Do these words count, or should they be ignored?

Those words were spoken at the start of the invasion, the aim being to pacify any response. Along with threats of nuclear Armageddon to any nato forces who were going to help the Ukrainian army defend their territory. Just a few days previously the Russians emphatically denied they were not going to invade. What they say changes from day to day. And when interlocutors say, but you said something different previously. They laugh and say, ahh but it’s not an invasion, it’s a special military operation. And when the Nazi’s don’t seem to be there to fight back, the whole reason for the invasion. They say it’s little green men and laugh again. As I say, the Ukrainians have got the measure of Putin’s regime.

I’m familiar with the arguments, from the sources you cite. We mustn’t lose site of what Putin is thinking and saying and the pattern of invasions and influence in former Russian colonies since the early 1990’s. And of course what the citizens of those countries say and wan’t, filtering out the Russian propaganda.

I read the thread at the time. What you are suggesting is an alternative interpretation of what happened on the ground and what Putin’s motives were. Which is fine and it can be debated, I’m not looking to get into a discussion of those issue here. That will be for historians to argue over.
If Putin’s aim was to secure the Dombass, well he does seem to have managed that, but at what cost? And what of his grand ambitions, which he spoke about at length before the invasion?

So why was a military Column marching on Kiev at the beginning of the invasion?

And if the plan was to bed down in bunkers in the Dombass, why did a column march on Kiev?

The Russian casualties are large, even if the numbers are disputed.

distinguishes three types of aspects of the 'soul': vegetative, animal (perceptive) and rational and saw the process of physical growth both in the womb and in the physical growth process as a gradual fulfillment of the first two aspects. The third is cultivated through virtue. However, this process is completed in the afterlife.

Yes, this makes sense to me, that it is a living development, or growth. The plant cannot flower until the plant has grown, the bud formed and the right season has arrived. Then it flowers in tune with nature, the ecosystem which sustains it. The religious, of spiritual life is about tending to the plant that it grows healthy and straight, is not blighted. The culmination of this process is the transfiguration of the being, the flower representing the thousand petalled lotus of the crown chakra. This transfigured being would walk in another world, having sloughed off, discarded, the physical world.

This to me makes sense even from a purely 'religious neutral' point of view: when we, say, grow from childhood to adolescense and then adulthood we might conceptualize the process of growth as a succession of metaphorical 'deaths' and 'rebirths' and resisting to these 'deaths' is actually detrimental to our spiritual health even if they can be quite scary. I'm not surprised therefore that 'dying to oneself' or similar expressions are used as a positive sign for spiritual development.

Yes, growing pains, or initiations, represented by the stations of the cross, or the trials and tribulations, the four sights of the Buddha, before he found the middle way. These are also important of stages of development of the person, or being, towards a life of selfless service to fellow beings and the ecosystem, rather than dwelling on the animal passions. Likewise for the follower on the path, there are a series of initiations in which they see, or step forward into, the world (for them) to come. These crises shatter, or break the casing of the bud, that it can open, so to speak.

I believe that generally Buddhists would assert that all the enlightened minds share the same nature of mind but not the same mind. Just like, say, all fires are instance of 'fire' doesn't imply that all fires are manifestation of a cosmic fire.

Yes, I will not dwell on this, because if it works for Buddhists, then that’s fine and any differences between different traditions, are part of how the tradition developed and are not important.

Notice that they’ve never said they wanted to conquer Ukraine and, unsurprisingly, never tried to.

Putin lies about his actions, the Ukrainians know this. They see him for what he is.
The special military operation started with an assault on Kiev, the plan being to overthrow the governmental control quickly, control Kiev. Then install a puppet government and convince the Ukrainians and the world that it was necessary because the Ukraine state had been taken over by Nazi’s. The de-Nazification narrative, which then became the little green man narrative.
The plan went wrong and what we have now is the result of repeated failures by Russia to take control of Ukriane. Resulting in trench warfare, or a meat grinder which they throw young healthy Russian men in their hundreds of thousands. Who are dying in their thousands with only metres of ground being won at any one time.

