Shamanic roots of Western World

[Vajrahridaya]

Just answer this question:

Does a Buddhist want to re-incarnate..or not incarnate anymore...?

 

For a Buddha, there is no re-birth as going from realm to realm is like how we travel from country to country. There is no fear of here or there, everything is already liberated.

 

As the first statement of the Buddha, "The mind is pure since beginningless time."

 

A Buddha is enlightened here and now, with no where to go. The entire concern of Buddhism is the state of ones own mind and that is all, after knowing this directly... it's just about sharing.

 

There is no end to the voyage, just an end to ignorance about it.

[Ulises]

For a Buddha, there is no re-birth as going from realm to realm is like how we travel from country to country. There is no fear of here or there, everything is already liberated.

 

As the first statement of the Buddha, "The mind is pure since beginningless time."

 

A Buddha is enlightened here and now, with no where to go. The entire concern of Buddhism is the state of ones own mind and that is all, after knowing this directly... it's just about sharing.

 

There is no end to the voyage, just an end to ignorance about it.

 

In theory, nothing to object...it's just that I'm pondering that the systematic killing of Bon shamans through centuries as the politics of Tibetan Buddhism doesn't marry well with those noble ideals...

just read the book by Kingsley: all the historic data are there...

Edited January 13, 2011 by Ulises

[Vajrahridaya]

In theory, nothing to object...it's just that I'm pondering that the systematic killing of Bon shamans through centuries as the politics of Tibetan Buddhism doesn't marry well with those noble ideals...

just read the book by Kingsley: all the historic data are there...

 

That's just politics and has nothing to do with Buddhism. You choose what to focus on. Will it bring clarity about the nature of your mind, or delude it? There is also plenty of data on the Tibet of enlightened masters, there teachings and there friendliness with Bon.

 

I'm not into those people that use religion as an excuse for their political gain.

 

I also find it interesting that people have a tendency to focus on scandal and the dark side of things. It's one thing knowing about it, but it's another thing to become obsessed with it and let it cloud your judgement. I personally don't know if what Kingsley wrote was objective truth either as it would have to be corroborated with more than various myths or hand me down information. But, it doesn't concern me much as I'm interested in the enlightened Tibet, not the dark side of humanity that is prevalent in any culture.

 

Oh, and here comes ralis to join in on the focus on the dark side of things.

 

Anyway, I'm sure since you just read this book that the information is still fresh on your mind. I've never read it, so I can't say one thing about it at all. If all true and fact, then that's very sad and those people committing such atrocities were only Buddhist by name. But, there are other true stories to read that can leave a different impression on your mind. Like the Autobiography, "Blazing Splendor", or "Brilliant Moon."

 

Anyway.. your choice. Focus on what you want, but it will mold your mind.

Edited January 13, 2011 by Vajrahridaya

[ralis]

That's just politics and has nothing to do with Buddhism. You choose what to focus on. Will it bring clarity about the nature of your mind, or delude it? There is also plenty of data on the Tibet of enlightened masters, there teachings and there friendliness with Bon.

 

I'm not into those people that use religion as an excuse for their political gain.

 

I also find it interesting that people have a tendency to focus on scandal and the dark side of things. It's one thing knowing about it, but it's another thing to become obsessed with it and let it cloud your judgement. I personally don't know if what Kingsley wrote was objective truth either as it would have to be corroborated with more than various myths or hand me down information. But, it doesn't concern me much as I'm interested in the enlightened Tibet, not the dark side of humanity that is prevalent in any culture.

 

It seems you choose to only focus on a narrow view of some mythical enlightened Tibet. That is an illusion.

 

There continues to be a Western fascination of exotic cultures.

Edited January 13, 2011 by ralis

[Vajrahridaya]

It seems you choose to only focus on a narrow view of some mythical enlightened Tibet. That is an illusion.

 

No, that's your illusion.

 

I focus on the enlightened beings that were produced by Vajrayana in Tibet, and that is all. I've read plenty of Autobiographies that support this fact. I follow my interest and that's my interest. I find it a far more positive one.

 

Just because Buddhism came to Tibet, doesn't mean the entire country of millions of people all of a sudden dropped their issues and became Buddhas! Maybe only a number of thousands of people over the past 1200 years of Buddhism in Tibet became enlightened. Who knows... maybe 10,000... 100,000, 500,000 over the last 1200 years in Tibet became enlightened while the other billions of people who have lived in Tibet over the last 1200 years did not get it and kept with their pettiness.

