The Clarity Aspect in Buddhism

[liminal_luke]

1 minute ago, dwai said:

Try this out - hold your hand up look at your palm. Are you seeing your palm or is your palm seeing you?  

 

Honestly, I´m seeing my palm.  But that´s just because I´m messed up in the usual western way and identify myself too exclusively with what we call the "mind."  There have been times, I´m not proud to say, when I´ve felt as if I´m not in my body at all.  But of course I´ve always been embodied, whether or not I felt like it.  Maybe someday if you ask me where I am, in what part of my physical self my awareness resides, I won´t point to my head. 

 

(To be accurate, it´s not that I don´t want to be in my head.  It´s that I don´t want my head to unjustly claim some kind of predominance it doesn´t deserve. I don´t have internal organs -- I am my internal organs.) 

[dwai]

17 minutes ago, liminal_luke said:

 

Honestly, I´m seeing my palm.  But that´s just because I´m messed up in the usual western way and identify myself too exclusively with what we call the "mind."  There have been times, I´m not proud to say, when I´ve felt as if I´m not in my body at all.  But of course I´ve always been embodied, whether or not I felt like it.  Maybe someday if you ask me where I am, in what part of my physical self my awareness resides, I won´t point to my head. 

 

(To be accurate, it´s not that I don´t want to be in my head.  It´s that I don´t want my head to unjustly claim some kind of predominance it doesn´t deserve. I don´t have internal organs -- I am my internal organs.) 

You’re not messed up at all  (IMHO). I don’t think the body has any awareness of its own per se. it is all driven by the mind (even the subconscious functions), and the mind borrows its ability to illuminate from consciousness/awareness.
 

Yes after a certain point of development the body and mind are recognized as fields of activity within consciousness/awareness.

wrt the example you gave, my explanation is — 

What someone does by speaking to their organs for example,  is make an intent. That intent is what drives the change — not the organ itself. 

[liminal_luke]

3 minutes ago, dwai said:

You’re not messed up at all  (IMHO). 

 

Thanks for the vote of confidence.  

 

Laura Lund said that at the beginning of her Zapchen training that if you asked her where in her body "she" was, she´d point to her head.  I think this is the way it is for most of us.  We identify with our heads.  But she said that now she experiences herself as being more equally spread out throughout her body.  

 

That´s not my experience so I´m not sure what it means exactly.  Perhaps, as you say, the palm has no awareness of it´s own.  I¨m agnostic on this one pending further investigation.

Edited August 12, 2021 by liminal_luke

[dwai]

15 minutes ago, liminal_luke said:

 

Thanks for the vote of confidence.  

 

Laura Lund said that at the beginning of her Zapchen training that if you asked her where in her body "she" was, she´d point to her head.  I think this is the way it is for most of us.  We identify with our heads.  But she said that now she experiences herself as being more equally spread out throughout her body.  

Another misconception about the location of the mind is "the brain/head". The Brain doesn't contain the mind -- it is a receptor of the mind. Is the internet on your computer or is the computer a tool that lets you connect to the internet?

 

The reason why people identify with the "head" as "Me" is that most of the sense organs are in the head. When she becomes aware of her subtle body, she will say she has spread out, beyond the body. The larger our field of access, the larger our sense of "self' grows. 

15 minutes ago, liminal_luke said:

 

That´s not my experience so I´m not sure what it means exactly.  Perhaps, as you say, the palm has no awareness of it´s own.  I¨m agnostic on this one pending further investigation.

 

[stirling]

38 minutes ago, dwai said:

Another misconception about the location of the mind is "the brain/head". The Brain doesn't contain the mind -- it is a receptor of the mind. Is the internet on your computer or is the computer a tool that lets you connect to the internet?

 

The reason why people identify with the "head" as "Me" is that most of the sense organs are in the head. When she becomes aware of her subtle body, she will say she has spread out, beyond the body. The larger our field of access, the larger our sense of "self' grows. 

 

The "self", "brain"... even "mind" are just contrived, aggregated ideas. Really there is just sensation, that is free of qualities. Awareness, and consequently "Self", is wherever sensation arises.

