stirling

Language is an entirely clumsy way of trying to get the topic across, but the alternative options are fairly limited.

...and "self" of course.

I am speaking specifically about the illusion of feeling you are in control of your own destiny. I'm sorry to hear that those things happened to you. I have been in car accidents, witnessed my children having mental breakdowns in hospital, endured excruciating pain, and have watched my beloved dog of 15 years die. In all cases, it was crystal clear that the all phenomena were empty of intrinsic existence with no effort to see. It is a permanent perceptual shift and there are plenty of people that see this way every day - a few on this very board. Non-dual realization is quite real, and does reveal the illusion of the subject/object reality.

What if it is understood that there is no "self" observing? - If it is "agency", by definition it belongs to someone. - Buddha nature is empty of intrinsic existence and therefore empty of agents and agency. There is only "enlightened activity", as Shunryu Suzuki would say.

What I mean here is: It isn't possible to experience another appearance in consciousness/being's agency, therefore attributing agency to anyone/thing is an assumption. Many things that commonly happen are not attributed to the agency of the agents involved. A landslide or an ocean wave might be possible examples. It is possible to witness that YOUR agency is an illusion. This opens the door for a variety of other related insights.

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Not sure if this is pointed at me, but you are welcome to address me directly. (sorry... can't seem to edit this to say "Ralis" rather than "Natural")

To anyone who sees that all appearances lack intrinsic awareness of their own. WHO does the volition/will/agency belong to? What exists that has intrinsic existence?

I would consider these ideas: If ""all things are empty of intrinsic existence and nature", who would have agency? If you could witness that your agency was illusory (or that reality existed entirely WITHOUT agents/subjects) why would you imagine that other appearances in consciousness possessed agency? Under what conditions would it be possible to witness the actions of another and be sure that they possess agency of their own?

The illusion of choice is something that occurs as part of the mind's dialog AFTER things change. The "self" has no agency. There are ultimately only unlabeled phenomena happening now. Phenomena are impermanent and change constantly in awareness. There is no observable agency in awareness making phenomena change. Awareness just is. This was all dissolved initially in meditation, but is plainly visible now. What does your personal experience tell you?

My personal experience says otherwise, though there are plenty of non-Sam Harris based science experiments that DO demonstrate this point, not that they are ultimately relevant: https://www.wired.com/2008/04/mind-decision/ If you want to take this apart, meditation is the place to look, and learning to see the skandhas arise (which I just posted about) is ironically, the practice I would recommend.

While I don't get the feeling that there is a lot of room for flexibility in your world view, you might find it interesting if you are a decent meditator to learn to watch the "skandhas" arise in order to actually see how your thoughts and feelings are constructed. Keep in mind that this takes some work, but it is a very useful skill to learn to allow a body feeling to stop in development, before it even becomes "pleasant/unpleasant" in "2. Sensation". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skandha#Description With practice you can see that all thoughts and feelings have their start as phenomena that HAVE no positive or negative value and are therefore empty of fear, love, etc. etc. Feel free to ask more questions about it if there is genuine interest.

This is what a living breathing bodhisattva looks like in the world. This is what "enlightened activity" IS. Beautiful. The world needs more Barbaras. Become a Barbara. Make this your aspiration, Bhikkus! (...I wish I could but I suspect becoming a Barbara this far into my marriage might be more of a transition than my wife would appreciate.)

Not sure who you are addressing, but it can't be me. I agree that light IS mentioned in Buddhist texts, but it is a METAPHOR. I am assuming that there are metaphors in the Chinese languages you are translating from/to? Even IF there is some light phenomena that accompanies enlightenment being suggested it isn't ultimately important in the scheme of things... it isn't the central point of the sutras in question.

I mean that there are a plethora of influences and traditions pulled in, not that she was LIKE Crowley personally. Ah. I thought the name sounded familiar! Wondering aloud really. He was a mountaineer and climbed in the Himalayas many times. The planet wouldn't be a factor. The "secrets" are timeless. Sorry, unskillful language there. I mean that he featured in Theosophist materials too, if I recall.

Wow... that was a rabbit hole! Thanks for that. Good fun. I have a soft spot for this kind of material... it's so colorful, complex and cosmological! So, Alice Bailey seems like a Crowley-style character, or much like my experiences with the Theosophist materials. It's interesting, but the "Tibetan's" material doesn't really bear any relation to Tibetan Buddhism or the Bon traditions which I am quite familiar with... looks more like something someone (Bailey?) put together. A Tibetan Buddhist preparing men for the return of the Christ? It would be seen as nonsense by any realized Buddhist. Is the Tibetan secretly Crowley? I am most interested in this: What would you envisage this secret might be? The real Tibetan secrets (or any Buddhist school) are always in plain sight. Kumara is a theosophy chap, isn't he? Why hasn't someone made a cool 19th century drama about all of this with magical realist undertones? I'd pay to see it.

My work has been almost entirely in Buddhist schools, and cultivation of this type was not something I have ever practiced and was entirely unnecessary to gain non-dual insight. If there as a practice that mattered it would be simply resting in the non-dual nature of mind in Zazen/Dzogchen until there was a moment where I realized what it was. Generating bodhicitta, and practices to break down self-cherishing definitely made me accident prone, but no practices precipitated understanding. This is my experience.

