Citta

[silent thunder]

I originally began listening to this guy, due to his ground shattering insights on the true nature of light and magnetism.

 

Then I happened upon this seven year old video of him, talking about his exploration of citta in the original texts. 

He's something of a savaunt it seems, translating for enjoyment, ancient latin, greek and sanskrit.

 

I've little to no experience in Buddhism, but as I've found his insights in physics and natural philosophy to be intensely brilliant, I'm intrigued what buddhists here think about his take on citta...

 

 

[lifeforce]

Thank you for starting this topic silent thunder.

I have decided to return to the bums as I have what I believe to be important information regarding the truth of reality and the human condition. It is the culmination of decades of practice and study, revelation and research. 

I regret my decision to leave and delete some of my posts. I will remedy this in time.

Believe in or not, this video and the subject matter of this topic is what I've been busy with. We must have some sort of telepathic connection, synchronicity, coincidence, psychic link or whatever.

I watched this video, and his others on the original Pali texts, cross referenced the information and found him to be 100% correct on the points he puts forward. 99.9% of Buddhists will vehemently disagree, and of course they will. Their entire belief system and the teachings and practices built upon it, is being dismantled. Truth is my only goal. If it ruffles feathers, then so be it. I would encourage anyone interested or skeptical to please do your own research and keep an open mind to all possibilities. It totally shocked me when I first learned this.

Citta (mind) is eternal, permanent and unchanging, immortal. It is the five heaps or aggregates which are impermanent, unsatisfactory, and without self. Or Anicca, Dukkha, and Anatta.

The original teachings of Gotama were a Neo-vedantic revisionist movement. A path leading to the Absolute, Brahman, Brahmayana. It was not a new teaching. 

There are countless examples of a permanent self/soul in the Buddhist literature, in Theravada, Mahayana and Vajrayana. I will post more in coming posts. 

 

 

The unfashioned, the unbent, the fermentation-free, the true, the beyond, the subtle, the very-hard-to-see, the ageless, permanence, the undecaying, the featureless, non-elaboration, peace, the deathless, the exquisite, bliss, rest, the ending of craving, the wonderful, the marvelous, the secure, security, unbinding, the unafflicted, dispassion, purity, release, attachment-free, the island, shelter, harbor, refuge, the ultimate. 

— SN 43.1-44

 

 

[lifeforce]

 

 

I hope you don't mind me adding to this thread silent thunder. This information is too important NOT to be shared. 

I need to share this. If I can't share it in a forum of spiritual cultivators, where can I share it ?

[lifeforce]

 

 

His tone and delivery of his message may not be to everyone's liking, but PLEASE look beyond the messenger. The message is of utmost importance.

[lifeforce]

There are people who are propagating the teaching of a permanent self/soul in Buddhism. 

Ajaan Maha Boowa (now deceased) of the Theravada was a champion for these teachings.

Dr. Tony Page has spent 30 years with the Mahaparanirvana Sutra and associated Tathagatagarbha literature.

The Jonang sect of Tibetan Buddhism and in particular Dolpopa teach on other-emptiness or the supreme overself.

 

 

 

[silent thunder]

5 hours ago, lifeforce said:

I hope you don't mind me adding to this thread silent thunder. This information is too important NOT to be shared. 

I need to share this. If I can't share it in a forum of spiritual cultivators, where can I share it ?

Very glad to see you've returned my friend.  There does seem much synchronicity with our current processes from my end as well.  Many of your posts ring with resonance for me, particularly over the last few months, as things on my end have been amping up to a crescendo.  And I deeply appreciate any exploration and conversation regarding this topic and the search for absolute reality.  When I happened upon his take on citta from the ancient teachings, it really rang my bell... rather gob-smacked was my reaction... as you say, it runs contrary to much of what I've encountered in buddhist sharings.  I was sincerely hoping someone with experience would respond and take up the conversation so I could gauge my reaction from theirs.  Thank you.  

 

I was originally drawn to this guy for his insights on Natural Philosophy regarding the nature of magnetism, light and dielectrical nature of phenomena (which are nothing short of incredible by the way), only later, did I discover his work on ancient sanskrit and buddhist studies and my impression of him flowered to deeper respect. 

