Zoroastrianism

[Hexachordia]

Bruno Beger believed that an expedition to Tibet might produce evidence for the existence of a prehistoric Nordic race that he termed 'Europid' – he hoped that the Tibetan nobility, which he characterised as sharp cheekboned and prone to "imperious, self-confident behaviour", might turn out to be the missing link.

His ideas were based on the concept (backed by his mentor Hans Günther) that it was possible to establish a racial typology from close study of appearance and physical characteristics.

But Beger was a crackpot, one of the key planks of the evidence he dredged up to support these views was the abundance of "Venus" figurines – female fertility statues – found all over Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, which he argued were evidence for the existence of a lost prehistoric Aryan/Nordic civilisation.

Himmler who sponsored the expedition in particular was interested in the search for the origins of the 'elite peoples' of Europe and Asia, a people he believed to be the ancient Aryan race that he, among other things, linked to Atlantis.

One major attraction of Tibet for the Germans was its reputation as a warrior nation, which made it seem a plausible centre for an Aryan people (let's not forget that the troops of the old Tibetan Empire captured the Chinese capital, Xian, in 763, and of course the Steppe-tribes (Huns, Mongols, et al) all have rather notoriously effective warrior cultures).

Tibet surely a sacred place in the world, could be considered as the third pole next to the two antipoles of Earth. The most massive plateau on the planet and the natural church to Buddhism, Hinduism, hosting many sacred mountains for pilgrimages from nepalese, hindu, tibetan religious groups. But mainstream history only touches recent 2000 years of Tibet, it would be a big mystery if seeking for prehistorical traces there. A strange fact, given the immediate cultured history, it could not be just a wild plateau. Sven Hedin visited Tibet since 1900 untill 1907, established the source of Ganges river there and wrote several books about Tibet specifically. Mr Hedin`s expeditions have been a legend of modern age, nazis` a pilgrimage from the missing european behalf to the highest church of Earth.

And who do you think eliminated Manichaeism in China? Many Manichaeans who had been relatively successful in the Sassanid Empire eventually fled toward China with the rise of Islam. Chinese Buddhists didn't receive them very favourably, since they perceived them as false Buddhists. The resulting persecution eventually led to the frequent participation of Chinese Manichaeans in rebellions against the Song rulers.

According to chinese historians, it was the founder of Ming dynasty Zhu Yuan Zhang(1328-1398) ordered the elimination of the religion, because he saw them as his potential rivals to the throne and also he was a part of the manichaeist group, so many manis knew about his past and inconvenient secret. Actually the designation of the dynasty itself came from manichaeistic term mani itself, which in chinese is called "Ming"/明. A result of political rivalry, maybe not totally eliminated but rather absorbed into minor sects of Buddhism but disappeared from all historical records from since, like earliest Buddhist teachings, basic pratical guildelines are preserved but revelant corollaries into political, literature, philosophy, medicine, scientific fields are lost. However sad, if retrieved, I believe humanity can easily tackle 95% of all current civilizational frustrations.

[Hexachordia]

Chinese Buddhism is a syncretic blend of Ch'an meditation, T'ientai doctrinal studies, Pure Land lay devotional practice, a small amount of Tángmì/Mizhong Vajrayana, San-lun teachings on Madhyamika, Huayan teachings on Avatamsaka, and Faxiang teachings on Mind Only.

All Buddhist traditions would disagree that the Buddha was just a man. He said so himself that he isn't human. Buddhas are considered to be beings of incredible wisdom and power, and are placed above the devas or the gods in Buddhist cosmology.

A buddha is any being who has completely seen through fixation on dualistic perception, thus being free of karma and the six realms. On the one hand that can be "just a man". On the other hand, the trikaya, like the Christian trinity, describes a being who exists in time and space as a person, but has also realised omniscient awareness. The trikaya is presented as the full characterisation of what a Buddha is.

TangSeng(唐僧）602-664 was sent to India/Nepal from 629AD to bring scriptures of Buddhist classics to China in order to establish a royal Buddhist school in Tang Dynasty. Historical records claimed that he brough back over 2000 scrolls in sanskrit, he himself managed to translate around 70 of them before he passed away and the rest went lost or hidden somewhere since. Your categorization of chinese buddhism is much incomplete: the majority schools of chinese buddhism is classed as Mahayana, comprised of 8 small schools including Tiantai, Zen, Pure Land, Fuxiang, Vajrayana, Sanlun, Huayan; Also Theravada is not absent from China too, including Jushe school and Chengshi school( not quite sure about other southeast asian Theravada schools). Ch`an probably means Zen, Zen is japanese pronounciation but it is originated in Tang dynasty, and records attribute the idea to Bodhidharma(?--536). Bodhidharma was an indian kshyatriya caste monk and he wrote some scripts which were also brought into China, some of these were among the 70s scrolls that survived and translated by TangSeng and thus creating Zen traditions in east Asia. The buddhist heritages are hugely rich but still deeply corrupted in China, not mentioning the lost of the majority of important documents related to Tang Seng`s prilgrimage to India.