 

I don't know... do you? It's all speculation. But, I'll focus on the enlightened ones, as that will help me. Focusing on the horrible things anyone does in the name of religion will not help me.

 

Also, plenty of Shamanistic tribes did the same thing, went into war, killed entire tribes, systematically. Where does it end? Why focus on that? You like tunnels with no light in them?

 

I've already discussed this with you ralis, but your "stale narrative" sees no rest I suppose.

Edited January 13, 2011 by Vajrahridaya

[Vajrahridaya]

There continues to be a Western fascination of exotic cultures.

 

It has nothing to do with exotic cultures, it has to do with the superior teachings of Vajrayana and the enlightenment it produced through the people who practiced it thoroughly. I don't have a drive to study the politics of ancient Tibet.

 

Vajrayana is my interest and Tibet just happens to be the country that preserved it, and that is all. Vajrayana is originally an Indian production and there is plenty to go on about Vajrayana from India as well. Just not nearly as much as in Tibet as Tibet really got into documenting everything.

 

There are many things that make Tibet interesting though.

 

Why are you so fascinated with being so dismissive of anything you don't understand?

Edited January 13, 2011 by Vajrahridaya

[ralis]

It has nothing to do with exotic cultures, it has to do with the superior teachings of Vajrayana and the enlightenment it produced through the people who practiced it thoroughly. I don't have a drive to study the politics of ancient Tibet.

 

Vajrayana is my interest and Tibet just happens to be the country that preserved it, and that is all. Vajrayana is originally an Indian production and there is plenty to go on about Vajrayana from India as well. Just not nearly as much as in Tibet as Tibet really got into documenting everything.

 

There are many things that make Tibet interesting though.

 

Why are you so fascinated with being so dismissive of anything you don't understand?

 

I understand Vajrayana very well. I practiced it for years. However, that is not the point. Westerners have a blind fascination of anything exotic. To put it another way, romancing the primitive.

[Vajrahridaya]

I understand Vajrayana very well. I practiced it for years. However, that is not the point. Westerners have a blind fascination of anything exotic. To put it another way, romancing the primitive.

 

Sure, plenty do. Also, lots of Westerners have the tendency to romance the current state of self destruction and craving for material sensation. There is plenty that is primitive about ancient Tibet, I don't focus on that, because there is plenty that is amazing about ancient Tibet and the ancient East. This is where my mind goes.

 

Why does your mind go to the negative?

 

You should read some autobiographies that share good information that will help you. I'm sorry Vajrayana didn't work for you, but that's not it's fault.

[ralis]

Sure, plenty do. Also, lots of Westerners have the tendency to romance the current state of self destruction and craving for material sensation. There is plenty that is primitive about ancient Tibet, I don't focus on that, because there is plenty that is amazing about ancient Tibet and the ancient East. This is where my mind goes.

 

Why does your mind go to the negative?

 

You should read some autobiographies that share good information that will help you. I'm sorry Vajrayana didn't work for you, but that's not it's fault.

 

You assume much! I never said it didn't work.

[Vajrahridaya]

You assume much! I never said it didn't work.

 

Well good, it doesn't seem to have worked well. Unless you were even more bitter before and now your just a little less bitter through practice, but still bitter.

[9th]

Well good, it doesn't seem to have worked well. Unless you were even more bitter before and now your just a little less bitter through practice, but still bitter.

 

He's not bitter! Just tangy.

[Vajrahridaya]

He's not bitter! Just tangy.

 

He's been at me for almost 2 years. Like a tail with spikes that keeps whipping me.

Edited January 13, 2011 by Vajrahridaya

[9th]

He's been at me for almost 2 years. Like a tail with spikes that keeps whipping me.

 

After witnessing his temper tantrum about the "racial slur" incident, I have no doubt he needs a focus for all of that "energy".

[Vajrahridaya]

After witnessing his temper tantrum about the "racial slur" incident, I have no doubt he needs a focus for all of that "energy".

 

Yea, mostly its me.

[ben]

You assume much! I never said it didn't work.

Ralis,

You mentioned that you used to practise Vajrayana I was wondering do you still do ?

 

I happen to agree with you about romanticizing Eastern Spirituality. The politics in the Tulku tradition is vulgar. Booze and women have a funny way of making someone act in a authentic way (human) again.

Edited February 1, 2012 by ben

[ben]

[Vajrahridaya]

[Vajrahridaya]

I find veneration of figures such as Dilgo Khyentse and other lamas as cult like.

