Is This The Truth About Kundalini?

[Ulises]

I see, so your entire interpretation of me is based upon the fear instilled into you during past lives. That does make sense. To compare the teachings of the Buddha to Christian conquests paved in murder, is reflective of your own state of mind concerning religion in general, which is strongly conditioned by Western Monotheism.

 

You are really saying more about where you are at than where I am at. My intentions are far removed from those that you are associating me with. It seems that you have a brother in ralis when it comes to this.

 

 

 

Who says I'm trying to convert anybody? I'm sharing my view and experience for the fun of it, and you guys have so many buttons... really.

 

Yes, everyone says all this, but I'm just saying, the Buddha did actually teach a religion, Buddhism was not a later development that came about after he died. He created an order of monks and he created an order of nuns, as well as the practices and contemplations that lead to being a Buddha, just like him.

 

Did Jesus do that? Jesus was cool, but he didn't really teach with a lot of clarity, at least not to a whole lot of people. Maybe he did to some Essenes? But, we don't really know for sure and we don't really have a clear picture of what he taught.

 

So yes, I am Buddhist, and I am going to speak from the Buddhist view of things, always, because it's complete, clear, deep, subtle, refined, grounded, also transcendent at the same time.

 

I'm not trying to convert you, I'm just sharing... I think it's your fear taking control of you, some deep seeds possibly from what you just mentioned concerning some past life karma.

 

 

Oh my!

It's soooo boring to discuss with you!

Buddhists chased out the Bon shamans the same merciless way than Christians went after their ecstatics.

 

The point, since my early experiences is (sorry for the quotes, but are way far better articulated than my poor English):

"The emergence of social institutions to house ecstatic rapture - whether as temples, ashrams, churches, synagogues, medicine societies, shaman guilds, or pagan societies - resulted in the quieting of the originating experience in exchange for uniform narrative understanding and maintenance of social hierarchy. The ecstatic experience was sacrificed for normalized belief and group conformity. This was true for shamanism as well as the major world religions"

"We can choose to move toward the unpredictable, unknowable, and untamable wild. The sacred lives in the wild. The sacred constitutes the wild. The problem began when someone said that words and meanings must explain, domesticate, and cover up wild experience. Within this hegemony of words, we demystified whatever was mysterious and walked away from the wild in order to become semantically tamed. We sacrificed our link-to-the-universe-heart for a delusional body-less-head-trip that has imprisoned us far too long."

 

The point is, for me, to enter the Mysterium Tremendum et Fascinans without maps..falling in love with the Mystery, as ,i.e., wisely did the Bushmen of the Kalahari for, at least, 60.000 years old. They never had religious wars, heretics, and the damned whole thing of lineages,etc.

 

Entering the Mystery where, you, Vajrahridaya, and me, Uli, can feel that we are that unfathomable Mystery of the Big Hridaya, Big Heart...

I can begin to feel it, now, my fellow human, and makes cry...

Edited December 8, 2010 by Ulises

[Birch]

Oh my!

It's soooo boring to discuss with you!

Buddhists chased out the Bon shamans the same merciless way than Christians went after their ecstatics.

 

The point, since my early experiences is (sorry for the quotes, but are way far better articulated than my poor English):

"The emergence of social institutions to house ecstatic rapture - whether as temples, ashrams, churches, synagogues, medicine societies, shaman guilds, or pagan societies - resulted in the quieting of the originating experience in exchange for uniform narrative understanding and maintenance of social hierarchy. The ecstatic experience was sacrificed for normalized belief and group conformity. This was true for shamanism as well as the major world religions"

"We can choose to move toward the unpredictable, unknowable, and untamable wild. The sacred lives in the wild. The sacred constitutes the wild. The problem began when someone said that words and meanings must explain, domesticate, and cover up wild experience. Within this hegemony of words, we demystified whatever was mysterious and walked away from the wild in order to become semantically tamed. We sacrificed our link-to-the-universe-heart for a delusional body-less-head-trip that has imprisoned us far too long."

 

The point is, for me, to enter the Mysterium Tremendum et Fascinans without maps..falling in love with the Mystery, as ,i.e., wisely did the Bushmen of the Kalahari for, at least, 60.000 years old. They never had religious wars, heretics, and the damned whole thing of lineages,etc.

 

What I find awesome/excruciating is that the "uniform narrative" even has a way in. Why? What is it? Is it a hook into something we used before out of necessity? A development? A mutation? An implant? I have no idea. I know I have this capacity/burden (for want of a better term) but I don't know why or where it came from. Anyone read/see/know/hear?

