Clearing up Buddhism by the thuscomeone

[Mark Foote]

"clearing up" was clearing up what I have learned myself so far and then sharing it with others

 

hey, tathagatha,

 

how ya doin'!

 

I think our "takes" are always going to be in flux, but given that fact of existence, I'd like to mention the things I find important in grabbing the rope lift.

 

First, it's about suffering, as far as the truths the Gautamid had to offer. If suffering exists, then practice and the truths have meaning, and only if suffering exists.

 

The Gautamid taught a practice that begins with sitting cross-legged and holding the body upright. He stated that his own practice was the intent contemplation of in-breaths and out-breaths, both before and after enlightenment. He taught that by attendence to sense-organ, sense-contact, consciousness arising with sense-organ/sense-contact, impact connected with consciousness, and feeling connected with consciousness and impact (with regard to each of the six senses), all the factors of enlightenment develop toward fruition.

 

In my experience, when I am just sitting, sense-organ, sense-contact, consciousness, impact, and feeling sit the posture. That means the experience acts, with no intermediary. And the experience can get up and walk around. Shunryu Suzuki made a beautiful explanation that somebody captured on video, here:

 

The Gautamid spoke of the cessation of the activities, which he said was gradual. These are the cessation of the activity of speech, the cessation of the activity of body, and the cessation of the activity of mind. By activity, he meant volitive action. Thus the cessation of the activity of speech is not necessarily the cessation of speech, the cessation of the activity of body is not necessarily the cessation of movement, and the cessation of mind (or of perception and sensation) is not necessarily the cessation of the occurrence of perception and sensation. Speech ceases in the first rupa jhana (material elements trance), the influence of volition on the in-breath and out-breath ceases in the fourth rupa jhana, and the influence of volition on perception and sensation ceases in the fifth arupa jhana (immaterial elements trance.

 

Karma is connected with the exercise of volition. The ignorance involved in the exercise of volition creates a station of consciousness, the station of consciousness gives rise to sense-contact that ultimately results in the identification of self with the material, with feeling, with mind, with activity, or with consciousness. The identification of self is suffering.

 

As to where all this is hiding, I hope we can drop like a baby and roll like a log today.

 

yers, Mark

[xabir2005]

Hello Xabir,

 

I cant get my head around a couple of points you made here. It would be helpful if you could expand on:

 

1. "Awareness is deemed irrelevant - it becomes implied." (Can you give some examples of when awareness

becomes irrelevant?)

 

2. "Eventually when the subject is gone, there is just arising and passing phenomena which is implicitly non-dual

as there is no subject to divide". (Is the subject not a part of [within] this arising and passing of

phenomena? If so, does the subject not arise and pass as phenomena arises and passes?)

 

3. (If duality is not within one's consciousness, what supports one's non-dual experiences?)

 

I would be most grateful if you could offer some views regarding these 3 thoughts. I am new here, so if this sort of questions are inappropriate, i am sorry.

 

Regards,

 

CT

Hi CT,

 

1. When there is no longer any line between Awareness and the passing sound, the passing scent, the passing thought, then there is no longer a sense of 'Awareness' being more special than all these transient and intrinsically luminous phenomena. The process itself rolls and knows, no knower is required, there isn't an 'Awareness' other than this.

 

2. No subject and object means there's no sense of a separate self apart from these arising and passing phenomena. There is no subject... just these arising and passing phenomena.

 

3. I'm not sure if I get your question. Subject/object duality is a deeply held view that affects our entire mode of seeing. We feel deeply that what we experienced, the sights, sounds, etc. are 'out there' while I am 'in here' as an inner experiencer of things. Non-duality is the nature of reality, it is not that it is a stage where 'I' become 'everything'. It is simply that the nature of reality is already never divided into a seer and seen, experiencer and experience. In seeing there is just scenery, no seer. In hearing there is just sounds, no hearer. In thinking just thoughts, no thinker.. etc. This has always already been so. Hence you don't 'enter' into non-duality, you realise it.

