Lucky7Strikes

I hope this now ends any further discussions regarding Self and non-Self teachings with you. Your position is now clear. You will not change or consider changing your views and have never considered to do so. You seldom share from experience and respond not in a critical manner, because you simply cannot, holding to the conviction that these anonymous internet users do not deserve a place in consideration compared to your real life teachers. I will now keep my thoughts to myself, because you have cut off your ears here. "Sharing" is not the correct word in this case. You have no argument, because you leave no room for true argument or discussion, calling people frauds who do not fall into your interpretations. "I have clearly and succinctly articulated what my position." Exactly, you make your stance and that's that. It shows in the responses as they are seldom a reply, or a articulated criticism, but a re phrasing of your own stance over and over. This is precisely communication with you regarding these manners is fruitless. I'm sad you say "evils." This isn't about Vaj, Xabir, or Buddhists, and I think it's foolish to judge one in relation to other "evils." This is about you. No one is here to show any way. I'm exercising my own flaw, as I am clear that what I'm doing here is absolutely foolish, self serving, and ego-driven. But I have to do it, because I see the same flaws in you that I see in me. I am criticizing you and me both because what I see I feel needs to be criticized. So this isn't really about anyone else but me and you. Take from it what you will because I've gotten what I wanted and seen why this "discussion" will never end. I am sure you are a sincere practitioner and I am certain we both share a mutual respect for one another. So I have to be critical with what you write. Thanks for wasting everyone's time.

I haven't seen a constructive argument from you regarding anything I have written besides phrases that fall into maxims and cliches. You often resort to "oh it is beyond," "oh you cannot understand it," without addressing any logical or experiential insights I, or any others here, have shared with you "Just because you Think you are right doesn't make you wrong." This isn't a childish game of who is right or who is wrong. I'm sad that you see it that way. We shouldn't even be considering "who" is right or wrong, but whether are interpretations hold true to reality. IMHO, The gurus, teachers, whoever be damned, all we have is our own experiences as the basis for truth. So one shouldn't be so obsessed with whether one knows the other person or not. As I see it, what is important is to learn their views, see where it comes from, and see how it can deepen or challenge or own insights. But this quote really threw me off... Wow. So you won't change your views. So how will you even fairly see a "convincing argument"? More importantly, if this is your attitude, what is the point of all these months we have carried on this discussion? Thanks for admitting to this so we won't ever carry on with these lengthy posts assuming that its purpose is to deepen our understandings or learn from them. It is as if you are here to spit out your views and let that be that. I know that many people here already do this (and I am certainly guilty of it too), but I had hoped that the multiple thread you have started here, consuming many people's time explaining and discussing with you, that there was more of a constructive purpose. One of the reasons I like this forum is the open mindedness people bring to various practices and ideologies and a willingness to consider their validity. But you're apparently not here to gather knowledge, but only bicker and bicker. It is you own projection. Literally and figuratively. It is exactly how you are. Everyone is enlightened. They just don't recognize it. This is where we see the difference between insight into the nature of all realities vs. induced states. The former is eternal, the latter is not. Enlightenment is in every aspect of being, it is not in a induced state. Material existence is not dual. Only the view that it is dual makes it dual, but even that duality is non-dual, hence Nirvana and Samsara are the same.

