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[Kyousuke]

This is just a theory. I'm not saying that the following is fact or what I truly believe. It is an idea that it could be possible due to a correlation with the basic number of potential tails.

In Buddhism the path to enlightenment is known as the Eightfold Path. In this path there are 8 factors to transcend and as a result a ninth and tenth factor may be acquired. To me this is similar to obtaining 9 tails with the rare possibilty of a 10th tail. Meaning if someone achieves 8 tail status in order to receive their 9th tail they would need to have the initial 8 factors in perfect balance or harmony. In doing so they would then gain deep insight and awareness of the ultimate reality. From there to achieve the 10th factor or tail one would need to self awaken and at that point they've reached the pinnacle of their potential. With such difficulty I can see how it can take several reincarnation cycles to achieve it. I'm not sure about the idea of 1000 or 10000 tails. To me that is a bit absurd but I suppose if you are on the level of a deity it is possible.

If you so choose you may follow these links to research it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight_fold_path

http://www.answers.com/topic/four-noble-truths

http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Buddhas-5-Steps-to-Enlightenment&id=563260

I believe myself to have only a single tail. It is the one I was born with when I became aware of my identity as a kitsune and it marks the beginning of my journey.

[Kira]

 
What an interesting approach.
That would make the number of tails fully symbolic, right?
At least that is how I would ssee it.
Multiple physical tails would just get in the way anyway.
 

[Kirara Munashi'i]

I think you may be on to something here. Comparing this to other theories, this one actually makes the most sense. I will definitely be looking into this.

[Kyousuke]

 

Heh heh... exactly! It's just a similarity that I've noticed. I was contemplating my identity and my current position in life and began to wonder where I would be going next. One thought led to another and I began to question reality and my existence within. I thought that there must be more to it. There has to be. Something must be operating behind this grand illusion. But how does one get to that level? What does one need to do in order to open there eyes so that they may see. The physical and metaphysical (or supernatural) seem to be two sides of the same coin. We may be going through life coexisting with the other side simultaneously on the same plane, just a different dimension or phase and not even realize it. I needed to find a way to shed this physical form so that I may realize my true self and transcend the physical boundaries with it's confining laws that I've been bound to for so long. Like an epiphany or revelation my mind started racing through memories of research I had done on enlightment through Buddha's teachings, specifically the steps of enlightenment. What if, figuratively, a kitsune's tails are not tails that we develope physically, but spiritually as an extention of our soul?

I feel pretty comfortable with this idea and I'm glad to see approval from others on this thought. I hope we're onto something here. It would be wonderful to have such a sound sense of direction. I know there isn't much information on us out there. We seem to be stuck teaching ourselves about ourselves, through ourselves and without much guidance. What event must have befallen us to cause us to forget so much? Maybe that's part of the challenge. We must make ourselves aware of the path to begin following it in the first place. Our worthiness is proven through our ability to find our way back to that path. If we work together and pool the knowledge and wisdom we have gained I know we can achieve this. If this weren't challenging it would be boring, wouldn't it? We kitsune are clever. We can do this.

[Kira]

 
This would be so much easier if there was a place of foxes somewhere in this world.
Because like this, we have to direct a good amount of energy into simply living in this world.
 
And also, I don't think we have forgotten...
It's more like we're closer to figuring it out than ever before.
Maybe the dragons hold the key?
Maybe it will all come together?
 
But yes, I see the thing that bothers you.
Over the course of time, knowledge becoms disambiguated and eventually only lives on as myth or legend.
But that would mean...
 
It would mean that there was an age when that knowledge was freely available.
An age long lost.
But why?
 
Heh, it is none of my business, but I'm sure we'll be able to figure out the question of tails.
Working together.
A skulk of foxes.
 
Say what you will, I say foxes work best in skulks.
=^,^=

[tsukos]

It would be easier, but I don't think it would be all too much easier. We'd still have to work at the business of living.
 
