What is the one thing?

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PadmaVonSamba
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What is the one thing?

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

What is the one thing that nobody can take from you, which thus makes it the most valuable thing you have, yet is often the first thing that people often trade away for something less?
EMPTIFUL.
An inward outlook produces outward insight.
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LastLegend
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Re: What is the one thing?

Post by LastLegend »

Breathing?
It’s eye blinking.
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Madeliaette
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Re: What is the one thing?

Post by Madeliaette »

memory? :shrug:
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Josef
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Re: What is the one thing?

Post by Josef »

Memory and breathing can be taken away.
"All phenomena of samsara depend on the mind, so when the essence of mind is purified, samsara is purified. Since the phenomena of nirvana depend on the pristine consciousness of vidyā, because one remains in the immediacy of vidyā, buddhahood arises on its own. All critical points are summarized with those two." - Longchenpa
Huseng
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Re: What is the one thing?

Post by Huseng »

This video sums up my response pretty well:

phpBB [video]
DGA
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Re: What is the one thing?

Post by DGA »

That's the Saddest Music in the World right there, Huseng.

Stand Tall!
Huseng
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Re: What is the one thing?

Post by Huseng »

Jikan wrote:That's the Saddest Music in the World right there, Huseng.

Stand Tall!
What's sad is Canadians define their identity with beer commercials, hockey teams and coffee franchises. :cheers:
DGA
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Re: What is the one thing?

Post by DGA »

Huseng wrote:
Jikan wrote:That's the Saddest Music in the World right there, Huseng.

Stand Tall!
What's sad is Canadians define their identity with beer commercials, hockey teams and coffee franchises. :cheers:
which is why The Saddest Music in the World is such a brilliant film... about Winnipeg. Stand Tall isn't exactly Burton Cumming's best work, but it makes for clever street art.

http://www.urbanphoto.net/blog/2006/12/ ... e-winnipeg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

--an American suffering from Canada envy
Huseng
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Re: What is the one thing?

Post by Huseng »

Jikan wrote: which is why The Saddest Music in the World is such a brilliant film... about Winnipeg. Stand Tall isn't exactly Burton Cumming's best work, but it makes for clever street art.

http://www.urbanphoto.net/blog/2006/12/ ... e-winnipeg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

--an American suffering from Canada envy
I'm from Winnipeg. Sad little city in the middle of nowhere. Far away from everywhere else that it takes a dedicated effort to leave, but has a high standard of living so why bother?

Here's the song I Hate Winnipeg:

phpBB [video]
Huseng
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Re: What is the one thing?

Post by Huseng »

Jikan wrote:
--an American suffering from Canada envy
Oh, and this is a true story about how some decades ago a bunch of frozen horse heads were sticking out of the Red River in Winnipeg which became quite an attraction:

phpBB [video]


Winnipeg is like a joke incorporated as a city.
DGA
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Re: What is the one thing?

Post by DGA »

Winnipeg is a source of fascination to me. It's a peculiar site for a major city, but there are objective causes and conditions for it to have arisen and persisted, of course having to do with the construction of Canada as a political state and integrated economy by means of the west-east-west railroad. Winnipeg held the rail system together, and the rail system made Canada as we know it now possible. Once the infrastructure of a city is in place, then it attracts other forms of development. Something as powerful as a national identity (contested in Canada for sure but the feelings do run strong, eh?) is in the end contingent on a rush to suck gold and timber from British Columbia (which joined confederation not long after the American civil war... when the Yanks were getting serious about expanding westward... Winnipeg wasn't incorporated until the mid 1870s right?)

Anyway, here's my point. Our sentiments aren't our own. They belong to history, which is to say, to karma (determinant causes and conditions). It's not personal, even though it feels that way. Or rather, what feels like something personal is in the end just a push or a pull from somewhere. Except for me, because I'm from Portland and I learned on TV that Portland is the best city EVER, which makes me a fabulously interesting soul. :pig:
junior79
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Re: What is the one thing?

Post by junior79 »

concience
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PadmaVonSamba
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Re: What is the one thing?

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

junior79 wrote:concience
Well, the anwer I was going for is "honesty" but conscience sums it up pretty well. Congratulations. You win!
:applause:
EMPTIFUL.
An inward outlook produces outward insight.
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ronnewmexico
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Re: What is the one thing?

Post by ronnewmexico »

I differ entirely on this question...

Awareness.

