Why Taoism is different

[Vajrahridaya]

Your second statement does not follow from the first! If there is not a universal essence to take refuge in, then there is no essence in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha to take refuge in. The term universe (everything that exists) must include the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.

 

What ever happened to critical thinking?

ralis

 

I've explained before that everything is inter-relating without primary essence, including the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. So I ask you, what have you been reading of my posts? If you wish for Buddhahood, than that originates dependent upon what philosophical tenets and practice methods you take refuge in, so it is relative to this form of relativity.

 

 

It's good that you "try to stay away from" getting drunk. And if it only takes one beer to loosen your "personal information security options", then perhaps drinking and forum participation is not such a good idea?

 

Please go pay attention to your own life and work on your capacity.

 

If Sereneblue really revealed exactly what I was saying, because she didn't, she wouldn't have made other assumptions about dependent origination. She made a clear attempt to understand the real meaning of my words.

 

Alcohol, just like food works on the body chemicals and makes for a different experience of the body. So it's part of the play and the fun. Why should I be restricted by your faulty vision of things?

 

Sometimes I think Vajraji attempts to emulate the behavior of certain masters he has read about. These masters are called "crazy wisdom masters". There are grand stories told about tantric masters who can consume copious amounts of alcohol, poison, toxic substances and are able to transform the effects into wisdom. Mythological tales?

 

 

They are not mythological tales. Also, I don't drink copious amounts. You people jump to conclusions faster than Olympic hurdle runners. What ever happened to self-criticizing?

 

So what did the Buddha teach as his practice(the main part, not all the flowery stuff added on later), he taught meditation, and how does one meditate, 'no-mind', void, where do Daoists believe all things come from.....void. Hmmmm. Since 'No-mind' gradually should(in some cases)remove the ego.....which is the cause of the suffering...emotion etc, therefore I believe the refuge that the Buddha taught, was, in fact, meditation...toward....void.

 

'When the universe was first formed, it was a nameless void'

 

No-mind=void=refuge(from the suffering your ego brought about)

 

Very Dao.

 

Actually no, we don't meditate on no mind as a refuge. To us, that is just another state of mind, like thinking. It arises dependent upon focus. No mind is not a place to take refuge in, according to the Pali Sutta teachings, that just leads to falling into a formless realm at the end of life, or the end of the cosmic eon.

[Enishi]

Thanks, I already put in an order for the first book.

Edited October 3, 2009 by Enishi

[ralis]

 

 

Alcohol, just like food works on the body chemicals and makes for a different experience of the body. So it's part of the play and the fun. Why should I be restricted by your faulty vision of things?

They are not mythological tails. Also, I don't drink copious amounts. You people jump to conclusions faster than Olympic hurdle runners. What ever happened to self-criticizing?

Actually no, we don't meditate on no mind as a refuge. To us, that is just another state of mind, like thinking. It arises dependent upon focus. No mind is not a place to take refuge in, according to the Pali Sutta teachings, that just leads to falling into a formless realm at the end of life, or the end of the cosmic eon.

 

Prove the tales are not mythological! I never said you drink copious amounts. I was just talking about "crazy wisdom masters".

 

 

ralis

[Vajrahridaya]

Vajraji posits the philosophy of dependent arising without knowing what the implications are. Dependent arising is nothing more than a mechanistic and deterministic view of the universe i.e, Newtonian Mechanics. Are his arguments no different than the Greek Atomists? Is karma a mechanistic and deterministic view? Are emotions mechanistic?

 

Are all the added philosophical discourses i.e, Pali suttas etc. influenced by the Greeks?

 

Is Taoism a non mechanical view? Non mystical?

 

ralis

 

I wonder if you have any meditative experience, or any intuitive understanding?

 

Do you? Have you given yourself to intense meditative practice? Your mind seems to work on the surface of things.

 

Prove the tales are not mythological! I never said you drink copious amounts. I was just talking about "crazy wisdom masters".

ralis

 

Why? How?

 

I don't care to, to you... for the above stated reasons. I don't really like you as a person much. I have compassion for you in the general sense, but I don't think your a very good person. I think your no-limit poker playing ego can take that... if someone doesn't find your way of expression attractive?

