"there is such a self"

[Pero]

And so Pero, how does one reach Buddha hood when one is just the passing of causes and conditions? How does one reach there when there was never a "you"?

 

And so L7S how does one post a message when one is just the passing of causes and conditions? How does one post when there was never a "you"?

 

[Lucky7Strikes]

Even if you do not make the intent to stop all thoughts, presence-awareness is effortlessly present. It requires no effort.

not making effort, not making intent, is also intent. Presence-awareness is effortlessly present when awareness can experience that state and become accustomed to it. Habitualize it.

 

Usually in meditation we have an intention to stop thinking, and due to the intention, all other thoughts are dropped, including the original intention. However if it goes the wrong way, like 'me' trying to force out all thoughts, that is just more thoughts. However if we make no attempt at manipulating and just relax in Presence without attempting to do anything or manipulate thoughts (whether to stop it, analyze it, control it, etc), and at the same time make no attempt to chase after thoughts, eventually thoughts stop on its own accord.

Conditions are not pre determined by a previous condition. It interdependently originates with present conditions as well. Your intention to do something is not due to fate, but could be due to a reaction to your circumstances. Intention can manifest in any way and there is no fixed way it must go, but whatever arise, it does not arise independently apart from conditions but interdependently.

And how do circumstances arise? Don't they arise from past circumstances through cause? Or are you saying that the past arises from the present also? Ah, the past and present are interdependent. What distinguishes this moment from the next then, or the previous moment?

 

"reaction to circumstances" And where do these circumstances arise from, the past?

 

Ahhh, intentions and circumstances (if we take that to mean whatever experience that comes about) are interdependent. So they are not one....

 

No, arise and vanish on their own just means there is no person behind the thought, there is just the thought, arising and vanishing by itself. It does not mean it is determined by some other thing or some God or whatever. Nothing is determined. But they arise by itself without a separate controller. Thought makes descisions and thinks that there is a thinker that made it. A descision-thought could arise based on reflection on a previous thought or event and it appears as if there is a permanent agent behind and controlling the thoughts all along, but all there is is arising thoughts and never a thinker. Not sure if you get what I mean.

 

No but it is determined by previous conditions. And the condition before that. And how do conditions manifest? By causes...so causes after causes.....

 

I don't get what you mean, because you have not thought this through. According to you, the thoughts, thinker, the reflection are all simply happening without a doer but based on causes and conditions. Man, that is determinism. NO PERSON = determinism. NO DOER = determinism. NO FREE WILL = determinism.

 

Rolling pile of dirt.

 

NOTE: When I say awareness and what it is aware "of" are interdependent, I am not saying that awareness arises from that specific content of manifestation. Like my awareness is not dependent on the body. But it is dependent on the "nature" the "characteristic" of existing phenomena, such as the "body" ness.

 

And so L7S how does one post a message when one is just the passing of causes and conditions? How does one post when there was never a "you"?

 

 

EXACTLY. That's my point.

 

Apparently, in Xabir's model of reality, all this is simply arising and fading away of causes. So there's me typing this post, or rather, "typing" is being done.

Edited January 8, 2010 by Lucky7Strikes

[xabir2005]

Edited January 8, 2010 by xabir2005

[dwai]

[Lucky7Strikes]

[Pero]

EXACTLY. That's my point.

 

Sorry, I don't understand. You said that achieving Buddhahood through causes and conditions is a wrong view. Now you're saying it isn't?

 

 

Apparently, in Xabir's model of reality, all this is simply arising and fading away of causes. So there's me typing this post, or rather, "typing" is being done.

 

Well uh yeah, you were typing this post or typing was being done... I guess I could say there was a cause (I commented on something you wrote), there was an effect (you replying) which again because a cause and had an effect (me replying). You don't agree with this? Or is that not what you meant?

 

 

Sorry I'm a little confused by your message.

[dwai]

No it doesn't. The deterministic view doesn't have to imply a self. Drop a ball from top of a building. It falls due to nature of causes and conditions. It is determined to fall in the supposed calculated time frame.

So uh...I am the universe..being free doing whatever...

 

Ha...all the world suffering...just a manifestation of universal freedom? Nah. I'll pass.

Dammit Dwai I knew you were going to jump on this .

 

The poem conveys more than I do...read it

 

In another thread I had tried to tell you that ascribing Rational explanations to that which is Non-rational is well...excuse the pun, Irrational.

 

You or I or anyone else can never know why in a rational mode of inquiry because the source and Why is beyond reason. Why? Because Reason works in a phenomenal world. Something that is self-existent and eternal is non-phenomenal. So it is beyond rules, duality and since it is beyond rules, reason cannot be applied.

