tao.te.kat

>the "self" as a witness drops away somewhere near the final dropping away of "self" and Arhatship, corresponding (I am fairly sure) with the last fetter, "Ignorance". You're pretty wise... That's a pit you see clearly is to be overcomed. The witness is a temporary form of dissociation that should be overcomed in later stages of wisdom. If not, it will create a "non-conceptual witness" quite solid and fake, that's quite close to the atman realization of Advaitins. Many people in Zen is lost there, as mindfulness initially will create this witness. It's not a situation to avoid at all costs, but to be seen as temporary, and also as just a new mind construct. For example in Mahamudra, more detailed, it's overcomed after completing the second yoga. In Zen can be traced to the 8th ox picture (8. Both Bull and Self Transcended) Not the usual personality, not the "non-conceptual witness" And there the non-duality ground starts. Whip, rope, person, and Ox -all merge in No Thing.This heaven is so vast,no message can stain it.How may a snowflake existin a raging fire.Here are the footprints ofthe Ancestors. Best wishes to all

Today I saw a new book on the topic has been published in case someone is interested: The Five Ranks of Zen (shambhala.com)

>Grades of enlightenment, how tedious! Not something mentioned in the Zen world. Check the five ranks of Tozan (founder of Soto school), the ten ox herding pictures or Linji four positions, or Hakuin koan curriculum for more details Outside Zen check for the four Theravada levels of attainment, the ten Bhumis of the Bodhisatva (that applies also for Zen), the four mahamudra yogas or the five tibetan paths to name some... You will find the sudden realization of your nature in most of all them if not all. You should study a bit more of buddhism if you want to state such kinds of statement. Yous texts are quite influenced by the modern Soto school, which has some strange particularities respect buddhism in general (and even respect the rest of the Zen/Chan/Thien/Seon). Quite unique. One of the few sub-sub-school without stages and realization of own nature. In fact apart from Pure Land, and maybe Dzogchen, that sometimes is also viewed as no-stages, but there're stages in other sources of Dzogchen. In fact some Soto schools also know of kensho and contemplate it in its teachings. At Dharmawheel there're some. So there're a lot of stages in Bhuddhism and in Zen (Zen is not only a particular view of some Soto masters like Shunryu or Deshimaru, that is just a small part of Zen). Best wishes

> Sounds like you experienced kensho, and it changed your life? There're thousands of experiences of Kensho even now, these days, it's strange you only know of it for the book of P. Kappleau In fact Bodhidharma said: When a person who has not had kensho reads the Buddhist scriptures, questions his teachers and fellow monks about Buddhism, or practices religious disciplines, he is merely creating the causes of his own illusion – a sure sign that he is still confined within samsara. He tries constantly to keep himself detached of thought and deed, and all the while his thoughts and deeds are attached. He endeavors to be doing nothing all day long, and all the while he is busily doing. Or Hakuin said: Anyone who would call himself a member of the Zen family must first achieve kensho-realization of the Buddha's way. If a person who has not achieved kensho says he is a follower of Zen, he is an outrageous fraud. A swindler pure and simple. Just two famous quotes from great masters. There're zillions of them. Also check the path of seeing and the realization of the nature of mind in tibetn buddhism, is quite equivalent. In fact apart from Soto (and not all Soto masters) I dont know of any other branch of Mahayana buddhism without the sudden experience of recognizing your own nature (ah, ok, Pure Land family may be too).

>Teaching and guiding people is a tricky thing. That's a great truth. You can be realized and not a good teacher. And to some extent and maturity you dont need to be completely realized to be a good teacher. Teaching is an art, and realizing is other matter. You can master both or none or one of them.

>You can’t have a positive without creating a negative. So you're not a buddhist because that are your beliefs, no surprise, no problem, Wish you the best.

>I don’t ever want to lose this ability to feel such sorrow. This statement is quite strange. I was thinking you will say "I dont want to lose the ability to feel love". Buddhism is focused on love and compassion, and kindness. Not only not to avoid it but it's central in buddhism. There's no bodhisatva without compassion and kindness. But buddhism also teaches you that sorrow and suffering is not mandatory. It's optional. Being mandatory if you love seems to be the foundation of your argument. So for buddhism your argument is flawed. Buddhism breaks the relation love-sorrow you comment on. If you want to feel sorrow because is part of the beauty of life, then yes, buddhism wont be for you. But maybe you just meant that you will not renounce love for fear of sorrow. Then Buddhism agrees with you 100%. Also we all must admit that not every doctrine is for everyone. We're all different. So it's fine if you find buddhism strange and not for you. Best wishes.

