The function of the concept

[Karl]

First off the term "conscious awareness" implies that there is also an "unconscious awareness". Your term doesn't make sense.

Secondly, any "subjective responses" are ccnceptIons, thus part of Wolff's closed system which consists of symbols, painted onto reality.

Further, my definition of awareness is "Knowing" and nothing can attach itself to it. Awareness is a verb.

So tell me, what exactly is being attached, and to what?

And, then, what is doing the viewing?

 

There is a degree of unconscious awareness or you wouldn't wake up when the alarm goes off. There are loads of things operating in your body that you aren't necessarily conscious of but awareness is retained.

 

There are no symbols painted on reality. If you fear a spider it doesn't mean that I fear it, even if we regard it at exactly the same time. A fear symbol hasn't been painted on the spider, the internal representation of the spider is connected with an unpleasant feeling which you can perceptually recognise as fear. In other words the reverse of what the crackpot scientist has claimed.

 

Awareness is something you can move around. Sitting there on your chair you can find that you can effortlessly become aware of your feet, then your toes and the surface on which your feet are resting.

 

You are doing the viewing, the awareness of self is primary (the 'I' feeling as the Mystics call it). Objects appear in your mind. Think of a wine glass and spin it around in your minds eye. You are viewing the glass, you have not become the glass.

 

 

[Tibetan_Ice]

There is a degree of unconscious awareness or you wouldn't wake up when the alarm goes off. There are loads of things operating in your body that you aren't necessarily conscious of but awareness is retained.

 

There are no symbols painted on reality. If you fear a spider it doesn't mean that I fear it, even if we regard it at exactly the same time. A fear symbol hasn't been painted on the spider, the internal representation of the spider is connected with an unpleasant feeling which you can perceptually recognise as fear. In other words the reverse of what the crackpot scientist has claimed.

 

Awareness is something you can move around. Sitting there on your chair you can find that you can effortlessly become aware of your feet, then your toes and the surface on which your feet are resting. You are doing the viewing, the awareness of self is primary (the 'I' feeling as the Mystics call it). Objects appear in your mind. Think of a wine glass and spin it around in your minds eye. You are viewing the glass, you have not become the glass.

So you agree that there are divisions in consciousness? Consciousness, subconsciousness, superconsciousness and subsuperconsciousness?

 

Yes, everything you can perceive is a symbol, a concept, according to Wolff. In your analogy of the spider, in order to fear a spider one must first have had the concept or experience that spiders are to be feared implanted into the mind. A child without such an implant would not fear spiders. Everything that we perceive through the six senses is subject to conceptualization, a solidification and as such, is a representation of "conventional" reality, not the absolute reality. To deny the possibility that there is a reality beyond what the six senses can perceive is a limiting notion. It is a closed system, a finite state. It is the arbitrary drawing of a division where in fact no division exists.

 

You said that "awareness is something you can move around". By this definition, you are contradicting your previous idea of unconscious awareness, because "moving around" implies some form of volitional motion, but there is no volition without consciousness. The doer and the watcher...

 

In my definition, you can move attention around. You can fix your attention on an object, you can expand your attention or shrink your attention. However, awareness, in the mystical sense is solid, pervades everything and everywhere and does not move. When you move your attention around, you are in fact only becoming aware of the small area of awareness on which you are focused.

 

In Dzogchen, there are the concepts of son clear light and mother clear light. Or, in my westernized understanding, son rigpa and mother rigpa. Small self and Self. Small closed system and big open system. Small watcher, big watcher. The main purpose of Dzogchen is to break through the limited son awareness into the mother awareness. You seem to be stuck in the son awareness and don't recognize that a mother awareness even exists.

[Karl]

So you agree that there are divisions in consciousness? Consciousness, subconsciousness, superconsciousness and subsuperconsciousness?

Yes, everything you can perceive is a symbol, a concept, according to Wolff. In your analogy of the spider, in order to fear a spider one must first have had the concept or experience that spiders are to be feared implanted into the mind. A child without such an implant would not fear spiders. Everything that we perceive through the six senses is subject to conceptualization, a solidification and as such, is a representation of "conventional" reality, not the absolute reality. To deny the possibility that there is a reality beyond what the six senses can perceive is a limiting notion. It is a closed system, a finite state. It is the arbitrary drawing of a division where in fact no division exists.

