Lucky7Strikes

Before we do another analysis on your logic go back and reply to my criticism on your continuity/discontinuity post.

@ Thuscomeone I understand your view of D.O. very well. I corrected you on it.

Ok, so the Universe works through D.O. I think you are confusing the way reality works with reality. So this reality works through dependence, it is sentient. And there is no "I" to it. So how is this not reifying a sentient universe? I'm not sure if I got my point across clearly. I meant whether or not a cause, from A to B is truly established, not A or B. Whether that interconnectedness of A to B is an inherent property of the universe (not the principle of interconnectedness itself).

But as you said, this causal chain is not inherent in itself. If it was, one would never be able to escape it but be caught in the loop forever. There must be a way this ignorance was prompted. But remember that the universe is just appearances? How are you not reifying "universe" here as an all pervading process? What do you think it means that causes and conditions are not established?

Ok...there is appearance. Let's not deny this appearance. Ok the expression is mind. And mind is appearances. This doesn't answer my question. It's just another question, "how is it...?" I think this is important even with your santa claus metaphor. Then you are giving some inherent process to the string of "appearances." Then that is reifying the inanimate world. But in the example of 'weather' everything can come down to a "label to collate a conglometate of everchaning phenomena." Rain would be a label. Clouds also. If we go far as say there is no true entity in any of these, because they are mere appearances like magic, it would deny that the causes and conditions are truly existent. So how exactly does experience come about?

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Why does the mind (not just mental experience that happens in your head, but the awareness, cognizance, and knowledge of experience) have to be seen in the extremes of "subject/object" duality which is imposing solidities where there isn't any? I'm not asking whether or not mind is a solidity. Things can exist without solidity. In fact we can even question whether things can exist at all if there was "only" solidity. Also just because the something is unlocatable and instable, doesn't mean it "ultimately doesn't exist" especially when you are investigating that experience through the medium in which you experience it. Let's say that the mind is like a reflective stream that is self-aware. In trying to determine whether the stream is ultimately existent, it swirls, contorts, freezes, reflects only to find that it could not find something to call "stream"! Should the stream conclude that therefore, because it could not find himself, it doesn't ultimately exist? This is different than the sream realizing its own fluid and instable nature, as in its capablities, knowledge, properties, etc. Why has ignorance of anatta arisen in sentient beings? How do you recognize something to be dependently originating? Why can't we call a process self? We use words to label processes all the time like... cooking. Cooking is an act of the cooker. So cooking and cooker can't be separated when this process is happening..ok. It wouldn't make sense to say there is a separate entity called a cook from the cooking! But does that mean there is no cooker? No that would be ridiculous to say that cooking can happen without the cooker.

But my question was in regards to your method of inquiring with the mind to find mind, and not finding it declaring that it has no ultimate existence. How do you experience seeing and hearing in the first place if neither the seen or the seer are existent? Alo, so can we say that the "process" is mind? Thich nhat hanh seems more to be speaking about non-duality here than what we are getting at.

Isn't that kind of like saying, "can you find your eye anywhere"? So you look for your eyes and seeing that one can't find it, think he has no eyes... Or if it was findable, that would be like a man staring into a mirror and seeing his eyes think that's where his eyes are located instead of his head. What does it mean when you say the mind has no inherent existence?

How does one go about proving that something is beyond the mind to show that it doesn't ultimately exist? (nothing rhetorical, a true question). I understand how one can see the mind as unestablished just like saying a stream of river might be unestablished. But how to know that indeed it is not mind? Or moreover how does that stream realize, "I have no ultimate existence."? Perhaps it can see that it has to substantial existence...but "ultimate existence"? I agree that it is wrong to see the mind as a source in the sense that things come out of "it." That would make mind into some separate substance. I don't think Yogacara is saying that. *I mean mind here as the capacity to be aware, know, cognize...not just the thinking.

