What the Self Is (and Is Not)

[dwai]

Edited August 14, 2009 by dwai

[Lucky7Strikes]

HAHAHA

 

Again! More and more!!

 

Lol. .

[dwai]

HAHAHA

 

Again! More and more!!

 

Lol. .

 

There's plenty more where that came from...but let's ponder on this for now.

[Lucky7Strikes]

I've been thinking about the exchanges the past few months about the Self, Non-Self, Duality, Non-Duality etc.

 

One thing that is obvious to me is that there is a difference in the meaning that terms like "Self, Atman" carry in minds of people from different backgrounds. This has to do with Social Conditioning (can also be called a Categorical Framework).

 

Vedanta is very clear about what is Not the Absolute Self.

1. It is not any of the identifications with the physical body, sensory perceptions, cravings.
   
2. It is also not any of the identifications with the modifications of mind, such as thoughts, thinking, dreams, emotions, feelings, etc.
   

Vedanta is also very clear:

 

[*] that The Absolute/True Self is Non-dual

[*]It is none of those limitations listed above.

[*]It simply IS. It is Self-existent and Self-Aware.

Many do not agree. They claim that There is no True/Absolute Self.

 

But are these (see above) sufficient conditions then to show that There IS No Absolute Self? If not, where does this "relative Self" (that which most people identify as being the Self) come from? What holds this together? Why does it hold this together?

 

Xabir put it very nicely in the "Self of Buddha" thread.

In my opinion, there is no separation between the points 1 and 2 he listed above. The Source as the light of everything and Everything is Light is the same thing. This also illustrates the fact that Non-Duality is also Unity of Everything. There is no "Separate Self" in multiplicity. But every Self is the Same (not as in clones, but as a Singularity).

 

In this case the Light and Source are one and the same. Hence just as it can be said that the "Source is the light of everything", it can also be said that the "everything is Light".

 

We see questions like "Is Tao a living being" or "Is Atman a living Being", etc. The answer imho, lies in the following:

 

1) Existence or Non-existence in the general sense (of Materialism) does not pertain to Tao or Atman or Brahman.

2) In the general sense of usage, there IS no Atman, Brahman, Tao. But It makes everything that is.

 

A few beautiful exchanges between a student and his teacher from the Kena Upanishad (also referenced in a lovely article on The Medha Journal by Dr. Pradip Gangopadhyay -- Everything you wanted to know about Brahmajnana but were afraid to Ask):

I hope this will make my "confusing" stand a bit clearer.

 

If the Self simply "is," then my ignorance of the Self is also the act of the Self. Realizing the Self therefore cannot come from meditation when it is simple all there is. The Self is that which is when there is no identification. And even the identification is the act of the Self.

 

The teacher in your quote tells the student to meditate in order to let him see a higher consciousness than the body. But it really has nothing to do with realization.

 

On another note, believing a universal Self, or an unified "non-dual" concept (different from dependency) is a nihilistic surrender to a "higher" power, which you can see in many Hindu traditions.

 

This also can never be proven, since it can only be exerienced by an individual consciousness.

 

Relatvity doesn't "come from" anything. You're thinking linearly where there is a beginning and an end. When you meditate on time, you will see that there is no beginning or end, no "coming from" or "going to." Only one's fluctuating intent and consciousness experiencing reality accordingly.

 

The notion that the Self or Brahma "makes" anything actually contradicts your earlier statement on how it IS everything.

Edited August 14, 2009 by Lucky7Strikes

[Vajrahridaya]

 

 

But are these (see above) sufficient conditions then to show that There IS No Absolute Self? If not, where does this "relative Self" (that which most people identify as being the Self) come from? What holds this together? Why does it hold this together?

 

 

 

It's held together by endless D.O. as there is no 1st cause according to Buddhist interpretation of cosmology. It's just Dependent Origination since beginningless time. The experience of bondage in the holding together of an individual mind stream is caused by beginningless clinging without a first cause that is merely within the cycle of ignorance. Liberation is caused by seeing through the beginningless clinging, but that ignorance that coagulated the aggregates gets turned into a mirror as a form of non-clinging for the sake of teaching endlessly. So, the impetus for staying held together as a mind stream that is beginningless craving reflective of a sense of lack for a Samsarin is still maintained, but without a clinging to it, as the craving is turned into bodhichitta (the wish to help endless beings). So it's attachment that realizes that there really is no attacher. No need for an absolute Self of all.

 

Dwai,

 

I think that you misunderstood Xabir's meaning.

 

It's good that you are contemplating though, that does show yoginess.

[dwai]

If the Self simply "is," then my ignorance of the Self is also the act of the Self. Realizing the Self therefore cannot come from meditation when it is simple all there is. The Self is that which is when there is no identification. And even the identification is the act of the Self.

