stirling

Is there a quote directly from Shankara on the topic? It is common as an immediate stage of enlightenment to feel that as an enlightened "being" one stands apart from reality as a witness and characterizes themselves as that which witnesses. My experience is that this can also be seen through. Charges of nihilism against Buddhism misunderstand it - "who" precisely would be the nihilist in a unity, or where all appearances are recognized as having no "self"? My answers are generally peppered with Buddhism, Chan, and Taoism, though Buddhism is what I know best. As the Buddha said: “The dharma too is like a raft. It serves the purpose of crossing over, not the purpose of grasping." - Buddha, Alagaddupama Sutra What does it matter where the wisdom comes from if it points to reality as it is? On that point, I am in full agreement with Hui Hai: "The awakened mind is turned upside down and does not accord even with the Buddha-wisdom.” - Hui Hai Ultimately I am positive that the wisdom itself has no tradition. Why cling to the raft? - ...reminds me of another quote: For the unified mind in accord with the Way all self-centered striving ceases. - Seng T'san Sounds like Daoism, dunnit? I'm in this thread for topic, not the discussion of emptiness, but because I am quite convinced that it is at the center of ALL conversations about such things here it does tend to come up. Not looking to pick a fight, but it looks like there is a Buddhism forum right alongside the Hindu one right here: https://www.thedaobums.com/forum/1-general-discussion/ I am just answering questions posed to me.

...or the obverse - it seems to me that a dream has its own entirely believable logical consistency when you are in it, just as the waking world does. In my experience a good portion of the appearance of consistency is brought by our thinking mind covering the inconsistencies in either the waking OR dreaming experience. However, as we drop obscurations the curtain is slowly pulled back. The illusory nature of time/space/self is gradually unraveled in all states of wakefulness, including deep sleep. I find it interesting that in Advaita the "waking state" is considered to be the least conscious, with deep sleep being the clearest. This makes sense to me. Relative cognitions may happen, but it would a delusion to think that they ultimately are made by a "self", wouldn't it? It must be possible to see from prajna (awake awareness) in all states of wakefulness, with practice. IMHO Wisdom is just wisdom - seeing the non-dual nature of reality in every moment, in all (temporary) states and conditions that arise and pass without discernment. It's pointed to in this old chestnut: So, Shariputra, in emptiness there’s no form, no feeling, no perception, no memory, no consciousness; no eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body, and no mind; no shape, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch, and no thought; no eye nor mind, nor any other means of perception, no ignorance nor old age and death, nor any causal link, and also no end of causal links, no suffering, no source of suffering, no relief from suffering, and no way out of suffering, no wisdom, no gaining wisdom, no failing to gain wisdom. So, Shariputra, without gaining anything, bodhisattvas find refuge in Prajnaparamita, living without walls in the mind, and so without fears, seeing through delusions and finally seeing through nirvana. - Buddha, Heart Sutra

Yes! Holograms is my understanding - every single "point" reflected in every other single "point". Space/time/self completely collapsed. I'm not sure how/where/when any separate dimensions would exist, but I'm open to seeing how that might arise.

Agreed. I would subscribe to the Shentong view - if I'm choosing. A fantastic and challenging book.

I am sure.

My understanding is that all such things are merely appearances in consciousness and are therefore no more real than anything else - which is to say dreamlike at best.

I greatly appreciate your effort to meet me half way. At the center of the understanding is both an emptiness, but also a unity. That emptiness/unity can be characterized in many ways, none of which are strictly correct, IMHO. The best way to apprehend it is to drop any ideas about what it is or the accuracy of any explanation. I prostrate to Gautama, 
Who through compassion, 
Taught the true doctrine,
 Which leads to the relinquishing of all views.
— Nagarjuna, Mulamadhyamakakarika (Fundamental Wisdom
of the Middle Way) Not knowing is most intimate.
— Luohan Guichen, Case 20 of The Book of Equanimity If even one thought appears, that is already a mistake.
— Zen Master So Sahn, The Mirror of Zen I do not teach Buddhism. I only teach don’t know.
—Zen Master Seung Sahn, The Compass of Zen What you are saying appears to me to be in complete alignment with what is above. If it does not to you I understand, and am happy to disagree with no hard feelings.

