:)
get a life and co-create. Your tearing down shall not efect me - only yourself :)
hmm who works here?
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Integrity-Transparenct-Accountability and respect for the law. I like that and I honor it as well - do you?
TheObserver
The Buddha said:
The homeless shramana cuts off the passions,
frees himself of his attachments,
understands the source of his own mind,
penetrates the deepest doctrine of Buddha,
and comprehends the dhamma, which is immaterial.
This much Buddha allows—that there is a dhamma, a natural law, which is immaterial. He will not say spiritual; he simply says which is immaterial. What is the dhamma? What is this law?
To understand Lao Tzu’s concept of tao, or the vedic concept of rita would be helpful. There must be something like a law which holds everything together. The changing seasons, the moving stars… the whole universe goes on so smoothly; it must have a certain law.
Jews, Christians, Mohammedans, Hindus, call that law ‘god’; they personify it. Buddha is not willing to do this. He says to personify god is to destroy the whole beauty of it, because that is an anthropomorphic, an anthropocentric, attitude. Man thinks as if god is just like man—magnified, quantitatively millions of times bigger, but still like man.
Buddha says god is not a person. That’s why he never uses the word ‘god’. He says dhamma, the law. God is not a person but just a force, an immaterial force. Its nature is more like a law than like a person. That’s why in Buddhism, prayer does not exist.
You cannot pray to a law; it will be pointless. You cannot pray to the law of gravitation, can you? It will be meaningless. The law cannot listen to your prayer. You can follow the law, and you can be in happy harmony with the law. or, you can disobey the law and you can suffer. But there is no pont in praying to the law.
If you go against gravitation you may break a few of your bones, you may have a few fractures. If you follow the law of gravitation, you can avoid the fractures—but what is the point in praying? Sitting before the icon and praying to the Lord—‘I am going for a journey, help me’—it is absurd.
Buddha says the universe runs according to a law, not according to a person. His attitude is scientific. Because, he says, a person can be whimsical. You can pray to god and you can persuade him, but that is dangerous. Somebody who is not praying to god may not be able to persuade him and god may become prejudiced—a person is always capable of prejudice.
And that’s what all the religions say—that if you pray, he will save you, if you pray you will not be miserable, if you can’t pray, you will be thrown into hell.
To think in these terms about god is very human, but very unscientific. That means god loves your flattery, your prayers. So if you are a praying person and you go regularly to church, to the temple, and you read the Gita and the Bible, you recite Koran, then he will help you; otherwise he will be very annoyed by you. If you say, ‘I don’t believe in god’, he will be very angry at you.
Buddha says this is stupid. God is not a person. You cannot annoy him and you cannot buttress him, you cannot flatter him. You cannot persuade him to your own way. Whether you believe in him or not, that doesn’t matter. A law exists beyond your belief. If you follow it, you are happy. If you don’t follow it, you become unhappy.
Look at the austere beauty of the concept of law. Then the whole question is of a discipline, not of prayer. Understand the law and be in harmony with it, don’t be in a conflict with it, that’s all. No need for a temple, no need for a mosque, no need to pray. Just follow your understanding.
Buddha says that whenever you are miserable it is just an indication that you have gone against the law, you have disobeyed the law. Whenever you are in misery, just understand one thing; watch, OBSERVER it, analyze your situation, diagnose it—you must be going somewhere against the law, you must be in conflict with the law. Buddha says it is not that the law is punishing you; no, that is foolish—how can a law punish you? You are punishing yourself by being against the law. If you go with the law, it is not that the law is awarding you—how can the law award you? If you go with it, you are awading yourself. The whole responsibility is yours—obey or disobey.
If you obey, you live in heaven. If you disobey, you live in hell. Hell is a state of you own mind when you are antagonistic to the law, and heaven is also a state of your own mind when you are in harmony.
(Excerpt taken from DISCIPLINE OF TRANSCENDENCE VOL. 1 Discourse #3)
But oh my god! how many time do I have to learn it!!!!!!!! I mean I continue to not follow what I know (or believe) and continue to create my personal "hell" if you will.
Well seems like I keep getting toothpicks out me eyes but seems like there may still be a few 2000 year old red wood trees that I can't seem to see "just hiding there" in plain sight :)
Got to laugh at myself :)
little christianity applied to yaw budaism... works for me
Your response is certainly aflame with passion.
It would be quite impossible to say what the truth of any of these people were really about. Whatever is told is hearsay, conjectured fiction. My post was with regard to what is reported that Guatama Buddha had said.
As we can all understand that anything that doesn't flow directly out of the mouths of such individuals and directly into our own ears can only be considered as mere scripture.
A true religion exists only while these people actually are living breathing beings. And a once alive 'religiousness' starts dying into becoming an established religion is at the very moment such an individual dies, leaves his or her body. The beautifully alive lotus then begins being transformed into just another plastic flower with an -ism attached to its name.
I personally have no attraction to a man that is called Dalai Lama. To me he is just another type of pope, priest or monk, with a diplomat status - that makes him similar and close to being like a politician in my book. As I have no affiliation with the so-called religion of Buddhism per se.
