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The world is entirely perfect and complete, with the exception of this thread.

The snow frames the window panes , the scent of the real Christmas tree wafts through the house . The fire burns brightly in the grate while Granddad naps in the chair after too much pudding and brandy sauce . Mum and Gran are cleaning up after the Christmas lunch, the kids play happily on the floor with their new toys and dad puts on some Christmas music ;

To me, the “perfect” feels like something potential - already present, but hidden and waiting to be recognized. That’s why I resonate with the Buddhist idea of Buddha-nature: every being has it, yet it needs to be recognized through walking the path and doing inner work. I’m not great with precise terminology .... I’m speaking from personal observations ..as for the outer world - saṃsara, suffering, yes. From that angle, it’s hard to talk about perfection. But the image of the lotus comes to mind. Wandering in saṃsara itself is suffering, yet truly accepting this seems to awaken a deeper aspiration - not only to ease one’s own suffering, but that of others as well.... just my humble view.... and karma, too.... When I first began studying it more deeply, I realized it’s not an excuse for passivity, but simply an understanding that what we experience arises from causes and conditions. In the same way, working on ourselves creates the causes and conditions for recognizing and living that very “perfect” we’re talking about. In general, I think practice is what ultimately matters, to reach the awareness of the things mentioned by the masters.

Very refreshing. In my then-atheistic old country we used to celebrate the New Year with the same gusto that was reserved for Christmas in the non-atheistic parts of the world. This is the picture of the last New Year's tree I saw, located within a short walking distance from where I lived. It wasn't the main one in the city, and therefore not the biggest -- but it was nice, and fully real. Our Grandfather Frost is not unlike Santa, but dresses somewhat differently (the hat especially) and doesn't go down the chimney, nor scrutinizes kids for who's naughty and who's nice, everybody gets a present. Adults didn't exchange presents, those were exclusively for kids -- whereas adults just threw and/or attended a party, usually the biggest party of the year.

I think you are bias. Any translation to another language are very questionable. Anyway, the purpose of the OP is not who is right or wrong. It is about what are the similarities.

一、 陽神功的修煉目的 陽神功的目標是將通過「煉精化氣」和「煉氣化神」所凝結成的金丹（聖胎），進一步溫養、提煉，使其完全轉化為純陽無陰的元神，並使其能夠自由出入於肉體，最終合道。 脫胎換體： 將凡胎肉體煉成純陽之體，使元神堅固、圓滿。 出神入化： 元神（陽神）能夠脫離肉體遊行，且**「聚則成形，散則成氣」**，變化無窮，達到神通廣大、超越生死的境界。 煉虛合道： 最終將陽神與宇宙大道（虛空）融合，達到**「天人合一」，「壽齊天地」**的永恆存在。 @Nintendao What you have mentioned is last step of Neidan.

and certain brands of beer...but not Modelo imo.

This reminds me of a favorite pith instruction from Anthony Demello - 'Pleasant experiences make life delightful, painful experiences are opportunities for growth.'

Nothing is perfect, but that does not mean perfection does not exist - it exists as a quality at a pretty high level in the vishudha chakra. That said, the world is fair, and suffering is necessary and is good for you. You may feel sharp pain when putting your hand on fire, but if you do not feel that, you would just burn your hand crisp. Imagine if eating fast food slop would not cause detrimental health issues and obesity? Most would chug on sugary chemical junk. Similarly, lots of checks exist to prevent humans from dying stupidly (self-preservation instincts) and to prevent humanity from dying (reproduction instinct); sex being pleasurable itself is a work of a system, to preserve the species as a whole. Suffering mostly comes from a lack of control and presence; unawakened beings naturally suffer; once you awaken, suffering ceases to exist. The difference is like the difference between an NPC and a player: a player won't even suffer much if his character dies. He will just make a new one.

No, AI is telling lie to you. Preserving jing is Yangshengong goal but not Neidan.

well what does perfect really mean anyway. and when is something imperfect? bit of a paradox if you think about it deeply, as perfection is in the eye of the beholder.

the working of karma is perfect but karma itself veils the perfect....

I love this angle! I appreciate the orthodox version but always enjoy finding connections between traditions. For me the meaning is not in the text, it’s in the reader.

