pulling the religion out of religion?

[mewtwo]

Is it possible for one to practice buddhism or taoism and not believe in gods demons heaven hell afterlife chi etc? your thoughts?

[Marblehead]

Well, you have me as an example of it being possible with Taoism. And I honestly believe it is possible with Buddhism as well.

 

Wait a minute!!! Chi. You leave my chi alone.

[zerostao]

when you accomplish pulling the religion out of religion

then you could try to pull the nature out of nature hehehe

[Marblehead]

when you accomplish pulling the religion out of religion

then you could try to pull the nature out of nature hehehe

Okay. Hehehe. You are right but I was referring to the philosophical base of the belief systems.

[zerostao]

i have simple aims, i just want to know the true nature of nature

and what makes us us

[Wu Ming Jen]

Yes, but don't mess with my chi.

[h.uriahr]

I'm a Christian and I believe in God. Best way to describe my God is by using the TTC or the belief behind the YHWH principle. I also believe in Christ. I do not however take on the many new beliefs on hell. Is it possible? Yes. I find it best to connect your Heart/Mind and study.

 

Blessings

[h.uriahr]

After life is what it is...you can't dodge it. It's a journey.

[Wu Ming Jen]

Using Taoism to understand religion is awesome. I saw a movie and one of the characters was an immortal Taoist, in the future he became a christian priest. When another immortal captured in a painting for 500 years was called to "put down the bad guy" he was wondering why his friends jesus was not able to do the job,sounded like the perfect guy. All in good humor of course,and just a movie.

[Marblehead]

I'm a Christian and I believe in God. Best way to describe my God is by using the TTC or the belief behind the YHWH principle. I also believe in Christ. I do not however take on the many new beliefs on hell. Is it possible? Yes. I find it best to connect your Heart/Mind and study. Blessings

If I remember correctly, heaven and hell, as places other than this physical reality, were added to Jesus' teachings many years after he died.

[Gerard]

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Edited September 13, 2013 by Gerard

[Vmarco]

Is it possible for one to practice buddhism or taoism and not believe in gods demons heaven hell afterlife chi etc? your thoughts?

 

I don't understand the question in the context of Taoism and Buddhism.

 

Lao-Tzu said, "...the world's religions serve only to strengthen attachments to false concepts such as self and other, life and death, heaven and earth, and so on. Those who become entangled in these false ideas are prevented from perceiving the Integral Oneness…. "Do not go about worshipping deities and religious institutions as the source of the subtle truth. To do so is to place intermediaries between yourself and source, and to make yourself a beggar who looks outside for a treasure that is hidden inside his own breast. If you want to worship the Tao, first discover it in your own heart."

 

Shakyamuni Buddha may have been the first to define freethought when he said in the Kalama Sutra, “Do not accept anything by mere tradition. . . Do not accept anything just because it accords with your scriptures. . . Do not accept anything merely because it agrees with your preconceived notions.” Buddha taught irreligion; that is, to not accept any "sets of belief."

[Vmarco]

I'm a Christian and I believe in God. Best way to describe my God is by using the TTC or the belief behind the YHWH principle. I also believe in Christ. I do not however take on the many new beliefs on hell. Is it possible? Yes. I find it best to connect your Heart/Mind and study. Blessings

 

A Buddhist correctly said,...“Start knowing what you really know, and stop believing what you really don’t know. Somebody asks you. “Is there a God?” and you say, “Yes, God is.” Remember: Do you really know? If you don’t know, please don’t say that you do. Say, “I don’t know.”. . . False knowing is the enemy of true knowledge. All beliefs are false knowledge.”

 

Another fellow said:

[Vmarco]

[Jetsun]

Yeah its possible especially with Buddhism, all you really need to recognize is that everything is of the same nature which is impermanent and dependently originated, which includes heaven, hell, Qi, the soul etc.

 

As for Qi when pushed most people don't really seem to know what it is or can explain it very well so its by no means a required belief.

[Marblehead]

As for Qi when pushed most people don't really seem to know what it is or can explain it very well so its by no means a required belief.

So very true. I have never been able to efficiently describe what Chi is. But I know it exists. Just like in the 'real' world of astrophysics - Dark Energy has to exist in order to explain what is happening with the universe but they are unable to describe it or detect it.