Do you mean the 'effects' of the past is in the present? Or that the past is actually in the present. If the past is in the present, how would we know it apart from the present? Also it does not follow that just because there is a remnent of something from the past that is present, a causal chain from firewood to ash, that the "past" is in the present. Perhaps "effects of the past." If past present and future arose all together, you wouldn't have a sense of being...you would be frozen in time. Uh...between mind and matter (in your terms of duality between them), and within mind and matter. Basically everywhere..? can there be matter without space? I don't think so. Really? A very distinct moment? Can you find me where this present moment precisely begins and ends for it to be specific? Same with space? What "things" are not the same and not different in the context of this discussion? Are you saying that the specific moment in time is not the same and not different as...what exactly? Also let me follow this sentence: Not same and not different Both same and different = not same and not different Not same = difference Not different = same So let's substitute a little x's and y's here: these "things" you refer to are...same and not same. Can you give me examples of two things that are same and not same. I mean if this is how you understand ontology, daily examples would be fine. This is the problem. You don't know how incoherent you sound coming to this "point." It's like you are force feeding it into your mind. Much of what you wrote is parroting of Xabir (whose "is" or "is not" insight also comes from a Namdrol post). You couldn't even think of an example beyond firewood and ashe?? I don't see much original thought here that should come from someone whose had his own direct insight.

Gagh! I wanted to see what the "Thuscomeone" who attained perfect enlightenment would say without someone giving him hints!

Can you elaborate on this through examples? How something is continuous and discontinuous at the same time? When you say there is timelessness within time and spacelessness within space, do you mean there is time but it is experienced as if there is no time, or that there is space but it is experienced as if there is no space? (I ask because you used "ness" a descriptive suffix) Or when you said "both" were you pointing to timeless and time together saying there is both? Or that there is both space and spaceless? What exactly is "spaceless"... And why does it follow that since there is both means there is neither? It's very difficult to understand enlightened one! Can you dumb it down using your all accommodating wisdom for this less than able practitioner?

You seem to take everything so personal for someone who is without a self. . Anyways, I was looking back through the thread and realized that this whole thing really came from our discussion of moments and whether it was continuous or not. Can you, as someone who has entered perfect enlightenment, answer whether it is continuous or discontinuous?

Not nice . When your certainty is broken again and again, it can become very detrimental to trusting your own intelligence and meditation. Hence, I just suggested for you to give it some time. Until then, enjoy your anuttara samyak sambodhi, "thuscomeone."

@ Thuscomeone I don't understand all this certainty about the dharma you are displaying again and again. The Buddha said this, the Buddha said that and I KNOW FOR SURE, has been your attitude from the beginning of this thread. In conversations with Xabir, Vaj, me, and Gold you've been proven to be mistaken often times. You've shifted positions fairly quickly only to defend it strongly again, imposing your conceptual frame on others, until a certain contradiction is inevitably pointed out again. It's like you're in some hurry to be enlightened to get it over with so you can say "I got it!" Give all this some thought and time you are moving too quickly instead of considering things carefully.

I see...and perhaps because of the unknown we cannot ever reject or affirm the existence of non-existence of other sentient beings. So this isn't straight solipsism. I remember you often mention the term Mystery. How do you use that term in this sense? I get the sense that Xabir and Thusness's model pertains more to Hotei's dropping of his sack, while you are speaking more about picking it up.

