john....cnat you stay on topic?

anyway..........all religions are made up. man looks and man names.

I would suggest anything which encourages the caring and compassion for our fellow man and all things (yeh yeh I know there has never been anything ever it is all opinion) is a step in the right direction or should I say a step towards being healthy and happy, fulfilled.

However there is a certain misguided missing part to most religions as I have seen them;

The word, therefore the associated connotations of God, Mohamed, Shiva etc, only serve to box up that particular aspect of the all into a geographical, temporal, and as many other opinionated belief sets any of us may have. This seems to me just another way in which the self (see ego) sees to identify and reinforce its existence. I mean how could all powerful omnipotent universal being (is God a being in the way we understand being) be boxed up and collected into a name, this is an opinion. Buddha said (or at least we are told he did) ‘If you see me cut me down, as I am only another concept which will get in the way of all concepts’ or something to that effect, it stands to reason if it is this, it is not that, the very idea of naming is flawed. Things just are.

God, Buddha and all those dudes are everything there needs be no preference.

Just an opinion.   

is ok john not topic

it is the ego which looks and names. whats wrong with the ego? the inner self looks and sees and names things. zen is beyond words. it is the nonverbal reality which sees things as they are.

finally johny stayed on topic and didnt mumble off into some random direction. keep that focus now johny.

concentrated thiinking (called focus) about a topic names, shayne

Quote: "You should read all my stuff. Then you would have to fall in love with me all over again. "
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"my suff"? 

"fall in love with me"?

Quote: "Substitute a word and/or words of your choice in the designated fields. Works every time for the lawyers. "
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what are to trying to show and as if to what?

Quote: "Think you'll find what you're looking for? Then...Stop! Don't read! "
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did imagining are "looking for" serve for instrucking "Then...Stop! Don't read! "?

Quote: " action. Here "
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:)

Other religions give people a lot more.

B. is OK for mugs that don't need much.

Quote: "I am, is a disturber of the peace. "
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ta

No religions have any answers. They just think they do.

Get out now and live in the real world - the universe is much more beautiful and amazing than any religion ever imagined or ever told us.

ChonTri

Supposedly, everyone already knows what and where his mind is.

However, most of us accept the capacity of thinking is our whole mind. Actually, it is just a part of it and not the whole mind.
Others might think of the brain, the consciousness, the unconsciousness, and the memory.
Others might think of it as the total of all of the above.
And each and every of us think with them, act with them, and live with them and we are partial. Hence, we come to each other partially and not wholly. And this is the origin of our divisions, conflicts, contradictions, fighting, and wars in human life for thousands or millions of years now.

With our own experiences, inward or outward, accumulated we have got and formed our knowledge and store in our memory then we keep thinking, acting, reacting, living from our remembrance.
Therefore, it might be said that we all have been living with the past, the old, the yesterday, even we may think we are living with our future, our creation. Actually we are not.
Why? Because we have used the past, the old, the known to look at, to evaluate, to compare, to think of the new or the unknown, hence, whatever we think it should be certainly new or creative, actually it's not so. It's as old as our memory! Thought is never new. Why? Because thought comes from memory which are the images, impressions, ideas, and experiences which are the old, the past.

If there is no remembrance, we cannot think at all. This state of mind might be called "blank" or "hollow" or "dead" or "no-record" or "void" and "temporary". One might first get at before he can go further into the state of mind which is called the "empty mind" which is clear and pure, new and fresh, vivid and active, always awakening and lucid, entirely different from the "blank" or "hollow" mind that is stagnant, inactive, someone might mistake it for the empty mind. With this state of mind one cannot contact directly with things and others.

If one wants to live in harmony with things and others, his mind and senses must be fresh and lucid to perceive things and others as they are. That is, if a man or woman who would like to have a real love to his or her espouse and children, then his or her mind and senses must be fresh and lucid to see them as they are right now and not their images in the past or their projection in the future. This is called the empty mind which embraces everything with love. And this also called the 'greatness or immeasurableness of the mind'. And anyone who only experiences the blank or hollow state of mind is in ignorance, dullness, indifference and he needs to get out of this state of mind.