[Ulises]

What I find awesome/excruciating is that the "uniform narrative" even has a way in. Why? What is it? Is it a hook into something we used before out of necessity? A development? A mutation? An implant? I have no idea. I know I have this capacity/burden (for want of a better term) but I don't know why or where it came from. Anyone read/see/know/hear?

 

Dear Kate,

that could be one of the most exciting and important threads in this forum..I consider it a crucial matter, specially in this time of decadence of all the "systems" of any kind...

[RongzomFan]

Oh my!

It's soooo boring to discuss with you!

Buddhists chased out the Bon shamans the same merciless way than Christians went after their ecstatics.

 

 

Bon came after Buddhism

[ralis]

Bon came after Buddhism

 

Bon predates Buddhism in Tibet. A scholar told me that Bon is a term for any indigenous religion.

[Ulises]

What a sinchronicity!

This afternoon I picked the book I had ordered "A Story Waiting to Pierce You" by the scholar and mystic Peter KIngsley, explaining the genocide commited by the Tibetan Buddhists- mass murders, forced conversions - on the indigenous shamans of Tibet.

The fascinating fact is that of Mongolian shamanism transmitted to Pythagoras, and then, becoming the gnostic/hermetic wisdom, the sufi wisdom...the message is that of a common mystical ground of East and West...

[KoolAid900]

Wonderful post btw... I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Its nice to see introspection and knowledge conjoining in honesty, it is a rare experience for me, esp. on message board!

 

We're the creator, that's right, inter-dependently. So there isn't a "one" consciousness behind it. The thing is, is that I am so called "kundalini" active with all the classical experiences, and I used to have the same interpretation of it as you did... conditioned by theistic concepts with experiential interpretation revolving around theistic premise. When I started to have the 3rd eye experiences revolving around the contemplation of dependent origination/emptiness with the insights revealing perception past the theistic dimension of experience... There was no reconciliation between the two. I started to truly understand what the Buddha taught, and how entirely different of a realization it is from the level of "oneness" that reabsorbs and expresses Samsara, recycling all of us sentient beings, from the lower realms to the higher realms.

 

The experience of oneness is the experience of one's awareness expanding, but identifying that "WOW" and very powerful experience with a higher Self, or grand Self of all is just another revelation of the personal clinging to an identity, or Self of all. This is a deeply rooted tendency that is the root of our revolving between lower and higher realms since time without beginning.

 

Manitou,

 

What you're experiencing now is just the upswing, from Nihilism to Eternalism.

 

Because you haven't really studied the Buddhas teachings directly and at length as he is the single biggest teacher of a particular spiritual tradition known to man as he actually taught the tradition associated with him and it wasn't a later development by other more ignorant beings like Christianity for instance. You might not understand the subtlety of his intention or realization? But he went through all those experiences that you are talking about and that level of absorption in meditation and interpretation that reifies these experiences as proof of an ultimate "consciousness." He then stepped back and realized it was an incomplete view by questioning deeper and discarded the Vedic and Theistic interpretation of it all which he grew up with, as lacking in direct insight into what is really going on and went deeper! When he talks about the 8 jhanas including the 4 formless jhanas or meditative Samadhi's of "infinite space", "infinite consciousness", "infinite nothingness", "neither perception nor non-perception." These are deeply refined states of consciousness that most people never, become conscious of as a personal potential. When people do have a glimpse of one of these states of consciousness, they have a tendency to make one or another of them the ultimate "source of being", then tell everyone and create a tradition around it. I.E. Jesus, A.A., Islam... and other such versions of Monotheism. Generally the God that they saw is just one of the long lived God's or Goddess's that were first born at the big bang, who mistakenly thought that everything that came after one or the other depending on the dimension of that God, was actually coming from "His" or "Her" own being. So these God's teach different versions of theism saying that it all comes from "The Almighy One" who wills it all!!

 

The Buddha talks about this in his deeply extensive and exhaustive teaching. He actually confronts one of the most powerful God's, Lord Brahma, known by most all beings in the higher heavens as the "creator" or "soul" of the universe, which over many eons they fight over who actually is the "creator." Yes, even the God's fight over this, even though they preach oneness. Anyway, the Buddha said to him, "Then you're going to take responsibility for all the suffering of the universe?" Which is pretty much what theists do, is offer everything back to this, "one". In this offering you rise! You will experience the high heavens for eons! But once that karma exhausts... who knows where you'll go? The only way to find out is by delving more deeply into this experience of oneness.

