Spiritual experience in a nutshell

[Birch]

It's an undying thread. It comes back every so often.

 

[Vmarco]

I wish I could figure out the pattern

 

I meant the original post was funny. In the spirit the original poster, we should side track this thread to Jed McKenna.

 

I don't know if he's enlighted or not. Actually that's not the point. I watched a few of his youtube. He has not idea about meditation. For example "stop bullshiting yourself go take acid". I just don't get his point.

 

WTF is his problem? If someone wants to get high through meditaion, so what? It's better than taking acid. People are free to do whatever they want so long they don't hurt others. Either Jed McKenna doesn't know much about meditation or he thinks only his way of meditation is correct.

 

What you call OP, I call Top Post,...thus my confusion.

 

Doesn't matter if McKenna believes he is enlightened or not,...personally, my view is that he's simply Truth Realized,...a necessary stepping stone to enlightenment. Unfortunately for him,...he appears to have stop going Further,...thus rejecting his own advice.

 

However,...his first two books (esp the audio versions) are well worth the listen. Not much adequate stuff available to the serious seeker. In 2012 only one book thus far stands out as worthwhile for those on the Short Path,...Brunnholzl "Heart Attack Sutra."

[Vmarco]

Many of the people here think they are masters already, if you read old posts from years ago its exactly the same, lots of different names all talking like they think they are masters. The worst is when you talk about kundalini, you get dozens of "experts" coming out of the woodwork.

 

A true Master is easily recognizable,...they are the non-appeasing, intolerant one's who challenge everything that steps between sentient beings and their liberation.

 

As Chögyam Trungpa said, "Compassion is not so much feeling sorry for somebody, feeling that you are in a better place and somebody is in a worse place. Compassion is not having any hesitation to reflect your light on things. That reflection is an automatic and natural process, an organic process. As light has no hesitation, no inhibition about reflecting on things, it does not discriminate whether to reflect on a pile of shit or on a pile of rock or on a pile of diamonds. It reflects on everything it faces."

[Jeff]

What you call OP, I call Top Post,...thus my confusion.

 

Doesn't matter if McKenna believes he is enlightened or not,...personally, my view is that he's simply Truth Realized,...a necessary stepping stone to enlightenment. Unfortunately for him,...he appears to have stop going Further,...thus rejecting his own advice.

 

However,...his first two books (esp the audio versions) are well worth the listen. Not much adequate stuff available to the serious seeker. In 2012 only one book thus far stands out as worthwhile for those on the Short Path,...Brunnholzl "Heart Attack Sutra."

 

If you read his 3rd book, he seems to actually finally come to the realization that there is something more than his experience. He calls it human adulthood.

 

[Jeff]

A true Master is easily recognizable,...they are the non-appeasing, intolerant one's who challenge everything that steps between sentient beings and their liberation.

 

As Chögyam Trungpa said, "Compassion is not so much feeling sorry for somebody, feeling that you are in a better place and somebody is in a worse place. Compassion is not having any hesitation to reflect your light on things. That reflection is an automatic and natural process, an organic process. As light has no hesitation, no inhibition about reflecting on things, it does not discriminate whether to reflect on a pile of shit or on a pile of rock or on a pile of diamonds. It reflects on everything it faces."

 

Compassion is going back into the cave and doing whatever is necessary to lead others out. As you said, it has nothing to do feeling sorry for someone.

 

[zanshin]

I think simply the realization that there is more than the conventional life and dying on the yacht cracks the nutshell. But then it depends what kind of tree is in there and there are lots of factors that influence how it grows. Although I'd love to live on a yacht for at least a month or so, sail away for a while, boats are probably no good for trees and nuts.

[i am]

Yeah we can only take than analogy so far...

 

I may, in a year or so, be living in something about the same size as a very small yacht, for about a year, if that counts...

 

And my favorite job ever was living in a fire lookout for a summer. Not very economically feasible, but people do make it work. They aren't staffing very many of them anymore, though.

[Vmarco]

Compassion is going back into the cave and doing whatever is necessary to lead others out. As you said, it has nothing to do feeling sorry for someone.

 

 

Amazing,...someone who read Jed McKenna. Look forward to your opinions in the threads.

 

As for compassion. Nearly everyone has a notion of what the term compassion implies from a relative view. However, for a Short Path practioner it points to something very different.

 

Kenchen Thrangu Rinpoche: said, "...everbody thinks that compassion is important, and everyone has compassion. True enough, but the Buddha gave uncommon quintessential instructions when he taught the methods for cultivating compassion, and the differences are extraordinarily important."

 

HH Dalai Lama said, "If I have any understanding of compassion..., it all comes from studying the Bodhicharyavatara"

 

The Bodhicharyavatara says, "The whole of the Bodhicharyvatara is geared toward prajna, the direct realization of emptiness, absolute bodhichitta, without which the true practice of compassion is impossible."

