Tag: Siddhartha Gautama

The Bodhisattva’s Renunciation

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

IT was night. The prince found no rest on his soft pillow; he arose and went out into the garden. “Alas!” he cried “all the world is full of darkness and ignorance; there is no one who knows how to cure the ills of existence.” And he groaned with pain.

Siddhattha sat down beneath the great jambu-tree and gave himself to thought, pondering on life and death and the evils of decay. Concentrating his mind he became free from confusion. All low desires vanished from his heart and perfect tranquility came over him.

In this state of ecstasy he saw with his mental eye all the misery and sorrow of the world; he saw the pains of pleasure and the inevitable certainty of death that hovers over every being; yet men are not awakened to the truth. And a deep compassion seized his heart.

While the prince was pondering on the problem of evil, he beheld with his mind’s eye under the jambu tree a lofty figure endowed with majesty, calm and dignified. “Whence comest thou, and who mayst thou be asked the prince.

In reply the vision said: “I am a samana. Troubled at the thought of old age, disease, and death I have left my home to seek the path of salvation. All things hasten to decay; only the truth abideth forever. Everything changes, and there is no permanency; yet the words of the Buddhas are immutable. I long for the happiness that does not decay; the treasure that will never perish; the life that knows of no beginning and no end. Therefore, I have destroyed all worldly thought. I have retired into an unfrequented dell to live in solitude; and, begging for food, I devote myself to the one thing needful.

Siddhattha asked: “Can peace be gained in this world of unrest? I am struck with the emptiness of pleasure and have become disgusted with lust. All oppresses me, and existence itself seems intolerable.”

The samana replied: “Where heat is, there is also a possibility of cold; creatures subject to pain possess the faculty of pleasure; the origin of evil indicates that good can be developed. For these things are correlatives. Thus where there is much suffering, there will be much bliss, if thou but open thine eyes to behold it. Just as a man who has fallen into a heap of filth ought to seek the great pond of water covered with lotuses, which is near by: even so seek thou for the great deathless lake of Nirvana to wash off the defilement of wrong. If the lake is not sought, it is not the fault of the lake. Even so when there is a blessed road leading the man held fast by wrong to the salvation of Nirvana, if the road is not walked upon, it is not the fault of the road, but of the person. And when a man who is oppressed with sickness, there being a physician who can heal him, does not avail himself of the physician’s help, that is not the fault of the physician. Even so when a man oppressed by the malady of wrong-doing does not seek the spiritual guide of enlightenment, that is no fault of the evil-destroying guide.”

The prince listened to the noble words of his visitor and said: “Thou bringest good tidings, for now I know that my purpose will be accomplished. My father advises me to enjoy life and to undertake worldly duties, such as will bring honor to me and to our house. He tells me that I am too young still, that my pulse beats too full to lead a religious life.”

The venerable figure shook his head and replied: “Thou shouldst know that for seeking a religious life no time can be inopportune.”

A thrill of joy passed through Siddhattha’s heart. “Now is the time to seek religion,” he said; “now is the time to sever all ties that would prevent me from attaining perfect enlightenment; now is the time to wander into homelessness and, leading a mendicant’s life, to find the path of deliverance.”

The celestial messenger heard the resolution of Siddhattha with approval. “Now, indeed he added, is the time to seek religion. Go, Siddhattha, and accomplish thy purpose. For thou art Bodhisatta, the Buddha-elect; thou art destined to enlighten the world. Thou art the Tathagata, the great master, for thou wilt fulfill all righteousness and be Dharmaraja, the king of truth. Thou art Bhagavat, the Blessed One, for thou art called upon to become the savior and redeemer of the world. Fulfill thou the perfection of truth. Though the thunderbolt descend upon thy head, yield thou never to the allurements that beguile men from the path of truth. As the sun at all seasons pursues his own course, nor ever goes on another, even so if thou forsake not the straight path of righteousness, thou shalt become a Buddha. Persevere in thy quest and thou shalt find what thou seekest. Pursue thy aim unswervingly and thou shalt gain the prize. Struggle earnestly and thou shalt conquer. The benediction of all deities, of all saints of all that seek light is upon thee, and heavenly wisdom guides thy steps. Thou shalt be the Buddha, our Master, and our Lord; thou shalt enlighten the world and save mankind from perdition.

