Dharma Wheel

In order to claim that it exists outside of the knowing of it you would have to posit something unknown as evidence! 1.Don't confuse objects of awareness with awareness itself. 2. If you are lost in the woods, you know that a way out of the woods exists but you have no awareness of it. 2. yes, if y...

Virgo wrote:Ha ha. That's great nemo. But am I missing something?

Kevin

Well, if the Lama is anything like me, that luminous stuff wasn't water!

matter exists. but no thing arises unconditionally as matter. If no thing (appears to) arise unconditionally as matter, then really you can only claim that matter appears to exist, ie. only insofar as it is an object of consciousness. Really its irrelevant whether there actually is matter or not as...

If you don't have an understanding of karma, you can't have an understanding of the paramitas. Without the paramitas you never realise shunyata. Feeling trapped or seeing karma as fatalistic just means that one hasn't understood karma properly (how it is generated, how it is amplified, how it is pu...

I think the whole point of Mahayana is to understand Sunyata, and not worry about all this other crap. I think the point is that the explanations given in the sutra seem to cause much worry among people who upon hearing that explanation of karma focus on the past and possible future and can get bog...

Thank you for that Mudra. I wonder if propelling karma would primarily be occurring in the bardo state then? http://www.berzinarchives.com/web/en/archives/sutra/level2_lamrim/initial_scope/karma/brief_presentation_main_points_abou.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; http:/...

I think in contemplating the idea of past actions and their consequences the present can sometimes get overlooked. What's really important is your view, so as alwayson says, understanding Sunyata is important, but there's also the flipside of that - your motivations, values, attachments, and aversio...

PadmaVonSamba wrote:When people take these things literally and think it is the "truth" in the ordinary and mundane sense,
they totally miss the profound truths which these images express.

Very good point.

If you want a good explanation, listen to Thomas Doctor's (a translator for Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche) lectures here: https://dharmasun.org/index.php?dharmasun=talks&flag=BUDC" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; You will need to create a free account. Certainly an excellent sit...

Where I differ is on the grounds of common experience. And I think illusory is a horrible world. What about mass murder is illusory? Sure, the "mind" thinks it's murdering, and "minds" think they are witnessing others dying, but it's still mass murder. Common experience is itsel...

...we're connected through the "virtual reality" or phenomenal experience. Yes, that's exactly the point, all realities are "virtual" - they rely on mental representations, the idea of a "reality" is itself a mental construct. What is water? Is it h2o, two hydrogen ato...

...That makes me think that the water exists on some actual level. It may not have inherent existence or non-existence, but it's not just a mind-object either. So if we were all just brains in jars hooked up to a virtual reality machine, how would our experience of water differ? Could we ever reall...

My hurdle is precisely collective apprehension. If phenomena only appear to arise, being mind-objects, then how can we experience the same phenomena? For example, if five people were to apprehend the squirrel and describe it in the exact same way (or even remarkable similarity), then the squirrel m...

Well, right....if there is no thing in the first place, then how can it "vanish" or be "annihilated," right? Seeming Things Seemingly vanish or are annihilated...in fact, seeming things appear to be in flux, but that, too, is merely a seeming. I'm just not sure what you're refer...

Some texts say that first we supplicate, next we expand, and then finally we receive blessings. By seeing our own shortcomings in comparison to the great qualities of the guru we develop increasing admiration and trust, and as this becomes stronger the receiving of the blessings reinforces our devot...

The way matter on Pluto appears to us is as relative a truth as the way Mt. Meru appears to those in the Deva realms.

What's interesting is that atheists, or maybe I should say secular materialists, see the phenomenal world as all there is, and view death as the end - so their beliefs are nihilistic while their behaviour towards phenomena are eternalistic (at least in the sense that they think the object world will...

My understanding is that the clear light is awareness. In the encounter with emptiness the "natural" tendency is to project either good feelings (desire/attachment) or bad stuff (anger/aversion) or to drift into unconsciousness (ignorance). Can awareness grasp at itself? I guess that would...

1. Re the boy with leukemia, my understanding is that having a body makes it subject to ageing, disease and death - the inevitable causality of the physical and composite realm. His karma was to be reborn in the desire realm. This is fundamentally at odds with the idea that his disease is some sort ...

Sorry to disagree...but I do. At least to the way you state this. There is conventional existence but no ultimate existence. Nagarjuna says that things do not inherently exist, there is no independent existence. He does not say that things do not exist at all. Things arise dependently from cause an...