 

Thanks, I already put in an order for the first book.

 

Wonderful!

 

I really love the holographic universe explanation in quantum mechanics. It's very akin to Buddhist realization.

Edited October 3, 2009 by Vajrahridaya

[Tao99]

I don't really like you as a person much. I have compassion for you in the general sense, but I don't think your a very good person.

 

That's ironic and I'm glad you said it first, because I feel the exact same way about you:

 

I don't really like you as a person much. I have compassion for you in the general sense, but I don't think your a very good person.

 

And I'm being serious. According to my training by Zen master Ming Qi of Bailin Temple China - you have completely missed the point, are completely deluded by your 'ontological, structural awareness is king of Buddhism' tripe. I believe the Buddha would feel the same way about you. And my master gave me inka so I know what's at the true end of the road, and what you ramble on and on about has nothing to do with it. You simply come off as smug, self-serving, ignorant, ego ridden fool, lugging around a strong superiority complex, where your sneering attitude practically drips from your every post. You have zero humanity because you are laboring under the delusion that you are above humanity. Very sickening and very sad. Just my opinion.

[Vajrahridaya]

 

The only reason I was ever finally able to 'get' that idea to sink in is because of the multiple books by the Dalai Lama that I've read wherein he discusses this very subject and the mistaken understandings about it. It is sooooo much easier understanding all this Dependent Arising and no Essence (whether of the Self or of the Universe) stuff when the Dalai Lama talks about it than when VH does. It's also a heck of a lot more interesting too (than when VH discusses it, I mean).

 

I agree. I'm a block of stone compared to the Dalai Lamas capacity and wisdom.

 

Just my opinion.

 

[Mark Foote]

Can someone clarify this paragraph for me. Part of me keeps thinking *maybe* I understand what he's saying but then I stop and realize...well..no I don't understand at all.

This is why I say Buddhism is not Transcendent of Taoism. You do ABC in Taoism...you will get XYZ results...

 

 

Hi, Serene, Hi Vajrahradaya, hey Stig, hey MB, how's it goin',

 

I do have a fuller explanation of the basis of my remarks, you can google "zen mudra" and find it, or click here: the mudra of zen

 

As to the paragraph, let me start by saying that the original invocation by which the Gautamid inducted the five ascetics into the order was "come, live the life of purity to make an end of suffering." Regardless of what faith or teaching we ascribe to, I think no one comes to transformative religious experience apart from a deep dissatisfaction with personal suffering. One thing I like about Taoism is an emphasis on ordinary people, on living as an ordinary person, and I think the Chan teachers picked that up because I read it in their teachings too by the 12th century CE; nevertheless, underlying that life as an ordinary person is a life of purity, if making an end of suffering has become the touchstone. By a life of purity I mean the relinquishment of volition in speech, action, and mind.

 

The Gautamid taught that the activities of speech, action, and mind cease gradually as the jhanas unfold. At the same time, as Dogen pointed out in his Fukan zazen gi, everyone experiences an end of suffering all the time, rather they specifically walk the path of purity and realize the cessation of perception and volition (activity of mind) or not (ok, Dogen didn't specifically say an end of suffering, but close enough).

 

A unique aspect of the Gautamid's teaching to me is the description of ignorance as the origin of suffering. To me, the place of occurrence of consciousness is used by the autonomic respiration of the lungs and by the autonomic respiration of the cranial sacral system to coordinate being. When the Chan master Yuanwu said just be aware of where you are 24-7, he was pointing to the sense of location as consciousness takes place. When we ignore the sense of location of consciousness takes place, when mindfulness of that sense of location is called for, we suffer. Because we all snap back into the sense of location as consciousness takes place, the end of suffering presents itself; the beauty of the teaching is that there is nothing that can be done about any of this, yet somehow the witness of the how consciousness is conditioned by pain, pleasure, and ignorance frees the occurrence of consciousness. Not a volitive act.

