goldisheavy

It's not too complicated, but it is complicated and it does contradict common sense. Common sense is Samsara. Nirvana is not common sense at all. I understand your difficulty. There are other ways to honor the apparent solidity of appearances without granting them true physicality.

Phenomena have no selves, that's right. Phenomena are meaningless in and of themselves. Mind is not a creator of anything, it is an orchestrator of appearances. There is a difference. That's confusion. Discriminations are fully immaterial. The mind is not separate from appearances that arise in it, but it's not identical to the conspicuous appearances, it is more than just those.

That's not true. My view is dramatically more skillful than your view. In your view you still think there is some materiality that has to be dealt with. You're trying to reconcile matter with mind. The problem with your approach is that the mind is real and matter is not. When you try to reconcile something real with something imaginary you get impotent mishmash. Talking about mind the way I do has benefits and drawbacks. The benefit is that it makes the deathless realm instantly intimate and accessible to anyone who believes me. The drawback is that people customarily have a thousand and one misconceptions regarding their own minds. So when I talk about mind I am constantly hampered by all the misconceptions people cherish regarding their own minds. That's the drawback. Prasanga approach has benefits and drawbacks as well. The benefit of prasanga is that you don't come out with a bunch of positive assertions like I do. Because of that, ordinary beings find that it's hard to criticize someone engaged in the prasanga approach. So that's the benefit. It's an approach that melts false views while not presenting any obviously new views to grasp. Of course it is deceptive, because prasanga approach does lead toward a view rather than toward a non-view, so it is pretentious. Prasanga approach also lacks compassion because it doesn't offer an instant relief to beings. Beings must engage in prasanga analysis for a very long time to feel relief because prasanga doesn't give beings something wondrously intimate right from the start, such as a deathless mind which is the same as the day to day mind. Actually I do do that often enough. When I say that you can view reality however you like, I am stating a fact. I am not lying. People constantly see whatever they want to see. That's a fact. So when I say these things, I am not being theoretical. I also say that not all views are equally skillful. Some views are clumsy and lead to a lot of needless suffering. So I don't suggest that every view is equally wholesome. You do. Intentionality is not its own appearance at all. Instead intentionality is an aspect of every appearance. Thought doesn't create anything because thoughts themselves are created by intentional transformations of the state of mind. You confuse thoughts with beliefs, but even then, beliefs don't create anything, they only condition appearances (very different from creating).

Mind doesn't have primacy over matter. Instead mind has primacy over appearances. What you call "matter" are appearances suggestive of matter. Naive beings upon viewing suggestive appearances construe the suggestions to be ultimately true. That's the mistake. You have to realize that the suggestions inherent in appearances are baseless. An appearance suggesting matter is not actually backed up by some real matter "out there." It's purely a mental, nonphysical phenomenon from top to bottom. Realizing this is liberation.

That's not true. Seeing things as mind-only is one option among many. It just happens to be an exceptionally skillful option. But it's not an absolutely correct option. That's not good enough because in your formulation you reject intentionality of knowing. You're kind of blending everything together, truth and fiction. It's like a politically correct version of Buddhism that tries to be non-offensive to physicalists.

I wouldn't call it propulsion. It's more like directionality or orchestration. When you conduct an orchestra you don't propel each individual orchestra player. When you move the flock of sheep you don't propel the sheep, you just give them a direction. These examples are not to be taken literally. The only purpose of these examples is to demonstrate the quality of relative effortlessness or non-propulsion. You can think of intention as a propulsion, but if you do that, your actions will not appear effortless. It will appear to you as if you are struggling against some external-to-intent resistance if you think that way.

Ignorance is not real. When someone is ignorant, that ignorance never enters the extreme of ignorance. In other words, the potential for wisdom always remains, so no one is utterly hopelessly ignorant. Because ignorance can be transformed into wisdom and vice versa, it's an appearance. Generally we can say that some beliefs are ignorant if they cause a lot of needless strife in life. Well, we conceive of mirrors as passive reflectors. Mind is not passive. Mind is intentional and intentionality is beyond passivity and activity, but it is not passive. I think a mirror is a good analogy for some aspects of mind, but the mind is not like a mirror in every single aspect.

