'No self' my experience so far...

[xabir2005]

I was pointing to that the depth of your realization of I AM is no where near Maharshi's. Ramana Maharshi's sense of presence was powerful enough to make people around him enter samadhis. The experience has depth to it than a mere realization.

 

The opening of the heart center shifts your consciousness, it is as much an energetic experience as conceptual. You may have a glimpse of it from a current physical state, but I wouldn't just categorize the Maharshi's experiences into just realizing I AM. This is one of the problems of trying to measure everyone's attainments according to Thusness's stages.

 

I do not agree with all that Ramana says, but to claim as you did, to have realize what Ramana has, is very doubtful.

There is no such thing as having a glimpse from a physical state.

 

I AM is nothing physical. It is Pure Mind itself in its quiescence, therefore it can only be discovered by 'tracing the radiance/movement to its origins'.

 

There is no difference in realization, the only difference is that Ramana became a renunciant and trained samadhi day and night. He achieved the ability to remain and enter into deep samadhi.

[xabir2005]

So you think consciousness arises from sense objects and sense organs. Not only will Mahayna texts refute this, but also quantum science.

 

No different than physicalist scientists or actual freedom. Reifying the material world.

There is a difference. Actual freedom asserts that consciousness arise from matter, whereas I do not assert so - simply that matter is one of the conditions... A previous moment of consciousness is also one of the conditions. As such, consciousness can survive physical death via mental and karmic conditions.

[xabir2005]

Conditions are made from conditions is what you are saying. That is an example of "other made." You may not experience it that way, ungraspable or whatever, but that is your underlying view of the nature of reality. Conditions upon conditions, a chain of rolling on.

Nope, conditions are not 'made from conditions' - instead, with the meeting of conditions, an instance of manifestation arises. The sound of drum-beats are not made by the air, not made by ears, not made by drums, etc - they are not self-made, not other-made, but with the meeting of conditions, sound of drumbeat manifest, and is empty of independent existence.

 

A chain of rolling on does not mean it is determined or made by an object nor a subject, in fact because everything is depenendently originated, nothing is created from something and nothing can be established.

 

Visudhimagga:

 

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

sees only mental and corporeal phenomena kept going through the

concatenation of causes and effects. No producer of the

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

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

well aware that wise men are using merely conventional language,

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

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

result.

 

No doer of the deeds is found,

No one who ever reaps their fruits;

Empty phenomena roll on:

This only is the correct view.

 

And while the deeds and their results

Roll on and on, conditioned all,

There is no first beginning found,

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

 

No god, no Brahma, can be called

The maker of this wheel of life:

Empty phenomena roll on,

Dependent on conditions all.

 

........

 

p.s. I just remembered something Daniel wrote to someone 2 years ago who forwarded it to me, which I think is good:

 

I am a pragmatist, so I think that concept that help people are key.

 

 

Tbe Buddha addressed this topic, and I agree with his answer. He said that when training in Morality assume free will, as it helps. Thus, you presume that you can make healthy choices about how to speak and act and think, and so you proceed with the notion that you are in control and can make yourself and your world better.

 

 

When doing Insight practices, you do the complete opposite as much as possible. You assume that sensations arise on their own in a causal, natural way and as much as possible you try to see that aspect of things. That said, until concentration, mindfulness, and continuity of practice are strong, one makes a lot of effort to see things as they are and stay with the natural arising and vanishing of sensations.

 

 

From an ultimate point of view, and from a strictly Buddhist technical point of view, there is no free will. All the sensations of effort and will are themselves causal, and thus, while there are definitely the impressions of free will, these themselves are made of moments that arise and vanish on their own according to the laws that govern causality.

Edited August 6, 2011 by xabir2005

[xabir2005]

What do causes and conditions depend on?

on causes and conditions, which makes them unestablished and empty of independent, inherent existence. What is relative is ultimately empty.

[xabir2005]

Xabir, tell me, in your own words, what is a concept and what is not a concept? I don't think you really know the difference.

Pure sensate experience is not concept. Pure Mind in its quiescence (aka 'I AM Presence') is not a concept.

 

Verbalization, logical thinking, pondering, etc, are conceptual thoughts. Engaging in intellect, symbols, etc. A concept is an abstract symbolic idea.