Having thus spoken, the vision vanished, and Siddhattha’s heart was filled with peace. He said to himself: “I have awakened to the truth and I am resolved to accomplish my purpose. I will sever all the ties that bind me to the world, and I will go out from my home to seek the way of salvation. The Buddhas are beings whose words cannot fail: there is no departure from truth in their speech. For as the fall of a stone thrown into the air, as the death of a mortal, as the sunrise at dawn, as the lion’s roar when he leaves his lair, as the delivery of a woman with child, as all these things are sure and certain-even so the word of the Buddhas is sure and cannot fail. Verily I shall become a Buddha.”

The prince returned to the bedroom of his wife to take a last farewell glance at those whom he dearly loved above all the treasures of the earth. He longed to take the infant once more into his arms and kiss him with a parting kiss. But the child lay in the arms of his mother, and the prince could not lift him without awakening both. There Siddhattha stood gazing at his beautiful wife and his beloved son, and his heart grieved. The pain of parting overcame him powerfully. Although his mind was determined, so that nothing, be it good or evil, could shake his resolution, the tears flowed freely from his eyes, and it was beyond his power to check their stream. But the prince tore himself away with a manly heart, suppressing his feelings but not extinguishing his memory.

The Bodhisattva mounted his noble steed Kanthaka, and when he left the palace, Mara stood in the gate and stopped him: “Depart not, O my Lord,” exclaimed Mara. “In seven days from now the wheel of empire will appear, and will make thee sovereign over the four continents and the two thousand adjacent islands. Therefore, stay, my Lord.”

The Bodhisattva replied: “Well do I know that the wheel of empire will appear to me; but it is not sovereignty that I desire. I will become a Buddha and make all the world shout for joy.”

Thus Siddhattha, the prince, renounced power and worldly pleasures, gave up his kingdom, severed all ties, and went into homelessness. He rode out into the silent night, accompanied only by his faithful charioteer Channa. Darkness lay upon the earth, but the stars shone brightly in the heavens.

Excerpted from:

BUDDHA, THE GOSPEL

By Paul Carus

Chicago, The Open Court Publishing Company,

[1894]

At Sacred Texts

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Unacceptable Hypotheses

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

How we view and to an extent assimilate our notion of world is underpinned by a number of hypotheses which we may deem fact or gospel. Counter hypotheses are therefore cognitively unacceptable. This is because they can literally change our world and view thereof. Different hypotheses can upset the mundane power balance. And we cannot allow that can we.

For a long time, according to history, mankind imagined a flat Earth with earth at the centre of all things heavenly. Others suggested a heliocentric solar system and a quasi-spherical planet. Such views were considered heretic and punishable. For a long time the hypotheses of heliocentricity and orb-like planet were totally unacceptable especially to those in power, in the church. The infallibility of a human pope kept bums on seat and pennies on the collection plate. The infallibility of the pope was deemed factual and not hypothetical. It was the sort of “fact” that was enforced at the end of a blade or a noose.

Human history is littered with old hypotheses which have been used as the reason for slaughter. Hypotheses can be used to justify blood and murder.

The implications of a spherical globe are significantly different from a flat “2d” world. There is no edge off of which to sail. Without a round planet we would not have satellite TV nor surveillance satellites. A flat earth would be bad for NSA and CIA. The hypothesis of a quasi-spherical planet is game-changing in its implications.

An example of a hypothesis which is unacceptable to some is that Jesus was and is the long promised biblical messiah, the saviour. A significant population in the world find such a hypothesis unacceptable. No rabbi could accept this hypothesis and others see him more as a significant prophet. Were a rabbi to accept such a hypothesis it would radically change the assimilation of world and the recounting and recollection of history. You can argue that there is a vested interest not to accept such a hypothesis.

Some hypothesis cannot therefore be accepted because the implication of accepting them is too vast, it changes far too much.

Scientific causality and locality was a notion of Newtonian mechanics. Quantum entanglement kind of fucked with this idea and people like Einstein found this a swede masher and difficult to accept. Nowadays there is a burgeoning quantum aspect to science, business and technology.  

One could argue that there is precedent for old, dated hypotheses giving way to newer more widely applicable ones. Things of significant implication always face resistance and slow uptake.

I like the idea of a how a change in hypothesis can fundamentally and significantly alter how a world is and has been assimilated. A benign example of this is when adopted children find out they have been adopted and search out the backstory. The world is turned upside down for a while, perhaps permanently. Modern DNA testing has scuppered many a dubious narrative about parenthood. The hypothesis that Bob was dad to Alice was incorrect, it was Sergei in reality.

A while back somebody insisted that I was a so-called Man of Action and for many years dozens of people interacted with me on the basis of that hypothesis. It underpinned their assimilation of our interaction. It was a hypothesis which may not have been well founded. People might struggle to re-assimilate the world and the nature of interaction given an alternate notion.

