xabir2005

The question is more like, before the 'I', 'me', 'myself' thoughts, what are you? That is the point. The thoughts of 'I', 'me', 'myself' are delusional thoughts. You are trying to find out the reality before that. The certainty of your own reality is to be discovered prior to all conceptualizations and mental knowledge. Who is the source of the thoughts? Before birth, Who am I?

OK. You experienced the I AM, but not yet realized it. What is more important is Self-Realization. Continue self-inquiring "Before birth, Who am I?" or "Who am I?" or "What am I?" and probably in months or a few years of diligent inquiring, you will surely realize it. There is just a completely still, thoughtless, doubtless certainty of Being. This is what Thusness wrote to me during the period when I had the experience but not the realization: http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2009/09/realization-and-experience-and-non-dual.html 1. On Experience and Realization One of the direct and immediate response I get after reading the articles by Rob Burbea and Rupert is that they missed one very and most important point when talking about the Eternal Witness Experience -- The Realization. They focus too much on the experience but overlook the realization. Honestly I do not like to make this distinction as I see realization also as a form of experience. However in this particular case, it seems appropriate as it could better illustrate what I am trying to convey. It also relates to the few occasions where you described to me your space-like experiences of Awareness and asked whether they correspond to the phase one insight of Eternal Witness. While your experiences are there, I told you ‘not exactly’ even though you told me you clearly experienced a pure sense of presence. So what is lacking? You do not lack the experience, you lack the realization. You may have the blissful sensation or feeling of vast and open spaciousness; you may experience a non-conceptual and objectless state; you may experience the mirror like clarity but all these experiences are not Realization. There is no ‘eureka’, no ‘aha’, no moment of immediate and intuitive illumination that you understood something undeniable and unshakable -- a conviction so powerful that no one, not even Buddha can sway you from this realization because the practitioner so clearly sees the truth of it. It is the direct and unshakable insight of ‘You’. This is the realization that a practitioner must have in order to realize the Zen satori. You will understand clearly why it is so difficult for those practitioners to forgo this ‘I AMness’ and accept the doctrine of anatta. Actually there is no forgoing of this ‘Witness’, it is rather a deepening of insight to include the non-dual, groundlessness and interconnectedness of our luminous nature. Like what Rob said, "keep the experience but refine the views". Lastly this realization is not an end by itself, it is the beginning. If we are truthful and not over exaggerate and get carried away by this initial glimpse, we will realize that we do not gain liberation from this realization; contrary we suffer more after this realization. However it is a powerful condition that motivates a practitioner to embark on a spiritual journey in search of true freedom.

What is that? Is there complete certainty?

Without relying on thoughts, concepts and labels, who is that which is clearly, undeniably, undoubtedly present and knowing its own existence?

He has pretty deep insights but don't offer 'methods' on how you may realize it. He thinks enlightenment is some sort of freak accident

http://www.soundstrue.com/weeklywisdom/?source=tami-simon&p=1246&category=PP&version=full

Kagyu focus on Mahamudra, while Sakya and Gelug focus on the generation and completion tantric practices, though Sakya and Gelug also have Mahamudra practices. Wiki: "Mahāmudrā is most well known as a teaching within the Kagyu (w. Bka´ brgyud) lineages of Tibetan Buddhism. However the Tibetan Buddhist Gelug and Sakya schools also practice mahāmudrā, as does Shingon Buddhism, the other major sub-school of the Vajrayana.[citation needed] The Nyingma and Bön traditions practise Dzogchen, a cognate but distinct method of direct introduction to the empty nature of mind. Nyingma students may also receive supplemental training in mahāmudrā, and the Palyul Nyingma lineage preserves a lineage of the "Union of Mahāmudrā and Ati Yoga" originated by Karma Chagme." I don't know about Ken McLeod so can't comment. Lama Surya Das is at least clear about nondual but I don't think very clear about twofold emptiness.

what you quoted is from Archaya Mahayogi Shridhar Rinpoche. Thusnmess did not write the article, but did comment on it in the comments section. The world is not illusory in the sense of being imagined, this is what he meant by "like an illusion but not an illusion". However I put it this way: the world is illusory but not delusional. The world is not a fabrication of your imagination, yet it is empty and yet appearing, like a dream, a mirage, a magician's trick. Delusion is in taking self and the world to be real. If you realize no self no dharmas then the world apprehended correctly, is itself nirvana.