[3bob]

No one gets to no-thing without passing through some-thing since they would not be asking about such unless they were somewhere in or as something...

 

Do you have problems with good teachers, friends and also ways of learning from not so good of friends.... if not then the same applies to all the vast realms with the various gods and demons as also being ways to learn... to deny such is blindness at least, while blind attachment to same is also problematic.

[Vmarco]

Yeah its possible especially with Buddhism, all you really need to recognize is that everything is of the same nature which is impermanent and dependently originated, which includes heaven, hell, Qi, the soul etc.

 

As for Qi when pushed most people don't really seem to know what it is or can explain it very well so its by no means a required belief.

 

No,...Qi is not impermanent,...Qi perceived as and through phenomena is impermanent,...but perceived Qi is not Qi itself.

 

Remember,...as Lao Tzu correctly said, "The Tao gives birth to One. One gives birth to yin and yang. Yin and yang give birth to all things....The Tao gives rise to all form, yet is has no form of its own." Form is impermanent,...the emptiness of form is impermanent,...however, there is an Empty beyond the empty of form,...what the Mountain Doctrine calls the Other Empty.

 

Pay attention,....

 

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

 

Buddha said, "the Tathagata does not come and go."

 

That which neither comes or goes has no energy. Qi is not Dark Energy, nor aniti-energy. Qi is not of form,...but only expressed through form.

 

As I've said before on TTB,...Qi itself is a still silence that is similar to the eye of a hurricane or typhoon. The kihap or yell that martial artists use, when done correctly, is simply the exhale, or a place where the still eye of the hurricane meets the eye wall of the storm and manifests physical destruction. The greatest power arises through the greatest relaxation. The lower a hurricane’s pressure at its center, the more devastating the storm is at the eye wall. The more relaxed the martial artist, the more overwhelming the energy that extends from the Qi. The greatest (and only) power in the universe unfurls from a zero-point.

 

Korean Hapkido Grand Master Jeong told me, “Ki is in the stop [or zero point before the kihap.” The power is not in the yell; the yell is simply an incidental byproduct of the Qi process. The kihap is just the exhale. A kihap uttered without connecting with the stop is mere posing or pretending. Instead of martial artists’ practicing a yell, they should be practicing the stop. When power comes from the stop, the kihap simply happens.

 

Finding Qi is like finding the consciousness you had before you were born,...free of phenomenal attachment.

 

Walter Russell correctly stated,... "Change is an illusion of the senses due to motion. There is no change whatsoever in the universe. There is only an illusion of change set up by the two interchanging lights (positive and negative) that divide and multiply within moving matter and mass."

 

Qi does not arise from Divided Light. Dark energy, mass, anti-matter, etc., arises from Divided Light. All phenomena is Divided Light. All phenomena comes and goes.

 

The Buddha said to Ananda, “It is your perception of false appearances based on external objects which deludes your true nature and has caused you from beginningless time to your present life to recognize a thief as your son, to lose your eternal source, and to undergo the wheel’s turning.”

 

All Divided Light is a false appearance. Divided Light cannot observe the Present. To observe Qi itself, one must be in the Present.

 

Wei Wu Wei said, “Phenomenally, we can know no present, as it must be in the ‘past’ before our senses can complete the process of recording it, leaving only a suppositional past and future; noumenally, there is no question of ‘past’ or ‘future,’ but only a presence that knows neither ‘time’ nor ‘space.’ ”

 

Only those who have not realized the Tao, "don't really seem to know what it is or can explain it very well." Those who have observed the Tao can indeed explain the Tao,...and among themselves,...and as Taranatha said, "Contradictions in perspective among those Seeing the profound do not occur"

[Tibetan_Ice]

Vmarco,

That is your problem. You keep picking the bottom of the garbage dump when it comes to 'gurus' you quote.

 

Osho, once in prison, sponsored open orgies, ???

 

Sadhguru? Possible murderer of his wife, didn't inform his wife's family of her death, accusations of slave labour..

 

Jed Mckenna? Not enlightened, (but likes to act like he is) takes pride in shocking and confusing people by superimposing a top-

down view.. does more harm than good...

 

And then there is your possible famous quote from Lao-Tzu about getting beyond the six senses!

 

Is your conceptual mind such an evil overpowering thing that you can't seem to get past it? Are you stuck there like a broken record? Why are you entrenched in your conceptual tenets so radically?

