dwai

There are many ways to point to non-duality. The traditional vedantic method is called the “Arundhati darsana nyaya” or “the logic of viewing arundhati.” The context being, arundhati and vashishta are two stellar constellations which are considered to be a pair when observed anstronomically, but arundhati is much farther away than vashishta, and so is very faint in the night sky. The way a teacher might show a student where arundhati is in the night sky might be to follow a sequence of referential pointers. He might draw the student’s attention to a specific tree, and then a specific branch of the tree, and then a bright star that is visible above the branch, and then a fainter star beyond it, and then in its vicinity a fainter star still - which is arundhati. The logic being, the student will not have a frame of reference to detect the very subtly illuminated arundhati when directly pointed to. By going through the sequence of referential pointers, their attention is gradually drawn to it, until it becomes apparent what/where it is in the vast night sky. when non-duality is taught, it is often taught after a certain degree of stillness has been attained by the student - they go through preparatory practices such as yoga, breath work, meditation to attain onepointedness of the mind. Once the mind has been developed sufficiently, the teacher will draw the student’s attention to their witness state - which observes all phenomena occurring but is itself unaffected by the phenomena. The mind itself is an object to this witness awareness. At this point there is a separate reality that is being observed by the witness, so there is duality. But the duality is clearly partitioned into subject and objects. The student stays in this way for a while until the thought arises in their mind, this still is duality, and so asks the teacher exactly how is this nonduality? The teacher then helps the student realize that the world that is observed is just a series of thought patterns appearing in the student’s mind. So the “world” doesn’t really have a separate existent reality apart from the mind. But since the mind itself is an object to the witnessing awareness, it too much be an appearance, much like the world. The student sits with this new insight and meditates on it - until one day the realization dawns - the only reality that is unchanging is the witness awareness. This awareness has no attributes other than existence and knowing (sat and chit). And that at the core of their experiences, is this formless, attributeless awareness. Then the student has to explore the validity of this realization by trying to shake the sense of certainty it brings to them. This happens through repeated logical refutations they must work through until there is no doubts left about their true nature as awareness itself. Nonduality means nothing is apart from awareness - it means every thing is made up of, and is an appearance of awareness to awareness. There is no thing that can exist apart from awareness.

I practice Temple style Tai Chi which is a Daoist system - it focuses heavily on neigong/dagong. The circle meditation has a few variations; at the most basic level, it involves a group of up to 8 people standing in a circle and building up a vortex of energy in the center of the circle - think of each member connecting to the vortex/pillar of energy with their 3 dantiens. With our collective intent, we make the vortex stronger and it will engulf us and expand into the space surrounding us. It helps boost the practitioners - acting like an amplifier.

The best way to "build" qi is to still the mind. There are two potential problems with stilling the mind - The mind is scattered (too many thoughts, in too many directions) The mind is polluted (very self-centered, greedy, grasping) The remedy for a scattered mind is to do practices that make the mind one-pointed. Mantra mediation, breath watching, breathwork will help with that. In fact, any repetitive task can be used to do this by being watching and observing the mind continuously through the practice. The remedy for a polluted mind is to do selfless service - volunteer at a soup kitchen, hospital etc. As we do more service, the mind gets purified. After that, real mediation can start. And stillness realized.

Bye bye.

I've been practicing standing as part of my Tai chi practice for a good part for about 23 years now. Standing has many benefits - it helps us learn how to sink the qi down to the dantien, it helps us release physical tensions and grounds the nervous system. One should build up standing over a period of time - little by little, 5-10 min increments until you can stand for extended periods of time. When I visit my master, we do daoist circle meditation where several of us stand in a circle and meditate, with sifu pumping energy into the circle. After a while, my feet feel like they've been water - the yin qi rises up and the yang qi sinks down - merges in the lower dantien. One more thing to beware of is, after standing, always do some moving meditation to recirculate the energy that is built up, otherwise the kidneys can get damaged.

If I remember correctly, Wang Liping had a theory about how the LDT location changes based on how close one is to the equator. But it certainly is below the navel. This is Google Bard's description of Wang Liping's theory (I first read it in Opening the Dragon Gate) -

When Shankara says "mithya" he doesn't mean the world is illusory in the transactional sense. Anything that is impermanent, changing, and transient is called "mithya." That begs the question, impermanent in comparison to what? Brahman - Pure Consciousness. This might give you a better perspective of Brahman - https://www.medhajournal.com/close-encounters-of-the-fourth-kind/

Did Shankara say that? Maya is called anirvachaniya - it is neither real nor unreal. It seems real until it is realized to be unreal.

I was pointing you to look at the mind-consciousness-impressions-memories from two separate lens (one the Zen Buddhist, and the other the Advaita Vedantin). Context. In our lives we have possibly billions of memories. Do we recall all of them all the time? Of course not. In my experience, even the seemingly mysterious reappearance of a long-forgotten memory has a trigger in the senses - a whiff of a scent, a conversation, a specific feeling of vibration in the space (we call these tanmatras), it could be any of these that trigger a memory. The sequence goes - Sensory stimulus -> intellect (buddhi) tries to correlate with storehouse of memories and impressions (chitta) -> a match occurs -> pulled into the mind (chitta) --> labeled by the ego (ahamkara) Not thought. Thoughts are objects with names and/or forms (nama-rupa). Antahkarana Yes. The thought-field aka manas, is part of the subtle body that I refer to in my article. See the second paragraph yes - it is nothing as sinister as its made out to be. It is just a function of the antahkarana - its job is to label and claim ownership. For instance, when you inquire "who am I?", the ego labels your first thoughtless impression with the label "Daniel-Joseph", which then appears as a thought in your manas as "I am Daniel-Joseph". This is true for any and all things that one experiences. All of these are labeled, and ownership claimed by this process.

