Todd

How do you know that awareness is not functional in deep sleep? If it is not functional, then what maintains reality when you are in deep sleep? Does reality disappear and then reemerge? Is nothing constant or true? Is reality different from awareness? What is reality? Is it outside of your experience? Of course, if we are good non-dualists, then those questions raise some hairy issues, but it wouldn't do us any good to assume that the non-dual perspective is true (no matter what our experiences may have been), and then to adjust our beliefs accordingly. I think these questions are at the heart of 23. They are evoked by the "even". The standard of truth for me at the moment is what I know in this moment, without reference to the past, or to any other thought for that matter. By this standard, the only answer to any question lies in being. It is either immediate, or it is a distraction from what is. If we take such a standard to be true, then we are not living up to our standards, since the standard is a thought. So how do we live up to our standards? What is it that moves into thought? What is it that thinks it needs to know, or to do anything else for that matter? A working hypothesis, which Ramana seems to point at again and again, is that there is something which exists in every state, even in states where everyone can admit that there is no experience of "I". Hence, there can be existence without the "I". Ramana further points into our lived experience when he states that "The body does not say 'I'." Hence there can be an experience of the body without the arising of "I". The question then becomes, for those who have some experience of existence without the "I" thought (which is all of us, given that we all sleep), is it possible to live and function without this "I"? What is it that beats our heart and breathes us when there is no "I"? Is it possible to die into that, to realize that we are that, and to let it live our lives? If it is not possible, what is it that keeps this from happening? What never wants this to happen, no matter what it tells itself? These questions are eating me up, though stillness is where its at

Hi Xuesheng, I think he says "even" as a subtle suggestion that the "I" exists neither in deep sleep, nor in any other state either. The "I" is a thought, which obscures the Self. He mentions deep sleep, because it is a time when we can all recognize that the thought of "I" disappears. Of course, it is difficult to talk about these things with language, hence the use of capital "S" Self, vs little "s" self, or capital "T" Truth vs. little "t" truth. Perhaps for "I" it is the opposite, with capital "I" I being the illusion, and little "i" i being the truth. Well, anyway...

Hi Son, I can't answer your questions, but I'll transcribe something that I just listened too, that may strike a chord, even if not for you: From The Origin Point of Experience... Adyashanti speaking in 1999: "This is where the word 'trust' comes in. An incredible... a trust that's very destructive to illusion. It's a trust that... it's a trust in the unknown of the self, of the self beyond an experience of the self. It's a trust that takes you deeper into a mystery that you can't touch, that you can't touch. Lots of experience comes out of that mystery, bubbles out, but in and of itself the bubbling out of experience is not... in no way defines the mystery of what you are. This trust, in the mystery alone, is what allows the ripening to continue to ripen. You know? Like a good Cabernet. The juice goes in all at once, the cork goes on, the realization has been had, and then it just ripens and ripens. Nothing need be added or subtracted. The bottle doesn't have to be refilled, and refilled, and refilled, and then emptied out so it suffers and pretends it has nothing, and then refilled, 'I've got it.' And then emptied out, 'I don't have it.' And refilled. And its a real... its a deepening of a death and a deepening of a life. The death of what always insists on fireworks. And the birth of an ever richer life that sees what always is. Movement from the gross... from the coarse to the refinedness.. refinement. Does anybody else have anything? We've got time... My teacher said to me, years ago, 'You know, if you wait for the mind to stop throwing things up at you, you'll wait a lifetime.' Lifetime after lifetime after... You'll wait and wait and wait and wait. If that's how we measure ourself. By what it throws up or what it doesn't throw up, we'll wait forever. But when we notice that the mind, its just doing what minds do. 'To return to myself I need to go through this.. another cathartic experience.. Ah! That too! Ah.' Welcoming that. That mind bubble. That projection that it contains within itself an empty promise. But welcoming that. 'Ah, there it is again. Trying to get me to chase. You know, like a dog.' 'Go this way, you'll be happy over here.' *laughs* 'You'll be happy when! You'll be happy if!' It can get very entertaining, actually. It can get very entertaining watching the conditioned mind spin, in ever more subtle ways. You know, the clothing becomes beautiful. You know, that it wears. The spiritual clothing? Oh! God! Its just.. its the best. *laughing* Thats how it works, right? The facades that it spins, um... become more deceptive rather than less, actually. But when you start to get on to it, it doesn't matter. You're just, 'Ah. There it is again.' What remains? What is it spinning in? What's not spinning? What can't be spun? Even when the mind is spinning its story." You can listen to the whole thing as a free download from this link. Todd

