Fear is the root of All suffering

[Karl]

See, that is the problem with logic. If Your base assumption is false, the your logical conclusion is also false.

In this case, your base assumption that ego is a man's identity is erroneous. It may be seem correct to you as you believe it and have defined it, except for the fact that the mystical/spiritual ego does not die. Your assumption that body death also means death of the ego is false.

If you wish to define death as the dropping off of the body and that the spirit/self/ego lives on then I would agree. However, your use of logic is a magic act which hides the fact that you have no realization of ego in the mystical sense.

How do you explain reincarnation? It is not just a belief. There are many stories about Buddhist adepts whom have chosen their future births, stories about children whom can remember their previous lives. Do you discount them and ignore them?

There is a concept of the alaya vijinana in Buddhism, aka the substrate and the substrate consciousness. It is the storehouse of all the experiences, personality, individual traits and characteristics that a person accumulates during a lifetime. This storehouse continues from life to life. That is what reincarnates. That is why, once a person has mastered their mind and achieved great clarity, they can go back and remember previous lives. It is logical. It makes sense.

In mystical terms, the death or dissolution of the ego/substrate would be called enlightenment, the end of dukkha, the end of rebirths.

 

Logical argument already accepts that premise. An argument may well be valid but still may not true.

 

If you can show me an ego that has returned sans body, then present your evidence. I would happily wager all I have that you cannot prove it. It's no good postulating on unproven premise, only on what your consciousness is witness of.

 

Past lives:

We had a saying in NLP which said that the presuppositions on which it was based were not true. They were just convenient beliefs. Some people never understood what was meant by that, and treated NLP as a mystic art. I learned the trick of using time line therapy which convinces the client that they can travel back to a past life. Indeed I experienced the power of my own mind to create trance illusion and found myself in a past life having undergone the process. What you want to believe you will believe, even if reason, experience and common sense say otherwise.

 

 

[Karl]

Actually, I have proof of the psychic ability to view a person whom is scrying at you. Right here on the forum. The poster was called damagednotbroken. I saw his face during one of my meditation sessions and then described his head to him. He then posted his picture (which he later removed). I did take a picture of it and saved it.. My description was right on. The part that was interesting is that I became aware of a tunnel between him and I that had opened up, which I could look through any time I wanted, I closed the tunnel for numerous reasons, but the point remains... Although it is not a miracle, the experience defies logic and reason.http://thedaobums.com/topic/24351-i-hunger-for-more/?p=352085

Just because you do not have have these types of experiences does not give you the right to say that they are fiction. If you knew how to develope these abilities you could see for yourself.

How do explain the footprints? Or the rainbow bodies?https://youtu.be/0yjM04PH56g"]

 

That wasn't proof of anything. I had a dream where I saw a passenger aircraft crash into a mountainside and burst into flame. After the recent crash in the Alps I began to match the memory of the dream with the pictures I had seen. Before long I was convinced that this was exactly what I had seen. The mind is very susceptible to error. Most of us can't remember where we put the car keys and yet we don't go intuiting those- which would frankly be a lot more useful than seeing someone's face.

 

 

[Karl]

In the FWIW category, neither the mystic nor the logician sees the complete picture. The transition from one to the other is a significant one but allowing the pendulum to swing back towards the middle is the next step. Recognizing merit and value in both and resolving the dissonance between them will allow you to put some distance between you and the canvas, letting you take in more of the painting in a single view. This is not to say, mind you, that integrating the phenomenal and the noumenal is a fine step by any means. The verse, "first there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is" plays itself out over and over again, on different levels, in many flavors and colors. The road goes on forever and the party never ends.

 

Well we aren't omniscient so we won't ever know everything. Yet here you suggest 'the painting' and I wonder if that's what you mean ? I'm just trying to get safely to the end of the street and you want to cross the universe.

 

I don't know what you smoking by the time you added that final sentence

[Tibetan_Ice]

Logical argument already accepts that premise. An argument may well be valid but still may not true.If you can show me an ego that has returned sans body, then present your evidence. I would happily wager all I have that you cannot prove it. It's no good postulating on unproven premise, only on what your consciousness is witness of. Past lives: We had a saying in NLP which said that the presuppositions on which it was based were not true. They were just convenient beliefs. Some people never understood what was meant by that, and treated NLP as a mystic art. I learned the trick of using time line therapy which convinces the client that they can travel back to a past life. Indeed I experienced the power of my own mind to create trance illusion and found myself in a past life having undergone the process. What you want to believe you will believe, even if reason, experience and common sense say otherwise.