You said that "awareness is something you can move around". By this definition, you are contradicting your previous idea of unconscious awareness, because "moving around" implies some form of volitional motion, but there is no volition without consciousness. The doer and the watcher...

In my definition, you can move attention around. You can fix your attention on an object, you can expand your attention or shrink your attention. However, awareness, in the mystical sense is solid, pervades everything and everywhere and does not move. When you move your attention around, you are in fact only becoming aware of the small area of awareness on which you are focused.

In Dzogchen, there are the concepts of son clear light and mother clear light. Or, in my westernized understanding, son rigpa and mother rigpa. Small self and Self. Small closed system and big open system. Small watcher, big watcher. The main purpose of Dzogchen is to break through the limited son awareness into the mother awareness. You seem to be stuck in the son awareness and don't recognize that a mother awareness even exists.

 

I believe there are different levels of consciousness and awareness, but I'm not a psychiatrist or neuro scientist so I'm unable to confirm it.

 

There is any need to have an implanted concept that spiders are to be feared. It's natural to be wary of things not previously encountered, particular strange looking creatures which move rapidly and can climb on the body. Once a child decides it doesn't like spiders and associates them as an unpleasant experience then that's how it remains.

 

You can't move awareness around if you are unconscious but there is still a residual degree of awareness present. Enough for something to bring you awake. Fully conscious you can move awareness around easily. Pranayama is clearly the moving of awareness along the spine. You can also expand and shrink awareness. It's one of the reasons that it's possible to expand awareness to seemingly locate it in other people. I spent some time believing I was fallen trees, grass, people and birds ( crazy, crazy stuff ).

 

I'm not stuck anywhere. I'm just an ordinary guy, with an ordinary nervous system and I'm more than happy to leave it that way. I can expand awareness when riding my motorcycle to prevent target fixation and help me relax, then move the visual field of visual focus around to produce a better overall picture of the road ahead. Everyone does it to some extent, but learners can narrow focus and awareness when they feel in danger. Causes them to freeze, target lock and steer into whatever thing they are trying to avoid. That's my laymen experience and not a professional assessment of what's going on. However target lock = crash.

 

 

[Wu Ming Jen]

Seeing the unseen is truly seeing. A philosophy that specializes in what is seen and the other half of being, the UN seen is simply put off, not answered is called absolute fragment philosophy.  The fragment is only looking at one thing at a time not the whole picture. Knowledge means other, out side of self.

 

The original chair is the earth, the first cup is your hands together. so how do we know cup is a cup is a preconceived way of deception. Tools are meant to be used for a specific use and then put down. you can not run around with a hammer of logic and think it can be used to build everything as well. If so it is not efficient.

 

Concepts are a partial picture of reality.

[Wu Ming Jen]

The Greek system would say this is fire and this is wood The Taoist system would say there is fire in wood. Colors in reality are all colors just more themselves then other colors depending on background, lighting, perception and so on the greeks would say this is absolute red and this is absolute black. If you do not agree this color is red you are wrong so we now have right and wrong yet if someone taste a pie and says its sweet and another says it is sour they are both right.

[Wu Ming Jen]

If you blindfold a person and touch them with fire it feels numbing if you touch them with ice it burns. the persons perception is not wrong because fire and water are polar complete realities not absolute of themselves. This is the failure of western philosophy and the down fall of western civilization.

[Karl]

Seeing the unseen is truly seeing. A philosophy that specializes in what is seen and the other half of being, the UN seen is simply put off, not answered is called absolute fragment philosophy.  The fragment is only looking at one thing at a time not the whole picture. Knowledge means other, out side of self.

 

The original chair is the earth, the first cup is your hands together. so how do we know cup is a cup is a preconceived way of deception. Tools are meant to be used for a specific use and then put down. you can not run around with a hammer of logic and think it can be used to build everything as well. If so it is not efficient.

 

Concepts are a partial picture of reality.

 

Logic is just reasoning which sifts out unexplained or erroneous premesis. Concepts are the only way you can hold so much information apparently effortlessly. You can't imagine a light year, but it's possible to hold that concept.

