Otis

Great thesis! Well said.

Agreed with not having control over the outcome. I would, however, use different words than "I don't care". I would say: "I accept". It's just a word choice, but I think the positive statement, the "Yes" is important for engaging. "I" am still involved in accepting, but the acceptance dissolves the boundaries of "I". Of course we're not saying very different things, because you're always bringing up the importance of love on the path, which I fully agree with. I see caring as one of the twin virtues of the path, along with courage. Courage allows me to live without beliefs, and care is how I stay wedded to the moment. Courage allows me to surrender control and concepts, and care (being in love with the now) allows me to do it without crashing into things.

Agreed. Even beyond "others", too, losing certainty allows me have more possibility with my own exploration. My creativity is most available, when I get out of my own way. If I insist, even to myself, that there is a "right way", then I lock out the influence of my creativity and imagination, which are there to suggest alternate possibilities.

I think so, too.

No doubt, I'm seeing that symmetry everywhere in my life. Especially when I wake up to something about myself that shocks and humbles me, I start seeing it everywhere else, in others.

I agree with you. I have a much better time reserving my judgment, then I do really loving. Actually, I think I am learning to love with clarity, generosity and grace, but it's pretty new. My problem with 'other people' is more that: I am sometimes easily irritated by them. I hate being in a bad mood around others, because I do and say all the wrong toxic things, plus the awkwardness feels awful. So I have developed a lot of habits of avoiding situations in which I might get irritated, and become a lone wolf, thereby. I feel like the path that's calling me to it, is to practice being with other people, even if I'm irritated, so I get used to that situation which I fear, and stop letting it make choices for me. Hopefully, I'll also find that the tendency towards irritation gets less bothersome, because I fear it less.

I agree with everything in the quote about the self, the way that it does exist, but not in the way that it appears phenomenologically. So what is this self, this "I"? The self is a constellation of habits. Some of those habits we call beliefs. Some of those beliefs we call knowledge. Every habit is a subconscious neural statement of certainty. It is a heuristic, a rule of thumb, a built-in direction, which substitutes a conditioned reaction for authentic response. Habits build up our simulacra of the world, they interpret our sounds, they create separation, they give meaning. They make the beliefs and other habits, themselves, important - often more so than the world itself. To surrender self is to surrender knowing, in all forms. Since habit is self, forgetting self is forgetting the right way to do things, the right way to understand things. The "right way" is a lie that is offered with benevolence from our parents and from society (and even our spiritual teachers), with their hopes of giving us training wheels along the way. But it is a lie, nonetheless. The only way to find freedom, is to stop being "right". In other words, I must surrender into "I don't know".

The experience of I AM is not delusion, but the conceptual conclusion of what I AM means, that is delusion. It's like the felt experience of God; nothing wrong with it, until I start thinking that I now know God's mind and nature, just because I had an experience that felt like God. I am not encouraging nihilism or for that matter, any other beliefs about reality. I am only encouraging epistemological humility, the acceptance of how little we can be certain about actual reality.

My dad, a professor of the neuropsychology of consciousness, has written extensively about how different brain structures/pathways act almost like separate brains, that each has its own function and form of consciousness, and each is "in control" at some point or another. So it makes a lot of sense to me, to speak to each part individually, getting us away from the pretense that the "I" is the whole thing.

Personally, I still see enlightenment (as attainment) as a huge red herring. I see no usefulness, whatsoever, in that concept, but plenty of traps. Even maturity is really just a reflection of my biases: the "mature" person is the one who appears the way I think a mature person should. The word maturation literally means: a process of growing. So one person who has overcome debilitating personal trauma may have undergone incredible maturation, and still not appear the way the concept of "mature" implies. Whereas someone else may have learned to put on an incredible show of appearing to be mature, without having to ever really face adversity. That's why (on another thread), I insist that there is no actual hierarchy of growth or awakening. Because everyone starts from a different place, and everyone has different things to wake up from. Nor will my first awakening be the same as yours, because my context is completely different. The important thing, IMO, is to grow, not to be right.

I know that you are disagreeing with my statement, but you haven't said what about it you disagree with.

I didn't mean to exclude "dependent origination", but I do think that it is also pointing at "don't know". What is the cause of this effect? Don't know, because the cause has a cause has a cause. Both emptiness and D.O. are forms of epistemological humility, accepting what I cannot know.