 

You're Western conditioning speaks volumes.

 

You should read Tibetan Elders by Sandy Johnson

 

Dilgo Khyentses state of mind is far more important than his state of body. I know, I know... you're very caught up in being the body. It's ok... someday you may spiritually mature.

[Ulises]

[9th]

You seem unfamiliar with the variety of buddhism which is out there. You may need to look closer. (Deepak is another story which is not involved with this forum)

 

[Ulises]

You seem unfamiliar with the variety of buddhism which is out there. You may need to look closer. (Deepak is another story which is not involved with this forum)

 

 

I am familiar with many branches of Buddhism...but the root is the same

[9th]

[ben]

[Vajrahridaya]

"...Let us continue for a moment with Buddha’s realization and go more deeply into what it means for the individual and the world. There are two poles of Universal Being, one is Spirit (Purusha) and the other is Matter (Prakriti). The Buddhist view of reality is based upon an irreconcilable split between these two poles and a strategy that that posits one pole, (the Material), as an illusion in order to reach the other. Following Buddha’s realization of "Dukkha" (suffering) as the first great truth, his solution to the dilemma of existence was to seek liberation by declaring the unreality of the world. And this is exactly what Dr. Chopra is advising us to do in his article, …to become detached from the self and realize that the Individual self and the World are an illusion. In a recent interview with Atlantis Rising (May/June 2007) he told the interviewer:

 

 

 

“I enjoy the illusion of it all. I’m standing in an apartment in New York City on the 69th floor overlooking the city and I know it’s not “real”, but I can appreciate it.”

 

However much he may enjoy the illusion, this is plainly a life-negating view that has no power to heal the wounds of fragmentation inflicted on our modern world by the reductive linear mind and its nihilistic religious forms. It is simply a continuation of an old patriarchal consciousness that denies the Feminine Goddess principle, Matter and our collective Becoming in favor of a remote static peace that has negated the lives and creative possibilities of hundreds of millions of human beings.

 

If we take an unvarnished look at what Buddha taught, not the kind of humanism it has morphed into today, it can only be understood as a strategy of escapism based on a denial of the World, the Feminine Principle and the Human Soul. Sadly this path has found a willing following in many of the world’s religions which teach the faithful that salvation, if it exists at all, may only be found in the transcendence of the world in some after-death Christian ‘Heaven’, Advaitan ‘Moksha’ or ‘Nirvanic’ Void...."

 

http://www.quantumyoga.org/ErroroftheBuddha.html

 

This person has no idea what they are talking about and is hardly worth the comment, because anyone that took the trouble to see what the Buddha was talking about, would understand that he didn't teach the doctrine of Samkhya which is the philosophy of Purusha and Prakriti, a very early hindu doctrine laid out by Kapila (Samkhya). There is no duality in the philosophy and psychology of dependent origination/emptiness. It is in fact the most non-dual explanation on the planet as it never makes the mistake of Theism and only reveals the natural liberation of the process of life, right in front of you and in you.

 

You are following really horrible sources Ulisis. This "Error of the Buddha" is really the error of the scholar you are reading. This is your problem, you have no idea what Buddhism actually teaches, or what the Buddha actually realized and disseminated as verbal pointers and methods for realization of what is. So, what you are rejecting, is actually not Buddhism, but mis-interpretation and really bad scholarship.

 

There is no longing for transcendence in Buddhism, except ones own ignorance about the nature of things.

 

Below are just a few things the Buddha said...

 

For more.. go here: Buddha Quotes.

 

We are what we think.

All that we are arises with our thoughts.

With our thoughts we make the world.

Buddha

Dhammapada.

 

Speak or act with an impure mind

And trouble will follow you.

Buddha

Dhammapada.

 

Speak or act with an pure mind

And happiness will follow you

As your shadow, unshakable.

Buddha

Dhammapada.

 

In this world

Hate never yet dispelled hate.

Only love dispels hate.

This is the law,

Ancient and inexhaustible.

Buddha

Dhammapada.

 

Better than a thousand hollow words

Is one word that brings peace.

Better than a thousand hollow verses

Is one verse that brings peace.

Buddha

Dhammapada.

 

There is no fire like passion

No crime like hatred,

No sorrow like separation,

No sickness like hunger,

And no joy like the joy of freedom.

Buddha

Dhammapada.

 

You too shall pass away.

Knowing this, how can you quarrel?

Buddha

Dhammapada.

