How to determine someone's level of enlightenment?

[thuscomeone]

If you don't care why did you reply? Haha, to tell me you don't care?!

 

Your use of language is just a parroting of what Xabir wrote. You couldn't even think of examples to support your point but to take it out of a book written in the 13th century. It doesn't make any practical sense beyond your own abstraction of them.

 

Why does Xabir or Vaj become standards for Buddhism anyway?

 

It's limiting if you see it that way. They are just fellow practitioners like you and me and not the Buddha. There are numerous sects in Buddhism that interpret the written dharma very differently. Your view of things is seriously narrow.

 

Yes, it is very arrogant to say that when you haven't read enough of those people and given time to contemplate over them. It's not only arrogant but kind of pitiful like someone reading "crime and punishment" and going around pretending he now understands all Dostovsky's works. You look at them and cringe.

 

Moreover your selection of evidence from their writing is mostly secondary. Remember, it's only been 2 weeks since you learned what the Buddha said when he became enlightened .

 

p.s. I can narrate xabir's perspective very well. I understand his and Thusness' path of practice in deeper( I'm even quoted in his blog) because I've given them much more time/consideration/and practice than you have. I can write out very precisely what he believes and empathize with varying state of consciousness those stages entail. But there are certain inconsistencies in them I see now that does not cohere with my studies of the dharma and my own practice.

It's Dostoyevsky. Please, leave the literature talk to the writers.

 

You're right, I probably shouldn't have even replied there.

 

Frankly, I'm sick of bickering with you. I feel drained of energy most of the time I encounter your posts, in most of which you just regurgitate the same nonsense, and when I have to face the pointless task, which is similiar to banging my head against a brick wall again and again, of trying to get a point across to you. It's not healthy to keep this up.

 

So you can reply to this post all you want, but I won't acknowledge your reply or reply to it.

[xabir2005]

Crap answer. You're weaseling here by slipping into the doctrine-talk. Instead you should try to confront the discrepancy between the ultimate truth as you tell it and appearances. And I mean, confront it in personal terms. Don't run to the doctrine for help. Tell me how you resolve this dichotomy. Why doesn't the relative realm look anything like what you explain the ultimate truth is?

What is relative, is not true, i.e. not inherently so. This is ultimate truth.

 

I never said relative realm 'looks different' from ultimate truth... There is only one truth, non-arising. Since what dependently originates cannot be found to have an essence anywhere, whatever appears is an empty-appearance without arising and ceasing.

 

Emptiness cannot be understood apart from form*, and form is by nature empty.

 

 

*the unfindability of weather as an independent locatable entity, is the nature of weather

Edited July 17, 2011 by xabir2005

[goldisheavy]

Well when you get to talking about possibilities, it sounds like you're just talking about emptiness. In that sense I agree. It's a permanent potential. But a potential isn't a thing or object.

 

And as I said, the mind is not a thing or an object. Hmm... Do you think that's a coincidence?

 

But you then start talking about mind as if it were the source of this potential and I'm not sure how that fits in.

 

You're not really paying attention to what I am saying.

 

Emptiness includes and is beyond mind.

 

Emptiness is not beyond mind. There is nothing beyond mind. Mind's contents are empty. That's it. That's the entire meaning of "emptiness."

[goldisheavy]

What is relative, is not true, i.e. not inherently so. This is ultimate truth.

 

What is relative is true. For example, I am typing on a laptop right now. This is true. How do you deal with that? Are you claiming I am not actually typing right now? What's your answer?

 

I never said relative realm 'looks different' from ultimate truth... There is only one truth, non-arising. Since what dependently originates cannot be found to have an essence anywhere, whatever appears is an empty-appearance without arising and ceasing.

 

How can something appear to arise without arising? For example, I light a match and a fire appears on the match. A while ago there was no fire and now there is. Clearly the fire arose. But you're saying the fire did not arise. Something is fishy here. How do you explain this?

[Lucky7Strikes]

It's Dostoyevsky. Please, leave the literature talk to the writers.

