Seth is giving up Buddhism!

[konchog uma]

hahahaha at least mister numbskull finally seems to have killed this dreadful thread

 

and lived up to his handle

[Informer]

Doesn't seem dead to me

[konchog uma]

Doesn't seem dead to me

 

sssshhhhhhhhh

[LaughingNumbSkull]

Very Caustic...

If you look really carefully [the bleeding obvious] you may notice that I simply Informed my Buddhist friends here that I am stopping being a Buddhist and said why.

 

Then Vmarco decided to chime in, and the conversation ceased to be anything at all about me giving up Buddhism, as it became about why Buddhists [Vmarco's Buddhism] are right and why everyone else is wrong, and I myself have not posted for pages till now, as the conversation became pretty boring for me...

 

So I give you an E- on your analysis of this thread.

 

Nice try puppet master, but I know your tricks.

 

Don't try to put the heat on your puppets or me. You aren't fooling me. You might be able to fool the cognitively dead, but I'm not falling for it.

 

You love this and you know it. Otherwise you would've stepped in and actually said something about it. It gives you the narcissistic ego boost that you desire.

 

 

All I'm asking is why the fuck does this thread have 8 pages. Don't try to silence the only logical opinion on this thread. All I'm doing is asking a valid question, and here you are trying to justify this thread by putting the heat on me.

 

All I'm doing is asking a question. Don't try to attack my analysis skills.

[Informer]

 

And no, I repeat again, Emptiness is not a position, it is merely a rejection of positions, not an asserting of some absolute essence. In other words, emptiness means that our deluded view about self, and objects, are false, thus rejecting such views, but does not say about an 'Emptiness' that 'exists on its own'. Imagine seeing a mirage - to say the mirage is graspable out there is false (mirage being empty of substance), or to say mirage has a core or substance out there is false (mirage being empty of substance), but you do not say that there is an existing 'emptiness' in the mirage. 'Emptiness' is not a thing in itself, but the substance-less, corelessness, of selves and things.

 

 

 

The whole thing that gets me is that the assumption of no-self relies on the assumption of that which is observing is non-existent. The assumption of an observer being non-existent is based observing nothing. So since the observer is not observing anything, you assume there is no observer. So it is all but assumption based upon mere assumptions. So you don't have a residual self-image, you don't have anything, you are simply a combination of particles observing other combinations of particles. They aren't "your" particles because they have been around and will continue to be around long after the notion of any residual self image has become extinct.

[xabir2005]

The whole thing that gets me is that the assumption of no-self relies on the assumption of that which is observing is non-existent. The assumption of an observer being non-existent is based observing nothing. So since the observer is not observing anything, you assume there is no observer. So it is all but assumption based upon mere assumptions.

No. The 'no observer' is not an assumption based on observing nothing - you can observe nothing and still cling to a sense of observer. Like I told you before, the realization of 'no observer' or 'in seeing always just the seen' is a realization that the awareness that you took to be an observer has always been just the experience of sight, sounds, smells, taste, touch, thoughts (be it conceptual or non-conceptual). The non-conceptual thought reified into a Witness is simply another manifestation. It is a direct realization that this has always been the case - imagine figuring out those picture puzzle, before you don't, but now you see it - Eureka. It is very easy to assume or believe in something - I have done it for years, many have too. But to realize it requires investigation and contemplation... and in a moment of awakening all is seen.

 

Before this realization, when awareness is experienced, due to dualistic framework we always take it to be an observer. We sense ourselves as an observer behind things. Awareness is taken to be some Eternal Witness of things, and things occur in the foreground while the Witness is always in the background watching.

So you don't have a residual self-image, you don't have anything, you are simply a combination of particles observing other combinations of particles. They aren't "your" particles because they have been around and will continue to be around long after the notion of any residual self image has become extinct.

I'm afraid I don't get you.

 

Anyway, I don't have any sense of self/Self nowadays. Just in seeing always the seen, in hearing just sounds. But latent tendencies are something that may not manifest every moment, so it could be that in some extreme conditions, contraction may arise. I don't know. It just sort of disappeared nowadays.

Edited December 21, 2011 by xabir2005

[Informer]

No. The 'no observer' is not an assumption based on observing nothing - you can observe nothing and still cling to a sense of observer. Like I told you before, the realization of 'no observer' or 'in seeing always just the seen' is a realization that the awareness that you took to be an observer has always been just the experience of sight, sounds, smells, taste, touch, thoughts (be it conceptual or non-conceptual). The non-conceptual thought reified into a Witness is simply another manifestation. It is a direct realization that this has always been the case - imagine figuring out those picture puzzle, before you don't, but now you see it - Eureka. It is very easy to assume or believe in something - I have done it for years, many have too. But to realize it requires investigation and contemplation... and in a moment of awakening all is seen.

 

If there is no observer what is seeing? The question is misconstrued.

 

What exactly is being seen or not seen?

 

 

 

Anyway, I don't have any sense of self/Self nowadays. Just in seeing always the seen, in hearing just sounds. But latent tendencies are something that may not manifest every moment, so it could be that in some extreme conditions, contraction may arise. I don't know. It just sort of disappeared nowadays.