Now Putin is retreating into his bunker as his country slowly sinks economically. He can’t agree a ceasefire of any kind of truce without losing face and endangering his dictatorship. He is terrified and will sacrifice his country to save his skin.

This works in the West’s favour as Russia had become too strong on oil and gas revenues. Which Europe had become dependent on. Even with a lunatic in the Whitehouse and Europe lacking resources to support Ukraine, Russia can’t make any significant ground. Currently Russia is bleeding out and Europe is rearming. Ukraine may be badly damaged after the war ends, but they will have their freedom and will be helped to rebuild by Europe. Russia will go back into the deep freeze.

I’m aware of your geopolitics, but this is not really a geopolitical story, it’s more a spy and espionage novel. Now who is the evil mastermind in this story? Can you think of any names that fit the bill.

I think the best way to see 'moral teachings' of religions is to try to see them as a way to cultivate our own nature. While a 'legalistic' way of seeing them has perhaps its purpose, the deepest way to see them is IMO to see them as aiming to our education and assist our (spiritual) growth.

Very much so. Presumably that is why we are here, to educate us in our spiritual growth?

I mean, any concept of 'moral responsibility' that I find coherent assumes that the agent of an action and the bearer of moral responsibility of that action is the same person.

This is where my thinking differs from Buddhist theology and I move back to the Hindu tradition. I find the dissolution of the individual upon death as incoherent in the way it is generally presented. I am aware of the explanation for it, but see it as part of an apology for the wholesale rejection of atman and a presence of the divine world in our world.
I am unsure about the identity of the Bodhisattvas and enlightened beings. Also there does seem to be some equivocation around this point. There is a universal consciousness, but each individual is one drop of water in an ocean of water drops. There is a denial of a permanent self, or identity, but a permanent self, a universal self is smuggled in and plays the same role.

Hinduism is saying the same thing, but in atman the individual retains some individuation ( not the Jungian definition) while similarly being a drop of atman in the sea of atman.

There seems to be equivocation around Karma too, that it shapes one’s next life, while denying that the individual remains after death. And how can the karmic debt be repaid, when the agent who took out the karmic debt does not any more exist. Again, I understand there is a explanation given, but it comes across as apologetics again.

In Hinduism, the divine world is here with us, walking alongside, interacting with us and the theology delineates it’s presence.

Ooh ooh, I must have hit a nerve.

It is well known that the CIA, MI6 and Mossad do the same. Your point?

My point is that Russia had become a friend, you know, even Putin was asking to join NATO at one point. The spies let their guard down. Meanwhile Putin was planning full scale hybrid war and funding his Oligarchs to hob nob and make friends with influential people in the West. Ripe for the picking. By this point Russia was Putin, Putin was Russia. On the other side, the CIA wasn’t the U.S., the U.S. and Europe particularly the Germans and the British had become complacent.

And the US just so happened to be at the absolute peak of its power, while Russia was at its low point.

Where were the U.S. and the U.K., why weren’t they infiltrating Russia, getting ready for hybrid warfare? They were asleep at the wheel.

The Americans are the good guys after all!

Straw.

We were talking about state involvement. It is well known that the Russian state will use blackmail and death threats to recruit agents in other countries. When these connections were made, Russia was a friend of the west (mid 90’s for the next decade), allowing Russian influence to spread in the West. Now that Russia is again the enemy, that influence is being exercised. The obvious example of this is Trump himself.

Yes there would have been many Russian escort women looking to take advantage of the opportunity.
There is talk of Epstein using Sergei Belyakov, then Deputy Minister of Economic Development in Russia to procure the women.

