xabir2005

Jesus did what? Buddha died at 80 years old, wasn't killed. I don't know where you had that strange idea that Buddha was killed.

My reply wasn't just intended for you. I just write what came up to mind.

There must be minds to be a Buddha. Inanimate trees don't attain Buddhahood. That much, I agree. However there is no separate realizer apart from realisation. There is no separate seer apart from scenery. There is just: the experience of scenery without a separate seer the experience of realisation without a separate realizer And hence Guru Padmasambhava says, 21. Although there exist great many different fruits that do not agree among themselves, the nature of the mind that is inherent awareness is (none other than) the spontaneously perfected Trikaya. What is realized and the one who realizes it are not two (different things). When you look for the fruit and for the one who has realized it, since you have searched for the realizer (of the fruit) and have not found him anywhere, at that time your fruit is exhausted and overthrown. Thus, even though it is an end to your fruition, still this is the beginning with respect to yourself. Both the fruition and the one who has attained the realization are found to not exist anywhere. Without its falling under the power of attachments or aversions or of hopes and fears, your immediate present awareness becomes spontaneously perfected inherent clarity. Understand that within yourself the Trikaya is fully manifest. (Therefore) this itself is the fruition of primordial Buddhahood. Whatever you experience before making it to be something is the mystery. Guru Padmasambhava: http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/200...eeing-with.html Now, when you are introduced (to your own intrinsic awareness), the method for entering into it involves three considerations: Thoughts in the past are clear and empty and leave no traces behind. Thoughts in the future are fresh and unconditioned by anything. And in the present moment, when (your mind) remains in its own condition without constructing anything, awareness, at that moment, in itself is quite ordinary. And when you look into yourself in this way nakedly (without any discursive thoughts), Since there is only this pure observing, there will be found a lucid clarity without anyone being there who is the observer; only a naked manifest awareness is present. (This awareness) is empty and immaculately pure, not being created by anything whatsoever. It is authentic and unadulterated, without any duality of clarity and emptiness. It is not permanent and yet it is not created by anything. However, it is not a mere nothingness or something annihilated because it is lucid and present. It does not exist as a single entity because it is present and clear in terms of being many. (On the other hand) it is not created as a multiplicity of things because it is inseparable and of a single flavor. This inherent self-awareness does not derive from anything outside itself. This is the real introduction to the actual condition of things.

The Buddha is definitely not talking about a metaphysical essence here.

By 'manifestation' I'm saying, experience. Awareness is the experience. The experience of a red flower is awareness. The experience of bird chirping is awareness. The experience of thought is awareness. There is no seer, thinker, feeler, separate from the flow... but rather there is just the entire flow of experiences/experiencing which dependently originates. We are sentient beings endowed with the sense organs and can experience (just using 'I' as a convention here, I don't mean to say there is a separate experiencer). Inanimate things are insentient and cannot experience. And experience arises dependent with all other conditions and factors which includes non-sentient elements (i.e. the five elements, fire, water etc etc.). Water and fire itself are non-sentient, without minds, and cannot experience itself. Without sense organs what kind of experience can it have? None. But with our sense organs and with the sense objects, the sensory consciousness of having seen, felt, water and fire, etc. manifests. And there are six kinds of consciousness (visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, tactile and mental consciousness). So the context of the manifestation is all these factors and conditions, it is not a metaphysical substance of the universe or something of that sort. Under the influence of ignorance, dualistic consciousness split into subject and object arise, but with wisdom, one experiences all these as the radiance of non-dual awareness. The same non-dual manifestation wrongly perceived (i.e. dualistically, inherently) is ignorance/samsara, the same manifestation rightly perceived is wisdom/nirvana. There is no other non-dual awareness apart from these manifestations. Awareness is all that is manifest, there is no other unmanifest or unborn thing transcending manifestation. This is eternalism. There can be freedom from grasping to manifestation, but there is no metaphysical essence that transcends manifestation. Rather all there is is manifestation arising moment to moment along with the context of all the factors and conditions. I believe this post should also clarify rebel and thuscomeone's questions.

