Seeing, Recognising & Maintaining One's Enlightening Potential - Split

[Tibetan_Ice]

Again, as stated in my original post, dedicated mediators percieve separate states (of mind) and hence are often unaware of the subconscious components which are the ego aspects themselves that cause the perceived belief that there are different states between meditation and normal daily life in the first place.

 

The "belief" that one is meditating itself is a sign of the ego in place.

Gee, Jeff. You really should practice more, particularly the meditation of watching the mind. Maybe then you would realize that the trained meditator eventually passes into and through the subconscious where thousands of thoughts are continually forming, rising and dissolving.

You would see how you "know" a complete thought before your inner dialog even starts to recite it.

 

Further, there are ten levels of consciousness, each level having a finer and more subtle aspect. The level of consciousness which harbors the "I" is not even the highest most refined level of consciousness. The ego is a conceptual construct which falls away when the lower levels of consciousness fall away. When in pure rigpa, there is no more ego because there is no more consciousnesses to construct it.

 

Dedicated meditators are aware of the subconscious and those whom realize pure rigpa or pristine awareness are also aware of the super sub conscious, the super consciousness and beyond. They are also aware that there is no more ego in that state (or non state). Pristine Awareness has no ego, no karma and is beyond space and time.

 

If you became a dedicated meditator you would not post such ridiculous statements and then try to defend them by resorting to your misunderstanding of conceptual emptiness.

[C T]

Since you don't seem to like my way of describing it, maybe consider these words on the point of focusing on just the base as empty...

 

"the pratyekabuddhas dwell in the state of fixating on the empty mind-essence instead of understanding the correct meaning. Tsogyal, as long as you are not free from the beliefs of the lower philosophical schools you will not perceive the true meaning. The danger of conceptualizing the self of phenomena is that by such assertion and fixation you will give rise to disturbing emotions. These will cause you to wander in samsara. That is pointless effort even if you were to exert yourself for aeons. What type of person denounces the self of phenomena? In general all Mahayana followers denounce it. In particular, it would be a bad sign if we who have entered the gate of Secret Mantra fixate on partiality, as the followers of the Middle Way also denounce it."

 

- Dakini Teachings: Padmasambhava’s Oral Instructions to Lady Tsogyal.

 

The "disturbing emotions" that you give rise to are all that subconscious stuff.

 

This reminder from Guru Padma is meant for you to contemplate because your views are clearly a fixation thru asserting the realness of disturbing emotions which is exactly that which cause endless samsaric wanderings. 

 

My point is that ego that gives rise to disturbing emotions is unreal, a story we make up for whatever partialness of attitudes we cling to, but appears like real to those who adopt your line of reasoning and logic. 

 

Recognising that all is mind, and that mind is empty yet cognizant is the path and the fruit. There is no linearity to this approach. All the teachings and practices contained within the great vehicle is to drive this point home until all doubts about this dissolve. 

 

In the Vajrayana schools the masters who give public teachings dont even pay heed to ego. In Tibet there is no direct translation for 'ego' - what the Tibetans have which is closest to the meaning is Dakdzin, which literally means 'clinging to a self'. This, it is said, gives rise to samsaric existence, or existence marred by duality. To end samsaric existence, practice the Dharma in such a way whereby this clinging is gradually weakened until such time it no longer has any feeding ground, and then it will shrivel and vanish like it never existed before. 

 

Those who insist on the realness of things like infinite layers of ever-deepening subconsciousness with the ego bubbling away hidden in the recesses of that are simply arguing for the arising of endless frustration because there will never be an end should one persist on taking the route of uncovering these layers as a means to freedom. Its like dreaming that you are searching for treasure within a dream. 

 

 

 

"Just as the ocean has waves, and the sun has rays, so the mind’s own radiance is its thoughts and emotions. The ocean has waves, yet the ocean is not particularly disturbed by them. The waves are the very nature of the ocean. Waves will rise, but where do they go? Back into the ocean. And where do the waves come from? The ocean.

 

In the same manner, thoughts and emotions are the radiance and expression of the very nature of the mind. They rise from the mind, but where do they dissolve? Back into the mind. Whatever rises, do not see it as a particular problem. If you do not impulsively react, if you are only patient, it will once again settle into its essential nature.