In an early mystical experience in my 20's I could see that there were vertices connecting all beings and things. It lasted for about half an hour with varying degrees of depth. IMHO this was a visualization of the very real principle of dependent origination, as represented by something like Indra's Net: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indra's_net

Well... sure. Still, if we are here discussing it ALL our best attempts will only "fail well", yes? Do you know some way to describe it that has any accuracy? I personally think "Self" is as terrible as anything else, since it doesn't really have any "self" as a being distinct from anything else. I think "neti neti" isn't bad: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neti_neti Or "not two"? One? The list goes on, but all fail ultimate where the nature of language must be subject/object and therefore inadequate. - It isn't "mind" that is empty. It is that all of the objects that appear to be separate have no intrinsic existence of their own... or that ALL appearances are "Mind" - the same as "Self" in this case.

I had two dreams in my 30's a year or so apart. In one I followed a grey haired ngakpa (top-knot gave him away) around a garden crying... begging him to be my teacher or help me find my teacher. He was so gentle, smiling at me that it wasn't time, but that I should be diligent and keep practicing. I was working through 100,000 recitations of the Dudjom Ngondro preliminary teaching at the time. I also have this happen. I think most people would call them "dead", but I just think of them as un-incarnated beings in pain. Sometimes they way they appear is truly horrific, though they aren't frightening to me. I naturally do the same practice you do for them, more or less - a great way to approach all phenomena, IMHO.

Your clever is my clarity. I appreciate his (what I perceive as) precise language, but yes... still rafts. Really it's just "this"... "now"... and we absolutely agree that Self/Emptiness knows when it meets itself. Having said that... how is it possible that "Self" meets anything else? Bows.

By any chance do you also see monks? My teacher says that it happens often enough that teachers trade stories about it. The behavior she shares is exactly the same as mine. I agree that it is somehow transactional. Whatever it is that is transacted doesn't really translate into everyday cause/effect sense however. My experience is that they show up more if I am open to them. I typically bow to them if I am up, or send them metta, or thank them for whatever it is they may be attempting to impart. They have also very occasionally left what initially appear as 3 dimensional "gifts" that melt when physical perspective is shifted. What they are meant to impart or mean is seems to be impossible to parse. Insight continues to deepen, so I consider them to be entirely benevolent, as I do everything else. Looking forward to your article. Bows.

Same thing, different terms. He has definitely come across it and knows what he is talking about in my experience.