My friend Simpo (who is of deep realizations) wrote today: Hi Aik TC, Thanks for the sharing. So far my (what a paradox) experience of no-self has been without emotional content.. Currently, a sizeable chunk of waking hours and at times sleeping times too are in no-self mode. No-self mode has a direct immediate awareness feeling. Without a sense of self, the aggregates are not 'connected' via a center self reference. This lack of self-reference allows the 'fuzziness/fogginess' of self to be cleared away. When there is a sense of self, there can be emotional investment in the content/thought. as well as sensations.. this results in a fogginess of consciousness.In self-mode, one is not aware that the experiences in one's life are actually mind's appearance/contents. This non-recognition causes the sucking into and following of thoughts as if there are real at that time of their arising. In no-self mode, awareness is aware of contents as thoughts...contents loses their semantics and solidity. This at times gives a certain feeling of freedom. It is as if there can be activities, but there is no-one there performing them. In the self-mode, one is invested in the story of one's life.. In no-self mode, this story/experiences are clearly seem as mind's contents and thoughts.... no entirely real, yet not entirely false too... dream-like. If I feel angry, i know that the thoughts/'mind story' of me and an object/person that is making me angry is being played out . Awareness have already being become foggy... And thus it is time to re-establish awareness. The problem... is that once the 'sucking into' is too strong ... any action that is being performed is out of desperation and is via a sense of self. Note.. the way that is being written here is as if awareness is something separate from mind's content. It is not. Awareness is not an object/thing. BTW... i just bought 'Vivid Awareness' a few days ago. A good book and am gaining certain insights from it.

Cleary

To my knowledge it is not a necessity to take vows in order to chant... and lots of non-vegetarians chant the dharani too. Also, taking refuge is not something done 'repeatedly', if you are interested to be a Buddhist, consider going to temple near you and there will usually be taking refuge ceremony (it's a once thing, not an everyday repetition thing). p.s. for non-vegetarians, the Buddha's advise is that you do not eat meat from animals that you saw, suspected was made for you, or that you personally ordered to kill. Why? Avoid making bad karma... since karma is intentional. If you eat frozen meat, the intention to cause the death of the animal was not there. However if you order live seafood to be butchered, then that is bad karma. If the meat meets the three pure meat criteria, then it is edible. More info: http://www.jenchen.org.sg/vol5no4a.htm Buddha personally opposed Devadatta's proposed rules to make vegetarianism compulsory. He did not want his community to make vegetarian a compulsory thing. If you do that is good, but we do not impose it on everyone. The reason for taking up vegetarianism is to practice great compassion for sentient beings... this is explained in some Mahayana sutras. Also, looking at modern times, animals suffer much more than the past and pollute the environment.

This quotation by Kenneth no longer stands as of late 2010. Kenneth Folk reports to have overcome those emotions and also attained what I call the realizaton of Anatta in late 2010. Check out http://kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/thread/4412660/A+Seven+Stage+Model+of+Enlightenment+%28New+Video%29

Hmm... and this is what I attempt to do in Experience, Realization, View, Practice and Fruition - http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2011/12/experience-realization-view-practice.html and my e-book which is much more lengthy but I'll try to shorten it this year.