Hypothesis can be a close relative of assumption. The working assumption here in France is that I am “anglais”. It is the first “hypothesis”. It is pretty easy to change intellectual understanding of this but still people behave towards me as if I have the same orientation as an English. Although the hypothesis has changed its latent implementation remains.

Based on various visions and dreams I have had one can draw up at least two different hypothetical explanations. These might be radically different in implication both locally for me and more globally.

The simplest explanation is that the nocturnal dreams and waking visons are a form of hallucinatory psychosis. I am off  my trolley and provided that I don’t cause any discomfort / break laws there is no need to have me locked up in a psychiatric unit. I am not a threat to anyone and by and large understand my day to day reality such a taxes and medical appointments. Although socially isolated I am not dangerous to myself or others. This is a facile hypothesis with only a very local implication. It does not impinge outside of our immediate geo-location.

Another interpretation is that some of the dreams are to do with previous incarnations of mine. If we accept this as a hypothesis then we can assimilate an explanatory narrative which has me having several Buddhist flavoured lives etc. As this stands it  has no wide implication. It is the sort of thing someone well into their cups might claim down the local boozer. No drama. Just another hippy-trippy fruitcake believing something which cannot be proved nor directly unequivocally disproved. Disproof is implied from lack of proof. If however this points at a tulku incarnation of a high lama, this has wide implication in at least one context. Some would struggle to accept this as a hypothesis specifically because of the way they see me and have behaved towards me. It would need a rewrite of life narrative.

This points at an obvious. Hypothesis can not ever be completely separated from context; they are nearly always highly context specific.

In 2009 I had a “conversation” early one morning walking around a wood near Tring. In that I was told that I was a very close disciple of Buddha, Siddartha. Implied that I had been a contemporary of him and spent time with him. The default hypothesis of psychotic hallucination or schizophrenic voice hearing explains this easily.

To accept the “conversation” as factual or hypothetically correct would be a push for some, particularly those who have made my acquaintance.

In 2011 I had a dream which pointed at Bakula one of Buddha’s closet disciples, a scholar who came late to the path according to text. He is named as arhat in scripture and hagiography has him as an enlightened being. I am less convinced that enlightenment of a disciple happens in a single lifetime just from hanging out with the Siddhartha dude. In certain circumstances he is revered as a kind of Buddhist “saint”. Prior to the dream I had no conscious memory of having heard the name Bakula.

The facile invocation of grandiose psychotic dreaming is easily made. Maybe I want to be important subconsciously and made up a story to make me significant.

For me to accept it as hypothetically possible is not tricky. For others it may be harder. For example what does one do with that? How does one treat a reincarnated person who actually met and hung with Siddartha? What is the precedent? What is the protocol?

Quickly such a hypothesis becomes cognitively unacceptable. It cannot be proven true and it would take more evidence than Mulder and Scully could ever furnish for it to be believed, no matter how much we may want to believe. I’ll suggest that there may be many hypotheses which describe an aspect of reality which are totally unacceptable. These hypotheses may be before their time. In time they may become less unacceptable until such time as people are ready to believe them.

Careful if you believe, you might fall off the edge of your world…

The Power of a Buddha or Evolved Bodhisattva

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

The image of Buddha is very widespread and one can get a statue down the garden centre or a poster to put up on the walls of your home. The vibe associated is often calm tranquillity. Never is it in battle with Mara, Māra. In the west Buddha is often seen as wholly benign and passive. Those fond of smoking joints may have a Buddha statuette or have paraphernalia which is Buddha themed. One can get a vegetarian meal called a Buddha Bowl. Back when I was a vegan and visiting Japan I used to eat “Monk’s Meals” there.

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Most of the statues have a Buddha who is not emaciated and with Thai style hair, a bit fat. Rarely is he seen as skinny. He is often depicted with a halo as might be perceived by a quasi-clairvoyant. 

It is not as weird as the blonde, blue eyed Aryan representations of Jesus who was probably semitic, Jewish, in appearance. But Buddha is often not quite as brown as he might have been in real life. He lived alfresco and would have tanned up well.

In the West people do not imagine the power, sometimes magical of a Buddha or evolved Bodhisattva. The imaginations do not extend beyond some dude sitting on a mat cross legged meditating.

“Hey man, that is Zen…”

Tibetan Buddhism is perhaps unique in representing wrathful forms of various Bodhisattvas. They do battle with evil. In Vajrayana there is black and white magic. Force sometimes needs met. There is significant power in a Buddha or evolved Bodhisattva. Power beyond normal ken.

