Differences between dualism and non-dualism

[stirling]

18 hours ago, Bindi said:

It’s probably too hypothetical for me to answer, I could make up an answer but that would very likely miss the mark.

 

How about a definition from the tradition you are working on... and maybe a summary of what you believe to be true in that summary?

 

 

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On that Yin Yang dual level I know this much, they come to work together and don’t need me to direct or interfere, together they make a complete team, but before working together they were misfit, unable to work together. It’s likely that their workings filter down into the mental/emotional level so both these levels, Yin/Yang and emotional/mental operate perfectly, without ‘me’ being engaged at that level. 

I would describe this as the non-dual perspective too, after a fashion. Emptiness and Form are always together (though the form really appears WITHIN the emptiness), but without insight there is only the belief in Form. Emptiness is not seen. Whether they are both recognized or not there is always a push a pull in consciousness between them before realization. The existence of Emptiness is unknowingly denied moment by moment where we reify (make real and solid in our minds) the phenomena we encounter.

 

Again... I love that we are dialoguing now. Thank you for your part in making it possible.

[stirling]

18 hours ago, Bindi said:

It’s like a program I’m running, it will be clear when I get to the end of it, I will literally be informed in some way because it is a  feedback loop program.

 

I think I can agree with this too. When the "doing" part of your quest is complete, it will be completely clear. A new way of being and things happening will be clearly present. 

 

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I don’t understand your saying “most of the major ones need to be cleared before insight”, and then say the nondual understanding makes this possible, which sounds like after the insight. What is the insight you’re referring to? 

 

It goes:

 

• Work on obscurations practices make insight/awakening more likely

 

• Insight/Awakening happens

 

• Continued sloughing off of reified ideas due to new perspective on reality and "self". Deepening of non-dual seeing/understanding

 

To clarify, the initial insight that arises in the first point NEVER changes, it just deepens in ways that are eventually hard or impossible to quantify or qualify. 

 

Imagine you are seeing the world through a dirty window. In a number of places there are major opaquely soiled areas that block most of the view. Now imagine that you suddenly realize that the dirt is on the inside of the window, NOT the outside. This is a problem you might be able to resolve! With a wet cloth you work to remove some of the larger, thicker areas that block your seeing out. Once they are gone you are suddenly, in a flash, able to piece together just what it is that is happening outside. Now that you are aware of what is beyond the window, cleaning the rest of it is fairly simple. 

 

With insight, seeing past the obscured view of duality reveals the non-duality of things. Gnowing (gnosis) their non-duality, it is now simple to see where you continue to have obscurations and, without any real work, since they no longer belong to "you", and you don't have any attachment to those views. When an obscuration is realized, you can simply drop it. That simple. This is what Manitou was referring to about her fear. After non-dual realization there are left a myriad of small, strange artifacts of the "self" that just fall away of their own accord, or are seen and effortlessly dropped. 

 

The process of working with our obscurations (emotional attachments and aversions) and dropping them also makes insight more likely - makes us "accident prone" as Suzuki Roshi says. When the happy accident of enlightenment happens, reality as it is becomes obvious and what is left of the obscurations, the strange little stuff, starts to fall off effortlessly. 

 

Is that clearer?

Edited June 9, 2022 by stirling

[stirling]

On 6/8/2022 at 9:36 AM, Mark Foote said:

As I've mentioned, that's not "one-pointedness of mind" where awareness is located here and the object of attention is over there.  More like just before falling asleep, where the physical location of awareness seems to move freely, and the senses are a part of locating awareness.

The characterization of the "Diamond Sutra" corresponds to my experience of "one-pointedness of mind":
 

Let the mind be present without an abode.

 

(tr Venerable Master Hsing Yun, “The Rabbit’s Horn: A Commentary on the Platform Sutra”, Buddha’s Light Publishing p 60)

 

  Koun Franz points to a tendency of the mind to move to the center of balance.  Cheng Man-Ching speaks about keeping the mind together with the ch'i at the dan-t'ian.  Why am I not hearing anything of this from all you Bums?  As though working with the body was as unimportant as Nisargadatta made it sound!  Where are those channels, central and otherwise?  How is it that everybody is happy as a clam in their minds, and not still learning from their bodies?

 

Zazen can be a one-pointedness on whatever arises, OR intently taking in the field of experiencing, and because of this it still has the important aspects of both shamatha AND vipassana. Where the mind is present without an abode, awareness is allowed to wander freely, but always with alertness.