You don't have to put the y in. I just forgot to put an e in there. "Literature talk"? Is english your second language too?

 

Way to reply with the most irrelevant part of the post just to say I am wrong in the smallest way possible. This says a lot about our interaction.

 

Maybe the reason why you bang your head against the wall again and again is because you are always trying to tell me something instead of reading/listening/pondering. And you are driven by this needs to "tell people."

 

2 years ago I remember a very similar interaction you had here at the bums. You professed you had now understood the Buddha. Then people corrected you. Then you said now you realized emptiness and cried with tears of joy! That the peace you found seemingly impenetrable. Then now you came back and said you were still suffering, that the Buddha just taught impermanence.

 

That's alarming don't you think, that you are repeating the same pattern? And showed very little spiritual progress in that time?

Edited July 17, 2011 by Lucky7Strikes

[xabir2005]

What is relative is true. For example, I am typing on a laptop right now.

 

This is true. How do you deal with that? Are you claiming I am not actually typing right now? What's your answer?

Typing cannot be found. There is just appearance, which is not denied, but nothing can be asserted: including laptop, including typing. Everything is like an illusion, like a dream. Like a dream of typing, conventionally said to be so... yet it isn't really real.

How can something appear to arise without arising?

Find out where does the thought come from, where the thought is, where the thought goes to. Find the core or essence of that thought. You will see that it is magical appearance, like a magic show - appearing, yet not truly there or anywhere, without a place of origin, abidance, and subsidance. You will realize that there is no essence or substance or thingness of that appearance, that there is no-thing coming into being and no-thing to cease.

For example, I light a match and a fire appears on the match. A while ago there was no fire and now there is.

Clearly the fire arose. But you're saying the fire did not arise. Something is fishy here. How do you explain this?

There is nothing locatable about fire. It is utterly unlocatable and ungraspable. There is no fireness of a fire... therefore there is nothing undergoing arising, abiding and disappearance... just self-releasing traceless appearance. Edited July 17, 2011 by xabir2005

[xabir2005]

Where is your sentience located?

Nowhere, unestablished.

Moreover if you profess that sentience is a separate process from non-sentience why is it that the Buddha declares that he is able to know how the universe arises as do other beings and the elements?

You should ask the Buddha. I do not even know the next moment, much less 'the universe'.

Why are dzogchen tantras along with Padmasambhavas teaching filled with accounts describing the way in which the elements arise from awareness and create a body and the realms?

Elements actually arise from ignorance, not awareness. Therefore 'all-creating king' of Dzogchen is actually ignorance, not some Advaita ground of being.

 

I'm not a Dzogchenpa, here's what Dzogchenpa Namdrol says:

 

The mind that is the all-creating king, as Norbu Rinpoche makes clear, is the mind that does not recognize itself, and so enters into samsara, creating its own experience of samsara.

 

All conditioned phenomena are a product of ignorance, according to Dzogchen view, and so therefore, everything is not real. The basis of that ignorance is the basis, which is also not established as real.

 

In Dzogchen, everything is unreal, from top to bottom. The basis, in Dzogchen, is described as being "empty not established in any way at all". If the basis is not real, then whatever arises from that basis is not real.

 

In Dzoghen, dependent origination begins from the non-recognition of the state of the basis, when this happens, one enters into grasping self and other, and then the chain of dependent origination begins.

 

.......

 

In Dzogchen, mind and matter exist because of avidya. When there is no more avidyā,for you there is niether mind nor matter.

How can sentience which is derived within a process including of non-sentience, which would be beyond its knowing, know the entireity of the universe?

I don't even know the next moment, much less the entirety of the universe. Speaking of something I have no experience of (omniscience), I can only refer you to someone more learned and experienced (Namdrol):

 

Everything is a condition for everything but itself.

 

Since the Buddhas have realized the nature of reality which pervades everything, theoretically, there are no limits to what a Buddha can know. If something can be known by a consciousness, it can be known by a Buddha .

 

The subject of the omniscience of a Buddha is quite complicated.

