Otis

Well, sure, but none of this justifies your conclusions. A mirage may be a "real" thing (no less so than the thought of the unicorn), but that doesn't mean the oasis is really there. Which just shows why "reality" is a concept that is entirely subjective. Everything that we call "reality" is just in the contents of our heads. It is just a belief construct, a simulacrum. That is where unicorns are, that is where mirages are, that is where certainty is. But the "actual" is something that includes my head, but also includes everything beyond it. And that is the unknowable part. Explain to me how you can justify claiming to have a view beyond your own subjective reality.

I do not need to deny it. I only need to deny that it is anything more than a good explanation. There are, as I have previously written extensively on, other ways of viewing this same phenomenon. Lack of being able to see the alternate models is a lack of imagination. Your "undeniable" is only your admitting that you haven't thought it through well enough.

I do not deny direct experience. I only deny that conclusions that are drawn from direct experience = truth. Clear and vivid manifestations are part of delusion everyday. The "self", for example, is both clear and vivid. Truth must include what exists "out there", not just what is "in here". As soon as you try to "know truth", then you are in delusion, because "knowing" is only "in here". Reality is always too large to fit into someone's brain, which is why we have simulacra, to simplify the process. When I hear you say "reality", it sounds to me like you are only describing your simulacrum. Once again, how do you justify your "view of reality" as being right?

This is good. I agree with all of this. But it is not truth. It is not a fact. It is not "actual reality". It is merely a good explanation. There is a huge gulf between the "truth" and "good explanations", and we confuse them, at our own peril.

You "know for a fact"? Do you? Really? Why is it that your realization = fact? What can possibly substantiate your certainty? What measuring stick of reality do you have, other than the belief system that you already subscribe to? There are alternate ways of looking at "self/no-self". I've presented one of them on this thread, already. So just because "there is hearing, no hearer" does not mean that "no self" is true. It is not a necessary inescapable conclusion, and only a lack of imagination will say that "it must be so". You have not made any sense on this thread, yet. You have merely stated other people's metaphors like "hearing, no hearer" and D.O. But these are not facts, either. They are just something you believe. Other people's stories are neither proof nor facts. Nor is the fact that these stories make a great deal of sense to you, therefore make them true. Justify your vaulted position of insight, or stop relying on it as authority.

Agreed, this is different. It is at this point that you have moved into delusion. Once you turn it into a concept, then it is false. "No separation" is merely a story, a metaphor, not the truth. It is the finger pointing, not the moon. I disagree. This is a good story, that helps relieve the stress of worrying about the self. But no-self is also not the truth. The story I would use is: seeing is a function of my brain, but the function does not equal a self. The perception is a function, but not a self. Etc. Put all the functions together, and we're describing something much closer to the actual Self (i.e. the body), but the "true nature" of that self always remains unknowable. My story, I think, fits the evidence a lot better than "no self" does. But it doesn't mean that either is true. They are both just working models, useful tools for framing experience and thoughts. None of it is truth. What differentiates "realization of the nature of reality" from unicorns? They both seem mythical to me. You keep mentioning this power of realization you have, but you have not stated why you think that you are not deluded.

When you say that you and Buddha have had the same or similar experience, how would you know? When you say that it is possible to "see for yourself", how do you know that is not just your desire, wanting to believe something that allows you to be "in the know"? How do you know that you are not just trying to make yourself important? Why do you think that somehow you have arisen beyond delusion, when certainty is so highly correlated with delusion? What makes you so special? You believe in ruthless truth, ruthlessly saying "I do not exist". But you apparently do not believe in ruthlessly saying "I cannot know". Don't you see that the latter statement is more true, and more important on the path, than the former? What else is "no self" good for, except to realize that the "self" is just a cluster of habits (some of which we call beliefs, and some of those which we call knowledge)? Surrendering "self" is not about telling yourself a story that "self" is not true. Surrendering self is precisely getting rid of certainty.