 

We can also use our sight and take in the entirety of our view, as wide as our gaze. The mind goes quiet. The awareness is diffuse - everywhere. This is how things truly are. Maybe we suddenly realize what we are looking at?

 

Or: When you look at your hand there is "hand awareness". When you look at a bird there is "bird awareness" etc. When we finally notice that what we are is in fact this mobile, unattached everywhere AWARENESS and not any of these seemingly separate things we rest it on, there might be "non-dual awareness".  

 

In either case, working with the body, or watching the breath, or moving energy becomes just an old raft we were thankful to have encountered - we can leave it for someone else.

[doc benway]

5 hours ago, dawn90 said:

 

I feel absolutely like this. Every day.

 

 

I guess I'm more on the blue side - really resonate with that color.

 

I like to sing along, and change the lyrics; and I go: In my heart I know what is right...

I feel the power of the law...etc...

Love it.

 

I love it too!

Not specifically that song, although it’s a good one, but what you do with it. I also make up lyrics like that but usually to improvised melodies. I sing to myself all the time, usually nonsense, sometimes mantra, often a stuck song… they can hang around for days sometimes.

[Mark Foote]

8 hours ago, stirling said:

 

Zazen can be a one-pointedness on whatever arises, OR intently taking in the field of experiencing, and because of this it still has the important aspects of both shamatha AND vipassana. Where the mind is present without an abode, awareness is allowed to wander freely, but always with alertness.

 

We can also use our sight and take in the entirety of our view, as wide as our gaze. The mind goes quiet. The awareness is diffuse - everywhere. This is how things truly are. Maybe we suddenly realize what we are looking at?

 

Or: When you look at your hand there is "hand awareness". When you look at a bird there is "bird awareness" etc. When we finally notice that what we are is in fact this mobile, unattached everywhere AWARENESS and not any of these seemingly separate things we rest it on, there might be "non-dual awareness".  

 

In either case, working with the body, or watching the breath, or moving energy becomes just an old raft we were thankful to have encountered - we can leave it for someone else.

(old3bob--no offense intended!  In my twisted mind, that was actually an appreciation!)
 

Sitting shikantaza is the place itself, and things. …When you sit, the cushion sits with you. If you wear glasses, the glasses sit with you. Clothing sits with you. House sits with you. People who are moving around outside all sit with you. They don’t take the sitting posture!

 

(Kobun Chino Otogawa, jikoji.org “On Zazen”, “Shikantaza”)

 

Kobun is talking about an action, the action of sitting.  Things enter into that action through the place associated with self-awareness.  
 

Gautama's way of living consisted of sixteen elements of mindfulness, each associated in practice with either an in-breath, or an out-breath.  

Somewhere in India, the emphasis shifted to the place itself, and things.  And yet the zazen that acts is consistently associated with the breath, with the element of air (and that "motile" air), at least from what I can gather.

 

Mayu, Zen master Baoche, was fanning himself. A monk approached and said, “Master, the nature of wind is permanent and there is no place it does not reach. Why, then, do you fan yourself?”

 

“Although you understand that the nature of the wind is permanent,” Mayu replied, “you do not understand the meaning of its reaching everywhere.”

 

“What is the meaning of its reaching everywhere?” asked the monk again. Mayu just kept fanning himself. The monk bowed deeply.

 

(“Genjo Koan”, Dogen; tr. Robert Aitken and Kazuaki Tanahashi)

 

 

That's Dogen's example of the "inconceivable" that is not readily apparent, but "is actualized immediately."  Follows his "when you find the place where you are..." (place) and his "when you find your way at this moment" (things). 

 

It's about action.
 

 

 

 

Edited June 10, 2022 by Mark Foote

[Bindi]

5 hours ago, stirling said:

 

How about a definition from the tradition you are working on... and maybe a summary of what you believe to be true in that summary?
 

 

I’m not actually working from any tradition, I follow my dream guidance and my mothers ‘seeing’ exclusively, and notice some similarities in my path to established traditions, but I don’t accept any of the multitude of possible outcomes these traditions propose until my actual outcome, and then I’ll look around and see which traditions resonate most. Any thing I say now would be at best an educated guess, and my educated guesses have proven to be wrong so many times in the past, I’ve learnt to not make them so much. 

 

Quote

 

I would describe this as the non-dual perspective too, after a fashion. Emptiness and Form are always together (though the form really appears WITHIN the emptiness), but without insight there is only the belief in Form. Emptiness is not seen. Whether they are both recognized or not there is always a push a pull in consciousness between them before realization. The existence of Emptiness is unknowingly denied moment by moment where we reify (make real and solid in our minds) the phenomena we encounter.

