The Eternal Self of the Buddha

[Lucky7Strikes]

I have had glimpses of the Self...in the Turiya state.

But have you been able to prove to yourself beyond reasonable doubt that there is No Absolute Self?

 

All you might have possibly done (as it is what anyone can do) is use Neti-neti to tell you what is NOT the Self. If you meditate you will get to a stage where there are no objects in it (no thoughts, mental constructs, etc) but consciousness is self-aware. This state is very vibrant, dynamic. That is the first glimpse of the True Self.

 

I don't buy VH's experiences even for one minute. Someone who is so egotistical cannot possibly have insights of any intrinsic value to offer to others. I don't know thusness, never interacted with him. But it seems to me like you are relying on the testimony of others to support YOUR arguments about something that you haven't experienced yourself.

 

It boils down to the understanding of "I am". The Pure Subject. You don't even have to meditate. You will intuitively know this as soon as your realize that all your Awareness is dependent on This "I am". Without "I am" nothing can exist, subjectively for you.

 

Silly, of course people here argue by relying on others' testimony, or unless they would all be Buddhas.

 

Everything you say the Buddhists agree to in terms of experience. They see that it doesn't nearly go far enough. I've read through Thusness's teachings, and they seem pretty credible and honest. He describes the "I am" state exactly as you put it. So why not be open to the possibility?

 

You haven't interacted with him? What has Xabir been posting all this time? .

[nac]

It boils down to the understanding of "I am". The Pure Subject. You don't even have to meditate. You will intuitively know this as soon as your realize that all your Awareness is dependent on This "I am". Without "I am" nothing can exist, subjectively for you.

 

Since you are a sentient being, your reality truly is your subjective experience. The whole rigamarole about the "non-self" is simply an exercise to show you that you are not what you identify yourself with. You simply are "You"...the "I am".

 

Don't mistake this for Ego...it is different..."I am" is pure awareness of the Self...the Subject with no predicates associated. Ego is Subject Predicate (I am this, or that...).

 

I will post a summary of my locus standii very soon (not that too many folks will be interested in reading what I have to say...but I'll do it nonetheless).

 

 

I don't get it. What exists subjectively for me? The elements of awareness arises out of the complex interaction of non-sentient matter, which can then TRY to sense the environment around it. It usually makes terrible mistakes when doing this. That's delusion. The "I am"-sense arises from the functioning of material components which give rise to consciousness. Take away the components, and those parts of the "I am" will cease. Many animals don't have a sense of Self, but they feel pain regardless. I don't understand the need to place such great importance upon it.

 

This great discussion is only about whether there's a single featureless "me" at the core of my being or not? What is the function of this "me"? What happens to it after death and how do you know that? How exactly does it matter whether it's there or not?

 

PS. I'll be interested to see the summary. Thanks.

Edited August 4, 2009 by nac

[xabir2005]

 

 

I don't get it. What exists subjectively for me? The elements of awareness arises out of the complex interaction of non-sentient matter, which can then TRY to sense the environment around it. It usually makes terrible mistakes doing this. That's delusion. The "I am"-sense arises from the functioning of material components which give rise to consciousness. Take away the components, and those parts of the "I am" will cease. Many animals don't have a sense of Self, but they feel pain regardless. I don't understand the need to place such great importance upon it.

 

PS. I'll be interested to see the summary. Thanks.

When you investigate this sense of being and awareness, you may realise that this awareness has no movement, is unborn, indestructible, undying and timeless. It is not an intellectual conclusion but a pre conceptual experience. You'll feel you've touched the core of your being. It is a pure sense of being, aliveness, existence, awareness that exists even prior to concepts or thoughts. It is utterly still in the sense that it is unmoving. It is not a tangible thing but felt as a vast unmoving background, like a sky in which clouds (transient thoughts and experiences) freely pass through. Resting in this background there is a sense of freedom and equanimity and stillness even though the clouds appear to be 'stormy'. Though a millions things came and passed through your consciousness but you'll feel that You as the constant witnessing presence remains unchanged, unmoved, in other words you'll feel that awareness is the only constant factor in your experience, or rather, it is who you truly are. Though I can attest that it is incredibly freeing and wonderful to let go of all pinpointed fixation on objects and simply rest on the background space, there are subtler insights to be discovered.

