Ah, it's the same old...

[Wayfarer64]

I just finished an Abby Style ale that was very satisfying...I like the word scrumptious today-a good friend of mine's 5 year old girl described her new-born ( cesarian twins on the 15th)... (7lb 6 oz.) baby brothers (6lb 10 oz) as "scrumptious" at first sight...

 

The joy of this shared existance filled with love and grace and more joy, is worth any suffering we go through.

Making it through the changes -both good and not so ... generation after generation...That is the magic and power of being human,(duration)... just that we keep at it and stay gentle and appreciative of one another...through the angst and acknowledged brevity... we keep at it !

 

That is the same old thing as well... and somethings are just fine the way they are ...Dragging our asses off to work or flying a kite, we are alive, and that is everything!

 

I say, make no mistake - alive is better than dead. Why do I know this? Why do you doubt it? Who am I? Should I commit suicide? (just to find out what it is about)...

 

Of course it is easy in the abstract...But my recent past tells me that some folks dispair of this existance and dwell in realms of terrible anguish, unable to lift themselves up and out of their own dulldrums and terrors...

 

Still, I still know that this life is the best gift I was ever given... It is when I (we as one ) can change and grow as spirits in a material world...If we are on a path that leads to enlightenment (of the load born don'tchaknow...) then just maybe it is our chance to shine!

 

The potential of two new lives born into a loving family drives out any silly philosophical posers from my mind...

 

They are two seperate lives that will often be seen as one entity (being twins)...They may have a good head-start on being one with all when the other that is so close to the self can be both one and the other -as it were...confirming in a way- that we are all and each joined through our deepest selves anyway...twins or not it is just a matter of degree.

 

Now I will go and enjoy being drunk...

[林愛偉]

Yes I do, but you missed the point of what I was saying, and I won't repeat myself.

 

 

Okay. Please tell me your point without repeating yourself.

 

Peace,

Lin

[Cameron]

Just remembered something Max(Kunlun) said that goes well with this thread.

 

When you are laughing, where are you?

 

For me laughing is probably one of the best opportunities to let go, so when you look into the matter it's interesting. People sometimes make this type of inquirey out to be really,really serious business. One of the first things that I noticed when I met Adyashanti was he would just laugh his ass off. People would come to him with these life and death scenarios and really depressed and he would just start cracking up at them. He doesn't do that to everyone but even when addressing really serious topcis he is clearly still having a good time enjoying himself.

 

So might be a good thing to do to inquire when your laughing your but off watching a comedy or when a friend tells you a joke, "where am I?".

[Wayfarer64]

The guy who created

Howard the Duck died!!!

 

It makes me very sad that there won't be any more of Howard -I recently found the smarmy bastid the best thing in a blighted mag/rag (PlayBoy)...That was once (in the late 50's to mid-60's)...an instrument of liberation...

 

Hey Buddy maybe you've been channeling him, the lost spirit of Howard the Duck?

 

Such new-age/sci-fi - concepts as channeling a fictional character (figment of another's imagination) amuse me

 

I mean nothing by it ...

But, who am I if I am channeling Howard the Duck?

Have you asked yrself that Buddy? Have any of us?

 

Today is the day to ask this one because-

 

The guy who created

Howard the Duck died!!!

[doc benway]

They are two seperate lives that will often be seen as one entity (being twins)...They may have a good head-start on being one with all when the other that is so close to the self can be both one and the other -as it were...confirming in a way- that we are all and each joined through our deepest selves anyway...twins or not it is just a matter of degree.

 

Very cool concept!

Thanks for sharing that good news about the twins

(and the bad news about Howard's daddy!)

[Starjumper]

Okay. Please tell me your point without repeating yourself.

 

Hey, today's your lucky day, I'll make another try:

 

People will gravitate to a level of spiritual/religious practice that fits their level of maturity, with the immature going for the fundamentalist sects. The way the more fundamentalist sects of Buddhism are presented attract this type. Taoism has much less of the "think this way/act this way" approach, which is fundamentalist, Buddhism has more of it.

 

Speaking for myself, I have done and still do introspection but it doesn't go along the lines of asking myself things like "who am I" which in light of the self evident answer sounds like the stupidest question anyone can ask themselves, absolutely ridiculous, and this is probably why I have gravitated to the martial/spiritual path of cultivation rather than the mental jerking off path.

 

However, today after meditation my #1 student of 12 years announced that he had the following question arise during meditation: "Who am I?" Well ROFL and beat me with a shit stick Now there's some god damn synchronicity. And he aint no dumbass like me either, he's a department head at a big University.

