there is no god but thats ok.

[Vmarco]

Thanks. From your description above, it sounds like you don't really buy into most of it. Current Buddhist/Dzogchen teachers, like C.N.Norbu are pretty specific on the topic. If you are interested, the Lankavatara Sutra is an excellent overiew.

 

I would definitely agree with you on the Heart sutra... If one moves beyond "mental understanding" and truly "realizes" that

 

Void is Form and Form is Void.

 

Then, that is pretty much all you need...

 

Best, Jeff

 

I've not seen anything to doubt Norbu about.

 

As for the Heart sutra,....Karl Brunnholzl 'The Heart Attack Sutra' is the best commentary on the subject. It should be on the top of all Buddhists read list.

[Vmarco]

Currently, all my efforts are geared toward this investigation. I've even taken leave from work for awhile. Admittedly, my experience as of now is not extensive enough to elaborate too much without putting my foot in my mouth. So i'll keep my mouth shut for now. I'll get back to you...maybe in 20 years.

 

That's an admirable pursuit,...and even burning with a fire of passion to take a leave of absence. With such devotion, the universe will have little choice but to accommodate you. As the post above, I also recommend the Heart Attack Sutra to you.

 

Wishing you all the wishes you wish for.

Edited January 29, 2013 by Vmarco

[thetaoiseasy]

Thank you, I appreciate your sentiment. I will check the book out.

 

That's an admirable pursuit,...and even burning with a fire of passion to take a leave of absence. With such devotion, the universe will have little choice but to accommodate you. As the post above, I also recommend the Heart Attack Sutra to you.

 

Wishing you all the wishes you wish for.

[Jeff]

Do immortals exist? Yes, but their existence is infinitely hard to describe. Immortals have the ability to take any form--from a mosquito, to a mountain, to a human-- and to unform into the thin air in an instant. In such a way, they both exist and don't exist. You may have met an immortal without your knowing. Is the highest level the impersonal void? I wouldn't call it the highest, because it is no level at all. Currently, all my efforts are geared toward this investigation. I've even taken leave from work for awhile. Admittedly, my experience as of now is not extensive enough to elaborate too much without putting my foot in my mouth. I will only say what my conscience allows. So i'll keep my mouth shut for now. I'll get back to you...maybe in 20 years.

 

edit: spelling.

 

Very fair. Thank you for the discussion. I would also agree that "Void" is not a level.

 

Your point on immortals is where I had planned on leading the discussion. For an immortal (or Buddha or Christ) who has "realized", it seems that as you have said in your examples and found in the Heart Sutra... Form is Void and Void is Form.

 

Who or "what" can realize that?

 

Best wishes, Jeff

[Jeff]

I've not seen anything to doubt Norbu about.

 

Hi Vmarco,

 

From Norbu on the Void...

 

 

In the Dzogchen teachings the primordial state of the base is not defined only as being void, but is explained as having three aspects or characteristics, called the "three primordial wisdoms": essence, nature, and energy.

Chogyal Namkhai Norbu. Dzogchen: The Self-Perfected State

In Buddhism, "Void" is just a piece of the picture. Maybe ask yourself, what/where are the "wisdoms" (or truth as Jesus describes) that Buddhas "hang out in" when they "realize" that Form is Void and Void is Form...

Best wishes, Jeff

[Everything]

there is no god...

Exactly which god does not exist? Could you define him more precisely. Perhaps you could give us some unique aspects of his existance.

Edited January 29, 2013 by Everything

[Marblehead]

Exactly which god does not exist? Could you define him more precisely. Perhaps you could give us some unique aspects of his existance.

I laughed. That, in my book, is called faulty logic.

[mewtwo]

Ok. Thanks.

 

Then what happens when more than one person "experiences/see" a "divine being" at the same place/location or time?

 

Also, do you believe that there is such a being as a Buddha, Christ or Immortal?

 

Thanks again, Jeff

 

 

Experience what is this?

 

Believe what is this?

 

I know that these things exist and they are Me.

 

here is an example of a divinely inspired piece of work.

 

Edit cause steins gate has chosen.

Edited January 29, 2013 by mewtwo

[Vmarco]

Form is Void and Void is Form.

 

Who or "what" can realize that?

 

Best wishes, Jeff

 

That is what the Heart Sutra instructs on,...although having an excellent commentary, like the Heart Attack Sutra, is even more helpful.

 

What cannot realize the void, is that which arises from the skandhas,...the 5 aggregates. The Heart Sutra is explicit on this. Thus you must access another way of seeing.

 

I'm not a teacher, but will be glad to dialogue on the subject as you uncover the process. Everyone puts their boat in the water so-to-say at a different point. For me, I realized early on that I will never understand Who I am, without the awareness of When I am. Doing so alters your complete point of view,...it acts as an absolute bodhicitta lojong or means to truth realization.

