Is nirvana the end of journey?

[jonesboy]

Originally Posted by starnight1

@sky123,thank u for reminding me the difference:) Buddhism and Taoism r v different in their traditional philosphy and practices.
@jonesboy,I also agree that every master eventually teaches the same truth.
but i still can't understand the All that is is Nothingness, or i can accept it is beyond our understanding since it is formless, but if it is really nothing, all our LOVE all the precious things r gone, it is really hard to understand.

Have you ever heard of the saying returning to the light?

Now Christians are good at this in realizing that the light is Love, Peace that it is to such a degree that it is beyond description.

That light is all that is, it is light but light has no form it is empty. It is our obstructions, the things we grasp on to that keeps us from realizing our true nature as that light, as that unbound love.

Buddhist call that Bodhicitta.

Bodhi means our ‘enlightened essence’ and chitta (Skt. citta) means ‘heart’ or 'mind', hence the translation ‘the heart of enlightened mind’.

An outpouring of divine love to help all sentient beings achieve enlightenment.

Said another way from the TTC.

CHAPTER 7
Heaven and Earth are still.
Why are Heaven and Earth still?
Because they are detached.
The Sage is detached, so he is like Heaven and Earth; thus he is at one with all.
Being at one, he performs selfless actions and
so he is fulfilled.

CHAPTER 14
Look, it can never be seen, for it has no form.
Listen, it can never be heard, it is beyond sound.
Grasp, it can never be held, it is intangible.
Although it can never be seen, heard or held, its spirit is always there.
For it is formed from nothing and so returns to nothing.
It is beyond description,
But it is the Mother of the Ten Thousand Things.
It has no beginning and no end, but it is great.
Stay with this (in your heart) the ancient Dao,
but move with the present.
Knowing the Dao is the ancient beginning of all things.

Jesus talked about it like this:

From the Gospel of Thomas.


50. Jesus said, "If they say to you, 'Where have you come from?' say to them, 'We have come from the light, from the place where the light came into being by itself, established [itself], and appeared in their image.' If they say to you, 'Is it you?' say, 'We are its children, and we are the chosen of the living Father.' If they ask you, 'What is the evidence of your Father in you?' say to them, 'It is motion and rest.'"

Notice he said motion and rest.

Motion being form and rest being emptiness/silence and that it is within a person.

[sky]

Bodhicitta means, one who has a wish to become enlightened motivated by compassion for all sentient beings.
Bodhi means to become awakened.

[sky]

Originally Posted by starnight1

Why would it all be nothing? If so, why are we here like this?

Starnight have a read of Thich Nhat Hahn "No fear, no death " I cannot add a link for some reason, it might help you

[jonesboy]

Originally Posted by sky123

Bodhicitta means, one who has a wish to become enlightened motivated by compassion for all sentient beings.
Bodhi means to become awakened.

You just really like to argue don't you. Did you even look it up?

Etymologically, the word is a combination of the Sanskrit words bodhi and citta. Bodhi means "awakening" or "enlightenment". Citta derives from the Sanskrit root cit, and means "that which is conscious" (i.e., mind or consciousness). Bodhicitta may be translated as "awakening mind" or "mind of enlightenment".
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodhicitta

Bodhichitta (Skt. bodhicitta; Tib. བྱང་ཆུབ་ཀྱི་སེམས་, chang chub kyi sem; Wyl. byang chub kyi sems) is the compassionate wish to attain enlightenment for the benefit of all beings.

Literal Meaning/Etymology
Bodhi means our ‘enlightened essence’ and chitta (Skt. citta) means ‘heart’ or 'mind', hence the translation ‘the heart of enlightened mind’.

Scholarly Definitions
The most famous definition of bodhichitta appears in Maitreya's Abhisamayalankara:

This has twin aspects or purposes: 1) focusing on sentient beings with compassion, and 2) focusing on complete enlightenment with wisdom.
Khenpo Pema Vajra defines bodhichitta as "the wish to attain enlightenment in order to free all other sentient beings from the sufferings of existence and lead them to the unsurpassable bliss of omniscience."[2]
Khenpo Tsöndrü defines the generation of bodhichitta as "a special type of mental consciousness endowed with two aspects, inspired by the cause, longing to bring about the welfare of others, and accompanied by the support, longing to attain complete and perfect awakening."[3]

Absolute & Relative
Bodhichitta is categorized into ‘relative’ or ‘conventional bodhichitta’, and ‘absolute bodhichitta’.
Relative bodhichitta entails the compassionate wish to attain enlightenment for the benefit of all living beings and to train in the methods to achieve that aim.
Absolute bodhichitta is the direct insight into the absolute nature of things.
http://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Bodhichitta

Should I go on?

[jonesboy]

Here is a great sutra that talks about universal mind, emptiness and nirvana just to name a few .

I am just now reading it for the first time and we are as a group going over it chapter by chapter. Just started chapter 6 if anyone is interested and it is about the difference between what the Buddha taught and th atman and Hindu Brahman concepts.

Here is a link to an online version.

http://www.lamayeshe.com/article/bod...ction-dharma-0

[sky]

Originally Posted by jonesboy

You just really like to argue don't you. Did you even look it up?