In responding to OBSERVER'S initial message. I positioned my message along the thread following yours, only because I noticed your remark about 'no Buddhist crap'. I thought it would not be received as offensive. I certainly did not intend it to be as such. Apologies for the unexpected verbiage. (I really thought you would get the jest.)
This was merely an attempt to show the different view that Buddha had shown in his sutras/written words (Buddhism) in calling the force that held the universe together a universal law (dhamma). This, in contrast to the view that Christianity, Mohammedism, Judaism and Hinduism have held in describing that same force as a personalized god with human like emotional garbage, (i.e. an angry god, a jealous god, a god who is looking over your shoulder, judging you and your every move - just a peeping Tom type entity! Good for those that are attracted to the absurd.)
The belief that this force is a personified human-like entity makes for a more complicated and more obscure affair than it need be. Making it more difficult for people to drop their clinging to attachments that cause them misery, and which prevents a falling into a harmony with a non-judgmental universal law that is more like science - a science of the inner.
regards -*-
Enjoyed the dao videos -thank you.
Most certainly society is pseudo civilized, civilized only the surface, underneath it is quite barbaric. I have heard that this is really the reason why so many intelligent people, geniuses, have simply dropped out and have become homeless. They are just not willing to participate in the insanity.
So it is already happening. Its good to hear that you have some friends like that -living in caves or similar settings. These people are the beginnings of the new era of humanity, the baby phoenix that will grow to rise out of the ashes of this so-called civilization that we find ourselves living in. It would be good to pay them a visit every now and again... just to keep in touch.... one foot moving out the door, so to speak. We are witnessing the present society as it is crumbling apart. Its been rotten through to the core for quite some time now. As it goes down it will increasingly wreak havoc on its members.
Please be careful with your expectations with regards to others. I, myself, have felt for the longest time like I'm living in village of blind people. When I tell them abou things that I see coming they think me mad, they ridicule or even get angry. They have invested much in what they have. A village of blind people, when they discover that there is someone amongst them that can see things when they cannot, they will become angry, hostile and ridicule, will keep their distance. They will not be happy with you until you become like they are, again blind. They may even try to take your eyes out so they can feel less threatened.
Most people love to give advice. They love to tell others what they should be doing. It strengthens their ego. It makes one feel they are on an elevated level to the other. There will never be a shortage of these people that want to hand out advice. Occasionally, you can run across an individual now and then that can be of help. But they are few and far inbetween to say the least.
I've been one of these people that has been a bit too sensitive to what has gone on around me, it has effected my body greatly. I needed to take a step back and take care of myself first before I could think about helping others. When this was pointed out to me, it made perfect sense. How could I help others when I couldn't take care of myself first. So, I've been taking care, that is my priority. Sure, occasionally, I make my voice heard but the primary focus for me is still to take care of myself. It was said to me that if I concerned myself with the whole world, it will not be of much use when I am not in such a healthy state. So the first thing is to change my being. First create a light within my own heart; try to create a luminousity. Then, maybe there is something that I will be able to do for others. This was the advice I got for myself. It may or may not apply to anybody else, as everyone is different.
Men and women have been living with each other for thousands of years and they still don't understand each other. It is something that will never come to pass. I have heard that the one thing that prevents this from happening is that on average man thinks of having sex once every four minutes and a woman - every seven minutes. That's it! That throws off the whole thing, the vibration, the thought process, everything is throw out of synch with just this slight difference. I think it was maybe a joke ; ) but it could also be true.
Everyone is made up of a man and a woman. Every child is conceived, created, by a man and woman. So each child has a bit of the parent within them. A person may be a male on the outside of his being, but inside there is a woman. And the same goes for a person that is feminine - outside she is a woman but has an inner man within. It is said when a man becomes older he becomes more feminine. Look at elderly people and you will see the hardness of a man is replaced with the roundness as a woman has. And the older a woman gets the more her inner man moves to the periphery.
The statues of enlightened men show them as being more feminine than masculine, with the exception of the statue of Buddha that represents Gautama Siddhartha. This is because at one time during India's history it experienced the presence of Alexander the Great who was a beautiful man, had a handsome athletic physique. The masculine physique of Alexander the Great had influence the artist mindset to the point that his image was superimposed over Guatama Buddha image. But if you look at the Chinese Buddha statues and they are very round, signifying the feminine qualities of an enlightened master.
Astrologers say the an era of sun dominance is coming to an end. With this new millennium humanity will be more affected by the energy of the moon. Sun is male energy and moon is feminine. The sun's influence has treated women with disdain, has brought much suffering. Woman is owed her just due. I am glad to hear and see that the balance will be tipping the other way more and more.
Thanks for posting - turiya -*-
"If I do not go to the hell to help the suffering beings there, who else will go? ... if the hells are not empty I will not become a Buddha. Only when all living beings have been saved, will I attain Bodhi." ~ Bodhisattva Jizo
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got any more of this type of stuff - like candy to my heart...