 

Some absolute bodhicitta lojongs would be:

 

*Treat everything you perceive as a dream.

*Find the consciousness you had before you were born.

*You will never understand Who you are, until you realize When you are.

*There is no Present in time.

*Between meditations, treat everything as an illusion.

[thelerner]

I'll have to take your word for it. Never argue with things I can neither prove nor disprove. I have no "faith." Everything I know about Mother of the Universe comes from a real-life shamanic experience. It wasn't faith based, and it wasn't silent.

 

As for grace, I am not sure I know what that is. Love that is timely, love without procrastination, love that does not keep the party in need of it in suspense -- is anybody coming for me, does anyone know I need them?.. Mommy?.. Daddy?.. If grace is no waiting time between needing someone big and powerful to take you in their arms and help, soothe, accept, approve, love, and someone actually doing that... well, then every little baby knows how little of that is available. So the baby whose mommy and daddy didn't show up when the need was urgent will later have to make up the kind of mommy and daddy who always do, always did, and always will, anytime now. That's faith...

What I was trying to get at was the mystic can know God. Others rely on faith, which can be an empty dish or not.

[PLB]

Vmarco,

With all the comparisons you provide, placed side by side with your declarations of what you prefer, I have no idea what you think is true.

Get down in the mud and say what you think is happening.

Why talk about it otherwise?

[Taomeow]

What I was trying to get at was the mystic can know God. Others rely on faith, which can be an empty dish or not.

The mystic, yes. Every shaman is, obviously, a mystic... No wait, not "obviously." Some don't even know what a mystic is -- if you are born with full access to the other side, you don't even know it's the "other" side, right? (I remember reading a Yanomame shaman's account of how he became a shaman. Well, he said, I was a little boy and one day everything started yelling at me. I would push a branch overhanging a path out of my way and the branch would yell at me, "hey, what's your problem? Why are you pushing me like that?" Or I would step on a stone and the stone would yell, "is that how you say hello to your elders, by stepping on their face? How rude!" So I finally got very upset and ran to my mom crying, "why are they all yelling at me, why can't they leave me alone?" And my mom looked at me with great sadness and said, "son, the spirits have decided your fate. You are going to be a shaman.")

 

Sometimes I wonder if a mystic is someone whose mom told him or her "no one yelled at you, it's all your imagination" -- and the world went silent... and in this silence they can't stop searching for something they lost, they don't remember what, only know they lost something in the silence... lost someone's voice... How's that for the rationale behind all those mystical quietude practices?

[GrandmasterP]

In the beginnng there was nothing, all was formless and void.

Then God said "Let here be light".

There was still nothing, but you could see it a lot better.

[Vmarco]

Vmarco,

With all the comparisons you provide, placed side by side with your declarations of what you prefer, I have no idea what you think is true.

Get down in the mud and say what you think is happening.

Why talk about it otherwise?

 

It does not matter what I "think"...because thinking can not produce truth,...although it is very helpful in recognizing what is false.

 

As a New Ager said, "we need to draw our attention to what is false in us, for unless we learn to recognize the false as the false, there can be no lasting transformation, and you will always be drawn back into illusion, for that is how the false perpetuates itself"

 

As I've said,...Undivided Light is proof that no god exists. For me, in the 80's, I was still looking for god,...couldn't find him in books, traditions, nature, etc. Then I had an idea, blurted out in a 300 level Religious Studies class,...if there is a god, he must be in the Present. Although I had already experienced aspects of the Present, this was the first that I'd taken it to the next level. Result? The Present was uncovered, and there is no god. There is however, Undivided Light,...the Tathagata,...the Tao,...but no god,...no beliefs,...no hope,...no faith,...no delusions.

 

Although I didn't set out to understand Light, I feel that Light can be an excellent threshold towards uncovering the Present. Breaking through to the absolute Present has so many accumulated barriers and predispositions, that most shut down quite quickly,...for ego does not want to see that everything it thought was meaningful, is actually meaningless.

 

http://thetaobums.com/topic/19803-what-is-light/

[Vmarco]

In the beginnng there was nothing, all was formless and void. Then God said "Let here be light". There was still nothing, but you could see it a lot better.

 

To be more clear,...the Elohim said "let there be light",...that is, yang.

 

The word ELOHIM (plural, meaning gods) appear 2570 times in the OT. The singular version El (appears 226 times) and Eloah (57 times, 41 of which in Job).

Modern scholars say its etymology has not thus far been satisfactory explained. However, the christian faithful claim that ELOHIM is really singular because it is near singular verbs.