 

Don't you know how to get past the six senses? Don't know how to dissolve the 5 senses and collapse the substrate consciousness into rigpa? Zen meditators do it. Buddhists do it. Yogis do it. And they don't spend their time preaching about it, they just do the practices. They also explain that certain types of practice are best suited for the degree of ripeness, propensities and skills that the seeker has attained.

 

Why are you stuck in your plethora of mundane quotes, often contradictory, often taken out of context? How long are you going to keep this up?

 

You said:

Shakyamuni Buddha may have been the first to define freethought when he said in the Kalama Sutra, “Do not accept anything by mere tradition. . . Do not accept anything just because it accords with your scriptures. . . Do not accept anything merely because it agrees with your preconceived notions.” Buddha taught irreligion; that is, to not accept any "sets of belief."

 

Well, Buddha did not teach irreligion. You sliced and diced that so far out of context that you twisted it just like the other idiots that you quote (Jed Mckenna, Osho, Sadhguru) would have done.

 

What Buddha said was (not that I know the exact words, but this is the spirit of it) :

 

http://www.buddhanet.net/nutshell03.htm

Do not accept anything on (mere) hearsay -- (i.e., thinking that thus have we heard it for a long time). Do not accept anything by mere tradition -- (i.e., thinking that it has thus been handed down through many generations). Do not accept anything on account of mere rumors -- (i.e., by believing what others say without any investigation). Do not accept anything just because it accords with your scriptures. Do not accept anything by mere suppositions. Do not accept anything by mere inference. Do not accept anything by merely considering the reasons. Do not accept anything merely because it agrees with your pre-conceived notions. Do not accept anything merely because it seems acceptable -- (i.e., thinking that as the speaker seems to be a good person his words should be accepted). Do not accept anything thinking that the ascetic is respected by us (therefore it is right to accept his word).

"But when you know for yourselves -- these things are immoral, these things are blameworthy, these things are censured by the wise, these things, when performed and undertaken conduce to ruin and sorrow -- then indeed do you reject them.

 

"When you know for yourselves -- these things are moral, these things are blameless, these things are praised by the wise, these things, when performed and undertaken, conduce to well-being and happiness -- then do you live acting accordingly."

 

 

 

Buddha did not teach irreligion. What he taught was examination, understanding and knowing. "Specific Religions" could very well be moral, blameless, worthy of praise and conducive to well being and happiness.

 

Also, what makes you think that the object of worship is the most important aspect of the equation? What if it didn't matter what you worshipped, because it was the act of worship itself that opens the heart, not WHAT you worship? It is the feeling of 'sacredness' that opens the heart and quells the mind, not the object of worship. Maybe you don't understand the proper mechanics here? Why don't you try wearing some alternate points of view for a change?

 

Someone's got to save you from your mind, because apparently you don't seem to be able to get free yourself..

I will pray for you.

 

[Marblehead]

I will pray for you.

 

I don't pray so it is nice that someone will.

[Vmarco]

Vmarco,

That is your problem. You keep picking the bottom of the garbage dump when it comes to 'gurus' you quote.

 

Osho, once in prison, sponsored open orgies, ???

 

Well, Buddha did not teach irreligion. You sliced and diced that so far out of context that you twisted it just like the other idiots that you quote (Jed Mckenna, Osho, Sadhguru) would have done.

 

Someone's got to save you from your mind, because apparently you don't seem to be able to get free yourself..

I will pray for you.

 

 

I do that on purpose,...because the most ignorant of people, read the messenger, and not the message. A noble person looks at the value of the message in the context it was given, regardless of the messenger.

 

Tilopa said, a noble person doesn't not recall, does not imagine, does not think.

 

Lao Tzu said, "Recognize that eveything you see and think is a falsehood, an illusion, a veil over the truth."

 

You do make an important point,...the Westernized Buddha Lite that you retrieve info from, is much different than the Buddha of the sutras. In the Kalachakra sutra, Buddha even predicts a Holy War among theists, to rid the world of beluefs, so Shambhala can appear, and humanity can live in peace, love, and spiritual prosperity. But of course,...Westerners have reinterpreted that too,...already read them,...no need to link them.

[hydrogen]

I do that on purpose,...because the most ignorant of people, read the messenger, and not the message. A noble person looks at the value of the message in the context it was given, regardless of the messenger.