I feel like the answers are things we already know, but don't fully understand. And when we do finally get it, it'll be something so incredibly simple that we'll all wonder why it took so long to figure it out.
 
But yes. Facts turn to stories, stories turn to legends, legends turn to myths, and eventually even myths are forgotten. It's a sad thing, but one that can't be helped.

Personally, I think striving to reclaim lost knowledge is a waste of effort. We should not be worried about what was done before, but what we are going to do now. How many golden ages of civilization have been achieved by trying to reclaim the past?

Still, whether reclaiming lost knowledge or producing new knowledge, it's certainly a question worth looking into.

[Kyousuke]

It does seem to require a lot of energy to simply exist. Maybe the reason why we do not have access to our abilities and that it seems to require so much energy to simply exist isn't a problem with the energy. Maybe it is because the fabric of reality is beginning to wear out or unravel and it can't support the load. That might be a topic for another thread.

The time when we all unify to answer all the questions and reveal the ultimate truth feels so close I can taste it. It's something I know we want more than anything. I know we can do it. I didn't think dragons and foxes got along all that well. At least not in my experience anyway.

I think that all stories, myths, and legends have some sort of root in truth. The information is still there, just obfuscated from the view of those who don't know where to look. It can be tricky separating fact from fiction when it has boiled down to that point. In the same token, perhaps everything that is imagined, every story that is written becomes someone else's reality on another plane. Just think about it.

I can't really imagine doing this solo. I get some of my best ideas just by being around others and discussing things. If you get several great minds that think alike together combined with their own unique perspectives. You've really got something there.

I can see where you're going. Maybe it's time for us to carve our own unique path from here on out. Hmm.. a golden age of kitsune civilization. I like that. Leave it to Occam's Razor to completely stump a kitsune. I'll admit that I can tend to overcomplicate things. I like complexity but this does not mean that I cannot appreciate simplicity. I will look into simply expanding upon my understanding of what's already on the table. Ironically, and it would be so fitting, the answer would be right in front of us staring us right in the face. Maybe all that is required is the right mindset.

[Kyousuke]

I was just thinking, and maybe it doesn't belong in this thread, but here is another approach. Maybe this will lead to the tails we all desire.

Imagine if reality is a composite form that is created from the combination of all the thoughts/ideas/perceptions that are generated by all sentient beings witin. If reality appears to be in a state of constant change it is because our perception of it is constantly changing, changing it, and changing along with it. We exist because we believe we do and reality exists because we believe in it. Reality exists because of us and we exist because of reality. Maybe if we could all agree on one idea then all existence would be altered to match. Since there would be only one perception to adhere to all of the fragments would come together and the path would open up for us. Perhaps we just need this kind of harmony. Maybe we haven't forgotten anything except for how to work together. If we believe that something we desire is always just beyond our grasp, it will always be that way. Maybe we're meant to carve our own path, make our own truth... and the key is simply unity.

How do you feel about this?

[GoldKitsu]

Truth and Meaning.

Four important questions taken from Babylon 5, I think they are important to anything.

Who are you?
What do you want?
Do you have anything worth living for?
Where are you going?

All myths have truth, they also have trappings, corrupted teachings, cultural tendencies programed into them.  Things which may not match reality and what underlies it.  When you search for the truth you might find the truth, but when you assume something and search for something else you will never find the truth.  Christianity attempts to find the truth through "God".  They have made assumptions about "God", many of them including "God" = truth, when they go out to find the truth they will find something that may be factual that may exist, but isn't helping them get to the underlying reality.  They have found what they want and assume it is the final solution.  The bible has people searching for god, but sometimes some of it has someone who simply searched for the truth, they all got mixed together and integrated until you have just one or many partial aspects in the bible.  In this season I see signs that say Jesus is the reason for the season.  But he isn't.  There have always been celebrations for this time of year, from different religions, and different beliefs.  Christianity took it and adapted it for itself.