 

On my way to meet some friends for a day of museum hunting and conversation.  But the moment I'm home, I look forward to checking out the rest of the videos you linked.  As you say, this stuff is too important not to share.  I also love his extremely direct if somewhat gruff manner of sharing info.  I find it refreshing.

 

Cheers!

 

[silent thunder]

simply staggering...

 

in the original pali there are...

no words for nun, monk or buddhism

so what did gotama teach?

 

my teachings are to be deemed brahmayana  'the path to the brahman, the path to the absolute'

whose citta is devoid of defilements... is deemed a brahman...

such a one is crossed over, tathagata... become brahman

 

the highest apalachian in doctrine of earliest buddhism is the attainment of brahmanhood

wholly liberated brahman.  wholly awake.  has become liberated.

Spoiler

"my teachings are (to be called) Brahmayana (path to the Absolute/Brahman)" SN 5.5

 

This video (the second in this thread, shared by lifeforce) is an introduction to what 'buddhism' was in the eyes and words of Gotama; namely that there is NO Pali term for "buddhism" , nor for "monk/nun", and that Gotama called his followers Brahmins and himself a Vedagu (expert/sage in the Vedas).

 

"I have NOT taught a new path followers, only discovered a long lost path (and reclaimed it)"- Udana

 

"It is a heresy to say (of myself, Gotama) that I have taught a new teaching, a new path, something novel" - Digha1

 

The single most philosophically important passage in all buddhist doctrine [MN 1.436]:- "Whatever form, feelings, perceptions, experiences, or consciousness there is (the five aggregates), these he sees to be without permanence, as suffering, as ill, as a plague, a boil, a sting, a pain, an affliction, as foreign, as otherness, as empty (suññato), as Selfless (anattato). So he turns his mind/will/spirit (citta, Non-aggregate) away from these; therein he gathers his citta (nous/spirit/mind) within the realm of Immortality (amataya dhatuya). This is tranquility; this is that which is the most excellent!" [MN 1.436]

 

It is of course true that the Buddha denied the existence of the mere empirical "self" in the very meaning of "my-self" (this person so-and-so, namo-rupa, an-atta), one might say in accordance with the command 'denegat seipsum, [Mark VII.34]; but this is not what our writers (above) mean to say, or are understood by their readers to say; what they mean to say is that the Buddha denied the immortal (amata), the unborn (ajata) and Supreme-Self (mahatta') of the Upanishads. And that is palpably false, for he frequently speaks of this Self, or Spirit (mahapurisha), and nowhere more clearly than in the too often repeated formula 'na me so atta', "This/these are not my Soul" (na me so atta'= anatta/anatman), excluding body (rupa) and the components of empirical consciousness (vinnana/ nama), a statement to which the words of Sankhara are perculiary apposite, "Whenever we deny something unreal, is it in reference to something real"[Br. Sutra III.2.22]. It was not for the Buddha but for the nihilist (natthika) to deny the Soul! "Nihilists (natthiko) [those who deny the Soul] go to terrible hell"[SN 1.96].

wow.  just wow.

Edited May 22, 2019 by silent thunder
added the referenced quotes in the spoiler

[ilumairen]

On 5/21/2019 at 6:36 AM, lifeforce said:

I have decided to return to the bums

 

Welcome back lifeforce.

 

[lifeforce]

"Citta: That underlying essence of mind where Dhamma and the kilesas dwell. In its pure state it is indefinable and beyond samsara. It controls the khandhas and does not die when the kilesas die".

 

http://www.dhammatalks.net/Books/Maha_Boowa_Wisdom_Develops_Samadhi.htm

[lifeforce]

My first meditation teacher was Luang Por Munindo of the Thai Forest Theravada tradition. I had the good fortune of spending a couple of hours in his company, just myself and him, where we talked and shared thoughts on cultivation, Buddhist meditation, and life in general. He advised me to take up the meditation word Buddho, and to use it in my sitting practice as well as in every aspect of daily life. Being the stubborn headed person I was at the time, I thought I knew better and never put his advice into practice and went on to other methods of practice and study. Funnily enough, when I pushed him on the no-self doctrine, he mentioned that not all Theravadins were of the same thinking. I thought no more of it, until now as my search has led me back to the original source of Buddhist thought. 