 

The teacher in your quote tells the student to meditate in order to let him see a higher consciousness than the body. But it really has nothing to do with realization.

 

On another note, believing a universal Self, or an unified "non-dual" concept (different from dependency) is a nihilistic surrender to a "higher" power, which you can see in many Hindu traditions.

 

This also can never be proven, since it can only be exerienced by an individual consciousness.

 

Relatvity doesn't "come from" anything. You're thinking linearly where there is a beginning and an end. When you meditate on time, you will see that there is no beginning or end, no "coming from" or "going to." Only one's fluctuating intent and consciousness experiencing reality accordingly.

 

The notion that the Self or Brahma "makes" anything actually contradicts your earlier statement on how it IS everything.

 

The Self simply is. Why would the self need to identify itself? The identification is with everything that is not self. When those identifications have been dropped, the Self simply stands in the light of it's own consciousness...

 

 

It is clearly stated that one cannot rationalize or intellectually fathom the Self. Anyhow, why do you meditate if you don't want to "realize" something?

Edited August 14, 2009 by dwai

[xabir2005]

When the light is truly seen as everything, when its realised that all manifestation is source, instead of as 'the light OF everything' or 'the substance or source wherein all manifest'.... then, there is no more the notion of a universal source, consciousness, or a metaphysical essence. Keep the non-dual experience but don't go into reifying it. Each individual mindstream and manifestation is itself non-dual and entire.

 

Also about two months ago I wrote to someone in another forum "we must see that the non-dual witnessing is an experience of one wholeness, it is not 'flowing through the Eye', as there is absolutely no difference between the 'light' and the 'everything'. The light is the everything." and "...any urge to go beyond, see with clarity it is also the tendency until one is able to rest completely in non-dual."

 

If it is the case of something behind the Eye that is seeing, that is still the experience of "The Witness", the further realisation is to realise that there is no Knower or Witness -- there is actually Non-Dual Witnessing. The background hasn't been fully recognised in all of the foreground sensate reality. Instead of everything comes from One, non-duality is the realisation that the One is really everything, and yet, even that should not be mistaken as the final realization.

Edited August 14, 2009 by xabir2005

[Lucky7Strikes]

The Self simply is. Why would the self need to identify itself? The identification is with everything that is not self. When those identifications have been dropped, the Self simply stands in the light of it's own consciousness...

 

 

It is clearly stated that one cannot rationalize or intellectually fathom the Self. Anyhow, why do you meditate if you don't want to "realize" something?

 

I don't hold the views of an ultimate Self.

 

That is why I meditate.

 

There are many many enstranged people who hold this false belief and drop their "self," believing they are a manifestation of another whole, when it is ony their own consciousness experiencing their own misguided intentions.

 

Do you hold the view that you and your actions are simply the playful division and union of an ultimate Consciousness?

 

Then why do you meditate? "You" can't do anything in that sense. .

Edited August 14, 2009 by Lucky7Strikes

[Vajrahridaya]

The Self simply is. Why would the self need to identify itself? The identification is with everything that is not self. When those identifications have been dropped, the Self simply stands in the light of it's own consciousness...

 

 

Then why would the Self become a whole bunch of suffering beings for the sake of knowing itself, that it already knows, while standing in it's own light without anything else?

 

It is clearly stated that one cannot rationalize or intellectually fathom the Self. Anyhow, why do you meditate if you don't want to "realize" something?

 

We meditate to realize that the holding together caused by beginningless D.O. and the clinging emanating from a sense of lack, does not have to be experienced as a suffering.

[dwai]

When the light is truly seen as everything, when its realised that all manifestation is source, instead of as 'the light OF everything' or 'the substance or source wherein all manifest'.... then, there is no more the notion of a universal source, consciousness, or a metaphysical essence. Keep the non-dual experience but don't go into reifying it. Each individual mindstream and manifestation is itself non-dual and entire.

 

hehe...that is a logical incongruity. There can be No Infinite and Non-Dual. If it is Non-Dual it means Singularity.

But I agree with you about reification. However, the statement that Vedantins reify something is completely wrong. Those who have realized simply state that there can be no descriptions, etc. They never reify the state...only suggest that this state is something that is the culmination of the seeker's spiritual quest.

 

Also, since you are familiar with The Indic traditional ways of teaching, you might want to remember that there is a concept of Adhikara or Yogyata (Potential). That's why the same teachers have taught different things to seekers of different constitutions (hence the four paths of Yoga -- Bhakti, Karma, Raja and Jnana).

 

Like I have repeated before, they are all fingers pointing to the same moon, Vedanta, Yoga, Taoism, Buddhism.

 

Also about two months ago I wrote to someone in anothe forum "we must see that the non-dual witnessing is an experience of one wholeness, it is not 'flowing through the Eye', as there is absolutely no difference between the 'light' and the 'everything'. The light is the everything." and "...any urge to go beyond, see with clarity it is also the tendency until one is able to rest completely in non-dual."