 

We can say there is a universal process then. And you are basically saying you are part of this universal process that goes on according to its own rules.

There is not even an atom, much less a universal process.

 

Maha experience does not reify causes and condition, it does not mean there is a substantial objective universe causing this subjective experience. Experientially there is just an interconnected functioning, but it does not establish causes and conditions. It does not establish 'mind' and 'matter' as separate entities even though conventionally they can be named that way. It does not establish 'The Universe' - such a thing cannot be found, even though poetically it can be expressed this way: The universe is eating this apple, hearing the music.

 

It is like... there is change, but there is no changing things, and in fact the realization of total-change should break down the notion that there is 'changing things' (since that implies there is unchanged entities undergoing change, which means not total-change), and similarly total-relativity should break down the notion that there is 'relative things' (since that implies there are unconditioned entities interacting with other entities and therefore not total-relativity). Experience is relativity and interconnectedness but there is no 'interconnected things'.

 

In short, the realization and experience of interconnectedness actually breaks down the ideation of entities, and therefore breaks down the notion of causality. Realization of relativity un-establishes substantial relativity in the same way that the realization of change un-establishes movement.

 

Maha is that experience of total-relativity just like no-mind is that experience of total-change. The clinging onto entities and self prevents these experience, or more precisely, maha and no-mind is the natural state of 'existence', yet clinging onto 'is', 'is not' of self and objects obscure the experiential seeing of what is.

 

Whatever dependently originates, appears luminously yet is like an illusion, looks there but isn't, and therefore, is only an ungraspable and unlocatable relative functioning incomprehensible in terms of notions of is, is not, arising, abidance, and subsidance.

Edited July 17, 2011 by xabir2005

[xabir2005]

The Dalai Lama seems to think mind and matter are separate things. How does consciousness interact with non-sentient matter? Is it located in the body, outside, between? Or is it mixed with matter? Is it some substance?

No substance whatsoever. Mind and matter are only conventions like the word 'weather' imputed upon a conglomerate of ungraspable/insubstantial phenomena.

Also if consciousness only arises from itself, how could it have any contacts with a completely different medium of matter?

Consciousness does not only arise from itself.

And why, if at all, is consciousness then split into subjective experiences of "I" within the universe?

There is no one consciousness splitting into subjective experience. There are 6 (or 8) consciousness that dependently originates.

 

You are implying there is a One Mind. This is substantial non-duality.

If they are just appearances, that would mean, as Gold pointed out, they would lack any sense of self-hood in the first place

Precisely.

and experiences would very easily be shared between consciousnesses like matter

When you realize emptiness, you realize nothing is shared. You realize there is no mind, and no matter. All are just baseless appearances like a dream.

 

Dogs see black flower. We see red rose. Quantum glasses (if such are invented) lets you see 99.999% void. You think matter is real and there are some characteristics to it, and that these characteristics are shared/universal. But matter is empty of intrinsic characteristics and utterly unestablished. We conventionally label matter as phenomena/appearances having the characteristics of solidity, liquidity, heat and motion (four elements) yet no substance whatsoever can be found. In reality the reason why we experience matter similarly is because humans have 'shared' (rather similar) karma, but this does not apply when we compare ourselves to other kinds of sentient beings.

 

Mind and matter are mere conventions of appearances, ultimately non-arising.

 

Rizenfenix (son who transcribed his father who is an old realized yogi probably a monk) says this best:

 

http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/search?q=rizenfenix

 

Colors, sounds, smells, flavors, and textures aren’t attributes that are inherent to the objective world, existing independently of our senses. The objects we perceive seem completely ‘external’ to us, but do they have intrinsic characteristics that define their true nature? What is the true nature of the world as it exists independently of ourselves? We have no way of knowing, because our only way of apprehending it is via our own mental process. So, according to Buddhism, a ‘world’ independent of any conceptual designation would make no sense to anyone. To take an example, what is a white object? Is it a wavelength, a ‘color temperature’, and or moving particles? Are those particles energy, mass, or what? None of those attributes are intrinsic to the object, they’re only the result of our particular ways of investigating it.

