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"That ain't never gonna' happen." Exactly. Throughout the Tao Te Ching, LaoTze's philosophy was based on his famous slogan "Wu Wei". He defined Wu Wei as being natural; let thing be as they are; let Nature take its course. His ideas are too idealistic and impractical to make things to happen in the real world. However, this is, only, one of the chapters which reflects LaoTze's pipe dream. All the Chapters with Wu Wei in them are, almost, his principles suggesting how a ruler should handle his people. PS... Sometimes, I got carried away when things come to the TTC. Please do not hesitate to let me know if I'm out of line.

I don't get horribly depressed waking up from a dream because usually I realize I'm waking up into a world where unique individuals, whom I know and have a real history with, actually exist, from one in which people don't actually have their own unique personalities, histories, feelings, or experiences. I'm fine with loving everyone equally, but hopefully each love would have its own unique character and understanding, so that I'm loving the way people actually think and feel on the basis of who I am, and not just loving generically or anonymously a bunch of clones who happen to all be me.

Hello Ya Mu, I must apologize for my previous behavior in this thread, I have been going through a rough patch and as a result I have been less tolerant and patient than I need to be. I have no doubt that gardening is a valuable practice and I would encourage everyone that can to do it, my point was really that maybe that isn't enough. If we truly want to evoke change, then we need to look at the bigger picture, what has caused us to become such a harmful race. I think much of this has to do with Te, or the absence of Te to be more exact. When I say Te I'm not talking about virtue, but rather the natural action that occurs when we are in harmony with Tao. I think we achieve this through wu-wei, or action without interference. It is when we allow things to occur naturally that we can allow Te to come forth and thus begin to work in harmony with the world. Imagine for a moment if suddenly all the advances we have, televisions, computers, microwaves, and electric razors were suddenly gone. Some people hear this and they have an immediate sense of dread and fear in the pit of their stomach. We have become so attached to things that ease our way of life, that we have become ignorant, or even worse, ignore the effect these things actually have on the world. When did we begin to value ease of life over the quality of nature? I think, again, it was when we decided to settle down and have a more reliable source of food of goods. I don't think we can ever get back to that time before we decided to settle down and as a result, unless we can come up with a way to stop the impact we have on the world today, we will never actually be able to. The fact of the matter is that we all know in our hearts that the world cannot go on as it has, that in a matter of decades we will have mass famine and that the effects of global warming will begin to have a catastrophic effect on the world. I don't think we are entirely to blame for this, we being the modern Western culture, but we do share the blame. The blame of course started 12,000 years ago when we began to do what we thought was best, when we decided to make the world a better place for our children, not realizing the full extent of what those actions would lead to. 200,000 years ago mankind was very much in harmony with Tao (I believe). I think 15,000 years ago most of humanity still was, it was only when we started to deviate that we started this cycle. I think the key is to look at what we were before and what we have become and to stop valuing one more than the other because of the superficial benefits that we have gotten from this evolution. If we really wanted change, we would put a ban on pregnancy, not allow everyone to have children, begin to compassionately reduce our population, and put our emphasis on the betterment of nature, rather than the propagation of our species. As long as we continue to live the Western dream of 3 kids, a house, a car, and middle class job, nothing much will change. Rather change will occur when we stop the harmful things we do and actually commit to a real and lasting change. My advice to those who are interested in making a change, don't have children just because you want them. If you want children badly, go adopt one, there are literally millions that need families and homes. Don't attach yourself to the Western dogma, begin to live a more natural lifestyle. Make your own food out of actual ingredients rather than buy processed foods where the factories that make them help to further the process of global warming and the pollution of the environment. Make sure that when it comes time for your voice to be heard, that it is heard, that the people in power understand that we want change and that we are willing to sacrifice in order to ensure that not only our species, but our culture can continue. Otherwise I think it will be just a matter of time before we loose everything we have gained. I honestly hope it's not too late, but lately it's hard to believe otherwise. Aaron

Yup! The other day I was listening to Dennis McKenna (a rather bland, by comparison, brother of Terence) and he surmised that technology in general may well have been an otherworldly idea we as a species got transmitted via psychedelic plants connected to these other worlds. He believes there's a lot of AI in the universe, and our most likely contacts with alien creatures are contacts with AI, whether off-planet-made or earth-made. (The idea that earth-made AI is still alien -- to life, to consciousness, to the very essence of what consciousness is -- is close to my heart.) His psychedelic-technological connection does not seem to be arbitrary at all in the light of archeological evidence -- the use of psychedelics globally AND the first flirtings with technology came suddenly and explosively everywhere on earth at once, pretty much. I don't remember the exact dates -- maybe some 20,000 years ago? -- but in any event, they appeared simultaneously and pangaia style. To recapitulate back to why I think genuine consciousness can only be natural -- no AI superintelligence OR creatures stealing someone else's consciousness qualify -- well, because of exactly this, "recapitulation," memory, developmental history. We the biological kind date our consciousness back to the origins of infinity. In an unbroken family lineage you are the continuation of your parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, great-great-great.... all the way, through thick and through thin, through everything that went before, no gaps anywhere. Consciousness is memory -- THIS kind of memory. Anything artificially created or predatorily feeding off someone else's consciousness doesn't have it and can't have it. There's no wholeness to any consciousness but natural live consciousness, and no amount of faking it or stealing it can change the fact. Flyers, whatever they are, can't be anything but machines. So are swimmers I've seen. It's just that there's different ways to make machines... as you say, "magic technology." You can make a demon with the machinery of your organic stuff, out of your own live DNA, but it will never amount to more than a semi-synthetic automaton. There's formidable machines out there, no question. But if you don't ever forget that they are machines and you are not... methinks that's the ticket. We have been treated in ways that make the distinction blur for quite a long time. I believe THAT's what has to be brought back into the sharpest focus. The glasses from my dream were supposed to aid, and it is only superficially ironic -- on a deeper level, it seems quite likely that we are allowed to USE technology to fight technology -- but prohibited to BE technology in response to technology...

