Mindstream

[Lucky7Strikes]

Hi everyone,

 

I've been looking into the concept of the mindstream, and just wanted people's insights into its meaning and usage in Buddhism.

 

It seems like the mind stream itself is a false entity placed on a chain of imprints, a chain of cause and effect processes where each moment dependently originates the next and so on, the store house consciousness also being just latent grasping of the self, not really a "thing" but more of a ingrained habit.

 

I mistakenly believed for sometime that there were "individual streams" of mind, but this is only in be the case when one grasps at selfhood. The sense of a stream seems to be due to the imprints and memories left by a moment, as no moment is without effect or cause, that produce a sense of continuum (which without right insight produces a sense of "self"). But really that unit of cause, that moment leaving a memory, seems no more special than other causes and conditions, like say, the weather giving rise to this right now.

 

I've heard Buddhist practitioners deny "we are one consciousness" and suggest that we are individual multiple consciousnesses, but the latter seems also to be misleading. I think it's better to say, there is not even a multitude, no "thing" to be multiply seen in the first place, just an arising and disappearing experiences.

 

So the seamless presence spoken as an experience is merely due to the luminous character of "all" phenomena and not a certain stream of consciousness?

Edited December 17, 2010 by Lucky7Strikes

[goldisheavy]

You remember your yesterday, right? Roughly? Two weeks ago? Two years? Well, that's basically what your mindstream is. It's the stream of your mind as you live it, your inner life, which ultimately is all life. Where is the sensation of the car going down the street? The car is gown down the street, but where is the knowing of it? It's intimate, right? The car you saw, just how you saw it, is yours. No one else can talk about it in exactly the same way. That's mindstream.

 

As for the real vs unreal debate, it's simple. It all comes down to disappointments. If you latch onto a description and demand more from it than it can give, you get a disappointment. If you do this habitually, that's called Samsara in Buddhism. So Samsara is essentially a stream of disappointments. The exact same mindstream, or mind life without disappointments, is Nirvana. Disappointments have to do with expectations and expectations have to do with the attachment to concrete and specific. When people think that the concrete things are real and the abstract is unreal, they become dedicated to the concrete, they become disappointment. When people treat abstract things as if they were concrete, they also get disappointment. If you don't take anything to be anything, but just leave it be however you please, then you get nirvana and no disappointments. This goes all the way from little freedom all the way to miraculously traveling through stone and all such things.

 

So most real is in essence that which is more reliable and thus, least disappointing. Illusion is that which disappointments.

 

Of course illusion is also that which entertains too. But illusion is only entertaining when you know it's an illusion and don't burden it with crazy expectations and presuppositions. Illusion without presuppositions is reality. Honest illusion is the truth. That's why it's a personal matter. Honesty is personal. When you're kidding yourself, only you can know it.

Edited December 17, 2010 by goldisheavy

[strawdog65]

Hello!

 

I really like this discussion.

This is very interesting and consciousness expanding stuff!

 

 

Please continue!

 

Peace!

[Taomeow]

Just wanted to share this tidbit of research:

 

An average person thinks 65,000 thoughts every day,

but 95% of these are the thoughts he already thought yesterday.

 

What it practically means is that the mind lives in the past 95% of the time even when it thinks that it thinks about the future -- or the "now" for that matter. "Now" is a stand-off for "unfinished business" 95% of the time.

 

Tao seems to be bent on finishing any business that gets started. It doesn't abandon an acorn till it is an oak tree. It doesn't abandon an oak tree till it is an acorn.

 

The mind emulated that, and you can't do anything about it. If you put 65,000 thoughts on hold today, it only means you will have to deal with 65,000 tomorrow. That's because putting them on hold didn't do anything to finish any of the unfinished business. And never will. An acorn can be stored in a glass jar for three thousand years, but once it is planted in the ground, it will resume what's been on hold, the thought to think through -- "oak tree" -- and there's no stopping that. You can't store it in a glass jar for three thousand years and get it to think "crocodile." Its unfinished business is "oak tree" and the only way it can proceed is by fulfilling its nature, finishing its business.

