Rooster,Snake,Pig

This is the center of the Chain of Causality which teaches us that everything that exists depends on something else. Nothing exists independently. In this thread we will not get into how the universe became. Our purpose here is to focus on our lives and the Chain of Causality which occurs in our own activities.

http://www.gnosticteachings.org/images/stories/buddhism/wheel.of.life-center.jpg

This wheel is represented as a vast panorama in the grip of Yama, the Lord of Death (delusion, ignorance, impermanence). That is the mechanism which holds samsara, the round of life and death.

In the center are three animals eating each other, sustaining themselves on one another. They are the central axis of the wheel.

A Rooster - craving and greed; desire
A Snake - Wrath and passion; hatred or self-centeredness
A Pig - Ignorance and delusion; sleepPsychological sleep (ignorance, delusion) feeds upon desire (craving, greed, gluttony, the constant feeding of ego) which is fed to unending passion and self-centeredness, which is fed further by the delusion of the self, the delusion of ego, of "Me" as separate from "You," etc.,etc..

This process is the center of all suffering, and thus it is the center of the Wheel of Samsara. It is because of this process of selfish, unconscious desire that our reality is what it is.

Everyone, manipulated by the subconscious elements in the mind, acts selfishly over and over again, under the influence of the "I's" of anger, greed, vanity, envy, laziness, pride, fear... Because of this, tremendous energies are put into motion, creating what we now experience as life, and we see as our modern world. All of this unconscious thinking, feeling and leads to unconscious action: and the results are what you see in life. Suicide, discontentment, brutality, rampant illness and physical suffering, disease, disability, accidents, disasters, rape, adultery, divorce, poverty, homelessness, anxiety, loneliness... Everything has been created by particular actions. Everything.


Go here (http://www.gnosticteachings.org/content/view/46/66/)for further reading and deeper understanding.

Is this the type of thinking that leads a person to give away all of their material possessions (probably to the church) in an effort to eliminate desire?

And how does ignorance feed desire? I desire to have sex. How is this fed by ignorance?

People seeing themselves as seperate is a good thing. Why would I need to eat if I am not seperate from you, and you have just ate. Essentially so did I, correct?

I can envision a truly and completely enlightened person, without desire, seeing themselves as not seperate from anything, and forgetting to eat, and dying. Or if everyone were enlightened and without desire, not mating, and the human race dies.

Desire is not a bad thing. It is a needed part of the human organisms survival. You can never completely rid yourself of it.

We are not all one no matter how bad you overload the spatial awareness centers of the brain, whether through meditation, sensory depravation, or drugs.

Passion is not a bad thing. Indeed it seems like it would be hard to become enlightened (impossible) without being passionate about becoming enlightened.

Basically, I think these types of Eastern thought look good on paper, but fail when truly praticed or realized.

“Everything we do is planting seeds that will grow into something in the future. If we are planting flowers everywhere we go, all the time, then in it's due season we will be surrounded by a fragrant field of beautiful colors. But we must make the effort to plant those seeds. So how do we live now, and are we doing that?”

It is very important that we be honest with ourselves.

“Firstly, we need to understand that the term karma is used in different ways. The Law of Cause and Effect is called the Law of Karma.

The result of harmful action, the consequence of that act that returns to the one who performed it, is called karma.

The result of upright action, the consequence of that act that returns to the one who performed it, is called dharma.

A result is created for ALL action, not just "major" things. You don't have to murder someone to accumulate karma. Neither do you have to give away a million dollars to accumulate dharma.”

“Drop by drop, little action by little action, you are planting seeds, you are making little deposits in your cosmic account. It is like a savings account. Many people do not save money because they feel that $5 here and $10 there will never amount to anything. So they save nothing. They spend it all. They think that only if we can make a lot of cash can we save something. But really, wealthy people often became wealthy because they understood that things don't really work that way. I was once told that the rich are only rich because they do not spend their money. And this made a lot of sense to me. Do you understand? They become wealthy by a process of accumulation, by not spending, and saving a little here, and little there. Nor do they become rich by suddenly inheriting a lot of money: most people become wealthy OVER TIME, slowly, by a process of intention and willpower and hard work. It is exponential, and karma works in a similar way. As you plant a little here and a little there, those seeds can grow into huge trees, provided that the conditions are right. Karma ripens when the conditions are right. So it may be that you have planted good seeds in the past, but if your environment is really negative and your actions are really negative, those seeds cannot sprout.”


Desire

“We live life thinking that life is an unlimited thing, as if we have 100 years or more to do whatever we want, and that there is no real consequence for anything that we do. So we party, and we do whatever we feel like doing, and we spend every paycheck that we get, and we overeat and drink too much and basically do whatever we must to try to satisfy all of our desires.

We think that this is what life is about: the satisfaction of desire. The pursuit of happiness, as interpreted by modern culture. To get whatever sensations from life I want. This is the "American way."

Anything pleasant and desirable becomes our focus, our goal, our definition of life, and anything unpleasant should be avoided at all costs, and denied. If we are unhappy at work, we say "Work is not my life, my life begins Friday night." Somehow, even though we spend 50-60 hours a week at work, we don't think that is really "our life." And we desire so much to be away from work, to be off work, to be out with our friends or out doing sports or shopping or playing around doing this or that, whatever it is. "THAT is life. That is what life is all about." Of course, all the advertising these days supports this: life is a big party, everyone is beautiful and desirable, and it's all about having as much fun as possible, having as many toys as possible, looking good, feeling good, being young, being hip...

And when anything happens that we don't want, we say we "don't deserve it." When we lose our boyfriend, we say we never loved him anyway. And when our friend turns on us, talking bad about us to everyone, we say they are the bad one, we are innocent. When someone hits our car, we blame them for everything, even if we made a wrong turn. They should have been paying more attention. When we are sick, when we are injured, we complain, we suffer, we want to escape from it, we want to feel good again, and we resist it.”


Ignorance

“It manifests from moment to moment. Even now, as you studying this knowledge, do you feel uncomfortable? Do you feel resistance to this teaching? Do you feel resistance about talking about your own death? That resistance is precisely what keeps you in bondage. Do you feel resistance to seeing your own anger, your own lust, your own greed? That resistance is precisely your worst enemy.

This resistance to see the truth of your life, the truth of your mind, the truth of your desires and resistances, the truth of your hatreds and jealousies: this resistance to seeing is your worst enemy.

We all believe we are good people. We believe that we do what is right and good, and that we are good in our hearts. We all have good intentions, right? But karma is the Law of Action: Intentions do not count. Action is what determines the nature of our life.
The road to the Abyss is paved with good intentions. - Samael Aun Weor
What counts in life are our actions. The Law of Karma is the Law of Action and Consequence. Good intentions mean nothing if the results of our actions are disastrous.

We may mean to help but instead do harm. How do we avoid making this mistake? By acting with complete consciousness. This, however, is not easy to do. Yet to act without making the effort is act without complete knowledge of what we are doing: and to act in this way is to invite disaster.

Therfore, it is imperative that we learn to act with complete awareness.

To acheive complete awareness in our actions, we must have complete awareness of ourselves.

We don't like to hear that we have anger. We don't like it when someone thinks badly of us, and we don't accept it and tell ourselves and others that it is the other person who is wrong, they don't understand us. We do not like it when our ugliness shows itself, and as soon as possible we cover it up, we mask it, hide it.

And when we do questionable things, we certainly don't want others to know about it, And in our covering up, we may lie so well that we ourselves believe the lie.

We ignore that which we really are. We do not allow ourselves to see who we really are. We blame everyone else. We blame our parents, our teachers, our friends, our spouse: and we take absolutely no responsibility ourselves.

We ignore the facts. We ignore our own psychology. We do not see what is really happening inside of our minds and hearts. And we choose this, because we are always chasing after "the good life" and we cannot stand the taste of the bitter truth. We habitually seek to avoid the unpleasant and seek the pleasant things. So we avoid what is unpleasant about ourselves, and we focus 100% on what we like, what tastes good to us.

This is the habit of our minds. We have a very limited way of perceiving life, and it is entirely based on what is most convenient to our sense of self.

We refuse to see anything that questions our sense of self.

Have you, sometime in your life, ever thought of what you like or dislike the most? Have you reflected on the secret causes of action? Why do you want to have a beautiful house? Why do you desire the latest model car? Why do you want to always be wearing the latest fashion? Why do you covet not being covetous? What is what offended you the most in a given moment? What is it that flattered you the most yesterday? Why do you feel superior to this or that fellow in a specific moment? At what hour did you feel superior to someone? Why do you feel conceited when you relate your triumphs? Couldn't you keep quiet when they gossiped about a known person? Did you receive the goblet of liquor out of courtesy? Did you accept smoking, although not having the vice, possibly because of the concept of education or out of manliness? Are you sure that you were sincere in that chatter? And when you justify yourself, when you praise yourself, when you boast about your triumphs and do so repeating what you have previously told others, did you comprehend that you were vain? - Samael Aun Weor, Revolutionary Psychology

This ignorance controls us because we are so identified, so habituated, to this way of perceiving life. We perceive life through this filter, this particular pair of psychological glasses, and we don't realize that really, these glasses that we are so used to wearing, are in fact completely distorted and flawed. They make everything in life skewed and unbalanced, and everything that we see is twisted and wrong.