Ego is a real fiction. An actual self cannot be found, but there is a mental conjuration of a self. Like the dream of unicorn is undeniable, but the unicorn does not exist as such. It is a real fiction and exists only in imagination. The ego is not a thing as such, it is not an actual entity but a process of mentally conjuring a mental fiction of a personal (or even impersonal) self and attributes this self to being a controller or agent of actions, thoughts, experiences. In reality there is no thinker - thoughts simply occur. There is no doer, actions simply occur. There is no seer - the sight is itself the seeing happening without seer. But due to self-view, we infer that a previous experience is "seen by me" - it always infers and references a previous experience to the mentally conjured "self" which in actuality cannot be found, much less have any control over reality. Once we wake up from this mental fiction by the realisation that there is no actual self that is the agent of experience, life goes on as usual but with much greater clarity, freedom, wonder and delight. Seeing is still happening, thinking is still happening, actions still happen, but it is seen that there is no agent behind those experiences. Everything becomes luminous and a fairy-tale like paradise, and you see that to bring yourself forward to experience the myriad things is delusion... Awakening is that the myriad things comes forth and experiences itself, and life is just "tripping" on ordinary seeing and hearing/Life itself delighting, tripping on life... And there is actual intimacy with all things (due to the lack of a self at the center separate from the world) Seeing through the illusion of self, speaking from experience, certainly does not result in one's being reduced to a state of a baby, as the accumulated knowledge, memories, experiences of a lifetime has not been diminished or adversely affected in the least from this waking up. Furthermore our habits, traits, behaviours conditioned from young (commonly defined as personality though these are actually simply impersonal conditionings) may or may not be changed... Much of them wouldn't - especially the harmless ones (but afflictive emotions and behaviours stemming from craving, anger, fear, sorrow, conceit, ignorance etc will be gradually reduced and ultimately eliminated). But there is no refering these actions to a central agent. All these behaviours happen via dependent origination, via latent tendencies and conditioning. Lastly having a healthy ego (self-image) is certainly better comparatively than having an unhealthy one. For example having a confident self-image is better than having a low self-esteem due to poor self image. However if you are liberated from self image then you will discover a kind of fearlessness and security that far transcends any "good ego". It is the security of not having self (to protect its interests), birth, death. That is why waking up transcends whatever psychotherapy you are doing to build a good self-image... It overcomes the same problems (for example, fear and insecurity) not by replacing one self image with another but by seeing through and letting go the illusion entirely so the problem does not even have a basis to begin with. For example low self esteem is not overcome by pride, but rather the base illusion of "self" is seen through and so both pride and low self-esteem has no basis at all.

