xabir2005

Chance, determinism, are two extremes that Buddha had refuted. Chance means, things happen without conditions, by chance. Determinism means, a single cause determines a fixed outcome. Karma however, is not the latter, because karma is only one of the conditions that results in a particular experience. It is not the sole agent for our experiences. It is not the 'controller' of our life anymore than the weather is the 'controller' of our life. It is just part of the conditionings of our experiences at any moment. So basically, things do not happen by chance or randomly or determined, but due to conditions. There is no control (either by an internal agent/self/actor which cannot be found, or an external agent called 'The God' or 'The Fate/Destiny'), but there is influence by intentions and imprints. Just conditionings. However dependent origination is not the same thing as having an origination/originator, or an agent (be it self, or god, or fate) that is controlling our experience. As David Loy explained, *...we find ourselves in a universe of sunya-events, none of which can be said to occur for the sake of any other. Each nondual event -- every leaf-flutter, wandering thought, and piece of litter -- is whole and complete in itself, because although conditioned by everything else in the universe and thus a manifestation of it, for precisely that reason it is not subordinated to anything else but becomes an unconditioned end-in-itself... Regarding the question of free will and determinism, actually both are extremes. Free will usually posits a separate self or controller that is free to do what it wants, but such an entity cannot be found. Determinism is again another extreme. One must first experience no-self and understand how subject/object view affect us then when one looks at the question of free will, then one will be able to understand better. Because when our mind and experience are shaped by inherent thoughts, we see 'free will' as a form of freedom. Once we are able to go beyond dualistic and inherent views, we see otherwise. But we must also not lead to the wrong understanding of determinism for both free will and determinism are extremes.

The Buddha did not say 'good' and 'bad' but he taught that there are actions that are 'wholesome', 'skillful', leading to happiness, and there are actions that are 'unwholesome', 'unskillful', leading to harm and suffering.

Just as far as I understand... 1. Vipassana means observing the 3 characteristics: impermanence, suffering, no-self in your direct experience/sensate reality. Hence it dissolves any clinging to anything through insight into these characteristics. 2. For a beginner you can just be aware of the arising and subsiding of breathing sensations to the minutest details, sensing its qualities with clarity (cold, hot, hard, soft, etc) but not through labelling. Observe its 3 characteristics. 3. "try every second mindfulness of exactly what is, regardless of the specifics of your technique, and when you can do that, try going for many times per second. This level of precision and inclusiveness of what is going on really helps. As to fast, noting is really fast, particularly if done all day. It can be a rough ride, but that's the trade off." - Daniel Ingram 5. Sorry, I'm not very familiar with body scanning. Here's a very good e-book available for free online: http://www.interactivebuddha.com/mctb.shtml

Actually, they removed the comparative religion section long ago. Which IMO is not necessary.

Actually the point is nothing is created, nothing has origination, this is very Madhyamika. Samsara itself is Unborn. Lankavatara Sutra: Even Nirvana and Samsara's world of life and death are aspects of the same thing, for there is no Nirvana except where is Samsara, and Samsara except where is Nirvana. All duality is falsely imagined. Vishesacinta-brahma-pariprccha Sutra: Samsara is Nirvana, because there is, when viewed from the ultimate nature of the Dharmakaya, nothing going out of, nor coming into, existence (Samsara being only apparent): Nirvana is samsara, when it is coveted and adhered to. What dependently originates is in essence empty and unborn. It is not the kind of linear 'A causes B'. This is still seeing in terms of entities instead of emptiness. This is not what dependent origination is about. I think Lankavatara Sutra stated somewhere that the philosophers' conception of cause and effect is not the same as how the Buddha sees it. Rather, D.O. is everything interacting with everything coming together in an instantaneous moment of manifestation Complete and Whole of itself, without movement, origination, coming-from and going-to. And this complete manifestation/appearance is vivid, luminous, but is illusion-like like a mirage, without substance, nothing inherently 'there' -- it is empty. When dependently origination is correctly understood everything is seen as being like an illusion and ultimately unborn. There is nothing causing anything. As Dogen says, firewood does not turn into ash, firewood abides in the phenomenal expression of firewood, ash abides in the phenomenal expression of ash. Similarly, birth is birth, death is death, there is no birth turning into death, and understood this way Birth is no-birth, Death is no-death. Seen in this way, there is no inherently existing firewood, ash, birth, death, that has origination and death or 'it' turns into something -- rather there is only moment by moment (transient) dependently originated appearances and all appearances are luminous and empty. But if you reify something something, i.e. The Source, as uncreated and everything emerges and subsides from/within that, then you have an eternalist view. In Buddhism, Awareness is Unborn but it is not reified as "The Unborn", because everything is unborn, everything has no origination, everything is source, everything is awareness, everything is empty.