A person is what his life is... Looking at this matter from a strictly psychological point of view, any day in our life is really a tiny replica of the totality of our life. From this we may infer the following: if a person does not work on himself today, he will never change. When someone claims that he wants to work on himself, and he does not do it today, postponing it until tomorrow, such a claim will be a simple scheme, and nothing more, because within today is the replica of our entire life.... This is very similar to a certain sign that some merchants put in their stores: "Today, no credit, but tomorrow, yes. - Samael Aun Weor, Revolutionary Psychology”
http://www.gnosticteachings.org/content/view/39/66/
Do you see?
Not yet?
The beginning is a nice place to start.
http://www.gnosticteachings.org/content/section/8/66/

Yay, a good thread by Valhalla. Normally I can't stand to read what you write because it's too vague and mystical-sounding, but this makes sense (assuming you want something like Buddhist enlightenment)

I can't say that I agree with karma; to me it's just the Hindus noticed the law of cause and effect and took it a little too far, used it to create a cosmic balance sheet.

Buddhism (which has indian roots) was influenced by the idea and took it on; albiet in a slightly modified form.

I'm yet to find a reason to believe in karma.

IMO natural selection created us [and i dont mean that as though NS has a will] to view things through our "normal" distorted rose-coloured glasses because its most advantageous for our genetic proliferation, and Buddhism is made up of artificial methods developed to go beyond htat. To manipulate the mind's neurochemistry and get great things out of it. To take away a lot of that ignorance and give you great peace of mind, understanding etc.

I saw a study, and many positive effects come from meditation in terms of brain chemistry if youve been doing it for a while. Good stuff

You know how you believe in conscious creation? Does that mean you actually agree with 'The Secret'? The two are eerily similar.


"It is proper for you, Kalamas, to doubt, to be uncertain;
uncertainty has arisen in you about what is doubtful. Come,
Kalamas. Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated
hearing; nor upon tradition; nor upon rumor; nor upon what is in a
scripture; nor upon surmise; nor upon an axiom; nor upon specious
reasoning; nor upon a bias towards a notion that has been pondered
over; nor upon another's seeming ability; nor upon the
consideration, 'The monk is our teacher.' Kalamas, when you
yourselves know: 'These things are bad; these things are blamable;
these things are censured by the wise; undertaken and observed,
these things lead to harm and ill,' abandon them." - Siddharta Gautama.

.....bunch of copy paste......

I had to stop reading about halfway through, when it became apparent you did nothing more than copy and paste a bunch of garbage from a religious website. Plus from what I did read I was entirely unimpressed.

Karma is a pantload. Self fufilling prophecy is another matter. SO....if you believe in Karma, chances are you will be affected by this "magical" phenomenon. If you truly believe eating your own feces will bring about good things, or Good Fecarma, you will find more oft than not it does.

Desire is not a bad thing to be avoided at all cost. Desire has been and is needed for humanity to progress. Desire will never be eliminated. You will have better luck cutting down a tree with a herring than you will eliminating desire. You are wasting your time.

Humans cannot act with complete awareness. We are not hard wired that way. This is yet another impossible task set forth to keep the sheep busy. We cannot act with complete awareness anymore than a mouse can learn to read and write english.

We can imagine complete awareness. We overload spatial recogning centers of the brain through meditiation/prayer/drug use/or a good old fashioned fork in the skull, and feel as if we are not seperate from anything. Just means our brain is not functioning properly at the moment. NOTHING MORE.

I tell you what religions accomplish by telling it's sheep to be rid of material things and possessions and desire. Control. Think about the rather primitive time periods religions was created. As a good karma believing, on-the-path-of-enlightenment peasant, you will be less affected by the king's men taking your material possessions, your daughter, your wife. Less likely to nut up and revolt.

In short, you will be a good little sheep and continue to try to cut down that tree with a fish (rid yourself of desire) which is impossible. Social control is all your religion TRULY is, just like every other ancient religion I have encountered. There is the only truth you need know about enlightenment, karma, complete awareness, and being one with the universe.

You know how you believe in conscious creation? Does that mean you actually agree with 'The Secret'? The two are eerily similar.
Never read it so I couldn't tell you.
Go to SotD and read about the æther in the psiballs thread to see what I mean by 'conscious creation' and ask any questions you may have there. I've posted a book that can help you understand, I'll try to help answer any questions for you but ultimately you must do your own research and meditation and find out the answers for yourself.

That is the most practical way.

Same with this Karma concept.
I recommend going to the website I posted and read one section a day from the beginning.

Don't just blindly believe me or anyone else. Don't blindly believe yourself either.
Observe without your personal bias and try to understand.

Gnosis is very important and I suggest everyone looks within.
Know yourself.
That is what gnosis is about.

After you look up Karma, look up self-fufilling prophecy.

If you have ever visualized success then you have used self-fufilling prophecy.

Never read it so I couldn't tell you.


It's basically the "Law" of Attraction. Whatever you visualise/think about the universe gives you - whether good or bad. You consciously create what you want. In the vid, a boy imagines a new bicycle. He thinks about it for 20 minutes each night and cuts out a newspaper clipping of a red bicycle. in a few weeks hes riding on a brand new red bicycle.

i googled conscious creation and it sounded like htat. but ill check the thread in SoTD

Your a funny guy BP.
Maybe if you could look at things with an open mind, away from your personal bias, you could actually improve yourself and expand the limits you've constructed around yourself.

Obviously you've gained nothing from this thread. Obviously you will not try to deepen your understanding and expand your perception of this wonderful universe.

This thread isn't for you.
Why don't you leave?
It could be for you, if only you'd let it.
Good day Sir.

Obviously you will not try to deepen your understanding and expand your perception of this wonderful universe.

Who says I need to expand my perception. Is there something wrong with my perception b/c it differs from yours? Should my perception be more like yours or just any kind of mystical perception?

Who is being close minded again?

I already tend to examine viewpoints without putting my own personal bias into it. I look at the axioms of reasoning it is based on, rather than looking at it through the eyes of the scientific method. I try to look at it through the eyes of the people who wrote it. Then decide whether this mode of reasoning is reliable or not.

I don't currently believe in karma, doesn't mean I believe it to be false either. Naturally, I live on the premise that it isn't real until I've seen something to substantiate it.

BrokeProphet, you might benefit from examining the axioms your empiricist logic is based on from a philosophical perspective.

Who says I need to expand my perception. Is there something wrong with my perception b/c it differs from yours? Should my perception be more like yours or just any kind of mystical perception?

Who is being close minded again?

Nahh needn't be like him. It's always good to have a wider understanding of things

As ArmsMerchant might say, Widen your 'reality tunnel'

http://www.totse.com/community/showthread.php?t=2022327

After you look up Karma, look up self-fufilling prophecy.

If you have ever visualized success then you have used self-fufilling prophecy.

Oh my god, focusing on your goals helps achieve them?

Self-fulfilling prophecy is a grave misunderstanding of karma/dharma. Karma/dharma is the cumulative result of your actions and the environment they create around you. Thoughts and feelings do not effect karma or dharma; the actions alone do. Say, for example, you expend your energy on acts of patience, tolerance, kindness, etc...even if your thoughts and feelings are plagued with remorse...the environment around you will begin to take on the patience, tolerance, kindness that you've put into it and return it. There's nothing mystical about this whatsoever.

Self-fulfilling prophecy, on the other hand, is entirely about the utility of thoughts and feelings in the process of acting. If you focus on your kind acts, you will do more kind acts, and thus have more kind acts to focus on and thus affirm the initial idea that you have kindness in you. That would be the basis of 'the secret'...the focusing upon a goal until it is realized.

Karma/dharma are strictly about the reactions to your actions. Talk shit, you'll have shit talked. Be kind, be favored. You can use self-fulfilling prophecy to achieve more favorable actions on your part, or less favorable even...but karma/dharma is just another way of saying: If action A then reaction B. If action -A then reaction -B.

Put simply: 'As you judge so will you be judged.'

So... is anyone going to substantiate any of this bullshit?

I'm starting to understand Hare's point. :(

Who says I need to expand my perception.

We all need to expand our perceptions.

Is there something wrong with my perception b/c it differs from yours?

What is "wrong" with your perception is you seek not to expand it.
Instead of reading into these lessons further (the links) you become overwhelmed with your personal bias and you ejaculate your ego all over my thread without understanding.