I've never said that we cannot have a fuller view of the world, through meditation and quiet reflection. That is very different than "knowledge of the actual". A big part of why meditation reveals more, is that during it, we let go of beliefs, in order to escape, temporarily, the boundaries that those beliefs make. But we shouldn't then turn around and make the mistake, of bringing the contents of those meditation experiences, and turning them into beliefs, because that's just creating more clutter and disinformation, which is precisely what we're trying to wake up from. Meditation is not a way of gaining true knowledge, but a way of letting go of the internal prisms (beliefs) which obscure our view. It is precisely surrender of the concept of knowledge, which opens our eyes to possibility. "I don't know" is precisely the path to freedom; "I know" is the path to delusion. Look around at the world. Of the people who disagree with you, don't the ones who act the most certain, seem the most deluded? So, consider their point of view: to them, the more certain you are, the more deluded you appear. So what differentiates you from them? Is it that you are "right"? Oh, no, because that's just certainty, which is the sign of delusion.

Human beings do not experience the outside world directly. We have senses, which translate the outside world into an internal simulacrum (re-creation) of the world, and it is that which our brains experience. So we never have access to the "actual" at all. What if someone has extra senses? Then that person will experience a richer simulacrum than mine. But he will still be bound by the fundamental rules of epistemology, just as I am. Nothing that does not fall within the senses will be perceived. No matter how extensive the senses are, they are still tuned to register certain ranges of information. Outside of those ranges, is unknown. Plus, all perception is illusion. My perception tells me that objects are solid and the sky is blue, but physics tells me otherwise. I am an individual being, who has only lived for a certain number of years, has never been off this planet, and has only visited a limited portion of this globe. So my "knowledge" will be bound by the "reality bubble" that I live in; what I do not experience, will forever be only hearsay (at best; of most things I will remain ignorant). I may sit with wise and learned people, but their experience is limited by their own bubble, and so too, for their teachers. Ad infinitum. The origins all come from limited human beings. There's no omniscient beings in that chain, because even Buddhas are human beings, with the limits that are built into the organism. What about OBEs, trance states, channeling of the original mind, etc.? Can't we achieve "knowing without a knower"? No. These are merely experiences. They may indeed show us a different way of looking at the world. But this way is not something divorced from our reality bubble; it is merely a part of the bubble that we didn't otherwise see. These are equivalent to the "extra senses". And they still do not add up to knowledge! We have an experience, but "knowledge" is just the conclusion that our analyzing minds make about that experience. It is precisely Dependent Origination that forces the conclusion of "I don't know", because the source/true meaning of the experience is always out of sight, impossible to pin down. D.O. is the antidote to superstition, which is what happens when our brains try to turn experience into knowledge. All knowledge is superstition to some degree; some of it happens to correlate more closely with repeated experience, but none of it is 100% legit. That's why the mathematics of phenomena is statistics, because we can only measure the correlation, and hypothesize the causal. Knowledge is merely a subset of opinion; there is not one scrap of "knowledge" that is not also opinion. "This is" really just means "I believe this is".

Again, here is the crux. The above sentence should read: "IF the nature of everything...", to reflect the uncertainty that is built into our view of the actual. There is no way to actually find out what the nature of everything is. We can only create models and metaphors for the "actual world". We can amass evidence, and create theories. But we cannot know. D.O. is theory, not knowledge. Your earlier statements, and the one above, only say: the concept of a creationist God is incompatible with the concept of interdependent origination. And one concept may fit the evidence better, but neither concept is provable or disprovable. Tell me why you think you KNOW what is real. What makes you special, that you can see beyond the epistemological limits that are built into the human species? And why is it that you are sure that your certainty is not a sign of delusion, when experience of the world continually shows that the people with the most certainty (fundamentalists, nationalists, cultists, trolls) are usually the most deluded? What makes you different from them?

That may very well be the truth. But we do not, cannot know it. D.O. is an alternative cosmology to Creationism. To me, it makes a lot more sense, and presumably, to you as well. However, we do not know that D.O. is right and Creationism is wrong. It is entirely possible that a Creationist God has created a Universe that has all the markings of dependent origination. It doesn't seem likely, but it cannot be disproved. My point was never about the existence of God, but about the limits of knowledge. If you claim that you have some special vantage point, from which you can tell that there is no possibility of God existing, then I call B.S. on you. I think that is a deluded statement, and one that you cannot support without purely circular reference to your own belief system. I'm not trying to win against you, Xabir. I just want to reflect back to you: when you use arguments that suggest that you are right precisely because you have some special perspective, it gives you no credibility. Every troll on the internet claims that they see the nature of reality; only the wise are able and willing to admit when they cannot know. Credibility comes from making sense, not from making claims to authority.

