How to determine someone's level of enlightenment?

[xabir2005]

Supposedly you find a stable self at Buddhahood, when your insight into the nature of impermanence is stable. So, it's still dependently arisen, but it's based on Dharmakaya realization.

this self is still mere conventions, as the texts have often stated, even enlightenment, nirvana, buddhahood is dream-like and insubstantial and in fact there is no wisdom, no attainment, no buddhahood in the ultimate sense

[xabir2005]

Everyone who likes to stress the idea of selflessness or "no self" as the truth, check out this chart:

 

http://meaningness.com/self-schematic-overview

 

I think it's a very useful chart and I think it makes at least some observations worth paying attention to. The column for "no self" is the one in the middle.

 

What I like about the above chart is that it shows a balanced and in my opinion surprisingly honest view that notes both negative and positive aspects of eternalistic true self and nihilistic no self, and shows how both of these views deviate from how life really is when you examine what happens in life honestly.

 

Buddhists tend to focus on only the negative aspects of the "true self" idea, and only on the positive aspects of the "no self" idea. The chart shows that "true self" idea has some surprising merit, and that "no self" idea has some surprising demerit. It's surprising to most dogmatic Buddhists anyway. It may not be surprising to everyone.

 

Both the eternalistic "true self" and the nihilistic "no self" ideas are simplifications, caricatures of reality, but as caricatures, they both have some merits and they both have some demerits. This is the kind of honesty we need to make progress toward wisdom.

that site has no idea what the realization of anatta is like. For example anatta is not nihilism, those realizing anatta do not neglect personal affairs, has nothing to do with getting rid of 'regular self', and also understands continuity in terms of continuity of process instead of total discontinuity. In other words our traits are being reborn and sustained as a process and do not imply a soul, therefore no contradictions.

[Birch]

"there is no wisdom, no attainment, no buddhahood"

 

Right on Xabir :-)

 

Here's my take.

 

So why oh why persist in suggesting there might be (wisdom, attainment, buddhahood)? How many people are lost down that path? And I don't mean that lightly. It's a big deal to play with one's sense of self/identity/faith/beliefs. I'd say maybe (for me) even more today than in the past.

 

It's all fine IME/IMO to suggest that we have moral conduct (as if people would otherwise be naturally immoral, jeez, have some faith :-))

 

But I have a preference for giving people the techniques, tools, acceptance and support they need/want to realise whatever they need to by themselves (anyway, who's going to do it for you ?)

[goldisheavy]

that site has no idea what the realization of anatta is like. For example anatta is not nihilism, those realizing anatta do not neglect personal affairs, has nothing to do with getting rid of 'regular self', and also understands continuity in terms of continuity of process instead of total discontinuity. In other words our traits are being reborn and sustained as a process and do not imply a soul, therefore no contradictions.

 

Hmm... that's a pretty defensive reply. Your sole concern and focus in the quoted post is to defend the "no self" idea. Is that all you have to say?

[xabir2005]

Hmm... that's a pretty defensive reply. Your sole concern and focus in the quoted post is to defend the "no self" idea. Is that all you have to say?

I am saying there is nothing indicative of an understanding or realization of anatta by the author. Neither is there an indication he or she understood the I AMness realization otherwise he would value the insight more instead of simply putting the notion down (he would not throw the baby out with the bathwater).

Edited July 13, 2011 by xabir2005

[goldisheavy]

I am saying there is nothing indicative of an understanding or realization of anatta by the author. Neither is there an indication he or she understood the I AMness realization otherwise he would value the insight more instead of simply putting the notion down (he would not throw the baby out with the bathwater).

 

I asked if you could make a constructive comment, but you came up with another defensive and dismissive comment essentially stating the author of the page is stupid. What bothers me, besides the defensiveness, is that the language you use to dismiss the author of meaningness.com is that of Thusness. It's as if you're comparing what that page (meaningness.com) is saying to what Thusness says, and whenever it differs from what Thusness says, you reject it. If this is really what you are doing, you are in deep trouble.

Edited July 13, 2011 by goldisheavy

[xabir2005]

I asked if you could make a constructive comment, but you came up with another defensive and dismissive comment essentially stating the author of the page is stupid. What bothers me, besides the defensiveness, is that the language you use to dismiss the author of meaningness.com is that of Thusness. It's as if you're comparing what that page (meaningness.com) is saying to what Thusness says, and whenever it differs from what Thusness says, you reject it. If this is really what you are doing, you are in deep trouble.