A lot of interesting topics being raised in this thread. It is one like it (more specifically about vortices/power centers) that actually led me to DaoBums. "Power Centers": I tend to move from one to another of these since some early spiritual experiences in my teens. I have lived in Salisbury UK, Ashland OR, Santa Cruz CA and now Port Townsend WA. I really started to perceive these places when I lived in the UK. The Salisbury Plain and Western England in general is just littered with these places, some more active than others. Of course there are Stonehenge and Avebury (one a very heavy, leaden sleepy feeling, the other an effervescent party spot), but also named all over the Ordinance Survey maps many MANY smaller places, sometimes on private land. When I moved to Port Townsend I sensed this was yet another, and the area has a number of spots that meet this description, and I suspect a few more than I have yet found. What are they? Early on I was obsessed with ley lines and meridians, but am now quite sure that they are simply places that bring our emotional/intellectual obscurations to light, and enable us perform pre-constructed or spontaneously constructed ritual to clear blockages. They are essential symbols, just as a tab of acid or a "red pill" is a symbol. Like everything else seen from prajna/wisdom they are empty of any self-existence or meaning apart from what we impute to them. Formless Beings: After reading some of the stuff that gets posted to this board I'm happy to look crazy here. It is common after deep realization to begin to see formless beings. In between sleeping and waking I commonly see "monks" for lack of a better descriptor. They are silent, motionless, faceless and robed/hooded like the classic Christian monk. If I get up in the night there will sometimes be one in my line of sight in another room. Once there we three together as if in procession. A few times I have awakened to one by my bedside. My experience is a fairly common one, at least amongst Buddhists. There are other things, but it would take longer to describe. My teacher has also seen them and says that they are here to "help" (possibly deepen existing insight), and are harmless like everything else that appears to intrinsically exist. IMHO I am quite sure that, like the vortices, these beings do not have intrinsic reality and are more like symbols that the obscurations of appearing in the world as we currently do shape. Like all appearances they are both real and not real - sunyata. For those who are unfamiliar, our current Dalai Lama has done a fantastic job of explaining sunyata/emptiness in (fairly) plain terms: According to the theory of emptiness, any belief in an objective reality grounded in the assumption of intrinsic, independent existence is simply untenable. All things and events, whether 'material', mental or even abstract concepts like time, are devoid of objective, independent existence ... Things and events are 'empty' in that they can never possess any immutable essence, intrinsic reality or absolute 'being' that affords independence. - 14th Dalai Lama

I think Stream Entry is the first complete and CONVINCING glimpse of non-dual reality. Afterward there is almost always still a sense of self, time, and space being real, but with the experiential (vs. conceptual) gnosis that they are not. It doesn't take long until that gnowing starts to be an ability to SEE non-duality any time the attention is directed toward it. Definitely. There are still many obscurations after any glimpses. One teacher I have read calls it the "growing up" bit, but in the respect to learning to live from "wisdom" or prajna rather than our mistaken ideas about morality and right and wrong or even just arbitrary conceptual constructs of how life is. My understanding is that these are simply major moments where larger, tightly held beliefs drop away and more of how things truly are is revealed. I don't know if I would agree, not that I have more authority or conceptual knowledge than Stephen. As a former Nyingma school Buddhist, I equate actually understanding my "pointing out" instructions about the "nature of mind" as the first time I understood what "no-self"/emptiness was with as "kensho" and the moment of complete understanding and unshakeable gnosis of that nature as "Satori". My feeling is that "self" finally dropping away (along with time/space) is what finally severs all fetters and creates an "Arhat". I agree with that. Once the nature of mind/reality is truly understood there can be very real progress. The irony is that enlightenment is, as they say, always present throughout. A not-totally-convincing taste of it as kensho, and then the unquestionable reality of it at Satori/Stream Entry.

Thank you for sharing this... very useful. Is if from a particular document? I think it is also good to point out that, while these definitions might seem to be very different on a conceptual/storytelling/cosmological level, there is actually more agreement on what enlightenment looks like than disagreement if you read carefully, IMHO. For example (my comments using the numbering of the above): 1. Someone able to see the qualities of the 8 jhanas in everyday wakefulness would be an Arhat. 2. This is the typical walking-around understanding of an Arhat. 3. This experience would be completely familiar to the Arhat. My teacher (Soto Zen) calls it "being in alignment". 4. The trick with this one, IMHO, is understanding the non-dual nature of reality. If the "self" has dropped away the "taints" do no belong to anyone. There is just what happens, happening now, your values about what is happening notwithstanding. Are the taints likely to occur in the arhat/sage? If there is no clinging or aversion to experience it is highly unlikely. See 3. 5. This definitely happens when "self" drops away (arhat) as how self-other/space/time are seen to exist. After awakening, there is understanding but it takes time for the "self" process to drop out (arhat), and eventually for the karma of seeing the world as it is to wind down. What is "real" gets wiggly. The existence of the siddhis existence comes to make complete sense where the reified existence of time/space/things gets unraveled. Why wouldn't you be able to see dead "people", hear the thoughts of others, or see past lives if NONE of them have any intrinsic existence or real meaning beyond being teaching/dharma that deepens understanding. This is not to say that all enlightened "beings' are Arhats, but rather all of these share the same understanding with whatever label you choose. My 2¢. Along the lines of Creation's post above, I will share Daniel Ingram's commentary of the various types of models he has encountered. It is well worth a read for the curious, and he has very generously put them on a website in addition to his book: https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/table-of-contents/part-v-awakening/37-models-of-the-stages-of-awakening/