What is separated from Brahman?

I'm just trying to help you by using common syntax. Too bad it didn't help you. It is still in the chitta - only not pulled forth by the buddhi. When the conditions are right, the memory will be pulled into the manas.

I would say that all memories and impressions are stored in a function of our antahakarana called the chitta. This is the storehouse of such impressions and any/all memories, feelings arise from it. These are then viewed in the reflected consciousness that is the mind (manas) by the intellect (buddhi), and appropriated by the ego (ahamkara). Never has it ever been apart from the mind (which is actually a subcomponent of the quad of manas-chitta-buddhi-ahamkara). What you call "mind" is actually a poorly articulated version of what I wrote above, and reflects the muddled-up understanding of the west when it comes to these "internal" subjects. P.S. In order to better understand what I'm articulating here, read this article that I'd written a few years back. - https://www.medhajournal.com/consciousness-according-to-zen-buddhism-and-how-it-relates-to-advaita-vedanta/

I don't know about you, but I can read and write 5 different languages. I need to think about the syntax, grammar, etc for each one of them. The time we spent in spelling as students, is able to provide us with both the practice to help us spell "automagically" (also thinking involved there), and intuitively when we don't exactly know the spelling (also a thought-process). It just happens so fast that you might feel it is involuntary. That also tells me that you've not really spent much time meditating - if you had, you would have the experiential knowledge of how the mind works. No problem there - experienced meditators are a rarity, even though everyone and their uncle seems to claim that they meditate Nope. Not thoughtless at all. Though I spend a large portion of my day without any thoughts. The honest answer is what I told you in my first response.

If the answer is I am x, y, or z, I would say, try again I think we have to understand what you mean by “thought”. If memory is not a thought, how does it surface in your mind? Can anything that is not a thought appear in the mind? One might argue that feelings are not thoughts, but they are also a type of thought object. They arise from the same storehouse of impressions that memory arises from. what was the significance? It was to respond to your question. Very much like how I’m thinking and typing my response to you right now. Being an artist myself and having many artist friends who are also meditation and internal arts practitioners, I can assure you that everything that an artist does involves thought and mind. It might not involve volition - which is what artists mean by “getting out of your own way”. Jazz musicians improvise but there is thought involved - even to string together random notes together, there is thinking and feeling, both of which are objects in the mind.

That is fair The problem is with the English language, unfortunately. I would much rather use Chaitanya for awareness/consciousness. The example given was to illustrate that space is not in the cup; the cup is in space. Similarly, objects are in awareness. Your response tells me that either you haven't tried the experiment or delved deeper into the phenomenon that is the mind (and therefore thoughts, identity, etc). Daniel-Joseph is an identity - if your response is "I am Daniel-Joseph," there is thought involved. What seems like tautology to you actually involves memory. Memory is a type of thought. That is why meditation and stillness is a prerequisite for this line of inquiry. The thoughts when typing the letter "m and g" were literally "type m, type g".

Really? You got I am Daniel-Joseph without a single thought?

The traditional Indic view on this is that Space is fundamental in the transactional reality - it is called akasha. Real Emptiness is not non-existent/unreal/non-being.

I agree. Advaita means Non-dual, and there are different ontological and epistemological perspectives provided by different systems about it.

Is that what happens? Or does the cup simply move in space. The space “contained” within the cup is not displaced or replaced - the cup simply moves through space. If space was displaced and replaced it would not be empty space, but some substance. Awareness/pure-consciousness is like space - it is the empty/clear light of knowing. But it is that in which physical space and time appear. So it is “beyond”. To understand this is why I suggested the other experiment to you - “without a single thought, can you tell me who/what you are?”

I have been practicing mantras for past 30 odd years. Primarily the gayatri mantra. It is powerful and raises the vibrations rather rapidly. Feels like everything turns to light after meditating on the mantra. I practice it ritualistically like I’ve been taught during initiation.

Don’t know much about them. Hermetic I know a bit more via Franz Bardon’s book and Mark Rasmus’ perspective of using it with Tai chi. Do share more context

One can burn up “karma” through selfless service - that is the simplest and easiest way. Another way is through practices like tantra, yoga, and Daoist internal arts - which can often accelerate the flow of karmic results through the practitioner’s life, which can be quite unnerving if one is not prepared to deal with it. Another way is through devotion - surrender completely to your deity, they will take care of what is needed.

Given that there are Daoist, Hindu, Buddhist, and occultist sub-fora, I think it is only fair to give the other spiritual traditions a place to discuss theirs. I’m not personally interested in Abrahamic religions per se, but would like to find out more about Kabbalah for instance.

It is not a thing, so can’t be something else, neither a noun, nor a verb. As another thought exercise, imagine you have an empty cup on a table top. When you pick up the cup and move it, what happens to the space that was in that cup? Does it move with the cup? Maybe this will help -

Not like that. I mean awareness is not an emergent property of our brains, it is rather primordial and suffuses all phenomena through and through. A good approximation in the phenomenal world would be like space.