Mindstream

[xabir2005]

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.

How can karma not remain unique in mindstreams?

 

Volition is a mental phenomenon. How can mental phenomenon not remain unique? How can we, for example, share memories unless you describe your memory to me: and even then I am simply hearing a description of your memory, I do not have the memory of yours. I can never share 'your' memory. We both have unique memories. Karma is like this. We both have unique karmas which are 'unshareable'. Unless we created some karma together, that is the only case there can be 'shared karma' (for example: we both killed people together in past lives, and so in this life we got into a car accident together) in the same way that by experiencing/doing something together can we have 'shared memories'.

 

Karmic deeds occur and its ripening occur - just that there is no doer nor recipient of them.

 

As Thusness wrote 4 years ago:

There is no ‘Watcher’ apart from the watching. There is no doer apart from the doing nor ‘own will ’apart from the volition. The ‘watching’, ‘doing’ and ‘action’ refer to the same process. This same process flows and continues life after life. The process reaps its own fruit. There is no escape.

 

~ Thusness

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.

No, karma continue to ripen even when you realized no-self.

 

Even Buddha still has ripening of karma (and suffer physical hardship, pain, illness as a result) and also elucidated his past lives to explain why he got those pains. So he still experiences the effects of karma, just that he no longer creates them because the process of grasping and samsaric volition has stopped.

But karma, I remember, is only a part of the whole of causes and conditions, and not the entire picture.

Yes, karma is just one of the conditions. Therefore we cannot say everything is caused by karma. We can't say that the hurricane is entirely caused by our karma because there are lots of factors to be taken into account including the laws of nature, etc.

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

Yes.

 

A sound... vivid, clear, non-dual.... is radically different from a sight or a thought, also vivid, clear, non-dual. Even though both are vivid, clear, non-dual and shares the same taste, the luminosity IS the manifestation and thus is unique and radically different in every expression.

Edited December 18, 2010 by xabir2005

[Lucky7Strikes]

 

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.

 

 

 

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.

Yes, yes, Gold you put it much better than I could.

 

Call it seeing flowers in the sky, but the flowers are still seen. The unknown potentials are as important and unsubstantiated as the known moment of now. No thick walls.

 

There is no cosmic self, but a cosmos that works through relativity between the known and the unknown! But the unknown is precisely that, unknown. We do not know all the causes and conditions because we are the manifest, the recognizing of this limitation rather lets us be open!

[Lucky7Strikes]

[goldisheavy]

What is potential?

 

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.

 

When it comes to this infinite set of possibilities, there is nothing that it depends on. So while you cannot establish inherency for it, you also cannot establish dependence, unlike with say a chair, which is clearly dependent on wood, floors and so forth. So this infinite set of possibilities depends on nothing whatsoever.

 

This is why we say the mind is unborn upon the final analysis.

 

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

 

Sort of. As long as you don't have a mistaken idea about the character of conditions, it's a true enough statement. If you think conditions themselves are immutable, like say the laws of physics, then that's an obscuration of insight.

 

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

 

Forget about the flower. I am talking about something vastly more abstract than a flower. I'm talking about an infinite set. It can't be analyzed in the same way as a flower.

[xabir2005]

Volition, is just a moment's arising, complete and non-dual in itself...arises from the causes and conditions. It belongs to nothing but to that moment alone. And then the next moment and so on...

Yes, it does not belong to any 'one' as there is no 'one' - there is no self apart from the process of volition, ripening, etc.

The process only seems so because of the imprints a moment leaves in the form of a memory. I don

t disagree that karmic residue will still arise, but one is not affected by them, as in karma does not create more karma and so on. One no longer "owns" it. But the process changes when one realizes the dharma, the realization is itself a "doing", and event, that will generate its own effects for the future...

Agree.

Yes yes, and the sense of continuum, of a mindstream, is also just that: one of the conditions for the arising of this moment. Sometimes this condition does not arise as in dreams when one forgets that he or she is dreaming. But the condition arises again upon waking when the memory from the previous day returns.

There is causal continuity, but the sense of 'something continuing' is a mere mental fabrication based on recalling and fabricating a 'someone'. What arises this moment is neither the same nor different from a previous and is 'linked' only by the causal chain.

 

From waking to dream is also a causal continuity... it is part of the process... our waking life affects our dream, for example. Only due to comparison that we think there is some sort of discontinuity or that upon waking up we somehow 'continue our lives' while actually 'life' includes our dreaming and deep sleep as well and should be seen as a seamless process, not just the waking state.

 

In reality there is just change and evolving experience but no 'changing things'... each moment is complete and whole as it is with supporting conditions. From waking to dreaming to deep sleep, the cycles go on and no state is more ultimate than another. Each state arises as it has to according to conditions and the process rolls on.