 

I don't know.

 

Sometimes, the message is the message. Sometimes, the messenger is the message. Sometimes, the combination of the messenger and message is the message.

 

For example, Osho advacted dynamic meditation while he wrecked his own back by sitting all day. Wasn't that combination a good message?

[Vmarco]

I don't know.

 

Sometimes, the message is the message. Sometimes, the messenger is the message. Sometimes, the combination of the messenger and message is the message.

 

For example, Osho advacted dynamic meditation while he wrecked his own back by sitting all day. Wasn't that combination a good message?

 

I don't know is an excellent Osho message,...for example,...In the book Tantric Transformation, Osho said, “Start knowing what you really know, and stop believing what you really don’t know. Somebody asks you. “Is there a God?” and you say, “Yes, God is.” Remember: Do you really know? If you don’t know, please don’t say that you do. Say, “I don’t know.”. . . False knowing is the enemy of true knowledge. All beliefs are false knowledge.”

 

If one began with say, negative predispositions with the word Osho, such is not going with the flow of the message. The message should have nothing to do with Osho,...it is the content of the message that should be argued,...not the messenger.

 

The most hideous aspect of the discusion of messages and messengers is when the groupthink have a positive image of the messenger,...and the message is received without debate,...such as when 89% of Americans supported GW Bush's illegal invasion of Iraq.

 

 

[h.uriahr]

I do that on purpose,...because the most ignorant of people, read the messenger, and not the message. A noble person looks at the value of the message in the context it was given, regardless of the messenger.

 

Tilopa said, a noble person doesn't not recall, does not imagine, does not think.

 

Lao Tzu said, "Recognize that eveything you see and think is a falsehood, an illusion, a veil over the truth."

 

You do make an important point,...the Westernized Buddha Lite that you retrieve info from, is much different than the Buddha of the sutras. In the Kalachakra sutra, Buddha even predicts a Holy War among theists, to rid the world of beluefs, so Shambhala can appear, and humanity can live in peace, love, and spiritual prosperity. But of course,...Westerners have reinterpreted that too,...already read them,...no need to link them.

Sometimes you make my head hurt...usually due to me banging it on the wall after reading your posts BUT every once in awhile you have a really True Gem. This is a great post.

[Tibetan_Ice]

I do that on purpose,...because the most ignorant of people, read the messenger, and not the message. A noble person looks at the value of the message in the context it was given, regardless of the messenger.

 

Tilopa said, a noble person doesn't not recall, does not imagine, does not think.

 

Lao Tzu said, "Recognize that eveything you see and think is a falsehood, an illusion, a veil over the truth."

 

You do make an important point,...the Westernized Buddha Lite that you retrieve info from, is much different than the Buddha of the sutras. In the Kalachakra sutra, Buddha even predicts a Holy War among theists, to rid the world of beluefs, so Shambhala can appear, and humanity can live in peace, love, and spiritual prosperity. But of course,...Westerners have reinterpreted that too,...already read them,...no need to link them.

Vmarco,

Is not the messenger part of the context in which the message is given?

 

On one hand you insist that one should not focus on the messenger, but only on the message, and then on the other hand you examined the source of my quote from Buddha, like that mattered. Do you see an inconsistency here? Are you trying to prove your ignorance, self-defined, by your actions in your post?

 

We all know there are many sources for that quote, for it is a famous one..

 

“Believe nothing on the faith of traditions, even though they have been held in honor for many generations, in many places. Do not believe a thing because many people speak of it. Do not believe on the faith of the sages of the past. Do not believe what you yourself have imagined, persuading yourself that some god inspires you. Believe nothing on the sole authority of your masters or priests. After examination, believe what you yourself have tested and found to be rational, and conform your conduct thereto.”

—Gautama Buddha, Kalama Sutta

 

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/soma/wheel008.html

 

 

The instruction of the Kalamas (Kalama Sutta) is justly famous for its encouragement of free inquiry; the spirit of the sutta signifies a teaching that is exempt from fanaticism, bigotry, dogmatism, and intolerance.

 

Those are four interesting words, aren't they: "fanaticism, bigotry, dogmatism, and intolerance". Hmmm.. now who does that remind me of ?

 

Edited June 15, 2013 by Tibetan_Ice