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**7kitthuptarill** · 12-05-2011, 06:42 AM

Hi Tijampel,

Seems today is a bad day about my comments...

I reread your comment quoted at #32 and indeed I rush my commentary because I couldn't understood well if you wrote "can" or "can't" at:

Even with "can" or "can't" I couldn't understand the above statement.

About ghosts, well I don't believe in them. About deity, I know that Tibetan Buddhism has many like the Green Tara. About God, I don't believe in any sort of God, Goddess or Gods, being them creators or not like the case of the new age "universal consciousness".

About philosophers of God, well we have a bunch of them that, through philosophical struggle, think that such exists.

It is quiet common to read that if you can't prove the existence of God, ghosts or whatever, that do not means that they do not exist for real...

But anyway... that is in the realm of personal believes...

And no, I am not being critical with your logic... just tried to state my opinion (not very welcome at times).

Hi Kaarine; I don't believe in ghosts either, never having seen one. If ever happens I'll have to reassess, I guess.

However, as for dismissing them or any other non-provable superstitious phenomena out of hand, I have to defer to some degree to those who do claim personal experience, especially where they are highly respected within their tradition. Let's use Theravada this time. For example in the Thai Forest tradition...

Ajahn Mun believed in rebirth and beings in the formless realm. There's a nice little story he told to Ajahn Bua (his student, and another highly accomplished monk of the Forest Tradition) about one such encounter shortly after he claimed to have achieved arhat status.

Ajahn Sao, one of those hailed as "founders" of the Thai Forest tradition and Ajahn Mun's principal teacher, rarely ever spoke; and he once explained this to Ajahn Mun in terms of a previous rebirth he had remembered.

Ajahn Bua also claims to have observed Ajahn Mun and others use clairvoyance on various occasions, generally to understand other people's needs, so they could help them.

These are all people who spent 40-50 years in very primitive conditions meditating many hours per day and certainly not engaged in the pursuit of Samsara. They are all believed to have achieved very deep absorptions and to have properly followed the instructions of their teachers. These unusual experiences came after they achieved great proficiency or even after they achieved (it is said) Arhat-hood. So I can just dismiss them as crazy or deluded or I can say "I don't know what it was that they were experiencing; I am not experiencing this and I didn't personally observe them performing any miraculous feats, etc., so I can't simply start believing in any of this stuff." That's a far different approach than to say "I have decided that this simply can't be. I won't even listen to anyone who claims to have experienced any of these things". I take the former approach.

As for deities, I think you are referring to general Mahayana belief, not Tibetan Buddhist belief. Mahayana practitioners believe (or at least don't dismiss the possibility) that Buddhas' minds don't cease to exist after death of the physical Buddha that appears in whatever realm they appear in. That they continue to help sentient beings in various ways. No point arguing this. It's the wrong thread for it. Unfortunately it leads to a whole host of practice lineages which, for example, simply use faith in some holy "other" being to achieve success for themselves. The Buddha said that we need to work out our own salvation. Tibetan Buddhists do put that belief into practice, as you can see below.

Deity practice is different than cultural belief in the existence of deities and it can be done and should be done with the understanding that "deity" is nothing other than the highest and best part of your mind (your wisdom)...that part you are trying to achieve. That it takes a bright and colorful form is characteristic of many meditation aids. The idea is to be able to generate complex images without effort. As you know, when one achieves absorptions with regard to meditation objects they are able to examine them more and more subtly and to visualize them in exquisite detail. Deities are understood as the knowledge you want...what you wish to become. They are mentally created entities in practice and always described as mentally created and not actual beings flocking to practitioners.

A Tibetan Buddhist practitioner visualizes a deity when doing their sadhana practice, as arising from emptiness and as not separate from their own mind. To do otherwise is improper. And, furthermore, when one does visualize a deity they are never to see it as truly existent either in terms of it's material existence or how the practitioner relates with it (emptiness of the 3 spheres...the 3rd referencing any true existence of the practitioner (in terms of having a self nature)). They are to see it as representing the type of mind they wish to have. It's their goal to achieve that status and help other sentient beings. One visualizes deities, generally, to get to stable meditation. Later they visualize more subtle energetic phenomena, which forms the bulk of their practice.

