Bindi

Chapter Four There is only one way to cleanse oneself of these contaminations, and that is to practice virtue. I agree there are contaminants and that they have to be cleansed, though I prefer a different way of cleansing. I do like the Hindu concept of different yoga's for different temperaments, where the same general outcome is sought, but different methods are used to get there.

Honestly Bud, I find it hard to follow what you mean, I sort of blank out after the first sentence. You seem to be saying that choosing Now to be in is important, but I find that things like karma and conditioning that have developed in the past necessarily require examining the past to some extent. When they are resolved I might join you in the non-doing no-effort Now though.

I think this is what most people might think of when describing Daoism. I might be wrong but I think of this as philosophical Daoism. It's not the Daoism I'm personally interested in, I'm interested in an inner alchemy version which as far as I can understand takes a far more active approach to cultivation. But both systems must have some common ground. Maybe in relation to the quote in the OP - Practicing the Dao is called decreasing day by day; decrease and then again decrease, until there is no doing; when there is no doing there is nothing that is not done. It can all come down to what one chooses 'decreasing' to mean, and whether there is room for two different understandings of it. "Devotion to learning means increasing day by day; devotion to the Way means decreasing day by day." (89) By the last Lao Zi meant to obtain the way was to shed one's own preconceptions and become more closely aligned with nature. To me, to shed preconceptions on a deep level, and to have them permanently shed so that they never again arise, without having to work on keeping them at bay, requires some sort of proactive system to shed them thoroughly initially. I would include all karma and conditioning as underlying sources of preconceptions. To me this should bring me into full alignment with nature including my own true nature. Anything else to me seems like 'increasing'. If I have to try to be sagely or compassionate or calm or accepting, this is not authentic, and would collapse at the first test, where I would no doubt revert to the old persona that would inevitably have been left fully functional in my subconscious.

I understood decreasing not as doing less but "lessening and draining away that which hides or obscures". In this quote there is a 'no doing' point, but I saw it as coming after obscurations have been drained away. On the positive side, that no-doing is final, when that state is achieved there really is nothing left to do. According to the list that Apech posted this state would be evident in the return to health of the body, if anyone claims to have achieved #1 it should be demonstrable in #2 and #3.