 

Can't we say that the reference the Buddha is making here is to an inner guidepost so that we avoid a particular pitfall? Language is in essence metaphorical, so someone of a non-Buddhist tradition maybe using the word "oneness(or whatever it is)" as metaphor pointing to the truth... not necessarily capturing it literally. It seems it would all depend on the inner state of the individual and what the symbol, word or concept, represents that would determine if the truth is the same or different.

 

Kundalini is really just inter-personal awareness's and inter-personal karmic alignments being illuminated. There really is no kundalini as an intelligent and independent force behind it all, this is just another notion arising dependent upon self clinging, but on an ultimate level. It's reflective of the extreme of Eternalism. It's an attachment, and one that ultimately leads to unsatisfactoriness, even after the hell realms are emptied and the middle realms are emptied, and then the heaven realms of the long lived Gods' are emptied.

 

Kundalini as independent must be an illusion. However, I disagree that it would not be intelligent. I see no difference between Kundalini and awareness.

 

These teachings come from the long lived Gods'. These realms Buddha talked about going to and having access to during his trip through the different meditative states. These realms I've verified for myself through going through these different meditative states as well.

 

The Buddha did teach something different, it's a paradigm shift in perception and interpretation of the nature of perception on a deeply intuitive level that does reflect third eye activity.

 

The words the Buddha used certainly are different and it seems that Buddha offered clarity in avoiding certain pitfalls which may have been prevalent at that time. It is fundamentally different in terms of the paradigm used. However, the result can only be judged by the result, not the paradigm.

 

The seeming will of the Energy you are experiencing is a complex assortment of your own karmas and also the will of the God's within your karmic lineage all working together. It's really not a one individual will. It is positive, but it's just the other extreme from the hell of Nihilism, thus not the path of the middle way.

 

We do not merge with a formless level of being, we cut through even "oneness" and empty that level of clinging as well in order to truly liberate from the unconscious recycling program that is the universe, not to transcend it per say, but to truly see right through it, even while being a part of it.

 

I wish you well!

 

What about if we merge with a formless level of being without being attached to it? It seems that it would be the same thing then as far as I can tell.

 

Love the way the post was put together...!

[KoolAid900]

Is this life-affirming...?:

 

'In a talk the Dalai Lama gave at UCLA in June, 1997, he read the following text:

 

"Most attachment to women comes from

the belief that womens bodies are pure.

But in actuality there is no purity

in a womans body at all.

 

Her mouth is a vessel of impurity,

with putrid saliva and gunk between her teeth;

Her nose is a pot of snot, phlegm and mucous,

and her eyes contain eye-slime and tears.

 

Her torso is a container of excrement,

holding urine, the lungs, liver and such.

The confused do not see that a woman is such;

thus, they lust after her body.

 

Like unknowing persons, who have become attached

to an ornamented vessel filled with filth,

Unknowing and worldly beings

are attached to women.

 

The Dalai Lama was reading from the Precious Garland of Nagarjuna, who is sometimes revered as a "Second Buddha."

 

Life affirming....?

 

...and Aurobindo is not the only one...

 

LOL, I can understand that seeming very negative. However, you have to understand the context/intent. It is not to demean women, but to develop renunciation... possibly intended especially for monks. No matter what spiritual path we are taking the methods include reducing engagement with negativity and increase engagement with positivity. Unless it is mystical method of no-method, that is. Understood within that context, the purpose of this teaching is to eliminate the negative aspect of sexual attraction. Potentially extremely important for someone to maintain lifelong celibacy. If not a monk, then I think it would have to be balanced with cultivation of the love & spiritual part of the sexual experience.

[KoolAid900]

Ulises,

 

Actually, your comments reveal your dogma. The all is one dogma, the all paths come from and lead to the same place dogma. The dogma of "the non-conceptual" is the ground of being transcending all.

 

I also used to think this transcended dogmas, but then I had a realization, a Eureka revealing how dogmatic and imperialistic I was being. As if it couldn't be true that there are in fact different levels of realization and different types of insights into the nature of things that lead to different interpretations of the nature of "enlightenment" and "liberation?"

 

According to Buddhism, there is no ultimate truth, just relative truth, and that's Buddhisms ultimate truth.