Yes, just this. BE awareness. Don't worry where memory goes, what you need to remember will arise when needed. Just notice what arises. Don't feel you have to keep track. _/\_ Just this.

Yes! What arises is just that, has no deeper meaning or conceptual stratification. This brings to mind Bahiya of the Bark Cloth, possibly the first non-dual Buddhist document: It IS Zen! Absolutely! Zen is: What does that mean? Reality (as it NOW is), without your ideas and concepts about how it should be, IS reality. So, yes, there is just awareness of body, feelings, and mind and the coming and going of its states... but ALSO realization that "I" is NONE OF THESE. Nowhere in all of these does "self" hide. Do I "believe" it? Absolutely not. A belief is something we hold in the mind when we don't have the experience to PROVE it. I would entreat anyone doing this practice NOT to settle for beliefs... INSIST on actual experience! Theories, ideas, and interpretations are ultimately useless. The Buddha entreated us to try the teachings and use our experience to see the truth of his teachings. What we are looking for is not our cobbled together ideas but our EXPERIENTIAL KNOWLEDGE. _/\_

Body, or MIND. Look carefully. What are "you"? My experience is that "self" is a set of conceptual underpinnings We create continuity from moment to moment, feeding that conceptual structure. When my mind is still that entire process falls away. Have a look and tell me what happens. Yes. Wonderful. This is the path - only a step away from liberation. Learning to keep our attention on what is present in this moment, dropping our history, and just being. It is great that you are focusing you what you can experientially know, and dropping conjecture or storytelling. Yes! But how to translate this into gnosis? Use your meditation practice to bathe in this being-ness. Are you feeling dis-illusioned? This is a dis-illusion-ment business! If you truly can't find a "spirit" you ARE seeing the "emptiness" of things. Keep looking.

...and I change my mind. Why abandon such a rich topic when there is so much LEARNING TO BE DONE! This idea: The world is perfect - comes at us from ALL sides of the "Eastern" spiritual traditions. OldBob, my friend, I am sorry that your weary eyes make you suffer over the chaos of the world, but there IS something else under that suffering that can be seen at the same time, that has always been there. _/\_

That's cool because... you know... everything is perfect!

I'm out too. If OB can't be bothered, neither can I.

Yes ... I mean a Wednesday ? save it for the weekend surely. I think the demon thing is possibly ok. I haven't read it yet but I can see the logic of, if you like solidifying the HGA by addressing the worldly powers. It makes sense and many parallels in say the Kalachakra tantra and so on. It's the magic squares that I don't get ... and suggest that this is just ann add on from someone's grimoire. (?) i.e. not directly relevant to the main work. Although I can see that in magic you do have to test its efficacy or its could all just be subjective mind tricks. Yep ... maybe. The translation of ngondro as preliminary is a bit misleading. Perhaps 'foundation practices' might be better. They are not just something you get out of the way before the heavy lifting starts. In fact in a lot of ways they are the heavy lifting. They are a practice in themselves which doesn't really end at completion. Although I've done the 100,000 of this and that ... I still do them. The guru or lama is in some respects your actual teacher .. but equally it is your buddha nature and the dharmakaya itself. The more I think about it the more hermetic the vajrayana seems (though perhaps not as taught these days in the west at least). I have had as much teaching in dreams and direct inspiration from vajradhara as I have had from my actual teacher (who I have not seen in years).

