Real Compassion

[Vmarco]

I've posted many times that "the only compassion is that which destroys the illusion of separation"....and the response (in the General Forum) was one of hatred toward my post.

 

Then today,...someone sent this Youtube:

 

 

Off Topic is a better place for "truth talk".

 

http://thetaobums.com/topic/30461-compassion-as-an-off-topic/?hl=vmarco#entry453308

[Andrei]

He said: there is no liberation because is noone there

1:27 she said: ok i hear this message for years...

He said: oh have you? where from? (Like he was saying: "cause only ME is giving this message, noone else")

 

That was Ego burst....I stopped watching. Just canceled everything he said earlier.

Edited July 6, 2014 by Andrei

[Vmarco]

Too bad you ceased watching,...perhaps you should cease coming to TTB also,...there are far more "bursts of ego" here, than in that interview.

 

The point is taken regarding your predisposition of "have you? where from?" Ashame you were not there to ask what you assumed. I saw nothing in the gentlemen's response suggesting your view. However....it was a good question...."have you? where from?" Very, very few talk about the truth,...99% are just selling you a belief system. As Jed McKenna correctly said, "99.9% of the World's so-called wisdom, East and West, for the purposes of awakening, is about as useful as a glass of warm spit with a hair in it."

 

Anyway....was my first time hearing this Tony Parsons,...his level of truth realization is refreshing,...in a world where ignorance dominates. Would not advance that he is an awakened being,...but certainly on a great path. If he'd just let go of some of his beliefs, like babbling that the truth is indescribable,...reminds of a saying attributed to Buddha....that he discovered something profound and luminous beyond all concepts. He tried to communicate that something with words, but few understood.

 

Buddha did not say it was indescribable....but that only a few could understand. To preach that it is indescribable is a disservice.

 

Speaking to a 6th century BCE audience, Lao Tzu may have said, "the Tao that can be told of is not the eternal Tao"....and then proceeded to describe the Tao, mostly by way of that which it is not.

 

As I cannot think as a Jen of 2600 years ago, I must not assume ancient texts point to the same thing the words of today point to. Of course, the Tao that can be told or described is not the Tao,...but that does not imply that the Tao cannot be pointed to through words.

 

Lao Tzu said, "The Tao gives rise to all form, yet is has no form of its own." Lao Tzu is describing the Tao.

[Marblehead]

I've posted many times that "the only compassion is that which destroys the illusion of separation"....and the response (in the General Forum) was one of hatred toward my post.

I have never hated your posts. Sure, we disagree sometimes but I don't think that is anything unique.

 

Yes, we will always disagree about this concept of separation. It's not an illusion It all started when One gave birth to Two.

 

Regarding compassion, I agree that my compassion is not pure. I cannot be compassionate toward someone I have judge as being evil. I cannot give to everyone equally because I don't have enough excess. My giving must be selective. Same with my compassion.

 

I haven't looked at the links. Perhaps I will later.

[Vmarco]

I have never hated your posts. Sure, we disagree sometimes but I don't think that is anything unique.

 

You needn't remind anyone of that Marblehead,...and I did specify the General Forum,...which may have been 3-4 years ago...quite sure you were not in those threads.

 

As said though,...it was quite refreshing, after many years,...since I was posting on SpiritWeb back in the last century, that someone realized compassion is actually that which is intolerant of everything that steps between a person and their direct experience.

 

In today's SE Asia news, Westerners are bullying the Buddhists in Myanmar for being Intolerant of Religion. Real compassion is intolerant of all belief systems. Unfortunately, as Sophocles said, "What people believe [commonly] prevails over the truth.”

Edited July 6, 2014 by Vmarco

[GrandmasterP]

Andrei.

Tony Parsons isn't saying that he is giving a message.

He is saying that there is no message nor anyone to give it.

Little booklet here explains ....

http://www.holybooks.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Open-Secret-by-Tony-Parson.pdf

 

 

 

Hope that helps.