 

He said he was thinking of reincarnation and what is it that reincarnates and is it really him or is it his body. I said: who I am is me and I waved, and I said I don't think about these things that are unknowable and don't really matter to me but that if he wanted to know about past lives (and therefore reincarnation) that there are ways of getting in touch with them.

Edited February 17, 2008 by Starjumper7

[mYTHmAKER]

Speaking for myself, I have done and still do introspection but it doesn't go along the lines of asking myself things like "who am I" which in light of the self evident answer sounds like the stupidest question anyone can ask themselves, absolutely ridiculous, and this is probably why I have gravitated to the martial/spiritual path of cultivation rather than the mental jerking off path.

 

 

When you say in light of the evident answer you are coming from materialistic mind.

If you were to truly know, to experience, who you are you, your life, might be transformed.

It is an experience beyond the mind in the relm of shen - no mind.

This is anything but mental masturbation.

The true warriors knew who they were and therefore were not afraid to die.

BTW because you do not choose and have no understanding of a particuliar path is no reason to put it down.

[gendao]

Pre-enlightenment:

Who am I?

 

Post-enlightenment:

Who am I not?

[Wayfarer64]

[doc benway]

Hey, today's your lucky day, I'll make another try:

 

People will gravitate to a level of spiritual/religious practice that fits their level of maturity, with the immature going for the fundamentalist sects. The way the more fundamentalist sects of Buddhism are presented attract this type. Taoism has much less of the "think this way/act this way" approach, which is fundamentalist, Buddhism has more of it.

 

Speaking for myself, I have done and still do introspection but it doesn't go along the lines of asking myself things like "who am I" which in light of the self evident answer sounds like the stupidest question anyone can ask themselves, absolutely ridiculous, and this is probably why I have gravitated to the martial/spiritual path of cultivation rather than the mental jerking off path.

 

However, today after meditation my #1 student of 12 years announced that he had the following question arise during meditation: "Who am I?" Well ROFL and beat me with a shit stick Now there's some god damn synchronicity. And he aint no dumbass like me either, he's a department head at a big University.

 

He said he was thinking of reincarnation and what is it that reincarnates and is it really him or is it his body. I said: who I am is me and I waved, and I said I don't think about these things that are unknowable and don't really matter to me but that if he wanted to know about past lives (and therefore reincarnation) that there are ways of getting in touch with them.

Lucky day?

What pleasure or benefit do you derive from denigrating some of the world's most beautiful and insightful spiritual traditions?

Is that the way of the "mature" adept? Does this derive from your chosen path?

Introspection and compassion both seem to be lacking in your practice, my friend.

I offer this observation with constructive and positive intent, do with it what you will.

[Taomeow]

Lucky day?

What pleasure or benefit do you derive from denigrating some of the world's most beautiful and insightful spiritual traditions?

Is that the way of the "mature" adept? Does this derive from your chosen path?

Introspection and compassion both seem to be lacking in your practice, my friend.

I offer this observation with constructive and positive intent, do with it what you will.

 

There's no holy cows. And not seeing them doesn't necessarily mean "denigrating a beautiful tradition." Beautiful is in the eye of the beholder, right? To a Hindu, a cow is beautiful and sacred. To an average Christian, it is steak. To a Buddhist vegetarian, it is "something we're all better off without." To a taoist, it is just a cow. In the presence of a cow, he remains himself even if this cow is sacred to someone else. If he happens to dislike cows, he might say so, or keep it to himself. But he won't play games and won't pretend he sees a holy cow if he doesn't.

 

So there's nothing beautiful and sacred to SJ about Buddhism. You think it's immature? Well, then consider the top taoist immortals Chung and Lu among the immature ones too, because they designated Buddhism as the dead end of spirituality, key word "dead." I'm not making it up, read "The Tao of Health, Longevity, and Immortality: The Teachings of Immortals Chung and Lu," translated by Eva Wong. Here's a quote:

 

"Chung said:

'The ghost immortal is the lowest class of immortal. Ghost immortals are beings who have attained immortality in the realm of the dead. Their spirit is dim and they have neither name nor title. Although they are not forced to be reborn, they are not able to enter the Peng-lai lands of immortality. They wander about in limbo between the realms of the living and the dead, and their existence comes to an end if they choose to be reborn into the human realm. (...)People become ghost immortals when they try to cultivate but do not understand the Tao. Wanting to make fast progress, they take shortcuts in their training. As a result, their bodies are brittle as dry wood and their minds are as dead as cold ashes. (...) Although these beings are classed as immortals, they are really ghosts with no substance. Practitioners who claim to be Buddhist (...)usually end up as this type of immortal."