Buddhism has made an assumption of everyone will/needs to go to where Buddha wanted to go.  Buddha answered his question of where he was going, and where he wanted to go.  He wanted Nirvana, and no suffering.  He also sought the truth and the the end of illusion.  Yes I do think that to eliminate "suffering' you have to eliminate desire (eliminate all light and darkness within your existence and simply be static, still, quiet, forever).  But is that where everyone wants to go, is that where everyone has to go?  Is that were everyone is supposed to go?  Did he find the ultimate truth?  Or did he go and get trapped somewhere between here and there.  When I have searched for the truth itself and not what I desire.  I "see", not a static number of steps that happen to be set for everyone to follow.  I see an infnite number of "levels" between here and the other end.  A journey that can be accomplished and completed, and yet will take an infinite amount of effort and experience.

The truth is always there, anyone and everyone will always find bits and pieces of it, no matter how hard they try to close their eyes to it.  They can turn from it and flee it, but it is still there.  If you want the "final/ultimate" (something I can't seem to put into words at the moment), then simply look for the truth and nothing but that, no assumptions, no trappins, simply look for the truth.  If you want to find truth to something else, a philosphy, a destination, Yawah/Jehova, Nirvana, then search for the truth of that. 

When I look at buddhism i see a truth, not a truth that is for me.  One that isn't my destination, one that doesn't fit who I am.  I see a set of eight steps that contain truth but also contain trappings of a destination that isn't true/desireble/(or even supposed to be) for everyone.  Some of the Chinese stories say that foxes are not as far along as the human form.  That they want to acheive the human form because it is closer to eligntenment.  I don't think it is.  I think and feel and try to search my way through a blind "darkness" that isn't darkness, and I keep coming to this.  No species is more evolved than anyone else, they all have the same potential.  That potential is composed of many inifnite potentials and which one comes true in the end, is up to us, that none of those potentials is wrong.  Who we are, what we want, and what we decide every time we find more decides it.  No fate, no external force, no karma decides it for us.  To choose a different potential than someone else is possible and desireable.  To be forced or to force someone into a potential that is wrong for them will only lead to pain.  Back to species, dragon, kitsune, human.  All of it is a part of reality, something that may be for now, but also something that doesn't have to be. 
What defines a kitsune?  Is it a set of instincts in a mind, all of those can be developed, all non-vulpine instincts purged and vulpine instincts put in their place.  Is it a form?  What is a form?  What says it is static?  Is it how the soul is?  What is the soul?  Is it everything that remains of us after we die, is it the unique part of us that survives?  Or do we mean that core of ourselves, that thing that is who we are?  That thing that is who we are is utterly unique to us all, so unique I think that we can't even apply any words of dragon/kitsune/etc to it and even be remotely accurate.  So unique that everyone is a "species" unto themselves.

Here is what I have found.  A sequence of "seas", dimensionless expanses that I can't fully understand and yet have a concept of.  Each one perfectly opposite of the other and yet when felt the feelings are not opposite.  Yin and Yang, yet those are utterly simplistic and overly complicated at the same time.  Foxes/kitsune are said to be of the Yin because of being out at night.  The trappings of this reality don't have a bearing on yin or yang i think, for a lack of better words for the moment.  Male/Female, and day/night don't belong to either of them.  Imagine reaching out and finding that underlying reality beyond deities beyond thought, beyond memory lies the first pair of these seas.  Light and Darkness.  The only time they are seperate from each other is right there, just above/below/beyond reality.  Imagine light as being a metal.  If I pound the metal into a ring, I have one of the love emotions, an oval another distinct love emotion.  I pound it into the shape of a star and I have the emotion of hope.  They are all made of the same material.  Here is what I feel when I meditate upon touching them.  Light is being wrapped in all of those "light" emotions all undefirentiated.  Like being in a warm blanket, lieing in bed.  It's not hot at all.  I reach out to darkness, I feel unimaginable coldness surrounding everything.  There is no pain as is understood here, as all of those emotions are again undefirentiated.  It is cold, freezing and consuming.  I think they are the seas of emotion, they exist there, here and all the way up.  But only there are they seperated.   Love, hate, hope, despair, all of them are an illusion of an underlying truth given a certain form.

