goldisheavy

Jeez... First, this is not a correct sentence. To make a correct sentence out of your brain fart, you have to add a statement about someone other than me. It will look like this: "Unlike you, who blah blah, I am blah blah." Second, all those gurus you think are real, are not in fact real. They are fake. Third, I never ask people to listen to me in a slavish manner. I ask that people consider what I say. That's it. I don't ask to be followed. I encourage everyone to read everything I write with critical thinking engaged. Do you ever do this? Such as? Not me. I don't give a shit about Indian born Buddhadharma. I only care about wisdom, freedom, compassion and things like that. That's a totally different focus. It just so happens that Buddhist writings say some useful things which I like. But that's mostly an irrelevant coincidence. That's an obnoxious attitude toward everyone outside your religion. You don't want to speak the common tongue because you only care about your precious religion and nothing else. I don't approve of this attitude.

Err... Vajra, there is a term in the English language for your condition. It's called fetishism. You have a Sanskrit fetish. Like any fetish, it's not rational. It's purely aesthetic. There is no point in arguing with it. Just try to understand what I say here: 1. People don't speak Sanskrit. 2. Sanskrit jargon confuses people and often serves as a linguistic rug under which all kinds of ignorance is swept. For example hardly anyone who uses the term karma in the West knows that karma means intent. 3. Natural intuitions that we have built up for various English terms are hard to simply move aside in the subconscious mind. So when you introduce some new weird twist on a familiar term, you have to deal with the fact that the person is now working with a loaded term. Meaning, the old familiar meaning is not gone, but is going to interfere with your new twisted meaning. I ask that you please try to respect these facts (I believe all 3 points here are factual). I realize you have a Sanskrit fetish. That's fine, but try to keep it to yourself. Besides, you're pissing off all the Tibetan fetishists who think Tibetan has the most subtle vibes.

First, I would say awareness and consciousness are interchangeable terms in the English usage. Look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscious http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Awareness Notice how the terms are at least somewhat synonymous? Still, we distinguish "conscious mind" from the "subconscious mind." We customarily don't say "aware mind" and "subaware mind." So dependent on context either "consciousness" or "awareness" may be more appropriate. Second, you introduced your weird usage of "awareness" without warning people and without explaining your definition. Third, you're using some kind of twist based on the Buddhist jargon. This excludes all the non-Buddhist readers to some extent, which is not necessary. When I write I try to make myself understandable to everyone regardless of religious or spiritual background. I think that's a good idea in general, so I hope you agree with me and join me in this endeavor. If you agree, please try to make yourself understandable to everyone. This means when you talk to a non-sectarian audience, you should forget the Buddhist jargon as much as you can. That's not only a polite thing to do, it's a compassionate thing to do.

(For a bit of a background: Russian is my first language, but I haven't read Dostoevsky in any language.) From my point of view Dostoevsky's writing is purely aesthetic, meaning, its only function is to bring enjoyment of reading to the reader. Spiritual writings are different in that while they can be enjoyable to read, their purpose is not to deliver an enjoyable hour of reading, but to serve as mental tools for lasting life transformation. So I would be OK if you decided to only discuss Dostoevsky in Russian, because Dostoevsky is a luxury. I agree it would be snobish, but I would say tolerable. Spiritual teachings of the elucidating and empowering kind are our birthright, which is very different from a luxury. Denying people their own spiritual birthright in their own language is intolerable. It goes beyond mere snobbery. It is a serious offense.

Sanskrit is not more nuanced than English. It's just the opposite. Sanskrit is a worse language to use because we don't have a strong intuitive connection to its terms. Sanskrit is not our cultural heritage, but English is. For us real English is 1000 times more powerful than twisted English, even if those twists come from Sanskrit jargon.

You compare my position to some position that's been outlined to you before. One of these days you should stop comparing, and simply listen to what I am saying, then if you disagree, simply disagree without involving pattern matching against "known bad" positions. Right, and I am rejecting your definition. I am saying let's use ordinary meanings. Your meaning is not an ordinary one. You admit this yourself. Let's use meanings everyone understands.

Apparent objects are not in and of themselves awareness. If that's what you are saying, then I agree. To cognize the apparent objects we need to have knowledge of other objects that are not currently apparent. That's why awareness can't simply be identical with whatever momentarily appears to arise.

Nope. That's what you wish we would be saying, since you know how to attack such a position already. But you don't have a ready made way to handle my position.

Forget all this junk. Use the words with their English meanings. We have our own convention. We have conscious awareness or mind and subconscious mind. Mind is the fact of knowing something, and awareness is the fact of being aware. That's plenty good enough. Use it. Conscious mind is closer to the foreground and more obvious in its activities, and subconscious mind is in the background, less obvious, but can be understood through observing the effectiveness of hypnotic suggestions, insight, introspection, etc.

Well said. And that dimension is at the core of our being. Or if we want to get technical, our being has no core because there is no outside or inside. There is only awareness and endless transformations of states of awareness. We can say awareness is our core for the sake of skillful means, because most people can't understand how awareness is all there is, so they think in terms of other-than-awareness objects, and from this POV being appears to have depth, and then core is a relevant concept. Also from this POV awareness appears to be an object in its own right, as if on par with other objects.

That's your own private definition. It's good if you want to have a chat with yourself. Awareness is the fact of being aware. That's all it is.

Nope, the second does not follow from the first. (everything after "then" is wrong) EDIT2: Actually the first part is wrong too. It hints awareness originates, so that's wrong too. Awareness does not originate.

Nonsense. Awareness experiences empty objects of awareness. No exception. Just because some objects look nothing like conventional or customary objects doesn't mean much, other than aesthetics.

Right. Location is itself an experience. You still didn't deal with the fact that I can clearly see myself typing. You're dismissive. You don't really understand the reason for the doctrine. In other words, you've learned to say certain bits of doctrine at almost the right time, but you didn't really appreciate what it means and why it's there. What's wrong with me seeing myself type? Obviously something is... but can you explain it in your own words? Do you know this for yourself? Close all the books and bookmarks. Think! Saying I am not actually typing is a cop out. Saying typing can't be found when I can clearly see myself type, typing is not at all lost that it needs to be found somewhere... obviously you are lying to yourself and others. I will also appreciate it if you get around to answering my previous question: Describe the dependent and independent aspect of intent.

Don't flatter yourself.

This is not 100% true though. There is an element of truth to what you're saying.

This is not how the English language works. You're making up your own private linguistic conventions.

On many issues we can agree to disagree. But there are some issues where it is impossible, for example, if my doctrine tells me people like you should be killed, I doubt you'll be willing to respect that.

Imagine if my doctrine told me to kill people like you because you don't believe the same things as me? And imagine if my doctrine told me that if I stopped believing in my own doctrine, I were to be killed? What kind of relationship would I have with you? I'll tell you from my own knowledge of this: at best, a pretentious one, where I pretend to be your friend while in my hearts of hearts I believe your kind needs to be converted or killed off in the long term. Until this issue is addressed head on we can't make any lasting progress toward peace.

Although from what I read there was also a lot of rivalry and it wasn't always the friendly kind. I agree that generally all these diverse (or really not all that diverse perhaps) views coexist in modern China, perhaps because nobody takes any of them very seriously. Materialism is huge in China right now. Again that's based on the news reports I watch and read. If someone in China wants to contradict me, please do. I'd love to hear various different opinions.

One man's poison is another man's cure.

Call in the Dharma cavalry, Xabir! Quotations and external authorities to the rescue.

Weasel words. I am typing right now. To say that I can't find myself typing is a cop out.

Excellent! This post is brilliant.