 

Buddhist scriptures tell the story of two blind men who wanted to have explained to them what colors were? One of them was told that white was the color of snow. He took a handful of snow and concluded that white was ‘cold’. The other blind man was told white was the color of swans. He heard a swan flying overhead, and concluded that white went ‘swish swish’... The complete and correct recollection of the story aside, the point being the world cannot be determined by itself. If it was, we’d all perceive it in the same way.

 

That’s not to deny reality as we observe it, nor to say that there’s no reality outside the mind, but simply that no ‘reality in itself’ exists. Phenomena only exist in dependence on other phenomena.

I'm not saying you need to personify it. But it is alive isn't it and expressing itself via varying conscious entities and the world? It doesn't need to have a personified intent from a human perspective. But it is alive through conscious beings through its own relative principles.

I think you experienced no-mind but you have not realized anatta. You are implying there is One Mind expressing itself in multiplicity.

 

This is substantial non-dualism.

 

You need to contemplate this:

 

In seeing always only the seen/seeing is the seen

In hearing always only the heard/hearing is the heard

 

Then you will break substance-view of consciousness and realize anatta.

Edited July 17, 2011 by xabir2005

[Vajrahridaya]

Consciousness does not only arise from itself.

 

 

Exactly! Which is why, even in the higher yanas and their experiential elaborations, one cannot forget the meaning of the 12 links.

 

Everything does not arise from a non-dual supreme consciousness as an inherent substratum.

 

It's ALL dependently originated, including Rigpa which transcends the concept of dependent origination, but is itself arisen dependent upon insight or the influence of insight of dependent originations' emptiness through a master who has seen thus directly. Which is why Norbu say's one needs to master Nagarjunas' explanations of emptiness, not only conceptually, but... experientially. If one is caught in it on merely the conceptual level, then the experience of rigpa will arise and one will not have the mental context in order to understand what one is experiencing. This seems to happen a lot, but it's better than not experiencing it at all, which I think is what Norbu's intention is to begin with. Just connect people to the experience, regardless of whether they understand it or not.

Edited July 17, 2011 by Vajrahridaya

[xabir2005]

There's a very good talk about anatta and no mind recently uploaded by Kenneth Folk: http://kennethfolkdharma.com/2011/06/journalistic-self-enquiry-the-who-what-when-where-why-and-how-of-selfing/

[xabir2005]

What is relative, is not true, i.e. not inherently so. This is ultimate truth.

 

I never said relative realm 'looks different' from ultimate truth... There is only one truth, non-arising. Since what dependently originates cannot be found to have an essence anywhere, whatever appears is an empty-appearance without arising and ceasing.

 

Emptiness cannot be understood apart from form*, and form is by nature empty.

 

 

*the unfindability of weather as an independent locatable entity, is the nature of weather

On the ultimate level all events in samsara and nirvana never come into being, and so have no separate existence. On the relative plane they are illusory figments of mind, so again they have no separate existence. They are unoriginated events appearing in a plethora of magical illusion, which is like the reflection of the moon in water, possessing an inherent acausal dynamic. Since this essentially insubstantial magical illusion also never comes into being, ultimate and relative are identical and their identity is the one cause. Thus intuitive realization of [total presence] arises [with attainment of the unity of the two truths].

- Padmasambhava - Man ngag lta ba'i phreng ba -

 

Sonam just posted this in dharmawheel and I felt this is relevant and well-said.

[Lucky7Strikes]

Consciousness does not only arise from itself.

And what's your basis for this statement when you don't even know the next moment. How do you know anything if your knowing is like a dream. In fact, you can't claim to know anything. It's like, "Uh, I don't know, things just arise like dreams as part of universe." I think that's helpful to a certain degree but should not be seen as true.

 

Mind and matter are mere conventions of appearances, ultimately non-arising.

 

But it's experienced. And your explanation for this is, "I don't know. It must be magic because it's not really there."