 

Finish your business...

[doc benway]

The mind by and large is composed of its contents (memories, knowledge, experience, desires, sensory experience, dreams,...). These contents are exclusively within the realm of the known for, if it is not known, how can it be in the mind?

There is something that is outside of the known and outside of the mind, however.

There is something that animates awareness. It is a brilliant spark that defies description although it can be hinted at by the poets and artists (and yes even the scientists) of the world.

Call it what you want, I'm guessing this is what the word mindstream is pointing to.

[Alfred E]

Just wanted to share this tidbit of research:

 

An average person thinks 65,000 thoughts every day,

but 95% of these are the thoughts he already thought yesterday.

 

What it practically means is that the mind lives in the past 95% of the time even when it thinks that it thinks about the future -- or the "now" for that matter. "Now" is a stand-off for "unfinished business" 95% of the time.

 

Tao seems to be bent on finishing any business that gets started. It doesn't abandon an acorn till it is an oak tree. It doesn't abandon an oak tree till it is an acorn.

 

The mind emulated that, and you can't do anything about it. If you put 65,000 thoughts on hold today, it only means you will have to deal with 65,000 tomorrow. That's because putting them on hold didn't do anything to finish any of the unfinished business. And never will. An acorn can be stored in a glass jar for three thousand years, but once it is planted in the ground, it will resume what's been on hold, the thought to think through -- "oak tree" -- and there's no stopping that. You can't store it in a glass jar for three thousand years and get it to think "crocodile." Its unfinished business is "oak tree" and the only way it can proceed is by fulfilling its nature, finishing its business.

 

Finish your business...

 

T.M.,

The figure of 65,000 was in Autobiography of a Yogi some years ago Here is the e-book (free) Autobiography of a Yogi - free download of the first original edition by Paramahansa Yogananda 1946

Although - it gives the number as per hour - not per day. But it takes into account heartbeats, eyes open, etc. So who knows? I do think your statistic is probably more true as it is probably based on perceptual events ... but ...?

 

By the way - I downloaded the book and it is real - although -for the Wannabe Writers - I think it probably is still under copyright of the orginazation that Paramhansa Yogananda began.

Edited December 17, 2010 by Alfred E

[Vajrahridaya]

Hi LS! Long time no hear!

 

It's only relatively infinite streams of consciousness. The one taste of a Buddha is just the ongoing experience of seeing directly the luminous emptiness of all streams simultaneous with his/her own. Luminous as in conscious awareness of emptiness. The fact of emptiness is basically cognized by a Buddha, as free from concepts. So, really there is no ultimate consciousness either, just ultimate insight into the nature of all moments of consciousness' (plural). The Alayavijana now turns into the basis for the experience of the Dharmakaya and all impressions have been freed and turned into moments of service to the all, now experienced as self liberated.

 

Your insight Luckystrikes is very good!

Edited December 18, 2010 by Vajrahridaya

[Mark Foote]

 

I mistakenly believed for sometime that there were "individual streams" of mind, but this is only in be the case when one grasps at selfhood. The sense of a stream seems to be due to the imprints and memories left by a moment, as no moment is without effect or cause, that produce a sense of continuum (which without right insight produces a sense of "self"). But really that unit of cause, that moment leaving a memory, seems no more special than other causes and conditions, like say, the weather giving rise to this right now.

 

I've heard Buddhist practitioners deny "we are one consciousness" and suggest that we are individual multiple consciousnesses, but the latter seems also to be misleading. I think it's better to say, there is not even a multitude, no "thing" to be multiply seen in the first place, just an arising and disappearing experiences.

 

So the seamless presence spoken as an experience is merely due to the luminous character of "all" phenomena and not a certain stream of consciousness?