Ok, I think I can agree to this to a degree. But although the senses do allow for these possibilities they are based on its experiences: they cannot conjure up the imagination from utterly nothing. I cannot think of a color that I have not seen or hear sounds that I haven't heard, but they can be compounded or arranged or derived from a-priori knowledge. As you pointed out to tco, the limitless can only be known to exist through our acknowledging the current limitations of our being along with their flexibility. Yes, I've seen and experienced how one's mind and energies (if they are at all different) if stronger person can impose its will on others who are weaker. But I don't think this means that the other person consents to being imposed upon. The weaker man simply hasn't realized his potentials. It's a matter of power and imo, that power can never be absolute to an individual mind, as in, you can't suddenly take a man and make him grow a third arm when he is rooted strongly in the belief of a body. Perhaps in your mind you can, just as you may in your dreams. And to your experience this can be very real, but then your experiences will no longer be on par with that man's mind, that ultimately holds to his two armed body. Your mind has gone to another realm altogether. Which gets to another point: that we are simply our own imaginations playing with itself, compounding, separating, joining...Yet the probelm with this is: are we apart from that imaginative flow? No, that would mean that it is something outside the mind. Then where does the original a-priori knowledge which drives the direction of creation originated from? As in, if our mind intends to condition itelf into provisional limitations, on what basis does it do so? You wrote that when I typed how the leaf could become an elephant, you could see it in your mind's eye. What if instead of that elephant, I mention an animal you've never seen or heard of before? I need to contemplate a bit more on this... The quote can be understood in the context that the Bodhisattva's mind is itself the state of self-liberation, hence does not regard living beings as separate entities to be liberated. It doesn't necessarily mean that they are conjured up from one's own mind and liberated from one's mind.

No mind and matter do not arise together. Matter is just a perception of matter and nagarjuna and candrakirti and the shurangama sutra all speak of the illogical conseuqences of matter being something that truly exists apart from the mind. That's the basic gist of Nagarjuna, that nothing can be produced or ceased or truly existent as something apart.

Then could a sentient being, a person, be turned into a bug then to a piece of fruit? It seems like you are saying that one's perspective on things could make this possible. What if you wanted to turn that bug into a leaf and some other sentient being wanted to turn it into an elephant...as in overlapping intents. Or does that only happen with your own consensus in your mind? It's difficult to conceive that one's own mind is the sole creator of one's universe including the sentient beings within it and one's immediate environment is simply the habitual patterns of one's subconscious. Of course, as you say, this isn't the "only" way to see and experience, we can choose to be ignorant and construct a reality where there is certainty of an objective environment and so forth. But in terms of what is ultimately possible you seem to be saying that the world is not co-created, but created by the sole intent of the mind that is experiencing it, as if each is his/her individual dream. Haha, indeed, that's difficult to digest.

GIH, a few questions that arose in me reading this...(nothing rhetorical here) How does one view sentient beings he/she meets in this dream? Can they be said to be existent minds or separate entities? Or do they arise from your own mind eminating sentient beings compared to non-sentient things? You mentioned how the mind requires a-priori knowledge to recognize its experience, that it must know the world to experience it. But then when you speak of volition, how could there be pure volition arising apart from contextualized and structured manifestation? Or if the manifestation is simply the intent itself, what basis does it have in making that "choice"? Isn't it always conditioned by a-priori knowledge of the world? As in your example of the leaf turning into a bug, the volitional intent to do so arises because one knows there is a "leaf" and a "bug." Or maybe what you're saying is that when the mind understands its own contextualizations to be not limited by a set of laws, one can sort of play with the relationships established in the a-priori knowledge, which you seem to be saying has unlimited potential beyond the unmanifest into the unknown...

Give all this some time...

Yes I agree. But it is also very important to see the essence of experience as awareness, as luminous. The sense of presence to be found in all experiences, an intimacy (as Gold put it).

Our rigid views of world as something inherently structured should be let go of by seeing that it is merely our conditioned awareness. And that our discriminations of "things" should be understood as arbitrary designations. A crude examples would be when we see a cup and see that it's not inherently a cup, but that it is a mere imputation of the mind according to a certain form's functions. But ultimately the experience of form itself should be seen as illusory.

Yes but it has to be seen that ultimately the thing designated as A is non-inherent. It's "A" ness is only valid because of its depedency to B. The B's "B" ness, its defining qualities and attributes, only make sense in the context of A. Nagarjuna's interdependency therefore negates inherent attributes or definitions of A or B. Both identities and discrimination are arbitrary.