Rara

Btw, I wasn't calling you a teen - that was just an example I was using!

Songtsan, you answer your own questions very well Forums are great aren't they? Sometimes I write and write and write and suddenly I realise how I highlight my own problems and solutions. Writing is a meditation in itself. Or therapy...keeping diaries is a big thing for some teens. But more to your points. I will side with the side of you that knows chasing, going overboard with compassion etc are bad for you. Although you mean well, remember, people on this planet suck. So you won't be liberated for putting too much energy into others...you will just lose the energy and become disappointed. Do your bit, then move on. Feel no pressure for this and that, just live free Your good nature will look after everything that needs to be looked after...seems like you've cultivated enough now!

Nail on the head. I actually can't add any more to this other than yes, I too saw all the Dalai Lama hate. There's a whole book I found being sold in their own book store - The Great Deception I think it was called. A whole book of figer pointing on how this guy must be stopped, that he's a charlatan etc etc. Geshe Kelsang Gyatso claimed in the book Modern Buddhism that if you chop up and enlightened person and throw them down the stairs (I am paraphrasing), they wouldn't feel pain. That almost looked like an invitation to me...but at that point, I stopped reading haha.

Before I go, just spent a good 20 minutes trying to find this film clip! It pretty much sums the silly debate up for me: http://www.metacafe.com/watch/an-VrbMb22tmhbbbu/hot_fuzz_2007_town_meeting/ Marblehead won't find it funny though. It's British humour.

Definitely not!

Yes, lots branches/sects - and definitely many supernatural ideas. The new kadampa guys that I spent some time with didn't like to talk about a god in the sky, and worked more with what I saw as psychology in their meditation classes. Deeper in the texts though, I then started to see some very wacky statements, especially about enlightened people. Their marketing is quite sinister...they draw people in with what looks like nice, ordinary, sensible self help and community building and then a few month later it's "oh this is the book we believe in by the way"...and it all just becomes a circus show from there on. I still didn't see any explicit god emphasis though, but they are ritualistic in the same way as other religious groups. Atheism doesn't have such ritualistic practices either way.

Yes...I realise actually what I should have said is, why should people care so much?

Yeah, you might need to adapt to the circumstances, sounds like they've changed a bit! Have you tried mindfulness meditation? I know you practice some other things but this I know has helped many people deal with these sorts of things. I know of a forum where many people discuss such things as well. Some have had some pretty bad illnesses like MS ans depression and use mindfulness to help them through. Drop me a message if you're interested in me giving you some links.

I once resented incarnation... Eventually had to say f*** it, it's happening. Deal with it. Then I also figured resentment didn't make me feel good...and I do like feeling good. So now I practice gratefulness instead I don't know if this helps. Every now and then though, I find doing the exact opposite to what my thought process is telling me, very insightful. Or doing somethimg very random, or out of character. Something will spark in the mind that says "ooh, look at this new thing", and everything becomes awesome

I have given up lots of things in my life... Things that didn't make me happy. To some, it is failure. To me it is victory, liberation, and a lesson not to do things in future just for prestige.

Glad you found your martial art bro

Buddhism? A religion without God...just throwing that one out there.

But even man has his limitations. The Tao is bigger than us, and knows what it should. And we will only ever know what is available to us

Sure, but by having a title in a thread, having some sort of coherence is useful...especially if I'm left "not understanding" your quantum slit analogy, then we have a little chat about it, and then I realise that I made it clear nearly a week ago that I knew where you were coming from. Yes, the dominating majority, definitely. But let's not forget a huge percentage of these are religious (in their mind) Fair play to your last statement, and that certain divide indicates to me that atheism is not a religion, because we cannot put everybody under the same roof in this way. Likewise, you could argue this with any religion, due to the fact that they all have schisms. I don't feel the need for a label, because it pigeon-holes the belief system that one "belongs to". Despite my love for Lao Tzu's philosophy, or Chuang Tzu's, Buddha's, Einstein's, Sam Harris' - if I say I'm a Taoist, I'm lying. If I say I'm a Buddhist, I'm lying. If I say I'm an atheist, I'm lying. Atheism can be followed like a religion. Then how do we define religion? How does that differ from cult? Then what about the individuals? The "atheists" that have explored the spirituality? Are they equally as spiritually liberated as those that have the same comfort in claiming to have found enlightenment? So many variables here... Atheism sure can be likened to a religion if you string enough similarities together. My real question then, is...who really cares?

