S:C

What do you mean by this? I don‘t think I understood. No teacher can abstractly explain this?

might be the paradigm shift - and the ‚usual one pointedness‘ might come through conscious stepping back or letting go (just as @Mark Foote knows how to describe so eloquently) , so how the paradigm shift might have been set in motion can be debated but not verified? another point connected to the non-dual misnoming in the other thread concerns the ‚right‘ view question (I had hoped I could restrain myself from expanding further on it, but no): isn‘t that connected to what @Apech structured up there in the nondual misnomer thread so coherently? the linked sutra talks about ‚right with defilements‘, ‚noble right‘ (so without defilements) and wrong. the right without defilements could maybe be a ‚right of a higher logical order‘, as explained by the Zhentong Madhyamika, a ‚right’ without contradictions, - Nargajunas absolute negation might ring a bell here to. at some point of evaluation (in the right with defilements view) sense data view and right interpretational view and following that the consequences for (right) deed or refraining from that lets you maybe (?) always (?) end up at a contradiction, stalemate or an impasse in your evaluation if you dig deep enough. Thus … there is a right without defilements (or contradictions), but how to get closer… well who knows, could be purely hypothetical, but logically wouldn’t need to be, - could be ‚real‘? Something that touches upon this somewhere in the texts? It could also shine a bit of light on the controversy among the branches of Buddhism, if and when lying can be considered appropriate, if I ain’t mistaken, please correct me if I am…

Thank you for the structure, @Apech! Much appreciated!

So your advice for that @Daniel is what? Retreat, cuddle, detach?

So your advice @Taomeow is what: try live ideologically free (without concepts deny all crap at the root) or try to own your own developmental history to try to choose and change a thing?

Merci @Apech. It really is a misnomer to say anything is clear, I’ll try to remember that and try to say: understandable from my current perspective at the current time and place.

That sounds just right - for now. I do skip breakfast these days, it’s a bad habit of ‘entangled mind’, this stuff is just too personal and thus I will restrain myself from asking what is “right” thinking for you, definitory. I will try to answer open questions (hopefully) later with a calmer mind, until so far, thanks at all for participating here.

This is an important point to me, I hope to come back to later at a different point in time, so consider it just as a personal bookmark - and please carry on. Thanks @Daniel! That was very clearly written.

Where can I find a text that explains the two truth doctrine in simple words? Near to the original? thanks

“This means that the Buddha’s warning about wrongly drawing out the meaning of a discourse does not apply only to attempts to translate impersonal language into personal language.” That is supposed to say, that just because first monk and second monk evaluate their sense data as stressful, they are not supposed to state this in an impersonal way, as this is or could be influencing others, who might not come to this conclusion. “Other considerations—such as whether a teaching is appropriate to a particular context or purpose (attha)—can also play a determining role.” How and who determines what is appropriate? Is that determination impersonal or personal? Did the Buddha believe in free will or determinism? “Statements have to be judged not only as descriptive, but also as performative: what they induce the listener to do.” Did he really believe in the normative / inductive / performative aspect of statements? If so, was this an impersonal or a personal teaching? Isn’t making that evaluation of weighing (do’s and don’ts / causation) in itself something that strains the senses and proves a point here? Doesn’t evaluation always rely on the personal sense data? What is it that evaluates when there is none of those? — Disagreements, corrections and interpretation welcome. So sad to see so many contradictions in my own questions, sorry.

Thank you, @Mark Foote, I am getting closer to understanding your perspective , even though the foreign concepts are hard to grasp, yet I can come up with some comparisons, that are more familiar to me. Very much appreciated. It did get clearer.

I have had no instructions on the Pali Sermons, yet. When you speak of concentration, it seems to have a different meaning than in colloquial language? @Mark Foote Do you mean meditative states? Meditative states where senses are left behind? That’s what you mean with “there is a natural escape from agitation, dissipation, distraction--priceless!”? Do I understand it correctly, that he followed a rule of thought during every breath, and among those sixteen in the process? Edit: it actually is a method of sixteen steps, - not in one breath, but over a series of breaths, that can be read up here: https://encyclopediaofbuddhism.org/wiki/Anapanasati Dissipation, distraction and decay is a scary thing to fully embrace, imo, as is passivity and planlessness or lack of drives. @steve It seems kinda sad, too. Need for trust in the process to reverse itself again, at some point.

How can we best adapt to changes of intensity on the path? Do we always have to feel the contrast of what we have felt before, like a hidden pendulum swinging back to an equilibrium? After extreme agitation must follow extreme calm? After focus must follow dissipation/distraction?

Guess I cannot outrun my fate, that cat is still there somewhere in the stellar storms ... could I please change into: S:C Thanks.

that sounds awesome! thanks

apart from the shrimp powder it sounds great

Everybody is invited to share the moral precepts of the tradition, lineage, group or values one is following! It would be nice, if you could name the direction, where you come from (so whether you follow one of the main religious branches or whether you are following the values of a smaller religious group or sect or whether you have set your own set of values for youself and how you deal with other minded people). Feel free to refer to philosophers or scientists also, if that is your basis. Of special interest would be, whether you have the opinion that those values you follow are truth-apt (not sure about the use of that word, what I mean is, whether those are accessible via proof or reason, so not purely subjective) and if yes, how you would do that. The idea is a collection of the moral principles or rules that are represented here as well as in the world and the ability to attribute those towards the associated (religious or spiritual) branch for educational purposes. Feel free to enhance your list or portrayal with pictures or music, but please refrain from critic, if possible. I'd be glad to hear from you. Thanks!

I do have to remember that part now and then. Thank you. Besides walking meditation (that you mentioned elsewhere) which technique do you do or recommend for that part of letting go / non-reaching? So awareness and state of mind is not a technique to you (hence the differentiation) ?

This is interesting too, thanks, we have different perspectives of rationality. One of those that I carry around with me correlates with what I wrote in another recent thread. You could exchange the word awareness with rationality. I don’t know if that serves as a persuasive purpose/meaning for life (guess I ain’t very good at it), but it’s possible to try.

This is interesting, I like it.

I don’t have an answer here but another question: When is ‚cultivated awareness’ a skill (positive connotation) and when is it an evasion/escape (negative connotation)? What is ‚cultivated‘ awareness anyways? Stemming from the Alan Watts quote on another current thread about ‚unduly absorption‘. What is awareness anyways? Recognizing the contents of the personal five (or more senses) simultaneously for a reasonable amount of time? Or is it transcending the five (or more) senses beyond space and time? What Mr. Hume and Mr. Bohm would call the foundational ground being empty.

It does: no need for differentiation if there isn’t any significance: so Toth is the rational/yang/left brain aspect and Anubis the touchy/feely/yin/right brain aspect that is leading the (dead)human. Seems reasonable and understandable. 👍 p.s: dear fellow cat, would you mind unquoting my hidde/in-brackets-text? it‘s something in a process, unfinished and incoherent mumbling, that I’d probably like to delete later, - I do get embarrassed about incoherency and do not want to lead someone astray / maintain a delusion with incomplete thoughts…. thanks!