Faith and Tao

[Marblehead]

Perhaps the concepts are insignificant to us regular humans and just show how our reality is an abstraction of something bigger or smaller then our reality, just like that abstraction might aswell be an abstraction of something else, etc. A determenistic point of view is the way to go then.

 

Yeah, we have to work with what we have. I rely heavily on my five senses. This puts quite a few limitations on me, of course. But, I do love my intuitional inspirations so perhaps this is a sixth sense?

 

All I know is that whatever thoughts I have, if they do not appear to be consistent with my observations of the nature of the universe then I generally set those thoughts aside.

 

There is so darned much that I will never 'know' for certain. My best guess is about the best I can do.

[manitou]

We can come to the direct intuition/knowing of this nothingness or emptiness that is empty of even itself. As it is the nondual state of being-ness, it is not recognizable by the discursive mind. It only recognizes itself as itself. Looking directly for it is like trying to look yourself in the eye or to shake your own right hand with your right hand. Not possible. Not possible because it is already what you are. OK with me to call it God or god...whatever..... Naming it does no good and does not help because naming and believing in it is not ever it.

 

If we find first, in meditation and then eventually in everyday experience consciousness, that all phenomena are empty phenomena, we have begun. As phenomena, they are real phenomenal form - including thinking and other mental stuff. (It is all mind anyway...) However they are empty of anything whatsoever - they have no inherent existence at all. They are exactly the emptiness itself. Impossibly they are both form and emptiness and we can, and cannot, know this. When this is recognized, it is recognized by itself, as Knowing Being. This is the thing called prajna in Buddhist practice. It is the fusion or the synthesis of emptiness and form in everyday life 'right in front of us'. This is why an old Chan master says: "Not knowing is most intimate." When the discursive mind is not knowing something, it is the Knowing Being.

 

The old, now almost extinct, tradition of Christian contemplation is about just this Knowing Being. Also, the Christian Gnostic Gospels are clearly describing Christ as the one consciousness. The Advaita Vedanta taught by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj and by Kashmir Shaivism is close as well. There are some authentic paths today, but any path that requires belief of any kind or any path that does not de-construct itself is not the path to go "all the way."

 

Faith fits in here because it is different from belief. Faith is based in experience - experience gained in meditation and the observation of the phenomenal world which is always referring back to consciousnes but not back or out to anything else. Belief is based on rumor, gossip, myth...on everything that is always subject to change and is always changing. Belief is the barrier that prevents direct experience of what IS at any given moment. Belief is what we are doing when we hit the wall.

 

There is a clear graphic description of this nothingness or void or God that is the source of everything. Besides the Tao symbol as a graphic, the Zen Buddhist Enso - that empty circle that is drawn boldly and intuitively with the inkbrush - expresses the nothing from which come all things, "The Ten Thousand Things" with direct influence from Daoism.

 

Nice topic! Best wishes

 

 

This is so incredibly succinct. Where have you been??? Lurking???

 

I share your thoughts about Jesus, if there was indeed such a man. He taught Oneness and enlightenment, if one considers that the Nag Hammadi gospels have any genuinity. No small wonder that the church stepped in to squash that line of thinking. Better to keep 'em scared of damnation. Pay your fee and join the club now, get out of hell later.

[Aaron]

We can come to the direct intuition/knowing of this nothingness or emptiness that is empty of even itself. As it is the nondual state of being-ness, it is not recognizable by the discursive mind. It only recognizes itself as itself. Looking directly for it is like trying to look yourself in the eye or to shake your own right hand with your right hand. Not possible. Not possible because it is already what you are. OK with me to call it God or god...whatever..... Naming it does no good and does not help because naming and believing in it is not ever it.

 

If we find first, in meditation and then eventually in everyday experience consciousness, that all phenomena are empty phenomena, we have begun. As phenomena, they are real phenomenal form - including thinking and other mental stuff. (It is all mind anyway...) However they are empty of anything whatsoever - they have no inherent existence at all. They are exactly the emptiness itself. Impossibly they are both form and emptiness and we can, and cannot, know this. When this is recognized, it is recognized by itself, as Knowing Being. This is the thing called prajna in Buddhist practice. It is the fusion or the synthesis of emptiness and form in everyday life 'right in front of us'. This is why an old Chan master says: "Not knowing is most intimate." When the discursive mind is not knowing something, it is the Knowing Being.

 

The old, now almost extinct, tradition of Christian contemplation is about just this Knowing Being. Also, the Christian Gnostic Gospels are clearly describing Christ as the one consciousness. The Advaita Vedanta taught by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj and by Kashmir Shaivism is close as well. There are some authentic paths today, but any path that requires belief of any kind or any path that does not de-construct itself is not the path to go "all the way."

 

Faith fits in here because it is different from belief. Faith is based in experience - experience gained in meditation and the observation of the phenomenal world which is always referring back to consciousnes but not back or out to anything else. Belief is based on rumor, gossip, myth...on everything that is always subject to change and is always changing. Belief is the barrier that prevents direct experience of what IS at any given moment. Belief is what we are doing when we hit the wall.

 

There is a clear graphic description of this nothingness or void or God that is the source of everything. Besides the Tao symbol as a graphic, the Zen Buddhist Enso - that empty circle that is drawn boldly and intuitively with the inkbrush - expresses the nothing from which come all things, "The Ten Thousand Things" with direct influence from Daoism.

 

Nice topic! Best wishes

 

Hello 2netis,

 

I see someone else has read the Tao of Zen as well. This is essentially the same argument put forward by that book. I do have issues with some of these premises, in particular I don't care for the term dual or non-dual, since it's really neither, in the end it's really only existence. The need to label these things is mostly done to accommodate certain religious and ideological needs.

 

The idea that there is duality to existence is false. This is all there is and there is more? But if there is more where is it? Well it is here, you just don't realize it. But I do realize it and by realizing it, I realize it's not here, I just want it to be here. The fact is existence is existence and the emptiness you speak of is an expression of creation. There is no symbiotic existential emptiness that exists within all things. This is like saying that we each have a spirit or soul, but having no real proof that we do.

 

But I experienced emptiness. No, what you experienced was awareness of creation, that beautiful and frightening moment from which everything comes into existence. We are told along the path what to expect, so we expect it and when it happens, we clap and say, "Hey I got it! I'm one of your guys!"

 

The fact is that you were always one of us guys, you just didn't know it. The reality of existence and nature of our ego-self means that if we are to return to what we originally were, then we must again reach that point where we can be empty of preconceptions and ideas and allow spontaneity to exist again. In the same way, we can never escape this ego-existence. It's like joining the mafia, once you're in the only way out is to die.

 

Every time I hear someone talk about emptiness I look at what they say about it and the more empty they make it sound, the more I know they've never experienced it. What people seem to be confused about is that it's not really empty at all, it's really absolutely nothing. It is only from nothing that everything can exist.

 

Anyways, I enjoyed your post.

 

Aaron

Edited February 16, 2011 by Twinner

[Marblehead]

The idea that there is duality to existence is false.

 

Aaron

 

I suggest that this is a truth. (I don't suggest truths very often.)