[Smile]

That's pretty funny... It's like saying Daoist practitioners cling so much to their bodies, they can't progress further on a spiritual path and keep getting reborn lifetime after lifetime, falling for the same traps and unable to let go.

Who else wants to make a sweeping generalized statement?

[Adam West]

Practitioners who claim to be Buddhist (...)usually end up as this type of immortal."

 

Hmm... a good example of politically motivated prejudicial fundamentalism if I ever saw one. No doubt partially premised upon an incomplete understanding of a competing tradition; or its otherwise, unfounded and irrational rejection. I would be interested in a compelling argument for this thesis. See my previous post for, what I would argue is, a Buddhist example of similarly metaphysically unjustified attitudes. One thing we can very clearly establish, I would suggest, humans are consistent creatures with apparently all of the worlds traditions containing their share of culturally prejudiced individuals. Evidently, very few historical personages have fully transcended their human conditioning. I wonder if any ever have.

 

In kind regards,

 

Adam.

[Stigweard]

Any path, any book, any practice, and any tradition can be a 'springboard' to spiritual freedom if the practitioner aligns the appropriate intent and awareness.

 

Many religions (regardless of whether they are Buddhist, Taoist, Judaic, Pagan etc) become merely an emotional crutch which replaces one false view of the world with another. The end result is that they are still locked within a fixed and limited consciousness.

 

Whilst it is true that some religions and traditions have accumulated more emotional and mental snares then others, each path can provide a path to true spiritual achievement.

 

Beyond all the words

And many pointing fingers

The moon is still there

[林愛偉]

Hey, today's your lucky day, I'll make another try:

 

People will gravitate to a level of spiritual/religious practice that fits their level of maturity, with the immature going for the fundamentalist sects. The way the more fundamentalist sects of Buddhism are presented attract this type. Taoism has much less of the "think this way/act this way" approach, which is fundamentalist, Buddhism has more of it.

 

Speaking for myself, I have done and still do introspection but it doesn't go along the lines of asking myself things like "who am I" which in light of the self evident answer sounds like the stupidest question anyone can ask themselves, absolutely ridiculous, and this is probably why I have gravitated to the martial/spiritual path of cultivation rather than the mental jerking off path.

 

However, today after meditation my #1 student of 12 years announced that he had the following question arise during meditation: "Who am I?" Well ROFL and beat me with a shit stick Now there's some god damn synchronicity. And he aint no dumbass like me either, he's a department head at a big University.

 

He said he was thinking of reincarnation and what is it that reincarnates and is it really him or is it his body. I said: who I am is me and I waved, and I said I don't think about these things that are unknowable and don't really matter to me but that if he wanted to know about past lives (and therefore reincarnation) that there are ways of getting in touch with them.

 

 

You think Buddhism has a more "Fundamentalist approach"? HAHAHA

 

Daoism was in China before Buddhism was. People were up and running for spiritual powers then, praising the gods and immortals way before Buddhism came to China. Praising and worshipping, giving into practices they simply just had faith in and tried to pass to others...as they do today.

 

Don't think Daoism is free from fanatics and ignorance.

 

You are right that people will get only as far as their mind's capacity goes.

 

Remember, Daoism is more accepted in the western cultures because of the western condition of Rebelling..and what in Daoist philosophy looks at rebelling? The examples of Immortals from the past doing things against some authorities and people only writing and passing on what was seen as "cool",

philosophies about authorities, and what people in the west love to indulge in...Sex, lust, emotions, desires.

 

No morals, no virtues, go with the flow and do as "Nature" dictates became the "Face" of Daoist philosophy in America. People are still arguing within it, still confused about it, and still talking their heads off saying how words can't describe it.

 

Fundamentalists indeed they are. Still going on and on about how the eternal Dao can't be put in words, but they still haven't even entered the door.

 

Actual Buddhist and Daoist cultivation is simply method and practice. People add "faces" to it. You're still talking on the surface about Daoism and Buddhism. Waving when asked "Who am I?"... you call it mental jerking off.. but holding onto views of a self is just that.

 

Martial arts are a method not the way, the way is not the method. The Way is...Thus.

Martial Arts will have to be dropped to go further.