On the other hand, I do not feel any need to insist on the superiority of Buddhism - it just so happens that when something comes up that needs to be addressed, I will address it, and sometimes it is unavoidable that I have to mention that there are certain things that I simply cannot see being described outside of Buddhism (when people start saying this and this is the same as Buddhism when clearly it isn't). Right View is taught by Buddha to be the forerunner of the noble eightfold path that leads to awakening. Without having right view, you can progress in your practice, but to breakthrough to certain realization it is necessary to come across Right View and yes that is where those sutras (and other teachings) come in as a possible aid, and yes, you need to explore and contemplate on them. But there needs to be certain faith in the Buddha, otherwise you will not take the teachings seriously enough for it to have any effect on you. And that is not the same as merely blind faith since you are actually doing the contemplation yourself, you are trying to see it for yourself like a scientist. It is my experience that if I did not have the right view first, then I would simply have stayed with my own framework or paradigm, i.e. continue to see in terms of a Self. It is like what Rob Burbea said: One time the Buddha went to a group of monks and he basically told them not to see Awareness as The Source of all things. So this sense of there being a vast awareness and everything just appears out of that and disappears back into it, beautiful as that is, he told them that’s actually not a skillful way of viewing reality. And that is a very interesting sutta, because it’s one of the only suttas where at the end it doesn’t say the monks rejoiced in his words. This group of monks didn’t want to hear that. They were quite happy with that level of insight, lovely as it was, and it said the monks did not rejoice in the Buddha’s words. (laughter) And similarly, one runs into this as a teacher, I have to say. This level is so attractive, it has so much of the flavor of something ultimate, that often times people are unbudgeable there. Of course having right view is not itself the realization... but as I already pointed, or what Ted Biringer points out, "Accurate understanding is not authentic realization. At the same time, authentic realization can hardly be expected to occur without accurate understanding. And while an absence of "right understanding" almost excludes the possibility of authentic realization, the presence of "wrong understanding" excludes even the slimmest hope of success. If we aspire to realize what Zen practice-enlightenment truly is, then, as Dogen says, "We should inquire into it, and we should experience it." To follow his guidance here we will need to understand his view of what "it" is that needs to be inquired into, and who the "we" is that is to do the inquiring." So the point here is not simply to blindly believe in things. It is that you need to have certain faith in the Buddha, have the right understanding of what the Buddha taught, then investigate it for yourself contemplatively. If you do not have faith in Buddha and insist that your viewpoint is right, then there is no progress. But of course the point is not just having faith - that is only one small part of the path... the point is really to contemplate and see it for yourself. Buddha taught Right View as being a vital and necessary component of the Noble Eightfold Path to all his students... just as Right Intention, Right Speech, etc... Right Mindfulness, Right Concentration are all impotant parts of the path and doesn't matter who you are... these are necessary requisites for awakening. Even if you aren't enculturated with a certain way of interpreting things, nonetheless it doesn't mean you realize the truth. Also we are all conditioned to perceive or proliferate - to grasp things wrongly, to see impermanence as permanent, not self as self, etc... this causes suffering and is actually prevalent in all persons, not just people 'enculturated with a certain way of interpreting things'. This is why what Buddha taught all to contemplate on the three characteristics, the four noble truths, and so on. It is a universal subject of contemplation, for everyone. Yes precisely. I do not 'harangue' and have no wish to dwell into unnecessary discussions (I do not, for example, disturb people's threads and discussions regardless of whether they have 'right view' or not - as I said I have no wish to pop in Vmarco's threads until I felt a particular point made by you needs to be addressed since it is directly related to my writings and blog) unless an occasion arises for me to correct something, usually statements directed to me or related to what I've said. Or at least rarely do I do so, unless I think the other party is open to pointers or is seeking advise. I agree, it is all up to one's own discernment, I have no wish to impose ideas on people. That was at least not my original intentions in all the threads and discussions I started recently, except and unless when someone says something related or directed at me which I felt should be corrected, and even so the intention is to correct certain statements - I am not trying to push certain ideas to others. It is entirely up to your own discernment.

I think I get what you mean. I should write in a way that addresses my point without making it seem like a direct challenge to people..?

Weariness and annoyance, imo, comes from what I said earlier - repetitiveness and challenging other people's views. If there is something else you think I missed, please tell me. And if there is any practical advise to improving my skillfulnes in writing, please tell me too.

When you realized what I realized, then you will not see anything I said that is depressing. I don't know what makes what I said depressing for others - maybe it is too repetitive (which as I said, is due to my addressing of certain issues that come up often, for example in this thread things pointed out by Seth Ananda) which is difficult to be avoided in a discussion. Or it could mean that certain people hold other views and don't feel comfortable if I challenge their views, etc. Or it could mean something else in which case I am happy to be pointed out.