Therefore, meditation is not to seek what is called the Buddha nature or the concept of 'emptiness' which is often thought as an ideal to find out when one is in trying to seek it in sitting with breath counting or breath following or just sitting or working on a koan. If anyone who tries to do so, this means he is caught in the network of thought and he will never get at where he wants.

Furthermore, as he is told that his Buddha nature is in himself, so why does he need to find it? Why does he have to see it meanwhile it is himself or at least it is in himself as he has been told? All of his activities for this purpose are the activities of thought and he uses thought to read and think and explain what the original authors directly spoke from their original mind or empty mind. There is a big difference here, but he might not realize it. Even he tries to read and think and explain others' words but in a different state of mind and this is the main reason he is in a wrong way. This is why it might be said that what the Buddha spoke from his awakening mind was true but when one whose mind is not awakened yet repeats the words, he does a wrong thing.

Therefore, what he really needs to do is to look into himself and realize what is not the essence of mind and get over it.
In other words,
When one understands what is wrong, the right is there.
When one realizes what disorder is, the order is there.
When one knows what darkness is, the light is there.
When one realizes what delusion is, the enlightenment is there.
This means he needs to empty his own mind from all of the known, psychologically and not technologically.
When the mind is freed from all of this kind of the known, it is ready. It is called the empty mind which is immense, fresh, new, and lucid, it perceives things as they are and embraces everything with love without confusions, divisions and conflicts.

ChonTri 12/09/03

Quote: "Many cultural systems of justice are underpinned by a need for vengeance. But true justice is impossible without compassion.

I notice there are a number of topics which regularly appear on this message board showing a concern 'discuss': 'Buddhism & other religions', 'The difference between Buddhism and other religions', The superiority of Buddhism compared to other religions' &c &c. Sad."
......... Actually, I posted the question about vengeance and justice after reading a short story "Daniel the Just" by Heinrich Boll(umlaut over the o). The protoganist as a youth had an Uncle Thomas confined in an institution who no matter what was said to him would always respond "If only there were justice in this world." The youth is going to use his Uncle as a subject for an essay " A Strange Experience"  and he begins it with what his Uncle keeps repeating  " but as he wrote "justice" what he really meant was "vengeance".   It had taken him more than ten years not to think of vengeance whenever he thought of justice."   I think that may be a problem a lot of us have regardless of the religion we profess. I agree that compassion is a necessary ingredient for true justice, though at times it can be hard to come by. For example, I have a very hard time arousing any compassion for those who sexually abuse children.

Quote: ""...compassion is a necessary ingredient for true justice..."

giving attention to the victim of affliction (that's every being); some think they are despising the crime when they are really despising the weakness of affliction, allowing contempt for affliction while masking scorn for the crime. "
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that cannot compassion

Mankind needs something to give substance for a conscience, to stop him from eating his neighbors children,  and other beings.

Buddhism (middle path) adequately can do that, without the restrictions of unfounded belief

Hello john,

you are whatever you want to be,,,,

though keep in mind that the smile on the face of the village idiot,

is no less than nature laughing at mankind's pretentious

Quote: " thangyewvarymoosh."
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tanging

hello sceptic,

Just as 'no religions' think they have answers,
your "no religion" thinks its got one of it's own.
>>>>>>>(Get out now and live in the real world - the universe is much more beautiful and amazing than any religion ever imagined or ever told us.)<<<<<<

the programed data you got for your conclusions, is the same as those that need religion.

If all one has is doubt......

It's choiceless the he doubts the doubt

Quote: "Arrival of two young chooks a couple of days ago. Separated from the older hens in their own pen, I helped with the formal introductions today. Most of the older birds gave them a few hard pecks and a chase round about. The boss was laying an egg at the time of the fracas so couldn&apos;t intervene to restore any order - so that office was left to me. One older hen wanted to be the mother. Softly, softly. "
.........

this feels familiar... what is it about?

ever notice/

just noticing