 

Peace and Blessings,

Lin

Edited February 18, 2008 by 林愛偉

[doc benway]

There's no holy cows. And not seeing them doesn't necessarily mean "denigrating a beautiful tradition." Beautiful is in the eye of the beholder, right? To a Hindu, a cow is beautiful and sacred. To an average Christian, it is steak. To a Buddhist vegetarian, it is "something we're all better off without." To a taoist, it is just a cow. In the presence of a cow, he remains himself even if this cow is sacred to someone else. If he happens to dislike cows, he might say so, or keep it to himself. But he won't play games and won't pretend he sees a holy cow if he doesn't.

 

So there's nothing beautiful and sacred to SJ about Buddhism. You think it's immature? Well, then consider the top taoist immortals Chung and Lu among the immature ones too, because they designated Buddhism as the dead end of spirituality, key word "dead." I'm not making it up, read "The Tao of Health, Longevity, and Immortality: The Teachings of Immortals Chung and Lu," translated by Eva Wong. Here's a quote:

 

"Chung said:

'The ghost immortal is the lowest class of immortal. Ghost immortals are beings who have attained immortality in the realm of the dead. Their spirit is dim and they have neither name nor title. Although they are not forced to be reborn, they are not able to enter the Peng-lai lands of immortality. They wander about in limbo between the realms of the living and the dead, and their existence comes to an end if they choose to be reborn into the human realm. (...)People become ghost immortals when they try to cultivate but do not understand the Tao. Wanting to make fast progress, they take shortcuts in their training. As a result, their bodies are brittle as dry wood and their minds are as dead as cold ashes. (...) Although these beings are classed as immortals, they are really ghosts with no substance. Practitioners who claim to be Buddhist (...)usually end up as this type of immortal."

 

 

Please notice that I didn't call anyone immature. I just posed a question.

I completely agree that there are no sacred cows.

 

In my view, all religions are more or less equally incorrect. All are attempts to use human thought to explain that which is beyond human thought and, therefore, limited and incomplete by definition. It is necessary to get beyond thought to experience reality - all religions (for arguments sake, at least) understand this and approach it in different ways. Stig said it well - it is fine and good to replace the Catholic mythology and method with the Daoist mythology and method and so on - they are more or less interchangeable. Each has it's strengths and weaknesses. So what if Chung, the Immortal didn't like Buddhists? Is that really at all surprising? The nature of religion is divisive. It teaches one group of people that they see things differently from another group when, in fact, they are all exactly the same. Invariably, conflict results.

 

My point is that it does not take too much additional effort to discuss such things in a compassionate and considerate fashion. I have no concern for offending a practice or a religion - they are nothing but words, but I do try and consider the feelings of the person who may currently derive confidence and guidance from the practice. In my opinion, any practice that eschews compassion and consideration of others is lacking - one could say lacking a certain level of maturity.

 

How would the world be if each of us practiced compassion and consideration for others in addition to whatever other practices we favor?

 

When one experiences that the "I" that is asking the question, "Who Am I?" is not an organism limited by a bag of skin but, rather, the whole works coming to be aware of itself in each component, no matter who insignificant, compassion naturally arises => hurting others is no different than hurting oneself. This, I believe, is why Daoists do no believe that specific moral training or theory is necessary. They have experienced that it arises naturally when our true nature is experienced.

 

An interesting question is, does it work the other way? Does the practice of compassion lead to the realization of who is asking the question? Is that the approach of the Buddha?

Edited February 18, 2008 by xuesheng

[三江源]

.

Edited March 23, 2015 by 三江源

[Smile]

I see that some people don't know what The Hua-T'ou Method is. Here is the description:

 

The Hua-T'ou Method

 

Q: What is the hua-t'ou method and how is it related to the great doubt?

 

The hua-t'ou is a question that you ask yourself as a way of practice. Hua means words, t'ou means head or source. When we practice on a hua-t'ou we are trying to find out "What is there?" before the application of any literal or symbolic description (or hua). In the beginning of the practice, there is no doubt to speak of. It is only when you are practicing this method very well that you will generate a doubt. When the practice grows to be more and more powerful, the doubt becomes a great doubt. At this point you are no longer aware of your body, of the world, or of anything. There is only one thing left, and that is the question, the great doubt. When people get to a genuine great doubt, and if they have very sharp karmic roots, it is possible for them to get enlightened, with or without the guidance from masters. But for people with only mediocre karmic roots, they may even fall into demonic states.