There is no way that you watched the video with pictures of footprints in stone in the time that I posted it and you responded with your post. You aren't even interested in opening your mind.

 

When I was 15, I saw a ghost. Sorry, I did not take a picture of her. She had a long dress on, long hair and kind of floated. Later I learned that the place that I was staying in had been built over a graveyard.

Edited August 16, 2015 by Tibetan_Ice

[Karl]

There is no way that you watched the video with pictures of footprints in stone in the time that I posted it and you responded with your post. You aren't even interested in opening your mind.

When I was 15, I saw a ghost. Sorry, I did not take a picture of her. She had a long dress on, long hair and kind of floated. Later I learned that the place that I was staying in had been built over a graveyard.

 

I've seen many ghosts. Inundated by them. I've been there TI. I have been a mystic for virtually my entire life. I've been out of body, past life, ghosts, clairvoyance and what not. It was all, perfectly real at the time. My brother once had a dream that my Dads office had been broken into and water was pouring down the stairs from a broken pipe. Next day we went across at his insistence and found that to be exactly as he predicted.

 

The problem is not an open mind to mysticism, but a closed mind to reality. Mysticism is the more attractive, just as we enjoy a story, the cinema or the theatre. Truth is not always as palatable as imagination. We run from things we cannot face, from emotions that make us unhappy, from the reality of our lives and our death. We wrap it around us like a defensive cloak and believe in it absolutely.

[Brian]

 

I've seen many ghosts. Inundated by them. I've been there TI. I have been a mystic for virtually my entire life. I've been out of body, past life, ghosts, clairvoyance and what not. It was all, perfectly real at the time. My brother once had a dream that my Dads office had been broken into and water was pouring down the stairs from a broken pipe. Next day we went across at his insistence and found that to be exactly as he predicted. The problem is not an open mind to mysticism, but a closed mind to reality. Mysticism is the more attractive, just as we enjoy a story, the cinema or the theatre. Truth is not always as palatable as imagination. We run from things we cannot face, from emotions that make us unhappy, from the reality of our lives and our death. We wrap it around us like a defensive cloak and believe in it absolutely.

The problem is believing reality is confined to either mysticism or rationalism. Wrapping one's self in either is self-defensive denial.

[Wu Ming Jen]

Its interesting that we refer to eastern as mystic and greek as rational.  greek philosophy leaves the knowledge of  no form to gods in a mystical place and in the east no form and form are part of nature in this world, not mystical but natural.

Edited August 16, 2015 by Wu Ming Jen

[Karl]

The problem is believing reality is confined to either mysticism or rationalism. Wrapping one's self in either is self-defensive denial.

 

Reality is reality it doesn't respond to mysticism or rationalism. If I drop a hammer on my toe I need not rely on anything to prove or disprove the reality of it. I will jump up and down cursing the pain in my toe. Logic won't change it, neither will mystic beliefs. How you chose to cope with the incident is all that remains. One can deny it was your own fault, blame fate, God, sin etc if that makes you feel better, but it won't alter the facts.

[Brian]

 

Reality is reality it doesn't respond to mysticism or rationalism. If I drop a hammer on my toe I need not rely on anything to prove or disprove the reality of it. I will jump up and down cursing the pain in my toe. Logic won't change it, neither will mystic beliefs. How you chose to cope with the incident is all that remains. One can deny it was your own fault, blame fate, God, sin etc if that makes you feel better, but it won't alter the facts.

Precisely. So why do you claim reason to be the final arbitrator and reality detached from Aristotelian logic to be fallacious? It seems to me that you are at odds with yourself because your newfound passion for rationality is still disintegrated from your earlier views. You see either A or not A. Either both and neither is closer to reality but reality is multivariate so such discussions are like squabbling over which arithmetic operator is the one which matters.

[ChiForce]

Reality is reality it doesn't respond to mysticism or rationalism. If I drop a hammer on my toe I need not rely on anything to prove or disprove the reality of it. I will jump up and down cursing the pain in my toe. Logic won't change it, neither will mystic beliefs. How you chose to cope with the incident is all that remains. One can deny it was your own fault, blame fate, God, sin etc if that makes you feel better, but it won't alter the facts.

