Stoic well put, I couldn't agree with you more on your last post...
Misstyk, I think you are right too, the teachings are so confusing that you would have to take a live time to try and make sense of them.
Which in the end means you need to have a teacher...cunning, especially since they in Tibetan.
Then how you want to help people becomes how they want to and ends up in you over time probably sending a lot of money their way.
Also, the trap is you become a prisoner in your own mind, you don't even know it, and if you do like I did the realize the trap, Misstyk the endless nights with no sleep, with a terrified mind, PTSD shocks and endless ruminations of your teachers voice in your head, its a nightmare...
You loose your FREEDOM to be a Critical Thinker, no critical thinking then no FREEDOM....
I found that I learnt a habit that I had to watch my mind constantly, every second, every moment...
Its a technique that means you don't have time for critical thinking...!!!!
Ok on the question of enlightenment, have you ever met anyone who is enlightened?
All knowing, understanding everything, knowing and understanding everything, great wisdom...
Ok, how come the Dalai Lama needs a translator?
He's all knowing isn't he?
Shouldn't he if he is a Buddha be able to speak other languages...
No just one...why does he have to meditate and do practice if he is already a Buddha...
Read the histories of all the Dalai Lamas, you won't find them in Buddhist Centres, you'll need to go online like youtube etc or there are books on Amazon etc...
For me sayings like 'Where there's smoke there is fire' or 'Mud sticks...',
There's too much for me that is unclear, untrue and not addressed by the Dalai Lama.
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www.youtube.com]
Michael Parenti is a good place to do a search on Tibet.
How spiritual is that, now that we are on show to the world we better be nicer and not be bullies anymore...
Spirituality for me means honesty and when someone manipulates and lies to you to control you by setting a trap, I don't see that as very spiritual at all...
Because he is not enlightened he is constantly training his mind...
In a way I feel sorry for him, he was taken away as a 4 year old boy and child abused by monks telling him he was a Buddha/Reincarnation of the previous until he believed it.
He had no choice to live a normal life as a human being naturally would.
I found this article on Enlightenment and Nirvana interesting and why its not working, its a Christian Article, but I think still relevant...
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biomystic.org]
The End Times of Buddhist Philosophy
What's wrong with enlightenment? What's wrong with Nirvana?
From the Biomystical Christian perspective, it is freezing the mind into one particular brain state and elevating it's importance as supreme, a brain state that involves the deactivation of a major brain function--the parietal lobes where the brain's sense of self is located, i.e., the creation of a literal dead zone, a dead zone which can be seen to be projected outwards in Buddhist philosophy as the Void and ultimate reality.
A few years ago some brain research scientists got permission to do brain scans of meditating Buddhist monks to see what was going on inside their heads as they meditated. A surprising discovery was made which was that Buddhist monks were learning how to shut down a small sector of the human brain that seems to control our sense of self.* This center controls our internal sense of self and when it is deactivated there seems to be a corresponding feeling of "oneness" with the world, an oceanic feeling that seems a pleasurable state of mind and has been called variously "satori" or "nirvana" as it excludes self-awareness or anything that separates our self from everything else. There was a direct correspondence between the level of ego-less achievement of this calm and blissful state of mind by meditating monks and their level of neural activity in their sense of self brain centers. The less electrical activity, the more one feels a sense of oneness with the Universe. Buddhists hold this as the highest mental state attainable by human beings. It is the goal of Buddhism to enable Buddhists to be in this self-less mental state as much as possible as they believe that in this state purer, less violent and more wholesome social consciousness naturally evolves. The Buddhist philosophy of life derives from the task of learning how to eliminate the ego and its desires and they have learned a meditation way to physically do that by literally shutting down a part of their brains, the part that controls the sense of self.
* See Buddhist Brain Studies page in the New Gnosis Library section.
