forestofclarity

This used to happen to me all the time when I first started meditating--- as soon as I sat down, the phone would ring, my pager would buzz, the doorbell would go off, something would happen. I read that this was fairly common, and over time, these things stopped happening. It still happens every so often. Who is to say that the source of our thoughts is different from the source of so-called external events?

So no sticking around to help others?

I don't think so. Do you remember what you had for breakfast forty nine days ago? No, but does that mean it was unconscious? Or if at first you don't recall a dream, and then you do, does it suddenly shift from unconscious to conscious? Stephen LaBerge has done intensive scientific testing on dreaming subjects. Measuring brain activity and correlating this to dreaming, he estimates we have many dreams in a night.

Shhh! If this gets out, what will people do? Practice?

I don't agree with Sam Harris. It strikes me that an prejudice against religion is just another prejudice, but because we dress it up in "spiritual science" language or whatever, it appears more acceptable. The solution to division is not more division, but acceptance, just as the solution to hate is not more hate, but love. The Xin Xin Ming says the Great Way is not difficult, if only there is no picking and choosing.

I think part of the issue is the Buddhabums here tend to focus more on the wisdom of emptiness side of Buddhism and less on the love and compassion side of Buddhism. What happens is that we get a stilted, one sided view of the dharma. Joy is very important in Buddhism--- it is a factor of the jhanas and also one of the seven factors of enlightenment. Look at all the statutes of Buddha: there is a smile. According to the Buddha, all things are impermanent. That means, they cannot last. How could the Buddha use joy as the basis of his teaching when it cannot last? It would be a different teaching. Suffering, however, can be ended. Things cannot last forever, but they can vanish forever.

Actually, this is a mistake. The first Noble Truth is the existence of suffering, not that all life is suffering. If you look closely at the Pali suttas, specific things cause suffering, such as being with what you don't like and being apart from what you like. There is suffering. That is the first Noble Truth. Why is there suffering? Craving. Tanha, the thirst. Ending this ends suffering. To do this, you follow the eightfold path. That is the Buddha's teaching. Nothing gloomy here. If you're happy all the time, well then the Buddha has nothing to say. The Buddha's teaching is for those who experience suffering. On a side note, I would note that when Michael Winn's wife died, he posted on his website that he wasn't sad, because he felt he had done some energy exercise allowing him to subsume her or something. That struck me as sad. Of course you'll be sad when your wife dies. It hurts. Ignoring that, or repressing that, or focusing on joy is simply not being realistic.

Yet strangely, I have noticed that those who practice only one or the other often (but not always) seem to have no idea about the other side.

AW, There is a lot of differences in interpretation with Buddhism. There are hard jhanas and soft jhanas, sutta jhanas and visuddhamagga jhanas, expansive modes of concentration and restricted modes of concentration, all of which fall under the label, shamatha. For vipassana, in addition to Goenka and Mahasi, you also have the Thai forest tradition relating to Ajahn Chah. Bhante G's monastics teach a more classical type of vipassana. Others teach the four foundations of mindfulness. Shiznen Young has a vipassana/Zen hybrid. You also have Thich Nhat Hanh style mindfulness in a Zen tradition, and Tibetan Buddhist practice. There are many, many different types of both. There is no general consensus or agreement on them. Good vipassana has as its object insight into the workings of reality and/or your body/mind. Qi gong is more about opening and developing energy channels. While I think the two work together, they are very different. I've had qigong openings while on vipassana retreats, and I've had vipassana-type insights after doing qigong. If you have the time/money, I would probably suggest checking out both.

Just to add on and twist this back to Taoism: One of the reasons that the traditions use these phrases is also to remind us that what we're seeking is within us. The Tang Zen masters of old were always going on and on about students seeking a Buddha outside themselves. There are important aspects to this model. If we already are what we are seeking, then we need not look outside ourselves for a savior, an experience, or any thing like that. Outer teachings can help us guide within, but we cannot rely on them to save us. Another important aspect is the idea of loss. As the Tao Te Ching says: Pursue knowledge, daily gain Pursue Tao, daily loss Loss and more loss Until one reaches unattached action With unattached action, there is nothing one cannot do Take the world by constantly applying non-interference The one who interferes is not qualified to take the world So the spiritual path is not about adding onto what we are, but uncovering it.

I just draw the dots. You all draw the connections.

Nicely put.

This depends on a duality. In order for something to be "independent", it must be independent from something ELSE. If there is nothing else, then concepts of independent or dependent don't make sense.

