Are all paths really valid?

[Seeker of Wisdom]

 

Have you read The Sermon on the Mount According to Vedanta by Swami Prabhavānanda? I highly recommend it.

I haven't, thanks. On the same lines: http://www.dlshq.org/download/jesus_teach.htm

 

[Jainarayan]

I haven't, thanks. On the same lines: http://www.dlshq.org/download/jesus_teach.htm

 

 

Yep, downloaded a .pdf and had it bound in booklet form, along with some of the others.

[Thunder_Gooch]

 

Brute force.

 

 

How do you propose to escape being dragged around in rebirth without removing its causes?

[Thunder_Gooch]

Show me one TRUE master of any tradition who said that just developing chi is enough to escape rebirth.

 

 

The issue of ultimate enlightenment or immortality is one that has been written about in detail and requires several volumes to

address. In short, there seem to be different stages to the game. From the point of view of John’s lineage, the first stage is achieved by completing Level Four (actually Level Five, though I have not addressed the distinction to avoid confusion), which ensures that you can take all your yang energy with you when you die. Such a spirit is still bound by the laws of karma, however, and will remain so until Level Thirty is attained. In other words, to ensure escape from the cycle of rebirth you must attain Level Thirty or more while alive. Ultimate enlightenment results at Level Seventy-Two, when all seventy-two chakras in the body are opened and the very last, located at the top of the skull, is allowed to bloom.

 

The Magus of Java p190

Edited July 8, 2013 by More_Pie_Guy

[Thunder_Gooch]

A true Immortal has Tao realisation, that's a more significant factor than their chi.

 

I realize how to make a fire by friction, but my body is too weak to work a bow tool to make fire.

 

What good is knowledge of making fire, with no ability to act on said knowledge?

[Thunder_Gooch]

Chi is a thing of form, so it is impermanent, so it cannot bestow either physical or any other sort of immortality.

 

So sayeth a guy on a forum, vs the only master to ever have large enough ***s to publicly demo his abilities to scientists. I know of no Buddhist masters who claim to offer a way to achieve liberation from rebirth via an actual process other than be good and stuff.

Edited July 9, 2013 by More_Pie_Guy

[Thunder_Gooch]

But realising Tao involves mastery of the alaya consciousness and loss of the causes of rebirth, which causes complete freedom from rebirth.

If you know of any Buddhist (or any other type of) masters that claim to offer a method to end rebirth, and actually teach it openly please point me in their direction.

 

I've hunted and found nothing, if it exists it's a hidden teaching. Phowa transference of consciousness prior to death (an altered method of one of the yogas of naropa) is not publicly taught, if anyone alive knows it and can transmit it is unknown. Even then that sounds more like a quick band-aid fix to a larger problem.

 

I know of no Buddhists methods specifically which address ending rebirth via a real method or meditation in a lifetime.

Edited July 9, 2013 by More_Pie_Guy

[Thunder_Gooch]

It is not even possible to develop chi to the fullest if there are mental factors limiting it!

I am sure by level 72 those mental factors limiting it are not many.

[Thunder_Gooch]

Someone who doesn't do anything focused on their chi at all could realise Tao; and as a result all the blocks in their chi would dissolve, their kundalini would rise, channels open completely, tan tiens fill, chakras fully open... etc.

Any examples of this happening in the past 200 years?

[Thunder_Gooch]

But without realisation, even if you cultivate chi for eons there will always be a little mental knot screwing up the flow.

If I ever ended rebirth in this lifetime, even if I was still knotted up, I'd spend the rest eternity working on getting the knots out.

 

All I could ask for is to reach a level of ending rebirth before I die.

[Jetsun]

Any examples of this happening in the past 200 years?

 

Ramana Maharshi descibes the energetic changes that can happen just by enquiring and waking up to who you are, then there are others like Sri Nisrigatta Maharaj, even living teachers like Adyashanti talk about huge energetic changes going on without focusing on Qi or energy at all, all he did was meditate on what is true and enquire into who he was and all the channels and centres changed, he said it caused him a lot of pain and discomfort for many years.

