Lucky7Strikes

There are formless states/realms. Also mind (in the sense of awareness and not the thinking mind) and matter are inseparable. Internal and external are just conditioned way of seeing things. Most of our discussion here has been on the non-inherency of subject, but the objective world must also be emptied.

Interdependent mindstreams co create this world. Ask Vaj more about that. The world is not "MY" creation, but just that: creation. Awareness does not arise from phenomena nor is it dependent. It is just the essence of all arising experience. So yes, I guess it is kind of similar to solipsism in that everything known happens only within consciousness. I think you are relying too heavily on the notion of interdependencies. Interdependency also means that there is no A or B to be found if the two are interdependent. In the Madyamika the principles of inherent cause and conditions are rejected on this basis also, (which can be a bit confusing for Therevadans who hold to the 12 links as an inherent process) Hence they are truly empty not only in the philosophical sense but ultimately as well.

Ultimately there is no "object" phenomena, they arise due to one's karmic tendencies and conditioning...so I don't think it's right to say awareness and phenomena are interdependent. Rather there is just this, as Xabir put it, this process of awareness manifestating.

is, is-Not transcended as also neither, both... It's not that views are gone, one no longer distinguished between "view" and "manifestation." Transcending rejection and acceptance, one abides in the creative nature of primordial awareness responding spontaneously and liberating whatever arises...a play of sentience.

I went to see Thich Nhat Hanh two years ago and there were thousands of people in the auditorium and for half and hour he sat on stage and his right hand repeatedly was in motion as if picking parts from his heart center and spreading it to everyone. It was one of the most blissful experiences I had in the presence of someone. Needless to say, everyone was silent Very awesome, I urge anyone to go see him if they can.

Yup, I see that Rigpa is an awareness that "responds" rather than "reacts," melting all delusional boundaries things in its way. It does make sense, in that all things encountered by a fully enlightened mindstream likely functions for its surroundings. Since its nature is inseparable from liberation, the surroundings are incorporated into its...sphere of influence. I guess that why when you go sit near someone who is emitting such a mind, that bliss and understanding is very much contagious. Haha, yeah I haven't gotten to the point of visions or conscious travelling, but lucid dreaming, obe's here and there. For sometime I was aware during sleep, but that was also when the line between being awake and sleeping was becoming muddled...

I like that you use the word intimate rather than non-dual in the Buddhist sense, it's a closer description of what it is like to experience the world in that manner, to see it with abstract boundaries rather than a fixed reality. I guess compassion is a natural effect of experiencing life this way. The daoist term would probably be "in harmony" with one's environment. Hmm..I'm not sure what you mean in the statement "all meanings as spontaneous and already at their final destination as soon as they arise." Experience is indeed spontaneous yet carries a direction to them, like the flow of a river. The spontaneity aspect is probably more difficult to experience for someone whose vision of life travels between a habit of polarities, "in here" vs. "out there." For someone who doesn't, their field of meaning is probably not a specified field of meaning at all, but a very loose way of seeing things, adjusting to what arises towards the direction of harmony, a more "intimacy" you can say. To put it in more Buddhist jargon, "self-liberation each moment" or something in the lines of "enlightening everyone at the market place with simply a gaze."

Well, technically the term "field of meanings" has to do with our linguistic categorization or terms (according to some google searching ). But I don't think that's what you meant. When you say the Buddha is in intimate contact with the field of meanings, it probably has to do with the way we categorize experiences, as in how a person can construct his mind into a certain field. A carpenter probably has a different "field of meaning" when he encounters a tree than say a environmental activist. The wise person would be familiar with various field of meanings (this goes back to "rigidity" vs. "fluidity" I guess) just as he is aware of his ability to see such a variety. IMO, even though we use the term control, it is an extreme idea, and to see things in terms of a controller and controlled is a deluded view in itself.

Yup, I agree. Awareness is not an existent thing in experience, manifestations itself is awareness. Inseparable. But I'm looking more into the reflective property of our experience...