 

 

I don’t really understand these words in a meaningful way, they’re too removed from my own understanding and my own way of going about things. 
 

edit to add: More meaningful to me would be the concept of Shiva and Shakti, where SHIVA symbolises consciousness, the masculine principle, and SHAKTI symbolises the feminine principle, the activating power and energy. 

 

Quote

 

Again... I love that we are dialoguing now. Thank you for your part in making it possible.

🙏

Edited June 10, 2022 by Bindi

[Bindi]

5 hours ago, stirling said:

 

I think I can agree with this too. When the "doing" part of your quest is complete, it will be completely clear. A new way of being and things happening will be clearly present. 

 

 

It goes:

 

• Work on obscurations practices make insight/awakening more likely

 

• Insight/Awakening happens

 

• Continued sloughing off of reified ideas due to new perspective on reality and "self". Deepening of non-dual seeing/understanding

 

To clarify, the initial insight that arises in the first point NEVER changes, it just deepens in ways that are eventually hard or impossible to quantify or qualify. 

 

Imagine you are seeing the world through a dirty window. In a number of places there are major opaquely soiled areas that block most of the view. Now imagine that you suddenly realize that the dirt is on the inside of the window, NOT the outside. This is a problem you might be able to resolve! With a wet cloth you work to remove some of the larger, thicker areas that block your seeing out. Once they are gone you are suddenly, in a flash, able to piece together just what it is that is happening outside. Now that you are aware of what is beyond the window, cleaning the rest of it is fairly simple. 

 

With insight, seeing past the obscured view of duality reveals the non-duality of things. Gnowing (gnosis) their non-duality, it is now simple to see where you continue to have obscurations and, without any real work, since they no longer belong to "you", and you don't have any attachment to those views. When an obscuration is realized, you can simply drop it. That simple.
 

 

This is where I suspect disassociation can set in. In the earlier conversation about fear, there was the notion that an unresolved fear remains in the subconscious field, Apech mentioned Alaya, and whether this subtle form is disassociated from or resolved when it is noticed from the perspective of nonduality is the trillion dollar question to me. My best guess remains that it is disassociation, and this is my fear of premature nonduality, a bit like premature kundalini, the gain is not complete though people on either journey love the ride. 

 

5 hours ago, stirling said:

 

This is what Manitou was referring to about her fear. After non-dual realization there are left a myriad of small, strange artifacts of the "self" that just fall away of their own accord, or are seen and effortlessly dropped. 

 

The process of working with our obscurations (emotional attachments and aversions) and dropping them also makes insight more likely - makes us "accident prone" as Suzuki Roshi says. When the happy accident of enlightenment happens, reality as it is becomes obvious and what is left of the obscurations, the strange little stuff, starts to fall off effortlessly. 

 

 

I believe you are equating nondual perspective with reality as it is. I suspect nondual perspective is only partial reality, reality to me would involve complete knowledge of the subtle body, interfacing between the subtle and the physical, and evidence of multiple siddhis. I further suspect that these things are considered dual to the nondualist, which I can only explain as an error in comprehension. 

 

5 hours ago, stirling said:

 

Is that clearer?

 

[manitou]

On 6/8/2022 at 12:00 PM, blue eyed snake said:

get well soon , take as much rest as you can, more then you think you need 

 

 

I just came back from Iceland with Covid.  I took the meds, Paxlovid, and was rid of it in just a few days.  Actually, my doc said exactly the opposite - not to lay around.  But maybe she was talking about the meds, as she said something about blood clots too.

[manitou]

20 hours ago, stirling said:

I would describe this as the non-dual perspective too, after a fashion. Emptiness and Form are always together (though the form really appears WITHIN the emptiness), but without insight there is only the belief in Form. Emptiness is not seen. Whether they are both recognized or not there is always a push a pull in consciousness between them before realization. The existence of Emptiness is unknowingly denied moment by moment where we reify (make real and solid in our minds) the phenomena we encounter.

 

 

What always comes to mind for me is the breakdown of molecules into smaller and smaller parts, into atoms, nuclei, quarks, neutrinos - and probably all the way down to where it is just thought, and there's nothing there at all.  It boggles my mind that form, any form, can retain its shape at all - and why things don't just fly apart.   Surely even the densest-thinking lump of coal has enough consciousness to keep its shape.  It's all living, it's all moving, and in my view, conscious to some degree.  I remember being fascinated by the Monsanto ride at Disneyland when I was a little kid, where it made you smaller and smaller and it took you into a world of miniscule particles.  I've always remembered that.   That, and throwing up on the teacup ride.

