Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
This is the afterlife
Talisman
Veteran
We died, forgot about our previous life, and now this is the afterlife, where we will die, forget what has happened to us, and enter another afterlife.
0
Comments
...and I remember past lives, forgeting doesn't apply to all.
We forget, but only temporarily. Those memories are there, ready to be accessed.
That's an interesting theory. However, ultimately, have you ever existed as a self in the first place to be born and consequently die?
If the individual karmic record does transmogrify (for lack of a better word. Besides, I like "transmogrify") to another body on the vehicle of mind, or consciousness, there is some type of separateness happening. Because my karma doesn't ever get mixed up with yours, or most other peoples', it remains distinct.
Nice to have you back, by the way.
The key word is "self". It's not a separate self, it's a multiplicity of separate consciousnesses. I...think... How else would people's karmic records stay separate? You don't suffer negative karma due to errors I or anyone else made in my previous lifetime, do you?
It's also a good question: if our separations are an illusion, then how is separate karma and consciousness maintained? HHDL is the reincarnation (they say) of past HHDLs. The HHDL consciousness didn't somehow end up in your body, or get all mixed up in your karma. (Oh well. I give up.
(Actually, I think it's hilarious the way we both ran out of steam and gave up. ^_^ At least we're out of Talisman's way, now.)
Look at the negative karma the US has been generating, with so many wars. Don't the leaders who initiated those wars bear most of the responsibility, and therefore generate a corresponding proportion of the karma?
And why has the US been prosperous up until recently, in spite of a history of genocide, slavery and wars against other nations, while Russia has always been an economic basket case?
Before we develop thoughts, there are sights, sounds, tastes, bodily sensations, and smells. Even after we've started thinking, we're still acting largely based on these other things, which we take to be "other" than "self"; there's no real separation... our actions are dependent upon our world, and our world includes every "one" and every "thing" else, all of the conditions and actions.
Open your mind, as The Matrix made famous.
So if we have all suffered in order to obtain our current level of Karmic consciousness, that means that it is a necessity that those who are suffering now should be left to suffer?
If it is actually a point to aid people in evolving past said suffering, are we doing everything we can in order to do so?
A Karmic record sounds like a rap sheet, but I would have to say that where you see a freedom; I see a mental prison that is similar to any and all adherence to any aspect of belief.
"Pain is mandatory. 'Suffering' is optional", I believe they say.
Physical suffering and incidents we have to endure, we have no choice over. Our perception and attitudes, are. Mahayana Buddhism deals with this aspect. Theravada Buddhism doesn't necessarily see this as 'actually the point'...
You have the key, though.
It's only a prison in your mind.
Even behind lock and key, Tibetan Monks have experienced freedom....
Do you consider it should adhere to a specific aspect of thought or embody every aspect of thought?
The notion that everyone should find the freedom I have found simply isn't reasonable. Now, if a certain thought created something so brilliant that it consumed all thought beyond a desire to become what is witnessed..... It has created something external from thought alone...... I could only imagine that enlightenment would have the ability to create something that harnessed such a brilliance to become a critical mass where it becomes exponential in growth.
Something so profound in expression that when you look upon it, it becomes impossible not to see yourself within it!
Words are only as good as the interpretation by which they blossom in the individual expression, or by the book that binds them...... Your own words have the power of expression to prove yourself over and over. I only desire that my words disappear into the expression of another's mind.
For me it is the desire to become a student.
If I were to teach a mind, I would ask what it desired to know. I would never direct or hinder it's process or path; I would nurture that mind and make every bit of information available to it along it's journey.
I know that mind would find exactly where it belonged, and what it had to offer back would be a beauty we couldn't even begin to fathom.
No limits and no bounds, this mind would consume information through it's freedom of desire. When it discovered it's passion, it would develop an expression of artistry and thought that would revolutionize it's field. As this mind masters it's field, it is afforded students that wish to obtain this knowledge; students that like this mind have found their way to the same passion.
The brilliance is not in becoming a master, but setting minds forward and watching your knowledge evolve into something you could have never fathomed alone...... You become a student of your own mind, and it fills you until there is nothing more you could ever desire but letting go.
A true teacher would never tell us how to achieve something, a true teacher understands the brilliance of a mind when it is set free.