This list doesn't half aim high

From Sam Harris' book Waking up, ch. 4: ”Poonja-ji’s influence on me was profound, especially because it came as a corrective to all the strenuous and unsatisfying efforts I had been making in meditation up to that point. But the dangers inherent in his approach soon became obvious. The all-or-nothing quality of Poonjaji’s teaching obliged him to acknowledge the full enlightenment of any person who was grandiose or manic enough to claim it. Thus, I repeatedly witnessed fellow students declare their complete and undying freedom, all the while appearing quite ordinary—or worse. In certain cases, these people had clearly had some sort of breakthrough, but Poonja-ji’s insistence upon the finality of every legitimate insight led many of them to delude themselves about their spiritual attainments. Some left India and became gurus. From what I could tell, Poonja-ji gave everyone his blessing to spread his teachings in this way. He once suggested that I do it, and yet it was clear to me that I was not qualified to be anyone’s guru. Nearly twenty years have passed, and I’m still not. Of course, from Poonja-ji’s point of view, this is an illusion. And yet there simply is a difference between a person like myself, who is generally distracted by thought, and one who isn’t and cannot be. I don’t know where to place Poonja-ji on this continuum of wisdom, but he appeared to be a lot farther along than his students. Whether Poonja-ji was capable of seeing the difference between himself and other people, I do not know. But his insistence that no difference existed began to seem either dogmatic or delusional. On one occasion, events conspired to perfectly illuminate the flaw in Poonja-ji’s teaching. A small group of experienced practitioners (among us several teachers of meditation) had organized a trip to India and Nepal to spend ten days with Poonja-ji in Lucknow, followed by ten days in Kathmandu, to receive teachings on the Tibetan Buddhist practice of Dzogchen. As it happened, during our time in Lucknow, a woman from Switzerland became “enlightened” in Poonja-ji’s presence. For the better part of a week, she was celebrated as something akin to the next Buddha. Poonja-ji repeatedly put her forward as evidence of how fully the truth could be realized without making any effort at all in meditation, and we had the pleasure of seeing this woman sit beside Poonja-ji on a raised platform expounding upon how blissful it now was in her corner of the universe. She was, in fact, radiantly happy, and it was by no means clear that Poonja-ji had made a mistake in recognizing her. She would say things like “There is nothing but consciousness, and there is no difference between it and reality itself.” Coming from such a nice, guileless person, there was little reason to doubt the profundity of her experience. When it came time for our group to leave India for Nepal, this woman asked if she could join us. Because she was such good company, we encouraged her to come along. A few of us were also curious to see how her realization would appear in another context. And so it came to pass that a woman whose enlightenment had just been confirmed by one of the greatest living exponents of Advaita Vedanta was in the room when we received our first teachings from Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, who was generally thought to be one of the greatest living Dzogchen masters. Of all the Buddhist teachings, those of Dzogchen most closely resemble the teachings of Advaita. The two traditions seek to provoke the same insight into the nonduality of consciousness, but, generally speaking, only Dzogchen makes it absolutely clear that one must practice this insight to the point of stability and that one can do so without succumbing to the dualistic striving that haunts most other paths. At a certain point in our discussions with Tulku Urgyen, our Swiss prodigy declared her boundless freedom in terms similar to those she had used to such great effect with Poonja-ji. After a few highly amusing exchanges, during which we watched Tulku Urgyen struggle to understand what our translator was telling him, he gave a short laugh and looked the woman over with renewed interest. “How long has it been since you were last lost in thought?” he asked. “I haven’t had any thoughts for over a week,” the woman replied. Tulku Urgyen smiled. “A week?” “Yes.” “No thoughts?” “No, my mind is completely still. It’s just pure consciousness.” “That’s very interesting. Okay, so this is what is going to happen now: We are all going to wait for you to have your next thought. There’s no hurry. We are all very patient people. We are just going to sit here and wait. Please tell us when you notice a thought arise in your mind.” It is difficult to convey what a brilliant and subtle intervention this was. It may have been the most inspired moment of teaching I have ever witnessed. After a few moments, a look of doubt appeared on our friend’s face. “Okay... Wait a minute... Oh... That could have been a thought there... Okay...” Over the next thirty seconds, we watched this woman’s enlightenment completely unravel. It became clear that she had been merely thinking about how expansive her experience of consciousness had become—how it was perfectly free of thought, immaculate, just like space—without noticing that she was thinking incessantly. She had been telling herself the story of her enlightenment—and she had been getting away with it because she happened to be an extraordinarily happy person for whom everything was going very well for the time being. This was the danger of nondual teachings of the sort that Poonja-ji was handing out to all comers. It was easy to delude oneself into thinking that one had achieved a permanent breakthrough, especially because he insisted that all breakthroughs must be permanent. What the Dzogchen teachings make clear, however, is that thinking about what is beyond thought is still thinking, and a glimpse of selflessness is generally only the beginning of a process that must reach fruition. Being able to stand perfectly free of the feeling of self is the start of one’s spiritual journey, not its end.”

Papaji’s “great experiment”??? Neo Advaita has evolved into the very dangerous idea that none of the traditional practices are necessary for liberation. At this point in time, it is the virulent dogmatic belief of many Neo Advaita teachers that anyone can become instantly liberated without any effort. This idea is based in complete and total ignorance of the science and practices essential for self-realization to take root in your consciousness. This idea of instant enlightenment often leaves the ego very much in charge—the enlightened ego—that keeps patterns of suffering recurring even after the most profound moments of realization or high states of consciousness. It also opens the door for megalomania... Naturally, you can love the idea of instant enlightenment, but it is the pure fantasy of the western mind to think it is possible to bypass the rigors of spiritual practice essential for full self-realization.The harsh reality is you must work on yourself in the relative sense to realize the truth of you in the absolute sense—there is no bypass or short cut... https://kosi.co/read/2017/5/7/neo-advaita

Is the need to clean really in dispute?

I read this Dhamma and Non-duality, I thought it was a fairly clear examination of the 'immediate realisation' school of non-dualism in and of itself, as well as an interesting look at a Buddhist critique of it. Not surprisingly I fall squarely in the authors camp.

