finding my own views

I was following Buddhism for a long time. The Buddhists have a vow not to harm any living being which made me believe in them. I suppose we know plants are alive now, so that isn't possible, since we have to eat plants. In the trainings on bodhimind, the mind aspiring to enlightenment, you develop equanimity in which you have equal love for everyone. If you had kids, they would die first of all. But the Buddhist practices they taught me don't have equanimity. You offer the entire universe to the buddhas. What about sentient beings? Why not let them keep the universe? They taught me, the lotus sutra has a section, the 8,000 verse perfection of wisdom sutra which the Dalai Lama follows has a section, shantideva has a section, that by simply getting angry at the buddha or rejecting the teaching of the sutra, you'll be reborn in hell for aeons or forever. If buddha loved us he would forgive us, and such tyranny deserves anger. I did the offering practices. I regret it and feel lucky that I made it out of Buddhism alive. I felt some blissful feelings. The Buddhists want to attain omniscience as quickly as possible. I think it is absurd. They think all of life is suffering. This too is absurd. The Dalai Lama accepts and supports Jesus Christ though which I find odd.

My view: life is fine. If we're reborn we don't remember much. I think Christians are abusive to animals, especially factory farms and overfishing. These probably aren't people true to the message of God though. Buddhists are good in conduct, but abusive in words and threats. Life can be joyful, and if we'll always exist, we will probably never attain omniscience. I don't know if pure lands exist or enlightenment. I have felt chakras sometimes, but can't say the light and bliss comes from me, it could come from an outside God I suppose. I like how Buddhists have commitments rather than commandments. I don't think our body will be resurrected, I find it absurd.

My path for now is to keep learning yoga and tai chi and reading as much as I can about science. My best guess is when I die my body will be Earth and my mind will travel somewhere else, depending less on my past karma, and more on my determination to behave ethically in the future. Learning is joyful. Surprises are joyful too. I think omniscience can only be of the past or present but the future depends too much on the actions of so many unpredictable people.

coming to peace with empty space

We assume we're smarter than ants or fish because we're bigger, our brains are bigger. Then the mightiest intelligences in the cosmos must be the stars. Space is empty in a sense, but it is home to cascading interplay of light from stars. From any given point in space you'll see countless stars, and moving through space, you'll see them at different leves of brightness. If the language of stars is light, all possible conversations are the different points in space in the universe.

thoughts

Just because a government has power, it doesn't mean the gorvernment is right. Power could be the result of coercion as much as some divine appointment. The bully isn't always good and usually isn't. So Why do we assume governments are good? Why do we bend to their rules? Why do we obsess over money when governments print it?

Monsters are in our psyches because we've evolved from creatures who have had predators for as long as they've lived. Sharks are monsters to a fish. Lions are monsters to an antelope. Humans have outgrown their monsters.

In Buddhism, one is supposed to develop equanimity. In order to have perfect equanimity one would have to be all pervasive. The sun might shine equally in all directions, but how much light you get depends on how close you are to the sun. If Buddha has equanimity and remains embodied, his love would have to travel faster than the speed of light, in fact it would have to travel infinitely fast.