 

Because at that point even though it is true that awareness can never be lost no matter what you are experiencing, but it is not yet realised that the abstraction/separation of awareness from transiency is purely fabricated. One then clings to a transcendental identity, clings to a formless absolute not realising there is no absolute-relative dichotomy. In truth transiency experienced in full is not something that comes in and out of (an unchanging) awareness, because it is itself the transient yet nonmoving awareness without coming, or going. (As 6th Zen Patriarch Hui-Neng and the Zen Master Dogen says, Impermanence is Buddha-nature. But this impermanence is not the mundane understanding of impermanence where something is born and then later dies.) There is no unchanging observer that observes movement, because the observer is the observed -- and this is what Dogen meant by time-being. Each moment of manifestation is already whole, complete and unmoving. Firewood is firewood, ash is ash, firewood does not turn into ash.

 

Also there is no "The Awareness" when it is realised there is nothing other than awareness, that Awareness is not a static entity but cannot be separated from the diversities of manifestations in all its varying conditions -- the blue sky is not the same as the sweetness of honey is not the same as the presence of I AM in a state of thoughtlessness, conditions differs yet they are of one taste of luminosity and emptiness, all are spontaneously self-perfected. The transient sound and sensation is no more I AM than I AM and yet, empty and dependently originated. Everything that is dependently originated is already luminous and empty.

Edited August 4, 2009 by xabir2005

[nac]

Believe it or not, I've had similar experiences a long time back during prolonged periods of meditation. What I'm asking is: So what?

 

How does all this matter? What difference does it make? Should we try and derive conclusions from this, or explain it using natural science, or leave it as a "pre conceptual experience" which has little to do with other phenomena? Just because we can feel the timelessness of experience, is experience really timeless, or is it just a feeling due to the construction of our psyche?

[xabir2005]

Believe it or not, I've had similar experiences a long time back during prolonged periods of meditation. What I'm asking is: So what?

 

How does all this matter? What difference does it make? Should we try and derive conclusions from this, or explain it using natural science, or leave it as a "pre conceptual experience" which has little to do with other phenomena? Just because we can feel the timelessness of experience, is experience really timeless, or is it just a feeling due to the construction of our psyche?

Time is the illusion of continuity perpetuated by the sense of a separate and unchanging observer that observes movement, a doer or thinker that coordinates thoughts and experience, which isn't actual.

 

When you realise that each moment is a spontaneous, complete and whole and disjoint manifestation of buddha-nature you'll see timelessness and non-movement in transience.

 

Zen Master Seung Sahn elaborated on this topic in his excellent book The Compass of Zen (p. 143):

 

"Everyone thinks that this is extremely difficult teaching, something beyond their reach or experience. How can things appear and disappear, and yet there is, originally, even in this constantly moving world, no appearing and disappearing? A student once asked me, 'The Mahaparinirvana-sutra seems very confusing. Everything is always moving. And yet everything is not moving? I don't understand this Buddhism . . .' But there is a very easy way to understand this: Sometime you go to a movie. You see an action movie about a good man and a bad man--lots of fighting, cars moving very fast, and explosions all over the place. Everything is always moving very quickly. Our daily lives have this quality: everything is constantly moving, coming and going, nonstop. It seems like there is no stillness-place. But this movie is really only a very long strip of film. In one second, there are something like fourteen frames. Each frame is a separate piece of action. But in each frame, nothing is moving. Everything is completely still. Each frame, one by one, is a complete picture. In each frame, nothing ever comes or goes, or appears or disappears. Each frame is complete stillness. The film projector moves the frames very quickly, and all of these frames run past the lens very fast, so the action on-screen seems to happen nonstop. There is no break in the movement of things. But actually when you take this strip of film and hold it up to the light with your hands, there is nothing moving at all. Each frame is complete. Each moment is completely not-moving action.

 

"Our minds and the whole universe are like that. This world is impermanent. Everything is always changing, changing, changing, moving, moving, moving, nonstop. Even one second of our lives seems full of so much movement and change in this world that we see. But your mind--right now--is like a lens whose shutter speed is one divided by infinite time. We call that moment-mind. If you attain that mind, then this whole world's movement stops. From moment to moment you can see this world completely stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Like the film, you perceive every frame--this moment--which is infinitely still and complete. In the frame, nothing is moving. There is no time, and nothing appears or disappears in that box. But this movie projector--your thinking mind--is always moving, around and around and around, so you experience this world as constantly moving and you constantly experience change, which is impermanence. You lose moment-mind by following your conceptual thinking, believing that it is real."