[Karl]

If you blindfold a person and touch them with fire it feels numbing if you touch them with ice it burns. the persons perception is not wrong because fire and water are polar complete realities not absolute of themselves. This is the failure of western philosophy and the down fall of western civilization.

 

You don't just touch, there are five senses for a reason. The major sense is sight-we tend to see memories and recover objects as pictures and not kinaesthetics.

 

The downfall of western civilisation are large governments and state schooling.

[Karl]

The Greek system would say this is fire and this is wood The Taoist system would say there is fire in wood. Colors in reality are all colors just more themselves then other colors depending on background, lighting, perception and so on the greeks would say this is absolute red and this is absolute black. If you do not agree this color is red you are wrong so we now have right and wrong yet if someone taste a pie and says its sweet and another says it is sour they are both right.

 

Again this is incorrect. We agree the definition of a colour and not an 'absolute'. We can use colour temperature and wavelength if we wish to avoid subjectivity. Subjective judgement doesn't stop a pie existing regardless of the flavour it imparts.

[Wu Ming Jen]

You maybe missing the point of polar complete reality. Ultimate reality knowledge is not used. objective and subjective are the same source.  Existence and non existence are the same source it does not matter whether the pie is there or not. There is pie and there is not pie. There is no argument here but you label my words as incorrect, to what is it considered incorrect to?

[Karl]

You maybe missing the point of polar complete reality. Ultimate reality knowledge is not used. objective and subjective are the same source.  Existence and non existence are the same source it does not matter whether the pie is there or not. There is pie and there is not pie. There is no argument here but you label my words as incorrect, to what is it considered incorrect to?

 

Objects exist independent of conscious awareness of them. Existence exists. The object is perceived in conscious awareness and a subjective response is in the same place.

Existence and no existence are not the same. You are making a claim that directly contradicts the method used to make that claim.

 

If there is pie and not pie, then there is argument and not argument. You are invalidating your argument by making that argument.

[Bud Jetsun]

 

There is a branch of modern thinking (which is really old thinking) which posits it is the words themselves that create concretes and not the other way around which is unsound. Secondly, existence exists, a is a this is an axiom.

 

 

 

This is the "logos" warping misunderstanding to choose to trade reality for word-delusion surrogate reality. 

 

"Logos" was the ineffable divine way, divine logic, the way a seed knows how to form a tree, the way a human eats and apple and without our guidance it becomes a human and a cow eats the apple and without the cow teaching it how to make a cow body, the same apple becomes a cow. 

 

The moment "Divine logic" (or any term to express any aspect of the nature of reality) is used, then the "Divine Logic" is lost and hence replaced by whatever humans can think up to define it as when people inquire about what they are defining when they say something like "logos". 

 

Through this path, the nature of reality and/or God became "Logos" logic of man's ability to describe and define (and hence replace in there reality model) what they can't fathom with what they can fathom.   The human constructs then became the surrogate nature of reality/God etc. 

 

This "Logos" mis-translation/mis-perception/perversion experienced a few millennium of unrealized translation as an expression to be synonymous with the human construct "word" to the extent you can commonly find mis-translations proudly declaring "word" to be "God", and hence leading to masses of population thinking saying a word enough times makes them more "holy" or whatever belief/delusion set they are into. 

 

Fortunately, we have effortless access to higher awareness today, and this mis-perception of reality can die with each individual that raises there own awareness. 

 

With Unlimited Love,

-Bud

[Wu Ming Jen]

Welcome to reality.

[Wu Ming Jen]

Objects exist independent of conscious awareness of them. Existence exists. The object is perceived in conscious awareness and a subjective response is in the same place. Existence and no existence are not the same. You are making a claim that directly contradicts the method used to make that claim. If there is pie and not pie, then there is argument and not argument. You are invalidating your argument by making that argument.

Welcome to reality. When existence and nonexistence are the same source.