Who is being close minded again?
:confused: I don't have all the answers, do your own research.

^ That's nice... You decide what a "closed mind" is, and then you decide who has one! How convenient, huh?

So... is anyone going to substantiate any of this bullshit?

I'm starting to understand Hare's point. :(

Just google the Buddhist understanding of suffering. For the pre-modern science era, it makes a lot of sense

There's pages and pages of buddhist metaphysics, it would be ridiculous to go into all of that jargon here

There are better ways to explain it than Valhalla did, but he got the point

What? I'm supposed to do his research for him? He's the one making claims, he's the one that needs to support them if he wants any reasonable human being to take them seriously.

Saying "Hey go google X" isn't supporting shit; it's being intellectually dishonest. It's making claims (the easy part) without any of the hard work that goes into actually proving what you said is true and not a big pile of horseshit.

So... is anyone going to substantiate any of this bullshit?

I'm starting to understand Hare's point. :(

Ever heard of Newton?

Yes, I have.

So... is anyone going to substantiate any of this bullshit?

As if!

(would be a first)

What? I'm supposed to do his research for him? He's the one making claims, he's the one that needs to support them if he wants any reasonable human being to take them seriously.

Saying "Hey go google X" isn't supporting shit; it's being intellectually dishonest. It's making claims (the easy part) without any of the hard work that goes into actually proving what you said is true and not a big pile of horseshit.

Substantiating all of this is a big ask. I think he just wnats to plant ideas and get people to research them themselves, then decide their value.

This is the chain of causality he speaks of:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dependent_origination

An intricate web of cause and effect on the macro level. Like Newton. All things are caused by an intricate web of this "cause and effect" dependent on one another.

Here are three of the four Noble Truths (Buddhist insight into the nature and cessation of suffering)

1. Life means suffering.
2. The origin of suffering is attachment, craving and aversion.
3. The cessation of suffering is attainable.

Think about it. When you want something but don't get it, you suffer. When you have expectations unmet, you suffer. When you have an aversion to something and you experience it, you suffer. Much like the stoics, Buddhism is about detachment and liberation from this aspect of human existence via. practical means. You no longer resist and put up a fight to things you're clinging to, because you dont cling to anything. you accept things as they are.

One way to accomplish this goal of eliminating attachment is meditation. And when you're fully enlightened (quite rare if at all possible, I imagine) you experience a subtle, permanent happiness. The best kind. But anyone who meditates can gain a more positive mindset and an extremely spacious 'awake' mind when it's not so clogged up with thoughts. This is probably why a lot of wise Buddhist sages are stereotyped as being so understanding.

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Buddhists-948/Dukkha-physical-pain.htm - just something general i found

http://www.crystalinks.com/medbrain.html - And I use THIS to substantiate what I just said.

Substantiating all of this is a big ask. I think he just wnats to plant ideas and get people to research them themselves, then decide their value.


:) Now you see the point of this thread.:)

Yes, I have.

He strongly believed and understood the balance between physical and metaphysical.
You knew he was mystic didn't you?

Yes. So? Have you heard of logical fallacy of the argument from authority?

Whether Newton believed that or not is meaningless. The truth or falsehood of your statements isn't established just because Newton believed (or disbelieved) in them. Newton believed a lot of shit that wasn't supported with evidence. If anything, Newton is a brilliant example of how even geniuses can get caught up in non-sense.

Yes, I have.

You have heard then, that for every action there must be an equal and opposite reaction, right?

Yes. So? Have you heard of logical fallacy of the argument from authority?

Whether Newton believed that or not is meaningless. The truth or falsehood of your statements isn't established just because Newton believed (or disbelieved) in them.

True to a degree. His opinions are far from infallible. Though if you consider that Newton was a very science/mathematically-minded guy that makes it a little odd that he would believe in mysticism if he thought it unsubstantiated, wouldnt it?

Speculations as to his IQ are quite high as well. 195? This adds slightly (and i mean slightly) more credibility to his views.

Two things that makes his viewpoints less reliable is that we don't know his life expeirences and the influecne they had on his thinking, and he was from an earlier, less empirically-minded era in some respects.

Is my substantiation (last link) acceptable to your tastes?

Substantiating all of this is a big ask. I think he just wnats to plant ideas and get people to research them themselves, then decide their value.


Yes, substantiating all of that is a big task... hence why he shouldn't have made the claims in the first place! What a wonderful concept, don't you think?

You can't make claims and then use how hard it is to support them as an excuse. That's dishonest. If he thought it was going to be too hard, then he shouldn't have made the claims in the first place.

If he wanted to make a thread where he could encourage people to investigate these things, he could easily do it without making claims. He didn't. This is propaganda, plain an simple. He wants to get away with uttering bullshit and then providing no evidence... and if someone ever dares question what he says, it's either their fault for not doing research (the very research that should already been done in the OP to begin with) or they are just "closed minded" (which he gets to define and label at will).

As for your links. They really don't prove anything substantial. For example, nobody questioned that meditation can have an effect on mood or brain activity.

You have heard then, that for every action there must be an equal and opposite reaction, right?

I've heard of that common re-telling of the actual law, yes. The more formal version of the law (i.e. what is actually supported by Science) is much less vague, and much less prone to people raping it for their own purposes:

"Whenever a particle A exerts a force on another particle B, B simultaneously exerts a force on A with the same magnitude in the opposite direction."

I offered a huge amount of information for people who want to expand their understanding in those nifty links. You can choose to deepen your understanding on your own, or you can wait for someone to come along and tell you what to believe.
Communication isn't my strong point so it won't be me.

True to a degree. His opinions are far from infallible. Though if you consider that Newton was a very science/mathematically-minded guy that makes it a little odd that he would believe in mysticism if he thought it unsubstantiated, wouldnt it?


1. No, not to a degree, it's 100% true: Newton's beliefs on these issues do not prove or disprove the statements made in the original point. This isn't a matter of degrees, it's a matter of logic.

2. "Very science-minded" is true... within the context of his time, where religious and non-Scientific beliefs where rampant.

At that time, you could believe in a lot of non-sense and still be "science-minded" because non-sense was so prevalent.

I've heard of that common re-telling of the actual law, yes. The more formal version of the law (i.e. what is actually supported by Science) is much less vague, and much less prone to people raping it for their own purposes:

"Whenever a particle A exerts a force on another particle B, B simultaneously exerts a force on A with the same magnitude in the opposite direction."

This is not raping it for my purpose, but an iteration of a much older than Newton application of this Law to the realm of human relations: "As you judge, so shall you be judged." Rust, can you honestly say that in your experience, more often than not, being nice results in being treated nice, and that being a dick results in being treated poorly? Can you also honestly say that another physical observation isn't reflecting in personal relationships? That is, the apparent disruption of conservation of energy in the random appearance and disappearance of masses in vacuum space. That is to say in personality relations, some people are really nice sometimes for no known reason, and some people are really fucking nuts for no known reason?

Karma and dharma are not mystical, theological, or spiritual concepts...they're base observations on personality relations going back much farther than Newton's understanding of this concept in physical relations.

If you don't understand what I'm conveying here, please ask some questions about it and I'll try to answer them.

If you simply think it's hogwash though, that's cool.

Yes, substantiating all of that is a big task... hence why he shouldn't have made the claims in the first place! What a wonderful concept, don't you think?

You can't make claims and then use how hard it is to support them as an excuse. That's dishonest. If he thought it was going to be too hard, then he shouldn't have made the claims in the first place.

If he wanted to make a thread where he could encourage people to investigate these things, he could easily do it without making claims. He didn't. This is propaganda, plain an simple. He wants to get away with uttering bullshit and then providing no evidence... and if someone ever dares question what he says, it's either their fault for not doing research (the very research that should already been done in the OP to begin with) or they are just "closed minded" (which he gets to define and label at will).

As for your links. They really don't prove anything substantial. For example, nobody questioned that meditation can have an effect on mood or brain activity.

He (Vanhalla) speaks of the Wheel of Samsara, an illustration of suffering and the causes behind it.

I explained how to get out of that cycle via. meditation

"The scanning studies by scientists at the University of Wisconsin at Madison showed activity in the left prefrontal lobes of experienced Buddhist practitioners. The area is linked to positive emotions, self-control and temperament."

Improvements in Self-control and contro lof temperment. This seems to support the idea that meditation is a practical method of getting out of samsara

"suggests that meditation and mindfulness can tame the amygdala, an area of the brain which is the hub of fear memory." - Elimination of fear, fear being part of samsara.