Edited December 18, 2010 by xabir2005

[goldisheavy]

Yes, yes, Gold you put it much better than I could.

 

Call it seeing flowers in the sky, but the flowers are still seen. The unknown potentials are as important and unsubstantiated as the known moment of now. No thick walls.

 

There is no cosmic self, but a cosmos that works through relativity between the known and the unknown! But the unknown is precisely that, unknown. We do not know all the causes and conditions because we are the manifest, the recognizing of this limitation rather lets us be open!

 

I mostly agree with you here Lucky, but I have to say that I am manifest and unmanifest at the same time. Without my unmanifest aspects my manifest aspects make no sense. So I cannot view myself as merely the manifest portion. Of course the manifest is the most obvious and prominent feature of who I am to myself, but it's not all. I don't have firm and clear delineations about myself.

[Lucky7Strikes]

Yes, it does not belong to any 'one' as there is no 'one' - there is no self apart from the process of volition, ripening, etc.

Agree.

There is causal continuity, but the sense of 'something continuing' is a mere mental fabrication based on recalling and fabricating a 'someone'. What arises this moment is neither the same nor different from a previous and is 'linked' only by the causal chain.

The word "link" is where it gets really really tricky in my point of view, because it's not as if there is this one thing being linked to the next, but rather only the impression of a link via imprints of memory. There really is no link besides that, the whole world is linked via abstract "delineation" as Gold put it anyway, so no need to stress a single link above another.

 

From waking to dream is also a causal continuity... it is part of the process... our waking life affects our dream, for example. Only due to comparison that we think there is some sort of discontinuity or that upon waking up we somehow 'continue our lives' while actually 'life' includes our dreaming and deep sleep as well and should be seen as a seamless process, not just the waking state.

 

In reality there is just change and evolving experience but no 'changing things'... each moment is complete and whole as it is with supporting conditions. From waking to dreaming to deep sleep, the cycles go on and no state is more ultimate than another. Each state arises as it has to according to conditions and the process rolls on.

But think about the context in which the causes and conditions produce that dream. It is infinite as in, it is not only the waking state that conditions that experience, but the position you are sleeping in, the temperature of the room, a memory from a very distant past or just yesterday...one upon another, an infinite regression of dependence upon dependence...which includes the karmas, actions, deeds of all sentient beings in the very moment of that dream! And then the next moment, then the next and so on...a grand process but with nothing to be defined!

 

All in one and one in all, Indra's net!

 

Nothing is continuing but the sense of continuum is what I am trying to say.

Edited December 19, 2010 by Lucky7Strikes

[Lucky7Strikes]

I mostly agree with you here Lucky, but I have to say that I am manifest and unmanifest at the same time. Without my unmanifest aspects my manifest aspects make no sense. So I cannot view myself as merely the manifest portion. Of course the manifest is the most obvious and prominent feature of who I am to myself, but it's not all. I don't have firm and clear delineations about myself.

Yup, the separation of terms into manifest and unmanifest is too coarse when it's not really like that in daily experience. But I am not as sure of this as you might be, because it seems that the unmanifest is often the "knowing" aspect of experience while the manifest is the vivid experience itself. I am holding a bottle of ginger ale and my body "knows" that it is something I can drink due to my knowledge of all the unmanifest things, conceptual knowledge of it--that is is drinkable, sweet, etc.--and the knowledge of the dharma, or dependence is also like that, a knowledge of the unmanifest. Actually perhaps all knowledge is like that, never direct, but idealized.

 

But I cannot say that the unmanifest and manifest arise together, that wouldn't make sense because experience itself is the definition of manifestation. Rather the knowledge of the unmanfest is there, and although one can completely immerse oneself into the timeless pure existence of manifestation, the janas, etc, that would be to do away with that knowledge, so Buddhism says see the unmanifest knowledge as the manifestation..

 

Union of the knowing of emptiness and luminosity! of samatha and vipassana, of maha and spontaneity! (haha, sorry, I'm getting too excited over words).

 

.

[goldisheavy]

Yup, the separation of terms into manifest and unmanifest is too coarse when it's not really like that in daily experience. But I am not as sure of this as you might be, because it seems that the unmanifest is often the "knowing" aspect of experience while the manifest is the vivid experience itself. I am holding a bottle of ginger ale and my body "knows" that it is something I can drink due to my knowledge of all the unmanifest things, conceptual knowledge of it--that is is drinkable, sweet, etc.--and the knowledge of the dharma, or dependence is also like that, a knowledge of the unmanifest. Actually perhaps all knowledge is like that, never direct, but idealized.