Then you must not say phenomena is defined by the ability to label it, for anything can be labeled, and always wrongly. All linguistic expression is a symbol, of letter and words and descriptions. Terms like Prajna, cit, Antahkarana are not any more special than wisdom, awareness, higher consciousness, 6th.7th consciousness alaya vijnana, or whatever. You cannot express without explanation. The belief that you could is precisely why much misunderstanding happens in communication. The belief that a single word can be communicated without proper context is to put that word on a pedestal of "oh it's a pretty special word" without understanding it's relation to direct experience. One of these words is God. Or Consciousness. As if they are untouchable you worship it. All the methods you have listed as your practice are methods on the phenomenological sphere. They come for phenomenal habits and actions. Please do not state that "this is the goal of all these schools." I do not think you have experience or knowledge enough in Taoism or Buddhism (and even perhaps Advaita) to declare that this is the goal. Taoists don't all agree on what i means to merge with the Tao, or what immortality entails. And as you have seen here, Buddhists do not agree what it means to be enlightened. Also the level of experiential understanding of Brahman is also different throughout Hindu thought, including ascribed methods to realization. If you are familiar with the latter, as it seems you are, but please don't "mix and match" for your own liking because it seems as though you have not had personal insights into the other two. And here is the precise problem of interpreting reality dualistically as phenomenon and Consciousness. Experience is always non-dual. Why? Because when we try to investigate its duality, already another experience arises. We can never ascertain the duality of experience, because upon seeing duality, we see the new non-dual "duality" and not the original experience (itself also non-dual) attempted to be investigated. Hence we can never perceive the original experience and analyze it, but only transform it into a new experience. So if there was a background called "Consciousness" and the foreground, the two would need to present themselves as one. But our daily experiences are different! From moment to moment a different experience arises! The table, the chair, hunger, thought of "what is consciousness?" all arise in their difference. So there is no point to ascribing a one unifying term to call these experiences as one, if we do so, we are discarding the very basis of language which is to discern and sort through differences. You are still thinking in the definitive dual aspect of phenomenon and consciousness. There is no such division in experience. The division is made only upon a senseless label like saying wind is separate from blowing. That's quite an insult to Vaj and all his teachers. Actually here you reveal another difficult mode of learning. We shouldn't care so much about who or what has/is teaching but see if their teachings are applicable to our realities and can help deepen your insight. Just as you wrote above that the goal is the same for Taoism Buddhism and Advaita, we are thinking too narrowly in academic terms of "here's this tradition and that is their goal" or "here is this practitioner and his experience (which is fraud) without experiential insight. "direct intuitive knowledge" is a dangerous way of knowing. People can say they have direct intuitive knowledge of God without much explanation. People can say they have direct intuitive knowledge of unicorns existing somewhere. Oh, they just know. But if you meant to use prajna as a knowing directly, not by intuition but from every moment in experience, I doubt you experience the "I AM" consciousness from moment to moment, because your practice still consists in inducing states, and believe that your progress depends on this state. So it is still in the realm of faith, and not complete understanding. No-self is not seductive. I see that it is as reality truly is. It didin't make sense to me because I didn't understand it, or I tried to understand it without direct experience. The very act of "trying to make sense of it" is a mistaken approach to understanding a direct insight. And since my experience was governed by the attempt to make sense of it, it is not whole, it is not sincere. (By the way, your thinking of "categorical framework" is yet another "categorical framework.") But explanations in Buddhism have been as direct as anything I have come across. You can't get much direct than that. I speak mainly of my own mistakes in approach to Buddhism in the previous paragraph and believe that you are encountering similar problems. But I can only speak from my experience, so I am doing that. After considering many aspects of Buddhist thought I discarded it for the dual model of Consciousness and Object because of the problem of "free will" (but that is another discussion). Like you, I tried to make sense of it, which was a mistake and when it didn't make "sense" to my liking, I couldn't agree with it. But during meditation, Kunlun, etc, I realized that the very concept of Background or Watcher was very detrimental to exploring and evolving into newer ground of experience that my body (I was not consciously doing this) was trying to break through (Kunlun does this through two aspects). It was as if I had let go of thoughts, but then clung to a state of consciousness that was supposedly behind those thoughts, a new "entity" of sorts. There was a dropping of thoughts only to come to another level of "thoughts." I felt that the progress I was making through Kunlun and meditation was continually shifting and challenging this "ground." So for sometime I gave to the mantra "thinking, but no thinker, sound but no hearer on and on, free will be damned " And immediately everything fell into alignment. There was nothing holding my practice in the sense of "goals" (higher state, purer state of consciousness and such) or a crash between through/ground, evolution/identity. The act itself was all there was. Really all aspect of practice changed when I delved into this switch in perception, and not only was there no longer a division between me "practicing" and not practicing, but every waking hour was truly practice itself! There was no need to "stabilize" any state, but simply recognize thoughts and thoughts, walking as walking, wanting to sit as sitting, sitting as sitting, etc. So I hope you give it a try. It's quite a new opening.

We are speaking of gaining insight into reality of every moment, and not about inducing states through practice. We induce states in order to gain deeper insight into reality, or for practical purposes (like inducing wakefulness by drinking coffee), not be lost in a "gap." I think this is actually very revealing of limitations of this discussion, because the very purpose of practice for you and I are different.