 

Agreed...that's what I've been saying all along.

 

I don't hold the views of an ultimate Self.

 

That is why I meditate.

 

There are many many enstranged people who hold this false belief and drop their "self," believing they are a manifestation of another whole, when it is ony their own consciousness experiencing their own misguided intentions.

 

But being a "True Buddhist" you believe in No-Self right?

Then by your logic, if there is no self, there can be no realization, because who realizes but the Self?

 

 

Do you hold the view that you and your actions are simply the playful division and union of an ultimate Consciousness?

 

Then why do you meditate? "You" can't do anything in that sense. .

 

 

The Self is beyond reason. I meditate because I feel the need to. Why? I don't know...I just do.

[Vajrahridaya]

[Xienkula1]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Di8y4IYe6dE

[Marblehead]

Hi All,

 

I think, therefore I am. Yeah, I know. Somebody else said that a few years ago.

 

I feel my 'self' is my unconsciousness, soul and spirit, if you will.

 

However, without this manifest body there would be no 'self' would there?

 

Be well!

[TheSongsofDistantEarth]

='dwai'

The Buddha doesn't agree...

 

He says that one of the 62 wrong views is...

 

The Self that is omnipresent and is sensitive both here and there to the fruit of both good and bad actions that is constant, not subject to change, eternal and everlasting...

 

This is considered a wrong view to the Buddha.

 

To the Buddha, the teachings of Vedanta and the Upanishads do not lead to the same realization, or point to the same moon. This is not the conclusion of wanna be Buddhists but of Buddhas.

 

This seems to me like when I have tried to discuss spirituality with an ardent Christian and they keep referring back to the Bible as proof of the rightness of their point of view, when I don't accept the Bible as an absolute source of anything. Can't they argue outside of the context of the Bible? What is the difference? Why is the Buddha's teaching the last word on anything? He was a realized being, but he was a human. And despite any expanded states of enlightenment he or other Buddhists attain, regarding rebirth, etc., nobody, not even the Buddha really knows what happens after death. Not one single being that has ever lived has ever known what comes after they die.

 

Just as there are many races and peoples, the many ways of human beings seeking to return to the Source are many and varied. It is elitist to say that the Buddhist way is the Real Way to the top. It's just the same thing that the fundamentalist Christians claim, or fundamentalist Muslims. It's just Buddhist fundamentalism.

Do you expect a Eskimo shaman to convert? Or a Hassidic Jew? Or is it just that, given enough lifetimes, they will ultimately come around to Buddhist reality?

[Lucky7Strikes]

But being a "True Buddhist" you believe in No-Self right?

Then by your logic, if there is no self, there can be no realization, because who realizes but the Self?

 

The Self is beyond reason. I meditate because I feel the need to. Why? I don't know...I just do.

 

Exactly. This is exactly what is wrong with it. This is the limit of the sort of "acceptance" realization. That state cannot be eternal, why? Because you can never be in the indepedent state forever. Too much Yin, and the inner Yang will manifest.

 

No-Self doesn't doesn't mean that there is no "you." It means that there is no "inherent" you because your existence and intentions are dependent on others. It's a co-rising.

 

The best example I could find is the function of time. Each moment exists on its own, but only depedent on the moment before and the moment after. No inherent "presence" can be seen. Yet it is there. If it wasn't, neither the future or the past can be seen either.

 

Xabir put it beautifully in one sentence. All in each and each in all. The future and past are in the present. And the present is in the future and the past, no where to be identified as a separate state.

 

I'm not a true Buddhist. I'm just like...knocking on the door (well, hopefully). .

 

 

 

 

But being a "True Buddhist" you believe in No-Self right?

Then by your logic, if there is no self, there can be no realization, because who realizes but the Self?

 

The Self is beyond reason. I meditate because I feel the need to. Why? I don't know...I just do.

 

Exactly. This is exactly what is wrong with it. This is the limit of the sort of "acceptance" realization. That state cannot be eternal, why? Because you can never be in the indepedent state forever. Too much Yin, and the inner Yang will manifest.

 

No-Self doesn't doesn't mean that there is no "you." It means that there is no "inherent" you because your existence and intentions are dependent on others. It's a co-rising.

 

The best example I could find is the function of time. Each moment exists on its own, but only depedent on the moment before and the moment after. No inherent "presence" can be seen. Yet it is there. If it wasn't, neither the future or the past can be seen either.

 

Xabir put it beautifully in one sentence. All in each and each in all. The future and past are in the present. And the present is in the future and the past, no where to be identified as a separate state.

 

I'm not a true Buddhist. I'm just like...knocking on the door to see what they toss out (well, hopefully). .