Edited October 26, 2009 by xabir2005

[rebelrebel]

Hmmm I don't think that what thuscomeone is trying to get at has been properly attended to yet. I think (but I don't know!) that he is trying to say that, or ask if, this awareness - seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, - that is inseperable from phenomena and that phenomena cannot BE without was present before there were any sentient beings on the earth. If there were phenomena at that time and even without sentient beings, this awareness had to be present. Thus if that were true, it would prove that this awareness does not come into being only when sentient beings are around. In other words, seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching do not only come from sentient beings. Thus this awareness would not depend upon sentient beings. If it were to be dependent on sentient beings, that would mean that phenomena themselves are dependent on sentient beings and cannot be without sentient beings. That seems absurd and can't be what this is pointing to, can it? So, anyway, this awareness would be an awareness that, one could say, is objectively present at all times. It is and always has been, whether there are sentient beings or not. Sentient beings thus do not create this awareness, it does not come into being solely with them, rather what is already ever present is experienced subjectively, or one could say "tuned" into, by individual human beings dependent upon the conditions of their ears, eyes, noses, etc...

 

 

Make any sense? lol

Edited October 26, 2009 by rebelrebel

[goldisheavy]

Hmmm, maybe it is important to acknowledge that discernment is always an important part of any advanced practice, is it not?

 

Hard to say. This could be good or bad depending on your state of mind. It's like you're saying, "I'm about to drink 2 glasses of water, will it be good for me?" I'd say yes unless you already suffer from water poisoning, in which case I'd say no, as even 1 extra glass could kill you.

 

If in your state you start to lose referentiality such as to what is Tree or You and what is Mind or Observing Mind, does that become evidentiary proof that you are empty, have experienced emptiness or that things are inherently empty?

 

There is no way to prove emptiness with experience. Because if you single out some experience as proof of the empty nature of phenomena, you probably hold on to the idea that the other phenomena do not make their own empty nature evident. That's a very bad idea to cherish and as long as that idea is there, you don't quite understand emptiness of the Buddhist variety.

 

Are these still conceptions?

 

Hard to say. Is conception a conception? Well, if you understand that there are no stable identities than maybe you understand that there is no substantial difference between what is considered conceptual and what is considered non-conceptual.

 

So WHO is the perceiver of these THINGS or NON-THINGS?

 

It's much better and easier to dig into the identity as a principle, and to use other things as examples or targets for your identity contemplation. Once your contemplation of the emptiness of enduring identities of all phenomena reaches maturity, the question about your own identity will have been resolved by then, automatically.

 

On the other hand, if you try to approach your own self-identity head on, you risk becoming deluded, because in that case, the risk is that your mind will attach itself to a conclusion of some kind and will fail to reach an unconcluded and open state.

 

The Gautamid spoke of the cessation of the activities, which he said was gradual. These are the cessation of the activity of speech, the cessation of the activity of body, and the cessation of the activity of mind. By activity, he meant volitive action. Thus the cessation of the activity of speech is not necessarily the cessation of speech, the cessation of the activity of body is not necessarily the cessation of movement, and the cessation of mind (or of perception and sensation) is not necessarily the cessation of the occurrence of perception and sensation. Speech ceases in the first rupa jhana (material elements trance), the influence of volition on the in-breath and out-breath ceases in the fourth rupa jhana, and the influence of volition on perception and sensation ceases in the fifth arupa jhana (immaterial elements trance.

 

Karma is connected with the exercise of volition. The ignorance involved in the exercise of volition creates a station of consciousness, the station of consciousness gives rise to sense-contact that ultimately results in the identification of self with the material, with feeling, with mind, with activity, or with consciousness. The identification of self is suffering.