There is some crossover here, so I thought I would pitch in. A side note: non-duality is also mentioned in the Upanishads, specifically Mandukya Upanishad which may or may not actually predate the Buddha's teachings depending on which scholar is asked. The quote in question: To bring this back to your topic, upon realization there IS often the experience of the field of vision becoming "lighter", as if a veil has been lifted (as the common parlance suggests). This can last for some time after. Despite that, the common interpretation of Sanskrit Indian Mahayana texts (which I believe is the origin of the text you are referring to?) where light is mentioned is in fact the illumination of sunyata through Wisdom (prajna), not any physical manifestation, which, while interesting, really pales in comparison to seeing phenomena illuminated by their own emptiness, which is the MUCH more surprising and relevant part of the insight. The entertaining physical effects that come with insight are seen in context - existing like all phenomena that arise and pass. Ultimately irrelevant. I'm happy to answer as a "non-duality" expert: True insight is seeing sunyata in real time, which is non-dual. Where sunyata is seen, it is obvious that there has never BEEN anyone to "produce light". Rather the one time practitioner, so set on "Being a Lamp Unto Themselves" has finally realized sunyata and been illuminated metaphorically. I found an English translation of what I believe is the sutra in question: https://huntingtonarchive.org/resources/downloads/sutras/08technicalMayayana/goldenlightsutra1206lttr.pdf I chose two stanzas that seem to clearly support this idea: In the case of the bolded text in the first stanza, the light of enlightenment IS prajna. In the second, the "compassionate light" is the result of seeing all appearances as empty. The darkness is clearly delusion. I am honestly not sure where in the English language document your passages come from. If there are specific passages you would be interested in discussing in English, I'd be happy to weigh in if it is helpful. Bows.

Pure curiosity: What makes you think that? In the case of compassion coming from Prajna, suffering is really ONLY caused by the delusion of believing in the illusion of separateness. Therefore, (to the best of my knowledge) appearances in consciousness that are not under such a delusion aren't suffering. You say some wonderfully colorful things (makes me miss LSD, honestly) but how do you quantify such intimations? Are you a dowser or sensitive by any chance? Is there some source material for these ideas?

This is one of the interesting side effects of realization - understanding that "you" have never chosen, or acted on anything. There has never been anyone to do anything. Your history is a story you tell you yourself about who you are and has no ultimate reality in the moment your recollect it. There is only ever here/now.

But too much compassion might be unwise? I don't think softness or openness to others can be a bad thing, but it might depend on how that manifests. I'll give you my definition - a version of "Ultimate Bodhicitta" in my own words: Being present with and for the suffering of the world, and being in alignment with Wisdom, the understanding of the emptiness of all phenomena. This is essentially the same as Wu Wei - not being in resistance to things as they are, but allowing what happens in the moment to flow through "you". This is essentially the definition of the action of a Bodhisattva. This would include a sort of softness or openness, but leaves out the idea that is our job to fix the world, or other people. There may be action that involves changing things in a way that seems to be of benefit, despite that. Using this definition, I don't believe that there can be enough compassion.

"self" in Buddhism is a delusion caused by the misapprehension and misappelation of phenomena. No-self is "Anatta" in Buddhism. The source of all arising phenomena is the dharmakaya; it is where all phenomena manifest, and is functionally the same as Atman. It IS a wholeness (or emptiness of separate things), though it is often described as having 3 different facets (all of which are still ultimately STILL dharmakaya). This is much like SatChitAnanda or the Father Son and Holy Spirit. These facets are all ultimately a unity, but are described in these ways in order to make them more apprehensible. In the Upanishads the soul is ultimately just Atman, and therefore non-dual. Wherever you see "Self" or "not-self" in most of these scriptures you are looking at the non-dual. If there is non-duality, there is also the cessation of all self/other, here/there, and past/future... for a start. There aren't two sticks to rub together, or anyone to argue with about the paucity of sticks. Non-duality has MASSIVE implications that are far larger than a cursory glance might suggest. For the most part these traditions are all obviously non-dual to me. You'd need to read each of these individually yourself and know what you are looking for to understand what you are looking at. My understanding is not a belief, it is experiential. I am Soto Zen teacher, with many years of Dzogchen/Nyingma training as well, but also an enthusiast of Advaita Vedanta, Taoism, the Bhagavad Gita, and many other schools of thought and sources. I can talk about non-duality framed in any of those structures, but generally try to talk about it in what I believe is the simplest, plainest, non-denominational language. All practices, cosmologies and systems have their strengths or weaknesses, but should ultimately only be viewed as the conceptual structures they are, NOT any kind of description of ultimately reality. What we are talking about here has no structure, and cannot be described adequately by language, or people would just read this material and suddenly "get" it. Attachments to traditions and practices is a common place to get stuck. Enlightenment itself doesn't belong to any tradition.

Niether. As relative beings we are always where we should be doing what we should be doing, once we can see our absolute nature. As the absolute, we "are" this happening now. So many posts. I'm going to step back for a bit. Sorry - this is my favorite topic.

What is your definition of compassion?