The dzogchen path that I follow is one that is guilty of using such terminology. Dzogchen literally means great (chen) perfection (dzog). As Keith suggests, to the Western ear a more palatable and equally valid translation would be great completion. In this context, perfect or complete does not imply a value judgement from the human perspective. It is more a recognition of the spontaneous presence of all enlightened qualities in our natural mind, always present and awaiting discovery. It suggests that we don't need to add or subtract anything or change anything to have access to unlimited potential for enlightened activity. We simply need to be open and unimpeded by our tendency to "collapse the wave function" (to borrow some quantum mechanics language); by our tendency to over-identify with a limited sense of "me" that excludes so many possibilities. For me this has strong parallels in Daoism, a few examples being concepts like ziran and wuwei, as well as the idea that Heaven, Earth, and the sage not being humane/benevolent but regarding people as straw dogs. In attending many dzogchen retreats over the past decade or so, this is one of the areas that causes the most consternation and frustration among developing practitioners. Of course there are many terrible things in the world, people suffer greatly and this is absolutely acknowledged in dzogchen and serves as the very basis and purpose for engaging in practice - namely, to liberate one's own being in order to benefit others. From the perspective of the samsaric being, the world can be a very tough, unforgiving, and dangerous place. From the absolute perspective, everything that arises is simply a function of the workings of karma and dependent origination. There is a sense of perfection or completeness in terms of the fact that if anything is changed, everything else changes. Nothing can be added or taken away or things would not be as they are. In this sense the whole is perfect and complete. I wonder if there is a parallel in Hindu systems relative to the inherent perfection/completeness of Brahman relative to the incompleteness and imperfection of maya... or something like that?

Cherry picking teaching words will lead to misunderstandings like this. The context of that type of talk is that before identification with a "self" there is no good or bad, right or wrong, etc. That is the basic teaching of shunyata. If someone has digested that teaching, then "everything is perfect". Actually, there is another saying that says "each thing is complete", which I think works a little better. As Stirling said, this is an experiential view, not a philosophical one. It takes a degree of openness, and also a willingness to put down our cherished beliefs, ideas, and opinions, to digest this. Fixed attitudes just solidify the "I, me, mine" viewpoint, and dukkha (suffering) rolls on both for ourselves and those we come in contact with. No one in their right mind would say the world is perfect from a mundane point of view. In fact, in terms of human behavior, it's the exact opposite. That's samsara. Now we find ourselves back in "two truths" territory, as we discussed in a different thread. With the wisdom of waking up to our true self, we can help ourselves and others. Interestingly, there is a Christian parallel to this in the story of Adam and Eve. They fall from heaven after eating an apple from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Maybe someone more versed in biblical Christianity can correct me on that, or provide some context. I just found it interesting that the fall from heaven was caused by a tree named after dualistic thinking. I am sure it wouldn't be too hard to pull out a few quotes from the DDJ to point in the direction what "everything is perfect" is talking about, as well. Of course, without having the context of the words, "everything is perfect" can be a form of spiritual bypassing. Sort of like "God has a plan". That's my two cents, anyway.

Down on the south coast here is a place the 'white fellahs' call ' Mt Dromedary ' . Capt Cook started that by naming it what he thought it looked like from sea . from a local indigenous man ; '' What ! And WTF is a dromedary anyway ? How dare he call our beautiful mother Gulaga , that anyone can see from the ocean - a woman lying down - a friggen CAMEL ... what an insult ! And , the old people , they told us about that Capt Cook going past , they all saw him , how could you miss it ! Of course, back then we didnt know what it was , a big thing like that with white wings floating on top of the water . The only thing we ever seen like that before was a pelican . Now , is was a long way away and hard to see but they decided it must be a giant pelican , coming back from the dreamtime . Now pelican - he is a greedy fellah, you go fishing, he will steal your fish . if you dont stop him, he will eat all your fish - gobble them up . Imagine what a giant pelican would do . So they were worried that giant greedy pelican would come and steal all our fish and other stuff . But that pelican, he kept going . But later , well, in a way, he came back and he did what the old people feared would happen . '' - going up Gulaga ;

Alexander Blok - 1899 ______________________________ To where Heaven joins the Ocean, In one uncertain, drifting seam— Beyond the veils of distant mists My spirit carries its true dream… [Verse] Yet still I know — toward that pale boundary It is my inner quest that flows; With Heaven’s clear and silent Vastness My single soul in oneness grows… [Chorus] Ah, if you, Eternal Weaver Of Heaven’s Way and all that lives, Would grant a wonder to your children And bestow immortal wings to mortals’ striving selves!

That's excellent. Slow and steady, with as little clinging to results as possible is the way forward. Ah... but did he point our Rigpa to you, or at least attempt to? A fantastic attitude. Yes, absolutely. Yes. Allow emptiness to well up whenever possible. Set a timer and do it once an hour. The more you can see emptiness in walking, washing your hands, cutting vegetables, etc. the more you will notice it is ALWAYS present. _/\_