Belyakov is a graduate of the FSB Academy which prepares Russian intelligence officers. As the Dossier Center discovered, he helped Epstein to deal with a Russian model who was blackmailing American businessmen, as well as proposing to arrange meetings with Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak and Central Bank Deputy Chairman Alexei Simanovsky. For his part, Epstein advised Belyakov on saving the Russian economy amid imposed sanctions, while also recruiting high-profile guests for SPIEF.

https://dossier.center/jeffreyepsteinrusconnect-en/

Christopher Steele an ex MI6 operative stated yesterday on LBC radio;

My sources in America tell me that the American government, the American intelligence services assessment was that Epstein was recruited as early as the 1970s by Russian organised crime figures in New York and that his information was being used, his operational techniques were being used from that point onwards.

https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/christopher-steele-epstein-trump-russia-5HjdRrM_2/

But the prospect of getting something on a member of the Royal family would be gold dust for the Russian intelligence. Why would the U.S. state be getting into bed (the same bed) with both Russia and the Royal family?

Why would Epstein be trafficking Russian escorts to royal palaces in the U.K. if it was a U.S. state operation?

But with a caveat. The concept of Buddha nature can be taken to mean that all one needs to do is get to some primeval, pure state, and that's that.

Yes, I was not implying this when I introduced the idea that brought up Buddha nature. I was simply pointing out that the nature is within us.

I would suggest though that the process of achieving enlightenment may well be an entirely natural process and that a participant would naturally go through the mental struggles, or adaptation in a form concomitant with their circumstances. For example a shaman in a community of forest dwellers. Or a Stone Age person.

The 'ordinary' state of human beings* is a state in which our nature is, in some sense, 'wounded', we are born in a condition of weakness, tendency to do what is actually harmful to us and so on (we might use the expression 'original sin' for this feature).

Yes, the birth of independent, or transcendent agency*. Quite a responsibility, hence the requirement for us to act responsibly. Indeed religions might well have sprung up as a way to corral our new found agency. To head off our new found powers inevitably being used destructively.

*The fall is a mystery, about what happens when new powers are given to a being. Some characteristics of that being, which were useful in the life of the being prior to the fall. When exercised with the new powers become destructive for a period, while the being is learning to adapt and use the new powers wisely. The powers provided by eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge are great and so the destructive potential is great.

If there is no continuity of memory, then there is no continuity of "interesting threads". On the other hand what if, as Kastrup believes, nothing is lost but all experience is taken up by the universal mind or God, contributing to its evolution? I'm not saying I believe that, but it dispenses with the need for individual rebirth.

Well the idea as I understand it is that it is a process of the development and refinement of beings. Such that a refined being is taken up into the presence of God (I don’t hold to the idea of one universal God as such) and continues again to develop into a God. A being as a God, a God who is/was a being.

Regarding the continuity of the threads, there is a memory in the being, not the mind. Perhaps in a similar way that karma would be remembered.

It is beginning to look as though it became a Russian operation. This also ties in with election interference in the 2016 elections in the U.S. and Brexit in the U.K. followed by a blackmail operationto control all the clients drawn in by Epstein. Including kompromat on Trump.

There seem to be a lot of Russian escort women moving around the place including one being trafficked into the U.K. for the use of Prince Andrew. Which the police are looking into.

Possible Russian involvement here;

https://dossier.center/jeffreyepsteinrusconnect-en/

What a twisted mind he has

It’s shameful.
When he claimed the files don’t incriminate him, he squirms and then claims that Epstein conducted a conspiracy to frame him. He looks worried.

what does the US have then?

Guns.

I don't know about you guys, but the more I read the more I realize the US is f*cked.

Yep, they’re propped up on an AI bubble right now with the administration enabling corruption on a grand scale. What could possibly go wrong?

As @baker remarked, the idea is quite explicit in some strands of Mahayana with the concept of 'Buddha nature'. However, it can be said that it is implied by the fact that the Buddhist practice is seen as a way to purify the mind, i.e. removing all the 'impurities'. So, rather than a transformation into something 'alien', the Buddhist path actually seems to have been presented as a way to bring the mind-stream to its 'purity'.
This idea is IMO recurrent in ancient religious and philosophical traditions. You can find analogous idea in Christianity, for instance, when sins are depicted as an impurity or an illness that 'stain' the purity (yes, there is original sin but as you probably know the interpretation of that concept wasn't the same among all Christian traditions... and, anyway, there is the idea that all God's creations are originally good and, therefore, evil is a corruption that came about later).

