Concepts relative to "God" in Buddhism

[Aaron]

Once someone progresses to the substantial non-dualism of Advaita: Then they can use Buddhism to get rid of any remaining inherent view's; in order to come to an experiential understanding of the spontaneous nature of experience, through the teachings of anatta and dependent origination.

 

You don't need Adviata, Buddhism or the teachings of annata and dependent origination to come to an experiental understanding of the spontaneous nature of experience, you just need to be able to see that, just as your physical self is transient, so are your thoughts.

 

The problem many people have is that they choose to view their thoughts as being separate from themselves, when in fact your thoughts are every bit as real as you are. So long as you continue to view thoughts in an abstract way and not recognize that they are not an extension of you, but actually you, then you will continue to be unable to understand the spontaneous nature of existence.

 

In other words no one path has the ultimate truth, you can come to this realization by many different paths, and in fact I think Buddhism when its practiced at its most advanced levels can leave the practitioner with a conundrum, do we give up Buddhism because it is transient and if we do so, do we somehow lose the validity of our experience so far? I think the answers are yes and no. Buddhism is the tool that we use to shave away the block to nothingness, once it is no longer there, then we must give up the tool, or we will rebuild the block in its original form.

 

Aaron

[Vmarco]

Me and Jack bump heads more often than not, but I think it's unfair to characterize him in this manner, especially since you have absolutely no way of knowing the motivations behind his actions. In fact I think I could say that you are exhibiting these exact same characteristics. You quote the same texts over and over like doctrines from a religion. I mean, if you're truly trying to think outside the box, to even get outside the box, then why are you clinging to Buddhism

 

As a response to my post, your post is understandable,...however, more than once, Simple-Jack has implied:

 

I sincerely hope that no one takes your posts too seriously (Not that I think anyone cares about what I post though ); especially when discussing Buddhism. I've only read some of your posts here and there, but it shows that you generally don't know what you are talking about. I have seen a lot of misleading information in your posts, especially when discussing Buddhism. A lot of it is a misrepresentation of what it actually teaches.

 

Please, if your gonna spout the "Buddhist" shit, at least study the material and present it accurately; instead of just spouting nonsense and misleading people on what it teaches. If your gonna talk about what non-duality is: Get some experience of what that actually is like, before spouting all this shit.

 

 

 

Thus, in my opinion, he appears more like the Self-appointed guardians of the status-quo, mentioned in the Zeitgeist link above, than someone interested getting out of the box that infests humanity.

 

I also disagree that I exhibit the same characteristics,...and make use of Buddhism because people here are more familiar with Buddhism.

 

What I dialogue on could be reflected off of many philosophies. Ultimately, all truth supports all other truths, as my post above to Xabir mentioned.

 

Your post does expose a most obscurative flaw for anyone practice,...that of predisposition. You post was not founded upon an understanding of the dialogue between Simple_Jack and I,...but a one-side judgment. In fact, your jumping in to defend others without understanding the circumstances is not new,...and is most likely a Cheif-Feature of your since youth.

 

Do you see what I meant that the youtube link I left above is applicable to all the posts at TTB?

 

V

[Simple_Jack]

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Edited February 5, 2014 by Simple_Jack

[xabir2005]

Again, your dialogue is most appreciated.

 

The conceptual self appears to arise through ego,...a complex that includes stored memory, thinking, accumulated knowledge, etc. but for certain, arises through the skandhas. Avalokitesvara's Dharma Gate, as detailed in the Shurangama sutra, which Buddha agreed was the best way (among those discussed) to awaken, is quite simple,...it only takes the understanding of one sense, for all the senses to collapse, and Full Spectrum Consciousness to be uncovered. Of course, Full Spectrum Consciousness is not Full Buddha Mind,...but without Full Spectrum Consciousness, which includes the direct understanding that Form is Empty and Empty is Form,...compassion, and nirvana, is impossible.

The 5 Skandhas, as the Buddha says in Shurangama Sutra, and what countless other sutras and the Mahamudra masters are saying - the aggregates are fundamentally Buddha-nature.

 

Do not think that that there is a problem in the five aggregates. There is no problem with the aggregates, the 'problem' lies only in the illusion that there is a self, and that the aggregates have substantial existence and therefore real arising, abiding and subsiding (as the Buddha rejected in Shurangama Sutra). The 5 aggregates when experienced without the agent (watcher, thinker, doer, etc) is a completely new dimension. They are the Buddha Nature.

 

However, when experienced with a sense/illusion of self, whatever arises (all the aggregates and 18 dhatus) appears to be problematic. In truth there are no problems whatsoever, only the wrong understanding that self exist.

 

Shurangama Sutra:

 

"Ananda, you have not yet understood that all the defiling objects that appear, all the illusory, ephemeral phenomena, spring up in the very spot where they also come to an end. Their phenomena aspects are illusory and false, but their nature is in truth the bright substance of wonderful enlightenment. Thus it is throughout, up to the five skandhas and the six entrances, to the twelve places and the eighteen realms; the union and mixture of various causes and conditions account for their illusory and false existence, and the separation and dispersion of the causes and conditions result in their illusory and false extinction. Who would have thought that production and extinction, coming and going are fundamentally the eternal wonderful light of the Tathagata, the unmoving, all-pervading perfection, the wonderful nature of True Suchness! If within the true and eternal nature one seeks coming and going, confusion and enlightenment, or birth and death, one will never find them."

 

 

 

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"You still have not realized that in the Treasury of the Tathagata, the nature of form is true emptiness and the nature of emptiness is true form. That fundamental purity pervades the Dharma Realm. Beings’ minds absorb it according to their capacity to know. Whatever manifests does so in compliance with karma. Ignorant of that fact, people of the world are so deluded as to assign its origin to causes and conditions or to spontaneity. These mistakes, which arise from the discriminations and reasoning processes of the mind, are nothing but the play of empty and meaningless words."

Correctly speaking,...there is no "moment of beingness", although the consciousness of Thus-ness. Remember, there is no moment, present, or instant in time. If one is experiencing any motion, they are not Present,...and thus perceiving through the senses. Thus, there is, in correct speech, no "pure sense of “I AM”, because the I Am from which the "i think" and all sense pivots from, cannot be sensed. Although this is directly understood, it is quite agreed upon in the Shurangama.

What I mean is just the moment of recognition or realization of beingness.

 

You do not see it in terms of moments, as I did not, but after anatta, mind is seen as momentary mind moments, not an unchanging entity.

With that in mind, my experience suggests that the Traditional/Lineage way of deliberating on emptiness seals all practitioners in a box. If there were thousands, or even a few, Tathagata's walking the Earth, I would certainly advocate the Tradition/Lineage Way.

There are much more than you think, unfortunately you are too blinded by your experience of I AM and unable to understand (and experience, and realize) nondual, anatta, and d.o.

 

If you are open to further contemplation and investigation, I'm sure one day you will have a lot to concur with me and the great masters of today (not saying I'm a great master anyway).

Edited December 29, 2011 by xabir2005

[Simple_Jack]

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Edited February 5, 2014 by Simple_Jack

[xabir2005]

Gap Between Thoughts, Thought Between Gaps

Posted by: An Eternal Now

 

Based on some conversations earlier this year and last year by Thusness/PasserBy which I have slightly edited:

 

First experience the Isness of the gap between 2 moments of thought, then the Isness of the thought between 2 moments of gap.

 

~ Thusness/PasserBy

 

When we discriminate between awareness from thoughts, awareness appears as the 'space' behind and between thoughts. And because of discriminating awareness and content thinking, the behind background reality is preferred over content, so background awareness appears as 'awakening' -- but it is really only treating a particular speck of dust as mirror and thus unable to see all as mirror... and so instead of being 'awakening' it is actually being 'lost'. That experience is just a dimension of Presence... but due to deeply rooted habitual tendencies to grasp dualistically, one tightly clings to the 'background subject'. That is, Presence is mistaken as a true Subject or True Self behind all objects, as some kind of unchanging background. Or it becomes the Eternal Witness perceiving (dispassionately) and untouched by all impermanent objects coming and going (where in reality the knowingness cannot be separated from the flow of phenomenality). (See Stage One of Thusness/PasserBy's Seven Stages of Enlightenment) But it is not the entirety of Presence -- the aspect of non-dual, Anatta (no-self), Emptiness and Dependent Origination are not included. Because of this, it is difficult to see that the five aggregates (the 'heaps' of experiences that are designated as 'self': forms, feelings, perceptions, volition and consciousness) are Buddha-Nature.