 

Edited June 10, 2022 by manitou

[S:C]

5 hours ago, Bindi said:

Apech mentioned Alaya, and whether this subtle form is disassociated from or resolved when it is noticed from the perspective of nonduality is the trillion dollar question to me. My best guess remains that it is disassociation

Can you please explain this in easier words and more detail? How can resolve happen? 

Under which circumstances is that disassociation? 

11 hours ago, stirling said:

Gnowing (gnosis) their non-duality, it is now simple to see where you continue to have obscurations and, without any real work, since they no longer belong to "you", and you don't have any attachment to those views

Interesting, that there still are some, why then if for someone 'insight' has occurred? 

11 hours ago, stirling said:

 

The process of working with our obscurations (emotional attachments and aversions) and dropping them also makes insight more likely - makes us "accident prone"

5 hours ago, Bindi said:

In the earlier conversation about fear, there was the notion that an unresolved fear remains in the subconscious field

Working with obscurations then has already happened before the real gnosis of non-duality? And there can be no half baked non-duality either? 

 

12 hours ago, stirling said:

The existence of Emptiness is unknowingly denied moment by moment where we reify (make real and solid in our minds) the phenomena we encounter.

So hypothetically speaking, if there would still be obscurations even after a glimpse of non-duality, one would work backwards, as to make obscurations real first, 'work' on them (how?) by feeling, accepting and then dissolve them into the unreal? 

 

5 hours ago, Bindi said:

reality to me would involve complete knowledge of the subtle body, interfacing between the subtle and the physical

That might be quite distracting, no ? And not quite helpful to integrate into the conclusion that all phenomena are inherently empty? But then again, more then someone here said, that there are always different levels / challenges of deepness to get into? 

 

Get well soon, @Apech and @manitou! 

May the fog leave and the blue sky come back without any blood clots or the like.

[doc benway]

10 hours ago, Bindi said:

I believe you are equating nondual perspective with reality as it is.

 

This is a good and important point although I don’t know that stirling actually is doing that. Nonduality is not what reality is but rather refers to our relationship to reality. Reality itself cannot be defined or imputed in any way. This is why the dzogchen teachings speak to me more directly than others.

[Bindi]

5 hours ago, schroedingerscat said:

Can you please explain this in easier words and more detail? How can resolve happen? 

Under which circumstances is that disassociation? 
 

 

I have a concept that a feeling once created remains with us until it is fully felt, Apech was saying something similar I believe in more Buddhist terms. I would use as an analogy for unfelt feelings, mud and sh** in an emotional stream, which ideally should be flowing freely and clearly. To be honest I think this is the fundamental human problem, how to re-establish the flow of the emotional stream, which to me necessarily involves removing the mud and sh** first. I have developed my own methods to do this, part of which is accepting and feeling these ‘forms’ until they have no energy left in them. 

 

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Interesting, that there still are some, why then if for someone 'insight' has occurred? 
 

 

This is a question for Stirling.

 

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Working with obscurations then has already happened before the real gnosis of non-duality? And there can be no half baked non-duality either? 

 

 

The above is my position more than stirlings, but I wouldn’t use the word obscurations which sounds like a mental approach to me, Stirling uses the analogy of obscurations on a window which prevent a view, but feeling freely isn’t a view, it is more visceral than that, closer to rushing water or energy coursing through channels within the body than seeing out through a window. 

 

Quote

 

So hypothetically speaking, if there would still be obscurations even after a glimpse of non-duality, one would work backwards, as to make obscurations real first, 'work' on them (how?) by feeling, accepting and then dissolve them into the unreal? 

 

 

Stirling’s again.

 

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That might be quite distracting, no ?

 

Knowledge of the subtle energy body is somewhat equivalent to knowledge of physics or biology, it’s a more complete picture of life which needn’t distract from our ability to function holistically. Interfacing between the subtle and the physical should itself be effortless, I as conduit, not as engineer, though setting the system up for this requires some very specific engineering initially. 

 

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And not quite helpful to integrate into the conclusion that all phenomena are inherently empty?
 

 

Is this a Buddhist conclusion or is it echoed in all philosophies? It may simply be a wrong conclusion which my end point is not required to integrate with. 

 

Quote

But then again, more then someone here said, that there are always different levels / challenges of deepness to get into? 
 

Get well soon, @Apech and @manitou! 

May the fog leave and the blue sky come back without any blood clots or the like.

 

 

Seconded!