 

When you have this understanding, then rising thoughts only enhance your practice. But when you do not understand what they intrinsically are—the radiance of the nature of your mind—then your thoughts become the seed of confusion. So have a spacious, open, and compassionate attitude toward your thoughts and emotions, because in fact your thoughts are your family, the family of your mind. Before these arisings of thoughts and emotions, as Dudjom Rinpoche used to say: “Be like an old wise man, watching children at play.”  ~ Sogyal Rinpoche 'Thoughts & Emotions '

[manitou]

From Bulletin 32, 1977

 

 

KRISHNAMURTI:  So what are you asking now?  Are you asking how to break through the dull grey monotony of life to some quite different dimension?

 

Questioner:  Yes.  Real beauty must be something other than the beauty of the poet, the artist, the young, alert mind, though I am not in any way belittling that beauty.

 

KRISHNAMURTI:  "Is this really what you are seeking?  Is it really what you want?  If you do, there must be the total revolution of your being.  Is this what you want?  Do you want a revolution that shatters all your concepts, your values, your morality, your respectability, your knowledge -- shatters you so that you are reduced to absolute nothingness, so that you no longer have any character, so that you no longer are the seeker, the man who judges, who is aggressive or perhaps non-aggressive, so that you are completely empty of everything that is you?  This emptiness is beauty with its extreme austerity in which there is not a spark of harshness or aggressive assertion.  This is what breaking through means, and is this what you are after?  

 

There must be an astonishing intelligence, not information or learning. This intelligence operates all the time, whether you are asleep or awake.  That is why we said there must be the observation of the outer and the inner which sharpens the brain.  And this very sharpness of the brain makes it quiet.  And it is this sensitivity and intelligence that make thought operate only when it has to;  the rest of the time the brain is not dormant but watchfully quiet.  And so the brain with its reactions doesn't bring about conflict.  It functions without struggle and therefore without distortion.  Then the doing and the acting are immediate, as when you see danger.  Therefore there is always a freedom from conceptual accumulations.  It is this conceptual accumulation which is the observer, the ego, the 'me' which divides, resists and builds barriers.  When the 'me' is not, the break-through is not, then there is no breakthrough; then the whole of life is in the beauty of living, the beauty of relationship, without substituting one image for another.  Then only the infinitely greater is possible."

Edited July 17, 2016 by manitou

[Jeff]

Gee, Jeff. You really should practice more, particularly the meditation of watching the mind. Maybe then you would realize that the trained meditator eventually passes into and through the subconscious where thousands of thoughts are continually forming, rising and dissolving.

You would see how you "know" a complete thought before your inner dialog even starts to recite it.

Further, there are ten levels of consciousness, each level having a finer and more subtle aspect. The level of consciousness which harbors the "I" is not even the highest most refined level of consciousness. The ego is a conceptual construct which falls away when the lower levels of consciousness fall away. When in pure rigpa, there is no more ego because there is no more consciousnesses to construct it. Dedicated meditators are aware of the subconscious and those whom realize pure rigpa or pristine awareness are also aware of the super sub conscious, the super consciousness and beyond. They are also aware that there is no more ego in that state (or non state). Pristine Awareness has no ego, no karma and is beyond space and time.

If you became a dedicated meditator you would not post such ridiculous statements and then try to defend them by resorting to your misunderstanding of conceptual emptiness.

Hi TI,

 

I would agree that you are one of the most experienced meditators that I have met, and would seem to personally fit very well with CT's definition of an experienced meditator that we have been discussing. If you don't mind, how many hours a week do you meditate, and for how many years? Also, would you say that you have accomplished what you stated above "Dedicated meditators are aware of the subconscious and those whom realize pure rigpa or pristine awareness are also aware of the super sub conscious, the super consciousness and beyond."?

 

Thanks,

Jeff

[blue eyed snake]

 

"Just as the ocean has waves, and the sun has rays, so the mind’s own radiance is its thoughts and emotions. The ocean has waves, yet the ocean is not particularly disturbed by them. The waves are the very nature of the ocean. Waves will rise, but where do they go? Back into the ocean. And where do the waves come from? The ocean.