 

When we talk about naked awareness it is not a state where not even a single thought arise. When it is taught about the gap between 2 moments of thought, it is to first have an experience of the nakedness of awareness. To touch just that aspect of awareness. When we extend the gaps, our thoughts become less and clarity becomes more obvious.

 

However it will come to a time that no matter what is done, how much effort is being invested, how long, the other aggregates do not subside. This then is the crucial moment whether one can break through into non-duality (of subject and object).

 

Awareness is a seamless experience that is non-dual in nature. In this seamless experience, there is no boundary whatsoever, no experiencer experiencing experience; whatever arises is experience, is awareness -- as the sound of birds chirping, as words appearing on the screen, as the thoughts itself. There is no separate hearer, seer, watcher, observer, thinker. Everything is shining, self-felt, self-luminous, without a center. It is always just spontaneous arising and ceasing. There is no center, agent, boundary, inside or outside... merely a seamless whole experience.

 

Whether perception or no perception, whether momentum or no momentum, whether there are thoughts or no thoughts, it doesn't matter. That is the arising of the non-dual wisdom, with the understanding that the transience are the Presence.

 

Then no thoughts and thoughts are thoroughly understood. When no thoughts and thoughts are clearly understood, it becomes Gap-less. That is true effortlessness and is the pathless path without entry and exit.

 

Going before the arising of thoughts and perception and have a glimpse of that luminous nature is simply just a glimpse. If a practitioner mistakes it as the entirety of Buddha Nature by maintaining the mirror bright and attempt to go after that particular state, it will eventually proof futile. If we see only the realm of no-thought, then the gap between two moments will eventually becomes an obstruction.

 

Then the practice becomes the thought moment between two moments of gaps. To experience that luminous empty essence of that thought. It is in essence clarity, awareness itself, and is empty. The waves and the ocean are one and the same. All waves are One Taste. Experiencing Isness as an ocean and shunning away thoughts and manifestation is equally lost, the further insight (insight into non-duality) is the insight into everything as self-luminous awareness or Mind. smile.gif

 

However, start by practicing the gap between 2 moments of thought and expand it but with the right understanding of no-self/non-duality. Then when the luminosity shines, it will gradually understand because it knows what blocks. When it try all its best to do away the transients and yet the transients persist, one will have to wait for the right condition to come. Such as having someone to point out or some verses that serves as a condition for awakening.

 

So first experience the Isness of the gap between 2 moments of thought, then the Isness of the thought between 2 moments of gap.

 

.............

 

Lama Surya Das:

 

http://www.dzogchen.org/teachings/talks/dtalk-95may22.html

 

I think this five skandha scheme is a very interesting one, in the sense that it can begin to raise some very interesting questions and help us dig deeper, rather than just having a vague, amorphous kind of understanding. We are individual. We are each responsible for ourselves and our karma and our relations. Our individuality is comprised of these five aggregates or skandhas. We can work with that. It is actually an expression of the Buddha-nature.

 

Now, doesn't anybody want to say, "I didn't hear anything about Buddha-nature in the five skandhas. Where's the Buddha-nature? Who made that up?" That's the right question. What Buddha-nature? I never said anything about it. Who made that up? What enlightenment? What nirvana? Who made all that stuff up? Is it in us or elsewhere? How to get from "here" to "there"?

 

We're all looking for something to hang our hopes on, but when we really get down to the present moment, to our own experience, to clear seeing, we come to what Buddha said: "In hearing there is only hearing; no one hearing and nothing heard." There is just that moment, that hearing. You might think, "Oh, a beautiful bird." How do you know it's a bird? It might be a tape recorder. It might be bicycle brakes squeaking. In the first moment, there is just hearing, then we get busy, our minds and concepts get involved. The Buddha went through all the five senses. "In seeing there is just seeing; no one seeing and nothing seen." And so on, with tasting, touching, smelling, and thinking. Thoughts without a thinker. In thinking there is just thinking. There is just that momentary process. There is no thinker. The notion of an inner thinker is just a thought. We imagine that there is somebody thinking. It's like the Wizard of Oz. They thought there was this glorious wizard, but it was just a little man back there behind the screen, behind the veil. That's how it is with the ego. We think there's a great big monkey inside working the five windows, the five senses. Or maybe five monkeys, one for each sense; a whole chattering monkey house, which it sometimes feels like. But is there really a concrete individual or permanent soul inside at all? It seems more like that the lights are on, but no one is home!

 

.............

 

From Bendowa, by Zen Master Dogen (a great and deep zen master)

 

Question Ten:

 

Some have said: Do not concern yourself about birth-and-death. There is a way to promptly rid yourself of birth-and-death. It is by grasping the reason for the eternal immutability of the 'mind-nature.' The gist of it is this: although once the body is born it proceeds inevitably to death, the mind-nature never perishes. Once you can realize that the mind-nature, which does not transmigrate in birth-and-death, exists in your own body, you make it your fundamental nature. Hence the body, being only a temporary form, dies here and is reborn there without end, yet the mind is immutable, unchanging throughout past, present, and future. To know this is to be free from birth-and-death. By realizing this truth, you put a final end to the transmigratory cycle in which you have been turning. When your body dies, you enter the ocean of the original nature. When you return to your origin in this ocean, you become endowed with the wondrous virtue of the Buddha-patriarchs. But even if you are able to grasp this in your present life, because your present physical existence embodies erroneous karma from prior lives, you are not the same as the sages.

 

"Those who fail to grasp this truth are destined to turn forever in the cycle of birth-and-death. What is necessary, then, is simply to know without delay the meaning of the mind-nature's immutability. What can you expect to gain from idling your entire life away in purposeless sitting?"

 

What do you think of this statement? Is it essentially in accord with the Way of the Buddhas and patriarchs?

 

 

 

Answer 10:

 

You have just expounded the view of the Senika heresy. It is certainly not the Buddha Dharma.

 

According to this heresy, there is in the body a spiritual intelligence. As occasions arise this intelligence readily discriminates likes and dislikes and pros and cons, feels pain and irritation, and experiences suffering and pleasure - it is all owing to this spiritual intelligence. But when the body perishes, this spiritual intelligence separates from the body and is reborn in another place. While it seems to perish here, it has life elsewhere, and thus is immutable and imperishable. Such is the standpoint of the Senika heresy.

 

But to learn this view and try to pass it off as the Buddha Dharma is more foolish than clutching a piece of broken roof tile supposing it to be a golden jewel. Nothing could compare with such a foolish, lamentable delusion. Hui-chung of the T'ang dynasty warned strongly against it. Is it not senseless to take this false view - that the mind abides and the form perishes - and equate it to the wondrous Dharma of the Buddhas; to think, while thus creating the fundamental cause of birth-and-death, that you are freed from birth-and-death? How deplorable! Just know it for a false, non-Buddhist view, and do not lend a ear to it.

 

I am compelled by the nature of the matter, and more by a sense of compassion, to try to deliver you from this false view. You must know that the Buddha Dharma preaches as a matter of course that body and mind are one and the same, that the essence and the form are not two. This is understood both in India and in China, so there can be no doubt about it. Need I add that the Buddhist doctrine of immutability teaches that all things are immutable, without any differentiation between body and mind. The Buddhist teaching of mutability states that all things are mutable, without any differentiation between essence and form. In view of this, how can anyone state that the body perishes and the mind abides? It would be contrary to the true Dharma.

 

Beyond this, you must also come to fully realize that birth-and-death is in and of itself nirvana. Buddhism never speaks of nirvana apart from birth-and-death. Indeed, when someone thinks that the mind, apart from the body, is immutable, not only does he mistake it for Buddha-wisdom, which is free from birth-and-death, but the very mind that makes such a discrimination is not immutable, is in fact even then turning in birth-and-death. A hopeless situation, is it not?