I have the translation of Bodhidharma's teachings, but I haven't read most of it. I guess I was more curious than drawn to it.

I'm a big fan of Red Pine's version. He is an experienced cultivator, as well as an accomplished translator of Chinese poetry and sutras. He did his homework too. He compared recently discovered (and earlier) Mawangdui versions with the previously accepted versions, and made revisions as seemed appropriate, which he describes in brief notes accompanying each verse. The Chinese is right there next to the translation if you want to work with that, and he includes short comments on each verse from various historical figures. None of that would mean much to me if he didn't reveal the Tao Te Ching in such stark simplicity. His word choices are simple and direct, as opposed to the conceptual layering that makes its way into most other translations.

Hi Rain, I'm not brave. I just do what comes natural. I find out what comes natural by being quiet.

I didn't know. I was following a feeling. I'm glad that it worked for you. Anything that you got from it came from you.

I'm glad that you are ambivalent or multivalent toward my post. I am ambivalent toward it myself. It was inspired by genuine experience, but it had the effect of obscuring that experience in me. I'll try to be a little clear. The experience is of exploration beyond words, ideas, identification, desires. All of those things arise within what is exploring, and are an expression of it. The quality of this exploration is such that there is no ground on which to stand. I cannot rest on any thought, even though thoughts arise with tremendous energy at times. It is the origin. I am familiar with this origin as something that I visit from time to time, but what I have been exploring more recently is a shift of identity from the thing that goes in and out of this origin, to the origin itself. As this shift occurs, the origin is no longer an origin, but merely everything, and obvious. It has always been this way, only my attention has been focused on thoughts, identity, desires... All of this likely sounds familiar to you. The key, though, is going from moving in and out of the origin, and using that experience to inform our day to day lives, to simply being the origin, with the movement in and out occurring as an aspect of the origin. I freely admit that this makes no sense. If it makes sense, then you aren't looking at it closely enough. There is always an assumption being made, as you alluded to saying that words are cumbersome, which is my point exactly. The words do play a role, but to make the shift to which I am referring, words need to be left behind. Perhaps you have left them behind, and you are just having fun with philosophy and ideas, trying to increase the clarity of your expression. But if that isn't the case, how is it that we manage to hide our true nature, which we have experienced, from ourselves? It isn't useful to take an experience of true nature and to make a philosophy out of it. It just becomes a huge distraction from what is happening right now. If the experience isn't vibrant and present, then we are hiding it from ourselves. Philosophy becomes a substitute. This is why the most precise expressions of truth are so vague. They are as close as we can get to truth, taking something about which nothing true can be said, and connecting it to our experience. They are like a mirror for the ways in which we fracture ourselves. If we can catch ourselves at it, there is the opportunity to pause, and then wholeness is apparent. It has always been here. The expressions' vagueness is even too concrete, however, and truth, though obvious, can never be held, or described, or really pointed toward. We can only point in the vicinity, as you alluded to by saying, "vaguely." I guess I am just offering vague counterpoint to thoughts of precise expression. I understand the allure, and when we combine raw brain power with the source of originality, it can seem very vital. In your experience does translation into words tend to reveal more of the original aliveness, or does the aliveness fade at some point as you refer more and more to words? All that said, if you feel like doing anything, including having fun with philosophy, then have at it! I'm not judging. I'm not sure what I am doing.

