The absurd Truth, hiding in plain sight...

[wandelaar]

3 minutes ago, Marblehead said:

Are you really sure you want to ask that question?

 

It's rhetorical. Some Zen masters were less considerate.

 

I hope people considering matter to be just an irrelevant illusion will then realize how far they have drifted from reality as it actually is.

 

[dwai]

38 minutes ago, Marblehead said:

Actually, I am more in agreement with the article than I am opposed to what it suggests.

38 minutes ago, Marblehead said:

My biggest opposition is and still is the source or awareness.  Awareness is a biological function requiring a functioning brain or perhaps also a computer with sensing input.  Awareness does not lie outside us.  It is within us.

This is found to be based on an incorrect assumption that your consciousness/awareness rises out of your body. It is the other way round actually -- your body appears in your awareness. The problem is the we have been brought up to believe that body comes first and then comes awareness, that it takes a lot of effort to see beyond that. 

38 minutes ago, Marblehead said:

Suffering comes from many sources.  Yes, we will suffer if we resist change that is required.  But then, some changes I will not make and I don't suffer because of it.  Oftentimes I am more at peace than I would have been had I changed with the external changes.

It is really a matter of how we view these "changes". Usually we are resistant to changes that inflict pain or take away pleasure. There is resistance usually only when our attachments (or aversions) are challenged. 

38 minutes ago, Marblehead said:

Resistance to change is something to be proud of if the changes would not have been in our best interest.  Aren't free will and choices great?

 

[dwai]

56 minutes ago, wandelaar said:

How could a blow to the head cause one to lose consciousness when consciousness is the basic stuff of the universe and matter (including human bodies) are just illusory appearances?

 

(Don't try this at home!)

Consciousness that you refer to, is consciousness with objects. That is just the mind. Sure, the mind can stop functioning. That doesn't mean awareness is absent. For instance, people often challenge the non-dualist idea of awareness being the basis, in the form of - "well...you say awareness is all there is, but where is your awareness in deep sleep?"

 

This is similar to your statement. 

The answer is - There is no absence of awareness in deep sleep, or when one is "unconscious". There is rather, awareness of absence. 

 

It is perfectly normal to be aware during deep sleep. I know a few folks here, myself included who are totally aware in deep sleep. There is no mind, but there is awareness. 

 

[johndoe2012]

.
 

Edited June 10, 2018 by johndoe2012

[Bud Jetsun]

20 hours ago, Bindi said:

Coming from a channels and energy point of view, how can we already be liberated if the channels haven't been cleared and traversed properly? Yoga schools understand ida and pingala have to be cleared, and then the central channel, how can this sort of immediate realisation be possible if the energy journey hasn't been completed? A mental attitude isn't realisation. From an alchemical Daoist perspective an immortal spirit is realisation. An immortal spirit isn't realised just by a notion. 

 

What aspects of an immortal spirit could be created by human action/choices? 

Which aspects of an immortal spirit could be created or destroyed? 

What if the greatest blockage is belief in great blocks?  

 

If this one moment isn't appreciated in Now, the meat sack still dies choking on a web of it's personal flavor of choice in delusions never having appreciated that which is of the Dao.   Immortal spirit remains in unbreakable equanimity even if a being chooses to replace awareness of it with human constructed labels for expressing confusions of what may be. 

 

Waiting for Now to be something other than Now to be appreciated is suicide while the body still functions.  The Dao remains perfect, immortal spirit remains perfect, the option for a being to appreciate them as they are remains unlimited. 

 

Unlimited Love,

-Bud

[Stosh]

4 hours ago, wandelaar said:

How could a blow to the head cause one to lose consciousness when consciousness is the basic stuff of the universe and matter (including human bodies) are just illusory appearances?

 

(Don't try this at home!)

A molecule of Iron had magnetic dipole properties which are apparent when they are organized as a magnet , Heat the iron magnet , disorganization happens , overall magnet properties go away. Reapply organization , and the property reappears. (And if this is an accurate analogy it would appear that awareness could be intentionally built into forms.) 

