Citta

[lifeforce]

18 hours ago, Fa Xin said:

Also, do you find Zen and Thai Forest tradition blend well together?

 

I must add that I know several people who practice in more than one Buddhist tradition and they have no issues whatsoever.

Forgetting labels and just practicing what the Buddha taught, suffering and its cessation, is a very worthwhile endeavour.

We as humans love to categorise things which often causes division and conflict. 

[silent thunder]

This taste of the core Pali along with some Soto Zen encounters I've experienced...

Like large stones dropped in the pond of my mind.

Deep resonant impact.

 

 

[Cheshire Cat]

On 27/5/2019 at 8:41 AM, lifeforce said:

 

It is definitely a shocking revelation. But when looking deeper, you find it scattered throughout the various Buddhist traditions, buried under the no self/soul doctrine. There is nothing wrong with the practice of Buddhism, it is only that it becomes just another vehicle (yana) for realisation of the Absolute.

 

I don't think that the practice of buddhism is wrong, I just tend to believe that it's mostly ineffective since in this Path, experience doesn't lead to understanding.

On the contrary, some people realize Anatta while others discover that buddhism is advaita vedanta, which -as some scholars believe- was developed specifically to counter buddhist philosophy in India.

 

Now my level of interest in buddhist practice is below zero...

[lifeforce]

 

Hey silent thunder, it's our friend Ken Wheeler with his latest video.

No punches pulled. He's gone for the jugular !

The final nail in the 'official Buddhist' coffin for me. 

Enjoy.

[lifeforce]

Some thoughts from the video:

 

Tathagata = Arrived at the Absolute.

No denying of the soul in the Nikāyas. Not one instance.

The soul is the only refuge.

The soul is charioteer.

The psycho-physical is not the soul.

Gotama did not teach Buddhism, he taught Brahmayana. Transcendence from the psycho-physical.

Buddhism today is most famous for everything it originally NEVER taught.

The original texts are the point of reference, NOT translations or commentaries.

Buddhism is now a bastardisation of the original teachings.

The original 5 Nikāyas are NOT Buddhist. They are teachings of a Neo-vedantic movement.

Pali is older than Sanskrit.

 

Edited May 29, 2019 by lifeforce

[rex]

Pali older than Sanskrit? Fact check needed?

http://www.differencebetween.net/miscellaneous/culture-miscellaneous/difference-between-sanskrit-and-pali/

 

 

Edited May 29, 2019 by rex

[silent thunder]

Buddhism is most famous today for everything it never taught...

 

Religion is secularized metaphysics.  Neutered metaphysics.  Lacking logic and not touching the absolute.  It carries (to me) the distinctly unpleasant scent of Naive Realism:  the Cult of Familiarity which is ruled through use of 'Truth by Consensus'.  Repeat something often enough and folks will begin to accept it as true.  Look at modern advertising and political campaigning to see this as it functions so readily in our life today.

 

The unmoving absolute.  The Transcendent.  Brahmayana.  Citta.  Anatta.

 

Through his sharings of his translations, I perceive now why my exploration of nearly all Modern Buddhist philosophy to this point has lacked gravity and substance for me and never bore fruit; as to me it's a sharing of dead language dead concepts, not dead in terms of not being spoken or understandable, but dead in terms of not engaging in a viable, functional exploration of absolute reality, devoid of a living vital exploration of metaphysics.  It rings of childlike unquestioned acceptance of beliefs of familiarity instead of active exploration of what is.

 

A childlike story time... versus the core teachings of Gotama's realizations revealed in Ken's translations of the Pali which dissolve ignorance like lightning dissolves fog and in relentless clarity, reveals the empty nature of modern buddhist philosophy as little more than monastically controlled, moralistic-humanistic-atomistic materialism, a neutured system of beliefs, devoid of metaphysics or the functional capability of exploration of the truths revealed by Gotama and in its current systemic inertia, is seemingly uninterested in the seeking or experience of truth of the absolute of what is, but is rather interested mainly in the promulgation, propping up and regurgitation of the familiar mistranslations that are considered true only by consensus and the familiarity of exposure, not in function on the level of the attainment of Tathagata.  

 

This truth by consensus, denies and attacks any questioning of the status quo, and its lacking in logic or any grounding in the experiential teachings of the original Pali is propped up not by experiential truth, but by the cult of familiarity; which now explains why my previous exposure to it, always left me flat, no gravity present... there is soil present, but the seeds from this farm are non-viable and will not take root.

 

Truth by consensus is to me akin to intellectual violence. 

 

The original Pali shares transcendence not moralism.  Brahmayana, not the lack of soul!  No acting good.  Trascendence of the psycho-physical.  Soul is charioteer. 