[Vajrahridaya]

This seems to me like when I have tried to discuss spirituality with an ardent Christian and they keep referring back to the Bible as proof of the rightness of their point of view, when I don't accept the Bible as an absolute source of anything. Can't they argue outside of the context of the Bible? What is the difference? Why is the Buddha's teaching the last word on anything? He was a realized being, but he was a human. And despite any expanded states of enlightenment he or other Buddhists attain, regarding rebirth, etc., nobody, not even the Buddha really knows what happens after death. Not one single being that has ever lived has ever known what comes after they die.

 

The Bible and the Buddhas teachings are so very different. The Buddha indeed was a human who did claim to know directly what happens after death. I also claim to know out of insight gathered from meditative absorptions and contemplation. Don't limit other people by your limits, that would be dogmatic.

 

I can talk endlessly without calling on anything the Buddha said, but people then say... "oh he's making up his own religion", oh, "him and his narrow view." People say this out of insecurity because their attached to their interpretation of life based upon a limited reference of experience. The identity of having been born through their mothers womb and that life is what they've experienced through the 5 senses up to this point since birth and that's it. Everyone else who claims deeper experience must be lying or deluded, right? Anyone who uses these other worldly experiences as reference for their logic and reasoning must be totally illogical. Right? Because it doesn't fit within the limits of my encapsulated experience.

 

Just as there are many races and peoples, the many ways of human beings seeking to return to the Source are many and varied. It is elitist to say that the Buddhist way is the Real Way to the top. It's just the same thing that the fundamentalist Christians claim, or fundamentalist Muslims. It's just Buddhist fundamentalism.

Do you expect a Eskimo shaman to convert? Or a Hassidic Jew? Or is it just that, given enough lifetimes, they will ultimately come around to Buddhist reality?

 

 

Buddhists don't seek to return to a source. The Buddha was an elitist, because even this view of yours is based on an interpretation of cosmos that is mis-informed. Or, incomplete. So yes, he did teach that his teaching was not the same as other teachings.

 

Buddhahood is not a return to the source. It's the realization of how there is no source to this universe. No Primal cause. Your view is based upon a cosmology that the Buddha vehemently deny's. I also deny it, because it is my experience that there is no primal source. That the experience of a primal source, or fundamental self is a state of meditative absorption and the experience arises dependent upon causes and conditions leading to a chain of infinite regress, and is not a revelation of the absolute truth of things. So, the Buddha does refute this understanding through his teachings. I agree with the Buddha because I see this truth as well. I understand it and have glimpsed the truth from which his teachings were inspired. I used to be a Vedantist with the view that all paths lead to the same end. That all being is actually one being. I also had incredible meditation experiences that reified this truth for me, experiences of incredible bliss and visions, etc. I realized that these experiences were conditioned. For a Buddhist, the ultimate truth of things, is not an entity, or a substance of things. The ultimate truth of things, is basically just the quality of how things work. It's not a final identity. It's not something that one becomes, or realizes that one already is. It's not conducive to the statement, "I AM THE TRUTH". Buddhist realization does not work like that because it's not based upon that view of the universe.

 

It's not at all the same as Islam fundimentalism. I've explained this many times, but it seems that you cling to your interpretation of things and the limited views of my words, putting them into the same box over and over again. Don't you like the idea of knowing nothing, so that you can learn how to incorporate entirely new vantage points into your mainframe?

 

The view of Buddhism, is that other paths are not entirely wrong, just incomplete. That other paths lead to higher rebirth, even long lived god realms, heaven realms, to good things. Maybe eventually even to the realization of the 4 noble truths and the 1st of the 8 fold noble path, "right view." Buddhist fundimentalism is not indoctrination, it's the revelation of the nature of how things work. This does not mean that we should kill all non-believers and that all other people in other religions are going to hell no matter how good the people are. That everyone is damned unless they believe in Jesus Christ the way I believe in Jesus Christ. It's not that stupid, in fact it's just a realization that seems to fly over most peoples heads, because the popular view that we all come from one source and will return to that one source is a view that has predominated the vast majorities unconscious minds since beginningless time. So even when you meditate very deeply, this view will be reified through supra-mundane experiences in meditation that blow your socks off. So, then.. "ah it must be the Truth"!! Most religions are based upon this premise and this interpretation of experience, that if you just take away all the layers of concepts and personal experiences, we get to the common denominator, that all things are a super-oneness. This experience is considered the ultimate truth of things in other religions. Buddhism just doesn't agree with this. If that were so, then there would be no such thing as liberation from Samsara, and there would be no such thing as will as everything would be completely pre-determined since the very beginning of this universe, based upon the first cosmic, creative impulse, the pattern would be pre-determined. So, according to this, we are doomed to just return to this source and then become ignorant again in the next universe in order to go through the process all over again.

[dwai]

Hi All,

 

I think, therefore I am. Yeah, I know. Somebody else said that a few years ago.

