Differences between dualism and non-dualism

[dawn90]

Maybe the body becomes ill just as it is about to ascend but can't do so because it's not wide enough. But still wide enough to let some of the enlightenment pass through: it can't hold the change but through the illness.

As far as being non-dual; isn't the fact that it can be pitted against duality, prove there is no such thing as somebody mentioned it.

 

Maybe you're not supposed to become non-dual; the challenge in my eyes would be to stay grounded within a tendency to be non-dual: can I keep my feet on the ground while being lifted up?

Can my beard grow any longer?

Can I keep any more dogs to make me care about this world?

Can I wear uncomfortable shoes so as to remind me of this earth, and I don't float up there. 

 

That's kinda my unenlightened perspective on this.

 

 

Edited May 11, 2022 by dawn90

[stirling]

20 hours ago, Michael Sternbach said:

Maybe Atman could even be said to be perception. The All Seeing Eye, as it were.

 

Enlightenment is ALSO seeing that the sense doors are empty. Phenomena arise where they are, not at any locality. 

 

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How could there be awareness without perception? How could there be consciousness without either?

 

There are a number of terms that are used for the oneness/wholeness/emptiness and its characteristics including consciousness, perception and awareness. Of these, awareness in my opinion feels the most accurate. To me, perception and consciousness imply an awareness and something that is apperceived by it. Each is incorrect because of the duality and implied mechanism. What there is, in my opinion, is a simple awareness that permeates all. 

 

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What does 'the complete understanding' signify - in an infinite Universe?

 

Can you understand the consciousness of a star?

 

In my opinion, "playing comparative religion" is a good place to start.

 

Reality (setting aside for a moment what is or isn't a universe) is infinite, but not in the conventional sense of being full of innumerable things and going on forever. It is infinite in that it cannot be made finite. It has no boundaries. It is also indefinable since it exists independent of all attempts to create incomplete artificial conceptual divisions; ultimately there AREN'T any, such divisions only exist in the conceptual constructs of the mind.

 

A star is a fantastic example of an artificial conceptual division. Where is the edge of a star if it depends on its own gravity, the relative gravity of other bodies, the various items of its composition, and countless other factors for its existence? It cannot exist within the artificial limits we make it mentally fit into. We give a star its own designation as a separate thing, but in those moments where you take in the entire field of the sky in wonder, and the mind is quiet and empty, how many stars do you recognize? Do you see stars, or just the expanse of the panorama? This is far closer to the truth.

 

Can we understand the consciousness of such a thing? There is nothing separate out there there to have any consciousness of its own. Indeed, YOU don't really have any consciousness of your own - you mistake your self-referential thoughts and chatter for a person on a planet that has important things to do. Under it all there is just awareness of phenomena, and yet simultaneously we all shop for food, go to the toilet and fall asleep while watching TV. 

Edited May 11, 2022 by stirling

[awaken]

16 hours ago, Mark Foote said:

  

 

 

Reminds me of Koichi Tohei's remarks about his instruction, "keep one point", namely:

5 Principles to keep the One Point

1. Do not feel the lower abdomen
2. Do not feel the weight of the body on your feet
3. Do not feel your breath
4. Let everything be absorbed in the One Point
5. Send all the power from the One Point

 

The mind present, but with "no fixed abode" as in the DIamond Sutra.

 

Yup.  Can you experience it lifting a tea cup to your lips?  Dropping into the "cessation of (volition in) in-breathing and out-breathing", the action of the body, nevertheless the tea cup proceeds.  

I think whatever I believe, informs action when volition in action of the body ceases, but it can also be something outside the boundaries of the senses.  The "outside" action is sometimes connected with another person's well-being, for sure.

 

Awaken--can you say more about "black liver" and "rabbit marrow"?

 

Point I'm making is that the real freedom is in cessation, and Gautama incorporated that in a way of living that he taught.  His way of living also included relaxing the activity of the body, calming the activity of the senses, and finding and relinquishing the positive in thought, for that moment-to-moment rest Jeff was talking about.

