What Is Non-Duality ?

[Vmarco]

Carefully contemplating the words of Jeff Foster has opened my eyes afresh to the world.

 

Krishnamurti springs to mind straight away. His anti-teaching, anti-guru stance always appealed to me.

 

Putting Jeff Foster is the company of Kristnamurti,...whether Jiddu or UG,...is bizarre.

 

Eckhart Tolle is surely not awake, but at least he writes some meaning ideas, like, "we need to draw our attention to what is false in us, for unless we learn to recognize the false as the false, there can be no lasting transformation, and you will always be drawn back into illusion, for that is how the false perpetuates itself"

 

But please, don't take this critique the wrong way,...you're entitled to whatever flavor of the week you wish,...just seemed kind of odd to see someone regress from that marvelous list you shared.

 

Ramana Maharsi's self inquiry method, 'Who Am I' One of his students put this together:

 

I too found much inspiration from Wie Wu Wie. Also L Collot D'Herbois' Colour. Unfortunately, I'm unaware of a great book on the subject,...by someone who has been there since the 13th century. However if you hear of one, let me know. In the meantime, if you really want in on what is non-duality on TheTaoBums, check out the thread 'What is Light.'

 

V

Edited December 14, 2011 by Vmarco

[Vmarco]

That the seeking and searching is pointless. Experience is all there is, not belief in future outcomes.

 

Confused about Buddhism ? Well, where do I start ?

The whole religion and it's hundreds of traditions, schools, sects and sub-sects, contradict each other in such a startling way, that it's impossible to make out what Buddhism actually is, or what it represents. I don't think I'll ever be able to understand it.

 

1. Ah! Good one. Yes, searching is pointless, as UG Krishnamurti said

http://www.well.com/user/jct/cover.html

 

2. Great "start" about Buddhism,...my apologies. I would have to agree,...to sort out all the Traditions and Lineages without Short Path guidance would be a folly.

http://wisdomsgoldenrod.org/notebooks/23/5

 

V

[lifeforce]

1. Ah! Good one. Yes, searching is pointless, as UG Krishnamurti said

http://www.well.com/user/jct/cover.html

 

2. Great "start" about Buddhism,...my apologies. I would have to agree,...to sort out all the Traditions and Lineages without Short Path guidance would be a folly.

http://wisdomsgoldenrod.org/notebooks/23/5

 

V

 

I really like the short path guide you linked, thanks for that.

[9th]

Krishnamurti was obsessed with the concept of the non-conceptual and the constant glorification of his own personality, which was based on it

 

his over-intellectualized profusion of discursive excrement is often quite enchanting to those who worship at the altar of appearances

 

for example, take a look at this "discussion"

 

[3bob]

Vmarco, why do you get off on acting like such an asshole? (regardless of what you know or don't know)

[Vmarco]

[Marblehead]

Hehehe.

 

Hi Vmarco,

 

I'm not scared of you or of any posts you make here.

 

Actually, even though I think you get a little wierd sometimes we do have quite a few understandings in common.

 

I think it is a very rare person who is capable of being beyond dualities, Beyond Good and Evil. But I won't suggest it is impossible. (I don't like universal statements, you know.)

 

Dealing with dualities is the reason I included the concept of useless/useful (to me) into my life. Dualities are totally subjective - personal judgements mostly based on ignorance.

 

Non-duality is the ability to see everything for what they are, not as we see them. But anything that effects our life will be judged - immediate loss of non-duality.

Edited December 15, 2011 by Marblehead

[Jetsun]

Osho and Krishnamuti were great thinkers and had wonderful intellects but I do not know of anyone they actually led to realisation, where are their accomplished students? I was into Osho for a time as his writings about so many things seems so right, but then I did his meditations and I found the common reaction was that they actually made peope more sick and angry rather than less, he had thousands of students at one time but I do not know of one who as emerged as a credible teacher of his ideas. Krishnamuti had a great mind but he was completely stuck in his intellect. I was reading Lama Yeshe recently and he was saying sometimes these guys who are stuck in their intellect would be instructed by real masters to go and receive dharma teaching from beggars who had never read a book, so I wouldn't confuse someone with a great intellect with having any spiritual achievement or teaching ability.