 

Hey, Lucky Strikes, I was thinking about this the other day myself, in part because of the thread about Carlos Castaneda's teachings. When I finished writing on that thread, I wrote, just to finish my thoughts. I'm hoping it's relevant to your mullings, so I will offer it here, even though it's a tad long:

 

'Dogen said: "To study the way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self."

 

We forget ourselves in our habitual activity, and we also forget ourselves in activity that is generated without any intent. As consciousness takes place, we realize an ability to feel. When our experience of our ability to feel acquires continuity, we can lose ourselves in "being where we are" (the famous Zen master Yuanwu advised a student in a letter, "just be where you are, 24/7").

 

In my experience, the continuity of the ability to feel is really only the fluidity of changes in the alignment of the body, in response to the occurrence of consciousness and the necessity of breath at the moment.

 

Gautama the Buddha described consciousness as a phenomena that only occurred out of contact between a sense organ and a sense object. The continuity of consciousness he described as an illusion, similar to the illusion of the existence of fire independent of fuel; when a forest fire leaps between the tops of trees, he said, an illusion of the existence of fire independent of fuel is created, yet the truth of the matter is that fire only burns when there is fuel. Similarly, he said, consciousness only exists because of contact between a sense organ and a sense object, and can be described as "eye consciousness", "ear consciousness", "nose consciousness", "tongue consciousness", "touch consciousness", or "thought consciousness". For one who observes sense organ, sense object, consciousness, impact, and feeling with regard to each of the senses, he said, the eight-fold path to the end of suffering and all the factors of enlightenment develop and go to fruition. In this instance, I believe the impact Gautama referred to is the impact of the occurrence of consciousness on the balance of the body and on the stretch associated with that balance; from impact comes activity that affects the alignment of the spine, and the ability to feel.

 

Dogen described his practice as "shikantaza"- literally "pure hit sit" or "just hit sit". The focus here is on the instance of feeling that results from the impact of the occurrence of consciousness on the stretch inherent in balance. In contrast, the Gautamid described his practice before and after enlightenment as "the development of mindfulness that is mindfulness of in-breaths and out-breaths". Each particular in his statement of this practice was framed in the context of mindfulness of inhalation, or mindfulness of exhalation. In my experience, the occurrence of consciousness, the impact of the occurrence of consciousness on fascial stretch, and the ability to feel realized through such impact only make possible a continuity of feeling out of a necessity of breath; therefore, as far as forgetting the self, to me the practice of Dogen and the practice of Gautama the Buddha are one and the same.

 

Simply by being where we are as we are, we can come to forget ourselves, as Dogen suggested. I would say this experience is a lot like hypnosis: when an awareness of the necessity of a particular movement of breath comes forward, the free occurrence of consciousness and the relaxation of activity can allow our posture (or even our gesture or carriage) to be realized in the continuity of feeling. We forget ourselves out of necessity, and where we are sits, stands, and moves beyond doubt.'

 

****

 

far-fetched, I know, but this is what I'm dealing with; hope it addresses your issues.

yers, Mark Heap

Edited December 18, 2010 by Mark Foote

[goldisheavy]

The mind by and large is composed of its contents (memories, knowledge, experience, desires, sensory experience, dreams,...). These contents are exclusively within the realm of the known for, if it is not known, how can it be in the mind?

 

It depends on what you mean by "known." If you include the potential of knowing as "known", then yes, you're right. If you don't include it, then your mistake is failure to include such understanding.

 

For further discussion I will define "known" to include potential for knowing in addition to manifested knowing.

 

There is something that is outside of the known and outside of the mind, however.

 

This is an appeal to ignorance since you can't possibly know if something exists outside mind. You have to take this statement on faith if you believe it.

 

There is something that animates awareness.

 

Awareness is self-animated. If you mean there is something unaware that animates awareness, then we are all doomed.

 

It is a brilliant spark that defies description although it can be hinted at by the poets and artists (and yes even the scientists) of the world.

Call it what you want, I'm guessing this is what the word mindstream is pointing to.

 

Sorry, Steve.

[doc benway]

 

 

Sorry, Steve.