"Ekman discovered that experienced Buddhists were less likely to be shocked, flustered, surprised or as angry as other people." - again, freedom from samsara

Dr Newberg explained: "During meditation, people have a loss of the sense of self and frequently experience a sense of no space and time and that was exactly what we saw." - seeing through the ego, big part of buddhism

It's all a practical way to get out of the cycle of samsara (suffering, attachment, ignorance etc) now substantiated by scientific evidence. its like youre in your own little world of delusions and suddenly you are 'awake' and above it all. those discursive thoughts in your mind the OP speaks of (like anxiety etc.) are gone

"All of this unconscious thinking, feeling and leads to unconscious action: and the results are what you see in life. Suicide, discontentment, brutality, rampant illness and physical suffering, disease, disability, accidents, disasters, rape, adultery, divorce, poverty, homelessness, anxiety, loneliness.." - all of this is gone

I offered a huge amount of information for people who want to expand their understanding in those nifty links. You can choose to deepen your understanding on your own, or you can wait for someone to come along and tell you what to believe.
Communication isn't my strong point so it won't be me.

Who the hell said anything about telling me what to believe? Me wanting you to provide evidence to support what you've said does not mean I want you to tell me what to believe. It means I want to make my own mind.. with the help actual evidence, not empty words.

Again, you speak in these self-serving labels of "closed minds", "deepened understanding", all labels you conveniently get to define and attach at will.

It means I want to make my own mind.. with the help actual evidence, not empty words.


Read between the lines.
Words explain little.

I agree words explain little, perhaps you missed the part where I say I want actual evidence, not your bullshit words?

I agree words explain little, perhaps you missed the part where I say I want actual evidence, not your bullshit words?

What kind of evidence do you want?

I agree words explain little, perhaps you missed the part where I say I want actual evidence, not your bullshit words?

I just showed you evidence that it is possible to get away from the Wheel of Samsara (shown in Vanhalla's original post) via. practical buddhist methods such as meditation

Any and all evidence you have? Or are you suggesting that you not provide me with all the evidence available?

Any and all evidence you have? Or are you suggesting that you not provide me with all the evidence available?

Er.. asking for all the evidence available for anything is a bit much, don't you think? If you want all the evidence available for just one thing it'd probably be like 2000 thesis' worth of info.

http://www.crystalinks.com/medbrain.html this actually presents a series of articles, i thought it was reasonably comprehensive.

Yes, substantiating all of that is a big task... hence why he shouldn't have made the claims in the first place! What a wonderful concept, don't you think?


You probably wouldn't have said this in BrokeProphet's "The Birth of Gods" thread. Nor would you have called it bullshit, because it agrees with your viewpoint - despite the thread being unsubstantiated with evidence.

Fine; the best evidence available then.

And if that link you have is it, then that's pretty lacking (and I'm being kind).

Nobody said meditation couldn't affect mood or brain activity.

Meditation affecting mood or brain activity does not mean that what has been said here is true, because "meditation affects brain activity" isn't the only thing that has been said, is it? He said a long list of different things.

So not only does this ignore the long list of different things that were said in the original post, but these studies are preliminary at best; if you read through the articles you'll see how they are riddled with this non-conclusive language ("suggests", "may" et cetera). That means just that: you can't conclude anything! That's how methodology works. It's there so you don't jump to ignorant conclusions.

Moreover, even if we accept these studies as true (i.e. that they do prove that meditation affects emotion and brain activity) that still doesn't mean meditation is good for "getting away from the Wheel of Samsara" or even that it exists!

Band-aids can help stop blood loss... but they sure as fuck aren't helpful in an amputation. Same thing here. Even if we accept these articles as true, you have yet to show how they correctly apply to "getting away from the Wheel of Samsara". You are merely jumping to conclusions.

So:

1. You're ignoring the long list of things that need substantiation.

2. These studies don't definitively conclude anything.

3. Even if these studies were completely true, you're jumping to conclusions that do not have to follow (i.e. it could be true that mediation helps control brain activity but not in a big enough magnitude for getting away from the Wheel of Samsara").

You probably wouldn't have said this in BrokeProphet's "The Birth of Gods" thread. Nor would you have called it bullshit, because it agrees with your viewpoint - despite the thread being unsubstantiated with evidence.

1. Do you even know if I've read that thread? Do you know whether I would or would not have said that? No you fucking don't.

2. I stated that he shouldn't have made the thread if he was going to complain about it being too difficult to provide the evidence. Did BrokeProphet do that? If not, then you have no point!

3. Could it not also be that I have evidence that agrees with what he has said? It sure can. Of course, you don't know if I do... which is a great argument for why you shouldn't make these ridiculous comments!

Please spare me your ignorant speculation.

Delusion feeds passion which feeds desire, which feeds ignorance, which feeds self-centeredness which feeds greed/craving which feeds psychological sleep.etc..etc...

You disagree?
Explain?

Fine; the best evidence available then.

And if that link you have is it, then that's pretty lacking (and I'm being kind).

That link I have is it, because I haven't researched the issue. Okay, if you want more substance to these claims then I'll find something. be patient

Nobody said meditation couldn't affect mood or brain activity.

Meditation affecting mood or brain activity does not mean that what you've said is true, because you haven't just said "meditation affects brain activity" have you? You've said a long list of different things.

The point I was making is that meditation affects brain activity in ways which correlate with elimination of what is known as 'the samsaric cycle', and I provided some evidence for this, which substantiated some of Valhalla's claims regarding the Wheel of Samsara and its effects in the original post. The rest (which he referres to as the "Chain of Causality" with the mention that "Nothing exists Independently" is basically a form of the Newtonian laws of cause and effect. The notion of causality. If you want me to further the doctrine of Dependent Origination, I'm unable to do so and I don't wish to launch myself into a discussion of Buddhist metaphysics.




So not only does this ignore the long list of different things that were said in the original post, but these studies are preliminary at best; if you read through the articles you'll see how they are riddled with this non-conclusive language ("suggests", "may" et cetera). That means just that: you can't conclude anything! That's how methodology works. It's there so you don't jump to ignorant conclusions.

I concede; this is a good point. And no, I don't address everything in the original post, I addressed that which related to the Wheel of Samsara. My opinion differs from you in that I believe you can conclude something from these studies. In their words, "We can now hypothesize with some confidence that those apparently happy, calm Buddhist souls one regularly comes across in places such as Dharamsala, India, really are happy".


Moreover, even if we accept these studies as true (i.e. that they do prove that meditation affects emotion and brain activity) that still doesn't mean meditation is good for "getting away from the Wheel of Samsara" or even that it exists!

Depends on what you mean by 'proof' and your standards for it. The fact that meditaton affects the brain in ways correlative to the elimination of the cycle of samsara does provide substance to the claim that it works to get away from samsara.

It exists. The Wheel of Samsara is merely a way to illustrate things that clearly exist in our sensory perception. To simplify things, I will call it delusion, suffering and the result of craving, aversion and ignorance. The problem is that there are a multitude of interpretations of what exactly constitutes samsara, but now you know vaguely what I'm referring to.

Band-aids can help stop blood loss... but they sure as fuck aren't helpful in an amputation. Same thing here. Even if we accept these articles as true, you have yet to show how they correctly apply to "getting away from the Wheel of Samsara". You are merely jumping to conclusions.

The effects of meditation have been shown to be beneficial to eliminating the cycle of samsara, and I pointed a few of these out to you ie. the reduction of fear. It's more than a band-aid; based on the personal experiences of many Buddhist monks the effects of meditation linger. The neurological changes in their brains become more permanent with practice. I've seen a study relating to this, and I'll find it and show you to support my assertion.

Of course, it would be fairly impossible to show that the effects of meditation can bring about a full-enlightenment or "amputation". How many enlightened individuals are out there? Probably not many.


So:

1. You're ignoring the lost list of things that need substantiation.

2. These studies don't definitively conclude anything.

3. Even if these studies were completely true, you're jumping to conclusions that do not have to follow.

1. Yes; I'm only substantiating specific parts of Valhalla's original post
2. Nothing definitively concludes anything
3. I'm offering evidence which [I]may/has a good chance ofsupporting Valhalla's ideas. As you said, it's not definitive. I didn't realize you wanted some truly solid evidence. But i'll see what i can dig up

1. Do you even know if I've read that thread? Do you know whether I would or would not have said that? No you fucking don't.

2. I stated that he shouldn't have made the thread if he was going to complain about it being too difficult to provide the evidence. Did BrokeProphet do that? If not, then you have no point!

3. Could it not also be that I have evidence that agrees with what he has said? It sure can. Of course, you don't know if I do... which is a great argument for why you shouldn't make these ridiculous comments!

Please spare me your ignorant speculation.

I agree with most of this, I hadn't thought it over.

except:

Does this mean it doesn't matter whether someone makes a thread full of claims, so long as you've personally seen the claims substantiated somewhere else when a lot of other people haven't?? So you don't care about enlightening others to the facts in an ethical manner?

well, unless you're a utilitarian...