 

Deeply grateful that Ken unapologetically eviscerates beliefs and atomism/materialism, whether he encounters it in the mistranslated Pali, or the atomism now worshipped unquestioningly (if one wants to attain their PhD) in Quantum Physics, which is modern science's attempt to explore metaphysics.   His discoveries in these ancient texts is nothing short of paradigm shifting.

 

Brahmayana.  Citta.  Anatta.

Wow... just wow. 

The ramifications of this process are beyond words at present.

But deep gratitude and a palpable sense of revelation of essential nature saturates awareness.

[lifeforce]

3 hours ago, rex said:

Pali older than Sanskrit? Fact check needed?

http://www.differencebetween.net/miscellaneous/culture-miscellaneous/difference-between-sanskrit-and-pali/

 

 

 

I just checked that link. When I scrolled down to the comments on that rather short article, everything I read was in agreement with Pali being much older.

[lifeforce]

58 minutes ago, silent thunder said:

Buddhism is most famous today for everything it never taught...

 

Religion is secularized metaphysics.  Neutered metaphysics.  Lacking logic and not touching the absolute.  It carries (to me) the distinctly unpleasant scent of Naive Realism:  the Cult of Familiarity which is ruled through use of 'Truth by Consensus'.  Repeat something often enough and folks will begin to accept it as true.  Look at modern advertising and political campaigning to see this as it functions so readily in our life today.

 

The unmoving absolute.  The Transcendent.  Brahmayana.  Citta.  Anatta.

 

Through his sharings of his translations, I perceive now why my exploration of nearly all Modern Buddhist philosophy to this point has lacked gravity and substance for me and never bore fruit; as to me it's a sharing of dead language dead concepts, not dead in terms of not being spoken or understandable, but dead in terms of not engaging in a viable, functional exploration of absolute reality, devoid of a living vital exploration of metaphysics.  It rings of childlike unquestioned acceptance of beliefs of familiarity instead of active exploration of what is.

 

A childlike story time... versus the core teachings of Gotama's realizations revealed in Ken's translations of the Pali which dissolve ignorance like lightning dissolves fog and in relentless clarity, reveals the empty nature of modern buddhist philosophy as little more than monastically controlled, moralistic-humanistic-atomistic materialism, a neutured system of beliefs, devoid of metaphysics or the functional capability of exploration of the truths revealed by Gotama and in its current systemic inertia, is seemingly uninterested in the seeking or experience of truth of the absolute of what is, but is rather interested mainly in the promulgation, propping up and regurgitation of the familiar mistranslations that are considered true only by consensus and the familiarity of exposure, not in function on the level of the attainment of Tathagata.  

 

This truth by consensus, denies and attacks any questioning of the status quo, and its lacking in logic or any grounding in the experiential teachings of the original Pali is propped up not by experiential truth, but by the cult of familiarity; which now explains why my previous exposure to it, always left me flat, no gravity present... there is soil present, but the seeds from this farm are non-viable and will not take root.

 

Truth by consensus is to me akin to intellectual violence. 

 

The original Pali shares transcendence not moralism.  Brahmayana, not the lack of soul!  No acting good.  Trascendence of the psycho-physical.  Soul is charioteer. 

 

Deeply grateful that Ken unapologetically eviscerates beliefs and atomism/materialism, whether he encounters it in the mistranslated Pali, or the atomism now worshipped unquestioningly (if one wants to attain their PhD) in Quantum Physics, which is modern science's attempt to explore metaphysics.   His discoveries in these ancient texts is nothing short of paradigm shifting.

 

Brahmayana.  Citta.  Anatta.

Wow... just wow. 

The ramifications of this process are beyond words at present.

But deep gratitude and a palpable sense of revelation of essential nature saturates awareness.

 

A lovely written post silent thunder. Ken is most certainly a genius, literally. His knowledge of so many languages, physics, light, metaphysics, logic and even his expertise in cameras and photography is beyond 99% of humans.

The traditions known today as 'Buddhism' are not lost yet though. Buried within belief, rituals, cultural and geographical folk religions and plain old dogma, are folks who know what Ken describes. That's my focus now. On the real message of Gotama, and the people who have, and who still to this day, propagate those teachings.

[lifeforce]

3 hours ago, rex said:

Pali older than Sanskrit? Fact check needed?

http://www.differencebetween.net/miscellaneous/culture-miscellaneous/difference-between-sanskrit-and-pali/

 

 

 

From the comments section:

 

"This is totally wrong, if you have common sense Pali must be the oldest language. Reason is, it is very clear all written languages come after a dialectical language. The reason you can’t find the age of ‘Pali’ language is just because it was not written in any old books. If you compare the two languages, you can clearly see all ‘Pali’ words are in ‘Sanskrit’ language. ‘Sanskrit’ was developed from ‘Pali’ for the rich people to enjoy the literature. It’s very clearly in Buddha’s teaching when some monks ask to write down Buddha’s teaching in ‘Sanskrit’ he told them not to do, because it will destroy the content, simply because ‘Sanskrit’ is an extracted language and doesn’t have the basic qualities of a proper understandable language. The words in Pali have a very special quality that is the sound it self explain the quality of what it refer. This is exactly same as the normal English and the English of people like ‘William Shakespeare’, they just shapes the language by destroying the simple but valuable qualities".