In short: No. Probably I never enjoyed life like I do now. For example, being conscious of your own death, unavoidable death (also for you, and maybe not so far away as we think) makes you value a lot more every moment of experience. Best wishes

>And on a weekend, when I did not expect anything, there was a shift where everything went silent in my head. Kind of difficult to explain. But, that shift was so sudden that all I wanted was to shift back to normal. And since, I have not had any such experiences. So, I think I have prevented myself from moving forward. Sounds nice, my first kensho was like this. A pity you didnt keep going. I was at the underground (here in BCN) and suddenly all went silence inside my head, it was a lot quieter than just having stopped thoughts for some seconds, a lot more... It was like this for one hour or so. Then everything came back to normality. But I knew clearly it ws something. In my case I didnt have any fears. I was amazed. Maybe you werent ready as you wanted your thoughts back... I didnt... but they came back. Third kensho was definitive for me. But not in the sense of the no-mind experience being permanent, not at all, it was in a more subtle way... but it's better that you live it for yourself.

You have 24 hours every day, mediation is not so relevant before kensho, prajna and mindfulness are. And you can practice it everywhere, Hakuin said "practice in movement is a thousand times better than practice in stillness" (or something like that ) And also it's not a question of effort which can even be an hindrance. But of understanding you own mind. You dont need a lot of effort to observe yourself. Just enhance day by day the time you're clearly aware of what are you thinking, why and where that thougths come from. But, again, confusion pervades everything because there're 84.000 other opinions which arent wrong. And 84.000.000.000.000.000 which are really very wrong.

>you lose the meaning cause each has their own way of expressions. That's quite important and not many people is aware of it: different spiritual schools give different meanings to the same word. Even inside buddhism. Even inside Mahayana. Even inside Zen. That's one of the reasons mixing schools is a complete mess. And on the other side, one of the things you should do about your school is understanding exactly what is meant for every technical word they use. And it's not that easy even for one school. Mostly when talking about inner experiences and mind. Usually your first idea about what they mean is wrong. You always have to have had the experience before and have enough discrimination to map it right. Not easy even when not mixing schools. That's a very important factor to success. Before that you're basically a blind person who thinks he sees. Best wishes

> Can you suggest a method for moving forward to having this experience so we can understand??? > Or, can there actually be 88 thousand methods of arriving at Nirvana? There're 84.000 and we can only suggest one (or none). Because one only walk the path once. Anyone claiming he knows well about two paths is lying or too innocent as you cannot realize the nature of mind twice. > I have heard stories of people who go to Sesshin and put in mega effort to have a Kensho experience. Some do and some don't have Kensho. More of them will not have kensho for lack of prajna in Zen dojos (at least the ones I know). It's not a question of effort at all. Effort can even be an hindrance if it's a subtle (or strong) attachment to results. > Do you suggest we spend the time in such places to put in such efforts? And will it work for me? LOL. You can be there. They do right things. The problem is the things they dont do. Mostly prajna. Also right mindfulness all the time is probably more important than zazen before kensho, so they're a bit twisted. > A rubbing hand on the back of my bald head. I do not wish for it as I do enjoy the ride. It is all a dance of life. Well, good nite all. Thart's so nice, Observe your mind, create a nice life where cultivate Dharma with the paramitas and contenment and understand deeply the buddhist teachings in yourself. Doubt about what you are. Find out your own auto-created mind tricks. Be the best knower of yourself. Best wishes.

> I could be fooling myself?? Your view is quite correct in buddhism. The view of the skandhas is from initial buddhism. Later other compatible views were taught which I think are more clear on this. Letting aside material world (your body) which is clear that will disappear. Mahayana Buddhism teaches eight forms of vijnana, or mind processing (sometimes called "consciousness"). The first five are the five senses and their associated processing The sixth is the conceptual thinking process that's where people mostly pass their lives. The seventh is a non-conceptual mind function that "Wants" and "rejects" objects from the six previous vijnanas. The eigth or alaya is the deeper layer and stores our karma and samskaras. Of them all only alaya moves from one life to the next. While usually we work for purifying the sixth, release will come from purifying the seventh and eigth. But of course there's a process of acquiring of 7th and 8th from the 6th and the others five. You only want and reject things you know (or think of). Desires get stored in Alaya, so releasing attachments implies purifying Alaya, and so on... Hope it helps.

Essence Mahamudra, like taught by Dakpo Tashi Namgyal and others. No tantric practices right now. Best wishes.

>I find teacher in ladakh his name is palga Rinpoche So good. If you can, please keep us up to date with your path. I love the six dharmas of Naropa but I have only read about them. My path is closer to essence Mahamudra. Best wishes.

Just that I dont know any of them first hand. So I cannot tell, sorry. Maybe I wrote it wrong... My english is Baaaaad

Maybe you can contact them at their website: Drukpa

Naropa teachings today are mostly kept by the Kagyu tibetan lineage. So I would recommend checking Kagyu monasteries and teachers. But I cannot tell you about one master. Probably around Ladakh (Hemis and so on...)

>we learn to not identify with them. Not to attach ourselves to thoughts. We learn thoughts are a tool and not the identity. Thru grace we become our true self That's pretty right, congratulations. Completly realizing the nature of mind is reaching absolute naturality and exhaustivity on that non-attachment to thoughts. I cannot believe on true selfs or grace, but that's not that important. I would prefer causality and mind. Just that.

