Best Of
Re: No Buddhist Quotes
“The traditional method of vipassana is a very cold, dull and dead way, and because it is cold it takes a longer time – perhaps a few lives to become awakened.
But because all the religions of the world have praised coldness in their saints, in their seekers, searchers, they have all delayed progress, delayed the evolution of consciousness.
Energy moves better when it is warmer.
This is one of my contributions, which will be condemned by all the religions – the religions of the cold. I teach you a religion of warmth, love, singing, dancing, music. These are all tremendously helpful to make you alert, wakeful.”
— Osho, ‘The Transmission of the Lamp’
Jeroen
Re: Just for fun: the random, useless announcements thread!
Are you talking about a meditation bench? They are pretty easy to make. You just need to know how high or low you want it to be, along with what angle you'd like the sitting surface to be. Usually, you want the sitting surface of the bench to point directly from where you're sitting on it, to the center of where your kneeling knees are on the floor.. The idea is to have the sitting surface be sloped enough to be comfortable supporting you without any undue impingement on the back of your legs by its front edge...but not to be so sloped that you'd slide off of it or unduly offload your weight onto your knees.
Some like the supporting bottoms of the legs of the bench to be rounded slightly so that you can adjust the angle of the bench to what best suits you. If you are going to be carrying this around with you, you can also have the bench legs hinged so that it folds into a more compact and portable design. The basic support structure of your typical meditation bench can be cut from a single 3ft long by 6" wide by 1/2 to 3/4 " deep board.
how
Re: Lobsters latest website/microblog
It puts me in mind of the story about Socrates. Once the Oracle of Delphi declared, “Socrates is the wisest man in all of Greece”. On hearing this Socrates said to those who came to tell him, “there must be some misunderstanding, because all I know is that I know nothing.” On being asked why she had declared this, the Oracle said, “It is because he knows that he knows nothing that Socrates is the wisest.”
So if we know nothing that leaves rather a lot of room for discussion… all leaves blowing in the wind, very often saying nothing at all is the wisest course.
Jeroen
Re: All that can be said are beautiful lies…
Great post @FleaMarket 
"I don't need to have that clarity right now to have established unshakable conviction in what was experienced."
In many ways finding the attributes or unfolding the experience is on going ... and may change the nature and direction.
The Christian Mystic Thomas Merton put it this way
“Innocence.
Experience.
Innocence.”
Similar to mountain, no mountain, mountain 
lobster
Re: No Buddhist Quotes
The world will not perish from want of wonders, but from want of wonder.
J.B.S. Haldane
Fosdick
Re: Is the middle way comfortable?
The default view of the majority is that everything that happens is reality. That is being stuck in the mud pool of suffering or happiness. The thing is everything is changing and insecure. Happy one moment, grieve the next. In the greatest of health then comes sickness.
The other extreme is the belief that everything is a dream, that nothing happened, and that suffering is not real. Too much emptiness and hardening of the heart. This is to ignore one's experiences or selectively filtering out the bad. Without being forged in the crucible of suffering, one becomes a starry eyed proponent that life is all good!
The middle way is the teaching of dependent origination. All there is, is the arising and the cessation of dukkha. Freedom is not real as long as one has not uprooted craving from the heart.
The middle way is NOT the happy medium between extremes of hard and easy way! Both are still under the influence of delusion.
To Kaccayana Gotta (on Right View)
"'Everything exists': That is one extreme. 'Everything doesn't exist': That is a second extreme. Avoiding these two extremes, the Tathagata teaches the Dhamma via the middle: From ignorance as a requisite condition come fabrications...
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn12/sn12.015.than.html
To quote Ajahn Dtun, "the mind sent out is the origin of the world or suffering, and the mind knowing the mind is the cessation of the world or suffering. This is to be realized.
Re: Is the middle way comfortable?
I would say that, for many people, no it's not particularly comfortable as one often has to fight against the flow of worldly desires and expectations and do a fair amount of letting go of things that are seemingly pleasurable or personally beneficial in the short-term, but potentially harmful or not necessarily good in the long-term upon further reflection. Others, however, have a less difficult time with this, and find it easier to develop states of meditative joy and tranquility, so for them it may be in some sense comfortable. I suppose it all depends on where you are in life and your practice. It's a lot like the story of Jesus and the rich man, where the man who observes the basics as far as precepts go (refraining from killing, committing adultery, etc.) asks Jesus how to be perfect and Jesus tells him, "Go, sell what you have, and give to [the] poor and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” And as the story goes, "At that statement his face fell, and he went away sad, for he had many possessions." For the rich man, the path is not comfortable because he is unable to let go of worldly things for the sake of something more profound. But for others, giving up such things is quite easy and they suffer much less. In essence, it's all relative. The middle way is neither inherently pleasant nor painful, comfortable or difficult. It really all depends on your frame of reference.
Jason
Re: All that can be said are beautiful lies…
@FleaMarket said:
A cloudless sky holds no secrets. It's the clouds on which the kingdoms of heaven rests.
Obfuscation of the full sight to take enjoyment in the distorted image. Bored minds make stuff up for fun.
All the world's a stage and the Buddha teaches us how to stop the show.But it's still on us to let go for keeps.
Excellent!
Today while watching how politics cause people to demonise one side, while glorifying another, or like in the current war (pick your side of the culling). To break such patterns and to see the entrapment of opinions and automatism. They say objetivity does not exist. That is true, having biases is human after all. To overcome them? To witness Reality clearly and neatly...
Well, that is part of the Buddha's path!
Well-said!
Kotishka