Dogen's insights are very deep... profound... not always easily understandable but definitely worth exploring.

I generally agree with your other statements... except this one. When a practitioner realises awareness, even up till Stage 4 non dual, there is a tendency to reify awareness as something of a larger context in which all other phenomena arise and subsides in. But when a practitioner realises Anatta at Thusness Stage 5, he only sees sensations. This is well said by Daniel Ingram: http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/200...aggregates.html Rigpa and Aggregates (Also see: Dzogchen, Rigpa and Dependent Origination) From Dharma Overground, Dharma Dan (Daniel M. Ingram): Dear Mark, Thanks for your descriptions and analysis. They are interesting and relevant. I think of it this way, from a very high but still vipassana point of view, as you are framing this question in a vipassana context: First, the breath is nice, but at that level of manifesting sensations, some other points of view are helpful: Assume something really simple about sensations and awareness: they are exactly the same. In fact, make it more simple: there are sensations, and this includes all sensations that make up space, thought, image, body, anything you can imagine being mind, and all qualities that are experienced, meaning the sum total of the world. In this very simple framework, rigpa is all sensations, but there can be this subtle attachment and lack of investigation when high terms are used that we want there to be this super-rigpa, this awareness that is other. You mention that you feel there is a larger awareness, an awareness that is not just there the limits of your senses. I would claim otherwise: that the whole sensate universe by definition can't arise without the quality of awareness by definition, and so some very subtle sensations are tricking you into thinking they are bigger than the rest of the sensate field and are actually the awareness that is aware of other sensations. Awareness is simply manifestation. All sensations are simply present. Thus, be wary of anything that wants to be a super-awareness, a rigpa that is larger than everything else, as it can't be, by definition. Investigate at the level of bare sensate experience just what arises and see that it can't possibly be different from awareness, as this is actually an extraneous concept and there are actually just sensations as the first and final basis of reality. As you like the Tibetan stuff, and to quote Padmasambhava in the root text of the book The Light of Wisdom: "The mind that observes is also devoid of an ego or self-entity. It is neither seen as something different from the aggregates Nor as identical with these five aggregates. If the first were true, there would exist some other substance. This is not the case, so were the second true, That would contradict a permanent self, since the aggregates are impermanent. Therefore, based on the five aggregates, The self is a mere imputation based on the power of the ego-clinging. As to that which imputes, the past thought has vanished and is nonexistent. The future thought has not occurred, and the present thought does not withstand scrutiny." I really found this little block of tight philosophy helpful. It is also very vipassana at its core, but it is no surprise the wisdom traditions converge. Thus, if you want to crack the nut, notice that everything is 5 aggregates, including everything you think is super-awareness, and be less concerned with what every little type of consciousness is than with just perceiving them directly and noticing the gaps that section off this from that, such as rigpa from thought stream, or awareness from sensations, as these are golden chains.