 

It is a difficult concept to understand, but you will one day, if you choose to stop defending your locus standi so vehemently (and you know what that indicates right?)

Edited January 8, 2010 by dwai

[xabir2005]

not making effort, not making intent, is also intent. Presence-awareness is effortlessly present when awareness can experience that state and become accustomed to it. Habitualize it.

Not making intent is not necessarily another intent, just as not thinking about ice cream is not another thought of ice cream. It just means not thinking of ice cream. (note: I'm not saying force yourself to stop thinking of ice cream, which would be willful and contrived)

 

Presence Awareness is always already present, some of us just didn't recognised it. But just because one is lost in one's imaginary identification and fails to notice awareness doesn't mean it's not there. It's nature is self-knowing presence. If we just take a look at the observer we discover that consciousness has always been there, present and cognizing the presence and absence of thoughts. The Presence is unfabricated, always present, but overlooked. It cannot be developed, but it can be recognised.

 

It is good to 'habitualize it', but at the same time one shouldn't mistake it as a state to attempt to stabilize in, i.e. 'rest the mind in Awareness' when Awareness is already always at rest and always stable (whereas 'unstable' thoughts occurs through consciousness). Any kind of effort, and attempt to re-confirm and abide is extra and more dualistic thought, projecting a distance of itself from itself.

 

What I wrote is above speaking from the perspective of the I AM/Eternal Witness.

Edited January 8, 2010 by xabir2005

[Lucky7Strikes]

Sorry, I don't understand. You said that achieving Buddhahood through causes and conditions is a wrong view. Now you're saying it isn't?

Well uh yeah, you were typing this post or typing was being done... I guess I could say there was a cause (I commented on something you wrote), there was an effect (you replying) which again because a cause and had an effect (me replying). You don't agree with this? Or is that not what you meant?

Sorry I'm a little confused by your message.

 

Oh sorry I read your post wrong.

 

The contents of causes and conditions are subjective creations of awareness. But that doesn't mean there aren't causes and conditions.

 

It's like a painter who sits to paint, and to know of his own existence, he has to paint, and there are characteristics (causes and conditions) to that painting, but it is subjetively created (usually by attachments and habits) by awareness through intent.

Edited January 8, 2010 by Lucky7Strikes

[Lucky7Strikes]

Not making intent is not necessarily another intent, just as not thinking about ice cream is not another thought of ice cream. It just means not thinking of ice cream. (note: I'm not saying force yourself to stop thinking of ice cream, which would be willful and contrived)

You are confusing content with the action itself. Intent is continuous because awareness and manifest phenomena dependently arise, meaning the interaction cannot cease. There is no break in intent. The decision "not to move" is intent just as the decision to move. Your analogy isn't very fitting here.

 

Presence Awareness is always already present, some of us just didn't recognised it. But just because one is lost in one's imaginary identification and fails to notice awareness doesn't mean it's not there. It's nature is self-knowing presence. If we just take a look at the observer we discover that consciousness has always been there, present and cognizing the presence and absence of thoughts. The Presence is unfabricated, always present, but overlooked. It cannot be developed, but it can be recognised.

 

It is good to 'habitualize it', but at the same time one shouldn't mistake it as a state to attempt to stabilize in, i.e. 'rest the mind in Awareness' when Awareness is already always at rest and always stable (whereas 'unstable' thoughts occurs through consciousness). Any kind of effort, and attempt to re-confirm and abide is extra and more dualistic thought, a movement away from I AM.

 

What I wrote is above speaking from the perspective of the I AM/Eternal Witness.

 

Actually it does mean it's not there. A person who has never seen the color yellow, will never know it without discovering it. And we can only say that in that person's reality, the color yellow does not exist but as a potential.

 

What you wrote above still doesn't explain fully why your view isn't deterministic/fatalistic.

 

 

The poem conveys more than I do...read it

 

In another thread I had tried to tell you that ascribing Rational explanations to that which is Non-rational is well...excuse the pun, Irrational.

 

You or I or anyone else can never know why in a rational mode of inquiry because the source and Why is beyond reason. Why? Because Reason works in a phenomenal world. Something that is self-existent and eternal is non-phenomenal. So it is beyond rules, duality and since it is beyond rules, reason cannot be applied.

 

It is a difficult concept to understand, but you will one day, if you choose to stop defending your locus standi so vehemently (and you know what that indicates right?)

 

Dwai, if you've followed all these metaphysical discussions, I've often agreed, disagreed, changed my opinions, developed new ones and so on. That was a nice poem, but it sees awareness indepedently , which makes no sense because awareness must be "of" something.