[Stosh]

4 hours ago, wandelaar said:

How could a blow to the head cause one to lose consciousness when consciousness is the basic stuff of the universe and matter (including human bodies) are just illusory appearances?

 

(Don't try this at home!)

A molecule of Iron had magnetic dipole properties which are apparent when they are organized as a magnet , Heat the iron magnet , disorganization happens , overall magnet properties go away. Reapply organization , and the property reappears. (And if this is an accurate analogy it would appear that awareness could be intentionally built into forms.) 

See , it self replicating too  

Edited May 2, 2018 by Stosh

[Marblehead]

3 hours ago, dwai said:

This is found to be based on an incorrect assumption that your consciousness/awareness rises out of your body. It is the other way round actually -- your body appears in your awareness. The problem is the we have been brought up to believe that body comes first and then comes awareness, that it takes a lot of effort to see beyond that. 

We will never agree based on our individual understandings.  I had no awareness before I was born.  Maybe you did, I don't know but I really, really, really doubt it.

 

3 hours ago, dwai said:

It is really a matter of how we view these "changes". Usually we are resistant to changes that inflict pain or take away pleasure. There is resistance usually only when our attachments (or aversions) are challenged. 

I doubt we have any significant differences here.  Yes, attachments slow us down more often than not.  But still, most of us have some.

 

[Marblehead]

3 hours ago, johndoe2012 said:

 

Those are beliefs.

I think you have to see it yourself to change your opinion. 

 

from http://theopensecret.com/storyofme.html

 

 

Well, I loved the last sentence of the article.  So I'm not in total disagreement.

 

Beliefs?  I have no beliefs.  What I said was based on the most recent scientific data that I am aware of.

 

Yes, I am a "show and tell" kind of guy.  Don't just tell me.  I want to see it.  

 

Remember the "Ten Thousand Things"?  Yes, that's Taoism.  I am one of the ten as is the tree.  But I am not the tree and the tree is not me.  We are separate aspects of One.

 

 

[Bud Jetsun]

Respectfully sir, the choice to believe science is merely a common flavor of religion in which every theory without exception has later been shown to be mistaken human confusion. 

 

The scientific method applied toward science itself reveals each hypothesis so far has contained purely human fantasy.  The difference between what's labeled fiction and non-fiction by a culture is that cultures preferences in self-delusion. 

 

All expressable aspects of being sum to atoms pondering the nature of atoms. Awareness continues to shine in brilliantly if it's ever noticed and appreciated or not.  Each beings single divine entitlement is shedding the meat sack and returning to unfiltered and unconfused awareness of what may be. Experiencing this prior to death is optionally always available, but never a requirement. 

 

Unlimited Love, 

-Bud

Edited May 2, 2018 by Bud Jetsun

[Marblehead]

4 minutes ago, Bud Jetsun said:

Respectfully sir, the choice to believe science is merely a common flavor of religion in which every theory without exception has later been shown to be mistaken human confusion. 

 

The scientific method applied toward science itself reveals each hypothesis so far has contained purely human fantasy.  The difference between what's labeled fiction and non-fiction by a culture is that cultures preferences in self-delusion. 

Yeah, that argument has been presented to me before but I didn't accept it then either.  Test and try before you buy.  That's science.  Trust me.  That's beliefs and religion.  BIG difference.

 

I have no fear when deciding to sit in my chair as science has proven that it will support my weight.  However, no matter how hard I try I just can't levitate.  Yeah, I know.  Trust me.  You can do it if you really believe you can.  Show and tell time.

 

4 minutes ago, Bud Jetsun said:

 

All expressable aspects of being sum to atoms pondering the nature of atoms. Awareness continues to shine in brilliantly if it's ever noticed and appreciated or not.  Each beings single divine entitlement is shedding the meat sack and returning to unfiltered and unconfused awareness of what may be. Experiencing this prior to death is optionally always available, but never a requirement. 

