RongzomFan Posted January 5, 2011 (edited) Make a sharp distinction between awareness and mind (thoughts). By the way, awareness is just ordinary awareness coming out of your eyeballs and is looking at the computer screen right now. Now you are a nonduality master just like Adyashanti or whomever. If you need more help read the second paragraph here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dzogchen Edited January 5, 2011 by alwayson Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Aaron Posted January 5, 2011 Make a sharp distinction between awareness and mind (thoughts). By the way, awareness is just ordinary awareness coming out of your eyeballs and is looking at the computer screen right now. Now you are a nonduality master just like Adyashanti or whomever. If you need more help read the second paragraph here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dzogchen When explaining the great mystery, words can never suffice, but they are all we have. We strive to do the best we can, but no one is perfect. It is best to look deeper than just what you hear. Oftentimes the answer is not in the word, but what lies behind the word. Aaron Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
C T Posted January 5, 2011 Oftentimes the answer is not in the word, but what lies behind the word. And maybe it lies in the illuminated, silent, empty spaces and pauses when one word stops and before the next one rises. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Starjumper Posted January 5, 2011 (edited) When explaining the great mystery, words can never suffice, but they are all we have. Words don't count, only the way you feel and your moment to moment feelings count. You can only see, hear, or feel the mystery, you can't be told the mystery. Awareness FEELING Edited January 5, 2011 by Starjumper7 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Starjumper Posted January 5, 2011 Awareness and thinking are mutually exclusive, you can only do one at a time. What people who think all the time call awareness is a very shallow type of awareness, not deep. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Sunya Posted January 5, 2011 (edited) Awareness and thinking are mutually exclusive, you can only do one at a time. Actually you don't do awareness. Awareness does you. More accurately thoughts do you but thoughts aren't separate from awareness. It's totally possible to rest in awareness while still having thoughts and actually is necessary for integration or else a false duality occurs between awareness and thoughts. This is a practice in Dzogchen. Once you have a taste for awareness, you mix it into thoughts, feelings, activities, and more complex activities and conditions (sex, skydiving, giving a speech). Edited January 5, 2011 by Sunya 3 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
forestofclarity Posted January 5, 2011 Actually, this is quite false. One can cultivate mindfulness to the point where one sees thoughts, even subtle thoughts, as objects. Awareness and thinking are mutually exclusive, you can only do one at a time. What people who think all the time call awareness is a very shallow type of awareness, not deep. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Spectrum Posted January 8, 2011 Perhaps over tea I can interest you in a cup of stfu... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
strawdog65 Posted January 8, 2011 I agree with this... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yZ0M1pWD44&feature=related Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
xabir2005 Posted January 8, 2011 Actually you don't do awareness. Awareness does you. More accurately thoughts do you but thoughts aren't separate from awareness. It's totally possible to rest in awareness while still having thoughts and actually is necessary for integration or else a false duality occurs between awareness and thoughts. This is a practice in Dzogchen. Once you have a taste for awareness, you mix it into thoughts, feelings, activities, and more complex activities and conditions (sex, skydiving, giving a speech). Just chanced upon an old article in my blog - http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2009/05/isness-of-thought-between-two-moments.html Dzogchen Master Chogyal Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche: http://www.fudomouth.net/thinktank/now_nnawareness.htm Even if those who begin to practice this find it difficult to continue in this state for more than an instant, there is no need to worry about it. Without wishing for the state to continue for a long time and without fearing the lack of it altogether, all that is necessary is to maintain pure presence of mind, without falling into the dualistic situation of there being an observing subject perceiving an observed object. If the mind, even though one maintains simple presence, does not remain in this calm state, but always tends to follow waves of thoughts about the past or future, or becomes distracted by the aggregates of the senses such as sight, hearing, etc., then one should try to understand that the wave of thought itself is as insubstantial as the wind. If one tries to catch the wind, one does not succeed; similarly if one tries to block the wave of thought, it cannot be cut off. So for this reason one should not try to block thought, much less try to renounce it as something considered negative. In reality, the calm state is the essential condition of mind, while the wave of thought is the mind's natural clarity in function; just as there is no distinction whatever between the sun and its rays, or a stream and its ripples, so there is no distinction between the mind and thought. If one considers the calm state as something positive to be attained, and the wave of thought as something negative to be abandoned, and one remains thus caught up in the duality of accepting and rejecting, there is no way of overcoming the ordinary state of mind. 