Edited August 12, 2021 by stirling

[Apech]

3 hours ago, liminal_luke said:

Can we really distinguish between mind and body?  Perhaps they are two doors that open into the same chamber.  That working on the mind effects what we call the body and vice versa.  If work with the mind hasn´t yet transformed the body, there´s more mindwork to be done.  If work with the body hasn´t yet transformed the mind, there´s more bodywork to be done.

 

Or am I missing something?

 

If body is not just physical body then I agree.

 

 

[Apech]

2 hours ago, dwai said:

 

can anyone say “my Kidney had a realization” or my “liver had a realization” or even my “heart had a realization”? Imho, saying that the “body” realizes is an absurd proposition. Realization can only ever be in the mind. 

Transform into what? A puff of smoke? A flash of light? To what effect? (I know, I know, to become a fully liberated immortal who can traverse through the universe/multiverse if/as they wish). 
 

When a drop of water enters the ocean, it doesn’t lose itself — it becomes the ocean itself. It doesn’t need to remain a small independent part of the ocean. 

 

You are strangely dualistic - what do you think the body is?

 

 

[Apech]

1 hour ago, dwai said:

You’re not messed up at all  (IMHO). I don’t think the body has any awareness of its own per se. it is all driven by the mind (even the subconscious functions), and the mind borrows its ability to illuminate from consciousness/awareness.
 

Yes after a certain point of development the body and mind are recognized as fields of activity within consciousness/awareness.

wrt the example you gave, my explanation is — 

What someone does by speaking to their organs for example,  is make an intent. That intent is what drives the change — not the organ itself. 

 

 

There you go again - the body has no awareness of its own????

 

Define body - what is it - what is it made of - how does it function?

 

 

[Nungali]

2 hours ago, dwai said:

Try this out - hold your hand up look at your palm. Are you seeing your palm or is your palm seeing you?  

 

That depends on how developed your palm is .

 

You never heard of 'hamsa' ?  Its well known in the Middle - East     and other places .

[Nungali]

4 hours ago, silent thunder said:

wait... what is Mind again? 

 

Mind ;   verb  ,  ' regard as important;   to   concern about.  '

[Nungali]

2 hours ago, liminal_luke said:

 

Honestly, I´m seeing my palm.  But that´s just because I´m messed up in the usual western way and identify myself too exclusively with what we call the "mind."  There have been times, I´m not proud to say, when I´ve felt as if I´m not in my body at all.  But of course I´ve always been embodied, whether or not I felt like it.  Maybe someday if you ask me where I am, in what part of my physical self my awareness resides, I won´t point to my head. 

 

(To be accurate, it´s not that I don´t want to be in my head.  It´s that I don´t want my head to unjustly claim some kind of predominance it doesn´t deserve. I don´t have internal organs -- I am my internal organs.) 

 

But that will pass Luke .

 

I was young once  too ... but then I went through 'womanopause'   , its a strange feeling ..... it starts 'down here ' ( places hand on crutch ) and slowly rises up to here ( places hand on head )   - its the mind ascending to its rightful place .

[Nungali]

2 hours ago, liminal_luke said:

 

Thanks for the vote of confidence.  

 

Laura Lund said that at the beginning of her Zapchen training that if you asked her where in her body "she" was, she´d point to her head.  I think this is the way it is for most of us.  We identify with our heads.  But she said that now she experiences herself as being more equally spread out throughout her body.  

 

That´s not my experience so I´m not sure what it means exactly.  Perhaps, as you say, the palm has no awareness of it´s own.  I¨m agnostic on this one pending further investigation.

 

One of the basic meditations in my system is to move your 'centre of  awareness 'around the body  . I always assumed this was adopted from some eastern practice ?   ( Note ; the 'trap' in this meditation is  to allow the mind to imagine one is centred there ) .

 

I mean , if one practices and can achieve moving their centre of awareness outside the  body and into an imagined form 'over there' does that not indicate that the mind  ( and hence the idea of the 'location of self ' ) need not be in the locality of the body ?