Edited August 4, 2009 by xabir2005

[nac]

Time is the illusion of continuity perpetuated by the sense of a separate and unchanging observer that observes movement, a doer or thinker that coordinates thoughts and experience, which isn't actual.

That may be, but what gives you any faith in this experience at all? The experience itself?

 

When you realise that each moment is a spontaneous, complete and whole and disjoint manifestation of buddha-nature you'll see timelessness and non-movement in transience.

I myself have never reached that level of awareness, so I can't comment. How does your position differ from dwai's?

[Vajrahridaya]

 

Believe you me...it will happen...one day. You will realize that you are Atman...

 

What does that mean Dwai?

 

In Hinduism, it's considered the source of all existence, including all beings. Right from the Vedas, to the Upanishads, Puranas.

 

There is no definition of Atman as such in the Parinirvana Sutras. Just that Atman is the true realization of the always, ever has been true empty nature of all things.

 

So, in this case, the Tathagatagarbha is actually everyones source of realization, the source of all is not talking about being the source or creator of all beings, but rather the true realization of all being.

 

Otherwise, the other teachings of the Buddha would make absolutely no sense at all and would make him a lier. But, we know that he's not that, right?

[xabir2005]

Edited August 4, 2009 by xabir2005

[Vajrahridaya]

It was a joke.

 

Anyway, the noumenon of experience is only a meme which exists within our minds. When we die, it will utterly disintegrate along with our brains unless it's passed on to someone else's mind. That's all it is.

 

Ah, so for you there are no other realms of experience other than this physical realm?

[JustARandomPanda]

[Vajrahridaya]

Edited August 4, 2009 by Vajrahridaya

[JustARandomPanda]

I think I'm finally beginning to understand somewhat. Buddhists are closet Heraclitans.

[Vajrahridaya]

 

All you might have possibly done (as it is what anyone can do) is use Neti-neti to tell you what is NOT the Self. If you meditate you will get to a stage where there are no objects in it (no thoughts, mental constructs, etc) but consciousness is self-aware. This state is very vibrant, dynamic. That is the first glimpse of the True Self.

 

 

According to Buddhism, that's just a Jhana state or Samadhi state and originates dependent upon a certain type of focus. It is not considered absolute in nature by the Buddhist teachings. It's quite clear in Buddhism that this only leads to a formless bliss realm. This is what the Buddha taught and is how Buddhists interpret such experiences since the first turning of the wheel.

 

I don't buy VH's experiences even for one minute. Someone who is so egotistical cannot possibly have insights of any intrinsic value to offer to others. I don't know thusness, never interacted with him. But it seems to me like you are relying on the testimony of others to support YOUR arguments about something that you haven't experienced yourself.

 

Eh, that's just the Aries in me.

 

It boils down to the understanding of "I am". The Pure Subject. You don't even have to meditate. You will intuitively know this as soon as your realize that all your Awareness is dependent on This "I am". Without "I am" nothing can exist, subjectively for you.

 

Again a debunked conclusion according to Buddhist teaching. Which you are not that familiar with.

 

 

 

 

I think I'm finally beginning to understand somewhat. Buddhists are closet Heraclitans.

 

That's an interesting assumption. To a degree there is definitely correlation it seems. He was living at aproximitely the same time as the Buddha.

Heraclitus is famous for his doctrine of change being central to the universe, summarized in his famous quote, "You can not step twice into the same river." He believed in the unity of opposites, stating that "the path up and down is one and the same," existing things being characterized by pairs of contrary properties. His cryptic utterance that "all things come to be in accordance with this Logos," (literally, "word," or "account") has been the subject of numerous interpretations.

 

Do Vajrahridaya et.al. have religious backgrounds going back to childhood? Perhaps Catholicism? Are their religious (fundamentalist) views just a reaction to childhood training? I wonder why one would be so desperate to prove the unprovable.