Other answers:

"1. Do you even know if I've read that thread? Do you know whether I would or would not have said that? No you fucking don't." - No but I made a guess based on certain information such as: you're a regular in this forum, the impression i get from the manner in which you post, and you've just recently copied and pasted an excerpt from a thread you never replied to because it was relevant to your point in another thread. I think it was in response to... Hexadecimal?

"2. I stated that he shouldn't have made the thread if he was going to complain about it being too difficult to provide the evidence. Did BrokeProphet do that? If not, then you have no point!"

I should have read what you said more closely. My fault

"3. Could it not also be that I have evidence that agrees with what he has said? It sure can. Of course, you don't know if I do... which is a great argument for why you shouldn't make these ridiculous comments!"

You're Rust, you know what you're talking about. I bet you have! As have I. BrokeProphet's theory is a pretty viable one, although there are others. A theistic speculation might be that everyone once knew the same God, but over time the concept of that God and the beliefs surrounding it got distorted and their religion is the 'real' one.

"Please spare me your ignorant speculation."

No. By making ignorant statements or speculation and getting owned, I learn something

I remember you giving a reply similar to this to Hexadecimal on how people percieve him, when he commented that you are rude on the internet. You said something like "how do you know people dont percieve you as rude?" and that you try not to care about how other people see you.

This feels like a good time to reply to that. I believe that most people (except perhaps Aspies and autistics) have some idea of what constitues arrogance, being rude etc. and can gauge pretty well how they are percieved by those around them. It's intuitive, people pick up on these things. in real life, even more via. body language and voice tone. Dont you agree?

1. Yes; I'm only substantiating specific parts of Valhalla's original post
2. Nothing definitively concludes anything
3. I'm offering evidence which may/has a good chance ofsupporting Valhalla's ideas. As you said, it's not definitive. I didn't realize you wanted some truly solid evidence. But i'll see what i can dig up

[I'm going to reply to these points because they are basically a summary. If you feel I left something important out, tell me.]

1. If you're only trying to substantiate a part of what he said, then one my points - that there is a whole lot of bullshit here that needs substantiating - still stands.

2. That's a cop out. There are studies in Science that allows them to make conclusions with a high degree of certainty. These are nothing close to them. These have shown - at best - that there might be a correlation. Even if we take it as true that there is a correlation, correlation still does not mean causation!

3. Why wouldn't I want solid evidence? I'm here to reach a conclusion on the original claims, and that is done with conclusive, sold evidence.

Worse case scenario is that you provide no solid evidence, in which case it's very important to point that out.

I agree with most of this, I hadn't thought it over.

except:

Does this mean it doesn't matter whether someone makes a thread full of claims, so long as you've personally seen the claims substantiated somewhere else when a lot of other people haven't?? So you don't care about enlightening others to the facts in an ethical manner?

well, unless you're a utilitarian...

I was pointing out a possibility to make the point that you do not know the circumstances of me not 'calling bullshit' to what he said. I'm not saying that this was indeed the case.

But lets assume that it is, it could also be the case that I'm too busy (... maybe because I'm here replying to all these people in this thread) and haven't gotten the time to provide the evidence. In that case, it's hardly unethical. Another possibility could be that I have seen the evidence but cannot find it at this time, so I wouldn't call bullshit but also would be unable to post the evidence.

Of course, it could also be that I'm just an unethical asshole that has the evidence but doesn't want to post it, a hypocrite that has read the thread but doesn't want to call bullshit, or just someone who hasn't read the thread...


This feels like a good time to reply to that.

It isn't. Please do so in that other thread.

But please note, if you do wish to reply in that other thread, I didn't say that he couldn't possibly have some assumption of how others perceive him. I questioned whether he could know that he isn't perceive as an asshole consistently. Not only is our ability to gauge these things pretty fallible, but determining consistency requires a lot more information.

Delusion feeds passion which feeds desire, which feeds ignorance, which feeds self-centeredness which feeds greed/craving which feeds psychological sleep.etc..etc...

You disagree?
Explain?

I disagree as of now.

1. These concepts are pretty vague in and of themselves.

2. I am not pretentious enough to claim that I've reduced the complexity of human thoughts and emotions to this sequence of events.

Humans are capable of a multitude of emotions, can have a multitude of driving forces, and can have a multitude of different reactions.

This is not raping it for my purpose,

Of course it is, which is why not only did you go on the defensive automatically, but you continue to cling to that re-telling of the law instead of using its formal definition which is what is supported by Science.

If Newton merely focused on the physical aspect, and this has to deal with human relations, why mention him? Because you need that vague statement in order to give validity to your claims.

Rust, can you honestly say that in your experience, more often than not, being nice results in being treated nice, and that being a dick results in being treated poorly?

1. A law doesn't just apply "some of the times" or "more often than not". That pretty much means there is no such law to begin with.

2. Reducing the concept of Karma to "be a dick and you will be treated poorly" is not very accurate. Karma is related to reincarnation and to the belief that everything you do or have done (in this life or other lives before that) is stored in your consciousness or spirit.

If you're saying that "if you do bad things, there's a good possibility people will react to you a certain way" I would agree. But that is not what is being said here.

Things like "Everything has been created by particular actions", "This process is the center of all suffering", "All of this unconscious thinking, feeling and leads to unconscious action: and the results are what you see in life. ... physical suffering, disease, disability ..." are not synonymous with "what goes around comes around" which is the what you're trying to reduce Karma to. These are things that go way beyond what you have provided evidence for, and what even your vague retelling of Newton's third law of motion doesn't even support.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d5/Spam_with_cans.jpeg/800px-Spam_with_cans.jpeg

So... is anyone going to substantiate any of this bullshit?

I'm starting to understand Hare's point. :(

http://21stcenturysciencetech.com/articles/sholl1.html

http://21stcenturysciencetech.com/articles/time.html

http://www.ptep-online.com/index_files/2008/PP-13-L1.PDF

Please don't blow off 30 years of research in a ten minute skim through this intriguing information.

[I'm going to reply to these points because they are basically a summary. If you feel I left something important out, tell me.]

1. If you're only trying to substantiate a part of what he said, then one my points - that there is a whole lot of bullshit here that needs substantiating - still stands.

2. That's a cop out. There are studies in Science that allows them to make conclusions with a high degree of certainty. These are nothing close to them. These have shown - at best - that there might be a correlation. Even if we take it as true that there is a correlation, correlation still does not mean causation!

3. Why wouldn't I want solid evidence? I'm here to reach a conclusion on the original claims, and that is done with conclusive, sold evidence.

Worse case scenario is that you provide no solid evidence, in which case it's very important to point that out.

1. Yes - mainly stuff in his original post. The Wheel of Samsara and its effects and to a a lesser extent the notion of causality mentioned. And how meditation affects the brain in ways correlative to liberation this cycle of Samsara.

2. It was more because I couldn't be bothered giving a serious answer than a cop out. I'm fine now though. I knew what you meant by definitive

3. Your expectations are higher than I thought. If you want more than the evidence presented, as I said I'll start looking

On a side note: Imagine the Wheel of Samsara is a hampsters wheel. This hampster is trapped by its craving, ignorance, delusion, etc. Only when it stops going after its cravings and releasing itself from its delusions (one way would be meditation) does it realize the full futility of all that running on the wheel in the first place, and it attains a subtle bliss from wearing life so loosely, so to speak.

i view the buddhist method with a sense of artificiality in the sense that it's not conductive to natural selection, much in the same way as drugs give one a high via. 'unnatural' (and i use that term loosely) release of endorphins. most things that are good for natural selection are good for us

I was pointing out a possibility to make the point that you do not know the circumstances of me not 'calling bullshit' to what he said. I'm not saying that this was indeed the case.

But lets assume that it is, it could also be the case that I'm too busy (... maybe because I'm here replying to all these people in this thread) and haven't gotten the time to provide the evidence. In that case, it's hardly unethical. Another possibility could be that I have seen the evidence but cannot find it at this time, so I wouldn't call bullshit but also would be unable to post the evidence.

Of course, it could also be that I'm just an unethical asshole that has the evidence but doesn't want to post it, a hypocrite that has read the thread but doesn't want to call bullshit, or just someone who hasn't read the thread...



It isn't. Please do so in that other thread.

But please note, if you do wish to reply in that other thread, I didn't say that he couldn't possibly have some assumption of how others perceive him. I questioned whether he could know that he isn't perceive as an asshole consistently. Not only is our ability to gauge these things pretty fallible, but determining consistency requires a lot more information.

Indeed. That's the nature of a guess; entirely without rigour. Of course i dont have enough information to make a very solid one, what i was hoping to see is whether you confirmed or denied my hypothesis. but you leave it a mystery! ah well.

sure then, ill reply in the other thread

Please don't blow off 30 years of research in a ten minute skim through this intriguing information.


I didn't.

--

After reading through the links I can see this is is definitely something interesting and worth investigating more of, however, it does not really prove or support your claims here.

