will sit with you guys and gals if it is not by some twist of fate impossible at that time. Maybe we could just coordinate a day like a saturday or something because worldwide users might be working/sleeping/doing other stuff at any given time no matter what time we agree on. I'd like to have an optimum couple hours to shoot for, but which time zone would we use? Are most of TTB users american? I think we should do weekly sitting, on a theme each week, just to feed of the energy and create more of a sense of spiritual community! Lets make saturdays TTB meditation day!

Well, bless you for asking! I personally believe that changing a nation is not the responsibility of its leaders, it is the responsibility of its citizens. But for each person to do something to affect positive change in the world (or even just the nation) seems a pretty tall order these days. Maybe the best thing you can do is affect change within your sphere of influence and let that influence spread. So by boycotting GMO or just eating organic, shopping at your local co-op, you are making a statement with your money, and shifting the tide just a little. Now it might seem like a small thing, but if you do it every week, it adds up, and if every american did it every week, Monsanto would invest in organic agriculture and sustainable energy. Thats just one example, but it points to the underlaying issue, that EVERYthing we do affects change in some way. Every choice we make as consumers and citizens is important in that way. So down to getting cut off in traffic and deciding to flash the peace sign instead of the bird, everything you do helps your community and your world to be better. Everything affects the collective level in some small way. Its just such a small way that it takes a critical mass of people to really make a perceivable difference (like Monsanto ACTually investing in sustainability) but it makes a difference nonetheless. Its like stacking paper to make a high pile, you don't notice that one more sheet is added, but if you don't add your sheet, and everyone who sees you neglect to add your sheet decides not to add their sheet either, how will there ever be a high pile? great question scotty. The mass of people is brainwashed and pacified, but that doesn't mean that we have to do anything differently to affect change.. everything is change, and every decision (especially the conscious ones ) affects change. So just start where you are and make lifestyle and consumer decisions that involve consciousness, education, and integrity.

in canada?? wow you're brave sinfest are those things thongs in the back? cause if the front wasn't bad enough...

canadians are nice people in my experience. Nobody minds a brony doing his horse stance and drinking his tea i imagine. And thats how it should be. Then again, sometimes in montreal i've spoken english and been rudely dismissed in french. But thats forgiveable. Ho hum.

but hot nirvana judo trend!?! passing the buck is the american way. If americans took responsibility for the american destiny themSELVES that would make no sense. I think the timespace continuum would be disrupted and the sky would rain frogs and small blue gelatinous balls on our heads!!

I'd like to see them roll into a nice restaurant and demand to be served. "On my salad? Just some balsamic" hahaha balls hammock stop me before i kill again seriously encephalon why did you post that? it will haunt my dreams.

No more confusion. Except for the confusion you brought here with you.

mostly, they only eat when hungry, for example. they have more nobility and honor too. If a "hunter" tries to chase down a wolf with a helicopter and a long range rifle, the wolf will just run and never give up. It will die because its heart exploded, not because the hunter shot it. True story.

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humanity is the vicious breed. dogs are just creatures that need to be loved and appreciated in order to manifest their buddha nature. even wolves have more wisdom than people most days. and HEY TUX i hope you find an awesome teacher on hawaii's big island, or close enough. I don't know of any tho so i can't contribute to this thread except to help derail it. ack!

i think that the cessation of thoughts is just a meditative thing. As far as i have learned, enlightened people can think if they want to, or find it useful. I mean maybe buddha and the mahabodhisattvas are %100 spontaneous, but i bring it up because i think its a misconception that we aren't supposed to think. So if you realize the nature of self or have deep insight into life or reality or human nature etc you might still think a lot of people say a lot of bewildering stuff, but i think you are right on. Perhaps at one point, a person can let go of their beliefs when their virtue is internalized and spontaneous without blemish, but that is a very very high accomplishment. I wouldn't worry about the bewildering stuff people say (especially if they don't demonstrate the basic virtues like compassion and loving kindness). yeah! i think the same thing awesome post, thanks

I have had interesting experiences using om mani padme hum as more than just a mantra of compassion, as protection, and as a sort of incantation to make good things happen. I also really dig kuan yin magnetic qigong as taught by chris matsuo. I have always been drawn to her, and avalokitesvara, and she sits centrally on my altar. yeah

yeah i can hear that! nice observation

I think that one of the most interesting things about life is that, in terms of subtle levels of reality, we see largely what we look for, or expect to see. And not only do we see it, but we believe it, and it works for us. In regards to what I said to xabir about standing on the shoulders of buddhists, it seems that if one looks to the highest nature of reality with the expectation that they will perceive nothingness and godlessness, that is what they will find. But I have had my experiences with energy, possession by dark spirits, and cleansing areas of houses i lived in, for some examples, in which nothing worked at all, but when i invoked the creator, not by name, but just saying, for example, "by the power of the creator..." and then asking/commanding something, WHAM it happens. In the same instance that yielded failure by more effort, the only difference being that the creator was invoked. So is that real? hahahah does it "exist"? Why, when some people look to the highest nature of reality, do they find a transcendental "being" or "intelligence" or "deity"? And if they are deluded by a nature which is not actually the highest nature, why does it work when invoked? Why does nobody invoke godlessness or emptiness when they have serious energetic work to do? "by the power of emptiness, be cleansed".. I have never even heard of that. But, 2 weeks ago, i was getting some old nasty energy out of our apartment and nothing i knew moved it until i simply invoked the creator (without speech even) and felt it all lift away in a creepy dark cloud and remove itself from the area. It was profound. So i am not arguing, "oh there must be a God" in the abrahamic sense, but there is certainly something out there that seems to be a yang counterpart to emptiness' yin. Apologies if that had nothing to do with the heart sutra, and belonged in another thread. I guess I'm the OP so i'll reserve the right to talk about whatever i like