I thought I noticed that you were letting ideas serve as place holders for truth. It is not that what you were saying wasn't referring to aspects of reality, to things that we can notice when we get really simple, but it seemed to me that you might have been losing sight of the simplicity that allows the original vision. Probably the most difficult thing to do is to be simple, especially for smart people (although it may be easier for us to access it in the first place). It can be even more difficult after we have had the experience of true simplicity. We can take those experiences and create thoughts about them. Those thoughts can seem very profound and true, earth shattering even, with far reaching implications. We can find those thoughts reflected in the way that people have attempted to convey this experience to others in the past. Our thoughts might seem to match those of the gurus and holy men. This can be exciting, and intoxicating. It is pretty much to be expected, too, since to be simple is the most difficult thing to do. I have found that no thought has ever been useful to me except in the moment that it arises (at least where truth is concerned). Thoughts that arise out of simplicity are appropriate to the moment, but when we build upon those thoughts without returning to simplicity (or staying in simplicity), then we are asking to be led astray. So what is simplicity? It is easier to speak of how simplicity is broken. Simplicity is broken when we attempt to gain something from our thoughts (or from anything else for that matter, but we are dealing more with thoughts here). So, if we think, say, "There is nothing to do, no one to be, nowhere to go" as if this will be of some advantage to us, even if only to help us to see that there is no advantage to gained, then this is breaking simplicity. The same is true for "There is something to do, someone to be, and somewhere to go." We could think either of these things without breaking simplicity, however. So what is simplicity? For me, some of the ways that simplicity manifests are being willing to be confused, letting go of my "wisdom" based upon past experiences, noticing when I am attempting to skip ahead by referring to an imagined future, or to a remembered past, and then not skipping ahead, and encountering whatever is happening, however uncomfortable and without interpretation. This liberates a lot of energy, and it is an ongoing process. Simplicity has a lot of implications. They just can't be explored well with the mind.

Hey Hundun, We are using similar concepts, and when we look for ourselves, we find the same thing, but I am not really interested in agreement. I am interested in what needs no agreement, and in which all agreement occurs (or not). I am interested in expression, and what allows expression to occur. And I don't have any answers. And I don't want any answers. It is fun to share though, sometimes. If you are interested I can share what drew me to respond to your post, and you can tell me that I am barking up the wrong tree, and I can see that that is true, or who knows what? But be honest about any lack of interest, because I don't want to bark up the wrong tree. Its good to see you around again. Todd

A few questions: What if the witness is an idea? I admit that it is a very flexible idea, and it provides a pretty stable identity from which to interact with the world. But what if it is an idea? What if there is something that is not an idea, and does not need effort to maintain? Perhaps all that is needed is a willingness to not engage in effort, and to be whatever is. It may be true (and it certainly appears so) that effort is an aspect of what is, and that ideas will always be a part of this that is, but is that what we are? Is it necessary to identify with ideas, to try and make them better? All sorts of neat ideas can come up. What is invested in their arising and passing? How does it feel to be invested, and how does that investment tend to work out? What does it feel like to step aside, and into nothing else?

Exactly.

Welcome.

That is not what I am implying. What I am saying is that truth cannot be spoken. Ramana's teaching points directly at this fact, and invites us to notice what exists without reference to words. There is no truth in the teaching. They are strategies to get us to look for ourselves, at our own experience, without words. If these strategies don't work for you, or if you would rather not look, there is nothing wrong with that. I am just trying to help you understand what the teachings are about, which is to look beyond understanding, to your own experience, before understanding. Understanding is what we try to do before we are willing to look.

You don't have to. Maybe I'm making it up.

Thanks Matt. I don't know. What is this about for you? We can talk in terms of understanding, which I have never found to be that helpful, or we can talk in terms of realizing. The difference between them is that in understanding there is distance, and in realization there is no distance. Is this about you, what you realize in this moment, or about words and concepts?