1. This doesn't come close to supporting the numerous claims you made in the first few posts in this thread. Linking this research and your claims like This process is the center of all suffering", "All of this unconscious thinking, feeling and leads to unconscious action: and the results are what you see in life. ... physical suffering, disease, disability ..." to cite a few, as a huge stretch of the imagination.

We have, if we accept the findings as valid, a correlation. That does not suddenly support all these things you claimed.


2. The articles were extremely credulous.

They gave no real criticisms of the findings, and were already arriving at conclusions when these results are at best preliminary. We cannot conclude anything with them. They need to be studied more carefully.

3. These findings are old and yet they've produced virtually nothing.

The article tries to blame the "Scientific method" but that reeks of a cop out. Nobody is stopping them from formulating a hypothesis about this wonderful "universal" phenomenon and getting evidence. They haven't. Nobody is stopping them from giving adequate explanations for the phenomenon. They haven't.

They also try to imply that there were a lot of other things that needed to be done first but again this explanation isn't that impressive. There are other fields, arguably much more complex and this research area, that have been endlessly more productive in a similar time frame.

4. There has been criticism of their papers:

"It seems that the team of researchers did not include that `killjoy statistician' who (like Yasha the Statistician from the popular novel by I Grekova Beyond the Entrance Lodge 1) would curb the creative and bold statements of the authors by tediously insisting on a statistical evaluation of their reliability. So, since we did not see the presence of this `killjoy statistician', we shall try if only partly to fill his shoes."

http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/1063-7869/43/2/L12/PHU_43_2_L12.pdf?request-id=yAuDGF7q3BGVF30C3Ai7Kg

They go on to cite some things they'd like to see added or improved in their analysis.

Moreover, like these article seem to imply, these findings haven't been getting much attention. To me that not only seems to suggest there is something wrong with them (I don't particularly buy the conspiracy theories they imply) but that valid criticism of these findings could be absent because the relevant Scientists that could make such criticisms aren't that familiar with them to do so.

Of course, this isn't really their fault, however it's still a reality.


5. Their connections to "astronomical factors" seem pretty lenient and arbitrary.

While they can cite, again if we accept these figures as true, that some numbers are relatively close to the number of hours or the number of days in a year, they were not the same. At what point is the difference too much? It could easily just be a coincidence - especially when you can decide when to connect the two by ignoring the error percentage between the two figures.

This is similar - and although you didn't mention it here in your posts, I suspect this is what you had in mind or are planning on mentioning - the "Global Consciousness Project" where they arbitrarily decide when the data starts corresponding to an event, and what events to count and not to.


--

In the end, we really can't conclude anything with these findings, they have some flaws and are preliminary. More importantly, they don't really support the numerous claims you've made in this thread (some of which I cited in this post).

http://www.arcanology.com/2004/07/14/scientific-study-of-tibetan-meditation/

"Benson developed the “relaxation response,” which he describes as “a physiological state opposite to stress.” It is characterized by decreases in metabolism, breathing rate, heart rate, and blood pressure. He and others have amassed evidence that it can help those suffering from illnesses caused or exacerbated by stress. Benson and colleagues use it to treat anxiety, mild and moderate depression, high blood pressure, heartbeat irregularities, excessive anger, insomnia, and even infertility. His team also uses this type of simple meditation to calm those who have been traumatized by the deaths of others, or by diagnoses of cancer or other painful, life-threateningillnesses."

I don't know if you'll find a 2nd-hand account acceptable.


OP:

"All of this unconscious thinking, feeling and leads to unconscious action: and the results are what you see in life. Suicide, discontentment, brutality, rampant illness and physical suffering, disease, disability, accidents, disasters, rape, adultery, divorce, poverty, homelessness, anxiety, loneliness...

All of this sort of thing (except perhaps homelessness though it can be) is caused by samsara, the hampster running on the wheel.

The information I quoted from the link is full of effects which are related to liberation from Samsara. Detachmentfrom the suffering of the situation.

I'm yet to find a link supporting the lasting effects of meditation on the brain to show you that it's more than a band-aid effect. But generally, the more you meditate the further you will be in liberating yourself from Samsara (which is basically just an illustration of suffering and its causes)

Critique my link if you wish, and I'll keep looking.

Moar:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0ISW/is_255/ai_n6211935

unscientific account from personal experience:

"But after years of meditation, I started to notice an increased capacity for retaining information, as if my brain had become a vault for life’s minutiae. So was it possible that meditation had the ability to repair my brain’s Swiss cheese holes?"

"For patients like Munroe, who has learned to regain control of her life by gaining control of her pain, meditation is now a natural part of her daily existence. She encourages everyone to try it."

"There is, furthermore, a considerable body of scientific research to suggest that meditation has deep and lasting effects on the practitioner’s cardiovascular and central nervous systems, brain function, and overall physical health. By relaxing the body and calming the mind, meditation effectively diminishes the harmful effects of tension, stress, and disquiet." - http://www.woninstitute.org/index.php?page=applied-meditation-studies

"The neuroscientists have discovered that regular meditation actually alters the way the brain is wired" - http://www.maithri.com/links/articles/meditation_effect_brain.htm

more thna a band-aid effect? With all the evidence in support of the effects of meditation, saying that meditation works for liberating oneself from the Wheel of Samsara (again, just a non-scientific term to illustrate suffering and its causes) and all the anger, sadness etc. associated with it is a reasonable working hypothesis, dont you think?

Delusion feeds passion which feeds desire, which feeds ignorance, which feeds self-centeredness which feeds greed/craving which feeds psychological sleep.etc..etc...

You disagree?
Explain?

To add to this:

"In Buddhism, desire and ignorance lie at the root of suffering. By desire, Buddhists refer to craving pleasure, material goods, and immortality, all of which are wants that can never be satisfied. As a result, desiring them can only bring suffering. Ignorance, in comparison, relates to not seeing the world as it actually is. Without the capacity for mental concentration and insight, Buddhism explains, one's mind is left undeveloped, unable to grasp the true nature of things. Vices, such as greed, envy, hatred and anger, derive from this ignorance."

Rust can you think of any specific examples in which this view becomes incoherent?

[I'm going to reply to these points because they are basically a summary. If you feel I left something important out, tell me.

It was more of a reply to your summary, but thats 'k

Again, you are providing me links that even if we take them as completely valid - and that would be a huge fucking concession on my part - do not ultimately prove what he is saying or even "support it", but at best, just a very very small part of it.

For example, meditation being a treatment to help reduce - not completely eliminate mind you - high blood pressure, anger, insomnia, or other things like this, does not mean that the process he mentions is true and is the "center of all suffering" and it sure a fuck does not mean that it produces the diseases, disabilities and accidents we see in life.

Essentially you're saying "Mediation is good for us, therefore 'Psychological sleep (ignorance, delusion) feeds upon desire (craving, greed, gluttony, the constant feeding of ego) which is fed to unending passion and self-centeredness, which is fed further by the delusion of the self, the delusion of ego, of "Me" as separate from You,... and... All of this unconscious thinking, feeling and leads to unconscious action: and the results are what you see in life. Suicide, discontentment, brutality, rampant illness and physical suffering, disease, disability, accidents, disasters, rape, adultery, divorce, poverty, homelessness, anxiety, loneliness...."

That doesn't follow at all. It's a non-sequitur and the claims being made are utterly without merit. You can provide all the scientific evidence you want that meditation is good for us, but unless you actually link it to what he said, and not just that it has benefits, his claims remain baseless. For example, drinking wine has benefits... does that suddenly support the idea that we're the descendants of an evil alien race of wine drinking mutants that needed wine just as we need oxygen and these beneficial effects are the lingering result of our ancestor DNA? No. Not at all. That's fucking stupid. Similarly, just because you mediation is good for us, does not allow you to make ridiculous claims about a myriad of other things (or you can, but the claims will be baseless).

Really, all of this is critical thinking you should be doing, not me. You should be making sure your "evidence" is good and proves what you're trying to say, or at least mildly supports it, not me. But as of now, it looks like you're just quickly searching through google for anything that remotely relates to his claims and then posting it. Sorry, but I'm not going to be reading through all these links just to find out that they don't really support his claims. That's your job; you should be weeding through the bullshit and posting only that which actually supports his claims, not the things that have a tenuous connection at best.

Again, you are providing me links that even if we take them as completely valid - and that would be a huge fucking concession on my part - do not ultimately prove what he is saying or even "support it", but at best, just a very very small part of it.

For example, meditation being a treatment to help reduce - not completely eliminate mind you - high blood pressure, anger, insomnia, or other things like this, does not mean that the process he mentions is true and is the "center of all suffering" and it sure a fuck does not mean that it produces the diseases, disabilities and accidents we see in life.