Is Sat-chit-ananda experienced by the awakened?

I thought this was interesting and relevant to the topic: Salvation Masters [Du shi 度師; i.e., Buddhists] say: “If you wish to know your original true face, in the place of the unborn body there was a wheel of light.” (From the Commentary: The “bright wheel” of which the Buddhists speak is the karma wheel of death and rebirth.) https://deutsche-daoistische-vereinigung.de/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Xing_Ming_Gui_Zhi-BurtonRose.pdf

What do Daoists say? In the Taijitu diagram, wuji is represented as a blank circle and taiji as a circle with a center point (world embryo) or with broken and unbroken lines (yin and yang). The non-polar Supreme Ultimate is therefore wuji. Always in Wu-Ji the two earths intermingle and turn into the jade tablet. Wu stands for the thoughts; Ji represents perceptions, the spirit feeling and the sixth sense It draws up an image of Post-Heaven and Pre-Heaven thoughts unifying, the sixth sense merging with the Post-Heaven thoughts, the Pre-Heaven Spirit and Post-Heaven thinking combine into One, congealing into a sphere or circle. https://neigong.net/tag/neidan/ Is this non-duality as understood by the non-dualists? Say the non-dualistic view is correct for the moment, and I'd like to know if wuji=non-duality exactly or if it differs in any way, but the big issue remains for me how to attain this non-duality (as per the OP). As far as I know Daoist alchemists examine the polarities male-female and yin-yang and then the non-polar supreme ultimate is understood, at which point heaven mind and earth mind are merged in the human being. As opposed to the immediate realisation with no prior work or effort needed of popular non-duality. Somewhat similar to the OP Rao Shuangfeng said: Heaven and Earth, through yin-yang and the Five Phases, close and open without limit, and this principle governs closing and opening. It is like the hinge (shu-niu) of a door. Male and female creatures produce and reproduce without end, and this principle is the basis of production and reproduction, like the root of a tree. In reference to human beings, it is that by which the myriad good qualities are produced and the myriad affairs are settled. There is nothing that lacks this principle as its root and its hinge. If students understand its meaning and apply it daily, and with dignified stillness nourish themselves when [their feelings are] not yet aroused, and examine themselves after [their feelings are] aroused, then some of them might be able to silently understand the mystery of this principle.

How would you know conclusively whether your realisation is the whole thing or just the beginning steps into the 'Intermediate Zone'? Traditionally a teacher is likely to say neti neti, go deeper, come back in a years time, go back to your cell and pray, or just give you a good whack with a stick. Sri Aurobindo on the Intermediate Zone ...These things, when they pour down or come in, present themselves with a great force, a vivid sense of inspiration or illumination, much sensation of light and joy, an impression of widening and power. The sadhak feels himself freed from the normal limits, projected into a wonderful new world of experience, filled and enlarged and exalted;what comes associates itself, besides, with his aspirations, ambitions, notions of spiritual fulfillment and yogic siddhi; it is represented even as itself that realisation and fulfillment. Very easily he is carried away by the splendour and the rush, and thinks that he has realised more than he has truly done, something final or at least something sovereignly true. At this stage the necessary knowledge and experience are usually lacking which would tell him that this is only a very uncertain and mixed beginning; he may not realise at once that he is still in the cosmic Ignorance, not in the cosmic Truth, much less in the Transcendental Truth, and that whatever formative or dynamic idea-truths may have come down into him are partial only and yet further diminished by their presentation to him by a still mixed consciousness. He may fail to realise also that if he rushes to apply what he is realising or receiving as if it were something definitive, he may either fall into confusion and error or else get shut up in some partial formation in which there may be an element of spiritual Truth but it is likely to be outweighed by more dubious mental and vital accretions that deform it altogether. ...This is in fact an intermediary state, a zone of transition between the ordinary consciousness in mind and the true Yoga knowledge... One may take up their abode in this intermediate zone, care to go no further and build there some half-truth which one takes for the whole truth or become the instrument of the powers of these transitional planes – this is what happens to many sadhaks and yogis. –Sri Aurobindo

There seems to be something about brightness and natural radiance in enlightenment: How should light and darkness be understood? Could there ever really be lack of enlightenment if there is never really lack of awakened? What is meant by ignorance and true understanding?

