You can't do anything!

[Lucky7Strikes]

Now I'm getting to know my ego, and I like it.

And although this was a digression, my point is that there are not just conditions arising, and no inherent will. Instead, the will is what infuses everything. The great pressure of evolution, in a way ,is this will.

Its what infuses us with choice, with intention.

 

wow. that sounded metaphysical...

 

h

I don't think I have any more problems regarding having or not having an ego. It is something that just occurs like the drop of rain, or the sun rising. Same thing with the will. It's not as if I will suddenly stop doing anything. My preferences, choices, and all that will probably continue, and even my meditation practices. But there is absolutely no pressure about anything because I can only act according to what I am and most importantly I always have been.

 

There is also a great humbling about all this. No one is any greater or worse. No effort is monumental. No realization too great. No achievement so praise-worthy. No suffering so painful. No downfall so tragic.

 

And even all that I'm writing now is just a part of the greater manifestation of awareness beings balancing reality out, between all kinds of stories, struggles, happiness, blah blah blah. It's absolutely nothing special, because there is nothing special or exempt from all this.

Edited May 11, 2010 by Lucky7Strikes

[Lucky7Strikes]

You are the you, however you came about you are here Do you make the same choices other people would? maybe some, but not all so there is a you and it is unique to you.

 

You're right in front of you and you can't see yourself. You just are, but you choose how you just are.

 

And I am "That" not "this" for the record

And how do you identify yourself? By your body? By you mind? By your habits?

 

When we seek into the awareness that brings about the thought, the knowing, of "I-ness" we can't find anything beyond whatever it is that we experience at the moment. And that moment is unbinding to any phenomena, but transition from one condition to another. See! Right now! It is all flowing as conditioned.

 

When you say make choices, what prompts that person to make that choice? Most likely past chain of events that conditioned that person or that situation to play out as it would. All things happen by a cause, something just doesn't arrive from nothing, likewise, there can be no beginning or end, everything rolls on.

Edited May 11, 2010 by Lucky7Strikes

[Lucky7Strikes]

Brother like I say you should always be able to remember your zipcode and dont let the ego get in the way. Cloudhand

You know, I kind of don't like your pretentious one liners. I don't know who you are trying to emulate or what kind of message you want to get across, but they aren't that insightful or poetic. .

[That Guy]

And how do you identify yourself? By your body? By you mind? By your habits?

 

When we seek into the awareness that brings about the thought, the knowing, of "I-ness" we can't find anything beyond whatever it is that we experience at the moment. And that moment is unbinding to any phenomena, but transition from one condition to another. See! Right now! It is all flowing as conditioned.

 

When you say make choices, what prompts that person to make that choice? Most likely past chain of events that conditioned that person or that situation to play out as it would. All things happen by a cause, something just doesn't arrive from nothing, likewise, there can be no beginning or end, everything rolls on.

It is simply not important right now.

 

Though I know who I am, lucky me. Good luck to you.

 

When did you stop being you to you btw?

[hagar]

I don't think I have any more problems regarding having or not having an ego. It is something that just occurs like the drop of rain, or the sun rising. Same thing with the will. It's not as if I will suddenly stop doing anything. My preferences, choices, and all that will probably continue, and even my meditation practices. But there is absolutely no pressure about anything because I can only act according to what I am and most importantly I always have been.

 

There is also a great humbling about all this. No one is any greater or worse. No effort is monumental. No realization too great. No achievement so praise-worthy. No suffering so painful. No downfall so tragic.

 

And even all that I'm writing now is just a part of the greater manifestation of awareness beings balancing reality out, between all kinds of stories, struggles, happiness, blah blah blah. It's absolutely nothing special, because there is nothing special or exempt from all this.

 

Well, I salute you. That is a great opening to be experiencing. But be careful. It may also prove to be a spiritual Cul-du-sac. Its like finally understanding the relative in relativism. So it has been in my experience; rediscovering the "sameness" of everything. I remember working for a research center for excellence at my old university thinking "but these people are so-called excellent as a product of defining their opposites", which has nothing to do with thruth. These researchers were philosophers. Imagine the irony.

 

h

Edited May 11, 2010 by hagar

[Cloudhand]

You know, I kind of don't like your pretentious one liners. I don't know who you are trying to emulate or what kind of message you want to get across, but they aren't that insightful or poetic. .