Edited August 6, 2011 by xabir2005

[thuscomeone]

Pure sensate experience is not concept. Pure Mind in its quiescence (aka 'I AM Presence') is not a concept.

 

Verbalization, logical thinking, pondering, etc, are conceptual thoughts. Engaging in intellect, symbols, etc. A concept is an abstract symbolic idea.

Ok, that's a good start. Now take it further.

 

When you are walking down the street, is that act conceptual or before concepts?

 

And is the concept "I am walking down the street" the same as the actual fact of walking?

[thuscomeone]

...

Edited August 6, 2011 by thuscomeone

[xabir2005]

Ok, that's a good start. Now take it further.

 

When you are walking down the street, is that act conceptual or before concepts?

 

And is the concept "I am walking down the street" the same as the actual fact of walking?

Prior to concepts.

 

No.

[thuscomeone]

Prior to concepts.

 

No.

Ok, so when you are walking down the street and then you say "my walking down the street was dependently arisen", is that verbalization the same as that act of walking down the street?

[Lucky7Strikes]

Nope, conditions are not 'made from conditions' - instead, with the meeting of conditions, an instance of manifestation arises. The sound of drum-beats are not made by the air, not made by ears, not made by drums, etc - they are not self-made, not other-made, but with the meeting of conditions, sound of drumbeat manifest, and is empty of independent existence.

Of course the phrase made from conditions doesn't mean that a certain object "makes" the next object. That is absolutely not what I meant.

 

So conditions meet together, and you experience this. Then that conditions the next moment of this. So just "this" then "this" and "this" based on a causal chain. Things arise and cease on and on. That's your view. Why are you trying so hard to walk around this point. Daniel says it in his quote: technically no free will.

 

A chain of rolling on does not mean it is determined or made by an object nor a subject, in fact because everything is depenendently originated, nothing is created from something and nothing can be established.

 

Visudhimagga:

 

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

sees only mental and corporeal phenomena kept going through the

concatenation of causes and effects. No producer of the

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

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

well aware that wise men are using merely conventional language,

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

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

result.

 

No doer of the deeds is found,

No one who ever reaps their fruits;

Empty phenomena roll on:

This only is the correct view.

 

And while the deeds and their results

Roll on and on, conditioned all,

There is no first beginning found,

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

 

No god, no Brahma, can be called

The maker of this wheel of life:

Empty phenomena roll on,

Dependent on conditions all.

Yes...just cause and effect happening along. That is determinism. Your view of determinism is a bit forced, in that you seem to think determinism means there is an outside controller of some sorts. You do not need to force everything is the dual paradigm of subject/object as you do often. Determinism basically means that there is no doer and there is no controller, but there is just an impersonal processes that manifests. You can say its according to god, an outside entity, or causes and conditions. It doesn't make much of a difference.

 

From an ultimate point of view, and from a strictly Buddhist technical point of view, there is no free will. All the sensations of effort and will are themselves causal, and thus, while there are definitely the impressions of free will, these themselves are made of moments that arise and vanish on their own according to the laws that govern causality.

Ok, there you go: just causal conditions rolling on. No free will, only impression of it, so unreal, just imagined.

 

Causality governs your experience.

[xabir2005]

Ok, so when you are walking down the street and then you say "my walking down the street was dependently arisen", is that verbalization the same as that act of walking down the street?

Not the same. But D.O. seen in real-time, non-conceptually, is Maha - everything is like the universe doing this and everything is seamlessly interconnected (everything is the total exertion of the universe), and furthermore everything reveals itself to be dream-like, ungraspable, as an experience.... not as a concept to be held on to. There are just shapes and colours and ... but there is nothing solid or inherent to them. Edited August 6, 2011 by xabir2005

[thuscomeone]

Not the same. But D.O. seen in real-time, non-conceptually, is Maha - everything is like the universe doing this and everything is seamlessly connected (everything is the total exertion of the universe), and furthermore everything reveals itself to be dream-like, ungraspable, as an experience.... not as a concept to be held on to. There are just shapes and colours and ... but there is nothing solid to them.

Ok, they are not the same according to you. You are basically saying that the description is not the described. You see this, yet you then say that things as they actually are are "dependently arisen." Do you see the contradiction?

 

There is no "dependent arising" during that act of walking down the street, is there? And if there isn't, why hold onto "dependent arising"?

Edited August 6, 2011 by thuscomeone

[Lucky7Strikes]

There is no such thing as having a glimpse from a physical state.