 

As for myself, I had fundamentalist religious doctrine (which is always based in fear) forced on me when I was growing up. It has literally taken me 45 years to liberate myself from their propaganda. Which by the way is a very painful process. Facing one's cherished belief systems (BS) is not an easy thing to do.

ralis

 

I grew up Hindu with the same outlook that Dwai has. It was extremely painful to realize the truths of Buddhism at first, outside of the blissful epiphanies and peaceful meditations that brought them to me. My outer world kind of crumbled because I had built it upon a notion I held so experientially strongly to on deep metaphysical levels. I'm still in the process of picking up the pieces.

 

It's an all together different world view and all together different way of practicing and understanding the practice of meditation and it's goal.

 

That may be, but what gives you any faith in this experience at all? The experience itself?

I myself have never reached that level of awareness, so I can't comment. How does your position differ from dwai's?

 

It's your experience of your own and everything else's inherently empty interdependency and it's not a Self that is the absolute source of all existence.

 

It's a realization "of" rather than a merging "with".

 

Hindu's say they realize that we all are already merged with this non-conceptual entity that transcends time and space.

 

Buddhists say, we realize that all interconnected beings are inherently able to have this constantly liberating experienc-ing, individually free from individuality while acting happily through it ever-more.

 

Not as a transcendent omnipotent being looking through it, or witnessing through it, but just realizing what all this is and how things connect without static identity.

 

The interpretation of the Hindu is basically just identifying with a kind of vast super ego that subsumes all.

 

The Buddhist interpretation of liberation does not justify this interpretation and see's it as mis-guided.

 

EDIT: editing for clarity and better words.

Edited August 4, 2009 by Vajrahridaya

[JustARandomPanda]

It is not an experience but an insight. There never was a self in any experiences, never an experiencer apart from experience, and hence no-self is not an experience but the nature of reality at any moment. Always So. An experience can be lost, an insight is permanent. The insight into no-self will break the illusion of there being an agent, a permanent independent self or observer. You'll see 'how' there never was an independent self in the first place, and this is beyond the level of faith. In hearing always only sound, never a hearer, in seeing only forms and colours, no seer. Always So. It is not a state where self temporarily dissolves into the experience of just sound. It is a realisation. And at a further level one realises the emptiness of even these dharmas -- even the forms do not have findable inherent characteristics, merely empty yet vivid/luminous dependently originated phenomena.

 

Hmm....

 

I have a question on this part. What is preventing the "Insight" from being inherently empty yet luminous? Or is it too the case that all realization - no matter how deep - is inherently empty yet *luminous?

 

 

 

 

 

 

*I wish someone would explain *exactly* what is meant when Buddhists say 'luminous' (without being a Granny wagging a finger saying "you haven't meditated enough so stfu you ignorant fool").

[Vajrahridaya]

Hmm....

 

I have a question on this part. What is preventing the "Insight" from being inherently empty yet luminous? Or is it too the case that all realization - no matter how deep - is inherently empty yet *luminous?

*I wish someone would explain *exactly* what is meant when Buddhists say 'luminous' (without being a Granny wagging a finger saying "you haven't meditated enough so stfu you ignorant fool").

 

LOL!! Ok..

 

Look at awareness itself. It's job is illumination, it's luminous by nature. To recognize it's origination is dependent upon your own personal infinite mass of interconnections coming together in the particular way that awareness illuminates things and thoughts in your world, and then calls them names according to conditions, one becomes luminously aware of the inherent emptiness or freedom of this beginningless structuring.

 

So, what's left is an empty luminosity that is both aware of things but free from things.

[doc benway]

Coincidentally, a friend loaned me a book to read yesterday called Can Humanity Change? which documents a dialogue between Jiddu Krishnamurti, Walpola Rahula, David Bohm, and others in Walpola's entourage.

 

Very interesting reading for those interested in Buddhism and Krishnamurti fans alike, I think.

[ralis]

Vajrahridaya et.al.

 

According to recent discussions, the universe and all phenomena therein, are without prior cause. One could therefor proceed to conclude, all pain and suffering are without prior cause. Instead of realizing there may be no answers, human primates have decided to have infinite discussions, wars, inquisitions etc. Over what? Words?

 

However, the Buddhists have provided us with some fantastic answers. I would like to have answers to the following:

 

1. If the first sentence is true, then is your so called merit and good karma without prior cause?

 

2. Your use of the derogatory term ignorance is used to place yourselves above others. I guess you Buddhists have achieved total and complete non ignorance?