The various canons have a list of special powers attained as a Bodhisattva proceeds along their journey to enlightenment. These supra-mundane powers are not to be found in garden centres. Scientists may quibble as to whether they are real manifestations or not.

As a teenager I was fascinated by the TV series Monkey.

“Monkey eats many of the peaches, which have taken millennia to ripen, becomes immortal and runs amok. Having earned the ire of Heaven and being beaten in a challenge by an omniscient, mighty, but benevolent, cloud-dwelling Buddha (釈迦如来, Shakanyorai), Monkey is imprisoned for 500 years under a mountain in order to learn patience.

Eventually, Monkey is released by the monk Tripitaka (三蔵法師, Sanzōhōshi), who has been tasked by the Boddhisatva Guanyin (観世音菩薩, Kanzeon Bosatsu) to undertake a pilgrimage from China to India to fetch holy scriptures (implied to be the region of Gandhāra in the song over the closing credits).”

Which is about the spread of the threefold Tripitaka to China and hence Japan. Evil tries to stop the dharma from being propagated and many adventures ensue. Here Buddhism is proactive and not passive. There is struggle.

The Buddhist canons have many stories of remarkable miracles carried out both by Siddartha and other Bodhisattvas. Padmasambhava considered a Nirmāṇakāya of Shakyamuni Buddha is attributed with magical powers and miracles. Those steeped in the tradition are less likely to scoff than your common or garden Western scientist. Vajrayana differs from East Enders or Coronation Street and markedly so. Exposure and immersion in its depths is likely to blow the minds of anyone lacking openness and fluidity.

Without direct personal experience there is no way to assess what the power of a Buddha or evolved Bodhisattva might be. Common sense suggests caution and not arrogance.

 A Buddha is not just a garden ornament, statuette or poster…

Renunciation or Self-Sabotage?

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The human ability to kid oneself is well known though for those kidding, difficult to accept. At the moment there are many who deem the slaughter in Gaza justifiable and apt. They do not imagine any karmic consequences because that notion would be very inconvenient. Irrespective of how things are temporarily brought to a close, there will be consequences ongoing.

The normal idea of success in the “West” might be to have a good career, make progress, climb the housing ladder and perhaps have a relationship or marriage and thence to propagate the species. One might like a nice car and pleasant foreign holidays. Perhaps gaining some measure of societal kudos along the way. One would not sulkily throw one’s toys out of the cot; one would comply more or less to the norm. Psychology might point you in this direction.

If for example you are a bodhisattva called Siddartha Gautama, it would be OK to run out on a young wife and child, leave the palace of your father the King and renounce the kingdom to which you are heir. But for normal people this would be wrong.

Viewed from one angle this is an ungrateful act of wanton self-sabotage. Siddhartha shot himself in the foot and abandoned a pleasant life, one which many might aspire to. To the starving, the poor and the unshod this makes no sense. Yet according to legend this subsequently facilitated his teaching and his completion of the career goal of any bodhisattva, namely enlightenment and Buddhahood.

In the post previous I pointed at something that many would not understand. I shelved a high value job at a prestigious space agency. The successful completion of which could have opened the way for senior positions and a way back from the “wilderness”. We would have had plenty of cash.

There were a number of warning omens when we were viewing properties in and near Leiden. Retrospect suggests that the job was a temptation of sorts.

Earlier I walked out of a marriage with a very young child which caused the sale of a house in London now worth £ 1 million. I left a new age group which I gave heart and soul to establish. I “gave” my shares back to a start-up company the vision for which was to a fair extent mine. I quit a then tenured academic job at a top university, something to which many aspired. I had no other job lined up just a few training courses. One of these went pear shaped so I gave them up too. To move from a highly timetabled job into near nothing was a bit of a shock to the system. I resigned from another short lived university teaching post. I cut contact with my aged mother. I forwent relations with family.

None of these were easy. I am not a prince.

One could say that I am simply a loser who could not hack it.

One could say that these were acts of stepwise renunciation. The integral over micro-renunciations has a similar effect to sudden departure.

 Or one could call deem them all the INFJ door slam, a fault in my character.

What is it that seeks success? It is the self and not the Soul. In this logic renunciation is indeed an act of self-sabotage. The ambitions of the self are stymied in stepwise succession. I know that I can live without any of these accoutrements. If you like I have physical plane proof by experience. I am not bound by the fear of missing out on a normal successful life.