 

You should ponder this deeply: since the Buddha Dharma has always maintained the oneness of body and mind, why, if the body is born and perishes, would the mind alone, separated from the body, not be born and die as well? If at one time body and mind were one, and at another time not one, the preaching of the Buddha would be empty and untrue. Moreover, in thinking that birth-and-death is something we should turn from, you make the mistake of rejecting the Buddha Dharma itself. You must guard against such thinking.

 

Understand that what Buddhists call the Buddhist doctrine of the mind-nature, the great and universal aspect encompassing all phenomena, embraces the entire universe, without differentiating between essence and form, or concerning itself with birth or death. There is nothing - enlightenment and nirvana included - that is not the mind-nature. All dharmas, the "myriad forms dense and close" of the universe - are alike in being this one Mind. All are included without exception. All those dharmas, which serves as "gates" or entrances to the Way, are the same as one Mind. For a Buddhist to preach that there is no disparity between these dharma-gates indicates that he understands the mind-nature.

 

In this one Dharma [one Mind], how could there be any differentiate between body and mind, any separation of birth-and-death and nirvana? We are all originally children of the Buddha, we should not listen to madmen who spout non-Buddhist views.

Edited December 29, 2011 by xabir2005

[Vmarco]

[Vmarco]

[Vmarco]

Edited December 29, 2011 by Vmarco

[Aaron]

As a response to my post, your post is understandable,...however, more than once, Simple-Jack has implied:

 

Thus, in my opinion, he appears more like the Self-appointed guardians of the status-quo, mentioned in the Zeitgeist link above, than someone interested getting out of the box that infests humanity.

 

 

That's still an assumption and I have read the ongoing criticisms and arguments you have both been having. I've known Jack for over a year and at times he can be overbearing (no offense Jack), but I'm sure he could say the same about me. My point is that the status-quo is often a label we use to discount what others say, without any real basis on fact. In most cases it's used when someone doesn't agree with our own arguments. I think it is infinitely more beneficial for any dialogue, if both sides allow each other to speak without attacking the others character, and instead address the others points with an objective state of mind.

 

I also disagree that I exhibit the same characteristics,...and make use of Buddhism because people here are more familiar with Buddhism.

 

I thought you would and perhaps from your way of thinking you do, but I think I'm not the only one here that sees that many of your beliefs and ideas are founded on certain ingrained principles that you've been taught. This, in my opinion, is contradictory to what you are telling people. You say give up your beliefs and what you have been taught, but for what? To take on your beliefs because they're the right ones? How can you be so certain, or anyone for that matter, that your beliefs are correct? In the end I think what one should do, is not abandon their beliefs, but examine the root of the message that stems from that belief.

 

What I dialogue on could be reflected off of many philosophies. Ultimately, all truth supports all other truths, as my post above to Xabir mentioned.

 

I agree with you completely on this point and I've actually said this before, so no arguments here.

 

Your post does expose a most obscurative flaw for anyone practice,...that of predisposition. You post was not founded upon an understanding of the dialogue between Simple_Jack and I,...but a one-side judgment. In fact, your jumping in to defend others without understanding the circumstances is not new,...and is most likely a Cheif-Feature of your since youth.

 

See this is another assumption you've made. I've almost always understood the circumstances, I just choose not to react as others might have me react, but rather in the way I feel is correct. I am not Buddhist, Taoist, or any other -ism these days. Choosing notto follow any specific belief allows me to embrace those ideas that I feel are beneficial, but in saying this I also recognize the right others have to follow those beliefs they hold dear to them. I think ideally we should focus on ourselves first and then others. I understand that you feel that you have attained enough insight that it's your duty to teach others what you believe is right, but in my opinion no one has ever achieved enough insight into spiritual matters to say that they are right and others are wrong. I don't think Buddha ever directly attacked anyone's beliefs, from what I've read, but rather urged others to imitate those they believe are doing right and ignore those they believe aren't. If one can do this, then they can practice any belief without forcing those beliefs on others.

 

Do you see what I meant that the youtube link I left above is applicable to all the posts at TTB?

 

If you believe what he says, sure, but I don't. I think that his ideas are ultimately idealistic and a bit scary. Who wants to rebuild a thousand new cities that all look alike? What he's done is rewrite communism in a more palatable way, but it's not a system that will work, nor one that will ever succeed.

 

In regards to academia, religiosity, and socioeconomics, well perhaps you are right, because the basis for everything you've said, Jack's said, and everyone else on this board has said, is founded on what we've been taught and experienced, much of that through our education and spiritual upbringing. I'd think you could very well say that everything that's ever been written falls into this criteria as well.

 

Anyways, you're free to believe what you want to and overall I don't see the Zeitgeist Movement as evil, but it's definitely, in my opinion, not the answer for me. I appreciate their advocacy in regards to making people aware of what they've been taught and their urging people to understand the boxes they've created and getting out of those boxes, but perhaps that's where they should've stopped, because when they tell people they're wrong, and that in order to be right they have to believe what the Zeitgeists believe, then that's not different than any number of religions I've heard of.

 

Aaron

Edited December 30, 2011 by Twinner

[Aaron]

It really is not as easy as that. If it were, we'd all be enlightened with no need for teachings of any kind.

 

 

 

No, conundrum. The teachings are a relative tool. Buddha taught that there wasn't really any Dharma to teach. When No-Mind, No-Buddha, is experientially understood there is no contradiction anywhere.

 

Actually a great many people have achieved enlightenment without formal training. Also, I'm not saying it's wrong to have teachers, just that they aren't necessary. As far as the conundrum, perhaps it's not for you, but can you say that for everyone? Remember the experience that one has is dependent on their own experiences. The experience of no-mind, heart-mind, or anything else you want to call it, is highly debated even throughout Buddhism, which tells me that it's not a universally accepted experience, but one heavily reliant on one's dualistic experience (or life experience). The fact of the matter is that we cannot reside in no-mind and still reside within this dualistic existence without being the very thing we've chosen to see as transient and non-existent (which I don't agree with by the way.) I think the inherent problem that arises from assuming that non-dualism precludes the existence of dualism is that we cannot even fathom non-dualism without a dualistic existence, hence if there's nothing to observe non-dualism, then how can it exist? Non-dualism itself is dependent on dualism to exist, hence when all things return to it, then what you have will be the rebirth of another non-dualistic existence. So nirvana, if there is one, will probably be very short lived.

 

Aaron

Edited December 30, 2011 by Twinner

[xabir2005]

Non-dualism itself is dependent on dualism to exist, hence when all things return to it, then what you have will be the rebirth of another non-dualistic existence.

Non-dualism is a word that can have vast number of meanings. It seems I don't follow the understanding advanced by most people here.

 

To me, non-duality have two valid meanings: no subject-object duality, and no 'existence' or 'non-existence' (being or non-being).

 

Non-dual of 'right and wrong, light and dark' etc presumably talking about state unaffected by judgemental concepts is not what I understand (or experience) as enlightenment.

[xabir2005]

Using the term "I Am" was your desciption,...I was merely responding. My only experience with an "I Am" as a non-self, non-causal fulcrum, is fully aware of D.O.

 

You are obviously not a great master, nor a master at all,...a master implies an understanding of,...your attempt to harmonize sutras with your accumulated knowledge is not mastery,...mastery arises from direct experience,...for example, as in Chapter 6 of the Shurangama,...when the senses end, and there is nothing to rely on.

I am, of course, speaking from direct experience. But I do not consider myself a 'great master' because I do not teach. Secondly, it is better to have some humility (though I have said I am neither humble nor proud) - I think no true master will call themselves a master anyway, its usually the students that call their master a master.

You have yet to recognize that sutras contain both the relative and absolute,...and believe they are all the same. Much of the sutras is as baby-talk,...and you must discern which is which. As an example, look at the Lojong,...the Relative Proverbs are not going to give you the ground to realize Bodhicitta,...the ground for uncovering Bodhicitta are through the Absolute Proverbs.

Of course, this I am aware of.

You are correct,...there is no problem with the Aggregates,...they're just a mirage.

 

You do not understand D.O. No one can understand D.O. without simultaneously understanding Undivided (Clear)Light.

I understand D.O., and I understand Clear Light, but my understanding of Clear Light has changed when I advanced from the I AM phase to non-dual (and further) phases.

But (being sarcastic) I'm sure you can sunbath in the middle of the night, or drive a car without a car,...or understand compassion without the realization of the nature of empty.