 

Was the Dalai Lama really expressing such a thing,...that without the realization of emptiness, the true practice of compassion is impossible?

 

In his commentary on the Dalai Lama's The Four Noble Truth's, Robert Thurman said, "Buddhist teachings on compassion are grounded in the direct realization of Emptiness; without which, compassion is impossible."

 

Well, such a definition of compassion surely does not match the Western view, nor that of the Abrahamic religions.

Chögyam Trungpa said, "Compassion is not so much feeling sorry for somebody, feeling that you are in a better place and somebody is in a worse place. Compassion is not having any hesitation to reflect your light on things. As light has no hesitation, no inhibition about reflecting on things, it does not discriminate whether to reflect on a pile of shit or on a pile of rock or on a pile of diamonds. It reflects on everything it faces."

 

Whoa! That seems to suggest compassion can be seen as intolerant for those who cling to sentient beingness for their identity. Shouldn't compassion be a warrior for all faith-based agendas, both hesitating and inhibiting light from shining on everything?

The Heart Sutra implies only through the understanding that Form is Empty, and Empty is Form; can one act as a Bodhisattva. For her, compassion is a natural consequence of direct realization, not something formulated through human conditions.

Bodhisattva's, and those who aspire to be a Bodhisattva, take a vow to dedicate themselves to the liberation of all sentient beings. Thus, would a Bodhisattva be tolerant of what steps between sentient beings and their direct experience?

 

Sharon Salzberg said, "Sometimes we think that to develop an open heart, to be truly loving and compassionate, means that we need to be passive, to allow others to abuse us, to smile and let anyone do what they want with us. Yet this is not what is meant by compassion. Quite the contrary. Compassion is not at all weak. It is the strength that arises out of seeing the true nature of suffering in the world. Compassion allows us to bear witness to that suffering, whether it is in ourselves or others, without fear; it allows us to name injustice without hesitation, and to act strongly, with all the skill at our disposal. To develop this mind state of compassion...is to learn to live, as the Buddha put it, with sympathy for all living beings, without exception."

 

Sympathy arising from what? Is the Buddha's compassion desirous for sentient beings to make their suffering more palatable by not allowing light to shine upon the causes of suffering?

 

Sogyal Rinpoche tells us that the practice of Tonglen depends upon our ability to awaken within ourselves the reality of compassion. Just as we cannot perform the Unity Breath until we can feel Love, we cannot practice Tonglen until we truly can feel compassion. (Tonglen can be described as breathing-in someones suffering, and breathing-out a non-suffering vibration. However, only real compassion can gnow what out-breath is a non-suffering vibration).

 

Only from a relative point of view would compassion be synonymous with pity. Compassion, Sogyal Rinpoche warns, is much more difficult to achieve than we might think. However, to realize Full Spectrum Consciousness in a single lifetime, we must do all we can to uncover absolute compassion.

 

Fortunately, various instructions have been left to uncover the nature of compassion beyond the 6 senses. The Heart Sutra for example, concludes with the unsurpassed mantra, which all Buddhas of the three times have realized:

Gate, Gate, Paragate, Parasamgate, Bodhi Svaha! This definition of Tathagata is best translated as "to go, to come, beyond going and coming, into complete going and coming, where enlightenment is welcomed"

 

Or as Lao Tzu said, "the Tao doesn't come and go."

 

Many mistranslate the Unsurpassed Mantra. "Gate Gate" are not two words saying or meaning the same thing. When used together, "gate gate" does not convey the same meaning as "gate" alone,...except to the sciential minded. Look at the familiar sanskrit neti,...it means 'not this',....so what does neti neti mean? Does it mean "not this, not this?' No,...neti neti means 'Not This, Not That.' Gate means to Go,...but "gate gate" means "to go, to come."

[hydrogen]

Amazing,...someone who read Jed McKenna. Look forward to your opinions in the threads.

 

I just watched his "post apocalyptic lightmare" on youtube.

 

I really admire his bravery. This guy's got balls.

 

In his "nightmare", he's the only "survivor" of a apocalyptic disaster. He wondered where all the other saints, learned scholars and spiritual leaders. He searched long and hard. He couldn't find no one. He came to the conclusion all of gurus were B.S.

 

Wow, talking about dillusional! A person with some intelligence would have asked "am I alive or dead?" A person with sense of shame would have asked "is this hell or heaven?" A person with some modesty would have asked "What have done right or wrong to be here?"

 

Not Jed. He immediately believed that he's the only worthy person to be "alive", and all others "dead". It never occured to him that he's alone in the very "hell" and the other worthy person were together having a party in heaven.

 

He even got the balls to write a book to teach others how to get to his idead of enlightment.