 

Interesting. This made me recall that the manifestedness of things is not a binary state in my view; it's not an exclusive either/or term as in "it's either manifest or it's not." In daily experience manifestation occurs viscerally as in the case with the bottle of ginger ale, then slightly less viscerally as is the case with your ongoing thoughts about that bottle, and even slightly less viscerally as is the case of the subtle impressions that hover underneath your thoughts (it's possible to become aware of some of these), and smoothly down to the point where we are not overtly aware of knowledge. In case where we are not overtly aware of some knowledge, it's still possible to become aware of it through heavy duty analytical contemplation, by making a valid logical inference.

 

But I cannot say that the unmanifest and manifest arise together, that wouldn't make sense because experience itself is the definition of manifestation. Rather the knowledge of the unmanfest is there, and although one can completely immerse oneself into the timeless pure existence of manifestation, the janas, etc, that would be to do away with that knowledge, so Buddhism says see the unmanifest knowledge as the manifestation..

 

Union of the knowing of emptiness and luminosity! of samatha and vipassana, of maha and spontaneity! (haha, sorry, I'm getting too excited over words).

 

.

 

I don't think the unmanifest arises at all. I described the unmanifest as a set of all possible experiences. These possibilities cannot be said to arise or subside in the grand scheme of things. Of course in a practical sense falling down while walking on the street is more likely than floating upward into the sky, and this has to do with our own conditioning and habit energies. In the grand scheme of things every experience is possible because there is nothing in the sense fields that blocks or disallows certain experiences.

 

To use a metaphor, the movie screen doesn't block or disallow any specific kind of movie. So if we notice that most movies tend to be action movies, we can't blame the screen for it and we can't say the movie screen is limited. Our sense fields allow for limitless possibilities and it's only our habit energies, beliefs and intent that keep our life in a relatively confined and predictable way.

 

Now the materialist here would say that the world itself has built-in limitations, such as laws of physics, and that these limitations are external to mind, etc. I reject all such talk.

Edited December 19, 2010 by goldisheavy

[xabir2005]

The word "link" is where it gets really really tricky in my point of view, because it's not as if there is this one thing being linked to the next, but rather only the impression of a link via imprints of memory. There really is no link besides that, the whole world is linked via abstract "delineation" as Gold put it anyway, so no need to stress a single link above another.

The link works this way:

 

 

When there is this, that is.

With the arising of this, that arises.

When this is not, neither is that.

With the cessation of this, that ceases.

 

~ the principle of D.O.

 

 

Yes, 'this' is not 'that', and yet without 'this', there is no 'that'. Dependent on 'this', 'that' arises as a new and complete phenomenon. Dependent origination works whether or not you are engaging in memory, karma ripens whether or not you are engaging in memory.

 

For example, without a previous moment of consciousness, a new moment of consciousness cannot occur.

 

Without a previous act of volition, this karmic ripening cannot occur.

 

e.g. Dependent upon the karma of 'me' killing someone, I got knocked down by a car today. (ok, karma is much more complex than this but this is just an example!) Yes, there is no 'doer of deed' nor 'recipient of effect', the 'me' is said just for convenience sake - it just means this particular continuum of causal chain or body mind that is unique from all other mindstreams - no others had to die for killing someone today, only this particular mindstream, only this particular body mind conveniently labeled as 'xabir'.

 

Also, because we may have led entirely different lives, 'xabir' is reborn in hell due to 'his karma', 'lucky7strikes' is reborn in heaven due to 'his karma'... It is this stream of volition, karma, that is unique from the rest, and this makes all the difference between heaven and hell - 'we' are thus, unique, conveniently speaking.

 

There is causal link, or causal dependency, and it is in this way we establish the uniqueness of mindstreams: cause and effect happen uniquely in a single stream of experiencing. There is no unique 'selves', only unique experiences, karma, mindstream, etc. Our memories, tendencies, karma, experiences are all unique. We don't have cows' karma or experience. The causal link doesn't mix: I don't experience your causal link, you don't experience mine. My karma doesn't ripen in your mindstream, yours don't ripen in mine.

 

 

Everywhere, in all the realms of existence, the noble disciple

sees only mental and corporeal phenomena kept going through the

concatenation of causes and effects. No producer of the

volitional act or kamma does he see apart from the kamma, no

recipient of the kamma-result apart from the result. And he is

well aware that wise men are using merely conventional language,

when, with regard to a kammical act, they speak of a doer, or

with regard to a kamma-result, they speak of the recipient of the

result.

 

No doer of the deeds is found,

No one who ever reaps their fruits;

Empty phenomena roll on:

This only is the correct view.

 

And while the deeds and their results

Roll on and on, conditioned all,

There is no first beginning found,

Just as it is with seed and tree. ...

