[KellyLynchIV]

Hello,

As a way of introducing myself to the Beyond Belief forum I decided to use an old posting of mine indicative of where I am coming from. I have been an intermittent poster on Buddhist forums as part of my practice for a number of years and the process has been very illuminating for me.

The karmic consequences of posting anything short of my best insights forces my mind to go deep within itself. And putting a posting together is a meditative experience that deepens my understanding of the BuddhaDharma and releases the residual karma that still activates my ego.

No one can give anything spiritual to anyone else. My postings are all about my understanding of the path of the Buddhas and are not intended to teach, preach, or persuade others—only Truth can do that. If this posting quickens the Truth within you drop the posting and stay with your inner Truth—the compass heading of the Buddhas.

Twentyfive hundred years ago Siddhartha Gautama made the astonishing discovery that the ego is a "virtual reality" conditioned in the mind by acquired opinions, beliefs, attitudes, etc.. The English term for these empty emotional components of ]ego is sentient beings. Through deep meditation and the power of prajna (perspicacity) Gautama penetrated and released these empty emotional co-factors of his own conditioned personality and realized

Nirvana
the extinguishment of suffering

Buddha: I teach one thing and one thing only—the end of suffering.
Sentient being is one of the most misunderstood and misused concepts in Mahayana Buddhism and should be thoroughly penetrated and understood or you will completely miss the point of the Bodhisattva Vow and the ending of mental anguish by the release of all sentient beings.
Sentient beings are mental entities such as perceptions, beliefs, opinions, attitudes, desires, moods, values, prejudices, convictions, assumptions, preconceptions, biases, habit patterns, dispositions, sentiments, judgments, addictions, impulses, compulsions, compunctions, obsessions, scruples, delusions, views, concepts, thoughts, ideas, etc., encapsulated in an ego and emotionally identified with and mentally felt to be valid and real to ego. "I am what I feel/experience" is the cry of the ego—the artificial sense of self construction.

These karmic habit patterns conditioned into the mind by the body growing up the way it did are a fait accompli—an accomplished deed. The mind is ignorant of the fact that karma constructs an emotionally identified self image (ego) in relationship to the world surrounding the body in which it finds itself. Ego is a psychosomatic protective coating unconsciously designed by the mind in which it dwells. Ego is the pretentious karmic character playing you!

It is only a matter of time when the limitations of the artificial ego generate suffering in the expanding mind. When the suffering gets too intense the mind seeks a way out or breaks down. Most minds get egotistically identified with families, traditions, self complacency, careers, causes, religions, politics, mental illness, drugs, and other delusions/illusions and dissipate their life forces addicted to the diabolical amusements and distractions of samsara.

A self selected few realize the Truth of Suffering and enter the path/practice/process of the BuddhaDharma and the ending of their ego inflicted suffering.
Suffering is an alarm
telling mind it is time to wake up,
pay attention, and return to
Original Mind

the Mind you are
before illusions such as
father and mother
existed


Thank you for this opportunity to express my understanding of the BuddhaDharma.

*****

To those who interpret or believe releasing sentient beings to mean saving sentient beings or benefiting sentient beings I ask the following questions. What do you think sentient beings are and how can they be benefitted? What is a saved sentient being and where do these saved sentient beings go or dwell?