No, that is definitely here. That is his whole point in fact. This is about realizing what is being pointed toward. It is about nothing else for Ramana, though we may have different ideas about our association with him. His only intent in using words is for you and I and everyone who hears or reads them to realize where they come from, and to abide as that. This is not a pipe dream, since he knows that it is possible. It is unavoidable as soon as we drop our worship, as soon as we drop our words, and enter into true prayer. If we do not know what these words point toward in our own experience, continually, then how is it that we are keeping this knowledge from ourselves?

What is awareness before you go to your mind? Or more simply, what is awareness?

There is some truth in what you say, but there is nothing "just" about realizing that others are parts of yourself. To the extent that one has realized this, then one realizes that there is no escape. If one being is suffering, then that can be felt inside our self. How could it not? It is us. You are right, that perhaps we do not want to recognize this fact. Who would want to know that? And yet, what is true? Are you more interested in feeling good, or knowing the truth? I prefer truth, since truth is the only thing that truly lasts. Suffering is the result of ignoring the one thing that truly lasts. As we identify with the things that do not last, they are torn from us. Trying to hold on is suffering. Trying to give them up is also suffering, because we have not found truth. Truth is the thing that lasts. Have you found anything that lasts? What is it like? The thing about truth is that we can't hold onto anything and know it. We can't even know it. But we can allow ourselves to fall into harmony with it, which is much better than any false knowing. But who could want that? If anyone holds onto my words, they prevent realization of truth. It is the emptiness of truth that makes it function, but truth is much more than "just" empty. The Buddhist term "sunyata" is commonly translated as emptiness. The translation is incomplete, in that there is a connotation of fullness in the original language. Emptiness is just an aspect of truth. If we cling too much to words (or to intentions, which can only be formulated as such with words), we are missing the whole game. You are free to do whatever you want though. I don't see that you should do anything but what you are doing, or think anything but what you are thinking. I just felt moved to say something.

There are always many interesting questions that can be asked. It is not difficult to accept the possibility that altering brain physiology or hemispheric balance can affect perception of duality/non-duality. Anything can affect the perception of duality/non-duality. It takes a lot more than one instance of this occurring for me to postulate a causal relationship, however. I am far from certain that anything is in causal relationship to the perception of duality/non-duality. This is especially true if we take a wider view, in which a change in anything is a change in everything. In such a view, the cause of any given thing is everything. Coming back to a somewhat narrower view, however, if we want to find the most likely thing that is in a causal relationship with perception of duality/non-duality, then we might be well served to look at more than one instance, and to look for common elements among those instances. I have seen a fair number of people make the shift of perception from duality to non-duality, either while I was directly observing them, or indirectly, from their accounts of that shift. A number of people here have reported similar shifts in perception, by various different means. I have also observed this shift occur in myself a number of times, also by various different means. I cannot put my finger on a common element. Not truly. I have been able to whittle away many of my assumptions about what "causes" these shifts to occur. This leaves me with relatively simple working explanations of what is occurring. I can feel this heart of transformation but none of the words that I might put to it can possibly do it justice. The best I can do might be that there is a pause, or gap in our sense of certainty, and then we become interested in what that gap reveals. We don't turn away when the whole world that we had assumed into existence falls away and we reach the ground of transformation. Its that simple, and all of the practices, and all of the technologies are preludes to this moment. That is not to say that practices and technologies do not have their place, since the cause of anything (if such a thing as a cause can be said to exist) is everything. They just aren't the closest thing that I have been able to perceive to this shift, which can never be fixed with words or technique. One of the potentials that the clip posted above evokes is that we might understand a physiological basis for the shift in perception from duality to non-duality. Perhaps this woman's experience is a clue to a previously not understood dynamic within our brains, an interplay of duality/non-duality, reified by the left and right hemispheres of our brains. If such a causal relationship could be established, then there would be enormous potential for various technologies, both physical and mental, to exploit this understanding and to make the shift in perception a more accessible (and controllable) reality for more people. We would have a more acceptable explanation for why we are pursuing the activities that we pursue, and perhaps we could convince more people to pursue them also. I don't know. The potential evoked above might become actual. It might be the next expression of the all to start waking itself up while wearing the clothing of neurochemical manipulation. The reason I say that the view I presented first holds more potential to inform our practice is that it is available right now, to anyone who cares to indulge. It can be transmitted with only a few words on a piece of paper, and it is effective. Then again, how many people actually use it? For how many people is there enough interest to really see it through, without stopping for any of the alluring potentials, inflations, bliss states, judgments, primordial drives, panic or any other of the ten thousand things? The whole key to it is that we are already where we want to go. We can accept this or fight this. The acceptance is when this supposed shift takes place, but the shift doesn't mean anything... its all about the acceptance, no matter what arises. Until we realize that it is our great good fortune to able to accept even this, even this. This is the destruction of technique, or the destruction of the attempt to bring technique into the heart of being. Technique still exists, and can be utilized (and developed), but the heart of being is wielding all of the techniques, and touched by none of them.