 

Colors, sounds, smells, flavors, and textures aren’t attributes that are inherent to the objective world, existing independently of our senses. The objects we perceive seem completely ‘external’ to us, but do they have intrinsic characteristics that define their true nature? What is the true nature of the world as it exists independently of ourselves? We have no way of knowing, because our only way of apprehending it is via our own mental process. So, according to Buddhism, a ‘world’ independent of any conceptual designation would make no sense to anyone. To take an example, what is a white object? Is it a wavelength, a ‘color temperature’, and or moving particles? Are those particles energy, mass, or what? None of those attributes are intrinsic to the object, they’re only the result of our particular ways of investigating it.

You were the one who brought up the point about non-sentient causes and conditions.

Edited July 17, 2011 by Lucky7Strikes

[Lucky7Strikes]

Exactly! Which is why, even in the higher yanas and their experiential elaborations, one cannot forget the meaning of the 12 links.

 

Everything does not arise from a non-dual supreme consciousness as an inherent substratum.

 

It's ALL dependently originated, including Rigpa which transcends the concept of dependent origination, but is itself arisen dependent upon insight or the influence of insight of dependent originations' emptiness through a master who has seen thus directly. Which is why Norbu say's one needs to master Nagarjunas' explanations of emptiness, not only conceptually, but... experientially. If one is caught in it on merely the conceptual level, then the experience of rigpa will arise and one will not have the mental context in order to understand what one is experiencing. This seems to happen a lot, but it's better than not experiencing it at all, which I think is what Norbu's intention is to begin with. Just connect people to the experience, regardless of whether they understand it or not.

How does the Buddha know that consciousness (not the pali sense of eye-consciousness, ear-consciousness, etc) came from something. Moreover, what becomes ignorant for the consciousness to come about, matter?

 

Can you know anything outside of the mind?

[Lucky7Strikes]

There is not even an atom, much less a universal process.

 

Maha experience does not reify causes and condition, it does not mean there is a substantial objective universe causing this subjective experience. Experientially there is just an interconnected functioning, but it does not establish causes and conditions. It does not establish 'mind' and 'matter' as separate entities even though conventionally they can be named that way. It does not establish 'The Universe' - such a thing cannot be found, even though poetically it can be expressed this way: The universe is eating this apple, hearing the music.

This doesn't mean anything. You are just saying universe is appearances. Are you denying that there is experiencing? And since in your paradigm there is no you, there is this experiential process. So the process, no matter how illusion like it operates, is subtly acknowledged and you revert to it. It's shrouded monism/physicalism.

 

It is like... there is change, but there is no changing things, and in fact the realization of total-change should break down the notion that there is 'changing things' (since that implies there is unchanged entities undergoing change, which means not total-change), and similarly total-relativity should break down the notion that there is 'relative things' (since that implies there are unconditioned entities interacting with other entities and therefore not total-relativity). Experience is relativity and interconnectedness but there is no 'interconnected things'.

You wouldn't have the conception of change if there was nothing observed to be changing. You also wouldn't know relativity if there are no relative things observed.

 

In short, the realization and experience of interconnectedness actually breaks down the ideation of entities, and therefore breaks down the notion of causality. Realization of relativity un-establishes substantial relativity in the same way that the realization of change un-establishes movement.

It doesn't break down the ideation of entities. If it did, then one would not be able to observe relativity or change. You wouldn't be able to tell things apart from one another.

 

It may break down ideation of inherent entities.

 

Whatever dependently originates, appears luminously yet is like an illusion, looks there but isn't, and therefore, is only an ungraspable and unlocatable relative functioning incomprehensible in terms of notions of is, is not, arising, abidance, and subsidance.

Maha experience is simple, you attribute every experience to a totality. Just like monism.

 

"Looks like." And why does it look like that if there are no things in the first place.

 

Because it's magic? That's not a good explanation.