 

I feel my 'self' is my unconsciousness, soul and spirit, if you will.

 

However, without this manifest body there would be no 'self' would there?

 

Be well!

 

The seers and those who have reached the pinnacles of meditation do not agree. They claim that the Self continues in spite of the manifest body.

 

Also thinking is a function of the mind. The Self (Unconditioned consciousness) is not the mind. The mind is simply a perceptive-cognitive tool like the sensory organs.

 

 

 

Exactly. This is exactly what is wrong with it. This is the limit of the sort of "acceptance" realization. That state cannot be eternal, why? Because you can never be in the indepedent state forever. Too much Yin, and the inner Yang will manifest.

 

No-Self doesn't doesn't mean that there is no "you." It means that there is no "inherent" you because your existence and intentions are dependent on others. It's a co-rising.

 

The best example I could find is the function of time. Each moment exists on its own, but only depedent on the moment before and the moment after. No inherent "presence" can be seen. Yet it is there. If it wasn't, neither the future or the past can be seen either.

 

Xabir put it beautifully in one sentence. All in each and each in all. The future and past are in the present. And the present is in the future and the past, no where to be identified as a separate state.

 

I'm not a true Buddhist. I'm just like...knocking on the door (well, hopefully). .

Exactly. This is exactly what is wrong with it. This is the limit of the sort of "acceptance" realization. That state cannot be eternal, why? Because you can never be in the indepedent state forever. Too much Yin, and the inner Yang will manifest.

 

No-Self doesn't doesn't mean that there is no "you." It means that there is no "inherent" you because your existence and intentions are dependent on others. It's a co-rising.

 

The best example I could find is the function of time. Each moment exists on its own, but only depedent on the moment before and the moment after. No inherent "presence" can be seen. Yet it is there. If it wasn't, neither the future or the past can be seen either.

 

Xabir put it beautifully in one sentence. All in each and each in all. The future and past are in the present. And the present is in the future and the past, no where to be identified as a separate state.

 

I'm not a true Buddhist. I'm just like...knocking on the door to see what they toss out (well, hopefully). .

 

 

The Self is beyond duality. So Yin and Yang do not affect it. Is Tao affected by Yin and Yang?

Co-rising is a phenomenon as are all things that co-rise. The Self is eternal and self-existent, so it has not co-risen. It is not a phenomenon so it is not subject to the travesties of time. You are again mistaking the limited identity for the Self. I did warn that there is a syntactical discord afoot here.

[TheSongsofDistantEarth]

The Bible and the Buddhas teachings are so very different. The Buddha indeed was a human who did claim to know directly what happens after death. I also claim to know out of insight gathered from meditative absorptions and contemplation. Don't limit other people by your limits, that would be dogmatic.

 

The Buddha did not know anything about what would happen next, let alone about after you die. No one knows that. He saw 'Truth', as in the noble ones, but could not know with absolute certainty what would be next. How could he? He had not died before.

 

Answer, please: does consciousness exist outside of the universe? If, in the next instant, all the mass in the Universe were to reverse itself and begin to collapse into a single point again, would consciousness still exist? Could Gautama have said that absolutely would not happen? Do the Buddha realms survive if the universe does itself does not?

[Marblehead]

The seers and those who have reached the pinnacles of meditation do not agree. They claim that the Self continues in spite of the manifest body.

 

Apparently they have been smoking way too much pot and popping way too many pills.

 

If it is so that the Self continues after the body dies I would really like to talk with one of them.

 

The seers you speak of are obviously blind to physical reality. It sounds so much like Greek mythology.

 

Also thinking is a function of the mind. The Self (Unconditioned consciousness) is not the mind. The mind is simply a perceptive-cognitive tool like the sensory organs.

 

Thinking is a function of the brain. Period. The mind is a receptor only. There is no self without a functioning brain. That is science.

 

The Self is beyond duality. So Yin and Yang do not affect it. Is Tao affected by Yin and Yang?

 

Wrong. It is only when you are 100% immersed in wu that there is no duality within your mind. And then, if you ever attain 100% wu you have lost your mind. (I think some Buddhists have attained 100% wu.) Yin and Yang (the polarities of Chi) effect everything in the Manifest and the Mystery. It is the effect of Chi on the Mystery that creates the Manifest.

 

Chi (Yin and Yang) is a component of Tao. All is Tao.

 

Co-rising is a phenomenon as are all things that co-rise. The Self is eternal and self-existent, so it has not co-risen. It is not a phenomenon so it is not subject to the travesties of time. You are again mistaking the limited identity for the Self. I did warn that there is a syntactical discord afoot here.

 

Everything! Everything, every event, every phenomenon, everything is subject to the laws of Nature. Nothing, no-thing exists or comes into existence on its own accord. The process of cause and effect applies to everything and every non-thing in the universe. Even the processes of Tao are in accordance with Tzujan.