In cessation of bodily activity there is no choice in bodily activity, and no illusion that "I am the doer, mine is the doer" with regard to the "consciousness-informed body".  Most people identify the self with agency, and in particular with agency with regard to the body, and it's pretty much impossible to get across that one can be "compelled to go somewhere with absolutely no logical reason".

Now how do we sit down, and set up mindfulness that includes cessation.  One-pointedness of mind begets an evenness in the stretch of ligaments, an evenness in the stretch of ligaments begets one-pointedness of mind, yet the two seem totally unconnected.  One-pointedness of mind--you can't miss it.

The Layman (Pang) pointed to the snow and said, “Good snowflakes: they don’t fall in any other place.”

("The Blue Cliff Record", case 42, tr. Cleary and Cleary, Shambala p 253)

 

關於烏肝兔髓已經說過無數次了

 

都在這個論壇當中

It has been said countless times about black liver and rabbit marrow

in this forum

 

但是只要各位把非二元對立放在思想當中討論，那就等於是緣木求魚，找不到答案的

 

非二元對立不存在思想當中，不存在生活當中，只存在於心靈的方向，特別是修煉狀態

 

 

But as long as one discuss non-binary oppositions in one's thoughts, it is tantamount to begging for fish without finding the answer.

Non-dual opposition does not exist in thinking, does not exist in life, it only exists in the direction of the mind, especially in the state of cultivation

[stirling]

14 hours ago, dwai said:

On a serious note, the two-levels of reality are meant for that. The transactional level is meant for transactional things. The absolute is for spiritual things. That doesn’t mean that one cannot have the absolute truth inform their actions  on the transactional level.

 

Nicely said. 

[Apech]

1 hour ago, liminal_luke said:

I don't think people become more blob-like as their sense of self widens.  Just the opposite.  You know how salt has the magical quality of making a tomato taste even more tomato-esque?  Enlightenment is like salt.  It makes people taste like themselves.

 

Luke,

 

I'm not even going to ask how people you have tasted.  But I love your analogy.  Everyone else babbles about oneness.  Have some oregano, rosemary and basil as a tribute.

 

 

 

[Apech]

1 hour ago, liminal_luke said:

I don't think people become more blob-like as their sense of self widens.  Just the opposite.  You know how salt has the magical quality of making a tomato taste even more tomato-esque?  Enlightenment is like salt.  It makes people taste like themselves.

 

is it just me or is board acting weird?

 

 

Edited May 11, 2022 by Apech

[Mark Foote]

A favorite story for me is what happened after the god persuaded Gautama to teach.  The first person Gautama encountered along the road after that episode was a naked ascetic.  Gautama told the naked ascetic that he (Gautama) was the world-conqueror, that he had attained unsurpassed enlightenment.  The naked ascetic said, "good luck!", and walked on.  

Gautama had to persuade the five ascetics to listen to him--they were skeptical, since he had given up asceticism.

There's another story, about the man who went to the realm of the gods to get the story about human suffering.  The supreme god, after declaring himself the supreme god several times in response to the man's question about suffering, took the man aside and told the man that he, the supreme god, couldn't answer the question, that the man must return to earth and ask Gautama the Buddha about that.

 

Was that Bernie, that had the heart issue?  I admire him, giving up the mantle and dedicating himself to social work.  

 

I think I'm a poor excuse for a spiritual seeker.  I really just wanted to be satisfied with my mind, when I was a teenager.  Turns out when I have a rhythm of body, feelings, mind, and state of mind including cessation (as I"ve mentioned about a hundred times here), I'm ok.  I don't suffer from the phenomena of my thoughts, at least!

 

Maybe I would, if I had constant pain (and no ibuprofin!).  Or if people threatened my dog, or currently my cat.  But for the most part, I have a clear way, in my extremely fortunate life.  I just have to remember to expand it, and relinquish it.
 