This is not the case, actually. The Buddha taught: (Sabba Sutta) "Monks, I will teach you the All. Listen & pay close attention. I will speak." "As you say, lord," the monks responded. The Blessed One said, "What is the All? Simply the eye & forms, ear & sounds, nose & aromas, tongue & flavors, body & tactile sensations, intellect & ideas. This, monks, is called the All. [1] Anyone who would say, 'Repudiating this All, I will describe another,' if questioned on what exactly might be the grounds for his statement, would be unable to explain, and furthermore, would be put to grief. Why? Because it lies beyond range." (Shurangama Sutra) (44) Further, the good person has thoroughly seen the formations skandha as empty. He has already ended production and destruction, but he has not yet perfected the subtle wonder of ultimate serenity. Based on his idea that there is universal awareness, he formulates a theory that all the plants and trees in the ten directions are sentient, not different from human beings. He claims that plants and trees can become people, and that when people die they again become plants and trees in the ten directions. If he considers this idea of unrestricted, universal awareness to be supreme, he will fall into the error of maintaining that what is not aware has awareness. Vasishtha and Sainika, who maintained the idea of comprehensive awareness, will become his companions. Confused about the Bodhi of the Buddhas, he will lose his knowledge and understanding. This is the fourth state, in which he creates an erroneous interpretation based on the idea that there is a universal awareness. He strays far from perfect penetration and turns his back on the City of Nirvana, thus sowing the seeds of a distorted view of awareness. In other words, as Lucky said, awareness is sentience. It is simply sensate reality as it is. We don't talk about a universal awareness out of which sentient beings emerge, that would be reifying it. The physical elements are non-sentient. Non-dual awareness dependently originates with everything else, the 'other conditions' may be conscious beings or unconscious elements.

Hi CT, 1. When there is no longer any line between Awareness and the passing sound, the passing scent, the passing thought, then there is no longer a sense of 'Awareness' being more special than all these transient and intrinsically luminous phenomena. The process itself rolls and knows, no knower is required, there isn't an 'Awareness' other than this. 2. No subject and object means there's no sense of a separate self apart from these arising and passing phenomena. There is no subject... just these arising and passing phenomena. 3. I'm not sure if I get your question. Subject/object duality is a deeply held view that affects our entire mode of seeing. We feel deeply that what we experienced, the sights, sounds, etc. are 'out there' while I am 'in here' as an inner experiencer of things. Non-duality is the nature of reality, it is not that it is a stage where 'I' become 'everything'. It is simply that the nature of reality is already never divided into a seer and seen, experiencer and experience. In seeing there is just scenery, no seer. In hearing there is just sounds, no hearer. In thinking just thoughts, no thinker.. etc. This has always already been so. Hence you don't 'enter' into non-duality, you realise it.

Just to add on a little to my previous post... By saying Awareness is the source of one's experience, is to allow the practitioner to have direct experience of this non-dual awareness, then one must start eliminating the idea of Awareness being the 'source', because that will bring the practitioner to the focus of a center. What Thuscomeone logically deduced must also be supported with direct experience of Awareness itself... this will lead to a direct experience of non-dual luminosity. So what thuscomeone said is important but there are 2 more important points: 1. Whenever and wherever there is (phenomena), there is Awareness. Therefore there will come a time 'Awareness' is deemed irrelevant.. it becomes implied. 2. Change the view so that Awareness is not made something more special so that practitioner can give rise to the insight that sees D.O. and self-liberation. If there is endless non-dual moments without beginning and end (for there is no moment nor is there such a point in time that there is a separation), then how can awareness be The Source? The idea of an 'ultimate source' is not necessary by supporting this non-dual realization with the right view. Eventually when the subject is gone, there is just arising and passing phenomena which is implictly non-dual as there is no subject to divide. And that is perfect okay because the right view of Buddhism perfectly supports this non-dual experience. In short... a 'source' is just a convenient reference for a practitioner to get to certain insights, but nothing to attach to, nothing ultimate. Right after non-dual realization (Thusness Stage 4), this insight must follow, so that we will not reify this non-dual experience due to deeply rooted dualisic and inherent view.

