Search found 203 matches

by tharpa
Fri Jan 05, 2007 2:34 pm
Forum: GENIUS FORUM
Topic: The Heart
Replies: 36
Views: 7647

Kelly, I will try to respond to your long, well-worked post later.
by tharpa
Fri Jan 05, 2007 2:58 am
Forum: GENIUS FORUM
Topic: memories
Replies: 17
Views: 3516

prince, you may well be right. But at least I am contributing something other than cat-fight type responses to others.

Do you have anything to contribute about the topic of your own? Speak for yourself.
by tharpa
Thu Jan 04, 2007 6:38 pm
Forum: GENIUS FORUM
Topic: memories
Replies: 17
Views: 3516

tharpa, et al; I was thinking of it more like this: before you have memory, you have concept, which is a function of being able to take in a scene/perception/experience and apply a label and again I agree with Kelly that the pleasure-pain axis is perhaps the main one. OK, so you have a concept (for...
by tharpa
Thu Jan 04, 2007 3:42 pm
Forum: GENIUS FORUM
Topic: memories
Replies: 17
Views: 3516

Clyde, I cannot answer the question tit for tat, but I found much of Kelly's emphasis on the notion of 'categorising' in line with what I was considering in response to the topic. I was thinking of it more like this: before you have memory, you have concept, which is a function of being able to take...
by tharpa
Thu Jan 04, 2007 3:14 pm
Forum: GENIUS FORUM
Topic: Reincarnation
Replies: 278
Views: 38446

Very few human beings are in the human realm, perhaps only one in every ten million. Well, I wouldn't go so far as only one in ten million; it seems you are equating human realm with realisation No, I'm only equating the human realm with having a modicum of intelligence, conscience, and character. ...
by tharpa
Wed Jan 03, 2007 5:19 pm
Forum: GENIUS FORUM
Topic: Reincarnation
Replies: 278
Views: 38446

Kevin, I am just on the point of retiring, so cannot reply ain any way to do your post justice except to say that I found it truly excellent - apart from yr irrepressible tendency to tar all 'Tibetan Buddhists' with the same brush! But - hey! - whatever turns you on!
by tharpa
Wed Jan 03, 2007 2:34 pm
Forum: GENIUS FORUM
Topic: Reincarnation
Replies: 278
Views: 38446

Well, according to the material I studied long ago, and to which I still occasionally refer, one of the main qualities or drives of the human realm is passion Note that you are here talking about "the human realm", which is not the same as "human beings". Very few human beings are in the human real...
by tharpa
Wed Jan 03, 2007 3:04 am
Forum: GENIUS FORUM
Topic: Reincarnation
Replies: 278
Views: 38446

You might think there's some subtle reason why men are attracted to women. But in reality men are attracted to women because that is the way our DNA is replicated. Anything else is all very nice imaginings. Failure to see the truth of the matter is what keeps people trapped in samsara, pondering ov...
by tharpa
Tue Jan 02, 2007 6:43 pm
Forum: GENIUS FORUM
Topic: Reincarnation
Replies: 278
Views: 38446

"If you are truly interested in the such matters then you should become a scientist and find out. The reason is almost certainly biological. " Disagree. Not the domain of scientists at all. The last place I would go, and hence the great difference in our approach to this topic! There are styles that...
by tharpa
Tue Jan 02, 2007 1:14 pm
Forum: GENIUS FORUM
Topic: Reincarnation
Replies: 278
Views: 38446

"I think I know where you would like the discussion to go . . . you would like us to discuss primarily psychological causes of mind, which are what all the realms of existence are about, rather than non-psychological causes. " No, I am interested in realms as a living study in how interdependent cau...
by tharpa
Tue Jan 02, 2007 12:29 pm
Forum: GENIUS FORUM
Topic: Reincarnation
Replies: 278
Views: 38446

Kevin, thanks for a stimulating thread. With the last two posts, I have lost track of the discussion, especially with your latest reply. They sort of make sense and certainly do a good job of refuting my points, but mainly by misunderstanding their intent and getting caught up in semantics, so once ...
by tharpa
Tue Jan 02, 2007 6:51 am
Forum: GENIUS FORUM
Topic: Reincarnation
Replies: 278
Views: 38446

Kevin wrote: You are always talking about the "physical" as though it were something lesser. This has been pointed out to you before. To me, that is blasphemy. All physical things are finite things, and finite things make up the body of the Infinite, the body of God - the Dharmakaya. Physical things...
by tharpa
Tue Jan 02, 2007 6:15 am
Forum: GENIUS FORUM
Topic: The Heart
Replies: 36
Views: 7647

