Lucky7Strikes

It's absolutely physical, in that it affects the material realm and alters it. The opening of the heart-mind re wires the entire energetic and physical make up of the body when it deepens. It's not like a samadhi you train your mind and enter through the jnanas and re emerge out of. It is a transformative experience of the body as one realizes that I AM pervades all experience. When the realization deepens and you dissolve everything into I AM, one no longer sleeps. The shen spirit pervades all your experiences. You directly realize that all is one mind. Ramada didn't train in samadhi. He just deepened his realization after the first death experience at sixteen. His practice was simply to remain in that state. He died again later where his physical body did not have a pulse for fifteen or so minutes. Everything just dissolves into it. I'm not saying Maharshi's realization is final. But you definitely did not have the depth of I AM consciousness experience of Ramana. You moved too quickly to truly understand I AM Presence, judging from the details of that experience was simply: I felt being lived through a larger universe, or a unquestioned certainty of being. Heart opening is much more intense.

Of course the phrase made from conditions doesn't mean that a certain object "makes" the next object. That is absolutely not what I meant. So conditions meet together, and you experience this. Then that conditions the next moment of this. So just "this" then "this" and "this" based on a causal chain. Things arise and cease on and on. That's your view. Why are you trying so hard to walk around this point. Daniel says it in his quote: technically no free will. Yes...just cause and effect happening along. That is determinism. Your view of determinism is a bit forced, in that you seem to think determinism means there is an outside controller of some sorts. You do not need to force everything is the dual paradigm of subject/object as you do often. Determinism basically means that there is no doer and there is no controller, but there is just an impersonal processes that manifests. You can say its according to god, an outside entity, or causes and conditions. It doesn't make much of a difference. Ok, there you go: just causal conditions rolling on. No free will, only impression of it, so unreal, just imagined. Causality governs your experience.

Conditions are made from conditions is what you are saying. That is an example of "other made." You may not experience it that way, ungraspable or whatever, but that is your underlying view of the nature of reality. Conditions upon conditions, a chain of rolling on.

So you think consciousness arises from sense objects and sense organs. Not only will Mahayna texts refute this, but also quantum science. No different than physicalist scientists or actual freedom. Reifying the material world.

What do causes and conditions depend on?

It originates from what it is dependent on. Emptiness doesn't deny experience, what are you talking about? Just saying "it's all empty" is a cop out. It's empty because it's conditioned. You don't throw out the reasoning of conditioning you used to reach the conclusion of emptiness. You say everything is empty because everything is seen in terms of causes, conditions = dependence. So now you're saying everything arises spontaneously from causes and conditions? Then you write: "Present action is conditioned by a previous action - ultimately there is no real present action - both past, present and future mind is ungraspable and empty as Diamond Sutra states." Emptiness or ungraspability of experience does not negate the view that they arise from conditions, that they are dependent on factors. Fate doesn't need an agent. Fate is simply that things happen according to a set of laws, or some natural order where there is no agent or actor. For instance, from popular modern scientific standpoint a tree is fated to die at a certain point according to its type, environment, history, weather, and all these set of variables. That's what fate is: that there is no agent, but only the process. That you cannot escape the conditioned environment. And will you stop saying "I don't establish anything"? Because you clearly are. Every statement, every view, is an establishment of a perspective. If you didn't establish anything truly, that would be your establishment, your view, your approach to life. Furthermore, you need to re clarify, in your own words please, why dependent origination is empty. Your view, imo, is simply that dependent origination melts everything down to a conditioning process. "Things just happening, and therefore, no true 'things' found" This is not a valid way to just go, "conditioning is empty too." What does conditioning depend on to make it empty?

I was pointing to that the depth of your realization of I AM is no where near Maharshi's. Ramana Maharshi's sense of presence was powerful enough to make people around him enter samadhis. The experience has depth to it than a mere realization. The opening of the heart center shifts your consciousness, it is as much an energetic experience as conceptual. You may have a glimpse of it from a current physical state, but I wouldn't just categorize the Maharshi's experiences into just realizing I AM. This is one of the problems of trying to measure everyone's attainments according to Thusness's stages. I do not agree with all that Ramana says, but to claim as you did, to have realize what Ramana has, is very doubtful.

So consciousness is separate from the thing it is conscious of? That's not really "just seen, heard, tasted," is it?