Ah, I think the problem is that we aren't quite on the same page here! As mentioned somewhere above, I'm also backing up a previous post of mine on the first page pointing out that meditation is a way to liberate oneself from the Wheel of Samsara. You want me to illustrate and provide evidence for the Wheel of Samsara being the "center of all suffering" as well? How being on this wheel leads to diseases, disabilitiies, accidents etc. Okay. In time (not sure when), I will show you how the wheel of samsara explains suffering, and provide evidence to support this. As for disabilities, diseases, accidents etc...

Personally I think Valhalla has a slight misunderstanding of the Wheel. While somoene is on this wheel, the delusion of 'I' and the lack of "awareness" that comes with liberation from samsara causes them to make selfish and ignorant decisions which very often ultimately leave someone disabled, sick or suffering in some way. For example, kids in the third world. If everyone in every govt. around the world (and all people for that matter) were off this wheel, they would be overflowing with compassion - but not attached to it. kids wouldn't be drinking dirty water or going blind from not being able to afford a $5 cataract operation.

BUT [and here's where I think he's wrong] this isn't always the case. You mgiht get a cold due to a virus and this would have nothing to do with the ignorant actions of those still on the Wheel of Samsara. The main thing about getting off the wheel entirely is that when you are off, it doesn't matter what happens to you. According to to Siddharta Gautama you don't suffer - you experience a form of subtle happiness, this happiness being the best and most stable kind. Essentially it leads to a stable emotional response to both positive and negative events in ones life and a minimization (or complete elimination if you believe in a full enlightenment) of suffering. At the highest level of this the ego, the 'I' no longer even exists. Testing this claim is impossible due to a lack of so-called fully "enlightened" individuals, and so it should be either trusted with some skepticism, experienced personally or discounted entirely until more evidence comes up. I have only provided evidence to show that it is possible to somewhat liberate oneself from samsara though meditation and that the effects of this are lasting, rather than evidence for a complete liberation [enlightenment].


Essentially you're saying "Mediation is good for us, therefore 'Psychological sleep (ignorance, delusion) feeds upon desire (craving, greed, gluttony, the constant feeding of ego) which is fed to unending passion and self-centeredness, which is fed further by the delusion of the self, the delusion of ego, of "Me" as separate from You,... and... All of this unconscious thinking, feeling and leads to unconscious action: and the results are what you see in life. Suicide, discontentment, brutality, rampant illness and physical suffering, disease, disability, accidents, disasters, rape, adultery, divorce, poverty, homelessness, anxiety, loneliness...."

Read 1st paragraph. What I've been saying is that meditation is a way to liberate oneself from this cycle of samsara and providing evidence for that. If you want me to show that the cycle of samsara really isn't bullshit, okay.

That doesn't follow at all. It's a non-sequitur and the claims being made are utterly without merit. You can provide all the scientific evidence you want that meditation is good for us, but unless you actually link it to what he said, and not just that it has benefits, his claims remain baseless.

It's not non-sequitur. You're relating my evidence to something it doesn't apply to, and I should have been more clear. Hence us not being on the same page, so to speak.

I was linking it to the idea that meditation liberates one from samsara rather than using my evidence to support the notion that there actually is a samsara. as explained in the above paragraphs, i will provide you with more substantial evidence for the validity of this cycle of samsara itself.

Really, all of this is critical thinking you should be doing, not me. [I]You should be making sure your "evidence" is good and proves what you're trying to say, or at least mildly supports it, not me. But as of now, it looks like you're just quickly searching through google for anything that remotely relates to his claims and then posting it.

I'm not used to this; I'm not familiar with much of the criteria of what makes evidence fallible or not. You often see what I don't, hence I'm picking this up from you. I will try and be more discerning with my links in future, however. This last one is probably the most decent; at least read it.

http://www.maithri.com/links/article...fect_brain.htm

It does seem we were not 'on the same page' because when you said - while just having quoted Vanhalla's comment:

"All of this sort of thing [Which Vanhalla had just mentioned in the claim you quoted](except perhaps homelessness though it can be) is caused by samsara, the hampster running on the wheel."

I obviously took that to mean you were agreeing with his claim.

However, most of the complaints are still relevant with what you intended to say. These links still don't prove that this "wheel" exists and is an absolute way of explaining suffering, let alone that meditation will take you off it. Showing that meditation is good for us does not accomplish this.

I was linking it to the idea that meditation liberates one from samsara rather than using my evidence to support the notion that there actually is a samsara.

So you're trying to prove it liberates you from a phenomenon you haven't even shown exists? How does that make sense? First prove the "wheel" exists and is the root of all the things you claim it is, and then that meditation removes you from it.

However, most of the complaints are still relevant with what you intended to say. These links still don't prove that this "wheel" exists and is an absolute way of explaining suffering, let alone that meditation will take you off it. Showing that meditation is good for us does not accomplish this.

let alone that meditation will take you off it. - They don't prove it, but all the effects of meditation correlate with liberation from samsara. All the effects mentioned are basically the antithesis of samsara. For example, when you're still in the wheel of samsara you are prone to anger, fear etc. i provided evidence showing that it calms down the amalygda of the brain down and reduces this response.

So you're trying to prove it liberates you from a phenomenon you haven't even shown exists? How does that make sense? First prove the "wheel" exists and is the root of all the things you claim it is, and then that meditation removes you from it.

I thought the wheel was kind of obvious which I think I said a few times above, but I'll go into more depth about it. I'll illustrate the concept of this "wheel" more deeply and what it represents.. it's sort of hard to provide evidence for a concept, but if you see anything wrong with the concept itself or its expalanation of suffering once presented, please inform me. I'll show you how it is the root of all suffering, or the "center" as Valhalla refers to it

let alone that meditation will take you off it. - They don't prove it, but all the effects of meditation correlate with liberation from samsara.

"correlates with liberation from samsara" is as meaningful a statement as saying "the benefits from drinking wine correlate with the idea that we are the ancestors of an line wine-drinking race of aliens"; which is to say, it's really not meaningful at all.


All the effects mentioned are basically the antithesis of samsara. For example, when you're still in the wheel of samsara you are prone to anger, fear etc. i provided evidence showing that it calms down the amalygda of the brain down and reduces this response.

Reducing the response is not the same as eliminating it; in fact, it means this is just as good an "evidence" that meditation doesn't remove you from the wheel because it doesn't remove these emotions completely!

At best - accepting these studies as true for the sake of argument - you could say that meditation aids some people (this effect does not have to apply to all people - these studies don't show it does) get off the wheel. Of course, this is assuming this "wheel" is the cause of all suffering, which you still haven't proven.

So we have studies that suggest meditation correlates with less anger, fear, etc. ... in some people. That's it.

Reducing the response is not the same as eliminating it; in fact, it means this is just as good an "evidence" that meditation doesn't remove you from the wheel because it doesn't remove these emotions completely!

I mentioned this above. It has been shown to work to some degree, but a full "enlightenment" or getting off the wheel completely is an impossible hypothesis to test. When I speak of getting off the wheel, this doesn't necessarily mean getting off the wheel entirely. Baby steps ;)

At best - accepting these studies as true for the sake of argument - you could say that meditation aids some people (this effect does not have to apply to all people - these studies don't show it does) get off the wheel. Of course, this is assuming this "wheel" is the cause of all suffering, which you still haven't proven.


A good objection. It works differently in everyone; with most people (ie. those who don't quit straight away) reporting positive effects. But there are hazards, and there are people prone to these hazards such as those with a mental illness. The religions in which the cultural context of meditatiion is based (Hinduism and Buddhism) have ways to prevent these hazards from ever happening. Which is why it's good to have a friend or person to teach you, as I have - although I'm a total n00b at it.

But do you personally believe there is a chance that meditation would only aid some of the population? [excluding those in a comatose state or too mentally disabled to understand it]

I think that if a certain percentage of the population could not experience the 'anti-samsaric' (or for that matter, any) effects of meditation this phenomena would have been documented by now.

Originally Posted by Whore of God
True to a degree. His opinions are far from infallible. Though if you consider that Newton was a very science/mathematically-minded guy that makes it a little odd that he would believe in mysticism if he thought it unsubstantiated, wouldnt it?

1. No, not to a degree, it's 100% true: Newton's beliefs on these issues do not prove or disprove the statements made in the original point. This isn't a matter of degrees, it's a matter of logic.

2. "Very science-minded" is true... within the context of his time, where religious and non-Scientific beliefs where rampant.

At that time, you could believe in a lot of non-sense and still be "science-minded" because non-sense was so prevalent.

I only just read this on page 1. So... does this mean that a guy like Newton's ideas are just as likely to be fallible as a guy who scores 60on a standard IQ test??

Of course, this provides no evidence for his ideas but howcome it doesn't mean a guy like Newton is more likely to be correct than a guy with an IQ of 60 or even, an average person? And therefore, shouldn't we be more careful before dismissing them then we would with a 60IQ, less science-minded person? I'm pretty sure I'm going wrong somewhere... explain this to me.

