Jonathan: I worry about the possibility that I will never be who I know that I can be.

You are misapplying the word "know."

You can only know who you are because knowing requires certainty and that requires what is actual.

You worry that you will never be what you want to be. The fact that you think it is within grasp, if only... just makes it worse.

This of course is part of the definition of suffering: wanting what is not.

That "worry" is pure suffering. If you like you can obsess over it and whip it up into full blown agony. But you don't have to.

Be who you are, including your efforts to evolve and change.

"Can be" is nothing.

12-11-05 1:23  •  Money

Robin: Apparently Vajrayana doesn't have qualms with accepting money as alms, but Theravada doesn't handle money at all (generally speaking).I know Zen is the most flexible buddhistic branch, but what is the 'official' view on money from zen?

Don't worry about it so much.

Robin: I do that because I feel lousy when I use money :D

I can buy 2 apples or a fork, there's always something else you can buy with the money. So it always ends with me not buying anything. It's fun buying new things, but it's not fun to spend money.

The potential value of a piece of paper scares me.
I work for it, I earn it, so it's not something I want to easily give away. So what, if I don't work for it, then I'll lose my dependance of it. Paradox, I feel pride in working, but I'm bound by the pay.

Money is a concept and part of a game we play.
It has no intrinsic value in and of itself.
Its only utility is how it fits into the game.

The way it fits in to the game is motion.
Like a stream, you can collect some of it into pools for later use, but it is only working for you when it goes out to irrigate your crops or spin your water wheel to power your home.

Some people get all excited about the size of their pond, but the size of your pond is not really as important as keeping your flow at the correct levels for your life. In fact if the pond becomes too big or you focus too heavily on it, the water stagnates.

But the thing to really bear in mind is that while money can facilitate many things, it isn't actually living your life.

You can be flat broke and still be living with a gusto that Bill Gates will never know.

In the end, to worry about money is to worry too much about it.

Since the piece of paper scares you, here is a good trick.
See if you can do this exactly as I state it right now.

Open your wallet and take out the largest bill.
Set the corner on fire and consider it and your attachments to it carefully as it burns.

Brent: On the other hand, (and I've gone back and forth on this over the years), I'd tend to rather be sitting on a leather sofa in a house with high cielings, or in a Porsche, than some of the other places.

Are you?

If not, how do you know that is true?

I had that choice, considered the real price, not just in dollars but in cost to my personality and the environment, and dismissed it.

Zen is beling satisfied with where you are, what you have and who you are.

What if I had less? What if I had more? What if where I was, was nicer or less nice...what if...?

"What if" is the preface to suffering.

"This is" is the path to enlightenment.

This is what I have, where I am, and who I am.

12-06-05 4:37  •  Who is this God person anyway?

Anne Marie: In order for one to claim Atheism as an observation one would have to assume they are all knowing ...

Nonsense. No atheist claims infallibility, such claims are the realm of the theist. Here and now, with the information and capacities currently available, there is no need to posit any gods.

Anne Marie: One would also have to define 'God' to mean ...

This makes my point. If god were real, you wouldn't have to be defining it this way and that way. A dog is the final definition of "dog." What is actual can point to itself. It doesn't need you, your systems, your beliefs or your definitions. Only something imaginary is dependent on you for it realization.

Anne Marie: Now...in math and science exist concepts that lack tangibility but it does not mean they do not exist rather we cannot percieve them in human form.

Nothing in math is actual. Math is a conceptual system of symbols and their means of manipulation. Some of the symbols can be used to refer to aspects of reality, integers for example. But even in math, a number like i which lacks a tangible digit is called imaginary.

They exist, but only as concepts, just as god exists only as an imaginary concept.

Anne Marie: Many things go on around us that we will never acknowledge with the senses we are given. If a tree falls in the forest...

The deity you posit is not a tree in the forest. Ignorance is not proof of gods.

Anne Marie: Atheist ... is derived from a lack of a belief [in] a specific concept. When one states emphatically that there is only one truth whether it be there is a God or their isn't then it can only be their belief no?

Lack of belief is not belief just like lack of water is not water.

Your term "god" has no demonstrated meaning beyond your imaginings.

12-06-05 5:43  •  Well, That About Wraps It Up For God

Anne Marie:I am not trying to force anything on you, just define what you already call yourself.

How nice that you wish to define away what you don't yet understand for what it is.

Anne Marie: You say that you know there is no god/deity/etc...

No, that is not what I am saying.

I am saying there is nothing about the claim of real deities for which I could have any knowledge because the fundimental claim itself is just nonsense.

Your sentence implies that there is such a thing as "god/deity/etc" about which some kind of knowledge is possible. You then hold that the knowledge isn't available and the atheist is merely being obstinant.

I am saying the knowledge isn't just unavailable. I'm saying there was never anything there about which any knowledge could ever be had.

No matter where or how you look you will never find the emperor's new clothes because they never had any existence to begin with. The theists killing each other over whether they are blue or red is even more silly.

For me to know something for or against something actual, there has to be the object itself which is the real referant for the term which is being discussed.

"God/deity/etc" has no meaning outside the imagination and therefore, it is impossible to have real knowledge about it. All you can ever have are people's imaginings.

Part of the problem is the tradition and baggage that comes with the term "god." But if you just substitute the term "werg" you can see how preposterous the arguments for werg are. Its just a nonsense word which has imaginary meanings and no referant to anything real.

Werg isn't close enough to real to warrant even disbelief and neither is god.

Don't let the semantics of how atheism is phrased confuse you.

I am not disbelieving something. There is not even anything to disbelieve.

As for how I know it, I know it the same same way you know there is no froog in front of you no matter how I might imagine there might be.

The absence is palpable.