What's wrong with dismissive statements? I'm not saying the site is without merits, but certainly it has nothing indicative of the insights I mentioned. Anyway what has what I said got to do with Thusness? I am saying it because it is very obvious to me, based on experience, that whatever said does not indicate insight of either anatta or I AMness.

Edited July 13, 2011 by xabir2005

[goldisheavy]

What's wrong with dismissive statements? I'm not saying the site is without merits, but certainly it has nothing indicative of the insights I mentioned.

 

I don't understand this kind of behavior. Instead of taking the site on its own merits you are instead parsing everything there looking to confirm your expectations. You expect every enlightened person to express these insights you picked up from Thusness. When you fail to find them, or even, when the same insights are worded in an unfamiliar manner, you conclude the writing is trash and refuse to make a constructive comment. That's a very ignorant attitude on your part. I think Thusness has significantly damaged your ability to think for yourself.

 

You seem to gingerly admit that the site has some merits. Maybe you can speak of those merits next time. Try to put down your anatta dogma and try to understand what is being said to you on that page as if you're hearing for the first time. Your anatta baggage is really interfering with your comprehension. Go back to normal English. In normal English "no self" means something. Go with that simple meaning. Don't go with your retarded Buddhist perversion of meaning. Once you sort out the matter in normal English, then take another look at the Buddhist jargon and see if perhaps it's a bit nihilistic or off. This is why it's so critical to think for yourself.

 

You need space to get away from all the doctrines and jargon and just think in normal terms, think honestly in a way that reflects how you really feel and think day to day.

 

I think half of your problems will go away once you stop using Pali words altogether. Use only English words. Don't ever say "anatta" one more time, because that kind of jargon hides ignorance behind it. Say "no self" or "not self" etc... Trust me, you'll sound a lot less intelligent once you start using normal English.

Edited July 13, 2011 by goldisheavy

[C T]

Hey GiH/Everyone.... when you have time, check these 3 videos out:

 

An enquiry into 'What is the Infinite'?

 

 

I think you might enjoy them.

[xabir2005]

I don't understand this kind of behavior. Instead of taking the site on its own merits you are instead parsing everything there looking to confirm your expectations. You expect every enlightened person to express these insights you picked up from Thusness. When you fail to find them, or even, when the same insights are worded in an unfamiliar manner, you conclude the writing is trash and refuse to make a constructive comment. That's a very ignorant attitude on your part. I think Thusness has significantly damaged your ability to think for yourself.

 

You seem to gingerly admit that the site has some merits. Maybe you can speak of those merits next time. Try to put down your anatta dogma and try to understand what is being said to you on that page as if you're hearing for the first time. Your anatta baggage is really interfering with your comprehension. Go back to normal English. In normal English "no self" means something. Go with that simple meaning. Don't go with your retarded Buddhist perversion of meaning. Once you sort out the matter in normal English, then take another look at the Buddhist jargon and see if perhaps it's a bit nihilistic or off. This is why it's so critical to think for yourself.

 

You need space to get away from all the doctrines and jargon and just think in normal terms, think honestly in a way that reflects how you really feel and think day to day.

 

I think half of your problems will go away once you stop using Pali words altogether. Use only English words. Don't ever say "anatta" one more time, because that kind of jargon hides ignorance behind it. Say "no self" or "not self" etc... Trust me, you'll sound a lot less intelligent once you start using normal English.

I call it anatta for a reason, and not no self.

 

No self can imply impersonality, can imply non-duality, can imply anatta.

 

They are different stages of experience... Different realizations or experiences rather and yet each has to do with a certain aspect of 'no self'.

 

Anatta refers to no inherent self, not just the no self of impersonality or non-duality. I call it anatta rather than 'no inherent self' as its shorter.

 

Anyway, any doctrine of self leads to clinging and suffering. That is why I generally am not interested in what someone thinks the 'self' is.

[xabir2005]

"there is no wisdom, no attainment, no buddhahood"

 

Right on Xabir :-)

 

Here's my take.