 

Nothing can self exist. To exist you need a reflection. Can the eye see itself?

[xabir2005]

Actually it does mean it's not there. A person who has never seen the color yellow, will never know it without discovering it. And we can only say that in that person's reality, the color yellow does not exist but as a potential.

That which is aware of the thought 'it's not there', 'it exists as a potential', that is the fully present and undeniable presence-awareness.

 

You can't avoid You even if you want to.

 

It's late, that's all for now.

[dwai]

You are confusing content with the action itself. Intent is continuous because awareness and manifest phenomena dependently arise, meaning the interaction cannot cease. There is no break in intent. The decision "not to move" is intent just as the decision to move. Your analogy isn't very fitting here.

Actually it does mean it's not there. A person who has never seen the color yellow, will never know it without discovering it. And we can only say that in that person's reality, the color yellow does not exist but as a potential.

 

What you wrote above still doesn't explain fully why your view isn't deterministic/fatalistic.

Dwai, if you've followed all these metaphysical discussions, I've often agreed, disagreed, changed my opinions, developed new ones and so on. That was a nice poem, but it sees awareness indepedently , which makes no sense because awareness must be "of" something.

 

Nothing can self exist. To exist you need a reflection. Can the eye see itself?

 

But Consciousness can. I've often warned about the problem of syntax. What you term Awareness and what I call Consciousness is different apparently. Consciousness I refer to is a self-existent. There can be nothing to make Consciousness aware of itself...so it is self aware (or else we go down the rabbithole of infinite regression)

 

Consciousness is also eternal. This is found by experience of meditation. How? Because Consciousness exists without thoughts. So, Consciousness is not awareness of something, it has no predicate. It simply is.

[Pero]

It's like a painter who sits to paint, and to know of his own existence, he has to paint, and there are characteristics (causes and conditions) to that painting, but it is subjetively created (usually by attachments and habits)

 

I'm still confused. How does this negate that Buddhahood is achieved through cause?

[C T]

My understanding is that Consciousness is beyond existence or non-existence. For want of a description,

i think the closest one i can think of is Ground of Being. So one can say the Ground is Consciousness, and that which sustains Being is awareness. This is just my opinion.

 

Just want to say thanks to Xabir and L7 for a most interesting exchange.

The poem from Dwai was cool, so appreciation for that as well.

[Lucky7Strikes]

I'm still confused. How does this negate that Buddhahood is achieved through cause?

 

 

There are no established causes and conditions. There is the relationship of A causing B, but the distinctions are made by the mind due to habit, or just spontaneous reasoning if you do not have attachments, as in you don't hold that relationship to be objective. We also have to put cause into the context of time.

 

For example, the desire of ice cream is due to habits, and the cause for that desire can be that you are attached to the experience of taste, holding it to be true abiding pleasure. But upon fully realizing that that pleasure is totally subjective, that it is awareness clinging onto that state of being, taste, you are no longer chained to the impulse of that habit arising and leading you to get ice cream. You have control over it, and it no longer becomes a chaining habit. The cause is changed.

 

I'm not sure that's a good example...it makes more sense when you see that reality is simply a manifestation of awareness intent as are the causes and conditions that govern it.

 

 

But Consciousness can. I've often warned about the problem of syntax. What you term Awareness and what I call Consciousness is different apparently. Consciousness I refer to is a self-existent. There can be nothing to make Consciousness aware of itself...so it is self aware (or else we go down the rabbithole of infinite regression)

 

Consciousness is also eternal. This is found by experience of meditation. How? Because Consciousness exists without thoughts. So, Consciousness is not awareness of something, it has no predicate. It simply is.

 

A self existent thing, a self aware awareness simply doesnt make sense. Same with consciousness. You need to be conscious OF something to know you are conscious. You can abide in that state if "isness" or whatever, but you inevitably return to a time frame to reflect on that state.

 

When you dream (not lucid or transcendent dreaming, but...normal dreaming), often the opposite happens. You are often unconscious within it. Events and memories happen, but it is only after you wake up these things become apparent.

 

The poem from Dwai was cool, so appreciation for that as well.

 

I thought the poem was very to the point. Thanks Dwai!

Edited January 8, 2010 by Lucky7Strikes

[dwai]

There are no established causes and conditions. There is the relationship of A causing B, but the distinctions are made by the mind due to habit, or just spontaneous reasoning if you do not have attachments, as in you don't hold that relationship to be objective. We also have to put cause into the context of time.