 

No god, no Brahma, can be called

The maker of this wheel of life:

Empty phenomena roll on,

Dependent on conditions all.

 

 

~ Visuddhimagga

But think about the context in which the causes and conditions produce that dream. It is infinite as in, it is not only the waking state that conditions that experience, but the position you are sleeping in, the temperature of the room, a memory from a very distant past or just yesterday...one upon another, an infinite regression of dependence upon dependence...which includes the karmas, actions, deeds of all sentient beings in the very moment of that dream! And then the next moment, then the next and so on...a grand process but with nothing to be defined!

 

All in one and one in all, Indra's net!

 

Nothing is continuing but the sense of continuum is what I am trying to say.

The net of indra does not deny individual mindstreams nor conflate everything into a universal oneness.

 

So there are countless universes, countless mindstreams, and each is interlinked. If you drop something, it is being reflected in all. It is a reflection in you and in all. "I feel" and "you feel" are all nodes reflecting.

 

Each mindstream is interdependent with the rest of totality, and yet it is not the case that I am you and you are me, because mindstreams are unique (and interdependent). i.e. just because you hit the bell and both you and the cow heard the bell, doesn't mean you are the cow or that you and the cow are one.

 

Each unique mindstream is simply dependently originated, and hence are each empty of inherent existence. It's emptiness does not however deny the uniqueness of expression/manifestation.

Edited December 19, 2010 by xabir2005

[Lucky7Strikes]

The link works this way:

 

 

When there is this, that is.

With the arising of this, that arises.

When this is not, neither is that.

With the cessation of this, that ceases.

 

~ the principle of D.O.

 

 

Yes, 'this' is not 'that', and yet without 'this', there is no 'that'. Dependent on 'this', 'that' arises as a new and complete phenomenon. Dependent origination works whether or not you are engaging in memory, karma ripens whether or not you are engaging in memory.

 

For example, without a previous moment of consciousness, a new moment of consciousness cannot occur.

 

Without a previous act of volition, this karmic ripening cannot occur.

Yes yes I agree, but I just think you are thinking too linearly. The causal links definitely mix. This is like saying the body is a linear link in itself which may only seem so, but when we examine what constitutes body, the causes are interconnected with everything else in the universe, the food, the molecules, the activities of cells, interaction with other bodies...

 

There is causal link, or causal dependency, and it is in this way we establish the uniqueness of mindstreams: cause and effect happen uniquely in a single stream of experiencing. The causal link doesn't mix: I don't experience your causal link, you don't experience mine. My karma doesn't ripen in your mindstream, yours don't ripen in mine.

 

The net of indra does not deny individual mindstreams nor conflate everything into a universal oneness.

 

So there are countless universes, countless mindstreams, and each is interlinked. If you drop something, it is being reflected in all. It is a reflection in you and in all. "I feel" and "you feel" are all nodes reflecting.

 

Each mindstream is interdependent with the rest of totality, and yet it is not the case that I am you and you are me, because mindstreams are unique (and interdependent).

 

Each unique mindstream is simply dependently originated, and hence are each empty of inherent existence. It's emptiness does not however deny the uniqueness of expression/manifestation.

If there is interdependence of events there is interdependence of causes, hence causal links. Not necessarily karmic, in the sense that I pay for your wrong actions, but a causal link, as in you step on my foot and I feel pain. I think you are solidifying a mind stream too much, it is just arising of memory imprints.

 

We don't have a disagreement over concepts here. Just emphasis. I think it's same for Gold.

Edited December 19, 2010 by Lucky7Strikes

[goldisheavy]

The link works this way:

 

 

When there is this, that is.

With the arising of this, that arises.

When this is not, neither is that.

With the cessation of this, that ceases.

 

~ the principle of D.O.

 

 

Yes, 'this' is not 'that', and yet without 'this', there is no 'that'. Dependent on 'this', 'that' arises as a new and complete phenomenon. Dependent origination works whether or not you are engaging in memory, karma ripens whether or not you are engaging in memory.

 

For example, without a previous moment of consciousness, a new moment of consciousness cannot occur.

 

Without a previous act of volition, this karmic ripening cannot occur.

 

etc...

 

There is causal link, or causal dependency, and it is in this way we establish the uniqueness of mindstreams: cause and effect happen uniquely in a single stream of experiencing. The causal link doesn't mix: I don't experience your causal link, you don't experience mine. My karma doesn't ripen in your mindstream, yours don't ripen in mine.

The net of indra does not deny individual mindstreams nor conflate everything into a universal oneness.

 

So there are countless universes, countless mindstreams, and each is interlinked. If you drop something, it is being reflected in all. It is a reflection in you and in all. "I feel" and "you feel" are all nodes reflecting.