Over complication, no matter how complicated is not an adequate counter to "determinism." Determinism is not a measure of complication, but a description of quality. So no matter how vast unmeasurable the sky seen from the earth may be, I can easily say it's blue at day time. It has nothing to do with how complex or vast it is. From what I read, this is not Dzogchen view. Dzogchen says causes and conditions are all illusory.

What is this "immediate wisdom" free from conditions? Just because you say not established, doesn't mean your view does or doesn't conform to. You may not establish it in your head, just as most people don't establish in their head all the things they believe in, but it is your view nonetheless. What are host of different factors that are not past action? Present action? But present action is conditioned by past action as well right? Or if somehow the present action is independent of past action, that established a separate entity to decide on the present.

@ Xabir, don't you see what you wrote is full of hypocrisy? That's a bad example. That's still fated. You sit there or not sit there does not matter, neither your compassion for your family or fear of not starving. Remember, there is no agent or controller. They are all part of the processes without a doer or controller according to conditions that makes you do or not do accordingly. Or are you saying that in your mind you know its all an illusion but act as if it's not? That goes against your view that the understanding of relative and ultimate is one. Right, hence your view is wrong. This paragraph is not really a line of good inquiry. You are basically saying "all my theory supports the non-existence of unicorns, but that can't be true because I like unicorns." Ah ok, so your sense of doing anything is an illusion. In truth everything is just rolling along. So your view is also that consciousness is differentiated from the physical? That paragraph of consciousness seems to be full of uncertainties. The physical part is stuff are only "partly" conditions for consciousness? Then what is that which is not part of it, independent consciousness? But you deny that. If they are complete conditions for consciousness, then the actions of consciousness is determined by the physical processes. How is that different from a machine which is conscious (which imo is worse than what is not conscious). But let's take in the factors that led to anger's transformation. The tendency to not get angry, according to your view, is just as fated to play out. We apply this to spiritual endeavors, those who remain in suffering or become enlightened are just causes and conditions. Your little disclaimer is a contradiction to everything you wrote above: Having said so much, it is not the case that there is an agent that is controlling actions... intentions, actions, and so on are also dependent on various factors - sometimes positive, sometimes negative, nevertheless: “From recollection there is interest; from interest consideration; from consideration willful effort; from willful effort vital energy; and from that, action. So what does the self do here?” ~ Vasubandhu So, let me follow this: 1) The idea of subjective participation, in your view, is illusory, only a conventional understanding, hence unreal. So you can say ultimately, the past influences is the only dictating force of the process. 2) So it's not that there is really a subjective "changing" through discernment (only "conventionally")...but rather it's that those changes are just taking place, like seen, heard, tasted: discernment, consideration, effort, action. All just "rolling along"! So who experiences those factors and who doesn't ultimately is just as fated.

No absolutely not. To realize Maharshi you need your heart center to completely liberate from the body through a death experience. It's not just a "certainty of being" you describe as I AM.

So..what exactly are you saying? That dependent origination is deterministic, but just unpredictable?

What is this ultimate reality?

Ok...so basically more meditative experience reveals this. It would be arbitrary if those lines/points are unfixed. A pattern can emerge, but that would just be an outcome of probability. Hence it would be random and by chance. If we apply this to what you said earlier about lines between "phenomena" and "me" it would mean it is just a random pattern established and dissolved. It makes existence random and arbitrary, or even, patterned. That makes the arising of consciousness an event of chance from some unknown or at least speculative causes and conditions, or bound to a pattern outside itself.

Can you illustrate an example of this? Like an everyday example. It seems like you are saying there is a subject that does an action, and an object that does a reaction. So there is an interplay of a subject and an object? Now you are seeing things in terms of polarities again. But there is also ultimately no subject or object...so how do you reconcile the contradictions in your absolute truth and relative truth? Is relative truth just the way we are conditioned and see things? Then wouldn't it be the practitioner's efforts to abide by the absolute? So when the relative dissolves into the absolute you have no will, no subject/object. Right? At the end of the day what I wrote above is what you believe to be the nature of reality: things just "rolling on." Furthermore, a will or intention without a self. Then you can say a machine has will. A machine is exactly as you describe, it is an action produced from its programmed conditions. The error in your view is seeing the polarity of "action" and "reaction" while there is merely direction. The Diamond sutra says everything is just mere names. That can interpreted very differently.

What does infinite lines look like between "me" and phenomena? If boundaries are infinite, that is against the very purpose of using the term "boundary." Lines are also interdependent? On what? Each other? So the universe is just a play of arbitrary lines playing off each other? I wish you could be a little more specific when you make these claims.