I don't disagree.

All Form, and all emptiness of form is Divided Light. There is no Form or Emptiness within Undivided Light. Everything within Divided Light has a Dependent Origination,...and is not only impermanent, but does not exist.

And this is what I do not agree with, and the sutras don't agree with, and what the Mahamudra masters don't agree with you. They do not agree that clear light is something that 'exists' apart from empty phenomena.

 

First of all why 'Undivided'? Why not just say light? There is a reason there. Undivided means there is no subject-object. The Light is not some objective thing that I as a subjective being is looking at - if that were the case, it would have been divided light. Seeing/realizing the Light means BEING the Light. This is the realization that I AM - the undivided light.

 

BUT... when you don't get stuck in that phase of insight and investigate further, you realize that when seeing, when hearing, in the seeing is just the sight, hearing is just the sound without any separate hearer. Then you realize I AM is no more I AM than a transient sound or sight or thought, everything shares the same taste of luminosity/awareness, and of non-duality. Why? Because the non-duality of subject-object applies to everything - hearing cannot be divided in terms of a hearer/heard, seeing cannot be divided in terms of seeing/seen. Mind is not just the I AM. Everything IS Mind, I AM is no more I AM than a sight, a sound, a thought.

 

When you see this, you realize there is no such thing as Divided Light vs Undivided Light because EVERYTHING is fundamentally undivided light - there never was subject-object division, and everything is the bright luminosity of mind.

Edited December 30, 2011 by xabir2005

[Simple_Jack]

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Edited February 5, 2014 by Simple_Jack

[xabir2005]

OK,...Form is Empty, and Empty is Form. Why do Buddhists insist on attempting to extend that beyond phenomena? D.O. is speaking about Form and Empty. Form is always Empty, and Empty is always Form,...it the harmonic balanced interchange of nature or duality. Non-duality is not empty,...it is simply empty of form, and all that implies.

 

There is no need for all the mental masterbation.

With your understanding you will never understand why Buddha taught dependent origination and emptiness. It is for the removal of the view of existent self that it was being taught. This is the way to liberation. This is what separates Buddhism from other religions also.

Mental mind cannot directly experience Non-duality or Clear Light.

As in concepts, I agree. Concepts cannot conceive non-conceptual truth, however, that doesn't mean everything is 'Divided Light'. Everything is fundamentally the 'Undivided Light' as Shurangama Sutra is made clear. When seen correctly, impermanence turns out to be Buddha-nature (even 6th Ch'an Patriarch Hui-neng and Zen Master Dogen said this).

The sense organ of the mental mind, like the other sense organs of sight, hearing, taste, touch, and feeling, can only sense movement.

At the I AM phase, I thought only the I AM is not moving and everything is moving around it, or are like popping in and out of a vast unmoving ground of being.

 

Then I got to non-dual, anatta, etc... a new understanding of non-movement arose. I wrote this last month to some other forum, I don't think you will understand/experience it now, but nonetheless:

 

(Something I wrote in DhO)

There is no movement at all in ANY form of NDNCDIMOP (non-dual, non-conceptual, direct, immediate mode of perception) of any manifestatation: be it NDNCDIMOP of a thought, of a sense perception, of anything.

 

For those I AM experiencers: they experience no movement while abiding in the Self.

 

Actually what is meant by abiding in Self? It is simply abiding in the NDNCIDIMOP of a non-conceptual thought. However that is treated as the ultimate, the purest identity, etc. So to them, the non-conceptual thought is clung to as Self, and the Self has no movement, while all other manifestation has movement. So the Self may seem at this point to be a "still-point at the center of a turning world" (except that the 'point' is not a finite point but an infinite all-pervading presence)

 

But what happens when you experience PCE or NDNCIDIMOP in all other six sense entries? A sound? A sight? etc

 

Then you experience something amazing: Everything that you thought was 'moving', that is transient, in fact turns out to be not-moving. In other words, transience reveals non-movement. In seeing - just seen, in hearing - just heard. Each manifestation is complete, whole, in itself - there is no self or observer apart from the transience to measure movement.

 

So at this point 'non-movement' shifts from simply abiding in the Source, to every transient phenomenal manifestation.

 

One point remains however: your emphasis on phenomenal descriptions can lead to an over-emphasis on experience to the overneglecting of insights. Why? You can have countless non-dual glimses, and yet without the correct insights that lead to a complete overturning of views, in which the entire framework of viewing inherently and dualistically is resolved through a realization (i.e. anatta, shunyata), then no matter how you try to rest in NDNCIDIMOP, PCE, there remains a desync between view and experience. You may end up using dualistic terms to express non-dual experience, or you may still have a tendency to sink back to a base, a ground, etc. Without those insights, you can have many PCEs and still remain deluded and fail to experience true liberation.

 

The insights may sound theoretical, but I assure you it is not - it is an experiential seeing of a fact about reality.

…..

 

Movement is perceived when it is falsely perceived that there is some unchanging self-entity that links two moments together.

 

For example as a bystanding observer on the roadside, it appears that a car quickly moves through your field of vision. So it appears that you, as an observer, observed an object moving across. What if however, you are on a vehicle moving at the same speed as the other vehicle, do you perceive movement of another vehicle? No. Why? Because the observer is now at the same speed as the observed object, and movement only occurs as a contrast between the unmoving subject and a moved object.

 

But what if there is no observer at all (which is what we realised to have been always the case in the insight into anatta - the observer being merely a constructed illusion) - with no reference point, is there movement? No. Because movement requires a dualistic contrast, and without a perceiving subject, perceptions have no reference point to compare with. In fact there is no 'perceived object' either - there is just disjoint, unsupported, self-releasing images that has no link to each other. Without a self and an object, only unsupported and disjoint images, each manifestation being complete and whole in itself with no dualistic contrast, transience reveals itself to be non-moving. You don't say "You" walked from Point A to Point Z. Because there is no 'You' there to link or observe movement. Instead, Point A is Point A, Point B is point B, and so on... Z is Z, whole and complete in itself. Each moment, ever fresh, whole, complete, and leaving no trace the next moment.

 

As for defilements: defilements only arise along with the sense of self. If the sense of self arise, there is reference points, (sense of self itself being merely a clinging to a falsely constructed reference to a person, a self) and so there can be a perceived movement. If there is no sense of self/Self, then also there is no sense of movement (such as during a PCE, even though PCE is just experience and need not imply realization). We realise that any sense of a movement is merely a dualistic referencing and contrasting, a referencing that asserts an entity (a subjective observer) that links the process and sees movement no from the transience itself but from the perspective of a dualistic bystander (an illusion).

On an academic level, Gate Gate are not two words saying or meaning the same thing. When used together, gate gate does not convey the same meaning as gate alone,...except to the sciential minded. Look at the familiar sanskrit neti,...it means 'not this',....so what does neti neti mean? Does it mean "not this, not this?' No,...neti neti means 'Not This, Not That.'

Neti Neti is alien to Buddhism because it does not reject form to find an ultimate reality. That would be Advaita. But in your framework, everything about emptiness and phenomena will be dissociated as neti neti .

 

The sutras and masters keep telling you, this and that are not other than Buddha-nature. They don't say dissociate from this and that to find Buddha-nature.

Gate means to Go,...but "gate gate" means "to go, to come, ....beyond going and coming, into complete going and coming, (Bodhi Svaha) where enlightenment is welcomed"...to go, and come back in, simultaneously with the going out,...for that is the understanding of form and emptiness,...the understanding of light, from which bodhi is welcome. Bodhi waits only on welcome. As the Shurangama says, "With arising and ceasing gone, tranquility (Shamatha) is revealed."

This is not what Shurangama mean. When false notion of arising and ceasing vanish, all appearances are the unity of luminosity and emptiness, or the 'bright substance of wonderful enlightenment' as Shurangama says.

The Mahaparinirvana Sutra says that the Buddha-Matrix or "True Self" within all sentient beings - the unconditioned, boundless, nurturing, sustaining, deathless and diamond-like Self of Buddha, which is indiscernible to worldly, unawakened vision as a result of the masses of negative mental states and general moral taints which envelop it.

Will paste something about Mahaparinirvana Sutra in the next post.