Haha... it is depressing from your POV... but not necessarily for others. Anyway as I said... the only sutta ever to be disliked by his listeners was one addressed to those holding the view of the Samkhyas. It so happens that I addressed too many of such topics... I originally have no intentions of dwelling into these issues at all, but when they come up I address them. I don't talk about these things, or seldom do, in my forum for example.

This is good... but no one I suppose is talking about philosophies here.

I'm really not concerned with the words you use. But so far, one of the only person I see that uses the terms 'Mind' or 'Buddha-nature' without coursing into eternalism is Zen Master Dogen. Such a person (who realizes anatta but uses the terms buddha-nature, which I do) would define Mind or Buddha-nature or Enlightened Nature, whatever you want to call it, as simply and only processes and manifestations, because there truly is just that, nothing unchanging or independent - and this is how Zen Master Dogen defines it. Of course many of the Tibetan masters also teach that Buddha-nature is the inseparability of luminosity and emptiness, which means the buddha-nature is empty of a self and therefore fine (except Shentong who define it as empty of other but not self, which falls into eternalism). If you define an Absolute as a transcendental, ultimate reality, then that means anatta is not yet realized. So yes, it really isn't the words that matter, but what the words mean in various contexts. For Nisargadatta the Absolute is the nothingness, for some it is pure consciousness as the I AM, for some it is 'nondual consciousness' albeit taken as unchanging/independent/substantial, etc. In each case, something is reified to be the true Self, permanent, unchanging, independent, absolute, source of everything, etc. Such a person will be criticized by the Buddha (in MN 1) for conceiving things - I, me, mine, source, etc.. and thus not comprehending everything as it is. All these are far from semantics.

There is no need to 'no' twice - since it is simply a non-asserting negation. I.e. it would be an unnecessary antidote to a nonexistent problem, since realization of anatta is not itself a position or the asserting of a new position, but merely the abandonment of a previous view or position of self through direct realization of the absence of a true existence (of self). But yes, what you said is right. No. This is what I have said many times before myself.

To continue off from what I said. There is nothing wrong with 'I AM' at all. It is that you need to realize that all manifestations are primordially pure and without self. I AM is actually just a manifestation - it is not a ground, a subtratum, a source, a true self. What is pointed to as 'I AM' is actually just a non-conceptual thought - felt as luminous, vivid, presence-existence, but only in the mind-realm. It is only one out of eighteen dhatus (six sense organs, six sense objects, six sense consciousness) . When consciousness experiences the pure sense of “I AM”, overwhelmed by the transcendental thoughtless moment of Beingness, consciousness clings to that experience as its purest identity. By doing so, it subtly creates a ‘watcher’ and fails to see that the ‘Pure Sense of Existence’ is nothing but an aspect of pure consciousness relating to the thought realm. This in turn serves as the karmic condition that prevents the experience of pure consciousness that arises from other sense-objects. Extending it to the other senses, there is hearing without a hearer and seeing without a seer -- the experience of Pure Sound-Consciousness is radically different from Pure Sight-Consciousness. Sincerely, if we are able to give up ‘I’ and replaces it with “Emptiness Nature”, Consciousness is experienced as non-local. No one state is purer than the other. All is just One Taste, the manifold of Presence. So... The point is not that there is a state higher than I AM. The point is that there really is no self, always already no self, there is only manifestation, all manifestation arises due to dependent origination without an agent, perceiver, observer, controller, are self-luminous as they are, insubstantial, ephemeral, without an ultimate source or origin. This is different from I AM insight (Thusness Stage 1~2), Thusness Stage 3 (nothingness) experience, nor is it substantial non-duality (Thusness Stage 4). It is not even merely no-mind experience which can be found in the Actualism teachings. It is radically different. There is ONLY the process of knowing/manifestation... there is no unchanging Absolute, no unchanging Self, no metaphysical essence.

Depends. There are great awakened Buddhist masters who don't know much about scriptures... and those that do.