 

The Gautamid limited the scope of his teaching, I believe to allow consistency in his statements about the life of purity and the end of suffering. When we realize the teaching, we no longer have it, we have (as Shunryu Suzuki described it) each part of the body doing zazen independently. Each of the senses and the mind doing zazen independently. Conditioned origination exploded in pieces, whatdyaknow...

 

I drink beer too, mostly to dance.

 

I do not aim to be a Buddha, just an ordinary guy, what does that make me... ha ha ha!

 

thanks, all; yours, Mark

[Tao99]

QUOTE(Tao99 @ Oct 3 2009, 11:20 AM) *

Just my opinion.

 

yea keep lauphing oh ignorant one. It protects your grand canyon sized ego from crashing down. Please find a Lin Chi Zen master who will whack and shout that clay ego right out of you, and bring you back to earth, and the true Buddha's way.

Edited October 3, 2009 by Tao99

[Vajrahridaya]

Hi, Serene, Hi Vajrahradaya, hey Stig, hey MB, how's it goin',

 

I do have a fuller explanation of the basis of my remarks, you can google "zen mudra" and find it, or click here: the mudra of zen

 

I do not aim to be a Buddha, just an ordinary guy, what does that make me... ha ha ha!

 

thanks, all; yours, Mark

 

Thank you Mark.

 

Very interesting article about the crown effecting the fluid in the spine and everywhere else in the body, and about the breath giving away certain defects in co-ordination of body and mind. I've never read it put like that before.

 

I Loooove to dance!! I also came to spirituality at first out of a disgust of the life spoon fed me through popular culture. I renounced looking at women below the eyes and renounced all sorts of things actually for a number of years to fully engage in daily disciplined practice where my entire day from very early in the morning 3 to 4 am to 9 or 10 p.m. was filled with cultivation only, even during eating food. I almost completely disengaged from social activities except for some very little talking with other practitioners. I even repeated mantras while busing tables in various restaurants if I wasn't living in a spiritual retreat center.

 

But, yes... Buddhahood should be ordinary.

 

p.s.

 

Even though I have experienced the ending of thought and come into the various formless jhana states beyond the cognition of time and any form. I do feel that Gotama is talking about something deeper when what he say's is translated into English as the cessation of the activity of consciousness and feeling.

 

From your article...

#16 in the witness of the relinquishment of activity in consciousness and feeling, breathe in; in the witness of the relinquishment of activity in consciousness and feeling, breathe out.

 

I feel that Gotama is talking about dependent origination and the emptiness of inherent existence of consciousness and it's content. So that in Vipassana, one is aware of the non-inherent existence of experiencing and the experiencer, so is thus free and open "like" space while experiencing and one is relaxed because there is no clinging. Then all the things that your article is talking about concerning the cranial sacral fluid happens naturally. For instance, if I'm experiencing some sort of tension... because of years of applied effort towards mingling my breath with mantra. All I have to do is engage my mind with my mantra and my breath and nervous system loose their tension immediately.

Edited October 3, 2009 by Vajrahridaya

[gendao]

I agree. They are not the same at all. I stated there is no Divine Will. Divine Will is just the Ego Graspingly Inflated to Infinite Cosmic Regress. This is something that tiny 'flash' I had in the parking lot firmly refuted (refuted Divine Will that is).

Can someone explain to me what "dependent origination" is? That everything is connected as one?

 

And is Vajrahridaya saying that Buddhism believes in dependent origination ("universal unity?"), yet is atheist (does not believe in a Divine Will/God)?

 

Which raises the question by some of:

1) How the entire universe could arise together, if there was no "Creator/God?"

2) And does Taoism assume a Creator or not?

Edited October 3, 2009 by vortex

[ralis]

 

 

 

 

Even though I have experienced the ending of thought and come into the various formless jhana states beyond the cognition of time and any form. I do feel that Gotama is talking about something deeper when what he say's is translated into English as the cessation of the activity of consciousness and feeling.

 

 

 

When your thoughts ended, your ego and arrogance expanded ad infinitum.

 

If every connected process or as you put it "dependent arising of infinite finites" and there is nothing outside of these infinite finites, then it is impossible to cease consciousness and feeling of these infinite finites. Your connection to this infinite process can never be severed.