 

"I don't have a sense of self" Don't you see how hypocritical that is? Who or what doesn't have anything?

Edited December 21, 2011 by Informer

[xabir2005]

If there is no observer what is seeing? The question is misconstrued.

 

What exactly is being seen or not seen?

This is a wrong question. People have asked Buddha who is feeling? Who is craving? Who is seeing? and so on. He answered, as I will answer, that this question is misconstrued. Since the Buddha never said 'I feel', or 'I see', the question should have been put this way: with what conditions does feeling arise? With what conditions does seeing arise? All these stuff arise due to six sense bases, due to contact, due to whatever conditions at the moment give rise to that particular experience, due to dependent origination. There is no feeler or seer.

"I don't have a sense of self" Don't you see how hypocritical that is? Who or what doesn't have anything?

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/jootla/wheel414.html#ch2

 

Would an arahant say "I" or "mine"?

 

Other devas had more sophisticated queries. One deva, for example, asked the Buddha if an arahant could use words that refer to a self:

 

"Consummate with taints destroyed,

One who bears his final body,

Would he still say 'I speak'?

And would he say 'They speak to me'?"

 

This deva realized that arahantship means the end of rebirth and suffering by uprooting mental defilements; he knew that arahants have no belief in any self or soul. But he was puzzled to hear monks reputed to be arahants continuing to use such self-referential expressions.

 

The Buddha replied that an arahant might say "I" always aware of the merely pragmatic value of common terms:

 

"Skillful, knowing the world's parlance,

He uses such terms as mere expressions."

 

The deva, trying to grasp the Buddha's meaning, asked whether an arahant would use such expressions because he is still prone to conceit. The Buddha made it clear that the arahant has no delusions about his true nature. He has uprooted all notions of self and removed all traces of pride and conceit:

 

"No knots exist for one with conceit cast off;

For him all knots of conceit are consumed.

When the wise one has transcended the conceived

He might still say 'I speak,'

And he might say 'They speak to me.'

Skillful, knowing the world's parlance,

He uses such terms as mere expressions." (KS I, 21-22; SN 1:25)

Edited December 21, 2011 by xabir2005

[Informer]

You are using self to deny that you have a self in the same sentence. The furthest you can determine with the self is that it is not the image. You use other tools to determine how and to what extent this is true.

[xabir2005]

You are using self to deny that you have a self in the same sentence.

To me that is an assumption, to you you see it as a reality.

The furthest you can determine with the self is that it is not the image. You use other tools to determine how and to what extent this is true.

If you wish to attain Self-Realization, Who am I? is going to lead you there as it did for me, that is why I advocate this method in my e-book. But the assumption behind the inquiry is that there is a Self, so the luminous essence of mind when discovered will be reified as Self, a purest identity, until further insights develop with the right kind of contemplations (contemplations that challenge subject/object, inside and outside, boundaries and so on can collapse everything into One Mind, then even further contemplations can lead to anatta and shunyata), right pointers and right practice (try focusing on the four aspects of I AM - impersonality, intensity of luminosity, seeing through the need to abide and dropping it, effortlessness). So you have to remain open minded, otherwise when you attaid self-realization you will stagnate in trying to abide in I AM 24/7 and not progress to further insights. Many people get stuck there their entire lifetime. This is not the way to true effortlessness and freedom.

 

As an advice from experience, you can skip all the endless neti neti - there is endless objects of perception you can neti without end and you will never come to a conclusion or conviction of I AM. Just do self-inquiry (Who am I?) and trace back to the Source and you will realize it. Self-inquiry is the direct path. Neti is only helpful as a skilful means to drop your attachment to concepts as when necessary, then go right back to self-inquiry. You don't need to find something else to neti when your concepts have subsided - that would be extra. Just trace back to the source with self-inquiry and focus on that.

 

p.s. if you have already attained self-realization by now then the immediate previous para may be unnecessary.

Edited December 21, 2011 by xabir2005

[Informer]

I found the original source when I was 19, it is now known to me as the pineal gland. I say original source because that is where the self initially was. Then it was broken free of the perpetuated illusion that held it transfixed at the place. Then it evolved from the feeling of ownership to be replaced by love. The love led to a fire and blah blah blah.

Edited December 21, 2011 by Informer

[xabir2005]

I found the original source when I was 19, it is now known to me as the pineal gland. I say original source because that is where the self initially was. Then it was broken free of the perpetuated illusion that held it transfixed at the place.

I see. The original source I talk about is not a source inside or pertaining to the body. It is just I AM - spirit, not body, and even at I AM level you will have recognised that Spirit/I AM is not located anywhere inside the body - at the I AM level its seen that the body arise as object to the subject and the subject is utterly free of all objects. At One Mind level, all objects are subsumed into subject such that there is no more subject/object dichotomy but a seamless undivided field of Mind.

 

Anyway, what is your experience of Self after you broke free from the illusion that it was transfixed at the place?

Edited December 21, 2011 by xabir2005

[Informer]

It become like water and started molding into all the elements pretty much.