I get the feeling that you fully understand just how difficult it is to explain in subject/object language. I always endeavor to use something like plain English, and to hopefully "fail well".

At its simplest (and it IS simple) enlightenment is just a perspective shift. It is the sudden experiential realization that how you have interpreted the world you live in, as a vast landscape of separate things interacting over time, is a misunderstanding of how things really are. Very abruptly it is seen that the world exists free of your "self", space, or time. All dualities are realized to be illusory. There has never been a "you" to do the "wrong" thing... or... anything. Everything is understood to be an interwoven and inseparable brocade of phenomena arising and passing away, including the "self" that you thought you were. The past and future have only ever been thoughts happening now. It is the realization that what exists is simply an awareness of phenomena happening now, right where they are. Truly NO-ONE ever becomes enlightened, because enlightenment is the realization that there IS no-one to enlighten. Enlightenment is just non-dual reality remembering what it always already is. -

I don't know for sure, but I would be willing to bet he put an end to "his' suffering, by which I mean suffering as a "self". The sensations and apparent suffering of the not-separate interconnected "everything", or dharmakaya (and by extension, what he would have earlier in his life identified as "his" body and "his" thoughts ) would still continue, but would not be identified with and would be seen as empty of any particular conceptual dualistic valuation (good/bad/painful/not painful/etc.) He would simply have seen through the illusion that "he" was ever a person who suffered as a being that had any intrinsic reality. Fully enlightened, but still embodied in appearance.

While the basis of them might be correct, there are not really ANY quotes that are likely to be authentically from the Buddha since he died hundreds of years before his earliest written works appeared. What the Buddhas suttas and sutras ARE is time-tested by millions of enlightened beings in the interim, which is why we can come to have some trust in their representation of the dharma. Stephen Batchelor is certainly worth reading as well.... for the same reason.

Is it "mind" or "Mind"? Is it "self" or "Self"? If it comes with a capitol letter out front and refers to awareness as the only real thing, then... maybe... but not even that really. I see alchemy like this: ...reminds me of this: Yes, everything is interconnected and all appearances are reflected in all other appearances... but also there ARE no separate appearances or reflections. Since there are no subject/object relationships there is nothing to have a relation to anything else. Ultimately there is just "this" happening "now" - context free. Sorry I didn't reply to your reply... I missed your post.

Agreed. I personally see it as a pointer to realize and act from the non-dual "self", not an invitation to knock yourself out raping and pillaging. I don't' think this is unlikely - Crowley was a well-known mountain climber and spent years of his life in the Himalayas. He was also an advocate for Buddhism as the most "scientific" religion, though also critical of it, and obviously influenced by Hinduism.

My understanding of Crowley's "Law of Thelema" wasn't that it meant we are free to exercise our whims in the world, but instead find our "inner self" and allow that to guide us.

Being as it is (or as you are) in this moment is being present with causes and conditions that point to enlightenment. How the world appears to you is based on the causes and conditions of your "birth" in this moment. The 12 Links of Dependent Origination point to not only the illusory "macro" cycle of being human, but also what is happening in THIS moment. We are reborn and die moment to moment lost in the cycle of of our story. In a non-dual "universe" humanity (or anything else) isn't the center of anything. Non-duality is, by definition, center-less. What awareness/consciousness IS is the fabric of all phenomena/sensation, arising and passing in this moment. Awareness is present in all sensation, occurring where and when it arises.

Very nicely said. Bows.