The 'who' is the subtlest of stories. Without the 'who', there is just pure seeing, pure hearing, etc... spontaneous presence in its diversities.

All your sentences contradict the statement 'Emptiness is Form'. The general view of Advaita is that Brahman is non phenomenal -- not limited to a specific manifestation or form or attribute, for it is the unchanging background reality and the container of phenomena. Yet at the same time, it's seen to be inseparable from all forms. Actually at the highest level of realisation, Brahman is not seen as a void background but as all its dynamic expressions. Adyashanti describes Thusness's Stage 4 (non-dual) insight quite well and relates it to Advaita: "Being Stuck in Emptiness Another of the traps you may discover is similar to being stuck in meaninglessness: being stuck in emptiness. Being stuck in emptiness is a form of being stuck in the transcendent, being stuck in the position of the witness. Initially, it can feel wonderful to be in a state of witnessing, a state in which we realize that we are not somebody who is witnessing, but that we are witnessing itself. Although it is true that we are the witness to everything, there is also a deluded aspect that is easy to get caught in. The ego can set up camp anywhere; it is a shapeshifter. If superiority doesn't work, then setting up camp as the disconnected witness might. The ego is constantly in flux. Once you're onto it -- once you've discovered it in one aspect of your being -- it will disappear, only to reappear somewhere else. It is very cunning, very subtle. In fact, as I see it, the ego's illusion is one of the most impressive forces in all of nature. The "me," or the ego, can set itself up as the witness. Initially, this can feel tremendously freeing, especially for people who have experienced a lot of pain and suffering in life. All of a sudden they are the witness, and there is extraordinary relief in no longer being identified as the main character in their life. But the position of the witness can become a fixation, and when it does, a sense of dryness can start to creep in. In this situation, the witness sees itself as unconnected with what is being witnessed. This means, of course, that there hasn't been a true and thorough realization. It is more like a half realization; it's like being halfway awake. There's an ancient saying that the great sage Ramana Maharshi used to talk about, which goes like this: "The world is illusion. Brahman alone is real. The world is Brahman." This saying speaks to certain insights that come with awakening. The first insight, that "the world is illusion," is not a philosophical statement. Seeing that the world is illusion is part of the awakening experience. It is something that is known; we discover that there is no such thing as an objective world out there, separate from us. This first statement, then, is pointing to this insight, which comes with realization. The next statement, "Brahman alone is real," points us toward the recognition of the eternal witness. The witness to the world is where all the reality is. From this perspective of awakening, the witness is experienced to be much more real than what is witnessed. What is witnessed is seen to be like a dream, like a movie or a novel, unfolding in front of us. There's a great amount of freedom in this, but also a great tendency to become stuck in the idea that "I am the witness to what is." So far, we've seen that these two statements are true: "The world is illusion," and "Brahman alone is real." (The latter of these could be understood as "The witness alone is real.") But without the third statement, "The world is Brahman," we would not have true nonduality. In the statement, "The world is Brahman" collapses the position of the external witness. The witness position collapses into the totality, and suddenly we're not witnessing from the outside anymore. Instead, witnessing is taking place from everywhere simultaneously -- inside, outside, around, up, down. Everything everywhere is being witnessed from inside and outside simultaneously, because what is witnessed is what is witnessing. The seer and what is seen are the same. Unless that is realized, we can get stuck in the place of the witness. We can become stuck in a transcendent void, in emptiness. .......... (continued: http://books.google.com.sg/books?id=nFF8XY...lt&resnum=1 ) ...As long as we're staying at the summit of awakening, in the transcendent place of the absolute, where we are forever unborn and forever untouched and forever undying, there is an incompleteness to our realization. Quite surprisingly, upon reentry, life becomes very simple and ordinary. We no longer feel driven to have extraordinary moments, to have transcendent experiences. Sitting at the table in the morning and drinking a cup of tea is perfectly adequate. Drinking a cup of tea is experienced as a full expression of ultimate reality. The cup itself is a full expression of everything we have realized. Walking down the hallway, each step is a complete expression of the deepest realization. Raising a family, dealing with children, going to work, going on vacation -- all of it is a true expression of that which is inexpressible." The Form (be it a sound, a vision, a taste) before a moment of thought, before perception, before superimposition, that's Buddha-Nature. And it's not you smelling, tasting, seeing, but the sound itself is the hearing, the mountain itself is the seeing, the world itself is consciousness. Absolutely no 'witness' can be found when everything is the self-mirroring awareness.

