forestofclarity

I think the point of ethics is to free us from the tyranny of the desires of the small self. The small self will always find a million reasons why ethics don't apply when it they are inconvenient. While it may seem binding to follow ethics, I find the ethical path is in fact far less binding than the path of subjugation to dictates of the small self.

There is a long and complex history between Taoism and Zen. There are many stories about Zen master seeking out Taoists (Hakuin for example) and other stories about Taoists seeking out Buddhists (Lu Dongbin). Then there are schools that combine them, as you can see in the Secret of the Golden Flower. One thing is to understand that insight leads to physical and energetic changes, and physical and energetic changes lead to insight. There are several Buddhist teachers out there who actively teach some form of neidan (or qigong, depending on how you define it). On the other hand, some Taoists teachers say that you should keep the two apart. I think it is a matter of attitude. Some forms are compatible, and some are not.

A lot of qigong books talk about doing qigong with trees. I'm something of a skeptic with a lot this stuff, but plant gong is something I often play with because it generates fairly powerful feelings. My procedure (similar to the experiment below): 1. Feel the body. This tunes me in at a somatic-feeling level. 2. Relax 3. Feel into the plant. Sometimes I put my hand on the plant, or hover my palms around it. 4. Open up and allow it to come.

Non-duality in some forms of Buddhism means "free from extremes." In Advaita it tends to mean not different from Brahman. These are two very different definitions. Although, given this definition of non-duality, where is it that the "you" ends? Where is the line between "you" and "not you"?

I would question first what is meant by a non-dual state. The distinction between nirvikalpa and savikalpa samadhi is a good one because different traditions place one over the other. But even then, what are we really talking about? The non-duality of self and other? Subject and object? Emptiness and appearance? A merging of inner space and outer space? An arising of unifying bliss? A feeling? A state of neither knowing nor not-knowing? I have a feeling that a non-dual state for modern neo-Advaitins is really no different from a regular state, only with the added realization that there is nothing to do. I would also call attention to the use of the concept "state", as in we're either in a non-dual state or not. I think it is more of a matter of degree, and that the non-dual view sort of merges with all other states and changes them very subtly.

Spiritual practice is practice, training rather than perfection. Part of the process is failing and learning from failure. This, however, I recognize well--- this is the part of your body that is in love with chemicals. It will always come up with elaborate lies. Even from a physical view, long term use of chemicals sets up a network of craving in the brain. When you stop, the network goes dormant. But even one use will light it up "like a Christmas tree."

Actually, it does. I would advise taking a look at research in neuroplasticity. Rick Hanson, for example, has proven that one can modify the brain's inherent negativity bias through applying a set of simple principles. The idea that the brain is somehow fixed or unchangeable after a certain point is a discredited view developed in the early twentieth century before scientists had access to brain imaging tools. There are many, many others other than Ramana and Nisargadatta who can testify to the efficacy of the methods that have been developed over thousands of years. The problem with "thinking for oneself" is that we often come up with faulty conclusions based on bad reasons. If you want to see this in action, look at some of Plato's dialogues. You will see many common sense assumptions shown to be faulty under the analysis of logic and reason. Vivekananda once compared the mind to a monkey, who's nature of excitable, who is also drunk, stung by a scorpion, and possessed by a ghost. The mind is unstable to begin with, filled with desire and jealousy, and centered on pride. It needs help.

I don't know if I would say these are basic truths about your identity, perhaps more like temporary truths. If you lost your hands, your citizenship, or had a different gender, would you no longer be you?

I think many Buddhists would find this controversial.

I am not an expert or a specialist in this area, so be warned. I base most of my findings on scholarly readings and teachings for Westerners. One learns from a teacher, but I personally think that is a different thing that taking the word of the teacher as reliable. I find that much of the time, according to Buddhist teachers, the teacher's words get their authority from inference. For example, if you find your teacher is right about A, B, and C, then it makes it more likely that your teacher is also right about D (in many cases, D is rebirth). I think there is a good reason the Buddha did not include scriptures as authoritative: 1) he didn't find existing scriptures helpful to achieving liberation in his case and 2) he didn't have any of his own. It wouldn't make any sense for the Buddha, or early Buddhists, to have a pro-scripture attitude. I also think this lack of a central authority is one of the keys to Buddhism's growth, but also a core weakness. You can see a wide variety of Buddhist teachings as they spread from India into East and Southeast Asia, through China, Korea, Japan and so on. If one looks at the Theravada teachings, they are very different from Japanese Zen or Tibetan Gelugpa. However, this also (in my opinion) cost Buddhism a lot by way of clarity and consistency. Advaita is different. Shankara did not abandon scriptures, rather he based his insights on them. A great deal of Shankara literature is in the form of commentary. Reading Shankara and listening to a contemporary teacher in the Dayananda lineage, or even the philosophical reconstruction of Eliot Deutsch, I get the sense of a strong consistency between the teachings. The teachings have become very sharp and clear over the course of time. However, Advaita did not expand the way Buddhism did, and even now it is far less popular in its traditional form than Buddhism in the West. This makes sense given the spirit of the different teachings. Buddhism tends to focus on emptiness and change, whereas Advaita tends to focus on what doesn't change. Accordingly, what would be the ultimate ground of Buddhist authority? Yet for Advaita, the notion of unchanging truths is a part of the methodology. Now, in the schools of Buddhism I am most familiar with, Theravada and Zen, the scriptures are expressly NOT considered to be infallible. In fact, the Theravada teachers and monks I learned from spent a great deal of time on this issue, and Zen takes a different approach altogether. Nor have I not encountered scriptural infallibility in other Buddhist teachings I have come across (except people in internet forums), but rather the sources I am most familiar with tend to uphold such writings on the ground of inference. Dharmakirti doesn't, as far as I know. Steve and 9th may very well have a different experience. I would honestly be curious to hear what their teachers have told them.

