Aetherous

About the no self thing...I think there is a self, but it changes throughout life. It's not an idea, but a multifunctioning aspect of the mind and body. For instance, I can tell you to jump. If you choose to do it, you can cause the body to do it. If there were truly no self, the recognition of what I was asking you to do, the choosing (especially), and the execution would not happen. Consider how amazing it is that you can basically do whatever you want with the body...it is within your control. What causes the hand to type when you are causing it to type? Trippy, man. If there is no self, then look at your life and try to define why it is you're an individual consciousness. If trees are the same as the body, then why are you stuck inside of here? Why not leave the body and center yourself within the tree? Why can't you see out of anyone else's eyes? So, no-self is an interesting mental exercise. You can disidentify with everything if you want. But look at the things which don't change regarding individual experience...embodiment of awareness, ability to function, decisiveness, etc. So yeah, "self", a multifunctioning changing aspect...or something.

Well, there is something to that...since the mind can focus on one sense and lose awareness of another completely. But that doesn't mean the senses are products of the mind. We can say there is "consciousness of sight" which is mind, but the sight itself isn't mind.

SJ, No, I don't think so at all. Why do you say that the senses are mind? I attempted and lost patience. Is there a specific portion of it which would make this Buddhist view that senses=mind understandable?

Steve, Sure... Well, a pure sensory experience is one where we are tasting, smelling, hearing, seeing, feeling. If you were blindfolded and given random things to eat, you'd be able to say, "Oh yeah, that's a strawberry...that's a piece of beef jerky..." etc. Coming to those conclusions is a split second recognition by the mind. But how we come to those conclusions is through the pure sensory experience. Is the mind and its categorizing ever fully shut off? Sometimes...such as in the blindfold example when you're first tasting the thing, or if you're experiencing something totally new. But it's not necessary to separate the senses from the mind, in my opinion. There's no goal here. At least personally, I can't say that the senses can be categorized as "mind". Also, this can be interesting: The first thing most people see are the outlines of two faces. That is the mind's recognition of the pure sensory experience. But it can also be interpreted as a goblet type of cup, or a candle holder of some type. And yet another way of looking at it is that it's simply lines drawn on a computer in some sort of pattern, with black and white colors...all of these interpretations are the mind's working of categorizing the sensory experience of whatever the image is. If you drop all of that, you can experience different aspects of the image in a more sensory way. You can notice in the top right corner, the sharp angle...a detail which wasn't noticeable when you cast the image off as simply being two faces. But now you can notice how sharp that angle is. Or look at what you could say is the bottom of the "cup"...you can now see that it isn't perfectly flat...there are some bumps in the center. So you can see how the mind limits some experiences.

Interesting. At least personally I see the pure sensory experience as something separate from mind...except when the mind is interpreting it, for instance having the idea of a "mountain" when looking at this: The idea/category limits the actual experience, and we may miss out on a lot by assuming things fall into our categories. Or when on hallucinogens, it's possible for the mind to completely distort the pure sensory experience. Not saying the pure sensory experience is ultimate reality; the senses are limited. Just that it's different from mind, and Buddhism is unnecessarily confusing yet again. I think no present moment ever becomes the past. In reality, time doesn't exist...there is no past. It's a mental construct. There is only the ever changing world. Our mind's reflection creates a timeline.

That's interesting. At least personally, I'd prefer to do the opposite. It's enjoyable to have a clear mind...and it's useful to have ideas. Will check the Lankavatara sutra... ... Well, having a mind that's disturbed isn't enjoyable or healthy. Instead of cultivating something that you don't have, it's a cultivation of the peaceful and natural state of your own mind.

Oh, that illusory thing which we only know exists through the 5 senses?

It could be said that water is ungraspable, too...but a person can hold it in their hands if they simply cup them. Or a better example: wind. That's ungraspable, but you experience it nonetheless. Plus, it was talking about the "past/present/future mind"...not mindless sensory experience, which is what I'm referring to. So I assure you...if you try looking at your computer in the present moment, you'll be able to. If you think you aren't able to, then how does a person ever look at their computer? Verify for yourself! Dogen was describing the present moment..."independent of past and future". Nothing you ever experience is the past or future. If you are remembering something from the past, that remembering is happening in the present moment. When you reflect and think about your remembering, that reflection is occurring in the present moment. Consider the word "reflection"...it is referring to an image of the thing that is not the thing itself. That's what the mind does. You have a pure experience of the computer screen, then when you recollect it and reflect upon it, you're experiencing the past...but that phenomenon of "past mind" is still occurring in the present moment. It's inescapable. I think so...and no, aside from consciousness being outside of the body but still within the "aura". I don't think consciousness is only in the brain...but I do think that the body is kind of like a machine which enables all sorts of experiences of consciousness. The only thing that would change my mind would be directly experiencing OBE's where I perform tests of accuracy in the physical world (for instance, flying out of the body and seeing something that's randomized and hidden, like a playing card, then coming back to the body and physically verifying what I saw). Or even if I couldn't do it, if many people could and they proved it often, I could start to believe that consciousness is something separate. So that being said, yes my view of reality is basically physicalist.

