a posed question?

[DreamBliss]

I find it interesting... Christians chain themselves with sin, and Buddhists, maybe Hindus as well, with karma.

 

Having worn the chains of sin for so many years and remembering well what it felt lie to wear them, I will not submit to your chains of karma. But if you choose to, it is OK. That is your path and perhaps what you came here to walk.

 

My path is to remain free of any disempowering structures, to realize that they only exist in the beliefs and perceptions of those who believe in them and perceive them.

 

There are no laws, nothing changeless but Spirit and therefore nothing real but Spirit.. There is only apparent reality powered by the energy of collective belief.

 

Someday even gravity will have no effect on us!

[DreamBliss]

Also...
 

I challenge you to define duality or nonduality. There is no such thing. It is just a term that someone invented because their conceptual mind had no idea of string theory. Simply speaking, duality does not exist because upon close examination, there is no subject. If there is no subject, then how can the object exist? Thus, if duality does not truly exist, how can its counterpart exist? It is absurd.

 
When you are enlightened and can see beyond form into the formless, what you are seeing there is nonduality. Yes, it is a label, a term, a word - a signpost along the Way.
 
Even in your enlightened state however there will be opposites playing out in the world of form, and as long as you are physical you will have to interact with that world. Your perception has changed, you see behind the curtain, but you are not focused there yet, you are still physically focused.
 
So even though you see things differently, even if you are not attached to anything and seeing the formless, there will still exist the things you want and the things you don't want. Or the things you prefer and the things you do not prefer.
 
The only difference is that you will see the truth of everything, that, "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." - Albert Einstein.
 
For example, see (visualize) yourself in an airplane at 1000 feet. Now jump out of it, without a parachute. Notice as the ground draws nearer. Just before you hit the ground, leave the visualization.
 
So you have what is desirable or preferred (safely in the airplane.) You have the undesirable, what is not preferred (jumping out, inevitable painful landing.) You also have up (in the airplane) and down (hurtling towards the ground.) You have bad (no parachute) and good (in the airplane, safe.)
 
That is duality, and the proof of its existence. For everything in the physical realm, there exists, whether we are aware of it or not, its opposite. I hesitate to call anything a law but if I was to claim something as a law, that would be it.
 
To be in the physical realm is to experience duality.

Edited June 15, 2015 by DreamBliss

[ChiForce]

I find it interesting... Christians chain themselves with sin, and Buddhists, maybe Hindus as well, with karma.

 

Having worn the chains of sin for so many years and remembering well what it felt lie to wear them, I will not submit to your chains of karma. But if you choose to, it is OK. That is your path and perhaps what you came here to walk.

 

My path is to remain free of any disempowering structures, to realize that they only exist in the beliefs and perceptions of those who believe in them and perceive them.

 

There are no laws, nothing changeless but Spirit and therefore nothing real but Spirit.. There is only apparent reality powered by the energy of collective belief.

 

Someday even gravity will have no effect on us!

Karma is neithr bad or good.  Go listen to lecture number 5. http://www.buddhanet.net/audio-lectures.htm

 

Oh, just because you have resistance to all the Buddhist teachings, it does not mean you are enlightened.    Let's put it this way..you aren't the first or the last.   

[ChiForce]

Also...

 

 

When you are enlightened and can see beyond form into the formless, what you are seeing there is nonduality. Yes, it is a label, a term, a word - a signpost along the Way.

 

Even in your enlightened state however there will be opposites playing out in the world of form, and as long as you are physical you will have to interact with that world. Your perception has changed, you see behind the curtain, but you are not focused there yet, you are still physically focused.

 

So even though you see things differently, even if you are not attached to anything and seeing the formless, there will still exist the things you want and the things you don't want. Or the things you prefer and the things you do not prefer.

 

The only difference is that you will see the truth of everything, that, "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." - Albert Einstein.

 

For example, see (visualize) yourself in an airplane at 1000 feet. Now jump out of it, without a parachute. Notice as the ground draws nearer. Just before you hit the ground, leave the visualization.

 

So you have what is desirable or preferred (safely in the airplane.) You have the undesirable, what is not preferred (jumping out, inevitable painful landing.) You also have up (in the airplane) and down (hurtling towards the ground.) You have bad (no parachute) and good (in the airplane, safe.)

 

That is duality, and the proof of its existence. For everything in the physical realm, there exists, whether we are aware of it or not, its opposite. I hesitate to call anything a law but if I was to claim something as a law, that would be it.

 

To be in the physical realm is to experience duality.

Let me put it in a more conscise way.  Don't quote Einstein because he is neither englightened in the Buddhist and Taoist sense.  He is smart but not enlightened.  We are in the Dao Bum and so we are assumed that when we talk about enlightenment, we aren't talking about some smart scientifists coming up with a new theory in science. 

 

An enlightened mind would see the world like a mirror.  Both duality and non-duality exist, like a mirror-like wisdom.  The mind sees all...all arising and receding, both duality and non-duality.    All causes and all effects. 

[Tibetan_Ice]

Also...

 

When you are enlightened and can see beyond form into the formless, what you are seeing there is nonduality. Yes, it is a label, a term, a word - a signpost along the Way.

 

Even in your enlightened state however there will be opposites playing out in the world of form, and as long as you are physical you will have to interact with that world. Your perception has changed, you see behind the curtain, but you are not focused there yet, you are still physically focused.

 

So even though you see things differently, even if you are not attached to anything and seeing the formless, there will still exist the things you want and the things you don't want. Or the things you prefer and the things you do not prefer.