 

3. In terms of the last nine years, approximately 1 million innocent Iraqis (mostly women and children) are dead from an illegal war. Are those innocent victims ignorant?

 

4. What about the approximately 60 million dead in WW2?

 

 

ralis

[JustARandomPanda]

Vajrahridaya et.al.

 

According to recent discussions, the universe and all phenomena therein, are without prior cause. One could therefor proceed to conclude, all pain and suffering are without prior cause.

Hmm....If I'm understanding Buddhist doctrine correctly I don't think that's quite right. What they are saying is that prior cause is all there is, ever was and will ever be. It just so happens that that prior cause is not brought about by a Supreme Being or Tao but rather by...well...all of us. There is no Aristotelian Unmoved Mover. No Kantian a priori that is the Ultimate behind anything. There's only ever been Cause Causing so to speak - forever..endlessly...by all of us (although..if the human species disappeared this endless *Cause Causing will still go on).

 

Oddly it's not dissimilar to the view I once heard Stephen Hawking holds.

 

Coincidentally, a friend loaned me a book to read yesterday called Can Humanity Change? which documents a dialogue between Jiddu Krishnamurti, Walpola Rahula, David Bohm, and others in Walpola's entourage.

 

Very interesting reading for those interested in Buddhism and Krishnamurti fans alike, I think.

David Bohm is awesome! I have one of his earliest books wherein he presented his theory about the holographic nature of reality. It was hard, dense reading but worth every bit of the effort it took. He's one of the most original thinkers of the last century IMO.

 

 

 

 

 

 

*Although I can see how this endless Cause Causing starts to look very similar to being the same as pure chance. This is one of those weird cases where the Tao and Yin/Yang starts to look pretty accurate to me.

Edited August 4, 2009 by SereneBlue

[JustARandomPanda]

Vajrahridaya et.al.

 

2. Your use of the derogatory term ignorance is used to place yourselves above others. I guess you Buddhists have achieved total and complete non ignorance?

Yes. I admit I do agree with you there. Some Buddhists here have at times said things that smack of elitism and the whole 'my-Realization-is-Deeper-than-Yours' aplenty. To me it seems they're displaying Shenpa at these times.

 

However, I choose to see this as a chance to learn from it. If even these knowledgeable, "so-close-to-Nirvana-it's-within-spitting-distance" Buddhists engage in this kind of behavior still then that tells me the roots of Ego-tism run deep indeed!

 

So it reminds me of their humanity. That even highly spiritual Buddhists can still display low nature at times. If they do so then surely I must - and most especially at precisely those times when I myself don't see it.

 

 

A fish is not always the best authority on water.

 

 

Cheers!

Edited August 4, 2009 by SereneBlue

[Lucky7Strikes]

Hi Serene Blue,

 

I found these articles on Xabir's site regarding Luminosity and Awareness. I haven't gone through the whole thing yet, but it's helping me clear up certain questions.

 

http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/sea...abel/Luminosity

 

Hope it helps.

Edited August 4, 2009 by Lucky7Strikes

[JustARandomPanda]

Hi Ralis,

 

 

I thought I'd share a story with you I came across a few days ago in a used book store. I liked the short stories in this book so much I bought it. It has given me much to think on.

 

Enjoy!

 

Lieh-Tzu's Fear

 

Lieh-Tzu was on his way to the kingdom of Ch'i when he decided to turn back. On the road he met one of his former teachers, Po-hun, who asked him, "You were going to Ch'i; why did you turn back?"

Liet-tzu said, "Because I am afraid."

"What's there to be afraid of?"

"I ate at ten inns and five of them served me before they served anyone else."

"What's the problem?"

 

Lieh-Tzu said, "It occurred to me that my ego was getting the better of me and I was commanding some sort of respect or making people think I am an important man. This made the innkeepers give me preferential treatment. If this goes on, I'll be in trouble."

Liet-Tzu continued, "Innkeepers do not make much money and certainly do not have much say in politics. If people with so little to gain make a big deal out of me, then I would really be in trouble when the generals and the chiefs of state come after me for advice. That's why I'm afraid."

 

Po-hun said, "Good observations! But let me tell you one thing. Even if you stay and do not go to Ch'i, other people will not let you off the hook easily."