 

I think this can be both helpful and harmful. It's helpful in a sense that this can lead to a healthy relaxation with regard to phenomena. It's harmful in that the context for "volitive activity has now ceased" is the idea that "volitive activity has previously been operative". However, if you believe that volition can be operative one moment, and yet cease another, you clearly don't understand the nature of volition as a single experiential continuum that embraces strong exertion on one end and utmost non-interference on the other end. You must understand the singleness of this entire continuum of volition and avoid the mistake of associating volition solely with exertion, which is what worldly beings do.

Edited October 26, 2009 by goldisheavy

[Mark Foote]

 

I think this can be both helpful and harmful. It's helpful in a sense that this can lead to a healthy relaxation with regard to phenomena. It's harmful in that the context for "volitive activity has now ceased" is the idea that "volitive activity has previously been operative". However, if you believe that volition can be operative one moment, and yet cease another, you clearly don't understand the nature of volition as a single experiential continuum that embraces strong exertion on one end and utmost non-interference on the other end. You must understand the singleness of this entire continuum of volition and avoid the mistake of associating volition solely with exertion, which is what worldly beings do.

I was just explaining the teachings of the Pali sermon volumes regarding karma, on account of "thuscomeone" asked for an explanation. Does volition cease in perception and sensation? Yes, suddenly. Is the means of that cessation obtainable through words and texts? Not actually. Does it have to do with the end of suffering?

 

The exercise of will, intent, these are the things that are spoken of in the Pali cannon in association with becoming in the future. If you are looking to live the life of purity to realize an end of suffering, then the cessation of speech, of body, and of mind are your compass, the very ground under your feet- are they not?

 

yers Mark

[goldisheavy]

[Lucky7Strikes]

The only way that the mind can perceive substantial and clear differences is if those differences were never questioned. Buddha Dharma can be said to be a method of questioning the substantiality of differences. So, it's true that Buddha went on to say this and that, making use of language in a semi-dogmatic way, and in a way that sometimes makes it seem like Buddha hasn't taken his own doctrine to heart (a type of do as I say and not as I do scenario). When you speak, and even when Buddha speaks, depending on the mind of the listener he's making many errors. On the other hand, there are some minds within which no speech is an error (no matter how apparently deluded it may seem to others). Why? Because the meaning of Buddha's words is dependently arisen together with the propensities of your very own mentality. In some sense Buddha is a fiction of your mind, and taking that fiction too seriously is precisely against Buddha's intent.

It depends. In Buddha's time there were people who reached cessation through a tiny mention of Dharma. There were others who needed Buddha's vigilant assistance for 2 weeks. There were others who struggled their entire lifetime and even though they have engaged in all manner of efforts, under Buddha's own guidance no less, still failed to reach it.

 

There is a reason why Ananda is the one who hears all the sutras, memorizes them, attends to the Buddha, but is one of the last disciples to attain enlightenment.

[thuscomeone]

Hmmm I don't think that what thuscomeone is trying to get at has been properly attended to yet. I think (but I don't know!) that he is trying to say that, or ask if, this awareness - seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, - that is inseperable from phenomena and that phenomena cannot BE without was present before there were any sentient beings on the earth. If there were phenomena at that time and even without sentient beings, this awareness had to be present. Thus if that were true, it would prove that this awareness does not come into being only when sentient beings are around. In other words, seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching do not only come from sentient beings. Thus this awareness would not depend upon sentient beings. If it were to be dependent on sentient beings, that would mean that phenomena themselves are dependent on sentient beings and cannot be without sentient beings. That seems absurd and can't be what this is pointing to, can it? So, anyway, this awareness would be an awareness that, one could say, is objectively present at all times. It is and always has been, whether there are sentient beings or not. Sentient beings thus do not create this awareness, it does not come into being solely with them, rather what is already ever present is experienced subjectively, or one could say "tuned" into, by individual human beings dependent upon the conditions of their ears, eyes, noses, etc...

Make any sense? lol

Yes Yes! This is it! I couldn't figure out how to word it properly. You've said it better than I could.

[Lucky7Strikes]

Awareness and sentience...I think the two are interchangeable. What makes a sentient being sentient, what makes awareness aware?

