tomtrytostay wrote:
Md you talk of reporting me for harassment . That's a little rich . You're constantly abusive to me and I never mind then you say I'm harassing you. I'm not sure I'll ever understand you but I genuinely hope that you find happiness in your life .
tom..I never once implied or hinted at reporting you. I said I tolerated your misguided sexual advance (which you admitted to and blamed on the wine).
tomtrytostay wrote:
Md you are crazy . The Buddhist talk about the self not existing. I forget the name meaning nothing . So Buddha . That's your meditator right there !
Buddha never said any such thing.
The topic of "nothingness" is discused, but NOWHERE does Buddha say we, you or me are 'nothing'
Just another of your mistaken and made up ideas.
You are wrong tom. There is no question. Buddha talks of achieving a state of mind termed No Thing. It is a goal, it is a state if mind. It does not refer to a person as being 'nothing'.
Once again you have imposed your own definition on a subject you have no knowledge of. You may think it hides your ignorance but in fact only verifies your stupidity.


Achieving Nothing [No Thing]
Once upon a time the Bodhisatta — the Enlightenment Being — was born into a high class family in northern India. When he grew up he gave up the ordinary desires of the everyday world and became a holy man. He went to the Himalayan Mountains where 500 other holy men became his followers.
He meditated throughout his long life. He gained supernatural powers — like flying through the air and understanding people's thoughts without their speaking. These special powers impressed his 500 followers greatly.
One rainy season, the chief follower took 250 of the holy men into the hill country villages to collect salt and other necessities. It just so happened that this was the time when the master was about to die. The 250 who were still by his side realized this. So they asked him, "Oh most holy one, in your long life practicing goodness and meditation, what was your greatest achievement?"
Having difficulty speaking as he was dying, the last words of the Enlightenment Being were, "No Thing." Then he was reborn in a heaven world.
Expecting to hear about some fantastic magical power, the 250 followers were disappointed. They said to each other. "After a long life practicing goodness and meditation, our poor master has achieved 'nothing'." Since they considered him a failure, they burned his body with no special ceremony, honors, or even respect.
When the chief follower returned he asked, "Where is the holy one?" "He has died," they told him. "Did you ask him about his greatest achievement?" "Of course we did," they answered. "And what did he say?" asked the chief follower. "He said he achieved 'nothing'," they replied, "so we didn't celebrate his funeral with any special honors."
Then the chief follower said, "You brothers did not understand the meaning of the teacher's words. He achieved the great knowledge of 'No Thing'. He realized that the names of things are not what they are. There is what there is, without being called 'this thing' or 'that thing'. There is no 'Thing'." In this way the chief follower explained the wonderful achievement of their great master, but they still did not understand.
Meanwhile, from his heaven world, the reborn Enlightenment Being saw that his former chief follower's words were not accepted. So he left the heaven world and appeared floating in the air above his former followers' monastery. In praise of the chief follower's wisdom he said, "The one who hears the Truth and understands automatically, is far better off than a hundred fools who spend a hundred years thinking and thinking and thinking."
By preaching in this way, the Great Being encouraged the 500 holy men to continue seeking Truth. After lives spent in serious meditation, all 500 died and were reborn in the same heaven world with their former master.
The moral is: When the wise speak, listen!




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THE BLOG
Emptiness: The Most Misunderstood Word in Buddhism
Mar 06, 2013 | Updated May 06, 2013
Lewis Richmond Buddhist writer and teacher
“Emptiness” is a central teaching of all Buddhism, but its true meaning is often misunderstood. If we are ever to embrace Buddhism properly into the West, we need to be clear about emptiness, since a wrong understanding of its meaning can be confusing, even harmful. The third century Indian Buddhist master Nagarjuna taught, “Emptiness wrongly grasped is like picking up a poisonous snake by the wrong end.” In other words, we will be bitten!
Emptiness is not complete nothingness; it doesn’t mean that nothing exists at all. This would be a nihilistic view contrary to common sense. What it does mean is that things do not exist the way our grasping self supposes they do. In his book on the Heart Sutra the Dalai Lama calls emptiness “the true nature of things and events,” but in the same passage he warns us “to avoid the misapprehension that emptiness is an absolute reality or an independent truth.” In other words, emptiness is not some kind of heaven or separate realm apart from this world and its woes.
The Heart Sutra says, “all phenomena in their own-being are empty.” It doesn’t say “all phenomena are empty.” This distinction is vital. “Own-being” means separate independent existence. The passage means that nothing we see or hear (or are) stands alone; everything is a tentative expression of one seamless, ever-changing landscape. So though no individual person or thing has any permanent, fixed identity, everything taken together is what Thich Nhat Hanh calls “interbeing.” This term embraces the positive aspect of emptiness as it is lived and acted by a person of wisdom — with its sense of connection, compassion and love. Think of the Dalai Lama himself and the kind of person he is — generous, humble, smiling and laughing — and we can see that a mere intellectual reading of emptiness fails to get at its practical joyous quality in spiritual life. So emptiness has two aspects, one negative and the other quite positive.
'I am not, I will not be.
I have not, I will not have.
This frightens all children,
And kills fear in the wise.'
Nagarjuna
Although Albert Einstein was certainly not a Buddhist, these statements sound much like it:
"A human being is part of a whole, called by us the 'universe', a part limited in time and space.
He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest
- a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.
This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affectation for a few people near us.
Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion
to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.""Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."
From Living Buddha, Living Christ by Thich Nhat Hanh:
"Enlightenment for a wave in the ocean is the moment the wave realises that it is water."
Says the lama to his pupil: "Do you understand that you don't really exist?"
Upon which the pupil replies: "Whom are you telling that?
By preaching in this way, the Great Being encouraged the 500 holy men to continue seeking Truth.
Seeking is a movement towards the very achievement one advised against.
Seeking truth is a sure way to miss it...
But how can the ears be open when the noise is present?
There are no degrees of comparisons in the absolute, Tom--only in the relative, where the whole suffering resides. There can exist, 'a little less suffering', 'a little more joy', 'a lot less suffering'. But what we are aware of --the conscious layers of our mind--is not much. Deep inside lies the rest, so if one's aware of less suffering, the rest is sure to be found within the subconscious layers of the mind: the bottom line is the same.
Only in the absolute there is no trace of it.
Besides, like you admitted, that letting go has a reason, and that reason prevents the true letting go, which has no purpose, no goal ( to see Truth, for instance, but it can be anything).
One cannot trick their own mind--there are no tricks( I let go so I can see, or, more blatantly, I practice so I can see some day).
The Buddhist talk about the self not existing. I forget the name meaning nothing .
So Buddha . That's your meditator right there !