 

 

Edited May 11, 2022 by Mark Foote

[Mark Foote]

[stirling]

14 hours ago, Bindi said:

2. Ramana makes a deliberate choice and effort to abide in what he considers to be the Atman. A nondualist would say this is impossible.

 

I appreciate that this is hard to talk about but want to clarify that IF Maharshi was realized it wouldn't be a "choice" as you think of it. It would be more like this:

 

There would be awareness of a single thought arising in the mind. The thought might be "I choose to abide in Atman". This thought would likely come AFTER abiding in Atman had occurred. Ramana would know with absolute clarity that no person had a made a choice and that there had never been a choice to make... that the thought "I choose to abide" is hilarious nonsense that refers to nothing and no-one.

 

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Nonetheless Ramana stuck to his nondual guns throughout most of his life including when he was dying, I think the only time that he faltered was when thieves came into his ashram, and he accepted whatever would happen to him, but he couldn’t accept that his dog might be hurt so he asked someone to take her to safety whilst nondually resigning himself to his fate.

 

Again - this isn't Maharshi's choice here. Imagine if a handful of mentos fell into a bowl of cola. The mentos would froth up and over the bowl making a mess. There was a reaction, but only because all of the necessary elements combined in one moment of their own accord to make it happen. So it is with non-dual understanding. The conditions are Maharshi, thieves and ashram. The character "Maharshi" is naturally predisposed to kindness, so he wishes to spare other beings needless suffering. He wasn't afraid of the thieves so he remained. 

 

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The ultimate nondual action would be to allow his dog to be hurt because that would just be how it is. An absolute nondualist cannot pick and choose what they are going to be nondual about, and the fact that even a committed nondualist who spent years in meditation to shore up his nonduality still had a preference when it came to something he loved tells me that nonduality is not IT. 

 

The non-dual is present with duality. Feelings and emotions still arise in a realized "person", but don't belong to anybody. They come and go, like everything that is seen or felt.

 

There ARE no non-dualists. Nobody chooses to realize how things are. A non-dualist doesn't have to do anything to shore up understanding. It isn't a practice or a position one takes on how things are. There is no-one to have preferences or choose.

 

Your arguments are the same as when this thread started and you are positing the same kinds of scenarios. Is it that we have failed in trying to explain this to you? Maybe you are (understandably) afraid and angry about the idea that your "self" or the universe of duality isn't real in the way you think it is, or that this premise challenges your belief system? I don't mind if you don't buy it, or that you choose to believe something else, but I do think we all want to be understood, perhaps?

 

I'm still curious about what your belief system is called and who some of the major proponents or figures might be. Did you share that and I missed it?

[stirling]

15 hours ago, old3bob said:

what did I predict about rationalizations....  it's telling that a god had to get after the Buddha for his recorded doubts

 

I'm not sure what you are referring to.

[liminal_luke]

...

 

Edited May 11, 2022 by liminal_luke

[forestofclarity]

17 hours ago, stirling said:

Enlightenment is absolutely non-denominational. Why would someone think that there are separate "enlightenments"?

 

To play a bit of devil's advocate, do all traditions hold to the same death states of thukdam and rainbow body? If not, why not? 

[Apech]

47 minutes ago, stirling said:

 

I appreciate that this is hard to talk about but want to clarify that IF Maharshi was realized it wouldn't be a "choice" as you think of it. It would be more like this:

 

There would be awareness of a single thought arising in the mind. The thought might be "I choose to abide in Atman". This thought would likely come AFTER abiding in Atman had occurred. Ramana would know with absolute clarity that no person had a made a choice and that there had never been a choice to make... that the thought "I choose to abide" is hilarious nonsense that refers to nothing and no-one.