So is this your main point for the thread? I'm just trying to get some sort of answer...by "we" are you just talking about the majority of the world? If talking about atheism explicitly, is this a closed-minded type of religion for you?

Ok, so we appear to be going around in circles here. I established this days ago, I thought you were trying to get at something else... I will leave it at that.

I didn't do too badly trying to remember, did I It was a good 4 years ago now that I learnt about this. But no, not my area at all but I will echo the responses here and say yes, very well explained. The tangent and relation to what we were talking about should wait, sure. I would like to take time to digest this again anyway.

True in some circumatances (your first sentence) especially if you know what you're doing isn't working, that you've taken the wrong approach (not prepared well in the first instance) or you've "lost" the battle (but the war is far from over) Is desire bad though? What about acquiring a skill? Meditating, for example, wouldn't be any good if we all didn't "try" to improve the technique. Or are you speaking more against the word "try"? Like Yoda..."do there is only"? In which case I know what you are saying...

Lol

Now this is cool.

Haha, everyone in England agrees that Yorkshire do the best tea. Even my parents down in London have it! There is such a thing as Lancashire tea you know? *tumbleweed*

Jasmine green has become a staple for me but I do like the odd novelty: Smokey teas (Lapsang or there is a Shri Lankan one that I forgot the name of) Oolong Dried fruit teas Earl grey I always have peppermint in the house too in case of digestion troubles.

Though I have often seen you say sometimes you don't know what you mean How will we ever know when you actually know? Hehe (there goes my insecurity again)

Hello! The quantum slit experiment I believe vaguely, but correct, I dabbled in what I see as entry level quantum physics but didn't move much further. I think 4th Spatial Dimension was about it as well as what I think you're describing - do you mean the photon blasted through a slit but then dispersed in a fashion on the other side that was not predicted? I just stopped because it didn't interest me, especially when the "real quantum physics" emerged. Formulas were never my thing...each to their own. Your reference to the quantum split though, was sandwiched between talking about MH's "boxed" answer and something else though (am I correct? Sorry, I don't have time to trace back through the thread today) I think I missed the analogy (if there ever was one!) You could well have been talking about something completely different. Perhaps that was why there was a miscommunication in places...your tangents I was left scratching my head on how certain things were threaded together. But feel free to explain more about the quantum slit if I haven't quite got that overview correct! Physics is my stronger side, as well as maths. Not strongest, not expert, but fairly well educated. I'm lucky in that my Wing Chun teacher is PhD Physics, research fellow and university lecturer. As a good friend, I happen to just hear all about it by default. Your "Higgs Boson" is proof of Ākāśa tattva, a fundamental concept of Jyotish shastra...is lost on me. Only because I haven't been learning the latter, so only you will know what you mean here.

Well, I believe I quoted you in order of how you wrote it. Again, if it makes sense to you, then great, but this is exactly the point behind my "mumbo jumbo" comment. Nothing linked, but if you did speak of that earlier then ok, but it's not what I read initially. But further to your elaboration, yes, and in fact, I made a similar statement in response to MH about the stomach making up its own mind (but metaphorically) to eat the person if they don't choose to feed it. That is a good (and as you say obvious) observation which is so often overlooked. I just wouldn't go as far as to say it is a mind, or that it thinks, for those definitions have their own variables. The stomach can't do maths, but it can act spontaneously to its needs. These are quite different things.