 

Lieh-Tzu never went to Ch'i. Instead he decided to settle down in a quiet place. Not long afterward, Po-hun came by to visit him. Seeing the shoes of many visitors at the entrance to Lieh-tzu's house, Po-hun stood outside, leaned on his staff, and then left without a word.

 

When Lieh-tzu was told that his former teacher was seen outside his door, he ran out barefooted and caught up with Po-hun, saying, "Master, since you have come, why don't you come in and instruct me?"

 

Po-hun said, "I have nothing to say. I told you before that people will not let you go easily. Now it has happened. People come to you not because you are capable of allowing them to respect you, but because you can't prevent them from doing so. You displayed your virtue and accomplishments and attracted people to come to learn from you, and neither you nor these people benefit from this. They flatter you, and you say what they like to hear. You patronize each other and in the end no one gets enlightened."

 

- Lieh-Tzu: A Taoist Guide to Practical Living (translated by Eva Wong)

 

 

 

p.s. thank you for the link Lucky!

Edited August 4, 2009 by SereneBlue

[Vajrahridaya]

Vajrahridaya et.al.

 

According to recent discussions, the universe and all phenomena therein, are without prior cause. One could therefor proceed to conclude, all pain and suffering are without prior cause. Instead of realizing there may be no answers, human primates have decided to have infinite discussions, wars, inquisitions etc. Over what? Words?

 

However, the Buddhists have provided us with some fantastic answers. I would like to have answers to the following:

 

1. If the first sentence is true, then is your so called merit and good karma without prior cause?

 

No primal cause other than endless cause and effect through a beginningless web of interconnectivity and how much we organize the received chaos into the understanding of expanding awareness of complexidly ordered connection, thereby acting virtuously and selflessly. Eventually seeing emptiness directly and having a body of both virtue and freedom.

 

2. Your use of the derogatory term ignorance is used to place yourselves above others. I guess you Buddhists have achieved total and complete non ignorance?

 

Ignorance is more like a way of saying the cause of limitation rather than a point of self aggrandization. It's more like the cause of limiting self identity.

 

3. In terms of the last nine years, approximately 1 million innocent Iraqis (mostly women and children) are dead from an illegal war. Are those innocent victims ignorant?

 

Not if they were Buddhas. Besides, their mind stream didn't die, just that karmic physicality died. Those Iraqis are experiencing the fruit of previous karmas through other bodies in this or other realms right now.

4. What about the approximately 60 million dead in WW2?

ralis

 

Same as above, nothing happens without causes and conditions.

 

David Bohm is awesome! I have one of his earliest books wherein he presented his theory about the holographic nature of reality. It was hard, dense reading but worth every bit of the effort it took. He's one of the most original thinkers of the last century IMO.

*Although I can see how this endless Cause Causing starts to look very similar to being the same as pure chance. This is one of those weird cases where the Tao and Yin/Yang starts to look pretty accurate to me.

 

We'll according to Taoism, we are the Tao. So, in certain way's Taoism is in cahoots with Buddhism, though I think Buddhism goes into much more detail.

 

Your right there about Bohm. He musta been a Bodhisattva!

 

Well, I don't know how much actual bodhichitta he had developed. So... he mighta just been a really smart dude.

Edited August 4, 2009 by Vajrahridaya

[Vajrahridaya]

Yes. I admit I do agree with you there. Some Buddhists here have at times said things that smack of elitism and the whole 'my-Realization-is-Deeper-than-Yours' aplenty. To me it seems they're displaying Shenpa at these times.

 

However, I choose to see this as a chance to learn from it. If even these knowledgeable, "so-close-to-Nirvana-it's-within-spitting-distance" Buddhists engage in this kind of behavior still then that tells me the roots of Ego-tism run deep indeed!

 

So it reminds me of their humanity. That even highly spiritual Buddhists can still display low nature at times. If they do so then surely I must - and most especially at precisely those times when I myself don't see it.

A fish is not always the best authority on water.

Cheers!

 

Indeed.

 

At the same time, because of how karma is and how it's propulsion continues due to past actions and thoughts, even after enlightenment, one may seem to display foolishness, but be completely free from the display as karma does as karma does, it connects due to causes and conditions. An enlightened being still has karma, but see's right through it. Virtue is important in the sense that eventually it manifests a body of virtue that reflects the condition of enlightenment with more lucidity as a teaching guide. Which is exactly what a Sammasambuddha is. Someone who has attained liberation in a previous life, but still practiced the accumulations of merit in order to manifest a perfect teaching body and turn the wheel of dharma with perfect teachings.