Oh lord, hammer and toe...is that the extend of your reasoning.  The world is surrounded by chaos and monumental historical events which have been defining who we are, including your life here on this earth.  All you can reason is hammer and toe, and some banal contents which is suitable for kindergarten philosophy.  Or a freshman course in philosophy 101.  You are getting boring.     

[ChiForce]

Precisely. So why do you claim reason to be the final arbitrator and reality detached from Aristotelian logic to be fallacious? It seems to me that you are at odds with yourself because your newfound passion for rationality is still disintegrated from your earlier views. You see either A or not A. Either both and neither is closer to reality but reality is multivariate so such discussions are like squabbling over which arithmetic operator is the one which matters.

He hasn't defined what reality is other than what he thinks it is and subjected to change however the ego likes. 

 

Its interesting that we refer to eastern as mystic and greek as rational.  greek philosophy leaves the knowledge of  no form to gods in a mystical place and in the east no form and form are part of nature in this world, not mystical but natural.

That was why Romanticism and Existentialism took hold in the 1800!!!!!!  Oh snap, Karl's logic didn't know that....

[Karl]

Precisely. So why do you claim reason to be the final arbitrator and reality detached from Aristotelian logic to be fallacious? It seems to me that you are at odds with yourself because your newfound passion for rationality is still disintegrated from your earlier views. You see either A or not A. Either both and neither is closer to reality but reality is multivariate so such discussions are like squabbling over which arithmetic operator is the one which matters.

 

I don't claim that. Reason seemed as if it didn't have an equal seat at the ring. Reality is reality, logic is only required for integrating concepts. I look at a horse, it's a horse. I might see that a label is attached to it, but why analyse that. It's a real object with defined and independent characteristics verified directly with the senses.

 

I can only theorise why reason held a back seat, I can't know why, that's how it seemed because prior to that point it wasn't. Its like a man that fears to look and so keeps his eyes closed. The paradox is that it is necessary to see in order to dispel the fear.

[Karl]

Oh lord, hammer and toe...is that the extend of your reasoning.  The world is surrounded by chaos and monumental historical events which have been defining who we are, including your life here on this earth.  All you can reason is hammer and toe, and some banal contents which is suitable for kindergarten philosophy.  Or a freshman course in philosophy 101.  You are getting boring.     

 

What exactly are you doing about the world of chaos and monumental events ?

 

Do those events define how you are ?

 

You are reaching for the moon and you can't tie your shoe laces.

[Karl]

He hasn't defined what reality is other than what he thinks it is and subjected to change however the ego likes. 

 

 

That was why Romanticism and Existentialism took hold in the 1800!!!!!!  Oh snap, Karl's logic didn't know that....

 

I define my reality and not yours. That's your responsibility. If you see dragons and floating guru then that is your reality, then you start talking about world events.

 

Karl's logic ?

 

 

[Karl]

Its interesting that we refer to eastern as mystic and greek as rational.  greek philosophy leaves the knowledge of  no form to gods in a mystical place and in the east no form and form are part of nature in this world, not mystical but natural.

 

Greece wasn't always rational though. It had its share of Gods, a very many of them. I'm not entirely sure all Eastern was mystic either, it wouldn't make sense that it was, only that the prevailing orthodoxy might be seen/interpreted that way. The quadrivium is also about natural things, so the recognition that nature is intertwined with human spirituality is clear.

[Tibetan_Ice]

I've seen many ghosts. Inundated by them. I've been there TI. I have been a mystic for virtually my entire life. I've been out of body, past life, ghosts, clairvoyance and what not. It was all, perfectly real at the time. My brother once had a dream that my Dads office had been broken into and water was pouring down the stairs from a broken pipe. Next day we went across at his insistence and found that to be exactly as he predicted. The problem is not an open mind to mysticism, but a closed mind to reality. Mysticism is the more attractive, just as we enjoy a story, the cinema or the theatre. Truth is not always as palatable as imagination. We run from things we cannot face, from emotions that make us unhappy, from the reality of our lives and our death. We wrap it around us like a defensive cloak and believe in it absolutely.

You call mysticism imagination and then draw a line between it and "reality".

 

Your definition of reality is deficient.

 

The snake is not a snake nor is it a rope. It is a coil of poop.

 

And running from things is not what Buddhism teaches. By detaching and facing emotions, pain or various phenomenon with insight (the proper view) we realize their impermanence and their lack of inherent existence.

 

Even Eckart Tolle knows that...