 

 

The great doubt is possible only when the question of the hua-t'ou is important to them and they are seriously into the hua-t'ou. For someone who is not serious or ernest in seeking the answer to the question of birth and death, or what his original being is, and if he finds his life going on pretty well and he doesn't genuinely care what he was before he was born or what he will be after death, for such people, no matter how they try to ask themselves the question of a huat'ou, like "Who am I?" they probably will not generate a great doubt. Because the question is not important enough to them. Possibly, they can get a small or medium doubt. It is said that if you have a great doubt, you can have a great explosion -- refering to the experience of enlightenment. If you only have a small doubt, you can only have a small explosion. If you don't have any doubt, you cannot have any explosion.

 

 

So before you have any explosion, you must be practicing to the extent that you essentially drop off attachment to anything, in a manner of speaking, not wearing a single inch of silk, that is, completely naked. But actually, even when a person is completely naked, there may still be a lot of things in his mind. One must practice until there is nothing left in his mind, he is just practicing on the hua-t'ou.

 

 

Q: Does one need to use language to ask the question? Maybe words can lead to mechanical repetitions.

 

Definitely, you have to use language. If you do not use language to ask the question, you may be sitting there with your eyes wide open and won't be able to produce the doubt. We must have something to hold onto in our practice in order to exert our energy, and the hua (words) in hua-t'ou is that thing onto which we hold. If there is nothing to hold onto, there is no way to gather our mind together and the doubt has no basis on which to arise.

 

 

To give an analogy, the hua is like a very long tangled cord in a basket and you don't know how long it is. You are holding onto one end of the cord. You try to get to the other end to see what there is. What do you do? You keep on pulling the thread. There is a spring in the other end. So to get to the other end, you must continuously pull. Even if you stop for a moment, you cannot let go of your hold, otherwise the whole thing will be pulled back. You must exert your energy, never let go, keep on pulling. You can never be discouraged and ask -- How come I still haven't come to the end of the thread? You just cannot do that. You just continue pulling and pulling and pulling and then eventually you get to the other end of the thread and you discover that there is nothing there. This may seem very foolish. In the beginning there was nothing there, you find one end of the cord and you keep on pulling until you get to the other end, and see again there is nothing there. Why bother pulling it? It is not foolish. The process is a method. Before you go through this process, before you adopt this method, your mind is confused, your wisdom is non-existent. But after you have gone through this process, wisdom manifests.

 

 

Is it possible to practice Ch'an without using any Hua-t'ou, at all? After all, in ancient days, nobody ever heard of hua-t'ou. From Bodhidharma to the sixth patriarch, even the seventh patriarch, people didn't know of any hua-t'ou. Why is it that after the Sung Dynasty using the hua-t'ou was promoted? Is it O.K. if we also do not use any hua-t'ou these days?

 

 

Ch'an master Huang Lung once said to his disciple, "If I don't give you a hua-t'ou to practice on and just let you go and find your own way, probably you will exhaust yourself physically and mentally and you still will not be able to come up with anything. In that case it will be I who have done you harm, not doing justice to your ability to practice." Since the Sung Dynasty, people have very scattered minds. What made things worse -- they have a lot of ideas and conceptions. Hence it is extraordinarily difficult for these people to practice if they do not have a hua-t'ou.

 

Giving you a hua-t'ou to practice with (or to investigate) is like sewing your lips together with a needle and thread. You cannot open your mouth to talk. And then at the same time a person is beating you from behind, asking you, "What is your name?" You try to yell, to talk, to give reasons, but you cannot open your mouth. Using a hua-t'ou is precisely to block, to close your mouth. Not only your mouth, but also your mind. In this manner, possibly, a different condition can arise.

 

 

In the Ch'an retreats that I hold, I only let some of the participants use the hua-t'ou method. And among these people only very few got great benefit. But nonetheless, after a person's meditation has got to a certain stage, it is important that I give him a hua-t'ou to practice on to see how much practice he can make with this method. In one retreat, I told a student to use the hua-t'ou method. In the beginning, he wasn't really "investigating" the hua-t'ou, but rather he was just reciting the hua-t'ou. After practicing for a while, he turned back to reciting again. And then he got to the stage of "asking" the hua-t'ou. But each time he asked, he answered himself. So each question was followed by an answer. This person and those who have never used hua-t'ou are exactly the same.