 

 

Dont care what you think

[C T]

Dont care what you think

This appears to be a weighty declaration. May i ask why you addressed the OP as 'brother' in an earlier post, and then conjure up such a bold remark? A person of contrast... might be a good thing. Who is to say...

[Cloudhand]

This appears to be a weighty declaration. May i ask why you addressed the OP as 'brother' in an earlier post, and then conjure up such a bold remark? A person of contrast... might be a good thing. Who is to say...

 

 

He can take it he knows his ego

[C T]

He can take it he knows his ego

Oh?

[Lucky7Strikes]

Dont care what you think

:lol:

 

Sorry!

Edited May 11, 2010 by Lucky7Strikes

[Cloudhand]

 

Sorry!

 

 

I got the juices flowing sorry bro

[Lucky7Strikes]

Well, I salute you. That is a great opening to be experiencing. But be careful. It may also prove to be a spiritual Cul-du-sac. Its like finally understanding the relative in relativism.

h

It is a dead end for me, but also a new ally. I don't see much in spirituality in hthe sense that it will bring me immortality or a golden body etc., other than that they can bring peace to the mind like a good jog can. I don't think I will meditate to become enlightened or anything like that, but meditate for the sake of just meditating. I like doing zazen sometimes. I don't like other times. I like doing Kunlun and tai chi kind of things. But sometime I like to watch tv too.

 

But thank you. I think we have an understanding on some level.

 

I think I'll be ok. .

Edited May 12, 2010 by Lucky7Strikes

[Vajrahridaya]

The terms "free will" itself is a oxymoron. The Buddha (if you want to use Buddhism here) no longer has a will and therefore he is free. If anything, the Buddha exists as the truth, or a unit in existence that becomes aware of its own condition and probably passes that down to other people. But thats all he/she is.

 

Something that is composed of all the parts of a cycle, cannot escape it. You can realize it, but it is still a part of it. The duality of Nirvana and Samasara are just as part of each other as my foot and hand.

 

It's true that even a Buddhas actions are bound by the accumulations that is the flipping of his/her beginningless Samsaric experience into the endless Nirvanic experience of the very same constant cycling of universes. But the awareness that is the mind of a Buddha transcends the display that is the being or person which manifests in congruency to the needs of countless beings.

[Vajrahridaya]

I love this perspective. I really don't like all the ego-bashing so common to many forms of spirituality: "The ego will fight like hell to stay alive, the ego is an imposter, the ego is the source of all pain" nonsense.

 

A big smile to my and everyone else's ego.

 

It's really about teaching the ego to be free from itself even while it is the dancer in the play. When you are free from your ego, or rather your ego is free from itself, then you learn more, you enjoy more, your psychological suffering decreases even when your body is in pain. The experience of pain entirely transforms actually.

 

Anyway... don't kill the ego, just teach it another way of looking in the mirror.

[Lucky7Strikes]

It's true that even a Buddhas actions are bound by the accumulations that is the flipping of his/her beginningless Samsaric experience into the endless Nirvanic experience of the very same constant cycling of universes. But the awareness that is the mind of a Buddha transcends the display that is the being or person which manifests in congruency to the needs of countless beings.

Ok, so the Buddha doesn't have so called "free will."

 

Annnnd sure he is a nice guy. Okey dokey. Just another part of the play.

Edited May 12, 2010 by Lucky7Strikes

[Vajrahridaya]

Ok, so the Buddha doesn't have so called "free will."

 

Annnnd sure he is a nice guy. Okey dokey. Just another part of the play.

 

It's more like he/she has free awareness, but the way s/he manifests is still conditioned by Samsarins.

 

LOL! Yes, just another part of the play, but liberated in and through it.

[Lucky7Strikes]

It's more like he/she has free awareness, but the way s/he manifests is still conditioned by Samsarins.

 

LOL! Yes, just another part of the play, but liberated in and through it.

I think it's important to distinguish the difference between the phrases "free to" and "free of." And I believe you mean "free of" in the phrase above.

 

This is all tremendously humbling to all the Buddhas, masters, etc. I've delved deep into inquiry trying to deny this, but now I see that there is no way but to accept it.

 

*sigh...

 

I guess it was a necessary thing to go through, just as with everything everyone is going through...