Etymologically, the word is a combination of the Sanskrit words bodhi and citta. Bodhi means "awakening" or "enlightenment". Citta derives from the Sanskrit root cit, and means "that which is conscious" (i.e., mind or consciousness). Bodhicitta may be translated as "awakening mind" or "mind of enlightenment".
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodhicitta

Bodhichitta (Skt. bodhicitta; Tib. བྱང་ཆུབ་ཀྱི་སེམས་, chang chub kyi sem; Wyl. byang chub kyi sems) is the compassionate wish to attain enlightenment for the benefit of all beings.

Literal Meaning/Etymology
Bodhi means our ‘enlightened essence’ and chitta (Skt. citta) means ‘heart’ or 'mind', hence the translation ‘the heart of enlightened mind’.

Scholarly Definitions
The most famous definition of bodhichitta appears in Maitreya's Abhisamayalankara:

This has twin aspects or purposes: 1) focusing on sentient beings with compassion, and 2) focusing on complete enlightenment with wisdom.
Khenpo Pema Vajra defines bodhichitta as "the wish to attain enlightenment in order to free all other sentient beings from the sufferings of existence and lead them to the unsurpassable bliss of omniscience."[2]
Khenpo Tsöndrü defines the generation of bodhichitta as "a special type of mental consciousness endowed with two aspects, inspired by the cause, longing to bring about the welfare of others, and accompanied by the support, longing to attain complete and perfect awakening."[3]

Absolute & Relative
Bodhichitta is categorized into ‘relative’ or ‘conventional bodhichitta’, and ‘absolute bodhichitta’.
Relative bodhichitta entails the compassionate wish to attain enlightenment for the benefit of all living beings and to train in the methods to achieve that aim.
Absolute bodhichitta is the direct insight into the absolute nature of things.
http://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Bodhichitta

Should I go on?

It is not about arguing but when a person posts on a Buddhist thread that Taoism is another tradition in Buddhism then it should be disagreed as someone starting out could be very confused.

[jonesboy]

I showed you how Taoism is a philosophy and as a philosophy it is part of Buddhism or could be part of any tradition.

There is also another aspect to it that has grown over time well after the writing of Loa Tzu into a system of practices and a tradition.

Yang Chu was a philosopher of the classic age of Chinese thought who probably lived in the 300's B.C.E. He has been associated with the Taoists since the rise of official Confucianism and the consolidation of what we now call 'Taoism', although this term is problematic, as thinkers like Yang Chu, Chuang Tzu, and Lao Tzu are quite different and were not considered to be members of a single school in ancient times.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/tao/ycgp/index.htm

The post you just quoted is about bodhicitta which is pure Buddhism and nothing to do with Taoism.

Your comments shows again you just like to argue.

[starnight1]

Originally Posted by jonesboy

Have you ever heard of the saying returning to the light?

Now Christians are good at this in realizing that the light is Love, Peace that it is to such a degree that it is beyond description.

That light is all that is, it is light but light has no form it is empty. It is our obstructions, the things we grasp on to that keeps us from realizing our true nature as that light, as that unbound love.

Buddhist call that Bodhicitta.

Bodhi means our ‘enlightened essence’ and chitta (Skt. citta) means ‘heart’ or 'mind', hence the translation ‘the heart of enlightened mind’.

An outpouring of divine love to help all sentient beings achieve enlightenment.

Said another way from the TTC.

CHAPTER 7
Heaven and Earth are still.
Why are Heaven and Earth still?
Because they are detached.
The Sage is detached, so he is like Heaven and Earth; thus he is at one with all.
Being at one, he performs selfless actions and
so he is fulfilled.

CHAPTER 14
Look, it can never be seen, for it has no form.
Listen, it can never be heard, it is beyond sound.
Grasp, it can never be held, it is intangible.
Although it can never be seen, heard or held, its spirit is always there.
For it is formed from nothing and so returns to nothing.
It is beyond description,
But it is the Mother of the Ten Thousand Things.
It has no beginning and no end, but it is great.
Stay with this (in your heart) the ancient Dao,
but move with the present.
Knowing the Dao is the ancient beginning of all things.

Jesus talked about it like this:

From the Gospel of Thomas.


50. Jesus said, "If they say to you, 'Where have you come from?' say to them, 'We have come from the light, from the place where the light came into being by itself, established [itself], and appeared in their image.' If they say to you, 'Is it you?' say, 'We are its children, and we are the chosen of the living Father.' If they ask you, 'What is the evidence of your Father in you?' say to them, 'It is motion and rest.'"

Notice he said motion and rest.

Motion being form and rest being emptiness/silence and that it is within a person.

Yes i know the returing to light from christianity....i was raised in christian background but not really v deep into that.
Now when i read your post, i get a feeling Dao--All that is--Light,Love
this tree r same.
Also we often say the universe is a "Being", there is no beginning no end.
If so, it seems we r going around around for this chicken or egg question(which comes first).
And from physics pespective, all is energy and there is only energy, "Matter"is a form called"energy at rest."

I tried to open the link http://www.lamayeshe.com/article/bod...ction-dharma-0 failed to open today, is there another way to read it, if no, i will try another internet service next week.

[starnight1]

Originally Posted by sky123

Starnight have a read of Thich Nhat Hahn "No fear, no death " I cannot add a link for some reason, it might help you

I find this book will take time to read it.
I v read some articles by Thich Nhat Hahn last year, now i just searched some again, he is such a good teacher for meditation, very useful for daily practices.:)

[jonesboy]

I am so sorry, that was the wrong link.

Here is a link to the The Lankavatara Sutra