 

P.S. What I'm saying is that, there are different insights, different outcomes to different approaches. I really don't care what this person realized, it's not in line with the teaching of the Buddha. I'm not sectarian, I'm just pragmatic. There are differences, both relative and ultimate between different spiritual traditions that lead to different spiritual outcomes, though generally subtle, they are important differences.

 

What this person is talking about is the luminosity, discussed and experienced by all major spiritual traditions, but not emptiness, which is the kicker that etches Buddhism out of the Universalism and Imperialism of all paths lead to and come from an ultimate and transcending "one" of all.

 

OK, point taken, but. my teachers refer to enlightenment as the union of luminosity and emptiness. we could perhaps differentiate that from direct pointing out of Mahamudra/Dzokchen. Otherwise though, sounds an awful lot like oneness to me.

[KoolAid900]

"Any tricked-out and tripped-out harpings made about any form of spiritual vehicle being the ultimate is BS."

 

I agree but first time round I read: "Any tricked-out and tripped-out form of spiritual vehicle" and it lead me to consider briefly that maybe yes, ANY spiritual vehicle needs to be somewhat tricked-out and tripped-out or you won't recognize it as one and it won't take you sufficiently off the beaten path for you to start going "wait a minute, you mean...?"

 

Love it!

[KoolAid900]

Hey, you are welcome to your dogma and interpretation of spirituality. As am I. You consider the non-conceptual as ground of being. I do not. I come from a perspective that differs from yours. That should be ok. I don't find your view to be complete, as you don't find mine to be. I'm ok to disagree.

 

It seems that conceptual understanding sharpens the clarity of the mind, which is very good. It seems that awareness itself is non-conceptual. Clarity, which can be cultivated through conceptual understanding, leads one to the recognition of awareness. Awareness is non-conceptual. I think sometimes it is easy to confuse the conceptual understanding that increases clarity, thereby decreasing confusion & revealing awareness, as the actual awareness itself. Don't forget that the non-conceptual is empty as well.

Edited December 8, 2010 by KoolAid900

[3bob]

Yes, and as I just say, the "oneness" view does not ultimately pacify suffering, it only does for a cosmic eon, then one is re-absorbed by a collective unconscious... do not pass go, do not collect "moksha." I know, sounds preposterous when I step out of my experience. But, what else should I reference?

 

I feel that your interpretation of my intention arises dependent upon a clinging to a self... or Self. That is my interpretation of your interpretation at least. Hey! I can agree to disagree.

 

If we take to heart the first part of the earlier quote (recopied below) then we might begin to understand the second part of the quote.

 

"Monks, do not wage wordy warfare, saying: 'You don't understand this Dhamma and discipline, I understand this Dhamma and discipline'; 'How could you understand it? You have fallen into wrong practices: I have the right practice'; 'You have said afterwards what you should have said first, and you have said first what you should have said afterwards'; 'What I say is consistent, what you say isn't'; 'What you have thought out for so long is entirely reversed'; 'Your statement is refuted'; 'You are talking rubbish!'; 'You are in the wrong'; 'Get out of that if you can!'"

 

Om

[Ulises]

Tell me just one thing, Vajrahridaya...are you laughing more and more about your assholeness...?

I do about mine

I love you, bro

 

"The child-like laughter of the Infinite"

 

 

Edited December 8, 2010 by Ulises

[Ulises]

It's a matter of temperament, or if you prefer, of aestethic resonance ( I envision more and more the different paths are different songs...)

(My own comentary:the path of love is not exclusive of some tradition: for example the Bushmen of the Kalahari speak about the Big Love. I don't "follow" a path, simply my heart is expanding according to an organic, spontaneous rhtyhm...a good metaphor would be an "attuning", in fact the Bushmen and most of the primordial traditions speak about "getting your song/s". Also, I don't resonate with the Abrahamic traditions, but I feel strongly the truth of the following words. Other way to say it: "The poet only see similarities, where others only see differences". To retrieve the poetic eyes of the child is a great spiritual accomplishment...)

 

"The unity of the path of awareness and the path of love cannot be arrived at intellectually. It is an experiential truth. And being this Truth, this love-light, is the only way to see this unity, this merging of the paths. Any reasoning or intellectual deductions to make these two paths meet are rationalizations and fall short of the Truth, the actual Reality. In my particular case I followed both the theistic approach (Judeo-Christian-Moslem) and the non-theistic one (Buddhism.) The first one emphasizes the way of love, the latter the way of awareness. I say “emphasize” because they both have both approaches, and the two paths cannot be totally separated, for in reality they are indivisible. I read and heard many accounts of how all paths are the same because they lead to the same Truth. But I was never totally convinced by those arguments, although I liked many of them. In my own experience, the two paths seemed to be very different. They have different qualities and emphasize different values. I experience myself differently in each of them. I could see that they were both true, that my experience in each of them smelled and tasted of truth. I could see that they were complementary, like fullness and emptiness, the green earth and the blue sky. My intellect could not figure out the unity. Only the experience of total transcendence showed me this unity, in the identity of love and light.