 

So why oh why persist in suggesting there might be (wisdom, attainment, buddhahood)? How many people are lost down that path? And I don't mean that lightly. It's a big deal to play with one's sense of self/identity/faith/beliefs. I'd say maybe (for me) even more today than in the past.

 

It's all fine IME/IMO to suggest that we have moral conduct (as if people would otherwise be naturally immoral, jeez, have some faith :-))

 

But I have a preference for giving people the techniques, tools, acceptance and support they need/want to realise whatever they need to by themselves (anyway, who's going to do it for you ?)

To be free from suffering in the dream of being chase by tigers, even though it is simply a dream, you need to wake up.

 

When you wake up, you realized you attained nothing.

 

But it does free you from suffering, even though suffering too is part of the dream and hence not real in the sense everything in the dream is just like an illusion.

 

If you don't know reality is empty and dream like, you are bonded by it.

Edited July 13, 2011 by xabir2005

[goldisheavy]

Hey GiH/Everyone.... when you have time, check these 3 videos out:

 

An enquiry into 'What is the Infinite'?

 

 

I think you might enjoy them.

 

Very nice. I agree with everything there except the reference to the brain at the end.

 

Now this should be taken further. What this guy calls "infinite" is actually mind. Why? Because finite and infinite are perspectives and not objective reality. There is nothing that's objectively finite nor is there anything that's objectively infinite. When you realize that the entire world is nothing but perspectives, then you realize the mind is the primary reality and not substance or anything else that appears to the mind. Having a perspective, and changing from one perspective to another is what the mind does, voluntarily.

 

The entire analysis this guy performs happens with regard to what is readily apparent. He needs to go further and consider the non-apparent, the so-called "mystical" realm he rejects.

 

For example, when I look in the mirror I recognize the face there as myself. Why? Because I've come to expect myself to look a certain way. This expectation is not something that's readily apparent, but it is there in the mind. I've had a dream when I looked in the mirror and saw nothing. I freaked out. Why? I was expecting to see something. I didn't see what I expected, hence I freaked out.

 

To really sharpen the point, let's consider light. How do I know what light is? I know what light is because I know what darkness is. So for example, if I go into a perfectly dark room, even though there is no contrast that's apparent in the room, just perfect endless darkness, I still recognize it as darkness even in the absence of any contrast as far as the obviously apparent phenomena go. So how do I know it's dark in the dark room? I know it because I also know what light is. So even if there is no contrast for me to go by, I can still compare what I see to everything else that I know. And these things are not merely categories. Like light and dark they are cognitive complements. Cognitive complements are more basic than categories.

 

So in order to see anything in the world I must a-priori know what the world looks like. If I don't know what the world looks like, when I observe the world I don't recognize the world as the world. I will think it's all garbage or even irrelevant background noise. The reason I can recognize the world is because the world exists in my mind as knowledge. I know the world before I see it. If I don't know the world I can't see it, just like if I don't know what my face looks like, I can't see it in the mirror. This is not obvious to everyone.

 

In fact we can examine things further and realize not only does the world exist in mind, but it exists only in my mind, or only in your mind from your perspective. Here I mean it's not just that the mind is what overlays the boundaries over the external-to-the-mind world, but the whole thing, boundaries, and whatever is between them, all of it is in the mind and nowhere else.

 

In the video I get the impression he thinks the mind is merely producing the arbitrary boundaries to overlay on top of the real and external-to-mind world. It's not only the boundaries, it's whatever between them is mind-made too. So a perfect endless smooth stretch of blackness is mind-made because you need to know what light looks like to recognize blackness as blackness. You need a mental context of some sort to have any sort of recognition of any kind, not just the boundaries and contrasts.

 

And to take it even further, this guy should talk about intent. For example, using intent you can transform the leaf on the ground into a bug and have it fly away. That's something this guy doesn't even want to touch with a ten foot pole, because imagine how crazy people will think he is if he says that? But it's true.

 

One huge aspect he doesn't touch on is that all the contents of mind are volitional. They're the way they are in dependence on our volition or intent. How can you walk along the street? When you move your feet you're volitionally changing the relationships in the mind. You're altering meanings in the mind. Of course walking around is a very conditioned, very patterned exhibition of intent, so we don't think of it as magical. An enlightened being can manifest intent in ways that are beyond ordinary habitual patterns and such displays will appear magical and nonsensical to someone who expects familiar patterns.