 

Unlimited Love, 

-Bud

Okay.  You have required me to speak further to this.  All living organisms have some form of awareness.  This includes plants as well as animals.  Maybe not "conscious" awareness but at minimum sensatory awareness.  A plant know when it is being attacked.  Some can even send out signals telling other like plants that it is being attacked so that they can defend themselves.

 

But I have never heard of a rock being aware.  As far as I understand, biological life is required before there is awareness.

 

And true, there is the thought that atoms are aware of other atoms.  I'm not ready for that yet.

 

[Bud Jetsun]

Thank you for your kind and thoughtful reply my friend. For a fellow who prefers science labeled choice in religion:

 

Atoms aware of atoms at any distance(or illusion of distance) instantly(to the limits of today's best equipment's ability to measure)

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/millions-atoms-entangled-record-breaking-quantum-tests

 

When a being accepts not knowing, opportunity for discovery arises.  If the discovery is believed, then the opportunity for discovery is halted. 

 

Unlimited Love, 

-Bud

 

[Marblehead]

"Spooky action at a distance." - Einstein

 

Attempts are being made to explain this spooky action.

 

 

But you must consider my avoidance of acknowledging that I have beliefs when beliefs are so often associated with religions and Atheists just don't like being called religious people.

 

 

[Bindi]

2 hours ago, Bud Jetsun said:

 

What aspects of an immortal spirit could be created by human action/choices? 

Which aspects of an immortal spirit could be created or destroyed? 

What if the greatest blockage is belief in great blocks?  

 

If this one moment isn't appreciated in Now, the meat sack still dies choking on a web of it's personal flavor of choice in delusions never having appreciated that which is of the Dao.   Immortal spirit remains in unbreakable equanimity even if a being chooses to replace awareness of it with human constructed labels for expressing confusions of what may be. 

 

Waiting for Now to be something other than Now to be appreciated is suicide while the body still functions.  The Dao remains perfect, immortal spirit remains perfect, the option for a being to appreciate them as they are remains unlimited. 

 

Unlimited Love,

-Bud

 

Perhaps, if we believed something else were possible and we weren't just happy with the status quo, the layers hiding our immortal spirit could instead be slowly removed until, when our heart and mind are capable enough, our immortal spirit might be revealed fully to our conscious mind, and we can be given full conscious control over it. This immortal spirit,  directed by a fully conscious me, would then be active in and affect matter directly. And all of this takes work and effort and time, and waiting for a state other than now.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[wandelaar]

Useless discussion. The important role of matter (and our body) in our everyday life is clear to see for anybody taking the trouble to reflect on how life is actually lived. We don't just dream up another reality when some aspect of our supposed dreamlike world needs to be changed. If such were the case there would indeed be reason to question the reality of matter, but there isn't. The supposedly awakened ones have to eat, drink, sleep, etc. like anyone else. They use the door to enter and leave the room. They don't ignore the supposed dreamlike Laws of Nature. Science is here put away as just another belief when the results are not appreciated, but then again computers are used al the same. And when some scientific result (such as entanglement) does happens to fit into the dogmatic picture it is suddenly accepted as a scientific fact as if science wasn't just another belief after all.

 

But let's stop. This will lead nowhere as arguments don't count for those willing to believe.

[Michael Sternbach]

17 hours ago, Fa Xin said:

Agreed here. I think the recognizing of “your already liberated” starts the process of things falling away. Up until that point, the idea seems very far away, like “maybe in another lifetime”, or “can’t happen to me”. It’s a lot like over coming a personal block of “I’m not good enough”. It puts the whole world within your reach if you realize it wasn’t out of reach to begin with. 

 

Just my take at the moment. 

 

Well said.

 

Besides assuming yourself to be "already liberated", you might as well say you are already "enlightened", "empowered", etc. on some level.