 

For example, the desire of ice cream is due to habits, and the cause for that desire can be that you are attached to the experience of taste, holding it to be true abiding pleasure. But upon fully realizing that that pleasure is totally subjective, that it is awareness clinging onto that state of being, taste, you are no longer chained to the impulse of that habit arising and leading you to get ice cream. You have control over it, and it no longer becomes a chaining habit. The cause is changed.

 

I'm not sure that's a good example...it makes more sense when you see that reality is simply a manifestation of awareness intent as are the causes and conditions that govern it.

A self existent thing, a self aware awareness simply doesnt make sense. Same with consciousness. You need to be conscious OF something to know you are conscious. You can abide in that state if "isness" or whatever, but you inevitably return to a time from to reflect on that state.

 

When you dream (not lucid or transcendent dreaming, but...normal dreaming), often the opposite happens. You are often unconscious within it. Events and memories happen, but it is only after you wake up these things become apparent.

I thought the poem was very to the point. Thanks Dwai!

 

Meditate long enough and you will find out what Consciousness is. Until then you are simply speculating about something you haven't experienced.

[Lucky7Strikes]

Meditate long enough and you will find out what Consciousness is. Until then you are simply speculating about something you haven't experienced.

 

I'm conscious right now. .

 

Meditating and energetics are freeing awareness from its attached states and learning various ways of manifesting it. And to experience absolute consciousness too.

 

And I'm not speculating. .

 

That which is aware of the thought 'it's not there', 'it exists as a potential', that is the fully present and undeniable presence-awareness.

 

You can't avoid You even if you want to.

 

It's late, that's all for now.

 

And that is you! The Void is indeed playful!

Edited January 8, 2010 by Lucky7Strikes

[dwai]

I'm conscious right now. .

 

Meditating and energetics are freeing awareness from its attached states and learning various ways of manifesting it. And to experience absolute consciousness too.

 

And I'm not speculating. .

And that is you!

 

Too many words...Meditation is dissolving thoughts until only Consciousness remains.

Unfettered by anything, Pure Consciousness simply is...not of/for/from/with anything else.

That Consciousness is "I am".

[voidisyinyang]

Full-lotus and fasting are Buddhism.

 

Too many words...Meditation is dissolving thoughts until only Consciousness remains.

Unfettered by anything, Pure Consciousness simply is...not of/for/from/with anything else.

That Consciousness is "I am".

[Pero]

There are no established causes and conditions. There is the relationship of A causing B, but the distinctions are made by the mind due to habit, or just spontaneous reasoning if you do not have attachments, as in you don't hold that relationship to be objective. We also have to put cause into the context of time.

 

For example, the desire of ice cream is due to habits, and the cause for that desire can be that you are attached to the experience of taste, holding it to be true abiding pleasure. But upon fully realizing that that pleasure is totally subjective, that it is awareness clinging onto that state of being, taste, you are no longer chained to the impulse of that habit arising and leading you to get ice cream. You have control over it, and it no longer becomes a chaining habit. The cause is changed.

 

I'm not sure that's a good example...it makes more sense when you see that reality is simply a manifestation of awareness intent as are the causes and conditions that govern it.

 

I'm sorry but I still don't see why you think this somehow negates that Buddhahood is achieved through causes.

 

Full-lotus and fasting are Buddhism.

[voidisyinyang]

The problem with the whole Buddhism debate (or any Eastern philosophy) debate is that it's within the context of left-brain dominant thinking.

 

So we have if A then B or we have A plus B or A and/or B, etc.

 

Instead in Buddhism we should consider what was called the INNER EAR METHOD -- this means LISTENING through logical inference.

 

When we listen then the logic is through nonwestern music resonance. This means that "A x B does not equal B x A" -- instead the principle of synergy exists with no original cause nor effect. No ONE is listening. So in nonwestern music theory 2:3 is the Perfect 5th as C to G and 3:4 is the Perfect 4th as G to C. Therefore C x G does not equal G x G whereas all of left-brain dominant logic relies on the commutative property.

 

Even Western music is modeled on the commutative property -- so we are constantly having our brains rewired into materialist logic.

 

In nonwestern music there is no "left brain" objectivity since reality is modeled by complementary opposites -- so 2:3 is yang (male) and 3:4 is yin (female).

 

We can not escape emotions but we can transcend them through "direct perception" as electromagnetic awareness -- the chi or the shen which is the holographic light awareness -- both of these modalities occur through right-brain dominance. When we LISTEN then there is right-brain dominance.

 

Buddhism focused on stating that the concept of the Self is just one ideology -- no different than any other ideology. Actually though the I-thought is the source of all other thoughts so that when we infer the source of the I-thought we are RESONATING as nonwestern harmonics.