 

Beyond the manifest being contextualized by known unmanifest, like the manifest perfect darkness appears that way because we know what light is like and this isn't it, so the light is a known which is unmanifest, both light and darkness are contextualized in terms of something else, something hidden. Because all knowns have meaning in terms of unknowns, which are infinite. So when I see the dark room as dark, not only do we have two knowns playing off each other light/dark, but the known light/dark combo is also playing off a total unknown, which for obvious reasons cannot even be named or mentioned since it's unknown. But logically we know known in terms of unknown. We know what it's like to know things because we know what it's like not to. So an unknown is a kind of known too. We know what it's like not to know. At this point we are front and center in the Mystery.

Edited July 13, 2011 by goldisheavy

[goldisheavy]

CowTao,

 

I watched more videos on that youtube channel, and I can tell you these guys are physicalists. They don't really see that mind is a fundamental reality. They think the mind is merely a product of brain activity. So while they are smarter than an average bear, they are still stupid.

[goldisheavy]

I call it anatta for a reason, and not no self.

 

No self can imply impersonality, can imply non-duality, can imply anatta.

 

Exactly. That's why you need to face the music. Use English and clarify your meaning in pure English.

 

They are different stages of experience... Different realizations or experiences rather and yet each has to do with a certain aspect of 'no self'.

 

No, there are not any kind of stages. You're making up these stages as you go along. These stages can be vividly apparent or even pragmatically useful to you in your life, but they don't actually exist outside your mind, outside your personal taste for such things.

 

Anatta refers to no inherent self, not just the no self of impersonality or non-duality. I call it anatta rather than 'no inherent self' as its shorter.

 

Don't be lazy. Use the longer expressions and speak English.

 

Anyway, any doctrine of self leads to clinging and suffering.

 

Same with any doctrine of no self. It's a logical complement. It's just the other side of the same coin of suffering.

[Vajrahridaya]

CowTao,

 

I watched more videos on that youtube channel, and I can tell you these guys are physicalists. They don't really see that mind is a fundamental reality. They think the mind is merely a product of brain activity. So while they are smarter than an average bear, they are still stupid.

 

Well, assumptive due to lack of direct experiencing of the mind.

[goldisheavy]

 

Well, assumptive due to lack of direct experiencing of the mind.

 

If they had some wild experiences like false awakenings, lucid dreams, seeing visions in meditation that look as real as anything can be real, etc... perhaps they'd question their assumptions. Or perhaps not. More experience is not always the answer to all our problems. It can help if the person is ready to be helped. But there are people who experience amazing things and simply ignore the amazing experiences or file it all away into a safe mental bin called "hallucination" or "dream" and never think of it again. Sometimes what gets a person out of this condition is a logical argument and not more experience. So sometimes more experience can help and sometimes what helps is more rigorous and more uncompromising reasoning. But underneath all that, I believe there has to be a basic willingness to accept at least some change. If someone is not willing to accept any change in the worldview, I believe that someone will not benefit from anything, be it more experience or better logic.

 

And besides, we tend to think that our way of life, the more magical way, is better. At least I certainly think so. But I imagine many people appreciate a non-magical way much more. It's a matter of taste. Do you like strange things happening all the time? Do you like normality and a solid routine? Do you appreciate that when you open the door to your room, your room is still there just as you expect, instead of a magical forest or some other weird dimension? So what I am saying is, I can appreciate other people wanting to live a less magical and more mechanistic kind of life. The only thing is, if I believe someone reasons incorrectly, I have no respect for that. So I am willing to accept people's choices in some ways, but not always their reasons for those choices. I guess I am not 100% accepting. (only 95%?)

Edited July 13, 2011 by goldisheavy

[Lucky7Strikes]

Very nice. I agree with everything there except the reference to the brain at the end...

GIH, a few questions that arose in me reading this...(nothing rhetorical here)

 

How does one view sentient beings he/she meets in this dream? Can they be said to be existent minds or separate entities? Or do they arise from your own mind eminating sentient beings compared to non-sentient things?

 

You mentioned how the mind requires a-priori knowledge to recognize its experience, that it must know the world to experience it.

 

But then when you speak of volition, how could there be pure volition arising apart from contextualized and structured manifestation? Or if the manifestation is simply the intent itself, what basis does it have in making that "choice"? Isn't it always conditioned by a-priori knowledge of the world?