Edited July 6, 2014 by GrandmasterP

[Vmarco]

Andrei.

Tony Parsons isn't saying that he is giving a message.

He is saying that there is no message nor anyone to give it.

 

 

The words that came from Mr Parsons mouth in the video in the top post are these: "the only compassion is that which destroys the illusion of separation"

 

Hope that helps clarify the title of this thread.

[GrandmasterP]

Yeah I got that.

It was that 'ego burst' impression of Andrei's post that I was responding too.

Not in any way to have a pop at Andrei but to point towards that free little booklet that sets out Tony's ("non-")-position pretty well IMO.

Tony Parsons is one of the good guys and we'd all of us travel a long ways to meet a less 'egoic' person.

 

Edited July 6, 2014 by GrandmasterP

[dawei]

IMO.... this should be in General. Let me know if you want it moved as I think it is deserve of more attention.

[Vmarco]

IMO.... this should be in General. Let me know if you want it moved as I think it is deserve of more attention.

 

If this is moved to the General Forum, my responses/interaction will cease. The General Forum, from my experience, cannot handle an honest discussion on this topic...(past General threads prove that,...it does not, IMO, need to be proved again).

 

As for Tony Parsons,...his level of understanding is refreshing, but far from truth,...which implies he really doesn't understand a single truth, but that through his life long acquisition of knowledge (Gurdjieff, Osho, neo-advaita) has pushed the envelop of ego enlightenment,..which for him offers that there is no "me," while maintaining that the me is within the Whole.

 

He is correct about the focus of contracted energy (Yang), but insists that a change to expansion of energy (Yin) merges with the Whole. As Lao Tzu would say using today's words,...there is no Ying or Yin (energy) in Wholeness.

 

Parsons argues that within Everything is Nothing. This is a very false idea, promoted by those who have not let go of their "me." Although Yang and Yin effect its motion from the Tao, there is no Tao within Yang or Yin,...nor is there Tao within the One.

 

Wholeness is beyond the sum of opposites. The sum of opposites is the cancellation of all Yang and Yin. The dissolution of Yang and Yin is simultaneously the dissolution of the One. There is no One without the Many,...like there is no Center without a Boundary, or a Here without a There.

 

It is great to shift contracted energy for expanded energy,...however, there is no energy in the Tao. Energy is about the "me." The contracted me shifting to an expanded me, does not dissolve the me. If Parsons narrated his dialogue as the calculated stepping stone it is, rather that what it is. He has shown no indication of having experienced the way things are (beyond the relative).

[Vmarco]

 

Tony Parsons is one of the good guys and we'd all of us travel a long ways to meet a less 'egoic' person.

 

 

Very agreeable to the idea of Parsons expressing a "less egoic personality." I'd love to see how open he'd be with discussing his concepts about Wholeness, the nature of Zero, insistence of an ineffable, etc., beyond his belief in a beloved, energy, and other relative constructs.

[BaguaKicksAss]

I like this guy! Er, the lack of I likes the lack of words of this lack of guy.. or something .

 

So is he saying, it just happens randomly eventually one day?

Edited July 7, 2014 by BaguaKicksAss

[Vmarco]

I like this guy! Er, the lack of I likes the lack of words of this lack of guy.. or something .

 

So is he saying, it just happens randomly eventually one day?

 

You mean the realization that the there is no "me?"

 

Those documented as having experienced the liberation of their human-ness, all appear to have been on a course for such liberation or dissolution of their me....and then it randomly happened one day. Could it randomly happen for someone uninterested in truth? IMO...not only would be rare,...but if it occurred, they would quickly identify it with their belief system, thus cancelling out the liberating experience as if it did not occur.