[Apech]

9 hours ago, manitou said:

 

 

I just came back from Iceland with Covid.  I took the meds, Paxlovid, and was rid of it in just a few days.  Actually, my doc said exactly the opposite - not to lay around.  But maybe she was talking about the meds, as she said something about blood clots too.

 

Glad to hear you got rid of it quickly - and found an anti-viral that works!  

[Apech]

10 minutes ago, Bindi said:

 

I have a concept that a feeling once created remains with us until it is fully felt, Apech was saying something similar I believe in more Buddhist terms. I would use as an analogy for unfelt feelings, mud and sh** in an emotional stream, which ideally should be flowing freely and clearly. To be honest I think this is the fundamental human problem, how to re-establish the flow of the emotional stream, which to me necessarily involves removing the mud and sh** first. I have developed my own methods to do this, part of which is accepting and feeling these ‘forms’ until they have no energy left in them. 

 

My understanding is a bit of a mixture of Buddhist and non-Buddhist ideas.  I think one of the huge issues with 'spiritual' work generally is avoidance ... working with emotional debris and 'mud' etc. is difficult and slow and often doesn't seem to produce any results except more misery.  I think mud is a good analogy since it is a mixture of earth (physical) and water (emotional) and can lay dormant until stirred up and so on.  Stagnation is a big issue - as is ossification.  An emotional stagnation leads to fixed views of life - so there is a mental factor here too.  

 

On the basis of the truism that everything is connected - then traumatic memories lock in a kind of emotional stasis which contain a myriad of thoughts, feelings, memories, images and so on which remain clumped and seemingly unresolvable.  In fact some issues are unresolvable and have just to be let go.  But generally there is a process for calming, pinning down, un-locking trapped energy and so on which frees up the suppressed emotional energy and allows it to become available for living more fully.

 

 

10 minutes ago, Bindi said:

 

 

 

 

The above is my position more than stirlings, but I wouldn’t use the word obscurations which sounds like a mental approach to me, Stirling uses the analogy of obscurations on a window which prevent a view, but feeling freely isn’t a view, it is more visceral than that, closer to rushing water or energy coursing through channels within the body than seeing out through a window. 

 

 

I think both are true.

 

10 minutes ago, Bindi said:

 

 

 

Knowledge of the subtle energy body is somewhat equivalent to knowledge of physics or biology, it’s a more complete picture of life which needn’t distract from our ability to function holistically. Interfacing between the subtle and the physical should itself be effortless, I as conduit, not as engineer, though setting the system up for this requires some very specific engineering initially. 

 

 

Is this a Buddhist conclusion or is it echoed in all philosophies? It may simply be a wrong conclusion which my end point is not required to integrate with. 

 

 

 

Seconded!

 

[Bindi]

36 minutes ago, Apech said:

 

My understanding is a bit of a mixture of Buddhist and non-Buddhist ideas.  I think one of the huge issues with 'spiritual' work generally is avoidance ... working with emotional debris and 'mud' etc. is difficult and slow and often doesn't seem to produce any results except more misery.  I think mud is a good analogy since it is a mixture of earth (physical) and water (emotional) and can lay dormant until stirred up and so on.  Stagnation is a big issue - as is ossification.  An emotional stagnation leads to fixed views of life - so there is a mental factor here too.  

 

On the basis of the truism that everything is connected - then traumatic memories lock in a kind of emotional stasis which contain a myriad of thoughts, feelings, memories, images and so on which remain clumped and seemingly unresolvable.

 

Freud’s ‘Complexes’, yes I agree thoughts and feelings are clumped together, part of the method I use is methodically teasing them apart, acknowledging the mental aspect mentally and then feeling the feeling aspect feelingly (!) I have noticed that the feeling aspect is the harder to work with because the pain level involved tends to be so high, I would have spent a ratio of 1-2 weeks dedicated mental work to one year emotional work to resolve complexes over the decades. 

 

36 minutes ago, Apech said:

 

 

  In fact some issues are unresolvable and have just to be let go.  But generally there is a process for calming, pinning down, un-locking trapped energy and so on which frees up the suppressed emotional energy and allows it to become available for living more fully.

 

 

 

I think both are true.

 

 

Just to be picky I would say mental obscurations are to me more like rubbish piles that have to be burnt, after my couple of days of free flowing thoughts I almost saw them suddenly stop flowing through and instead start piling up on the ground like leaves falling and the pile growing bigger, old thought complexes and karmic thoughts seem more like dense and compacted piles of rubbish than simple leaves but it’s along the same lines, and I think it can all be burnt. 

