Riot Material

Art. Word. Thought.

Fouled Discharges From The Fatted Head

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By Peter Baker and Katie Rogers
Courtesy of The New York Times

WASHINGTON — President Trump has railed against undocumented immigrants in recent days, branding many of them “murderers and thieves” who want to “infest our country.” Not long ago, he referred to them as “animals,” although he insisted he meant only those who join a violent gang.

The president’s unpresidential language has become the standard for some on his team. This week his former campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, made a mocking noise, “womp womp,” when a liberal strategist raised the case of a 10-year-old girl with Down syndrome separated from her parents at the border.

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How do we describe buddha nature?

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How do we describe buddha nature? Buddha nature is said to resemble space. Can we say that space exists? Can we say that it doesn’t? We cannot, because space itself does not comply with any such ideas. Concepts made about space are merely concepts. Space, in itself, is beyond any ideas we can hold about it. Buddha nature is like this. If you say that space exists, can you define it as a concrete existent entity? But to say there is no space is incorrect, because space is what accommodates everything — the world and beings. [Read more…]

If The World Were Created By A God Then We’d Be Helpless

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If the world were created by a god then we’d be helpless. It would not be within our power to do much about our own situation. However, some deity has not created the world, so we have the power to do something about our situation. That is because the situation we are in is the fruition of our own actions; our actions are a cause that has created this particular effect. Therefore it is within our power to abandon the causes of suffering and, likewise, to prevent the experience of suffering. In that same way, it is within our power to do what we want to do. If we want to achieve the higher realms of existence or the state of having crossed beyond all suffering, then we simply begin to engage in the causes that lead to those very realms. [Read more…]

The process of our spirit disconnecting from the physical body

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The process of our spirit disconnecting from the physical body [upon death] is accompanied by the dissolution of all gross and subtle thought-states or mental patterns. At this point there is nothing covering the basic state of mind at all. If we haven’t trained, then the basic state won’t last longer than a single glimpse. But if we have trained, then at that moment complete enlightenment is very likely. [Read more…]