 

A question could be,....who actually unweaves their attachment to separateness? I agree with Jed McKenna....mostly, only those who cannot not do anything else:

 

[Tatsumaru]

I think that most people who are interested in the truth do not understand the concept of emptiness correctly and usually in a very nihilistic way. Karl Brunholzl says:

 

"When we look at the meaning of emptiness, the Sanskrit word is sunyata. One of the literal meanings of sunya is "empty" and another one is "zero". In Indian mathematics, the zero sign is sunya, but it has quite a different meaning from "zero" in the West. When we think of zero, we think "nothing" but in India the circle of sunya, or zero, means "fullness", "completeness" or "wholeness". In the same way emptiness does not mean nothingness but rather fullness in the sense of full potential - anything can happen in emptiness and because of emptiness. A lot of people think that if nothing really exists, how can anything function? However Nagarjuna said that it is precisely because everything does not really exist that everything functions. If everything were truly existent, existing in and of itself and thus being unchanging, things would not depend on anything. But then they could not interact with each other either because that entails change. Therefore, it is only due to everything changing all the time that interaction and functioning are possible."

[GrandmasterP]

I like this guy! Er, the lack of I likes the lack of words of this lack of guy.. or something .

 

So is he saying, it just happens randomly eventually one day?

 

" So all there is is this...."

Tony Parsons ( only 12 minutes long).

 

Enjoy.

 

[Vmarco]

I think that most people who are interested in the truth do not understand the concept of emptiness correctly and usually in a very nihilistic way. Karl Brunholzl says:

 

"When we look at the meaning of emptiness, the Sanskrit word is sunyata. One of the literal meanings of sunya is "empty" and another one is "zero". In Indian mathematics, the zero sign is sunya, but it has quite a different meaning from "zero" in the West. When we think of zero, we think "nothing" but in India the circle of sunya, or zero, means "fullness", "completeness" or "wholeness". In the same way emptiness does not mean nothingness but rather fullness in the sense of full potential - anything can happen in emptiness and because of emptiness. A lot of people think that if nothing really exists, how can anything function? However Nagarjuna said that it is precisely because everything does not really exist that everything functions. If everything were truly existent, existing in and of itself and thus being unchanging, things would not depend on anything. But then they could not interact with each other either because that entails change. Therefore, it is only due to everything changing all the time that interaction and functioning are possible."

 

I'd say that the Western idea of zero is akin to the mathematical construct of an empty set,...which isn't zero,...but a set with nothing. Prajnaparamita is suggesting, and correctly so, that zero is synonymous with absolute Wholeness. Westerners, and even Easterners, misinterpret this as everything, aka., all phenomena, is within Wholeness. In absolute reality, Wholeness is beyond all phenomena,...which is to say, no phenomena is within Wholeness.

 

The is no "me" in Wholeness. Buddha suggested that Wholeness is accessed through the heart. One cannot access the heart with baggage of beliefs. Which is why no Christian, Muslim or Jew can access the heart. "The way is not in the sky. The way is in the heart." Buddha

 

Wholeness is beyond the sum of opposites,...the sum of all opposites is their dissolution,...and that is the threshold of Wholeness. When Buddha or Lao Tzu was referring to the highest vision able of "seeing things as they are," how many times must they imply that all phenomena is impermanent, and does not exist. Exist literally means to stand alone. No phenomena stands alone.

 

Or,...we could say, all phenomena is false. Truth contains no falseness. Thus there cannot be any phenomena in truth. We nevertheless, treat relative reality as if it were real.

 

Buddhas purportedly said (Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai), "A wise man, recognizing that the world is but an illusion, does not act as if it is real."

[Vmarco]

" So all there is is this...." Tony Parsons ( only 12 minutes long).

Enjoy.

 

Sure,...according to Parsons Non-Dual construct of Duality. Many great one liners from his teachers, like Gurdjieff, Osho, and neo-Advaita,...but his conclusion appears to come from his own ego's enlightenment (and a clinging to particular non-dual beliefs for his identity). He contradicts what Buddha and Lao Tzu pointed to. His shift in direction from Contracted energy (Yang) to Expanded energy (Yin) is not the absolute emptiness of the Tao,....but merely an another aspect of the illusion of Duality. He has not even realized the nature of One,...which is also an illusion,...but fully mired in Duality.