We must be careful here when we use sentences such as "it is everything else" because such statements are quite useless because we have to clarify what you mean by everything. Every object? That which is behond objects? The characteristic of objects? This is often the phrase used to put a term on a pedestal (I'm not necessarily saying you are doing this). And furthermore, in the second paragraph you seem to be saying that anything that can be labelled is a phenomenon (did you read my criticism on your usage of the term beginning and an end? because it's an important concept to understand that these are extreme notions based on solidifying phenomena). You have just mentioned many times this thing called Consciousness. And if we say, "Non-existence," or "Non-phenomena" or "non-labelledness", we have given labels to non-label things. Does this mean they are phenomena? No not really. Labelling isn't that important. The word noumenon is used to connote cognition in the history of its usage through philosophy and language, so I mentioned thought and formless ness. So the word doesn't quite fit what you are trying to get at. And in your case it cannot be labelled, it is indescribable, etc. etc. Then there is no use for any of this discussion is it? In fact, there is no use for you to at all think about these things. And moreover, there is no way you can use your understanding or effort to get there because these are ways learned via the laws of phenomena world. And if it is beyond the workings of the phenomenal word, you definitely cannot go from phenomena to this Ultimate. So do you see how quite useless this conceptualization, this glorification of the Self is to actual practice? If we cannot understand through language, physical, mental, form, formless efforts, including that of gap between thought, which is, mind you, still a phenomena, what is the use of all this talk? Why do you at all read, write, think, do yoga to realize this thing when you have stated here you can't realize it by these methods of "phenomena"? Then do you agree that this state is not a beyond state? That it is constant in every experience? But then there is two parts to one experience isn't there? The consciousness and the phenomena. But we must end out discussion about consciousness here, because we can no longer use words to describe it. You don't know at all that these traditions lead to the same experience unless you believe yourself to have truly understood and experienced them all. Yet I have yet come across your commentaries on Vaj's experience or Thusness's stages from an experiential standpoint. And I say this with respect, but your stance has always been from a purely hypothetical standpoint (And unfortunately, mine has often been also, but hopefully that will die down). "to better one's practice..." this statement is very important and I'm glad you mentioned it. Why don't you give the "other Buddhist" interpretations a try? Consider an alternative and see where it takes you. If you don't meditate on what what has been written against you over and over, how will you know if it is not indeed better or worse? Or more importantly, what the hell have we been doing if you or I have not even done that yet?

So I guess it's better to understand this as a process. Money doesn't just fall from the sky because you are enlightened. It will though!! Soon enough!!! :lol:

http://www.thetaobums.com/index.php?/topic/10981-the-eternal-self-of-the-buddha/ To save people some time!