 

As in your example of the leaf turning into a bug, the volitional intent to do so arises because one knows there is a "leaf" and a "bug."

 

Or maybe what you're saying is that when the mind understands its own contextualizations to be not limited by a set of laws, one can sort of play with the relationships established in the a-priori knowledge, which you seem to be saying has unlimited potential beyond the unmanifest into the unknown...

[xabir2005]

Exactly. That's why you need to face the music. Use English and clarify your meaning in pure English.

 

 

 

No, there are not any kind of stages. You're making up these stages as you go along. These stages can be vividly apparent or even pragmatically useful to you in your life, but they don't actually exist outside your mind, outside your personal taste for such things.

 

 

 

Don't be lazy. Use the longer expressions and speak English.

 

 

 

Same with any doctrine of no self. It's a logical complement. It's just the other side of the same coin of suffering.

they are not really stages as there is no fixed linear steps to it, just revelations when certain revelations when certain veils are lifted.

 

For example I had the experience of impersonality a few months after the realization of I AMness. Some had it before any realizations, some christians experience it while praying and submitting themselves to God. It felt like I was being lived by a higher power, that the source is living and expressing me and everything and everyone, so it appears that there is a common source and there is no personal doers living life or more precisely the person is being lived.

 

The personal self construct dissolves but the capital S Self construct still remains. But even after anatta, the absence of agent is realized, thusness still asked me to practice letting go of personality, that is why it doesn't mean impersonality is a lesser stage.

 

When the sense of a seperate dualistic experiencer is removed either as an experience or as a realization, what reveals is total seamlessness and intimacy with everything being experienced. Everything reveals itself as luminous presence, consciousness, occurring at zero distance. Though dualistic self is released, there is still the sense of a nondualistic self.

 

The big Self is finally relinquished at anatta. There is nothing inherent about consciousness. There is no agent, not even a perceiver being one with the perceived.

 

So these are the different degrees of the self/Self bond in short.

[goldisheavy]

GIH, a few questions that arose in me reading this...(nothing rhetorical here)

 

How does one view sentient beings he/she meets in this dream? Can they be said to be existent minds or separate entities? Or do they arise from your own mind eminating sentient beings compared to non-sentient things?

 

I don't think there is only one way. We have options. My choice at this time is to recognize other sentient beings on par with myself as a sentient being. The other sentient beings are points of view, just like I am a point of view. No point of view is inherently more or less valid, which gives us flexibility in how to regard other sentient beings. This presents some freedom of choice in how to regard all things.

 

You mentioned how the mind requires a-priori knowledge to recognize its experience, that it must know the world to experience it.

 

But then when you speak of volition, how could there be pure volition arising apart from contextualized and structured manifestation?

 

Not this scenario, but the one in the following quote.

 

Or if the manifestation is simply the intent itself, what basis does it have in making that "choice"? Isn't it always conditioned by a-priori knowledge of the world?

 

The mind ultimately knows all possibilities, so the choice is made with regard to unmanifest potential. The manifest is infinitely tiny compared to what all varieties of form and situations there could potentially be. From a sentient being point of view, most of the potentials are unknown, so the choice is not a fully conscious one, because the sentient being does not appreciate all the options available to one. But even the most ignorant sentient being still experiences some degree of choice consciously. Subconsciously the picture looks differently entirely. Subconsciously we are all buddhas, and our minds do know all the infinite options available to them, so the choice is a real choice at that level.

 

In a mundane down to earth life we experience what is known as habit or inertia. This means our experience falls into stable cyclic patterns. As ordinary sentient beings we have almost no choice in changing these habitual patterns directly because we're not away of the level of the mind these patterns emanate from. It's similar to being numb to something. If your legs fall asleep from sitting and become numb, you can't easily move them around. You can only move that which you feel. So the more conscious and aware some being becomes, the more scope or range the intent of that being acquires.

 

Another way to look at intent is not as having more or less range, but just being different. Instead of saying buddha's intent has more range, we can say that a buddha and a sentient being have the same range of intent, just a different flavor, so to speak. In this sense a sentient being is a buddha who chooses to be a sentient being, so the range is the same, but some of the power of intent is intentionally soaked up in maintaining the veil of ignorance, which then becomes subconscious and almost invisible in the experience of a sentient being. This way of seeing recognizes the ultimate equality of all intents, but it may be harder to understand.