Yeah, but I didn't say anything about Creation or God's role. I just said: we cannot know there is no God. How you define God is up to you. Besides, interdependent creation is another story for how the universe came about, not something that we can know. Nor do I disagree with your quotes. I do not believe in a theistic God, and I see plenty of reason to believe that that concept is wrong. But that is different from knowing that God does not exist. As for authority, it is not the "existence of God" I was countering at all. It was merely the "Once you realize the nature of reality...". That is a very bad argument, which is what I was pointing out. Why in the world would you suggest that you DO see the "nature of reality?

It's so nice, I've got to post it twice: Who on this thread is living up to these standards? And if you're not, what's your excuse?

I agree. I think Blasto's earlier list of "Valuable Intellectual Traits" is a great way of helping to spot our argumentative "defilements".

Let me ask you: would you accept, from me, an argument like this? If I wrote: "the reason why you think the way you do, is that you just don't have the insight that I do, and I know that I am right, because I know better than you", do you think you'd be convinced? Or would I sound like an ignorant person, trying to prove my importance, without bothering to try to make sense? I imagine you'd prefer it if I made intelligent, thoughtful arguments, rather than dismissive "you just don't get it". Likewise me from you. I do not recognize your authority as someone who has "realized the nature of reality". In fact, I see claims about "realizing the nature of reality" as signs of delusion. So why should I accept your argument, when it is entirely based on the assumption that somehow you have a more perfect view than I? And that assumption is based on what? The fact that I don't agree with you? Well, that would be an entirely circular argument, wouldn't it?

One of the traps that the Buddha warns against is "self-evidence", i.e. ideas seeming "self-so", so obvious in our world view, that we don't even question them. Of course, that is the ground for questioning self, because self seems entirely obvious. However, we should be careful not to take this logic too far. We shouldn't entirely ignore the obvious, because there is a hidden truth behind it. Ruthless Truth demands: look for a self. If you can't find it, it must not be there. They declare that this non-self is self-evident. But of course, this is substituting an obscure self-evident thought, for an obvious one. Yes, the obvious one (there is a self) is delusion to believe, but that doesn't mean that it is 100% wrong. When I look in the mirror, it is not a non-self that is looking back at me. There are not 7 billion non-selves in this world. Most of those 7 billion may each have a delusion of self, but that doesn't meant that they are not individuals. Self is wrong. Non-self is also wrong. Concepts do not hold the truth, especially bite-size concepts. To ally ourselves with either extreme is just to reinforce beliefs that don't make sense, and to exacerbate division with fellow seekers. Inability to embrace subtlety and nuance is no virtue.

Good post. I would like to add that it is important not to take any one sign too seriously. For example: we cannot say there is a God, but neither can we say that there is not a God. Let us be careful not to fudge on the arguments that we don't want to support, because they're legitimate, even if we don't like them. So what is the answer that we can derive about God? There is only one reasonable answer, and that is: "I don't know". That's probably a conclusion we should come to more often. It is not a sign of ignorance to admit that we don't know; it is a sign of grace.

Yeah, I think this is a great point. They are not moral rules, but suggestions for finding one's path.

+1000! What a great post, Scott! I wish we could post this over the door of TTB, as a reminder.

Of course I'm not saying people should not use the word "you". I mean we should not rely on our mental construction of "you". If I were to start telling you who you were, and start saying adjectives about you, that would be my fallacy. All I have of Simple Jack are some words on a screen. I can reflect back to you what I read in what you write, but I will not tell you who you are. Yet it is the mental construct of you that is being yelled at, by many posters on this thread. There's no monopoly on that delusion in this conversation; people telling each other who they are, what their biases or level of realization is, what they have not yet experienced or tried. All these things are fantasies, conclusions someone came to, from comparing the words on the screen with their own internal yardsticks of what's right, and what gives rise to what. He must be X, because he said Y. All of this is delusion. This is people throwing poo at their own shadow puppets of each other. Wise and clear conversation is only possible if we acknowledge the limits of our own possible insight into each other's minds, hearts, and experiences, and act accordingly.