Edited August 19, 2015 by Wu Ming Jen

[Tibetan_Ice]

 

I believe there are different levels of consciousness and awareness, but I'm not a psychiatrist or neuro scientist so I'm unable to confirm it. There is any need to have an implanted concept that spiders are to be feared. It's natural to be wary of things not previously encountered, particular strange looking creatures which move rapidly and can climb on the body. Once a child decides it doesn't like spiders and associates them as an unpleasant experience then that's how it remains. You can't move awareness around if you are unconscious but there is still a residual degree of awareness present. Enough for something to bring you awake. Fully conscious you can move awareness around easily. Pranayama is clearly the moving of awareness along the spine.  You can also expand and shrink awareness. It's one of the reasons that it's possible to expand awareness to seemingly locate it in other people. I spent some time believing I was fallen trees, grass, people and birds ( crazy, crazy stuff ). I'm not stuck anywhere. I'm just an ordinary guy, with an ordinary nervous system and I'm more than happy to leave it that way. I can expand awareness when riding my motorcycle to prevent target fixation and help me relax, then move the visual field of visual focus around to produce a better overall picture of the road ahead. Everyone does it to some extent, but learners can narrow focus and awareness when they feel in danger. Causes them to freeze, target lock and steer into whatever thing they are trying to avoid. That's my laymen experience and not a professional assessment of what's going on. However target lock = crash.

 

You said "Pranayama is clearly the moving of awareness along the spine".  Unbelievable.. 

 

Eight years at AYP and that is what you've come up with? 

 

The definition of Pranayama is the restraint of prana. There is an integral relationship between mind and the breath (which contains prana). When the mind is active the flow of prana (breathing) speeds up. When the breath is active, the mind is active. When breathing slows, so does the mind. When the mind slows down (calms) the breathing slows down. When the mind stills, the breathing stops. Pranayama is "Controlling the mind by controlling the breathing". 

 

AYP does not teach any form of breath retention with what it calls 'pranayama' as Yogani believes that breath retention causes rebound overloads. But, you've just proven to me that AYP does not teach yoga, but something else. 

 

There is a principle that prana follows attention which is true. If you concentrate on a part of the body, you can affect it by heating it up. So, attention will direct prana. 

 

But, in classic yoga, pranayama is strict breath control with the purpose of controlling the mind. In classic yoga, you would start out with breathing patterns such as a 4-4-4-4 (inhale for 4 seconds, hold for 4 seconds, exhale for 4 and then rest for 4) or the ones which eliminate the pause after the exhale could be 1-4-2, or 2-8-4 etc. There are various patterns. The patterns that Gurudeva (Raja yoga) (and other books on yoga recommend) is the 9-1-9-1 breathing pattern and the 4-4-4-4.

 

In AYP, during spinal breathing, the moving of  the attention up and down the spine while breathing is incidental. It is a beginner's practice to train in the preliminaries. As a matter of fact, I seriously doubt that anyone could manage to dissolve the left and right channels into the central channel by doing that form of spinal breathing.

 

I did not succeed with that method until I started following a strict patterns of 9-1-9-1 breathing and even then I had to extend the periods 'holding of the breath in and out' until my lower navel area kicked in and released an energetic mixture of sorts whereupon I sent the mixture up the central channel. But I had to experiment with kumbhaka (holding the air in) and external kumbhaka (holding the air out) before I got to the point where I could mix the prana and apana and then take it up the central channel (sushumna). 

 

An equivalent (in Buddhism) to this is called 'vase breathing' in tummo. You inhale, you draw up the voiding enegies by gently pulling the lower abdomen and orifices upwards, swallow to mix in the vayu, pressurise the mixture,  release the locks and then take that mixture up the central channel. 

 

They would never teach you something like at AYP, it is far too advanced and requires supervision and some kind of liability disclaimer. So you could spend years sending your attention up and down the spine with little or no effect. 

 

Let me guess, you never did experiment with shutting off your mind with pranayama, did you? 

Sounds like you did not want to risk upsetting your nervous system, by your statements.. 

[Karl]

Welcome to reality. When existence and nonexistence are the same source.

 

They aren't. There is no 'source'. You have been sold a lie by those that wish to keep you disconnected from reality, in order that you will readily accept government and commercial propaganda. It's mind control.

 

Remember the soldiers scrubbing miles of floors with just a toothbrush ? Same thing. Get you to do an idiotic task, over and over again until you will finally do any task you are told to perform.

