nac

Is there anyone here in this forum who's actually against the full-lotus posture? No offense, but someone needs to stop acting like a n00b. Anyway, thanks to drewhempel for the materials.

Sure it does, but these are just constructions in our minds. Nothing outside the sentient mind lends anything inherent "truckness". I thought Taoists were experts at realizing this.* Sorry for the lame joke. Peace & Love! *I mean, the Zen distrust of "labels" is derived from Taoism, not the other way around. Theravada and Tibetan Buddhism aren't as suspicious of words as the Far Eastern traditions. After all, notions of truckness and beingness can be derived in other ways. Eg. by looking at cause and effect. A conglomeration of phenomena can be safely called a "truck" as long as it behaves in accordance with the known behavior of trucks along a chain of causality. Note that this is still a consistent definition which we can choose for our convenience, based on our own needs and conditioning. Nothing naturally inherent about it as far as I can see. Pick even slightly different definitions, and people can get into big fights over absolutely nothing. (ironic, eh? ) Still, not choosing definitions at all can lead to more problems like fuzzy thinking. This is conventionally true IMO, but not when you fully analyze how phenomena interact with one another. That's all I'm saying. Refusal to analyze things can result in an overly simplistic outlook. If you're okay with this potential danger, I'm okay with it too. PPS. Sorry for my erratic posting habits. I don't get much online time at a stretch.

But you see, "car" is merely a vague description we assign to an assortment of phenomena based on how humans can put it to use. The characteristics of the assortment itself is fully determined by the phenomena and related conditions that comprise it. "Car-ness" has no claim on it whatsoever. A "broken car" is a sort of post-praxic manifestation that we would've been able to utilize as a "car" in the past before it's mechanism got screwed up. Actually, this is also a limited way of thinking since everything is undergoing constant change. So is a "car" a lump of dharmas that are undergoing the process of being a car? But a car under the Pacific ocean or in the middle of a tropical rainforest is still a "car" although it can't be used as one at the moment, since it's praxic utility is the same... Also, how far does our imagination stretch? At what point do we start & stop calling something a "car" or car-related manifestation? Anyway, I agree that I-ness is a phenomenon that arises interdependently along with other phenomena, although I don't attach too much importance to it because it's existence doesn't prove self-hood IMHO.

PS. Anyway, if a random alien race came here to hunt humans and they got me, please tell them not to propitiate the spirit of humanity for me. My spirit won't be impressed with their spirits if that jerk approved.

And we can point at this spirit and say "that's the real me"? That's right. The Buddha said having a human life is infinitely precious. Compared to all the possible forms of life we could have been born as, being born as a fully privileged human being is as rare as this: suppose a log with a hole in it's middle is adrift somewhere on the ocean. There's a turtle living under the ocean that lifts it's head above the water once every hundred years. Being born as a human being is as rare as this turtle accidentally poking it's head through the hole in the log when it comes to the ocean surface. Peace & Love!

We are all physical beings, it's just that we have no essential nature such as souls or mystical breath. However, we have been privileged with sentience and intellect, the power to experience existence free from delusion and falsehood. What we wish to do with this priceless gift is of course up to us. Peace & Love!

Dorje is Tibetan for Vajra, which is Sanskrit for philosopher's stone, (wish-fulfilling jewel) diamond or thunderbolt.

MH: Okay. I still don't get your argument though. My view is certainly not depressing to me. We're just talking about the ultimate level of analysis. Perhaps you should start another topic if you're looking for "alive and fun and very integrative" conversation. PS. Think about it. The logical conclusion of primitive essentialism is that a broken car was once endowed with a mysterious car-essence which has now left it. Or maybe that depends on whether it can be repaired, or whether it would be more profitable to build a new car from scratch. So now it's a question of economy. Then again, is there such a thing as broken-car-essence, or does each possible car model with each possible type of mechanical defect have it's own transmutable "essence"? How about cars with minor defects, bends or scratches, and every possible placement of such scratches? Where does it end? And where can I see these prototypical ideals? As usual, Diogenes hits the nail on the head:

What I'm interested in is, why not? My view appears reasonable and entirely justified to me. We do have selves in a relative sense, but these simply don't hold up as true existents at the ultimate level of analysis. It's not because this outlook seems depressing or pessimistic, right?