 

Self does not exist without a body and a functioning brain. Self being conscious self-recognition.

 

No, there is no such thing as a body being born and then some pre-existing Self being thrown into the body. That is poppy-cock; ancient mythology. How can one look at the physical world, read up on new scientific facts as they are acquired and still believe something like that?

 

And besides, it is totally illogical. It is like saying that 1 plus 1 equals three.

 

No, I have not mistaken the limited identity for the Self. I am being realistic. I am considering the obvious. I am considering what the sciences know about life and human life in particular. What you have described would be supernatural. There is no such thing as a supernatural event. Never has been, never will be.

 

And please don't come back and tell me that you remember such and such an event that happened to you in a previous life. If you do that I will have to ask management to create a SyFi forum here so that stuff like that can be discussed.

 

Regardless of what our belief system is we need to stay with what is real and verifiable else we are just fooling ourself and causing others confusion. There is no such thing as magic - it is illusion. There are no such thing as ghosts - that is delusion.

 

Be well!

[Vajrahridaya]

The Buddha did not know anything about what would happen next, let alone about after you die. No one knows that. He saw 'Truth', as in the noble ones, but could not know with absolute certainty what would be next. How could he? He had not died before.

 

The only people who say that with certainty are those that have not had very deep experiences in meditation. To people who are attached to this limitation or limited level of experienced perception, one can just teach the way's of virtue, the 4 immeasurables.

 

 

Answer, please: does consciousness exist outside of the universe? If, in the next instant, all the mass in the Universe were to reverse itself and begin to collapse into a single point again, would consciousness still exist? Could Gautama have said that absolutely would not happen? Do the Buddha realms survive if the universe does itself does not?

 

According to Buddhism there are many universes existing in parallel but connected dimensions.

 

You might get off on some "Vasistha's Yoga" (Hindu Cosmology) or some "Myriad Worlds" (Buddhist Cosmology).

 

Until then, my reasoning is using as reference entirely different realms of experience and human potentiality which you doubt the validity of.

 

I wish you well though.

[Lucky7Strikes]

The seers and those who have reached the pinnacles of meditation do not agree. They claim that the Self continues in spite of the manifest body.

 

Also thinking is a function of the mind. The Self (Unconditioned consciousness) is not the mind. The mind is simply a perceptive-cognitive tool like the sensory organs.

The Self is beyond duality. So Yin and Yang do not affect it. Is Tao affected by Yin and Yang?

Co-rising is a phenomenon as are all things that co-rise. The Self is eternal and self-existent, so it has not co-risen. It is not a phenomenon so it is not subject to the travesties of time. You are again mistaking the limited identity for the Self. I did warn that there is a syntactical discord afoot here.

 

Although I don't completely agree with what Marble said, he has a good point in that there is nothing that is an exception to the laws of the universe. Also that to look beyond personal experience and reifying a mystical "Self" beyond one's own body and mind is just plain worship.

 

You yourself agreed that the Self is all that is. That it is non-dual. So no one can make a mistake of identifying with anything. This includes the Yin and Yang.

 

I guess "co-arising" is not a clear term. Co-dependent is more like it. All things work relatively, reflecting phoenema as intentions lead it to. The Buddhists might not agree with this, but I see intention and consciousness as interchangeable terms in terms of experience. What you intend, you experience. It is just intentions affecting and being affected. You don't have to have some mystical experiences to observe this.

 

The Self is eternal but only in the sense that it is empty and dependent. Existence is eternal, but no "identity" is, except for endless virtue. Recognizing the Way in which Yin and Yang dynamically move in harmony until this law and "you" have totally become one.

 

Hahaha, you might call it love. AWWWWWWW. .

Edited August 15, 2009 by Lucky7Strikes

[Vajrahridaya]

Apparently they have been smoking way too much pot and popping way too many pills.

 

I haven't been into pot since 99'. But... pills? I sometimes use pain killer. Ooooooo...

 

If it is so that the Self continues after the body dies I would really like to talk with one of them.

 

One can cultivate the ability to talk to ghosts through meditation. Also, science does not totally agree with you on the idea that there are no ghosts, or no conscious experiences beyond the body. There are some unexplained phenomena provably existent that are not explained with the idea that all reality is limited by the 5 sense dimension or being housed in a body/brain complex. I think that if you think that this is the only reality, that you are quite delusional. You are completely fooled by your senses. Look at even the problem with solidity, it's a lie that your 5 senses read, it's a dimension that is recorded by your 5 senses, but in reality it's all non-solid vibration and science proves this.

 

Supposedly certain animals have the capacity through their senses to pick up dimensions of energy that exist but we cannot read through the limits of our human senses. Your idea of solidity is a lie that your brain reads through a limited field of human perception tools, eyes, nose, skin, ear drums, tongue. If we were to put your brain into a cats potential, you'd be surprised what other forms of Earth bound realities there are available to experience. Of course the human brain works specifically with human eyes, but you get the metaphor, don't you?