 

 

Again - this isn't Maharshi's choice here. Imagine if a handful of mentos fell into a bowl of cola. The mentos would froth up and over the bowl making a mess. There was a reaction, but only because all of the necessary elements combined in one moment of their own accord to make it happen. So it is with non-dual understanding. The conditions are Maharshi, thieves and ashram. The character "Maharshi" is naturally predisposed to kindness, so he wishes to spare other beings needless suffering. He wasn't afraid of the thieves so he remained. 

 

 

The non-dual is present with duality. Feelings and emotions still arise in a realized "person", but don't belong to anybody. They come and go, like everything that is seen or felt.

 

There ARE no non-dualists. Nobody chooses to realize how things are. A non-dualist doesn't have to do anything to shore up understanding. It isn't a practice or a position one takes on how things are. There is no-one to have preferences or choose.

 

Oh!

 

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Your arguments are the same as when this thread started and you are positing the same kinds of scenarios. Is it that we have failed in trying to explain this to you? Maybe you are (understandably) afraid and angry about the idea that your "self" or the universe of duality isn't real in the way you think it is, or that this premise challenges your belief system? I don't mind if you don't buy it, or that you choose to believe something else, but I do think we all want to be understood, perhaps?

 

Ad hominem (naughty). 

 

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I'm still curious about what your belief system is called and who some of the major proponents or figures might be. Did you share that and I missed it?

 

Do you long for iconoclasm?  

 

 

Edited May 11, 2022 by Apech

[natural]

1 hour ago, Apech said:

 

is it just me or is board acting weird?

 

 

Hard to say as you are almost always weird?

[stirling]

9 minutes ago, forestofemptiness said:

To play a bit of devil's advocate, do all traditions hold to the same death states of thukdam and rainbow body? If not, why not? 

 

I don't think you are playing devil's advocate in the least. I think these are more about the phenomena of realized beings at the moment of death than enlightenment, and there is no reason in my mind that they couldn't be completely true, though I have no personal experience with such things. 

 

I haven't seen gods or demons but there is no reason why anything that could be imagined can't appear in this moment. Where time, space, and self are seen to be entirely conceptual ideas there is plenty of room for warm monks, and paranirvana rainbows.

[stirling]

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Oh!

 

Typo. Don't be silly.

 

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Ad hominem (naughty). 

 

...or an attempt at understanding and compassion? In my experience these are the usual reasons people get pissed off at strangers when this topic is discussed on the internet. 

 

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Do you long for iconoclasm?  

 

Iconoclasm doesn't need any help or encouragement from me.

[Michael Sternbach]

13 hours ago, dwai said:

At one level, yes. Will the body feel pain and trauma? Of course.

 

Pain and trauma are felt in your consciousness, though. Therefore, the role of the mind is crucial here.

 

To illustrate, it has been shown that wounded soldiers in sickbay who were going to be sent home were experiencing significantly less pain than those expecting to be sent back to the battle field after their recovery.

 

13 hours ago, dwai said:

The biggest source of suffering is the mind.

 

Yes, and that's in line with my previous paragraph.

 

Meditation practice can surely help alleviate the sensation of pain. As you probably know, some yogic practitioners etc. can take this really far!

 

However, lacking that kind of practice, I doubt that severe trauma (or even just a tooth ache) would leave you so psychologically unaffected as your statements seem to suggest. That intense desire for the pain to stop, accompanied by impatience, fear, and despair, is too deeply rooted in our nature as physical creatures to be affected much by what is basically a philosophical outlook.

 

13 hours ago, dwai said:

I think it was the Buddha who said (heard it from

swami Sarvapriyananda) — suffering in the world is like being struck by two arrows, consecutively.
 

Imagine you were struck by an arrow in your chest, and right after you were struck by another. The first arrow is likened to what the circumstances/world hits you with. The second arrow is your reaction to the first one, which is far worse, and amplifies the pain caused the first arrow manifold. 
 

As long as the body exists, the effects of wear and tear, illness etc will affect it. But why must that turn into suffering? 
 