 

I do admire him for shifting his Contracted energy to an Expansive energy,....that is more than most do,....but that is not full liberation. He continues an attachment for things to be other than they are.

 

By the way,...Buddha never said to give up desire,....he said let go of the desire for things to be other than they are.

[Marblehead]

By the way,...Buddha never said to give up desire,....he said let go of the desire for things to be other than they are.

I suggest that this would be a very logical and sound statement.

[Spotless]

It is pretty clear that if Buddha were to walk among those here at the TTBs that think they would appreciate him, he would be written off by most of them as a flea from a dog - this is particularly true of the cut and paste crowd.

 

I believe it was Rama Krishna that went about hugging trees in the nude after his awakening.

We compare master teachings that are translated from old texts from teachings often far older than the teacher.

The wording and teaching is clean and safe and something we are acclimated to. The translations are accommodated to our language and frequently softened and refined along the way.

 

When an Awakened teacher is speaking right under our nose we flip the channel off at the slightest nudge, waiting for one of virgin birth to tap us on the shoulder.

 

The West is experiencing Awakening and we have among us many who are awakened. Frequently they do not meet our expectation. This is not new - I do not think our princely Gautama Buddha who left his wife and child or Milarepa a mass murdered would have topped our list at that time.

 

Many who have awakened did not seek awakening and their words / teaching have no tradition - they are in plain language that to many of our ears is prematurely unacceptable. Our ability to write-off someone with even the slightest reminder of when someone else misguided us is sad and a real block in our path.

 

Tony Parsons is no doubt an Awakened teacher - is he fully enlightened? I do not think one is ever "fully enlightened"

Does he couch his language in uncertainty - no - is that egotistical?

 

Tune into www.batgap.com and listen to the first 200 interviews, start at the beginning. These are interviews of recently awakened individuals and what it was like before, during and just after. (Skip the latest interviews as most of them are no longer interviews of newly awakened or awakened individuals) Watch at least 50 and then you may get an idea of what is taking place, and perhaps reduce your perfect perfection pictures down to human levels where teachers fart and displease you at times. And they may use language that you despise or love.

 

We all tent to think in extreme blacks and whites - those most resolute are the most naïve, it is as though one is becoming a registered devote dualist while professing aspirations toward non-dual.

 

Buddha at the Gas Pump interviewed Parsons at their site: www.batgap.com

 

The very first step - the gigantic step - is to Awaken. The idea that you will then have all the answers with complete clarity and know exactly what to do and say and 100% of your personality will be forever disintegrated is absolutely (not the case).

Edited July 8, 2014 by Spotless

[manitou]

I love those Buddha at the Gas Pump interviews.

 

So once we've Awakened, a very simple way of staying in an Awakened mindset is to see each and every person you run into as 'the other half of yourself'. If we can do this, it levels the playing field so that no egos are higher or lower, all is equal. No reason to harm or be harmed because we're all the same basic Entity. The only thing left to do, in that case, is to 'love your brother as yourself'.

 

True compassion, as the thread is titled, is to realize that you are everyone else. Every set of eyes on the planet is part of the one great Whole. Even potatoes have 'em.

 

Compassion is a funny thing. True compassion must sometimes make the tough choices, to say 'No' when the person you're talking to wants to hear 'Yes', etc. But even acting 'to the contrary' is an act of Love if done with the right intent and for the right reason.

[Vmarco]

 

 

The very first step - the gigantic step - is to Awaken.

 

This is hugely misinformation. The first step is to recognize the false as the false. Let me use Tolle's words, "we need to draw our attention to what is false in us, for unless we learn to recognize the false as the false, there can be no lasting transformation, and you will always be drawn back into illusion, for that is how the false perpetuates itself"

 

Awake implies no longer being asleep or ignorant. Sure,...perhaps there are levels of wakefulness as there are levels of sleep. Parsons has obviously, to me, become aware of the reverse flow of contracting things,...what the Heart Sutra calls the emptiness of form,...but that construct is part of duality,...it is not non-duality.

