I've been posing slightly less content the last few days and that's thanks to this Wikipedia Hole (AKA Wiki trail) I'v been stuck in.

Going on to Wikipedia to look something up, then unexpectedly being sucked into a seemingly endless series of link clicking to end up in a completely different part of wikipedia than you ever meant to go to.

• urbandictionary.com

I'm always a sucker for learning things and the past days were mostly spent on education and meditation; two of my favorite things to do. It's also one of the most profound and transformative experiences to go through. If you haven't ever gotten into a constant stream of learning and pondering, just find some time and give it a chance. It's not the most pleasurable experience by any means. It's a process where you'd be asking more questions with barely any answers. At the end you might end up with a realization about the extent of the things you don't know. You may see you own tiny and subtle personal flaws. It'll also help you to remind one another thing:

The Largest Obstacle You'd Face In The Path To Become Great is Being Good

That's a very true aphorism. When you are already doing very well like a Newtonian Physicist, even if you see some shortcomings, a total paradigm shift into Einstein's Relativity or Quantum Mechanics would be a devastating low to your entire worldview. You may even argue against the new information with your existing talents. When learning, I try not to b the person who let my "Good" stand in the way of my "Great". I also realize that most people/teachers/gurus don't have any real answers. Even if you find one, there is another half for the learning process. You need to be a good enough student to realize the truths. Even if you meet the Greatest Teacher of all, you still won't gain an ounce of enlightenment without effort from your side of things.

Disclaimer!

I'm not much of a disclaimer person. People should read stuff and make up their own minds. If they just accept random stuff on the internet and ruin their lives, they probably deserve it in most cases. But there are times where caution and warnings are very important. Truth is the holiest thing I know. You can call it y different labels. Whatever you call it, you should never scorn, misrepresent or cast the truth in any negative light. If you don't know the truth you must be truthful enough to claim your ignorance. No Excuses. PERIOD.

I am going to present a tiny section of the content I've explored from Wikipedia and the content may be ultimately truthful or it could be utter fabrications. Most of the time they tend to be in a middle. These content may or may not help you grow wiser and spiritually developed. Falling into a Wikipedia Hole could suck up a great deal of your time. Thinking obsessively about vast and complex topics have driven people mad. I also think that stating something untrue as true and something true as untrue is the greatest sin of all. I will be making a several of these curation posts and I'm presenting them as documents/ pieces of information. They may or may not contain ultimate truths.

_Source

Kālāma Sutta

I think this sutra should be put in the front before any quest for truth. I'm taking the important points from Wikipedia.

• Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing (anussava),
• nor upon tradition (paramparā),
• nor upon rumor (itikirā),
• nor upon what is in a scripture (piṭaka-sampadāna)
• nor upon surmise (takka-hetu),
• nor upon an axiom (naya-hetu),
• nor upon specious reasoning (ākāra-parivitakka),
• nor upon a bias towards a notion that has been pondered over (diṭṭhi-nijjhān-akkh-antiyā),
• nor upon another's seeming ability (bhabba-rūpatāya),
• nor upon the consideration, The monk is our teacher (samaṇo no garū)
• Kalamas, when you yourselves know: "These things are good; these things are not blamable; these things are praised by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to benefit and happiness," enter on and abide in them.'

Thus, the Buddha named ten specific sources whose knowledge should not be immediately viewed as truthful without further investigation to avoid fallacies:

1. Oral history
2. Traditional
3. News sources
   4)Scriptures or other official texts
4. Suppositional reasoning
5. Philosophical dogmatism
6. Common sense
7. One's own opinions
8. Experts
9. Authorities or one's own teacher

With that in mind; Let's Dive IN

Vimalakirti Sutra

The Vimalakīrti Nirdeśa Sūtra (Sanskrit: विमलकीर्तिनिर्देशसूत्र), (Standard Tibetan: འཕགས་པ་དྲི་མ་མེད་པར་གྲགས་པས་བསྟན་པ་ཞེས་བྱ་བ་མདོ།) or Vimalakīrti Sūtra is a Mahayana Buddhist sutra. Sometimes used in the title, the word nirdeśa means "instruction, advice". The sutra teaches, among other subjects, the meaning of nondualism. It contains a report of a teaching addressed to both arhats and bodhisattvas by the upāsaka (lay practitioner) Vimalakīrti, who expounds the doctrine of śūnyatā to them. This culminates with the wordless teaching of silence.