We trade away our awareness of how things are for the prism of awareness through the self. Thusly all becomes things to attach and avert.
Awareness can never be taken or stolen away except by self.
Awareness can only present, to my opinion, when circumstances precipitate its occurance. Suchly any self or I that seems to precipitate may in actuallity not be present but the thing itself when it is present, it cannot be denied it is present.
I cannot attest to a time when it is not present as with time it always is.... but find its presence and probable dissolution(as awareness of a object can not be present without a object to perceive) not all that consequential in this specific.

We fear it can be stolen and all sorts of things can happen to it...they cannot happen. Only I can be so affected.

No offense to the other repliers. My answer I suspect is bulletproof. Not able to be logically countered with success. I am totally confident in that.
I can expound upon this if requested perhaps.

Awareness in this context meaning...the totality of awareness..the understanding of a thing or things in a entire fashion.
Last edited by ronnewmexico on Thu Jun 02, 2011 10:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"This order considers that progress can be achieved more rapidly during a single month of self-transformation through terrifying conditions in rough terrain and in "the abode of harmful forces" than through meditating for a period of three years in towns and monasteries"....Takpo Tashi Namgyal.
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catmoon
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Re: What is the one thing?

Post by catmoon »

Pokemons!

What, you think you can take them away? Go ahead, give it a try if you feel lucky....
Sergeant Schultz knew everything there was to know.
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KathyLauren
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Re: What is the one thing?

Post by KathyLauren »

Madeliaette wrote:memory? :shrug:
I forget
Huseng
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Re: What is the one thing?

Post by Huseng »

Jikan wrote:Winnipeg is a source of fascination to me. It's a peculiar site for a major city, but there are objective causes and conditions for it to have arisen and persisted, of course having to do with the construction of Canada as a political state and integrated economy by means of the west-east-west railroad. Winnipeg held the rail system together, and the rail system made Canada as we know it now possible. Once the infrastructure of a city is in place, then it attracts other forms of development. Something as powerful as a national identity (contested in Canada for sure but the feelings do run strong, eh?) is in the end contingent on a rush to suck gold and timber from British Columbia (which joined confederation not long after the American civil war... when the Yanks were getting serious about expanding westward... Winnipeg wasn't incorporated until the mid 1870s right?)

Anyway, here's my point. Our sentiments aren't our own. They belong to history, which is to say, to karma (determinant causes and conditions). It's not personal, even though it feels that way. Or rather, what feels like something personal is in the end just a push or a pull from somewhere. Except for me, because I'm from Portland and I learned on TV that Portland is the best city EVER, which makes me a fabulously interesting soul. :pig:
I've never heard Winnipeg being a source of fascination before.

You should go visit there. Sometime during the summer or fall ... but definitely not during the winter when it is minus 30.
Rakz
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Re: What is the one thing?

Post by Rakz »

:popcorn:
Last edited by Rakz on Fri Jun 03, 2011 10:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Quiet Heart
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Re: What is the one thing?

Post by Quiet Heart »

:shrug:
I tried to post this reply 3 times now...and each time something has failed and I couldn't finish the post. So, I'll try again.
What is there that you were born with, that you will never lose, and that can't be taken away from you?
It is what you were born with as a "sentinent being".
It can be called your "true nature" or "Buddha nature"....but these are only names for a thing that can't be really expressed in mere words.
As a "sentient being" you were born with this "Buddha nature" but soon your "Ego mind" began to feed you illusions and delusions to cover up your inherent "Buddha nature".
This is because your "Ego mind" wants you to believe its version of reality and feeds you these illusions and delusions to get you to accept its version of reality...so it can control you by controlling your perceptions.
But that "Buddha nature" is inherent in each "sentient being" and can never be destroyed...it may be covered with illusions or delusions, but it can mever be destroyed.
If you as a "sentient being" want to remove all those layers of illusion/delusion, you can do so.
The process can be long and difficult, but it can be done.
That however, is outside the scope of the answer to the original question
Anyhow that's my answer to the original question is....your "Buddha nature" is the one thing that you are born with, can not be taken from you, and can never be destroyed.
:smile:
Shame on you Shakyamuni for setting the precedent of leaving home.
Did you think it was not there--
in your wife's lovely face
in your baby's laughter?
Did you think you had to go elsewhere (simply) to find it?
from - Judyth Collin
The Layman's Lament
From What Book, 1998, p. 52
Edited by Gary Gach
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Madeliaette
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Re: What is the one thing?

Post by Madeliaette »

Madeliaette wrote:memory? :shrug:


I forget
what i meant by memory was things coming back from former lives - but i agree with the other ideasbeating that one! :twothumbsup:
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