The way I see it, "you" never existed to begin with. When our components become too rusty to continue their harmonious functioning, the body becomes clinically dead. Sometimes we come back to life again when the heart is kicked back into action by a sudden surge of energy, but that's very rare. If it takes too long, certain chemical reactions and microorganisms set in which render our organic components unusable. It's like the rusting of a car, only it happens much faster. Cryogenics can slow down this process of degeneration, and once science figures out to set the organs back into motion artificially, we'll be able to breathe souls back into corpses. (as long as they're not too far gone) If you want to call the co-dependent functioning of bodily organs the "I", then clocks have a kind of life too. Harmonic motion isn't a form of "energy" nor is it mysterious, it's a matter of conditions being set just right for the desirable type of self-perpetuating animation to take place. The system occasionally needs a renewal of fresh energy from an external source. For us, that's eating and breathing, for a pendulum, yet another push. (the matter in our bodies needs constant replacement from food sources too) Machines may lack minds like ours, but cars, clocks and pendulums have only relative selves like us, while ultimately, motion & functioning is caused by their components and related conditions. So from the ultimate view, selves or "essences" of artificial machinery are illusory just like ours. While we have minds and bodies, a machine consists of the praxis and it's manifestation in the form of an interlocking arrangement of physical phenomena. Disperse or randomize the assorted phenomena, and only the praxis remains, a purely mental phenomenon. The main difference is that our construction and "praxis" are a lot more complicated.

Love it! Okay, which part(s) do you agree with, and with which do you disagree? The feeling of self-hood is a subjective phenomenon that arises in our minds because of conditions such as the way our minds and bodies are constructed, our environment, worldview, etc. While it shouldn't be ignored or suppressed, I see no reason to attach undue importance to it. Spiritual practice that helps us overcome our fixation on the self isn't the same as simply losing awareness of it, or something like that.

If we analyze at it scientifically, we can see that the relative "I" is not a clearly self-existent thing, but a combination of it's various components and related phenomena. Just as cars don't need an additional quality of car-ness to function as long as it's parts are in place, beings don't need an additional soul or relative self to be people. The question of ultimate self is, of course, different in every tradition.

Does anybody know what this voice is called?

xenophobia blues

avidya

Sorry about that, I was just curious to see your reaction. I typed out a detailed response which was wiped away by a power cut. That's samsara for you.

I'm just saying they're not supposed to, strictly speaking. Tibetans did not slaughter animals regularly, gather honey from hives or even catch fish from most rivers and lakes. Most of their meat was gathered from the corpses of animals that had died of natural causes such as falling off cliffs. Meat doesn't spoil for a long time in the rarefied atmosphere of the Himalayas. But Tibet was also a highly infertile region and when there wasn't enough food to go around, they said a prayer for each and every slaughtered animal like the Native Americans. It's okay. Personally speaking, I'm willing to let some of our non-Buddhist brothers delude themselves into thinking that many Buddhists are simply Taoists in denial as long as they do so consciously. People have a tendency to turn into the things they dislike, so be very careful what you hate.

Buddhist morality: Don't kill anything. ...unless skillfulness demands it in extenuating circumstances. Taoist morality: Do what your heart tells you is right. ...but try real hard not to kill anything if you can get away with it.

Find out.

I'll bet with sufficient ingenuity and skill, you can use the belief that genocidal wars shouldn't be waged to wage genocidal wars too. IMO it's a little unfair to hold beliefs & teachings accountable if there's no direct causal link. Non-belief.

Not quite. He praised and criticized Christianity depending on his audience. He played them like a violin. Still, he criticized them most of the time. http://www.berzinarchives.com/web/en/archi...hala_tibet.html Besides, communist leaders like Stalin and Mao were definitely atheists. No doubt about it.

The standard atheist defense to this is: the atheist view itself didn't make Hitler kill people any more than his mustache did. Atheism is a negation of religious dogma and a negation can't influence people in committing genocide. They also point out that Hitler was a strict vegetarian and stood by his own beliefs and moral code. In my opinion, this could be an apt defense for pacifistic religions too. Hey, does Advaitin non-duality transcend sameness and difference? Both the Tao and Emptiness probably do. It's possible that it transcends them, but I don't see how if we're all illusory creations of one big Self. Seems to be pushing awfully close towards eternalism and ultimate sameness.

On the other hand, it's true that Buddhism can lead one to other paths (like it led Indians to Vedanta) and vice-versa. From this angle, it doesn't make much sense to say that Buddhism is fundamentally "different" from other traditions. (at least not from the view of these other paths) So statements like this should be qualified with further conditions. Eg. It could be argued that the sameness-view of all traditions as taught by several non-Buddhist paths lies beyond mundane, conditioned differences such as the views and teachings. (DO, 3 seals,...) But since Buddhism doesn't subscribe to the view of metaphysical sameness in the first place, Buddhists dispute that this sameness is real! It's like Namdrol used to say: paths to enlightenment are illusions too. Call this "sameness" or "difference", it all comes down to view in the end. We can all do our bit, but suffering will never leave samsara completely.

... unless those other traditions teach DO, in which case they're Buddhist traditions too and their founders are Buddhas. (or the Buddha is whatever they call the founders of their traditions) Like I said, we Buddhists are contrarians.