Kajenx

There's that middle state, too, where you can think about things and see them "in the vision". Maybe half asleep but fully aware? I just recently discovered this. It happens when I'm tired but trying to be mindful, haha. @OP: Could you describe what you're referring to as emptiness? I'm reading a lot of dzogchen stuff lately, so it might be helpful to get another perspective. What you're describing sounds like it could be related to jhana in some way. I've noticed after a sharp turn into an altered state, I feel like a completely different person from who I was seconds before. You seem like you're referring to having two minds at once, though. What is communicating with what in emptiness? EDIT: I see you already answered this mostly. I didn't notice the second page, lol. But maybe you could give a kind of basic definition, like is it a state of mind, a quality of reality that you notice, a way of seeing things differently, something else?

Haha, he looks so satisfied at the end. ^^

This discussion is interesting. I'd say you all have a very different conception of the Tao than I do - and also from each other if I'm reading you correctly. That makes sense for this kind of subject, though, haha. Maybe I could bring some Buddhist concepts into the mix because that's the way my practice has been going lately, and I think it could help clarify what I'm trying to say (or obscure it futher XD). I'm not really married to any ideas and I don't think practice needs to be justified by logical thinking (I'm mostly interested in what "works" these days), but the concepts I've brought up in the last few posts are what eventually brought me TO the methods I'm using, so I see them as valuable pointers, if nothing else. Anyway, after I first saw the "outer world" mind-frame around new years, I've been trying to understand exactly what it is to make it easier to enter and remain in it. What's always been confusing about it was that nothing is really different when the switch happens - even though EVERYTHING is. It feels different, even though the feelings I was just having are still there. Everything is incredibly clear and beautiful, even though it's all perfectly ordinary and unchanged. It's almost like nothing happened at all, but everything is suddenly perfect. Just recently I read a line that seemed to explain it perfectly, "Nirvana is realizing the emptiness of samsara." Now this can be a lot to unpack, and I was resistant to these concepts until very recently when I decided to stop being stubborn and look into what these were supposed to be pointing at, lol. My opinion softened a bit when I kept reading dzogchen literature where they seemed to be describing what I was seeing. Emptiness is often described as "nothing in reality has self-nature" which is just a confusing way of saying everything we can sense is intangible. This is true in my experience. If I look at sensations, like thoughts or the visual field, and try to locate them in space or see what they actually are, there is nothing tangible or solid - thus, it's empty like a cloud or a balloon. But emptiness is usually mentioned alongside Luminosity. Luminosity is the undeniable and unshakeable ISness of what we experience. A cloud has form even though we can't touch it. We can't deny that sight or sound is happening, in spite of the fact that it doesn't seem to exist in any place or time. Our experience of reality is, at all times, both empty and luminous. So what's the point of all these concepts? I think they help (at least, they help me) begin to understand anatta. Anatta depends on this idea of cause and effect - or dependent origination. While the luminosity of experience makes it seem undeniable that we exist, the emptiness shows us that we also don't - not in the way we think. Everything is always moving and changing, cause and effect cycling in a persistent moment of "reality". We are not separate from what we're experiencing, and this is why we see emptiness when we look closely. This emptiness is what "we" are. The sense of self is married to and inseparable from experience. So when we are seeing, there is only "seeing" no "seer". This mind state I keep talking about, I think it comes from recognizing the emptiness of something. Sometimes it's a sensation, like sight, other times it's emotional qualities like anxiety and they suddenly transform into emotionlessness. It's like it says in the Mahayana literature, though, emptiness and luminosity are linked and inseparable. So when something is suddenly seen as empty, it becomes more luminous, more real. Maybe this is why it's so confusing to simply observe your reality and then try to explain it. While it's true to say we have the ability to make choices, and our will is free to decide, it's also true to say that this free will is created by past experiences and that these past experiences will condition it in such a way that only one decision will be made. This is because we don't exist, and never did, but there is existence, nonetheless. Edited for spelling since I typed it on my tablet, lol...