The sutra has been influential in East Asian Buddhism for its "brash humor" and flexibility. It has also been influential in Mahayana Buddhism for its inclusiveness and respect for non-monastic practitioners as well as stating the equal role of women in Buddhism.^{[citation needed]}

When it comes to non-dualsim, one of the greatest and most informative works I've come across is this one: https://emptinessteachings.com/2014/09/11/the-two-truths-of-buddhism-and-the-emptiness-of-emptiness

“We do not say that because things are empty they do not exist; we say that because things exist they are empty.” A Prasaṅgika-Madhyamaka Tibetan saying

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“Whatever is dependently co-arisen
That is explained to be emptiness.
That being a dependent designation,
Is itself the middle way.

Something that is not dependently arisen,
Such a thing does not exist.
Therefore a non-empty thing
Does not exist.”

• Nagarjuna

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“Therefore it is said that whoever makes a philosophical view out of emptiness is indeed lost.” Nagarjuna

Svatantrika–Prasaṅgika distinction

This one is bit of a long somewhat technical read. It might not even interest some of you and due to having a lot of technical words, the understanding could come slow. The Wiki pag isbest suited for more "Academic" kind of readers. just give it a look and see if it's your thing.

Five Tathagatas

In Vajrayana Buddhism, the Five Tathāgatas (pañcatathāgata) or Five Wisdom Tathāgatas (Chinese: 五智如来; pinyin: Wǔzhì Rúlái), the Five Great Buddhas and the Five Jinas (Sanskrit for "conqueror" or "victor"), are emanations and representations of the five qualities of the Adi-Buddha or "first Buddha" Vairocana or Vajradhara, which is associated with Dharmakaya. They are also sometimes called the "dhyani-buddhas", a term first recorded in English by the British Resident in Nepal, Brian Hodgson, in the early 19th century, and is unattested in any surviving traditional primary sources. These five Buddhas are a common subject of Vajrayana mandalas.

It's a lot of new and interesting things for me. Until recently I had only studied Theravada and Zen which both talk about multiple Buddhas but not in the way Mahayana does. My personal opinion is that the trikaya or "three body" theory of Buddhahood is an over complication. At times I've thought of it as a personification or just giving some titles to certain aspects or ideas that could be hard for people to grasp.

For an example, the concept of Ether was used as a tool to describe how light travel through the empty space. It was too much of a mess fueled by lack of understanding of the electro-magnetic waves and the nature of the universe.

The Five Tathagatas might even be inspired from real Buddha's or Bodhisattvas. I mean this is based on real events:

Many of our myths probably have some truth to it. That's why I'm presenting you......

Millenarianism

Millenarianism (also millenarism), from Latin mīllēnārius "containing a thousand", is the belief by a religious, social, or political group or movement in a coming major transformation of society, after which all things will be changed. Millenarianism exists in many cultures and religions. These movements believe in radical changes to society after a major cataclysm or transformative event and are not necessarily linked to millennialist movements in Christianity and Zorastrianism. Millenarianist movements can be secular (not espousing a particular religion) or religious in nature.

This is one thing that I wish were true. That's why I'm sharing another video with lots of aterial to think about.

Millennialism

Notice that the spelling is different.

Millennialism (from millennium, Latin for "a thousand years"), or chiliasm (from the Greek equivalent), is a belief advanced by some Christian denominations that a Golden Age or Paradise will occur on Earth in which Christ will reign for 1000 years prior to the final judgment and future eternal state (the "World to Come") of the New Heavens and New Earth. This belief derives primarily from Revelation 20:1–6. Millennialism is a specific form of millenarianism.

Similarities to millennialism appear in Zoroastrianism, which identified successive thousand-year periods, each of which will end in a cataclysm of heresy and destruction, until the final destruction of evil and of the spirit of evil by a triumphant king of peace at the end of the final millennial age. "Then Saoshyant makes the creatures again pure, and the resurrection and future existence occur" (Zand-i Vohuman Yasht 3:62).

At your own risk go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millenarianism#Movements and you'll find enough content to binge read for days. It's a long list of things that at times related to others and at times stand mostly on their own.

Messianic Age

I just had to share this page after seeing the following two quotes which means a lot to me as a person who is a fan of Peace and preservation of the Non Aggression Principle.

They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation will not lift sword against nation and they will no longer study warfare.
— Isaiah 2:4
The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them. The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child put his hand into the viper's nest. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
— Isaiah 11:6-9

"And at that time there will be no hunger or war, no jealousy or rivalry. For the good will be plentiful, and all delicacies available as dust.
The entire occupation of the world will be only to know God... the people Israel will be of great wisdom; they will perceive the esoteric truths and comprehend their Creator's wisdom as is the capacity of man. As it is written (Isaiah 11:9): "For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of God, as the waters cover the sea."

If you are wondering what's with the Altered Carbon Teaser, look up post-extropianist worlds. The last quote sounds so much like Post-Extropianism to me.

Happy Steeming!