 

I AM is nothing physical. It is Pure Mind itself in its quiescence, therefore it can only be discovered by 'tracing the radiance/movement to its origins'.

 

There is no difference in realization, the only difference is that Ramana became a renunciant and trained samadhi day and night. He achieved the ability to remain and enter into deep samadhi.

It's absolutely physical, in that it affects the material realm and alters it. The opening of the heart-mind re wires the entire energetic and physical make up of the body when it deepens. It's not like a samadhi you train your mind and enter through the jnanas and re emerge out of. It is a transformative experience of the body as one realizes that I AM pervades all experience.

 

When the realization deepens and you dissolve everything into I AM, one no longer sleeps. The shen spirit pervades all your experiences. You directly realize that all is one mind.

 

Ramada didn't train in samadhi. He just deepened his realization after the first death experience at sixteen. His practice was simply to remain in that state. He died again later where his physical body did not have a pulse for fifteen or so minutes. Everything just dissolves into it.

 

I'm not saying Maharshi's realization is final. But you definitely did not have the depth of I AM consciousness experience of Ramana. You moved too quickly to truly understand I AM Presence, judging from the details of that experience was simply: I felt being lived through a larger universe, or a unquestioned certainty of being.

 

Heart opening is much more intense.

Edited August 6, 2011 by Lucky7Strikes

[xabir2005]

It's absolutely physical, in that it affects the material realm and alters it. The opening of the heart-mind re wires the entire energetic and physical make up of the body when it deepens. It's not like a samadhi you train your mind and enter through the jnanas and re emerge out of. It is a transformative experience of the body as one realizes that I AM pervades all experience.

I am not talking about the effects. I am saying that in the immersion of I AM presence, there is no body-consciousness.

 

Ramada didn't train in samadhi. He just deepened his realization after the first death experience at sixteen. His practice was simply to remain in that state. He died again later where his physical body did not have a pulse for fifteen or so minutes. Everything just dissolves into it.

Remaining in that state is Nirvikalpa Samadhi.

 

Ramana: Holding on to the supreme state is samadhi.

 

....

 

Abiding permanently in any of these samadhis, either savikalpa or nirvikatpa, is sahaja [the natural state]. What is body-consciousness? It is the insentient body plus consciousness. Both of these must lie in another consciousness which is absolute and unaffected and which remains as it always is, with or without the body-consciousness. What does it then matter whether the body-consciousness is lost or retained, provided one is holding on to that pure consciousness? Total absence of body-consciousness has the advantage of making the samadhi more intense, although it makes no difference to the knowledge of the supreme.

[xabir2005]

Ok, they are not the same according to you. You are basically saying that the description is not the described. You see this, yet you then say that things as they actually are are "dependently arisen." Do you see the contradiction?

 

There is no "dependent arising" during that act of walking down the street, is there? And if there isn't, why hold onto "dependent arising"?

I do not establish dependent arising... There is a total de-establishment of all constructs.

[Lucky7Strikes]

There is a difference. Actual freedom asserts that consciousness arise from matter, whereas I do not assert so - simply that matter is one of the conditions... A previous moment of consciousness is also one of the conditions. As such, consciousness can survive physical death via mental and karmic conditions.

Are you saying, when A and B and C get together, of which C is a state of consciousness, just "poof!"

another state of consciousness arises?

 

Does that mean in your view consciousness is discontinuous and moment to moment arising? That would make life a disjointed experience. You would have multiple awarenesses, not to mention the lines drawn between these moment to moment awareness experience seems completely arbitrary.

[xabir2005]

Of course the phrase made from conditions doesn't mean that a certain object "makes" the next object. That is absolutely not what I meant.

 

So conditions meet together, and you experience this. Then that conditions the next moment of this. So just "this" then "this" and "this" based on a causal chain. Things arise and cease on and on. That's your view. Why are you trying so hard to walk around this point. Daniel says it in his quote: technically no free will.

 

 

Yes...just cause and effect happening along. That is determinism. Your view of determinism is a bit forced, in that you seem to think determinism means there is an outside controller of some sorts. You do not need to force everything is the dual paradigm of subject/object as you do often. Determinism basically means that there is no doer and there is no controller, but there is just an impersonal processes that manifests. You can say its according to god, an outside entity, or causes and conditions. It doesn't make much of a difference.