 

"Yes you are correct and that is the home truth. It is visible in both languages that the Sanskrit words have no original sense at all. Sanskrit has formed from pali by stupidly defacing original pali words. Sanskrit is totally unusable language roughly fabricated from pali. You can see every pali word has its original pure meaning and smooth pronunciation which can sound even without tooth. Pali is the eternal language use in heavens and brahmas in higher planes of gods… Languages of all Buddhas speaking is Pali".

"You are absolutely right sir, pali language and literature was destroyed purposefully. The reason why nalanda University library’s were burnt (3) time by different Kings. 1st by white huns 2nd by gouda(sena Kings) of bengal, 3rd by bakhtiyar khilji after completing expedition of bengal ruled by Hindu sena Kings".

"It is true that Pali language is much older than Sanskrit. There are genuine evidences in favour of Pali where as there are no such evidence in favour of Sanskrit.
Scriptures on ancient monuments, Stambhlekh, Silalekh, Bhittilekh, Guhalekh etc. where all the oldest texts are written in Pali language only. Sanskrit is forcefully added at some places at a very later stage under Pali text, that too after 185 BC after tratorship of Pushyamitra Shunt with his noble king who had full faith on such a sick person,
Even not a single monument was created by the people using Sanskrit language.
Everybody knows that languages are developed in a long time and in early stages these are in Very primitive stage and at later stages grammar and vocabulary rich sofisticated language is developed. Sanskrit is developed from Pali language and as such Pali is older than Sanskrit. Lot of coins(Karsapan) were found in various excavations are also strong evidence in favour of Pali language bring the older language.
I think foregoing evidences are much more sufficient to prove that Pali language is much older than Sanskrit. Merely saying or fraudulently righting in any book that Sanskrit is crore years old can not be believed by anybody else as now almost every literate person know when papers and ink are invented".



 

[lifeforce]

 

The late Luangta Maha Bua, sometimes referred to as Ajaan Maha Boowa. He wrote and lectured quite a bit on the nature of Citta.

This is a very emotionally charged Dhamma talk and well worth watching.

 

"Q: Please teach me how to investigate to reach the basis of death

The basis of death exists right there in the citta. Death and birth are both present within the citta. The citta itself is never born and never dies. Rather, the defiling things that infiltrate the citta lead us to repeated birth and death. Do you understand? Look at the citta. If you do not see the poisonous nature of the citta, you will fail to see the poisonous nature of those things. Right now it is the citta which is the real danger. So don’t think only of how precious the citta is, for danger is lurking there. If you can view it in this way, you will see the harmfulness buried deep inside. Do you understand what I mean? So long as you continue to hold the citta in high esteem, you will remain stuck. It’s as simple as that. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. When the time comes, you must sweep aside everything until nothing remains. Preserve nothing. Whatever you leave untouched – that is the Ultimate Danger".

Edited May 29, 2019 by lifeforce

[lifeforce]

http://www.dhammatalks.net/Books2/Maha_Boowa_The_Path_to_Arahantship.pdf

 

 

[rex]

...

Edited May 30, 2019 by rex

[silent thunder]

memory and imagination, long touted as the greatest attributes of human ingenuity, also seem to be the greatest source of accute suffering.

 

the vast majority of my own suffering is mind based, and has been throughout my life...

nearly all my suffering is self generated, inflicted and maintained through memory recall and imagination.

 

my wife suffers now through memory from events that transpired 45 years ago.

the trauma is no longer occuring, yet through memory, it is replayed and magnified intensely in the now.

 

suffering it seems to be a function of dirty citta...mis-association with vivid memory and great imagination.

 

if one is alive it seems unavoidable that there will be discomforts and even pain on occasion...

this does not mean one must or will suffer.

 

suffering it seems, is inflicted by me, I take a discomfort or a pain reject it in mind and then magnify it by many orders of magnitude through the myopic process of memory recall and imaginings.

 

suffering is voluntary, it is a self inflicted crisis of perception.

 

how to end this?  cleanse citta

[EmeraldHead]

On Monday, May 27, 2019 at 7:39 AM, rideforever said:

The reason is quite simple, breath is the vital force that rises from the source, and by working with it and merging with it you return to the source which is the goal of spirituality.

It is not meditating on the "air in your lungs".

Vital Not Fundamental - unborn/outside spacetime ...

 

You are incarnate not in your breath...