I've been reading a lot of Buddhism. An idea occurred to me that a recognized bodhisattva is like the highest leaders in the church and getting the second anointing is like having the church recognize your soul as one completely dedicated to the work by other recognized bodhisattvas.

There is the layity and then there is the sangha which is LDS paid clergy living off the donations for blessings setup.

While visiting my brother we talked about how gurus think they are above regular rules. For some reason they have so much good karma that the views of regular people on their personal lives and some methods to enlighten their layity don't apply.

So it is interesting to me to think the brethren have encoded this idea into a ritual. They can break rules for the greater good. Let Laban's head keep rolling into eternity.

Bodhisattvas put off their own enlightenment to help others reach enlightenment.

Which is ridiculous.

They would be far better able to help others reach enlightenment if they were enlightened themselves.

Church leaders are not enlightened.

How much can they help you?

Thanks. They put their saving themselves off and so they need their second anointing.

madeguy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Bodhisattvas put off their own enlightenment to
> help others reach enlightenment.
>
> Which is ridiculous.
>
> They would be far better able to help others reach
> enlightenment if they were enlightened
> themselves.

The Boddhisattva transcends physicality before dissolving into nothingness. If the people here entered the sattvic state on a frequent basis or at least accumulated metta then the board would be even more harmonious.

It is clear that some people are not as sattvic as they could be, because of the trap of linear thinking methods.

Good thing the brethren are 1 doing the thinking and 2 have a pass on sinning so that they can help so many members increase in glory.

None of the Mormon "Brethren" are in this class.

Not even close.



Just like a dream experience, whatever things I enjoy will become a memory. Whatever is past will not be seen again.

Thus, by the virtue that has collected through all that I have done, may the pain of every living creature be completely cleared away.

I will liberate those not liberated. I will release those not released. I will relieve those unrelieved. And set living beings in nirvana.

The Buddhas neither wash ill deeds away with water, nor remove beings' sufferings with their hands, nor transfer their realizations to others.

Beings are released through the teachings of the truth. The final reality.

Thus, by the virtue that has collected, through all that I have done, may the pain of every living creature be completely cleared away.

Wisdom and compassion will set us free.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siDCvpB5KiA



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/31/2023 10:04PM by anybody.

A bodhisattva to me is not a religious bureaucrat, but more like what Catholics would consider a saint -- a spiritual individual who is working in the trenches. In Catholic or protestant churches, it might be someone who organizes a homeless shelter or a soup kitchen, or who does practical missionary work in third-world countries, such as establishing clean water programs.

It is doing things like setting up homeless shelters and soup kitchens and/or meditating with extreme focus over multiple lifetimes that brings the sage to the edge of nirvana. It is then and only then that the option of becoming a bodhisattva arises.

A bodhisattva is therefore like a saint who has already been sanctified: no longer able to perform physical tasks but now able to provide spiritual support not as an intermediary with God, for there is no personal deity, but as a teacher, a guide, a source of inspiration.

The roles are similar. Both saints and bodhisattvas are a superior class of humans on the verge of merging with ultimate reality but holding back in large part to help humans or, in the latter case, all living beings.

The most powerful true Boddhisattva have cast aside the bonds of flesh. Kwannon squats upon the earth with the fury of sonorous thunder.

Lady Guanyin is the Chinese Buddhist version of Isis / Virgin Mary.


https://www.metmuseum.org/perspectives/articles/2021/5/virgin-mary-guanyin

Guanyin is the Chinese translation of Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion. Bodhisattvas are enlightened beings who chose to stay on earth as accessible examples for Buddhist faithful to follow. Originally depicted as a male or gender-neutral entity able to take on thirty-three manifestations, Avalokiteshvara is a compassionate savior who hears the woes of humankind, regardless of age, gender, or social class. However, in imperial China, Guanyin became increasingly cemented as a female figure. Similar to the Virgin Mary, Guanyin became a popular intercessor for humanity to understand divine salvation.

I am totally enlightened.

Absolutely. You have absolute bodhicitta.

"The majority of men... are not capable of thinking, but only of believing, and... are not accessible to reason, but only to authority." — Schopenhauer

You are not a person, you are the awareness in which the person (you)appears. There is only awareness, and all that appears in it are objects appearing in awareness.

Awareness is not a thing, and it is not nothing. So what is it?
It is that which never changes, and is always present. It has no beginning and no end. Awareness has no attributes, and can not be measured. This is what you are. Jesus pointed to this.

The entire universe that you perceive is a projection of your own subconscious mind. It is all you. If you know this, you can do anything. There is no order of difficulty in miracles. Know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

So what is a mind then?

There is one ontological mind, from which we dissociate through the process of incarnation as set up by the parameters of evolutionary biology.

Yet the march of evolution is independent of time, time being an illusion, as the quantum age is telling us. The information is stored in the akash, making all of us eternal beings who have forgotten who we are.

I think the crux of the problem is that we suppose we understand the one mind and project all of our prejudices onto it and call it God. That God is and will always be a myth. However, the ineffable will always be with us. I believe Donald Hoffman when he says by our very construction, through the evolutionary process, we cannot see reality as it is. Which is a riff on "No man can look upon God and live".

The 19th Century was awash in bad ideas. The restorationist movement may have been one of the less awful of competing options. However, the world has moved on. Being less awful than the next guy is wearing thin. Joseph's great innovation, in Hoffman's theory, was to create a cult high in reproductive fitness. With that, the sky's the limit.

Mind is an object appearing in awareness. Anything you can perceive is an object appearing in awareness.

We live in a non-dual world. This means there is only one thing that is real. That which never changes. Awareness.

Everything else is an object appearing in awareness, and will not last forever.

You are awareness. You will never end.

There is nothing you can do to become what you already are.

You are that which you are seeking.

Our minds get cluttered up with thoughts which cause emotions and cloud our ability to see who we are.

Your true nature is awareness, nothing more. Let go of everything else, and you allow the ego to dissolve. When it is gone, you will know the truth.

What a great thread! Hats off to anyone for bringing nonduality to the table. It so helps with the deism conundrum. Mormon mystical experiences can't be explained away, but they can be understood through the nonduality lens.

That's not to excuse parasitic religions like Mormonism. I wouldn't go back. Did my Mormon upbringing lead me to embrace Buddhist thought? I think it helped. It's a helluva way to get there.

I can't square the circle of reincarnation. Something has to pass from one life to the next with something in it from previous lives. In my opinions Buddhism doesn't cover it well enough for me.

Yes. I found the teachings of Advaita Vedenta to be much more clear.

They teach we have a causal body, a subtle body, and a gross body. I believe only the causal body reincarnates leaving behind the personality and memories of the gross body.

So, the 'person' does not reincarnate, but the causal body, influenced by experiences, carries the influences to the next gross body, and continues.