 

Parsons is holding on to beliefs like many others before him. Jim Walker once articulated that Aristotle believed in a prime mover, a god that moves the sun and moon and objects through space, and that with such a belief, one cannot possibly understand the laws of gravitation or inertia. Isaac Newton saw through that and developed a workable gravitational theory; however, his belief in absolute time prevented him from formulating a theory of relativity. Einstein, however, saw through that and thought in terms of relative time. Therefore, he formulated his famous theory of general relativity, yet his own beliefs could not accept pure randomness in subatomic physics and thus barred him from understanding the consequences of quantum mechanics.

 

To me, what Parsons represents is the current leading edge of humanistic thought. Although disappointing to see so much ignorance in his "couchy language,"...it is very refreshing to see many belief barriers breaking down, such as the notion of relative compassion,...albeit among a very, very few as yet.

 

Awakening is all about recognizing the false as the false. Each recognition of falseness unweaves a little more of the delusion. If Parsons can recognize that his non-dual construct is as equally as false as the "me," ...watch how quickly his "couchy language" shifts.

[Vmarco]

So once we've Awakened, a very simple way of staying in an Awakened mindset is to see each and every person you run into as 'the other half of yourself'. If we can do this, it levels the playing field so that no egos are higher or lower, all is equal. No reason to harm or be harmed because we're all the same basic Entity. The only thing left to do, in that case, is to 'love your brother as yourself'.

 

True compassion, as the thread is titled, is to realize that you are everyone else. Every set of eyes on the planet is part of the one great Whole. Even potatoes have 'em.

 

Compassion is a funny thing. True compassion must sometimes make the tough choices, to say 'No' when the person you're talking to wants to hear 'Yes', etc. But even acting 'to the contrary' is an act of Love if done with the right intent and for the right reason.

 

The bodhisattva method of perceiving Other's brings the recognition that there is no One. The Center is not half of the Boundary,..Here is not half of There,...nor is One the other half of Many. The Bodhisattva method of focus on Other is to dissolve the "me." ...because it is easier to realize that there is no Other, than to realize there is no self.

 

True compassion, from the Heart Sutra point of view, isn't that you are everyone else....true compassion is about putting honesty before everything that steps between sentient beings and their direct experience. Which should bring up the inquiry,...what is direct experience? Unless one has a useful understanding of direct experience, the nature of absolute compassion will remain misunderstood.

 

Many people, I imagine, believe that they have direct experiences everyday. I say that is false. In fact, most would be likely to have met a single person in their lifetime who has had a direct experience. Experience born of belief, can only be experienced through the conditions of that belief.

Edited July 9, 2014 by Vmarco

[dawei]

Parsons argues that within Everything is Nothing. This is a very false idea, promoted by those who have not let go of their "me." Although Yang and Yin effect its motion from the Tao, there is no Tao within Yang or Yin,...nor is there Tao within the One.

 

Wholeness is beyond the sum of opposites. The sum of opposites is the cancellation of all Yang and Yin. The dissolution of Yang and Yin is simultaneously the dissolution of the One. There is no One without the Many,...like there is no Center without a Boundary, or a Here without a There.

 

Would you say this is the idea of: "Not Two; Not One" ?

[Vmarco]

Would you say this is the idea of: "Not Two; Not One" ?

 

 

Tao gives rise to One. One gives birth to yin and yang. Yin and yang give birth to all things....The Tao is as a causeless fulcrum, upon which One lever allows Yin/Yang to effect their perceived motion. Within the Tao is not Two, not One.

 

Parsons beliefs holds him in the Two, which he calls One, but isn't One. Wholeness is beyond the Two and the One. Wholeness is synonymous with the Tao.

 

Brahma is said to be in the One. But the One is not the Tao.