Yes! I was getting at that too! Then we should apply this to see then whether there is an objective phenomena beyond our perceptions such as a real locatable tissue box. Or whether such definite phenomena is knowable. The trouble with language enters here again. When we say absolute and relative domains, it seems as if we are talking of two different worlds, but when we say absolute and relative truths, we can understand it better. When the context of the teaching is speaking of conventionality of language and communication, which is bound to be relative, we cannot dismiss it as false, because then we wouldn't be able to communicate! So ultimately, relative truths are not really truth, but correct methods of conveying the truth. The word "impermanence" is not the truth, its indicated meaning is. Before you say phenomena fall in the relative domain, I think we should thoroughly investigate the nature of phenomena and whether or not it can be separated from our awareness. If we follow this through, even formlessness is phenomena, as dark is not the ending of sight, but the absence of light. Absolute truth is simply the truth that is constant in every and all experience, such as "impermanence." You wouldn't say there is the domain of impermanence is absolute and the domain of permanence is relative, it wouldn't make much sense because the meanings would simply cancel each other out. If Consciousness doesn't exist independently, then is is bound to the relative. For it to be absolute, it must be perfect. And looking at this world, the world that has it as its source, this eternal, blissful state/thing, it is far from independent and perfectly flawed. The gap between thoughts is not everything. I can access this state in any number of ways and, it is not everything. You cannot stabilize any state. If this absolute had been stabilized there would be no world at all, no need for the world really. When we apply this teaching from moment to moment, one will notice characteristics to reality that is seemingly continuous. But ultimately, the confusion arises dually that there is this world, and apart from it the conceiver of the world. I think I read this from one of Xabir's posts, but the mind frees itself from permanence of phenomena only to be trapped again by the "nowness" the "presence" of experience. -------------------------------------------- "Your comments show me that you have some kind of abrahamic baggage that you are carrying, thus this insistence that by suggesting there is an Absolute Self, one is claiming God-hood for his/herself... The Absolute Self is beyond Gods..." Yes I am partially suggesting that. But call it God or Self, isn't it your goal to realize this state, be at one with this Ultimate. Isn't it your goal to "merge" with the Absolute? to identify with it? To recognize it as eternal? Or do you continually tell yourself that the Self is beyond and beyond and beyond. Advaita suggests seeing the gap between thoughts so that you would see consciousness in all experience, even in no-thought states, and realize it has been there all along. Self inquiry of Who am I? and the repetition of I AM lets you recognize awareness in all states and not necessarily a "beyond and beyond" state. What exactly does your practice consist of? I am assuming these discussions are to help one's practice of insight and meditation. In my humble opinion, attempts to settle mental scores or convince oneself of such useless things such as Buddhism and Hinduism are same, or Taoism or Hinduism are same, or even Hinduism and Hinduism are the same, are quite a waste of time. They are obviously different, or we wouldn't be having this debate, or all those varying sects in either traditions wouldn't have developed. Although I think it is often fruitless to discuss one's own personal experience due to several reasons (exaggerations, attachments, labeling, imitating, etc...) I think it would shed light on the placement of this discussion. Is it a mere mental masturbation of hypotheticals, or is it actually relevant? If you want to stick to your school of thought that all religions are the same, or they point to the same moon, and that gives you comfort, I don't think there's a need for this lengthy thread at all. Xabir, Thusness, and Vaj speak from their experience and not philosophical expositions. This has been my utmost mistake in the past discussing these issues. One's own practice reveals and challenges false models, what is important is that there is an alternative way of interpreting reality which I'm sure you have been reveal to enough times here.

This is the eternal nature of impermanence, not eternal "stillness." When the notion of "witness" is discarded, we experience stillness in movement because we perceive it without a center, without a reference point. We also experience movement in stillness because equanimity that arises from seeing phenomena as empty. In fact, the position you take above is detrimental to meditative progress because the seeker continues to try to find states that are "absolutely still," clings to it, believes it to be ultimates, sees phenomena as rising in it. I do not know what your practice consists of, but if it is finding states without thought, I'd suggest that is a method towards insight and not trying to reach a "still" state. I'm not sure how many times the importance of luminous aspect has been stressed in these discussions. The experience has not be dismissed, but incorporated. Bob, I think you are confused at the application of terms as characteristics or nouns. Luminosity is not a noun, it is not a thing, it is a characteristic. Like "roundness" or "roughness" Because everything I see in a particular room is round, I do not think to myself "ah ha!" there is "roundness" behind the object! But rather the object is displaying a characteristic of roundness and so on.

If you read my post again, its purpose was to show you that no phenomena such as "tissue" box can be established. That in fact when I form a mental image of it, it will not be the tissue box, but its mental image and that when I see a tissue box, it will be a vision and not the box, that if I touch it, it will be the sensation of cardboard and not tissue box, and so on. In fact, no tissue box can be found. Likewise, when we return to what you said about phenomena being able to be describe, there is no such phenomena to be described at all. The description itself is already the non-dual phenomena. What you are not understanding is that there is no solidified "it" to begin with, everything is fleeting without boundary nor definition. There is only conventional usage of language, but we must understand them to be conventional symbols and not accurate indications of reality. I'm not sure where I mentioned the difference between awareness and consciousness and why you brought it up. But I will answer that with what you wrote to Bob, that you are too "fixated on words to understand." Before stating that everything in the material universe has a beginning and an end, one should first investigate whether there is such thing as a material universe, and the very concept of beginning and end, and whether these ideas are conventional communicative tools or hold to reality, as in whether the symbols match the actual experience. You don't agree on the usage of the word emptiness or consciousness, so agreement on the term "consciousness luminous emptiness" doesn't mean much here. . Luminosity is simply the pure quality, the self-aware clarity of moment to moment arising of any experience. It points to direct experience without a line between "background" or "foreground" Just this, now. The gap between thoughts is simply experiencing another experience that is without thoughts. There is nothing special about it at all. You think, then you taste, then think again. There the tasting was the gap. If you are then going to say, "no, simple pure consciousness between the aggregates, form, thoughts, etc," then it is formless consciousness as it is. And then we have another experience after that, yes? So what's so special about it? (This is kind of off topic, but I also want to metion: Didn't the world in your view come about from this so call Absolute Self? Why? Why did all this suffering come from this absolutely pure source that is eternally blissful? Does it play games with our suffering? That's kind of cruel don't you think?) We love saying "beyond, beyond, beyond" but the truth must be applicable this very moment as it is in whatever state there is. That this Consciousness in beyond time, that it is beyond space, beyond description, beyond this and this and this. Xabir writes about "I Am" ness, but then you refuse to acknowledge that it can be described, and you even wrote above that it cannot be experienced. Why not see reality as it is right at this moment and let the idea of the Ultimate rest? We should be investigating our wrongly held assumptions and not creating a demi-God concept of "beyondness" over and over again as if trying to attain a godly state. Simply see each moment in its non-dual arising, it unlocatability, and be free in it. Why create more unnecessary struggle? It is the "soul"s game, the ego's play.