[Jetsun]

If you know of any Buddhist (or any other type of) masters that claim to offer a method to end rebirth, and actually teach it openly please point me in their direction.

 

I've hunted and found nothing, if it exists it's a hidden teaching. Phowa transference of consciousness prior to death (an altered method of one of the yogas of naropa) is not publicly taught, if anyone alive knows it and can transmit it is unknown. Even then that sounds more like a quick band-aid fix to a larger problem.

 

I know of no Buddhists methods specifically which address ending rebirth via a real method or meditation in a lifetime.

 

My understanding is that attainment of the Rainbow Body does this, many Tibetan Buddhists have achieved this in the last 200 years

[XieJia]

`Cheshire Puss,' she began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know whether it would like the name: however, it only grinned a little wider. `Come, it's pleased so far,' thought Alice, and she went on. `Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?'

`That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat.

`I don't much care where--' said Alice.

`Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat.

`--so long as I get somewhere,' Alice added as an explanation.

`Oh, you're sure to do that,' said the Cat, `if you only walk long enough.'

Alice felt that this could not be denied, so she tried another question. `What sort of people live about here?'

`In that direction,' the Cat said, waving its right paw round, `lives a Hatter: and in that direction,' waving the other paw, `lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: they're both mad.'

`But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.

`Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: `we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.'

`How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.

`You must be,' said the Cat, `or you wouldn't have come here.'

[Thunder_Gooch]

 

Ramana Maharshi descibes the energetic changes that can happen just by enquiring and waking up to who you are, then there are others like Sri Nisrigatta Maharaj, even living teachers like Adyashanti talk about huge energetic changes going on without focusing on Qi or energy at all, all he did was meditate on what is true and enquire into who he was and all the channels and centres changed, he said it caused him a lot of pain and discomfort for many years.

Does Ramana Maharshi claim to have broken free of rebirth?

[Thunder_Gooch]

I've heard those stories as well, but I haven't seen any reason to believe they are true.

 

I'd like to see some credible documentation that this event has ever occurred, and that there is a process which leads to it.

 

Even if rainbow body turns out to be a real ability that activates at death, are they claiming freedom from rebirth as a result?

 

 

 

My understanding is that attainment of the Rainbow Body does this, many Tibetan Buddhists have achieved this in the last 200 years

[Jetsun]

Does Ramana Maharshi claim to have broken free of rebirth?

He realised that he didn't even exist in the first place as independent of everything else, so there was no birth or death to be concerned about.

[Thunder_Gooch]

He realised that he didn't even exist in the first place as independent of everything else, so there was no birth or death to be concerned about.

We don't exist as things, we exist as experiences. An experience of something isn't the same as the something it is an experience of. Experiences are not tangible physical entities yet we spend most of our lives hell bent on believing they are. There is no one experiencing the experience, just an experience that is occurring is all that we are or ever can be.

 

Even still knowing this doesn't change how things will occur, death and rebirth still happen, suffering still happens.

Edited July 9, 2013 by More_Pie_Guy

[joeblast]

You can't teach or fully explain what it is like to break various coefficients of friction. To see, to bleed, cannot be taught. There is a coefficient of friction to get past for rebirth or not also. Any surpassing of the coefficient requires sufficient amplitude-potential.

[Ish]

Anyone locate a map/diagram of these 72 chakras on the human body? I'd be curious to see.

+1

 

I guess there will be many more along the spine/central channel than the ~7 we usually talk about. Maybe some out of body as well.

[Jainarayan]

Ramana Maharshi descibes the energetic changes that can happen just by enquiring and waking up to who you are, then there are others like Sri Nisrigatta Maharaj, even living teachers like Adyashanti talk about huge energetic changes going on without focusing on Qi or energy at all, all he did was meditate on what is true and enquire into who he was and all the channels and centres changed, he said it caused him a lot of pain and discomfort for many years.