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Lucky7Strikes Posted January 8, 2011 Awareness and thinking are mutually exclusive, you can only do one at a time. What people who think all the time call awareness is a very shallow type of awareness, not deep. What? Are you not aware when you think? Then how in the world do you know you had "thinking"? 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Lucky7Strikes Posted January 8, 2011 (edited) Awareness can mean awareness of awareness, which leads to non-thought states. Awareness Sunya seems to be talking about is thought's awareness of thoughts, feeling's awareness of feeling, tasting's awareness of tasting, etc., oh wait, yea, it just dawned up in me that its referred to as mindfulness. Edited January 8, 2011 by Lucky7Strikes Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
xabir2005 Posted January 8, 2011 (edited) Btw, I don't see awareness as 'looking out of my eyes'. From the perspective of others, I have an appearance, I have eyes, ears, nose, etc.... From the first person perspective, I do not have an appearance, I do not have eyes, I do not have ears, nose, etc... unless I look in the mirror, but what I see in the mirror is a reflected appearance and not 'what I look out of'. If I look at what I am looking out of, I find no appearances, no eyes, ears, mouth, face, etc... But most importantly, I also do not find a great void, a background mirror, a seer behind things. In the absence of a body, I find everything in the universe... self-felt, self-revealed. There is no Awareness looking out of my eyes at something... There is simply the universe being revealed by its self-luminosity without a looker and being looked, without an inside and outside. When this is seen, mind-body drops, no traces of a self or a distance between subject and object remains (you literally feel like you are the sun and the trees instead of 'looking at' the sun and trees) - but neither is there a 'subject' that is 'one with objects' - there is simply no subject and object, period... yet self-luminous manifestation rolls on without an agent. "To study the Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things of the universe. To be enlightened by all things of the universe is to cast off the body and mind of the self as well as those of others. Even the traces of enlightenment are wiped out, and life with traceless enlightenment goes on forever and ever." ~ Zen Master Dogen p.s. Adyashanti's earlier works are talking about the I AM/Eternal Witness phase of experience and realization and are dualistic, only his recent works are about Non Dual - but it is substantial non-dualism (aka Thusness Stage 4) Edited January 8, 2011 by xabir2005 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
pennyofheaven Posted January 8, 2011 (edited) Make a sharp distinction between awareness and mind (thoughts). By the way, awareness is just ordinary awareness coming out of your eyeballs and is looking at the computer screen right now. Now you are a nonduality master just like Adyashanti or whomever. If you need more help read the second paragraph here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dzogchen How about... Awareness ... The silent observer, changeless, stillness, depth of the ocean Mind, thoughts...That which is in motion, ever changing, waves of the ocean Edited January 8, 2011 by pennyofheaven Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
xabir2005 Posted January 8, 2011 How about... Awareness ... The silent observer, changeless, stillness, depth of the ocean Mind, thoughts...That which is in motion, ever changing, waves of the ocean This is still the dualistic I AM phase of experience... See Thusness/PasserBy's Seven Stages of Enlightenment Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ben Posted January 8, 2011 (edited) Edited March 17, 2011 by ben Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
TheSongsofDistantEarth Posted January 8, 2011 (edited) . I nominate this for 'TaoBums Post of the Day'. Edited March 19, 2011 by Mal quoted post changed Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
xabir2005 Posted January 8, 2011 (edited) Even the Buddha for you info suffered from sickness and pain, including very terrible headaches, and having to die from food poisoning. Enlightenment does not offer you relief from past karmas' ripening: it only prevents you from creating new ones and new cycles of birth and death. One pointed/calm-abiding/shamatha meditation doesn't reveal the natural state: you need a contemplative practice to discover your natural state, which involves investigation and direct looking. This is called vipashyana or insight meditation/insight practice, which can be practiced both in sitting and in activities. Insight doesn't separate stillness and activities, since realization means insight into the nature and essence of all experiences. Nobody said enlightenment is a must and life indeed goes on without enlightenment - but enlightenment does help a few things, like end all sufferings and afflictions, and eventually end the uncontrolled cycle of birth and death (though I am aware not everyone believes that rebirth exists). Also, it is not about 'categorizing people into numbers', but the fact is there are different kinds of insight which are very experiential in nature - it is not about ideologies or concepts or theories. Edited March 19, 2011 by Mal quoted post changed Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Lucky7Strikes Posted January 8, 2011 (edited) I agree that people shouldn't force ideologies, but that doesn't mean ideologies are bad to our species. Ideologies like "boyfriend girlfriend" let your brother sleep in peace? :lol: Forcing religion like Buddhism on others can get pretty ridiculous, telling a happy man he is actually "suffering" and so needs to meditate is like force feeding a mana already full. Most Buddhists have "suffering" as the seed to practice, so they practice to contemplate a problem, which in a way, as you say, can be mere ideology...so I guess I kind of agree in a way. Edited March 19, 2011 by Mal quoted post changed Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