If you want to know the dialectic... you can read Nagarjuna. Here's what the Buddha said... Kaccāyanagotta Sutta, which distinguishes nītārtha (clear) and neyārtha (obscure) terms - By and large, Kaccayana, this world is supported by a polarity, that of existence and non-existence. But when one reads the origination of the world as it actually is with right discernment, 'non-existence' with reference to the world does not occur to one. When one reads the cessation of the world as it actually is with right discernment, 'existence' with reference to the world does not occur to one. "By and large, Kaccayana, this world is in bondage to attachments, clingings (sustenances), and biases. But one such as this does not get involved with or cling to these attachments, clingings, fixations of awareness, biases, or obsessions; nor is he resolved on 'my self.' He has no uncertainty or doubt that just stress, when arising, is arising; stress, when passing away, is passing away. In this, his knowledge is independent of others. It's to this extent, Kaccayana, that there is right view. "'Everything exists': That is one extreme. 'Everything doesn't exist': That is a second extreme. Avoiding these two extremes, the Tathagata teaches the Dhamma via the middle..." "In Dzogchen tradition the mass of interdependent origination is considered illusory: [One says], "all these (configurations of events and meanings) come about and disappear according to dependent origination." But, like a burnt seed, since a nonexistent (result) does not come about from a nonexistent (cause), cause and effect do not exist. What appears as a world of apparently external phenomena, is the play of energy of sentient beings. There is nothing external or separate from the individual. Everything that manifests in the individual's field of experience is a continuum. This is the Great Perfection that is discovered in the Dzogchen practice. "Being obsessed with entities, one's experiencing itself [sems, citta, mind], (which discriminates each cause and effect, appears as if it were cause and condition." The experiential result is... Nagarjuna's Mahamudra Vision Homage to Manjusrikumarabhuta! 1. I bow down to the all-powerful Buddha Whose mind is free of attachment, Who in his compassion and wisdom Has taught the inexpressible. 2. In truth there is no birth - Then surely no cessation or liberation; The Buddha is like the sky And all beings have that nature. 3. Neither Samsara nor Nirvana exist, But all is a complex continuum With an intrinsic face of void, The object of ultimate awareness. 4. The nature of all things Appears like a reflection, Pure and naturally quiescent, With a non-dual identity of suchness. 5. The common mind imagines a self Where there is nothing at all, And it conceives of emotional states - Happiness, suffering, and equanimity. 6. The six states of being in Samsara, The happiness of heaven, The suffering of hell, Are all false creations, figments of mind. 7. Likewise the ideas of bad action causing suffering, Old age, disease and death, And the idea that virtue leads to happiness, Are mere ideas, unreal notions. 8. Like an artist frightened By the devil he paints, The sufferer in Samsara Is terrified by his own imagination. 9. Like a man caught in quicksands Thrashing and struggling about, So beings drown In the mess of their own thoughts. 10. Mistaking fantasy for reality Causes an experience of suffering; Mind is poisoned by interpretation Of consciousness of form. 11. Dissolving figment and fantasy With a mind of compassionate insight, Remain in perfect awareness In order to help all beings. 12. So acquiring conventional virtue Freed from the web of interpretive thought, Insurpassable understanding is gained As Buddha, friend to the world. 13. Knowing the relativity of all, The ultimate truth is always seen; Dismissing the idea of beginning, middle and end The flow is seen as Emptiness. 14. So all samsara and nirvana is seen as it is - Empty and insubstantial, Naked and changeless, Eternally quiescent and illumined. 15. As the figments of a dream Dissolve upon waking, So the confusion of Samsara Fades away in enlightenment. 16. Idealising things of no substance As eternal, substantial and satisfying, Shrouding them in a fog of desire The round of existence arises. 17. The nature of beings is unborn Yet commonly beings are conceived to exist; Both beings and their ideas Are false beliefs. 18. It is nothing but an artifice of mind This birth into an illusory becoming, Into a world of good and evil action With good or bad rebirth to follow. 19. When the wheel of mind ceases to turn All things come to an end. So there is nothing inherently substantial And all things are utterly pure. 20. This great ocean of samsara, Full of delusive thought, Can be crossed in the boat Universal Approach. Who can reach the other side without it? Colophon The Twenty Mahayana Verses, (in Sanskrit, Mahayanavimsaka; in Tibetan: Theg pa chen po nyi shu pa) were composed by the master Nagarjuna. They were translated into Tibetan by the Kashmiri Pandit Ananda and the Bhikshu translator Drakjor Sherab (Grags 'byor shes rab). They have been translated into English by the Anagarika Kunzang Tenzin on the last day of the year 1973 in the hope that the karma of the year may be mitigated. May all beings be happy! 'Since everything is but an apparition Perfect in being what it is, Having nothing to do with good or bad, acceptance or rejection, One may well burst out in laughter.' LONGCHENPA

Be careful with Mo Pai. For better or for worse, Mo Pai is a secret system. This means much or most of the information available, or perhaps all the information available about Mo Pai is wrong. The presence of warped information is one of the reasons I oppose secrecy, in fact. So while I will abstain from making an absolute judgement about Mo Pai, my current opinion is that Mo Pai is a useless and deluded system and so far I've seen it cause mostly pain and suffering to people, and not anything that I would call "positive." I've watched people chase the Mo Pai dream while falling prey to scams and distortions. This doesn't mean that Mo Pai at its core is a complete waste of time, although it can very well be. So that's why I am saying my judgment on Mo Pai is not absolute. So I am not going to try to dissuade you, but I do want to caution you. Be very very careful when you deal with information or traditions that are considered secret, because they are often poisoned and they are ripe for scams and exploitations, since you have no way to verify anything (because everything is secret). I believe there are some secret systems that are what they claim to be, but given the publicly available information it makes little sense trying to chase even those known-good secret materials out, in my opinion.

Yes there is! I can send you the program i used. After using it for a while you won't need anything external to feel good about yourself and women will start to show up in your life. If you follow the instructions exactly you will be a changed man and then you get to have choice with women that most guys only dream about You will still be you, only difference is you will be the best possible version of yourself. Just PM me your e-mail if you want it and i will send it to you.

I don't know. Years ago after reading a bunch of Casteneda I had a dream/night experience where something dark flew into my gut and then took "something" from it and went off with it. But I shrugged and figured whatever "it" was, they could have it if they wanted it. I tend not to think about this sort of thing too much as it fries my brain (aside from being scary). I guess I'm more concerned with human-world things. Which are complicated enough if you ask me

When I attended Tibetan Buddhist teachings in person for the first time, I had no idea in my mind to do any prostrations. But after the teacher came in I realized quickly enough that I was the only one left standing LOL. So I thought I better do some too. But while doing them (or perhaps it was already during the first one, don't remember), I suddenly realized that I was doing prostrations not because of devotion or respect or anything like that, but because I was worried what other people would think of me for not doing any. I realized then that much more important that outer showing of supposed devotion is the state of one's mind. If you have devotion in your mind then it doesn't matter whether you prostrate or not. I haven't prostrated to a teacher since that time, except in a dream, but that time was different. I also tried practicing prostrations for Ngondro, but only did a couple hundred altogether. It's great that they work for others but I don't see a point in them for me. It has nothing to do with pride, it's just something I feel no connection with. I often thought that it would've been better for me to do bows from seiza position, because I practiced Aikido for a couple years and got quite used to it, so that actually holds some meaning for me, while prostrations hold none. However unlike Ralis, I don't think that prostrations hold no value in general or that they're there for the teacher or anything like that. I do think their value depends on the person quite a bit, just like with any other practice. edit: BTW, whatever happened to SongsOfDistantEarth? I've sent him a PM some time ago but received no reply. Is he not around anymore?