 

At the time of the experience I had no conceptual idea of what I am saying now. There was only God. Now, reflecting back upon it, I see that I experienced truth simultaneously as love and light.

 

In Buddhism, supreme Reality is referred to as Dharmakaya. And Dharmakaya, or Being-as-such, is seen as the unity of emptiness and bliss, sunyata and Mahasukha. Sunyata is an ultimate experience that crowns the path of awareness. It is the experiencing of reality directly, without the filtering of conflicting emotions and primitive beliefs about reality. It is arrived at by cutting through all concepts concerning reality. Yet, sunyata is not the ultimate experience of the Buddhist path. In fact, sunyata has to die and luminosity has to be born. In other words, intuitive awareness (prajna) has to lead to intrinsic awareness (jnana.) Prajna is the awareness that is sharp and intuitive enough to cut through all concepts and beliefs. However, it is still not being awareness. While jnana is being awareness, is being one and the same with light. That is why it is called intrinsic awareness. It is not other than Buddha-nature. So, sunyata is the gate to Buddha nature. It leads to the experience of Dharmakaya, which is the indivisibility of bliss and light, love and pristine awareness. For love is bliss, and awareness is light, and the two are the indivisible nature of Being.

 

The Truth, Dharmakaya, Absolute, or whatever name we give it, is the origin of all paths, and is the home where all paths lead. Spiritual devotion leads to this consuming truth; so does awareness. Usually the path of devotion and love is theistic, for it is easier to devote oneself to a Bigger Reality. The lover and the Beloved are separated so that the longing of devotion will unite them again. At the beginning of the path the individual is not aware of the absolute truth, and that it is All. The Truth is apprehended only at later stages, or in peak experiences. The path of awareness, on the other hand, leads to the same Truth, but it is of the nature of awareness that it does not need a bigger reality to be aware of. It starts by awareness of our present experience and environment. So the path of awareness is usually non-theistic, as in Buddhism."

http://www.ahalmaas.com/Extracts/truth.htm

Edited December 8, 2010 by Ulises

[3bob]

Yes I know that. But maybe you need to trick and trip it (mind) out to get there? Hence practice is a vehicle. I'll leave "to where?" well alone at this point lest our friends with an idea of "where" that ought to be jump in...

 

Of course it's easy (for me?) to argue this after all that - because it'spretty much where I was to start with but with kind of a difference... The difference is that I know for sure what it is and where it came from and which of it is me (heart/spirit) and which is not.

 

I also believe ALL people know this. Always have and always will. Which is why it hurts so often IMO. We know but we persist in things that are against us because we don't have faith in what we know for sure. Why don't we have faith? Because we gave it away.

 

Still, I'm sure this might look like a circular argument or a begging of questions from elsewhere. Go figure

 

Hi Kate,

It is not so much that greater tricks and trips can awaken us from lesser tricks and trips of the mind, (although there is some of that but then such often become the next set of replacements) it is that mind needs to come to re-understand its role as servant and tool of Spirit - instead of it wanting to call all the shots... further when we are internally unified so is our faith, on the other hand faith is weakened when divided with cross purposes. Did we give faith and or unity away or is it more like it was it lost, misplaced, divided or stolen?

 

Om

[C T]

Mr. CowTao,

Are you in support of what is mostly VJ's steady stream of unmoderated urination over a large number of people and also their paths at this site?

 

Below is a true Buddhist teaching which imo our VJ almost constantly breaks:

 

"Monks, do not wage wordy warfare, saying: 'You don't understand this Dhamma and discipline, I understand this Dhamma and discipline'; 'How could you understand it? You have fallen into wrong practices: I have the right practice'; 'You have said afterwards what you should have said first, and you have said first what you should have said afterwards'; 'What I say is consistent, what you say isn't'; 'What you have thought out for so long is entirely reversed'; 'Your statement is refuted'; 'You are talking rubbish!'; 'You are in the wrong'; 'Get out of that if you can!'