Yes, so my intuition is actually an acceptance (or realisation) of a deeper understanding underlying these religions. That they are playing a role in a process of purification of the self. That the self is not required, to go anywhere, to do anything, achieve anything in reconciling (becoming liberated from) their incarnation. But rather to relinquish, to lay down the trappings of our incarnate selves.

This ventures into some concepts more native to some schools of Hinduism, with the veil being the "veil of Maya".

Yes, my position is more on the Hinduism side of the issue (via Theosophy)

The problem with assuming defaults, innate essences (such as "all beings have Buddha nature") is that they bog one down.

Assumed for the purpose of discursive discussion.

If you have Buddha nature, then why are you here, suffering, instead of being happy and enlightened?

One is going through a process, there may be many other things going on (behind the veil), or of which we are a small part. Which entail what is going on here. One of the first things that occur to us as individuals as a young child is the realisation of our individuality and therefore questions arise about our circumstances, what is going on here, where is this, why am I here? I remember this realisation in my life, I must have been about 3yrs old. These questions have not been answered, even though I have searched long and hard for an answer. As such there cannot be an answer for your question, because the circumstances relating to it have not been established.

If you suffer now, despite having/being Buddha nature, and later become enlightened, then where's the guarantee that you won't lose your enligtenment and suffer again?

Again this can’t be answered, as above. However, presumably, one would have sufficient agency to prevent the onset of suffering. Although I would suggest that there is likely an exalted state equivalent to suffering within that exalted realm. On the cosmic scale, there may be imperfect gods, or greater processes beyond our understanding going on.

If you are now covered by the veil of Maya, how can you possibly trust your choice of spiritual guidance?

Through humility and faith. This would necessarily require living a relatively simple and stress free life.

Thus assuming some kind of innate natrure, an essence, implies, among other things, that you are ultimately helpless against that veil of Maya, helpless against suffering.

I’m not quite sure where the implication lies here. But never the less, when one thinks about our circumstances, we are as individuals helpless. We rely entirely on our community for almost everything. When it comes to salvation, we might think that we personally somehow achieve something, but what is more likely is that circumstances bestow it upon us. As we are playing a small part in a greater process. A process which given we are talking about “supernatural” states like nirvana, will likely entail transcendent realities beyond our comprehension.

It's how the outlook of innate nature is demoralizing, unless, of course, one has a grand enough ego to compensate for it.

Or perhaps it is an acceptance in humility of a reality. Presumably, by this point one would have deflated and reconciled one’s ego.

I actually find both rebirth and reincarnation entirely plausible.

I also find the Hindu explanation plausible according to which Vishnu/Krishna incarnates himself as a buddha/the Buddha.
Having studied a bit of both Buddhism and Hindusim, I find there is a peculiar fit between the two.

Likewise.

Yes, that’s it. It can also be approached from the opposite direction, as I see it, i.e. nirvana would inevitably pervade all of existence. Thus would pervade all incarnate beings and worlds. I would take it further that all is nirvana and that it is a specific impediment that veils it from us.

In many religions/philosophies there is the idea that we have an innermost desire/implicit knowledge of the 'highest good'.

Yes, or that there is an inner most part of* us which is in some way present in nirvana. Perhaps like a seed.

Going back to what I was saying about the idea that we are already in nirvana, but are blind to it. Is there an idea like this in Buddhism? as it’s an important idea for me. I can’t really remember where it came from.

* I’m thinking of the idea of a part of our being, which is not physical, or mental, but an aspect of a living being.

But perhaps you meant something different.