The modern 'awakened' state doesn't seem to affect the deep karmic level, on which change doesn't occur. Samskaras remain. Rebirth is still necessary.

I experienced this sudden 'silence of the mind' for a couple of days many years ago, I had been quite distressed and it was a relief from that. No more distressed emotions and hammering thoughts. I could get on with my day, and everything was peaceful, and I was grateful to not be in mind-inflicted pain. It faded aftr the two days, I witnessed thoughts floating in and getting stuck, starting to fill up my mind space again. For a couple of days they had just flowed through it would seem, and for those couple of days there was seemingly no decades old or lifetimes old backlog either. But I never sought that exact experience again, it was pleasant, but not earth shattering. If it had stayed and I had started talking like Eckhart Tolle, all awakened and thinking myself the returned Christ as he apparently does, yet not wise, more shame on me. For myself I can only say thank God it didn't stay, as there was a hell of a lot more I needed to learn and understand - I know this now. Energy work doesn't require that space, it is a process of revealing fundamental patterns, first of the ten thousand things, then of the 3, then of the 2, then of the one. Duality is the arena (until the one I guess). If I'm not fully perceiving and understanding ten thousand, and then three, and then two, I doubt I could comprehensively perceive one. There is no desperation to leave duality behind, if this happens then so be it. It is not my goal. My goal is following an interesting and natural energetic unfolding, one step at a time, and hopefully coming out in some real place, not the non-dual marketplace. The energy path has its own rewards. Along the way gifts are revealed and unwrapped, gifts that would never be freed by leaping to the end game and thinking I have arrived. Gifts of healing, of seeing internal energy directly ie. x-ray or inward vision. A non-dualist accepts the perfection of pain and death, an alchemist sees and heals the disease. Non-dualists will call both outcomes perfect I suspect. Non-attachment at any cost. And there are more gifts than these, I just don't know of them personally yet. I'll take the 'oh so base and dual' gifts any day, over the one dimensional carrot of awakening.

4. our mind can not make the crossing and must be left behind - with the mind. My experience is that the mind is required to take us to a certain point, and it cannot take us beyond that point. A higher force is absolutely needed, akin to your 'grace'. I think I must disagree with the entire board in thinking that the mind is initially required, but at least I can agree with one person that at a certain point grace is absolutely required.

This is the 'awakened' paradigm. There always seems to be this element of utter despair and giving up. Quite opposite to someone like the Buddha though, who determined to sit without moving until he was enlightened. Determination seemed to work well enough for him, I believe his last words were "Strive on with diligence." Which then begs the question what is the difference between 'enlightenment' and 'awakening'.

How come they got to debate, and we just have to accept everyone's view as being right for them at that time, unless it's Mopai? This is the only way truth might be found, by initially abandoning all preconceptions. It would seem to be a fundamental necessity to me, if we accept that there are more things in heaven and earth than have already been specified. If truth is laid bare before me, I will use it to build an understanding of the big picture as it is, that big picture can remain uncontrived and yet represent reality on ever deeper levels. Any path might be the best path you can manage at the time, but it doesn't make it intrinsically good or valuable. Unless you inordinately value learning from your mistakes. It might be perfect to screw up for 10 000 future lifetimes, but I'd prefer to get it right in this one if I had the chance.

Of the little I know about the soul, I do think we have one, and I think it is placed safely away from our unconscious selves where we can do it no harm. I don't think it is perfect as it is, more likely it resembles the hun and po souls, and to advance spiritually a conscious decision must be made to side with the heavenly side. But I might be wrong about this, it's not something I know enough about yet. It's really diving into the deep end.

In neidan something still needs to be produced, and then nurtured and brought up from the LDT to the UDT, and to do this energies need to be refined. This perspective is nullified by all the non-dual philosophies that abound right now, from the trite to the profound. We have different paths, because we have different initial assumptions of fundamental reality, but not because I am lesser or wrong or just not far enough along in the process to know any better. What if the assumptions and conclusions of the non-dualists are wrong, despite its current popularity (again from the trite to the profound)? Yet this proposition is not examined, because there is a ready made response and finalised perspective. You are no longer looking for the truth because you believe you have found it, and instead you keep trying to squeeze yourself into non-duality's specifications. Anadi is one of the few voices I have come across who is critiquing non-duality, very directly in this article Freeing the Mind from the Prison of Non-duality. Maybe this is a conversation that should happen, instead of dismissing what might be a valid perspective.