12-05-05 12:21  •  Where is Mind?

Mistletoe: Kao Ch-eng said of the mind, "Since it does not abide anywhere, where can you look for it? Its operation has no tracks and no traces. Get to know the person who is clearly seeking right now; don’t disregard this and seek another aim."

How do you stay in right now ?

How did you ever leave it?

Mistletoe: How does one achieve non attachment to ones own mind ?

What are you worrying about now?

12-05-05 12:05  •  Rekindling Love

Ra: So, do you have any insights or thoughts on rekindling of love, after one of the partners has lost it?

A relationship is a two way street.

If anything is lost, lacking or missing, both have lost something, or lack something or are missing something.

A loving relationship works on being kind and nice to each other. Paying attention to each other. And, forgiving each other's mistakes.

The mechanism for doing this is copious honest and caring communication.

If you both approach each other with these principles in mind you will find your path to rekindling together.

Best wishes.

12-03-05 2:21  •  Falun Dafa

Will: First read the Book Zhuan Falun( Li Hongzhi) It won't bite you.

No thank you, I was looking for a book which would bite me.

Will: Millions of people world wide are finding peace of mind and good Health thru' this practice. Some are dying horrible deaths rather than deny their belief.

Then they have found neither peace nor good health.

A step towards enlightenment is realizing that beliefs are less than nothing.

Real enlightenment is impervious to denial in the same way a rock is impervious to denial. Only suffering needs the protection of fanaticism, because it can end.

Will: Really, some are dying horrible deaths rather than deny their belief.

You have my pity. I hope you eventually win free of this madness before you too die a horrible death for an empty belief.

12-03-05 1:21  •  Karma isn't

Bo: Basically the law of Karma means, what you put out,........you get back. Do unto others etc.......

Karma is not a payback machine or some kind of cosmic judge and jury.

Karma is simply that causes have effects and they are tied to each other.

When that comes to interacting with the world at large, its a lot like the stock market. There are many players and natural events putting into the system which makes it chaotic, but it has trends.

Thus any one act or set of acts is not completely predictable for long term effect. But if you act a certain way over the long haul, you will tend to attract people who appreciate this.

12-03-05 12:21  •  About Buddhism Practiced

Check out Swarm's short explanation of Buddhism, which this discussion is about.

T: You get into hot water real fast when you write "The aspects of Buddhism which cannot be proven and demonstrated directly are it trappings and ornamentation."

Usually people say, thank god some one is willing to say to our consumer mindset, the things of buddhism are not buddhism.

T: "Proven" is very relative and ambiguous as is "demonstrated directly."

No, proven is very physical and relevant to your immediate experience.

It is not some logical or rational exercise which can be twisted with sophistry.

Its a slap in the face that you cannot ignore. Its a flower and a smile. Its living your life free and knowing it in every way.

T: Prove to me that something did indeed occur and also affect something else.

Come closer and I will give you all the proof you ever need.
Your sophistry is limited to rational proofs because they exist only as symbols. I am talking about empirical proof.

If I drop a brick on your foot what further proof do you want?

T: This touches upon something known as self-evident truth. When something resonates with you, it harmonizes and it becomes a truth for you. You open your belief to it and it becomes real for you.

No wonder you are confused. There is a reason I didn't bother with "true." Until you understand proof, truth is useless to you. Something is true if and only if it can be proven true via facts which directly correspond to reality. Resonates, belief, direction, and harmonizes are just BS people use to pretend their favorite superstition carries the same weight as what is real.

T: That said, arguing that something is or is not Buddhism is a complete waste of time, as is defining Buddhism.

I'm not idly arguing. I am presenting my actual personal understanding in my own words. My understanding is thus. My experience is this.

T: you completely control your own perception

No one completely controls their own perception. I am controlling what you read right at this moment. Your eyes, independent of your consciousness, process the trillions of photons impacting on your retina.

You have some say about your perception but like so many things, there are limits.

T: Some of the "trappings" that Western Buddhism is so frightened of are essential for understanding the very foundation Buddhism rests upon.

There is nothing in the trappings which are required for understanding the fundimental nature of buddhism. It is only needed to understand the historical, social and religious contexts which have grown up around buddhism. It is not directly relevant, though it's a pleasant pastime.

T: Without this understanding, you have your Buddhism but it doesn't have any foundation to it.

This is the foundation: me, you, reality, suffering ... Nothing out side this immediate here and now is needed, at all.

T: All occult knowledge and "trappings" and paranormal behavior also reside in this same foundation.

Meditation is a practice, not a trapping.

"Occult knowledge" is a trapping. At best its a distraction. At worst it is a trap.

T: If you've never tinkered with the occult and shamanism, how can you criticize it?

I have practiced the occult and shamanism.

The occult proved fruitless, but shamanism has it uses.

I discard them both here because they are not needed in any way shape or form. The practice of enlightenment requires nothing more than your ordinary self and the practice outlined above.

T: Can it not be used to understand Buddhism better?

No, it cannot be used to understand Buddhism better by me. It is too easy to get swept up in delusion that way.

T: A shoe can teach you about Buddhism.

That is the difference you fail to grasp.

Your shoe, in theory, could teach about buddhism, but buddhism is not about "in theory." The shoe you offered is not teaching about buddism so it doesn't matter what it could do.

This shoe is teaching about buddhism because buddhism is the practice of buddhism, not the theory of buddhism and this is my practice.

Both shoes are the same. It is the application of the context which surrounds them which determines if they teach or not and it is the actual practice of that application which makes it teaching about buddhism.

T: nothing sounds harmonious to these ears.

Nothing sounds neither harmonious nor cacophonious.

Nothing is the context which contains the sounds.
Mind is the awareness of harmony or cacophony.