This doesn't make much sense. Describe the phenomena of a tissue box. And you would give me a list of descriptions, its shape, its form, it's atomic structure, its purpose, its place in culture, and so on. But none of descriptions would be the very experience of the tissue box, only representations of experiences related to "tissue box." Experience of tissue box is vastly different from context to context when it is represented via symbols, only direct experience reveals it as it is. So the tissue box can't really be described, because description creates another "tissue box" within the mind, the mind formulates a representation, which is yet another tissue box altogether. And from these false habits of thought, be believe "tissue box" as an inherently existing phenomena. So is "tissue box" a phenomenon that can be found? Is a separate phenomena actually locatable? Everything neither has a beginning or an end. When does spring begin and the winter end? When is childhood over and adulthood begin? Where does my body begin and end? I used the examples of "hearing taste" and "smelling sound" for different uses than the reasons you use them. Consciousness cannot be experienced, but is the source of experience? Can you clarify this statement? Are you saying that we cannot experience consciousness? Moreover, I don't think Buddhists see consciousness as phenomena. Rather that in experience the two are inseparable. It is not a materialist teaching, as in there is only a material, phenomenal reality because then we wouldn't be conscious, unless you want to say that a piece of rock is conscious. The teaching but lies in the middle of both, so it's said "luminous-emptiness", seeing both elements in experience as one manifestation.

BOW BOW BOW*** Thanks Xabir!

I was referring to Yi Gong. Sifu Jenny Lamb has mentioned how most qi gong came from spontaneous practices; that she herself stopped most deliberate qi gong practices to practice Yi Gong.

Now the problem you bring up is with time. When we identify what is the past, the past is brought up into the present in order for it to be identified. So if we investigate into whether we can "find" the past, we see that this is actually impossible because the moment upon perceiving "past" it has become the present. As so with the present, the moment we try to find "presence" we see that it is ridiculous because the act of "finding presence" is actually presence itself! But the nature of presence always changes, because if there really was some static state called presence, we wouldn't be able to act at all, we would be frozen in time. So past, present, and future are all wrong views of interpreting experience. It is the same with identifying causes and conditions. We cannot perfectly know all the causes and condition that bring about this very moment, because truly the list is infinite as time itself. It's like tracing your evolutionary history through various cycles of the universe from molecule to molecule, from atom to atom and so on...it is as infinite as drawing line within infinite space. But moreover, the conditions are truly unknowable, because knowing also arises from conditions. Knowing is an experience within those causes and conditions. You never stand outside of the entire process, as much as we assume, and say: this is exactly how the universe works. The most we can be certain is that there is arising of this experience, then that experience. And that each moment cannot be found, for it is not found "in" anything, there is no one, for there is no "doer," there is no when because events do not happen "in" time, but time and events are one experience, and so on. So we should see experience, NOT try to see that there is some sort of greater or more "real" reality, with least assumed delusions as we can, in its most bare form.

If you were coming, the action of "coming" itself, would you "see" coming? As in if you were running, could you "see" the act of running? Seeing change presupposes a relativity of stillness separate from change, which is a delusional dual view.

I had a rough introduction to Buddhism, and really am just as new to it as you. But Xabir's site http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/ has great information on it. Daniel Ingram's teachings are also very practical in methods and theory, his book can be found here for free, http://www.interactivebuddha.com/. Good luck!