Phenomenon also cannot be negated. All phenomenon are consciousness. To experience an aspect of consciousness and separate it from other phenomena is being equally blind to the Totality.

Today I saw some very well written posts by Daniel Ingram at the Dharma Overground forum, thought of sharing it here: I agree with Hokai: one can get the thing pretty quiet, but stopping the thought stream entirely is the domain of supra-mundane attainments such as Fruition. Even the deepest of the experienced states has some subtle thought stream. I attained to some of the strongest concentration states I ever attained using mantra in addition to visualization, so it aided rather than impeded my concentration, though past a certain point it changes to something somewhat different from the standard way we think of the verbal thought stream. Beware assuming that thought=duality. Thoughts are sensations, and there are multiple modes in which sensations may be perceived: apparently dual, apparently unitive, apparently non-dual. All of these modes arise dependent on conditions, and while the content of thought is always dual, the experience may be quite the opposite. I agree that there is much to be enjoyed in more quiet states, but there is much to be enjoyed in others as well, and I have at points had great fun ramping the volume of music in my head to become grand celestial choirs belting out beautiful complex harmonies such that the halls of space rang and shimmered rich overtones of pure delight the likes of which could never be heard in this ordinary realm. -------------- 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.

D.O. and Emptiness as a view, as a concept, gets dissolved in the end into the direct experience of it in real time. For experiential narration on the insight of D.O. and emptiness in real time, see the subsection "On Emptiness" and "On Maha" of the post "On Anatta (No-Self), Emptiness and Spontaneous Perfection" written by Thusness.

Both are equally important in Buddhism to give rise to insights of the twofold emptiness. Cant do without either.

The method is also different... vipashyana is peculiar to Buddhism.

Of course D.O. is seamless. I am merely quoting from Buddha: "The instructed disciple of the noble ones, [however,] attends carefully & appropriately right there at the dependent co-arising: "'When this is, that is. "'From the arising of this comes the arising of that. "'When this isn't, that isn't. "'From the cessation of this comes the cessation of that. At least, it didn't confuse his students. The five skandhas itself is the mindstream. What does 'stream' means? It's a process. Nothing ontological. Also, we cannot separate Buddha-Nature from the five skandhas. See what I posted to forestofemptiness above in the second post on this page, the quotations. So, you either see Buddha-Nature as being the potential for Buddhahood, or you see that it is the luminous and empty nature of mind that cannot be separated from the transience. Once you separate it from the transience, the five skandhas, you have in actuality reified a Self. It's best to understand how Theravada understands the process of rebirth. Nagasena, the Theravadin Arhat replies to the question posed by the King: "What is it, Venerable Sir, that will be reborn?" "A psycho-physical combination (//nama-rupa//), O King." "But how, Venerable Sir? Is it the same psycho-physical combination as this present one?" "No, O King. But the present psycho-physical combination produces kammically wholesome and unwholesome volitional activities, and through such kamma a new psycho-physical combination will be born." Ven Buddhagosa: 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.

What is the question? If you're talking about 'In which skandha does the non-conceptual ground of the mind stream belong?' -- I've replied that all five skhandas are Buddha-Nature, Buddha-Nature is all manifestations and yet isn't limited to any particular manifestations (such as the initial experience of I AM). Non-duality means there is no unchanging background container, Mind is actually all foreground phenomenon. As Bodhidharma says its 'conditional functions are inexhaustible' -- buddha-nature is inseparable from conditions, and the conditions gives rise to different appearances and manifestations which are all buddha-nature.

My understanding is that Bodhisattvas of a particular bhumi (8th, I think) return to samsara but not due to uncontrolled rebirth according to good and bad karma. He can choose to manifest anywhere due to his vows, compassion, powers, and is no longer subjected to uncontrolled rebirth. However I agree that Bodhisattvas return and hence leaves an 'infinite residue' of pure karma. There is a difference between 'virtuous' and 'untainted/pure' karma. As Guru Padmasambhava said: If you understand (intrinsic awareness), all of your merits and sins will be liberated into their own condition. But if you do not understand it, any virtuous or vicious deeds that you commit will accumulate as karma leading to transmigration in heavenly rebirth or to rebirth in the evil destinies respectively. But if you understand this empty primal awareness, which is your own mind, the consequences of merit and of sin will never come to be realized, just as a spring cannot originate in the empty sky. In the state of emptiness itself, the object of merit or of sin is not even created.