I didn't mean to make a controversial point: in Buddhist epistemology, it is often (but not always, which I why I used the word "tend") a given that the two pramanas of Buddhism is perception and direct inference, with the allowance of reliable testimony (which I noted). Here are a variety of sources for further exploration: Wikipedia RigpaWiki Reugg Oxford Dictionary of Buddhism Klein/Wangyal Gombrich Murti Mookerjee

If science was as fundamentally flawed as claimed in this post, then none of our technology would work. But it does work --- sometimes for good, sometimes for ill. Some of it works better than others. Military research funds a lot of science. But if science was producing bunk, it wouldn't produce atom bombs, M-4s, bomb resistant vehicles, night vision goggles and (ironically) the internet. The fact that science focuses on producing profitable technology doesn't mean that the science doesn't work. Rather, science is a value neutral method. We may not like how or where the method is applied, but it works. Sometimes it is used for purposes we consider good, such as reducing infant mortality rate and increasing life expectancy. Other times, it is used for purposes we consider bad, such as the Cultural Revolution or environmental devastation. But the fact that science has the power to improve or destroy on such a scale is a testament to its effectiveness.

Science, as a methodology, doesn't require one to believe that one is somehow separate from the universe. In fact, laboratory conditions are typically designed with this in mind to minimize the impact any specific scientist has on the experiment. The suggestions here is that somehow science isn't a valid method of knowledge because it isn't perfect or complete. I would argue that ANY method of knowledge isn't perfect or complete. The sum total knowledge possible is probably infinite, so any knowledge, compared to infinity, will be found lacking. Does science have all the answers? Of course not. Does this mean that the answers it does have are invalid? No way.

Awareness. Because without that, you don't have anything.

There is a difference between reverence and valid means of knowledge. The historical Buddha allegedly himself rejected tradition and scripture as a source of authority in the Kalamas Sutta. Vedantins will often consider the Vedas to be self-authenticating. However, when a Vedantin encounters a Buddhist, they will not necessarily appeal to the authority of Scripture. However, Advaita Vedanta has also developed an intense method of investigation that will reveal its truths to those who apply them, as has Buddhism.

Or perhaps a different set of Buddhists.

Given the forum, I think an Advaitin would point to the truth as that which does not change, or that which is never negated and replaced --- sat. Most Indian schools have what they call pramanas, or means of knowledge. They typically get down to three basic divisions: 1) direct/sensory experience 2) logic/inference 3) testimony of others/evidence from Scripture The main difference with Buddhism is that Buddhists tend to reject Scriptural authority, although they often allow for the testimony of Buddhist sages. Valid knowledge would be justified through the pramanas: knowledge that is confirmed by experience, logic, and the testimony of others / Scripture. So then how do we justify the pramanas? The appeal is usually pragmatic: the pramanas work in experience.

I wonder about the role of feelings in investigation. I went past a protestor the other day who was --- with very strong feeling --- screaming about Muslims invading the country and how ungodly everything was. As I walked past, the intensity of his emotion grew until his voice pinched off into a squeak. He reminded me of the al Qaeda videos I encountered in Iraq. In one video, a masked Muslim screamed "God is great" while slowly, over 20-30 minutes, sawing the head off of a 12-year old child. In both these cases, there is strong, even intense feeling. What makes the feeling and intuitions of a fundamentalist wrong, and the intuitions or feelings of the sages right? One of set of feelings is extremely harsh, and the other extremely loving. Yet we say the one is truth and the other delusion, even though they share a common basis: intense feeling. Even mystics with intense feelings of love reach very different conclusions: Christians tend to use this as a validation for Christian beliefs, Buddhists for Buddhist beliefs, etc. Consider also that many people feel separate from the world. Why is the feeling of separation invalid, but feelings of oneness justified? I would argue that it has nothing to do with the feelings themselves--- there is no mark of truth in any feeling. Rather, feelings of oneness are justified due to modes of knowledge--- direct perception, logic/inference, etc. that show us there is no separation.