I find that my mind is very good at understanding why things have happened in the past, but it's very bad at predicting what is necessary for the future - though it has a habit of thinking that it will be able to predict the next future moment despite its many abject failures at being right in the past. So, it does have a talent, and that is understanding and collating what has been and why, slowly putting together the big picture, and this is a talent that I feel is not being acknowledged. All that is being acknowledged are it's shortcomings - thinking it knows what is necessary and valuable in the future, and I feel it is then dispensed with on these grounds alone, and what it is very good at is not cultivated. A case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I fully acknowledge that what I need to do must be informed by 'the original face' or the pattern of heaven, I don't know if this is the same as 'the nature of mind'. I don't know if 'the nature of mind' informs actions, or if it more passive, just accepting that things are exactly as they are. Not engaging. My sense of what informs me is that it is directive and active, and that it informs my mind on exactly what to do and how to do it, which is actively trying to Create heaven on earth within myself. Without this step I think I would be at the mercy of accepting what is imperfect as perfect, instead of actively trying to establish perfection.

The above quotes capture my sense of something holistic which is created 'in the pattern of heaven', but without negating our human mind, perhaps instead just illuminating the minds that we do have.

Thus, the spirit is the possibility, the potentiality given to each human being to build their own heart/mind, and through it their own awareness and consciousness, discernment and reason, in such a way that they behave according to the order and patterns of the cosmic life. It is the spiritual intelligence (shen ming 神明) operating through the human heart/mind. In Daoism, it leads up to the union with the Dao. Therefore what is called spirit allows the responsibility of a human for his own life and behavior. To embody the spirit is to open the heart to nature, to natural order, to Heaven, to enlighten the intelligence, knowledge and understanding, in order to fulfill one’s destiny and also, at the same time, to nourish one’s life and that of the others. More than attracting external spirits into his body, it is the process of internalization, the building of an inner life which is real; it creates the link with the source of all lifes, the foundation of all reality. The spirit no one knows its limits; with a natural clarity it knows all that exists. Safeguard it within and don’t let it slip; don’t let the (external) beings disturb the sense organs, don’t let the sense organs disturb the heart/mind (xin 心 ) : this is called to grasp the core. (Guan zi, ch. Neiye) http://www.elisabeth-rochat.com/docs/31_shen.pdf

Zhuang zi (circa 370-300 B.C.) looks at it as the expression of the Dao (道) and the way to integrate it. Heaven and earth have their great beauties but do not speak of them; the four seasons have their clear-marked regularity but do not discuss it; the ten thousand things have their principles of growth (li 理) but do not expound them. The sage seeks out the beauties of Heaven and earth and masters the principles of the ten thousand things. Thus it is that the Perfect Man does not act, the Great Sage does not move - they have perceived [the Way of] Heaven and earth, we may say. This way, whose spiritual brightness (shen ming 神明) is of the greatest purity (zhi jing 至 精), joins with others in a hundred transformations. (Zhuang zi ch.22. Transl. B. Watson) The «spiritual brightness (shen ming 神明)» is how both the splendor of nature and the order, the principles underlying this great beauty, appear through the presence of what is called «spirits». To understand these patterns is to know all that is possible to know with a human intelligence and to recognize the «intelligence», the natural cleverness and spontaneous order which is behind the manifestation of life; to acknowledge the spirits as the agents allowing the process. We will come back to this «spiritual brighness» when it is a reality within a human. Zhuang zi uses human understanding in order to go beyond the intellectual, the thought, the will and become an entirely «natural» being, entirely acting through what comes from the reality of his original nature, from the Way of Heaven (tian dao 天道). Such a man is in the likeness of the spirits : helping the emergence of beings and inspiring the transformations maintaining their lives. http://www.elisabeth-rochat.com/docs/31_shen.pdf