 

 

Another person was also using a hua-t'ou method. She was meditating on the cushion and suddenly she began to yell at me "You're just talking garbage, complete garbage." I said, how can you say that? She continued to accuse me of deceiving people. It seemed that she had gotten something and her mind was very confused. Then she stormed out of the meditation hall and kept asking herself the new huat'ou: "Am I a man or a woman?" Some time later she came back to me as if she were about to pick a fight, telling me that "Regardless of whether you think you are a man or a woman, I am a woman." That was an instance of genuinely investigating a hua-t'ou.

 

One student, after using the hua-t'ou for a couple of days, found that the hua-t'ou simply disappeared. He thought that since the hua-t'ou disappeared he did not need to practice on it anymore. But I said, no, you still have to continue practicing on this hua-t'ou. If it disappears, relax for a while, and then go back to the hua-t'ou. If this student is to come back for another retreat with me, I will still tell him to use the same hua-t'ou. The hua-t'ou is the same, except that each time I would give him a different conception and explanation as to how to practice on this hua-t'ou.

 

 

There was once a Ch'an master. Anyone who went to him, he would give that person the same hua-t'ou, namely, he would raise one finger. Always the same gesture. When I first read about this I was very surprised. Is raising one finger enough? Why does this master do the same thing for every person? Different sentient beings have different karmic roots, it would seem that always just raising one finger may not be useful. But now I understand that even though he only raised one finger actually that one gesture contains limitless possibilities and functions. Whether the same or many different hua-t'ous are used for different people all depends on how the master uses the hua-t'ous. Methods are dead, it is only when you use them in a living manner that they can be useful. So you can use many different hua-t'ous, but appropriately used, they are all the same. You can also use the same hua-t'ous in many different levels, and from different angles.

 

There are many, many hua-t'ous, some quite resembling kung-ans. A famous one is before your parents give birth to you, who are you? Another example is: myriads of dharmas are reduced to one, what is this one reduced to?

 

 

from The Hua-T'ou Method

[Starjumper]

When you say in light of the evident answer you are coming from materialistic mind.

If you were to truly know, to experience, who you are you, your life, might be transformed.

It is an experience beyond the mind in the relm of shen - no mind.

This is anything but mental masturbation.

The true warriors knew who they were and therefore were not afraid to die.

BTW because you do not choose and have no understanding of a particuliar path is no reason to put it down.

 

I see that this practice of saying who am I out loud (the Hua Tow method?) in order to create doubt could be an interesting exercise, but not for me.

 

This idea that you can truly know who you are by asking this question "Who am I?" and that it will transform a person in the way you say is stupid and it is mental jerking off. If a person remembers their past lives and the time they spent as a spirit in between their incarnations, then fine, they know what it is. To someone who hasn't experienced it it is shallowness itself to think that it actually makes a difference, they are kidding themselves. To momentarily experience no mind and feeling like your body isn't there is no big deal.

 

So my point is that if you have the true experience of remembering that is one thing, but to think you will arrive at the same place by thinking about the question as if the answer mattered then that is a farce, or fundamentalism - same thing.

 

My student announced that this very question had occurred to him during our last meditation. I thought it was synchronicity but it may more likely be that he picked it up out of my mind since at the time it was the biggest thorn therein, or else somebody upstairs is messin' with me again.

 

Anyway I think that is fine for him to ask the question of himself since it arose on it's own and I didn't tell him to do it, and it is only the question that really matters and not the answer. Any insights that he arrives at as a result of this searching may provide him with some understanding of how things work and hopefully it will be entertaining to think about it but the understandings themselves are just ideas which lack the experience and are therefore not to be confused with the experience. This is the trap that most fundamentalists fall into, they think that if they learn an idea then they equate that to be as good as having the experience. They are so much in their heads and are so lacking of real life experience that they cut themselves off, they are ungrounded and floating in a fog world, they are ungrounded and disconnected and although they may pretend that their ideas make them whole deep down they have the fear. THAT, is mental jerking off, and experiencing no mind doesn't change it.

 

------------

Edit to change fag to fog =)

Edited February 20, 2008 by Starjumper7

[Starjumper]

So there's nothing beautiful and sacred to SJ about Buddhism. You think it's immature? Well, then consider the top taoist immortals Chung and Lu among the immature ones too, because they designated Buddhism as the dead end of spirituality, key word "dead."

 

Actually I think there are some beautiful things about Buddhism, I just can't recall what they are at the moment - kidding - I think some of the Tibetan practices are beautiful - but they aren't really Buddhist per se, they're the indigenous practices of the land that were absorbed by Buddhism.