 

Once you accept a major conflicting proposition as being true, then-just like the Soldier with the toothbrush-you will believe everything else you are told without any resistance on your part.

 

This is how society works. It's designed to produce compliance to authority.

 

China and India were huge empires that had few resources with which to keep the citizens in check. They devised methods around a religious methodology and a caste system which kept men's minds pliable enough for royal commands to be accepted without hesitation.

 

 

 

[Wu Ming Jen]

They aren't. There is no 'source'. You have been sold a lie by those that wish to keep you disconnected from reality, in order that you will readily accept government and commercial propaganda. It's mind control. Remember the soldiers scrubbing miles of floors with just a toothbrush ? Same thing. Get you to do an idiotic task, over and over again until you will finally do any task you are told to perform. Once you accept a major conflicting proposition as being true, then-just like the Soldier with the toothbrush-you will believe everything else you are told without any resistance on your part. This is how society works. It's designed to produce compliance to authority. China and India were huge empires that had few resources with which to keep the citizens in check. They devised methods around a religious methodology and a caste system which kept men's minds pliable enough for royal commands to be accepted without hesitation.

Seriously, No source so no God this  means philosophically you do not agree with your own paradigm. Being free is far from being conditioned which you seem to be talking about. 

[Karl]

You said "Pranayama is clearly the moving of awareness along the spine".  Unbelievable.. 

 

Eight years at AYP and that is what you've come up with? 

 

The definition of Pranayama is the restraint of prana. There is an integral relationship between mind and the breath (which contains prana). When the mind is active the flow of prana (breathing) speeds up. When the breath is active, the mind is active. When breathing slows, so does the mind. When the mind slows down (calms) the breathing slows down. When the mind stills, the breathing stops. Pranayama is "Controlling the mind by controlling the breathing". 

 

AYP does not teach any form of breath retention with what it calls 'pranayama' as Yogani believes that breath retention causes rebound overloads. But, you've just proven to me that AYP does not teach yoga, but something else. 

 

There is a principle that prana follows attention which is true. If you concentrate on a part of the body, you can affect it by heating it up. So, attention will direct prana. 

 

But, in classic yoga, pranayama is strict breath control with the purpose of controlling the mind. In classic yoga, you would start out with breathing patterns such as a 4-4-4-4 (inhale for 4 seconds, hold for 4 seconds, exhale for 4 and then rest for 4) or the ones which eliminate the pause after the exhale could be 1-4-2, or 2-8-4 etc. There are various patterns. The patterns that Gurudeva (Raja yoga) (and other books on yoga recommend) is the 9-1-9-1 breathing pattern and the 4-4-4-4.

 

In AYP, during spinal breathing, the moving of  the attention up and down the spine while breathing is incidental. It is a beginner's practice to train in the preliminaries. As a matter of fact, I seriously doubt that anyone could manage to dissolve the left and right channels into the central channel by doing that form of spinal breathing.

 

I did not succeed with that method until I started following a strict patterns of 9-1-9-1 breathing and even then I had to extend the periods 'holding of the breath in and out' until my lower navel area kicked in and released an energetic mixture of sorts whereupon I sent the mixture up the central channel. But I had to experiment with kumbhaka (holding the air in) and external kumbhaka (holding the air out) before I got to the point where I could mix the prana and apana and then take it up the central channel (sushumna). 

 

An equivalent (in Buddhism) to this is called 'vase breathing' in tummo. You inhale, you draw up the voiding enegies by gently pulling the lower abdomen and orifices upwards, swallow to mix in the vayu, pressurise the mixture,  release the locks and then take that mixture up the central channel. 

 

They would never teach you something like at AYP, it is far too advanced and requires supervision and some kind of liability disclaimer. So you could spend years sending your attention up and down the spine with little or no effect. 

 

Let me guess, you never did experiment with shutting off your mind with pranayama, did you? 

Sounds like you did not want to risk upsetting your nervous system, by your statements.. 

 

For what purpose?