As a non-dualists, I am not a fan of reductionism. Whether we say we are just a soul, or just a brain, it is reductionism all the same. Let's take the brain. The brain doesn't exist on it's own. It is a part of the body, the body is a part of the earth, and the earth is a part of the universe. Where does the body end and the brain begin? And what is the brain, anyway? It is not a set of atoms, because the atoms constantly change. It cannot be a set of patterns, because the patterns are constantly changing. Nor can we say the brain isn't, because we crack open heads and there it is, or we hook the head up to an EEG and detect strong correlations between brain activity and thoughts. As for the brain-mind connection, the brain influences the mind. Chemicals which change the brain cause different subjective mental experiences. Brain trauma limits what the mind can experience in terms of memory, speech, and facial recognition. Yet the mind also influences the brain, literally rewiring it over time.

If you throw out the unconscious mind, unfortunately, you also toss out memory and object recognition. So you won't be able to move, speak, or do anything other than witness a bizarre flurry of sensations.

Notice that Rupert Sheldrake distinguishes between science as a methodology and materialism as a system of beliefs. I think there is a lot of confusion here. Science is a methodology. As a methodology, it works. Science has been able to do what no religion, philosophy, or other methodology has been able to do: change the entire world in a relatively short period of time. Anyone who contends that science as a method is somehow fundamentally flawed or mistaken is required to hold onto faith in the face of overwhelming evidence, or in other words, delusion. But materialism as a system of beliefs is bound to fail. Because science is constantly learning new material, and modifying accordingly. Beliefs suffer from a lack of flexibility. Materialism, in my mind, has been outdated by quantum physics which suggests that there are no discrete, independent particles the way it is commonly thought. Neurologists report that people prefer to "feel" their way to conclusions because it is faster and efficient than using reason and evidence, which has evolutionary advantages.

The first question that occurs to me is what is oneness? Is it the presence of a specific feeling, or the absence of the feeling of separation? The second question is, what does separation feel like? Is it validated by experience? For me, there is a type of experience of "mystical oneness" that is a positive experience. I do not think that this experience can be maintained, since it is a positive state and would require some type of "freezing" of consciousness. I don't know if there is a reliable way of producing this type of "oneness." However, if the feeling of oneness is the absence of the feeling of separation, then this is a different story. Spiritual traditions give many ways to free one of the illusion of separation: critical thinking, examining experience, meditating, asking deeply probing questions. As far as I can tell, there is no short cut. Nor would I expect there to be: neurologists tell us that our way of seeing the world--- me as a separate self--- is based on how the brain has become wired over time. To undo this requires some work. I find that the feeling of separation tends to fall away when I go to sleep and when I have dreams. Exploring the waking, dream, and deep sleep state is a powerful and ancient method of challenging the belief of a limited self. Another method is to closely examine the waking state. I have found that the feeling of separation is just that: a feeling. But the feeling doesn't actually create any separation. In fact, it is imposed on a unitive field of experience.

I think it's easy to "spiritualize" one's desires so that they appear to be higher, greater, or better than ordinary desires. Calvinists did this with earning wealth. In traditional Christianity, poverty was considered a great virtue. Calvinists essentially turned this on its head. Wealth, they taught, was a mark that you were one of God's elect. So to be rich was actually a sign of high spiritual favor. I think one can rationalize any action as spiritual. In some Eastern traditions, the defining mark of enlightenment is the mark of freedom. The question isn't whether one is a success, whether one has an ego or not, or whether one has achieved a thoughtless state. The question is whether one can be free: with thoughts or without; with ego or without; with success or without. The reason for this is simple: conditions are constantly changing. If we tie our happiness to conditions, then our happiness will come and go. If we can find happiness independent of conditions, that is true happiness.

I have serious reservations about the advice provided by Mak Jo Si. I say this as someone who has watched a lot of zombie movies. The dangerous part about zombies is NOT their bite. It's their LARGE numbers. Zombies typically attack in large groups, which would seriously limit the effectiveness of his attack and "double the order." Also, even though they are loud, slow, and clumsy, they sometimes appear RIGHT BEHIND YOU which would make it hard to use a cold steel chopper machete. Which makes me wonder: it this zombie disinformation?

I don't agree with this. I don't think jnana yoga requires a high degree of intelligence if it is unfolded by a good teacher. The examples are well known and the techniques are not hard. If one can understand the difference between a rope mistaken for a snake, or a pot and clay, then that is enough. For example, one common technique is watching objects come and go, but seeing that you do not come and go. I think a middle school level intelligence could handle that.