[rebelrebel]

Awareness and sentience...I think the two are interchangeable. What makes a sentient being sentient, what makes awareness aware?

Yes that's true but what were saying is that if phenomena are non dual, meaning that they basically ARE awareness and cannot be without awareness and there must be phenomena present when sentient beings are not present, then there is a deeper awareness which makes up the phenomenal world which is present regardless of whether sentient BEINGS are present.

[Lucky7Strikes]

Yes that's true but what were saying is that if phenomena are non dual, meaning that they basically ARE awareness and cannot be without awareness and there must be phenomena present when sentient beings are not present, then there is a deeper awareness which makes up the phenomenal world which is present regardless of whether sentient BEINGS are present.

 

In my opinion,

 

There is no deeper awareness. It is what you are right now. In fact, there are no sentient beings. They are like flowers in the sky, only in your awareness/mind's discriminations. .

 

You are awareness, and awareness creates. It is intent. Cultivating this awareness is practice. Its purity and freedom is enlightenment.

[C T]

"Men are accustomed to state this 'is' and that 'is not', but for him who perceives wisely and according to the truth how all things are brought about in the world, for such a one, there is no 'is not'. And for him who perceives wisely and according to the truth of how all things in the world perish, for such a one there is no 'is'. Everything 'is', is one extreme; nothing 'is', is the other extreme. I teach between the two, the middle way, the truth of interdependent origination". - Buddha

[Lucky7Strikes]

"Men are accustomed to state this 'is' and that 'is not', but for him who perceives wisely and according to the truth how all things are brought about in the world, for such a one, there is no 'is not'. And for him who perceives wisely and according to the truth of how all things in the world perish, for such a one there is no 'is'. Everything 'is', is one extreme; nothing 'is', is the other extreme. I teach between the two, the middle way, the truth of interdependent origination". - Buddha

 

But it is and is not! .

[goldisheavy]

Just to add on a little to my previous post...

 

By saying Awareness is the source of one's experience, is to allow the practitioner to have direct experience of this non-dual awareness, then one must start eliminating the idea of Awareness being the 'source', because that will bring the practitioner to the focus of a center. What Thuscomeone logically deduced must also be supported with direct experience of Awareness itself... this will lead to a direct experience of non-dual luminosity.

 

So what thuscomeone said is important but there are 2 more important points:

 

1. Whenever and wherever there is (phenomena), there is Awareness. Therefore there will come a time 'Awareness' is deemed irrelevant.. it becomes implied.

 

You don't want to do that. All phenomena arise within some larger context which is outside the phenomenon under attention. This is why awareness is more than just phenomena. Awareness points to the informational wholeness wherein some phenomenon or other is just one aspect.

 

So talking about awareness has special meaning beyond just talking about phenomena.

 

2. Change the view so that Awareness is not made something more special so that practitioner can give rise to the insight that sees D.O. and self-liberation.

 

D.O. is an illusion though. It's skillful means that works well to bring the mind out of perceiving things in terms of substances. However, once you understand things to be insubstantial, DO must be dissolved via investigating DO itself as a well-defined process. Inquire whether or not DO has a stable identity and can always be identified as itself. Could you tell a dependently arisen object from an independently arisen one, if such things existed? See, dependency is taken for granted by materialists, that's why DO works well to trash their mindset. However, if you can understand beyond substance, is DO still true? Check it out. What gives conditions a status of certainty? What is the basis for conditions? Dependencies have the nature of appearances like rainbows appearing inside darkness or like the appearance of a tortoise fur. It's a grave mistake to think that things are apparitional because of conditions, but conditions themselves are really true -- this is like jumping from the fire and onto the grindstone.

 

If there is endless non-dual moments without beginning and end (for there is no moment nor is there such a point in time that there is a separation), then how can awareness be The Source?