 

As in your example of the leaf turning into a bug, the volitional intent to do so arises because one knows there is a "leaf" and a "bug."

 

Not only that, but one has to know that leaf could become a bug. Obviously most people know just the opposite: that leaf can never become a bug. This is what we call beliefs. If we accept materialistic core beliefs then it makes no sense for leafs to become bugs. But beliefs are mental fabrications at the ultimate level of insight. In other words, beliefs are only true because at some level we make them true ourselves. Very few (and only the most abstract) considerations are inherently true. Most truths we deal with are true only provisionally.

 

Or maybe what you're saying is that when the mind understands its own contextualizations to be not limited by a set of laws, one can sort of play with the relationships established in the a-priori knowledge, which you seem to be saying has unlimited potential beyond the unmanifest into the unknown...

 

Beyond the known manifested and unmanifested features, and into the infinite unknown ones, yes.

Edited July 14, 2011 by goldisheavy

[goldisheavy]

they are not really stages as there is no fixed linear steps to it, just revelations when certain revelations when certain veils are lifted.

 

I agree.

 

For example I had the experience of impersonality a few months after the realization of I AMness. Some had it before any realizations, some christians experience it while praying and submitting themselves to God. It felt like I was being lived by a higher power, that the source is living and expressing me and everything and everyone, so it appears that there is a common source and there is no personal doers living life or more precisely the person is being lived.

 

Great, so I get two things from this paragraph:

 

1. The order of experiences is not always the same. People experience various mystical states in different order.
   
2. Both the experience of personality and the experience of impersonality are just appearances. Neither is truer than the other, neither is inherently true.
   

 

The personal self construct dissolves but the capital S Self construct still remains. But even after anatta, the absence of agent is realized, thusness still asked me to practice letting go of personality, that is why it doesn't mean impersonality is a lesser stage.

 

I don't get this part. Thusness asked you to do something, and that's why things have meanings that they do?

 

When the sense of a seperate dualistic experiencer is removed either as an experience or as a realization, what reveals is total seamlessness and intimacy with everything being experienced. Everything reveals itself as luminous presence, consciousness, occurring at zero distance. Though dualistic self is released, there is still the sense of a nondualistic self.

 

The big Self is finally relinquished at anatta. There is nothing inherent about consciousness. There is no agent, not even a perceiver being one with the perceived.

 

There is nothing inherent about impersonality and lack of agents either. In other words, lack of agents is dependently arisen with the presence of agents. Do you see this?

Edited July 14, 2011 by goldisheavy

[goldisheavy]

Would you speak more to this thought?

 

OK, imagine you want to know what it feels like to live life as a weaker person. You load up a backpack (rucksack) with 50 kilos of stuff, and sling it on your back. You go around as usual, but now every action is harder and more awkward to perform because part of your ability is taken up to maintain the 50 kilos (plus the weight of the backpack) on your back. But you are having fun. You've always been strong and grown bored of strength, and this life as a simulated weaker person is interesting. At some point you forget you were ever strong. You forget there is roughly a 50 kilo burden on your back at all times. Down the line you grow tired of being weak and want to be strong again. You can imagine what happens next.

 

As with all comparisons, this one is not 100% accurate. Even the strongest person on Earth doesn't feel bored of one's strength because our conditions here don't make any level of strength redundant, since there is always something much heavier than you can handle no matter how strong a human gets. So the idea of getting bored with strength is hard to sympathize with in the example, because in our human condition we can't easily imagine why would anyone be bored of a quality we generally consider to be helpful in every case.

 

As for the veil of ignorance, the veil is simply a set of beliefs which distort and misrepresent reality. The distortions arise almost universally from claims pinching reality in some way, in other words, from making reality seem more patterned and less flexible/malleable than it really is. These beliefs are not something shallow and obvious. The strongest and most core ones are deeply buried in the subconscious mind and we don't go around expressing them because they are agreed to so deeply, there is no point in even discussing them. For the most part (but not always) the beliefs we tend to discuss tend to be the ones we might disagree over, or the ones we have some doubt in, etc. Core or deep beliefs are discussed only rarely and usually by spiritual people (not necessarily the same thing as people who claim to be spiritual).