 

 

Ok, there you go: just causal conditions rolling on. No free will, only impression of it, so unreal, just imagined.

 

Causality governs your experience.

But it's not something 'out there' that's controlling you, it's intimate, much closer, it's your actions and intentions and effort, etc, that makes what your life is, furthermore nothing is 'set in stones'.

[thuscomeone]

I do not establish dependent arising... There is a total de-establishment of all constructs.

Yes, you do establish dependent arising. You take it to be "what is" -- an absolute description of the nature of reality. I can see it in your posts. "what is" or the actual (that act of walking down the street) is beyond all descriptions -- including dependent arising. And if this is true, why continue to argue for dependent arising?

Edited August 6, 2011 by thuscomeone

[Lucky7Strikes]

on causes and conditions, which makes them unestablished and empty of independent, inherent existence. What is relative is ultimately empty.

Can you give me an example of how causes and conditions depend on causes and conditions?

[xabir2005]

Are you saying, when A and B and C get together, of which C is a state of consciousness, just "poof!"

another state of consciousness arises?

 

Does that mean in your view consciousness is discontinuous and moment to moment arising? That would make life a disjointed experience. You would have multiple awarenesses, not to mention the lines drawn between these moment to moment awareness experience seems completely arbitrary.

There is only moment to moment experience, that ultimately, is empty and non-arising.

 

There is nothing linking experience, and yet it is not the case that experience has a real arising and cessation. So there is no lines, and no continuity of an entity as well.

 

Whatever dependently originates is empty of arising, abidance and cessation since there is literally no-thing 'there' to arise, abide, subside, etc.... just mere appearances... no coming, staying, going, no where to be found, like a magical apparition.

Edited August 6, 2011 by xabir2005

[xabir2005]

Can you give me an example of how causes and conditions depend on causes and conditions?

12 links of D.O.

[xabir2005]

Yes, you do establish dependent arising. You take it to be "what is" -- an absolute description of the nature of reality. I can see it in your posts. "what is" or the actual (that act of walking down the street) is beyond all descriptions -- including dependent arising. And if this is true, why continue to argue for dependent arising?

I already said 'is' and 'is not' don't apply...

 

Dependent arising is relative truth, upon investigation, what is relative is empty and non-arising.

Edited August 6, 2011 by xabir2005

[Lucky7Strikes]

But it's not something 'out there' that's controlling you, it's intimate, much closer, it's your actions and intentions and effort, etc, that makes what your life is, furthermore nothing is 'set in stones'.

It doesn't have to be "out there" or "in here" when you experience, nor do you need to feel being controlled or not being controlled. Let's not be concerned about feeling, but with the technical view you have of your experience and existence. You also don't need to feel its "set in stones."

 

Many people feel differently about their lives and the way they experience things that often contradicts their overall views of reality. You ask a material scientist if he believes in a soul. And he will say no, but a lot of his actions can arise as if he believes in some independent spirit beyond just neuorns firing off in the brain according to hormones or whatever. As in, the consequences of their world view does not dictate the way they live.

 

Your underlying view of experience, no matter how intimate or close, is that causality governs your existence. As you wrote to thuscomeone again about Maha, universe is just flowing through as Xabir's experience. I just want to make this clear.

Edited August 6, 2011 by Lucky7Strikes

[Lucky7Strikes]

12 links of D.O.

No, that's just causes and conditions.

 

You said causes and conditions depend on something and is hence empty. What do causes and conditions depend on?

[xabir2005]

It doesn't have to be "out there" or "in here" when you experience, nor do you need to feel being controlled or not being controlled. Let's not be concerned about feeling, but with the technical view you have of your experience and existence. You also don't need to feel its "set in stones."

 

Many people feel differently about their lives and the way they experience things that often contradicts their overall views of reality. You ask a material scientist if he believes in a soul. And he will say no, but a lot of his actions can arise as if he believes in some independent spirit beyond just neuorns firing off in the brain according to hormones or whatever. As in, the consequences of their world view does not dictate the way they live.

 

Your underlying view of experience, no matter how intimate or close, is that causality governs your existence. As you wrote to thuscomeone again about Maha, universe is just flowing through as Xabir's experience. I just want to make this clear.

There is nothing whatsoever that does not arise dependently, and thus there is nothing whatsoever that is not empty.