Edited May 22, 2019 by lifeforce

[lifeforce]

You really have to wonder why these terms in the original Pali were mistranslated in the first place ?

Is it because a so-called authority wanted to control the way people practiced and conducted themselves ? 

If there was no monk or nun word mentioned, then why the big monastic movement ?

 

[lifeforce]

''Buddhism is a way of life based on the training of the mind. Its one ultimate aim is to show the way to complete liberation from suffering by the attainment of the Unconditioned, a state beyond the range of the normal untrained mind. Its immediate aim is to strike at the roots of suffering in everyday life''.

 

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/bullen/bl042.html

[lifeforce]

This was said by the Blessed One, said by the Arahant, so I have heard: "There is, monks, an unborn — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated. If there were not that unborn — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated, there would not be the case that emancipation from the born — become — made — fabricated would be discerned. But precisely because there is an unborn — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated, emancipation from the born — become — made — fabricated is thus discerned."

 

The born, become, produced, made, fabricated, impermanent, composed of aging & death, a nest of illnesses, perishing, come from nourishment and the guide [that is craving] — is unfit for delight. The escape from that is calm, permanent, beyond inference, unborn, unproduced, the sorrowless, stainless state, the cessation of stressful qualities, the stilling of fabrications, bliss.

 

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/iti/iti.2.028-049.than.html#iti-043

[silent thunder]

2 minutes ago, lifeforce said:

You really have to wonder why these terms in the original Pali were mistranslated in the first place ?

Is it because a so-called authority wanted to control the way people practiced and conducted themselves ? 

If there was no monk or nun word mentioned, then why the big monastic movement ?

 

I hear you.  It's really staggering, the actual implications of how it affects the teachings leaves me gob-smacked. 

Particularly when access to unfiltered info is so rare.

 

I suspect (and hope) it's not out of any ill will or desire to contort the meanings and control the product... but that it's a case of translating aspects that one assumes they comprehend fully, when they only comprehend in their capacity.  As the translators could not grasp the full meaning, they translated not accurately but to their ability and thus their interpretation reflects not the absolute truth, but their filtered experience of the pali core.

 

I have the experience repeatedly now in my 50's with many of the old classic scripts I performed in my youth; Shakespeare, Checkov, Tennessee Williams.  And many of the great books I read as a young man.  I would read and perform certain incredibly nuanced scripts when I was a young actor in my 20's and thought I fully comprehended them.  And I did...   I fully comprehended them at my level, to the limit and extent of my experience and my capacity.  But that does not mean I fully comprehend them in their full capacity, as shared by the author, nor did I have awareness or understanding of their full nuance.

 

It was simply beyond my ken.

 

When I re=experience these works now decades later, it's as if I'm reading them for the first time in some cases.  When I was 20 and my awareness and experience and understanding of life was like a golf ball.  I would read a script or a book or a philosophical treatise and have a golf ball sized understanding and experience of them.  If/when awareness expands, say to the size of a grapefruit, rereading that same material renders an entirely new dimension of comprehension. 

 

Now though, I no longer assume I'm getting it all now.  There's the sense that while I'm garnering more than I did it's still just at the level of my awareness now... it's not absolute.  That's liberating and joyful instead of being dis-heartening.  There is always more to unfold into...

 

But these sharings on citta.  It's stiking me like nothing else I've encountered in buddhism before... lightning on a clear day kind of stuff.

 

I'm still reeling at the ramifications and saturating now in the ramifications of a few sentences heard yesterday morning... I sense these will be percolating and will be bearing fruit for as long as I keep exploring.

 

Buddhism has never drawn me or engaged me the way this has.  Synchronistically, just after encountering that first video on citta... I encountered a book by Lama Yongden and his adopted Mother Alexandra David-Neel.  In the intro, It addresses how many of the secret oral teachings in Tibet weren't secret out of a desire to keep such things hidden, but due to the fact that such teachings were understood to simply not be suitable for 'children's minds'.  But as students cleansed citta, teachers would offer simple questions from these teachings to prompt the citta in the student and nudge a revisiting of notions of assumptions about life meant to further cleanse the dust from the eyes and cultivate further release.