Posted by Hexadecimal:
Rust, can you honestly say that in your experience, more often than not, being nice results in being treated nice, and that being a dick results in being treated poorly?



... stuff...

2. Reducing the concept of Karma to "be a dick and you will be treated poorly" is not very accurate. Karma is related to reincarnation and to the belief that everything you do or have done (in this life or other lives before that) is stored in your consciousness or spirit.

...more stuff...


Just something interesting.


From what I've heard:

There is no lasting consciousness, spirit or soul in Buddhism. Everything is impermanent. Once they die, a being's karma transfers to another being. This new being is very similar to the dead being; but they are not the same being. Not the same consciousness. It's been compared to the lighting of one candle with another.

I only just read this on page 1. So... does this mean that a guy like Newton's ideas are just as likely to be fallible as a guy who scores 60on a standard IQ test??

Of course, this provides no evidence for his ideas but howcome it doesn't mean a guy like Newton is more likely to be correct than a guy with an IQ of 60 or even, an average person? And therefore, shouldn't we be more careful before dismissing them then we would with a 60IQ, less science-minded person? I'm pretty sure I'm going wrong somewhere... explain this to me.

1. I said that Newton believing something, does not make it true. That's it, and that's is entirely correct. For example, if Newton believed 2 + 2 = 5, that is still incorrect.

2. What the hell does "Just as likely to be fallible" even mean? What does IQ have to do with fallibility? How do you know Newton's IQ? How would you know the probability of fallibility of each person? Testing? Some magic equation?

The fact is, you don't know any of those really; it's wild speculation on your part.

Even if we grant you that Newton had a high IQ, and we compare that to someone with a lower IQ, we can't conclude anything. Newton said a lot of things that turned out to be wrong. Moreover someone with an average IQ today may know a whole lot more than someone with a genius IQ centuries ago. Calculus is now common place, it wasn't back then (he and Leibniz were creating its foundation). The same applies to the myriad of Scientific discoveries that have been made since his time.

Scientists are more likely to be atheists/materialists than the rest of the population. Should we all be atheists/materialists because these Scientists also share a higher IQ than normal (many have genius IQs) and are, according to you, "less likely to be fallible"?

I mentioned this above. It has been shown to work to some degree, but a full "enlightenment" or getting off the wheel completely is an impossible hypothesis to test. When I speak of getting off the wheel, this doesn't necessarily mean getting off the wheel entirely. Baby steps.

It being an impossible hypothesis to test is an argument against it being a good hypothesis in the first place.

As for "baby steps"... Is breathing a baby step to enlightenment? Eating? Masturbation and sex also helps people reduce stress which can lead to anger among other things, is that a baby step? How about taking aspirin, which can also have beneficial effects? We can reduce almost anything to a "baby step" in this "process".



But do you personally believe there is a chance that meditation would only aid some of the population? [excluding those in a comatose state or too mentally disabled to understand it]Yes.


I think that if a certain percentage of the population could not experience the 'anti-samsaric' (or for that matter, any) effects of meditation this phenomena would have been documented by now.Who says it hasn't been documented? You just haven't done the research, nor possibly even read the studies you keep linking. You provided articles by mainstream sources; these are notorious for mis-quoting scientists, taking their words out of context, exaggerating findings, and not providing the full story.
You have to find the actual study, not just these media editorials. However, even if we only look at these media articles, none (at least that that I could see) say that the benefits occurred in 100% of the participants. Of course, this doesn't mean that it didn't occur... so let's look at an article by one of the researches that is mentioned in your links, Richard Davidson:

http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pbio.0050138&ct=1

You can see that although most did have benefits, some showed no benefits, and yet another amount showed deterioration.

http://biology.plosjournals.org/archive/1545-7885/5/6/figure/10.1371_journal.pbio.0050138.g002-L.jpg

I tried searching another of his studies but his information is compared in groups, so we can't see how well the individuals did.

You can also find other references to other studies where the success rate was less than 100%. This shows that while there are benefits to meditation - nobody denies this - it did not help all those who did it.

Again, this is research you should be doing, not me. You claim you are not "used to this" and that you're learning, but this is just plain common sense: before you post a source... investigate it and what it says!

It being an impossible hypothesis to test is an argument against it being a good hypothesis in the first place.

As for "baby steps"... Is breathing a baby step to enlightenment? Eating? Masturbation and sex also helps people reduce stress which can lead to anger among other things, is that a baby step? How about taking aspirin, which can also have beneficial effects? We can reduce almost anything to a "baby step" in this "process".


Yes.

Who says it hasn't been documented? You just haven't done the research, nor possibly even read the studies you keep linking. You provided articles by mainstream sources; these are notorious for mis-quoting scientists, taking their words out of context, exaggerating findings, and not providing the full story.
You have to find the actual study, not just these media editorials. However, even if we only look at these media articles, none (at least that that I could see) say that the benefits occurred in 100% of the participants. Of course, this doesn't mean that it didn't occur... so let's look at an article by one of the researches that is mentioned in your links, Richard Davidson:

http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pbio.0050138&ct=1

You can see that although most did have benefits, some showed no benefits, and yet another amount showed deterioration.

http://biology.plosjournals.org/archive/1545-7885/5/6/figure/10.1371_journal.pbio.0050138.g002-L.jpg

I tried searching another of his studies but his information is compared in groups, so we can't see how well the individuals did.

You can also find other references to other studies where the success rate was less than 100%. This shows that while there are benefits to meditation - nobody denies this - it did not help all those who did it.

Again, this is research you should be doing, not me. You claim you are not "used to this" and that you're learning, but this is just plain common sense: before you post a source... investigate it and what it says!

Very good link. You're more of a thinker than I. Tell you what Rust, this thread is getting a little tedious/tiresome. Your points are clearly far more logical than mine, so you 'win' (for lack of a better term) and this thread remains unsubstantiated with anything solid. *high fives*

this thread remains unsubstantiated with anything solid.

Thread: 0

Rust: 1

Thread: 0

Rust: 1

patience Femme, it's coming.
Once I'm finished mulling through all this research and forming a coherent hypothosis that I have some confidence in....
You'll see, You'll See!!!
*manic laughter*

Desire causes suffering. I think this is one of the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism.

As has been noted many times before, we create our own reality--the universe gives us what we choose, not what we want.

Tell the Universe "I want this. . . " The Universe (God, if you will) says "Fine--go ahead and want it--experience the state of wanting."

Tell the Universe "I CHOOSE this. . . ." The Universe says "Coming right up."

Desire causes suffering. I think this is one of the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism.

As has been noted many times before, we create our own reality--the universe gives us what we choose, not what we want.

Tell the Universe "I want this. . . " The Universe (God, if you will) says "Fine--go ahead and want it--experience the state of wanting."

Tell the Universe "I CHOOSE this. . . ." The Universe says "Coming right up."

You'd think those starving Africans/Indians would've caught on by now and the universe would magically improved their crops or gave them a well ;)

patience Femme, it's coming.
Once I'm finished mulling through all this research and forming a coherent hypothosis that I have some confidence in....
You'll see, You'll See!!!
*manic laughter*

Bump. Any ETA? Also, shouldn't you have done this before making the thread?

Nope.

Oh my god, focusing on your goals helps achieve them?

Self-fulfilling prophecy is a grave misunderstanding of karma/dharma. Karma/dharma is the cumulative result of your actions and the environment they create around you. Thoughts and feelings do not effect karma or dharma; the actions alone do. Say, for example, you expend your energy on acts of patience, tolerance, kindness, etc...even if your thoughts and feelings are plagued with remorse...the environment around you will begin to take on the patience, tolerance, kindness that you've put into it and return it. There's nothing mystical about this whatsoever.

Self-fulfilling prophecy, on the other hand, is entirely about the utility of thoughts and feelings in the process of acting. If you focus on your kind acts, you will do more kind acts, and thus have more kind acts to focus on and thus affirm the initial idea that you have kindness in you. That would be the basis of 'the secret'...the focusing upon a goal until it is realized.

Karma/dharma are strictly about the reactions to your actions. Talk shit, you'll have shit talked. Be kind, be favored. You can use self-fulfilling prophecy to achieve more favorable actions on your part, or less favorable even...but karma/dharma is just another way of saying: If action A then reaction B. If action -A then reaction -B.

Put simply: 'As you judge so will you be judged.'

Self-fulfilling prophecy is dependant upon what you believe. Again, look it the fuck up. An example of SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY at work:

If you BELIEVE and expect your postive actions to have postive results (i.e. KARMA), it will probably either happen to some degree or you will imagine it happening.

Same holds true for negative actions.

There is no Karma. There is no mystic force that guides us. There is no magic.