[xabir2005]

It become like water and started molding into all the elements pretty much.

That's cool. So all the elements are not separate from you? When was that seen?

[Informer]

It has never stopped, it continues to unfold with the universe.

[Seth Ananda]

Nice try puppet master, but I know your tricks.

 

Don't try to put the heat on your puppets or me. You aren't fooling me. You might be able to fool the cognitively dead, but I'm not falling for it.

 

You love this and you know it. Otherwise you would've stepped in and actually said something about it. It gives you the narcissistic ego boost that you desire.

 

 

All I'm asking is why the fuck does this thread have 8 pages. Don't try to silence the only logical opinion on this thread. All I'm doing is asking a valid question, and here you are trying to justify this thread by putting the heat on me.

 

All I'm doing is asking a question. Don't try to attack my analysis skills.

wow, read everything between my last reply and this one. The subject has nothing to do with me

[mjjbecker]

 

How the fuck does this guy get people to care so much?

 

 

Because he has worthwhile things to say, has had some interesting experiences and shares them with an open and generous heart (and in an articulate manner). They make for some of the best posts on this forum. Any of these experiences he chooses to share, I personally am more than happy to read about.

[Mokona]

Jesus H christ! 8 pages dedicated to Seth Ananda's giving up of Buddhism. If you weren't narcissistic before Seth, by now I'm sure you are.

 

But judging by the thread I'm sure you are. I don't understand why this is even a thread, let alone having 8 pages. Sorry if I'm attacking everyone's savior.

 

Are we really supposed to give a damn about a stranger renouncing buddhism?

 

How the fuck does this guy get people to care so much?

 

8 pages over this topic is a little bit high. But seriously, continue, I'd really like to see how many pages this thread will accumulate.

 

Derailed threads just keep going, weeeeee!

[NonTien]

There are three truths.

 

The first type of truth is experience. Once you have experienced something, you know it. No person can persuade you otherwise.The second type is truth gained by reasoning. In this case, the truth cannot be immediately verified because the subject is too small (like atomic particles) or too large (like the movement of planets through time) or too abstract (like ideas). Something may be true, but its truth is borne out by analysis rather than physical testing.

 

Either of these two types of truths has a range of validity. They are relative. Therefore, though truths are superior to falsehood, opinions, beliefs, and superstition, they each have limits. There is a third type of truth that is different from these two.

 

This is a way of direct spiritual knowing. Wholly internal, this mode is the direct experiencing of truth through the opening of higher faculties. Meditation gives one perceptions of absolute certainty. There is no doubt or need of other investigations; this knowledge is beyond words, descriptions, and rationalization. In fact, one must be careful not to let the fruits of one's meditations pass into the realm of rationalization. This will subject you to the relativity of external truths and ruin your confidence. To avoid doubts and conflicting opinions, followers of Tao keep their revelations secret. Then what is known directly is absolutely yours.

 

The Taoist is one who seeks to follow the Way, the Tao ofthe Taoist masters, pre-eminently Lao-tzu. Yet this Way is fundamentally notsomething which can be followed and not something which can be deviated from.And in the understanding of that paradox is precisely the following of the Way.

The Way cannot truly be followed because it is the Eternal, Infinite andAbsolute which can never be altered, never be added to or taken away from. Allspace and all time are within it, but it is nowhere and nowhen, since it iseverywhere and always.

And one can never deviate from it, for even deviation is but another manner offollowing it. Evil cannot separate us from the Tao, as the Tao is not"human-hearted" and its thoughts are not ours. Natural disaster andterrible disease are as much of the Tao as a smiling landscape in spring, andHitler or Mao are as holy as the Yellow Emperor. Taoism is not fundamentallysentimental or moralistic (although it is moral).

These are truths of Tao the Absolute, but human minds more often perceivematters in a relative and temporal manner. And from this relative point of viewit is possible to see that different people at different times perceive theabsoluteness of life to different degrees. To have a perception of the unity ofoneself and perfect reality is precisely to be in the Way, and to so transmuteoneself that through time that such perception becomes deeper and more constantis to follow the Way.

When we are in the Way, we see that we have never lost it and that all in theuniverse is equally perfect. In this state of mind we act more perfectly, weact from our Centre which is the Tao itself mediated to us as its Virtue (Te), which is no other than our ownindividual nature as it exists in the Tao from eternity to eternity.

But how can we be more perfect than perfect, when all is perfect? The Tao isimpartial and all encompassing, but it is also a norm. In the common human mindthe Tao discriminates between good and evil. In the enlightened human mind theTao discriminates between good and evil correctly. Correctly in that theperceived good is truly good and the perceived evil truly evil according totheir objective natures, and also correctly in that these opposites are notseen as metaphysical absolutes, but as simply practical matters related to thehuman mind, which must, after all, regulate conduct.

The Taoist does not struggle to be good, because he or she is good. As good as all things are good, as good as a Taoist isgood. In the Taoist the Tao serves Itself as It sees Itself in others, doing soby the realisation of the individual nature of the Taoist in all of itscreative idiosyncraticity and particularity.