I can't quite make out how your analogy relates to my argument. What is music standing in for? Basically all I'm saying is that, after examining my experience, I haven't been able to find any choices or decisions that didn't rely on something outside of my control. Every choice or decision I've made - no matter how insignificant - seems to rely on what I want most at the time I make that decision, and those wants are the direct result of things outside of my control, like emotions, instincts, feelings, desires, etc. If you want to go further, those emotions/instincts/etc are also created and conditioned by past experiences that I had no control over. Because of this, I've moved from trying to control how I feel - or trying to control my circumstances - as I've seen this is both unreliable and impossible, to simply withdrawing resistance to the process completely. When I'm successful, the circumstances and the feelings wrapping them lose their emotional meaning and I'm free from stress. Are any of you willing to deconstruct my ideas? You guys seem very sure that we have free will, but I'm still not sure why you believe that. Maybe you could point out how it influences your practice, as well. GrandmasterP, you say you practice acceptance with mindfulness, but why do you do that if there is free will? Why not exercise that free will towards simply feeling the way you want to?

Water balls. (I rest mine).

Actually, stosh, I think I answered your two questions - at least how I understand them best. Who am I? - I am a conglomeration of causes and effects. What do I do now? - Remove resistance to what I'm feeling in this eternal event horizion of "now" so I can be at peace no matter what arises. I see freedom in a mind that has eliminated problems by consuming all problems into its serenity. It's amazing to realize that truely anything can become peaceful in the mind. This really works in my experience, too. I'm not just playing with logic or wishful thinking.

I only chose to follow the logic in the direction of reduced stress. It doesn't matter if you believe in free will or not, the methods I've oulined will work either way, I think. However, I don't think I chose the sucky option - assuming a person can actually choose what they believe haha. If I believed in free will, I'd still be trying to eliminate my anxiety problems through willpower. Once I realized I had no control over my emotional state, I learned to accept the anxiety when it came, and this reduced and eventually eliminated the anxiety altogether. The side effects to this acceptance, as I began applying it to the rest of my life, have been incredible. My only aim for many years has been to find the mind that is most enjoyable to live in. I believe I've found the way to it, so that's what I'm trying (and perhaps failing) to convey in this thread. ^^

I never used anything other than simple logic and observation to conclude I had no free will. It's proveable if you enjoy and understand logic. I know a lot of people (well, most people) don't care much for logic or self inquery, though, so feel free to skip this post if you like. It all seems pretty simple to me though. You guys pointed to choices you made as an example of free will, but I think it's more important to examine why you made those choices than the fact that you made a choice. I'm assuming you guys are talking about tea. Why did you pick one tea over the other? It's simple, you picked the one you wanted. You wouldn't pick something you didn't want. This is not a free will, it's cause and effect driven by wanting. If I knew what you wanted, I could pick your tea for you. Now let's say tomorrow you specifically pick a tea you don't want, just to prove me wrong. Doesn't the reason behind that choice show that you're influenced by this discussion? You're still doing what you most want to do, your reasons and motives have just changed to proving me wrong rather than picking a tea to satisfy your tastebuds. Follow this line of reasoning for any action you take. As long as you can point to a reason for a decision, that reason is the cause of your decision. Free will implies that you are an independantly acting agent, so to be truely free, you must make decisions without any influence from past events/action/situations/genetics/etc. If you are making decisions based on reasons, then you aren't really making any descision at all, you're simply following a pattern of cause and effect. I'm a bit suprised how many of you disagreed so quickly, though. Dependant origination is one of the buddha's main teachings, and it's always seemed pretty central to taoism as well in my reading of things. What else is the Tao but the way of nature, cause and effect. Consider actionless action - allowing these things to flow without impediment. I think it's central to most contemplative traditions that we are "out of control" of our lives, and the way to escape stress is to flow with what happens rather than create a conflict against this flow.