 

Each mindstream is interdependent with the rest of totality, and yet it is not the case that I am you and you are me, because mindstreams are unique (and interdependent).

 

Each unique mindstream is simply dependently originated, and hence are each empty of inherent existence. It's emptiness does not however deny the uniqueness of expression/manifestation.

 

I don't get your obsession Xabir. Of course mindstream have some individuality, but it's not so extreme and impenetrable. Look here:

 

"If he wants, he wields manifold supranormal powers. Having been one he becomes many; having been many he becomes one.

 

and

 

"If he wants, he knows the awareness of other beings, other individuals, having encompassed it with his own awareness.

 

Now, if the mindstreams were as grossly and categorically individual as you seem to imply, none of these feats would be possible.

 

You aren't 100% you and I am not 100% me. The fact that you seem to be you in a manner that's distinct from me being me is not an established fact. It's temporary and provisional understanding and experience that depends on a certain mindset as its supporting factor. It's possible for people to merge and separate. In fact I have experienced just that myself one time. I've merged with my wife such that instead of the two of us, there was one person who was neither me nor my wife. When this experience was over, I instantly asked my wife about it and she said she felt exactly the same thing. Both of us were afraid to lose our individuality, so we didn't want to be that new person and we let it go. Had we been fearless, we could have enjoyed being a new different person whose personal history included that of two separate beings.

 

You seem obsessed with this topic, Xabir. What are you afraid of?

[xabir2005]

 

You aren't 100% you and I am not 100% me. The fact that you seem to be you in a manner that's distinct from me being me is not an established fact. It's temporary and provisional understanding and experience that depends on a certain mindset as its supporting factor. It's possible for people to merge and separate. In fact I have experienced just that myself one time. I've merged with my wife such that instead of the two of us, there was one person who was neither me nor my wife. When this experience was over, I instantly asked my wife about it and she said she felt exactly the same thing. Both of us were afraid to lose our individuality, so we didn't want to be that new person and we let it go. Had we been fearless, we could have enjoyed being a new different person whose personal history included that of two separate beings.

 

You seem obsessed with this topic, Xabir. What are you afraid of?

You can never become your wife... why? Because there is no 'you' nor 'your wife', though there are unique experiences, unique mindstreams.

 

There is simply an experience, apparently of merging with your wife. The dissolving of the sense of a personal self however does not mean there is a universal oneness or that "I am my wife" - that part is mere extrapolation. The absence of personal self is true, the extrapolation is false. In actual fact, there never were 'selves', only unique experiences and mindstream. Even though the sense of personal self dissolves, it does not mean you and your wife share the exact same experience - you can never share experiences, experience is intimate as you say.

 

In particular, you had an experience of dissolving the sense of individuality, the sense of a personal self. Actually there is no personal self... but neither is there a unified or impersonal self. Once you dissolve the sense of personal self which manifests an appearance of barrier or boundary between 'me' and 'others', the danger is then to think that there is a unified or impersonal self. Both are illusions. That there is ultimately no 'me' and no 'other' does not mean we are one, or that we are a unified self - and the fact remains that 'we' are unique mindstreams. There just happens to be two mindstreams where the sense of a personal self dissolves at a single moment.

 

In actual fact, in every moment there is simply the experience of sights, sounds, smells, thoughts, etc, each is a unique experience... but there is no experiencer of experience.

 

There is no 'experiencer of my wife'... there never was, and there is also no 'I am one with my wife'. There is simply that experience arising according to conditions. In seeing wife, there is just that 'experience of wife' - the sight, the sounds, the smell, etc. There is no experiencer. And neither is there a 'unified self' where 'I am one with my wife'. In fact, our mindstreams remain unique, our experience remains unique, just that there never was an experiencer in any mindstreams. This is a fact of reality, not merely a temporary experience...

 

There is no 'I am you, you are me', nor is there 'I am not you, you are not me' - there are only unique mindstreams and experience, without an experiencer, agent, self, etc. But what is conveniently labeled as 'me' is vastly different from what is conveniently labeled as 'a dog' - we just don't share the same experiences. In fact, each human also have unique experiences, lives, karma, etc. We aren't one.

Edited December 19, 2010 by xabir2005

[xabir2005]

Yes yes I agree, but I just think you are thinking too linearly. The causal links definitely mix. This is like saying the body is a linear link in itself which may only seem so, but when we examine what constitutes body, the causes are interconnected with everything else in the universe, the food, the molecules, the activities of cells, interaction with other bodies...

 

 

If there is interdependence of events there is interdependence of causes, hence causal links. Not necessarily karmic, in the sense that I pay for your wrong actions, but a causal link, as in you step on my foot and I feel pain. I think you are solidifying a mind stream too much, it is just arising of memory imprints.