 

The reason limiting beliefs are so hard to expose is because due to the nature of mind limiting beliefs become vividly manifest in our life. So when we go about life, our life hardly ever contradicts our limiting beliefs. Life experience mostly reflects limiting beliefs and conforms to them. It's only due to the nature of the uncertainty principle that sometimes events happen which challenge our core beliefs. But those events are rare. It's much more normal and expected for life to conform to our core beliefs than to contradict them. This is the reason why the veil of ignorance remains submerged in the fogs of unconsciousness so easily and so readily -- there is not much in life that contradicts ignorance, because ignorance has the power to create and to manifest.

 

It should be obvious that ignorance is not inherently bad. Ignorance is generally considered to be the negative aspect of limitation (limiting belief). If you embrace a limitation and forget about that fact, it becomes ignorance. Limitations are creative forces, and thus they can be positive and compassionate. Even the ability to forget limitations can be positive. It's thanks to the veil of ignorance you get to go on a joy ride of being a human, to feel the thrills and the chills, the gains and the losses of the human life. But ignorance becomes negative when you no longer enjoy the ride as is, and want to either get off the ride or go on a different kind of ride, with different limitations from this one.

Edited July 14, 2011 by goldisheavy

[Lucky7Strikes]

I don't think there is only way. We have options. My choice at this time is to recognize other sentient beings on par with myself as a sentient being. The other sentient beings are points of view, just like I am a point of view. No point of view is inherently more or less valid, which gives us flexibility in how to regard other sentient beings. This presents some freedom of choice in how to regard all things....

 

Not only that, but one has to know that leaf could become a bug. Obviously most people know just the opposite: that leaf can never become a bug. This is what we call beliefs. If we accept materialistic core beliefs then it makes no sense for leafs to become bugs. But beliefs are mental fabrications at the ultimate level of insight. In other words, beliefs are only true because at some level we make them true ourselves. Very few (and only the most abstract) considerations are inherently true. Most truths we deal with are true only provisionally.

Then could a sentient being, a person, be turned into a bug then to a piece of fruit? It seems like you are saying that one's perspective on things could make this possible. What if you wanted to turn that bug into a leaf and some other sentient being wanted to turn it into an elephant...as in overlapping intents. Or does that only happen with your own consensus in your mind?

 

It's difficult to conceive that one's own mind is the sole creator of one's universe including the sentient beings within it and one's immediate environment is simply the habitual patterns of one's subconscious. Of course, as you say, this isn't the "only" way to see and experience, we can choose to be ignorant and construct a reality where there is certainty of an objective environment and so forth.

 

But in terms of what is ultimately possible you seem to be saying that the world is not co-created, but created by the sole intent of the mind that is experiencing it, as if each is his/her individual dream.

 

Haha, indeed, that's difficult to digest.

[goldisheavy]

Then could a sentient being, a person, be turned into a bug then to a piece of fruit? It seems like you are saying that one's perspective on things could make this possible. What if you wanted to turn that bug into a leaf and some other sentient being wanted to turn it into an elephant...as in overlapping intents. Or does that only happen with your own consensus in your mind?

 

This is a complicated question. I'll tackle the "what is possible" first. The mind has no inherent limitations in terms of its ability to experience things. The field of vision does not impose its own conditions on what is seen. The field of hearing does not impose its own conditions on what is heard. In other words, senses in and of themselves allow any possibility.

 

Let's take an easier example than the one you offer. The example is a person walking through the wall of a building. Is there anything in the field of vision to make this impossible? No, there is not. So why isn't this possible in day to day life? It's because of the structuring power of beliefs. The belief in the material integrity of objects is so strong that our life experience simply confirms what we believe. But nothing in our senses offers a barrier for such an experience. In other words, if this experience happened, your field of vision would see it just as easily and happily as it sees anything else. The field of vision itself doesn't discriminate.

 

So, back to your example. Put aside what you believe is possible and look at your example purely from the POV of senses. Could the senses ever perceive what you describe? I think the answer is yes. I mean, when I read your description, I can imagine this happening. It's as if I am there at the scene. I can see it happen in my mind's eye.

 

So the rule of thumb is: if you can imagine it, it is possible. The total array of possibilities always exceeds your power of imagination, if anything.