You totally ignored the supreme buddhist holy man Kumarajiva for all Mahayana buddhist schools(344-413AD) who brought with him all the foundamental teachings which gave birth to all these 8 Mahayana schools. What you named in your post there are incomplete in many terms. Overall, there are 10 buddhist schools in pratice in China, 2 belong to Theravada and the rest to Mahayana: I do not know how to translate them now: 2 un-mentioned schools by you of Mahayana is Zhenyan and Zen; and 2 from Theravada is Jushe and Chengshi--I am still trying to find their proper sanskrit names if there is any.

Trikaya translated into chinese as Fashen/法身，literally, the 3 bodies of law. Trikaya has three forms: 1-dharmakaya（rationalism/or simply laws); 2-sambhogakāya(Vessel) ;3-nirmāṇakāya(transformation). It is said trikaya can assume all forms of life in order to teach the laws to all lives. If to take it as the manifestation equivalent to god or gods, one would be seriously delusional. Of course, we can still say Trikaya is a human but also a non-human, it is the way of Buddhism, it rejects such discrete definitions. But, "above god" is not an impossibility: so you wanna convert to Buddhism now? Buddhism also states that all people can become like Buddha and Trikaya is not limited to Shyakamuni only, everyone can become a trikaya as long as the terms are reached. Buddhism opens the way to universal enlightenment without castes and the classifications of races.

[Hexachordia]

What is the possible semantic discourse between Buddhahood and Christian God-head Jesus Christ? I think it is an important question. What is a God, I tried to gave a foundamental idea about its evasive image in human mind in another thread, but I did not mean that God is evasive by nature. I am resolved now as against putting trikaya above god or as an idea equivalent to god. Trikaya or Buddha, must remain forever as a human being to make sense of the whole body of Buddhist teaching so far. Neither deification, ascension make any sense in Buddhism, if anyone tries to teach attainment of God-head or ascension through Buddhist practices, I would call him as the lying demon. Sorry, sean, I do not mean to offend you. I must seriously and solemnly revoke my earlier statement that "above God" is not an impossibility !! It is a non-sense.

God is God, Buddha is Buddha, two totally incomparable ideas, but both are very great ideas.

[Hexachordia]

Orosism(Order of Chaos) between Christianity and Buddhism?

Chaos is the central idea of Orosism(my own philosophy posted here), therefore, it is not between any religion, nor above nor below nor against. My own interpretation as the founder is that it is not a part of Buddhism, nor of Christianity. I do not intend to make it a school of any religion, however, the idea itself also do not come to me as any definitive idea of salvation or enlightenment. But the statement of Orosism does reflect the strange nature of religions, their dialectical differences that are irreconcilable, however all seem to be benevolent. For example, how to put Buddhism in regard to Christianity? above, below, left, right? this idea itself probably does not make sense. So I would suggest to give up either merging the religion, or making them fight, just let everything religious makes discourses on their own without human interferences. This is probably a mantra of my Orosism, therefore, Orosism, not necessarily to be defined as either religion or science. From here, we should let go of the semantic inquiries in vain. I know Theravada Buddhism also has similar ideas of let-go mantra： Asamskrta

The ‘unconditioned’, a term referring to anything that transcends conditioned (saṃskṛta) existence in the state of saṃsāra. The number of items deemed to be unconditioned varied according to the Abhidharmas of different schools of Buddhism. Most commonly, three items were counted: the cessation (or liberation) arising through insight (pratisaṃkhyā-nirodha), the cessation not arising through insight (apratisaṃkhyā-nirodha), and space (ākāśa).

Therefore, not to compare Buddhism and Christianity in terms of superiority is itself a way of Orosism.

Chaos VS Vanity.

An interesting idealistic discourse isnt it? I have not yet formed a good body of ideas about them myself but seems to be worthy of consideration. Like Buddhism, Shyakamuni could not finish his own body of teachings without subsequent successors. I do not want nor need to complete this body of philosophy in teaching myself, I just put it here and let go.

[kevinmac]

Zoroastrianism is not a "brown" religion by origin. Based on geographic and lineage, zoroasthustra was most definitely much more europid than Jesus!. The proto Zoroastrians(prior to migrations across the world like India, China, Africa, Breton) were a mixed bunch but they would not be labeled as brown. Examples of the look of ancient zoroastrians...