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**kvitacencia** · 01-07-2012, 12:38 PM

Hi tjampel,

This is off topic - but I'm not at all clear what you're saying here. Are you perhaps implying that Theravadins don't feel compassion for mosquitos ?

( I also didn't notice anyone gaining 'immediate enlightenment' during the years when I practised Vajrayana, by the way!)

I'm not implying that at all. Of course those who practice in the Theravada tradition have compassion for mosquitos! I'm referring, of course, to having compassion conjoined with the wish for enlightenment (for the benefit of all sentient beings, both as a wish and as an actively engaged practice), which is why I tried to do just that; I guess I failed to do it well.

No person should practice in the vajrayana tradition unless they feel the same desire to actually help mosquitos as they feel to help humans, based on having previously meditated successfully on equanimity. They should wish to get enlightened immediately (that is to say, in one lifetime, if possible....that's immediate compared to 3 countless eons) for the purpose of helping every sentient being; that includes every single mosquito that ever bit them. Now you can't do much with a mosquito in its current life but you can help it over trillions of years, if you believe in that kind of stuff. In vajrayana, they do.

I don't know who has and who hasn't gained enlightenment. In any tradition people claim that so and so has achieved such and such realization. Do you believe them? It's no different in Vajrayana; there are various practitioners who are said to have achieved a variety of realizations, up to enlightenment, and some of them are living today. You can't know unless and until you achieve a level of realization where you too are within reach of that goal. It would be really great if you could see a physical change that was undeniable in every being that achieved the level of arhat or even stream enterer/arya; then we could compare between traditions, and choose the one with the highest percentage, I suppose.

01-07-2012, 12:38 PM	#24
kvitacencia Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 432 Senior Member	Hi tjampel, This is off topic - but I'm not at all clear what you're saying here. Are you perhaps implying that Theravadins don't feel compassion for mosquitos ? ( I also didn't notice anyone gaining 'immediate enlightenment' during the years when I practised Vajrayana, by the way!) I'm not implying that at all. Of course those who practice in the Theravada tradition have compassion for mosquitos! I'm referring, of course, to having compassion conjoined with the wish for enlightenment (for the benefit of all sentient beings, both as a wish and as an actively engaged practice), which is why I tried to do just that; I guess I failed to do it well. No person should practice in the vajrayana tradition unless they feel the same desire to actually help mosquitos as they feel to help humans, based on having previously meditated successfully on equanimity. They should wish to get enlightened immediately (that is to say, in one lifetime, if possible....that's immediate compared to 3 countless eons) for the purpose of helping every sentient being; that includes every single mosquito that ever bit them. Now you can't do much with a mosquito in its current life but you can help it over trillions of years, if you believe in that kind of stuff. In vajrayana, they do. I don't know who has and who hasn't gained enlightenment. In any tradition people claim that so and so has achieved such and such realization. Do you believe them? It's no different in Vajrayana; there are various practitioners who are said to have achieved a variety of realizations, up to enlightenment, and some of them are living today. You can't know unless and until you achieve a level of realization where you too are within reach of that goal. It would be really great if you could see a physical change that was undeniable in every being that achieved the level of arhat or even stream enterer/arya; then we could compare between traditions, and choose the one with the highest percentage, I suppose.
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