Why the apology?

[xabir2005]

[goldisheavy]

Why the apology?

 

Steve, it's a figure of speech. I wasn't actually apologizing. I just used that expression to indicate that I disagree with your understanding of what a mindstream is. Although I did put it that way because in general I tend to like what you write and I agree with you a lot and often. So perhaps it also means I am disappointed that one of my favorite people is saying stuff that I consider to be very close to nonsense. So perhaps I am sorry for myself and my idealized image of wise Steve.

Edited December 18, 2010 by goldisheavy

[xabir2005]

:

 

Oh btw, it is not the case that ‘we are individual multiple consciousness’, but that ‘there are unique/individual multiple streams of consciousness’. There is no ‘we are ...’. There just are unique minds, and mind is not self. But relatively/conveniently speaking, yeah, ‘we’ are different minds.

 

Arising and disappearing experiences imply diversity – i.e. different experiences appearing according to different conditions and not something ‘shared’.

 

Seamless presence is the luminous character of every phenomena, but each moment of seamless presence is a unique and complete phenomena that is distinct from the unique and complete phenomena of a different mindstream. We do not, for example, experience a dog’s experience.

 

e.g. Due to human karma, in seeing, just shapes and colours. But for a dog, due to dog karma, in seeing, just black and white plus shapes.

 

There are no ‘multiple selves’, or ‘multiple experiencers’, but there are different mindstreams/experiences. Experience is not denied, just the experiencer that is denied/cannot be found.

Edited December 18, 2010 by xabir2005

[goldisheavy]

Here's my updated reply to you which I posted in my e-journal/e-book Who am I?:

Are mind(s) unique or cosmic/universal?

 

Was discussing with a friend on facebook... he is of the opinion (based on his insight of no-self) that there are no individual mindstreams.

 

I told him (slightly edited):

 

Mindstreams do not imply 'entities'... There is no entity in the mindstream... the word 'mind STREAM' implies it's a stream rolling on with nothing substantially existing.

 

The idea of an entity tends to carry two attendant ideas.

 

One attendant idea is that entities are the way they are in and of themselves. So for example, a table is just inherently a table. And a chair is inherently a chair, independent of anything else, such as context or a state of mind.

 

Second idea has to do with delineation. So for example, a chair is not a floor because the floor starts where the chair ends. The chair is also not air that's around it, because the air starts where the chair stops. And so on.

 

I have problems with both of these implications of "entity-ism", but not in equal amounts. The first idea can be rejected easily and comfortably. There is nothing inherent in a chair that makes it a chair.

 

The second idea I cannot completely reject. Why not? Because while I do see that delineations are arbitrary and mind-made, as long as you recognize that fact, they aren't false. Delineations bring trouble if we assume they are more solid than they are. If we assume that reality comes with prepackaged delineations, that's a problem and I reject such an assumption. Nonetheless delineations are an inescapable fact of mind-life. After all, if you ceased delineating, how would you know it? You'd know it because you'd recognize a difference between delineation and non-delineation. In other words, you can't cease the process of delineation, you can only see it for what it is and regulate it responsibly, if you wish.

 

Delineation itself has two subdivisions. Mundane and rarely understood. Mundane delineations have to do with separating one manifested thing from another manifested thing. So for example, separating the chair from the floor it rests on is a mundane delineation.

 

Rarely understood delineation is separating manifest from the potential. So for example, I feel warm now, but I could also be feeling cold. I don't feel cold right now, but I know what feeling cold is like. So by feeling warm, even though I don't currently feel cold, I have established a delineation between the current warmth and the potential cold.

 

So in this last sense mindstreams are individualized because for each possible sequence of experiences there exist infinite other sequences that could have happened, but didn't. From this point of view mindstreams are personal.