I don't think this is accurate, please check the thread on "coffins on non-existent self" for details.

Hi Beoman, Then the problem you suggest is that our consciousness and awareness are based on material realities. But that is a much deeper problem. As for this specific example, then seeing that there is no eye, as in the eye is totally taken out of the sockets, but the pathway of "seeing" remains. You can't then designate an "organ" can you? The organ is rather a process of "seeing" itself, very much like how if I picked up a book, you wouldn't say "picking up a book" is an organ. So "eye" and "seeing" are one, and not of the relation where one "comes from" the other.

Sure Dwai, you can say that last part too. But in my opinion, you have to apply it in a different manner as it is easily susceptible to dualistic misunderstanding. You see phenomena and consciousness as different things so the last edition also wouldn't make sense. It contradicts your very first sentence. There is no denying there is the continual "taste" of consciousness from one event to another. Indeed, there is no experience without the consciousness aspect. Let's say you look at the desk and it is brown. Then you see the window as white. Then you see the sky as blue. Do you think "ah, it is the background of "color" or the doing of "color" that is producing all these various colors? Probably not. Color is an continuous aspect of the varying phenomena, not an agent or a substream. But what I wrote above is just what Xabir has written over and over to you. You refuse to open your mind to an alternative due to attachment to tradition.

That's exactly right. I am not I. There was no "I" to begin with. Only the flowing of consciousness-phenomena in various forms, there is typing, there is speaking, there is breath, just like a rock that falls to earth by gravity, does my consciousness function from moment to moment according to laws, habits, nature, and harmony. There is no confusion. Even your confusion is the expression of luminous emptiness expressing itself by the very laws of this universe. Please (I say this with real respect) note that what you wrote above addresses nothing that I wrote, but is just a pure re assertion of your views. Discussions like this is often difficult to carry out and again, fruitless. Buddhism does not dismiss that each momentary experience is luminous, that is is aware. And awareness is the very nature of the phenomena being expressed and perfectly non dual. There is no "seer" and no "objective phenomena." There never was. So although I say there is the action of typing, speaking, and breath, it is different than when these activities are experienced as bare sensations. The habitual symbols we use to label typing as "typing" or speaking as "speaking" in the mind drop off. This is what I am beginning to experience more and more than in the past when I, like you (in a desperate attempt to preserve my free will, the pride of struggle, etc.). I too desperately wanted there to be the absolute, the God, the holy, but it limits the mind to solidifying experiences and states of consciousness or bliss. Any "absolute" term, be it no-self, Self, This, That, is a limitation and a grasping. I think you misread my post. I used "hearing taste" and "touching sound" to show the mistaken way of viewing a perceiver. I'm not hiding behind concepts. It is these concepts that greatly hinder actual practice. Any identification or solidification through symbolic terms such as "consciousness" or "book" or "chariot" in a continous manner (of course, this is beneficial to certain states of practice, kinda like "noting") is a limitation on oneself. You can call consciousness as beyond phenomena all day. But it just doesn't make sense. Tell me what that experience is. Is it blissful? Then the feeling of bliss is its phenomena. Is it empty? Than formlessness is its phenomena. Is it nothing? Than it is no conscious. Is it pure? Than it's purity is its phenomena. Searching for this ultimate state or identifying it, glorifying it, is like dreaming the impossible goal, an imagination that is worst, it is imagining the impossible, so you will never be satisfied no matter what stage of practice you arrive at.

It does turn into that. . Then much more than that. .

Dogen, via Xabir, "Firewood becomes ash, and it does not become firewood again. Yet, do not suppose that the ash is future and the firewood past. You should understand that firewood abides in the phenomenal expression of firewood, which fully includes past and future and is independent of past and future. Ash abides in the phenomenal expression of ash, which fully includes future and past. Just as firewood does not become firewood again after it is ash, you do not return to birth after death. This being so, it is an established way in buddha-dharma to deny that birth turns into death. Accordingly, birth is understood as no-birth. It is an unshakable teaching in Buddha's discourse that death does not turn into birth. Accordingly, death is understood as no-death. Birth is an expression complete this moment. Death is an expression complete this moment. They are like winter and spring. You do not call winter the beginning of spring, nor summer the end of spring."

Consciousness is not separate from phenomena. Space is not separate from objects. Time is not separate from events. Blowing is not separate from wind. Mirror is not separate from reflection.