manitou Posted January 8, 2011 How about... Awareness ... The silent observer, changeless, stillness, depth of the ocean Mind, thoughts...That which is in motion, ever changing, waves of the ocean Expanding on this thought, how about: Awareness.... The observation without the element of Time. In our meditations when we're in that crystal globe of awareness, there is no movement from point A to point B, perhaps it's the quantum physics analogy of particle vs. wave. There is supreme clarity, but it is not quantifiable by any of our standard measurements, it is merely a Knowing, not a measurement. Mind, thoughts.... The mind is linear when conscious but not mindful. It thinks one word after the other. (Actually, after I did learn how to actually 'think', I realized that what I had been doing for my entire life was not thinking at all, but Ruminating.) Maybe this is the wave aspect of the quantum phyics analogy. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
manitou Posted January 8, 2011 How about... Awareness ... The silent observer, changeless, stillness, depth of the ocean Mind, thoughts...That which is in motion, ever changing, waves of the ocean Expanding on this thought, how about: Awareness.... The observation without the element of Time. In our meditations when we're in that crystal globe of awareness, there is no movement from point A to point B, perhaps it's the quantum physics analogy of particle vs. wave. There is supreme clarity, but it is not quantifiable by any of our standard measurements, it is merely a Knowing, not a measurement. Mind, thoughts.... The mind is linear when conscious but not mindful. It thinks one word after the other. (Actually, after I did learn how to actually 'think', I realized that what I had been doing for my entire life was not thinking at all, but Ruminating.) Maybe this is the wave aspect of the quantum phyics analogy. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
manitou Posted January 8, 2011 (edited) How about... Awareness ... The silent observer, changeless, stillness, depth of the ocean Mind, thoughts...That which is in motion, ever changing, waves of the ocean Expanding on this thought, how about: Awareness.... The observation without the element of Time. In our meditations when we're in that crystal globe of awareness, there is no movement from point A to point B, perhaps it's the 'particle' in a quantum physics analogy of particle vs. wave. There is supreme clarity, but it is not quantifiable by any of our standard measurements, it is merely a Knowing, not a measurement. Mind, thoughts.... The mind is linear when conscious but not mindful. It thinks one word after the other. Once I learned how to actually "think", I realized that what I had been doing for my entire life was not thinking at all, but Ruminating.) Maybe this is the wave aspect of the quantum phyics analogy. Edited January 8, 2011 by manitou Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
RongzomFan Posted January 8, 2011 From the perspective of Dzogchen, the ultimate nature of all sentient beings is said to be pure, all-encompassing, primordial awareness or naturally occurring timeless awareness. This "intrinsic awareness" has no form of its own and yet is capable of perceiving, experiencing, reflecting, or expressing all form. It does so without being affected by those forms in any ultimate, permanent way. This pristine awareness is what Dzogchenpas refer to as rigpa. The analogy given by Dzogchen masters is that one's nature is like a mirror which reflects with complete openness but is not affected by the reflections, or like a crystal ball that takes on the colour of the material on which it is placed without itself being changed. Having distinguished rigpa from mind, one is not distracted by the mind, i.e. one does not let thoughts lead onself. This allows thoughts to naturally self-liberate without avoidance. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dzogchen Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
manitou Posted January 8, 2011 (I don't know how I managed to mess this up so badly - sorry!) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Vajrahridaya Posted January 8, 2011 (edited) Most masters that spend lifetimes serving the masses have a tendency to take on the karmas of those masses. Those without the experience of such sensitivity and transparency might not understand this. ChNNR also teaches physical yoga and at one point was quite the master at it. His body never fully recovered from his Leukemia which was predicted by a mirror divination master from Tibet to be the end of him, and the exact date of his Leukemia was accurately predicted many years prier. But, he did retreat and practiced his Long Life Terma given to him during his lucid dream states by a passed on master and it worked. He also teaches that you'll find it hard to experience Rigpa if you can't even get into the 1st jhana in meditation, so he does recommend that people do Samatha (calm abiding meditation), of which he teaches various techniques. If you meet ChNNR in person, you realize that his inner state is far more important than his physical appearance and his inner state is tremendously powerful and intuitive. If you make the connection, as most people have a tendency to project all their own shit all over clean mirrors like Tulkus. Edited March 19, 2011 by Mal quoted post changed Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