 

We don't have a disagreement over concepts here. Just emphasis. I think it's same for Gold.

I see... yes, D.O. is certainly not purely linear and we can never comprehend its full dynamics. What you said sounds good.

[goldisheavy]

You can never become your wife... why? Because there is no 'you' nor 'your wife', though there are unique experiences, unique mindstreams.

 

Yes I can become my wife. Why? For the exact same reason. Becoming is a visionary experience to begin with. It's not something more substantial than a vision.

 

There is simply an experience, apparently of merging with your wife. The dissolving of the sense of a personal self however does not mean there is a universal oneness or that "I am my wife" - that part is mere extrapolation. The absence of personal self is true, the extrapolation is false.

 

I didn't talk about universal oneness. You're just injecting that on your own. It's your axe to grind, not mine.

 

In particular, you had an experience of dissolving the sense of individuality, the sense of a personal self.

 

Not exactly. It wasn't so much dissolving as transforming.

 

Actually there is no personal self... but neither is there a unified or impersonal self. Once you dissolve the sense of personal self, the danger is then to think that there is a unified or impersonal self. Both are illusions. There just happens to be two mindstreams where the sense of a personal self dissolves at a single moment.

 

Danger? What is the threat? That's first. Second, you're making emptiness into an ultimate ground. That's wrong. When you say there is no personal self and there is no impersonal self, that's setting up emptiness as an ultimate ground out of which everything arises and into which everything subsides. Wrong.

 

Everything is empty as is. In other words my sensation of me being myself is already empty. It doesn't need to subside or dissolve for me to taste or realize emptiness.

 

In actual fact, in every moment there is simply the experience of sights, sounds, smells, thoughts, etc, each is a unique experience... but there is no experiencer of experience.

 

There is no 'experiencer of my wife'... there never was,

 

I can play that game too. "There is no Xabir typing replies to goldisheavy." There is no Xabir saying "there is no...." You repeat these things like a moron. Truly. An idiot! There is not an ounce of understanding in your moronic head. You repeat these words but you haven't owned the knowledge they stand for yet. This is evidenced by your extremism. You forget that the truth of the Dharma and all phenomena is beyond the tetralemma of "is", "is not", "neither is nor is not", "both is and is not". Beyond! So every time you say "there isn't" you're getting stuck in an extremism. Moron! Moron, moron, moron, idiot, fool, moron, moron stupid Xabir.

Edited December 19, 2010 by goldisheavy

[xabir2005]

Danger? What is the threat? That's first. Second, you're making emptiness into an ultimate ground. That's wrong. When you say there is no personal self and there is no impersonal self, that's setting up emptiness as an ultimate ground out of which everything arises and into which everything subsides. Wrong.

No, emptiness is not an ultimate ground.

 

There is no personal self, no impersonal self, and also no emptiness. Emptiness is empty as well.

Everything is empty as is. In other words my sensation of me being myself is already empty. It doesn't need to subside or dissolve for me to taste or realize emptiness.

Fully agreed here. Never did I imply something else. Everything is already empty - self is already empty, object is already empty. What is important is not a temporary experience, but the realization that this is and always is already so.

 

In fact I want to add: dissolving the sense of personal self is not the realization of Anatta. It is simply that: an experience of dissolving the sense of personality.

 

As I wrote before,

 

...First I do not see Anatta as merely a freeing from personality sort of experience as you mentioned; I see it as that a self/agent, a doer, a thinker, a watcher, etc, cannot be found apart from the moment to moment flow of manifestation or as its commonly expressed as ‘the observer is the observed’; there is no self apart from arising and passing. A very important point here is that Anatta/No-Self is a Dharma Seal, it is the nature of Reality all the time -- and not merely as a state free from personality, ego or the ‘small self’ or a stage to attain. This means that it does not depend on the level of achievement of a practitioner to experience anatta but Reality has always been Anatta and what is important here is the intuitive insight into it as the nature, characteristic, of phenomenon (dharma seal).

 

To put further emphasis on the importance of this point, I would like to borrow from the Bahiya Sutta (http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/ud/ud.1.10.irel.html) that ‘in the seeing, there is just the seen, no seer’, ‘in the hearing, there is just the heard, no hearer’ as an illustration. When a person says that I have gone beyond the experiences from ‘I hear sound’ to a stage of ‘becoming sound’, he is mistaken. When it is taken to be a stage, it is illusory. For in actual case, there is and always is only sound when hearing; never was there a hearer to begin with. Nothing attained for it is always so. This is the seal of no-self. Therefore to a non dualist, the practice is in understanding the illusionary views of the sense of self and the split. Before the awakening of prajna wisdom, there will always be an unknowing attempt to maintain a purest state of 'presence'. This purest presence is the 'how' of a dualistic mind -- its dualistic attempt to provide a solution due to its lack of clarity of the spontaneous nature of the unconditioned. It is critical to note here that both the doubts/confusions/searches and the solutions that are created for these doubts/confusions/searches actually derive from the same cause -- our karmic propensities of ever seeing things dualistically...