[liminal_luke]

1 minute ago, Nungali said:

 

But that will pass Luke .

 

I was young once  too ... but then I went through 'womanopause'   , its a strange feeling ..... it starts 'down here ' ( places hand on crutch ) and slowly rises up to here ( places hand on head )   - its the mind ascending to its rightful place .

 

So strange.  It´s almost as if you know me, Nungali.  

[Nungali]

Nungali  knows 

 

 

Spoiler

 

[dwai]

2 hours ago, Nungali said:

 

That depends on how developed your palm is .

 

You never heard of 'hamsa' ?  Its well known in the Middle - East     and other places .

Hamsa means swan in Sanskrit  

[dwai]

3 hours ago, Apech said:

 

You are strangely dualistic - what do you think the body is?

 

 

What do you think it is?  

[dwai]

6 hours ago, freeform said:

I wonder why body is still characterised as being separate from mind?

It depends on who’s reading  

6 hours ago, freeform said:

Thats not far from what many Daoists would say.

 

Except they don’t see the liver as discreet and separate from the mind, the body, even the divine Spirit… they see it as a physical manifestation of a certain spectrum of ‘the light’ of Spirit as it refracts into being in our physical realm.

What then is the physical realm? Does it exist apart from this “light”  

[freeform]

5 hours ago, dwai said:

What then is the physical realm? Does it exist apart from this “light”  

Nope. 
 

But since it’s question time.

 

What then is the body? Does it exist apart from this “mind”?

 

[MIchael80]

13 hours ago, dwai said:

Try this out - hold your hand up look at your palm. Are you seeing your palm or is your palm seeing you?  

Besides it having nothing to do with what i said....and disregarding experiences of other awake people. 

 

The hand has no eyes ... so it cannot see ...(at least in the usual way).

 

You should read David Bucklands book on stages of awakeing (not really stages but an continual unfolding which brings very different experiences of being awake yet always the same what is there) (or watch some YouTube vids where he discusses them together with a teacher called Andrew Hewson....they also talk about the layers waking up etc).

What you describe...pure awareness and a field of action ... sounds like self realization (adyashanti called that a head awakening....and there can follow a heart and a gut awakening) in Davids modell. 

There is a subtle duality still there ... when pure awareness regocnizes that it is the absolute same as the field of creation then it becomes obvious that everything can and will awaken if not stopped.

And then awakening beyond pure awareness can also happen. (Which is really strange as it is experienced as "falling out of pure infinite awareness " ). And then it dawns that pure awareness is still a covering over the source...that there is a source of the source (because pure awareness was seen as being the source of everything...but then it becomes clear it is not )

 

 

Edited August 13, 2021 by MIchael80

[Apech]

8 hours ago, dwai said:

What do you think it is?  

 

I asked first.

[Cleansox]

14 hours ago, dwai said:

 

can anyone say “my Kidney had a realization” or my “liver had a realization” or even my “heart had a realization”? Imho, saying that the “body” realizes is an absurd proposition. Realization can only ever be in the mind. 

Perhaps you have studied the theory of your method so much that you close yourself to other possibilities?

 

Of course, I agree with what you have written above. That is not what it is about, at least not in my practice. 

 

Just as there are persons who do "mind only" and end up with dissociating from the body, there are persons who lay their focus on the post heaven aspects of the physical body and end up with, well, whatever. 

 

None of that is, in my personal view, relevant to this context, the context that relates to the quotes from tibetan buddhism I used and the Liu Yiming quote that was posted in this thread. 

 

Rather, realization is layered, and using traditional methods that include what the above mentioned quotes refer to increases the chance that there is realization in layers that practitioners might try to avoid. 

 

Is the goal of this to become light? 

 

Is the goal of a mind only method to become telepathic or see things? 

 

I'm sure some people have those as goals, and we can spend time arguing how any of these methods could turn into a side-door. 

 

I guess I could always explain what I mean when I use those terms, but unfortunately my tea kettle just came to a boil, and my tea is in the making. Writing in a way that does the subject justice would take some time, and my tea would be spoiled. 