 

The I-thought is 1 while the "AM" is 2:3:4 -- the tai-chi symbol and "that" refers to when the phase of light reverses time -- back to darkness -- and then the energy blockages return back to empty awareness.

 

So this process IS reality -- we exist within this impersonal process -- and the more we resonate with it through mind-body transformation -- the closer we resonate with the source of reality itself. That is what is meant in Mahayana Buddhism by "different levels of emptiness."

 

The full-lotus and fasting are the most efficient means to do this because the female yin energy is the electrochemical battery or kundalini -- and the full-lotus is the Tetrahedron made up of 8 triangles as 2:3:4 harmonics.

 

I'm sorry but I still don't see why you think this somehow negates that Buddhahood is achieved through causes.

[Lucky7Strikes]

I'm sorry but I still don't see why you think this somehow negates that Buddhahood is achieved through causes.

 

I'm just saying causes are made up.

 

So this process IS reality -- we exist within this impersonal process -- and the more we resonate with it through mind-body transformation -- the closer we resonate with the source of reality itself. That is what is meant in Mahayana Buddhism by "different levels of emptiness."

 

The full-lotus and fasting are the most efficient means to do this because the female yin energy is the electrochemical battery or kundalini -- and the full-lotus is the Tetrahedron made up of 8 triangles as 2:3:4 harmonics.

 

I don't doubt the benefits of full lotus and fasting. I understand what you are saying, kind of, the inference of the I-thought traces thought to awareness itself. I guess you can call that shen, the manifest body as jing and the interplay as qi.

 

But you can't resonate closer with reality. Reality is whatever that is experienced.

Edited January 8, 2010 by Lucky7Strikes

[lino]

Full-lotus and fasting are Buddhism.

 

No they are not. There are four meditation postures:

sitting

standing

walking

lying down

 

http://www.dhammawiki.com/index.php?title=Satipatthana_Sutta

[voidisyinyang]

Emptiness is reality -- this is the great secret.

 

So when we resonate with reality we then create light while bending spacetime.

 

Ramana Maharshi taught that there is an end to meditation -- the sahaja samadhi -- and he achieved it ONLY after his heart stopped beating for over 10 minutes.

 

Now did he kill himself? No -- but before he achieved that state of eternal liberation, "cutting the knot," he also had the experiences of creating multiple physical bodies, astral realm travel throughout the universe, etc.

 

But the irony is that the deeper he went into nirvikalpa samadhi the less it was "him" who was meditating.

 

Ramana Maharshi taught that as long as the I-thought arises then the mind must be killed and the source of the mind is the heart.

 

Still he was practicing left-brain mind yoga in terms of Brahmin caste society which relied on separation from females -- so he made his mom go away and Ramana Maharshi let his body decay and he had servants feed him and take care of him, etc.

 

So in Buddhism it's taught to achieve the rainbow body through full-lotus -- because left-brain logical inference is actually right brain resonance. The mind yoga works on suppressing the sex energy -- repressing it -- so there's no talk about sex but still the energy of meditation is from sublimated sex energy. That's why there has to be separation from females.

 

But in rainbow body full-lotus meditation there is conscious sublimation of sex energy which is why the tantra practice was continued through Buddhism. Tantra in India was for the lower classes who could not afford to get into practice with Ramakrishna or Vivekananda, or Ramana Maharshi, etc.

 

The Taoists also practice the rainbow body -- but the rainbow body is a vortex with the universe as a holograph -- where time is instantaneous and space collapses as time reverses. This rainbow vortex arises on its own -- it's the universe as OHM energy -- resonating due to the inherent asymmetric or complementary opposite ratios of number -- 2:3 as yang and 3:4 as yin. This was the secret of the three gunas in India -- the oldest yoga philosophy.

 

So all experience is a holographic illusion and reality itself is this abstract resonance process which then creates the rainbow holograph that we perceive as three dimensional matter.

 

A strong DMT plant substance will reveal this rainbow body astral realm as well - it's a short cut somewhat but when it's combined with yoga and fasting and the complementary opposite resonance then you can get the same results.

 

I'm just saying causes are made up.

I don't doubt the benefits of full lotus and fasting. I understand what you are saying, kind of, the inference of the I-thought traces thought to awareness itself. I guess you can call that shen, the manifest body as jing and the interplay as qi.

 

But you can't resonate closer with reality. Reality is whatever that is experienced.

[Pero]

So in Buddhism it's taught to achieve the rainbow body through full-lotus

 

Uhm, no.