In expressing his understanding to Sentient Beings, Nagarjuna said that, "It is not assumed that the Blessed One exists after death. Neither is it assumed that he does not exist, or both, or neither. It is not assumed that even a living Blessed One exists. Neither is it assumed that he does not exist, or both, or neither."

 

In other words,...forget about endless speculations. Directly experience it for yourself.

What Nagarjuna is saying here is that, since no Tathagata can be established in OR outside the five skandhas *to begin with*, it doesn't even make sense to talk about its existence or non-existence. There is no Tathagata.

 

This is an experiential realization, not a speculation...

Edited December 30, 2011 by xabir2005

[xabir2005]

On Mahaparinirvana Sutra -

 

Loppon Namdrol:

 

 

Were the Buddha to teach such a doctrine, it might be so. However, in the Nirvana sutra is states quite plainly the following:

That is called ‘Buddha-nature’ because all sentient beings are to be unsurpassedly, perfectly, completely enlightened at a future time. Because afflictions exist in all sentient beings at present, because of that, the thirty two perfect marks and the eighty excellent exemplary signs do not exist”.

Here, the Nirvana sutra clearly and precisely states that buddha-svabhaava, the "nature of a Buddha" refers not to an actual nature but a potential. Why, it continues:

 

"Child of the lineage, I have said that ‘curd exists in milk’, because curd is produced from milk, it is called ‘curd’.

 

Child of lineage, at the time of milk, there is no curd, also there is no butter, ghee or ma.n.da, because the curd arises from milk with the conditions of heat, impurities, etc., milk is said to have the ‘curd-nature’."

 

So one must be quite careful not to make an error. The Lanka states unequivocably that the tathagatagarbha doctrine is merely a device to lead those who grasp at a true self the inner meaning of the Dharma, non-arising, the two selflessnesses and so on, and explains the meaning of the literal examples some people constantly err about:

"Similarly, that tathaagatagarbha taught in the suutras spoken by the Bhagavan, since the completely pure luminous clear nature is completely pure from the beginning, possessing the thirty two marks, the Bhagavan said it exists inside of the bodies of sentient beings.

 

When the Bhagavan described that– like an extremely valuable jewel thoroughly wrapped in a soiled cloth, is thoroughly wrapped by cloth of the aggregates, aayatanas and elements, becoming impure by the conceptuality of the thorough conceptuality suppressed by the passion, anger and ignorance – as permanent, stable and eternal, how is the Bhagavan’s teaching this as the tathaagatagarbha is not similar with as the assertion of self of the non-Buddhists?

 

Bhagavan, the non-Buddhists make assertion a Self as “A permanent creator, without qualities, pervasive and imperishable”.

 

The Bhagavan replied:

 

“Mahaamati, my teaching of tathaagatagarbha is not equivalent with the assertion of the Self of the non-Buddhists.

 

Mahaamati, the Tathaagata, Arhat, Samyak Sambuddhas, having demonstrated the meaning of the words "emptiness, reality limit, nirvana, non-arisen, signless", etc. as tathaagatagarbha for the purpose of the immature complete forsaking the perishable abodes, demonstrate the expertiential range of the non-appearing abode of complete non-conceptuality by demonstrating the door of tathaagatagarbha.

 

Mahaamati, a self should not be perceived as real by Bodhisattva Mahaasattvas enlightened in the future or presently.

 

Mahaamati, for example, a potter, makes one mass of atoms of clay into various kinds containers from his hands, craft, a stick, thread and effort.

 

Mahaamati, similarly, although Tathaagatas avoid the nature of conceptual selflessness in dharmas, they also appropriately demonstrate tathaagatagarbha or demonstrate emptiness by various kinds [of demonstrations] possessing prajñaa and skillful means; like a potter, they demonstrate with various enumerations of words and letters. As such, because of that,

 

Mahaamati, the demonstration of Tathaagatagarbha is not similar with the Self demonstrated by the non-Buddhists.

 

Mahaamati, the Tathaagatas as such, in order to guide those grasping to assertions of the Self of the Non-Buddhists, will demonstrate tathaagatagarbha with the demonstration of tathaagatagarbha. How else will the sentient beings who have fallen into a conceptual view of a True Self, possess the thought to abide in the three liberations and quickly attain the complete manifestation of Buddha in unsurpassed perfect, complete enlightenment?"

Thus, the Lanka says:

All yaanas are included

in five dharmas, three natures,

eight consciousnesses,

and two selflessnesses

It does not add anything about a true self and so on.

 

If one accepts that tathaagatagarbha is the aalayavij~naana, and one must since it is identified as such, then one is accepting that it is conditioned and afflicted and evolves, thus the Lanka states:

Tathaagatagarbha, known as ‘the all-base consciousness’, is to be completely purified.

 

Mahaamati, if what is called the all-base consciousness were (37/a) not connected to the tathaagatagarbha, because the tathaagatagarbha would not be ‘the all-base consciousness’, although it would be not be engaged, it also would not evolve; Mahaamati, it is engaged by both the childish and Aaryas, that also evolves.

 

Because great yogins, the ones not abandoning effort, abide with blissful conduct in this at the time of personally knowing for themselves…the tathaagatagarbha-all basis consciousness is the sphere of the Tathaagatas; it is the object which also is the sphere of teachers, [those] of detailed and learned inclinations like you, and Bodhisattva Mahaasattvas of analytic intellect.

 

And:

Although tathaagatagarbha

possesses seven consciousnesses;

always engaged with dualistic apprehensions

[it] will evolve with thorough understanding.

 

If one accepts that the tathaagatagarbha is unconditioned and so on, and one must, since it is identified as such other sutras state:

"`Saariputra, the element of sentient beings denotes the word tathaagatagarbha.

`Saariputra, that word ‘tathaagatagarbha’ denotes Dharmakaaya.

And:

`Saariputra, because of that, also the element of sentient beings is not one thing and the Dharmakaaya another; the element of sentient beings itself is Dharmakaaya; Dharmakaaya itself is the element of sentient beings.

 

Then one cannot accept it as the aalayavij~naana-- or worse, one must somehow imagine that something conditioned somehow becomes conditioned.

 

Other sutras state that tathaagatagarbha is the citta, as the Angulimaala suutra does here:

 

"Although in the `Sraavakayaana it is shown as ‘mind’, the meaning of the teaching is ‘tathaagatagarbha’; whatever mind is naturally pure, that is called ‘tathaagatagarbha’.

 

So, one must understand that these sutras are provisional and definitive, each giving different accounts of the tathaagatagarbha for different students, but they are not defintive. Understood improperly, they lead one into a non-Buddhist extremes. Understood and explained properly, they lead those afraid of the profound Praj~naapaaramitaa to understanding it's sublime truth. In other words, the Buddha nature teaching is just a skillful means as the Nirvana sutra states

"Child of the lineage, buddha-nature is like this; although the ten powers and the four fearlessnesses, compassion, and the three foundations of mindfulness are the three aspects existing in sentient beings; [those] will be newly seen when defilements are thoroughly conquered. The possessors of perversion will newly attain the ten powers (44/B) and four fearlessness, great compassion and three foundations of mindfulness having thoroughly conquered perversion.

 

Because that is the purpose as such, I teach buddha-nature always exists in all sentient beings.

 

When one can compare and contrast all of these citations, and many more side by side, with the proper reading of the Uttataratantra, one will see the propositions about these doctrines by the Dark Zen fools and others of their ilk are dimmed like stars at noon.

 

...............

 

http://www.byomakusuma.org/EnlightenmentBu...72/Default.aspx

 

...Tathagatagarbha

 

Now, I would like to deal with the concept of ‘Sugatagarbha’, or ‘Tathagatagarbha’, or ‘Dharmadhatu’, or ‘Dharmakaya’. Many Hindu scholars think that these words prove that Buddhism is basically speaking about Hindu Brahman. If one studies the Ratnagotravibhaga, and the Srimala Sutra, it is easy to see that they make it very clear that Sugatagarbha and Sunyata (emptiness) are cognate words. Sunyata is the mode of existence of all phenomena, including the mind, which knows this; whereas Brahman is a separate entity altogether from all phenomena. Brahman is something that truly exists (absolutely existing / Parmartha Satta). Sunyata is not a thing or a ‘Super Thing’ but the mode of existence of all things. Therefore, it is nonsense to speak of it as knowable epistemologically but not as a thing ontologically except interdependently. The Brahman, according to Hinduism, is not existing interdependently, but truly existing – the one and only truly existing substance. The Brahman is svabhavasiddha (inherent), whereas Sunyata is nisvabhavata (non-inherent); the Brahman is svalaksana siddha, whereas Sunyata is a Laksanata. The Brahman is Paramartha satta (ultimate existence), whereas Sunyata is the unfindability of such a parmartha satta anywhere.