I have a rich connection with my girlfriend and my meditation teacher. Those sorts of things happen all the time to me, but only with them. So i guess in my own case, there needs to be some kind of energetic rapport before the synchronicities happen. I have noticed in my lifetime what seems to be an energetic awakening of everyone tho, in the sense that people today are far more sensitive to being stared at than they were when i was a kid. It might sound crazy to you, but i used to stare at people a lot when i was little, and nobody really cared or noticed. Now, i find that people in general are more sensitive to being looked at, and will look at me even tho they weren't aware of my presence before, in a response to being observed. Another explanation for this is that my own energies have increased during my lifetime, so that i am affecting people more than i used to when i was a kid. So i am not really convinced that there is some new age awakening just based on that evidence, but it is just a feeling that i have So who can say...

@cat: yes if reincarnation is a reality, this is most certainly the afterlife, and the prelife, and in that sense just another bardo. i think that death is like a dream state where our soul's resonance shapes the experience it has and the journey onward.

Have you ever heard the story of the 5 blind men and the elephant? One said "an elephant must be like a snake" because he felt the trunk, another said "it must be like a tree" because he felt the leg. And so on... to me the mysterious is like this. Your realization is yours, other people's is theirs, and as you point out, those who haven't had a direct experience of the nature of reality must rely on others. I have had my experience which is not less of an experience of reality than yours, and not more. So because we each possess our own distinct natures we see reflected back upon us two faces of the jewel. What i have experienced in my own indescribable direct experience is as i have described, and it is not less for anyone saying "oh no thats not the nature of reality." There will always be those who have great insight and believe in the firmness of the foundation of that insight. What else could people do, they must? I have only had a small insight that there is no foundation, no knowing in an absolute way. In other words, everything is subjectively perceived and described. So nobody can be "right" or "wrong" in this conversation. It is just a conversation by blind men about an elephant. So that is where i have been and colors where i am, in spite of anyones insistence to the contrary. In other words, you have perceived godlessness and emptiness because you stood on the shoulders of buddhists to get your view, and were imprinted thusly. Those who stand on the shoulders of those who perceive a divine being will get their view in a different way. And it will color what they are able to perceive directly, powerful and absolute as that might seem to them. To me, both are true, and everything is true. There is god. There is no god. There is a self, and on the other hand, there is definitely not. There is no way of adequately talking about the nature of reality, yet we continue to converse about our insights. It is both helpful and not helpful, and so on, ad infinitum. So i am very glad that you have realized what you have realized, and i don't question that it reflects in its unique way a part of the nature of reality, but i personally doubt that human beings are endowed with the capacity to realize even a shadow of the nature of reality, much less the infinite mystery itself. However i realize that this is all just more subjective intellectualization about what is objective and beyond intellect, so in that regard, i am surely wrong. hahah best to you

I don't understand your question. "am i still there?" Is your father still living? don't focus on the irrelevant parts of the vision. Focus on the message. Wake up is what matters, the rest doesn't if you ask me. Sounds like taiji is working for you... keep practicing!

Reading the DDJ is such a wonderful experience because it forces a shift from logical linear consciousness to "dreaming" consciousness, or non-dual awareness, or whatever you want to call it. In my experience anyway. The paradoxes and transcendental concepts always push my awareness out of its shell. "empty the mind and fill the belly" doesn't sound like philosophical advice to me... philosophy is full of concepts and rules, and the DDJ is saying put those down and use the force. So in that instance i can see flowing hands' point. But sometimes it does act as a philosophical treatise... "natural whole virtue is like water, it takes the lowest position and thereby nourishes all things". In that instance there are concepts and rules. Even the "rules" of the DDJ are the rules of nature, not the rules of civilization, so it can't be seen as not shamanic. But i don't think that it is a fruitful enterprise to try to fit the DDJ neatly into either category. I am interested in flowing hands' idea because i think people often fail to incorporate the right-brained awareness that the DDJ instills, opting instead of the left-brained philosophical awareness. But my personal stance on it is all-inclusive.. i don't feel that i have to choose between shamanic or philosophical because to me it embodies both of them nicely.

Hi flowing hands, maybe it would help for the sake of open discussion to define "shamanic" since i am not sure what you mean by it. In my mind shaman is a siberian word meaning spirit healer. Shamans had a tradition as medicine people who were skilled in plant and animal medicine, and could journey through the astral planes, and dream meaningfully and lucidly. They were like the medicine women and men of siberian culture. Lately the word has come to be appropriated by all cultures who have medicine people, and used very generally. I am assuming you mean it in this general sense, the sense of spirit medicine and an inseparable connection with nature. Is that correct? What is your understanding of "shaman"? And i would like to say that i don't think that one has to choose between it being shamanic or philosophic, although shamanism tends to be very right brained, and philosophy very left brained. We each function with both hemispheres (hopefully), and master lao surely used both of them in his writing of the dao de ching. So it seems that it is both, like people have said.

Thanks for clarifying that for us. It reminds me of jesus saying that it was easier for a camel to fit through a needle eye than a rich person to ascend to heaven. I didn't mean to twists words, I was just not familiar with that aspect of daoism. And personally, i tend to think that it is more virtuous to provide a service in return for your keep than to beg for it, but thats just an attitude that i carry, im not saying its correct or anything. again, thanks

but that was still Legge in this chapter right?

i like that. Its not so much about old age as it is about acceptance. I think anyone who has had difficulties in life knows that simply accepting them is the first step toward having power or agency in that situation. The last 2 lines tho, i think Mair missed them, and Legge got them better. Thats a first, i have had a hard time wrapping my head around Legge's translations so far.