I watched this clip when it was first posted, but I wasn't in the mood to share, especially since the comment I was inclined to make was more of a quibble. My mood has changed, though. The thing that I first thought while watching this was that she was making a rather large assumption when she ascribed her experience of non-dual reality to her stroke. Later on I began to doubt whether or not she was making this assumption. Perhaps she was merely using it as a convenient way to make talking about her experience more acceptable to a greater number of people, or to people who share the scientific prejudices that she might have had before her experience. Either way, the correlation of a stroke in the left of side of the brain and non-dual perception in no way constitutes causation. In fact, I would bet that the vast majority of people who have similar strokes do not have a similar shift in perception. There is a reason why her experience is news to us. Many, many people have had strokes. A more plausible explanation, to me, is that she began to have a very stressful experience, during which she spontaneously gave up all effort to make sense of her world, while remaining intensely interested in what was happening, and as often happens when these conditions occur, non-dual perception presented itself. It may be a small point, but I feel that this is a more parsimonious explanation, and also one that has more potential to inform our practice. Oftentimes we mistake context for causation, and this mistake can cause some pretty deep delusions when non-dual experience gets thrown into the mix. Thankfully, that same experience also has the potential to open us to an energy that is not satisfied with our delusions, and won't let us ignore them forever, though we can do so for a very long time.

Well, as long as I can remember there has been a movement within me. This is not special, since it is in everyone. I recognized it, but I was afraid to live in accordance with it. Most of society seems to be telling me that this is not the right way to go; this is not the normal way to go. The feeling that arises when I follow that movement is of rightness, and of inevitability, but I did doubt when I could not find the reflections I was looking for in those around me. The biggest impact of my involvement with Adya and his teachings, is that I found a voice and a being that encourages that inherent movement within me. It seems impossible, since it is a movement to something that no words or thoughts can touch. He points the way, and I do enjoy looking, dropping the looking and being what sees. It is difficult at times, since the world does not begin to change until well after we have left parts of it behind. Also, to reach the place before thought, we must let go of attachment to thought, which involves letting thought play havoc until it crumbles. It is just thought though, and to those who are willing to stay the course, it is very interesting what arises from the nothingness. There are many pitfalls, but Adya has been a capable guide. None of it would have amounted to anything without my sincerity, however. I have tremendous difficultly imagining teaching what is revealed, since every thought leads us away. And it isn't even the thought, it is the identification with thought. The noticing seems to happen at first when thought stops and something remains. What is that?

I've been heavily involved with Adya's teachings for the better part of two years. His is a teaching to end the search with, but only if you are sincerely drawn to this end (and beginning). It isn't about him. Its about us and what drives us. My experience, anyway.

Freeform Thurderdance Do we control the weather? Crash! BOOM! Drip. Drip. Drip.

Everything is god. And those things that I don't like? Where is honesty?