 

In the same manner, thoughts and emotions are the radiance and expression of the very nature of the mind. They rise from the mind, but where do they dissolve? Back into the mind. Whatever rises, do not see it as a particular problem. If you do not impulsively react, if you are only patient, it will once again settle into its essential nature.

 

When you have this understanding, then rising thoughts only enhance your practice. But when you do not understand what they intrinsically are—the radiance of the nature of your mind—then your thoughts become the seed of confusion. So have a spacious, open, and compassionate attitude toward your thoughts and emotions, because in fact your thoughts are your family, the family of your mind. Before these arisings of thoughts and emotions, as Dudjom Rinpoche used to say: “Be like an old wise man, watching children at play.”  ~ Sogyal Rinpoche 'Thoughts & Emotions '

 

wow, this is good

[Jeff]

This reminder from Guru Padma is meant for you to contemplate because your views are clearly a fixation thru asserting the realness of disturbing emotions which is exactly that which cause endless samsaric wanderings. 

 

My point is that ego that gives rise to disturbing emotions is unreal, a story we make up for whatever partialness of attitudes we cling to, but appears like real to those who adopt your line of reasoning and logic. 

 ...

 

 

Sometimes I wonder if you even read my posts. I, in no way, have been asserting the realness of disturbing emotions. In particular, if you read my earlier responses to you, one will see that I even describe the underlying energy "behind" the emotions.

 

The ego is basically stored energy structures (obstructions) that lead to automated responses. Our actual difference of opinion seems to be more that I am stating that most of these automated response energy structures are beyond conscious awareness, so just having things mentally quiet, does not mean you are "done".

 

Best,

Jeff

[C T]

Sometimes I wonder if you even read my posts. I, in no way, have been asserting the realness of disturbing emotions. In particular, if you read my earlier responses to you, one will see that I even describe the underlying energy "behind" the emotions.

 

The ego is basically stored energy structures (obstructions) that lead to automated responses. Our actual difference of opinion seems to be more that I am stating that most of these automated response energy structures are beyond conscious awareness, so just having things mentally quiet, does not mean you are "done".

 

Best,

Jeff

I dont see that you have much understanding of mine either, Jeff. 

[Tibetan_Ice]

Emptiness does not mean that it does not relatively exist, it does not mean that something is an illusion, it means that it is dependently originated and therefore does not have any inherent existence. The illusory part is that we take all objects to be something other than ourselves and introduce separation.

 

If you buy into Alan Wallace's idea that each one of us is creating our own universe and that the universes we create are quantumly entangled, it starts to make sense. The hardest karma to overcome is the fact that we think we are human, when it may be the case that we are the source of our universe.

 

 

 

Anyway, here is a quote from "The Heart of Meditation", an excellent book by the Dalai Lama, which sheds some light on emptiness and the self, the "I" (ego is a modern term invented by psychologists).

 

https://www.amazon.com/Heart-Meditation-Discovering-Innermost-Awareness/dp/1559394536

 

Knowledge

 

The Purpose of Concentration

 

WHAT IS THE purpose in achieving such concentrated attention?

 

It is not just for the sake of gaining a mind of higher levels of concentration by temporarily suppressing manifest coarse afflictive emotions. Rather, the purpose of meditative stabilization is to serve as a basis for achieving supramundane special insight realizing selflessness, the emptiness of inherent existence, through which afflictive emotions can be removed completely and forever.

 

The reason for cultivating the wisdom realizing the emptiness of inherent existence is that even if you have mere concentration, it cannot harm the misconception that objects exist in and of themselves. A union of concentration and wisdom is needed.

 

To generate the wisdom realizing selflessness in your mental continuum, it is necessary to realize the meaning of emptiness. Whereas meditating on faith means that faith is cultivated in the sense of causing the mind to become faithful, to be generated into an entity of faith, meditating on selflessness means that selflessness, emptiness, is taken as an object of meditation, as the object of your mind. To do that, it is necessary to know what selflessness, emptiness, is.