 

To say that awareness is the source is skillful means too. For whom? It is skillful for those who distinguish awareness from that which is thought to be outside of awareness. Again, materialists come to mind. Those guys think that objects exists inherently in and of themselves and sort of come into awareness haphazardly through the sense organs, but they might also just "stay there" and not come in. So for people who think that away, telling them about awareness and how it is the source of all things, it is illuminating and challenging. They have to fight very hard to understand the implications of this, to understand the uncertain and intimate nature of perceptions.

 

Once they understand this, seeing awareness as the source makes no sense, since there is nothing "other than awareness". However awareness is still a damn useful idea and shouldn't be discarded.

 

The idea of an 'ultimate source' is not necessary by supporting this non-dual realization with the right view.

 

Eventually when the subject is gone, there is just arising and passing phenomena which is implictly non-dual as there is no subject to divide. And that is perfect okay because the right view of Buddhism perfectly supports this non-dual experience.

 

Not necessarily. You can have plenty of hang ups and problems left at that stage. Or, you can say it this way, living with pain and suffering is perfectly OK. If your "perfectly OK" includes everything, it is both correct and meaningless at the same time.

 

In short... a 'source' is just a convenient reference for a practitioner to get to certain insights, but nothing to attach to, nothing ultimate.

 

Exactly. The same thing is true about all other aspects of Buddha Dharma, including DO. It's just skillful means and not dogma. And you have to keep in mind that skillful means only work against certain mentalities. They fail miserably if the right mentality is not there.

 

For example, if you give tylenol to a healthy person, you can make them sicker. Medicine is not something that should be gobbled down without end. It should be used judiciously. This means one has to be honest about one's life. Is it really working for you in your life? Is the teaching transformational? If yes, use it. If not, don't use it.

 

Skillful means work with our own prejudices. Buddha takes whatever prejudice and fixation you have and uses it skillfully against itself.

Edited October 27, 2009 by goldisheavy

[Vajrahridaya]

But it is and is not! .

 

This is the kind of paradoxical view that arises when one reifies awareness and thinks it's the truth and all else is false.

 

Dependent origination reveals that it neither is, nor is not, not both, not neither.

Edited October 27, 2009 by Vajrahridaya

[Lucky7Strikes]

This is the kind of paradoxical view that arises when one reifies awareness and thinks it's the truth and all else is false.

 

Dependent origination reveals that it neither is, nor is not, not both, not neither.

 

I can't reify what I am. .

 

Always transforming, always changing, all without a center. There is no center, the center is complemented through reflections.

 

Vaj, if you continue to insist that you are the product of causes and conditions, why can't you see that causes and conditions are themselves illusionary distinctions?

Edited October 27, 2009 by Lucky7Strikes

[rebelrebel]

This is the kind of paradoxical view that arises when one reifies awareness and thinks it's the truth and all else is false.

 

Dependent origination reveals that it neither is, nor is not, not both, not neither.

See though I'm not trying to reify awareness here. We have concluded that is empty yet we have also concluded that it is undeniably present. What I am am trying to inquire into now is the specifics of how and in what way it is present.

Edited October 27, 2009 by rebelrebel

[Vajrahridaya]

See though I'm not trying to reify awareness here. We have concluded that is empty yet we have also concluded that it is undeniably present. What I am am trying to inquire into now is the specifics of how and in what way it is present.

 

Your awareness is present due to an endless line of present awareness'.

[Lucky7Strikes]

Your awareness is present due to an endless line of present awareness.

 

This is partially right in my view. Your awareness's existence is not dependent, as in it will never cease to exist. Its contents and its experiences however can only be continued through reflection of others that creates an illusionary subject/object relationship.

Edited October 27, 2009 by Lucky7Strikes

[xabir2005]

Yes that's true but what were saying is that if phenomena are non dual, meaning that they basically ARE awareness and cannot be without awareness and there must be phenomena present when sentient beings are not present, then there is a deeper awareness which makes up the phenomenal world which is present regardless of whether sentient BEINGS are present.

This is not the case, actually.

 

The Buddha taught:

 

(Sabba Sutta)

 

"Monks, I will teach you the All. Listen & pay close attention. I will speak."