I'm not so certain about what you mean by field of meanings. But the difference seems to be that the deluded mind sees meanings or perceptions that arise in his mind as rigid realities, while the wise mind simply sees it within the frame of fluidity. I'm not sure it is possible to always achieve one's aims. This idea depends heavily on how the fool and the wise see "aims." The wise can always achieve aims by not having that aim be so specific or unrealistic, but I doubt this means the wise man can dream up to become the dictator of the world and succeed. Understanding limits of one's control is another facet of wisdom. I think I somehow replied to the latter section of your post while replying to Vaj's post above. A lot of reflecting lately on perception, recognition, awareness, experience...

I agree with this to an extent but I think we must also be aware of the reification of cause and effect, or interconnectivity of a said A to B. I was reading through Nan Huai Chin's exposition on the Shurangama Sutra, and the Buddha often mentions the falsity of cause and conditions, that cause and conditions are born from the judgments of the mind. This is very profound because a conditioned mind works in this manner: it designates a cause and links it to an effect, and believing this to be true, constructs one's experience accordingly. Thus habit is created. You mean "faceless consciousness" to be a type of unconscious or sub-conscious layer within our experience? I'm not sure whether we can distinguish between our conscious level within experience and our unconscious level because ultimately an experience is more than "just seen" or "just heard." We see and hear things from a conditioned point of view. When we see an object that is shaped like a cup, not only does our thinking mind contextualizes the object to its functions, but the bodily senses also carry a habitual reaction to that object from memory. There are moments in deep meditation where this may not seem to be the case, and one can sense a pure sense of simply being aware, in other words, absorbed states. Sleep is another one of those absorption states wherein during the experience we do not see or experience it with much context. But what is interesting about these states is that only upon coming awake from them we say "whoa, what was that?" and contextualize them, or more interestingly, the mind reflects upon it while within that state. We may not even remember them even though I believe the subtle imprints are all made. (edit: And here is where conditioning arises into the dual perceptions of past and present. A unit of perceived memory is reified.) This bring up another interesting point about memory. I don't see a great difference between memory and the unconscious. And if the Buddha could remember countless lives in the past, including the twelve links to death, it would mean that our capacity for memory runs incredibly deep, and so with it our entire history of unconscious conditioning. But our memories are never the experiences themselves, but more of imprints and we access them through a reflective mode of consciousness, (edit: perhaps that's not the best way to put it, but rather they arise when the situation prompts it, something like recycled material) our awareness of our awareness, which is basically what self-consciousness (or "consciousness" in respect to the unconscious is) and the prime source of our ignorance of a self existent "self." Seeing the tendencies of awareness is likewise very tricky. I think wisdom and nature of reality go deeper than saying everything arises miraculously through dependent arising, it is rather enlightening the causes themselves by seeing that the chain of cause and effect is not inherent. @ Xabir IMO, and I might be inquiring too much here for my own good, but there's been a lack of investigation into awareness. Simply saying "just seen" "just heard" is good, and experiencing reality with that insight is blissful and freeing along with understanding that these rising manifestations are indeed ungraspable, but how is this awareness exactly? We've had this discussion in the past, and our conclusions have been in the lines of "thoughts are aware of thoughts," "touch aware of touch" and so on, that phenomena and awareness cannot be separated. It indeed does seem like that, but when the insight into emptiness deepens and the physicalist universe is seen to be like arbitrarily assigned appearances, it's not so simple or gets much more simple. Physical objects, vibrations of sound, the senses are not aware in themselves. They are not in themselves luminous, but rather, I cannot say those experiences anything more than appearances, a manifestation of awareness-essence. So how is this experience like really? Just thoughts... Awareness as essence, Nature as emptiness, a creative potential...

I think it has more to do with the degree of one's delusion and how much past conditioning from deluded views is still dictating the experiences of an individual. Certain legends have it that Shkyamuni was already a Buddha when he decided to be born into the human realm to teach, and he wasn't "born" enlightened. It's a similar concept with Bodhisattvas. But this points to another deeper question. What is the difference between a deluded state of awareness and that of a Buddha?