 

Since the Ratnagotra makes it clear that sugatagarbha is just a cognate word for emptiness (Sunyata), Sugatagarbha and Brahman cannot be the same. The confusion is often created by the statement that the Sugatagarbha or the Buddha nature exists in all sentient beings. The word 'exists' is the perpetrator of confusion here. The ‘exists’ is only for conventional usage, or giving way to conventional usage. Without its use here, one cannot express the fact that this is the mode of abiding of the true nature of mind of all sentient beings. ‘Exists’ here is a synonym of ‘is the mode of abiding’, so ‘exists’ here does not mean ‘abide’ (skt. sthita) but rather ‘non abidingness’ (skt. asthita). This is the mode of abiding, or the sugatagarbha present in all sentient beings. Even in the last sentence, the word ‘present’ can create the same confusion. ‘Present’ here would mean presence of the absence of self-existingness or self-characteristicness, etc. What is positively named ‘Sugatagarbha’ is that it is said to exist in all sentient beings. This ‘exists’ is qualitative rather than existential. It is also more epistemological, whereas the Brahman is more ontologically truly existing. The Brahman is not non-abiding but rather ‘kutastha’, which mean self-abiding.

 

I have already elaborated the differences of Sunyata Sugatagarbha and Brahman in my article in the Buddhist Himalaya, Vol. VI, 1994-95. The word ‘Samantabhadra’ used in the DzogChen tradition can often mislead people to believe that Samantabhadra is some kind of a god in this system. However, there is no God in any form of Buddhism. Great Buddhist Masters like Nagarjuna, Odiana Acharya, Kalyana Rakshita, etc., have written books proving that such beliefs are only for children. So Samantabhadra cannot be some substitute for God. Samantabhadra is a poetic, metaphoric expression for the enlightened state, i.e. the Sugatagarbha all sentient beings already possess. This is the way things really are, the way things really exist from the very beginning. However, it is called primordial enlightenment, because this state is always there and never was not. We, sentient beings, have apparently wandered from the knowledge, which is already there as our true mode of existence. Therefore, we have to be re-enlightened, i.e. come to recognize the primordial enlightened state already present in us, and through practice become established in it...

 

...There is a difference in the Tathagatagharbha and the Tathagata himself. But there is another difference too. What they call the unconditioned is the Atman as found in the texts of Hinduism. What the DzogChen of the Nyingma, the Mahamudra of Kagyu, and Lamdre of Sakya, the texts of the ‘Profound and Vast’ tradition call the unconditioned, is the Tathagatagharbha, Samantabhadra, Emptiness, Nisvabhavata, Anatma. As we have seen, these are diametrically opposed paradigms...

Edited December 30, 2011 by xabir2005

[xabir2005]

 

If, "In Tibetan Dream Yoga the Clear Light is “The subtlest level of mental activity (mind)"...then that is not "Clear Light" The clear light of the mind's essence, is not pointing to anything which arises from the skandhas, especially the sense organ of thinking or mental activity.

 

Actually its the same as what you are talking about. However, all Vajrayanist except the Shentong/Jonang which veers towards eternalistic extremities, all teach that clear light is fundamentally empty and are just mental activities. Mental activities does NOT mean they are conceptual. They are non-conceptual mental activities or what Thusness call non-conceptual thought.

 

The Dalai Lama also clearly states this as the case:

The fundamental mind which serves as the basis of all phenomena of cyclic existence and nirvana is posited as the ultimate truth or nature of phenomena (dharmata, chos nyid); it is also called the ‘clear light’ (abhasvara, ‘od gsal) and uncompounded (asamskrta, ‘dus ma byas). In Nying-ma it is called the ‘mind-vajra’; this is not the mind that is contrasted with basic knowledge (rig pa) and mind (sems) but the factor of mere luminosity and knowing, basic knowledge itself. This is the final root of all minds, forever indestructible, immutable, and unbreakable continuum like a vajra. Just as the New Translation Schools posit a beginningless and endless fundamental mind, so Nying-ma posits a mind-vajra which has no beginning or end and proceeds without interruption through the effect stage of Buddhahood. It is considered ‘permanent’ in the sense of abiding forever and thus is presented as a permanent mind. It is permanent not in the sense of not disintegrating moment by moment but in the sense that its continuum is no interrupted…

 

 

When you realize anatta, you realize that Mind is empty of any identity or entity that can be called Mind, but its essence is luminous clarity and its expression is uninterrupted, like a river is empty of an entity called 'river' but its activities of 'flowing' is uninterrupted.

 

This is a further insight after I AM, and in fact even after substantialist non-dual phase.

Edited December 30, 2011 by xabir2005

[Harmonious Emptiness]

Form is always Empty, and Empty is always Form,...it the harmonic balanced interchange of nature or duality. Non-duality is not empty,...it is simply empty of form, and all that implies.

 

There is no need for all the mental masterbation.

 

After attempting to chastise me for saying the same thing... Really?.. What a waste of time..

[Vmarco]

I am, of course, speaking from direct experience. But I do not consider myself a 'great master' because I do not teach. Secondly, it is better to have some humility (though I have said I am neither humble nor proud) - I think no true master will call themselves a master anyway, its usually the students that call their master a master.

 

I understand D.O., and I understand Clear Light, but my understanding of Clear Light has changed when I advanced from the I AM phase to non-dual (and further) phases.

 

First of all why 'Undivided'? Why not just say light? There is a reason there. Undivided means there is no subject-object. The Light is not some objective thing that I as a subjective being is looking at - if that were the case, it would have been divided light. Seeing/realizing the Light means BEING the Light. This is the realization that I AM - the undivided light.

 

When you see this, you realize there is no such thing as Divided Light vs Undivided Light because EVERYTHING is fundamentally undivided light - there never was subject-object division, and everything is the bright luminosity of mind.

 

Thanks for the dialogue, it is very appreciated.

 

It is great that you don't teach,...however, that should not determine if one has "mastered" a subject or not. Buddha purportedly said numerous times that he never taught a thing. In the "enlightenment" genre, I've yet to meet a master,...that is, someone who directly understands enlightenment,...although that predicament should be changing. And please note, in the last 37 years as an active Buddhist, I've met many people,...whose names likely fill the book shelves of TTB members,...many who seem to be advanced apprentices,...but none whom uncovered a Dharma Gate.

 

Now,...how can you possibly understand Clear Light, and not know the difference between Divided and Undivided Light? Such a likelihood is even more impossible than the possibly of compassion without the realization of Emptiness.

 

You appear to be confusing the physical luminousity of Divided Light, with the Still (unabled to be seen through the senses) Light upon which the mirage of dualities light effects its motion. As a guess, I've must have articulated the difference btween the two in no less than 200 posts,...and still no one here has a clue,...which can only mean that no one is interested. No one is interested in the most profound understanding one can have. No one is interested in Buddhism from the Tathagata point of view.

 

Again,..you are trying to harmonize your accumulated beliefs to make them, and your investment in knowledge, more palatable. Your posts are proof that you haven't the slightest understanding of D.O. Which is not meant to sound harsh,...or deflate a perceived masterly ego.

 

Your posts have shown no indication that you understand the difference between "phenomenal light" and "noumenal light" ,...between the simulated, relative, conditional light of duality, and the absolute, unconditional light of Non-Duality.

 

Everything is NOT fundamentally Undivided Light,...NOTHING in the phenomena of duality is Undivided Light. You are trying to define Undivided Light through a Divided light of view,...and Divided Light is no more real than the image on a theaters screen. Such a humanistic viewpoint is no less than neurosis. The universe of Divided Light is Avidya or ignorance.