The seas beyond those, "Chaos" and "Order".  To me, what I think:
Chaos feels unimaginably hot.  Your on fire, your a star burning brighter than all the stars in the universe.  It radiates a rainbow of everything, the heat is not painful, it doesn't burn.  What I think of it as, "randomness" arbitrary dice tosses (not mathematical chaos or randomness).  Patternless.  Infinite potential, light and darkness and all the seas above all mixed in together in a vat that is eternally changing.  A sea of perfect potential, everything all at once, and everything one at a time in arbitrary sequences.  It gives everything and you radiate everything.
Order feels like a perfect insulator.  An insulator that could never exist in reality.  To touch it you find that it gives no heat, it takes no heat, it gives/takes no coldness.  It has structure, light and darkness are given places and patterns, it fights change, it fights to stay the same always.

To the third seas.  I can't even begin to describe what I think the individual ones are because understanding that is completely beyond me.  It feels like it has to
do with "thought".  A thought that demands no memory, no state, no brain, no mind.  Two diametrically, opposite and opposing ways of thinking.  And yet I think they are in such perfect balance here that the yin/yang of them are so perfectly joined in our minds/brains of this world that we can't differentiate their true differences.  I can "feel" them in meditation, but I can't "see" them like I can the first two layers.  To use a pair of words that likely have no bearing on them, "reason" and "logic".
"Reason" is a warm, yeilding deep earth like feeling.
"Logic" is a cool breeze in a vast floating air like feeling.

Yet i can sense that the sequence is infinite that there is literally no end to the number of them between the two ends.

Two pillars one hot one cold.  Leading all the way from here to I guess what is the ultimate truth.

Light belongs to the hot pillar and order to the cold pillar.  Maybe it's ironic, maybe not.  Humans as a group seek light and order.

We have stories of a primordial sea all over the place.   Of all of the seas being all one before creation of reality.  I can imagine a line perpendicular to these "seas" we have ourselves here at one end of this infnite line, and on the other end is "truth", also opposites of each other.  Yet this place is still not a lie.  A Lie is a denial of "truth", you do not have to deny something to have an opposing opposite. 

Our paths are infinite and varied, sometimes we will walk beside someone before we diverge to some other place.  There is no one, no deity, no god, no siblings, no group to give you the answers and your path.  It's all up to you in the end.  For now though sometimes we can walk beside others.  We can also fight each other, both are valid choices, neither one bad or good or evil.  Simply being up to personal choice and preference.

On an aside I'm not really back I just had this and came randomly browsing and found the topic with the buddhist thing and truth/enligntenment and wanted to put it out there.

P.S. I'm really much happier without this board in my regular life/visiting, especially as a discussion forum so if anyone wants to discuss with me what i just posted you need to contact me directly.

[Kyousuke]

I'm sorry to hear that you will not be an active member of this forum but I'm glad that you are happier without it in the end. I'm a new member of this forum and sometimes I find it difficult to put what I feel into words. Maybe the language is too imperfect to describe the ultimate truth.

Thank you very much for taking the time to post. I truly appreciate it. What you said about trappings and the differentiation between light/darkness, etc... made me think about language, perception and human definition. Humans apply a concrete definition to something in order to understand it. They assume things about themselves and the nature of the universe and reality and come to believe it as fact because that is the trap that they have set up for themselves through defining something.