 

It is better to conquer yourself

Than to win a thousand battles.

Then the victory is yours.

It cannot be taken from you,

Not by angels or by demons,

Heaven or hell.

Buddha

Dhammapada.

 

You are the source

Of all purity and impurity.

No one purifies another.

Buddha

Dhammapada.

 

It is better to do nothing

Than to do what is wrong.

For whatever you do, you do to yourself.

Buddha

Dhammapada.

 

To share happiness.

And to have done something good

Before leaving this life is sweet

Buddha

Dhammapada.

 

Master your words.

Master your thoughts.

Never allow your body to do harm.

Follow these three roads with purity

And you will find yourself upon the one way,

The way of wisdom.

Buddha

Dhammapada.

 

The fragrance of sandalwood and rosebay

Does not travel far.

But the fragrance of virtue

Rises to the heavens.

Buddha

Dhammapada.

 

You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.

Buddha

 

Every human being is the author of his own health or disease.

Buddha

 

Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.

Buddha

 

The mind is everything; what you think you become.

Buddha

 

Therefore, be ye lamps unto yourselves, be ye a refuge to yourselves. Hold fast to Truth as a lamp; hold fast to the truth as a refuge. Look not for a refuge in anyone beside yourselves. And those, who shall be a lamp unto themselves, shall betake themselves to no external refuge, but holding fast to the Truth as their lamp, and holding fast to the Truth as their refuge, they shall reach the topmost height.

Buddha

Mahaparinibbana Sutta.

 

Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule.

Buddha

Dhammapada.

 

Work out your own salvation. Do not depend on others.

Buddha

Dhammapada.

 

It is a man's own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways.

Buddha

 

Neither fire nor wind, birth nor death can erase our good deeds.

Buddha

 

On a long journey of human life, faith is the best of companions; it is the best refreshment on the journey; and it is the greatest property.

Buddha

 

Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.

Buddha

 

The greatest prayer is patience.

Buddha

 

With gentleness overcome anger.

With generosity overcome meanness.

With truth overcome deceit.

Buddha

Dhammapada.

 

For in craving pleasure or in nursing pain

There is only sorrow.

Buddha

Dhammapada.

 

Never speak harsh words

For they will rebound upon you.

Angry words hurt

And the hurt rebounds.

Like a broken gong.

Buddha

Dhammapada.

 

Let go of anger.

Let go of pride.

When you are bound by nothing

You go beyond sorrow.

Buddha

Dhammapada.

 

The wise have mastered

Body, word and mind.

They are the true masters.

Buddha

Dhammapada.

 

Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.

Buddha

Kalama Sutta.

 

Think: Happy, at rest,

may all beings be happy at heart.

Whatever beings there may be,

weak or strong, without exception,

long, large,

middling, short,

subtle, blatant,

seen & unseen,

near & far,

born & seeking birth:

May all beings be happy at heart.

Buddha

Karaniya Metta Sutta.

 

Let no one deceive another

or despise anyone anywhere,

or through anger or irritation

wish for another to suffer.

Buddha

Karaniya Metta Sutta.

 

As a mother would risk her life

to protect her child, her only child,

even so should one cultivate a limitless heart

with regard to all beings.

With good will for the entire cosmos,

cultivate a limitless heart:

Above, below, & all around,

unobstructed, without hostility or hate.

Whether standing, walking,

sitting, or lying down,

as long as one is alert,

one should be resolved on this mindfulness.

This is called a sublime abiding

here & now.

Buddha

Karaniya Metta Sutta.

Edited January 13, 2011 by Vajrahridaya

[Vajrahridaya]

I am familiar with many branches of Buddhism...but the root is the same

 

The root of all forms of Buddhism is dependent origination/emptiness.

 

To translate the 1st noble truth as, "all life is suffering" is a really misleading translation.

 

It's more like, "there is suffering"

 

Then there are the other truths, of "knowing the origin of suffering" Which is ignorance.

 

Then knowing the cessation of suffering which is the 3rd noble truth.

 

Then there is the 4th noble truth which is the teaching of the path out of suffering, having nothing to do with escaping the body, but all to do with understanding it's processes and liberating it from the clutches of the psychological poisons induced by ignorance. Buddhism is fully life affirming. With teachings available for different people at different stages of their personal development.

 

The problem Ulisis, is that you are really attached to this take on Buddhism of yours which actually has nothing at all to do with Buddhism. I've explained this to you before. I'm a much better scholar than this guy you are quoting from, and I'm not even a scholar.