I can play that game too. "There is no Xabir typing replies to goldisheavy." There is no Xabir saying "there is no...." You repeat these things like a moron. Truly. An idiot! There is not an ounce of understanding in your moronic head. You repeat these words but you haven't owned the knowledge they stand for yet.

I have realized this.

 

Have you realized that there is simply the experience of typing but no agent or typer can be found?

This is evidenced by your extremism. You forget that the truth of the Dharma and all phenomena is beyond the tetralemma of "is", "is not", "neither is nor is not", "both is and is not". Beyond! So every time you say "there isn't" you're getting stuck in an extremism. Moron! Moron, moron, moron, idiot, fool, moron, moron stupid Xabir.

There is no self, and no 'no self' either. I did not imply that non-existence is ultimate. I am saying existence, non-existence, and so on simply cannot be established.

 

Self cannot be found, but neither can 'no self' or 'emptiness' be found. Everything is empty even emptiness.

Edited December 19, 2010 by xabir2005

[xabir2005]

p.s. wrote this over a week ago:

If you say there is self... zen master's stick hit you 30 times.

 

If you say there is no self... zen master's stick hit you 30 times.

 

If you say all is one... zen master's stick hit you 30 times.

 

 

 

In the process of contemplation, the 'dualistic' and 'inherent' framework begins to lose hold.

 

After seeing through and letting go "self" via the teaching of "no self"... so too is "one", "no self", "emptiness" to be let go of in the process.

 

"Self", "No Self", "One", "Emptiness" cannot be established - just as no "self" can be found, no "no self" can be found either. View and teachings are important but are also rafts to be let go in the end.

 

And yet still nothing is lost. Sky is blue, grass is green, clear, obvious, undeniable, certain, actual. Drop my spoon, tinggg!

 

The old pond, A frog jumps in: Plop!

 

 

 

"Bhikkkhus, this view, so clean and pure, if you covet, fondle, treasure and take pride in it do you know this Teaching comparable to a raft, taught for the purpose of giving up and not for the purpose of holding? No, venerable sir. Bhikkhus, this view of yours so clean and pure, do not covet, fondle, treasure and take pride in it. Do you know this Teaching comparable to a raft, taught for the purpose of giving up and not for the purpose of holding? Yes, venerable sir."

 

 

- Mahatanhasankhaya Sutta

 

p.s. but right view is extremely important until you realise emptiness! otherwise even though non-dual is experienced it can turn into 'substantialist non-dualism'. only when emptiness is realized that the holding on to conceptual views dissolve on their own accord. don't throw away the raft too early

Edited December 19, 2010 by xabir2005

[goldisheavy]

Have you realized that there is simply the experience of typing but no agent or typer can be found?

 

No I haven't. Why not? Because when I uprooted the source of confidence in the affirmations, it turns out I've also uprooted the source of confidence in the negations.

 

There is no self, and no 'no self' either.

 

Do negations have an established meaning with regard to affirmations? If not, then hear this, "There is self" and know that when I say it, it is true and doesn't violate what you're saying even one bit. I have gone to the point where I realize that there is no one fixed way to teach Dharma. This is why I am not a Buddhist even though I found Buddhism helpful. Thank you Buddha and fuck Buddha.

 

I did not imply that non-existence is ultimate. I am saying existence, non-existence, and so on simply cannot be established.

 

Not really. You have a clear preference for negations and you fear affirmations in a rather superstitious manner.

[goldisheavy]

Then, the crown prince Manjusri said to the Licchavi Vimalakirti, "Noble sir, how does the bodhisattva follow the way to attain the qualities of the Buddha?"

 

Vimalakirti replied, "Manjusri, when the bodhisattva follows the wrong way, he follows the way to attain the qualities of the Buddha."

 

From http://www2.kenyon.edu/Depts/Religion/Fac/Adler/Reln260/Vimalakirti.htm

 

Deep, eh? I bet you can't comprehend this, being the extremist that you are.

[xabir2005]

Do negations have an established meaning with regard to affirmations? If not, then hear this, "There is self" and know that when I say it, it is true and doesn't violate what you're saying even one bit.

It is true only in the relative sense. Edited December 19, 2010 by xabir2005

[xabir2005]

From http://www2.kenyon.edu/Depts/Religion/Fac/Adler/Reln260/Vimalakirti.htm

 

Deep, eh? I bet you can't comprehend this, being the extremist that you are.