As far as I know, Kelly, I was responding to your logic. Where you felt that I wasn't, you could provide specific commentary to make yr point clear. The two truths are absolute and relative truth. You have posited absolute truth as something which exists on its own, so to speak. In fact, it exists o...
by tharpa
Mon Jan 01, 2007 7:41 pm
Forum: GENIUS FORUM
Topic: The Heart
Replies: 36
Views: 7647

well, in traditional Mahayana terms - from which the above type of portrayal comes - bodhicitta is described in this threefold way as wisdom compassion and power, in more sensitive language as prajna-intellect-mind, heart-compassion-sensitivity and energy-will-drive-fearlessnes and so forth. The pro...
by tharpa
Mon Jan 01, 2007 7:27 pm
Forum: GENIUS FORUM
Topic: phenomenological musings
Replies: 55
Views: 7987

I am curious about these non-caused thingies 'popping up out of nowhere' as being arguments against 'causality'. My understanding of causality is that the thrust-meaning is that everything is the result of multiple conditions/causes without which 'it' could not be so as such 'it' does not really exi...
by tharpa
Mon Jan 01, 2007 5:34 pm
Forum: GENIUS FORUM
Topic: Reincarnation
Replies: 278
Views: 38446

Here's a western Loppon who doesn't think much of the Tib tulku system as it is today: "The system as it stands now caters to favoritism and political manipulation. As such, it depends on the unquestioning faith of Tibetans. Some monks once asked Khyentse Wangpo to find their teacher-- he found a su...
by tharpa
Mon Jan 01, 2007 10:27 am
Forum: GENIUS FORUM
Topic: Reincarnation
Replies: 278
Views: 38446

well, I didn't mean to ask for a 'thing' any more than I expect someone to find a 'timetron' or 'mentron'. I think I addressed the sort of 'thing' I was looking for in my reply. The word 'glue' I took to be essentially metaphoric in any case, and came up in terms of discussing continuity, which I la...
by tharpa
Mon Jan 01, 2007 4:58 am
Forum: GENIUS FORUM
Topic: Reincarnation
Replies: 278
Views: 38446

Elizabeth: time doesn't exist any more than location except in relative terms. As such, it is subjective in the sense that the duration of a minute is perceived differently in different states of mind. If you are being tortured, a minute is a lifetime and so forth. In contemplating the posts from th...
by tharpa
Sun Dec 31, 2006 2:16 pm
Forum: GENIUS FORUM
Topic: Reincarnation
Replies: 278
Views: 38446

Yes, Elizabeth, nicely said, but you still have not identified the nature of the 'glue'. What holds things together for a while? Of course one can keep repeating 'causes', but that is mainly a mechanistic or definitional (i.e. abstract) term which also explains why things fall apart at the same time...
by tharpa
Sun Dec 31, 2006 6:49 am
Forum: GENIUS FORUM
Topic: Reincarnation
Replies: 278
Views: 38446

Kevin, great post. If there is no linearity in nature how come: you do not wake up as a different body/person each day? or: how does the river Thames continue from one moment to the next, at least for a while? how does the sky not interchange with earth, earth remaining earth, heaven remaining heave...
by tharpa
Sat Dec 30, 2006 11:25 am
Forum: GENIUS FORUM
Topic: Reincarnation
Replies: 278
Views: 38446

E: that the DL isn't what simplistic ideas of what the DL is does not mean that the DL isn't the DL. Or: just because some people's notions of tulku and reincarnation are false, doesn't mean that there is not such thing as a tulku or reincarnation (not necessarily the same thing at all btw). A man s...
by tharpa
Sat Dec 30, 2006 9:33 am
Forum: GENIUS FORUM
Topic: Reincarnation
Replies: 278
Views: 38446

Some more remarks about memory and the physical organism, hopefully without getting sidetracked by medical formulations in different traditions: The reason why memory is not purely a mental thing, nor is it simply some sort of encoded whatever stored in the brain much like bits and bytes are stored ...
by tharpa
Sat Dec 30, 2006 9:08 am
Forum: GENIUS FORUM
Topic: Reincarnation
Replies: 278
Views: 38446

Similar to what Kevin has said, we would have absolutely no identity if we did not have our memories. Yes, but a sense of identity is an illusory construct in the first place, i.e. interdependent. Identity is one thing that consciousness can display on its screen, but is not the only thing, nor the...
by tharpa
Sat Dec 30, 2006 5:15 am
Forum: GENIUS FORUM
Topic: Reincarnation
Replies: 278
Views: 38446

Kevin, I thought those last two posts of yours were very good in articulating your main positions. I will not go through point by point. Although your characterisation of the beliefs around the Dalai Lama etc. (again, not someone with whom I have connection, nor most practicing buddhists in America ...
by tharpa
Fri Dec 29, 2006 9:08 pm
Forum: GENIUS FORUM
Topic: Reincarnation
Replies: 278
Views: 38446

To continue along the same theme: You are asserting that a) since all things arise from karma (shorthand for C&e) b) there is no difference between asteroids and cows because they all arise from a) so c) any buddhist who says that sentient beings 'incarnate' differently from rocks and flames is not ...