[Vajrahridaya]

I think it's important to distinguish the difference between the phrases "free to" and "free of." And I believe you mean "free of" in the phrase above.

 

I don't understand where you are applying this? Please restructure my sentences with your correction for me. Thanks!

[hagar]

It is a dead end for me, but also a new ally. I don't see much in spirituality in hthe sense that it will bring me immortality or a golden body etc., other than that they can bring peace to the mind like a good jog can. I don't think I will meditate to become enlightened or anything like that, but meditate for the sake of just meditating. I like doing zazen sometimes. I don't like other times. I like doing Kunlun and tai chi kind of things. But sometime I like to watch tv too.

 

But thank you. I think we have an understanding on some level.

 

I think I'll be ok. .

 

I have the same experience regarding aspirations. And I definately connect with the "ordinariness" of it. It does not stand out at all. Going to a good movie stands out. A good practice does not.

 

On the other hand, I'm reluctantly coming to face the fact that what needs to be worked out to get to an open and free state is working on stuff that I don't like or feel resistance towards.

 

So ideally, I should be sitting just to enjoy the sitting. But these days I struggle with just facing whatever is there.

 

Funny, but practice actually becomes harder (for me atleast) after some years of doing it.

 

h

[Lucky7Strikes]

I don't understand where you are applying this? Please restructure my sentences with your correction for me. Thanks!

Free awareness. It's not a freedom of will, but a freedom from will.

[-O-]

For everything to happen on its own, it needs to stand apart from something. But since it's "everything," there is a logical contradiction. Either not everything is on its own, of if it's really everything then saying "is on its own" is nonsensical. "On its own" means some kind of independence from something.

 

So for example, I might say, "The clock keeps time on its own." The implication is that I can just stand there and do nothing, and the clock runs without me. So "on its own" mean it is independent of my conscious and directed involvement. So it makes sense to talk of things that do something on their own if there are other things that don't. For example, the socks don't get onto my feet on their own. I have to put them on myself. So because there are socks that don't get onto my feet on their own, it makes sense to say that the clock keeps time on its own, in contradistinction with my socks.

 

So you see how when you start talking about everything, "on its own" is no longer an applicable phrase.

 

 

The clock keeps time on its own, and the socks do not put themselves on the feet are fine and good examples on interdependence however there is not one object, tangible or intangible which can be obeserved independant of the obeserver. The obeserver comes into being when awareness posits itself (awareness) into the intention of "being aware", creating consciousness. Concious observation can not be independent of the observer. All things (in consciousness) are interdependant on it.... thus all things "I" observe are interwined and mingled with the "I" that obeserves. This can lead to a realization that "I" am everything and this IS so within the action of observing, but is not so in some magical "I am you, I am the world, the world is I - we are all one". This is only the intuition of the distinction of the above dynamic - "I" can not observe independantly of "I". As this distinction emerges there is first the feeling that everything experienced is the self or connected to the self somehow. When it arrives there is the distinction that all experience is inescapably the appearances of stuff in conciousness dependant on the I - (and the "I" is dependant on stuff observed)... So anything and everything we expereince in life including "Golden Light Bodies" experiences are the appearances of stuff within consciousness which without consciousness there would not be the faculty to expereince anything - so it is through "I" that everything is experienced.

 

Dependant origination has nothing to do with the actual existence of an object in the world being magically dependant on anything else and everything to do with the existence of stuff WITHIN OUR AWARENESS being dependant on consciouness. When the intuitive distinction gives way to clarity it is far less magical - its an acknowledgement that all this stuff is wrapped up in my own inescapable subectivity. This is liberating as now I can, through the appearances of stuff come to an even more pervasive distinction of self . The self is revealed through the appearances of stuff but only after they are acknowledged for what they are - appearances dependant on self. ...when all things I have ever expereinced are all colored by "self" or made of that stuff then it is pointless to draw lines of this and that... because the "this" and the "that" in my arguments are appearances that only reveal myself to me (just as the only intrinsic value of this post is to reveal -O- to -O-)... they rise dependant on my the act of observing.

 

The distinction of Self and object can then only be expereinced through the action of observing along with the disitnction that the objects are appearances dependant on "SELF". With this one can then find a new threshold of liberation - "becoming" (I AM). It is the liberation not of, but from SELF.

