gregkavarnos wrote:"I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members." Groucho Marx in the film "A Day at the Races".
AHA! So Woody Allen stole that line
gregkavarnos wrote:"I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members." Groucho Marx in the film "A Day at the Races".
They were all just re-inventing the wheel...gregkavarnos wrote:So you believe that no Mahayana practitioners have ever gone beyond an intellectual understanding towards a realisation of emptiness? That they were all waiting for the Vajrayana to come along and point it out to them?Center Channel wrote:Let me clarify my position.
Emptiness is technically the same in sutra and Vajrayana for the most part.
But only in Vajrayana you have a chance to move beyond a mere intellectual understanding of emptiness (although this is crucially important as well).
Need I (also) point out that Nagarjuna and the Madhyamaka tradition are a Mahayana and Sutra trend? Or maybe Nagarjuna (also) only had an intellectual understanding of emptiness?
There is no realizer of emptiness; when emptiness is seen, there is no seer, no object, and no seeing.conebeckham wrote:Okay..what, then, "realizes" emptiness?Namdrol wrote:conebeckham wrote: So, Emptiness is not the sole most important topic, or apex, or summit, of "sutra" doctrine.
Sure it is.
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gregkavarnos wrote:That they were all waiting for the Vajrayana to come along and point it out to them?
Your attempt to sideline the conversation by parroting technical terminology ain't gonna work: Do you believe that no Mahayana practitioners have ever gone beyond an intellectual understanding towards a realisation of emptiness?Center Channel wrote:I don't think the mere pointing out instructions in essence mahamudra/Dzogchen yields a true realization of emptiness either.
You need to work with the center channel and/or wisdom visions to get a personal realization of emptiness.
gregkavarnos wrote:Do you believe that no Mahayana practitioners have ever gone beyond an intellectual understanding towards a realisation of emptiness?
And the facts that you base this opinion upon?Center Channel wrote:Only hundreds of years ago in ancient India
Maybe some exceptionally rare cases otherwise.
I understand and agree theoretically--having no direct experience, needless to say......"There is no realizer of emptiness; when emptiness is seen, there is no seer, no object, and no seeing," and also, lest we forget, there is even no emptiness. But in the meantime, until such "seeing of emptiness," it is essential to understand the primacy of "the mind"--Namdrol wrote:There is no realizer of emptiness; when emptiness is seen, there is no seer, no object, and no seeing.conebeckham wrote:Okay..what, then, "realizes" emptiness?
N
Actually, I think it is not that unusual. I wouldn't say it is especially common, but really not that rare. Although I would call it 'direct experience' rather than realization. By direct experience, i mean it bypasses any intellectual endeavor, no sense of a separate "me" witnessing it. Vajrayana methods of effortlessly looking directly at the mind are a means of direct experience of emptiness. people do it all the time.gregkavarnos wrote:Do you believe that no Mahayana practitioners have ever gone beyond an intellectual understanding towards a realisation of emptiness?
Practitioners of sutra also realize emptiness directly and non-conceptually. Arhats for example, but also some bodhisattvas. That's how the former achieve Nirvana and the latter attain the Path of Seeing. The difference in tantra is not the view or the ability to achieve it but the method by which it is done.Center Channel wrote:…only in Vajrayana you have a chance to move beyond a mere intellectual understanding of emptiness
Realizing emptiness does not depend on generating bodhicitta. Arhats aren't on the Mahayana path and some bodhisattvas realize emptiness before generating bodhicitta. However both are necessary for attaining enlightenment.Asabandha wrote:Understanding emptiness is perhaps useful, but realization is the goal. To realize emptiness one must generate incredible bodhicitta
Not, no way bra, nitchivo!Asabandha wrote: It is more conducive to realizing emptiness to be suicidally depressed by suffering than blissed out on conceptual philosodrugs.
I wouldn't go so far. Grief that leads to depression is the near enemy of compassion. It's paralyzing. In the end you do nothing and just suffer. Depression and suicidal tendencies are ways to reify the self from a negative perspective. So being suicidally depressed is a BIG obstacle, especially because it shares similarities with compassion (thus near enemy). It is not the result of developing relative bodhicitta either. If this happens, something went really wrong and the practitioner should focus in more positive aspects of the path.Asabandha wrote:
It is more conducive to realizing emptiness to be suicidally depressed by suffering than blissed out on conceptual philosodrugs.
SureTilopa wrote:Practitioners of sutra also realize emptiness directly and non-conceptually.
Still waiting on the evidence. I will, of course, be waiting forever because, apart from your ignorant views, you have no evidence to back your statements about Mahayana practitioners AND I imagine you have no realisation of emptiness yourself to use as a yardstick in order to measure the realisation of others.Center Channel wrote:SureTilopa wrote:Practitioners of sutra also realize emptiness directly and non-conceptually.
At the time of Nagarjuna etc. in ancient India hundreds of years ago.
Nagarjuna certainly obtained some of the bhumi levels.