 

So, it's even subtler than how you see a person act. Enlightenment is not necessarily founded upon how it looks. As in, if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it's not necessarily a duck.

 

I am not that enlightened though to say that about myself. I have plenty of egoic attachment to uproot.

[Lucky7Strikes]

I always get a bit of a perk when I see your posts for some reason? Is it the blue, kind of a favorite color, though they all share each other. But, Blue is very nice, especially cobalt or lapis.

 

Anway... yes we do have free will, but it's kind of complex, because we don't as well. It's simultaneous and probably one of the hardest questions to answer in an absolute sense of is or is not.

 

Those that see past their own personal mind stream more and more through introspection, of which the desire arises due to causes and conditions from the past, reflective most likely of how many selfless actions one did, which is also caused by another infinite regress... Whew... Which is why it's so important to teach the Dharma, so that it's seeds spread.

 

But, the more one introspects and free's oneself of the causes and conditions of being a real "me"... the more free that mes "will" get's because the level of information taken in, starts expanding past the self, so the choices that "me" makes are taking in and ordering more of the seeming chaos through understanding connections on faster and subtler planes of comprehension.

 

until one realizes that the only free will is the will offered to all beings as a servant of the sanatana dharma. One may even enter another religion and make it more Buddhist through the concepts that are available. Seems like Jesus did that, and others in other religions.

 

Anyway... yes free will is possible, but not in the way that most Western definitions apply.

 

The question of free will has always been elusive. Is a will "free" in the first place?

 

The introspection comes from the very wanting in all conscious beings to be free, liberated, and eternally at peace. The causes and conditions bring them to a desire for the Truth...something like that.

 

In that sense, it is not free, but destined. Maybe that's why they call it Buddha-"nature"?

 

On a side note, Vh,

 

My understanding of "mind-streams" is that it's nothing more than habit-energy that arises from clinging to a separate existence. How do these "survive" or continue through the cycles of the Universe? Do they just become potentialities?

Edited August 4, 2009 by Lucky7Strikes

[Vajrahridaya]

The question of free will has always been elusive. Is a will "free" in the first place?

 

The introspection comes from the very wanting in all conscious beings to be free, liberated, and eternally at peace. The causes and conditions bring them to a desire for the Truth...something like that.

 

In that sense, it is not free, but destined. Maybe that's why they call it Buddha-"nature"?

 

On a side note, Vh,

 

My understanding of "mind-streams" is that it's nothing more than habit-energy that arises from clinging to a separate existence. How do these "survive" or continue through the cycles of the Universe? Do they just become potentialities?

 

Well, have you ever meditated and experienced an expansion beyond the body where you feel like your just consciousness without thought or object? It's all lit up, there are different stages. All white light, translucent darkness. Or just total darkness and no sense of awareness? These are the formless jhanas and I didn't list them in order here. But, beings generally fall into these states at the end of a cosmic eon due to mistaking these states of altered consciousness as the true blissful Self of all. Then the merits burn after some time and one by one, the first being the first born who thinks himself God and the others coming afterwards thinking he manifested them from the formless potentiality with no memory of a previous universe. This is why the Vedas are not truly correct and why the old testament is not truly correct, because the cause of life is given to this first born who mistakenly thinks his being as the start of all things. There are layers to this too, as some wake up from this formless state with infinite consciousness but no body, and others wake up with a refined body, and they are not necessarily all aware of each others dimensions at first. Some may start arguing with each other, literally about who the creator is then a big formless voice will come in saying, "ahahahaha, I... the creator of all being, saw you emanate from my formless essence, I am in you and you are in me." So...

 

These things do happen in refined form realms. Check the 31 planes of existence, it's all right there.

 

We'll according to Taoism, we are the Tao. So, in certain way's Taoism is in cahoots with Buddhism, though I think Buddhism goes into much more detail.

 

Though it seems at times that Taoism identifies the Tao with some sort of meditative absorption?

 

So, that would be wrong as well.

Edited August 4, 2009 by Vajrahridaya