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Interesting, Nick. Probably the strongest female figure in Tibetan Buddhism is Green Tara, who I don't know a lot about but she's more of a protective figure.

Wasn't familiar w/ Kwan Yin before, but according to Wikipedia it looks like they're related, but it's unclear how much Kwan Yin derives from Avalokiteshvara and how much from a Taoist immortal. One common Tibetan depiction of Avalokiteshvara, or Chenrezig in Tibetan, is a male figure with...

I've never had a living guru, no, though I've met some accomplished Tibetan teachers. Padmasambhava is a highly mythologized historical figure and sort of the patron saint of Tibet, said to have first brought Buddhism to Tibet and to watch over the people still. Deities are a slippery notion in...

True enough, and plenty of people have concepts of deity that don't violate the natural world or their neighbors' peace of mind. It's just whenever I hear the "Just look at it!" argument for Creationism, I like to point out that I'm looking at the same world and drawing quite different, equally...

Then what?

Opposing others doesn't amount to much if you have no alternatives or solutions. People will take the devil they know every time.

Hehe, you started it. Still, I think we're on topic here, asking whether there remains any function for belief. Of course, there's always plenty of work to do at home, "motes and beams" and all that.

I think we're slowly coming around to working with natural systems rather than trying to control them, and that's wise, but it's us adapting just like any natural critter. Nature in all its variety is magnificent--personifying it or ascribing it to some source only cheapens it, for me. Feeling...

Um...no. Dogmatic Rationalism/Materialism ignores a wide swath of the human experience, and any attempt to impose The One, True Answer, be it religious, philosophical or scientific, ignores the variety of human consciousness. If you want to assume everyone is stupid and ought to be like you, go...

Um...wouldn't humans and all their constructs be *part of* Sky Daddy's construct? And what's so perfect about nature? The sheer variety and complexity belies any kind of design--there are seventeen solutions for any given problem, and not all of them elegant. Most of the species that have lived...

That was some handy vision--reminds me of a lucid dream I had once, though I don't recall being in any great quandary at the time. I had a similar dilemma when I started Guru Yoga, where you basically summon and merge with a guru figure. I didn't know who/what to use. Padmasambhava, who is...

How would you separate people from their beliefs? Repeat the atrocities of Mao's army? Talk them out of it? I agree that religious institutions are largely parasitic, and that much of their pathology derives from the power they offer to opportunists. I also think we need to rationally assess...

It's equally evident to me that phenomena, particularly life on earth, are strictly emergent. Natural structures and systems are so distinct from things designed by intelligences that we hold to two as opposites: the natural and the artificial.

Yeah, I'm prone to visions, so what? Last night (NYE) I attempted to find and access any singularity that may or may not await us in 2012. It wasn't any organized meditation or vision quest, and it was an environment where one would be inclined to discount visions--dancing, drunk and high at a...

I found the lecture, Alan Watts' "Religion of No Religion"--I was looking for the Mahayana teaching of ji ji muge. 1. ji--the world of particulars, the material, the practical Close observation of this world reveals the relationships among particulars and the insubstantiality of the material...

I won't be seeing the movie because of all the mediocre reviews. The consensus seems to be, "There's a controversy over this?"

PS--I decidedly not "enlightened," btw--making no claim on that :p

Nothing wrong with that quote, but it's not quite what I was getting at. There are Zen terms for the world of phenomena and for the "uncarved block," and the four different relations they hold throughout the process, and they're really quite handy but I'll have to find the lecture.

This quote doesn't quite ring true with my experience and study. I reached a point for several months about seven years ago when I was paralyzed by the direct and unshakeable experience of unity, that all is one, and while in a sense I did have to "come down" and retreat from practice for a...

Here's from this summer