I was probably continuing the thought in my head following my reply to Wayfarer. Namely that we don’t know whom experiences nirvana, but in a sense, we do, as it is within us. But we don’t know that, or what we know.
It follows on perhaps from the idea that we are already in nirvana if we could but see it. We are blind to it.

I think people are still digesting what was released last week. Also there are sources you can go to find out all this stuff. But I wouldn’t start going on about that here, I would probably be painting myself as a conspiracy theorist. I would agree with what you’re suggesting here and I can understand why Epstein (of someone else) put a rope around his neck.
The Rothschild connection sounds interesting, do you have a link?

the idea of rebirth makes little sense to me.

On the contrary, I see little point in there only being one life for each being. It would be like introducing a whole lot of interesting threads and by the time of introducing one’s self to them, one is told, time is up now, before one has even begun.

I find Thanissaro Bhikkhu's approach here the easiest to understand: not-self(ing) is a strategy. We already use it anyway every day when we disidentify with things we don't want or don't like. He explains it that the Buddhist practice takes this strategy further, though.

Thankyou, that is an interesting read and I do relate to the idea of strategy here.

(I noticed the reference to a Buddhist centre in the south of France, I am familiar with one near one of my favourite villages in the South of France, Saint Leon Sur Vezere)

Thankyou, that was illuminating. I think we do know the answer to my question, but just can’t put it down on paper, it always misses the mark. But in person, a nod and a glint in the eye will suffice as a common understanding.

This is why the Buddha consistently avoids answering questions like “Is it the same person who is reborn?” or “Is it a different one?” Or for that matter “who experiences Nirvāṇa?”Such questions are posed on the basis of a false conception of the nature of self, which is why they are left unanswered.

Thanks, that chimes with how I see it and where I was heading in this line of questioning. I just wasn’t quite sure what Buddhism has to say on it.
For me the “whom” I was asking about is both (I need a word for both that is about three not two, which is why I keep mentioning the trinity*) the self, the not self and the absolute, while not actually those at all, but somewhere in the middle. That we know that “whom” intimately, but could not say who, or what we know.
So the whom is, isn’t, could not be, could not not be, the self, the not self, the universal self, the absolute. Or if you could fathom the central point between them, you would know what you know.

*I really do think in threes, not two’s.

The problem with this is that I've seen several first-hand videos (i.e the person is in the situation themselves while filming, not following up some other person's claim) of Islamic groups literally roaming streets and accosting people for their garb, what they're eating, how their women are presented and behaving etc.. across the UK

The problem with this is that it is difficult to determine what is going on in videos, or what that is saying about a community. There are a lot of videos of dubious origin circulating on social media and I mean a lot. I follow accounts on X where such videos are posted continuously day and night. Backed up by armies of followers with a political disposition to the right. Insisting all sorts of things. Usually twisting truths and spreading disinformation, hate and prejudice. Also a lot of these people are making a living posting content which their followers want to see. Giving them an incentive to continue and grow their base. So I don’t see any point going down the route of viewing this material and coming to views or opinions about real places and communities.
I follow current affairs closely in the U.K. and have a wide range of sources through which what you describe would show up and I’m not seeing it. There are always some extreme, or unusual events going on somewhere in a large and diverse population and when something that fits the bill becomes known by the above crowd, it is picked up on a broadcast far and wide on their platforms. And before you know it Farage is talking about it on the BBC, unchallenged.

Now when I look to the left of the political spectrum, the groups are far fewer in number and are usually bickering on about how Jeremy Corbyn was smeared by the establishment. Or fighting amongst themselves.

I have slews of evidence of unhinged leftists carrying out assaults, property damage and behaviours that genuinely appear to be mental illness let loose. If you want to see it, I can give it to you.

Can you define an unhinged leftist and describe the sort of behaviour you’re describing. Or provide a link (I don’t want it on DM, it needs to be here, this is what the thread is about).

We're not arguing facts here, we're talking about how people are so intensely unwillingly to see examples of their side being assholes.