 

However! If you can include the field of potentiality into the mindstreams, in other words, to include the umanifest together with the manifest into the mindstream, then you can see we all have different manifest aspects, but we share one common pool of the unmanifest potential. Since there are no different all-potentials for each and every person, since the all-potential is one, the mind is ultimately one. That doesn't mean that the people who talk about the cosmic mind aren't full of erroneous fantasies. In practice it's possible for two mindstreams to never intersect in their manifested aspects and the idea of one common cosmic mind fails to convey and appreciate this possibility of constant non-intersection.

 

So in short, the cosmic mind is somewhat wrong, but it's not as wrong as you imagine Xabir.

 

i.e. if I killed someone, you won't have to suffer for 'my' karma (even though there is no doer, just a process of volition, action and ripening, etc) It is not the case that 'we are one and the same'.

 

Sadly this is absolutely false. If you kill someone, you'll immediately affect all kinds of people around you. If you kill someone, many people are affected far beyond just you and the victim.

 

There are no thick walls surrounding each mindstream.

Edited December 18, 2010 by goldisheavy

[doc benway]

Steve, it's a figure of speech. I wasn't actually apologizing. I just used that expression to indicate that I disagree with your understanding of what a mindstream is. Although I did put it that way because in general I tend to like what you write and I agree with you a lot and often. So perhaps it also means I am disappointed that one of my favorite people is saying stuff that I consider to be very close to nonsense. So perhaps I am sorry for myself and my idealized image of wise Steve.

 

RAOTFLMAO!

 

Sorry to disappoint my friend!

 

When I realized that I am truly an ass, it was very liberating.

Now I have no fear of ridicule because it means that offending party is simply confirming what I already know!

 

Be well.

[goldisheavy]

RAOTFLMAO!

 

Sorry to disappoint my friend!

 

When I realized that I am truly an ass, it was very liberating.

Now I have no fear of ridicule because it means that offending party is simply confirming what I already know!

 

Be well.

 

No problems. It's actually a good thing. If you never disappointment me, then I could accidentally mistake you for an inanimate object. It's good to know your friends are alive.

[goldisheavy]

:

 

Oh btw, it is not the case that ‘we are individual multiple consciousness’, but that ‘there are unique/individual multiple streams of consciousness’. There is no ‘we are ...’. There just are unique minds, and mind is not self. But relatively/conveniently speaking, yeah, ‘we’ are different minds.

 

Arising and disappearing experiences imply diversity – i.e. different experiences appearing according to different conditions and not something ‘shared’.

 

The unmanifest potential is shared. Of course potential is not a thing per se, but it's wrong to say we don't share anything.

Edited December 18, 2010 by goldisheavy

[xabir2005]

However! If you can include the field of potentiality into the mindstreams, in other words, to include the umanifest together with the manifest into the mindstream, then you can see we all have different manifest aspects, but we share one common pool of the unmanifest potential. Since there are no different all-potentials for each and every person, since the all-potential is one, the mind is ultimately one. That doesn't mean that the people who talk about the cosmic mind aren't full of erroneous fantasies. In practice it's possible for two mindstreams to never intersect in their manifested aspects and the idea of one common cosmic mind fails to convey and appreciate this possibility of constant non-intersection.

What is potential?

 

It means what manifests is empty - and therefore there is always the potential to change and manifest different experiences.

 

However there is no 'the inherent potential/source' or 'the ultimate unmanifest which manifests things'.

 

The unmanifest simply means emptiness - unestablished, and furthermore is simply the nature of the manifest (form is emptiness, emptiness is form) instead of some inherent essence, then I accept what you say.

 

If however by 'the unmanifest' you mean an ultimate source behind experience, then I do not agree with you.

 

There is no cosmic mind or shared potential behind all things... the only thing which all things share is their empty nature, which allows for change and infinite potential. By that I do not mean 'a great void in which things arise and subside from/to' - by emptiness I mean the non-inherent, unlocatable, ungraspable, D.O. nature of all arisings.

 

p.s. why the notion of a 'Source' no longer apply after insight of Anatta is this...