 

"Why should you not do this? Such talk, monks, is not related to the goal, it is not fundamental to the holy life, does not conduce to disenchantment, dispassion, cessation, tranquillity, higher knowledge, enlightenment or to Nibbana. When you have discussions, monks, you should discuss Suffering, the Arising of Suffering, its Cessation, and the Path that leads to its Cessation. Why is that? Because such talk is related to the goal... it conduces to disenchantment... to Nibbana. This is the task you must accomplish."

 

 

Hi 3Bob,

 

Its true i enjoy reading Vaj's experiences and i know so do a few others here. Its also true i enjoy reading of many Taoist practitioners' experiences as well. Maybe that's because i do not have a constricted view of things. Why should i, when all that potentially does is stifle the unlimited colors that go a long way to painting this glorious rainbow we call 'existence'.

 

The less-than-appropriate term you chose (unmoderated urination?) does not befit you, so its quite disheartening to hear of such coming from a someone i have grown to like and respect, just i have suddenly grown to like and respect Manitou for showing the integrity and strength to rise above what i would normally say 'the small self'... what she has demonstrated is spiritual maturity, a quality that none of us can have enough of.

 

There is so much more that we can take from here if only we can learn to understand deeper why we feel disagreeable with certain thoughts/individuals in the first place. The common mistake seem to rest in how we project that it's always the external things that are faulty... however, upon further investigation, based on honest appraisal, we will usually realize where the real source of the dislikes is, and once we are ok with this realization, it makes the road to freedom so much more wide and traversable.

Edited December 8, 2010 by CowTao

[C T]

-- double post --

Edited December 8, 2010 by CowTao

[Vajrahridaya]

Oh my!

It's soooo boring to discuss with you!

Buddhists chased out the Bon shamans the same merciless way than Christians went after their ecstatics.

 

The point, since my early experiences is (sorry for the quotes, but are way far better articulated than my poor English):

"The emergence of social institutions to house ecstatic rapture - whether as temples, ashrams, churches, synagogues, medicine societies, shaman guilds, or pagan societies - resulted in the quieting of the originating experience in exchange for uniform narrative understanding and maintenance of social hierarchy. The ecstatic experience was sacrificed for normalized belief and group conformity. This was true for shamanism as well as the major world religions"

 

The ecstatic state is not the goal of Buddhism, it's only a side effect, or one of the results. The subtle differences are very real. The power to re-manifest in any realm with memory of the previous incarnation for the benefit of beings, the power to survive the pralaya, or big universal crunch (opposite of the big bang) with personal memory intact for the sake of endless beings and not be ignorantly recycled and re-expressed as an Amoeba or something or even a cat, dog or a sentient being without the power of self awareness. All sorts of different subtle things are the goal of Buddhism which are just not discussed in other traditions because of the difference in "view."

 

Buddhism is not like all world religions. It's different, both relatively and ultimately.

 

"We can choose to move toward the unpredictable, unknowable, and untamable wild. The sacred lives in the wild. The sacred constitutes the wild. The problem began when someone said that words and meanings must explain, domesticate, and cover up wild experience. Within this hegemony of words, we demystified whatever was mysterious and walked away from the wild in order to become semantically tamed. We sacrificed our link-to-the-universe-heart for a delusional body-less-head-trip that has imprisoned us far too long."

 

Buddhist practice and integration with the practices of the yogic techniques and visualizations for the sake of manifesting the 3 kayas is far from a head trip.

 

The point is, for me, to enter the Mysterium Tremendum et Fascinans without maps..falling in love with the Mystery, as ,i.e., wisely did the Bushmen of the Kalahari for, at least, 60.000 years old. They never had religious wars, heretics, and the damned whole thing of lineages,etc.

 

Then do your thing! I prefer what the Buddha taught, it's more profound for me.

 

Entering the Mystery where, you, Vajrahridaya, and me, Uli, can feel that we are that unfathomable Mystery of the Big Hridaya, Big Heart...

I can begin to feel it, now, my fellow human, and makes cry...

 

I know the experience very well. But it's what you do with it, it's how conscious you are of it, and having the knowing, and the tools to make it truly beneficial, endlessly. The cosmos is deeply complex, and there are all sorts of pit stops and places to go. Ecstasy is not my goal, it's only one of the benefits of the goal of Buddhist practice.

[Vajrahridaya]

Bon came after Buddhism

 

Bon predates Buddhism by thousands of years. Todays' Bon in Tibet though is just another form of Vajrayana/Dzogchen Buddhism with only some slight differences in form.