@ Vanir: I'm not sure if you're going to find much interest in my response but I'll give it a try. At least try to keep an open mind. A while back I went though an interesting line of self-questioning about the nature of time and reality. Eventualy I concluded that we actually are automated. Consider this - every time you make a decision, you have a reason for choosing what you did. This reason is what caused you to make the decision. This series of causes and effects is influenced by memories, emotions, instict, genetic, etc. Can you point to anything that could be called free will? This flow of cause and effect happens in a perpetual "now" which creates what we see as time. The past and future both exist in our minds as a way to predict events, weight outcomes, and arrive at what we think is the best solution for what is happeneing in this "now". You can observe all this happeneing in your mind fairly easily. A little experiement you can try is to raise you hand in front of you and wave it around a bit. Then ask yourself how you did it, why you did it, and if any free will was involved. What I always come to at the end of this line of self inquery is that the only thing I can point to as "me" is the awareness of what's hapeneing. I don't move my arm, I don't make decisions, and I can't sense time. For "me" it is always now, and I am never doing anything in particular except sensing what is happeneing. As to why emotionlessness is worth it, I can't predict how you would interpret the experience, but subjectively it's completely beyond any emotional experience I've felt. I can understand the sceptical stance, but don't mistake what I'm saying for a neutral emotional tone. I'm talking about complete freedom FROM emotional thinking. It doesn't feel robotic, it feels like freedom. Perhaps this is because emotions are linked to the robotic world of cause and effect, and to be without emotions is to have a truely free will for the first time.

Acceptance doesn't preclude practicality or logic. You only need to accept and let go of emotions to find a still mind. A still mind tends to make dealing with conflicts much easier because there is no resistance to any outcome. Say you REALLY don't want to go to work - by accepting that this emotion exists and leting go of trying to make it anything else, the passion within it dissipates and it becomes space or peace or emotionlessness, however you want to put it. It's actionless action, not actionlessness period haha. I think what makes it actionless is because there is nothing DOING the action, it just happens efforlessly because you get out of the way. Think of it like this, you can do anything two ways - either you can set up some subtle or gross mental resistances and feel tension and stress, or you can do the same thing without effort. The actionless part of wu wei is this emotionlessness I'm talking about. It means there is no resistance, you are just accepting what appears in this moment that you can't change. There's no reason you can't react to what hapens, but that reaction doesn't have to be based on emotional resistance. You can live the same life with or without an internal world. Living without it tends to move the mind in a different, more relaxed, direction though. From what I've seen, there is really no excuse not to be completely content at all times without exception. I've proved it's possible to myself too many times to believe the grasping mind any longer. The distinction is important - the action or mental state and the descision process involved in it can happen any way at all, it's only the emotional overlay attached to these things that causes stress. Once this veil is removed, the same things happen, just without resistance. Everything, no matter what it is, is contentment. This mind is free to be practical.

It sounds like a big fractal. Or maybe clockwork.

If a bird poops on the rocks or builds nests, or a beaver dams a steam, is that different from humans building temples or making paintings? How are rocks carved by ice different from rocks carved by humans? We are all forces of nature, end of the day.

We are the Tao. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.

I'd be interested to hear what you mean by "aggressive". I've been hanging out on the dharma overground for the past few months, and I kept asking everyone why they had such an obsession with "anatta". I understood it somewhat, but until now I thought it was just a philosophical construct. I had all these methods and meditations for reaching different states of awareness, and I was convinced there was something I had to do or some mind-state I had to stabilize. But, really, it seems like what I've been chasing after was actually a lot easier than I thought to attain. All I need to do is remove the agent - the "doer" or the control center - and let whatever happens happen. Instant serenity, stillness, peace and contentment. Maybe I'm just surfing on another half realization and it'll become ineffective like all the other methods, but I think the reason the others stopped working is because they didn't strike at the heart of the issue. I'm going to hazard a guess that your agressive methods lead to the same place. Maybe they'll help me out too! Edit: I just realized that this thread is almost identical to one I posted in February, lol... Maybe I'll remember what I learned this time around. XD

A taoist is someone who has stopped resisting.