[konchog uma]

nice post jetsun

 

osho relates a couple good meditations, like the clear sky meditation (from Only One Sky) where one pictures passing thoughts as clouds and lets them float past. Good for me cause im a visual thinker so having imagery to work with rather than just the idea of "letting thoughts float past" helped me at one point. And i have done other osho meditations but my take on it was that he never invented a good meditation he just passed on some classic meditations.

 

i went through an osho phase but as soon as i saw him on video in front of his followers the spark died. Gurus seem to rarely be able to get over themselves.

[Jetsun]

nice post jetsun

 

osho relates a couple good meditations, like the clear sky meditation (from Only One Sky) where one pictures passing thoughts as clouds and lets them float past. Good for me cause im a visual thinker so having imagery to work with rather than just the idea of "letting thoughts float past" helped me at one point. And i have done other osho meditations but my take on it was that he never invented a good meditation he just passed on some classic meditations.

 

i went through an osho phase but as soon as i saw him on video in front of his followers the spark died. Gurus seem to rarely be able to get over themselves.

 

Osho would hypnotise his followers constantly, often when I watched him I would fall aslesp, but thinking back now I think using hypnotism in that way is pretty manipulative. Some of the meditations he prescribed were good because they were usually ripped straight out of another working tradition but then he would confuse things and mix things up, for example his more famous dynamic meditations was a whole mix of Sufi, Buddhist, Fourth Way and primal therapy techniques all squashed together and unsurprisingly it didnt work very well.

 

For a general introduction to many of these areas of thought Osho is excellent, he was incredibly well read in so many of the traditional esoteric traditions as well as modern psychology and he could link up their ideas and find their common threads better than almost anyone, just don't turn to him for your actual practice and development.

Edited December 15, 2011 by Jetsun

[Vmarco]

Edited December 15, 2011 by Vmarco

[Vmarco]

Osho and Krishnamuti were great thinkers and had wonderful intellects but I do not know of anyone they actually led to realisation, where are their accomplished students?

 

[Jetsun]

 

I had not heard of Dolano, but she says she obtained her realisation through Gangaji in the Advaita tradition, maybe Osho was a necessary stepping stone like he may have been for many other people to prepare them to meet their real teachers.

[Vmarco]

I had not heard of Dolano, but she says she obtained her realisation through Gangaji in the Advaita tradition, maybe Osho was a necessary stepping stone like he may have been for many other people to prepare them to meet their real teachers.

 

She's a long term student of Osho, and still lives in Poona, next to the ashram. If you hear her speak, its obviously Osho, not Gangaji, that was her ground. Personally, I find Gangaji evolving quite well,...its a good sign.

 

These teachers are, most likely unwittingly, pushing the envelop, so-to-say, of the students capacity to accept an honest dialogue. Theistic beliefs is a huge barrier. Even Osho was appeasing to god beliefs in his early literature, before evolving beyond that nonsense.

 

However, you would be correct to suggest that there are very few fully honest realized entities around, at least publically,...and those that are, would surely be killed if they publicized their awakened state. And I guanantee that none of them are attached to a religious belief system,...beliefs cannot enter the Heart.

 

"Relative and absolute,

These the two truths are declared to be.

The absolute is not within the reach of intellect,

For the intellect is grounded in the relative."

Shantideva 9.2

 

V

[3bob]

[Vmarco]

I had not heard of Dolano, but she says she obtained her realisation through Gangaji in the Advaita tradition, maybe Osho was a necessary stepping stone like he may have been for many other people to prepare them to meet their real teachers.

 

Why do people automatically rush to dissect a messenger, instead of deliberating on the message? Hui Neng uncovered the Light that he is by way of a message,...he didn't realize it through studying the Fifth Patriarchs bio, nor did the Fifth Patriarch lay hands on him, and shaktipod him into awakening.

 

Absolute Bodhicitta proverbs are intended to be a ground upon which bodhicitta is realized,...if we focused on the bio of who wrote the proverb, how will bodhicitta ever be realized?