Very good explanation. I remember being told that we are God and this is God's dream. Once we wake up then will recognize it for what it is, our fanciful imagination, and return to being God. Aaron

Since i am still participating in this discussion, it may be good to inform that i have not ventured into that RT site at all, am not familiar with what is going on there, nor have i the inclination/curiosity to begin to do so. I prefer to keep to basic premises where investigations of Anatta is concerned. Having found the Mahayana view to be a most satisfactory map for this, whatever is being said here would have been understood and put forth based on my limited scope of contemplating the Mahayana path. In particular, i have found Shantideva's The Way of The Bodhisattva very helpful as a primary tool in the course of my journey. Without meaning to offense the sensitive, i am taking the liberty to include some of the contents from his texts here, more as a reminder to myself and as refresher for others who are familiar with the teachings: What we call the body is not feet or shins, The body, likewise, is not thighs or loins. It's not the belly nor indeed the back, And from the chest and arms the body is not formed. The body is not ribs or hands, Armpits, shoulders, bowels, or entrails; It is not the head or throat: From none of these is 'body' constituted. If body, step by step, Pervades and spreads itself throughout its members, Its parts indeed are present in the parts, But where does 'body', in itself, abide? If 'body', single and entire, is present in the hand and other members, However many parts there are, the hand and all the rest, One will find an equal quantity of 'bodies'. If 'body' is not outside or within its parts, How is it, then, residing in its members? And since it has no basis other than its parts, How can it be said to be at all? Thus there is no body in the limbs, But from illusion does the idea spring And is affixed to a specific shape, Just as when a scarecrow is mistaken for a man. As long as the conditions are assembled, A body will appear and seem to be a man. As long as all the parts are likewise present, Its there that we will see a body. Likewise, since it is a group of fingers, The hand itself is not a single entity. And so it is with fingers, made of joints; And joints themselves consist of many parts. These parts themselves will break down into atoms, and atoms will divide according to direction. These fragments , too, will also fall to nothing. Thus atoms are like empty space - they too have no real existence. All forms, therefore, is like a dream, And who will be attached to it, who thus investigates? The body, in this way, has no existence - What is male, therefore, and what is female? Many Mahayana students use this investigative tool as a means to arrive at the preparatory stage of insight into No-self and Emptiness. Thru this contemplative exercise some will gain various fruits of realization, but there is still more work to be done to stabilize the view, to ground it into experience so that the grasp of this understanding surpasses the conceptual level. In effect, when the mind is stable, such inferences can be put aside. By then, it is no longer necessary to cling to such teachings. When there is a strong foundation set, the student can arrive at the union of tranquil abiding and insight without much effort, and can then extend such to all other types of mind training and energetic cultivations. At a further stage of the above training, Shantideva further elaborates on the Mindfulness on the Emptiness of Feelings: If suffering itself is truly real, Then why is joy not altogether quenched thereby? If pleasure is real, then why will pleasant tastes Not comfort and amuse a man in agony? If the feeling fails to be experienced Through being overwhelmed by something stronger, How can 'feeling' rightly be ascribed To that which lacks the character of being felt? Perhaps you say that only subtle pain remains, Its grosser form has now been overcome, Or rather, it is felt as mere pleasure. But what is subtle still remains itself. If, through presence of its opposite, Pain and sorrow fail to manifest, To claim with such conviction that its felt Is surely nothing more than empty words. If between the sense power and a thing There is space, how will the two terms meet? If there is no space, they form a unity, And therefore, what is it that meets with what? Atoms and atoms cannot inter-penetrate, For they are equal, lacking any volume. But if they do not penetrate, they also do not mingle; And if they do not mingle, there is no permanent encounter. For how could anyone accept That which is partless could be said to meet? And you must show me, if you ever saw, A contact taking place between two partless things. The consciousness is immaterial, And so one cannot speak of contact with it. A combination, too, has no reality, And this we have already demonstrated. Therefore, if there is no touch or contact, Whence is it that feeling takes its rise? What purpose is there, then, in our striving, What is it, then, that torments what? Since there is no subject for sensation, And sensation, too, lacks all existence, Why, when this you have begun to clearly understand, Will you not pause and turn away from craving? Seeing, then, and sense of touch, Are stuff of insubstantial dreams. If perceiving consciousness arises simultaneously, How could such a feeling be perceived? If the one arises first, the other after, Memory occurs and not direct sensation. Sensation, then, does not perceive itself, And likewise, by another it is not perceived. The subject of sensation has no real existence, Thus sensation, likewise, has no real being. What damage, then, can be inflicted On this aggregate deprived of self? (On mindfulness on the Emptiness of Mind) The mind within the senses does not dwell; It has no place in outer things, like form, And in between, the mind does not abide: Not out, not in, not elsewhere can the mind be found. Something not within the body, and yet nowhere else, That does not merge with it nor stand apart - Something such as this does not exist, not even slightly. Beings have nirvana by their nature. If consciousness precedes the cognized object, With regard to what does it arise? If consciousness arises with its object, Again, regarding what does it arise? If consciousness comes later than its object, Once again, from what does it arise? "Having established the absence of intrinsic existence of phenomena, Shantideva goes on to say that we can use this understanding as an antidote to our grasping at true existence - in this particular case, our grasping at feelings, thoughts, and body as if they have an independent, concrete reality".... The Dalai Lama Since so it is, the antidote Is meditation and analysis. Investigation and resultant concentration Is indeed the food and sustenance of yogis.