[Birch]

"Did we give faith and or unity away or is it more like it was it lost, misplaced, divided or stolen?"

 

Good question. I believe it's theft and that many religions participate in this theft in the first place (get back to that Confucian (?) quote about the family...ack) and strive to maintain a separation indefinitely (although they promise reunification after death, big carrot required otherwise no-one would buy it).

 

Concerning Buddhism for example, what is the "end goal"? The end goal is for a person to reach "Nirvana in/is Samsara" IMO a situation in which high equanimity ensures no further emotional involvement with the world and in which the person has renounced their selfhood as "no-self".

 

While I agree that the "false-self" (an illusion anyway so no biggie) should drop off. I suggest that whatever remains, remains as a natural expression of the heart/spirit of the person.

 

That Buddhist practices are hypothesized to effect neurological structure (see Persinger and co.)seems to me to be an issue. Just how far can one go in participating in one's own lobotomy?

[Vajrahridaya]

What a sinchronicity!

This afternoon I picked the book I had ordered "A Story Waiting to Pierce You" by the scholar and mystic Peter KIngsley, explaining the genocide commited by the Tibetan Buddhists- mass murders, forced conversions - on the indigenous shamans of Tibet.

The fascinating fact is that of Mongolian shamanism transmitted to Pythagoras, and then, becoming the gnostic/hermetic wisdom, the sufi wisdom...the message is that of a common mystical ground of East and West...

 

Those aren't the type of Buddhists I'm interested in Ulises. That is your view and that is the type of Buddhism you associate Buddhism with. But that's not where I place my mind when I think of true Buddhism and true Buddhist practice. Those are just confused individuals who will use any excuse to gain power over other people. Just like when I think of true Christians I think of St. Francis, St. John of the Cross, St. Theresa of Avila or Lisiuex, or Miester Ekhart... or the Desert Fathers who wrote the Philokalia. When I think of Islam, I don't even think of Muhamed. I think of Rumi, Mansur Mastana, Rabia, Hafiz, etc. Even though I value these peoples contributions to humanity. I don't think that they had the same level of realization as the Buddha. They had high realization, but not the same level of result body, before or after life. Not the same attainment of the "tools" for the sake of endless sentient beings.

 

I have experiences, and these experiences show me that the goal of all spiritual traditions are not the same. These experiences go beyond being trapped in a meat suit. Most Shamanistic paths believe that there is a single agent, a single being of mysterious intelligence behind everything that you need to get in touch with and merge with. I am aware of this level of experience and used to interpret my spirituality under this assumption. I don't anymore.

 

The Buddhist view is more refined and doesn't make intellectual, experiential, or emotional excuses for ignorance.

Edited December 8, 2010 by Vajrahridaya

[Vajrahridaya]

 

 

Concerning Buddhism for example, what is the "end goal"? The end goal is for a person to reach "Nirvana in/is Samsara" IMO a situation in which high equanimity ensures no further emotional involvement with the world and in which the person has renounced their selfhood as "no-self".

 

 

That's the Hinayana view, which is only one aspect of Buddhism and one that doesn't even really exist anymore. As Theravada is not even Hinayana and recognizes that the Buddha taught the concept of the Bodhisatta (Bodhisatva.) So, Nirvana is not the goal of Mahayana/Vajrayana or Dzogchen. Nirvana is actually merely a stepping stone. After one attains Nirvana, one must be awakened to take up the Bodhisattva path and actually have emotional involvement with the world, but from a liberated point of view.

 

While I agree that the "false-self" (an illusion anyway so no biggie) should drop off. I suggest that whatever remains, remains as a natural expression of the heart/spirit of the person.

 

Sure, but what to do with that, and how to make it a vessel of ultimate benefit is what the Buddhist practice is all about. It's not just getting there, Buddhism also treats the state of enlightenment as part of the path and teaches the enlightened to be better in their enlightenment. It teaches how to manifest various tools or potentials that are beneficial for the sake of all sentient beings.

 

That Buddhist practices are hypothesized to effect neurological structure (see Persinger and co.)seems to me to be an issue. Just how far can one go in participating in one's own lobotomy?

 

Your understanding of the result of Buddhist practice is very different from mine.

Edited December 8, 2010 by Vajrahridaya

[Vajrahridaya]

Wonderful post btw... I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Its nice to see introspection and knowledge conjoining in honesty, it is a rare experience for me, esp. on message board!