Well, now that you know that you are capable of all this stuff, what are you going to do with it? Can you find an authentic practice for yourself in which you explore your own ability to explore your senses and consciousness, without the burden of someone else's method?

(double post)

Excellent!

double post

So, if a cancer patient doesn't benefit from chemo, it must be her own fault, because it has worked for other people?

Don't just tell me that it's wrong. Tell me why it's wrong.

Sure, the institution has levels, but that is not necessarily reflective of reality. That's what institutions do, they create methods and hierarchy, especially institutions that teach. But at the heart of what the Buddha taught was emptiness, which is "I don't know". At the heart of his teaching is that all human concepts are merely approximations, that truth is not to be found in hierarchy, beliefs, or theologies. These things only hint at truth. They may be useful for those who buy into them, but they are not "what is real", and to use them as an argument against someone else's understanding is pure self-reference, a circular argument. More delusion.

Again, I think you're proving my point again. You quote the Buddha to support what you are saying, but I hear his words differently. Your yardstick is different than mine. When I hear these words from the Buddha, I hear no reference to actual reality. What I hear him referring to is our experience of reality. I.E. the only reality we ever know, is the one that takes place within our heads, in our awareness. That is absolutely not a support for making assertions about how the world actually is, which is what your earlier quote was doing. The only reason why What is "out there in the world," is no different than what's "inside." is because all of our reality is inside. Again, you are creating a yardstick of "level of insight" that is based purely upon your own understanding of the tradition that you follow. That DOES NOT equal reality! That is exactly the same mechanism by which any fundamentalist supports his or her argument: "of course I'm right, because I'm adhering to (my understanding of) the gospel". This is the mechanism of delusion, not of liberation. IME, liberation comes from "I don't know", not from certainty about the "level of insight" of someone you meet on the internet.

LOL! So if I had "this level of insight", I would be able to understand a language that I do not know (Pali/Hindi)? And somehow, I would know the exact meaning the writer intends for the word "basis", when I've never heard that word used in this way? That's absurd. That would take ESP, not insight. "Opaque" is exactly the description for an assertion that is written in esoteric jargon. If I were to post a paragraph from one of my dad's neuropsychology papers here, I imagine it would seem pretty opaque to you. It's not that you're not insightful, smart or wise, but that you probably have never heard the jargon before. You can declare all you want to about other people's "level of insight" Jack, but you are not making sense here. Don't tell me you have insight, show me by making sense!

Not to mention that I disagree with the quote. It appears to be speaking about "ultimate reality as it is", and I think that is nothing but delusion. I think the quote is mistaking a mental state, with a reality state. It seems to be describing the experience of internal unity, and mistaking it for what is actually out there in the world. So this is an example of what I was talking about. You seem to see the quote as evidence of attainment, and I see it as evidence of delusion. There is no yardstick that we both rely on, so any yardstick is self-reinforcing. One believes it because one believes it, not because it's so.

I don't think you're making a very compelling argument. You offer up a dense piece of jargon, much of which is not in English, and much of the English which is used in novel ways, and then suggest that the comprehension of said jargon is a useful yardstick for how advanced someone is. Of course I could attempt to draw some meaning from the above quotes, but there is no way whether I could tell you if I "comprehend" it, because the writer's intent is opaque. The person who is most likely to come up with an accurate deciphering is the one most familiar with the jargon. That's no judge of someone's ability to understand their own existence and viewpoint. I've met plenty of people on discussion groups who write extremely Zen-sounding wise-ish posts, but who also exhibit zero self-awareness or self-responsibility in those posts. I am much more impressed by someone who sees themselves honestly and humbly, who can really make sense without taking short-cuts, and who can make themselves understood even when discussing the ineffable, then by someone who has learned to speak in an esoteric and largely incomprehensible language. The latter proves nothing but cleverness and geekhood.

Me too. I find that my brain takes in a lot more information than "I" do in that "reverse blink", because my body successfully navigates things that I was barely aware of. I find that too, in spiral walking, which I do barefoot, on rough trail. Even though I don't fix my eyes anywhere or try to figure out the terrain, there's enough information for my body to figure out where to step. Spinning in place is another great way of being in full motion, without any attempt at trying to figure things out. I don't have any reference point, just a blur, and yet my body stays in one place. And, of course, spinning is all about dynamic balance, so it's great practice for getting my body to act as a unit. I also do some backwards running, but in a large circle, in the grass, so I don't have to worry about crashing into things. Very nice.