Yes that's right We must be careful not to extrapolate the vast field of non-dual consciousness into a permanent essence that remains while things emerge and subside back into it. It is not a permanent source which we come from and return to while it remains unmoved. Consciousness is non-dual but insubstantial. As Vajrahridaya explains well... how Awareness is not seen as the self-existing 'Source of Everything/All Beings' but is empty also empty of any permanent or independent identity, and is totally interdependent, in Buddhism: We as Buddhists don't make real something eternal that stands on it's own, so we don't see the cosmos the same way as monism (one-ism) does. Which is why we don't consider a monist ideation of the liberated state as actually signifying "liberation." We see that a monist is still binding to a concept, a vast ego... an identity even if beyond concept or words, is still a limitation to the liberated experience of a Buddha. We see that even the liberated state is relative, though everlasting due to the everlasting realization of inter-dependent-co-emergence. We don't see any state of consciousness or realization as being one with a source of absolutely everything. We see the liberated consciousness as just the source of our own experience, even though we ourselves are also relative to everything else. The subtle difference is a difference to be considered, because it actually leads to an entirely different realization and thus cannot be equated with a monist (one-ist) view of the cosmos at all which we consider a bound view and not equal to the liberated view. Also... there is the concept of the creative matrix in Buddhism and this matrix is without limit and is infinite. But it's not an eternal self standing infinite. It's an infinitude of mutually dependent finites... or "infinite finites" that persist eternally without beginning or end and without a source due to mutual, interpersonal causation you could say. It's not that a Buddhist does not directly experience a unifying field of perception beyond being a perceiver that is perceiving... but, the Buddhist does not equate this even subconsciously, deep within the experiential platform of consciousness, with a source of all being. It's merely a non-substantial unity of interconnectivity, not a vast and infinite oneness that is the subject of all objects. That would not be considered liberation from the perspective of a Buddha. That would merely be a very subtle, but delusional identification with an experience that originates dependent upon seeing through phenomena, where the consciousness expands past perceived limitations. Even this consciousness that experiences this sense of connection with everything, beyond everything is also considered a phenomena and is empty of inherent, independent reality. Yet persists for as long as the realization persists, which for a Buddha is without beginning nor end. This subtle difference is an important difference that makes Buddhism transcendent of monism, or "there is only" one-ism. Because of this, it is a philosophy that see's through itself completely without remainder. Thus a Buddha is considered a "thus gone one" or a Tathagata. Take care and have a wonderful night/day!!

The insight of no doer can arise even at the lower I AM stages. It can arise at Stage 1, 2, 3, 4, it is an important condition for true nondual and anatta insight but by itself it is not yet the realisation of Anatta. There is an article by Galen Sharp called An Exploration of NON-VOLITIONAL LIVING which is pretty explicit on the no-doership aspect but still holds tightly onto the sense of an Eternal Witness or the I AMness. It then becomes like thoughts and actions happen on its own without a doer, you are simply the watcher of these phenomena. What is key and crucial is the absence of a Subject or a metaphysical Self in Stage 5. That is, there is not even any trace of a permanent Brahman that is "one with all objects".... apart from those non-substantial self-aware sensations which manifests vividly and yet subsides simultaneously leaving no traces, like drawing images on water doesn't leave traces, there is no metaphysical essence there, only vivid impermanent sensations. Realising this is the first aspect of emptiness and is the experiential insight of anatta, or Stage 5. Then there is Stage 6 which is about further emptying the object and realising dependent origination.

A careful study of especially the difference between Stage 4 and 5 will help clarify my previous post: Thusness/PasserBy's Seven Stages of Enlightenment Yes then your view is the same as mine. However I wouldn't say its 'before phenomena', it's perhaps better to say that it's intrinsic to phenomena but even that is not absolutely correct.

Awareness is not a substratum underlying both of them and transcending them. This is the view of Advaita Vedanta. It seems to think there is an unconditioned, self-existing transcendental consciousness that exists prior to all phenomena and yet pervades all of them. However this is still a subtle reification of 'appearance' and 'awareness'. This is because though they have experienced non-duality, they are still using a subtly dualistic framework to interprete them. Awareness becomes the permanent Subject that is nevertheless one with all impermanent objects. In reality, the endless flow of dependent originated sensate reality is itself 'Awareness'.... it is actually just all these sensations which are aware where they are. This is not the union of subject and object... there is no Subject to begin, no other Awareness other than the sensations that dependently originate.