 

Deeply humbled by this stuff.  The book is called The Secret Teachings of Tibetan Buddhism.  Alexandra David-Neel and Lama Yongden her adopted son, traveled China, Japan, Korea, Tibet for 40 years seeking out advanced Sages and seeking absolute truth.  Some of it is clearly beyond my child's mind.  But what has landed on fertile soil is proving to shake my foundations in wonderous ways.

[Pilgrim]

On 5/21/2019 at 6:36 AM, lifeforce said:

I have decided to return to the bums

Nice to see you.

[lifeforce]

23 hours ago, silent thunder said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

"my teachings are (to be called) Brahmayana (path to the Absolute/Brahman)" SN 5.5

 

This video (the second in this thread, shared by lifeforce) is an introduction to what 'buddhism' was in the eyes and words of Gotama; namely that there is NO Pali term for "buddhism" , nor for "monk/nun", and that Gotama called his followers Brahmins and himself a Vedagu (expert/sage in the Vedas).

 

"I have NOT taught a new path followers, only discovered a long lost path (and reclaimed it)"- Udana

 

"It is a heresy to say (of myself, Gotama) that I have taught a new teaching, a new path, something novel" - Digha1

 

The single most philosophically important passage in all buddhist doctrine [MN 1.436]:- "Whatever form, feelings, perceptions, experiences, or consciousness there is (the five aggregates), these he sees to be without permanence, as suffering, as ill, as a plague, a boil, a sting, a pain, an affliction, as foreign, as otherness, as empty (suññato), as Selfless (anattato). So he turns his mind/will/spirit (citta, Non-aggregate) away from these; therein he gathers his citta (nous/spirit/mind) within the realm of Immortality (amataya dhatuya). This is tranquility; this is that which is the most excellent!" [MN 1.436]

 

It is of course true that the Buddha denied the existence of the mere empirical "self" in the very meaning of "my-self" (this person so-and-so, namo-rupa, an-atta), one might say in accordance with the command 'denegat seipsum, [Mark VII.34]; but this is not what our writers (above) mean to say, or are understood by their readers to say; what they mean to say is that the Buddha denied the immortal (amata), the unborn (ajata) and Supreme-Self (mahatta') of the Upanishads. And that is palpably false, for he frequently speaks of this Self, or Spirit (mahapurisha), and nowhere more clearly than in the too often repeated formula 'na me so atta', "This/these are not my Soul" (na me so atta'= anatta/anatman), excluding body (rupa) and the components of empirical consciousness (vinnana/ nama), a statement to which the words of Sankhara are perculiary apposite, "Whenever we deny something unreal, is it in reference to something real"[Br. Sutra III.2.22]. It was not for the Buddha but for the nihilist (natthika) to deny the Soul! "Nihilists (natthiko) [those who deny the Soul] go to terrible hell"[SN 1.96].

wow.  just wow.

 

I know. This makes the original teachings of Buddhism as just another branch of Sanatana Dharma. The implications of such a revelation are truly mind-boggling. 

[lifeforce]

A quote from my favourite Ch'an sutra, The Sixth Patriarch's Platform Sutra :

 

It does not arrive or leave; and has no location: neither inside nor outside, nor in the middle.

Unborn, undying, it's essence and appearance is 'just so; as it really is'.

It is permanent and unchanging.

It is called 'the Way' (Dao)

 

It doesn't come any clearer than that. Ch'an is chockfull of similar quotes. More to follow.

[silent thunder]

1 hour ago, lifeforce said:

A quote from my favourite Ch'an sutra, The Sixth Patriarch's Platform Sutra :

 

It does not arrive or leave; and has no location: neither inside nor outside, nor in the middle.

Unborn, undying, it's essence and appearance is 'just so; as it really is'.

It is permanent and unchanging.

It is called 'the Way' (Dao)

 

It doesn't come any clearer than that. Ch'an is chockfull of similar quotes. More to follow.

!!!

