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Re: Deities

Posted: Thu Oct 18, 2012 9:08 pm
by conebeckham
catmoon wrote:One might just as well ask, if you think Tara is anything other than a creation of your mind what are YOU doing in a Vajrayana forum?

Fact is, this forum is not closed to people of either view.

Tara is most certainly not merely a creation of my own mind.

If Tara were merely that, I would doubt the efficacy of practicing Tara. Agreed?
I take your meaning, Catmoon--regarding the primacy of "mind," a loaded word in itself--but, from our conventional, dualistic, POV, Tara certainly appears, initially at least, as "other," and, in particular, there is skillful means in relating to a deity as "other" than oneself, just as there is skillful means in relating to a deity as "the same as oneself." And, in fact, there is skillful means in relating to a deity that appears externally, but is in fact "internal," and skillful means in relating to a deity which is not the same as, or other than, the nature of my own mind....

And, by the way, none of these are really Tara.

Re: Deities

Posted: Fri Oct 19, 2012 9:24 am
by heart
GarcherLancelot wrote:
As long as we are not visualizing ourselves as darth vader it should be fine right?haha.. .The thing is I like those visualizations for my own "private cinema" inside my mind lol,but most of the time its not about me so i guess no one would get scared.. .
Seriously, visualizations are a kind of thoughts. Like you point out, we use them all the time. Using visualizations as meditation is strangely enough, considering how natural they are to our mind, quite difficult. Why? Because we lack control over our mind.

/magnus

Re: Deities

Posted: Fri Oct 19, 2012 4:11 pm
by GarcherLancelot
heart wrote:
GarcherLancelot wrote:
As long as we are not visualizing ourselves as darth vader it should be fine right?haha.. .The thing is I like those visualizations for my own "private cinema" inside my mind lol,but most of the time its not about me so i guess no one would get scared.. .
Seriously, visualizations are a kind of thoughts. Like you point out, we use them all the time. Using visualizations as meditation is strangely enough, considering how natural they are to our mind, quite difficult. Why? Because we lack control over our mind.

/magnus
Strange but natural?not sure if I get what you mean.. .

Re: Deities

Posted: Fri Oct 19, 2012 7:32 pm
by heart
GarcherLancelot wrote:
heart wrote:
GarcherLancelot wrote:
As long as we are not visualizing ourselves as darth vader it should be fine right?haha.. .The thing is I like those visualizations for my own "private cinema" inside my mind lol,but most of the time its not about me so i guess no one would get scared.. .
Seriously, visualizations are a kind of thoughts. Like you point out, we use them all the time. Using visualizations as meditation is strangely enough, considering how natural they are to our mind, quite difficult. Why? Because we lack control over our mind.

/magnus
Strange but natural?not sure if I get what you mean.. .
We visualize all the time. If I say the name of a person you know very well, you will instantly see a picture in your mind of that person. However, using visualizations in meditation is difficult because you are attempting to control the mind. Perhaps my English is not clear enough, you seem to misunderstand everything I say?

/magnus

Re: Deities

Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2012 11:10 am
by beautiful breath
It is a really stupid question actually. If you visualize yourself as Darth Vader you will have his blessing, that is nothing at all since he is a fictional character. You think Tara is a fictional character then what are you doing in the Vajrayana section of this forum?
How rude....! Tell me what your practice is so I can avoid it!!!

Re: Deities

Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2012 5:18 pm
by catmoon
heart wrote:
I am very sorry if I sound rude, please accept my excuses.

/magnus
As you can see above, both in this message and higher in the thread, Magnus apologized almost immediately. So his practice isn't all that shabby, now, is it?