I’m not seeing a two sides situation here. Are you assuming I’m on the left side? Or that there is a left right thing going on in the community?

Indeed, in one sutta the Buddha is reporter to have said that notions of self can only arise when the aggregate of feeling is present:

Yes, I think I’m getting the feeling for it now. My first thought is a reference to a transfiguration of the aspect of the self which is constituted of/in the aggregate. Also if there is a reference to ultimate meaning (paramattha), the self and not-self may lose their distinction, while in a sense remain, reconciled.

This brings me to a thought I have often had regarding Buddhist conceptions of nirvana. If the self etc is annihilated in the realisation of nirvana. Whom is experiencing the exalted state?
I know this might sound like a simplistic question, but there is a deeper issue in it. Or rather if there is total annihilation, such that all is left is a state of non-existence, whom, is, present, in it? Who, or what remains?

I’m not expecting an answer to it, particularly. Just expressing the question that immediately occurred to me on learning the Buddhist conception of nirvana.

For those interested on this peculiar view of Nirvana, I compiled some textual evidence on this post:

I had a look, but got stuck on the meaning here;

But when the Aggregates are described as empty and not-self,15 nirvana is characterized not as their opposite but as their intensification: it is ultimately empty (paramasunna) and that which has ultimate meaning (or: is the ultimate goal, paramattha, Patis II 240).

(The second paragraph in the Stephen Collins section)

Is it suggesting that ultimate meaning (paramattha) is the intensification of not-self? I can’t work it out, can you shed any light on it?

Exactly but the dogmatists will say even changing it 1% is bastardising it beyond recognition.

That is just orthodoxy, it works for some and not for others.

I have had the same arguments from most things I have learned in life, which have nothing to do with Buddhism. Most often ridiculed for 'going against the grain' and outside of the box but I have found it easy to separate the wheat from the chaff of what is good information vs. bad and irrational stuff in other areas and the proof is in the pudding when I achieve my goals in whatever thing I set out, so I don't see this as being any different.

Very much so, as I say, a strict approach will work better for some than others and a pick and mix approach for people like you and me.
I would say though about strict adherence, I found it important once or twice to go through the process of humility and obedience etc, in a controlled setting. So even for less strict adherents, it is necessary at some point.

A stronger point though, that I want to make is that our thinking mind, our sense of self, emotions, our daily being, or person is not really the one doing the work, so to speak, but a deeper watcher, or seer (we could use the word soul perhaps) within us is doing it and our surface day to day personality is only really a bystander, or like a childlike expression of our true nature. So in a very real sense, what we, as a personality, think and believe is not important. Our thinking mind is not where we are doing what is required, although it can and does play some role in the use and development of intuition.

I was just poking the troll. Sorry.

We get to watch in real time as a once-powerful empire turns into a commie shithole.

It never was Spain that was great, it was Portugal.

A lot of the other moves used by Orban would not work in the U.S. system because of the Constitutional boundaries in place (so far).

Yes, I hope so, I doubt it would work, but then I’m reminded about what authoritarian leaders do when they can’t get something to work. They just attack their own people and try at get the people to attack each other. Then all the rules can be thrown out of the window.

I think you just need some more of whatever mind altering substance you have available. Then you'll get it.

I think it’s time to play Tom Waites; The Piano has been Drinking.

Joking aside, Zeno’s paradox is an anomaly, just like infinity, they’re both anomalies thrown up by thinking. They don’t apply to the real world.

Maybe there are two kinds of worlds, one where nothing happens (I can’t describe that world), or a world where everything is in motion, everything is happening (moving), such that there isn’t anything that isn’t happening (moving). Now we’ve solved the problem of how to get from A to B, but we can’t stop now, we’re just going to have to keep moving (happening) now, add infinitum.

For God’s sake, who the hell decided to set everything in motion.

No, I just Googled images

Yes, I thought so. Joking aside, I expect anything salacious will have been redacted. But at least we will have Melania’s movie to watch instead.