Wrong way, right way, are all empty, realizing this is wisdom.

 

"Good sons, all hindrances are none other than ultimate enlightenment. Whether you attain mindfulness or lose mindfulness, there is no non-liberation. Establishing the Dharma and refuting the Dharma are both called nirvana; wisdom and folly are equally prajna; the method that is perfected by bodhisattvas and false teachers is the same bodhi; ignorance and suchness are not different realms; morality, concentration and wisdom, as well as desire, hatred and ignorance are all divine practices; sentient beings and lands share the same dharma nature; hell and heaven are both the Pure Land; those having Buddha-nature and those not having it equally accomplish the Buddha's enlightenment. All defilements are ultimately liberation. The reality-realms's ocean-like wisdom completely illumines all marks to be just like empty space. This is called 'the Tathāgata's accordance with the nature of enlightenment.' "

 

~ The Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment

[Mark Foote]

"... the cessation of the (volitional) activities is gradual. In one who has entered the first rupa jhana, (the activity of) speech has ceased. In one who has entered the fourth rupa jhana, (the activity of) in-breath and out-breath has ceased. In one who has entered the jhana of the cessation of perception and sensation, (the activity of) perception and cessation has ceased."- the Gautamid, somewhere in the cannon

 

Yes, a forest fire can travel on particles like a plasma through the air- the fire still burns because of fuel, but the fuel is moving. I don't know how that relates to consciousness.

 

The ancestor said, it's not that there isn't practice and verification, just that practice and verification are undefiled. I don't find it so easy to enter meditative states, but I do know the feeling that exists when volitional activity ceases in the movement of breath. The view that consciousness depends on sense object/sense organ seems more conducive to that cessation than the view that there is a continuity of consciousness, as far as I can tell. The experience of the place of consciousness effecting a stretch and a reciprocity of stretch is occasionally sharp, and the ability to feel is the means I find to accept the experience, yet I find none of it has any meaning outside the context of the cessation of volition in inhalation and exhalation. I can't make volition cease in inhalation and exhalation with continuity through the exercise of will directly, only through the place of occurrence of mind, and it helps me to accept that the mind is spontaneously placed by the respiration of breath and the respiration of the cranial-sacral fluid.

Edited December 19, 2010 by Mark Foote

[goldisheavy]

Wrong way, right way, are all empty, realizing this is wisdom.

 

"Good sons, all hindrances are none other than ultimate enlightenment. Whether you attain mindfulness or lose mindfulness, there is no non-liberation. Establishing the Dharma and refuting the Dharma are both called nirvana; wisdom and folly are equally prajna; the method that is perfected by bodhisattvas and false teachers is the same bodhi; ignorance and suchness are not different realms; morality, concentration and wisdom, as well as desire, hatred and ignorance are all divine practices; sentient beings and lands share the same dharma nature; hell and heaven are both the Pure Land; those having Buddha-nature and those not having it equally accomplish the Buddha's enlightenment. All defilements are ultimately liberation. The reality-realms's ocean-like wisdom completely illumines all marks to be just like empty space. This is called 'the Tathāgata's accordance with the nature of enlightenment.' "

 

~ The Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment

 

Great quote. Wouldn't it be nice if you actually understood what it meant? Had you understood its meaning, you wouldn't need to quote it, you could just say the same thing even better in your own words. It's always Thussness this, Loppon Namdrol that, Dudjom Lingpa this, Padmasambhava that, etc. Get your own head fool. What if all the sutras disappeared tomorrow? Where would you be? And they will disappear.

 

21.a. I tell you this: There is no Buddha, no Dharma, no training and no realization. What are you so hotly chasing? Putting a head on top of your head, you blind fools? Your head is right where it should be. What are you lacking?

 

Followers of the Way, the one functioning right before your eyes, he is not different from the Buddhas and patriarchs. But you do not believe it, and so turn to the outside to seek.

 

Who roared this?

[xabir2005]

'No I' does not deny consciousness

 

'No phenomena' does not deny phenomena

 

'No realization' does not deny realization

 

It denies that anything can be established, it does not deny actual experience.

[goldisheavy]

'No I' does not deny consciousness

 

'No phenomena' does not deny phenomena

 

'No realization' does not deny realization

 

It denies that anything can be established, it does not deny actual experience.

 

No experience can be termed "actual" just like there is no such thing as non-actual experience.

 

You do understand that anything whatsoever can be negated, right? What does this say about negations? Negations are playful and ornamental. If used skillfully and judiciously, negations can be liberating. If overused, they can become addictive and dogmatic. Medicine becomes poison.

 

Why be a one-trick pony?