How can we learn to become enlightened? A true teacher would disclose that there are no words that are exclusive to such knowledge...... Why then, do we look to a teaching when we are meant to extend beyond it, to see a brilliance in our own?
revolutionary, can you go over your questions to me again (your post under mine....), but in plain English? I'm really tired and I don't want to fall into the trap of "Chi mal capisce peggio risponde' (Italian for 'he who misunderstands replies in a real cock-up style'!)
If it is how we live our lives today that determines the event of our "rebirth" and the Karmic attachment to such, why would it be beyond such a topic to investigate what we are capable of accomplishing in this life that we are sharing right now?
Isn't that what we were doing?
Is it absolute acceptance where the only purpose is to change how we perceive it?
Compassion is part of the Theravada package, but it is allied with Wisdom, and the recognition that what matters is not necessarily how kamma has hitherto developed, but what to do about it now. Now, is all we have, absolutely guaranteed-wise....
The (Mahayana) Bodhisattva vow is an impossible one to fulfil, and while well-intentioned I cannot see personally how it can be worked on. I don't ascribe to the concept of reincarnation, as Tibetan Mahayana followers do....
orly?
Which vow exactly?
Don't mean to be confrontational, genuinely interested in your PoV
Delusions are inexhaustible; I vow to end them.
Dharma gates are boundless; I vow to enter them.
Buddha's way is unsurpassable; I vow to become it."
It seems somehow contradictory and unattainable to me, but I'm certain someone else will know better. And I too, am not being confrontational in that.
I look at it with the sentiment that the journey is greater than the destination. Vowing to guide all sentient beings to the shore of enlightenment is, intellectually, an impossible task as there are an infinite number of sentient beings. What matters is the altruistic and compassionate intent to bring happiness, liberation, enlightenment, and peace in every moment towards every yearning heart throughout the infinite expanse of space and time.
Such meritorious and virtuous intent is unsurpassable and the greatest of aspirations. It is through this unwavering and loving pursuit of aiding others, that one is able to transend all hindering desires and delusional beliefs. The wish to help others is more important than any concept of self, and by this path will the Tathagata be revealed in one's steps.
And stuff ...
sounds to me like an excuse not to seek ways of helping others with whatever resources you have
There is the one who seeks to aid others like the Shepherd aids his flock, by making sure that they are all rested and fed before him.
There is the one who seeks to aid others like the Ferryman aids his fare, by helping them to the other shore and arriving with them.
These second two are intellectually impossible to acheive as the Dharma cannot be expressed properly without perfective enlightenment and Buddhahood, however the merit of aiding others is part of "attaining wealth and power" metaphorically speaking of course.
Why would you consider the universe is infinite?
If we were contained, the focus would always remain on that point of containment...... What is it? Where did it come from? What's beyond it?
We might be able to contemplate infinity, but it wouldn't be a tangible source of reflection.
If this is all an illusion, what does it say?
There is a focal brilliance, the possibility to extend the imagination as far as it might go..... The physical nature itself never ends, it's perception always beginning with you.
Look anywhere you want, focally, it is all directed back to you.
Impossible? Well now you find contentment in creating your own box of containment.
Why are we projecting all these words, endless interpretations of things that might possibly be, that are external from self?
Are we too afraid to see our own brilliance?
Let me tell you about the elephant.
When an elephant is placed in captivity, it is taken when it is young. A chain is placed around it's foot and it is staked to the ground. The elephant learns the weight of the chain and where it ends. As the elephant grows, it continues to sway back and forth within it's parameters.
What the elephant doesn't know, is that it now has the power to pull the stake from the ground setting itself free; in fact, it had this power very early in it's growth.
There is a dichotomy in the teachings of Buddha, physical vs mental..... When we can understand the nature of thought, we can understand it's intellectual offerings.
The teaching was developed in a state of existence under an oppressive rule; a chain around the leg of physical freedom. This was not just a chain, it was death.
How do you respond to this realization? You find the only freedom that is possible.
Just like the elephant, the physical enslavement is only in the mind; but it requires one to use it's own force.
if Buddha could see what we are physically capable of achieving and now stuck in the mind through his teachings..... He would have never uttered a single word. It was the only refuge, and it was absolutely beautiful in it's freedom of expression within it...... As I have explained earlier, a true teacher would only desire that those who were their student, would see their own beauty. This is how a teacher blossoms, this is how a teacher is set free to ride upon the minds into a place they could never have envisioned themselves.
To do justice to your teacher, you must pull the stake from the ground and run free.... When everyone sees you running, you will find them running next to you.
Take this expression and run........ There is no interpretation, there is only you!