To those interested in seeing this. Trying to reason or convince yourself why there is no self is not going to work. You need to investigate if this is the case: In the seeing there is just the seen, no seer In the hearing there is just the heard, no hearer You really have to investigate and see this, not just agree or disagree. As in the seeing is just the seen, the seeing is just the seen, and there is no me in connection with that since there is only that. Since seeing is just the seen, there can be no doubts there is no such thing as "seer + seen". The word "just" is a keyword. It is as ridiculous as santa claus is seeing or unicorn is the seer In actuality seeing is simply the seen No agent, distance, doer All things self-manifest without control Like hearing airplane can't be avoided even if it is despised It is absolutely possible to wake up forever from the dream of self. Liberation is possible.

This is what anatta and the middle way really means. It is stripping your mind from all unnecessary assertions when we experience things. Can we say there is a God? No. Strip that away. Can we say there is a self? No. So x that out too. Can we say there is "No" self? Not really... Can we say there is the past? Can you find it? Not really. Can we even ascertain anything? It's like Chuang Tzu's butterfly dream. Nothing is findable because everything is simply happening as it is. From this, to that, simply arising and disappearing on its own.

Agreed. Actually, there are a number of metal bands that combine classical elements into their music. There happens to be a neo-classical metal genre as well, but progressive power metal bands are famous for using classical influences. One of the best examples is probably Symphony X, if you haven't heard of them check them out. The song Evolution is a good one to start with. And if you like female vocals, I highly recommend checking out Edenbridge (My Earth Dream and Arcana are the only albums I've heard, but I like them both.) Edit: I'm a huge metalhead, so if these tickle your fancy and you want more, I can give you a big list of bands you'd probably dig.

Ciaran has changed in behaviour for the better, recently. He also had deepened his understanding of the power of latent tendencies (the 'fictional self'). No, it's not about surrendering but deeply realising the falsity of a self... that there is in seeing just the seen, no seer, in hearing just the heard, no hearer. But yes after seeing the falsity of it, you are naturally inclined to open completely to everything without conceptual filtering and the filter of the sense of a self. Maybe this explains it: (Thusness) Hi Simpo, How have you been getting on? I am planning for my retirement. I think after stabilizing non-dual experience and maturing the insight of anatta, practice must turn towards ‘self-releasing’ and ‘dispassion’ rather than intensifying‘non-dual’ luminosity. Although being bare in attention or naked in awareness will help in dissolving the sense of ‘I’ and division, we must also look into dissolving the sense of ‘mine’. In my opinion, dissolving of the sense of ‘I’ does not equate to dissolving the sense of ‘mine’ and attachment to possessions can still be strong even after very stable non-dual experience. This is because the former realization only mange to eliminate the dualistic tendency while the latter requires us to embody and actualize the right view of ‘emptiness’. Very seldom do we realize it has a lot to do with our ‘view’ that we hold in our deep most consciousness. We must allow our luminous essence to meet differing conditions to realise the latent deep. All our body cells are imprinted and hardwired to ‘hold’. Not to under-estimate it. :-) There are two points. The "you don't exist" is his original realization. More recently, he realized something new. He became awed at the power of the latent tendencies (though he didn't realized it was latent tendencies) which he calls the 'real fictional self' - See http://brazenclarity...-and-stuff.html Let's not assume that because he appears brutal in his approach at hammering certain things at people, it therefore means he is a 'miserable human being'. I doubt he is. His ruthless approach has been successful and helped many people become awake. Sometimes to wake someone up, rather than indulging in people's crap and let them dream on, you need to give them one tight slap. Let's not forget that Zen masters of the old do beat the crap out of their students, sometimes, and it just so happens many students woke up right then.

My personal experience is to realize anatta first, then anicca and dukkha becomes clearer. IMO this is better since Anicca can be understood in a wrong way (i.e. disassociatively) if Anatta realization has not occurrede. Anicca in particular has a very different significance after realizing anatta. It is not the same as observing the arising and passing in vipassana... rather it becomes the realization of everything as being insubstantial, bubble-like, dream-like, disjointed, unsupported, and self-releasing. Without a base, every sound, thought, etc, self-releases without leaving traces... p.s. read (especially part 3) this article: http://awakeningtore...d-non-dual.html