[old3bob]

 

"....but feeling freely isn’t a view, it is more visceral than that, closer to rushing water or energy coursing through channels within the body than seeing out through a window...."  By Bindi 

 

That reminds me of the "woman by the well" in the Bible:

 

 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)

10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 

12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”

13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 

14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

 

this is an "esoteric" truth and is not limited by any religion 

Edited June 10, 2022 by old3bob

[manitou]

38 minutes ago, Bindi said:

 

Just to be picky I would say mental obscurations are to me more like rubbish piles that have to be burnt, after my couple of days of free flowing thoughts I almost saw them suddenly stop flowing through and instead start piling up on the ground like leaves falling and the pile growing bigger, old thought complexes and karmic thoughts seem more like dense and compacted piles of rubbish than simple leaves but it’s along the same lines, and I think it can all be burnt. 

 

 

I agree, they can all be burnt.  I've brought this up ad nauseum on this board, but it's the only perspective I've got.  When I went through the steps of recovery, once the 'leaves' that you mention are identified and seen (step 4), then a little later there is a process of making amends to people we have harmed, regardless of how painful this is.  It is this very amends process that is productive of eliminating conditioning and unwanted obscurations.  It is this very process that ultimately produces clarity.  I wish I could have eliminated those qualities by just thinking about them, but for me it took something more, as with others recovering from addiction.  This is the very thing that reduces the ego so that further progress can be made.  Without ego reduction, there is just more cogitation.  The ultimate awareness can't get through the thick ego.  Humility must be present first. It is then that it dawns on us.  And the process isn't a black and white happening.  It is shades of grey, always.  Awareness, at least in my case, is intermittent, depending on how much I find myself buying into worldly conditions.  But now, there is always that overriding awareness of the play of the cosmic dance and how that is not really who I am.  It's just a question of remembering it. 

 

I'd sure like to live there.  Maybe one day....

[manitou]

3 hours ago, steve said:

 

This is a good and important point although I don’t know that stirling actually is doing that. Nonduality is not what reality is but rather refers to our relationship to reality. Reality itself cannot be defined or imputed in any way. This is why the dzogchen teachings speak to me more directly than others.

 

 

And from whose perspective would reality be defined?

[manitou]

 

 

Someone earlier mentioned Alaya.  It is my understanding that this is the universal soul.  Is that not what we've been talking about all along?  That it's all one big soul, one big consciousness, that is wanting to come into self awareness?  That it is the Dao returning from the 10,000 things back to the One?  Reversion is the action of the Dao, as it says in the DDJ. (Yutang, I think)

 

The more my own understanding morphs, the more I see that the Dao (God, Alaya, whatever you want to call it) is Will.  Just sheer Will.  Will to go through this physical exercise for some reason, and return to itself in this living, breathing physical/spiritual form.  To align one's self with the principle of Love seems to be the most effective way of getting through this way; all other alignments are distractions and requires self correction down the line.  But it doesn't really care how we do it or how long it takes.  It'll get done one way or the other, through many faces and many philosophies.  Through kindness or through cruelty.

 

Maybe I'll change my name to Will.I.Am.  Shirley he gets it.  So does Morgan Freeman.

[old3bob]

1 hour ago, manitou said:

 

 

Someone earlier mentioned Alaya.  It is my understanding that this is the universal soul.  Is that not what we've been talking about all along?  That it's all one big soul, one big consciousness, that is wanting to come into self awareness?  That it is the Dao returning from the 10,000 things back to the One?  Reversion is the action of the Dao, as it says in the DDJ. (Yutang, I think)

 

The more my own understanding morphs, the more I see that the Dao (God, Alaya, whatever you want to call it) is Will.  Just sheer Will.  Will to go through this physical exercise for some reason, and return to itself in this living, breathing physical/spiritual form.  To align one's self with the principle of Love seems to be the most effective way of getting through this way; all other alignments are distractions and requires self correction down the line.  But it doesn't really care how we do it or how long it takes.  It'll get done one way or the other, through many faces and many philosophies.  Through kindness or through cruelty.

 

Maybe I'll change my name to Will.I.Am.  Shirley he gets it.  So does Morgan Freeman.

 

I'd say Pure Being/Truth/Joy with will/law acting as an aspect of those - which it arises from and follows or in a sense is directed. (by)

Edited June 10, 2022 by old3bob

[stirling]

18 hours ago, Mark Foote said:

 

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Sitting shikantaza is the place itself, and things. …When you sit, the cushion sits with you. If you wear glasses, the glasses sit with you. Clothing sits with you. House sits with you. People who are moving around outside all sit with you. They don’t take the sitting posture!