 

I'm coming to understand this. I'm looking deeply at myself. Somethings I like, some things I don't. Those things I don't like cause me pain. However, as Paramahansa Yogananda wrote, we have to let the past go. There is no sense in dwelling on it. That's another stumbling block, rather, it's a brick wall. People are afraid to question things, or themselves for fear of the answer. We think "If you don't want to hear the answer, don't ask the question". That's why we don't advance in anything.

 

Just my 2 cents.

[Seeker of Wisdom]

MPG...

 

The way to end rebirth is clear, if you look over the teachings fully. You just aren't seeing it, because you're looking for one practice which is enough on its own, when there are stages where the practice alters as you progress, and new insights introduced along the Way. The whole thing is 'how to escape rebirth', one part in isolation isn't the complete map.

 

Here's a rough summary:

 

Stage 1: Virtue + shamatha + wisdom -> jhana + chi development

 

Stage 2: Vipassana -> prajna -> transcend clinging to a large extent + realise emptiness -> stream-entry -> once-return -> non-return -> arhatship + limited freedom from rebirth + greatly reduced clinging, delusion and ill-will

 

Stage 3: More development of prajna and compassion -> realising there is Tao AND emptiness (to a deeper extent than possible before arhatship) + bodhichitta -> further prajna, samadhi and virtue development -> glimpse Tao + further reduce clinging, delusion and ill-will -> know what to do -> progress through bodhisattva bhumis -> fully develop realisation + chi + mind -> Buddhahood + freedom from rebirth.

Edited July 9, 2013 by Seeker of the Self

[Jetsun]

MPG...

 

The way to end rebirth is clear, if you look over the teachings fully. You just aren't seeing it, because you're looking for one practice which is enough on its own, when there are stages where the practice alters as you progress, and new insights introduced along the Way. The whole thing is 'how to escape rebirth', one part in isolation isn't the complete map.

 

Here's a rough summary:

 

Stage 1: Virtue + shamatha + wisdom -> jhana + chi development

 

Stage 2: Vipassana -> prajna -> transcend clinging to a large extent + realise emptiness -> stream-entry -> once-return -> non-return -> arhatship + limited freedom from rebirth + greatly reduced clinging, delusion and ill-will

 

Stage 3: More development of prajna and compassion -> realising there is Tao AND emptiness (to a deeper extent than possible before arhatship) + bodhichitta -> further prajna, samadhi and virtue development -> glimpse Tao + further reduce clinging, delusion and ill-will -> know what to do -> progress through bodhisattva bhumis -> fully develop realisation + chi + mind -> Buddhahood + freedom from rebirth.

Adyashanti would say that the majority of that is just what he calls "cleaning up the prison" while breaking free of it is something different, the irony being that the worse your prison the stronger the longing to break free from it. So you may not need most of that stuff, and he is a qualified Buddhist teacher so has gone through a lot of it. The stages of meditation experiences etc are just the highest forms of personal experience, whereas waking up is about the impersonal.

[Seeker of Wisdom]

There's a limit to how far someone can break free while the habit of being attached is still there. Without prajna and samadhi, someone trying to let go of consciousness ends up clinging to clarity.

 

I acknowledge the sudden approach, but that approach itself states that it is for those with sharp faculties - in other words, achievement of shamatha, great qualities, and some level of realisation already developed.

 

Practices still have to be used to dig out of the prison (initial glimpse of Tao). After that point, you can just let go and Tao is always in your perception (go through the tunnel) and you know what to do to get to Buddhahood (clear your name of the crime, so you can enter and leave the prison to help the prisoners through the tunnel while being free yourself).

[joeblast]

Imho sudden implies prior cultivation.

[Jetsun]

Imho sudden implies prior cultivation.

 

Cultivation which leads to the realization of how useless it all is maybe