 

What Chung and Lu said about Buddhism was exactly right, and it's the religious aspect they were talking about. The same applies to ALL religions as far as their dogma is concerned. It applies to all the Western religions and also to the fundamentalist aspects of the Eastern ones, including Taoism. The fundamentalist aspect of Taoism is Confucianism. People wanted to think I was attacking Buddhism itself, but I wasn't. I hold many of the Buddhist practices in high regard, it's the dogma aspect wherein lies the danger. The problem with Buddhism is the huge volume of words attributed to Buddha and his psychoanalytical approach, because, as I said before, it attracts the emotionally handicapped of the West in droves. They think the words are important and focus so much on them that their 'practice is little more than words and ideas. They become lost in the words, and I've seen people say the most idiotic things while trying to explain some Buddhist concept. They say things that are so blatantly wrong that even a child with some common sense will see right through them. Western fundamentalists do exactly the same thing.

 

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Something to add to the who am I debate is the words of the master, Jesus, who said to only look ahead at the furrow the plow is about to make instead of looking back at the furrow the plow already made, he was speaking of reincarnation when he said this. If people remembered their past lives as a continuum they would have a much harder time making progress so there is a very good reason at the mystical/spiritual level for people to NOT know about their past lives.

Edited February 20, 2008 by Starjumper7

[mat black]

The most well known proponent of the 'who am i?' form of inquiry, Bahgavan Sri Ramana Maharshi attained the non-dual realization such that most people are unable to even begin to grasp the true meaning of what he meant within their current minds.

 

The who am i inquiry is not necessarilly spoken as words, but is rather used as an impetus to return the mind back to it's origin.

Where did this thought come from? this feeling, this sensation..........right down to the most subtle 'meditation' experience - turning the awareness back on the 'experienceer' = the subject, the 'I'.

 

Can be easy, can also be difficult due to our habits of attatchments.

 

Maybe some qoutes by Ramana maharshi might clarify?

 

"Of all the thoughts that arise in the mind, the 'I' thought is the first. It is only after the rise of this that other thoughts arise."

 

So he says that to inquire who am i will lead the mind back to it's source. Not that the inquiry is intellectual or spoken, it is a means of mind turing back upon itself.

 

"When the mind stays in the heart, the "I" which is the source of all thoughts will go, and the SELF which ever exists will shine. Whatever one does, one should do without the egoity "I". If one acts in that way, all will appear as the nature of God."

"The thought "I" is the first thought of the mind and that is egoity. This is where breath originates. Breath is the gross form of mind."

 

This refernce to breath, and tracing it's source i feel bears some resemblence to the Taoist text 'The supreme Jade Emporer's Embryo Breath Scripture' http://taoistresource.home.comcast.net/~ta...ce/toysicg.html

Edited February 20, 2008 by mat black

[Taomeow]

The question "who am I" is only fruitful when asked by someone who has mastered time, memory, context. Otherwise "I am an egoless nonduality" and "I am John Winterbottom, esquire" are equally useless answers to come up with. No one is reducible to the answer to any question. "I am the third best dentist in town" may be a true answer, "I am Mary Jane's second cousin" is also true, and even "I am the guy they will bury in the North Park cemetery on December 3, 2040." Which is THE answer that "truly" qualifies? None -- because the question you asked wasn't THE question. Who am I WHEN and TO WHOM are the questions. Who am I to the three-year-old who is also me? Who am I to my daughter when she bursts out of the room crying in response to my words? Who am I to the woman who thinks she loves me -- does she love ME, or am I, to her, the father she needed but never had? -- and if so, does she really love me, does she even know I exist?... And so on.

 

Sitting in meditation getting a "non-human," "bigger-better-than-human" response to this question is invariably a trick your mind will play on you unless "dentist" and "a figment of someone's imagination" and "the bully drunk on power over someone weaker" and "the baby whose helplessness and dependency I must never again experience, must avoid feeling at all costs" have all been integrated. If one leaves any part of it out of the "who am I" continuum, the "I" he or she comes up with is incomplete, and therefore ultimately unreal. Moreover, all it is is defensive self-aggrandizing BS unless it's "everything" you "are" -- including things you don't want to accept as "you," things you were in the past, will be in the future, and things you are to other people, and were in the past and will be in the future. The entity encompassing them all -- that's you. Forget someone or something, skip a step -- and your answer will be an amnesiac's answer, her best guess when she wakes up with no memory of who she is and the doctors go, do you know who you are? and she goes, hmm, good question...

