stirling

There IS no situation between us. I have asked you nicely not to reply to my posts, and for a short time you honored my offer, but your anger and fascination with me (a complete stranger) makes it impossible for you to leave me alone. Here, again, you are defaming me, misquoting me and projecting on to me whatever fear or bias you have concocted. I could easily have ignored you, but your fascination with me led me to wonder whether I might be of some service. At this point it looks like you have decided to burn another bridge here.

Thoughts are not experience, they happen in the mind, not in the world.

Is someone expecting others to adopt the idea of non-duality? It IS delusional to adopt ANY philosophy, IMHO. Ideas are just ideas, regardless of the depth of your belief in them. The same goes for memories of experiences. They aren't reality. I only trust what can be seen in experience in this moment. I can see the non-dual nature as we speak.

Enlightenment is seeing the reality of non-duality. I'm not endorsing it, I'm talking about the topic of this thread and from my personal experience with it. Non-duality is a real thing that any experienced meditation student that has sincere curiosity can see for themselves, with the direction of a realized teacher. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing-out_instruction Complete realization is somewhat rare, but far from impossible. All of my teachers and their teachers are realized, as well as a number of my friends and colleagues.

Non-dual philosophy is an idea. Ideas can be adopted or dropped at any time. Actual non-dual understanding is not a conceptual idea, it is an experiential understanding. It is enlightenment. It doesn't have a perspective or come from one. Adopting it as a philosophy is pointless, because it is not an intellectual position and can't be understood from as an intellectual point of view.

For there to be an inside or outside "world" there would have to be a "duality", as well as a separate observer to own that internal "world".

You can't just "adopt" it. It happens because of a permanent experiential insight. Remember when you realized that Santa/Father Christmas wasn't real? Imagine that there was a moment when you realized that separateness or dualities weren't real. It can't be unseen, because it has always been the underlying reality, and you can't MAKE it happen because it is clear that what happens in the world has never been up to "you"... there isn't one.

If you have insight, it is your "external" world too, or, to be more clear, there ISN'T an internal or external world... that is just another duality that falls away. Yeah... not 5 year old friendly. Sorry. How about this: The relative view and absolute view see the same thing, the same "world", except the "non-dual" absolute sees through the illusion of perceiving a landscape of separateness, or "dualities".

Non-duality is actually the LACK of a point of view. There is no subject or object to own a view. It doesn't have pluses or minuses, and isn't a choice. No-one exists to choose or not choose, it is simply the reality as it is. Anyone who used a "non-dual" excuse to justify their actions cannot possibly truly understand it.

We are used to seeing things from the perspective of being a separate person in a world of objects who moves in time and space. There can be a permanent shift of perspective where instead there is an endless, infinite field of un-labeled phenomena fluxing here, now, lacking space, time, or anything that has existence of its own or could be labeled. One way to describe it, amongst countless, inadequate ways of labeling it, is that this is seeing the "non-dual" nature of reality. It looks mostly the same in both perspectives except that the salient quality that pervades all of it is this "non-duality" or "emptiness".

I appreciate your clarification and future caution. _/\_

Certainly the Buddha suggested jhanas as training, but didn't mention the aspects you are discussing, which isn't to say they aren't or can't be valid. Having followed the well-known Pali descriptions of jhana practice, I haven't arrived at the same phenomena, and they certainly aren't what led me to complete the path. The Buddha promises the end of suffering. My experience is that these particular proofs or events aren't necessary for that goal. None of that means that I don't find them interesting. I admit to being a little confused by Freeform's description of 1st jhana in that last paragraph. The first jhana still includes a "self", thoughts, etc. Oneness doesn't appear until the meditation is formless... Oh... I've seen some truly unbelievable stuff, seeing a little light emit from someone would be strange, but not the craziest thing I have seen. My point is really that, based on MY understanding of these practices and enlightenment itself, none of these things make sense together. Had to look that up, unsurprisingly. Does the practice you are talking about include building an "immortal vehicle"? I can see how someone would want that. It is quite clear to me at the same time that the body isn't any more special than any other aspect of the dharmakaya, and that birds singing, cars driving by, leaves falling, and a cat yawning are all just as much "I" as anything the apparent body does, and none of them are "I". I have 25 years of Dzogchen/Nyingma under my belt, so definitely have heard of those things, and actually witnessed the paranirvana of one of my late teachers. It isn't that I think these things are impossible, but just that linking them to the jhanas doesn't make any sense to me. I also certainly have experience with using substances and altering consciousness. Haha. How so? _/\_