 

as I wrote yesterday:

 

When we talk about the nature of reality, many of us think of a Source. What source? An ultimate source, an ultimate awareness that displays or manifests everything.

 

In our mind, we picture awareness like an eternal sun shining on the passing clouds in the sky... the eternal sun is primordially untainted, pure, unaffected by the passing/transient stuff, yet it is also the source of all the manifestations/transient stuff. We picture a Source 'illuminating' and 'manifesting' things... We think of Awareness as an agent 'perceiving' and 'illuminating' objects... this can certainly appear to be the case even after transcendental experiences of I AM and Non-Dual, with the 'view of inherency' still strong.

 

However the insight of Anatta removes the notion of an agent or source... why is this so? Anatta means this... in hearing, there is no hearer... there is simply the self-accomplishing process of hearing which is really the experience of sound, music, changing moment to moment, arising according to conditions.

 

In seeing, there is no seer... it is simply a self-accomplishing process of seeing which is is simply the experience of sight, the shapes and colours, changing moment to moment, arising according to conditions.

 

In thinking, there is no thinker or controller of thought... there is simply the self-accomplishing process of thinking which is thought, changing moment to moment, arising according to latent tendencies and other supporting conditions.

 

So if there is no agent, no source, no ultimate Awareness - only awareness/hearing/thinking as a process of manifestation... this is not a denial of awareness, hearing, seeing, perceiving, but a denial of awareness/perceiving/etc as an 'agent' of experience - it is simply a process of experiencing without experiencer.

 

If this is the case, is there a primordially pure Awareness? The answer is this... Awareness is simply the self-luminous appearance, and this self-luminous appearance is ultimately empty, unborn, and primordially pure.

 

This arising sound... this arising sight... scent... thought.... This is it. It is not about the transient clouds obscuring or tainting the primordially pure sun and then trying to remove all the clouds to get back to that pure sun... rather, it is that, the passing cloud seen as it is, is primordially pure, empty, self-luminous and spontaneously perfected. And yet... undeniably, ignorance arise and we experience apparent duality and inherency where none can be found... this false view of reality is the cause of all our grasping and sufferings and problems.

 

Yet the cause of liberation is not found by shunning the transience or sinking back into a Source... it is not about a 'freedom from appearance' or even a 'freedom despite appearance'... appearance is primordially pure! This appearance (seen rightly) alone is self-liberating! It is about a shift in view/paradigm... a shift from duality and inherency to a non-dual, non-inherent viewless view of transience.

 

Liberation is thus not about abiding in an unborn ultimate essence... but seeing all appearances as luminous, empty, unborn, primordially pure and spontaneously perfected.

 

 

 

Dzogchen master Longchenpa:

 

 

...All phenomena are primordially pure and enlightened, so it is unborn and unceasing, inconceivable and inexpressible.

 

In the ultimate sphere purity and impurity are naturally pure and phenomena are the great equal perfection, free from conception.

 

Since there is no bondage and liberation, there is no going, coming or dwelling.

 

Appearance and emptiness are conventions, apprehended and apprehender are like maya (a magical apparition).

 

The happiness and suffering of samsara and nirvana are like good and bad dreams.

 

From the very moment of appearing, its nature is free from elaboration.

 

From it (the state of freedom from elaboration), the very interdependent causation of the great arising and cessation appears like a dream, maya, an optical illusion, a city of the gandharvas an echo, and a reflection, having no reality. All the events such as arising, etc., Are in their true nature unborn.

 

So they will never cease nor undergo any changes in the three periods of time.

 

They did not come from anywhere and they did not go anywhere.

 

They will not stay anywhere: they are like a dream and maya.

 

A foolish person is attached to phenomena as true, and apprehends them as gross material phenomena,

 

"i" and "self," whereas they are like a maya-girl who disappears when touched.

 

They are not true because they are deceiving and act only in appearance.

 

The spheres of the six realms of beings and the pure lands of the buddhas, also are not aggregations of atoms, but merely the self-appearances of beings’ minds.