Edited July 17, 2011 by Lucky7Strikes

[Lucky7Strikes]

On the ultimate level all events in samsara and nirvana never come into being, and so have no separate existence. On the relative plane they are illusory figments of mind, so again they have no separate existence. They are unoriginated events appearing in a plethora of magical illusion, which is like the reflection of the moon in water, possessing an inherent acausal dynamic. Since this essentially insubstantial magical illusion also never comes into being, ultimate and relative are identical and their identity is the one cause. Thus intuitive realization of [total presence] arises [with attainment of the unity of the two truths].

- Padmasambhava - Man ngag lta ba'i phreng ba -

 

Sonam just posted this in dharmawheel and I felt this is relevant and well-said.

The Buddhdharma makes much more sense if we say there are infinite number of minds. And the contents and experiences of the mind are dependently originating and illusion-like. Hence the Buddha is able to experience omniscience of his own coming into being as well as the elements and the multitude of realms at will. Your way is a good practice of letting go of all attachments, as the mind attributed reality is ultimately unreal. But the mind is. You can't deny your own mind.

 

Thusness's model doesn't fully acknowledge the nature of experience except that it is illusion like. It just tosses the question to: There is some totality of appearances. As in if you deny your own awareness totally, then you are attributing yourself to a universal awareness.

Edited July 17, 2011 by Lucky7Strikes

[Lucky7Strikes]

Find out where does the thought come from, where the thought is, where the thought goes to. Find the core or essence of that thought. You will see that it is magical appearance, like a magic show - appearing, yet not truly there or anywhere, without a place of origin, abidance, and subsidance. You will realize that there is no essence or substance or thingness of that appearance, that there is no-thing coming into being and no-thing to cease.

This is stupid reasoning. This is like someone going "look at your eyes, oh you can't find them, ergo they must not exist."

[Vajrahridaya]

How does the Buddha know that consciousness (not the pali sense of eye-consciousness, ear-consciousness, etc) came from something. Moreover, what becomes ignorant for the consciousness to come about, matter?

 

Can you know anything outside of the mind?

 

When experiencing deep states of the Alayavijnana, one sees that consciousness is kind of a fermentation of the elemental radiance's, there is simultaneousness though, it's a different level of time than we experience through the body, it's not like one is first, then the other. It's a continuum.

 

This kind of formless realm stuff is hard to indicate with words, it has to be experienced directly. But, formless jhana realm experiences in meditation give one an intuitive insight into the mind that's pre-conceptual and pre the definitively formed levels of activity.

 

They say that Rigpa is beyond mind, and they also say that it's just mind's true nature. This is the symbol for Rigpa in the Tibetan tradition:

 

It's a general image of the state of that deep recognition. The colors represent different elemental radiance's pryer to densification in and as each moments phenomenal world, and there is the sound Ah represented by the central symbol, and the lights, it's all simultaneous. It densifies through the other sounds U and Om. Like Ahuomahuomahuomahuomahuom very fast and very subtle. Make that sound to yourself and try to feel it.

 

At first the experience is clung to as identity, then that just empties out, called emptying the basis, and then that experience just functions through the physical apparatus as free from itself.

 

This has to be experienced directly.

[goldisheavy]

Typing cannot be found. There is just appearance, which is not denied, but nothing can be asserted: including laptop, including typing. Everything is like an illusion, like a dream. Like a dream of typing, conventionally said to be so... yet it isn't really real.

Find out where does the thought come from, where the thought is, where the thought goes to. Find the core or essence of that thought. You will see that it is magical appearance, like a magic show - appearing, yet not truly there or anywhere, without a place of origin, abidance, and subsidance. You will realize that there is no essence or substance or thingness of that appearance, that there is no-thing coming into being and no-thing to cease.

There is nothing locatable about fire. It is utterly unlocatable and ungraspable. There is no fireness of a fire... therefore there is nothing undergoing arising, abiding and disappearance... just self-releasing traceless appearance.

 

Weasel words. I am typing right now. To say that I can't find myself typing is a cop out.