 

As is clear in Nagarjuna’s Fundamental Treatise on the Middle, phenomena are not said to be empty because of being nonexistent or unable to perform functions. Rather, all phenomena are empty because of being dependent; they are what we call in Buddhist philosophy dependent-arisings. Nagarjuna did not give as the reason why phenomena are empty that they are unable to be effective but, instead, that they are dependent-arisings. From this, it can be understood that the meaning of emptiness is the meaning of dependent-arising.

 

Since things are dependently established, there is nothing that is established independently. Dependent and independent are explicitly mutually exclusive, a dichotomy; thus, once things are dependently established, they are definitely not independent. Independence, non-dependence on others—that is, establishment under the object’s own power—is called “self” in Buddhism ; because it does not exist, we speak of selflessness.

 

According to the highest school of Buddhist philosophy, which embodies Nagarjuna’s thought exactly as it is, there are two types of selflessness: selflessness of persons and selflessness of other phenomena. These are divided only by way of the substrata—persons and other phenomena—that are without self, independent existence, and not by way of a difference in the emptiness of these two. Both persons and other phenomena lack independent existence, which is to say, they lack existing in their own right, from their own side without depending on other factors such as causes and conditions or their own constituents.

 

To ascertain the meaning of selflessness, in general you must engage in analytical meditation, reflectively analyzing with reasoning. This is why Nagarjuna’s Fundamental Treatise on the Middle presents many reasonings, all for the sake of proving from many viewpoints that all phenomena are empty of being established under their own power, empty of inherent existence, and utilizing these reasonings in meditation.

 

The Questions of Kashyapa Chapter in the Pile of Jewels Sutra says that forms are not empty because of emptiness, forms themselves are empty. Therefore, emptiness does not mean that a phenomenon is empty of being some other object but means that it itself is empty of its own inherent existence, a type of exaggerated existence that we add on top of how phenomena actually exist. Thus, objects are empty of this exaggerated status, this overblown reification that we lend to phenomena.

 

Begin with Yourself

 

Since it is the individual person who undergoes pleasure and pain, makes trouble, and accumulates karma—all the noise and the mess being made by the self—analysis should begin with yourself. Then, when you understand that you yourself are without this overblown status, you can extend this realization to the things that you enjoy, undergo, and make use of. In this sense, the person is the principal subject of analysis.

 

Can you remember a time when you did something awful and your mind thought, “I really made a mess of things”? At that moment, your sense of “I” appears to have its own concrete entity, which is neither mind nor body but something that appears much more strongly, does it not?

 

Or, remember a time when you did something wonderful or something really nice happened to you, and you took great pride in it. This “I” that was so valued, so cherished, so liked, and was the object of such self-importance was so concretely and vividly clear.

 

At such times, your sense of “I” is particularly obvious. Once you catch hold of such a blatant manifestation of “I,” you can cause this strong sense of “I” to appear to your mind, and without letting the way it seems diminish in strength, you can examine, as if from a corner, whether it actually exists in the solid way it appears.

 

Even in sense perception, phenomena falsely appear to be solid and concrete due to faults in our minds, and because of this false appearance, we are automatically drawn into conceiving that phenomena exist from their own side, in their own right, much like assenting to false appearances in dreams. An unfounded appearance is taken to be true, and then we add many other attributes through improper, counterproductive thinking, creating a mess of afflictive emotions.

 

Up till now, self-cherishing and its partner, ignorance, have taken up residence in the center of your heart. Despite drawing you into all sorts of actions in an attempt to bring you happiness, these attitudes have created many problems. You need to view self-centeredness as faulty from the depths of your being. Now it is time to leave self-cherishing behind and take up cherishing others, to leave ignorance behind and take up the wisdom that realizes selflessness.

 

 

And Jeff, if as you've stated that ego and its energies are beyond consciousness awareness, how could the Dalai Lama say that you can separate yourself from the "I" and then observe it? Edited July 17, 2016 by Tibetan_Ice

[Jeff]

...

And Jeff, if as you've stated that ego and its energies are beyond consciousness awareness, how could the Dalai Lama say that you can separate yourself from the "I" and then observe it?