I visit http://www.buddhistgeeks.com/

One more quote: Most essential is that knowledge ‘I am’. Claim it, appropriate it as your own. If that is not there, nothing is. Knowledge of all stages will be obtained only with the aid of this knowledge ‘I am’ From the Absolute no-knowing state, spontaneously this consciousness ‘I am’ has appeared – no reason, no cause. ... It is consciousness which must seek its source. Out of that no-being state comes the beingness. It comes as quietly as twilight, with just a feel of "I Am" and then suddenly the space is there. This means there is an absolute purest state that precedes 'I am', and that spontaneously, without cause, 'I am' appears. This is ignorance of dependent origination... there is no causeless spontaneous arising, and no ultimate source or purest state preceding, prior to manifestation as its absolute source.. Nisargadatta, and others, teach the root sequence (all manners of existence from 'coarse' to 'subtle'), and that the subtlest - nothingness, or whatever you want to call it, is the true self and the absolute source of everything. That there is an absolute reality... and that things come forth from the Absolute. In contrast, the Buddha teaches the root sequence in the very first sutta of the Middle Length Discourses (Majjhima Nikaya) but does not reify anything. It was a teaching aimed at those students who held notions of a Brahman. Obviously, the 500 students didn't liked it at all, and it was the only sutra in the Pali Canon where the listeners didn't liked what Buddha said (as stated there). But commentaries state that at another sutta (latter time) can't remember which, when the put down their pride, the Buddha gave them another discourse in which 500 of them attained Arhantship. http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2009/09/two-sutras-teachings-of-buddha-on.html Second Sutra (Mulapariyaya Sutta: The Root Sequence) http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.001.than.html "He directly knows water as water... fire as fire... wind as wind... beings as beings... gods as gods... Pajapati as Pajapati... Brahma as Brahma... the luminous gods as luminous gods... the gods of refulgent glory as gods of refulgent glory... the gods of abundant fruit as the gods of abundant fruit... the Great Being as the Great Being... the dimension of the infinitude of space as the dimension of the infinitude of space... the dimension of the infinitude of consciousness as the dimension of the infinitude of consciousness... the dimension of nothingness as the dimension of nothingness... the dimension of neither-perception-nor-non-perception as the dimension of neither-perception-nor-non-perception... the seen as the seen... the heard as the heard... the sensed as the sensed... the cognized as the cognized... singleness as singleness... multiplicity as multiplicity... the All as the All... "He directly knows Unbinding as Unbinding. Directly knowing Unbinding as Unbinding, he does not conceive things about Unbinding, does not conceive things in Unbinding, does not conceive things coming out of Unbinding, does not conceive Unbinding as 'mine,' does not delight in Unbinding. Why is that? Because the Tathagata has comprehended it to the end, I tell you." That is what the Blessed One said. Displeased, the monks did not delight in the Blessed One's words. Rob Burbea in Realizing the Nature of Mind: One time the Buddha went to a group of monks and he basically told them not to see Awareness as The Source of all things. So this sense of there being a vast awareness and everything just appears out of that and disappears back into it, beautiful as that is, he told them that’s actually not a skillful way of viewing reality. And that is a very interesting sutta, because it’s one of the only suttas where at the end it doesn’t say the monks rejoiced in his words. This group of monks didn’t want to hear that. They were quite happy with that level of insight, lovely as it was, and it said the monks did not rejoice in the Buddha’s words. (laughter) And similarly, one runs into this as a teacher, I have to say. This level is so attractive, it has so much of the flavor of something ultimate, that often times people are unbudgeable there. Thanissaro Bhikkhu: The Buddha taught that clinging to views is one of the four forms of clinging that tie the mind to the processes of suffering. He thus recommended that his followers relinquish their clinging, not only to views in their full-blown form as specific positions, but also in their rudimentary form as the categories & relationships that the mind reads into experience. This is a point he makes in the following discourse, which is apparently his response to a particular school of Brahmanical thought that was developing in his time — the Samkhya, or classification school. This school had its beginnings in the thought of Uddalaka, a ninth-century B.C. philosopher who posited a "root": an abstract principle out of which all things emanated and which was immanent in all things. Philosophers who carried on this line of thinking offered a variety of theories, based on logic and meditative experience, about the nature