 

wow.  just wow.  Thank you so much for sharing here mate.  Given the intensity of my inner landscape recently, I was wondering if I was just off on some solo, isolated tangent in how this was striking me.

[manitou]

3 hours ago, silent thunder said:

!!!

 

wow.  just wow.  Thank you so much for sharing here mate.  Given the intensity of my inner landscape recently, I was wondering if I was just off on some solo, isolated tangent in how this was striking me.

 

 

I can't quite focus on what you are speaking of.  It sounds very profound.  Could you give a before and after example?  Like...why you are so taken with this information on citta, and how it changed your inner landscape?  Was there an awareness, an aha! that you experienced?  Does this connect with his studies on light and magnetism?

[Cheshire Cat]

How to practice this form of ancient Buddhism ? 

 

Edited May 23, 2019 by Cheshire Cat

[lifeforce]

25 minutes ago, Cheshire Cat said:

How to practice this form of ancient Buddhism ? 

 

Just as you would any other Buddhist practice, meditate and inquiry into the human condition. Inquire into the citta. The practices are the same, and the goal, release from suffering. Only there's the realisation of the permanent, unchanging, eternal Brahman.

[lifeforce]

"Absolute, Eternal True Self: Many venerable saints and scholars have argued for the Self in the past and do so in the present. Great teachers of the Tibetan Nyingma, Kagyu, and Sakya schools have and do argue that such a view [i.e. the reality of an essential, deathless Self] is fundamental to the practice of the Buddhist path and the attainment of Enlightenment".

 

and:

 

"The essential feature of a Shentong interpretation of tathāgatagarbha doctrine is that the Buddha is figuratively within all beings as their unchanging, permanent, non-conditioned nature... Buddha is by all [tathāgatagarbha-sutra] accounts considered to be non-conditioned, eternal, unchanging, bliss, compassion, wisdom, power, and so on. For Shentongpas [i.e. the adherents of a Shentong understanding of scripture] the fact that Buddha is non-conditionedmeans the essence of Buddha is complete with all the Buddha Qualities in a timeless sense".

 

-  Hookham, Susan K. (1991). The Buddha within: Tathagatagarbha doctrine according to the Shentong interpretation of the Ratnagotravibhaga. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. ISBN 978-0791403587.

[silent thunder]

1 hour ago, manitou said:

 

 

I can't quite focus on what you are speaking of.  It sounds very profound.  Could you give a before and after example?  Like...why you are so taken with this information on citta, and how it changed your inner landscape?  Was there an awareness, an aha! that you experienced?  Does this connect with his studies on light and magnetism?

It doesn't connect at all with his insights on the nature of light, magentism or natural philosophy.  It was his lectures on light and magnetism that made me aware of his genius, then later I found he also spent decades studying sanskrit, latin and ancient greek in order to deepen his understanding of reality.

 

He's translating the pali directly and in so doing, he's revealing how most of modern buddhism is more akin to agnostic, moralistic humanism than what Gotama talked about in the original core teachings of the Pali.  It's nothing short of an evisceration of nearly all buddhist literature and cosmology I've encountered to this point.

[Cheshire Cat]

11 hours ago, lifeforce said:

Just as you would any other Buddhist practice, meditate and inquiry into the human condition. Inquire into the citta. The practices are the same, and the goal, release from suffering. Only there's the realisation of the permanent, unchanging, eternal Brahman.

 

My guess is that if the methods are the same, the result must necessarily be the same. 

 

[lifeforce]

4 hours ago, Cheshire Cat said:

 

My guess is that if the methods are the same, the result must necessarily be the same. 

 

 

Yes. The end of suffering. The Buddha said "I teach only two things; suffering and the end of suffering"

Now that the true nature of the goal has now been revealed, the Absolute, Brahman, doesn't mean that the whole of Buddhism collapses. On the contrary, it points to a shift, but still relevant to the teachings on impermanence, suffering and not-self.

'All that arises must pass away' still applies, only the one thing that doesn't arise or pass way, the Citta, is not subject to this.

It's like being in a movie theatre. The screen is the Citta, on which the various movies, our life circumstances, come and go but it's essence never changes.

It knows no good or bad, right or wrong, it just is.