 

This will set a process in motion removing the internal obstacles and gradually manifesting these states in your life.

 

Self-acceptance is key.

 

In order to manifest the best you can be, you need to believe in yourself.

[Michael Sternbach]

13 hours ago, wandelaar said:

How could a blow to the head cause one to lose consciousness when consciousness is the basic stuff of the universe and matter (including human bodies) are just illusory appearances?

 

(Don't try this at home!)

 

That's a non sequitur. The fact that consciousness is primarily experienced via the brain while you are a physically manifested being doesn't imply that this is all there is to it (you).

 

And it has been shown that even during narcosis some kind of awareness remains.

[wandelaar]

9 minutes ago, Michael Sternbach said:

That's a non sequitur. The fact that consciousness is primarily experienced via the brain while you are a physically manifested being doesn't imply that this is all there is to it (you).

 

I don't say matter is all there is. The extremism is to be found in the opposite claim that everything derives from or is consciousness/awareness.

 

Quote

And it has been shown that even during narcosis some kind of awareness remains.

 

Yes - so what?

Edited May 3, 2018 by wandelaar

[Michael Sternbach]

20 hours ago, Marblehead said:

<snip>So the article is about liberation.  Okay.  Liberated from what?  From conditions that seem to be controlling us?  

 

I doubt such a state will exist.  We are controlled by the physics of the manifest (material) universe.<snip>

 

I think that 'boundedness' and 'liberty' are speaking to states that we can only move towards or away from, while, in actuality, we keep experiencing a mixture of both (one that we may or may not feel comfortable with).

 

13 hours ago, Marblehead said:

<snip>Suffering comes from many sources.  Yes, we will suffer if we resist change that is required.  But then, some changes I will not make and I don't suffer because of it.  Oftentimes I am more at peace than I would have been had I changed with the external changes.

 

Resistance to change is something to be proud of if the changes would not have been in our best interest.  Aren't free will and choices great?<snip>

 

Agreed. And there are changes that are welcome and that we consciously initiate ourselves.

[Michael Sternbach]

13 hours ago, dwai said:

This is found to be based on an incorrect assumption that your consciousness/awareness rises out of your body. It is the other way round actually -- your body appears in your awareness. The problem is the we have been brought up to believe that body comes first and then comes awareness, that it takes a lot of effort to see beyond that. 

 

Yes, it is an interesting consideration that everything that we have ever been aware of existed in our field of consciousness in the first place.

 

Whereas we are taught to distrust our perception and base our understanding of things on the assumption that there is an objective reality 'out there' which our subjective existence wholly depends on.

 

In my observation, the subjective perspective is typical of artists, the objective one of academics. Sometimes to the degree that they have little appreciation of the opposing view.

 

It can be problematic when the limitations of each perspective aren't understood.

 

In actuality, both are needed and have value to them. It's just another yin/yang deal.

[Michael Sternbach]

48 minutes ago, wandelaar said:

I don't say matter is all there is. The extremism is to be found in the opposite claim that everything derives from or is consciousness/awareness.

 

 

Yes - so what?

 

Matter (i.e. every atom) can be seen as a manifestation of consciousness and has a degree of consciousness of its own in my book.

 

I agree that there are plenty of followers of Eastern religions, New Agers etc. out there with a one-sided "spirit only" kind of view.

[wandelaar]

The problem is that things can be seen in an innumerable variety of ways if the only thing you require is that your position is a hypothetical possibility (however far fetched). I think Taoism has the most reasonable position in this by simply claiming that ultimate reality (the unnamable Tao) is beyond words.

[Fa Xin]

34 minutes ago, wandelaar said:

The problem is that things can be seen in an innumerable variety of ways if the only thing you require is that your position is a hypothetical possibility (however far fetched). I think Taoism has the most reasonable position in this by simply claiming that ultimate reality (the unnamable Tao) is beyond words.