 

For example, in a dream buddhas and sentient beings appear as real, endowed with inconceivable properties.

 

However, when one awakens, they were just a momentary object of the mind.

 

In the same way should be understood all the phenomena of samsara and nirvana.

 

There is no separate emptiness apart from apparent phenomena.

 

It is like fire and heat, the qualities of fire.

 

The notion of their distinctness is a division made by mind.

 

Water and the moon’s reflection in water are indivisibly one in the pool.

 

Likewise, appearances and emptiness are one in the great dharmata.

 

These appearances are unborn from the beginning, and they are the dharmakaya.

 

They are like reflections, naturally unstained and pure.

 

The mind’s fabricating their existence or nonexistence is an illusion,

 

So do not conceptualize whatever appearances arise...

Edited December 18, 2010 by xabir2005

[Lucky7Strikes]

You remember your yesterday, right? Roughly? Two weeks ago? Two years? Well, that's basically what your mindstream is. It's the stream of your mind as you live it, your inner life, which ultimately is all life. Where is the sensation of the car going down the street? The car is gown down the street, but where is the knowing of it? It's intimate, right? The car you saw, just how you saw it, is yours. No one else can talk about it in exactly the same way. That's mindstream.

Yes, I think the sense of "stream" is precisely due to the imprints of those memories making it seem like a continuous "thing" but it's really only the impression of continuum we can only be sure of. And I also agree that the moment is unique to itself, which is, at this moment, "me".

Edited December 18, 2010 by Lucky7Strikes

[goldisheavy]

What is potential?

 

It's an infinite set of all possible experiences.

[xabir2005]

Yes, I think the sense of "stream" is precisely due to the imprints of those memories making it seem like a continuous "thing" but it's really only the impression of continuum we can only be sure of. And I also agree that the moment is unique to itself, which is, at this moment, "me".

There is causal continuity but not a continuous thing.

 

For example, I pass down a certain knowledge/skill of mine to you. It is so called 'reborn' in a new instance, in this case, a new mind moment in your mind-stream. My knowledge is not exactly same as yours (though similar it is a unique experience) nor is it different.

 

Likewise, your karma and my karma is unique: and it is passed down (reborn) moment after moment and life after life (though subject to transformation along the way), but it remains its unique stream. Through 'my' unique karma, a unique mind-moment is reborn which is different from 'your' unique karma which resulted in 'your' unique mind-moment. In this way, there is uniqueness and continuity to mindstreams. Causal continuity cannot be denied, what is denied is simply a substantial continuous self or agent behind experience/perception/action.

 

 

In Mil. it is said:

 

"Now, Venerable Nāgasena, the one who is reborn, is he the same as the one who has died, or is he another?"

 

"Neither the same, nor another" (na ca so na ca añño).

 

"Give me an example."

 

"What do you think, o King: are you now, as a grown-up person, the same that you had been as a little, young and tender babe? "

 

"No, Venerable Sir. Another person was the little, young and tender babe, but quite a different person am I now as a grown-up man . " . . .

 

"... Is perhaps in the first watch of the night one lamp burning, another one in the middle watch, and again another one in the last watch?"

 

"No, Venerable Sir. The light during the whole night depends on one and the same lamp.''

 

"Just so, o King, is the chain of phenomena linked together. One phenomenon arises, another vanishes, yet all are linked together, one after the other, without interruption. In this way one reaches the final state of consciousnes neither as the same person. nor as another person.''

 

 

Also, in the //Milindapanha// the King asks Nagasena:

 

"What is it, Venerable Sir, that will be reborn?"

 

"A psycho-physical combination (//nama-rupa//), O King."

 

"But how, Venerable Sir? Is it the same psycho-physical

combination as this present one?"

 

"No, O King. But the present psycho-physical combination produces

kammically wholesome and unwholesome volitional activities, and

through such kamma a new psycho-physical combination will be

born."