 

Either you master your mind or remain as the victim.

 

The "we" you speak of does not include me and I wonder where you get the right to speak for all of humanity...

Edited August 16, 2015 by Tibetan_Ice

[Aithrobates]

Really there can only be one kind of knowledge. And rationality is simply mysticism misunderstood.

- Peter Kingsley in Reality

 

 

The alphabetized intellect stakes its claim to the earth by staking it down, extends its dominion by drawing a grid of straight lines and right angles across the body of a continent

- David Abram in The Spell of the Sensuous

 

 

 

As I have said in others post, I'm not a big fan of Aristotelician logic, that I see as the beginning of the end, a step on the way to our modern, dead, logic.

 

But the difference between the classical logic of antiquity and the modern variety lies not in logic in itself. It lies in orality. In the times of Aristotle and Plato, the greek society still had a traditional and oral culture. Of course writting existed, but old traditions were still very present.

 

And so the practice of logic was oral. In was a discipline you had to apply in a discussion among philosophers, so that you would not propose an unworthy argumentation. This way it was a pratice. Instead of following your impulsions and telling whatever you liked too, you had to ponder your words, to force the mind to act in a certain way. As insatisfactory as I personnaly judge it, Arsitotelician logic was still a way to limit the mind.

 

But now logic has everything to do with being written. It's basically mathematical formulas on paper or screen. And you know the result of this: Because it is written and seems less transitory that the spoken words, we are tricked into believing that what we have before our eyes some kind of eternal rule. Something that has been proven, and can be held true forever. And so instead of the mind actively controlling itself, we get the mind passively being controlled by a set of artificial conclusions that it delude itself to be the truth.

 

Now taken together classic and modern are alike because they focus more on the rules of logic themselves than on the premices - that have to be the perceptions. But they are also very different because the classic variety is a practice, while the modern one is an abstract way of proving abstract things.

 

The kind of logic I defend is the one which starts with perceptions, taken as face value. Karl too, but he thinks that it is an integral part of Aristotelician logic, not me. We may differ only on labels. Or one of us may be wrong about Aristotle.

 

I'll try, in my next posts, to stop talking about logic - I thing I've made my point already - and to go back to perceptions, distinctions and suffering.

Edited August 16, 2015 by Aithrobates

[Brian]

I don't claim that.

<snip>

Not only did you claim that, you did it in those exact words. I borrowed your language from just a few posts ago.

 

I agree with you that logic and reason are often given short shrift on this forum. In fact, I have frequently been the one expounding on the propriety of employing that capacity appropriately. No doubt there are some long-time Bums who are amused to see me positing that reason is not "all that and a bag of chips" (as the saying goes).

 

You have, unfortunately, demonstrated a decided unwillingness to consider your perspective might be myopic. There are many Bums here who could share with you personal experiences which should cause you to say "I don't understand" but your rhetoric leads to the expectation that your response would be dismissive (in fact, you have displayed this to be the case) so few Bums will bother.

[Karl]

You call mysticism imagination and then draw a line between it and "reality".

Your definition of reality is deficient.

The snake is not a snake nor is it a rope. It is a coil of poop.

And running from things is not what Buddhism teaches. By detaching and facing emotions, pain or various phenomenon with insight (the proper view) we realize their impermanence and their lack of inherent existence.

Even Eckart Tolle knows that...

Either you master your mind or remain as the victim.

The "we" you speak of does not include me and I wonder where you get the right to speak for all of humanity...

 

Mysticism is what you feel to be true.

 

I don't have a definition of reality. Reality is reality.

 

By detaching and facing emotion ? What is detaching and how can you face emotion ? You are clearly using emotion by 'feeling'

 

things to be true as you disparage reasons ability to do that.

 

I'm in agreement on impermanence, I don't require Buddhist philosophy to know that is true, yet this is not what you believe. You believe in permanence of some things such as consciousness and reincarnation and impermanence of others. For me I believe in impermanence for everything. No conflict.

 

Mastering the mind is an interesting strategy, but what shall be the master and of whom ? You are you, there is no one else. It is possible to consistently improve the mind in various ways. Master reaction by training, improve function by repetition etc.

 

We is the generality. All men are mortal therefore 'we' applies to that. If you say you are immortal, then that is what you believe. Reality shows otherwise, but I cannot argue that your belief is reality to you as it is to me.

[Karl]

Not only did you claim that, you did it in those exact words. I borrowed your language from just a few posts ago.