Only experience dispels confusion. There are many ways to describe phenomena, but I have found that most "relative" descriptions are clarified by "absolute" understanding. Me either, honestly, though I would say my teacher is about as expert as they come. I don't personally consider the jhanas as important as simply learning to rest the mind in emptiness, or most of the "moral" practices intended to develop loving-kindness/compassion. Absolutely! Got it. My sticking point is the idea that anyone else might be able to observe such phenomena. Certainly "light" phenomena of various kinds have happened in meditation to me MANY times, with the nimitta being a constant companion, and some "kundalini' style stuff occurring any number of times, but something seeable by other people... mmmm.... Which specific Theravada traditions are we talking here? Thai Forest? While sounding a little like hyperbole, I actually don't have a problem with ANY part of that quote except the idea that someone physically radiates light. I have met teachers (some famous) who have been enlightened for decades, but they don't radiate light. As for the other claims, they are actually much less incredible than they sound. Interesting, but not something in my experience... see above. It isn't something I would miss, if I encountered it, and I have met some of the most famous living (and dead) Tibetan teachers. What is meant here by external and internal? What is wrong with cancer... or "death" for that matter? My experience is that anyone who is actually enlightened understands that death and illness are not problems. The Buddha was ill and "died". What is immortal isn't the "self"... isn't the character of a "person" we play in our day to day lives. There is nothing to save, OR protect there... we are actually ALREADY "immortal". The difference between a Buddha and someone else is ONLY the realization. No special bodily transformation.

I appreciate you sharing. It is OK for us to have different experiences! Certainly the emphasis on sitting is important, though I wouldn't consider sitting for 72hrs straight the "Middle Way", myself. Most people I have met (with some meditation experience) can get some sense of 1st or 2nd jhana in a week or so, setting aside this idea of light phenomena for a moment. The formless jhanas can be much more difficult. Depending on what we are talking about, I don't think such things are impossible, but tying them specifically to some sort of perceived attainment seems far fetched. Which particular attainment would one need to emit light? People have all kinds of experiences in meditation, and some are quite common. There is really only one attainment, IMHO, which is (once realized) sort of ordinary - even though one understands the "immortal"/physics/self/time breaking down aspects. I won't say that these are "impossible" (my experience is that many surprising things are possible), but I am not sure why they would matter once there is complete realization.

What is "dirty chi", and how do you know what it is up to? I don't think you are rambling. What does "stuck in emptiness" mean to you? Sounds like you were having trouble engaging with things? Why do you no longer connect with your old career? What DO you connect with? I see. Have you chatted with member SnowyMountains yet? He is a big Jung fan. Speaking for myself and practice, I think it is less productive to get caught up in the "why" story, and more helpful to actually look at what we experience clinging or aversion to in this moment. When we encounter "contraction" in the world we feel tight, worried, holding onto something we want to stay the same or be a certain way, or pushing away an imagined possible future we fear may come to pass. These are often attached to old stories about our past or events and our reactions to them that color this moment, and that we are still carrying. Realizing what these patterns are, and allowing them to reply when the mind is more quiet and still, without engaging our thought process about them is the way forward in this practice. Each time we can bring them to our still mind without clinging to them or pushing them away, they lose their emotional resonance and ability to impact our future behavior as "suffering"/struggle. "Untethered Soul", by Michael Singer has a nice set of simple non-denominational practices I have recommended for a number of my students for working with this kind of material. They tend to have a lot of success with it. Working to find a more balanced and simple way of working with our obscurations, and dropping them over time eventually brings all of the "supernatural" stuff anyway.

I feel there must be some missing context here. Where do the assertions about the jhanas above come from? Is there some particular text, or...? To touch on a few of these points that Freeform made: Jhanas 4 - 8+ are "formless". Awareness of subject object/reality fades to increasing degrees - self, time and space can be seen to be illusory, but this is a MUCH more commonplace eventual realization than it might appear, for this is ALREADY the case in normal consciousness. I can't corroborate any "Rainbow Body" or "Light Body"... these jhanas are actually MORE "empty" than the ones before where subtle dualities you may not have even realized existed can be seen to be illusory too. It would be complicated to explain. The appearance of some new "form" like rainbows or light would suggest moving backward against the continuum of jhanas, not forward. Nirodha is complete cessation of consciousness which happens after 8th jhana. The jhanas have been around since before the Buddha in various forms. They are not really an attainment themselves, but they are impermanent states that are analogous (NOT the same as) various states of attainment. They also correspond to "levels" (layers?) of stabilized experience after awakening - for example my typical moment to moment experience is roughly equivalent to the 5th or 6th jhana, and my meditative experience will go out to 8th. Past the 4th jhana you get a taste of of what realized emptiness is like, and can even get a "fruition" if you experience the fairly rare Nirodha. These are a fairly hard attainment for the unrealized meditator, but aren't in any way necessary to enlightenment. I never did them before realization, and in the Tibetan and Zen traditions there are plenty of practitioners that never learn them and complete the path. I can definitely sit and work up through 8th jhana plus and experience none of the effects mentioned above, which isn't to say that they might not exist, but that if they feature in Mahayana Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism, or Zen, it certainly isn't mentioned very often if at all. BTW, I could probably train most experienced meditators to recognized 2nd jhana. If you are interested in jhana practice in general, I can heartily recommend Leigh Brassington's book, "Right Concentration": https://leighb.com/rc/index.html As for the siddhis, they develop with concentration, including jhanas. The degree to which you experience them is connected to the degree to which you filter your daily experience through your karma (story about the world). The less obscured you are, and the less you explain away strange phenomena, the stronger they become, if you get them at all.