I am affirming the fact that visions occur. Knowing doesn't require things external to itself. If such things existed, they couldn't be known. Knowing is imaginary. Knowing is not nonsensical because depending on how you choose to know things, you'll experience either suffering or bliss or anything in between. Because knowns don't really exist apart from knowing, knowing is creative and intentional. How you choose to know will impact the life you lead. From a physicalist point of view there is only one correct way to know things: the way that accords with the external-to-mind reality. From a non-physicalist point of view ways of knowing are neither correct nor incorrect, but are instead distinguished as skillful and clumsy. There is more than one skillful way to know things and more than one clumsy way, but no truly correct way that is imposed on you by some external-to-mind reality.

Your mind encompasses more than you are currently conscious of. You can think of the mind as a container, but that's not totally accurate. Normally containers have an inside and an outside. The mind doesn't have an outside, and mind's innerness is an abstract quality that's not to be taken literally. Matter doesn't exist at all. Mind's contents are appearances. Some appearances are well formed, with sharp outlines. Some are not. Some appearances are suggestive of matter. Some are not. When a naive person looks at a suggestive appearance, the person doesn't question the suggestion, but instead acts as if the appearance really is what it suggests. Immaterial appearances are conditioned by habit energy and by beliefs. The mind is capable of experiencing arbitrary amounts of pain and pleasure.

That's correct in a sense. I don't have a material body. I have an appearance body. It only implies that prior to analysis. Mind simply refers to the fact of knowing. Knowing does not imply a material underpinning.

The mind is not formless. Instead formed and formless experiences appear within the mind. Literally. Appearances suggestive of matter exist, and that's it. Beyond these suggestive appearances no matter can be found.

I'm not saying the mind is prime. I am saying the mind is all that exists. It has nothing to dominate. There is no matter for mind to dominate.

The mind has primacy over appearances. Matter simply doesn't exist at all. Instead appearances suggestive of matter exist.

We can say the reverse of this. If it weren't for dream contents, there would be no waking life experience. Do you agree?

I know the nature of your doubt. It has to do with your ideas about physicality.

Are dream contents physical?

You have to be accurate and careful in your analysis for it to be effective. If you do a sloppy job, you might as well not even bother at all.

What does it mean to say that the eyeball is physical?

Right. With regard to the specifics of the appearances we can see that there is a cycle. With regard to the fact that some kind of cognition is always occurring there is no cycle. In other words, it's not true that sometimes cognitions occur and sometimes they do not. Cognitions always occur without interruption. But cognitions are not truly separate because cognitions have meaning only in relation to other cognitions, both apparent and those that could be apparent but are currently not, i.e. potential. So awareness is something grander than any one specific cognition. Awareness is a reality that has a constant aspect and a changing aspect and to deny either aspect is wrong.

No, it doesn't. I'll explain what I mean. Close your eyes first, then push on your eyeballs. You'll see some colored shapes appear. Do the colored shapes need to exist in order for you to cognize them? Cognition works like a man blind from birth seeing rainbows.

That's not true. The fact that some cognition is taking place at all times, where does that fact arise from?

What does it mean to reject physicality? It means to reject the view that phenomena are physical. It doesn't mean to reject the phenomena themselves. Rejecting physicality means rejecting one specific explanation of the nature of phenomena. You want to be talking about seeing through the appearances instead of seeing through physicality. Physicality is a view that you should reject after examining it thoroughly first. Heh... OK. Whatever your solipsistic intent says is right, is what's right for you. If you truly believe you are a product of inter-influencing, you'll discover your experience will mostly conform to that view. There is more than one way to help. Don't think that the only way to do good in the world is how you imagine at this time.

When you say that awareness is dependently arisen, you are putting awareness on the same level as causes and conditions. Doing so denies the visionary nature of causes and conditions. Causes and conditions affect the specifics of whatever manifests. Awareness as a general fact that some kind of cognition is always taking place is not dependent on anything.

There is no doubt about that. I think my wisdom is nowhere near perfection. In other words, I can easily imagine someone who is wiser than myself. I am never happy with my level of understanding, that's why I seek to understand more and more. Maybe some day I will become happy with what I understand, but I don't see that day coming soon.

Not exactly. You're describing a vacillating and wobbly state of mind. You'll need to reject physicality completely if you want rainbow body. You're involved in more ways than you realize. You think you're just caught up in the process. I am saying you've actually engineered the process. What's not exactly true? That's fine. So I should widen my field of influence by believing I need to stand right next to the person I want to affect?