This is something I wrote weeks ago in another forum, but I felt it might be of relevance here as well. -------- I saw some writings in facebook and online articles (commonplace, really) about 'I am not my body, I am the deathless Presence/Absolute/Awareness' and this triggered me to write a post about this... I was living in the state named as 'enlightenment' by Richard since February 2010 since the my self-realization culminating from almost two years of self-inquiry practice, and since Feb '10 I went from being identified as a formless Presence, and later to a seamless Awareness that unites every experience into a seamless field in which subject and object are inseparable and everything is simply seen to be inseparable expression of that single field of awareness (August 2010, onwards). At that time I see myself as being a bodiless, birthless and deathless, transcendent Self, a metaphysical Absolute, God, Awareness, etc.... because my view had it that Presence, Awareness has an independent, permanent, inherent existence. In September, while I was busy doing my BMT, I had a dream*... of awakened beings whose bodies were semi transparent. I immediately intuited that, to deepen my experience I have to undergo what is known as a 'body-mind drop-off' to experience total transparency... I also asked him, What are You!? That semi transparent being gestured non-verbally and it was very clear what it meant: this sensate body. Two weeks later I got it... the realization of Anatta arose, and also, the body-mind construct dissolved... there is no longer the sense of a solid object 'in here'... the body is merely disjointed sensations and perceptions that we link up into a feeling, a conjured mental construct of a solid entity with forms and shapes being a stable, solid entity 'here'... that is merely an illusion.... yet at the same time, it is not the dissociative experience of 'I am not my body' I had even much earlier on. I am not a grandiose universal consciousness, rather, I am this sensate, flesh and blood body only (which is nothing solid, but an ever-dynamic, fresh, sensate experience of being this body, being these sense organs seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, touching and thinking)... I am the universe experiencing itself as a sensate, reflective human being, interacting with other fellow beings in a process of interconnectedness (as contrast to oneness) without agency or control and the illusion of being an Identity, a Soul, a Feeler, Seer, Observer 'inside my body' looking outwards at the world... has dissolved. And neither is the world seen as being subsumed or contained in an all-subsuming Awareness... And awarerness is now realised to be more of an effect rather than a cause or source: cognizance depends on body and its sense organs for its manifestation... It is a dependently originated manifestation, in contrast with the previous state where the entire universe is seen to be a mere projection of awareness/consciousness, which is seen to be a single unchanging, unifying and universal source. There is absolutely nothing immortal and metaphysical about consciousness/awareness. I am the seeing, the hearing, which means in the seeing is JUST the seen... the scenery... in hearing is just the sound... there is no such thing as a perceiving nor controlling agent.... perceiving is just the perceived. This is the insight of anatta. This was what I basically realized after contemplating on bahiya sutta. Awareness, the seeing, is just the seen! There is nothing metaphysical and 'absolute' about Awareness... there is no 'The Awareness' or 'One Awareness'... there is pure awareness of sight, pure awareness of hearing, etc... to pure awareness of thought. There are six kinds of pure awareness corresponding to the six senses (five senses + mental activities). Awareness is nothing transcendental or metaphysical, it is precisely the activities, the manifestation... The process itself rolls and knows without a knower. Without an identity, that separates and distances 'me' from 'the world', I am in intimacy with all things actual... with the floor, the chairs, the trees, and so on. The sun feels as close as my breath. The entire universe is experienced as alive, wonderful, delightful, a fairy-tale like paradise. It is now seen that there is no two entities, one called body and one called spirit. Our universe is not made of entities, but activities and processes. All there is is this body, and it is not that there is a body 'in here' in contrast with the environment 'out there' - our perception of a body is simply a bunch of disjointed sensations and perceptions not seperated from, and forms part of the environment... The perceptual environment made of various sensations and perceptions. The clinging to a construct and sense of a solid body 'in here' dissolves without denying or disassociating from the actuality of the bodily sensations (the body reveals itself to be a luminous and transparent field of aliveness), and there is a sense of being transparent and intimate with the entire environment, without any sense of and inside or outside, and this is what is known in Zen as the 'mind-body drop'. Nowadays there are rarely any authors that have clear insight into anatta, most just stop at I Am (realization of the formless Presence, taken to be one's purest Identity), and the deepest most go is substantialist non-dual (subject-object collapsed into oneness, all forms subsumed into a single field of awareness), the realization of anatta (I.e. The seeing IS the seen, in hearing just the heard, etc) and for this I am greatly indebted to Thusness's guidance. The least I could do is to share what I know and experience and hopefully it can be of help to someone else. * Thusness later revealed that my dreams manifested due to his intention for me to know certain important issues crucial for my next phase of insight... And that he could manifest dreams to me due to our deep connection. He also does seem to have an uncanny ability to know accurately what is the 'next step' for another person, and even exactly when will those insights occur for that person. I had a number of such spiritual dreams during my BMT phase (possibly because I hardly had much time to talk with Thusness during that period) of profound significance regarding my spiritual practice that helped me to understand a lot of what I am going through and was very helpful... now not much anymore and Thusness often visits me... physically, not in dreams, haha.