I'd like to make a slight adjustment to my descriptions, because I've seen that things are actually a bit simpler than I thought. There's no need to spend any effort focusing on the senses because that just happens automatically. The method I seem to have been using, without completely realizing it, is just acceptance. By letting things happen on their own, all conflicts are removed, which ends all stress. There are no desires because desire itself is seen as the cause of stress. It seems like this "out of control" mental processing is always true, I've just never seen it before. Like, if you raise your hand in front of your face and wave it around, how did you do that? Thoughts stream by, sensory impressions happen, it's all completely out of control. When there is no resistance to these processes, they happen fluidly and without any suffering. Just like that, too. It's very odd.

Stosh, I'm going to be contrarian even though you were writing your ideas rather poetically. ^^ I wouldn't call it awareness of awareness. That's one of the paths there, but it's not the destination. It also isn't a high perch from which you view the world, as that implies a distance or separation. It's better to think of it as complete nakedness. You give up both good and bad and step into the world exactly as it is without turning away from anything or towards anything else. It turns out that this world is always without problems, so there are no problems to face or overcome. What problems could there be for a mind with no desires? There is just a simple contentment with whatever arises, however it arises, for however long it arises. This mind enjoys both a sunrise and a blank white wall equally undisturbed and content, but that's not because it has drawn inward dwelling on its own contentment. It's because it sees equal value in the sunrise and the blank white wall. There is no "inward" for this mind, so there is nowhere for it to run. It just stays where it is because all other options have been removed. It turns out that the tension of trying to move our attention is what causes stress and pain, and when we simply give up and let our attention come to rest, the mind is saturated with the peace of effortlessness. An interesting anecdote: A man once passed out drunk at his kitchen table and woke up later in a field 20 miles away. Turns out a tornado had come through and carried him all that way. He didn't have any injuries whatsoever. Medical experts explained that, because the alcohol had caused him to be completely without resistance, his muscles had acted as soft padding for his bones, and his joints could bend freely and absorb the impact of falling out of the sky.

Haha, in fairness to you I didn't give much of an answer. I didn't get the thrust of your question either, though. I'll try a little harder. You're asking for a description of the thing itself rather than a definition by negatives. I think I would call it pure awareness, or awareness of things exactly as they are. So when you look at, say, a plastic cup on your table, the act of seeing is just sight, there isn't anything attached to it. This makes the cup appear to be more real, somehow, like it's occupying the same space as you. The feeling this creates is hard to describe in positive words because that gives the wrong idea, I think. It's a "good" feeling, but that goodness comes from the fact that there is nothing you're required to add to what you're seeing. It's perfect because everything is equally agreeable - but that is a bit of a paradox because if everything is equaly agreeable, that's a bit like saying nothing is. There's just nothing that influences where the attention moves, so it generally just stays still. So if you really need a direct definition of it, I think the best I could say is that it's the peace that comes from having nothing that needs to be done. It's just contentment - but it's complete and perfect contentment. As to whether it's a primal state or something like that, I have no idea. I'm not sure how someone could tell that sort of thing. It feels like it's the most effortless way to live, but that is probably more of a feeling than a truth because it takes a lot of effort to short cuircut the mind's everyday habits to get there. This effort does seem to be lessening over time, though, so maybe it's similar to the effortlessness of a piano player, where practice forms new habits that lead to efficiency in the brain.

It seems like it's emotionless to me, or maybe desireless. If there is nothing you want or need in that moment, it's just perfect.

There it is. Everyone read this line, it's what I meant with all my words words words. Actually, remaining there is all I've wanted to do since I saw it for the first time.

With this line, I have realized you are a wiser man than I. I also suddenly realized why I like this site so much, hehe. EDIT: It's better than Bliss anyway. The order is happiness -> joy -> bliss -> peace and contentment.