 

If you dive deep enough, you'll start seeing this concept is represented in other traditions too.

 

Advaita Vedanta says Brahman (God/All) and realization therein (akhandakara vritti) is beyond words, beyond the mind, timeless etc.

 

Same can be said about Mystical Christianity and Dzogchen.  You start to see the same concepts popping up -- its just not as blatant and apparent as it is in Taoism. Lao Tzu had a very simple way of putting things. 

 

These paths/ traditions are just ways of trying to describe the indescribable, afterall... fingers pointing to the moon. Ultimately they are all flawed in some way, they all have some sort of human element to them. 

 

Conversely -- maybe it is us as interpreters that are misunderstanding the teachings to begin with.  I think Jesus was pointing at the same moon as Lao Tzu, but obviously, it was misinterpreted in a major way at some point...

 

Lao Tzu said the Tao is beyond words, then went ahead and wrote 81 chapters on it...

Edited May 3, 2018 by Fa Xin

[wandelaar]

29 minutes ago, Fa Xin said:

Lao Tzu said the Tao is beyond words, then went ahead and wrote 81 chapters on it...

 

Yes - one somehow has to. But one should not make unnecessary dogmatic claims about it, as the article clearly does towards the end. 

Edited May 3, 2018 by wandelaar

[Bud Jetsun]

Human sensory phenomenona interfaces through inherently relative ionic differentials in Sodium and Potassium ion concentrations. 

 

Through no amount of relative data collection does one arrive at an absolute.  Words are inherently relative, they could not contain an absolute to share it verbally/textually.  Yet with equanimity, the absolute of Now remains the whole of the real and always inseparable, inherently inexpressible, and always optionally available to appreciate to the limits of a beings choice in mindfulness. 

 

As a scientist engineer I have tremendous gratitude for the science foundation I use as a tool to benefit all living beings.  This does not change that in no aspects does it or has it contained truth, but sometimes offers inherently imperfect but still useful functional aspects despite being exclusively an expression of human constructed confusion.  I remember decades ago as a young scientist thinking science had so many aspects of reality concretely solved, yet today I welcome anyone to please share even a single aspect which hasn't been later proven to be an incorrect assumption of what may be. 

 

God is being Now (and perhaps always.) 

The Dao exists in Now (and perhaps always.) 

What God/Dao created or is of God/Dao exists to human sensory perception limitations in Now alone. 

 

When we trade what is of the Dao in exchange for "imagination of future state," this is how genuine appreciation of God and the Dao are rejected and replaced by the optional delusion layers covering over it.

 

Expressable aspects of may-yet-to-be is called fantasy, and only Now remains no matter how long or short you choose to wait to discover what is of God/Dao.

 

Whatever busy work is believed to be prerequisite requirements to appreciate Now is actually just additional layers of separation between Now and appreciation of Now. 

 

Now has no dogma and no preferences or needs related to dogmas. No membership cards or special handshakes. No uniforms or time intervals in special postures required. No amount of acting out ritual motions generates a surrogate Now. Now awareness requires no amount of imagining and manifesting Now blocks or manifesting Now block removals.

 

It requires only appreciation of this one fleeting moment between conception and death. Each being is free to live and die having spent the moment diligently persisting/manifesting unlimited reasons why they are unprepared or unworthy to appreciate Now.  Now remains the whole of the real with equanimity maintaining perfect up-time availability to appreciate if a being wishes.  

 

It may optionally be imagined as something difficult, and if ones objective is to understand Now it only stacks delusions of the non-real to cover over the real in a meaningless puzzle as complex or simple as the bounds of imagination choose to take it. 

 

No spare moment to waste, commit with reverence and the respect a life a death situation deserves. 

 

Each being is free to suffer their own choices in belief and preference. Each being remains equally free to embrace their one moment with appreciation, this is the mechanism by which one honors God and lives the Dao. 

 

Unlimited Love, 

-Bud