TI,

 

You may also want to look again at what I actually posted. I did not say that all of the ego and its energies are beyond conscious awareness. I even specifically used the iceberg analogy in describing it. One can see the tip of the iceberg, and observe the tip all you want. But that does not mean that one is aware and unaffected by the stuff that resides under water (below conscious awareness).

 

Best,

Jeff

[Tibetan_Ice]

Hi TI,

 

I would agree that you are one of the most experienced meditators that I have met, and would seem to personally fit very well with CT's definition of an experienced meditator that we have been discussing. If you don't mind, how many hours a week do you meditate, and for how many years? Also, would you say that you have accomplished what you stated above "Dedicated meditators are aware of the subconscious and those whom realize pure rigpa or pristine awareness are also aware of the super sub conscious, the super consciousness and beyond."?

 

Thanks,

Jeff

http://www.thedaobums.com/topic/30012-a-path-to-enlightenment

 

http://www.thedaobums.com/topic/30012-a-path-to-enlightenment/?p=450183

[Tibetan_Ice]

TI,

You may also want to look again at what I actually posted. I did not say that all of the ego and its energies are beyond conscious awareness. I even specifically used the iceberg analogy in describing it. One can see the tip of the iceberg, and observe the tip all you want. But that does not mean that one is aware and unaffected by the stuff that resides under water (below conscious awareness).

Best,

Jeff

For a dedicated meditator there is nothing that is "below conscious awareness". Actually, even using the term "conscious awareness" is an oxymoron because it implies that there is also an "unconscious awareness" and you aren't talking about rigpa here.

 

One of the purposes of meditation is to not be affected by subconscious energies, and to make the subconscious conscious.

 

Again I have the feeling that you are just wasting my time.

[Tibetan_Ice]

Manitou, Krishnamurti does not belong in any Buddhist thread as he is a sad example of anything, even doesn't do advaita justice.

I would suggest you research his personal history before you start taking him as an authority on anything.

 

IN MY OPINION..

Edited July 17, 2016 by Tibetan_Ice

[manitou]

sorry, TI - didn't realize that the path to enlightenment was merely Buddhist.  If you consider Krishnamurti a broken clock, he is right twice a day.

 

It seems to me that the most important thing that has come out of all this is the last sentence of what the Dalai Lama had to say:

 

"Now it is time to leave self-cherishing behind and take up cherishing others, to leave ignorance behind and take up the wisdom that realizes selflessness."

 

We must discover our uselessness to find our usefulness.  Maybe that's the end result of all this.  

[Bindi]

Emptiness does not mean that it does not relatively exist, it does not mean that something is an illusion, it means that it is dependently originated and therefore does not have any inherent existence. The illusory part is that we take all objects to be something other than ourselves and introduce separation.

 

If you buy into Alan Wallace's idea that each one of us is creating our own universe and that the universes we create are quantumly entangled, it starts to make sense. The hardest karma to overcome is the fact that we think we are human, when it may be the case that we are the source of our universe.

 

 

 

Anyway, here is a quote from "The Heart of Meditation", an excellent book by the Dalai Lama, which sheds some light on emptiness and the self, the "I" (ego is a modern term invented by psychologists).

 

https://www.amazon.com/Heart-Meditation-Discovering-Innermost-Awareness/dp/1559394536

 

And Jeff, if as you've stated that ego and its energies are beyond consciousness awareness, how could the Dalai Lama say that you can separate yourself from the "I" and then observe it?

 

The Dalai Lama's quote is very interesting, engaging in "analytical meditation, reflectively analyzing with reasoning" would be an interesting state to define further, is this discernment level normal in meditation? I love the quote anyway, so precisely my interest at the moment, thanks for sharing it T_I   

[manitou]

 

 

The sutras say, "A tathagata's forms are endless. And so is his awareness." The endless variety of forms is due to the mind. Its ability to distinguish things, whatever their movement or state, is the mind's awareness. But the mind has no form and its awareness no limit. Hence it's said, "A tathagata's form is endless. And so is his awareness."

 

 

~ Bodhidharma ~ 

 

 

 

 

All I can speak to is where I am this morning, in this mind I cannot escape from.  I do not speak for the Ultimate in Truth or the one-upmanship that we can sometimes get into, even on this beautiful thread.  And it is a beautiful thread.