I made my attempt on the first page, but no one commented, so here goes again: I don't believe than "non-self" is literally true. I think what is true is that: The phenomenological experience of my self is an illusion. What I experience as "me" is merely a cluster of habituated functions of my brain. There is a lot more to this organism, then the tiny bit that I experience as me. I do not have "my" self or "my" body, because the functions that feel like "I" are just one small part of the brain, which is one part of the body. Other functions of my brain, like thought, imagination and memory, are not "me", because they sometimes surprise me. The body is "real", but it is also unknowable to "me". What "I" experience is not the actual world, but a simulacrum of the world that my senses (including the parts of my brain that translate sense data into perception) and heuristics re-create inside my brain. It is only this simulacrum that the "I" experiences, and which it mis-interprets as the actual world. This is the only reality that "I" can ever know, the one that is inside my head, because "I" have no senses; I have only access to the data stream that my body's senses bring me. This simulacrum includes my concept/experience of myself, as well as my concept/experience of the body. From the posture of the self, "I" appear to be an individual, separate from life, as if I have to endure life, which is something that happens to "me". But, of course, there is no "me" separate from "my" life; the two concepts define identical territory. For all intents and purposes, "my life" and "me" are the exact same things. To forget this is to live in the 3rd person, to try to "see myself" as if from someone else's point of view: i.e. how do I appear, what should I do? But to live in the 1st person is to experience no separation between myself and my life (and hence, also between myself and the world, or between myself and my actions or my senses), and thus, never to feel alienated from the flow that is life. The continuance of the "I" is an addiction to control, because the function that "I" was designed for, was really just paying attention. Once I learn to surrender the worry and the hurry, and just pay attention, without adding any of the separation, judging, and analyzing that "I" have previously relied on, then the experience of "I" folds up, and the body continues being its own Self, without "me". If I allow "myself" to be a conduit for awareness, instead of a "self", then the body is free to live its life, with my assistance, but not my interference. "No self" points at the above, but I think it shouldn't be mistaken for "what's real". It is a metaphor, just as self is a metaphor. "I" (i.e. the cluster of functions) do still exist (or I wouldn't be aware), just not as a "self", as we normally think of it. I am just part of something bigger than what the sense of me suggests.

I'll come back and read the rest of this thread later, but I just gotta say right now: Applause to Cat Pillar! What an awesome OP! Not theory, not belief, not projection, just an honest sharing of his observations of himself. Bravo! I wish all of our threads started this bravely, this clearly, and this responsibly!

Whether or not "self" is merely delusion, I'm pretty sure that this mythical "you" that keeps getting bandied around here, is a much more absurd delusion.

Good call. Thanks for the link.

I don't believe than "non-self" is literally true. Nor do I think that's what Buddha was saying. I think what is true is that: The phenomenological experience of my self is an illusion. What I experience as "me" is merely a cluster of habituated functions of my brain. There is a lot more to this organism, then the tiny bit that I experience as me. I do not have "my" self or "my" body, because the functions that feel like "I" are just one small part of the brain, which is one part of the body. The body is "real", but it is also unknowable to "me". What "I" experience is not the actual world, but a simulacrum of the world that my senses (including the parts of my brain that translate sense data into perception) and heuristics re-create inside my brain. It is only this simulacrum that the "I" experiences, and which it mis-interprets as the actual world. This is the only reality that "I" can ever know, the one that is inside my head, because "I" have no senses; I have only access to the data stream that my body's senses bring me. This simulacrum includes my concept/experience of myself, as well as my concept/experience of the body. On a phenomenological level, "I" appear to be a self, separate from life, as if life was something that happens to "me". But, of course, there is no "me" separate from "my" life. For all intents and purposes, "my life" and "me" are the exact same things. To forget this is to live in the 3rd person, to try to "see myself" as if from someone else's point of view: i.e. how do I appear, what should I do? But to live in the 1st person is to see no separation between myself and my life (and hence, also between myself and the world), and thus, never to feel alienated from the flow that is life. The continuance of the "I" is an addiction to control, because the function that "I" was designed for, was really just paying attention. Once I learn to just pay attention, without adding all the separation, judging, and analyzing that "I" have previously relied on, then the experience of "I" folds up, and the body continues being its own Self, without "me". If I allow "myself" to be a conduit for awareness, instead of a "self", then the body is free to live its life, with my assistance, but not my interference. "No self" points at the above, but I think it shouldn't be mistaken for "what's real". It is a phenomenological "truth", not an actual one. "I" (i.e. the cluster of functions) do still exist (or I wouldn't be aware), just not as a "self", as we normally think of it.