Are you saying there is a line between phenomena and this so called "me" for them to establish a relativity? If so where is this line?

IMO, It's a good way to practice, because it gets rid of all unnecessary baggage one carries as "me, mine, my." It's a way of purification, hence is a path for ridding of the fetters and to arhathood. I practiced like this for a long time, and I agree, it is very liberating and relaxing. I mention this so you don't think I'm just skimming over Xabir's points and drawing conclusions. But it is a limited view one has to come to grips with at a certain point. The relative and absolute need to merge into a coherent understanding. Relative free will isn't necessarily free will, as relative self is not a "self" or a "person" because according to the understanding of the absolute both become "emptied out." It's a path towards cessation and spontaneous arising, but it is imo, not where cultivation ends. What could happen in this way of practicing is one could become entrenched in viewing life this way. As arising, ceasing, no-self, self-spontaneous process: "rolling along." When this is taken to be the be it nature of reality, you become an arhat, a Pratyekabuddha, who ends the cycle of birth, but is not a master of one's birth like a Bodhisattva. Signs of this stage is you may stop dreaming. On the other hand, the Bodhisattvas in scriptures are master of their illusions and attains the ability to manifest according to their will and this requires a very different understanding of our awareness than that it is just a part of d.o. process. So my quote does describe Xabir's ultimate view of his existence. And I disagree that that is what our experience is. There is further potential to our understanding of our existence.

This, this is your view: No I, just processes rolling on there own. Like a bag of clay, without will, freedom, or what not. Just thrown into existence, "rolling on their own" according to conditions. This view is not any different than modern scientific view of the human existence. That you are a pile of proteins rolling along. When there is bell, hitter, stick, the sound of "tooongg" right? Universe eats, sleeps, shits.

Can you explain how exactly you "conventionally" exist? Conventional to whose terms?

Just because you don't say you have a position doesn't mean that. No one goes around reiterating their points of views on life. No one goes around saying "I am conceit." Your doing just what everyone does from time to time, which is to just realign yourself to a new set of views..but in this case you don't think you have one, which is a cop out and lack of insight into views themselves.

double.

How does the mind see that it arises from something else? Wait, so mindstream passes through the mind? Then what is mind? Is emptiness a thing to you? Your view is neither mine or Xabirs if you think Emptiness is some inherent thing from which the mind arises.

I have criticized your way of anatta inquiry, in searching for a self in sensations. Your reply had nothing to do with that process, but just rehashed your own views, likely because you never truly went through them. You see relentlessness in RT, I see carelessness and almost a fear of accepting any notions of self. You can write both thesis on luminosity and impermanence easily. The paper on luminosity would probably start with the question, "what is the most basic thing we can know?" You expect these ideas to be truths even before you truly contemplate on them, so to you these are truths to be accepted and adjusted to rather than weighed and questioned. There was never a genuine investigation of their validity. I AM comes from logical and experiential inquiry. It deepens also due to those two practices. Your crutch is the Bayhiya sutta. That is a path to arhathood as I mentioned earlier. It is a form of practice to purify the fetters and lead one to cessation. It's not necessarily bodhisattvahood or buddhahood it leads to. How do you know these sutras don't disagree when you haven't read them? Twofold emptiness is just a teaching, and one can interpret it in a much wider context from Mahayana suttas. One thing I learned from going over the scriptures is they will often contradict or disagree on the basis that there are different levels of teachings. So understanding the audience of the Buddha is crucial when approaching the Mahayna sutras. You assume your knowledge of Buddhism is sound from a few excerpts enough to quote chunks and chunks on the bums, giving off the air that you are correcting others in their knowledge of Buddhism or representing Buddhism. I've seen you do this multiple times to disprove people like 3bob who come with their own scriptural excepts. And now you reveal your own knowledge of them is narrow. IMO, framework is fine as long as it is your framework in which you constructed through honest investigation. Your framework was rather a leap of faith. Your investigation was just restructuring yourself according to those beliefs, in the form of repetition. When any framework is strong or held on to, there will be inevitable shifts in awareness. Recite a God's name every morning and your awareness will shift to that of devotion. You can become a fanatic. That's why reason is important, to sort out a sincere and coherent framework to guide your experiences. So they both can feed off each other and evolve. If you adapt another person's framework without sufficient critical evaluation, that is already a limitation you've placed on your understanding. Unless that person is omniscient, the path should always be personally driven.