 

(Kobun Chino Otogawa, jikoji.org “On Zazen”, “Shikantaza”)

 

 

Kobun is talking about an action, the action of sitting.  Things enter into that action through the place associated with self-awareness.

 

I think he is talking about actualizing enlightenment. Where the glasses, the clothing and the house sits, he means that you are transforming reality. The delusion is that this is ever NOT the case. Indra's web, the 10,000 (illusory) things are always enlightened and liberated. Sitting shikantaza is just dropping the illusion of separateness. I think the "action" is in fact "not doing"... or maybe just realizing that you are part of this verb of wholeness. 

 

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Gautama's way of living consisted of sixteen elements of mindfulness, each associated in practice with either an in-breath, or an out-breath.

 

One presentation of the Buddha perhaps. I am certain the Buddha would recognize Kobun's explanation intimately. Both are skillful means.   
 

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Somewhere in India, the emphasis shifted to the place itself, and things.  And yet the zazen that acts is consistently associated with the breath, with the element of air (and that "motile" air), at least from what I can gather.

 

The breath is often the way in, but there are plenty of realized Zen teachers that will just tell you to sit there and watch what the mind does until the mind exhausts itself and goes quiet. I'm sure this must work for some, though I haven't met anyone yet who it has worked for. Watching the breath eventually leads to the technique dropping away. Then there is the panic that meditation isn't being "done" correctly.  At that point you just instruct the student to notice when the mind is quiet and let go of "doing" and techniques. Breath is an object. Shikantazaa/Zazen is always objectless, yes?

 

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Mayu, Zen master Baoche, was fanning himself. A monk approached and said, “Master, the nature of wind is permanent and there is no place it does not reach. Why, then, do you fan yourself?”

 

“Although you understand that the nature of the wind is permanent,” Mayu replied, “you do not understand the meaning of its reaching everywhere.”

 

“What is the meaning of its reaching everywhere?” asked the monk again. Mayu just kept fanning himself. The monk bowed deeply.

 

(“Genjo Koan”, Dogen; tr. Robert Aitken and Kazuaki Tanahashi)

 

 

The wind is just a metaphor here. What is the true nature of wind? What is moving the flag? Same difference. 

 

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That's Dogen's example of the "inconceivable" that is not readily apparent, but "is actualized immediately."  Follows his "when you find the place where you are..." (place) and his "when you find your way at this moment" (things). 

 

It's about action.

WHOSE action?

 

I think it is about presence. The nature of this moment is that it "verbs". In this moment enlightenment is actualized where the mind is quiet and empty without object. It is always NOW that this happens.

[stirling]

18 hours ago, Bindi said:

I’m not actually working from any tradition, I follow my dream guidance and my mothers ‘seeing’ exclusively, and notice some similarities in my path to established traditions, but I don’t accept any of the multitude of possible outcomes these traditions propose until my actual outcome, and then I’ll look around and see which traditions resonate most. Any thing I say now would be at best an educated guess, and my educated guesses have proven to be wrong so many times in the past, I’ve learnt to not make them so much.

 

That's certainly a harder landscape to traverse. Not accepting the possible outcomes (or better still, being open to whatever the outcome is without fixed ideas) is an approach I would agree with. Grasping and expectations are impediments. 

 

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I don’t really understand these words in a meaningful way, they’re too removed from my own understanding and my own way of going about things. 

 

A more relatable way to look at it might be that the separate things, people and experiences you have should be considered somewhat dreamlike. In the same way it is good not to cling to a particular outcome. I would also suggest not clinging to stories or models about how things are (cosmologies, science, Buddhism, Shaivism, etc.), but rather hold them lightly as possibilities. Even YOUR story.. or mine. As I teen I had an incredibly real dream about an angel named Obethron that would help me if I ever got lost, or wanted to grow spiritually. This dream was WAY outside of any belief system I had or have. Still, over the years I would remember and ask Obethron for help, just as I would ask Padmasambhava or Amitahba later. Sometimes I felt I WAS being helped. I always held these beliefs as lightly as possible. I can't say for sure that any of these symbols in consciousness were helpful, but also can't say they weren't.

[stirling]

18 hours ago, Bindi said:

This is where I suspect disassociation can set in. In the earlier conversation about fear, there was the notion that an unresolved fear remains in the subconscious field, Apech mentioned Alaya, and whether this subtle form is disassociated from or resolved when it is noticed from the perspective of nonduality is the trillion dollar question to me. My best guess remains that it is disassociation, and this is my fear of premature nonduality, a bit like premature kundalini, the gain is not complete though people on either journey love the ride. 