 

Infinite finites sounds alot like the Greek Atomists to me.

 

ralis

Edited October 3, 2009 by ralis

[Marblehead]

Yes you have tenets. What are you talking about? You post Taoist philosophical tenets all the time.

 

You are very wrong there, Sir. Those are not tenets. They are nothing more than recommendations as to how one should live their life if they wish to live to the maximim of their capabilities and capacities.

 

No, Buddha's do know. There is no mystery about the nature of the dance, just fun in how it spontaneously occurs. A Buddha has omniscience into how things happen.

 

Well , shit! I forgot that Buddhists know the knowable as well as the unknowable! My memory is about as short as my penis sometimes. Nothing spontaniously occurs - everything is dependantly originated, remember? A Buddhist has WHAT? They give cobras blow jobs too? So why are Buddhists suffering so much if they are so all-knowing?

 

Well, that's where you don't see the meaning of interdependent origination. It posits absolutely no first cause at all. That is what infinite regress means, that there is no primal cause. Just the flow cycling since beginningless time. It's an entirely different way of thinking from all other spiritual traditions that posit a first cause. Buddhism is the only path that does not, which makes it unique.

 

Yes, it is a different way of thinking - without logic! Transcends physics! Yep! It sure is unique! But you are still all tied up with all the dogma and ten-fold times seventeen thousand tenets.

 

Because that wouldn't be Buddhism. Buddhism explains thoroughly how the universe cycles. I have explained it a few times in previous posts, but most people just go ??? and I try to explain in different ways, and some people get it, but most of them are Buddhist to begin with. Because they have already made the paradigm shift into beginningless regress and have transcended this attachment to a primal cause or universal essence that is "mysterious" and "beyond the human capacity to understand."

 

Buddhism explains nothing with the logic of physics.

 

Oh, WTF. I think I will go talk about Taoism in the "Why Buddhism is different" thread.

 

Happy Trails!

[Vajrahridaya]

Can someone explain to me what "dependent origination" is? That everything is connected as one?

 

And is Vajrahridaya saying that Buddhism believes in dependent origination ("universal unity?"), yet is atheist (does not believe in a Divine Will/God)?

 

Which raises the question by some of:

1) How the entire universe could arise together, if there was no "Creator/God?"

2) And does Taoism assume a Creator or not?

 

Not connected as one substance, just as an endless process of inter-relating-process of causation and each individual part and person has no self on it's own and neither does the entire universe as there are also infinite universes, as even science is seeming to find. Each individual aspect in each individual universe is reflective of all other aspects. As in, you can look at a chair and following it's break down, would lead to a tree in a particular forest and a particular person who builds chairs at a particular company. Following that tree would lead to various other elements, foods, add infinitum in infinite regress.

 

1) The universe is not created or arising at some point. It goes in cycles from formless potentiality left from the previous universe into expression as a form filled time bound expanding mass back into a formless collection of potentiality. Due to causes and conditions it cycles from big bang to big crunch to big bang, over and over again not due to a primal cause.

 

2) I'll let a Taoist answer that.

 

 

If every connected process or as you put it "dependent arising of infinite finites" and there is nothing outside of these infinite finites, then it is impossible to cease consciousness and feeling of these infinite finites. Your connection to this infinite process can never be severed.

 

 

 

No, it cannot, only one's mis-interpretation of the process is severed. That's why in Buddhism we say, Samsara is Nirvana rightly understood and experienced.

[Mark Foote]

I also came to spirituality at first out of a disgust of the life spoon fed me through popular culture. I renounced looking at women below the eyes and renounced all sorts of things actually for a number of years to fully engage in daily disciplined practice where my entire day from very early in the morning 3 to 4 am to 9 or 10 p.m. was filled with cultivation only, even during eating food. I almost completely disengaged from social activities except for some very little talking with other practitioners. I even repeated mantras while busing tables in various restaurants if I wasn't living in a spiritual retreat center.

 

I do feel that Gotama is talking about something deeper when what he say's is translated into English as the cessation of the activity of consciousness and feeling.