I agree. A related article: http://www.mountainrunnerdoc.com/page/page/5213285.htm (The "Lost Years" of Ramana Maharshi) Something just came up in my mind. It's not that the 'doer' disappears after enlightenment, it's that it's realised that deeds have always been done without a doer. There is only spontaneous happenings that dependently originate, a doer never was, cannot be found. It should be emphasized that this is an insight into what already is... it is not a stage where the 'ego' dissolves or anything like that... this is a fact that applies even to non-enlightened beings... 'mere suffering is without a sufferer'. Anyway here's from a classic Buddhist text (Visuddhimagga) that talks about this issue somewhere in it: "Mere suffering is, not any sufferer is found The deeds exist, but no performer of the deeds: Nibbana is, but not the man that enters it, The path is, but no wanderer is to be seen." .... Everywhere, in all the realms of existence, the noble disciple sees only mental and corporeal phenomena kept going through the concatenation of causes and effects. No producer of the volitional act or kamma does he see apart from the kamma, no recipient of the kamma-result apart from the result. And he is well aware that wise men are using merely conventional language, when, with regard to a kammical act, they speak of a doer, or with regard to a kamma-result, they speak of the recipient of the result. No doer of the deeds is found, No one who ever reaps their fruits; Empty phenomena roll on: This only is the correct view. And while the deeds and their results Roll on and on, conditioned all, There is no first beginning found, Just as it is with seed and tree. ... No god, no Brahma, can be called The maker of this wheel of life: Empty phenomena roll on, Dependent on conditions all.

That is closer... but not quite it. Because awareness is not even 'part of the flow', it is all of the flow, there is not even a 'thing' called awareness other than the bird chirping, the scenery, the thoughts arising and passing, the sensations... there is just that, there is no other thing called 'awareness'. Rather, all phenomena is self-aware, and this is what non-duality truly means (however not everyone will understand the term in the same way, there's a lot of subtleties there too...) Awareness is truly not an separate entity, it has no existence apart from everything, but even the 'everything' is empty, as I told lucky and isn't 'inherent existence' (but mirage-like, dependently originated appearances). However this is not the denial of the vivid non-dual luminosity/awareness. The clear vivid awareness which is non-dual must be realised and experienced. Just that it's empty nature must be understood. The phenomena are diverse, yet never has awareness ever been separated from all phenomena/the flow, as it is. Never has an observer been separated from an observed. This fact will always be so.

I have to say... the Witnessing Mind or the Eternal Witness is not yet the realisation of non-duality. Before the true experience of non-duality, one may come upon a state of a non-judgmental presence that is witnessing the thoughts. This is not the stage of non-dual realisation yet. At non-dual, there is no subject-object division. This means that no one is acting upon actions. Many people talk about non-duality but is really not understanding the subject clearly. Non-duality does not postulate a true self... that is why in Buddhism there is the teaching of no-self. True-self is most probably at the stage of a 'witnessing self'. The tricky part of this journey is that desire can be very subtle. For example, the desire for non-duality is still a desire and will prevent the actual experience of it. Wanting to be desireless is also a desire. Desirelessness and thus non-dualty can only be spontaneous without the 'sense of self' interfering or pretending to be a witness. ....... 'I AM' is an experience of Presence, it is just that only one aspect of Presence is experienced which is the 'all-pervading' aspect. The non-dual and emptiness aspect are not experienced.. Because non-dual is not realised (at I AM stage), a person may still use effort in an attempt to 'enter' the Presence. This is because, at the I AM stage, there is an erroneous concept that there is a relative world make up of thoughts AND there is an 'absolute source' that is watching it. The I AM stage person will make attempts to 'dissociated from the relative world' in order to enter the 'absolute source'. However, at Non-dual (& further..) stage understanding, one have understood that the division into a relative world and an absolute source has NEVER occcured and cannot be... Thus no attempt/effort is truly required. Also see: Thusness/PasserBy's Seven Stages of Enlightenment