Buddha also taught the concept of tathagata - that which has passed. We must let it go (ie give up resistance to change). 

why does there need to be a conflation of desire/wants with need?  It’s important to see the difference between the two. One needs food, water, shelter, clothing (as a human being ie). One doesn’t desire it — that’s a minimum viable thing for survival.  

 

But you will desire those things once they haven't been available for a (relatively short) period of time! To such a degree, even, that you would find it exceedingly difficult to maintain your usual state of joy and love. It would be pretty much put on hold due to more pressing concerns.

 

13 hours ago, dwai said:

So, completeness doesn’t mean the body won’t need sustenance, etc. To deny it that, is a deviation from the way of nature. Completeness does away with desire/wants. 

did you mean “dessert”? 🤔

 

Would you desire a dessert? 

 

[Mark Foote]

More stories from the sermons of the Pali Canon.

There's a sermon where Gautama says he liked walking on the highway, and sometimes did so in preference even to answering the call of nature.  Of course, that's immediately followed by a sermon where he says he answered the call of nature in preference to continuing to walk along the highway, directly contradicting the first sermon.  I assume the second one was added to prevent monks from attempting to hold their bladders indefinitely.

There's also a sermon where Gautama is said to have walked faster than Angulimala the bandit could run.  Angulimala had murderous intent, as he pursued the Gautamid, but the teacher stayed calm and poised and kept walking.  As fast as the bandit could run, he couldn't catch up to Gautama, which the bandit considered some kind of miracle.  The bandit was allowed to join the order.

 

I think there are six miracles mentioned in the sermons, including walking on water, floating in the air, and passing through solid earth.  Gautama claimed only the miracle of imparting the dharma, although one of his two primary disciples could generate earthquakes, and other members could bring rain (that last feat was frowned upon, and the monk left the order).  Both his primary disciples died before Gautama did.

 

[Michael Sternbach]

5 hours ago, old3bob said:

 

“blob picked a peck of pickled bloopers; a peck of pickled bloopers blob picked. If blob picked a peck of pickled bloopers, where’s the peck of pickled bloopers blob picked?”

 

It's everywhere and nowhere, dear Old3Blob!

[Mark Foote]

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Michael Sternbach

 

However, lacking that kind of practice, I doubt that severe trauma (or even just a tooth ache) would leave you so psychologically unaffected as your statements seem to suggest. That intense desire for the pain to stop, accompanied by impatience, fear, and despair, is too deeply rooted in our nature as physical creatures to be affected much by what is basically a philosophical outlook.

 

 

There's another peculiar phenomena connected with human nature and the mind. 

I read William Sargant's "Battle for the Mind" when I was in 6th grade, and it profoundly affected my life.  Here's the intro page (the book is available as a PDF online for free now):

HOW CAN AN evangelist convert a hardboiled sophisticate? Why does a PW sign a 'confession' he knows is false? How is a criminal pressured into admitting his guilt? Do the evangelist, the PW's captor, and the policeman use similar methods to gain their ends? These and other compelling questions are discussed in Battle for the Mind. William Sargant, a leading physician in psychological medicine, spells out and illustrates the basic technique used by evangelists, psychiatrists, and brain-washers to disperse the patterns of belief and behavior already established in the minds of their hearers, and to substitute new patterns for them.

 

As you might imagine, the basic technique is to stress a person out, bright lights, pain, sensory deprivation, starvation, disease.  Sargant's description of what happens, what happened in the kind of mind-washing they did in Korea is what's amazing:  he says that one day the subject of the stress just wakes up believing in whatever was suggested to them.  It's not like they consciously decide to change their belief--they experience a complete, sudden and involuntary change in the foundation of their belief system.

Sort of like the reports by Zen students of their koan experience.

 

[Michael Sternbach]

4 hours ago, liminal_luke said:

I don't think people become more blob-like as their sense of self widens.  Just the opposite.  You know how salt has the magical quality of making a tomato taste even more tomato-esque?  Enlightenment is like salt.  It makes people taste like themselves.