 

But is it probable? That's another question.

 

And, how probable is for one person to end up a victim and another a bully? Well, how strong are all people? Are all people equally strong? Do some people have the ability to impose themselves on others? I think even in our mundane world the answer is yes, obviously. We also know weak people can become stronger by exercising. And strong people become weaker when they get old. So who is strong and who is weak is not something fixed, and yet, differences do exist.

 

And at the ultimate level we can say you consent to everything that happens to you, but it wouldn't be compassionate to exaggerate this in our day to day life, because in our day to day life we have only limited conscious choice, and we should treat each other well and help each other if we can.

 

It's difficult to conceive that one's own mind is the sole creator of one's universe including the sentient beings within it and one's immediate environment is simply the habitual patterns of one's subconscious. Of course, as you say, this isn't the "only" way to see and experience, we can choose to be ignorant and construct a reality where there is certainty of an objective environment and so forth.

 

But in terms of what is ultimately possible you seem to be saying that the world is not co-created, but created by the sole intent of the mind that is experiencing it, as if each is his/her individual dream.

 

Haha, indeed, that's difficult to digest.

 

Surprised? You shouldn't be. Look what Vimalakirti Nirdesa Sutra says:

 

Thereupon, Manjusri, the crown prince, addressed the Licchavi Vimalakirti: "Good sir, how should a bodhisattva regard all living beings?"

 

Vimalakirti replied, "Manjusri, a bodhisattva should regard all livings beings as a wise man regards the reflection of the moon in water or as magicians regard men created by magic. He should regard them as being like a face in a mirror; like the water of a mirage; like the sound of an echo; like a mass of clouds in the sky; like the previous moment of a ball of foam; like the appearance and disappearance of a bubble of water; like the core of a plantain tree; like a flash of lightning; like the fifth great element; like the seventh sense-medium; like the appearance of matter in an immaterial realm; like a sprout from a rotten seed; like a tortoise-hair coat; like the fun of games for one who wishes to die; like the egoistic views of a stream-winner; like a third rebirth of a once-returner; like the descent of a nonreturner into a womb; like the existence of desire, hatred, and folly in a saint; like thoughts of avarice, immorality, wickedness, and hostility in a bodhisattva who has attained tolerance; like the instincts of passions in a Tathagata; like the perception of color in one blind from birth; like the inhalation and exhalation of an ascetic absorbed in the meditation of cessation; like the track of a bird in the sky; like the erection of a eunuch; like the pregnancy of a barren woman; like the unproduced passions of an emanated incarnation of the Tathagata; like dream-visions seen after waking; like the passions of one who is free of conceptualizations; like fire burning without fuel; like the reincarnation of one who has attained ultimate liberation.

 

"Precisely thus, Manjusri, does a bodhisattva who realizes the ultimate selflessness consider all beings."

 

Manjusri then asked further, "Noble sir, if a bodhisattva considers all living beings in such a way, how does he generate the great love toward them?"

 

Vimalakirti replied, "Manjusri, when a bodhisattva considers all living beings in this way, he thinks: 'Just as I have realized the Dharma, so should I teach it to living beings.' Thereby, he generates the love that is truly a refuge for all living beings; the love that is peaceful because free of grasping; the love that is not feverish, because free of passions; the love that accords with reality because it is equanimous in all three times; the love that is without conflict because free of the violence of the passions; the love that is nondual because it is involved neither with the external nor with the internal; the love that is imperturbable because totally ultimate.

Edited July 14, 2011 by goldisheavy

[Vajrahridaya]

 

It's difficult to conceive that one's own mind is the sole creator of one's universe including the sentient beings within it and one's immediate environment is simply the habitual patterns of one's subconscious.

 

But in terms of what is ultimately possible you seem to be saying that the world is not co-created, but created by the sole intent of the mind that is experiencing it, as if each is his/her individual dream.

 

Haha, indeed, that's difficult to digest.

That would be Solipsism.

 

Not Dependent Origination. We are co-creating.

[thuscomeone]

That would be Solipsism.

 

Not Dependent Origination. We are co-creating.

Thank you. Some sense. Solipsism would mean that, since my self/mind is all there is, I should have no limitations on what I can do. I should be able to shoot a fireball out of my hand at will. I obviously can't do that. This is because I am limited -- Dependent arising.