All, I will say up front that I reject all of your sources. I don't care who supposedly said what, be that a Buddhist scholar, some one's anonymous internet guru, or the Buddha himself. What I care about is how their statements measure up in my (or your) experience. I find these Buddhist/Advaita debates degenerate into a war of sources, but who cares? The important thing is personal experience. I have faith in the Buddha not because everyone says he is wise, he's the figurehead of a religion, or that his ideas make philosophical sense. Bottom line is, we have no clue what the Buddha actually said. However, we do have a cluster of ideas we call Buddhism. Applying these ideas to my experience, I find that they are verified. Accordingly, I tend to trust these statements, and am more open about the ones I have not yet verified. This is faith based on experience. Anything that comes across experience is impermanent, non-self, and unsatisfying. Likewise, I have verified the claims of Advaita by looking into my direct experience. I have not falsified any claims or statements made by Advaitins. Advaitins have helped me understand the illusory nature of dual distinctions, mistakes made regarding a self, and so forth. D. Loy's article makes the point that Buddhism looks at the world from the inside out. Being here, looking around, we find no permanent, enduring, anything. So the Buddhists say, there is no self. It would be wrong to use this to deny the knowing that occurs, because you can see for yourself that there is knowing. The world is not a non-sentient machine. Advaita looks from the "outside" in. There is only one thing as all dualities break down. If you deny that there is one, then you deny there is anything existing. If you agree that something exists, and that all dualities break down, you are left with a non-dual reality that Advaita calls "the Self". You may reject the notion that anything exists, but your very rejection is proof of existence. The Advaita Self is actually so refined that it doesn't make sense to even call it a self at all.

Xabir, I think you missed the whole point of Loy's article.

David Bourland, in his article E-Prime! The Fundamentals, suggests that the verb "to be" in our language causes sloppy, uncritical, and wrong thinking. When we say, "the apple is red", it appears that we state a fact, but we do not. If we look at the apple through an electron microscope, it would not appear red. Saying that "the apple is red" fixes redness as a static quality of the apple. In reality, "red" depends on many changing factors: the presence of a working eye, the presence of light, etc. In fact, he suggests that the verb "to be" causes us to speak of the world as a fixed, static phenomenon rather than a fluid dynamic happening. In order to investigate this further, I propose that we declare March "International E-Prime Month" in honor of the death of Korzybski, his mentor who died 45 years ago on March 1. I personally will try to write all of my posts in E-Prime. E-Prime has only one rule: Any other takers?

No, I thought this all along. It was a cadre of other Buddhists who believed that Advaita was inferior. Its funny because lately, I've been asking my wife: Do you think its weird that I think the no-self of Buddhism and the Self of Advaita are the same? She didn't. The some one posted this article on the internet. I'm just glad some one else was able to explain it better than me. Thanks, cosmos.

I think that is an excellent definition of consciousness. To me, consciousness is about "knowing". We don't really experience wavelengths. We experience colorful images. Some of those colorful images (scientific equipment) have certain readout that combined with specific patterns of thought (mathematics) creates an idea about wavelengths. We then add this idea to our direct perceptions, and begin to create a split of sorts.

I was reading a David Loy articlewhere he compares Advaita, Samkhya Yoga, and Buddhism. He suggests that Advaita is monistic, Samkhya dualistic, and Buddhism pluralistic. But what connects them is their emphasis on moral purification, meditation, and non-attachment.

Yes, there is a different between a tree in thought and a physical tree. But this doesn't (in my mind) mean that a thought is not a thing--- it is a different kind of thing (more subtle, more rapidly changing). I used to think that thoughts weren't valid objects at all. There was a time I was actually surprised to discover my thoughts, and how random and uncontrolled they were. Now, they just seem like a part of the landscape.

I had exactly the same feeling when I was a kid, but I didn't understand (then) the value.

It depends on what you mean by thing. If by thing, you mean something with definite form, then thoughts are things: they have a specific shape, color, tone, etc. If by thing you mean a dense, physical thing, then no.

Actually, I would suggest that we experience a subtle world of thoughts, feelings, and so forth, and a denser, gross world of so-called physical objects. But to locate the thoughts "inside" and dense objects "outside" is imposing on direct experience a split that is actually not there. Again, where is the boundary between inner and outer? Where does the one cease, and the other begin? Dense objects can give rise to subtle objects, such as when some one makes you mad. Subtle objects can impel changes to dense objects, such as thoughts/feelings lead to actions. So far, if I press into my experience, I see a continuum.

Yes, where is the boundary?