 

Sorry, but I take that with a grain of salt.

[dwai]

38 minutes ago, Michael Sternbach said:

 

Pain and trauma are felt in your consciousness, though. Therefore, the role of the mind is crucial here.

Felt in the mind, lit up by consciousness. Yes, no one denies the role of the mind. No-mind is a misnomer for a non-grasping mind. 

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To illustrate, it has been shown that wounded soldiers in sickbay who were going to be sent home were experiencing significantly less pain than those expecting to be sent back to the battle field after their recovery.

That might be so. Goes to show the role of the mind in the experience of pain. See, pain is not suffering. Suffering is resistance to pain. If someone accepts that there’s pain, it can be transformed. My teacher had to undergo knee replacement surgery, and was given strong painkillers (narcotic) to alleviate the pain. One day he forgot to take the painkiller. So he described it as “continuous waves of excruciating pain flooding through his body”. Next what he told me was, “I accepted the pain, and directed it into my spiritual heart. The pain was transformed into bliss.” 
 

I asked him how he did it. He said that he transformed it by transmuting yang to yin. He had this surgery at the age of 74. Was up and about in a week, and was back doing tai chi and meditation in 6 weeks. The doctors were dumbstruck at the rate of his recovery.

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Yes, and that's in line with my previous paragraph.

 

Meditation practice can surely help alleviate the sensation of pain. As you probably know, some yogic practitioners etc. can take this really far!

I described above one way of doing it. First thing is to not let the mind attach to the pain, and make up stories of victimhood. That’s what a mind with Self realization can do. 

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However, lacking that kind of practice, I doubt that severe trauma (or even just a tooth ache) would leave you so psychologically unaffected as your statements seem to suggest. That intense desire for the pain to stop, accompanied by impatience, fear, and despair, is too deeply rooted in our nature as physical creatures to be affected much by what is basically a philosophical outlook.

Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa developed throat cancer towards the end of his life. He couldn’t eat or even swallow properly. He was not one bit bothered by it and continued in his “blissful” way through out. Of course, one could criticize this as hagiography, but we have enough anecdotes of old masters who were able to do this. 

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But you will desire those things once they haven't been available for a (relatively short) period of time! To such a degree, even, that you would find it exceedingly difficult to maintain your usual state of joy and love. It would be pretty much put on hold due to more pressing concerns.

I know people who’ve fasted for 40-45 days straight. While that’s not desirable, it can be done. 

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Would you desire a dessert? 

 

If someone gives me one, I will joyfully eat it  

 

PS: if I’ve not said it enough time, nondual realization doesn’t  have to make one super human, it just opens up ways to not live out their mind’s compulsive tendencies. That is a huge thing in and by itself. One can be “more comfortable in their own skin”,  if they are not limited mentally by compulsions. 

Edited May 11, 2022 by dwai

[natural]

6 minutes ago, dwai said:

 

If someone gives me one, I will joyfully eat it  

Might I be invited/included?

I would love the company!

[dwai]

2 minutes ago, natural said:

Might I be invited/included?

I would love the company!

There is always room for more in the not-two   

[stirling]

59 minutes ago, Mark Foote said:

I think there are six miracles mentioned in the sermons, including walking on water, floating in the air, and passing through solid earth.  Gautama claimed only the miracle of imparting the dharma, although one of his two primary disciples could generate earthquakes, and other members could bring rain (that last feat was frowned upon, and the monk left the order).  Both his primary disciples died before Gautama did.

 

There are also other lists of siddhis too:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siddhi

 

I have met otherwise absolutely credible teachers who tell stories of dramatic time drop outs, seeing past lives, and sudden unintended materialization through walls amongst other things. I don't see "seeing some really weird shit" on the list but it really ought to be included, based on personal experience/those I have met.