of the ultimate root and about the hierarchy of the emanation. Many of their theories were recorded in the Upanishads and eventually developed into the classical Samkhya system around the time of the Buddha. Although the present discourse says nothing about the background of the monks listening to it, the Commentary states that before their ordination they were brahmans, and that even after their ordination they continued to interpret the Buddha's teachings in light of their previous training, which may well have been proto-Samkhya. If this is so, then the Buddha's opening lines — "I will teach you the sequence of the root of all phenomena" — would have them prepared to hear his contribution to their line of thinking. And, in fact, the list of topics he covers reads like a Buddhist Samkhya. Paralleling the classical Samkhya, it contains 24 items, begins with the physical world (here, the four physical properties), and leads back through ever more refined & inclusive levels of being & experience, culminating with the ultimate Buddhist concept: Unbinding (nibbana). In the pattern of Samkhya thought, Unbinding would thus be the ultimate "root" or ground of being immanent in all things and out of which they all emanate. However, instead of following this pattern of thinking, the Buddha attacks it at its very root: the notion of a principle in the abstract, the "in" (immanence) & "out of" (emanation) superimposed on experience. Only an uninstructed, run of the mill person, he says, would read experience in this way. In contrast, a person in training should look for a different kind of "root" — the root of suffering experienced in the present — and find it in the act of delight. Developing dispassion for that delight, the trainee can then comprehend the process of coming-into-being for what it is, drop all participation in it, and thus achieve true Awakening. If the listeners present at this discourse were indeed interested in fitting Buddhist teachings into a Samkhyan mold, then it's small wonder that they were displeased — one of the few places where we read of a negative reaction to the Buddha's words. They had hoped to hear his contribution to their project, but instead they hear their whole pattern of thinking & theorizing attacked as ignorant & ill-informed. The Commentary tells us, though, they were later able to overcome their displeasure and eventually attain Awakening on listening to the discourse reported in AN 3.123. Although at present we rarely think in the same terms as the Samkhya philosophers, there has long been — and still is — a common tendency to create a "Buddhist" metaphysics in which the experience of emptiness, the Unconditioned, the Dharma-body, Buddha-nature, rigpa, etc., is said to function as the ground of being from which the "All" — the entirety of our sensory & mental experience — is said to spring and to which we return when we meditate. Some people think that these theories are the inventions of scholars without any direct meditative experience, but actually they have most often originated among meditators, who label (or in the words of the discourse, "perceive") a particular meditative experience as the ultimate goal, identify with it in a subtle way (as when we are told that "we are the knowing"), and then view that level of experience as the ground of being out of which all other experience comes. Any teaching that follows these lines would be subject to the same criticism that the Buddha directed against the monks who first heard this discourse. p.s. With due respects to Thanissaro Bhikkhu who is a venerable from the Theravadin tradition of Buddhism, his comments on "the Dharma-body, Buddha-nature, rigpa" is not in accord with what is taught in the Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhist traditions, since in these traditions the Dharmakaya (dharma body)/Buddha Nature/Rigpa is explained as empty as well. It is however a common misunderstanding even among Buddhists. Also see: Rigpa and Aggregates As my friend who is an experienced Dzogchen practitioner, Vajrahridaya (who himself wrote a very good article on refuting Consciousness as 'Source' which I posted in ‘What makes Buddhism different’) said: Ah, but this is not at all what Rigpa or Dharmakaya means. Rigpa is basically the consciousness of emptiness of dependent origination, so also originates dependently and is not some self supporting universal awareness. But since all aspects of the so called "universe" are inherently empty always, so Rigpa is always, only in as much as it is recognized. p.s. Namdrol could clear this up, as he has access to untranslated Tibetan texts and could talk about what Rigpa means. He has said that it is not established as well. Rigpa is only inherent in the sense that all compounded things are inherently empty always. Just like the Buddhas first statement. "Mind and it's phenomena are luminous, uncompounded and free since beginningless time." Or something to that effect in maybe not that order. If someone has the quote? And as Vajrahridaya pointed out: One reason within it's philosophy descriptive of reality is... 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!!