You said everything originated from one sea then separated upon the creation of "reality." I like that concept. The idea of infinite possibilities that are all separate, yet the same. I guess the human mind has to create opposition in something in order to create a contrasting effect so that a definition may be applied. What you were saying about the levels of the seas that make up the infinite layers just might be beyond our current capability of comprehension. It's almost mind blowing. It's almost like a hologram. If you cut a hologram in half and shine light through both, you still project the entirety of the original image from both halves. Each part, each sea contains a part of every other sea even though it is separate. Looking into dna or the atom. Maybe each unit that makes up a body actually contains the information of the entire body in and of itself, but it isn't capable of functioning or serving a purpose without other units to interact with. So, is what we're dealing with here a holographic reality suspended in a sea of seas?

I would love to continue discussing this with you if you don't mind.

[Kyousuke]

http://www.youaretrulyloved.com/enlightenment/if-enlightenment-came-with-a-warning-label/

[GoldKitsu]

I'm willing to talk more on it, just not on the forums will have to be directly.  I sent you some of my contact info pm back if you prefer another method.

[Kira]

 
Heheh, why so complicated? =^,^=
 
It's quite simple for me.
 
I am a dark fox.
One of darkness.
For me darkness means shelter, family and friends, the warmth and protection of a dark den.

I want to live among other foxes.
Live with others like myself.
Live together with them.
I wanna live for them.
As one of them.

And right now, my hope for that wish to become true, and the faith I put in Evans, my spiritual friends, and the foxes, as well as curioisity as of what the future holds are the things I am living for.

Where am I going?
Heh...
Forward.
 

[tsukos]

Heh. There's a reason I don't follow any religion, and the things GoldKitsu said is why. First of all, saying that everyone's path is different is very true. And the second part, with the seas, is something I can barely conceive, much less understand or talk about.

And I do not think it's something I need to understand. What I'm looking for in life isn't something for which I need to understand the infinite or truth or whatever you would like to call it, indeed I think doing so is rather pointless given that I feel a much stronger desire to find happiness in the material world, in simple pleasures, in family and friends, than in some deep understanding.

I said earlier, I think that when we find the answer we're looking for, it will be something incredibly simple that was overlooked or ignored. I'd be more than happy to speak my mind on things, but deep spiritual discussions are beyond me because my spirit is not very deep 

[Kyousuke]

Heheh, why so complicated? =^,^=
 
It's quite simple for me.
 
I am a dark fox.
One of darkness.
For me darkness means shelter, family and friends, the warmth and protection of a dark den.

I want to live among other foxes.
Live with others like myself.
Live together with them.
I wanna live for them.
As one of them.

And right now, my hope for that wish to become true, and the faith I put in Evans, my spiritual friends, and the foxes, as well as curioisity as of what the future holds are the things I am living for.

Where am I going?
Heh...
Forward.
 

I can see your point of view. Sometimes the simplest answer is the correct one. My insatiable curiosity is something that has kept me going for quite some time. I understand the desire to surround yourself in close friends/family/others like yourself, knowing that you can put the same amount of trust in them as they would put in you and that you will always be there for each other. The ability to return to a place that you know without a doubt is extremely important. We all need strong foundations to build ourselves upon. Some paths are so simple. Some can fulfill these desires easily, others may not.

I'm not sure why but I've always had a tendency to attempt to apply complexity to everything, needed or not. I'm not sure if I struggle with simplicity because I just can't believe anything can actually be so simple or if my mind is wired differently or something I don't know. It just feels like things need to be complicated  for me or I will either not trust it or will overlook it.

Unfortunately my life was not destined to be simple. I envy you if you truly possess but a few simple desires and have found happiness. I knew that happiness once, but not for long. I was naive and believe that nothing could go wrong. My foundation was ripped out from underneath me, my self confidence, ability to trust and any delusions of security I had went with it. I'm not complaining, nor will I delve into those details openly. Things have just always been complicated so I guess that's what I'm tuned into. It lead me to who I am today and I'm satisfied with that.

I think that's why I strive for a complex, ultimate meaning or truth. I can't trust in the integrity of simplicity, so I complicate things beyond any scope of might be necessary in order to feel satisfied with it. I just don't know.

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