The process started a year ago. Through contemplating the question 'Before birth, Who am I?' for almost two years with a deep desire to resolve the matter of the truth of my Being, there suddenly arose the insight into the essence of existence, being, presence. This is a direct insight into something undeniable and unavoidable. For the first time I realized what presence, luminosity, awareness actually is, directly and non-conceptually without intermediary. And I realize that to be my very essence, in which there is no division between 'me' and 'it' - I am That, the self-knowing presence. It is so clear and undoubtable that there arose a certainty of Being, something more undeniable and intimate than the breath, and if anything it is the only 'thing' that cannot be denied. At this phase, the construct of duality and the construct of inherency still remains strong. As such, I see 1) an inherent awareness 2) awareness is the ultimate observer of objects, and I am that all-pervading awareness, I am not the objects - the objects are objects happening to/in awareness, and awareness is like a vast container for them to arise and subside. This phase continued for the next six months where I deepened the insight and experience of I AMness in terms of the insight and experience of impersonality, where everything is seen to be the spontaneous manifestation and doings of an impersonal source. It feels like I am being lived by a higher power. Due to the experience of impersonality, there is the impression that consciousness is universal and everyone comes from the same source. There is also the refining of that insight and experience in terms of the intensity of luminosity, seeing through and dissolving the need to abide, and effortlessness. So these four aspects are the 'refining factors of the realization of I AM' and is what eventually led to further non-dual insights. That said, in the I AM realization phase, due to the lack of insights, I was skewed into trying to abide more and more as the I AM and trying to make this abidance constant. In August, while dancing in a nightclub and just immersing myself into the movement, the music, and sensuousness of everything, I experienced non-duality very intensely and effortlessly as the sense of self just dropped off. Although I have had non-dual glimpses (lasting only a few moments usually), this was different as it became very effortless and constant. Everything was very intense, blissful, and luminously present - and it was not because of alcohol or mind-altering drugs... the subsidance of the sense of dualistic construct is very blissful, and this bliss and clarity did not just stop - it became a perpetual experience in daily life. Now, Awareness is seen to be seamless by nature. I no longer see and experience Presence and Awareness as a formless background to everything. In fact, it is seen that there is no division between the observer and the observed - I am the seeing, the hearing, the smelling, the tasting, the touching, everything arising moment to moment, there is no separate self or experiencer, there is only that - and that is non-dual presence. However, the construct of an inherent awareness is still strong, and as such, I see 1) an inherent awareness 2) awareness is not divided with all manifestations. In other words, I see everything as the manifestation of the same aliveness/awareness, and Awareness is seen as a seamless undivided field of being in which everything is equally an expression of, and not other than, this field of aliveness/awareness/consciousness. As such, the purpose of practice is no longer geared towards achieving a constant, 24/7 abidance in the purest state of Presence, the Self. Rather, seamless and effortlessness is discovered to be totally non-dual and seamless with/AS all manifestations, rather than abiding in a purest formless Presence. At this point, I keep questioning myself, "Where does awareness end and manifestation begin?" and the answer to this is a non-conceptual, borderless, centreless, seamless field of undivided presence in which everything is included AS non-dual presence. In October upon the contemplation of Bahiya Sutta while I was marching (was enlisted last year for a mandatory two year military service), I realized Anatta. The contemplation of 'in the seeing just the seen, in the hearing just the heard' as Buddha instructed Bahiya triggered that realization. As such, I no longer see an agent that perceives, i.e. an Awareness. I realized that there is no agent that perceives at all, no subject to be found. In seeing, there is only just the seen, the scenery - the seeing IS the seen, the seeing IS the scenery. There is just scenery - and that alone is the seeing. There is no seer, no agent, no perceiver behind perception. Only always just perception without perceiver. Everything is just happening. There is no "seamless field of aliveness" because aliveness is simply these everchanging and ungraspable sensations arising and subsiding each moment. Just thoughts, sensations, sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, that's all. Phenomena manifesting. The entire process itself rolls and knows, there is no knower. There is no Awareness that is one with its perceptions. There is just perception, the perception itself is its knowing. Because there is always only arising phenomena, there is no such thing as 'unicity'. There is no awareness to be united with objects, no mirror that is one with its reflections. There is no subject to begin with that could be inseparable with its objects. There is always only phenomena. Few months later, I began to notice this subtle remaining tendency to cling to a Here and Now. Somehow, I still want to return to a Here, a Now, which I found to be a subtle illusory yet hypnotic conceptual image that represents 'Presence'. In reality, Presence is empty and non-local. It cannot be located, it cannot be found, it cannot be pinned pointed even as 'here' or 'now'. It cannot be grasped in any way, because there is no core or essence to Awareness. There is always only dependently originated appearances, that alone is Presence, and that is unlocatable, ungraspable, unfindable in any way whatsoever. Therefore we must not only dissolve the construct of "Who", even the more subtle construct of a "Where" and "When" must be dissolved for true liberation. When this is seen, the subtle tendency to seek an inherent source/awareness/presence is then allowed to be dropped, and in place of that seeking tendency is the effortless and natural spontaneous manifestation of interdepedent origination. Soon afterwards, there is the realization that what there is, is unsupported, disjoint thoughts and phenomena... There is only the ungraspable experiencing of everything, which is bubble like. Everything just pops in and out. It's like a stream... cannot be grasped or pinned down... like a dream, yet totally vivid. Cannot be located as here or there. Prior to this insight, there isn't the insight into phenomena as being 'scattered' without a linking basis (well there already was but it needs refinement)... the moment you say there is a Mind, an Awareness, a Presence that is constant throughout all experiences, that pervades and arise as all appearances, you have failed to see the 'no-linking', 'disjointed', 'unsupported' nature of manifestation. The luminosity and the emptiness are inseparable. They are both essential aspects of our experiential reality and must be seen in its seamlessness and unity. Realizing this, there is just disjoint thoughts and phenomena arising without support and liberating on its own accord. There is nothing solid acting as the basis of these experiences and linking them... there is just spontaneous and unsupported manifestations and self liberating experiences. Therefore, this ‘disjoint, unsupported, bubble-like, non-solid, spontaneous, self-releasing’ nature of activities is revealed as a further progression from the initial insight into Anatta which is still skewed towards non-dual luminosity and being grounded in the ‘Here/Now’. So... that's the story so far anyway. I claim no finality, and in fact, am pretty sure more insights are going to unfold in time to come. And since I see reality as a process, I do not make neo-Advaitic claims like 'oh the time bound story is just relative stuff and actually all there is is Here/Now' - there is no inherently existing 'Here/Now' at all, there is just phenomena rolling on its own accord and telling its story but without a self at the center claiming ownership of the process (and yet using personal pronouns is unavoidable for convenient communication - I don't want to sound like a weirdo for using impersonal pronouns) And yet since reality/phenomena is as ungraspable as lightning strikes, no phenomena including enlightenment could be captured or clung to. So I always refer back to what Zen Master Dogen wrote: To study the Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things of the universe. To be enlightened by all things of the universe is to cast off the body and mind of the self as well as those of others. Even the traces of enlightenment are wiped out, and life with traceless enlightenment goes on forever and ever. Lastly, I see enlightenment as nothing mystical. It is simply the lifting of veils to reveal subtler aspects of reality. Once we lift conceptual thoughts, we discover I AM. Once we lift the bond of duality, we experience and discover non-dual awareness. Once we lift the bond of inherency, we experience and discover the absence of agent and an wonderfully luminous yet empty universe occuring via dependent origination. This is it... in short. For a much longer e-journal/e-book you can see http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2010/12/my-e-booke-journal.html And for a much shorter version of a path quite similar to mine (by Thusness who I consider one of my teachers): http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2007/03/thusnesss-six-stages-of-experience.html