 

"As you say, lord," the monks responded.

 

The Blessed One said, "What is the All? Simply the eye & forms, ear & sounds, nose & aromas, tongue & flavors, body & tactile sensations, intellect & ideas. This, monks, is called the All. [1] Anyone who would say, 'Repudiating this All, I will describe another,' if questioned on what exactly might be the grounds for his statement, would be unable to explain, and furthermore, would be put to grief. Why? Because it lies beyond range."

 

(Shurangama Sutra)

 

(44) Further, the good person has thoroughly seen the formations skandha as empty. He has already ended production and destruction, but he has not yet perfected the subtle wonder of ultimate serenity.

 

Based on his idea that there is universal awareness, he formulates a theory that all the plants and trees in the ten directions are sentient, not different from human beings. He claims that plants and trees can become people, and that when people die they again become plants and trees in the ten directions. If he considers this idea of unrestricted, universal awareness to be supreme, he will fall into the error of maintaining that what is not aware has awareness. Vasishtha and Sainika, who maintained the idea of comprehensive awareness, will become his companions. Confused about the Bodhi of the Buddhas, he will lose his knowledge and understanding.

 

This is the fourth state, in which he creates an erroneous interpretation based on the idea that there is a universal awareness. He strays far from perfect penetration and turns his back on the City of Nirvana, thus sowing the seeds of a distorted view of awareness.

 

 

In other words, as Lucky said, awareness is sentience. It is simply sensate reality as it is. We don't talk about a universal awareness out of which sentient beings emerge, that would be reifying it. The physical elements are non-sentient.

 

Non-dual awareness dependently originates with everything else, the 'other conditions' may be conscious beings or unconscious elements.

Edited October 27, 2009 by xabir2005

[rebelrebel]

Your awareness is present due to an endless line of present awareness'.

Yes...but here is what we are trying to get at. Xabir and Thuscomeone had a discussion on non duality. This non duality supposedly means that phenomena and awareness - seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, etc. are one in the same. Phenomena cannot be without awareness. Now my question and I think thuscomeone's question is, if this awareness is present wherever phenomena are, then, for instance, when there were no sentient beings on earth, was this awareness present? If there were phenomena at that time then it would have to be. What is being gotten at that this awareness doesn't depend on sentient beings, it is merely experienced by them...

 

Do you see the confusion here? By saying that wherever there is phenomena, there must be awareness, this is what it amounts to. Unless you go back on that statement or you are saying that sentient beings somehow create phenomena themselves.

 

What needs to be clarified is if when we talk about seeing and the scenery and hearing and sound being one are we talking about reality solely as it is experienced by human beings (sentient beings) or are we talking about reality outside of them as well?

Edited October 27, 2009 by rebelrebel

[Lucky7Strikes]

Yes...but here is what we are trying to get at. Xabir and Thuscomeone had a discussion on non duality. This non duality supposedly means that phenomena and awareness - seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, etc. are one in the same. Phenomena cannot be without awareness. Now my question and I think thuscomeone's question is, if this awareness is present wherever phenomena are, then, for instance, when there were no sentient beings on earth, was this awareness present? If there were phenomena at that time then it would have to be. What is being gotten at that this awareness doesn't depend on sentient beings, it is merely experienced by them...

 

Sentience = Awareness.

 

Without you there is no earth. There is no past, present, or future.

 

Your Awareness is unborn, unceasing, and will never die. Only its contents and experiences will change and cycle due to habitual actions and views i.e. Karma.

 

All phenomena is creates from a beginningless dream wherein in you see flowers in the sky arising out of nothing and seeing it as a distinct form of itself, one adheres to "this," and "that" creating objects to this relationship of causes and conditions. There is no object of dependence. Only the relationship exists.

Edited October 27, 2009 by Lucky7Strikes

[rebelrebel]

Sentience = Awareness.

 

Without you there is no earth. There is no past, present, or future.

