[jstizzle]

Happy to be able to agree with Aloka on something....the cat's meows are very cute and also...I'll add...very timely,
punctuating the end of the teaching perfectly.

There's an interesting debate among Tibetans about Milarepa. He's always referred to as Tibet's greatest yogi but...was he? Was he an ordinary man who achieved great things through yogic perception or...was he some kind of emanation of a great being. If the latter how can he be Tibet's greatest yogi. I mean, someone who is already a buddha doesn't need to meditate on anything, really. And if they choose to make a show of meditating to inspire the masses, or whatever, they're not being a great yogi at all. They're constantly seeing reality without ever having to meditate; they're achieving absolutely nothing through meditation; they're just putting on a good show.

Tibet's greatest yogi should be a guy who wasn't so nice, got into fights, treated people badly, and suffered because of it, and then....for whatever reason, had a burning desire to right these wrongs. And that is exactly the kind of being Milarepa was (assuming he was just a regular guy before his liberation). He killed a lot of people intentionally (for what he felt was a good cause---to protect his mother from abuse by relatives), got nothing at all for his efforts (his mother died), and then truly regretted what he'd done and sought refuge in the dharma.

When Milarepa was asked "who are you...really" at various times after he had completed his various retreats and began his teaching career as an itinerant poet/storyteller who taught by answering villager's questions with poem and song. Each time he was asked, he repeated that he was just an ordinary sentient being who achieved freedom through taking proper refuge and practicing his teacher's instructions well. And still no one believed him and he's treated, to this day, as a sublime emanation of whomever by many.

And the same is said to be true for all the great lineage founders and many of the great practitioners. They are all said to be emanations of some great being. So the moral seems to be, unless you're already some kind of realized being you can't hope to achieve complete liberation. That's not why the Buddha taught us ordinary beings how to achieve just those states, I hope ("first make sure you're already enlightened, then pretend to learn to meditate, etc...")

For me....Milarepa is an ordinary guy who had a very tragic life prior to his involvement in Buddhism, who's motivation and effort was unparalleled and who's practice during 12 years of more or less continuous retreat, led to a high level of realization. That is inspirational; the emanation stuff is not.

Now could Milarepa fit himself into the horn of a yak (as was /is claimed)----as likely as the Buddha being able to demonstrate fire and ice in the same place. Was he experiencing existential angst, was he suffering, I think not. And isn't that the goal?

One of my more unconventional teachers (he refuses to teach at dharma centers because of their "taint" of "holiness" once came up with a description of what it's like to be enlightened that I've always liked. To be enlightened, he said, is being able to say "I'm doing OK" no matter what the circumstance and mean it completely in every way. Does this "dumb down" concepts of enlightenment; well, as the video points out, that may not be a bad thing. If everything ....and I mean everything is perfectly OK then where's the basis for suffering. As long as OK is good enough, that is (as long as it doesn't imply..."could be better"). That's the kind of OK my teacher meant, of course, not "so so" but..."it's fine". Does this apply to any of us? Well, certainly not me. Perhaps one or more of you.

So, yeah, I'll take my Buddha fully human (rather than one who descended from Akanishta heaven to take that form), prone to error, on occasion, and yes, when he told Ananda, as his paranibbanha was fast approaching that , sure, he could have extended his life had someone bothered to ask him, perhaps there's a bit of snippiness in his voice (in my mind at least).

Apologize for the rant-i-ness of this post.