I agree with you that logic and reason are often given short shrift on this forum. In fact, I have frequently been the one expounding on the propriety of employing that capacity appropriately. No doubt there are some long-time Bums who are amused to see me positing that reason is not "all that and a bag of chips" (as the saying goes).

You have, unfortunately, demonstrated a decided unwillingness to consider your perspective might be myopic. There are many Bums here who could share with you personal experiences which should cause you to say "I don't understand" but your rhetoric leads to the expectation that your response would be dismissive (in fact, you have displayed this to be the case) so few Bums will bother.

 

I claimed that this is how it seemed for me. Not how it must be for everyone. That was my story of my experience. I let you in on it.

I decidedly don't expect others to employ logic on this forum. If they do then good for them.

 

Nothing said so far is new to me, but some of the things that have come out of the discussions have been revelatory.

 

If few bother then that is how it shall be, I won't be offended or upset. I will spend less time writing here and more time doing something else. Perhaps I will do something else anyway. As TI likes to say 'things are impermanent'.

[ChiForce]

What exactly are you doing about the world of chaos and monumental events ? Do those events define how you are ? You are reaching for the moon and you can't tie your shoe laces.

Hahahahahahah...my dear Karl...hahahahahaha...in my past life, one of my immediate past lives, I was from the WWII period.  I dream of the rise of the Nazi regime.  I was in the Holocaust.  I dream of Mao and the Chinese revolution.  Only recently, I witnessed and experienced the Israeli existential threat.....and closely associated with the Holocaust.  Part of my fate is tied to the Israelis and the Jews.    I witnessed myself as Aaron, Moses's brother.  Of course, forgot to mention that the dream led me to experience the MCO was seeing myself as a Han warrior/scholar standing in front of my 2 Han brothers.  You do know that that the Han Chinese culture and the dynasty dated back more than 2000 years ago.   

 

The past is me.  I am the past, the past is I.    The world you are living in now....it has been the result of these monumental historical events.  Logically, you would have been living in caves and hunting for food to survive if it wasn't for history.  You think you exist in isolation of history????  Hahahahahaha...surely you jested.         

Edited August 17, 2015 by ChiForce

[ChiForce]

Mysticism is what you feel to be true. I don't have a definition of reality. Reality is reality. By detaching and facing emotion ? What is detaching and how can you face emotion ? You are clearly using emotion by 'feeling' things to be true as you disparage reasons ability to do that. I'm in agreement on impermanence, I don't require Buddhist philosophy to know that is true, yet this is not what you believe. You believe in permanence of some things such as consciousness and reincarnation and impermanence of others. For me I believe in impermanence for everything. No conflict. Mastering the mind is an interesting strategy, but what shall be the master and of whom ? You are you, there is no one else. It is possible to consistently improve the mind in various ways. Master reaction by training, improve function by repetition etc. We is the generality. All men are mortal therefore 'we' applies to that. If you say you are immortal, then that is what you believe. Reality shows otherwise, but I cannot argue that your belief is reality to you as it is to me.

Sigh....no one is asking you to believe in anything.  Besides, to realize the teaching of the Dharma, you need to act and to practice on it.  Believing in it but continuing to cling on the illusions of form is not the way to realize the Dharma.  Son, you have a long way to go.....  Things do not happen just because you believe in it...... 

Edited August 16, 2015 by ChiForce

[Wu Ming Jen]

Greek philosophy uses the rational mind to understand the world around it, a useful tool but not ultimate reality. The greek's ultimate reality is  a higher world, a supernatural being that is separate from nature that can only "know" the answers, like life is a question to be "known". Western philosophy did not transcend mind itself to reach ultimate reality.

 

Polar complete reality symbol is the yin yang symbol. western philosophy symbol would be two blocks one white, one black that are separate from each other. This represents that everything is  independent from each other and absolute, the big mistake in greek philosophy.

 

If a  god is responsible then mortals do not have to be divine, not know their true self, ultimate reality. This is a cowards way out. 

[Karl]

  You think you exist in isolation of history????  Hahahahahaha...surely you jested.         

 

We are all a product of cause and effect and the march of time. A tree produces many leaves, but every leaf is unique. When it falls there will never be another identical to it. Impermanence writ large.

[Karl]

Things do not happen just because you believe in it...... 

 

I've been saying that for long enough.

 

Practice makes the practitioner good at the thing they practice.