HA, "I"'ve been trying to figure this out for months now... :3

You guys should consider your wandering thoughts carefully here. The story about realizing there was literally nothing else to do is ALWAYS true. In this moment you have a mind that is characterized by a set of desires that are conditioned by the past - both instinct and social identity. This present was conditioned by a series of events that all have effects, and those effects will be realized in the future. Life is an ocean current with no edges to escape through. The emotions manifest as either resistance to the current moment or acceptance of the current moment. We are bored/unhappy/distressed when the current moment is not matching our desires, and we're happy when it is. Unhappiness, discontent, boredom, etc all take a great deal of energy to maintain, which is why we don't like them. It's like we're trying to swim against that current of life, but we don't have any strength to do it. I think the mind is always searching for rest. The positive emotions are closer to rest because they aren't resisting the flow. There is a step beyond this, though. The mind I'm pointing to is the mind that realizes that even these positive emotions are stressful and drops them. The result is, essentially, the opposite of boredom - pure contentment. As an anecdote, the first few times I found this mind, I spent a number of hours staring at the ceiling in my bedroom, simply enjoying the fact that I was alive in the endless, timeless moment that is existance. Edit: I wonder if we're just not meeting up on symantics. Would you guys say your definition of "bliss" could be described as emotionless when comparing it to a more normal or everyday kind of mind? What I'm calling "emotionlessness" is undeniably positive in my experience, so maybe a better way to describe it would be "stillness" or "serenity".

Marblehead, you may have missed that last post, but I definately don't advocate repression. I also have tried that and found it doesn't work. Acceptance is an important part of what I'm talking about here, so I'd say you're doing a good thing by enjoying your emotions. Nikolai, I have been practicing on the occasional headache and I have to agree - aceptance seems to work on pain as well. Thankfully, I don't have too many opportunities to practice that, though, hehe. ^^

Thanks for all the discussion, you guys. I think it would be too cumbersom to quote and answer everything, so I'd like to adress the trend of the thread instead. I think the most important thing to point out is that I'm not referring to dissociation or repression. A very important part of this process for me has been learning to accept emotions as they are completely without resraint. Doing this has changed my life a great deal in a very short period of time. Just a few months ago, my emotional life was in the emergency room, haha. It's been there for most of my life, actually, with nearly perpetual anxiety. After practicing a kind of radical acceptance, it's finally "normal". What I'm trying to point to here is what I've seen to be the next step after bliss. I've become very familiar with bliss while practicibg the jhanas and I found a very blissful glow that comes with radical acceptance. I no longer have any fear of anxiety, because if I notice I'm experiencing it, I can move into acceptance and it actually turns to bliss. This connection was important in realizing the contracted nature of emotions. Bliss and anxiety are the yin and yang of emotional contraction in the heart center. The same is true for disgust and contentment in the belly. Finding these dualisms is actually kind of fun if you start looking for it! But there has always been this single experience than I've pointed back to as the crowning achievement of the mind (at least in my limited experience of the mind so far) and it has been the experience of complete emotionlessness. It isn't a sacrifice of emotion, it's a kind of transcendence - a state or level of the mind that exists above the emotions. Emotions are the blinders that block the mind from this experience. It's worth trying to experience it at least once just to see if you find it worthwhile. It's not hard to reach, you just need to realize you're looking for something that exists outside of emotional thinking - this pointer has been invaluable to me. I can understand the skepticism, though. I'm not sure I can do it justice with my explanations - but the emotionless quality is precisely what's so good about this mind-frame. I'm not someone who dislikes emotions (except the sressful ones, haha) but what I'm trying to point to here is, perhaps, a different world completely, or a different way of seeing completely. That's why I called the thread "mastering the emotions" - it's the single most stable and "highest" emotional mind I've achieved, which is to say, dwelling beyond the duality of emotional thinking is the best a person can feel in my experience.