 

I feel that Gotama is talking about dependent origination and the emptiness of inherent existence of consciousness and it's content. So that in Vipassana, one is aware of the non-inherent existence of experiencing and the experiencer, so is thus free and open "like" space while experiencing and one is relaxed because there is no clinging. Then all the things that your article is talking about concerning the cranial sacral fluid happens naturally. For instance, if I'm experiencing some sort of tension... because of years of applied effort towards mingling my breath with mantra. All I have to do is engage my mind with my mantra and my breath and nervous system loose their tension immediately.

wow, good one. Thanks for reading my stuff; those are my notes, talking to myself, trying to guide myself because no one else could teach me the lotus and all the things I needed to know to sit the lotus and not fall down when I stood up.

 

I understand the surrender of things that you practiced, that was how I set out too; vegan and "do no harm" as a mantra, of sorts. And I can relate to experiencing suburban life as totally strange and bizarre and my desires as so much confusion that I had to try to give it all up. When I was 25, living off the panhandle in SF, my body got up from a desk and walked to the door; I had dedicated the day to following the movement of breath all day, and that's what happened. Later I heard Kobun Chino Otogawa admonish folks at the SF Zen Center with "you know, sometimes zazen gets up and walks around", but by then I was already having a dickens of a time because I thought zazen should do everything in my life.

 

After a while I saw that whatever I really believed in would cause "the windy element" to move my body, and I wasn't so hard on myself after that.

 

So I am writing to find my way to an ordinary life. I missed something about upright posture when I came into the world and subsequently, and now I have to learn to sit and walk by myself, all over again. The great news is, my writing is working for me in that regard, somehow. I can sit the lotus 40 or 50 minutes in the morning, and I don't fall down when I get up (doesn't sound like great fun, does it, but I wouldn't trade it).

 

check the write in my signature, that more directly concerns the end of suffering and ordinary, everyday life.

 

I love that thing by Shunryu Suzuki too, about the blue jay reading the book; there's a video on youtube

and on the SF Zen Center site, and I have an explanation down at the bottom of "the mudra of zen" you might like. The experience of the arupa jhanas, even of the rupa jhanas, is strange and extraordinary, at least to me; the linearity of the approach is appealing, but I am satisfied if I am vaguely aware that ease and absorption have stopped by, maybe a little joy at a particular thought, and whoa-ho! enough equanimity so that I can drop a few things. The bluejay reading the book, that is the cessation of volition in speech, body, and mind to me, and startlingly close at hand. When the bluejay is reading the book, relinquishment of activity of consciousness and feeling follows, I would say.

 

Mark

[ralis]

You are very wrong there, Sir. Those are not tenets. They are nothing more than recommendations as to how one should live their life if they wish to live to the maximim of their capabilities and capacities.

Well , shit! I forgot that Buddhists know the knowable as well as the unknowable! My memory is about as short as my penis sometimes. Nothing spontaniously occurs - everything is dependantly originated, remember? A Buddhist has WHAT? They give cobras blow jobs too? So why are Buddhists suffering so much if they are so all-knowing?

Yes, it is a different way of thinking - without logic! Transcends physics! Yep! It sure is unique! But you are still all tied up with all the dogma and ten-fold times seventeen thousand tenets.

Buddhism explains nothing with the logic of physics.

 

Oh, WTF. I think I will go talk about Taoism in the "Why Buddhism is different" thread.

 

Happy Trails!

 

Vajraji attempts to use Einstein's work on relativity to prove his theory. He claims the Buddha somehow understood Einstein and at the same time it appears the Buddha transcended Einstein. When I asked him what part of Einstein's work he was referring to (general or relative) he provided no answer. He only picks and chooses what suits him.

 

If the Buddha transcended the laws of physics, why isn't levitation a common theme in Buddhism?

 

What he fails to understand, is that Buddhist philosophy is heavily influenced by Greek philosophy.