 

 

 

Also see:

 

http://www.katinkahesselink.net/tibet/anatta_jagaro.html

Edited December 18, 2010 by xabir2005

[Lucky7Strikes]

It's only relatively infinite streams of consciousness.

I'm not so sure what relatively infinite means, but if a thing is relatively infinite, I'm not sure if it is a thing at all. lol.

 

The one taste of a Buddha is just the ongoing experience of seeing directly the luminous emptiness of all streams simultaneous with his/her own. Luminous as in conscious awareness of emptiness. The fact of emptiness is basically cognized by a Buddha, as free from concepts. So, really there is no ultimate consciousness either, just ultimate insight into the nature of all moments of consciousness' (plural). The Alayavijana now turns into the basis for the experience of the Dharmakaya and all impressions have been freed and turned into moments of service to the all, now experienced as self liberated.

The thing that baffled me over and over is this aspect of "individuality" of mindstreams such as the Buddha's. I think there was a discussion of "how can there be a sense of a continuing sense of self without a link between each moment"...these concepts were in contrast to the uniqueness of each moment's arising and ceasing, anatta, no-doer etc...

 

but the meaning of "imprints" struck me as each moment not disappearing at all, but leaving an effect. My moment of awareness is simply a cause in itself, not any more special or important than other causes however, giving rise to this moment then the next and so on. So if we take the fire example where the fuel and the fire as indistinguishable, the fuel also is a cause and condition for the fire, but also the fire itself from branch to branch, so hence the "sense" of continuum, but nor really a thing there.

 

For most people this sense of continuum results in a sense of selfhood, but for the Buddha, the moment of realization dependently originates as the dharma, realization of the nature of all phenomena simply confirms itself for...eternity...the awareness of a Buddha is eternal!

 

So it struck me that the Buddha is nothing but the dharma, there is no Buddha, but the dharma!

Edited December 18, 2010 by Lucky7Strikes

[xabir2005]

It's an infinite set of all possible experiences.

... which cannot be established as having inherently existed and thus is simply the empty nature of reality.

 

The absence of inherent existence allows for all possibilities provided there are supporting conditions for their arising.

 

i.e. if flower is inherently red, then a dog could not have seen it as black. but since flower is empty, a dog (dogs are color blind) can perceive black flower and a human perceive a red one. therefore emptiness is infinite potentiality

Edited December 18, 2010 by xabir2005

[Lucky7Strikes]

Here's my updated reply to you which I posted in my e-journal/e-book Who am I?:

Of course, each stream doesn't directly affect others (but it does affect others interdependently: they just aren't the same stream).

 

In other words, the karmic deeds of this mind stream wouldn't ripen in another mindstream...

 

i.e. if I killed someone, you won't have to suffer for 'my' karma (even though there is no doer, just a process of volition, action and ripening, etc) It is not the case that 'we are one and the same'.

Hi Xabir,

 

The karmic deeds of the mind seem only substantial when one creates a false sense of entity creating and being affected by the karmic deeds. But I disagree that the karmic deeds only belong to specific mindstreams that would solidify an inherent separateness to each streams which I believe is false. There is only an impression of continuum.

 

I agree that one's karmic deeds only affect oneself, but again, this is only the case when there is a grasping of a "self" to do and be affected by its own deeds. But karma, I remember, is only a part of the whole of causes and conditions, and not the entire picture.

 

Also, all phenomena are luminous, but luminosity is not a shared essence of all mindstreams (that would be the substantialist non-dual view of 'everything as manifestation of an ultimate Awareness' instead of seeing that Awareness is simply this arising and subsiding sight, sound, thought)... luminosity is the diversity of experience which we do not share (as obviously we all have our unique experiences in life which we do not share), and thus mindstreams remain unique even though non-dual (means in seeing just the seen, in hearing just the heard, no agent/hearer/experiencer can be found).

 

Luminosity as not a shared essence, but a shared taste...? The "roundness" of basketballs, is not an essence, but their taste.

Edited December 18, 2010 by Lucky7Strikes

[Lucky7Strikes]