 

To think that consciousness is merely a product of brain is delusional to me. To think that science is the new absolute truth machine is a silly notion. These scientific machines are built by our brains through our bodies using elements detectable by our 5 senses, and now subtler, because we build machines using other machines that detect dimensions of material existence that is only detectable through the machines that we have built. The brain has way more potential if tapped into through meditation practice and energy cultivation. Of course to a Buddhist, the mind which transcends the brain, but experiences 3 dimensional friction through the brain, can experience much subtler forms of perception that transcend the need for physical eyes. This is tapped into, only through meditation practices.

 

Take care!

[Vajrahridaya]

The Buddhists might not agree with this, but I see intention and consciousness as interchangeable terms in terms of experience. What you intend, you experience. It is just intentions affecting and being affected. You don't have to have some mystical experiences to observe this.

 

Buddhists totally agree with this. Which is why we say that the ultimate Truth is not an experience beyond concepts, because that is just a state of meditation, that when you come out of, everything of concepts starts to be re-experienced through the light of consciousness, so one starts to think that this state of consciousness became all of these things and everyone and one makes the mistaken cognition that all things come from this one state of consciousness that's beyond concepts and time. The Buddha said that this too is dependently originated and not the ultimate Truth. It's a good practice to clear the mind and hone the will and focus. But you are absolutely right, we agree that what we experience is directly co-related with what we intend and depending on various conditions, this comes about either immediately or after a certain amount of time. Which is why we don't call consciousness the ultimate truth and we don't call an experience of conscoiusness as the ultimate truth. We call the quality of emptiness of all interdependency, all relativity as the ultimate truth. There is no state of consciousness that is the end all be all. There is just the realization that is the recognition of how all things work. Dependent origination and emptiness.. and that includes intent preceding experience, even if the memory of the intent of an arising experience has long faded, and the experience is seen as coming out of no-where, we still see that experience as having causes and conditions, even if not remembered, from past lives or whatever.

The Self is eternal but only in the sense that it is empty and dependent. Existence is eternal, but no "identity" is, except for endless virtue. Recognizing the Way in which Yin and Yang dynamically move in harmony until this law and "you" have totally become one.

 

Hahaha, you might call it love. AWWWWWWW. .

The relative self is eternal only due to the endlessness of the chain of cause and effect, at first kept together through clinging to identity, then kept together by using that metaphysical coagulation as a vessel for offering.

 

Have you seen the movie, "Brother Sun, Sister Moon?" I love that movie. Yes, it's theistic, but it's a great move regardless and if one just see's it for what it is... so inspiring. It's a movie by Franco Zeffirelli about St. Francis of Assisi? Zeffirelli also did the 60's Romeo and Juliet and also, Endless Love, now mostly does set designs for Operas at the Metropolitan Opera House in NY and I suppose other big Opera houses. I've seen one of his backdrops for an Opera at the Met, very beautiful.

[Marblehead]

 

One can cultivate the ability to talk to ghosts through meditation. Also, science does not totally agree with you on the idea that there are no ghosts, or no conscious experiences beyond the body. There are some unexplained phenomena provably existent that are not explained with the idea that all reality is limited by the 5 sense dimension or being housed in a body/brain complex. I think that if you think that this is the only reality, that you are quite delusional. You are completely fooled by your senses. Look at even the problem with solidity, it's a lie that your 5 senses read, it's a dimension that is recorded by your 5 senses, but in reality it's all non-solid vibration and science proves this.

 

Oh, come on. Schizophrenics do that naturally. Who's science are you referring to? That stuff on the History and Discovery channels? I have never seen one drop of proof that ghosts exist. Real science laughs at such suggestions. To think that there are other realities is a trait of schizophrenics. I am reassured by my senses, thank you. Your last sentence is an abortion of the truth. Actually, more at a miscarriage. The vibrations are so close together so that it presents itself as a solid and that's all that matters.

 

Supposedly certain animals have the capacity through their senses to pick up dimensions of energy that exist but we cannot read through the limits of our human senses. Your idea of solidity is a lie that your brain reads through a limited field of human perception tools, eyes, nose, skin, ear drums, tongue. If we were to put your brain into a cats potential, you'd be surprised what other forms of Earth bound realities there are available to experience. Of course the human brain works specifically with human eyes, but you get the metaphor, don't you?

 

Ah! Your first sentence is a truth!!! Note my repudiation above to your second sentence. You are wrong in sentence three. A cats senses are such that they allow a cat to function efficiently in physical reality. I have no need for a cat's senses as I have no need to catch a mouse and eat it. Indeed, all species evolve so that they can function most efficiently in the physical world. Evolution did the human species a naughty by evolving a function capable of imagining things that do not and cannot exist.