Why do we buy into it? We collude with this linear x causes y magic pill type coveting? Kunlun isnt a magic pill, going to Asia to get a guru isnt a magic pill, there is no magic pill qigong to help you get over your chronic anger, or feel the spark to play with your kid? A "complete system" of enlightenment may work for some, not for others, hence it is no magic pill either. In the aggragate, we chip away, grind, grunt, keep an open mind to new solutions or possible remedies, or behaviors that we can adapt to advance our path. Then we are hit with another doozie that makes makes us realize it isnt so easy to progress. Then grind and grunt, and muddle through. Many times, when I give some advice on this forum, I am hit later with some kind of sitution that makes me think I am in no position to give advice. But I do want to thank those that post their problems and queries as it gives some new angle to chew on and try to find and answer to, and even if my posts are not helping anyone, and just another fake-out of my ego to gain esteem. In any case, it helps me think of spiritual path, in this mundane, Age of spiritual darkness. As to magic pills, these are only for the simplistic mind to consume and believe in. Its easier to communicate that way. Girl A is sold on the idea that a lipstick can help her attract a man and live happily every after, we are sold on a number of things, we want them to be true for us. We are used to being sold like that, and formulating our speach like that, spreading that same magic pill type belief. It just may be that the lipstick is the deal clincher, who knows. But in most cases, just a pipe dream.

Wow, thanks for the crapload of responses! It gives me a variety of options to start with. A few notes rang true for me (seeking acceptance, high expectations as a kid, stuck in child mode too much (Most frequently recurring dream is me sitting in elementary school saying "I don't belong here anymore!"), hating others what I see in myself.) There's a myriad of other stuff, but I would loathe to try and turn this thread into an internet empathy vortex. I feel a bit skeptical of the "Let all the hate in, plus some more hate, to see how hate is ridiculous" because I've seen what hate can do to people when left on a simmer for decades, and jumping head first into seems rather counter-intuitive. Would you care to elaborate? I'm a complete novice when it comes to energy work. I'm relatively young (21), I've read only a couple books on qigong and tai chi, but I've read enough to know that without a good teacher, I'm bound to cause painful mistakes if I choose to pursue those paths. Due to lack of funds/time, pursuing at this point isn't really an option. Perhaps later.

i get it from people that study and practice in real life what we only dream of, and my heart tells me they tell the truth. i know too little, yes, that is a humbling reality that i try each day to challenge. you?

Non, You are a healthy young man, not blind, not deaf, not a dwarf, not sitting in a wheelchair or missing a leg or arm right? You have food on the table and a place to live right? You have a college education right? You live in a free country where you can surf the internet freely and whine about not getting laid and how messed up society/women is right? You don't have to sell your body to creepy old men to be able to support yourself right? Then you are better off than probably 90% of the worlds population. You have so many possibilites in your life that most people can only dream about. Now go and look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself what the fuck whining about the same thing on a forum for almost 2 years is doing and don't start another thread like this ever again.

Hello Imortal4life, I didn't watch the youtube posts, sorry. What I can say is that after years of contemplation I believe that we make god in our image. I think that is inherently the problem with Western Spirituality, because in making it in our image, we oftentimes miss that perhaps we are not made in the image of God, but are actually God. Manitou has pointed this out in another thread and I actually have made several mentions of this idea, which is not entirely original since it comes from Vendanta Hinduism and may be up to 10,000 years old. Essentially the idea is that everything in existence is God and that only when we become completely aware of it can we escape this existence (which is oftentimes compared to a dream) and return to what is actually real. Anyways, again, we create god in our image because we cannot conceive of any type of intelligence or way of being that is alien to our own. Aaron

This is weird. Sometimes I'll be laying in bed in the morning with the news on. I drift off into a lucid dream-type thing, and then there will be characters who are actually speaking the words that are coming out of the TV - in real time! Often times they are cartoon characters or stick figures, which is even stranger. But the words are synchronistically 'matched' with those coming out of the TV - I don't know how the heck it happens, unless maybe I'm watching the Synchronicity Channel.