 

"Where ignorance is our master, there is no possibility of real peace." Dalai Lama

 

Anyway,...no need for reply,...perhaps another thread, during another day, will uncover some clarity. But as always, I'm very appreciative for having had the opportunity to dialogue on this most important subject, which opens the "Treasury of the Tathagata."

 

V

[Vmarco]

After attempting to chastise me for saying the same thing... Really?.. What a waste of time..

 

Sorry,...couldn't find where you said that. That is,

 

Form is always Empty, and Empty is always Form,...it the harmonic balanced interchange of nature or duality. Non-duality is not empty,...it is simply empty of form, and all that implies.

There is no need for all the mental masterbation.

 

Well, sure, there is no absolute present, present is just the accumulation of the past, and the future is no more independent. I was never much for games. I prefer creative harmony. Does it not seem sort of zombie-like to have to say everything exactly the same way so that people cannot miss the point? Seems a bit Orwellian new-speak, rather than intelligent dialogue to me.

[Harmonious Emptiness]

 

View PostVmarco, on 28 December 2011 - 12:13 PM, said:

there is "no ever-present Emptiness"

 

 

 

Sorry, I don't really see the point of arguing over such a minor semantic liberty as to say ever-present vs. always true, always the ultimate truth...

 

You had another post in response to this clarification as well.. But like I said, I'm not here for sport, nor to waste my time, so I don't really care to to discuss it all too much further.

Edited December 30, 2011 by Harmonious Emptiness

[xabir2005]

Thanks for the dialogue, it is very appreciated.

 

It is great that you don't teach,...however, that should not determine if one has "mastered" a subject or not. Buddha purportedly said numerous times that he never taught a thing. In the "enlightenment" genre, I've yet to meet a master,...that is, someone who directly understands enlightenment,...although that predicament should be changing. And please note, in the last 37 years as an active Buddhist, I've met many people,...whose names likely fill the book shelves of TTB members,...many who seem to be advanced apprentices,...but none whom uncovered a Dharma Gate.

 

Now,...how can you possibly understand Clear Light, and not know the difference between Divided and Undivided Light? Such a likelihood is even more impossible than the possibly of compassion without the realization of Emptiness.

Whatever you are talking about is just I AM. Frankly I AM is not rare, and is not considered awakening in Buddhism, which is why you don't hear it as often in Buddhism as you hear it in Hinduism or other contemplatives. It may be considered awakening in Advaita, but not in Buddhism. You are just at Thusness Stage 1 out of his 7 stages and I am not saying this to put you down or something - it is something I've been through myself, but I hope you are open to the possibility of further insights.

You appear to be confusing the physical luminousity of Divided Light, with the Still (unabled to be seen through the senses) Light upon which the mirage of dualities light effects its motion.

You are assuming too much. You claim emptiness and d.o. but you treat the physical world as real. I'm telling you there is no such thing as a physical world and no physical light. No such thing at all. Every appearance in your experience is actually just sensations and perceptions that due to false framework of viewing dualistically and inherently, conjures a mental image of a physical world and a solid body. Actually there are simply points of sensations and there are fundamentally just points of awareness no different from undivided light.

 

You have to challenge all notion of physicality, mind-matter dichotomy, objectivity, subject-object dichotomy, inside and outside, boundaries (where does undivided light end and manifestation begin? don't let assumptions ruin your investigation). When all are dropped, the division between undivided light and divided light is also completely dropped and everything, the five skandhas, eighteen dhatus reveal themselvess as the "bright substance of wonderful enlightenment".

 

There is no physical light, only undivided light. So now you understand this:

 

Shurangama Sutra:

 

"Ananda, you have not yet understood that all the defiling objects that appear, all the illusory, ephemeral phenomena, spring up in the very spot where they also come to an end. Their phenomena aspects are illusory and false, but their nature is in truth the bright substance of wonderful enlightenment. Thus it is throughout, up to the five skandhas and the six entrances, to the twelve places and the eighteen realms; the union and mixture of various causes and conditions account for their illusory and false existence, and the separation and dispersion of the causes and conditions result in their illusory and false extinction. Who would have thought that production and extinction, coming and going are fundamentally the eternal wonderful light of the Tathagata, the unmoving, all-pervading perfection, the wonderful nature of True Suchness! If within the true and eternal nature one seeks coming and going, confusion and enlightenment, or birth and death, one will never find them."

 

As a guess, I've must have articulated the difference btween the two in no less than 200 posts,...and still no one here has a clue,...which can only mean that no one is interested. No one is interested in the most profound understanding one can have. No one is interested in Buddhism from the Tathagata point of view.

I am fully aware of your point of view because that is what I've gone through between 9th Feb '10 to Aug '10 in my e-book (under I AM phase): http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2010/12/my-e-booke-journal.html . But further investigation made me see through the duality between 'undivided light' and 'divided light' - it made me realized there is no such thing as divided light at all, everything is undivided light, in other words the transience is also undivided light, then afterwords even undivided light is further deconstructed.

 

The view you are presenting is not Buddhist, it is Hinduism (and I do not consider Shentong/Jonang as a Buddhist view).

Again,..you are trying to harmonize your accumulated beliefs to make them, and your investment in knowledge, more palatable. Your posts are proof that you haven't the slightest understanding of D.O. Which is not meant to sound harsh,...or deflate a perceived masterly ego.

Don't be so sure...

Your posts have shown no indication that you understand the difference between "phenomenal light" and "noumenal light" ,...between the simulated, relative, conditional light of duality, and the absolute, unconditional light of Non-Duality.

My posts show

 

1) I once discovered I AM, and perceived a distinction between I AM (as the noumenon) and all phenomena

2) This is followed by non-dual insight, where all phenomenal are collapsed into the noumenal, such that there is no such thing as noumena vs phenomena - there is no such thing as me seeing the objective world - there is ONLY undivided light, and all appearances are also the undivided light. Your very assumption that what you are seeing is physical or objective is an illusion, it is actually all just light, all is just Buddha-nature.

3) This is followed by insight of anatta, where undivided light is emptied of any identity such that 'in seeing theres just the seen', the process, the activities

4) This is followed by the second-fold emptiness of shunyata

Everything is NOT fundamentally Undivided Light,...NOTHING in the phenomena of duality is Undivided Light.

And this is what you have not realized. There never was subject-object duality, ever, in anything.

You are trying to define Undivided Light through a Divided light of view,...and Divided Light is no more real than the image on a theaters screen. Such a humanistic viewpoint is no less than neurosis. The universe of Divided Light is Avidya or ignorance.

You have no inkling what I am talking about... it is best to let go of assumptions and continue investigation.

 

Here's a sharing:

 

http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2007/03/mistaken-reality-of-amness.html

 

The first stage of experiencing awareness face to face is like a point on a sphere which you called it the center. You marked it.

 

Then later you realised that when you marked other points on the surface of a sphere, they have the same characteristics. This is the initial experience of non-dual. (but due to our dualistic momentum, there is still no clarity even if there is the experience of non-duality)

 

 

Ken Wilber: While you are resting in that state (of the Witness), and “sensing” this Witness as a great expanse, if you then look at, say, a mountain, you might begin to notice that the sensation of the Witness and the sensation of the mountain are the same sensation. When you “feel” your pure Self and you “feel” the mountain, they are absolutely the same feeling.

 

 

 

When you are asked to find another point on the surface of the sphere, you won't be sure but you are still very careful.

 

Once the insight of No-Self is stabilized, you just freely point to any point on the surface of the sphere -- all points are a center, hence there is no 'the' center. 'The' center does not exist: all points are a center.

 

When you say 'the center', you are marking a point and claim that it is the only point that has the characteristic of a 'center'. The intensity of the pure beingness is itself a manifestation. It is needless to divide into inner and outer as there will also come a point where high intensity of clarity will be experienced for all sensations. So not to let the 'intensity' create the layering of inner and outer.

 

Now, when we do not know what is a sphere, we do not know that all the points are the same. So when a person first experiences non-duality with the propensities still in action, we cannot fully experience the mind/body dissolution and the experience isn't clear. Nevertheless we are still careful of our experience and we try to be non-dual.

 

But when the realisation is clear and sank deep into our inmost consciousness, it is really effortless. Not because it is a routine but because there is nothing needed to be done, just allowing expanse of consciousness naturally.