 

 

Thanks KoolAid900.

 

Can't we say that the reference the Buddha is making here is to an inner guidepost so that we avoid a particular pitfall? Language is in essence metaphorical, so someone of a non-Buddhist tradition maybe using the word "oneness(or whatever it is)" as metaphor pointing to the truth... not necessarily capturing it literally. It seems it would all depend on the inner state of the individual and what the symbol, word or concept, represents that would determine if the truth is the same or different.

 

Yes, I agree, everyone internally defines words and concepts individually. I've written pages on this some years ago. But, I'm saying as a tradition, Buddhist concepts manifests such clarity in terms of the state of mind of enlightenment that it's like the body of enlightenment itself, at best of course. Which is why we don't use the term oneness as it leads to lots of excuses and mis-understandings about the nature of things, and we use (pratyitsamutpada and shunyata) inter-dependence and emptiness instead, which leads to a much clearer understanding of whats going on within the experience of anything, from the mundane to the super mundane.

 

Kundalini as independent must be an illusion. However, I disagree that it would not be intelligent. I see no difference between Kundalini and awareness.

 

Me neither. Yes, you are right. But, I'm saying that it's traditionally treated in Theism with this sense of mystery, as if it had a will of it's own outside of our karmas, as if it's manifestation was not merely our karmas coming to awareness. All I'm saying is that the Buddhist view de-mystifies the experience and gives insight to what's "actually" going on.

 

 

 

The words the Buddha used certainly are different and it seems that Buddha offered clarity in avoiding certain pitfalls which may have been prevalent at that time. It is fundamentally different in terms of the paradigm used. However, the result can only be judged by the result, not the paradigm.

 

I agree, and I've said that a Buddha can pop up anywhere, as long as the inner realization is the same, so is the result of that realization. But as far as a paradigm of expression of concepts and methods for the sake of Buddhahood goes... well... everyone has their process.

 

 

What about if we merge with a formless level of being without being attached to it? It seems that it would be the same thing then as far as I can tell.

 

Sure, the Buddha did it all the time, for the sake of healing the brain/body complex, for the sake of awakening other beings caught up in a formless state considering it an ultimate Self... etc. I'm sure he's still doing such things.

 

Love the way the post was put together...!

 

Thanks K.A.! I appreciate that. It's nice to be loved on here every once in a while and actually have a discussion about the meaning of the things I say instead of merely the apparent form of it.

Edited December 8, 2010 by Vajrahridaya

[Vajrahridaya]

OK, point taken, but. my teachers refer to enlightenment as the union of luminosity and emptiness. we could perhaps differentiate that from direct pointing out of Mahamudra/Dzokchen. Otherwise though, sounds an awful lot like oneness to me.

 

Yes, but the union of luminosity and emptiness within you. It's the yoga or union of method and wisdom. Luminosity is merely the shining of awareness, it's the natural and intrinsic nature of consciousness that becomes aware of the empty nature of things.

 

It's not really a oneness, as it takes two to even conceive of a one as opposed to many. Since there really is no ultimate many, there is no ultimate one either. It's all just relative and there are pitfalls of taking up the experience of a one as ultimate and self shining, which the Buddha warns about.

[Vajrahridaya]

It seems that conceptual understanding sharpens the clarity of the mind, which is very good. It seems that awareness itself is non-conceptual.

 

Yes, awareness is non-conceptual, but still arises dependently. First of all, to be aware, you have to have consciousness and consciousness of an individual arises in each moment within the chain of 12 links of dependent origination as kind of a fermentation of the 5 main elements mixing and bubbling, which is a non-physical dimension. This happens so fast in each moment on such a complex level from non-physical through the physical, that there isn't really a first cause in the linear sense, it's more like a constant circle or sphere. In an enlightened being there is also the 12 links of dependent origination but it's flipped from an ignorant chain to an aware chain of inter-causation. Awareness is non-conceptual, but is still dependently originated and not an independent source of everything, it's only an independent source of your own experience of Samsara or Nirvana. But, since you are dependently originated as well... you can't say this proves solipsism.

 

Clarity, which can be cultivated through conceptual understanding, leads one to the recognition of awareness. Awareness is non-conceptual. I think sometimes it is easy to confuse the conceptual understanding that increases clarity, thereby decreasing confusion & revealing awareness, as the actual awareness itself. Don't forget that the non-conceptual is empty as well.

 

I fully agree!

Edited December 8, 2010 by Vajrahridaya