[Taomeow]

I think in our time there was only one man who responded correctly to this question when the answer arose spontaneously in response to an event that shook him to the core --

 

it took a nuclear blast for the answer to emerge for Robert Oppenheimer, but then when it did, it left no room for doubt whatsoever. "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds," he said.

[doc benway]

The question "who am I" is only fruitful when asked by someone who has mastered time, memory, context. Otherwise "I am an egoless nonduality" and "I am John Winterbottom, esquire" are equally useless answers to come up with. No one is reducible to the answer to any question. "I am the third best dentist in town" may be a true answer, "I am Mary Jane's second cousin" is also true, and even "I am the guy they will bury in the North Park cemetery on December 3, 2040." Which is THE answer that "truly" qualifies? None -- because the question you asked wasn't THE question. Who am I WHEN and TO WHOM are the questions. Who am I to the three-year-old who is also me? Who am I to my daughter when she bursts out of the room crying in response to my words? Who am I to the woman who thinks she loves me -- does she love ME, or am I, to her, the father she needed but never had? -- and if so, does she really love me, does she even know I exist?... And so on.

 

Sitting in meditation getting a "non-human," "bigger-better-than-human" response to this question is invariably a trick your mind will play on you unless "dentist" and "a figment of someone's imagination" and "the bully drunk on power over someone weaker" and "the baby whose helplessness and dependency I must never again experience, must avoid feeling at all costs" have all been integrated. If one leaves any part of it out of the "who am I" continuum, the "I" he or she comes up with is incomplete, and therefore ultimately unreal. Moreover, all it is is defensive self-aggrandizing BS unless it's "everything" you "are" -- including things you don't want to accept as "you," things you were in the past, will be in the future, and things you are to other people, and were in the past and will be in the future. The entity encompassing them all -- that's you. Forget someone or something, skip a step -- and your answer will be an amnesiac's answer, her best guess when she wakes up with no memory of who she is and the doctors go, do you know who you are? and she goes, hmm, good question...

The inquiry "who am I?" is not dependent on time. It is only worth asking now because now is all that exists.

The future is a thought and the past is a memory, which is a thought. Time is thought. Nothing more, nothing less. The inquiry is not dependent on anyone else because "I" must be there before anyone else can arise. "I" must be there to experience the presence of anyone and anything. Matt captured that well in his post.

 

When one asks "who am I?", answers come up quite quickly: I am Steve (nope, that's just a name), I am a doctor or a lawyer (nope, that's a job), I am a person (another label), I am this body (really? - what part of the body? where exactly in the body? show me), I am the whole thing (what if you lose a part), I am my brain (what about your heart?), I am my heart (what if you have a heart transplant?), and so on. Every answer can be refuted as every answer is incomplete or incorrect. The nature of the question gradually peels away layers of the onion. It is not at all self-aggrandizing, quite the opposite. It isn't bigger or better than human. It is much much less...

 

This is not a question that one asks out loud (unless you feel an urge to do that), nor is it a question that one is likely to ever answer in so many words. It does not even need to be asked in words. It is enough to remain with what it is that makes one feel as if they are an individual and go into what that feeling of what "me" is verbally or non-verbally. It is however, according to thousands (or more) of Advaita Vedanta practicioners, a very effective method to go beyond the normal thought process. It requires patience, persistence, and sincerity. The two most famous advocates of this practice in the past century were Sri Ramana Maharshi and Nisargadatta Maharaj. Two men who, by just about anyone's criteria, were self-realized. Both are well represented in books which are extremely illuminating.

 

Some people aren't interested in things like the nature of self, the nature of consciousness, and so forth - that's fine. It really doesn't matter at all in the long run. We will all live and die irrespective of that. In fact, nothing matters - we will all live and die despite anything we think, say, or do. Some people, on the other hand, develop an itch that just won't go away when it comes to these sorts of questions. For those who are interested in these questions, ask yourself - what is it that is behind my eyes that thinks it is an entity that is separate from the world and all other entities? This is the question, Who Am I? You need to do much more than ask the question. You need to investigate it deeply and persistently and wonderful things can happen. I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything - perhaps it's all a load of crap. I read once that a famous Zen master was asked about the nature of the universe - his response was to pick up and hand the questioner a dried turd...

 

If anyone thinks this sort of inquiry is a waste of time, cool. If you get off on name calling, fire away! I can yield and neturalize and practice my cyber taijiquan. However, if there are folks out there who are interested in these metaphysical questions, this is a very good method to explore.

[Guest allan]