Edited December 30, 2011 by xabir2005

[Harmonious Emptiness]

Hey all,

 

If possible, can we try to tie the posts in with the original concept?...

 

Xabir, I'm interested to hear what is your stance, if you hold to a particular view, in regards to the OP....?

[Harmonious Emptiness]

I think I found a major scriptural point where confusion is arising here.

 

What I've been saying is that I view God in the same way as that Black Elk quote I posted on page 3, and that I think these are the same as The Dharmakaya, since, just as a someone in Samadhi does not think "I am this enlightened being in Samadhi" God, The One Spirit, does not think in this fashion either.

 

 

I think the Sutra which is causing some people are taking issue with this is the following, which depicts Brahma thinking in a way which even an enlightened human being does not. If someone who has merged with (I think I've adequately defended that description now) Dharmakaya does not have such egotistical thinking, it is erroneous to assume the One Spirit (which is consciousness, and that there's scriptural!) would be somehow less intelligent. Duh!!

 

Essentially, I'm not talking about Brahma, or any old men in beards up in the sky.. not at all. But I am talking about a consciousness (maybe someone else would like to find a quote about how Dharmakaya is consciousness, and everything is consciousness. I know I've seen it, if not quoted it.) Peace y'all.

 

"5. 'On this, brethren, the one who was first reborn thinks thus to himself: "I am Brahmâ, the Great Brahmâ, the Supreme One, the Mighty, the All-seeing, the Ruler, the Lord of all, the Maker, the Creator, the Chief of all, appointing to each his place, the Ancient of days, the Father of all that are and are to be{1}. These other beings are of my creation. And why is that so? A while ago I thought, 'Would that they might come!' And on my mental aspiration, behold the beings came."

 

'And those beings themselves, too, think thus: "This must be Brahmâ, the Great Brahmâ, the Supreme, the Mighty, the All-seeing, the Ruler, the Lord of all, the Maker, the Creator, the Chief of all, appointing to each his place, the Ancient of days, the Father of all that are

 

{p. 32}

 

and are to be, And we must have been created by him. And why? Because, as we see, it was he who was here first, and we came after that."

 

6. 'On this, brethren, the one who first came into existence there is of longer life, and more glorious, and more powerful than those who appeared after him. And it might well be, brethren, that some being on his falling from that state, should come hither. And having come hither he might go forth from the household life into the homeless state, And having thus become a recluse he, by reason of ardour of exertion of application of earnestness of careful thought, reaches up to such rapture of heart that, rapt in heart, he calls to mind his last dwelling-place, but not the previous ones. He says to himself: "That illustrious Brahmâ, the Great Brahmâ, the Supreme One, the Mighty, the All-seeing, the Ruler, the Lord of all, the Maker, the Creator, the Chief of all, appointing to each his place, the Ancient of days, the Father of all that are and are to be, he by whom we were created, he is stedfast immutable eternal, of a nature that knows no change, and he will remain so for ever and ever. But we who were created by him have come hither as being impermanent mutable limited in duration of life."

 

http://sacred-texts.com/bud/dob/dob-01tx.htm

 

(edited out a footnote from text)

Edited December 30, 2011 by Harmonious Emptiness

[xabir2005]

I think I found a major scriptural point where confusion is arising here.

 

What I've been saying is that I view God in the same way as that Black Elk quote I posted on page 3, and that I think these are the same as The Dharmakaya, since, just as a someone in Samadhi does not think "I am this enlightened being in Samadhi" God, The One Spirit, does not think in this fashion either.

 

 

I think the Sutra which is causing some people are taking issue with this is the following, which depicts Brahma thinking in a way which even an enlightened human being does not. If someone who has merged with (I think I've adequately defended that description now) Dharmakaya does not have such egotistical thinking, it is erroneous to assume the One Spirit (which is consciousness, and that there's scriptural!) would be somehow less intelligent. Duh!!

 

Essentially, I'm not talking about Brahma, or any old men in beards up in the sky.. not at all. But I am talking about a consciousness (maybe someone else would like to find a quote about how Dharmakaya is consciousness, and everything is consciousness. I know I've seen it, if not quoted it.) Peace y'all.

 

"5. 'On this, brethren, the one who was first reborn thinks thus to himself: "I am Brahmâ, the Great Brahmâ, the Supreme One, the Mighty, the All-seeing, the Ruler, the Lord of all, the Maker, the Creator, the Chief of all, appointing to each his place, the Ancient of days, the Father of all that are and are to be{1}. These other beings are of my creation. And why is that so? A while ago I thought, 'Would that they might come!' And on my mental aspiration, behold the beings came."

 

'And those beings themselves, too, think thus: "This must be Brahmâ, the Great Brahmâ, the Supreme, the Mighty, the All-seeing, the Ruler, the Lord of all, the Maker, the Creator, the Chief of all, appointing to each his place, the Ancient of days, the Father of all that are

 

{p. 32}

 

and are to be, And we must have been created by him. And why? Because, as we see, it was he who was here first, and we came after that."

 

6. 'On this, brethren, the one who first came into existence there is of longer life, and more glorious, and more powerful than those who appeared after him. And it might well be, brethren, that some being on his falling from that state, should come hither. And having come hither he might go forth from the household life into the homeless state, And having thus become a recluse he, by reason of ardour of exertion of application of earnestness of careful thought, reaches up to such rapture of heart that, rapt in heart, he calls to mind his last dwelling-place, but not the previous ones. He says to himself: "That illustrious Brahmâ, the Great Brahmâ, the Supreme One, the Mighty, the All-seeing, the Ruler, the Lord of all, the Maker, the Creator, the Chief of all, appointing to each his place, the Ancient of days, the Father of all that are and are to be, he by whom we were created, he is stedfast immutable eternal, of a nature that knows no change, and he will remain so for ever and ever. But we who were created by him have come hither as being impermanent mutable limited in duration of life."

 

http://sacred-texts.com/bud/dob/dob-01tx.htm

 

(edited out a footnote from text)

Yes I am aware of your stance. Your understanding of God is not Brahma but Brahman - same as the concepts of an ultimate reality or ground of being in other religions.

 

However, my understanding is similar to Simple_Jack. Dharmakaya is not a ground of being, it is talking about emptiness. I'll post something about the three kayas in the next post by my Mahayana master.

 

Emptiness and luminosity (what you call consciousness) is inseparable, so it is not just dead emptiness, but at the same time consciousness is not reified as some transcendental Source or Self because its nature is empty of identity or inherent existence/self. This inseparability of luminosity and emptiness is known as Buddha-nature.

 

First of all, God means 'Source'. At I AM and substantial non-dual phase (Stage 1 to 4 in http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2007/03/thusnesss-six-stages-of-experience.html ), Consciousness is seen as the Source or ground of being in which appearances arise out of and return to.

 

However, this is no longer seen as the case after anatta realization.

 

There must be insight into 'how' Mind and phenomena actually co-arise - and thus there isn't a sense of Mind as a Source, and phenomena arising out of, or within, or being part of, this One Mind. Phenomena actually has no beginning and end, and therefore we cannot say phenomena began and originated or ended from/within a permanent Source. All these are false notions which are also dependent on notion of time, an illusory construct.

 

The notion of One Mind as permanent as opposed to things beginning and ending in time, the notion of Mind being the source of appearances coming and going within this One Source, are all false views, and are all the views of inherency. Time, beginning, end, and an origin/Source, etc are all false views. One must see all these are just more illusory mental construct, there must be an arising insight that burns away these views. If we see that mind is not the 'source of phenomena', then we realise there is just phenomena, sensations and perceptions which are all 'mind', but without an independent, permanent, substratum, essence or Source. There is no temporal existence beginning and ending, arising from and then subsiding back 'in' Mind, since mind and phenomena (can't even be separated) have 'both' existed since beginningless 'time', there is no One Mind being the first cause, no Mind being permanent vs phenomena being temporal (having beginning and end) -- can't even be divided in the subtlest way -- there is just one co-arising without subject and object division, just phenomena/mind. All phenomena are timeless and without origin. There is just mind, but not a permanent independent mind/source, but mind as transient phenomena itself, without beginning or end, without time. One then understands what Zen Master Dogen mean by 'Impermanence is Buddha-Nature'.

Edited December 30, 2011 by xabir2005