I could be kidding myself. Trying to find an excuse for my squandering of opportunity. Or maybe I have simply thrown my toys out of my cot because things did not go my way.

Nobody else has experienced these things like I did. Nobody else has felt the tearing, the ripping. I am alone in my moccasins which I may not loan to another.

People might have opinions.

I cannot return to the trajectory my life was once on. Any attempt has gone badly awry. The dramatic might say that I am not meant to. Or one could argue that it is the karma of wanton squandering. I made the bed and now I must sleep in it.

There remains one question concerning what if anything I do with the remainder of earthly sojourn.

Hmnn…

The Great White Lodge Dream…

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

In around 2000 – 2002 I was doing way too much on many fronts. I was engaged in a leadership sort of role with a Toltec group, I was in the middle of a messy divorce, at they genesis stage of a high power laser start-up company and trying to do my job as a physical chemistry lecturer at a world top ten university.

Retrospect suggests that this was utter lunacy.

It was around 2001 that I started reading Helena Blavatsky and the blue books opus by Djwhal Kuhl via Alice Bailey.  I am pretty good at assimilation of large volumes of information and it was then that, in this lifetime at least, I heard of the Great White Lodge for the first time. I read and re-read. I saw no conflict with reading so-called occult books and teaching reaction kinetics or chemical group theory. I had a working laser produced plasma source in the basement at work and had designed another for the start-up. I’ll speculate that I am not the normal kind of dude who reads Blavatsky and Kuhl.

I am able to read and refrain from premature judgment.

In ~2004 I started having waking visions of myself in Buddhist robes and with om mane padme hum tattooed on my forearms in Sanskrit. I would have these visions walking to college and on occasion simultaneous with me teaching a lecture theatre full of undergraduates. Clearly this is not the sort of thing to discuss with a line manager or human resources.

At the end of 2006 I left my job, sold my London flat and moved out into a rented cottage in a village where I knew nobody. The cottage was the home of the school teacher who taught, in days gone by, in the adjunct school hall. To shift from a very full hectic calendar into next to nothing is a quantum leap of some magnitude.

It was at the cottage schoolhouse where I completed my recapitulation and began even more extensive meditation on my mat all weathers.

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One morning in early 2007 I had a type of dream which for me is rare. It was a dream in which I was “told” that I had to find the Great White Lodge. There was no uncertainty, the command of must was unequivocal. I was gripped by an awareness of several beings it was an injunction which had to be obeyed.

This dream opened up several lines of inquiry. I met up with a friend of mine at Charing Cross whom I knew had contacts in UK new age circles. I inquired of him.

In the blue books opus Kuhl says that he, Koot Hoomi and El Morya lived close to each other near Shigatze in Tibet. These masters were mooted as members of the Great White Lodge by Kuhl. Did the dream mean that I had to go to Tibet and find them on the physical plane? I looked into travel there.

I wonder would they still be there after the Chinese occupation? Or would they have moved to India like the Dalai Lama?

Kuhl and Hoomi are “on” the second ray love-wisdom, as am I.

I had some health problems with a c6-c7 cervical spine hernia and some basal cell carcinomas.

At end of 2008 I stopped doing dreaming practice, re-read many of Kuhl’s book and joined the Arcane school. Then I did the master in the heart meditation to build the Antahkarana up to the higher levels of manas near buddhi. According to Kuhl this is “where” the masters can be found.

Then one evening during dinner in 2009, they found me. My entire awareness was seized and I was afforded a view of Shamballa. They said that no matter what, I must stay alive, I must survive what was to come. I should focus only on that. They said that they would send protectors. Cats started appearing on our garden wall and two crows, Russel and Sheryl, moved into a nest feet from our back door. They nested just above the show window to the right of our door. They stayed for months.

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Over the next few months, I was to have various “conversations” usually close to dawn on the Ashridge Estate near Tring. There I was able to ask questions and was told of my five previous incarnations. I am an adjunct to the second ray Ashrams. I was informed that I had been a very close disciple of Siddhartha Gautama. My most recent previous life had a seventh ray influence and I had directly worked with Rákóczi, Count Saint Germain.

My personality is seventh ray – synthesis.

I incarnated into a vehicle which was suited for modern science and I have a fairly good, broad not detailed, understanding of most of its concepts. I may be bilingual if you like.

I can get a patent “Increasing the probability of generating entangled photon pairs using Electric Field Induced Spontaneous Parametric Down Conversion” granted by the UK Intellectual Property Office.

I must be some top-end Walter Mitty…

Or not…+