 

 

ralis

[JustARandomPanda]

I agree. They are not the same at all. I stated there is no Divine Will. Divine Will is just the Ego Graspingly Inflated to Infinite Cosmic Regress. This is something that tiny 'flash' I had in the parking lot firmly refuted (refuted Divine Will that is).

 

Can someone explain to me what "dependent origination" is? That everything is connected as one?

 

And is Vajrahridaya saying that Buddhism believes in dependent origination ("universal unity?"), yet is atheist (does not believe in a Divine Will/God)?).

 

Hi Vortex...

 

Your question is a good one. To understand why I posted what I did you would need to read my other thread I posted first - the one called Ego Inflation - aka Secret Narcissism.

 

Please go read it if you have the chance as it is actually helps understanding of one of your questions.

 

In that post I mentioned my distress at how vast and deep the problem of Ego Inflation / Quiet Narcissism is. It is in fact the mechanism behind why all the world religions believe in a Divinity or Divine Will(s).

 

Ego Inflation is a Natural act and one that can not be avoided. It is with you every step of the way at every stage on the way to Enlightenment (aka Awakening, aka Ego-less-ness).

 

It is such a mechanical act of "mother nature" that math can even be used to explain how the process works. On the way through various stages of meditation one 'works through' all the levels on a personal scale. Once one has 'seen through' all the personal levels of Ego's workings a phase shift occurs.

 

Now Awareness becomes aware of vast, cosmic infinity. But the mechanics of Ego are still at work! It will grasp. Only this time now it will grasp to claim at what is available - Cosmic Infinity. Ego Inflates itself up again to 'merge' and 'claim' this vast infinity as Realizing or encountering 'God' and how 'God and I are one and the same' and "everything ultimately is a manifestation of the Divine." and "God is in everything".

 

There are several levels or phases of this phase as well. Once all the work of this phase has been done Awareness turns around full circle. It sees that it did the same thing all over again that it had done on the personal scale - except this time on the cosmic scale. Once Awareness becomes aware of this process "Divine Will" and "God" goes down the drain.

 

I now believe one of the reasons the Church Forefathers branded the "God and I are One" and the "I am God" truth/gnostic claims as heresy is precisely because they somehow sensed this was the Ego Inflation process gone out of control. The Church fathers were right to puncture the Christian mystic's claims...just not for the reasons they think.

 

Pretty strange that Atheists are in agreement on one thing with Buddhists more than they know, eh?

 

Which raises the question by some of:

1) How the entire universe could arise together, if there was no "Creator/God?"

2) And does Taoism assume a Creator or not?

 

Well...as I understand it...Question Number One is answered simply by this... Taoists see Ever-Flux (constant change, Yin/Yang, etc) as arising from Tao. Buddhists say this is not the case (and supposedly can be experientally proven to be a false view). Buddhists say Ever-Flux *IS* all that there is. Occam's Razor is at work here. There is no need to posit (and supposedly experience will prove it to the meditator) a "mystical, unknowable Tao". Once ALL phases of Yin/Yang have transitioned - Clear Consciousness will see that the "mystical, unknowable Tao" phase was but one rung on the path to Awakening.

 

Now...unlike VH I can't say "I Know" this to be the case because quite frankly I haven't attained even the lowest rungs on the ladder of meditation practice. I do intend to find out though. I did have that 'flash' of insight where the puzzle for a nano-second fell into place but that in no way somehow 'proves' I'm right. Not even to myself.

 

It's good to keep asking questions.

 

 

I'm going to attempt to refrain from answering any more questions about Buddhism as I'd really like to see this thread return to its original purpose...discussing Tao.

[Vajrahridaya]

You are very wrong there, Sir. Those are not tenets. They are nothing more than recommendations as to how one should live their life if they wish to live to the maximim of their capabilities and capacities.

 

LOL! Semantics... but what you say. Your free to translate tenets as you wish.

 

Well , shit! I forgot that Buddhists know the knowable as well as the unknowable! My memory is about as short as my penis sometimes. Nothing spontaniously occurs - everything is dependantly originated, remember?