It is seen as disjointed only when the conceptual mind tries to make sense of it. But the more I notice the ungraspability of the seen, the heard, the felt, experience feels more like a spontaneous and unimpeded flow. .

There doesn't need to be an "I" or a substratum/a background. Each moment flows into the next and so on, a flowing spontaneous manifestation. This is next to impossible for the conceptual mind to grasp because the conceptual is based on units of thought, entities, moments, objects. There is ultimately no such thing as a "moment" it is unborn and unfindeable in experience. It exists only to the conceptual measurement of things which is illusory.

In my experience it does not feel disjointed. It is only "conceived" to be disjointed when we try to recognize a moment, or a thing, or any independent entity which is necessary for communication and daily life, and is an important function of awareness. Everything rather feels like a flow of an unceasing river continually manifesting whatever is. @ Xabir I was reading through the Actual Freedom stuff again, and it seems to me their practice unknowingly reifies the senses and the aggregates even though anatta is seen. The subject is seen as illusory but the object is reified instead.

Here are some posts he made. There are more, dig around the site. http://dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/600967 http://dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/1078358 http://dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/684357 You'll notice that in the first link he talks about the difference between "cycle mode" and PCE mode.

Lol, that's pretty scary. I guess our minds have to overlap to some degree for us to share a reality together. I remember a discussion about individual mindtreams here at ttb between Xabir and Gold where Gold talked about his awareness "merging" with his partner during sex and both recounting it afterwards...Of course Xabir denied the merging of mindstreams, but proposed uniqueness of them. But during your experience of seeing and senseing through someone else, did you forget that you were you? AS in did you forget that your awareness came from another set of mind-body?

I think a lot of Therevadan Western Buddhists have a difficult time bridging the gap between their education in Western science and the so called "bullshit" they see in Mahayana and Vajrayana. Those traditions contain some seemingly fantastical claims. Certain writers become very popular in the West by taking a very practical approach like Stephen Batchelor, author of Buddhism without Beliefs. It's difficult to believe, for instance, when the Buddha says one of the Buddha's abilities is to manifest as different bodies, or the Tibetan Jalus, or Milarepa flying.

Actually your mind (not limited to thoughts and sensations) is the only reality you can experience and know....

I knew it! A lot of your understandings come from Daniel Ingram! Why did you deny that before when I mentioned it? Daniel's views and experiences have deepened since he's been getting into Actual Freedom practices. If you read through the Dharma Overground threads on his experiences you'll notice how he find it amazing that one doesn't have to cycle through the jnanas over and over again when the I Am insight/presence deepens. I think Xabir and Daniel have had very positive correspondence a few times...

UH...OH!!!

You almost have view, but no realization. I'm going to start a thread on awareness where the difference between seeing and realization can be investigated.

Ehh...

In my opinion, you have only loosened the grip of some held thoughts and beliefs though this method, which is useful in a sense, but a new pattern of thoughts will probably take place bouncing between grasping and non grasping, you'll continually find yourself fixating on certain thoughts, then the habit of "let go of those thoughts" then another clinging of thoughts/sensations, and so on. But this is only the loosening of the form aggregate. The realization must arise that thoughts are naturally in liberation, then one carries the path on to liberate deeper construct within the mind, the dhatus and the aggregates, etc. So the cure you have is only on the surface and it can take a very long time until you realize that this is a shallow way of dealing with arising suffering, a conceptual defense mechanism. Most likely you'll be stuck in the conceptual state and not understand the self-liberating nature that is always so. But that's just speculation. Take from it what you will.

Thuscomeone go try your insights out and come back to this thread to see if your sufferings have ceased. From what I see it is just in the lines of neti neti in your conceptual mind, a perpetual negative mind state: "view" "no-view" "no view of view and no view" then "no view of no view of view and no view" then "no view of no view of no view of view and no view" and on and on, negating this then that. From "acceptance" to "not clinging to acceptance" "to not clinging to not clinging to acceptance"..."wisdom to ignorance" "ignorance to wisdom" A perpetual cycle of views.... It's clear that meanings are understood in completely different contexts on both sides and it won't lead anywhere.