The problem with this philosophy and meditation technique is this: In a complex world is it a wise thing to have as a personal goal the deactivation of a major part of our brains? Brain scans of these meditating monks shows what is essentially the creation of a hole in the head, a blank spot in the brain where there is little if any electrical activity going on. Sure, it feels good and there are benefits from losing one's often overwhelming ego desires but in terms of functioning as complete human beings, well, what is the real difference between meditation techniques to tranquilize our brains and taking drugs to do that same thing? I think there's the major flaw in Buddhism and all spiritual paths that aim at reduction of ego which physiologically seems to mean shutting down electrical activity in the brain's sense of self center.
Creative problem solving comes from the ability to associate related and supposedly unrelated things together in new combinations. Creative people are not known for ego-lessness; just the opposite is usually the case. And historically, Buddhists are not known for creative enterprises. In fact, creativity, outside of a narrow natural themes in poetry and art as well as traditional stylized symbolic art production and appreciation, is seen more as an ego problem. Societies where Buddhism is the majority religion, e.g., Tibet, are not noted for their progressive social programs. It is Biomystical Christian opinion that the Buddhist goal of destruction of the sense of self center in our brains has the inevitable effect of destroying also our abilities to creatively think. This brings us back to the main point: in a complex world is it a good thing to disable a major function of our brains?
Let's put this into another perspective: There are many drugs available to human beings that have brain disabling effects. We've all noticed them and universally drug induced disabling of differing brain functions is condemned even if the drug user swears up and down that he or she benefits from this type of brain manipulation. Well, Buddhists don't use drugs to shut down part of their brains; they use meditation techniques. But the result is more or less the same. Escape from complex worldly reality and worldly cares that indeed demand creative problem solving into a simplified existence that if universalized would rob us of our most precious gift: the ability to use our heads to survive, maintain, prosper and evolve to higher levels of consciousness and creative human expression.
You just can't create a hole in your head in order to avoid existential pain without paying a price: the price is creativity. It takes egotism to be able to even think you could create something or solve something. Who are you to think you could? Only what that little part of your brain that tells you who you are and what you can do. Without your ego, yes, you can become "one" with Life and avoid all the psychic pains that accompany our egos if you use Buddhist meditation techniques but then why not drill a hole in your head for that "Third Eye" or have a lobotomy. These techniques too deaden the brain to psychic pain. Buddhism and all spiritual meditation practices that aim at reduction of ego through elimination of the sense of self are now exposed as brain disabling techniques not really different from drug induced brain disabling. Sorry, but that's why these are the beginning of the End Times of Buddhist philosophy.
Please note that the accusation of Buddhism being merely a brain manipulation technique for altering one's perceptions of the world instead of a philosophy of how to attain higher consciousness also applies to all meditation religious practices such as those used by Christian mystics to achieve ecstatic states of consciousness. Only one's brain has been changed--reality hasn't as it is neither the Void of Buddhists nor the mystic's oneness with God. These are just altered states of consciousness while God's reality and our human place in that reality is so much more.
What Buddha has done has glorified one brain state resultant of deadening a major area of the brain and called this "enlightenment" because it reduces psychic pain that naturally occurs in the course of a life lead in full embracement: pain, happiness, sorrow, love, the whole works of what being human is all about. The question Buddhists never ask is "is a single brain state, the "Buddha Mind", which is achieved by deactivating a central function of the human brain, i.e., maintaining the sense of self, a positive thing for all human beings? Is mental peace worth the loss of human creativity that springs from the very same psychic pain Buddhism seeks to annihilate? By seeking to destroy illusion Buddhism ends up destroying human hope. Along with the loss of ego, along with the loss of attachment, come the loss of hope.
Anyone who saw the Maharishi of Transcendental Meditation fame bubbling over in mirthful bliss all the time was seeing this brain state in constant operation. The problem though was seen clearly when Maharishi expressed his political opinion one time on national TV, poor guy, that Nixon's war in Vietnam was necessary for all the reasons Nixon gave. These "enlightened" brain states give no more guarantee of wisdom than the next snake oil salesman's secret of happiness spiel that comes along..e.g., LSD, Ecstasy, direct electrical brain manipulation next? Brain manipulation is not the way to true spiritual consciousness which must be holistic consciousness stemming from holistic brain functioning.
There's more but I cut it short...
Best wishes...