 

In Buddhism all appearances, be they thoughts, feelings, objects, etc. arise in the dharmakaya. You can choose a different more divided story for how it works, but in the end I don't think the cosmology matters. You can spend a trillion dollars, but your question won't be answered. 

 

The subtle form of a fear is a duality. Examples such as a fear that there are phenomena that aren't "Self" that could effect you, or, in Buddhist terms, fear of phenomena that have some intrinsic reality (belonging to them"selves"). Even the thought of "premature non-duality" or "premature kundalini" is something that would eventually be dropped, because don't ultimately make any sense from the non-dual perspective. I understand that this isn't going to make sense. My suggestion is to hold this lightly too. 
 

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I believe you are equating nondual perspective with reality as it is. I suspect nondual perspective is only partial reality, reality to me would involve complete knowledge of the subtle body, interfacing between the subtle and the physical, and evidence of multiple siddhis. I further suspect that these things are considered dual to the nondualist, which I can only explain as an error in comprehension.

 

 

Anyone with non-dual realization is going to tell you that it is the absolute reality. Buddhisms explanation of this is the "Two Truths Doctrine", where both exist, but the Absolute Truth includes and supersedes the Relative Truth.

 

https://www.lionsroar.com/what-are-the-two-truths/

 

A subtle body is possible, just as ghosts, gods, and bigfoot are possible (or even real), but none of these have any real bearing on understanding the Absolute or real gnosis. What "we" are is immortal, for example, but not from some transmutation of the body - from an understanding that what we are is NOT a body... it is all pervasive awareness, nothing that corresponds to an object. Many non-dual realized "yogis" of various traditions have some level of siddhis, though few will talk about it. Many of the siddhis are real too, but not ultimately of any import.

[stirling]

12 hours ago, schroedingerscat said:

Interesting, that there still are some, why then if for someone 'insight' has occurred? 

 

Why? This is always the toughest question. I would guess that there is a point where there is enough clarity to see through your misapprehension of how things are permanently. From that point on you notice when subtle dualities in experience arise. The simple noticing makes them dissolve. 

 

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Working with obscurations then has already happened before the real gnosis of non-duality? And there can be no half baked non-duality either?

 

It seems you have to either be a person who has relaxed ideas about things, or someone who has had the experience of letting go of major obscurations to suddenly see it. Once seen, everything is relative to the non-dual understanding. It illuminates all questions you might have had about reality and makes them irrelevant. 

 

You are correct - there is no-half baked version of this insight. 

 

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So hypothetically speaking, if there would still be obscurations even after a glimpse of non-duality, one would work backwards, as to make obscurations real first, 'work' on them (how?) by feeling, accepting and then dissolve them into the unreal? 

 

No. Major obscurations arise in life all of the time. We can work with them a number of ways. Having some indeterminate number of them out of the way makes us "accident prone" for non-dual insight. After insight it is actually the insight ITSELF that shows that they aren't based in reality and makes them dissolve. It isn't a psychological process. Awakening is like seeing that the Wizard of Oz is just a guy behind a curtain. Once seen, you can't unsee it - all arising obscurations are realized to be toothless phantoms once seen in perspective.

Edited June 10, 2022 by stirling

[dawn90]

18 minutes ago, stirling said:

from an understanding that what we are is NOT a body

 

Is a car running on petrol or is your car just a vehicle to hold petrol in a warm place? Like a blanket.

 

Because if you turn what you say in a practical way - what does it mean?

It means since the body is devalued so are the attachments that that person has in relation to that body; what that means is that my energy is your energy and vice-versa; what that means is if you think you have a right to deny me access to you - then you are wrong; why do you put these fake defenses and imaginary walls in front of you: we are one.

One indistinguishable from one another and therefore the real crime becomes to defend oneself. As everything that happens to you doesn't happen to you unless you give permission, on some level which turns you into a collaborator. A collaborator of your own demise since everything is an illusion. You see?

Nothing is done to you unless you permit it and to put it more exactly nothing has happened to you because "you" as an entity, doesn't exist; just a funny word we've invented. So suffering becomes a choice; that you: individual, have decided to put on yourself through ignorance that you've chosen to perpetuate as you fear change.

 

Put your arm down, and quit punching you in the nuts and your life will be better.

Just realize that that's what it is. Or suffer.

Thank you very much

Edited June 10, 2022 by dawn90