Photo of plastic trash at deepest part of Marianas Trench shown online. Sad commentary about our continued disregard for our only planet.

For a small number of students, used by the Master at just the right moment, that nose  pinch may have prompted  a certain degree of enlightenment to occur. Otherwise, like a snooze is often just a snooze, a nose pinch is just a nose pinch

Back a few decades Florida's then Governor initiated a fund ($400,000,000.00 I seem to remember) to reward individuals and businesses with a substantial re-payment of costs of going solar. Up to $4,000.00 for a home an up to $15,000.00 for a business, again, if memory serves. Soon out of office though and replaced by a new Governor the program was gutted of funding and loaded with restrictions that discouraged participation. With all our days of bright, free sunlight we still depend mostly on petroleum products to produce energy as the expense of going solar discourages installation for so many.

“You yourself must strive. The Buddhas only point the way."

 "It is.  It isn't. It both is and isn't. It neither is nor isn't." With that in mind did Daowu say far more than a simple refusal to choose? 

I have seen/heard of much stranger 'religions' and 'spiritual groups'

So be it.

When we look at a white wall we look at all things, what isn't worthy never comes to mind. :-)

Well we havent actually any basis to decide who is and who is not as far along the path if we are both standing in the marketplace All things arent worthy ?

I am given to understand that all that is involved in zen practice is to ,look at a white wall , Do you understand the advice to treat all men as straw dogs?

:-)Woof! Woof!

The irony is that once enlightened it is recommended to "Enter the marketplace". I take that to mean living a fully involved, rich and compasionate life, one which by definition involves giving oneself fully but wisely to any and all worthy things. Everyday cnversations with others less far along the path included.

"We have seen the enemy...and he is us."--Pogo

....

Was the Catholic Priest who developed the "Big Bang Theory" a Jesuit? 

Oh yes, how interesting

You know it was also Jesuit priests that taught the Chinese that this reality was a sphere traveling through space at 67,000 miles per hour.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8Cs75Ufgvo

 

and 15th century buzz had it that Columbus actually sailed with 9 ships. 6 went over the edge..

"Every man is a king as long as he has someone to look down on."--Sinclair Lewis

Jadespear,

 

 

 

....Also, there's no doubt that, as you said, religions change over time, with the additions, variations, and sometimes corruptions of people. I wonder if evangelical Christianity is anything close to what Jesus originally intended it to be.

An interesting book on the multitude of differences between the extant copies of the books of the New Testament is 'Misquoting Jesus'. Most are minor but a number are in conflict with each other. The author, an expert biblical scholar/translator, points out probable omissions, spurious additions and changes of varying importance to the meaning and spirit of the texts.

Who was it that said... if you can't explain something simply and clearly, then you don't really understand it?

Physicist Richard Feynman for one, in so many words. It is discussed in one of his 4 steps on how to learn and master a subject. www.wimp.com/how-to-master-any-subject/

To find a beginning, or a Creator (one without a beginning who makes a new beginning) doesn't fit into logical sense. A very detailed and logical explanation of this using logical thinking is available in the book "The Quantum And The Lotus" as told by one of the two authors, Tibetan Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard. This is in the chapter "In Search Of The Great Watchmaker."

And if we cannot use logic to wend our way through thoughts about why we are here then 'the Great Meatball In The Sky started it all' has as much validity to it as anything else.

I never felt at all comfortable in either the full or half lotus position. I attended many Friday evening to Sunday noon weekend sesshin's sitting and hundreds of all day Sunday sittings in the kneeling-cushion-under-buttox position for the strings of 30 minute wall-facing motionless, silent meditation sessions. All the while I was attempting to 'solve' koans and then demonstrate (or not!) to the roshi my understanding of my current koan in formal dokasan twice a day.

My then 50+ year old knees often bothered me by the end of the day but ibuprofen helped ease the discomfort enough to be able to try to understand the koan's meaning without too much distraction from the constant minor pain that was still present.

I make a smoothie for early morning breakfast in the blender 3-4 times a week using 12 oz 14% fat coconut milk, 4 oz Pom Wonderful pomegranite juice, 2 pitted madjul dates, 6-8 blueberries and a half teaspoon of date seed powder.

I also take 1600mg nano particled curcumin in capsule form several times a week along with a select few vitamin capsules such as 2000mg vitamin D3, 200mg standardized silymarin and 200mg ubiquinal

"Be a light unto yourself."

Addressing the OP's original question from a Zen standpoint there is this 4 line explaination:

No reliance on words or letters
A special transmission outside the Scriptures
Directly pointing to the Mind
Seeing one's True Nature. Becomming awakened

And then there is Bodhidharma's "Vast emptiness. Nothing holy."

How to not Hate but Love and Enjoy Sorrow (negative feeling)?

hmnn, have kids.

 

Some say having kids is like being pecked to death by chickens.We have 5 and I love each and every peck mark.

An old Worthy once said: "When cold, freeze. When hot, burn." Maybe the correct way to handle grief and sorrow or any emotional response to circumstances is to just fully experience them when they occur but not 'entertain' or cling to them. And that ability not to cling seems to me to be a benefit of increased spiritual maturity.

I can edit.

 

 

Oh, that phrase, "Absolute consciousness", hurt me so badly.

 

The part about energy and potential didn't hurt at all though.

Sorry about the loooong delay in answering. Had a good bit of karma to experience that took most of my time and attention for a while.

Yeah Marblehead, phrases can 'hurt', but only the relative consciousness, never Absolute Consciousness.

Unmanist = unmanifest (no edit ability yet)

So let's see.  From this perspective - man began its evolution about 4 million years ago.  Accordingly the Earth did not exist for all those 4.5 billion years.  It required man's consciousness to cause the Earth to become real.

 

I don't think so.

Well I don't think so either. It required the interaction(s) of Absolute consciousness which always existed and potential(s) of what, can we call it energy? which also always existed in unmanist states for relative existence such as rocks and minds with relative consciousness to be brought into existence. Our relative consciousness however does seem to interact with existing potentials to allow change to occur to 'things'.