 

Yes, but the form in which things arise is spontaneous due to the endlessness of infinite connections of any single arising. Like for instance, each effect has infinite causes and each of these infinite causes is an effect of infinite causes. So, when looking at the moment as it appears, it seems like instant chaos and spontaneous, but if one looks deeper a pattern emerges of infinite complexity.

 

A Buddhist has WHAT? They give cobras blow jobs too? So why are Buddhists suffering so much if they are so all-knowing?

 

A Buddha is all knowing, a Buddhist is a wanna-be Buddha. How are Buddhists suffering? I know plenty of Buddhists who suffer very little day to day psychological suffering and some very few who suffer none at all and are constantly creatively inspired by the constant experiencing of life and beyond.

 

Yes, it is a different way of thinking - without logic! Transcends physics! Yep! It sure is unique! But you are still all tied up with all the dogma and ten-fold times seventeen thousand tenets.

Buddhism explains nothing with the logic of physics.

 

Some people don't have the capacity to understand the logic. Some people will learn nothing from me and learn different things or the same things from other people, and others will learn something from my writings. That's the way of the infinite variates of life.

 

Oh, WTF. I think I will go talk about Taoism in the "Why Buddhism is different" thread.

 

Happy Trails!

 

Ok...

[Marblehead]

 

What he fails to understand, is that Buddhist philosophy is heavily influenced by Greek philosophy.

 

 

ralis

 

I am going to take the liberty to modify this statement of yours.

 

What he fails to understand, is that Buddhist philosophy is heavily influenced by Greek Mythology.

 

Happy Trails!

[TheSongsofDistantEarth]

Not connected as one substance, just as an endless process of inter-relating-process of causation and each individual part and person has no self on it's own and neither does the entire universe as there are also infinite universes, as even science is seeming to find. Each individual aspect in each individual universe is reflective of all other aspects. As in, you can look at a chair and following it's break down, would lead to a tree in a particular forest and a particular person who builds chairs at a particular company. Following that tree would lead to various other elements, foods, add infinitum in infinite regress.

 

1) The universe is not created or arising at some point. It goes in cycles from formless potentiality left from the previous universe into expression as a form filled time bound expanding mass back into a formless collection of potentiality. Due to causes and conditions it cycles from big bang to big crunch to big bang, over and over again not due to a primal cause.

 

 

D58LpHBnvsI

!!!!!!!

[Vajrahridaya]

Vajraji attempts to use Einstein's work on relativity to prove his theory. He claims the Buddha somehow understood Einstein and at the same time it appears the Buddha transcended Einstein. When I asked him what part of Einstein's work he was referring to (general or relative) he provided no answer. He only picks and chooses what suits him.

 

I actually said both and even gave exact examples of both. Go research history.

 

Your like a wall... honestly. I keep trying here and there though. Oh well.

 

What he fails to understand, is that Buddhist philosophy is heavily influenced by Greek philosophy.

 

 

ralis

 

The Buddha is from 650 B.C. or thereabouts. He used the Vedas as a starting point to dismantle from.

 

Where you get your projections... I have no idea?

 

D58LpHBnvsI

!!!!!!!

 

In this regard you are actually quite talented and funny. You should get some deep meditative experience though to back everything up with.

 

I did have that 'flash' of insight where the puzzle for a nano-second fell into place but that in no way somehow 'proves' I'm right. Not even to myself.

 

 

I did misunderstand the wording of your description before.

Edited October 3, 2009 by Vajrahridaya

[Marblehead]

Hi Serene,

 

I would respond to your last post but we are talking about Buddhism in this thread. We are talking about ego in that other thread over there (I point to it) and we are talking about Taoism in the "Why Buddhism is Different" thread.

 

So now that we all have proved that our ego still exists I think I will brew myself a cup of tea.

 

Happy Trails!

[ralis]

I actually said both and even gave exact examples of both. Go research history.

 

Your like a wall... honestly. I keep trying here and there though. Oh well.

The Buddha is from 650 B.C. or thereabouts. He used the Vedas as a starting point to dismantle from.

 

Where you get your projections... I have no idea?

In this regard you are actually quite talented and funny. You should get some deep meditative experience though to back everything up with.

I did misunderstand the wording of your description before.