 

I speak to those who happen to be in the same place, relatively, as I am on my path.  To people with the same general degree of awareness - not as much as I am capable of, but more than the illusion of Yesterday.  All I can see, is that we are capable of being Buddhas or Fools at any given moment.  To the degree that we cling to this illusion of separation, the illusion that we are anything other than various aspects of the One Mind - we are a Fool.  To those of us who perhaps had similar conditionings and have meditated thusly, there will be a click of recognition when we speak to each other.  We are the One Mind speaking to itself through a million mouths.

 

There is no before or after on this path, no upward or downwards.  It is only clinging to ego that separates us.  Each of us here is worthy of Love, the same Love that we are capable of giving ourselves.   And there's the rub.

[Tibetan_Ice]

Barbara, there is not One Mind otherwise we all would have become enlightened when Buddha did.

 

There is no 'Oneness' in Buddhism.

Edited July 18, 2016 by Tibetan_Ice

[manitou]

Barbara, there is not One Mind otherwise we all would have become enlightened when Buddha did.

 

There is no 'Oneness' in Buddhism.

 

 

Perhaps there is Oneness in enlightenment.

[doc benway]

There certainly is a fundamental Oneness in the Bönpo tradition referred to as thiglé nyag cig. 

It isn't one exactly, more like non dual. 

It literally means something like single sphere and refers to the absence of edges, boundaries, or divisions; the non dual nature.

It's an important concept in Bön Dzogchen.

It refers to a distinct, direct experience which is what manitou is pointing at with her choice of words.

 

Namaste

[manitou]

It is a distinct, direct experience - and that's all I can speak to.  It is the knowing (gnowing) of the one consciousness shared by all life.  It's an experience that repeats itself when we are able to take ourselves out of the way.  That's all I know about it.  Maybe that's all we need to know about it.  It is found through subtraction, not addition.  It is where the intuitive answers abide.

[Bud Jetsun]

The definitive marker of dualistic thought is the absence of Oneness. This is because "two-ness" of a concept of "separate from this" can inherently not exist in the non-dual.

 

When one has an illusion of non-Oneness, this is an aspect of Oneness perceived by human perception limitations to appear as something separate that is not.

 

The "10,000 things" arise from the Oneness of the nature of reality.

 

Buddha correctly (to the limits of current physics apparatus capacity to measure at least) declared the nature of ultimate reality is emptiness. From this One emptiness, the phenomenal illusionary realm of infinitely entangled cycling energy manifestation arises.

 

Even through only a logical view, one can inherently only "know" of the world what One "knows" of the world, creating a situation where it's inherently Oneness to the limits of a humans ability to "know" the summation of all aspects they label "reality".

 

However, none of this inherently relative to each minds interpretation arrangement of letters can be more than the reflection of the moon at best and does not encompass the nature of the moon.

 

When humans choose to squabble over various choices in always wrong relative nomenclature choices, the meaning of whatever words has already lost value and is destructive and parasitic to ones journey towards the real and constructive towards creating delusionary models to cling upon and replace that which is of the Real.

 

Unlimited Love,

-Bud

Edited July 20, 2016 by Bud Jetsun

[dawei]

If the talk of Oneness is side-tracking the thread or simply too off-topic for the Buddhist area, let me know which posts to move to a new area as I think the posts are worth continuing that line of thought.

[Tibetan_Ice]

There certainly is a fundamental Oneness in the Bönpo tradition referred to as thiglé nyag cig.

It isn't one exactly, more like non dual.

It literally means something like single sphere and refers to the absence of edges, boundaries, or divisions; the non dual nature.

It's an important concept in Bön Dzogchen.

It refers to a distinct, direct experience which is what manitou is pointing at with her choice of words.

 

Namaste

That is quite a leap there Steve..

 

The mind is not just 'oneness' or a singular entity because it manifests in manifold ways. It is not a plurality or many things, either, because these numerous manifestations all have one essence. No one can describe its nature saying, "It is exactly like this!" It is indescribable, unutterable, inconceivable, nonarising, unceasing, and nondwelling, like the essence of space. Mind nature is discovered within the experience of awareness and is cognized individually.

- Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche, "Union of Mahamudra and Dzogchen"

 

From Tenzin Namdak's Bonpo Dzogchen Teachings:

 

But the Natural State is individual with each sentient being. We are not all "One Mind." Otherwise, if there was only one single Natural State, or One Mind, then when the Buddha attained enlightenment, all sentient beings would have become enlightened. But that is not our experience.

...

 

Thigley Nyagchik (thig-le nyag-gcig) has been translated as unique essence, single point, unique sphere, and so on, with reference to the non-dual totality of being. But this does not mean that Dzogchen is positing the existence of a single substance out of which all forms are fabricated, like a series of pots all made of clay. Nor is it postulating a single ocean of being into which all individual selves, like so many raindrops, fall and dissolve upon their liberation from the cycle of rebirth. Nor is it postulating a great "One Mind" in which all partial minds participate. As the Lopon pointed out, if there existed only One Mind, then when the historical Buddha attained enlightenment, all sentient beings would have become enlightened. Or again, if Kuntu Zangpo is primordially enlightened as the One Mind, then diversity would have never come into appearance. Nevertheless, this reflects the perennial problem of the one and the many, and how the latter can be derived from the former. The Thigley Nyagchik transcends this dichotomy in the view of Dzogchen. On this problem in relation to universality and indi- viduality in terms of Buddha enlightenment, see the Appendix in Reynolds, Self-Liberation (1998).

Edited July 20, 2016 by Tibetan_Ice

[C T]

When someone points to oneness there are probably countless ways in which they derived their view. 

 

It is something difficult to fathom, therefore we can learn to listen and appreciate so that we will not make the mistake of misapprehending their view and therefore cause a missed opportunity to realise that perhaps fundamentally there is alignment and harmony, although such could simply be expressed, due to individual experiences, by different words. 

 

 

 

 

late edit.

 

Thinking about it a bit more, its my feeling that Manitou might be pointing to the interconnectedness of all things. 

Edited July 20, 2016 by C T

[manitou]

But the Natural State is individual with each sentient being. We are not all "One Mind." Otherwise, if there was only one single Natural State, or One Mind, then when the Buddha attained enlightenment, all sentient beings would have become enlightened. But that is not our experience.

...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 I wasn't talking about a single substance - I was talking about a single state (of mind).  The oneness of character, our Original Nature, that we are all capable of discovering.  It is our basis, the oneness of thought.  that one space in which we manifest ourselves through thought.

 

When you refer to all people becoming enlightened when Buddha did, you are speaking as though time is really linear.  It's all here now, at the present.  In essence, Buddha is here now, becoming enlightened at this moment - not in dualistic history.  It is a matrix of space and time, hereness and nowness.

 

Separating Buddhist thought from all other thought is dualistic.  Others are viable as well - they get us to the void of nothingness if pursued in deeply enough.  Which is what I call the oneness, the sameness.  We all possess it and it is that state that yearns for uncovering and expression.  Even if one feels that 'Buddhism is the only viable way, the only way to Truth', this very thought is a negation of the truth as I see it - it is the product of a touch of exclusivity that has a whiff of religious arrogance.

 

At the core of enlightenment (which is what I thought this thread was about, or at least the name would seem so, albeit in the Buddhist section) is self-discovery, self-revelation, self-realization.  If a Buddhist doesn't recognize this, then perhaps it's time for a Buddhist to transcend their system, their belief structure.  Because enlightenment is manifested freedom of thought, not structured thought.

 

Perhaps we've outgrown the Buddhist section on this thread.  Even the very last words of that which T.I. quoted in the Appendix of Reynolds is 'Self liberation'.  That is liberation from structure.

 

I apologize to anyone, including CT, for throwing this thread out of alignment, if that's what I've done.  I don't want to stray from the correct structure, if indeed there is one. 

[manitou]

 

Thinking about it a bit more, its my feeling that Manitou might be pointing to the interconnectedness of all things. 

 

 

Even later edit - yes, that is exactly what I am pointing to.  I think the problem has been semantics.  sorry.