Totally! Thanks Brion.

Steve, He is accurate that no one experiences the present; that all we experience is the past? Please share the philosopher who says or proves that. I assert that there is no time. It's just a concept to describe events which have occurred either before now, or after now. Without concepts, there is just this experience, which is timeless and therefore "the present moment". Please explain more?

Irrefutable, absolute truth? Total bullshit. If you make a point, try to prove it. If you can't, it's a mere belief...and in this case a completely wrong one. Calling this a grade school environment is just you "pointing your finger", and everyone else seeing three of your own pointing back at you. It's childish to assert things without proving them, and then claim others are too closed off to see it.

Well, I will agree to COMPLETELY DISAGREE with such an insane view!

Steve, Oh yeah, definitely not a big deal... Not sure what you mean. Without eyes, a person can't see the physical world. There still may be things they see, like random light from neurons firing or something. Well, the world is really there...it's just not made sense of yet. It is full of distinct things...not simply potential. If someone's lobotomized, maybe their brain doesn't differentiate between a ball or a tree. But that doesn't render the ball and tree to be the same thing, or non-existent until they are aware of it. The ball and tree exist with their distinct characteristics regardless of individual perception...which is why those things aren't re-created each time we look at them. At least personally, I have a sense of deep connection with the immediate environment. The body is percieved as just being a part of it.

Ya Mu, Since a lot of people on the board deal with this kind of thing, and this is apparently a big deal...maybe the technique should be shared here??

Actually there is no "past". It exists only in the mind, as part of the conceptual framework of "time". In reality there is only the present. Everything is occurring as this present moment, and I can easily think/look/experience anything in the "now". Do you have some rare disability or something, where your mind only experiences the past? Or simply a false belief that you're holding onto? Right NOW, I'm looking at the computer screen. Direct experience of the world. So your beliefs regarding this are absolutely false. Already there, as we all are naturally.

"The brain creates the world" isn't accurate to me. It interprets it. For instance, by meditating on all of the characteristics of a 100 dollar bill, I can't create it out of thin air. But by seeing a 100 dollar bill, I can gather information about its characteristics and come to recognize it as something different from other things. The world is something outside of the brain. The brain is part of the world...but in direct perception, the world/brain/body/sun/moon/stars/cars...all of these are experienced through the 5 senses alone. Through the senses, we come to know the real "relative" world. We all know this. But a Buddhist would apparently question whether a brain exists at all, because they heard some quantum physicist say nothing exists? Or because they took drugs once and hallucinated, so they can't ever trust the 5 senses again?

Good point! That is pretty strange. Rappers often like to simply make things up, or equate themselves with others in order to seem larger than life and increase the power of their presence. It works...seeing as how they're raking in the cash with the amount of people playing their music full of lies. The accordian track came from Pharrel Williams, who sometimes does abnormal things with beat production. Two examples (not anything necessarily "musical" in how you consider the term, but interesting sounding):

In total agreement with this. And I don't know a single person who wouldn't be!

Because I believe that there is a body, I become aware of a body? I am actually directly experiencing the body right now, free of conditions. I assure you, the body of Vmarco, as the body of Scotty, that the body exists!

Aaron, Well that makes it even more confusing, since emptiness is supposed to be a concept regarding the nature of reality and not a state.

Vajra, Thanks for answering...that was my main issue with the heart sutra. Must be a poor translation. There are easier ways to say such a thing than, "there is no body".

...what? The body exists. If physicists want to examine particles and the space between, and even come to the conclusion that "nothing exists", it has no bearing on my direct experience of a body. Why does the heart sutra say, "in emptiness, there is no body, etc"? Maybe it was just a poor translation.

Hadn't seen that you edited your post to say this. We're in agreement on that. _/\_

Thanks for attempting to answer my questions, Vajra. I am deeply dissatisfied with what I know of Buddhism, as a result. If I were to ever truly learn about it, for some reason which I can't fathom, I guess I'd need a teacher who was more capable of addressing my questions honestly and sensibly. But don't let that reflect upon my opinion of you...I like you.