> The realization of how things are is ONLY experiential. It is actually quite simple conceptually, In fact is devoid of conceptuality. It's just experiental. When you say a word about it you start lying. But it's a needed skilfull mean to help others. As said manytimes, you can read books about how to ride a bike, it's nice and even can be useful. But still not a even a begining of the process of learning to ride. Or a preparatory stage if you want. Riding a bike is devoid of conceptuality, it's an experiential training. Many people just need a very short explanation and then practice to ride it quite well but a book can help too. Realizing the nature of your mind it's not very different. Also my experience with people with a lot of theoretical knowledge is that they usually have their "cup quite full" so it's really difficult for them to relay on not-so-erudite people but maybe with a lot more practical knowledge, They see them as too rough or rudimentary, so they will not accept advice from them. Usually at forums that's quite clear because the "winner" of a debate it's mostly the more erudite (or the one with more time to spend :D) As you cannot bring your experience to a forum at all but your erudition will shine bright.

Consciously empty

>Like saying a person who has practiced for years and spent time learning about the Dharma is no better off than a person just beginning to practice? Not one is better than others, not even a Buddha. But I think "better off" doesnt have that meaning ¿? (my english isnt very good) If you ask me what of the two is most probably realizing its nature before, I will say I dont know. Some people do it even without a minute of practice. See Huineng. But not only him. And some people never at all. But it's better not to compare to others. Just do what you have to do.

I'm sorry. It's not a nice proposal, I know. I understand being attacked if that happens. Masters wont say that to you and probably for good reasons, but they know perfectly. But if you attain no ground, you will be at point zero again just some months after stopping practice or when bad times come, or maybe you even will abandon the path forever for lack of motivation or results. So before a ground you're mostly trying to stop a flood... all the time. And you feel like it. And it's very easy to be carried away. That's not an idea, thousands of people live it. All the time. You feel it. So yes, but it's not point zero of real spirituality, because all the practice is making you approach the first ground. That's very important. So it's not zero. There're the paths of accumulation and joining. And they have a function here. But you dont have yet a ground, then you can revert to point nearly zero very easily. And even forget all about this. Many people did. And that's a common experience. I'm not saying anything that you probably already know inside you. Sotapanna is entering the path, the stream. So obviously before Sotapanna you're out of the path, of the stream. So we can mark lots of stages if wished, before the first ground. But they will not be really stages, they're easy to loose and different for every person. They are no ground just contingent situations. So not really stages just you getting a bit better and closer to understanding your mind and buddha qualities. All buddhist stages count the first ground at realizing the natue of mind. Be it the first bhumi, sotapanna, kensho, first mahamudra yoga, etc... and even thusness stage one happen with kensho... As in the ox herding, you can explain a lot of what happens before it, but it will be no ground. It's a taming.

Problem with a statement from a sutta is that there're hundreds that say the opposite. So it cannot be used as anykind of refutation or global afirmation, because its authority is not over the other suttas. So what to do? Well, just what happens in the world. You can think one or the other. 100 suttas says A, and maybe three says B. So 100 buddhist usually think A, and some other (less people) like Jonang school thinks B. As long as we understand what it means every choice, you're free to have your own ideas. So, there's a soul un buddhism? Moslty no, but for some minority, yes. In the form of the shentong approach. Which is quite different from hinduist atman or abrahamic souls. That's not very orthodox, or course, because is an uncomfortable truth but it's as things are. About "buddha not answering" here you have a resum: The unanswerable questions - Wikipedia Is good to remember that Buddhism is not very interested in metaphisic answers. It's aim is practical, not theoretical, It's removing suffering. That's why all this is so subject to opinions, because it really can be both ways and be a path to release in both cases. There's the famous parable of the arrow and talking about its shape, color or essence instead of taking care of the injured... That's the buddha view about it.

>What are the stages? does it matter to see the stages? Being a bit pessimistic: first milestone is first kensho. Before it milestones dont make sense because there's any really. No ground attained. Not only Bodhidharma or Hakuin or the tibetan ways to do it (introducing to the nature of mind) point there, even thusness puts its first "rank" on a kensho or realization he lived. So this is hard to digest but ... So 99,99% of people dont see stages because they are always at stage zero. Sorry. Probably I'm going to be attacked, but it's the truth. Of course, a lot of changes happen at stage zero, you get better in a lot of things. But they're not spiritual milestones, no grounds and your mind is more or less the same that the first day and you should keep doing the same practices. So we can say that this changes happen inside the relative (using Tozan five ranks use of the word) but without real consistent contact with the absolute. Maybe in deep meditation without identification you contact it, but it's not a change, just an experience of it. After kensho there're some milestones. Not a lot but there're. Meaning trascendental changes in your mind, and it being a ground (you cannot revert easily to previous situations or not at all). But the stages are useless for 99,99% of people (because they havent see the nature of mind so they're not at the first ground to understand). So they dont see stages at all.