 

The only difference is that you will see the truth of everything, that, "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." - Albert Einstein.

 

For example, see (visualize) yourself in an airplane at 1000 feet. Now jump out of it, without a parachute. Notice as the ground draws nearer. Just before you hit the ground, leave the visualization.

 

So you have what is desirable or preferred (safely in the airplane.) You have the undesirable, what is not preferred (jumping out, inevitable painful landing.) You also have up (in the airplane) and down (hurtling towards the ground.) You have bad (no parachute) and good (in the airplane, safe.)

 

That is duality, and the proof of its existence. For everything in the physical realm, there exists, whether we are aware of it or not, its opposite. I hesitate to call anything a law but if I was to claim something as a law, that would be it.

 

To be in the physical realm is to experience duality.

So your definition of nonduality is that "you" are "seeing" the " formless"?

That is not nonduality. There is still a subject there.

 

Further, there are four material jhanas (rupa) and four immaterial jhanas (arupa). Realization of the immaterial jhanas does not produce enlightenment. Therefore, your statement that "when you are enlightened and can see beyond form into the formless"

Is not right. You don't have to be enlightened to see the formless.

 

And, formlessness is not the opposite of form, but the lack of form. Isn't the opposite of matter called antimatter? But I see what you are trying to say, you are trying to pretend that form and formlessness are opposites, like good and bad, or black and white... But that is a gross simplification, for something can be both good and bad at the same time or multiple proportions of combinations, and there can exist 59 shades of gray, which might look black but really aren't black.

 

In order to define dualism and nondualism, you have to define the body of knowledge which birthed the terms, for each culture, teaching, school or discipline uses those terms to refer to something different. I would venture to say that in Buddhism, dualism refers specifically to "identity", as in subject and object. However, some forms of Buddhism refer to duality as the idea that there are two truths, one relative truth or reality, and one absolute truth or absolute reality.

 

For a good time, look up nonduality in the wiki. There are so many meanings and different usages that it begs extra care and attention when using the term in a sentence.

 

I'm starting to think that this discussion is an exercise in futility. When a guru or lama leaves his footprints in stone, is he not in the physical world? Does not emptiness trump any kind of duality or nonduality?

[Mandrake]

I hate to break it to you, but when you leave this physical world, if you decide to make your way down to hell, the only people you will find there are those who believe they must be there, and they will only be there as long as they believe or feel they must be there.

 

How do you know this?

That conveniently side-steps the point that the philosophies are speaking about hellish experience rather than a huffy-fluffy fantasy realm.

 

 

M

[Seeker of Wisdom]

I find it interesting... Christians chain themselves with sin, and Buddhists, maybe Hindus as well, with karma.

 

Having worn the chains of sin for so many years and remembering well what it felt like to wear them, I will not submit to your chains of karma.[...]

I simply don't see where this is coming from, DB. Karma is not disempowering - quite the opposite. What you are doing here is taking the Christian framework of shame/guilt and judgement which you used to follow and applying it to Buddhism, where it just doesn't apply. In Buddhism there is no 'sin' and no judge.

 

Karma means that the quality of your intentions and actions conditions your present and future experience. What this means is that you have a great deal of power over your experience, you are empowered to send yourself in a positive or negative direction. It also means that you don't have to care about rules other people have laid down, because you see for yourself what is skillful. And a consequence of that is that shame/guilt is worthless, because if you made a mistake it was simply a lack of skill which you've now learnt from, rather than sinfully breaking a rigid law.

 

And this is disempowering, huh? Try flipping your perspective out of the Christian framework a bit. Try to see how empowering this is:

 

Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought. If with an impure mind a person speaks or acts suffering follows him like the wheel that follows the foot of the ox.

 

Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought. If with a pure mind a person speaks or acts happiness follows him like his never-departing shadow.

[3bob]

"I hate to break it to you, but when you leave this physical world, if you decide to make your way down to hell, the only people you will find there are those who believe they must be there, and they will only be there as long as they believe or feel they must be there. Hitler will not be found roasting on a spit somewhere, no matter how many people might wish it so". by DB

 

DB, you are contradicting yourself in the text above since you have also recognized that in "duality" laws of duality are in effect with it...  thus there is more to the equation than just personal beliefs, feelings or mental decisions about how karmically bound energy will be handled or worked out in dualistic realms....   being that karma is exactingly handled by impartial karmic law itself in a universal, unfailing and lawful process and or effect until it is balanced out. (so to speak)   

 

Granted, in a "non-dualistic" reality karma has no binding or energetic attachment since the river of sorrow has been crossed over and the veil removed.  (and not by hook or by crook or by human beliefs or decisions but by inviolate Spirit)

Edited June 16, 2015 by 3bob

[DreamBliss]

I think I have reached the end of what I can say here.

 

I see something so clearly,

It is so evident and obvious to me,

But I am not Jesus,

I can not heal the blind so they can see.

 

To my perception you are overcomplicating things. I think things are far simpler.

 

But it is not my desire to argue with others over beliefs. What victory has a man actually won if he proves he is right?

 

My energy is better invested elsewhere. I originally posted in here out of a sense of play. I tried to keep it that way. I just don't feel I can do that any longer.

 

I leave you, to walk your own paths, and to feel your way along the parts of the elephant you are attempting to describe.

 

Blessings and Love to each and every one of you!

Edited June 17, 2015 by DreamBliss

[3bob]

Don't take it to hard DB and good luck... besides the Denver broncos might win next year.

 

p.s. I agree about simple in the sense of one unified whole which has no complications of cross purpose divisions.

Edited June 17, 2015 by 3bob