Edited July 17, 2011 by goldisheavy

[goldisheavy]

There's a very good talk about anatta and no mind recently uploaded by Kenneth Folk: http://kennethfolkdharma.com/2011/06/journalistic-self-enquiry-the-who-what-when-where-why-and-how-of-selfing/

 

Call in the Dharma cavalry, Xabir! Quotations and external authorities to the rescue.

[Lucky7Strikes]

When experiencing deep states of the Alayavijnana, one sees that consciousness is kind of a fermentation of the elemental radiance's, there is simultaneousness though, it's a different level of time than we experience through the body, it's not like one is first, then the other. It's a continuum.

 

This kind of formless realm stuff is hard to indicate with words, it has to be experienced directly. But, formless jhana realm experiences in meditation give one an intuitive insight into the mind that's pre-conceptual and pre the definitively formed levels of activity....

So it happens in the mind.

 

When I said consciousness I mean your sense of awareness of existence.

 

So the mind/awareness itself is not dependently originated, but its varying states are, as also its contents?

 

My point is, if this mind itself, this knowing, is itself a thing which is dependently orginated from something else, how does the Buddha verify that through direct experience?

Edited July 17, 2011 by Lucky7Strikes

[xabir2005]

And what's your basis for this statement when you don't even know the next moment. How do you know anything if your knowing is like a dream. In fact, you can't claim to know anything. It's like, "Uh, I don't know, things just arise like dreams as part of universe." I think that's helpful to a certain degree but should not be seen as true.

 

 

 

But it's experienced. And your explanation for this is, "I don't know. It must be magic because it's not really there."

 

 

You were the one who brought up the point about non-sentient causes and conditions.

1) you don't need to know the entire universe to experience relativity just like you don't need to know the entire universe to experience, impermanence, unsatisfactoriness and no-self. It is simply a fact of immediate experience that can be experienced and discovered.

 

2) What appears yet is without substance, location, origin and destination, of course that's like magic, and how wonderful that is

 

3) Sentient and nonsentient causes are conventionally said to be so

[xabir2005]

Weasel words. I am typing right now. To say that I can't find myself typing is a cop out.

I mean you cannot find where experience and mind is located. This much you should know if you read Shurangama Sutra.

[xabir2005]

The Buddhdharma makes much more sense if we say there are infinite number of minds. And the contents and experiences of the mind are dependently originating and illusion-like. Hence the Buddha is able to experience omniscience of his own coming into being as well as the elements and the multitude of realms at will. Your way is a good practice of letting go of all attachments, as the mind attributed reality is ultimately unreal. But the mind is. You can't deny your own mind.

 

Thusness's model doesn't fully acknowledge the nature of experience except that it is illusion like. It just tosses the question to: There is some totality of appearances. As in if you deny your own awareness totally, then you are attributing yourself to a universal awareness.

mindstreams are conventionally personal/individual. I do not posit universal essence.

 

Ultimately, there isn't even an 'awareness' (of any kind) much less a 'universal awareness'.

 

You need to contemplate on anatta like I suggested to you in my previous post.

 

Then you see that awareness is like the word 'weather', it collates an everchanging stream of the six consciousnesses yet there is nothing inherent about it - there is no 'one mind' or any sorts. Even six consciousness are ultimately unestablished like weather.

 

Luminous appearance-play is not denied, like weather, but 'weather', 'awareness' are really an enpty convention for a process (that is unique for each mindstream) and ultimately since the process is utterly unlocatable and ungraspable, "is" or "is not" doesn't even apply there.

[xabir2005]

This is stupid reasoning. This is like someone going "look at your eyes, oh you can't find them, ergo they must not exist."

Like I said many posts before, contemplating on the unfindability of objects lead to the realization of the emptiness of object.

 

But if you cling to the notion of a subject (mind, awareness), you should contemplate on anatta first until the emptiness of subject is realized.

[xabir2005]

Just want to clarify because I get a hunch my statements will be completely misconstrued.

 

No mind does not deny mind but denies any inherency about mind.

No awareness does not deny awareness but denies any inherency about awareness.

Just like no weather does not deny weather but denies anything inherent about weather.