 

Realization of non-duality, the subject of this thread, does not arise from a teacher, but a message understood at a particular juncture when the "instant" is observed. There is no Present in Time. As Dolano said in the above youtube,..."where are you in the instant?" However, observing the instant, the Present, the Now, is very difficult,...which is why the true truth seeker does not seek truth, but discerns all the barriers built against it. The "instant" is evently observed by recognizing what is not the "instant." The "instant" is not a perceived present. Perception can only view the past.

 

Accept what is not the Present, and evently you will stumble into the Present. Ponder on that every minute of every day, and you may uncover it in a single lifetime. Because everytime you recognize the false as the false, it effortlessly dissolves, and your basic goodness becomes more and more obvious.

 

V

[Vmarco]

Edited December 15, 2011 by Vmarco

[konchog uma]

funny that a thread about non-duality has become so self/other

[Vmarco]

funny that a thread about non-duality has become so self/other

 

 

"those desiring speedily to be

A refuge for themselves and other beings,

Should interchange the terms of I and Other,

And thus embrace a sacred mystery."

Shantideva 8.120

[Informer]

What if non-duality is just waveform instead of particles?

[3bob]

Yes, I've heared that story.

 

Parts of your agenda seem to be given through your opinions; for instance when you said, "And thus, very few compassionate beings traverse the Earth" such is an obvious error passed off as some kind of wisdom, (?) for there are such beings at every turn if one can only see.

 

Om

Edited December 15, 2011 by 3bob

[Simple_Jack]

Read the linked article and his bio...IMHO, seems a lil "pop-ish." On his site it says he was influenced by Advaita, Sufism, and Zen; but he doesn't really make a distinction, when discussing non-dual awareness.

 

I don't mean any disrespect towards any one tradition since they're all appropriate for one time or another, but I feel he doesn't delve into certain aspects...Like for example, he describes the non-duality of internal/external phenomena, but it seems that he has inadvertently attached to a "here and now." In my experience this is no different from a grasping to "self" notions. This is still the "seed's of inherent view" manifesting itself in each moment; there is still a subject/object duality of a doer being established in each moment.

 

He also uses the analogy of the ocean and the waves for the the experiences of consciousness (which is a common analogy in Buddhism,) but following the example above: Even then, he fails to make a distinction of non-dual presence from the perspective of substantial non-dualism.

 

From my experience: Inherent view's operate on a subtle level, where you can fail to recognize it at first. It takes refinement in order to understand how you were continually getting caught up in solidifying an "I" and an "I Am," when experiencing thoughts, touch, sound, feelings, etc. So there's a move toward experiencing everything as unsupported, ungraspable, disjoint and spontaneous.

 

There's a shift from seeing "awareness" as some unchanging essence or the background for manifestations; to "seeing" that the manifestations are (or is) awareness. There is bliss, when experiencing everything without a "support," without a "center," without "basis" or as unsupported. There's a sense of freedom when experiencing the essenceless and coreless free-flowing "wave" of phenomena in all it's vividness...As not established in the past, future (and especially,)present or as "here" or "there" (awareness itself isn't even established.)[/i] Everything is experienced as a "self-releasing" display; arising and ceasing according to the interdependence of causes and conditions.

 

Hui-neng's poem deals with what I described above :

 

Fundamentally Perfect Wisdom has no tree.

Nor has the bright mirror any stand.

Buddha-nature is forever clear and pure.

Where is there any dust?

 

The above is describing the two-fold selflessness, but is not complete (Since he composed this before the robe and bowl was transmitted to him by the 5th patriarch.) Though experientially understanding the above is crucial for moving towards the natural, spontaneous and effortless Way that Taoism is known for.

[lifeforce]

It was nice to have a few people make positive remarks about Jeff Foster at the start of the thread....and then the Buddhists came along and basically slated him, probably because he didn't fit in to their way.

Well. tough. I like the guy and his words resonate with me.

Sorry to have bothered you all.

[Patrick Brown]

What Right View Buddhist would use the word "divine?" Are you attempting to go for a Zen teaching, that is say, to dissolve the question? Or are you actually attempting to bring/merge some core Abrahamic religious views into Buddhism,...as if such conditions (divinity) could actually enter the Unconditionality of Emptiness?

 

V

[9th]

 

lol

 

Go team! ra ra ra!

 

CRUSH THE INFIDELS