 

And this is felt as "I AM" (with no definition to follow). And all sort of wise platitudes flow out of that like. "We are everything..." , liberation is in in the NOW (because observation is not reflection and can only exist in the moment it is occuring), unlearn, truth is undefinable, the way cannot be defined etc... And this "I AM" need not be elevated to some mystical level as it is no different than Satre's waiter "Being a Waiter".

 

And this "becoming" can also emerge intuitively without clarity breaking through as "my higher self" and a dichotomy of lower self and higher self etc.... When really the lower self was the "I" before redefinition and the higher self is the redefined "I". So have we really escaped SELF? ( A new twist on Satre's assertion that the only true act of freedom is to take our own lives)

 

... and in the end all of that too will be dependant experience revealing self with no more importance than how your selection of TV or fine food reveals personal taste.

[Lucky7Strikes]

The distinction of Self and object can then only be expereinced through the action of observing along with the disitnction that the objects are appearances dependant on "SELF". With this one can then find a new threshold of liberation - "becoming" (I AM). It is the liberation not of, but from SELF.

 

And this is felt as "I AM" (with no definition to follow). And all sort of wise platitudes flow out of that like. "We are everything..." , liberation is in in the NOW (because observation is not reflection and can only exist in the moment it is occuring), unlearn, truth is undefinable, the way cannot be defined etc... And this "I AM" need not be elevated to some mystical level as it is no different than Satre's waiter "Being a Waiter".

 

And this "becoming" can also emerge intuitively without clarity breaking through as "my higher self" and a dichotomy of lower self and higher self etc.... When really the lower self was the "I" before redefinition and the higher self is the redefined "I". So have we really escaped SELF? ( A new twist on Satre's assertion that the only true act of freedom is to take our own lives)

 

... and in the end all of that too will be dependant experience revealing self with no more importance than how your selection of TV or fine food reveals personal taste.

I use to think that the dichotomy of observer dependent on the observed held true, but all such distinctions themselves do not hold. Phenomena and awareness are one not because they are two elements, but both are characteristics of any experience in itself. Experience has always been non dual. Neither phenomena not awareness can be found.

[Vajrahridaya]

Free awareness. It's not a freedom of will, but a freedom from will.

 

Oh right... yes ok! More to the point.

 

Though a realm lord Buddha, like Amitabha actually wills a realm into being with all sorts of conditions to benefit beings dharmically. Though of course this will to do so is conditioned by the fact that there are needy people. So yes... will is always a conditioned thing. It's just whether or not it follows blissful and liberating conditions or contracted, fearful conditions for the choices it makes.

Edited May 12, 2010 by Vajrahridaya

[TzuJanLi]

Greetings..

 

Still your minds, they chatter incessantly.. the stilled mind knows no Buddha, no Tao, or 'God'.. it knows no ego, it simply experiences Life unfolding spontaneously, and chooses from the available options according to its own understandings.. Take a primitive man, a virgin to the "Spiritual Circus".. then, describe 'God', Buddhism, Advaita, Zen, Tao.. i'll wager the wisdom of simplicity will favor Tao, simply based on the principle of "Occam's Razor".. why do people find comfort in imagining solutions, where truth is more than sufficient and plainly observable/experiencable?

 

Be well..

[Vajrahridaya]

Greetings..

 

Still your minds, they chatter incessantly.. the stilled mind knows no Buddha, no Tao, or 'God'.. it knows no ego, it simply experiences Life unfolding spontaneously, and chooses from the available options according to its own understandings.. Take a primitive man, a virgin to the "Spiritual Circus".. then, describe 'God', Buddhism, Advaita, Zen, Tao.. i'll wager the wisdom of simplicity will favor Tao, simply based on the principle of "Occam's Razor".. why do people find comfort in imagining solutions, where truth is more than sufficient and plainly observable/experiencable?

 

Be well..

 

Chatter is only the expression of potentiality. If realized, there is no difference between noise and silence.

 

"Tao" is still a substratum for Eternalist craving for existence, so wouldn't hold in the court of Buddha. But, that doesn't mean it's not a good means to self evolution beyond itself. For Buddhists it falls short though as a complete path, though if integrated with Buddhism, for a Buddhist to practice some of the good things from the path started by Taoist Wizards... no problem.

 

Those who favor simple and see it as different from complex, don't understand the universe. Those that understand the complex, see it simply even before thought finds a place to be.