[dwai]

4 hours ago, freeform said:

Nope. 
 

But since it’s question time.

4 hours ago, freeform said:

 

What then is the body? Does it exist apart from this “mind”?

 

 nope.
 

Body is a matrix of energetic activity that appears in awareness.  That’s why beyond a certain point (of realization of the fact that it IS an appearance in awareness) it is no use to “work” on it for said realization.  Also associated with said realization,  it becomes apparent that there is no need to develop a “light body”, any such body too is an appearance within that same awareness. The original light body, so to speak is awareness alone. 

[dwai]

2 hours ago, Apech said:

 

I asked first.

See the previous comment  

[dwai]

2 hours ago, Cleansox said:

Perhaps you have studied the theory of your method so much that you close yourself to other possibilities?

 

Of course, I agree with what you have written above. That is not what it is about, at least not in my practice. 

 

Just as there are persons who do "mind only" and end up with dissociating from the body, there are persons who lay their focus on the post heaven aspects of the physical body and end up with, well, whatever. 

 

None of that is, in my personal view, relevant to this context, the context that relates to the quotes from tibetan buddhism I used and the Liu Yiming quote that was posted in this thread. 
 

I think we often times end up deducing from these statements what we WANT to confirm (called confirmation bias, iinm).
 

And I know that’s a sword which can cut both ways, but I’m really not looking for confirmation…just sharing my thoughts  

2 hours ago, Cleansox said:

Rather, realization is layered, and using traditional methods that include what the above mentioned quotes refer to increases the chance that there is realization in layers that practitioners might try to avoid.

 

The body methods are preparatory - can’t really avoid them in some form . But does it HAVE to be some form of alchemy (such as Neidan)? Certainly not. Paths of alchemy are meant for a certain type of personality.

2 hours ago, Cleansox said:

 

Is the goal of this to become light? 

 

Is the goal of a mind only method to become telepathic or see things? 

 

I'm sure some people have those as goals, and we can spend time arguing how any of these methods could turn into a side-door. 

 

I guess I could always explain what I mean when I use those terms, but unfortunately my tea kettle just came to a boil, and my tea is in the making. Writing in a way that does the subject justice would take some time, and my tea would be spoiled. 

I’m sipping my tea as I read these responses - it is always very interesting to read them. After that I will practice Kriya …ooh! alchemy  

 

 

[dwai]

4 hours ago, MIchael80 said:

Besides it having nothing to do with what i said....and disregarding experiences of other awake people. 
 

I’ve never heard any “awake” person say their body has had realizations. But that is really beside the point. The idea was to illustrate a point that the aware subject is not the body. This is at the Vedanta 101 level   

Quote

 

The hand has no eyes ... so it cannot see ...(at least in the usual way).

Do the eyes see? Or does the “subject” see through the eyes? 

Quote

 

You should read David Bucklands book on stages of awakeing (not really stages but an continual unfolding which brings very different experiences of being awake yet always the same what is there) (or watch some YouTube vids where he discusses them together with a teacher called Andrew Hewson....they also talk about the layers waking up etc).

I’ll certainly check it out. Had never heard of him before  

Quote

What you describe...pure awareness and a field of action ... sounds like self realization (adyashanti called that a head awakening....and there can follow a heart and a gut awakening) in Davids modell. 

There is a subtle duality still there ... when pure awareness regocnizes that it is the absolute same as the field of creation then it becomes obvious that everything can and will awaken if not stopped.

And then awakening beyond pure awareness can also happen. (Which is really strange as it is experienced as "falling out of pure infinite awareness " ). And then it dawns that pure awareness is still a covering over the source...that there is a source of the source (because pure awareness was seen as being the source of everything...but then it becomes clear it is not )

 

 

Interesting. If you are referring to what Nisargadatta Maharaj called “turiyatita”, that really is a misnomer. Turiya as you know is called the “fourth” when it is recognized as another state of awareness (after waking, dreaming and deep sleep). So to go beyond Turiya is to realize that waking, dreaming and deep sleep are appearances in awareness alone (turiya). So turiya is not a fourth anymore — it is the absolute reality.