That is great, glad to hear it. Concentrating in meditation, or daily life? To be honest, I am not entirely sure what "Anima" looks like in a practice. I have done any number of practices, but none more centering than simple "open awareness" meditation. My primary experience is in the Soto Zen and Dzogchen/Nyingma Buddhism. While I have done some practices working with "energies" these generally become unspecified and the specifics are dropped once there is some success with them. The advice of my teachers has always been not to become attached to the specifics of practice or the results as they can become hinderances. I have had many "supernatural" phenomena, and "energetic" events of various kinds, and would report them as they came up, and they were usually met with mild interest and a little reassurance that it was fine.

Agreed! There is nothing to go beyond, surpass or transcend. This reality is already enlightened, eternally. What terminology one chooses never represents that clearly. The term "Mind" does get used in a number of ways. In some traditions (M)ind (large M) is the same as emptiness (or "enlightened mind"). In many (m)ind (small "m") is used to denote the dualistic thinking mind. Spirit isn't a concept I think of where Buddhism is involved. Ultimately the thinking mind is considered as only one of the ayatana, or "sense doors", which include: • Sight • Hearing • Smell • Taste • Touch and • Mind Unlike the way we consider mind in the Western world, thoughts are not exalted to some special status of deep meaning or importance. Ultimately they don't point to anything completely real. (m)ind in this sense is merely another sensory input which, if allowed to arise in consciousness and pass through without a secondary thought process, doesn't cause suffering. The "awakened" mind sees all arising phenomena as happening in the phenomenal world and not belonging to "self". Thoughts are just thoughts, not contrived or misinterpreted into a false sense of "I". Really, "awakened mind", or "sense doors", or any other convention you could imagine would be yet another duality. The terms are a subject-object convenience to discuss these things. Really, as I allude to above, from the clearest perspective, there is just this fluxxing field of sensation happening NOW. No objects or subjects acting on one another.

Complete realization of the Dao obviates and makes impossible the idea of some separate afterlife.

This is very sensible. Accepting and allowing are critical. Resistance and trying to get some kind of grip on it with practices or intellectual explanation will be less helpful. Allowing these things to come and pass in meditation is ideal. As you say, your problems will be resistance/clinging/aversion,/ fear and thinking about what it might "mean". Be comfortable with it meaning nothing and let it do what is needs to, UNLESS you are in physical pain or have other dangerous medical symptoms, OR are overcome with fear or mania. Both should be opportunities to consider medical, psychological/psychiatric intervention. Sounds manageable? These are the sorts of "explanations" I would be careful about settling on as any kind of cause or effect. Hold such ideas lightly, rather than definitively deciding they represent your personal discomfort. I would leave the diagnosis to where and when a professional is involved.

In the presence of this moment is it entirely clear to me that there is no separation of anything whatsoever and never has been or even could be. I am not intimately familiar with the different schools of Hinduism, but I guarantee that anyone looking from the perspective of "Self" will find it impossible to separate the arising from what it might appear to arise "from". IMHO these are conceptual distinctions which have nothing to do with reality. BTW, Buddhism has a similar issue around a different point with the schools of Yogachara, Prasingingka, and Shentong, but really it is just a waste of time - none of them are ultimately correct being that they are entirely conceptual constructs, and the emptiness itself is not describable in language.

These are common experiences for regular deep meditators. It means your sitting practice is working. My suggestion would be to keep that "heart" as open as possible and just let it flow out of you. Don't grasp or cling to sensations, or experiences, but let those energetic feeling just pass. You are unblocking your body and mind. Are you also having deep emotional releases, and difficult material come to mind?

Just so we have some context and attribution: The word "Self" in this context points to enlightenment... "the infinite" (see my bold above). Where one sees the unity of the "Self" everywhere, that is the "Inifinite" The lines: Point toward the fact that the infinite (Self) sees no beginning, no end, no cycles... nothing finite, or we might say no "duality". Nothing with self-existence as something separate. This is how a "Self" becomes "independent in all worlds". Line 99. (what you were paraphrasing): ...points at how the relative springs from the absolute - how all of the finite appearances are manifestations of the infinite... they dance together... just like the Heart Sutra, actually. Reminds me of: The relative world and the emptiness visible at the same time. Cycles and samsara are beliefs.... they are stories we tell ourselves about how the relative world works, but "Highest Self" see through all of those beliefs, realizing that only Atman is real.

Some questions: If "cosmic cycles" never stop, when do they begin? How would you define one, if they don't begin or end? Can you show me the "cosmic cycles", or are they a conceptual structure of the mind? When the mind is quiet and empty do you experience "cosmic cycles"? What is it that you need to understand about samsara?

As I mentioned in another thread, this "second arrow" is the primary promise of Buddhism - the reduction of suffering. Having an introduction to the nature of mind/Rigpa/emptiness, a regular meditation practice, and some help with realizing how our thoughts transform bare experience into this deeper suffering are key. Karma is beginning-less, where time is illusory. Karma always arises from your story about how things are in this moment. When the story stops, so does the karma, which is the point of having a meditation practice where the mind is trained to be equanimous and still.