12-05-2011, 06:42 AM	#40
7kitthuptarill Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 494 Senior Member	Hi Tijampel, Seems today is a bad day about my comments... I reread your comment quoted at #32 and indeed I rush my commentary because I couldn't understood well if you wrote "can" or "can't" at: Even with "can" or "can't" I couldn't understand the above statement. About ghosts, well I don't believe in them. About deity, I know that Tibetan Buddhism has many like the Green Tara. About God, I don't believe in any sort of God, Goddess or Gods, being them creators or not like the case of the new age "universal consciousness". About philosophers of God, well we have a bunch of them that, through philosophical struggle, think that such exists. It is quiet common to read that if you can't prove the existence of God, ghosts or whatever, that do not means that they do not exist for real... But anyway... that is in the realm of personal believes... And no, I am not being critical with your logic... just tried to state my opinion (not very welcome at times). Hi Kaarine; I don't believe in ghosts either, never having seen one. If ever happens I'll have to reassess, I guess. However, as for dismissing them or any other non-provable superstitious phenomena out of hand, I have to defer to some degree to those who do claim personal experience, especially where they are highly respected within their tradition. Let's use Theravada this time. For example in the Thai Forest tradition... Ajahn Mun believed in rebirth and beings in the formless realm. There's a nice little story he told to Ajahn Bua (his student, and another highly accomplished monk of the Forest Tradition) about one such encounter shortly after he claimed to have achieved arhat status. Ajahn Sao, one of those hailed as "founders" of the Thai Forest tradition and Ajahn Mun's principal teacher, rarely ever spoke; and he once explained this to Ajahn Mun in terms of a previous rebirth he had remembered. Ajahn Bua also claims to have observed Ajahn Mun and others use clairvoyance on various occasions, generally to understand other people's needs, so they could help them. These are all people who spent 40-50 years in very primitive conditions meditating many hours per day and certainly not engaged in the pursuit of Samsara. They are all believed to have achieved very deep absorptions and to have properly followed the instructions of their teachers. These unusual experiences came after they achieved great proficiency or even after they achieved (it is said) Arhat-hood. So I can just dismiss them as crazy or deluded or I can say "I don't know what it was that they were experiencing; I am not experiencing this and I didn't personally observe them performing any miraculous feats, etc., so I can't simply start believing in any of this stuff." That's a far different approach than to say "I have decided that this simply can't be. I won't even listen to anyone who claims to have experienced any of these things". I take the former approach. As for deities, I think you are referring to general Mahayana belief, not Tibetan Buddhist belief. Mahayana practitioners believe (or at least don't dismiss the possibility) that Buddhas' minds don't cease to exist after death of the physical Buddha that appears in whatever realm they appear in. That they continue to help sentient beings in various ways. No point arguing this. It's the wrong thread for it. Unfortunately it leads to a whole host of practice lineages which, for example, simply use faith in some holy "other" being to achieve success for themselves. The Buddha said that we need to work out our own salvation. Tibetan Buddhists do put that belief into practice, as you can see below. Deity practice is different than cultural belief in the existence of deities and it can be done and should be done with the understanding that "deity" is nothing other than the highest and best part of your mind (your wisdom)...that part you are trying to achieve. That it takes a bright and colorful form is characteristic of many meditation aids. The idea is to be able to generate complex images without effort. As you know, when one achieves absorptions with regard to meditation objects they are able to examine them more and more subtly and to visualize them in exquisite detail. Deities are understood as the knowledge you want...what you wish to become. They are mentally created entities in practice and always described as mentally created and not actual beings flocking to practitioners. A Tibetan Buddhist practitioner visualizes a deity when doing their sadhana practice, as arising from emptiness and as not separate from their own mind. To do otherwise is improper. And, furthermore, when one does visualize a deity they are never to see it as truly existent either in terms of it's material existence or how the practitioner relates with it (emptiness of the 3 spheres...the 3rd referencing any true existence of the practitioner (in terms of having a self nature)). They are to see it as representing the type of mind they wish to have. It's their goal to achieve that status and help other sentient beings. One visualizes deities, generally, to get to stable meditation. Later they visualize more subtle energetic phenomena, which forms the bulk of their practice.
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