 

There’s a story in the Buddhist scriptures of a talented monk who wanted to find out the answer to the question, “Where do the four elements cease without remainder?” Through meditation he reached the Heaven of the Four Great Kings, who did not know the answer. Next he went to the thirty three gods in a higher Desire Realm heaven, but none of these rulers knew either. He then asked King Sakka (Indra), the king of these gods, but Sakka did not know the answer. Up and up he went asking all sorts of gods at each and every higher level. Finally he came to Great Brahma, the Creator, Uncreated, Knower of All.

 

When the monk finally achieved an audience with Great Brahma, Brahma appeared in all his majesty and glory announcing, "I am Great Brahma, the Conqueror, the Unconquered, the All-Seeing, All-Powerful, the Lord, the Maker and Creator, the Ruler, Appointer and Orderer, Father of All That Have Been and Shall Be." The monk then humbly and respectfully asked his question, but all Great Brahma did was repeat, "I am Great Brahma, the Conqueror, the Unconquered, the All-Seeing, All-Powerful, the Lord, the Maker and Creator, the Ruler, Appointer and Orderer, Father of All That Have Been and Shall Be."

 

The monk eventually got frustrated and said, “I know you are "Great Brahma, the Conqueror, the Unconquered, the All-Seeing, All-Powerful, the Lord, the Maker and Creator, the Ruler, Appointer and Orderer, Father of All That Have Been and Shall Be," but I asked you a question about where the four elements cease without remainder. The Great Brahma replied, “Listen little monk, don’t embarrass me. All these other gods are listening and think I know everything. If you want to know the answer to a question like that, don’t ask me. I don’t know the answer. For a question like that, you have to go ask the Buddha.”

[Spotless]

A quote from Spotless:

"The very first step - the gigantic step - is to Awaken"

 

 

 

This is hugely misinformation. The first step is to recognize the false as the false. Let me use Tolle's words, "we need to draw our attention to what is false in us, for unless we learn to recognize the false as the false, there can be no lasting transformation, and you will always be drawn back into illusion, for that is how the false perpetuates itself"

 

Awake implies no longer being asleep or ignorant. Sure,...perhaps there are levels of wakefulness as there are levels of sleep. Parsons has obviously, to me, become aware of the reverse flow of contracting things,...what the Heart Sutra calls the emptiness of form,...but that construct is part of duality,...it is not non-duality.

 

Parsons is holding on to beliefs like many others before him. Jim Walker once articulated that Aristotle believed in a prime mover, a god that moves the sun and moon and objects through space, and that with such a belief, one cannot possibly understand the laws of gravitation or inertia. Isaac Newton saw through that and developed a workable gravitational theory; however, his belief in absolute time prevented him from formulating a theory of relativity. Einstein, however, saw through that and thought in terms of relative time. Therefore, he formulated his famous theory of general relativity, yet his own beliefs could not accept pure randomness in subatomic physics and thus barred him from understanding the consequences of quantum mechanics.

 

To me, what Parsons represents is the current leading edge of humanistic thought. Although disappointing to see so much ignorance in his "couchy language,"...it is very refreshing to see many belief barriers breaking down, such as the notion of relative compassion,...albeit among a very, very few as yet.

 

Awakening is all about recognizing the false as the false. Each recognition of falseness unweaves a little more of the delusion. If Parsons can recognize that his non-dual construct is as equally as false as the "me," ...watch how quickly his "couchy language" shifts.

It is easy to miss the point of the quote you chose from me but you have in fact completely agreed with me in your misunderstanding of what I was attempting to articulate - forgive me:

 

Awakening is the Being movement to precisely what Tolle is saying:

The true recognition in an Awakened state of "the false as the false" and the immediate falling away of the illusion.

 

Do take the time to view my recommendations Vmarco at www.batgap.com

 

Tolle is not talking about some inner analytical epiphany regarding the false - he is talking about what happened to him when he Awoke. His entire teaching is about the Awakening he underwent and it is trying to point us in this direction.

 

Parsons has some differences but his focus is precisely the same as Tolle - it is about the turning point, the Awakening - but as you will come to see at some point, not every awakened teacher will match the perfect pictures we have of what they should be like.

Edited July 9, 2014 by Spotless