 

To think that consciousness is merely a product of brain is delusional to me. To think that science is the new absolute truth machine is a silly notion. These scientific machines are built by our brains through our bodies using elements detectable by our 5 senses, and now subtler, because we build machines using other machines that detect dimensions of material existence that is only detectable through the machines that we have built. The brain has way more potential if tapped into through meditation practice and energy cultivation. Of course to a Buddhist, the mind which transcends the brain, but experiences 3 dimensional friction through the brain, can experience much subtler forms of perception that transcend the need for physical eyes. This is tapped into, only through meditation practices.

 

Well, I guess I appear to be delusional to you. But then, that doesn't really matter. I never suggested that science is the new absolute truth. But I'll tell you what. I will put more faith in my own observation and analysis than I would ever put into the idea of the existence of ghosts.

 

So if the Buddhists have such immaculate powerswhile in this state of omniscience why is it that none have ever presented any solid information that would help the world be a better place. All I hear is that they suggest that we pretend that it doesn't really exist so don't worry about it.

 

Please! Please! Show me a mind that is still functioning after the brain has been removed from the body. The mind CANNOT transcend the brain! That is a fact! There is no mind without a brain.

 

So what was your point about man making machines that can detect things that a human's senses are incapable of detecting?

 

You are not going to tell me now that you are capable of seeing neutrinos while you are in deep meditation, are you?

 

Be well!

[dwai]

Apparently they have been smoking way too much pot and popping way too many pills.

 

If it is so that the Self continues after the body dies I would really like to talk with one of them.

 

The seers you speak of are obviously blind to physical reality. It sounds so much like Greek mythology.

Thinking is a function of the brain. Period. The mind is a receptor only. There is no self without a functioning brain. That is science.

 

Said like an abject materialist. But despite it all, you cannot for once prove that I am wrong. Like I disclaimed earlier, The Self is beyond reason. It is noumenon, which cannot be captured by reason.

 

Wrong. It is only when you are 100% immersed in wu that there is no duality within your mind. And then, if you ever attain 100% wu you have lost your mind. (I think some Buddhists have attained 100% wu.) Yin and Yang (the polarities of Chi) effect everything in the Manifest and the Mystery. It is the effect of Chi on the Mystery that creates the Manifest.

 

Chi (Yin and Yang) is a component of Tao. All is Tao.

Everything! Everything, every event, every phenomenon, everything is subject to the laws of Nature. Nothing, no-thing exists or comes into existence on its own accord. The process of cause and effect applies to everything and every non-thing in the universe. Even the processes of Tao are in accordance with Tzujan.

 

And I claim that Tao IS The Self.

 

Self does not exist without a body and a functioning brain. Self being conscious self-recognition.

 

No, there is no such thing as a body being born and then some pre-existing Self being thrown into the body. That is poppy-cock; ancient mythology. How can one look at the physical world, read up on new scientific facts as they are acquired and still believe something like that?

 

And besides, it is totally illogical. It is like saying that 1 plus 1 equals three.

 

Are you one of those Taoists who don't believe that Chi is Energy but is "Bio-mechanical alignment" or some baloney like that?

 

No, I have not mistaken the limited identity for the Self. I am being realistic. I am considering the obvious. I am considering what the sciences know about life and human life in particular. What you have described would be supernatural. There is no such thing as a supernatural event. Never has been, never will be.

 

And please don't come back and tell me that you remember such and such an event that happened to you in a previous life. If you do that I will have to ask management to create a SyFi forum here so that stuff like that can be discussed.

 

Regardless of what our belief system is we need to stay with what is real and verifiable else we are just fooling ourself and causing others confusion. There is no such thing as magic - it is illusion. There are no such thing as ghosts - that is delusion.

 

Be well!

 

Empirical evidence works in this field too. You only have to meditate. Hundreds of thousands before us have meditated and come to the realization that There Is A Self, but is not the limited entity that each of us are.

 

Why do you Cultivate Chi? The ultimate goal of Chi Cultivation is to Realize Tao. No one can sit and speculate intellectually and realize Tao or go seeking Tao in measurements. That doesn't mean that Tao doesn't exist or if it does it is only an epistemological existence. Tao exists, period. Tao cannot be described because by describing it, you are limiting it within the boundaries of a categorical framework.

 

Taoists did Chi Cultivation and meditation to gleam insights into something that is beyond perception and conception. That's why TTC says "Tao that can be spoken is not the real Tao".

 

The same is true for Yogic meditations as well.

 

The "Laws of Nature" are defied at will by Taoists and Yogis who know how to harness their Chi.

 

Science is very limited in what it can understand. And this limitation it puts on itself. With it's insistence on Objectivity. When we are dealing with Non-duality, there CAN BE NO Subject or Object. It is simply Subject, that's all.