 

You are 150 years off and if you read the Greeks, you will see what I am referring to.

 

ralis

Edited October 3, 2009 by ralis

[Vajrahridaya]

wow, good one. Thanks for reading my stuff; those are my notes, talking to myself, trying to guide myself because no one else could teach me the lotus and all the things I needed to know to sit the lotus and not fall down when I stood up.

 

I understand the surrender of things that you practiced, that was how I set out too; vegan and "do no harm" as a mantra, of sorts. And I can relate to experiencing suburban life as totally strange and bizarre and my desires as so much confusion that I had to try to give it all up. When I was 25, living off the panhandle in SF,

 

That's wonderful. I was born in SF and lived there off and on throughout my life. I was also in SF at the age of 25 in 1999!.

 

my body got up from a desk and walked to the door; I had dedicated the day to following the movement of breath all day, and that's what happened. Later I heard Kobun Chino Otogawa admonish folks at the SF Zen Center with "you know, sometimes zazen gets up and walks around", but by then I was already having a dickens of a time because I thought zazen should do everything in my life.

 

LOL!

 

After a while I saw that whatever I really believed in would cause "the windy element" to move my body, and I wasn't so hard on myself after that.

 

Yes, the winds are moved by the mind and the state of mind, the subtle winds are moved by one's subtle belief system, or graspings and attachments.

 

So I am writing to find my way to an ordinary life. I missed something about upright posture when I came into the world and subsequently, and now I have to learn to sit and walk by myself, all over again. The great news is, my writing is working for me in that regard, somehow. I can sit the lotus 40 or 50 minutes in the morning, and I don't fall down when I get up (doesn't sound like great fun, does it, but I wouldn't trade it).

 

I used to only sit in lotus I think for a 30 minute stretch at a time, so I use half lotus most of my life of meditation. I can sit in that position for hours without motion. There were times when yes, my legs would loose circulation and go pins and needles asleep because of a lack of openess in my muscles, but yoga helped that immensely.

 

check the write in my signature, that more directly concerns the end of suffering and ordinary, everyday life.

 

Yes, I've already opened that but haven't read it yet.

 

I love that thing by Shunryu Suzuki too, about the blue jay reading the book; there's a video on youtube

and on the SF Zen Center site, and I have an explanation down at the bottom of "the mudra of zen" you might like. The experience of the arupa jhanas, even of the rupa jhanas, is strange and extraordinary, at least to me; the linearity of the approach is appealing, but I am satisfied if I am vaguely aware that ease and absorption have stopped by, maybe a little joy at a particular thought, and whoa-ho! enough equanimity so that I can drop a few things. The bluejay reading the book, that is the cessation of volition in speech, body, and mind to me, and startlingly close at hand. When the bluejay is reading the book, relinquishment of activity of consciousness and feeling follows, I would say.

 

Mark

 

Yes, one pointed focus does that. I love when I can feel my brain as percolating particles of light and bliss. My entire body feels like a walking rapturous spacious aquarium that's also porous. Not all the time... I'm no ordinary Buddha yet.

[ralis]

Vajraji,

 

Will you reiterate your examples of General and Special Relativity and how it relates to Buddhism?

 

Thanks

 

ralis

[Vajrahridaya]

You are 150 years off and if you read the Greeks, you will see what I am referring to.

 

ralis

 

I'm a bit familiar and also there is not a complete general consensus to the time of the Buddhas birth. Anyway it was at least prior to the 500's B.C. with many considering even earlier than that. Also, Aristotle and Plato are from around the 300's B.C. The Herodotus was written after the Buddhas realization and many years after his work as a preacher of the Dharma. So, most likely it was the other way around. But most of the Greek philosophy still resolves around a true and self sustaining substance that is the platform from which the universe has life. The Hellenistic philosophers are still substantialists and don't see emptiness and dependent origination as the Buddha describes it.

 

Sorry to burst your bubble.

 

Vajraji,

 

Will you reiterate your examples of General and Special Relativity and how it relates to Buddhism?

 

Thanks

 

ralis

 

No... research past posts.