 

Your Awareness is unborn, unceasing, and will never die. Only its contents and experiences will change and cycle due to habitual actions and vies i.e. Karma.

Huh? See this is why I'm so confused by awareness teachings. It always, no matter what, ends up sounding like some subtle form of solipsism. At least to me. That is what I get from you saying "without you there is no earth." Could you please clarify your post. I really have no idea what you are saying.

[Lucky7Strikes]

Huh? See this is why I'm so confused by awareness teachings. It always, no matter what, ends up sounding like some subtle form of solipsism. At least to me. That is what I get from you saying "without you there is no earth." Could you please clarify your post. I really have no idea what you are saying.

 

I don't know. Call it solipsism, I don't know much about it. .

 

Existence cannot be without awareness. This is a very obvious fact, since for something to know it exists, it must be aware. For something to be aware, it needs an objective reflection. Kind of like how you need a mirror to see your own face. So all kinds of creation is drempt of.

 

The reality you see and experience is a web of creations co created by others within that frequency/level of perception.

 

Well, that's just my idea anyway! .

Edited October 27, 2009 by Lucky7Strikes

[Vajrahridaya]

Yes...but here is what we are trying to get at. Xabir and Thuscomeone had a discussion on non duality. This non duality supposedly means that phenomena and awareness - seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, etc. are one in the same. Phenomena cannot be without awareness. Now my question and I think thuscomeone's question is, if this awareness is present wherever phenomena are, then, for instance, when there were no sentient beings on earth, was this awareness present? If there were phenomena at that time then it would have to be. What is being gotten at that this awareness doesn't depend on sentient beings, it is merely experienced by them...

 

No, it is the experience of phenomena that is one with awareness of the experience of phenomena, not that things and awareness are one, they are interdependent. Consciousness, earth, fire, air, water, ether. Awareness is an aspect of consciousness and is not an independent entity that is the true identity of a being. It's merely an aspect of your consciousness which originates dependently on an endless array of inter-dependence.

 

You awareness is one with the experiencing, not the experienced, though the experienced arises in a certain way due to causes and conditions based on attachment since beginningless time.

 

Yes, things exist without awareness, it's just that things arise due to consciousness, not to say that you are aware of the result of your attachments. Just as the higher realm beings were not aware of the effects of their thoughts and attachments, and little did they know that they were manifesting a 3 dimensional realm that this is from the potentiality left over from the last physical universe.

 

All you guys should read some Abhidharma as I suspect that you have not, including Lucky. The manifestation of things is an extremely complicated process that can really only be understood through experiencing the bodhi of the Buddhas. But, Abhidharma does attempt to put how things are into concepts and such in lots and lots of books.

 

Do you see the confusion here? By saying that wherever there is phenomena, there must be awareness, this is what it amounts to. Unless you go back on that statement or you are saying that sentient beings somehow create phenomena themselves.

 

We have manipulated the elements into this situation yes. But we weren't necessarily aware of the fact that we were doing so, so many trillions of Earth years ago before we first took birth into dense manifestations during this cosmic physical eon.

 

What needs to be clarified is if when we talk about seeing and the scenery and hearing and sound being one are we talking about reality solely as it is experienced by human beings (sentient beings) or are we talking about reality outside of them as well?

 

Yes, I just say study, "The Treasury of Knowledge". The answer is deeply complicated in conceptual form.

 

 

 

I don't know. Call it solipsism, I don't know much about it. .

 

Existence cannot be without awareness. This is a very obvious fact, since for something to know it exists, it must be aware. For something to be aware, it needs an objective reflection. Kind of like how you need a mirror to see your own face. So all kinds of creation is drempt of.

 

The reality you see and experience is a web of creations co created by others within that frequency/level of perception.

 

Well, that's just my idea anyway! .

 

Yes, you are right in a sense of course. But this is not solipsism per say. Because that is a completely deluded, self involved philosophy that doesn't recognize it's own inter-dependence.

Edited October 27, 2009 by Vajrahridaya