Here's a few examples for you to judge:

Gen 1:26 "And ELOHIM said, let US make man in OUR image, after OUR likeness"

Gen 3:22 " And ELOHIM said, behold, the man is become as one of US".

Gen 11:7 "let US go down and confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech".

The first time a singular god is mentioned in the Bible is in Exo 2.

[ralis]

As we approach the Superbowl tomorrow, according to some the outcome has already been decided by God. The 49ers support for LGBT has already doomed the team LOL!

 

http://mobile.rawstory.com/therawstory/#!/entry/onethird-of-americans-believe-god-decides-who-wins-sporting-events,510d775bd7fc7b567014731a

[thelerner]

As we approach the Superbowl tomorrow, according to some the outcome has already been decided by God. The 49ers support for LGBT has already doomed the team LOL!

 

http://mobile.rawstory.com/therawstory/#!/entry/onethird-of-americans-believe-god-decides-who-wins-sporting-events,510d775bd7fc7b567014731a

Thanks R, you've given a Midwesterner a team to root for- Go 49er's . You've also answered the eternal question of why there is so much evil in the world. The shit happens while he's watching sports.

[Vmarco]

As we approach the Superbowl tomorrow, according to some the outcome has already been decided by God. The 49ers support for LGBT has already doomed the team LOL!

 

http://mobile.rawstory.com/therawstory/#!/entry/onethird-of-americans-believe-god-decides-who-wins-sporting-events,510d775bd7fc7b567014731a

 

That link wouldn't open for me.

 

However, I did read recently that a study said that "One in four Americans believes God influences which team wins a sports game." I'm a bit surprised that number is only 25%. Americans who believe in the god meme is said to surpass 86%

 

"I could not in good conscience, vote for someone who honestly thinks that the other 95% of us (who believe in god) suffer from some sort of mass delusion." Palmer Joss (actor Matthew McConaughey) in the 1997 film 'Contact'.

 

 

 

Edited February 2, 2013 by Vmarco

[ralis]

 

That link wouldn't open for me.

 

However, I did read recently that a study said that "One in four Americans believes God influences which team wins a sports game." I'm a bit surprised that number is only 25%. Americans who believe in the god meme is said to surpass 86%

 

"I could not in good conscience, vote for someone who honestly thinks that the other 95% of us (who believe in god) suffer from some sort of mass delusion." Palmer Joss (actor Matthew McConaughey) in the 1997 film 'Contact'.

 

 

 

The study cited 30%. I believe the point spread is -4.5 49ers.

[GrandmasterP]

That link wouldn't open for me.

 

However, I did read recently that a study said that "One in four Americans believes God influences which team wins a sports game." I'm a bit surprised that number is only 25%. Americans who believe in the god meme is said to surpass 86%

 

"I could not in good conscience, vote for someone who honestly thinks that the other 95% of us (who believe in god) suffer from some sort of mass delusion." Palmer Joss (actor Matthew McConaughey) in the 1997 film 'Contact'.

 

 

.......

If there is God and s/he influenced which team did well then surely Brentford would deserve a blessing be up there in the Premier Soccer League and not languishing down where they are .

 

[GrandmasterP]

Whether God(s) or the Tao exist or not cannot be empirically proven by anyone as we are, all of us; conditional and conditioned temporal beings. 'Mortals' if you will. Hence, much as some might like to, and some do try-to; tell it like it is - whatever they claim has to be partial and conditional.

Try as they will, nobody can can 'eff the ineffable'.

We see, as it were; ' through a glass darkly'.

Those wise folk the Pyrrhonists believe that true wisdom and happiness lie in the suspension of judgement, since absolute knowledge is impossible to gain.

[Vmarco]

Whether God(s) or the Tao exist or not cannot be empirically proven by anyone

 

Yes,...that is likely absolutely correct,...empirical evidence is derived from sensory experience.

 

"the ego is a monkey catapulting through the jungle; totally fascinated by the realm of the senses....if anyone threaten it, it actually fears for its life. Let this monkey go. Let the senses go." Lao-tzu

 

Lao Tzu said, "the only way to understand [the Tao] is to directly experience it."

 

It is impossible to have a direct experience through the 6 senses,...all experience born of the 6 senses can only be experienced through the conditions of the 6 senses. All empiricism is false.

[Vanir Thunder Dojo Tan]

there is no god, all truth is in non-dual.

 

see past form that this world is illusion, what does it matter what happens when we die. if it is an all subjecting imprisoning god as in the christian traditions. That is fine. or a glob of oneness as in others. that too is fine.

 

this world is perfect as is, all this "religious" stuff gets in the way just abide in non-dual and understand that all is just all.

 

Thoughts?

 

Thoughts.

[GrandmasterP]

Tony Parsons.