 

Im not going to be shutting off my mind unless I'm sleeping. I want it fully up, on defence and sharp. I'm never going to mistreat it again, no more junk concepts and lazing on a sofa naval gazing for my mind, no siree. :-)

 

[Karl]

Seriously, No source so no God this  means philosophically you do not agree with your own paradigm. Being free is far from being conditioned which you seem to be talking about. 

 

No God, that is correct. The universe has no source, it had no creator and no cause. It has always existed and will always exist.

 

 

[Wu Ming Jen]

Nothing has been created.  This nothing has a direction that is observable in nature uncontrived. 

[Bud Jetsun]

No God, that is correct. The universe has no source, it had no creator and no cause. It has always existed and will always exist.

 

 

Choosing this belief set as opposed to an alternative God-based belief set is equally making a faith based delusion your reality. 

 

Realize why you can't know anything, and why there is nothing to know.  This realization offers liberation from delusion of human-knowledge of reality being reality.

 

Many have already accepted the eyes generate an illusion derived from some perceptions of some reflected mystery consciousness-deterministic mystery called light.  Why then do we take the 99.999999% emptyness with some unknown constructive/deconstructive energy pattern we perceive as "solid matter" to be something through human perception induced arrogance we assume to know so well.  If you want to be logic and direct observation driven, QM  in the clever interferometry experiments "solid matter" is undefined and unarisen prior to consciousness' participation/perception, as well as showing evidence of universal entanglement to the limits of a humans ability to test for it. Just realization of the double-slit working with light from distant galaxies focused through a telescope being indeterminate until a conciousness makes a choice of how to give rise to it, then it defines the path it took some number of billions of years ago. 

 

It doesn't require watching someone part the sea or walk on water to realize the humans concept of reality is built around a series of perception limited delusions.  To jump to the conclusion of "knowing" is merely an alternative label to the same jump in delusion being made for any belief set, whether it be God/faith based or word/faith based or atheist/faith based, equally they are all products of human delusion to replace realization of Wisdom (not knowing). 

 

With Unlimited Love,

-Bud

[Wu Ming Jen]

Realize why you can't know anything, and why there is nothing to know.  This realization offers liberation from delusion of human-knowledge of reality being reality.

 

 

 

With Unlimited Love,

-Bud

Very well put.

 

We come from the unknown, return to the unknown, there is nothing to be known. People who fear the unknown  just forgot where they came from. 

[ChiForce]

Welcome to reality. When existence and nonexistence are the same source.

Correct...just because your mind isn't responsible for one existence, it does not mean the other existence isn't the product of the mind, of another mind.  For an example, a pen is not a pen until someone decides to make a pen.  Sure, you didn't manufacturer a pen but it does not mean the pen is real and to exist independent of a conscious mind.  Maybe not your mind.  Karl.......hahahahahahahahahaa....the kid would never learn....     

[ChiForce]

Yawn, the Big Bang Theory????  Enough of this logic BS.  Let's get into the science of it....the birth of the universe.

 

 

http://www.big-bang-theory.com/

[Tibetan_Ice]

For what purpose? Im not going to be shutting off my mind unless I'm sleeping. I want it fully up, on defence and sharp. I'm never going to mistreat it again, no more junk concepts and lazing on a sofa naval gazing for my mind, no siree. :-)

What purpose? For the realization of emptiness.

 

From the Nang Jang:

http://www.amazon.com/Buddhahood-Without-Meditation-Visionary-Refining/dp/1881847330

 

 

 

The guru replied, "At no time throughout the beginningless succession of lifetimes has there ever been actual birth. There has been only the appearance of birth. There has never been actual death, only the transformation of sensory appearances, like the shift from the dream state to the waking state. All sensations--seen, heard, smelled, tasted, and felt as forms, sounds, odors, tastes, and tactile sensations by the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and skin-are merely the mind being conscious of its own projections (rang-nang), without their ever having even a hair's tip of existence as something else.

 

"You may think that something other than this does exist in its own right (rang-gyud), since you can see it directly with your eyes, actually hold it in your hand, or experience it through your other senses. But in fact, although all the forms, sounds, odors, tastes, and tactile sensations in dreams seem to truly exist in their respective contexts, from the point of view of waking experience they have never existed, being nonexistent as objects (yul-med).

 

Edited August 20, 2015 by Tibetan_Ice